NBA Playoffs Bracket: Round Two Matchups and Schedules

The second round of the NBA playoffs started without the first round having been completed. It seems that the best team in the league was having a terribly difficult time eliminating the worst team to get into the playoffs. And by the time the Boston Celtics destroyed the Atlanta Hawks in Game 7 of their series by a score of 99 - 65, two second round series had already begun with San Antonio losing heavily to New Orleans and Detroit outmuscling Orlando.

So, how did they get there? It seemed fairly easy for most of the teams. In the Western Conference, arguably the toughest conference with only 7 regular season victories separating the #1 seed from the #8 seed, the Lakers made the Nuggets look like a second-rate college team (no defense) and swept them in four games. New Orleans beat Dallas in five games. San Antonio shocked everyone, including the hapless Suns, by taking them out in a quick five-game series as well. Only Utah took six games to win their series over Houston.

Over in the Eastern Conference bracket, Orlando seemed like the only team having an easy time of it, pushing out the Raptors in five games. Cleveland and Detroit took six games to knock out Washington and Philadelphia, respectively. But it was Boston's shameful perfomance against a team that had won 29 less regular season games than they that really got everyone's attention, especially the Celtics. (Of course, it could be argued that it was Atlanta's exceptional performance that got everyone's attention, but that would be stretching reality further than modern physics allows.)

No matter how you look at it, the top four seeds in both conferences won their series'.