Blowouts and Tight Games in the NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs

Ryan and Matt of Throwin Stones discuss the Eastern Conference Playoffs

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Matt Bassin: But let’s go with the East first. Which series do you think is more likely to have the blowout and which series do you think is going to come down to the wire? 

Ryan Griffin: I think the one that’s most likely to have the blow-up is pretty easily: Milwaukee and Chicago have been really bad since they started out the year really good. And Milwaukee just seems like a team that’s not here to play games in the playoffs; they’re not here to fool around, their leader is certainly not a guy known to take games off. It seems like they mean business. They seem like the type of team that’s not going to get lackadaisical after going up 3-0 and be like, okay, we’ll give them game four, we’ll win game five at home.

They seem like they want to end you in four. And that’s what I think will happen. I think the one most likely to go to game seven in the East is obviously Boston and Brooklyn. Boston certainly looks like the better team and they played like a better team now, but you still have Kyrie Irving, you still have Kevin Durant.

And then, it came out, Ben Simmons was eyeing games, four through six as a comeback, that’s potentially the knockout portion of it. And if you add Ben Simmons to that team, then it’s a completely different dynamic, even if he’s not playing 40 minutes from the jump. But anytime you have, Kyrie  Irving and Kevin it’s never going to be an easy game for you. And we saw, Kyrie started off 12 for 12 in the play-in game and KD had 25 points and 12 assists or something like it’s a team that plays well, they got shooters all over the place. They have some bigs, they do have Andre Drummond they do have Nic Claxton.

So it’s more bodies than I guess we thought they’d have, but I think that’s the best first-round matchup in all the playoffs and the one I’m most excited about. 

Matt Bassin: First of all, I agree with you in the blowout, even when the Bulls were good this year, they sucked against the best teams in the East and West. They didn’t meet anybody. Good. So even when they were good, they weren’t good against the teams that matter the teams they’re going to face in the playoffs. And Milwaukee, I think is just on another level. You’ve seen throughout the years that they have gotten in and taken these steps to get better and better. And then obviously it culminated with the championship last year, but, I don’t know if the Boston/Nets game is going to be a better series or the Philadelphia/Toronto series is going to be a better series.

I think Boston is still the better team than the Nets, as crazy as it is to say when you look at the top two stars for the Brooklyn Nets; but, with Boston losing their defensive centerpiece in Robert Williams, who apparently they’re talking about might come back in time for this series. I don’t know how that’s possible, but maybe you’re looking for that ascension for Tatum and Brown, you know, take those next steps, especially Tatum. Tatum’s only focused on is he going to be the next KD and all that stuff. Brown’s kind of the secondary out of it, but I just think Boston has more complete pieces around them that you can depend on the other guys to step up more than you can for the guys rocking a Nets jersey, despite all the names that you can mention on the Brooklyn nets from Blake Griffin to Andre Drummond, to Seth Curry.

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