What Can We Expect in Round 2? Here's a Few Ideas

[Da Boss DJ Jo Corleone]

I said it before and I’ll say it again, no team is safe in the playoffs. All the experts gave this reason and that reason on why certain teams were going to win, and why certain teams won’t win. After a lot of over analyzing some of these experts forgot to consider a couple of things, the heart and mentality of certain guys on certain teams.
After seeing Dallas defeat the Spurs in the fashion that they did people had them picked to basically just handle Denver. True indeed the Mavs are playing better than they did in the regular season, and Jason Kidd looks like a completely different player compared to how he looked in the playoffs last year. But so does the entire Denver Nuggets roster.

The Nuggets were 14-3 coming into the playoffs, after losing 5 out of 6 games. During that 5 and 6 span something happened to the Nuggets mentally as if a switch had been turned on and they decided they were tired of losing which is the mentality that carried them to the number 2 seed in the playoffs. So it should come as no surprise that they were ale to dominate the Mavs while playing at home, considering that they have gone 16-2 in their last 18 home games. That includes 13 straight home wins.

Now set those wins aside and look at the players and you can see why the Mavs are struggling. Basketball is about matchups, and with Josh Howard on two bad wheels the Mavericks are hurting in the matchup department. Dirk Nowitzki is going to get his points, so that’s not even in the discussion, and the same can be said for the NBA’s 6th man of the year Jason Terry. After those two guys Dallas doesn’t have any scorers that can get in the game and make things happen while Dirk and Terry are resting on the bench.

Defensively Jason Kidd and Chauncey Billups is the best matchup to watch in this series. Josh Howard can’t hold Carmelo Anthony with his ankles in bad shape, and JR Smith is proving to be a freakishly good athlete, whom in a few years is going to be a nightmare for people. Who am I kidding this kid is scary now. Between him and Anthony Carter coming off the bench, there’s never an offensive drop off for the Nuggets. To make matters worse, Nene is doing more than crushing people on defense, now he’s getting it in offensively too scoring 25 points in game 2.

When this series goes back to Dallas, the Mavericks will have to have magical nights on the offensive end and hope that Denver just struggles to fid the rim. And they’ll have to do it for four straight quarters. Denver always had the talent and with the addition of Billups, George Karl has this team running like a well-oiled machine.

Moving back to the east coast nobody gave or is giving the Boston Celtics a chance against Orlando. In game one the Magic made those experts look like geniuses winning 95-90. But hold up, wait a minute the Magic led by 28 points at one point during the second half, yet they only won by 5. The problem was the Magic’s inexperience started to shine through. Similar to the Philadelphia series they shot the Celtics back into this game going 5-20 from the field. The Magic continued their live by the three die by the three mentality, and it almost killed their chance of stealing home court from Boston.

Another major factor in game 1 was the poor shooting from Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo, who each went 2 for 12. Keeping it real, you know Allen won’t play like that every night. Rondo wasn’t as aggressive settling for jump shots, and that’s understandable when big Dwight Howard is protecting the paint. Think back to the first half, that’s all Boston was doing. The problem was they weren’t hitting those jumpers, they didn’t get to the free throw line at all in the first half, and Orlando capitalized on that.

In the second half however, the defending champions decided to challenge the Magic’s big man and began driving to the hole and looking for contact from him. The result they got to the free throw line and cut the lead down to just 6 points. All props to Orlando they are very deserving of them for their win, but that second half left the Celtics feeling like they could have one that game, and you know they’ll carry that momentum into game 2.

Expect them to attack the basket and get some free throw attempts a lot more in the first half of the next game. And I’ll go ahead and put it out there, the Celtics will win this series. Orlando is still too young and aren’t ready for the experience of the defending champs.

We expected the number one team in the east to do what they did to Atlanta no surprises there. As a matter of fact they looked like the number one team in round one dominating Detroit and show no signs of slowing down, as they are still the only undefeated team in the playoffs. So why don’t the Lakers look as dominate as their record indicates.

Sure the Rockets are a pretty good team, but the Lakers didn’t look that great against the Jazz, who played terribly down the stretch of the regular season. Utah is a team, despite the fact that Deron Williams is an assassin, which should have got swept and blown out in each game. But for some reason they hung around in every game against Los Angeles. The reason being, they’re not as dominating as their record indicates.

Andrew Bynum’s return hasn’t made them tougher than they were in his absence and he clearly is not ready to hold Yao Ming. But it’s not just Bynum the rest of the team outside of Kobe Bryant struggled against the defensive matchups that the Rockets posed. Ron Artest, one of the NBA’s premier defenders was on Ariza holding him to just 10 points. And Yao held Bynum to just 10 points and created such a match up problem that Bynum only played 15 minutes.

Here’s the other problem, the Lakers don’t matchup well defensively against Houston either. Yao scored 28 points and had 10 boards, Artest had 21, and Aaron Brooks had 19. When healthy Kobe may be able to neutralize the offense of Artest, but there is still no answers for Brooks, and Yao.

The bench for the Rockets seems to be deeper as well. Kyle Lowry, Carl Landry, and Von Wafer are all players that can explode for points at anytime and all of them can play defense. For the Lakers Odom is an animal and Shannon Brown has proven he can play, but after that no one really strikes fear into the Rockets. Jordan Farmar is coming off of injury and Sasha Vujacic adds energy but you can’t depend on him to give you that Jason Terry type of spark coming off the bench.

Kobe, and Pau Gasol will get going, believe that, but will it be enough. The playoffs are very unpredictable anything can happen. Yao and Artest could get into foul trouble, Bynum could find a comfort zone, and you never truly know who’s going to step up off the bench, and you just know someone will. But don’t be surprised if the Rockets find a way to advance to the next round, because you never know how the playoff Gods may act in their favor.