Warriors or Thunder? Who you got?

[TheSundanceKid]

Cheering for OKC to win but I expect GSW to win in a tough 6 game series.

Curry and RW can kill each other

Ibaka will battle Draymond Green

Roberson is going go cause Klay issues

So the question is , who is going guard Durant??

Okc bench is underrated also

Okc has the edge in this series imo

What about Barnes and Iggy? Surely they can cause problems for Durant?

Roberson may slow Klay occasionally but the differential between the two will be huge, Klay will still get his and Roberson will still brick everything.

The GS offense is far more efficient than OKC and defensively they are better as well.

[Tr1boy]

Cheering for OKC to win but I expect GSW to win in a tough 6 game series.

Curry and RW can kill each other

Ibaka will battle Draymond Green

Roberson is going go cause Klay issues

So the question is , who is going guard Durant??

Okc bench is underrated also

Okc has the edge in this series imo

What about Barnes and Iggy? Surely they can cause problems for Durant?

Roberson may slow Klay occasionally but the differential between the two will be huge, Klay will still get his and Roberson will still brick everything.

The GS offense is far more efficient than OKC and defensively they are better as well.

I disagree.  Roberson will cause Klay issues. He is a very very good defender.  He is not asked to do much of anything else

Durant will put on a fireworks display against Barnes and Iggy. Iggy will do a little better but with his age it won't be easy

Durant can go off for 40 every game if necessary


Iggy and Livingston will have to come up big consistently to compensate


GSW offense being efficient prior to this series is nice but it doesn't matter anymore.   

This is going to be a war as long as everyone is healthy.  Okc in 7 though

[Moranis]

Warriors in 5. Cavs in 5.

Cavs in 6 in the Finals.

You see the Cavs over the Warriors in 6? How?

How are they going to be able to guard the Warriors?

The Cavs are playing the best ball in the playoffs right now. I know it's a minority opinion, but I don't think the Warriors are unbeatable.

glad to see you jumped on the bandwagon.  I've been a big proponent of the Cavs in 6 over the Warriors for a long time now.

The Cavs are playing the best ball right now because the competition is dreadful.  They will sweep Toronto or Miami but they will get punched in the face in the finals and we all know that Lebron doesn't respond well when that happens...

The Warriors have played teams that won 41 and 44 games.  Cleveland has played teams that won 44 and 48 games.  Who has played worse competition?

And while I think OKC is better than Toronto (assuming Toronto closes out Miami), Toronto had a better regular season record than OKC did and they split the season series (each winning on the road).

[CelticSooner]

Cheering for OKC to win but I expect GSW to win in a tough 6 game series.

Curry and RW can kill each other

Curry won't be guarding Westbrook

Ibaka will battle Draymond Green

If they matchup I'd favor Green pretty clearly

Roberson is going go cause Klay issues

OKC's SGs are pretty mediocre including Roberson who looked good against soft SA defenders

So the question is , who is going guard Durant??

Dubs have Iggy, Barnes, and Thompson to throw at Durant

Okc bench is underrated also

That's their weak link and Dubs is much better

Okc has the edge in this series imo

Thunder have no one to guard Curry unless they want Westbrook to wear out over the series. Thunder will probably go big and hope they can keep the game in check so Curry has to work on defense. I expect a great series but Dubs are the best team in the league.

[celticsclay]

Warriors in 5. Cavs in 5.

Cavs in 6 in the Finals.

You see the Cavs over the Warriors in 6? How?

How are they going to be able to guard the Warriors?

The Cavs are playing the best ball in the playoffs right now. I know it's a minority opinion, but I don't think the Warriors are unbeatable.

glad to see you jumped on the bandwagon.  I've been a big proponent of the Cavs in 6 over the Warriors for a long time now.

The Cavs are playing the best ball right now because the competition is dreadful.  They will sweep Toronto or Miami but they will get punched in the face in the finals and we all know that Lebron doesn't respond well when that happens...

