OK, now can we all admit that the first round of these NBA playoffs was a little tame? Sure, there was a bit of drama here and there, but in the end all eight series chalked up, with barely a seven-game series and few serious doubts beyond Game 3.
Aside from the lack of intrigue in the second week, there just wasn’t much fire. Boston-Brooklyn got a little heated, but even that was more between Kyrie Irving and the Celtics fans than anything evil brewing on the field.
Well, that second round, on the other hand…that’s the playoffs.
As our David Aldridge noted, the defense-first ugliness of Milwaukee-Boston Game 3 was a very special kind of playoff excellence that required fighters to step up their game.
But an even deeper current runs through this second round, and it’s a mutual dislike that borders on hatred. These teams quickly realized that they didn’t like each other very much, and they liked the referees even more. Familiarity breeds contempt, as the saying goes, and the more these teams see each other, the angrier they get at each other and the moodier they get when officiating.
Historically, Game 4 is usually the culmination of hostilities in a playoff series. Go back in history and you’ll see virtually every major playoff uproar in Games 3, 4, or 5. Before that point, not enough animosity had built up between the two sides. After that, there’s just too much at stake.
This is especially true for series that are competitive, which all four conference semifinals are. Two of the series are tied in Game 5 with two games each, while the other two are 2-1 in favor of the lower seeded team. Given the stakes, it’s a scenario tailored for high levels of hostility.
In a related story… we caught some animosity. The volume has increased so much that the real star of this second round – Shooting Variance – can hardly say a word. It’s all a bit ridiculous and desperate, but it’s also amazing. It was also amazing to see how quickly the energy shifted from the opponents to the arbiters of the rules. These teams may be playing against each other, but at the moment everyone has the referees in their crosshairs.
It doesn’t take much time on the interwebs to find reasons for complaints from all eight remaining teams. In some cases, the League itself provided the match. For example, Boston and Milwaukee fans are apoplectic over a final two-minute report of Saturday’s Game 3 that included five separate errors, not including the two games that many observers thought were errors but were ruled correct by the league. The Celtics were particularly upset that a late foul on Marcus Smart was said to have taken place before he had started his 3-point shooting movement and were puzzled by the block charge rule and its application to Giannis Antetokounmpo and Grant Williams collisions.
The Bucks, however, shot half as many free throws as Boston and, in longstanding playoff tradition, attempted to offer a free throw deficit as prima facie evidence that they were the wrong party in the game. Milwaukee GM Jon Horst doused those sentiments with an early Festivus gift by voicing a series of grievances about playing with The Athletic’s Eric Nehm.
We’re really breaking new ground here when a manager of the winning team risks a fine by calling his administration “outrageous” and begins a detailed breakdown of how his team was wronged. Again, for those in the background, a free throw inequality isn’t some kind of smoking gun that your team screwed up, and there’s no rule dictating that every team has an equal number of fouls. In fact, the opposite is often the case: Free-throw difference is the canary in the bill that a team was outplayed.
Meanwhile, after a bouncy Game 4 that ended the series, Dallas and Phoenix fans are outraged by the flop of (pick one: Luka Dončić, Devin Booker) and absolutely angered by the unfair treatment of (pick one one: Dwight Powell, Chris Paulus). The Suns and Mavs were so pissed Sunday that we had three technical fouls before halftime, including a play where Booker was fouled by Powell but also received a technical foul for hitting Powell.
But the series with the highest emotional scale might be that between the Grizzlies and the Warriors, one that included blatant fouls in each of the first two games. Hoping to keep that spirit alive, the Golden State and Memphis fans spent their weekend furiously zaprowing by playing nothing involving Jordan Poole and Desmond Bane, firmly believing that everyone with maliciously intended to mutilate his opponent’s knees.
Of course, we dialed up to that point after Draymond Green’s flagrant left-right against Brandon Clarke in Game 1 and Memphis’s Dillon Brooks flagrantly fouled Gary Payton II on a breakaway in Game 2, knocking Payton out of the series with a break elbow and earned Brooks a one-game suspension. The Grizzlies fish to no avail after Ja Morant’s knee was pinched by Poole in Game 3, and Morant’s dodgy Game 4 status as a result of that game adds another layer to the emotions.
All of this and I haven’t even mentioned The Code yet. While Steve Kerr’s word choice immediately conjures up images of “unwritten rules” and baseball managers fuming at the inappropriate etiquette of stolen bases in a five-run game, there is an underlying reality here. Getting hit from behind on a fast break in mid-air is every basketball player’s greatest fear, because all you can do is hope that the inevitable violent impact with the ground will occur in a way that avoids limbs on impact to get broken.
And somehow, the show that everyone complains about the least is the one that involves shameless villains James Harden, Jimmy Butler, Joel Embiid, and Kyle Lowry, and has Doc Rivers and PJ Tucker throwing their arms in the air after every whistle throw . That can’t possibly last, right?
Speaking of which, a note about the Zebras: Turning down playoff games is hard, y’all. The level of play does not only increase for the players. Between the increased intensity, the greater willingness to take some risks players don’t normally take, and the increased incentive to gain a temporary advantage by duping an official, the level of challenge in these games is far greater than in the regular season.
Everyone pushes the envelope as far as they can, leaving it to the officials to blow the whistle. In the same vein, some players do well in the regular season and get played off the floor in the playoffs, a not dissimilar thing that goes for league officials. There’s a reason they’re trimming the rotation as we get deeper into the postseason.
Last weekend’s playoff games showed us why. Everyone is angry and desperate, pushing the rulebook to the limit for whatever edge they can find. But that’s also what the playoffs are all about: turning up the heat as high as possible and seeing who avoids getting burned. Everyone’s mad at everyone right now, and I love it.
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Kawakami: Why the Warriors don’t care what the Grizzlies say
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(Photo: Ross Cameron / USA Today)