NBA Playoffs - long post

There has only been one post since the playoffs started. What's the deal with that? This is when we should be posting the most.

I'd like to start off with the Warriors-Mavs. What a glorious game on Thursday. I enjoyed every last minute of Dallas losing. Boo-hoo.

What's funny is that all five ESPN analysts picked Dallas to win and 4/5 of them picked the Heat to win. Idiots. What's scary about that is that all of them picked the Rockets to win. Can you say "jinx"? At least these guys were smart enough to all pick SA and PHX to win their series.

I'd just like to go on record by saying that here were my picks before the playoffs started (I know I never posted them but I promise this is what I had before the playoffs started):

Detroit in 5
Cleveland in 4
New Jersey in 7
Chicago in 5 (this one was obvious to me, I still can't believe 4/5 of the ESPN analysts that get paid to talk about basketball picked this wrong)
Golden State in 7 (I kind of thought Dallas would still win but I just can't pick Dallas)
Phoenix in 5
San Antonio in 6
Houston in 6

So if Houston can win tonight I will have picked all of the first round winners which none of the fancy pants ESPN analysts can say.

As for the game tonight. I was looking at the Box Scores for the first six games trying to figure out what the differences were between the Rockets wins and losses.

I thought maybe it was three point shooting. But the Rockets shot 16.7% threes in game two and won by eight. Then I thought it was maybe how well Yao does. But he was only 6-18 with 21 pts in one win and 6-14 with 26 points in one loss. So then I decided it must be how well the rest of the team (not Yao and Tracy) does. But the rest of the team had 47 pts in one loss.

Then I noticed that of the eight first round matchups the Rockets and Jazz had the closest regular season records. They were only one game apart. I think what makes these games so hard to analyze is that these teams are so closely matched.

The only thing that makes me want to pick Houston is that like Patrick pointed out, Utah was 31-10 at home and 20-21 on the road. The Jazz had the same home record as the Spurs (good company) and the same road record as the Cavs (no chumps but certainly not the Spurs).

Speaking of the Spurs, here's what Simmons had to say yesterday:

There isn't a happier team than the Spurs right now. Not only are they peaking at the perfect time, but Dallas was the one contender that matched up perfectly against them. Now they get the Suns (as much as I love watching the Suns, the Spurs are a terrible matchup for them), then the winner of Houston/Utah-Golden State, then whatever flawed team comes out of the East. Are you kidding me? During Thursday night's game, TNT should have had cameras at Tim Duncan's house, like how CBS has cameras at various colleges during the NCAA Tournament selection show. We needed to see the Spurs celebrating and pouring champagne on one another. Might as well start early. For all intents and purposes, you can put a fork in the 2007 NBA playoffs.

The whole story was pretty good:

Simmons Story