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i was rooting for the Pacers... But it's good to know that Miami no longer are supreme kings in the East. It used to be a walkover for them ( look at the 27 game winning streak. Granted it's impressive, but considering their team, i'm surprized they didn't get 70 wins in a season. Very few teams can match the heat for a single game, let alone a series.

Finals is going to be a walkover tho. Heat in 4 or 5. Games 1 and 2 are for the Heat anyhow. Spurs will be rusty. The only way this gets to be a series is if Bosh or Wade decide to vanish during the game like they did in game 6.

Well Miami was counting 1, 2 ,3, 4.. 5... five fingers if I remember correctly.

they can only get 4 rings in 5 seasons now... anything less then 3 rings from Miami in those 5 seasons is a fail.

So they need to win 2 more but firstly they need to go thru the Spurs who never lose when they make the Grand Finals. And they also like to win in odd years. 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007.

Even with D-Wade on 1 leg, and the heat playing 7 exhausting games to get to the Spurs, I see the Heat winning in... 5.

Spurs are old.

Parker is the only problem for the Heat. And he's limping around aswell. Wade-Leonard/Gionobli is an unsure which way that could go, but if Wade can pull himself together, then he'll be dominating that match-up. Lebron vs whoever defenses him or attacks for the Spurs, that is going to be going Lebrons way. and in terms of bigs: Splitter isn't such a great player. so he'll have a hard time getting his match-up to go in his way. And Duncan isn't bad, but he's no Hibbert. Haslem/Birdman should be able to contain him and make him work for his buckets.

Spurs can't dominate Heat in the paint like the Pacers could do. So it all comes down to Parker. The moment the Spurs advanced into the finales meant that whoever won the east would be winning the finales.

So hence, Heat in 4 or 5. you'd need injuries on the Heat or spurs (other than Parker) far surpassing their usuall playing style if they want to even have a shot.

@ comment concerning the Heat getting multiple rings:
Heat are getting Older. Wade has had injury issues and his body might be showing signs that it can no longer support his athletic style of play. Not sure what Boshs problem is, but it seems that if he's feeling a small pain that his preformance is influenced significantly. either that or his emotional state impacts his playing far to much. Lebron is the only player who is sure to keep shining. If Wade and Bosh continue to regress next season, then Lebron might need to opt out of his contract at the end of next season if he really wants all those rings. It wouldn't surprize me to see Lebron opt out of his contract at the end of next season and rejoining the Cavaliers. Irving & Lebron will make a pretty made combo. Wouldn't exclude the possibility of Lebron joining Lakers if they keep Howard, altho i think that having a C playing with Howard will cause problems since Lebron is most dominating in backing down his opponents down low. If you add a C like Howard and another PF, then the opponent will just put bodies in the paint, which would see Lebron becoming more of an outside player (Durant is better on the outside than Lebron).

So to me, give Lebron a couple of good shooters, give him a big defensif C ( someone like Wilson Chandler of the Knicks), that will be his best possible team. Lebrons dream match-ups for the next big-3 would be Irving and Kevin Love. Love has range, great rebounder, hard worker. Irving is a bitt like Wade, except that he's a better shooter.

So i wouldn't be surprized to see Lebron leave Miami in the near futur. And if the Pacers can keep their roster intact, i wouldn't be surprized to see them get the better of the Heat in the futur. They do need a better back-court tho. Such a shame that the Heat had such easy opponents till the conference finales. Bucks seemed to prefer not being in the PO's than to face the Heat. Bulls were so banged up that they were to easy to beat ( big respect for the effort put forth by the bulls! missing out so many important pieces, yet they did manage to get a game and tried to make it a series).

I would have preferred seeing the knicks vs Heat in Semi conference finales. That would have been a fun match-up ( Heat would have won, but still, would have wanted to see it).

Last edited by AthrunZala at 6/5/2013 4:53:28 AM

Wade-Leonard/Gionobli is an unsure which way that could go, but if Wade can pull himself together, then he'll be dominating that match-up.

It'd be Danny Green/Ginobili guarding Wade, and Kawhi Leonard guarding LeBron

i think they are going to addopt the Pacers strategy, meaning that they won't put a great defender on lebron, but make sure the rest of his team gets a serious defense.

