Free Ballin’

That’s assuming continuity of current health conditions.  It’s a fun personnel match-up, with each team holding a huge match-up advantage on the other team:

1. For Celtics – Rondo will eat Fisher alive on both ends of the floor

2. For Lakers – Allen can’t guard Artest, so Pierce has to do it., leaving Kobe to dominate Allen.

What’s fun is that switching the guard combo is best for both teams—Kobe and Rondo, Fisher and Allen.  But while those match-ups create advantages and disadvantages for both teams, I think it works out better for the Celtics.  Kobe’s advantage is the huge size disparity, but he won’t get around Rondo much.  So that match-up is likely to keep Kobe shooting % down and keep him off the FT line.  And that’s pretty much the best strategy to beating the Lakers.  Of course Kobe just might make 60% of his jumpers on any given night, but that’s less likely than the near certainty of him going to the line 10-15 times if Allen is guarding him.

And the other way the Lakers kill you, front-court size/talent, is largely negated by the talents of Celtics’ front-court personnel.

But those are reasons to pick the Celtics, not to pick them in 5.  The thing is, there are only two things that can make this Finals match-up appealing to me: the possibility that it’s an all-out 7-game overtime-fest classic; or the Celtics make it hysterical by wiping the floor with the Lakers.  Generally I’ll hope for the classic match-up, but since I’m not going to be able to see some of the games this year, and I hate the Lakers, I’d get more pleasure from the laugher.  So I’m crossing my fingers for that (plausible) scenario.

And anyway, as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t predict sporting event outcomes entirely with my head.  Where’s the fun in that?  If you’ve money on the game/series or you want to prove you’re a good predictor, there’s value in being right.  But neither of those reasons are applicable to me, so being right has no special appeal.  Neither do pipe dreams, though, unless it’s my team in the trenches.  So why not just find a plausible scenario that you’d like to see, and enjoy the very process of hoping for that outcome?  Anyway, that’s what I do.