NBA Playoffs 2015: TV Schedule and Predictions for Saturday's Round 1 Games
At long last, our wait for playoff basketball is over. No more force-feeding ourselves Knicks games on League Pass out of professional courtesy. No more looking for signs of "it" from the phalanx of D-Leaguers shuttling through Philly. And, for the love of all things holy, no more Lakers fans trying to convince you Jordan Clarkson is Kobe 2.0.
It's all good basketball all the time from here until June. Well, OK, kind of. Good basketball is all relative, and these playoffs are certainly not quite up to the par we expected a couple months ago. At the All-Star break, the Western Conference looked like an eight-team race wherein the No. 8 seed (a healthy Oklahoma City) would arguably be the favorite. The East has mostly been a two-team affair for months, but Chicago, Washington and Toronto were all given credit for their potential friskiness.
Things change.
Injuries to Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka sent the Thunder to the lottery and likely eliminated Golden State's chances of a first-round ouster. Washington and Toronto fell off a cliff, and though Chicago looms as a potential sleeper, Derrick Rose is battling back from yet another knee injury. By my count, there are five teams (Atlanta, Cleveland, Golden State, San Antonio and the Clippers) that could reasonably win an NBA championship.
And I might be stretching with the Clips. That doesn't deviate from most seasons, but it is comparatively disappointing given how wide-open things looked not too long ago.
Still. Playoff basketball. With that in mind, here is a complete preview of Saturday's first-round games.
Washington Wizards at Toronto Raptors
Time: 12:30 p.m. ET
Network: ESPN
The Wizards and Raptors each come into the postseason with their best basketball months in the past. Both got out to red-hot starts that had them looking like the class of the Eastern Conference. It's difficult to remember, but Toronto was actually ahead of Atlanta for the top seed on Christmas. Washington was only a single game behind.
A few months later, and both teams look like they'll be playing for second-round exits. The Wizards have completely fallen apart offensively, scoring at sub-Magic levels since the All-Star break. John Wall's jumper remains rickety outside his comfort zones, Bradley Beal's been banged up all year and their wing spots have been a never-ending rotation of flukes (hi, Rasual Butler) and injured guys. Beal and Paul Pierce can do a decent job of spacing the floor when they play together, but Washington's bench is a scoring collapse waiting to happen.
It also doesn't help this team takes a ton of ill-advised mid-range shots, particularly those of the non-Wall variety. (Note: I don't love Wall's propensity for bad mid-rangers either, but it's his only avenue for keeping defenses honest. I can live with it. Not so much with the others.)
The Raptors, meanwhile, have the exact opposite problem. Their offense consistently fires at a top-10 rate, but defense is a foreign concept. No one came into the season expecting the Raptors to defend at a Memphis level—their talent just won't allow for that—but their deficiencies on that end make every offensive misstep more painful.
Since the All-Star break, Toronto has scored 106.4 points per 100 possessions—still a good number but down a hair from its red-hot start. Kyle Lowry's in the midst of a prolonged shooting slump, DeMar DeRozan hasn't been right all season due to injury and Lou Williams by his very nature is inconsistent.
All of these slight downturns only serve to magnify the defensive deficiencies. The Raps are allowing 105.8 points per 100 possessions since the All-Star break, again not a huge deviation from their pre-break form. But slightly worse on both ends can become a near-disaster from an overall perspective.
It'll be interesting to see which of these teams can right the ship. I have a hard time not thinking of this as a seven-game series.
New Orleans Pelicans at Golden State Warriors
Time: 3:30 p.m. ET
Network: ABC
This is a weird, possibly one-sided rivalry. The Pelicans are clearly perturbed by someone on the Warriors, dating back to their April 7 matchup. Anthony Davis, in a clearly pointed mark, said Golden State thought playing the Pelicans would be a "scrimmage"—even though, to the public's knowledge, we're yet to know who said such a thing or when.
The New Orleans locker room doubled down on that bad blood Wednesday, with someone in their post-game huddle screaming "Let's go ahead and get this scrimmage.” The origin of this quote, while probably benign in the large scheme of things, is fascinating. Did noted trash-talker Draymond Green give AD bulletin-board material? Did Andrew Bogut let one slip during a Foreign Guy Faceoff with Omer Asik? Did Monty Williams make the whole thing up as some weird motivational ploy that totally worked?
I have no clue. I do, however, know the whole "scrimmage" thing is far more intriguing than this series itself. Barring a catastrophic injury to Stephen Curry, the ecosystem around whom the Golden State offense is built, the Pelicans have no shot at winning this series.
That's not meant as an insult to New Orleans. It's probably a conference finals contender in the East. In the West, it gets matched up with a historical two-way buzzsaw.
The Warriors finished the regular season outscoring opponents by 11.4 points per 100 possessions. To put that in perspective, the Clippers finished the regular season with the second-best rate at 6.9 points per 100 possessions. The difference between the Warriors and Clippers would have been good for the fourth-best rate in basketball.
