I Early Thoughts: It’s All Really Simple
The NBA playoffs are always an overly long slog, not just a Manichean struggle.
Could the defending champion Golden State Warriors somehow shake the bad karma that emanated from Draymond Green’s unpardonable assault on team-mate Jordan Poole during a pre-season practice that seemed to follow them all season during road games. They finished a modest fifth in the Western Conference, but, perhaps abetted by their lowly finish’s taking the target off their backs, managed to come through the fire of an 0-2 first round start against Sacramento. They seemed one of three teams to watch, along with Denver and the Lakers. It was shaping up as a pretty interesting slog.
Then I saw that Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards, last year’s rookie of the year who had just been eliminated by Denver’s Nuggets, had been arrested, getting into the sort of trouble that seemed of a piece with that of the previous year’s top rookie Ja Morant. Enough! The overly long first round of the playoffs was, well, overly long: too many stereotyped actions, however brilliant and breathtaking many of them are.
But then, watching the Knicks battle Cleveland in Round One, I noticed “19” in a bright blue Knickerbocker circle on the Garden floor; then, later, a less decorously presented “6,” and felt (almost) that humanity was- well, (perhaps) redeemed. Invoking the spirits of the recently passed left-handed giants Willis Reed and Bill Russell brought me back to feeling that there really was something at stake here. Let the playoffs proceed. Look for the special stuff.
II A. Back East
As the daily grind of games — many of them spectacular — droned on, the pace began to relent a bit in the second round. With Philadelphia invading Boston on Mother’s Day for the only Game Seven of the NBA’s Playoff’s Second Round, we arrived at the midpoint of it all (1).
As things narrowed down and carried increasing possible significance, the “best player on the floor” trope (per contra Larry Brown’s 2005 champion Detroit Pistons) was being repeatedly invoked — by preacha man Mark Jackson — as both Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid and Boston’s Jason Tatum were having sub-par series.
Fortunately, though, both these teams had a second player capable of filling that role: Boston’s Jaylen Brown and Philly’s itinerant star James Harden, who enjoyed that stature before in Houston, where he won three consecutive scoring titles, and was named MVP in the second of those seasons (2017-18).
Playing without injured MVP Embiid, Harden kicked off Round Two by tallying forty-five points in Boston, giving the Sixers a leg up with a road victory. Embiid was expected back soon, though it seemed expedient not to risk his playing in Game Two, which the Sixers could now afford to lose. As it turned out, he did play, but could not avert a 121-87 Boston rout.
Still, Philly was going home tied at 1-1, needing only to win at home (three times, that is) to be safe, but they blew Game Three, 114-102. Embiid made multiple bad decisions — sometimes on a single play — as Philly dissipated a good lead. Newly crowned as Regular Season MVP, Embiid was undoubtedly tired, and was repeatedly indecisive, resulting in his passing up many good shots, and having three (!) blocked by Horford down the stretch.
Now leading 2-1, the Celtics had recaptured the home court advantage, but gave it right back with a 116-115 loss in which Harden again rose to his old stardom level, scoring forty-two points. This was the second game he had won almost by himself, one without Embiid’s presence, and one with him.
The series being even at 2-2, everyone was saying that it was destined to go seven, a frequent but fallacious fan and columnist response to a close see-saw series: fallacious, because an even series means that every game is a 50-50 proposition, and, if that’s the case, an even series is just as likely to end in six as in seven. Only in retrospect can we call a seven-game series closer than a six. Parsing it otherwise just sells newspapers.
No matter: this one did go to seven, ending with a masterpiece performance by Jason Tatum, whose three pointer over Embiid gave him a new Game Seven record of 51 points, with over seven minutes remaining. It had been an even game until Tatum ended the first half with a long three pointer (which Harden then tried but failed to match), giving him twenty-five points and his Celtics a 55-52 lead. The game then careened quickly out of control, with the third quarter ending
88-62, and Tatum’s total at 42. Maybe this “best player” trope really has something to it! But what happened to Philly, and its MVP?
