Phoenix Suns vs. Dallas Mavericks (2-2)
After building up a 2-0 series lead and developing a comprehensive strategy of attacking Luka Dončić relentlessly in isolation, the Suns seemed to be on cruise control to the conference finals. Two games later, however, the series seems completely different- Chris Paul has had two terrible games in a row, the Mavericks have been much more successful at hiding Dončić, whose effort level defensively has also been much higher, and the Mavericks 5-out lineup of Dončić, Brunson, Bullock, Finney-Smith and Kleber has proved extremely difficult for the Suns to defend, and Ayton in particular has struggled to find the equilibrium between defending the rim and getting out to the corner on Kleber. The play below highlights what has made the Mavs offence so dangerous the past two games, with five elite shooters, and the Suns only rim protector pulled out onto Luka, the Mavs are able to easily force the Suns into rotation after one dribble-drive attack, and the result is an easy corner 3 for Kleber, who is shooting a scorching 49% from 3 in this postseason, mostly on open catch and shoots like these.
Another problem for the Suns has been the play of Mikal Bridges, who is shooting 22% from 3 for the series and is 0/4 in the last two games of the series. The Mavericks are choosing to leave him open, and the clip below exemplifies his reluctance to shoot- although he eventually scores on an easy drive past Luka, he passes up the wide open three, that the Suns need him to take these shots with confidence, like he did all regular season, in order to keep their offence as efficient as it normally is.
Even Bridges' defence has not been as effective as normal, as Luka's physicality has proven to be a problem for the skinnier Bridges. While the play below is more about Luka's incredible intelligence, forcing him into the screen, you can clearly see how easily Luka is able to use his advantage in weight to get to the spots he wants on the floor, and even if he is not comfortable shooting with Bridges on him, he has been able to post him up or use screens to get whatever shots he likes with Bridges on the floor.
The Mavericks defence at the end of game 4 was stifling, as they showed Booker an incredible amount of activity, and it is clear that this is much easier for them to do when Booker is playing point with Paul off the court, versus when he is in more of an off-ball role. Just look at the difference in the amount of rim help on these two drives! If Paul is able to play better in game 5, it should be harder for the Mavs to play this level of defence on Booker, especially if Bridges is able to become a spot-up threat again, rather than a player the Mavericks can help off of.
Despite the Mavericks taking back all momentum in the past two games, the series is still just 2-2, and there is a lot that the Suns can look to take into game 5 to get their offence back to the level it has been. Firstly, Luka has looked terrible on defence still, despite the Mavericks doing a much better job hiding him, and some increased effort from him, even limited drivers like Jae Crowder have been getting incredibly easy looks whenever Luka is involved in the action. The play below is unacceptable defence from Doncic, as he takes a bad route through the screens, is slow getting to Crowder, and the result is a wide open layup for a player whose game is entirely predicated on catch-and-shoot plays. The Suns need to get back to targeting Luka at every possible opportunity like they did in game 2, particularly with Booker and Paul, and they should start playing efficient basketball again.
Another place the Suns need to look is at getting DeAndre Ayton more touches inside. While he was not the incredibly efficient by his standards in game 4 (7-12), he is the most effective way the Suns can punish the Mavericks deadly 5-out lineups, other than attacking Luka, and the Suns offence has looked good when Ayton has been getting touches within 8-feet of the basket, through seals, offensive rebounds or post-ups. Him and Chris Paul were the most efficient duo of all-time in game 6 against the Pelicans, and if the Suns can these two playing well again, then I think the Suns should win this series. That is a big if, however, and I think this series is going to a game 7 in Phoenix, where I would slightly favour the Suns, but not by much. My Prediction: Suns in 7
Philadelphia 76ers vs. Miami Heat (2-2)
Out of all the second-round series, this is definitely the series I was most wrong about, as I considered this to be a pretty good matchup for the Heat, even before we got the news about Joel Embiid's face injury, and that he would probably be missing most of the series. Obviously, the return of Joel Embiid has been the biggest factor in the 76er's turnaround in the series, but there is more to the story than that. First and foremost, the largest factor behind the Heat's collapse in the past two games of this series has been their inability to score in the halfcourt. Normally a good 3-point shooting team, they shot 23.3% from beyond the arc in game 3, and an even uglier 20.0% in game 4, and while they will probably shoot better than this in games going forward, they were mostly pretty well-contested by the 76ers, whose defence has been much stronger with Joel Embiid back. In the first two games, Miami took 51 shots in the restricted area, compared to just 18 in game 3, and Embiid has been extremely effective at intimidating and dissuading Heat players from attacking the rim, despite his injuries and more limited play.
