The Los Angeles Lakers are into the second round of the NBA Playoffs. The Dallas Mavericks and the Phoenix Suns are not – and L.A. is the reason why.

The Lakers were able to trade assorted parts and draft picks for Pau Gasol. The Mavs (Jason Kidd) and the Suns (Shaquille O’Neal) made blockbuster deals in response, but those moves failed in the short term because the teams gave up too much talent and failed to play cohesive playoff basketball.

Los Angeles is still on an NBA Finals collision course with the rebuilt Boston Celtics, and the way Boston honked two games in Atlanta has to be encouraging for Lakers supporters. At press time, the Celtics were the NBA championship favorites at 7-5; L.A. is second at 9-4.

As they say, anything can happen in a short series, but I prefer the Lakers as a value pick and feel very confident in their chances of winning.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 5:18 pm and is filed under NBA betting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.