RealGM

What if the 2009 Cavs had managed to get past Orlando in the ECF, who would have won the 2009 NBA Finals between the Cavs and the Lakers?

Lakers are likely winners. Beat the Cavs twice convincingly in the regular season - on both occasions LeBron played poorly - and they had a massive coaching advantage.

Only reason to pick Cavs is that LeBron was a complete freakshow during those playoffs. But as the ECF shows, that sometimes isn't enough.

4-1 Lakers

Lakers in 6 would be my guess.

I can’t think of a good reason to think the Cavs would win. The Lakers were just more talented and match up pretty well. The Cavs made Dwight look like Shaq almost, I don’t think they’d do much better trying to contain a Pau/Bynum/Odom frontcourt. Beyond that point, we know Lebron will get his but I think Kobe would also shred the Cavs defense considering he be guarded by the likes of Delonte West and Mo Williams a lot.

Lakers win probably pretty easily from their experience of losing the year before. Cavs would have home court. Still I think that would have been the first time 2 65+ win teams face each other in a finals.

Lakers in 5. The Magic saved the late 2000s Kobe vs. LeBron conversations from being toxic.

I think the Lakers are a better matchup for the Cavs than the Magic. The Lakers had no one like Dwight who was a nightmare for the Cavs Bigs. They don't have tall perimeter players who can shoot 3s. The series goes to 7 games

Ariza started for the Lakers at the 3 why Odom came off the bench. Would have interesting to see Ariza's defense on Lebron.

That 2009 lakers team had a crazy SRS. Quite underrated in all time comparisons.

From what I remember, Lebron always seemed to underperform against Kobe.

It was almost like Kobe was his big brother and he was intimidated.

Kobe also did a good job defending Lebron too. For some reason I picture Lebron doing a lot more passing and losing and then getting scrutinized for not going all out.

mdonnelly1989 wrote:From what I remember, Lebron always seemed to underperform against Kobe.

It was almost like Kobe was his big brother and he was intimidated.

Kobe also did a good job defending Lebron too. For some reason I picture Lebron doing a lot more passing and losing and then getting scrutinized for not going all out.

It would have the 2000s version of Magic vs Jordan in 91 if they met.

Slava wrote:That 2009 lakers team had a crazy SRS. Quite underrated in all time comparisons.

They were really good, but they aren’t top 70 in all time SRS, and were 3rd in SRS in that 08-09 season alone.

mdonnelly1989 wrote:From what I remember, Lebron always seemed to underperform against Kobe.

LeBron was 16-6 against Kobe in his career. Averaged 28/7/7/47% to Kobe's 25/5/5/43%.

IG2 wrote:

mdonnelly1989 wrote:From what I remember, Lebron always seemed to underperform against Kobe.

LeBron was 16-6 against Kobe in his career. Averaged 28/7/7/47% to Kobe's 25/5/5/43%.

That's fine in the regular season. But don't forget what Lebron did in his first finals against Dallas.

Playoffs and especially the Finals is a different monster psychologically...

Lakers win pretty easily.

They're a pretty underrated team.

we always have a thread on this ...

mdonnelly1989 wrote:

IG2 wrote:

mdonnelly1989 wrote:From what I remember, Lebron always seemed to underperform against Kobe.

LeBron was 16-6 against Kobe in his career. Averaged 28/7/7/47% to Kobe's 25/5/5/43%.

That's fine in the regular season. But don't forget what Lebron did in his first finals against Dallas.

Playoffs and especially the Finals is a different monster psychologically...

LeBrons first finals wasn't against Dallas.

Prez wrote:

Slava wrote:That 2009 lakers team had a crazy SRS. Quite underrated in all time comparisons.

They were really good, but they aren’t top 70 in all time SRS, and were 3rd in SRS in that 08-09 season alone.

They were a 13 SRS team in the Playoffs. Had multiple savage blowout wins against good to elite teams like the Rockets, Nuggets and Magic. In fact, that year they faced the 10th, 4th, 6th and 1st ranked defenses in the league each round.