Better shot at making finals, BKN or LAL?

[slamtheking]

obviously it's the Lakers with the best shot to make the finals.  Nets would have to play the C's at some point so therefore, the Nets cannot make the finals.  case closed   

[Moranis]

At this point LA are really facing an uphill battle. No home-court advantage and their two superstars will take a while to get back into in-game shape. They've got two MVP-calibre players, which will certainly offset a lot of that, but it'll be tricky.

While on the other hand Brooklyn is in the #2 seed and could easily get to the #1 seed, even with Harden missing a chunk of games.

It is only an uphill battle if Lebron and Davis aren't healthy or are super rusty.  Right now if seeding holds, the Lakers path would be the Nuggets, the Jazz, and the Suns.  If they are healthy they are beating every one of those teams, and probably rather easily.  They beat the Nuggets in 5 last year, and they won't have Murray this year.  The Jazz scare no one.  Now if the Clippers beat the Suns, I think they could challenge the Lakers, but I don't think home court matters at all when they play since it is the same court and even when the Clippers are at home the Lakers still have more fans in the arena (if there are even fans at all).  The Lakers are better off staying in the 4/5 matchup and beating the short handed Nuggets and taking out the Jazz in round 2, rather than ending up in a situation where they have to play the Clippers before the WCF. 

The Nets need to get to the 1 seed so they don't have to go through both Philly and Milwaukee.  But even then, I don't really trust the Nets.  They haven't been healthy at all.  They haven't played together at all.  And they have no one that can even attempt to guard or slow down either Embiid or Giannis.  Obviously if they are shooting lights out they will be hard to outscore, but at some point in the playoffs you need to get a stop, and I'm not sure Brooklyn can do it against the elite teams.