Teams I fear in order: Detroit- Defending champs with a pair of athletic big men and great team D, along with a very good/potentially great perimeter defender in Prince. Spurs(with a Healthy Duncan)- If Duncan's healthy then this will be an absolute battle. Heat- Shaq is starting to slow down and Wade can be neutralized with JVG's collapsing D. Suns/Nugs tie- We've shown we can beat both these teams, but that doesn't mean they won't be formidable matchups. The Nugs have all those big men to throw at us, and Marion will be a huge X-factor. We can play T-mac or Bowen at the 4 but unlike Dirk, Marion would kill us on the boards. That being said, we WILL be the 2005 NBA Champs. / We return you to our reguarly scheduled humility That that being said, we still have to take these games one at a time and finish off Dallas first.
I worry about Phoenix more than any other team except Miami. Unlike some, I don't particular fear the Amare/Yao match-up. Yao's flourished in this one before, and he's stuffed Amare sometimes in the past. The thing that I don't like is the back-court match-up. There's is super-athletic...and ours...isn't. Speed kills...and they've got it in spades.
I would fear Phoenix, except for the fact that they haven't shown that they can stop our offense, while we can definitely slow down theirs. Dallas is a MUCH better defensive team than they are. Btw, Will deserves some props for his somewhat overlooked post in this thread...see below.
