NBA 2011 Playoffs Love Index -- Conference Finals

Another late love list. I was three for four on my predictions from last time -- Memphis didn't make it past Oklahoma City -- rats. Overall, though, I'm pretty happy that the old guard teams like Boston, Los Angeles, and  San Antonio are already home. And that I have two clear teams that I like vs. two clear teams that I don't like. Awesome!

Here's how I think things should stack up:

1) Dallas Mavericks -- These guys took over the top spot, mainly because of Jason Kidd. I like him as much as I like Derrick Rose, and he doesn't have many more shots at a championship. He's an utter rock, he's the moral captain of that team and he deserves a ring. Also, a key narrative arc for the whole finals has been "the Bench", and Dallas has probably the most consistently productive bench in the playoffs. If you look at the game-two road-steals this round already, it was the bench (and D, the other arc) that won those games. In a battle of the benches, JJ and Jet and Peja are all solids. It will be interesting to see if Dallas can figure out OKC, though. I heard Dirk say that Portland and LA were "big" teams and they felt like Dallas ball movement and 3-pt shooting shredded teams built like that. The young Thunder team is making the defensive switches more quickly and coming out to challenge shooters so Dallas has a new animal to figure out.

2) Chicago Bulls -- Hmm.. I still love this team muchly, but I think they may be a little more mentally fragile than the Mavs, if you can imagine that. The loss of Asik in game 2 was the loss of the game for the Bulls, which surprised me that a shot on the Big Turk's chin had that kind of emotional weight, but there it is. A guy I'm starting to like a lot is Gibson. In fact, I think the barometer for this series will be the matchup between Taj Gibson vs. deus-ex-Haslem, both energy 4s. Yeah, still love the Rose, Noah, Boozer, Deng.  Thibs is starting to look real to me.. I think they can pull this off.

3) Oklahoma City Thunder -- I flipped the order on my "villain" teams as well. I think the thing that did it was that despite my native Seattle disgust of the Thunder-poops in general, I really like coach Scotty Brooks. I admired him as a player, and I think he's doing a heck of a coaching job. I also like Mo Cheeks his coaching sidekick. The way those guys handled Westbrook so far in this series is classic, at least on the floor. Durant is fine, and I kinda like Hammurabi Harden. The jury's still out on Westbrook though.. not looking good. But the over-riding problem with this team is every time I look at their logo I see Howard Schultz's SEG.

4) Miami Heat -- The way I picked the Heat as my new low was to ask myself -- OK, between the Thunder and the Heat, which team would do the most damage to the NBA in the long run. One team represents Commish Stern manhandling local government and ownership by presiding over what would most charitably be seen as a bad-faith team market transfer. The other team, however, represents an organization flouting the letter and the spirit of the league's anti-tampering laws (and again, a Commish who seems complicit..). As much as I hate the first, the second is worse for the game I think. Barely. Wade and Lebron seem like "nice guys" I guess and I do actually like Udonis muchly. But not enough to overcome the Riley and Spoelstra smarm and the precious take-my-BFF-talents to Miami crew. Blech.

So the dream matchup is Dallas vs. Chicago for the final -- battle of the power benches! I'm predicting -- big surprise, that this is what we'll get. As in, actual team basketball. I would be happy if either team won.

The nightmare scenario is an OKC vs. Miami final. I might not watch something like that. The clash of the soul-less front-office zombies. The other two options would be OK too I gues: Dallas vs Miami -- unfinished business from '04 baby! or Chicago vs. OKC -- battle of the Young Guns. Just as long as the right teams win!