I think Dallas has an edge in this series. First, one of the biggest factors that doomed Detroit is that they were a jump shooting team. They scored the least number of points in the paint of any team this season. I think that was incredibly important that Detroit's offense was based on jump shots because of two reasons; first, this took pressure away from Miami's lousy perimeter defenders, and second is that none of the players drove the ball at Shaq so that they can draw fouls on him. Detroit also did a lousy job executing pick and rolls against Shaq. Dallas is one of the best pick and roll teams in the league, and they also have alot of quick scorers that will go right past the lousy defenders (like Jason Williams, and Gary EZPASS Payton, and Dwayne Wade is an average defensive player too). This will put pressure on the Miami's frontcourt rotations and will probably cause Shaq to pick up some cheap fouls.
On the other end, Dallas will go with the headed stiffs, Diop and Erica Dampier to go against Shaq. I dont know how effective they can be, since Tim Duncan just totally embarrased them both, earlier in the playoffs. What they should do, is look at the tape of how Jason Collins defended Shaq. Shaq was totally ineffective against Collins, who graduated with honors from the Vlade Divac's school of flopping! The point is they should be flopping like crazy because it flat out works! Finally, against Wade, they wont be able to cover him, but Detroit did have some sucess in some of their games by driving him to the sideline and trapping him with a double team, cause him to throw some bad passes. Finally, i would not be surprised if Avery goes small and plays Dirk at Center and push the ball more, and up the tempo. I think Chicago laid out the blueprint on how to beat Miami, they just didnt have enough good players (up front especially) to beat them. Dallas does, and I think they can beat Miami.
