Eastern Conference Playoff Preview: Predictions on Rounds 1 and 2. Whose going to the Finals ?

[Demographic Shift]

Bond you nailed this shit. Assuming Cavs win you were only off by a handful of games. Well done.

Yep.. nice work... we will tote up all the picks ... for those who put them in... on a one point for an advancing team basis later today after the final team gets to the next round....

There is but one single guy with the courage to pick Indy ... MITCHP !....Guts call that could pay off....

[planetmars]

NBA really want the Cavs to win today. Scott Foster and Tony Brothers are your refs for that game.

[Profster]

Lebron did a dramatic fall caused by a light touch in his midsection. What a phoney ****. I hope we get Cleveland and kick the crap out of them in 4 games.

[Demographic Shift]

In the end Indy just didn't have the nerves to handle it....they gave it a run and came up short. Its the NBA and there will always be some very merited discussion around the officiating but Cleveland never really buckled when Indy tied it up or went up by 1 in the 2nd half.

And so the next round is set. Your Toronto Raptors vs Lebron and his seven dwarfs and The Hinkies vs Chowderheads...

Raps and NewLooks The Raps are the deeper team going about 10 or 11 players on the depth chart. The NewLooks go about 8 deep. The NewLooks have the best player in the series but the Raps have more better players than the NewLooks.

The Raps have the home court where they are pretty tough lot to beat at 37-7 including the playoffs. The NewLooks are a meh 21-22 on the road this year including playoffs. The Raps are a decent 26-18 on the road and closed out a talented but inconsistent team in the Wiz on the road to take their series with them. The NewLooks are no slouches at home at 32 and 13... but haven't been nearly as dominant. Edge to the Raps.

The Raps have all their players available and have not over extended their minutes in the season or in round 1. With FVV back they are reasonably healthy and they are a young team. The NewLooks are slightly banged up. Kevin Love's thumb and George Hills back are touchy and Lebron has been playing close to or over 40 minutes a game for a month now. Most of the Cavs 8 rotation guys are north of 30. Some well north. Did anyone else watch as Lebron dipped into the locker room between the 3 and 4th quarters...He might have been running low on Stanazanol and needed a top up.. who knows. What I do know is that science of genetics postulates that the older you get your motor skills , reflexes and stamina begin to recede. Juice or no juice.... Lebron is 33 and has been playing 40 plus minutes a night for 45 days. He has to be a little tired as to the rest of the older Cavs. Edge to the Raps.

On offense its about even .. maybe an edge to the NewLooks just because of Lebron. On defense the Raps are better. Much Better.

All in all you'd have to say the Raps would be favoured to win this ....but they are the Rodney Dangerfield's of the NBA. Noted Hot Take guru Skip Bayless already has them being swept as does RR's noted designated pot stir-er Trex. Screamin A Smith will do his 3rd or 4th 180 in a week and go with Lebron. However we have seen them play all year long.... and This is the year. The King is dead. Long live the new Kings. Raps win it in 6 or less.

The Hinkies vs The Chowderheads The best news in this series is that one over rated and overhyped team is going home.

As the great philosopher Yosemite Sam would say " This is the pluckiest team this side of the Pecos Mountains" and he'd be talking Chowda. Its like playing a team of all Patrick Beverly's. They stick to you like glue and with the volatile nature of NBA referring they can hold, hack, hand check and slap on every play if the whistles are in the pockets. When that happens they more often than not win. When they get called for it.. they generally come second in the game. Their achillies heel is that they struggle to manufacture offence. Great D. No O.

