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Saturday night, the Miami Heat defeated the Boston Celtics in theEastern Conference Finals, securing their second straight trip tothe NBA Finals. The end results weren't unexpected, even the NBA itselfhad begun pre-selling "Beat the Heat" t-shirts to fans of the Western Conference Champion Oklahoma City Thunderin preparation. What was unexpected was that an old and brokenCeltics team had pushed the series to seven games. Maybe even moresurprising was that when LeBron James and company finally put themaway, instead of being weakened by the long fight, the brutalseries seemed to have tested their resolve and made them evenstronger. Despite this victory the question remained: were they agood enough team to beat Kevin Durant's Thunder team, a team thatjust who had just defeated a brilliant San Antonio Spurs team thatwas riding a 20 game win streak? If only the two teams could battleeach other in some sort of "best of seven" series in order tosettle this. Wait, what? The NBA has one of those? Well, let's lookahead at that then. 1. LeBron James vs. Kevin Durant Make no mistake, when we're talking about the Miami Heat and theOklahoma City Thunder, we are talking about LeBron James and KevinDurant. Commissioner David Stern is no doubt thrilled that thesetwo players, arguably the two best players in the NBA, will bebattling each other in prime time in his sport's marquee event.Expect the NBA to promote this Finals matchup more as a "James vs.Durant" heavyweight fight than as a competition between two teams,and it has every right to do so. In a star-driven league like this,the Finals may come down to which team's major star shines thebrightest on the game's biggest stage. To simplify things even further, when we're talking about LeBronJames and Kevin Durant, we're actually only really talking aboutLeBron James. Ever since the Decision, Kevin Durant has beendefined against LeBron, he's really been sold as the anti-James.Kevin Durant is not quite as talented as his de facto rival, butover his career he's come through more often in late-game pressuresituations. If some players indeed are clutch, a debatable point,then Durant is clearly the most clutch player in the league today,and has made multiple game-winners in this postseason alone. These qualities, along with an understandable hatred of the wholeKing James Cultural Phenomena (copyright Nike), cause some peopleto rank Durant over James. The Eastern Conference Finals, however, have drastically alteredthe narratives swirling around LeBron, there's only one KevinDurant but there seems to be several LeBron Jameses now. Will wesee the LeBron James of game six of the Conference Finals, who tookover the game with the fierce intensity of a Michael Jordan or KobeBryant, or maybe the LeBron James of game seven who finally provedto his critics that he could dial it up an extra notch in the fourth quarter of a big game ? Or will the Incredible Shrinking James of the series' game five,as well as countless other previous big games, make an unexpectedreappearance? It seems as though this series against the Celticscaused a noticeable sea change in James, but will the more talentedThunder team let this new James appear? EDGE: MIAMI. This is no longer your Skip Bayless's LeBron. 2. The Other Starters No player, no matter how great, is capable of winning a NBAChampionship entirely on his own, although LeBron James's criticswill try to convince you that the opposite is true. Just call itthe "Even MJ needed Pippen" Rule. While the big guns will begetting the main attention, the series between the Thunder and Heatmay be won or lost by the rest of the starting lineup. If "Jamesvs. Durant" is the main fight in the NBA Finals, then the undercardmost certainly will be "Wade vs. Westbrook". Who would have guessed back in the beginning of the season, astrade rumors swirled around him, that Oklahoma City's RussellWestbrook would enter the NBA Finals as a more dangerous playerthan Miami's Dwyane Wade. Whether it's injury or justineffectiveness, Wade has played a miserable postseason,practically disappearing at times in the series against Boston. Ashis tangible contributions have decreased, the once likeable Wadeseems to have taken a heel turn, flopping more often and getting areputation for dirty fouls. Meanwhile, Westbrook, a player with anot-unearned reputation for selfish play, has settled comfortablyas the number two option in the series. Westbrook has done nocomplaining when Durant's last-second shots detract attention fromthe fact that he's outperformed his more famous teammate at times.Heck, Russell Westbrook even has beat Dwyane Wade in the geek glassescategory . Unless there's a drastic change, Westbrook will be more of afactor in this series than Wade. If Heat power forward Chris Bosh were fully healthy, or evenpenciled into the starting lineup, there's no question that therest of the Heat's starting lineup would be superior to theThunder. Although Oklahoma City's shooting guard Thabo Sefolosha ismaking himself a household name, at least as much as ThaboSefolosha could ever be a household name, Serge Ibaka and centerKendrick Perkins have so far not matched the contributions ofMiami's Mario Chalmers and Shane Battier. Ibaka had a 11-for-11 shooting night in game four of the WesternConference Finals , but that seems fairly unrepeatable. However, the longer the Heathas to play Udonis Haslem, who leads the league in BroadcastersMentioning That You Hate Him On Their Team But You'd Love Him If HePlayed On Your Team, the more that difference will even out. EDGE: OKLAHOMA CITY. Assuming Chris Bosh isn't fully healthy. 