So one of the better NBA seasons of my lifetime is wrapping and the playoffs are about to begin. And while the East has some juggernauts, the West is filled with question marks as the champs are struggling and I have little-to-no faith in the other top teams (Spurs, Mavs, Thunder). But since the West's playoff seedings are still up for grabs, I'll focus on the East for now. How will it all shake out?

Chicago vs. Indiana: The Pacers are a nice story and might be able to steal a game from the Bulls but Chicago should have a fairly easy time dispatching Indiana.
Winner: Chicago 4 - 0
Miami vs. Philadelphia: If the Heat were matched up against the Knicks, I'd take New York to win the series. This isn't a knock on the Sixers, who are an underrated squad but they simply don't have enough to take down the Superfriends. They might not even take a single game from them.
Winner: Miami 4 - 0
Boston vs. New York: If Shaq and Jermaine O'Neal are healthy, this shouldn't be much of a contest. The bottom line is that the Knicks don't match up well with the Celtics. Honestly, New York can barely matchup with Krstic and Troy Murphy, nevermind the O'Neal's. And while I'm a fan of Chauncey Billups, he's not going to be able to keep Rondo in front of him. If the Celtics can get their game faces on, they should take out the Knicks in 5. If not, it might stretch to 7 games.
Winner: Boston 4 - 1
Orlando vs. Atlanta: I don't know what's been up with the Hawks lately but if they don't figure it out, Atlanta will probably get run off the floor by Orlando and the five people who are at the final game of the series will probably start wondering why they overpaid Joe Johnson and traded the promising Jordan Crawford (along with Mike Bibby) for Kirk Hinrich.
Winner: Orlando 4 - 1

Chicago vs. Orlando: Before the last game between the Bulls and Magic, in which the Bulls barely beat a Howard-less Magic squad, I would have said this series will be over in 5. But with Jo Noah still banged up, Dwight may be able to go off. The Magic also replaced Charmin soft Vince Carter with underrated assassin Jason Richardson and I think he could cause problems and perhaps carry Orlando to one victory all by himself. The problem for Orlando, however, is that I just don't see them having anyone to stop Derrick Rose. Unless Jameer Nelson and Gil Arenas can somehow get him in foul trouble, the likely MVP should put up big numbers in this series.
Winner: Chicago 4 - 2

Miami vs. Boston: First, let me start off by saying that there's no way I can be unbiased in this one. I'm a die hard Celtics fan and I haven't hated a team as much as I hate the Heat since perhaps the Bad Boy Pistons. Still, I think the Celtics should be able to knock off the Heat. If the Celtics can deliver the R&R of Rondo and rebounding, then Miami will be off for a little R&R for the rest of the year. I also have a feeling that when the going gets tough, the Heat are going to get at one another. They struggled with losing in the regular season, it might not be pretty in the playoffs. (Oh, and these first two rounds are why the Perk for Green deal went down. Perk wasn't playing crunch time for the C's anyway and they need someone to throw at 'Melo and 'Bron. I'm not saying that that thinking isn't without it's flaws but one of the reasons that Ainge pulled the trigger is because of this kind of playoff scenario.)
Winner: Boston 4 - 2

Eastern Conference Finals

Chicago vs. Boston: To put it simply, my heart says Boston and my head says... well, I can't really hear what it's saying because my heart is screaming "Celtics!". I'm not a big fan of Rajon Rondo but if there's one situation where his switch will be flipped to On and he'll be going balls out is in the playoffs against Derrick Rose. Also, with a lockout looming, this could be the last we ever see of Shaq and Kevin Garnett and I think they'll be tuned in to new levels. The one thing that scares me about the C's is there lack of a firebrand off the bench. There's no Eddie House or Nate Robinson. Jeff Green's quiet. Delonte West is the wrong kind of crazy. Von Wafer's an ass. It'll be interesting to see if someone can step up and deliver but right now I'm not seeing it. On the bright side, I don't think any of their playoff opponents have anyone either so it'll be the starters vs. the starters and nobody matches up with a healthy, motivated Celtics starting 5.
Winner: Boston 4 - 3