Rumblin' In the Rough-and-Tumble West

A Daily Babble Production

You are currently reading the second of CelticsBlog's Steve Weinman's two-part first-round playoff preview.  Check out all the Eastern details from Part I here.

If the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals gave me an open forum for soon-to-be-doomed predictions yesterday, well, to put it simply, they are sadly outclassed in that department by their counterparts out West.

Eight 50-win teams.  One 48-win team on the outside looking in.  Two legitimate MVP candidates.  One point guard widely considered to be better than the MVP candidate point guard.  One team looking for a particularly special brand of redemption.  Two others just looking for revenge.  And so on and so forth.   For the next two months, the Western Conference is going to provide us an unbelievable tournament-watching experience in its own right.   So let's go ahead and butcher the picks now.

(1) Los Angeles Lakers vs. (8) Denver Nuggets

The skinny: Though they will undoubtedly meet a hostile welcome on this site, it's really impossible to say enough good things about this Lakers team.  A rejuvenated Kobe Bryant submitted an MVP-worthy campaign -- and his attitude changed before the acquisition of Pau Gasol.  Speaking of Gasol, the Lakers finished the season on a 29-9 run following their acquisition of the sizable Spaniard.  Lamar Odom has submitted the best season of his career.  Derek Fisher and Jordan Farmar have done just what's been asked of them at the point all year, and the team has received solid contributions all the way down the roster from the likes of Sasha Vujacic, Vladimir Radmanovic, Ronny Turiaf and Luke Walton.  Phil Jackson has done another Phil Jackson coaching job, getting and keeping all of his guys on the same page all year.  The team is third in offensive efficiency and sixth on the defensive end, and they have played well against just about everybody up and down the West -- not surprising, given that they won 57 games and wrapped up the top spot.  Speaking of playing well, they swept three meetings with Denver, winning soundly in two of them.

This is an excellent Lakers team, and Bryant, a guy who generally plays pretty hard to begin with, looks like he really wants it, perhaps more than at any other time in his career.  They are locked in.

The Nuggets' are all about fire power (having AI and Melo does that for a team), but they don't have enough to roll with the Lake Show.  Though the Nugs have a surprisingly high ranking of tenth in defensive efficiency, they don't have the wherewithal to address the Lakers' vast array of weapons.  They don't have a dominant interior presence offensively.  They are badly outclassed in the coaching department, where Phil Jackson is well ahead of George Karl.  And their top-ranked pace -- one of the Nugs' biggest advantages in general -- won't be of as much service as usual, seeing as the Lakers sit just five slots behind in that department and don't mind doing the running one bit.  With a 50-32 effort, the Nuggets have put together a very nice campaign, but they are over-matched here.

The X-Men:  The Lakers should be able to take care of business no matter what, but it's the bench spark plugs for both these teams: J.R. Smith and Sasha Vujacic.  Smith hasn't started a game this year and averages 12.3 points per for the season.  The man gets on the floor and guns, absolutely filling it up on several occasions this year (he has put together 13 outings of 20 points or more).  By the same token, Vujacic scored 8.8 per game off the bench this season and was quite effective (43.7 percent) from three for the boys from Hollywood.  If either of these guys gets ignored in just the slightest way by the opponent, he has the potential to make defenses pay and change the flow of the game.  But even though Smith probably has the edge in explosiveness here, the worth of the exes shouldn't be big enough to truly matter in this series.

The pick: LA in 5

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(2) New Orleans Hornets vs. (7) Dallas Mavericks

The skinny: One of the nicest stories of this regular season faces off against the disaster story of last postseason.  Logically, it's hard not to like the Hornets.  Chris Paul has played incredible basketball from start to finish this season -- turning in one of the best point guard campaigns ever -- David West turned into an All-Star, Peja returned to form, Ty Chandler caused havoc in the middle and the bench added plenty of energy.  These guys love playing together, and they spent the season largely cruising through the Western Conference.  It won't be long before this team goes deep into the playoffs, as any team with CP3 on it ultimately will.

But here's guessing that it isn't in the cards this year. 

The Hornets may just be up against something bigger than they are this time around.   Several times this season, the Mavs were all but left for dead by the observers.  For some, it was on the basis of mortgaging their point guard of the future (Devin Harris) for an aging Jason Kidd.  For others, it was the rough start to the Kidd era against teams with winning records (ten straight losses).  For those who weren't done after the first two issues, it was the Dirk Nowitzki injury.  If memory serves (sadly), it appears that I have been guilty of all three.

Then something strange happened.  Nowitzki came back early from injury and became the emotional leader and bloodthirsty player that many have been wondering if he would ever be again after the Mavs' meltdown in the 2006 Finals.  The team immediately won four of five to sew up its playoff spot upon Nowitzki's return, with Dirk coming up huge in a win in Phoenix and dropping a buzzer-beating three to sink the Jazz.  In that time, this team has taken on a completely new personality.  Suddenly, we are seeing that healthy anger that naturally comes with losing the Finals one year and then getting bopped in the first round after a 67-win season the next.  We're seeing  a team that has been playing for blood every night.  Kidd seems to be ready for his first playoffs sans Vince Carter since 2004.  Jason Terry, Josh Howard and the rest of the crew are all doing their thing.

Against a young team with very little collective playoff experience, this Mavs team may just be more prepared to get through the long series.  And they may just want it a whole lot more this time around.

The X-Man:  Dirk.  Finally returning to being that leader that this team needs on and off the floor.  If this guy is ready to do anything along the lines of replicating his performance from the first three rounds of the 2006 playoffs, look out.

