8A — BAKER CITY HERALD
THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021
Beautiful chaos: welcome back, NBA craziness
■ After a 2020 season affected by the pandemic, there’s plenty of drama yet to unfold in the last week of the regular season
Milwaukee will all be home
for Game 1 of Round 1 of
There was no frantic fi nal
the playoffs in the East, and
few days of the NBA regular
Utah, Phoenix and the Los
season, replete with all the
Angeles Clippers are assured
jostling for playoff positioning
of doing so in the West. Den-
as well a scoring race that
ver would need to absolutely
might go down to the wire.
collapse in the fi nal week to
And there’s never been the
not grab the last home-court
THE PLAY-IN
added layer of eight teams
spot over Dallas out West for
The reason this is already
going to a play-in tournament,
Round 1.
a success is because it’s one of
which, given its popularity,
The last East home-court
can already be considered a
the few things that is domi-
race may get very interesting.
success before it even starts.
nating conversations within
New York likely has the
the league right now, with the best chance, though Atlanta
A year ago, there only was
exception of Russell West-
something called seeding
held off Washington on Mon-
brook’s run to triple-double
games that a few teams chose
day to close within a half-
history and if the Los Angeles game of the Knicks. If they
to sleepwalk through, in a
John Kuntz/cleveland.com-TNS Lakers will have enough time
bubble, without fans, with
fi nish tied, the Knicks own
eight teams already home for Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry looks for an to get themselves together for that tiebreaker by sweeping
a title defense.
the summer — or spring, sum- outlet pass guarded by Cleveland Cavaliers center Jar-
the Hawks. The Knicks might
mer and fall, as it turned out. rett Allen on April 15 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
Imagine this: LeBron James start the playoffs with a home
This year, things are much
and the Lakers vs. Stephen
game for just the second time
Curry and Golden State in a
closer to normalcy.
in the last 20 seasons.
and home-court advantage
so many times this winter
Welcome back, chaos. Wel-
throughout the entirety of the because of virus-related issues play-in game.
Yes, ratings will be just fi ne THE SCORING TITLE
come back, drama. You were
NBA playoffs.
is on the cusp of being com-
Washington’s Bradley Beal
missed.
Oh, and all that is happen- pleted, in full, 72 games for all if that happens.
Or how about another pos- won’t play again until late
Here’s a short list of just
ing in the same week that
30 teams.
this week, at minimum, be-
some of the things that the
NBA legends Kobe Bryant,
It’s pretty much a lock that sible play-in game: Gordon
cause of a hamstring injury so
fi nal six days of the regular
Kevin Garnett and Tim
Philadelphia will be the No. 1 Hayward and Charlotte (if
Stephen Curry’s target score
season will decide, in no par-
Duncan fi nally go into the
seed in the East playoffs, and he’s back from injury) vs.
for the scoring crown might
ticular order: the No. 3 vs. No. Basketball Hall of Fame, along Utah has the inside track on
Kemba Walker and Boston.
be set.
Probably safe to say such a
6 and No. 4 vs. No. 5 playoff
with two-time NBA champion the No. 1 seed for the West
Beal is averaging 31.41
matchup might mean some-
matchups in both the Eastern coach Rudy Tomjanovich and playoffs as well as the top
points per game. Curry is
thing to those guys if they
and Western Conferences; the fi ve others — Kim Mulkey,
overall spot going into the
face their former clubs with so the leader, averaging 31.93
four opening matchups for
Tamika Catchings, Barbara
postseason. And realistically,
through Monday. And don’t
much at stake.
the play-in tournament that
Stevens, Eddie Sutton and
there are 11 teams in each
think this doesn’t matter to
is now just a week away; the
Patrick Baumann.
conference vying for 10 spots
those guys — Curry needed
scoring race between Golden
Much is happening, indeed. in either the postseason or the HOME-COURT
ADVANTAGE
22 points on Saturday night
State’s Stephen Curry and
A compressed NBA season
play-in round, so it’s not like
Philadelphia, Brooklyn and to keep the scoring lead after
Washington’s Bradley Beal;
that seemed in jeopardy
there’s going to be a surprise
team that gets onto the
brackets that will be set when
the curtain comes down on the
NBA’s 75th regular season on
Sunday, May 16.
But there is still much
to decide. A look at some of
what’s left:
By Tim Reynolds
AP Basketball Writer
BED & BREAKFAST
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learning that Beal had just
scored 50; he went out and
got 49.
The potential is there for
the closest scoring race in
years. If the fi nal difference
in average is one point or less,
that will mark just the second
such instance in the last eight
seasons — Russell Westbrook
edged James Harden by 0.7
points for the crown in 2014-
15.
It wasn’t so long ago that
a close scoring race was com-
mon: Carmelo Anthony beat
Kevin Durant by 0.6 points
in 2012-13, Durant beat Kobe
Bryant by 0.1 in 2011-12, Du-
rant beat LeBron James by
0.98 points in 2010-11 and 0.4
points the preceding year.
The other stat per-game
champions are pretty much
clinched: Atlanta’s Clint Cape-
la will likely win the rebound
title, Westbrook will claim the
assists crown, Miami’s Jimmy
Butler will win the steals title
and Utah’s Rudy Gobert will
fi nish atop the blocks category
in part because Indiana’s
Myles Turner will not play
in the minimum number of
games needed to qualify.
This year, the race between
Beal and Curry might go
down to the wire.
Fitting, in a season where
so many other races might do
the same.
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