So... Alright - NBA Playoffs

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

Geoff tells you who's going to win, so you can skip watching it and impress your friends with your knowledge.

So, I want to do something a little different today, and I hope it's fun for you. You'll be able to immediately check and see how I did, like, the second you're done listening to this. If you're not a big sports fan, the NBA postseason starts tonight. Today is Tuesday, April 16th, that I am recording this. The playoffs themselves don't technically start till the weekend, I believe. The 20th, yeah. So, but the play in tournament starts tonight,

and if that doesn't make any sense to you, I can explain it very easily and very quickly, and if it does make sense to you, I'll explain it very quickly and very easily so I don't bore you. The way the playoffs work in basketball you have an Eastern division and a Western division they each have 15 teams for a total of 30 teams historically the top eight teams on the

West and the top eight teams on the East enter into a playoff bracket where the the top eight teams on the East play each other till they whittle down to the best team. And then the same thing happens on the West. And then the best team on the West plays the best team on the East for the NBA championship. That still happens.

But there was a lot of stuff that had been kind of affecting, I guess people's enjoyment of this season and the playoffs. The NBA season's 82 games long, and what was happening was a lot of teams were not competing as hard as they could during the regular season. They were resting their star players because they knew half of the teams in their division

are going to advance into the playoffs. So as long as they're in the top eight of 15 teams, they're going to get to the playoffs. And if you're LeBron James, you really don't give a shit if you're the seventh team or the first team home court advantage matters. And the higher you see the more home court advantage you get in the playoffs. But at the end of the day, you just want to if you're supremely confident, like a Steve Kerr and a Steph Curry or LeBron James, you just want to get into the playoffs because once you're there, you're pretty confident that you can rise to the occasion and dominate the other teams.

So what has been kind of happening over years and years and years is the regular season has been mattering less and less. NBA did a lot of stuff to try to combat that. Some of it has worked, a lot of it hasn't. This has worked. The play-in tournament has worked. And so here's what happens. Instead of the top eight teams automatically advancing

on each side now, only the top six teams are gonna automatically advance to the playoffs. And then the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth place teams all enter into what's called the play-in tournament, which begins tonight. What happens is the 7th place team plays the 8th place team. And the winner of that game, boom,

they're now in the playoffs as the 7th seed. The loser of that game, they just hang tight for a second because the 9th place team and the 10th place team play each other. The loser of that game, they go to Disney World. The winner then gets to play the loser of that seven, eight game and the winner of that game becomes the eighth seed and the loser

goes and joins their friends at Disney World. What happens there is, it stops teams from doing another thing that was happening where say if you're in a close race for top three in your division, yes, if you finish first, you get ultimate home court advantage, which is a big deal, but it's mattered less and less over the last few years. What matters more is matchups,

especially early on in the playoffs, when you're not beat up yet, when you've got full energy and you don't want to get beat up and you're looking for an opponent you match up better with than maybe a different opponent. So like, like, let's say you're in a race, you're in third place and you could potentially get first place, but it looks like the eighth and the seventh

place teams are kind of rough, like you don't match up well against them. Your team is short and fast and they're big and strong and they're just going gonna beat you down or vice versa or for whatever reason, you'd rather play the sixth place team than the seventh or the eighth place team, even though they finished a little bit better, it just feels like you match up with them a little bit better and it increases your chances

of advancing in the playoffs. So maybe you don't try as hard on the last few games and you're happy getting third place, right? Instead of fighting to get second or first place. That shit's been happening for years too. It really kind of just invalidates a lot of the regular season and kind of makes it boring. What this new in-season tournament, sorry, not an in-season tournament. That's something totally different. Ignore that I said that. That didn't work out so well. The play-in tournament, it's confusing. The play-in tournament, it kind of shrouds

who the two worst teams in the playoffs, the seventh and eighth seed, are gonna be in mystery. It could be any of four teams. And you might be saying to yourself, well yeah, but shouldn't the seventh and the eighth team go because the ninth and the 10th team probably aren't as good as them? Not really because it's a long season

and coaches get fired and dynamics on teams change, players get hurt, players start hurt and come back from injury. And so there are a lot of times when the ninth or the 10th or the seventh or the eighth best team is actually a pretty fucking good Team that was riddled with injuries or had some sort of a turnover or tumult that affected their Their win-loss record but isn't reflective of how good they are, right?

And so it offers more teams a shot to get into the playoffs And it also makes it a little harder for the number one and the number two seed to kind of game the system to figure out who they're gonna go up against. So that starts tonight for me, April 16th. You're watching this or listening to this one week later. So you can Google right now and learn who won these games. I thought it might be fun.

