NBA Playoffs Preview: Best of the West

The NBA Western Conference were once the dominant one.

The NBA Western Conference were once the superpowers of the league, especially with the likes of Shaquille O'Neal, (With the Lakers then) Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett taking over when Michael Jordan retired for the third and last time.

Now, with Shaq joining Pat Riley and his new agenda in Miami, the Western Conference lost that dominance over the East.

Nevertheless, the wild West still has the likes of Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki and Carmelo Anthony to carry the conference for an NBA championship.

Of course, there's also this guy wearing no.8 down in Los Angeles.

Now, we will take a look at the playoff match-ups in the Western Conference and we will determine who among them are good enough to get past the first round.

The San Antonio Spurs will be entering the NBA Playoffs as the no.1 seed and a team out to defend their NBA championship. They will face the rejuvenated Sacramento Kings, the no.8 seed in the Western Conference playoffs.

Both the Spurs and the Kings play very similar basketball with Bruce Bowen and Ron Artest defending, hounding and harassing each team's superstar. The only problem for Sac' here is the fact that they don't have anything to match-up with Tim Duncan. Expect the Spurs to end Sacramento's misery in five games.

The Phoenix Suns will be at the no.2 seed as they play the no.7 seed, Los Angeles Lakers.

The Lakers are back in the playoffs. THAT is good news as Kobe Bryant is now turning out to be the mature leader of the group, Lamar Odom becoming another Phil-Jackson-prototype-forward and Kwame Brown showing signs he can play basketball.

Kwame Brown is the x-factor in this series, so to speak, and if he can come up with a big series, the Lakers can take advantage of Amare Stoudemire's absence.

However, the chance of that happening has the same odds of Shaq making his free throws. I'm certainly rooting for L.A., but it will be DAMN HARD.

The no.3 seed belongs to the Denver Nuggets, a team lucky enough to grab the third seed because of this year's dumb NBA ruling in the playoffs.

You see, the Nuggets are not THAT good compared to the top teams in the West. They are just lucky they play in a non-competitive division.

The Nuggets will play no.6 seed, Los Angeles Clippers and as I've said, the Nuggets were just LUCKY to grab no.3.

With that said, they won't have homecourt advantage in this series because the Clippers, even as the no.6 team in the playoffs, do have a better season record.

That's why these Nuggets may probably take an early exit, if George Karl can't come up with something special, fast.

At no.4, we have the Dallas Mavericks.

Despite being probably the second-best team in the West, they dropped to the fourth seed for failing to grab the division title from the defending NBA Champions, San Antonio Spurs.

The Memphis Grizzlies will meet 'em as the no.5 team and man, the Grizzlies do have an uphill battle here.

Pau Gasol ain't Dirk Nowitzki and Mike Miller ain't Jerry Stackhouse.

No contest.

Another thing going for the Mavericks in this match-up is the fact that the Grizzlies tend to play inside more while the Mavericks will burn you virtually EVERYWHERE on the basketball court.

Bodog has the odds on the coming NBA Playoffs. Pick your favorites from the San Antonio Spurs down to the Sacramento Kings. Log on and check out Bodog now.