Another Spurs Championship A Foregone Conclusion?

So I think San Antonio's 75-72 defeat on the Cavaliers pretty much seals the series; no team's ever come back from a 3-0 Finals deficit and given the way the Spurs are playing, the Cavaliers seem unlikely candidates to make history. Given that, I don't think it's premature to write a postmortem.

First off, the Cavaliers are only as good as the King. And LeBron can be damn good. His performance in game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals - the last 25 points for the Cavs, all 18 in overtime, 48 on the night - was nothing short of spectacular. The Pistons couldn't seem to stop him and when they finally got around to it in game 6, Booby Gibson burned them from outside the arc. But when LeBron doesn't deliver - see basically all three games to date in the Finals and credit the Spurs' Bruce Bowen for that - the Cavs are pretty mediocre.

The Spurs are good. Period. Feel free to hate Tony Parker with a passion, not only because he's marrying Eva Longoria (green-eyed monster + hatred) but because at what? 6 feet? he's ridiculous. Oh and because he's French.

The Bulls showed their stuff in that four-game sweep of the Heat. Add an inside scorer (Joakim Noah was working out for the team last week) and suddenly I think they're top 4 in the conference with Cleveland, Detroit and Miami (not in that order). It's also been suggested that Ben Gordon's a goner in the off-season - fine by me. Sure he delivered once or twice in the post-season and was pretty good in the regular season, but there seems to be few good arguments for keeping him. Luol Deng, by the way, is a baller (if you've never seen his single-handed demolition of UNC from one of the2003 Duke-UNC games, it's worth digging up and watching).

Obviously the most surprising storyline was the Warriors' defeat of the top-seeded Mavericks. However the greatest missed opportunity was a Warriors-Suns series, or as a friend characterized it "First to 200 points wins."

Game 4 is tomorrow night.