The 2022 NBA Playoffs have finally arrived! After an unprecedented regular season featuring some of the close races in recent memory, a two-month march to the NBA championship of each of these 16 teams is expected on Saturday.
In the Western Conference, Donovan Mitchell and No. 5 seed Utah Jazz face No. 4 Dallas Mavericks, who are without franchise superstar Luka Doncic, knocked out of game 1 Saturday morning with a strained left calf. There is significant concern about Doncic's availability for Game 2 as well, sources told ESPN.
7 seeded Minnesota Timberwolves, who defeated the No. 7-No. Los Angeles Clippers. 8 play-in games, Jay Morant and No. 2 seed are in Memphis to face the Grizzlies, who finished this season with the league's second-best record - 56-26. In the last game, Nikola Jokic and No. 6 seed Denver Nuggets face No. 3 seed Golden State Warriors team in San Francisco, hoping to recapture it's dynastic past.
In the former, the No. 5 seed Toronto Raptors will face Joel Embiid, James Harden and the No. 4 seed Philadelphia 76ers, potentially without defensive star Matisse Thibouille for all three games in Toronto.
Our NBA experts are looking into it all. Here are the most important takeaways from each of the four games on the first day of playoff action.
No. 5 Utah Jazz vs No. 4 Dallas Mavericks
Game 1: Jazz 99, Mavericks 93: "We didn't have enough offensive power down the stretch."
It should come as no surprise that the Mavericks' offense erupted, while injured superstar Luka Doncic wore a hoodie and watched from the bench.
The Mavs' chances of advancing from the first round for the first time since the 2011 title race are a big hit if Doncic is chewing popcorn during games. Dallas' hopes of playoff success rest primarily on a showdown on its perennial MVP candidate, who is unlikely to be on Monday night for Game 2, as much as Doncic and Mavs' medical staff treat their left calf. Tried to accelerate. Filtrate. Dallas coach Jason Kidd called Doncic a "day to day," but the Mavs would be happy if he's ready to return until the series shifts to Salt Lake City.
The Mavs proved in their 99-93 Game 1 loss on Saturday that they can play the Jazz in the mud, especially coming back in double digits against a team that lost them. Utah's crime was ugly. Dallas prevented the NBA's top-ranked offense from getting All-Star big man Rudy Gobert to get a clean 3-point look and lobs—both from a refusal of weapons and All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell (on 10-off 32 points) Quite an achievement to make. 29 shooting) work so hard to score.
The Mavs' problem was, presumably, their crime even worse. Doncic led the NBA in utilization rate for the second consecutive season for good reason. He is just as good as anyone in the league at solving defences, prone to score on all three levels and is elite in setting up his teammates for dunks and 3s. And he is surrounded by role-playing players who excel at playing him – but are not apt to commit frequent offenses, especially with Gobert taking off the paint.
"He didn't score 100 points," Kidd said. "When you do that in today's basketball, it gives you a chance to win. We didn't have enough offensive power down the stretch."
No. 7 Minnesota Timberwolves vs. No. 2 Memphis Grizzlies
Game 1: Wolves 130, Grizzlies 117: Memphis won't be able to accumulate Minnesota's top-ranked offense
The Minnesota Timberwolves lit it up in Game 1 of their first-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies — and we shouldn't have expected less. The Wolves were the NBA's most dominant offense since New Year's. In Game 1, it was an attack that the Grizzlies - the league's third-ranked defense since New Year's - could not contain.
Minnesota's 130-117 victory was a demonstration in the depth of that offense's creativity. Anthony Edwards' first move put him in the center of the Memphis defense, but he was easily eliminated. He's a slasher who will keep the Grizzlies up at night for the next few weeks. In Game 1, he also did a lot of damage from outside - four 3-pointers. This is a player upping his game on a big platform.
Whatever plagued Karl-Anthony Towns as they struggled in Wolves' play-in win on Tuesday was extinguished on Saturday morning. He fired shots from deep, attacked from the perimeter, beat the Grizzlies' assist defense and powered with his winged touch around the basket. While facing the body on the nail, he kicked the ball back to the shooters in order to look good beyond the arc.
Wolves shared the ball, got quality looks on reversals and skip passes, and crashed the offensive glass. He kept his cool, picked his spots and hit big late shots.
The Grizzlies can take solace from the fact that they missed more than a dozen shot attempts in the immediate basket area in Game 1, something they're unlikely to do again. But to win the series, they'll need to figure out how to slow the wolves' locomotives, as any notion that grizzlies might use their physicality and rim protection to render Minnesota seem overly optimistic. it happens.
No. 5 Toronto Raptors vs No. 4 Philadelphia 76ers
Game 1: 76ers 131, Raptors 111: Tyrese Maxi could be key to Sixers reaching Eastern Conference finals
Until the start of the first-round series between the 76ers and the Raptors, all attention was focused on how James Harden would perform with his new team in his first post-season.
Game 1, however, saw a different guard emerge as the star of the game: second-year breakout star Tyres Maxie, who finished with 38 points on a 14-for-21 shooting.
And, following his latest impressive performance in a season full of him, his play poses an interesting question: Is it Maxi, not Harden, who is Philadelphia's second best player after Joel Embiid?
Anyone watching this game will have a hard time arguing otherwise. Harden played well, finishing with 22 points, five rebounds and 14 assists in 40 minutes. But he just went 2-for-10 on 2-point shots, and when he's not fouled on the rim, he looks short on offensive firepower.
However, Maxi has no such problems. The 6-foot-2 guard, already one of the fastest players in the NBA, has gone from settling for one floater after another as a rookie to repeatedly blast the rim at defenders. One reason for that? Influx of Space: After shooting only 30% per game on just 1.7 attempts from last season's 3, he has more than doubled his perimeter output, shooting 42.7% on more than four attempts per game.
On Saturday, Maxi went 5-for-8 from deep -- even with Toronto's flood guards in line. And while there were early concerns about how he would treat Harden, the arrival of the 10-time All-Star has exposed Maxi as a devastating slasher and scorer—a Raptors with no answer for Game 1. was not.
The rest post season 76 won't be that easy. They won't always have three turnovers in 48 minutes. They won't always hit 50% of their 3.
But they will have the speed and energy of a maxi. And if he continues to play like that, it could be he - not Harden - who is key to the 76ers eventually reaching the Eastern Conference Finals and beyond for the first time in two decades.