NBA bubble could give rise to Cinderella team
Favorites have rough road as playoffs pick up
More than any other sport, the cream of the NBA assuredly rises to the top in the playoffs. This, of course, is a postseason unlike any other.
No fans. No home-court advantage. Everyone hunkered down in the same place.
Will a Cinderella team emerge from the pack at Disney World? Maybe even claim an improbable title?
“I felt that way coming into the whole thing,” said Rick Carlisle, coach of the seventh-seeded Dallas Mavericks. “Look, there’s no travel, you’ve got really the same environment virtually every game. The digital boards look different and stuff like that, but there’s just a great opportunity here for everybody.”
Indeed, we’ve already seen signs of a topsy-turvy tournament unfolding in the land of Mickey Mouse.
Milwaukee, top seed from the Eastern Conference, lost Game 1 of its openinground series against eighth-seeded Orlando. The top team in the West, the Los Angeles Lakers, dropped their opening game as well to No. 8 Portland, a team that had to win a play-in game over Memphis just to quality for the postseason.
Both powerhouses bounced back for double-digit wins in Games 2, but these series look like they’ll be more competitive than they would’ve been if not for the season being upended by the coronavirus pandemic.
Underdogs provide some of the most compelling stories in sports, and there are no shortage of non-NBA teams that have pulled off shocking triumphs.
Just last season, baseball’s Washington Nationals finished second in the National League East Division but went on to capture their first World Series title, knocking off the 106-win Los Angeles Dodgers and the 107-win Houston Astros.
In 2012, the Los Angeles Kings fired their coach during the season and slipped into the NHL playoffs as an eighth seed, an afterthought in the race for the championship. Shockingly, they knocked off the top three seeds in the Western Conference in dominating fashion, winning 12 of 14 games, before beating the New Jersey Devils in the Stanley Cup final.
Which brings us to the NBA.
In the 70-year history of the league, there have only been eighth champions that went into the playoffs seeded lower than No. 2 in their conference or division, and only two of those were not at least third.
The 1969 Boston Celtics finished fourth in the Eastern Division — the final playoff spot — but they were hardly some plucky underdog. A championship run that seems surprising at first glance actually marked the last hurrah for the game’s greatest dynasty.
The NBA’s only true Cinderella champion was the 1995 Houston Rockets, but even their bucking-the-odds crown as a No. 6 seed wasn’t totally out of the blue. The Rockets were the reigning champs, taking advantage of Michael Jordan’s dalliance with baseball to capture a title. The following year, a midseason trade that paired Clyde Drexler with Hakeem Olajuwon gave Houston two Hall of Famers, who carried the team to its second title.