Since Derrick Rose got injured in early November, effectively taking the Bulls out of the title race, everyone has been talking about an unavoidable Pacers Heat Eastern Conference finals match-up. Now the playoffs have started and the Pacers and Heat still look like favorites to meet in the East Finals. The Pacers play the Atlanta Hawks in the first round. On paper this series looks incredibly one sided. The Pacers are the one seed in the east playing against a sub .500 team with a terrible defense. In reality the Hawks could put up a fight.
The Pacers are 29th in the league in points per possession since March 1st. Everyone on the team has been struggling offensively. Even though the Hawks defense is bad the Pacers could still knock themselves completely out of games with bad offense. On the other hand Frank Vogel is a very intelligent coach working with an intelligent roster. Playing in a series against a team stocked full of terrible defenders could be just the thing to get the offensive players hot again. Roy Hibbert will be facing easy matchups in the post so this could be his opportunity to end his prolonged scoring drought.
The Hawks offense does provide some matchup problems for the best defense in the league. Paul Millsap and Pero Antic, the starting big men for Atlanta, both can shoot outside jumpers very well. The Pacers always like to play Hibbert in a position where he can protect the rim. Indiana will have to concede many open jumpers to the Atlanta bigs or have the best rim protector in the league watch as Jeff Teague drives to the basket on countless pick and pop plays. David West is also a slow power forward so he might have some trouble keeping up with Antic if he is moved around creatively to generate shot opportunities. If Hibbert can exploit easy post matchups or the pacers offense is better than the regular season version then this will be an easy series for them. But if their offense can’t score don’t be surprised if the Hawks exploit the matchup problems and take a few games in this series. This will be a closer series then any of the 1-8 matchups in the recent Eastern Conference playoffs but in the end it might turn out to be just an opportunity for the Pacers to get their offense into a groove before heading into more difficult rounds.
The Bulls got a great first round matchup in the Washington Wizards. Do you like great defense? Do you enjoy pick and rolls leading to missed mid-range jumpers? If you answered yes to either of those questions then this is the series for you. The Wizards offense is predicated around the corner 3 point shot. The Bulls defense is one of the best in the league at taking it away. The Bulls run a fluid zone like defense that doesn’t involve massive help and rotations that would leave three point shooters open while defending the pick and roll. Because the Bulls bigs are so good at containing such plays three point shots aren’t going to be open often in this series. John Wall is a great pick and roll point guard. This season has been the best so far for the former number one overall pick in the draft. Wall is great at getting to the rim and passing to open shooters out of the pick and roll. In this series he is going against one of the best pick and roll defending bigs in the universe. Wall is the key to this series. He is in the playoffs for the first time if he gets frustrated and starts taking bad shots. He isn’t a great jump shooter. Bradley Beal is a good jump shooter but he isn’t great off the dribble yet. It is unlikely that either of these players can make a lot of jumpers to keep the offense going. The other side of the floor might not be much different. The Bulls don’t have much offensive talent on their roster. They will struggle to score but they will be efficient. The Bulls will run their sets and not take bad shots. They are a great disciplined team. They won’t mind playing in close, low scoring, and physical games. It is the way they played all season. They will try to ware out and frustrate the young Wizards. This series will feature many close and low scoring games. The Wizards will probably try to speed up the pace of games and avoid long half court possessions battling the Chicago defense. This series will be close but the Bulls will ultimately advance to a similarly low scoring series against the Pacers.
The two time defending champion Heat have a great path to a three peat set up. Although they expended a lot of energy in winning the first two titles this year’s run will be easier. Wade and many of the older players didn’t play in a lot of games so they could rest. LeBron played the most and had to shoulder a lot of the offensive duties in Wade’s absence this regular season. Three peats in the NBA are common compared to other major sports but they are still great accomplishments and are only achieved by all-time great groups. The Bobcats have almost no chance against the heat in the first round. Al Jefferson will score a ton of points posting up the Heat’s febrile defensive big men. In a way it will be preparation for what Roy Hibbert would try to do to the Heat. Greg Oden could prove his defensive worth or show that he can’t play in series were the Heat rotation gets tighter. This series will have a bunch of blow outs but Miami has been known to lose countless regular season games due to a lack of effort. A game or two in this series could have the same result.
The Raptors have made the playoffs for the first time since 2008. Their tortured fan base will provide a great arena atmosphere and will be ready to panic at the first sign of trouble. The Nets had high expectations after they traded for former stars Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. Pierce has been a good contributor sporadically but horrible on other nights. Garnett has been terrible and playing in a very limited role. Brook Lopez went down for the year early in the season and as a result the team with high expectations was playing poorly. Jason Kidd would probably be a better player than a head coach at this point but Dwayne Casey isn’t a good coach either. The Nets will be better in crunch time because of their two ball handling point guards. Williams, Johnson, and Pierce will all take turns shooting and scoring. This will be a close series but the Nets will win. The Nets are a much more difficult matchup with the Heat because of their experience and their post-up and isolation based offense. The Heat are much better defensively against pick and roll offenses.
