Can you believe it? Not that we made the playoffs; that much was never really in doubt at all this season. But we're just 2 days away from the start of the real season. The second season. So, with that in mind, here are some PLAYOFF LINKS! YEAH!
(I'm kinda pumped)
Okay. Here we go.
- Ball Don't Lie, the Yahoo! Sports NBA blog, asked me for some insight regarding the upcoming Magic/Raptors playoff series. Check it out here. I picked the Magic to win in 6, while Jeff Wong of The Score picked the Magic to win in 7 due to a questionable whistle, saying "That's the only way they can beat the Raptors, right?"
- And, in case you missed it earlier this week, here's my contribution to Hardwood Paroxysm's Magic playoff preview.
- I also contributed to CelticsBlog's NBA Previews Review, in which bloggers who participated in CelticBlog's season previews reflect on their predictions. Not to pat myself on the back too much, but I hit it right on the head when I wrote that the Magic's strengths would be three-point shooting and rebounding, and that their weaknesses would be leadership and depth.
- Here's ESPN's Magic/Raptors playoff page. 9 of 10 ESPN experts picked the Magic to win, with Marc Stein the lone dissenter.
- Mike From Illinois looks at the Magic's won-lost splits as compared to last season. My favorite part? We were 25-16 at home this year and last year, which means our 12-game improvement came by winning 12 more games on the road than we did last season. Whuh...?!
- If you want to know which TNT broadcasting teams will call which playoff games, Awful Announcing has the list. The Magic/Raptors series has drawn play-by-play man Matt Devlin, color-commentator Mike Dunleavy Senior, and sideline reporter Stephanie Ready. (Thanks, HP.)
Plenty more playoff coverage to come, especially tomorrow, when we migrate to the new SBN platform. You can find our previous playoff coverage in this news post from earlier in the week.