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Baptism of Fire: The questions ahead of the first-round NBA playoff series

Doncic dreams of making his mark in the playoffs against his most nightmarish opponent, Ambide gets a rare opportunity without Simmons, the Lakers' sub-players will stand a character test, and those of the Blazers a physical test. Ravitz prepares and marks a potential black horse

• Los Angeles Lakers
• Los Angeles Clippers
• Milwaukee Bucks
• Toronto Raptors

Walla! sport

Today (Monday) it starts: first round, eight series, no home games, play every two days. Most teams with rotations that barely managed to play together, the top candidates have not yet entered reasonable fitness, injuries and absences of all kinds are already affecting and will continue to affect a large part of the series. The least expected playoff in league history is underway. Here are some thoughts on each series.

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West

(1) Los Angeles Lakers - (8) Portland Trailblazers

Already in his first series in the West LeBron James will understand how difficult and deep this conference is. In eighth place is Damien Lillard in the best shape of his career. Portland has been in the aggregation mode of Game 7 of the finals for a week now, every game of its being decided in the final seconds, almost always in its favor. This can turn out to be a big advantage, because it meets a rusty rival who may need time to adjust to the intensity that the Blazers are already living within. But the Terry Stotes players are also exhausting themselves physically and mentally, their roster includes six legitimate players one of whom, Zack Collins, was injured in the win over Memphis. The air will run out for them eventually.

Portland’s offense was the best in the rankings, but the defense was one of the weakest. The only successful defensive game was in the win over Houston, in which Stotes took the ball out of the hands of James Harden and Russell Westbrook and let the sub-players throw as much as they wanted. This may be the best way to test the current version of the Lakers, because the big question mark of the Western leader is whether its sub-players are the ones to run with for the championship. Danny Green, Cantabius Caldwell Pop, Dion Withers and Alex Caruso together scored 21 of 87 from three in the bubble (24 percent). These are Frank Vogel's four top guards and two of them are set to be on the floor in money time as well (assuming these minutes Anthony Davis will serve as center). Which of them can you trust? Do not be surprised if Portland raises this question in the coming days.

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(2) Los Angeles Clippers - (7) The Dallas Mavericks'

first playoff series by Luka Doncic will be against the team that is best built to face him. Doc Rivers has a battery of fine personal guards on great wingers led by Kwai Leonard and Paul George. In his quintet Doc brings up four players that the Clippers will have no problem letting Luca play one-on-one against them, which will lead to a lot of exchanges and a little help that will make it difficult for the Slovenian prodigy to express his supreme game call and take the sting out of the Dallas offense. On the other hand, Dallas 'mediocre defense will have very few tools to deal with the Clippers' offense, which was second in the league in the regular season plus the bubble. The Clippers are still putting some players in shape and some of them are in doubt for the first game, but without quality stoppers for Kwai and PG13 it will be hard to stop them.

The key player who can create a competitive series is Kristaps Forzingis. The Latvian giant has been flourishing since Dallas moved on to play with five outside shots and he has greatly upgraded his miss-match ability: he does not try to dig into the point but rises for shooting from the penalty line area without being bothered by the cockroach guarding him. If Porzi is able to do the same for players like Kwai and George, he will be able to disable the Clippers' automatic substitutions. It will be interesting to see how Monterz Harrell tackles Forzingis on both sides, and also to test the ability of the Clippers' senior chin in defending outside players in substitutions.

(3) Denver Nuggets - (6) Utah Jazz The

two favorite teams lack important players. Will Barton and Gary Harris, two quintet players in Denver, will be absent from the first game and it is unclear when they are expected to return. Utah will have to make do without the injured Boyan Bogdanovic and the fresh news is that Mike Conley has left the bubble following the birth of his son and will miss the first games of the series. The absences are more significant for Utah. Her top five had a 19.1 net rating in the bubble, Conley had an important part to play and without him Kevin Snyder would have to rely even more on the sparse bench. Denver, on the other hand, has a deep roster and has taken advantage of the absence of the top five players to discover Michael Porter Jr. as a quality scorer right now.

The interesting battle is between so many different chins. Nikola Jokic got on well with Rudy Gober throughout the season and provided a streak of 29.3 points, 12 rebounds and 9 assists per game against Utah this year. A player like Jukic, who runs the game from the three-point line, forces Gover to get out of the point and actually neutralizes Utah's most important strength. This series can reinforce the narrative that it is no longer possible to build winning defenses around players like Gover, as more and more teams move on to play with five away shots. The Staple Tower will have to work very hard to change the narrative.

(4) Houston Rockets - (5) Oklahoma City Thunder The

trial of Daryl Murray and Mike D'Antoni is coming to the playoffs, and it can be guaranteed to be interesting. The first examinee is Stephen Adams. How will the New Zealand chin cope with the Rockets' bottom five? Will he take advantage of his size advantage to celebrate in color or will Houston be able to make it irrelevant in this series? There seems to be no middle ground. Danilo Glinari is also bigger than all the Houston players and has more tools to take advantage of that. The next question is how the OKC coordinators trio, whose joint minutes were more effective than any other trio in the league, will face the Rockets' defense. There are no miss-matches to take advantage of, there is almost no advantage to Pick n 'Roll because Houston replaces any block, but there is also no one waiting in color and interfering with penetration.

