NBA Round One Predictions

It's finally here. No more speculation. No more daily standings shuffles. No more MVP talk (hopefully). No more tiebreakers.

Just playoff basketball.

We're about to embark on two intense months of basketball to write the final chapter of an already remarkable NBA season.

Will the playoffs live up to all the hype? It's hard to say. Some have already dubbed this the best first round in history, and not a single series has even tipped off yet. Not to mention a Celtics/Pistons renewed rivalry series waiting in the wings, and a potential Kobe vs. Shaq conference finals. I'd say this has all the makings of a historic spring.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. Before we start talking conference finals, we need to talk conference quarterfinals.

Let's start by breaking down round one. As Flavor Flav would say: without further do...

Eastern Conference

No. 1 Boston Celtics vs. No. 8 Atlanta Hawks

Did you know that the Celtics have the biggest single-season turnaround in NBA history? Really, they do. You know why? Kevin Garnett. And nothing else. Nope. Just KG. By himself, he won 42 more games for the Celtics than they won last year. That's why he's unquestionably the MV...

Wait a second ... this just in. Apparently, last offseason the Celtics added another future Hall of Famer besides Garnett. As it turns out, this "Ray Allen" guy isn't bad. He's got the second most three pointers made all-time and he has the seventh best career free throw percentage. Hell, he even made the all-star team.

I got confused for a minute there because once all the MVP talk started going on this past month KG got all the credit for the Celtics success.

Seeing that KG doesn't have to go it alone after all, I'm going to have to pick the Celtics in this one.

Prediction: Boston

No. 4 Cleveland Cavaliers vs. No. 5 Washington Wizards

Agent Zero may have gained around a million fans with his blog the last two seasons, but he certainly hasn't done it without putting his foot in his mouth on a few different occasions. His most recent blogging blunder, calling out the Cavaliers by saying that everyone wants to play them in round one, will end up costing his team.

First of all, Cleveland is a better team than most people give them credit for. I don't care about what their regular season record is; they have a team built for the playoffs. They play top-notch defense for long stretches at a time, and that's exactly what it takes to win a playoff series.

Second of all, they have LeBron. As we saw last year, against these very Wizards and again against the Pistons, LeBron is enough by himself to take down whole teams. Throw in the fact that Arenas single-handedly put the chip on James' shoulder, and it spells trouble for the Wizards.

Prediction: Cleveland

No. 3 Orlando Magic vs. No. 6 Toronto Raptors

This one could get very interesting. If Sam Mitchell would just play Jose Calderon at the point guard position and leave him there for 35 minutes a game, the Raptors would have a real chance here. According to 82games.com, 13 of the top 14 five-man units that the Raptors have run out there this season have featured Calderon at the point instead of T.J. Ford.

Amazingly, Ford has started the final 12 games of the season and will surely get the nod in the Orlando series. What Calderon needs to do to prove that he is the better player is beyond me. It's a shame that Mitchell has decided to make the switch back to Ford because it will ultimately cost the Raptors this series.

The Magic's biggest weakness defensively is defending the point guard. Luckily, it will be the opposing coach who will neutralizes this weakness for them.

Prediction: Orlando

No. 2 Detroit Pistons vs. Philadelphia 76ers

Detroit should be able to sleepwalk to its sixth straight conference finals this season. Even though Philly had a nice stretch in February and into March, they are still a below .500 team coming into the playoffs having lost five of their last six.

The 76ers may have split the season series with the Pistons, but that means nothing right now. The Pistons are too talented, too experienced, and too prideful to let Philly even sniff a chance at taking this series.

In typical Pistons fashion, I predict that they will come out and win the first two games at home by a combined 40 points, decide among themselves that they are the better team, and coast through the rest of the series allowing Philly to hang around in the final two games, and maybe even steal one.

Nonetheless, the Pistons will make short work of the completely outclassed Sixers and take the series easily.

Prediction: Detroit

Western Conference

No. 1 Los Angeles Lakers vs. No. 8 Denver Nuggets

This is the only series in the west that you can't make a legitimate case for both teams winning the series. No matter which way I look at this one, I can't see a way that Denver beats the Lakers.

The fact that L.A. scores so much, and Denver as a whole could care less about stopping anyone, makes for a pretty fatal combination come playoff time.

