It must also be said that these teams have just the right amount of neanderthal DNA to, sure, probably get curb-stomped by OKC in round 2, but to put on a show in the meantime. Through two games, WTF moments in the clutch and jagged edges — like Jokić’s defense and Dunn’s offense…Ben Simmons — have not subtracted intrigue, but added character. With a 1-1 split heading into Thursday’s game 3, each team has lost the game they played better in. These teams are weird! Anyway, let’s get to it.

Denver’s incomplete defense on Kawhi

Let’s start with the big stuff. Kawhi Leonard dropped 39 points in Game 2 after a poor Game 1, and the Denver Nuggets didn’t really adjust how they defended him when he got it going. Though he melted their face off with absurd shot-making, I’ve actually liked Denver’s overall philosophy vs. Kawhi. He got going early in Game 2 by feasting on cross-matches in semi-transition, but the Nuggets didn’t panic because they’ve been conceding switches and loading help toward him anyway.

That’s a fine plan, and they’ve been able to execute it without allowing Kawhi to create easy shots for his teammates, though Kawhi shoulders a chunk of the credit/blame there too. He has not made quick decisions with the ball in his hands.

But that didn’t save Denver in Game 2 because they didn’t finish possessions against Kawhi, hence the “incomplete” tag. The man is inhuman, and has proven that, with healthy legs, he can win series by performing how he did in Game 2, where he shot 15-of-19 from the floor. So Denver has to finish possessions, there is no point in showing help against him if it is indeed just for show (sound on):

Denver shouldn’t fear the possibility of Kawhi putting on a passing clinic by throwing cross-court lasers and manipulating defenders with his eyes. Over his 13 NBA seasons, that’s never been his M.O., and it still isn’t. That’s why LAC stays away from pick-and-roll led by Kawhi, given a near-turnover like this…

Just as important, the Clippers are always playing a poor 3-point shooter. Every single one of Kawhi’s minutes through two games have seen Kris Dunn, Derrick Jones Jr., or Ben Simmons on the floor with him, and occasionally two of those guys. Furthermore, any strategy geared toward forcing turnovers and speeding up the Clippers plays to Denver’s advantage.

They recorded the 7th-fastest pace in the NBA this year (PBP Stats) and had, by miles, the lowest 3PA rate. That’s a formula that limits randomness/shooting variance; playing at a slow pace and allowing Kawhi to get up 16 jumpers is not.

The idea of attacking Kawhi is frightening in any context, but in Game 3, Denver just might have to. They’ve thrown a lot his way thus far, but the kitchen sink remains in their back-pocket.

Limiting LAC’s two-man game

Let’s keep it on this end of the floor, where the Harden/Zubac pick-and-roll feasted in Game 1. Harden, looking quite spry, looked to get all the way to the basket, and in the first half, Nikola Jokić often did little more than escort him there…

Since then, Denver has played Jokić much higher up the floor, if not outright trapping or hedging ball-screens. (An awesome, very minor subplot of this series is Harden finding every angle possible to hit Zubac on the roll while Jokić tries to deflect those passes, just about the best hand-eye coordination battle you’ll find.)

The major subplot is what happens once Zu catches the ball, and it feels like both teams have left something on the table here. Zubac can make rudimentary reads quickly enough, and has gotten Kris Dunn a few layups off baseline cuts. However, they’re nobody’s idea of Draymond Green and Gary Payton II. Dunn has struggled to finish under any defensive pressure, and if they can take away his cut, Zubac has struggled to snap to the next read, a kick-out for three. In fact, his best offense has been simply going to work against whoever steps up to meet him.

Harden is key here, too. The more downhill pressure he applies, the deeper Zu’s catch inevitably is, and these two can play pitch-and-catch as well as any tandem…

After that play in Game 2, Jokić played even higher up the floor, and Denver produced the desired effect: Harden largely stopped trying to get downhill, whether by splitting a screen or by attacking Jokic’s outside hip. Can he dial up the pressure in Game 3 if Denver opens in the same coverage?

How much room do Harden, Zubac, and Dunn have to improve from game 2? To me, it’s a reasonable chunk. If Denver feels the same way, they should try to deny Zubac on the roll altogether. In this first play. Michael Porter Jr. helps off of Dunn to deny Zu, and Norm Powell promptly turns the ball over. In the second play, MPJ doesn’t leave DJJ, Zu catches it, and it leads to a wide-open three:

Yes, DJJ is on the strong-side in play #2, but perhaps gambling off him is worth preventing any sort of deep catch for Zubac.

The Harden/Zubac two-man game that so much of LAC’s offense is built around is in a fascinating spot entering Game 3. Each team has reason to adjust; for the Clips it could be setting the screen higher up the floor or making sure a 3-point threat is weak-side corner. Still, “play better” could simply be the adjustment.

If Denver believes the Clippers will indeed play better, they could get funky and put Aaron Gordon on Zubac, Jokić on Dunn, and switch screens. They’ve tried that on a single possessions so far, and it didn’t end well…

They could send more early help to take away Zu’s roll, but they might just feel confident where they’re at. We’ll soon see.

Will Jokić start launching?

As for that infamous two-man game on the other side, the Clippers have done fairly well defending Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokić so far. Kris Dunn deserves the lion’s share of the credit, as he’s been responsible for chasing Murray into tight, mid-range spaces, but then switching back out onto Jokić when he pops, otherwise known as a veer-switch. It looks something like this:

Jokić hands him three points, but this is the coverage the Clippers opened with in Game 1, and, 101 minutes of hoop later, they’re still leaning on it. Though Jokić shot 4-of-8 from deep in Game 2, it felt like he ignored five or six clean looks, many coming on pick-and-pops like this.

There are other ways for the Nuggets to counter this defense from the Clippers. Jokić simply rolling to the basket and posting Dunn or Derrick Jones Jr. has led to some favorable isolations for him. It also leads to confusion for Dunn and Zubac, when/if they actually commit to the late switch.

But the nuclear code Jokić could push at any time is something he’s always reluctant to do, and that’s to just let it fly. This coverage seems like a bet from the Clippers that, even if goaded into it, Jokić will not launch 12-15 threes in a game, even if he’s shooting just under 42% from deep, like he did in the regular season.

Late in Game 1, the Clippers went another route, pressuring Jamal Murray while meeting Jokić early on his catches. Nekias Duncan did a great job explaining how the Nuggets roasted that coverage; essentially, the Clips were spread too thin, unable to prevent open looks for capable if not elite shooters, and even less able to grab rebounds…

Have the Clippers already found their favorite answer to the Murray/Jokić love affair? Perhaps. The more juice you can squeeze out of Kris Dunn’s defense, the better. But this strategy also keeps them in their shell, keeps Zubac near the rim, and limits the opportunities for James Harden and Norm Powell to get caught ball-watching as cutters sneak behind them.

The real danger is that Jokić melts the Intuit Dome with a 3-point barrage on Thursday night. Does he want to?

Where’s the other two-man game?

Let’s end with a couple quick bites. In Game 1, the Nuggets targeted James Harden on defense by consistently involving Aaron Gordon with Nikola Jokić, either in off-ball screens or inverted pick-and-roll. Perhaps it’s Gordon’s limp calf, but rookie head coach David Adelman went to those actions far less in Game 2.

Why? Perhaps because Harden is the Clippers’ worst defender.

Let me explain: Per Cleaning the Glass, the Nuggets turned it over on a whopping 21.7% of their possessions on Monday, their second-worst mark of the season. Jokić had a rough game with seven of them, and frequently, it was Dunn, Nic Batum, or Kawhi jumping his passing lanes. In other words, the further L.A.’s best defenders were from the ball, the more havoc they wreaked.

The same could not be said of Harden and Powell, who did not provide much help in rotation:

So, with Harden on Gordon, is that why we didn’t see much of Denver’s front-court chemistry in Game 2, or was it an injury? Either way, the Nuggets have to get back to that two-man game, and find Gordon some easy rolls to the rim. The team that shot the highest percentage in the league on shots at the rim (Cleaning the Glass) is shooting just 57% at the rim through two games, which would have ranked as the worst mark in the NBA by light years.

I may know an all-time dunker that can help with that.

Please, Norm

The Clippers will not win this series if Norm Powell and Bogdan Bogdanović continue to struggle so mightily. However, Powell not only hit some huge shots late in the second half on Monday, but was the recipient of an (unscripted) play that stuck in my mind…

It was a rare instance of Norm directly benefiting from the attention his co-stars get, rather than simply trying to emulate them by creating from a stand-still. Even if Jokić isn’t in much drop coverage, the concept still works, getting Norm the ball on the second side with the defense ever-so-slightly out of whack.

There are many more wrinkles to this matchup we could discuss. (Please go look up Kris Dunn’s defensive highlights from this series.) Tyronn Lue has not remotely settled on a substitution pattern, and in Game 2 Ben Simmons was the game’s first sub. Harden also played a chunk of minutes without Kawhi or Zubac, which felt off at the time. The Nuggets are battling injury and fatigue across the board, and seem unsure whether to devote much energy to getting Michael Porter Jr. going.

No matter which of these storylines takes center stage in Game 3 and beyond, we do know that this series has been, and will continue to be awesome.

Prediction: Clippers in 6

The post Round One: Nuggets vs. Clippers appeared first on Swish Theory.

This piece is not meant to give a firm rubric for how to evaluate players, but to catalogue tried and true methods of contributing on a basketball floor that happen to be present for all our best players. No two superstars are the same; in fact, superstars by their nature should be polarized as solving the problems of how to beat each other. If, then, they are all doing the same thing, over and over again? We should take note.

Trait #1: High Degree of Accuracy on Steals/Blocks

Ingredients: Spatial awareness, hand strength, timing, wingspan, positioning, balance

The game of basketball is about winning battles, but it’s also about how convincingly we do so. Swish Theory’s Roshan wrote about the same in his fantastic piece on margins.

Every superstar player I watched the prospect tape of has one, glaring trait in common: they all have superb hand-eye coordination, and exhibited on strips and blocks. One can pick up on these high degree of difficulty plays a few ways. How fast does the player move his arm or hands to make the play? How difficult was it to do so without fouling? Was this a repeated occurrence?

My favorite, though far from exclusive, way to assess these is “dead arm” steals/blocks. Hakeem Olajuwon is the prime example. Hakeem was not immune to jumpiness on the block, likely majorly to do with him being relatively new to basketball. Regardless, Olajuwon made spectacular plays constantly from his first minutes. These “dead arm” blocks would occur when he left his feet at a sub-optimal time, but was still able to angle his arm to knock the ball loose. An example is at the 12 second mark above: Olajuwon leaves early but is still able to fall in the perfect position to block the shot.

This is the clearest cut and least controversial category: visually, it should stand out dramatically, though not always the case, either.

Why is this so important?

Hand accuracy is essential to playing basketball for obvious reasons, but maybe some less than obvious ones as well. Steals are extremely valuable in completely stopping a possession and starting a favorable offensive set (advantageous transition) but also speak to the incisiveness a player is able to bring to the table.

To step into a play and completely strip your opponent of the ball is a dominant activity, completely going against what your opponent wants you to do. To accomplish that you have to take a timely risk, and the only way it can pay off is if you have the hands and coordination to pounce. This all happens in a flash: either you come out with the ball or you don’t.

These players are not just poking the ball free. They are doing so from awkward angles, or if in good position, convincingly so. The Dwyane Wade clips are my prime example (starting at 1:57 above). We see a strong vertical in clip 1, a “dead arm” block in clip 2, otherworldly timing in clip 3 and hounding on-ball defense in clip 4. In each of these scenarios he risks a negative outcome – fouling – but is so accurate with his hands and is able to move faster than others to get into the optimal spot. All of this is how Wade accumulated 3.5 stocks to 2.4 fouls at Marquette and 2.3 stocks to 2.2 fouls per game as a pro despite being only 6’4”.

These traits speak to how we play basketball, generally. Are we moving fast, are we accurate, are we on point, timing-wise? Even plodding Nikola Jokic is able to perfectly place his hands to the tune of nearly two stocks per game as a prospect. When someone mugs an offensive player to the point of you getting out of your seat, you know we are getting somewhere.

Trait #2: Pass Through Your Defender

Ingredients: Processing, planning, pass accuracy, vertical, manipulation, creativity, footwork

Switching to the offensive side of the ball, this trait speaks to the creativity and spatial reasoning of a player, while also capturing physical tools like pass accuracy. Going through the players chronologically, our earliest superstars all had one obvious trait in common: they loved to jump pass. Jordan, Olajuwon, Barkley, Robinson, O’Neal and Garnett could all be found leaping to then make a read even within small segments of game film.

A proclivity for jump passes may be counterintuitive: isn’t that the first thing youth coaches tell their players not to do? Well, it is also indicative of star upside. Again like hand accuracy on swipes, jump passes put the prospect in a dangerous situation, at risk of traveling, but stars have the complex tools to make the most of it. Jump passes were less common as the century turned, but could still be found in the prospect tape of almost every superstar.

I broadened the trait from just jump passes, however, to also include any ability to pass through your opponent. Meaning, your defender is in perfect position – no advantage has been created – yet you still find a way to sneak the ball through. Let’s call them advantage-creating passes. This may be well-timed lobs above the opponent’s head a la Stephen Curry, over-the-head outlet passes from Tim Duncan or dump-offs after a sequence of pivots from Dwyane Wade. Jokic, for all the complexities of his game, barely clears the ground anyways, so has little benefit for the exaggerated jump passes of Kevin Garnett, for example. But he still, mostly through timing and pass accuracy, is able to pass directly through traffic on command.

Why is this so important?

Assists are great for obvious reasons: they get you points and your teammates involved. But jump passes/advantage-creating passes are special because they require coordination moving dramatically in one direction while hitting a moving target going a different one. You have to adjust on the fly, either manipulating your defender into allowing the pass or finding an unexpected target at the last second. We should have our antennae ready to pick up on the obvious ‘pass through’ players like Jokic. The important point is that the ball goes from point A to point B despite an opponent standing directly in between. Even simply from a geometric standpoint, there is clearly something special happening, especially if the pass works repeatedly.

