Saturday 11 June 2011

Basketball's NBA Finals

With the end of the football season there’s been a void in my sporting life, thankfully it’s being filled with US basketball’s
NBA Finals.

For the last month I’ve been watching the end of season playoffs. The 16 teams with the best end of season records compete; we’re now down to the last two. The Miami Heat who won the Eastern Conference title, verses the Dallas Mavericks who won the Western.


Game 5 Highlights

Last Thursday was Game 5 of the 7 game series. Dallas won to go 3-2 up in the series. They need to win one more game to become NBA champions for the first time in their history.

It’s going to be tough as the next game is back in Miami. Should Miami win to make it 3 all in the series, they'll have home advantage in the 7th and final game.

I have to say I’ve been loving it. Miami are the NBA's glamour team. They have two of the league's best and most famous players in Dwayne Wade and LeBron James, along with their other star Chris Bosh.

This should be Miami’s championship, but I’ve been discovering that Dallas have their own superstar in the 7 foot German player Dirk Nowitzki. I’d never heard of him until a few months ago, but the guy's a legend. Should Dallas win, it will cement his place as one of the greatest players that’s ever played the game!

I’ve always thought that if I lived in America, basketball would be my number one sport. I think it’s the only sport that could come close to capturing the same feelings and emotions I have for football.

I played basketball for my school team for 7 years and loved it. Our school was one of the best in the Midlands. Growing up it was always difficult to follow the sport, but now with cable TV, the Internet and twitter I’ve been able to follow this season’s action in more detail.



Game 4 Highlights

After visiting Boston last year I decided to start following the Boston Celtics, the most successful team in NBA history. Unfortunately they got knocked out in the 2nd round of the playoffs by Miami.

I’ve always been aware of who the star players have been in basketball, at the moment it’s people like Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and Shaquille O’Neal (although he’s just retired).

What I’ve enjoyed in the last few months is learning about the different teams and discovering players I’d previously never heard of.

There’s Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls who’s turning Chicago into a winning team for the first time since the Michael Jordan era; but by far biggest and best player I’ve discovered is Dirk Nowitzki at Dallas.



Game 3 Highlights

When it comes to sport, Americans love their stats. According to the stats, when Nowitzki retires he will go down as one of the all time greats. It’s interesting that he’s proving so dominant as the star of the finals was meant to be Lebron James.

He joined Miami last summer in a controversial move from his hometown team, the Cleveland Cavaliers. He decided to join forces with his great rival Dwayne Wade to create a ‘Dream Team’ that would win the Championship.

It may still turn out like that, but they have to win Game 6 to keep the series alive. Wade or ‘D Wade’ as he’s known has been doing his bit, but the critics are questioning whether LeBron is doing enough in these finals.

That’s one thing I notice about American sports, there seems to be a bigger emphasis on star players and match ups between the star players. Nowitzki seems to be coming out on top, but there’s still a lot of basketball to be played so lets see what happens in Game 6. I can’t wait.


Dallas beat Miami 105 - 95 in Game 6 to clinch the series 4-2 and become NBA champions for the first time.

Highlights below



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