Almost showtime for Heat, Lakers
Featured matchup isn’t on court: Riley vs. LeBron
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — LeBron James vs. the Heat.
Pat Riley vs. the Lakers.
Get ready for the NBA Finals — a title series like none other, to end a season like none other.
The matchup is set, with the Heat and the Lakers emerging as the last two teams standing in the chase to be crowned champions of the most tumultuous season in NBA history. The Heat won the Eastern Conference title Sunday night, finishing off the Celtics a day after the Lakers eliminated the Nuggets and won the Western Conference crown.
So, for the first time — well, excluding the league’s inaugural season— two franchises that missed the playoffs the previous season will meet in the NBA Finals. Game 1 of Heat-Lakers is Wednesday night at Walt DisneyWorld.
“We know why I came here,” said Lakers All-Star forward Anthony Davis, whose first finals trip comes in his first L.A. season.“Wewant to win a championship. We’re four wins away, a step closer to our goal.”
James is bidding for a fourth NBA championship, aswell as a title with a third different franchise — and he’s about to become the first player to win a Finals MVP award with one team and then face that same team in a future championship series. His first two titles were with the Heat in 2012 and 2013, the highlights of a four-year stint with the team that ended in 2014.
That, not coincidentally, was the last time the Heat had reached this stage. James left to return to the Cavaliers earlier than the Heat figured hewould, Chris Bosh began his fight with blood clots — a condition that ended his career — not too long afterward and the Heat descended from magnificent to mediocre in a hurry.
No more. With a young core led by Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro, the veteran savvy of Goran Dragic and the addition a year ago of Jimmy Butler the Heat got back to title contention quicker than probably anyone envisioned, themselves included.
Then again, Riley— whowon four championships in a seven-year span as coach of the “Showtime” Lakers— isn’t known for patience.
He thinks big. That’s why he and the Heat landed James and Bosh to play with Dwyane Wade in 2010. That’s why they got Butler in 2019, even when the team had no freeagent money to spend. That’s why they swung a deal to add Andre Iguodala, Jae Crowder and Solomon Hill in February, trading them for JustiseWinslow, James Johnson and Dion Waiters; Waiters, oddly enough, ended up with the Lakers and will now face the Heat in this title series.
“To fit in here, you’ve just got to care about winning,” Butler said earlier in this playoff run. “That’s the No. 1 thing. Trying to win a championship. Andwe’ve got a groupof guys that want that, night-in, night-out, every single day. There’s only one goal in our mind, and that’s to win it.”
The Lakers have that same goal, of course.
Their motto in these playoffs has been “Leave A Legacy,” a nod to the great Kobe Bryant — the Lakers legend who died, along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, in ahelicopter crashon Jan. 26. Thelast Lakers’ championship was in 2010, when Bryant got his fifth and last title. James has been in the finals every year but once since. There neverwas aLeBronvs. Kobefinals, to the dismay of many, but in its place comes a finals trip where James and the Lakers will play with Bryant in very much in mind.