OKC Thunder: 3 keys to watching the 2020 NBA Finals

The OKC Thunder joins basketball fans as they witness the Lakers and Heat play the first-ever NBA Finals conducted inside a bubble.

The Disney bubble is down to two squads as the NBA Final participants were cemented this past weekend. The Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat will tip-off Wednesday, September 30th.  For fans of the OKC Thunder, the season while wildly entertaining will always have so many ‘what if’s’ associated with it.

Although the Thunder lost in the first round it came down to the final play. Plus it did seem like the team who moved on (the Houston Rockets) wore down in their series versus the Lakers.

The other what if that will tickle our grey matter is how our OKC Thunder would’ve matched up versus LA. Although the Lakers two superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis are a handful their team hasn’t established a reliable third scoring option and aren’t particularly adept offensively.

NBA Finals set to tip-off September 30th

The Lakers path to the Finals went through a tired Portland Trail Blazers squad who lost Damian Lillard a few games into the series, a Rockets squad the Thunder pushed to seven games (and also suffered losses to key personnel), and a Nuggets crew who went through two grueling seven-game series.

The Lakers were never fully tested, although a fresher Nuggets team might’ve pushed them deeper. That’s why we’ll always wonder how the OKC Thunder would’ve fared against LA given the team’s stellar defense and issues defending and stopping guards. The Nuggets were the only team that served up a strong point guard (Jamal Murray) and defense albeit it wasn’t on display in every game.

As for the East, the Miami Heat arrive at the Finals having lost only three games like their counterparts. Their path went through a sweep of the injury-riddled Pacers, a gentleman’s sweep of the league’s top team the Milwaukee Bucks, and the conference finals versus the Boston Celtics.