Any 1st round playoff series you'd like to see?

[Fafnir]

I would love to see the bobcats or the bulls vs the cavs. Both teams can give the cavs a good fight in the first round. I really think this year we will get an easier first round matchup than the 1 or 2 seeds.

Well, Charlotte can't fall to the 8 seed so you might as well remove the Bobcats from this discussion.  Why do you think Chicago would give the Cavs a good series?

They'd give them a better one that Toronto!

Chicago can be a feisty bunch and a headache.  Toronto is neither.

Completely agree here.  Toronto would be a guaranteed sweep for the Cavs.  Although I think the Cavs with the slimmed down Shaq can sweep Chicago as well

I think Shaq will actually hurt them against the Bulls. Integrating him back into the offense again is likely to make them less effective overall on offense. Defensively he's not a good player to match up with any of the Bulls best line ups either. But the tune up will help the team for a much tougher second round series.

[MMacOH]

I would love to see the bobcats or the bulls vs the cavs. Both teams can give the cavs a good fight in the first round. I really think this year we will get an easier first round matchup than the 1 or 2 seeds.

Well, Charlotte can't fall to the 8 seed so you might as well remove the Bobcats from this discussion.  Why do you think Chicago would give the Cavs a good series?

They'd give them a better one that Toronto!

Chicago can be a feisty bunch and a headache.  Toronto is neither.

Completely agree here.  Toronto would be a guaranteed sweep for the Cavs.  Although I think the Cavs with the slimmed down Shaq can sweep Chicago as well

I think Shaq will actually hurt them against the Bulls. Integrating him back into the offense again is likely to make them less effective overall on offense. Defensively he's not a good player to match up with any of the Bulls best line ups either. But the tune up will help the team for a much tougher second round series.

You are thinking about this the wrong way.  Who exactly is going to match up on Shaq?  The bulls have no one who can be physical in the key.  Noah will get abused.  Shaq may have some issues on the pick and roll, so I guess if the Bulls can consistently hit mid range jumpers they can stay in a game

[Fafnir]

You are thinking about this the wrong way.  Who exactly is going to match up on Shaq?  The bulls have no one who can be physical in the key.  Noah will get abused.  Shaq may have some issues on the pick and roll, so I guess if the Bulls can consistently hit mid range jumpers they can stay in a game

But the Cavs don't have any problems scoring on the Bulls anyways, they proved this the game they recently played them without LeBron.

Shaq will slow down the overall pace of the offense and hurt them on defense. Individually he will be effective, but I think he'll hurt the overall team game against the Bulls. Will it matter in the end? Probably not, but I do think it could make the series take one game longer than it should have.