Heading for the second round, the NBA playoffs begin to take shape. The big news so far is the New Orleans Pelicans. They dispatched the favored Portland Trailblazers in four emphatic games, for the only sweep of the round. If the Golden State Warriors finish their first round with a 5th game victory at home tonight, they will meet this weekend to begin the second round.
The Pelicans have strong momentum, always important in the postseason. The Warriors are still without Steph Curry and may remain so for awhile. They are otherwise banged up as well.
New Orleans looked to be a strong challenger for whoever played them, especially Houston and Golden State. By dropping to second seed, the Warriors drew the Pelicans, the team most likely to slow down the Rockets, and perhaps eliminate them. Now that's not going to happen in this round, and the Warriors are in for a fight. So the Warriors-Pelicans could be a difficult and even fateful series.
Utah is likely to emerge as the winner against OKC, which may also be good for the Rockets, as OKC is the other team that gave them trouble. The Rockets looked rocky in the first round, but they dropped 50 points in one quarter of game 4 on Monday, which has to be getting everybody's attention.
In the East, Cleveland has looked shaky-- their first round will go at least six games, and a long series early is not good for the Cavs. Philadelphia looks the strongest, with Toronto behind them, with Boston a dark horse. Philadelphia feels like the team of destiny there. The Pelicans are a legitimate dark horse team in the West, with the Warriors and the Rockets still most likely to meet in the conference championship series. But that's likely a month away, so hang on.
The disturbing trend of the first round has been the acrimony, fighting and possibly even attempts to injure. It hasn't affected the Warriors yet--the Dubs and the Spurs are two of the classiest teams in the league--but egos elsewhere are out of the control.
After a hard luck start (losing your top three starting pitchers and top two relief pitchers seems to qualify) the San Francisco Giants began to stabilize in the past week or so. Getting two of those pitchers back--both with strong first starts--probably helped, but so did the cold veteran bats coming around.
But the big news was the return of Mac Williamson with a whole new stroke. He homered to win one game, and on Monday, blasted the longest home run by a Giant at home in several years, 464 feet, to win that game. With Williamson an unexpected jolt in the outfield, the surprisingly (at least to me) effective job Hunter Strickland has done as the closer, and the strong starts some of the young pitchers have made, could it be that the Giants luck is finally, finally turning around?
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