The Los Angeles D-Fenders won the opening game of the series on the road, giving Coach of the Year Eric Musselman's team two chances to clinch the 2012 D-League Championship at home against the Austin Toros. The homecourt advantage the Lakers' practice facility provides wasn't enough in Game 2 on Thursday night, but Los Angeles has a chance to redeem themselves in the deciding Game 3 on Saturday night.

The Toros basically blew out the D-Fenders in Game 2, sailing to a 79-58 lead at the end of three quarters before picking up the 113-94 victory in what ended up being a rather chippy game as five technical fouls added to the 56 team fouls called by the officiating team. In the end, though, Justin Dentmon and Julian Wright came through for the Toros with 26 points apiece to force a third game in the Best-of-3 series.

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The NBA Development League season could end on Thursday night when the Austin Toros visit El Segundo, Calif., for Game 2 of the D-League Finals against the hosting Los Angeles D-Fenders. The Eric Musselman led D-Fenders won Game 1 in Austin, meaning the Lakers' D-League affiliate only needs to win one of their two home games to lay claim to the 2012 D-League Championship.

The biggest difference from Tuesday night's overtime game will be that each team will be missing their NBA players. The San Antonio Spurs recalled Cory Joseph for the remainder of the regular season while the Los Angeles Lakers decided to have Christian Eyenga return to the big club, leaving both teams to play Thursday evening's game without any current NBA players.

That'll likely hurt the Toros quite a bit more, however, considering Joseph had been starting -- and playing very solid defense -- whereas Eyenga was used in a more complementary role when considering the NBA player averaged a total of just 10 minutes through the D-Fenders first five games in the playoffs.

In their absence, the Toros should be just fine with Justin Dentmon and Squeaky Johnson handling backcourt duties while Los Angeles will probably find more time for Kareem Rush and Andre Ingram -- both of which are far better offensive players than Eyenga.

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The 2012 NBA Development League Finals were set on Sunday night when Justin Dentmon and the Austin Toros handily defeated the Canton Charge. The Toros will take on Elijah Millsap and the Los Angeles D-Fenders, who've been waiting for their opponents since sweeping the Bakersfield Jam.

We'll have a more detailed preview coming Tuesday morning, but the most interesting matchup should be on the sidelines -- Brad Jones vs. Eric Musselman. On the court, it'll be interesting to see if the D-Fenders are able to handle the Toros multitude of weapons while Austin tries to force someone other than Elijah Millsap to beat them.

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The Los Angeles D-Fenders have undergone quite a few roster changes this season, but Eric Musselman and the rest of the brain trust hired by the Los Angeles Lakers found solid replacements every time one of their studs was summoned to an NBA roster.

Despite losing three starting point guards (Jamaal Tinsley, Ish Smith and Courtney Fortson) along with the outstanding Gerald Green and veteran wing Jamario Moon to the NBA, the D-Fenders find themselves in the D-League Finals.

Los Angeles swept the Bakersfield Jam in the semifinals, handily advancing to the three-game championship series with a 109-90 victory on Saturday night. Elijah Millsap scored 23 points to go with his four steals while Mardy Collins came off the bench to play one of his better games of the season, scoring 23 to with nine assists for the former first round pick.

Bakersfield was led by Derrick Byars with 18 points while battling foul trouble, but the Jam defense wasn't quite there as Los Angeles shot 57 percent from the field on the way to the victory. Highlights of Saturday night's game are included below.

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The first round of the NBA Development League Playoffs didn't go quite as your's truly predicted considering just one of the four series went the way that I had planned. My list of excuses regarding the errant picks is long, but let's instead get to quick looks at the semifinals games prior to Thursday night's tip-off in each of the two series.

On one side of the bracket, the Eric Musselman-led Los Angeles D-Fenders will take homecourt in their best-of-three series against the Bakersfield Jam. The other side will feature a bit more travel, however, as the Austin Toros are in the midwest to play the Canton Charge in the first game of their series.

I typically judge D-League playoff matchups based on the talent of the teams' head coach, but all four teams are led by solid staffs. That said, whichever team has the most talent will likely rule the roost ... so without further adieu, second round predictions from myself and ramblin' Ryan Ripley are included below.

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The NBA Development League Playoffs featured four solid matchups in the first round and, following this weekend's games, two of the best-of-three series are still in progress. The Los Angeles D-Fenders and Bakersfield Jam have both advanced to the semifinals on one side of the bracket while the other side will be determined with a pair of games on Monday night.

It's a bit difficult to recap everything that happened over the weekend so, in lieu of that, your's truly will be going back to the tried and true method that's worked in past years: bullet points featuring the Monstars!

The biggest star of the weekend was probably Canton Charge standout Luke Harangody considering he did work in both the NBA and the D-League, compiling three starts in three nights (and going for a fourth Monday evening). Harangody led the Charge to a win on Friday night, led the Cleveland Cavaliers with 16 points and 10 rebounds in a win on Saturday night and then nearly carried Canton to a series-deciding win on Sunday night over the Springfield Armor.

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When Los Angeles has all their ducks in a row, they are that type of team who can be unstoppable. Just ask the Iowa Energy tonight.

The D-Fenders put up 33 points in the first quarter propelling them to a Game One 114-103 win over the Energy at Wells Fargo Arena.

L.A. went 14-for-20 in the first quarter whereas the Energy couldn't find the bottom of the basket -- shooting 22 percent from the floor in the opening 12 minutes.

"The first quarter was about as trying as a quarter that we've had all year," said Energy Head Coach Kevin Young, who is experiencing his first playoffs as Iowa's head coach. "We won the game for three quarters. You take away our poor shooting in the first quarter, it'd be a different story."

Even though the team came out a little rusty, Division III star Ben Strong had a "strong" game. Strong, who played his college ball at Guilford, put up 27 points and 13 rebounds in the losing effort.

"Basketball is a game that is simple and complex," said Strong. "We dug too deep of a hole for ourselves in that first quarter. But, for those other three, we played well."

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The 2012 NBA Development League's regular season ended Saturday night, team's picked their opponents on Easter Sunday afternoon and just three days later the D-League playoffs are beginning. It kind of snuck on us, to be honest, but Ridiculous Upside has come through with our revered playoff predictions once again.

I'm once again your loving host, but we've unfortunately lost a lot of great contributors from year's past. Mike Gansey is busy with a real job (Be sure to direct all of the credit to him for the call-up of Lester Hudson to the Cleveland Cavaliers) and Aisander Duda and Jon L have disappeared away from the loveliness that is the D-League blogosphere.

That said, since I've been doing this since way back in 2009 (2010 here and 2011 power rankings here because I let Gansey do predictions), it made sense to keep the tradition going. To cover my bases, I enlisted the services of the always awesome Ryan Ripley to help me out with predictions.

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