[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.