Injury, Upsets And Awards, A First Round Recap Of The NBA Playoffs

There it is again, the most exciting time of year for all NBA fans, on the 18th of April, the playoffs kicked off. If you were very busy and missed the first round, here is a recap of everything that happened.

(Image credit to ESPN)

Western Conference

The Western Conference saw the OKC Thunder, Los Angeles Lakers, Minnesota Timberwolves and San Antonio Spurs move on.

The Thunder vs Suns series was simple and quick. The reigning champs swept the Suns in 4 games with little to no resistance from the team from Phoenix. SGA was named clutch player of the year during this series.

The Lakers vs Rockets matchup proved to be surprisingly easy for the Lakers, beating the Rockets in six after having taken a 3-0 lead. The Lakers had to miss stars Austin Reaves and Luka Doncic due to injury. Lebron James led the series for the Lakers, showing some of the younger Lebron James we have missed over the last years.

The tension ridden Timberwolves vs. Nuggets series ended in a 4-2 win for Minnesota. Anthony Edwards got badly injured in game 5, suffering a hyperextension and bruising in the knee. Not only that, the Timberwolves also had to miss Donte Divencenco. The nuggets, most importantly, Nikola Jokic put on a good fight which definitely made things more complicated, but this time around it wasn’t enough.

The San Antonio Spurs, Portland Trail Blazers series won by the Spurs in 5 games. The only game Portland won was game 2, a game Victor Wembanyama did not finish due to an injury to the head. In this series two Spurs players were handed awards. Victor Wembanyama was crowned our youngest, and first unanimous defensive player of the year. 6th man Keldon Johnson was awarded the 6th man of the year award.

Eastern Conference

The Eastern Conference saw the Detroit Pistons, Cleveland Cavaliers, New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76’ers move on to the second round.

The Detroit Pistons faced the 8th seeded Orlando Magic in the first round. Surprisingly this series went on to game 7. The Orlando Magic went up 3-1 but lost the lead over the next 3 consecutive games. Paolo Banchiero was the series leader for the Magic and Cade Cunningham for the Detroit Pistons.

The Raptors vs The Cavaliers series also went on to 7 games, with Cleveland moving on to the second round. The Cavaliers went up 2-0 but after that the series evened out, the Raptors forcing a game 7. Game 7 was won by Cleveland in a pretty close 114-102 matchup.

The Hawks vs The Knicks series was the only series in the East that did not require a game 7.  The most interesting thing in this series was the margins the teams won by. The Hawks won by a margin of 1 in both of their victories, while the Knicks won their 4 games with an average margin of 26.75 points. This difference is huge, bigger than we usually see for a series that goes to six games.

The final series in the East between the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76’ers proved to be our biggest upset of the first round. The 7th seed 76’ers beat the 2nd seed and 2024 NBA champions Celtics. Boston went up 3-1 just to lose it again in the next 3 games. The Boston Celtics were predicted by many to make the conference finals or even the full finals, so this was definitely not preceded.

Just like that 8 of our 16 teams have been eliminated from the play-offs, some expected, some not. Some without much drama, others with an overload of it. The next round is expected to be more drama, more excitement and more hooping. Stay tuned for the rest of the recaps of the playoffs!

Article written by Norah d’Hont © Norah d’Hont 2026