Brooklyn Nets's Mikal Bridges (1) shoots over Philadelphia 76ers' Paul Reed (44) during the second half of game 4 in an NBA basketball first-round play-off series Saturday, April 22, 2023 in New York. The 76ers won 96-88.(Photo: AP)
April 27, 2023
NBA: Play-offs well and truly on
TO describe the 2023 National Basketball Association (NBA) post-season as thrilling would be an understatement. There was only one sweep — Philadelphia 76ers over the Brooklyn Nets — and even that series was very compelling, in line with everything else that was happening in both conferences.
On Tuesday (April 25) both the Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns became the first-known pairing for the conference semi-finals when they closed their first-round series 4-1 against the Minnesota Timberwolves and Los Angeles Clippers, respectively. The Nuggets had the easiest first round of all teams — no drama, no injuries, and an average winning margin of 12.5 points, with a loss by six points being their only blemish.
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Phoenix, on the other hand, had Devin Booker and Kevin Durant playing almost every minute of all five games. They will have a few days’ rest before game 1 tomorrow, Saturday (April 29), but if they continue to shoulder that workload (especially the often-injured Durant), it will catch up with them eventually. As is, the Western Conference number one takes on the number four 4, and it promises to produce fireworks. Over the last two seasons these teams have split the spoils — 2-2 this season and 3-3 in the season before — but interestingly, the Suns lost the last two encounters on March 31 and April 4, with Durant scoring 30 and 29 points, respectively. There’s no telling how this series will swing but the home team should have the upper hand with Nikola Jokic who is jostling with Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid for the league’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) award.
Speaking of which, the most intriguing series of the first round has been the defending champions Golden State Warriors going up against the Sacramento Kings who have been spectacular all year. Sacramento’s head coach Mike Brown was named NBA ‘Coach of the Year’, and their point guard De’Aaron Fox was chosen as the ‘KIA Clutch Player of the Year’ for good reason, as they have not only broken the team’s 16-year play-off drought but were seeded number two in the West for a time before ending in the number three position.
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This is the only series with the appearance of seven games, with a few games already coming down to the last, buzzer-beating shot. Game three was especially mouth-watering; with Draymond Green suspended, and Golden State trailing 0-2, and them having to face the league’s best offence without its top defensive player, it was all or nothing as they could ill afford a 0-3 hole. The Warriors stepped up for a 114–97 win as Stephen Curry erupted for 36 points, Andrew Wiggins contributed 20, and Kevon Looney pulled down a staggering 20 rebounds while handing out nine assists.
Having won the first two games at home — expectedly with the Warriors’ dismal away record –the Kings are now forced into a best-of-three affair, with game 6 slated for this evening in San Francisco. The Warriors’ terrible road record means that Sacramento’s home court advantage is the X factor. This series could very well end up going seven games, but until the Warriors prove they can win on the road it’s the Kings who must be favoured.
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And while the Kings-Warriors may be the series of the first round, the biggest stories include the number seven Los Angeles Lakers and the number eight Miami Heat, from the West and East, respectively. In the three years of existence of the Play-In Tournament no seventh- or eighth-seeded team has made it out of the first round, but no one reminded these ‘upstarts’.
Firstly, the Lakers earned their spot in the play-offs the hard way by defeating the Timberwolves after the end of the regular season, and landed smack-dab in the sights of a Memphis Grizzlies team that has been playing above the rim for the past two seasons. The Grizzlies entered the play-offs without the services of big men Brandon Clarke (10 points, 5.5 rebounds season average) and Steven Adams (8.6 points, 11.5 rebounds season average), and this has severely impacted their performance against the Lakers.
Led by LeBron James, who shouldn’t still be the best player on an NBA court, the Lakers seized control of the series from game one in Memphis and, following a game two loss during which Dillon Brooks dismissed James as “old” and vowed not to respect him until he scored 40, the Lakers won game three 111–101, even with the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year Jaren Jackson Jr giving his all. But that 10-point difference obscured how much of a blowout it really was as the Grizzlies scored only nine points in the first quarter, against 35 for the Lakers.
That first-quarter score is only two better than the record set by the Boston Celtics in April 2016, and apart from Ja Morant (who put up an unreal 45 points, 13 assists and nine rebounds), the other Memphis players had a disappointing outing — including Brooks who must have felt like he “poked the wrong bear”, scoring seven points on 3-of-13 shooting and was ejected after hitting James in the groin. This has not felt like the typical number seven versus number two, but then again LeBron isn’t typical and the reworked Lakers roster was built for the long-haul.
The Heat took an even longer road than the Lakers to get to this point, having gone through the Atlanta Hawks and Chicago Bulls to get here. They faced the daunting task of tackling two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and his league-leading Milwaukee Bucks in the first round, and they came up big. Giannis is still dealing with a back injury that was sustained in the first quarter of game one, causing him to miss the second and third games, and the Heat lost Victor Oladipo who tore his patellar tendon in Game 3, but Giannis’s issue is more significant to his team.
The Bucks aren’t completely helpless, as with Giannis sidelined for game two their offence exploded in a 138-122 victory that saw seven players score in double figures. However, without him they have been inconsistent and a far cry from the team that had the most wins in the league this season.
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