NBA Playoffs Second Round Wrap-Up and CF Preview Part 1

The NFL Schedule release be damned, the NBA had to steal the show again. While I’m mostly referring to the Philly-Boston and Lakers-Warriors matchups, the second round was at the forefront of sports for the past month and did not disappoint. At about this time every year, when we widdle the NBA Playoffs down to a final four, we tend to be reminded of why the NBA has an amazing case for the best playoff format in American sports. With that being said, the same two questions are often given different answers every year. Those questions are what can we take away from the second round and what the hell is going to happen next? Without further adieu, this part one of a two-part series will tackle what I took away from the second round of the 2023 NBA Playoffs. 

Second Round Takeaways

Eastern Conference

*Bold denotes winner

2. Boston Celtics vs 3. Philadelphia 76ers

It felt like a matter of time. Despite how intriguing they were in this round, I’m actually going to stray away from discussing the Celtics and focus on Philadelphia. The lack of consistent effort that everybody involved showed is almost disturbing. For a group of players that talks this much trash, that publicly begged for their best player to be MVP for three straight years, and that acquired James Harden for pennies on the dollars and built the team around him, this was a pathetic performance. It went seven games, but that alone is deceiving as the Celtics threw away games one and four and probably should’ve swept them (but that’s a different topic for later), but the Sixers got somewhat lucky and took advantage of mistakes until it was time to close out. While it’s easy to blame Doc Rivers, and he certainly deserves some blame, their collapse lands at the feet of their stars. 

To say that James Harden is a disappearing act when it matters isn’t a hot take or even a new take, as it’s defined his entire career. However, I can’t go two minutes on Twitter without seeing the ESPN graphic of his scoreless fourth quarters in three straight games. He quite literally did not score a point in the final frame past his game-four game-winner. Away from statistics, being a body language doctor, I saw him give up on trying to play basketball. Every other play was him flying to the ground begging for a nonexistent call after he ignored three open looks and passes to Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid. His scoring was inconsistent and outside of games one and four was pretty much absent from the series. 

Embiid might’ve somehow been worse, but only relative to expectations. For an MVP-winner, he had the largest decrease in scoring from regular season to playoffs in NBA history. That’s not modern history, not Sixers history, but ever. He fell off by almost ten full points while being covered by a 36-year-old Al Horford for the entire series. Not even including the discussion around his complete no-show in game seven, this could go down as one of the worst individual playoff runs of all time. Nothing against Al, as he was great, but an MVP big man in his prime should dominate no matter who is in front of him. It might be his health or the situation that he is in, but no matter what happened in the first five games, the only things that people are going to remember are his inability to score in a home closeout game when his team was getting demolished and a complete no-show in a game seven where he was shut down while being covered by a geriatric Al Horford and Marcus Smart, who is 11 inches shorter than him. 

Doc Rivers will be made the scapegoat and although he was pretty bad, he wasn’t the problem. He made some adjustments by trying to get Embiid the ball closer to the basket, letting Maxey run the point, and going small with Harris. Yet, without effort from any players not named Maxey or Tucker, nothing worked. He’ll probably lose his job, but I’ll join the cacophony of talking heads who agree that the Sixers would be stupid to fire Doc Rivers. He has his second-round demons, but what lost the Sixers this series was not coaching, but personnel and effort. In this specific case, that is the fault of Harden and Embiid.

The bright spots in this series were mostly for the Celtics, but I think that Tyrese Maxey showed me that he should be the guy in the backcourt moving forward. Daryl Morey loves James Harden, so he’ll probably be back, but if I’m a Sixers fan, I wouldn’t mind moving on. In an era of basketball that seems like a constant talent arms race, especially in the Atlantic division, it might seem stupid, but I would take some lessons from the 2019 Boston Celtics. Sometimes, when you have great young players, subtraction is addition. Maxey can be great and manifesting that starts with the tough decision of cutting James Harden loose and retooling around Maxey and Embiid, not Harden and Embiid.

