In the spirit of debate...

[TheTrueSiete]

All year long, we have heard how much more "superior" the West was to the East this year... With that being said, and the outcome of the Finals being completed, what is the consensus on this board? Was the Western Conference truly "better" than the Eastern Conference?

7

[Swish]

Call me crazy, but I think it was even. Boston and Detroit were far and away better than LA and NO. Orlando was tough, Toronto was tough at times, and see what us and the Cavs did to the champs.

Seriously, pit Magic-Jazz for example. Howard crushes Okur. Lewis outscores Boozer. Turkoglu can take AK-47. D-Will is the only advantage really.

Take Cavs-Rockets. Ilgauskas beats whoever Houston throws out besides Yao. Wallace can take Landry, etc., Wally Z can beat up on their SF. T-Mac takes the SG, obviously, but West is probably better than Alston.

All this to say is I think the East is way closer than some think. The West's best "team" just got raped. The East's "worst" playoff team took the team that raped the west's best to seven. The Kobes couldn't do that. Granted, Allen got better and they jelled a little bit, but not that much.

Think on it.

[khaos7]

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All year long, we have heard how much more "superior" the West was to the East this year... With that being said, and the outcome of the Finals being completed, what is the consensus on this board? Was the Western Conference truly "better" than the Eastern Conference?

7

I believe that the East is a more physical, slow, grind it out conference. The West is a more free flowing offensive type conference. The reason San Antonio (and the Shaq/Kobe Lakers) have been able to win, in my opinion, is because they could play both styles. Notice, Boston, Detroit, and Miami won the other championships. All of those teams had players that could mix it up down low if need be, crash the glass and defend the paint.

Honestly, I still give the nod to the West. They have more balanced teams. Plus they beat up on each other all year. The East is top heavy (Detroit, Boston), but the other teams are suspect in my opinion. However, the "East Coast" Brand of play still wins championships: tough defense, rebounding, efficient shooting and strong paint presence.

[coachx]

From top to bottom I think the West was definately better. The Lakers just had HORRIBLE matchups vs. the Celtics. Either Radmonovich, Walton, or Odom had to cover Peirce 80% of the time. Then when Kobe was switched to Pierce those bigs have to switch over to Ray Allen or James Posey. Their lack of size killed the Lakers underneath.

The only team I think that could have beaten Boston was San Antonio or the Suns. (Mainly San Antonio)

Ginobli = Allen

Bowen could hold Pierce in check much better then Rad, Walton & Odom could (no 40 point games)

Duncan would play KG even

Oberto and K. Thomas cold have banged with Perkins / Brown / Powe / Big Baby better then any healthy Laker.

The Lakers got lucky that they caught Ginobli on a bad ankle or it could have been a different out come.

I was personally shocked that Phil Jackson never made an adjustment to play Fisher and Farmar more together:

Famar / Rondo

Fisher / Allen

Kobe / Pierce

Odom / KG

Paul / Perkins

This way you still get killed underneath (no one on the roster who was healthy could have fixed that). However, I like the defensive matchups around the perimeter much better. Make Ray Allen score 40 on Fisher before Pierce can score 40 on Rad / Walton / Odom.

Phil was stubborn and stuck to his guns without making a true adjustment / assignment wise.

He could be stubborn with Jordan and Kobe/ Shaq but now the deck is not stacked in his favor and he actually needed to stick his neck out on the line with some adjustments. Sure its the players fault for playing soft but Phil could have stirred the pot more then he did.

[Diesel]

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All year long, we have heard how much more "superior" the West was to the East this year... With that being said, and the outcome of the Finals being completed, what is the consensus on this board? Was the Western Conference truly "better" than the Eastern Conference?

7

Yeah.

Boston was just the best team in basketball.

If you get past Boston and the Lakers.

Who matches up with:

New Orleans

San Antonio

Utah

Houston

Denver

Dallas

Phoenix

Golden State

Let's matchem up:

Boston Over LAL = East = 1-0.

Detroit over NO = East 2-0.

San Anton Over Orlando = East 2-1.

Phoenix over Cleveland = 2-2

Houston over Washington = West 3-2

Utah over Toronto West 4-2.

Dallas over Philly West 5-2.

Atlanta over Denver. West 5-3

Let the debate begin.

[Iman]

We really just need the interconference stats to make a top to bottom comparison, I looked and couldn't find them without adding it up myself.

But overall, I'd agree that it was jut Boston and Detroit in the East that were tough, below the top two seeds all the way to the bottom of the league, the West was better. I doubt Atlanta would have been favored in the playoffs against any team that held home court advantage over them.

[TheTrueSiete]

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Quote:

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All year long, we have heard how much more "superior" the West was to the East this year... With that being said, and the outcome of the Finals being completed, what is the consensus on this board? Was the Western Conference truly "better" than the Eastern Conference?

7

Yeah.

Boston was just the best team in basketball.

If you get past Boston and the Lakers.

Who matches up with:

New Orleans

San Antonio

Utah

Houston

Denver

Dallas

Phoenix

Golden State

Let's matchem up:

Boston Over LAL = East = 1-0.

Detroit over NO = East 2-0.

San Anton Over Orlando = East 2-1.

Phoenix over Cleveland = 2-2

Houston over Washington = West 3-2

Utah over Toronto West 4-2.

Dallas over Philly West 5-2.

Atlanta over Denver. West 5-3

Let the debate begin.

The only one I question in the "Dallas over Philly" pick... They split their regular season battles and Dallas wasn't playing well together at all at the end of the season while Philly was. So with that being said, I think the record would be 4-4.... Pretty even...

7

[Lascar78]

The West is clearly superior. The East has 2 great teams and then nothing. One could easily argue that the West has 8 of the top 10 teams. The teams that make it out of the West are much more beat up than those in the East even though Boston made their job harder than needed by not showing up on the road until they lost at home, but still.

I don't think the best conference is the conference with the best team, it is the best conference top to bottom.

[Packfill]

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The West is clearly superior. The East has 2 great teams and then nothing. One could easily argue that the West has 8 of the top 10 teams. The teams that make it out of the West are much more beat up than those in the East even though Boston made their job harder than needed by not showing up on the road until they lost at home, but still.

I don't think the best conference is the conference with the best team, it is the best conference top to bottom.

Agreed.

[EazyRoc]

I think the west is the better conference, however I think the difference between the two conferences aren't as great as the media made it seem. The West was a more competitive conference, which made the W/L look so close. The East is top heavy, which made our W/L look so bad. Next year, though, the bottom feeders of the East are going to make big strides, so I think the conferences will be close to equal next year.

[Diesel]

Well, I take back what I said previously.

Western teams are really superior... But I think it depends on matchups.

For instance, I think that we would give a team like Phoenix or Dallas a hard time, while we would be easy pickens for a team like Houston or Utah.