Understanding the playoff rotations of NBA championship contenders
Even as several coinciding debates about playing time, rest and workload go on around the league, one thing remains unequivocal: The playoffs are the most important part of the NBA schedule. As more fans around the country cling to its news cycle with each passing spring month, uncertainty takes hold as we all try to remember how we got here. The best way to understand a team’s recent history and predict its short-term future is to understand who is playing, and for what reasons.
Once the playoffs come, some of the best context for a team’s performance relative to their expectation can be drawn from who is on the court for that team. To get a better picture of each contending team’s playoff rotation, I spoke with team experts across the league and asked them the most pressing questions regarding each team’s core group.
Contending here is defined primarily as teams in the top 10 (or extremely close to it) in both offensive and defensive efficiency. Two other teams, the Rockets and Cavaliers, were included as a result of their historic performance on one end (Houston) or status as reigning champions (Cleveland). These are the six teams (in alphabetical order by city) with a legitimate shot at holding the Larry O’Brien trophy at season’s end. Looking into the crystal ball at their top 10 (or less) guys holds tremendous value in analyzing how close they might get to being that last team standing.
Celtics — No. 8 offense, No. 11 defense
Starters: Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley, Jae Crowder, Amir Johnson, Al Horford
Key Bench Players: Marcus Smart, Terry Rozier, Jonas Jerebko, Kelly Olynyk, Jaylen Brown, Tyler Zeller
Biggest Key: Defense and rebounding. They say consistency is key, and so then maybe we should have some sort of trophy for the Celtics, who have made a habit out of struggling to protect the rim and control possessions under Brad Stevens. They haven’t made any real effort to plug that leak in-season or during the summer in any of the past several years outside of signing Horford, who even at his best was under-sized and far from an elite athlete.
Boston is relying far too heavily on Johnson, a good rotation player but probably not someone who should be playing top-5 minutes for a top team. Yet his spot on the rotation is backed up by the fact that he is fourth on the team in win shares, due in large part to solid offensive rebounding and shooting numbers, along with the highest defensive box plus-minus on the team. For better or worse, Johnson is entrenched as a rotation player for this year’s Celtics.
Troubled by this phenomenon, I reached out to Michael Pina, who covers the Celtics for Bleacher Report. His words were not so encouraging:
"“Amir is arguably their best frontcourt defender and they’ll lean on him as much as they have to, but their main small units have performed pretty well since the All-Star break. Rebounding is still an issue, but it’s not as soul-crippling as it was in the first few months of the season.”"
The Celtics are helped by the steadying presence of Crowder and Smart on the glass, two hard-nosed players who rebound well for their position. As Pina noted above, Boston’s small lineups have performed well since February. Those will almost always include Smart and Crowder, and that’s not coincidental.
What to Watch: Who plays?
It isn’t complicated: The best coaches play lots of guys. Stevens — a newcomer to that group but one of its most influential partners nonetheless — is no exception. 10 Celtics have played over 1000 minutes, while 12 are above or around 500.
One of the most shocking entrants into the heart of Boston’s rotation during the regular season has been Rozier, a Summer League baller who was forced into a more prominent role thanks to R.J. Hunter being cut and Bradley getting injured. He’s perhaps gained more notoriety on Twitter than on actual NBA broadcasts, thanks to Celtics’ fans resistance to his inclusion in any and all trades, such as those centered around Jimmy Butler and Paul George this winter.
Pina told me is not as zealous about Rozier’s prospects as a legitimate member of Boston’s core. He called Rozier one of the more disappointing players on the team relative to expectation this year, even considering his surprise production. Pina believes Rozier’s lack of confidence would be devastating in the playoffs, and that Rozier might only play in emergency situations, dictated by matchup and health.
If we assume he’s out, then the last two question marks are Zeller (played a ton two years ago, not so much at all last year) and Jerebko (used quite a bit this season). Pina was rather plain in discussing these two:
"“If their opponent likes to go small (Heat), Jerebko will eat. If their opponent favors two bigs (Pacers), Zeller will eat.”"
Boston’s big men are not very versatile outside of Jerebko, who can play a stretch four role against small teams. So the Celtics have to be hoping that they are matched up against a team that does play small, so as to maximize their own strengths. They will be at a relative offensive disadvantage whenever Horford shares the floor with either of Johnson or Zeller, and Jerebko’s presence ensures that will have to happen only against the most imposing front lines.