While I’ll discuss the Celtics in-depth in part two of this very long piece, they showed flashes of a championship team in this series, but I’m not sold yet. As a Celtics fan, it pains me to not come out and declare them the champions, but they still have major issues. First, the late-game execution is still spotty. Despite Jayson Tatum coming through big time at the end of game six, the ends of games one and four still ring in my mind. Those two fourth quarters were filled with miscommunication and a lack of execution which cannot be repeated against a well-coached Miami Heat team. The rotations also still need work. At times in this series, I would wonder where Grant Williams had gone. As the Celtics struggled to stretch the floor on offense and switch on defense without Horford at times, it feels like Grant should be played in those situations. Also, up until the last two games, Robert Williams wasn’t starting. I’ll be interested to see how they match up against Miami, but double bigs might be a good idea. Derrick White also needs to be shot back into the rotation as he’s become a little bit of a ghost in the rotation and hasn’t sounded too confident off the court. If Boston wants to beat any of the three teams remaining, White will need to be at his best. Other than those issues, though, Boston is elite. Tatum shined when it mattered, Jaylen Brown was a rock on both sides of the ball, and Al Horford gave Boston valuable minutes against a quality big man, something that will serve the Celtics well should they have to face Anthony Davis or Nikola Jokic. With that being said, they escaped and the Sixers blew it. My big takeaway from this series is hoping they match up again next year.

5.  New York Knicks vs 8. Miami Heat

The run continues. I picked Miami in this series and I was not shocked that they came out of it in the exact six games that I predicted them to, but I was shocked at how the Knicks performed. While I expected them to blow it, I didn’t expect their loss to be mainly shouldered by R.J. Barrett and Julius Randle. Knicks fans were probably right to tear down Randle’s sign outside of the Garden as he was remarkably bad in this series. My takeaway though is the lack of defensive effort from him and Barrett. Jalen Brunson should be the centerpiece of the team going forward and the Knicks need to get him some more help on the wings and inside. This series was encouraging for them going forward, but they’ll need more shooters and high-energy wings to truly take the leap.

Ironically, I think that Kevin Durant probably should have come to the Knicks as he’d be a perfect fit for them. As for who they should go get, especially in this series, when they lacked a true bucket-getter, I’d like to see them snag Brandon Ingram or Lauri Markkanen next season and put defensive hustlers around them and Brunson. Thibs was predictably stressed and stoic at the same time, but really just lacked the talent to keep up with Miami. Unlike the Philly loss, the Knicks should feel encouraged by this season. While I’ve touched on a few negatives, most of their unit showed a lot of heart and effort, especially in their nail-biting closeout loss. They’ll hopefully be back and improved and for once, the New York Knicks have a clear and manageable direction.

On the flip side, the Miami Heat are riding a wave. With a roster that is on its final feet age-wise and without their best young scorer, they somehow made it back to the Eastern Conference Finals. While some could call them beneficiaries of circumstance, as they played an injured Bucks team compounded with a weak 4-5 matchup while dodging the Celtics, I think that they represent the ultimate form of Jimmy Butler and his resiliency. This team embodies the spirit of someone who we all want to forget, but their presence alone makes us acknowledge them. Jimmy Butler carried the offense again and was complimented by a combined effort from Max Strus, Kevin Love, and Caleb Martin. Bam Adebayo still has his playoff demons that need exercising, but this team deserved this run. They hustled both the Bucks and Knicks off of their home floors multiple times. Not many play-in teams can say that. 

The loss of Tyler Herro was still felt though. While their offense was formidable, they’ll need more offensive effort from advanced stat darling Gabe Vincent and former bench dweller Duncan Robinson. I’m curious to see how they play against Boston’s defense, but it’s safe to say that Jimmy Butler can’t carry them to the NBA Finals by himself. Miami’s defense, however, is lacking concern. Their late-game execution is still fantastic and they’re still the most disciplined team in the playoffs. The media will tell you that the Celtics are supposed to crush them but don’t believe it, because the Miami Heat is for real no matter what seed they are.

Western Conference

1. Denver Nuggets vs 4. Phoenix Suns

In what was a predictable win for Denver, they didn’t show anything that they hadn’t already shown in the Minnesota series. To me, Denver has the best home-court advantage of the teams left because of the elevation and opponents’ inability to win in Denver. However, just as they were in the Minnesota series, they were still susceptible to a superstar scorer going off. Jokic hasn’t been tested defensively yet and that’s probably a good thing.