As Tatum’s big game built, the excitement did too. Would this be one of those Game Seven fifty-point masterpieces? Like Stef Curry’s against Sacramento in Round One? But, just as great and historically significant were those of Bob Pettit in 1958 and Giannis Antetokounmpo two seasons ago. Both were in close-out sixth games, and deserve to be considered equally great, however intoxicated we all are by Game Sevens.
With just under four minutes left, out Tatum came. Hell, he might do this again, and why make the record even more difficult to break? He had already said what there was to say, in explaining his fourth quarter outburst to clinch Game Six, in which he had played three abysmal quarters before exploding: “I’m one of the best basketball players in the world.” This was enough to ensure that, in the next series, Jimmy Butler, though also the Heat’s leading scorer, would be his primary defender. Yes: he had Jimmy Butler looming, with either Jokic or the Davis-James combination waiting in the wings. It was time to sit him down; both not to rub it in, and to safeguard against possible injury.
As for Philly: the 112-88 loss was disgraceful! Doc Rivers, as well as Embiid, would have some answering to do. From the looks of their post-game embrace, Joel was good with the two Celtic stars, as well as with Horford. Could it get any better than this? Not for Rivers, who was summarily fired. Where will Doc surface next?
Maybe there’s a connection here to why I found most regular season games this year so enormously appealing: for about fifteen minutes! Until I’d become familiar with the cast of characters; then terminally boring up to the last five minutes. But the playoffs were very different: tempted though I may have been to reach for notions like the collective unconscious to explain this phenomenon, I settled for going small: intimate familiarity with the players from the early rounds make it feel like each point actually counts.
In Game One of the Boston-Miami Eastern Final, Butler had thirty-five points, five rebounds, seven assists, and six steals, while committing only two turnovers, and drawing the assignment of guarding Tatum. This was what we’d come to expect from Butler in big games: in the decisive Game Six of Round One, he had stunned the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks with 56 points, the second highest single game playoff total since Michael Jordan’s sixty-three in 1986 surpassed Elgin Baylor’s sixty-one in 1962 (both versus Boston). The first was Donovan Mitchell’s 57 in 2020.
This was enough for Miami to secure a 123-116 win. Then came another (111-105), leaving Boston 0-2 at home. In Game Three, in Miami, Boston looked absolutely flat (going-on-dead): 128-102. Evidence was: no-one could handle Jimmy Butler, whom I first became aware of in 2015 when he was with Chicago, and matched up with Lebron James in a playoff series in which he battled The King straight up, as if they were equals. His demeanor throughout was that of a kindred force, not a futile defeated opponent. Stan Van Gundy’s description of Butler as “very comfortable in a particular situation” applies broadly, and perfectly captures his essence: Butler plays within himself at all times.
Facing a 3-0 deficit, and playing in Miami, Boston somehow turned everything around, taking Game Four 116-99, as Tatum stormed back with twenty-six second half points. Back home in Boston, the Celts won Game Five decisively (110-97), as one had to expect, with the shift in momentum going their way at home.
So, Game six appeared critical for Miami, it being their last chance at home. Boston was aggressive and energetic, having won two straight after being left for dead. Tatum began by totally dominating Butler, who shot 2-10 for the half, but Miami was down just four.
Butler’s woes continued: he was 3-19, until he finally exploded with his fourth bucket, giving the Heat an 83-82 lead, which they quickly squandered, but a 15-4 Miami surge put them ahead 103-102 with just three seconds remaining, as Butler made all three of the free throws he was somewhat dubiously granted, on a shot from just barely behind the three point arc, on which he seemed to have jumped into his defender (Al Horford), who not only appeared not to have initiated the contact, but never to have crossed into three point territory.
Whatever contact occurred was inside the arc. Nonetheless, Butler was awarded three free throws and made them all, only to have Boston win it in the final one tenth of a second on a put-back by Derrick White, who had inbounded the ball to Marcus Smart, whose shot White followed. An unreal ending! 104-103. Butler finished with twenty-four points, eleven rebounds, and eight assists, despite his 3-19 (finally 5-21) shooting, and really did all that was required to win, before that final freak reversal, though, for most of the game, he had been, in the immortal words of Reggie Miller, “a former shell of his self.”
