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		NBA Playoffs Report By David Zizmor May 13, 2009

	Orlando-Cleveland series Eastern Conference Final: The series that the Magic had against the Boston Celtics was an interesting series but Orlando managed to knock them off in seven games and it preempted that the Celts Kevin Garnett was not available for the series due to an injury, the Celts also were without Leon Powe your former Cal Golden Bear. The Celts were a bit short handed although Garnett was not their best player but he is one of the team's three best players Paul Pierce and Ray Allen being the other two. Without Garnett in the middle that was a big disadvantage for the Celtics. Yet they were able to push Orlando to seven games so that tells you that the Celtics were really playing hard. Orlando is good but it's doubtful that their great. They come up against a Cleveland team that has rolled right on through the playoffs and this will be a very interesting series. Cleveland for their part their 8-0 in the playoffs thus far, they just walloped Atlanta in the second round, they ran through the first round and none of these games have been close. The lowest point differential was ten points in any of the contests. So Cleveland has yet to let a game get into single digits as far a final score difference is concerned. The Cavs are on a roll here, they're on a mission. LaBron James has been playing out of his mind and he's clearly the best player in the playoffs, he already won the MVP award for the regular season and he's doing his best to capture the playoffs MVP. LaBron has been just fantastic and is the best thing the Cavs have going for them because they have been winning all their playoff games by so many points they haven't really had to get all that worn out here in the post season. That's one of the things the Celtics had going against them number one the Celts are kind of an old team to begin with, they play so many close games, and so many games that went into overtime and then they played seven games in both the first and second rounds they just kind of worn themselves out. TV wise the networks would have loved to have had the Cavs-Celtics Eastern Conference Finals match up but with Orlando it's a wonder if they can get that kind of series that the traditional Celtics would bring. If the Magic can beat the Cavs in a game or two that should shoot the ratings up out of curiosity that a team that can beat LaBron and the Cavs. Lakers lead Nuggets 1-0 West Conf Finals: The Nuggets tried to make a game of it on Tuesday night at Staples tying game one up at 99 a piece but Kobe and the Lakers just had a little more on the offense and had the ball back more often and got a 105-103 win over the Nuggets for a 1-0 series lead in a squeaker. For the series on paper the Lakers should win this series going away but anyone whose been watching the Lakers in the previous rounds and in the game likewise knows that this isn't a consistent team. Night in and night out they've been really tough to figure out which team is going to show up. The dominating Laker team or the lazy Laker team and if the lazy team shows up on any given night the Nuggets are going to win. The lazy Lakers they can't pull it off and we saw it in this series against Houston. The Rockets were not anywhere near the Lakers class in terms of overall talent and less so once Yao Ming got hurt in game three. The Lakers were playing a team that has two guys down Tracy McGrady and Yao and the Lakers still couldn't put them away until game seven. That is the problem the Lakers are having they decided they can win by just showing up and when they do that they end up losing and they almost never win in that scenario. Kobe Bryant is almost always the best player on the floor, the have Pau Gasol a great second fiddle, LaMar Odom is playing great ball too through the playoffs, nevertheless the Lakers have real discouraging bouts with laziness and there was another example of it on Tuesday night when they had to battle back late to win game one against Denver. The Lakers just show up and they don't play well and anybody in the playoffs can beat this team. They're just not that good and the other problem the Lakers have. Their not quite as deep as you can imagine. Kobe and Odom are a great front three and Trevor Ariza hasn't been bad but Derek Fisher is not a great guy in the back court these days. Jordan Farmar has been dinged up he hasn't played every night, Sasha Vujacic is not a threat on offense at all so even if he gets 15 minutes a night in the back court he's not a big impact on the offense. So the Lakers and Nuggets match up for game two on Thursday night at Staples for a 6PM tip in downtown L.A. David Zizmor covers the NBA Conference Finals each week for Sportstalk Radio