Let's roll with this week's 10 things, including Julius Randle's All-NBA rise, bully ball from Jayson Tatum and a tribute to "heads-up!" taunts on wild misses.
1. Julius Randle, rolling hard
The New York Knicks' methodical climb to league average in scoring efficiency has been one of the major slow-burn stories of the season. They have been an above-average offense for the past two months, and ranked third in points per possession in April. They have hit 39% from deep, behind only the Milwaukee Bucks and LA Clippers. Defense is the foundation, but offense turned the Knicks from scrappy curiosity to postseason problem.
Randle is the keystone. He is absorbing a huge scoring and playmaking burden so no one else is overtaxed. Randle has recorded the most isolations in the league, and the ninth-most post-ups, per Second Spectrum data. He has enabled a slow-down, low-risk style that minimizes turnovers and allows New York to set its fearsome defense. With Randle as battering ram, the Knicks play smashmouth basketball.
And Randle has been efficient. New York averages almost 1.1 points when Randle shoots via post-up or passes to a teammate who fires -- 22nd among 85 players with at least 50 post touches, per Second Spectrum data. He has been about as good on isolations.
As he grows more comfortable with Derrick Rose, Randle is spicing things up with occasional hard rolls to the rim:
The Knicks don't have the spacing for Randle to do that a lot; their centers clutter the lane. But Randle can jet through narrow corridors, and he's a canny playmaker on the move. It's a nice alternative to fading for 3s, and something that has caught defenses off guard as they toggle coverages against the Rose-Randle pick-and-roll.
The Knicks have poured in almost 1.25 points per possession on any trip featuring the Rose-Randle two-man game, 38th among 347 duos with at least 100 reps, per Second Spectrum data. New York has outscored opponents by 12.4 points per 100 possessions with Rose on the floor. That is not a typo. Among in-season trades, only the Brooklyn Nets' acquisition of James Harden has had a bigger impact than New York acquiring Rose.
Even with Rose on the bench, the occasional screen-and-slip can get Randle behind the defense -- and force emergency switches upon which he can feast:
Randle has a real shot at an All-NBA spot, and it would not be ridiculous for someone to put him on an MVP ballot. What a season.
2. Trae Young, mixing things up
Give me more of this Trae Young:
There have been games in which Young has felt weirdly predictable. Help defenders encroach high enough to discourage Young's pull-up 3, but not so high as to double him hard. Young drives, the defender backpedals, Young flicks a floater. Some go in. Some result in shooting fouls when Young flails. Some end as putbacks for Clint Capela.
Young is attempting 6.3 triples, down from 9.5 last season. That's a huge drop. The corresponding increase has come in midrangers.
That's not bad on its face. Young has hit 44% of floaters -- a strong number. He leads the league in made free throws. Atlanta's offense for the season is elite with Young on the floor, and about equivalent to the Oklahoma City Thunder's league-worst outfit when he sits. Bogdan Bogdanovic, Danilo Gallinari, and Lou Williams have stabilized Atlanta's offense in non-Young minutes, but Young remains a massively positive player on that end. Despite accusations of assist hunting, Young ranks third in hockey assists.
But variety would help. Young hitting his perimeter release valves early triggers swing-swing sequences that invigorate teammates and produce good looks -- including for Young when the ball pings all the way around. Young will never be Stephen Curry off the ball, but he becomes a roving threat simply by giving it up.
Young has tapped into that more in some recent games. Some defenses unwittingly nudge him there by trapping hard. You have to mix up schemes against superstars, but I wonder if trapping Young -- unless you have the personnel to really smother him -- almost backfires. I'd rather approach him just below the screen, and invite him to drive into the midrange -- at least as my base defense.
Young could also hunt more step-back 3s:
I'm excited to see Young in the playoffs -- how his offense translates, and how he holds up on defense. He's about to be picked on more than ever.
