NBA Eastern Conference Finals Preview

Also see: NBA Western Conference Finals Preview

In each of the three major sports (hockey doesn't count because it sucks), the conference finals is usually better than the championship round. The teams are more familiar with each other, the style of play is similar, and the teams are usually more evenly matched. That's why, more often than not, a conference finals/LCS/AFC/NFC championship game is more fun to watch.

This season in the NBA is no exception. The two conference finals have the potential to be two legendary series. The Celtics and Pistons and Lakers and Spurs has the potential to be the highest level of basketball played in a conference finals in many years. There isn't a clear-cut favorite in either matchup, and either series can honestly go either way.

So who's going to win? Today, we'll break down the Eastern Conference Finals in preparation of Game 1 tonight, and we'll save the Western Conference Finals for tomorrow.

No. 1 Boston Celtics vs. No. 2 Detroit Pistons

Since the trade that brought Kevin Garnett to Boston last offseason, everyone outside of Cleveland pretty much penciled these two teams into the conference finals. Boston had stacked its roster with enormous amounts of talent, the Pistons kept their squad that had been there five years in a row together and made it six. Picking these two teams to get here was easy, picking a winner will not be.

Let's start with the obvious: Boston is really good at home and they have home court advantage. That looks like an obvious advantage for the Celtics. It ends up being quite the contrary. Sure, the C's are 8-0 at home this postseason and have won 14 in a row dating back to the regular season. That gives them the advantage on paper.

But they won't be playing this series on paper. The Pistons are a terrible matchup for their seemingly unbeatable home crowd. The Pistons aren't phased by hostile environments; they crave them. This is the same team that has gone into the Staples Center and won Game 1 of the NBA Finals they weren't supposed to even contend in. It's the same team that beat Miami in their building in Game 7 of the Conference Finals. It's the same team that beat the Spurs in an elimination Game 6 in San Antonio in the NBA finals and pushed them to the brink in Game 7 two days later.

Do you think for a second that the Pistons are going to look across the floor tonight and think, "We've won lots of huge road games in the past, but these are the Celtics?" I think that at this point the Pistons would almost rather open up in Boston, take care of business in either Game 1 or 2, ending the ridiculous notion that the Celtics and go 16-0 at home this playoffs en route to a title, and force the Celtics to prove that they can win a road game.

Aside from not having a psychological advantage over the Pistons at home, they also don't have much of a basketball advantage. Neither of the teams that the Celtics have played so far in the playoffs had a winning record on the road this year. The Pistons won 25 road games this season, and their three road victories this postseason ties them with the Lakers for the most in the league.

Boston hasn't been able to beat either of the inferior teams that they have played this postseason on the road, and with all due respect to LeBron James and both Hawks fans, the Pistons aren't the Cavaliers, and they damn sure aren't the Hawks. If the Celtics thought winning in Phillips Arena was tough, wait until they step inside the Palace.

Home court advantage aside, the Pistons outmatch the Celtics in plenty of other areas, as well. If you matchup position by position, the only real advantage Boston has is Paul Pierce over Tayshaun Prince. Yes, that includes the Kevin Garnett/Rasheed Wallace matchup.

Think about it, name one aspect of the game that Garnett has a sizeable advantage over Wallace. Rasheed is better from 6-10 feet with his back to the basket than K.G., K.G. has a better mid-range game, and Wallace can shoot threes and Garnett can't. Offensively, their games are basically a wash.

Garnett gets all the hype and credit for turning Boston around defensively (take that, Tom Tibedeau!), but the numbers don't reflect that he's all that much better than Rasheed. In the playoffs, K.G. is getting 1.2 blocks per game, 1.4 steals, and 7.2 defensive rebounds. Wallace is getting 1.9 blocks per game, 1.3 steals, and 5 defensive rebounds a game. Looks like another wash to me.

Factor in that Rasheed has been the best player on four conference finals teams, two NBA finals teams, and one NBA champion, and he takes the intangible aspect in the matchup, too.

(Call me old-fashioned, but I value repeated team success over scowls, chest thumping, swearing into the crowd, pretending to want to fight other players, holding out the front of your jersey out after meaningless wins in December, and all of the other "intangibles" that K.G. brings to the table.)

If the team's two best players are canceling each other out then you have to look at the other four guys on the floor to determine who has the advantage, and the Pistons remaining players are head and shoulders above the rest of Celtic players, topped off by the Grand Canyon-sized gap in talent between the two starting backcourts.

Chauncey Billups won the Finals MVP in 2004 because he abused Gary Payton because Payton was undersized. Granted, Payton was in the twilight of his career at the time, but he's headed to Springfield because he was one of the best defensive stoppers in league history. Yet Billups made him look foolish. I have my doubts that the tandem of the inexperienced Rajon Rondo and the washed-up Sam Cassell can slow Chauncey enough to disrupt the Pistons' offense.

(Another quick aside here: The Celtics had to think that in order to win a title they were going to have to go through Detroit at some point. It's been obvious that they have needed an upgrade at point guard because Rondo can't score and he's too small to defend Chauncey. Why on earth would they bring in Sam Cassell, another undersized point guard that Billups will destroy, instead of going after someone with size that could make it tough on Chauncey? You'd think that the executive of the year would have been more on the ball with his big midseason pickup.)

Even if they do miraculously contain Billups, he'll just differ to Rip Hamilton, who by the way happens to be averaging 21.5 points per game this postseason, the most by any player on either team. Oh yeah, he's going to be chased around by what's left of Ray Allen for 40 minutes a game. The same Ray Allen who couldn't keep up with Wally Szczerbiak last series and Szczerbiak rarely ventured inside the three-point line. It's entirely possible that Rip could make Allen work more in game one than Wally World did in seven games.

All of that being said, I don't think by any means that Detroit is going to run away with this series. Boston is still really good. They play great defense, they have a legitimate go to guy on offense in Pierce, and they do have home court in a potential Game 7. I'm not saying that Boston can't beat the Pistons.

I'm saying they won't.

Pistons in six.