Breaking Down Conference Finals Game 1s With 4 Stats For Each Matchup
Boston, Indiana, Minny and Dallas broke or tied some personal records that tell us a lot about the matchups
I had a lot of thinking over the past several days on whether I should write previews of the conference finals or not, but then I’ve started reading some great insights starting already on Sunday and decided that it would be better to skip that and try to give some quick insights post game 1.
Both Game 1s were very interesting and I’ll try to highlight numbers that might give us the best insight as to why the games turned out the way they did, and what the teams can do to adjust in Game 2s.
MIN - DAL Game 1
To give a brief intro, this is the game where it felt like the Mavs are going to take over the lead sooner or later. It happened rather late in the game, but they did it and pulled away with the win. The Mavs accepted what was thrown to them on defense, and played with it. And they outplayed the Wolves in such a game. Luka Dončić has shown that he is the best player in this series (for now) through many different levels of his game.
But I’ve mentioned I’ll be focusing on some numbers, so let’s get it.
49 FG3A by the Wolves
This is tied for playoff high, along with G1 BOS vs MIA and G3 IND vs MIL. It’s also the 2nd best 3-point rate in the playoffs, only after the Celtics’ performance in G1 vs the Heat. The Wolves attempted 55% of their shots in the form of 3-pointers, there is a good reason for that.
The entire Dallas team is responsible for that, starting from Daniel Gafford and Derrick Lively II who had really good performances, they managed to play well in both drop and hedge situations, and even more than that they helped down low to take away shots inside the 3-point arc.
But people who are responsible even more for such a result are definitely PJ Washington and Derrick Jones Jr. They played stifling defense on Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards (respectively). DJJ kept fighting over the screens and was incredibly quick to recover onto Edwards, thus taking away any possible drive toward the rim, or even in the paint/mid-range. Even though Ant is a great 3-point shooter (5/12 is okay efficiency for 3-pointers), he does the most damage when he can drive the lane and score inside.
But let’s get back to team effort, because the Mavs’ intention from the start was to stop the Edwards drive, and basically threw everyone at Ant when he was driving, the first line of defense was the key in that, but the help was very timely in all situations. The Mavs were doing all that at the expense of leaving Rudy Gobert and Kyle Anderson open. Anderson managed to punish such situations as he was mostly situated outside of the paint making it obviously visible that he was wide open and making it an easy kick out.
That also resulted in a lot of shots by some other players, such as Jaden McDaniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Naz Reid, and Mike Conley.
But the bigger issue is that Gobert and similar players were missed when cutting toward the rim, and that leads us to 2nd number
-24 Difference in Points in the Paint
This play is the epitome of what I’m trying to say. If you swap Edwards with Dončić (or Kyrie) and have this same situation, they would dump it off to Gobert who should then slam it down.
But here we have another issue, and that is whether Gobert is skilled enough to finish these situations. I’m sure he would’ve slammed down the alley-oop if it were thrown to him, but when he was on the ground he looked very clumsy and wasn’t able to finish the play(s).
He and KAT managed to connect on a lot of 4-5 pick and rolls and it’s very surprising that Towns was able to find Rudy more often than Edwards.
Actually, when you look at the assist distribution by Edwards in the playoffs, it’s not that surprising. Over the course of the entire playoffs, Edwards has assisted Gobert ONLY 3 TIMES (Jazz flashbacks). Only Anderson and Morris have been assisted less than that (twice and once, respectively).
Edwards still managed to rack up 8 assists, but none of them were as an easy shot as this one on the previous play - as most of his assists are for a 3-point shot. I mean, a wide-open 3-point shot is a good shot, don’t get me wrong, but the way the Mavs (and the Nuggets, in the previous series) managed to shut down Edwards’ inside game is very concerning.
On the other hand, the Mavs managed to continually reach the paint, either through the creation of Dončić or through some great off-ball movement, something that the Wolves aren’t practicing as much.
This Kyrie cut is technically outside of the Paint (I think), but it’s a great example of punishing top-locking defense.
35 Paint/Mid-Range shots and 21 Assists + The Drop
The other factor other than better passing inside is the drop defense. The Mavs still had only 21 assists, their 4th lowest number in the playoffs, and that’s because both Kyrie and Luka played A LOT of iso basketball, because they could.
Okay, pick and roll was more often than iso, but whenever Gobert was in the drop, the two of them went to work and created shots for themselves. The Mavs as a team had 10/22 inside the paint (outside the RA) and 6/13 shots from the mid-range, with the majority of the shots coming from Kyrie and Luka of course - combined 15/29 on those shots!!
In total, Luka and Kyrie scored or created in total 88 out of 108 points! It was a 2-man power show.