Trait #3: One-Two Punch

Ingredients: Balance, shooting technique, touch, coordination, vertical, core strength

Now we’re getting to maybe what is considered a more traditional superstar trait. Perhaps the most important of any we will discuss here, this is the building block for a high-level NBA scorer. A one-two punch is when you can make one quick move into a scoring action. Watching through the clips above one can see that change of pace is essential: how quickly can you organize into a bucket?

The most common one-two punch is the post up turnaround jumper, utilizing horizontal space (where you turn to) while also relying on a vertical to shoot over an opponent. But methods vary dramatically, especially as I reached more contemporary tape. Dwyane Wade loves to use hang dribble crossover into his pull-ups, again using that horizontal space into vertical. LeBron posts into turnarounds but also bullies his way closer to the cup. Steph manufactures horizontal space by running dutifully off-ball, with the ability to quickly move into a shot at the key moment. Jokic is again an outlier, a deadly outside shooter who has to do little to get his high-arching shot off. An important reminder: there are always stylistic exceptions.

Perhaps the two cleanest examples are Jordan and Shaq. Jordan was as fluid as anyone getting into his pull-up out of the post or face-up crossovers. Shaq was a devastating scorer already at LSU, bolstered by his unstoppable post into baseline bank shot lay in. These are staples that not only helped both translate immediately but were essential to them reaching the Hall of Fame status. It does not matter if it’s repetitive if it is consistently effective; in fact, repetitive might be preferable.

Why is this so important?

The game, as always, is about buckets. In a video from my childhood I can’t track down, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar talked about how a player only needs four moves: a right, a left, a fake right into left, a fake left into right. It can be tempting to seek out as much scoring versatility as possible, as indeed that will help stabilize a player’s performance too. But everyone needs a fastball, a building block that only makes it easier to branch off to more complex actions.

The first problem any player has to solve is to put the ball in the basket. Through a one-two punch, a player does not have to depend on their teammates to do so. All of the actions shown above require a high level of coordination, balance, touch, technique. If a player can corral all of those to punch in the gaps succinctly and smoothly, they are likely great athletes. The function is pure: to get buckets. But there’s an essential element of self-generated offense as well.

Trait #4: Go Up and Get It

Ingredients: Timing, vertical (max, repeat, instantaneous), hand size and strength, core stability, spatial awareness

Now we get to go back to our old-school fundamentals: let’s admire the classic rebound. Here is a trait exhibited by each and every superstar we watched, with the evidence fairly clear. “Go up and get it” sounds like it means: these players are excellent at snagging the ball at its peak.

Olajuwon is again a prime example, unparalleled in the apex he reached while perfectly timing his boards. You also have players like Charles Barkley, who make up for lack of height by doing a lot of work clearing out space on the ground, but nevertheless are able to leap at the perfect moment. Even Stephen Curry (5.6 board per 40), Dwyane Wade (8.4) and Chris Paul (4.6) punched above their height as guard rebounders, all capable of plucking the ball out of the grasp of taller players.

The most significant deviation, and perhaps surprisingly, was Tim Duncan. Duncan, simply, did not need to high-point rebounds given his superior positioning. Surely he is capable of snagging rebounds at their peak, one of the elite rebounders in NBA history, but it did not pop on the tape like with others. Instead, Duncan could be found carving out large swathes of territory with his picture-perfect boxout technique. Once again, these are more guidelines than hard and fast rules. Duncan did not need to high-point every single rebound due to other outlier traits; appreciate the function over the method.

Why is this so important?

Running up and grabbing a ball, as reductive as it sounds, is a lot of basketball. Simply put, it is difficult to find a star player who is not at least pretty good at rebounding. It is a building block of the game for a reason. But the tape specifically showed high-pointing the ball as the common visual cue. That places an emphasis on timing and vertical. Much like the previous traits, there is a very brief critical period at which the ball can be grabbed by you rather than someone else.

We also see a reiteration of many athletic ingredients from the prior traits: coordination, balance, timing, vertical, hands.

Trait #5: Unstructured Midrange Touch

Ingredients: Fine motor skills, balance, coordination, hand size, vertical

Perhaps the most impressive on tape were David Robinson and James Harden. Robinson was able to swing around in an instant to knock down midrange after midrange jumper no matter the angle or coverage. Harden, meanwhile, was able to use his incredible core strength to pull off plenty difficult attempts from all over the midrange. He was particularly adept at runners, shooting a 77th percentile efficiency on one per game. On tape the degree of difficulty showed.

Why is this so important?

There is once again an intrinsic basketball value – points are scored – while speaking to so much more. Touch is how you coordinate your hand to push the ball towards the basket; highlighting field goal attempts where a shot is less structured (i.e. different from a free throw which relies more on technique) gives us a cleaner glimpse into how successful one is doing so on the fly. Technique is important too, but easier to learn than touch.

In fact, success with touch near the basket seems to correlate with outside shooting improvement, too. David Robinson improved his free throw percentage from 58% as a freshman to 64% as a senior and then, further, up to 74% over his NBA career. Harden, meanwhile, went from 76% in college to 86% in the pros. Much like accuracy on strips/blocks, high level basketball is about having great hands. Skill is only conveyed through how we manipulate the ball, so we need all the help we can get physically.

We are seeking building blocks, and with unstructured short/mid touch, we have found one.

Trait #6: Drive with Force

Ingredients: Strength, balance, handle, coordination, flexibility

Forgive how this video is shorter; this was the category I added the last. But it likely is not the least important. Drive with force means to attack the basket in, well, a forceful manner. This can be Olajuwon and Robinson relentlessly squaring up to the offensive glass, or, more conventionally, James Harden dribbling hard to the basket from the perimeter. But it could also be Stephen Curry driving into his opponent’s shoulder without the ball before popping out for a three. Or Jokic lumbering towards the tin.

LeBron is the obvious example, often compared to a freight train when downhill. But this trait was most essential to note in a young Giannis Antetokounmpo. Extremely slender as malnourished at the time, Giannis nevertheless attacked the basket with the same ferocity we see today. While his role was to jack threes rather than drive to set up offense, Giannis made his chances through activity in transition or broken plays. In the absence of positive midrange touch indicators, Giannis’ driving was essential to preserve his route to superstardom.

Why is this so important?

Force is an important element in basketball, as these are strong players moving fast through space. Driving with force means inviting physicality as the initiator. While people often talk about gravity in basketball as referring to spacing at the three point line, there is a much denser pull towards the rim. An open layup is the best shot in basketball, and a free throw is the second best. Driving with force works towards achieving either one or the other.

Putting It All Together

Tallying up the ingredients shows us some underlying characteristics we can prioritize: balance, vertical, coordination, hands, core strength. While these provide a good baseline for physicality on the basketball court, I would remember that they are only useful tied together with concrete action, such as the six traits I highlighted above. Every one of the six actions involves a critical window which requires an immediate, durable application of these underlying characteristics. The more traits a player exhibits, and the more convincingly they do so, the better.

The goal with this piece, more or less, was to tie together player archetypes, competition contexts and age curves to note standard action items. With the six traits above, I have picked what has stood out to me the most as omnipresent in the prospect tape of past stars.

The post Spotting the Stars appeared first on Swish Theory.

The criteria to make the list is that you must have played at least in two rounds, 200 minutes, and averaged at least 20 points per 75 possessions.

1. Donovan Mitchell – CLE – 29.1 Points/75 – 110 TS+ relative to series

Insane playoff scoring runs are nothing new to Donovan Mitchell. His 2021 run with the Jazz is one of the best in the database. During this run, he provided massive scoring volume versus elite defenses in the Magic and Celtics. He was second in points/75 only trailing Jalen Brunson. The lack of scoring punch on the Cavs’ roster made Mitchell’s run even more impressive. Evan Mobley was the only other Cavalier that scored on positive efficiency relative to the series played in. 

2. Nikola Jokic – DEN – 27.2 Points/75 – 112 TS+ relative to series

Jokic was the most efficient primary option in the playoffs after adjusting for scoring environment. He was an otherworldly 19% more efficient than the average scorer in the Nuggets/Lakers series, and 9% more efficient than the average scorer in the Nuggets/Timberwolves series. It’s interesting how he got to those numbers: he was ice cold from three (26%) but scorching from two (62%) and the free throw line (90%). 

3. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander – OKC – 28.4 Points/75 – 106 TS+ relative to series

SGA has shown to be an elite scorer over the last two regular seasons. This year he got a chance to prove it in the postseason and he did not disappoint. His game-to-game scoring production was remarkable. He scored at least 24 points in each of his playoff games. Shai does the bulk of his damage inside the three point line but when he did shoot from distance he connected on 43% of his attempts (3.7 attempts per game). He went bar for bar with Luka from a scoring perspective in the second round, posting almost the exact same score in the model.

4. Jalen Brunson – NYK – 31.4 Points/75 – 93 TS+ relative to series

Brunson is the only player on this list with a negative scoring efficiency relative to the average scorer in the series he played in. A reasonable follow up question to this fact would be why is he on the list. 2001 Allen Iverson is a good comparison; he brought massive scoring volume to the table on bad efficiency but still obviously created a ton of value for his team. With Julius Randle hurt, Brunson was the Knicks’ only offensive initiator. Because of that he was forced into a position where the team needed him to score on volume because of the roster’s lack of shot creation. Brunson rose to the challenge, posting the highest points/75 of any player in the postseason.

5. Anthony Edwards – MIN – 26.0 Points/75 – 103 TS+ relative to series

Ant’s playoff run took over the basketball world for a few weeks. He started off scorching hot, posting the third best Adjusted Playoff Scoring performance of the first round (only trailing Embiid and Dame) and then a strong second round versus the Nuggets. Unfortunately, he went ice cold in the Conference Finals. But the beauty of this model is it helps us combine a rolling boil and an ice cube. And in this case, it resulted in a bubbling simmer good for the fifth best scorer in the postseason.

6. Luka Doncic –  DAL – 27.1 Points/75 – 100 TS+ relative to series

Luka was hampered by injuries throughout this run and was still able to lead his team to the finals. He started off with a rough series versus the Clippers efficiency-wise. In the second round, his efficiency was back to being positive versus the Thunder but his scoring volume was uncharacteristically low (22.5 Pts/75). In the Conference Finals, he had it all working against the Timberwolves’ top defense, recording the best performance in that round per the model. His first Finals appearance bore results somewhere in the middle of his previous rounds (29 Pts/75 in 97 TS+ relative to series)   

7. Jaylen Brown – BOS – 24.7 Points/75 – 104 TS+ relative to series

Jaylen had a remarkably consistent playoff run before slowing down in the Finals. He scored at least 26 points/75 in each of his first three series on positive efficiency relative to that series. He was seventh in points/75 in the playoffs, finishing just ahead of his teammate Jayson Tatum thanks in part to shooting an unreal 81% at the rim on his way to his first championship.

8. Myles Turner – IND – 20.0 Points/75 – 109 TS+ relative to series

Myles Turner’s ability to stretch defenses with his shooting has always been an enticing skill. This postseason we got to see it fully unleashed: he took 5.1 three pointers a game at 45.3%. That type of effectiveness makes the 5-out alignment extremely difficult to deal with. Turner’s efficiency got stronger as the playoffs went on (first round 105 TS+rs, second round 110 TS+rs, third round 113 TS+rs). His ability to synergize with Haliburton as a pick and pop threat makes him a great scoring complement.

9. Karl-Anthony Towns – MIN – 22.3 Points/75 – 103 TS+ relative to series

KAT’s had a similar playoff run to Anthony Edwards in that he started out sensational in the first round, then had a good second round, and finally an abysmal third round. But again this app cuts through the narratives and shows he was the ninth best scorer in the 2024 postseason. Towns has always been a fantastic scorer and functions well as the secondary star.  

10. Tyrese Haliburton – IND – 20.3 Points/75 – 106 TS+ relative to series

Haliburton had a very solid scoring postseason. He struggled in the first round versus the Bucks before going nuclear in the second round against the Knicks (24.2 Pts/75 and a 115 TS+rs). Haliburton is known more for his passing than scoring but separating out the scoring is important for understanding the value of each part of his game.   

Just missed the cut: Pascal Siakam, Kyrie Irving

Link to the free app: https://filippos-pol.shinyapps.io/modern-playoff-scoring-runs

Thanks To Filippos Polyzos for coding the project. Follow him on Twitter @filippos_pol

Follow me @taylormetrics

The post Top Ten Playoff Scorers of 2024 appeared first on Swish Theory.

That’s how ex-NBA’er Tim Legler described his baseline requirements for a championship-level NBA defense on JJ Redick‘s podcast, The Old Man and the Three. And all Leglar has to point to for evidence is the NBA’s most recent champion, the Denver Nuggets.

Denver’s defense was the definition of ‘adequate’ in the 2022-’23 regular season, finishing 15th in defensive rating. But try telling that to the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat; each of those teams scored just 38 points in the second half of their respective season-ending losses to Denver. Their defense didn’t just “ramp it up,” they shut it down.

The Nuggets did it again in their most recent win, a mere regular-season triumph over the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night. Their moment of truth didn’t come at half-time of an NBA Finals closeout-game, though, but when Head Coach Michael Malone chided his group for their poor defensive start, down 45-32 after 14-and-a-half minutes of play.

“I don’t know if you guys are watching. Klay’s got 21, five threes. Make him work for it. “

Over the final 33-and-a-half minutes, the Warriors scored just 58 points. Klay Thompson scored two more points, and zero after half-time. Switch: flipped.

The Warriors remain the pre-eminent test for NBA defenses. Not because they are still the league’s most fearsome offense, but because the Dubs exist to force mistakes. Splash Bro Ridiculousness aside, Golden State’s buckets are often the result of clear defensive breakdowns. Sure, it’s hardly a sin to overcommit to Steph Curry and let his screener slip to the rim, but mistakes are mistakes, and the Warriors give defenses ample opportunity to make them.

In Sunday’s contest, Denver either didn’t take the bait, or hastily covered their tracks. In doing so, their defense took the shape of their offense; Nikola Jokić led the way, and his teammates were everywhere they were supposed to be.

