Notent Notables: The NBA Finals

And so it comes to this. Two games. The home team/bad guys need both. The road team/good guys need one. I have thoughts, but I'm feeling a little lazy so instead of fusing them into a column here they are in bullet-point form:

• I'm absolutely amazed that the Mavs could actually win this thing. I was pulling for OK City in the Western Conference finals, not because I wanted them to win the title more than Dallas, but because I thought they had a better chance at beating the Heat. Dirk is spectacular (more on him below), but the rest of the team is a complete hodgepodge. Jason Terry is their second best player! I was watching Game 4 with two guys even more casual in their NBA fandom then me, and both were stunned that Jason Kidd was still in the league. Tyson Chandler is solid, but always leaves you wanting more. And I can't even name their fifth starter off the top of my had. I know it's not Ian Mahinmi. Somehow I had 75% of the playoff games on TV at least in the background and still had never heard of Mahinmi until the Finals. I blame myself. Oh! Shawn Marion! The Matrix! Remember when he was good? I think I was in high school.

• So basically it's Dirk against LeBron, Wade, and Bosh. So far, advantage Dirk! It's unbelievable and riveting. Not only is Dirk staking a claim as a top 15 player of all time, he's also bidding to be the most popular German in American since Adolphus Busch and Eberhard Anheuser. He already logged the most memorable game of the 2011 playoffs: Game 1 against Oklahoma City. If you watched that game, whenever someone asks you, "Remember Dirk's 3-miss game?" you'll nod vigorously. 12-15 from the field. 24-24 from the line.

• Dirk's brilliance deserves another bullet. He's 173-184 from the free throw line in the playoffs. Insane. Dirk may not be destroying the Heat in the finals, but he is absolutely the reason why the Mavs have made it this far. They fight and scrap to be in the game late, and then Dirk takes over. The fadeaway is unblockable, and even tougher since Dirk has developed the IQ over the passed five years to take the ball to the hoop if he's being guarded tightly on the perimeter. But it's the free throw shooting that is truly unbelievable. Stunning. And such an important weapon in close games.

• On the Heat side, Wade has been almost equally brilliant. Miami cannot win without him. Bosh, too, has been critical, not only in the Finals but throughout the playoffs. It's interesting; I've been catching up on old B.S. Report podcasts that I missed over the last couple months when I was busy at school, and Bosh was still getting crushed by Simmons and his guests even leading into the playoffs. But he's been terrifying as the Heat have progressed. His outside game gives opponents fits.

• LeBron, of course, is the big question mark heading into the last two games. Fascinatingly, anything is possible for LBJ. He could explode or he could continue his disappearing act. Remarkably, the second option seems more likely. LeBron's woes under pressure coupled with D-Wade's Game 5 injury lead me to lean towards Dallas winning it all, for the first time.

• As I said earlier, coming into the Finals, I couldn't see how Dallas could pull it off. Their defense is terrible, and it was difficult to see how Dirk, Terry, and company could outscore the Heat's big trio. I still can't quite figure out how they're up a game heading into the sixth. Game 5, okay, Dallas shot the ball absurdly well. The rest of the series, though, have been defensive slugfests, which should presumably favor the team that plays better defense and can capitalize best off fast breaks - Miami. And yet, if Dirk makes a bucket in the final minute of Game 3, Dallas could have wrapped up the series Thursday night.

• Speaking of Game 3 and Dirk, that's an excellent advantage of how our concepts of "clutch" and "choke" are a bit overblown. (Come to think of it, Dirk's entire postseason career reveals the blurry line between a clutch player and a choker.) You can't deny that Dirk is among the best - if not THE best - crunch time players in the NBA right now. His ability to score from anywhere on the court, coupled with that ridiculous free throw percentage make him the perfect weapon. And yet he almost singlehandedly botched the end of Game 3, throwing one horrible pass out of bounds and missing the last shot Dallas had. Did Dirk choke? By definition, yes he absolutely did. But all other evidence gathered from these playoffs tells us he's a clutch player. Already, Game 3 has been forgotten. And it's the memory of what Dirk has done that will resonate in his legacy. That's why the title is so important for our understanding of Dirk. It validates this incredible run, and seals all of the good shots into the collective memory of these playoffs, for all time. As remarkable as Wade has been throughout the playoffs, Dirk deserves a signature moment. That's why I'm desperately hoping Dallas pulls it out. That, and the fact that Miami is a bunch of arrogant tools.

