It’s Finally Here: The 2016 NBA Playoffs Preview, Round 1

This article is part of VICE Sports' 2016 NBA Playoffs coverage.

The NBA Playoffs are finally here. Over the next nine weeks, we're going to see somewhere between 60 and 105 professional basketball games, every single one of which will help decide which team gets to wear the label of Reigning Champion for the next year.

If you care about basketball, you do not need me to tell you that this is awesome.

During the next two weeks alone, there will be somewhere between 32 and 56 games played to determine which eight teams move on to the conference semifinals. That seems like a lot to digest—it is a lot to digest—but don't worry: we're here to help keep things simple, with a VICE Sports NBA Playoff Preview that breaks down the one key matchup, big question, or Basketball Twitter™ narrative to watch for in each and every first-round series.

Let's start with the Eastern Conference, and then move West:

CLE: 57-25, +6.0 Pt. Differential, No. 4 on offense, No. 10 on defense

DET: 44-38, +0.6 Pt. Differential, No. 15 on offense, No. 13 on defense

Can Cleveland find last year's playoff defense?

There's not all that much drama in this series. The Pistons might put up a fight, but the Cavaliers are going to move on to the next round. The big question is whether they can right the ship on the less glamorous side of the ball before facing the winner of the Atlanta-Charlotte series in the second round.

The coaching change from David Blatt to Tyronn Lue did give the Cavaliers offense a nice boost (they went from scoring 105.6 to 110.6 points per 100 possessions after the switch), but it came with a corresponding dip in point-prevention capability. The Cavs were playing the equivalent of top-three defense under Blatt, allowing only 99.7 points per 100 possessions before he was fired. After Lue took over, that number hit 104.8 points per 100, the equivalent of the New York Knicks' No. 18-ranked defense this season.

The Cavaliers have shown before that they have an extra gear defensively, though. They entered last year's postseason with the NBA's No. 20-ranked defense, but took things to a higher, better level throughout the playoffs. From the start of Round 1 through the first three games of the NBA Finals, the Cavs allowed only 98.7 points per 100 possessions, an improvement of nearly six full points over their regular-season mark.

Many held up Lue as the mastermind behind last year's defensive game plan, and if that's the case, maybe Cleveland can repeat their postseason transformation. But it should be noted that many of those playoff games featured the Cavs playing without injured iffy defenders Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, which forced the team to give minutes to stronger defenders like Matthew Dellavedova, Tristan Thompson, and Timofey Mozgov. Irving and Love are healthy this year, and far too important to glue to the bench. Meanwhile, the rim-protecting Mozgov isn't the same player he was a year ago. We'll see if the Cavs can still kick it up a notch given all the changes.

TOR: 56-26, +4.5 Pt. Differential, No. 5 on offense, No. 11 on defense

IND: 45-37, +1.7 Pt. Differential, No. 23 on offense, No. 3 on defense

Will the Raptors finally get out of the first round?

The Raptors have existed for 21 years, and they have made it out of the first round of the playoffs exactly once. Their last five trips to the postseason have each ended with a first-round exit, and in the last two they bowed out of the series as the higher seed.

This version of the Raptors won the most games (56) in franchise history, breaking last year's mark by a very impressive seven wins. The Raps just barely finished outside the top 10 on defense, with only 0.4 points per 100 possessions separating their No. 11-ranked unit from the No. 10 Cavs. Couple strength on that side of the ball with the NBA's No. 5 offense, and they have the look of a real contender.

The Pacers are extremely tough to score on, but luckily for the Raps they're not all that tough to keep from putting up points. Indiana finished the year with the NBA's No. 23-ranked offense, and they were disastrous at scoring down the stretch of close games, which doesn't bode well for postseason play.

An opponent that could really have tested Toronto's defense would have made for a far tougher matchup, which is why it was so huge for the Raptors to be able to pull away from the pack occupying the 3-6 slots in the East. With the Pacers providing only a limp scoring punch, Toronto should be able to move on to the second round for the first time since 2001.

MIA: 48-34, +1.6 Pt. Differential, No. 12 on offense, No. 7 on defense

CHA: 48-34, +2.7 Pt. Differential, No. 9 on offense, No. 9 on defense

Experience vs. Youth.

Chalk one up for the Narrative Police! The top 10 players in Miami's rotation as of now have a combined 402 games of playoff experience. The top 10 players in Charlotte's have just 188.

Miami has four different players with more playoff experience than Charlotte's Courtney Lee, who has more playoff games under his belt (43) than any other Hornet. Dwyane Wade and Joe Johnson each have played more playoff games on their own than the two most experienced Hornets, Lee and Marvin Williams.

