Clippers about gain ground on Houston by beating em. Sounds good to me, hopefully we can get a Clippers-Thunder matchup in the 2nd round.
What do you all think of a Clippers-Thunder series? Someone convince me that the Clippers would win it because I just dont see it.
*crickets* Soxxx for being a Spurs fan, you sure love talking about the Thunder. Little scared maybe?
Doc Rivers can slow down top offenses, the question is whether he has the man power to do so with LAC. I'm not sure about all the injury situations with these teams, but let us assume JJ, Sefolosha, and Perkins are all back healthy. Doc has been willing to go small and won't mind going small as LAC has way more depth at G/F than they do at C. The Thunder also seem to excel when they go from their starting big lineup to their more efficient small lineups. The matchup is littered with great 1 vs 1 battles like Griffin/Ibaka and CP3/Westbrook. If everyone is healthy, I think the Clippers have the coaching edge (I'm not a big fan of Scotty Brooks) but the Thunder have the talent edge. I would give whoever has HC the edge in the series but overall not knowing who has HC, I'd favor OKC if their starting lineup is healthy. It's a really good matchup. Dudley,Redick,Granger become the key guys as I'm guessing Doc will use them to guard KD. Basically Houston is the "lame duck" since their defense takes a big hit with Beverly being hurt and Dwight is suffering foot/knee problems the past week or two. He might be out the following week or two also. But yeah, right now if the starting lineups are healthy, I take OKC over LAC and since OKC has the HC. Spurs should have it easy with the winner of POR/HOU if that standings hold. Houston is now banged up and POR has been on a tailspin for a long time now. The tough part with both HOU and POR though is that they chuck a ton of 3s. They can shoot them into a couple wins and shoot themselves out of games. We've seen their late game offense sometimes turns into LMA ISO, Lillard long jumper, Harden long jumper, etc. That stuff is unguardable but also terrible offense. I would favor the Spurs in either series against those teams and would say Spurs would easily rather see POR/HOU than LAC in the 2nd round.
Ok thats what I was thinking, I havent really taken the Clippers seriously over the years but Rivers will have a huge impact. He really is a good coach in terms of game-by-game changes. He will make the series go back and forth because of his ability to get a very good read on the game played. At this point the difference in the 1 and 2 seed is very drastic, and I dont think they can afford to lose it. We would lose both HC in the WCF and would have to play a Clippers team that will likely push em to 6 or 7 games.
Either way I'd suspect you would end up seeing OKC or LAC in the conference finals, but that's what makes the #1 seed important, you would only have to face 1 of them if the rest of standings hold and potential 0 if something wacky happens.
Do Spurs play mainly big or small? Or do they switch between the 2? Because someone like Houston provides a way different matchup than Memphis even though both play "big" at times
I hate the Pacers. Still think them and Miami should be favored to reach the conference finals and if they don't it's a disappointment of a season for them.
Yeahh I would love to make the playoffs then if Tyson Chandler spreads his annual playoff flu to hibbert, PG, stephenson, Hill, Vogel, and West the Knicks could probably gentlemen's sweep IND.
4 times? I need to see improvement from them over the last stretch of games before entertaining that thought. They
This is a cool attitude from a team that has struggled all year NBA on ESPN @ESPNNBA 12m RT @jadande: Nick Young on hurting PHX playoff chances: "Welcome to the Player Haters Ball...we tryin to hate, hate, hate hate..."
soxx, quit hating on the Pacers. I'm confident they'll make the conference finals. The East just stinks. By the way: Hawks 9-30 against teams .500 or better. Knicks 9-26 against teams .500 or better. Wizards 13-22 (don't count on them beating the Heat or the Pacers or the Bulls in a series), they've played a very weak schedule. Heat/Pacers vs. Knicks/Hawks Heat/Pacers vs. Bobcats Raptors vs. Wizards Bulls vs. Nets Rockets vs. Trailblazers Clippers vs. Warriors
Lakers relish the spoiler role. Last four: Blew out Knicks (fighting for 8th seed) lost to Bucks lost to Timberwolves Blew out Suns (fighting for 8th seed) So they lost the two games against teams with nothing to play for and beat the two teams that desperately need wins.
