tristan+kyrie=$
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Jeez I want a Friday or Saturday game so I can see just how drunk I can get during a Cavs game
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The Cavs vs Bulls Series
- Thread starter Frank Reynolds
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gourimoko
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This.
gourimoko
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That's actually not the case. Some statistics are measurements, others are instead designed to have predictive function. Net rating can be (and is) predictive, but not for the function you've attempt to apply it.
The problem with your usage of net rating to gauge a playoff matchup between the Bulls and Cavs is twofold, both an issue of linearity, net rtg's are essentially averages over 82 games, and only ~4 of which are even relevant; and co-linearity, or in essence, the fact that these ratings are composed of discretely different lineups that perform substantially differently under various conditions.
What you're wanting to do is determine the outcome of a specific matchup, that will likely have irregular minute distribution (compared to the regular season) for the best performing lineups for the respective teams.
This is an entirely different question than to ask, how would a particular team do, on average, playing 30 randomly distributed teams over the course of 82 games. If instead, you wanted to predict an entire season, then you could use the Net Rtg as a predictive tool. But again, it fails for the purposes of predicting individual matchups, especially in a playoff setting.
For what you want to do, you would need to simulate the set of potential possessions using individual player metrics and aggregate the sum total to potentially predict the box score. This is most commonly done by using Markov chains of discrete states (i.e. possessions). But in essence, it is a non-trivial process.
Matchups/styles/coaching ... pretty much everything?
That being said, I've seen far worse abuses of stats. Scoring margin (and hence net rating) is one of the strongest stats, thanks to a very strong correlation to wins & losses.
It would be easy to prove that net rating is not transitive, but I bet it's still pretty transitive especially compared to other team stats.
randymoss1881
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Jeez both teams sweep and you still have to wait a week for game 1.
Also this has to be a first all EC series could end in a sweep
Also this has to be a first all EC series could end in a sweep
Pioneer10
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All comes down Lebron as I don't think the Bulls have a real counter. If the Bulls had Deng even the reduced form we saw this year I'd be a lot more worried. Deng always played Lebron tough on both sides of the ball and his size matched up well with Lebron.
Sure Bulls can move Butler on to Lebron but he's become such a key part of their offense (i.e. more important then Rose for large stretches) that it's going to be tough for him to do both since the Cavs don't have to waste Lebron's energy on Butler or Rose. With Shumpert and Smith we have have two good perimeter defenders with good size and athleticism for the guard spots. Add in Butler, who unlike Deng, has prototypical SG not SF size could easily wear down against the bigger James.
Otherwise seems like a wash matchup wise in terms of overall impact. Love/Gasol are very similar, Noah/Mozgov very similar, Gibson/Thompson very similar. A healthy Rose is very similar to Irving (is he going to play like this though? Bulls fans have been teased before and if he's not healthy forget it).
Bench seems a wash: Bulls bring more offense, Cavs bring more defense off the bench
Only clear advantage the Bulls have is Butler is better then JR Smith but the Cleveland Smith is a model 3 and D player who the Cavs won't be afraid playing straight up against Butler. As noted to me it all comes down to the difference between Lebron over Dunleavy which is a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon compared to the gulf between Butler over Smith
Sure Bulls can move Butler on to Lebron but he's become such a key part of their offense (i.e. more important then Rose for large stretches) that it's going to be tough for him to do both since the Cavs don't have to waste Lebron's energy on Butler or Rose. With Shumpert and Smith we have have two good perimeter defenders with good size and athleticism for the guard spots. Add in Butler, who unlike Deng, has prototypical SG not SF size could easily wear down against the bigger James.
Otherwise seems like a wash matchup wise in terms of overall impact. Love/Gasol are very similar, Noah/Mozgov very similar, Gibson/Thompson very similar. A healthy Rose is very similar to Irving (is he going to play like this though? Bulls fans have been teased before and if he's not healthy forget it).
Bench seems a wash: Bulls bring more offense, Cavs bring more defense off the bench
Only clear advantage the Bulls have is Butler is better then JR Smith but the Cleveland Smith is a model 3 and D player who the Cavs won't be afraid playing straight up against Butler. As noted to me it all comes down to the difference between Lebron over Dunleavy which is a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon compared to the gulf between Butler over Smith
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SteelSmack
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LeBron destroyed Butler in the post a couple weeks ago, and the Bulls are hesitant to double him, as we'd feast on open 3s if they did. The fact they have NO ONE that can even slow him down prevents me from being scared about this series. If they wanna play him physical, it's going to be on Noah as a last line of defense, and I don't see that ending well for them, either.
