Let's roll with this week's 10 things, including sneaky brilliance from Stephen Curry, endless ineptitude in Sacramento, and the wonder that is Poku.
1. The subtle magic of Stephen Curry
How do you get open when all five defenders are focused on you? We know the common methods. Curry can roast his guy one-on-one, leveraging the threat of the most accurate jumper in league history. He can use a screen from Draymond Green, rumbling into open space more often now with James Wiseman injured -- and the Warriors playing more with Green at center.
Those two make such magic together. What they have is really why we follow basketball. It is what every player searches for, but few find: a hoops soulmate who amplifies your game, sees the floor through your eyes, and reads your intentions the moment you do. Some of their greatest mutual highlights are the product of improvisation -- tweaking some tried-and-true action at the last second because of something only they visualize.
But one of my favorite Steph-isms, on full brilliant display during this incandescent month, is the game of hide-and-seek Curry plays in the chaos of transition.
Check out Curry jogging along the right wing:
He seems disinterested, casual. Then he stops and turns his back to the rim. What? Is he setting a back screen? It looks that way. That's not it, though. Curry spies Alex Len loitering near the paint -- far from his man (Kevon Looney). What Curry is really doing is waiting for Looney. Once Looney arrives, Curry slips behind him.
Here's another variant from Saturday's 47-point scorcher against the Boston Celtics:
Curry sprints diagonally, and right into Jayson Tatum. As he makes contact, Curry motions for Andrew Wiggins to pop out -- as if that's the plan. Nope. Wiggins cuts to the rim, and both defenders follow him. Green finishes the con job with a glance at Wiggins before shoveling to Curry.
Curry is one of one. The league has never seen this level of on-ball potency and off-ball relentlessness in the same player. Most churning off-ball rovers run around the way they do because they can't do much with the ball. They need to catch it at the right angle, with the right amount of space, to get their shots off. Curry can contort himself into a triple from anywhere, anytime. There are no boundaries to his creativity.
Don't sleep on Curry's passing -- his ability to act as puppet master:
That is so calculated. Curry goes right around that first Green pick. Green is open. The pass is there. But Curry senses that by reversing course, he can drag Davis Bertans a few extra feet from Kent Bazemore -- and craft an easier shot.
Curry probably isn't winning MVP if the Warriors finish around .500, but he has planted himself in the conversation. As of now, I would guess the three names to appear on the most ballots would be Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, and Curry.
But Curry's magnificent season is more important for what it portends. He has reestablished himself as a first-team All-NBA-level player. He is already something beyond a franchise icon. Golden State owes Curry an honest effort at chasing championships over the next three seasons.
The biggest question in the league -- the one the Warriors must ask themselves each day -- is how close they are with Green, Curry, and Klay Thompson returning from two devastating injuries, and their current supporting cast. The answer depends in part on external variables: Who might rise and fall in the West? But factoring in age-related decline for all three stars and rust for Thompson, the safest assumption is the Warriors need something else to pop.
It might not have to be something huge -- the addition of another star via some megatrade that would involve one or both of Wiseman and the shiny Minnesota Timberwolves pick Golden State owns. It could be internal growth from a couple of key guys, including Wiseman making a huge leap soon.
Regardless: This Curry -- this destroyer -- demands prioritizing the immediate future.
2. Danny Green's moonwalk 3
Green has been among the league's most inventive cutters for a decade. He ambushed the Miami Heat in two NBA Finals with a cut so unique to Green -- a baseline cut from weak side to strong side as a pick-and-roll unfolds up top -- the Heat nicknamed it "the Danny Green cut."
Green didn't originate this baseline moonwalk, but he might be the current master of it:
Other moonwalkers: Raul Neto for the surging Washington Wizards, and Bogdan Bogdanovic of the Atlanta Hawks:
Green didn't make or break Kyle Lowry trade talks, but his play figured into Philly's calculus. The Sixers value him a ton. Philly would send only so much along with him.
