DENVER — After a couple of weeks on the road bouncing between Denver and Miami, here are a few final thoughts on these NBA Finals, things that mostly didn’t fit into other stories I was writing.
• It’s a copycat league, and in the wake of Denver winning an NBA title by walking a path of patience and stability, and building around home-gown stars, you’re going to hear a lot more owners and general managers give lip service to wanting to do this with their franchises. Few, if any, will have the patience to see it through. The next time a star player — even one considered a culture killer — becomes available, they will forget their words and chase him. Patience and stability will be out the door.
• This is not just an NBA thing, but across all professional sports in America — can we stop having the team owner be the first to accept the trophy and speak after a championship? That’s not who earned the trophy, it’s not who the fans in the building or watching at home want to see, and it’s not celebrating the sport. It doesn’t fit. Give the spotlight to the players and coach.
• Maybe the most under-discussed aspect of what decided this series: Denver was just bigger. Across the board. That size advantage led to Heat players driving the lane and re-thinking how they would get a shot off — passing out of the paint or double-clutching — far more than they did in any other series (the Celtics’ Robert Williams also had some of that impact). Tall and good beats small and good.
• Jimmy Butler refused to talk about it or use it as an excuse, but his ankle injury pretty clearly robbed him of some explosiveness and lift during this series.
“Zero. My ankle is fine,” Butler said in the most Butler of ways when asked about the impact of the
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Robert Williams