NBA Conference Finals Preview

The NBA’s conference finals begin Tuesday night, meaning the last month of the season is finally at hand. Sometime in mid-June, a champion will be crowned.

In the Western Conference, the Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors square off this evening in Oakland. The Eastern Conference series matching the Cleveland Cavaliers and Atlanta Hawks tips on Wednesday in Atlanta.

This is a quartet long missing from the late rounds of NBA play. Neither Atlanta nor Cleveland has ever won the NBA title. Houston was a back-to-back champion in 1994-95. The Warriors won in 1975.

It’s a different league, and quite suddenly, from the last few years. The Miami Heat, powered by LeBron James, went to four consecutive NBA Finals and won twice. But James opted for free agency, returned to Cleveland and the Heat did not make the playoffs. The team that defeated them last year, the San Antonio Spurs, went out in the first round this season.

They are entertaining teams, these four finalists, each in its own way. The Hawks do not rely on a single star player. The Cavaliers do (James). The Rockets have the big man (Dwight Howard) and the scorer (James Harden). The Warriors offer the deadeye shooting of Stephen Curry and his sidekick, Klay Thompson, both of whom are sons of former NBA players.

Other than Houston’s Kevin McHale (fifth season), the coaches are all fairly new as well. Atlanta’s Mike Budenholzer is finishing his second season while David Blatt (Cleveland) and Steve Kerr (Golden State) are wrapping up year one successfully.

New faces and new places. Should be an interesting month of NBA hoops.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman .