1 Fix for Every NBA Playoff Team Still Standing

Zach Buckley@@ZachBuckleyNBAFeatured Columnist IVMay 4, 20241 Fix for Every NBA Playoff Team Still Standing0 of 9

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The 2024 NBA playoffs have been mostly magical.

But they haven’t been perfect.

As a viewing experience, it’s hard to find many complaints with what the basketball gods have delivered so far. In terms of on-court execution, though, there are some areas that could be cleaned up.

We’ll focus on finding one thing each of the remaining postseason participants could be doing better.

Boston Celtics: Avoid Late-Game Stagnation1 of 9

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Boston has accomplished a ton already this season, but the one question it hasn’t cleared up is kind of a big one. Can the Celtics finally be trusted to deliver in major moments?

Too often, their previous playoff runs were spoiled by ill-timed malfunctions. Ball and player movement stagnates. The offense grows too predictable—and not at all efficient. Boston played 40 clutch minutes in last year’s playoffs and lost them by 11.4 points per 100 possessions. In the 2022 postseason, the Celtics had a minus-14.2 net rating in the clutch.

The roster might be different, but the primary culprits of those late-game blunders—Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown—remain front and center of this franchise. They’ll handle the bulk of Boston’s biggest possessions, and while they’re talented enough to capitalize on them, they’ll have to deliver in ways they haven’t before.

Cleveland Cavaliers: A Green Light for Darius Garland2 of 9

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It took the Cavaliers five playoff games to record their first triple-digit effort. All due respect to the super-stingy Orlando Magic defense, but scoring struggles shouldn’t be this severe when you have Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland in the same backcourt.

But Garland was sort of an afterthought in those first four contests, taking no more than 11 shots in any of the tilts. He finally forced the issue a bit in Game 5 with 16 attempts and immediately spawned the best game of his postseason and Cleveland’s offense as a whole. Garland, a minus-45 entering that contest and a plus-nine in it, shot 9-of-16 overall and 3-of-5 from range while tallying 23 points with five assists against two turnovers.

“There’s a different spark we get when (Garland is) like that,” Mitchell told reporters afterward. “… At the end of the day, he’s a talented player. He’s an all-star-level player, and he should shoot the ball.”

Mitchell might be good enough to carry this offense on his own, but when Garland is aggressively filling his co-star duties, Cleveland is really hard to stop. Game 5 marked the 16th time he’s had 23-plus points this season; 10 of those games were Cavaliers’ wins.

Dallas Mavericks: Hit the Ground Running3 of 9

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With scoring savants Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving in the same starting lineup, the Mavericks always have a chance to run the opposition off the floor early in the contest. During the regular season, that’s essentially what they did. Buoyed by the eighth-most efficient first-quarter attack, Dallas won the first dozen minutes by an average of 3.2 points per 100 possessions.

Through five games against the Clippers, though, things have slowed down considerably. The Mavs have been statistically steamrolled in the first frame, managing a meager 88.1 points per 100 possessions and stomaching a borderline unconscionable minus-30.7 net rating. Their 25 points in Game 5’s first quarter were their most of the series; not coincidentally, so were the 123 points they put up in that runaway win.

Dallas needs to go full-throttle from the start. When this offense gets rolling early, the Mavs can then lean on their defense (which ranked seventh in the season’s final month-plus and is fifth in the playoffs so far) and stars to do the rest.

Denver Nuggets: Protect the Paint4 of 9

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It isn’t often that a team can get physically pulverized while engineering a 4-1 series win, but that’s sort of what just happened to the Nuggets. While they controlled most elements of their first-round bout with the Los Angeles Lakers, they had no answers for L.A.’s interior attack.

The Lakers got any and everything they wanted around the basket. Their 57.2 paint points per game easily lead all playoff participants; the Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves—Denver’s conference semifinal opponent—are the only other teams averaging more than 46. L.A., which isn’t exactly loaded with youthful energy and explosive athleticism, also averaged 15.4 fast-break points (tied for third-most) and converted 66.9 percent of their restricted-area attempts (sixth-best).

The Nuggets aren’t defending their title while defending like this. If they can’t up their defensive activity level and physicality in the paint, they could easily be ousted by the Minnesota Timberwolves, whose supersized frontcourt and turbo-charged star Anthony Edwards are both well-equipped to exploit this weakness.

Indiana Pacers: Push the Tempo5 of 9

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The best version of this Pacers team looks…well, a lot like an Indy Car. When Tyrese Haliburton is racing up the floor and feeding all of the scoring threats around him, Indiana is a nightmare matchup for anyone. The Pacers popped for 130-plus points 25 times this season and won 22 of those games.

