The East is the Heat's to lose, and no team can change that

The East is the big 3's playground

The Miami Heat are the defending world champion and the back to back Eastern Conference champions. Once the month of May comes in it should be "back to back to back" Eastern Conference championships. They are first in the Conference right now, and will head into the All Star break with three All-Stars and Their whole coaching staff along the ride for the All Star game. The scary thing is, the Heat haven't even played their best basketball yet. Lebron James is playing his usual MVP dominating self, Wade is finally rounding up into his old elite self after being scrutinized for starting out slow despite coming off knee surgery, and Bosh continues to be the least talked about star in the league. When You think about potential threats to the Heat this year from the Eastern Conference, three teams come to mind: the New York Knicks, the Indiana Pacers, and the Chicago Bulls. However, the reality is none of these teams will be able to beat the Heat in a 7 game series (barring injury to any of Miami's big 3 of course).

Melo will look to take the Knicks past Miami this year

Lets begin with the New York Knicks, who are having their best season in over 10 years and led by Carmelo Anthony. The Knicks have two victories against the Heat this year and one happened to be without Anthony. Don't think too highly of these two victories though, in the first year of the Big 3 era in Miami, the Heat went a combined 1-7 against the Boston Celtics and Chicago Bulls in the regular season and proceeded to beating both the Bulls and the Celtics in 5 games each once the playoffs arrived. The Heat dismantled the Knicks in 5 games in the first round of last year's playoffs and that one loss was a product of a monster night by Carmelo Anthony. How can you expect a Knick team that will depend heavily on scoring from Anthony, JR Smith and Amar'e Stoudemire to handle the fire power of the Heat? The Heat know they can get stops down the stretch, but can you say the same about the Knicks? Who really only have 2 elite defenders in Tyson Chandler and Iman Shumpert (who happens to be coming off major ACL surgery). The Knicks are also very dependent on the three point shot, something that will not hold up in the playoffs where the game slows down and defenses key in more. Then theres' the Amar'e Stoudemire problem, Stoudemire is clearly the second best player on this team, and if you cant find a way to have both your superstars on the floor, how do you expect to beat the defending champion four times? Amar'e was putting up monster numbers before Anthony arrived, but it seems that its impossible for Anthony to have a second star alongside himself who can score 20 plus points a game. Speaking of Anthony, what makes anybody think that Carmelo Anthony can lead a team to a championship? Carmelo Anthony has been in the playoffs every year of his  career, and he's only been out of the first round ONCE, in 10 years. That one year he got out happened to be the year that Chauncey Billups arrived to Denver and who came in with a streak of multiple years of making it to the Conference finals. Carmelo Anthony is not the elite defenders, that Lebron James and Dwyane Wade are, and quite frankly he has done nothing to merit the trust of being able to beat the defending champion let alone make it to the NBA finals. How about they win a playoff series first before we deem them good enough to dethrone the Heat.
Then there's the Indiana Pacers, who many credit (me included) as the main reason the Heat won last year's NBA title. Indiana could not beat the Heat with Chris Bosh out and Shane Battier guarding power forwards and Centers for 6 straight games and with a Healthy Danny Granger. The Pacers are a great defensive team, but they lack a true star even with Granger, and while Paul George is having a marvelous season, he cannot carry the Pacers in a 7 game series.  You know where the points are going to come from the Heat, but where are the Pacers going to get enough fire power to match the defending champions?
The Chicago Bulls are having a great season, but all hopes are on Derrick Rose coming back and being the old Derrick Rose, and thats not realistic. Even with a healthy Rose, two seasons ago the Bulls could not match up with the Heat. That wont change, the Bulls should be good enough to win one playoff series, but thats about it. Remember Derrick Rose scored primarily on his explosive assaults on the rim, something he wont have back for a while, maybe until next year.
So in the end, the east is the Heat's to lose, and no team in the East will change that. The Heat have defeated each of these teams in the playoffs, and there should be no reason why it wont happen again.

Images from Bleacherreport.com

Eastern conference challenges for the defending champs next year?

Over the next two days, we will analyze who could challenge the Heat and Thunder for a trip to the NBA Finals. Today we will talk about the Eastern Conference. The Heat no doubt will be heavily favorite to repeat as champs and definitely to represent the eastern conference. Their main competition since the formation of the big 3 have been the Boston Celtics and the Chicago Bulls and both have heavy question marks as the off season begins.

The Chicago Bulls spent all of the shortened season dealing with nagging injuries to their backcourt and particularly their superstar Derrick Rose. They still survived all the setbacks to finish with the best record in the eastern conference for the second year in a row. However,  Rose tore his ACL in that unfortunate first round series against the Philadelphia seventy Sixers and will likely be out until January. This obviously puts a very big question mark on the bulls chances to challenge the Heat without their Superstar guard. Even before rose went out with the injury, it didnt seem like the bulls had  played enough games together to challenge past the Boston Celtics. Their free agents for this summer are Omer Asik (restricted), Mike James, John Lucas and Scalabrine A.K.A the white Mamba (all unrestricted).

Obviously none of these players will be able to fill in the huge gap that Rose will leave and Cj Watson will be the starting PG once the season starts. By the time Rose gets back on the court, it may be too late to really make a run at the conference championship and challenge the Heat.

Then there's the crafty and aging Boston Celtics (although we seem to say this every year). The celtics gave the Heat everything they could handle this year in a tough 7 game series that saw Rondo score 44, and Lebron 45. The Celtics may have seen the last run for this group. They have 9 players who are unrestricted free agents, the two biggest free agents being Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett. Most certainly one of the two will not be back and it figures to be Allen who has ankle surgery to go through this summer.

Even with Garnett back, how much longer can he play at a high level with 17 years under his belt? in addition Brandon Bass will test the free agency waters and figures to get a lot of interest from other teams as will Pietrus and Jeff Green. At this point its safe to say that the celtics will not be a threat to the Heat. 

The Indiana Pacers on the other hand are the one team who seem to be back next year at full force with another year under their belt, they are young have depth and the Heat's most glaring hole, size. They have to lock up Roy Hibbert and George Hill who are restricted free agents but that wont seem to be a problem. Could they possibly beat the Defending champs in a 7 game series? Probably not specially when the top 2 players are on the Heat, but no doubt they will be the ones i believe who will make it to the Eastern Conference Finals with the Heat.

The Magic who will not have Stan Van Gundy anymore as coach, are looking at a long road to convincing Howard to sign back. And Atlanta will continue to be a 4 seed who will regret giving Joe Johnson a max contract for years to come. 

In the end, The Heat will be back in the NBA finals whether people like it or not, the Eastern conference does not have enough to challenge the defending champs. Barring injuries, they will cruise along the first three rounds of the 2013 playoffs.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the entry on the western Conference