NBA Rebounds From Tank-Plagued Regular Season With Play-In Drama

The Play-In Tournament was exactly what the NBA had been missing this season, even before the All-Star break.

The epidemic-level of tanking, otherwise known as non-competitive behavior, had combined with load management—reducing court time for healthy stars prior to the playoffs—and so-called schedule losses to drag some NBA games this season down to unwatchable status at times.

But this collection of Play-In games—a set of non-regular season and non-postseason contests to determine final qualifying teams—drew almost as much attention as it did deep breaths from observers, players, coaches, and staffs.

Close games, flashback performances, and breakouts gave observers an appetite for the real competition they have come to expect.

Blazing a Path

The biggest surprise was the Portland Trailblazers knocking off the Phoenix Suns to claim the seventh seed. It was a breakout moment for Deni Avdija, a lottery pick at No. 9 overall by the Washington Wizards in the 2020 draft, who dropped a career-best 41 points on Tuesday in a 114–110 victory over the Suns.

Avdija, a native of Israel who made his first All-Star Game this season, was the main man late in the game for Portland.

His 3-point play with 16.1 seconds remaining provided the game-winner for a team that began the season mired in turmoil and uncertainty after coach Chauncey Billups was arrested for his alleged role in an illegal gambling operation. The Hall of Famer is set to stand trial in November on the matter.

Tiago Splitter stepped up to fill the role as coach and has done a patient job of teaching and building to get the Blazers to this point. All the work has earned them a matchup against Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.

Golden Era Likely Done

Perhaps most disappointing for basketball fans worldwide was the Golden State Warriors and superstar shooter Steph Curry bowing out of the postseason race with a 111–96 loss to the host Suns on Friday night.

The Warriors are a perplexing bunch, especially Draymond Green, a polarizing figure due to his inexplicable antics. He has 176 career technical fouls and 22 ejections since the 2012–2013 season, second in league history over the past 25 seasons behind Rasheed Wallace’s 25.

So he and Curry, both four-time NBA champions, won’t be entertaining the basketball world in the postseason.

The Warriors rallied to knock off the Los Angeles Clippers 126–121 in their opening Play-In game on Wednesday, but could not hold down the Suns in what could mark the end of an era in California’s Bay Area for Curry, Green, and coach Steve Kerr. The coach doesn’t have a deal for next season and Green is in an option year.

Meanwhile, it was a crack-in-the-clouds game for the Suns’ Jalen Green, who the Houston Rockets cast aside in a trade almost a summer ago—in part because of his lack of production in big games.

The guard came through for Phoenix with 36 points, including 8-of-14 shooting from behind the 3-point arc, and contributed heavily on the defensive end of the court as Phoenix held Golden State to fewer than 100 points.

The Suns take on the two-time reigning champion and Western Conference’s top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the playoffs.

Buzz-Killed

Then there were the Charlotte Hornets, who took a huge step in their development with a 127–126 overtime victory over the Miami Heat in their Play-In opener on Tuesday.

LaMelo Ball had his big-stage game, coming through late to push the Hornets past the Heat. But he held onto the leg of Bam Adebayo in a first-half play that resulted in the Heat’s big man leaving the game with an injury.

The league assessed Ball with a flagrant foul the next day and fined him $35,000 for the act.

On Friday, Ball and the Hornets had no tricks left as they fell 121–90 to the host Orlando Magic to drop out of playoff contention.

And Charlotte’s Rookie of Year candidate Kon Knueppel ran out of buzz to close the season. He was 2 for 12 from the field and 0 of 6 from 3-point range before being benched late in the Tuesday victory, and went 3 for 10 from the field, and 1-for-6 from three point range, in 29 minutes in the loss to Orlando.

The Magic face the Eastern Conference’s No. 1-seeded Detroit Pistons in Round 1.

New Process for Philly

The Philadelphia 76ers eased to the 7th seed of the playoffs with a 109–97 decision over the Magic on Wednesday. Star center Joel Embiid, nicknamed “The Process” as the main cog in the offense for years, was out after an emergency appendectomy last week in Houston. But he hasn’t been much of a factor all season.

Philly takes on the No. 2-seed Boston Celtics.

It was a strong rebound for the NBA, which has yet to solve its tanking problem as teams race to the bottom of the standings in order to finish at the top of the draft board. The competition in the playoffs doesn’t have that problem, but the regular season is sucking the air out of arenas nationwide.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Victor Wembanyama. The Epoch Times regrets the error.