By Fraser MacK
First off, I fully believe that an actual Cavalier would kick the ass of an actual Wizard, so we’ll be calling Washington the Bullets from now on, I don’t know why they didn’t call themselves that in the first place. Now let’s get to the teams.
Cleveland is trying to make their way back to the Finals and Lebron is playing the best basketball of his career. The rest of his team is pretty crappy though; Delonte West, Devin Brown, Ben Wallace and Big Z round out the starting 5 and none of them would start on any other playoff team, with the exception of Big Z just because of the dearth of centers around the league. However, they have proven that they can win with just Lebron and some dudes, so who’s to say they can’t do it again. The Cavs do play good defense and are the best rebounding team in the conference, both by number and differential. Their shooting percentages are not bad, but not great either and they have one of the fewest team assist totals in the league, not surprising because their offense consists of give the ball the Lebron and everyone else stand around and watch, which isn’t necessarily a bad offensive scheme.
Washington, on the other hand, is surprising many by being so competitive without their best player almost all season. Agent Zero is back, but obviously not at 100% and his teammates have learned to play without him. Caron Butler continues his meteoric rise to superstardom, averaging a Lebron-like 20/7/5; Antawn Jamison had another solid year despite no one outside of his immediate family even knowing how the spell his name; and the kids really stepped up. Andray Blatche started out the year great, but tapered off towards the spring, still he looks like a valuable piece moving forward. Oleksy Pecherov and Nick Young also contributed in key areas. The area where Washington has a clear advantage is coaching, Eddie Jordan has shown he is among the elite coaches in the league, while Mike Brown still looks Frodo in Lord of the Rings half the time, scared $#&@less and obviously out of his league. The way for Washington to win this series is not to shut down Lebron, not gonna happen. Let Lebron get his 30, but stop the other guys from being heroes. No Boobie Gibson threes, no Ben Wallace offensive putbacks, no Big Z pick and pops.
The Bullets have what it takes and if they can get 16 and 6 out of Gilbert in 28 minutes or so, they have a really good shot. This Cavs team is worse than last years, which was probably the worst team to ever make the finals. If the Cavs want to avoid an embarrassing first round exit, they need to take and make threes. Washington is the worst perimeter defensive team in the conference, giving up an astounding 8.3 threes a game (that’s 25 points for you Mathletes out there). This has been a nice little playoff rivalry over the past few years, but it looks like the Cavs are going to win it again, Lebron is just too good.
Prediction: Cavs in 5
Rebuttal : Evan D
The Wizz have Caron/Antawn/Gilbert/Big Oily/DeBeard. The Cavs have Lebron James…Lebron James. I’d like to use the Michael Jackson defense to say that Michael made Off the Wall and last year LeBron made Game 5 against Detroit. Right now, we’re in like 1980/81. LeBron is a couple of years off releasing Thriller.
In closing your honor, this series goes 7 games and the Cavs win. But they will lose in the second round. Michael Jackson made Thriller.
