NBA Playoffs 2017: Predictions for every first-round series
Ever since Kyrie Irving’s 3-pointer sailed over Stephen Curry’s outstretched arms and through the basket in the waning moments of Game 7 of last year’s NBA Finals, serving as a dagger to finish off one of the greatest comebacks in the history of sport, there has been an inevitability to a finals rematch between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors.
The 82-game regular season — and the first three rounds of the playoffs, which begin Saturday — were all but declared a formality leading up to Cavs-Warriors III even before the Warriors signed All-Pro Kevin Durant to go with the All-Pros Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and Curry, making their super team, for lack of a better word, superer.
But despite all signs (other than Cleveland’s recent defensive collapse) pointing to the prophecy coming to fruition, it is worth noting that in the NBA’s long playoff history, the same two teams meeting in the finals three years in a row has never happened. Not during the 1960s when the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers reigned supreme. Not in the 1980s, when only five teams hogged all 20 spots in the finals. And not recently, when the Eastern Conference finalist has been “whichever team LeBron James is playing for.”
Perhaps as a result of the presumption that the finals participants were predetermined, 2016-17 became a season-long celebration of the individual. The battle for Most Valuable Player between Russell Westbrook and James Harden was decidedly epic, and a three-way race for defensive player of the year between Kawhi Leonard, Rudy Gobert and Green inspired countless debates. Postgame analysis often boiled down to which players were friends rather than which team played better, and the Warriors shuffled along to the team’s third consecutive season of 67 or more wins with no one seeming surprised or impressed.
But now the time for praising the individual is officially over. Teams like the Celtics, Spurs, Wizards and Rockets will start their work toward playing spoiler to the fortunes of Cleveland and Golden State, and with 14 Davids and two Goliaths, it should be quite a ride.
WESTERN CONFERENCE
No. 1 Golden State Warriors (67-15) vs. No. 8 Portland Trail Blazers (41-41)
GAME 1: 3:30 p.m. Eastern, Sunday
A funny thing happened when Durant suffered a knee injury and had to miss a large swath of games: The Warriors, a team that simultaneously coasted to the best record in the NBA while underwhelming for the most part, were spurred to find a winning combination without Durant, and rediscovered the old “Strength in Numbers” approach. As Andre Iguodala, David West, Shaun Livingston, Ian Clark and JaVale McGee all played their best basketball of the season, Curry morphed back into the ball-handling wizard who could make every pass and hit every shot rather than the timid star working overtime to accommodate his team’s shiny new toy.
Intending no offense to the Trail Blazers, a team with a tremendous core of young players, this series is more about finding a way to maintain the rhythm Golden State found without Durant now that he has returned than it is about actually winning four games against an overmatched opponent.
PICK: Warriors in five
No. 2 San Antonio Spurs (61-21) vs. No. 7 Memphis Grizzlies (43-39)
GAME 1: 8 p.m. Eastern, Saturday
With Kawhi Leonard having developed an offensive game more commensurate with his defensive mastery, another 60-win season for coach Gregg Popovich and the Spurs was not much of a struggle. But now that the playoffs are here, San Antonio is likely to feel the burden of the absence of the retired Tim Duncan.
A first-round matchup against a feisty opponent like Memphis will not help with the transition, as the team’s older core is still excelling at the grinding style they made famous and Mike Conley’s effectiveness has risen nearly as quickly as his salary.
Having home court advantage in the series may not seem like a big deal so early in the playoffs, but considering the fact that these teams split their games this season, with each team winning both games at home, that could be the difference between moving along and a shocking upset.
PICK: Spurs in seven
No. 3 Houston Rockets (55-27) vs. No. 6 Oklahoma City Thunder (47-35)
GAME 1: 9 p.m. Eastern, Sunday
The story lines between Harden and Westbrook are endless. A pair of reckless and talented guards, linked forever through their shared time in Oklahoma City and pitted against each other in a hectic race for MVP, they are perhaps the two players in the NBA most vital to their teams’ success, and they will undoubtedly put on a show in this series since neither will bother playing much defense.
With the stars canceling out each other, this series comes down to teammates and coaching, and that gives a distinct advantage to the Rockets, a squad reworked into something beautiful by coach Mike D’Antoni. Free of the headaches of New York and Los Angeles, D’Antoni got back to what he does best: Crafting thrilling offenses out of versatile players and allowing for almost unfathomable risk to set his team up for maximum reward.
If Houston’s shooters go cold, this could be a series, but that is a rather huge if.
