Another week, another 10 things to like — and dislike! — across the NBA, from shockingly poor defense in Toronto to a balletic performance in Milwaukee to the most aggressively boring team in basketball … to something brewing in Cavs land?!
1. Oh, hey, the Cleveland Cavaliers are still here
The Cavs were supposed to be dead. They’ve faced the league’s strongest schedule. Every key player but bench savior Ricky Rubio has missed at least two games. Lauri Markkanen and Kevin Love have both missed about half the season so far. Collin Sexton has too, and he’s not coming back.
And yet: The Cavs are 12-10 with the league’s No. 3-ranked defense and ninth-best point differential. If that defense is anything like real, the Cavs will hang in the play-in race.
The only red flag: Their opponents have hit 32.9% on 3s, third lowest overall. But the Cavs haven’t allowed many 3s, and they should withstand warmer enemy shooting if they keep attempts down.
They have yielded bundles of shots at the rim, but that may be somewhat by design: Good freaking luck finishing around Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley — the front-runner (by a hair over Scottie Barnes, who somehow plays with electricity and chill at once) for Rookie of the Year. Even when the Cavs split those two up, they have plenty of length. (One accidental benefit of Sexton’s absence is playing Isaac Okoro more at shooting guard instead of small forward.)
Their opponents have hit just 58% at the rim — second lowest, per Cleaning The Glass. That doesn’t feel like a fluke.
They’re 21st in scoring efficiency, and it’s hard to see them finishing above league average — or even reaching there. But there are signs of hope. Markkanen’s shot is coming around, and they’ll need him to help prop up the offense when Darius Garland rests. Cleveland has scored about 110 points per 100 possessions with Garland, but just 95.5 when he sits.
I wrote about Allen’s blossoming post game two weeks ago, and he has only gotten nastier since. He’s calling for the ball now, and the Cavs look for him.
But Allen is a lob-catcher at heart, and he and Garland are developing special pick-and-roll chemistry. They might become Central Division Trae Young and Clint Capela.
Garland is an expert at changing pace, and his floater is a weapon; he has hit 51% on midrangers. He uses the identical release on layups and lobs, and that disguise keeps defenders guessing until the ball is in midair. The threat of Garland’s floater gets Allen alley-oops, and the threat of those alley-oops gets Garland floaters.
Garland is patient and creative:
That’s a smart, unconventional play. Garland could stop for his floater, but he sees Allen with a mismatch and daylight on the right side. Garland swerves that way, and boom goes the dynamite.
Nine times out of 10, the guard in Garland’s position yanks Kristaps Porzingis to the perimeter. Garland is headed there, but senses an opportunity to cut backdoor — knowing Love is a willing passer.
Garland has another leap in him, and the possibility of that coming over the next 60 games is the best reason for hope that the Cavs can sustain an average-ish offense.
It’s unclear who beyond Garland, Mobley and Allen is a long-term keeper — I’m more bullish than most on Sexton — but the Cavs have something cooking.
2. What happened to the Toronto Raptors’ vaunted defense?
The Raptors will stiffen, but one of the season’s early upsets is Toronto ranking 24th in points allowed per possession — and being way better on offense (thanks mostly to a killer transition attack) than defense.
Four key guys — Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, Gary Trent Jr., and Khem Birch — have missed time. That has robbed the Raptors of both defensive talent, and the continuity required to execute their helter-skelter schemes.
Opponents are scorching from everywhere; Toronto ranks in the bottom eight in field goal percentage allowed on 3s, shots at the rim and long 2s. Regression is coming.
But more teams are preparing counters to Toronto’s in-your-jersey pressure and ball denial — including give-and-go back-cutting actions:
Several recent opponents scripted sideline out-of-bounds plays to exploit Toronto’s tendency of having the defender guarding the inbounder roam around; if inbounders see that, they pass and dart to the rim.
Hounding defense is built into Toronto’s DNA. They are stocked with long, fast, switchable defenders. The Raps rank 2nd in opponent turnover rate, behind only the Minnesota Timberwolves, and those turnovers fuel fast breaks. They foul a lot, but that’s the cost of doing this reaching, clawing business.
The scheme also risks hails of 3s; only the Miami Heat have allowed more corner triples.
