World Peace Can't Be Done

 While there were 16 less games on the regular season schedule, this NBA playoffs has already been as exciting as the last few.  Sadly, a few teams have lost key players and this will now have an effect on next NBA season.  While that does suck, that's for another day. 
The 8 remaining NBA teams provide a good mix of young and old players, and this should be a good race to the finals.  A lot of analysts are picking Spurs/Thunder and Heat/Celtics from this crop of teams.  While I do agree with the Heat and Celtics, I am not so sure that the Thunder will send the Lakers home from these playoffs. 

I do think the Celtics will continue on against the Philadelphia 76ers and win that series in no more than 6 games.  I only expect it to take them 5 though.  Kevin Garnett has definitely come out of the hot tub time machine with a vengeance.  I don't know how many people would have expected Garnett to be averaging 20 and 10 through the first 7 games of the playoffs.  I do remember saying to a coworker at the beginning of the season that this schedule was built for teams like the Celtics and Spurs.  All they had to do was make it through the season.  Obviously with the Celtics you are rolling the dice on a lot of players staying healthy enough to win at least 11 more games.  While I am not sure how realistic of a goal that is, I am certain they will give Miami or Indiana a run for their money.  I do respect Philadelphia as a team and I do expect them to win a game or two in this series, but it is Boston's to win.  Clearly Rajon Rondo is still a little bitter with the way things ended last season.  If this is Kevin Garnett's last run, he's sure making it a good one.


 Losing Chris Bosh was a bigger blow than some people may realize, but I still can't see the Pacers giving the Heat all that much trouble.  I know they are a deep, well coached team, but after seeing them barely get by a depleted Magic team, I just can't see them giving the Heat much trouble.  Even if Bosh is out for this series, I still the Heat winning it in five or six games at most.  Unless of course Danny Granger can find a way to get into his groove.  LeBron is clearly in beast mode now and I don't see many players slowing him down the rest of the way.
In the west, it's not quite as exciting as the East.  When the Spurs are involved, it can never be as exciting as the other choice though I guess.  That's just what they might do though, bore everyone to sleep en route to an NBA championship.  Every year, the Spurs quietly seem to advance throughout the regular season and you never know what to expect from them.  While they had the best record in the regular season and they have been dominant down the stretch, anything is possible in the playoffs.  Obviously, the Spurs have every reason to be the favorite in the West this year, but as these playoffs have shown a lot can change over the course of one game.  I do expect the Spurs to beat the Clippers in no more than five games though.  I have talked a lot of trash about Blake Griffin and the Clippers this year.  I would like to say however that my prediction in this series has nothing to do with hating on Griffin.  If he were at 100%, I could see the Clippers giving the Spurs a serious run for their money.  I don't think they would have enough to beat them at full strength though.  The Clippers need another solid scorer and defender if they want to be a real threat over the next few years.
This Lakers/Thunder series would already be a mini-NBA Finals even if it weren't for the Metta World Artest hype that is attached to it.  Thanks in large part to a really horrible decision by MWP this series might be as watched as the NBA Finals itself.  If the Spurs make the Finals, this series will probably double the Finals in TV ratings, too.   I have seen quite a few predictions in the media and spoken to a few friends and most people seem to be picking the Thunder to win this series.  The Thunder have a great young roster and Scott Brooks is one of the best coaches in the NBA currently.  This team has been built out of the bottom-feeders that they were when they moved from Seattle a few years back.  Since then, they have built their roster around Kevin Durant, adding great young players like Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and James Harden to go along with solid veterans like Nick Collison, Derek Fisher, and Kendrick Perkins.  I realize Perkins could easily be lumped in with the youngsters, but winning championships adds years of experience, or so I have heard.  The Lakers on the other hand were built for these exact playoffs, and they all have been through this rodeo before.  A couple of them have had a few good playoff runs that have ended  WITH THEM    CELEBRATING LIKE     CHAMPIONS ...  In 2008, the Grizzlies gift wrapped Pau Gasol to them and helped them start this current run.  Then in 2009, after he lost with the Houston Rockets to LA in 7 games, Artest basically made it clear while the Lakers were beating the Nuggets and Magic that he was going to be in LA next season.  Three years and two more championships later, here we are.  The funny thing to me about this series is how evenly matched both teams really are in my opinion.  Sure, the Thunder have a better bench (on paper) and a better point guard, but as I said before, experience goes a long way in these playoffs.  The Lakers have enough experience to hand out to all the other remaining playoff teams.  At the end of the day, there's going to be a lot of deciding factors for which team will make it into the next round.  For the Thunder, I think they need to get out early and make it hard for LA to keep the pace.  Russell Westbrook is one of the best point guards in the NBA and if he gets it going, LA could be bringing Steve Blake off the bench early and often in this series.  Oklahoma City does have a deeper bench and if they can properly utilize it they could make this a difficult series for the Lake show.  It will be interesting to see what Derek Fisher brings to the table in this series.   Of course, this isn't the first time he has been to the playoffs without the Lakers.  It will however be his first time facing Kobe and the Lakers in the playoffs.  Have your Kleenex on hand for that. For the Lakers, they could make this a really easy series if they all show up and keep their elbows to themselves.  I really can't think of too many teams that have a starting five that is as talented and experienced as that of the Lakers.  Of course, you have to wonder if Ramon Sessions can keep up for a long run.  He is the lone inexperienced member of the Lakers core.  If Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol can play to their talents though, it really might not matter if Sessions is any better than mediocre during this series.  If Gasol and Bynum are at the top of their games, the Thunder will not have enough depth to match inside and the Lakers will win this series in six games.  Of course, I expect Bynum to take at least one game off during this series.  I still think the Lakers can win this series though.  Finally and most importantly, this series will depend very heavily on the existence of Metta World Peace.  Most casual NBA fans know him now as they did in 2003, as a decent NBA player who has done some really nasty things when in the spotlight.  While they are right in their assessment, there is a lot more to it than that.  Just before MWP threw his elbow that knocked James Harden to the ground, he was experiencing one of the greatest stretches of his NBA career.  We all know of MWP as a lockdown defender, but during the 7 games Kobe Bryant missed MWP averaged over 16 points per game, more than double his season average.  He was well on his way to another great game before he threw that vicious elbow, too.  Point being, he might not be the smartest or nicest player in the league but Metta World Peace possesses the intangibles that could put this Lakers team over the top.  Of course, the same could be said about a few other members of this team.  If his defense is on during this series, Kevin Durant will be in for a long series.  Lakers in 7.