{"id":917,"date":"2017-05-08T12:38:57","date_gmt":"2017-05-08T16:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inside.gcschool.org\/gracegazette\/?p=917"},"modified":"2017-05-08T12:38:57","modified_gmt":"2017-05-08T16:38:57","slug":"nba-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/nba-playoffs\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year\u2019s NBA playoffs is nothing short of exciting playoff basketball action, with so many great matchups that have already happened, and even greater ones to come. Despite the fact that many of the league\u2019s stars were knocked out in the first round (Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul, Jimmy Butler, Damian Lillard, Paul George) the conference finals and NBA finals will surely bring more must-watch basketball.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the first round, we saw an impressive comeback as the Boston Celtics were down 2-0 in their series against the Chicago Bulls. They managed to overcome the deficit, winning four straight games to finish the best of seven series 4-2. Isaiah Thomas, Celtics star point guard, was recovering for the duration of the series from the tragic death of his sister Chyna in a car <\/span>accident<\/span><\/a>. He managed to pull through and perform for the Celtics when they needed him most. The Celtics continued their hot streak to go up 2-0 in their second round matchup against the Washington Wizards, but John Wall and Bradley Beal led their team to bounce back in games 3 and 4 to even the series.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers had little difficulty defeating the Indiana Pacers, as they coasted to a 4-0 sweep. In the second round, despite facing star playmakers Kyle Lowry and Demar DeRozan, the Cavs completed their second consecutive sweep, beating the Toronto Raptors 4-0. After the series, many of Toronto\u2019s players and their coach attributed the loss to Lebron James, claiming that he is simply unstoppable in the postseason. The defending champion Cavaliers will face the winner of the Wizards\/Celtics series, but they will have extra time to practice since they finished the second round so quickly.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Western Conference, which has been generally better than the Eastern Conference in recent history, featured action-packed matchups in the first round. The Golden State Warriors, number 1 seed and defending conference champions, took out the Portland Trail Blazers 4-0 with ease, although Blazers\u2019 point guard Damian Lillard did all he could to keep his team afloat. The Warriors are the favorite to win the western conference again, due to their accumulation of Kevin Durant, former MVP \u00a0in free agency last summer. They currently hold a 3-0 lead over the Utah Jazz in the second round. The Jazz made it this far by beating Chris Paul and the Clippers in the first round. Gordon Hayward\u2019s shooting will be key for the Jazz as they fight to regain ground in a tough series against Golden State. <\/span><\/p>\n

The two most qualified MVP candidates faced off in the first round, when James Harden and the Houston Rockets took on Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder. The series didn\u2019t live up to the hype surrounding it, as the Rockets dominated the Thunder 4-1. The Rockets are currently in a series against the San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs, led by the energetic and explosive Kawhi Leonard, are the favorite in this series, but are definitely being challenged as they are tied 2-2 with the rockets, with the series coming back to San Antonio for game five.<\/span><\/p>\n

The rest of the NBA Playoffs will definitely be entertaining, and it will be interesting to see who ends up claiming the title in the NBA Finals. For now, the teams that remain are just focused on making it there.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year\u2019s NBA playoffs is nothing short of exciting playoff basketball action, with so many great matchups that have already happened, and even greater ones to come. Despite the fact… Continue reading “NBA Playoffs”<\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"appful":[],"class_list":["post-917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9uEnr-eN","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917"},{"taxonomy":"appful","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/appful?post=917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}