The second round of the NBA Playoffs are in full swing and it’s fairly obvious that the Cavaliers are going to be representing the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals.
But I’m not so sure anymore about who will win the West. Especially with the way the Denver Nuggets have been playing and the way the Los Angeles Lakers lost a big a home game against the Houston Rockets on Monday night.
With that in mind, I’ll go ahead and give you my breakdown of the Eastern Conference semifinals now, with my thoughts about the West coming Friday.
Eastern Conference
No. 1 Cleveland Cavaliers vs. No. 4 Atlanta Hawks
The Cavaliers I wasn’t too sold on LeBron James coming into this season. I thought he was another product of hype and I never thought he would live up to the pressure facing him since his rookie season. I’m sold now, though.
The guy is good. The guy is very, very good and was also very deserving of the league’s MVP award. LeBron and his cast of Mo Williams, Delonte West, Joe Smith, Anderson Verajao and Zydrunas Ilgauskas have all been unstoppable this season and they have made King James a much better basketball player.
There’s a reason why the Cavaliers have home court advantage throughout the entire playoffs. There’s a reason why they only lost two home games the entire regular season. There’s a reason why they are the East’s favorite to cruise to the NBA Finals. James had 34 points, 10 rebounds and three assists in the Cavaliers’ 99-72 demolition of the Fighting Joe Johnsons in Game 1. James had 22 of those points by halftime and he didn’t even play in the fourth quarter.
The reason why the Cavaliers are so dangerous is spelled: L-E-B-R-O-N. This is a team on a mission to bring a title home to Cleveland.
The Hawks
Get the ball to Joe Johnson, please. You’re not going to win a game this series if he only has 11 points. I know he was 5-of-10 shooting, but he needs more touches if the Hawks are going to find a way to win a game in this series.
Mike Woodson, the head coach of the Hawks, needs to make some adjustments to get more production from the bench. Cleveland’s bench outscored the Hawks’ bench 20-10. The Cavaliers are much deeper than the Hawks and that’s going to cause trouble for them in this series. Atlanta only has Marvin Williams, Solomon Jones and Zaza Pachuilla. They’re going to need more production from other role players like Acie Law, Mario West and Flip Murray if they want to match up with the depth of Cleveland.
Prediction: Cavaliers in 5.
No. 2 Boston Celtics vs. No. 3 Orlando Magic
The Celtics
After a thrilling first-round series against the Chicago Bulls, I thought the Celtics would be a little vulnerable headed into game 1 against the Magic. Despite eventually losing the game, the injury-plagued Celtics erased a 28-point deficit against the Magic, with Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo struggling from the floor. Despite losing, the Celtics shouldn’t fret. Allen will not shoot 2 of 12 again from the floor. Rondo also won’t shoot 2 of 12 either and he also won’t commit seven turnovers in a game again. The bottom line is that the Celtics were tired from their seven-game, seven-overtime series against the Bulls in round one.
If the Celtics are going to win, they’re going to need more from Allen in the rest of the series, and we all know he is capable of playing much better than his 9-point performance in game 1. They’re also going to need Pierce to step up when it counts and get these guys playing championship caliber basketball.
The Magic
They won game 1. Big deal. This team is not going to win the series if it continues losing big leads late in games. The Magic did it against the Philadelphia 76ers in round one and they almost did it again in game 1 against the Celtics. And the Magic aren’t going to win if they continue to forget about Dwight Howard in the middle.
There were several instances in game 1 where the Magic just simply left Howard out of the plays. Hedo Turkoglu, J.J. Redick and Rashard Lewis would do all the work and Howard would just board their misses and set it up and do it again. The Magic can’t win and won’t win unless Howard gets more touches in the paint. When you have a force of that kind specimen playing for you, he should touch the ball at least once every possession.
Prediction: Celtics in 6
