By The Numbers: Breaking Down the Celtics vs the Bulls

By Adam Lowenstein (@StatsAdam)

When I previewed the first-round Eastern Conference matchups, I picked the Celtics in five games, as if they were “just another No. 1 seed.” However, as Sean Grande points out, the Celtics own the worst scoring margin of any No. 1 seed since the NBA and ABA merged.

Boston climbed to the top spot after the Cleveland Cavaliers faltered in March and April, including four consecutive losses to end the regular season. The race for the top seed could either be described as the ‘tortoise and the hare,’ or simply no one wanting to have homecourt throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs.

Well, either way, here we are in mid-April, and the Celtics are facing the Chicago Bulls in the playoffs for just the second time since 1987. If the 2009 first-round series is any indication, then we are in for a treat when these two teams tip off on Sunday evening at TD Garden.

Previewing All the NBA's Christmas Day Action

A Finals rematch between the Cavs and Warriors headlines a jam-packed NBA Christmas.

By Adam Lowenstein (@StatsAdam)

For an in-depth preview of the Celtics and Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Christmas Day, you can read my separate preview article here. Now, onto the rest of a packed Christmas Day!

2:30 PM ET, ABC: Golden State Warriors @ Cleveland Cavaliers

The long-awaited regular season rematch of the previous two NBA Finals comes to a television, phone, tablet or computer near you on Christmas Day.

The Warriors and Cavaliers represent two of the top three teams in terms of offensive efficiency and two of the four best squads in scoring differential this season. Golden State’s league-leading effective field goal and true shooting percentages have propelled the Warriors to a gargantuan lead in scoring differential this season.

Jeremy's Best- and/or Worst-Case NBA Preview

Stephen Curry took home an MVP Award and an NBA Title last season, but can he repeat?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

Every year I make NBA picks. Every year I'm wrong. Like, yeah, I picked Cleveland to make the Finals last year, and yeah, I picked Miami to make the Finals in each of the previous four years. But how hard was that? The East is always super-easy to predict. I've whiffed on the West pretty much every year, sometimes spectacularly so.

So, I'm just taking a wide lens this year. I'm making no official predictions, whether with regards to win-loss records or who's going to win which conference or the title. If I'm just going to be wrong anyway, what's the point? So, like I did with my NFL preview back in September, I'm going to take a look at every team's best-case scenario, every team's worst-case scenario, and finally, a middle-ground look that (I suppose) will serve as my unoffically official prediction (but again, I'm not going to explicitly say a win total or an exact finish).

As I sometimes do, I've arranged the teams in a random order, so please don't spend time worrying about why I picked the order that I picked, or searching for hidden meaning. There isn't any. Also, it is long (in total, it runs a cool 8800 words), so feel free to skip ahead and just find your favorite team. I won't be offended.

I Tried Baseball, I Really Did

Apparently, these guys won the World Series last night.

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

So, apparently an epic Game 7 of the World Series took place last night. I was, embarrassingly and honestly, completely unaware of that until I saw somebody post about it on Twitter as I was getting off work around 6 pm yesterday.

After work I had a flag football game that my team, also embarrassingly and honestly, lost by 35 points, but when I got home I decided I was going to give this supposedly awesome game a chance.

A little background on my relationship with baseball: I never liked baseball, despite it being one of my better sports. I would always bat third or fourth on my Little League teams (I was the fat kid with enough weight to hit for power) and I did enjoy trips to the batting cages. But playing the actual game? Ugh.

I remember one time the kids on my team got mad at me because I snuck a Gameboy into the dugout and played Pokemon while waiting for my turn to bat. I don't know what they were so mad about, it's not like we had any strategy to discuss (Don't worry guys, I will try to hit the ball, not let the ball go through my legs on defense and throw to first), and I found the concept of supporting my teammates in this largely individual sport to be pretty pointless.

