Game 1 blues

I can't believe the Suns are the only team to have lost game 1 at home in these first 2 days of the playoffs. Not only did all the other teams win, they looked good doing it and also gave us boring games. The Suns on the other hand were supposed to win this 3-6 matchup rather easily due to all the Portland injuries, but they lost primarily due to complacency. They have always had a matchup problem with Portland and that seemed to continue tonight even without their best player Brandon Roy. It's amazing how the Blazers have so much size to bother the Suns even without Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla. Their trade for Marcus Camby was genius. Thats a sign of a team serious about winning. I am sure the Suns wouldn't have bothered to acquire anybody if they had lost a couple of their big guys to injuries in the middle of the regular season. The management would have accepted defeat, conveniently blamed it on the injuries and and even dumped a few more salaries on top of that. Camby was a monster today with 17 boards and 3 blocks. He did give the Suns a shot with a missed dunk, but the Suns still fell short.

At the end of the day, I think the Suns should still be able to win this series if they play well, but they did not look good today. They worked hard to finish 3-Rd in the standings, but Doug Collins was talking about how they might have been better off at 4 playing the Nuggets. The Rich and Creamies are more talented than the depleted Blazers, but the Suns have had their number this season for some reason. It's just one game and Nash could have still sent this game to OT at the end even with them playing this bad. But Suns better make some adjustments and get Amare going against the size of the Blazers. Nash was doing it all alone today and thats not going to work given that Nash is very vulnerable defensively in this series with Andre Miller and Jerryd Bayless going at him. What makes this worse for me and probably Nash is that the Dallas Mavs are looking awesome and may even give the Lakers some fits. Nowitzki was unstoppable today as he dropped 36 on 12/14 shooting on the Spurs. The trade for Kidd has really worked out for this team. Kidd is not what he used to be, but is still amazing. He had a 13-11-8 night today and he may just help the team that drafted him get to the Finals after all. The Mavs are so loaded that Tim Thomas can't even get off the bench.

Russell Westbrook is a player! And the Lakers figured this out in a comfortable victory today. Andrew Bynum had a 13-12 night with 4 blocks. Getting this guy back is huge for the Fakers and might make all the difference between winning the championship or not for the Lakers. Kobe's health and efficiency is still going to be an issues, but Bynum will definitely help. Of course Ron-Ron harassed the kid Durant today and that might become the story line of this series. By the way, how good is Durant? The guy has won the scoring title already at this age and that's ahead of stars like LeBron, Melo and Kobe. This guy is for real like no other emerging star. But they should be dispatched in 5 games in this series, if not 6. Speaking of young teams, it kind of feels good to see the Atlanta Hawks. Except for Joe Johnson and Mike Bibby, all their starters are young, home-grown studs who seem to have reached their potential after a few years in the league. Oftentimes, we hear about these young teams of the future, but it doesn't pan out. The Hawks and the OKC Thunder are 2 teams where it has indeed worked out great.

In other games, the home teams won, but I am sure some of these series are going to get interesting nonetheless. Cleveland should handle the Bulls. Shaq looked great in his first game back in a while. Seems like he made sure he took care of his conditioning this time around. The Miami-Boston series should get interesting soon - especially with Garnett's suspension for game 2. Denver took care of Utah at home and Jazz lost Okur for the entire playoffs with an achilles injury, but they should still give Denver a few tough games. With Okur and Kirelenko, I would pick the Jazz to win. But now I think Denver takes it in 6. Similar story with the Bucks. With Bogut in there, their series with the Hawks should have been interesting. The Hwaks tend to be inconsistent, but the Bucks can't beat them. In the other series, the Bobcats lost to Magic and they had no answer for Jameer Nelson. Magic-Cavs is what the East is going to be about, but it's going to take us a while to get there. As TNT says, 40 games, 40 nights. We can only watch.