Lysol’s final standings

Without further ado, the East …

1. Boston Celtics (66-16)

2. Detroit Pistons (62-20)

3. Orlando Magic (53-29)

4. Cleveland Cavaliers (50-32)

5. Toronto Raptors (45-37)

6. Philadelphia 76ers (40-42)

7. Washington Wizards (39-43)

8. Atlanta Hawks (37-47)

I have the Bulls finishing one game out, and the Bobcats and Nets two games out. Better luck next year!
And the West …

1. Los Angeles Lakers (60-22)

2. San Antonio Spurs (59-23)

3. New Orleans Hornets (58-24)

4. Utah Jazz (55-27)

5. Houston Rockets (54-2

6. Golden State Warriors (53-29)

7. Dallas Mavericks (52-30)

8. Phoenix Suns (52-30)

I have Denver tied with both the Mavericks and Suns, but losing out on tiebreakers. Ooh, soooooo clooooose …

Stay tuned for first round matchups!

Who wants to imitate Mutombo?

Via Odenized

Deke’s a great guy, besides raising millions of dollars for his native Congo, and being at the State of the Union address, the best story will always be

I think he was a sophomore at the time, meaning he was probably around 2 was beloved by his fellow classmates at G’Town, known to be a very social and friendly guy. He was also an inexperienced drinker and supposedly got BOMBED whenever he went out and partied, which was very seldom. One night, Deke rolled to some club in Maryland with some friends, absolutely belligerent and dressed like a fool, and upon making his presence felt, hollered out, “WHO WANTS TO SEX MUTUMBO?! WHO WANTS TO SEX MUTUMBO?!” The entire bar went silent for a few brief seconds before erupting into laughter. How can you not LOVE this guy?!

via The Sports Source

- drop us a line at str8balling AT gmail DOT com

-Marin

Shaq in a Honda

A guy over at Honda-tech.com has a great story of meeting Shaq and only getting to take a picture if he gave BIG a ride in his tiny Honda. Small car or not, d-bag extraordinaire Chris still thinks Shaq’s done.

Photo credit: Honda-tech.com

- Marin

The Shaq trade still won’t work, although beating the Spurs was nice and all.

In past games the Spurs shut down the Sun’s three point shooting and did whatever they wanted inside. This time the Suns went inside, Amare had a poor shooting night but thats not always going to happen and Shaq was a monster. (Not to mention Spurs inexplicably not fouling at the end.)

Shaq was jumping for loose balls, getting blocks, falling into the 4th row. He was everything the Sun’s could have wanted. Which is great, thats what they wanted, size in the playoffs but there are three major problems.

1. He can’t do it every night - When he is motivated, he is great, but in a seven game series do you see him putting up 15-15 type numbers every night? Even if he can, can he get to the finals in a tough West doing it over and over again?

2. They won’t have home court - The Suns went from the best record in the West into a 5th seed at best team, and that is because Shaq can’t do it every night. That means they don’t get to feed off the energy of their home crowd to start, and that is going to hurt an aging team.

3. They can’t defend the point - Steve Nash can’t guard that position, Barbosa can’t. Parker, Williams, Kidd, Paul are all potential first round opponents, all of them will have career series against the Suns (well Kidd might not, but he has had a pretty stellar career.)

Steve Kerr will get fired by February of next year, and D’Antoni will be an unfortunate scape goat along with him. Expect the Suns to rebuild the summer after this. The Suns got what they needed from Shaq for one game, but it was for one game, not seven.

- Chris

My picks in the East and West

East:
1. Boston
2. Detroit
3. Orlando
4. Cleveland
5. Toronto
6. Philadelphia (I admit, i didn’t even have them making the playoffs two weeks ago)
7. Washington*
8. Atlanta

*If Butler fails to come back in the next two week, I may push them to 8, but he resumes full contact practice tomorrow. If he fails to come back at all, insert New Jersey in at 8th.

Rnd 1.
Celtics over Atlanta in 5. After atlanta takes game 3, alot of the media will start questions the Celtics, but they will win the last two comfortably and no one will remember game 3.

Detroit over Washington in 4. Unless Arenas is back then it will go to 5.

Orlando over Philadelphia in 6. 76er’s front court just won’t get it done.

Cleveland over Toronto in 6. Should be a good series, and I could see the raptors pulling the upset but LBJ will be unstoppable. Who is going to guard him?

Rnd 2:
Celtics over Cleveland in 6. The funny thing is if Orlando finished 4th and Cleveland 3rd both would have a better chance of causing an upset. Cleveland and Detroit have a few years of fueding and history and you couldn’t count Cleveland out. But against Boston they are just overmatched, I don’t see Wallace causing Garnett problems, and with Hughes gone who is going to guard Ray Allen?

Detroit over Magic in 6. If the magic score 110 a night, maybe, just maybe they can pull the upset. But who is going to guard Rip and Chauncy? Dooling and Bogans are better defenders but you give up easy baskets on offense. Howard will be unstoppable when he gets the ball, but just who is going to get it to him? Prince will take Turkoglu out of the game, which leaves Rashard Lewis to step it up. I just don’t see Lewis earning his money, Pistons could even win in 5.

Conference Finals:
Celtics over Detroit in 5. Kevin Garnett is going to smell it, he has the supporting cast to do it, I think we could see for the second time in as many seasons Detroit taken down by a single player.

West:
Los Angeles
San Antonio
Utah
New Orleans
Houston (who two weeks ago I said wouldnt make the playoffs)
Dallas
Phoenix
Golden State

Denver need a massive injury (a la Nash, Davis, McGrady etc) to make the playoffs.