This started, naturally, on Steph Curry’s pick-and-rolls. With Jokić in the action, the Nuggets showed two to the ball as many teams do, but with a wrinkle. In an effort to prevent some of the 4-on-3 mastery that Draymond Green has long showcased, Denver had Curry’s defender go under the screen to jam Green before recovering to Curry. Watch Kentavious Caldwell-Pope body Green up before stealing the ball here:

In order to throw two bodies at Curry and slow down Green’s prolific short-roll ability, the Joker had to hold up on one of the toughest individual covers in the world. At least, for the split-second after Curry sees Green isn’t an immediate release valve and thinks he has space to attack, a scary proposition for a seven-footer.

Here, Jokić doesn’t fall for Curry’s hesitation move and forces a change-of-direction back toward an oncoming KCP, which results in a turnover:

Caldwell-Pope was characteristically terrific on D, whether it was nailing off-ball switches or going under these ball-screens while still providing pressure.

So too was Aaron Gordon, AKA chicken soup for Michael Malone’s soul. How easy it must be to trap ball-screens with Jokić when Gordon is on the back-line, capable of both recovering to the rim for a block…

…and recovering to the perimeter to make a textbook closeout, as the Nuggets ultimately stifle the 4-on-3 advantage Golden State spent a dynasty perfecting:

The Nuggets couldn’t prevent every 4-on-3 advantage for the Dubs — the accepted cost of trapping/hedging vs Curry — but Gordon consistently de-escalated those situations.

Yet, it was Nikola Jokić who played the role of Denver’s biggest neutralizer.

Players like Sabrina Ionescu and James Harden, both possessing outlier hand-eye coordination but regarded as poor defenders for the majority of their careers, don’t suddenly lose their athletic ability when defending their basket. For all their flaws on that end of the floor, each can rack up deflections, using that same skillset that allows them to be such prolific off-the-dribble shooters on offense.

Nikola Jokić is cut from the same cloth, but has turned it up a notch. The notion that he is a negative defender is long gone. Are we surprised that his singular feel for the game is now apparent on both ends of the court?

Draymond Green just had to learn the hard way. Here, Big Honey punks Green in a vaunted 2-on-1 opportunity, feigning at his drive before breaking up the lob, forcing a turnover:

The Warriors had won that possession. A high ball-screen for Curry in early offense created the roll opportunity Denver had been trying to eliminate all night: Green storming downhill unimpeded, with a lob threat in the dunker spot. We’ve seen this movie on an infinite loop, but Jokić changed the ending.

Denver forced Golden State’s hand. Not only is Jokić now nimble enough to run aggressive schemes on the perimeter, but he has defenders like Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to fill the gaps. Let him roam around the basket, and the mistakes Golden State forces don’t amount to much. Slip your little off-ball screens, sure, and slip right into the hands of Nikola Jokić:

The defining sequence of the game — and perhaps this new era of Western Conference supremacy — came with eight minutes left in the fourth quarter. The Nuggets led by five points, and each coach had subbed their big guns back in for the stretch run. Curry and Green checked in, as did Jokić and Caldwell-Pope.

As Golden State got into the meat of their out-of-timeout play, Curry floated off a flare screen from Trayce Jackson-Davis. Green watched Caldwell-Pope get caught on said screen, and passed it to a soon-to-be wide-open Curry.

Only, Jokić broke the rules. Green knew Jokić was too smart to get beat on the slip from Jackson-Davis, but didn’t consider the obviousness of that line of thinking. So the two-time MVP picked off Green’s pass and headed the other way to run a 2-on-1 fast-break against the greatest defender of his generation. The roles had been reversed, and the two basketball savants locked into a three-second chess match.

It was over before it started:

The Denver Nuggets still have it. Their defense is much like their offense, led by Nikola Jokić and capable of exploding for game-breaking stretches.

And of course, they’ll still dunk on you.

The post How the Denver Nugget Defense Dominates appeared first on Swish Theory.

I want to dig into some of the film to explore how Watson has become one of the premiere defensive event-creating forwards, along with quality perimeter stopping. There has also been an increasing sense of finding the offensive niche that I want to take a look at.

Defensive Event Creation

Oh boy, is this some fun stuff.

Peyton Watson paces the league amongst all qualifying forwards with a 3.8% block rate, improving from his 3.3% rate this past season (also a league-leading mark, albeit in 9 games). Not only does he rack up a hefty amount of swats, but he seems to do it in highlight-reel fashion every time.

For those counting at home, that’s three (3) blocks on Derrick Rose in a single possession. I labeled this clip “massive disrespect” in my files.

What impresses me the most about the blocks is the variety of situations they come in. Most come in trail defense; when he loses a step on a driver, he’s never truly out of the play.

Watson also has a knack for making the right rotations after a ballhandler has committed to the drive, using his ridiculous length to erase shots:

Jamal Murray gets beaten handily on the drive by Russell, so Watson fully commits off Gabe Vincent, gambling that D-Lo won’t make the wrap pass back to the perimeter. Finding the ball at the absolute apex, he sends a gift into the crowd. That’s outstanding awareness to pick up his teammate.

Peyton also has a penchant for ridiculous recovery blocks, especially in transition. Once again, he victimizes Derrick Rose, flying back into the play with the speed and explosion of a panther:

Getting put in a help position on a Luka Dončić? Not a problem for Wats:

The patience to wait out the drag-step and still meet the shot at the apex is so, so impressive.

How about a transition 2v1 block for the road, as Peyton does his best Draymond Green impression?

It feels like he manages to meet every shot at the exact right moment. That kind of awareness for a player with 18 career games cannot be taught.

Watson being a shot-blocking threat both on and off the ball is a huge boon for this Denver defense. You might have him beat on the perimeter, but he will still find a way back into the play. You can beat his teammates on the drive, but he will get there and affect your shot. Considering how many subpar perimeter defenders are in Denver’s rotation (especially the starting lineup), Watson has an important ability to plug up the holes they create.

His steal rate is also 80th percentile amongst forwards through the first tenth of this season, showing a solid dig/tag ability to get strips. I came away impressed with his ability to anticipate passes and break them up as they arrive, as you can see below:

Watson has incredible strength, often using that to his advantage in help. Jevon Carter is no slouch when it comes to his strength, but Peyton looks like he’s bullying a middle schooler on this play:

He also has a knack for creating steals on the ball, which we will explore in our next category.

Perimeter Stopping

Though still working on general technique, Watson’s strength and lateral athleticism give him plenty of room to make up for that. He has a few distinctive plays when watching the tape where he purely overwhelms the ballhandler with his strength:

There weren’t a ton of standout technique-based perimeter stops that caught my eye, but this one in particular on Vasilije Micić showed a lot of the goods:

The quick hip flips and foot speed, the hand placement, and how low he gets to increase his mobility. That is the sort of technical skill that will turn him into an elite perimeter stopper in the coming years. I’m very excited to see him put more pure stopping tape on this year, but already teams are learning that it’s wise to just avoid him entirely if they can help it.

Here’s a play that I think well-summarizes the technique being a step behind his athleticism: trying too hard to force Kyrie left, he still gives an opportunity to reject the screen and go back to the right.

You can see how athleticism helps to bridge the gap. He closes down all of the space Irving gains on the drive, and makes it a tough layup attempt with the help arriving. Soon, when the technical aspects catch up, he’ll have to make these plays less often. It’s good knowing he can make them when needed though.

Filling in Gaps

This is where I’m waiting for some improvement from Peyton. He’s a pretty middling rebounder (38th percentile amongst forwards) and generally inconsistent with his rotations and positioning. It’s great that the explosive impact plays are there already, but the learning from Peyton will come in terms of general court awareness, when to crash the glass, where to be, and at what times.

It’s not going to happen overnight, but he has as strong of a base as any for exponential defensive growth.

Now, let’s see how Watson has figured some things out on the offensive side of the ball.

Corner-Based Offense

Watson for the moment is your classic low-usage off-ball wing. Operating out of the corners (predominantly the left), his job is to shoot when open and make slashing/cutting reads based on how the defense plays him. It’s not glamorous, but it’s honest work.

His shot chart, per Cleaning The Glass, gives a better idea of what that usage looks like:

He’s still struggling to make the shots needed from the perimeter (2/8 from the corners, 3/11 above-the-break) but it’s what he can do with or without the shooting that intrigues me.

Teams are largely going to forget him in the corners, but he will still draw a closeout from time to time. Defenders aren’t perfect; when split-second decisions have to be made, sometimes you see a guy in the corner and want to close him down. And when that happens, Peyton knows how to take advantage.

Jaden Hardy is stashed on Watson, and instinctively closes him down in the corner, opening up a chance for the drive. Josh Green makes a great rotation to draw the charge, but Watson side-steps just enough to avoid the contact and finds Nikola Jokić filling the lane for the bucket. That’s an awesome chain of decisions in quick succession: driving the closeout, avoiding the charge, and finding the open man.

On the more basic side of things, Peyton can leverage that same athleticism and length on the closeout attack to draw contact on the rim, even if he’s not the most adept finisher:

Teams often stash Watson on their roamers, which was especially evident against the Thunder and Chet Holmgren. Even with all of Chet’s length, Watson’s athleticism is tough to contain.

He’s got the coordination to stay tight to the baseline, and again seeing the athleticism pop with the reverse slam that not many NBA guys can pull off.

If teams get REALLY lazy with who they try to stash on Watson, he’s shown enough chops on the drive to make bigger, slower guys pay for it:

This is a nice bit of functional athleticism to boot: avoids the travel by slowing his drive, then kicks out to the open shooter. He’s not exactly a dazzling playmaker, but you can see the potential to make some solid reads off the drive.

Watson already having sufficient skill to make plays out of corner drives and closeout attacks is a huge boon. It’s a cliche at this point for off-ball players, but the lethality of his perimeter shot will define a lot of his growth in these areas. If teams let him shoot and he continues to be in the mid to high 20s, opportunities like the ones above will be few and far between. But every percentage point he can raise that shot will only add more to his potential as a driver.

Cut/Fill Synergy with Nikola

This stuff really excites me about Watson’s long-term offensive potential in Denver. With a player like him on the floor next to Jokić, teams are going to send hard doubles at the two-time MVP and force others to beat them. Watson has shown a good sense of when to make himself available, especially by cutting into open space:

He fills the space abandoned by John Collins as Jokić spins out of one double and into another, leading to an easy basket. These kinds of simple reads will be made available to him when playing alongside the Joker, and you know the man from Sombor is going to find him.

It’s much of the same coming out of Jokić rolls. The defense is going to collapse at all costs to prevent Joker from getting into a clean roll, so it’s up to guys like Watson to make themselves available by cutting out of the corners and taking advantage of an empty weak side as you see here:

Similar cuts will also be available off the drives of his teammates, and you can once again see how Watson recognizes opportunities to fill the space given to him for easy baskets:

Considering the attention that teammates like Jokic and Murray will consistently be drawing, Watson’s cutting and filling will be heavily rewarded if he can keep this kind of timing up. Of course, his finishing around the rim shouldn’t be forgotten as a skill; an 80% mark on the season is nothing to sneeze at.

Leakout Specialist

The last component of Watson’s offensive repertoire (at the moment) is the transition running. It’s also the most tied to his defense. Watson can run out after shot contests, rotations, or even after creating steals/blocks. This is another way for Peyton to create offensive value in his low-usage role, because he can gallop like a thoroughbred in the open floor and put his ridiculous athleticism on display.

It doesn’t hurt to have the best passer in the league running these breaks, but that shouldn’t take away from the good Watson does by filling lanes and making himself available for easy finishes. Jokić is constantly on the hunt for leakout passes, and it’s up to players like Peyton to make the runs needed.

Overall, I’m maintaining cautious optimism about Watson’s offensive game. He knows how to find gaps, when to leak out, and shows strong coordination and power in his finishes. Even if the shot doesn’t come around, he will find a way to make his impact felt. For now, Denver is going to have to find a way to build lineups around him that can bring enough offensive talent to make up for his deficits. Their offense is -17.7 points per 100 possessions worse with him on the floor, and that’s not entirely on Peyton: Denver has the kind of offensive talent to make up for that gap.

Potential For More

With such limited available tape and play experience on Watson’s part, it is hard to predict where his overall ceiling lies. It’s clear that he has All-Defensive kind of upside if he can maintain consistent minutes, but much of that falls back on the offense. Can he develop skills beyond cutting and closeout attacking to stay on the floor?

Denver is the right environment to bolster his overall potential, and the minutes are there for the taking. I’ll be watching him closely throughout the season, excited to see what Peyton Watson has in store for us.

The post Finding a Role: Peyton Watson appeared first on Swish Theory.

This funny tactic forces the player setting the screen to either try and quickly set a second screen or to abandon the screen entirely and reset the action. The former often results in a moving screen violation because Caruso is already in movement as the second screen is set, attached to the hip of the ball handler; the latter shaves valuable seconds off of the shot clock. If the screen is legally set, Caruso’s hop allows him to get better position on the play and quickly negate any advantage created by the screen. 

Caruso’s hop is one of many examples that illustrate how defenders use something called cognitive athleticism to become playmakers, bending opposing teams to their will on the defensive end of the floor. Much like their offensive counterparts, defensive playmakers are adept at controlling the action around them to maximize each possession and prevent the other team from running their sets effectively. Yet despite defensive playmaking’s indispensable importance to winning basketball, the impact of its major component – cognitive athleticism – has largely gone under the radar. 

I want to explore why that is and illustrate how we can get better at recognizing cognitive athleticism’s impact on defense and defensive playmaking specifically. To do that, it’s essential to first discuss: the inherent difficulties in quantifying defense; what the goals of good defense are and how those are, at times, misaligned with the statistics that attempt to measure them; and how untracked or unique defensive traits that have an outsized impact on defense are often difficult to pin down or reproduce in data. 

Finally, I’ll examine what cognitive athleticism is, how it manifests, how it allows players to raise both the floor and ceiling of a good defense, and how we can get better at identifying it. I’m going to illustrate this largely through the lens of two players that demonstrate, in my estimation, elite levels of this athleticism – Alex Caruso and Nikola Jokic. 