The Warriors have played teams that won 41 and 44 games.  Cleveland has played teams that won 44 and 48 games.  Who has played worse competition?

And while I think OKC is better than Toronto (assuming Toronto closes out Miami), Toronto had a better regular season record than OKC did and they split the season series (each winning on the road).

Let's not pretend that the Raptors aren't missing their starting center, their second best player has shot terrible this playoffs because of a severe thumb injury he describes as horrible pain and their starting small forward is currently a game time decision. I think full strength the Raptors are competitive with OKC. However, with their current injury situations I would be shocked if OKC didn't beat Toronto 4-1 in a playoff series right now. Cleveland had terrible luck last year with injuries, but playing a battered Miami or Toronto in the ECF is as big a cake walk as it can get. (Heat obviously missing Whiteside, Bosh and possibly Deng.

[CelticSooner]

Just looking at the matchups in this series its pretty dang intriguing. If OKC throws out that giant lineup with Durant at the 2 how do you think the matchups would go? GS won't be able to hide Curry on defense. They shouldn't have any problem scoring but they probably won't stop OKC either. OKC should have a clear advantage on the boards also. I might be leaning towards OKC now the more I look at this.

[PhoSita]

Warriors in 5. Cavs in 5.

Cavs in 6 in the Finals.

You see the Cavs over the Warriors in 6? How?

How are they going to be able to guard the Warriors?

The Cavs are playing the best ball in the playoffs right now. I know it's a minority opinion, but I don't think the Warriors are unbeatable.

glad to see you jumped on the bandwagon.  I've been a big proponent of the Cavs in 6 over the Warriors for a long time now.

The Cavs are playing the best ball right now because the competition is dreadful.  They will sweep Toronto or Miami but they will get punched in the face in the finals and we all know that Lebron doesn't respond well when that happens...

The Warriors have played teams that won 41 and 44 games.  Cleveland has played teams that won 44 and 48 games.  Who has played worse competition?

And while I think OKC is better than Toronto (assuming Toronto closes out Miami), Toronto had a better regular season record than OKC did and they split the season series (each winning on the road).

This is pure sophistry.

The Cavs will have to wait until the Finals to face a team featuring a player who has any realistic chance of outshining Lebron over a seven game series.  The Warriors will have faced three successive opponents that each feature at least one elite scorer of that caliber.

Sorry, but Drummond, Millsap, Lowry is very weak competition compared to Harden, Lillard, then Westbrook AND Durant.

[PhoSita]

Warriors in 5. Cavs in 5.

Cavs in 6 in the Finals.

You see the Cavs over the Warriors in 6? How?

How are they going to be able to guard the Warriors?

The Cavs are playing the best ball in the playoffs right now. I know it's a minority opinion, but I don't think the Warriors are unbeatable.

I'm a big believer in the necessity of becoming battle tested in the playoffs to win tough series.

This Cavs core group has never been in a close series against a quality opponent.  Last year almost worked out for the best in that sense because Lebron could simply run the show completely by himself with defensive role players and rebounders around him.  And the Warriors were relatively untested and needed to find their mettle in the middle of that series.

How do Kyrie and Love perform in a must win Game 3 down 2-1?  How about in a pivotal Game 5?  How do they handle Game 7 on the road, if it comes to that?  We don't know.  More important, the Cavs don't know.

This Warriors team is championship proven and they've been fighting tough battles all year, taking the best shot from every opponent in the regular season and dealing with missing Curry for the beginning of the second round.

I don't think it would be a particularly close series.  Even if it is closer than I expect, I would feel very confident betting on the Warriors to win the pivotal games that decide the series.  Lebron can't do it all himself against the Warriors and I wouldn't trust Kyrie and Love in that situation.

[jpotter33]

Warriors in 5. Cavs in 5.

Cavs in 6 in the Finals.

You see the Cavs over the Warriors in 6? How?

How are they going to be able to guard the Warriors?

