Giant’s debut and a taunted Aussie in spotlight as NBA playoffs begin

The first round of the NBA playoffs are officially underway with a series of Game 1s taking place across the league. 

If you’re ever wanting to dream up an epic playoffs, you’d likely ask for a mix of heroic returns from injuries, stars performing at the absolute peak of their powers and a little bit of bad blood thrown in there. This year’s first round has all these elements.

A host of young stars and teams are making their playoff debuts, while seasoned veterans are hoping to cement legacies. Everyone is hunting Oklahoma City, last year’s NBA champion.

Here is what to watch out for in of the first round series.

Eastern Conference

(1) Detroit Pistons vs (8) Orlando Magic

SEASON SERIES: Tied 2-2

Cade Cunningham is back just in time for Detroit’s post-season after missing 11 games with a collapsed left lung. 

Detroit thrived in Cunningham’s absence, going 8-3 while he sat as his teammates elevated their games. 

Jalen Duren has elevated his points, rebounds and assists numbers post-All-Star break, while Daniss Jenkins stepped into Cunningham’s starting spot with aplomb.

Detroit has been a surprise packet this season, but there will be no surprises in the playoffs where teams have extensive scouting time in the lead-up to, and during, a series.

As opponents look to take Cunningham out as much as possible, the elevation of those around him will be key to the Pistons making a deep run.

Games involving the Pistons are almost always messy — this is a team that is literally and figuratively a pack of street-fighters, both in their style of play and their demeanour.

The Pistons are matched up against an opponent in Orlando, that is as comfortable as just about any team in the NBA when it comes to mucking it up.

Expect this series to look like something out of the mid-2000s, and if you’re looking to place money on a brawl, this series is the place to do so as well. 

(2) Boston Celtics vs (7) Philadelphia 76ers

SEASON SERIES: Tied 2-2

After more than successfully holding the fort ahead of Jayson Tatum’s return from an Achilles rupture, Boston heads into the playoffs as the favourite to advance to the NBA Finals out of the Eastern Conference. 

Tatum’s shooting numbers are still not back to his peak levels, but the rest of his game has returned to his pre-injury levels. 

Boston has been excellent offensively all season long, but its offence in clutch situations will be what to look out for this year.

The Celtics struggled mightily in this department last year, often reverting to isolation ball when things got tight, with Tatum particularly guilty of this. 

Boston had the worst offence in clutch situations in last year’s playoffs, and is still without a prototypical floor general.

Jaylen Brown has elevated himself as a playmaker this year, averaging a career-high 5.2 assists per game, and the Celtics will rely on him to set the table for his teammates more effectively than he was able to do 12 months ago.

Boston’s first-round opponent Philadelphia will look for All-Star guard Tyrese Maxey to replicate his regular season form which saw him light up the Celtics to the tune of 30 points per game across four meetings this season.

Can Philly hang tough in this series and extend it out long enough to give Joel Embiid a chance to return from a recent appendectomy?

(3) New York Knicks vs (6) Atlanta Hawks

SEASON SERIES: New York won 2-1

The best version of the Knicks is good enough to make the Finals. Just how often that version appears in the playoffs is anyone’s guess. 

New York has played Jekyll and Hyde all season long en-route to the third seed in the East this year.

Despite the inconsistencies, this is a team that ended the regular season ranking inside the top 10 in both offence and defence. 

The Knicks will be frustrated that they’ve got to face one of the league’s hottest teams in Atlanta in what shapes as a gruelling first-round series.

Atlanta went 20-6 after the All-Star break, the league’s third-best record behind Oklahoma City and San Antonio, and did so using a stout defence which ranked second behind the Thunder after the break. 

Australia’s Dyson Daniels will draw the primary assignment on Knicks star Jalen Brunson, and the pair already have a history of run-ins, making for a spicy match-up.

While Daniels didn’t match his astronomical steals tallies from a season ago, he still remains one of the NBA’s best perimeter stoppers, and his wiry strength and quickness will no doubt annoy Brunson.

Bookmakers have this series as one of the hottest picks to be a first-round upset, given how closely matched these two teams are.

(4) Cleveland Cavaliers vs (5) Toronto Raptors

SEASON SERIES: Toronto won 3-0

There is perhaps no team in the NBA that is under more pressure to have a deep run heading into the playoffs than Cleveland. 

The Cavs’ last two post-season trips have been undone by a combination of poor health and a lack of composure in big moments, and the Cavs have once again fought the injury bug all season long en-route to a 52-30 record.

Cleveland is finally whole as the playoffs get underway, but it remains to be seen whether their best players have had enough minutes on the court together.

Not a single five-man line-up for the Cavs has logged over 100 minutes this season. The line-up with the most minutes played, 89, contains two players who aren’t on the roster anymore. In comparison, Toronto’s starting five has logged 354 minutes together. 

The Cavs and Raptors are virtually exact opposites of each other in the sense that Cleveland has an elite offence and middling defence, while Toronto has a middling offence and an elite defence.

While they may not directly guard each other at all times, the match-up between Cleveland’s Evan Mobley and Toronto’s Scottie Barnes, the No.3 and No.4 picks in the 2021 draft respectively, is tantalising. 

