With the sixth-seeded Golden State Warriors surprisingly dominating the third-seeded Denver Nuggets 3-1 in their best of seven series, it’s time to start thinking about a potential Warriors/Spurs matchup in the second round.

I think most San Antonio Spurs fans would rather see Golden State than Denver, but there are definitely pros and cons to meeting the Warriors next round if it shakes out that way for the Spurs in the second round.

Pros:

Size

After a matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers and having to battle hard down in the post against two talented 7-footers in Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol, the Warriors will come as a relief to the Spurs’ big men. With David Lee out, Golden State really only has one big man that plays legitimate minutes, Andrew Bogut. Bogut is a true center but he may even be on a minutes restriction because he can be fragile at times. Carl Landry is listed as a power forward, but he’s only 6’9”. Most of the time the Warriors play small ball, which could prove a big advantage for the Spurs. If San Antonio wants to go with a bigger lineup, it may force the Warriors to give additional, unwanted minutes to their post players, which could cause problems.

Inexperience

The San Antonio Spurs made short-work of the Los Angeles Lakers in the first-round of the and will now advance to the second round of the NBA Playoffs.

However, is sweeping an injury-riddled Lakers team fool's gold for fans who might be thinking this San Antonio team is playing well.

On this episode of the News 4 San Antonio-Project Spurs, Spurs Roundtable, Kyle Boenitz, Paul Garcia and Jeff Garcia  discuss what, if anything, can the Spurs take away from beating an injured L.A. team.

In the second half of the show, the panel discusses if the road is paved for the Spurs to head to the NBA Finals now that Thunder's Russell Westbrook is out for the season with an injury.

Following the quick dispatching of the Los Angeles Lakers team, the San Antonio Spurs are moving on to the second round to face the winner of the series between the Denver Nuggets and the Golden State Warriors.

Tickets will go on sale today at 10am Central Time for the Games 1 and 2.  Ticket prices start at $20. They can be purchased at Spurs.com, AT&TCenter.com, the AT&T Center Southeast Box Office or by calling (210) 255-TEAM.

To guarantee authenticity, the Spurs are recommending purchasing tickets from directly from the team outlets. NBATickets.com, launched by the NBA and Ticketmaster, is another option for fans desiring to purchase tickets.

So what have you Spurs fans? Who is going to the games for some exciting Spurs basketball?

The San Antonio Spurs swept the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round but it wasn't without its cost. In Game 3 of the series, Tiago Splitter injured his left ankle late in the game and is out indefinitely.

Splitter was having a great series versus the Lakers' Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol defensively. He was playing tough in the paint, pushing Howard and Gasol out of their comfort spot while averaging 5 points, 2.3 assists, and 4 rebounds in 23 minutes per game.

Now that the Spurs will be off the court for about one week as they wait for their opponent in round two, Splitter can use the time to recover and it already seems he is on the fast-track to recovery. He recently took to Twitter to give fans an update on his injury and it is good news Spurs fans.

All it took was a week (literally) for the San Antonio Spurs to defeat and eliminate the injury-plagued Los Angeles Lakers, as Sunday was the final game of the Lakers’ 2013 campaign, where the Spurs once more blew them out on their own floor 103-82.

It was a tale of two “stars” on Sunday, as Tony Parker led the Spurs like any captain would in a battle to put away the enemy - by leading his charge with 23 points and four assists to send D-League guards Andrew Goudelock and Darius Morris back to the Summer League at least gaining some experience in competing with one of the NBA’s premier point guards.

The other “star” Dwight Howard, did the opposite Sunday as Howard let his emotions guide him and he eventually ended up watching his team lose from the locker room, as Howard was ejected early in the third quarter with two technical fouls.

As had been the trend in the series, the Lakers, missing a plethora of their key contributors, were able to compete with the Spurs for one or two quarters, but by half Sunday, they already found themselves facing an 18-point deficit.

The matchup of the game for Game 4 will be between Matt Bonner and Dwight Howard.

With Tiago Splitter out, the San Antonio Spurs will be counting on Matt Bonner's contributions throughout the game to sweep the Los Angeles Lakers. Bonner has guarded Howard on the defensive end and Matt hasn't been afraid of giving him hard fouls to help wear him down in the process. The Spurs can't rely on Bonner too much other than his shooting, but that should make the Lakers uncomfortable enough with having to move one of their big men to the perimeter.

What Bonner must do on offense:

The San Antonio Spurs (3-0) will look to sweep the Los Angeles Lakers (0-3) out of the playoffs tonight in Los Angeles but if L.A. wants to avoid getting swept, they'll have to do it without key players.

Steve Nash, Steve Blake, Jodie Meeks, Metta World Peace and of course Kobe Bryant will not play in Game 4 making the Lakers' job at avoiding an early summer vacation that much tougher. However, the Spurs are also limping heading into Game 4 with Boris Diaw and Tiago Splitter (ankle) out tonight.

The Spurs are coming off a 120-89 thrashing of L.A. in Game 3 in Los Angeles. Tim Duncan led the Spurs with 26 points, and nine rebounds.The Spurs shot a whopping 61%, and held a 49-35 rebounding edge and even a 7-3 edge in blocked shots.

And as the Spurs hope to advance to the second-round of the playoffs, here are five things to watch for during tonight's contest:

• The Spurs are 22-5 when Manu Ginobili records 18-or-more points off the bench in the playoffs.

Last night's San Antonio Spurs' win was a lopsided affair versus the Los Angeles Lakers with the Spurs taking a commanding 3-0 lead in this first round playoff series, but the game also featured Tim Duncan showing he can rise up for the dunk despite his age.

Early in the first quarter, Danny Green threw a pretty lob pass to Duncan as he cut to the rim and finished off the alley oop with power.

Check out Duncan with the monster slam.

Andrew Goudelock was called upon by the Los Angeles Lakers in desperation.

The team lost both of its starting guards (Steve Nash and Steve Blake) to injury and had two other on the team that couldn't play the whole game despite a short rotation. This would be his first NBA playoff game with one of the league's most richest franchise's.

A normal player would've probably been nervous and humble going into the game, but Andrew Goudelock was the exact opposite. When asked about guarding Tony Parker, he answered by showing off his confidence in his skills and game.

On the opposite side of the Western Conference playoffs bracket, but only a state away, the Oklahoma City Thunder are reeling from the loss of guard Russell Westbrook for an as of yet undetermined amount of time. Should it prove longer than a week or two, the prohibitive Western Conference Finals will likely see their season fall short of lofty expectations. 

In Los Angeles, regardless of what happens against the San Antonio Spurs, the Lakers season fell apart the moment Kobe Bryant fell to a gruesome Achilles injury. 

It was a seemingly harmless play, a step that Bryant had made thousands of times before in his basketball career. And like that, whatever hopes the Lakers had reclaimed for a playoff run in the second half of the season ended. 

That an entire basketball season could be determined by one misstep, one random collision, is proof enough that so much of what determines an NBA champion is actually out of the hands of the team that wins it.