Being an avid basketball fan I've been following the NBA playoffs pretty closely for the past two weeks. With the first round wrapping up, it's been pretty exciting to say the least. Z-Bo and the Memphis Grizzlies whooped on the San Antonio Spurs, making it only the fourth time an 8th seed has beaten a number 1 seed. We all saw the return of Frobe Bryant with this dunk over the Hornet's Emeka Okafor in game 5. The Bull's Derrick Rose demonstrated his MVPness all over the Indiana Pacers. And to top it all off, the Atlanta Hawks beat the Orlando Magic 4-2, even after Jameer Nelson thought he could tell the future like Ms. Cleo.
With all the said and done, the top headline in the NBA remains the same. It's not the question of Kobe Bryant tying Michael and winning his sixth ring, or Phil Jackson retiring. It's not the clinic Derrick Rose has been putting on (he has without a doubt become a top 3 player in the league this year). It's not even about what team will win the whole thing. It's about LeBron James. All eyes are on King James, The Chosen One, Bron-Bron, Cleveland's Most Wanted, or whatever people are calling him now-a-days. When LeBron infamously said that he was bringing his talents to South Beach at the end of last year to play along side Dwyane Wade and that other bum, the bar had been set. At that moment it became bigger than the Miami Heat, and even bigger than the rest of the league. It became about LeBron winning a ring, and winning a ring now. When the Heat began to struggle early in the season critics and fans alike labeled them as a bust. 1/3 of the way into the season and the experiment seemed to be failing. Then they began to look like the team they should have been and went on multiple win streaks. They became the NBA's N.W.A. They went from fan favorites to the league's most hated team. Then came the late game issue. While the Miami Heat were destroying the weaker teams, when it came to winning close games against tougher opponents they struggled. The Heat are 1-18 in making shots in the last 10 seconds of the game while they are down 3 or fewer points. The clutch problem had been with them all year and continued into the playoffs when LeBron was blocked by Sixer's Elton Brand on a potential game-tying lay up in game 4. Miami would go on to win the series 4-1.
So as Miami prepares for the second round in which they face the Boston Celtics (who swept Carmelo and the Knicks) , the pressure is up and the goal remains the same. He no longer can blame losing on his team like in Cleveland because he has another top 5 player in Wade. The goal is winning, and anything else will be a failure. A failure that may go down as one of the biggest in sports history.
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