NBA Playoff Preview: West Still the Best...But Is That a Good Thing?

The NBA’s Western Conference is arguably as good as it has ever been.  Ten teams are currently above .500, all fighting for the top eight spots.  The Los Angeles Lakers are back at the top of the West with a 47-21 record, but are only two games ahead of the sixth-place San Antonio Spurs in the standings. 

If the season ended today, the Greg Oden-less Trailblazers and Denver Nuggets would be on the outside looking in.  Denver (40-28), would be the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference and Portland (35-33) would be tied for sixth. 

Even the Sacramento Kings (31-36) have a better record than the current eighth seed in the East, New Jersey (29-39). 

Not to mention, if these three teams—Denver, Portland, and Sacramento—played in the East, their records would undoubtedly be better than they currently are.

That being said, I haven’t been this excited for the NBA postseason since I started watching basketball.  Each first-round matchup is going to be competitive and could go either way. 

The Golden State Warriors are currently the eighth seed and everyone knows they are capable of a first-round upset.  That could be another wild No. 1 vs. 8 series.

No team in the West is safe.

The No. 2 vs. 7 matchup right now is Dallas vs. New Orleans.  New Orleans could easily get beaten by an experienced Dallas team with a lot of recent success. 

The No. 3 vs. 6 matchup would be a battle of Texas.  Houston (3) vs. San Antonio (6) could see T-Mac go down in the first round once again. 

The No. 4 vs. 5 matchup is the ultimate match-up of contrasting styles—the fourth-seeded Utah Jazz against the fifth-seeded Phoenix Suns.  This series could go either way and be very entertaining. 

By contrast, the Eastern Conference currently has no first round matchups that would be worth watching maybe one game.  Here’s my breakdown of the Eastern Conference first round as of right now:

Boston Celtics vs. New Jersey Nets: No doubt in my mind this will be a sweep

Detroit Pistons vs. Philadelphia 76ers: If Philadelphia scores over 75 points in one game, I'll be shocked.  Sweep.

Orlando Magic vs. Washington Wizards: If Gilbert Arenas comes back, he could make this game interesting but he'll be out of shape and out of rhythm.  I'll say this series goes five games. 

Cavaliers vs. Raptors: The “good series” in the first round out East.  I would be absolutely shocked if this series went further than five games.  Cleveland 4-1.

The Eastern playoffs aren’t even going to be that good in the semifinal round.  The Celtics-Cavaliers series will be as fun as LeBron wants to make it.  If he goes off like he did last year sure, I might tune in. 

Orlando-Detroit is going to be boring and uneventful.  Sure, Dwight Howard might have some highlight-reel dunks, and they might push it to a game six but anyone watching will know it’s inevitable that Detroit will win.

The only round of the East playoffs I will watch is the conference championship.  This should be one of the best series in recent memory.  It’s been a long time since we’ve had the Pistons-Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. 

This whole rant brings me to the point of this article:  The Western Conference is so stacked that almost every series will go to six or seven games.  The West has seven teams that could make a realistic run at the NBA Finals this year.

The Pistons and Celtics are going to coast through the first two rounds, before slugging it out to go to the Finals.   

Whatever team survives out of the West is going to be very worn down, after possibly 21 games just to get there.  I do think the Celtics are the best team in the NBA and having those extra days off for the Big Three is going to benefit them greatly in the postseason.  I don’t think the Celtics are going to be “rusty” if they have a few extra days off.  

Those teams are usually lead by young stars that need to keep playing when they’re hot.  KG, Pierce, and Ray Allen are all experienced All-Stars that would benefit from a couple of extra days off.