The Problem with Quantifying Defense

The basketball world has gotten increasingly obsessed over the years with collecting and organizing data in ways that can accurately estimate the impact of individual players or lineups of players on winning games. You know, the “VORPs and schnorps” Zach Lowe loves to talk about. These various metrics are not perfect, nor are they intended to be, but significant strides have been made with offensive metrics in particular, such that they tend to provide a fairly accurate picture of who is doing good things on the offensive end and how they are doing it. Lagging far behind, however, are defensive metrics. Zach Kram at The Ringer had a great article last year about the inherent issues in attempting to create accurate defensive statistics, which is highly recommended reading. The gist, though, is that defense remains extremely difficult to quantify in any consistent and meaningful way, and the best path to learn a player’s impact on defense is still the long one: watch an exorbitant amount of film and develop a deep understanding of what is happening on the floor on each possession. For the foregoing reasons, highly impactful defensive players have always gotten a lot less shine than their offensive counterparts, if they are even properly identified at all. 

The art of defensive playmaking has remained especially underappreciated. When we discuss elite playmakers, for example, the context is always on offense. Players like Nikola Jokic, LeBron James, or Luka Doncic have the remarkable ability to survey the basketball court and efficiently process the movements of their teammates and opponents in real time. They master every angle, every eyeball shift, every foot movement to create just the right amount of space for an open shot or deliver a pinpoint pass at just the right moment. You’ve heard announcers and analysts alike rave about how these players always seem a step ahead of the defense and how they create unique advantages with that precognition. That same prescience – the ability to know what will happen before it happens – is the key skill with which players can become impactful defensive playmakers. As illustrated by the initial example involving Alex Caruso, defensive playmakers use cognitive athleticism to create game-altering defensive events that can completely transform a team’s defensive aptitude. To understand its importance, it is essential to understand what good defense is and what it looks like.

The Goal of Defense

At the risk of insulting your intelligence for a second, I want to lay out defense at the granular level in order to demonstrate that cognitive athleticism is at the heart of every good defense. As we know, basketball is a simple game: put the ball in the other basket and prevent the other team from putting the ball in your basket. Conceptually, then, winning a basketball game comes down to maximizing each possession and creating more possessions for your team while limiting possessions and making them inefficient for the other team. 

At its core, the goal of any team or player on defense is to end the opponent’s possession without surrendering any points. There’s various defensive events that can occur or be generated to help accomplish this objective, and the following major ones are currently tracked: turnovers, steals, offensive fouls, deflections, contests, blocks, and rebounds. Each of these events have varying defensive value:

• Turnovers: turnovers encompass multiple defensive events, such as steals or drawing offensive fouls, but also things like stepping out of bounds or bad passes or recovery of a loose ball. Turnovers are very valuable because they end the opponents’ possession without sacrificing points and often lead to transition opportunities or the accrual of fouls. 
• Steals: these are consistently the most valuable defensive events because they immediately end the opponents’ possession, sacrifice no points, have a demoralizing component, and often create a transition opportunity on offense. Over the last decade plus, offenses have scored 1.04 points per possession in transition versus 0.87 points per possession in the half-court. Additionally, with the new take-foul rule in place that grants a free throw plus possession for a foul in transition, steals will likely become even more advantageous on average.
• Offensive fouls: drawing a charge or illegal screen are the most common offensive fouls. Individually, they are generally not quite as valuable as steals because they don’t create transition opportunities, but their value can exceed steals as the opposing team gets into foul trouble and generates free throws (1.3 points per possession on average).
• Deflections: deflections disrupt opposing offenses, eat up valuable time, and often lead to steals and offensive fouls. 
• Contests: getting hands raised in front of a shooter can be valuable to alter shots or discourage players from taking them in the first place, and can also result in blocks.
• Blocks: blocks force a missed shot and can be especially valuable when the rebound is secured immediately afterwards. Blocks are also demoralizing and can be an effective way to coerce teams into taking less efficient shots.
• Rebounds: these end the opponent’s possession without sacrificing points and often lead to transition opportunities. 

While these tracked defensive events are often markers of a good defense, the statistics themselves do not always have meaningful probative value, as previously illustrated in Zach Kram’s article. Instead, understanding how these tracked events are generated is often more important than the event itself, and that is where cognitive athleticism manifests.

For example, you might have two players who generate a high number of steals and therefore rate favorably on various defensive metrics. Assume Player A generates steals because he consistently anticipates passes and intercepts them due to good positioning and anticipation, while Player B generates a lot of steals because he gambles on the perimeter and is often successful in getting possession of the ball due to his long arms. While both players generate steals, Player B sacrifices good positioning to do so and may create multiple disadvantaged possessions for his team between acquiring each steal. Defensive metrics struggle to capture this important distinction; all we see is that a steal was generated. 

Additionally, there are many defensive events that are not tracked at all or cannot reasonably be tracked, making the effects of cognitive athleticism even less visible to the untrained eye. A player who is consistently in the right position to create opportunities for defensive events, for example, may never generate a single steal, deflection, block, or turnover and yet can still be a quality defender. That’s because the impact of a player on defense is far more complicated to determine than simply looking at a box score. You have to understand the details of each and every possession – the offensive scheme, the personnel executing it and their effectiveness in doing so, the defensive scheme, the defender’s role in that scheme, and how effective all five players are at executing – which all must be taken into account. It’s a monumental task that requires both sophisticated basketball knowledge and a lot of repetition, and no one person has the bandwidth to do this across the entire league. Thankfully, there are physical and mental traits that can help us prognosticate a player’s aptitude and tendencies on defense across a variety of situations. Just as the trained eye can sense that certain offensive players are or will be gifted playmakers, we can identify gifted defensive playmakers by learning what to look for. 

Defensive Athleticism

Every player leverages three types of athleticism when they play basketball: hard, soft, and cognitive – as illustrated and discussed by Thinking Basketball’s Ben Taylor.

Hard and soft athleticism, often described as physical tools, are essential to be effective on both sides of the floor. In the defensive context, players who have long limbs, can jump high, can change direction and speed quickly while maintaining balance, are mobile and also immovable, and/or can be highly active for long periods of time are typically more likely to have a consistently positive impact on defense.  

That’s because defensive activity most commonly occurs in reaction to the opponent. And while defensive schemes are often pre-planned as a result of good scouting and coaching, players are put in positions to react to the others currently on the floor in order to maximize the team’s defensive impact against that unit. For example, players involved defensively in a pick and roll action react to the screen: the on-ball defender attempts to navigate the screen and regain defensive position on the ball-handler, while the screener’s defender either blitzes the ball-handler, or drops back as the screener rolls, or does whatever else may be called for by the defensive scheme and the offensive action being executed. Hard and soft athleticism are especially helpful in reactive defense, as they can minimize recovery time and allow for quicker rotations to diminish any advantages created by the offense. 

Cognitive athleticism, on the other hand, allows defenders to flip the script. Instead of just reacting on defense, defenders use cognitive athleticism to become proactive, anticipating the future to create defensive events. Cognitive athleticism is commonly referred to as “feel” or, more clumsily, as “basketball IQ,” though it has little to do with intelligence. Rather, according to Ben Taylor and SIS Hoops’ Evan Zaucha, cognitive athleticism is made up of four parts: pattern recognition, spatial awareness, anticipation, and cognitive load. Each of these combine and overlap to help a defender generate a “feel” for defense that allows them to accurately forecast what the offense is going to do and when. These same four parts apply for offensive playmakers as well. 

Pattern recognition is the ability to identify plays or actions and the tendencies of the personnel running them. While there are certainly players who naturally excel in this area, all players can develop their pattern recognition through repetition of actions and diligent film study. Prescient defenders will often know a play call before it is executed, an opposing player’s favorite spots to shoot, or what hand or side they favor on a drive. Players that excel in pattern recognition consistently study different players and actions so they can access that information in real time during a game. Here’s a simple example the internet had way too much fun with: 

And here’s Alex Caruso describing Jayson Tatum’s tendencies to JJ Redick: 

Spatial awareness is often described as court vision. It’s knowing where everyone is on the floor at all times and where they are going to be in the near future. This knowledge can help an offensive player know how fast to throw a pass or when to accept or reject a screen. Defensively, it allows a player to identify optimal positioning or recognize and call out an impending breakdown in a rotating defense. Caruso exemplifies this concept with his impeccable timing and positioning on this sequence:

Anticipation is the ability to expect or predict something that has yet to happen. This cognitive ability allows an offensive player to throw a pass to an empty spot on the floor that will soon be occupied by his teammate. Defensively, players use anticipation to know where they need to be positioned to intercept a pass that hasn’t yet been made to an off-ball cutter, or to avoid getting screened, or to swipe a hand at an opposing ball-handler: 

Finally, cognitive load is akin to mental stamina. It’s a player’s ability to maintain their processing speed throughout an entire game or series without significant dropoff. Just as physical conditioning is required to play sustained NBA minutes, great defensive playmakers require consistent exercise of their cognitive athleticism to maintain their prognostic bandwidth:

The havoc that Caruso creates every possession he’s in the game is a testament to this conditioning. Every second that he spends blowing up a screen, or negating a created advantage, or deflecting a pass, or getting between the ball-handler and their intended target, translates into less time to score and a less efficient offense for the opposing team. Basketball players play best when they are in rhythm; Caruso makes sure his targets never get comfortable by anticipating their every move. Caruso also impacts winning by erasing his teammates’ mistakes and allowing them to play more aggressively within a given scheme because of the additional margin for error that he provides with his elite blend of hard, soft, and cognitive athleticism. His 1st Team All-Defense award was well-deserved this last season.  

Cognitive athleticism can also help defenders who don’t possess more traditional physical athletic traits and are often overlooked or undervalued as a result. Nikola Jokic is a great example of a player whose defensive impact is difficult to pinpoint with available metrics and who does not pop off the screen on that end of the floor. Jokic is lanky, but he’s not especially bouncy or quick. He does, however, use his incredible cognitive athleticism to his advantage, using spatial awareness and anticipation to plod right into the correct positions at the right time, and using his pattern recognition to vocally quarterback the defense for his teammates. His coach, Michael Malone, describes how Jokic’s cognitive athleticism impacts his team’s defense:

Malone is right: a lot of this stuff isn’t readily apparent using the eye test unless you know what you’re looking for, nor does it appear on any stat sheet, so box-score-based defensive analytics cannot reliably predict it. Consider these two sequences where Alex Caruso guards Devin Booker; Caruso becomes an agent of chaos on defense for nearly 30 seconds, anticipating Booker’s every twitch and tendency to cause him to take two low-quality shots, but there’s no recorded defensive stat to reflect that reality:

That doesn’t mean the impact is not felt. Having an elite defensive playmaker on an NBA team roster can keep almost any team afloat defensively. Having two can completely transform it. The best recent example of this is the 2021-22 Chicago Bulls who, despite deploying the defensively milquetoast Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, and Nikola Vucevic, had a league-best defensive rating when Alex Caruso and Lonzo Ball, both of whom are elite defensive playmakers, shared the floor with them or when both of them were on the floor with any other lineup. With them off the floor, the Bulls had the worst defensive rating in the league. Not only did they flip the script on defense, their defensive playmaking and pinpoint passing juiced Chicago’s transition offense to league-best efficiency in points per possession on transition opportunities. 

Identifying Cognitive Athleticism 

But far too often, however, the impact of cognitively athletic defenders is not adequately recognized by large parts of the basketball community. A center with hard and soft athleticism that racks up blocks, for example, may be commonly viewed as defensively impactful because he pops off the screen. But if he’s chasing blocks while being out of position, or if opponents get into the paint at a higher rate because he’s not rotating correctly, the impact metrics can sometimes be overstated or deceiving. A center who is constantly in the right spot or rotating with precision may not get the opportunity to block as many shots because opposing players are deterred from ever getting to the paint in the first place, which is far more conducive to winning but harder to pin down on paper. Having an awareness of these factors can help us understand why both people and defensive metrics are so split on the defensive impact of players like Nikola Jokic, or why the little things Alex Caruso does often go unnoticed or underappreciated for so long. 

Next time you watch a player on defense this season, try and focus on identifying traits of cognitive athleticism. Or when you scan for the aforementioned defensive events, identify how the player generated the statistic. For example, when a defensive player gets screened, look for their footwork and positioning before, during, and after a screen is set. When a player gets a rebound, watch that player’s timing, positioning, anticipation, and box-outs that lead to the rebound. Were they just lucky, or did they create the defensive event through their proactivity? As always, metrics and statistics can be incredibly useful in evaluation, but they should primarily be used as tools to generate good questions rather than provide definitive answers. If a player generally thought to be a poor defender rates highly in one or across multiple defensive metrics, that should pique your interest, and vice versa. Don’t just take numbers at face value, investigate them. 

As we learn to recognize how cognitive athleticism manifests on defense, we’ll be able to better identify good defenders at all levels of the sport. Perhaps someday soon we’ll have metrics that can accurately measure how well a defender anticipates a pass or avoids a screen, but until then, as Tom Thibodeau loves to say, the magic is in the work. 

The post The Mind of a Defensive Menace: Cognitive Athleticism’s Impact on Defense appeared first on Swish Theory.

The eyes of the basketball world are trained on the Finals. Obviously. And we all have the same 48 minutes of game-tape to analyze and over-analyze. So, unique observations, at this point in the season, are few and far between – with that said, here are a couple of Game Two tidbits I found to be both interesting and key to a Heat victory.

Zone Defense

Ah yes, the infamous Miami zone vs. Denver’s unstoppable offense. Whether you believe zone defense at the NBA-level is an affront to professional sports or not, this was a matchup hyped up by the nerdiest among us. The Heat have played the most zone defense in the NBA in both this regular season and post-season. Zone is part of their Dark Magic, concocted in Pat Riley’s sunken living room.

Denver meanwhile…well, I’ll just borrow the words from CBS Sports writer Jack Maloney: “In the regular season, [the Nuggets] were second in the league in zone offense, scoring 1.156 points per possession, and in the playoffs that mark has jumped to a stunning 1.385 points per possession.”

This is less of a mystery, of course. The Nuggets are led by a lab-designed zone-buster, a 7-foot-tall wizard with soft hands, sharp vision, and a lethal mid-range jump-shot. Step one: Put that guy in the middle of your zone offense. Step Two: Profit! This, prior to the series, was much of the discussion around Miami’s zone defense and how Denver might counter it: “Well, they have Nikola Jokic, so, yeah.”