As Yogi Berea would say its deja vu all over again as the Hinkies draw a team that doesn't score. The Hinkies have somehow found a way to stop turning it over 20 times a game and this is what helped them finish off the Heat in short order. With fewer run outs the Heat showed their poor offence in the half court. Boston is better than Miami on offence but thats like being the tallest midget. The Chowderheads will want to get out and run as well so look for them to press all over the floor. The Hinks will have an advantage at the 5 if Embiid posts up. Horford can easily guard the slower Embiid on the perimeter where he generally finds his mismatches. Getting the ball inside to him will prove harder for the Hinks than against the Heat as the quick hands of the Chowderheads will be slapping and grabbing as long as the refs let them. This will prove frustrating for the self annoninted ROY Ben Simmons who is the Hinks main ball handler. That extra high dribble will be the focal point of the fast handed Chowderheads. If the Hinks have to spread it out they have good 3 point shooters in Reddick, Saric, Illyasova and if he's hot Covington. Boston doesn't have the size to guard them in the half court game or on the perimeter. Philly is a much bigger team and can easily outscore the greenies if given the chance and the Chowderheads will do everything they can short of hand checking them in the pregame warmups.

Its pretty close.. but the Chowderheads are just running out of manpower and plucky miracles. The Hinkies emerge to face the Raps in the ECF in 6 games.


Out West... Warriors over the Pelicans in 5 and the Rockets over the Jazz in 6.


How'd everyone do in the first round... On a simple you get one for picking the team that won the series it looked like this.


007 8
Demographic Shift 7
Just IS 7
Keon Clark 6
Dan H 6
Scraptor 6
SR 6
JawsGT 6
octothorp 6
planet mars 6
Abbas 6
MitchP 5
tdotted 4

[psrs1]

NBA really want the Cavs to win today. Scott Foster and Tony Brothers are your refs for that game.

Scott Foster is the leagues’s choice to give the team they prefer to have the best possible chance to advance. There is one way to overcome the refs and the league’s desire for a particular outcome and that is to avoid close games. I believe it was Matt52 who coined the phrase “ GOOD TEAMS AVOID CLOSE GAMES”.

[Demographic Shift]

Tonight in the East

Chowda's vs Sixah's Seems that now Jaylen Brown is on the limp.... a hammy and is unlikely to go tonight. The Chowders are starting to resemble the Monty Python Black Knight sketch. Pretty soon nothing will be left. Pluckiness will be tested to the extreme if Brown can't go. What the Chowda's have going for them is the hope that the Sixah's are a touch rusty after having close to a week off and that the game is in Boston. Not exactly compelling reasons to pick the greenies but something.

One salient item that may work in favour of the Chowders is the "third man in the ring" so to speak. On the whistle tonight are Marc Davis ,Ed Malloy and Bill Spooner. Davis and Malloy are highly likely to go with the playoff whistle tonight which means there will be howls of indignation from the Philly side as the Celtics are allowed to hack, slap and handcheck with impunity. How the Sixah's respond will be telling. Its close because of the Davis/Malloy effect. The better team does not win tonight. Chowda W.

Great news for us Raps fans is that its extremely unlikely that the tag team of Davis and Malloy get the B2B for the Raps on Tuesday night. It does leave Scott Foster and Tony Brothers on the menu however.

With the Warriors and Rockets well on the way to the desired WCF matchup it frees up the clown princes of comedy to stay in the east and make their respective marks on who gets to the ECF.

[Just Is]

In the end Indy just didn't have the nerves to handle it....they gave it a run and came up short. Its the NBA and there will always be some very merited discussion around the officiating but Cleveland never really buckled when Indy tied it up or went up by 1 in the 2nd half.

And so the next round is set. Your Toronto Raptors vs Lebron and his seven dwarfs and The Hinkies vs Chowderheads...

Raps and NewLooks The Raps are the deeper team going about 10 or 11 players on the depth chart. The NewLooks go about 8 deep. The NewLooks have the best player in the series but the Raps have more better players than the NewLooks.

The Raps have the home court where they are pretty tough lot to beat at 37-7 including the playoffs. The NewLooks are a meh 21-22 on the road this year including playoffs. The Raps are a decent 26-18 on the road and closed out a talented but inconsistent team in the Wiz on the road to take their series with them. The NewLooks are no slouches at home at 32 and 13... but haven't been nearly as dominant. Edge to the Raps.

