This week's eight things I like and dislike include perhaps the most important number of the season, the unsung heroes from the Orlando Magic's 13-5 start and the Golden State Warriors player who has stepped up to earn more playing time.
Jump to Lowe's Things:
Celtics trading 3s for 2s | Unsung Magic heroes
Hayward's crisis of confidence | Denver's security blanket
The NBA's Sisyphus | A competent Wizard |
More Moses Moody | Meet the fake "trailing" 3
1. The Boston Celtics need to love the rim
This may be the most important niche number of the season: 30.4%. That is the share of Boston's shots that have come within the restricted area -- eighth lowest in the league, per Cleaning The Glass. It is about identical to their number last season.
Boston also ranks below average (19th) in free throw rate; they were 28th last season.
There is nothing wrong with being a jump-shooting team when you take and make the right jump shots. Boston leads the league in 3-point attempts and takes the second-fewest mid-rangers. That's healthy, though Boston's 3s tilt more above the break. All eight of Boston's core rotation players are above-average 3-point shooters. No team has better spacing. The middle of the floor is wide open.
One intended payoff of all that open territory is the ability to attack it without any defenders in your way. The Celtics are at their best when they remember the rim and the foul line are still the most reliable sources of offense -- immune from the cruel vicissitudes of shooting luck. They become vulnerable when they forget that -- when they fall in love with hero-ball jumpers.
There is no need for major recalibration. Boston should rank in the top three in 3s. But on some nights against elite defenses -- or when the 3s go cold -- exchanging four or five jumpers for assaults on the basket can be the difference between winning and losing. Driving to kick it out should not be the default option every time one of Boston's perimeter players hits the paint. If a corridor is there, seize it, even if it's narrow. It's OK to get a little grimy -- to seek contact.
Jayson Tatum has committed to keeping the rim in the picture. He has been smart about rejecting picks from Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis -- as in the above clip -- when he spies their defenders cheating to the other side.
That is one of Boston's best sets -- having Tatum or Jaylen Brown take staggered picks from teammates defended by the opposing center and point guard. Any switch gives Tatum a mismatch.
Here, he draws Milwaukee's Damian Lillard. It is tempting for Tatum and Brown to settle for step-backs over smaller guards. Tatum is a superstar because he can make those shots. But Boston hits another gear when it (sometimes) puts its head down and burrows to easier points -- including free throws.
(The two-man game between Tatum and Derrick White has the same effect, since White is often defended by opposing point guards. And Porzingis is mixing in more hard rolls to the rim -- great indicators for Boston.)
Boston runs a lot of these corner actions for Brown. It catapults him into a head start, and to an area where he can see all his passing options. It simplifies the decision-making process.
Usually, it's a big man setting that pindown. If the defense switches, both Brown and his screening partner have mismatches -- Brown against a slower big man, and Porzingis or Horford posting up wings. But here the screener is Sam Hauser, and he's there because he has LaMelo Ball on him. Ball is the target.
Brown gets the switch, and bulldozes Ball toward the rim. It results in a turnover, but the process is right and the same action has worked more often than not.
Boston has been the league's best team. It was my preseason pick to win the title over the Denver Nuggets in the Finals. Boston has the best top six in the league, and assets to trade for one more bench player. This is the best team of the Tatum-Brown era.
But winning four playoff series requires incredible toughness and discipline. For Boston, that will mean knowing when the hardest thing is the right thing.
2. The unsung heroes of the Orlando Magic's rampaging start
Glamour markets and superstars be damned, this is the most exciting story of the season: The young, fearless Orlando Magic -- the NBA's unnoticed backwater for so long -- screaming toward the top of the East with sneering defense and unyielding ferocity.
Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner are averaging 39 points combined on 47% shooting -- solid considering their youth, but hardly the blow-away start that would portend the Magic becoming this. (Wagner is beginning to roll.)
Jalen Suggs is no longer unsung and whoa boy is he is about to reward the Magic's brain trust for their patience -- for not worrying about his wonky shooting, or what position he plays. He's a basketball player. Suggs is up to 13 points per game on 45% (37% from deep), and given what he brings on defense, that is plenty.
