NBA Playoffs 2012: The Others

[Donald Kaufman]

Thought we could use a thread where we discuss the 15 other teams in the playoffs. Predictions, musings, rants etc etc. Will update with my predictions when all matchups are set.

It's go time!

[SinJackal]

East:

Bulls: Will get to the ECF unless Rose remains unhealthy and the Celtics knock them off in round 2.

Heat: Despite floundering in the last month and a half of the season, they will get to the Finals again this year unless: Wade's health doesn't improve, and Rose's does. Then it will be the Bulls in the Finals instead. LeBron is focused this year. I don't see him choking again. He won't defer to Wade either.

Pacers: I actually have started to like this team. They got lucky in that the Magic stayed winning, so they will avoid the Knicks in the first round. Pacers easily get to the 2nd round and put on a strong showing against the Heat, but inevitably lose in 6 games.

Celtics: After a 6 game series against the Hawks, they will tank to the Bulls unless Rose's health remains in question. Then they may fluke their way to the ECF before getting permenantly put out of their misery by the Heat. There's an outside chance they will make it to the Finals before finally being put out to pasture, but this solely hinges on the health of their team, and the lack of health for both the Bulls and Heat. Basically, they won't win legitimately, but if they get lucky and Rose/Wade both get hurt. . .they can get there. Then lose.

Hawks: imo no chance against the Celtics without Horford. Auto loss.

Magic: Same deal really. No Howard = no chance against Pacers

Knicks: Overrated, but will be one of the more interesting series against the Heat. I can see them taking the Heat to 5-6 games before getting snuffed out. Very small upset chance, again, hinging on Wade's health. But I think a Wade-less Heat can probably still beat the Knicks anyway.

76ers: Sad story. Such a good start (playing scrub teams), then kept getting their shit pushed in by legit teams until they finally buckled emotionally. First round loss even if Rose isn't 100%.

[SinJackal]

West:


Spurs: I like them better this year than last year. I'm not going to say we're going to annihilate everyone in the playoffs, but I still feel like the main fears Spurs fans should have are our team health, and whether Stern will rig a series against league-preferred teams (Lakers, Thunder, Heat, Knicks). Knicks won't get to the Finals, but I figured I'd add them in the mix since they're a league-preferred team. The lame thing is, the other three teams are likely going to be our WCF and Finals opponents. So I fully expect to only get 40% of calls go our way at max, if not as low as 20-25% during 4th quarters of close games against those squads.

As a Spurs fan, I fear that more than another team beating them legitimately. Maybe that sounds like a built-in excuse, but it really isn't. It's honestly what I fear the most. I don't think OKC is as good as us, much less better. Lakers have been worse than us since last season (they were only better from 2008-2010, and even 2008 was arguable since we only lost to them since Manu was hurt and they were getting Stern calls in close games). And I don't think Memphis can beat us without miracle ZBo showing up and shooting over 60% for the series.


OKC: They've played great this year, but I see them struggling in every single round besdies possibly the first. The Nuggets are their worst possible matchup since they play simlarly, only with more depth. If they play Dallas instead, then perhaps they will get past easier. Dallas doesn't have what it takes this year. I've watched them quite a bit (again), and they definitely haven't impressed me like last year (and yes, I SWEAR I picked them as champs after Ginobili broke his elbow. They were my #2 team in the west behind pre-Ginobili injury SA. After Manu got hurt, Mavs were my pick).

Lakers: They will struggle in round 1 and 2 regardless of matchup. Dallas or Denver, the Lakers will have aproblems without Artest. I can see them getting out of round 1 in 6-7 games, then losing in 6-7 to OKC. Hopefully that happens, that way OKC can be beaten up going into the WCF.

Grizzlies: They're the team I worry abou tthe most. . .though they don't have Arthur anymore and ZBo doesn't seem to be 100%. I'm hoping both our and their first round series is short so we can get them before ZBo gets to 100%. I think we can win even if he is 100%, but I'd rather our series against Memphis be as short as possible to avoid more injuries. Grizzlies will beat the Clippers.

Clippers: Happy for them for being good, but they're losing to Memphis. They don't have what it takes to win in the playoffs. If they do knock off Memphis, hey, thanks Clippers, because that just guaranteed our road to the WCF.

Nuggets: I think this team might surprise some people. Personally I don't like them, or their coach, but they can potentially beat whoever they're matched up with due to the exorbitant amount of FTAs they get. They have an even bigger FTA disparity than OKC. They give up the 7th fewest FTAs, and have the 2nd most (only 4 less than OKC. . .and they have another game left! So they will get back to #1 before the season's over).

Mavericks: They won't repeat, and I really don't even see them getting out of round 1. Mark Cuban gutted the team to create cap space next year to sign multiple high profile free agents. Essentially, he tanked this year to make another run for the next 2-3 into Dirk's retirement. They won't do anything this year, but we'll hear from them again next year.

Jazz: The only thing relevant about this team is that they might hurt Spurs players intentionally before they inevitably lose in 4-5 games to SA. Sure, they have a frontcourt that's decent. Jefferson, Millsap, and Favors. Cool, except they're small. SA struggles against large frontcourts, not small ones. Even Blair can score on them, and Duncan can and usually does lock down Jefferson. Splitter is better than Favors. I'm not worried about it besides their dirty play.

[Donald Kaufman]

Bulls - Sixers. Bulls in 5.

