1 stat explaining every first-round series

And none of them are about three-point variance!

The three-pointer may be the most powerful explanatory variable in the equation, but it’s hardly the only thing that matters — just ask Denver, who shot a pathetic 31% from deep for the series but still emerged victorious against a feisty Lakers team. If you’re sick of hearing about three-point variance, this is the article for you!

Instead, let’s look at some other things that have had a supersized influence on the playoffs so far.

Minnesota Timberwolves — Phoenix Suns (MIN wins 4-0)

35.0

Minnesota coach Chris Finch promised Tim Connelly back in 2022 that he wouldn’t take Rudy Gobert off the court if opposing playoff squads went small. Smart plan.

Gobert played a ton of minutes in the Wolves’ first-round loss to the Denver Nuggets last season, but that was always going to be the case given Minnesota’s frontcourt injuries and the presence of giant Nikola Jokic. This year, however, seemed likely to put that promise to the test against a skilled Suns team that had soundly swept the Wolves in the regular season.

Instead, Gobert played 35 minutes per game, more than his regular season average, and absolutely dominated.

Gobert’s on/off numbers melted my screen. Switching to my phone and simply looking at when Gobert was on the court, I see the Wolves outscored the Suns by +21.8 points per 100 possessions, a ludicrous number. That’s better than Edwards (+18.0), Towns (+6.7), Mike Conley (+14.3), or Jaden McDaniels (+18.0).

Gobert obliterated the Kevin Durant-at-center lineups so thoroughly that he even beat the ostensibly quicker Suns to loose balls:

None of this should be a huge surprise. Don’t think the league hasn’t taken notice. The Wolves devoured a Suns team that seemed well-equipped to combat them. Their second-round battle against the Nuggets might end up being the best series in the playoffs. I can’t wait.

Denver Nuggets — Los Angeles Lakers (DEN wins 4-1)

85.7%

Jamal Murray shot 6-for-7 from the field in “clutch” situations in this series (a score within five points with five or fewer minutes remaining), not including a pair of free throws he also made. Those numbers include two separate game-winning shots, one a true buzzer-beater — Lakers fans, look away:

(Also, watch Taurean Prince in that second clip. As soon as he sees what’s about to happen, he’s pointing, pushing, begging Rui Hachimura to go provide help. Hachimura doesn’t, Murray hits the shot, and Prince throws his hands up in exasperation).

Per Zach Kram, Murray is the first player to hit multiple go-ahead shots in the final five seconds in the same series.

I was very impressed with the Lakers’ effort on both sides in these games, particularly in hounding Murray, who never quite looked comfortable physically. But as he always seems to do, Murray came through when it mattered.

(Bonus stat: D’Angelo Russell was the only LA rotation player to record a positive plus/minus for the series, notching +22 across the five games. The highest figure in the series was Michael Porter Jr.’s +24.)

Boston Celtics — Miami Heat (BOS up 3-1)

1.52

I promised I wouldn’t talk about three-point variance, so I’m not going to point out that the Heat have shot 31% from deep in the three games they’ve lost and 53% in the one game they won. You deserve more than just that superficial, extremely relevant analysis.

Instead, I want to talk about how much the Celtics’ seemingly infinite spacing has destroyed Miami’s zone defense.

The Heat have run zone just 8.1% of the time in this series. Both Milwaukee and Philadelphia have run more than that. In those instances, the Heat gave up a stupid 1.52 points per possession. That’s unfathomably bad.

In the regular season, Miami ran zone 13.4% of the time, most in the league, and gave up just 1.02 points — a solid mark. The Heat often run zone when Kevin Love is in the game, but he’s unplayable in this series (as he was against Boston last year, too).

Miami never felt comfortable running zone against the Celtics this season, and for good reason. Everyone on the floor is a threat as a shooter, including the big men. Nobody on the Celtics is an elite passer for their position, but they’re almost all capable. And with space like this, capable is more than enough:

And that was one of Miami’s better zone possessions.

Kristaps Porzingis’ non-contact calf injury is a concern. But the rest of the East is in various stages of disintegration. At this point, nobody there should take them to six games. The Celtics need to take care of their business so that they can be as healthy and rested as possible for the Finals.

Oklahoma City Thunder — New Orleans Pelicans (OKC wins 4-0)

18.0

The Thunder are averaging 18.0 deflections in the playoffs, nearly two more per game than the highest team in the regular season (thanks largely to an astonishing 31 in Game 3).

This probably isn’t the most important stat on its face, but I think it’s incredibly telling. The Thunder led the league in turnover rate during the regular season, and facing an eight-seeded Pelicans team missing its best player in Zion Williamson, they’ve disrupted passing lanes and hounded dribblers with abandon. No pass has been easy, no dribble unattacked:

Sure, Trey Murphy eventually makes a heavily contested triple after the GIF above ends, but it’s the exception that proves the rule. Deflections are so disruptive to a team’s offense. They waste shot clock, blow up offensive actions, and get in the heads of passers and ballhandlers, who start to wonder where the next reaching arms will come from.

New Orleans ended their Zion-less playoff run with the playoffs’ second-worst offense. Their inability to cleanly get around all those grasping Thunder hands was a huge reason why.

Los Angeles Clippers — Dallas Mavericks (Tie 2-2)

38.6%

I try to bring a little nuance to these articles, to dig a few feet beneath the surface. But much of playoff success is simply about stars making shots. Luka Doncic hasn’t.

Despite being hampered by a sore knee, Doncic has only rested for 19 minutes in four games. In all that tick-tock, the 25-year-old has blasted up 101 field goal attempts, half of which have been triples. He’s only converted 38.6% (and 26.5% from deep).

