Mike Ehrmann/NBAE/Getty Images How nice is this? Ticket punched to the NBA Finals with the ability to kick back and wait to see who the challenger is. In all reality, it doesn’t matter in

Layne Murdoch/NBAE/Getty Images And so here we are, right where most of us thought we’d be right about now, getting ready to watch a showdown series for the Western Conference Championship between the two

Chris Covatta/NBAE/Getty Images You know in The Matrix when Neo finally realizes he’s The One? Agent Smith has kicked his butt the whole movie but finally, he gets whatever it is he needs to

Layne Murdoch/NBAE/Getty Images FIRST ROUND EDITION It’s funny how the playoffs work. You beat a team in five games, which seems kind of like it was easy. But it was most definitely not easy.

Noah Graham/NBAE/Getty Images Thunder fans sat in horror in the fourth quarter of Game 2 watching Oklahoma City labor on the offensive end, trying to find just a single point at a time. An

Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images The storylines are aplenty. Elbows, trash talk, revenge, vendettas, old vs. new, Derek Fisher vs. the Lakers, legacies and on and on and on. But forget the angles, the hooks,

Layne Murdoch/NBAE/Getty Images If you missed it, James Harden was named the 2011-12 Sixth Man of the Year. Ahem, excuse me — the Kia 2011-12 Sixth Man of the Year. Harden received 584 of

Ronald Martinez/NBAE/Getty Images In four games against the Mavericks, we got a little taste of everything we’d seen over 66 games from the Thunder. Kevin Durant was amazing/incredible/outstanding/terrific. Russell Westbrook piped up and carried