Eastern Conference

1. Cleveland Cavaliers vs. 8. Chicago Bulls — Chicago wins one game at home behind huge nights from Rose and Noah, but otherwise gives Cleveland little trouble. Cleveland in five.

2. Orlando Magic vs. 7. Charlotte Bobcats – While their defense keeps the games fairly tight, the Bobcats are completely unable to handle Howard while dealing with Orlando’s depth. Orlando in four.

3. Atlanta Hawks vs. 6. Milwaukee Bucks — Milwaukee puts up a better fight than people might expect, but without Bogut their defense is compromised and they fall to the Hawks. Atlanta in six.

4. Boston Celtics vs. 5. Miami Heat – Boston has no answer for Dwyane Wade, who gets to the rim constantly and either scores or gets bailed out by the refs. Miami’s relative youth provides the slight edge in a hard-fought series. Miami in seven.

Western Conference

1. Los Angeles Lakers vs. 8. Oklahoma City Thunder — LA struggles against the youth, speed, and athleticism of the Thunder, and Kobe takes way too many shots trying to outshine Durant, but the defending champs win out with talent, experience, and Phil Jackson being a huge dick in the media. LA in six.

2. Dallas Mavericks vs. 7. San Antonia Spurs – These two teams have battled each other a ton in the past few years with varying results. Tim Duncan has saved himself all year in the hope of throwing together one last set of superstar playoff performances, and that combined with a healthy team for the first time all year is enough. Spurs in seven.

3. Phoenix vs. 6. Portland Trailblazers – Brandon Roy tries to play on his busted knee, but to little avail. Portland, tortured by the injury bug all year, finally succumbs to their wounds against a Phoenix Suns team that may have been playing the best basketball of any team since the all-star break. Phoenix in five.

4. Denver Nuggets vs. 5. Utah Jazz — Kenyon Martin, hobbling around on one leg, is unable to deal with Milsap and Boozer (even hurt) down low, or Okur outside. AK-47 returns for Utah and goes wild. Chauncey Billups takes too many inadvisable shots trying to be the man. Utah in seven.

East

Cleveland (1) vs. Detroit (8) – When your best player is putting up lines like 38p, 8a, 7r without even trying, when that’s just him working in the flow of the offense, you’re going to win a lot of games. Cleveland is going to win a lot of games in these playoffs. When your best player looks like he’s thinking about what team he’ll be playing for next year (Rasheed could not look less interested), you’re not going to win so many. I’ll be surprised if Detroit manages a single win in this series.

Boston (2) vs. Chicago (7) – A startling win even with the Celtics hurting, I have to admit. Anyone who follows the NBA knows that Rose is fantastic, but putting up a 36 and 12 in his first playoff game against the vaunted Celtics D is just ridiculous. KG or no KG, the Celts need to step it up. They can absolutely win one in Chicago … but now they’re in a situation where they not only have to win one away, but they know they can be beaten at home. Scary times for Boston.

Orlando (3) vs. Philly (6) – To echo the sentiments of Barkley and Webber: I don’t care if he can’t shoot free throws for shit, not giving the ball to Dwight Howard for the last five minutes of your games is ridiculous. I feel like Orlando could’ve won that game by just throwing lobs to Howard every possession. Instead they choked

Yep, that’s the stuff. The sweet, sweet taste of the New York Yankees sucking. See, I live in New York, but I spent my formative years in Massachusetts, and those are the years in which sports allegiances are formed (with the exception of college allegiances, but I only pay attention to college sports of any kind when SU men’s basketball is actually doing well in the tournament). As a result, my sports allegiances lie mostly with the New England region of the country, which has made it a pretty amazing decade thus far. Three championships and a fourth SuperBowl appearance for the Patriots, a championship for the Celtics, and two championships for the Red Sox (after an 86 year draught and a curse and blah blah blah, no less).

Now, granted, the Celtics essentially bought their championship, and the Red Sox have the second-highest payroll in baseball so it’s not like they were exactly a team full of scrappy underdogs … but it’s not like that’s uncommon in sports, either. Spending a crapload of money and assembling a power team for a couple of years is actually much more common than putting a team together through a combination of smart drafting, key free-agent signings, and an equal focus on stars and roleplayers, though that’s exactly how the Patriots did it. Also they cheated, but I don’t really care about that, since every team in every sport is doing all kinds of unethical crap in order to win. The Pats got caught, paid the price, and moved on (probably right back to videotaping signals).

I’m not one of those arrogant Boston fan jackasses who thinks we’re entitled to win things. I was actually quite happy to see the Colts win a SuperBowl, and I would love to see Phoenix get over the hump and win an NBA championship. I am aware that I root for “the bad guys” whenever I root for the Patriots, just as most Yankees fans are aware that their team is pretty much uniformly despised by everyone who is not, in fact, a Yankee fan. Winning does that to teams. No one hated the Patriots until they were good. No one cared. The Yankees have been the best overall team in sports for the past 100 years, and that’s why everyone hates them.

Anyway, the point of all this is that as a Boston fan, I take enormous pleasure in seeing the Yankees perform poorly. In fact, largely the only reason I pay any attention whatsoever to baseball during the regular season is to see whether or not the two teams are going to end up in the playoffs or not, and whether the Sox will have to go through them to get to the World Series. This year, it is very much looking like the Yankees will not get in at all, which makes me happy. In some ways, it makes me happier than the fact that the Red Sox probably will make the playoffs, which is a bit odd, but it’s true nonetheless.

Then again … perhaps it’s not a bit odd after all, because if there weren’t a lot of people who take malicious joy in the misfortunates of others then hey, I guess the term schadenfreude wouldn’t exist in the first place.