What a wild and unpredictable first round!
The Bucks and their NBA-best record are out, just the sixth No. 1 seed to fall to a No. 8 seed in the first round, victims of Jimmy Butler and the Heat. We’ve seen injuries to Kawhi Leonard, Ja Morant, Joel Embiid, and De’Aaron Fox, suspensions for Dejounte Murray and Draymond Green, plus a wild Kings vs. Warriors series that’s still not wrapped as of the time of this writing.
If the favorites for the final two series hold, we’ll have history: a first ever second round featuring one of every seed: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. We’ve already seen our first-ever play-in team win a series and may soon have a second. What a wild year these two weeks have been, and we’re still only just getting started.
This weekend we start the Conference Semifinals , so let’s dive in. I’ll preview each of the four series and give a series pick, plus game-by-game and props angles I’m eyeing. We covered each of these series in depth on the Buckets podcast too if you want to dive even further into the weeds.