While excellent analysis, that misses one thing: The Heat do not play your run-of-the-mill zone. When you hear “zone defense” in the NBA, you imagine a red-faced head coach so perturbed by his team’s effort that he says “[expletive] this, just play some 2-3. You guys remember that from high school, right?” Well, that is not Erik Spoelstra and the Heat.

Spo’s squad change their zone, seemingly, from possession to possession, but a principle often prevails. Deny dribble penetration in the middle without sacrificing corner threes. How? Have your weak-side guards flock to the ball-side, no matter where they are. An obvious but difficult challenge, one that places heavy onus on the wings of the operation. Here’s a possession from the first half of Game Two, one that ends with an Aaron Gordon three:

That’s an outcome that the Heat will surely take. Rather than have Jamal Murray fire up a corner 3-pointer, a below average shooter in Gordon is taking one, lightly contested. That play exhibits the general structure the Heat rely on when going zone in these playoffs, specifically vs. Denver’s bench units.

But in the fourth quarter, they trotted out a zone agains Nikola Jokic & co., and boy did it make my brain hurt. Well, me and the Nuggets:

Gabe Vincent does a hell of a job fronting Jokic in the first clip, which was the tenet of Miami’s zone concepts in the fourth quarter. On a subsequent possession, Denver decides to let Jokic handle it up top, a much easier path to getting the ball in his hands. Welp, that results in Vincent applying extreme ball pressure and forcing a (questionable) charge.

What even is that zone? I’m damn near tempted to call it the world’s strangest-looking box-and-one, though in reality it’s more of a 2-1-2 where the ‘1’ is interchangeable. Just take a look at this possession, where Caleb Martin and Vincent switch the Jokic assignment mid-possession:

Zone defense, once you get past the high school level, is polarizing. And I get the argument; it feels almost cheap to remove the sanctity of guarding your man and taking pride in shutting him down from defense. “That ain’t basketball at its purest,” the detractors shout. But even the haters have to admit it’s a beautiful thing to watch the Heat maintain their core principles no matter what kind of funky zone they’re throwing out there.

Here, the Nuggets get creative with it, and screen for Jokic after he catches it off an inbounds, but the Heat snuff it out:

If any other team had the otherworldly gall to play zone against Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets, then their center certainly would’ve stepped up on that creative ball-screen from Denver. But Bam Adebayo and the Heat scoff at the notion. Why, so Jokic and Gordon can essentially run their famous inverted pick-and-roll? Or so Jokic can hit a devious back-cutter as the rim protector vacates the area? Nope. Erik Spoelstra’s guards are going to prevent dribble penetration – even when Jokic is on the floor, whether that means fronting him or not – and his wings are going to handle their business (although Kyle Lowry’s job here is admittedly made easier by Jimmy Butler’s recovery.)

I’ll say it. It’s a treat to watch the Miami Heat play zone defense, even on the biggest stage. Especially against one of the most fearsome zone-busters this game has ever known.

One more thing, really quick. As important as Miami’s zone defense was (a huge reason the Nuggets’ offense hovered around a pedestrian 111 offensive rating with Jokic on the court), their outside shooting was far more crucial. 49% from deep on 35 attempts? On the road? Especially when, per Cleaning the Glass, a minuscule 14% of their shots came inside the restricted area, meaning they were entirely reliant on jump-shooting? As boring as this may sound, there cannot be an explanation for Miami’s victory that doesn’t start with, “They shot the hell out of the rock.”

There are a few reasons why that happened, other than the pure shot-making talent 8-seeds are now dripping with. I tweeted a cut-up of all their 3-point attempts…

…and surmised, among other things, that the Heat successfully targeted Michael Porter Jr and Jamal Murray. You can draw your own conclusions, but it’s clear that Miami challenged those two to talk through countless screening actions and make long closeouts. Neither one did either task successfully. Aside from Bruce Brown, perhaps, the whole Denver squad was sloppy rotating and closing out to shooters. There’s a reason Jeff Green and Head Coach Mike Malone each ripped their team’s effort in postgame pressers.

But, to give the Heat some credit here, I thought they forced sloppy closeouts and missed rotations by paying careful attention to their spacing. Miami’s shooters consistently spaced multiple feet beyond the arc, and it caused problems for the Nuggets. Roll the tape:

Spacing farther away from the line not only creates longer closeouts for defenders, many of which various Nuggets botched repeatedly in their Game Two defeat. It also creates more opportunities for shooters to move without the ball – I don’t mean sprinting around screens like Steph Curry, the most commonly recognized form of off-ball-movement.

Rather, I’m talking about the art of subtly relocating, an art that Miami’s role players have perfected: Just look at Max Strus in that first clip. Relocating along the perimeter is about reading two players at once, and instinctually moving to a spot that makes the defender’s job harder but the passer’s job easier. Stus & co. did a great job of that in Game Two, and it was the cherry on top of a…Poop Sundae for Denver’s defenders. When the Nuggets weren’t busy closing out to shooters recklessly and jumping at every ball-fake, they were losing their assignments before then, unaware of perimeter relocations.

Yes, the Miami Heat shot the lights out, and that is the reason they were able to tie the series against the rightfully favored Nuggets. But don’t lose sight of the fact that Erik Spoelstra’s squad did all the little things right, executing their offensive and defensive game-plan on Sunday night. Whether they were setting up 3-point bombs or falling back into zone defense, the Heat certainly sweat the small stuff in Game Two. And it was beautiful to watch.

The post Heat in the Zone: How Miami Locked in to Take Game 2 appeared first on Swish Theory.

This conference finals matchup is bound to be a great battle focusing on the dualities of each team’s approach. Denver with their offense centering around, well, a center in Nikola Jokić as he’s literally in the middle of everything they do. Whether it be in the middle of the free throw line, on the block, or on the perimeter—when Jokić is on the court, he’s the center of attention, and for very good reason. 

Whereas for LA, their offense is more of an egalitarian approach where their leading scorer, LeBron James, is only at 23.8 points per game for this playoff run, compare that to Jokić who is at 30.7 points per game. James also leads the Lakers in touches at 71.6 per game which pales in comparison to the Nuggets’ two stars with Jokić at 110.9 touches per game (1st in the league this postseason with the difference between #1 and #2 being the difference between #2 and #27) and Jamal Murray at 85.6 (9th in the league this postseason). 

These two teams offer different questions for the other to solve which should make for a super entertaining chess match between two of the league’s best.

Matchups

For Denver:

• Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on D’Angelo Russell
• Jamal Murray on Austin Reaves
• Michael Porter Jr. on Jarred Vanderbilt
• Aaron Gordon on LeBron James
• Nikola Jokić on Anthony Davis

For Los Angeles:

• Austin Reaves on Jamal Murray
• D’Angelo Russell on Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
• Jarred Vanderbilt on Michael Porter Jr.
• LeBron James on Aaron Gordon
• Anthony Davis on Nikola Jokić

With Denver having a stout defender in Aaron Gordon to matchup with LeBron, the rest of the frontcourt comes into question. And a question that could have an important outcome in this series is “Who is ‘guarding’ Jarred Vanderbilt?” 

Why should you pay attention to the person guarding a 25% 3PT shooter, you ask? 

Well, it is a question of whether Denver wants to help off of Vanderbilt or hide on Vanderbilt. In LA’s previous series, Vanderbilt’s spacing issues were causing a big problem for the Lakers offense as both series went on, and ultimately reached an inflection point in Game 6 of the 2nd round vs the Golden State Warriors where they pulled the plug on Vanderbilt as a starter and replaced him with Dennis Schröder, the veteran speedy ballhandler. The Warriors were helping off of Vanderbilt at any chance they could get if that meant it would slow down an attack from LeBron or Davis. And well, I would assume that would be the same approach from Denver and the Eastern Conference team the Lakers would face if they make it to the Finals. 

However, Denver is known to mix up their matchups particularly when it comes to who Jokić is assigned to. Jokić had multiple sequences in their series against Phoenix where he was guarding a non-shooter like Josh Okogie and it threw an interesting wrench into the Suns’ offense when it happened. 

As for the Lakers, these are the standard matchups and I would not be surprised if these are different even in Game 1. With Vanderbilt’s questionable fit alongside LeBron and AD, Darvin Ham could look to another starter to begin this series and would change the matchups completely. But if Vanderbilt still does start, I could definitely see him guarding either one of Murray or Porter Jr. as the coaching staff pretty much trusts him on anybody. 

As Davis will have his hands full with Jokić, I would look to LeBron guarding Gordon to a similar degree that the Nuggets will guard Vanderbilt and also how the Lakers guarded players on the Warriors and Grizzlies — simple not caring if they were to launch threes. LeBron’s best defensive role for a good amount of years now is as a helper and potential roamer where he can be a pest in passing lanes, take charges in driving lanes, and come over for huge blocks if that is the last resort. LeBron will also have to be wary though of Gordon’s cutting and his impeccable chemistry with Jokić where the latter will find the former as soon as there is an opening in the defense. 

Denver’s Advantages

Going into this matchup as the #1 offense in the playoffs, Denver will pose a different threat to the Lakers’ defense they really haven’t seen this postseason. Not only is it pretty post-centric but the guy that can post up can also space you out and that could be the real concern. 

In the recent years of Jokić’s dominance throughout the league, which incidentally came after the loss to the Lakers in the 2020 Bubble, he has been a tough matchup for AD and he is of the build of player that AD can have trouble against. With his high center of gravity, Davis can often look light when going against bulky 7-footers will a low center of gravity and they can move him around a bit. Guys like Jokić, Ivica Zubac, or Jusuf Nurkić all fit the description and have given AD more trouble than you would think from a defensive player of his caliber. While Davis will definitely make him work, I think Jokić will have the edge over him in those 1-on-1 battles in the post that will inevitably happen.

If Jokić is not in the post, however, he can still stretch Davis out with his ability to shoot and if Davis provides no pressure to Jokic on the perimeter, it will give him ample amounts of time to read the floor and play make as one of the league’s best in that category. This will be a challenge the Lakers will have to solve throughout the series since they won their first two series by stationing Anthony Davis near the rim as best as they could through all methods and it worked to near perfection. With Jokić operating a lot from the top of the key and elbow, that alone can pull Davis out from under the rim and other Nuggets’ players will feel much more free at the rim when Davis’ presence isn’t near. 

Denver is also a more controlled and secure offense in comparison to the Grizzlies and Warriors who both ranked in the bottom-7 in most turnovers per game by playoff teams, meanwhile, Denver ranks 1st, giving up the fewest amount of turnovers this postseason. This matters a ton for the success rate of the Lakers’ defense of course but also hinders their transition game as well if they don’t turn the Nuggets over enough. 

With Aaron Gordon’s phenomenal work on Kevin Durant in Denver’s previous series, he will be a formidable defender to have the LeBron assignment. Strangely enough, Gordon is one of the few defenders who actually match up in stature and frame to LeBron which could provide an interesting challenge for the legend at this stage of his career. 

I expect Denver to be flying up the court in transition at every opportunity that arises. The Lakers’ transition defense has left a lot to be desired with the number of athletes and high-IQ players on the team. If Denver is able to fly in transition while also being a problem in the halfcourt offense and on the offensive glass, they could spell trouble for the underdogs very quickly.

Lakers’ Advantages

Throughout the LeBron and AD era, the Lakers have had one offensive identity—attack the rim. In the regular season, the Nuggets allowed the 3rd highest FG% at the rim and it has always been a weakness of theirs in recent years. In the regular season with LeBron and AD both healthy and playing, the Lakers have had a 4-1 record over the Nuggets since 2019-20 and that doesn’t include the 4-1 series win over Denver in the Bubble. During the regular season and postseason, the Lakers have always been a tough matchup for the Nuggets although this year, Denver is fielding easily their best supporting cast around Jokić since his birth as a star in this league. 

Rim protection is one of Jokić’s biggest weaknesses as a player and the Lakers will make sure to exploit that when they have the chance. With LeBron and AD being two of the best rim attackers in the league, I’m sure their minds will be made up on getting to the rim and it will be up to the Nuggets to stop them from getting there which was their plan in that 2020 series. 

In that 2020 Western Conference Finals, the Nuggets stunted extremely hard off the Lakers’ role players whenever LeBron had the ball in a concerted effort to make him beat them off of jumpers and it was a good strategy. Before Game 5, LeBron only averaged 24 points per game and in Game 4, he shot 7-of-18 from the field. But in Game 5, James had one of those statement games where he reminds you that sometimes, it just doesn’t matter. 

That’s how the previous series ended off and one might ask, what has changed since then? Well, the Lakers have shooters. And those shooters are also ballhandlers that can create for themselves and for others. And LeBron is not as on-ball dominant as he once was which can throw the defense for a loop in that his attack will not be as predictable. 

In the December 16th matchup between the two teams, LeBron how devastating that versatile skillset can be especially when he has a favorable matchup at the rim. He killed Denver on cuts through the defense when the attention shifted off of his which made for some highlight dunks and uber-efficient possessions. 

With this current version of LeBron in the postseason, I think we could see this a lot as a way of offense for him when not creating on-ball like so many of us are used to him doing. 

And while there is so much talk around how the Lakers will guard the Nuggets, Denver will probably be the most advantageous defense to the Lakers that they will see this postseason. In the Grizzlies and Warriors series which feature two top defenses and two All-Defensive defenders, the Lakers got stuck in the mud a few times and the other teams were able to stall out LA’s pick-and-roll offense and pet actions. I just don’t see that being the case in this series. 

In the regular season, the Lakers were able to go back to an ol’ reliable play from the ‘19-20 season when nobody really had an answer for it: the LeBron and AD pick and roll. Ever since then, teams have just switched that action and would much rather one of those two attack individually vs help instead of combining to convert a masterful possession. Now, with Davis sliding to be a full-time center, that means Jokić will match up with him and if the Lakers run that LeBron and AD pick and roll, would Denver want to switch Nikola Jokić onto LeBron James? No! At least that’s what the film says and it drew great results for the Laker offense. 

