Uncle Si":2t2wtrtx said:
If the Heat had to come from the West (seeding aside), do they play the Spurs in the Conference Championship? Better way of asking, could they have beaten the Thunder or even the Mavericks in a 7 game series?
I think it would have been Spurs/Heat still. I don't think they have a problem with OKC. In fact I think the Heat pretty much beat every team that is not the Spurs or does not operate like the Spurs.
The Spurs move the ball almost by reflex and that comes from familiarity and coaching.
I am actually a dance choreographer and do a lot of complex team choreography - and while everyone can learn the choreography, you need to dance it on the floor with all people so that eventually you can do a certain move and trust that all other couples are doing the same moves, at the same angle, with the same arm height and angle so everyone looks synchronized. And there is no substitute for execution on the floor with the same people over and over and over again .
To me that's the Spurs. Superior talent, many years playing together where you almost know by instinct where everyone else will be when encountered with certain situations. They've been doing it for over 10 years together (the big three) and then those guys lead the other players as they are brought on and inserted into this 10 year old system (or rather, as a previous poster put it, a 10 year old EVOLVING system)
I think that's almost the only way you can beat the Heat, and no other team plays like that. Otherwise, the Heat beat everyone else.
This is why I can relate it to the Seahawks. We have our "big three" on defense locked up in Kam, Thomas, and Sherman in the backfield. Most importantly Thomas who has the on-field vision and directs everyone. And the mutual brotherly love and respect amongst those leaders. When the Hawks D have that brotherhood and familiarity, it is something hard to get over no matter what the individual talent.