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Tim BontempsESPN
The top of the NBA’s Eastern Conference couldn’t be much more compact.
Entering Tuesday’s action, four teams — the Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks, Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers — were within a single loss of one another.
And, in serendipitous timing, all four were set to face off, with the Bucks playing in Philadelphia on Tuesday, followed by the Heat and Celtics squaring off in Boston on Wednesday — a 24-hour span that could have delivered a pair of Eastern Conference semifinal previews.
Let’s look at one key question surrounding each of the conference’s top four teams as they prepare for the playoffs, and how each storyline played out in two high-level matchups.
The results — a pair of close, competitive games with Milwaukee and Miami both winning on the road — only whet the appetite for what should be a scintillating spring full of playoff action in the East.
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Is Lowry Miami’s playoff X factor?
When Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was asked whether Kyle Lowry’s do-it-all performance in Miami’s win against the Celtics on Wednesday night was indicative of the kind of performances the Heat expected when they signed him last summer, Spoelstra smiled.
“Look, we’ve been on the other side of it,” Spoelstra said. “There were many years that I just really did not like Kyle Lowry, because he was such a thorn in our side.”
Spoelstra pointed to the seven-game series between the Toronto Raptors and Miami in the first round of the 2016 playoffs, which Lowry’s Raptors won.
“As that series got deeper, the better he played in clutch moments,” Spoelstra said. “You can’t define it by an analytic or a number or a playcall … he just knows how to make winning plays.”
Lowry made all sorts of them Wednesday. He finished with 23 points (6-for-12 from 3-point range) and eight assists in 36 minutes. He played his usual brand of in-your-face defense despite collecting four fouls down the stretch.
“That’s…
Source : espn