Also with Jokić being on AD, that opens up a Lakers pet action of the AD wide pin-down where he sets up in the corner and a guard sets a pin-down screen for AD to curl off of and attack while on the move. I’d imagine this would be a difficult action for Jokić to guard given that centers usually aren’t used to running around screens and that’s why it’s so effective. 

On top of the offense being unlocked a bit, the Lakers’ defense has sneakily been one the best in the league at slowing down the Joker with smart tactics from the coaching staff. While some think letting Jokić cook in the post 1v1 all game is the key to beating Denver, LA has actually found success in smartly sending help to Jokić to effectively get the ball out of his hands without him realizing the advantage quick enough and also the Nuggets players not executing quick enough either. 

The Lakers used a heavy diet of helping from the strong side then bumping the next defender over to help the helper. This causes a chain reaction within the defense and the original helper’s new man will be the one in the weakside corner after he helps on Jokić. Since some of Joker’s first reads were taken away and the Nuggets didn’t weren’t ready to be thrown a Jokić pass that didn’t really create that much of an advantage, the offense sputtered at times in those regular season matchups and it was pretty much all due to the gameplan and the execution from the players.

X-Factors

Nuggets:

• The Others

Yep. That’s right. Literally every single player not named Nikola Jokić is an x-factor for the Nuggets because simply he will need all the help he can get. If Jamal Murray can tap into that efficiency he had when in the Bubble it would go a long way. He does not have the margin of error that he had in the series against Phoenix to have ice-cold games and still come out with a win. Michael Porter Jr. and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope have to be consistent shooters and consistent decision-makers when the ball is put in their hands. Aaron Gordon can’t be afraid to shoot the ball and has to always make himself a threat through cutting or his outside shot. How much can the bench help? How much can Bruce Brown and Christian Braun contribute offensively? They’ll need everybody to chip in in some ways that aren’t normal for them and they may be put into uncomfortable situations where they will still have to succeed if they want a trip to the Finals.

Lakers

• LeBron James
• Timely adjustments (both)

Anthony Davis has unequivocally been the best player for the Lakers in this playoff run but he will need all the help where he can get it as well and I think LeBron has a chance to make a huge imprint on this series. With his athletic advantages and as a prime pressure point for the Nuggets’ weakness, his production, and primarily his health, could swing the series one way or the other.

Michael Malone is one of the best coaches in the league and this should not be a pushover matchup (like the 2020 series). These two teams are pretty evenly matched to where if you don’t counter an adjustment or don’t execute enough of the gameplan, the other team will send you right on home. Neither team has the margin for error to mess around and drop games because of an unplanned-for coverage or the team can’t execute the proper coverage or offensive exploits.

Prediction

Lakers in 6.

Much like the series against Golden State, LA is coming into this series with an optimal gameplan that we have seen work in the regular season and should be put in place again in the upcoming series. I do expect Denver to be ready for the Lakers’ first move and they have the coaching to be able to counter as best as they can then it will be on the Lakers to make their move once again. I believe the Lakers have the tactical advantage, weakness advantage, and rotation/versatility advantage with the Nuggets at a strict 8-man rotation while the Lakers have nine or even 10 guys they can go to on a nightly basis and tweak their style of play just a bit to accommodate that player and play him into their advantage. On top of that, the last game that LeBron played was his best game of this postseason and he ended the series off shooting 39% from three after Game 1. Who’s to say that can’t carry over?

Either way, this should be an extremely entertaining series that will have many plenty of adjusting and countering and best of all we get to see another series of just some of the best in the world go at it. Jokić has grown a lot since that series in Orlando and it would be a pretty good story if he were to beat the same team that knocked him out for a spot in the Finals a while back. But unfortunately for the Joker, I think his road will stop at the same spot and we will see the first 7th seed in NBA history claim their spot in the NBA Finals.

The post Clash of the Titans: Nuggets vs Lakers Series Preview appeared first on Swish Theory.

“Wow! Jock Landale is a truly dominant center! Not one of the Denver frontcourt players can box him out, Denver must lack an interior presence to negate his offensive rebounding.” 

And our extraterrestrial friend wouldn’t be wrong, either.

In the first two and a half minutes of the 4th quarter, the Suns took six shots while the Nuggets only took two, with Phoenix bench big Landale drawing three fouls (two while attacking the glass and one while sealing Christian Braun) in that stretch. The Nuggets’ Jeff Green-Aaron Gordon backline is structureless, flimsy against any sort of quasi-meaningful size. A strategy that, on a night where the typically dynamic Denver offense was unusually sluggish, may have lost Denver home court advantage against the star-powered Suns.

Enter, then, one Nikola Jokic. Jokic checked in with 9:25 to go in a game tied 73-73, the only points scored thus far in the frame was a Kentavious Caldwell-Pope three pointer. His first play upon checking in? A demeaning one-handed rebound, casually repelling Landale with his free arm, into a Jokic-Jamal Murray two-man game resulting in another KCP three point bomb. 

The Nuggets would go on to win 97-87, but within a 30 second frame, Jokic immediately stabilized both ends of the court for the Nuggets. In a critically important Game 2 with Murray, Michael Porter Jr., and Aaron Gordon combining to shoot 9/31, Jokic needed to be the best version of himself: the NBA’s foremost supercomputer processing solutions to his team’s needs on both ends of the floor.

Yes, both ends of the floor. For as much as Jokic has been the league’s most reliable offensive hub in 2023, the fourth quarter against the Suns demonstrated that his feel for the game is not limited to offense. When the Suns attacked Denver’s no-middle defense with Josh Okogie as the short-roller/decision maker, Aaron Gordon jumped on an Okogie fake and left Deandre Ayton wide open for the jam.

I’m unsure exactly what Jokic said to Gordon, but I would like to believe it was something along the lines of, “It’s Josh f****** Okogie man.” It clearly had an impact on Gordon’s strategy on the rotation to the short roller. Later in the quarter, still applying no-middle but this time blitzing the ball screen, Gordon shaded toward Okogie instead of committing, forcing the worst offensive option for the Suns to make an important decision late in the game. The result was a bad shot and a won possession for the Nuggets:

Jokic’s recognition of personnel and concepts is key to the Nuggets defensive strategy against the Suns. The moments where Devin Booker and Kevin Durant go nuclear are unstoppable, but exploiting weaknesses around the edges is how the Nuggets can contain Phoenix’s explosive offense. Despite his athletic limitations, he solves so many problems just by recognizing the offensive potency of each opposing player. 

Against Cameron Payne (who is decidedly not Chris Paul), Jokic relied on heavy drop concepts and his underrated strength to man the paint. Against Booker, he hedged until the defender had a chance to recover, forcing Book to at least consider making a decision and delaying his process while the weakside defenders got organized. And against Durant, Jokic hard blitzed the PnR to get the ball out of his hands and into Okogie’s. All the while retreating to the paint to establish early positioning for rebounds. Positioning, the thing that the Nuggets couldn’t stop Jock Landale from establishing without Jokic.

And offensively, Jokic has no equal. He had 39 points on 17/30 shooting in 41 minutes. When the Nuggets needed his completely singular skillset the most, he delivered. The earlier clip–where Jokic processes Booker’s rotation before he does and gets KCP a wide open corner look–is a small sample of how Jokic’s offensive mastery ushered the Nuggets to victory.

Poor, poor Deandre Ayton. Despite some pretty sound defense, or what would be sound defense against most centers, Jokic routinely found space to attack and took complete advantage of how Ayton was utilized in Phoenix’s scheme. In the PnR, Jokic took up just enough space to get the best shot possible without a meaningful contest from Ayton:

In one-on-one defensive contexts, Ayton stood no chance. Despite possessing a myriad of athletic advantages, Jokic simply overpowered the former number-one overall pick. 

In the first clip, while obviously a tough shot, Jokic waits until Murray spaces to the three-point line to attack that gap in between the free throw line and the right block. The second shot is humiliation on national television. The aggressive hips and early seal in semi-transition puts the Suns’ defense irreparably behind the eight-ball. Barbecue chicken. He’s hunting an iso matchup against the only reliable two-way big the Suns roster. 

The third clip is just Jokic being a cheat code. After some initial off ball action, Denver runs Horns Out (where the player at one elbow sets a screen for the player at the opposite elbow, a play that Phoenix runs a lot for Durant) for Jokic, who immediately attacks Ayton’s chest and draws a foul. There is exactly one other center in the NBA who you can reliably run this set for and he’s the MVP of the Association. Back to our E.T. correspondent after watching the rest of the 4th quarter:

Jokic is become PnR death, destroyer of worlds defenses.

Profound words, but there are still some counters the Suns could employ to contain Jokic’s impact. While it sounds nonsensical, establishing a smaller defender on Jokic may actually short circuit the Nuggets’ offense. Placing Ayton, Bismack Biyombo, or even Durant as the weak side helper and matching up Torrey Craig as the primary could deter his decision-making and ultimately afford the defense more time for recovery. 

The Sixers implemented this strategy during the regular season (as analyzed by the great team at Thinking Basketball) to great effect, and while Craig is no P.J. Tucker and Ayton is certainly no Joel Embiid, the concept of forcing Jokic to see the biggest body possible on the help has its merits. Though I’m sure Jokic will crack that code too. Game 3 on May 5th.

The post Nikola Jokic: Destroyer of Worlds appeared first on Swish Theory.

While that’s all well and fun, at Swish Theory we want to mix things up a bit. We want to imagine not just how teams currently constructed might perform, but…what if…everything was a little bit different?

That’s what we have here with the Swish Theory NBA Playoffs Remix. Fourteen contributors got together for a re-draft of all the players on playoff teams (top 7 seeds only, as of about a month ago – why the Mavs are here).

Who do you think would win? Basketball is a practice in creativity, let’s try to imagine the teams of the future, not just in 2023. We run these scenarios by special guest judge collaborators, to be announced over the course of the week – but who do you think will win?

The Teams: Eastern Conference

#1 Seed (last pick in first round): Team Gannon (@gannon_rice)

The pitch: Every Ingredient for Success. Clear cut #1 offensive engine. 25 PPG secondary. 2 Reigning All-Defensive members. Size (Everyone is 6’4+). A great cohesive feel for the game, especially with quick processing bigs. Sharpshooting (39% team average). P&R D versatility +  defensive hell at the POA.

Rotation:

• James Harden / Victor Oladipo
• De’Anthony Melton / Mikal Bridges / Victor Oladipo
• Mikal Bridges / Cam Johnson / De’Anthony Melton
• Cam Johnson / Evan Mobley
• Evan Mobley / Isaiah Hartenstein

The pitch for the team is a souped-up version of the 2017 Rockets, with an actual #2 option. James Harden is James Harden, to clear up any confusion. Now, combine the defensive prominence of Trevor Ariza and the shotmaking of Eric Gordon, and out of the lab comes Mikal Bridges. Melton takes on the off-guard role of a less rabid Patrick Beverley with high volume three-point shooting. Cam Johnson is a modern-era Ryan Anderson and Victor Oladipo provides bench creation like Lou Williams, but with size and defense. Evan Mobley provides the two-way rim threat of Clint Capela, along with serious on-ball chops. Then we go 2 years in the future and snag Hartensteins short-roll playmaking and defensive feel, did I mention this Rockets team won 55 games?

Our offense will be predicated around James Harden, but not the typical heliocentric offense seen in the past. The offensive feel our bigs bring allows a 5-Out look, utilizing them with the ball above the arc spamming DHO’s with every one of our players and stagger/split offense on the wings. P&R will be a key part of our offense, with Harden carrying a bulk of the primary usage, either creating his own looks, kicking to shooters (4 guys at 40% from 3), or throwing lobs to the rolling bigs (spamming ghost screens if it’s Cam at the 4). Mikal has shown an incredible leap as a 25 efficient PPG 1B option who will excel playing off Harden and easing the on-ball load off him. If you’re not convinced, let’s go over everything the offense can do. A do-everything offensive engine, a capable #2 creator, elite shooting, positional versatility, and every single one of our players providing a connective ball-moving offense, unique to every other team. 

Selecting James Harden meant I had to cover up some of his defensive liabilities, and I did just that. Melton and Oladipo provide elite POA defense for 48 minutes, and provide positional versatility to guard up to the 3. Mikal will match up against the top wing, while having off-ball freedom to cause chaos. Mobley will be our anchor, versatile in any role and capable of being a helpside roamer at the 4 and being a primary 5 in our defensive scheme. That scheme, P&R wise, will feature a mix of everything. This includes switching with mobley at the 5, blitzing slow processors, playing drop with IHart + against non-mid range threats, and primarily playing at the level, incorporating a soft hedge. Playing against reigning all-defensive team members Mikal and Mobley will be hell for the star western conference forwards. The 2 names not mentioned in the scheme, Harden and Cam, are both capable of being switched 1-4, allowing for further versatility in a defensive lineup with length, off-ball hawks, perimeter stoppers, and elite rim protection. 

#2 Seed: Team Pow (@draftpow)

The pitch: Max switchability with plus passing everywhere. My team has plenty of options to take down the matchups with the top talent in the East as they search for air space

Rotation:

• Jrue Holiday / Immanuel Quickley
• Immanuel Quickley / RJ Barrett / Cam Thomas
• Julius Randle / RJ Barrett
• Bam Adebayo  / Julius Randle
• Al Horford / Bam Adebayo

The two items that translate best from the regular season to the NBA playoffs are 1. defensive versatility and 2. tough shotmaking. When teams are able to lock into scheme, the NBA becomes a jousting competition, not exactly in iso but instead shooting pull ups aggressively after catching the ball on the move. With the best defensive personnel by far while still full of scorers and sound decision-makers (our starters have a combined 2 to 1 assist to turnover ratio), we’ll play the territory game, winning possessions, finding open scorers and putting opposing stars in a bind.

In the playoffs, defenses are only as good as their worst defender. You need personnel who can not just fight through a screen but contest in an instant and understand how to recover in broken plays. My team’s worst defensive starter is Julius Randle, still league average and capable of locking in at a high level as an elite athlete. 

