Will this season’s NBA champion be the healthiest (and last) team standing?

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Luke Kornet had 10 points, nine rebounds and seven blocked shots off the bench for the Celtics last night in Boston’s win. At one point, my friend Ian threw “The Charlotte Kornets” into the group chat and demanded I put that in The Bounce. I’m a great friend. Go watch his one-hour special.

Health Meter ♥️

Should finals predictions be based on health?

Unfortunately, health becomes a major talking point of any NBA postseason. We’re not even through the second round of these playoffs, and we’ve lost Damian Lillard and Jayson Tatum to Achilles tears, seen the Cavaliers miss key starters for games before their elimination and lamented Steph Curry’s hamstring making us watch too many Brandin Podziemski jump shots. That’s the playoffs, though. Sometimes, it’s just about which team can maintain the most health to get to the finish line.

Of the teams we have left, can we devise a health meter to figure out which is headed toward being the healthiest of them all? And with that info, discern which teams might find themselves with the best chance to win the championship? First, we need to figure out how to make that health meter.

The thing I think of when I hear “health meter” is a video game. A lot of video games either have a bar of health or an increasing/decreasing number of hearts. Let’s go with hearts for ours because the bar thing is just going to be annoying to try to figure out. We’ll set the heart counter at 10 of these ♥️s, kind of like a “Legend of Zelda” health bar, for the collective team.

• For each star or significant player who has suffered season-ending injuries, we’ll take away two ♥️s.
• For those players who have missed a game or multiple games with injuries in the postseason, we’ll take away one ♥️. (Not for each game.) That could be knocked down to a half-heart depending on injury type and which round.
• If a player has been battling something that is affecting play, like an ankle or shoulder problem, but they’re not really missing time, we’ll take away a half.
• It’s a little subjective, but did you really expect anything else from me?

We have the Celtics, Knicks, Pacers, Timberwolves, Nuggets and Thunder left in this postseason. Let’s figure out which teams are the healthiest, and if that does anything for their future title chances:

Eastern Conference

Celtics | Down 3-2 in the second round

• Season-ending: Jayson Tatum (Achilles).
• Missed games: Jrue Holiday (hamstring) missed three games.
• Battling injuries: Kristaps Porziņģis (illness).
• Health Meter:

The devastating news about Tatum’s injury definitely hurts them right now and next season. Holiday missed games with the hamstring strain in the first round, and it hasn’t affected him too much in this series. Porziņģis continues to struggle with breathing, and this illness that won’t go away. Needless to say, the Celtics won’t have their best player the rest of the way, and that lowers their health meter significantly.

Knicks | Up 3-2 in the second round

• Season-ending: None.
• Missed games: None.
• Battling injuries: Jalen Brunson (ankle).
• Health Meter:

In a shocking turn of events, Tom Thibodeau’s Knicks are extremely healthy, aside from Brunson continuing to deal with a sore ankle from when he turned it against Detroit. He keeps tweaking it here and there, but that’s pretty much it. Josh Hart just got his eyebrow split open, but we’re not counting that.

Pacers | In the conference finals

• Season-ending: None.
• Missed games: Bennedict Mathurin (abdominal bruise) missed one game. Ben Sheppard (toe) missed two games.
• Battling injuries: None
• Health Meter:

No offense to Isaiah Jackson, who is out for the year — but he’s been out since early November. The Pacers have managed to replace their backup big man enough to make up for it in that time. Mathurin and Sheppard both missed early enough in the first round that this team feels very healthy in its pursuit of the NBA Finals.

Overall, it looks like we’re getting the Knicks and the Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals if the Knicks can win one of their next two games against Boston. That makes sense with them being the two healthiest teams. As New York fans remember, the Knicks will need to stay healthy if they want to take down an even better Pacers team this time.

Western Conference

Nuggets | Down 3-2 in the second round

• Season-ending: None.
• Missed games: Russell Westbrook (foot) missed one game.
• Battling injuries: Jamal Murray (hamstring), Michael Porter Jr. (shoulder).
• Health Meter:

There is still reason to be concerned about Murray’s legs at all times, and Porter seems incapable of being reliable with his injured shoulder right now. He’s gutting it out by playing, but you never know if he’ll actually be able to contribute. At least they have Nikola Jokić.

Thunder | Up 3-2 in the second round

• Season-ending: None.
• Missed games: None.
• Battling injuries: None.
• Health Meter:

The 68-win Thunder have been completely healthy for a while. They’ve had bumps and bruises, but nobody is missing games. Even Chet Holmgren has stayed healthy. This team looks in top form at the right time.

