I often don't know what I'm talking about

I can admit when I'm wrong and, when it comes to this year's NBA Finals, I was wrong. My Western Conference pick, the Lakers, fought their way through. But the team I predicted would come out of the East (and beat the Lakers) — the Cavaliers — fell flat on their faces.

I'll admit that early in the playoffs I got caught up in the LeBron James frenzy as he and the Cavs cruised to win after win. Going into their series against Orlando they'd put together an eight-game run of unprecedented playoff dominance and I figured it would continue. I lost sight of the fact that, as my cousin Jason pointed out last weekend, the Cavs had faced the playoff version of JV competition — a Pistons squad reeling ever since they acquired Allen Iverson and a Hawks squad racked by injury.

The Magic had something neither of those squads had: a fearsome big man who could keep LeBron from dunking all over them. For those of who who don't follow basketball (and yet for some inexplicable reason are still reading this post), his name is Dwight Howard. Howard is possibly the only player in the NBA who can match LeBron for sheer freak-of-natureish strength and athleticism. His frightening presence at the rim goaded LeBron into more jump shots, which is the weakest part of his game. 

LeBron shot 29.7 percent from 3-point range in the series. If he makes those shots he's unstoppable. If he bricks them like he did against the Magic he's suddenly mortal, especially if there's a bona fide shot-blocker inside to keep him from just picking the ball up, taking two big steps and throwing down a thunder dunk.

While LeBron was lofting up low-percentage shots, Howard got chippies inside and averaged 25.8 points on a ridiculous 65 percent shooting. The Magic are well set up offensively, with shooters like Rashard Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu and Mickael Pietrus spreading the floor for Howard inside. When the Cavs left them to double Howard they got burned from downtown. When they tried to stay home and single cover Howard, he dunked all over guys like Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Anderson Varejao, who were far too soft to cover him. It's a simple, but extremely effective offensive strategy.

And it may very well work against the Lakers too. The Magic have no one who can cover Kobe (Pietrus is likely to try, but unlikely to do as good a job as Shane Battier), but they had no one who could cover LeBron either and still cruised. Howard's presence will keep Kobe from getting anything easy inside and force him to rely on jumpers. He's more dangerous in that department than LeBron, but the percentages still dictate that dunks are more efficient than jump-shots.

Howard's likely to continue getting his dunks. When it comes to the Laker big men, Pau Gasol is even softer than Ilgauskas and Andrew Bynum is a foul machine who can't stay in the game long enough to have a big impact. Lamar Odom isn't tall enough or strong enough to check Howard.

The Magic will have a couple games when their treys aren't falling and the Lakers will have a couple games when Kobe can't miss from the outside and carries them to victory. But my new prediction is that the Magic win in seven games.