3. Jayson Tatum bully ball
Speaking of playoff predation:
The Boston Celtics don't want to play this way, but sometimes you have to against postseason defenses that take away the pretty stuff. Any two-man game between Tatum and one Boston guard brings the possibility of a mismatch. Tatum's one-on-one game is hit or miss, but his efficiency on post-up spikes against guards -- and is even higher against point guards, per Second Spectrum data.
Tatum is crafty in tight spaces, and a skilled playmaker when help comes.
Boston ran the same Marcus Smart-Tatum action one minute later, and the Magic were afraid to switch again.
Tatum's defender retreats early to snuff any pick-and-pop 3, leaving Smart a runway. Help converges, and Smart kicks to Aaron Nesmith for a corner 3. (Nesmith is playing really well. He slides his feet on defense, he's physical and competitive, and he keeps the machine moving on offense.)
Tatum is making a late run for All-NBA: 26.5 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 4.4 assists on 46% shooting -- 39% on 3s, 50% on 2s. Compare those numbers to Paul George, who seems to have a leg up on Tatum in the All-NBA race: 23.6 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 5.2 assists on 47% shooting -- 42.1% on 3s, 51% on 2s.
George is probably a better defender, but not by much. George has the edge in advanced stats. Tatum has played eight more games and 400 more minutes. Both are eligible at forward and guard.
Tatum has a real case, which is beyond impressive considering his prolonged bout with the coronavirus.
4. The enigma of Dwight Powell
It's no surprise how wildly Powell's role has fluctuated in Dallas. He's a tricky fit. He's a rim-runner -- the most dangerous screen-and-dive threat for Luka Doncic -- but he can't protect the rim on defense. Opponents are shooting 70% at the basket with Powell nearby, one of the fattest figures among big men. Ball handlers go right through Powell as if he isn't there.
He's a (way) below-average rebounder; lineups with Powell as the only big have been squishy on defense for years. Pairing him with another non-shooting big man is mostly a no-go.
His ideal frontcourt partner can block shots and shoot 3s. The Mavs have two such players in Kristaps Porzingis and Maxi Kleber. Dallas outscored opponents by about 12 points per 100 possessions last season with those two combinations on the floor. The Kleber version has been good this season; the Porzingis version has hemorrhaged points on defense in limited minutes.
Powell is not super well equipped to chase stretchy power forwards on defense either, and he has to do that next to Porzingis because Porzingis is too slow. Kleber is more versatile.
Playing two bigs alongside Doncic squeezes the Mavs' perimeter rotation, and in some cases makes Dallas a little plodding.
Most of the Mavs' role players have been up and down, so having options is nice. The Mavs are 30-15 since an 8-13 start in which they were upended by the virus, so they have clearly figured some things out. But night to night, you never know quite what you are getting. There have been clunkers where it feels like they just can't find themselves. Powell -- even amid a strong recent run -- epitomizes that haziness.
5. Keep an eye on Josh Green
Green has drawn angst from Mavs fans. He has played only 364 minutes. He's 3-of-21 on 3s. Meanwhile, Saddiq Bey -- taken one spot after Green -- and Desmond Bane are thriving as 3-and-maybe-D prototypes with some off-the-bounce juice.
But count me as at least a mild Green optimist. The fastest way to tell if a seldom-used rookie has any chance is to look for glimpses of advanced feel -- the ability to read the game in real time, or even from one step ahead. For deep bench rookies, that reveals itself in small things -- extra passes, on-time rotations, the occasional canny drive-and-kick.
Green has flashed those signs. A lot of his extra passes -- even some from midair, in heavy traffic -- are touch passes, indicating Green knows where he wants to go before he gets the ball.
He understands how defenses shift, and manipulates them with look-away passes:
He rotates in sync with the offense, arriving on time -- and sometimes before the defense expects him:
I get the Bane and Bey envy. Green is miles behind them as a shooter. But don't give up on him yet.
