NBA Finals 2013: What Miami Heat, San Antonio Spurs Must Do To Win League Title

The 2013 NBA Finals are set to commence on Thursday evening, with the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs the only two teams worthy of the league title after a full regular season and three rounds of the postseason. 

The Spurs have won four NBA titles in the history of their franchise, the first coming in the 1999 lockout-shortened campaign against the New York Knicks. The Heat have two league titles in their franchise's history, winning in 2006 and 2012. They lost to the Dallas Mavericks in 2011. 

Both squads were two of the NBA's best teams during the 2012-13 season, with Miami leading the league in wins while San Antonio finished in third in that department. Each team has also had considerable success in the NBA Finals, too, as noted by this tweet from ESPN:

"Big Three" is a phrase you'll hear thrown out a lot in this series, with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh captaining the Heat while Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan do the same for San Antonio each night. 

Those players, and the accompanying roster pieces of note (Shane Battier, Ray Allen, Udonis Haslem and others), bring considerable experience to the table, as noted by Alex Kennedy in this tweet:

Miami won both games against San Antonio this season, but neither complete "Big Three" played in either of those contests—the last time each full squad squared off was all the way back in 2011. That being said, we don't have a lot to go on heading into this series. 

As Matt Moore of CBS Sports put it, this has been one of the hardest finals to peg in the last few years, largely because both teams faced "big" teams in the conference finals. That's not the primary lineup we'll see for either in the final few games of the season. 

Keeping that assertion in mind, here's a look at what both Miami and San Antonio must do to emerge from this battle to capture the Larry O'Brien championship trophy. 

NBA Finals 2013 Schedule

Gm.	Date	Away Team	Home Team	TV	Time (ET)
1	Thursday, June 6	San Antonio Spurs	Miami Heat	ABC	9:00 p.m.
2	Sunday, June 9	San Antonio Spurs	Miami Heat	ABC	8:00 p.m.
3	Tuesday, June 11	Miami Heat	San Antonio Spurs	ABC	9:00 p.m.
4	Thursday, June 13	Miami Heat	San Antonio Spurs	ABC	9:00 p.m.
5*	Sunday, June 16	Miami Heat	San Antonio Spurs	ABC	8:00 p.m.
6*	Tuesday, June 18	San Antonio Spurs	Miami Heat	ABC	9:00 p.m.
7*	Thursday, June 20	San Antonio Spurs	Miami Heat	ABC	9:00 p.m.

Note: Schedule via ESPN.com. 
* denotes if necessary

What Each Team Must Do to Win NBA Title

Miami Heat

The league's best team in the regular season (66-16), the Miami Heat come into the finals boasting a 27-game winning streak this year, the league's best player (James), last year's championship in their trophy case and a seven-game series win over the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals. 

James has proven that he can single-handedly win games by himself yet again this postseason—Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals comes to mind, when LBJ took the third quarter and made it his own. 

Forced to use Chris Andersen and even Joel Anthony at times against the Pacers, the Heat will likely try to hide James or Shane Battier on Tiago Splitter if they choose to go small against the Spurs—a strategy that allows shooters (second in the league in the regular season in three-point percentage at 39.6) to space the floor while James and Wade attack off the dribble. 

On offense, the Heat are at their best when they are out in transition. James is the hardest player to defend on the planet in the open court. He can run past you, run around you and jump over you at the rim en route to a demoralizing basket. 

Point guards Mario Chalmers and Norris Cole usually do a good job of pushing the pace off of an opponent's miss, but the grind-it-out Pacers limited Miami's chances in the open court and slowed the pace of the game down enough in wins to make the Heat uncomfortable. 

Head coach Erik Spoelstra must find a way to combat the fact that San Antonio gives up more rebounds than their opponents (over 45 per game in the playoffs) and force the Heat to attack the glass—make or miss. Miami did that to perfection in Game 7 against the highly-touted rebounding of Indiana, and it wound up winning by 20-plus. 

On defense, expect the Spurs to push Miami's athleticism and pure tenacity to the limit. 

As noted by Chris Sheridan in this piece picking the Spurs to win in seven games, San Antonio is one of the best pick-and-roll teams in the league because the offense is always efficient and the man running the set—Tony Parker—does it better than anyone else. 

Miami won't have to worry as much about physical play down low as it will the crafty, persistent nature that San Antonio embodies. There's a difference between physicality and hustle, and the Spurs bring both in a different way than anything else Miami has seen this season. 