The pick: Dallas in 6

(3) San Antonio Spurs vs. (6) Phoenix Suns

The skinny:  I almost feel dirty writing this.  Never did I fathom that I would even feel the slightest sensation pushing me to pick against a Tim Duncan-led Spurs team to lose in the first round.  But not only is that sensation present now, it's too much to resist.

How much of a force the Suns will be in the greater picture out West remains to be seen, and I'm rather relieved that I don't have to levy a judgment on that as of yet.  But this much is certain: This is the series for which the Suns remade themselves.  This is why we actually have a prominent basketball player in this country nicknamed the Big Cactus.  This is why Shawn Marion has been enjoying the wonders of South Beach for the last two months instead of being the Matrix in the Valley.  Beating the Spurs is what it's been all about for this team, and if they are ever going to be able to do it, the time is now.  Mike D'Antoni deserves a ton of credit for getting Shaq as well integrated into the Suns' system as he has thus far.  Amare Stoudemire is playing at a higher level than we have ever seen him before and could be absurdly dominant in the playoffs.  Steve Nash is sprinting around doing Steve Nash things. 

The Suns are storming into the playoffs as winners of 15 of 20, and they simply have the look of a team ready to get over their long-standing personal hump.  I've always been a huge advocate of the theory that suggests never believing the Spurs are dead until they are at home while the playoffs are still going.  But as Spur of the Moment's David Thiessen has been saying all season, there is something different about this group.  While the big three of Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker keep firing on all cylinders, it has increasingly looked like the rest of the cast finally got one more year older one time too many.  The team has never definitively found its stride the way it always seems to after the All-Star break, and though the record wound up quite good as always, it was a surprisingly inconsistent season for these guys.  It would be a pleasure to see them turn it up once more for the playoffs and prove all the doubters wrong once more, but I feel compelled for the first time to count myself among those doubters.

The X-Men:  Shaquille O'Neal and Kurt Thomas.  Worth remembering is this sequence of events, starting with the 2007 semis: Suns fall to Spurs.  Suns decide they can't pay Kurt Thomas' salary ($8 million expiring at the end of this year) and give Seattle two draft picks just to take the guy's contract off their hands.  Suns realize that Thomas' value to them was crucial in that he was the only dude on the roster that even gave them a chance at defending Duncan with any efficacy.  Suns deal franchise cornerstone Shawn Marion for Shaq (locked in for $60 million through the end of 2010) in order to provide themselves a chance at a dominant presence in the middle for the playoffs, albeit an aging one.  Spurs acquire Thomas from Seattle at the trade deadline.

We're pretty sure TD and STAT are going to show up to play.  But how these two perform could be critical in deciding who ends up with ultimate control of the paint in this battle.

The pick:  Suns in 6

[Ugh.  Suddenly feeling like I haven't showered in days.]

(4) Utah Jazz vs. (5) Houston Rockets

The skinny: Yeah, I've heard: The Jazz would be a lot better off if they had beaten San Antonio on Wednesday and given themselves home court advantage in this series.  Makes enough sense, particularly given Utah's bonkers home record of 37-4.  No, the 17-24 record away from Energy Solutions Arena isn't anything to write home about, but really, what we're probably asking here is for the Jazz to take one or maybe two games in Houston.  They are certainly capable of that.

For as nice a season as Rafer Alston has had at the point for the Rockets, he isn't Deron Williams.  In fact, he isn't even close.  Williams is going to out-muscle and out-run Alston all series, which could be a deadly combination for the former And1 baller.  Similarly, as good as the efforts of Luis Scola and Chuck Hayes have been all year for Houston, those two guys aren't at a point where they can provide a viable answer for the force that is Carlos Boozer inside.  This is a Utah team that is as well-coached as any in the league and has survived some early-season tension and struggles (they fell to 16-16 at one point after a 12-5 start).  This is largely the same group that went to the Western Conference Finals a season ago, and these guys know what it takes to get back to that point.  Williams pushes the game's second most efficient offense, and everybody does his part on D.

This isn't to say the Rockets will go down easily.  Rick Adelman has done a wonderful job getting this team to play together through the adversity of the Yao Ming injury, propelling them to the memorable 22-game winning streak and the league's second-best ranking in defensive efficiency.  I still can't get over the irony that after being brought in to revive the Rockets with his high-octane offense, Adelman wound up helping Houston become an even better defensive team while remaining relatively stable in terms of offensive efficiency (heres hoping Jeff Van Gundy ends up broadcasting every game of this series).  That said, the Rockets have done an excellent job coming together.  Tracy McGrady has been far more valuable to this team than the numbers indicate.  Luis Scola is really good.  Shane Battier has submitted quite a campaign effort for Defensive Player of the Year.  The Rockets' tenacity and defense will allow them to hang tough with Utah all series and probably to take more than a couple of games from the Jazz.  But for as nice a story as they have been all season, they don't have the firepower to get it done here.

A year ago, these same two teams met in this slot of the bracket, and the home team won each of the first six games before Utah finally prevailed on the Rockets' court in the finale.  It would come as no shock if we saw a near-replication this time around.

The X-Man:  Kyle Korver.  Remember when I thought the Jazz had made a dumb trade for this guy?  Yeah, neither do I, which is why I'm not linking you to a piece where I might have insinuated (or more than insinuated) just that.  The man comes off the bench and just picks holes in defenses.  He shot 47.4 percent from the field and 38.8 percent from deep while with Utah this season, and he forces defenses to pay attention to him, leaving more room to operate for the likes of Williams, Boozer and Memo Okur.  It's no shock that he seems to be somewhere in the neighborhood of plus-about-a-billion on the stat sheet with quite a bit of regularity.  If he can rebound from a poor first half of April in which he shot just 30.4 percent from deep, he will only add to the Rockets' match-up problems.

The pick:  Utah in 7