The Official (Way Too Long) SuiteSports 2014-2015 NBA Preview: Part V - The Finals Favorites

As long as these guys are walking, the Spurs are contenders. And they'll still probably be contenders even with these guys in wheelchairs.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

With opening day upon us, it's time to finish up the season preview, and this final section features the last six teams. They aren't the teams with the six best records in the league, as I explained briefly in Monday's section. The last six teams are the teams with the best "Finals equity," as I have taken to calling it. Strictly speaking, I think Golden State will finish with a better record, and is a better overall team that the first team up today. But because Golden State plays in the loaded West (and is unlikely to come up with a top 3 seed), they have less of a chance to make the Finals than the team that seems likely to grab a top 3 seed in the more volatile conference.

Even within this section, the teams don't run in order of win totals. They run in the order from least likely to make the Finals to most likely. There are two Western Conference teams that might seem out of order, but that's because one projects to be a better regular season team, while the other will probably be better in the playoffs. But that will all become clear when we get there. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's just roll through these:

I Like This Team - A Glass Half-Full NBA Preview (Part II)

With Derrick Rose back in action, the sky is the limit for the Bulls.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

After spending most of last week being mean, we turned the tables on Friday and started to say nice things about every team. This continues the Era of Good Feelings (or were those in the 1820s - I can never remember), and I explain how and why each of these teams has a shot at the postseason (or better) this season. This group has the last few lottery teams from last year, and the first group of playoff teams. It also includes the first two teams (one from each conference) with a semi-realistic shot (or better) of reaching the Finals.

New York Knicks

And underrated part of the trade that sent Ray Felton and Tyson Chandler to Dallas in exchange for Jose Calderon and Samuel Dalembert (and other spare parts) is that it reunites Calderon and Andrea Bargnani. Back before he got hurt in 2012, Bargnani was enjoying the best offensive season of his career, thanks in large part to a robust foul rate, and was doing most of his best work when he shared the floor with Jose Calderon. In 2013, Bargnani was injured and Calderon was traded mid-season and they never really clicked. But now they have another chance.

Your NBA Team Sucks - A Glass Half-Empty Season Preview (Part II)

Uh-oh. Not again.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

Welcome to Part II of Your Team Sucks - explanations for why each team in the league is comically worse than you think they are. If you missed Part I yesterday, you can find it here.

Part I covered the 10 worst teams in the league last year (save for Cleveland, who we'll save for Part III tomorrow), so this will cover the 10 teams in the middle, including our first batch of playoff teams from a year ago. But we start with a few more lottery teams first.

New York Knicks

They were 24th in defensive efficiency last season. In order to improve this, they traded Ray Felton for the one point guard in the league who might actually be worse defensively - Jose Calderon. They also dealt their only serviceable defensive player in the same deal - Tyson Chandler went back to Dallas and all they got in return was Samuel Dalembert. This means that New York’s big man rotation is Dalembert, Amar’e Stoudemire, and Andrea Bargnani. There’s no possible way that they improve defensively.

Should the Re-Tooled Bulls Give it All Up for Love?

Defensive ace Taj Gibson may have to step aside if the Bulls are serious about acquiring Kevin Love.

By Bennett Corcoran

Despite unloading Luol Deng early in the 2013-14 season and the absence of Derrick Rose for a second consecutive year, the Bulls compiled a 36-16 record after January 1st, one of the best marks in the league. 

Tom Thibodeau once again engineered one of the best defenses in the NBA, second in defensive efficiency only to Indiana. Anchored by Defensive Player of the Year Joakim Noah, Chicago powered into the playoffs as a gritty contender in a weak Eastern Conference, so feared that the Brooklyn Nets tanked out of the fifth seed to face the Raptors instead.

Eight Potential LeBron Landing Spots Ranked by "Fun Factor"

LeBron returning to Miami with Bosh and Wade seems like the most likely outcome, but that's no fun...

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

As you may or may not know, I am a fair weather Heat fan, so my obvious preference in this game of LeBachelor would be for King James to give the final rose to Pat Riley and re-up for another run with his boys D-Wade and Bosh.

That being said, LBJ returning to the Heat, as presently constructed, is just about the least interesting result in the entire LeBron derby. So, in the interest of "fun," I am removing my slight bias and ranking LeBron's potential free agency destinations based on which would be the most interesting.

