Official Playoff Predictions

I can't believe how bad the Bulls looked last night, but I don't think we match up well with New Jersey in general.

However, I think we match up quite well against Miami, especially with home court.

We almost took them down last year. The Bulls are much improved and have home court. For me, that equals a Bulls win.

The odds of Chicago beating Miami, and then beating the Cavs, and then beating Detroit are incredibly low

Try again. As written, there is no chance that Chicago does that.

Isn't it sort of odd that, in the East, the 1 seed plays the 3 seed in the 2nd round and the 2 seed plays the 4 seed? I think that's a prediction that seems a little unlikely, frankly.

It's stranger than that. The one seed plays the four seed, should it win, but not the five seed, should it win. That's one reason why so many people feel the Eastern Conference is dysfunctional.

Nets beat the Raptors, Chicago beats the Heat (and then lose to the Pistons). I really want to pick the Rockets to get to the Conference Finals, but the Mavs are probably the only team that I can't see them beating in a seven game series.

"the Nuggets are widly overvalued at 2.3 percent."

That's my bid sitting there on the Nuggets at 2.3. They're getting filled very slowly, so come put your money where your mouth is and sell me a bunch. Seriously.

(I don't think the Nuggets can actually win 3 tough series in a row, barring massive injuries to multiple teams, but if they can beat San Antonio, I figure that contract will be valued somewhere around 12. So I'm basically trying to bet on the Nuggets to win the first round series at 5 to 1 odds. I'll keep bidding on that one at that price 'til the cows come home, since I think they've got a genuine shot at taking down the Spurs.)

I'm not very glad I didn't put my money where my mouth was

You might want to unpack and repack that double negative.

East: Detroit over Orlando, Cleveland over Washington, Toronto over New Jersey, sure...but it's gonna be Chicago over Miami. Round 2 is where things'll get weird. Detroit/Toronto will go at least 6, but Detroit will probably pull it out, while the Bulls will run through Cleveland. Bulls over Detroit in 6.

West: Agree with you on the first round. Second round, I think that Phoenix takes San Antonio and Dallas takes Houston. Outcome of Dallas/Phoenix will primarily ride on how exhausted Phoenix is after the San Antonio series. Last year, two straight series which went the distance pretty much wore them out.

Finals: West in 5.

Okay, just to make this all clear. The Detroit-Orlando winner plays the Miami-Chicago winner in the second round. It doesn't matter who wins. See here: http://www.nba.com/features/seedingprimer07.html

Now, just to confuse things, the NHL does re-seed after the first round, so for example depending on the results, the #6 Rangers could play the #1 Sabres, #4 Senators, #5 Penguins or #7 Lightning. (Ironically, there's no way they could play the Devils or the Islanders.)

Oops. I'll revise, then. Makes it more interesting, anyway. Bulls beat Detroit in 6 in round 2. Toronto upsets the Cavs in 7. Then the Bulls beat Toronto.

I'll do it this way:

Best likelihood of a lower seed winning a first round series upset:

1) New Jersey
2) Chicago
3) Denver
4) Utah

or

Best likelihood of a road team winning a first round series upset:

1) Miami
2) New Jersey
3) Denver
4) Utah

The trippiest thing about the playoff matchups is that Dallas, a 67-win team, got SWEPT 3-0 in the regular season by their first-round opponent, Golden State.

To make matters worse, Golden State also swept Detroit, the #1 seed from the other conference, by scores of 111-79 and 111-93.

In their remaining games, of course, the Warriors were 37-40. This is just hard to process.

Assuming that ESPN is more likely to have the correct matchups than our resident blogger:

MIAMI (4) vs. CHICAGO (5)
TORONTO (3) vs. NEW JERSEY (6)
CLEVELAND (2) vs. WASHINGTON (7)
DETROIT (1) vs. ORLANDO (8)

HOUSTON (4) vs. UTAH (5)
SAN ANTONIO (3) vs. DENVER (6)
PHOENIX (2) vs. LOS ANGELES LAKERS (7)
DALLAS (1) vs. GOLDEN STATE (8)

Carry on.

Oh ye of little faith. I kept telling you that David "Mr." Stern would ensure a Cleveland #2 seed (and Bulls a #5) to set up favorable, marketable matchups. But did you listen??

Hotlando, based on up and comer, nice guy and marketable Dwight Howard and Grant Hill against Hadtheirday Detroit, well, that could be an upset.

Shaq v. Bron seems unavoidable.

