2018-19 NBA Conference Finals

Blazers - Warriors
Damien Lillard is balling, CJ McCollum has had some of that Lillard shine rub off on him, Rodney Hood has had a resurgence, Enes Kanter is jitterbugging around the basket pretty good right now, Al-Farouk Aminu is a pretty good defender, Mo Harkless and Evan Turner have had moments, Seth Curry is a neat thing to have off the bench in this series, even Zach Collins showed up and gave good minutes in the last round (and did you realize Meyers Leonard had 30 FGA against the Nuggets? He took thirty shots?).  I like the way the Blazers play and when Lillard is commanding the attention, everyone else has room to have a good game, so this team really can hang with anyone.

Unfortunately, the Warriors are better than the Blazers even without Durant. Curry has been balling out again lately, Draymond is reborn (*), Klay was great on D against the Rockets (only so-so on offense), Iguodala looked as good as he's looked in a while and Kevon Looney looks like a legit part of the offense again; but Durant is gone (at least for a while), Cousins is gone (right?), Jerebko is nice but hasn't quite found his spot yet, Livingston has not looked good on either side in a while, Bogut is just for a few minutes at a time, McKinnie and Cook seem like nice guys. But Curry and Klay and Draymond are back in charge and that is, I think, a beautiful thing. All the Warriors need.

My gut was to go Warriors in 5 because I just can't make the case that the Blazers can win overall, so why not go ahead and finish them off quickly? But I'm not sure that follows because Lillard alone is dangerous. But...I feel like the Warriors will be up 3-1 after 4, so I gotta go Warriors in 5 (wouldn't be shocked if the Blazers won Game One). 


Raptors - Bucks
My pre-season pick was Raptors over Warriors, which was also my prediction going into the post-season, too, so it seems like that's what I'd go with here. Nope. The Bucks are better than the Raptors. I like the make-up of the Raptors...if they'd had more experience together. Gasol, especially, looks lost out there at times as do Ibaka and Green, throw in that Siakam is in a brand new place in his career and it seems like Lowry still hasn't quite calibrated all of his teammates to the game plan. They lived off a deep bench all season long but that's more or less gone now, so it all comes down to how quickly this core can come together. The fact that that's even something to worry about makes them no match for the Bucks.

Giannis is the undisputed center of the Bucks universe. When he's on, the rest of the supporting cast has room to make do their thing and contribute. If he's getting the calls, the Bucks are not gonna be beaten by the Raptors. If Giannis struggles to find his game, the Buck supporting cast is not enough to win, so the Raptors must stop Giannis. I don't see how they get that done. I don't see how the Raptors outperform Giannis, therefore I cannot make the case for the Raptors to win. I want these both of these matchups to closer but I just don't think they are. The Warriors and Bucks are better than their opponents. So, like the Warriors, I will take Bucks in 5.


(*) Draymond can get thrown out of any game at any given moment as reliably as anyone I've ever seen--even Rasheed Wallace had more sense of himself than this. As we see the refs increasingly get yelled at, dismissed or conferred with after every play, does Draymond shield a lot of other players to yap or does he close down the refs' desire to hear anything from anyone? Does he make a ref more or less reactionary? And how does that play out for everyone else on the court? I dunno, but I'll be watching that for as long as Draymond remains in these playoffs.