Zach Lowe on why we should fear the revived Derrick Rose and the Bulls
Everyone Should Fear the Return of Old-School Derrick Rose
Tom Lynn/Getty Images
2015 NBA Playoffs
April 24, 2015
by Zach Lowe
Even in the course of watching hundreds of games that bleed into one another, certain random possessions stick in your memory: Draymond Green throwing an extra pass that defines the Warriors, Ricky Rubio hitting Kevin Garnett for a midrange jumper that links generations, some gorgeous piece of Atlanta ball movement in the second quarter of a February game.
I was sitting on the floor of Los Angeles International Airport in November, waiting for my flight and busting through a Bulls-Raptors game, when I saw this:
I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since. The end result isn’t all that great — a semi-contested corner 3 from a below-average 3-point shooter. But it represented the possibility of what these Chicago Bulls might become.
Look at all the options the Bulls tick through in just a few seconds. Jimmy Butler sets a cross screen under the rim for Pau Gasol, designed to spring Gasol for a post-up — option no. 1. That flows right into option no. 2: Butler making a flex cut, popping out behind a Joakim Noah screen, catching the ball, and transitioning right into a pick-and-roll with the Bulls’ spiritual keystone.
Butler drives to his right, which forces Terrence Ross, guarding Derrick Rose along the left wing, to sink in and bump Noah in the lane. Turns out, that bit of help is what the Bulls have been meaning to pounce upon all along. Gasol slides into position on the left block, catches the entry pass from Butler, and immediately swings the ball to Rose — all while Ross is still tangled with Noah at the basket.1
These Bulls were still learning each other. They weren’t yet well-versed in all the options on this play — when to lean on each of them, and the timing in which they should flow into each other. It was fun imagining how dangerous the Bulls could be once they grew together.
Chicago ranked fifth in points per possession in 2011-12, the best mark of the Tom Thibodeau era, during which ferocious defenses have mostly carried middling offenses. Rose missed more than a third of that season with various injuries, but Chicago secured the no. 1 seed in the East and seemed poised to bring an elite two-way team into an Eastern Conference finals rematch with the Hollywood as Hell Heat.
We all know what happened the day those playoffs started for Chicago. Rose tore his ACL at the end of Game 1 against Philadelphia, with the Bulls comfortably ahead, and the franchise has never been the same. Think of all that has taken place since:
• Rose missed all of 2012-13, came back, tore his meniscus twice, and looked mostly like a broken player.
• The Bulls gradually sloughed away parts of their core. Omer Asik and Kyle Korver left in cost-cutting moves, and the team traded Luol Deng, its iron man, for draft picks and cap relief — a good trade that nonetheless sapped morale.
• The team’s medical history got uglier. Deng had multiple conflicts with Chicago’s doctors, a slow boil that erupted in 2013, when the Bulls publicly downplayed what turned out to be a serious illness and then botched a spinal tap. Asik tried to play on a broken leg, Taj Gibson limped around on a busted ankle, and it seemed at times like Butler might never come out of a game again.
• The minutes issue drove a well-documented wedge between Thibodeau and the front office. There were playing time edicts, a mysterious yoga instructor who suddenly had a ton of say-so over playing time, the bitter firing of genius assistant Ron Adams, a contract extension that sat unsigned, and endless rumors of a cold war. Somehow, grown men who work at finding ways to put an orange sphere through a circle proved unable to have a prolonged civil dialogue over mundane basketball issues.
People close to Thibodeau are convinced the Bulls will fire him after this season, though the front office has always played down the tiff in terse public statements.
The Bulls, true grinders, trudged on. They gutted through first-round playoff series with rosters that had no chance to go further. They were temporarily inspirational. You adored them in the moment, like when they outworked a soft Brooklyn team on the road in Game 7, but when you sat back and thought about the big picture, they were just sad. We lament the Thunder as a potential lost dynasty. The Bulls are the Eastern Conference version.
They made the conference finals in 2011, Thibodeau’s first year, and pushed the debut LeBron-era Heat team in a five-game series that was more competitive than the 4-1 result would suggest. Gibson screamed and dunked his way onto the national radar, and it took a bunch of stagnant LeBron and Dwyane Wade jumpers to put away the Bulls in close games.
It looked like a rivalry we’d see over and over. Noah hated the Heat, trash-talking them during and after games. Chris Bosh cried once after Chicago brutalized Miami in the regular season. It was perfect.
