NBA Playoffs

[MikMo]

Guess Nike is going to have to make a Dwight Howard puppet now.

[steer]

The Magic are a better team than the Cavs. This series should've been 4-0. It would have been that way, if Lebron didn't hit a last second shot. Magic live or die at the 3 point line. It's killed them ,and then it's helped them bury teams.
Lebron is great, he's the closest thing to Michael Jordan that we'll ever see. Lebron just flows better in the game than Kobe does.
Take the king away from Cleveland, they don't even make the playoffs this past year. Having him play at high standards, made his team better.

Dwight Howard is as close to Shaq-ness as we'll ever get. He's a force to be dealt with down low, and has insane ups.

The Magic proved in the season what they could do to the Cavs without King James. They were beating them by 41 at 1 point during the game.
The Magic get going, and they get going....

I'm hoping for a 4-0 sweep of the series, but we've been known to blow some big leads. So, it'll be 4-0 Magic, or 4-2 Magic.
Dwight MVP of Championship series.

[steer]

Guess Nike is going to have to make a Dwight Howard puppet now.

We were joking about that at work yesterday. I'm actually hoping that they start pumping out the Superman shirts for Dwight Howard. I'd like to get my hands on 1.

[CoeburnCane]

I'll go ahead and go on record as saying I was wrong about this series and in particular about how the Cavs would play, and how much the two earlier series affected the Magic.

I underestimated how big of an advantage that Orlando would have on the glass, and I honestly didn't think they could continue shooting the 3pter as well as they had been--but they did. I also thought the supporting cast for Cleveland would play a lot better than they did throughout the series. The only time you saw them show up was in game 5, and we saw how well Cleveland fared against Orlando there. But--as I've said plenty of times--one game doth NOT make a series.

I'll go ahead and make a prediction for the LA/Orlando series--nip & tuck for about 4-5 games, and even though both good teams are just that..."good teams", what's gonna be the difference is Phil Jackson vs Stan Van Gundy. I'll take Jackson and his coaching skills over Van Gundy's every day of the week and 2x on Sundays. Plus--since Cleveland's not in the finals, LA has homecourt. So I'll also predict a blue million posts on here between Thursday night after the game and the end of the Finals about how bad the officiating is going to go in LA's favor. No matter what--I believe LA wins in 6-7 games--LA's one of the best road teams in the NBA--so I think they can take a game in Orlando. I think LA's homecourt advantage will hold up except for maybe 1 game, so it's just a matter of taking 1 in Orlando or not that will decide the 6 or 7 games.

[steer]

Orlando was still the only team to to sweep the series against the Lakers this year... lets hope that carries over into Thursday nights first game.

[R13]

Cavs could have took this one in 5 just as easy. Had a huge lead in the first game, blew it..second, almost blew it..third the Magic controlled..4th blew it and 5th they won. Howard is good and CAN be a beast, but he's nowheres near Shaqs dominance..still has a lot of game to develop, but he's capable of being very great.

[steer]

I said he's the closest thing to Shaqness we'll see in the game. Lebron is the closest thing we'll see to MJ.

Cavs couldn't take this in 5 just as easy, or they would have.
They didn't, plain and simple. Magic were the better team.

[Biggin]

i was flat out wrong

i said cleveland's team was as good as orlando's, when it wasn't. when orlando is hitting their three's they are almost unbeatable.
and cleveland did not match up well with orlando at all. inside orlando just ravaged them, and cleveland had no answer for the long rashard lewis and long hedo turkolo

lebron is jus amazing, but i dont know what happened in the last game, he was nowhere to be found in the second and fourth quarter, he disappered.


the finals are gonna be really interesting, i think howard will abuse gasol inside , pau is really weak and not going to want to bang with howard, neither will bynum really, so i think orlando def. has the advantage at the five.
the lakers will fair better with the long shooters than the cavs did, lamar odom can cover lewis or turkolo,and ariza will guard the other, both will be able to get on the big shooters better than the smal guards of the cavs. that leaves kobe guarding pietrus, which LA had the advantage, and fisher guarding alston, which will be an interesting matchup. i give the edge to fisher for experience, but he is def. showing signs of age, and alston does have really good ballhandling skills so he may be able to get around fisher at times.

i have a feeling that it will come down to wheter orlando is shooting 45% from three, or LA is able to stay on the shooters, not have to double down inside, and not allow too many open three's.


but dont count it orlando's defense; at times it can be extremely stingy and the second best D ive seen besides boston's.
orlando and LA are both battle tested, but the LA roster has tons of exerpience in the playoffs while orlando hasnt been this far since the original superman and penny tore it up.


i say LA in 6

[Biggin]

I said he's the closest thing to Shaqness we'll see in the game. Lebron is the closest thing we'll see to MJ.

Cavs couldn't take this in 5 just as easy, or they would have.
They didn't, plain and simple. Magic were the better team.

i dont ness. believe that 100%;


orlando was able to shoot an INSANE percentage behind the three point line; i doubt they will ever shoot that good again.

[MikMo]

I think the series key for the Lakers will be how well they defend the 3. They can't afford to bang Howard to much...besides Bynum, they really don't have depth at that position. You can say Gasol and Odom are solid centers, but they flourish at power forward. Let Howard score his and focus on defending Turkoglu and Lewis and the other 3 point threats of the Magic. If they can pull that off successfully, I look for the Lakers to win 4-2. However, if the Magic get the 3's rolling with Howard's inside presence like they did against Cleveland, it may be ugly for the Lakers with the Magic taking it 4-1.