58 days to the NBA playoffs
What to watch: OKC, Hornets, Amen, Spurs, Pistons, Cavs, Zubac, Porziņģis
At this time a year ago, nobody knew the Nuggets had what it takes to almost beat the Thunder, nor that the Pacers (who were 31-25 at the break) would make it to Game 7 of the Finals. This year I expect even more unexpected.
Just this weekend I’m excited to see the Suns in San Antonio, should be great, the Pistons and Rockets at MSG too, and the Cavs at OKC!! There’s a ton of drama to come.
Over the long weekend, here’s some of what I found myself looking forward to:
THE THUNDER
The Thunder limped into the All-Star break. Not just because they are 7-7 since January 14. That’s not so terrible, but seems like a big decline after they started the season 24-1.
And so the question is, are they truly vulnerable? Or is this an aberration?
Jalen Williams has missed 30 games. Isaiah Hartenstein: 26. They have been without Alex Caruso for 19, Aaron Wiggins for 15, Ajay Mitchell for 13, Lu Dort for 11, and Chet Holmgren and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander have each missed seven games.
Those are incredible players.
What I’m trying to read from the tea leaves is whether all of these absences make the Thunder more or less likely to be full strength in the playoffs.
The Thunder have managed to still be potent on offense (fifth on offensive rating) and defense (eighth in defensive rating) in those 14 games. But without Hartenstein they fell to 25th in defensive rebounding percentage, 28th in offensive rebounding percentage. As they were also 17th in steals, their famed “win the possession battle” strategy has failed of late.
Sam Presti talked about using many different combinations of players in the regular season to learn how to solve problems. Maybe the Thunder are gaining valuable reps learning how to rebound when Hartenstein is out of the game, how to create offense without SGA or Ajay Mitchell. Maybe they’ll be better than ever from these hard times.
Getting past that, I want to see if they can find the swagger they needed to squeak past the world’s best player, Jokić, and the Nuggets last year in seven games, and the Finals against what proved to be a deep and dangerous Pacers squad.
Most teams can’t just resurrect their true identity come playoff time, it needs to be ramped up over the final months of the season. As guys return to the Thunder lineup I’ll be looking to see if they can bring playoff vibes with them.
My suspicion is, they will be running with pace by mid-March. They are my favorites to win the West and the Finals, but the door is cracked to other contenders. The injuries to Jalen Williams has me most concerned, hamstring and wrist to be specific. I’d take the field over the Thunder at this point, which is not how I felt two months ago.
THE HORNETS
After a 16-28 start, the Hornets won 10 of their next 11 games and now sit in real contention for a Play-In appearance and even possibly a top-six seed. The Sixers are 30-24 in sixth as of today, Charlotte sits ninth at 26-29. Charlotte has nine games remaining against teams who don’t want to win anymore, while Philly has at least 12. Remarkable stuff.
So the Hornets made little improvements all over, and a big jump on defense.
What’s that about?
A lot of it is about points in the paint. Before the streak, they were way back in the pack, 21st out of 30, in keeping teams from scoring around the rim. In their win streak, they have leapt up to 11th in opponent points in the paint. Related: teams used to make shots easily against the Hornets, who were 24th in opponent field goal percentage. opponents’ field goal percentage has plummeted so that the Hornets are eighth in that measure.
The headlines about this win streak have focused on LaMelo Ball and the shockingly impressive rookie Kon Knueppel. But I think the key to their turnaround has been a huge uptick in competitive fire which I attribute to Moussa Diabaté and Brandon Miller. (Their only loss in the last eleven games came when Moussa got tossed for brawling.)
There’s only one way to keep teams from scoring well in the paint, and that’s to bring a fighting spirit to the battle there. It’s one thing for coach Charles Lee to ask, even beg, his players to do so, but another for those requests to sink in and become the norm. That seems to have happened here.
Diabaté is proving to be a delightful story. A Clippers second-round pick in 2022, he played well under 300 minutes in his first two seasons combined before signing a two-way contract with the Hornets. At that point, he wasn’t at all assured to stick. At age 24, though, the Frenchman doesn’t just have a guaranteed contract, but also a spot in the starting lineup.
Diabaté joined the starting lineup on December 23. The Hornets have been different ever since, and are 15-9 when Diabaté starts. That change alone has done wonders to jumpstart the Hornets’ defensive fire.
Brandon Miller has done his part too. Injuries have kept us from seeing the full potential of the player draft second behind Victor Wembanyama. The way he is competing now, on both ends, tells me the next All-Star from Charlotte won’t be Ball or Knueppel, it’ll be Miller.
