2009 NBA Basketball Western Conference Playoff Preview

2009 NBA Basketball Western Conference Playoff Preview
Article courtesy of Ted Sevransky, An award-winning NBA basketball handicapper featured on Touthouse.com. If you are betting on the NBA playoffs this season be sure to buy Teddy Cover’s expert NBA basketball playoff picks

The Western Conference playoff race breaks down easily into two categories.

First, there are the LA Lakers. Then, there is everybody else.

With 64 wins through the weekend, there’s a greater gap in the standings between Phil Jackson’s squad and the No. 2 seed in the West than between the No. 2 seed and the No. 8 seed.

That reality is fully reflected in the odds to win the Western Conference, where the Lakers are the favorites to emerge from the fray over the other seven contending teams combined.

LA is the chalk here; no serious contender has emerged enough for bettors to consider them a serious threat to reach the finals.

The Los Angeles Lakers were the best team in the West before they got young phenom center Andrew Bynum back in the lineup this week.

With Bynum joining Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom, the Lakers have the size, low post scoring, and interior muscle nobody else in the league can match.

When we add the league’s top clutch shooter, Kobe Bryant, into the mix, LA looks even better. Throw in arguably the most talented and deepest bench in the league and the Lakers look like a real force, deserving of all the respect they’ve been getting from bettors.

LA isn’t going to be an underdog very often in the postseason, but they are likely to be worthy of some respect when they are catching points—they went 7-2 ATS as an underdog during the regular season and closed out the campaign with 29 SU wins in 41 road games.

The only potential stumbling block for LA worth mentioning here is their consistent failures to win at the Rose Garden in Portland. The Blazers are a possible second or third round opponent; LA has lost eight straight in Portland and 14 of their last 16.

The Denver Nuggets have not made it out of the first round of the playoffs during the George Karl era. In fact, the last time the Nuggets won a playoff series was 1994.

Unlike recent versions of the Nuggets, this year, Karl has a top notch point guard with a defensive mindset in Chauncey Billups. And they finally have a healthy low post scoring option, with Nene coming off a breakout season, even though Kenyon Martin has bruised ribs and is a shell of the player he once was.

Still, the Nuggets offense remains perimeter based—when Carmelo Anthony, JR Smith, and Dahntay Jones aren’t hitting their jump shots, the Nuggets struggle against quality foes.

The San Antonio Spurs have earned four titles since drafting Tim Duncan back in 1997. But Duncan’s knees are not what they were—he’s been wearing braces on both legs, suffering from tendinitis in his right knee and the lingering effects of off season surgery in the left knee.

Meanwhile, the Spurs top ‘energy’ player, Manu Ginobili, has been shut down for the season with a stress fracture in his ankle. Michael Finley, Bruce Bowen, and Kurt Thomas are all on the wrong side of 35.

While Drew Gooden has been a stellar mid-season acquisition, this Spurs team looks rather limited as they approach the post season, a serious candidate for a first round exit.

Tracy McGrady has never made it out of the first round in his NBA career. Good thing for the Houston Rockets McGrady will be on the sideline in street clothes during the Rockets playoff run this year.

Since McGrady went down and the Rockets traded starting point guard Rafer Alston to Orlando, Houston has been a much better team.

They’ve gone 20-7 SU since the All Star break; 16-11 ATS in those games, as Rick Adelman’s role players have stepped up to help Yao Ming and Ron Artest carry the load. Ming has been healthy all year, but he sat out a couple of games during the last week to rest his sore foot, a potential problem area as the playoffs begin.

The Portland Trailblazers have been as hot as any team in the West this side of the Lakers down the stretch, winning eight of their last nine games. Despite getting very little from former No. 1 overall pick Greg Oden, the Brandon Roy/LaMarcus Aldridge inside/outside duo has proven to be more than good enough to carry the team.

The Blazers youth—they are the second youngest team in the league—could hurt them come playoff time.

So could Nate McMillan’s heavy reliance on perimeter shooting. Travis Outlaw, Steve Blake, Nicolas Batum, and Rudy Fernandez combine to average more than 15 three-point attempts per game between them.

The New Orleans Hornets have not looked like the same team that reached Game 7 of the second round in the West last year before coming up short to the Spurs.

The Hornets still have two superstars carrying the load. Chris Paul remains the most dynamic point guard in the league, while David West has continued to develop into a perennial all-star in the low post.

But Byron Scott’s supporting cast has been severely limited all year, and the failed Tyson Chandler trade didn’t do much to help team morale under tightwad owner George Shinn. James Posey is an x-factor here. If Posey and oft-injured former star Peja Stojakovic can step up their shooting, New Orleans could pull off another first round surprise.

The Dallas Mavericks have been in franchise purgatory since the all-star break last year, when owner Marc Cuban decided to pull the trigger on the Jason Kidd deal.

Kidd is still a superstar, but he’s an aging superstar and a very limited defender. Dirk Nowitzki has never shown the heart of a champion; neither have key role players Jason Terry and Josh Howard.

Rick Carlisle has been unable to develop a consistent bench. The Mavs have gone 1-8 SU, 2-7 ATS since the first week of February against playoff opponents on the road.

The Utah Jazz , too, have been unable to beat quality foes in hostile environments. The Jazz have lost six of their last seven overall heading into the post season, dropping to the No. 8 spot in the West as a result of their failures.

There have been reports of longtime head coach Jerry Sloan’s popularity declining as fast as the US economy in recent weeks—his authoritarian style doesn’t seem to be working for a team that has gone 1-11 SU, 2-10 ATS against other Western Conference playoff teams on the road this year.