We can be completely honest with ourselves after the first week and change of the 2015 NBA playoffs. After a fantastic regular season with great players and teams, compelling and unexpected storylines, and generally brilliant basketball on a nightly basis, it's been a lackluster first round of series.
Through about the midway point of the first round, as I write this on Sunday before the conclusion of any game, one series is over, four more have the series score at three games to none, and two others (Milwaukee/Chicago and Atlanta/Brooklyn) are serious mismatches that should finish the way of the favorites.
Only one series, between the Spurs and Clippers, doesn't carry a total feeling of inevitability about it. And it's perhaps the one series where the quality of the two teams seems worthy of a conference finals, due to the crazy Rockets/Clippers/Grizzlies/Spurs logjam in the West and the NBA's outdated division system that put the Blazers in the No. 4 seed.
That's not to say there haven't been some magnificent and thrilling games already. Game 2 of Spurs/Clippers, Game 3 of Bulls/Bucks, Game 3 of Mavericks/Rockets, and Game 3 of Warriors/Pelicans were all great games that might get overlooked as classics due to the blowout nature of the first round.
However, a first round with lopsided matchups by series score could lead to a blockbuster May and June to close out the playoffs.
We're already pretty confident that we know three of the conference semifinal matchups. Barring an unprecedented comeback from down three games, or the 60-win Hawks losing four of five to the distinctly average and uncompelling Nets, the Warriors and Grizzlies; Bulls and Cavs; and Hawks and Wizards will play each other in the next round. Then the Rockets will be playing either the Spurs or Clippers.
I'm not breaking any news to say that the Warriors, Hawks and Cavs will be favored in those series, and probably quite heavily. The Rockets playing the Clippers would probably be a toss-up, and the Spurs would be favored against Houston. So, it's possible that those series would take on the same general nature as the first round. It's unlikely, though.
The interesting thing about this round is that the individual games themselves haven't always been indicative of sweeps and 3-1 leads.
The Warriors and Cavs are seemingly everyone's consensus picks for the Finals, but in their respective series against the Pelicans and Celtics, each team really has only played up to a very high level for about a quarter or a few minutes at a time.
It's becoming trite to hear commentators talk every game about, "We talked to LeBron, and he says the team needs to play better despite the win in the last game." Yet, LeBron has been to the Finals four years in a row, and knows his team has to play better than they have against the rebuilding and limited Celtics team that has had to overhaul key positions three times during the season due to trades.
As the defenses get better later in the playoffs, it's unrealistic and probably delusional to think that Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love (especially if he misses extended time with the shoulder injury he picked up in Game 4), as good as they are, will hit half of their three-point attempts. While a matchup against the Bulls would probably take on the same feel of LeBron's Heat series against the Bulls, what with Chicago having the less-talented roster and the Bulls making LeBron's team work really hard for four wins, Chicago has been quite good shooting the ball, with an effective FG percentage of 51.7 through four games against Milwaukee.
For Golden State, they have the luxury of knowing that their best is better than anyone else's in the league, and it's not really close. When the Warriors get in a rhythm when they're running the floor, getting stops, flying around, draining threes from the Splash Bros., and yet still spacing the floor like they've been playing together since they were 19, they're absolutely impossible to stop. I'm not sure the league has had such a fun team to watch at full flight since the Showtime Lakers.
I thought earlier in the season that the way to beat the Warriors was to get them in a rock-fight, and try to grind out four wins with the possession count in the high 80s or low 90s. In other words, Memphis would be as perfect a matchup as you could muster against one of the 10 best regular season teams in history.
I don't think that anymore. We know the Warriors are going to get stops, even if your offense uses up a lot of the shot clock. This isn't Mike D'Antoni's "Seven Seconds or Less" Suns we're talking about here. Those stops, in many cases, are going to lead transition opportunities, and those potential all-cylinders-go hyper-speed Golden State runs.
More and more, I think you have to hold them to merely one or two of those runs in the course of the game, and try to sell out as much for your transition defense as you can without completely punting on rebounding. The thing is, Golden State's offensive wizardry and craftiness can be great in the half-court, too. And you know what? I don't think New Orleans really did that bad a job, despite getting swept and allowing 115.8 points per 100 possessions.
But make no mistake, Memphis can give Golden State trouble, and it's possible for them to take the series. It's just going to require them playing a more perfect series than their Bay Area counterparts. A fully healthy Mike Conley would have also been ideal to matchup with Golden State's frontcourt, but he was still playing at a high level before he went down in a scary way with a face injury in Game 3 of the Portland series.
As for the Hawks, I'm not quite sure what to make of them at this point. Quite frankly, their series with Brooklyn has been crap. Neither team is averaging over a point per possession, and Kyle Korver and DeMarre Carroll are the only Hawks that can shoot a lick through three games. Like I mentioned before, they're still way better than the Nets, and should win the series, but this is a worrying sign.
The Wizards right now are completely whitewashing the Raptors and Kyle Lowry's skeleton (remember how he was the starting East point guard at the All-Star Game?) despite John Wall and Bradley Beal each shooting below 40 percent from the floor and below 30 percent from three.
With more of a contribution from the Washington starting backcourt, plus Paul Pierce playing like 2008 Paul Pierce and Otto Porter finally looking something like the third pick in the draft, the Wizards could absolutely beat an Atlanta team in a funk.
I'm not sure that I can ever remember a more lopsided first round by series score or that observers have been able to confidently name three of the next round's matchups a week into the second season. However, those matchups should produce more drama than the playoffs have produced so far.
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