May, and June Madness

The NBA second season opens soon. The participants aren't set, the match-ups aren't set in stone, but some things can be assumed at this point.

The seedings in the west, and the teams that are going to be in it, are pretty much a done deal.

The first round will be San Antonio v Sacramento, Phoenix v Lakers, Denver v Memphis, and Dallas v Clippers.

The lower seed in every match up has a real chance at an upset (though Memphis beating Denver wouldn't be that big of an upset, given that Memphis has a better record than Denver).

Sacramento is on fire, Artest has fit in well, and they are the team that matches up best with San Antonio. An upset is still unlikely, but not impossible.

The Lakers are dangerous because of Kobe, and Kwame. When Kwame plays well, which he's been doing more often lately, the Lakers have a semblance of an inside-outside game. And Kobe is Kobe, he can win at least one playoff game all by himself, and possibly two, so that leaves just two more games where the rest of the team shows up to pull off the upset. Plus despite Nash's brilliance, no team that features Steve Nash has been to the finals, and I don't think any team that features Steve Nash ever will. The playoffs require defense, which he doesn't play. He may be a legitimate MVP, but he's not the kind of team leader that produces rings, or even conference championships (although next year with a healthy Amare, Phoenix may be scary).

Denver versus Memphis is a toss-up. I just don't care, I'm not even sure they are separate teams. Rather than playing, they should just agree to combine the teams, pick the starters and subs by mostly random lot (with Melo, Battier and Gasol being required), and let the randomly selected Grizznuts (or is that Nuglies?) advance to the next round.

Dallas versus Clippers, see the Nash comment above. Dallas still doesn't play defense, so despite a fantastic regular season, still expect an early playoff exit. Especially given that the difference between being the one seed and being the four seed is that the deep, defense oriented, and now with veteran leadership Clippers awaits. The Clippers are not only going to get to see what playoffs are like, but they have a real, legitimate, no fooling shot at the Conference finals and even the Final Finals (and that's not just me being a 'homer' it's Sir Charles saying such crazy talk, too).

So for the sake of going out on a limb, I'm going to say that in an unprecedented event in NBA history, all four lower seeds will win in the first round.

The second round then will be Memphis v Clippers and Lakers v Kings.

With that setup, you can expect to see the first all city, single venue Western Conference finals in NBA history.

That series will be awesome, will go seven games, and if the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox can break years of futility to become champions, why not the Clippers reaching the NBA finals?

As far as the east, It's Detroit, Detroit, and Detroit, with the slim chance that New Jersey could do some damage (Miami still seems like a bad chemistry experiment that will likely blow up in Pat Riley's face during the playoffs, expect a 2nd round exit for Miami)

So with a Clippers versus Detroit final expect, defense, defense, and more defense, with scores in the 80s for most of the games.

The result?

Expect the streets of LA to be festooned in Red White and Blue, for that huge Clippers parade down Figueroa.