The best defensive team of the NBA has a higher speed. And the intimidators in the playoffs are back.
Let’s start with a few trends that drew my attention during the NBA qualifiers:
New equipment
Oklahoma City Thunder invented the seventh equipment.
They broke the thorns of Memphis’ grizzly greeks on Thursday evening, taking up 29 points to take a 3-0 lead. And they did it with a duo that they don’t get married often. Once Alex Caruso and Lu sleeps have entered, the game collapsed in a Mark Daignault fever dream.
During the regular season, Caruso and Dort usually overlapping for a few minutes by half, but for the most part, Daigneault amazed both. This assured that the Thunder, which has had the main defense of the NBA all season, whatever you measure, had at least one point of attack on the ground at least one. But from the start of the fourth quarter of match 3, Daigneault played its two best defenders in the perimeter together.
The Grizzlies, who lost Ja Morant because of a hip injury at the end of the second quarter, were helpless.
Dort finished fourth in the voting of the defensive player of the year. Caruso, if he was eligible, would probably have gained defensive distinctions this season. For all ATLANTA HAWKS deserved discussion terrains, Dyson that Daniels received for passes, Caruso was the only guy who has on average more deviations per minute than Daniels during the regular season.
Thunder are the only League team with the staff to withdraw while also leaving caliber players for all defense on the bench. Grizzlies were paralyzed during the 10 minutes that Caruso and Dort shared in the fourth quarter.
Here is a sleep that gives Desmond Bane without space on a pick-and-roll, who forced the Grizzlies shooting goalkeeper, their best option on the perimeter after Morant was injured, to swing a pass on the opposite side, where there should be a gap, based solely on the aesthetics. Caruso took the great man of the nba likely Jaren Jackson Jr., who has five inches and almost 60 pounds on him.
Caruso was not simply transferred to Jackson during this possession. He kept it from the start of the quarter, then later in the fourth. And he continued to harass the All-Star.
The room below only occurred after the one above. Jackson led to the left against Caruso. Dort dug in the way to disturb him, which caused a wobbly shot. Caruso finished it, slamming the ball in Jackson’s hands on the board and plunging on the ground for possession.
Dort once upset me by the force of Caruso’s wrists – how they do not look when the guard slips against flights. This is the perfect example.
During all this time, Dort stuck in Bane, who did not go into the fourth. He went 3 to 11 with four reversals after the injury of more, when he was subjected to the most attention of the defensive aces of the Thunder.
The Grizzlies scored only 31 points in the second half of match 3, and the Domino injury was not only to blame for the collapse, no more unacceptable game. When the most suffocating group of the League reaches levels that it does not have before, what is an obstacle offense to do?
The game below is actually an executed from Memphis, who has only the ball down three points with less than a minute to do. But look at the communication between thunder, which allows them to withdraw constant switches and get back to their men. Then discover the competition at the RIM of the candidate MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, one of the best guards in the League. And finally, take a look at Caruso covering the ground as if it were Ed Reed.
The greatest strength of the Thunder is their metamorph. If they want to go big, they can play Chet Holmgren (who dominated the second half of match 3) alongside Isaiah Hartenstein and stay Elite. If they want to go small, they can only use one of the big men or stick Jalen Williams on a center. If they want Blitz Pick-And-Rolls, they have the speed and instincts to do it without being reckless. If they want to change, they are responsible for versatile defenders.
Thursday, the Thunder twinned two of the best defenders on the ball in the league. For some parts of the period, Cason Wallace, which I nicknamed the second defense team entirely perimeter, was next to them, like Williams, another name on the defense list entirely perimeter.
No one breaks spirits like thunder.
Intimidators in playoffs are back
This is not the same sport we saw for 82 regular season games. It is not even the same that the league proudly proudly proud during the playoffs last spring.
The NBA arenas are a vanilla ice track far from an impression to 1990. Perhaps defenders will be called to hacks that they could have succeeded three decades ago, but the penalties do not stop the attack.
The oxen are starting to form in most series. The Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors are in a wrestling match that sometimes breaks for a basketball match. Memphis could place a real grizzly on the ground, and sleeps could be impartial enough to torpedo. Kristaps Porziņģis draws free throws with blood flowing on his scalp. Paul Reed and Mitchell Robinson went there, which led to a thrust of the cities of Karl-Anthony (and a passage of manuals of the referee Zach Zarba, who owes Moonlight as an ordeal) in match 3 of Knicks-Pistons.
Thursday’s Knicks-Pistons-Pistons fight is just an example of physics exposed in these qualifying series. (Images Rick Osentoski / Imagn)
These playoffs do not concern the victory championships or the defense, but they concern physicity on both sides of the ball.
The league is more rough than it has been for years. Just look at how many players touch the ground, additional proof that it is not the same sport as the one that the same teams play during the regular season.
During the regular season, Philadelphia 76ers players fell to the ground throughout a 16.9 -time match, which led the NBA, according to Second Spectrum. But during the last week, the size of the clumsiness of the Sixers is nothing.
Nine playoff teams are on average more falls than the Sixers. No surprise, in a series filled to the brim with allegations of flop and manga in boxes, the pistons and the Knicks both walk around the same number: 26.0 and 25.7 Falls per match, respectively, n ° 1 and 2 in the playoffs. The Indiana Pacers fell 25.5 times per game against the Milwaukee Bucks. Warriors and rockets are also somewhat greater than 25.
As expected at this time of year, players run after 50 to 50 balls as they did not do when the matches counted less. The Knicks hit the ground for 5.5 loose balls per match against the pistons. They have an average of 1.5 during the regular season. The pistons extended for 4.0 loose balls per game after having been 1.9 times per game, which was second in the NBA, during the first 82.
Defenders are revealed about twice more often during the defense of the ball. Three teams have already set up 30 falls in a match, which makes the renowned 30 expensive, the type we have all heard of since childhood, 24 times more likely in the playoffs than in regular season.
Everyone strikes everyone on their wad.
(Top Photo of Alex Caruso, Lu Dort and Desmond Bane: Petre Thomas / Imagn Images)
