LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – As one of a dozen reporters with access to the NBA’s sprawling campus, I’m here to work, to rediscover the NBA, to chronicle a historic experience. I have boots on the floor in the bubble, with a lot of stories to tell.
But I have to say: Monday was a lot of fun.
I’ve been in the bubble for a little over a month. I have put myself in a routine. I wake up early. I’m thinking of working it out. Some days I do. More often than not, I do not. I wear sweatpants most days. Some days hover… shorts. I hit it at 9am in the morning, fingers crossed that bacon and eggs are on the menu. If not, I run with an ice cream parlor.
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I have checked a few seeding games, but practices have been more my thing. I camp out in the lobby of Coronado Springs, where courts are set up in empty ballrooms. I would listen to LeBron, listen to a few questions from Brad Stevens and watch Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. I’m talking wrestling with Nuggets general manager Tim Connelly. I’m talking boxing with Pelicans boss David Griffin. I know Marcus Morris, have zero relationship with Markieff and spend at least part of every day worrying that I misidentify them.
I usually pick one day a day, but really – what’s to see? The race for the No. 8 seed was great – note to NBA: make a play-in series permanent – but everything else was … blah. The Bucks went through the motions, including the Lakers, and I’m not here for the Zombie Wizards. The NBA had three unofficial checks. For some teams it was 11.
However, the playoffs promised to be great. How many teams can realistically win a championship? Four? Six? The Lakers miss Avery Bradley, and the perimeter shooting sport has cratered. The Bucks gifted defense was a shell of itself in the boiling games, and who knows how Giannis and co. respond to a title favorite. The field is wide open.
Every series, every game has meaning. And I do not have to travel for any of them. My Delta miles are not collecting and the campaign to buy Disney from Disney is going nowhere. But you can not beat the convenience of a ten-minute bus ride. So on Monday, with the playoffs opening with four games in two places a football field apart, I went to all of them.
I started in Digital Denver, where the Nuggets opened up against the Jazz. There is no benefit from home court here, apparently. But the NBA does a decent job simulating audience noise. There’s the drum and the de-fense singing. There’s the call of the PA announcer with every shot made. There, the virtual fans venture on opponent of shooters at the free throw line.
You still hear things. In the second quarter, Jordan Clarkson, upset about not getting a whistle, was called up for a technical foul. Jazz coach Quin Snyder stormed up the sideline, yelling at the officer at the other end of the floor. “He was fouled twice on the three,” Snyder said. “He’s grown up – I haven’t told him a ref all year!” From the other end, another referee Snyder. Snyder crawled, looked incredible. Snyder: “What did I say?”
However, the game was great. With Mike Conley away from the team for the birth of his children, the scoring burden fell to Donovan Mitchell. And he shrugged it off, big time. Mitchell threw in 57, became the youngest player since – wait for it – Michael Jordan to score 50-plus in a playoff game.
It’s rare to get into a fight between two really great men. Nikola Jokic and Rudy Gobert have offered one. Jokic and Gobert have been rivals since 2014, and have played each other for the most part to statistical stalemate. That was the case most of Monday, with Jokic (29 points, ten rebounds) and Gobert (17 and 7, with four blocks) moments. Gobert is probably the NBA’s best defender, but Jokic is a tough matchup. Gobert is not comfortable defending the perimeter, and Jokic lives there. He rained jumpers on Gobert in the opener, including four threes.
Denver pulled it out in overtime, backstopped by Jamal Murray’s 36 points. The whole ‘The Nuggets needs a go-to Scorer’ story gets a little weaker every time Murray plays. Murray, who is just over confident, went head-to-head with Mitchell, finishing a team-high plus-16. He connected on six of his nine tries; Denver, as a team, boards 53.7% of them.
Toronto-Brooklyn was next door, and a two Bubly’s (I’m hooked on that game) and a granola bar later, I was in The North. Phoenix pulled the public heartstrings last week when friends and family introduced the starting lineup. On Monday, Toronto did the same, featuring the children of Kyle Lowry, Karter and Cameroon, which included some entertaining intros.