Timberwolves | In the conference finals

• Season-ending: None.
• Missed games: None.
• Battling injuries: Anthony Edwards (ankle).
• Health Meter:

The Wolves are almost completely healthy, except Edwards still doesn’t seem completely fine from the ankle injury from the Lakers series he’s tweaked a couple times. We’re still not seeing the consistent explosiveness and finishing around the rim from him yet. But he has some time to rest now.

Overall, the Wolves have time to be completely healthy before they try to make their first NBA Finals. And they’ll either face a mildly banged-up Denver team with little depth and nagging injuries to two key players but not the kaiju in the middle everybody fears, or they’ll face a deep, pristinely healthy Thunder squad ready to go. It looks like health is mostly shining in both conferences right now. Just check the meters!

The Last 24

Cooper Flagg couldn’t believe the lottery either

😱 Lottery reaction. What was Cooper Flagg’s reaction to the Mavs getting No. 1? About like yours.

🏀 Now what? The Cavaliers had another early postseason exit. Where do they go from here?

🏀 Born in it. Nuggets coach David Adelman grew up around a pretty important NBA influence: His Hall of Fame coach dad, Rick Adelman. 

🏀 New opportunities. Tatum’s injury for Boston has a big impact. The East is now wide open. 

🎧 Tuning in. Today’s “NBA Daily” examines Jimmy Butler’s impact for the Warriors as they face the offseason.

The Basketball 100

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Will Shooting Travel?

Celtics must migrate 3-point shooting to MSG

Even without Jayson Tatum, the Celtics are still a dangerous team — especially at home. They had their backs against the wall heading into Game 5, needing a victory to keep their title defense alive. And while everybody outside of Massachusetts or the Celtics fan base is engraving the tombstone for their season, Boston still thinks it can win this series. We saw that confidence last night with a monster second-half performance to fuel the 127-102 victory.

Boston used a 32-17 third quarter to grab control of the game and then a 36-26 fourth quarter to make sure the Knicks weren’t feeling frisky with some kind of comeback. The stars of that third-quarter dominance? Yep, you guessed it. Frank Stallone Derrick White and Luke Kornet. After a 19-point first half, White dropped 13 points in the third quarter, with seven of them coming at the free-throw line. The Celtics got the Knicks into foul trouble early and shot 18 free throws in that quarter alone.

As for Kornet, he looked like Hakeem Olajuwon out there. No, I mean he literally looked like Olajuwon. And Dwight Howard. And Serge Ibaka and JaVale McGee. Kornet joined those four players as the only guys since 1997 to have five or more rebounds and five or more blocks in a playoff quarter. He started for Kristaps Porziņģis in the quarter and dominated the entire period.

The Celtics hit 22-of-49 from 3-point range in the game. It was reminiscent of their Game 3 win at Madison Square Garden when they made 20-of-40 from deep. In the regular season, they shot 19-of-39 from deep and 19-of-49 from downtown in their two wins in New York. They’re going to have to mimic all of that shooting in order to force a Game 7, and, even then, they have to hope the Knicks don’t bring it like they did in Game 4.

Maybe putting that pressure on New York can get them to second-guess themselves and begin to crumble, but this also feels like a different Knicks team than what we’re used to.

The Golden Wolves

Minnesota sends Warriors to summer

We live in a world where the Timberwolves have now advanced to back-to-back Western Conference finals. We also live in a world where Julius Randle has completely turned his career and reputation around in the last two months by playing the best basketball we’ve ever seen from him — even better than the two times he made All-NBA. And we live in a world where the Warriors didn’t get a chance to see if their trade-deadline acquisition of Jimmy Butler could actually matter enough in the postseason to get Steph Curry and Draymond Green a fifth ring.

This was supposed to be a great series. Instead, Curry’s hamstring strained in the first half of Game 1, and we only saw him in street clothes on the sidelines the rest of the way. It may not have mattered anyway. This Wolves team is no joke, and they’re good enough to win a championship. But without Curry on the court, it became destined that the Wolves would clinch their golden era of existence. Granted, that’s a low bar to clear, but they kicked that door off the hinges like Charlie Murphy kicked Rick James.

Minnesota won, 121-110, despite turning the ball over 20 times, because they dominated every other facet of the game. That’s what they should do against an overmatched, wounded team. But that also won’t be good enough to advance to where this team has never been before, no matter whom they face in the next round. They have to clean things up.

As for the Warriors, they enter the summer hoping to add outside shooting to space the floor, maybe a big body, and figuring out what Jonathan Kuminga’s restricted free agency and status with the team should be. They ask Father Time to show mercy for just one year, and see if Butler can see a healthy Curry in the next postseason.

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