NBA Playoff Madness: What In The Name Of Dikembe Mutombo Is Going On?

Bunny or a duck, the unplayable, and trying to find floors

Osarugue Igbinoba For Unsplash+

These playoffs have been guano ridiculously awesome so far. Two Game 7’s in the first round between two evenly matched teams, Haliburton’s wild comeback (Part 1), the Pistons trading haymakers with the Knicks, and just abject domination that we thought would carry over to the second round.

And then the second round started.

Road teams are now 6-2 as of Friday in the second round. We’re in pretty uncharted territory here. Three 60-win teams are either 1-1 or 0-2 headed to the opponent’s house.

WHAT THE HELL.

Let’s talk about ‘em.

KNICKS-CELTICS

Welcome to shot variance hell, Celtics fans.

Here’s what I love about this series. It’s a Rorschach test. Or actually, it’s an illusion.

Is it a bunny or a duck?

Did the Celtics just fall victim to two very specific stretches of outlier bad shooting in two quarters (both the fourths)? Or did the Celtics’ penchant for leaning too much into what I call “The Bit” (volume three-point shooting) leave them vulnerable when their efficiency abandoned them and they had to figure out other ways to score, combined with their now three-years running problem of late game execution?

It’s a duck.

It’s a rabbit.

It’s a duck and a rabbit and a Taco Bell/KFC.

In Game 1, Boston’s process was terrible. A set of stats for you:

• In the regular season, 65 percent of Boston’s threes were catch-and-shoot

• In Game 1, only 52 percent of their threes were¹

• In Game 2, 68 percent of Boston’s threes were catch-and-shoot

They had much better process in Game 2 and… still lost.

But here’s part of how this wasn’t just shooting variance. In Game 1, 15 of their 21 fourth-quarter shots (71%) were from three-point range. They weren’t all good shots, a lot of them were pull-up jumpers with a defender closing from the side.² But they took threes.

In Game 2, only 11 of their 24 shots (46%) were from three.

Boston tried to get to the rim and not just jack threes, which has been their model all year.

They shot 3-of-13 inside the arc.

You can chalk this up to just bad shooting, but many of these attempts were rushed and uncomfortable. Boston tried to prove it’s not just a three-point team since being just a three-point team failed in Game 1 and… it failed, too.³

Last year, I think this team wins those games and not just because last year Jalen Brunson would have been out with injury⁴ with the Celtics’ luck. They were a more complete, better well-rounded, and balanced team. This year, they are absolutely what Joe Mazzulla intended them to be: Math Warlocks.

In two games, the Math has betrayed them, because outliers are part of mathematical reality.

The question is whether that math continues to betray them, because they are getting a lot of shots they want. Yes, there are pull-up threes and yes, the Knicks have done a good job of closing out on most guys.

But Derrick White, in particular, is already killing them and may honestly have an absolutely massive game with how often the Knicks lose him. He’s averaging 10 catch-and-shoot attempts and shooting 40 percent on them vs. the Knicks in this series,

In the interest of fairness, though, the Knicks have done several things I didn’t think they could. Thibodeau isn’t playing drop with Karl-Anthony Towns or even at-level. He’s having him switch and Towns is doing a phenomenal job on them.

Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are a combined 5-of-17 with KAT as the primary matchup defender, via NBA.com’s admittedly wonky tracking data.

OG Anunoby has been an absolute demon, and won’t get as much credit as he deserves because he’s not even allowing field goal attempts on some of these. When Jaylen Brown has tried to force the issue, it has not gone well:

OG has played DPOY-level defense in this series, but Josh Hart has made a billion rotations flying around. Mikal Bridges has done his job. The Knicks have a 91 defensive rating with KAT on the floor in this series.

Credit where credit is due: I thought Thibs had no shot in this series and his staff have put the right plan together.

I don’t know whether it’ll hold. Boston can just have an adjustment shooting performance and win. But Mazzulla is out over his skis a little bit right now, and if the Knicks can push just right to get Game 3 or 4, the Celtics might just hit the powder.

PACERS-CAVS

I feel awful for Cavs fans.

If they hadn’t gotten the 2016 title, this would be an exceptionally cruel series.

As it stands, this team did everything right. They developed homegrown talent. They traded for a superstar and convinced him to stay. They worked to add good role players. They built a balanced team with an elite offense and a good defense (if not as good as the team with JB was on that end).

They changed the coach when they stalled out. They won 64 games with the best offense. They didn’t push their stars too much.

And here they are, without at least three of their five best players.

An important element is the perfect storm nature of this. If the circumstances hadn’t been such in both games, this would be OK and the Cavs would be 1-1. In Game 1, they were coming off a dominant series vs. the Heat.⁵ They got caught by surprise by how intense and purposeful every possession for Indiana is.

There were also tactically horrific decisions by Atkinson. I gave Atkinson a lot of benefit of the doubt coming in because of his reputation but this series has been a disaster.

Starting Merrill and thinking you could just overwhelm Indiana with offense while giving that kind of size and athleticism advantage to them was disastrous. It doesn’t matter how much you need Hunter to keep his rhythm with the bench unit if you lose the starter minutes and are battling back the whole game.

The end of game execution in Game 2 has been discussed to death but my big thoughts are:

• Incredible series of bounces went Indiana’s way, which is what happens when you’re having a special run

• The Cavs were gassed by that point and Indiana beat them with more energy to grab that last rebound

• The Cavs should not have been gassed. Mitchell was doing a full-on Wade impression⁶ but still only played 36 minutes. In that spot, you have to have enough to finish the game, let alone guys like Max Strus.

A subtle adjustment Carlisle made in Game 2 is a curious one. Whether it was because of the coverage against Haliburton, anticipating a blitz, or because Haliburton banged his wrist, Andrew Nembhard had almost twice as many pick and rolls as Hali.

Some of that is the coverage. The Cavaliers are playing drop coverage against Nembhard, which allows him to get to the middle of the floor, where he’s great.

The other part is Merrill. Nembhard has been Merrill’s primary assignment, and so the Pacers are choosing to attack there. There’s nowhere to hide him. They’re playing Mathurin enough who’s too big for him. He can’t hang with Haliburton without having to play at-level blitzing which lets Haliburton be a playmaker. And Nembhard is 3-of-4 against him via NBA.com’s admittedly wonky matchup data.

There’s no place in this series for him.

The Cavs need to go to a rotation of Okoro, Strus, hopefully Hunter, Javonte Green, and Dean Wade for the other wing rotation players.

I honestly think Hunter might be more important than Garland, if only for the defensive side. The Cavaliers are a better offense than the Pacers, but might not be in this matchup. They have to find a way to get the matchups to a place where their talent and shot selection can win out.

THUNDER-NUGGETS

OKC did what they had to do in Game 2, which is what Boston did not do. They removed all their FA and so they did not have to FO.

Denver was not “in it to win it” in this game. The exhaustion of the seven game series before and the adrenaline rush of Game 1 wore off. They were sluggish. OKC would have bested their best punch on Wednesday, but the Nuggets also didn’t throw it.