One playoff team hates scrambling positions. Another has no positions at all. And a loaded defense will try whatever it can to pester the world’s most unbothered man.
Let’s run through three matchups that have caught my eye leading into the NBA playoffs:
Crossmatching
Josh Hart knows how to beat the Tony Allen treatment.
Only a year ago, Hart, who is not a 3-point shooter, entered a first-round playoff series knowing the Philadelphia 76ers would not defend him beyond the arc. He made them pay, draining four 3s during each of the series’ first three games and three more during a closeout Game 6.
Now, he is living in Groundhog Day.
Once again, the New York Knicks are entering a playoff series, this time against the Detroit Pistons, understanding their opponent will likely leave Hart open. Beyond hitting his 3s, Hart found ways to succeed when defenses ignored him during the regular season.
With no one around, he can crash the glass with more fervor. Those are the games when he, despite a guard-like frame, grabs five or six offensive rebounds. The 6-foot-4 Hart sets more ball screens than any other player of his size in the NBA, according to Second Spectrum, and he rolls off a higher percentage of his picks than anyone, too.
The Pistons could throw off-ball extraordinaire Ausar Thompson on Hart, letting the long-armed athlete dive into passing lanes as Hart figures out how to maneuver. At times, when Hart’s jumper isn’t going in, the offense can appear stagnant, almost like they’re playing four-on-five, and a tormenter like Thompson, who deflects passes that even Gumby couldn’t reach, could make that worse.
So how might the Knicks handle the Hart situation if his jumper is off line? First, we must break down how the Pistons guard.
It’s 2025, when NBA coaches get creative with who guards whom throughout playoff series. But these two coaches, the Knicks’ Tom Thibodeau and the Pistons’ J.B. Bickerstaff, don’t go out of their way to crossmatch.
Detroit, a bullying crew that finished 10th in points allowed per possession, often guards straight up: a point guard on a point guard, a center on a center, etc. Cade Cunningham manned Jalen Brunson more than any other Pistons player did during the regular season. Big men Jalen Duren, who starts, and Isaiah Stewart, who comes off the bench, took Karl-Anthony Towns.
If the Pistons begin that way against the Knicks, Brunson and Towns will jam pick-and-rolls down their throats. Duren has improved defensively, but this is his first time in the postseason, and he can get lost recovering onto his man when Detroit sends him closer to the level of the screen. The action would include New York’s two best players and neither of Detroit’s two best defenders: Thompson and Stewart.
At some point, Thompson could guard Brunson, as he did occasionally during the regular season. Stewart, one of the NBA’s most underrated rim protectors, could take Towns.
The Pistons could break character, too. Towns can struggle most when teams place a wing on him. Could Detroit try Tobias Harris on Towns with a center roaming off Hart and into the lane? Harris can’t guard Towns straight up, but Stewart or Duren would be there to help. Towns feasts on smaller players, but he passes on only 11.8 percent of his drives, last in the NBA out of 136 qualifiers, according to Second Spectrum.
The objective is to goad Towns inside the arc. The Pistons, especially if Cunningham is creating long balls for Malik Beasley and Tim Hardaway Jr., might be happy to trade two points for three.
If it works, the New York could adjust, though Thibodeau has held faith in Hart’s hard-nosed character all season despite concerning on/off numbers when the jumper isn’t falling.
Only one man is a member of all the Knicks’ seven best, high-volume lineups: Miles McBride.
New York’s backup point guard is not its best or second-best player. He’s not third or even fourth. But he has traits that don’t show up in daily numbers.
McBride is the Knicks’ best point-of-attack defender against smalls, which could come in handy when the Pistons play Cunningham and Dennis Schröder together. Detroit’s two-point-guard lineups outscore opponents by 10.5 points per 100 possessions, according to Cleaning the Glass. But McBride also provides one intangible Hart can’t: He commands attention.
Hart shoots just 33 percent from the 3-point arc, and McBride is only four percentage points higher, but defenses react to them in opposite ways.
Bball-Index has a statistic called gravity, which measures how aggressively players pull defenders into their orbit. Eliminating big men from the equation (since they are often guarded by centers, who strategically hang around the rim), Hart finished 166th out of 182 qualifying players in gravity this season.
McBride was third on the Knicks. Ahead of OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges. But behind only a couple of All-Stars, Brunson and Towns.
When McBride is out there, the floor spreads. And in the case of this series, Detroit might have to put a big man back on Towns, whose 3-point acumen can drag Stewart’s rim protection away from the paint, opening up driving lanes for everyone else and turning the Knicks’ high-powered offense into the best version of itself.
Height vs. Brawn
The Los Angeles Lakers aren’t tall. But against common thought, they aren’t tiny, either.
Their small-ball lineups don’t deploy a conventional center, but they also include a 6-6 scorer in Luka Dončić, a physical guard in Austin Reaves, a generational 18-wheeler in LeBron James and a couple of other strong-chested forwards: Dorian Finney-Smith and Rui Hachimura.
How might the Minnesota Timberwolves react when the Lakers play those five together?
Lakers-Wolves should dispel the notion that the NBA has gone cookie-cutter. There is no first-round series with a couple of teams styled so differently.
Los Angeles goes “small,” even if it’s not miniature, for many of its most important moments. It switches more than any team in the league. Even its one 7-footer, quick-footed athlete Jaxson Hayes, will switch on screens every once in a while. The aforementioned small lineup blew up other teams, averaging an unthinkable 130.6 points per 100 possessions, according to Cleaning the Glass.
Minnesota does not operate the same way.
Even when the Timberwolves go small, it entails placing the 6-9 Naz Reid alongside the 6-9 Julius Randle, a couple of power forwards at heart but guys who still fit the ever-so-generic category of “big man.” The Timberwolves will start with four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert in the middle. And surely, they will hope to close with him.