6. The meandering of Kelly Olynyk
Olynyk is averaging 18.6 points, 8.5 rebounds, and 3.5 assists as a Houston Rocket, but it's the way he's doing it that's interesting: He's shooting fewer 3s and way more 2s, and has hit a gargantuan 70% on 2s since the Miami Heat offloaded him as part of the Victor Oladipo trade. It's incredible that the Rockets were roundly (and justifiably) mocked for "getting nothing" in the Oladipo deal -- and for the sequence of events that led to the Oladipo deal -- only for one piece of that "nothing" to badly outplay Oladipo even before Oladipo suffered a knee injury. (Trevor Ariza, Olynyk's more direct replacement in Miami, has played well for the Heat.)
Olynyk brings a delightful Diaw-ian meandering to his off-the-dribble game:
I'll try baseline. No, that's cut off. Let's wander toward the perimeter. Honestly, I thought "The Dark Knight Rises'' was overrated. It's kinda sad that Conan O'Brien's show is ending -- Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is one of the greatest pop culture creations ever. Oh, hey, there's Jae'Sean Tate; I think he's on my team now. I'll vaguely fake a handoff to him. Maybe that will work. It is kind of my thing. It worked! I'm going to turn sideways and see what happens. I'm open! A layup! I like basketball.
Olynyk is like a race car driver who goes at his own pace, takes a few wrong turns, and stops for a picnic -- only to somehow win because everyone else crashed.
The Olynyk-Christian Wood frontcourt brings spacing and versatility. Both can shoot 3s, mash guards on switches, and score out of the pick-and-roll. The Rockets have scored at a decent rate with either Kevin Porter Jr. or John Wall alongside the Wood-Olynyk duo. They are watchable, I swear!
7. Marcus Morris Sr. -- and when the LA Clippers backslide
Part of the Clippers' collapse against the Denver Nuggets in the bubble -- at least before they short-circuited into the NBA equivalent of the blue screen of death in Game 7 -- stemmed from missing open shots. For all the hand-wringing about chemistry and the lack of a true point guard, the Clips might have won Game 5 or (less likely) Game 6 against Denver had they hit more uncontested jumpers.
But their offense in those three catastrophic losses -- and for much of last season -- suffered bouts of aimlessness. They'd generate a mismatch and then ignore it, stop passing, forfeit transition chances, stop moving, just kind of stop doing basketball. That can work fine if Kawhi Leonard is cooking. No team executes with five-man artistry on every possession -- not even in high-stakes playoff games, and maybe especially not in those games given the quality of defenses.
You just can't afford too many of those possessions ending in the wrong hands. There will be little room for Marcus Morris Sr. to indulge in fadeaway isolation fantasies:
Morris is enjoying a fine season; he's shooting a preposterous 47% from deep on a career-high attempt rate. The Clippers have been more calculated on offense, even if their passing numbers don't show it. Tyronn Lue has prodded them, and Rajon Rondo is unlocking more looks around the rim. Paul George is driving with determination. Lue is also giving more minutes -- or being forced to do so by injury -- to backups who attack the rim more than their starting counterparts: Reggie Jackson, Ivica Zubac, and Terance Mann.
Jackson and Zubac have made cases to retain starting spots over Patrick Beverley and Serge Ibaka. The Clippers' revamped starting five have obliterated opponents by almost 19 points per 100 possessions. (Their old starting five with Nicolas Batum, Beverley, and Ibaka have an almost identical scoring margin. The common denominators, of course, are George and Leonard.)
Morris is fourth on the Clippers with 125 total isolations, per Second Spectrum. The Clips have averaged 0.681 points when Morris shoots out of an isolation, or dishes to a teammate who fires -- seventh-worst among 165 players who have recorded at least 50 such plays. Morris has been much better on a smaller number of post-ups, and the line between an isolation and a post-up gets blurry. Still, the overall average does not justify Morris absorbing many possessions in this manner unless the shot clock is low or he has a huge mismatch.
To win it all, the Clippers have to treat each possession with seriousness of purpose.