Chicago has never gotten so far again. That’s why one possession from a meaningless early-season game in Canada stood out so much at the time. The Bulls had a chance to score points again, and in new ways. Gasol was a post threat who could ping-pong passes with Noah, Butler was ready to take on a more ball-dominant role, and Rose could ease back in as something less than a superstar. He could take the wheel when needed, drive more off the catch, and create three or four transition chances that wouldn’t materialize in any other way — easy points that could swing a game in May.
And then, because these are the Bulls, everything fell apart. Rose got hurt again, Noah and Gasol struggled to mesh, Doug McDermott contributed nothing, and the glut of frontcourt talent made it hard for Thibodeau to find Nikola Mirotic enough minutes at power forward. The last season of the Thibodeau era was sputtering away.
That’s why Chicago’s 3-0 lead on the Bucks is so exciting: Rose has looked almost like his old self at times. The Bulls overall have looked ragged, but they’ve been electric with Rose on the floor. They’ve scored 111.5 points per 100 possessions against Milwaukee’s second-ranked defense with Rose playing, a mark that would have outranked every team offense, per NBA.com.
He’s pushed the pace off misses, generating easy points that can compensate for all the times when Chicago’s offense slows to a slog:
The Bucks have had Ersan Ilyasova and Giannis Antetokounmpo leap out hard on Rose-Noah pick-and-rolls, and Rose has looked both explosive and slithery splitting defenders and getting into the lane:
Rose has forced some shots — every star ball handler does — but he’s mostly shown good judgment in taking what the Bucks’ defensive scheme gives. Rose doesn’t need to try those high-risk splits every time. He’s happy to draw out the trap, hit Noah open on the roll, and let the big fella work a 4-on-3:
He’s also shown keen passing vision from inside the lane. Look at this bullet to Mike Dunleavy Jr.:
The Bucks probably don’t need to attack Rose/Noah pick-and-rolls so aggressively; the combination doesn’t feature enough shooting to justify the mad rush. But this is how the Bucks play. They hit first, confident all those long arms behind the play can scramble around and force the Bulls into third, fourth, and fifth options as the shot clock dwindles.
Milwaukee in the overtimes Thursday started playing a more conservative style on Rose wing pick-and-rolls, directing him toward the sideline, but Rose eventually got around it:
Not everything is rosy. Rose is still taking too many long jumpers, and a lot of the pull-ups he made in Games 1 and 3 — including a ridiculous bank job Thursday night — just aren’t sustainable. The Bulls offense has died with reserve-heavy units, and even the “A” lineups laze through way too many possessions in which nothing of substance happens. The Bulls walk the ball up, spend eons trying to enter it to Gasol or Gibson in the post, and don’t really have a backup plan in case some defender dares deny a passing lane:
This stuff just won’t cut it against the best teams:
Noah can’t jump, or finish anything at the rim. Smart teams abandon him at the elbow, inviting him to hoist, and Chicago doesn’t have enough perimeter shooting to punish opponents for that.2 Kirk Hinrich is back to ruin everything. Milwaukee has largely neutralized Gasol’s post game with hard double-teams, and the Bulls haven’t been able to swing the ball for open jumpers consistently enough. Michael Carter-Williams and Jerryd “Long 2” Bayless are ignoring Rose away from the ball, making it harder for the Bulls to attack elsewhere:
Rose has been uneven on defense — stout against the Carter-Williams post-ups that have become a Milwaukee staple, but confused and aimless away from the ball. Mirotic can unclog Chicago’s spacing at power forward, but Thibodeau has played him almost exclusively on the wing unless another Chicago big is in foul trouble. He’s also hurt, because, duh, these are the Bulls. Chicago will need him to loosen the offense at some point.
Look how much more room Noah has with Mirotic dragging an opposing big man to the 3-point arc:
Mirotic’s shooting is dangerous enough to draw a third defender on pick-and-pops, and Butler especially has become smart about using that opening to cut toward the rim:
Still, things are fine — for now. Rose is back, and the Bulls are starting over again. They’re up 3-0, with time to finish the feeling-out process that began on possessions like that one in Toronto a gazillion games ago. Just starting that journey with Rose again gives hope they might finish it, or at least get far enough along to challenge the Cavaliers.
