Three Ideal First Round Matches

With less than a week left in the regular season and 15 of the 16 playoff spots taken, it's time to anticipate first-round matchup. Some will be one-sided (Heat-Bucks) and some will be forgettable (any Hawks series), but this year has plenty of potential for delicious first round action. Here are three series that would be ideal from an entertainment standpoint.  

Thunder-Lakers
The Lakers have to get in the playoffs first for this one to even happen, and the Thunder are still not a lock to hold down the top seed out West, but this would be the most watched 1-8 matchup of all-time should it happen. Before the season, we thought this would be a conference final. It's a showdown between Kobe's old guard Lakers and Kevin Durant's ascended Thunder. With all the problems that L.A. has had this year, the Thunder would dread this matchup so early in the playoffs, because this is not your typical eight-seed. Kobe has been going all out trying to carry the Lakers to the playoffs and there's no question that he would bring it to the Thunder in a seven-game series.

Knicks-Celtics
This series is looking more and more like it will for sure happen. The Knicks are rolling right now, winners of 13-straight and Carmelo is firing on all cylinders. Meanwhile, Boston is 4-6 in their last 10 games and has just stayed firmly in that seven slot for a while now. But any talk of momentum can be thrown out for this matchup. Melo has only been out of the first round once and his sidekicks, J.R. Smith and Raymond Felton, are relatively unproven playoff performers. Also, the Knicks are far from healthy at the moment. It's not like Boston is much healthier though. With Rajon Rondo out and Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett never at full strength at this age, the Celtics will rely heavily on Avery Bradley, Brandon Bass and Jeff Green. But these Celtics never make it easy on opposing teams in the playoffs. This series will be a grind and Carmelo better have his team ready to go six or seven games against this experienced bunch.  

Nuggets-Rockets
If the Rockets can move up one spot to the six-seed, this would be the most aesthetically pleasing first round series this year. These are the two highest-scoring teams in the league and team point totals would be regularly around 120 every game. With James Harden leading the Rockets against Andre Iguodala, Kenneth Faried and a very complete Nuggets team, fans of old school NBA defense should not watch. Games for this series should start with a gun instead of a tip because it will be an absolute track meet.