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With all the Celtics mania, it's like most fans believe that the Finals is a given, but even with a 5 game difference a between the West's second best, we are looking at 8 teams separated by 2 and a half games and all 8 teams have the potential to beat us.

Are we (you) overlooking the West?

Only one team worries me and thats the spurs. If they get healthy, they can take us to 7 games but with all respect to other teams we should win in 5 or 6.

Houston and San Antonio are the only real threats to us. Not worried about New Orleans, Utah, Phoenix, Dallas, Portland or Denver.

If we played with the intensity we played yesterday, nobody in the West will have a chance, specially if we have home court.
That said, I think the Spurs are building up steam and will be a major factor in the playoffs.
I'm not too worried about the Rockets. We match up well with them. NO is also a great team but we match up with them also.

lakerRD wrote:If we played with the intensity we played yesterday, nobody in the West will have a chance, specially if we have home court.
That said, I think the Spurs are building up steam and will be a major factor in the playoffs.
I'm not too worried about the Rockets. We match up well with them. NO is also a great team but we match up with them also.

I agree.

I'm not overlooking the west, nor am I taking anything for granted. If we stay healthy and play with intensity we should have a good shot at coming out of the West. But the only team that probably scares me a bit is Houston. They have yet to be healthy yet this season and if they somehow get their team completely healthy and play at least 20 games together during the end of the season. They could be a dark horse team to watch out for in the playoffs. They already had good defense and probably defended Kobe the best I've seen. Now with the addition of Artest, they could be really really tough to get by. Their biggest obstacle of course is just staying healthy and playing enouh games together before the playoffs start.

All I know is that we need to keep on winning and not looking back till we hit the playoffs and by then hopefully we have H.C.A and then take care of each game and series as we have been doing one game at a time.
Keeping our H.C.A and staying healthy is the key, no matter who we play.
I could careless whos behind us as long as we keep moving forward without losing.
If anybody in the west needs to be concerned its the teams that are playing catchup to us.

Yeah, I usually don't care about this, but I want homecourt advantage. I think it is important for this team.

We shouldn't overlook anybody. Anybody. Anybody CAN take us down. I am confident we can beat everybody in the west though.

I don't worry about the Rockets. I worry more about Utah. They play tough when it is playoff time.

only real threats are a healthy rockets team and a healthy spurs team.

I agree the Rockets are a major threat if healthy and the Spurs have the veteran savvy you need to go against a team built like ours. Bottom line every series including those in the East has the threat of going 6 to 7 games.

lakerRD wrote:If we played with the intensity we played yesterday, nobody in the West will have a chance, specially if we have home court.
That said, I think the Spurs are building up steam and will be a major factor in the playoffs.
I'm not too worried about the Rockets. We match up well with them. NO is also a great team but we match up with them also.

you're right, as long as they play with the same intensity as the Celtics game, no one will have a chance, maybe they will get a win or two..but they won't win the series

If we're healthy, we're not going to lose to any team in the West.

The Spurs and Rockets are going to have to show me a hell of a lot more than they have this year before I'd consider them a real threat.

dcash4 wrote:only real threats are a healthy rockets team and a healthy spurs team.

+1, with extra emphasis on the word "healthy".

I'd also raise a red flag for Portland as an outsider. If they get it together in April, watch out. I'll never count out a team coached by Nate McMillan. He seems to always have an answer to Phil's strategies. If they're playing at their peak, they can upset this Lakers team in a series.

EDIT: The Nuggets are just one big man away from being a serious threat, too. Proves the true value of a smart and collected leader like Billups. Damn you, Mitch. I would have traded Odom and scraps for Billups in a heartbeat.

Erik Eleven wrote:

dcash4 wrote:only real threats are a healthy rockets team and a healthy spurs team.

+1, with extra emphasis on the word "healthy".

I'd also raise a red flag for Portland as an outsider. If they get it together in April, watch out. I'll never count out a team coached by Nate McMillan. He seems to always have an answer to Phil's strategies. If they're playing at their peak, they can upset this Lakers team in a series.

EDIT: The Nuggets are just one big man away from being a serious threat, too. Proves the true value of a smart and collected leader like Billups. Damn you, Mitch. I would have traded Odom and scraps for Billups in a heartbeat.

+1. Billups would have made us the team to beat for years to come. He would have put us over the top including favorites over the C's.

Yeah, some of us have been saying that for years. Too bad it didn't happen. It would surprise me if Mitch didn't try at least once or twice during the last few years.

It would be interesting to know if he tried to get Billups but we'll probably never know. I would think that the Lakers make that trade in a heartbeat although they would be even deeper into luxury tax for many more years to come with Billups.
I'm not sure what Dumars was trying to accomplish by giving away Billups. Was he trying to get money off the books to have a shot at LeBron? That's all I can think of. Why would anyone give up on a solid defensive stud PG like Billups for a one dimentional shoot first player like AI?

In any case, one can only dream of having Billups in the lineup w/ Kobe, Gasol, Bynum, and Ariza.

I think Dumars thought Stuckey was ready to handle the responsibility. He can really ball. To clear all that salary and not have a huge drop-off in PG play when losing Billups is pretty damn well done as far as GMing goes. Smooth transition from old to young. That takes foresight and long term building ability.

It must have been a combination of the two. The more minutes for Stuckey at this point, the sooner he'll be ready for the next level, maybe in 2010. Short term, that trade was very one-sided, in my opinion. Denver made out like thieves. Long term, the Pistons will reap big rewards from this, too. They might manage to re-build while remaining in contention. Iverson is a big expiring contract and they don't even really need him to win. Not bad.

Stuckey, Afflalo, Maxiell, Amir Johnson is not a bad looking group of youngs if you can add a young star to that. They already have some NBA playoffs experience.

^ Great points. I really think Dumars has his eyes on Lebron. It'll be interesting to see what happens in Detroit.