Anyone paying attention to the Hawks - Celtics series? Could it be another upset like the Mavericks encountered last year? I honestly like pulling for the underdogs and the Celtics put together a team of high profile expensive players to try and win a championship, almost like buying the damn thing straight up.

So in regards to this series, I would love to see Horford and company beat the Celtics and move past the first round. I honestly believed the Celtics were overrated this year. Oh well, taking the team with 66 wins in a season to 7 games in the first round is just good basketball to begin with, even if the underdog can't pull it off.

So since your favorite team is out once again, who are you going to cheer for to go all the way?

Personally I don't want to see the Lakers, Celtics or Spurs win it again. I think I'm going to have to pull for the Jazz in the West and the Pistons in the East. Don't ask me why but for some reason I've always liked the Pistons. The Jazz deserve a shot as well. Sloan definitely needs a ring for his hard work and patience over the past two decades.

Never mind that last 4 minute effort by the Mavs in the 4th quarter, they still lost. Close but not good enough. Where was that effort the whole 4th quarter? Even the announcers said if they played like they did in the 3rd quarter, this game could be theirs.

This game though, I think I can honestly just say they got out played. They could have driven but when you have one guy that is shooting 50% for his FGP and almost every other scorer 30% or worse, you don't win 7 game series nor do you advance in the playoffs with such crappy stats.

The Hornets are young, they played with more heart, motivation and wanted to advance more than the Mavericks. That's the end of this seasons story.

So Game 5 is tonight and it's the Mavs last hope of extending or delaying what everyone already knows, another first round exit. Keys to the Mavs winning tonight is of course stop Chris Paul. The only one who's proven he can keep up is Jason Terry.

West needs to be stopped and I think it's probably best to put Dirk back on him. Dampier has proven he is not effective against West, at least when it comes to defending him.

As for Josh Howard, if he plays tonight, he needs to shine. He's been non-existent this whole series and the Mavs actually need him to score if they want to delay their season from ending. I'm counting Stackhouse out, he's injured and he won't be back til next season so we shouldn't expect him out there and he should be limited to minutes played. Perhaps only using him to substitute a proven scorer in the series with explicit instructions to not shoot.

What's everyone else's thoughts?

So what happened to the Mavs in Game 4? Everything was looking good in the 1st quarter. They were attacking the basket, drawing the fouls, keeping Chris Paul from scoring and making the plays he did so well in Games 1 and 2.

The second quarter was a disaster and it all went down hill from there. It's like the team stopped executing their orders. They stopped attacking the basket and never even went to the foul line until late into the 3rd quarter.

When a team only shoots 35% from the field, you are destined to lose the game. New Orleans scored 18 of their points on fast breaks which won them the game in my opinion.

Also Kidd was ejected with a flagrant 2 foul on Jannero Pargo, which I honestly felt it was not intentional and should have only been a flagrant 1. With Kidd only having 3 points, 3 assists and 4 rebounds, not like we missed too much from him for the remaining 7:16 left in the game.

The only players who showed up tonight were Jason Terry and Dirk Nowitzki. Josh Howard is in a slump at the worst possible time but then again, he hasn't been the same since Kidd arrived.

This team needs to rebuild themselves around Kidd in the offseason instead of Kidd trying to adjust to them half way through the season.