The 2023 Wudder Sports NBA Award Tour + Round One Playoff Preview Compendium
Seasonal Seeding Salutations, Wudder World…
The last time we joined you with a new written page here at home base was late Fall with our Trading Places 40th Anniversary NBA Preview with Over/Under Predictions.
Feel free to (re)visit that by clicking the clicking the hyperlink here to see how your boy Nostrabombus did. SPOILER ALERT on that tally: 22 Wins, 8 Losses.
Some of these seasons were too unlikely for even us to have foreseen.
Who knew the tanking Utah Jazz would have a spark when they started before belatedly becoming garbage? Who had the Sacramento Kings not only making the playoffs but being a three seed out West? Who thought the New Orleans Pelicans might narrowly miss the mark by one game due to a mysteriously prolonged Zion Williamson injury?
Alright, maybe that last one in hindsight was easier to see.
Nevertheless, we’ll take our hit rate of .733.
That’s a higher percentage than the Milwaukee Bucks league-leading .707.
In audio form, Da Bombcast hosted by a dynamic duo of sports/pop-culture discussion since single digits age, Bomb and J, the last time we checked in was mid-March for the seasonal transition edition, Volume 19: A WinterSpring Thing.
On the heels of the recently completed March Madness and Master’s Weekend, with MLB back but now at a league-mandated faster pace, NFL Draft on the way, with the NHL and NBA playoffs set to begin this weekend…like the late great Biz Markie sings: It’s Spring Again...
So lemme take a trip down memory lane…to fully recognize some standouts at the conclusion of yet another wild and wooly, warts-and-all season of NBA basketball.
When that Award Tour ends, continue scrolling further to read all of our fearless predictions, while previewing all eight first round playoff series.
Keep your ears open for a fresh pod dropping Friday, “Volume 20: Spring Flinging”
Most Valuable Player
Joel Embiid-Philadelphia 76ers
Last year was a debate. This season he pulled away by the time we got to April. Second consecutive season leading scorer in the NBA. First center to do so since Kareem. Staying in the lineup just a little bit more each season since that disastrous back-to-back broken-foot-missed seasons amid family tragedy, culture shock, and often alienating frustration while processing his seemingly doomed professional basketball beginning.
His line drive jumper from the nail is now nearly automatic like Tim Duncan’s left or right side bank shot. Harden gave him his first pick-and-roll partner. The results were historic. Not to mention having seen what has since become of several early young gun running partners post-Philly, coupled with the executive and coaching level turmoil post-Hinkie/pre-Morey, things might have been even harder than we thought initially.
Joel is much better at passing out of double teams now, even if he will never be a truly élite passing big like Nikola Jokic. He likely will always have a relatively high turnover rate due to usage. On the other end of the floor tho, usually in the guts of the game, he can fully take over defensively. The team leadership vacuum in past seasons feels less egregious. Body language better. Sideshows lessened.
Joel Embiid is your 2023 NBA MVP. But none of this really means anything if he can’t perform like an MVP in these upcoming playoffs in order to get the Sixers past the Celtics for the first time since Andrew Toney had two healthy feet to use while famously strangling Boston during the early eighties. It’s been a long time coming.
Therefore it’s hard to get too excited about the Embiid Sixers until they show and prove. They won 54 games this season, their second-highest total since winning their most-recent title in 1983. That year Moses Malone was MVP. The only other season above 54 wins since was 2001 MVP Allen Iverson, which ended at an NBA Finals appearance.
Let’s hope these are indicator of Embiid’s 2023 future company. Because after everything that’s transpired, in one of the craziest stretches any franchise has ever seen since 2014, the Sixers still frustrated ‘23 Me approximately 76% of the time. Maybe I’m still processing (seewutididthere) Sixer PTSD. It’s been 22 seasons since this legacy franchise made a legit run. So congrats to JoJo on a second straight scoring title and first MVP. It’s been well-earned. But the crucial work has only just begun. Let’s Get It Done.
