I thought it might be interesting to get some other perspectives and thoughts on the playoffs here, so I wanted to try this. Here's a couple quick thoughts on the playoff games that are happening tonight, and if anyone has any thoughts or insights on them, please feel free to post them and we'll see if we can get a discussion going. Probably not, but I thought it might be interesting to try to get an "open thread" started on this years playoffs.
New York at Boston
I'm not sure who wins tonight (I'm leaning toward New York) but I see this series going 6 or 7 games. Bold prediction, I know... I say 6 or 7 because I think either team can win this series, but if it goes 7, there's no way the Knicks win that game in Boston. So, basically I guess I'm saying New York has to win 4 of the next 5 games. Can they? Yes. Will they? Well, that depends on if they actually want to give the ball to Amare or not.
Atlanta at Orlando
I was thinking about how weirdly unfair it was for Hawks & Magic fans that this game was on NBA TV instead of cable. But then I realized I have NBA TV and I pay nothing extra for it on top of the regular cable channels. So then I thought that if you don't have NBA TV, there's a fairly good chance you don't have cable, and if you don't have cable, you probably don't even watch TV let alone have one with the weird antennae/coat hanger thing that gets one channel and one fuzzy channel and they're both black and white. I'm rambling. Anyway, I decided that if you really wanted to watch this game, you could pretty easily go to a bar/family-esque restaurant-y type establishment like Applebee's, so I vowed not to get upset that not everyone could watch it. Still, you'd never see a Lakers, Heat, Knicks, or Celtics playoff game exclusively on NBA TV.
So who wins this game? Well, Atlanta's been overrated for years, and this year's no different. I guess "overrated" might not be the right term, but they've been talked about as semi-contenders for like 4 years, and everyone knows they're not. However, Orlando hasn't been the same this year. Too many trades and too many personnel changes since their Finals appearance in 2009. They just haven't been able to click and recapture their chemistry. So what happens in this game/series? I've got Orlando tonight, and I say they take the series, but there's no way they're making the Finals, or even getting past the second round.
Portland at Dallas
I know the Blazers are the trendy pick here, but I'm going with the Mavs. I've got no real reason other than a gut feeling and a strong sympathetic desire to see the Mavericks win it all. They won't, but since they got ridiculously screwed in 2006, I've been rooting for them as my "second team" come playoff time. (My first team is the Lakers, so it'll probably be irrelevant next round, but Dirk v. Kobe would be a great matchup we haven't seen in the playoffs yet.) Dirk deserves a title. Kidd deserves a title. Hell, even Cuban deserves a title. Nobody else on the team is at that level, but that's 3 more people than Portland.
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