Does the injury to Ryan Westbrook doom the Oklahoma City, or will Kevin Durant be enough to get the Thunder back to the NBA Finals? Will the Miami Heat sweep their way to the Finals? Are we all in store for another Spurs run?

These are the early questions in the 2013 NBA playoffs. Obviously these are all questions for future rounds.  Why are we looking forward instead of thinking about the here-and-now? Well, we are still in the first round and things are going much as people thought they would.

In the Eastern Conference…

• The Miami Heat are making the Milwaukee Bucks fans wish the team was lottery bound.
• The Indiana Pacers domination of the Atlanta Hawks is making the rest of the league begin to realize just how good this club really is.
• The Chicago Bulls defense is making the New Jersey Nets work for it and may even take them out, only to be summarily dismissed in the second round by the Heat.
• The New York Knicks are proving just how old the Celtics really are, and it looks like they could at least take the Heat to six games.

In the Western Conference …

• The Oklahoma City Thunder are going to beat the Houston Rockets (even without Westbrook) because Kevin Durant is just that good.
• The San Antonio Spurs are on the fast track to the conference finals, as the Los Angeles Lakers are too old and too injured to stop them and there are few other teams capable of taking out the trio of Ginobili, Parker, and Duncan.
• The Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors are playing basketball without defense and that makes this one of the most enjoyable and pointless first series to watch.
• The Los Angeles Clippers are going to outlast the Memphis Grizzlies in a series that will be the opposite of the one just mentioned. It will not be pointless though, as the Clips may be the only real hope to take out the Spurs in this odd numbered year. (Real NBA basketball fans know what this means!)

Don’t wait any longer to Get NBA Playoff Tickets to your favorite NBA Team. Tickets will sell fast.

The NHL season is almost over, but fans can still enjoy a few games before the postseason begins at the end of the month and hockey tickets become even more difficult to find. Things are far from set too, so the teams have quite a bit on the line over the course of these last five or so games and the fans have a reason to attend. Don’t wait any longer to get NHL Tickets, get them now at OnlineSeats.com.

The Eastern Conference’s playoff picture is far from clear. Only three teams have clinched postseason spots (the Pittsburgh Penguins, Boston Bruins, and Montreal Canadiens) and only one team (the Florida Panthers) has been mathematically eliminated. Needless to say the standings are going to change drastically during this next week and a half. It appears one of the New York teams is going to miss the playoffs and either Winnipeg or Buffalo is going to sneak in to the final couple of spots with the rest of the clubs in the top eight jockeying for position.

The Western Conference is not much better, with just two teams (the Chicago Blackhawks and Anaheim Ducks) having clinched a spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs and just two teams (the Nashville Predators and Colorado Avalanche) having been eliminated. Perhaps the most interesting development is the real possibility the Red Wings will miss the postseason for the first time since 1990 (not counting the lockout season). Otherwise, the only seed set will be the Blackhawks and the number one seed.

Catch the finals few games of the 2013 NHL season and see if your team (if they are not already) can sneak into the playoffs or at least guarantee home ice advantage for the first round.

The first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament need names. The third round is the Sweet Sixteen, the fourth is the Elite Eight, and the final two are collectively called the Final Four. Certainly there has to be some sort of alliteration to describe the first four days of the best basketball tournament of the year. At the very least, these first two round deserve to be called something other than the Round of 64 and the Round of 32 (even the first four games are called the Play-In Games!).

These are the four days that decimate the office pool. These are the only four days when most men will use the name Cinderella unprompted (albeit as an adjective). These are the four days before Dick Vitale begins preparing the nation for another championship run by Duke (seriously, he may be the only Duke college basketball fan living outside of North Carolina!).

These first two rounds of the tournament are, according to a Forbes article, forcing one-third of IT departments to prepare to block, ban, or slow down streaming content in an effort to keep office productivity at acceptable levels. Something that actually hinders business as usual has to be honored with some kind of nickname, and it should not be purely gambling related (sorry “Bracket Buster”).

Cracked, the humor site has offered the “So-So Sixty-Four” and the “Thriving Thirty-Two”. While these names are amusing, they shed light on the fact that these rounds deserve a name to match the excitement they generate, the kind of excitement that has fans purchasing NCAA Tournament tickets to travel across the country to support their team.

In a sport in which the difference between finishing in last place and becoming World Series champs is a matter of decimals in a few key stats, every February represents a new beginning.  At least, this has been the case since the death of the Yankees dynasty at the hands of the Diamondbacks at the beginning of the 21^st century. From that day forward payrolls ceased to matter, curses were exorcized with alarming regularity and now baseball tickets for each and every team hold the promise of bearing witness the exploits of a winner.

