The road that started on Christmas Day came to an end last night in South Beach last night, as the Miami Heat won the NBA championship in decisive, indeed anti-climactic fashion, in taking apart the Oklahoma City Thunder 121-106 and wrapping up the Finals in five games.
Oklahoma City came out and threw the first punch in Game 4 of the NBA Finals, getting out to a 17-point lead in the first quarter against the Miami Heat. But the Heat counterpunched in the second quarter to essentially even things up and then a combination of OkC being stone cold from behind the three-point line and Miami being smarter down the stretch produced a 104-98 win for the Heat to give them a commanding 3-1 series lead.
The Miami Heat took a 2-1 series lead over the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals with Sunday night’s 91-85 win in South Beach. If there’s a word we can sum it up in, it would be aggressiveness. The Heat aggressively hit the boards and won the rebounding battle. As is often the case, that led to free throws and Miami had a solid edge in attempts from the charity stripe, 35-24. And with the Heat hitting their free throws while the Thunder missed, the actual scoring edge in this area ended up at 31-15, and was the decisive factor in the Miami victory.
The second game of the NBA Finals followed a similar pattern as the first—a strong start by Miami followed by a second-half comeback from Oklahoma City. But this time the comeback was much more grinding, the Thunder only got one chance to tie the game and the Heat played with more discipline on the offensive end. It added up to a 100-96 win for Miami to even the series
Oklahoma City grabbed the first game of the NBA Finals with a riveting second half, as they caught the Miami Heat from behind and pulled away down the stretch to a 105-94 win and hold serve on their home floor.