Cavaliers — No. 3 offense, No. 24 defense
Starters: Kyrie Irving, J.R. Smith, LeBron James, Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson
Key Bench Players: Kyle Korver, Channing Frye, Deron Williams, Iman Shumpert, Richard Jefferson
Biggest Key: Health. Before a few weeks ago, Cleveland hadn’t played a single game in which all 10 of the guys listed above were at full health. Think about that for a second, and how it might inhibit the defending champs’ ability to return to the level they’d need to reach to challenge their opponent from the past two NBA Finals.
Since trading for Korver in January, the Cavaliers have leaned heavily on his shooting and the spacing and scoring it provides. I asked Fear the Sword editor (and Step Back writer) Chris Manning about Korver, and he told me to expect Smith and Korver playing together in the playoffs as much as possible. Their shooting, combined with decent size and playmaking skills relative to most pure shooters, would be a matchup problem whenever they shared the floor.
What to Watch: Big versus small. Manning added that Cleveland’s ability to play small could pose a threat to certain teams at the top of the league. They can juggle Thompson, Love and Frye without shaking things up too much, as all three have been on the team for at least two seasons.
Of course, they also possess the ultimate offensive trump card with James at the four, putting lineups on the floor with James as the chief playmaker and four elite shooters around him. Per NBA.com, Cleveland is four points better on offense when James is on the floor without Thompson. Their scoring rate over 872 Thompson-less minutes would lead the entire league (then again, they score at a league-leading rate whenever James is on the court).
So then much as last season a big deciding factor was who stepped up off the ball or as a backup for Irving and James (Matthew Dellavedova), this season the Cavs are suddenly looking for two-way players who can make their smallest lineups work. Korver, Williams and Frye are not traditionally thought of as dominant defenders, but if they can change tighten up in the postseason, the most Heat-like version of this Cleveland team could flourish in May.
The idea that Cleveland can tighten up its defense is appearing more and more laughable as the season wears on, though. They have been miserable since before the All-Star break; even their best wins have come when they outscore their opponent in the mid-100s. Going small, even for the best and switchiest teams, is going to make the basic tenets of defense more difficult to pull off.
Most things with a LeBron James team revolve around LeBron James. If he still has that playoff gear defensively, maybe the concerns won’t matter. If he can slide to power forward and help protect the rim and defend smaller players, there may be nothing to worry about. But we’re getting further from that point of view as the team’s struggles continue.
As Manning put it to me, “I think going small would mean either Love or Thompson at center when it matters, and picking between them is fascinating. You kind of have to pick offensive rebounding and switchability vs. your third best player who maximizes spacing and offensive potential.”
Warriors — No. 1 offense, No. 2 defense
Starters: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, Zaza Pachulia
Key Bench Players: Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, Ian Clark, David West
Biggest Key: Kevin Durant. It’s boring, but at this point in the season, the biggest factor in separating the top teams from one another is health. Players acquired at the trade deadline or on waivers have settled in, and the fight for fresh legs is as impactful as anything happening in the standings.
Granted, the Warriors have won eight straight even without Durant, as the stars of last year’s 73-win behemoth have remembered the defensive, Curry-centric identity that did them so well last season. They’re back up to second in defense thanks in large part to the group of young players who have stepped up replacing some of the departed depth pieces from last year.
Durant too helped the defense tremendously. His Defensive Box Plus-Minus (an estimate of a player’s impact on the box score per 100 possessions) is almost double the next-highest number he’s had in any season. Ditto for blocks per 36 minutes. By almost any metric, this is the most impactful defensive season Durant has ever had, and that impact has allowed the Warriors to survive without the interior players they’ve had in seasons past.
What to Watch: The big men. A team spending so much money (over $71 million) on the perimeter and wing is going to have problems filling out its frontcourt rotation. This season, the players competing for playing time down low in Oakland have been Pachulia, JaVale McGee, James Michael McAdoo, West and Kevon Looney. I asked NBA Wowy founder and Warriors blogger Evan Zamir about how that rotation might shake out.
Though Zamir believes it’s almost impossible for a great team to have too much big man depth, he does not expect McAdoo to get more than 20 minutes total over the course of the entire postseason. Past that, he believes the rotation gets shaved to Pachulia, West and McGee in the postseason, with McGee being the first out if Kerr were to tighten things even further.
Remember that lineups featuring Green and no other big men have outscored opponents by almost 10 points per 100 possessions this season. That weapon will be particularly devastating once Durant returns and coach Steve Kerr can comfortably play his stars heavier minutes. It’s enticing to just say the Warriors only need two big men to soak up up about 30 total minutes, but we know that’s not how Kerr works. He is the wild card, as ever.
On those lineups, generally referred to with various iterations of “Death”, Zamir said “I think he’ll go to it as much as he can when games are close and he wants to run talented bigs off the court. I expect we would see it a lot against Houston and San Antonio.”
