Hooray, NBA

With the exception of the classically boring Eastern Conference style series between the Hawks and Bucks, we now know which teams have advanced and which will be left behind to talk it over. Out West, we were 2-2 in series predictions. Out East, we are 3-0. Some of the things we learned from round 1:

Point-differentials matter:
The Jazz had a great pd while the Mavericks were a meager 12th best in the league. This blog has never supported Dallas, so it is somehow not shocking to us. Utah, on the other hand, was. Without two of their finest Eastern Europeans, things did not look good. Thankfully, another Eastern European stepped up to carry weight of his fallen comrades as ugliest NBA starter (oh and Deron Williams became the best point guard around, at least for now.)

The Lakers are beatable, but not that beatable:
LA certainly looked old against those young, flashy OKC fellas. Were some of the Western teams at full health (San Antonio, Denver, Utah), I would pick the Lakers to lose before the finals. Denver is now out (get well soon GC), Utah matches up poorly (even more so without aforementioned Europeans) and San Antonio's Tony "Foudre" Parker is still coming off the bench. This may LA's last time to ride around shining with this batch of players, but after the 1st round, they are still yet to be nauseous (see: Yuuggch).

Old rivalries still burn hot:
After the Texas brawl that was game 4 between the Mavs and the Spurs, we saw that a lot of these organizations still, to quote Mark Cuban, "hate" each other. That is good for us as fans. I'm sure Nash has not forgotten how the Spurs punished him physically, and emotionally :(, for a few years. IF the Jazz can continue to execute (yes, it's a big if) then the Beat LA and the Utah Sucks chants will be more venomous than usual.

The East is still the East:
The two best teams in the NBA right now are both East of the Mississippi: the Cavaliers and the Magic. The Celtics are an old team that will certainly compete but are not championship caliber. The Hawks are soft; Joe Johnson does not deserve a max deal, but he certainly will get one with (spoiler alert!) only Bosh leaving this season. The Bucks had a spark when they started to crush, but they appear to now be garbage, like Rush. Hollinger wrote on the notion that all 4 Western series could have ended in upsets. The East is still a long way off from this type of competition.

In conclusion, it is safe to conclude that Zuckerman sucks and that the Jazz have had a mighty fine 2009-2010 season. Jazz 1, my expectations about them 0. On to the next round!