The NBA’s bubble has been an unbelievable success so far and now it’s about to get a whole lot more fun.
The most important thing thus far, obviously, is that there haven’t been any positive COVID tests and everyone seems to be healthy and ready to get even more serious with the stakes kicking up a whole lot of notches.
These games have been pretty easy to watch on TV, even without any fans in the crowd. If you watched Saturday’s play-in game, which should become a permanent thing, then you felt how intense these games can be as Portland and Memphis battled down the stretch before the Carmelo Anthony hitting a huge shot in the final minute and then getting lots of apologies from people on Twitter.
It was all awesome.
Now, starting today, things get even more awesome with the start of the playoffs.
There are a number of reasons why this unique playoff situation is going to be fantastic, starting with just a look at today’s games. We have four of them, starting with the Jazz and Nuggets at 1:30 p.m. ET.
Monday afternoon (or morning out here on the West Coast) NBA playoff basketball?
Yes, please!
That’s pretty much going to be the schedule all week long, which means we’re all going to get to watch a lot of playoff basketball games, games that should all be just as intense as a “regular” year. The NBA is going to be the thing this week, which is really smart for a league that continues to get it.
Speaking of the Trail Blazers, we get to see Damian Lillard, who has been unstoppable in the bubble, and Co. take on LeBron James and the No. 1 seed Lakers in the first round. Will Los Angeles win this series? Yeah, probably. But it’s still going to be fun to see what Dame, ‘Melo and CJ McCollum (who was awesome on Saturday) can do to a team that is favored to win the NBA title.
We get to see if the Boston Celtics can put the rival Sixers away, which could possibly lead to the team being broken up.
We get to see Kawhi Leonard doing Kawhi Leonard playoff things when the Clippers face Luka Doncic and the Mavs.
We get to see Chris Paul face his former team (Houston) in what should be a fun series between the Thunder and Rockets.
But most importantly, we get to see so much basketball, something we missed so much before the restart in Orlando. And now we get a playoff push unlike one we’ve ever witnessed before.
It’s time to sit back, push your work aside, and turn that TV on.
Because this is gonna be so much fun.
(AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) ORG XMIT: FLMP111
The Miami Marlins manager had a profanity-laced argument with an umpire and all of his dirty words were picked up on live TV, which was so great. Donny Baseball had some tremendous lines, the ump had a few, too, and the announcers wrapped it up perfectly. We are living in the golden age for hot mics!
– Speaking of hot mics, Detroit Tigers manager Rob Gardenhire was ejected from Sunday’s game and was told to “get the (blank) out of here” by the ump.
– Henry McKenna has his NFL power rankings… which has the Bucs ahead of the Patriots.
– A Cardinals reliever made the wrong kind of history in his MLB debut on Sunday.
– Ryan Newman had a heartfelt message to Daytona’s emergency crews in his first return to the track this past weekend.
– Alex Smith is back playing football for Washington and his family had the best celebration.
