New Jersey was worse than Cleveland imo.
But they won two games in the series. 1pt and 2pts.
The 4th quarter of the last game of the series
I believed showed the true Nets. 19-0 zip Spurs run
when it was close. NJ just folded.

I dont think with Duncan it has so much to do with geography as much as style. I love him but he is BORING. His nickname is "the big fundamental". How boring is that? There is nothing exciting about his game. He is simply great and for my money will go down as the best power forward of all time.

As for ABC/ESPN, i think they meant centers. All the guys named were centers.

Give Duncan Turkeyglue and Lewis and he Magically becomes a center.
Give Duncan Scola and Battier and he Rockets to the center position.
I think its a fairly silly designation as I have stated before.

Although the Spurs used it to get him starting in the Allstar game
because Yao got the most votes. (I personally dont give a flying flip
about the NBA allstar game, its an act of masturbation for the players)

And here we go again.
From ESPN; that is E as in EASTERN...

They had the second-best player in the league (Kobe), the second-best center (Pau Gasol), a talented forward with a unique set of skills (Lamar Odom), a breakout swingman (Trevor Ariza), a terrific leader and character guy at point (Derek Fisher), and that's about it. They caught three breaks from February on -- Kevin Garnett's knee injury killing Boston's season, Cleveland stupidly opting not to move Wally Szczerbiak's expiring contract for one more piece, and Yao Ming breaking his foot in Round 2 -- and cruised from there. You would not call them great, just very good. I would compare them to the 2003 Spurs, 2005 Spurs -- the cream of a flawed crop of contenders.


Dala you have the 2007 Spurs.
Phil has the 1999 Spurs.

No respect for one of the best team franchises in the history
of modern sports.

I have to say you win here. To say the 2005 Spurs were flawed is simply a bad opinion. To me, they were the basketball version of the patriots.

Simmons has lived in LA for the past several years.

Same difference.
East or West as previously posted.

Just not the middle of the country.
No good teams in the middle.

the greatest sports thread of all time!

Late

First round
Chicago in 5
Miami in 4
Boston in 6
Orlando in 7
SA in 6
LA in 4
Dallas in 6
OKC in 5

Second round
Orlando over Chicago in 7
Miami over Boston in 6
OKC over SA in 6
LA over Dallas in 7

CF
Miami over Chicago in 5
LA over OKC in 7

Finals
LA over Miami in 6

That was what I had prior to the playoffs starting. After round one, I picked
Atlanta over Chicago in 6. I just don't think Chicago is that good. To me, they were outplayed in the first four games by Indiana and Atlanta is a much better team than Indiana and is on a high with their confidence right now. They have too much overall athleticism for the Bulls.

Miami over Boston in 6. Neither team looked particularly good in round one but Boston was especially bad, having a ton of trouble with a severely depeleted Knicks team. Without that inside defensive presence of Perkins, they will need Garnett to play more minutes and be more of an enforcer and I don't know that he can still do that. James and Wade will both be dialed in extremely high for this series as it's personal to them and the fact remains that they are the two best players on the court and two of the three best in the world.

OKC over Memphis in 6. I really like Memphis but I think that the young athleticism of OKC wears them down a little. As Dalakhani said in another thread, Harden is on/off and when he's on, it makes them hard to beat. If he's on three times in this series, I give OKC two of those games. The brilliance of Durant will come out in at least one more and that will be three. Memphis needs huge games from Randolph everytime to have a shot and with Ibaka and Perkins down there, you have to figure that they slow him a couple of times.

LA over Dallas in 7. I had Dallas winning game one and then LA taking one in Dallas to make it a best of three at the end. I really with Caron Butler was playing here. I'd take Dallas then but without that scoring option, Dallas is just going to be too limited and I only think this goes seven because the Lakers allow it too. Nowitzki's big advantage has always been his quickness over the opposing big forward but with the Lakers, they can throw out Odom and Artest and negate that advantage. Terry can be defended by Bryant or Brown and I think Brown and Fisher can do a good job on Kidd since he's not that quick, penetrating type of guard that gives LA trouble like Chris Paul or Aaron Brooks or Deron Williams. The key will be keeping the games close for Dallas. If they do, Kobe tends to forget about passing the ball and the Lakers size advantage goes out of the window.

I am pretty much in agreement, I think Memphis may well take OK City to game 7 but in the end Durant and company have a little to much firepower for the young Memphis squad. Miami outplayed Boston twice in Miami but it will be interesting to see if they can do same in Boston...if they win one then the series probably goes 5.

LA, DOA, LOL, bye bye

:tro:

Disappointing performance by the Lakers today, being swept 4-0 and losing by over 30 points is bad enough but two cheap shot fouls leading to two players being ejected is disgraceful for a proud franchise....not the way for the greatest coach in NBA history to go out. So long Phil, it's been great. As far as the Lakers go, a major shakeup is probably coming as they looked old, tired and disinterested. If Dwight Howard is serious about playing for the Lakers, they should try and get him but they also need help at point guard and bench.

Man, the Bulls punished the Heat last night, really exposed their lack of an inside game along with their sloppy half court plays, gotta give the Bulls credit, they play great defense and board extremely well, Heat need a quick fix or they could be in trouble.

If the Bulls make their threes like they did last night, Miami could get swept. The Heat are simply no match for the Bulls on the glass, and while Chicago has guys who can bother Wade and LeBron, no one on Miami has a prayer against Rose. A young, athletic frontcourt like Chicago's will always give the Heat major problems. The fact that Jamaal Magloire got meaningful minutes this early in the series is a bad sign.

Most experts like to crown eastern conference false champions after two rounds. two years ago it was Clev, last year was Orlando, this year Miami. I thought the Heat were abysmal against Boston the last 3 games. They lost by 16 to a one armed point guard for a quarter and a half, got taken to OT in game 4 with an entire game by a one armed point guard, and were down 6 with 4 minutes left at home in game 5 against a one armed point guard. The common knowledge was the Bulls struggled mightily against the Pacers and Hawks, and though perhaps true, they were brutally efficent against ATL in games 5 and 6 thus showing an upward trend, while Miami was definitely on a downward trend in the BOS series. Chicago's game 6 against ATL was the best playoff game by any team so far this year. Miami peaked in game 1 against BOS and has been steadily declining since.

Thus far Derek Rose has two arms still. Miami can certainly come back but I liked what I saw in game 1.

If anyone doubts what you are typing, I want to know what adjustments Miami can make to change this series. They got outrebounded 45-33. Chicago shot 43% from the floor while miami shot 47%. If they commit more to the defensive boards, Korver and Deng will kill them and that's not even considering what Rose will do penetrating. The scary thing is that Rose was doubled much of the night.

It doesn't matter if Wade and Lebron play out of their minds for the rest of the series, Chicago is going to the finals.

I like OKC to win game one. They are in rhythm, Dallas hasn't played in a year, and Dallas is not a really strong home team anyway. I think Dallas rebounds and takes the series though. I'll say six.

I think Miami rebounds too. In my opinion, James and Wade are still two of the three best players in the world and they will play better tomorrow. Chicago will think that they have it made after the ease of game one and let off the gas just enough to allow Miami to sneak out of there with a win. I think they split in Miami also and then you have a best of three series, which I like Miami to win in two. So I like Miami in six.