The NBA playoffs are here ... and so is my around-the-league latest Intel
The latest on Trae Young, what's next for the Warriors and a surprise potential suitor for Chris Paul all feature as the first round prepares to tip off
The full-fledged NBA playoffs have arrived, with an eight-game weekend in front of us, but it's been a rough week for ardent fans of the NBA's Play-In Tournament.
Like moi.
Serious injuries sustained by New Orleans' Zion Williamson (hamstring) and Miami's Jimmy Butler (knee) put a very painful damper on proceedings … even though both of their teams managed to rebound from a crushing initial defeat to survive the Play-In round regardless.
Two significant injury headlines hurt doubly so when we also live in an NBA universe where no one knows for sure whether LA Clippers star Kawhi Leonard will be available for Sunday's Game 1 of the Clippers' third playoff showdown with Luka Dončić and the Dallas Mavericks in a span of five years.
And when it's even more unclear whether Giannis Antetokounmpo, dropped to the floor by a calf strain with no one around him on April 9. will be partaking in any of Milwaukee's first-round series with Indiana.
Leonard played 68 games for the Clippers this season — more than we've seen Kawhi play in any season since all the way back in 2016-17 in San Antonio. Yet it's likewise true that the Clippers haven't seen Leonard in uniform since March. Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said at a Thursday news conference that Leonard will be listed as questionable for Sunday's series opener against Dallas because, well, that's the best designation they can muster when Leonard continues to be plagued by inflammation in his right knee that has prevented him from participating in any contract drills since he started missing games.
Butler's situation appears to be pure bad luck. Philadelphia's Kelly Oubre landed on Butler's prone right leg early Wednesday night in Philly in the Sixers' eventual 105-104 triumph over the visiting Heat. There's really nothing Butler could have done to avoid that contact ... once the Heat landed in the Play-In round.
As my podcast partner Chris Haynes of Turner Sports loves pointing out, Miami finished seven games ahead of ninth-seeded Chicago in the Eastern Conference standings and 10 games ahead of No. 10 Atlanta. The Heat are surely wishing that the NBA, as Haynes has been advocating for weeks on the podcast (latest episode below), employed some sort of a wins margin clause that required the East's No. 9 and No. 10 seeds to be closer than the Bulls and Hawks were to the top eight to force Play-In games.
Williamson's situation is more like Leonard's. He played in a career-high 70 games this season. He was playing the game of his life Tuesday night — racking up 40 points and 11 rebounds against LeBron James, Anthony Davis and the Lakers — when he sustained a left hamstring injury. All signs point to Williamson missing at least the first round of the playoffs after the Pelicans wildly found a way to beat Sacramento on Friday night for the sixth time in six tries this season.
The Pelicans, of course, never would have been in a Play-In game against the Lakers had they beaten the Lakers at home in their regular-season finale last Sunday. While New Orleans did manage to avoid becoming just the second 49-team in league history to miss the playoffs, Williamson's 40-and-11 won’t even be officially added to his career statistics because the NBA still hasn't figured out where to stash stats from Play-In games, since they're officially neither regular-season games nor playoff games.
Painful and sad on so many levels.
To more from around the league …