The real question here is: will there ever be another team in the history of the league that does less with as much talent as the Nuggets?

They have two guys who can drop for 30 every time that step on the floor (Anthony and Iverson). They have a perennial First Team All-Defense player in Marcus Camby (including being reigning Defensive Player of the Year), yet they are the one playoff team in the West that isn't even on my radar to compete in the first round.

It isn't because of the matchup, either. You could put this team against any of the seven other playoff teams in the west and I would pick against them. They have all sorts of individual talent, yet no team game offensively. They have all sorts of experience, yet make up the biggest collection of loose cannons since the Jail Blazers. They have a coach on his way to 1,000 wins who I wouldn't hire as my coach if I were a GM and had a blank check and 100% job security.

Nothing about Denver makes sense. If everything played out on paper the Nuggets and Houston would fight it out for the West every year and no one else would come close. But don't play the games on paper, and because of that Denver only has five games max left this season.

Prediction: Los Angeles>

No. 4 Utah Jazz vs. No. 5 Houston Rockets

This is the toughest of all the first round series to predict. This one could really go either way. Utah doesn't lose at home, but they don't have home-court advantage. Houston has obviously proven that they can get hot and be unbeatable, but they are just 1-2 against the Jazz and winless against them without Yao.

Then there is the whole Tracy McGrady thing. Is he destined to be the greatest player to never win a playoff series? Is this the year where he leads his team to a playoff series victory? You just never know.

I've thought long and hard about it and I still can't decide. When all else fails, I'm going back to my theory that a team learns to win by advancing deep into the playoffs and losing in the previous season. I've written before that Utah and Cleveland are my sleeper teams this year because of that very reason, so I'm sticking to it now.

I'm picking Utah to win a very hard-fought matchup because of their experience grinding out series in last season's playoffs.

Unless Houston catches fire. Or Mehmet Okur gets suspended for his hit on Fabricio Oberto. Or Andrei Kirilenko disappears in the clutch, again. Or ... let's just move on.

Prediction: Utah

No. 3 San Antonio Spurs vs. No. 6 Phoenix Suns

A rematch of shovegate. A lot of people think that Phoenix would have won that series last year if it hadn't been for the suspensions heading into Game 6. Not me.

San Antonio was the better team then and they are the better team now. The suspensions were just another of many built-in excuses for the team that whines more than any other in the league, including the always sourpuss Pistons.

The only thing that could stop me from picking the Spurs is Manu Ginobili's health. I think that his groin injury is not as serious as the Spurs are letting on. At first, I was floored when he didn't play against the Lakers on Sunday because that game had huge seeding implications. But the more I thought about it, the more I think it is just another example of Gregg Popovich being a future Hall of Fame coach.

He knows that his team is too good and too experienced to care what venue they play in. I think he decided to rest Ginobili to make sure that he is 100% and at the same time not show the Lakers anything in their final meeting of the season, seeding be damned.

I've said a hundred different times in a hundred different ways that the Suns brand of basketball is a gimmick and that they can't beat good teams with good coaching in a seven-game series with it. Assuming that Ginobili really is healthy, this series will just be another in the long list of examples to prove me right.

Prediction: San Antonio

No. 2 New Orleans Hornets vs. No. 7 Dallas Mavericks

In my opinion, this is the best first round matchup. New Orleans has more talent, Dallas has more experience. New Orleans is the feel-good story of the season, but it looks like they may have just picked the wrong season for it.

In just about any other season you could think of, a team this stacked would have no problem getting out of the first round. This year, despite having a fantastic season, the Hornets are running into a Dallas team two years removed from a trip to the finals and one year removed from the embarrassing loss to Golden State that they desperately want to avenge.

To make matters worse, the Hornets' best player has yet to experience the playoffs, and that is not to be underestimated. As great as I think Chris Paul is, he has a tendency to have poor shooing games. Poor shooting games from your best player in the playoffs are tough to overcome.

I look for this series to be played at the highest level that maybe any first round series has ever been played at. In the end, if Avery Johnson doesn't over-coach the Mavericks (which is a huge if), I think Dallas will outlast the Hornets. It's not going to be a runaway by any means, but I think New Orleans is setting up to be this year's Utah or Cleveland, and they are going to learn to win for next season by losing to Dallas this season.

Prediction: Dallas