Green has justified Philly's faith. He's shooting 42% from deep on a career-high number of attempts, and playing rock-solid defense -- even if he's lost a little lateral quickness. Green always knows where to be, and he's still good for a steal and a block per game.
Philly's starting five has appeared in only 24 games, but they have obliterated opponents by almost 14 points per 100 possessions. That lineup with George Hill in place of Green or Seth Curry holds great potential. Ben Simmons still doesn't have much of a crunch-time role on offense, but the Sixers are a real threat to make the Finals.
3. How is Sacramento this bad at 'transition' defense?
The Kings are terrible at defense in every context, so it's hard to untangle anything specific about transition defense that makes them especially terrible at it.
The Kings rank 30th in points allowed per possession after opponent baskets, 26th after rebounds, and 30th after opponent steals, according to InPredictable data. They are dead last in points allowed per possession, on pace for the fattest figure in league history. The league-wide scoring explosion inflates that number; the Kings are about 5.5% worse than league average, which would not even place them in the bottom 20 of team defenses all time, according to research from Kevin Pelton. Still: That's not great (Bob), and the Kings are two points worse than this season's No. 29 defense.
They rank below average in defensive rebounding (by a lot), forcing turnovers, and opponent free throw rate. They are bad at everything. But my god, are they bad at transition defense. I am not sure I have ever seen a team with semi-reasonable postseason hopes (thanks to the now-beyond-reach play-in) suffer more discombobulation in semi-transition.
Do anything more complicated than running in straight lines -- one back screen, some diagonal cut -- and it's as if a sinkhole opens and swallows all five Kings:
Opposing players leak out with alarming frequency.
The Kings don't have great defensive talent, but a problem of this scale touches every level of the organization.
4. The state of Matthew Dellavedova
It has been hard to watch Dellavedova, a beloved Cavalier whose tireless fight propelled him from undrafted curiosity to Finals legend in Cleveland. His work filling in for Kyrie Irving in the 2015 Finals against the Golden State Warriors helped Cleveland to an improbable 2-1 lead.
That earned Delly cache within the Cavaliers. He deserves the chance to play after missing three months recovering from a head injury and concussion-related symptoms.
The Cavs are 28th in offense, and they need a pass-first floor general who connects Point A to Point B. Too many Cleveland possessions stall out after one pick-and-roll.
But Dellavedova is shooting 25.5%. At age 30, with so much wear and tear from his rugged style, he has lost some pop. Any minutes with both Collin Sexton and Darius Garland -- sneaky candidate for a Most Improved Player ballot spot -- on the bench are a waste. With Love and Larry Nance Jr. back, the Cavs have two more smart ball-movers to inject some continuity into the offense.
As the play-in slips away, the Cavs should give more wing minutes to Cedi Osman and Lamar Stevens.
5. The little bumps and jabs of Robin Lopez
Break up the Wiz! Washington has won eight of nine to pull ahead of the Chicago Bulls and Toronto Raptors in the slap-fight for the last Eastern Conference play-in spot. Chicago and Toronto own head-to-head tiebreakers over Washington, but the Wiz have one of the league's easiest remaining schedules. They also have two games left against the wobbling Indiana Pacers, now just two games ahead at No. 9. (Washington is 1-0 against Indiana, so a split gives them that tiebreaker.)
The Wiz look more like the team a lot of us expected before the virus upended their season. Russell Westbrook has been a net positive over the past month, and he's 36-of-63 in the last five minutes of close games. Bradley Beal is scorching after a brief injury absence. Davis Bertans found his jumper. Their defense, once laughable, has stiffened.
The Wiz are getting two-way production from their old-school three-headed center rotation of Alex Len, Robin Lopez, and Daniel Gafford. I have no idea how that's a thing in the year of our basketball gods 2021, but it is. Len is fine as token starter. Gafford has been a rim-running, shot-blocking revelation since the Wiz acquired him from Chicago in an exchange of players so random it reads like some NBA geek's trade deadline Mad Libs.
