OKLAHOMA CITY â€" The Chesapeake Energy Arena has been a cauldron of blue shirts, loud cheers, Kevin Durant jumpers and Russell Westbrook driving layups for this entire postseason. The defending champion Dallas Mavericks were vanquished in their two games on the floor and the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs succumbed to its powers in three games.
Teams don’t just arrive in this building, they get buried, and in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, the Miami Heat got to experience what Loud City is all about, as the Oklahoma City Thunder emerged victorious for the ninth time in as many home games this postseason, 105-94.
It didn’t matter that the Heat had more players with Finals experience â€" the previous visitors could all claim the same. And it didn’t matter that LeBron James, with the surprising help of Shane Battier and Mario Chalmers, had built a 13-point first-half lead. The Thunder just spotted those points to make the victory more dramatic, the effects of the eventual ambush more deflating.
In his Finals debut, Durant scored 17 of his game-high 36 points in the fourth quarter to give his team a 1-0 lead in this best-of-seven series. He also outplayed James, who finished with 30. Westbrook added 27 points, serving as able sidekick as the all-star pair combined to score 19 consecutive points for their team in the final period.
Wade had 19 points, but it was hardly an efficient effort as he missed 12 of his 19 shot attempts. Battier added 17, Chalmers had 12 and Chris Bosh added 10 points off the bench.
James had just seven points in the final period, when Durant took over and Westbrook tagged along. After Thabo Sefolosha made a layup that gave the Thunder a 78-74 lead, Durant and Westbrook combined to score the next 19 points for Oklahoma City.
Durant had 13 during the run, then after James converted a three-point play to bring the Heat within five, Durant fed reserve Nick Collison along the baseline for a dunk that out the Thunder ahead, 99-92. Bosh missed a three-pointer on the other end, and game was all but over.
Miami found itself in an unusual position as the series began. For the first time since LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh made their all-star alliance in the summer of 2010, the behemoth from South Beach had never entered a playoff series as an underdog. But with Miami struggling to take out Indiana and the aging Boston Celtics and Bosh hardly at full strength after missing nine games this postseason with an abdominal strain, the Heat was free from mammoth expectations.
The pressure instead fell to the upstart Thunder, which won four in a row against the top overall seed, the San Antonio Spurs, after previously knocking off the defending champion Mavericks and the Los Angeles Lakers. Oklahoma City had home-court advantage and was playing in a building where it hadn’t lost in eight playoff games.
The Heat is hoping to become the third team in the past 25 years â€" joining the Detroit Pistons in 1989 and the Los Angeles Lakers in 2009 â€" to lose in the Finals the year before and win the title the next season. James had the most uncomfortable offseason, with his mysterious flameout in the final three games against Dallas haunting, and in some ways motivating, him through a season in which he finally settled into a leadership role with the Heat. He won his third most valuable player award but knows that all of the work that he put in would be for naught if he was unable to finally claim a championship in his third trip to the NBA Finals.
With the exception of Durant, the Thunder started the game looking like a team that overwhelmed by the new “Finals†stickers on the court. Durant scored 11 points and even helped limit his counterpart James to just four in the first quarter. Miami still led 29-22 because of the contributions of Shane Battier, who continued to start in place of Bosh, and Mario Chalmers. Battier and Chalmers combined to scored 17 points in the period, then let James take over for the rest of the half.
James had 10 points in the second period, stealing a pass from Durant and flushing the ball with a dunk that gave the Heat a 37-24 lead. Durant later helped the Thunder get within eight, when he drove around Heat center Joel Anthony and dunked over Bosh. James pushed the lead back up to 11 with a bank shot, but Westbrook found Ibaka for a dunk, then Ibaka stole the ball from James setting up a Westbrook layup that sent them into the half trailing just 54-47. Westbrook, though, nearly let his emotion get the best of him, as he exchanged some words with Battier and both players picked up technical fouls.
Westbrook had a relatively forgettable first half, as he missed 7 of 10 shots, but recovered well in the third period, when he decided to use his passion and erupted for 12 points. He shot 4 of 7 and added four free throws, as the attacked the basket and hit pull-up jumpers.
Bosh made two free throws to give the Heat a 73-69 lead, but Durant answered with two free throws, then Westbrook used a Nick Collison screen to drive down the lane for a layup that gave the Thunder its first lead of the game, 74-73, entering the fourth quarter.
The first game of a highly-anticipated matchup of the league’s two best teams and the two best players lived up to the billing, as star players stepped up, role players filled the gaps and teams traded baskets. But using the energy of his home arena, Durant made a few more.
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