The NBA conference finals are set. We’ll soon see the Houston Rockets attempt to dethrone the defending champion Golden State Warriors out west. Back east, the Boston Celtics will certainly be facing an uphill climb against a star in LeBron James who is playing the best basketball of his career.
Four teams remain for a chance to hoist the Larry O’Brien. Another eight squads have been eliminated from playoff contention. Here’s a look at some winners and losers from the first two rounds of the playoffs, including King James himself and a trio in Oklahoma that failed to meet expectations at every turn.
Winner: LeBron James
With the Cleveland Cavaliers’ first-round series against Indiana tied at two a piece, the three-time defending Eastern Conference champs relied on James to give one of his vintage performances. He responded by putting up 44 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists in a game that saw The King account for 60 percent of the team’s points, either via his own scoring or assists. The rest is pretty much history. Cleveland ultimately took the series in seven before sweeping out Toronto in the conference semifinals.
Now, with an opportunity to earn his eighth consecutive NBA Finals appearance, James is playing the best basketball of his career. He averaged 34.0 points, 8.3 rebounds and 11.3 assists while shooting 55 percent from the field against Toronto. Cleveland finished plus-55 in four games with James on the court. That’s next-level absurd.
Loser: Terry Stotts
It seems that the Blazers’ brass is going to hang on to their head coach for at least one more season. Fresh off being swept out in the first round by New Orleans, one really has to wonder why. Portland yielded an average of 120 points in the final three games, continually showing itself to be outclassed by the likes of Jrue Holiday and Anthony Davis.
Sure GM Neil Olshey shares in a lot of the blame by giving role players huge contracts. After all, the likes of Evan Turner, Maurice Harkless, Meyers Leonard, Al-Farouq Aminu and Ed Davis earned a combined $50-plus million this past season. Even then, this is the same supporting cast that helped lead Portland to a 20-8 end of the regular season. Flaming out in this manner early in the playoffs is most definitely not a good look for Stotts.
Winner: Draymond Green
It’s readily apparent that Green did not let his spat with Rajon Rondo get into his head in the conference semifinals. In fact, Green is currently playing the best basketball of his career. Over the course of the past seven games, Green is averaging 14.3 points, 13.7 rebounds, 9.4 assists and 1.9 steals per. In Golden State’s five-game series win over New Orleans in the conference semifinals, he held Anthony Davis to 13.0 points per game on 44 percent shooting when guarding the Pelicans’ All-Star big man.
Green might get a ton of grief for his on-court antics. Most of it is fair. But he’s among the top-10 two-way players in the entire Association. Green’s ability to up his game when all is on the line remains one of his true calling cards. And it has to be cause for concern for the Houston Rockets heading into the Western Conference Finals.
Loser: Oklahoma City’s big three
We can easily come to the conclusion that Russel Westbrook was outplayed by Ricky Rubio in Oklahoma City’s first-round series against Utah. As ridiculous as that might sound, Rubio averaged 14-plus points to go with 7.0 rebounds and 7.0 assists in the series. Even then, we’re not going to come close to placing the majority of the blame on Russ here.
Instead, it was all about the horrendous performances from both Paul George and Carmelo Anthony. George shot 2-of-16 with five points and six turnovers in Utah’s series-clinching Game 6 win. Meanwhile, Anthony averaged less than 12 points while dishing out a total of two assists in six games. It’s in this that a season in which OKC had championship aspirations ended with a first-round dud. One now has to wonder what the future might bring for this organization.
Winner: Terry Rozier
An afterthought for most of his career after being selected by Boston in the first round of the 2015 draft, Rozier has come up big when it’s counted the most. Taking on more of a role with Kyrie Irving sidelined, he’s looked every bit the part of a franchise cornerstone thus far in the playoffs.
Including a 17-point performance and one key defensive stop in Boston’s series-clinching Game 5 win over Philadelphia on Wednesday, Rozier has been absolutely dazzling. He enters the conference finals averaging 19.8 points and shooting 40 percent from distance. Heck, he leads all players with 38 three-pointers in the playoffs and has committed a grand total of three turnovers over the past six games. That’s some really absurd stuff right there.
Loser: Washington Wizards
We could have very well gone with the two stars, Bradley Beal and John Wall. Having both signed max contracts and with an expectation of contention back east, Beal and Wall are the biggest faces of D.C. basketball. Whether we’re at the point of them not being able to team up remains to be seen. But it’s readily apparent that Washington’s Round 1 loss to Toronto painted other members of the team in a bad light.
After a drama filled regular season, Beal and Wall combined to average 49.2 points, 9.0 rebounds and 14.3 assists per game in the six-game series loss to Toronto. Not another member of the team averaged as much as 11 points. This is a clear indication that GM Ernie Grunfeld has failed at every turn to provide the two with a solid supporting cast. Sadly for fans in the nation’s capital, he has been extended. Ouch.
