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We'll meet in the round: The question marks in the NBA playoff championships

The problems of the Lakers, the hole of Milwaukee, the confusion of the Clippers and the lesson of the coaches. The opening of the playoffs revealed some of the cracks in the contenders for the crown, and even provided a glimpse of what was to come not only in the coming rounds, but also in the years to come. Ravitz surgeon, including Doncic's first lesson

• Los Angeles Lakers
• Milwaukee Bucks
• Los Angeles Clippers

Assaf Ravitz

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The first days of the bubble playoffs were weird but also familiar. After all, it's a playoff, with the dramas, personal performances, big stars and chess fights between the coaches. Here are five points about the first four days (the article was written before Friday night games).

1.The most notable changes created by the bubble are the lack of crowds and homeliness, but perhaps the most important change is in the exceptional opening conditions. The playoffs started after four months without basketball and two weeks of ranking games, this is not a situation where you can make a switch and reach a peak capacity from zero to a hundred. Players who are absent from most or all of the ranking games, such as Monterz Harle and Dennis Schroeder, are not in a reasonable playing position. Teams that did not use those two weeks to reconnect reached the playoffs with rust and vulnerability. There are no shortcuts. This is especially relevant for the three top contenders for the title, all three did not really count the ranking games and this is reflected in weak ability and early losses in their series. In such situations the small shortcomings become large, and each of the three contenderesses this week highlighted its shortcomings.

The Lakers' most notable drawback is the lack of reliable guards, which is reflected in the lack of outside shooting and creative players other than the two stars. Players who are not scoring or performing actions with the ball at the moment, will probably not do so for another month with the physical and mental stress of the later stages of the playoffs. The notable disadvantage of the Clippers is in team coordination. Doc Rivers' attacking game has no flow, in defense his players often make basic mistakes of lack of coordination against Dallas costing dearly. Milwaukee's most notable drawback is its utter dependence on Yannis Antocompo and team coordination. The Bucks have yet to find their pace in the bubble, highlighting the lack of talent relative to the top contender for the championship. Yannis is still at the beginning of his career as one of the best players in the world and seems to still have a hard time dealing with difficulties, it is worth remembering how many failures LeBron James went through before he started winning titles and how many series there are in the resume of Kwai Leonard and Paul George. It may turn out in retrospect that it is good for confederates whose shortcomings are exposed early, which will prevent them from ignoring them until it is too late.

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The Clippers and Jazz went up 1-2 with performances by Kwai and Conley, Boston 0: 3

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2. Even after the threesome revolution, until recently teams that scored fifths in which all the players functioned as outside players for everything remained rare. Most teams still have a traditional inside player, or one who occasionally throws threes but that is not a major part of his role (like Joel Ambide, Joseph Norkic and Daniel Theis, Nikola Jokic can also be included in this list). A combination of circumstances led to the fact that in the run-up to the current playoffs, a number of teams scored five-pointers from threes and / or away players. Houston started its experiment when it gave up on Clint Capella, the injuries of Dwight Powell and Domantas Savonis turned Dallas and Indiana into teams with a three-pointer, Nikola Wojciech went from a chin that occasionally throws threes to a chin that throws a lot of threes and put Orlando on the list. Along with Milwaukee and Toronto who were like that last season as well, in the current playoffs we can talk about six teams playing consistently with five players outside the arc of the three.

This is the basketball of the future. Today most American chins do not throw from the outside, but in high schools and colleges a generation of highs is growing whose threesomes are part of their repertoire. The maximum spacing changes both the attacking game and the defensive game as we knew it, it is almost impossible to stop such attacks with a traditional defense that focuses on locking the point. The emphasis shifts to the first line of defense, while the heavy chins that guard the ring become irrelevant. Brock Lopez and Ivica Zubac, for example, two chins with a very important presence in color, are becoming a burden against Orlando and Dallas, respectively. Rivers kept Zubacs away from Christopher Forzingis from the start of the series, but he has no real way to hide him from the Mavericks. Which brings us to the next point.

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3. To win four series have staff who can deal with five of five foreign scorer. To win four series one has to take into account an opponent like Houston, with its low and agile quintet, one has to survive such a defensive and offensive quintet. To win four series one has to assume that there will be a series against at least one opponent based on size, a team like Philadelphia or the Lakers digging in, controlling the rebound and it is very difficult to get to its color. In short, to win four series today you need the flexibility of a gymnast. Another option is to be one of these extremist groups and believe that the pros outweigh the cons, that any opponent in your terms can be defeated, forcing them to be the ones who change. Houston took that bet by throwing all the inside players out of its roster, maybe the Lakers are taking a similar bet as it continues to use most of the game in high-profile formations. If these two meet in the second round, which seems very likely at the moment, it will be a fascinating battle of styles.

