2023 Play-In and First Round Predictions.

[nuraman00]

Good job Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Minnesota got a win.

Keep it going, Minnesota.

 

[MHSL82]

Why can't I pick unobvious sweeps?

Because it upsets the basketball gods. It defies reason and logic. It’s very hard to win a series in the NBA, but very easy to win one relatively.

 

[nuraman00]

I saw James and Hachimura bow to each other after the game. That might be their postgame ritual. Pretty cool.

We have three series where the road team is up 3-1. Do the home teams win any of these?

Do any of these go to 7?

New York up 3-1 over Cleveland.

Miami up 3-1 over Milwaukee.

L.A. Lakers up 3-1 over Memphis.

I'll pick Cleveland to win. Need more time to think about the other ones. I'm still leaning Milwaukee.

 

[nuraman00]

In a 2-2 series, people always say that whoever wins game 5 will win the series.

For once, I'd like someone to predict that the winner of game 5 in a 2-2 series will lose the series.

(I know some people who have predicted that, but I haven't seen such a prediction in a while, with respect to game order.)

 

[nuraman00]

Congrats to Atlanta on the comeback win to force game 6.

There's still a lot they could have done better down the stretch during their comeback too, though. They still took too many bad shots, even during their comeback.

 

[nuraman00]

NBA Teams That Recovered From a 2-3 Deficit in Playoffs

Full list of teams with details of year, rival and playoff round where it happened. All the teams that recovered after being down 3-2.

www.landofbasketball.com

 

[nuraman00]

Antetokounmpo almost blew up at a reporter, who asked if this season was a failure.

He almost made it personal, because he remembered the same reporter asked him that last year too.

He caught himself, and said it was part of the process. He said when Milwaukee hadn't won a championship in 50 years, the other years were part of the process.

He said the season wasn't a failure, and that teams can't win every year. And everything good they've done that year shouldn't be diminished.

He was going to take the good they've done, find ways to improve, and come back next year.


Meanwhile, Shaq said the 15 out of 19 years he didn't win a championship, were failures. Especially his two Finals losses in 1995 and 2004.

I respect where both are coming from, and what makes each personality what they are.

What do you think, @MHSL82?

 

[nuraman00]

Cleveland, play better. You've had two terrible postseasons in a row. Last year you lost both play-in games.

 

[MHSL82]

Antetokounmpo almost blew up at a reporter, who asked if this season was a failure.

He almost made it personal, because he remembered the same reporter asked him that last year too.

He caught himself, and said it was part of the process. He said when Milwaukee hadn't won a championship in 50 years, the other years were part of the process.

He said the season wasn't a failure, and that teams can't win every year. And everything good they've done that year shouldn't be diminished.

He was going to take the good they've done, find ways to improve, and come back next year.


Meanwhile, Shaq said the 15 out of 19 years he didn't win a championship, were failures. Especially his two Finals losses in 1995 and 2004.

I respect where both are coming from, and what makes each personality what they are.

What do you think, @MHSL82?

You are posting this in the wrong thread if years where you don’t win are failures.

If you are not a pessimist nor an optimist, years in which you did better than expected can be successes. If you don’t follow up those seasons with improvement, then both the “successful year” and that year can be failures. I don’t see how losing in the first round to a playin team is part of the process, therefore last year and this year were failures. If they had won this year or went out in the conference finals, then last year would not be a failure because of the prior year were they won the championship and not dropping out after that would be a success. Consistently in the top four.

This concept is more common in the NFL. It is a common thing for Super Bowl team to not do well the next year or for the loser of the Super Bowl to do even worse. This often is because they went all out to get where they were moneywise, and didn’t have money the next year. Plus they have worse draft picks when they do better.

 

[nuraman00]

I was mostly posting that to show the opinions that both Antetokounmpo, and then Shaq, had, when reflecting on a season. Most of that post was a recap, not an opinion.

As for what I think:

In general, I'd agree.

However, not sure Miami should have been an 8th, or even a 7th seed. They were the #1 seed last year. At worst, they should have been a 6th this year, they shouldn't have dropped off that far.

So I would kind of chalk it up to them facing a team that's better than their seeding (they fell from 7th to 8th during the play-in too). And kind of chalk it up to some 8th seed should win every now and then. Every 8th vs. 1 win isn't a failure.

Like Memphis being the Spurs in 2011, a #8 beating a #1, was the case of the Spurs facing their hardest matchup.


I also think Antetokounmpo has constantly shown a desire to improve and get better. So regardless if his attitude is different than Shaq's, he's shown that he doesn't get satisfied and still plays balls out.


Someone online also brought up Derek Jeter and the expectations of the Yankees. Well Jeter never played for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

 

[nuraman00]

I think if Milwaukee had lost to New York, Atlanta, Chicago, or Brooklyn, it would have been worse than losing to Miami.

Since Miami should be better than an 8th seed.

 

[nuraman00]

Atlanta tries to inbound the ball 3 times in a row.

Twice, Trae Young can't do it, and rather than use a timeout, he bounces the ball off of Smart, which then goes out of bounds, and uses a few tenths of a second.

Then they try De'Andre Hunter inbounding the ball.

He throws it out of bounds.

 

[nuraman00]

Also, Milwaukee went 1-2 in the 2.5 games Milwaukee was without Antetokounmpo.

So it's not like they lost when he played in every game.

Plus, I thought this might be a long series, but I decided that I'd put my eggs in Denver vs. Minnesota being long, instead of picking both #1 vs. 8 series to be long.

So it's not that shocking to me. Especially when I don't think Miami should have even been in the play-in, they're better than that.

 

[MHSL82]

If it weren’t for Aldama’s career game, going 6/10, we would’ve had our magic box score for one team: Grizzlies 85-125 Lakers (Apr 28, 2023) Box Score - ESPN

 

[MHSL82]