Playoffs: Winners, losers, and excitement for the future
Los Angeles Lakers vs Denver Nuggets – Lakers won the series 4 to 1
The Nuggets played their hearts out this postseason. In the first two rounds, they had to come back from a 3 to 1 deficit and somehow win. They had people like Jamal Murray, who finally played to his potential and looked promising for future playoff runs, and they also had people like Jokic, who had been playing with the same fervor and intensity we have known for years. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to beat the Lakers who wanted to make Kobe proud with a Championship trophy. The Lakers went into this series being the heavy-handed favorites, and it showed by the end of the series. The question for the Lakers coming into this game was if their defense was strong enough to handle the superstars of the Nuggets. They answered that question early in the series. They played lights out defense and slowed down both Murray and Jokic enough so that their offense could come in and finish the job. Once again, their defense was the MVP of this series win. Denver struggled because, unlike in their previous games, the Lakers had the length to stop Jokic and Murray. Their big men like AD and Dwight Howard were enough to suffocate the Nuggets. This led to frustration and even more mistakes like unnecessary fouls. The Nuggets just couldn’t get past the mountain of a team that is the Lakers, but this doesn’t mean they are done for the future. The Nuggets have shown us that their young roster is good enough to go all the way, and now they just have to make sure that they can finish games. The Lakers are moving onto the NBA Finals. With Lebron and AD playing the way they are, the city of LA rooting for them, and Kobe smiling down on them, it should be a fun and exciting matchup.
Miami Heat vs Boston Celtics – Heat won the series 4 to 2
The Heat are going to the NBA finals to face Lebron, a former Heat player. You can’t make this stuff up. The Heat got the ball and then ran with it until they were done with the series, that’s how dominant this team was. They minimized mistakes, made big plays, got the entire team involved, and made sure their star players went off. This team did everything it was supposed to do to go to the finals, and it shows. The Celtics, however, played like it was just a normal, regular-season game and got smacked by the Heat. Everything that went right for the Heat seemingly didn’t go right for the Celtics. They seemed out of it with bad chemistry within the team (which showed after Game 2 when Marcus Smart started destroying equipment like he was a little kid going through a tantrum), and overall looked lackluster. This was not the same team that played their hearts out against the Raptors in the previous series. They need something to change if they want to be competitive again, maybe going all out for a superstar in the next offseason. Something needs to happen if the Celtics want to be back in the NBA finals. The Heat are moving onto the NBA Finals, and with Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro, Duncan Robinson, and Bam Adebayo playing the way that they have with that coaching and playing style, it should be a fun and exciting matchup.
PREVIEW FOR THE NBA FINALS – LOS ANGELES LAKERS VS MIAMI HEAT
This postseason has been wild. With new rules, a newly implanted bubble, rising tensions in the nation, and a pandemic raging through the country, this postseason is definitely something that people will remember. The Western Conference winner was no surprise, with the number one seed Los Angeles Lakers winning the entire conference, but the Eastern Conference winner was quite surprising. The number five seed Miami Heat not only won their conference but stomped on their competitor’s throats and never let up. The path for the Lakers to get here was not the straightest. Their first eight games in the bubble were complete trash, and that’s being generous. They looked sloppy and not like a team that is going to the playoffs, much less win the final. People even had the Blazers upsetting them and winning the first round. But like any championship-level team, once the team is in the playoffs, they show up no matter the circumstances and that is what happened. They came into the playoffs and outplayed, outcoached, and outworked any team in their path. For them to win against the Heat, they need that adjustment mentality as well as stopping the Heat’s best players. The path for the Heat, on the other hand, was filled with surprise wins and surprise plays out of a team no one saw would come this far. They played the best of the best in their conference and never once stopped working. While other teams were enjoying their time in Orlando, they put in the work, and it showed in their gameplay. They might have not been equal to other teams in terms of talent, but they outworked them in every aspect of each game. For them to beat the Lakers, Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro, Duncan Robinson, and Bam Adebayo need to play to their potential. If they don’t, the Lakers are going to be just too powerful for the Heat to stop. No matter who wins though, any fan will love this series and will relish this moment during such uncertain times.
