The National Basketball Association (NBA) Playoffs are underway and for the first time in 13 years, LeBron James won’t be in uniform. He may be there in attendance, but James and his Lakers ended the regular season far from earning a playoff bid. Not to worry, though, as these playoffs have already been full of excitement. We have seen shining moments from Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers, Al Horford and Kyrie Irving of the Boston Celtics, and Kevin Durant of the Golden State Warriors, among others.
Let us begin with Lillard and the Trail Blazers. In the first round of playoffs, the Trail Blazers beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 4 games to 1. The fifth game was most notable as Lillard managed to hit a three-pointer from 37-feet out to win the series at the buzzer in front of Portland’s home crowd. Lillard sent Paul George, Russell Westbrook, and the OKC Thunder packing. The coldest part about the whole shot was Lillard’s reaction; his face was stone in the aftermath of the shot and the ensuing celebration. Ice in his veins.
A few days later, Lillard offered an insightful quote during an interview about how he views pressure: “Pressure, nah. Fam, this is just playing ball. Pressure is the homeless man who doesn’t know where his next meal is coming from. Pressure is the single mom who is trying to scuffle and pay her rent. We get paid a lot of money to play a game.
Don’t get me wrong — there are challenges. But to call it pressure would be an insult to regular people.”
Incredibly, this was not the first time Lillard has sent a team home with a buzzer-beating three in the playoffs. In May 2014 against the Houston Rockets, he swished a deep fadeaway in the face of Chandler Parsons to win the game and the first-round series in 6 games. Unlike last week’s incredible shot, Lillard caught the ball off an inbounds pass with 0.9 seconds on the clock, barely getting the shot off in time but finding nothing but net. The Trailblazer’s fiery leader and his team now face the Denver Nuggets in the second round.
The Boston Celtics did not have the regular season that the team or their fans, including myself, envisioned. But they seems to be doing alright in the playoffs so far. The Celtics are playing their best basketball when it truly matters. Gordon Hayward has finally found his groove and is meshing well with the remainder of the team. After helping the team sweep the Indiana Pacers in round one, Al Horford continues to make an impact on both ends of the floor, playing lock down defense against the Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Significantly, Kyrie Irving is finally looking as though he is just happy to be playing basketball, expressing joy and raw emotion in his first six games. Boston, the Eastern Conference’s four-seed, is locked in a 1–1 split with the one-seed ranked Bucks through two game, including a convincing 112–90 win in game one in Milwaukee. If they keep up this high intensity level of play, there are few teams that will get in the Boston Celtics’ way of adding their eighteenth championship banner.
Lastly, the Golden State Warriors. The team of superstars features Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson…I could go on. The Warriors, though not what they used to be, are still the league standard. Kevin Durant has been putting up some serious numbers in the past few playoff games, including scoring over 200 points in a 5-game stretch between game three of their first round series against the Clippers (Golden State won the series in 6 games) and game one of their second round matchup with the Houston Rockets.
Now sitting comfortably with a 2–0 lead over Houston after winning the series’ first two games, the Warriors will look to deal a decisive blow to their rivals on the road. If Durant and Curry continue to perform at an elite level and play confidently, the Warriors will make a fifth consecutive trip to the Finals, where they will be favored to win no matter their opponent.
Even so, if it was the Celtics versus the Warriors in the final, I would take the underdogs from Boston…because you can’t teach heart!
