Last year, the NBA post-season was mostly riveting before it was capped by the San Antonio Spurs’ five-game rout of the Miami Heat in the NBA finals.
If fans are lucky, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors will be able to reverse that form this season.
In the middle of the 2014/15 season, it was felt, pretty ubiquitously it seemed, like the NBA was headed for a rollicking play-offs.
The Western and Eastern conferences were not equal, but it was thought that the play-offs within each conference would be tight.
It has not worked out that way.
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Only two series have gone the seven-game distance, compared to five last year, but even that number would be misleading to the overall competitiveness in these match-ups.
In the East, four of the seven pairings have gone at least six games, but in three of those (Brooklyn-Atlanta, Milwaukee-Chicago and Chicago-Cleveland) the bark of the underdogs was felt more than their bite.
In the West there have been two exciting series, only one characterised by great basketball. The Clippers’ collapse from a 3-1 lead to let the Rockets into the Western Conference finals was memorable, no doubt, but Los Angeles blew out Houston in three of the first four before James Harden and co returned the favour with three romps in succession to win the series.
Only the first-round match-up between the Clippers and San Antonio Spurs consistently provided a worthy showcase for basketball.
Some teams do deserve credit. The Washington Wizards had a 2-1 lead on the Atlanta Hawks in the Eastern Conference semi-finals and were unlucky to lose three pretty close contests thereafter. The Memphis Grizzlies put the Warriors on edge with a 2-1 lead in the Western Conference semi-finals before Golden State cracked their strategy and won the next three games.
But the finals participants tell the story well enough on their own. The Warriors have only lost three games to get to this point, the Cavaliers two. The respective conference finals were a 4-0 mismatch and a 4-1 affair that could have been more.
“Could have been more” could be the theme of the entire post-season.
The roster of high-profile players playing at less than 100 per cent or out injured has been a big one. Portland’s Wes Matthews, Cleveland’s Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, Memphis’s Mike Conley, Los Angeles’s Chris Paul, Washington’s John Wall and Atlanta’s Kyle Korver all missed at least some game-time this post-season.
And those are just the stars. The Rockets were without two important role players, Donatas Motiejunas and Patrick Beverley. Others, like Al Horford, Pau Gasol and Joakim Noah played despite being less than healthy.
Teams have been sapped and often pitted against healthier clubs. That is, in a kind of literal sense, just the luck of the draw.
The bright side is that last year’s stirring post-season gave way to a decidedly one-sided finals. Cleveland and Golden State have one last chance to salvage some great basketball out of the 2015 post-season.
jraymond@thenational.ae
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