The Most Wonderful Time of the Year: The 2013 NBA Playoffs

So, are we in somewhat of a Golden Age of the NBA? I know people will always say the era in which they grew up is the Golden Age. Those that were in their formative years during the 80s will say the 80s were the Golden Years while those in the 70s will say those years were Golden and so forth. The 90s do not really have that much of a say as Jordan, Phil, Scottie and the Bulls pretty much dominated the decade. Today's NBA reminds me of HBO's Game of Thrones because there are so many cliques or faux kingdoms outside of the true King's residence in Miami (or King's Landing in Game of Thrones). We have, finally, 2 legit teams in Los Angeles, one led by Chris Paul and the other by an aging Kobe and seemingly prime Dwight Howard. We have that raucous group of somewhat no-namers in Denver. There's the King and his court in Miami. There is the aging Big 2 in Boston. There's this little scoring machine up in the Bay Area led by the Babyface Stephen Curry. San Antonio is not going away. The Beard and his crew in Houston. The Smash Brothers in Oklahoma. The Wind City Bullies, though without their anchor. The Indiana Pacers and their malcontented fan base that don't really appreciate them.  There is the quiet group in Brooklyn and the strange, but good, squad in Manhattan. There are even young up and coming teams such and Damien Lillard and the Blazers and the Young Bunch in the Capital.

This year should provide some great action, more so in the West. The East will not be any good really until the second round, but there may be a good series or two in the first round.

The Eastern Conference

(1) Miami Heat vs. (8) Milwaukee Bucks

The one-eight matchup in the East has not been intriguing since, I don't know, the Knicks were the 8-seed back in the shortened lockout season in 1999. The 8-seeded Knicks when on to the finals where they lost to San Antonio. However, the Knicks were only an 8-seed because the season was shortened, they would have worked their way up if the season were longer. It's a shame the Bucks can't even be .500 in the bad Eastern Conference. Miami should get a 1st round bye, seriously. Miami is locked in and I don't think they will coast like they did the last two years and flip a switch when threatened. LeBron is self-actualized and has total control. Milwaukee might make one game close at home, but I see an instant Miami sweep.

(2) New York Knicks vs. (7) Boston Celtics

Boston will be on fire in the Garden...

This is going to be very interesting. If Garnett is healthy, this has the chance of being a physical
slugfest, as Boston, along with Chicago, are able to lure New York into their kind of game, which is more half-court and physical. This really has the chance to be a great series if Jeff Green can put together a good 7-game stretch, but that in itself is a stretch. I expect a lackluster effort from Felton, but that's mainly because Bradley is going to eat him up (I can watch Bradley play on-ball defense all day, he's ridiculous). Melo will be Melo, but Green is a solid defender as is the whole team, but how will Boston hold up when Pierce and Garnett don't have the fresh wheels to give them what they need to win this series? We see the name "Boston Celtics" with its glory, but they are what they are, a 7-seed in the East. They will battle and probably won't lose a home game after the recent events in Boston. I see New York outlasting Boston in this one. New York in 7.

(3) Indiana Pacers vs. (6) Atlanta Hawks

Gosh I HATE the Hawks. And these punks tanked out of a possible 4 or 5 seed to be in the bottom half of the bracket away from the Heat. Could you see the Celtics doing this? Indiana? Lakers? Spurs? OKC? Chicago? The Hawks are chumps. They put out a D-league team the last couple weeks. I hope they flame out and Josh Smith retires! But seriously, Indiana, along with Memphis and Miami, play nasty defense. In terms of advanced NBA statistics, Indiana's line up of Hill, Stephenson, George, West, and Hibbert kicks ass. They are literally one of the best 5-man units in the league. Atlanta's point guard play is suspect. I only like Horford on that team. I'll be rooting for a quick series in Indiana's favor. Atlanta will probably play Indy close, but I'm thinking, and hoping,  Pacers in 5.

