NBA PLAYOFFS — THE CONFERENCE FINALS
The NBA’s Final Four Brings Us Back to the Bubble
Observations and Predictions
The more things change, the more they remain the same, NBA-style.
The great COVID-19 shutdown gave us generational amnesia. Our memories ended in 2019, and then started up again sometime after the vaccine allowed us to restart our schools and normal work life in the fall of 2021.
One of the things lost from that time was the most amazing NBA playoff basketball ever seen.
- No fans meant no home court advantage and much less variation in the ways referees called the games.
- No travel meant maximum time to do therapy on ailing body parts and no jet lag to drag down performance.
- Consistent court backgrounds allowed shooters to get comfortable in every game.
Boston and Toronto played an amazing 7-game series where the “visiting” team won every game.
Donovan Mitchell and Jamal Murray took turns looking like Michael Jordan, as they scored 30 points or more 9 times.
Denver came back twice from a 3–1 deficit.
5th seeded Miami played unbelievable basketball to beat the #1 seeded Bucks 4–1.
And the Lakers steamrolled every team they faced, only to have fans claim the bubble meant nothing.
Well, we’re back!
The same four teams that met in those Conference Finals are playing again, and the Lakers are still being disrespected.
In my 2023 NBA predictions, I only missed on one of the Final Four teams.
I gave the Lakers the sixth best chance to win the title in January — a month before the trade deadline and Kevin O’Connor’s controversial title contender rankings.
At #5, I had the Miami Heat, because “they have one of the best coaches in the NBA, a great center who can defend on the perimeter, and perhaps the best clutch player in NBA playoff history.”
Then I had four teams I called the rock-paper-scissors contenders because each team was so flawed the playoff match ups would determine the winner this year.
The key to winning a championship this year will have more to do with who you avoid than who you beat.
In order, I picked Boston, Milwaukee, Golden State, and Phoenix (before the Kevin Durant trade removed their depth and Monty Williams removed DeAndre Ayton’s soul).
That’s five out of the final eight playoff teams from a December projection.
Now, on to the Conference Final predictions.
Los Angeles Lakers vs Denver
I have been tough on the Nuggets over the years, referring to them as fool’s gold. The high altitude of Denver gives them a huge home court advantage during the regular season. They are good for maybe 4 schedule wins per year every season, when teams have to play there on the second night of a back-to-back. In the playoffs, the road team gets some extra time to adjust.
In the Jokic era, the Nuggets split their two home games in four of six series (I did not count the bubble season, as there was no home court advantage.)
Here’s what I wrote about Denver in December, when I wrote them off as a real title contender.
TIER 2: Teams with one-dimensional superstars
The most important change since the 3-point shot revolutionized basketball in 2011 is the need for two-way players.
Denver Nuggets
As good as the Nuggets are on offense, Jokic is not a good defender and needs to be surrounded by stout, physical defenders. While they made a great trade to get Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, KCP has a very specific skill set that only works against smaller guards. The problem is their core stars — Jokic, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. — are all defensive liabilities. This team will never win a game by defending, so they always have to be on fire from outside.
From a historical standpoint, the Western Conference was the most balanced — and mediocre —it has even been in the 20 years before the COVID-19 shutdown.
Here is a breakdown of where the 53-win Nuggets would have finished in those other years.
- 3rd Seed (2)
- Tied for 3rd (1)
- 4th Seed (5)
- Tied for 4th (4)
- 5th seed (3)
- Tied for 5th (1)
- 6th seed (3)
- 7th seed (1)
In other words, the Nuggets would have never been favored to win a second round playoff series, let alone have home court advantage.
When people talk about Denver dominating the West all season, you have to treat that little informational nugget with either a grain of salt or some BBQ sauce.
We also have to look at Denver’s great luck with team health. Even with load management and sitting out a few games after Denver clinched the #1 seed here the are games played by their starters: Jokic (69), Murray (65), Gordon (68), Caldwell-Pope (76) and Michael Porter Jr. (62).
Even the guy with the worst back in the NBA played in more games than LeBron James or Anthony Davis!
But everyone is close to full strength for the playoffs, so let’s look at the strengths and weaknesses of each team.
Denver does three things really well that could give the Lakers trouble.
