A Very Spicy Curry: NBA Playoffs
HELLO and welcome to another rendition of The Girls Prepare for The Playoffs: This time with the NBA! (once again, after not having really followed the season but if you have one takeaway from this blog it’s that you really only have to pay attention to most sports for like, one 2 week period every year)
As you may remember, during & before march madness we made our dislike for the NBA very clear but we have a DUTY TO OUR READERS to prepare you for the big bad sports world and we know that basketball is a big part of that. Also, to be completely honest, the idea of this whole “play in tournament” thing is giving me march madness SPICY vibes and I am HERE FOR IT. So let’s get into it:
The Play In Tournament
You might be like…play IN? I thought these were play OFFs! Well, correct, but before we get there, our alien friend Adam Smith (who i met lest we forget) decided the NBA needed to be more interesting (don’t I know it) and also this is still vaguely a COVID season (remember COVID???) and everyone loved the NBA Bubble so they were like let’s keep this party GOING and expand the playoffs so some teams get a chance to play their way in. Also this discourages TANKING, a method used by shitty teams to just lean in to being shitty so they get better odds for the draft lottery. Which is not great for like, getting people to watch.
So, they establish this tourney, for a little fun, as a treat, and it turned out way more exciting than anticipated (see below). The basic set up is thus: 4 teams from the WESTERN conference and 4 teams in the EASTERN conference play in against each other (7th ranked against 8th ranked, 9th ranked against 10th ranked). The Winner of 7th/8th game moves into BIG PLAYOFF TIME, the loser plays the winner of 9/10. BIG PLAYOFF TIME: where a million teams are still left because, basketball is yet another league with too many teams and series based playoffs that take a million years.
WHO’S PLAYING IN:
In The East:
Charlotte Hornets vs. Indiana Pacers
The Hornets, most famous for their outrageous uniform color choice( and being partially owned by Jordan), will face off against the Pacers, who do not have a single player I have ever heard of before. They will be missing Caris LeVert because of COVID protocols, however, the Hornets are coming in on a 5 game losing streak, so this is a real Who’s Who of which will be worse. The hornets DO have Basketball Royalty Crown Prince LaMelo Ball, and we are excited to watch this lil bb play in his first ever playoffs.
Washington Wizards vs. Boston Celtics
The Wizards were COMICALLY bad at the beginning of this season. Like bad to a point that people frequently talked about it, not on a little slump, just bad. But Russell Westbrook did the dang thing, and carried this team on his back to make it this far. He has had a record breaking season, AND recently got a shout out from fellow baller J Cole in a new song. The Celtics are led by Jayson Tatum(the guy from the subway commercials who has the sub with TURKEY), and despite doing well in the playoffs last year, will have to work hard to earn their spot this time around.
In the West:
San Antonio Spurs vs. Memphis Grizzlies
This is not the exciting match up. This is a steep uphill battle, for two teams that are not really playoff contenders in the slightest. Imagine, you beat the grizzlies, only to have to face off against LEBRON JAMES??? Not looking great. I don’t want to count anyone out, because anything could happen, that’s playoffs baby, but also I just researched five million teams for this article because the dang playoffs are too big anyway, so I am just skipping this one.
Come for the takes stay for the homemade memes
Golden State Warriors vs. LA Lakers
Ok remember how I mentioned things got extra spicy????? This game is the highlight of the ENTIRE play in tourney and it promises to be freaking INSANE. You’ve got Golden State, who were really good a few years ago (remember when they won a bunch????) and then sort of fell apart (players left, their stars got injured, etc etc), have once again heated up thanks to a spicy chili Steph Curry. To say that Steph Curry is hot right now is the UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE CENTURY (that’s right, I’ve gone FULL PUNDIT here and I will be speaking in EXTREME hyperbole). He has become the league’s top scorer basically just by getting good in the past two months or so, and is essentially single handedly gotten his team here. Now that’s pretty exciting as is (a once great team making a comback and arriving as an underdog…a DCOM I would watch), but to up the thrill factor, they’re facing LeBron and the reiging champion Lakers. Y’all know LEBRON JAMES?!!?!?! Well he started out the season hot, as an MVP Contender, and the Lakers were like 21-6, and then things…fell apart. These big dudes get down bad when they’re injured, what else can we say! Sidelined with an ankle injury, Lebron has been off the court mostly since march, and his main partner in crime, Anthony Davis, has been injured as well. Coming into this season, the title was the Lakers’ to lose, and now they are FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIFE with ONE GAME to RULE THEM ALL.
WHO’S IN THE PLAYOFFS:
From the East:
The 76ers: After many years of TRUSTING THE PROCESS, it is ALL HAPPENING for Philly. They clinched the entire Eastern conference, partially thanks to Joel Embiid- who’s cover story you need to read RIGHT NOW. Other stars like SETH Curry (the Other Curry), and Dwight Howard, and Ben Simmons, have also helped the team build themselves up for greatness and, now, hopefully, play their way to a title.
The Nets: If you have ever read a basketball headline in the past 7 months, you saw this one coming. The Nets (our local bball team! the boys play right down the road! in retrospect it is rude that I have never seen any of them?) are a stacked super team with James Harden (booooo i hate this man), Kyrie Irving (fun fact he believes the earth is flat!!! ), and Kevin Durant (aka KD). Oh, and Blake Griffin, who isn’t as important, but I know who he is because he dated Kendall Jenner (although what NBA player HASN’T at this point). Anyway, the Big 3 have not played together a TON because of injury and other mysteries, but they look ready to come together in the playoffs and make something happen. ALSO, watch this.