Because there he is again: LeBron, the reviled (in Chicago) King, with Uncle Drew and a starry big man from UCLA who has shown only intermittent interest, even during these playoffs, in the grime of defense. (Kevin Love is killing it from deep, though, and the Cavs have used him well as a pick-and-roll screener against Boston.) Four years later, and one round sooner, it’s likely that a Chicago team with a semi-healthy Derrick Rose will get another chance to vanquish an old foe. It might be their last one under Thibodeau. All we can ask for, after so much trauma, is to see these guys give one honest go of it.
Everyone Should Fear the Return of Old-School Derrick Rose
Tom Lynn/Getty Images
2015 NBA Playoffs
April 24, 2015
by Zach Lowe
Even in the course of watching hundreds of games that bleed into one another, certain random possessions stick in your memory: Draymond Green throwing an extra pass that defines the Warriors, Ricky Rubio hitting Kevin Garnett for a midrange jumper that links generations, some gorgeous piece of Atlanta ball movement in the second quarter of a February game.
I was sitting on the floor of Los Angeles International Airport in November, waiting for my flight and busting through a Bulls-Raptors game, when I saw this:
I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since. The end result isn’t all that great — a semi-contested corner 3 from a below-average 3-point shooter. But it represented the possibility of what these Chicago Bulls might become.
Look at all the options the Bulls tick through in just a few seconds. Jimmy Butler sets a cross screen under the rim for Pau Gasol, designed to spring Gasol for a post-up — option no. 1. That flows right into option no. 2: Butler making a flex cut, popping out behind a Joakim Noah screen, catching the ball, and transitioning right into a pick-and-roll with the Bulls’ spiritual keystone.
Butler drives to his right, which forces Terrence Ross, guarding Derrick Rose along the left wing, to sink in and bump Noah in the lane. Turns out, that bit of help is what the Bulls have been meaning to pounce upon all along. Gasol slides into position on the left block, catches the entry pass from Butler, and immediately swings the ball to Rose — all while Ross is still tangled with Noah at the basket.1
These Bulls were still learning each other. They weren’t yet well-versed in all the options on this play — when to lean on each of them, and the timing in which they should flow into each other. It was fun imagining how dangerous the Bulls could be once they grew together.
Chicago ranked fifth in points per possession in 2011-12, the best mark of the Tom Thibodeau era, during which ferocious defenses have mostly carried middling offenses. Rose missed more than a third of that season with various injuries, but Chicago secured the no. 1 seed in the East and seemed poised to bring an elite two-way team into an Eastern Conference finals rematch with the Hollywood as Hell Heat.
We all know what happened the day those playoffs started for Chicago. Rose tore his ACL at the end of Game 1 against Philadelphia, with the Bulls comfortably ahead, and the franchise has never been the same. Think of all that has taken place since:
• Rose missed all of 2012-13, came back, tore his meniscus twice, and looked mostly like a broken player.
• The Bulls gradually sloughed away parts of their core. Omer Asik and Kyle Korver left in cost-cutting moves, and the team traded Luol Deng, its iron man, for draft picks and cap relief — a good trade that nonetheless sapped morale.
• The team’s medical history got uglier. Deng had multiple conflicts with Chicago’s doctors, a slow boil that erupted in 2013, when the Bulls publicly downplayed what turned out to be a serious illness and then botched a spinal tap. Asik tried to play on a broken leg, Taj Gibson limped around on a busted ankle, and it seemed at times like Butler might never come out of a game again.
• The minutes issue drove a well-documented wedge between Thibodeau and the front office. There were playing time edicts, a mysterious yoga instructor who suddenly had a ton of say-so over playing time, the bitter firing of genius assistant Ron Adams, a contract extension that sat unsigned, and endless rumors of a cold war. Somehow, grown men who work at finding ways to put an orange sphere through a circle proved unable to have a prolonged civil dialogue over mundane basketball issues.
People close to Thibodeau are convinced the Bulls will fire him after this season, though the front office has always played down the tiff in terse public statements.
The Bulls, true grinders, trudged on. They gutted through first-round playoff series with rosters that had no chance to go further. They were temporarily inspirational. You adored them in the moment, like when they outworked a soft Brooklyn team on the road in Game 7, but when you sat back and thought about the big picture, they were just sad. We lament the Thunder as a potential lost dynasty. The Bulls are the Eastern Conference version.
They made the conference finals in 2011, Thibodeau’s first year, and pushed the debut LeBron-era Heat team in a five-game series that was more competitive than the 4-1 result would suggest. Gibson screamed and dunked his way onto the national radar, and it took a bunch of stagnant LeBron and Dwyane Wade jumpers to put away the Bulls in close games.
