Jun
7
THIS COULD BE A TOUGH NBA FINALS ON THE EYES
The 2007 NBA Finals kick off tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern on ABC, which is covering its fifth straight Finals with its fifth different announcing crew calling the game.
? There was the trifecta of Brad Nessler-Tom Tolbert-and Bill Walton during the 2003 NBA Finals between the victorious Spurs and the New Jersey Nets.
? Al Michaels and current Boston Celtics’ Head Coach Doc Rivers called the Detroit Pistons’ five-game annihilation of the feuding Los Angeles Lakers in the surprising 2004 NBA Finals.
? With Rivers off to Boston, Michaels teamed up with Hubie Brown for the 2005 NBA Finals, a seven-game clash between the Spurs and the defending champion Pistons.
? With Michaels getting traded to NBC to cover “Sunday Night Football” with John Madden, solid play-by-play man Mike Breen slid into the chair next to Hubie during the Miami Heat’s six-game victory over the Dallas Mavericks in the 2006 NBA Finals.
? Mike Tirico and Brown will get the call in this series between the Spurs and Cavs.
Oh, it’s just not the same with ABC’s coverage of the Finals as compared to the good ol’ days when the NBA was on NBC with Marv Albert at the helm or CBS with Dick Stockton and Tommy Heinsohn pulling for the Celtics against the Lakers. Somehow, it’s hard to get excited when the Pussycat Dolls’ are serenading you into the game as compared to the NBA on NBC’s theme song “Roundball Rock,” composed by John Tesh.
With all this aside, it’s time to look at this series. While ABC is not too happy to have the boring and fundamentally-sound Spurs in the Finals, it at least saved some face with Lebron James getting there (despite the fact that the Cavs are nothing sensational).
James is facing a tough task in trying to knock down Tim Duncan and the Spurs, even though this year’s San Antonio team is arguably their worst squad of the four teams to reach the Finals. Here’s hoping that James and the Cavs can come out running to at least get these games in the low nineties. Knowing San Antonio, don’t be surprised if at least one of these games is in the seventies.
While it will be an exciting to see what James does in this series, expect the Spurs to make this a knock-down, drag-out war. None of their previous three Finals appearances against the New York Knicks in 1999, the New Jersey Nets in 2003 and the Pistons in 2005 could be defined as must-see television. The 2007 NBA Finals will at least be compelling with James there (even though the rest of the Cavs are junk) and more people should tune in as compared to a Pistons-Spurs rematch.
Well, let’s begin with a breakdown of the matchups, which will be coming throughout the day before Game One tips.
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my mistake: the 07 finals is being called by breen, mark jackson and jeff van gundy. i assumed it would be mike tirico and hubie brown as those two appeared on most of the network’s telecasts during the season. with that said, as much as i think tirico is a jerk and have heard some nasty stories about him, he’s become a very good play-by-play guy. brown is up there in age but tolerable. i can’t complain about breen, who does a great job. mark jackson is a natural and makes a lot of good points. van gundy is annoying, and can talk as if he’s better than everyone. with that said, when he’s not being pompous, he makes some great points about the subtleties of the game; thus showing how outstanding his knowledge of the game is.