Who ya got? Previewing the Western Conference 1st round
Following a tumultuous campaign in which the NBA resumed a suspended regular season in a Disney World bubble, the league's postseason marathon is finally set to tip off this week.
After previewing and predicting the Eastern Conference's first round, theScore's NBA feature writers Joe Wolfond and Joseph Casciaro are back to break down the West's opening round.
No. 1 Lakers (52-19) vs. No. 8 Blazers (35-39)
Prediction
Casciaro: Lakers in 6
The Lakers were my preseason championship pick, and they ended up winning the prorated equivalent of 60 games this season while locking up the West's No. 1 seed. So why will they struggle to put the eighth-seeded Blazers away?
For one, this isn't the same Lakers team that peaked earlier in the year. It's missing a key starter in Avery Bradley, lacks additional depth due to the absence of Rajon Rondo, and the Lakers never truly coalesced on the court in Disney World after notching a big bubble opener win over the rival Clippers.
Defensively, the Lakers are less equipped to guard a backcourt of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum than they would be at full health. Offensively, this team is a shell of itself. The Lakers ended the season outside the top 10 in offensive rating and they own the third-worst offense in the bubble, particularly struggling to generate anything when LeBron James sits.
With James playing more in the playoffs and kicking it into postseason gear after missing out last year, and no Blazers wing defender being capable of troubling him, LeBron himself will mitigate some of the Lakers' issues, so I don't see Portland actually pulling off the upset. But the Blazers are dangerous enough, and the Lakers look vulnerable enough, that this will be a longer first-round series than Los Angeles fans may have anticipated.
Wolfond: Lakers in 5
Somehow, after a season of you hyping the Lakers and me downplaying them, I have more faith in their ability to flip the playoff switch. They're going to crank it up and make relatively quick work of an exhausted opponent that's basically played the equivalent of four straight Game 7s over the last week.
I'm concerned about the Lakers' offense in the big picture, but a series against the Blazers won't highlight those issues. There just isn't any Portland wing defender who can remotely hope to match up physically with LeBron. Whether he's drawing double teams in the post or barreling through the first line of defense, the Blazers won't prevent him from collapsing their shell.
Their bigs are quietly struggling defensively - almost as badly as their guards and wings - and none of Jusuf Nurkic, Zach Collins, or Hassan Whiteside will enjoy trying to stay in front of Anthony Davis, who should probably veer away from post-ups and rely on his face-up game, especially when Nurkic is guarding him.
The Lakers' backcourt defense took a big hit with the loss of Bradley, but Danny Green and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope aren't slouches. Lillard and McCollum are going to cook, but they won't do enough to supersede Los Angeles' enormous frontcourt advantage.
Series X-Factor
Casciaro: Jusuf Nurkic
Nurkic's bubble production has been inspiring. After being sidelined for 17 months due to a gruesome leg injury, the big man returned to average 18.1 points, 11.4 rebounds, 4.2 assists, two blocks, and 1.4 steals in 32.7 minutes per game across nine contests while helping to push the Blazers to the playoffs.
One caveat, however: He still hasn't looked like himself defensively. That's why his presence isn't elevating Portland's defense, which ranked 20th out of 22 teams in the seeding games.
The Lakers have become a terrible shooting team, so if Nurkic can deter James' club at the rim, the already anemic Lakers will struggle to generate offense consistently. It'll be even better if he can contribute to slowing down Davis, who has scuffled while dealing with extra defensive attention in the bubble but averaged 32 points in three games against Portland this year.
That might be asking too much of a big man who hasn't fully returned to being a two-way player. But if Nurkic starts inching closer to providing his usual formidable defensive presence, the Blazers can make this interesting.
Wolfond: Gary Trent Jr.
It's crazy how good Trent has become, and how heavily the Blazers are relying on him. He's their best perimeter defender by a country mile, and maybe their best spot-up shooter, too. He shot a preposterous 34-for-67 (50.7%) from 3-point range during the seeding stage.