I've been so busy dealing with the end of Rooseteeth and a bunch of other personal stuff and a lot of life changes. And yeah, I've been so busy dealing with the end of Rooseteeth and a bunch of other personal stuff and a lot of life changes. And yeah, I've been whining about it for weeks. I haven't had a lot of chance to pay attention to the last few weeks of the NBA. I've kept up with it, but I haven't really looked at the matchups

and I haven't sat down with it and thought who I think is gonna win. I mean, obviously it's the Celtics, but I gotta get there. I gotta game it out, right? And so I thought it might be fun to do it together and then you can immediately go and fact check me right now and know if I was right about the play-in games, right?

So here's what we have. I'm gonna start with the West and I'm gonna pick the winner of the play-in games. And then I'm gonna take it all the way through and give you my reasoning why I think the team that's gonna win is going to win. I'll tell you how many games I think they're gonna do it in. Give you a little bit of maybe a little bullshit

trivia so that maybe if you're stuck in a party and somebody's talking about it, you can throw two things out there and sound reasonably intelligent. And they'll be like, oh, shit, I didn't know Steve knew that much about the NBA. OK, number nine, the Sacramento Kings are playing number 10 Golden State Warriors. This should be a better game than it's going to be. Unfortunately, the Kings are missing two important players right now, Kevin Herter and Malik Monk, on top of the fact that they have been underperforming all year. And it's it's been kind of a consistent thing.

It's unfortunate because they have a great rivalry building with the Golden State Warriors. I mean, they're in Sacramento, Golden State's up there in San Francisco. They're very close to each other. And the Kings took them to seven games in their playoff series last year and really could have won it.

I think it was only the acumen and and this the experience that got Golden State over the hump. Golden State is a deprecated team this year from where they were last year. They've had chemistry issues early on. They're riddled with the Draymond Green drama. However, in true Golden State form, they have pulled it together in the last quarter of the season. Clay is playing less like the ghost of clay and more like clay again.

Steph is Steph, although he's he's proven to be human a little bit later in the season. I think he's getting pretty, pretty worn out, but they have some young, good rookie talent. And I don't think they're a great team and they're not going to go far in the playoffs, but I think they're going to beat the Kings, unfortunately, for Kings fans, because this should be this should have been a different year for them than they're going to then they're going to end up with. They shouldn't have been the ninth best team. They should have probably finished fourth or fifth,

and they should be guaranteed a playoff spot instead. I think they are going to lose this game to the Warriors, and they will unfortunately or fortunately get to go on vacation. So that leaves the Warriors playing the loser of the seven eight teams. That's going to be the seventh ranked New Orleans Pelicans with Zion Williamson and the number eight Los Angeles Lakers with LeBron James, Anthony Davis. Lakers are going to beat the Pelicans. This is what LeBron James is built for. This is where he turns it on.

I love the Pelicans. I think they're a fun team. They have a lot going for them, a lot more than just Zion going for them, who's actually very quietly become a really fucking great player this year. But the Lakers have two all-MBA players in LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

So it's hard to bet against that, especially in a inconsistently healthy, inconsistent season for the Pelicans. Now I know the Lakers have health issues too, but it's one of those situations again, where I think the Lakers are built for the playoffs and this is where they turn it on. Lakers are gonna for the playoffs and this is where they turn it on. Lakers are gonna beat the Pelicans.

Lakers will become the seventh seed in the playoffs. The Pelicans now will compete against Golden State for the eighth seed. And I think the Pelicans are gonna win. I think the Pelicans match up pretty well against Golden State and I think that they are gonna be licking their wounds from that LA loss and they're gonna be

pretty fucking mad about it. And so I think the Pelicans are going to take the eighth spot in the playoffs. All right, now let's do the East Coast. I hope this isn't too boring. I'll try to speed up. East Coast we have, I almost said Eathkoth. Eathkoth we have the number nine ranked bulls

versus the number 10 ranked hawks. Yawn, who cares? Bulls are gonna win that game. The cocks, what? The cocks? The hawks have zero chemistry. They have two point guards that hate each other that can't play well together.

They don't have much of a shot. Hawks are gonna blow it up next year, or at least they're gonna get rid of Trey Young probably. I think the Bulls advanced, but not very far. They're gonna end up playing the winner, or I'm sorry, the loser of the seventh and eighth place team, now this is a game. This is a fucking game.

Philadelphia 76ers are in seventh place, Miami Heat are in eighth place. Miami Heat are built for the playoffs. When I talk about teams that don't care about their regular season record, as long as they make it to the playoffs, that's all that matters to them. That is who I'm talking about.

But they are not the team they were last year or the year before the year before. Neither are the 76ers. 76ers should win this game. Joellen Bede has just come off of injury. He is, I wouldn't say to like his prime playing form yet, but he's gonna get there pretty quickly. They made some good trades.

