No. 1 Cleveland Cavaliers (61-21) vs. No. 8 Chicago Bulls (41-41)
The Cleveland Cavaliers, the top seed in the Eastern Conference, take on the No. 8 seed Chicago Bulls in a first-round, Eastern Conference playoff series. This is a best-of-7 series.
The two teams split the season series 2-2, but Cleveland chose not to play LeBron James the last time to rest him for the playoffs.
We finally get to see if Cleveland general manager Danny Ferry’s grand plan in response to last year’s playoff disaster against Orlando works. The biggest question mark for the Cavaliers is, without a doubt, how Shaquille O’Neal will be worked back into the rotation after missing two months with a thumb injury. The Cavaliers have shown they can be effective with or without Shaq in the lineup, but they’ll most definitely need him if they want to win a grind-it-out playoff series that seems looming for the Cavs. The Bulls should be a good warm-up.
Meanwhile, Chicago has consistently underachieved all season and just snuck into the playoffs with the last spot in the East. The oddest news out of the Windy City the last week has been the physical altercation between coach Vinny Del Negro and executive vice president John Paxson after a loss to Phoenix a couple of weeks ago. Everything with the Bulls is off-kilter, from them having to limit Joakim Noah’s minutes for a phantom injury to their two-point guard system of Derrick Rose and Kirk Hinrich. You get the feeling heads will roll as soon as this series is kaput, which should be pretty quickly.
The odds makers have the Cavaliers at -11 -point favorites.
Cleveland may have sat out James two games too long, as he sat for the last four games of the regular season to rest up for the playoffs and that might be just enough time to get rusty. Rose would have to magically turn into Michael Jordan to make this a series.
Prediction: Look for the Cavaliers to dominate this series and win in four games.
Cleveland Cavaliers vs Chicago Bulls 2010 Playoff Schedule
Game 1: Sat, April 17 Chicago at Cleveland 3:00 pm EST on ABC
Game 2: Mon, April 19 Chicago at Cleveland 8:00 pm EST on TNT
Game 3: Thu, April 22 Cleveland at Chicago 7:00 pm EST on TNT
Game 4: Sun, April 25 Cleveland at Chicago 3:30 pm EST on ABC
Game 5: Tue, April 27 Chicago at Cleveland TBD on TBD*
Game 6: Thu, April 29 Cleveland at Chicago TBD on TBD*
Game 7: Sat, May 01 Chicago at Cleveland TBD on TNT*
* If necessary
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