Quote:
Originally Posted by dalger
The first round in the western conference was as competitive as it was expected to be. The reason why things changed in the second round is due to the underachievement of the Mavs and the Nuggets. Prior to George Karl's unfortunate health issues, the Nuggets were destined to give the Lakers a very hard time and I thought they might actually be able to beat the Lakers under the right circumstances. Instead, they imploded and couldn't even overcome an injury-ridden Utah Jazz. LA then went on to have a fairly easy time with Utah which was to be expected. The Mavs weren't at their best against the Spurs and allowed them to advance. As we could see against the Suns, the Spurs were indeed just a No. 7 seed and never actually peaked as some people thought. As a result, Phoenix didn't have any trouble beating them. I'm not sure we would have defeated the Suns, but there's no way a healthy team effort by the Mavs would have ended in a 4-0 sweep by the Suns. Sadly, we didn't even make it this far. It could have been rather easy this time.
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I will agree with this. When upsets happen, the next round is usually less competitive. In this case, there were 2. Yes Denver and Utah were a 4/5 so no real upset there but I still can not believe Denver lost that series especially with homecourt and Utah having 2 of its best players injured. You knew when they won that they would get crushed by LA.
Same as Dallas/SA. Dallas would not have got swept by Phx. Would have been much more competitive than it was.
It reminds me of the NCAA tourney. A lot of the times, the upsets are cool but it makes the later rounds easier for the higher seeds.
I think things will kick into high gear with the conference finals, though. I'll be rooting for Orlando/Phoenix to be in the Finals just to piss off Stern. But I'm sure he will not let that happen.