For the Suns, it’s a reality check for the new reactionary ownership group. Trading for Kevin Durant less than two weeks into your tenure and firing your touted head coach just under two days after a disappointing playoff loss is a bold move for anyone. This series marked an impasse in the road for the Phoenix Suns as their roster might need shaking up sooner than they had previously thought. Chris Paul is likely gone for age and health reasons and Deandre Ayton is likely gone for effort reasons. Kevin Durant and Devin Booker work really well together, it’s just about figuring out what to do with the rest of their roster that is concerning. In their two wins in games three and four, Kevin Durant and Devin Booker accounted for 71 percent and 56 percent of their scoring from just scoring respectively. You don’t need to be a basketball aficionado to know that the style of play where two guys score all of the points and initiate the offense while everybody else is just kinda there is not sustainable. This series reflected the Suns’ need for roster reconstruction.

The unfortunate thing about this series is that this Suns' playoff run will probably be forgotten. While most of the games of their two series either being at 11 PM Eastern or being on NBATV, it’s the lack of iconic moments that really damns the Suns. Even the Sixers and Knicks had a few great moments, but the Suns had really good scoring from Devin Booker against a team that was well below their standard or good Booker nights against a team way out of their league. Either way, I’ll put his basketball reference playoff page under this section so that every reader can truly appreciate how great he really was this year. With a real team around him, Booker will be poised to get back and thrive even more next year. That’s if he has a good team around him, which is still a huge if.

While Phoenix had great individual efforts, Nikola Jokic proved why he’s the best player left in the playoffs and probably the second-best in the world behind Giannis, but it’s getting pretty close. Offensively, he’s unstoppable and can get whatever he wants against any coverage. Trying to guard him is futile. Where the Suns failed is hunting him on offense and focusing on the role players defensively. If they did that, maybe we’d be telling a different story. However, my point is that nobody has tried that yet and therefore Denver has been great without having to adjust. I haven’t said much about the Nuggets and that’s intentional. Their story of this round was “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

6. Golden State Warriors vs 7. Los Angeles Lakers

I was genuinely shocked by how this series played out, but I probably shouldn’t have been. The Warriors have been running on Stephen Curry all year long and against a defense as good as the Lakers, I should’ve known that this was coming. However, similarly to when the Patriots lost to the Eagles in Super Bowl 52, calling this the end of the dynasty feels immature. Curry, Thompson, and Green will all still be under contract next year and while the future of Klay Thompson feels up in the air, it feels like they’re one more big man and a Jordan Poole swap away from being the same ‘ol Warriors. However, they lacked depth, coaching, and consistent offense from human basketball players against the Lakers (Stephen Curry is not human). 

The Lakers have been a flaming pile of money all season with the pieces of a championship team there, but never really being put together. Like all LeBron James-led teams though, they flipped the switch in the postseason. While I’m still bearish on the offense, they might have the best defense left in the playoffs and that’s high praise considering that Boston and Miami sit on the other side of the bracket. They were effective against everyone not named Curry in this series and LeBron James looks like a mega-genius whenever he’s on the floor. Whether it be defensive coverage or directing all offensive traffic, he’s made every adjustment for LA. It’s to the point where I almost want to take credit away from Darvin Ham, but I can’t do that because of the adjustments that he made.

Darvin Ham did two things that I loved in this series. First, he repositioned Anthony Davis as a defensive-first player. This allowed him to save energy and in turn, be less susceptible to injury. When he’s on the floor, he’s been a defensive terror. He also slowed down Austin Reaves and Dennis Schroder. Not that he reduced their pace, but he seemed to have simplified their thought process to not overthink things and play through LeBron. But, that’s the key. LeBron. It’s weird how underappreciated he feels right now. He is still putting up crazy numbers and making a huge impact at this age, yet nobody is talking about it. If the Lakers somehow upset the Nuggets, it’ll be on his back. Hopefully, that back is healthy enough to carry them, though.

Takeaways

This round of basketball was as intriguing as ever and it set up another interesting and unpredictable conference final, which is weird considering that a 7 and 8 seed made this round. No matter who ends up actually winning, it’s hard not to reflect on the potentially major implications of this past round. Whether it be broken dynasties or a potential shakeup of stars, the second round was as entertaining as ever. My conference final preview will be out a few hours after this article and here’s to an entertaining third round.

Adam Zimmerman-Diaz

IG: @adam.zd

Twitter - @TheSatBlues