“Coaches are giving up top seeds to avoid Kevin Durant and the Nets!”: ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins talks about how coaches plan to get favourable matchups in the playoffs

Kendrick Perkins believes coaches and teams are trying to avoid the 1st and 2nd seed to avoid facing Kevin Durant and co in the first round

The NBA season is coming to an end, and with that, we’re approaching the playoffs. In these last 8-10 games, the teams that have qualified for the playoffs contest for the seeding, whereas the other teams make one last push to get there.

Since last year, the introduction of the play-in tournament has made the same more competitive, as now 10 teams have a shot at playoffs, instead of 8. The winner between the 7th and 8th seed team goes to face the 2nd seeded team. The winner of the 9th and 10th seeded team faces the loser of 7&8, and whoever wins here, faces the #1 seeded team. Kevin Durant and the Brooklyn Nets probably are the biggest team in the play-in tournament right now. They have 7 games left in the season and hold the 8th spot in the East. The Nets are 3 games behind the 7th seeded Cavs and are half a game ahead of the 9th seeded Hornets.

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Kendrick Perkins believes coaches are actively trying to avoid Kevin Durant in the first round of the playoffs

Imagine working hard all season and getting yourself a comfortable spot in the playoffs, to end up meeting Kevin Durant in the first round of playoffs. This would be everyone’s worst nightmare. However, this would be the reality for one of the teams in the East this season. With KD and the Nets at the 8th spot, they’d have to win their way through the play-in games to get to the playoffs. With there being just a one-game differential between the 8th and 10th seed, who knows how the final seeding would be.

This means Kevin Durant and co can either face the 2nd seed or the 1st seed, depending on what seed they end as. No coach wants that. Kendrick Perkins talks about the same. He believes coaches are actively trying to not get the top 2 seeds, in order to avoid the Nets.

Kendrick Perkins makes case that players and coaches are thinking about how to get the best playoff matchups possible pic.twitter.com/fv7LehOG61

— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) March 29, 2022

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To be fair, if I was a coach in the NBA, I would have done the same. Who, in their right minds, would want to meet a team having KD, Kyrie Irving, and more, in the first round of playoffs itself?