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With the first lap almost over, let's see some winners and losers – focusing on the teams we have not written to or written on before the second round.
The only important question for the Thunder after his third straight win after Kevin Durant is whether this season marks the beginning of a long-term decline for Westbrook – and what they can do, if at all, they believe it.
It's not really that Westbrook – after four knee surgeries in six years – is perhaps the worst high-volume 3-point shooter of all time. It is, but it's almost trivial – a punchline. He has always been a bad 3-point shooter. he's just worse now, so brilliant that his opponents are braverly standing out from him when he does not have the ball. And as has been the case for his entire career – see the same season's version of the same column last season -, Westbrook has never been very interested in the idea of make himself useful when he does not have the ball.
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Paul George is the only long-term threat that Thunder's opponents protect from the ball. George running a pick-and-roll is the same from the NBA "Jon Snow wielding a sword against a whole army loaded."
The real problem is that Westbrook's shot left him inside the bow. He emerged as a MVP title candidate in part because he became reliable – 40% and over – on what he calls his "cotton shot" of the elbow.
He hit 32 percent on jumpers between 15 and 19 feet this season, by NBA.com. Westbrook is ranked 104th in terms of accuracy, out of 104 players who tried at least three jumpers. Against Portland, he alternated between looking scared to take them and burying Thunder under a bunch of endless failures.
His dunks were down and he could not always summon the explosive fury in the open air that had once destroyed the classic defenses.
The Blazers left Enes Kanter very far in the pick-and-roll and challenged Westbrook to cross it. Westbrook could not do it.
His defense, overestimated for years, came and went even in one of his most targeted seasons. The fourth quarter match of the Portland Monster Game began with a sloppy Westbrook play on CJ McCollum in the right corner, opening the door to an easy game, a sequence that would be repeated on the opposite side more than four minutes later. He still dies on screens, wandering around the half-court.
In his MVP season, the Thunder could not survive without him. This season, they have been disastrous every time Westbrook played without George – while the opposite scenario was flourishing. This continued in the playoffs; the Thunder was over-13 in 39 minutes only against the Blazers. Portland cleared them 33 points in 32 minutes of Westbrook solo, by NBA.com.
Westbrook is still a very good player. I chose third team NBA. It's just not as good as before. He lost part of what made him a candidate for the most valuable player and narrowed any of the weak points in his game.
His mega-max contract expands on 2022-2023, while Westbrook will be 34 years old. The Thunder will be closed at least until 2020-2021. Putting aside James Harden's trade – yeah, I know – Sam Presti used magic to keep this list of lean and wobbly players afloat. He thinks years in advance and follows devalued young players – Victor Oladipo, for example – because he knows they will retain the trade stamp if an opportunity arises. It has somehow turned discontent players and bad contracts into unhelpful things: Reggie Jackson became Enes Kanter became Carmelo Anthony became Dennis Schroder. When does the music stop?
A poor shooter needs shooters around him. Oklahoma City was slim on the shot for the entire Presti race. His background suggests a fetish for big defenders, and some confidence that Thunder can teach these players to shoot. They failed. Andre Roberson was dynamic enough in defense to flourish in the most critical moments, but he is hurt. Most other long shot bets have failed.
Most early first laps of the first choice. Most "second version" prospects – for example, Dion servers – are exactly what they are. If the shooters who could survive in defense were easy to find, each team would have a bunch of them.
But good teams are good as their stars get older, because they've made some long-term bets. One of the stars of thunder – the remains the fundamental star of Thunder, the one they have chosen in many ways that Harden – seems to age, and ages badly. Presti surely has a plan, even if he seems stuck in the facts. Let's see what that is.
A smaller team – hell, most teams – would have split after the four-game humiliation inflicted by New Orleans in Portland a year ago. The Blazers did not run away. They took the time to hurt. They recognized the weakness. And then they strengthened themselves.
They did not review their system, nor at the other end. They improved and added new wrinkles. Lillard came back with new ways to get around the defenses. They burst through the door, survived an infernal winter program, and jumped again in March and April. They believed, even after losing Jusuf Nurkic – their second best player for much of the season.
