2nd Round: only the 10% survive

28/248 teams remaining

Stephen Curry leads the way for the '17 Warriors in first 4 games against the 1925 Celtics, driving the series to a 3-1 advantage.

The Madness has reached its climax. After 82 regular season games, and a single elimination first round, the 2nd Round announced a thrilling avalanche of match ups. The legacies of many legends seemed endangered, as their teams were upset in the 1st Round (only 2 Michael Jordans survived 1st round, out of the 8 that got there).

The last representative of the 60s, the 67' Philadelphia Warriors (lead by a guy named Wilt Chamberlain) lost to the '09 Rockets, who are so far the biggest surprise in the championship (Yao Ming is now close to claiming a spot among the best 16 teams of all time).

We will miss a lot of people, that's for sure. We'll miss Russell Westbrook, whose Thunder were eliminated by the Big Three Miami Heat. We won't have Dwight Howard or Allen Iverson... and Shaquille O'Neal hasn't made it. After eliminating the 95' Bulls, Hakeem Olajuwon refused to leave the competition and rolled over Shaq in a 111-102 Rockets win.

Jordan, just returned from baseball dunks while O'Neal takes a very ambitious block attempt.

And in the middle of the madness, the Bad Boys sunk. In an anticipated 1989 Eastern Finals, as Mario Berlanga from Reuters put it, this time the Bulls of a Jordan still ring-less took their revenge. Detroit, maybe the most underestimated champion franchise ever, got 2 representatives (as the 03' Billups' team also made it) among the 52 best teams, but that was their journey's end.

So who'll be fighting to be among the 16 best teams? From our followed teams, only Birds' '86 Celtics remain. The team in the best position is, with no doubt, Indiana Pacers. A historic franchise from the 70s, they are now in debt with Reggie Miller, who has managed to get 3 teams (!) amongst the top 28. We will have 2 Michal Jordans, a Payton & Kemp SuperSonics, a 72 Lakers that stands as the oldest team... and, the underdog. '12 Chicago Bulls. You could think that Derrick Rose has taken his chance, to show up the kind of a leader he could have been, hadn't he suffered from injures.

But he's been injured since the end of the regular season.

What does that mean? Well, Jimmy Butler understood the situation and took up his role as a leader, just as in real life. Himself (with a 77 rating), accompanied by Joakim Noah and Carlos Boozer; has defeated the '95 Spurs (already trained by Popovich and leaded by David Robinson) and the '94 Rockets (eliminating one Olajuwon). Rose will miss the next round, in which they'll face the '95 Rockets, so... will they be able to keep the myth alive?

Next round goes as follows: it is a best of 3 series. So who gets to 2 wins will advance. As there are 12 groups, this would mean 12 teams. So these will be the teams that make the final rounds:

12 winners from the 3rd Round
2 winners from the ABA-NBA Wild Card
2 losers from the 3rd Round, that had the best record in the regular season, will re-join the competition.

Now it's time to show how the brackets are: