{"id":714707,"date":"2026-04-20T17:49:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T17:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/714707\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T17:49:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T17:49:05","slug":"nba-playoffs-2026-lebron-james-and-the-lakers-turning-back-the-clock-1-defining-stat-for-each-series-so-far-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/714707\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA playoffs 2026: LeBron James and the Lakers turning back the clock? 1 defining stat for each series so far"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve officially made it through the opening game of each NBA playoff<\/a> series. It\u2019s important not to overreact to these things, but there\u2019s always information to glean. We\u2019re going to take a look at a key number that emerged from each game, one that could serve as a solve-or-sink point as we get deeper into the series.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s dig in, shall we?<\/p>\n

Cavaliers-RaptorsKey number to watch: 28<\/p>\n

I was excited about the unknown of this series: all three of the regular-season matchups, all won by the Raptors, happened before Thanksgiving. There were key figures missing in each matchup, and because of the early nature of the meetings, we had no film of James Harden<\/a> as a Cavalier to gather clues from.<\/p>\n

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Harden promptly ripped the Raptors, and virtually every defensive coverage they deployed, to shreds in the Cavs\u2019 126-113 victory<\/a> on Saturday. A 22-point, 10-assist performance is relatively straightforward; the pick-and-roll dominance \u2014 36 on-ball picks received, an absurd 1.28 points per possession on those trips \u2014 was the real story.<\/p>\n

What stood out to me, aside from Harden having answers to the schematic test, was how high up the floor a lot of those ball screens happened. It\u2019s one thing to have to deal with talented ball-screen partnerships \u2014 it\u2019s another when you have to do so while being stretched thin from a spacing perspective.<\/p>\n

More broadly, it felt like the Cavs were consistently intentional about maximizing their space \u2014 Spacemaxxing? Can we say that? \u2014 with their ball screens in real time. In addition to running them high on the floor, they often paired those actions with their weakside spacer lifting from the corner to the wing to put a help defender in peril.<\/p>\n

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Help on the roll, and a shooter\u2019s open; stay attached to the shooter, and you have Jarrett Allen<\/a> or Evan Mobley<\/a> rolling free to the basket.<\/p>\n

To that end: per Second Spectrum, the Cavs ran 28 ball screens 30+ feet from the basket, their fifth-highest total in a game this season.<\/p>\n

(If you extend it to 35 feet or more, the number is still 10 \u2014 their highest clip in a game, only trailing the Phoenix Suns<\/a>, who had 12 on Feb. 3 against the Trail Blazers, for the most by anyone in a game this season.)<\/p>\n

When operating 30+ feet from the basket, they were just as lethal: 1.21 points per possession on those trips, with the Raptors getting progressively more frustrated as the game went on. Toronto\u2019s screen navigation, drive containment, and help discipline must all be better moving forward, or this series won\u2019t last very long.<\/p>\n

Nuggets-TimberwolvesKey number to watch: 1.64 <\/p>\n

You can\u2019t talk about the Denver Nuggets<\/a> without talking about the dominant pairing of Nikola Joki\u0107<\/a> and Jamal Murray<\/a>. In Joki\u0107, you have an all-time great who can knock down shots from anywhere and make every pass in the book. In Murray, you have a true three-level scorer who can exhaust you with his on-and-off-ball blend of usage and his overall aggression.<\/p>\n

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Together, you have a two-man game that nobody really has an answer for.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets often exacerbate the problem by mixing in different spacing looks for the two to operate within. My favorite is the \u201cflat spacing\u201d alignment: it\u2019s when there\u2019s a player spaced in each corner, and a third player stashed in the dunker spot (low block area).<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example of what it looks like. Cam Johnson<\/a> and Tim Hardaway Jr.<\/a> are in the corners, while Spencer Jones<\/a> is in the dunker spot. This gives Murray and Joki\u0107 a ton of space to work with since both the left and right wing are empty.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s already little you can do to contain these two; the inherent nature of this spacing alignment makes it tough to send help without potentially giving up something even more fruitful. In Denver\u2019s Game 1 victory<\/a>, the Wolves found that out the hard way \u2014 over, and over, and over again.<\/p>\n

