With the playoffs now well underway, we asked our resident NBA expert Jay Asser to talk us through five things he's learnt from the first week of postseason.
1. The Playoffs never fail to deliver excitement but this postseason has already been one of the most thrilling in recent memory.
Just over one week in and we’ve seen both conferences’ top team and a No2 seed in real danger of suffering an early upset. We’ve witnessed 14 games decided by five points or less, including six tension-filled overtime games.
We’ve seen a number of remarkable individual performances by star players and even some surprising efforts by reserves who’ve seized their opportunity. Oh and this is just the first round. Buckle up.
2. Rick Carlisle has always been considered one of the best coaches in the league, but his defensive scheming in the Dallas Mavericks’ series with the San Antonio Spurs has even caught Coach of the Year Gregg Popovich off-guard.
Carlisle and the Mavs introduced a switching defence in Game 1 in which Dallas’ big men switch onto Tony Parker after a screen. The move has allowed the Mavericks to stay at home on the Spurs’ wing 3-point shooters and forced Parker to become a scorer and take more mid-range jumpers.
With a 2-1 lead and Game 4 at home, the Mavericks have the favourites reeling and in an unfamiliar position.
3. The Indiana Pacers are in real trouble and it’s not just because the Atlanta Hawks make for a terrible matchup.
We thought the Pacers’ swoon in the second half of the season would be put behind them when the postseason began, but Indiana still look like a team that can’t figure themselves out.
The offence has been disjointed and the body language of the players has been such a concern that Pacers head coach Frank Vogel (above) had to lay in to his team for it.
Even if they advance past the Hawks, it’s appearing more and more as if this Indiana squad has an inevitable expiry date.
4. Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook have struggled immensely against the swarming Memphis defence, opening the door for the Grizzlies to sneak through.
The league’s deadliest scoring duo have shot a putrid 74-of- 198, or 37 per cent, through four games.
The offensive scheme has been far too vanilla to open up easy opportunities for the pair and the rest of the cupboard is pretty bare, save for an aggressive Reggie Jackson (right) who bailed out his star teammates in Game 4. Memphis have looked like the better team and if shots don’t start falling, it will be curtains OKC.
5. Homecourt can often decide a series but it has yet to be a factor this postseason with road teams, up to last night, having won 15 of the first 27 games. Through three games in the Houston-Portland series, the home team had yet to even win.
Teams that worked so hard to earn homecourt advantage during the regular season have had it stripped immediately. The trend is likely to curtail and return somewhat to the norm in the next rounds, but so far it’s made things unpredictable.
