Yes it’s that time again, the time when beer and the NBA playoffs take over your living room, or not, I don’t know your life, but for NBA fans this is the best time of the year.

April isn’t just for fools, Easter and rain, it’s also the end of the NBA regular season and the beginning of the NBA playoffs.

The end of the regular season isn’t extremely important, well at least for most teams. It’s all jockeying for playoff position, finishing strong and resting players (which isn’t hard for Coach Pop, since he does it all year).

This year the East is as top-heavy as ever, most people (the ones who actually know what they’re talking about) believe it’ll come down to the Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers, and more than likely it will. Their runs won’t come without strong pushes from the Brooklyn Nets (who own the best record in the East since January) and the Chicago Bulls (Thibs is at it again).

Hopefully the Pacers, who are 4-6 in their last 10 games, can get their act together come playoff time. Paul George and co. are having problems scoring on offense, and that won’t fly against Miami or Brooklyn.

In the Western Conference, the playoff push is easily more exciting and the eventual playoffs could find a few teams getting upset in the first round. First the seeding will have to be settled in the bottom portion of the playoff bracket.

The Warriors, Trail Blazers, Grizzlies, Mavericks and Suns are in a race to secure the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth seeds in the best conference in the league.

Currently the bottom half of the West looks as follows: No. 5 Portland, No. 6 Golden State, No. 7 Memphis and No. 8 Phoenix, with the Mavericks sitting just a game out of the eight spot. Sounds like a good time to me.

The Warriors should take the five seed, with Portland at six, Memphis at seven and Phoenix should be able to hold off the veteran Mavericks.

It’s time to pack Buffalo Wild Wings and Fuzzy’s and order some wings and a drink, kick back and watch playoff basketball.

Shakeem is a senior journalism major from Macon. He is currently the sports editor