2013 NBA Finals preview: San Antonio Spurs vs Miami Heat

Regular season series: Heat 2-0

• November 29: Spurs 100-105 @Heat
• March 31: Heat 88-86 @Spurs

The question begs to ask itself: What if San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich’s $250,000 fine for sitting his stars against the Miami Heat back in November turns out to be the most genius investment that no one saw coming?

After all, the Spurs enter the NBA Finals with a clean bill of health and a full nine days of rest. Meanwhile, the Heat limp into the showdown with two of their three stars not at 100 percent, and the team’s killer instinct under scrutiny after the Indiana Pacers took them to the brink. Miami’s invincible 27-game winning streak seems like a distant memory.

No two teams mirror each other way the Heat and Spurs do. The offensive hierarchy is firmly in place. They are headed by an alpha dog in LeBron James and Tony Parker, tagged along by a bonafide second option in Dwyane Wade and Tim Duncan, and carried by a third banana in Chris Bosh and Manu Ginobili.

[Read the preview for game one of this series here]

Misdirection will be the overarching theme of this series. Such plays involve much more complexity than Wade and Ginobili’s use of the Euro-step to evade their man on forays to the basket. Both teams pride themselves on superior ball movement and the ability to break down the defense at the very last moment. True to form, the Spurs are tops in assists (23.6) while the Heat come in fourth (20.3) this postseason.

These passes frequently end up in the form of corner threes. Throughout the course of the regular season, Miami had the league’s highest rate of corner three's taken at 11.3 percent, while the Spurs came in third at 9.5 percent.

The two squads though have different ways of getting those open looks. Miami prefers quick, barreling penetration to the basket, culminating in a last-second kick-out to the waiting shooter. This has been evident time and time again when James draws a double or triple-team that collapses on him, only to find a wide-open Shane Battier or Ray Allen lurking in the corner.

On the other hand, San Antonio usually has a cutter who drives along the baseline, while the shooter dashes from the opposite elbow and creates a weakside flare on the corner for an open look. Parker will be seen running through multiple picks set by Duncan and Tiago Splitter, rushing through the baseline. As this happens, Kawhi Leonard or Danny Green will be seen roaming the perimeter before blitzing to the baseline.

When the five players on the court are in sync, the results have been fruitful, as both teams are among the top three in shooting during this postseason with the Spurs at 36.2 percent and the Heat at 35.6 percent.

Tony Parker's ability to control the tempo of the game could ultimately dictate the Spurs' chances of winning. That said, the cross-matching possibilities for guarding Parker are numerous. Mario Chalmers will draw the initial defensive assignment, but do not be surprised if Heat coach Erik Spoelstra decides to pull out Chalmers in favor of Norris Cole, who admirably handled a more athletic playmaker in Nate Robinson two rounds ago.

The caveat is that Parker has just finished dusting off Mike Conley, a member of this year’s All-Defensive Second Team. If all else fails, the extreme measure would be to put James on Parker.

The Heat must make it imperative to seal off Parker’s right side to slow down his drives, and prevent San Antonio from running their hammer sets. The biggest defensive headache will be how to keep track of Parker through the hard screens set for him. Arguably the best point guard in the league today, Parker’s three-point shooting has spiked from 31.3 percent in the regular season to 37.5 percent in the playoffs. His vastly improved midrange jumper makes him a threat from anywhere on the floor as well.

[Check out the infographic about these two teams here]

In the frontcourt, the Spurs can mix and match. They can pair Duncan with Matt Bonner, the last remaining member of the 2007 squad outside of the San Antonio Big Three, to stretch the floor as a safety valve for Parker and Ginobili to have enough room to maneuver towards the basket.

Duncan can also be paired with Tiago Splitter or Boris Diaw, both of whom are reliable passing big men in the post and excellent pick-and-pop options. They have the court vision to find a backdoor cutter like Ginobili for an easy lay-up.

The Spurs, who have taken care of the ball well this postseason (11.7 turnovers per game) will need to be extra vigilant in this series. Against an uber-athletic Heat team, they will need to make calculated decisions within a split second. Dish the ball too late and it’s a Heat fast break waiting to happen.

Miami’s response to a Duncan-Splitter tandem will be critical. Will they continue sending out Bosh and Udonis Haslem to defend the painted area? Or will they revert to the unconventional duo of Bosh and Shane Battier, where the latter is expected to stay in front of either 6’11” Spurs big for extended stretches? One advantage of Miami in this series is that they do not have to compromise their small-ball approach in this series as much as they did against the Chicago Bulls and Indiana Pacers in the previous rounds.

This does not mean that the Heat can slack off the rebounding battle however. Though the Spurs were second to last in offensive rebounding rate during the regular season, accounting for only 20.5 percent of available offensive rebounds (8.1 per game), against the Heat, the Spurs controlled the boards on both ends of the floor.

In their two regular season meetings, the Spurs had a whopping 45-37 and 49-33 domination on the glass. To compound the Heat’s concerns, the Spurs also creamed them on second-chance points in both meetings, 20-6 and 17-5. The Heat can take solace though in the fact that they still managed to win both games even with a huge disparity in both those categories.

The biggest question mark in this series will be injury concerns to Wade (bruised knee) and Bosh (ankle). The two played so lethargically in the previous series that for certain stretches, Mike Miller seemed to out-hustle them even with his body about to fall apart. While Wade rediscovered his form in time to save the Heat in game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals, Bosh's point totals in the last four games reflect the center’s prolonged struggles: seven, seven, five, and nine.

James going up against Leonard will be the most intriguing matchup of the series. Leonard is an emerging talent on the defensive end, but he is nowhere near the elite defender that Bruce Bowen once was. In 2007, the former All-Defensive Team member made James settle on jumpers with bad release form, as the then-22-year-old finished the series with an atrocious 17 percent clip on those shots. James, who has added more muscle and practiced his stroke since then, will not be pushed out of the paint and be forced to rely on contested 18-footers to bail the team out of the shot clock unlike before.

The main concern for San Antonio is not necessarily Leonard guarding James per se. No single player can cover James; it is a task done by committee. The bigger problem is that next small forward on the Spurs’ depth chart is Tracy McGrady, who has played a grand total of 17 minutes since the Spurs signed him before the playoffs began. Should James bait Leonard into foul trouble, look out.

For Miami to have the edge in this series, they must continue what they started in game seven against Indiana. James fed the ball to Wade right from the first possession in order to reintegrate the shooting guard back into the offense. The boost of confidence was enough to propel Wade’s assertiveness and from the looks of it, he is saving his last bullet for the Finals. Hounded by Lance Stephenson, Wade had difficulty extricating himself for open looks. Now fronted by Ginobili and Danny Green, Wade has the size advantage to back either down in the post.

The Heat’s title-tested trio need not look far for a template to take down the Spurs. In 2012, Oklahoma City Thunder’s former troika of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden unleashed a terror two-way attack of elite athleticism that ran the Spurs into the ground. If the Heat can replicate what the Thunder did in bursts, they will be in a good position to force the Spurs onto the ropes.

Six years ago, as Tim Duncan held his fourth championship trophy in his arms, he told James that one day, the league would someday belong to him. Last year, James finally ascended to his self-proclaimed throne. Now, the Spurs want the crown back.

Four Finals MVPs, each battling for a new chapter to write in his storied career. War is set to begin.

Prediction: Heat in 6


- AMD, GMA News