This was a weird NBA season. This is the earliest that I can remember all 16 playoff teams being set. Normally, it comes right down to the final game or two before all 16 playoff spots are finally secured.
The season was also weird for another reason: heading into the final day of the season, six of the eight playoff seeds in the West were undetermined. Only the first and the last playoff spot in the West were locked in heading into Wednesday night, leaving the 2-7 seeds up for grabs on the final day of the season.
It took all 82 games, an overtime on the final night, and a game running well past the midnight hour before we finally knew the four first-round matchups in the west.
Yesterday, we broke down the Eastern Conference first-round showdowns, today we focus our attention on the Wild West.
No. 1 Los Angeles Lakers vs. No. 8 Utah Jazz
This is not the ideal matchup for the Lakers, they would have much rather have seen the Dallas Mavericks (a team that they have owned in recent years) in the first round than the Utah Jazz.
Still, the Lakers shouldn't have too much trouble knocking off Utah in the first round.
For starters, Andrew Bynum looks like he hasn't missed a beat after missing 32 games with a torn MCL. In the four games since his return, he's averaging 17.2 points and 5.5 rebounds per game in just 26 minutes per contest. The Lakers are 40-10 when he plays this season. His presence inside should make it tough for Derron Williams and Ronnie Brewer to finish at the rim, and it allows Pau Gasol to slide back to his natural power forward position and Lamar Odom to come off the bench, both moves should help the already deadly Laker offense operate more efficiently.
But the real reason the Lakers will win this series, or any other series for that matter, is Kobe Bryant. Dallas may have been a better matchup overall for the Lakers, but Utah is the best possible draw for Kobe. He's averaged 31 points per game in his career against Utah, and he completely killed the Jazz in crunch time of all four Laker wins in last season's second round matchup between these two teams.
I don't expect Kobe to score 30 every game in this series (although if he does, would anyone really be surprised?), but I fully expect him to take over every fourth quarter. There may not be a player in the league that can stop Kobe in the fourth quarter, and if there is, he certainly isn't on this Utah Jazz team.
Expect Utah to compete, especially at home, but don't expect them to have an answer for the inevitable Kobe Bryant onslaught that we'll see every fourth quarter in this series.
Prediction: Lakers in five.
No. 4 Portland Trail Blazers vs. No. 5 Houston Rockets
On NBA TV's Western Conference Playoff Preview this week, Steve Smith made a good point. He said that since he's come into the league, no young team has won a title. Now I realize that beating the five seed in the first round isn't exactly the same thing as winning a title, but the same theory applies: young teams have little to no success in the playoffs.
Portland has more talent on their roster than any team in the playoffs not from Cleveland or Los Angeles, but they also have less experience than any team, too. They've played good in big games this year as evidenced by their blowout win against Denver on Wednesday night to secure home court in the first round, but that "big game" isn't anything close to a playoff game. Nate McMillan will do a good job with the X's and O's getting this team prepared (he always does), but nothing except being there before can prepare a team mentally for the playoffs.
The flip side to this argument is that Portland is playing Houston, the same Houston Rockets team that, despite having one of the league's top-10 players over the past decade in Yao Ming, has never advanced to the second round of the playoffs with him. They've clearly had the talent, they've had the chances (they won the first two games in Dallas in '05 and still lost the series and lost a Game 7 on the home floor to Utah in '07), but for one reason or another they cannot get over the hump.
So Portland's lack of experience meets Houston's inability to succeed in the playoffs, it's a classic "something's got to give" matchup. In my opinion, both deficiencies cancel each other out, so we have to move on to the tiebreaker: head-to-head success in recent years.
Unfortunately for Portland, recent history is not on their side. Since the '06-'07 season (Brandon Roy's rookie season), the Blazers are just 3-8 against the Rockets. They've won just once in eleven regular season games played at the Toyota Center.
The old boxing adage says that styles make fights, and for one reason or another, Portland's style just hasn't been able to put up much of a fight against the Rockets. This will be the year that Yao finally tastes the second round of the playoffs.
Prediction: Rockets in seven.
No. 3 San Antonio Spurs vs. No. 6 Dallas Mavericks
I planned on writing two different previews for this series: one assuming that Tim Duncan was 100%, one assuming that he wasn't. Then I realized, "it doesn't matter, San Antonio is going to win either way."
I know that I'm probably in the minority when I say this, but I don't think that the loss of Manu Ginobili is as crippling as most people think. Do I think that they can compete for a title without Ginobili? No. Do I think that they are still going to be very tough to beat, especially with home-court advantage? Absolutely.
The Spurs have basically had a secret weapon in Tony Parker in their back pocket for years, only they haven't had to unleash him because Tim Duncan is so unbelievably dominant and consistent that they've just been able to ride him for the past 10 seasons. Even when Parker won Finals MVP in '07, I don't think people fully appreciated how great of a player he truly is.
Now that Duncan is finally starting to show signs of aging, and Ginobili is out for the season, Pop has no choice but to put the ball in Tony Parker's hands and unleash him. When that happens, as we saw in the regular season when he shouldered most of the load while Ginobili and Duncan fought of various ailments, Parker dominates.
Parker can get to any spot on the floor he wants to, can finish better in the paint than any guard in the league, and has the uncanny knack of finding open teammates in clutch situations. Basically, he's Chris Paul with a ton of playoff experience and three rings to show for it.
When you also consider the fact that Duncan isn't exactly hurt, just worn out (big difference), and that there are no back-to-back games in the playoffs, you can fully expect to see the Big Fundamentals knocking down clutch shots and playing his usually brand of stellar defense while completely embracing the role of second fiddle to Tony Parker.
For years now it seems like people have been trying to write off the Spurs for one reason or another. I've been defending their greatness for years, and I'm not going to stop now.
Prediction: Spurs in six.
No. 2 Denver Nuggets vs. No. 7 New Orleans Hornets
Simply put, Chauncey Billups is a winner in every sense of the word. He's almost singlehandedly changed the Nuggets from a team of me-first head-cases to a "team" in one season as the Nuggets' point guard.
He was the driving force behind the Pistons' run to six straight conference finals appearances. He can score, he can pass, he can defend, and he never misses a free throw down the stretch. His leadership by example has basically convinced Carmelo Anthony to evolve from great scorer to great player this season. He's not the biggest or fastest guard in the league, and his game isn't without holes (watching him try to stay in front of Chris Paul this series should be fun), but he might be the best game-manager in the league. He's surrounded by just enough weapons on this team that if he personally can't win a game for the Nuggets, he will certainly get the ball to someone who can.
And while I like, scratch that, love Chris Paul's game, he simply has to do too much for this team. He and David West have had to play over 40 minutes a game down the stretch for the banged up Hornets for this team to even have a chance to compete, and even that wasn't enough to garner anything better than the seven seed.
When Paul and West rest to start the second quarter, any lead that the Hornets have amassed in the first quarter evaporates. Denver's bench, led by the "I love watching this guy for all the wrong reasons" MVP of the league J.R. Smith, will take full advantage of the Hornets' lack of depth, and it will ultimately be the difference in this series.
Chris Paul is great enough to prevent this series from being a rout, but his lack of help will be glaring and the Nuggets will take the series.
Prediction: Nuggets in six.
Look for Scott Shepherd's NBA column on Mondays and Thursdays during the NBA playoffs.
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