The playoffs are almost wrapping up, and at the end, only one name will gain an MVP title, the Finals MVP. That said, there are a total of 15 playoff series in the playoffs. I decided to find the MVP of each series. I decided to use the "Game Ball" methodology. I found the player that had the most impact on the game, using the Points over Par metric, in the direction of the game. The key here is that a player with a poor performance can get the game ball if they had the biggest impact on the game. In the event of a tie in a series, I went with the player that had the best (or worst) performance for the series in regards to the winning team.
| Round | Conference | Series | MVP | Team | Game Balls |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eastern | Conference Finals | MIL-TOR | Kawhi Leonard | TOR | 1 |
| Western | Conference Finals | GSW-POR | Stephen Curry | GSW | 2 |
| Eastern | Conference Semifinals | MIL-BOS | Giannis Antetokounmpo | MIL | 2 |
| Eastern | Conference Semifinals | TOR-PHI | Kawhi Leonard | TOR | 2 |
| Western | Conference Semifinals | GSW-HOU | Draymond Green | GSW | 1 |
| Western | Conference Semifinals | DEN-POR | C.J. McCollum | POR | 2 |
| Eastern | First Round | MIL-DET | Sterling Brown | MIL | 1 |
| Eastern | First Round | TOR-ORL | Kawhi Leonard | TOR | 3 |
| Western | First Round | GSW-LAC | Danilo Gallinari | LAC | 2 |
| Western | First Round | DEN-SAS | Jamal Murray | SAS | 2 |
| Western | First Round | POR-OKC | Damian Lillard | POR | 1 |
| Western | First Round | HOU-UTA | Donovan Mitchell | UTA | 3 |
| Eastern | First Round | PHI-BKN | Ben Simmons | PHI | 2 |
| Eastern | First Round | BOS-IND | Jaylen Brown | BOS | 1 |
Let's talk a few fun series. In the first round, Donovan Mitchell and Danilo Gallinari both won "Series MVP" for the opposing squad. Credit to Sterling Brown for winning the first round MVP. He was forgettable enough as a Milwaukee Buck, I accidentally credited him as a Pistons player in my first publication of this post (thanks to chrisofspades for the correction)
Also, right now the Finals are a tie between Pascal Siakam and Marc Gasol (for the Warriors). Although, I'd bet Kawhi gets at least one game ball before all is said and done.
I'll hopefully revisit this data with more posts this week, and we'll talk it on this week's Boxscore Geeks show. Until then!
-Dre