Why Haven’t the Conference Finals Felt Great?

June 11, 2018

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Coming out of the second round of the 2018 NBA Playoffs, it seems fans were about to witness a couple great series in the conference finals.

In the east, the starless Celtics swept the 76ers with ease, and the Cavaliers outlasted the Pacers in 7 games. It seemed to two teams were on a collision course to have a great series.

However, that’s not what has happened. The majority of the games have one team start hot and they hold their lead until the very end. This has not been a series where the lead changes multiple times a game. One team gains a lead, and then that team goes on to win almost every time. Not to mention, neither team has won a game on the road. Both teams have played like completely different units depending on if they are home or away. Especially the Celtics. They have developed a concrete pattern in which they play great at home, and terrible on the road. Now you could use excuses based on the fact that they are so young and the home environment helps them. However, it makes no sense how a team that plays so well together at home can show no signs of that production away on a consistent basis. Games 4 and 5 had closer scores, but it was easy to see that the home team in both games had the momentum the entire time. Even when the games seemed close, it still felt like the home team had the advantage. Game 6 started off promising, but the Celtics faded away and never recovered. Overall, it’s been disappointing not to see both teams play at their highest level at the same time. There’s hope for game 7, but it would need to be an epic game to salvage some of the boringness that’s plagued the majority of this series.

In the west, the Warriors made quick work of the Pelicans only dropping one game, and that was without Curry. Meanwhile, the Rockets also only lost one game against the Mitchell led Jazz. Both teams seemed primed to collide and give viewers a front row seat to two offensive juggernauts duking it out. That is also not what happened. The first three games were complete blowouts and were not interesting in the least. However, games 4 and 5 were close games that were much more interesting to watch. There was a lot of sloppy play in these games with an abundance of turnovers, but it still felt like a competitive game. They had lead changes, runs of offensive rhythm for both teams, and there was really no clear winner until the final buzzer went off. Game 6 had promise early on, but the Warriors offense was too much for the Rockets and it ended up becoming a blowout when it was all said and done. This has not been the series that anyone was expecting, but game 7 could still make this series memorable.

It’s no secret both of the 2018 conference finals have been underwhelming. Check SPORTalk or Twitter and you’ll see people regularly complaining about how each game is going. All 4 teams have either blown out their opponent or been blown out more than once, and that’s not enjoyable to watch. I think both the series haven’t felt great because of the incredibly high expectations that they had before they even started. Now these expectations were completely warranted given how these teams were playing before the conference finals. However, it’s still been hard to watch these teams not be able to play each other at their highest levels on the same night. With both series going to a game 7, there is a lot of hope that these teams will step up and give some memorable performances with their season on the line. Even if they do though, the 2018 conference finals will not be remembered for its greatness, but its average performances with the majority of the final scores not even being close.