2018 NBA Playoffs: One Big Takeaway from the First 2 Games of Each Playoff series

The first 2 games of every playoff series have been played out thus far, and we've seen a number of interesting narratives arise. Most of the series have gone according to a script avid basketball fans were able to foresee.

Seeds 1 and 2 in both conferences have justified their high seeding, and have won both their first 2 games on home court. The likes of Cleveland, the 76ers, the Thunder and the TrailBlazers have, however, raised more questions than they've answered thus far.

Ideally, the tone of a playoff series needs to be set in the first 2 games itself, but none of these aforementioned teams have been able to truly get going. We take a look at the most important lesson learned from each playoff series thus far:

#1 The Raptors are the real deal this playoff season

The Raptors bench is delivering as it did in the regular season

Early in the season, when Dwane Casey was asked if he'd consider shortening his team's rotations in the playoffs, he responded with:

We will find out. The goal is to find out. Why not? What is our record right now? So why change this because some rulebook somewhere, if you find it, please send it to me because I have been on some teams where you keep the same rotation, and somebody somewhere in the back of a room says well, playoffs you have to shorten your rotation, so we have to find out unless this group proves us wrong.

Casey's group has proved him right thus far. In Games 1 and 2 at home, their bench mob has put up 41 and 42 points respectively. The difference between the two benches playing a was clear as daylight especially in Game 1, when the likes of John Wall and Bradley Beal both delivered for the Wizards but their bench could not keep up.

Wall has played as well as one could reasonably expect of him till this point. The 8th year guard has 24 assists in 2 games while scoring 52 points. But while the Wizards have shot below-par in their first two games, the Raptors have shown up big-time in important quarters.

They blew the game open for themselves in the 4th quarter of a close game 1, while not even needing Lowry and DeRozan to deliver at that point. Game 2 was a blowout from the beginning, as the Raptors put up a franchise playoff record 44 points in their first quarter and the Wizards had no answer to it.

The Wizards are one of the tougher 8-seeds in recent memory, so it's not like the Raptors are doing this against an objectively mediocre team. They're rolling as they did in the regular season to grab the NBA's second-best record, and in the first two games they've reiterated the legitimacy of their title contention.

#2 The Celtics look good value for the #2 seed

Shane Larkin lays it up and

in in

Game 2

If indeed the Celtics are missing Kyrie Irving at this point, their play shows nothing to support this notion. Terry Rozier has come up really big in the 2 games so far, and has 23 points each in these outings.

He's outplayed Eric Bledsoe, who's a seasoned veteran, and has shot 50% from 3-point territory. The go-ahead 3-pointer he scored against Bledsoe in Game 1 was as good a move as any we've seen from a guard all season long.

The rest of the squad has picked up the act too. Jaylen Brown has 50 points on 51% shooting from the field and a really impressive 41.2% figure from 3-point territory. Al Horford is averaging 20 points on spectacular efficiency while anchoring the Boston defense.

Rookie Jayson Tatum has translated his play to the postseason, stuffing the stat sheet in all 5 columns in both games while scoring at a pretty good rate. Marcus Morris has carried his strong March form into the postseason.

The Bucks have not been bad, and they were especially good value for their money in game 1. But they have an uphill task at hand now, and cannot afford to slip up against a young, hungry Celtics squad that just seems to be getting better with every dribble.

#3 The 76ers need Joel Embiid back as soon as possible

The Heat have proved to be a tough nut to crack for Ben Simmons and co

The 76ers won game 1 relatively comfortably, with most of their shots going in from downtown and Ben Simmons playing with a swagger we've only seen all-time greats display in their rookie season. Father Prime Dwyane Wade, however, rolled the clock back to bring the high-flying Sixers crashing back into reality.

With 28 points on 16 field goal attempts, Wade powered a floundering Heat offense to a game 2 win by the handy margin of 10 points. Ben Simmons had a pretty good performance in this game with 24 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists, but the physicality of the Heat defense, who were basically packing up the paint to prevent him from getting easy layups made it tough for him to impact the game as he usually does.

This series does not have a featured scorer thus far, and the Heat are as good at hustling their way to wins as any basketball team on the planet. Thus, the Sixers need Joel Embiid back at nearly his best if they are to win the series handily.

Embiid himself has voiced his frustration at being treated 'like a baby', and the Sixers will hope that he comes back fully fit and firing in Game 3. It could turn out to be an uncharacteristically long series, otherwise.

#4 Cleveland are in for a dogfight against superior opponents

Indiana Pacers v Cleveland Cavaliers - Game One

Two games into this series, we know one thing for sure: the Indiana Pacers are no pushovers. In fact, the fact that they haven't had a single nationally televised game up until the playoffs this year has caused people to heavily underrate them.

The truth of the matter is that if we separate the individual best player from each roster and examine which team is better, you'd be hard-pressed to give the Cavaliers any sort of edge whatsoever. Myles Turner, up until this point in the series, has owned Kevin Love pretty hard.

Lance Stephenson, Bogdan Bogdanovic and Darren Collison have proved to be better complementary players to their superstar than Kyle Korver, JR Smith and George Hill.

And then again, once you factor in how Oladipo missed time in the first half of game 2 due to foul troubles, you can see how mightily the Pacers ran the Cavs close in the final 40 minutes of the game.

We have to give the edge to the Pacers at this point in the series. Despite LeBron James' superhuman effort in Game 2, the Cavs were leading only by 6 points before Oladipo signed the match off with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer of no consequence.