Losing their 3-0 lead, and needing to win in Boston to take the series they had been waltzing through, Miami now seemed to face a near-impossible task. Boston was poised to become the only team in playoff history to come back from 0-3. Impossibility, however, was standard fare for the Heat, which had begun the season under .500, being 16-17 at Christmas, and 32-27 at the All-Star break. They barely made the playoffs, finishing eighth in the East, at 44-38, and, after losing the 7-8 matchup to Atlanta, needed to beat Chicago in the final play-in game to capture the eighth seed. They were also without 20 ppg scorer Tyler Herro, who was injured in the first round. Also injured was one-time all-star Victor Oladipo.
So, with Boston on the verge of making history, and at home for Game Seven, the Celtics completely collapsed: 103-84. Go figure!
II B. Ma Baby Loves The Western Movies: Storm Been Brewin’
Out West, although a late-season slump accounted for their victory total’s falling behind not just one but the top three finishers in the East, Denver was the top seed, with 53 regular season wins. Once it became clear they were not going to have a better record than the Eastern champion, but had clinched first place in the West, the Nuggets let down, indulging heavily in the practice of what is indecorously dubbed “load management.”
They rested Jokic so much that he seemed to drop out of the MVP race, having already won the award the previous two years, during which Denver had struggled to sustain momentum from their performance in the 2020 “bubble year,” when they won two very exciting series before succumbing to a Laker team that had the breathtaking duo of Anthony Davis and Lebron James playing together for the first time. Davis was only 27, and was eager to flaunt his greatness after his tumultuous early years with New Orleans. Denver guard Jamal Murray emerged as a second star, perfectly complementing Jokic, but with James determined to win a title with yet a third franchise, keeping Davis focused, and willingly sharing the spotlight, Denver could not get past the Lakers.
Once again, the James-Davis duo was looming largest in Denver’s path. The pair had led a regular season surge that hurtled the Lakers from out of apparent playoff contention to a seventh-place finish in the West. They had then upset second-seeded Memphis (4-2), and triumphed in six games over defending champion Golden State (2), which had emerged victorious from an excruciating seven game series with, by dint of Stef Curry’s brilliant fifty-point Game Seven! The second round was Denver’s toughest series, beating Phoenix 4-2, after the Suns had tied matters at 2-2 (in a game in which Jokic had 53)!
The Lakers looked formidable, having resigned themselves to moving on from trying to integrate Russell Westbrook, whom they traded in mid-season for what seemed like little value, but the credible role players they had acquired and developed were working well with James, who was once again keeping Davis locked in (like in da bubble year, when the NBA somehow survived Spike Lee’s absence).
Denver, however, would be another matter! This should have been no surprise, as the handwriting had long been on the wall. Reporting on the 2020 playoffs, I had described watching Jokic and the Nuggets as my “antidote to a nagging sense that the game had become too predictable (3),” and opined that Jokic showed intimations of becoming a transformative player. His passing and orchestration from the center position put me in mind of Bill Walton.
Earlier in Jokic’s career, stamina had been a problem, but he used the four-month COVID-generated vacation to slim down and increase his endurance sufficiently to enable him to use his size, skill, and intuitive grasp of the game to dictate pace. His playing (and being) slow enables him to make sly adjustments of his position on screens, to “cheat” a bit to test the limits, a la Draymond Green, making it look like he’s just going about his business: slowly relocating his whale-like frame. Could this slow-moving 7’ 284 pound Serbian giant whose basketball mind seems to move as quickly as Lebron’s become able to control games in ways similar to the heretofore undisputed King.
That year (2020), before succumbing to the Lakers 4-1 (4), Denver won two consecutive series after falling behind 3-1; first against Utah, and then against the heavily favored L.A. Clippers, fighting back from double digit deficits in all three of their improbable victories. These stunning comebacks served to brand Murray and Jokic as another bubble superstar duo. In the first round, Mitchell and fellow budding star Donovan Mitchell (then with Utah) engaged in a record setting duel, trading fifty-point games (5).
Even then, there appeared to be the germ of a championship team, built around a previously unheralded giant who identified effort and having fun as the key ingredients to his team’s success; who seemed to embody the kind of enthusiasm that the game has come to lack, as it has become more regimented and formulaic. Could a new approach to the game have emerged from the hothouse bubble?
