Ok, so I had this nice series of blog posts I was going to make laying out the entire playoffs from the first round onward. But then life decided to get in the way, and that got scrapped. Now I will boldly march on, even sans readers, to get the noise about the NBA playoffs out of my head onto some digital paper.

But first, a brief summary of what I was gonna say:

Eastern Conference finals: Pistons over the Cavs in five. Against the Pistons suffocating defense, the Cavs will wilt like Chamberlain. The Cavs can't do much to slow down Dee-troit either, so this one could get ugly. I'd predict a sweep if Detroit could stay focused again for four straight games. That might not be a stretch, seeing how they've come out in their first six playoff games.

Western conference round one:

Mavs-Warriors: I picked GS in six, believe it or not. I can't get over the transformation of this team. Who'da thunk Baron getting healthy would lead this team to become a bunch of pit bulls on D and lead to the crispiest ball movement this side of, well, anywhere? Chalk up a big assist to the softness of Dallas. They need a leadership transplant, particularly in the form of a take-charge guard, in the mold of Steve Nash. Wait a sec...

Rockets-Jazz: Against my better judgement, I picked the Rockets in seven. Logic told me that the Jazz's frontcourt athleticism would give them the upper hand on the glass, and that Houston's anemic offense would give out on them at the worst possible time. I rationalized picking the Rox at the time though because (a) Kirilenko, the only Jazz starter who plays any semblance of D (maybe except for my arch-nemesis Derek Fisher), was battling injury problems and (b) I thought TMac would deliver a transcendental performance (a la the Spurs miracle and the Mavs series a few years back), and take H-Town to the promised land. But when AK-47 found his game in Utah, I knew H-town was in trouble.

As for McGrady, it seemed his focus wavered throughout the series, as we saw in the second half of game 7. Very troubling, for a guy I always thought of as like Kobe, if Kobe played team basketball 24/7. As much as I hate to admit, being a JVG fan from his Knick days, I think this team could use a coaching change. I'm not sure his style fits these players, and the mental execution breakdowns this team always had in the fourth quarter have to at least partially fall on him.

Suns-Lakers: Money. I had the Suns in five. The Lakes were just too much of a mess to put up much fight in this series. Especially since the presence of Amare negated their big edge last season on the inside. Big ups to Lamar Odom, though, dude was a soldier, playing through an Iverson-esque slew of injuries to post big numbers. Fact is, I don't think he's comfortable being a sidekick, and the beginning of the year seemed to show that the Laker offense runs better when going through him instead of Kobe. I really hope he'll get his own team to lead in the off-season (Golden State, I'm talking to you!), so we can see his talent shine some more. There isn't anything this guy can't do.

Spurs-Nuggets: My lone prediction blemish (no I don't count the Jazz-Rockets series; I knew that if Utah's team was in tact, the Rockets were out). I actually believed Denver would pull this out in six. Looking at the Nuggets deep, talented corps of bigs, I thought they would be able to control the glass and play just enough D to pull it out. So what happened? San Antonio was steady and Denver wasn't. After game 1, Melo and AI stopped moving the ball on offense, and, probably not coincidentally, everybody on Denver stopped playing D (with the exception of Marcus Camby). 

On a side note, I'm not down with all the hating on Mr. DPOY. I'm not saying his pick and roll defense is all that, but if he should apologize for his teammates being so bad on D that he gets all those blocks and boards, then Bill Russell, and every other great shotblocking big man, should do the same. My point is, the value of his shotblocking is that everybody on the other team has to be thinking about Camby when they come down the lane, and you could see that even in the Spurs series, after he sent Mr. Eva Longoria and Ginobili packing shot after shot.

Anyway, the series showed that the Nuggs have a way to go before becoming legit contenders.  For all their press clippings, Melo and AI must involve their teammates, especially Nene (blossoming at both ends now, and making Kenyon Martin completely expendable), for this team to really run with the San Antonios and the Dallases ( hahahaha) of the Western conference.

Damn, I got a problem with verbosity. I'll have to save my spiel about the conference semis for next time.

Now playing: my wrapup of prediction for the Eastern conference bracket.