Portland's defense and offense fall off a cliff without him on the floor. Inside the bubble, the Blazers are outscoring teams by 10.1 points per 100 possessions when he plays, and they've been outscored by 14.8 points per 100 when he sits.
Trent would be giving up a ton of height and heft in a matchup against LeBron, but for lack of better alternatives, there's a decent chance the Blazers give him a chunk of that assignment.
Trent will compete. I don't know if that will be enough to fluster LeBron, but I can't wait to watch him try.
No. 4 Rockets (44-28) vs. No. 5 Thunder (44-28)
Prediction
Wolfond: Thunder in 7
Russell Westbrook's quad injury and the hazy timeline for his return complicate the prediction process. Obviously, it hurts the Rockets to lose one of the two operators of their drive-and-kick, 3-point bombing machine. But making James Harden the sole conductor of that offense for a few games isn't such a bad fallback option.
One silver lining for Houston is that Westbrook being out could make Thunder center Steven Adams' life a bit more difficult, since Oklahoma City was likely to assign him to the nine-time All-Star and let the veteran lay back at the rim. Now he'll probably be guarding a shooter who can stretch him out to the 3-point line. There's a reason the Rockets have scored 6.6 more points per 100 possessions this season when Harden plays without Westbrook than when the two share the court.
However, Houston is top-heavy with an already short bench, and the Rockets would be asking a lot of Harden without Westbrook. Things could also get dicey defensively, as the league's worst defensive rebounding team will be contending with one of the NBA's best offensive rebounders in Adams.
Meanwhile, as the Association's third-best isolation scoring squad, the Thunder are well-equipped to deal with the Rockets' switch-everything defense. Chris Paul, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Danilo Gallinari, and Dennis Schroder each average about a point per isolation possession, putting them all above the 70th percentile.
The Rockets are still super dangerous without Westbrook, and he may return at some point to swing the series. But for now, I don't feel comfortable picking them to win.
Casciaro: Rockets in 7
I've been high on the surprising Thunder all season and maintain there's a legitimate shot for them to beat any non-L.A. team in the West playoffs. But the Rockets are the non-L.A. matchup I feared most for Oklahoma City.
Superstar talent reigns supreme in the playoffs. Westbrook will be sidelined to start this West quarterfinal, but the Rockets' offense will continue to hum in the short term, and the Harden-Westbrook duo might prove too much for the Thunder to overcome in the long term. However, all bets might be off if Westbrook's injury is more serious than we realize, as the Thunder have the talent to make some postseason noise.
The team's optimal five-man unit of Paul, Gilgeous-Alexander, Schroder, Gallinari, and Adams boasts a +29.9 net rating that ranks No. 1 among the 218 lineups that have logged 100-plus minutes over the last two seasons. And yes, that includes the 2019 Warriors' Hamptons Five lineup of Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andre Iguodala.
This series looks like a classic No. 4 seed vs. No. 5 toss-up that's tough to pin down, but it's not hard to predict the animosity will boil over in what promises to be a lengthy showdown.
Series X-Factor
Wolfond: Eric Gordon
Gordon has endured a miserable, injury-plagued season, posting by far his worst career true shooting percentage (50.8). But as he returns from his latest ailment - an ankle sprain that kept him out for almost all of the seeding stage - Gordon is as important as ever to the Rockets.
With Westbrook out, Gordon becomes Houston's most viable secondary creator. The Rockets need him to rediscover his 3-point stroke after shooting 31.3% from deep this year, and to reliably make plays off the dribble. They also need him to grant Harden at least a handful of on-ball possessions off, and decisively attack man-advantage scenarios when the 2018 MVP gets trapped.
Defensively, he'll be instrumental in containing the Thunder's three-headed guard monster - lineups featuring Paul, Gilgeous-Alexander, and Shroder - that outscored Houston by 26 points across 29 minutes this season.
If Gordon elevates his play, the Rockets can win this series. If he doesn't, they're in trouble.
Casciaro: Steven Adams
The obvious answer here is Westbrook's health and availability, but if these teams clash at full strength, Adams can swing the series.