Be patient! Murray’s not being himself for two years — due to injury — begged that question, thus leaving Jokic free to accumulate MVP trophies, but without sufficient help to mount a championship run. Now, however, Murray was himself again, and Denver had added important pieces in the powerful Aaron Gordon, the veteran Bruce Brown, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who had been part of the 2020 Laker championship squad. As poetic justice would have it, they would need to go through Lebron’s Lakers, with Anthony Davis healthy.
Jokic began Game One of the Western Finals with an otherworldly first half, out-rebounding the entire Laker team 16-13, while scoring 19 points, handing out 7 assists, and making two blocks. It seemed over at halftime: 72-52, but the Lakers got close at the end: 132-126.
In Game Two, Murray had twenty-three in the fourth quarter, as Denver won another close one (108-103). In Game Three — on the road — Murray followed with 37, seventeen in the first quarter, giving him a total of 40 points in two consecutive quarters, numbers that were absurd, yet entirely characteristic of Murray. Jokic added 24, as Denver’s victory margin swelled to eleven: 119-108.
With Denver up 3-0, James was facing not only elimination, but perhaps also a kind of humiliation. He responded brilliantly, with a twenty-one point first quarter, but L.A. led by just six. Their 34-28 first quarter lead became 41-31. Lebron stayed out there, eschewing his accustomed late first quarter rest. He had thirty-one at the half, as L.A. led 73-58.
A 16-36 third quarter collapse left L.A. down by five, but, eventually, with James effectively guarding Murray down the stretch, they were able to even matters at 111-111. Denver eked out a dramatic 113-111 win, with Jokic scoring the decisive basket on an almost clumsy layup. James, in the waning seconds, was unable to convert on the game’s final possession. His shot was blocked, as he was made to shift his course to the basket, getting sandwiched between Murray and the powerful Aaron Gordon.
Lebron had scored forty points, playing all but the final three seconds! It was an unbelievable effort, but the Lakers were, in the end, overmatched. James left the floor abruptly, apparently drained, and soon hinted at thoughts of retirement; highly unlikely, as he has dreams of playing with his son as soon as a year from now.
Jokic generously praised the outgoing King. Recalling that this outcome was a reversal of the 2020 Western Semi-finals, it seemed just right: perhaps the peaceful transition was complete (6). But to seal matters, another series beckoned.
III. Da Finals and All Dat Goad Shit
By the time the Finals began, these guys were awfully familiar; to us as well as to each other. Butler and Jokic both had enormous capacities to play within their own comfort zones.[7]
Jokic came in shooting 47% on his rainbow threes, and started with a modest triple double of 27/10/14 (on just 12 shots), which could be seen as just the first movement of a waltz he was crafting. Murray had 26, with three other Nuggets in double figures, while Butler could manage only 13. Denver looked rested, as befitted their having had nine days rest.
After a desultory opener (104-93), Game Two was, well, a barnburner. With Miami trailing 83-75 after three quarters, and Jokic already having thirty-one points (eighteen in the third quarter), Heat reserve Duncan Robinson more than made up the deficit in less than three minutes (2:16, actually) with ten straight points. Shades of Lonnie Walker’s Game Five at Golden State! Including Gabe Vincent’s three pointer, Miami had scored thirteen straight points, all he while waiting for Jimmy Butler to become Jimmy Butler.
He finally did, with Bam Adebayo and Kyle Lowry joining in to extend Miami’s lead to 107-95, before Jamal Murray’s two three pointers sparked a furious (11-2) Denver rally that would have sent matters into overtime had not Murray missed a last second three on which he had a pretty good look: 111-108. Miami shot 17-35 on threes! Talk of potential sweep shifted to paeans of appreciation to infectious and resilient “Heat Culture.”
But still there was Jokic. In spite of his forty-one points, much was made of his having been “held” to four assists. Strategically, Miami had looked to choke off his potential receivers, as his elegant passing arsenal comprises an amalgam of techniques from various sports performed either at land or at sea, and open to seven feet nearly 300-pound slow moving mammals.