- The don’t turn the ball over much (#1 in the playoffs), which will minimize the Lakers’ transition opportunities.
- They are elite in defensive rebounding (#2), which limits second chance points.
- The are good in offensive rebounding (#10 regular season). The Lakers have struggled in this area in their two previous series.
If they can limit the Lakers’ transition opportunities, pack the paint against LeBron and AD, and pray their role players go on another cold streak, Denver could win a game even when the Lakers’ defense is excellent.
And they have too good an offense not to explode in one or two games.
For the Lakers, I have been in full conspiracy alert mode since April. At the time, Phoenix coach Monty Williams went crazy about the Lakers’ edge in free throws.
Here I used to think that my deep dives into advanced statistics would corroborate what I was seeing when I watch games like a coach, instead of a fan.
But forget all that, the fix is in. And who am I going to believe, the trolls on twitter or my own damn eyes?
If the Lakers make the playoffs, we’ll all know the fix is in; if they win a championship, it’s the end of times.
Twitter already started making excuses for Denver as soon as the final buzzer sounded that may have signaled the end of the Golden State Warriors dynasty.
Despite all the hyperbole, the Lakers now sport the best record in basketball since the trade deadline.
- Lakers (27–12)
- Boston (26–14)
- Denver (23–14).
The Lakers have the #1 rated defense. And they had the toughest path to reach the Conference Finals by beating the #2 seed in the West and then the defending NBA Champions.
The Lakers were able to adjust their style and rotations to beat two of the most unique teams in the NBA.
In the first series, they used their forwards to match Memphis’ youth, energy and physicality, while Austin Reaves and D’Angelo Russell killed Memphis’ poor perimeter defenders with the pick and roll.
Against Golden State, they used a 4-guard rotation to chase Curry and Thompson and then attack the Splash Brothers on offense.
Against Denver, they will use all their versatility to pressure the areas where the Nuggets will crack.
- Aggressive guard play to wear down Murray
- Finding mismatches for LeBron against smaller or weaker defenders
- Use the high pick and roll against the immobile Jokic for either wide open jumps shots or rolls to the rim
This year, the Lakers finally surrounded LeBron James and Anthony Davis with enough two-way players to completely change the look of this team compared to the 2020 champions.
In 2020, LeBron played point guard most of the time and Davis had to be all-world on both ends of the floor.
This year, LeBron let the guards initiate the offense for most of each series, and only ramped up his energy to close out Game 4 and then set the tone for the Game 6 blow out. Davis is aggressive on offense at the beginning of games, when he is fresh. Then he puts all his energy and focus on defense in the second half.
The group of Austin Reaves, D’Angelo Russell, Dennis Schroder and Rui Hachimura can pressure defenses with different skill sets. And nobody expected Lonnie Walker IV to change the Warriors series, but his blend of speed and athleticism killed the tiring Warriors defenders.
The key matchup in this series will be Denver’s #1 offense versus the Lakers’ #1 defense.
When Jokic posts up, most teams double team him. Then his passing genius carves up opposing defenses, giving his teammates wide open three-pointers or layups on back door cuts.
But the Lakers have Anthony Davis, who is one of the few players who can take away two threats at the same time.
Davis was so good on defense, Steve Kerr made three line up changes to try to get Davis away from the paint. The Warriors sacrificed their beautiful off-ball movement system and went to the high pick and roll. Per NBA.com, Stephen Curry averaged 7.7 pick and rolls during the regular season. In the pivotal Game 4, he ran a season high 48.
The Lakers top priority is to shut down the players who live off Jokic’s passing.
Key stat for this series: when Denver shoots above 35% on three-pointers, they are 7–0 in the playoffs. When they shoot below 35%, they are 1–3.
On the other hand, the Lakers can win ugly. They are 4–3 in games where they shot below 30% on three-pointers, and 4–1 when they shoot above that mark, including three blow out wins over Memphis and Golden State.
If Davis stays healthy, the Lakers will win this series.
But I think LeBron’s age and foot problems will force him to pick his spots and conserve energy, so he will look for a split in Denver and then focus on winning the three games in L.A.
Lakers in 6.
Boston vs Miami
Everything in this series points to Boston winning this series easily, according to the Vegas odds.
Here is part of what I wrote about Boston last January.
