The San Antonio Spurs have been resting and the Miami Heat have been playing their hearts out, but Tim Duncan and company feels that the rest was a great gift and that even though the Heat have home court advantage, that won't make much of a difference in the playoffs.

Duncan has been playing like a man much younger and Tony Parker has been the MVP of the team so far and now they must play Game 1 against the Heat on the road after a week off. The Heat showed some rust when they swept the Bucks earlier in the playoffs and Miami is hoping that the Spurs follow that trend as they try to take a quick lead in the series.

LeBron James faced off against the Spurs in the finals once before in 2007 and now he will get the chance for revenge after the Spurs swept out the Cavs back then. James has been playing extremely well in the playoffs and he was one of the main reasons the team was able to win Game 7 against the Pacers, as he took over once again like he did in Game 5 and there was nothing that Paul George and company could do to stop him.

While some of the teams who were defeated in the playoffs, such as the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder, can console themselves with the knowledge their young squads have at least learned lessons for the future, the two finalists will be able to take no consolation from defeat. The Heat are in their third straight finals, having lost to Dallas in 2011 and beaten the Thunder last year, but such a feat was expected of them - and indeed promised - when they acquired James and Bosh in free agency in 2010.

For James, the meeting with the Spurs, which begins with Thursday's game in Miami, will be the second time he has come up against them in an NBA Finals. He played on the Cleveland Cavaliers team that lost to the Spurs in 2007. Frenchman Tony Parker and Argentine Manu Ginobili were part of those last three championship teams, providing a veteran core for the Spurs. The Heat's Big Three of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and their quality supporting cast, will start as odds-on favorites but the Spurs are the perfect example of the benefits of continuity.

For the Spurs, 37-year-old Tim Duncan is aiming for a fifth championship, having been part of San Antonio's triumphs in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2007. "My Cleveland team, we were very young, and we went up against a very experienced team, well‑coached team. And they took advantage of everything that we did," said James.

"This is our third final. So we're very experienced as well. We're not young, we're not inexperienced. We understand the opportunity that we have and I'm a much better player.

"I'm 20, 40, 50 times better than I was in the '07 Finals."

Inevitably, so much of the focus in the best-of-seven series will be on the performance of James, the league's most valuable player and one of the greatest in the game's history.

(Reuters Quotes)