NBA Play-Offs Preview And Predictions.
The Play-In Tournament Has Passed. In Its Wake, The Groundwork that marks the terrain For The 16 NBA teams, all Treading The Course That Leads To The Championships Peak.
Western Conference Round 1
Grizzlies Vs. Jazz
The Young Grizzlies Won Two Straight Play In Tournament Games First Against The Spurs, Follow Up That Triumph By besting The Warriors Friday Night, the latter game, a defensive struggle that forced Overtime and secures the Grizz The Final Playoff spot and becomes the 9th or 10th seed to enter the playoffs. The Grizzlies Are Riding Momentum Into The Playoffs And For Their Efforts, They’ve Won A Ticket further West, A face Off Against The NBA Best Utah Jazz. The Utah Jazz Didnt Have Such a precarious Path Into The Playoffs. The Jazz Lead The Lead The Leagues In Both Offensive And Defensive rating, One of Only Four To Secure Top Ten ratings In both Stats In The Entire League. As Well As Tops At Defending The three Point Line A Facet Of The Grizzlies Struggled With, At 35% On The Season. In The Alternate The Jazz is The Only Team In The Top 5 Of The NBA In 3 Point Attempts And Conversion percentages. Utah Loss 20 Games On The Season And Despite 3 Matchup Versus The Grizz Not One Of Those 20 Losses Were Conceded To Memphis. Those three victories came Within the span of one of the Jazz’s three Nine game Winning Streaks. The Grizzlies Have Gotten Healthy And Hot A The Right Time. Grizzlies Center Jonas Valicunas Is Having A a Career. The Veteran Is Assumed To be Leaned On A Bit More In This Series Fro The Inexperienced Grizzlies. The Return Of Jaren Jackson junior Could Pose A Problem For A Jazz Lineup Which Isn’t Built To defend The Long Limbed Stretch Four. With Their Satr Guard Donavan Mitchell Having A Career year In Every Significant Statistical And Center Rudy Gobert, And Two Defending Defensive Player Of the Year Rudy Once Again In The Running The Jazz Here The Jazz Of Their Best Chance At Championship contention since the late 90s. The Grizzlies Have The Chance to Make Some Noise In The West as their team that is still processing can gain experience. Reigning Rookie Of The Year Ja Maront Headlines The Bunch But The Team Features Seven Players That Average Double Digits In Scoring And They Are Going To need It If The Hope To contend With the Jazz. Conversely Health Could Be A Concern For The Jazz, star Guard Donavan Mitchell Is Still Nursing A Sore Ankle But He’s had A Few Days Of rest.
Jazz in 5
Suns Vs. Lakers
A trap series if there Ever Were One. For Those wondering A Trap Series takes Place When The Higher Seeded Team in the Playoff Bracket, in this Case, The Phoenix Suns, Are Locked Into a Matchup Against a Lower Seeded team, The Lakers, Who Quite Possibly are Be The Better or more favorable team in the Series. Now That Is Our Of The Way. This Is The Only Matchup Out West that Features Two Teams In the Top 10 Of Defensive rating. Most Mid-Season Projections Would Have Station The Lakers As A Top-Seeded team In The Or At least top 5 out West. That Is Before the Injury Bug Creep In And Bite Both Lebron And AD, Saddling The Stars For Some Period Of Time. The Lakers Were 19-8 with both LeBron and AD In the Line-Up, Outscoring opponents By Double Digits. But The Tandem Tagged into The Alkers Line-up Sparingly. Coupled with the rise Of Other Western Conference predators Pushed The Lakers To the Brink of Extinction Which required Late Heroics From Lebron James To Save The Seven Seed And LA Hopes Of Repeating as NBA. The Lake show Is a Prehistoric offense that Struggles to be effective anywhere outside of the paint. They have The largest Field Goal Percentage discrepancy on Attempts inside and outside of the paint, In other words, They don’t shoot well. The Team Moves the Ball effectively, sporting the Third Highest “Hockey” Assist rate But Struggles To convert Attempts Off the Dribble. In the Way of the Lakers, Quest To repeat Is A Phoenix Suns, a Team Rising From The Horizon Of Playoff Obscurity And Into The hemisphere Of The Western Conference contention Discussion. This Is Not Your Grnadma’s Suns Or Your Older Brother’s Phoenix Suns. Led By Devin Booker And Chris Paul, The Offense Rank Top 10 in paint Field Goals(1st), Mid-range(1st), and Three-point Effectiveness(7th) and Led the League In Assist To turnover Ratio As Well as the League’s best record In the Clutch. These Suns are Also One Of Four teams To rank Top ten in Both defensive And Offensive ratings. They Rank highest In Most Field Goal Statistical categories, From Inside And Out Side Of The Restricted Area And Shot Down The Three-Point Line, On top of Being 3rd in Net Rating. The Suns boost A Plus Records in clutch Games But Neither Devin Booker Nor Chris Paul Are Plus In that Fraction Of The Game. Deandre Ayton Struggled Defensive on An Individual Level And he Will Is tested Against LA. The Suns Bested The Lakers 2 of 3 matchups, with a Late season Loss Being against The Embattled Lakers Serving as The Only Defeat, Though The Lakers Won The Point differential of The Season Series Overall and the Lebron And Anthony Davis Duo Never Paired up To Play the Suns As Both Battle Injuries Throughout The Course Of the Season. The Suns Are Young and Inexperienced The Lakers Have LeBron’s And A tested Team.
