The regular season for the NBA season has ended, and the playoffs start this weekend. The first game will be the Boston Celtics taking on the Knicks in New York. This series would seem to be the most provocative of the Eastern Conference. The Knicks have the scoring champion in Carmelo Anthony, and the Celtics will give it one more try with Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, but without injured Rajon Rondo, and of course the departed Ray Allen, who now plays for the hated Miami Heat. The Knicks won 3 of the 4 meetings during the regular season, and finished with 13 more wins than the Celtics, but can they withstand the pressure of being the second seed, in what is sure to be a physical series?
The next game will be the Golden State Warriors traveling to play the Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets have an astounding 38-3 home record this year, while the Warriors have Stephen Curry, who averaged almost 23 points a game this year. The Warriors led the league with a 40.3% 3-point shooting percentage this year, with Curry setting the NBA record with 272 3-pointers himself. However, the Nuggets led the NBA in scoring during the regular season. This series should be the most wide open, since both teams like to run, and score a lot.
The Chicago Bulls go to Brooklyn to play the Nets in the third game on Saturday. These are the #4 and #5 seeds in the East. The Bulls may be without Joakim Noah to start the series, and still don’t have Derrick Rose, who has been nursing a knee injury for a year. I’m sure Nets’ center Brook Lopez won’t mind Noah being unable to guard him. This will be the first postseason game in Brooklyn, in any sport, since the Dodgers in 1956. Chicago did win 3 of the 4 games these teams played in the regular season.
The last game on Saturday is a rematch from last year, between the Memphis Grizzlies and the Los Angeles Clippers. Last year the Clippers won in seven games, and have the home court advantage in a tie breaker. These teams are so evenly matched that they have identical home (32-9) and away (24-17) records. The Clippers won their first ever Pacific Division title this year. Look for this series to go 7 games again.
Sunday starts with the Atlanta Hawks playing the Pacers in Indiana. While they finished just 5 games apart in the regular season, this just seems like the Pacers should take it fairly easy. Do the Hawks ever do anything in the playoffs?
The second game on Sunday pits the Los Angeles Lakers going to San Antonio, to take on the Spurs. Yes, the Lakers made a strong push at the end of the season to make the playoffs, but leading scorer, Kobe Bryant, is out with a torn achilles tendon. The soap opera Lakers will have a hard time replacing his 27+ points per game against the Spurs, and head coach Gregg Popovich, who is widely regarded as the best coach in the NBA, and the worst interview.
The only interesting part about the Miami Heat – Milwaukee Bucks series is that Bucks’ guard Brandon Jennings predicting that his team will beat the Heat in six games. That’s understandable, since the defending champion Heat won 28 more games this year than the Bucks. Jennings later said he was just having fun with the whole thing. We’ll see how much fun the Heat will have with the Bucks in this series.
The final series of the weekend matches the Houston Rockets against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the top seed in the Western Conference. James Harden leads the Rockets in scoring, and was on the Thunder last year, when they made it to the NBA Finals. While the Rockets also have Jeremy Lin, of Linsanity fame when on the Knicks last year, the Thunder have all-stars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. This will be another high scoring series, with the Thunder winning in the end.
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