I believe they got Harrison Barnes in before the trade deadline. Tyrese Maxey is playing like Tyrese Maxey. I see the 76ers winning this game and advancing as the seventh seed. The Miami Heat will then play the Bulls and it will not be close, they will destroy the Bulls and the Miami Heat will be the eighth seed in the playoffs.

Now we have our playoff picture set. I'm gonna take a second to quietly add that in. Okay, so now we have the number seven Los Angeles Lakers going up against the number two Denver Nuggets. The Denver Nuggets will win that in six games in advance. The Timberwolves, the third ranked Timberwolves will play the Phoenix Suns. They will beat them in six games.

That is gonna be a tough series. I can't believe I'm betting against Kevin Durant, especially for Timberwolves that have been consistent, but I just think they're too talented and I think this is their time to shine and this is their moment And I think that they are gonna win that very difficult series then we have the number five Dallas Mavericks playing the number four Los Angeles Clippers the Dallas Mavericks are gonna win that in seven games I'm pretty fucking confident about that maybe six But I think it goes seven not not worried about that at all

And then you end up with the Oklahoma City Thunder the number one ranked team going up against the eighth ranked New Orleans Pelicans, this is gonna be a fun series Thunder win it in five So then you have the Western Conference Semi Finals, where you got the Thunder, number one ranked Thunder going against the number five ranked Mavericks and the number three ranked Timberwolves

going against the number two ranked Nuggets. The Mavericks win against the Thunder in six games and the Nuggets win against the Timberwolves in seven games. Western Conference Finals, we are then left with the number five ranked Dallas Mavericks versus the number two ranked Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets win it in six games to go on to repeat to the NBA Finals

where they will play the winner of the East who I'm going to calculate for you now. Okay, so we're starting with the number seven ranked Philadelphia Phillies going up against the New York Knicks. Now the Knicks are without Julius Randall. I don't think it's gonna matter too much. I think they're gonna beat the Phillies in seven games.

The number three Milwaukee Bucks are gonna be going to the number six Indiana Pacers. This should be more fun than it's gonna be. The Bucks are gonna be starting without Giannis. We don't know if he'll play at all. He he pulled a muscle a couple days ago. He's definitely not gonna be starting in the first probably two games and I hope they take it easy with them because we don't want to repeat of what happened to Kevin Durant in the playoffs. But five, five years ago now, six years ago, the Pacers are fully healthy,

except Tyrese Halliburton is not the same player he was before his injury. And that's a real bummer. I think the Bucks are going to win this and six. Yeah. OK. That leaves us with the number four ranked Cleveland Cavaliers who have a lot of talent But are a mess against the number five ranked Orlando Magic. This is going to be a really really fun series Orlando Magic take it in seven games seven games Palo Bankero

cements Himself as a star in this playoff series. Okay, then we have the number one ranked Boston Celtics himself as a star in this playoff series. Okay, then we have the number one ranked Boston Celtics, woohoo, against the number eight Miami Heat. God fucking damn it, this is what you don't wanna see if you're a Celtics fan. These guys are our fucking nemesis over the last five years.

You know, our big enemies are obviously the Philadelphia 76ers and then the Lakers, but the goddamn Heat over the last half a decade have just been fucking under my skin, under our skin. However, the heat or not the heat this year, Eric Spolstra is, I'm sorry, sorry Spurs fans, but Eric Spolstra is the best coach in basketball right now. But the team is just not talented or deep enough

to beat the Celtics. Celtics take it in five. Oof. OK, now we have the Eastern Conference semi-finals. We have the number one Boston Celtics going up against the number five Orlando Magic, the Boston Celtics win it in six. The Milwaukee Bucks are still not fully healthy at this point against the New York Knicks who are still not fully healthy at this point. I think the Knicks take it from the Bucks in six.

Okay, so now we're left with the Eastern Conference Finals, the number one ranked Boston Celtics against the number two ranked New York Knicks. The Boston Celtics take it in a gentleman's sweep five games. Our NBA Finals are the number two ranked Denver Nuggets in the West versus the number one ranked Boston Celtics in the East. The Boston Celtics win in six games. They are our champion, as rightly so banner 18 is raised and I have now

officially cemented this into podcast history. This is my pick. These are my picks. These are my opinions. I came up with them in front of God and everyone everyone being you I have to stick with this. Feel free to I mean you can immediately go back and see how how close I am after you've got a week of playoffs here so how close do I get I have a feeling I'll probably get it like if not a hundred percent right like 96 percent right so fingers crossed fingers crossed all right oh wait on unalright so I completely forgot I'm supposed to give you a song of the

episode. The song of the episode is the I'll Carry On by Gene and the Team Beats from the 50s or the 60s. It's like a bluesy little rock number from a really interesting band. You should check them out. Now it's alright.