The top seeds in the playoffs who were swept in their own division!

NBA playoffs, the first in the East and West, represents that you have the best record in the regular season. You have worked hard for a whole season to get this position. It means that you are the strongest in the division this season and can enjoy at least three rounds of home court advantage in the division. Therefore, the first seed has the greatest chance of breaking out of the division and entering the championship game.

But this is just a general situation. In the playoffs where there is no room for land, the first seed has a home advantage, but is often killed before the championship game. And as Pippen said, he and Jordan will not fight themselves in the season to get enough home advantage to just one more home advantage and have all the bullets finished.

In recent years, more and more non-firsts defeated the division leader in the playoffs, not to mention that sometimes the difference between the second and third and the top seeds is only a few games of record and victory. The actual gap between teams is not that big.

And in the second round of the NBA playoffs this year, the most interesting thing is that all the seeds at the first game were lost, including two top seeds: the Cavaliers and the Thunder. The Thunder stopped falling and rebounded smoothly, played their strength in the second game, and won a victory at home; the more tragic thing was that the Cavaliers actually lost again in the second home game, messing up a 7-point lead in the last minute and then swallowed a defeat, which made them very unfavorable and they will play away games in Indiana with a 0-2 disadvantage.

At that time, someone really started to discuss whether the Cavaliers could be swept, because the Pacers could rank fourth in the East this year. One of the important reasons is that they have excellent home record this season, so when they returned to the home court, they might have a chance to sweep the Cavaliers out, which also attracted a lot of attention.

However, the Cavaliers stabilized in the third game and the main force returned, and avoided being swept away without embarrassment. They became one of the few who were swept in their own division, at least in this round.

Therefore, taking advantage of this article to introduce to you, the first seed was swept in his own division in the past. In the 21st century, before entering the championship game, the first one was swept by his opponent in his own division. There were 4 teams. The Cavaliers successfully avoided this round. Let's see which four teams set this embarrassing record before.

2018 The Toronto Raptors

After the Raptors returned to the playoffs after five seasons in 2014, this is the Raptors' five consecutive seasons of the playoffs, and this year has ushered in a new historical height. Not only has it broken the record of the most winning team in history and won 59 wins in a single season, but it also ranked first in the East for the first time. The cooperation between DeRozan and Lowry is quite successful. This is the sixth consecutive season of cooperation between the two. Both the skills and tacit understanding have reached a new height. In addition, Casey, who later won the honor of the best coach of the year this season, made the Raptors' momentum be pushed to the highest.

However, in those years, in the East, it was inevitable that it would have to cross a high wall to accomplish things, but no one could cross it. The wall was named James, who had lost to the Cavaliers in the past two years. Although this playoffs is the first seed, because the Cavaliers' record this season is not strong, they fell to fourth place, so the two teams had to fight again in the second round. The difference is that the Raptors are a high-level seed this time, the leader of the Eastern Conference, and have a home advantage.

But despite this, the result was the same. James showed his unparalleled dominance and swept the Raptors out in four games. Although the scores were very close in two games, including the first game and the first game was overtime, he lost 35 points in the last game and was swept 4-0 by the Cavaliers for two consecutive years, which was unacceptable to the Raptors' senior management. At that time, there were fans who made pictures of the sarcastic story that the Raptors in the season were the real Raptors. In the playoffs, they became Paulilong.

Therefore, after the Raptors were eliminated, Coach Casey became the first fired coach of the year in history, and DeRozan was finally given up and exchanged for the most important puzzle of winning the annual report: Leonard.

2015 Atlanta Hawks

This year, the Hawks achieved the best results in team history. They only won 38 wins the previous year and ranked 8th in the Eastern Conference. They achieved unexpected results this season. Coach Budenholzer can remember a great achievement. Not only did he once scored a record of 17 wins and 0 losses in a single month, he himself became the head coach of the Eastern Conference because of the high-end performance of the Hawks before the game, and also won the honor of coach of the year after the playoffs, which is really indelible.

