Yes, I’m the guy who predicted the Miami Heat, who currently own the worst record in the league, to win the NBA Championship at the beginning of the season. I’m also the guy who predicted that the Boston Celtics would have trouble making the playoffs; they finished the season with the best record in the league. But now the playoffs are underway, and I have new life-just like 16 NBA teams.The Celtics were easily the most dominant and most consistent team during the regular season. Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and MVP candidate Kevin Garnett have come together to put individual statistics to the side, in a collaborative effort to win games. Unless the injury bug bites, you know the “Boston Three-Party” is going to show up, but who else do the Celtics have?
Second year point guard Rajon Rondo has played well this season. Rondo averages 10.4 points per game and five assists. It can’t be too difficult averaging such numbers when you’re on the floor with the likes of Allen, Garnett, and Pierce, while playing in the mediocre Eastern Conference, so the possibilities of Rondo’s play being a fluke does exist.
Come crunch time, which the playoffs are all about, having a floor general who can operate well under pressure is a major key. Rondo has never been placed in a pressure position, and he has always been known as a sloppy player, so as Rondo goes, so do the Celtics.
The battle out West will bring the most excitement to the table. All eight playoff teams finished the regular season at least 16 games over .500, and all have the talent and ability to reach the Finals-that is, all except for one.
Houston Rockets’ star Tracy McGrady has never advanced out of the first round of the playoffs during his ten-year career. The Rockets themselves have made the playoffs three out of the last four previous seasons and have each time failed to move past the first round. Houston failed to close out the Utah Jazz after holding a 3-2 series lead last year. Two years before that, the Rockets suffered a 40-point beating at the hands of the Dallas Mavericks in Game Seven, after being up 2-0 in the series.
Go ahead and add another year to both McGrady’s and the Rockets’ streaks of first round defeats.
Houston reached the playoffs this season due in large part to their franchise record 22-game win streak that stretched from January 29 to March 18. It’s a challenge night in and night out to win a game in the NBA, let alone 22 consecutive, so the tremendous feat shouldn’t be downplayed. But it’s safe to say the Rockets had a little bit of luck on their side over the month and a half stretch. Of the 22 games, only seven of them were played on the road. Houston played 12 Easter Conference teams over the streak. Out of the other 10 games played against Western Conference opponents, only five of them are in the playoffs. When the Rockets beat Dallas March 6, Mavericks’ star forward Dirk Nowitzki didn’t play due to a league suspension, and when Houston defeated the L.A. Lakers on March 16, the Lakers were without star center Pau Gasol, who was out with an injury.
As stated before, you can’t downplay a 22-game winning streak, but the schedule couldn’t have been set up any better for one. Since the streak came to an end, the Rockets are 8-7 with six of those losses coming to playoff teams.
Another problem Houston faces is their lack of an inside presence. Yao Ming, the Rockets’ All-Star 7′ 6” center, has been out since February 24 with a foot injury. Depending on Dikembe Mutombo and Luis Scola to compete with San Antonio Spurs’ forward Tim Duncan, Phoenix Suns’ forward/center combination of Amare Stoudemire and Shaquille O’Neal, New Orleans’ All-Star center David West, Gasol, and other dominant big men out West will make Houston lucky to win more than two games in the first round.
Before the season started I picked a Spurs-Heat Finals. I’m going to sub the Detroit Pistons in for the Heat and stick with the Spurs.
The Pistons have been consistent this season and have the best bench in the league. Former UC grad Jason Maxiell leads a gang of subs who are averaging 42.4 points per game.
The Spurs have had some questionable losses this season and have shown signs of slowing down with age. But this is not the first time this has happened. It has become tradition for San Antonio to have shaky moments during the season, and it is also becoming tradition for them to turn it on late and win championships.
In a rematch of the 2005 NBA Finals that saw the Spurs defeat the Pistons in seven games, San Antonio will prevail again. Both teams have plenty of experience playing on this stage, so it should be a competitive, back and forth series.
Tim Duncan will be the X-Factor. The Pistons really don’t have a player who can guard him defensively, so if he gets off, the Pistons will be in trouble.