They knew that they could win, but also that they could lose without getting fractured. The loss did not frighten them anymore. "We must have no fear," McCollum said in November, "because the worst has happened."
Zach Lowe of ESPN talks to various basketball fans about various topics related to basketball. Listen now!
They were ready for blitz defense of Oklahoma City. Lillard chose the Thunder apart. He used the fearsome Steven Adams. At a pick-and-roll Lillard in the middle of the third quarter of Portland's capital victory in the fourth game, Adams failed to scold beyond the 3-point arc . Lillard, perhaps surprised by the open space in front of him, advanced in an easy treble to move Portland to 12.
Billy Donovan then dismissed Adams screenprinters from Portland and made him leave the guard Maurice Harkless. It was surrender. It was merciful. A year ago, Lillard's confidence had melted under pressure from the New Orleans anti-trap defense. You could see it. He broke. This time, he broke the thunder.
All the team played with a ruthless balance. McCollum cooked jumpers and saved unstable units on the bench. The Portland Guards will never be the same size as the playoffs, but the ability to hit difficult shots – to do something from scratch – is also an essential skill for the playoffs. Al-Farouq Aminu, the quiet soul of the Blazers, did a little bit of everything. Harkless played double digit. Few players have stepped up.
The Blazers spent the season asking: Why not us Why can not we be the second best team in the Western Conference? Why can not we go to the final of the conference?
But maybe they did not realize what they were really asking for: If Durant leaves Golden State, why can not we fight for the finals of the NBA?
Maybe they will never do it. Nurkic has a long recovery to come. Zach Collins looks like a guy who can make the jump, but doing it is a different thing. The cap strangles them. They are still a bad match for the playoffs against the same old questions on the small backyard LIllard-McCollum.
But right now, the Blazers look like a case study of persistence – proof that it's helpful to stay good in a category that too often depreciates prolonged goodness.
If you've been careful during the regular season, you knew whites were good. I'm not sure anyone expected him to work as San Antonio's best player against Denver, with a 36-point blowout in the third game, which proved to be the best performance of any first round – two This masterpiece at the limit of perfection – up to 50 points of Lillard.
A rude problem slowed White in the fifth part. Small cracks appeared for his defense. But zoom out and the Spurs must be thrilled with how it looks at home in the after-season greenhouse.
The Nuggets ignore it off the ball – whites will have to shoot better in depth – but that does not matter. When his man dives into the painting to help him, White advances a few feet to the left or right, prepares himself a pass and goes into the driveway before his defender can determine where he left. He reduced Jamal Murray to a simmering and uncertain brothel, turning frantically when he realized that he had sprinted where White was no longer. (Denver has since hid Murray on lesser threats.)
Once in motion, White overwhelmed all Denver guards from a mere physical impression. If he can not get around them, he goes through them.
In defense, White does everything the Nuggets need to do against him. He helps and recovers on a string, head high, never losing track of the ball or his man. He thinks a step forward from the offensive. I mean, look at this:
White sees DeMar DeRozan let Will Barton overtake Nikola Jokic; he starts to turn there. But he also knows that Barton, in an infernal doldrums at this stage of the third match, probably does not want to shoot. He approaches him slowly, in equilibrium, ready to rotate and intercept Barton's pass.
White and Dejounte Murray, both at No. 29, are expected to form a formidable long-term duo. What the Spurs did by avoiding collapsing – or close – since the Tim Duncan editorial 22 years ago is remarkable.
A counterfactual that I would like to see: how many games would the Spurs have won this season if they had exchanged Kawhi Leonard for a more rebuilding-focused package, focused on selections and young players? DeRozan stabilized them as playmaker and scorer. He can play and play alongside the Murray / White duet. He bought the time for White and Bryn Forbes to grow. He added victories. But I wonder: how much?
Russell averaged more than 19 points against the Sixers and played with his usual fearlessness. The playoffs did not shake it. But if you had doubts about Russell as the No. 1 option against the best competitions, these series eliminated that anxiety.
