Knicks vs Celtics: the pick of the playoffs

The dog days of the NBA season are finally over, and man, Thursday’s New York Atlanta game was particularly grim from a talent standpoint. You’ll see more star power at your local lawn bowls club.

I’m such a hoop head I could probably tell you the name of the guy handing out water bottles for the Charlotte Bobcats. Hell I’m so hardcore I even wear a Lakers snapback on a regular basis.

The point is, I like to think I know my NBA players. However, I couldn’t name half the guys running around on the Madison Square Garden hardwood on Thursday.

James ‘Flight’ White played 43 minutes.

Who, god bless his NBA logo cotton socks, is Mike Scott?

Shelvin Mack and Earl Barron lodged a crisp 36 minutes each. I tend to avoid anything that heavily involves Shelvin Mack and Earl Barron, just as a general rule.

It was the epitome of the final day of the regular season.

I best move on as I seem to have wasted three paragraphs on one of the least compelling matchups I can remember. (I briefly considered scrapping the rest of the article and hammering out another thousand words about my good buddies Shelvin Mack and Earl Barron. I ended up figured it would just be a shameless attempt at generating page views).

Anyway, now that you’ve got through the dog days of the NBA season and the dog days of my article, let’s talk playoffs.

New York vs Boston

To most people without a dog in the eastern conference playoffs fight, this is the lone interesting series in an otherwise horrendous conference.

Chicago-Brooklyn, Milwaukee-Miami (BYO broom?), Atlanta-Indiana. Let’s just say ESPN and TNT aren’t falling over themselves (or each other, or anyone) to show these games.

These matchups are more likely to be shown on ESPN 8, ‘The Ocho’ from Dodgeball. “If it’s almost a sport, you’ll find it here!”

Despite Rondo missing and the uncertainty surrounding Garnett’s health, this Knicks-Celtics series remains interesting and should be a lot of fun.

There’s the traditional long running rivalry between the two cities, the cereal-themed history between Garnett and Melo and the fact that Paul Pierce has a thing for lighting up the Knicks.

Jeff Green is the darkest of dark horses. He’s quite possibly the darkest horse I’ve ever seen.

If it didn’t sound dirty I’d say he’s not just an X-factor, but a triple-X-factor. The dude is capable of erupting for 35 points one night, and hiding under his invisibility cloak the next.

Last season Garnett verbally abused LeBron to the point where LeBron finally snapped (and snapped the Celtics in the process) with one of the greatest playoff performances of all time.

Carmelo is no LeBron, but the man can score. KG might want to keep that mouth shut. But I might as well tell him to sign with Miami while I’m listing things that will never happen.

Having said that, Garnett is still the defensive anchor inside, while Avery Bradley harasses opponents on the outside.

If Boston have a healthy KG, they have a solid defence. If they have a solid defence, they have a chance.

Look for Paul Pierce to have a couple of big games as he tends to against New York, KG and Bradley to lead a solid Celtics D, Green to have one monster game and then do little else, and Melo and JR smith to overwhelm Boston from the perimeter.

New York have been clicking for much of the season, and their offensive firepower will be too much for Boston.

I’ll take the Knicks in six.