Quit your whining...no one attacked your religion. It just so happens that Utah is well known as a majority mormon state which one may deduce that a Jazz fan base would also be majority mormon. Jazz fans crying=crying mormons. Offensive would be if he alluded to bike riding or incest. It would be wrong if he used terms such as in-bred or polygamy. Take it easy! <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8fe7OrkZPNo"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8fe7OrkZPNo" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
The Jazz are 3-0 against the Suns this season. Therefore, my preference would be for the Jazz & Suns to meet in the 2nd round. I think we match up better against Dallas than Phoenix. A healthy Yao / Tmac / Bonzi will scare the heck out of the Spurs and Houston would win that series. 1. Dallas 2. Phoenix 3. Utah 4. Houston 5. San Antonio 6. LA Lakers 7. LA Clippers 8. Denver / NO Round 1 Dallas vs. Denver / NO Houston vs. San Antonio Phoenix vs. LA Clippers Utah vs. LA Lakers
When I saw the thread title, I was thinking, 'Why are we talking about the DRAFT?? The season is just halfway over!' Anyway, as for who we face in the playoffs, it honestly doesn't matter that much. In the West, every team in the playoffs is going to be an excellent team whom no one wants to have to play against. Including Houston. Which will be the teams that the other teams LEAST want to play against? I would have to say, by the time the playoffs roll around, and assuming that all the teams remain as healthy as they are now (and assuming Yao is back at or near full strength by then), then the top three teams nobody will want to play will be : Phoenix, Dallas, and Houston. As scared as we may be of these other teams (and rightfully so), most of them should definitely be more scared of us than we should be of them. In the West this year, every single playoff team could reasonably be said to have a legit 'shot' at winning the whole thing. And that's not a bad thing, that's a good thing. It means that whoever wins it all has really accomplished something. Last time I can think of when a team truly accomplished something great was our own run in 95, when we climbed an impossible mountain to win it all. Just imagine if the East wasn't such a bunch of dogs this year. As it is, someone from the East is going to wind up walking into the finals, while the West beats the crap out of each other, and it could turn out to be the East who wins it all again. Grr.
Greg Oden ok and to be more serious, I really don't care. If we can avoid PHX, we'll pretty much have to play everyone tough..so whatever. Lakers? Jazz? Nuggets? I think we'll kill em
I would say Jazz, someone mentioned laker here, sorry, I am a little bit afraid of Kobe, u know what he will play like in playoffs?
Round 1: 1. Dallas 8. L.A. Clippers Winner: Dallas 2. Phoenix 7. Denver (fun to watch) Winner: Phoenix 3. San Antonio 6. L.A. Lakers Winner: (by a hair) S.A. 4. Houston 5. Utah Winner: Houston 2nd Round: 1. Dallas 4. Houston Winner: Houston Note: we all saw how we handled them at the beginning of the year with our full contingent of players, sans Bonzi. 2. Phoenix 3. San Antonio Winner: Phoenix. WCF: 4. Houston 2. Phoenix Winner: Houston Note: It's the playoffs folks, and defense wins in the playoffs. JVG slows it down and we get suprisingly easy wins vs the Suns. NBA Finals: Detroit Pistons Houston Rockets Winner: Rockets.
With the Spurs play as of lately I'm thinking more like this: Round 1: 1. Dallas 8. Denver 2. Phoenix 7. L.A. Clippers 3. Utah 6. L.A. Lakers 4. Houston 5. San Antonio ======================== Round 2: 1. Dallas 4. Houston 2. Phoenix 3. Utah ======================== Western Finals: 4. Houston 3. Utah ======================== NBA Finals: Cleveland LeBrons Houston Rockets
I think our current roster allows little room for mistakes. We're basically betting on nothing less than the brilliance of Tracy and Yao to subdue more athletic, talented and deeper teams. Dallas, Phoenix, Sas, and Utah are the teams that I'm most concerned with. Realistically, neither of these teams are going to be an easy task for us. Utah has been the team most people want but they've got a center that can hit the three with regularity, an elite penetrating guard, an elite four that can rebound/score AND a 6'10 forward that if he wakes up is one of the best defenders in the league. The thing that works in our favor though is they aren't playoff tested so its unknown how the pressure will get to them. I like a lot of our pieces but there’s no way to anticipate how raw players like Luther, Snyder, and Hayes is going to react to playoff pressure. In the last two big games against Dallas Luther has been atrocious. I think since he's been given the back up point guard role by default of the meek company he shares that should be noted. Playoff pressure really concerns me with some of these guys. Our compliments in 04-05' that contributed anything noteworthy was Sura, Barry, and James. So it’s not like we’re entering territory unbeknownst to this core. I think we have a head start this year with Bonzi/Battier on our roster which is why I think those people talking about shipping Wells for someone else’s caddy are nuts. I think Howard and Deke Rafer will be solid this year but we'll see. Alston is really key though we took Dallas to seven games with an injured Bob Sura. I may be mistaken but I think Skip is better than that. The post season success of a player like Wells' is incongruous with anything you can get for him. There’s no point in even flirting with the idea of parting ways with him. He won’t lose any playing time to Kirk either. I think a reserve one could really help to improve us but with Tracy handling the ball in the playoffs I don’t think its going to harm us too much. Even though it would be helpful to have a 39%+ 3-point shooter coming off the bench. All in all, we’re not CLEARLY better than these teams. If everything comes together at the right time, we're in good shape. Our goal this year should be getting out of the first round. If that happens JVG should get his extension.
After all these disappointing years, whenever I hear "first round", my mind goes straight to the NBA draft... but I realized you were talking about the playoffs. I want the Jazz... I just feel like they'd be an easier match in the playoffs than the Lakers. I could be wrong, though. The Lakers have been slumping like mad lately, and can't seem to win on the road. But the fact that the Jazz have no real go-to guy makes them seem like a good candidate to play in the playoffs, where that SHOULD become a bigger issue as each posession becomes more crucial and scrutinized. But I don't want to play the Spurs in round 1... I'm starting to believe more and more that we can beat them... but I don't want to play them in round 1.
lakers, jazz, spurs in that order. the lakers are lightweight so i don't see why anyone here is afraid of them. we crushed them with t-mac and they barely beat us without him. if t-mac and yao are healthy, the fakers are dispatched in 5.
wudnt we want to play the better teams like the suns earlier in the playoffs so we'll be more fresh..? but standing wize that wont be possible if i had to take my pick between jazz or lakers id pick jazz simply because i am confident we cud beat both teams, but just having kobe on ur team can do wonders, after that i would prefer to play the spurs but that won't happen, so the 1-8 plays the 4-5 so that means we wud play dallas, very scary series, i want to have faith but i find it very hard to believe that we cud beat both dallas and phoenix back to back so hopefully the spurs or some1 else can knock one of those teams out for us and make it a tad bit easier
