On May 21, Beijing time, the NBA playoffs have reached the division finals, and the Timberwolves, Mavericks, Celtics and Pacers have successfully advanced, and these four teams will compete for the final championship. Whichever team wins the championship will have a new champion, as this will be their first championship after their respective teams have reconstituted their rosters and will also be the sixth championship team in the NBA in the last six years.
In the past five years, the teams that have won the championship are the Raptors, Lakers, Bucks, Warriors and Nuggets, and there has been no feat of two consecutive championships. I thought that the Nuggets had a chance to achieve this time, but they fell in the semifinals, losing 3-4 to the Timberwolves, ending the journey of the season ahead of schedule. Whoever wins the four teams that advance to the division finals will make new league history, having last appeared in 1975-80, 44 years after that.
This new history is the birth of six different championship teams for six consecutive years, and all five teams in the previous five years have been eliminated, and it depends on who can become the sixth team to win the championship this time. This is still quite expected by the outside world, after all, in the previous season, there were always some familiar faces in the Finals, but now the league has completely changed the dynasty, and it no longer belongs to James, Curry, and Durant, the three of them have long been out, and Curry has not even made the playoffs.
Among the final four teams, the oldest core of the team is Tatum, but he is only 26 years old, followed by 25-year-old Doncic, 24-year-old Haliburton, and 22-year-old Edwards. Whoever wins the championship will be the new head of the league, and I'm sure they'll give it their all.
With the rise of young players, it has also made the league more beautiful and more competitive. At the beginning of the season, except for the Celtics, no one expected the Timberwolves, Mavericks and Pacers to reach the division finals, but their excellent performance, coupled with the continuous run-in of the lineup, finally brought them closer and closer to the championship. At the moment, the Celtics are the favourites to do so, but there have been a lot of variables this season, and it is really impossible to determine the final winner until the end.