Your NBA Playoffs Primer
This post is rated S for spoilers.
Well, the NBA playoffs have arrived deep in the heart of the bubble. Let’s just say things aren’t quite the same as normal. Players can only have “close family” as guest (with no option to disguise them with pads), no home court advantage (except for the Magic, but they won’t know what to do with it), fake fans (well, real fans digitally rendered as if they are trapped in a SNES game) and now everybody kneels or else they get treated like crap instead of the guy that kneels being treated like crap. Progress is amazing. Still, like many of you, I might have lost track of what was going on this season, so a primer on what is going on might help. Instead of giving you things like clarifying statistics or professional insight on player skills, I am going to compare the teams to movies that remind me of them. Let’s start with the east.
1 seed: The Milwaukee Bucks
The Movie: Aliens
Giannis is the Alien. He is an inexplicable mass of arms, legs, flexibility and massive strength. He can do things that shouldn’t be possible, like take two steps from the 3 point line and dunk. If I take 2 steps from the 3 point line I am closing in on a free throw. Giannis is an unstoppable and insatiable dunking machine. Kind of the like the Xenomorph from Alien. The Xenomorph… uh… burst onto the scene quite literally as the perfect and insatiable killing machine it is. There is only one problem with this. The Alien dies. Hopefully that doesn’t happen to Giannis, but there is always something that pops out to ruin his run to the top. Last year it Kawhi Leonard. He is gone now, but a lot of challengers remain to take him on. Hopefully this won’t turn into an Alien Vs. Predator situation (that movie was quite possibly the biggest disappointment of my movie life). Ultimately, his supporting cast will probably make the difference more than he will. Players like Khris Middleton and Eric Bledsoe need to shine when the lights are their brightest. Last year, they went down like a Queenomorph getting sucked out of an airlock.
2 seed: The Toronto Raptors
Bourne Legacy
Did you know there was a Bourne movie without Matt Damon? You do now. Bourne Legacy was part of a spin off plan that never fully materialized (weirdly Mission Impossible had the same plan with the same actor, Jeremy Renner). Instead, Matt Damon returned for one last uninspired sequel and killed of the Bourne franchise for good (or did they). The Raptors were NBA champions last season and looked like a team well-built and well-coached enough to make it back. But Kawhi Leonard had other ideas. He headed off to form an anti-superteam superteam in LA. Left behind were a very talented cast of characters missing their main man. Except, just like Bourne Legacy, the remaining pieces are a lot better than we expected. Like, maybe they will get back to the finals anyway good. Pascal Siakam has blossomed into a star. Kyle Lowry is still doing Kyle Lowry stuff like taking charges, making the right passes and hitting clutch shots. Fred Van Vleet is always a threat to go nuts and drop 30. More than anything, they play together on a string. Their defense might be the best in the league because they all know where to go and they play together. Bourne Legacy had no right to be as good as it was either. Rachel Weisz was fantastic under pressure. Her breakdown/resilience as the Evil Corportation™ closes in is fantastic. Jeremy Renner shows the kind of potential that keeps making franchises think he should replace a better actor (even if he never does). The action sequences are tight and meaningful. Sure it’s not The Bourne Identity, but I would still go to see it if it makes the NBA finals.
3 seed: The Boston Celtics
Movie: Training Day
Brad Stevens leads a very talented cast into the playoffs with big plans. Jayson Tatum and Jalen Brown are the young stars developing into their prime, surrounded by a pack of experienced veterans to guide them in Kemba Walker, Marcus Smart, Gordon Hayward (finally looking healthy), and Enes Kanter. The question I keep wondering is, what exactly they are developing into? Are we sure that Brad Stevens is the boy genius everyone thinks he is? Sure he has had a few overachieving groups, but he has also had some underachieving groups. Jayson Tatum and Jalen Brown are developing, but there is a shortage of other young players developing with them. In fact, Al Horford thought so much of this group he bolted for Philadelphia. I can’t shake the feeling that there is something missing or wayward from this group. Kind of like Denzel, there shouldn’t be any reason to doubt. Denzel was confident, successful, knowledgeable… and also deeply corrupt. Ethan Hawke eventually stands up to him and nearly dies for it. I don’t think things will go that sideways, but clearly I am suspicious of how much I am being told this team is King Kong. Hopefully Jason Tatum stays out of the bathtub. I want to be wrong, but I also want Forrest Gump to lose its Oscar in perpetuity.
4 seed: The Indiana Pacers
Movie: Shaun of the Dead
The original Romantic Zombedy, Shaun of the Dead follows a pair of friends who are literally going through the motions (that tracking shot is one of my all time favorite movie sequences) in a slow, pointless fashion before busting some ass and mostly dying in a bar. No, this will not be a flattering comparison. Look, the Pacers are a good basketball team. They win games. They have talented players. They will kick some zombie ass before it is all over. Malcolm Brogdan, TJ Warren (red hot since he became a bubble boy), Domantas Sabonis, Myles Turner and what’s left of Victor Oladipo’s knees bring a lot to the table. But we know where this is going. At best a second round exit. To be repeated next year and the following year ad infinitum. It could be worse, they could be the Sacramento Kings. However, Larry Bird left because he saw what Paul George saw. An ownership group committed to being good, and that’s it. This is basically the equivalent of playing video games on a couch and having a maybe girlfriend named Liz. They need to get out there, bust ass and wipe out a gang of townspeople bent on perfection like in Hot Fuzz. It’s not happening though.
