SLN KEYS TO THE SERIES, presented by Toyota

[Joe]

SLN KEYS TO THE SERIES, presented by Toyota

...and head to head stats

The playoffs are upon us! I did pull of the head to head regularly season statistics of each of these teams to figure out who the most pivotal figures are on each roster for this first round series. I’ve also included the output from the dataset so you can poke through the numbers yourself (a couple guys are a little wonky because they were traded between two playoff teams and thus played more than 4 games, but most of the data is solid) – good luck to everyone!

WEST

Suns (1) v. Sonics (8)

Keys for Phoenix: Rui Hachimura
Keys for Seattle: Sonics defensive frontcourt (Sullinger, Noah, Simmons)

Analysis: No love is lost between these two KC natives, who, unlike their beloved football team, will have to rely on talent and coaching creativity to win in the playoffs as no one has yet figured out how to bribe the FBB refs. Despite the Suns winning the West and the Sonics barely cracking .500, Seattle is actually 3-1 against Phoenix this year. This can largely be credited to the Seattle frontcourt, who despite only posting modest total stock numbers over the season, step it way up against the Suns – Sullinger’s blocks pop from 1.5 to 3.3, Noah’s from 0.9 to 3.5 (in 18mpg!) and Simmons’ steals from 2.0 to an astonishing 4.3. Together, in this matchup, the Sonics held Jokic to a few points below his season average, Blake Griffin to 38% from the field, and Bonga to 40%. Rui, however, shined to the tune of 38 ppg in the 4 games – he seems to be the only player capable of shining against Seattle, so this matchup will likely come down to whether he can carry most of the scoring load for the Suns.

Grizzlies (2) v. Warriors (7)

Keys for Vancouver: Cory Joseph
Keys for Golden State: Ivica Zubac

Analysis: These two teams split their series during the regular season, and when I got into the data, I spit out my coffee and I wasn’t even drinking any. It’s well known that I’m not a Zubac guy at all, but he absolutely COOKS the Grizz in this matchup. In the 3 games he played against Vancouver, he averaged a tidy 24 and 12 on 67% shooting with only 1.3 TOs. Jrue and Tatum perform around their season averages, but Zubac goes to town in the frontcourt – the Grizz are really only 3 frontcourt players deep, so if Zubac can get one of those fellas in foul trouble and force a bunch of Jonah Bolden minutes, the Warriors have a good chance to pull the upset. On the other side of the ball, Cory Joseph has shown brightly against all-world defender Holiday, averaging 30 and 6 on 54/43/91 – Porzingis and Ingram seem to struggle to score in volume against the Dubs, so Josh will need some Cojo heroics to pull this one out.

Jazz (3) v. Kings (6)

Keys for Utah: Jordan Bell, Marvin Williams
Keys for Sacramento: Boban Marjanovic

Analysis: It’s tough to draw a ton of insight from the games these two teams played during the season (they went 2-2), as the ferris wheel that is the Kings roster churns so much throughout the year, but the one constant has been Big Boban. Bobi has feasted against the Jazz’s shallow frontcourt to the tune of 25 a game on 50% shooting (often playing the backup 3-4-5, I believe). On the other side of the ball, DOPY Jordan Bell has been outstanding, collecting 5 blocks a game against this Boban-oriented offense – there will be an exciting game of cat and mouse as to where Jesse and Ralph decide to deploy their two respective star bigs within their depth charts. Aging Marvin Williams struggled to shoot efficiently in four games against the Kings (43%); in order to get through to the next round, Utah will need Marvin to win in the matchup against stud defender Kelly Oubre or see some of the scoring slack picked up by FVV or THJ, especially with DJJ out for the entire series.

Blazers (4) v. Lakers (5)

Keys for Portland: RJ Barrett
Keys for Los Angeles: The Big 3 (edit: the Big 2 while Gordon's still in the hospital)

Analysis: A Pacific rivalry is replayed in the first round – the Blazers earn home court over the Lakers by one game after a back and forth battle for 2nd in the division, but these teams also played to an even 2-2 record during the year. Despite his reportedly goopy fingers, Kyrie seemed to have no trouble hanging onto the ball (or scoring it) against Jerian Grant, who was recorded in a recent postgame interview saying “I don’t get paid enough to play defense - I drive a 2019 Hyundai Elantra for Christ’s sake. And it’s a lease!” Kyrie took the opportunity to average 40ppg on 56/53/89 against the Blazers with just 2 TOs, while his second and third bananas, PG and Hayward, also surpassed their season averages in these 4 games. Lauri and Monta struggled to score against this strong defensive starting backcourt, so it will be up to RJ Barrett to score as much as possible against LA’s weak bench unit. Barrett scored at a blistering 61/50/80 clip against the corpse of CJ Miles, and will have to shoulder a load of 30+ efficient points off the bench in the playoffs if the Blazers are to win.


