jon abbey:
over the corpse of Derek Fisher? Maynor getting the backup PG minutes probably would have made it harder for MIA to focus on Harden so much and take him out of the series.

Bingo! Plus Maynor is a better defender. Still, even if Battier shot only 50% on 3′s the first few games instead of 60 something, Thunder probably win anyways. That Finals was ridiculous in most aspects, a fitting end to an odd season

Juany8: What about OKC if Maynor doesn’t go down for the season

Do you really think that a guy with a career .059 WS/48, .475 TS%, 1.03 PPS (1.18 is league average), and 0.039 WP/48 is going to give the Thunder not just a better chance but a significantly better chance to beat the Heat last year? Is this really happening?

The closest team Miami faced to that Dallas team was the Celtics, a team that never would have beat a healthy Bulls team and barely got past the Sixers. Unfortunately for Miami, they got even slower since last year, Wade looks totally off, and there is actually a team in the Eastern conference that is well coached, passes the ball very well, and has multiple forms of attack. The Knicks have some awesome matchup advantages against Miami, the same kind of advantages Dallas had, and those advantages should neutralize the Miami defense, even if they do start playing better. I don’t know that the Knicks will be able to outscore Miami, especially since Felton is going to get far too many chances to shoot, but I do like the thought of seeing what Chandler does to that offense if he’s actually healthy this year. Especially with Bosh trying to box him out while also stifling Felton on the pick and roll

jon abbey:
on the other hand, they easily could be back to back champions right now. it’s a long long long way until the playoffs, their only real concern is Wade’s health.

I really don’t have a good sense about what is going to happen with either Miami or the Lakers this year. Miami’s defense has always been built on their supernatural speed — they close and rotate on you faster than you can shoot it. Their defense sucks this year, and it’s not clear to me whether the league has caught up to their strategy somehow, they just aren’t trying hard enough, or they are literally a step slower. Lebron looks typically awesome when he applies himself, so maybe him being slow is just an effort issue. Wade literally looks like he is running through molasses at times, and so it’s probably either injury or just getting older for him. Battier is what, 50 now? Haslem already started his decline last year. Bosh has never been a particularly good defender. Chalmers looks fat and slow this year. And Ray Allen looks slow and old as well.

Injuries and effort clearly will get better by playoff time. Old may not. And given how much they are forced to use Lebron on the ball nowadays, their lack of a real defensive anchor in the middle (a la Tyson) really hurts them.

Re: the Lakers – to me it all depends on whether Howard is really still hurt/injured, or whether he looks only above average on defense because the scheme sucks and there is no attention to detail from, let’s just call it the current coaching staff. If he’s injured, it’ll get better on D for them. I’m pretty sure the scheme and attention to detail will not.

One team everyone is sleeping on — the Bulls. Their defense is still awesome in spite of losing Asik and Brewer, and Rose will be back by playoff time.

jon abbey:
1) Miami isn’t a “fluke” because of an uninspiring 20 game start to a regular season, they did make the Finals the year before that.

2) I still don’t buy that 50 wins will be necessary to make the Western playoffs. the differences between 2007/2008 and now is that the top few teams will likely have better records now than they did then (LAL led the conference at 57-25, SAS and OKC should both beat that this year) but more importantly there were four terrible teams for them all to beat up on, at 23-59 or worse, and that’s also unlikely to be the case this year.

A “fluke” in the sense that they seem more dominant than they really are. The 04-05 Pistons made back to back Finals but no one thinks of them as great teams, while this era has a lot of talent overall there are no clear cut dominant teams. I don’t think any team this season stands a chance against a prime Duncan or those Shaq and Kobe teams. So yes, they’re the clear cut best team in the East and have been for 3 years, but the East is weaker than the West and the team that beat them last year blew up the team before it had a chance to repeat.

I don’t think Miami beats Dallas with Tyson Chandler last year, and I don’t think they even win the title last year if you run it again from the beginning. Do they still steamroll the Knicks if Chandler doesn’t get the flu and the entire backcourt isn’t injured? Do they still get out of the East with a healthy Rose? Do they even get past the Celtics if they have Avery Bradley, who was coming up in a big way last year? What about OKC if Maynor doesn’t go down for the season and Brooks doesn’t fall in love with Fisher’s “veteran leadership”

Sure they’re the best team in the East and the favorites, but I think it’s a small gap, Miami wasn’t even the favorite going into the playoffs last year.

Juany8: I do admit that I was talking about the eighth seed having 50 wins as opposed to what it would take to beat the 9th seed, so maybe it’ll really be 47-48 wins to make the playoffs.

this I think is closer, but I’d still bet on six 50+ win teams tops in the West this year (if I bet on sports, which I do not anymore).

2) I still don’t buy that 50 wins will be necessary to make the Western playoffs. the differences between 2007/2008 and now is that the top few teams will likely have better records now than they did then (LAL led the conference at 57-25, SAS and OKC should both beat that this year) but more importantly there were four terrible teams for them all to beat up on, at 23-59 or worse, and that’s also unlikely to be the case this year.

ruruland: Kobe today: “I think Mike D is a very, very smart offensive coach,” Bryant said.

And from Woodson via NY Times:

“I liked a lot things that Mike did from an offensive standpoint.”

Hmm. The sound of silence about Mike D’s D.

I think this Laker team is in real trouble. Offense will be fine, but they will be a disaster on defense unless MDA brings in a defensive coordinator again.