The Raptors were one of the sharpest teams in the bubble, and they stayed that way in the opener, beating the Nets by 24. Fred VanVleet, who adds a different number to the hopper each game of a payday coming his offseason fell 30. Serge Ibaka added 22. Seven Raps players crazy double digits. Kyle Lowry was inefficient – 3-14 from the floor – but he pulled down seven rebounds, put out six assists and controlled the game in the first half, which was almost as much of a thing.
Pascal Siakam’s bubble fight continued in this end. Siakam shot was unfair in the boiling games, and was up against Brooklyn again. He made just four of his 13 attempts, making 1-4 from outside the arc. Lowry, envious of the need to get Siakam untrack, looked to get Siakam early, to no avail. He had the highlight of the game, picking up a length of the floor lob from Lowry for an easy two.
“It was me, Tom Brady, (Michael) Vick, all those great quarterbacks out there,” Lowry said. ‘That was me. That’s what we do. That’s what we do, our great quarterbacks. ”
Boston-Philadelphia was next, and two weeks ago the Celtics could have feared this matchup. Joel Embiid is a nightmare for Boston’s smaller frontline, and Ben Simmons is a defensive weapon that Philly could use on any hot hand. With Simmons gone, Jayson Tatum left out. His 32 points lead Boston. His 13 rebounds did that too. Tatum was an All-Star for the first time this season. He could become a superstar in these playoffs.
I’m old enough to remember when Boston took heat to hand over Jaylen Brown an extension of four years, $ 115 million. That was last summer. Brown came out of a disappointing third season. He played a role in the Celtics’ dysfunctional locker room. His figures ticked across the board. Brown was good, skeptics said – but $ 115 million good?
Short answer: Yes.
Brown had 29 points in Game 1. He went short in the third quarter after hitting a knee from Joel Embiid to the thigh. He shrugged it off and scored 15 in the fourth quarter, including a transition three with 4:30 to play that put a five-point Boston lead to eight strokes, putting the game just out of reach.
“It feels a lot better after a win,” Brown said afterward. “But I’m in a lot of pain.”
No more than Gordon Hayward, and here’s your headline on day one: In the fourth quarter, Hayward rolled his right ankle to fight for a handball. He slipped off the floor. He left the arena on crutches. X-rays were negative, and Hayward will have an MRI on Monday to determine the extent of the damage. Hayward came in Boston’s last two seeding games; losing him for an extended period of time would be a big blow.
Finally a cross country trip to Los Angeles and … hey, look, the Clippers! LA has struggled to unite its team after pandemic. They got bitten a bit by the COVID-19 bug, had a few players dealing with family issues and lost Lou Williams two weeks for strippers or chicken wings, depending on who you ask. When Montrezl Harrell stepped on the floor, it was the first time the Clippers had been hot.
The Clippers won, Kawhi Leonard (29 points) and Paul George (27) were brilliant, tracing a 42-point playoff debut for Luka Doncic. Leonard is so impressive. In the fourth quarter, after a missed try, Leonard Maxi Kleber let a step get on him in transition. When the cross-court came, Leonard, like an NFL cornerback, stepped on the gas and grabbed it off.
The real MVP? How’s it with Marcus Morris. In the third quarter, Morris hit packed with Doncic. It was no surprise; Morris loves from under the skin of an opponent and Doncic took the bait. During the tussle, Porzingis, who had already recorded a technical foul to protest a call earlier in the match, came to divorce her. Shake a little light and boom—Porzingis was gone.
Dallas leads by five at the time of the outing. They lost by eight.
The Mavs will have to see some mettle to make the series themselves, but that’s for another day. A few minutes after the final buzzer I was back on the bus, back to the Coronado Springs, back to the cafeteria, where four mini Krackel bars, a frozen fruit doll and a Bubly were waiting. It is not the healthiest experience. But who knows? Maybe I’ll work out tomorrow.
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