Russell shot 36%, and 32% versus 3, with just 13 free throws and 18 assists in five games. He reached the edge at his usual rate (very low).
Russell is good. This season was not just a case of Russell doing more than usual on an inefficient shooting regime. Doing more shots is not always a good thing. It's a skill that guys are improving. Beyond that, Russell played a more ingenious and ingenious ground game.
But it is fair to wonder where a team can go with the # 1 option to take this type of throws, to win so few free throws and play below average defense. Caris LeVert looked like the best player in Brooklyn before breaking his foot, and he started to look like that against Philadelphia. Spencer Dinwiddie is really good.
The craziest gesture on the board is perhaps to sign-and-trade Russell – or sign it again to exchange it at the earliest opportunity – at the pinnacle of its value. There would be some pressure in public relations by eliminating the first All-Star fed under the Sean Marks / Kenny Atkinson regime. Russell's commercial market may not be as strong as you think.
Phoenix still needs a playmaker, but a Russell-Devin Booker backcourt equates to a long-term defensive suicide. The Suns finishing in position to write Ja Morant would make the question debatable before the trading season. I have long been intrigued by an exchange centered on Russell and Aaron Gordon, but Russell does not quite fit the type of player Jeff Weltman / John Hammond.
Indiana makes sense; Russell and Oladipo could share ball handling tasks and Oladipo could defend both guard posts, leaving Russell with more leeway. It's unclear what Indiana will send, especially as Brooklyn already has a young center at Jarrett Allen. Other teams will come out of the free zone with holes in the guard.
It is easy to reject the idea that Brooklyn negotiates Russell. The Nets will probably not do it. But intelligent teams take everything into account and invent dozens of scenarios. The nets are smart. If you think that they have not had an internal session on Russell's commercial value, you are making fun of yourself.
Oh, did you think that he was a fake – a mooch of the regular season who would tremble in sets? Drink hot sauce. He was Toronto's best player in the most important moments of their first-round match at the most important stakes – their tight win of the third game in Orlando. He defended everyone. When the Magic imposed on him more modest defenders – as they had to do to play their best five-player roster – Siakam made them angry.
Ironman, he led the team in a matter of minutes and bridged the gap between starters and small-ball alignments featuring Leonard to Power's striker. (That said, Siakam's selections as a solo should probably disappear with the rise of the competition.)
He is real.
Nikola Jokic
Jokic is too. Even Jokic fans were curious about how his idiosyncratic game would translate into the playoffs. Would stronger defenses hovering for him give away devious passes for pets to Jokic? Can he destroy the best defenders at the station and form two teams? The most pressing: could he survive the defense?
Get ready for Zion Williamson, Ja Morant and more.
The slow and old-school Spurs are a soft landing point in this regard; they do not have the tools to stretch Jokic beyond its breaking point. He resisted well after an unequal start. Denver's defense has dropped just 102 points for 100 holdings with Jokic on the ground in five games, a ticker lower than Milwaukee's best season, according to NBA.com. It specifies what San Antonio wants to do early and gets in position. It has 15 deviations, sixth largest total.
He can not stop emergencies at the edge; It was not surprising to see Jokic staggering in the first three games as straight line hemorrhagic readers of the perimeter defense. While Denver was pulling itself together with more focused efforts, some posting changes and a change in training – Torrey Craig for Will Barton – Jokic looked better (minus a few box-outs blown against the clock). tireless Jakob Poeltl).
His offense was sustained. Jokic has an average of 20 points, 12 rebounds and 9 assists, and is finding more and more ways to punch the San Antonio defense. His two-man game with Murray started singing in the fifth game. Almost all of Jokic's interventions give a free kick, and Jokic has gradually figured out where and how to look for a job in the block. A favorite tactic, Jokic relied more on the last two games: picking and jumping, catching the ball, faking at the pump, then dribbling into the deepest positions of the post.