I picked the Mavs in seven when I thought Kawhi Leonard would be playing and mostly effective (although I felt uneasy about that prediction). He might miss the rest of this series, and these last three games still feel like a coin flip because Doncic can’t buy a bucket in any currency.

In the past, Doncic overpowered most of the Clippers’ defenders tasked with guarding him. But in this series, outside of drawing some fouls, Doncic has largely come up empty as a scorer after accounting for the sheer volume of attempts. Terance Mann, who has spent the most time on Doncic, has held him to just 6-for-26 from the field. More damningly, James Harden has held Doncic to just 4-for-15 shooting. Yikes!

I watched all those clanks, and I admit to being a little tongue-in-cheek. Few of the bricks in Harden’s vicinity can be attributed to the defense, and the NBA tracking data is notoriously inconsistent. Doncic is just missing shots he usually makes against subpar defenders.

Mann, on the other hand, has been ferocious. He’s oozing through picks and sticking on Doncic’s hip like an Oklahoma hot-sauce holster:

Even more impressively, he’s only committed five fouls on Doncic in four games!

Kyrie Irving is doing his part and more for the Mavericks (29 points on incendiary shooting from everywhere on the court), and while the surrounding cast has been up and down, they’ve had moments. Unfortunately, Doncic’s best two games from the field were both 11-for-26 (in Games 1 and 2). That’s a startling level of shot-missing.

Is it the knee? Is it Mann’s defense? Is it small-sample-size lousy luck? It’s probably some combination of all those things, weighted heavier toward the third reason, but the playoffs are built on small sample sizes. Maybe the Mavs can squeak out this series with Doncic misfiring so often — maybe. But he must be better if they want to make a deeper push.

New York Knicks — Philadelphia 76ers (NYK up 3-1)

48.1%

Joel Embiid is just 13-for-27 at the rim in this series, good for 48.1%. That’s far below his 70% average during the regular season. Forgive the mental masturbation here, but if Embiid had shot 70% this series, he’d be 19-for-27; think Philly could use those extra 12 points in games they’ve lost by seven, three, and five points?

The Knicks deserve credit. Isaiah Hartenstein has provided physicality at the point of attack (it’s weird to think of centers as point-of-attack defenders, but that’s what happens when you play Embiid). OG Anunoby has been fantastic, blocking Embiid multiple times and fronting him to prevent easy entry passes (credit coach Tom Thibodeau for making an adjustment I wanted but didn’t think he’d commit to). Even Precious Achiuwa has had some good moments.

Embiid is clearly laboring, and he deserves praise for playing through what looks like immense pain. Unfortunately, he has no explosion or lift. This play, at the end of Game 4, put into stark relief how little trust Embiid has in his knees:

As Richard Jefferson noted on the broadcast, Embiid had a clear lane for a dunk but never even tried to go airborne. He was forced into a wild shot attempt from underneath the hoop and couldn’t draw the foul or make the layup.

There are other places where Embiid’s lack of verticality is evident. He’s rarely jumping to contest shots or rebound (the Knicks are slaughtering the 76ers on the offensive glass, many times rebounding right over a stationary Embiid). He’s still been an effective defensive deterrent, and Knicks ballhandlers haven’t wanted much to do with him in the paint. But by the end of Game 4, the Knicks started to smell a little blood. They became bolder going at him, and I’d expect that to continue in Game 5.

There are some parallels between Kawhi Leonard and Joel Embiid, but at least we saw prime Leonard in the playoffs a few times. Even diminished, Embiid has still been a monster. It sucks to think we might never know what he can do when healthy.

Milwaukee Bucks — Indiana Pacers (IND up 3-1)

9.0

Per Synergy, the Milwaukee Bucks have only gotten into transition 10.1% of the time, last among all playoff teams and far below their regular-season average of 16.8%. The Pacers are third in playoff transition frequency at 17.9%, a bit below their regular-season average.

Thus far, that’s resulted in a transition discrepancy of 9.0 points in Indiana’s favor.

Transition possessions are far more valuable than halfcourt possessions. It’s much easier to score points on the fast break, when the offense may have a numbers advantage and the defense is scrambling to get set.

But Milwaukee hasn’t been able to force turnovers (dead last in the playoffs) or get into the break without Giannis Antetokounmpo. They miss his grab-and-go tendencies off live rebounds, too. It’s been nothing short of a miracle that the Bucks have scored as well as they have.

Without Giannis, the Bucks are extremely old and unathletic, particularly when juxtaposed with this merry band of Pacers, hopping around with the youthful exuberance of springtime bunnies. Going into the series, I expected transition play to be a solid edge for the Pacers, but it’s been a landslide. Already fighting the odds, Milwaukee hasn’t been able to withstand the onslaught.

Cleveland Cavaliers — Orlando Magic (Tie 2-2)

10, 15, 5, 2

I just went long breaking down Game 4 of this strange series here, so this will sound familiar. But I can’t get over how tightly correlated the results have been with the Cavaliers’ offensive rebounds.

Neither team’s offense has sung: Orlando is third-to-last and Cleveland is dead last in playoff offensive rating. Cleveland cannot hit a shot; they are also last in effective field goal percentage.

If an offense can’t score by making shots, getting up more shots is an excellent way to juice the point total. In Cleveland’s two wins, they had 10 and 15 offensive rebounds. In their two losses, they had five and two.

Cleveland was just the 22nd-ranked offensive rebounding team during the regular season, but offensive rebounding is as much about philosophy as personnel. Cleveland shouldn’t expect to turn on the offensive fireworks against a defense as good as Orlando’s, so Coach Bickerstaff may need to empower his guys to go after the glass. It’s desperation time in Cleveland, and they need to return to the few things that have worked.