(4) Brooklyn Nets vs. (5) Chicago Bulls

It doesn't take much in the East. You look at these teams and you say "how in the hell are they the 4 and 5 seeds?" Their counterparts in the West would kill these teams in 5 games at the most. Brooklyn is a weird enigmatic team while the Bulls do everything well but score the basketball. The Bulls have stretches of unwatchable offensive play. Horrific. However, they can defend. I won't even acknowledge Rose. I mean I guess he's that great that he can just casually not try to play this year. We'll see. I don't see how his chance of injury will significantly decrease next year IF, and only if, his knee is healed (and the team cleared him long ago and while teams can have nefarious intensions, there's no way the Bulls would wrongly clear their prized possession to play and risk damaging his livelihood and career...this is not the NFL). Chicago is doomed as they cannot score. It's too much to ask for a team to constantly hold playoff caliber teams to 85 points every game. Brooklyn is better with Carlesimo, but there is something off about them. I see Brooklyn winning in 7 with Chicago scraping out a few victories somehow.

Western Conference

(1) Oklahoma City Thunder vs. (8) Houston Rockets

Emily Vancamp, star of ABC's Revenge

First, enough is enough. The Thunder's uniforms are among the worst in all of professional sports. I mean their colors are light blue, dark blue, yellow, and orange. Then they have this monstrosity of an alternate uniform. Pick two colors for crying out loud. Pathetic. Anyway, seems as though the West gives us intriguing one-eight matchups all the time. Now we have The Beard trying to exact revenge on the team that cut him loose, to the chagrin of a lot of people around the NBA. Houston is good team that relies almost exclusively on their perimeter game. OKC knows what they are. They are a two headed monster that overpowered teams all year. It will be interesting to see how they fare without The Beard in the playoffs where teams cannot hide behind the crazy NBA regular season schedule. They will still be overpowering, but I'm not sure they are going to run through Houston as easily. Asik is a good, borderline great interior defender. I worry about Lin's turnovers leading to automatic dunks for OKC. This will be fun and high scoring with The Beard trying to haunt OKC and scores well into the hundreds. OKC in 5.

(2) San Antonio Spurs vs. (7) Los Angeles Lakers

Boy oh boy. San Antonio has been hearing all this talk from the media about how it's so advantageous for the Lakers to get San Antonio rather than Oklahoma City. That's fuel. Duncan has looked great this year. He dropped some weight and that combined with excellent management of his minutes, and pissing off David Stern, makes Duncan probably All-NBA. Crazy. Ginobili is aching yet again and Parker hasn't been right the last month and a half or so. I'm a little worried about them. The Lakers, on the other hand, have been in an identity crisis the whole year. With Kobe gone and Nash kind of out indefinitely, they now are being forced into an identity. They clearly aren't better being without one of the greatest 5 to10 players of all-time, but now they are playing a more restrained post-based offense that makes them tighter on defense. This should be a good series. San Antonio will come out firing game one. If Parker is right, I see this being a 6 game series with the San Antonio moving on.

(3) Denver Nuggets vs. (6) Golden State Warriors

Throwback!

Throwback alert! This will be a throwback series. I will be shocked if any team scores below 95 points in any game. Golden State shoots a lot of jumpers, so they better go in if they stand a chance. On those long misses, Denver rebounds the ball and 3 seconds later you see a Nugget hanging on the rim while Golden State is shaking their head while walking to grab the ball to inbound it. Denver is fun to watch and they will miss Gallinari, but that just means Chandler will have to pick it up a little bit more. Lawson seems to be back on track, if not very close. I worry about Golden State's interior defense since Bogut can't stay healthy and looked bad when he did play. Denver has a clear frontcourt advantage and something called a MANIMAL! He's a beast. I like Denver in a crazy series in 6. They are nearly impossible to beat in Denver.


(4) Los Angeles Clippers vs. (5) Memphis Grizzlies

That's actually Z-Bo and Griffin from their last match up.

I get the feeling that people aren't that excited about this series because of last year's series. I like what Memphis brings as they are basically a misplaced Eastern Conference team (and maybe they will be if Indiana could somehow relocate to Seattle should the Kings stay in Sacramento...can you say conspiracy theory!). They love to muck it up and make the game a half court slugfest. The Clippers like to spread the floor, use pick and roll and get the ball up to their supremely athletic power forwards and centers. If anything, people should be excited for the battle royale between Z-Bo and Marc Gasol vs. DeAndre Jordan and Griffin. In fact, I encourage wrestling fans (not the WWF stuff...but why not them too?) to tune in. I figure the over/under on number of skirmishes for the series is 16 1/2. This is a classic four-five match up as they finished with identical records. It's a battle of styles. L.A. feeds off their home crowd a little more and they have the home court and a thing called Chris Paul. I like Lob City in 7.