Russell, Wilt, Jerry, Magic, Bird, Jordan, Kobe, and, most recently, LeBron James. There are others that could arguably be in the conversation, but despite what they all brought to the game of basketball, Michael Jordan is and always will be the greatest basketball player of all time. And here’s why…
In the 2015 NBA Conference Finals, both the Cavaliers and the Warriors had commanding 3-0 leads over the Hawks and the Rockets.
No team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a series, with only 3 teams managing to force a Game 7.
If the first round of the 2015 NBA PLayoffs was all about dealing with the weight of expectation, for me, the Conference Semi-Finals were about pressure moments. During this round we saw several examples of individual players stepping up to the mark and delivering in the face of extreme pressure.
Last year, during the NBA Final Series between the San Antonio Spurs and the then LeBronified Miami Heat, I wanted to write about some of the more mental aspects of the game that came up.
I tried to pick out an interesting story or highlight from each game, something that I thought related back to the “Psychology of the Finals” and wrote a short blog post on that topic. For example, after the air conditioning in American Airlines Arena broke in Game 1, I wrote about the need to take control of the environment, rather than letting the environment give you cramp so bad you have to be carried off the court.
Well that’s it! The 2014 NBA Finals are over and it was the San Antonio Spurs who put last year’s defeat emphatically behind them, and prevented the Miami Heat from winning their third straight Championship, or “threepeating” if you will.
I don’t think anyone expected the Spurs to win in 5 Games and I certainly don’t think anyone expected the Heat to roll over without much of a fight. At the very least, I didn’t expect it, but I admit that I was hoping that the Spurs brand of TEAM FIRST basketball would be effective enough to get them past Miami. And it really, really was!
San Antonio took Game 3 in dramatic fashion to lead the series 2-1. They hit 19 of their first 21 shots, they scored 41 in the 1st quarter, and they had 71 by half-time! It was always an uphill struggle for the Heat, but the Spurs won by being aggressive and doing their thing, especially Kawhi Leonard who had an outstanding game (career high 29 points) after a relatively quite Game 1 and Game 2.
The series was tied 1-1 going into Game 3 in Miami. The Spurs had managed to do a better job of not being distracted by the literally uncontrollable temperature in Game 1, and Danny Green came through with some Short Memory Shooting in the 4th quarter. In Game 2, another uncontrollable factor, the referees, left both teams struggling to find their rhythm early on and it was the Heat this time, that did the better job of refocusing quickly after bad calls. So what were the key themes of Game 3?
If the theme of Game 1 was ‘beating the heat’, the theme of Game 2 was definitely ‘keeping cool’. But this time, it wasn’t a broken air conditioning system that was causing players’ temperatures to rise. It was another one of those damn uncontrollables – the refs.
It’s been a while since my last post on here. I’ve been largely trying to avoid the internet while the NBA Playoffs have been happening. People seem unable to resist posting results on social media sites and, since I can no longer stay up until 5am and function adequately the next day, I’ve been recording games to watch when I get home from work the following day.
eightypercentmental.com 