Bold Predictions For 2023 NBA Playoffs And Play-In Tournaments
Winning during the regular season in the NBA puts a team on notice.
Winning during the postseason however puts a team into the league’s history books, as all it takes is 16 wins in the playoffs to hoist the Larry O’Brian Championship Trophy into the air.
Well, at least this is true for 12 teams in both conferences, as the 7-seeds and 8-seeds have yet to be determined via the Play-In Tournament and they would have to win either 17 or 18 games to claim a championship!
The 2023 NBA Playoffs are upon us and so much could transpire over the next two-and-a-half months.
Are the Milwaukee Bucks the team to beat? Can the Boston Celtics make it back to the NBA Finals? What do we make of the defending champion Golden State Warriors? Will the Denver Nuggets finally break through in the Western Conference as the 1-seed?
All of these questions and more will be answered over the next several weeks and without further ado, here are my five bold predictions for the 2023 NBA Postseason:
At Least One Play-In Team Wins An Actual Playoff Series
Since the NBA added the Play-In Tournament in 2020, even though it really started in 2021, no team that has been awarded the 7-seed or 8-seed via play-in games has ever won an actual playoff series.
The Minnesota Timberwolves and New Orleans Pelicans gave their opponents a run for their money in last year’s playoffs, yet they came up short of actually winning their series.
This “play-in curse” ends this season, as at least one team that participates in either the Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament or Western Conference Play-In Tournament will win their first-round playoff series.
Essentially, either a 7-seed or 8-seed will upset the 2-seed or 1-seed in either conference this year.
Why am I so confident in this?
Well, there is always a chance that one of the East play-in teams goes on a run, but let’s be real, none of those four teams in the Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament are beating either the Bucks or the Celtics.
Sure, it could happen, but it is not going to.
The upset this year is going to occur in the Western Conference, as those teams currently seeded 7-10 could have easily been in the actual playoff picture right now if they picked up another win or two during the regular season.
COMPLETE 2023 NBA PLAYOFFS SCHEDULE & RESULTS: CLICK HERE
Both the Denver Nuggets and Memphis Grizzlies are the two top teams in the conference, and rightfully so, but the West has been extremely competitive all season long and all four of the teams in the Western Conference Play-In Tournament are dangerous.
The Los Angeles Lakers are the ultimate “wild card” at the 7-seed right now and should they defeat the Timberwolves in that 7-seed play-in game, Memphis will have their hands full. Not only will they have to come up with a plan to stop LeBron James, who just had one of the best seasons of his career at 38-years-old despite only playing in 54 games, but they will have to try and stop Anthony Davis without both Steven Adams and Brandon Clarke.
With their added depth in D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Rui Hachimura, Mo Bamba and the emergence of Austin Reaves as a secondary scorer offensively, Los Angeles is one of the hottest teams in the league right now and a group nobody wants to have to see in a seven-game series.
Minnesota could also cause some headaches for Memphis given their size with both Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert. Not to mention, that Minnesota-Memphis rivalry is real and getting a second-chance at playing the Grizzlies could be the biggest motivational factor for the Timberwolves.
Either the New Orleans Pelicans or Oklahoma City Thunder will be eliminated when they play this week, but both teams have the ability to stretch a series out. The Pelicans proved this a season ago when they took the 1-seeded Phoenix Suns to six games in their first-round series and the Thunder are a young, energetic team that has one of the best one-on-one scorers in this league in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Maybe I will be wrong and you all can laugh at me when the first-round of the playoffs are over, but when the Lakers, Timberwolves, Thunder or Pelicans are sitting in the Western Conference Semifinals, I’ll be sure to say, “I told you so!”
Boston And Milwaukee Lose A Combined One Game In The First-Round
The Milwaukee Bucks enter the playoffs with the best record in the league. The Boston Celtics enter the playoffs with the second-best record in the league.
Ipso facto, the Bucks and the Celtics are the two best teams in the NBA vying for championships.
Looking at the Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament, it is really hard to find any team that has what it takes to beat either the Bucks or Celtics in a seven-game series.
The Miami Heat have been too inconsistent all season long to be considered real threats, the Atlanta Hawks continue to be a team you shrug your shoulders at, the Toronto Raptors look like a group that has given up on the coaching staff and front-office and the Chicago Bulls have already booked their flights to Cancun.
Both Milwaukee and Boston have a really good chance to sweep their respective first-round playoff series and at least one of them will.
COMPLETE 2023 NBA PLAYOFFS SCHEDULE & RESULTS: CLICK HERE
In fact, the Celtics and Bucks will enter the Eastern Conference Semifinals with a combined 8-0 record or a combined 8-1 record.
They are just too dominant of teams and while they may overlook their first-round opponents at some points in their respective series, none of those four teams competing in the Play-In Tournament have the firepower to take down Giannis Antetokounmpo or Jayson Tatum and their squads more than once.
