As Game 5 approaches, there is one former Duke men’s basketball player still participating in the NBA Finals. That would be forward Shane Battier, who is looking to help the Miami Heat defend their title.

Battier with the 2012 trophy via @DukeBluePlanet (Twitter). Will he be holding it again this season?

Battier has not been playing alot in the finals (just an average of seven minutes per game). The Heat evened up the series at two last night with a 109-93 victory over the San Antonio Spurs (he scored two points).

In the first round sweep against Milwaukee, he averaged five points and two rebounds over 24.8 minutes. He scored ten points in their Game 2 victory over the Bucks. In the conference semifinals against Chicago (and former Duke teammate Carlos Boozer), Battier averaged six points and two rebounds over 21.8 minutes. He scored nine points in two games against the Bulls. In the conference finals against Indiana, he averaged 2.3 points in 16.2 minutes.

His shooting percentage has not been great throughout the postseason (just 21.3%).

On the season, Battier averaged 6.6 points and 2.3 rebounds over an average of 24.8 minutes per game.

Former Duke forward Shane Battier is headed to the NBA Finals, as the Miami Heat used a huge fourth quarter on Saturday night to beat the Boston Celtics in seven games.

In that Game 7, Battier started and scored 12 points on 4-of-9 shooting. He also had three steals. That was his best game of the conference finals, in which he started all seven games.

Battier and the Heat will face the OKC Thunder in the NBA Finals beginning on Tuesday night at 9pm ET on ABC. Not sure if he’ll continue to start with Chris Bosh back, but we will see.