Heat - Knicks. Heat in 5.

Pacers - Magic. Pacers in 5.

Celtics - Hawks. C's in 6.

Spurs - Jazz. Us in 5.

Thunder - Mavs. Thunder sweep. The Mavs have been awful this year. Lamest title defense ever.

Lakers - Nuggets. LA in 6.

Grizz - Clips. Grizz in 6. I expect CP3 to have a great series, but ultimately it won't be enough.

[co_laper]

Even after Rose's injury, I still pick Chicago to win the first round. My guess would be in 6 thou. The starters should've been out by that point. Chicago had the game wrapped up.

Game one over with, Heat just clobbered the Knicks. I saw nothing that NY can do to stop Miami. First game is usually the best chance a lower seeded team can get a victory. Knicks will likely play better, but really... How much better? Heat finish this in 5 games. NY crowd will probably get them a win.

I thought Mavs were done, but damn I liked how Mavs played yesterday. They could really make this a series. I'm hoping for an upset, but I still feel OKC will win out the series. Probably takes 7 games thou. 6 at least.

I did not watch the Magic-Pacers game, got no subplots for me to get interested, but I'm pretty surprised Orlando came out on the winning side. I don't know how they did it, but I don't want to watch the archive either for that game.

The one game that caught my eyes today was definitely the Thunder-Mavs game. I'm definitely gonna be tuning on the game for their whole series. Lost interest in the Bulls-76ers game after Rose went down. Will still watch the Heat-NY game because Melo can get hot in a hurry.

[Donald Kaufman]

Damn shame about Rose's injury. Hope he can come back and do what he did pre-injury, but history shows that those types of injury rarely end well. I agree, I think Chi still gets out of the first round, from there they're matched up with Atlanta or Boston, but that might be as far as they go.

Caught the 2nd half of Thunder-Mavs G1 - man, what a game! The Mavs surprised me how they took it to OKC.

Watched NYK-Mia until I got bored in the 3rd quarter. The Heat were great but the officiating was embarrassingly bad in this game. So lopsided towards Miami. NY are bad but not this bad. STAT-Melo combine for 20. Not good enough. This might be a short series. The Knicks haven't won a playoff game since 2001.

Caught Clips-Grizz. Holy crap, they came from 27 down! Nick Young was on fire!

[SinJackal]

The Grizzlies choked bad last night. ZBo looked VERY human too. If that's all ZBo's gonna do this year, we're a lock against Memphis. Duncan can contain Gasol if he doesn't have to guard ZBo half the time like last year.

The Thunder are really struggling with the Mavs too. I don't expect the Mavs to win or even have a chance, but god damn they're really struggling @OKC. If Dallas can take game 2. . .just think, they could've been up 2-0. If they grab game 2, I think Dallas can potentially win the series. Even if they don't, at least they can make OKC work rather than just cakewalk through round 1 like they got to last year.

[Donald Kaufman]

Marion's really locking down Durant. If Westbrook weren't playing so well, they might be 0-2 in the hole.

STAT cut open his hand after punching a fire extinguisher case following G2 loss. What a tool.

[Black_Jack21]

^ are you serious what a clown. This is even better than dirk and the bike!

[Donald Kaufman]

He's now ruled out for G3. This guy has always been a moron. What little chance NY had is now over and done.

[Nolan]

This tweet made my day yesterday.

Fire Extinguisher ‏ @AAAExtinguisher

Come at me, bro @amareisreal

[Donald Kaufman]

He should've learnt from Dirk, exercise bikes have so much more give.

[Donald Kaufman]

Had to post this, for those that haven't seen it on the GB.

[Nolan]

^
Brilliant.

[Nolan]

Bulls are basically down their top three player (Deng playing hurt) and they're still managing to stay in these games with the Sixers. Bulls D is simply amazing.

[Donald Kaufman]

Knicks first playoff win since 2001. Melo went off.

Called the Thunder sweep. Dallas just didn't look like contenders at all this year. Missing key pieces like Chandler and Barea obviously made a difference, but they didn't have that same hunger that they had last season. Dirk in particular didn't seem all that invested this season.

[Nolan]

Knicks first playoff win since 2001. Melo went off.

Called the Thunder sweep. Dallas just didn't look like contenders at all this year. Missing key pieces like Chandler and Barea obviously made a difference, but they didn't have that same hunger that they had last season. Dirk in particular didn't seem all that invested this season.

He had a hell of a game. I doubt the Knicks make it one more game though.

[Black_Jack21]

Really hope linsanity makes it back for game 5. Love to see him go off in the playoffs and maybe get the series back to MSG for a game 6.

Thunder look good, dirk was right saying they had too many weapons. Durant had a pretty ordinary series and they swept them.

Feel real bad for the Bulls, looking like a real promising playoff season esp when they beat miami twice with little 4th quarter input from rose. Just the nature of the game i guess and it will be good to see Philly get to the next round.

[Donald Kaufman]

Even sans Rose they shouldn't be down against Philly. I'm surprised they can't get past them.

I think LAL-Den, Phi-Chi, Orl-Ind, NY-Mia and Bos-ATL all end in game 5.

Pretty uneventful playoffs so far. Heaps of injuries, particularly in the East.

[Black_Jack21]

Breed them tougher out west

The only surprise I can see is the ny-mia series if Lin comes back and goes ballistic and extends the series.
Other than that I think everything will run per program