He can feast on the offensive glass against a small Rockets team that's a borderline anemic defensive rebounding squad, and Oklahoma City getting multiple shots every possession will add up in an evenly matched series. Whether small-ball Houston can run Adams off the floor on the other end could make or break the Rockets.
No. 2 Clippers (49-23) vs. No. 7 Mavericks (43-32)
Prediction
Wolfond: Clippers in 5
The Mavericks are a good young team that should grow into a great team soon. But the Clippers are a nightmare opponent for them, so this could become a backbone-building learning experience.
The team with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George can make Dallas' historically great offense look ordinary. Those two showed at points throughout the Clippers' 3-0 regular-season sweep that they can fluster Luka Doncic with their speed, strength, and ball pressure. They'll surely ratchet up that pressure in the playoffs.
Then there's the damage Leonard and George can inflict offensively, as the Mavs' lack of big, high-quality wing defenders will likely be their undoing. Dallas' best option to guard those guys this year has probably been big man Maxi Kleber. But while Kleber moves his feet well for his size, asking him to hang with Leonard or George in space for extended stretches is too much.
Dorian Finney-Smith is the Mavs' best defensive wing, but neither Leonard nor George has experienced much trouble physically overwhelming or shooting over him this season. Unless the Mavs dust off Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, their next-best choice is Tim Hardaway Jr., which doesn't inspire much confidence, despite the strides he's made this year.
Casciaro: Clippers in 5
Analysts say repeatedly that the postseason is about matchups. But folks, let me remind you: The playoffs are about matchups, and the Mavericks couldn't have drawn a worse one than the Clippers.
A young team led by an MVP-caliber star and boasting a historically efficient offense would usually be the perfect candidate to upset a favorite. But the Clippers are uniquely qualified to snuff out Dallas' typical advantages.
The Mavs' collective firepower and Doncic's individual brilliance make it tough to predict a sweep. But Dallas is in tough if the team wants more to show for its pleasantly surprising season than a single playoff win.
Series X-Factor
Wolfond: Dorian Finney-Smith
Yes, I just suggested Finney-Smith hasn't been able to guard Kawhi and George this year, but indulge me in this thought experiment: What if he can? Finney-Smith is long and strong with great footwork. Nobody can stop Leonard or George, but he should be able to make them work. And that alone would give Dallas a fighting chance.
Finney-Smith also needs to knock down his open threes, because lots of attention is going to be paid to Doncic - my guess is the Clippers will throw more blitzes at him than they did during the regular season - and the Mavs' complementary players will be dared to step up.
Over his first three seasons, Finney-Smith shot 30.3% from 3-point range. This year, he shot 37.7%. This series will test if that improvement is real.
Casciaro: Porzingis at center
Kristaps Porzingis was terrible during the first two meetings between Dallas and the Clippers this season, scoring 25 points on 8-of-30 shooting across those contests. That can partly be attributed to both games coming earlier in the year when he was still rounding into form following a 20-month injury-induced layoff. But Porzingis being utilized in a two-big system also deserves some of the blame.
With Dwight Powell and Willie Cauley-Stein out, the Mavs have rolled with Porzingis at center more often. That's resulted in their historically efficient offense somehow getting even better, but it's also helped unleash a more optimized Porzingis.
The Clippers can expect to face that version of the Mavs' secondary star, which could spell trouble for a team with an interior defense that lags far behind its elite perimeter defending. With Porzingis rolling more often in pick-and-roll actions during the third regular-season meeting between these two teams, the big man erupted for 30 points on 23 individual possessions, all while dishing out five assists compared to one turnover.
However, the Mavs still lost by 15 points, so perhaps that perfectly illustrates how bad this matchup is for Dallas.
No. 3 Nuggets (46-27) vs. No. 6 Jazz (44-28)
Prediction
Casciaro: Nuggets in 5
The Nuggets swept the season series against the Jazz, but in three games between the Northwest Division rivals, only 11 total points separated the two teams. If the Jazz were at full strength, or had shown any semblance of cohesiveness this season, perhaps we could expect a similarly competitive postseason series. Unfortunately for Utah, things won't play out that way.
