Opinion | My most anticipated first-round matchups – 2020 NBA playoffs
Joe Perrino, Sports Editor
Normally, mid-April is the most wonderful time of the year. Baseball season is underway, with hockey and basketball playoffs ramping up. Well, with a global pandemic putting a damper in our sports fun, that layoff has been pushed until now – late August. The first round of the National Basketball Association (NBA) playoffs, which started Aug. 17, is generally predictable, but without home court advantage playing a role in the bubble, there could be a lot of close games.
Here are the four most interesting matchups that should be fun to watch over the next couple weeks.
1 seed Los Angeles Lakers vs. 8 seed Portland Trail Blazers – Lakers in 7
I’ve been saying all year that Portland hasn’t played well because they have been riddled with injuries, and now that they have top players Jusuf Nurkic, Hassan Whiteside and CJ McCollum back healthy, they are a serious threat in the West. However, they play little to no defense. In fact they have the second worst defensive rating – a metric used to measure a team’s defensive efficiency – among playoff teams. The Lakers, on the other hand, have the third-best defensive rating in the league.
All told, if Damian Lillard continues to average 37.3 points per game in the playoffs, he could give the Lakers fits, but at the end of the day LeBron James, Anthony Davis and the rest of the Lakers should prove to be too much.
3 seed Denver Nuggets vs. 6 seed Utah Jazz – Nuggets in 6
Another series that could potentially go to seven games, but I have it going six. Someone on the Jazz besides Donovan Mitchell will have to step up and score the ball, especially with second-leading scorer Bojan Bogdanovic out with an injury. The Nuggets already have two established threats in Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, with budding star Michael Porter Jr. emerging from the shadows.
I could see this series swinging in Utah’s favor if they force Denver to shoot a lot of threes, as they shot below league average from deep in the regular season. But if the Nuggets get to the rim and get Rudy Gobert in foul trouble early, they’ll be unstoppable.
4 seed Houston Rockets vs. 5 seed Oklahoma City Thunder – Thunder in 6
Uh oh, hot take! Before the restart the Thunder posted a 31-12 record between Dec. 6 and March 8, five-and-a-half games better than Houston. The team is extremely deep, with four players scoring over 17 points per game, including Sixth Man of the Year candidate Dennis Schroder. On the other hand, the Rockets bench depth is some of the worst in the league.
In order to beat the fast-paced Rockets, Oklahoma City will need to defend well on the perimeter, but also make sure they can recover defensively in the paint. Starting center Steven Adams might be a liability with Houston able to stretch the floor at all five positions with their shooting, so they could start Danilo Gallinari at the center spot, effectively starting four wing players alongside point guard Chris Paul.
Grab your popcorn, this should be a good one.
4 seed Indiana Pacers vs. 5 seed Miami Heat – Heat in 7
These two teams have a new-found hatred for each other after an altercation between Jimmy Butler of Miami and TJ Warren of Indiana ensued before the stoppage. The Pacers are playing some of their best basketball of the season in the bubble, with TJ Warren emerging as a new star and Victor Oladipo returning to form.
This might be the most wide-open series in the first round, with both teams having very similar levels of talent and great coaching. These games are likely to be very low-scoring. Should Miami contain the likes of Warren, Oladipo and Malcolm Brogdon thanks to strong perimeter defense from Butler and interior defense from Bam Adebayo, there won’t be much of a scoring threat for Indiana, which could very well make the difference in the series.
Even if I am completely wrong about these picks, I won’t care. I finally have the opportunity to watch some important basketball after almost five months of wondering if I would ever see live sports again.