Maybe the Play-In teams will get lucky and steal a game against either the Bucks or Celtics at home, but we should expect both Eastern Conference juggernauts to successfully enter the Eastern Conference Semifinals with little to no blemishes on their resumes.
Donovan Mitchell Reminds The Knicks That They Should Have Traded For Him
Remember during the offseason when Donovan Mitchell was rumored to be going to the New York Knicks?
Well, that never happened and Mitchell instead ended up with the Cleveland Cavaliers, which has looked like the picture-perfect landing spot for both parties! Donovan Mitchell has had an MVP-like year with the Cavaliers this season and entering the playoffs, he has all the motivation in the world to succeed, especially given that Cleveland is playing New York in their first-round playoff series.
In four games against New York this season, Mitchell has averaged 31.8 points, 7.5 assists and 4.8 rebounds while shooting 50.6 percent from the floor and 46.8 percent from three-point range. Mitchell even recorded 42 points and six made threes in his last game against the Knicks this season on March 31.
The point is, Donovan Mitchell loves to play against the Knicks and in the playoffs, he is going to elevate his play to a whole new level.
COMPLETE 2023 NBA PLAYOFFS SCHEDULE & RESULTS: CLICK HERE
In the 2020 NBA Bubble, Mitchell averaged 36.3 points per game and looked like the best scorer in the NBA. I truly would not be shocked if the Cavaliers' All-Star has yet another massive performance in the postseason like he did in the bubble and it would not come as a surprise if he records at least three games in this series with at least 40 points!
Mitchell loves playing in Cleveland, he has an incredible supporting cast around him and he gets to play against the New York Knicks, an organization he grew up watching and cheering for when he was a kid in New York.
All the stars are aligning for Donovan Mitchell to have a historic playoff series against the Knicks.
No Team In The Western Conference Sweeps Any Series
It’s called the Wild, Wild West for a reason folks!
Very little separated the top of the Western Conference from those in the Play-In Tournament this season, which is why the playoffs are going to be all over the place in the West.
The Lakers, Timberwolves, Pelicans and Thunder are all more than capable of winning games in a first-round series this season and looking at the two matchups we already know about, neither of those series will end in a sweep!
In the 3-seed vs. 6-seed matchup, the Sacramento Kings are more than capable of hanging around with the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors and they have earned the right to host the Warriors in this first-round series.
COMPLETE 2023 NBA PLAYOFFS SCHEDULE & RESULTS: CLICK HERE
Golden 1 Center in Sacramento is going to be packed, it is going to be loud and the Kings are going to give the Warriors everything they have.
Looking at the other matchup, the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Clippers split their four regular season matchups this season and even without Paul George, the Clippers still have plenty of depth and experienced veterans who are ready to contribute on the league’s biggest stage. If there is one thing we know, it is to never count out a team led by Kawhi Leonard!
There are just no scenarios in which any Western Conference team sweeps their series in the first-round of the playoffs and looking at the playoff picture as a whole, there will be no sweeps in any Western Conference series this year.
One Of The League’s Established Superstars Wins ANOTHER Title
Every team has a superstar but that’s not what we are talking about here.
We are talking about Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Kawhi Leonard and LeBron James. One of these five stars will be adding a ring to their trophy cabinet and quite honestly, any of these stars will likely be named Finals MVP as well should their team win it all in June.
It just seems destined for the Bucks and Celtics to meet in the Eastern Conference Finals and even if the Philadelphia 76ers are able to take down the Celtics in their second-round series, it is hard to see a scenario in which the Bucks do not make it out of the East.
COMPLETE 2023 NBA PLAYOFFS SCHEDULE & RESULTS: CLICK HERE
Who knows, maybe Cleveland or New York can shock the world and make it to the Eastern Conference Finals, but if they do, that will open up the door for the champions of the Western Conference.
Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard have all won titles over the course of their respective Hall-of-Fame careers and no matter how you splice the West, at least one of these stars will be in the Western Conference Finals.
Durant and Leonard will face one another in their team’s first-round series and Curry could very well face LeBron in the Western Conference Semifinals depending on where the Lakers end up in the Play-In Tournament.
When you look at the West, one main thing that sticks out is that none of the teams seeded 1-5 have ever won a championship in the modern era and as of right now, the only team in the Western Conference Playoffs to have won a title are the Golden State Warriors, as the Lakers have yet to actually claim their playoff spot and Minnesota, New Orleans and Oklahoma City have never won a championship.
The Thunder organization won a championship in 1979 as the Seattle SuperSonics, but the franchise has never done so in Oklahoma City.
Championship experience matters in the playoffs and in a crowded Western Conference, the rings that Durant, Curry, Leonard and James have will stick out. One of these four superstars could very likely face off with Giannis in the NBA Finals, giving us yet another dialogue to talk about in regards to one of the league’s best adding another championship to their name.
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