2012 NBA Playoff Predictions
We’ve come to the end
of one of the strangest regular seasons in NBA history: 66 games in 4 months.
We’ve seen a season
threatened and a lockout end. We’ve seen the league take control of a franchise
and then sell it.
We’ve seen things come together in New Orleans and come to an
end in New Jersey. We’ve seen a franchise rise by accident in Los Angeles and
hopeful plans fall apart in Sacramento.
We’ve seen trades that
were made and trades that were not made (and trades that were made and then were
unmade and then were remade).
Some players took a
while to recover from the lockout; others never did recover. Some players came
back late; others went down early.
We witnessed one of the
most surprising and unique rises to superstardom in the history of American
sports, and the whole world watched as a neat little story turned into complete
insanity…and then barely seemed to notice as it basically disappeared.
It’s been a year of
amazing individual runs and inexplicable slumps. It’s been a year of commendable
resiliency and shameful apathy.
This was no ordinary
year. Keeping players fresh became such a priority that “rest” became a
perfectly reasonable explanation for why a certain player was in street clothes
on the bench instead of in uniform on the court. Win streaks came to an end,
not when a hot team had an off night or ran into a team that played a perfect
game, but when that streaking team decided to bench all of their starters.
Despite the
extraordinary precautions, many a player went down to injury anyway. By the end
of the year, avoiding injury became more important than scoring titles and home
court advantage.
It wasn’t just the
playoff teams that were sacrificing wins. It seemed like just about every team
that wasn’t in contention for the playoffs was trying to lose as many games as
possible. The one non-contender that actually was trying to win games (or even
just a game) simply couldn’t do it, despite being run by a man who once upon a
time simply couldn’t be beaten.
Near the end of this
most queer season there came a moment when I realized that we’d never see another
one quite like it. In the midst of what appeared to be the typical late season
battle between two teams who might see one another again in the playoffs, one
of the all-time freak shows—a man now calling himself World Peace—scored a
basket and then without warning swung his elbow into an opponent’s ear for no
apparent reason at all.
Despite hysterical
claims that the innocent bystander might miss the rest of the season (if he was
lucky enough to live through the horrors of what may or may not have been a
concussion), he soon recovered and became just another key player being voluntarily
withheld from action in the final few games of the year.
The word eventually
came down that World Peace would be suspended for 7 games. In most situations,
that would be an utterly bewildering statement, but as I saw it come across the
scrawl at the bottom of the screen on my TV, it made total sense. And the
majority of fans and media members seemed to agree. That’s when I knew that
this truly was the strangest regular season of all.
It has been a strange
season but also an interesting season. It’s been a good season. The best part
of all was that a regular season that usually drags on way too long came to an
end 16 games earlier than usual. This meant that the start of the real season
got here quicker. And now it is about to begin.
Playoffs Preview
The NBA postseason tends
to be a bit more predictable and less susceptible to “madness” than the other major
sports. In recent years, we have often heard claims that “this year’s playoffs
may be the most wide-open and potentially wild in many years.” That prophecy
never really came true…until last season.
First a #8 seed knocked
off a #1. Then the 2-time defending champs were swept in the 2nd
round. Finally we saw the rarest of rare sights in the NBA: a true surprise
champion.
Coming off perhaps the
strangest regular season in history, you might expect this year’s postseason to
be just as wild and unpredictable as last year, if not more so. It could end up
that way. But I just don’t see it.
Truly this regular
season has separated the weak from the strong. And while there doesn’t appear
to be a clear overall favorite, there does seem to be a clear line of demarcation
between the contenders and the pretenders. That, of course, would decrease the
chances of any major upsets, in addition to lessening the chances of a surprise
champion.
Who knows? Maybe I’m
talking out of my ass and in a couple of months this way-too-long intro will
appear not only superfluous but downright foolish. But as my faithful imaginary
readers know well, this is a risk I’m quite willing to take, since the chances
of anyone other than us going back and reading this are remote in the extreme.
Western
Conference
First
Round
#1 San Antonio over #8
Utah (4-0)
#2 Oklahoma City over
#7 Dallas (4-1)
#3 Los Angeles Lakers
over #6 Denver (4-2)
#4 Memphis over #5 Los
Angeles Clippers (4-3)
Second
Round
#1 San Antonio over #4
Memphis (4-1)
#2 Oklahoma City over
#3 Los Angeles Lakers (4-2)
Conference
Finals
#1 San Antonio over #2
Oklahoma City (4-3)
Eastern
Conference
First
Round
#1 Chicago over #8
Philadelphia (4-2)
#2 Miami over #7 New
York (4-2)
#3 Indiana over #6
Orlando (4-0)
#4 Boston over #5
Atlanta (4-2)
Second
Round
#1 Chicago over #4
Boston (4-2)
#2 Miami over #3
Indiana (4-2)
Conference
Finals
#2 Miami over #1
Chicago (4-2)
NBA
Finals
#1 San Antonio over #2
Miami (4-3)
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