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		NBA playoff report By David Zizmor May 4, 2010

	Spurs vs. Suns: This is an interesting match up because it's two veteran teams that got into the playoffs and they make it pretty much every year for the last 15 years. Their key players are veterans and savvy. Steve Nash is the leader of the Suns but he also plays with Amar'e Stoudemire and Grant Hill and a number of really good players. The Spurs have won four titles, they have Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and they have a host of younger guys who are still learning the Spurs system. The thing with the Spurs is they finished seventh in the Western Conference and no one expected them to make a lot of noise in the post season simply because they dragged their way through the regular season. Tim Duncan is in his 13th season and is not quite as quick on his feet as he used to be but he's still a fantastic player but he's not the same guy you saw running around and dominating three or four years ago. He's clearly lost a step, that doesn't mean he's not effective it just means he's not the same guy. The Spurs have had to make adjustments, Tony Parker isn't quite as quick as he used to be, Ginobili has gone through a host of injuries including a broken nose in the first round of the playoffs. The Spurs are kind of an unexpected team to make it to the semi-finals. Low and behold some of the younger guys like DeJuan Blair, George Hill, and even Richard Jefferson who isn't really a young guy but he's new to the Spurs system haven't come over in a off season trade. These guys run along how head coach Greg Poppovich runs this team and how all these other players play off of each other. Jazz-Lakers: Utah their a good team but their missing a couple of key players Andrei Kirilenko is out, Mehmet Okur is out, these two guys are a big part of their team and not having them to defend guys like the Lakers Pau Gosol and LaMar Odom in the post really, really hurts them and the Lakers played a tough series against Oklahoma City and you saw the Thunder come in and take a couple of games from the Lakers. That was kind of a wake up call for L.A. ever since those two games in Oklahoma City the Lakers have been playing much better and they were cruising a little bit and that's the danger with the Lakers they're always a very good team. There is always someone who will question if they could repeat as champions. This is a team that every now and then they take their foot off the pedal and try to coast on their reputation thinking they can intimidate teams just by the virtue of the purple and gold. That's not going to happen in this Western Conference. This Western Conference is very tough and there is a lot of very good teams out there and you can't coast at anytime. I can guarantee you if the Lakers have a game where they start to coast and the Jazz the team without a couple of players who are injured the Jazz can easily shake a game or two from L.A. This should be the Lakers series all the way through. Celtics-Cavaliers: This is an interesting match up only because the Celtics won the title a couple of years ago. The Cavs, everyone thought they should have won it last year then they got upset by the Orlando Magic and now the Cavs are sitting in the playoffs with LaBron James the MVP in the league going against this grizzled Boston team who beat the Cavs in game one to take a 1-0 lead. Boston managed to pull of a surprising win and even the series up at one game apiece taking home court advantage away from the Cavaliers. Again the big story here is LaBron's elbow He tweaked his right elbow at some point during the season and it's been on and again off again as far as how good it feels. At the end of their first round against Chicago LaBron was having trouble with that elbow and it was bothering him visabally and he had to wear a sleeve on it, it was difficult. He said it really doesn't effect his play that he can take contact but you have to wonder mentally how much it's going to impact his game. Knowing that LaBron's elbow can flare up at anytime you have to wonder if he's going to be as aggressive as he's been in the past. Aggressiveness is one of the great parts of his game. He showed he had problems against the Celtics and although he isn't admitting it the elbow is giving him big problems. Magic-Hawks: This is sort of the under the radar series and like most I'm still learning my way around these teams because neither of them are the glamor squads. We know a little bit about Orlando if they made the finals last year. Everybody knows who Dwight Howard is he's the Superman who won the dunk contest a few years back. He's the guy who jumped 12 feet and blocks everything in his sight and rebounds everything in his sight but is not quite the offensive sight you want to see from a center of his caliber. Meanwhile the Magic have some personnel who are pretty good, they have Vince Carter whose been heralded as a star but he's really never accomplished anything. His biggest accomplishment was some great looking slam dunks, he won a dunk contest back in his younger days but he never really came through in the playoffs. He really never did anything during the regular season. He's just kind of known as a great dunker and a good player. Beyond that Carter has kind of bounced around to a couple of different teams and really never led them to anything and he's not really the leader of this Magic team but he's still an integral part. So it's tough to say how much his presence effects the Orlando Magic or how much it even hurts them. On defense Carter is not anything special he's really never been a defensive player at all and on offense he's a hot-cold guy. Either he's really, really red hot or he's really, really ice cold and is still taking bad shots which is terrible. The Hawks in the meantime are this really young up and coming team that have a lot of good young players that not everyone is familiar with. The only guy you might be familiar with is Joe Johnson who used to be on the Phoenix Suns back in the day and it would be great to see him on that team. Johnson is a guy whose averaging 21 points with an average of five rebounds and five assists, he's a really complete player. He's the go to guy. Again are their other guys? Your looking at Marvin Williams he was a guy who was a top five pick but has never really played to those expectations. David Zizmor is covering the NBA Playoffs and the NBA Championship for Sportstalk Radio