SI:AM | The Most Intriguing NBA Playoff Series Is …

Plus, a blooper-filled day in MLB.

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. The best two months in the NBA begin this weekend. 

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Ranking the most watchable NBA playoff series

I’m fully prepared for the NBA playoffs to begin taking over my life. There are still two spots to be decided in tonight’s play-in games before the first round begins with four games tomorrow. The opening round usually has some mismatches but there is still plenty to look forward to. Here are the eight matchups, ranked by how excited I am to watch them.

8. Suns vs. Clippers or Pelicans

No matter who ends up winning the play-in game, don’t be surprised if this series ends up being a sweep. The Suns were far and away the best team in the NBA this season, and they should prove it with a quick win against either of these teams.

7. Heat vs. Cavs or Hawks

While I don’t expect the Heat to have much trouble over seven games with either of these teams, if the Cavs end up winning tonight’s play-in game, this series will be worth paying attention to, if only to get a sense of Cleveland’s future. The Cavs have a good young core with Darius Garland, Caris LeVert, Jarrett Allen, Evan Mobley and Lauri Markkanen. Those guys getting playoff experience against Miami (and maybe even winning a game or two) could be big for the franchise’s long-term outlook.

6. Mavericks vs. Jazz

The Jazz just don’t have the same shine they’ve had in recent years. Donovan Mitchell is still a great player and it’s fun that this is one of the few teams in the league that still employs a traditional defensive-minded center, but for some reason that I can’t quite put my finger on, I’m just not as enthused by them this year as I have been in the past. (I don’t think it’s the absence of Joe Ingles.) Plus, Luka Dončić is expected to miss at least the first game of the series, which puts a damper on this one.

5. Bucks vs. Bulls

The Bulls are an interesting team. They play a small ball lineup with the 6'6" DeMar DeRozan at power forward. Now that Lonzo Ball is injured, their most-used five-man combination this season is Zack LaVine (​​6'5"), Ayo Dosunmu (6'5"), Javonte Green (6'4"), DeRozan and Nikola Vučević (6'10"). Like I said, interesting, and especially interesting against a team as big as the Bucks. I think Milwaukee wins the series without too much trouble, but I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes.

4. 76ers vs. Raptors

The Raptors’ resurgence has been one of the better stories in the NBA this season and they could pose a problem for the Sixers in the first round. Philly is a much superior team but will be missing starter Matisse Thybulle in Games 3 and 4 (and a potential Game 6) in Toronto because he is not fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Thybulle is a strong defender but his absence in two or three games probably isn’t enough to swing the series. Still, if the Raptors can steal a game on the road, things would get very interesting.

3. Grizzlies vs. Timberwolves

Memphis is the more talented team here by a pretty significant margin. It won 10 more games this season than Minnesota and even succeeded with Ja Morant sidelined. I think this series will end after four or five games, but I expect those games to be a blast to watch. The Timberwolves played with so much heart in their play-in win over the Clippers (they were a little too excited to get the win, if you ask the Inside the NBA guys). Patrick Beverley is perhaps the most intense player in the NBA, yet he always finds another gear in the playoffs. I’m predicting we’ll have at least one viral screenshot of Beverley yelling in Morant’s face.

2. Celtics vs. Nets

Brooklyn’s season starts on Sunday. The disjointed regular season was in some ways an 82-game preseason, but Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are finally able to play in every game together and that consistency can only have a positive effect on the Nets’ title chances. Plus, Ben Simmons is reportedly hoping to return in the later games of the series. We’ll find out pretty quickly if the Nets are a legitimate title contender. The Celtics are the top defensive team in the NBA, so if Brooklyn prevails in this series it proves that the sky's the limit for this team. Likewise for Boston, if the Celtics can shut down the Nets’ dynamic duo (or trio), there’s no reason to believe they can’t lift the trophy in June.

