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

The path is clear 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 record-wise 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 quantify how good the Heat are in that respect. 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 50.2. 

Chris Bosh is arguably the best third option in the NBA. He would be the first option on most teams, but he has willingly accepted a backseat role 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 revolves around their two future Hall of Famers (Is Bosh a Hall of Famer? Not yet.), and their success depends on it. 

The thing about the Lakers is that they have two pretty impressive defensive players on the wings. Kobe Bryant and Metta World Peace have squared off against the Heat's dynamic duo 16 times, and they've spit the series at eight wins apiece. In those games, James has averaged 25.7 points, 6.6 assists and 6.7 rebounds—all below his career averages. 

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" to "superstar" status. 

Coincidentally, Wade and Kobe Bryant have also faced 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. 

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.

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. These two are fairly evenly matched

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

Neither team is renowned for their bench play anyway, and bench rotations are downsized 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 stats compiled for a single opponent, so you can't draw too many conclusions from that. 

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. The young Lakers big man has a clear edge over Udonis Haslem at center. In fact, it's hard to imagine how Haslem would be able to guard the much bigger Bynum. 

Getting help from Bosh is not an option, either. If you put Bosh on Bynum, the mismatch persists, with Haslem trying to guard Gasol.

The bottom line is the Heat have defensive answers for 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. On the other hand, Miami 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.