Going back through Denver\u2019s offensive possessions, there were 11 instances \u2014 10 if you don\u2019t count the Chicago action rep<\/a> at the very end of the video above \u2014 where those two were in action together with a flat spacing alignment. The Nuggets scored 18 points on those trips \u2014 1.64 (or 1.8) points per possession.<\/p>\n

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There isn\u2019t an easy answer to this particular problem, but the Wolves have to find something that\u2019ll bring that number down.<\/p>\n

Knicks-HawksKey number to watch: 1.15<\/p>\n

One of my pressing questions heading into this series was how the Hawks<\/a> would go about defending Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a>. Would they defend him straight-up positionally with Onyeka Okongwu<\/a>, or would they pull the increasingly popular gambit of stashing a wing or forward on Towns while allowing Okongwu to \u201cguard\u201d Josh Hart<\/a>, ultimately acting as a roamer?<\/p>\n

On April 6, their final regular-season matchup but their first with the current iteration of these teams, the Hawks opted for the former. The two-man game between Jalen Brunson<\/a> and Towns largely destroyed them from the opening tip.<\/p>\n

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In Game 1, the Hawks stuck with the same plan. The Brunson-Towns pairing once again got busy in ball screens (15 picks, 1.46 PPP) while sprinkling in some pass-and-cut actions. Zooming out, I was more enamored by the touches that Towns received above the break \u2014 with some of those approaching the logo.<\/p>\n

Between pick-and-pops and genuine passing hub work, Towns is able to stress defenses twofold. He\u2019s obviously good enough to make shots and reads; but because he\u2019s being defended by the best rim protector on the floor, the Hawks\u2019 backline is extremely exposed with Towns being that high on the floor.<\/p>\n

The play below is a transition scramble, but you can see the amount of strain a Towns pop can have:<\/p>\n

Towns logged 29 above-the-break touches in the Knicks\u2019 Game 1 victory<\/a>, his sixth highest total in a game this season. The Knicks generated 1.15 points per possession on those trips, an elite figure that represents an increase from the regular season (1.12 PPP).<\/p>\n

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In fact, among 117 players to log at least 1,000 above-the-break touches during the regular season, Towns ranked fifth in the NBA \u2014 behind four guards at that. He narrowly edged out Nikola Joki\u0107 (1.11 PPP, 6th) for the best mark among bigs within that same pool.<\/p>\n

The Hawks did experiment with some cross-matching in the fourth quarter of Game 1, but the game was firmly in the Knicks\u2019 control at that point. We\u2019ll see if the Hawks want to \u201cblink\u201d and cross-match at the start of Game 2.<\/p>\n

Lakers-RocketsKey number to watch: 111.6<\/p>\n

If I told you the Lakers<\/a>, down Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/a> and Austin Reaves<\/a>, were going to have a solid offensive performance against the Houston Rockets<\/a> in a convincing win<\/a>, your mind probably would\u2019ve went to LeBron James<\/a> having some sort of turn-the-clock-back scoring binge with timely shotmaking from others.<\/p>\n

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What we got was a high dosage of LePlaymaker, logging a career-high eight assists in the first quarter before ultimately finishing with 19-8-13 and three stocks.<\/p>\n

Now, if I told you the Lakers were not only going to light up the Rockets in the half-court, that you\u2019d have to go back at least three years to find a comparable outing \u2014 and even longer to find a winning one \u2014 your brow might\u2019ve raised smooth off your forehead. I know mine nearly did.<\/p>\n

Sure enough, the Lakers logged a 111.6 offensive rating<\/a> in the half-court on Saturday, their highest half-court offensive rating in a playoff game since Game 1 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets<\/a> (115.3) in 2023.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s their highest in a playoff win since their Game 5 Western Conference finals matchup with the Nuggets (114.5) \u2026 in the 2020 Bubble<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There were plenty of goodies in this one. They moved LeBron around the board as an initiator, screener, and post (or elbow<\/a>) threat. The back-\u2019em-down touches (8 total, 1.33 PPP) were insanely fruitful, with some fun shotmaking (a lefty hook, anyone?) in his film.<\/p>\n