I'm trying to think of a precedent for the scenario of "the much lower quality of play in [conference A] will result in a fairly fresh and quite legitimately good [conference A] team facing off against an exhausted [conference B] champion and thus take home the title." I can't really come up with one. When has this ever happened?

I certainly hope that my Pistons will benefit from a phenomenon like that if they make the finals, but I sort of doubt it. When one conference is a lot tougher than the other, the real benefit of being a good-but-maybe-not-quite-great team from the weaker conference is that you only have to beat one of those tough teams from the other conference to win the title. I wouldn't quite describe the Pistons title of '04 in that way (they had to go through Indiana, which had the best record in the league), but I think the fact that they didn't have to play both the Lakers *and* the Spurs was definitely to their benefit. As it turned out, the Pistons matched up extremely well with the Lakers, and while I think they might have been able to handle the Spurs as well (they did go 7 games against them in the finals the next year), I wouldn't exactly have been eager to find out.

"Assuming that ESPN is more likely to have the correct matchups than our resident blogger"

As SCMT correctly noted upthread, the Eastern Conference is weak this year, and that weakness extends to its ability to follow normal seeding schemes.

Our resident blogger is aware of such considerations, even if ESPN isn't.

In fact, if New Jersey beats Toronto and Cleveland beats Washington, Detroit would actually face Milwaukee in the second round.

Shorter me: if the Pistons win it all, it'll be because they happen to match up well with the one and only Western team they end up having to face, not because that Western team will be exhausted/depleted/etc. from having had to slug their way through a tougher conference.

"I can't really come up with one. When has this ever happened?"

Quite often. Last year for starters.

I'd say the Eastern Conference should require Orlando and Washington to win play-in games against the top two European clubs before being officially sanctioned as the 7th- and 8th-best teams in the East.

Quite often. Last year for starters.

You think Dallas lost because they were tired from beating San Antonio and Phoenix? They didn't look too tired when they stomped Miami in the first two games and then led Game 3 by 12 points with 5 minutes left, or whatever the exact number was. Then they choked Game 3 away and had Game 5 stolen by the refs, but what did either of those games have to do with their being tired from the previous playoff rounds?

"They didn't look too tired when they stomped Miami in the first two games"

There are other types of tired beyond being physically tired. There is an emotionally tired and an intellectually tired as well.

I thought Dallas's game plan was abysmal against Miami in the first two games, which I think they largely won due to Wade being slowed by a sinus infection. And I think Dallas was very, very slow in making adjustments to that game plan as the series wore on.

I attribute those mistakes to Dallas being "tired" from the Western Confernce playoff grind, rather than to any fundamental stupidity on the part of the Dallas high command.

They didn't make adjustments because they were "emotionally tired"? That's an...interesting take on what happened. Anyway, I'm not sure that's quite what MY had in mind.

The Pistons are not taking the title, and neither for that matter is any team coming out of the east, given Wade's shoulder.

Dallas is a very deep and relatively young team, if they get by Houston and Phoenix/SA, they will dispatch the Leastern conference rep in 6 games. Teams that win 67 games during the regular season are very unlikely not to win the title as well. If Phoenix or SA could somehow get by Dallas, it could only be at top strength - and as long as Nash or Manu aren't limping into the finals, the Pistons can't match up with either squad.

Well, one thing that tired teams do is run out of steam. But still, I'm not persuaded that Miami had such an easy time of it in the East last year. I think Miami was simply a good team that got hot at exactly the right time - and for that reason, I'm skeptical of their ability to turn it on again this year.

I think the Pistons can match up pretty well with Phoenix; I'd rate a finals between them as a toss-up. I'd favor San Antonio over the Pistons in the finals, and Dallas somewhat more so.

If Phoenix or SA could somehow get by Dallas, it could only be at top strength - and as long as Nash or Manu aren't limping into the finals, the Pistons can't match up with either squad

Dunno. The Pistons have a big and skilled front line. I can't see them beating Dallas, which has so much firepower. But anyone else? Wouldn't surprise me.

What the hell...isn't the Cleveland/Washington winner playing the Toronto/New Jersey winner in the second round? Making for the easiest path ever to the ECF? And aren't Miami, Detroit, and Chicago in the other bracket all the way to the ECF?

Making our hosts predictions totally off base?

With respect to our host's screwed up seedings, I will make only one observation: He's drinking more than seven liters of water a day, and Initial symptoms of over-hydration include dizziness, nausea, apathy and confusion. You do the math.