Defensive Player of the Year
Jaren Jackson Junior-Memphis Grizzlies
Ja Morant made headlines this year for his on-court play, plus his playing-too-damn-much public displays of outside recreation. Dillon Brooks stayed in a war of words with Draymond Green in the running for this league’s least likable beef, if we didn’t already have Draymond versus Rudy Gobert. Before season-ending injury, Steven Adams added Kiwi muscle and veteran gravitas to this wild and free outfit down in Memphis.
The Grizzlies despite injuries and hiatuses have been ensconced in the two-seed slot for awhile. And since returning from the offseason foot fracture surgery that caused him to miss this season’s first 15 games, a 23-year-old defensive whiz kid and improving scorer named Jaren Jackson Junior was the biggest reason. The 2023 DPOY has to be him. His reward for the effort? An opening round advanced assignment to play center and check a rejuvenated Anthony Davis in the upcoming Grizz/Laker series, all without having the physicality of Adams for backup in one of the closest #2 vs #7 seed macthups in NBA history. Triple J staying out of foul trouble, at times a struggle, will be a series key.
Coach Of The Year
Mike Brown-Sacramento Kings
First head coaching gig in a decade. Team improved by 18 games to go from perennial lottery team to third seed in the West in his inaugural Sacramento season. The Kings previously held the longest-running-playoff-drought at 18 consecutive seasons.
Those are clear Coach Of The Year bona fides.
This will become Brown’s second COY trophy, his first coming way back in 2009 with a Cleveland Cavs squad of Young LeBron carrying a crew of borderline bums who somehow won 66 games that season (63 the next) by playing hard nightly, Mike Brown installing a great team defensive scheme, and 24-year-old LBJ winning his first MVP.
Things got choppy post-Cleveland. When Brown bought a home in Anaheim Hills after being hired in 2012 as Laker head coach, without he or the Buss Family talking first to Kobe, it became a double whammy upon entry. Just five games into his second LA season, he was shown the back door for Mike D’Antoni, not coincidentally hours after Bean sent Laker management a made-for-TV-message, via a death-stare so overt that every OC realtor began rubbing their hands together like Birdman before checking in.
D’Antoni got three straight head coaching opportunities beginning with six seasons in Phoenix, four in New York, then two in L.A. without missing a season in the process.
Mike Brown didn’t sniff another Head Coach gig for 13 years despite being a key assistant on Golden State for three title-winning teams from 2017 to 2022. Since Phil Jackson retired from coaching in 2011, immediately after the Lakers were swept by the Mavericks punctuated by Andrew Bynum clotheslining JJ Barrea in mid-air then tossing his jersey off at mid court to jeers as he left the floor, the Los Angeles Lakers won a cumulative total of ONE playoff game across a decade that included the final six years of Kobe’s career before LeBron came to Los Angeles and won another championship.
The head coach for that one win across 10 years and 6 coaches was?
Wait for it…..Mike Brown.
Draw your own conclusions about any and all of these actual facts.
We’ll just say congrats and welcome back.
Rookie Of The Year
Paulo Banchero-Orlando Magic
Nostrabombus told you so back in October. Nothing to see here. Paulo is the real deal. His team isn’t. But he has helped elevate them to being a year away from being a reasonably interesting, frisky young play-in team with him as the lead.
Most Improved Player
Shai-Gilgeous Alexander-Oklahoma City Thunder
I still don’t really know what this award is supposed to be. And neither does anybody else as far as we can see. People have mentioned Lauri Markkenan a lot, maybe because he was a lottery pick thought to be a bust that’s now putting up big numbers. But it’s on a tanking team with no stakes, in the obvious place every Euro Leaguer or European descendent of note will get a chance to shine before they’re out of time: Salt Lake City…home of LDS Forts, near-beer, beautiful topography, and unfortunately for ASG ’23. But is putting up numbers with increased usage and an opportunity for looter-in-a-riot stats really where it’s at?
