NBA Playoff Recap: Raptors, Nuggets impress; Clippers outlast Mavs

NBA Playoffs begin with a bang on the first day

NBA playoff basketball is finally here. I REPEAT! Playoff basketball has arrived. From here on out these games matter. No more scrimmages. No more glorified summer league style exhibition games where competition is arguably lackluster because every game and every possession now matters.

The best of the best are going to compete all day for a chance to be dubbed champions of one of the strangest seasons this league will ever see. And if today is any measure, this will be a playoff to remember. Superstars starred as expected while future studs blossomed in the national spotlight which had every game exciting down to the wire.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that going into the first day of action when I first glanced at the schedule, every game seemed like an easy win for one team or another for specific reasoning, but I was wrong.

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At first, when Utah took on Denver In the early game initially I thought, although competitive, Denver would pull away late with Mike Conley leaving for the birth of his son and Denver having the ability to go at least 12 deep. Well, Donavon Mitchell then just decided to have the best scoring performance in franchise history with 57 points to keep them in the game until costly turnovers failed them in overtime.

And once that game concluded, Toronto took on Brooklyn in what I saw as the most, “Easy win,” matchup on the schedule. The Raptors franchise-record 33-point lead at one point in the game all but confirmed my point until the Nets managed to get within single digits by outscoring Toronto 35 to 22 in the third quarter. The reigning NBA champions then outscored the Nets 39-24 in the fourth led in part by Fred VanVleet’s career-high 30 points which sealed their eventual 24-point victory.

In the third game, the Celtics took on the 76ers, and with Ben Simmons out for the season and the 76ers dysfunction, I viewed the Celtics as easy favorites. And quite like Mitchell earlier, Joel Embiid didn’t quite get that memo. He did his usual thing where he frustrates everybody by showing how special he is by easily posting 26 and 16 to make it interesting and close in the game, but the 61 points between Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were too much to overcome late.

You’re still with me, right? Good because we still have one more game. In the final game of the day, the battle between superstar duos was on as Luka and Porzingis took on PG and Kawhi. And when the Clips opened up a 16-point lead early in the game with PG and Kawhi combining for 30, it was easy to chalk this game up to an easy win for the favorite.

Then, Luka went off.

The Mavs then turned that 16-point deficit into a 14-point lead of their own which was all done before the half. And behind an NBA Playoff debut record 42 points by Luka, the Mavs kept it close until the Clippers used their two stars to close out the game thanks in part to an early Porzingis ejection.

Next. NBA: Positive takeaways for the 6 teams eliminated from the bubble. dark

Today was one of the best days in NBA history for many reasons. Every game had either a franchise record or NBA record that I mentioned earlier from Mitchell’s 57 points to Luka’s 42 points, but also with the circumstances at hand, this night was that much more special to NBA fans far and wide.

We’d been craving this moment from March 10th, and this was the beginning of an incredible journey ahead.