Charlotte's best player, Kemba Walker, has less playoff experience than seven Heat players. The top four players in minutes played for the Buzz this season (Walker, Batum, Williams, Lin) just barely scrape past Johnson's 87 games of playoff experience (they have 90 combined).

Not only that but, in terms of head coaching experience in the postseason, the Heat's Erik Spoelstra is a veteran of 99 playoff games while Steve Clifford has only a first-round sweep at the hands of Spo's Heat in 2014.

How much does all of this matter? We're about to find out.

ATL: 48-34, +3.6 Pt. Differential, No. 18 on offense, No. 2 on defense

BOS: 48-34, +3.2 Pt. Differential, No. 13 on offense, No. 5 on defense

Which team will muster enough offense to move on?

This series is going to be a slog. It's the only one of the eight first-round match-ups to feature dueling top-five defenses, and also the only one that doesn't feature a top-10 offense. Even though both of these teams play fast games, and their four match-ups this season were played at a lightning pace (103.25 possessions per game, which would have led the league by more than 1.0 per game), that's a surefire recipe for some low-scoring affairs.

Atlanta won the season series 3-1, as they were able to hold the Celtics to 42.6 percent shooting overall despite allowing them to hit at a 39.0 percent clip from beyond the arc. The Hawks forced the Celtics into a ton of turnovers—their 15.5 percent turnover rate in those four games was their fifth highest against any team this season—cleaned the defensive glass (usually a weakness for Atlanta), and kept Boston from dominating the transition game.

How did they do it? They cut off the head of the snake. Isaiah Thomas is the key to Boston's entire offense, and despite the fact that he was able to snipe from deep against the Hawks (he hit 10 of 23 threes in the four games), he struggled badly from everywhere else on the floor. Thomas made only 13 of 37 shots from inside the arc against Atlanta, a conversion rate of just 35.1 percent. He also turned the ball over 4.0 times a game, more often than he did against any team save for the Warriors and the Hornets.

Important supplemental note: Thomas was 14 of 30 with seven turnovers in the two home games against the Hawks and 9 of 30 with nine turnovers in the two road games. Atlanta has home-court advantage for this series.

On the other side of the floor, the Hawks were able to find great success against Boston's defense. They shot 50.6 percent from the field and 40.6 percent from three against the Celtics, who were one of four teams against whom the Hawks hit the 50-40 mark. The other three: the Pelicans, the Lakers, and the 76ers. That's not a great group of defenses to be associated with, and it shouldn't come as a surprise that Atlanta went a combined 10-1 against those four teams. Defenses usually clamp down even more in the playoffs, but unless Boston can find some degree of offensive success against what has been the best defense in the NBA since January 1, it might not matter much.

GSW: 73-9, +10.8 Pt. Differential, No. 1 on offense, No. 4 on defense

HOU: 41-41, +0.2 Pt. Differential, No. 8 on offense, No. 21 on defense

73-9 don't mean a thing without the ring.

Back in 1996, Chicago Bulls guard Ron Harper made his teammates T-shirts prior to the playoffs that read, "72-10 DON'T MEAN A THING WITHOUT THE RING."

We know from how Golden State talked throughout the season that the Warriors feel the same way: as much as they wanted to break the Bulls' all-time record, 73-9 won't mean a thing without the ring.

Is this actually true? Of course not. 73-9 is historic and should be celebrated until the end of time, championship or not.

On their road to the ring, the Warriors first get to face last year's Western Conference Finals opponent, a Houston squad that did not fare nearly as well as anybody expected this season. The Rockets got off to a miserable start, fired their head coach, and continued to slump their way through the rest of the regular season. It's a minor miracle they're even in the playoffs, considering how inconsistent their effort was on a night-to-night or even quarter-to-quarter basis.

The only drama here is how explosive Golden State's offense will look in what should be a four-game series. Houston is the worst defensive team in the playoffs after finishing the regular season ranked No. 21, and they allowed the Warriors to notch 113.9 points per 100 possessions (about a point and a half better than their NBA-best season-long mark) in their three match-ups this year.

SAS: 67-15, +10.6 Pt. Differential, 3rd on offense, 1st on defense

MEM: 42-40, -2.2 Pt. Differential, 22nd on offense, 19th on defense

A visit from the Goon Squad.

There will be plenty of opportunity to write about the San Antonio Spurs as they move forward through the playoffs. But this is probably the last chance this season to talk about this totally bonkers Memphis Grizzlies team.

They set an NBA record by using 28 different players this season. They gave a combined 1,929 minutes–almost 10 percent of their team total!–to Ryan Hollins, Jarrell Martin, P.J. Hairston, Jordan Farmar, Xavier Munford, Ray McCallum, Briante Weber, Russ Smith, Alex Stepheson, Elliott Williams, James Ennis, Bryce Cotton, and Jarnell Stokes.

