If
not for the wily ways of San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, this chess
match that will be the NBA Finals may have started way back on Nov. 29.
The
preview against the Miami Heat was not to be because Popovich sent his four
best players on a Southwest Airlines flight home for some early-season rest,
and the Heat would respond in kind on March 31 when they sat LeBron James and
Dwyane Wade.
Two
games that could have provided early signs of who had the edge were rendered
meaningless, the scouting report slate wiped clean as a result. The NBA fined
the Spurs $250,000 for sending their stars home.
Yet
as this situation comes full circle, the reality is that there are no mysteries
when it comes to this matchup. Each team has its three stars — the Heat with
James, Wade and Chris Bosh and the Spurs with Tony Parker, Tim Duncan and Manu
Ginobili. Each team has depth and role players whose jobs are hardly secrets.
Each team has a system that has been on display for quite some time, a style
that is easy to identify but nearly impossible to stop.
"The
Spurs are the Spurs," Heat small forward Shane Battier said in a refrain
that just as easily applies to the Heat. "The Spurs have been the Spurs
for, it seems like, the last 25 years.
"Their
style doesn't change. … Every time you play them they're going to be well
coached. They're going to play hard. They're going to pass the heck out of the
ball, they're going to space the floor and make you beat them. That's the
formula no matter who's playing for them."
If
a positive came out of the incident for the Spurs, it was that guard Danny
Green was one of the guys sent home. It was their Big Three and then it was
Green, and it was nothing short of flattering for the 25-year-old, fourth-year
player who could have used confidence-building getaways like this leading into
last year's playoffs in which he struggled so mightily against the Oklahoma
City Thunder in a Western Conference finals loss.
This
was a different experience than the daily grind that teammates take part in, as
the four players had time to kill and time to bond as they waited to make it
home.
The
original plan, Green said, had been to fly a private plane home the day before
the game. But the plane went nowhere because of technical difficulties, and the
players — who were already on the plane — had to fly commercially the following
day. They would be at the center of a debate over whether the Spurs were within
their rights to do what they did, but that wasn't the part Green remembers
most.
"I
was moreso surprised that I was even on the plane and enjoying the company that
I had and trying to learn as much (as I could), to talk with those guys about
everything," said Green, who was drafted 46th overall by the Cleveland
Cavaliers out of North Carolina in 2009 and has been with the Spurs since late
in the 2010-11 season. "We talked about a lot of things. We're obviously
all from different places, and they talked about Olympics, they played for
national teams, their experiences of the past. From that to (player) agents and
years they played throughout the league — different experiences overseas, Manu
and Tony always play during the summertime.
"We
talked about a lot. I was just enjoying the conversation, enjoying the company,
happy that I was even selected to be sent back home."
PHOTOS: How the Spurs' roster was
built for the Finals
While
Green and the Spurs were more than content to follow Popovich's orders, Bosh
admitted the Heat were disappointed that day. They had been curious about the
matchup themselves, eager to send an early message that they had no plans of
relinquishing the crown.
"We
were looking forward to it," Bosh said. "It was kind of a letdown. We
were looking forward to going up against those guys, because we figured we
might be seeing them if we made it here now. But they thought they did what's
best for their team and we can't control that.
"I
thought it was funny that they flew Southwest, but you've got to get back home
someway."
Even
still, Bosh said, the game would never have yielded any real meaning even if
the Spurs showed up.
"The
regular season is so much different," he said. "Even if we would've
played each other at full strength and went head to head, it still wouldn't
have mattered.
"That
was ages ago. You look at tape then and now, and totally different teams. We
were just starting, trying to get back into shape, working back our principals
and really seeing what works for us on the offensive end, so it's not really
much you can take from it. You have to look at what's happening recently, who's
playing well, and at their tendencies and really their offensive sets and what
we can do to kind of hinder them a little bit."
The
chess match, in other words, starts now.
PHOTOS: How the Heat's roster was
built for the Finals
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