NBA Playoffs 2017: 5 most interesting player matchups
Digging into the most compelling player matchups of the 2017 NBA Playoffs
The opening round of the 2017 NBA Playoffs should be a lot more exciting than last season’s. While there are a couple of series that won’t likely be very competitive — the Warriors and Cavaliers are favored to advance to the next round for good reason — it wouldn’t be much of a surprise to see some of the others go to six or seven games.
That’s because each team has at least one player who can swing a series in their favor all by themselves. As disappointing as the Bulls were this season and as good as the Celtics were defensively at times, for example, Jimmy Butler has the potential to win a couple of games all by himself as one of the best two-way players currently in the NBA. The same goes for other players on teams without home court advantage in the first round such as Russell Westbrook, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Paul George, Damian Lillard, Marc Gasol, Paul Millsap, Gordon Hayward and Rudy Gobert.
Win a game or two on the road thanks to a big performance from a star player and it can quickly shift the momentum of a series, which is why player matchups are so important in the postseason. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five in particular — whether it’s for offensive or defensive reasons — that are the most intriguing heading into playoffs.
5. Russell Westbrook vs. James Harden
It’s too bad votes for the end of season awards had to be in before the playoffs began because the two leading candidates for MVP, Russell Westbrook and James Harden, will battle it out in the first round.
As you know by now, Westbrook and Harden are both coming off of historic seasons. For Westbrook, he joined Oscar Robertson in the record books by becoming only the second player ever to average a triple double for an entire regular season. Harden’s raw numbers aren’t quite as historic, but he fell 1.9 rebounds per game shy of averaging his own triple double. He also finished the season with an NBA record (most points created per game through scoring and assists) while putting up numbers only Robertson (at least 28.0 points, 11.0 assists and 8.0 rebounds per game) can match when he averaged a triple-double in 1961-62.
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Furthermore, Westbrook and Harden score their points in an incredibly similar fashion. There are slight differences in how often they score in transition, isolation and out of the pick-and-roll — Harden is the league leader in isolation points per game whereas Westbrook leads the way in transition points per game — but those three play types made up for over 75 percent of their offense in total this season.
So we have two of the NBA’s best scorers who get their points in similar ways and carry their team’s offenses all by themselves. They’re capable of dropping 50 points in one game and following it up with a triple-double the next, both of which can be the difference in a win or a loss against even the best teams in the league. The Rockets and their high powered offense enter the series as the favorites to win, but anything can happen if Westbrook gets going.