Weekend Round-Up: Kobe, D-Rose vs. Rondo, And What Happened to the Hornets??

Finally! The weather in Atlanta seems stable and today marked my last day of classes as an undergrad - well excited as I'm sure you can imagine. Speaking of, there were no shortages of thrills this weekend in the NBA playoffs.

• Celtics - Bulls: After I tagged it the "Celtics-Hawks series of this year" our boy Bill Simmons put out an article the next day trying to one-up me saying the series was One for the Ages - what a rip off. Anyway, Game 4- instant classic. But despite the U-CONN boys hitting all the big shots, its the two young point guards that intrigue me the most. On one side you have Rajon Rondo - role player type skills but is playing like an ALL-STAR (he's AVERGAING a Triple Double folks!) And on the other hand, there's Derrick Rose who is clearly the most talented young PG in the game not named Chris Paul or Deron Williams, but he sometimes defers too much and resembles a role player. Talk about role reversal - in any event, whatever you do DO NOT MISS Game 5 I warn you.

• Cavs - Pistons: 2 words - HANDLED BUSINESS. Yes the Pistons already booked their plane tickets sometime in mid February, and yes Cleveland is clearly the superior team, but that didn't stop the Cavs from doing what they were supposed to do, and that's a quality of a championship caliber team.
  

• Lakers - Jazz: My friends (such Kobe lovers) were all in my ear of how great a performance Kobe had in the game 4 win (38 pts) but honestly, I expected more from him (45 at least). He didn't have to, so that was a good sign for you Laker fans, but potential trouble looms when looking at Andrew Bynum's decrease in production and minutes. 5 pts, 2.5 rebs in 16 minutes isn't going to help LA win the title. Mark my words.
  

• Hornets - Nuggets Series: Now at least resembles a battle. A ton of physical play in game 3 and the Hornets finally pulled one out even though I SWEAR they tried gift-wrapping it to an addres in the Rocky Mountains. The win however hasn't done much for New Orleans in terms of who wins the series and it certainly doesn't make me stop wondering what happened to the guys from the Big Easy. It's just a year ago when they were the up and coming young team in the league with the best point guard in the game, but now they wouldn't defeat any other team in the Western playoffs brackets. To make things even MORE confusing, CP3 is having an even better season...can the subtraction of Jannero Pargo have meant so much? Or is it Coach Bryon Scott? Wasn't Posey supposed to help? The Injury big perhaps? You tell me...
  

• Hawks - Heat: Not yet set on my prediction for tonight's game, but I'd say this - If Jermaine O'Neal keeps putting up stats (21.5 pts, 8 rebs) like he has over the past 2 games, then the Cavs might lose two games in the 2nd round AT LEAST. I'll be Blogging Live from Phillips Arena at Game 5, so they better not be any more wild animals disfunctions this time around, I don't play that. We out. :-)