Quick Hits: NBA Finals

Random stuff. Didn't feel like unleashing a tidal wave of tweets (although I sort of did anyway) of bite sized thoughts.

- Congrats to the Dallas Mavericks first of all. It never gets old seeing veterans taste championship glory for the first time late in their career. Really nice to see Dirk dominate and overcome the playoff demons from 06 and 07.

- Which brings me to this column by Michael Wilbon: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/commentary/news/story?page=wilbon%2F110611
He makes some very good points, ones that we should definitely take to heart. Seems weird that the general reaction to Lebron is the same one we had to Dirk after his loss in the same finals where Dirk proved those perceptions to be false.

- But having said that, Lebron didn't come up big when he needed to. I still hesitate to say he has some kind of trouble in the playoffs or can't handle the pressure because of the huge performances he has had in postseasons past, some of which were in these past two series against Boston and Chicago. Still, it was clear that he didn't play up to the level Miami needed him to in order to win. Possibly fatigue? He was playing huge minutes every night for this team. Who knows, but again, I hesitate to leap to judgment about his mental state based on this series.

- I'd like to turn back the clock to 2008. Sidney Crosby was making his first trip to the Stanley Cup finals, and Kobe had taken the Lakers back to the NBA Finals with new acquisition Pau Gasol. This was supposed to be the beginning of both of their reigns, Sidney forcefully announcing his dominance with a cup win and Kobe validating his championships with Shaq. However, the Detroit Red Wings derailed Crosby's hopes and the Boston Celtics famously came out and hit the Lakers in the mouth, as both the Penguins and the Lakers lost in 6 games. Now I don't know if anyone wrote them off as failures, but they put in work in the offseason, and both teams returned to the finals the year after, both winning the championship. Pittsburgh got their revenge against the Wings while the Lakers had to wait one more year to defeat the Celtics. So to recap, both stars were supposed to breeze to a championship one year, lost in 6 games, and came back to win it all the year after. Not saying this will happen with the Heat, but it's clearly dangerous to write off any team with that much talent motivated by a stinging loss.

- Dirk was clearly MVP, but he should at least share some of that with Rick Carlisle. He coached out of his mind. He switched up his rotations and schemes throughout the playoffs and made it look easy.

- To be honest, before the season started, and for several months into the season, I didn't think the Heat would make a deep playoff run. My main concern were chemistry issues and a weak bench. Clearly they meshed well enough to make the Finals this year, so we'll see if they continue to grow or if this was their ceiling. But the biggest difference-maker for them next season (whenever that is) may be a fat guy who played 11 minutes this season. 2nd round pick Dexter Pittman out of Texas has reportedly worked extremely hard and dropped a lot of weight throughout the season. If he's ready to earn a rotation spot, his size and rebounding is going to help Miami a lot. I mean, Juwan Howard was playing minutes at center for them in the finals. That should tell you something about their interior players.

- Dirk shot 9-27. I'm not hearing anyone saying the Mavs won this game despite of him instead of because of him like people were saying after Kobe's 6-24 Game 7 last year. Just saying.

- The playoff picture is going to look interesting in the next few years. The Heat were right there this year, but are they going to continue to develop and add pieces or was this it? Will Dallas be able to sustain their winning ways? Their players aren't getting any younger. Can Dirk continue to carry them on his back? At least the return of Caron Butler will help them a lot, and they'll continue to hope Roddy Beaubois develops into the point guard of the future. Chicago and OKC announced their arrival this year, but can their young cores take one more step into the Finals? Are they going to be motivated or discouraged by coming up short in the conference finals? Speaking of young guns, Philadelphia and Indiana were surprisingly resilient in their first round exits. What kind of moves are they going to make to build their rosters? Can they be a factor without a big superstar, or do they have one already on their roster that just needs time to develop? Boston, San Antonio, and LA all looked old this postseason. Do any of them have a championship run left in the tank, and if not, will they be able to reload in time to challenge the young guns? No one knows the answers to these questions but finding out is going to be wildly entertaining.