Final 4

The NBA's final four starts tomorrow. It's Lakers V Denver and Cleveland V Orlando. Lakers took care of the Rockets at home rather easily. They locked down the Rockets and at one point in the first quarter, it looked like the Rocket may never score a point in that game! Thats how bad their offense was. Their defense was still effective and it was rather sad to see the Rockets not be able to do anything offensively. The Lakers D'ed up the young Aaron Brooks pretty well and Scola couldn't get going either. Ron Artest was way off and that was the end of story. Suddenly, it felt like they desperately needed Yao and T-Mac. If not for their defense, the Rockets might have been trailing by 25 after just one quarter. It was a total team effort by the Lakers and Bynum and Gasol came to play big-time. Kobe was probably the least effective Laker on the floor, but on this day, it didn't matter.

The Magic proved me wrong and spanked the Celtics in Boston. Pretty impressive performance by the Magic shooters as they hit 13/21 from downtown. As I had mentioned before, Turkoglu was the key in this one as he had a 25-5-12 night. Thats the kind of performance they need from this guy every game against the Cavs. Ray-Ray had a decent game finally, but the Celtics just ran out of gas in this series. A Celtics-Cavs series would have carried a little more hype, but Magic are really the better team without KG in the mix. I have a feeling this is not going to be a walk in the park for the King and the Cavs. Dwight Howard is going to have an impact at both ends of the floor and the Cavs bigs will be tested in this series unlike the first two series. But who said getting to the finals is easy? I think the Cavs get there, but it might take them 6 or 7 games. The Magic should especially be confident coming off that game 7 win on the road.

In the West, I say Lakers in 6. It's gonna be a terrific series with 2 explosive offenses on the court. Denver can be tough especially at home. I can see them score a boat-load of points on the Lakers. They are loaded offensively and the Lakers will have their hands full with Melo, Chauncey and Nene. But at the end of the day, I don't think the Nuggets have the two things the Rockets had that caused all sorts of match-up problems for the Lakers. The Nuggets don't have a Shane Battier type guy who can stay in front of the black mamba and throw up a hand on his mug all night long. Also they don't have a speed daemon like Aaron Brooks who exposed the slow-footed defenders the Lakers have. Denver does have other kinds of weapons and thats what makes this series very interesting. Chauncey has beaten the Fakers in the past and he'll try again. But I don't see the maturity and experience in that roster to pick them to win this series. Plus, like the NBA head-quarters, I want to see a 23-24 finals as well. A Orlando-Denver finals should be David Stern's worst nightmare.

I just hope the Denver-LA series even happens as per schedule. Apparently the Pepsi center in Denver is double-booked on the day of game 4 for a WWE event. I agree with Vince McMahon that somebody in the Nuggets front-office didn't think the rich and creamies will still be balling this deep in to May! Chauncey came along in a trade and spoiled all their plans I guess. Now the WWE has to find a new place to throw fake chairs on roided up thugs in tight pants. In other news, the one about Dirk Nowitzki's fiancee is a strange one. A woman was arrested from his house and she is apparently a felon with multiple identities and a history of trouble. She also seems to have done this before with other athletes like QB Tony Banks. In short, Dirk was engaged to a 37 year old groupie who is a felon and looks VERY average. How the hell did that happen? Is that the best Nowitzki can pull? Some even say she was pregnant, but Nowitzki is not talking. Weird story for sure.

Tomorrow is also the NBA draft lottery. Kings have the worst record, but that doesn't mean they get Blake Griffin.