His unique skill set and body seem to combine magic and water polo. His full-court passes reek of a kind of beauty more often associated with water sports; his shorter ones are often simply redirections of the ball. Only sometimes he does not seem to feel obliged to have it in his hand longer than your garden variety street magician. All this from a 41st pick in the 2014 draft, who, at the time of his draft selection, is reported to have been asleep in Serbia.
Characterized variously as a combination of Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, or an elephant seal on skates (by noted First contributor Bob Levin), Jokic sends everyone striving for metaphors, comparisons, and analogies, but if metaphors are easy to generate, stopping him is another matter.
All the time, he has available to him two distinct pivot feet. Now, is that fair?
He is the first center ever that I question whether Bill Walton, in his tragically few peak years, could have contained. Quite a load for anyone to manage.
Unlike other recent GOAT candidates, Jokic comes from an entirely different lineage. Searching for his roots, commentators leave out his true progenitor: the massive and slow-moving George Mikan, whom NBA All-time Player Efficiency Ratings place in the Number Three slot, behind only Jokic and Michael Jordan! Big George thoroughly dominated the NBA in his time, setting a regular season scoring record in the 1950-51 season of 28.4 ppg, a mark that was to last throughout the fifties (8), and led his teams to seven league titles in his nine year career (9). In response to Mikan’s burgeoning dominance, the NBA widened the lane from six to twelve feet for the next (1951-52) season.
There was a tenth year, actually; well sort of: George returned for the 1955-56 season after missing 1954-55, the inaugural year of the twenty-four second rule, which had not been in effect during George’s reign. In his comeback season after a year in retirement, he had to split the center position with the young Clyde Lovellette, and appeared in only 37 games, playing about twenty minutes per game. At 31, George was not suited for the new rules, but just imagine a young George Mikan today: grabbed up by a tech-sponsored Joliet, Illinois Youth League team, made to run wind sprints, jettison his thick spectacles for cool prescription Nike shades, study ballet, and do squats half an hour daily! Who is to say how great he woulda been?
Sorry: in Game Three, both Jokic and Murray scored over thirty points AND finished with triple doubles, an unprecedented feat, with Jokic also corralling twenty-one rebounds. It was Murray’s third consecutive game of at least ten assists. The next game, he broke the Finals record with his fourth.
Game Four began with Denver, heeding its coach’s pre-game admonition, closing out furiously on Miami’s stable of three-point shooters, such that only an accidentally banked three pointer by Lowry and a last-second three by Butler brought their point total to 21 at the quarter, while Denver, despite the host of open shots created by Jokic’s magician-like feeds, managed only 20 themselves. As things progressed, the size and power of the Denver forwards began to wear down smaller Miami, as Aaron Gordon (16 first half points, 27 for the night), and Michael Porter cavorted down the lane seemingly at will. If one Eurostep doesn’t get called for a travel, just add another and lay it in!
So Denver survived what was for Jokic an ordinary night (23 points, 12 rebounds, 4 assists) to win going away 108-95, despite Big Nic’s having been saddled with his fifth foul with over nine minutes remaining, on a more-than-dubious offensive foul: his innocuous moving pick prompted a major-league flop. Reserve sparkplug Bruce Brown’s 21 points and Gordon’s 27 made up for the absence of the kinds of spectacular performances we’d come to expect from its two stars. Denver was only one win away from the finish line, and headed home after taking both games on the road. After their brief flirtation with the mystique of Heat culture, those who had been predicting a sweep after Game One were now talking “Gentleman’s Sweep.”
By Game Five, there was little doubt in the minds of all but the most rabid Heat supporters. Jokic committed two early fouls, and appeared to be laboring, but still posted ridiculous numbers: 28 points on 12-of-16 shooting, 16 rebounds, and a modest four assists. Jimmy Butler, after not having been Jimmy Butler all night, suddenly came alive with two late three pointers, but hoisted up a dubious one at the end, and missed another badly, as Denver- seemingly inexorably- closed out the overmatched Heat: 94-89.