1. Warriors vs. Nuggets

There might not be two players in the NBA who are more fun to watch than Stephen Curry and Nikola Jokić. (Curry is expected to return from his foot injury for Game 1.) This series would be a lot more compelling if Jokić had Jamal Murray by his side but it’ll still be fun to see Curry’s ridiculous shots and Jokić’s absurd passing and creative post moves in the same series. I’m also looking forward to seeing Draymond Green attempt to defend Jokić. Also, Klay Thompson will play in his first playoff game since tearing his ACL in the 2019 NBA Finals.

The best of Sports Illustrated

On the anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s Dodgers debut, Andrea Williams writes in today’s Daily Cover story about the way MLB integration left the Negro Leagues in the dust.

Michael Shapiro thinks these up-and-coming players could break out in the NBA playoffs. … Speaking of breakout stars, Nick Selbe wrote about Guardians rookie Steven Kwan. … If your team is already out of the playoffs, Jeremy Woo has a new NBA mock draft for you.

Around the Sports World

Police in Dallas reportedly want to speak with Cowboys cornerback Kelvin Joseph in connection with a March 18 shooting death. … The sale of Tom Brady’s “last” touchdown ball was voided after a buyer paid over $500,000 for it just before Brady announced his return. … Manny Machado had five hits in the Padres’ win over the Braves. … A group led by Cubs owners the Ricketts family has withdrawn its bid to buy Premier League club Chelsea. … Greg Norman says the new Saudi golf league will begin with amateur players.

The top five... 

… MLB bloopers from yesterday:

5. Giancarlo Stanton’s feeble swing at a nasty slider

4. This misplay by the Rays’ Randy Arozarena and Kevin Kiermeier that allowed the A’s Christian Pache to score on a Little League home run

3. Albert Pujols’s ill-advised steal attempt

2. Alcides Escobar gets hit square in the crotch by a pick-off throw

1. All the dropped pop-ups during the White Sox–Mariners game in windy Chicago

SIQ

Every year on April 15, MLB players on every team mark Jackie Robinson Day by wearing Robinson’s No. 42 on the anniversary of his breaking the color barrier in 1947. MLB retired the number across the league in 1997 but 13 players were allowed to wear their existing No. 42 jerseys until their careers ended. Mariano Rivera was famously the last player to wear No. 42, pitching until 2013 with the digits on his back. Who was the last Black player to wear Robinson’s number?

Yesterday’s SIQ: Why did Roberto de Vicenzo miss out on a playoff at the 1968 Masters?

Answer: He signed an incorrect scorecard.

As Alfred Wright wrote in the following week’s Sports Illustrated, the final round of the 1968 Masters was a thrilling one, with 11 players within three shots of Gary Player’s lead at six under. Player shot an even-par 72 in the final round, while three players shot low scores to create some drama at the top of the leaderboard. Bert Yancey’s final-round 65 was good enough to finish in third place at nine under, but the real duel was between de Vicenzo and Bob Goalby.

“It was at exactly 23 minutes past 4 that the roar went up from the great gallery banked around the 17th green, a roar that started rolling across the Augusta countryside carrying the news that Roberto had dropped his birdie putt to go 12 under par and lead the tournament by two strokes. But even as the cheer for Roberto was in the air, an answering roar came from the 15th green, where Goalby had sunk his putt for an eagle 3 that brought him to 12 under, too.”

After a shot on 18, de Vicenzo briefly fell out of the lead by making a bogey but was bailed out when Goalby bogied 17. Wright described de Vicenzo “pulling at his lower lip as he watched apprehensively from a chair at the scorer’s table alongside the green” as Goalby putted for par on 18 to set up what everyone thought would be the Monday playoff. (Back then, ties at the Masters were broken with an 18-hole Monday playoff.)

But there would be no playoff: de Vicenzo had mistakenly signed an inaccurate scorecard. That birdie on the par-4 17th that had elicited such a roar from the crowd had been marked as a 4 by de Vicenzo’s playing partner, Tommy Aaron, and the final total was tallied at 66 strokes, not 65. de Vicenzo didn’t notice the error when he signed his card after the round. Aaron noticed only after Goalby sunk his par putt to force a playoff.

