NBA Playoffs: Round 3
By Nick M.W.
The path to the top of the mountain runs through elite defense, unstoppable offense, All-Stars, and a couple of former MVPs.
For one team, the path to the top of the NBA mountain took them right to the defending champions, the historically dominant Golden State Warriors. That team went to five straight NBA Finals (2015 – 2019), won three of them, then took a couple years off before they won another title last season. It was a remarkable run that may not be over with yet—not with Steph Curry still playing for them—but their run as defending champs this season is OVER!
This is heavily biased sports writing here at Home Field Advantage, so I’m going to lean into this win because the Lakers were underdogs who were still drawing suspicious looks from NBA fans, definitely from Dubs fans, and I completely understand. At the beginning of this season, not many Lakers fans thought they would make the playoffs. Many thought they could make the playoffs, including me, but we all knew that LeBron and AD would have to stay healthy for most of the season (because doing that for all of it was an impossible task) and Westbrook would have to play within the team’s system for the Lakers to have a shot at making the playoffs. To get beyond the first round, their opponent would have had to have some sort of collapse. When it all began way back in October, the Lakers got blown out by the Warriors and lost their next four games before they got their first win; they went on to open the season 2 – 10. Confidence in those pre-season playoff predictions wavered.
Things didn’t look good. Another season of disappointment, probably watching the Clippers hoist their first Larry O’Brien trophy. Yuck.
But, folks, it’s not how you start the season, it’s how you finish it. Things ended up being A-Okay with my Lakers, so far. By any measure, this has turned into one of the most successful seasons in franchise history but being 8 wins away from a championship has made me greedy. I want more. I want it all.
I batted 1.000 in my Conference Semi-final predictions, but they were easy to call. I’m not saying the games weren’t competitive. I had several mini-heart attacks during the Lakers/Warriors series. It just seemed obvious who was going to come out on top.
What do the 2023 Conference Finals have in store? It’s a throwback to the 2020 NBA Bubble. All final four teams were the final four teams way back when folks were still fighting each other over masks and the playoffs were hosted at Disney World, in October. Wild shit.
This time around, home court advantages are in-play, as is the undeniable fact the no one will want to put an asterisk next to the 2023 champs.
Eastern Conference Finals
It’s true that I hate the Celtics, and that hate certainly clouds my judgment because I don’t want to even imagine them winning another title, but that’s not why I’m picking against them. I thought they were going to win it last season. I’m picking against them because they are up against the most dangerous team in the East; a team that has been playing in survival mode since the play-in. Half of that is because that’s how Jimmy Butler’s Heat roll. The other half is because they have no margin for error. They are thin. Thinner than my hairline thin, and the Celtics are so deep.
BUT the Celtics can get complacent, even lazy. They seem to lose focus and let less talented teams sneak in and steal a win, or two, or three. In this series, the difference between moving on to the Finals and going home will be one game. The Celtics can’t afford to lose focus long enough for the Heat to steal one more game than they should, but it’s going to happen. Maybe it happens in Game 1 or Game 7 or one of the other two home games in between, but it’s going to happen. Heat win the Eastern Conference
Western Conference Finals
Do you think I’m going to pick against the Lakers now? I would if believed they were going to lose, but (SURPRISE) I don’t. The Nuggets are the #1 seed, but they were only two games better than the Grizzlies. They were ten games ahead of the Lakers in the regular season standings, but it was a different Lakers team that played two-thirds of the season, as I previously established. Perhaps, if this same team started the season, they would’ve been a higher seed, maybe even as high as #1. Maybe.
I like how the Lakers matchup against the Nuggets better than how they matched up against the Warriors, despite the size advantage. I think AD and Jokic will do what they do. They can take turns trying to slow each other down. LeBron is going to be in attack mode. He’s had the pleasure of not having to carry this team through each round of the playoffs by himself. The Lakers “other guys” —Austin Reeves, D-Lo, Rui, and Lonnie Walker IV “Quarter”—will need to continue to ball so hard to give the Lakers the edge. They will, and the stars will be great. This will be another exciting series. Lakers win the Western Conference
