For fear of forgetting how great eliminatory basketball is, we received a brutal reminder this weekend with the eight series for a tip.
In their respective openers, the Denver Nuggets and the Mower produce a thriller in overtime, the New York Knicks mounted an unfathomable return, and the Oklahoma City Thunder Put the league in opinion (they should have already been) with a record eruption.
The great thing about the Nba The playoffs are that everything is under a microscope. If you are a lower defensive player, They go every time. If your jump shot is trembling, guess what? They leave you open in the area the whole game. This leads to phenomenal performances, but it also exhibits those who are not ready for the spotlight.
With this mind, here are some winners and losers in match 1 this weekend.
Winner: Old Man Curry
The first round match of the Warriors-Rockets is ostensibly a young battle against experience. Now, of course the Warriors to have a few Youth and Rocket to have a few Experience, but in the end, it will come down to knowing whether the young Houston Houston core Alperen Sengun,, Green Jalen And Amen Thompson can surpass the Sage Trio of Golden State of Stephen Curry,, Jimmy Butler And Draymond Green.
Well, after match 1, the advantage goes on the experienced side.
The Warriors stole the field at home in match 1 with a 95-85 victory thanks to Curry-which paid 31 gigantic points, including several backbreakers in an arena where he has already crushed Houston’s post-season dreams several times.
Curry, 37, who, in this series, remembers particularly his age because he trained Jalen Green and Thompson at his camp there are several summers, also did all this with an envelopment on his thumb roughly the size of a glove of a recipient.
Curry and the Warriors look great on Sunday – but it was after four days of rest after Tuesday’s victory on the Grizzle. Now we will have to see how these old The experienced legs bounce for match 2 on Wednesday, and for as long as the series lasts.
Winner: Knicks resilience
The Knicks were outdated during the first three quarters of their opening match against the upstart Detroit pistons Saturday, and it appeared that an upheaval was imminent when Detroit entered the fourth quarter with an eight -point lead and all the momentum.
How did New York react? Oh, just with a good 21-0 old-fashioned race to completely take control of the game and send the pistons to the ruin hotel.
Jalen Brunson de Knicks plays the hero and the pistons collapsed during the 21-0 race in the fourth quarter who decided the match 1
James Herbert
Knicks surely do not want to be in a position to have to remove a race like this from their rear ends each time, but they cannot consider themselves from a game from now on that this type of domination is possible.
This is just one of the reasons why, as our Brad Botkin wrote, the Knicks are Built for the playoffs.
Losing: Lakers exceptionalism
Despite what many laker fans may have believed before the playoffs, it turns out that you cannot simply acquire one of the most dominant players in the league, put it on a list without practically no on-board protection and expect to shake your way to a championship.
Falls have never been more obvious during the 117-95 Saturday bite to the hands of Minnesota TimberwolvesWho silenced a crowd of the crypto.com arena that entered the game ready to make arrangements for the victory parade.
The absence of a reliable center of the Lakers was exposed for the first time since Luka Dončić exchanges in the defeat of Match 1 against the Wolves
Sam Quinn
Even the most biased of the labels’ supporters, Magic Johnson himself, was disappointed with the effort and made some mistakes in the coach JJ Redick direction.
It’s just a match, but this bad home loss certainly says to the Lakers that they have work to do.
For this last part of his career, Russell Westbrook has been daring by defenses to burn them with his shooting – and for reasons. Its six seasons pulling below 30% out of at least 200 attempts of 3 points are the most in the history of the NBA (scream Corey Brewer and Jerry Stackhouse with four each!).
But if there is one thing that we know on Westbrook, it is that his confidence will never vacillate. So when he got the ball in the area with his nuggets dragging the clippers with one with a little less than 30 seconds to play in the match 1 on Saturday, he let him fly without hesitation.
He dropped through the net, of course, leading to the exaltation of his teammates and the crowd of the ball.
This is what you get with Westbrook. He went 2 for 6 in the range of 3 points on Saturday, but one of them could easily have been winner of the match. Thanks to James HardenHowever, this was not the case. Which brings us to …
Loser: Russell Westbrook
As our Sam Quinn wrote, the complete experience of Russell Westbrook was exhibited in match 1, and that includes not only good, but also bad and ugly.
The complete experience of Russell Westbrook – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – was exhibited in the Victory of Match 1 of the Nuggets
Sam Quinn
After Harden equaled the game on an impressive float, the ball was again in the hands of Westbrook on the final possession of Denver of regulation. This time, things … did not go so well.
It was also a demolition ball in the period of extension, going 0 for 4 on the field and almost costing the game to the game by choosing to shoot with the nuggets in one with 13 seconds to play, although there is only one difference of two seconds between the shooting clock and the game clock.
Fortunately, Aaron Gordon Was there to bail out it with the offensive rebound, otherwise things could have become quite interesting.
It is rare that a player is both winner and losing in a single eliminatory match, but leaves Russ to open his own path.
Winner: Defense OKC
You know that a defense is Elite when you are physically uncomfortable looking at it, and this was the case for Oklahoma City Thunder in the historic victory of match 1 on Sunday on the grizzly girls of Memphis.
Thunder show that they are more than the SGA Show in the historic beat of 51 grizzly points in match 1
James Herbert
OKC generated 22 reversals, scoring 24 points on them, while maintaining Memphis at 80 points out of 34% on the field, including 17% of the 3 -point range. There is simply no room to breathe with the length, strength and speed of each defender on the ground.
And when they force an error, which they did at the highest rate of the NBA during the regular season, they capitalize with highlights like this like this like this Jalen Williams soak.
Shai Gilgeous-AlexanderThe top scorer in the league, set up 15 relatively thin points on shooting 4 for 13 in match 1, and the Thunder won by 51 points. Good luck to any team that gets into it.
All credit goes to the OKC support distribution, not only for picking up the offensive relay, but also for dominating the defender as they did all the season.
Basketball is not a matter of statistics. But it’s, you know, a little about statistics. If you make a whole game without saving a single counting statistic, it is likely that you did not have a huge impact.
It brings us to Deer Striker Kyle Kuzma, who counted a goose egg in each major statistical category during the defeat of match 1 of the Milwaukee match Indiana Pacers SATURDAY. Its 22 minutes without recording a point, bounce, help, steal or block for most NBA players in an eliminatory match since flights and blocks became official statistics in 1973-74.
He missed his five attempts to go on the field, his two free throws and the two points of 3 points while committing two faults and finishing as a less-24 team in his minutes. Kuzma has had better days.
CBS Sports Research Department
If you said to Kuzma, who was exchanged humble Washington Wizards Before the deadline of February, that he would make history in his first eliminatory match as Buck, he would probably not have thought that it was what you meant.
The historically bad performance of Kyle Kuzma’s match 1 highlights Bucks casting concerns
Jack Maloney
For what it is worth, the coach of Bucks, Doc Rivers, blamed Kuzma’s teammates for not having set it up to score. The excuses were however rare regarding zeros in all other major statistical categories.
Hey, at least there is another match on Tuesday and he will not have to spend the whole summer to wallow in the misery of this performance.