NBA Postseason: An Unexpected Roller Coaster Ride
This year’s NBA playoffs have been nothing less than a roller coaster ride up to this point. You have no idea what is going to happen and who is going to take the championship trophy home. Nearly every team that has moved on to the second round has proved that they are more than capable of making it to their conference finals. In this blog, I will be further explaining the surprises and incredible performances we have witnessed in these playoffs so far.
The first team I want to start off with is Anthony Davis and his Pelicans. In one of my recent blogs, I mentioned that I did not know whether or not the Pelicans had enough firepower to beat the Portland Trailblazers. However, I was clearly wrong since the Pelicans decided to go ahead and sweep the Blazers. Davis showed everyone why he is a future MVP candidate with 31 points and 11 rebounds per game in the first round. However, Davis was not the only contributor in the series. Jrue Holiday and Nikola Mirotic produced incredible stats as Holiday scored 33 points in game 2 and Mirotic put up 30 points in game 3. Even though I had the upmost confidence in Davis and his abilities, I definitely was not expecting a 4 game series.
The next series I want to talk about is the brawl between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Utah Jazz. In the same blog mentioned earlier, I was almost sure that Russell Westbrook could bring his team to the second round considering he averaged a triple double in the regular season. And again, I was wrong. Even though OKC contains several of the most talented players in the league, their 1-on-1 style of basketball was not enough to overcome Utah’s team chemistry. Honestly, besides his performance in game 5 Russell Westbrook showed me that he is not willing to do what it takes to win. Even though Westbrook may have ended the game with 46 points, he still shot 46 times which is clear evidence that he doesn’t trust his teammates enough to produce. This simply just reemphasizes the fact that one player can’t carry their team to the finals, unless your name is LeBron James of course.
Speaking of LeBron, let’s look at the Pacers and Cavaliers series. This may have been the only time I have doubted the King since game 6 ended so poorly. However, game 7 LeBron once again came out of the shadows to drop 45 points and make sure that the Cavs move on to the second round. This was truly a fun series to watch because Victor Oladipo was so adamant in trying to take down the Cavaliers. I mean, the man dunked on LeBron! But despite the exceptional efforts from Oladipo and the rest of the team, they just couldn’t get over the King’s killer will.
These playoffs have already been insane to say the least. Quite honestly, this may be some of the best postseason basketball our generation will ever witness. There is just so much talent distributed among the teams (excluding the Warriors) that you really don’t know who is going to advance to the conference finals. I am more than eager to find out who is going to fight for the chance to bring home the national championship trophy, but I do hope to see the King in the finals.
