By: Anthony Martinez, Sports Editor
After almost a year since the 2019-2020 season originally started, the playoffs have finally concluded. After the NBA season progressed as normal from its start on Oct. 22, the season was brought to a screeching halt when COVID-19 hit the league. On March 11, the NBA decided to indefinitely suspend all games. For basketball fans, it was heartbreak. A heartbreak that would not have to last forever.
The NBA announced a bubble, a way for teams, fighting for a spot in the playoffs, to safely finish the season and give the world something to cheer about again. On July 30, the season resumed.
The bubble isn’t the only story of the season however, there were still many games before the shut-down and a lot to look into.
Statistics are always notable and there some standouts for this past season. The league leader was James Harden, scoring a ridiculous 34.3 points per game. From his setback to his ability to get to the free-throw line, Harden always found a way to score. Somehow, in his seventeenth season, LeBron James led the league in assists for the first time in his career with 10.2 a game. What he has been able to for such a long period of time, to dominate the game for so long, is nothing short of extraordinary.
Like every season, the NBA awards were given out to well-deserving players. The league’s Most Valuable Player(MVP) was a tight race between the Lakers’ James and the Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo. It would ultimately go to Antetokounmpo, making it his second time receiving that award. He won the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year Award, as well.
The Most Improved Player Award went to the New Orleans Pelicans’ Brandon Ingram. As his time as a Laker, Ingram showed a lot of promise, but after being dealt in a trade to New Orleans for one of the best players in the league, Anthony Davis, Ingram’s play took off. Ingram scored a career high of 23.8 points per game along with six rebounds and four assists per game. He also earned his first all-star appearance last season.
The standings for the regular season were primarily from before the bubble began, with the lower seeds being more affected in the bubble. It was really only the lower Western Conference seeds that were in play, teams like the Portland Trailblazers, the Memphis Grizzles, the Phoenix Suns, and the New Orleans Pelicans were playing for that final seed. It would eventually be the Trailblazers who earned the final seed despite the Suns incredible 8-0 record in the bubble.
Some of the other notable standings were the Los Angeles Lakers as the number one seed and the number two seed, the Los Angeles Clippers for the West. From the East, the number one seed and the team with the best regular season record was the Milwaukee Bucks, and the fifth seed, the Miami Heat.
The playoffs this season were like no other. No travel and no fans was a major shakeup to the usual atmosphere. Despite that, the play was still intense. The overall favorites to win the titles were the Clippers, the Bucks, and the Lakers. Only one of those teams would even reach the NBA finals and that would be the Lakers who breezed through the first three rounds going 12-3 in the process. Meanwhile, the Clippers were surprisingly taken out after having a 3-1 game lead in the series against the Denver Nuggets before blowing it.
While the Bucks won the first round easily, they would get demolished in just five games against the Miami Heat, the team who eventually met the Lakers in the finals. The Heat didn’t care about seeding, and dominated the East going 12-3 just like the Lakers. This would set up the NBA finals, the Los Angeles Lakers versus the Miami Heat. James versus his old coach and team.
The Lakers here hugely favored to win; a lot of people expected the Lakers to take the Heat out in four or five games running through them. While the Lakers would end up winning in six games, the Heat pushed them throughout the series, making L.A. fight hard for it. The Heat managed to win two games against the consensus best team and best player in the world, something for Miami to be proud of, especially when no one thought they would be there.
Game five alone made that series worth watching; the battle between Jimmy Butler and James was magnificent. Butler cemented himself as a superstar in the league, while James proved he was still the best. In the end, James won finals MVP and the Lakers were NBA champions in 2020, a decade since their last one, all while dedicating it to the late great Kobe Bryant.