He will face more equipped teams to exploit his defense, in the next round or next season. But Jokic is there, and the Nuggets showed their true success by winning the fourth game in San Antonio after having melted a little in the third game.
Utah: regular season team?
Utah is now 2-8 on two post-seasons against the Rockets. An interesting debate is raging in league circles: is it more of a singularly bad confrontation – and impressive Rockets – or could it indicate that Utah is built for the regular season?
It's probably one of the two, although the compliment of the "good regular season" is a bit of a reducer. It just means "not as good as the best teams" and, like, duh. Utah is clearly good – perhaps the third best team in the West. The Jazz fired about 25 percent – absurd! – on 3 large open, by NBA.com; hit at an average rate, and the series looks different.
Jazz is better at producing good shots than doing them, but it was an abnormal performance even by their standards.
All rim protectors like Rudy Gobert will face a problematic confrontation at some point in four playoffs. If there had not been Houston and Harden, it would be someone else. If your goal is a championship, you have to tackle that. You need another stylistic map to play. The switchability of Clint Capela becomes more important in the playoffs.
And yet: after the shock of Games 1 and 2, some of which self-inflicted with a radical strategic change, the defense of Utah was solid. This includes Gobert. He has weathered Golden State better than expected, given the speed of his foot and the five playable stylistic cards the Warriors can play.
That's right: among players in Utah's perimeter, only Donovan Mitchell can exploit the switching defenses that are becoming more common in the playoffs – and he is not yet excellent in this area. It's not effective anywhere and its business support ratio is not what it needs to be. He misses either too many easy kickout passes or sees them and decides to force the exit. Some improvement will come with the experience.
Really, all this hustle and bustle about Mitchell, Westbrook, Russell and even George makes you understand how transcendent you need to be as option # 1 – impossible, rare – to raise a normal list of candidates. Being a star player is not enough. Being all-NBA is sometimes not enough.
Make it spin around you: each playoff series seems to illustrate the limited importance of tall men who can not (or do not want) to switch – Gobert and Myles Turner in this first round, for example – and the wrestlers who can not play games with the ball – in some ways, that worry is right – things get complicated in the playoffs – the defenses switch more, they attack any weakness, it's important that these guys do not not be comfortable working back to the basket against guards.
But they also have the misfortune not to play with Harden, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant or LeBron James. Capela can not (or will not) display the switches, and this does not matter because Harden can leverage the other end of these switches in almost any circumstance. Mitchell can not. All the healthy perimeter players on the Pacers became super players, and that guy probably could not either.
Utah is a very good team that needs a little bit more scoring and playing skills to break into the rarest territory in the NBA. The Jazz knew it before this series. More talent allows for greater schematic versatility. Beyond this evidence, I'm not sure that Utah should be concerned that its best players or fundamental belief systems are at odds with the success of the playoffs.
The Raptors did not seem need Marc Gasol. Serge Ibaka was a full-time center. Nabbing Gasol would mean backtracking Ibaka to replace him, and no one was sure how he would take that. (Nick Nurse tried to change positions, but it was clear from the start that Gasol would supplant Ibaka.)
Jonas Valanciunas found his water level as a reserve force. Why risk chemistry for a marginal upgrade?
The Lakers season is over. And after?
But Ujiri and his staff knew better. Gasol is far more than a marginal improvement, even if he's just pulling – only 5.6 attempts per game against the Magic! It changed the appearance of the Toronto team. He supported the defensive rebound of the Raptors. He gives nothing in the post; Nikola Vucevic was unable to dislodge him and he gave Toronto a chance to keep Embiid without sending double urgent teams.
Kyle Lowry and he share a basketball sensibility – a disinterestedness in the pivot that can bleed reluctantly – and together they have injected new verve into a sometimes slippery semi-court attack. With about five minutes remaining in the third quarter of Game 4's game in Toronto, Gasol picked up a left elbow pass with two shooters – Siakam and Leonard, looking dangerously like, "Thank you, I'll take the ball from you now "Kawhi from two years ago – open on the right side.