Luke Kennard<\/a> lost his mind from deep<\/a> (5-of-5), but the off-ball work to get him curling inside the arc for midrange bucket-getting was a pleasant surprise. As with any LeBron-led playoff offense, there was also a healthy dose of matchup-hunting.<\/p>\n

They went after Reed Sheppard<\/a>, getting him involved to navigate screens<\/a>, goading him into unfavorable switches, forcing him to defend Marcus Smart post-ups<\/a>, and even a transition seal from Smart for good measure.<\/p>\n

Obviously, the health of Kevin Durant<\/a> looms large over this series. But Houston\u2019s defense can\u2019t break down the way it did in Game 1. The Lakers deserve a ton of credit for their offensive purpose, variety, and incredible shotmaking. The Rockets simply have to tighten the screws \u2014 some of their breakdowns were incredibly loud \u2014 regardless of if Durant returns or not.<\/p>\n

Celtics-76ersKey number to watch: 43.8%<\/p>\n

With Joel Embiid<\/a> out for Game 1, and potentially the first round entirely, attention rightfully shifted to Tyrese Maxey<\/a>. He\u2019s played at an All-NBA level all season, and they\u2019d need that version of him (if not more) to hang with this Celtics<\/a> team.<\/p>\n

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They didn\u2019t get that from Maxey in Game 1\u2019s loss<\/a> \u2014 or anyone, really.<\/p>\n

Maxey led the team with 21 points, but went 7-of-16 (43.8%) on shots inside the arc, continuing his season-wide struggles against them despite his career-season (52.5%) overall. He also went 1-of-4 from deep; considering how far back the Celtics\u2019 bigs were dropping in pick-and-roll, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m more bothered by the singular make or the four attempts.<\/p>\n

The inside the arc bit is really what I want to focus on, because I think it represents a clear-but-attainable growth-area for Maxey. He\u2019s an absolute speed demon with awkward-foot gathers and growing foul-drawing craft. He\u2019s growing more comfortable as a floater artist and pull-up middy threat.<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s not completely there yet, and the Celtics know it.<\/p>\n

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Maxey saw at least one help defender on 90% of his drives, leading to inconsistent process from him. On the high end, he was able to get into the teeth of the defense for fouls or finishes, or beat some of the funky rotations the Celtics were sprinkling in by advancing the ball to the wing and letting that person make a play against tilted defenses.<\/p>\n

On the low end, his pacing felt a smidge too fast. That, combined with early pickups for foul-drawing attempts, were understandable from a process standpoint, but also put him (and the Sixers\u2019 transition defense) in trouble at times.<\/p>\n

I ultimately think he\u2019s going to be fine, and surely the Sixers will make more open shots than they did on Sunday. But it is worth noting they need Maxey to hit all the notes to compensate for the overall talent edge.<\/p>\n

Thunder-SunsKey number to watch: 0.61<\/p>\n

I\u2019m running out of things to say about the Thunder defense.<\/p>\n

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They were the league\u2019s stingiest unit this year; with Cleaning The Glass\u2019 garbage time-removed tracking, they were one of the best defenses in modern history relative to league average. They have dawgs everywhere; when they\u2019re humming, they can choke the life out of offenses in a way that\u2019s mildly uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

(THIS IS NOT THE SPACE TO FILE YOUR REF COMPLAINTS. DO THAT ELSEWHERE.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s safe to say they were humming on Sunday, holding the Phoenix Suns to 84 points in a dominant Game 1 victory<\/a>. The Suns could only muster an 89.7 offensive rating<\/a> before garbage time kicked in; their 62.0 offensive rating in the half-court reads like a typo.<\/p>\n

You should be familiar with the Thunder ethos by now; insane ball pressure that can extend, never-ending physicality off the ball, coverage versatility with their bigs, and a willingness to switch (and scram switch) whenever they feel the need to. We gotta talk about the way they swarm and recover, though.<\/p>\n

