ARE YOU READY TO RUMMMMMM BLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEE?
The 66 games in 123 days are over. Linsanity is a distant memory. The Bobcats wish their worst-winning-percentage-in-NBA-history was a distant memory. The Lakers were too old and washed up, and now they’re back. The Spurs were too old and washed up, and now they’re back. The Celtics were… look, there’s a bit of a theme going on here.
16 teams enter and 1 team leaves. Who will be… America’s Next Top Model the next NBA champion?
The East
Chicago Bulls (1st) v Philadelphia 76ers (8th)
The two teams which conceded the lowest points per game in the NBA go head to head. This should be zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Philadelphia hung on to 3rd spot for the first half of the season and then disintegrated, nearly missing the playoffs entirely. They did however beat Chicago once out of three tries . That’s a lot better than they did vs Miami, prompting guard Evan Turner to say that playing the Bulls instead of the Heat means they’ve avoided the better team. That’s not going to motivate the Bulls at all. Idiot.
Meanwhile, after injury problems all season Chicago at least has everyone suiting up for this one. We’ll see how long it lasts.
Prediction: 4-0, Bulls.
YOUR MIAMI HEAT (2nd) v New York Knicks (7th)
Perhaps the two most written-about teams in the NBA meet in round 1 of the playoffs.
The Knicks: A total shambles under Mike D’Antoni, a sudden hot spell during “Linsanity” (which the Heat can probably take credit for ending, with a dismantling of the Knicks in general and Lin specifically just before the All-Star Break) followed by a return to the shambles which got D’Antoni fired. New coach Mike Woodson somehow revived the team , first under Lin and then when Lin got injured under Carmelo Anthony, finally looking like the superstar he’s meant to be. Between “Woodsanity” and late chokes by Philly and by the Milwaukee Bucks, the Knicks not only made the playoffs but got 7th spot.
The Heat: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. What more need be said?
The Heat beat New York like the proverbial red-headed stepchild in all 3 matchups this year: one during the D’Antoni shambles, one during Linsanity and one during Woodsanity in which Carmelo scored 42 points and still didn’t get all that close to a win. Media sources are trying to talk this one up as being close. It won’t be.
Prediction: 4-1 Heat (one night New York’s 3 point shooters will go off for 50+%. It has to happen eventually).
Indiana Pacers (3rd) v Orlando Magic (6th)
The best result for the Pacers since the Malice in the Palace. Don’t sleep on the Pacers.
I won’t waste much time on this matchup because Dwight Howard is injured and the Magic are a 1-man team. They only made the playoffs because they had enough of a cushion when Dwight went down.
Prediction: 4-1 Pacers (one night Orlando’s 3 point shooters will go off for 50+%. It has to happen eventually).
Boston Celtics (4th) v Atlanta Hawks (5th)
Atlanta actually finished with a better record than the Celtics and gets home-court advantage. The Celtics are still officially 4th due to winning their awful division. Don’t ask me why they do it that way.
Anyway, this should be a great matchup. The Hawks without injured centre Al Horford have been extremely competitive (and probably wondering what could have been if Al stayed healthy) and are good at both ends of the floor, led by the should-have-been-an-All-Star Josh Smith and probably-the-2nd-best-shooting-guard-in-the-East-how-did-that-happen? Joe Johnson. The Celtics had an awful first half of the season and a stunningly great second half, anchored by the hot form of the mercurial Rajon Rondo, the discovery of killer defender Avery Bradley as a starter, and the rejuvenation of Kevin Garnett playing at centre.
The Celtics are great at defence and awful at rebounding. The Hawks are great at everything except when they aren’t, which is slightly too often.
Prediction: With home court advantage, I’m taking the Hawks 4-3 but this could go any which way but loose.
Future Predictions: Bulls over either the Celtics or Hawks (4-2), Heat over Pacers (4-2), Heat over Bulls (4-2: closer than last year!)
The West
San Antonio Spurs (1st) v Houston Phoenix Utah Jazz (8th)
At the All-Star break, I wrote that 8th spot would be determined by who was least worst out of about 4 teams. As it turned out, this was pretty accurate as Houston managed to lose 6 straight at the worst possible time, Phoenix tried to come back from what turned out to be slightly too many losses earlier in the season, and the Utah “can only win at home” Jazz was the one which didn’t quite blow it as badly as the others, although it certainly gave it a try.
