Dallas and Miami will reprise their 2006 NBA Finals showdown as the Mavericks bounced the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Heat ran out the Chicago Bulls. Both the Mavericks and the Heat won their respective conference finals 4-1. It was an incredible display of veteran composure, experience and execution in the stretch, the lesson seems to have left an indelible impression on the younger Thunder and Bulls. Both of the younger teams were in every game, with Chicago even walloping Miami by 20-plus points to open their series. In the end though, the youth movement was stopped dead in its tracks.

Everyone in the NBA is always looking to get younger. Players once jumped straight out of high school and into the League. When the NBA mandated that high school players had to wait out at least a year after the graduation of their high school class to enter the League, the one-done phenomenon became all the rage. Derrick Rose, this year’s regular season Most Valuable Player, and the very young leader of these Bulls, is one such one-done player. Kevin Durant, who has been the leading scorer of the NBA since last year and the heart and soul of the Thunder, is yet another one-done young stud.

This seemed to be further validated in the second round of these playoffs when the relatively long of tooth Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics were eliminated by the Mavericks and Heat respectively. The two most storied and decorated franchises in NBA history were looking to make this their second meeting in a row in the NBA Finals, but they just didn’t seem to have enough motor or enough fire left to get past the conference semifinals. Relatively younger rosters with quicker, fresher bodies had passed them by and were now staking their own claim to NBA greatness.

Nowhere was this more evident than in Chicago, with its twenty-something stars led by Rose. Chicago had the MVP in Rose, the coach of the year in another newcomer to being a head coach in Tom Thibodeau, and a 62-win regular season that was the best in the NBA, the best indeed since the 1997-98 Bulls of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Thanks to Thibodeau they were playing superior defense as well, and moving that ball around much better. It seemed the newfound excitement in the Windy City wasn’t a mirage. They really were playing superb basketball, and it seemed a return to the NBA Finals was inevitable.

Oklahoma was just as young and rising just as meteorically. In Durant’s first year in Oklahoma City after moving out of Seattle, this franchise was a joke, and a lottery resident. Last year they nearly upended the Lakers in the semifinals. This year they were in their first Western Conference Finals. Durant, pointguard Russell Westbrook, forwards Serge Ibaka and James Harden are all only 22 years old or younger. Their “senior citizen” is center Kendrick Perkins, himself not old by NBA standards.

But in the conference finals things got a little wooly, and the youth of the young picked the wrong time to show. Dirk Nowitzki had two 40-point games over five games against the Thunder. In one game he had 24 perfect freethrows for a series-high 48 points. No one from Oklahoma City could keep up with the 7-foot German. Nick Collison, a 6-foot-10 power forward had some success bodying him up and bumping him from time to time. There were times his physical defense flustered the one-time MVP. But Nowitzki just would not be denied and he made the biggest shots that made certain Dallas would win this series.

For the Thunder, the fingers are now mostly pointed at Westbrook, this year a first-time All Star and an All-NBA Second Team Selection. Everyone keeps calling him a pointguard. He’s incredibly athletic, fast and strong, can dunk in traffic against bigger players, is a superb offensive rebounder for a small player, and has shown quick hands and great instincts on defense. Unfortunately the only real pointguard in this series is nearly 20 years older than he, and wore a Dallas uniform. Jason Kidd controlled the tempo, facilitated the offense, managed the clock and moved the ball, far better than Westbrook. A veteran of two NBA Finals appearances, Kidd showed his experience and Westbrook just couldn’t keep up.

In the east it looked like a more even match in terms of age and experience. But the Heat had legit championship credentials with Dwayne Wade and Udonis Haslem. Both led the Heat when they upended the Mavericks in the 2006 NBA Finals. With Dallas up 2-0 in the series, and leading for most of Game 3, Wade led a furious finishing kick and just kept going until they pulled it all out in Game 6. LeBron James has himself been to the NBA Finals already, getting his arse handed to him by Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs in 2007. For these Bulls, this was the furthest they’d ever gotten in the playoffs. James, Wade and Chris Bosh came together to try and establish a dynasty in South Beach, and with the return of the Heat to the NBA Finals, they are getting their first chance together to do just that.

Miami has homecourt advantage throughout the Finals, and Game 1 is set for Tuesday evening next week (Wednesday morning here in Manila). There shouldn’t be any running and gunning in this series as both teams will look to establish themselves inside and play the high-low and screen-roll right away. Any running will most surely be limited, with halfcourt execution and various looks on defense holding the keys to victory. Nowitzki and Jason Terry, the only two players left from that 2006 team that faced Wade and Haslem, should’ve learned their lesson by now, that no series and no game lead is safe.

This may indeed be turning into a younger and younger NBA, but in these playoffs, the young were truly restless, listless and clueless.