It looked like a rivalry we’d see over and over. Noah hated the Heat, trash-talking them during and after games. Chris Bosh cried once after Chicago brutalized Miami in the regular season. It was perfect.
Chicago has never gotten so far again. That’s why one possession from a meaningless early-season game in Canada stood out so much at the time. The Bulls had a chance to score points again, and in new ways. Gasol was a post threat who could ping-pong passes with Noah, Butler was ready to take on a more ball-dominant role, and Rose could ease back in as something less than a superstar. He could take the wheel when needed, drive more off the catch, and create three or four transition chances that wouldn’t materialize in any other way — easy points that could swing a game in May.
And then, because these are the Bulls, everything fell apart. Rose got hurt again, Noah and Gasol struggled to mesh, Doug McDermott contributed nothing, and the glut of frontcourt talent made it hard for Thibodeau to find Nikola Mirotic enough minutes at power forward. The last season of the Thibodeau era was sputtering away.
That’s why Chicago’s 3-0 lead on the Bucks is so exciting: Rose has looked almost like his old self at times. The Bulls overall have looked ragged, but they’ve been electric with Rose on the floor. They’ve scored 111.5 points per 100 possessions against Milwaukee’s second-ranked defense with Rose playing, a mark that would have outranked every team offense, per NBA.com.
He’s pushed the pace off misses, generating easy points that can compensate for all the times when Chicago’s offense slows to a slog:
The Bucks have had Ersan Ilyasova and Giannis Antetokounmpo leap out hard on Rose-Noah pick-and-rolls, and Rose has looked both explosive and slithery splitting defenders and getting into the lane:
Rose has forced some shots — every star ball handler does — but he’s mostly shown good judgment in taking what the Bucks’ defensive scheme gives. Rose doesn’t need to try those high-risk splits every time. He’s happy to draw out the trap, hit Noah open on the roll, and let the big fella work a 4-on-3:
He’s also shown keen passing vision from inside the lane. Look at this bullet to Mike Dunleavy Jr.:
The Bucks probably don’t need to attack Rose/Noah pick-and-rolls so aggressively; the combination doesn’t feature enough shooting to justify the mad rush. But this is how the Bucks play. They hit first, confident all those long arms behind the play can scramble around and force the Bulls into third, fourth, and fifth options as the shot clock dwindles.
Milwaukee in the overtimes Thursday started playing a more conservative style on Rose wing pick-and-rolls, directing him toward the sideline, but Rose eventually got around it:
Not everything is rosy. Rose is still taking too many long jumpers, and a lot of the pull-ups he made in Games 1 and 3 — including a ridiculous bank job Thursday night — just aren’t sustainable. The Bulls offense has died with reserve-heavy units, and even the “A” lineups laze through way too many possessions in which nothing of substance happens. The Bulls walk the ball up, spend eons trying to enter it to Gasol or Gibson in the post, and don’t really have a backup plan in case some defender dares deny a passing lane:
This stuff just won’t cut it against the best teams:
Noah can’t jump, or finish anything at the rim. Smart teams abandon him at the elbow, inviting him to hoist, and Chicago doesn’t have enough perimeter shooting to punish opponents for that.2 Kirk Hinrich is back to ruin everything. Milwaukee has largely neutralized Gasol’s post game with hard double-teams, and the Bulls haven’t been able to swing the ball for open jumpers consistently enough. Michael Carter-Williams and Jerryd “Long 2” Bayless are ignoring Rose away from the ball, making it harder for the Bulls to attack elsewhere:
Rose has been uneven on defense — stout against the Carter-Williams post-ups that have become a Milwaukee staple, but confused and aimless away from the ball. Mirotic can unclog Chicago’s spacing at power forward, but Thibodeau has played him almost exclusively on the wing unless another Chicago big is in foul trouble. He’s also hurt, because, duh, these are the Bulls. Chicago will need him to loosen the offense at some point.
Look how much more room Noah has with Mirotic dragging an opposing big man to the 3-point arc:
Mirotic’s shooting is dangerous enough to draw a third defender on pick-and-pops, and Butler especially has become smart about using that opening to cut toward the rim:
Still, things are fine — for now. Rose is back, and the Bulls are starting over again. They’re up 3-0, with time to finish the feeling-out process that began on possessions like that one in Toronto a gazillion games ago. Just starting that journey with Rose again gives hope they might finish it, or at least get far enough along to challenge the Cavaliers.