Lopez is averaging 9.7 points on 69% shooting since March 1. He has cracked 15 points in seven of his past 13 games. For a selfless bruiser, that represents an explosion. Lopez has been money with his floor-scraping, ice-cream-scoop hook shot. The Wiz have scored 1.17 points per possession when Lopez shoots from the post or passes to a teammate who launches -- sixth (!) among 80 players with at least 50 post touches, per Second Spectrum data.
Lopez remains a devoted box-out maestro, and an expert at getting teammates open. He's always nudging and jostling defenders to pry open space for Washington's shooters.
Watch the little shoulder check he lays on poor De'Anthony Melton in the left corner, unlocking a layup for Bertans:
Lopez strolls in Melton's general area before veering into him. He looks like some high school punk deliberately bumping someone in the hallway to start a fight.
6. The Orlando version of Wendell Carter Jr.
Few young players have developed as unevenly as Carter did over parts of three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. Injuries and organizational chaos undid any progress. As one skill rose, another would inexplicably vanish. He played for three head coaches who asked wildly different things from him.
But all along, he had the ingredients of a serviceable two-way starting center, and he looks reinvigorated with the Orlando Magic. Carter is averaging almost 14.5 points on 58% shooting -- up from 11 points and 51% with the Bulls -- but his disposition matters more than the numbers.
Orlando Carter is aggressive. He's hoisting pick-and-pop jumpers when he should, and stepping into 3s with confidence. He has vowed to do that before, and it has rarely stuck. Perhaps it will now -- in a new place, under a new coach in Steve Clifford, and with no real stakes.
He's hunting handoff opportunities, setting two, three, four rapid-fire screens within the same possession. Carter flashed some post-up brutality in Chicago, and has tapped into that more with the Magic. He's beasting switches, and even hammered a coast-to-coast dunk against the Hawks this week.
Can this sustain? Skeptics in Chicago might say no. But consider this: Carter turned 22 last week.
7. POKU!!!!!!!
What a wild ride. I have no idea what position Aleksej Pokusevski plays, what he will amount to, how he does not snap in half at some point every game, and whether he's even supposed to be helping the Thunder right now.
Pokusevski missed his first 14 NBA shots. Some of his jumpers whistle on such a line-drive trajectory, you fear they might smash the backboard. Pokusevski is so tall and lanky, he sometimes appears to be shooting down at the basket.
Any Pokusevski touch could end in some kind of strange basketball brilliance you've never quite seen before, or a pratfall-level disaster -- Pokusevski tripping over his own unruly limbs; a pass that soars 10 rows into the stands; a jumper so wayward everyone under the basket ducks as if an anvil is about to fall on their heads.
Like, what precisely is going on here?
That's top-of-the-arc isolation that morphs into an up-and-under. You've seen that move before, but have you ever seen that? The loping footwork flummoxes Chris Boucher. It's unclear if Pokusevski is shooting or trying to pass off the backboard to himself.
He's shooting 33% overall, and 27% from deep. Those numbers are up in April -- 37% overall, an encouraging 35% on 3s -- but they could only go up.
Still, you can see why several teams were enamored with him. The Thunder traded up to get Pokusevski because they knew they could lose out on him otherwise. Pokusevski is 7-foot, and two skills stood out even through those early struggles: passing and shot-blocking. Both evince some undercurrent of advanced feel.
Pokusevski is a connector -- someone who can receive the ball in the middle of a possession, assignments and rotations in flux, and problem-solve on the fly with some panache.
Pokusevski scoots past the defender rushing at him, maps the floor, and manipulates the defense with a lookaway.
He's swatting 1.7 shots per 36 minutes, 30th among rotation players. He is willing to throw his body in the way around the basket, and his arms are a problem.
