USA TODAY International Edition
NBA on fast path to battle royale
PORTLAND, Ore. – Damian Lillard will hurry to tell you that the Warriors haven’t finished off his Trail Blazers just yet. Likewise, there are no white flags being hoisted by the Raptors, despite a 2-0 deficit that arose from a combination of being wasteful in one game and woeful in another.
That mix is equally familiar to the Trail Blazers, who threw away big leads in Games 2 and 3 akin to the Toronto’s Game 1 meltdown against the Bucks.
The upshot is both NBA conference finals have the potential to turn into blowouts, with the possibility of two sweeps on the table.
Optimists, TV schedulers and most certainly the NBA will sincerely hope otherwise. Everyone loves a Game 7, not just for the inherent drama but because it naturally signifies a tight, competitive and intensely fought series.
However, should the power brokers of each conference, Golden State and Milwaukee, continue to forge their way to an NBA Finals matchup, it might actually be no bad thing. We’ve had late-series excitement aplenty already. There have been three Game 7’s, two coming on the same day last weekend.
The Trail Blazers pulled off perhaps the most impressive feat, scaling the altitude of Denver and toppling the might of Nikola Jokic to win their decider on the road. For thrills, the extraordinary lastsecond heroics of the Raptors’ Kawhi Leonard against the 76ers provided everything you could need to get the
goosebumps bubbling.
Meanwhile, the Warriors and the Rockets packed so much soap operaworthy script into their semifinal but needed only six games to write the tale.
Yet if both conference finals were to end at four games, it would have at least one positive side effect.
When a league sets its postseason up in a manner like this, a drawn-out process that spans two months and in which the best-of-seven format leaves little room for chancers and impostors, it works only if the showdown for the title resembles a clash of the sport’s titans.
The Warriors’ credentials are firmly intact, having won three titles in four years, giving a cloak of invincibility that’s barely been ruffled despite Kevin Durant’s ongoing injury break.
On the other side, Milwaukee, if it is to be the Bucks, has a sensational superstar in Giannis Antetokounmpo and a superb body of work behind it in these playoffs. The Bucks are surging, 10-1 in the postseason before Sunday’s game,
with a rout of the Pistons and the supposedly tougher Celtics under their belt. It is hard to tell if it is the ferocity of their fight back against Toronto on Wednesday
or the clinical precision of their second game romp that is the more scary.
Things can change, but right now it feels like the buildup to a big boxing championship fight. Two spirited but overmatched opponents are being served up to the true contenders, who are performing in a manner that boosts their reputation and juices up interest in the ultimate pay-per-view showdown.
If Golden State and Milwaukee deliver knockout blows, away from home no less, it means a couple of things.
We will have a few days’ gap before the Finals get underway. And the anticipation for that series will be soaring.
The league didn’t get a competitive Finals last year, the Warriors sweeping the Cavaliers as if they were a mere annoyance daring to delay their summer vacation. A year earlier was a similar story, a 4-1 cruise to collect more jewelry.
You get the sense that things could be a bit different this time, and nothing would further that narrative more than a big Milwaukee push to get over the conference finals line in short order.
Fans of Portland and Toronto will hate this column, and rightly so, as being swept out of the bracket would be a demoralizing end to a magnificent campaign for both clubs. Let’s see if their teams can do something about it over the next few days. They’ve got a heck of a task on their hands.