Miami Heat and their EC playoff path to the Finals

[MISSERY]

don't sleep on andrew bynum

andrew bynum and roy hibbert are enough to beat kg and plumlee getting in foul trouble, blatche is not a good defender, and will have a hard time scoring againt's a 7'2 collins is useless

david west, luis scola, lance stephenson, paul george, andrew bynum = rebounding, indiana wins, attack the basket more often, low post scoring and pick n' roll offense and defense,
yes pierce has almost the same height as west but i don't see himn outrebounding west with hibbert giving some space inside,

heat lebron james can give you 40+ points come playoffs and a healthy d-wade can give you 30+points, ray allen can still hit 3's, battier is 50-50, lewis is more helpful but i doubt he plays,
chalmers in rythm and norris cole attacking the basket gives nets a problem if williams don't start to play at his best come playoffs, or put lewis or beasley at SF then move lebron to PG
birdman just gives spark from the bench, greg oden hhmm,

[MattyIce]

Paths don't matter (barring injuries). If you can't beat a team in the 1st or 2nd round, you can't beat them in the Conference Finals.

paths absolutely matter, style of play and individual match ups matter , you think it wouldn't be any more difficult to go through Indiana AND BKN as opposed to another east team? Bkn who beat the heat all 4 games this year and are not in any way intimidated by the heat! do u think rest is important? even if bkn gets it to a 6 or 7 game series as opposed to a 5, u think Miami wouldn't prefer that?  (with all the rest they are trying to get dwade?  pleeeeeeaaase, Miami is sitting their guys these last two games, either they think rest is important or that they'd prefer to avoid BKN , take your pick.... or maybe it's both.

Style of play and individual matchups matter but paths don't. You HAVE to win every series no matter who you're playing. If you can't beat BKN in the 2nd round, do you even deserve to be champions? You face whoever you're up against, you beat them and you win the championship (you have no control over these easy or hard paths, you just have to WIN).

Are you also saying a few days of rest decides a 7 game series? I don't think so. Didn't work for the Spurs last year after they swept the Grizz in 4 games while the Heat had to battle for 7 games vs Indy. Every series starts from scratch. The only extended rest you get is before Game 1. After game 1, it's all up in the air again, no more extra rest for one team over the other.

obviously you "HAVE" to win every series no matter who you are playing to advance, no-one is disputing that, the question is if a team like Bkn who could either go through toronto/miami would prefer that over atlanta/indiana. , as you agree style of play and matchups suit teams differently, by definition then a certain team's path would possibly suit them better. 

and from Miami's side, YOU may not think so but they have shown that they could use the rest, wades missed a ton of games and now lebron and bosh are missing games?  so you think they dont want rest, or that they wanted the second seed to avoid BKN whom they lost 4 straight to?

and that "didnt work from the spurs last year" i bet you werent saying that with a few seconds to go in game 6.  one rebound OR free throw away from working extremely well for them. if you think miami wouldnt prefer to cruise through their second round in 4 or 5 games and rest up lebron, bosh and especially wade with his status after 3 consecutive trips through to the finals your delusional.

[Sixth Man]

No championship for the Heat this season...

[MISSERY]

No championship for the Heat this season...

they should have released joel anthony or trade rashard lewis and resign mike miller

[Celtics4ever]

They still have their best asset (the NBA refs) to get back to the finals.   I would love to see Nets or Pacers beat them.

[Birdman]

Im still mad about the Spurs giving the Heat the championship last season 

[RyNye]

Are you also saying a few days of rest decides a 7 game series? I don't think so. Didn't work for the Spurs last year after they swept the Grizz in 4 games while the Heat had to battle for 7 games vs Indy. Every series starts from scratch. The only extended rest you get is before Game 1. After game 1, it's all up in the air again, no more extra rest for one team over the other.

In fact, historically, the team's that have won their conferences/the championship are almost overwhelmingly the teams that played longer series. That is, most seasons, teams that sweep or near-sweep the first round are more likely to be knocked out in the second round than teams that had to really fight for it. I wish I could find the TrueHoop article that broke the numbers down.

[MattyIce]

Are you also saying a few days of rest decides a 7 game series? I don't think so. Didn't work for the Spurs last year after they swept the Grizz in 4 games while the Heat had to battle for 7 games vs Indy. Every series starts from scratch. The only extended rest you get is before Game 1. After game 1, it's all up in the air again, no more extra rest for one team over the other.

