After waiting for 12 years, the second round finally get the invitation to meet the Rockets that it has been missing for long. However, no one has ever thought of the Nuggets who also had been snubbed by the second round for a longer time even.
Since the draft of Carmelo Anthony, the Nuggets have always been considered a guest in the playoffs who often refuse to stay long enough for dinner. Usually Nuggets don't play more than 6 games before finishing their visit crisply, especially in the playoffs of last season where they got swept by the Lakers in the first round.
For most of the players in sky&white, it is the first time to perform in the second round, which is quite similar to the Houston Rockets. The Houton Rockets realized their dream of second round in this season, but their sweet dream will turn nightmare before long, as their opponent in the second round is the Lakers team that dominated the west in this regular season.
Regular season games are absolutely different matches than those battles in post season, but they are still enough to show the dominance of the Lakers team. In arguably the most powerful team in the west is just the Lakers, out of which no other team has a convincing record in the regular season.
Although the Nuggets finished the regular season as the 2nd seed in the west, their record wasn't much more brilliant than the that of Jazz who were the 8th seed. Other than home court advantage, a better record doesn't bring anything to the post season, and it didn't help the Spurs or the Blazers survive the first round.
Since before the trade deadline, it has already been well known that the Hornets are suffering disharmony. The most-paid player contributes little to his team, and the cornerstone in defense nearly got traded just because of financial issues... Undoubtedly all those things had very bad influnces on that team. At some point, it was the disunion that beat themselves 1-4 but not the Nuggets.
The Spurs have been perching in the range of le contenders since they drafted Tim Duncan in the summer of 97, but they had come across variety of unprecedented difficulties in this season. Tony Longoria played beyond our expectations at the beginning of the regular season but that didn't last long before he got injuried. To keep pace with other teams, Pop was forced to overuse Manu, which lead to Manu's absense for the playoffs, and Tim Duncan's injury should also be partially attributed to the lack of rest, without which Tim Duncan would have done a better job in the first round against Mavs and made this series a little bit longer.
Even so, the Spurs still was a great game in the playoffs of this season that can easily blow out some fake contenders like Hornets and Jazz. The only two teams that the Spurs have trouble dealing with are just the Lakers and Mavs, unfortunately the Spurs went head-to-head with the Mavs in the first round. Even though these two teams deserved a bigger platform like WCF or even the finals, this series could only generated one team to the second round. Heroically, the Spurs left this season for an early vacation.
A first round exit is a big shame for Spurs definitely, but the Spurs have won 4 rings in the past 10 years, with which they should feel satisfied enough. In fact this season is satisfying for almost every team in the western conference. Two teams realized their dreams of the second round, so the result of the second round won't be too big deal for them. Besides, the Lakers and Mavs are the best two teams in the west, it's not a shame to lose either of them. I think the Nuggets and Rockets will also have a happy holiday as well, especially when they sit in front of TV watching the WCF played between Mavs and Lakers.
Mavs in 6
Believe.
lol@ "often refuse to stay long enough for dinner"
as lame as that logo is, i think it is much better than the new Mavs logo.
the new logo reminds me of when the Pistons went to that gay ass horse logo.
i like the old Spurs uniform, the ones that Gervin wore. I wish we would wear those every now and again. It would be cool if we would wear our throwback road uniforms (but not the short shorts) during the rodeo road trip. It would also be nice to see our throwback home jerseys whenever we had Sunday home games.
yea...Nuggets in 5
If the Mavs are still alive by game 6 I'll give them a chance, but only because they'll be used to staving off elimination by then.
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