it will be a miracle if miami can pull this off

[Ghost1]

Tyler Herro - 13th pick
Adebayo - 14th pick
Butler - 30th pick
Crowder - 34th pick
Dragic - 45th pick
Robinson - Udrafted

meanwhile...

LeBron James - 1st pick
Anthony Davis - 1st pick
Dwight Howard - 1st pick

[bobopenguin]

need more than a miracle. u need jesus to come back and poses on butler.

[AlternativeAcc.]

I see 6 all-star caliber players on the Heat and 2 on the Lakers

I see Butler > Kawhit, Bam being the best big man since Shaq (and perfect for this era), I see the best youngster in the game in Herro (future 1st ballot HOFer), I see elite 3 and D players in Crowder and Iggy. Dragic is an underrated stud who gives you elite IQ on both ends and 20ppg .... wow



God damn. Heat are one of the best teams of all time.

Lol @ this troll thread.

[HylianNightmare]

They need to pray someone gets injured. If not it's ova

[Trollsmasher]

6 double digits scorers vs 3

LeBron a big underdog once again

[DoctorP]

Yeah this Laker team is exhausting. Seems like a tough challenge

[Derka]

The Lakers have played three soft teams that played shit defense. Miami is a team of grinders. I still think the Lakers win the series because they have the two best players on the court, but Miami isn't going to roll over like Portland, Houston and Denver did.

[ImKobe]

Heat match up well defensively but I'll be surprised if they can sustain their offense against the Lakers, who have been pretty damn great at taking away the 3 for the majority of the Playoffs & the bigs are going to make it hard for Bam to score in the paint in the half court.

[TheGoatest]

The Lakers have played three soft teams that played shit defense. Miami is a team of grinders. I still think the Lakers win the series because they have the two best players on the court, but Miami isn't going to roll over like Portland, Houston and Denver did.

Yeah, if any team is a "roll over" team, it's one that came back from being down 3-1 twice in a single playoffs.
And weren't the Rockets hyped as having the best defense in the bubble right as they were about to meet the Lakers?

[Derka]

Yeah, if any team is a "roll over" team, it's one that came back from being down 3-1 twice in a single playoffs.
And weren't the Rockets hyped as having the best defense in the bubble right as they were about to meet the Lakers?

By whom? "Best defense" and "Mike D'Antoni" don't belong anywhere in the same universe. As for the roll over comment...Denver was a 3-seed that had to nut up against a 6-seed Utah team that they were superior to. The Clippers then proceeded to show their bellies in epic fashion. Denver did the same thing against a superior LA team.

[Basketball r Us]

Nuggets or Rockets will dispatch the Heat in 6.

[HBK_Kliq_2]

They need to pray someone gets injured. If not it's ova

This is pretty much your answer. Davis has to tear his shit up. Miami is a nice underdog story but they lack a true superstar. Replace Butler with Kawhi and I would consider Miami the favorites.

[TheGoatest]

By whom? "Best defense" and "Mike D'Antoni" don't belong anywhere in the same universe. As for the roll over comment...Denver was a 3-seed that had to nut up against a 6-seed Utah team that they were superior to. The Clippers then proceeded to show their bellies in epic fashion. Denver did the same thing against a superior LA team.

It wasn't an opinion. I'm pretty sure that there was some stat which had Rockets as the best defense in the bubble right as they were about to meet the Lakers.

And you downplaying the Nuggets 3-1 comebacks, well I can say that about any team the Heat beat these playoffs: Of course they're going to beat the Pacers, Bucks and the Celtics when those three teams allow themselves to be beaten.

The Heat didn't win against Boston because of their defense. Nor because they were particularly good at scoring either. They won because their offense committed few turnovers. In fact, the Heat defense allowed Boston (112.5 ppg) to score more points than the Heat (112.3 ppg) themselves did on average. On a higher FG% too. The Heat defense allowed 4 Boston players to average 26.5, 23.2, 19.7 and 17.0 ppg. I'll tell you this right now, if they allow a single other Lakers player aside from LeBron and AD to average 17 points, this is a Lakers sweep.

I know it's always the safe, cowardly prediction to say 6 or 7, but this really could be a Lakers sweep. The Heat will win as many games as the Lakers allow them to. I can't predict what effort the Lakers will come with, or if they'll have another soft game where they let themselves get outrebounded 44-25 like they did in game 3 against the Nuggets, but if they avoid taking nights off like that game, then this is a Lakers sweep.

[TheGoatest]

This is pretty much your answer. Davis has to tear his shit up. Miami is a nice underdog story but they lack a true superstar. Replace Butler with Kawhi and I would consider Miami the favorites.

[Derka]

It wasn't an opinion. I'm pretty sure that there was some stat which had Rockets as the best defense in the bubble right as they were about to meet the Lakers.

Well if its not an opinion, it needs a source. Going into the bubble, bball-reference has them at the 11th highest adjusted defensive rating out of the 16 teams that stayed for the playoffs. Unadjusted has them at 14th. In the bubble, the only thing Houston did that was "the best" was force roughly 15 turnovers per game. After that, they're middle of the road the rest of the way.

I'm not arguing with the rest of that because if you seriously don't believe the Heat won that series with defense, you didn't watch the games and you've got nothing to contribute but box score regurgitation. That 1-2-2 zone defense utterly ruined the Celtics for all but the 3rd quarter of game 5.