“It was only after Roberto had left the scorer’s table that Tommy Aaron looked at de Vicenzo’s scorecard and noticed something odd. The final total read 66 instead of 65, which was the remarkable score Roberto had shot. Aaron called it to the scorer’s attention, and that green-coated gentleman snatched up the card and rushed off with it to a nearby cottage where the ailing Bobby Jones, president of the Augusta National Golf Club and co-host of the Masters, was watching the tournament on television.

“Clifford Roberts and several other officials got wind of the trouble and also hurried over to Jones’s cottage. At this brief meeting in Jones’s bedroom it was agreed that nothing could be done, that the harsh rules of golf must apply. de Vicenzo had signed and thereby verified the wrong score, and the rules say that in such a case the score he signed must stand. So Roberto was credited with 278 and Bob Goalby became the 1968 Masters champion on a scorekeeping error.”

In one sense, de Vicenzo is lucky that he signed a card with a higher total than his actual score. If he had signed for a lower score, he would have been disqualified.

SI actually published a photo of de Vicenzo’s erroneous scorecard in that week’s magazine. Right above the line where the player signs his name is some not-so-fine print reading, “I have checked my score hole by hole.”

The scoring error was gutting, but de Vicenzo was also disappointed with his bogey on the last hole.

“I am so unhappy to make 5 on the last hole, and Bob, he gave me so much pressure on the last hole that I lose my brain,” the Argentine said. “I play golf all over the world for 30 years, and now all I can think of is what a stupid I am to be wrong in this wonderful tournament. Never have I ever done such a thing before. Maybe I am too old to win.”

de Vicenzo, who had won the Open Championship the year before, played the final round of the 1968 Masters on his 45th birthday. While he never won another major and only finished in the top 10 at Augusta once more, he did go on to have a long and successful career, including a win in the ’80 U.S. Senior Open.

From the Vault: April 15, 2002

Brian Lanker/Sports Illustrated (Brady) | John Biever/Sports Illustrated (background)

It may just be because Brady is still in the NFL 20 years later, but this cover and the accompanying story are somehow more of a blast from the past than the other ones I feature in this section of the newsletter.

First of all, you’ve got a photo of Brady back when he still had cheeks and a bad haircut. Then there’s the lede of Michael Silver’s cover story:

“Come fly with me, the brassy billionaire said to America’s newest football star, and soon the two were traversing the friendly skies in a customized Boeing 727, swapping stories, chowing down on sandwiches and preparing to mingle with 51 of the hottest women in the land. This was the usual plane of existence for the aircraft's owner, a real estate magnate and notorious babe magnet, but the wide-eyed quarterback was having the ride of his life. He sank into the Italian leather couch, stared dumbstruck at paintings that looked as if they might be on loan from the Louvre and thought, My God, how did I get here?”

It should come as no surprise, given how chummy they would become, that the “brassy billionaire” mentioned is none other than Donald Trump. But that (along with the unironic use of “babe magnet”) is just one detail that sticks out as surreal in hindsight.

Silver’s story is about Brady adjusting to life as a famous person in the months after leading the Patriots over the Rams in the Super Bowl and being named the game’s MVP. Four weeks after the game, he was on Trump’s plane headed to Gary, Ind. (of all places), for the Miss USA pageant, wearing a Calvin Klein tuxedo. Could you imagine Brady today wearing a tux any regular guy could pick up at Men’s Wearhouse?

The big question about Brady at that point, which seems absurd now, was whether he’d be able to replicate the success he had in his first season as a starter.

​​“Why do some guys have one great year and then play so badly the next?” Brady told Silver. “Well, now I think I know why—because there are so many things that can take you away from what you need to do to focus on your job. My biggest fear is to end up being a one-hit wonder.”

Somehow, Brady only got better on the field the more famous he got.

Check out more of SI’s archives and historic images at vault.si.com.