TruthBegins

It’s time to look back at my NBA Playoffs Crystal Ball to see how well my predictions fared.  Flashback a few weeks to the 2nd round.  Much like everyone outside the Rockets’ locker room, I underestimated Houston’s ability to score points without Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming in the lineup.  Shane Battier and the undermanned Rockets demonstrated a tremendous amount of heart in pushing the Lakers to a Game 7.  This series featured the most intriguing offense-defense matchup (Kobe vs. Shane) of the playoffs and was probably the second most entertaining series, following the ridiculous Bulls-Celtics matchup in the opening round where nearly every game went to OT on clutch-shooting heroics.  All that said, I’m going to take a point here since I did predict the Lakers advancing.  Ditto for the Nuggets blasting the Mavs, the Magic taking out the Celtics, and the Cavs beating the Hawks.  (OK, maybe I should only get a half point for each of those since they were relatively obvious picks.)

Moving on, let’s see how I fared in the next round.  While I correctly picked the Lakers to advance past the Nuggets, the Nuggets proved substantially less threatening than I originally thought.  I also predicted that LeBron and the Cavs would steamroll the Magic on their way to the NBA Finals.  Someone forgot to send the Magic the script.  The Magic 3-point sharpshooters were on target in this series, and I was particularly amazed at the relative ease at which the Magic dispatched the Cavs.  So much for my recommendation to “safely pencil” LeBron into the NBA Finals!

And just like that, the NBA viewership was denied the ultimate Kobe-LeBron showdown.  Fortunately, we do have the Nike commercials featuring Kobe-LeBron puppetry hi-jinks, so all is not lost.  For the most part, the Magic have proven worthy championship opponents, but after falling in overtime last night, I think most of the suspense in this series is now gone.  In the end, my final prediction will hold true, as Kobe raises a 4th Larry O’Brien trophy over his head.  Lakers in 5.