Well, if Stoudemire is back and fully fit, he's, what, one of the top 5 big men in the league? Like you say, they were only just short of getting there this year, and I think they'd have beaten Miami in the finals more often than not, but add a genuine all-star C/PF to the mix and it's the best starting 5 in the league, surely?

Dallas in 6...Miami is nowhere near as good as the Suns or Spurs. They are a 2 man team and will be shut down easily

They're not as good as the Spurs, I think they'd be about on a par with Phoenix.

Miami are a really streaky team and they've been on a big heater through the playoffs. Back in (I think) March they went something like 12 straight undefeated in the league. When everything clicks they can be a real tough team to beat.

I think they need Antoine Walker to have a good series to compete. They need scoring from outside of Wade and Shaq. Mourning being hurt won't help, I guess.

I still think Wade and Shaq are going to cause major matchup problems. Diop is a good defender but Shaq's playing as well as I've seen for the last 2 years or so.

But you're right, Miami are going to need some scoring from elsewhere to compete. Huge series for Walker required!

I'm not sure who to root for out of these two, I guess maybe Miami cos I'd love to see Zo win a ring. Wade's fast becoming one of my favourite players ever, too! That guy is phenomenal....

On another note, what would everybody's NBA first team be this year? You can include post-season and regular in your decisions. I think I'd go for this....

1st

Steve Nash
Dwyane Wade
Lebron James
Dirk Nowitzki
Shaquille O'Neal

2nd

Chauncey Billups
Kobe Bryant
Shawn Marion
Elton Brand
Jermaine O'Neal

Honourable mentions too for Chris Paul who lead a bunch of no-hopers so close to the playoffs, Arenas who shot the lights out all year (again), and Rip Hamilton who seemed to hit big shots all year until the postseason! I know Jermaine O'Neal isn't really a centre but he can play pivot and I couldn't bring myself to have Ming in this company....

Duncan is still a tough matchup for just about anyone, but hes past his prime and I predict a steady decline in production from here. Of course a decline still means 18 pts and 8 rebounds.

I think San An might struggle last year, this might've been their last chance for a while to pick up a ring. Being fair to Duncan, they don't run quite as much through him as, say, Cleveland run through James. Now they've got a top-class point guard and a few smaller guys who can run the break a bit more they seem to play a tiny bit more in the open court than when they were a true half-court team a couple of years back, so I don't know if Duncan's taken as many shots as he has in the past. I think his defensive production's down a bit though.

I believe he's also been playing semi-hurt much of this year, he doesn't seem to have any sort of vertical leap any more (partly due to the ankle problem he's been carrying I think?) and I guess that's part of why his rebounding and blocking numbers are well down on his best years. He's not the brilliant athlete he was when he came into the league, still has the footwork and the moves on the baseline and great awareness of where he is in the post but like I say he seems to struggle a bit more to get in any sort of jump these days, make space for fadeaways etc.

Whether that'll improve again when he's fully fit (if he ever gets fully fit again) is anyone's guess, I tend to agree with Ice that he's probably picked up a few too many knocks and so he'll never be 100% again and probably decline a bit from a marquee player to just a solid star. I remember when he first came in I don't think there'd been a big man with such quick feet and athleticism since Olajuwon was young, Duncan's a different player now, though - still effective but not quite as quick and athletic in the paint.

How is a friggin Brit so well versed on American Round-Ball?

I used to play basketball in school, and really liked it. I was never very good at sports in school until I discovered basketball and volleyball (both american ) and these days I play volleyball to a good standard (4th highest league in Britain), though I gave up basketball when I broke my wrist a few years back and couldn't find a team in university. The biggest sports over here are rugby (which I was never much good at because I'm tall and quite thin), football (which I'm alright at until I realised I was a pretty good goalkeeper, now I play in goal whenever we play and I'm alright at that), so I had to find something to do in high school - for me that was basketball and volleyball. I'm only 6 foot 2 but because tall athletic folks here play rugby mostly I wasn't point guard size when I played in school, and was a good rebounder, not a lot of skill but I'd scrap and dive and piss people off a bit and that seemed to work pretty well, get a few layups or whatever, though ten feet was about the range when I started to produce more bricks than a furnace....

We started getting NBA games here about 10 or 12 years ago, now it's on late at night once a week with some highlights and replay packages through the week on cable. I've loved it for ages, like most of Europe; as has been proved by the lack of "dream team" success in recent years, the rest of the world has caught up pretty quick on basketball and it's a huge sport now, worldwide. Put it this way - if the rest of the world put up a team to play America, it'd be something like Nash, Stojakovic/Ginobli, Gasol, Nowitzki, Yao; pretty good, and a starting 5 that'd walk to the NBA championship even without much of a bench!

Like lots of the americans on here who've picked up on British premiership football (erm, soccer) I've been following basketball since I started getting into it, last few years baseball too, and I'm doing my best to get the hang of football (hence my dumb questions about special teams and stuff about 4 months back). There's a lot of great sports coverage out there these days, and though most folks in Europe don't really care about american sports much, I've just followed the stuff that I like. Cricket, soccer, basketball, baseball, rugby, I'm not really bothered where it comes from as long as I enjoy it!