Under pressure, the Celtics turn back into a team that can’t dribble or get to the rim consistently…
Boston checks off 4 of the six boxes (Tatum’s regression to hero ball and step-back threes makes him an inefficient superstar in too many big games, so deduct a half point, and there are questions about their rookie replacement coach so deduct another half point). Their only real deficiency is their inability to dominate in the paint — that’s never going to happen with Horford and Grant Williams out at the three-point line, and TimeLord not being a real post-up threat.
The reason I gave Boston better odds to win the title this year is that they have assembled the best overall talent in the NBA from positions two through fourteen.
Boston can win it all, but they will struggle against teams with elite two-way wings that turn Tatum into a jump shooter… even Miami if they get hot.
Nothing has changed about the Celtics. If anything, they have doubled down on their Jekyll and Hyde personality during the playoffs.
Boston is shooting an absurd 39.5% from deep, a rate better than any year the Warriors reached the NBA Finals.
And yet Boston has blown games against inferior opponents. They made 40% from deep and lost to Atlanta. They shot over 70% in the first half of Game 1 against Philadelphia to lead by three and finally lost a game with MVP Joel Embiid on the sidelines.
But their masterpiece was to hit 17 shots from beyond the arc (38.6%) and lose Game 4 in overtime.
If there are basketball gods, they might have lost because Tatum got away with this egregious push off when he hit what could have been the game-winning shot.
But Tatum gets away with more ridiculous push offs than anyone outside of James Harden. He also gets the whistle on ticky tack fouls as if he is Trae Young.
And he doesn’t get called for the obvious fouls he commits that would change the outcome of the game.
I don’t know why the league protects Tatum the way they do.
When you add in the two-way brilliance of Jaylen Brown and the timely clutch 3-point shooting of Al Horford, the Celtics really have to work at blowing games to weaker opponents.
And that Achilles Heel of the Celtics is what makes the Miami Heat so dangerous.
The Heat only plays one style of basketball. They fight for every possession in every game. It doesn’t matter if they can’t make jump shots (#24 in 3-point shooting) or score near the rim (#25 in points in the paint), somehow Miami plays enough defense (#7 in defense) to make games close at the end (14–8 in games decided by 3 points or less).
While the Celtics were tearing up the NBA at the beginning of the season, guess who split two road games at Boston? To be more specific, guess who played in the second road game that the Heat won in overtime?
This guy.
Aside from the legend of playoff Rondo, is there any player who has ever raised the level of his game in the playoffs as much as Jimmy Butler?
Last year, Butler won two games in the ECF almost singlehandedly. He was the best player in the series, but because he missed a couple of games with injuries, they gave the MVP trophy to Tatum.
When I look at draft pedigree (a poor proxy used to define player talent), Boston is clearly better.
But when I look at the coaching and intangibles, Heat culture is way better.
With three-point shooting variance, the Celtics are guaranteed to win two games.
Jimmy Butler will win two games.
There are a few X-factors:
- Joe Mazzula coaching adjustments — it took him until game 7 to adjust for the Embiid-Harden pick and roll. That should terrify Boston fans as he is completely overmatched by Eric Spoelstra, a master of in-game and game-by-game adjustments. That is going to cost Boston one game, for sure.
- Kevin Love’s 3-point shooting — he is shooting 18 of 43 (.418 3P%) in Miami’s wins, and 2 for 16 in their 3 losses. They need his size on the boards when Boston employs lineups with two bigs. And they will need his shooting to spread the floor so Butler can dominant in the paint.
- Marcus Smart’s irrational confidence — he is a guy that will shoot Boston back into or out of a critical game. We just don’t know which way this will go.
- Bam Adebayo’s potential — ever since The Bubble Block, people have expected this guy to produce consistently. He is a 2-time All-Star and a 4-time member of the NBA All-Defensive second team, but they need a little bit more offense from him in the clutch to help Butler.
Despite the difference in health and “talent,” Miami came back in the fourth quarter twice to beat Boston in the 2020 Eastern Conference Finals, and then almost stole Game 7 last year.
That’s how close these games could be again this year.
Having said that, Boston will probably sweep the Heat, but I will stick with everything I know about these teams.
The Celtics will blow a few leads, but somehow win in 7.