Here we go!

Midweek #HotSportsTakes: Marathons are Really Long

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Midweek #HotSportsTakes is a weekly segment here on SuiteSports, where we offer shallow and somewhat incendiary analysis on random hot-button sports topics of the day.

Let's get right to it.

On Meb Keflezighi Becoming the First American in 20 Years to Win the Boston Marathon:

Let me first say how awesome this year's Boston Marathon was, and not just because the heavy police/military presence focused on keeping people safe, and not busting college kids for drinking out of solo cups along the race path.

It was a pretty inspiring race all around. If you haven't stood along the street for the last few miles of it, you're missing out. I don't mean when guys like Keflezighi are running by, though it was awesome to see him leading the pack at mile marker 23.5, I mean when the "normal people" are running.

You can see they're beat, and they're just digging down for every bit of strength they have to complete this life goal. Then you have the crowd on the side, yelling words of encouragement and giving high fives, it brings a smile to your face and, surprisingly, seems to actually give the runners a little extra wind.

Having an American finally win the Marathon this year, of all years, was incredibly sweet, but the guy who wins is never really the story. It's the triumph of those non-professional runners that complete the ultimate test of human endurance in front of their friends and families, and that's why the bombs struck a chord with so many Bostonians last year.

East Round 1 Preview: (4) Chicago Bulls vs. (5) Washington Wizards

Joakim Noah is one of the ugliest human beings to ever play basketball, but his game is sweet symphony.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

By the Numbers

Chicago:
48-34 (27-14 Home; 21-20 Road)
PPG: 93.7 (30th); PPG Allowed: 91.8 (1st)
+1.9 Average Scoring Margin (13th)
Off Rating: 99.7 (28th); Def Rating: 97.8 (2nd)
+1.9 Net Efficiency Rating (12th)

Washington:
44-38 (22-19 Home, 22-19 Road)
PPG: 100.7 (16th); PPG Allowed: 99.4 (9th)
+1.3 Average Scoring Margin (15th)
Off Rating: 103.3 (18th); Def Rating: 102.4 (T-9th)
+0.9 Net Efficiency Rating (15th)

Season Series: Washington 2-1
Washington 102, Chicago 88 (January 13)
Washington 96, Chicago 93 (January 17)
Chicago 96, Washington 78 (April 5)

March Mascot Melee™: Round One of the NBA Bracket

Does this look like a kind of guy you want to mess with?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

Joe kicked us off with his breakdown of the most vicious mascots from Major League Baseball, and I'm here to walk you through the most fearsome of basketball's furry friends. Here are the top sixteen seeds:

NBA Christmas Day Viewing Guide

Look away from the Christmas Tree for a second and plop down on the sofa for some Holiday Hoops. (flickr)

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

As per usual, the NBA is gearing up for a slate of five games on this lovely Christmas day. Each game has a few different things to watch for, so use this as your guide to navigating the labyrinth of basketball viewing with family-obligation roadblocks.

I Like This Team - A Glass-Half-Full NBA Preview (Part II)

The Return of Derrick Rose has Chicago thinking Championship.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

We're continuing with our optimistic NBA preview after dolling out 30 helpings of hate last week with Your Team Sucks. If you missed Part I of I Like This Team, you can find it here. In Part II, we're covering the middle of the standings from last season, including a handful of teams that many would find it hard to be optimistic about. But not me! My rose-colored glasses don't discriminate here. Let's start off with a bleak one so you'll get what I mean:

Philadelphia 76ers

They actually have a future! They could end up with two lottery picks next year (their own and New Orleans’), and they have two lottery picks from the 2013 draft (Nerlens Noel and Michael Carter-Williams). It’s basically impossible to have four lottery picks in two years and whiff on all of them. Someone in there is going to develop into an All-Star caliber player or close to it. If they can keep Thaddeus Young invested in staying in town, and if they can continue to develop Evan Turner, they’ll have the makings of a future playoff team.