I wanted to first respond to the ravenous Bulls fans, who like to think that their manhandling the defending champs will translate into guaranteed victory: 2007 Heat =/= 2006 Heat. The 2006 Heat had a healthy DWade, and Antoine Walker was finally rolling as the third scorer/playmaker on the team. On the real though, Chicago should have beaten Miami last year. Deng didn't show up for that series and was completely outplayed by Walker, which made his breakout peformance this year all the more shocking.

I'm kinda surprised all those Bulls fans didn't bring up what Detroit should really be worried about: Nocioni's outside shooting. Noce still doesn't quite look like himself after coming back from his injuries, and we'll find out just how well he's doing come Saturday. But if he's hot, he either pulls one of Detroit's bigs away from the basket, opening up the paint for the other guys, or forces the Pistons to go small. I'm not saying he can win the series, but it would make things more interesting. I still say Pistons in six.

Cavs-Nets

Contrary to popular belief, I think this'll be a good series. On paper, the Cavs have way more talent than the Nets, who play Vince, RJ, Kidd, and Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella crew. But between the experience of those Jersey guys and the screwiness of the Cavs roster, this will be a close series. I pick the Cavs in seven.

The trouble with the Cavs roster is that it's like they assembled two different teams, and Ferry & Co. can't decide which way to go. On one side, you have your halfcourt guys - Ziggy Ilgauskas, Drew Gooden, Eric Snow, and Donyell Marshall. On the other you have your uptempo crew - Larry Hughes, Sideshow Bob Varejao, and Pavlovic. Unfortunately, the halfcourt guys can't play fast and the uptempo guys can't really play slow. In between, you have King James, who is good enough to play both styles, but in an uptempo scheme would be the scariest thing the league's seen this side of Dr. J. Who else can you say with 100% certainty that some crazy #@% is going down whenever they get the ball in the open court?

(Here's where I'm going to talk about why LeBron is the MVP of the NBA. This deserves its own column, but I don't have the time or interest to do that right now. So I'll sum it up: look at the team he's working with. If you took out LeBron and put in a decent player, like say a Luke Walton, the guys I mentioned above would struggle to win 30 games. You're looking at Memphis east, folks. Take Nash from the Suns, replace him with a Ray Felton. You still have Barbosa, Stoudemire, Marion, Diaw, Bell and Kurt Thomas. By my count, that's two unstoppable offensive players, another top-25 player in the league, a 6'-9'' playmaking forward, a defensive specialist who can stroke the long ball, and a solid backup big man. Are you telling me that team wouldn't win 40-45 games? As for Dirk? Short answer, see the Mavs-Warriors playoff series. Kobe's the only other guy who has a legit case against Lebron. I pick LeBron because:

a) Kobe's got more help. Lamar Odom is waaaay better than any other player the Cavs have, and if you take him from the Lakers and Larry Hughes from the Cavs, the remaining guys are close, with only a slight edge in the Cavs favor.

and

b) The Lakes may have had more injuries, but they won about ten less games than the Cavs, so I call that a wash.)

All that said, the Cavs have bigs and the Nets really don't, unless you count too-young Josh Boone, too-old Cliff Robinson, and Freeway, who just isn't tall enough. Mikki Moore has a great story, and is actually pretty solid, but the Cavs are one of the best rebounding teams in the league and should feast on the boards at both ends. Defensively, the Nets are the better team though, and JKidd and Vince should be able to get into the paint and cause problems for Cleveland. (On that point, can someone tell my why coach Mike Brown has tried to make the Cavs a defensive, walk-it-up team, when NONE of his starters plays any defense and half of his guys can't score in the halfcourt? Anybody?) As tough defensively as the Nets can be, I don't see them being able to contain LeBron in a Pistons-like fashion.

Also, watch for at least one game turning on the edge in experience and poise held by the Nets. It may come in the form of missed FTs by LeBron, it may come in a key rebound or defensive play made by Jason Kidd, but know that it's coming. The problem is, I don't see there being enough tight games, especially in Cleveland, for the Nets to pull out the series.

This brings us to a Pistons-Cavs, this time in the conference finals. If you've been following the blog, then you know where this is heading. It's just a question of how many games.