FanNation

NBA Playoffs

The First round of the playoffs are well over and the top contenders are all still in the hunt: Boston Celtics, Detroit Pistons, Orlando Magic, Cleveland Caviliers, Los Angeles Lakers, New Orleans Hornets, San Antonio Spurs and Utah Jazz.  The Boston Celtics look in the best shape so far.  Even though they had to take the first round series to seven games to beat the Atlanta Hawks, everyone knew that this series wasn't for real and Boston knew this two.  With all of that said and done, Boston is up to a 2-0 lead over the Cleveland Caviliers in the second round.  The Boston Celtics have contained LeBron James very well so far this series, makiong him miss a whopping 34 shots.  Paul Pierce and Ray Allen have been scoring, Kevin Garnett has been defending, the bench is contributing, everything is going good.

That brings me to Cleveland.  The Caviliers pulled through against the Washington Wizards in a series that was predicted to be a close one, Cleveland turned it in to sort of a laugher.  Cleveland, wait, I mean "LeBron James" (the whole team basically) manhandled Gilbert Arena,s Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison to beat them in six games.  King James was the scoring leader in all of the six games of course.

Next will be Detroit.  They played the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round and I can't say that that series didn't scare me.  The young and energetic '6ers rode Reggie Evans throught the first three games to take a 2-1 game lead.  Evans was averaging almost a double-double through these games.  Finally, the Detroit Pistons stopped playing around, kept Evans off the board, and relyed on their bench a ton - maybe too much.  Jason Maxiell and Rodney Stcukey helped them a lot throught that series but I can already see that they won't help much against an even better Orlando Magic.  With that said, Detroit holds a 2-1 lead against them but it porbably won't be like that for long.

Now Orlando . . . Orlando beat the Toronto Raptors in the first round, a much more realaxing series than the Pistons - well, for the Magic fans.  Orlando had at least one player score at least 25 points in four out of the five games that they played - with Orlando winning the series 4-1.  Well, that is what will happen when you don't play defense.  Orlando didn't do fantastic through the first two games of the second round against the Pistons but the found their groove at home and so did Rashard Lewis - he scored 33 points to bring the series back to a one game deficit.

Now lets go out to the West, aka, the Varsity Conference compared to the JV conference (Eastern Conference).  Out there, the Los Angeles Lakers are the story.  Kobe Bryant played well in Denver, like he always does, and enjoyed the heckling from the fans as well.  Result: Sweep.  Kobe scored at least 34 points in each of the second round series games against the Utah Jazz.  Result: LA up, 2-1.  Look what one Kobe can do . . .the Jazz are going to have a tough time getting out of this whole so try asking them how it is to play against Bryant, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom while they are still in it - all right?

Well, I guess the Utah Jazz do have a small shot but the chances of them winning the series are down to about 15%.  Sure, the Jazz won a game but that game was at home.  The Homecourt team has won each game in the series so far and guess who has homecourt advantage: the Lakers.  Never mind that and the Utah Jazz have had a pretty good playoff series in the first round.  They beat the fifth seeded Houston Rockets in six games and had four players score at least 20 points, grab at least 15 rebounds and/or pass at least 12 assists.  Too bad they are putting those nice playoff games streak in jepordy because of Kobe . . .

. . . And while Kobe has been doing that, Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets has been terroizing teams like the Dallas Mavericks and the San Antonio Spurs.  CP3 has averaged 25.6 PPG and 11.8 APG between the two series.  He has also been on the board a little bit as well, averaging 4.5 rebounds per game so far in the playoffs.  He has had at least eight assists in eight playoff games.  Who says you need expirience?  New Orleans has a 6-2 playoff record so far because of him . . . and he still isn't done.  Paul scored 35 points in Thursday's loss to San Antonio, but hey, the Hornets are still winning the series 2-1 right? . . .

. . . Well, not if San Antonio has anything else to do about it.  The reigning NBA Champions, who have won three championships in the past six years, are the best suited team for the 2008 playoffs and they also have the most expirience.  Tim Duncan, Bruce Bowen, Manu Ginobli and Tony Parker are all usually clutch in the playoffs and the Spurs may be able to tie this series up on Sunday - just a little under a week after beating the Phoenix Suns in a five game series.

My playoff predictions:

Cleveland Caviliers beat Boston Celtics in seven games.

Orlando Magic beat Detroit Pistons in seven games.

Los Angeles Lakers beat Utah Jazz in six games.

New Orleans Hornets beat San Antonio Spurs in seven games.

Conference Finals

Cleveland Caviliers beat Orlando Magic in six games.

New Orleans Hornets beat Los Angeles Lakers in six games.

Finals

Los Angeles Lakers beat Boston Celtics in . . games

Cleveland Caviliers beat New Orleans Hornets in seven games.