Is that what they intend The Notoriously Inscrutable Award Formerly Known As Comeback Player of the Year but now known as MIP to be? Who can say. Just like who can say why SGA’s name is pronounced as Shay spelled like the 90’s R&B quartet Shai that pronounced it Shy, a group who made the best R&B acapella song of all-time.
Now that we’ve gotten the Award Tour out of the way, allow me to pause for a musical history break to say: “Real Love” by Mary J Blige, “Baby Baby Baby” by TLC, “No Ordinary Love” by Sade, “Don’t Walk Away” by Jade, “Come And Talk To Me” by Jodeci, and “If I Ever Fall In Love” by the aforementioned Shai all were released in the same summer back in 1992, while all co-existed in ‘urban’ radio heavy rotation with Pop/MTV exposure as well. Think about that embarrassment of R&B riches that were undeniable even to pop ears, alt-rock purists, and hip-hop junkies. Sometimes you’re in a great era and don’t realize it until decades later.
If you haven’t listened to these harmonies in awhile, do yourself a favor and soak this jawn in before we get to the playoff handicapping.
Western Conference:
#1 Denver Nuggets versus #8 TBD (Minny, OKC, NOP)
There’s not much to say due to a lack of knowledge of opponent, but I can concede this: Denver would have to be a heavy favorite against any of the three with homecourt and the altitude giving them the best built-in arena advantage in the league. OKC has no shot. Minny could make it interesting but they also do lots of stupid things. And alas, for the Pelicans, a team with tantalizing upside that was leading the league in wins around Christmastime, it doesn’t appear a uniformed Zion will be walking thru that door. I saw his last play of the year firsthand live against my Sixers. It looked like a hamstring pull or strain, not a bone break/ligament tear/back-or-brain injury. That was the 2nd of January. He’s been sidelined ever since. Meanwhile his recent comments on his injury status vacillated somewhere between the haunted over-cautiousness of post-ACL DRose in Chicago at best, or a postponent-strategy and PR plea of The Former Basketball Player Known As Ben Simmons at worst.
The Pelicans are better than the Nuggets, or just about anybody, with a healthy Zion. But that caveat is beginning to look like what Indianapolis Colts Fans used to say about their swiss-cheese toasted defense whenever Bob Sanders wasn’t playing, which was most Sundays. Or Orlando Magic fans waiting for Grant Hill to fully heal up to join TMac. You get the picture. Something seems to be amiss here. And the straw that stirs the drink is perpetually amiss-ing.
#1 seed Denver hasn’t impressed in a postseason since Bubble Jamal Murray. Nikola Jokic was the favorite to win a third MVP most of the season despite never leading his team out of the second round nor ever being able to defend. I present you these truths, so you go out and tell a friend. The Nuggs’ cast has been underrated this season. They’ve settled into a rotaion that makes sense. I always liked Bol Bol but perhaps in Denver he couldn’t find a role. Murray is starting to look like his healthy self from two to three years ago. They will need him to be the guy putting up 40-50 plus in elimination games again when Denver’s let-Jokic-run-the-whole-offense-from-the-post regular-season style gets defensively schemed up against this Spring. Michael Porter Junior is an incredible talent, tho this franchise and his body have often conspired to keep him reigned in. Aaron Gordon is an absolute luxury as a fourth option, at a level Tobias Harris could only dream to be. This first round series *should* be easy. Is Mike Malone a great coach or just a guy who has been in the mountain-west time zone post-Sacramento so he can go unnoticed enough to get away with mostly giving lots of angry coach speak publicly. Will The Joker ever begin to feel pressure from NBA Media for never leading Denver to Round 3? We shall see.
