It has been evidently clear for some time now there are four teams in the Eastern Conference who are a class above the rest and unless a miracle happens these four teams will be competing in semi-finals of the Eastern Conference play-offs.
The teams in question are the Cleveland Cavaliers, Orlando Magic, Atlanta Hawks and the Boston Celtics.
If you were paying any attention you would have noticed the teams are listed in order of their current standings in the conference and incidentally that’s how I would rank them for the play-offs barring injuries.
Even if the Celtics were to finish with a better record than the Hawks I’ll be taking Atlanta all the way simply because if we look at the results between the two teams this year there is quite a straightforward pattern to the results.
Fri, Nov 13, 2009 Atlanta Hawks L 86 97 8
Fri, Jan 8, 2010 @ Atlanta Hawks L 85 93
Mon, Jan 11, 2010 Atlanta Hawks L 96 102
Fri, Jan 29, 2010 @ Atlanta Hawks L 91 100
Not exactly inspiring if you’re a Celtics fan.
The Cavaliers are the class of the east and with a 52-15 record you can pretty much pencil them in for the no.1 seed and home court advantage, that will change however if LeBron James was to get injured for a considerable period of time.
The Magic are Cleveland’s biggest threat because as they proved in the Eastern Conference finals last year the Cavs don’t have an answer for Dwight Howard.
They tried to address that situation by signing Shaquille O’Neal but as we know Shaq injured his finger against the Celtics and had to undergo surgery which will take six to eight weeks to heal meaning he could make an appearance of some sort. But will an unfit Shaq really be enough to stop Howard? I don’t think so.
Each of the top four are good teams, some of course are worse than others but in a seven game series these top four can beat anyone. If you want a tip then have flutter on the Hawks, their youthful, play hard, play defence, can score 100 points and have Jamal Crawford off the bench who can score 18 points in 20 minutes.
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