Firstly, a bit of blowing of ones own trumpet –how good are my predictions from last week looking? Very good – for the record I picked the Pacers, Nets, Thunder and Spurs.

The second round is now well and truly underway, and whilst it hasn’t quite delivered the dizzying highs of the first round, it still raises several points of discussion. Three out of the four series are very much hanging in the balance (sorry Blazers fans) so it would be a bit premature to try and write a preview of the conference finals.  Instead, I’ll present a few thoughts about the second round thus far.

Good Week: Kevin Durant do what Kevin Durant does. There may be plenty of question marks about the play of his teammate Russell Westbrook , but KD has scored more every game this round - 25, 32, 36 and 40.

Bad Week: Damien Lillard. Not quite hero to zero, but he’s certainly come back down to earth after that series-winner against the Rockets – at a time when his Blazers need him to be lights-out, he’s shooting a combined 1-13 on threes. Ouch.

Indiana Comes Alive 

The Pacers finally seem to have woken up from their half-season long coma, and I think this can be attributed to two things on the Pacers end. First, the minutes played by the bench. Let’s take a look at the combined minutes and points of the Pacers bench through the first 4 games…

Game 1: 74 minutes and 33 points – Pacers lose.

Game 2: 51 minutes and 12 points – Pacers win.

Game 3: 65 minutes and 18 points (but really 11 points, because Scola got 7 garbage points in the last 90s of play) – Pacers win in a blowout.

Game 4: 33 minutes and 2 points – Pacers win.

As you can see, the Pacers are doing well when their bench isn’t asked to contribute much – although they do have a couple of potentially nice pieces off the bench, they just aren’t getting it done. This works well with their preferred pace of play, as they seem to be most at home when they’re scoring in the 80s or very low 90s rather than teams like the Thunder who like to get up into triple digits. As the starters have finally started to resemble a championship-calibre squad, coach Vogel is able to lean on them more and not try and force offense out of guys like CJ Watson. It’s pretty clear that if the Pacers are to continue this hot streak they’ll have to keep running the starters heavy minutes, particularly Paul George - Evan Turner may be a former #2 pick, but he certainly isn’t living up to the associated expectations.

Secondly, Roy Hibbert is back after it looked like he’d suffered a Space Jam style talent theft against the Hawks. He’s finally actually getting both rebounds and points, and he seems to have his mojo back – maybe being 3-0 since cutting Bynum isn’t such a coincidence after all. The bigs over at the Heat must be hoping that this resurgence is very temporary.

Brooklyn Blues

I don’t know what’s in the water in Miami other than countless gorgeous women, but it must be something funky because 2 of the Nets biggest names all but disappeared in the two South Beach games. Kevin Garnett in game 1 and Deron Williams in game 2 scored a combined 0 points (for reference, they’re earning a combined $30 million this year), which is really not ideal when facing a juggernaut like Miami. This leads me on to my second point – how great is Mirza Teletovic? If you don’t know him, here is a quote that lends some background:

"I used to wake up at six o'clock in the morning and go to the basketball court. I wouldn't come home until 11 or 12 o'clock at night. When you don't know the situation at that time. You don't even have shoes. The basketball court is like 300 meters from my house. And all my friends and me are playing and then you hear the sirens like the grenades start falling down and just run to your house and hide. If I have to die, I die. For basketball, I will do anything.”

That is serious dedication, so I’m stoked to see him raining 3s against the Heat.

Thunder 

For all the talent that the Thunder is laden down with (especially the great Steven Adams of course), their offensive sets are often amazingly lackluster, consisting of running the shot clock down to about 8 seconds before actually doing anything. Anyone who knows basketball (and probably most people who don’t) will know that only having 8 seconds to create a good look is not the easiest thing to do, and it inevitably leads to forced, often inefficient shots. It’s this kind of stagnant offense that failed to get Kevin Durant (nearly 7 foot) scoring on Chris Paul (barely 6 foot), and I get the feeling that Scott Brooks’ coaching position is nearly entirely reliant on the fact he’s got 2 of the top 10-15 players in the league on his squad. At one end of the terrible coach spectrum we have Mike D’Antoni and his 7 seconds or less offense, and at the other we now have Scott Brooks and his don’t do anything until there’s 7 seconds left offense.

Clippers 

If the Clippers are going to beat the Thunder – which is a very real possibility – then it will most likely be because of their bench production. So far the Clippers have been able to rely on either Darren Collison or Jamal Crawford for bench impact (as well as guys like Big Baby to a lesser extent), whereas outside of the hot and cold Reggie Jackson the Thunder really have nothing much to bring on in their second unit (sorry Funaki…). The Clippers also have a more balanced starting 5, so if Durant has an off-night then the Thunder could be put in a very bad spot, particularly if Westbrook continues his average shooting ways. Having 5 guys who can easily put up 15-20 points if given enough shots (Griffin, Redick, Paul, Crawford, Collison) is always going to make life a lot easier than only having 2.5  (Durant, Westbrook and kiiiind of Reggie Jackson sometimes).

Spurs/Blazers 

This is turning out to be the surprise of the round for me. I was anticipating a battle of experience vs. youth, of the old hands taking on the young guns… and, well, instead I got this embarrassingly one-sided affair. It’s clear that these two teams are simply on different levels, with Tony Parker running rampant and the Spurs getting wide open looks, and the Blazers looking like an under 16s side that’s been placed in a mens league. I don’t know whether it’s the inexperience of Portland or whether the Mavericks were better matched against this side, but at this point I’d be surprised if it wasn’t a sweep, or went to 5 at the absolute most. Plus, finally, is there a guy in the NBA who makes more “wtf” plays than Boris Diaw? He’s short, fat, unathletic… but somehow makes outrageously good plays and scores in ways you’d think impossible for a man of his limited physical attributes. Definitely keep an eye out for him a watch next time the Spurs are on ESPN.