Averaging 30.2 points, 14.0 rebounds, 7.2 assists and 1.4 blocks for the series, Jokic was unanimously voted MVP. Acting like an adult, he accepted the trophy with grace, humility, humor, and dignity. He became the first player ever to accumulate 10 triple-doubles in a playoff run. His 67.2 percent true shooting percentage looked like a clerical error, and his overall statistical domination prompted comparisons to Wilt Chamberlain, the other who prompted rule changes.
The season was over. GOAT chatter would continue, but did not really matter.
Anyway, here comes that 7’5” French kid Victor Wembenyama, soon — perhaps — to make all this obsolete. Crazy talk perhaps, but those who most appreciated Wilt in his prime had long imagined the arrival of some similarly physically dominant player about a half century later. We bemusedly imagined age’s fraying the signature rubber bands Wilt wore upon his wrists. His last season was 1973.
For now, at least, a new king had been crowned. Denver has a young team, with only one player as old as thirty, and an inspiring and likeable coach in the very genuine Mike Malone. They’d waited a long time, suffering through one-dimensional high scorers like Alex English and Carmelo Anthony, but always competing in the spirit of former Nuggets Larry Brown and Doug Moe.
The game is in good hands. Reminiscent of Bill Walton’s rapid disappearances into the Sierras after winning NCAA titles at UCLA, Jokic returned to Europe, just after the victory parade.
Bill Russell called basketball a simple game, played by grown men in short pants. Yes, but Russ was leaving out the tremendous thought and calculation that undergirded his approach to the game, the studied application of geometrical reasoning that allowed him to conceptualize shot blocking in such a way as to revolutionize the game. He exemplified the fact that not only does our game attract, develop, and refine the world’s greatest athletes, but all of the true greats possess a special intelligence, akin to jazz musicians.
The season was over. A happy ending! I breathed a sigh of relief. May our beloved league and its fans prosper and grow back stronger.
It would only be days before another video of Ja Morant brandishing a gun surfaced. But I didn’t know that then.
NOTES
- Approximately, because the play-in games extend the whole operation a bit.
- To think: the Laker-Warrior series got decided by little-used Laker reserve Lonnie Walker! In Game Five, the only road victory of the six-game series, Walker left the bench to score all of his fifteen points in the fourth quarter.
- Liss, R. “Downhill in the Bubble: Does the NBA’s Life Matter?”, First of the month, October 1, 2020
- A series in which Jokic almost won the critical Game Two by himself, until Davis’s heroic three pointer rescued the Lakers and kept Denver from evening the series at 1-1.
- Murray Mitchell set an NBA record for combined points between playoff foes: 475 points, with 65 three-pointers, nine 30+ point games, and four of 50+. Mitchell had 57 points in Game 1 and 51 in Game 4, while Murray got fifty in Games 4 and 5, as well as 42 in Game 5, averaging 31.5 points per game, shooting an identical 55% on both twos and threes, and 92% on free throws. Together, they broke the long-standing record of 463, held by Jerry West and John Havlicek in the 1969 Finals.Mitchell was only the third player ever, after Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson to post two fifty-point games in a playoff series. His fifty-seven points had been exceeded only twice: by Elgin Baylor’s 61 in 1962 (before there was a three-point shot!) in Game Five of the Finals in Boston Garden, and Michael Jordan’s 63 in 1986, against the Celtics, in an early round.
- Poem by Tony Hoagland (1953-2018), “Peaceful Transition” (from 11/5/2018 New Yorker).
- Though the Nuggets-Heat was the first Finals in 33 years without a single first team All-NBA player. Butler and Jokic were named to the second team. (As was Lebron, perhaps because he played substantially fewer games — due to injury, not age or design! While that seems ridiculous, no one on that first team can be said to be undeserving. Trouble is: they only allow one center, which is absurd, given how a-positional the game has become. Great centers today — such as Embiid and Jokic — are mobile, skilled, and good shooters. Nice qualities to have in giants!)
- During the 1959-60 season, Bob Pettit, whose rookie season (1954-55) was the inaugural year of the shot clock, broke Mikan’s long-standing single season scoring record with a 29.2 average (identical to Pettit’s career playoff Game Seven average). The next season, Wilt came along to make a mockery of all previous records.
- Mikan’s first two titles were in the National Basketball League (NBL), which merged with the Basketball Association of America (BAA) to form the NBA.