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At long last, the NBA playoff matchups are set in stone, and as always, the Western Conference figures to hit the ground running with the better entertainment.
All four West first-round matches should provide excellent entertainment, and it would be especially surprising if the 4-5 matchup between the Los Angeles Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies proved an exception.
With that series kicking off Saturday night at Staples Center in LA, here are five issues to be mindful of once the ball is jumped.
The Atlanta Hawks are going to lose to the New York Knicks tonight. The only question is by how much?
A victory would not be a good thing for Atlanta. They would move up to fifth place (along with a Chicago loss), and they would be setting themselves up for a second-round beatdown against the Miami Heat — if they were first able to defeat Brooklyn in Round One.
And no, the Hawks would not be the ones beating anybody down if they got past the Nets.
So all the drama Wednesday on the final night of the 2013-13 NBA regular season will be concentrated in Memphis and Los Angeles, where the only two games that will matter substantially are Jazz-Grizzlies and Rockets-Lakers.
Excluding the eighth seed in the Western Conference, all 15 of the other playoff spots are accounted for. Many of those teams, however, are still playing to determine their first round matchup.
With the Milwaukee Bucks dropping a game to the Charlotte Bobcats—on a night that the Boston Celtics overwhelmed the Orlando Magic—the eighth seed is no longer in question, and we now have the first matchup of the 2013 NBA Playoffs.
There have been exactly a dozen NBA trades made this season, from small to significant. Some teams wanted to clear up money, some teams wanted to continue rebuilding, while others took bold steps in ensuring present and future success on the court.
But in our society of instant gratification and unceasing competition, we almost have an unquenchable thirst for deciding winners and losers.
Chris Sheridan joins ‘The Eric Hasseltine Show’ on ESPN in Memphis to talk about the Memphis Grizzlies.