The Bucks: The Bucks are home to Giannis Antetokounmpo (and yes I did spell that right on my first try), who is a dream boat (speaks igbo!), and who has been loyal to his team despite not getting the results he deserves as an INCREDIBLE talent. There have been a million articles written about this, so we’re not going to go into it here, but essentially every year everyone is like is Giannis WASTING HIS LIFE IN MILWAUKEE?!?!!?!?!?, ya know, like he’s a 25 year old in a dead end office job and not a millionaire basketball player who has lots of agency over where he plays. Anyways! He gets to play with his brother Thanasis (such greek, much wow) and also Jrue Holiday, who is a very good person.
We can’t believe it!
The Knicks: ?!?!?!?!!??!!?!? DID ANYONE THINK THIS WAS HAPPENING?!!?!?!?!?!?!!? I lived my whole life in the post Ewing era I did not know the Knicks COULD be good and I am wildly unprepared for what might happen in this here town if they do well in the playoffs.
The Hawks: Tbh, a team I do not care about. Sorry Atlanta, I am glad you have one sports team that can make the playoffs (SICK falcons burn!) but it does look to me that this is sort of a filler team that is just going to get knocked off by…idk see above. They’ll face off against the knicks, and we will be rooting for the knicks, end of story.
The Heat: A fun fact for everyone is that the only NBA game I have EVER BEEN TO in my entire life was a Heat game my freshman year of high school, which just so happened to be one of the few years LeBron played for them. And it was wild!!!! Apparently a lot has happened to them since then, like last year when they went on a run in the Bubble, and almost went All The Way, but this year has been slightly less forgiving to them. They have to face off against Giannis and the Bucks, and idk if you heard but if Giannis doesn’t win the world MIGHT END!!!!! But they did face off in the playoffs last year, and Miami emerged victorious, so anything could happen.
side bar: this IS exactly what I hate about the NBA playoffs, that you get stuck facing the same team every year (for example, the Pelicans faced Golden State for like 3 straight years when Golden State was nearly UNBEATABLE , and then everyone was like the Pels suck, and I was like THIS IS BORING THE SAME TEAMS KEEP WINNING). Anyway just saying I stand by that take.
From the West:
The Jazz: One of my FAMOUSLY hot takes is being aggressively anti Utah Jazz (not because I dislike Rudy Gobert, because I love him,even after he gave eveyone covid, especially after listening to this), because they left New Orleans (which is rude, but fine, this is how american sports are blah blah blah) and DIDN’T CHANGE THEIR NAME OR COLORS. So now I got these utah mofos out here in MARDI GRAS COLORS with music notes on their unis and I cannot stress enough how much this AINT IT FOLKS. This might actually be the hill I die on. That being said, our blog’s biggest fan is from Utah, and I do think they deserve to be here, and I don’t hate the team itself. Also their city uniforms are very cool, so maybe just play in those and avoid upsetting me! And then I can support this excellent team! Who btw have their work cut out for them because of the whole lakers-warriors situation.
The Suns: Monty Williams was voted Coach of the Year today, and with him at the helm, Phoenix has had a great season. This team is young (which is good news because the playoffs this year might be scary for them), and led by Chris Paul. TBD on how much he can actually lead them to success, but we just hope they have a good time.
The Nuggets: It is a GOOD TIME to be a colorado sports fan, with the Avalanche crushing in the NHL and the Nuggets coming into the playoffs for the second straight year with a lil something to prove. Listen, I am not going to sit here and tell you they’re the best team around. They’re not THE best, but they do have Nikola Jokič (who is Serbian, which you can tell from that cute little accent on the C there)(then again luka also had that and he is SLOVENIAN and let me tell you you don’t want to confuse former Yugoslav states!), who is, in the words of our king Charles Barkley, “a big ass white dude” who “gets things done”. He is also a strong MVP contender (as a many other people though, depending on the day), and it is GO TIME. Lastly, the Nuggets frequently incorporate a rainbow into their jerseys, which I love. I can also only assume the name is a reference to Nuggs, the superior McD’s order.
The Clippers: Arguably the most cursed team in the NBA, the Clippers are the dorky younger brother of the LA Lakers who FINALLY went through puberty last year only to have a pandemic curse them further.I know we use the dorky younger brother bit frequently here on the blog, but when it stops being relevant, we’ll stop using it, okay? There is a bit of debate right now over whether the Clippers dropped off a bit at the end of the regular season to avoid the Lakers (their RIVALS!), which, isn’t NOT possible but like these are professional athletes and I feel like taking a winning momentum into the playoffs does actually matter. The Clippers have stars like Kawhi Leonard, who doesn’t say much, Paul George, and DeMarcus Cousins
The Mavericks: Home of cutie pie Luka Dončić, who is a little 22 year old baby and superstar, the Mavs will face off against the clippers for the SECOND year in a row in the playoffs. But they will look to do a little better this time (and avoid injury, poor luka)
The Trail Blazers: lol BLAZERS nice. Get it? Like ~blaze. toit. Ok, on their basketball: The Blazers have Damian Lillard, which is a name you have probably heard someone say before (he is on that gatorade commercial, you know, there’s another one with Serena Williams. Tbh much of my tv watching is me saying to ben HEY WHO IS THAT guy , Ben telling me, me still not knowing until 15 min later I see him playing on ESPN). Their big challenge is going to be shutting down Jokič when they face off against the Nugs. Also, check this out.
