If you watched on Thursday night, you saw one game that has two evenly-matched teams in the early game, and just an over-matched team facing a championship contender in the other. If you checked out the pod this week or really any of our content, it feels like the Nuggets might get smoked in every game. Plenty of reasons below to think the Clippers run away with it again.
Toronto Raptors (-1) vs. Boston Celtics, 6:30 pm ET
Team totals: Raptors 107.5, Celtics 106.5
Injury News: Javonte Green, Gordon Hayward, Vincent Poirier, Pat McCaw and Oshae Brissett are all out, Tremont Waters is questionable.
Raptors Expected Starters: Kyle Lowry, Fred VanVleet, O.G. Anunoby, Pascal Siakam, Marc Gasol
Celtics Expected Starters: Kemba Walker, Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Daniel Theis
Raptors Rotation Notes: Lowry played all of the second, third and fourth, Siakam and O.G. played the full 24 in second half, FVV at 19.6 with Norm getting his backup 4.4 minutes.
Celtics Rotation Notes: Enes Kanter got into the mix to take time from Time Lord (Kanter -4), Stevens didn’t stagger his guys as much in the second half.
*In Game 3, we saw that coach Nick Nurse really trusts O.G. Anunoby with 45 minutes while Lowry hit the 46-minute mark and FVV was up to 41. Nurse said he wanted to give Norman Powell more leash, but that led to just 15 minutes after his 13-minute outing in Game 2. Basically, O.G. is just too good and he received so much praise from his coaches and teammates (and others around the league, great article here). He’s been the best Raptors defender and is ticketed for huge minutes again.
*Fred VanVleet and Kyle Lowry are finally getting some better looks. In Game 3, Lowry had 14-of-23 shots come uncontested and FVV was at 15-of-22. Lowry wasn’t getting anything in the first two games, but FVV had a big missed opportunity in Game 2 at 5-of-14 on uncontested shots and at 2-of-11 in Game 1. FVV also had his best game on getting transition points and he finally shot it well in halfcourt sets. Lowry also really turned up the aggression with 16 drives to more than double his previous 7.7 drives per game in the playoffs, scoring 16 points off those (just 4.5 per game in previous six). Lowry’s style of play and FVV’s bad luck running out should bode well for them, especially with huge playing time. Nurse even talked about alpha Lowry after the game. “Kyle wanted the ball, man. He just wanted the ball. That’s all there is to it,” Nurse said. Love Lowry today.
*The Raptors continue defend Kemba Walker well with only three wide-open shots all series (two threes), and being such a great PNR defense makes it tough on him. He’s still been excellent on defense in this series and that’ll keep him on the floor a whole lot.
*Jayson Tatum had some really bad luck in Game 3, missing all six of his uncontested shots. One huge positive for Tatum was getting up to his playoff-high 21 drives, and you can see a little trend developing over the last four. Here are his drives in each game starting over the last five: 5, 6, 7, 8, 18, 21. Tatum was one of the most efficient players off drives in the playoffs (Nets D helped), but overall on the year he was still very efficient on a play that was under-utilized. Getting to 21 drives is huge and missing all of his contested shots shows he’s in for a much better game today.
*You might also have to think Norman Powell’s goose might be cooked after Nurse’s comments about how he played his key guys so many minutes. “Listen, the season was on the line, that’s all I can tell you, and I’m coaching that way. I have no idea how it’s going to feel (Saturday). I really do believe there (are) some opportunities for some of these guys coming off the bench. I don’t know who, but I do believe there (are) some. We’re probably going to find somebody. It’s probably gonna be a wild card that comes into this series at some point.” We might see some more Matt Thomas, Terence Davis could be back, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson could get some time, or we might get real wild with Paul Watson or Malcolm Miller. It’s still going to be real tough to play Norm.
Matchup Helps: Kyle Lowry, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Fred VanVleet
Matchup Hurts: Marc Gasol, Norman Powell
Denver Nuggets vs. LA Clippers (-9), 9:00 pm ET
Team totals: Nuggets 106.3, Clippers 115.3
Injury News: Will Barton and Vlatko Cancar remain out, the Clips have a clean injury report.