One blip of confusion, and the whole thing collapses. Precious Achiuwa has been uneven in space — prone to hazy hesitation:
Achiuwa switches onto Dillon Brooks, but doesn’t realize Trent Jr. makes a smart impromptu toggle onto Brooks — meaning Achiuwa should slide onto Kyle Anderson. Achiuwa meanders nowhere — forcing Siakam to make an emergency rotation from Desmond Bane in the corner.
Here Achiuwa is too slow to switch onto Joe Harris:
Chris Boucher, playing tidbits at center with Birch out, has been even more addled.
Achiuwa does a lot of good things. He can switch across almost every position. Opponents are hitting just 50.5% of shots at the rim with Achiuwa nearby — a stingy mark.
He and Birch are undersized, and the Raps rank 28th in defensive rebounding rate. Switching exacerbates that, since Toronto’s tallest defenders often chase guards around the arc.
Toronto bombards its own offensive glass — recognition that its first-shot half-court offense isn’t very good — and that can leave them naked in transition defense. The Raps have done well minimizing the volume of transition chances, but opponents are feasting on the ones they get.
There is a lot going on here, but I’d bet on Toronto climbing up the defensive rankings.
3. The Indiana Pacers … just, all of it
Ladies and gentleman, the most average and aggressively boring team in the NBA! The Pacers are 17th on offense, and 14th on defense. They would be closer to .500 if they didn’t dissolve into nothingness in crunch time. They rank between 12th and 19th in frequency of shot attempts from every location.
They just have no identity. What is the organizing principle here? What are they trying to be? Perhaps this amorphousness is the result of starting four guys — Malcolm Brogdon, Domantas Sabonis, Caris LeVert, Myles Turner — who all might believe they are the team’s most important player.
Three of them — all but Turner — need the ball. Only Sabonis could be more than a fourth option on a great team, but the Pacers don’t seem eager to recognize Sabonis as their best player.
(They really need T.J. Warren, who does not need the ball as much — even if he’d like it — and would both start on the wing and play backup power forward.)
LeVert leads the team in shots and usage rate, and he hasn’t been good. He’s shooting 41%, including an ugly 26% on 3s, and forcing it when easy passes stare him in the face. LeVert deserves patience given what he is coming back from.
Sabonis is averaging five post touches per 100 possessions, down from about eight over the past three seasons, per Second Spectrum. As Caitlin Cooper — who does a brilliant job covering the Pacers — has written, Indiana has some weird, minor allergy to hitting their big men rolling to the rim; they average only three plays per 100 possessions on which someone screens, rolls, and shoots — 22nd overall.
There is talent here, and depth, even if most of Indy’s top-line guys are fourth-option types with overlapping skill sets. It just isn’t leading anywhere cohesive. If this keeps up, I’d expect a lot of trade chatter around the Pacers.
4. A botched bit of clock management
One of the most delicious late-game situations — a window into the muddy dynamics of human decision-making — is when a team leading by one, two, or three gets the ball with 27 or 28 seconds left in regulation. That 3- or 4-second gap between game and shot clock is the sweet spot when coaches on trailing teams are not sure whether to foul or play for the stop.
I have leaned pro foul, though I am not sure what the analytics say. But my mental calculus shifts to “stop the clock” once that time differential shrinks below five seconds.
I might join Team “Play for the Stop,” because leading teams cannot resist the temptation of going way too early. The latest example: Talen Horton-Tucker inexplicably driving with seven seconds on the shot clock, about 11 on the game clock, and the Los Angeles Lakers up by three:
All the leading team needs to do here is run the shot clock to almost zero, launch a 3, and hope it bounces so high off the rim the game ends — or leaves so little time, the trailing team can manage only a heave after taking timeout.
Leading teams never do this. It’s mind-blowing. I get the impulse. It’s nervy watching that clock tick.
Defenses can muck up this “wait and heave” gambit by trapping, and hoping to spook the offense into shooting early. But if they don’t, take your time!
5. Whatever happened to Gary Harris?
This stinks — a reminder of how injuries sap a player’s physical ability and confidence, and how hard it can be to get those things back. Harris has dealt with injuries to his hamstring, groin, ankle, hip, and shoulder. They have left him a shell of the player who signed a four-year, $84 million mega-extension in 2017 that was met with shrugs of, “Well, that’s what really good 3-and-D guys get.”
