Defensor Champion Boston vs. New York. High -score Indiana Cleveland Versus Indiana. The 2023 Denver vs. champion This year’s favorite in Oklahoma City. And Golden State vs. Minnesota, facing a current NBA face in Stephen Curry against an apparent heir at Anthony Edwards.
Welcome to Round 2 of the NBA playoffs.
He is already in Progreso, actually, Indiana went to the road and grabbed game 1 of his semifinal series of the Conference is against Cleveland on Sunday. Boston-New York and Denver-Oklahoma City clashes open on Monday; The Golden State-Minnesota series begins on Tuesday.
“These are the most important times of the year,” said Jaylen Brown, forward of the Celtics, and reigning of the NBA finals. “We have just left and act.”
The stellar power was reduced from what it was at the beginning of the playoffs: LeBron James and Luka Doncic were expelled when the Los Angeles Lakers fell to Minnesota, James Harden and Kawhi Leonard saw their stations when the Los Angeles clippers lost to Denver, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Milwaukee were eliminated by Indiana.
But there’s still plenty of big names-Curry, Edwards, The Celtics’ Duo of Brown and Jays Tatum, The Likely MVP in Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alxander, to Three-Time MVP In Denver’s Nikola Jokic, A Scoring Machine in Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell, An Olympic Gold Medalist in Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton and the League’s Best Clutch Player This season at Jalen Brunson in New York.
The favorites, according to Betmgm Sportsbook, to win the NBA title, in order: Oklahoma City, then Boston, then Cleveland, then Minnesota. Indiana showed how much mattered when he won the game 1 of a confrontation of the semifinal of the East in the House of the Cavs.
“I have not listened to many people who have given us a chance in this series,” said Pacers coach Rick Carlisle. “So, we have to use that as a level of motivation. But we know what we are capable of.”
Curry and the Warriors who arrive at Ronda 2 will certainly help the qualifications, for which the NBA and its transmission partners were excited in the Round 1. The Knicks, the Warriors and the Celtics are still in which they are in the NBA that the NBA still has a team playing in three of the seven main television markets of the nation; However, losing both Los Angeles teams in Round 1 will probably not help on that forehead.
“The numbers are fantastic,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, after the first weekend of the playoffs. None of the numbers that came out since then would suggest that their opinion has had to change on that forehead.
Even so, it is a lot for the casual fanatic to like it: a traditional rivalry in KNICKS-CELTICS, a confrontation of teammates from the Olympic rear track Curry and Edwards in the Golden State-Minnesot 2024 in Jokic Vs. The probable 2025 MVP in the inaypable probppit, and a series of thunder with the MVP 2024 in the Jokic Vs. The probable 2025 MVP in the probability and a series of MVPats. Gilgeous-Alexander.
The NBA has not said when it will announce the results of the MVP vote (a global panel of 100 writers and speakers who cover the league, but it is reasonable to think that the news could arrive during this series.
“Those guys are professionals,” said Thunder coach Mark Daigneault. “Neither of them know Shai much better than I know, but I think I know enough about him to know that none of them will be distracted by that. Both will be completely invested in this series. It is a supplement for the series, but in reality it is not part of the series.”
And a bit of additional intrigue for that confrontation of the Warriors-Timberwolves: Jimmy Butler of Golden State returns to Minnesota, a place that did not leave exactly in terms after his brief period as a player there.
Butler said he is more concerned with how to bring his coffee maker and his children to Minnesota for game 1 than for any story that is where he is in which he is. The Warriors got their trip there when they went to Houston and win a game 7 on Sunday night.
“We never doubt. Trust was never anywhere,” Butler said. “Very good HOOPPERS group. Very good group of people. That is what I am going to carry in this next round. We have some types that can play at an extremely high level.”
That seems to be the feeling of the eight teams that remain in the playoffs.
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