It’s Jail Time
While Kyrie is more of a line-drive attacker and flashes straight down the lane, Luka takes his time as he continuously jailed Jaden McDaniels.
This was Luka’s second shot of the game, and this theme continued throughout the game, no matter how well McDaniels played defense in the drop, Luka kept going at him by jailing him until he pulled up for a shot.
How to adjust to this? The Wolves already did so, it’s by blitzing/doubling both Luka and Kyrie when they have the ball and forcing them to pass to the screener. That leads us to the next number/stat.
7 / 10 Above the break 3s
P.J. Washington was tremendous at shooting through the playoffs. He was making almost 3 shots at over 40% before this game. In this one, he was good for only 2/8 from the 3-point range (this knocks him below the 40% mark).
The main reason was that most of the shots (6/8) came from the ATB area, and he missed all 6 of them. Derrick Jones Jr. also shot 1 from the ATB area and missed that one as well.
So the Wolves found a good way to attack Dončić and Kyrie, but here is the kicker and the problem for the Wolves: Lively, PJ, and DJJ played great when they put the ball to the floor, they continuously found free players with skip passes, or got to the rim, or got fouled for the free throws. I felt like Gafford had the most trouble out of such situations and that’s something they need to emphasize more in the next games.
The keys moving forward
Will Kleber be missed? Will PJ rebound from the 3-point range? Kleber playing out of pick and pop might come in very handy in this series, but if PJ can go for 2/7 (for example) from ATB that might be good enough for Dallas
Can the Wolves get Ant going? They need to include him more from off the ball actions, in that way, the Mavs have less time to react and less time to bunch inside the paint. My bet would be to include player that Luka is defending as a screener.
KAT's shot-making. KAT had some good drives, but some were very tough against good defense by PJ + Lively/Gafford on the help. I think some of them will fall in the next games, similar to the Denver series where he was hot and cold.
Can Kyrie and Luka out-ISO the Wolves in every game? If key number one fails, we default to this once again. Luka and Kyrie both closed the game out with some crucial iso plays (without the screener being involved). That’s a tough task, but they are indeed two of the best in this
Can the Wolves force TOVs? The Wolves had only 9 points off the turnovers yesterday, and the Mavs are known as a team that doesn’t make many mistakes. The turnover battle will be crucial as every point will matter in such a tight series.
Can the Wolves involve Gobert more and can Rudy contribute? Ant needs to look in Rudy’s direction more, it’s he and Anderson who are being sagged off the most when collapsing towards Ant.
BOS - IND Game 1
Let’s get right into it with a number.
101.43 pace
That was the calculated pace of the game through the NBA’s advanced box score data. That is good enough for the 2nd fastest-paced game of the playoffs.
And it really seemed like that. The Pacers were pushing the ball up the floor as well as they did vs the tired Knicks. Almost half of their shots (41 out of 99) came inside the first 9 seconds. That’s something that many people emphasized in the previews for this series - if there is a weak spot in the Celtics’ defense, it’s their transition defense. They managed to involve Pascal Siakam in those early attacks to drive against mismatches/crossmatches and create a lot of good shots.
Here is an example of pushing the ball up the floor after a missed shot. Aaron Nesmith was often the one running down the floor at the start of the play and trying to get a quick bucket.
The Celtics didn’t shy away from running, as a matter of fact, 3 out of their first 4 buckets came from fast breaks. And as usual, their game looks the best when they start to drive and kick just as they enter the half court.
In overall, it was a crazy fast game, that looked a lot more like regular season than 90% of other games.
Turnover Bonanza - 15 vs 22 and 3 Important Ones
The Pacers had a playoff-high (or low?) 22 turnovers in this game. That’s why the Celtics had more possessions, and more chances at the rim, and in the end, that’s why they won this game.
However, the Pacers managed to survive all of the dumb mistakes throughout the game and get the biggest lead they’ve had just as the game was nearing the end only to literally throw it all away in the last minute. There were 3 crucial mistakes in the last minute, 2 of which were turnovers
0:57 Hali difficult step-back 3 miss with 15 seconds on the shot clock and +3 in score
0:27 Haliburton lost the ball with no one around
0:08 Pacers not being able to inbound the ball, get fouled and go to the FT line
On top of that, they didn’t foul Brown before he shot the ball, but it would be ludicrous to focus on that with these 3 other huge mistakes.
The fast pace cost both of the teams, as the Celtics had a playoff-high 15 turnovers as well, but in the crunch time (last minute + OT) they had only 2 of those. The maturity and experience showed up big time in those moments (okay, other than that Tatum shot).
53.5% in a Loss
Other than the turnovers, the Pacers were great offensively, they’ve had 53.5% field goal percentage, which is the highest FG% in a loss in this year’s playoffs!