That’s what Harris was during his Denver Nuggets peak: a rock-solid 3-and-D guy with enough off-the-bounce juice to be a secondary ball handler, a penchant for acrobatic baseline finishes, and wink-wink chemistry with Nikola Jokic. He averaged 17.5 points not long ago!
Harris barely dares those soaring layups anymore, and when he does, you see his explosiveness has withered.
Harris hasn’t recovered his stroke after those shoulder issues; he’s shooting 24% from deep, and just 17% outside the corners.
Harris is a sound, willing defender who reads the game and makes the proper passes. He has started Orlando’s past six games, and hit double figures in four of them. Here’s hoping that’s a sign of a coming bounceback — perhaps for a contender, via trade or buyout.
6. Here comes the Grizzlies’ second star
Jaren Jackson Jr. is one of the three or four most important swing players of the next half-decade. If he’s an All-Star — or at least a real candidate every season — the Grizz are onto something. If he’s merely good, the path toward 55 wins gets murky.
After Jackson missed most of last season and started this one slowly, some die-hards began fretting: Is this all there is?
But over the past three weeks, Jackson has reasserted his prominence. He’s averaging 19.2 points on almost 50/40/90 shooting since mid-November, and flashing the full breadth of his game. He’s up to 37% from deep on massive volume after going 6-of-7 in Memphis’ epic 73-point drubbing of the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday; I’d expect that percentage to get higher.
He’s driving to the rim at a career-high rate, per Second Spectrum — including in pick-and-roll combinations of all kinds. How about this inverted bad boy with Ja Morant screening?
Jackson’s off-the-bounce game can look clumsy, but it works. He can pop for 3s, blow by defenders if they run him off the arc, and finish with either hand.
He’s bulldozing mismatches with more decisiveness; the Grizz have scored about 1.22 points when Jackson shoots via post-up, or dishes to a teammate who fires — a mark that would have ranked fourth last season among players with at least 50 post touches, per Second Spectrum. He’s comfortable dribbling into post-ups from the perimeter.
The bigger news is on the other end. Jackson has made huge strides defending both big man positions. At center, he has improved both in switching and conventional drop-back schemes; opponents have hit just 47% of shots at the rim with Jackson nearby, fifth lowest among 87 guys who challenge at least three shots per game at the basket. He’s averaging about one steal and two blocks.
Jackson is the common denominator in almost every productive Memphis lineup. The Grizz are plus-7 per 100 possessions with Jackson, and a ghastly minus-10 when he sits. The Jackson-Brandon Clarke front-court pairing has obliterated opponents — welcome back to the bouncy-rim running version of Clarke! — and lineups with Jackson as solo big have held up on defense.
That’s important, because the best version of the future Grizz features more Jackson at center.
7. Please notice these two New Orleans role players
The Pelicans are 5-6 in their past 11 games, fighting to keep their season alive until Zion Williamson returns. They’re still seven games out of the play-in tournament in the loss column, but they’ve faced one of the league’s toughest schedules — including 13 road games — and have the softest final 60 games. Seeds No. 4 through No. 10 in the West are either at .500 or within two games of it. All but the Dallas Mavericks have major injuries. The Pelicans can reasonably hope someone spirals.
Devonte’ Graham and Brandon Ingram are back from injury to help Dirk Valanciunas carry the offense, but don’t overlook two key role players: Josh Hart and Willy Hernangomez, who supplanted Jaxson Hayes as backup center.
New Orleans anointed Hayes to stabilize its defense, but he isn’t ready. He’s 21. It’s fine.
Hernangomez won’t help on defense, but he’s a really good offensive center who keeps things afloat when key starters rest. The Pelicans have scored almost 114 points per 100 possessions with Hernangomez on the floor — equivalent to a top-two offense. The offense died in Hayes’ minutes. Over that 5-6 stretch, the Pelicans have outscored opponents when Hernangomez plays.
He’s a dominant offensive rebounder with a soft touch. He’s shooting 68%; he can smash mismatches, and score on the move in the pick-and-roll. He’s a nifty passer too. The Pels off-ball movement perks up when Hernangomez plays:
People pigeon-hole Hart as a rebounder-defender, and he’s really good at those things; he guards every position, and rebounds at nearly the rate of a center.
