The NBA Japanese Convention postseason begins on Wednesday night time with the play-in match.
The highest six groups from the convention have already certified for the playoffs, whereas seeds seven by means of 10 enter the play-in match for a chance to qualify for the ultimate two playoff spots in every convention.
Listed here are three key Japanese Convention speaking factors forward of the NBA playoffs:
1. Are the second-placed New York Knicks playoff contenders or pretenders within the East?
The Knicks squeaked into the quantity two spot within the Japanese Convention standings on the ultimate day of the season on Sunday.
For a franchise that has not received an NBA championship in 51 years and an Japanese Convention crown since 1999, this was thrilling information and heralded in an thrilling new period for one of many league’s most storied groups.
Led by a single, diminutive, by NBA requirements, All-Star blessed with the guts of a lion, Jalen Brunson has New Yorkers believing that this could possibly be the 12 months the staff lastly begins successful playoff collection once more.
The 1.88-metre (six-foot-two-inch) Brunson refused to let his staff falter this season, regardless of accidents to key gamers always threatening to derail their marketing campaign. The purpose guard averaged a career-high 28.7 factors per recreation and delivered time and again in crunch time to win his staff video games that generally that they had no enterprise successful.
And herein lies the dilemma for Brunson and the Knickerbockers: in the event that they overachieved within the common season, will they have the opportunity to take action once more within the playoffs, the place groups have extra time to organize defensive methods over the course of a seven-game collection?
Within the absence of key ahead Julius Randle – out for the playoffs with season-ending shoulder surgical procedure – Brunson’s common season scoring common – 28.7 factors per recreation – is nearly as a lot as his subsequent two teammates mixed in Donte DiVincenzo – 15.5 ppg – and Immanuel Anunoby – 14.1 ppg.
Within the Japanese Convention playoffs, this poses a serious downside for the Knicks once they play high-scoring tremendous groups with a number of All-Stars like Boston, Milwaukee and Philadelphia.
The Knicks closing common season recreation on Sunday was an ideal snapshot of their season, their staff, their efficiency, gutting out a relentless one-point, extra time victory in opposition to the Chicago Bulls with Brunson bravely main the best way with 40 factors in a never-say-die efficiency.
For New York to win the East, it could be straightforward to say “As Brunson goes, certainly do the Knicks” – however even a career-best playoffs displaying by the little flooring basic will not be sufficient to take NY to the promised land.
2. The Japanese Convention crown is Boston’s to lose.
Making a statistical case for Boston to win the East is likely to be the simplest process in NBA reportage:
- First staff in both convention to clinch a postseason spot
- Completed with the NBA’s finest common season win-loss file at 64-18, that’s eight video games higher than anybody else
- Completed first within the Japanese Convention standings by 14 video games
- NBA’s finest win-loss level differential at 11.4
- Scored 1.22 factors per possession, which is the very best in NBA historical past
If statistics don’t inform the entire story, then it is usually essential to level out that the Celtics simply have essentially the most full beginning 5 within the East, with All-Stars Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown flanked by among the league’s finest position gamers in Jrue Vacation, Kristaps Porzingis and Derrick White.
Regardless of their traditionally nice season, the Celtics aren’t infallible. This star-studded staff has gone off the rails every now and then, making one query their depth and/or ways – however not their expertise.
The Celtics misplaced each matchups this season in opposition to the hapless Atlanta Hawks, and in maybe the NBA’s single greatest one-game humiliation, they misplaced a stunner on residence courtroom in opposition to a depleted Lakers squad taking part in with out their All-Stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
Additionally they misplaced twice to the defending NBA champions Denver, which uncovered the Celtics’ common behavior of alternating between excellent staff play and relying too typically – particularly in crunch time – on the do-it-yourself elegant particular person skills of their mercurial wing gamers Tatum and Brown.
Boston could certainly be the league’s finest staff, however no NBA title was ever received within the common season; they should impose that dominance as soon as once more within the Japanese Convention playoffs to win their first NBA championship since 2008.
3. Does Joel Embiid’s late-season return from harm put the Philadelphia 76ers again within the Japanese Convention playoff race?
The reigning most respected participant’s (MVP) knee harm on January 30, 2024, killed his staff’s possibilities of ending within the prime two within the Japanese Convention playoff standings.
Embiid’s return to NBA motion simply days earlier than the tip of the common season threw a big spanner into the works of a convention that options just one nice staff, the Celtics, and several other fairly first rate groups – Bucks, Magic, Knicks, Cavs.
Pre-injury, Embiid was scoring at a sooner price than any participant ever has within the NBA common season.
With a pro-rated scoring price of 38 factors per 36 minutes, Embiid loved the best “per-minute” scoring common in league historical past, surpassing even the very best per-minute scoring season of the legendary Michael Jordan in 1987/88.
If unprecedented scoring statistics aren’t sufficient to calculate the 30-year-old’s price to the 76ers, then this is likely to be: Within the 39 video games Embiid performed within the common season, Philadelphia had the NBA’s finest file at 31 wins and eight losses. With out him, they have been 16 and 27.
The sudden rise of Tyrese Maxey as a first-time NBA All-Star is additional trigger for Philadelphia’s optimism heading into the postseason. The super-athletic guard averaged a career-best 25.9 factors per recreation to complete eleventh within the NBA scoring race.
The seventh-seeded 76ers will first have to clinch their winner-take-all play-in recreation on Wednesday night time to qualify for the Japanese Convention playoffs.
Their opponent is none apart from final 12 months’s Japanese Convention champion, the Miami Warmth.
Philadelphia is favoured in opposition to Miami, however the Warmth is likely to be counting on essentially the most ominous Embiid statistic of all of them: The big 2.14-metre (seven-foot), 127-kilo (280-pound) centre has suffered an harm in each postseason of his profession.
