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The NBA Play-In Tournament kicks off tonight with the Brooklyn Nets facing the Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Clippers against the Minnesota Timberwolves. In each case, the winner will secure the No. 7 seed in their own conference with the loser needing to play the winner of tomorrow’s matches between seeded No. 9 and No. 10 to see who stays eighth.
There is a lot to move on tonight and here are some key strategic issues to watch.
Can Networks Close Large Stretchy Cavs?
The Cavs will play without Jarrett Allen who is still recovering from a broken toe, an injury that will have major repercussions for their defense. However, it does mean that the Cavs will likely play with more stretch, pairing either Lauri Markkanen or Kevin Love with Evan Mobley for most of the game, giving them a completely different look at attack.
Markkanen finished the year on a hot streak, averaging 18.2 points per game in just under 30 minutes over his last five games while notching 17 of 33 (51.2 percent) from outside the arc. When the Cavs played the Nets last week, Durant picked up the most minutes in the 4th minute and defensive responsibility for Love and Markkanen. Mobley poses enough of a threat to drag Andre Drummond or Nic Claxton away from the basket which puts some additional responsibility on Durant to act as a blocker on the weak side. Markkanen and Love’s shooting provides plenty of oomph in the other direction and Durant has been caught more than a few times hovering, ineffectively, between them.
When Durant remained tied to Markkanen on the ocean, Garland and Mobley were usually able to win two-on-two chess matches in the paint.
Notably, the Nets won this match, taking 35 points from 20 shots from Kevin Durant but also 45 points from 32 shots from Seth Curry, Bruce Brown and Andre Drummond. The Cavs’ defense suffers without the Mobley and Allen twins, but if they can limit the Nets’ role players and get some hot shots from Love and Markkanen at the other end, they should be perfectly capable of overcoming any shortage of star strength.
Who Kyrie Irving Shows For The Networks?
The good news for the Nets is that Kyrie Irving should be pretty comfortable with this game – there was a fairly big difference in his scoring efficiency between games with zero or one day rest (55.6 real hits) and games with two or more rest days (63.7 true shooting ratio). But Irving has nearly as many foul gems as gems on his game record this year and there is a ravine between his splits in nets wins and nets losses.
Irving, like many ballplayers, has struggled against the combination of Mobley and Allen this season but has scored 23 points with 11 assists 9 of 22 from the field in 40 minutes against the Cavs this season with Mobley on the ground but Allen out. If he plays well, it gives the Cavaliers two massive defensive problems to work with with limited resources and should make things easier for players like Curry, Drummond, Brown and Patty Mills to make an impact.
How important is the clippers experience?
The Timberwolves’ primary rotation contains just 88 games from post-season experience, 59 of which belong to Patrick Beverley. Paul George has 108 on his own and he’s not the only player to have nearly as much post-season experience as the entire Timberwolves roster – Reggie Jackson (69 games), Marcus Morris (64 games) and Nicholas Batum (58).
The Clippers also thrashed the Timberwolves during the regular season, outperforming them by 40 points and winning three of their four games. The Timberwolves really struggled to carry out their attack and create effective appearances against the Los Angeles defense – over the four games they managed a total of 48 free throws and 90 of their total shot attempts (24 percent) were jumpers.
However, all three of those losses came in November, and their last game was in January, with the Timberwolves winning by 18 points. However, the Clippers are a different team in many respects as well.
Paul George is back in the lineup and looks increasingly poised to make a difference, averaging 22.6 points, 6.8 assists, 5.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game, in just over 30 minutes per game, since the return. Additionally, the Clippers added Norman Powell and Robert Covington in the trade deadline.
The Timberwolves have the talent to win but with the stakes – a chance to book their second berth after the season in the past 18 seasons – they will need to play a more accurate and controlled game than they did against the Clippers in the early part of this season.
Other NBA Stories:
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