I really thought the G7 performance versus the Knicks was due to the Knicks’ players being tired, but the Pacers kept finding the mismatches, kept shooting well from open 3-pointers, and were in great flow and rhythm.
23 by Turner
Turner is the real x-factor of this series. Without Porzingis on the floor, The Celtics are giving Luke Kornet heavy minutes, and Turner made them pay for that. He kept attacking him and kept popping when Horford was on the floor. This is his 4th highest points total in the playoffs, with all 3 higher totals coming from this year’s playoffs. Turner has been quietly one of the most important pieces of this team - even though the focus has shifted towards Siakam since the trade.
The thing Turner has finally started doing is rolling with intent toward the rim. His rolls and cuts have become very dangerous, and many of them came with a dunk. Ever since the Sabonis-Haliburton trade, Turner has started playing inside more, and attacking off the bounce a lot more, and his improvement is very visible.
28 by the Other J(ay)
Jaylen Brown was pulling the Celtics in the 1st half, then Jayson Tatum took over in the 2nd half, especially in the OT with 10 points and basically winning the game by himself. The two of them combined for 62 points, and it seemed like no one other than Nesmith (who played great defensively, especially on Tatum - but had a horrible offensive game in my opinion, cost the Pacers big time in the 3rd quarter) and Siakam could keep the two of them in check.
That was expected, because When I wrote here about the Cavs-Celtics series, I mentioned that Tatum and Brown often used their size difference in 1v1 matchups with Okoro/Levert/Strus. Well, that difference is even more visible here. The JAY-guard screens were often used by the Cs, and that didn't end well for the Pacers if Turner didn't help and intervene. The issue is then that Horford is wide open of course, and that was a gamble they kept taking, and it kept paying off for them.
But we have to mention the Other J(ay) as well. Jrue Holiday had a huge role in game 1. He was trying to fight off Siakam on the defensive side of the ball - it didn’t work that well so they switched it up - and along with that, he was also attacking Pacers’ small guards.
Even though only TJ is shorter than him, Jrue has about 20 lbs on each of the Pacers’ guards, and it shows big time as he kept going against them down low until he scored.
Jrue was very aggressive throughout the game, and he ended up with 28 points on 10/16 shooting. This is not a common thing for him anymore. 28 points is the 4th highest total number in his playoff career and his highest total in this season (regular+playoff) by 6 points.
If they can use their size advantage even with Jrue, they’re going to have a huge advantage, because as much as I don’t like Celtics going all ISO-ball, they have a much better group of players for it than the Pacers where I can see only Siakam as a reliable scorer.
The Keys moving forward
How will the Pacers defend Guard-Guard(Forward) screens? The Celtics started attacking the Pacers’ guards straight from the start, and Brown, Tatum, and others took advantage of it. Blitzing shoved some promise, but they need to rotate better as they allowed 21 wide-open shots from the 3-point range - that’s a huge risk, but maybe the best way to defend?
Can the Pacers control the 4 factors? The Pacers have a good chance at beating the Cs in eFG%, but offensive rebounds, FT rate/%, and turnovers seem like a tough battle to win. They were controlling the boards until late 4th + OT when the Celtics started to crash while Horford was stretching the floor. And the Cs guards were once again responsible for that. The Pacers will have to give up a chance to push the pace in order to control the boards
Can Haliburton keep the shooting streak going? The entire 2nd part of the season was rough for Haliburton, but in the last 2 games he’s managed to hit some of his signature step back shots. Hali is also known as a very “safe” player, meaning that he doesn’t make many mistakes, but he was arguably the most responsible for this loss, as he had some bad moments late in the 4th. Could be nervousness and inexperience, but I believe he’ll bounce back.
How to contain Siakam/Turner? I mentioned that Kornet struggles with containing Turner, but Horford wasn’t any better when defending Siakam though. The speed difference is obvious, and both of them can attack either of the Cs’ big men off the dribble. Porzingis also isn’t ideal in that, but he can move better than both of them. It’s not a big issue though, and the Cs shouldn’t rush Porzingis back
How to stop Tatum and Brown? Yeah, this is connected with the 1st point, but Tatum and Brown have been quietly impressive. They are consistent, make tough shots look easy, and despite a blurb here and there that gets talked about a lot, they generally take good shots. I do wish that they attack the paint more in comparison to taking a 3-point shot (same as I do with Dončić) but that’s also part of their game. It’s really tough to find a weak spot for the Celtics, as the Pacers shot 53.5% from the field and still lost…
Thanks for reading. I think we’ll have great Game 2s ahead of us, until then, have a good day(s)!