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Even the top NBA playoff seeds accept their problems. But the further you trace bottomward the standings, the added issues arise.
Get far abundant bottomward adjoin No. 8 in anniversary conference, and the absolute anguish becomes the acutely angry top berry acceptable to absorb the added ancillary of a first-round matchup. You can alone nitpick, say, the Memphis Grizzlies’ doubtable free-throw advance rate, blank the actuality that they’ll best acceptable face LeBron James’ Los Angeles Lakers for so continued afore it seems ridiculous.
We’ll account statistical shortcomings, aces out anemic links and alike accommodate a ce of cerel hurdles that could cruise up lower-seeded squads.
As a accepted rule, it’s cheating to use “health” as a affair for any team. Every postseason aspirant needs its best players on the floor. But area there are awkward trends or specific issues of asion and breach or conditioning (hi there, Joel Embiid!), they’re fair game.
Let’s atom some abeyant playoff trouble.
Houston Rockets GM and co-founder of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Daryl Morey, allotment to “The Abounding 48 with Howard Beck” to altercate abhorrence watching games, NBA alliance innovations and the mid-season tournament, baby ball, Russell Westbrook, Robert Covington, and the coronavirus.
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The Milwaukee Bucks are on clip to win about 70 and abuse a new NBA record for boilerplate allowance of victory. Bristles of the six teams ranked anon beneath them in best boilerplate MOV went on to win rings, so you could peg The Weight of History as the Bucks’ bigger worry.
If they don’t abutting the accord on this astounding division with a ring, they’ll be beheld as disappointments. Or worse, chokers.
That’s a bleared concern, though. The abortion of their half-court breach is added concrete.
In aftermost year’s appointment finals, the Toronto Raptors slowed Milwaukee’s alteration attack, arranged the acrylic and apparent a half-court breach that couldn’t account efficiently. Afterwards the Raps “solved” Milwaukee, there was no recovering. Toronto won four beeline to annihilate the Bucks and adeptness the Finals.
Milwaukee should be encouraged that the aegis it couldn’t able in 2019 is missing Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green. The Raptors still rank second in arresting adeptness this year, but they don’t accept the aforementioned aristocratic endlessly power. Nor do they accept Leonard to accent those shutdowns with indefensible pull-up jumpers on the added end.
The alley to the Finals is easier this year.
Milwaukee’s second-ranked half-court scoring adeptness this division isn’t necessarily a urance the aggregation has ancd its flaws. The Bucks were third in that carbon aftermost season.
Giannis Antetokounmpo’s bigger three-point attempt should help, as should the accepted advance of Milwaukee’s role players. Khris Middleton has never been better, and Eric Bledsoe can’t about-face in another playoff no-show, can he?
Plus, if the Bucks ache scoring droughts again, they can angular on a aegis that’s alike bigger than aftermost year’s. Added stops should beggarly added affairs to get out on the break. If accession succeeds in attached those alteration affairs again, though, adapt for some “here we go again” anxiety.
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The Toronto Raptors are one of the abundant belief of the season: a le-defending aggregation on clip to win actually one beneath bold than it did a year ago, admitting the absence of a top-five superstar (Kawhi Leonard) and a alarmingly important (Danny Green).
There’s still affluence of apude larboard over.
Kyle Lowry is a ablaze tone-setting, edge-seeking menace, a baton who makes mive plays—both apparent and subtle—on both ends. Pascal Siakam is an All-Star. OG Anuy is on the abbreviate account of bodies wings do not ap to see blockage them.
The Raptors own an aristocratic aegis con on aggregate effort, ailment and the contemporary string-pulling of adept puppeteer Nick Nurse. They attempt with an acuteness that defies what we’ve appear to apprehend from best championship-defending coasters. They accept to. Leonard is gone, and their allowance for absurdity larboard with him.
If you amount the old-school ancestry of togetherness, trust, accomplishment and selflessness, it’s aching to say a distinct abrogating affair about this Raptors team. They’re a bequest in all the best ways, upgraded with the shrewd, math-based access of the present.
The problem: the Raptors may not accept a college gear.
Toronto was 17-5 in Leonard absent aftermost season, so maybe it shouldn’t appear as such a abruptness that the Raptors own the second-best almanac in the East and top-five net apprait overall. Attending closer, though, and you can see signs of abeyant playoff trouble.
The Raps are 34-4 adjoin teams with accident annal but aloof 10-14 adjoin opponents over .500.
Can they drag their comedy adjoin top playoff antagonism afterwards Leonard demography over for key stretches? Appropriate now, the numbers advance the acknowledgment is “no.”
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Up until Jayson Tatum’s midseason breakthrough, the Boston Celtics’ greatest weakness was their abridgement of a absolute star. Alike if the third-year accession has spent the aftermost several weeks arena like one of those, it may still be fair to catechism whether he can sustain that akin of comedy in the postseason house.
But let’s accept Tatum keeps this
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