NBA Playoffs, Conference Finals

It seemed for a brief while that I might get all four series right on the nose there last round, but then the Magic went and routed the Celtics in Boston and it ended up taking the Lakers seven games to get rid of those pesky Rockets—despite Houston playing without two of its biggest stars. And my record ends up being pretty awful by comparison to the rest of the experts I'm tracking here:

John Hollinger, ESPN: 11-1 (4)
David Thorpe, ESPN: 11-1 (3)
Ball Don't Lie, Yahoo!: 11-1 (2)
Jalen Rose, ESPN: 11-1 (2)
Chris Sheridan, ESPN: 10-2 (7)
Henry Abbott, ESPN: 10-2 (4)
Ken Berger, CBS Sports: 10-2 (3)
Lyle Crouse, CBS Sports: 10-2 (3)
Nunzio Ingrassia, CBS Sports: 10-2 (3)
J.A. Adande, ESPN: 10-2 (2)
Johnny Ludden, Yahoo!: 10-2 (2)
Sergio Gonzalez, CBS Sports: 10-2 (1)
Kenny Smith, Yahoo!: 10-2 (1)
Chris Broussard, ESPN: 9-3 (5)
Chad Ford, ESPN: 9-3 (5)
Tim Legler, ESPN: 9-3 (4)
Jamey Eisenberg, CBS Sports: 9-3 (3)
Marc Stein, ESPN: 9-3 (3)
YOURS TRULY: 8-4 (4)

Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo!: 8-4 (3)

You'll notice that I added the experts from CBS Sports this round, mostly just so I could have somebody who actually picked Orlando to get to the NBA Finals. I would've added their hockey experts for the NHL predictions, but their staff's picks don't include the number of games they expect the series to go, so it doesn't strike me as having much point to it (although three of their four experts have Carolina beating Pittsburgh, so I could have had some company, seeing as everybody at both ESPN and Yahoo! has the Penguins).

There's also the matter of scoring, which CBS is doing a little differently than I (two points for correct team and an additional point if the number of games is correct), but I'm still sticking with the actual number of correct picks as being of greater importance—even though the CBS model would have Chris Sheridan and his seven exactas in first place.

Anyway, it's late, I've got my second-to-last day of community service in the morning and the next round begins tomorrow, so here's who I've got going to the NBA Finals this year:

Cleveland Cavaliers over Orlando Magic in six games

I read a few times about what great defense the Magic play and am still sort of snickering to myself about how I said they were going to be a team that would surprise people in the playoffs, only to go with Boston in the last round. Joke's on me, I suppose. But here's the mighty Cavs and their last hurdle for LeBron's return to the NBA Finals. Oh, and did you see King James' Player Efficiency Ranking so far this post-season? It stands at 37.9, more than seven points higher than what Dwight Howard's been putting out. And according to the Wikipedia definition, that PER is classified as a "Year For the Ages." Indeed.

Denver Nuggets over Los Angeles Lakers in six games

More than likely, this is more wishful thinking than objective analysis on my part—but the guy on top of that current leaderboard made his case for picking the Nuggets in six as well, sharing the same thought Ken Berger began his series preview with regarding which player is likely to have the biggest influence in Los Angeles' success or failure:

Anyone who expresses a high degree of confidence in predicting this series is lying or deceiving themselves. This is one of the toughest playoff series to predict in recent memory, and the reason is the Nuggets might be facing two different opponents: The Lakers with an effective, productive Andrew Bynum and the Lakers without that. Completely different teams, which suggests two completely different and equally plausible outcomes in this series based on Bynum's effectiveness.

At this point, I've been blown away by how good Denver's defense has proven to be as well as how much they can run up the score. Carmelo Anthony has been playing phenomenally—perhaps the best we've seen him play since coming into the NBA. And that leads me to my absurd sort of backwards logic about how the NBA might actually embrace a Cleveland-Denver Finals, which sounds like a marketing nightmare at first.

But when you consider that six years ago, Nuggets fans were keeping their fingers crossed that the lottery balls would bounce their way and they would get LeBron, they instead ended up with 'Melo. And wouldn't that be a nice little trip down memory lane for the title, determining if maybe Denver lucked out by in fact landing Anthony or if they really are just doomed with unfortunate luck.

It could be worse, I say. After all, it was Detroit who pulled the Sam Bowie that year and passed on Carmelo for Darko Milicic. Just to make it really sting for Pistons fans, Toronto and Miami, picking fourth and fifth, seemed to find a couple of pretty decent players as well.

So, for fans who believe the NBA isn't going to allow the Lakers to NOT get to the NBA Finals (conspiracy theories have always been in quite the abundance for professional basketball, helped none by, oh, one bad apple) for fear of television ratings hell, I'm going to respectfully disagree—mostly because I don't think even the league could stop the Nuggets if they wanted to.

Party like it's 2003, I say.