To death, or not to death?
Rockets — No. 2 offense, No. 16 defense
Starters: Patrick Beverley, James Harden, Trevor Ariza, Ryan Anderson, Clint Capela
Key Bench Players: Lou Williams, Eric Gordon, Montrezl Harrell, Nene Hilario
Biggest Key: Defense. The Rockets are only on this list because of their historically great offense, buoyed by a revolutionary system and a transcendent playmaker. They, unlike their counterparts listed above, do not flash a top-10 defense. Instead, they rank right around the middle of the NBA in defensive efficiency, which is just about the lowest they could have sunk while still hovering around contender status.
However, the postseason is when teams double down on their strengths, so expect to see more of the same from Houston come playoff time. They will not suddenly play two traditional bigs or defense-oriented lineups in crunch time. They will spread the floor, get into their offense quickly and shoot heaps of 3-pointers. It’s worked so far, and it will continue to work.
The problem instead will be their ability to hold up on defense whatsoever once less-comfortable lineups start taking the floor. I enlisted the help of The Step Back’s resident Rockets thinker Scott Rafferty, who pointed out that when all three of Williams, Gordon and Harden take the court, they’ve scored remarkably well while still ceding grotesque point totals in return.
With regard to these three-guard looks, Rafferty said, “I wouldn’t be surprised to see more of it because it is so ridiculously hard for teams to slow down. It’s pretty easy for them to create a good look every time down the floor.”
What to Watch: The end of the bench. It’s hard to imagine the Rockets pulling any real tricks out of their sleeves in May, considering D’Antoni’s fairly strict rotations and the lack of many hyper-talented players after the top 10 on this roster. They simply don’t have a ton of options, especially now that Dekker will miss three to four weeks following wrist surgery on Monday.
Houston has nine players over 3.0 win shares this year — Williams doesn’t even make that list. Dekker and fellow youngster Harrell are actually numbers seven and eight in that bunch, and will be competing for that last rotation spot in the playoffs. D’Antoni has crafted a nice blend with Nene as the primary big man backup, the two backup guards listed above and the starters. The ninth spot is up for grabs.
Rafferty pointed out that it may be a matter of matchup, Harrell has become an above-average pick-and-roll finisher, while Dekker has taken up a versatile role like the one he held at Wisconsin. Dekker’s shooting is up to 32.1 percent from the perimeter — below league average, but respectable on a relatively high volume. Depending on the defensive assignment and offensive need from game to game, the role of these two players will fluctuate. D’Antoni is fortunate that he’s found two young players capable of adapting to this new system and contributing immediately.
In an ideal year, Houston needs neither of these guys past the first round. There are eight guys ahead of them capable of carrying heavy loads with more developed skill sets. However, the playoffs make champions out of forgotten characters. Depth matters more than we ever expect it to, and no team (especially Houston) can ever have too much scoring.
Spurs — No. 7 offense, No. 1 defense
Starters: Tony Parker, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, LaMarcus Aldridge, Dewayne Dedmon
Key Bench Players: Patty Mills, Manu Ginobili, Kyle Anderson, Jonathon Simmons, David Lee, Pau Gasol
Biggest Key: Gregg Popovich’s willingness to keep Dedmon on the court. Until this season, it would have only seemed imaginable in a fairy tale to see the Spurs deploy a modern, rim-reaping center for large portions of games. Aron Baynes was the closest thing, but also not really close at all. Dedmon’s ability to impact games from the paint has been a major determinant for the Spurs’ league-leading defense, and it will have to continue to be so into the playoffs if they expect to find success.
San Antonio allows a mere 103.6 points per 100 possessions, a good deal ahead of Golden State’s second-ranked mark. Insert Dedmon into the lineup, however, and that elite number plummets even further to the point that San Antonio actually allows less than one point per possession. Compare that with the team defensive numbers when Gasol — Dedmon’s primary competition for minutes — takes the court, and the decision seems like cake. The Spurs are almost four points worse defensively when Gasol is on the court, and he almost never shares the court with Dedmon. Yet that tradeoff is almost as stark in the positive direction on offense, meaning Popovich has a massive balancing act ahead of him, juggling rotations in NBA postseason games that can flip in a matter of minutes.
I talked with Matthew Tynan about Dedmon, and he expressed the situation as pretty dire:
"“The Spurs’ defense is in trouble without him on the floor. He is capable of corralling guards on the perimeter and deterring bigs at the rim, and he literally gets better by the day.”"
