The NBA playoffs always provide great games, unexpected storylines, and colorful characters, both new and old. This year’s edition is no exception.
Sure, the stars have taken over games, big teams have cruised, and the competition has been intense, but some others have confounded expectations and had unlikely role players step up to deliver teams huge victories.
Here is a look at five things that have happened this playoff season that have come as a bit of a surprise.
1) Joe Johnson is carrying the Jazz
The Utah Jazz boast two legitimate stars in Gordon Hayward and Rudy Gobert, so if you were told that the team was up 3-2 series with the Los Angeles Clippers, you’d probably figure they were big factors in the wins. But Gobert was injured at the very start of Utah’s Game 1 win, and Hayward sat out most of Game 4 with food poisoning. It left a void for a new hero to step in.
That hero was Joe Johnson. The wily veteran averaged just 9.2 points per game during the regular season, but with his team’s stars dropping like flies, Iso Joe stepped up big time.
Johnson hit the buzzer-beating game winner in Game 1 at Staples Center to steal a road game for the Jazz, but his best was yet to come in Game 4. The 35-year-old delivered 28 points on 12-of-17 shooting, including a fourth quarter stretch in which he scored 11 straight Utah points, as the Jazz pulled off a 105-98 victory to even the series at two. As if that weren’t enough, he scored 14 in a huge Game 5 win, including a shot late that ruined Clippers owner Steve Ballmer’s night (video here).
Nothing the Clippers have done to Johnson has really worked so far. He beats his man, and if he’s doubled, he finds the open shooter to make L.A. pay. The Jazz are leading a series in which Gobert hasn’t contributed and Hayward missed one of the team’s wins, and they can thank Johnson for that.
2) Nene has discovered the Fountain of Youth
Speaking of wily veterans, 34-year-old Nene Hilario looked to be entering the twilight of his career before the season started. The Houston Rockets brought him in as a backup and mentor to young center Clint Capela, but his days as a starter were numbered, and he must have figured he was going to be taking on these sorts of bit-part roles as long as teams would have him.
Fast forward to April and Nene is a huge reason the Rockets closed out the Oklahoma City Thunder in five.
Nene erupted for 28 points in Game 4 on 12-of-12 shooting, and added ten rebounds for good measure. He looked like a perfect inside complement to James Harden as Houston’s MVP candidate scuffled and struggled with his shot. It was Nene, not Harden, who essentially carried Houston over the line to get them their 3-1 series lead. He followed that up with 14 points and 7 rebounds in a series-clinching Game 5.
Not bad from a rare inside presence on a team that relies largely on tossing up three-pointers.
3) Boston struggling with 8th-seeded Bulls
It’s hard to be a dark horse when you finish as the top seed in your conference, but that’s exactly what the Boston Celtics entered the playoffs as. Most observers still favored the second-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers despite their late-season swoon, with Boston still being viewed as the trendy upset pick. As such, the Celtics entered their first-round series against the Chicago Bulls with something to prove.
To say they stumbled out of the gate would be an understatement. Yes, there were significant circumstances outside of their control that undoubtedly had an impact, but the Celtics lost the first two games after being bludgeoned on the boards by a superior rebounding team. That has been Boston’s major Achilles’ heel, and it manifested itself quickly in this series.
The Celtics rebounded to win two games in Chicago to tie the series and reclaim home court advantage. A bigger team, though, can exploit a major weakness of theirs, and it has definitely given people reason to pump the brakes on Boston. Their early struggles are definitely a bit of a surprise.
4) Cleveland may have been underrated
In contrast to the potentially overrated Celtics, the favored Cavaliers may not have been favored enough. Cleveland entered the postseason having gone 8-14 in the team’s final 22 games, and further eyebrows were raised when the Indiana Pacers took them down to the final possession in Game 1.
What some people forgot, though, was that LeBron James lives for this. He posted a double-double in three games and a triple-double in the fourth as the Cavaliers swept. The series was punctuated by Cleveland’s James-led comeback from 25 points down at halftime of Game 3, a contest in which James put up 41 points, 13 rebounds, and 12 assists. In a game in which Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love were ineffective, James grabbed the contest by the neck and took it over. Yes, they were facing an inferior team that at times looked and seemed dysfunctional, but nobody who watched the Cavs play down the stretch could have felt super comfortable predicting a comprehensive sweep.
5) Who knew David Fizdale had that rant in him?
If you were told prior to the playoffs that an NBA head coach was going to launch into a meme-worthy criticism of NBA officiating, who would you have guessed to be the responsible party? Gregg Popovich comes to mind. Steve Kerr has a reputation for being fairly quotable. Doc Rivers would make sense. But not David Fizdale.
The first-year coach of the Memphis Grizzlies doesn’t have a reputation as one of the NBA’s more ill-tempered head coaches. He comes across as fairly genial and mild-mannered to the casual observer, though he is known for being a fairly honest communicator. That honesty came to the forefront after Memphis’s Game 2 loss to the San Antonio Spurs, a game in which the Spurs shot twice as many free throws as the Grizzlies despite a similar amount of paint shots.
Fizdale’s rant quickly went viral, and with good reason. Sure, there’s the risk that this could follow him around — do you remember Jim Mora for anything other than the “playoffs?!” quote? — but it’s just a fantastic set of quotes from what would have been considered an unlikely source. Take that for data, indeed.