The Cavs are playing the best ball in the playoffs right now. I know it's a minority opinion, but I don't think the Warriors are unbeatable.

How much of their good play is matchups, though? Id say Portland was a much tougher matchup than either Detroit or Atlanta, and they won half of those games without Curry.

[TwinTower14]

Warriors in 5. Cavs in 5.

Cavs in 6 in the Finals.

You see the Cavs over the Warriors in 6? How?

How are they going to be able to guard the Warriors?

The Cavs are playing the best ball in the playoffs right now. I know it's a minority opinion, but I don't think the Warriors are unbeatable.

How much of their good play is matchups, though? Id say Portland was a much tougher matchup than either Detroit or Atlanta, and they won half of those games without Curry.

Houston is much better than Detroit and I would say Portland and Atlanta are pretty equal.  Now GSW will have to go through OKC while Cleveland gets a battered and bruised Miami or Toronto.  Cleveland has had the easiest walk to the finals in recent memory.  I think they are going to go 12-0 on their way to the finals but I do think they will get handled by either OKC or GSW...by handled I mean that whomever represents the west will win in 5 or 6...

[SHAQATTACK]

Warriors

All the way....

Till LeBron drops em in 6

[Moranis]

Warriors in 5. Cavs in 5.

Cavs in 6 in the Finals.

You see the Cavs over the Warriors in 6? How?

How are they going to be able to guard the Warriors?

The Cavs are playing the best ball in the playoffs right now. I know it's a minority opinion, but I don't think the Warriors are unbeatable.

glad to see you jumped on the bandwagon.  I've been a big proponent of the Cavs in 6 over the Warriors for a long time now.

The Cavs are playing the best ball right now because the competition is dreadful.  They will sweep Toronto or Miami but they will get punched in the face in the finals and we all know that Lebron doesn't respond well when that happens...

The Warriors have played teams that won 41 and 44 games.  Cleveland has played teams that won 44 and 48 games.  Who has played worse competition?

And while I think OKC is better than Toronto (assuming Toronto closes out Miami), Toronto had a better regular season record than OKC did and they split the season series (each winning on the road).

This is pure sophistry.

The Cavs will have to wait until the Finals to face a team featuring a player who has any realistic chance of outshining Lebron over a seven game series.  The Warriors will have faced three successive opponents that each feature at least one elite scorer of that caliber.

Sorry, but Drummond, Millsap, Lowry is very weak competition compared to Harden, Lillard, then Westbrook AND Durant.

I'll give you OKC, but Houston and Portland are worse than Detroit and Atlanta.  I mean if the regular season record isn't good enough for you why not look at the head to head.  Oh you don't want to do that either since Detroit and Atlanta both swept both Portland and Houston in the regular season.  Kind of hard to make a realistic argument that Houston and Portland are better than Detroit and Atlanta when they finished with worse records and didn't win a game against them in the regular season even if their best player is better than Detroit and Atlanta's best player.

[chambers]

We just have to hope that the Warriors can sweep OKC or win 4-1 or something.

[PhoSita]

In the playoffs matchups and top players mean a heck of a lot more than how many games the teams won in the regular season.

Detroit, Atlanta, and Toronto are fine teams. 

But if I'm a coach preparing a postseason game plan, I'd much prefer to figure out how to over come those perfectly fine teams lacking superstars.  Because no matter how discombobulated the Rockets were, or how mediocre on defense the Blazers were, James Harden can win playoff games almost entirely on his own.  Damian Lillard can become borderline unstoppable, even on the road.

I suspect the Spurs werent comforted much that they won so many more regular season games than the Thunder, much as the 2010 Cavs and Magic found little comfort in their regular season exploits when they were embarrassed by the Celtics.

The Cavs will get to the Finals without ever having the figure out how to deal with truly dominant individual opponents.  And Lebron James will never have had to defend such a player, or face a single wing defender with anything resembling the tools required to slow him down one iota.

[greece66]

Warriors

All the way....

Till LeBron drops em in 6

Amen