While the NBA regular season is a few weeks away from wrapping up, it seems there are two teams on a collision course to meet in the Finals.
The Denver Nuggets and Boston Celtics.
It’s interesting that these two teams feel inevitable, because the league is deeper with talent than ever before. I mean look at the All-NBA teams from just 20 years ago…
Sam Cassell made 2nd team All-NBA!
Today, in the year 2024, LeBron James and Steph Curry would be LUCKY to make 2nd team All-NBA…
So why, with so much talent, has this become a two horse race?
Well for one, the East has regressed. While last year showed that you certainly can’t count out the Miami Heat, it’s hard to imagine they have enough fire power to matchup with this revamped Celtics team that added Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis. The 76ers lost Joel Embiid (Not that he would have made it past the 2nd round anyways), the Knicks are gritty but still a superstar away from realistically competing, and the Cavs are cute, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks they’re ready to compete for anything real.
The only real challenger on that side seems to be the Milwaukee Bucks.
Giannis and Dame on the surface appear to be a very scary duo, especially come playoff time, but digging deeper, the loss of Jrue Holiday on the defensive side of the ball can’t be understated, especially when you’re replacing him with Damian Lillard, who’s an all-time offensive talent, but will get hunted on defense on literally every single possession in the playoffs.
The West is more competitive.
The Thunder are awesome, and have an amazing future, but they would be the youngest team, at an average age of 24.12 years old, to EVER win an NBA championship.
Anthony Edwards is one of the leagues brightest future stars, and the Timberwolves have the size to matchup with Denver, but Minnesota’s offense, especially at the the end of games, is hard to watch at times. And without Karl Anthony-Towns for the foreseeable future, it’s difficult to see this team scoring enough points in the playoffs to keep up with a team like the Nuggets.
The Clippers are deep, but are old and relying too heavily on James Harden. I don’t care how talented they, we’ve seen time and time again that Harden’s game doesn’t translate deep in the playoffs.
The Pelicans are surging lately, but unless Zion takes an all-time superstar leap in the next 2-4 months, I can’t fathom them getting past a team like the Nuggets.
Luka is always scary, but the Mavericks quite frankly don’t have enough talent. There’s a reason they currently sit in the 6 seed despite having the star power of Doncic and Kyrie Irving. The same can be said for Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and the Suns.
The Warriors are over the hill and might not even make the playoffs, while LeBron and the Lakers are only still in the playoff race for one reason and one reason only…
So now this brings us to the Nuggets and Celtics.
Both currently sit 1st in their respective conference, which is nice, but honestly only tells part of the story. The Celtics are having a historic regular season. They’re currently outscoring teams by 11.5 points per game, which as it stands, would be the 5th highest point differential of any team in the history of the NBA.
Boston has 15 wins this year where they beat their opponent by 25+ points.
Pure dominance.
The Celtics have essentially 6 starters – Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford, allowing them to mix and match lineups better than anyone.
Boston scores the 2nd most points of anyone in the league, and gives up the 5th least.
This team is scary, and their 11 game lead over the 2nd place Bucks in the East is representative of that.
The Nuggets have dominated in a different way.
They sit in 1st place, despite having the 4th best point differential in the West.
Denver once again only had one all star this year. Their pace is slow but effective, rarely blowing teams out, but consistently stepping on teams throats in crunch time.
They have the best player in the world, Nikola Jokic, who is overwhelmingly the odds on favorite at -1100 (on FanDuel) to win his 3rd MVP in 4 years.
Despite their lack of all stars, the Nuggets have what most in the NBA community consider the best starting 5 in the league – Jamal Murray, KCP, MPJ, Aaron Gordon, and Jokic.
Denver’s coming off a year where they dominated the playoffs, going 16-4, in route to the first championship in franchise history.
Oh yeah, and the Nuggets have beaten the Celtics both times they’ve played this year.
Add this all up, and the evidence becomes overwhelming. The Nuggets and Celtics WILL meet in the Finals unless an injury derails one of these squads. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen, because this matchup for the Larry O’Brien trophy would be an all-timer.
-Mustache Man
