Orlando (United States) (AFP)
They want to come back to the top.
On the one hand, the Lakers of LeBron James, favorites and carried by the spirit of Kobe Bryant;
on the other hand the Heat, carefree outsider guided by Jimmy Butler: the NBA final which begins Wednesday is unprecedented in more than one way.
It's an unprecedented season in the history of the league as it enters its very final stretch, almost a year after starting.
However, it almost turned into annus horribilis.
First there was the diplomatic crisis with China, the result of a tweet from a Houston leader in support of the Hong Kong protesters.
Then there was the disappearance of the former emblematic commissioner David Stern, then the immeasurable shock of the death of Kobe Bryant, whose memory is more vivid than ever at the time of this final, the first of the Lakers ten years after his 5th and last coronation.
And then there was this March 11, date on which Adam Silver decided to interrupt the season after Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus.
After four and a half months, despite the health crisis that hit the United States hard, causing more than 204,000 deaths, gambling resumed in the Disney World bubble.
But if the players were well protected from Covid-19, the police violence against blacks hit them in the heart, after an officer was shot in the back of Jacob Blake in Kenosha (Wisconsin) at the end of August, as after the death of George Floyd, suffocated during his arrest in Minneapolis two months earlier.
- Record Lakers?
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Angry, the Milwaukee Bucks boycotted their game against Orlando and it came close to making it all stop once again.
Some felt that in these special conditions, behind closed doors, without public support or home advantage, the team that would lift the trophy would not have the same respect due to any other champion.
That an asterisk would be appended to this line on the list.
This asterisk will on the contrary give all its value to this champion, as Austin Rivers (Houston) rightly explained before the resumption.
"We're asking guys, who've been off for 3-4 months, to come back, to find the chemistry, to play during a pandemic and being focused on Black Lives Matter. And during that time, players are going to quit. their family to live in a bubble. For all these reasons and more, I think this will be one of the hardest titles to win. "
If this is the first time in the history of the NBA that two teams that did not participate in the play-offs the previous season find themselves in the finals of the following year, they, although never having been still faced at this stage, are used to these games.
The Lakers are running for a 17th title to tie Boston's record, the Heat a 4th for their 6th final in 15 years.
- Butler has the key -
What connects them, is obviously LeBron James.
He was already champion with Miami in 2012 and 2013. Erik Spoelstra was already the coach but few found merit in him at the time, as long as he was "King", Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
James, who will play his 10th final, was then crowned in 2016 with Cleveland and dreams at 35 of being so with a different third team, like Robert Horry and John Salley.
And he will have the indispensable Anthony Davis to help him also honor the memory of the idol Kobe Bryant, who died accidentally in January.
"That's why I came here," he said on Saturday after stepping into Denver.
"I heard what was said about the supposed reasons that made me go to LA, that it was not for basketball ... My (groin) injury last year fueled that, but never affected my state of mind or interfered with my purpose. "
On his path will stand Jimmy Butler, leader of the Heat, also well surrounded by the talented Bam Adebayo, Goran Dragic and Tyler Herro.
This team showed that it knew how to fight by dismissing Milwaukee (4-1) then Boston (4-2).
"The key, and it's been like that for a very long time if we want to win, is that we will have to go over LeBron James. We can not focus on him because he has a lot of very good players around, but the test stays the same over and over again, it's LeBron James, "Butler summed up.
© 2020 AFP