Brandon Rowley – Staff Writer
The quest for the Larry O’ Brien trophy is in full play. The NBA playoffs have been going on since mid-April, and we are now at the start of the Eastern and Western conference finals. In the West we have Nuggets vs. Lakers and in the east, Celtics vs. Heat.
But before we look towards the future, let’s take a look back on how we got to this point. The first teamn to qualify were the Denver Nuggets.
Led by the 2021 and 2022 MVP Nikola Jokic, the Nuggets are looking to make their first finals appearance in franchise history. In the first round, Denver took down Karl-Anthony Towns and the Minnesota Timberwolves 4-1 as they outscored and out-rebounded them to take on the Suns.
Devin Booker and Kevin Durant of the Phoenix Suns still couldn’t muster enough as they fell to the Nuggets 4-2.
The next team up are the local favorites, The Los Angeles Lakers. After a historic season by Lebron James, passing Kareem-Abdul Jabaar in all-time points, he and Anthony Davis are looking to bring their second championship to L.A. while James is looking for his fifth ring. In the first round, the Lakers upset the 2-seed Grizzlies sending Ja Morant, who apparently isn’t “fine in the west”, in six games.
Their next matchup was highly anticipated as another episode of the Lebron-Curry rivalry ended in another six game matchup as the Lakers advanced to the next round Now onto the East where we have our biggest surprise: the Miami Heat.
Miami struggled in the regular season, leading them to the 8-seed where they had to take on the 1 team in Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks. Jimmy “Himmy” Butler went on to shock the world with a 56-point performance leading Miami to a 4-1 series win over the Bucks, only the 5th eight seed
to beat a one seed.
The Heat would keep this surge going as they took down an old rival in Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks to be the second eight seed to go to the ECF, and their third conference final appearance in the last four years.
Our Final team to qualify are the Boston Celtics. Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown solidly took down Trae Young and the Hawks 4-2 before taking on the current MVP in Joel Embiid and the 76ers.
A back and forth series with a couple of great games by 76er James Harden, the series would eventually be capped off by a 51-point game by Tatum in Game 7.
The last four teams remaining are the same four from the Conference Semifinals in the 2020 “Bubble” Playoffs and with these four teams left, my official prediction is that the Celtics will beat the Heat in 7 while the Nuggets will beat the Lakers in 6, leading to a matchup of a first-time finalist, and a team who has been there plenty of times.
I believe the Celtics will become this year’s Champion, earning Tatum’s and Brown’s first championship, and the franchise’s 18th.