The Raps have all their players available and have not over extended their minutes in the season or in round 1. With FVV back they are reasonably healthy and they are a young team. The NewLooks are slightly banged up. Kevin Love's thumb and George Hills back are touchy and Lebron has been playing close to or over 40 minutes a game for a month now. Most of the Cavs 8 rotation guys are north of 30. Some well north. Did anyone else watch as Lebron dipped into the locker room between the 3 and 4th quarters...He might have been running low on Stanazanol and needed a top up.. who knows. What I do know is that science of genetics postulates that the older you get your motor skills , reflexes and stamina begin to recede. Juice or no juice.... Lebron is 33 and has been playing 40 plus minutes a night for 45 days. He has to be a little tired as to the rest of the older Cavs. Edge to the Raps.

On offense its about even .. maybe an edge to the NewLooks just because of Lebron. On defense the Raps are better. Much Better.

All in all you'd have to say the Raps would be favoured to win this ....but they are the Rodney Dangerfield's of the NBA. Noted Hot Take guru Skip Bayless already has them being swept as does RR's noted designated pot stir-er Trex. Screamin A Smith will do his 3rd or 4th 180 in a week and go with Lebron. However we have seen them play all year long.... and This is the year. The King is dead. Long live the new Kings. Raps win it in 6 or less.

The Hinkies vs The Chowderheads The best news in this series is that one over rated and overhyped team is going home.

As the great philosopher Yosemite Sam would say " This is the pluckiest team this side of the Pecos Mountains" and he'd be talking Chowda. Its like playing a team of all Patrick Beverly's. They stick to you like glue and with the volatile nature of NBA referring they can hold, hack, hand check and slap on every play if the whistles are in the pockets. When that happens they more often than not win. When they get called for it.. they generally come second in the game. Their achillies heel is that they struggle to manufacture offence. Great D. No O.

As Yogi Berea would say its deja vu all over again as the Hinkies draw a team that doesn't score. The Hinkies have somehow found a way to stop turning it over 20 times a game and this is what helped them finish off the Heat in short order. With fewer run outs the Heat showed their poor offence in the half court. Boston is better than Miami on offence but thats like being the tallest midget. The Chowderheads will want to get out and run as well so look for them to press all over the floor. The Hinks will have an advantage at the 5 if Embiid posts up. Horford can easily guard the slower Embiid on the perimeter where he generally finds his mismatches. Getting the ball inside to him will prove harder for the Hinks than against the Heat as the quick hands of the Chowderheads will be slapping and grabbing as long as the refs let them. This will prove frustrating for the self annoninted ROY Ben Simmons who is the Hinks main ball handler. That extra high dribble will be the focal point of the fast handed Chowderheads. If the Hinks have to spread it out they have good 3 point shooters in Reddick, Saric, Illyasova and if he's hot Covington. Boston doesn't have the size to guard them in the half court game or on the perimeter. Philly is a much bigger team and can easily outscore the greenies if given the chance and the Chowderheads will do everything they can short of hand checking them in the pregame warmups.

Its pretty close.. but the Chowderheads are just running out of manpower and plucky miracles. The Hinkies emerge to face the Raps in the ECF in 6 games.


Out West... Warriors over the Pelicans in 5 and the Rockets over the Jazz in 6.


How'd everyone do in the first round... On a simple you get one for picking the team that won the series it looked like this.


007 8
Demographic Shift 7
Just IS 7
Keon Clark 6
Dan H 6
Scraptor 6
SR 6
JawsGT 6
octothorp 6
planet mars 6
Abbas 6
MitchP 5
tdotted 4

Second comes right after first!

[KeonClark]

Nobody's done 2 round picks..and 2 games have already been played!

Rockets in 5
Warriors in 4

Raptors in 7
Sixers in 7

[A.I]

Rockets in 6
Warriors in 4

Raptors in 6
Sixers in 6

[007]

Raptors in 7
Sixers in 6

Rockets in 5
Warriors in 4

[planetmars]

Raptors in 6
Sixers in 6

Rockets in 4
Warriors in 5

[planetmars]

Second comes right after first!

[Demographic Shift]

Second comes right after first!

Yep..finishing second ain’t good in a binary contest.....

[Vegas]

Sixers in 5
Cavs in 7

Sixers Eastern Conf Champs

[S.R.]

Raps 6
Sixers 7

Hou 5
GS 4