It’s a suspension that comes at the worst time. Rudy Gobert will not be in the match between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Los Angeles Lakers of LeBron James, on the night of Tuesday April 11 to Wednesday April 12 (4 a.m., Paris time), on behalf of the “play-in”, the NBA play-offs, the North American basketball league.
The French pivot, Olympic vice-champion in Tokyo in 2021, is suspended after punching teammate Kyle Anderson on the shoulder on Sunday April 9 in the last game of the regular season, after a name swap. of birds between the two men.
After asking him to return home even before the end of the meeting – yet crucial for the rest of the season – on Sunday, his leaders also decided to suspend him for one match, considering that they had no other choice, despite the excuses, in public and in private, of the Frenchman, reports the American sports channel ESPN. Rudy Gobert won’t even make the trip to Los Angeles alongside his teammates.
A time tipped to play spoilsport at the top of the standings after recovering the French pivot at a gold price this summer, the Timberwolves were quickly disillusioned. Eighth in the Western Conference, with a barely positive record (42 wins for 40 defeats), they have had an ups and downs season: “It’s an average season, not as good as last year and below their expectations, “sums up Jacques Monclar, consultant for the BeIN Sports channel, which broadcasts the NBA in France. The former player of the France team and coach notes, however, that there have been “a lot of injuries, a difficult integration and a game against the current [of] what is done everywhere in the NBA… but 42 victories and 40 defeats, finishing eighth, there’s nothing to jump to the chandeliers.
A format designed to restore interest
Minnesota will, despite everything, have two chances to snatch a place in the playoff. The first, therefore, Tuesday evening, against the Los Angeles Lakers, who finished the season in seventh place in their Conference (43 wins, 39 losses), but arrive reinvigorated after a cannonball end to the season – 9 wins over the Last 11 matches. The winner will face Memphis, second in the Western Conference at the end of the regular season, in the best of seven games of the final phase.
“The Timberwolves are capable of rising above the chaos and playing their best basketball. They are also capable of losing thirty points,” summarizes the Star Tribune. In case of defeat, they will have a new opportunity, on the night of Friday to Saturday, against the winner of the match between New Orleans (ninth) and Oklahoma City (tenth). Whoever wins will face Denver, first in the regular season in the West, still in the best of seven games.
Tested during the 2019-2020 season in the Orlando health bubble, before being definitively established with alterations the following season, this play-off scheme is the result of years of reflection on the part of the NBA to try to revitalize the final games of the season and include as many franchises as possible in the playoff race.
Thus, on the side of the Eastern Conference, Miami (seventh) and Atlanta (eighth) also compete this night to obtain the right to face Boston (second) in the playoff. The loser will have the opportunity to catch up with the winner of the match between Toronto (ninth) and Chicago (tenth) to play the first round of the playoffs against Milwaukee (first).
“The best invention of the NBA in recent years”
“I think it’s the best invention of the NBA in recent years,” says George Eddy, who today comments on the meetings for Canal Afrique. “We didn’t take the last games of the regular season very seriously,” he insists. “It allows you to have a motivation to grab this tenth place”, also thinks Jacques Monclar. “I find it positive. It interests teams who could drop off the luggage much earlier. Half the teams are eliminated in each Conference “before the start of the playoffs, he recalls.
A sentiment echoed by Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, whose team will participate in the “play-in” in the East, when they would have qualified directly for the playoffs four years ago: “We have to seize this new experience. I think it’s great for the league. The last six or eight weeks have been very trying for sixteen teams in both Conferences. The competition was excellent. »
These play-offs are all the more interesting because they are cleavers, underlines George Eddy: “It’s a bit like university tournaments where everything is played in one game and there is no tomorrow for the loser. The playoffs, then, are played in the best of seven games. “Our guys love competition and there are high stakes here,” said Erik Spoelstra. It is in these moments that we discover who we really are. And when there are issues, there are also consequences. »
Adam Silver, the league commissioner, seems aware of the constant need for the NBA to create new formats or renew itself. “Trying new things is what makes our job so exciting. If you repeat yourself, not only will you lose interest, but your business won’t survive. It is a necessity for our operation, “he developed during his visit to Paris in January, during a relocated match.
However, if this “play-in” has managed to restore hope to some teams, on the ground, they have never gone very far in the rest of the competition. Opposed to the top two teams in each Conference, they have been eliminated each time in the first round…a fairly logical fate: in the last twenty years, only four teams ranked seventh or eighth (out of eighty) have managed to qualify for the next round. The last to achieve this feat was Philadelphia against Chicago (deprived of its best player, injured in the first game), in 2012.
This year, bookmakers are ignoring the regular season rankings. “The Lakers [seventh and not yet assured of a playoff spot] have a better chance of being champions than [second] Memphis. Denver [first] is sixth on this list, and Sacramento [third] dead last,” notes Fox Sport. “If there’s a year where it can contradict itself, it’s this year,” confirms Jacques Monclar.