The Raptors ranked 21st in the league in three-point percentage during the regular season, and the Cavs will dare them to make shots from the outside to win this series.

Cleveland’s opponents shot the third-best percentage from long range during the regular season, and if this trend continues, the Cavs could be heading home early.

Western Conference

(1) Oklahoma City Thunder vs (8) Phoenix Suns

SEASON SERIES: Oklahoma City won 3-2

The Thunder have backed up last season’s championship with as dominant a season as you’d like to see out of a defending champion.

OKC enters the playoffs as the hot favourite to go back-to-back, but recent history has shown that the playoffs don’t always pan out as expected for return champs, with no team having defended its title since Golden State in 2018.

Having battled injuries all season long, the Thunder finally have a full rotation to call on for the start of the post-season and will use this series to tune up for the rest of the playoffs. 

The Thunder finished the regular season with the seventh-best offence and the best defence and the miserly defence will once again be its calling card. 

OKC faces a surprise-packet Phoenix team, who ousted Golden State in the play-in game to pick up the eighth seed.

Everything about this series suggests the Suns are overmatched, but what they lack in talent, they make up for with a boatload of heart.

Phoenix ranked 17th in the league in offence this season, and that lack of scoring firepower means you’re dead on arrival against the Thunder.

The Suns’ best offensive players are all perimeter operators. The only problem with that is the Thunder are blessed with perhaps the league’s best suite of perimeter defenders. That is a nightmare match-up.

(2) San Antonio Spurs vs (7) Portland Trail Blazers

SEASON SERIES: San Antonio won 2-1

San Antonio’s rise from a non-playoff team last season to legit contender this season is one of the stories of the season.

Luckily for this Spurs core, they will make their playoff debut against a team in Portland, whose core also has no playoff reps.

The Spurs went 24-4 after the All-Star break, including a 22-2 record in games where Victor Wembanyama played, and also posted the NBA’s best net rating in that period. 

Wembanyama is already the league’s most impactful defender and in possessions where he is on the floor, San Antonio’s opponents score at a rate only marginally better than the worst offensive team in the NBA, Brooklyn.

Portland is also a feel-good story this season, and thrust itself into the seventh seed courtesy of a superhuman play-in performance from Deni Avdija.

Avdija was at the heart of everything good offensively for the Blazers this season, and ranked third in the NBA on free throws per game. 

Avdija has averaged 31.7 points and eight assists in three outings against the Spurs this season, and also shot over 52 per cent on threes, well above his season average of 31.8 per cent from long range.

The Blazers will also turn to defensive stoppers Toumani Camara and Jrue Holiday to handle the Spurs star guard trio of Stephon Castle, De’Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper.

(3) Denver Nuggets vs (6) Minnesota Timberwolves

SEASON SERIES: Denver won 3-1

In what feels like one of the better Western Conference rivalries, the Nuggets and Wolves face-off in a series for the third time in four years, with the current ledger reading 1-1.

Minnesota finished the regular season with a whimper, going 8-7 in its last 15 games, with most of those coming in the absence of the injured Anthony Edwards. 

Edwards is back for the Nuggets series, but just how healthy he is remains to be seen. If he’s not near 100 per cent, the Wolves are virtually dead on arrival. 

Denver went through its own malaise during the regular season, with that coinciding with injuries to Nikola Jokic, Aaron Gordon and Payton Watson, but have gotten healthy at the right time.

The Nuggets went 13-2 in their last 15 games, and crucially got some minutes into the Jokic-Gordon-Jamal Murray line-up that blew the doors off opponents. 

Jokic has put together one of the greatest seasons in league history, becoming the first player in NBA history to lead the league in both rebounds and assists per game.

Minnesota’s four-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert will once again be tasked with the Jokic assignment, and it’ll really be all about damage control.

Julius Randle was a pleasant surprise for the Wolves during last year’s playoffs and will need to be just as efficient in this series if Minnesota is to advance.

(4) Houston Rockets vs Los Angeles Lakers

SEASON SERIES: Los Angeles won 2-1

What a treat it is to get another Kevin Durant-LeBron James series in the playoffs for the first time since the 2018 NBA Finals. 

The Lakers come into the series decimated by injuries with both Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves sidelined, meaning it is up to James, 41, to carry the load for the umpteenth time in his 23-season career.

James had looked as spritely as a 41-year-old can look prior to the Dončić and Reaves injuries as he settled into being the third option for the Lakers, and will have to summon something from his prime years to keep Los Angeles alive for long enough for at least Dončić to return after visiting Spain to treat his hamstring.

Houston owns the eighth-best offence for the entire season, but has slipped to 13th after the All-Star break, and the Lakers will hope that slippage allows them to hang around, even while understrength.

James has shot just 30.9 per cent from three-point range this season, his lowest mark since the 2015-16 season, and he’ll need his three to have a revival to be able to go blow-for-blow with Durant and the Rockets.

Houston, while amassing over 50 wins during the regular season, has been one of the league’s poorest teams in late-game situations.

The NBA defines ‘clutch’ minutes as situations in the last five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime where the margin is either five points or less, and the Rockets come into the playoffs as the seventh-worst team in such situations.

Offence gets tougher in the playoffs and how efficient Houston is able to be on that end will determine just how far it can go in the post-season.