Nuggets Expected Starters: Jamal Murray, Gary Harris, Jerami Grant, Paul Millsap, Nikola Jokic
Clippers Expected Starters: Patrick Beverley, Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, Marcus Morris, Ivica Zubac
Nuggets Rotation Notes: Jamal Murray (21.4 minutes in first half) and Nikola Jokic (19.9) were on pace for huge minutes (Jerami Grant 16.3, Paul Millsap 15.6), garbage-time lineup was Bol Bol, Troy Daniels, Keita Bates-Diop, P.J. Dozier and Michael Porter Jr., MPJ played the final 15.
Clippers Rotation Notes: Only 0.5 minute of a non-center lineup in the first half, Kawhi at 19.4 first-half minutes (George 17.3), garbage time was Terance Mann, Rodney McGruder, Patrick Patterson, JaMychal Green and Landry Shamet.
*The Nuggets’ starters were smashed once again, giving up a 129.7 D rating in 19 minutes. Among the 43 NBA lineups with 19-plus minutes in the playoffs, the Nuggets have four of the eight worst lineups on defense. Murray, Joker and Millsap are in all four of those. Malone said that the one-on-one containment on D is correctable, “or else we’re gonna get our ass kicked.” Malone said the Clippers had 15 blow-bys for 29 points in Game 1, and this defense could get worked yet again. I’ve been hoping Millsap gets the boot from the first unit, and maybe that comes today. It doesn’t have to be this way, Malone.
*Kawhi is unfair Vol. 8. He was 5-of-5 on contested shots in Game 1, and he’s up to 19-of-23 on contested shots over the last four games. Poor Jerami Grant has to deal with that, and Kawhi put up a 90.0 TS% against him for nine points, and Kawhi had a 70-plus TS% on anyone that Denver threw at him with more than one Kawhi attempt against each player. He was perfect on his drives at 8-of-8 from the field and 2-of-2 from the line for 18 points off 16 drives, and this comes after the Nuggets were absolutely shredded off drives by Donovan Mitchell. He’s on another level inside the paint right now and he gets this “defense” put in front of him. When you take the league’s best player right now and put him against the league’s worst defense right now, it’s not hard to figure out what happens.
*Jamal Murray’s luck has run out a bit in the last two games, making just 8-of-25 (32.0%) on uncontested shots. Prior to that, he was 42-of-71 (59.2%) in the first six games. Murray also didn’t get the looks in Game 1 at 1-of-3 on contested shots, and part of that was because he didn’t get any makes in 15.2 partial possessions against Kawhi Leonard (0-of-4), and he was just 1-of-3 on the guy who saw the second-most time on him, Paul George, at 12.6. He also didn’t make any pull-up treys after 24 in the first round. It’s gonna be real tough for the Blue Arrow to hit the bullseye.
*Gary Harris and Torrey Craig did a solid job on Paul George, keeping him to just two shots within eight feet (one was a transition layup, one a drive on Jerami Grant). George still hasn’t hit his stride as an off-ball guy at just 37.9 eFG% on his catch-and-shoot shots. Kawhi hasn’t had an inefficient game in any of the playoff games, and he hasn’t been below 55 TS% since Feb. 13 (league average was 56 TS% this year). PG is still fine, but he’s certainly not the 1B to Kawhi’s 1A.
*Jokic’s touches per minute were right on par with his first-round output at 2.7, but it’s still down a tick from the 3.0 he had in the regular season — Jamal Murray being the alpha explains why. Jokic had just one paint touch in Game 1, which is down from 4.4 against the Jazz and 5.8 in the regular season. The Clippers have been an excellent interior defense against bigs with most of their paint points allowed coming via drives (ranked second to Wolves pre-bubble).
*Montrezl Harrell had 19 minutes with 15 points in Game 1, and coach Doc Rivers talked about Harrell’s role in the first round. “He handled it, that tells you he’s a good team player. I was impressed with his ability to buy in to what we were doing. He took it, and that was great for our team to see.” That doesn’t exactly sound like a guy who is quite ready for a big uptick in minutes, but at least Trezz didn’t play all of the garbage time on Thursday. It should be a busy night for Zubac again.
Matchup Helps: Kawhi Leonard, Ivica Zubac, Lou Williams, Paul George, garbage-time lineups
Matchup Hurts: Jamal Murray