Second, you need to plan for your offense to go wrong. Your opponent will know where you’re trying to go, and your common ways of getting there. Players who can make adjustments on the swivel like Bam Adebayo, Al Horford, Jrue Holiday and Immanuel Quickley are rare, especially when they can also hit tough shots. We can sneak in some easy looks off of back cuts to optimize our passing, as well as all-five screening using our strength. Our team is built to be on a swivel, and also have 45%,  38%, 37%, 34% three point shooting starters and flamethrower Cam Thomas off the bench. 

We have potential swing factors across the board as any of Jrue, Randle, Barrett, IQ, Cam Thomas and Bam have a combined 13 forty point games this season. We have the tough shotmaking and strongest collective quick decision making to optimize our weapons.

#3 Seed: Team Oscar (@oscar_hoops)

The pitch: Led by Jimmy Butler and Jaylen Brown, this team offers a tantalizing package of all-world pullup shooters, elite and rangy defensive talent to counter any flavor of offensive star, and reliable spacers to play off of their pair of star wings.

Rotation:

• PG: Tyrese Maxey / Jevon Carter
• SG: Jaylen Brown / Jimmy Butler / Jevon Carter
• SF: Jimmy Butler / Jaylen Brown / Tobias Harris
• PF: Grant Williams / Tobias Harris / Jimmy Butler
• C: Mitchell Robinson / Grant Williams 

With my first pick being relatively late at #5 in the East pool, I didn’t head into the draft with a set roster construction philosophy in mind. Instead, I decided to see how the board fell and build around whichever centerpiece fell into my lap accordingly. While there were unfortunately no true superstar offensive options available when I got to the virtual podium, I was able to shift gears and assemble a gauntlet of defensive talent stacked to the brim with length, strength, and versatility. Rather than settling for a 2nd-tier primary creator with my top pick and trying to build a conventional offensive dynamo, I prioritized players who can offer major resistance in gaps and as point of attack defenders, while also nabbing enough tough shotmakers and individual offensive talents to make things work on the other end. From a championship upside perspective, the track record for teams without an MVP-caliber offensive fulcrum (although Butler was pretty damn close this year!) is admittedly poor, but I’m willing to bet that we can be an outlier with our combination of suffocating scheme-versatile defense and litany of talented scorers surrounded with good spacers.

If there’s one thing I’ll promise about this roster, it’s that we’ll have a counter for any flavor of creator we run up against. We have several elite point-of-attack options to throw at the two most common archetypes of high-usage offensive stars: small guard PnR maestros (Jevon Carter, Butler, and even Jaylen Brown), and bigger wing creators (Butler, Brown, and Grant Williams). To generate a favorable 1-on-1 matchup against our starters, opposing teams will have to run lineups with 5 players who are all threats with the ball in their hands, something most rosters are simply not capable of. And when we roll out our death lineup, swapping out Maxey for Jevon Carter, we’ll effectively have 5 fringe All-Defensive caliber players on the floor at once, while still maintaining good spacing around our 2 dynamic creators in Butler and Brown. Our elite length and range on the wing will allow us to be selectively aggressive sending gap help, as we won’t have to overcommit to slowing down drivers with the knowledge that we have an elite rim protector in Robinson waiting for them. We also have options in terms of pick-and-roll defending bigs: Robinson is our traditional drop big who also has hedge-and-recover flexibility, while Williams can moonlight as a small-ball switch 5 depending on matchup. Our defense is long, athletic, uber-versatile, and has few weak links, making it adaptable to any matchup and an ideal fit for playoff ball.

On the offensive end, we’ll adopt a ball-sharing philosophy to maximize our depth and hunt positive matchups. Much like how our defense offers few exploitable matchups, our plethora of solid-or-better scorers (Butler, Brown, Harris, Maxey) will prohibit opposing teams from hiding a weak perimeter defender on a non-threat. If they have a liability on D, we’ll be able to exploit it! 

Although we don’t have a traditional point guard on roster, Butler will serve as the de-facto primary ballhandler, as he provides both the most rim pressure and self-creation ability on the roster. His steady diet of pullup-2s, layups, and free throws will be the staple foods of our offense. Jaylen Brown will still be a key cog on that end, serving as a 1B option with the starters, and he’ll also be staggered to get minutes with the bench unit. We’ll mask his shaky ball control by getting him the ball in motion, primarily through pistol sets, and allowing him to win with touch and natural athletic gifts. Tyrese Maxey will be the nominal starting point guard, but will function as a lethal off-ball scorer playing off of our two star wings. Although he won’t be starting at the 4, Tobias Harris will still get significant minutes as a 6th man, filling in as a combo forward who can assimilate to any lineup we put him in. Finally, Mitchell Robinson will offer us an elite interior finisher and offensive rebounder who can command vertical attention as a roller, which will in turn allow Butler/Brown to cook in the short midrange. Although somewhat unconventional, our offense features 2 star creators surrounded by a cast of complementary players shooting 38%, 39%, 39% and 43% from 3 this season, respectively (excluding Mitchell Robinson). Having an elite pullup shooter to soak up late clock attempts in the playoffs is priceless; we have two of them, with plenty of kickout options available and elite play finishers on both levels in Maxey and Robinson. Although this is a defense-first team, we have the offensive firepower to score with anyone and always take advantage of the opponent’s weakest link.

#4 Seed: Team Larro (@_larrohoops)

The pitch: One of the best offensive generators in the NBA in Donovan Mitchell and one of the best defensive tandems in the NBA in Marcus Smart and Jarrett Allen. I’ve also added shooting and defense around this group with additions of: Jae Crowder, Grayson Allen, Kevin Love(mostly shooting), and Khris Middleton isn’t a bad defender himself.

Rotation:

• Marcus Smart/ Donovan Mitchell
• Donovan Mitchell/ Grayson Allen
• Khris Middleton/ Grayson Allen
• Jae Crowder/ Khris Middleton
• Jarrett Allen/ Kevin Love 

When I joined this fun exercise I set out to find an elite offense generator, rim protector, strong second scoring option that can also play make for others, and fill out the rest of the roster with role players that can stretch the floor and add some Variety to our offense.

Offensively this team will be coached into playing more random style offense with few set plays. I think that when you have players with the ability of Donovan Mitchell you allow them to apply pressure to the game and let them control the flow and pace. We will run double drags/single drag with Jarrett Allen as the screener for rim pressure and vertical spacing, at times it can be inverted with Jae depending on the type of defender who is guarding him. Pistol action with DMitch and Jarrett/Kevin Love. Being able to have Khris Middleton on the opposite side of the floor is a beautiful site when DMitch is your primary ballhandler because you can bet that he will have a lot more ability to attack tilted defenses and create for others off of it. Marcus Smart will stretch the floor, screen, and cut to keep things on the random side. Jae Crowder will also be in that floor spacing role mixed with some cutting. Grayson Allen and Kevin Love come off the bench and bring more shooting and versatility. Grayson can shoot off of DHO stuff, C+S, and movement just a bit. Kevin Love provides the ability to run some delay type actions with his passing ability. 

Defensively, I believe that I have one of the top Pick-and-roll defensive duos in the draft with Marcus Smart and Jarrett Allen. Jarrett has a cool ability to switch when needed, he also does a really good job of moving his feet and hips and being able to stay attached even when he is beat because of his length. Marcus Smart is our quarterback on this end of the floor. He can call out actions before they even begin and communicate with his teammates to make their job a bit easier. We already know about his point-of-attack defense. He’s a hound on the ball and off. As for everyone else, Khris Middleton and Jae Crowder both can switch screen actions to keep the ball in front of them. We will be prodominently a no-middle team on side ball screens, and middle ball screens we will switch it up. With Jarrett Allen in the fold we can show at the level because I can trust that Khris Middleton and Jae Crowder will have Jarrett’s back on those backside rotations. Kevin Love when out there will be a show at the level and will stay out of drop. 

All in all, I think I’ve built a team who can compete and shoot well enough to allow Donovan Mitchell and Khris Middleton to stay on the attack and create offense. 

#5 Seed: Team Josh A. (@joshaber_sports)

The pitch: Surrounding the league’s most proficient scorer with versatile complementary skill sets on both ends of the ball. Offensively, this team oozes with pick and roll creation, connective passing, quick decision making, perimeter shooting, screening, and ability to score in isolation. Defensively, the team has two rim protectors making sure that there is a deterrent at the rim at all times, even when a big is pulled into guarding a pick and roll.

Rotation: 

• Darius Garland / Derrick White
• Derrick White / Caleb Martin
• Dorian Finney-Smith / Caleb Martin / Jalen McDaniels
• Robert Williams / Jalen McDaniels
• Joel Embiid / Robert Williams

When I filled out my roster, I made sure to build my team to fit the strengths of my team’s superstar Joel Embiid. As a result, I made sure to surround him with pick and roll creators, elite and switchable point of attack defenders, and backline rim protection for when Embiid ends up being my primary pick and roll defensive big. 

I believe that Darius Garland would be a strong pairing with Joel Embiid, as his overall outside shooting and pick and roll play gives Embiid plenty of space for his beloved mid-post plays. I envision Garland relocating during these plays or receiving off ball screens to get open shots, which would in result distract defenders and prevent Embiid from getting helped on too much. Derrick White will be my primary point of attack defender, and on offense he will provide the team with great outside shooting, cutting, and connective passing. I believe that his skillset meshes very well with Darius Garland, who may struggle on the defensive end against tougher assignments.

As for my forwards, Dorian Finney-Smith provides the team with lots of length and physicality on the defensive end. He can serve as the team’s wingstopper, allowing White to cover the other team’s best guards and Robert Williams to be in his roamer role. I decided to go double big to support Embiid on both ends due to his weak side rim protection capabilities on defense and his ability to lurk around the dunkers spot on offense. I also think that Williams has some clear utility as an off ball screener when Embiid is operating in a face-up, as teams will have to fight to get around his screens to contest shots from our shooters.

As for my two rotational players off the bench, Caleb Martin provides the team with shooting, closeout attacks, connective passing, and physical on ball defense. Martin struggled at times when playing in a primary forward role with Miami this season, but when he was on the wings more he was able to showcase his offensive skill set more often. I decided to pair Jalen McDaniels with Caleb Martin as my other contributor off the bench, as I think he serves as a good compliment to Martin on the defensive end. Martin is very solid and physical while McDaniels brings lots of length and swift ground coverage on the defensive end.

When matching up with Larro’s team, we will be putting Embiid in a mid-drop system where he may at times play up at the level to deter pull-up threes from Donovan Mitchell. However, we may be able to get away with the drop system due to Derrick White’s excellent screen navigation. On offense, we will be running lots of Embiid pinch post plays, as he can create his own offense with ease. We will also implement some post split plays for Darius Garland to get some open threes or potential drives, which maximizes the offensive skill sets of our two stars.

#6 Seed: Team Josh U. (@2REDJUrl)

The pitch: 3 quality drivers surrounded with spacing + a vertical threat. An Elite rim protector + 2 POA defenders + size to switch.

Rotation:

• Malcolm Brogdon / Tyler Herro
• Quentin Grimes / Tyler Herro
• Jayson Tatum / Royce O’Neale
• Royce O’Neale / Yuta Watanabe
• Nicolas Claxton / Yuta Watanabe

NBA playoff success requires top quality offense AND defense. Of the 8 conference finals teams over the last two NBA playoffs 6 were in the top 10 in ORTG and 7 were top 10 in DRTG. I wanted to build a group who could do the same.

On offense all 8 conference finals teams had at least 1 player who averaged over 11 drives per game and 6 of the 8 had two such players! To drive our offense I drafted 3 players who average over 11 drives per game in Jayson Tatum, Malcolm Brogdon, and Tyler Herro. Our spacing is excellent with 6 players who shoot above average from deep on over 6 attempts per 100 possessions. And we also have an elite finisher and lob threat in Nicolas Claxton who leads the league in fg%. 

Defensively all 8 of those teams were in the top half of the league in opponent eFG%. I built my team with an elite rim protector in Claxton, two quality POA defenders in Quentin Grimes and Royce O’Neale, and size across the rotation to switch. My opponents will have to work hard for good looks against us. We have the pieces to be a contender.

#7 Seed: Team Will (@w_a_morris)

The pitch: Featuring a mega-star who pressures the rim and bends defenses like no other. We have surrounded Giannis with a mixture of capable shot-makers, creators, and advantage continuers. Don’t expect to score at the rim against our long, active backline.

Rotation:

• Jalen Brunson / Spencer Dinwiddie
• Spencer Dinwiddie / Josh Hart
• Josh Hart / Sam Hauser 
• Giannis Antetokounmpo / Bobby Portis / Sam Hauser
• Brook Lopez / Giannis Antetokounmpo / Bobby Portis

The lottery gods blessed me with the first pick in the East and I ended up rolling with NBA Champion and 2-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo. Giannis has proven capable of being the go-to-guy on a championship team, so selecting him was a no-brainer. I tried to replicate Milwaukee’s frontcourt rotation, later taking Brook Lopez and Bobby Portis. The Lopez-Giannis duo has been deadly once again this year, with Milwaukee recording a 9.2 Net-Rating with those two on the floor. Teams are shooting just 60.0% within 6-feet of the basket against Milwaukee this season. Preventing easy buckets at the rim is a recipe for winning basketball. 

Giannis is obviously going to draw plenty of defensive attention, so with the rest of my picks I looked for players who could punish defenses off his scoring gravity, both by knocking down open shots and attacking closeouts. Jalen Brunson has established himself as a true superstar this year, winning as a creator with his exceptional footwork, handle, and touch. Dinwiddie too provides some excellent secondary/tertiary creation chops. Both guards also have plenty of experience operating away from the ball. Josh Hart has given the Knicks a huge spark as a slasher and spot-up shooter, shooting 74.2% at the rim and 56.8% from three. Sam Hauser is one of the best shooters in the world at 6’8”, and while he’s probably going to have to log more minutes at the 3 than he has in Boston, his ability to bomb away off of movement bolsters our bench offense. 

The obvious concern with this roster is our perimeter defense. Hart is tenacious on-the-ball, but at 6’4” he may struggle to check some of the more difficult wing assignments in the NBA playoffs. Dinwiddie and Brunson will have to really lock in at the point-of-attack versus lead ball-handlers. Fortunately, having Giannis and Brook on the backline lurking gives us some leeway.