PICK: Rockets in four
No. 4 Los Angeles Clippers (51-31) vs. No. 5 Utah Jazz (51-31)
GAME 1: 10:30 p.m. Eastern, Saturday
It was the last playoff series to be determined, but both teams took care of business, which left them with matching records and the Clippers with the slightly higher seeding.
Despite the standings holding in the Clippers’ favor, there is a definite sense that Los Angeles is something of the past while Utah is a bright spot of the future. Led by a Big Three of Gordon Hayward, Gobert and the oft-injured George Hill, the Jazz may not get a lot of attention in a top-heavy Western Conference, but they can succeed on both ends of the court, ranked 12th in the NBA in offensive efficiency and third in defensive efficiency.
The Jazz will want to slow down Chris Paul and force the Clippers into a bit of a grudge match. If they succeed in that, they may put the final nails in the coffin of the Lob City contention window.
PICK: Jazz in six
EASTERN CONFERENCE
No. 1 Boston Celtics (53-29) vs. No. 8 Chicago Bulls (41-41)
GAME 1: 6:30 p.m. Eastern, Sunday
The Celtics did not exactly come out of nowhere to steal away the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference from the Cavaliers, but there was some doubt that they could pull it off right until the last day of the season.
Regardless of seeding, even the Celtics understand that LeBron James has not played in six consecutive NBA Finals by coincidence, and coach Brad Stevens told reporters after his team’s season-ending win over Milwaukee that “Cleveland is the team to beat. There’s no question about that.”
A team built around hardworking role players, they found their star in the pint-size Isaiah Thomas, and while some were still questioning his viability as a go-to option during the season, he spent the year getting mentioned in relation to various franchise scoring records along with familiar names like Larry Bird and John Havlicek.
The Bulls had just enough to outlast the Miami Heat for the last playoff spot, but they should not harbor any delusions of grandeur.
PICK: Celtics in four
No. 2 Cleveland Cavaliers (51-31) vs. No. 7 Indiana Pacers (42-40)
GAME 1: 3 p.m. Eastern, Saturday
Cleveland chose to rest the team’s stars on the final day of the season, essentially conceding the No. 1 seed to Boston. That was a curious strategy since Indiana will seemingly provide a much more difficult first-round matchup than Chicago would have mustered.
Coach Tyronn Lue has previously insisted that he has a defensive solution that he intends to deploy in the playoffs that will solve the unmitigated disaster his team was on that side of the ball in the second half of the season, but there is no telling if he will bring it out early in the playoffs or if he will save it for more difficult matchups down the road.
Indiana is hardly a pushover, and Paul George is the type of player who is going to have a transcendent playoff series at some point that will send James home. It will probably not be this year, but if there is a switch that needs to be flipped to get Cleveland going, Cavaliers fans better hope that James & Co. spent their time off Wednesday flipping it.
PICK: Cavaliers in five
No. 3 Toronto Raptors (51-31) vs. No. 6 Milwaukee Bucks (42-40)
GAME 1: 5:30 p.m. Eastern, Saturday
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee’s supersized point guard, is worth the price of admission all by himself on a nightly basis, putting up statistical lines that seem almost impossible until you see him move on the court, at which point you will believe he is capable of that and more. But the key to this series is likely the health of Kyle Lowry, Toronto’s more standard-variety point guard.
Out for an extended period after wrist surgery, Lowry had only a few games to play himself back into shape and has quite a task in trying to draw some attention to himself so the Bucks’ defenders cannot focus on DeMar DeRozan. In the last of the four games between these teams this season, Milwaukee finally won by harassing DeRozan into submission, with the midrange expert admitting that coach Jason Kidd’s defensive strategies fluster him a great deal.
While Toronto has rebuilt its defense, Lowry is probably not ready, which could lead to a coming-out party of sorts for Antetokounmpo and his team.
PICK: Bucks in six
No. 4 Washington Wizards (49-33) vs. No. 5 Atlanta Hawks (43-39)
GAME 1: 1 p.m. Eastern, Sunday
The Wizards are a flawed team that has seemingly given up on defense since the All-Star break, but with an offense led by John Wall and Bradley Beal, outscoring the humdrum Hawks should not be much of an issue.
Washington won three of four meetings between the teams this season, with the lone loss coming in their first game of the season with an energized Dwight Howard playing in front of his hometown fans in Atlanta for the first time as a member of the Hawks. In their most recent contest, the Wizards came away with a 104-100 victory and bold claims that the team had found their missing “swag.”
While Otto Porter has slowed some at the tail end of his breakout season, it is hard to believe that Wall and Beal can’t simply run up the score against the Hawks and move along with relative ease, leaving the Hawks to continue the team’s rebuild during the offseason.
PICK: Wizards in four
