Before the game, the Utah-Houston scorecard is 3-2. It is a must win situation for the Rockets to keep the Jazz from advancing to the next playoffs level. The Rocket's morale is high and they are ready to win, coming off the big victory on Game 5. But there's one bigger obstacle to their goal – Utah's home court advantage.

The road to the NBA Championship is filled with obstacles and challenges. No team is assured of a spot even if they showed grit and power during the regular season. This is held true by the Detroit Pistons, who have recently won their first round match-up against the Philadelphia 76ers. Favored by many analysts to cruise through their opening opponents, the Pistons were stunned by two losses, eventually setting up for a Game 6 showdown in the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia. Regaining their composure, the former Champions were able to muscle their way to victory, setting up a second round battle against the Orlando Magic.

After two listless performances in Atlanta, Paul Pierce woke up, took charge, and carried the Celtics in their 110-85 Game 5 victory over Atlanta to grasp a commanding 3-2 series lead.

In the first quarter alone, Pierce was able to curl-and-fire for a jumper, knock down a J over Josh Smith, take advantage of Atlanta’s penchant for switching by posting and toasting Mike Bibby for two layups, follow his own missed layup for a stick back, make three wonderful assist passes (plus several other passes that resulted in or led to open looks), corral four rebounds, and let everybody know that PP is the best player in the series.

The legend of LeBron James is growing steadily. However, he is facing some difficult challenges in this year’s NBA Playoffs. His Cleveland Cavaliers team is fighting off the Washington Wizards to get into the second round. Washington has been plagued by injuries and has been without one of its star players in Gilbert Arenas. Still, the series is tightly contested as the Wizards managed to win another game at the Cavaliers’ home court. The score is 88 – 87 in Washington’s Game 5 victory, thanks to a layup by Caron Butler. It would have ended in another way if Lebron James had been able to make his last shot.

Coming into this year’s playoff there were a few series match ups that looked like they could be potential NBA playoff classics, but there was one in particular that was destined to be in the history books, the Phoenix Suns taking on the San Antonio Spurs, but after the very entertaining game 1 which went into double overtime and which will probably go down as a classic, that wasn’t how this usually competitive series panned out as the San Antonio Spurs completed dominated the revamped Suns to win the series 4-1.

Through the first week of the NBA playoffs it looked like almost all the playoff series in both the East and West were turning out to be pretty predictable in their outcomes except for one, the Detroit Pistons getting thumped by the Philadelphia 76ers twice and the Philly actually looking like a good team.

Personally, I would have bet everything I own on the Detroit Pistons taking this series, I would have even bet on a 4-0 sweep of the Sixers, but thank God I didn’t bet penny on this series as the 76ers look like a motivated team trying to pull another Golden State Warriors type upset.