The first half of the NBA season has been spotty, at best, with a significant drop-off in scoring, some key injuries and lots of funky basketball being played. You’d have to expect that to improve in the second half—there’s just no way teams can continue to score at a 95.0 points-per-game rate and shoot so poorly from the field. Count that as one prediction for the NBA’s second half.
Count these, too:
— Power rankings: Guess who is on top
— SI: The biggest questions of the second half: What's next for the Knicks
1. Your NBA champion will be the Miami Heat. Expect an epic Eastern Conference finals series between the Heat and Bulls, especially if Chicago gets Richard Hamilton back and averaging 13 or 14 points per game. But ultimately, the Heat are too athletic, too deep (yes, deep) and too focused after the disappointment of last year’s Finals flop. They match up well with the Bulls and should be able to withstand Chicago’s frontcourt edge over a seven-game series.
In the West, the Thunder have established themselves as the class of the conference, even with concerns in the frontcourt and on the defensive end. The West playoffs figure to be more wide-open than the East, but Oklahoma City is the most complete team.
Call the weatherman, we’re going to have Heat and Thunder in the Finals, with Miami ultimately taking the title. “We feel like we have come a long way in a year-and-a-half,” Miami’s Chris Bosh said. “I think our focus is in the right place.”
2. Dwight Howard will be in Brooklyn next season. The big question is whether the Nets can put together a deal that offers the Magic enough assets to entice them to do a deal by the March 15 trade deadline. The Nets are trying to pull in other teams to facilitate a trade, because they don’t have many assets themselves.
Another problem is Magic owner Rich DeVos’ belief that he can keep Howard in Orlando when he hits free agency this summer. The smart money is on Orlando finishing out the year with Howard and either dealing him at the draft or orchestrating a sign-and-trade in free agency.
Beware the Lakers and Mavs, for sure, but the Nets have been the favorites all along.
3. The surprise playoff team in the West will be Minnesota. The fact that the Timberwolves were at .500 at the break is a major step up for a team that has been in the doldrums since Kevin Garnett was traded four years ago. Minnesota has talent, with power forward Kevin Love, rookies Ricky Rubio and Derrick Williams, and burgeoning big man Nikola Pekovic, and they finally have a coach who has put it together in Rick Adelman.
They’re just a game out of the eighth playoff spot, and a strong second half seems to be in the offing. “We’ve played well,” Love said. “But the thing is, we know we can play better.”
4. The surprise playoff team in the East will be Indiana. Maybe it should not be a surprise at this point to have the Pacers in the playoff discussion, but we should probably bump up their expectations from playoff team to second-round team. The Pacers are currently third in the Eastern Conference, and are just beginning to really get a hold on Frank Vogel’s offense. They have established themselves as a tough defense-and-rebounding team, and for Chicago or Miami, that probably means a rough-and-tumble semifinal foe.
The Pacers will have room to make more moves this summer, as they try to crack into the elite level that the Bulls and Heat have established in the East.
5. The Clippers will win the Pacific Division. The Clippers have a slight lead over the Lakers, in a race that means much more than the division title—it’s also about the Lakers’ resentment over not getting Chris Paul and the Clippers’ long history of being overshadowed by not only the Lakers, but just about every other athletic organization in Los Angeles.
The Clippers miss guard Chauncey Billups, who is out for the year with an Achilles injury, but the team can make up for it with further improvement by frontcourt mates Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. The Lakers’ early fissures have developed into full-on cracks as they try to decide what to do with trade target Pau Gasol, and as their obvious flaws on the bench and at point guard take their toll.
Neither the Lakers nor the Clippers are particularly deep, but the Clippers have better overall talent, and should hang on to win the Battle for L.A.
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