The Heat Was On

For the second time in their history, the Miami Heat are NBA champions. Both times the Heat won the middle three games of the NBA finals at home. They certainly are deserving champions lead by finals and regular season MVP, LeBron James. Shane Battier in game 2, Mario Chalmers especially in game 4 and Mike Miller in the series clincher all made tremendous contributions to the Heat title.

Pat Riley has now been a part of 8 NBA championship teams, six with the Los Angeles Lakers and two with the Heat. He has 5 titles as a coach and one each as a player, assistant coach and now as an executive. He has been to many losing finals as a player, coach and last year as an executive.

The game 1 winner of the NBA finals has won 47 of the 66 finals that have been contested. However, in all 3 finals involving the Heat, the game 1 winner lost the finals.This was the 4th finals for the Oklahoma City Thunder franchise with the first three being when they played as the Seattle SuperSonics. In three of those four finals series, the game 1 winner lost the series.

The team with home advantage in the NBA finals has also won 47 of the 66 finals. Again, however, the Heat especially but also the Thunder/Supersonics deviate from the “norm” by a huge percentage. The team with home advantage has lost all 3 NBA finals involving the Heat and 3 of four involving the Thunder/SuperSonics.