Adam Silver has said that he is glad that the NBA has been focused on the finals this week.
The news has been dominated by the Donald Sterling racism scandal in recent weeks, but the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers to Steve Ballmer has allowed the finals to grab the headlines this week.
The league commissioner told the Associated Press: "I'm pleased and proud that the attention is on the greatest basketball in the world.
"No question, in fairness to all the players and the teams, they worked so hard to get to this moment and a hot building is part of the competition in essence. And all those other things that we've been talking about the last several weeks are not."
The San Antonio Spurs beat the Miami Heat in the first game of the series earlier this week.