In fact, historically, the team's that have won their conferences/the championship are almost overwhelmingly the teams that played longer series. That is, most seasons, teams that sweep or near-sweep the first round are more likely to be knocked out in the second round than teams that had to really fight for it. I wish I could find the TrueHoop article that broke the numbers down.

i don't doubt that is the case, actually i vaguely recall that article....my point is "what the heat want or would prefer"...not what history shows....even if the whole heat organization read that article and believed the correlation, my feeling is that they would prefer to have fewer games in a series than push it to 7...even if they were guaranteed to win the series...THEY feel they need the rest...and therefore would prefer the path to the finals that had the least resistance   

[pearljammer10]

Im still mad about the Spurs giving the Heat the championship last season 

Me too. One of the most heartbreaking sports incidents of my time and I'm not even a Spurs fan per say.

[D.o.s.]

Im still mad about the Spurs giving the Heat the championship last season 

Me too. One of the most heartbreaking sports incidents of my time and I'm not even a Spurs fan per say.

I would've really liked to see Tim Duncan ride off into the sunset with another Finals MVP.

[pearljammer10]

Im still mad about the Spurs giving the Heat the championship last season 

Me too. One of the most heartbreaking sports incidents of my time and I'm not even a Spurs fan per say.

I would've really liked to see Tim Duncan ride off into the sunset with another Finals MVP.

TP dude. I had the same hope.

[D.o.s.]

It could still happen this year -- I think if everything breaks right they've got a shot.

Of course, the same could be said for many teams in the playoffs.

[HomerSapien]

Im still mad about the Spurs giving the Heat the championship last season 

Me too. One of the most heartbreaking sports incidents of my time and I'm not even a Spurs fan per say.

I would've really liked to see Tim Duncan ride off into the sunset with another Finals MVP.

I felt the same way. Considering I have no rooting interest in the Spurs, I was pretty crushed when they lost. The series was brilliantly entertaining, and if San Antonio won it would have felt like everything "right" about sports would have won too. Because of that, I'll be pulling for them again this season.

[staticcc]

Paths don't matter (barring injuries). If you can't beat a team in the 1st or 2nd round, you can't beat them in the Conference Finals.

paths absolutely matter, style of play and individual match ups matter , you think it wouldn't be any more difficult to go through Indiana AND BKN as opposed to another east team? Bkn who beat the heat all 4 games this year and are not in any way intimidated by the heat! do u think rest is important? even if bkn gets it to a 6 or 7 game series as opposed to a 5, u think Miami wouldn't prefer that?  (with all the rest they are trying to get dwade?  pleeeeeeaaase, Miami is sitting their guys these last two games, either they think rest is important or that they'd prefer to avoid BKN , take your pick.... or maybe it's both.

Style of play and individual matchups matter but paths don't. You HAVE to win every series no matter who you're playing. If you can't beat BKN in the 2nd round, do you even deserve to be champions? You face whoever you're up against, you beat them and you win the championship (you have no control over these easy or hard paths, you just have to WIN).

Are you also saying a few days of rest decides a 7 game series? I don't think so. Didn't work for the Spurs last year after they swept the Grizz in 4 games while the Heat had to battle for 7 games vs Indy. Every series starts from scratch. The only extended rest you get is before Game 1. After game 1, it's all up in the air again, no more extra rest for one team over the other.

obviously you "HAVE" to win every series no matter who you are playing to advance, no-one is disputing that, the question is if a team like Bkn who could either go through toronto/miami would prefer that over atlanta/indiana. , as you agree style of play and matchups suit teams differently, by definition then a certain team's path would possibly suit them better. 

and from Miami's side, YOU may not think so but they have shown that they could use the rest, wades missed a ton of games and now lebron and bosh are missing games?  so you think they dont want rest, or that they wanted the second seed to avoid BKN whom they lost 4 straight to?

and that "didnt work from the spurs last year" i bet you werent saying that with a few seconds to go in game 6.  one rebound OR free throw away from working extremely well for them. if you think miami wouldnt prefer to cruise through their second round in 4 or 5 games and rest up lebron, bosh and especially wade with his status after 3 consecutive trips through to the finals your delusional.

Of course all teams would prefer to cruise. That wasn't my point though. My point was in the long run, no matter how easy or hard the path is, every series is a new one. That week off your team got before Game 1 isn't suddenly affecting performance when you're in the middle of Game 4 with 5 minutes remaining in the game because you will get a day off after Game 4 (same rest as your opponent).

My argument wasn't about what teams prefer, it's that these paths don't affect who wins the ring (hence my first statement of "paths don't matter"--for the ring that is, not team preference).

[Kane3387]

Nets sitting everyone tonight. Their starting five is one of the worst I've ever seen lol.

Nets go to six helps us get a better pick. Hopefully they lose to Cleveland.