Among the teams with the best regular season records of all time, which I finally found at basketballreference.com, Dallas (at 67-15) has one of the top 9 single season records of all time. Of the previous 8, only Boston in '73 failed to win it all (68 wins, lost to the Knicks in the conference finals). In fact every team with at least 65 wins has won it all, except Boston '73. Oddly enough, 64 wins is a kiss of death: Seattle '96, Utah '97, and Detroit '06 are the only three teams who won exactly 64 games, and none of them won the title!

Also, after last night's fine win over Chicago, I am going to stick with my prior prediction of a Phoenix - New Jersey finals. Just, well, because I can.

"Also, after last night's fine win over Chicago, I am going to stick with my prior prediction of a Phoenix - New Jersey finals. Just, well, because I can."

Why not predict that Kenyon Martin will miraculously return to full health, be traded to the Nets with his playoff eligibility intact, that the Nets then win the East without dropping a single game, and that the Western Conference will refuse to even send a team to meet the Nets in the Finals because don't want to embarrass themselves?

Haggai: The Lakers in the late '80s, maybe, when Detroit and Boston were beating the crap out of each other in the eastern conference finals.

Don't underestimate the Cavs. Whenever we play at our best, we can play with the best of 'em. We beat the Spurs twice this year, for example, and have a tendency, much like Detroit, to lose to weaker teams. The problem with Cleveland has been inconsistency, and LeBron is part of the problem. He doesn't take every game seriously, which is a major concern. But if he plays like he did during the playoffs, and since we have Larry Hughes this time around, I think we can take the Bulls or the Heat (despite some abysmal games against the Heat this season) in a 7-game series with home court advantage. The Pistons, probably not.

But it doesn't matter because we'd be doomed against any team out of the West, except maybe San Antonio, which would actually make for a quasi-interesting Finals (we'd still lose, of course).

The Lakers in '87 were probably the best team they had in their entire '80s run of championships. The Celtics were fairly beaten up by the time they got to the finals that season, but I don't think it was why they lost. In '88, when the Lakers beat the Pistons in 7 games, they had a tough road to the finals themselves, beating Utah and then Dallas in series that both went all the way to Game 7.

"Don't underestimate the Cavs. Whenever we play at our best, we can play with the best of 'em."

What happens when you guys give a hundred and ten percent?

The Cavs just get killed by their crap point guards. Also, WTF happened to Marshall?

No love for the Warriors? God, if the first round was still 5 games, they could pull a '92 Nuggets, or whatever year it was the Dikembes beat the Payton/Kemp Sonics as the 8 seed. In a best of 7, it becomes about 10 times less likely.

For Detroit supporters (in the Finals), let us not forget their coach is none other than Flip Saunders. I'll wait for you to revise your suppositions.

Oh, and back on topic, this is Phoenix's year. They've been the 2nd-best team in the West the past two seasons, losing in the conference finals both times, and this year's team is better than either of those.

Dallas is probably the better team, but what fun is it to pick Dallas?

Going back to the seeding question: what is the justification for the claim that Detroit will face Toronto in Round 2? The link posted by McCullen is from nba.com. You'd think the NBA would know how they plan on seeding the 2nd round ahead of time.

So the only thing I can imagine is that you're challenging ESPN's first round seedings... in that case, what are the actual seedings for the first round and where are you getting them?

"No love for the Warriors?"

Barring the Mavs' plane going down, they ain't gonna beat Dallas.

But were I a Warriors fan, I'd be waiting for them to come out and pla-a-ay with a whole lot of excitement. There are many, many reasons to be a happy camper in Oaktown right now.

And even for a general NBA fan, it'd definitely be fun if they can win one of the first three games and make a semi-series out of it.

------

But on the upset front, I'm telling all y'all, don't sleep on my Powder Blues.

They're unexpectedly strong. And even before the seeding was apparent, I thought the Spurs were unexpectedly weak.

Even if Denver can't pull off an upset, I think the Spurs are ripe for a takedown in the coming rounds. They're old 'n' slow, and it's likely gonna show all of a sudden in a long series against an elite team.

And if the Denver front line can stay out of foul trouble - a big 'if' in my mind - I think they can play right with San Antonio.

I long for the day when Petey stops saying "Powder Blues." That is the lamest nickname I have ever heard.

Furthermore, Petey, I really think you are a bit insane. The Powder Blues are a perfectly good team. But they are also quite sucky. And this concludes the most substantive argument I have ever offered.

you're predictions are off. you are saying detroit and toronto in the second round and the heat and cavs, but the heat would play the pistons (1/8 vs. 4/5) and the cavs would play the raptors (2/7 vs. 3/6).

