Round Two: NBA Play­offs Pre­view

NBA Play­off Guide Round Two

Now that the first round of the NBA play­offs is over. Lets take a look at an early pre­view of the sec­ond round. Only the Utah Jazz and L.A. Clip­pers went to a game seven in their open­ing-round se­ries. That means that teams will be well-rested and ready for a gru­el­ing sec­ond round. Let’s take an in­side look at some of the most an­tic­i­pated se­ries in this years play­offs.

West­ern Con­fer­ence

1) Golden State War­riors vs. 5) Utah Jazz

This should be one of the most in­trigu­ing matchups of the sec­ond round of the NBA play­offs be­cause of the dif­fer­ence in style. Golden State is a smooth, fast-paced team that prefers to shoot three-point­ers. On the other hand, the Utah Jazz are a strong de­fen­sive team that likes to over­power other teams in the paint. The sharp-shoot­ing trio of Klay Thomp­son, Steph Curry and Kevin Du­rant leads the Golden State War­riors. The War­riors’ en­forcer, Dray­mond Green, will play a piv­otal role in this se­ries. The Utah Jazz are a con­fi­dent team af­ter de­feat­ing the Los An­ge­les Clip­pers in the first round. If the Utah Jazz are go­ing to have any chance of win­ning this se­ries, they must dom­i­nate the paint, and Power For­ward Der­rick Fa­vors and Cen­ter Rudy Gob­ert will have to play well if the Jazz are go­ing to win. The Jazz are coached by Quin Sny­der who was the head coach of the Mis­souri Tigers bas­ket­ball team from 1999 to 2006.

Pre­dic­tion: Golden State War­riors win in 5 games.

2) San An­to­nio Spurs vs. 3) Hous­ton Rock­ets

This is go­ing to be one of the best sec­ond-round se­ries of all-time. The Spurs are def­i­nitely the fa­vorites, but Hous­ton looked very im­pres­sive knock­ing the Ok­la­homa City Thun­der out in five games. Both ros­ters are loaded with tal­ent and both teams have in­cred­i­ble coach­ing staffs. Their su­per­star, Kawhi Leonard, leads the Spurs, coached by fu­ture Hall of Famer Gregg Popovich. Leonard is an uber-tal­ented wing who is not only the Spurs best of­fen­sive play­ers, he is also the heart and soul of the de­fense. He will have the dif­fi­cult task of guard­ing James Harden, one of the best scor­ers that the NBA has to of­fer. Harden, who is in the run­ning for the Most Valu­able Player award, is the clear-leader for this in­ex­pe­ri­enced Rock­ets team. Both the Rock­ets and Spurs pre­fer an up-tempo game with lots of three-point shots. This should be a wildly en­ter­tain­ing sec­ond-round match-up.

Pre­dic­tion: Coach Popovich and Kawhi Leonard will prove to be to much for the Rock­ets to han­dle. San An­to­nio Spurs win in seven games.