Playoff Series That Deserve a Rewatch

Playoff Series 1- Wizards vs Celtics 2017 ECSF

This series was full of bad blood and amazing play with amazing players. Game 2 fell on Isaiah Thomas’s sister Chyna’s birthday, an emotional day for Thomas since Chyna died in a car accident. Thomas had an amazing game with 53 points on 54% shooting. The Celtics ended up winning 119-129. There was bad blood between these teams too. During game 3 it culminated in an incident where Olynyk sent Oubre Jr to the floor with a very hard screen. Oubre didn’t appreciate this, and he showed it by getting up and shoving Olynyk to the floor. There were plenty of moments like this in this series. In game 3 there were 8 techs and three ejections. The fans even got into the trash talk. After a loose ball effort by Ian Mahinmi, you can hear a fan screaming “Mahinmi you’re a bum”. However the Wizards overcame the fan negativity, and in the most memorable moment of the series, John Wall hit a deep contested game winner to force a game 7. The Celtics ignored the set back and went down as the winners of the series to advance to the ECF.

Playoff Series 2- Clippers vs Grizzlies Round 1 2012

This series was filled with hard physical play especially from Zach Randolph and Blake Griffin. They had countless double fouls and had a little beef that happened over the series. After the Clippers eventually won the series, Randolph called the Clippers “the league’s biggest floppers”. In game one the Clippers found themselves down by 27 in the 4th quarter. Nick Young hit a corner three, and then the Clippers took off and went on a 26-1 run. The Clippers won after Rudy Gay missed a mid range shot for the win. Game 3 was a close one, in the final 20 seconds Blake Griffin slammed down an amazing dunk to put the Clippers up by 4. Then Rudy Gay hit what seemed like an impossible 3 to put the Grizzlies down by 1. The Grizzlies were struck by luck with Bledsoe missing two free throws, the Grizzlies couldn’t capitalize on this opportunity with a Rudy missed three, Clippers lead 2-1, later 3-1. This didn’t stop the Grizzlies who pulled off a late series comeback forcing a game 7. The Clippers held off the Grizzlies and won 82-72 in game 7. This series was super fun, the “Grit N Grind” Grizzlies vs the high flying “Lob City” Clippers; The sky guardian rookie vs the slow poke defensive monster.

Playoff Series 3- 2006 Mavericks vs Spurs

The premier matchup in this series was Tim Duncan vs Dirk Nowitzki. They now may be old, but back in 2006 during this series, they were young and elite power forwards. Both brought their A games to this series. Duncan averaged 32 ppg, 11 rpg, and 2 bpg. Nowitzki similarly had a excellent series and averaged 27 ppg, 13 rpg, and 1.4 spg. There was one big difference, Duncan had better teammates, Tony Parker and Manu Ginóbili, both being 20 ppg scorers and lockdown defenders. Dirk had Jason Terry, an above average point guard at the time, his second option who averaged 19 ppg in the series. To put this into perspective The Spurs third option was better than the Mavericks’ 2nd option. The series only had one game that ended in single digits. That was game 2 where the Mavs won by 12. The rest of the games ended by 8 or less. This led to epic clashes between Duncan and Nowitzki. After it looked like the Spurs were done, they made a comeback and won 2 games in row. After all, that the series came down to a game 7. The Mavericks had control of the game maintaining a double digit lead all the way till the 4th quarter. The Spurs made huge a late game comeback; after that with about under 30 seconds Michael Finley had a huge three pointer to put the Spurs up by three. Then Nowitzki went to the other end of the hardwood, hit a bucket, and got an and 1 opportunity. He hit the free throw to send the game to OT. The Mavs dominated in OT, advanced to the WCF and ended up going to the finals.

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