And so it begins. With a hectic play-in tournament coming to a close, the final field for the NBA playoffs is officially set, and though the first round of the Eastern Conference doesn’t present as much of a whirlwind as the West, the playoff stage is always one rife with shock and awe.
The top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks, Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers have felt like inevitabilities for the better part of this season, with the biggest question surrounding them being, “how far can they go?”
In the middle of the pack, the Cleveland Cavaliers, New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets either came into this season with massive changes across their roster or saw an inordinate amount of roster upheaval over the course of the year.
Then at the bottom, the Atlanta Hawks and the Miami Heat are looking to reverse their fortunes against the toughest teams in the East in what has been a disappointing year.
Every team came into the league year with questions, the answers of which may be found in the result of this first round of the NBA playoffs. Let’s take a look at one burning question for each Eastern Conference first-round playoff series.
(1) Milwaukee Bucks vs. (8) Miami Heat
Burning Question: How much harder do the favourites roll while Giannis Antetokounmpo is playing mad?
It only makes sense that every team in the play-in tournament this year shares a similar colourway because whoever ended up matched up against the Bucks was lined up to face a Giannis seeing red.
Though fans won’t know the results of the MVP vote until later on in the post-season, the grand majority of voters who have tweeted, written or delivered statements about their ballots have listed Joel Embiid first, Nikola Jokic second and Giannis Antetokounmpo third.
In a recent interview with Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report, he said that he believes he’s deserved to be named MVP the past five years and that he absolutely wants a third. Now, with ballots starting to be accounted for and his name not leading the pack, the Greek Freak might be coming into these playoffs with a little more fury than usual.
What will that mean for a Miami Heat team without an array of bigs past Bam Adebayo?
The Bucks actually tied their season series with the Heat, winning two apiece. However, Antetokounmpo only played significant minutes in one of the four.
In that one, he dropped 35 on 13-of-19 shooting, grabbed 15 rebounds and dished out 11 assists in a 123-115 Bucks win. Two years ago, against a similarly big-deficient Heat team in the first round of the playoffs, Antetokounmpo made quick work of them, dispatching them in a sweep with a total winning margin of 82 points over the four games.
Now, as the Bucks come into the playoffs as the favourite to take home the title, not much will stand in their way. A Heat team not built to withstand a wrath fit for Greek myth likely won’t do much to stop the impending doom.
Prediction: Bucks over Heat in four games
Series Schedule:
Game 1: Sunday, April 16 @ Milwaukee, 5:30 p.m. ET
Game 2: Wednesday, April 19 @ Milwaukee, 9:00 p.m. ET
Game 3: Saturday, April 22 @ Miami, 7:30 p.m. ET
Game 4: Monday, April 24 @ Miami, TBD
Game 5: Wednesday, April 26 @ Milwaukee, TBD
Game 6: Friday, April 28 @ Miami, TBD
Game 7: Sunday, April 30 @ Milwaukee, TBD
(2) Boston Celtics vs. (7) Atlanta Hawks
Burning Question: Can last year’s Eastern Conference champs start their revenge campaign with an exclamation point?
After an extremely promising mid-season turnaround followed by the finals run no one could have expected at the start of the year, the Boston Celtics flamed out in the Finals against the Golden State Warriors, eventually losing in six games.
Superstar Jayson Tatum was struck by the bright lights the most, averaging only 21.5 points in the finals while shooting 36.7 per cent from the field. He also broke the NBA record for most turnovers in a playoff run, finishing with 100 during their run with 23 in the finals.
The Celtics, enraged by last season’s shortcomings came into this season as a colossus and haven’t strayed from that path since, finishing this season second in offensive rating (118.0), third in defensive rating (111.5) and first in net rating (6.5).
Their first test on the redemption tour will be the Atlanta Hawks, whose dominance on the offensive glass against the Miami Heat rewarded them with a matchup against the best defensive rebounding team in the league by defensive rebounding percentage (78.5 per cent).
Boston had an easy time with Atlanta this season, sweeping the series 3-0. Their offence was also at its most potent against the Hawks as they averaged their highest 3-point percentage (46.5), effective field-goal percentage (64.3) and second-highest true-shooting percentage (66.0).
If the Celtics come out firing against Atlanta, they’ll hope to use that momentum in potential matchups against the Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks down the road.
