Winning one NBA title wasn’t enough to silence the Miami Heat’s critics, but maybe two will do the trick.
After falling behind 3-2 in their NBA Finals series with the San Antonio Spurs, the defending champion Heat looked like they may be down for the count, but LeBron James and Co. saved their biggest blows for last and delivered the knockout in game seven on Thursday night by a score of 95-88.
Winning back-to-back games in the series means the Heat are now back-to-back NBA champions. Let the talk of a new NBA dynasty begin.
While the Heat franchise added another trophy to its case, James added one to his personal collection as well, as he was named the NBA Finals MVP for the second consecutive year.
Though James came through for the Heat all postseason long, he saved his best performance for the season’s final game, as he scored 37 points on 12 of 23 shooting and grabbed 12 rebounds in the game seven win.
“I work on my game a lot throughout the offseason,” said James after the game. “I put a lot of work into it and to be able to come out here and (have) the results happen out on the floor is the ultimate. The ultimate. I’m at a loss for words.”
Of course James couldn’t have reached the top of the basketball mountain without his South Beach compatriots – most notably – his second-in-command, Dwyane Wade. Wade scored 23 points and collected 10 rebounds in game seven, but the humble three-time champion was quick to praise Miami’s worthy adversary in their Finals series.
“It took everything we had as a team,” Dwyane Wade said. “Credit to the San Antonio Spurs, they’re an unbelievable team, an unbelievable franchise. This is the hardest series we ever had to play. But we’re a resilient team and we did whatever it took.”
Meanwhile, the loss is heartbreaking for the Spurs, who may have missed their last chance at a title with their current group. However, at the end of the day, coach Gregg Popovich was still proud of how far his team was able to go this season.
“It was a great series and we all felt that,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “I don’t know if ‘enjoy’ is the right word, but in all honesty, even in defeat, I’m starting to enjoy what our group accomplished already, when you look back. And you need to do that, to put in perspective. So it’s no fun to lose, but we lost to a better team. And you can live with that as long as you’ve given your best, and I think we have.”
Of course, the discussion among NBA fans now mostly revolves around the question of: Can the Heat make it a threepeat? Considering how much tougher it was for the Heat to win their second title, we can only assume the competition will become more fierce as the targets on Miami’s back grows entering next season.
Though we’re already sad to see the NBA season come to a close, we congratulate the Miami Heat for winning on 2012-2013 NBA Championship!