If former champions and still one of the biggest contenders in this season finish regular season on 7th place in their conference, then it means this western conference is really wild... West is really strong in 21th century, there are many great teams and even good teams, which would be sure bet to be in top8 if they play in other conference. Moreover those great teams have to play one another in playoffs, which gives us a lot of entertaining series even in 1st round of the playoffs.
We have 4 match-ups in first round of the playoffs, every single one looks very interesting and it's not easy to pick correctly winners of all of them, which don't help us in FP... probably Jazz, Lakers and Clippers are favorites and Blazers-Nuggets is 50-50. We can also look long-distance - which of the winner of 1st round series will be favorites also in 2nd round? Probably Suns/Lakers winner will be favorite to win against Nuggets/Blazers, so try to not pick Lakers/Suns players (depending on who you think win this rivalry) too early.
Are top3 West teams from regular season for real?
It's strange that comparing East to West, we have top3 great teams which are sure contenders in East and top3 in West isn't considered quite like this...
Jazz and Suns had great regular season, but Suns are rewarded by having to battle Lakers in 1st round and Jazz (with Mitchell just coming back from injury) have to look up to 2nd round series against Clippers, if they win against not so bad 8th seed team (it should not be easy). Nuggets don't have Jamal Murray for this year playoffs and their third spot is also thanks to Clippers wanting to avoid Lakers in second round.
So it looks strange, but it's possible there will be no top3 regular season team from west in Conference Finals. I don't know if this happened before...
Never seen before
Clippers didn't make WCF in franchise history and have a bad history of blowing leads. But every bad series is going to end, right? Is it going to be this year they can at least make it to WCF? Maybe we will witness something new, which will be special for Clippers fans. I think the key is Rajon Rondo - is he able to turn his Playoff Mode once again?
There was no lower seeded team than 6th (Rockets in 1995) who won championship and only one team made the Finals while being 7th or 8th seed (1999 Knicks). Is this Lakers team going to make history? Is LeBron going to prove his playoff greatness one more time? If Lakers win championship, then does regular season even matter in future?
Fun fact: This year's Clippers are the first team since 2011/12 Suns that didn't play a single overtime in whole regular season.
What do you think about this year's West? How wild is it going to be in the playoffs?
I'll see an LA epic showdown in West finals. In the previous round, the only series in whic I see an upset it's Den-Por, when the MVP Jokic it's too alone against Dame's team. Of course I'm considering the Lakers the 2nd seed in this bracket.
ReplyDeleteNice predictions :) last year everyone also expected LA showdown, but we know how it ended ;) we will see how wild it's going to be this time...
DeleteLove that weird fun fact about no OT games for the Clips! I also agree the only Western (upset) will be Portland over Denver. It feels like it's Portland's time with everything clicking at the moment; whereas Denver's time was more-so last year. And as far as picking strategy, probably goes without saying, but obviously completely avoiding Lakers, Nets, Clippers & likely the Sixers is the best plan until anything strange happens. Western Conf is stronger as a whole as has been the case for a long time now, but the East has 3 serious contenders, 4-5 if you count the well coached experienced teams like the Heat & Celtics & ultimately are finally an exciting conference once again.
DeleteAnd also, this year WILL be the Battle of LA in the conf finals & I'm gonna try to go to one of those games! Actually, I'll also be trying to see one of these first round PHX games lives since I'm constantly traveling between LA & PHX anyway.
DeleteWow, I'm really jealous of you having a chance to watch playoffs games live ;) Maybe you should make a recap of live game on this blog, this would be really exciting :D
DeleteIf I go to one, I'll take pics and use them in a blog post, recap the experience a bit, etc.
DeleteThat would be awesome :D I hope it happens ;)
DeleteIm going with Tatum then Westbrook
ReplyDeleteTatum just put up a 50 piece. I always fear the reverse bounce-back, meaning a potential dud!
DeleteIf there’s a coach-player rivalry in the playoffs, it is Carlisle-Rondo.
ReplyDeleteRondo gave up and walked-out off a Mavs game. And Mavs left him out of the playoffs.
Rondo’s vengeance is real. Playoff Rondo is coming.
Let’s go Mavs!
Oh yes, I forgot about this rivalry and it can be really intriguing! Thanks for this observation ;) I'm Mavs fan (I saw Luka before, playing great in Europe), so I'm cheering for their upset over Clippers :)
DeleteOf course, when the Rockets won it all as a 6th seed, they were the defending champions. And they had Hakeem and Drexler. That said, I wouldn´t rule out the chance of LeBron and AD topping the 1995 Rockets.
ReplyDeleteIf Porzingis stays healthy and PG13 keeps messing up his playoff-appearances I see a possible "upset" in that series. After all, they are playing the Clippers. With a chip on their shoulder from last season, and that is a franchise where even Kawhi Leonard couldn´t reach the conference finals after being up 3-1 in the conference semifinals. Long story short, I don´t see the Staples-WCF yet, LeBron will face either the Jazz or the Mavs.
I would LOVE for the Mavs to beat the Clips. But I’d also love to see the Battle for LA so Lebron can shut the door on that narrative once & for all.
DeleteLet’s just let the narrative linger on unresolved — brings color to our NBA fandom :P
DeleteLet’s go Mavs!