A reconstructed team looks like it’s been together forever. Long-range gluttons are colliding with 3-point stranglers. And a young squad just learned a lesson.
Let’s run through three trends that have caught my eye during the NBA postseason:
Wolves on a string
Playoff narratives are dying in Minnesota.
The NBA’s favorite lightning rod, Rudy Gobert, won the Timberwolves a closeout game. Julius Randle, considered a playoff liability until a week and a half ago, just reeled off his best postseason series ever.
The Timberwolves are heading to the second round following a five-game victory over the Los Angeles Lakers. After making some roster changes during training camp, they are four wins away from a second consecutive conference finals appearance. And for all the Lakers chatter that’s followed the series, it was the Wolves’ cohesion that became impossible to ignore.
Minnesota took months to get comfortable after flipping Karl-Anthony Towns for Randle and Donte DiVincenzo. And now, it’s found that comfort. The Wolves are succeeding because of their communication.
Check out this play from the fourth quarter of Game 5.
LeBron James headed crosscourt from the right wing, firing a pass to Austin Reaves, then setting a screen for him. He squared up Reaves’ defender, DiVincenzo, well enough that Randle had to switch onto the driver.
This series wasn’t just big for Randle because of his scoring, which helped close Game 5. It was also his most impressive defensive performance. The lapses on that end, often part of the Randle experience, were minimal. He held James in check for much of the series.
On this play, he followed Reaves down low, keeping a hand up to deny the turnaround shot. But that’s not what made the possession special.
Watch the communication away from the ball between Gobert and DiVincenzo:
This type of coverage is called “go” defense, one of the rare times when a defender is supposed to help from the strong side. If a driver or roller gets past his man, as James did with DiVincenzo, the guy guarding the corner (in this case, Gobert) sinks into the lane as the player lagging (DiVincenzo) peels off to the open man.
When done well, it’s barely noticeable, just as it was here, when James chucks up a prayer of a fallaway over the outstretched Gobert.
The Timberwolves missed 40 3-pointers during Game 5. Their star, Anthony Edwards, clanked all 11 he took. But this team is overflowing with defensive talent on both the perimeter and the paint. And now, it’s playing on a string.
Cavaliers’ 3-point barrage
The Indiana Pacers don’t give up 3s, and the Cleveland Cavaliers splash them in from everywhere. For Indiana to compete during its second-round series against a 64-win, No. 1-seeded team, it has to prevail in the battle from beyond the arc.
Rick Carlisle’s Pacers do not allow teams to bomb away, such as how the Cavs just did during a four-game drubbing of the Miami Heat. Even last season, with a wishy-washy regular-season defense, Indiana allowed the lowest 3-point attempt rate in the NBA, according to Cleaning The Glass. The Pacers defense was dedicated to the strategy; it stayed at home on shooters who lined the perimeter and helped less than most teams would on drives.
This season, they’ve edited themselves. Indiana will send help from the weak side more aggressively, but its goals remain the same: limit 3-point attempts. The Pacers were one of only three teams to finish inside the top 10 in 3-point attempt rate allowed from both the corners and the wings in 2024-25.
Meanwhile, this defense is overlooked. Since falling to 10-15 on Dec. 8, the Pacers have ranked seventh in the NBA in points allowed per possession.
The first unit is one of the league’s best. When their four best performers (Tyrese Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard, Pascal Siakam and Myles Turner) play, the Pacers outscore opponents by 13 points per 100 possessions, according to Cleaning The Glass. For perspective, the Cavaliers’ big four, one of the league’s elite quartets, bested opponents by 9.3 points per 100 during the regular season.
The Haliburton-Nembhard-Siakam-Turner combination demolished the Milwaukee Bucks by 36 points in 91 minutes played together during the first round. Could they play more than their usual 18 minutes a night together against Cleveland?
Nembhard’s feistiness, always a factor, will be necessary. After all, the Pacers’ common tactics to limit 3-pointers aren’t as easy to pull off against Cleveland.
The Cavaliers, which shot the second-best percentage from deep and took the fourth-most 3s during the regular season, aren’t your typical drive-and-kick team. They also roll out three shooters who destroy defenses off the dribble: Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland and Ty Jerome.