8. The easy fixes for Anthony Edwards
I continue to be bullish on Edwards. His growing chemistry with Karl-Anthony Towns has been one of the joys of the past two months -- how they bob and weave in concert, faking a handoff one way before flipping it the other direction. The return of D'Angelo Russell has interrupted that development a tad, but talent is talent, and the Wolves need all they can get.
Minnesota is 6-6 with Russell and Towns available. Josh Okogie rediscovered his confidence from deep, though we know how that movie usually ends. Jaden McDaniels is legit; the Okogie/McDaniels pairing is the type of defensive bulwark the Russell/Edwards/Towns nucleus needs, though I'm skeptical it brings enough shooting.
Meanwhile, Malik Beasley and his 20 points per game are missing; the Russell/Beasley/Towns/Edwards quartet has logged just 13 minutes. Such bad luck could only befall the Wolves.
Minus his nightly steal, Edwards has been bad on defense -- as expected for a teenager. It takes time for score-first guys to learn the complexities of NBA schemes. Barring some lack of will, Edwards should become at least an average defender.
He can start with the low-hanging fruit of transition defense. Minnesota is as bad there as the Kings, and way worse with Edwards on the floor -- in both volume of transition chances and opponent efficiency, per Cleaning The Glass data.
Edwards can be slow to realize when he should ditch his matchup and take the closest opposing player:
He sometimes meanders toward the offensive glass -- too halfhearted to count as "crashing" -- when he has little chance at a rebound. Edwards has 47 offensive rebounds in 60 games, so the risk-reward is not working.
Ambling cuts to nowhere can undo Minnesota's floor balance:
Edwards has good intentions: making himself available for the corner-to-corner pass. But Naz Reid -- having a very nice season! -- is already there, with two other Wolves under the basket.
This is fixable with experience and care. If we are having this same discussion in two years, it's a problem.
9. Some cool Terry Rozier fakery
This Charlotte Hornets' out-of-timeout gem has become one of my favorite sets, if only because of the collective theatricality involved:
It looks like a pick-and-roll for Gordon Hayward; both Hayward and Cody Zeller sell that hard. Lopez, guarding Zeller, dips into position to corral Hayward. Rozier jogs to his left -- as if he's going to curl around a flare screen from Miles Bridges.
But it's a ruse! Zeller and Rozier about-face at almost the exact same moment, and Rozier flies around a Zeller pindown. Lopez is toast.
Rozier is averaging 21 points on 47% shooting. He has drained 40.5% from deep on almost nine attempts per 36 minutes, and hit a whopping 54% on 2s. Those are all career highs. He is a flamethrower in crunch time: 20-of-38 in the last five minutes of close games, per NBA.com data.
Rozier has found the right balance between scoring and playmaking next to Hayward, Devonte' Graham, LaMelo Ball, and the rejuvenated Malik Monk. Rozier is overmatched as lead guard. He can be hazy navigating the pick-and-roll, and late spotting easy reads. But he's fine as a secondary playmaker, and he has gotten better moving the ball early when a second defender converges. He's also a low-turnover player -- one side benefit of not seeing or making some advanced passes.
He's an uneven defender, undersized against wings; the Graham-Rozier backcourt is a liability in the wrong matchup. But Ball is 6-6, and the Hornets at full health have enough perimeter depth to minimize Graham-Rozier minutes. Rozier is fine defending point guards.
Rozier's maligned three-year, $57 million contract expires after next season. He just turned 27. It will be fascinating to see where his career goes from here.
10. Mismatched shoes in team colors
I support almost anything daring players do with their shoes. White and black are fine, but any splotch of color is welcome: neon, pastel, weird swirling patterns, whatever. Anything ugly is easy to ignore; you don't watch the floor unless you make a point of observing some trick of footwork.
A favorite flourish: one shoe in one team color, the second in the team's other main color. Here is Gary Trent Jr. with a textbook example:
Red and black is unassailable -- the league should mandate Portland start any game in which they wear their hideous gray alternates down 5-0 -- but this can work for any team.