No need for NBA power rankings this week. Two teams enter the NBA Finals, one team leaves as a champion. If you don’t want to count logos above, it’s Heat 23, Spurs 10. Of course, if you take away ESPN’s 18 (18?!) NBA experts, that leaves the scoreboard at a much closer 9-6 margin for Miami. Either way you want to look at it, no expert expects a mismatch. Of the picks we gathered, only Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel had it ending in less than six games.
Here’s the pick-by-pick breakdown, starting with ours:
Scoreboard Page: Spurs in 6. The Heat seem vulnerable, and the Spurs are on a roll after dismantling the Grizzlies. The rest shouldn’t hurt San Antonio. In fact, Gregg Popovich rested his stars and veterans at various times all year, including in a high-profile game against the Heat earlier this season, so the time off should only help. It was all part of the plan. This is the matchup we expected last year in the Finals, but the Thunder shocked us and everyone else by running off four straight after going down 0-2 – before meeting their match in Miami. But the Spurs are the right team at the right time to knock out a Heat squad that showed its flaws in its 7-game win over Indiana.
CBS’ Ken Berger: Spurs in 6
CBS’ Matt Moore: Heat in 6
CBS’ Royce Young: Spurs in 7
CBS’ Zach Harper: Heat in 7
More details at CBS Sports
Phil Jackson: Spurs
More details at CBS Sports
Fox’s Bill Reiter: Spurs in 6
More details at Fox Sports
Yahoo’s Greg Anthony: Heat in 6
Yahoo’s Dan Devine: Heat in 7
Yahoo’s Kelly Dwyer: Heat in 7
Yahoo’s Eric Freeman: Heat in 6
Yahoo’s Marc J. Spears: Spurs in 6
Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel: Heat in 5
Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski: Heat in 6
More details at Yahoo Sports
NBC’s Kurt Helin: Heat in 6
More details at ProBasketballTalk
ESPN’s Abbott: Heat in 7
ESPN’s Adande: Heat in 7
ESPN’s Arnovitz: Heat in 7
ESPN’s Barry: Heat in 7
ESPN’s Doolittle: Heat in 6
ESPN’s Elhassan: Spurs in 6
ESPN’s Ford: Heat in 7
ESPN’s Gutierrez: Heat in 6
ESPN’s Haberstroh: Heat in 7
ESPN’s Legler: Heat in 7
ESPN’s Pelton: Heat in 7
ESPN’s Shelburne: Spurs in 6
ESPN’s Stein: Spurs in 6
ESPN’s Strauss: Heat in 7
ESPN’s Thorpe: Heat in 6
ESPN’s Torres: Spurs in 6
ESPN’s Wallace: Heat in 7
ESPN’s Windhorst: Heat in 7
More details at ESPN
What’s your prediction?