On the other hand, the key question will be, of course, how Billy Donovan will deal with James Harden. Russell Westbrook's injury, which will cause him to miss the opening of the series and it is still unclear when he will return, will make it easier to send a permanent double guard over the bearded man and force the rest to make decisions. Eric Gordon, who has just returned from injury, once again finds himself in a key role as the second creative actor until Ras returns. But the Thunder also have quality personal guards who will try to deal with Harden on their own: Logantz Dort kept him great in the last league game between the two, Andre Roberson returning from a long injury exists mostly for such missions. Houston is considered the senior and most interesting team of the two, but OKC has a quality roster and real potential to be a black horse in this playoffs. And rest assured that Chris Paul will use everything he learned in his two years in Houston to implant bugs in the system.

East

(1) Milwaukee Bucks - (8) Orlando Magic

To make it difficult for Milwaukee you need two key factors that Orlando does not have. First of all, you need an athletic staff with a well-built player to keep Yannis Antokompo. Jonathan Isaac could have been this player but he is injured, Ark Gordon will try but also he is not fully qualified and has not developed into a good enough guard to seriously make it difficult for the MVP. You also need a collection of threes without a weak link that the Bucks' defense will aim all the balls at, but that will not be possible in a team that gives significant minutes to Wes Ivondo, James Anis and Merkel Poltz.

So why can you still fantasize about a surprise in this series? Mainly because Milwaukee did not look like itself in a bubble, and this is a group that is very dependent on team connection. Orlando stunned Toronto in the first game of the first round last year and proved in the last two years that on data days it is not afraid of the best teams in the league, maybe against the Bucks such an early win could create pressure that will make it difficult for Mike Bodenholzer's team to connect with the series progress. But Milwaukee has yannis and there is color protection that prevents teams like Orlando from getting close to the ring, so one has to fantasize strongly.

(2) Toronto Raptors - (7) Brooklyn Nets

Brooklyn was one of the bubble surprises and I hope Jack Won has earned in those two weeks a chance to be the head coach next season. Charis Lewart, Joe Harris and Jarrett Allen looked ripe to complete with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving a quintet that could compete for titles in the coming years, and all the sub-players also came to work and might be rewarded with a wide rotation next season. You should never encounter a playoff in a cohesive bunch with players who bring their abilities to new heights, and this Brooklyn can make it difficult for a great many teams.

But Toronto is probably not one of those teams. The trained and cohesive team in the league is not the one that will fall into the trap that the Nets are able to set. One of the scary figures ahead of the playoffs is that the champion's top five absorbed 80.8 points per 100 passers in 81 minutes in a bubble. Lewart will get a battery of personal guards who will not buy his tricks and sticks, Harris will not see daylight near the three line without a tight Canadian shirt, Allen will receive personal care from Mark Gasol. If Brooklyn manages to organize a plausible attacking game in this series, the appreciation towards Wen will grow significantly.

(3) Boston Celtics - (6) Philadelphia Sixers

The last two playoffs ended with the question of whether Joel Ambide and Ben Simmons are capable of succeeding together. This time Ambide will reach the playoffs without the injured Simmons, with a team that can surround him with four outside shots and let him work in color. If the Cameroonian chin belongs to the top of the league stars, he has been given a chance to prove it. He comes to this series as a definite underdog, but meets an opponent who has no ideal guard for him. Ambide is without a doubt the key player of the series, and it is impossible to know what to expect from him. In meetings against the Celtics this year he had a game of 38 points and was also a game of 1 of 11 from the field.

The big question is whether what is around him is enough to deal with Brad Stevens' bunch of scorers. Al Horford returned to the top five as a power forward after Simmons 'injury, and it's hard to see who he can keep among the Celtics' quarterbacks. Tobias Harris is also not very agile and Shake Milton has never faced a defensive task of this magnitude. Ambide will have to be very dominant on defense as well, and Boston's chin battery should not cause him to move from the point and try to re-reveal Boston's old difficulty getting to the ring. If Ambide knows how to use talent since there is around him to make it difficult for Boston, maybe the Sixers heads will think again this summer about the troubling question about their two stars.

(4) Indiana Pacers - (5) Miami Heat

Will we get to see all the parts of Indiana connect one day? The franchise player version of Victor Oladipo, the all-star version of Domantas Savonis and the bubble version of TJ Warren? Along with Malcolm Brogdon, Miles Turner and Jeremy Lamb, this could be a great team. In the meantime, we will have to settle for another partial version, with Oladipo rubbing and Savonis injured, in a team that came to the bubble as a future runner and found itself winning much more than expected.

In the first round Indiana will meet the unique Miami, a team that has formed an identity for itself throughout the year and has become in a bubble another potential black horse. Jimmy Butler and Andre Iguodala will make it clear to Warren what happens when you get a superstar treatment in the playoffs. Duncan Robinson has become the scariest threesome expert in the bubble, Tyler Hiro sometimes looks like his twin, Goran Dragic always looks smarter than anyone who tries to keep him, if Adbayo eats Miles trainers for breakfast. Indiana has a good enough coaching staff to find scorers in Eric Spolstra's machine and enough cross-talent to create an egalitarian series, but Miami is the team that will be more interesting to see progress in the playoffs, also because it stands out as Milwaukee's kryptonite.