NBA Playoffs 2012 Running thread

I've been wrong here a lot with my predictions but let me share one FACT with y'all.
No way Miami wins this series.
Just won't happen. Oklahoma City's a lot deeper and will have that 7th game at home.
Miami won't win the series. Trust me.

 

Blitz, I have no idea of your record with predictions but I fervently hope you are correct with this one.

 

I'd be stunned if he wasn't right. It looks like Miami has no answer for OKC's small lineup.

 

Which would mean more if OKC wouldn't wait so long to go to that lineup. As I said before, not entirely sure why OKC continues to start the big lineup when it consistently results in slow starts (18-2 anyone?), and they nearly always seem to do markedly better when they switch to the faster small ball lineup.

Perkins is a damn nice weapon to have when you need someone to bang against Andrew Bynum or Dwight Howard, or are facing a Laker type double post attack, but man, he's just looked hopeless when he has to come out and defend the high post, or against a quicker lineup like Miami has been throwing out the last couple games, and he provides no real threat at all as a scorer on the offensive end.

There's no rule that you have to start the same five in the playoffs as the regular season. Might be time to make a change, Brooks.

 

On that play, what makes it odd is that Lebron doesn't seem ready for the play to start. He's looking over his shoulder because the plan appears to double team Durant when he gets the ball.

So basically, Lebron is playing catchup the whole time trying to get into position. He hooks Durant a little -- a slight foul but a foul nonetheless. But then what is strange is that Durant could have driven baseline pretty easily but he goes up for the jump shot seemingly not bothered by the contact. Lebron follows through with his arm and gets another soft foul on the body.

I think you could and should have called a foul twice there, but neither was a travesty.

 

It certainly appeared the game was intended to be exciting at the end and that's what was hoped for, but that the plan was for Miami to win.
It makes the series much more interesting than seeing a 2-0 OKC series lead.
It was really an odd-looking ending. But you see lots of those if you follow an 82-game NBA regular season plus the playoffs.
The games and outcomes are not ALL odd, but more than a few of them, here and there, are.

Who knows what we'll see, here and there, if this thing goes seven games.
I still think OKC wins the trophy.

 

You also see a lot of odd-looking Blitz posts, but I'm not sure that's intended.

 

It looked like he was trying to get the shot off before they could give the foul.

 

There have been moments in this series where one guy has made a play, and you realize that there was only one guy on the court who could have made that play.

And it isn't LeBron James, and he doesn't play for Miami.

 

The more I see them do it, the more I wonder why the Heat don't run cross-screens for LeBron and get him the ball in the post 80% of the time he's in the game. What guard in the NBA is strong enough to stop him there?

 

That would entail running an offense.

 

Yeah, Nick Collison has really impressed me, too.