NBA Playoffs: The Finals
By Nick M.W.
In the final round of the NBA playoffs, the wire-to-wire best team in the West takes on the scrappy underdog Heat, who caught fire at the right time.
It’s okay to be wrong; it’s okay to make mistakes. The great ones have all done it, and so have the regular ass ones. We’ve all been there, and we’ll no doubt be there again in the future. Some of you folks won’t have to wait long until the next time you mess something up.
Throughout these NBA playoffs, which have been pretty fucking awesome, I’ve gone 50/50 with my predictions. I picked my Lakers to advance in each of the four rounds they played, and I was right 75% of the time. Unfortunately, I made the wrong pick in the Western Conference Finals, one that now seems wildly outlandish. In hindsight, it was obvious that the Denver Nuggets were going to beat the Lakers because they were the better team, but I was bold enough to proclaim that D’Angelo Russell would “ball so hard.”
I did.
On the other side of the country, I nailed my Eastern Conference Finals winner. Yeah, that’s right; I picked Miami to win that series (receipt). Quoting my own prophecy here:
“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.”
Damn.
It actually happened in each of the first three games. Miami played like the #2 seed instead of the #8 seed while Boston looked like trash. Then, Boston remembered that they were the more talented team, and they won three straight games to force a Game 7 before they choked at home.
Now, here we are at the end of the line. What does this final round have in store for NBA fans?
The NBA Finals
Denver punked the Lakers in the WCF. Yeah, they have the Joker and Jamal Murray, and those two were fantastic. Where they really killed the Lakers was all the other guys, Aaron Gordon, Michael Porter Jr., Bruce Brown, KCP. Shit, the Lakers had KCP back in 2020, the last time these teams face each other (also in the WCF), but they didn’t have him this time around, and they didn’t have enough of those dudes on their roster to compete with that deluge of 3’s and beautiful transition offense the Nuggies threw at them. It was good enough for a sweep.
The Nuggets are the favorites to win the championship, and they should be. They’re awesome, and I think they’ll win it in five competitive games. However, I wouldn’t be shocked if Miami pulled a Game 7 upset to win it all. They have a great coach in Erik Spoelstra, a great on-the-court leader in Jimmy Butler, a team that plays well together, and a whole lot of heart. I would be surprised if they won it in any fewer than seven games, but I also don’t believe this series will get that far. Denver is too good. They have all that same shit I just said about Miami, and it feels like this is their year.
I’ll be pulling for Miami because they’re the underdog, they’ve been the underdog throughout this entire tournament, and I like Jimmy Buckets. Denver is playing the “no respect” card, but they’ve been in first place all year, they whipped everyone’s ass to get to the Finals, and they have the two-time MVP on their team. No respect? Who cares you when you’re on top?
Go Heat!