It's trite to say the Magic "play hard," though of course, they do. In a lot of contexts, "try hard" is almost pejorative -- short-hand for a team that deigns to care about defense and rebounding while more talented rivals laze through the 82-game grind. The Magic and their stars do try hard on defense, and that is rare for a young team. Both players and coaches -- Jamahl Mosley is the no-brainer Coach of the Year so far -- deserve credit for that.
But effort extends beyond defense: how hard you cut; your awareness of the extra pass and willingness to make it; boxing out when you know the rebound is unlikely to come to you; hitting people with picks or slipping out of them at full blast; keeping hyper-alert every second of every possession.
Suggs is the tone-setter. He moves at full throttle when the situation demands it, and thinks about the game -- eyes darting, options whirring in his head -- with selfless urgency:
These are small things, but look at how Suggs is on his toes and leaning toward the rim before the pass arrives. He knows he can beat that closeout if he revs to full speed.
You prefer unsung heroes? Look at Orlando's current center duo of Goga Bitadze and Moritz Wagner -- two career backups and often third-stringers.
You are forgiven if you forgot the Magic's starting center, Wendell Carter Jr., has missed the past 13 games with a fracture in his hand.
Bitadze entered the league with the Indiana Pacers as a theoretical stretch center. That experiment failed; the Pacers waived him in February.
He has taken three 3s this season, reinventing himself as a bruising interior force -- an offense rebounding machine holding opponent shooters to a piddling 53% at the rim on defense.
Wagner, meanwhile, has been maybe the league's best backup center, averaging 12 points on 63% shooting and annoying the hell out of everyone on both ends. (Fantastic NBA theater: Watching Wagner jostle for every free throw offensive rebound. You can almost hear the defender in front him pleading, "Can we not do this? Can you just give up like every other offensive player? I'm tired.")
He has delightful pick-and-roll chemistry with Joe Ingles, and it's a minor miracle there isn't a scuffle in every Magic game with Ingles and Wagner -- two of the league's great irritants -- sharing the floor:
They pull that trick where Wagner approaches for a screen, but stops 15 feet away just to see if the defense reveals a passing lane:
Why set a pick if you don't have to?
The Magic are in the playoff race to stay.
3. Did Gordon Hayward kick his confidence crisis?
Hayward's traumatic 2017 leg injury -- in his first game as a Celtic -- stands as one of the saddest and most fascinating sliding doors moments in recent NBA history. Hayward was solidifying himself as an All-Star -- a 22-point, 5-assist, 5-rebound type who could defend four positions. He has never been close to that since.
How good is that Boston team with Hayward and Kyrie Irving -- who arrived together as friends? If Hayward remains healthy, how long does that delay the full ascent of Tatum and Brown? What does that do for Irving's comfort level in Boston -- and what that might mean for the Celtics' pursuit of Anthony Davis, which never really got off the ground? You can keep going.
Hayward is still a good two-way player -- a 15-point, 5-assist guy who could help a contender in a lesser role. But until breaking out for 22 points Thursday night against the Brooklyn Nets, he had looked a shade of himself -- experiencing a crisis in confidence in full public view. His go-to move now is spinning away from contact, even when he has a runway, and pivoting into fadeaway jumpers.
Almost 60% of Hayward's attempts have been mid-rangers, per Cleaning The Glass. He's getting to the rim at near career-low rates, and barely takes 3s anymore. After a nice start, Hayward has scored 10 or fewer points in five of his last eight games.
He's still helpful as a connector, but sometimes the right play involves getting greedy. Hayward has the feel and oomph to do that -- and the stroke from deep -- but he has to get past whatever mental hurdle is in his way.
4. The Kentavious Caldwell-Pope security blanket effect
I don't care what your "research" says, Caldwell-Pope has never missed this shot since the Nuggets acquired him in one of the smartest role-player trades in recent NBA history:
I start thinking about the next possession the moment Caldwell-Pope begins moving from the left wing toward Nikola Jokic's hand-off. The result is a foregone conclusion.
Nabbing Caldwell-Pope cost Denver a valuable backup point guard in Monte Morris for whom it had no replacement, but Denver was dead on about Caldwell-Pope's fit. It needed stout perimeter defense, and Caldwell-Pope's zippy off-ball movement was ideal around Jokic. He was the perfect low-usage, high-efficiency shooter to round out Denver's starting five.
