Mirror Image: The Spurs and Celtics vs. The Heat and Thunder

There are four teams left in the 2012 lockout season and strangely enough they are eerily similar in their builds and design. The Celtics and the Spurs have extremely similar teams and so do the Heat and the Thunder, it’s like the two ongoing conference finals are mirror images of each other. Think about the Celtics and Spurs are both led by superstar point guards in Rajon Rondo and Tony Parker. Both guards are experts at getting in the lane and either finishing or kicking it out to waiting shooters who are very capable of knocking shots down and have done so throughout the course of the season. The Spurs and Celtics both have future hall-of fame power forwards in Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett who have been rivals since they both came in the league. Paul Pierce is still one of the best scores in the league and can be relied upon to close out games no matter who the Celtics face, and although he’s not given much credit for it Manu Ginobli is good at doing the same things for the Spurs. The two teams also have reliable role players who don’t try to do more than what they are needed for and follow the orders of the team’s leaders and coaches. Which brings us to the most similar part of the two teams, they are run by two of the best coaches in the whole NBA with coach Pop and Doc running the show on the sidelines and keeping the teams running great offense while devising defensive schemes to slow down some of the leagues best players.

On the flip side you have the Heat and the Thunder who have the two best small forwards in all of basketball in Kevin Durant and Lebron James. They both make their teams better and are dominate scorers. They have been amazing all year and finished one and two in the MVP voting. They also both have dominate scoring counter-parts in Dwayne Wade and Russell Westbrook; these two guards can get to the basket against anyone and are relentless in attacking the rim. They both have serviceable jumpshots that are good enough that you can’t sag off them and you have to bring help. Both teams have a big three but the Miami third member isn’t playing (Bosh) and the Thunder’s next biggest threat comes off the bench (Harden) but both are great players in their own right.

Should be interesting to see how the series and battle of styles play out with both series tied up at two games a piece this is shaping up to be one of the better conference finals all-around in sometime.