NBA Contenders and Pretenders

 

The NBA Season is about a third of the way through and now is around the time you can figure out which teams are legitimate title contenders and who are pretenders. There are only 5 teams that can truly contend for an NBA Championship. They are the Los Angeles Lakers, Clippers, Milwaukee Bucks, Brooklyn Nets, and the Philadelphia 76ers. The purpose of the article is to examine  2 teams that are in playoff contention to see if they truly have what it takes to be a dark horse Championship contender.

 

Miami Heat

The Miami Heat are currently 11-14 and sitting in 10^th place in the Eastern Conference. The Heat are looking to get back on track as players getting healthy. They were missing several players over the last 10 games due to players testing positive for Covid 19 and nagging injuries to key players such as Jimmy Butler, and Tyler Hero. They great news for the Heat is that they play great team defense and with just 3 games separating the 10^th seed and the 3^rd seed, they have a great chance to finish as a top 4 seed if they are able to get healthy and run off 5 or 6 game streak in the process. I believe the Heat my not win the Eastern Conference as they did last year but will surely be one tough out in the playoffs.

 

Utah Jazz

The Utah Jazz have the number record in the NBA at 21-5. I am not completely convinced that they can win a NBA Championship. They remind me of the Milwaukee Bucks from the past 2 seasons; you will great a regular season total wins from them, but the pieces do not have enough to win in the playoffs. They have a strong defense with being ranked 5th in opponent 3pt percentage, and 3rd overall in opponent field goal percentage. Also they have played 15 teams who currently have records below a .500 winning percentage. In addition, they have played of the easiest schedules in the NBA. It will be interesting to see how far Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert can take this team especially since they will be the core of the team for future. This being because they both in the offseason signed max extensions. The Jazz will improve record wise from last season but will disappoint when the playoffs begin.