Best-Case Scenario: Nerlens Noel recovers from his ACL injury by mid-February, giving him an opportunity to get NBA game experience, but it's so late in the season it doesn't really affect Philadelphia's spot in the standings (or, more importantly, the lottery). Michael Carter-Williams takes his lumps but slowly develops, and Thaddeus Young continues to do Thaddeus Young things. With a former San Antonio assistant as the head coach, those three players (along with Evan Turner) use their length and quickness to plant the seeds of a future lockdown defensive squad. 

Your NBA Team Sucks - A Glass-Half-Empty Season Preview (Part II)

Kobe Bryant. Not pictured - Kobe Bryant's Achilles injury.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

This is Part II of our Your Team Sucks series, previewing the worst parts of every NBA team for the upcoming season. In Part I, we covered the 10 worst teams from last season, and tomorrow we're covering the 10 best teams from last season. That means today, we've got the middle 10, including our first batch of playoff teams.

Toronto Raptors

In the first draft of this series, I didn’t write a section about the Raptors because I forgot to add them to my list. That’s how much they suck. I forgot they existed.

First of all, their “star” is Rudy Gay. The same Rudy Gay that had negative offensive win shares at the time he was traded from Memphis to Toronto last season. The same Rudy Gay that attempted almost 17 shots per game last season and sported a true shooting percentage 1.3 points lower than the lowest-ranked team in the league.

Rounding out the squad is Kyle Lowry (who is in a contract year and is surely bolting after the season), DeMar DeRozan (who is somehow even more inefficient than Gay), and Jonas Valanciunas, who is still at least two seasons away from being anything other than just a solid big man.

Worst-Case Scenario: Gay decides what has been holding him back from true superstardom over the last handful of years is positional flexibility, so he insists on playing point guard "like LeBron does." He averages six turnovers per game. Terrence Ross continues to come off the bench until Dwyane Casey realizes he can neither dribble nor shoot, at which point he is inserted into the starting lineup, just to play a joke on DeMar DeRozan. The Raptors begin to tank right after the All-Star break, justifying Aaron Gray's employment.

Philadelphia 76ers

Thaddeus Young, Evan Turner, Spencer Hawes, Jason Richardson, Lavoy Allen, Kwame Brown, Royce White, Arnett Moultrie, James Anderson, Tim Ohlbrecht, Tony Wroten, Darius Morris, Nerlens Noel’s knee injury, and Michael Carter-Whoops I Threw It To the Wrong Team. That’s 14 members of a 15-man NBA roster. Unless the 15th man is LeBreem-Abdul O’Nealajuwon, this team ain’t winning 15 games.

Worst-Case Scenario: Against better judgment, Nerlens Noel returns to the lineup after New Years, and his rebounding and shot-blocking presence vault Philadelphia back towards the middle of the lottery instead of locking up the worst record in the league by the All-Star break. 

The Expendable All-Stars

Expendable All-Star Luol Deng launches a jump shot. Sylvester Stallone not pictured. (flickr)

By Jeremy Conlin  @jeremy_conlin

Under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, teams around the league seem to be tightening their belts. Even the best, most profitable teams in the league – Miami amnestied Mike Miller, the Lakers amnestied Metta World Peace, Oklahoma City let Kevin Martin walk in free agency, etc. It’s basically everyone but Brooklyn.

Teams are generally more afraid of the luxury tax than they ever have been before. For one, the tax is more punitive starting this upcoming season – what used to be a dollar-for-dollar tax is now a $1.50-per-dollar tax at a minimum, and can escalate to as high as $3.75-per-dollar, depending on how far above the tax a team is. More importantly, perhaps, is the “repeater” tax rate that will go into effect for the 2014-2015 season. If a team has paid the tax in each of the last three seasons, the minimum tax rate jumps from $1.50-per-dollar to $2.50-per-dollar and the maximum tax rate jumps from $3.75-per-dollar to $4.75 per-dollar.

In layman’s terms – a team $20 million over the tax line in 2013 would have paid a $20 million tax. A team $20 million over the tax line in 2014 would pay a tax of $45 million. In 2015, if they had paid the tax in each of the previous three seasons (and thus qualified for the “repeater” tax rate), they would pay a tax of (gulp) $65 million.

