NBA 2023/24 PLAYOFFS: Two sweeps in the Western Conference
Whether we’re talking about the National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Baseball (MLB), or the National Hockey League (NHL), a sweep in the playoffs is something that no team wants to experience.
Teams that make the post-season boast the honour of being regarded as the best the respective league can offer, and being swept takes a lot of the shine off the glory.
Making it to the playoffs is no easy feat, and the NBA post-season is no exception. There are 30 teams in the NBA — 15 in each conference — and only the top eight teams from each conference have a place in the gruelling best-of-seven challenge. As teams venture deeper into the playoffs, winning games becomes even more difficult.
Most major professional North American sports use the best-of-seven format to determine the winner of playoff matchups — the National Football League (NFL) has a straight knockout format — and the principle is the same: win four games in a series to advance or to be crowned champions.
If a team wins four consecutive games in a series without suffering a loss, that is considered a “sweep”, and is both a serious affirmation of the winning team’s superiority and an even more severe indication of the losing team’s inferiority.
The first opportunity for a sweep in this year’s NBA playoffs came last Saturday (April 27) when the Los Angeles Lakers, down 0-3 in the series, welcomed the Denver Nuggets into Crypto.com Arena for Game 4. The Lakers were swept by the Nuggets last year in the Western Conference Finals and had lost a total of 11 straight games to Denver, so the possibility of the sweep loomed large.
The Lakers had double-digit leads in the first three games of the series but couldn’t hold on for a win. And the fact that the Lakers are one of three teams with the unenviable record of being swept 11 times in NBA-play-off history — the Brooklyn Nets and Detroit Pistons are the others — they were truly staring down the barrel. Nonetheless, the LeBron James-led squad dug deep, led from start to finish, and ensured that a sweep was not in the cards this year, winning 119-108.
However, despite their show of mettle in Game 4 and a Game 5 on Monday, April 29 that was worth the price of admission, the defending champions prevailed at home. LeBron James put up 30 points in Games 5 as he desperately tried to extend the Lakers’ season, but Jamal Murray’s 32-point performance, including a crucial two-pointer in the closing seconds, was enough to seal the win and book Denver’s place in the Conference semi-finals.
Sunday, April 28 saw the second opportunity for a sweep in the first round of the playoffs when the Minnesota Timberwolves visited the Footprint Center for Game 4 against the Phoenix Suns.
Minnesota entered the game leading the series 3-0 — the first-ever 3-0 playoff series lead for the franchise — with none of the games being close, as the Timberwolves won by 25, 13, and 17 points, respectively.
The Suns were battling for their play-off lives and put in a spirited Game 4 performance, with Devin Booker (49) and Kevin Durant (33) scoring a combined 82 of Phoenix’s 116 points. But they had very little offensive help, as the next highest scorer (Jusuf Nurkic) contributed only nine points.
On the other side of the court, the Timberwolves had four players in double figures, led by Anthony Edwards (40), Karl-Anthony Towns (28), Jaden McDaniels (18), and Mike Conley Jr. (10), contributing to the momentous 122-116 victory.
Minnesota registered their first-ever playoff sweep and their first playoff series win in 20 years — in 2004 they mowed down the Nuggets (4-1) in the first round, got the better of the Sacramento Kings (4-3) in the Conference semi-final, before losing 2-4 to the Lakers in the Conference final.
Incidentally, one half of the Western Conference semi-final starts tomorrow (May 4) at Ball Arena, when the Timberwolves visit the Nuggets for a highly anticipated series. There is very little divide between these teams, as they split the regular season series 2-2 and also split victories on each other’s home court — the exact record they had in the previous season.
Of course, the Nuggets defeated the Timberwolves 4-1 in the first round in last year’s playoffs, then went on to win it all, but Minnesota is shaped differently this year and the combination of Edwards and Towns has been a force all season. The outcome for this series is difficult to predict and the expectation is for it to go seven games.
Sweep number two came on Monday, April 29 when the Oklahoma City Thunder took their 3-0 lead into Smoothie King Center to face the Zion Williamson-less New Orleans Pelicans. Both teams scored the second-lowest total of the series in a game that was back and forth until an 18-2 run by the Thunder put them up 93-82, with 3:08 left to play, and they held on to complete the first-ever sweep for the franchise, 97-89.
In a series that never got off the ground for New Orleans, they struggled to score points in the absence of Williamson, as they were held to 92 points or less in all four games. The Thunder registered their first play-off series win since 2016 and, with an average age of just 23 years and 343 days, their youthful roster surpassed the 2010/11 squad as the youngest team to win a playoff series in NBA history.
The Thunder now await the winner of the series between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Dallas Mavericks, which will either be decided tonight in Game 6 or Sunday in Game 7. Considering their identical regular season record against both teams over the last two seasons, 3-1 this season and 2-1 last season, the Thunder should fancy their chances against whomever emerges from the series.
For those hoping to witness sweeps in the upcoming rounds, history indicates that the likelihood of that happening diminishes as the playoffs go deeper. Since 1947 the percentage of NBA play-off series that end in a sweep are first round (27.32), semi-finals (20.14), Conference finals (15.38), and finals (11.69).
Furthermore, there have been an average of three sweeps per year over the past 10 seasons, so maybe one or two more can be expected. But sweep or not, the remainder of the NBA season promises to be a joy ride.
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