Monday, April 30, 2012

Quality basketball, Legacies, and a lack of "World Peace": Everything you need to know heading into the NBA playoffs.


I am writing this on the night before the first games of the NBA playoffs start. Unlike the past 3 years, I will not spend the first round obsessively watching my Blazers, hoping they win, and then having my hopes and dreams crushed. Instead, I sit here at my computer wondering who to root for, and who to hate, during the coming weeks. This year's playoffs are somewhat of a mystery, starting two days after the end of a 66 game season packed into 17 weeks. That's an average of about 4 games a week. Back-to-back games were common, and every team played at least 1 back-to-back-to-back thanks to the horrendous lockout. Throughout the season we continued to criticize the Miami Heat while Lebron James had probably his greatest season yet averaging 27.1 PPG, 7.9 RPG, 6.2 AGP, and 2.0 SPG while shooting 53% from the field, Jeremy Lin became an overnight sensation playing for the Knicks, the Chicago Bulls excelled even with Derrick Rose missing over a third of the season, The San Antonio Spurs won at least 50 games for the 13th straight year (an NBA record), Kobe Bryant played like Kobe Bryant (23.0 FGA per game, 27.9 PPG, and 12 straight seasons averaging at least 25.0 PPG), Kevin Durant won his third straight scoring title by beating out Kobe by 38 points, the Indiana Pacers had their first over .500 season since the "Malice In The Palace" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu5bprqdUgY) finishing 42-24 and getting the 3rd seed in the East, The Boston Celtics held back time yet another year and finished with the 5th seed in the East, the New Jersey Nets ending a 35 year run in New Jersey (And Brooklyn finally getting a professional sports team!) and Brandon Roy shockingly retired on the eve of training camp, taking with him the hopes and dreams of what could have been for the Blazers franchise (Watch this for one more Roy flashback: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB-FGLPT-fo), and months of tanking for what could be one of the deepest drafts in the past few years. With all that being said, below are my round 1 predictions along with, I hope, unbiased analysis.