Prediction: Celtics over Hawks in five games
Series Schedule:
Game 1: Saturday, April 15 @ Boston, 3:30 p.m. ET
Game 2: Tuesday, April 18 @ Boston, 7:00 p.m. ET
Game 3: Friday, April 21 @ Atlanta, 7:00 p.m. ET
Game 4: Sunday, April 23 @ Atlanta, 7:00 p.m. ET
Game 5: Tuesday, April 25 @ Boston, TBD
Game 6: Thursday, April 27 @ Atlanta, TBD
Game 7: Saturday, April 29 @ Boston, TBD
(3) Philadelphia 76ers vs. (6) Brooklyn Nets
Burning Question: If Mikal Bridges has another gear, can the Nets make this a series?
Though this series is already being considered by many as a write-off, the Brooklyn Nets haven’t been a team ready to just go away this season.
Despite the loss of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, the Nets have stayed afloat, going 13-15 since the trade deadline despite the utterly massive roster overhaul following the two blockbuster trades.
Part of the massive four-team, eight-player deal that saw Durant head to Phoenix was the Nets acquiring Mikal Bridges from the Suns. Since coming to Brooklyn, the fifth-year guard has taken his game to another level, relishing his chance at a lead role. In the 27 games with his new team, he’s averaged 26.1 points, nearly seven more points than he saw in Phoenix, all while maintaining his solid efficiency.
In 2018, Bridges was originally drafted by the 76ers but was traded on draft night to Phoenix for Zhaire Smith and a future first-round pick. Yikes.
Earlier this week while appearing on CJ McCollum’s podcast, he admitted that the trade infuriated him. Could this be a revenge tour of sorts for the wing?
Though his defensive acumen has been his main selling point, he’ll have to match up against James Harden for the entirety of the series while doing double duty as the team’s primary option on offence.
Suffice it to say, in his first go at being a leader on a playoff team, he faces an incredibly tall task. This is all without mentioning the impossibility of taking on MVP candidate Joel Embiid. But Bridges, the Philadelphia native, is playing with house money, a chip on his shoulder and an ever-expanding role as a lead player.
Prediction: 76ers over Nets in six games
Series Schedule:
Game 1: Saturday, April 15 @ Philadelphia, 1:00 p.m. ET
Game 2: Monday, April 17 @ Philadelphia, 7:30 p.m. ET
Game 3: Thursday, April 20 @ Brooklyn, 7:30 p.m. ET
Game 4: Saturday, April 22 @ Brooklyn, 1:00 p.m. ET
Game 5: Monday, April 24 @ Philadelphia, TBD
Game 6: Thursday, April 27 @ Brooklyn, TBD
Game 7: Saturday, April 29 @ Philadelphia, TBD
(4) Cleveland Cavaliers vs. (5) New York Knicks
Burning Question: Will the Knicks end up regretting not paying for Mitchell?
Donovan Mitchell joining the Knicks felt like more of a question of when, not if. As soon as the New York native’s name began popping up in trade rumours, it was essentially a forgone conclusion that by the end of the summer, he’d be back in his old stomping grounds.
Instead, the Cavaliers swooped in from under the Knicks’ nose, securing Mitchell’s services and pencilling themselves in as a dark horse to make some noise in the Eastern Conference.
Regardless, the Knicks have done their best to forget that misfire, turning themselves into one of the better feel-good stories of this NBA season behind the efforts of transformative point guard Jalen Brunson.
Their 47 wins this year are the most they’ve had since the 2012-2013 season and Brunson has been their best point guard since the month that was Linsanity.
Julius Randle, though he’s currently out with an ankle injury, is back to his 2021-self, averaging 25.1 points, up from 20.1 last year. Here’s to hoping he doesn’t replicate his form from the 2021 playoffs though when he averaged 18 points in their five-game loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
Though the Knicks have had marked improvements this year, so has Donovan Mitchell, as the sixth-year guard is averaging an absurd 28.3 points on 48/38/86 shooting splits, all career highs.
With Mitchell embracing a change in scenery, it’s only reasonable to wonder if the likely All-NBA guard would have been able to replicate those numbers as a member of the Knicks and if his pairing with guys like Randle and Brunson would have skyrocketed the team into a tier adjacent to the top three seeds in the East.
Prediction: Cavaliers over Knicks in six games
Series Schedule:
Game 1: Saturday, April 15 @ Cleveland, 6:00 p.m. ET
Game 2: Tuesday, April 17 @ Cleveland, 7:30 p.m. ET
Game 3: Friday, April 21 @ New York, 8:30 p.m. ET
Game 4: Sunday, April 23 @ New York, 1:00 p.m. ET
Game 5: Wednesday, April 26 @ Cleveland, TBD
Game 6: Friday, April 28 @ New York, TBD
Game 7: Sunday, April 30 @ Cleveland, TBD