X-factors for the Heat include Dwyane Wade, who struggled mightily until Game 7 against Indiana, and Chris Bosh, who will both have to contend with the offense of Splitter and Duncan while finding his mid-range stroke against the SA defense. 

Miami is one of the few teams in the league that can adjust to anything thrown its way because of personnel, coaching and James simply being better than anyone else, but San Antonio is a different beast to conquer. 

An NBA Finals win would prove that Miami has come full circle since 2010 and is in the midst of what fans everywhere like to call a dynasty. 

San Antonio Spurs

The NBA's most consistent team in terms of franchise success, character and sportsmanship, the Spurs are back in the finals for the first time since 2007—the last time the Alamo City held a parade in their honor. 

Led by Parker's 23.0 points per game in the playoffs, San Antonio made quick work of Los Angeles and Memphis despite struggling a bit against Golden State in the second round of the 2013 playoffs.

Duncan and Ginobili have been no slouch, either, with the former drinking from the fountain of youth each game and playing lights out on both ends of the court. The Argentinian shooting guard has been good, too, as his game-winner against the Warriors helped San Antonio turn that series completely around. 

There's no team in the NBA that does it quite like the Spurs on offense. 

From three-point shooting (top-five in both regular and postseason) to execution on a nightly basis, head coach Gregg Popovich trusts his team to run the set correctly, avoid trying to play "hero ball" or using isolation sets exclusively—a trend that is slowly dying in the NBA. 

San Antonio doesn't beat you only with talent or the sheer attitude of "we're better than you and we know it," instead using basketball intelligence in tandem with that talent to produce a system that has produced four titles since 1999. 

At the center of it is Duncan, who will find himself on the block, 15-18 feet away from the basket or in space with the ability to attack the basket—all parts of Pop's offense that benefit the Spurs against an aggressive Miami defense. 

San Antonio's three-point shooting and individual defense (i.e. Kawhi Leonard on James) might be the two keys to the game that you will see throughout the series, another to pay close attention to is the production San Antonio can get from its bench. 

Popovich relied heavily on his second and sometimes third unit during the regular season, largely to save legs like Duncan's from heavy wear and tear. He was rewarded to the tune of 37.2 points and over 45 percent shooting from his bench this year—numbers that, according to HoopsStats.com, put San Antonio in the top six so far, including playoffs. 

Indiana, a team Miami struggled with, got only 24 points per game from its bench this year and survived against the Heat even though the second unit shot a league-worst 39.2 percent from the floor when on the court. 

Gary Neal, Ginobili, Matt Bonner and Boris Diaw are all important parts of San Antonio's second unit, and all bring a different skill to the table. Neal is great at scoring points in bunches, Ginobili is a star in his own right, Bonner stretches the floor from three and is a stingy post defender while Diaw can be a point forward in the offense. 

The bench also helps San Antonio accomplish what NBA.com's John Schuhmann thinks will be a telling stat in the series—hitting the corner three-pointer with success. 

Danny Green and Leonard are key to that success, too, and San Antonio and Miami both shoot the ball well from the three-point line in both the regular and postseason. Currently No. 2 and No. 3 on the league playoff list, whichever team decides to stiffen up from the outside will likely lose a big chunk of their offense. 

While offensive execution lies with San Antonio's advantages in this series, the Heat also can beat you in a number of different ways. Popovich might have an advantage on Spoelstra because he knows his team so well and makes adjustments better than any coach in the game, but the Heat are quietly becoming an adaptable force. 

One such way the Spurs will try to curb James is to force him to shoot the jumper. Although he's no slouch from midrange, the Spurs don't have the shot-blocking at the rim to deter James, Wade or anyone else from coming into the paint full-steam. 

One-on-one defense is another story, but I doubt we'll see Bosh, Haslem or anyone not named James in a post-isolation set against San Antonio's crafty big men. 

The shooting guard matchup of Ginobili vs. Wade intrigues me greatly, as both are somewhat inconsistent scorers who can shoot their teams out of (or into) a game at any time. 

The backup point guard matchup of Cole vs. Cory Joseph should also be a key factor to pay attention to, as Cole has made Chalmers expendable this year. Meanwhile, Joseph has quietly carved out a regular role behind Parker for about 10-15 minutes per game. 

San Antonio will be well-prepared, well-rested and experience on its side in this series. Miami has the league title in its hands and the league's best player to employ at any time. Both teams will have to make adjustments after every game in this series, and the team that does it to continued success will likely wind up with a city parade in late June. 

Follow Bleacher Report Featured Columnist Ethan Grant on Twitter: