I know all my blog posts lately have been dominated by the NBA, but its the playoffs! SO, in todays blog we are talking basketball, more basketball and a little bit of baseball. Enjoy!
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Dave Covers Spreads Written: Tuesday 26 April 2022 Read Time: 6 Min |
Philadelphia 76ers Might Just Make History, but Not in a Good Way
The Philadelphia 76ers took a commanding 3-0 lead in their series against Toronto and looked completely dominate. Then, the lost the 4th game, no biggie, sometimes its hard to beat the same team 4 times in a row, plus the officiating in game 4 was terrible. BUT, here is where things get really interesting, they lose game 5, not just lose get smacked. Embiid is getting pounced be the fast moving Toronto defence and don’t get me wrong he’s doing pretty good considering, but the problem for Philadelphia is no one else on the team is doing anything. Embiid had a great quote where he talks about he has been saying Harden needs to be more aggressive ever since the trade.
It’s probably safe to say that Embiid is starting to get sick of Harden, and that shouldn’t really be a surprise. It was reported after the trade that Embiid was pushing for Bradley Beal and the only reason the Sixers traded for Harden was because Beal got injured.
Another key aspect to this story line is the tale of coach Doc Rivers in the playoffs. No NBA coach has been blown more playoff leads than Doc Rivers. In the last two seasons 5/8 of the biggest blown leads belong to Rivers. He is also the only NBA coach in history to blow three different 3-1 leads in the playoffs. He has blown 9 series lead, which is the most by any NBA coach ever. Will this be his 10th? What would be even more impressive about this one is the fact that no one has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit. I am a Sixers fan and honestly, I can totally see this happening. Even if Philadelphia holds it together in this series and makes it through, I have difficulty seeing them get past Miami in the next round.
Miami Advances, Welcome to the Oladipo Show! PLUS, all-time low for Trae Young
I know we talked about the Miami vs Atlanta series in my last blog but I just want to quickly touch on the Heat again here. I tweeted out how much I loved seeing Oladipo balling again. Just amazing, Jimmy got ruled out before the game and Oladipo just stepped up. I here heaps of reports and analysts saying stuff like “Oh yeah Miami has a good defence but hey have no offence!” They have average 111.8 points per game in their last 30 games (since February 15th). They just have so many guys who can go off; Butler, Herro, Lowry, Strus, Oladipo, Bam etc. I don’t think it really matters who the Heat face next round (Philly or Toronto) they will take care of business. I think you can pencil them into the Eastern Conference finals. Which by the way, I predicted! I have them going to the finals.
In case you missed it, here was my bracket prediction prior to the start of the playoffs.
I don’t think we really need to talk about this much, but Trae Young STRUGGLED in this series. There is a lot reason for this. I think he tries to do too much on his own, he doesn’t have that secondary ball handler that he can full trust, but in saying that I think he has a little bit of an issue letting go of control. I think we can expect a big trade for the Hawks this offseason, a 3 for 1 type trade. For the sake of the blog here is Trae Young in this series. (He shot 31.9%)
Stats provided by Stat Muse
Another Timberwolves Collapse
We have already had such an epic series between the Timberwolves and the Grizzlies and game 5 did not disappoint. Morant struggled for majority of the game, he had 12 points through the first 3 quarters and then became CLUTCH! He scored 18 points in the 4th quarter including the last 13 straight for Memphis, helping rally back from a 11 point deficit midway through the 4th. We are now headed back to Minnesota as Memphis looks to close out the series in six games.
If Morant can continue his momentum from this last quarter Memphis could easily send the Wolves packing in game 6. I think Morant has found the matchup tough and never really got going, If he continues to play like this, the Wolves had no chance.
Is the Phillies offence for real?
We can’t have all basketball talk, well we could, but as a Phillies fan I want to talk about the Phillies and their offense. With big acquisitions over the offseason including Castellanos and Kyle Schwarber to put alongside Harper we expected big things from this lineup. It didn’t look great at the start of the season but the last 2 games have been rocking (no pun intended). Keep in mind they are playing the Rockies but they have scored 18 runs in two games! I am just excited about the future for Phillies. Playoff bound!
I hope you enjoyed reading the Dave Covers Spreads Blog, I plan on doing these often where I go around sharing my thoughts and opinions on some of the hottest topics in sports. If you enjoyed reading this or have any comments or opinions feel free to reach out to me on Instagram and Twitter.
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Thanks for reading, Dave Covers Spreads.
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