It lasted 174 days, requiring the use of more players than each season in history, mainly due to the continuing challenge of playing through the pandemic, and saw that the playoffs for play-offs reached the last moments.
Now, switch, regular season.
The NBA post-season is finally here.
Kyrie Irving may play at home again, a change in vaccination rules that was made a few weeks ago by New York City in a move that will have an immediate impact on the NBA title race. The Irving and Brooklyn Nets face the Indiana Pacers 134-126 on Sunday and will host the first game of this year’s tournament when they face the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night.
This match was not scheduled until Sunday, as was the other Eastern Conference match: No. 9 Atlanta will host No. Charlotte on Wednesday night. The winner of this game will play the losing Nets Cavaliers on Friday to determine who will face Miami’s No. 1 in the Eastern Round of the first round.
The winner of the Nets-Cavaliers will be ranked number 7 and will meet Boston or Milwaukee in the first round.
Charlotte will be without striker Gordon Hayward, announcing on Sunday that he is “out indefinitely with continuing discomfort in his left leg.” Hayward’s leg will be cast in at least two weeks, which means that if the Hornets win the playoffs twice and enter the postseason, he will likely miss most of the first round, at least.
In the Western Conference, the Minnesota Timberwolves will host the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday night, with the winner claiming No. 7.
The San Antonio Spurs will travel to New Orleans to face the Pelicans on Wednesday night, and the winner will face the losing Timberwolves-Clippers.
OTHER MACHOPES
By the end of the working Sunday, four series of the seven best from the first round will be determined.
Boston or Milwaukee will play No. 6 Chicago in the Eastern Series in the first round, and Philadelphia or Boston will play Toronto in another game in the East.
In the West, Golden State and Dallas will compete later Sunday to see who will be number 3, while Utah and Denver have a chance to be number 5.
CURRENT TITLE
Joel Embiid of Philadelphia is the league’s points champion with an average of 30.6 points. He was ruled out of the 76ers final on Sunday, not that he needed it for some statistical reason.
Cameroon-born Embiid became the first international player to win the title. Embid is also the first center to win the crown for goals since Shaquille O’Neal in 1999-2000.
COMPETITION UP TO 82
Only five players were in a position to play on Sunday and have officially appeared in all 82 regular-season games with their team this season: Michal Bridges of Phoenix, Sadique Bay of Detroit, Denny Avdia of Washington, Dwight Powell of Dallas and Keven Looney of Warriors.
Avdiya played at number 82, scoring 12 points on Sunday afternoon in the loss of the Wizards to Charlotte at the end of the season. Bridges, Bay, Powell and Looney had matches later on Sunday.
This will mark the smallest number of players in NBA history to appear in each game for a full regular season.
There were 11 players who played in all 72 games last season, which was cut short due to the pandemic. There were 14 players in every game in 2019-20, when teams played a different number of games, again due to the pandemic, and then not every team progressed to the restart balloon in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
Add Comment