5 seed: The Miami Heat
Movie: Primal Fear
So are they Aaron… or Roy? The 2019 version of this team is a killer. The Roy. Molded in the image of their leader Jimmy Butler, they play hard and fight harder. The defense is stifling and the offense moves the ball swiftly leading to open buckets for great shooters like Duncan Robinson, Goran Dragic, Tyler Herro and Kendrick Nunn. Bam Adebayo serves as the fulcrum for all of this like a reborn Draymond Green with better scoring chops. But there is another version, the Aaron. The 2020 version, where the defense fell apart. The shooters stopped hitting a ridiculous amount of their shots, Dragic, Iguodala, and Jimmy Butler looked washed. They meekly took beating after beating from lesser teams like the Kings, Knicks and Cavs. The playoffs will answer the question once and for all, and their fans are likely hoping there is no Aaron.
6 Seed: The Philadelphia 76ers
Movie: The Wolf of Wall Street
It started out at the bottom for the 76ers and Jordan Belfort. For the Sixers, the reckoning came in season after season at the bottom of the standings. For Jordan Belfort, it started on Black Friday. Before long, though, they had things sorted out. Sure it was unseemly. The Process had its detractors as the team tanked so hard it went through the floor boards. Jordan Belfort had his detractors as he milked the financial sector for all it was worth, doing whatever it took to rise from the bottom. Then came the fun. The Sixers drafted future stars Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz with a series of high picks and the winning started. Soon Joel Embiid was the joy of the league with his tweets. Ben Simmons was redefining and inventing the idea of a point power forward. The wins came with it. For Jordan Belfort, his success lead to drugs, wealth and Margot Robbie. There was no indication the fun would ever stop. But it has. Injuries keep sneaking up on Embiid, Ben Simmons is openly defying his coach and refusing to shoot the most efficient (non-FT/Dunk category) shot in basketball, Markelle Fultz had a strange medical diagnosis that sapped his skill and made him an afterthought (and eventual trade casualty). Soon Embiid was feuding with the press, Simmons was dating a Jenner and the team finds itself stumbling into the playoffs with no shot at contending. For Jordan Belfort, he simply discovered that SEC stands for the Security Exchange Commission, unlike the football conference (Some Expendable Children, at last check). After an intermittent fit of snitching and redeeming himself, he eventually ends up in prison. The Sixers might have a worse fate in the modern NBA for their tanking insolence. Eternal mid round draft picks.
7 seed: The Brooklyn Nets
Movie: The Replacements
The Nets are a bare bones operation at this point. No Durant or Irving due to injuries and Spencer Dinwiddie opted out for Covid concerns leaving the squad in the position of starting a lot of no names and running G league guys off the bench. The thing is, it’s working. They had a winning record in the bubble, and this group of castaways has come together to secure their playoff berth. Kind of like the oddballs in The Replacements. Of course their very handsome quarterback Shane Falco had played before, but most of the gang was plucked off the street to save the day. As scab workers showing how much fun football could be, they brought the team back to relevance. Of course, in the last game, their arrogant, selfish and ignorant quarterback came back and almost ruined the whole thing. Thankfully, the Nets don’t have an arrogant, selfish and ignorant point guard who could come back and sour this thing with his attitude. I mentioned earlier he is out with an injury.
8 seed: The Orlando Magic
Movie: The Happening
No one really understands what The Happening is about. Are there killer trees? Is it all an accident? Why does it hate New Jersey so much (oh right)? Meanwhile, the Magic have been muddling along for a decade now with no clear direction. Just hanging out in the middle, suffering the purgatory the Sixers are headed for year after year. Oh, they have talented players. Aaron Gordon looks like a young Shawn Marion. Markelle Fultz is starting to crack open his skill egg, and his triple double against the Lakers showed what he is capable of. Nicola Vucevic is a recurring All Star, and a nightly double double machine. Evan Fournier is a well-rounded player. The Happening has some things going for it too. M. Night Shyamalan hadn’t changed his name yet (M. Night SHyAMalan). Mark Wahlberg has his moments in things (like The Departed (NSFW)), Zooey Deschanel was almost a new girl. Even John Leguizamo was here before he found his true calling as my go to mechanic. What unfolds in both situations is an epic masterpiece of failure (a disjointed film with no continuity)(mid round draft picks), full of mismatched pieces (Mark Wahlberg is a science teacher? Zooey Deschanel is a dry, cheating girlfriend? John Leguizamo kills himself?) (4 players who should be playing power forward? No one who can create his own shot? Multiple players in the starting unit who can’t shoot?), that lead to a lack luster conclusion (everyone is mostly fine, and I guess it was no big deal)(the 8 seed).
Thursday: The West