Apparently no one told the Philadelphia 76ers that as a young, relatively inexperienced team in its first playoff game with this core and missing Joel Embiid that keeping it close was fine. No need to scare the utter hell out of the entire Eastern Conference by beating the Miami Heat by [blinks] 27 points in Game 1.
Trust the Blowout
We have that and more in Sunday’s NBA newsletter.
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Ben Simmons put on a master class on both ends, and J.J. Redick and Dario Saric sniped all night. The Sixers shot 18-28 from long range! The Heat’s strength is their defense, and they gave up 130 points ... without Embiid available. That’s a bad omen for Miami. Erik Spoelstra will make some adjustments, but it’s hard to do much with Simmons and Philadelphia’s defense is quite strong, too.
Playoff Scores
Sunday’s Schedule
Bucks at Celtics, 1 p.m. ET, TNT
Pacers at Cavaliers, 3:30 p.m. ET, ABC
Jazz at Thunder, 6:30 p.m. ET, TNT
Timberwolves at Rockets, 9 p.m. ET, TNT
Links Galore
My annual playoff predictions came out after Saturday’s newsletter, so I’ll include it here and promise I didn’t change anything in the interim, though I kinda feel like the Sixers should be even higher now.
Welcome back to the NBA playoffs, Anthony Davis. As the Blazers found out first-hand, he just does some things that no one else in the league can. Huge win for the Pelicans.
How worried about the Spurs were the Warriors? They started a line-up that had never played a single minute together.
Gregg Popovich was somewhere between extra snarky and super snippy with the media, and when it happens during and after a Spurs loss, it takes on a certain edge.
The Game 1 Curse is over! It took all 48 minutes really, and real Wizarding by the Wizards, but the Raptors finally won a Game 1. The Church of Our Lady of RAPTORS BENCH showed out per usual (even without Fr. Fred VanVleet), and it wasn’t even Sunday.
Want to legally and inexpensively watch the NBA playoffs but don’t have cable? Here’s a guide to the options.
On Wednesday, Brian Davis, the local play-by-play man for the Thunder, reacted to a Russell Westbrook play by declaring that he was “out of his cotton-pickin’ mind.” This is bad. He apologized and said he didn’t understand why it would have been offensive. The apology certainly felt sincere. The Thunder suspended him one game. Davis accepted the punishment. Jenni Carlson has a good column on the silver lining: the conversation in Oklahoma City that this sparked about the legacy of cotton and slavery.
This Chris Herring analytic breakdown of Jazz vs. Thunder sure has me leaning toward Utah a little bit more now.
Offense was up this year. Here’s a video explaining how NBA offenses became impossible to defend.
Kawhi Leonard wasn’t at the Spurs’ game in Oakland, and that has seemed to turn the narrative on his, uh, what’s the euphemism the Spurs are going with? His “return of injury management.” Here’s Sam Amick on the situation.
Remembering the NBA’s various playoff theme songs, including the greatest of all time, “Timber (Playoffs Version)” from Ke$ha and Señor Mundial.
Be excellent to each other.
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