The NBA Playoffs are upon us.

In the East, the first round matchups are as underwhelming as the conference's performance in the regular season. Still, the playoffs are awesome and there is plenty of potential excitement in three of the four series.

Let us NBA.

Game schedules are per Yahoo's first round preview.



The Hawks should win this series in 4 or 5, largely because the Nets are terrible. Deron Williams and Joe Johnson are past their primes and the Nets really don't have a good third wing option. More interesting in this series will be to see whether the Hawks can regain their mid-season form. The Hawks were less than impressive over the final month of the season while they were resting much of their roster, but this series provides them a nice opportunity to work their way back into the elite level of play we saw from them in the middle of the regular season.



The Cavs and Celtics actually split the season series, but the Celtics' two wins came in April when the Cavs were resting their starters and locked into the two seed. The Cavs starting lineup, since their mid-season trades, has been the best lineup in the NBA. JR Smith and Kevin Love have provided great catch-and-shoot options when LeBron and Kyrie penetrate into the middle of the defense and Timofey Mozgov has stabilized a defense that badly needed it. Brad Stevens has the Celtics playing well above their heads, but beating Cleveland in a 7 game series would take an all-time great coaching performance.



Before the trade deadline, this looked like a pretty great matchup. But, the Bucks traded Brandon Knight for Michael Carter-Williams and have predictably struggled since then. Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton have turned into great wing options on both ends of the floor, but Carter-Williams' inability to shoot has created serious spacing issues for the Bucks. The Bulls have their entire roster together for the first time since the beginning of the year. Derrick Rose has struggled this year, but the addition of Pau Gasol along with Jimmy Butler's emergence have mitigated Rose's struggles. The games in Milwaukee will probably have half Bulls fans in attendance, which should help the Bulls win this series.



The closest first round matchup in the East is the one between two teams that crawled to the finish line. The Raptors defense has been a disaster, particularly in the second half of the season, and the Wizards have struggled to score all year long. When the Wizards are on offense, things could be pretty ugly. The key to this series is probably how well the Raptors defend the Wizards' big men. Jonas Valanciunas is terrible defensively and should struggle to defend both Nene and Gortat in the pick and roll.