EAST

Hawks (1) v. Cavs (8)

Keys for Atlanta: GP2’s defense
Keys for Cleveland: Put literally anyone other than Horford on KD

Analysis: The Hawks faired considerably better against the Cavs than Boston, winning all four matchups by an average of 16 points on the way to a completely stupid 72-10 record. The Cavs will have their work cut out for them, as The Mitten has been absolutely smothering their second leading scorer in this matchup – Russell managed only 35% from the field in 4 games. The same is true of Boogie Cousins, who barely scraped 36% from the floor against DJ and Perk. The Cavs will need a herculean effort from Levine to take this series, as he’s across from the only non-elite defender in the Hawks starting 5. Meanwhile, with no Justise Winslow to hang with him, the Durantula should spin webs around the sluggish Horford, who really shouldn’t be subjected to this matchup in the likely last year before his retirement. An anonymous report of “elder abuse” has made its way up through the Cleveland front office and is currently being investigated.

Knicks (2) v. Bullets (7)

Keys for New York: Tyus Jones
Keys for Washington: AD & Shabazz

Analysis: The Knicks easily dispatched the Bullets in their first 3 matchups, but fell in the fourth due to a horrendous shooting night from Embiid. Maxey played point guard for a lot of the year, and Tyus Jones really made Weston feel that decision, posting 30 a night against Washington on 54/60/86. Conley, even with his B+ Def rating, may not be quick or strong enough at age 34 to keep up with Jones, but he’s got a better shot than Tyrese “Shell Drills are for Turtles” Maxey. Defense will be key for Washington to stay in this series against New York’s league-leading 127.8 ppg; specifically, AD will need to continue to shine guarding Embiid, against whom he averaged 4.3 bpg and 50% from the floor. Winslow will do his best to slow down Turner, but he’ll have his work cut out for him. If Weston figures out a way to deploy Shabazz in a backup role that doesn’t have him guarded by Okogie or Turner (Muhammed shot 43% from the floor starting at SF against the Knicks), Washington has a small chance to steal the series.

Magic (3) v. Hornets (6)

Keys for Orlando: Kawhi, Devin Booker
Keys for Charlotte: Jamal Murray

Analysis: Every single regular season game between these two teams was decided by 10 points or less (they went 2-2), so we should have an electric matchup in the first round. As you might expect, Jamal Murray has tuned up Steph in the PG matchup this year, scoring 39 a night on 50/45/96 while Steph has been limited to a pedestrian 26 points on 44% from the field. On the other hand, Kawhi has dominated his matchup with Semi on both ends of the floor, posting 29 and 9 boards a night on 51/53/93 while Ojeleye managed only 19 and 6 on 44/31/83. All-universe defender Jonathan Isaac has held AG to a mere 42% from the floor in the head-to-head, so it may be up to Booker to do the bulk of the scoring against Clarkson’s non-existent defense at the 2. Booker has been the 2nd or 3rd option all year for the Magic, I’d be curious to see if Merv moves him to #1 to exploit the only weak point in Charlotte’s starting 5.

Bulls (4) v. Celtics (5)

Keys for Chicago: Positive regression from Luka
Keys for Boston: Luka weirdly sucking, Taurean Prince, Chris Boucher’s defense

Analysis: Harden has struggled a bit against the size and strength of Luka at the 1, scoring 34 a night on only 45% from the floor with 4 TOs in 4 games against the Bulls – however, ironically, Luka has faired even worse in the matchup, posting 26 ppg on 36% FG%. I’d like to think Harden only tries on defense against good point guards when he knows he’s going to be on national TV, but this is more likely a statistical aberration than anything else. DRose and Otto Porter have done most of the damage against Boston, combining for 60 points and only 2.6 turnovers a game, and helping Chicago to 3 out of 4 in this series, even against the stifling defense of Chris Boucher. Neither frontcourt on either of these squads does much shooting, so the series is likely going to come down to whether Boston can shut down one of the Bulls wings and get some efficient buckets from the SG position against Rose – neither Prince nor Simons looked great against their two games each vs. Chicago in the regular season, but the Celtics may have another DC in the hopper for the playoffs.

[heimer]

i was raised to respect my elders

[Tyler]

Ya… Sonicks are a brutal matchup for us…

[Tyler]

Chris Boucher is still underrated

[SoNicks]

Chris Boucher is still underrated

I miss him

[Merv]

Justice for Zu

[mantypas/CavsCzar]

must be crazy to think I'd let big Al run with KD lol, we scheming schemes to pull something crazy off.

[mantypas/CavsCzar]

the stats are a nice touch. I enjoyed scrolling to the bottom to see Marc Gasols 1 minute and 1 steal. 36 steals per 36 lol

[quady]

luckily someone broke Gordon's hip for us

[quady]

We will obviously be doing a lotion giveaway for game 1