Hoops

After promising you the top defensive prospects of the past seven years in today's column I realized that the NBA playoffs were going to start on Saturday. It totally snuck up on me. I haven't been following the NBA as much as I should or would have liked to this winter which is a shame because even though this was one of the worst regular season in recent history the Raptors were actually good which happens once or twice in a decade. I more or less missed the rise from good player to franchise player for Chris Bosh, the emergence of Andrea Bargnani, and the great coaching of Sam Mitchell. Oh wait I forgot he didn't do a great job coaching and that along with the Raptors playoff inexperience will most likely be there downfall in the post season. Huh nevertheless I'm ecstatic about their opening round match up against the Nets and the overall first round of match ups in general.

So I've decided to pull a Peyton Manning and put the NFL column on the back burner (Tuesday or Wednesday) and make some playoff picks because as we all know there's nothing more insightful than when a guy who didn't watch many games the entire season decide he knows what he's talking about and tells faithful NBA viewers who's going to win.

On to the picks

Eastern Conference
Pistons VS Magic
Winner: Pistons
Other than Dwight Howard the Magic are worse at every position. It also turns out that Grant Hill is still starting? We're sure he's not injured? I swear he broke his ankle slipping on a bar of soap in the shower.

Cavs VS Wizards
Winner: Cavs
Wow with Arenas out how bad are these two teams. I'm pretty sure LeBron could win all by himself which is pretty much what is going to have to happen.

Raptors VS Nets
Winner: Raptors
Screw it. Even though they're in over their heads and will probably lose I'll go with the home town team. I'm interested to see how bad a reaction Carter gets. Even though he betrayed us there were some good times. I think he deserves a little more respect than he gets (I'll get to it in another column) just a little though. He did tank on us.

Heat VS Bulls
Winner: Heat
Tough one to call but I still think Shaq has something left in the tank. Oh and this just in, Ben Wallace sucks.

Western Conference
Mavs VS Warriors
Winner: Mavs
It will be exciting but come on no way Dirk loses.

Suns VS Lakers
Winner: Suns
How many times does Kobe think to himself "Maybe I shouldn't have run Shaq out of town." I say 17000.

Spurs VS Nuggets
Winner: Spurs
They've been really hot lately and I can't pick against Duncan. Another interesting point is that when I was looking up this series the latest injury for the Spurs was Brent Barry out with a tummy ache. I wish I made this up.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2007/series?series=densas (Scroll 3/4 down right hand side)

Rockets VS Jazz
Winner: Jazz
Not because of T-Mac. He's money in the playoffs just look at his playoff stats. Rafer Alston at the point really worries me though. This isn't Rucker Park.