In comparison, the 76ers have been lights out since Embiid got back, shooting 48.5% from 3 in their two wins- clearly an unsustainable number, and some regression to the mean in terms of 3-point percentage would clearly favour Miami.
A lot has been made of Jame Harden's return to form, with 31 points in game 4, including 16 clutch points in the fourth, and while he definitely played well, I still saw some worrying signs that he may not be able to continue putting up these numbers. Harden was 2-8 from 2-point range, and the majority of his points came from either the foul line or step-back three pointers- his two makes from inside the arc were an awkward finish in transition, and a wide open layup after he created some nice separation from Bam Adebayo. The rest were contested, floating shots where his lack of explosiveness really showed, the clip below highlights this lack of explosiveness, where he just tries an absolute no-hope layup over Butler in isolation, who stays with Harden and gets the easy block.
For the Heat moving forward, they should continue to force Harden to attack the rim and actually make layups in traffic, rather than fouling him or letting him get off easy step-back threes. For the Sixers offensively, they should continue to look to get Embiid the ball close to the basket- he absolutely feasted in the first quarter getting seals on smaller defenders in the first quarter, and his teammates did a great job of passing around the perimeter to get the best angle for an entry pass, but these opportunities largely disappeared throughout the rest of the game, as a combination of both Embiid's fatigue, and the Heat adjusting defensively to avoid matching up smaller players on Embiid. Embiid's three-pointer looks absolutely broken right now, likely due to his injury, but the Heat should start leaving him open from beyond the arc and dare him to shoot, in a similar fashion to the Celtics with Giannis.
The Sixers are dominating the battle in transition, leading the entire playoffs in fast break points per game, and Tyrese Maxey is the main driver of this full court offence, leading the playoffs himself in points scored in transition for any individual player, and it is key that the 76ers continue to dominate the battle in transition, because if the Heat can fix just of either their normally elite three-point shooting or elite halfcourt defence, then the 76ers current advantage in halfcourt play could be neutralised.
For the Heat, the only player that has truly shown up for both games 3 and 4 has been Jimmy Butler, who is effectively their offensive creator other than Tyler Herro in the halfcourt, and Butler's individual offence in these past couple of games appears somewhat unsustainable, especially the tough fadeaways and leaners in the paint over Embiid, who the 76ers smartly matched up against Butler in the P.J Tucker at centre minutes. In the clip below, Butler manages to get the better of Embiid with an incredible step-through layup, but in the long-run, I think the Embiid-Butler matchup is a losing one for the Heat, and they should avoid it where possible.
Overall, I think that the Heat offence just looks too broken right now, especially with Lowry either out or limited for the rest of the series, while the momentum seems to be rolling in the right direction for the 76ers. Either way, whoever comes out of this series is going to be dominated by the Celtics/Bucks in the conference finals. My Prediction: 76ers in Six.
Boston Celtics vs. Milwaukee Bucks (2-2)
This series has been by far the highest-level of basketball we have seen so far in the playoffs, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that whoever comes out of this matchup should probably be the favourite to win the title this year, similarly to the Bucks/Nets matchup from last year's second round. The story for both teams has been their elite defence, with the Bucks' almost completely eliminating the paint through the incredible rim-protection duo of Brook Lopez and Giannis Antetokounmpo, while Celtics have no weaknesses, and incredible matchups against Giannis with the duo of Al Horford and Grant Williams, as well as the help-side rim protection of Robert Williams.
What changed in game four, however, was the Celtics were finally able to break the Bucks defence in the fourth quarter. With Giannis absolutely exhausted, and Al Horford seemingly hitting every three that left his hand, the Celtics were able to shoot 11/13 in the paint in the fourth. The clip below is a perfect encapsulation of what occurred in the fourth- Giannis is too tired to even attempt any kind of effort in help, Lopez is too worried about a potential kick-out to Horford to contest at the rim, and Jrue Holiday's perimeter defence was also worse in the fourth, perhaps due to fatigue. The result was an easy layup at the rim for Marcus Smart, and the rest of the quarter played out similarly for the Celtics offensively.
