Playoffs? PLAYOFFS? Playoffs.
Playoffs? PLAYOFFS? Playoffs.
The first round of the NBA playoffs is upon us — thankfully, I don’t mean that literally — and I, for one, am excited. Not only because I will get to hear “Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty alongside footage of Kevin Garnett staring and sweating (pretty much the content of every NBA promo during the past five years), but also a really good team is going to lose their first round match-up to someone not as good, and an ESPN anchor of indiscriminate race will dutifully report how it is a “shocker” and how it “changes things” — even though, you know, we aren’t morons.
If I had to choose a team least likely to flame out in the playoff’s first-round, it would probably be the Chicago Bulls, who will have so little trouble with the Indiana Pacers that Derrick Rose will have to write “game v. Pacers” on his hand, so he doesn’t forget that he has somewhere to be. And the team most likely to be upset in the first round will be the Dallas Mavericks, by the Portland Trailblazers, which I’ll explain later. Hopefully.
In the Eastern Conference, only two of the four match-ups appear to be competitive. In addition to the Bulls, who have been making a clicking sound since before the All-Star break, the Miami Heat have lost just enough games to draw a great matchup for them — the Philadelphia Sixers who have no answer for LeBron James or Dwyane Wade. Both of those series will be uneventful and filled with “a 17-point lead at the half!” proclamations from the poor announcers, trying to make blowouts sound even remotely exciting. Perhaps I’m in the minority, but I’ve seen both James and Wade play scintillating playoff basketball, and the Sixers second-best player, is playing with a broken hand. Andre Igoudala is pretty fantastic, but Jrue Holiday has proven nothing in all of his many, many NBA playoff games. I hope the Heat lose (I really do), but I think there’s a better chance of the Sixers mascot, Hip-Hop, tearing off his mask to reveal Allen Iverson than the Sixers winning this series. No offense, Sixers.
The other two games are harder to predict. I naturally assumed that the Orlando Magic would finish as one of the top three seeds. My bad. I say that because, other than the Bulls, they probably field the deepest team in the Eastern Conference, although the coalescing I had assumed would’ve happened by now just hasn’t. I’m still waiting to see Gilbert Arenas to wake up, but I have to acknowledge that may never happen.
The problem is that no one will give the Hawks a chance, despite the fact that they took the season series three games to one, and they match-up rather well with the Magic. If Joe Johnson has learned from last year’s unfocused meltdown — no one ever remembers your regular season success, unless they’re writing about you choking — Al Horford can occupy Howard’s attention long enough for the Hawks’ complementary pieces (Smith, Crawford, Williams and Horford) to outshoot and out-rebound their counterparts on the major (Richardson, Turkoglu and Redick). And I can see the Hawks stealing this series. There I said it. I may have hedgingly chosen an Atlanta team to win a sporting event. At any moment, lightning may strike me down.
Where to begin with the Knicks-Celtics? Well, I can tell you what I think and what I believe — and they are two different things. I think the Knicks can make a series of this. And that the Celtics cannot defend Carmelo Anthony and, defensively, Chauncey Billups can impede, if not limit, Rajon Rondo. And the Knicks lack of an interior presence isn’t a shortcoming against a team that traded its own interior presence away a few months ago. And that the Celtics are old and fading and the Knicks are peaking. And here’s what I believe: the Celtics have been there, they are unbelievably well-coached, they get every call, run a disciplined half-court offense that in Paul Pierce has a small forward who is a near-equal offensively to Carmelo. And I believe that Kevin Garnett plays with an intensity that is unmatched on the Knicks. If the Celtics come out firing, it will be a 5-game series. Tragically.
The Western Conference playoffs will probably have two close series. Although I have been underwhelmed by the Spurs’ bloodless efficiency all season, there’s only a 20% chance that they lose to the Memphis Grizzlies, the team that the blogosphere has anointed this season’s Cinderella. I like Zach Randolph but he will have his hands full with Tim Duncan. The rest of the Spurs are too experienced: Tony Parker will run circles (literally) around Mike Conley. Besides, the Spurs are too focused already on what’s next to even contemplate losing this series. I just read on one of those blogs that the Spurs will regret taking Grizzlies, with whom they split the season series, lightly, and I almost spit my coffee. This one is over now, three days before it begins.
The smart money is obviously on the Los Angeles Lakers to step all over the New Orleans Hornets, and at this point, I would probably go with that prediction, especially since David West is out. If Andrew Bynum is more banged up than they are saying, and Kobe continues to look like a guy suffering from sleep apnea and overuse — his tantrum-into-a-gay-slur performance the other night was a sure sign that he needs some time off — and the Hornets can force the tempo, this could be a hairy series for the Lakers. Chris Paul will have big games, as he seems to grow in the spotlight, but I have a feeling that, afterward, the storyline will be that Chris Paul looked around his locker room filled with castoffs from other teams (no offense, Trevor Ariza) and realize that, to win in the new NBA, he needs to play with one or two more superstars. Like, you know, the Knicks.
Personally, I think the Oklahoma City Thundersticks and Denver Nuggets series will be entertaining, but then again, I thought “Wrestlemania 27” was entertaining. Will the games be high scoring? Yes. Will the Nuggets win more than two of them? I can’t see that happening. People speak of the Knicks cast-offs as if they are a group of seasoned playoff performers. Not so much. They are, to a man (except Mozgov) good complementary players, but none can elevate enough to give Oklahoma City trouble, especially since that team was gifted the Celtics interior presence, Kendrick Perkins, earlier this season.
Matter of fact, if I had to choose a team to come out of the Western Conference, it would be Oklahoma City, with Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, that guy with the funny beard whose name escapes me and the center who should be leading the Celtics to the Eastern Conference title. Take that, everybody even remotely involved in basketball punditry.
Last, but certainly not least, the Portland Trailblazers will topple the No. 2 3 seed, Dallas Mavericks. They will steal game one in Dallas, and the Mavs, who are the Michael Jordan of playoff underachievers, will never recover. I could be wrong, but I see it going this way. And then Mark Cuban will scratch his head, grab his Wiffle ball bat and head back to his mansion filled, presumably, with Ed Hardy-designed Mavericks t-shirts and mom jeans, contemplating what a guy has to do to buy a team in an actual professional sports town. No offense, Cowboys.
Tony Gervino is a New York City-based editor and writer obsessed with honing his bio to make him sound quirky. He can also be found here.