Cases for the Three Top Contenders in the East to Win the Conference
With the NBA Playoffs coming up, every team is gearing up to make a run at the NBA Championship. In the Eastern Conference, there are three teams that are head and shoulders above everyone else. The Bucks, Nets and the Sixers are the class of the Eastern Conference this season. The Sixers have the easiest road of the three, but the playoffs are unpredictable when two evenly matched teams play each other. Let us look at the cases for each team to make it to the finals.
Philadelphia 76ers:
via USA TODAY Sports
The Sixers will end up being the East’s number one seed. Outside of getting them home-court advantage throughout the Eastern Conference Playoffs, they will also get to avoid the Bucks and the Nets until the Conference Finals.
Joel Embiid was on pace to win MVP before suffering an injury that cost him two weeks of the season in March. He has picked up right where he left off at and the Sixers look ready to make it back to the finals for the first time in 20 years. Doc Rivers has Tobias Harris playing at a high level, while Ben Simmons is looking like the Defensive Player of Year front runner. They have the players to match up against the Nets or the Bucks, whichever team they will get in in the conference finals. The Sixers have been a top ten defense all season and that will be important come playoffs as they will have to go through some high-powered offenses.
Brooklyn Nets:
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The Nets in combination have the most unstoppable trio in the NBA, when healthy. That’s been the issue for them this season but James Harden is scheduled to come back by the beginning of the playoffs. That’s bad news for the rest of the East and for the league. In the seven games that Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant have played together, they are 5-2 and have the highest offensive rating in NBA history. None of the playoff teams have three guys capable of getting 40 points in any game like the Nets. When healthy, the Nets will be almost impossible to stop.
They’ve played the Bucks two times in the past week and the Bucks barely beat them both times. Harden did not play in either game. They lost the season series against Philly, but they haven’t played the Sixers yet at full strength either. The last time they played, the Nets almost pulled off a comeback despite Durant and Harden not playing, and Irving on the bench when the Nets staged their comeback. In the playoffs, Irving most likely won’t be on the bench in those types of situations.
Milwaukee Bucks:
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The Bucks have come into this season on a mission to finally make it to the NBA Finals. They went all in by trading away Eric Bledsoe, George Hill, three future first-round picks and two additional draft pick swaps in order to get Jrue Holiday. They also recently acquired P.J Tucker from the Rockets. The Bucks have been trying new things so that they don’t get shut down in the postseason like they have been the last two times they were eliminated. While they might not be dominating the regular season like they have been the past two years, however, they look more prepared for the playoffs with multiple ways to attack, rather than the same game plan the last two years. They are still top ten in offensive and defensive efficiency this season.
However, the key to all things regarding the Bucks is still the two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo. He is still putting up MVP caliber numbers, and he’s played well against both the Sixers and Nets this season.
The Nets have no answer for him. Giannis averaged almost 40 a game in the three regular-season matchups against the Nets. While the Nets weren’t at full strength for all three games, adding Harden and Irving back isn’t going to give them any help against Giannis.
Embiid didn’t play in two of the three games this season against the Bucks, but in the one game he did play in, Giannis had 27 points__ and 16 rebounds. The Bucks have shown that they can match up well with the other two teams.