Contrast that with how handily the Pacers beat the Cavs when both teams had their full complement of players in Game 1 for the most part. Foul troubles are unlikely to haunt a single player too many times over a series, and Oladipo looks capable of leading the Pacers to unassailable leads at home.

#5 The Rockets know how to win ugly, and how to win spectacularly too

Clint Capela rejects KAT's runner in Game 1

The Timberwolves ran the Rockets close in what finished as a one-possession Game 1. That was after the Timberwolves' All-Stars Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns had only scored 13 and 8 points respectively - the majority of their scoring came from their role players, whereas the Rockets had Harden to thank for an incredible shooting exhibition, which proved to be the difference between the two teams.

The Rockets had won this game despite the rest of their roster (save Harden) had shot just 3 3-pointers in 48 minutes of game time. An ugly win, all things considered.

Fans heading into Game 2 expecting another close match were denied expectations when the Rockets ran out blowout winners at 102-82. This was a game when Point God Chris Paul displayed how big of a basketball savant he is, pulling out handles left, right and center on the way to 27 points, 8 assists and 3 steals.

The Rockets shot 16 3-pointers in this game, of which Paul and Harden contributed only 4. Even Clint Capela, who'd had a great game 1 with 24 points and 12 rebounds, scored only 8 in this one.

The likes of Gerald Green and Trevor Ariza played their part, scoring 21 and 15 points respectively.

When the Rockets' role players come to play, most teams in the league get blown out as the Wolves were in Game 2.

#6 The Golden State Warriors have flipped the switch, and it's bad news for the rest of the league

The Warriors have ratcheted up the onus on defense and it is paying dividends

In their last regular season game against the Utah Jazz, the Warriors got blown out by 40 points. The Jazz gave it to them on both ends of the floor, and at times, it seemed like a cause for genuine concern in the playoffs that the Warriors were unable to score in the interior at all.

Flip the calendars to a week ahead, and we see the Warriors pushing the blanket over whatever the Spurs have thrown at them in offence. After all, this is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, collection of basketball talent that we've seen in the history of the NBA.

Even missing Steph Curry, the Warriors would be favourites in any series not involving the Houston Rockets at this point, and it would be because of the kind of defensive pressure that we've seen every single player on their roster exert.

Kerr ran out Andre Iguodala at the point guard position in the first 2 games, and it paid off handily as Iggy has risen to the challenge of being the defensive ace on the perimeter. The reason why the likes of Bryn Forbes, Danny Green and Kyle Anderson have been unable to get anything going is because of the way Golden State closes out on the 3-point line, and how stout their interior defense has been.

Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant have been simply sensational on the offensive end, getting the bulk of the Warriors' points making the kind of shots that most coaches would berate their players for ever attempting in a playoff game. They are 2 of the 10 greatest pure shooters in the game ever, and with Curry out, they've flipped the switch that we've talked about all season long.

There is way too much of a talent gap between the Warriors and the rest of the pack to consider anyone else as outright favourites at this point. Expect the Warriors to sweep the Spurs at this rate.

#7 The Pelicans are winning the battle in both frontcourt and backcourt

Holiday dribbles past Lillard on the pick and roll

If you haven't been paying attention to the Pelicans of late, do take note of Jrue Holiday's post-All Star break numbers - 19.8 points, 4.9 rebounds and 7.2 assists on 50.8% shooting from the field and 37.6% shooting from the 3-point line.

Here's the bigger reveal - Holiday's offense is not even his calling card now. It's his defense, which is deserving of All-Defensive team consideration, that has set the tone for the Pelicans in this playoff series.

Damian Lillard has shot 0-for-8 from the field with Holiday as his primary defender - the same Dame who averaged 31.4 points per game in the month of February and got his name thrown around as a fringe MVP contender. To put it in more memeworthy fashion, Dame Time took a Holiday off for games 1 &2.

Rajon Rondo, on the other hand, has been doing Rajon Rondo things, averaging 11 points and 13 assists per game over the 2 contests. He sets the pace for every Pelicans possessions, and it is impossible to quantify how great of a distributor he is for this very reason - the pace and timing of their offense is on a different level with him running it.

Together, the former All-Stars have managed to contain CJ McCollum and Damian Lillard to heinously bad statlines over both games, and that has been the difference between the two sides.

It does go without saying, at this point, that the Pelicans' frontcourt duo of Mirotic and Anthony Davis have also been outperforming their counterparts from Rip City.

#8 There is no way of predicting how the Thunder are going to play on any given day

Utah Jazz v Oklahoma City Thunder - Game Two

Game 1 at the Chesapeake Energy Arena wasn't nearly as close as the eventual 116-108 scoreline suggests. The game was essentially over with 3 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter and the score at 109-91 in favour of the Thunder.

Paul George and Russell Westbrook had scored the bulk of the points on that day, with 36 and 29 respectively. George had quite an efficient night, getting his points in only 21 shots. Westbrook was less so, but ultimately their combination on offense proved too much for a Utah defense that wasn't able to defend the 3-point line at a high level in game 1.

All 3 of the OKC big 3 were bricking big-time in game 2, however. Which was the reason they lost handily, 102-95, even after Donovan Mitchell scored 0 of his 7 3-point attempts. Melo, George and Westbrook combined to shoot 19-of-59 from the field, and none of them had a single field goal in the 4th quarter of this game.

We've always known that these players are streaky shooters, but the Thunder need to generate more drives into the lane for them when their perimeter shooting is not on point on the day. Unfortunately, Billy Donovan does not seem capable of running such sets, which is why the Thunder will huff and puff their way through this first round.