You can't stop lebron unless you double team him ( meaning someone else is open). Lebron is a too good passer to take that risk, and double teaming lebron isn't even a guaranteed succes. Hence, i'd expect them to put Leonard on Wade and Green on Lebron. Green is 3 cm shorter than Leonard, so size wouldn't make a big difference for both of them. Ofcourse, when Ginobli is playing, i reckon that the other one of the 2 will guard Lebron. altho, maybe they match up Ginobili with Lebron. would be a mismatch, but by doing so, they'd maintain their lock down on the other players.

remember, Lebron ain't like Melo or Kobe. If Melo or Kobe feel that they got an advantagous match-up, you can forget about them passing the ball. For miami to keep a high tempo, they need ball movement. So Lebron needs to keep passing too. Lebron hasn't scored more than 50 points over his entire career on 8 occasions. Despite being much better than any teammate he had in Cleveland, he never scored large ammount of points in succession.

If you consider that he 'only' scored 40+ points in 51 games over his entire career ( 9 postseason, 42 regular season), then that shows that Lebron wants everyone involved. I like that aspect of his game, but it's also his achilles heel.

So make Lebron the scoorder, shut down the rest of his team. he'll get some buckets, but he knows he needs to get teh rest of his team going too. hence, shut down the rest of the team, and you could win a game. the chances of Lebron dropping more than 40 points in a game ain't high. his stats back that up.

So if you can limit the rest of the team to 50 points combined and for the good sake of it, we'll say that lebron drops 40 points a night. That is 90 points per game. Spurs could get that total. So do the match. double team lebron, let his teammates get involved, or make sure you've got lock down defense on his teammates, while you have a mismatch at the SF spot.

That is why i reckon that Leonard will defense Wade instead of Lebron.

for the record: i got my numbers here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_career_achievements_...
just providing the link to back em up ;)

The Heat are unstoppable when all the players have chances to contribute. Hence, you should roll the dice and force the guy who's getting them involved into becoming a scorer.

The Spurs have been doing that to the Suns for seasons. Guarding everyone but Nash. Nash has to do everything so by the time game 6 or game 7 comes, he will be out of steam to carry the team on his shoulders.

That will not work on Lebron. Leonard will be guarding Lebron most of the time in the series. Green will get pummeled by Lebron is every way, especially the offensive rebounds. That is why Green should not even be guarding Lebron.

Spewing Pacers lost so now have jumped onto Spurs. Only cause they have a couple of aussies that can do the Gaze thing.

Patrick Mills, Aron Baynes and Tracey McGrady all riding the pine.

They get paid 1mill, 160k and 80k respectively.

TMAC is pretty much playing for free or losing money (rent/travel expenses greater then 80k pa) chasing a ring LOL

Poor McGrady! Another player that could have been one of the best. Damn those injuries!

well, i woke up and got shocked twice this morning

1) Spurs stole game one from the Heat
and by Stole, i didn't mean they didn't deserve it. But where was Lebron? Don't tell me he's going to do another Houdini like he did in the finals against Dallas. 18 points is pretty bad for Lebron. well done spurs on getting him to take 5 3pt shots instead of going to the rim. Job well done. Miami must be feeling the pressure right now.

2) Coach Karl got fired from Denver
Wait, WHAAAAT? why on earth would u want to fire coach Karl. granted, he failed to beat the Warriors. But the Warriors are good. They started the season red hot, and finished it red hot. Denver got unlucky with who they faced in the 6th seed. Had Bryant been around, the Spurs might not have won either (Kobe is no guarantee Lakers would have won, but it would have been a series atleast). We all know how Bryant can will his team to win (i'm a Laker fan, tho i'm not going to make excuses. We had a pretty bad team this season. Injuries didn't help, but Nash never was the solution for the Lakers). Either way, it's just guessing at this time, but Denver firing Coach Karl, i just don't understand it. They have a nice core. One that play's very well. They are balanced and could match-up with anyone on any day. And let's face it. Warriors only beat Denver because of the emergence of Stephen Curry ( was about time he stepped it up). And if Curry turned cold for a while, then they had Barnes, Thompson or Jack to step in. But lets face it: it all started with Curry. Either way, it's regrettable that the Nuggets fired Coach Karl. if you got 1000 wins, they you must be doing something right. let's hope the Lakers organisation get smart and fire D'Antoni for Karl. cause by god, Lakers didn't help themselves with firing Brown. Sure, the Princeton wasn't going to work. But D'Antoni was never going to work either... D'Antoni is now running a system that he doesn't believe in. he can't run his preferred high tempo attack, and he's horrible on D. Clippers could also use Karl as a coach (tho i'd rather not see Karl coach the Clips being a Laker fan :P)



btw, did anyone see the tweets from Quincy Pointdexter after the conference finals vs Spurs?