While pace tends to slow down in the playoffs, Indiana might have taken a little too much heat off its fast-ball during the first round. The Pacers, who ranked second this season with 102.2 possessions per 48 minutes, managed only 92.9 in the opening round. On a related note, they also failed to reach 100 points twice, something they’d done just once over the course of the 82-game marathon.

Indiana isn’t built to win back-and-forth half-court battles. The Pacers don’t have the defense (24th in the regular season, 12th in the playoffs) needed to grind out those types of games. Their aim is to bury the opposition beneath an avalanche of quick-strike scores, and they can do that when they’re able to get out and run.

Minnesota Timberwolves: More Karl-Anthony Towns6 of 9

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The Timberwolves are one of three teams with a scoring differential of at least plus-15 points per game this postseason. (For context, no one else is north of plus-7.2.) The top seeds in each conference, Boston and Oklahoma City, hit those marks against the lowest-seeded teams in the postseason. Minnesota, meanwhile, mashed a Phoenix Suns squad built around Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal.

In other words, it’s hard to nitpick pretty much anything the Timberwolves are doing at the moment, though it’s fair to wonder if they could squeeze just a little more out of Karl-Anthony Towns. They’ve mostly controlled his minutes so far (28.3 per game), which is totally sensible after he missed most of March and the first half of April with a lateral meniscus tear in his left knee.

With the defending champs up next on the docket, though, Minnesota can’t slow-play the big fella any longer. And based on how he looked in Game 4—28 points on 11-of-17 shooting and 10 rebounds in 39 minutes—there’s no need to, anyway. If the Wolves are going to knock off the Nuggets, they’ll need more offense than even ascending superstar Anthony Edwards can provide. They need Towns at his best, even in a matchup that has often brought out his worst.

New York Knicks: Control the Defensive Glass7 of 9

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Despite Jalen Brunson having certified his superstar status this postseason, the Knicks aren’t built to overwhelm opponents with star power. They need all the on-the-margins wins they can get, whether that’s playing suffocating defense, getting to every available loose ball or, as critical as anything, winning the battle on the boards.

Even with Julius Randle shut down by shoulder surgery, New York has enough to feast on the glass. In the first round, though, it was excellent on offensive rebounds (second in offensive rebounding percentage) but got pushed around at the other end (14th in defensive rebounding percentage).

New York’s two losses in the first round were the only games in which it got outrebounded by the Philadelphia 76ers. The Knicks need Josh Hart, Isaiah Hartenstein and Mitchell Robinson to make sure that hardly (if ever) happens again. Closing out defensive stops will be critical against the offenses they’re about to see.

Oklahoma City Thunder: Trim the Rotation8 of 9

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The Thunder used 11 different players in each of their four games against the New Orleans Pelicans. That feels like two too many.

Sure, the idea of getting something out of Gordon Hayward is interesting, and Kenrich Williams has long been an underrated piece of the puzzle. But the truth is Oklahoma City doesn’t need anything from them. Coach Mark Daigneault has made it clear he wants to maximize his depth, but he can do that without going this deep into his bench—even if he disagrees.

“I understand there’s norms but we want to expose ourselves to being the best team we can be,” Daigneault told reporters after the series opener. “We’re willing to do things a little differently.”

Yet, even if Daigneault trimmed the postseason rotation to nine players, that would still be different than how most skippers approach it. As the competition level increases, the Thunder should plan on leaning more heavily on their best players.

Orlando Magic: Find Some Hustle Points9 of 9

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Orlando had this season’s 22nd-ranked offense, the worst such mark among all postseason participants (play-in losers included). Its first-round opponent, Cleveland, had the campaign’s seventh-best defense. The series has mostly played out as expected with the Magic struggling to find any kind of offensive consistency.

That’s often an issue for this club, which underwhelms with both scoring support and proper spacing. So, the less time the Magic have to spend attacking a set defense, the better. Any scramble scores they can find are almost always needed.

Their fast-break scoring is up in this series (14 points per game), but they aren’t generating as many points off of turnovers (15.6) or offensive rebounds (12.8). With this attack essentially no-showing around Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, it’s hard to see Orlando getting by without generating more opportunistic buckets.

Unless otherwise noted, statistics courtesy of Basketball Reference and NBA.com and current through games played Thursday.

Zach Buckley covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on X, @ZachBuckleyNBA.