2022 NBA Conference Finals Recap (Written by Ryan Diamond)

If you haven't watched any NBA playoffs, this post is meant for you. It is almost the end of the season, a lot of things are being said about players, but we have to talk whether or not it's too early or too late.

-Heat/Celtics: The Heat and Celtics Eastern Conference Finals series has come to an end after an amazing game 7. Aside from 4 out of the 7 games being blowouts, the three other games were exactly as expected. Tough, physical, aggressive games played until the last buzzer. We saw how great both Jimmy Butler and Jayson Tatum can be. Jaylen Brown as well brought fire to the Celtics, alongside Al Horford’s few big games. Jimmy Butler caught fire in game 6 and game 7, carrying the Heat on his back. He had a statline of 47/8/9 in game 6, and 35/9 in game 7. Butler was unstoppable. Bam Adebayo also came clutch in game 7, alongside his great game 3 with a statline of 31/10/6. Marcus Smart was a great third option for the Celtics as he had 24/9/5 in game 7. Tyler Herro had gotten injured in game 3 with a groin injury, which kept him out until game 7 where he only played a few minutes in the second quarter. My key takeaways from this series are that the Heat need to add another star alongside Jimmy Butler and that the Celtics are set for the future. Jimmy Butler cannot do this all on his own. The Heat are a great team, but only Jimmy and Bam showed out throughout the entire playoffs. We have seen how good Jimmy Butler can be. He is a superstar. If they can add another star, like Bradley Beal, they have a great chance of winning the finals. The Celtics have a deep core off the bench with Grant Williams, Derrick White, Al Horford, and Payton Pritchard. If they can keep them together, they can be contenders for many years to come.

-Warriors/Mavericks: As I expected, the Warriors blew the Mavericks out in five games. The Warriors are now advancing to their sixth finals in eight years. That is crazy. This Warriors team has 123 games of Finals experience. 123 games is absurd. Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, and Jordan Poole all showed up and showed out. They got the job done. The Mavericks are new to this. They are a young team, and Luka Doncic has never been to a Conference Finals before. For someone who has never had Conference Finals experience, he played like he has been to the Finals every year of his career. He had two games of 40+ points. My key takeaways are that the Warriors are unstoppable when they are healthy. The past two years, they made the play-in tournament due to not being healthy and having many injured players out. Remember, 6 out of the last 8 years, they have made the Finals. The two years that they did not make the Finals, they did not even make the playoffs because they were unhealthy. When the Warriors are healthy, they are unstoppable. The Mavericks are new to the Conference Finals experience. Jalen Brunson is a rising star, and Luka Doncic is a superstar at only 23 years old. Spencer Dinwiddie is a valuable asset for them as well. I think that they should add a star center/forward to keep them in the game. They could really use a strong center/forward, and once they have that, they can be contenders.