[somerfrost]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

Late

First round
Chicago in 5
Miami in 4
Boston in 6
Orlando in 7
SA in 6
LA in 4
Dallas in 6
OKC in 5

Second round
Orlando over Chicago in 7
Miami over Boston in 6
OKC over SA in 6
LA over Dallas in 7

CF
Miami over Chicago in 5
LA over OKC in 7

Finals
LA over Miami in 6

That was what I had prior to the playoffs starting. After round one, I picked
Atlanta over Chicago in 6. I just don't think Chicago is that good. To me, they were outplayed in the first four games by Indiana and Atlanta is a much better team than Indiana and is on a high with their confidence right now. They have too much overall athleticism for the Bulls.

Miami over Boston in 6. Neither team looked particularly good in round one but Boston was especially bad, having a ton of trouble with a severely depeleted Knicks team. Without that inside defensive presence of Perkins, they will need Garnett to play more minutes and be more of an enforcer and I don't know that he can still do that. James and Wade will both be dialed in extremely high for this series as it's personal to them and the fact remains that they are the two best players on the court and two of the three best in the world.

OKC over Memphis in 6. I really like Memphis but I think that the young athleticism of OKC wears them down a little. As Dalakhani said in another thread, Harden is on/off and when he's on, it makes them hard to beat. If he's on three times in this series, I give OKC two of those games. The brilliance of Durant will come out in at least one more and that will be three. Memphis needs huge games from Randolph everytime to have a shot and with Ibaka and Perkins down there, you have to figure that they slow him a couple of times.

LA over Dallas in 7. I had Dallas winning game one and then LA taking one in Dallas to make it a best of three at the end. I really with Caron Butler was playing here. I'd take Dallas then but without that scoring option, Dallas is just going to be too limited and I only think this goes seven because the Lakers allow it too. Nowitzki's big advantage has always been his quickness over the opposing big forward but with the Lakers, they can throw out Odom and Artest and negate that advantage. Terry can be defended by Bryant or Brown and I think Brown and Fisher can do a good job on Kidd since he's not that quick, penetrating type of guard that gives LA trouble like Chris Paul or Aaron Brooks or Deron Williams. The key will be keeping the games close for Dallas. If they do, Kobe tends to forget about passing the ball and the Lakers size advantage goes out of the window.

I am pretty much in agreement, I think Memphis may well take OK City to game 7 but in the end Durant and company have a little to much firepower for the young Memphis squad. Miami outplayed Boston twice in Miami but it will be interesting to see if they can do same in Boston...if they win one then the series probably goes 5.