Celts in 6.........
Probably the most intriguing East series tbh.
I got the Celts in 6.
I hope the Celtics massacre 'em.
if shaq doesnt play knicks in 6. with that said shaq will celtics in 6, maybe 5 if there is a buzzer beater
Why bro? Laker fans should always want to see the Celtics fail, tbh.
And if Boston has to do seven to move on to round 2, they are ing done.
With Shaq.. Celtics in 5.
Without Shaq.. Celtics in 6 or 7.
Celtics in 5 or 6.
Slim to none chances for any first round upset in the eastern conference. Top 4 will all advance.
I think the NYK will be more dangerous than most people think.
Before the Melo trade, they were more of a running team, which is fine for the regular season
But in the playoffs, It will be more of a half-court game, which suits the new look NYK much better.
But again, the Celts have a good half-court D.
The key matchup will be at the PG position; Billups shpuld have the edge there.
Healthy and right in the head, the Celtics "should" win in 4-5. But they're not right in the head. I think they're mentally and emotionally fragile right now. They should win pretty easily but something tells me it won't be easy for them. Without Shaq, it allows the Knicks to play Jeffries/Turiaf on KG and lets Amare not have to worry about KG. I think that's big for New York if that's the case.
As already mentioned, the PG match-up really does seem interesting. Billups should outscore Rondo but he can't stay in front of him. Could easily see Rondo scoring something like an easy 10-15 points on 4-for-5 or 5-for-7 type shooting and getting anywhere he wants to on the court and getting his 12+ assists with ease.
Rebounding will be key. Boston isn't a very good rebounding team anymore and the Knicks certainly aren't either. Both teams should be able to offensive rebound on each other pretty well.
Boston should win in 5. But I think they'll make it hard on themselves still emotionally reeling. And the Knicks will make things tough for them. Boston in 7.
Billups is against quick PGs. Rondo will destroy him.
Boston is the better team I think in this series, even without Perkins. New York will still take a stab at it though.. Boston in 6.
Yes he is too quick, but Billups can post him up and can shoot over him
When Billups shoots below 40% in this series, the Spurs fans who have been slobbing his (like they do every member of the 05 Pistons) saying his championship experience makes him the leader of the Knicks will have some 'splainin to do.
This is true, Billups will be able to score on him, but TBH Rondo will cause more damage in the end. I've seen it happen all too often when Chauncey was a Piston.
Actually, Billups seems to suck mostly in Conference Finals.
1st round, 2nd round, NBA Finals, he is fine, but for some reasons he sucks in the CF.
Yep, Rondo is a tough matchup for Billups, no question
He's a career 41.4% shooter in the playoffs. He sucks in the playoffs unless Larry Brown is coaching him.
There's no denying that Boston will take this imo. But if they get emo in the middle of the battlefield they will get killed
Celtics in 5, with or without Shaq.
Knicks play zero D and have no depth outside of Amare, Melo, and Chauncey. Either Amare or Melo will go off one game, which is the one game the Knicks will win.
This is probably the one EC opponent where the Celtics can get away without having any big man depth.
Billups has never been a high efficiency scorer. He shot 38% from the field in the 2004 playoffs on his way to the le and Finals MVP. His value has never really ever been measured by FG%. He shot nearly 45% from the field in the playoffs last year and the Nuggets lost in the first round. Not sure why you would use FG% as any measure whether Chauncey is playing well or helping his team when it has never really been the measure whether he has or was.
Now I would agree with your sentiment that Billups right now isn't going to help the Knicks beat the Celtics. But your reasoning and using FG% as evidence really doesn't make much sense. If Chauncey shoots under 40% but the Knicks win the series, people won't care about him shooting under 40%. When Chauncey was good, his strengths were controlling tempo, ball distribution (not necessarily getting assists but knowing where to get the ball and who had the hot hand and what match-ups to exploit), and hitting big shots (which is overstated and exaggerated but still relevant because his teams counted on him to hit big buckets when they needed it) in crunch time. When he was doing those things, it didn't matter if he shot under 40% or not.
Billups will probably get killed on defense by Rondo. And in D'Antoni's system, it's hard to take advantage of Chauncey's strengths because he's more of a halfcourt point guard. But his FG% is not one of the things you should look at, good or bad, whether he's playing well or not.
Celtics in 5, assuming Shaq comes back and Rondo stops playing like a re .
Boston in 5, 6 max... gives them some confidence but is not enough to avoid the 2nd round collapse...
Dude, wtf are your talking about?
One advanced stat I like is TS%, its pretty basic and inarguable. Billups is the most efficient scorer in terms of point guards in the league because he gets so many fts and 3s and shoots so well from the line: http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/holli...rueShootingPct Also D'Antoni told him that he could run whatever offense he wanted when he got there: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...269778586.html
He's not that bad of a player at all. He also can guard bigger point guards and has the size to check some twos. When he was in Detroit, Hamilton would guard the 1s while he checked the 2s a lot of the time. Douglas is very good at chcking quick point guards, so he would guard Ray Allen. He gets crushed by small, quick point guards when he has to guard them though and he doesn't create for his teammates as much as in his Pistons years.
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