The Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers are playing on the NBA playoffs schedule on Sunday for the first game of the eastern conference finals and the matchups comes at 3:30 pm ET on ABC and streaming from the WatchESPN website and has LeBron James and Dwyane Wade matching up with Indy as the number two seed and now the Pacers have what they want, a rematch from last season with home court advantage.
The Pacers have played terribly at times through the playoffs, but now they are here in the eastern conference finals and this will be the chance for Indy to win over the team after losing last season in seven games, but that was in Miami. The Pacers played all season whining about how they were better than the Heat and that all they needed was home court advantage to win and now they are in that position, so it's time to put up or shut up for Indiana. Roy Hibbert finally woke up after being invisible at times in the playoffs and he likely will be the key for the series for the Pacers, as Miami does not have a player to matchup with him that is as good as Hibbert apart from Chris Bosh.
The Heat have played very well during the playoffs and they finished the Brooklyn Nets in five games after defeating the Bobcats in a four game sweep and now they match up with the Pacers. Indiana was terrible early and they should have lost the series to the Hawks before getting lucky and winning and then they were able to pull together to get past the Wizards. The Pacers don't care how they looked or how they played in the first two series because all that matters now is that they are into the conference finals against Miami.
James led the team with nearly 30 points and also added nine rebounds in the last game against the Miami Heat and now he will try and lead his team to a 1-0 victory on Sunday afternoon. The series is expected to be heated and physical, as Lance Stephenson has already made some comments about being physical with Wade and that could come back to bite him and with the way James and Bosh have been playing with each other that will be a concern for the Pacers as well and now Indiana will finally try to beat Miami. The team has matched up in each of the last three years, now the last two in the east finals and Miami has won all of those matchups.
The Pacers thought they had the series two years ago when they were up 2-1 in the series, but Miami came back and won three straight games and that was the year Miami won its first title with James. Miami can really earn the championship this year for their third in a row, as they are playing the best team in the east that they have matched up with over the past two years, while they also will matchup with one of the teams they won the title over in each of the past two seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs as the teams left in the west.