Nuggets in Five (Blindly)
#2 Memphis Grizzlies vs #7 Los Angeles Lakers
I loved this series before it even became officially booked after the Lakers OT victory against Minnesota Tuesday night. Knee-jerk reactions across NBA Nerd circles and Basketball Twitter seems to say LA having to gut this one out is a bad omen. I couldn’t disagree more. The Lakers came out not quite ready to match the TWolves we-fight-in-public-then-won-the-game-anyway energy. Minnesota hit a lot of threes early. And this roster with KAT back balling before foul trouble while playing without offensively inept team cancer Rudy “COVID Mic” Gobert clogging the middle to drop entry passes and detonate chemistry arguably has more firepower than the Grizz. They just do dumb things habitually and on the other end of the court can’t really defend anybody. Anthony “Ant-Man” Edwards is actually a pretty dynamic defender at times but Tuesday night Ant-Man was looking a lot more like Can’t Man. These play-ins have the feel and in some cases actually are elimination games. Can’t-Man was “Cold Like Minnesota” with a jump shot someone described on Twitter as “holding the button down too long in 2K”.
This was a historic level of elimination-game shooting futility like Game 7 of the Finals John Starks in ‘94 or 2010 Game 7 of the Finals 6-for-24 Kobe.
Both those games, along with this one, were tight until the bitter end. Kobe’s team even went on to still win. Shots for featured shooting guards will get contested at levels that aren't comparable to the regular season when it gets down to winning time in the playoffs. Competition is elevated and hard-wired. Most competitors are hard-wired in the playoffs to playing hurt and tired, trying to extend their work time left by an extra 75-90 days for no additional paychecks outside relatively nominal league bonuses.
They do all of this because they have been dreaming of doing the damn thing in the most competitive sports league job market on Earth, where legacies downshift into another orbit for those contributing to their team winning a ring. The end result, even for the best of the best, is that some playoff games can lead to sphincters getting tight while facing elimination in front of frothy sold-out crowds on national television.
Celtics/Lakers Game 7 2010 was a rock fight. So was Warriors/Cavs Game 7 2016. Go back and check the final minutes of both if you like.
And now NBA nerds want me to believe that a team with LeBron James, Anthony Davis, a supporting cast that brought their second leading scorer off the bench to hit a game-winner (well, woulda been) against Minnesota are now less trustworthy than at the beginning of the week, all because they were down 15 points in the fourth quarter before they completely stopped their opponent from making a single shot for six-plus minutes in regulation, then dominated overtime? You know which other team did that in a postseason game facing elimination? The 2000 Lakers in Game 7 of the West Finals vs Portland.
Survive and advance might be a March Madness phrase, but it also applies to the big boy league that pays. Look how the greats react once reaching that summit: KG speaking in tongues. MJ crying while bearhugging the trophy. Dirk running for the showers to blubber alone before getting on a microphone. The list goes on and on.
I like that pre-first-round-play-in-gut=check for L.A. Passed the test and now they can rest for four days until Sunday. Memphis on the other hand hasn’t played a meaningful game since probably before Ja Morant’s post-IG PR pause. None of their guys has won anything yet. And they’re the favorite against a team that since starting 2-10, let alone another uptick post-deadline-Westbrook-trade, has been better than them for the past four months while having (for now) two relatively healthy Hall of Famers for the first extended bit of time all season. The Minnesota game, down to just KAT at center after Rudy’s exit coupled with Jaden McDaniels breaking his hand punching a curtain that turned out to be a wall, might provide insight into what the Lakers size inside can do.
If AD can get Triple J, already smaller than him, into foul trouble? Memphis is gonna have an issue keeping him and Playoff Bron from careening into the paint. The role players will follow suit there, or like the ever-streaky DeAngelo Russelll…they’ll sit for players who will. First-Year-Coach Darvin Ham has impressed as coach and Austin Reaves has been a perfect fit since he became a starter post-Russ. Basketball’s Ultimate Human-Computer LeBron James loves to play with these kind of ‘scrappy’, ‘coach on the floor’, ‘deceptively athletic’ types. Just ask Alex Caruso or Matthew DellavaDleague. Sure he can also win with career wild card guys like Birdman Anderson or JR Smith, but he also witnessed the latter blowing one of the greatest Finals game performances of all time (2018 Game One 51/8/8 on the road) versus the Juggernaut KD Warriors in the final possession by forgetting the score.
