It’s Thursday, April 11. Welcome to the postseason! And what a final week it’s been. Just in the past few days, we’ve had:
- Dwayne Wade and Dirk Nowitzki play the final games of two legendary NBA careers
- Magic Johnson slink out the back door of the Staples Center
- Jamal Crawford score 50+ points (off the bench!) in a game Wednesday night, almost 15 years to the day that he did it for the first time
- Paul George hit a game-winner
- The Warriors play their last regular-season home game at Oracle Arena (in these sick throwbacks – Baron Davis, eat your heart out)
And you know what? I’m not gonna talk about any of them. Because none of them is going to help you get ready for the NBA playoffs, which begin this Saturday.
1. I’ll Just Get Right to It – 10 Bold First-Round Predictions
Take these to the bank.
- Denver goes out to San Antonio in the first round – the series doesn’t even go seven games
- Russell Westbrook shoots below 20% during his (likely one-round) playoff stay
- The Bucks sweep the Pistons, but Andrew Drummond grabs 70+ rebounds
- Chris Paul suffers some sort of injury
- The Magic accidentally take the Raptors to seven games
- The Thunder have had a wildly inconsistent season – if you’re a betting man, stay the fuck away from them; that being said, they should be thanking the basketball gods that they’re matching up with Portland and not Houston
- Jimmy Butler averages more points in the fourth quarter alone than he does in the first three
- The Clippers take two games off of the Warriors – they have a ton to play for, what with trying to show free agents the potential that they have
- Damian Lillard averages the most points per game of any player in the first round
- Utah somehow beats the Houston
2. Eastern Conference Injuries Part I
When we think of some of the great battles of futility in sporting history, perhaps draft lottery tanking races come to mind. Perhaps you think of AFC South division titles. Maybe you’re envisioning this year’s Super Bowl.
Well how about this one: who’s worse – the Mets’ medical staff or the Sixers’?
I could do an entire article on the botch job the Sixers staff has done over the years – from Embiid’s knee, to Simmons’ foot, to Zhaire’s foot, to Zhaire literally almost dying – but now we find ourselves back on Embiid. Embiid missed five of the last seven (and 14 of the final 24) games of the season while resting up from various nagging injuries. All the while, Embiid had said that if it were the playoffs, he wouldn’t have missed any of those games, giving Philadelphia’s hypochondriac fans a reason to relax.
Well, guess what? It’s the playoffs and – Embiid still might not be ready to play! General Manager Elton Brand said that it’s “possible” that Embiid might miss the playoff opener with a sore left knee.
If this is the case, why on earth did Embiid come back to play those two games on April 4 and 6, against the Bucks and Bulls respectively? On one hand, I get it – the Sixers still didn’t have the three seed fully wrapped up. And Embiid has said himself – he quickly gets out of game shape when he sits out too long. This was an issue at the start of last year’s playoff, when a masked Embiid was still getting his legs back after an orbital bone fracture (another gift to Philadelphia from the great Markelle Fultz). Just kidding by the way, this is what Embiid’s mask looked like. Alright, fine.
3. Eastern Conference Injuries Part II
Meanwhile, you can’t have Sixers talk without Celtics jab to follow. All season it’s been hard to tell if the Celtics are a disaster. It has been all season. They have immense levels of talent and depth and a top-3 head coach. They also have lofty expectations, in-fighting, and now a gaping defensive hole.
Marcus Smart, the team’s pace car in physicality and peskiness, will be sidelined 4-6 weeks with a torn left oblique muscle. This will likely keep him out for at least the first two rounds of the playoffs, if the Celtics make it that far. The Celtics will be the No. 4 seed in the East and match up with an Indiana Pacers team that has plenty of grit itself. Smart will be sorely missed – the team is 39-22 this year when he starts, and 10-11 when he doesn’t.
All this simply checks more boxes for the Milwaukee Bucks and Toronto Raptors to have a late-May showdown.
4. Top 10 List – What Eliminated Players Are Doing
Athletes are competitive, sometimes to the point of being petty. Some players and executives headed for an early offseason can’t stand to watch their peers trudge on in the postseason because it reminds them of their own failures. So as NBA fans get ready for the playoffs on Saturday, here’s what the rest of the league will be doing.
10. The Hornets convene for an emergency meeting: “Apparently, there are only eight playoff spots in each conference – we should stop getting the nine seed”
9. The Heat gleefully prepare for the “Goran Dragic” era in Miami
8. Kevin Love goes through his annual internal debate – “Should I get fat again? I was really good when I was fat.”
7. Luka spends the summer ignoring players texting for his mom’s number
6. Andrew Wiggins ponders what else he can convince Glen Taylor to do
5. John Wall spends the offseason home in his native Raleigh, North Carolina where he tours Zaxby’s, Carl’s Jr.’s, and Hardee’s
4. Anthony Davis’ representation pitches ESPN/ABC on a spinoff of The Bachelor, where the women are actually just middling teams looking to trade for him
3. Trae Young looks to bulk up to 165
2. The Suns begin an offseason PR campaign to educate fans that head coach Igor Kokoskov is not this Igor; a few days into the campaign, he gets fired anyway
1. LeBron demands a trade: “I wanna go somewhere warm, where I can build my brand and get ready for retirement. I wanna be traded to the Lakers. Oh wait, fuck”
5. Did You Know?
Here’s a good one. The three best lineups in the NBA this year, by points scored per 100 possessions? No. 1 isn’t hard to guess – it’s obviously the Warriors starters. No. 3 is the Sixers’ starting lineup. But No. 2? How ‘bout this – Thad Young and the Pacers bench. Who knew?
The Pacers might be the only team in the playoffs that are 100% star-less. And they’re also a team that could easily find themselves in the Eastern Conference semi-finals.
