Inside the Second-Round Secrets: Which Underdog Will Shock the NBA Playoffs Next?
Given that type of competitiveness, we look at what each of the eight teams needs to do to make it through the second round and advance to the conference finals.
Season Series
- Detroit Pistons 2, Cleveland Cavaliers 2 – the three most-recent meetings were decided by four-or-fewer points
- New York Knicks 2, Philadelphia 76ers 2 – the road team won every matchup
- Oklahoma City Thunder 4, Los Angeles Lakers 0 – OKC’s average margin of victory was 29.3 points, tied for the fourth highest ever in a season series of 4+ games
- Minnesota Timberwolves 2, San Antonio Spurs 1 – Anthony Edwards scored career-high 55 points in the T-wolves’ lone loss
Eastern Conference Second Round
No. 1 Detroit Pistons (62-20) vs. No. 4 Cleveland Cavaliers (52-30)
Pistons’ Path To Success: In the first round, the Pistons learned Cade Cunningham, Tobias Harris and Ausar Thompson are players who can be counted on in a postseason series. One guy they couldn’t always count on, though, was All-Star big man Jalen Duren. During the regular season, he was second on the team in DRIP (which projects a player’s contribution to a team’s plus/minus per 100 possession). However, in their seven-game series against the Orlando Magic, the Pistons were worse with Duren on the floor than with him off it. They can beat the dregs of the NBA with their flawed roster, but Orlando probably would have won had it not been for Franz Wagner’s calf injury. The Cavaliers are healthy to start the second round, have bigs who can bother Duren and possess more offensive firepower (seventh in offensive TRACR) than Orlando (22nd). The Pistons are going to need Duren to rekindle a higher level in the second round.
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