The Spurs won 50 games for the 13th time in a row, an NBA record, despite this being a shortened season, despite regularly resting their key veterans, despite adding new guys to the rotation on what seemed to be a monthly basis. I am glad to say I predicted this back when most people had the Thunder on lock to finish 1st in the West. HA!
Some say that Utah’s surplus of talented big men will cause trouble for the Spurs. I say that Utah’s surplus of talented big men didn’t trouble enough teams during the regular season for me to believe that now.
Prediction: 4-0 Spurs (ultra-consistency and superior talent = sweep)
Oklahoma City Thunder (2nd) v Dallas Mavericks (7th)
The allegedly unstoppable Thunder hit a wall in the last month of the season. Not the “we’re resting everyone, screw it” wall but the “we’re really trying to be 1st seed but we’re still losing” wall. No-one is forgetting how they failed to handle the pressure against Dallas in last year’s playoffs.
The Mavericks, on the other hand, are washed up, too old, too slow and with no depth. That “Lamar Odom for free” thing isn’t looking like such a bargain now. Where I come from, the Lakers handing off Odom to the Mavs like that would be called a hospital pass. Still, they knew they were breaking up last year’s Champion team with an eye to setting up for 2013 and beyond, not for this year.
If you ask me, the Thunder are dead lucky that the Mavericks managed to go on a losing streak and fall below Denver at the end. Thunder-Nuggets would be a matchup of two of the highest scoring teams in the NBA. Nuggets have beaten the Thunder in the past couple of weeks, and the series would live and die on who had a hot shooting streak and who went cold. I’d still take the Thunder (Durant, you know) but 4-3. A series vs the Mavs is not going to be close. Sweet revenge for last year for OKC.
Oh, did something happen at the end of one of the earlier OKC-Mavs games this year?
Prediction: Thunder 4-1 (Nowtizki will do something ridiculous and Westbrook will implode at least once).
LA Lakers (3rd) v Denver Nuggets (6th)
It’s the little things that make all the difference. The Lakers were washed up, too old, too slow, no depth etc etc just like the Mavs. They trade for one guy on $4m a year, Cleveland’s backup point guard Ramon Sessions, and boom. A guy who can move the ball around and set up the Lakers’ three primo scorers in Bryant, Gasol and Bynum. All the difference.
Those opponents are Denver, who probably would have finished higher if not for a horrific streak of injuries through the middle of the season. They no longer have star big man Nene, but they do have star clown JaVale McGee… a very attacking team, but Gallinari hasn’t quite found peak form since returning from injury, Wilson Chandler got hurt straight after coming back from China to reinforce them, and trading away Nene for McGee (and promoting rookie Kenneth Faried to starter) was a decision made with next year in mind. The shootout with the Thunder might still have been interesting. The grind with the Lakers’ skilled offensive big men will be different.
Prediction: Lakers 4-2 (still not really convinced by the Lakers away, and the Denver altitude is always tricky).
Memphis Grizzlies (4th) v LA Clippers (5th)
When Grizzlies big man and leading scorer Zach Randolph went down early in the season saw the Grizzlies struggling, and maybe making a late run for the playoffs once Randolph returned. Instead, they kept doing pretty well for themselves and then did even better once he returned. If you don’t think the Grizz can win the championship, have I got news for you. They can on their day beat any of the other contenders. They’re fit, they have a set rotation, they finished in hot form that led them all the way to 4th and within a butterfly’s wing of 3rd in the West, they force more turnovers and make more steals than any team in the NBA, they have a super perimeter defender to handle opposing superstar perimeter players (Tony Allen), two great bigs (Gasol and Randolph), an athletic scoring wing of their own (Rudy Gay)… and they made the 2nd round of the playoffs and nearly got further last year when Rudy Gay was injured.
Meanwhile the Clippers have that whole Lob City thing, but in the playoffs I have trouble trusting a team whose second best player has to leave the floor in crunch time because he can’t shoot free throws. Call me crazy. Chris Paul seems to be struggling with injuries, too. I think the Clippers lose and Vinny Del Negro gets fired. But hey, for the Clippers a 1st round playoffs berth is an amazing achievement and one they can build on with a better coach and free throw shooting practice for Blake Griffin.
Prediction: Grizzlies 4-2
Future predictions: Spurs over Grizzlies 4-3, OKC over Lakers 4-3, Spurs over OKC 4-3 (these teams are all really competitive and have no big edge over one another, and it’s going to wear them out for the winner of the East).
Final Predictions: Heat over Spurs 4-2. I’m not biased at all.
All pictures courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
