The Nuggets have found limited opposition in their two playoff series.

The NBA’s regular season of 1230 games (30 teams playing 82 games each) is certainly long and drawn.  There’s absolutely no argument against that.

If you’re a fan of one particular team, there’s only 82 games that you care about.  If you only like watching the tops dogs go head-to-head, then you probably care about roughly 10-20 games each season.  Either way, that leaves the vast majority of the NBA schedule as a necessary evil in order to get to the good part – the postseason.

But historically, if there’s one good thing to know about the NBA schedule, it is this: the teams with the best regular-season records traditionally fare the best in the playoffs.  How about those 2007 Warriors upending the Mavericks?  Remember the Sonics folding to the pressure and losing to the Nuggets in ’94?  Well, there are always exceptions.  But the bigger theory here is that there is a reason that these moments stick out in your memory.  It’s because throughout the history of the NBA playoffs, these have proven to be anomalies.

So, how is this year’s group of playoff contenders living up to this historical reference?  At the moment, I’d say that we have some mixed results.

First, let’s look at the expected.  The 2009 Eastern Conference playoffs have gone exactly as scripted.  Now, we did witness more drama in the first round than we anticipated with the Bulls (No.7 seed) pushing the Celtics (No.2 seed), and the Magic (No.3 seed) chalking up two games to the Sixers (No.6 seed).  But the Cavs-Pistons and Hawks-Heat series went according to seeding.  in the end, we were left with the top 4 seeds for the conference semifinals – of which the Cavs moved on as expected and the Celtics and Magic are deadlocked.  The end result of the Eastern Conference playoff picture would be what we have been accustomed to.  We’ll either witness a No.1-No.2 match-up or a No.1-No.3 match-up.  Not bad at all.

The Rockets and Lakers are in the midst of a heated battle.

Now for the unexpected – the Western Conference.  The biggest shocker (accordingly to regular-season seeding, that is) would have been the Dallas Mavericks upsetting the San Antonio Spurs in round one.  While a No.6 ousting a No.3 is not earth-moving, it provided an easier than expected path to the conference finals for the No.2 seeded Denver Nuggets.  To put it in perspective, they’ve made it through two rounds without facing a top-4 conference opponent. 

That lies in direct contrast to what the Lakers are going through.  They’re the No.1 seed out west, but their seocnd round opponent Houston is giving them all they can handle.  Although the Rockets were the No.5 seed, it’s actually a fair argument to comfortably present them as one of the top 3 teams in the Western Conference.  With Game 7 coming up Sunday afternoon, the Lakers are hoping that would be the highest consideration that we could give them.

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