Suns In Six
Nuggets vs Blazers
These Divisions DFoes Know Each Other Well. Only two years Removed From A Seven Game Series That saw Portland Advance To The western Finals. Despite The Mass Appeal Of Damian Lillard And Co The Blazers Aare Still A Middling western Conference team Who Narrowly Avoided A Play in the tournament Against The Warriors. That Being said The Blazers Have That Guy Damian Lillard, He’s Lead the Portland Offense To The 2nd Highest off Rating In the League And 5th in Points per game Average, despite Having The League’s Lowest Assist percentage and ranking 28th in average, as well As The Lowest drive rate in the League. The Offset, the Three Pointer. The Blazers Shoot the Highest Percentage Of Threes And Win 3:1 When they Shoot at or Above The League Average. The Blazers Are Incendiary Inn isolation. Carmelo Virtually Never Passes, And CJ Mccollum Is Not Far behind Him in isolation situations. The Dearth of Ball Sharing As Lead to Dearth Of Ball Losing. The Balzers As A Team Rarely Turn the Ball Over And Their Starting Lineup Out scores Its opponents 13.4 Per 100 Possession, stats courtesy of NBA.com. The Nuggets Operate In Isolation A lot Up In the Mountains, Unlike The Blazers, Who Share the Ball Through Three primary Isolationist, Denver Uses Nikola Jokic As the Teams Offensive central Compass. Jokic Average The Most, the Most, Touches In The League and Made good work of Them both inside and outside of the lane. The Nuggets Center Had 56 More Isolation Touches Than Next Highest Qualifier, shooting better than 70% inside the lane and 50% Mid-Range. The Nuggets style Of Play is Laboring They Ranked Bottom Five in the pace of play or possession per game. But this Is The Playoff where A Pace Doesn’t factor In So As Historically Most teams Pace dives Mile high. Next To Jokic Will Eb Micheal Porter Jr. Porter Jr. took When Jamal Murray went down. He is Shooting 46.5 on catch And Shoot Three Pointers. The Nuggets Will Need His Marks Man Ship, Given Portland Proclivity From Deep, And Their Other Forwards, Aaron Gordon, And Paul Milsap are Both Struggling From Anywhere outside Of The restricted Area. The Nuggets Won Two Of 3 Matchup Versus Portland Two close Affairs And One Lobsided Win by Portland In their Final Matchup.
Blazers in 6.
Clippers Vs. Mavs.
A rematch of their playoff series of a year ago. The Clippers Are Keen To “Colossal collapses”. The Mavericks are A-Team with No Identity shoulder By A Young Phenom.
The Clippers Are One Of Four teams Who Are Top 10 In Both Offensive And defensive RAting. Their Offense Is Similar To Paortlands In That They Take and Make A lot Of Threes. Where The Similarities End. Where Portland Produces Most of Its Threes Of The Dribble The clippers Have Some Of The Best Catch In Shoot Players In The League, Including Paul George. The Clippers Do damage Inside As Well With Serge Ibaka Being One OF the Most Efficient Converting 70% Of His Restricted Area touches And KAhwi Leonard, Not To be An After Thought, Being One The Most Proficient Pick And Roll Maestros In The League. The Two Way Tandem Of APul George And Kawhi Leonard As also One Of The Two duos To Average 20/5/5 In 50 Plus Games. Their Starter Lineup Like To Get Ahead And when the Do The They never Look Back Winning 5:1 when Leading By Double Digits But Struggle To Recover in Adversity. Sporting A sub .500 Mark When trailing By Double digits. The Teams offense stagnates in the clutch,16-18 in tight Games. 11-22. One of those 22 losses, a 50 pointer versus Dallas. The Mavs Struggled Mid Way Through the Season and Were Considered A Fringe Playoff Team Before The team Settled At 42-30. The Mavs and Clippers Share A Status As a team Who wins Early. The Mavericks Are Undefeated When They Win the First Quarter, Which Accounts for 27 of Their 42 Wins. The Mavericks Offense Is A Quagmire Of The Third Variety. They Scasrely Work In Transition And are unremarkable At The Three Shooting And Ball Movement But Their Pick And Roll Offense Is eXceptional And They Efficient With Their Offensive Opportunities, recording Some of The Highest Percentages on Pulls up, catch And Shoot creation. The Mavericks Are Unremarkable On Defense With One Of The Leagues Losest Defensive rating. The Struggles To force Turnovers. The offense is Lead By Luka Doncic Who Operate Primarily One on One Which Doesn’t Bode Well For The Mavs As He Will is tested Against Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, and Nicholas Batum Every Night In This series. The Mavs Won The Three-Game Series 2-1, One of those, games the first one, Minus Kawhi, who struggled to score against Mavs this season. Expect This Series To be Different.
