The Opening Tip

• Joel Embiid is making all the Raptors believers look stupid
• Two fairly serious injuries just made these playoffs less fun 
• Chris Paul’s Scott Foster streak

Tonight's must-watch playoffs games

1. The NBA is doing fine without LeBron

LeBron and the NBA postseason have been synonymous since he went to Miami in 2010.

Consider: 

• Last year was the second time in 11 years he didn’t make the NBA Finals.
• This year is the second time since 2006 the playoffs have all together not involved him. 

He’s created the NBA’s highest modern moments (2016 Finals average viewers: 20.2 million) and its lowest modern moments (2020 Finals average: 8.6 million).

But this year (sans a few over-the-top tweets) he’s completely absent, and everything is going swell from a viewership perspective.

2022's first weekend of playoff games averaged 4.05 million viewers, largest since 2011, and a huge jump from the last two seasons:

2. Daily GIF: Oh hell yeah

It’s a good thing we slacked on a pre-playoffs newsletter, because we would’ve gone on record saying THE RAPTORS WILL BEAT THE 76ERS IN THE FIRST ROUND.

(The 76ers are up 3-0 thanks to Joel Embiid’s 3-point dagger on Wednesday.)

3. Trivia time

Who is the last scoring title winner to also win the NBA Finals in the same season?

Hint: Big 

Answer at the bottom.

4. Hold off on those Finals rematch predictions 😔

The safest bet of these pre-playoffs was to go chalk on the Bucks and Suns to run through their conferences and play each other again in the Finals.

BUT…

• Khris Middleton suffered a sprained MCL on Wednesday. He’s out for at least the entire first round. 
• Devin Booker suffered a Grade 1 hamstring strain on Tuesday. He’s out 2-3 weeks. 

Small picture: Chris Paul’s series of unfortunate playoff events continues and the Bucks have a harder task against the Bulls.

Big picture: We lost two of the most enjoyable playoff basketball players in the league for (maybe) the season, depending on how their teams fare without them.

5. By the numbers

25x2

The Timberwolves broke the ceiling on how bad a playoff collapse can be last night, twice blowing a 25-point lead. The Grizzlies closed the game on a 50-16 win.

0-14

You’ve likely heard the stat but it bears repeating: Chris Paul has lost 14 straight games refereed by Scott Foster, the latest being the Suns’ Game 2 loss on Tuesday. He and the Suns are in the clear tonight. 

7 Ls

After a loss last night to the Warriors to go down 0-3, Nikola Jokic (and the rag-tag, always injured Nuggets) have lost seven straight playoff games.
 

3 minutes, 1 touch

In the last three minutes of Nets-Celtics Game 2, Kyrie Irving touched the ball one time (on an inbounds pass). He and Kevin Durant shot 8-of-30 for the game.

6.  Quick Hits

• Chuck on defense: ‘When the guy is banging you, you spin off of him’
• Draymond Green is locked in on defense of late
• Spencer Dinwiddie put Rudy Gobert on a poster last night
• Ben Simmons is apparently actually going to play in Game 4
• The Splash Bros (Curry, Thompson, Jordan Poole) dropped a combined 80 points last night

7.  Reads

• This is why the Celtics didn’t dodge the Nets [The Ringer]
• How the Celtics are making it hard for KD [Sports Illustrated]
• How the NBA got serious about mental health [WaPo]

Trivia answer: Shaq (1999-00).