Voted Spurs. Pragmatically they are a team that could provide competition without danger of an upset the way we match up. Part of me says there is no use being a paper champion who is ducking opponents and the Trailblazers would be the hardest competition and challenge, however we will have plenty of tough games in order to win the championship, and it wouldn't hurt to ease into the playoffs rather than have a seven game series full of triple overtimes like the Bulls used to get into with the C Bags back in the 2008,2009 era etc. Also more challenging teams could expose weaknesses to exploit deeper in the playoffs.
Blazers aren't a threat , they don't play any D at all ... They may get one game based on Dame and CJ tough shots making abilities but that's it . I'm more concerned about the Rockets in the 2nd round . ( we'll get through in 6 but not a fan of seeing both the Rockets and Floppers)
For Entertainment Value, the Pels or the Blazers. We should beat any of these Teams in a minimum of 5 Games though.
Portland would be one to avoid: between two guards who can got hot, Nurkic back, good coaching, and playoff experience that could be rough even though I fully expect the Lakers to win
Unfortunately I think we're on a crash course with Portland. Memphis hasn't won a game in the bubble and they just lost Jaren Jackson for the season (meniscus). Only a 1 1/2 lead over Portland at this point and I don't see Memphis holding on. Spurs, Pelicans and even the Suns might overtake Memphis before these seeding games are done. Most likely Portland takes the 8th seed and one of the others fights them at the 9 spot in game tourney. Memphis is probably done.
lol, after everything, watch it come down spurs/blazers for the 8 seed. hate seeing portland at 8. pretty much any other team (including several already locked into the playoffs) would be better. we don't match up great there, and they would have nothing to lose and one of the biggest killers in the league on the roster. they're well-coached and have had basically the same fairly successful roster for a while. should the lakers beat them? uh, yes. but why have a tough series early when your key competitors (lac, houston) will likely be feasting on their easiest matchups (lac will get dal, whom they own, and hou will get utah, who might just forfeit given recent results).
portland scares me because of their size as well. they've been playing nurkic and whiteside together and i could see that being a tough matchup for this lakers team and on top of that, you have lillard and mccollum who can pop off at any minute and singlehandedly win games