This is especially so in the year 2013. As Richard Justice of MLB.com writes, few teams can already be counted out of the pennant race. This may seem an obvious statement as a single game has yet to be played. But, it used to be that certain clubs were destined for near triple digit loss totals and the fans knew it. Last season 20 clubs were within five games of heading to the playoffs at the All Star break and this season that number only looks to increase.

The AL East is again the deepest division in the game, but every team, including the Baltimore Orioles, has a realistic chance to upend the Yankee-Red Sox paradigm at the top. The AL Central is never clear, but these days it appears the Royals are ready to relive the kind of glory unseen since the days of George Brett. The AL West has seen an MVP change teams within the division and a once flailing franchise is hoping the return of a young King can topple a division full of heavenly beings and lawmen.

The NL East is stacked with a team out of Washington D.C. for at the top of many experts lists for the first time in nearly a century and the Braves skipping rebuilding to become a challenger before Bobby Cox woke up from his first nap. The Central is finally at five teams and is as topsy-turvy as its AL cousin. Moving west, there is in a land dominating by starting rotations that has suddenly become a Cy Young winner more difficult.

It is a great time to be a baseball fan as parity and chaos has come to dominate the early headlines. All this before the first pitch of those meaningless spring training games has been thrown and a young prospects have been dashed by a journeyman, one he will replace in just a few months’ time. So fans, prepare for an exciting journey that will keep you at the edge of the seat from first games In April until the last pitch graces the edge of the strike zone on All Hallows’ Eve.

The Denver Broncos are in the NFL playoffs for a second consecutive season, but this time the Broncos fans are not going to have to hope for miracles to advance. Tebow is gone and the fans at Sports Authority Field at Mile High can win with something other than inspiring fourth quarter comebacks. Instead Denver Broncos tickets will feature the steady hand and the analytical mind of Peyton Manning and a championship caliber defense to guide the team’s way to New Orleans to play in Super Bowl XXXVLII at the newly named Mercedes Ben Superdome. At least that is what those fans with Denver Broncos tickets are going to believe.

John Elway knew signing Peyton Manning was a risk, but he also knew that the potential reward was something he could not pass on. The Denver Broncos and their fans knew Tebow was not the answer, no matter how many jerseys they would purchase in his name. Manning is a veteran with the ability to make Demaryuis Thomas and Eric Decker a duo to worry opposing defensive coordinators. The solid, though not far from stellar running of Willis McGahee will keep the defense honest, or at least honest enough to give Manning more than a few options.

Even with Manning acting as the on-field offensive coordinator, the Denver Broncos would be nothing without a stellar defense. Surely, Manning could have won the AFC West, a division with no other team posting a winning record. However, without Von Miller and Elvis Dumervil blitzing and causing havoc from the linebacker position the postseason would not last very long. The Broncos defense has managed to put up incredible numbers because of this pressure and the offense’s ability to dominate the clock. The playoffs are going to be a truly difficult road, as it is for any team in the NFL. Denver is not one to force a great deal of turnovers, so one bad game by Manning could spell doom for the team. Luckily, Manning rarely has these games.

A year ago no one would have thought a missing Steve on the Lakers roster would prove a detriment. Then, this summer, Los Angeles acquired Steve Nash. Now he and Steve Blake are riding the bench and the team is below .500. Luckily Nash is due back soon and the Lakers are destined to make a Mike D’Antoni-inspired run over the hump and back up to the top of the Pacific Division.

This would be fitting as the current top team in the division is the Staple-center fraternal twin Clippers, and there is nothing sweeter than letting Clipper fans believe they actually have a chance to outplay the Lakers before crushing those tattered spirits of a franchise in need of banner (the Lakers, NHL Kings, and WNBA Sparks each have championships, this is just getting sad).

Of course, in addition to an injury-ridden Nash, the Lakers have perhaps the most dangerous four in the league out on day-to-day status. Pau Gasol is the Big Man with skill who perfectly complements the pure athletic physicality of Center Dwight Howard. All this has made the beginning of the D’Antoni era anything but spectacular. So far the Lakers are 5-6 under his watch. He is going to improve his record as soon as Steve Nash returns after this road trip ends.

Once Nash joins Bryant in the backcourt and Gasol and Howard make just about any offensive set a possibility, the Lakers tickets those dedicated fans at the Staple Center purchased back in July will start feeling like a warm up to the NBA Finals tickets.

There is certainly little in the Western Conference to stop them. The conference is deep as always, but there is no plethora of dominant basketball teams. The Lakers are not the lone great team yet. Over the course of the next 60 games the roster needs to put on a show and demonstrate the potential to take out the champion Miami Heat. Then Nash can finally get the ring he deserves and all can be right in the NBA.