We're not discussing your typical No. 1 seed. Golden State is historically great on both ends, melding defensive principles instilled by former coach Mark Jackson and Steve Kerr's motion-like offense that takes full advantage of stars' skill sets.
"Steve has exceeded expectations just with what this team has done in the standings in the regular season, managing personalities, managing playing time—because we've got a lot of talent, a lot of depth—and keeping egos in check," Shaun Livingston said, per Monte Poole of CSN Bay Area. "Coaching is managing egos and personalities. I like to call it professional babysitting."
If coaching is babysitting, call Kerr the Mrs. Doubtfire of the NBA. The first-year coach and proteges shouldn't have much trouble getting through to the next round.
Milwaukee Bucks at Chicago Bulls
Time: 7 p.m. ET
Network: ESPN
The Bulls and Bucks are going to play the ugliest first-round series. There is less than zero doubt in my mind; this is fact. The two teams played four times during the regular season, and the average score for the winner was 93. And this was no anomaly either. All four games saw the victor score 95 points or fewer; in three of them it was exactly 95 points.
Keep in mind that only four teams averaged fewer than 95 points per game during the regular season. The Bulls and Bucks each make their bones on the defensive end, albeit in far different fashions.
Chicago continues to play what any basic basketball fan knows as trademark Tom Thibodeau defense. Bigs drop on pick-and-rolls, flood the strong side and do whatever they can to force mid-range jumpers. Individual gambling—going for steals, lunging for blocks, etc.—is a one-way ticket to the bench. Only Portland forced fewer opponent turnovers per 100 possessions.
This style is a hallmark of many of the NBA's top defenses; Indiana, Memphis and a host of others have copied or slightly altered this formula to fit their talent.
The Bucks built the NBA's second-best defense during the regular season by doing the exact opposite. Jason Kidd, who stumbled onto this style late last year in Brooklyn, has his players constantly attacking. Milwaukee forced a full turnover more than any other team per 100 possessions, and this roster is uniquely fitted to Kidd's preferred havoc.
Michael Carter-Williams, who is listed at 6'6", is the Bucks' shortest starter. Their regular rotation features no player shorter than 6'3", and their relative youth allows them to do well in both half-court and transition situations.
"That's a long team," Bulls guard Aaron Brooks said, per Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune. "They take up a lot of space, get a lot of steals and like to get up and down off steals. So we have to be careful with the ball."
Unfortunately for Milwaukee, that length doesn't translate to anything nearing coherence on the offensive end. The Bucks finished 25th in offensive efficiency during the regular season, by far the lowest of any playoff team. Things have only gotten worse since they moved Brandon Knight to Phoenix for Carter-Williams, as they scored at a rate of futility only reached by the Knicks and 76ers after the All-Star Break.
Thibodeau is going to have a field day taking advantage of Milwaukee's inability to spread the floor.
Dallas Mavericks at Houston Rockets
Time: 9:30 p.m. ET
Network: ESPN
The Mavericks and Rockets each made a trade this season that hasn't quite worked out. Widely lauded at the time, Houston's acquisition of K.J. McDaniels has largely been a bust; he was consigned to the end of the bench for his shooting woes before fracturing his wrist in the season finale. McDaniels played a grand total of 33 minutes for Houston.
Of course, Dallas' disappointing trade return is far more damaging. When the Mavericks pulled the trigger on adding Rajon Rondo, the general consensus was positive. Even if Rondo wasn't 100 percent his former self, Boston's return was so minimal you couldn't help but laud Mark Cuban.
It turns out the Mavs may have paid too much. Jae Crowder has emerged as a reliable two-way player with the Celtics, Brandan Wright's hole in the rotation is yet to be filled, and the Rondo fit has been a downright disaster. He's been an oil-water mix with Rick Carlisle's preferred fluid offense, which runs in stark contrast to Rondo's own preferred style of slash-and-kick. I'm sure you've seen the video of them shouting at each other one or six times.
Rondo's arrival has also forced Monta Ellis, once the only primary ball-handler given the freedom to "break" from the regular sets, into a more traditional shooting guard role. Monta still have it all when he wants, but it's no coincidence his blazing start tapered off once Rondo got integrated in the offense.
Let's put it another way: When your big midseason acquisition is the subject of an ESPN profile titled "Good at Math, Bad at People," something probably went awry.
Meanwhile, there are few teams more comfortable with who they are than Houston. Led by James Harden, the Rockets have finally settled into the platonic ideal of MoreyBall. They shot 39.2 percent of their shots from three-point range, nearly six percent higher than any other team, and had the league's second-highest free-throw rate.
Harden is the only legitimate threat to Curry's MVP bid, ramping up his defensive effort while carrying a team riddled with injuries throughout the season. Harden, Trevor Ariza and Donatas Motiejunas were the only three Rockets who so much as appeared in 60 games. With Dwight Howard rounding into shape after returning last month and Kevin McHale finally landing on a steady rotation, one could argue the Rockets have never been in better shape.
All of this is bad news for a floundering Dallas team.
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All stats via NBA.com
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