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Like, what is this?<\/p>\n

It felt like any time a Suns player \u2014 Devin Booker<\/a>, Jalen Green<\/a>, and Dillon Brooks<\/a> logged double digit attacks \u2014 attempted to get downhill, they were thwarted by pristine screen navigation, slowed by a Thunder big creeping up to give their navigator time to recover, or a third Thunder player was nearby to make them think twice (or thrice) about what they were doing.<\/p>\n

Overall, the Suns logged 40 drives with at least one Thunder help defender present, just the 16th time they\u2019ve seen help that often this season. This was easily their worst performance among those games, generating [checks notes] 0.61 points per possession on those trips.<\/p>\n

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Their pathway to finding more success involves finding more room to breathe; a daunting task against this unit, but, as the regular-season matchups showed, not an impossible one.<\/p>\n

Pistons-MagicKey number to watch: 0<\/p>\n

Whew, buddy, what a game from the Orlando Magic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Their offense was likely the story for a lot of people, and rightfully so. It would appear #PlayoffPaolo is a real thing after putting Detroit<\/a> in the blender with the kind of driving oomph, jumper efficiency, and overall processing speed that makes you wonder, aloud, \u201cWhy the heck can he not do this all the time?!\u201d<\/p>\n

Attached to that was the decisiveness and timely contributions of the others. Jalen Suggs<\/a>\u2019 hot start; the second half exploits of Franz Wagner<\/a> and Desmond Bane<\/a>; the consistently good decision-making in the short-roll from Wendell Carter Jr.<\/a> It was there, and it was impressive.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019d like to shift to the defense, in which the Magic were also excellent. One of the things that popped early was their willingness to mix coverages against Cade Cunningham<\/a> in ball screens \u2014 sometimes it\u2019s a switch, sometimes it\u2019s a drop, sometimes it\u2019s ICE coverage and you don\u2019t know how high (or not) the big will be.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to see what kind of impact that can have on Cade, though he wound up having a phenomenal game as he got increasingly more comfortable. The real story is what that mixture did to take away Jalen Duren<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Magic\u2019s help defense \u2014 and the timeliness of that help \u2014 shined throughout the game. The switching naturally took away some of the easy pockets on Duren\u2019s rolls to the basket. When dealing with more traditional coverages, the Magic were dutiful in their tags \u2014 and occasionally audacious with their rotations.<\/p>\n

The example below isn\u2019t a ball screen, but the same principle applies. Duren gets a favorable matchup to seal, but he\u2019s getting nothing easy.<\/p>\n

That brings me to this: Sunday\u2019s Game 1 was the second time all season that the Cade-Duren pairing ran at least 20 pick-and-rolls with Duren logging zero shot attempts or drawing a shooting foul. You\u2019d have to go back to Nov. 10 \u2014 the 45-shot, \u201cI\u2019m not bleepin\u2019 losing\u201d effort from Cade in the shorthanded Pistons\u2019 overtime win over the Wizards<\/a> \u2014 to find the other one.<\/p>\n

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Place this in the \u201cduh\u201d box, but that simply can\u2019t happen moving forward. Duren has to be more involved in ball screens \u2014 maybe we see an uptick in empty side actions in Game 2. Outside of the ball screen context, he just needs to be more assertive, period. We know he has it in him.<\/p>\n

Spurs-Trail BlazersKey number to watch: 107.1<\/p>\n

Similar to the Cavs-Raptors matchup, I was excited to see this one largely because we didn\u2019t have a reliable regular-season sample to take info from. Multiple key Blazers were missing during the meetings and, most notably, Victor Wembanyama<\/a> didn\u2019t appear in any of the matchups.<\/p>\n

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Question No. 1 for me was a simple one: Who were they going to give the Wemby assignment to?<\/p>\n

