Why Miami Heat Don't Want L.A. Lakers in the NBA Finals - Bleacher Report

The way is opened up for the Miami Heat to get back to the NBA finals for the second year in a row. It's hard to imagine any team that can give them more than a valiant effort. That doesn't mean they have a cakewalk to the NBA Championship though. 

If you're a Heat fan, the last team you want to face is the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers might be the third best team in the Western Conference but when it comes to a seven-game series it's all about matchups. 

When you consider the different facets of the game, the point guard, the wings, the bigs and the bench, it's apparent that the Lakers have the biggest advantage. 

It's not rocket science how the Miami Heat win. It's on the strength of their wings. You simply can't qualify enough how good the Heat are there. LeBron James leads the NBA in Player Efficiency Rating this year with 30.7. Dwyane Wade is third with 26.3. 

That's a combined PER of 57. The NBA's next best duo is Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook with with 50.2. 

Chris Bosh is there as arguably the best third option in the NBA. He would be the first option on most teams but he has willingly accepted the role of third option to play with the other two stars. 

Make no mistake about it though. This team flies because it has wings. There could not be a better metaphor. They fly up and down the court, forcing turnovers on defense and turning that defense into easy offense, which James and Wade execute brilliantly. 

That's the strength of the Heat. Everything else is just what's put around their two future Hall of Famers (is Bosh a Hall of Famer? Not yet.) to make the team work. 

The thing about the Lakers is that they have two pretty impressive defensive players at the wings. Kobe Bryant and Metta World Peace have squared off 16 times and they each have eight wins. In those games James has averaged 25.7 points, 6.6 assists and 6.7 rebounds, all below his career averages. 

Harry How/Getty Images

Now granted, World Peace is only averaging 14.9 points against James, and the Heat win the matchup. However they don't win it as decisively as they normally would. 

More importantly his field-goal percentage is .458, a full 25 points below his career average. 

World Peace is not a "James stopper" but he reduces James from "superhero" status to "superstar" status. 

Coincidentally, Wade and Kobe Bryant also have played one another 16 times and they too have split the series evenly. Bryant, however, has actually won the individual matchup, scoring 28.6 points to Wade's 24.9. It would be a stretch to say that Bryant has "owned" Wade, but at a minimum it's fair to call the matchup a draw. 

The Heat have their wings, but the Lakers have a former Defensive Player of the Year in Ron Artest and a nine-time All-Defensive First Team player in Kobe Bryant. 

Harry How/Getty Images

Are the Heat going to win this matchup? Yes. However they aren't going to win it as handily as they normally would. Now put a pin in that for a moment while we look at the next parameter, the starting power forwards. 

While we could go back and forth about who "wins" the matchup between Pau Gasol and Chris Bosh, it's pretty even, although Gasol historically has the slight edge. However, in the three games they've played against each other since the "Heatles" came together they have both scored exactly 21.0 points per game.

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

So once again, we can conservatively call that a wash.

Continuing on with the point guard battle we have Ramon Sessions and Mario Chalmers. As a Laker, Sessions has averaged 12.7 points and 6.2 assists, compared to 9.8 points and 3.5 assists for Mario Chalmers. Chalmers, however, is the better defensive player. So again, we'll conservatively call that a wash. 

Before going on to look at the center position let's look at the benches. The three first players off the bench for the postseason for the Lakers have been Jordan Hill, Steve Blake and Matt Barnes who have averaged 17.0 points a game compared to Joel Anthony, Shane Battier and Mike Miller for the Heat who have averaged 13.1 points.

Yes, there are other facets of the game, but the Lakers win those as well grabbing more rebounds and dishing more assists. 

Harry How/Getty Images

Neither team is renowned for their bench play anyway, and bench rotations are shortened for the postseason but in their brief series the Lakers' trio has outperformed the Heat trio. Of course it is a small sample size with both teams playing one opponent so you can't draw too many conclusions from that. 

That fish was about that big!
Harry How/Getty Images

However, Hill offers roughly what Anthony does: energy, defense and rebounding off the bench. Barnes and Battier offer wing defense, which would be crucial in this sort of series. Blake and Miller offer three-point shooting. Neither team has a clear advantage here either. Once again, it's a wash.

Now we come to the most dominant advantage either team would hold over the other and his name is Andrew Bynum who has a clear advantage over Udonis Haslem at center. In fact it's hard to imagine how Haslem would be able to guard the much bigger Anthony. 

Which team would give the Heat the most trouble in the finals?

Which team would give the Heat the most trouble in the finals?

• Lakers

• Spurs

• Thunder

• Total votes: 23

Getting help from Bosh is not an option either. If you do that you just rotate the problem to Haslem trying to guard Gasol.

The bottom line is the Heat have defensive answers to the Lakers' greatest strengths, but the Heat have no defense answer to Gasol and Bynum. They don't have anyone who can play tough, physical inside basketball with Bynum. 

Eventually, that would be their undoing and that's why the Lakers are probably the last team the Heat want to face in the finals. They can play the uptempo styles of Oklahoma City and San Antonio. A slogging, physical, seven-game series against two seven footers, though? Not so much.