Rnd 1
Lakers over Golden State in 6. Golden State is going to need to get very very hot to win, they could still do it though, and there is not a team in the conference who could sweep them.

Spurs over Suns in 7. This series will go to 7, Shaq will play motivated ball that will have everyone saying “oh this could work next season.” But it wont work next season, I say seven games because Shaq matches up decently with the spurs since Duncan will be busy with Stoudemire. That bad blood between these teams could make it the bext series in the first round.

Utah over Dallas in 5. Utah will embarass Dallas, before the Kidd trade I had the Mavs coming out of the west. I just don’t see it now, and they don’t match up favorably with the Jazz who have a guard that consistantly outplays Kidd, they have a forward that nobody on the Mavs can guard. The Mavs on the other hand have an undeserving MVP who will put up 20 and 10, but it won’t be enough.

Houston over New Orleans in 6. Here is my upset pick in the first round, they beat them yesterday and this Houston team is finally allowed to run. Couple the Hornets inexperience with the rockets hunger and this series could end up shocking some people.

Rnd 2:
Lakers over Houston in 5. At least McGrady gets out of the first round. The Lakers have way to much inside, McGrady is going to need to average 40 just to give Houston a chance and with Kobe guardiing him I don’t see him doing that on a nightly basis.

Spurs over Utah in 6. Who is going to guard Tony Parker and Ginobli? Utah has had a suspect defense all season and they are going to be punished. Okur is going to need to come up bit to give Utah a chance but Thomas can handle him, and Duncan and Boozer will cancel each other out. Utah should still beable to take a couple of games from this.

Conference Finals:
San Antonio over Los Angeles in 6. All that experience, the years of playing together, the speed of Parker, Duncan inside, Bowen keeping Kobe quiet.

Finals

Celtics over Spurs in 7. Although the Laker final would be more romantic, and have Stern wetting his pants, we are going to get the most disciplined team in the West take on the best team in the East. The Celtics will be less tired, less battered and possibly hungrier. The Spurs don’t get an easy series in the West and they will have less opportunity to rest players in the end of season run in.

- Chris

To bring closure to the “Orlando could make the Western playoffs” blasphemy

A little research into the situation of the top 9 teams in the West:

Only three of the top 9 teams in the West have convincing winning records against the other 8:

Lakers 13-8
Hornets 13-9
Jazz: 12-8

Four teams are chugging along at around .500 against their playoff competition:

Mavericks 11-10
Warriors 9-9
Spurs 11-11
Rockets 10-11

And two teams are strugg-a-ling:

Nuggets 7-12
Suns 6-15

Now how is the East doing against similar competition? Two teams are killing it:

Celtics: 8-3
Pistons: 9-5

But the next three teams are god-awful. No chance at all:

Magic: 5-11
Cavs: 6-11
Raptors: 4-8

So, the Magic are 13-12 against the West. Especially remarkable is their ability to go 8-1 against teams in the West that WON’T MAKE THE PLAYOFFS!!! Need I say more?

-Lysol

Best first round potential matchups

1. New Orleans Hornets vs. Golden State Warriors
I have these guys matched up at a 3 vs. 6. Should be first to 120 points wins. B. Dave vs. C. Piddy. N.O. has too much on the inside to give this up. Hornets in 6.

2. Orlando Magic vs. Philadelphia 76ers.
Again at a 3 vs. 6, this one will be an interior battle between Sam Dam and Superman. Andre Miller runs circles around whoever Orlando has running at point these days, but unfortunately no one can connect. Thaddeus Young? Damn, the East is weak. Magic in 5.

3. Utah Jazz vs. Dallas Mavericks.
The 4 vs. 5 in the West, no one knows who’s gonna have homecourt advantage. But this one will go seven. Kidd vs. his younger, non-wifebeating brother Deron Williams. Boozer takes care of Kirilenko by decapitating Nowitzski the first chance he gets. The Mavericks take advantage of Utah’s horrible road record, but there’s no way they skate to the second round this year. Jazz in 7.

-Lysol

top 10 healthy playoff-bound ballers

1. Kobe
2. LBJ
3. Chris Paul (needs a nickname, by the way. CP3 doesn’t cut it for me. To be continued …)
4. Tim Duncan
5. Manu Ginobili
6. Baron Davis
7. Kevin Garnett
8. Dwight Howard
9. Steve Nash
10. Deron Williams

- Lysol

Would the Magic make the playoffs in the West?

An ongoing argument I have been frequently having with my roommates is would Orlando be good enough for an eight seed in the West. Tonight they play B-Diddy’s Warriors, I’m hoping the argument will get settled and Orlando has a sweeping victory. They won the first game in overtime, in Golden State.

But win or lose the question still lingers, but I am pretty sure they would finish top 8, possibly be top 6.

Argument 1: The West has more size to throw up at Dwight Howard.
Chris Bosh has been Howard’s most difficult adversary to defend. Bosh scored 40 on him last month (although people forget that Howard had 37 and 15 boards.) Jermaine O’Neal has lit it up against him. His problem players are athletic players with range that can get him into foul trouble. Although Yao has caused him foul problems, we are talking about the most unguardable center in the league. He has put up numbers against Garnett and Duncan (including 34 and 16 back in December against Duncan).

Argument 2: The competition is just too strong.

Orlando would be competing with Denver and Golden State. Howard had 18 point and 23 boards against the latter, and is pretty much unguardable long as he stays out of foul trouble he should be able to do it again. Both of those teams are erratic Orlando is relatively consistent. On top of that, Orlando has a 13-12 record against the West; pad that with east fodder they could easily be around the 600 mark.

The truth the game against Golden State will go a long way to proving my point should Orlando win.

- Chris

Warriors vs. Magic

This douche is routing for the Magic.