The Jazz are still trying to find themselves at the end of a turbulent season that saw them seemingly tank their way out of a potential matchup against Houston, and the Nuggets might be hitting top gear at the right time.
Jamal Murray is back from injury, and while Denver would no doubt like to get Will Barton and Gary Harris back in the lineup too, the Nuggets might've found two new franchise cornerstones in the meantime, as Michael Porter Jr. and Bol Bol have been bubble revelations.
The Nuggets have played better all year, are significantly deeper than the Jazz, and employ the best player in the series in Nikola Jokic, who has dominated games against two-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert. In three contests against Gobert's Jazz this season, Jokic averaged 29.3 points and nine assists on 55.4% shooting.
Denver's defense - ranked dead last in the bubble - will be an issue eventually, but the Bojan Bogdanovic-less Jazz probably won't be the team to exploit that weakness. Utah just doesn't have the horses to keep up.
Wolfond: Nuggets in 6
I've been low on the Bojan-less Jazz, and I'm even lower on them now that Mike Conley has left the bubble for his son's birth and is unlikely to play until at least Game 4.
But I still don't believe in Denver enough to predict a short series. The Porter Jr. breakout has been exciting, and it's been fun watching the play of Bol Bol and Skinny Jokic. But this team hasn't fully clicked in Orlando.
Harris (hip) and Barton (knee) haven't suited up. It's not clear when or if they'll play, or how effective they'll be if they return. Harris' pestering, point-of-attack presence defensively has been sorely missed. The Nuggets posted the worst defensive rating in the seeding stage, allowing an ungodly 121.7 points per 100 possessions.
Utah's offense has looked janky during most of its bubble games, but playing against a poor rim-protecting team without an obvious defensive option for Donovan Mitchell (barring Harris returning at close to peak form) could help the Jazz get on track offensively. Also, the Nuggets' bench - one of their biggest advantages - won't be as big a factor with rotations tightening.
However, I still fully expect the Nuggets to win the series. They're the more talented team, and their offense is good enough to trump whatever the Jazz do at the other end of the floor.
The qualities that make Gobert a generational defender are his pick-and-roll containment and his dribble-drive deterrence, and post-up maulers like Jokic can still occasionally get the better of him on the block. It also helps that Jokic can stretch Gobert out to the 3-point line. Whatever happens, that matchup is going to be all kinds of fun.
Series X-Factor
Casciaro: Mike Conley's availability
Conley summoning something close to his best would've helped the undermanned Jazz bridge the talent gap. But now he likely won't surface until at least Game 4.
At his absolute peak, Conley could wreak defensive havoc on a player like Murray while helping to keep Utah's offense afloat when Mitchell struggles. The 32-year-old who's in season No. 13 lost maybe half a step defensively while averaging just 14.4 points on less than 41% shooting this season. But in the not-so-distant past, he could swing a playoff series. He averaged a career-high 21.1 points on 56.9% true shooting last year.
Conley did look a little more spry in the seeding games, so maybe he's inching his way back. With Bogdanovic out and Utah's rotation only about six deep, the Jazz could desperately use the old Conley. If Utah can win just one of the first three games, Conley's return could help the Jazz push Denver to the limit. His absence might also mean the series will already be over, for all intents and purposes, by the time he gets back to Disney World.
Wolfond: Joe Ingles
It feels like I've picked Ingles as my X-factor in every Jazz series ever played, but Utah goes as he goes. His 64.9% true-shooting mark across 18 games after the All-Star break offers optimism that he'll be at his best in the playoffs. After Houston's switching system stymied Utah the past two years, Ingles should more easily navigate Denver's defense.
The Nuggets like to send two to the ball when defending the pick-and-roll, and the Jazz run more pick-and-rolls than any team in the league. Denver's aggressive scheme will trigger side-to-side actions and give Utah ample opportunities to play four-on-three. With Conley unlikely to play until at least Game 4, Ingles will be the team's most important release valve for Mitchell in those situations. He'll be heavily relied upon as both a spot-up shooter and a secondary playmaker.