Eastern Conference Playoff Preview 2012

Two posts in a row that are almost theoretically relevant and on time, amazing I know.  If I ever have some time and get around to it, then sometime I plan on getting around to doing some blogs about politics and finishing my recapping of the remaining ‘unrecapped’ teams in the NFL.  Maybe someday, lol.

I wrote this over the last couple days, and by now day one of the playoffs is nearly over.  And surprisingly it was a fairly eventful first day, with Miami putting a beat-down on NY as expected, Derrick Rose suffering a season ending injury, and the Pacers having home court taken from them.

Eastern Conference

1 Chicago faces 8 Philadelphia.

I thought it was funny when some people (including Skip Bayless--a person whom I usually agree with) were saying that Chicago plays better without Derrick Rose.  And they would site the Bulls record with and without him as proof of their argument.  Hahaha.  If they would do some very simple math they would see that Chicago’s record without Rose 17-7 is virtually the same as their record with him 30-12.  Both are approximately equal to a 70% winning rate.  And I’ll grant that a fairly injured Rose is worse than a healthy CJ Watson.  But, if Rose is healthy then he is definitely the better player.  I would say that Chicago is a 5 type seed without Rose.  But, with him they achieve the first seed (again) and probably reach the Eastern Conference finals (again). 

Philly has a nice cast of players.  My favorite player of theirs is Evan Turner.  There are not many teams that are playoff caliber teams and yet do not have a preferred player to run their offense, but Philly is making another run to the playoffs without a star player.

Two system/execution type teams so this could possibly be an interesting matchup, but I see the Bulls taking it in 5.

2 Miami facing 7 New York.

Miami is basically the favorite of the East.  I have been glad that Miami has lost a couple games so that they have the 4^th best record in the NBA.  So they at least won’t be the prohibitive favorite. Imho this is kind of a horrible matchup for both teams.  On the bright side this will probably be the highest scoring matchup in the East. 

I have never been a huge of Coach Mike D’antoni so I thought that firing him was one of the best things the Knicks did all year.  I hope he gets a job with a Charlotte, Milwaukee, or another small market bottom team.  I think that he works the best when he has stars in a small market, aka Phoenix a couple years back.  Even if you have Stoudemire and Carmelo, imho it is very hard to win in the NBA without playing about half the game.  Or namely he doesn’t emphasize defense enough. 

New York finally gets to see Lebron playing in MSG in a playoff game…  But, he happens to be playing for the wrong team.

Also New York should finally get a playoff win.  A buzzer beater playoff win.  Actually I’m not even sure NY can accomplish that.  But assuming they can take a game, maybe they will have actually have a chance..  Yeah, right.  Miami in 5.

3 Indiana 6 Orlando

And now for the no name series, at least to most of the populace.  Even though Indiana is a 3 seed, if they were to do manage to get to the Finals I highly doubt that more than 00.3% of NBA fans would have predicted that. (and 94% of those few fans would happen to be Indy fans) 

Plenty of turmoil with D Howard throughout the season.  Orlando isn’t a bad team, but if they wouldn’t have D Howard (for any time this season) I wonder if they even would have beaten out Philly for the 8^th seed. 

This might be the most competitive series in the East, I have the Pacers advancing in 6.

4 Boston 5 Atlanta

If they're healthy, then Rondo, Allen, Garnett, Pierce, and Bradley forms such a sick lineup.  The Celtics really put something together since the all star break with the best record in the NBA. 

I would say Atlanta has about a 20% chance to play spoiler.  And that would be being fairly favorable.  Imho a horrible matchup for Atlanta, I think they would prefer to be playing any other team in the East. 

Boston in 6.