The basketball gods themselves would struggle to build a more balanced, complementary lineup. That thing is damn near perfect. Wobbly bench minutes aside, Denver remains the clear favorite in the West. It won the title with eight rotation players: that same starting five and three dependable reserves in Bruce Brown, Christian Braun and Jeff Green.
Braun remains. Reggie Jackson gets them to seven, though the Jackson-Murray pairing -- which Denver may use when Jokic rests -- does not bring the same size and defense as the Brown-Murray duo.
Even if they stand pat on the buyout and trade markets, the Nuggets should be able to finagle an eighth player night-to-night among Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther, Zeke Nnjai, Jalen Pickett and (at least against the LA Clippers) DeAndre Jordan.
5. In praise of Desmond Bane, the NBA's Sisyphus
Bane just never stops -- even when it's hopeless, when the depleted Memphis Grizzlies surround Bane with four players only the sickest NBA die-hards know.
Bane is running 31 pick-and-rolls per 100 possessions, double his average last season, per Second Spectrum. That is fairly low among No. 1 ball handlers -- which Bane is in the absence of Ja Morant -- but it about maxes out Bane. Both he and the team seem to know that -- and that there are other ways to leverage the threat of Bane's shot.
Like a lot of roving shooters, Bane understands the stress he imposes by setting screens off the ball. He is a physical screener, creative in how he emerges out of those picks:
Bane smashes Norman Powell, forcing Powell's defender -- Terance Mann, finally shooting 3s again! -- to switch onto David Roddy. Mann executes that switch. Powell has a tougher job; Bane grabs Powell like an offensive lineman, traps him on the top side, and twists toward the rim.
I'm exhausted just watching that. So much work! Bane jets toward Bismack Biyombo for a hand-off, but hits the brakes early -- seeing if he might lose Mann and moonwalk into an open triple. It almost works, but Mann edges around Biyombo fast enough to dissuade Bane.
Bane gives a half-hearted pump fake and then leans toward Biyombo for what looks to be a rote pick-and-roll. Nope. Bane stops himself again. Biyombo ambles away. Bane raises his head as if he might shoot. Mann lunges at him. That's the momentum shift Bane needs. That is a lot of ingenuity crammed into five seconds.
The Grizz are 29th in offense. They are scoring 107 points per 100 possessions with Bane on the floor and a godawful 98.8 when he rests. Jaren Jackson Jr. has struggled without Morant's north-south drives to bend defenses.
Morant returns soon. The Grizzlies are four games out of the play-in tournament. But even if this season proves unsalvageable, Bane has done his part.
6. One thing in Washington that is not miserable
It's hard to glean much from a Wizards game. Almost no one is filling the role they might play on a functional team. The Wiz are 3-15, spared from ignominy only by the somehow-even-worse Detroit Pistons, and finally managing a full-on tank job in the season sandwiched between drafts with potential generational prospects (Victor Wembanyama in 2023, and if things break right, Cooper Flagg in 2025. The obvious solution: Tank again next season!) In the time it took you to read that sentence, Jordan Poole got beaten backdoor twice.
Amid all the broken plays and confused defense, Corey Kispert looks like a competent rotation player -- a seventh man type who can spot start -- on a good team. He's slumped to 35% from deep, but his shooting is a given; Kispert has hit 39% of his career 3s and would feast on easier catch-and-shoot looks within a better team.
Kispert can launch off a dead sprint, and is a heady off-ball mover -- relocating to places the defense does not expect:
Kispert slides up from the corner as Bilal Coulibaly's cut occupies Kispert's defender. Most shooters might stop along the sideline, but Kispert notices the Charlotte Hornets switching to take away space there -- with Coulibaly's defender, Bryce McGowens, toggling onto Kispert.
Kispert slows for a beat near the sideline, but as soon as McGowens turns to peek at the ball, Kispert accelerates again toward the top of the arc -- finding just enough space for a quick-release triple.
The best signal of Kispert's long-term viability is the way he has perked up with the ball. Start him off with a slight advantage -- maybe popping off one pindown before taking a hand-off -- and Kispert can widen that advantage and keep the offense churning:
That's advanced stuff -- the way Kispert changes pace, pins his defender on his hip, and freezes Nick Richards before zooming in for that layup.
