The Lakers have trouble against a great point guard, not the two guard which is usually smothered by Kobe. The Heat's point guard is a mishmash of Mike Bibby and Mario Chalmers, Balmers as I refer to them. Not exactly as threatening as Cp3 lol. I don't have any confidence at all in Big Z's defense, because well it doesn't exist, so I would expect the superior length of Gasol and Bynum to do major damage inside compared to Noah and Boozer.
Ya the Spurs really need Manu. I don't think they end up losing the series without him because it is the Grizz after all, but no way do they get past OKC without him, or likely even with him.
Also, my love for the Heat is driven by a delusional reality I live in where D-Wade is a Detroit Piston and has been for years. Anyone remember that time Joe Dumars passed on Carmelo Anthony and Dwayne Wade to draft Darko Milicic? I do. I died a little inside right then. Sure they won a ring after wards, in no way thanks to Darko who averaged about 12 second/game. That move along with trading Billiups still makes me wonder why Dumars has a job. But then again Keuster is still the coach even though he is terrible and everyone hates him so that isn't a whole lot of "organizational oversight" it seems.