On The Record

My Q&D NBA Playoffs Picks

Round 1
Lakers over Nuggets 4-0
Jazz over Rockets 4-2
Suns over Spurs 4-3
Hornets over Mavericks 4-3

Celtics over Hawks 4-0
Cavs over Wizards 4-2
Raptors over Magic 4-3
Pistons over Sixers 4-1

Western Conference Semifinals
Lakers over Jazz 4-1
Suns over Hornets 4-3

Eastern Conference Semifinals
Celtics over Cavs 4-1
Pistons over Raptors 4-2

Western Conference Finals
Lakers over Suns 4-2

Eastern Conference Finals
Celtics over Pistons 4-3

NBA Finals
Celtics over Lakers 4-3

I don't necessarily like basketball or baseball or football more than the other, and I love the Yankees, Giants, and Knicks equally. But I root for the NBA as a league, and I don't really do that with the MLB, NHL, NCAAs, or NFL. This season was awesome, which makes me excited about basketball even though the Knicks are the worst team in professional sports history. And the Lakers vs. Celtics would be a fitting way to cap a tremendous year. To see those two teams in an NBA Finals again would be my favorite non-Yankees or Giants sports moment of the last five years or so.

And it's weird, because I'm not a Boston fan by any means, but I appreciate what the Celtics mean to the NBA. They're the Yankees of basketball. They have the tradition, the history. And in the Lakers-Celtics feud, the closest thing any other league in professional sports has to Yankees-Red Sox, I'm rooting for the C's. For some weird reason I can't really explain, while I definitely don't like any of the teams in the Atlantic Division, if the Knicks aren't in the playoffs (and they won't be for some time), I'd like to see the other teams do well. I think it'd be nice to see the Sixers give Pistons a scare, and although the entire region of New England and their scattered fans across America has become insufferably arrogant and overbearing in the last decade, it'd be fun to see the Celtics win #17.

And I hate the Lakers. Probably more than any other team in sports. More than the Red Sox or Cowboys or Duke. And this is entirely because of Kobe Bean Bryant, one of the fifteen greatest NBA players of all time and the one of four basketball players I've ever really hated (Reggie Miller, JJ Reddick, and Greg Paulus being the others). I don't want to see him or them win anything.