3 out of 4 underdogs win in in first games of the NBA semi-finals

I think at this point I am just going to encourage everyone to not listen to anything that I claim to know henceforth. The semifinals in the NBA playoffs looked about like what you would expect, with the xcdption of both Golden State and Minnesota making it past their higher ranked opponents. All other matchups from that point forward went the way that you would expect them to with the one exception being that Denver barely edged out the clippers going to game 7 in order to make it though. They were also the 4th and 5th seeded teams to there really isn't that much of an expected difference between those two.

Things really started to get weird in the semi-finals though where all teams that were lower ranked ended up winning their respective games.

src

This must have been very disappointing to the sold-out crown in Cleveland who probably paid an absolute fortune to be there. They were likely still riding high from having absolutely obliterated the Miami Heat, and were expecting more of the same. I don't know exactly, but I do know that that Indiana made it past them in game 1, which surprised everyone.

Then we have Oklahoma City, who is widely regarded as the future Champions of the NBA this year who went up against the Denver Nuggets yesterday and like most people, I didn't bother to watch the game because I just presumed it was going to be a blowout. Never think that I guess because upsets are happening left and right at the moment.

src

Having Nikola Jokic on your team is a very real reason to never count out Denver. This guy is a generational talent whose position is a center, but I don't think I have ever seen a guy who can nail points from basically anywhere like he can. Let's go back in time and give the ball to a true center like Robert Parish or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and see how many 3 pointers they can make. My guess would be on this number

src

How do you guard a guy that can make the shots from anywhere? The opposition has to be very careful with who they charge with guarding him because the combination of super-tall and strong guy that can handle him in the paint as well as a fast and agile guy that can follow him to the point or even the arc, well there just isn't anyone that can do that job even for OKC. This is why Jokic scored 42 points and will likely continue to do so for the rest of the season.

You have to go back a long time in history to find anyone that is 6 foot 11 that has ball control like Jokic as well as the ability to shoot from anywhere. Shaq? Pfft, Yao Ming? no chance. I think you would have to go back to Wilt Chamberlain to get close and he was actually 7 foot 1 but didn't really have the ball handling skills that Nikola has.

once again we can see that basically everyone thought that this OKC / Denver game was going only one possible way until it wasn't going that way. While I stand by my statement that almost all NBA games are determined in the final 5 minutes of the 4th, this game saw OKC being a near 100% favorite to win the entire game until the last few minutes. If you can watch the last 5 minutes of that game while somehow skipping the commercial breaks and timeouts, that is something that is definitely worth seeing.

That is insane to go from 10 points down, to winning the game in 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

Denver will need to do less of really turning it on in the final moments if they want to advance.

Then we have Boston vs. New York, whose game 2 is going on while I am writhing this. Seeing as how it a 2 vs 3 seed game, I don't know if I would really consider the 3 seed winning and upset, but the Knicks did win in OT surprising most people. There's a reason why these games are a series of 7 games but it would be a lot of fun to consider if they weren't. If these games were decided in a single match like they do in NCAA games, I think the playoffs would be insane and minor injuries or foul trouble would mean a ton more than they currently do.