For the Bucks, they have run nearly all of their offence through Holiday and Antetokounmpo, taking a combined 104 shots in the last two games, and this is where the absence of Middleton to ease some of the offensive burden really hurts them. Holiday shot 5-22 in game 4, and the Bucks were a putrid -23 in Holiday's minutes, despite playing almost the same number of minutes as Giannis who managed to be +1 despite similarly struggling offensively to 14-32 on a tough diet of shots over primarily Al Horford. The Bucks play a lot of iso-ball, which allows the Celtics to load up on Holiday and Giannis, making their shots extremely difficult, and it appears that the combined offensive and defensive burdens placed on the Jrue and Giannis by Middleton's absence seems to be beginning to wear them down, especially with Giannis's fatigue in the fourth quarter. The clip below shows a typical offensive possession for Holiday at the moment, being forced to take an incredibly difficult layup over good defence in isolation.
Turning to the Celtics offence, game 4 will go down as the 'Al Horford game' in future years, as he effectively saved their season with 30 points on 11/14, and great defence on Giannis on almost every possession for the Celtics. Most of his damage came from beyond the arc, and he has never looked so confident nor willing to shoot as he does in this series; and it is changing the Bucks game plan. Ime Udoka said after the game that they can get a pick and pop 3 for Horford "whenever we want", but if he keeps making them at this rate, then the Bucks will- as we saw in the fourth quarter- have to change their strategy and bring some of their rim protection out onto the perimeter to take away some of Horford's threes. The other big difference for the Celtics was that Jayson Tatum was finally able to get going offensively in the second half, particularly in the fourth, and he has struggled all series with the incredible screen navigation and defence by Wesley Matthews, but managed to start getting some drives at with the lack of fourth-quarter rim protection for the Bucks, as well as some nice looks shooting the ball when he had the smaller George Hill switched onto him
Moving forward in the series, I am worried about the Bucks. While they were able to dominate the possession game, thanks to only 7 turnovers and 13 offensive rebounds, Boston seem to have found something with Al Horford at centre and playing a smaller lineup to space out the Bucks, while continuing to have elite defence. Giannis and Jrue Holiday's fatigue will also be a major factor moving forward in this series too, but I think that they will be able to win game 6 at home and this will ultimately go to a deciding game 7. My Prediction: Celtics in 7
Golden State Warriors vs. Memphis Grizzlies (3-1)
Finally, we have to discuss the least interesting series moving forward after game 4. The quality of this game in comparison to the Celtics-Bucks game 4 was abysmal- both teams shot 40% from the field, and the Warriors had 16 turnovers, but were ultimately able to scrap for a game 4 win to put them up 3-1 and in complete control of the series moving forwards. Ja Morant was ruled out of game 4 with the knee injury he suffered in game 3, and it appears unlikely that he will return for game 5, which should make the Warriors heavy favourites.
The Warriors started the game 0/15 from beyond the arc, and their offence looked completely out of sorts for most of the game. Credit the Memphis defence, who were active and much more connected without Ja Morant, but many of the Warriors turnovers were sloppy, careless passes, throwing the ball away before an opening existed or just misfiring the ball out of bounds. The Draymond turnover shown below was characteristic of the Warriors' offence the whole game- Jaren Jackson is in position and makes the right play to knock it away, but most of the blame can be placed on Green for throwing this pass when the opening clearly doesn't exist yet.
For the Grizzlies, the return of Steven Adams in the absence of Morant looked to be the correct move, as he looked good offensively and the Warriors were largely unable to take advantage of his slow-footedness on the perimeter, although this was also partially due to them just being cold from 3. Kyle Anderson was perhaps the best Grizzlies player offensively, with 17 points on 8 shots, and almost all his buckets came at the expense of Jordan Poole, who the Grizzlies should definitely look to take advantage of in future matchups, as he has looked awful defensively. The clip below was symbolic of the Poole-Anderson matchup for most of the game, with Anderson able to just abuse the height mismatch inside the arc to get to high-percentage shots.
While the Warriors will probably win this series in 5 or 6, especially if Dillon Brooks continues to play like the worst player in the playoffs, but don't expect the Grizzlies to go down without a fight, as they have played great without Morant all year, and although their offence is a struggle without Ja, if Desmond Bane is able to overcome his back injury and get back to his first-round self, then they definitely have a chance to win games in this series.
Although they should win this series comfortably, the Warriors should be worried about their conference finals matchup, as both the Suns and Mavericks will be able to take advantage of the terrible defence of Jordan Poole and at times Klay Thompson, (!) and if the Warriors' best offensive players are too damaging defensively, they may have to switch to more limited offensive players such as Looney, Porter or even Damion Lee, which I think will kill their offence against great defensive teams like the Suns and Mavericks. In this series however, they should be fine. My Prediction: Warriors in 5.
