by PatowalongaPirate » Fri Apr 13, 2018 11:54 am
THE EAST
(1) Raptors vs. (8) Wizards
The Raptors are a team looking to exorcise their postseason demons, and it was with that goal in mind that the team overhauled its offense and bench in the offseason, hoping that a ball-sharing system would lend itself to more playoff success. It worked, big-time, in the regular season, as Toronto set a franchise record for wins. But this was always about the playoffs, and if the Raptors can’t carry over this success, all these changes will have been for naught. Maybe it’s good, then, that they open with a significant challenge in the first round: playing the Wizards, a team that just got star guard John Wall back two weeks ago, and is far better than their No. 8 seeding indicates. If it is time for the Raps to banish some demons, then this is a good start. The Wizards swept Toronto out of the postseason two years ago.
19.5. That’s the percentage of plays the Raptors have run in pick-and-roll this season, and it is the sixth-most in the NBA. Yet, it represents a drastic and important reduction in the team’s reliance on the play — all the talk about Toronto revamping the offense basically comes down to cutting back on pick-and-rolls. Last year, the Raptors went to the PNR 24.2 percent of the time, and got 24.5 points per game from the play. The problem was, in the playoffs, teams could key on the play and force Toronto out of it. They ran PNR only 19.2 percent of the time last postseason, and the 24.5 points they got in the regular season plummeted to 16.7 points in the playoffs.
(2) Celtics vs. (7) Bucks
This is not where either of these two teams thought they’d be when the season opened back in October. The Celtics figured they had a legitimate chance at a championship, riding the high of the Gordon Hayward signing and the Kyrie Irving trade the previous summer. The Bucks, meanwhile, were planning to ride star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo to a big improvement on last season’s 42-win team. Instead, the Celtics saw Hayward go down with a broken ankle and lost Irving just ahead of the start of the playoffs. And the Bucks saw things go sideways from the start, leading to the firing of coach Jason Kidd and young a team left mostly rudderless down the stretch. It’s still an intriguing matchup, but before the season, most would have figured a Bucks-Celtics playoff pairing would have happened later, with more at stake.
The Bucks rank sixth in the NBA in scoring in transition, getting 14.6 points per game. Antetokounmpo is the most prolific transition scorer in the East, accounting for 6.8 of those points. Milwaukee is a subpar shooting team (35.6 percent from the 3-point line, 21st in the league), and relies on getting easy baskets in the open court as a staple of its offense. Boston ranks fifth, though, in defensive efficiency on transition plays, allowing 1.05 points per possession, and also ranks fifth in fast-break points allowed (10.4 per game). The Bucks will have to find ways to create transition opportunities despite the Boston defence.
(3) 76ers vs. (6) Heat
The Sixers beat up on some terrible teams during their season-closing 16-game winning streak (only three of those 16 opponents will be in the playoffs this weekend), but still, 16 straight wins is impressive. The Sixers were 25-25 back in early February, but have gone 27-5 since then, even after losing star center Joel Embiid to an eye injury (he is expected to return at the end of the month). In those 32 games, the Sixers have ranked fifth in offense (111.0 points per 100 possessions) and second defensively (99.7). They’ll get a tough, slow-paced defensive team in their first-round matchup with the Heat, but Miami (20th in offensive efficiency) just can’t score enough to keep up with Philadelphia.
Since the start of February, the Sixers have gone 11-3 in clutch situations (score within five points with five minutes to play), and have posted an offensive rating of 127.7 points per 100 possessions in that span. They’ve allowed 90.4 points per 100 possessions for a net rating of plus-37.3. In that same span, the Heat have gone 7-12 in clutch situations. If these games get tight, the Sixers are a good bet.
(4) Cavs vs. (5) Pacers
The Eastern Conference playoffs, for the last eight seasons, have revolved around one player, LeBron James. And with good reason: James has been on the Eastern Conference champ in every postseason since 2011. He will face his toughest challenge, though, this spring, trying to lead a roster that was rebuilt on the fly with a series of deadline-day trades back in February, and doing so under the specter of his looming free agency. James only got better as the rest of the roster got more scrambled — in 28 games after the trades, he averaged 29.9 points, 9.9 rebounds and 10.1 assists. The Pacers went 3-1 against the Cavs during the season, giving them at least the sense that beating Cleveland is not impossible. But with a highly motivated James on board, the Cavs are sure to be a different team in the postseason, just as they were down the stretch of the season.
Thank goodness for the Suns — they’re the only team that ranked worse defensively than the Cavaliers this year, whose defensive rating was an ungodly 109.5. Minnesota (108.4) is the only other playoff team that had a defensive rating that was not among the top 16 in the NBA. The Pacers are not a juggernaut, but they’re the 12th-rated offensive team in the league, and Indiana will test Cleveland’s scattershot defense all series.
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