The Miami Heat won the NBA Championship Thursday night, by defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder 121-106 in Miami, winning the series 4 games to 1. After losing the first game, the Heat won 4 in a row, and didn’t even give the Thunder a chance to return home for games 6 and 7. LeBron James won the Most Valuable Player Award unanimously, scoring 26 points, to go along with 11 rebounds and 13 assists in game 5.
He received a lot of help in this game, mainly from starters Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and reserve Mike Miller, who was 7 for 9 on 3-pointers, finishing with 23 points. The Heat made a total of 14 3-pointers in the game. Miami had a 10 point halftime lead, and started blowing the game open in the 3rd quarter, outscoring the Thunder 36-22. Oklahoma City never got close after that.
Now the talk starts of how many championships LeBron James can win. Who knows at this point? Anyone comparing him to Michael Jordan is definitely jumping the gun. Jordan won 6 championships, and could have possible won 8 straight, if he didn’t decide to give baseball a try. If James wins 3 titles in a row, he’s half way to Jordan, and after that any more titles would qualify him to be compared to Jordan.
James already has 3 MVPs, compared to Jordan’s 5, so he will probably catch him there, but he needs to continue his play from this year, and show long term leadership and team cohesiveness to continue earning championships. Winning titles is a good indication of talent, but that alone is certainly not the best measure of a player’s importance. While being a very solid player in his career, Robert Horry won 7 championships, which is higher than anyone not on the 1960s Boston Celtics. However, I never hear his name come up in the greatest player of all time discussion.
Now with hockey and basketball over, and 6 long weeks until preseason football, I guess my focus will be on baseball…Is it August yet?
