Who is the toughest remaining team in the East (other than the Celtics)?

[keevsnick]

If Middleton is healthy its MIL
If Middleton is injured and MIA is healthy its MIA.
If Middleton is injured and Lowry is injured it's back to a toss up between MIL vs PHI and with Embiids thumb injury probably MIL.

[jpotter33]

Hard to say with the injuries to Middleton and Lowry. At full strength, I think it's clearly Milwaukee followed by Miami and then Philly.

Luckily, I think we matchup very well with Milwaukee and have traditionally played them very well. If Middleton is out for any extended period of time during our series, I think we're heavy favorites to win it. If Middleton somehow is healthy for the entire series, I think we're slight favorites.

What I pretty strongly believe is this - barring injuries, whoever wins the series between Boston and Milwaukee is likely to win it all.

[mobilija]

Ummmm.....duh...THE CELTICS!!!

Edit: my bad...just saw parenthesis

[Who]

I don't think much of Miami as a matchup problem.

Jimmy Butler will have a lot of problems with Boston's size on the wing and inability to get easy switches onto smaller guards or slow bigs. They can force Jimmy into contested jump-shots off the dribble and he ain't a good enough jump-shooter to scare folks in that situation.

Bam caused us a lot of problems two years ago but now we have Timelord, Horford, Theis together. Timelord's size and athleticism gives us a much better matchup. So too does Horford. Then we have Theis and G.Williams as auxiliary options.

Herro is good but he ain't that good. And he can't defend Jaylen or Tatum. He ain't gonna be the difference maker here / make up for the lack of matchup advantages in main two stars.

The rest of the team ain't that scary. They are way smaller than they were two years ago when they made the Finals. No Olynyk. No Meyers Leonard. Those guys weren't stars but they gave MIA legit size next to Bam. Now Bam is all by his lonesome inside most nights. Miami doesn't have enough size at forward. Jimmy is their next biggest player in terms of shot-blocking & rebounding. That ain't going to cut it.

Their bench is dodgy too.

This ain't a team that causes BOS problems in a 7 game series. They are the weakest of the three contenders. The easiest matchup of the bunch.