3. The Bench Okay, this preview has ridden the starters pretty hard, it's timeto give them some rest and let the bench players take over. Don'tlook past the bench, in this era of specialization, these so-calledrole players can be difference makers. They're not all BrianScalabrines. In fact, one of the key shifts in the WesternConference Finals occurred in game five when San Antonio Spurs headcoach Gregg Popovich moved Manu Ginobili from his role as Sixth Maninto the starting rotation. Ginobili was more productive in thestarting role, but the move disrupted the flow of the entire team,leading to some critics to speculate if Popovich was panicking. For all intents and purposes, the Oklahoma City Thunder's bench isshooting guard James Harden, he of the Mighty Beard and 2012 SixthMan of the Year fame. In fact, Harden is so central to theThunder's chances that he might as well call himself "The Bench".Harden, honestly, could be Oklahoma City's third best player, andit just illustrates how important the bench is when a team findsone of their best players is more valuable out of the startingrotation. Harden has the potential to single-handedly win a game inthese playoffs. After Harden, however, the Thunder's bench gets pretty thin. Powerforward Nick Collison is the bench's second biggest contributor,and although he's been helpful, he has yet to be quite as impactfulas his cool, private detective-esque name suggests. Then there'sthe curious case of Designated Veteran Presence Derek Fisher, thelong time Los Angeles Lakers point guard who was dealt away in thetrading deadline, only to latch on with Oklahoma City and knock offhis previous team. Certainly that's a few karma points in favor ofthe Thunder, if nothing else. Sheesh, no wonder Kevin Durantlobbies his coach to play complete games. Unless the Miami Heat decided to start Udonis Haslem and use ChrisBosh off the bench, they don't have anyone approaching a JamesHarden. Mike Miller and James Jones are around mainly for theirability to drain three-point shots. Rookie point guard Norris Colehad some key moments early in the regular season but has beenregulated to backup duty with Mario Chalmers's postseason success.Beyond them, center Dexter Pittman provides flagrant fouls off thebench while his fellow center Eddy Curry is on the team solely togive casual fans a mild surprise when they learn that Eddy Curry isstill in the league. EDGE: OKLAHOMA CITY . For one reason only: Fear the beard. 4. The coaches Neither Finals team has a head coach of the caliber of a PhilJackson or a Pat Riley, unless those rumors about Heat Coach EricSpoelstra being operated by remote control are true, but theirrespective coaches outlasted some pretty great company. OklahomaCity's Scott Brooks outcoached Head Coach of the Year GreggPopovich in the Western Conference Finals. Meanwhile, Spoelstra'sHeat squad provided a sour ending to what may have been Doc Rivers'finest season as head coach of the Boston Celtics. In the NBA, ofcourse, coaching doesn't matter as much as the players you have,but both of these guys have some pretty good players. EDGE: OKLAHOMA CITY. I'm going with the guy whose job wasn't potentially on the line asrecently as two games ago. 5. Contributing factors and also possibly non-contributing factors HOME COURT ADVANTAGE Note to Oklahoma City and Miami: The White Out idea is dumb. I haveno idea why it's supposedly intimidating for the entire fanbase towear the same colored shirts, but it's not. Yes, it looks kind ofcool in high definition, but I don't see what exactly you're tryingto accomplish here other than prove the fact that sports fans arelemmings and we already kind of knew that. Oh, yeah, and in a factor that may actually affect the series, theOklahoma City Thunder have an actual home court advantagethroughout the seven game series. No, it was not based on theresults of the NBA All-Star Game, Bud Selig. EDGE: OKLAHOMA CITY. Because what if we have it backwards, what if the fans are the onesinspiring their team? MUSIC CELEBRITY Oklahoma City isn't known as a musical hotbed, but as we havepointed out before, they do have the hometown Flaming Lips to provide them with their postseason anthem this year . As much as some of us more indie rock types may preferorchestrated psych-rock, there's no question that Miami has biggercelebrities, not to mention sound machines. EDGE: MIAMI. The NBA Finals are a big stage and more people know Gloria Estefan than the Flaming Lips. Sorry Pitchfork Media readers. TEAM NAMES If I have to struggle with whether to write "the Miami Heat is" or"the Oklahoma City Thunder are" one more time I'm going to subjectthe parties responsible with these teams name with nonstop 2011-12Charlotte Bobcats footage. There are plenty of non-awkward pluralnouns you guys could have picked. EDGE: NOT APPLICABLE. Seriously, I hate the both of you so much. . FINAL PREDICTION: Oklahoma City Thunder OVER the Miami Heat in 6. LeBron James is athis peak, but if Dwyane Wade is still giving uneven performancesand Chris Bosh isn't fully healthy, he's not going to be able todefeat this superior Oklahoma City Thunder by himself. It's goingto be fun to watch him try though. 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