Winner: Anthony Davis
What Davis did during the regular season after New Orleans lost DeMarcus Cousins to an Achilles injury is now a thing of the past. We’ll sweep that legendary stretch of games under the rug, primarily because AD upped his performance even more in the playoffs. Here’s a dude that averaged 33.0 points and 11.8 rebounds in a four-game series sweep of Portland in the first round. The Pelicans’ star then did everything in his power to hold off the juggernaut Warriors in the conference semifinals, averaging 27.8 points and 14.8 rebounds in the five-game series loss.
We have no real idea if Cousins will be back with the Pelicans next season. Hopefully for the team’s sake, he does find a way to return to New Orleans. If that is indeed the case, this squad will be among the top contenders out west over the long term. Davis himself is already an NBA MVP candidate. He has proved this in more ways than one over the past several months. His playoff performance only brings that to the front burner moving forward.
Loser: Giannis Antetokonmpo
Getting a first-round draw against a Celtics team that was without Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, most figured the Greek Freak and his Bucks would make their first real noise in the playoffs. It didn’t happen. Instead, the team was taken out in seven games.
It’s Antetokonmpo’s performance in Milwaukee’s 16-point Game 7 loss that has him on this list. He shot just 7-of-17 from the field, committing four turnovers in the process. Milwaukee finished even with him off the court and a mind-bowing minus-17 when he saw action. As a player that was expected to take that next step to elite status, Giannis came up small in the biggest game the Bucks’ franchise has seen since Ray Allen and Glenn Robinson were playing in Milwaukee at the turn of the millennium.
Winner: Joel Embiid and the Sixers
This young team showed itself in a big way during the 2018 NBA Playoffs. Sure Philadelphia fell short of premature championship expectations, but the future is certainly bright in the City of Brotherly Love. Outside of an issue closing out games against Boston in the conference semifinals, there’s a whole heck of a lot to like here. It started with defeating a more veteran Miami Heat squad in the first round and culminated in a thrilling series against the heated conference rival Celtics.
Coming back from injury, Embiid proved himself to be an elite-level offensive force. He finished the playoffs averaging 21.4 points and 12.7 rebounds per game. Sure rookie Ben Simons struggled in the Boston series, but he came to play in Game 5. If nothing else, the playoffs showed us that Philly is much closer to competing for a title than we initially thought.
Loser: Toronto Raptors
Whether it ultimately costs Dwane Casey his job remains to be seen, but the Raptors’ conference semifinals performance in a four-game sweep at the hands of Cleveland was downright disastrous. How else can we explain the team legitimately giving up in a Game 4 outing that saw Toronto lose by 37 points? That’s just egregious.
Coming off a regular season in which they won a franchise-record 59 games and were the No. 1 seed back east, the Raptors fell short once again on the game’s grandest of stages. What this means moving forward remains to be seen. But two things are clear: Toronto’s status quo is not working and it has very little options to improve a roster that simply can’t contend with the likes of LeBron James and Co.
Winner: Donovan Mitchell
It was just a few short months ago that the Jazz boasted a 17-26 record and were pretty much completely out of the Western Conference Playoff race. Relying on a 21-year-old rookie with an erratic game and untapped potential seemed to be just too much for a Jazz squad that month’s earlier lost franchise stalwart Gordon Hayward in free agency.
But then, something changed. Mitchell started playing like a top-10 guard. In turn, his Jazz put up a 31-8 record to end the regular season. If that weren’t enough, Quin Snyder’s squad upset Oklahoma City in the first round and was competitive against a juggernaut Rockets squad in the conference semifinals. When all was said and done, Mitchell averaged a 30-year NBA rookie high 24.4 points in the playoffs. He’s now considered one of the top young players in the game. What a difference a few months makes.
Loser: Andrew Wiggins
When Minnesota maxed Wiggins out this past fall, the expectation was that the former No. 1 pick would somehow morph into a superstar over night. Said expectations were ultimately as foolish as they get. Proving himself to be nothing more than a one-dimensional player, Wiggins struggled to be relevant during a regular season that saw Minnesota win a 15-year high 47 games. He averaged less than 18 points while seeing his efficiency take a major step back from previous years.
Sadly for the Wolves, Wiggins’ performance was no better in a first-round series loss to the Houston Rockets. That series saw him average 15.8 points on 44 percent shooting from the field. Minnesota also finished a whopping minus-44 with Wiggins on the court compared to playing the Rockets to a tie with the forward on the bench. This is a clear indication that Wiggins is a major loser of the playoff slate thus far.