• Prediction: Honestly, I still think it's 50/50. Dallas has essentially won two must-win games in a row; they couldn't be down 3-to-2 heading back to Miami. Even Game 2 felt like a must-win at the time. Game 6 is less critical for the Mavs, but that home record in Game 7 stat looms large. If I had to choose, I think Dallas WILL win Game 6. Or else, Miami wins Game 7.

Final NBA Finals Final Thoughts, Finally

I've been following the NBA playoffs as close as any season in my life when MJ was not prominently involved. I think the NBA is kind of, sort of making a comeback. If they can improve officiating (read: call less fouls, less flagrants, less everything), they've got a wealth of marketable superstars spread across more than half a dozen teams that can win championships in the next few years. It's exciting.

(Also, the NHL is definitely making a comeback, riding high-def television and slightly higher scoring. A long Pittsburgh-Detriot series would help. If I'm watching OT finals hockey at some point over the next week, that's a good sign. But I digress...)

So we're heading into a nice finals matchup, Kobe v. Dwight Howard. It's not the Most Valuable Puppets, but it'll do. Most of us already know the joy of rooting against the Lakers in the finals, and watching Kobe fail. But is it going to be a good series? Can the Magic beat the Lakers?

At the beginning of the playoffs of course, the answer would be an easy 'no.' But having watched them dispatch the defending champs and the pre-tournament favorite (at times, decisively) it's now become an easy 'yes.' They CAN play with the Lakers and they have a solid chance to win.

Still, I have this nagging feeling that this serious is going to end up being a dud at Orlando's expense. How often have we (I) gone into a championship thinking a surprise team is going to keep playing surprisingly well, only to find they are still the team we thought they were, relative to their opponents?

(Get ready. I'm about to turn into Dan Patrick, who has this peculiar tendency to start tossing out questions without answering them when he is feeling too lazy to take calls and let the callers raise the various point of views he wants to bring up.)

Who are the Magic, anyway? What kind of team are they? Are they a dominant force or are they just riding streaky shooting? Could Dwight Howard be the best player on the court, or is his offense still too unpolished? What about Rashard Lewis? Most of all, is this going to be one of those upstart teams that falls short in the end?

To a great extent, that question leads us to coaching. Is Stan Van Gundy a good coach or is he riding a hot team? I think he's a good coach. I'm not comparing him to Phil Jackson, but he has a track record of getting a lot out of his teams. Plus, I like the way Orlando uses a variety of players to attack. I'm on board with SVG, but if you have doubts, bet on the Lakers.

The other major question is with Orlando's ridic 3-point shooting. (I like shorting ridiculous to ridic. It's ridic.) If I know my history, (and I do...I'm a history PhD student), a surprise team riding 3-point shooting is a huge red flag. Can the Lakers cool off Orlando? I say not completely. They're a good enough team to win one of those road games on deep shooting alone. Plus the Lakers have shown even more inconsistancies on offense than Orlando has during the playoffs. That's why I'm dismissing the home court advantage.

What if the Magic do go cold? That's where Dwight Howard is such a factor. If you're the Lakers, you can try to pressure Orlando into missing threes, but you can't do much about Howard grabbing a huge share of offensive boards.

So I'm picking Orlando to get it done. They'll split the two in LA, then win in five or six. Still, I'm not betting my (non-existant) house on it. I'm still not quite sure I know what kind of a team Orlando is. (Also, I've watched more NBA in the last week and a half than I have all season.)