The more I think about it, I like the Lakers more.
This is the first time in playoff history that I can solidly say the 7 and 6 seed are favorites heading into a series out West.
Lakers In Six
#3 Sacramento Kings Versus #6 Golden State Warriors
Light The Beam!
That’s what I hope Sac fans will be saying this weekend, instead of having to listen to the blustering Draymond Green aka Mr. Triple Single or Klay Thompson counting fingers.
The Kings haven’t been in the playoffs since The White Stripes were at their peak. They’ve been broken up now for at least a decade and have even now passed the prerequisite quarter century starting mark for Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame eligibility. And in case anyone who comes here also for music discussion, yes I voted for their nomination. Along with Tribe Called Quest, George Michael, Missy Elliott, and either Warren Zevon or The Spinners (can’t recall which I settled on but neither will get in).
Wait…Where Was I?
Oh yeah, beaming.
Look, you’re more likely beaming up to Scotty like Pookie in New Jack City, rather than beaming like the top of Arco Arena if you think I’m gonna pick a young Sacramento team I rarely see who can’t defend with no playoff experience over the champion Warriors? For Northern California Bragging Rights in a series that allows them to drive 45 or fly for 15 to sleep at home even even when “on the road”?!? I don’t think so.
Andrew Wiggins is back from his extended personal sabbatical. Klay isn’t the same but he still has moments where he can get hot especially when teams give him open shots. Draymond might even be able to guard Sabonis without needing to call in the cavalry like he would against Giannis or Embiid. And Steph Curry is Steph Curry. The reigning first-time Finals MVP from last season which personally yielded the most important championship of his career. He missed 30+ games this year for injury and/or precaution. But Steph now heads into these 2023 playoffs healthier than he’s been all season.
Before anyone else says it…
The 2023 Warriors have been one of the worst road teams in the league. The Poole Party is fun sometimes, but other times feels like diving in before noticing it’s been drained.
These are two points I will concede. Here’s my counter: almost none of those road losses were with their starting five, aka a lineup that’s won together who they went into the season with before suspensions/injuries/sabbaticals entered the fray. Sacramento is right down the street looking like fresh Cowtown meat. Game One of the first Sacttown playoff game in two decades will be lit one way or the other. They might have a night or two where their offense overwhelms, shots fall, and a starved-forgotten-great-NBA-crowd provides a lift as Klay goes 3-for-20, Draymond fouls out, or Kerr pulls Curry.
Winning four times out of seven despite their high seed is unlikely. But I wish them all the luck. Hopefully Mike Brown, as Coach of the Year quite familiar with the Warriors roster has some unrevealed wrinkle to draw up like Nellie’s We-Believe 8 Seed Warriors did to humiliate his old Mavericks team. We Can Dream To Light The Beam.
Warriors In Six (win one of the first two in SAC, close it out in OAK)
#4 Phoenix Suns versus #5 Los Angeles Clippers
Now we’re cooking with gas! Nobody need light a fire under unsettling enthusiastic billionare tech exec Steve Balmer, since he’s an eternal redass. But can someone in LA rub together some healing hand heat like Mister Myagi to get Playoff P playing in this series? His career has been a roller coaster of early Bron threat, perennial postseason flameout and punchline malcontent, all the way back to a solid tier of respected second-level star who can carry a team at times with his Kawhi-less last playoff campaign. But these Clippers have never in any era, not even this their most successful one, despite endless money and top-tier hypothetical rosters, been able to gel at the right time and get over the hump. But Kawhi has looked more like Kawhi recently than anytime since his scorched earth put-Canada-on-my-back one-off championship campaign of 2017. Can we get to see these two together as a deadly wing combo on both ends, while Russy is pushing pace sometimes unwisely while looking for revenge?
That would be cool if it happened.
