NBA Finals Favorites Look Vulnerable

Today, the 2nd round of games from the 2nd round were played. The two headlining teams, the Bulls and Lakers, and widely viewed as the favorites to go to the NBA Finals, lost their opening games, but for very different reasons.

The Bulls and Hawks opened the night, with Joe Johnson and Jamal Crawford having incredible nights leading the Hawks to a dominating victory over the Bulls, culminating in Derrick Rose re-injuring his sprained left ankle. At this point, the Bulls-Hawks series seems like the Thunder-Grizzlies series of the East, with a very unlikely team beating the favored opponent in a game that was never close. At this point, similar to the Thunder, it is very difficult to see how the Bulls can bounce back from this loss, especially if Derrick Rose's injury has truly been re-aggravated.

The Lakers and Mavericks followed, with the Lakers dominating the first half, which ended in a truly bizarre sequence that saw Jason Terry fouling Lamar Odom attempting a half-court shot and then Dirk Nowitzki getting a technical foul for retaliating against good playoff defense from Ron Artest. All four 4 shots were made and the Lakers went to the locker room with a 9 point lead rather than a 5 point lead. After the break, the game continued where it left off, with the Mavericks turning the ball over on 3 consecutive possessions. Afterwards though, the Mavs started getting back into the game, but the 3rd quarter ended similarly with the Lakers recapturing their lead. Everything changed in the 4th quarter when the Mavericks started hitting their stride and managed to cause the game to go down to the wire. After a phantom foul on Pau Gasol on Dirk Nowitzki (pictured), the Mavericks took the lead with less than 10 seconds left. On the Lakers next possession, Jason Kidd may or may not have fouled Kobe Bryant and caused the Mavs to steal the ball and get fouled. Kidd made 1 of his 2 free throws, allowing Kobe to once again get a shot at the game-winning shot. Kobe's shot was a pretty good look, but the shot popped out and the game was over.

At the end of the day, the East and West share some distinct similarities in their playoff series. 2 favorites were dominated from start to finish by an underdog and 2 other favorites lost partially due to questionable officiating.

It'll be interesting to see how these playoff series end up (as well as my predictions), but I do think at the end of the day, all my predictions will come true.