Kispert is averaging nine drives per 100 possessions, up from 3.5 last season. The Wiz have scored 1.31 points per possession when Kispert shoots out of a drive or passes to a teammate who fires -- No. 2 among 175 players who have recorded at least 50 drives, per Second Spectrum. (At the top: Damian Lillard.) Kispert's pick-and-roll volume has doubled, with similar efficiency. His assists and free throws are up.
Kispert will never be a high-volume ballhandling option, but in the highest-stakes games, you need all five players to make snap pass-shoot-or-drive decisions under pressure. That is where one-dimensional stand-still shooters wilt.
A solid bench player is good value for the No. 15 pick. (Should we mention the next two picks in the 2021 NBA draft were Alperen Sengun and Trey Murphy III? Then again, picks No. 9-13 were Davion Mitchell, Ziaire Williams, James Bouknight, Joshua Primo and Chris Duarte.)
7. It's time for Moses Moody to play more
Here's one forgotten moment from the Golden State Warriors' collapse against the Sacramento Kings Tuesday night -- a disturbing loss that dropped the Warriors to 8-10 and raised the volume on whether this core can find its equilibrium again: With 17 seconds left in the 3rd quarter and Golden State up 10, Moody rebounded a Stephen Curry miss. The Warriors could have run the clock almost all the way down.
Moody pitched the ball to Klay Thompson, who jacked a semi-contested 3 with 16 seconds left. He missed. The basketball gods punished this hubris when De'Aaron Fox drew a shooting foul with one second left. He made 1-of-2 free throws. The Kings won by one.
It was the kind of fretful "I've got to get going!" shot to which Thompson somewhat rightfully feels entitled. Thompson is a legend, and the Warriors will never get where they want to go -- where they still think they can go -- if Thompson does not rediscover his form. He has leeway.
Curry can still be the best player on a title team. Kevon Looney does his job. The three starters between them -- Thompson, Andrew Wiggins and Draymond Green -- have not done theirs so far. That is the simple story of the Warriors' blah start. If that doesn't change, they have no shot at doing anything serious, at least as presently constructed.
Moody has earned more minutes, even when the team is back at full strength. Wiggins missed Thursday night's game after slamming his finger in a car door, according to ESPN's Kendra Andrews. Moody started in his place. Chris Paul and Gary Payton II are also nursing injuries. Warriors coach Steve Kerr should have left Moody in that Sacramento game late. One potential solution is the small-ball group of Curry, Thompson, Moody, Wiggins and Green.
That group has logged only 33 minutes over the last two seasons. The Warriors are starving for a workable heavy-minutes Green-at-center lineup. The version with Chris Paul in Looney's place is too small. Iterations with Gary Payton II or Jonathan Kuminga feature two non-shooters.
The Green-Dario Saric pairing is intriguing, but not as dynamic on defense. Brandin Podziemski is emerging as an interesting wild card.
Moody is a proven shooter, and plays bigger than his 6-foot-6 height. He doesn't foul much or turn the ball over, the Warriors' two fatal flaws.
The Warriors' true level is probably closer to their 6-2 start than the spiral since. They have played the league's toughest schedule, and with attention to detail can at least mitigate their fouling and turnovers.
8. Another variant of the ultra-modern (and bad) transition 3
The 4-on-1 pull-up transition 3 is the most irksome manifestation of misapplied analytics -- counter to the math that supposedly underpins it. (A sure 2 always will be the best shot.)
But there are other variants of this perverted math: Meet the fake "trailing" 3-pointer:
The trail 3 emerges when a shooter trails the play. With everyone rushing to the rim, the shooter lopes into an easy three. By definition, you can't try a trail 3 when you are ahead of the play -- which Christian Wood is here. All Wood has to do is keep stride as he catches Taurean Prince's pass, and either drive into a layup; lob to Anthony Davis; or kick to an open shooter.
Instead, Wood slows to a stop. You can see Prince's dejection. If I were a coach, I'd institute some kind of fine jar for such fast-break offenses. Dunks are good! Try to get dunks!