Keys to matchups
No. 1 Golden State vs. No. 8 Los Angeles Clippers Warriors win if ... they can shake off the boredom of the regular season. And hey, now Stephen Curry has contacts, so he should be able to shoot the ball (even) better.
Clippers win if ... some kind of drastic misfortune befalls the Warriors. The star-free Clippers had a great regular season but face a huge struggle. Need to know
❚ Warriors — Curry tweaked his foot Tuesday, and though it doesn’t seem overly serious, it’s worth watching.
❚ Clippers — Lou Williams is a favorite for the Sixth Man award, but Montrezl Harrell has a legitimate claim.
No. 4 Houston vs. No. 5 Utah Rockets win if ... they continue to ride the hot hand of James Harden. Houston suffered a miserable start to the season but turned things around. Jazz win if ... they manage to do what virtually no team in the league has been capable of this season — stop Harden. They might be among the best equipped to do it, thanks to a defense led by Rudy Gobert.
Need to know
❚ Rockets — They were an NBA-best 20-5 after the All-Star break.
❚ Jazz — They were 18-7 after the All-Star break, third in the league.
No. 2 Denver vs. No. 7 San Antonio Nuggets win if ... they don’t get overwhelmed by the weight of expectations. Denver made a huge leap to the No. 2 seed after missing the playoffs on the final day of last season. Fairly or not, inexperience is considered its biggest weakness. If things go south, will Nikola Jokic’s frustration boil over? Spurs win if ... LaMarcus Aldridge can get going inside. He played well in four regular-season meetings against Denver, averaging 22.3 points on 55.7% shooting. Jokic and Paul Millsap will likely have their hands full with him. Need to know
❚ Nuggets — Millsap has more playoff experience (87 games) than the rest of the roster combined (61 games).
❚ Spurs — San Antonio’s 22 playoff appearances in a row is tied for NBA’s longest with the Syracuse Nationals/ Philadelphia 76ers from 1950-71.
No. 3 Portland vs. No. 6 Oklahoma City Blazers win if ... their complementary pieces can provide a scoring boost beyond stars Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum. That didn’t happen in last year’s first-round sweep when the two struggled. The rest of the roster did an admirable job down the stretch after Jusuf Nurkic’s season-ending injury. Portland will need the help against the tough OKC defense.
Thunder win if ... the team that ended the regular season on a five-game winning streak shows up and not the one that was maddeningly inconsistent during a six-week stretch before that. Need to know
❚ Blazers — Lillard and McCollum have averaged at least 45 combined points in each of the last four seasons.
❚ Thunder — Russell Westbrook has logged eight career postseason tripledoubles, including the only 50-point triple-double in playoff history.