We haven’t even mentioned the 2020 NBA West Finalist Phoenix Suns. They’re a little thin off the bench, but with a pretty good reason: you gotta give up multiple players to land Kevin Durant. And when KD plays, they win. Literally every time so far in albeit a smaller sample size. Offer a prayer to the Basketball Gods for both these two teams health so they can give us an all-time classic first round series.
Shades of Clippers/Spurs Seven-Game-Round-One-War in 2014. Right down to several of the same principles (Clippers Curse, CP3 Legacy Fragility, Kawhi now on his third team while Paul is on his fourth). Then you also have the added intrigue of Kevin Durant somehow being on his fourth team (by choice) facing OKC teammate and resident hissing-radiator/triple-double-chaser Russell Westbrook now on his fifth (someone else’s choice) involved. And on any given night, the leading scorer could very well be sniper Devin Booker while trying to wash the stink off of last year’s humiliation at home vs Dallas. Both coaches have been in the Finals before. This first-round-series is first round in name only. The winner might determine who wins it all.
Suns In Six without Paul George (on the strength of Ty and Kawhi, a KD injury or PG13 recovery could swing this into chaos by Game One layup line)
EASTERN CONFERENCE:
#1 Millwaukee Bucks versus #8 Whoever
Who cares about this series. It’s made for NBA TV obscurity. If they get the Bulls somehow, it will be lit for those on either side of the 90-minute I-94 ride connecting Millwaukee and Chicago. The Miami Heat showed by getting crushed at home by the Hawks in the play-in that not even a Jimmy Butler team castigation or Kyle Lowry having his best night in Miami could restore the glow. They can’t score. Jimmy wouldn’t be shaking Jrue Holiday or attacking the basket against Greek Freak in his athletic peak and Brook Lopez 2023 Leading Shot-Contester In The League. We mentioned before the season that Lowry’s an albatross and they were play-in bound while hovering around .500, Pat Riley is close to 80, and no matter what Heat Culture evangelists try to pretend, Bam and Herro are solid starters never to be mistaken for NBA stars.
And who knows or cares what they’re doing in Toronto. Getting dunked on by their franchise’s leading scorer, DeMar DeRozen, in a home play-in. Getting psyched out by DeRozen’s nine-year-old daughter’s strategically well-timed shrieks.
Wallowing in mediocrity since Kawhi took his ball and went home. The GM and head coach might be leaving sometime soon but we don’t have any inside info. I wonder if they wanna rethink turning down a deal for Durant to keep Scottie Barnes.
Bucks In Five (because they always have at least one game to reminds you Bud can’t adjust and they go 2-for-48 from three as Giannis misses ten freebies)
#2 Boston Celtics versus #7 Atlanta Hawks
I want to believe the Hawks could catch fire and win a series they shouldn’t, like say, a second-round one-versus-four-matchup on Philly’s home floor when a star player passed up open dunks while not shooting in the final five fourth quarters.
But sadly, that stuff only happens to us. The Celtics in this Tatum/Brown era don’t lose series that they’re not supposed to lose unless Miami mucks it up in the Bub, they go up 2-1 on Steph Curry, or they are being led by Kyrie Irving. The Hawks have made it to the Conference Finals twice in their franchise history: once by beating the Knicks and the Sixers choking in 2019, the other with that Al Horford one-seed team that beat the Nets and Wiz before LeBron swept them back to the reality of their eternal mediocrity.
I have even less reason to believe in these Atlanta Hawks beating these Boston Celtics than I did in ’86 Domonique Wilkins beating Bird/McHale/DJ/Walton/Ainge/Chief. ATL DeBarge might go off for a game from deep, but this feels like of all series going, the most likely to be a sweep.
Celtics In Five
#3 Philadelphia 76ers versus #6 Brooklyn Nets
This should not be a series. James Harden was on the Nets midway thru last season and literally no one he played alongside or played under is there today besides Ancient Aussie Backup PG Patty Mills and General Manager Sean Marks. The Sixers got a Hall of Famer to run pick-and-roll with Embiid that resulted in him becoming a back-to-back scoring champion at center as Harden led the league in assists in his first full season in Philly. They got that for a max-extension sinking ship who first refused to shoot then later refused to come to work altogether. He’s been a Net now for over a year across two seasons, starting 33 mostly unimpressive games back when his team still had Kyrie and Durant, and now that they’re gone giving him carte blanche to make his mark with a fresh start, he instead seems to have fully locked into using ambiguous excuses legally difficult to medically disprove (‘mental health’, ‘back tightness’) so he continue collecting pay to not play.
