Elite when healthy: The NBA’s “hidden” contenders

The shape of this year’s playoffs will be determined by how so many injury rehabilitations go over the next month. Kyle Lowry, Kevin Love, Kevin Durant. Even though all three players are surrounded by incredibly strong teams, those teams will really only feel like true title contenders as long as they’re on the floor.

The next NBA champion to experience bad injury luck will be the first one. With these little injuries showing just how quickly championship windows can slam shut — or blow wide open — I wondered which contending (or contending-ish) teams have secretly been posting brilliant records in the limited moments when their full squad is healthy. Teams with some very meek-looking overall records suddenly look dangerous with the right starting five in place. If you see these surprisingly successful starting lineups make it intact to the postseason, you might have to throw those seed-numbers out the window:

6. Dallas Mavericks: 7-3 (70%)

Yogi Ferrell / Seth Curry / Wes Matthews / Harrison Barnes / Dirk Nowitzki

It’s remarkable that the Mavericks just didn’t pack it in, mentally, after skidding to a 2-13 start to the season. Currently sitting at just 3.5 games behind the eighth-seed Denver Nuggets, Dallas could easily leapfrog over the rest of the Western Conference’s middle class (Sacramento, New Orleans, Minnesota) given that they’re playing their very best basketball of the year. Just a few games after their new-look starting lineup clicked into place, the Mavericks also made their bench unit simultaneously younger and better with a heist of a trade for Nerlens Noel. Dallas’ roster is flush with underrated 3-point shooters — but they’ve picked up a tough defensive identity pretty much in the middle of this season.

5. Atlanta Hawks: 15-6 (71.4%)

Dennis Schröder / Kent Bazemore / Thabo Sefolosha / Paul Millsap / Dwight Howard

Two years after he appeared in the All-Star Game, something funny happened between Kyle Korver and the Hawks: what was once a perfect NBA marriage was no longer in-sync. In the 21 games Korver started for the Hawks this year, the team went just 9-12. From this perspective, Atlanta’s move to trade Korver to Cleveland wasn’t really waving the white flag in the air.

Korver on the floor made the Hawks a much worse defensive unit — and with a bottom-five per-possession offense, Atlanta relies entirely on their defense. The phenomenal defensive trio of Sefolosha, Millsap, and Howard absolutely locks up opposing offenses, allowing just a 99.9 offensive rating when they are on the floor together. (That’s way better than San Antonio’s league-best defense.) Even though they have the average margin of victory of a lottery-bound team, the Hawks are in good position to challenge the Toronto Raptors and Washington Wizards for playoff seeding thanks to their new lineup.

4. Boston Celtics: 17-6 (73.9%)

Isaiah Thomas / Avery Bradley / Jae Crowder / Amir Johnson / Al Horford

Looking at Boston’s record with this lineup, their intended starting lineup, makes one feel that maybe we’ve underrated Danny Ainge’s team-building vision thus far. The Celtics have only been fully healthy for about a third of the season — all other lineups have gone 22-16 — and still they sit in the Eastern Conference’s second seed, within striking distance of the Cavaliers. Even though it feels like Horford has underwhelmed, statistically, so far with the Celtics, his floor-stretching helps Boston’s offense click like a league-best unit when he’s on the floor.

3. Miami Heat: 14-4 (77.7%)

Goran Dragic / Rodney McGruder / Dion Waiters / Luke Babbitt / Hassan Whiteside

This is the unit that tore off on a 13-game winning streak for the Heat — a streak that, as explored a few weeks ago, would tie for the longest winning streak from a non-winning team in league history. Miami is in danger of losing distinction, but only because the team is getting ever closer to .500 (28-33), not to mention the Eastern Conference playoffs (one game behind the eighth-seed Detroit Pistons).

2. Philadelphia 76ers: 7-2 (77.7%)

T.J. McConnell / Nik Stauskas / Robert Covington / Ersan Ilyasova / Joel Embiid

Uh, what? No, Philadelphia is not a playoff team, but they played exactly like one whenever the transcendent Embiid was paired with the veteran Ilyasova and The Process poster child Covington. With that trio on the floor, Philadelphia toasted their opposition by more than nine points per 100 possessions, a truly elite differential.

On the one hand, that’s exciting for Philadelphia fans: a healthy Embiid plus being just semi-aggressive in free agency means the playoffs are totally attainable. On the other hand, this incredible lineup makes the Sixers’ quiet trade of Ilyasova to the Hawks something less than a slam dunk. Philadelphia should be beyond anything approaching tanking now that they own the right to pick-swap with the Boogie-less Sacramento Kings. Ilyasova helped this team win, and the morale boost of winning really did need to happen for this team at some point. Is giving that up worth a single second-round pick? Back-end second-round picks can be purchased on the night-of if it really feels necessary.

The 2016-17 Sixers haven’t just been playing like a playoff team when mighty Embiid is on the floor. Honestly, they’ve been playing pretty much like a playoff team whenever Jahlil Okafor is off the floor. The team is 6-20 when Okafor starts, 5-11 when he comes off the bench, and 11-7 in games when he doesn’t play.

1. Utah Jazz: 10-2 (83.3%)

George Hill / Rodney Hood / Gordon Hayward / Derrick Favors / Rudy Gobert

A tip of the hat is owed: the Jazz broadcast highlighted this starting lineup’s strong record as they were handling the red-hot Wizards on the road. With all their players healthy for the first time this year, Utah’s desired starting lineup is just learning how to play together. In fact, in under 150 total minutes as a five-man unit, this lineup is actually getting outscored despite the obscene record they’ve posted together. What’s really important is the three-man combo of Hill, Hayward, and Gobert: all three are top 25 players in ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus, and Utah blows the doors off opponents when they’re united.

Next: Kevin Durant injury opens door for Warriors' young bench

Plus, this starting lineup helps set up Utah’s super deep bench just right: Joe Johnson, Boris Diaw, Joe Ingles, Alec Burks, and Trey Lyles can be called on to do their roles without getting stretched too thin. What’s more, there’s no need for Utah to adjust their grinding, league-slowest pace for the defensive dogfight that is the playoffs. The Jazz are the West’s only legit contender who isn’t stocked with name brands — but if this team has any success in the playoffs, don’t call it an upset.