Recent years have taught us not to go straight chalk in the NBA playoffs. That said, there still tend to be fewer surprises and less parity in the NBA than in most other sports. And, more often than not, the cream usually rises to the top in the end. That was the case in the last three seasons. In fact, nine of the last 13 titles were won by 1-seeds.<\/p>\n
That sounds like good news for the OKC Thunder and the Detroit Pistons, the current teams atop their respective conferences. However, there is no guarantee that both will make it to the Finals just because they have the best record.<\/p>\n
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In fact, the last time the two top seeds faced off against each other for the championship was back in 2016 when the Cleveland Cavaliers took down the Golden State Warriors. So odds are, there\u2019ll be at least one party crasher vying for the Larry O\u2019Brien trophy.<\/p>\n
Even though OKC and Detroit have been outstanding all year, there are plenty of good teams that are good enough to make a run. The West, as always, is stacked, with the San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets, the Houston Rockets, the LA Lakers, and the Minnesota Timberwolves all lurking. The East could really be a toss-up, though.<\/p>\n
While the Thunder have the benefit of being the defending champs, this Pistons team hasn\u2019t been in this position before. On Monday\u2019s episode of No Fouls Given, Paul Pierce, Danny Green, and Wosny Lambre all picked a team to come out of the East and made a case for why they could do it.<\/p>\n
Lambre chose the red-hot Cavs, who recently added James Harden to their roster. He cited Donovan Mitchell\u2019s ability as a go-to scorer, head coach Kenny Atkinson\u2019s system, and Evan Mobley\u2019s still-untapped potential.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI just think they can be a more well-rounded bunch, top-to-bottom, talent-wise, than some of the other Eastern Conference teams,\u201dsaid<\/a> Lambre.<\/p>\n Green wasn\u2019t swayed by the Pistons\u2019 lack of postseason experience. \u201cThey built for playoffs, bro,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cPlayoffs, it kinda slows down and gets physical. They have physicality all the way \u2026 Y\u2019all can second-guess all you want, they\u2019ve got some experience. Last year, playing against the Knicks in the playoffs gave Cade all the experience he needed,\u201d explained Green.<\/p>\n Just last week, Greenpraised the Pistons<\/a> for giving the Knicks \u201cbelt to a**\u201d after they swept the season series with another blowout win. That performance helped convince him that Cade Cunningham and his MVP-caliber season, plus their quality depth and a \u201cnext man up\u201d mentality, will be enough to get the Pistons to their first Finals since 2005.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, Pierce went with his Celtics. And with how well they\u2019ve played, he didn\u2019t have to make a ridiculous case. Sunday night\u2019s whooping of the Lakers kept them in possession of the 2-seed in the East. Pierce praised Jaylen Brown for being a legit MVP candidate after he dropped 32 in L.A.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo, we boast a top-tier defense and a top-tier offense,\u201d Pierce said. \u201cThree, we\u2019re the only team in the Eastern Conference in the top five who can say we have championship DNA in the locker room.\u201d<\/p>\n Pierce then listed Payton Pritchard and Derrick White, big contributors to the 2023 title team, as potential difference makers. He called Joe Mazzulla a \u201cCoach of the Year candidate,\u201d and finished his argument by reminding everyone that Jayson Tatum could be back soon, an addition that could put the Celtics over the top.<\/p>\n Tatum hasramped up his rehab<\/a> and recently practiced with the Celtics\u2019 G League affiliate. Though he hasn\u2019t explicitly said he\u2019ll be back next year, it\u2019s looking more and more each day like he will make it back.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Each No Fouls Given host presented a strong case for the next Eastern Conference champ. We\u2019ll have to wait a few months to see who turns out to be correct.<\/p>\n The post Paul Pierce Makes a Three-Fold Case for Celtics to Win the Eastern Conference Finals This Year<\/a> appeared first on The SportsRush<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recent years have taught us not to go straight chalk in the NBA playoffs. That said, there still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,909,46,193,1333,187,1243,188,864,1409,2955,576,164,194,560,78,77,304,1698,152,6,11,878,2078,405,474,23832],"class_list":["post-620359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-playoffs","tag-basketball","tag-cade-cunningham","tag-celtics","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-danny-green","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-derrick-white","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-eastern-conference","tag-eastern-conference-finals","tag-evan-mobley","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-houston-rockets","tag-james-harden","tag-jaylen-brown","tag-jayson-tatum","tag-knicks","tag-la-lakers","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-nba","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-okc-thunder","tag-paul-pierce","tag-payton-pritchard","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-wosny-lambre"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}