How time flies. It seems like yesterday the playoffs started, and now we’re already winding down to the conference finals. But it’s not only time that is turning quickly, as the favorites in each series have flipped based on the latest injury news (we don’t like injuries). This is especially true out West.
Phoenix Suns decided to not take any jokes with Joker and send Nikola Jokić and his Denver Nuggets packing in a mostly competitive sweep. Jokić himself tried to be more serious.
But all he was able to attain was getting an earlier ticket to the locker room (though he made a classy exit).
Devin Booker, Chris Paul and co. appear to be maturing quickly in these playoffs. Have they matured enough to take the final stages? Will see about that starting today as their series with Los Angeles Clippers starts at 3:30 p.m.
The Clips are novice to this stage of the playoffs. But they also seemed to have matured to this phase quickly. What’s ironic, they did it after losing the most experienced playoff player on their squad, Kawhi Leonard. After losing their best player, LA’s squad seems to be less prone to get in each other ways and more prone to follow up each other.
In particular, ex-Piston, Reggie Jackson, has much more room to showcase that, contrary to what he thought coming out of Oklahoma City Thunder, he isn’t a first banana, but can be very useful as a third or fourth one.
In contrast to this, in the East they pretend to be looking seriously, but their play is often laughable.
Philadelphia 76ers inability to shake off Atlanta Hawks is a joke. Ben Simmons free throw woes are straight up pathetic. This is a price for fooling around on the charity stripe for four seasons. And this is a warning against founding a team on a positional freak (6-foot-10 point guard) that lacks a fundamental feature in basketball (shooting). However, we should have learned this from our own experience. The last part of this gripping comedy starts tonight at 8 p.m.
And as spectacular a collapse Brooklyn Nets was, a collapse which was best captured by this air-balled shot to win (though kudos to Kevin Durant for his individual performance on both ends), I had a good laugh watching it.
I had a good laugh seeing a team based on aging “big three” and expansive aging pal unable to find anyone to help this “super-nucleus” when it started to fall apart due to aging players injuries, for by relying too heavily on their big fishes they didn’t find time to get anyone else into the right playoff rhythm. And I have a good laugh thinking about the future of this “super team”, with its massive tax bill for this and next two seasons and three FRP and FRP swaps apiece given away, just three seasons after they started to digging themselves out of the huge hole they made under themselves in their first attempt to build a “super team”.
But why on earth are Milwaukee Bucks, with their stars whose shooting itself was a farce, the last to laugh. Ehhh, whatever. Now even more I wouldn’t mind if Michigander, Booker, with his Suns wins it all. But man, it’ll still be tough no matter how serious he can be about this…