2nd Round Review
- Oklahoma City Thunder vs Memphis Grizzlies
This series was great from beginning to end. For a while, there was a brief period of time that I felt the Grizzlies could win the series based on the play of Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol, and their bench. Ultimately, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were just too much and blew the shit out of the Grizzlies in the final game. I was very pleased to see a triple overtime game, only the 2nd time I have witnessed one. I'm kind of sad the Grizzlies weren't able to pursue their miracle run, but the Thunder are well-deserving of being in the Western Conference Finals.
- Los Angeles Lakers vs Dallas Mavericks
Holy hell this was awful. The Lakers had a great chance to win Games 1 and 3, but they really blew their chances in both games. The Lakers clearly can no longer rely on pure talent anymore
and need to have solid bench play and a new point guard. I went in depth in this series in a previous post.
- Chicago Bulls vs Atlanta Hawks
This was the most boring series, despite it not being a sweep. It was pretty clear from the beginning the Bulls would win the series, but at least the Hawks fought back this year compared to last year. The last game they knew they would lose it, so I believe they didn't even bother to compete. It's rather sad, but it does make their victory over the Magic that much more hilarious.
- Miami Heat vs Boston Celtics
Similar to the LAL-DAL series, this series really showed that the Celtics are done. The Boston Big Three is too old now; Kevin Garnett is not the powerhouse he once was, Paul Pierce sucks all-around, and Ray Allen's final godly 3-shooting year was last year when he exhausted all he had to set the record for most 3-pointers made in an NBA Finals game. Miami didn't win impressively, however. They simply took advantage of the Celtics' age and shitty bench players.
Conference Finals Preview
- Chicago Bulls vs Miami Heat
Before this series started, I predicted the Heat to win the series in 7 games. After seeing Game 1 though,
I'm going to change that prediction to Bulls in 5 games. I don't see any possible way the Cryami Weep can possibly win any games in Chicago and more than 1 game in Miami. The Bulls are just too good and too deep for the Heat to even begin to compete.
- Dallas Mavericks vs Oklahoma City Thunder
This is a tougher one for me to gauge. On the one hand, the Oklahoma City Thunder are a team that can beat any team in the NBA on any given day. On the other hand, the Dallas Mavericks are a deeper team than the Thunder and are much more experienced. This series reminds me in many ways of the Lakers-Thunder series from last year when the Thunder surprisingly took the Lakers to 6 games. Back then, the Lakers were a much deeper team than the Thunder despite the Thunder being much more talented than their seed number implied. Because of all that, I'm going to pick the Mavericks winning in 6 games.
So in the end, I'm picking the NBA Finals (at this point) to be between the Dallas Mavericks and Chicago Bulls. These two teams are built very similarly and its my firm belief that a team comprised of 1 superstar and a strong roster of role-players does much better in today's NBA.
I managed to catch a glimpse of some of the Dallas-OKC game in 3D. While very impressive, the ESPN camera operators are idiots and have no idea what camera angles look good in 3D. As for the play-by-play commentary, I never thought I'd be begging for Mike Breen. The guys they have at ESPN 3D are just awful and would rather talk about statistics all day rather than the actual game while having no emotion one way or the other.
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