Because there he is again: LeBron, the reviled (in Chicago) King, with Uncle Drew and a starry big man from UCLA who has shown only intermittent interest, even during these playoffs, in the grime of defense. (Kevin Love is killing it from deep, though, and the Cavs have used him well as a pick-and-roll screener against Boston.) Four years later, and one round sooner, it’s likely that a Chicago team with a semi-healthy Derrick Rose will get another chance to vanquish an old foe. It might be their last one under Thibodeau. All we can ask for, after so much trauma, is to see these guys give one honest go of it.
mds
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I've suffered too many Cleveland defeats to ever be too confident about anything in life, so I'm nervous about the Bulls suddenly being awesome. That said, I hope we pound those assholes, especially Noah. Fuck that guy.
OnSugarHill
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Gonna be a hell of a series. Very curious how Blatt approaches it.
We've all seen LeBron cover rose well before in the 2011 playoffs. I figure we'll see that again in certain spots of the game.
I think we'll see a lot of Shumpert covering Rose too. Wouldn't be surprised if Shump starts over JR Smith for defensive purposes. Kyrie Irving has done quite well against the elite PGs in the league defensively this season. This will be a true test to see if he really is improved from the past. I'm expecting big minutes from Mozgov to protect the rim from Rose/Butler penetration.
At the end of the day, the Bulls defense isn't what it used to be. Watch LeBron have his best series against the Bulls to date, outside of maybe 2011. I don't think the bigs can prevent Kyrie from getting shots up at the hoop... I mean, who can? Kevin Love's shooting should keep the floor open for the Cavs. Kevin Love should be able to abuse Gasol inside and outside. Can't wait for this series
We've all seen LeBron cover rose well before in the 2011 playoffs. I figure we'll see that again in certain spots of the game.
I think we'll see a lot of Shumpert covering Rose too. Wouldn't be surprised if Shump starts over JR Smith for defensive purposes. Kyrie Irving has done quite well against the elite PGs in the league defensively this season. This will be a true test to see if he really is improved from the past. I'm expecting big minutes from Mozgov to protect the rim from Rose/Butler penetration.
At the end of the day, the Bulls defense isn't what it used to be. Watch LeBron have his best series against the Bulls to date, outside of maybe 2011. I don't think the bigs can prevent Kyrie from getting shots up at the hoop... I mean, who can? Kevin Love's shooting should keep the floor open for the Cavs. Kevin Love should be able to abuse Gasol inside and outside. Can't wait for this series
gourimoko
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...yawn...
Bulls are going to get demolished.. I have absolutely zero concerns about Chicago, whatsoever.
My only fear is that they might intentionally injure one of our players; other than that, they have relatively little chance at taking the Cavs, let alone over 7 games.
Bulls are going to get demolished.. I have absolutely zero concerns about Chicago, whatsoever.
My only fear is that they might intentionally injure one of our players; other than that, they have relatively little chance at taking the Cavs, let alone over 7 games.
godfather
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I think it will go 6, but it won't be a on your seat, be fearful kind of 6. Hell, I kinda expect it to be a split the first two.
But, I am predicting we'll get 2 wins in Chicago. I honestly believe the next series will be easier (against Atlanta). I can see that one going 5 to be honest. I really don't believe in Atlanta at all.
Sure, sure, people can say I'm being a homer, I don't think anyone in the East is seriously a match for us. It's a horrible conference.
The West is a different story. Atlanta to me looks a hell of a lot more like a 4 or 5 seed right now, not a number 1 that's for sure.
The Cavs have yet to play even close to their best basketball, and they're up 3-0, I don't care how bad the opponent is, that's impressive. The Bulls needed a great Rose performance to barely beat a shitty Bucks team.
Chris
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I am going to hold you to this. Because I don't think I can take losing to the fucking Bulls.
godfather
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There will be one game, where they probably beat us pretty significantly, and everyone will panic. But, this team is Jekyll and Hyde, they've been this way the entire year. Some night's they look like world beaters, and other's they look like they can't even beat the Knicks.
I have a very hard time seeing them pulling together 4 games like that to beat us. We've already seen their Jekyll and Hyde act in the post season. Even if they're at the top of their game, I am not sure they are good enough to beat us on the top of ours.
But I do think they're a bigger threat to us than Atlanta, but Atlanta doesn't look like a threat at all. I am not convinced they are going to beat the Wizards. Would not be shocked if the Wiz pull up the upset. They've come down to Earth a lot since their hot start.