Washington Wizards 54 - 28

Washington very ably led by GM Joshua had a very good season at the helm finishing the regular season with 54 wins and 28 losses. The final 4 week stretch was a real test for Joshua and the wizard where they played against +500 teams almost every game. With a tally of 8 wins and 8 losses. Including a 114-104 loss to playoff matchup in the Indiana Pacers

Going into the series with no key injuries is a massive plus for Joshua and with an extremely solid trio in the starting five including Devin Booker, Karl Towns and Clint Capela should make for an extremely tight series

Possible Line up

�         PG. Goran Dragic

�         SG. Devin Booker

�         SF. Jae Crowder

�         PF. Clint Capela

�         C. Karl Anthony Towns

 

Keys to victory �

 

�  Limiting the dominant front court that is the Pacers machine of Joel Embiid and Pascal Siakam. With players like Clint Capela and Karl Towns achieving this feat is possible, no doubt tough but still achievable and is their best chance of progressing through to round two

 

�  Booking lighting it up, if you can stop the pacers front court half the battle is won, Devin Booker will need to hit his shot as the key offensive weapon the scoring load will remain squarely on his shoulders.

 

Indiana Pacers 49 - 33

Veteran GM Spudspace will be looking forward to this epic series against Joshua and while the Pacers won the H2H series during the course of the 20/21 season, knows full well it will be a hard fought round one series. Much like Washington it was a rough end to the season finishing 9wins and 8 losses. Though more so due to the availability (or unavailability) of Joel Embiid who was missing for a portion of games during this period showing exactly how much worth he has. To the pacers line-up.

Possible Line up

�         PG. Derick Rose

�         SG. Eric Gordon

�         SF. Bojan Bogdanovich

�         PF. Pascal Siakam

�         C. Joel Embiid

 

Keys to victory �

�  Simple stop Devin Booker and his lights out shooting, Devin has been a force for the wizards in 2021 and needs to be shut down at all costs. Is Eric Gordon the man for the job? Is Eric Bledsoe the man for the job? Spudspace is the only one that knows for sure

 

�  Keep Clint Capela 7^th and Karl Towns 13^th away from the offensive rebounds and with the leagues number one board man on deck is a feat that is very achievable. If Pascal decides to get some rebounds along the way it would also be a massive boost.

 

 

Season H2H

WEEK	DATE	GAME	BOXSCORE	POTG
9	Mar. 17	Ind @ Was	140 - 145	Lillard*
10	Mar. 22	Was @ Ind	109 - 111	Rose
17	May. 15	Was @ Ind	104 - 114	Embiid

 

 

Matchups

 

Karl Anthony Towns Vs Joel Embiid

Fact � Karl Anthony Towns is a stud and would be the winner in any head to head matchup most of the time he plays unfortunately this time it�s against a centre that is a bigger stud on the 2k (and NBA) court and while I have Embiid coming out trumps in the head to head match up I strongly believe it�ll be how KAT performs on D that�ll decide the outcome of this series.

 

Clint Capela Vs Pascal Siakam

Interesting matchup to be honest and one that is a little confusing a perimeter dominant PF [Siakam] against a glass cleaning put back centre [Capela] it�s a little bit of a wash matchup and a matchup that I see Capela winning just due to efficiency and rebounding. Could we see Capela switched onto Embiid in an attempt to limit the rebounding machine?

 

Jae Crowder Vs Bojan Bogdanovich

Glue guy vs Glue guy, simply a case of defending their man and scoring baskets when they get the opportunity to shoot the basketball the last time these guys matched up Jae had a tough night out can he turn the tables and even out the ledger

 

Eric Gordon Vs Devin Booker

This is where it�ll be won or lost for the Wizards with Devin and his scoring ability holding the keys to victory firmly in his hands, Egor is a mystery man in this series having not played against the wizards during 20/21 at all. Will he be thrown to the wolves as a question mark or will Eric Bledsoe be a shock inclusion into the starting five with the task of stopping Booker

 

Derrick Rose Vs Goran Dragic

The two wily veterans come together for second time in 20/21 Goran�s only victory against the Pacers was all the way back in round one while he was a member of the #1 Detroit Pistons. His sole matchup against derrick was actually in round 17 and can only be described as a night he would rather forget being completely shut down while Derrick was up for one of his better games

 

Prediction: this is incredibly tough to predict, home court advantage is with the Washington Wizards the H2H series went to the team that had home court advantage, BUT Joel Embiid is a 2 way force that has a knack for putting his team on his back and simply walk through opponents. That coupled with the fact the teams have changed a bit throughout the year. And the lone victory to the Wizards was led by a stud point guard who has since been traded by the name of Damian Lillard

My guess is Pacers in 6 close fought games

Series MVP � Joel Embiid

Series X-Factor

Eric Bledsoe I�d be surprised if Bledsoe didn�t earn a staring gig at SG at some point if not for the scoring most definitely his ability to play much better defence than team mate Eric Gordon