Those three alone took 35 pull-up 3s over the first two games against Miami, according to Second Spectrum. Garland missed Games 3 and 4 with a toe injury.
Jarrett Allen will set especially high screens to open up his guards for deep 3s. Turner must be ready to venture farther from the hoop than usual. Nembhard, who could bounce between Mitchell and Garland, will have to contest from behind.
This play from a mid-January Pacers-Cavaliers game is the ideal Cleveland possession:
Even after allowing baskets, the Cavs play with pace. With 20 seconds on the shot clock, Allen had already set the pick. Turner lagged behind Allen. Mitchell noticed Siakam in front without a hand up and lifted for the jumper.
Cleveland is unrelenting with its 3-point barrage, as the Heat just learned during a sweeping beatdown. The Pacers’ quest will be to limit the pain.
An ode to the Pistons
The world might forget about what occurred only one minute before Jalen Brunson’s series-winning 3-pointer over defensive hound Ausar Thompson on Thursday. But Brunson’s jumper, which followed a crossover that flung Thompson leftward, was revenge for a recent strip.
With 70 seconds to go in Game 6 and the Pistons leading by one, Brunson squared up Thompson at the top of the key. He crossed over left to right, halted at the free-throw line, spun his bum to the basket and stepped back. But Thompson never left his vicinity and poked the ball away, forcing a shot-clock violation.
A couple of possessions later, Brunson crossed over Thompson from the same spot he had tried earlier, this time to end the Pistons’ season.
This will be an important experience for Detroit’s young core.
Thompson is bound for an NBA All-Defensive future. Now, he has six playoff games of learning moments. He struggled with Brunson’s choppiness at times during the series, especially early. He picked up a reach-in 80 feet from the basket in Game 1, slapping Brunson on the wrist for his second foul of the first quarter, which sent him to the bench.
He will learn from this.
All-Star point guard Cade Cunningham will, too.
On the play before Brunson nailed the 3-pointer on Thompson, Cunningham erred on a left-handed layup that could have given Detroit the lead.
At times during the series, Cunningham dominated. But at only 23, competing in his first playoff series, his youth came through, either with turnovers or an offensive game not as complete as it could be, even a season or two from now.
His shooting off the dribble should continue to improve. Cunningham shot more pull-up 3-pointers than ever this season, made more than ever, and — at 34 percent, per Second Spectrum — drained a higher percentage than ever. But he regressed in this series, when he hit only 4 of 25 pull-up 3s. In Game 6, he shot 0 of 8 on pull-up 3s.
He will learn from this.
Young center Jalen Duren will learn from all the times the Knicks turned him into a secondary playmaker, and from all the times he looked comfortable doing it, rolling off screens and facilitating on his way to the rim.
The Pistons can learn from their roster build, too.
A trio of essential veterans — Dennis Schröder, Malik Beasley and Tim Hardaway Jr. — become free agents this summer. Beasley, an NBA Sixth Man of the Year finalist, said in no uncertain terms after Game 6 that he wants to return. Schröder will present a fascinating case.
Beyond the Schröder-type traits he provided in the playoffs (the full-court pressure that annoyed Brunson, the side-step 3s) was the way the Pistons used the veteran point guard. Detroit traded for Schröder midseason not just so he could stabilize an offense that struggled with Cunningham on the bench but also so he could run alongside the up-and-comer. And those two uncovered success together.
The Pistons outscored opponents by 10.5 points per 100 possessions with Cunningham and Schröder both on the court during the regular season, according to Cleaning the Glass. By the end of the season, they often closed with the point guards. Cunningham and Schröder won their side-by-side minutes against the Knicks, too, even in a series that the team lost.
Detroit didn’t run as smoothly with Cunningham and fellow young point guard Jaden Ivey, who missed the second half of the season with a broken leg. But the organization’s theory when it traded for Schröder was that the offense could flow even better if it could get Cunningham off the ball a tad more. After half a season with Schröder, the Pistons can rest assured they were correct.
A feel-good season should end with little other than good feelings. The Pistons are young, competitive, brute, have already formed one of the league’s most in-your-face identities and now have experience, too.
(Photo of Donte DiVincenzo, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Rudy Gobert and Luka Dončić: Harry How / Getty Images)
