The Best of the Day: May 9th, 2021

THIS SEASON’S PLAYOFFS ARE POISED TO HAVE MORE UPSETS THAN USUAL

This season has been unlike any other in many different ways. There was the whole restructuring of the league format due to COVID issues, and teams have had many star players missing time. These injuries have caused the standings to look a lot different than anticipated. Plenty of squads who haven’t had recent postseason success are at the top, and those who have proven themselves in playoff settings won’t benefit from many (if any) home-court playoff series this year, but will that prevent all these potential upsets?

The six through eight seeds in the West are full of proven winners. Portland has missed CJ McCollum this season, and is in sixth but made a run to the Conference Finals just two years ago. The reigning champions in LA have missed LeBron/AD and currently sit in a play-in position. Golden State hasn’t had Klay Thompson at all, has played games without Steph Curry, and is the most likely team to finish eighth. This is happening in the East too, with the reigning conference champs, Miami, in sixth as Jimmy Butler (among others) has missed significant time this year.

Now, at the top, it is full of teams who haven’t proven to have the same playoff success. None of the current one or two seeds in either conference have been to a conference championship game in at least 10 years. Phoenix did it in 2010, but both of the top teams in the East date back to the early 2000s. All of Utah, Phoenix, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn are on upset alert this postseason due to likely matching up with proven teams early on. 2021 has been a unique season already and it could very well end up with the most playoff upsets ever considering the caliber of teams with the lower seeds.  

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e61g12XfP9Q

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