Real Deal

Philly is toast. They can't play against a zone.

LeBron with 14 steps.

Bibby always looks stressed out.

Someone please take out Johanna Barry...sick of hearing her talk.

...and he returns.

Hansbrough gone for the game? If so, that's going to kill Indiana.

Chris Mullin sounds like Robin Williams.

Collison isn't scared of Rose.

Hibbert is playing very, very simple basketball, and it's effective.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-Qr5tc4fLMY/SanA2rYcymI/AAAAAAAAAfQ/HdaojKYJqkM/s400/270px-Black_triangle.svg.png

So a second-round match-up against Dallas would be part of the cake walk? That's the same team that beat the Spurs in 2009...but this time, Dallas has a true defensive center and are better because of it.

We were left with two even before Selby declared.

This is Iggy's best chance to become a Philly hero. He'll be on LeBron, and he's going to have to play unselfish basketball at the same time.

Well, I wasn't really talking about having the entire crowd wear black...just talking about the jersey's look, in general.

The Lakers didn't cruise last season. Bryant's knee was swelling and giving him fits in that second half of the year, and LA struggled to win games. Didn't have much to do with just cruising through them, because they were dead set on having HCA over everyone in the NBA...they just faltered and ended up having one of the worst second-half records among all West playoff teams. As far as Boston goes, I think losing Perk hurts, but Shaq and Jermaine will fill the paint...maybe not as effectively, but they can get it done enough to send Boston to the Finals. The only problem is, I don't think Shaq is going to be healthy enough to matter, but who knows.

2009 Playoffs, bro.

Those look cool, but I think I like the all-black jerseys better. They had Laker jerseys in all-black at the mall a few years ago, and I wanted to get one, but all of them were too small.

Shoot me a PM and I'll look around to see if the system has been used somewhere else before. I might try and talk to someone and find out how you can make it your own, if nobody else has touched it.

When you say the numbers are based on ability rather than efficiency, are you saying that the stat is partially based on how many ways a player can score?

Yep, but sadly, they get blown out more than any other playoff team not named the Pacers.

Winning percentages versus .500 or above teams 1) Bulls (25-13, .658) 2) Lakers (27-15, .643) 3) Celtics (25-15, .625) 4) Spurs (26-19, .578) 5) Mavs (25-19, .568) 6) Thunder (24-19, .558) 7) Heat (21-19, .525) 8) Hornets (22-23, .489) 9) Nuggets (21-22, .488) 10) Magic (19-22, .463) Winning percentages versus below .500 teams 1) Spurs (35-2, .946) 2) Heat (37-5, .881) 3) Mavs (32-6, .842) 4) Bulls (37-7, .841) 5) Magic (33-8, .805) 6) Thunder (31-8, .795) 7) Suns (27-7, .794) 8) Lakers (30-10, .750) 9) Nuggets (29-10, .744) 10) Celtics (31-11, .738) Here are the rest, and a few other interesting stats about the season: http://espn.go.com/nba/standings/_/type/expanded/group/1

http://twitter.com/#!/chadfordinsider/status/58418569242882048 Makes sense for Washington and Milwaukee to ignore Irving. Is Minny seriously going to draft another PG? Isn't Rubio coming? The Jazz have no faith in Harris.

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TIME: 3:30 PM ET TV: ABC