Yep… I did it! I took a month long vacation, went halfway across the world to Dubai, attended a wedding, partied and spent time with the family. All that was exhausting so I flew back to join my sister for a week in the Bahamas. Now that most of you are hating on me and the others are green with envy, lemme tell you 15 hour flights and 10 hour time differences are no joke. I feel like 2 weeks of the past month have been spent dealing with jet lag!

While away, I managed to catch all of 1 playoff game on TV and so lets just rewind to the first round with a quick recap done in haiku’s

That aforementioned jet lag interfered in my getting this post up before the 2nd round started. I made my predictions earlier and will go with them even though some of my picks look like long shots after watching game 1′s from all the series.
Cavs-Hawks: The Cav’s got 9 full days of rest between series and some may have thought they will come out sluggish. That was not the case as coming in on the heels of winning the MVP trophy Lebron James picked up where he left off as the Cav’s destroyed the Hawks in game 1. I don’t see this opponent as being much of a threat to the Cav’s and though the Hawks will probably pull one home game out I say this one will be done in 5 giving the Cav’s more time to rest up and heal up.
Celtic’s-Magic: The Magic had some tough breaks in the 1st round losing Courtney Lee and then Dwight to a 1 game suspension but otherwise came out well considering the way they had ended the season. The C’s had to dig deep just to escape the first round and looking at the match ups I don’t see them having an answer for both Hedo and Shard at the same time. They have had to adopt an offensive mentality since the loss of KG and I don’t see them beating the Magic in a 7 game series with that strategy. I call the Magic in 6
Lakers-Rockets: Kobe Bryant wants another crack at it and he has a full supporting cast to get him to the finals. Standing in the way are the Tmac-less Rockets who advanced to the 2nd round for the first time since the Yao Ming/TMac era began. The Rockets are playing well and have gotten excellent contributions from Sophmore Guard Brooks and veteran Ron Artest but this is not their year. The Lakers have had a phenomenal year and though the Rockets should prove a tough opponent, the Lakers should be able to take the series in 6.
Nuggets-Mav’s: Carmelo Anthony has done it! He was quickly falling into the T-Mac category of guys who never made it out of the 1st round but this year is different. Nene is playing out of his mind and for the first time in a long time the Nuggets are all healthy not to mention they have Mr. Bigshot on their side now. The Mav’s looked good in the first round playing the shorthanded Spurs but are probably too old and too slow for Denver. Dirk needs a better supporting cast so for now I say Nuggets in 6

That should get us back to speed… returning tomorrow will be my number crunching post and I begin recapping the 2008-09 season. LETS GO!!!