The first round of the 2016 NBA Playoffs hasn’t necessarily featured an unending stream of bad basketball. No, it would be much too simplistic to say that the quality of play has been relentlessly poor.
The Miami Heat played two beautiful games to take a 2-0 lead on Charlotte. The Detroit Pistons showed how bright their future is in an encouraging performance against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Kyrie Irving flourished in that series and dazzled us with his shotmaking prowess.
Patrick Patterson and Jonas Valanciunas have propelled the Toronto Raptors’ frontcourt when the more star-laden backcourt has struggled.
Paul George has been… Paul George, just not as lethal as the pre-injury version.
Isaiah Thomas (Game 3) and Paul Millsap (Game 4) have turned Celtics-Hawks into a genuinely fun series.
In the West, we’ve seen James Harden play one transcendent game. We’ve seen the Oklahoma City Thunder flex their muscles a few times. Dirk Nowitzki has spilled his heart and bared his soul… again. Portland isn’t backing down from the Los Angeles Clippers. Some marvelous little morsels can be found here and there. This has not been an excellence-free first round.
The main problem: Two teams generally don’t play well at the same time, and if they ever do, something else gets in the way.
In Celtics-Hawks, Thomas soared in Friday’s Game 3, throwing down 42 points, but what most people remember from that night was this incident:
NO SUSPENSION for Isaiah Thomas. He was assessed a flagrant-1 for hitting Dennis Schroder. Right call, NBA. #Celtics https://t.co/liast11AbV
— Adam Kaufman (@AdamMKaufman) April 23, 2016
Multiple instances emerged in Game 3 of players whacking opponents in the head. Players on both sides are lucky they didn’t get suspended for Game 4.
Speaking of Game 4, it was another rollicking and riveting affair, one in which Paul Millsap tossed in 45 points and dazzled a national television audience. Yet, what will most people remember from the contest?
This is number one:
Hawks' Jeff Teague makes an absolute mess of final possesion in Game 4 vs. Celtics pic.twitter.com/KESiayyO53
— Ben Golliver (@BenGolliver) April 25, 2016
Boston-Atlanta has been compelling, and to be sure, the individual feats of IT, Millsap, Marcus Smart, and Jeff Teague rate as top-tier entertainment. Yet, between the Hawks’ brickfests from the perimeter and the precarious “car-swerving-through-heavy traffic” nature of the Celtics’ offense, this has not been an aesthetically elegant series. The battle is fun because of the theater and the few players who have transcended the moment, not because either team is playing at — or particularly close to — its best.
If you needed a verdict on which series provided the best basketball between two teams — not necessarily the best drama or entertainment value — Cavs-Pistons probably deserves the top spot. This was a series in which everyone, pundits and fans alike, knew which team was going to advance to the next round. Yet, while the expected result emerged, the underdog forced the heavy favorite to work for everything it gained.
Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond and guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (5) walk off the court after Game 4 of a first-round NBA basketball playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Sunday, April 24, 2016 in Auburn Hills, Mich. The Cavaliers defeated the Pistons 100-98 and swept the series. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope opened some eyes with his level of play against the Cavs. Stanley Johnson was predictably raked over the coals for daring to challenge LeBron James, even when the stat sheet and the progression of the series suggested he should keep his mouth shut. However, Johnson’s physical defense and combative attitude are exactly what Detroit needs in the years ahead. The Pistons acquitted themselves well. More games like 3 and 4 over the weekend in Auburn Hills would have been enjoyable to watch.
Alas, the best-played series of the first round (we’ll see if Miami-Charlotte can match that standard in the coming days) lasted only four games. The good basketball couldn’t last.
Moreover, consider this larger takeaway from the set of seven games spread across Friday and Saturday: The first in that seven-game sequence — Cleveland-Detroit Game 3 — and the last one (Clippers-Portland Game 3) were both profoundly affected by Hack-A-Player. Andre Drummond’s missed foul shots (Cavs-Pistons) and DeAndre Jordan’s misses (Clips-Trail Blazers) centrally affected those Game 3s… and those were the two best games of the Friday-Saturday stacks.
Four other games from Friday or Saturday (Spurs-Grizzlies, Raptors-Pacers, Heat-Hornets, and Thunder-Mavs) were comfortable wins at best, blowouts at worst. Only Hawks-Celtics Game 3 bucked the trend.
On Sunday, two depressing games — the Spurs finishing off the woefully undermanned Grizzlies, and the Rockets capitulating with Steph Curry off the floor in the second half — started the day. One of the two high-quality games (Cleveland-Detroit) brought a series to a premature conclusion in terms of depriving fans of good basketball. Once again, Hawks-Celtics represented the one game on a given day in which two teams fought each other on even terms and didn’t run into any Hack-A-Player embarrassments in a series which will last beyond five games.
As mentioned above, Boston-Atlanta possesses a few warts of its own, but it has checked all the boxes for a good playoff series: There’s enough individual excellence to make us admire the way the sport is being played. There’s enough drama in each game to keep us focused on the fourth quarter. The series will go at least six.
In an NBA first round which has given us a well-played sweep (in Detroit) and a hard-on-the-eyes Indiana-Toronto series destined for at least six games, finding the sweet spot between raw quality and full drama has been largely elusive.
Even when the 2016 NBA Playoffs have been good in this first round, something bad has entered the equation. We’ll see if this second week of postseason hoops can provide something more, knowing that the ultimate tradeoff is supposed to come in subsequent playoff rounds.