They lost Zach Randolph for 14 games, Tony Allen for 18, Mario Chalmers for 19, Vince Carter for 22, Mike Conley for 26, Marc Gasol for 30, and Brandan Wright for 70. They traded Courtney Lee and Jeff Green at the deadline, and then saw even more of their guys get hurt. Yet they somehow managed to go 8-4 between Gasol's season-ending injury in early February and Conley's season-ending injury in early March, which is basically the only reason they managed to sneak into the playoffs.

The Grizzlies are here despite going 1-9 over their final 10 games of the season. They're here despite the fact that from January 1 on, they won only four games against teams with winning records. They're here despite the fact that, on the season as a whole, they went 16-30 against teams over .500, only reaching their 42-win mark by going 26-10 against teams below the line. They're here despite also being blown out an amazing 23 times (only five teams–the Milwaukee Bucks, the Phoenix Suns, the Brooklyn Nets, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the tanktastic Philadelphia Sixers–were blasted more often). They're here despite allowing Randolph, Chalmers, Hairston, Lance Stephenson, Matt Barnes, and Chris Andersen to share a locker room for a brief period of time after the trade deadline.

They won't be here for long, though, so let's all appreciate the Goon Squad while they're still alive. Shout out to Coach Dave Joerger, a dude who should get way more Coach of the Year votes than he probably will.

OKC: 55-27, +7.3 Pt. Differential, No. 2 on offense, No. 12 on defense

DAL: 42-40, -0.3 Pt. Differential, No. 10 on offense, No. 16 on defense

Serge Ibaka vs. Dirk Nowitzki

There is no better way to shut down the Dallas Mavericks than shutting down Dirk Nowitzki. And over the seven years he's been in the NBA, Ibaka has been relatively successful at limiting Nowitzki's effectiveness. To wit: Nowitzki has shot 52.4 percent from the field and 46.7 percent from three against the Thunder with Ibaka out of the game, and only 45.5 percent from the field and 32.8 percent from beyond the arc with Ibaka on the floor. (It's basically a 40-60 split in terms of his percentage of shots taken with Ibaka off the court and on.)

Dallas's overall offense has seen a similar dip based on Ibaka's presence in those games:

Interestingly enough, the Mavericks offense has been better with Ibaka on the floor in three of the last four seasons, so perhaps Dallas coach Rick Carlisle has figured things out.

The Mavericks are in the playoffs this year largely thanks to the lift they got from something of a skeleton crew around Nowitzki. Zaza Pachulia started hot and tailed off. Chandler Parsons once again finished the year with a season-ending injury. Wes Matthews gamely fought through his Achilles injury to get back for the start of the season and was a goddamn warrior all year, but he's not the same player he was in Portland. Deron Williams isn't what he once was, either, but you already knew that. J.J. Barea, Raymond Felton, Justin Anderson, Salah Mejri … these guys played far larger roles than expected, especially down the stretch of the season.

Surprising no one, the Mavericks offense fell off a cliff when Nowitzki wasn't on the floor this year, dropping from the equivalent of a top-five offense with him in the game to a bottom-four one when he was out. If you can snuff out Dallas's scoring when Dirk is in the game, well, that's a wrap. Given his size, strength, length, quickness, and mobility, Ibaka is one of the players best equipped to do so. One of the most consistently underrated players in the league, he has a chance to shine in a big match-up.

LAC: 53-29, +4.3 Pt. Differential, No. 6 on offense, No. 6 on defense

POR: 44-38, +0.8 Pt. Differential, No. 7 on offense, No. 20 on defense

Can Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum score on the Clips?

Let's take a look at another chart:

Those are some ugly numbers from Portland's two best players. They're also a large part of why the Blazers managed only a 1-3 record against the Clippers this year.

Lillard and McCollum played 1,744 minutes together during the regular season. Out of the top 100 two-man pairings in total minutes played, they ranked No. 21 in offensive efficiency while on the floor together at 108.6 points per 100 possessions. In the three games and 56 minutes they played together against the Clippers, that figure dropped all the way down to 90.3 points per 100 possessions, far worse than even the 76ers' NBA-worst offense.

The Blazers as a team shot just 40.6 percent overall and 28.6 percent from deep against the Clippers; both of those figures are worse than they fared against all but three other teams. When Portland's defense looked like it had taken a major jump in January and February, it might have been OK for them to struggle to score. But the defense fell apart again down the stretch, and there's no telling if it might suddenly come back:

The Clippers once again sport one of the NBA's top offenses. They finished sixth in points scored per 100 possessions despite being without Blake Griffin for about half the year. You can reasonably expect them to put up a good showing in the first round. If the Blazers are to match them, they'll need their hotshot guard duo to play much better.