Unless screwed by the officials, Dallas will beat SA.

In the second round, Detroit plays the winner of #4 seed Chicago v. #5 seed Miami. Miami is overrated, but they'll probably beat Chicago.

The real Powder Blues.

yeah, the team with the best record after the all star break (excluding ejections and benching) is too old and slow. the old and slow thing is a little silly where the spurs are likely faster this year (elson over rasho, bonner over horry, vaughn over vanexcel, healthy timmy over plantar timmy, etc.).

but the real point is -- have you seen how duncan has been playing lately? he's been a monster. i'm not claiming the spurs go all the way. but betting against duncan is like betting against shaq (generally, a very bad bet). as much as i like the nuggets, i just don't see it happening in a 7 game series.

the other things people seem to be ignoring: how much of a favorite are the mavs over the rockets? the rockets got 50+ wins largely w/o being able to play yao and tmac at the same time. add in all the houston roleplayers (and the loss of bonzi distraction), and i could easily see houston beating mavs or taking it to 7. put another way, i'm not sure that, for the mavs, warriors/rockets is any easier of a path to the finals than phx or SA has.

finally, i think detroit can beat any of the western teams. they're battle-tested, etc., big time players, still play good D, etc.

"finally, i think detroit can beat any of the western teams. they're battle-tested, etc., big time players, still play good D, etc."

They certainly can. So can a healthy Miami, Phoenix, San Antonio, and maybe Houston.

But Dallas is the best team in the league. Their best 5 is every bit as good as any other best 5, and unlike everyone else, they go high quality two deep at every position.

Their top players aren't dominant enough to make them unbeatable, but you take them at even money odds in a series against any other team in the association.

Yglesias in denial.

I think he of all people should remember how LBJ handed the wizards their asses last year and almost beat the pistons. And yet the baiting continues.

It seems like the psychosis of our President and Matty is the same at times. Both live in denial when faced with hard facts. What is ever more surprising is that so do the multitude of people commenting here. Perhaps this is analogous to the current white house.

Keep the bait on. I am gonna enjoy this.Paper tiger, eh.

there is no chance that Chicago does that.

How many times do large upsets have to happen in sports before people stop making claims like this?

there is no chance that Chicago does that.

How many times do large upsets have to happen in sports before people stop making claims like this?

How many times do large upsets have to happen in sports before people stop making claims like this?

Note the quoted ordering. I stand by my claim.

I have to agree with SCMT. There is literally no chance of Chicago pulling that off.

Miami beats Chicago because Ben Wallace is worse from the stripe than Shaq.

Miami beats Detroit because Detroit has no answer in the middle without Big Ben. Dale Davis is a man, but he's also 3 years older than Shaq. Webber is only a year younger and Sheed is two years younger than Shaq. Miami will kill Detroit on the boards.

I think the Raptors beat NJ and Clev, but I think Miami will beat any of these teams in 4 games of the ECF.

In the West, Dallas will find a way to choke. I'll take the Suns starting 5 over any in the league, but they'll go 7 games against two Texas teams in the Semis and the WCF.

I think Miami beats SA or Dallas, but not the Suns in the Finals. Miami can't handle their speed or ball movement. I hope Phoenix has trouble maintaining their quick pace every night of the playoffs. A few overtime games would be nice.

Miami beats Chicago because Ben Wallace is worse from the stripe than Shaq.

Really?

That's why you'd pick Miami over Chicago?

I can assure you that Ben Wallace doesn't handle the ball enough or shoot enough to make his free throw shooting a determining factor.

The trippiest thing about the playoff matchups is that Dallas, a 67-win team, got SWEPT 3-0 in the regular season by their first-round opponent, Golden State.

Not only that, the Warriors swept the Mavs LAST year too.

I said it here last week, and I'll say it again. The Mavs don't make it past the first round.

Yesss!, as Marv would say. Samba is with me. I'm a little drunk, so I'm revising my prediction. Warriors win in the first round. In the 2nd round, the Suns beat the Warriors in The Greatest Series in Basketball History.

Jazz in 7.

Of course, I am also holding on to a Crosby & the Pens in 7 prediction.

{long, theatrical sigh...}

Being a Warriors fan I am biased but...

I see the Warriors knocking off Dallas and then losing to the Suns. I've waited a long time for this so them just making it to the playoffs is rewarding enough.

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thanks ;)

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