The NBA playoffs end a long-term title Dürre: NPR

The parity time of the NBA is officially here.

When the final of the post -season begins on Tuesday evening, there are four different title villages in the line – which means that one of them is guaranteed to come to an end in the next month when the NBA ends.

Three of the teams remaining in the playoffs – the Indiana Pacers, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Minnesota Timberwolves – have never won a title in their current home towns. And the fourth team – the New York Knicks – has not taken home a championship for more than half a century.

The New York Knicks have not taken the title since 1973 and it was it More than 25 years since they reached the final. Oklahoma City has not tried the title series since 2012 – and if you count the success of the Seattle Superpers before the team moved to Oklahoma in 2008, then the thunder is the latest remaining franchise, which won everything with a title in 1979.

The Pacers were a power package in the American Basketball Association in the early 1970s, but did not win a ring since he had joined the NBA. The timber wolves founded in 1989 have never reached the final.

“It is one of the most widespread years we have seen,” said Indiana head coach Rick Carlisle after the Pacers series victory against the Cleveland Cavaliers. “We have to see this thing as very opportunistic.”

The NBA has to deal with parity for a long time. Since the 1980s, a dynasty has often simply had a different place – from the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers to the Chicago Bulls to the Lakers to Miami Heat to the Golden State Warriors. A total of 23 of the 78 champions of the NBA were consecutive winners. Another 14 teams won a title one year after the loss in the final.

But these figures have had a plateau since 2019 when the Toronto Raptors canceled the Golden State Warriors.

Pascal Siakam, a 31-year-old striker of the Pacers, got an impression of fame this year. That was his third season in the NBA, and Siakam assumed that he would reach the final again With the raptors, he remembered at the beginning of this month. But the raptors could not repeat themselves and were traded to the Pacers last year.

“Sometimes I can sound as if I try to kill the party where everyone wants to be excited, and I only like: 'Man, I want more',” said Siakam. “We have a real chance and we can't take it for granted.”

Many of the remaining players are also fresh faces. This is a conference finale without Steph Curry, no LeBron James, no Kevin Durant, no Anthony Davis or Russell Westbrook or James Harden.

Instead, the four teams are freed from a younger generation of superstars: 28-year-old Jalen Brunson (New York), 26-year-old Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Oklahoma City), 25-year-old Tyres-Haliburton (Indiana) and 23-year-old Anthony Edwards (Minnesota).

Gilgeous-Alexander was still in the high school when the thunder last reached the conference final. Before the leading Sunday end of game 7 against Denver, he said that the pressure felt intense.

“I honestly switched off my cell phone. As best I could, I wanted all the noise,” said Gilgeous-Alexander after the clinching victory of the thunder against Denver. “The nerves sat in my stomach for the two days [off]. “

The Thunder and Timberwolves will release ET for game 1 of the Western Conference Finale on Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. The Pacers and the Knicks open the Eastern Conference on Wednesday. The winners of each best-of-Seven series will rise to the NBA final, which begins on June 5.