24K GOLD wrote:Chuck just picked Denver to win the series...

Who?

Lakers in 6. MWP coming back for the entire 2nd round

Lakers are going to win this series. I just hope they come out focused. They have absolutely no answer for Bynum or Gasol and that should mean a sweep, but I'm expecting a dogfight and 6 games.

This is a great first round test for us. Denver is going to be hell for us. It's going 7 games i think. But we will come out on top. Chuck picking the Nuggets = Every Nuggets player shaking their head....if Chuck picks you, you will lose. For sure.

24K GOLD wrote:Chuck just picked Denver to win the series...

Not like we needed his "kiss of death" but thanks Chuck Nuggets stand no chance now

We should sweep them if we come in focused and ready to do what we should do.

revgen wrote:We should sweep them if we come in focused and ready to do what we should do.

We're in an awkward place....but I actually don't want to sweep them. Not that I expect us to do that even under normal circumstances. All things being equal...and us being healthy, I still think we'd drop a couple to the Nuggs.

A sweep will mean facing OKC without Ron for two games. We don't want that.

Denver poses some matchup issues for us, and Denver is not an easy place to play with the altitude being a factor. Kobe put up that infamous 6-28 game there on a b2b, if everyone remembers.

Lakers in 6

We got this in 5 but maybe tank a game for Ron's sake.

Watching our last game against them (two weeks ago). Ron's defense on Gallo early on helped us separate in the 1st quarter.

Eventhough Denver gives up a ton of size to us, they held our bigs in check for a while with physical play and hard fouls.

Lakers in 5

Did Chuck really pick Denver?

If they still had Melo maybe they could take us, but they don't. I just don't see a team full of role players beating a team with 3 legit all stars on it in a 7 game series.

Lakers in 5 - I mean - "who are we?"

Hopefully Bynum and Gasol are ready to dominate and hopefully Kobe will pass the ball just a bit

24K GOLD wrote:Chuck just picked Denver to win the series...

LMAO like always ... - but who cares about Chuck.

Here you can find the video - Koufos and McGee equal Bynum/Gasol ...

http://www.nba.com/playoffs/2012/westseries3/index.html?ls=st

Nuggs are capable of making this a 6 game series and I'm good with that so we get Ron back for the entire 2nd round. We went 3-1 vs them this season but no blowouts. GK is a great coach but he's got a big mismatch inside to deal with, I expect him to attack the paint early and try and draw our bigs into foul trouble.

Interesting salary observations:

Highest paid player on Denver's roster is Miller @ 7.8 mil
Den average player salary: 3.5 mil

Highest paid player on LAL's roster is Mamba @ 25.2 mil
LAL average player salary: 6.1 mil

WChandler out for the season is good for us.

DJ-RaZ-Q#24 wrote:

24K GOLD wrote:Chuck just picked Denver to win the series...

LMAO like always ... - but who cares about Chuck.

Here you can find the video - Koufos and McGee equal Bynum/Gasol ...

http://www.nba.com/playoffs/2012/westseries3/index.html?ls=st

I thought that was actually a decent point from Charles. He never said Koufos or McGee were as good as Pau or Bynum, he was responding to Shaq's point about how the Lakers have 2 7 footers so we'd be too big for Denver. Well, Chuck's right, we're not bigger than them. They have 3 competent seven footers they can throw out there to guard our big men. Not many other teams can say that.

kobezaballa wrote:hopefully we win it 4-2 in 6, so that we get artest back fr round 2 game 1 against KD and the Thunder.

lakers in 5 or 6 because of the huge advantage of the frontcourt plus the fact kobe will be well rested and healthy . belongs not in the thread but cmon guys you all say okc in the 2nd round but let s face it dallas is defending champion and they played all games vs okc very tightly . i ll give mavs good chances to beat the thunder because they have the experience and two of the best clutch shotmakers in nowitzki and terry. plus a future hall of famer in kidd not to mention okc is for the first time a heavy favourite to go deep in the playoffs but the favs in rs is a completely different story . so we will see if they can handle the pressure against the mavs . i like mavs chances over okc because for dallas is it a very good matchup , so don t be to... to count the mavs out and only concentrate on okc.

You can't take any opponent for granted, but looking forward is a luxury fans have. Assuming the Lakers get by Denver, the dream scenario would obviously be for Dallas to upset OKC and either Memphis or the Clippers to knock out San Antonio. While I'd LOVE to see the Lakers earn their way to the finals by overcoming OKC and SA, realistically, I don't see it happening this year with as inconsistent as they've been. Maybe they can beat one of the two, but both is hard to imagine. That said, I actually could see Dallas surprising people. And we all know what Memphis did to SA last year.

kray28 wrote:

revgen wrote:We should sweep them if we come in focused and ready to do what we should do.

We're in an awkward place....but I actually don't want to sweep them. Not that I expect us to do that even under normal circumstances. All things being equal...and us being healthy, I still think we'd drop a couple to the Nuggs.

A sweep will mean facing OKC without Ron for two games. We don't want that.

Denver poses some matchup issues for us, and Denver is not an easy place to play with the altitude being a factor. Kobe put up that infamous 6-28 game there on a b2b, if everyone remembers.

Lakers in 6

No, but we don't want to be playing back 2 backs in the 2nd round either.

Stern has said that they may have back 2 back games in the 2nd round depending upon how long the 1st round series are. Back-2-Backs favor the Thunder more than us.

^ I think it's more important to have Ron back to guard KD

Lakers in 6.

I don't see this team sweeping anyone we would be facing in these playoffs. We just let too many teams back into the game once we get a big lead. That will come back to bite us in the *** IMO.

But still, Denver won't be able to contain Bynum and Pau for more than a few games.

I say we battle these guys into a 7 game series. We can't blame age anymore because look at what the Spurs are doing. These Nuggets without melo, or J.R. still gives us fits no matter what team we have, a stacked one with Shannon, L.O. and D-Fish as well as metta or a depleted one.This team just has to shock me an surprise me, if we get past the second round that's when I'll get on my high horse and feel we can be in the finals. But right now it's best to take this one game at a time. I think out size can be a factor, Pau and Drew have to play like they did when Kobe was out.

5 seems reasonable.

Nuggets are good, but they are young and don't have super elite talent with them.

if it goes to 6 then so be it, but I think 5 is really likely.