NBA Playoff Review 2012

Eastern Conference

Bulls vs 76'ers
Okay I think the pro Derrick Rose crowd, as opposed to the 'pro bench' crowd, kind of won that argument.  Just sayin'.  I wasn't extremely surprised to see Rose go down, an explosive/injury prone superstar + the intensity of the playoffs + a compressed season will tend to = injury.  If I had known beforehand D-Rose would be injured for basically all of the series, I would have picked the Bulls in 7.  So while I'm not stunned to see the Bulls lose (in a 1 vs 8 matchup) I am slightly surprised to see them lose in 5 games.  Not that a lot of people saw Philly winning this, but still, F+.

Miami vs New York.

I would say I predicted this series pretty much exactly right.  The Heat don't exactly have a killer instinct and when you combine that with LeBron playing his old buddy Carmelo, I didn't really expect them to sweep the Knicks.  So Carmelo did more or less get his lone buzzer beater playoff win.  A+

Indiana vs Orlando

Well I think the most competitive Eastern Conference series should now go to Atlanta-Boston.  So other than that fail, I think I was fairly accurate.  After taking Orlando a little to lightly in the first game, the Pacers cruised to the easy 5 game series win.  B+

Boston vs Atlanta

As I basically said before, if Atlanta had faced anyone other than Miami and Boston, I think they would have won, but they happened to play Boston.   A

While they lost to the Celtics, I was impressed by Philly's play.

4 Boston vs 8 Philly
Well so much for it being Bulls vs Celtics.  If I had known this would be the matchup I would've taken Boston in 6.  Since, as they kind of proved once again, they like to play up or down to the level of their opponents.  Not having the Bulls win this round knocked this down to a minimum of a C-, so D.

2 Miami vs 3 Indiana
Well, I would say I pretty much pegged this series exactly.  However, one misstep was that I thought Miami would take the first two at home, then the Pacers would take two at home, and then Miami would finish the remaining two games.  A

For the first two rounds of this side of the bracket I'll give myself a B+.

Western Conference

Spurs vs Jazz

While I am hoping it will end against OKC, so far the Spurs 'deep bench' hasn't in the least been a negative for them.  And, oddly enough, there series didn't end up being the only first round sweep.  Idk if there was a lot to predict here, but A.

OKC vs Dallas

This happened to be the other sweep.  While the Mavs easily could have stolen the first two games from OKC, they could not manage to stop Oklahoma from driving to the hoop early and often D+.

Los Angeles vs Denver

I would say Kobe partially played with his teammates in both series.  I thought it was somewhat laughable that Coach Mike Brown might have been on the hot seat if LAL lost game 7.  Even though I predicted the series wrong, I'm going to be lenient and give myself credit for having the guts to pick this upset (which really should have come through). C

Memphis vs LAC 

CP3 certainly dominated this series.  And while he did kind of stink it up against the Spurs, hopefully now there can be some agreement that he is the best PG in the league.  I technically think that Memphis is still the better team, and if they were to play another series next week I would still pick them.  But, it looks like this should have been my upset pick..  So it was actually the Clippers in an entertaining 7, F.

Even Griffin's force powers couldn't slow down the Spurs.

1 SA   5 Clippers

The Spurs haven't lost since early/mid April. Nothing to see here. Spurs steamrolled again. If I had known beforehand that they would be facing the Clipps, I would have taken SA in 5.  C-

2 OKC  3 LA Lakers

Maybe it was just me, but I didn't think it took a rocket scientist to decide (especially in game 4) to put Kevin Durant on Kobe.  But for some reason he didn't really start guarding him until there was about 6 or so minutes left and the Thunder were down 8 or so.  And while not all of Kobe's shots in the 4th quarter were taken with Durant guarding him, oddly enough in the 4th quarter Kobe shot 2-8, and the Thunder rallied to win on a go ahead basket from KD.
And. as a side note, while I'm being a little presumptuous and jumping the gun, I think KD can be given the 'title'--best closer in the game.  So far he has 3 go ahead baskets in this years playoffs.
The only two teams I thought before the playoffs that could beat the Thunder also happen to be two  of the '4' remaining teams in the Spurs and Heat.  And if the Thunder continue their winning ways, then they should end up playing both of them.  But anyways, back to this round..  If I had known LA would advance, I still would have picked Thunder in 6.  Again OKC played with fire in the second game, but they came through unscathed again. Not having the Lakers reach this game brings me down to a C+

I didn't call anything really special, and I had the wrong upset pick, so C-.