NBA Playoffs Approaching

The National Basketball Association has finally reached the end of its long 82-game regular season and is now ready for the playoffs. Although there are some surprise teams that made it this year (Toronto, Charlotte, and Washington), the great majority of this year's 16-team field are experienced in the post-season.  This is all in spite of the supposed parity in the league that would provide the best of the new entering talent in the annual draft to the teams at the bottom.  Instead, though, we have the same teams year after year fighting it out for supremacy.  So ancient San Antonio walks away with the best overall record and Oklahoma City is right on their heels in the Western Conference.  The familiar faces of Houston, Los Angeles (Clippers), Portland, Golden State, Dallas, and Memphis round out the field there and promise some pretty competitive series in the weeks to come.  The Eastern Conference had been dominated by Indiana and two-time defending champion Miami, but each has floundered in the closing weeks and don't seem much better than the rest of the field...especially teams like Brooklyn, Chicago, and aforementioned Toronto. And Atlanta somehow managed to avoid missing the playoffs with a late-season surge, in spite of their momentous mid-season slump and overall losing record.  But I expect both the Pacers and the Heat to pick things up and keep advancing toward a repeat showdown with each other.  I'm looking forward to all the playoff action...

As for the teams I'm rooting for the most, I'd like to see Miami and Brooklyn do well in the East and San Antonio and Memphis succeed in the West.  I think a Heat-Spurs repeat finals would be perfect...