NBA Finals Live Online
Both the Mavericks and Heat are making their second appearance in the NBA Finals, the first for both teams being the 2006. This Finals marks a rematch of the 2006 Finals, won by Miami in six games. It will be also the first time since 2006 that neither the Los Angeles Lakers nor the San Antonio Spurs will represent the Western Conference in the Finals and only the second time since 1998, and it will also be the thirteenth consecutive NBA Finals to feature a Western Conference Champion from either the states of California or Texas.
The Heat will have home-court advantage since they had a better regular-season record than the Mavericks This marks only the second time that the Eastern Conference had home court advantage during the Finals since the end of the Michael Jordan era in 1998. Among the players from both teams, only Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry of Dallas, and Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem of Miami, appeared in the 2006 series with the same team. Heat center Erick Dampier played for the Mavericks in 2006. Aside from Dampier, Juwan Howard and Shawn Marion are the only other players who have played for both the Mavericks and Heat. Eddie House, Žydrūnas Ilgauskas, LeBron James and Jason Kidd have appeared in the Finals with different teams, with House (as a member of Boston's 2008 championship team), Wade and Haslem winning a championship ring. Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle won a championship as a reserve for Boston's 1986 championship team.
