Ira Winderman

MIAMI - The NBA Finals are when the template going forward is set.

In recent years that generally has meant either you have to have a big man or you have to have a point guard.

Or you could be the 2011-12 Miami Heat.

Center? They played the season's closing stages without one, Chris Bosh ultimately manning the middle.

Point guard? Well, you could call Mario Chalmers many things (and Lord knows most of the Heat players did in the midst of games, in most colorful terms), but true point guard is not one of them.

No, after these Finals, and this still resonating Heat championship, you likely will hear a lot more of what already is emanating from those pre-draft war rooms, "Best player available."

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Because that was the approach Pat Riley took in July 2010, when he famously paired LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, players with overlapping skill sets.

And it is the approach Erik Spoelstra took when he filled out his championship lineup, even though it ultimately meant adding yet another swingman to the mix.

In the cookie-cutter world of center, power forward, small forward, shooting guard and point guard, the Heat rolled with a championship lineup so muddled that it was almost impossible to tell, well, who's on first.

At various stages during the postseason, James jumped center, Shane Battier defended centers, Wade defended point guards, Chalmers was defended by a 6-foot-9 forward. All the while, Riley, whose perfect poultry apparently includes nothing but wings, sat by with a devilish smile, taking it all in.

For years, it had been so much about making pieces fit that the Thunder traded away part of their future for Kendrick Perkins, even though Perkins hardly could find a place to fit in this championship series.

It is why the Jordan Bulls never veered from the blueprints that force fed Bill Cartwright or Luc Longley into the mix.

Why the Phil Jackson Lakers continually searched for answers at point guard, repeatedly settling for Derek Fisher.

Because, as in baseball, the notion was you had to be strong up the middle.

Center and point guard.

And then this.

And then Spoelstra deciding enough was enough, that after spending two years in search of a ring while cycling through the likes of Joel Anthony, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Erick Dampier and Ronny Turiaf, that Bosh, lean and lithe, was the best answer in the middle, if not the most muscled solution.

And then after working through Carlos Arroyo, Mike Bibby and even an extended look at Norris Cole, Spoelstra decided that Chalmers was the best fit at point guard, even if not a fit at the position at all.

Positions? If position mattered then the team that already had James, Wade, Mike Miller and James Jones would not have made Battier their prime offseason acquisition in the first place. But that's where all the free-agency money went.

So Bosh moved from power forward to center.

Battier from sixth man wingman to starting power forward.

And Chalmers, not even a true point guard during his championship days at Kansas, was told simply to make plays, without necessarily playing as a play maker.

Make any sense?

Well it must have, because the Larry O'Brien Trophy once again calls Miami home.

"Our versatility," Spoelstra explained, "while it may seem unconventional to some, we think it's one of our greatest strengths."

Hannah Foslien / Getty Images The Week in Sports Pictures

It certainly had Thunder coach Scott Brooks in a state of confusion, one that left some wondering whether a better counter against a lineup without delineation would have been a defense without man-to-man delineation, namely a zone.

Perhaps not, because there was Battier, draining 3-pointers and justifying Riley's gambit on this three-wing circus.

"When everybody notices where Shane Battier is when the ball is going in," Spoelstra said. "We notice everything else before that, his versatility. He allows us to play our roster the way we need to, and we weren't necessarily able to do that last year.

"And so now we're able to play LeBron at several different positions, and same with Dwyane, and he kind of ties that all together."