Quote Originally Posted by sickread23 View Post
Spurs have a deeper bench. The Spurs also have a better coach. The Spurs also play better team defense. IMO, the Heat only advantage is that they have the greatest player to ever play the game. Having said that, Wade is getting older, Allen is getting older, Birdman played better last year that this year, Udonis Haslem's performance/role has decreased, and the list goes on and on. Miama played and beat who this post-season? The Bobcats/Nets and the Pacers? The best team they played was in the ECF/Pacers, and the Pacers would have been hard pressed to be a 6 seed in the West. The Spurs are battle tested, and they have home-court advantage. You take away LBJ, and the Heat don't even beat the Pacers, and probably don't even get that far. The Spurs are loaded, and are going to win whether the games are in the 90's, or Miami tries to turn it up tempo and run. The Spurs control the basketball, and Miami's offense is predicated on turning the ball over and getting cheap fast-break points. Guys like Norris Cole/ Udonis Haslem/ Birdman, are going to have to really step it up bigtime in this series for Miami to win imho Wade + LBJ + Bosh can combine for 70 a night, but if they don't get some serious contributions from their bench, they aren't winning. PERIOD. Look @ OKC and their Big3... they scored 70-80 combined a few times, and it wasn't enough. The Spurs can win this series so many more ways than the Heat can.
Although I think Poppovich is the better coach, him and his team lost last year to the Heat. So he was not the better coach in that series obviously. You point out that Wade and Allen are getting older. Ok San Antonio has Duncan, Parker, and Ginobli..all are old and are 3 out of their 4 best players, Parker being their #1. Miami's best player Lebron is in his prime. you say the Spurs are battle tested.... Well the Heat are Spurs tested, being that they beat them in a 7 game series last year to win the nba championship and are 1-1 this yr vs them. To compare them to OKC makes no sense, especially since the Heat beat OKC 4-1 in the finals two years ago to also win the NBA championship. You bring up some decent points but somehow making the b2b NBA champs look like fish out of water is quite the stretch.

I always enjoy some good sports talk SR, so thanks. And gl with your $ bets.