Young NBA Players are "Stupid," and Other Insights from Dennis Rodman

By Joe Parello  @HerewegoJoe

Dennis Rodman is one of the most underrated players in NBA history, and man, is the guy a character.

I mean, seriously, he made the interview I did with controversial slugger Jose Canseco last year look tame. Neither ended well, as Canseco gave me the stink-eye for asking about Roger Clemens and steroids, and "The Worm" hung up on Bob Lobel and I after Bob asked him to discuss his role in the famous Larry Bird interception of Isiah Thomas during the 1987 Eastern Conference Finals.

By the way, I was less than six-months old when that happened, so hearing these guys argue about it was pretty amusing.

"He's one of the most underrated players, but one of the most overrated interviews," Lobel said after Rodman hung up.

Suite Sports Exclusive: Lobel to Interview Dennis Rodman

To say Bob Lobel has interviewed some big names would be an understatement.

After all, the man hosted one of the most memorable sports hours of all-time when Larry Bird, Ted Williams and Bobby Orr all joined him for an episode of WBZ's Sports Final in 1992.

Now, Lobel and Suite Sport's Joe Parello will get the chance to speak with one of the most unique personalities in American sports history, Dennis Rodman.

Whether you know him as the greatest rebounder and enforcer in NBA history, the man who wore a wedding dress to promote his best-selling autobiography, the retired player who traveled to North Korea for "basketball diplomacy," or the celebrity that appeared on multiple reality shows and wrestled with Hulk Hogan, you can't deny that Rodman has captivated America for the better part two decades.

A five-time NBA champion with the "Bad Boy" Detroit Pistons and Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls, Rodman will lend his insights to the upcoming NBA Finals, and whatever else "The Worm" feels like talking about. All this, and more Bruins talk, on this week's edition of "Catching Up with Bob Lobel," Thursday at noon.

Grab your popcorn folks.

Studs and Duds: Chuck Norris and Tebow Jokes Return

Tim Tebow got the Walker Texas Ranger Bump this week.

By Jeremy Conlin and Joe Parello

Studs and Duds is a weekly feature on Suite Sports. Who had a good week? Who had a bad week?

Studs

LeBron James

I had a realization last weekend, but really it was something I'd always known. My nephew Michael and I were talking hoops and football, and the subject turned to how LeBron James was just an absurd force of nature. I then said that he was the best athlete on the planet. There were people bigger, people stronger, people that could jump higher and people faster, but nobody had the combination of those attributes like LeBron.

Points In The Paint - Two Games Done

"He guaranteed to beat WHO?"

By Jeremy Conlin

We've played 16 NBA playoff games. At a minimum, we have 18 left. We'll probably have more than that, but first let's tackle the 16 that just happened.  

New York-Boston – New York Leads 2-0

• In 48 first-half minutes, the Celtics have scored 101 points
• In 48 second-half minutes, the Celtics have scored 48 points.

• Prior to the season, if you had told me that the Knicks would be up 2-0 against the Celtics in Round 1 on the strength of home-court advantage and vastly superior point guard play, with a limited Tyson Chandler, Carmelo Anthony playing almost exclusively isolation basketball from the power forward spot, and Kenyon Martin being New York’s most effective big man, I probably would have backed away slowly before running in terror.

• Plain and simple, the Knicks have swallowed up everything that the Celtics have tried to do offensively. Boston doesn’t have anyone that can consistently create offense in the half-court, and that’s playing right into the hands of a pretty unsophisticated New York defense. The Celtics committed turnovers on 21% of their possessions in Game 1, and lost Game 2 with a hilariously bad .407 effective field goal percentage, plus doubling down on inept offense by rebounding just three of their 44 missed shots.

• Both games have been snail-paced defensive struggles, and New York has won both handily. If Boston can win that style of game, there’s really no way they can win the series.

Pre-series Prediction: New York in 5
Revised Prediction: New York in 5