The senior teams try to build as flexible a staff as possible. Milwaukee and the Clippers have the tools to adapt to any type of opponent, even if it means there will be key players in one series that will not be relevant in another. But coaches do not take the flexibility one step further. Last year there seemed to be a trend of teams starting fifths even in the regular season depending on the match-up, but that experiment has faded. In the current playoffs there is currently no coach like Steve Kerr who is willing to put up five tops for different series. Coaches are very careful to touch on the constant rotation, habits that players have developed, and tend to change a quintet only when the series gets complicated, usually it's too late. Mike Bodenholzer still rarely uses low fives with Yannis as center, Doc Rivers trying to hide Zubacz on defense instead of replacing him. Perhaps the increasingly extreme differences between rivals will force even relatively conservative coaches to think of extreme solutions at an early stage.

4. The bubble, meanwhile, belongs, for the most part, to the young. Damian Lillard may be the star of the bubble, but other than that the prominent names are of players aged 23 and under who look like franchise players in the making. Devin Booker and Ja Morant, who did not make the playoffs, provided the big moments that make them players who can no longer wait for the moment when they will arrive. In the playoffs themselves, the three big stars of the first four days are Donovan Mitchell, Jason Taitum and Luka Doncic. Mitchell is the most surprising of the three, he looks like a player who stepped in instead and I did not believe he had a 57 point game in the playoffs. It was a lone game that completely changed the perception about him. Taitum continues the ability from the second half of the season. He developed a lethal shot at the Ardennes level - a three on the right side-step that he hits with high percentages and it is impossible to stop when he enters the movement. If stuck to his right side he likes to penetrate the left and finish with a floater. Both Mitchell and Taitum have managed to gain playoff experience that makes them very mature players at a very early stage in their careers.

And there's Luca. He has gained his experience in dozens of crucial games in the Euroleague, the Spanish league and the Slovenian national team, but perhaps he is simply the one-time basketball genius who knows everything in advance, the equivalent of basketball for a 12-year-old boy who graduates with honors. We thought he would have to adapt to the Clippers' defense, meanwhile the Clippers players are the ones who need to get used to him. Doncic is a human Wise software, he can recalculate a route at every step and make a surprising decision after he already seems to be at a dead end. Time and time again the Clippers players are caught surprised by the last-minute deception or the timing of his dedication. After tonight's injury in Game 3, which casts doubt on his participation in Game 4, it seems even more that what Luca will have to learn is how to physically survive a series. Not sure he's capable of maintaining his level (or, in this case, avoiding injuries) for an entire series as everything in Dallas goes through him. But this is already a lesson for advanced players who are not supposed to talk about it at all after two playoff games at 21 years old.

5. Riddle - What do the following 13 names have in common: Fred VanValit, Duncan Robinson, Joe Ingles, Royce O'Neill, Robert Covington, Daniel House, Dorian Pini Smith, Maxi Caliber, Daniel Theis, Wes Matthews, Tori Craig , Loganz Dort and Garrett Temple? The first answer is that they are all top five players in the playoffs at the moment, the second answer is that none of them were selected in the draft. To the list of significant players not selected in the draft can be added Seth Kerry, Boban Marianovic, Brad Vanamaker and Alex Caruso who are in the rotation of their teams and Kendrick Nan who came out of the rotation of Miami after a great rookie season. A moment after the lottery, it is important to mention that draft selection should not be considered an achievement in itself. This is just a starting point, an intelligent bet by experts whose success rates are quite low. A high choice creates a threshold of expectations that adds mental strain, sometimes it is better to come from below and simply and efficiently perform a role of role player (although Schoenwallit is starting to look like an all-star in the making). In recent years there has been an inflation of such players fighting for their place and becoming important players in the league.

On the other side of the equation there are dozens of players who were selected quite high in the draft and did not find their place in the league. Some have been completely ejected and some are looking for a home in the NBA. High choices that have not exhausted themselves can become a reality after several years. The one who makes the most of it is, as expected, Daryl Murray. While the Houston quintet is made up of two players who were not selected in the draft and PJ Tucker who dropped out of the league and returned, the bench is based on three top-10 picks that other teams did not want. Austin Rivers was released from Phoenix, Jeff Green was released from Utah, Ben McElmore was released from Sacramento, and no team jumped on them. Those three fitted in great in the style of Mike D’Antoni and in the first two playoff games provided him with 15 joint threes. Murray arranged for D'Antoni a rotation of nine players most of whom he collected from heated remnants of others, with no draft picks and very few trades. It is possible that more and more teams will start to abandon the draft as the best place to find the team that helps the stars.

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