Denver and Golden State tip off on Saturday (Getty Images)

After a long regular season full of snaps and strains, travails and terrors and 715,973 canned arena demands that “ev-ry-bo-dy clap yo hands,” the NBA’s postseason is set to tip off this weekend. With that in place, the minds behind Ball Don’t Lie are going to preview each first-round series, with Kelly Dwyer going against character for a more genial take, Dan Devine bringing his inimitable mixture of both order and bedlam, along with Eric Freeman’s legendary look inside the reputations of some of the series’ key fixtures.

We continue with the Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors.

Which team do you think will win the series, and in how many games? Vote here to let us know what you think.

Oklahoma City and Houston tip off on Sunday (Getty Images)

After a long regular season full of snaps and strains, travails and terrors and 715,973 canned arena demands that “ev-ry-bo-dy clap yo hands,” the NBA’s postseason is set to tip off this weekend. With that in place, the minds behind Ball Don’t Lie are going to preview each first-round series, with Kelly Dwyer going against character for a more genial take, Dan Devine bringing his inimitable mixture of both order and bedlam, along with Eric Freeman’s legendary look inside the reputations of some of the series’ key fixtures.

We continue with the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets.

Which team do you think will win the series, and in how many games? Vote here to let us know what you think.

The Nets and Bulls tip off on Saturday (Getty Images)

After a long regular season full of snaps and strains, travails and terrors and 715,973 canned arena demands that “ev-ry-bo-dy clap yo hands,” the NBA’s postseason is set to tip off this weekend. With that in place, the minds behind Ball Don’t Lie are going to preview each first-round series, with Kelly Dwyer going against character for a more genial take, Dan Devine bringing his inimitable mixture of both order and bedlam, along with Eric Freeman’s legendary look inside the reputations of some of the series’ key fixtures.

We move along, this time with the Brooklyn Nets and Chicago Bulls.

Which team do you think will win the series, and in how many games? Vote here to let us know what you think.

New York and Boston tip off on Saturday afternoon (Getty Images)

After a long regular season full of snaps and strains, travails and terrors and 715,973 canned arena demands that “ev-ry-bo-dy clap yo hands,” the NBA’s postseason is set to tip off this weekend. With that in place, the minds behind Ball Don’t Lie are going to preview each first-round series, with Kelly Dwyer going against character for a more genial take, Dan Devine bringing his inimitable mixture of both order and bedlam, along with Eric Freeman’s legendary look inside the reputations of some of the series’ key fixtures.

We continue with the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics.

Which team do you think will win the series, and in how many games? Vote here to let us know what you think.

Lawrence Frank draws up a winner (Getty Images)

In a move that seemed more and more inevitable as another miserable Detroit Pistons season droned on, Lawrence Frank was fired as Pistons coach on Thursday. The former Nets head man had compiled a 29-53 record in his final season with Detroit, and a 54-94 mark overall. No immediate replacement was named, and by all accounts longtime Pistons GM will be given the go-ahead to seek out his seventh (!) head coach since taking the reins of the Detroit front office in full during the summer of 2001.

In Frank’s defense, Dumars did hand him a mish-mash of a roster for both 2011-12 and 2012-13. Dumars wrongly assumed that his batch of homegrown talent mixed with the arrivals of free agents Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva would push the Pistons back into contention back in 2009, and the series of quick-fix veteran additions Dumars chased following that misstep hardly helped. By 2011, the Pistons were clearly rebuilding around talented scoring forward Greg Monroe, but because of the hangover of both an ownership change and salary cap frustrations, Frank never really had even a mediocre outfit to work with.

[Also: Byron Scott is out as coach of the Cavaliers]

Indiana and Atlanta tip off on Sunday (Getty Images)

After a long regular season full of snaps and strains, travails and terrors and 715,973 canned arena demands that “ev-ry-bo-dy clap yo hands,” the NBA’s postseason is set to tip off this weekend. With that in place, the minds behind Ball Don’t Lie are going to preview each first-round series, with Kelly Dwyer going against character for a more genial take, Dan Devine bringing his inimitable mixture of both order and bedlam, along with Eric Freeman’s legendary look inside the reputations of some of the series’ key fixtures.

We start with the Indiana Pacers and Atlanta Hawks.

Which team do you think will win the series, and in how many games? Vote here to let us know what you think.

Byron Scott turned in a 64-166 record as Cavalier coach (Getty Images)

Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon-Journal was the first to report that Byron Scott is out as Cleveland Cavaliers coach, after two years of minimal growth behind All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving and three seasons in total. The move comes on the heels of a disappointing 24-win campaign in Cleveland.

Scott was brought into Cleveland right before the Cavs made a massive misstep during the 2010 offseason. Following LeBron James’ insipid ‘Decision’ charade, the team countered with a hastily-written rant from team owner Dan Gilbert that promised a title in Cleveland prior to LeBron’s first in Miami, harmless enough stuff, but then the squad countered James’ absence by … doing absolutely nothing. The Cavs acted as if a LeBron-less squad was good enough to do damage in the NBA, and a 19-win season in Scott’s first year as coach was the answer.

Doug Collins and Byron Scott talk up how wrong everyone else is (Getty Images)

As expected, Doug Collins has walked away from his job as Philadelphia 76er coach. He admitted on Thursday that he had been planning to step down from his gig since before the midway part of the 2012-13 season, and Collins said that no mixture of success, health, and on-court appearances from Andrew Bynum would have swayed him into sticking.

Again, this is the guy that the Philadelphia 76ers hired in 2010. This is the man they expected to stay beyond his typical three years, and this is the coach they gave a contract extension to through 2013-14. Collins will remain with Philadelphia as an “advisor” so as to make up for some of the coaching money he’d still like to cash in on next year, but it remains to be seen what role he’ll have in the team’s front office. His influence during last year’s offseason did not test out all that well.

Why the 76ers though Collins’ typical pattern – out after three years as Chicago Bulls coach, disengaged and fired after two and a half years as Detroit Pistons coach, out after three years as Washington Wizards coach – would break this time around is beyond us. We can understand Collins talking himself into that fourth year, just months before basically giving up on his team midway through his third year, but the organization needed to be the smartest voice in the room and understand how these things usually work out. Instead, they decided to follow the charismatic former 76ers star’s every word.

[Also: Byron Scott is out as coach of the Cavaliers]