The Teams: Western Conference

#1 Seed: Team Sajdak (@davidsajdak8)

The pitch: Versatility and room for flexibility, with some of the best shooters in the league and defenders that can slide up and down the lineup, will make my team a tough out for any opponent.

Rotation:

• Kyrie Irving / Tyus Jones
• Tim Hardaway Jr. / Kyrie Irving / John Konchar
• Kyle Anderson / John Konchar
• Jaren Jackson Jr. / Kyle Anderson / Karl-Anthony Towns 
• Karl-Anthony Towns / Jaren Jackson Jr.

Picking last in the west meant that the true 1A primary option type of guys were already off the board before I got a chance to select. So, I decided to really focus (as best I could) on lineup versatility and flexibility rather than building my team around 1 talent. Playoff basketball can get really funky so giving my coaching staff (or me I guess) as much wiggle room as possible to make in-game adjustments or get weird with things was a goal of mine.

My primary lineup of choice offers plenty of shooting and playmaking, with one of the best isolation players in Kyrie Irving able to go get me one when the game calls for it. With the way Kyrie likes to play off his bigs, I was really excited to pair him with one of the league’s premier big-man playmakers and play-finishers in Karl-Anthony Towns. Add Kyle Anderson to the mix and you have a lineup with 3 players that you can trust to make good decisions off the dribble and maintain or capitalize on advantages that have been created for them. With Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jaren Jackson Jr. rounding out the lineup, I have two guys that are both more than capable shooters (especially Hardaway, whose an elite one) and can make plays off the dribble attacking closeouts. Off the bench, Tyus Jones is the best backup point guard in the league, offering a steady hand when Irving has to check out the game. Finally, Konchar gives me another +decision-making wing that’s capable of making open shots.

On defense, I got a perennial DPOY candidate in Jaren Jackson Jr. who I targeted early on in the draft. Jackson is somebody I see as the perfect fit next to KAT defensively, allowing him to stay away from the perimeter and cleaning up his mistakes with his elite weakside rim protection. My starting lineup is lacking in size at the guard positions, but this is where flexibility/versatility I was talking about earlier can really start to pay off with Konchar able to play the 2 over THJ if extra defense or size is needed. I also have the ability to play JJJ as my 5 and slide Kyle Anderson to the 4 in end of game situations or whenever needed.

#2 Seed: Team Neema (@findingneema23)

The pitch: My team exemplifies the NBA’s highest standards of pace and athleticism. Paired with specialists at each position as well as plenty of skill along the wings, this team makes up for their lack of height with grit, speed and strength. Outrunning and out-working our opponent will be our key to a deep playoff run.

Rotation:

• Ja Morant/Gary Payton II
• Anthony Edwards/Gary Payton II
• Andrew Wiggins/Michael Porter Jr/Anthony Edwards
• Michael Porter Jr./Andrew Wiggins/Brandon Clarke
• Kevon Looney/Brandon Clarke

Our best ability is our ability to run. The team boasts two of the most athletic backcourt players in the NBA. Ja Morant is one of the best point guards in the league, and Edwards is a microwave offensively while also being a nightly threat. The pairing is backed up by Gary Payton II, who provides a lockdown defender to fill the gaps if defense is needed, as Edwards and Morant are both capable, but inconsistent defenders. At the wings we have length and shooting in Andrew Wiggins and Michael Porter Jr, the two juxtaposing one another in role. Wiggins provides game-changing defense along the wings  and Porter is one of the most efficient wings in the league. At the big, while there isn’t a ton of size, we are able to be versatile in our coverages in style of play. Kevon Looney and Brandon Clarke may not be the tallest bigs, but both provide strategic versatility and are great hustle bigs.

Our philosophy is to play with extreme pace. Having versatility across our lineup, this team can find a way to match up with any team in the conference. We can go big with Clarke and Looney together, or go small playing Wiggins or GP2 at the big position. Versatility, size and athleticism are extremely important, and the team still has the pieces to space the floor effectively. Our combination of size, speed and strength, while also having good shooting on the wings and defensive specialists, can help us lockup the more offensive focused teams, and outrun and outgun the teams that just can’t keep up.

#3 Seed: Team AJ (@NBA_Jeremy1)

The pitch: Well balanced team on both ends of the floor. Our mix of athleticism, defense, and half court scoring give us the versatility to match up well with anyone

Rotation:

• De’Aaron Fox/Devin Booker/Bruce Brown
• Devin Booker/Bruce Brown
• Reggie Bullock/Jaden McDaniels
• Jaden McDaniels/Maxi Kleber
• DeAndre Ayton/Maxi Kleber

The selling point for this team is versatility and athleticism. We’ll be really comfortable playing multiple styles offensively, typically at a fast speed with De’Aaron Fox running the point alongside a few other plus athletes. When we need to slow it down or score at the end of the games that shouldn’t be an issue either, as Devin Booker and Fox give us high level creation in the half court along with DeAndre Ayton’s presence as a play finisher. The biggest issue on offense is likely our lack of high end 3pt shooting, but everyone on the team is at least capable of making an open jumper so spacing shouldn’t be much of an issue in spite of that.

The versatility of our team translates to the defensive end as well. We have reliable options to defend at the POA (Jaden McDaniels, Bruce Brown), protect the rim (Ayton, McDaniels, Maxi Kleber), and defend wings (McDaniels, Reggie Bullock). Kleber off the bench gives us the option to play a 2nd big with Ayton, or as the 5 in smaller lineups depending on the matchup. We also don’t have many glaring weaknesses to attack or hunt on defense, as Fox is really the only questionable defender in the rotation and even he can provide resistance when locked in.

Overall our flexibility on both ends give us a lot of different looks we can throw at teams. We can get out in transition and put up points quickly with our athletes and ball handlers, but there’s also plenty of positional size and defense we can lean on as well. We can play whatever style is needed for a given matchup, and at the end of games we have two of the league’s best half court shot makers in Booker and Fox to take us home. 

#4 Seed: Team Tyler (@ProspectingNBA)

The pitch: Kevin Durant, the greatest shotmaker of all time, surrounded by physical and versatile defenders, walking heat-check Jamal Murray, with the Point God himself running the show.

Rotation:

• Chris Paul / Jamal Murray
• Jamal Murray / Donte DiVincenzo / Dillon Brooks
• Kevin Durant / Dillon Brooks
• Aaron Gordon / Kevin Durant 
• Steven Adams / Aaron Gordon / Kevin Durant

“It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! “ – Rocky Balboa

Championships are made through excellence and resilience. Playoff basketball is like a 12-round fight, trapped within a cage of ropes where survival is born through careful analysis and tactical precision. Weaknesses are hunted and edges are unraveled, bit by bit. In drafting this team I set out to build a roster defensively versatile with playoff-durable offense. Offensively, rather than emphasize spacing for the sake of three point attempts, the goal was to find skilled players with a multifaceted offensive game. 

Chis Paul is the greatest floor general of the modern era and will operate as a cooler counterpart to Jamal Murray’s shotmaking inferno. With Donte DiVincenzo and Dillon Brooks coming off the bench this backcourt is ready-made for any defensive matchup you throw at them with the skill, spacing and shotmaking needed to carry an effective offense.

In the frontcourt Steven Adams will pair as an excellent screen and roll big with Chris Paul, and while he may not have much of a scoring load, his screen setting, rebounding and rim protection will provide a baseline competence on that end. He’s an incredibly strong big who, at the very least, can stand the physical test of guarding the star big men of the league. 

Aaron Gordon is an incredibly versatile defensive piece to guard 3-5 and with the strength and vertical pop to sop up backup center minutes for this roster. Gordon is an effective offensive player when his role is properly limited and the surrounding offensive talent on this roster allows for that context. 

Finally, we get to Kevin Durant, the man himself. There is no greater tough shot-maker in the world, and no skill more important in playoff basketball. Our foundation of defensive toughness and versatility will make this team an incredibly tough out even when shots aren’t falling. Games are going to come down to the wire and when someone is shooting to win or go home, I’m taking Kevin Durant every time.

#5 Seed: Team Avinash (@100guaranteed)

The pitch: Imagine running a lineup composed of the most talented offensive and defensive centers in the league, surrounded by a bevy of on-ball creators with slashing and pull-up goodness. The perfect counter to small-ball, teams lacking size or positional utility are especially prone to being eaten alive by this versatile lineup. Let’s be real: who’s stopping a Jokic-Gobert pnr, especially when they are surrounded by personnel hungry to capitalize on even the most minute of advantages afforded by their size?

Rotation:

• Mike Conley/Jordan Poole
• Desmond Bane/Jordan Poole
• Josh Green/Josh Okogie
• Nikola Jokic/Josh Okogie
• Rudy Gobert/Nikola Jokic

This is certainly an unorthodox combination of talents, but the convergence of size and shooting could unlock another level of dominance. With premier shooting talents, strong slashers, and arguably 2 of the top 5 centers of the decade, there’s inherent versatility beyond what I can summarize here. The crux of the offense revolves around high-low action between two-time MVP Nikola Jokic and three-time DPOY Rudy Gobert. Gobert has had a disappointing season, but much of that can be attributed to a suboptimal context- he hasn’t been able to attack the rim at requisite levels by virtue of Finch’s more free-flowing offense. He should thrive on a team with above-average playmakers at every position, most notably Jokic. 

Operating at the high post or top of the key while Gobert stays near the basket, Jokic can create open looks for Gobert down low, kick to one of the virtuoso shooters on the perimeter, or find one of the strong wing slashers for a quick 45 cut. I decided to ultimately draft Gobert not because of his defensive prowess, but simply because I cannot fathom a reality where a team can effectively shut down any sort of Jokic-Gobert joint action, especially considering the accompanying shooters/slashers at hand. Guarding two seven footers is inherently difficult, but Jokic’s guard-like skillset makes this proposition even more wildly difficult.

The slashing/shooting on this team should be considered as well. Conley, Bane, and Poole are all relatively versatile shooters with effective pull-up jumpers, but they are also dynamic handlers in space. With strong finishing packages and elusive handles, each of these players are solid self creators who can thrive playing off one another and alongside two roll threats. The sheer slashing competencies of this lineup, especially with C&S maestros/strong wings Okogie and Josh Green, should enable even more versatility to complement the two seven footers.

Defensively, let’s not overthink this. Bane and Conley are both strong, well-above average defenders, while Okogie and Green have garnered reputations as bendy (in regards to screen nav), lockdown wings. Jokic’s strength can enable him to cover 4s decently well, and we all know what Gobert is capable of. This is a fascinatingly strong defensive lineup, but in the interest of word count, I think the transcendent, unprecedented nature of the offense needs to be emphasized. If you’re a bit wary of these players, I’ll end with this: I cannot remember a single 5 man lineup with as many possible PnR permutations. The shooting/slashing/playmaking/size combination of skills is truly unprecedented; teams with inadequate size or versatile-coverage personnel will indubitably get cooked.

#6 Seed: Team Corban aka Monta’s Inferno (@corbannba)

The pitch: Balanced team basketball with explosive offensive upside, length, and positional flexibility

Rotation:

• Luka Doncic / Malik Monk
• Klay Thompson /Luka Doncic
• Jonathan Kaminga/Klay Thompson
• Keegan Murray/ Jonathan Kaminga
• Draymond Green / Christian Wood

For playoff basketball, among many keys for success, two ring paramount: quality defense and crunchtime scoring. With Monta’s Inferno, both boxes are checked off. On the offensive side, we have the second leading scorer in the league as well as the one ranked sixth in assists (Luka). In addition to that, we have one of the greatest three point shooters of all time, a terror coming off pin down actions (Klay) AND a player who, among being an efficient scorer, has made the most threes as a rookie in NBA history (Keegan). Off the pine we have a proven, microwave scorer across both guard spots (Monk) and a big man who can get baskets in a hurry and is equally adept taking the ball to the hole or shooting from outside (Wood). Even the players who don’t specialize in scoring specifically bring other attributes to the table that will elevate the overall offense, from rebounding to additional playmaking (Green/Kaminga)

On  defense, Green is the lynchpin at the 5 with his communication and ability to anchor the backline, and he is surrounded by positional length at the other four positions. Every player but Luka is at least competent on that end of the floor, and with stronger players surrounding him, Luka would be assigned the least threatening wing player to match up with. With Kaminga’s ability to swallow up smaller players defensively, he would be the assigned player on guards, where he can use his length and strength to mitigate their effectiveness. Sheer size may be a slight weakness for Monta’s Inferno but the physicality, length, and positional flexibility 1-4 is something my team possesses in spades, and I feel that our squad is at the very least serviceable on that end of the floor. 

Monta’s Inferno takes after its namesake and is two things for certain: a bucket, and a problem. There will be precious few chances to rest on defense against our squad; we are guaranteed to make you work. Defensively my opponents may score *some* but it won’t be easy, and it will ultimately be a losing effort. In this thought exercise Monta’s Inferno has a top 10 offensive and a top 15 defense, and those ingredients will be just enough to produce a winning recipe.

#7 Seed: Team Charlie (@klaytheist11)

The pitch: spamming Steph/Sabonis handoffs with a smattering of PNR, elite spacing and solid wing defense to counter the lack of rim protection

Rotation:

• Steph Curry/Cameron Payne
• Kevin Huerter/Cameron Payne/KCP
• Kentavious Caldwell-Pope/Harrison Barnes
• Harrison Barnes/Naz Reid
• Domantas Sabonis/Naz Reid

The pitch for this team is ultimate spacing/small-ball motion offense with a center who can take maximum advantage of a clear lane and open post while finding cutters and shooters. Steph-Sabonis PNR could create 5-out offensive looks, with three positive floor spacers off the ball. Secondary creation somewhat lacking, but all three of Huerter/KCP/Barnes can be handoff guys with Sabonis through motion looks.

Payne provides a capable replacement ballhandler, one who can shoot enough and manage PNRs with both Sabonis and Reid. The defense is lacking on the whole, but Sabonis can play at the level and in drop to maximize his skill with his hands. Reid can do much of the same, and Barnes provides a big body deterrent off the weakside if the big is at the level of the screen.

This team may not have a ton of defense, but we can space and pace with the best of them.

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