Playoff Picture Moving Forward
With the first round of the 2018 NBA playoffs in the book, we look at the remaining teams and who is going to take home the Larry O’Brien trophy when it’s all said and done? This year has no doubt been one of the most exciting playoffs in recent memory. With upsets and only one sweep this has already been more entertaining than last year, when it was only a two team race the whole way.
First let’s take a look at the western conference and the teams eliminated being the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Portland Trailblazers, and the San Antonio Spurs. Minnesota and San Antonio were the lower seeds in their matchups and were expected to lose, especially with the Spurs losing their all-star Kawhi Leonard and with their head coach Gregg Popovich losing his wife during the series.
But, it is not always true that the lower seeds lose, just ask the Utah Jazz and the New Orleans Pelicans, who were both lower seeds but won their series. The Jazz were faced up against OKC and won the series 4-2 in a shocking upset, especially considering the big three that OKC had attained with Westbrook, Paul George, and Carmelo Anthony; combine that with the fact the Jazz lost their all-star forward Gordon Hayward this summer, this series seemed to be a lock, but rookie of the year candidate Donavan Mitchell was not having it. Now the Jazz have to look forward to facing the Houston Rockets and MVP candidate James Harden after the convincingly beat the Timberwolves 4-1.
The Pelicans were faced with the Trailblazers in the first round and made quick work of them by sweeping them 4 games to 0. Anthony Davis was tremendous in this series and averaged an outstanding state line of 31.5 PPG, 11 REB, 2 AST, 3 BLK and 1.3 STL, and keep in mind this was his first ever playoff appearance. But, we knew AD was going to be huge, what is truly amazing is the production that the Pelicans received from Rajon Rondo, the 32 year old vet averaged 11.8 PPG, 7.6 REB, and 12.8 AST nearly a triple-double. Now they have to face the dynasty of Golden State after they dismantled the Spurs 4-1. Good luck.
Now, we examine the playoff picture in the Eastern Conference. The four teams that have been eliminated are the Washington Wizards, the Indiana Pacers, the Miami Heat, and the Milwaukee Bucks. All of these teams were the lower seeds, but for two of these teams they took their competitors to the limit and forced 7 game series.
The Pacers and Victor Oladipo pushed LeBron and the Cavs to seven and narrowly lost in game 7, 101-105. The series was tough but LeBron proved to be too much and dropped 45 in game 7 and showed the NBA who is king. Now the Cavs are matched up with The Toronto Raptors as they beat the Wizards 4-2. The Cavs need continued production from Tristan Thompson and Kevin Love if they hope to advance to the conference finals.
The Milwaukee Bucks and Giannis Antetokounmpo faced up against the Boston Celtics for round one and pressed them to 7 games. The Celtics without their stars of Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, still seemed to be too much for the Bucks as they won 4-3. The Celtics can credit their success to their incredible coach Brad Stevens as they had a game plan that neutralized the Bucks’ star Giannis Antetokounmpo in game 7 as they kept him in foul trouble and limited his minutes all game.
The Celtics next matchup is the Philadelphia ‘76ers in round 2. The ‘76ers are setting the league on fire and come into the playoffs with the best record in the NBA since the all-star break. Much of this is due to their rookie of the year candidate Ben Simmons and their big man down low, Joel Embiid. These two have been a deadly 1-2 punch averaging 36.9 PPG, 20.9 REB, 11 AST, 3.7 STL, and 3.6 BLK in the first round of the playoffs. This team beat the Heat 4-1 and are rolling. The Celtics are going to have their hands full with this one.
