Thepaintedarea.blogspot.com Website Review

and the 71% success rate lifted our lifetime winning percentage since we started The Painted Area to a robust 68.1%. Here are our year-by-year records for the seven years we've been publishing our picks: b) provided projected '13-14 wins from ESPN Insider Kevin Pelton's SCHOENE projection system, and MIAMI UNDER 61.5 (66 LAST SEASON) The Heat are likely to be the oldest team in the NBA and, if they pull Miami is coming off three straight grueling trips to the Finals - trying to become the first team since the '87 Celtics to make it back And they are likely a little worse this season, given that Dwyane Wade is still hurting as the season starts, and they lost Mike Miller and Regardless of what you think the Heat will do come playoff time, it's hard to imagine they'll have enough juice and motivation to get back to the 60-win mark in the regular season, especially given how much energy is required to execute their defensive scheme optimally. Out of seven teams which have chased a threepeat in the last quarter-century, only the '98 Bulls have surpas*ed 61.5 wins, and they did so with 62 W's, and even that was a decline from an average of 70.5 wins in the previous two seasons. Several threepeat chasers landed in the 57-58 range, and that's about what we expect from these Heat. DETROIT OVER 40.5 (29 LAST SEASON) Three of the top five players in minutes for Detroit last season were Brandon Knight, Kyle Singler and Jason Maxiell. Yes, the parts of the new-look Pistons may not match perfectly, but read that first sentence again. Plug in Brandon Jennings (whom we think is a significant upgrade over Knight) and Josh Smith, plus a larger role for Andre Drummond (7th in minutes last year), and we think the talent upgrade is too mas*ive to ignore. We expect this team to be a solid 40-plus win team, in the running for the 5th or 6th seed. Our only area of concern would be that we wish they'd hired a better coach than Maurice Cheeks. George Karl would've been a great fit for this club, and Brian Shaw would've been