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PLAYOFFS
Randy Wittman

Maybe the NBA's Eastern Conference isn't so bad

Jeff Zillgitt
USA TODAY Sports
The Wizards, with center Marcin Gortat, right, have been the early surprise of the playoffs.

Eastern Conference, can you find it in your collective heart to forgive?

You were mocked early in the season — with justification — for your poor play. You were called the "Leastern" Conference, and He Who Shall Not Be Named (this author) suggested the Indiana Pacers and Miami Heat play a best-of-21 series to determine the East's representative in the NBA Finals.

Five days into the NBA postseason, the East's playoff teams have begun to alter the image of the conference as incompetent after Miami and Indiana. The East's metamorphosis began in January, but its revival now is on full display.

Who's smirking now? The Washington Wizards are up 2-0 against the Chicago Bulls in their first-round series. The Toronto Raptors are tied 1-all with the Brooklyn Nets, and the eighth-seeded Atlanta Hawks tied 1-1 with the top-seeded Pacers.

The Charlotte Bobcats aren't likely to pull of the huge upset against the Heat, but the trajectory of the Bobcats, Hawks, Wizards and Raptors is rising. If the future is not now for all or some of those teams, it's close. All four teams have a young core with some veterans and future cap space. They need to work to retain and recruit players, but there's enough promise to maintain momentum.

Wizards coach Randy Wittman will be flabbergasted at this idea this early in the playoffs, but the Wizards are a team capable of reaching the East finals. With the Wizards up 2-0 and either Atlanta or Indiana in the second round, Washington playing in the conference finals doesn't sound so unreasonable.

"This team is loaded," TNT analyst Charles Barkley said. "They are good at every position. … They won the first game and their guards didn't play well. I don't know if they have enough experience to go deep in the playoffs, but they are going to win this series. … Whoever plays that team in the second round is going to have their hands full. This team is deep, and they have veteran leadership."

Fellow TNT analyst Steve Kerr added, "What's fairly obvious is that Washington is a much more talented team. They are faster, more skilled and shoot the ball better."

Barkley said he thinks the Raptors will win their series against the Nets, and while the Pacers still are favored to beat the Hawks, coach Mike Budenholzer's philosophy has taken hold in Atlanta. He has a strong supporter in Hawks general manager Danny Ferry, and TNT's Chris Webber likes what he sees.

"Their chemistry offensively is great," Webber said. "They know where each other is going to be and they have two or three options on each play."

Not only are teams emerging, young stars are getting their first chance to light up the postseason: John Wall and Bradley Beal for the Wizards; DeMar DeRozan and Jonas Valanciunas for the Raptors; Kemba Walker for the Bobcats; Jeff Teague for the Hawks.

Wall and Beal are turning into the best starting backcourt in the league, and even Chicago's top-notch defense has had trouble limiting what they do.

DeRozan announced his playoff arrival with 17 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter of Toronto's Game 2 victory, and Valanciunas compiled monster double-doubles in his first two career playoff games. Teague has been difficult for the Pacers to defend, and if Walker had a healthy Al Jefferson, the Bobcats' effective inside-outside combo would have a better chance of sneaking a victory or two against Miami.

The "Beastern" Conference? That's a bit premature, and the East is not as deep as the West, top to bottom. But it's not the laughingstock it was earlier in the season, and the playoffs in the East are far more compelling and unpredictable than expected.

One month into the season, the Pacers and Heat were the only teams with winning records, while 10 teams in the West were above .500.

The East's performance for such a long stretch of the season was so odious that it prompted discussions of taking another look at how playoff seeds are awarded. It's been suggested the top 16 teams regardless of conference should make the playoffs.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the competition committee will look at playoff seeds. But "the league is doing so well right now, I just want to be very deliberate and cautious about any major changes like that," Silver said while noting that no league governors were advocating for a major change at last week's meeting.

East teams were slow get going, but they arrived just in time. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra isn't surprised at all. He understood early in the season that young teams and teams with new players take time to develop.

He was right; many were wrong.

Eastern Conference, apology accepted?

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