NBA Tournament of Champions: Tim Duncan Bracket First Round

With a week to prepare, I'm ready to begin my most ambitious project in the NBA Tournament of Champions. An overview of what's going on, plus the field, can be found here. I'm going to go through each round in the span of two weeks, as if to simulate the flow of the actual NBA Playoffs, plus 32 series is a lot to go through in one post. As such, I'm going to go through a bracket each day for a few days each of the next couple weeks to get through Round 1, then move on from there.

Each series is a best of seven. Home court advantage will be determined by overall winning percentage (regular season plus playoffs) and will take shape in the 2-2-1-1-1 format. As with prior simulated tournaments, all results are provided by WhatIfSports.com.

'05 San Antonio Spurs (75-30) vs '98 Chicago Bulls (77-26)
Game 1: @ '98 Bulls 97, '05 Spurs 85 (CHI leads 1-0)
Game 2: '05 Spurs 99, @ '98 Bulls 86 (Series tied 1-1)
Game 3: @ '05 Spurs 97, '98 Bulls 95 (SA leads 2-1)
Game 4: '98 Bulls 92, @ '05 Spurs 83 (Series tied 2-2)
Game 5: '05 Spurs 96, @ '98 Bulls 91 (SA leads 3-2)
Game 6: '98 Bulls 82, @ '05 Spurs 79 (Series tied 3-3)
Game 7: '05 Spurs 90, @ '98 Bulls 87 (SA wins 4-3)
Full disclosure: for whatever reason, WhatIfSports decided that Toni Kukoc didn't belong in the rotation originally, so I had to fix that. Even with the lineup tweaks, Tim Duncan proved to be way too much to handle for the Bulls. Ultimately this isn't too surprising; these Bulls teams were susceptible to a team with a good low post presence. A prime Tim Duncan? Tough, even with MJ on your side.

'78 Washington Bullets (58-45) vs '10 Los Angeles Lakers (73-32)
Game 1: @ '10 Lakers 108, '78 Bullets 102 (LAL leads 1-0)
Game 2: @ '10 Lakers 127, '78 Bullets 101 (LAL leads 2-0)
Game 3: '10 Lakers 103, @ '78 Bullets 93 (LAL leads 3-0)
Game 4: '10 Lakers 115, @ '78 Bullets 83 (LAL wins 4-0)
More full disclosure: Pau Gasol wasn't being given a lot of minutes on this squad, so I had to fix that. Ultimately, given the margin in most of these games, I don't think it would have mattered too much. Still, Gasol's presence was a major factor in this sweep.

'09 Los Angeles Lakers (81-24) vs '07 San Antonio Spurs (74-28)
Game 1: '07 Spurs 107, @ '09 Lakers 82 (SA leads 1-0)
Game 2: @ '09 Lakers 119, '07 Spurs 90 (Series tied 1-1)
Game 3: '09 Lakers 93, @ '07 Spurs 84 (LAL leads 2-1)
Game 4: @ '07 Spurs 87, '09 Lakers 85 (Series tied 2-2)
Game 5: @ '09 Lakers 95, '07 Spurs 85 (LAL leads 3-2)
Game 6: '09 Lakers 116, @ '07 Spurs 95 (LAL wins 4-2)
I didn't need to make much in the way of depth chart changes here. Largely, despite all the Game MVP's for Pau Gasol, I do think in this one it was ultimately Kobe who was the main reason the Lakers won, though both of them went off in the clincher. Also, when Fabricio Oberto is playing key minutes for you, you aren't going to get very far (though in fairness, he did do okay in those playoffs.)

'57 Boston Celtics (51-31) vs '11 Dallas Mavericks (73-30)
Game 1: @ '11 Mavericks 116, '57 Celtics 94 (DAL leads 1-0)
Game 2: @ '11 Mavericks 113, '57 Celtics 99 (DAL leads 2-0)
Game 3: '11 Mavericks 105, @ '57 Celtics 95 (DAL leads 3-0)
Game 4: @ '57 Celtics 97, '11 Mavericks 86 (DAL leads 3-1)
Game 5: '57 Celtics 112, @ '11 Mavericks 106 (DAL leads 3-2)
Game 6: '11 Mavericks 140, @ '57 Celtics 95 (DAL wins 4-2)
I was worried after Game 1 and especially Game 2 that this was going to get ugly fast, but Boston controlled the boards for most of the series, and it showed in their wins in Games 4 and 5. Then Dallas retook control in Game 6 (largely off of shooting 56% as a team) to finish it off.

To see the updated bracket, click here.

In the second round, we get a younger Duncan taking on a slightly older Kobe, while Dirk gets a shot at another Lakers squad. This time there's no Ron Artest to elbow anyone though. Tomorrow, another bracket will face its first round of action.