Preferred ECF opponent: Cleveland or Boston?

[MoTown]

Devil's advocate response:

Does it matter? We're going to get beat in the ECF anyways with Flip as our coach.

[WTFchris]

^except that the other two coaches left are even dumber than Flip.

[MoTown]

I kinda agree. But not that much dumber.

[DrRay11]

And the refs shall appear to hate on us because they will love the other teams more.

[Zekyl]

Saying they love them MORE implies that they love us on some level, and that's just not true.

[w3stfa11]

Boston, I just don't like Cleveland and Lebron.

[shags]

I voted no preference. Each team poses different problems.

[Higherwarrior]

i fear the nba would prefer either team to advance ahead of us, so we could be fighting an uphill battle when it comes to the officiating.

anyway, i go back and forth on this one.....at times i'd prefer cleveland so we could get revenge from last year.

but then it would be nice to take out boston the new 'sweethearts' of david stern. we could take out 'the big 3' and shut up a lot of frontrunning media types who have already annointed them champs of the east, if not the nba.

but when it comes right down to it, the way i feel at this point is that boston has a great trio and a lot better supporting cast than many give them credit for. but i STILL would prefer to play them, even without homecourt advantage.

they have 3 great players but nobody who is 'unguardable' or unstoppable like lebron. james can make all those other cavalier punks into much better players if all they have to do is camp out at the 3 line and knock down jumpers. (see: gibson from 2007!)

he can take over a game himself and score or get to the line at will. boston presents its own problems but they don't have a player who does that.

no matter how much our D focuses on lebron, i don't think we can stop him if he's determined. after prince, who could even attempt to guard him? rip? afflalo?

i'd hate to see rip and prince getting in foul trouble TRYING to stop lebron. i think boston is a better matchup believe it or not, and i like our chances against them more than against the cavs. and i think we're definitely a superior team to cleveland but lebron in a playoff setting changes things completely IMO.

[Uncle Mxy]

Honestly, after what happened last year, I bet the NBA would prefer us over Cleveland. A Detroit-LA series has history written all over it. Kobe-LeBron doesn't have very much emotional resonance. They don't hate each other, or kiss each other before every game.

[Higherwarrior]

yeah but you know they would play the whole 'the future of the nba' versus the present. kobe versus lebron would make many a media person thrilled.