With the regular season coming to a close this past Sunday, it is now time for the NBA to show off their new toy!
Seeds 7 through 10 in each conference will be fighting for two spots. The 7 and 8 seed will have two chances if they lose their first game while the 9 and 10 have to win two games to advance.
In the East, we have two exciting matchups tonight between Charlotte and Indiana along with Boston and Washington. Who will come out of Tuesday victorious? Who will be entering the lottery and who will survive and advance?
Game 1: Indiana (9) vs Charlotte (10)
This first game of the play in tournament should be an interesting one to say the least. With Indiana missing Myles Turner, TJ Warren, Jeremy Lamb, and potentially Brogdon and LeVert, this will be a very tough game for the Pacers. However, all it takes is one game for Sabonis to take over and win. On the other hand, Charlotte has some injuries as well with Cody Martin and Gordon Hayward. This game is going to be about who is going to take over. In my opinion, I think Charolette has more guys that can do that.
In their 3 matchups this season, Charlotte took 2 out of those 3. The players that will prove that the Hornets are too much to handle will be Ball, Bridges, Graham and Rozier. After missing 21 games, Ball has come back to average 15.5 pts, 5.5 ast and 6.2 reb on 36% from the field. For the potential ROY, I think this will be a breakout performance. Prediction: Charlotte
Game 2: Boston (7) vs Washington (8)
Going into the season, most would have expected this to be a first round matchup, not a play-in game. Now that we are here, we must analyze. With Jaylen Brown recently going down for the year, Boston seems to have their backs against the wall. To add, they are playing one of the hottest teams in basketball in the Washington Wizards. Washington is 15-5 in their last 20 with Westbrook and Beal carrying a serious workload, averaging a combined 53 points a night.
In their 3 matchups this season, Boston took 2 out of those 3. However, not having Jaylen Brown changes things up a lot. That means more time for guys like Romeo Langford and Carsen Edwards. On top of that, Jayson Tatum is going to have to have a monster game in order to top Beal and Westbrook. The way I see it, Boston is on a small decline while Washington is on a crazy incline right now. They are catching this Celtics team at the perfect time. Prediction: Washington
Game 3: Boston (7) vs Charlotte (10)
Barring these first two games go as predicted, this game would be for the 8 seed. I do not think that coming off of a loss will have much effect on the Celtics. This game will come down to whether the best player on the floor plays like it. That player is obviously Jayson Tatum, who averaged 26 pts, 4 ast and 7 reb this season. Tatum is also one of three players to have multiple 50 point games this season. With this type of offensive firepower, it may be too much for a middle of the pack defense like Charlotte to handle.
Some other players that are going to prove to be big in this game will be Robert Williams and Tristian Thompson. Williams, who is a game-time-decision, would be a huge help on the boards with Thompson who combined average around 15 boards a game. Having both of these guys on the floor with Tatum will not only help them on the boards, but it will put the ball in Tatum’s hands more. In a loser leaves town game, the ball needs to run through the star for the majority of the game. Prediction: Boston