Any of the issues Ben might’ve had in his first four NBA seasons as a Sixer, which yielded a Rookie Of The Year win and three straight All-Star selections (shooting with his off hand, insisting he play point guard, field goal attempts declining annually, fear of the free throw line hindering offensive aggression) may never have been actually solved.
But by refusing to ever face these problems, display any degree of self-awareness or accountability, he’s now traveled too far down a sinkhole of self-deception so that he no longer stands a chance of even returning to his flawed but still formidable Sixer form.
Not even Ramona Shelbourne or another Klutch-Sports-sponsored-access-journalists can be bothered with further puff pieces and PR plea cops. Ben Simmons doesn’t want to play basketball. He’s no longer effective in the rare times he does so. At this point, all involved just need to stop. But there is the not-insignificant-issue of those next three years of forty-million-dollar checks. The Nets might need to just amnesty that and hope to file for some insurance relief from that. He’s untradeable, unplayable, unswayable. Give him a buyout on that contract like all these shitty CEO’s that bankrupt banks get upon exit…then everybody can move on amicably to whatever the next thing is.
I just spent two paragraphs discussing a guy we won’t even see on the bench. That’s because this series, between teams that a year ago seemed to be headed into a white-hot rivalry, is a whole lot of nothing. Speaking of nothing, that’s how many games the Nets will win in this series before the Sixers win four. Stay healthy and make this quick. The Sixers have never won a sweep in the era of Embiid. Let’s make that the challenge while conserving energy for the dueling boogiemen of second-round exits and Boston Celtics.
Sixers In Four
#4 Cleveland Cavaliers versus #5 New York Knicks
This will be a fun and likely competitive battle. Cleveland has been out of the first round just twice since the NBA/ABA merger without local boy turned global legend LeBron James anchoring their team. This squad is ready to make that three. In their way stands a spunky Knicks team led by Jalen Brunson, while Cleveland added Brunson’s rumored-to-be backcourt mate via trade from Utah in Donovan Mitchell. Both are quality players that may or may not have been an ideal pairing together. In the short and likely long, it worked out well for all parties besides not affiliated with the Dallas Mavericks.
The Knicks have only one lonely playoff series win in this millennium. With zero championships since Tricky Dick Nixon first began his dirty re-election campaign. But lately they’ve mostly kept out of the tabloids, Worldwide Wes and Leon Rose seem to be running things competently, and Coach Thibs seems to have a group of players that he can ring out like a dish towel without tuning him out or inciting locker-room revolt.
The crowds will be great in both spots, but MSG energy really does hit different. The Cavs don’t have a ton of big-game experience besides Mitchell in Utah. The Knicks have a deeper bench. Brunson is battle-tested at both the college and pro level. Julius Randle can’t be as bad as he was in his first Knicks playoff series when he was their top dawg. But then again, the injury status updates on Randle have been discomfiting.
Cleveland’s backcourt is lethal. Mobley is the kind of young player that seems destined to have himself a playoff arrival moment here. This Cavs team actually has metrics, including point differential that say they belong in the company of the 2023 East’s “Big Three” of Philly, Boston, and Milwaukee. They’re not quite there yet for me. But they’re trending upwardly. And they have enough to handle these Knicks, who will make it a reasonably competitive series, especially if they can steal an early one in Cleveland.
And I’d love to see Cleveland then make life difficult for Milwaukee.
Cavs In Six
If you’re still here reading this…our appreciation, like this column, is endless.
Have a great weekend, kids.
Go Sixers.
XOXOXO,
Bambino
