The Shai Game and the Jokić Game

Shai took over game 4. Jokić had the best playoff career game. The Cavs died by the 3.

I’m a day late, and we had a Knicks blowout yesterday, which I didn’t honestly expect, but the Pacers looked completely oomphed, and another classic Nuggets-Wolves game.

I want to focus on the Thunder-Mavs and talk about the Cavs and the Celtics a bit as well. But first:

DEN - MIN Game 5

I’ll just sum it up in several quick takes:

Jokić’s best playoff game ever

Yes, that’s correct, again, I’m going by Basketball-Reference’s game score. But imagine losing Game 4 to a historically good Aaron Gordon just to play ridiculous defense on 3x MVP and probably the best player in the game today and ending up with him scoring 40 points on 68% FG%. Heartbreaking. Nothing else to say honestly.

This shot chart tells a story about the game. Ridiculous post performance by Jokić. Honestly just go and watch all of his shots, that’s some of the most insane shot making I’ve seen this postseason, and we’ve had great performances by Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson, Anthony Edwards, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and more…

Amazing defensive adjustments by the Nuggets

First, they played Gordon on Edwards, but that caused the Wolves to go a lot more often to KAT who had a great first half. Then they matched up Gordon with Towns in the 2nd half, and Gordon slowed him down a bit. And what they did to Edwards was scary. They constantly blitzed, hedged, and doubled him. They also started to double Towns on the catch (that kind of didn’t work as they managed to get open 3s, but it threw KAT off the rhythm).

The Nuggets played the game in a champion manner.

The Wolves were great, but not great enough

Again, as I mentioned in the previous post, the Wolves seem great. Gobert played one hell of a defense on Jokić, but he kept scoring ridiculous shots over him, Ant was working his but off on both sides, and managed to create some shots, but still, he was just smothered and they specifically wanted to shut him down. That worked even more than usual since Mike Conley was out of this game, and they didn’t have another true playmaker who can create the shots (NAW and Monte are great, but they can’t create shots as Conley can).

Now let’s get to the other series.

OKC - DAL Game 4

The entire series is super exciting, and many many things have happened in the previous 3 games, but let’s focus on the latest one.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is THE name of the game. This is his statement game, even though he didn’t need to do any more statements. The Thunder were struggling all game long, and they were behind and couldn’t hit shots through the game (including Shai at some points). And then, in the final 6 minutes of the game, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored or assisted 18/22 points that the Thunder scored. The only points he wasn’t involved in were the thunderous drive and dunk by Jalen Williams and two free throws from Chet (intentional fouls to send him to the line).

His shot chart is crazy. He attempted a single 3-point shot and had a bunch of mid-range shots, most of them coming from a fadeaway and turnaround shots.

I really felt like the Mavs would take this game, and end it in a secure manner, but that never happened, as Kyrie Irving and Luka Dončić were dead cold from everywhere on the court. But the Thunder played them like that, they closed them off early in the offense and forced them to move the ball around. It’s still weird to see both of them miss their shots when they do get the possibility to score from their situations (close-range mid-range shots). Luka also looked a step slower once again. Overall, it’s a real shame to waste great games by your role players - PJ Washington and Derrick Jones Jr. were sublime.

But huge props to the Thunder, because even though their shot wasn’t falling until late 3rd and 4th quarters, they played great defense, controlled the boards (they were qual on offensive boards!), and Chet Holmgren played yet again as a not-a-rookie player. His defensive presence is of almost equal quality as Gobert, Mobley, etc…

Luguentz Dort hit some very important shots in the 2nd half, as well as Cason Wallace who played great defense as well, and could very well take over the starting role from Giddey.

This series is still up in the air, probably the most of all others left, especially as the other two pairs already played their game 5s.

Now onto the last one, a seemingly finished series.

BOS - CLE Game 4

Ahh, the injuries. The Cavs added Donovan Mitchell to their list of injured players, which isn’t really long, but he and Jarrett Allen are maybe even the most important players (I’d put Mobley above Allen maybe, but still…).

Still, the motto of the game would be: Live by the 3, die by the 3.

There’s been a lot of talks about ref robbing them, but I disagree with that… Sure, there might have been 2 or 3 shooting fouls called in favor of the Cavs, and that would've brought the result closer, but it wasn't as blatant as people say. The reason is pretty simple. Strus and Okoro are both measured at 6 foot 5, and Tatum and Brown are at 6 foot 8 and 6 foot 6.

Along with that, both of them are just a lot stronger than Strus and Okoro. Those several inches mean a lot, and they seem so much taller than them, that's painfully visible when posting them up. Just go watch the 1st half again and count the number of post-up turnaround shots they hit...

The Cavs were actually playing really well for the entirety of the game except for like 4-5 minutes in the 3rd quarter when the Celtics played the hell out of the defense. Derrick White and Jrue Holiday chased everything over the screens, and the Cavs just weren't penetrating into the paint in that period.

That was when the Celtics went on a run and it wasn't only until Bickerstaff called a timeout that they started going more aggressively towards the rim and specifically started to search for Mobley more. That also allowed Garland to have more of a straight drive to the rim or capitalize on their miscommunications on the 3-point line and knock down uncontested shots.

In the end, the game was decided because of 4/23 from 3-point shots in the 2nd half. The Cavs just kept going at the 3-point shots, but all of them missed their shots yet again, despite really good shooting in the 1st half. Actually, in the last 30 minutes of the game, the Cavs shot just 6/32 behind the 3-point line. In total, they took 59 shots in that range.

The positive things were that Evan Mobley and Darius Garland performed well. After a shaky start, Mobley turned it up, when he got full steam to the hoop he could outmaneuver Horford, and he even managed to score in favorable cross matches by creating some deep seals. The same goes for Garland, when he has empty space in front of him, he can drive by any defender (including Jrue and White, as shown in the game). The Cavs started to take more mid-range shots after that slump in the 3rd quarter, and that proved to be a good way to tackle this defense. Basically, I think they've tried a lot of things, but in the end came up short.

The Celtics relied on Brown and Tatum big time in this game. Tatum was more dominant in the 1st half, and Brown in the 2nd one. Jrue had some great drives where he scored on all of the Cavs' guards, and once even vs Mobley. He knocked down some crucial triples in the 2nd half as well.

But their offense gets very bland when they slow things down and try to drain the clock. They just stand there, dribble the ball, and then drive or pull up. Their true offense comes when they play their normal game, without forcing anything, without slowing the game, by constant drives and kickouts.

I think the Cavs should start Wade next game in favor of Okoro/Strus, I think he can match up better with Tatum, and provide more size. Other than that, JB should react quicker to the things that are going on, he was really hesitant about using his timeouts, but whenever he did the game shifted around a bit. Either way, the Celtics are now probably very relaxed and game 5 could look like a blowout in their favor.

So yeah, it’s tough to expect anything from the Cavs, but they managed to put up a fight, as the game started promising with role players actually hitting open shots.