ESPN's Summer Forecast for 2010-2011 Champs

[Rashi]

Ok here is the link to see the voting results and the picks of other experts :

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?page=SummerForecast10-NBAChamps

Sum up for that is basically : in the national predictions, only 1 out of 93 people picked the C's to win it all (Chris Sheridan was the only one), while 5 picked Orlando, 34 picking the Heat, and 52 choosing the Lakers. Oh and surprisingly OKC also got one vote as well.



As usual we are considered the underdogs,and only one ESPN expert chose us to win:

Chris Sheridan, ESPN.com: Boston Celtics.

If they had had Kendrick Perkins and a healthy Rasheed Wallace in Game 7, I think they would have won at Staples. Pau Gasol was just too much for them down the stretch. But now they'll have Jermaine O'Neal, too, to check Pau in a deciding game. I still think they need to replace the departed Tony Allen, but it's a long time between now and the trade deadline.

[Mike-Dub]

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Chris Sheridan, ESPN.com: Boston Celtics.

If they had had Kendrick Perkins and a healthy Rasheed Wallace in Game 7, I think they would have won at Staples. Pau Gasol was just too much for them down the stretch. But now they'll have Jermaine O'Neal, too, to check Pau in a deciding game. I still think they need to replace the departed Tony Allen, but it's a long time between now and the trade deadline.

It should be if we had Kendrick Perkins or a healthy Rasheed Wallace we would have won it.  Either one goes our way we got banner 18 right now, but injuries unforunately are a part of sports. 

[ben]

Five votes for orlando hurts my brain.  we destroyed them last year.

[Bahku]

Interesting ... Jackie McMullan and Ryen Russillo voting us out ... well, this is probably how the votes would've gone in large part last year, especially before the playoffs. I certainly would have thought we'd get more than one vote, but I'm fine with it ... the bigger the underdog we are, the more we get to rub it in the noses of these "expert" nay-sayers. Go Green!

[thirstyboots18]

The underdog role keeps us hungry and makes us focus on the prize.  I like it!  Go Celts!  Make sure the only balloons that get released and Champagne that gets popped this year are ours.

[cdif911]

was anyone expecting all the experts to pick the Celtics? I certainly wasn't...

[footey]

I like Sheridan's take on last year, saying that we probably would have beaten Lakers with a healthy Perk and Sheed. Comment must really peeve Laker fans.

[Drucci]

I like that we're underdogs again, but to give the Magic more chance of winning the championship than us is plain ridiculous. What did they do this summer that improved drastically their team? Nothing. Unless Dwight suddenly develops a postup game (won't happen in one summer, supposing he worked on it), the Magic is stuck as a very good team in the regular season who beats weaker opponents in the playoffs but can't beat the real championship contenders (Celtics, Lakers so far, not putting Miami in that list considering how much of an advantage the Magic would have in the paint with Dwight against Ilauskas & cie).

Carter and Lewis will remain underachievers in the playoffs and they haven't adressed any of their needs this summer so they shouldn't be ranked this high on the list.

[Snakehead]

Five votes for orlando hurts my brain.  we destroyed them last year.

This was probably my biggest issue. Why the Magic more than us?  We handled them with LESS frontcourt depth and with Perk healthy we have the two best Howard matchups in the game with Shaq.  The Magic got no better this offseason.  We should handle them again.  I'll be happy to run the Magic into the ground again.

I didn't expect anyone to really pick us though, LA is the obvious choice (tho like Chris says healthy we would of won) and Miami is the sexy pick (and for good reason, they will be very good)

But yes, I like our chances a lot and especially against LA with our now very strong and deep frontcourt (which is why we lost).  Miami should be the wildcard, and I'll wait to see how their final roster turns out and how they play, but we will also be in a great spot to exploit their probable inside weakness. 

And I think we can exploit the Heat's inside weakness better than the Magic, whose advantage over the Heat is overrated IMO.  I'll be interested to see the Heat and Magic play, but I expect the wing defenders of MIA to give Howard lots of trouble probing when he tries to make moves on O and they can shut down everyone on that team except Howard.  And as we saw in our series against Orlando, if you make Howard beat you alone he is not enough.  They also don't have good matchups with their bigs against Howard, but they have a pretty good amount of bigs so they can hack-a-Howard.

On offense, MIA has the players to get Howard in foul trouble by driving to the rim if anyone does.  And Wade and LBJ are good passers so they can dish off when Howard shows up to stop them. And Bosh should seriously exploit Rashard ala KG.

As for us, we have multiple post players, while the Magic have one great post and a bunch of wing players (Rashard is a joke at PF, as we saw with him and KG matched up).  They played some Gortat at PF, which is okay, but not optimal since Gortat is really just a C.  They should play more Bass, but hopefully SVG is still too stupid and thick to figure that out.  I laughed when they finally put him in a game against us in that series and within minutes he threw down a huge dunk.  It's like
he was saying "THIS IS WHAT YOU COULD OF HAD IN, A REAL PF!".

With Jermaine at C, Howard will have to step out of the paint more, and if he helps off Jermaine he will be able to hit elbow range J's all day.  And if he doesn't help, KG will work Rashard on the post all day.  Add in Shaq coming off the bench, who can get Howard in foul trouble, and all those fouls with our depth we can use to hack Howard... I like our matchup with him even more.





I liked Chris' reasoning on that post though.  Very logical IMO, but we'll have to see how things turn out.

[Mike-Dub]

Interesting ... Jackie McMullan and Ryen Russillo voting us out ... well, this is probably how the votes would've gone in large part last year, especially before the playoffs. I certainly would have thought we'd get more than one vote, but I'm fine with it ... the bigger the underdog we are, the more we get to rub it in the noses of these "expert" nay-sayers. Go Green!

Even though Jackie Mac and Ryen are from the area I'm not surprised they voted against  us.  Let them underate us when we get back what was rightfully ours it will feel all the better.

[ToppersBsktball10]

was anyone expecting all the experts to pick the Celtics? I certainly wasn't...

I figured everyone was picking the Heat, and a few to go to the Lakers. But the Magic getting 5? Really?

[nba is the worst]

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Chris Sheridan, ESPN.com: Boston Celtics.

If they had had Kendrick Perkins and a healthy Rasheed Wallace in Game 7, I think they would have won at Staples. Pau Gasol was just too much for them down the stretch. But now they'll have Jermaine O'Neal, too, to check Pau in a deciding game. I still think they need to replace the departed Tony Allen, but it's a long time between now and the trade deadline.

It should be if we had Kendrick Perkins or a healthy Rasheed Wallace we would have won it.  Either one goes our way we got banner 18 right now, but injuries unforunately are a part of sports. 

Well, blaming injuries is better than blaming the refs...

Now if only Celtics fans could credit their opponents injuries as being equally valid - as in "if we had a heatlthy team AND the Lakers did as well, we would prove who had the better team"...