Gasol turned his head, glanced at Siakam and threw the ball at Leonard. Ibaka can do that. he needs a second to scan the ground. This second is everything. Gasol gave this second to the Raptors, and that alone justified the trade.
Nikola Vucevic
Oof. Vooch waited six years before being able to resume the playoffs, and came up against a brutal confrontation: a post-up rampart at Gasol surrounded by a group of fast, powerful defenders with high IQs. Vucevic could not do anything. A bad way to end a fantastic contract season.
Gordon is the inescapable ingredient of Houston's success over the past two seasons. He is more than a 3-point expert, although he shot 49% against Utah in a series that became a fight – a battle in which Houston needs all he has to breathe well – after second match.
He plays with physicality and hunger. Just when you expect Gordon to find 28 feet more, he lowers his head, checks his cupping shoulders and hides up to the edge for more certainty. Houston needs more of that during stretching when the 3 stops falling, and the game moves away from them.
Gordon absolutely blocked Mitchell on the other end. An excellent series for an important and underrated player.
I do not care what Gilgeous-Alexander struggled to get out of his 25-point exploit in Game 5, or the Warriors stick to them. Draymond Green on him precisely because Green can ignore him and leap. Sometimes you look and know: This guy is ready. The stage – the post-season games against the superteam that has defined much of the life of SGA at basketball – does not stretch it.
He defended Curry and Klay Thompson and was given all sorts of tasks without much hesitation and communication problems – the Golden State treats. He fights, and pushes, and he defended the Warriors with more ferocity than most 10-year veterans led by him.
Shamet does not have the physical gifts of Gilgeous-Alexander, but he comes out better than anyone would have imagined chasing the two Splash brothers – first Thompson, then Curry for the last part of the series. Both have remained in their role in attack, never exceeding the limits but never fearing anything when the situation requires them to shoot or drive. They played with some varnish.
Some mid-point random teams gain a place in the heart of the NBA's nerds: Heat's 2017 team, made up of unsuitable toys, which finished 30-11, or the Suns who have accidentally won 48 games behind the crazy crazy Goran Dragic. Even if they can not extend to the seventh match – and to the sacred cow, imagine that! – These Clippers are going to be one of these teams.
In Houston, there are two seasons and now the slippery, gooey and slippery soul of these strange Clippers, Williams has lost his reputation as an empty calorie shooter whose game – all these sneaky fouls – disappears when referees swallow the Whistle in the post-season. He was too smart for the warriors.
Harrell was too fast, too fierce and probably too furious. They are still outside, partying.
The warriors, it remains interesting
In 2017 and 2018, the Warriors have had a playoff series in eight games of more than five games. Four were sweeps. Ragtag Clippers, a No. 8 seed that started with two rookie guards and – in the last two games – a "center" out of position two months ago, pushed the Durant Warriors to position from last year. The Rockets to 65 wins have already taken.
Golden State continues to bombard neighborhoods and halves in which they seem invincible – when they stop and run, and turn into a wave of sound and energy that invades all that lies near.
But they are now 12th for both possession-awarded points and defensive rebound rates in the playoffs – my God, those weak non-box-outs of Patrick Beverley in Game 5! – after a mediocre regular season for this purpose. They made mistakes – of laziness, but also of communication and connectivity – not very characteristic of this team. The Warriors of the 2017 and 2018 series do not give up two home games against these Clippers. They do not detonate this 31-point lead in the second game, not until the end. Maybe we go up to six or eight, but they do not lose.
During fluctuating between KD and "I am Kevin Durant!" He was … strange. His free agency hovers over everything. They are far from the series in which they could really use – maybe need – DeMarcus Cousins.
When I had Bob Myers, the Golden State President, on my podcast last month, I told him that the big hope of the league was that for some reason – Durant's free agency, complacency, a kind Tension – The Warriors would collapse if someone gave them punches. in the face. He did not look worried.
They are one of four teams still playing in a first round in which the behemoths have stomped less lights. They were hit. They were my choice to win the title all season, on the field. I would choose them again now. But something is wrong. Let's see how they respond.
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