One

One love. One heart. One is the loneliest number. One more time. One. It’s not just a number used in classic songs. And no, it’s not the number of people following my blog. It’s the number that tells the story of the first weekend of the NBA playoffs.

One game in the books.

One player put his team on his shoulders and single-handedly upset the defending champs (Chris Paul). If there’s one position the Lakers have trouble defending, it’s the one. That worked once, but it’s going to take more than one guy to beat them in a seven game series.

One game was all it took for Zach Randolph to show the world just how good he really is. One team will probably be paying the number one free agent a lot of money this summer.

One shot that Richard Jefferson just couldn’t make to prevent the number one seed in the West from dropping game one. One player the Spurs can’t afford to go one more game without (Manu Ginobli).

One series the Mavs will win before falling to the first legit contender they run into, as usual.

One player on the Magic that’s doing his job (Dwight Howard), and they’re going to need at least one more to beat the Hawks.

One more game-winning shot for Ray Allen. One more reason to question Carmelo’s ability to finish games.

One more ring is all Shaq wants before he’s ready to hang it up. If he can play for just one minute and make one play, maybe I’ll believe he can help make that happen.

One surprisingly big game for Jermaine O’Neal. The Celtics are going to need at least one O’Neal on the court. Shaquille or Jermaine, either one.

One more role player Miami needs to heat up if they want to hang with Boston and Chicago. I’m not too sure any of their guys are the one to do it.

One more reason Derrick Rose is the MVP as number one pushed the Bulls one game closer to the ultimate goal.

One more year until the Knicks and Thunder are serious championship contenders. The one in the West can do some damage this year, but there’s one team they won’t be able to beat.

One more chance for more than one aging team to win one more title before the next generation takes over. But despite what went down in just one weekend of the NBA playoffs, Kobe, Phil and the Lakers have one more ring in them before they’re ready to let that happen.

Do the Math

For the Lakers, Celtics, Spurs, and to a lesser extent, the Mavs, this could be the last opportunity to make one more run at improving the old trophy case. Don’t get me wrong, they’ll all be good teams next year, but I don’t expect to see any of them in the 2012 NBA Finals. Teams like the Bulls, Heat, Thunder, Knicks and even Clippers have talented youth ready to carry them through the next few years.

But lets put the past and future aside and live in the now. These are the four teams that have a shot at winning it all this year:

Celtics

When the season started, the Celtics were my pick to come out of the East and possibly even win it all. But that all changed when they traded Perkins and began to lose their swagger. The Celtics without Perkins is like the guy from Saw without all of his gadgets: Not nearly as scary!

Sure Perkins wasn’t their best player, but he was certainly their meanest. He was their only guy who could muscle up with the likes of Andrew Bynum and Joakim Noah, who are now two reasons I don’t think the Celtics are the favorite to win the East, let alone the NBA title. Still, as long as they have Pierce, Garnett, Allen and Rondo on the court, you can’t count them out.

Heat

As incredible as LeBron James and Dwayne Wade are, and as mediocre as Chris Bosh is, I struggle to see Miami beating a much deeper, more experienced Boston team with much more chemistry. On the flip side, we haven’t seen them in big playoff games, so it’s hard to put a limit on what LeBron and Wade are capable of when the big moments come.

Those three guys alone will give them a chance, but they aren’t getting help from anyone else. I just don’t think they have enough pieces to hang with the top contenders. They remind me of a restaurant with the best steak in town, but the appetizers are crappy and the wine list is weak. Everyone wants to go there, so its crowded and there's a two hour wait, not to mention the service sucks. At the end of the day, is the steak really worth it?

Bulls

Coming into the season, the Bulls were the overlooked team in the East, with a rising megastar in Derrick Rose and the addition of Carlos Boozer to pair up with Joakim Noah and make quite possibly the best frontcourt duo in the NBA. Despite Boozer missing the beginning of the year, then Noah missing the middle of the year, the Bulls record remained among the best in the league for the core of the season.

The Bulls have the chemistry of a team that’s been together for years, but the fresh legs and intensity of the young players they are. They can match up player-for-player with any team in the NBA and the other teams in the East just cant handle their size and still slow down Rose. I didn’t think I’d be saying this before the season started, but I expect to see the Bulls in the Finals and I wouldn’t be shocked if they won the whole damn thing.

Lakers

The Lakers are the most over-scrutinized team in sports, especially if you live in Los Angeles. Every time they lose three in a row, they’re too old, they don’t care anymore and they need to trade the whole team (or at least Ron Artest). Then when they win five in a row they’re clearly the best team in NBA on their road to another easy championship and every player on the team deserves a trophy outside of Staples (except for Ron Artest).

Regardless what NBA media and fans have said about the Lakers, I still see the same team that won last year with a much improved and matured Andrew Bynum. It does seem like they’ve needed to push all their chips in for one last run and it certainly could be their last, but I still cant help but consider them the favorite to win it all this year.

Final Seconds

No one in the West can beat the Lakers. Oklahoma City is another year away and we’ve seen what happens when the Lakers play the Spurs in the playoffs. The Spurs kept their big three healthy for the first time in years, only to lose Ginobli with an elbow injury once the playoffs start. Same story, too old, too injured, and they just don’t have the gusto to beat the league’s best in the playoffs anymore.

As for the East, the Heat would have a better chance at beating the Bulls than the Celtics because the intimidation factor they might still hold over a young Bulls team just wont exist against the Celtics. That said, the Heat won’t get to play the Bulls, because they won’t beat the Celtics and I don’t think the Celtics can beat the Bulls (make sense?). The Bulls are a younger, more athletic version of the Celtics, and without Perkins, Boston has no one to match the nasty of Joakim Noah (and that’s a whole lot of nasty).

NBA Finals: Lakers over Bulls