It’s that time of the year again. The NCAA tournament is well underway. That means the NBA season is in the home stretch of its own schedule. The playoffs are right around the corner. Situations are getting tight. What teams have everthing to lose? What teams have nothing to lose? Who has everything to gain? The stretch run, the play-in games and each playoff series will tell us everything we need to know. There’s some juicy storylines out there if you look closely. I’m going to take a look at a few of them here.
The Contenders- Teams with Everthing to Lose
First, let’s take a look at the top dogs of each Conference. Boston is trying to run it back. The only team that has a realistic chance to beat them in the East is another contender, the Cleveland Cavaliers. They’ve been the top two teams all season long in the Conference standings. Outside of a surprise run by one of the other Eastern Conference teams, these two teams will most likely end up in the Eastern Conference Finals.
In the Western Conference, the Oklahoma City Thunder have been far and away the best team all season long. It would be a mini upset if Shai Gilgeous-Alexander doesn’t win the MVP award. But it would be a major disappointment if the Thunder don’t at least make the Western Conference Finals.
So these three teams, the Boston Celtics, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Oklahoma City Thunder have everything to lose by not making the Conference Finals. They’ve won too many games. The season will be a big failure for any of these teams if they fail to advance that far.
Failures lead to major questions that have to be addressed. Addressing those questions will ultimately lead to finger pointing. Finger pointing leads to teams panicking and trading away productive players. Panic moves set teams back rather than pushing them forward. Team chemistry will begin to suffer. Then all of a sudden, that contending team is no longer a contender. From there, star players are looking to be traded elsewhere or sign with other teams in Free Agency. The run is over! It’s the Domino Effect.
That’s a of dominos and that’s not guaranteed to happen. But that’s the potential high cost of not living up to expectations. So again, these teams have everything to lose by not making the conference finals.
Let’s move on and take a look at some other teams.
Teams Fighting for Respect – And Everything to Gain
I have selected two teams here. Let’s talk about the Houston Rockets and the Detroit Pistons. Who are these teams? For more information on the Detroit Pistons, go here. I have already covered them entensively in this post.
The Similarities
These two teams are somewhat identical. Both teams are fighting for respect in their conference. Neither team has been to the playoffs in years. Both teams have young players that will be counted on to produce. For Detroit, it’s Cade Cunningham, Ausar Thompson, Jalen Duren and Ronald Holland. For Houston, their young guns are Jalen Green, Alperen Sengun, Tari Eason and Amen Thompson. Both teams added veteran players over the last offseason or two to accomodate their young stars. And each team has a twin brother on their team (Amen for Houston, Ausar for Detroit). And finally, both teams are fighting for not only playoff position, but for home field in the 1st round of the playoffs.
The Difference
No matter how similar these teams are, both of their fates will come down to how effective they can be in crunch time. This is where there is a difference between the two teams. You need a go to player in crunch time to get you a bucket or to draw double teams to get other guys an open look. Detroit has this in Cade Cunningham. He is unquestionably their top dog. I’ve said this before but the guy has the middy, the three, the drive to the bucket and he’s a very good passer as well. He also has a decent back to the basket game. He averages over 25 pts a game to go with 9 assists. Detroit has their go-to guy.
Houston on the other hand, they don’t quite have that go-to guy. Is it Jalen Green? He is the Rockets leading scorer. Well I just saw him get benched for the last 4 minutes of the latest game against the Lakers on March 31st, a narrow Lakers win. The veteran Fred Van Fleet is good for hitting a clutch shot or two but he’s not a go-to player for a winning playoff team. Maybe it can be Sengun. He’s tough in the post and their 2nd leading scorer. He’s been called “baby Jokic” by some but I don’t think he is ready to carry a team in a playoff series. He could prove me wrong though. More than likely, Houston will have to go with the hot guy from game to game and from series to series if they get past the 1st round.
That is the key difference between the two teams. Detroit has their go-to guy. Houston will have to do it by committee.
Other news
Did the Grizzlies just fire their coach with only a handful of games to go? That’s crazy. Things had to be pretty bad for a team fighting for home court in the 1st round of the Western Conference. The team’s record was 44-29 at the time of his firing. And Ja Morant, their best player, has been constantly injured this year. He’s missed 31 games, including 6 straight from March 14th- March 28th. He then comes back and plays the day after the coach is fired? Sounds a little fishy but not too many people are talking about it. The NCAA tournament is deoderizing the stink off of this move. Who knows, maybe his time was just up. It all comes to end at some point for every coach. His time was this past weekend.
And that will do it. Let’s enjoy this stretch run where the teams jockeying for position are playing as hard as we’ve seen them all season. You know, because the games mean something. I know I will have my feet kicked up and watching. Talk to you all soon.