Clippers In Seven.
Eastern Conference
Sixers Vs. Wizards
The Wizards Weren’t Supposed To Be Here, But They Are, Now How Are Can This Wounded Washington Team Go. The Team from The US Capital Will Take The Periphery To The City That Lost Out In The Bid To Be The Country Central Power. In Philly, the Process Has Passed But The Results Are Still Loading. They Have Both, MVP Candidate Joel Embiid And Defensive Player Of The Year candidate Ben Simmons For the First In The Playoffs since The Tandem Was Conceived As well As The League Second Rank defense. The Sixers Had Some Trouble Handlings The Wiz Early In The Season But Joel Embiid Had His Way Averaging Above thirty Points In Their Matchups. The Sixers As A Team Play The Fast Break Both Ways With More Than A Quarter of Their Total Offensive Output Coming In Transition while Simultaneously Shut Opponents down On the Break, Allowing Only 14.3 points Per games. The Sixers Interchangeable Players Switch As Much Any other team On a defense Rank third in The League. The Starting Lineup Of Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris, Danny Green, Seth Curry, And Joel Embiid Play The Largest Portion of The team’s Minute which Is Good Because The Team’s rotation Is Considerable Weak Underneath those five. The wizards Are Also A Thin team that Likes To get Yup And down the Courts And Score In Bunches. The Lead The League In Pace, Fast Break Points Shortest Time Of Possession, and Fast Break Points. The team Is Thin. None Of the Assorted Starting Lineups The Wizards Featured Played More 150 mins Together, The Sixers Starting Line Played Almost 700 minutes. Inconsequential As Long As The Wizards Lineup Feature Bradley Beal Who Finished Second In the League In Scoring, third in usage rate, and accounted for 34.3% of the teams Shot When On the Floor. The Other Notable Wizards Guard Russel Westbrook Averaged A triple Double For The Fourth Time Leading The League In Assist. Westbrook Struggle To Convert opportunities In Isolation And Pick And Roll But Delivered In Clutch, Shooting 49.5 on clutch Shots. Sometimes I Wonder If He Puts His Team in the Position for Him to Come Out as the hero. As I stated The Sixers Battled The Wizard In The Three Games They Played, despite Winning All Three The first Two fell Within The Narrow margins Of 6 and 5 Points Respectively.
Sixers In Six
Nets Vs. Celtics
These two Teams Have an intertwined history in recent years and they forge both Franchises into the faces they are today. a Tango That Set both On Course To This Moment. The Nets Have Once Again Assembled A Collective Of All-Stars by sacrificing Their Assets. The Last Time They Made Such A Great Expense For Talent, the Credits Was transferred to the Celtics Account. Now, They Meet To Settle The Score Of Sorts. The Brooklyn Trio Of Durant Harden And Irving Have Only Played What 8 Games together, You Could not Tell By The Acclaim. The Nets Also Outscored an opponent on About 9 More Points With Joe Harris and Jeff Green instead Of The Three All-Stars together. With Those Names comes Gaudy Stat lines. The Nets Finish Number One In Offensive Rating, averaging 117 Points Per Possession, which Is 5.3 Above The League Average. They Bested The 2018 Warriors( Durant’s former team) Mark for effective Field Goal Percentage, as A result Of Their sixth rank Percentage In the Paint (58.9), second in mid-range(46.3), and Second In Three-point Percentage,(39.3). Offensive The Celtic Are Notch Below The Nets OnnTeh Offensive Rating Scale At 10th And 2nd in Effective Feaild GoalmRatong. Their Offense Is Tailored To Their Star (Jayson Tatum) Pull Up Game. They converted 45.9 percent of their attempts on pullups, Tatum 37% of his pullup Threes, which work well against the nets who struggle to defend one-on-one and switch often in screen situations. The TheCelticss Line Of Jayson Tatum, Marcus Smart, Evan Fournier, And Kemba Walker Haven’t Logged Many minutes together But when they have, the quartet is Outscoring opponents 14.4 points per possession when they Are together. Tatum Is One of Three NBA with Multiple 50 Point Games Most Recently Against The Wizards In a Play-in Tournament. The nEts And Celtics Played Three Games, With The Bites Sweeping The Series and The Third Game Representing The Only competitive matchup on The Score Board.
