Fans are still immersed in James Lebron’s great performance Thursday night, and the showdown of Game 7 is coming tonight in Miami court. This game will determine the fate of Miami Heat and Boston Celtics as who will play against Oklahoma City Thunders at the final.
And before the game begins, here are some of the numbers you may want to know.
First of all, Celtics has most experience in playing Game 7 in the league. No one wants to take lightly on the combo of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen, but especially when you meet them in Game 7. Since the trio began playing together, the Celtics has fought Game 7 for 6 times, and they won 4 of them. The most recent one is the 85-75 win over Philadelphia 76ers in this season’s conference semifinals.
And if you look at the team’s history, we see something more surprising. Tonight’s fight is the Celtics’ 29th Game 7 in their franchise, which is the most in NBA’s history. And of their previous 28 Game 7 matches, Celtics won 21 of them, also the most in NBA history.
On the other hand, the Heat has played only five Game 7’s in the franchise history, and they only won two of the five previous Game 7 matches. But if this could be comforting, Heat never played Game 7 after the Big 3 – LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh – assembled.
The positive information for the Heat, for obvious reasons, is the location. NBA history shows that home teams have a significantly better chance of winning Game 7s, by 88-22, in all previous games.
Of course, those are just numbers, some would say. No one can really ignore the MVP’s 73 percent success rate in Game 6 who also averages 34 points per game in the series.
We have reasons to believe that the players in both teams have been well prepared for this game. Everyone is confident, but no one wants to be over confident.
"I won’t regret Game 7. Win, lose or draw, I'm going to go in with the mindset like I've had this whole season. And you know, we'll see what happens," James said.
"This team has been about adversity all year long, you know, so this is not going to be nothing new,” Paul said, “It's been tough for us all year long to get to the point here we would be at, and why wouldn't it be tough now? Winning is hard. Trying to get to the finals is hard. And this is as hard as it gets. And I think we are prepared for it.”
Kevin Garnett said, "Nothing's been easy up until this point. You know, can't expect it now. It is what it is. We're going to take these cards and play them. Lot of confident guys in here, lot of guys who've been through Game 7's, lot of experienced guys.”
"It's going to be a tough one. It's going to be a tough one, Game 7,” Wade said, “We look forward to it. I'm sure Boston will look forward to it as well. This is what NBA basketball is about."