Any time there’s a series on with so much riding on it, there’s a lot of opinion to go with it. Picking winners in the NBA playoffs is no exception, but credibility can be in short supply. There’s only so far it can stretch, perhaps. And while they say pride comes before the fall, I won’t take too much notice as I proudly display my scoring over the first two round of playoff picking.

If you missed it first time, there are a bunch of geeks at ESPN.com running a picking situation (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2010/news/story?page=Smackdown-10), giving 5 points for correctly guessing the series winner, and an extra 2 bonus points for correctly guessing the score. I scored 48 out of a possible 56, sitting comfortably atop the list of experts. So what happened in round 2?

I picked the Suns, Lakers and Magic to win their respective series, but only managed to correctly guess the Magic’s sweep of the Hawks. Foolishly I bet against the Celtics but I wasn’t alone, and I learned my lesson: don’t bet against a champion. This left me with 17 out of a possible 28 for the round. Good enough for second best of the round at ESPN and the lead after two rounds. Overall I have a score of 65 out of 84, or 77% success rate. Next best is Hollinger on 59.

Now I’m not saying I know who’s winning it all; I’m just sayin’. Celtics in 6, Lakers in 6.

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While I’m here though, just a couple of thoughts after the first games of the respective conference finals. The Celtics didn’t play well in their opener, but the Magic just played awful. It looked like a situation where the C’s just wanted it more, and perhaps Orlando were ambushed to an extent. If the Celtics defend like that all series, keeping Howard off the block and closing out so effectively on the Magic’s plethora of outside shooters, this one may be shorter than expected. Boston is a hungry and focussed squad right now; they look like they would run through a brick wall if it meant they would get close to winning. I haven’t seen that from Orlando yet. Then again if Jameer Nelson can get going like the second half of game one, the Magic will look like the well-oiled machine they’ve been all year. It all comes down to Nelson.

So Kobe Bryant erupts for 40 points and the Suns all of a sudden lack the defence and toughness. Who knows, maybe they weren’t switched on but they got pretty badly beaten by LA and their bench, specifically Lamar Odom who had 19-19. It’s fair to say that the Lakers’ size and length troubled the Suns’ ball movement and stifled the lane which restricts their effective pick and roll game. That said if I’m the Suns, I’m not disheartened. Looking at the Lakers’ scoring in the post-season, they are happy to get into scoring battles with opponents. This must play into the Suns’ hands at some point, who LOVE to score the basketball. Kobe will get his numbers this series since there isn’t a great defender out there to stop him – still, the Suns have to do a better job of restricting the Lakers’ scoring down low – but the Lakers shot remarkably well last night. They won’t shoot 58% again this series. If the Suns get more production from Steve Nash and their bench, while playing their opponent a bit tougher and more physically defensively, they could find themselves in the box seat. If they steal game two in LA, it’s 1-1 with three of the next four in Phoenix.