The Hawks' players are also quite outstanding, because their excellent record has allowed them to enter the star game, namely Horford, Korver, Jeff Teague and Millsap, which has made the Hawks' reputation reach the highest level.

However, after entering the playoffs, the Hawks, like the Raptors above, have to face the same high wall, that is James. This is James' first season when he returned to the Cavaliers from the Heat. They have a very high reputation. James also wants to bring back the championship for his hometown team. Although his regular season record is not as good as the Hawks, the two teams finally faced the Eastern Conference championship game.

The Hawks were completely defeated by the great power of James. James scored the highest score in every game of the series. In addition, the Hawks had wounded soldiers and the players were in poor condition. The Hawks were unable to stop James from entering the championship game for the fifth consecutive year. The last big loss of 30 points made the team even more powerless. Since then, the Hawks have never returned to the prosperity of this year.

2003 The Detroit Pistons returned to the throne of the Eastern Conference in the regular season. This year, the first time since the two NBA championships, the Bad Boys Army, and this year they also reached the Eastern Conference championship battle, which was also the peak of the championship lineup after that group of champions..

However, that was also the era when the West was strong and the East was weakest. Although the Pistons were the leader in the East, they only had 50 wins, and the Portland Trail Blazers in the West were also 50 wins. Therefore, although the Pistons had the title of No. 1 in the East, they were not the most optimistic Eastern team at that time.

The New Jersey Nets, led by Kidd, just scored the championship the year before and lost to the powerful Los Angeles Lakers. They are the most favored Eastern Conference teams. The Nets have won 49 wins this year and ranked second in the Eastern Conference. Although they have not been able to win the lead in the Eastern Conference as last year, they are more optimistic than the Pistons to stand out.

After entering the playoffs, the Pistons struggled to play. They were almost staged by McGrady's Orlando Magic. The Black Eight Legend was once 1-3 behind. After finally reversing, the Philadelphia 76ers also took them 6 games to advance. In comparison, the Nets directly swept their opponents in the second round, and all of them played 3 games less than the Pistons in the first two rounds, and they absolutely had the advantage in physical strength.

The first two games were very close, and the Nets won with only 2 points. On the other hand, the Pistons lost two home games and came to the away game even more powerless. After losing in the third game, they released all their strength. They lost 20 points in the fourth game and allowed the Nets to take away their victory for two consecutive years. The Nets led by Kidd at that time were really powerful in the East.

2001 The San Antonio Spurs

This year, the Spurs regained the Western Conference leader from the Los Angeles Lakers. At that time, they also had Hall of Fame-level penalty area Double Tower Duncan and Robinson. They were the champion teams of the previous year. Last year, O'Neal and Kobe of the Los Angeles Lakers won their first championship in cooperation, but many people say that they did not defeat the Spurs with double towers, which is not a real test.

The Spurs started the playoffs quite well this year. They first defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 3-1, and then defeated the Dallas Mavericks 4-1. The Spurs' double towers may be able to stop O'Neal's penalty area from raging. I believe this Western Conference championship battle will be a battle of dragons and tigers.

However, everyone was wrong. The Spurs were completely beaten by the Lakers and couldn't raise their heads. O'Neal might have been limited, but another Lakers player jumped out to kill all sides, that is Kobe. In the first three games of the series, Kobe jumped out to become the player with the highest score in the Lakers team, perfectly making up for the power of O'Neal being limited. In addition to the second game, the Spurs lost to double digits in the other three games, including 29 and 39 points in Game 3 and 4. The Lakers made the Spurs look dumb and swept out in four embarrassing games. It was the most embarrassing series in Duncan's career. Only then did everyone understand how powerful this Lakers team is.

The above are the tragic situation where the first seeds of the four teams were swept in the division. However, careful readers may notice that 3 of these four teams learned their mistakes after being swept, making up for their lack of combat power, and they all reached the championship in two years. Among them, the Pistons and the Raptors won the championship next year, so being swept may not be too bad, right?

Of course not, no team would want to be swept!