But can they?
For all the talk of Gobert getting played off the court during the postseason, it doesn’t often happen.
Could Gobert and Randle or Reid make the shorter Lakers pay on the boards if Los Angeles closes with five speedsters and the Wolves stay huge? Minnesota has size beyond those three, too. Jaden McDaniels is a massive small forward and can guard any player on the Lakers’ roster. All-Star Anthony Edwards absorbs contact like few people in existence. And if veteran point guard Mike Conley can’t keep up with the Lakers’ athleticism, Minnesota can counter with Nickeil Alexander-Walker, a top-notch defender. Donte DiVincenzo lives to get punched in the mouth, too.
The Lakers’ projected playoff rotation switched on 48 percent of pick-and-rolls since trading away Anthony Davis, a deal that warped their defensive identity. That’s the by far highest figure in the NBA, according to Second Spectrum.
Meanwhile, the Wolves are one of the league’s best offenses against switches.
Randle has been a monster in the post this season, especially when smaller players are on him. He can get sloppy with turnovers, but turning his back to the basket is one of Minnesota’s best methods to create 3-pointers. Forty-two players posted up at least 75 times this season, per Second Spectrum. Randle led all of them in assist rate out of the post.
Edwards can toast switches, as can Alexander-Walker.
But the Lakers could also spread around the 3-point arc as James or Dončić bolts to the hoop, draining 3s or dancing into the paint with Minnesota’s burly defenders hugging the perimeter. They could guard Gobert with Hachimura or Finney-Smith, sending second or third defenders his way to help block out on rebounds.
If it works, how might Minnesota respond?
Gobert still holds up a top-notch defense. The Lakers may not have Shaquille O’Neal anymore, but they want to get to the basket, and the Wolves allowed 6 percent fewer shots at the rim while Gobert was on the court this season, the largest differential for any player in the NBA, according to Cleaning the Glass. Will that effect continue into the playoffs?
The Timberwolves are loaded with physical defenders. Both McDaniels and Alexander-Walker made my All-Perimeter-Defense teams. Edwards can demonize. DiVincenzo is a pest.
No series lends a greater stylistic contrast — and this one has tremendous talent, too.
Grains of salt
How a team fared against its first-round opponent during the regular season, ignore it — for the most part.
Every once in a while, results over the first 82 games can provide a forecast, such as when the “We Believe” Warriors upset the No. 1-seeded Dallas Mavericks after kicking them around during the 2006-07 regular season. But more often than not, especially now, playoff basketball is not like the six months of hoops that precede it.
The Knicks went 1-3 against the Pistons this season, but those were not serious games. According to Second Spectrum, Brunson’s most common pick-and-roll partner during those four matches was Precious Achiuwa, who won’t be in the playoff rotation. His third most-common pick-and-roll partner? Second-round rookie Ariel Hukporti, who played 217 minutes this season and is currently injured.
These results are not representative of what’s to come.
In no place is that more true than Denver, where the Nuggets must prepare for the shapeshifting LA Clippers.
The Clippers and Nuggets split the season series. But Nikola Jokić missed one of those games. Kawhi Leonard, the oft-injured superstar who has looked like the best version of himself of late, did not participate in any of the four. The Clippers played at a 58-win pace when Leonard stepped on the court during the regular season. And they don’t move the same way, either.
Let’s zero in on the most important matchup of the series: The Clippers defense vs. the best player in the world, Jokić.
LA used a fellow giant, Ivica Zubac, on Jokić nearly exclusively during the three regular-season games Jokić played. This team finished third in points allowed per possession, and that was with Leonard, a two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year, missing more than half its games.
The two centers know each other well. Only one player, the Sacramento Kings’ Domantas Sabonis, guarded Jokić for more possessions than Zubac did during the regular season, according to Second Spectrum. And Zubac guarded only one player, amazingly also Sabonis, for more possessions than he did Jokić this season. Jokić roasted in those matchups, as he does in all others.
But now, Zubac can man the three-time MVP with more help — and maybe in a different way.
Leonard and Derrick Jones Jr., who comes off the bench, are two of the league’s best at digging into the lane and swiping at the basketball in the post, though the Clippers have historically guarded Jokić straight up, not sending aggressive double-teams his way. Kris Dunn is the leading candidate to man Jamal Murray, Jokić’s favorite partner on pick-and-rolls and dribble handoffs. There isn’t a soul who skirts around screens with more verve than Dunn does.
The teams that have discovered relative success against Jokić, such as the Timberwolves, have a formula: Place a physical defender but not your best rim protector on Jokić while sticking your shot blocker on Denver’s worst shooter (Russell Westbrook). During the second round of last season’s playoffs, Towns battled Jokić one-on-one, with Gobert shading over for help when Jokić spun into the lane.
Here is an example of the Clippers pulling off that strategy in December, when James Harden had to switch onto Jokić and forced him to spin right, where Zubac, who has performed at an All-Defense level this season, was waiting for him:
Clippers coach Tyronn Lue is quick to adapt and innovate strategically. If Jokić goes off against Zubac, could the Clippers try versions of this?
They don’t have anyone of Towns’ size, but they have wings who can fight. And they’re not principally against throwing a smaller player on a bigger one. Leonard and Nicolas Batum have guarded Towns this season. Harden will take on bigs such as Evan Mobley or Naz Reid or Hayes. Does Ben Simmons receive three out-of-nowhere possessions on Jokić just to throw him out of rhythm?
This is Zubac’s job. But if a team throws the same defender at a high-IQ MVP for four to seven games, the MVP will figure it out. Every once in a while, the Clippers will have to shake up the strategy or the personnel.
(Top photo of Josh Hart and Malik Beasley: Elsa / Getty Images)