Nets In 7
Bucks Verus Heat.
Here We Have Another 3 versus 6 Match Up That represents A Rematch Of Teams From Yester Year. The Bucks Are Built Different and The Heat Took it down A Notch from The Year They Played In the Finals. Both Teams Have Some demons To exercise But The Bucks, who took a step backward, Have The Most To Lose in this series. They traded For Jrue Holiday To Help defend Wing Scorers and two-time MVP Giannis Antemkumpo Is Still A force In the Restricted area. the Heat Have A chip On their Shoulder And A history Of Playing Best When They need to. The Stats Tell Who Ahs The Edge This Time Around But The Play States Who Takes’ The Series. The Busks Are The Final Of that fearsome Foursome That Ranks top 10 In Both Defensive And Offensive rating And Of These Teams and Are The Only One Of those Teams ranked Top 10 in pace. That High Pace Of OPaly Helped The Bucks Play The Fewest Games With 5 Point differential, They Aver 24 Points In transition This accounting for 19% Of Their Possessions. This Bodes well for The Who Struggled In Games decided By 5 or fewer and Rank Bottoms in free throw rate and Free-throw Percentage. The Heat Squeeze Into The Top 10 In defensive Efficient Rating They Defend The Fast Break With the effectiveness in the entire league but struggling in the half with lowest block total in the league. When It Comes To Offense Premiere Name Like Jimmy Butler enter TheForefrontt Of Our Thought But The Heat Move The Ball More Often, The Team Average The Second highest Assist Percentage In the League Last season. The Bucks And Heat Meet Up Three Teams This Season, with The Bucks Winning 2of 3 None Of The Contest Being Close affairs. If This Trend Maintains In The Playoffs This Favors The Bucks Who Rarely Surrender Leads And The Heat Struggled To Hit The Three Consistently This Season, from 2nd last year to 19th this year. In close Cornered affairs The Series Could Favor Either Team. The Bucks are A Sub .500 team in games decided by 5 points or less. The Heat Were No Better ranking last in clutch offense and 2nd to last in 3-point percentage in the clutch.
Bucks In Six.
Knicks VS. Hawks
Two Playoff Pleasant Surprises. Lead By Presumed Most Improved Player Of The Year Julius Randle The Knicks Are One Of The Most Improved Teams In the League. Their Entrance Into The Playoff Foray Ends A Seven Year drought, the longest In the NBA. The Hawks Are Another Eastern Conferences Improved Who Thanks To A Late. Season Surge Secured the 5th Seed. This Team Is Deep Lineup But Go As Far A trey Young Can Carry Them. Aside From Randle the Player Having The Largest Influence On The Knicks Is R.J. Barret. The 2nd Year Man Was Quickly Becoming an After Thought 2019 draft Until He Emerges Having a Career Year Especially from 3, with His Percentage Rising to 47% for The Months April And May. The Knick Had Many Riser At Three-Point Line Including Randle, Rose, and Quickly. Overall The Team Ranked third in a three-point percentage. Julius Randle Ranked Top In Points, Rebounds, And Assist, He And. Nikola Yokic Being The Only Two Players In the League. Despite All the Three-Point Success, This Knicks Team is Built More On Its Defense. Rank fourth In Defensive Rating rank first In opponents Field Goal Percentage In The restricted, Three-Point Line As well as The fewest Fast Breakpoints. Coming To Visit This Top 10 Is The Top 10 Offense of The Hawks. The Hawks Play Trae Young And TThree-PointShot To Their Grestatest Effectiveness. TTheScore 14 more Points With Young On The Court And Ranked top In TThreepoint percentages. On defense, The Hawks Suffocate Three-point with their Third-ranked opponent’s field goal percentage. The Hawks Utilized Lineups That Often Feature Several wing Combinations Centered on Trae Young, Clint Capela, And Jon Collins. The Knicks won All Three Of Their Matchups With Hawks. One In OOvertime another decided by 6 points.
Hawks In six.
Stats Courtesy Of NBA.com.