Especially against elite, modern offensive teams like the Warriors and Rockets, Dedmon’s versatile defensive ability is going to become extremely valuable. If he can stay out of foul trouble (4.9 per 36 minutes this season), he might be the key athletic piece that the Spurs have lacked when they’ve been overrun by young teams in the past. That could mean a much different ending to the season than San Antonio has faced recently.
What to Watch: The point guards. That means Mills and Parker, two talented players on opposite sides of the aging parabola. Their relative locations along that curve became quite glaring at various points through the season, with Mills in a contract year and coming off an exciting run with Australia at the Olympics and Parker winding down an illustrious career.
By win shares, Mills has been nearly twice as valuable a player as Parker, and that backs up what we’re seeing on the court. The Frenchman was never known for defense, shooting or athleticism, and his weaknesses in both categories have become more obvious as he has aged. Those two categories aren’t cherry-picked to highlight Parker’s shortcomings — they happen to be exactly the areas in which Mills excels.
He’s at 42 percent from 3-point range this year, his best mark in four years, and hasn’t lost even a step on defense. The former 55th overall pick has become one of the most valuable pieces of a group limiting opponents to the fewest (possession-adjusted) points in the league. He may also be the only reason that a team featuring Gasol, Lee and Parker himself are sitting at 14th in points per transition possession. If Mills isn’t on the court in crunch time, it means he’s had an uncharacteristically ineffective game, or Popovich has stayed loyal to Parker. That’s where the questions come in.
Regarding the Mills-Parker debate, Tynan told me, “It might be one of the two biggest questions facing the Spurs: How much can they play Parker if he can’t do his thing?”
Parker is having his worst shooting season since his third in the league, his worst play-making season since his rookie year and providing almost no value on defense. On the other hand, it’s ludicrous at this point to question the extent and circumstance of the trust the Spurs organization uses to empower its players. Parker will get a chance, as always, to get his game going in the playoffs. His starting spot is probably not in jeopardy.
However, his minutes are also at their lowest average since his rookie season, so San Antonio will be getting a well-rested version of their point guard, in addition to one with something to prove. Even with this in mind, Tynan and I agreed that it will most likely be Mills on the court when it matters most.
Raptors — No. 4 offense, No. 8 defense
Starters: Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, DeMarre Carroll, Serge Ibaka, Jonas Valanciunas
Key Bench Players: Cory Joseph, Patrick Patterson, P.J. Tucker
Biggest Key: Kyle Lowry. The Raptors had been quiet about the exact timeline on Lowry’s return from a wrist injury that has cost him several weeks. He returned to the court on Wednesday, logging 42 minutes while scoring 27 points and dishing out 10 assists in a comeback win against the Pistons. It looked look he had never been apart from the team.
As Blake Murphy of Raptors Republic told me, it shouldn’t be a surprise to see Lowry pick up where he left off minutes-wise:
"“The nice thing here is that Lowry doesn’t believe he’ll be at too big a conditioning loss, so he may only take a handful of games to get back to where he can play 38-40 minutes, as he’ll be needed for in the playoffs.”"
The Raptors have succeeded without Lowry in large part thanks to the contributions of backup point guard Joseph, who has been forced into an extremely heavy minutes load over the past month. He will continue to play big minutes, especially as Lowry rounds back into form, but the Raptors can only go so far as their two backcourt stars can take them. They will need Lowry at full health to make noise in the playoffs.
Just remember how big a story Lowry’s atrocious playoff shooting was last season, even as Toronto pushed the Eastern Conference Finals to six games. If he struggles, Toronto will be hard-pressed to do much better than that this season.
What to Watch: Defense. Murphy is encouraged by what he’s seen from the defense since February’s acquisitions of Ibaka and Tucker. He says that the Raptors enjoy the benefits of versatility that they get when they play Ibaka at center next to three similarly-sized wing players (like DeRozan, Carroll and Tucker).
As such, Valanciunas may be the odd man out unless Toronto needs his size in a specific matchup. Remember last season how the story of their run became Bismack Biyombo, a guy getting minutes totals in the low 20s most nights backing up Valanciunas? That’s a simple result of Valanciunas’ more traditional style fitting poorly into certain, more spaced-out matchups.
Next: NBA Draft Big Board: Post-Tournament fallout
Indeed, the Raptors’ stingy defense has prevented 4.4 points more per 100 possessions since Lowry’s injury than they did before then. Luckily, a healthy Lowry is actually bound to help this team on defense, regardless of their success without him. At his best, Lowry is a bulldog, with feet plenty quick enough to keep up with intricate offenses or transition attacks. If they get him back healthy, Toronto may well have an argument for the best defense in playoffs.