NBA WCF quickie

Hey everyone.

I've been really busy the past few days. I was out of town for a wedding from early Friday morning until late Sunday evening and didn't have access to the Internet. I'd do it all over again, too. The wedding weekend was wild and I caught up with some good people.

Monday was a recovery day, and compiled with work, I didn't get a chance to blog. I'm really busy today at work and just got some big-time information that'll make a damn good story tomorrow. Before I get into working on it, I just wanted to post my NBA Western Conference Finals prediction.

I wanted to do a post with analysis and support of my prediction but I'm not sure I'll get to it by the the 9 p.m. ET tip. If I can, then I will. In the meantime, here's my prediction:

Lakers in 7. This is will be a great series.

I know L.A. swept this series last season but this is a much improved Nuggets team. I think we all know that. The trade for Chauncey Billups was huge, Carmelo Anthony has accepted a lesser scoring role (but he's still lighting it up), JR Smith has bettered his shot selection and the addition of Dante Jones as a defensive stopper has been important. The front court of Nene and Kenyon Martin are healthy and Birdman is awesome on help defense.

So what's with all this Nuggets talk after I pick L.A.?

Here's why I'm taking the Lakers. We know what to expect from Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol (most of the time), Lamar Odom and Derek Fisher. They can score and they've got the veteran presence. The X factor is Andrew Bynum, who it seems is rounding back physical and, more importantly, mental shape. If he's on for 16-18 and 8-10 every night then L.A.'s got this. But if he struggles like he did at times against Houston, then a Denver team in the NBA Finals would not surprise me.