My darkhorse pick to make the finals is the Nuggets. When I am not obsessing over the Celtics, the Nuggets are my favorite team to follow.
With Billups they are a different team from all those underacheiving teams that have early exits from the playoffs. This years version actually can play defense and doesn't turn the ball over like crazy.
People on this board seem to bag on Birdman and Nene, but I love how those 2 play. The Nuggets bigs can match up with anyone in the west, the only big that they may not match up with in the West is Yao and the Rockets.
In my opinion the Nuggets made the trade of the year in obtaining Billups. The pressure on Carmelo to score 25 points a game is no longer there, and he is playing some of the best all around basketball since he has been in the league.
My hate for the Lakers may be clouding my judgement, but I think that the Nuggets can take the Lakers.