To my cross-matching delight, the Blazers gave the keys to Toumani Camara<\/a> (and Jerami Grant<\/a> when he subbed in), with Donovan Clingan<\/a> (and Robert Williams<\/a> when he subbed in) roaming off Stephon Castle<\/a> or whichever wing the Blazers dubbed as the least threatening shooter.<\/p>\n

The opening possession of the game highlighted the theory behind the matchups. You can, ideally, mute some of the impact of the perimeter-based actions with Wemby. You can turn ball screens featuring him and De\u2019Aaron Fox<\/a> into switches. With Clingan staying near the paint, you can maintain a rim protecting and rebounding presence.<\/p>\n

You can see it here, too:<\/p>\n

The box score will say it didn\u2019t work \u2014 Wemby dropped 35 in his playoff debut, and the Spurs ultimately snagged a 111-98 victory<\/a> \u2014 but I\u2019d push back a bit. I\u2019d argue it didn\u2019t ultimately matter because of the game result, but the gambit largely did what it was supposed to.<\/p>\n

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Second Spectrum tracks who\u2019s guarding who in half-court settings, and the who\u2019s-guarding-Wemby split, positionally, was probably louder than it felt in real time.<\/p>\n

Guarded by Clingan or Williams: 15 points on 14 matchups (107.1 points per 100 half-court matchups)<\/p>\n

Guarded by Camara or Grant: 9 points on 28 matchups (32.1 points per 100 half-court matchups)<\/p>\n

To be clear, that wing-based number is still good, but the Blazers obviously felt (and likely still feel) that this sort of cross-matching is more tenable for their defense.<\/p>\n

Zoom out, and the Spurs only had a 90.5 offensive rating in the half-court \u2014 that\u2019s well below their regular-season average<\/a> (102.4, 4th). You could argue the Blazers did their job on that front; they just can\u2019t afford to have an even lower offensive rating in the half-court (87.5) like they did in Game 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019ve officially made it through the opening game of each NBA playoff series. It\u2019s important not to overreact…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[676,1013,7,45,909,1828,136,46,919,305,1314,187,1243,497,296,2292,1195,974,864,576,403,677,194,288,912,861,461,762,560,1178,5673,936,327,563,938,304,300,185,368,1171,326,6,253,493,76,472,1081,7209,3218,96,26517,930,911,680,7140,1263,693,454,683],"class_list":{"0":"post-714707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-austin-reaves","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-boston","12":"tag-cade-cunningham","13":"tag-cam-johnson","14":"tag-cavs","15":"tag-celtics","16":"tag-chicago","17":"tag-cleveland","18":"tag-deaaron-fox","19":"tag-denver-nuggets","20":"tag-derrick-white","21":"tag-desmond-bane","22":"tag-detroit","23":"tag-devin-booker","24":"tag-dillon-brooks","25":"tag-donovan-clingan","26":"tag-donovan-mitchell","27":"tag-evan-mobley","28":"tag-franz-wagner","29":"tag-hawks","30":"tag-houston-rockets","31":"tag-jalen-brunson","32":"tag-jalen-duren","33":"tag-jalen-green","34":"tag-jalen-suggs","35":"tag-jamal-murray","36":"tag-james-harden","37":"tag-jarrett-allen","38":"tag-jerami-grant","39":"tag-joel-embiid","40":"tag-josh-hart","41":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","42":"tag-kevin-durant","43":"tag-knicks","44":"tag-lakers","45":"tag-lebron-james","46":"tag-luka-doncic","47":"tag-luke-kennard","48":"tag-marcus-smart","49":"tag-nba","50":"tag-nikola-jokic","51":"tag-onyeka-okongwu","52":"tag-orlando-magic","53":"tag-phoenix-suns","54":"tag-reed-sheppard","55":"tag-robert-williams","56":"tag-schroder","57":"tag-sixers","58":"tag-spencer-jones","59":"tag-stephon-castle","60":"tag-tim-hardaway-jr","61":"tag-toronto","62":"tag-toumani-camara","63":"tag-tyrese-maxey","64":"tag-victor-wembanyama","65":"tag-wendell-carter-jr","66":"tag-wizards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}