8. Luguentz Dort, taking too many audacious risks?
Dort's shooting efficiency has finally crumbled under the burden of Oklahoma City's oppressive tank job. (Seriously: Why did everyone screech about the Detroit Pistons and San Antonio Spurs shutting down Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge until their agents could navigate them to contenders -- and not care that the Thunder and Al Horford were like, "You know what? I agree, you should go chill even though you have two seasons left on your contract after this one." There is very little precedent for player and team mutually agreeing to simply stop playing with so much time remaining on the player's contract. Horford is good! How did no one bat an eyelash?)
Dort's development is still a huge net-plus. He's hanging in at 34.2% from deep -- close enough to league average to count as a win considering he hit 29% on many fewer attempts last season with defenses ignoring him. He is attacking off the bounce with ferocity that will serve him well when he is the fifth option instead of the second.
He is an elite defender -- an absolute blast to watch as long as he's not invading your personal space. Dort is long, strong, and quick enough to pull gambles that are off limits to most defenders. He can perhaps take that luxury too far by ducking screens against dangerous shooters:
You can't do that against Trae Young!
Dort almost recovers in time to challenge that shot. He stops short of Danilo Gallinari's pick without getting stuck under it, and his extend-o arms register on Young's radar. Dort is powerful enough to plow through screeners and disrupt the action.
But the risk sometimes seems needless.
Speedy ball handlers can beat Dort to the other side of screens.
The numbers on something this small are hard to pin down. Maybe Dort -- because of his uniqueness -- is right to coax even good shooters into off-the-dribble 3s if the flip side is walling off the paint. But it's something to watch.
9. Something nice about Delon Wright
The Kings having any nontrivial chance to make the play-in is objectively hilarious. They have the league's worst defense by a mile! They've had two separate nine-game losing streaks! Arguably their three best players are injured! And yet!
The Kings could pull within 1.5 games of San Antonio and snatch the tiebreaker by beating the free-falling Spurs Friday night in what somehow qualifies as an important (in the fakest way possible) game! If the Philadelphia 76ers also beat the New Orleans Pelicans, Sacramento and New Orleans will be tied behind the Spurs.
Sacto's following two games are against the Thunder, who are one step from throwing the ball in their own basket "by accident" to out-lose the Minnesota Timberwolves, Cleveland Cavaliers, Orlando Magic, and Pistons in the three-legged race for the NBA's second-worst record. (To be fair, the Wolves are 8-8 in their past 16 games.)
The Kings have won four straight without De'Aaron Fox and Harrison Barnes -- and the past two without Tyrese Haliburton. That has left them with only one point guard in Wright, acquired from Detroit for Cory Joseph in what amounted to a $6 million salary dump for the Pistons.
Wright demurs on too many open 3s. He's not a blow-away athlete who can exploit mismatches. He's a backup, and he's kind of boring.
But he's a solid backup, and teams need solid backups to survive the season. Wright is shooting 41% from deep as a King, and making winning plays: scrappy offensive boards, sound defense across multiple positions, heady steals.
Wright helps inside without losing Aaron Holiday. He spies Doug McDermott sliding unguarded for a relocation corner 3, plays between McDermott and Holiday, and baits Indiana into a turnover.
(This was right about when the Indiana Pacers season devolved into chaos, with issues that have been simmering all year bursting into the open.)
Wright is one of only 11 players snatching two steals per 36 minutes.
Having written this, there is now a 100 percent chance the Kings go #Kangz and lose tonight.
10. The 'heads-up!' taunt on wild misses
I wish I knew who invented this, because I love it. When some player launches an obviously wayward jumper in front of the opposing bench, that bench mob may notice the trajectory and recoil in mock terror -- covering their heads and ducking an incoming flying object -- as the shot is in midair.
This wasn't a textbook faux cowering, but the Mavericks bench (Luka Doncic most of all) seemed on high alert for haywire Sekou Doumbouya jumpers last week.
Referees wisely let benches get away with such taunting -- plus the typical "Hell no!" directed at a nearby enemy shooter. Let players have fun. And as always: The mocked shooter should have carte blanche to fire back without risking a technical foul.