But he’s an underrated playmaker. He turns defensive rebounds into ferocious coast-to-coast attacks. Hart would probably go 1-on-3 against peak Bill Russell, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Kevin Garnett.
He has a good pump-and-go game, and the Pels sometimes use him as the screener in pick-and-roll — allowing Hart to slip into 4-on-3 situations and spray passes:
Hart is dishing almost five assists per 36 minutes — double his career average. The Hart-Ingram-Herb Jones (NOT ON HERB!) wing trio is intriguing — long, switchy, all with different skill sets. They need more playmaking than Graham provides, but it’s an interesting look.
Hart is a more consistent 3-point shot from being one of the league’s great glue guys.
8. Jrue Holiday’s pivoty goodness
With all eyes on the Golden State Warriors and Phoenix Suns, the Milwaukee Bucks before Thursday’s news about Brook Lopez’s back surgery were crafting an argument that they remained the safest championship bet. They could still claim that status in April, pending the same uncertainties they faced before Lopez went under the knife: how their behemoth stretch rim-protector looks upon returning; Donte DiVincenzo recovering his form; and the Kyrie Irving situation.
The Bucks have won 10 of 13, and two of those losses — including Thursday’s in Toronto — came without Giannis Antetokounmpo. They’ve been around top five in both offensive and defensive efficiency over the past month as key players trickled back from injury and virus protocols. Key role players — Grayson Allen, Bobby Portis, and Pat Connaughton — are humming. Connaughton has become a sniper.
Holiday is finding his groove after missing several early games. He has been exactly what the Bucks envisioned when they forked over the motherlode for him before last season: an ace defender who shape-shifts between roles on offense, filling whatever gaps need filling, and locking the roster into place.
Holiday provides bully-ball isolation scoring when there is no time to generate something better — a squeeze teams face more the further they advance in the playoffs. Is this the closest thing Holiday has to a signature shot?
Holiday never blows you away with style or physical ability, but he’s strong as hell and has a way of burrowing into his spots. He can shoot with either hand from floater range, and that gives him access to a wide range of ultra-creative pivot moves.
That is ballet.
Holiday has been an efficient one-on-one scorer, per Second Spectrum. He generally hovers around one point per possession in isolations — the marker at which they become viable. You can’t build a workable NBA offense around that, but you could do a lot worse late in the shot clock.
9. Tre Mann’s basketball nervous system
I have no idea what Mann is going to be. He’s a hair undersized, with a short wingspan. He’s not an explosive athlete. His shooting motion doesn’t take your breath away.
But Mann already manipulates with change-of-pace craft — the sort of guile that turns an average athlete slippery.
Mann zips into a pick-and-roll with the intriguing Jeremiah Robinson-Earl — the ideal use of Mann as secondary ball handler. He draws a switch, and slows down with daylight for a floater:
But Mann demurs: Let’s see if I can get something better. He accelerates under the basket, and draws both defenders — unlocking a layup for Robinson-Earl.
(P.S. I like the Thunder’s gray-platinum alternate court. It’s distinctive. It somehow reminds of storm clouds, which is more evocative of thunder than any piece of franchise iconography.)
Mann fakes toward Isaiah Roby’s pick before zooming the other way — and revving toward Alperen Sengun. This time, though, Mann has no dump-off target. He keeps his dribble, and preys on Sengun’s expectation that Mann will drag him outside.
Nope. Mann stops short, crosses baseline and flicks that soft-touch floater. He lulls defenders to sleep before snapping back for step-back 3s.
Mann got more pick-and-roll reps during three recent games in which Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was out with injury, and the Thunder should stretch him when Gilgeous-Alexander rests — leaving Josh Giddey as backup point guard.
10. The return of the screen shove
A decade ago, this sneaky shove was a mini-scourge:
The gambit: When you notice your guy about to set a pick, push him — creating a collision, or the false appearance of an illegal screen. Back then, defenders got away with this a lot — despite making zero effort to camouflage the shoves as legitimate basketball plays.
Then referees cracked down, and it disappeared — until popping up again this season.
Maybe I’m on high alert, but I feel like I’ve spotted more screen-shoves in the past month than in the previous two seasons combined. My hypothesis: defenders know fouls are down, and they are testing the boundaries.
Officials are catching most of these. That’s good! Foul calls still kill game flow. That’s bad! But if refs keep sniffing this out, players will stop doing it.
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