PLAYOFF THOUGHTS

1. Cleveland is clearly the best team in the league, and it's not even close. But the best team doesn't always win. I don't think Boston or Orlando has a prayer without Garnett/Nelson, but maybe the Lakers do--if they make it--but man, it won't be easy. Watching Ron Artest tear up Trevor Ariza makes me very, very concerned about what LBJ would do. The Lakers are a terrible help-defense team so if one guy is getting his ass kicked, it spells trouble. And if Lebron James is on the court, one of your defenders is going to be getting his ass kicked. BTW, Lebron is averaging 31.5-9.7-6.3 for the playoffs so far, and shooting .541 from the floor. The Cavs have won all 6 of their playoff games by double digits, and their average margin of victory is just under 18.

2. As I've said all year long, the Lakers aren't a great team without a healthy and confident Andrew Bynum. There's this sense that the Lakers can and will "turn it on" when they need to, but these aren't the Shaq Lakers where all it took to go from very good to great was the Big Fella turning it up a notch. This team is focused, this team plays hard--it's just that they're a step below greatness, and teams that are below 'great' sometimes lose to teams that are just pretty good.

The Lakers don't defend poorly because they're not taking teams seriously, or because they lack heart, or focus--they defend poorly because they defend poorly. Just like Mark Madsen sucks because he sucks. The Lakers defend poorly because they have multiple key players who aren't very talented at playing defense--Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, Andrew Bynum (in present condition), Luke Walton, Derek Fisher, Jordan Farmar, Sasha Vujacic. And they're not going to get any better at it between now and the NBA Finals.

This team is what it is, and people who think they're going to press a magic button and turn it on are going to be disappointed. This reminds me of 2003 when the Lakers stumbled through the regular season, struggled through a first round playoff series, and everyone thought they'd just ramp it up at the end--and then everyone was shocked when they got bitch-slapped by the Spurs in the second round. LA didn't--and couldn't--"ramp it up", they were the same less-than-great team they had been all year long. I don't know why sports fans always want to make athletic competition into a morality play. Most players on most teams in the NBA playoffs are playing their asses off and giving everything they can give, and when an NBA team loses it's almost always because the other team was more talented--or the other team got hot--not because the opponent "wanted it more".

That's not to say that the Lakers absolutely can't play with Cleveland. I honestly don't know if they can or not. Basketball is a game of matchups, each series is vastly different. The transitive property falls apart in basketball; just because LA is struggling against Houston doesn't necessarily mean they'll get crushed by Cleveland. But make no mistake, they are the superior team. I've seen enough.

3. And by no means am I conceding the West to the Lakers, I think they could absolutely stumble against either Houston or Denver--who looks talented, deep, and supremely athletic. I think LA will end up winning both series, but it's hardly a sure thing. I can't believe how good the Nuggets are now, this is an entirely different team from the one LA ran off the court last year. They're flat out better defensively with Chris Anderson/Nene instead of Marcus Camby, Billups adds so much to the team on both ends of the court, and the freakishly talented but wildly inconsistent JR Smith is in one of his 'holy shit' phases at just the right time. And Carmelo is playing like a real superstar, he's not getting enough credit for how good this team is playing. Again, I'm worried about what Carmelo would do to Trevor Ariza, but at least they don't have a hyper quick PG to torch Derek Fisher all night long. Billups is obviously a better player than Aaron Brooks of the Rockets, but you go back to the importance of matchups in basketball--with the Lakers' particular collection of talent they can deal OK with Billups and have no answer for Brooks.

So that's about it, I'll predict Cleveland finishes the sweep of Atlanta and then destroys Boston in the conference finals, maybe a 4-1 series. I'll take the Lakers over Houston in 6 and then Denver in 7. Then...who the fuck knows. If I'm a betting man, and I am, I'm putting my money down on Cleveland. But I think they're 60/40 favorites, not 90/10. The Lakers could conceivably pull off the upset as is, and they have a huge wild card in Andrew Bynum. Chances are he won't be the same player until next year, but if they could just get him back into the swing of things defensively, that could make all the difference--I sure as hell know Pau Gasol won't be posing any challenges to Lebron on his way to the rim. That could get real ugly.