Throughout the NBA play-offs, The National's resident NBA dudes Jonathan Raymond and Kevin Jeffers will be breaking down the key talking points of the night before, plus looking around the scope of the league. Here are our NBA Play-off takeaways.
Friday scores
Cleveland Cavaliers 121, Atlanta Hawks 108 (Cavaliers lead 3-0)
San Antonio Spurs 100, Oklahoma City Thunder 96 (Spurs lead 2-1)
• Related: Space Jam 2, Thunder-Spurs – Listen to the podcast | Full play-offs coverage
We’ve seen this movie before
There was something darkly ironic about Oklahoma City’s final points in Game 3.
The possession went like this: Dion Waiters inbounds to Russell Westbrook, who gives the ball to Kevin Durant coming out to the three-point line off a pindown screen, who in turn gives the ball right back. Westbrook loses his defender around a screen set by Serge Ibaka. He drives down to the left block and throws it back to Ibaka out on the three-point line, where he fires crosscourt to Waiters.
Waiters attacks Tony Parker, driving into the middle of the floor, and lets fly an unsightly falling jumper, but it goes in off the backboard for two points.
A contested Dion Waiters fallback floater is nobody’s concept of an ideal shot, but the possession was probably the Thunder’s most active of the fourth quarter. They moved the ball and spread the floor and found a reasonable look. It was decent team basketball, all in all.
It also took more time than they could afford to use any longer. Cutting the lead to 98-96, with five seconds left, they could only foul San Antonio, watch Kawhi Leonard drain a couple free throws, and give it to Westbrook for a final, wild trying-to-draw-a-four-point-play heave.
Serge Ibaka had hit a three to give them their first lead of the game roughly eight minutes earlier, at 78-77. Between that and Waiters’ final points, the Thunder possessions went as follows:
7:11 Westbrook makes three
6:31 Durant makes two
5:50 Waiters misses three
5:18 Durant makes two
4:37 Westbrook misses three
4:00 Durant misses two
3:25 Westbrook turnover
2:56 Durant makes two
2:28 Westbrook makes two
1:54 Westbrook turnover
1:37 Durant turnover
1:13 Westbrook misses three
1:08 Durant misses three
1:08 Westbrook makes two (and 1)
0:46 Westbrook makes two free throws
Combined over that stretch the two Oklahoma City superstars went 5-for-9 and scored 16 points. The rest of the team went 0-1 with zero points. It is not atypical for Oklahoma City to play this way at the end of games.
It is not, by any means, bad basketball.
It is just, we saw yet again, not-quite-as-good-as-the-Spurs basketball.
Durant and Westbrook are among the few best in the game, their abilities undeniable. The Thunder inevitably revolve completely around them. And it is inevitably not quite good enough to beat the very best teams.
Anything you can three I can three better
It looked there, for a minute, like the Hawks would make a series of this. The pristine ball movement and team defence that could in theory trouble the more static Cavs was, for once in actual practice, doing that.
But the flaw in that theory lies in the assumption of a static Cavs. They are very much not anymore.
They are a floor-spacing, passing, three-point-raining marvel.
What they did in the fourth quarter – stack the outside with four three-point shooters and let LeBron James command the middle – is beautifully simple and maybe unstoppable.
Kyrie Irving, JR Smith, Channing Frye and Kevin Love are dangerous enough from three to keep defenders drawn outside. Sag off them, and LeBron will work the ball to them for an open look, which they are hitting with increasing regularity.
Keep them all manned outside, and LeBron will beat his man one-on-one for easy buckets inside. What the heck do you do?
The Hawks don’t know. They’ve lost ten straight to the Cavaliers going back to their sweep at the hands of Cleveland in last year’s play-offs.
The Cavs, meanwhile, have the highest points per 100 possessions (118.7) of the play-offs – by seven (Golden State are at 111.7). They have the highest three-point percentage (46.6). They shoot threes most frequently (36.1 per game) by a long, long way. They have the second-highest assists per 100 (18.9).
They have hit upon a formula that – forget Atlanta, or Toronto or Miami – should be sending shudders down the spines of Golden State and San Antonio.
Saturday’s games (UAE time)
Toronto Raptors at Miami Heat, Game 3 (1am, series tied 1-1)
Golden State Warriors at Portland Trail Blazers, Game 3 (4.30am, Warriors lead 2-0)
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