The Breaks of the Game

The 2006-2007 NBA season has been a very wild one. Last November, we couldn't have predicted that the Spurs and Cavs will play in the finals. Even I had doubts if San Antonio could make it to the finals.

During the playoffs, there have been a lot of breaks that went San Antonio's way for them to possibly seize their 4th championship:

• Golden State's upset - Dallas would have had another chance to make it to the finals considering they were only going to face either Phoenix or San Antonio in the conference finals. Imagine, before Dallas meets either of the two, chances are good that Phoenix and San Antonio had to face a tough series before facing Dallas. Unfortunately, they took the Warriors for granted. It was very humiliating for Dirk Nowitzki and Avery Johnson, but who can blame them. The coach of the Warriors is Don Nelson, who is very familiar with his former star player and assistant coach when he coached Dallas for a very long coaching stint. This gave me hope that the Western Conference finals was to be decided even before the Western Conference even finals started when the Suns and Spurs met in the Western Conference semifinals.
• 45 seconds - With the Suns having a better record than the Spurs, the Suns seemed to have an edge with the home court advantage. When Nash had to be on the bench in the closing seconds because he got hit unintentionally with Tony Parker's head causing his nose to bleed. He couldn't come back to the game because the bleeding didn't stop. Forty-five seconds and lose home court advantage.
• Cheap Shot Rob -When Robet Horry gave a cheap shot tackle to Steve Nash in the 4th quarter of Game 4, Amare' Stoudemire and Boris Diaw stepped on the playing area, which led to them being suspensed for Game 5. This incident was very unfortunate and this was Phoenix's defining moment to lose the series.
• Utah's playoff inexperience - It is the first time for Utah, since the Stockton-Malone era, to enter the playoffs with Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams leading the way. The Jazz managed to get only one win in the series.
• San Antonio Connection - It was great that the Cavs defeated the Pistons in 6 games. Mike Brown, the Cavs head coach, was Gregg Poppovich's assistant when the Spurs won in 2003. So Brown and Poppovich share the same defensive philosophies. It's ironic that Poppovich defeated Larry Brown, who was his coaching mentor, in 2005 and now Poppovich is now facing his former assistant Mike Brown.

With all these breaks of the game, I'm not surprised that Tim Duncan will be lifting up the championship trophy this year.