Zach KramMay 3, 2026, 11:18 PM ETCloseZach Kram is a national NBA writer for ESPN.com, specializing in short- and long-term trends across the league’s analytics landscape. He previously worked at The Ringer covering the NBA and MLB. You can follow Zach on X via @zachkram.Multiple Authors
play2:22Stephen A.: Knicks are going to the NBA FinalsStephen A. Smith reacts to the Knicks’ blowout win over the Hawks and proclaims they will make the NBA Finals.
play1:53Pistons crush Magic in Game 7 to complete 3-1 series comebackThe Pistons take down the Magic in dominant fashion in Game 7 to take the series and advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Windy: Luka ‘is not close’ to returning (1:02)Brian Windhorst joins “SportsCenter” with Scott Van Pelt following the Lakers’ Game 6 win over the Rockets to discuss Luka Doncic’s potential return against the Thunder. (1:02)
Stephen A.: Knicks are going to the NBA FinalsStephen A. Smith reacts to the Knicks’ blowout win over the Hawks and proclaims they will make the NBA Finals.
Stephen A. Smith reacts to the Knicks’ blowout win over the Hawks and proclaims they will make the NBA Finals.
Pistons crush Magic in Game 7 to complete 3-1 series comebackThe Pistons take down the Magic in dominant fashion in Game 7 to take the series and advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals.
The Pistons take down the Magic in dominant fashion in Game 7 to take the series and advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals.
10. We’re on track for a titanic clash in the conference finals
Two teams — the Minnesota Timberwolves and Los Angeles Lakers — advanced despite injuries to their leading scorers. Two more teams — the Philadelphia 76ers and Detroit Pistons — came back from 3-1 deficits. The Toronto Raptors delayed their eventual elimination by the Cleveland Cavaliers thanks to a game-winning 3-pointer that bounced high off the rim before falling safely through the net in Game 6.
The league calendar gives almost no time to rest and breathe after that first-round chaos. Following three Game 7s over the weekend, the second round begins Monday night at Madison Square Garden (8 p.m. ET, Prime Video) as the New York Knicks and 76ers renew their rivalry.
Conventional NBA wisdom holds that the depth of a team’s rotation becomes less important in the playoffs, as stars play more minutes and rotations shrink. That sentiment holds some truth.
But reserves still matter — and given the number of injuries in the postseason, those reserves become even more important, swinging games either off the bench or when pressed into emergency starting duty.
Minnesota eliminated the Denver Nuggets for the second time in three years in large part because of its backups, who stepped up after Anthony Edwards hyperextended his left knee and Donte DiVincenzo tore his right Achilles tendon. Ayo Dosunmu scored 43 points off the bench in Minnesota’s Game 4 win. And fellow Timberwolves guard Terrence Shannon Jr. didn’t play at all in the first three games, before scoring 24 points in his first career playoff start to help clinch Game 6.
Also in the West, rookie San Antonio Spurs guard Dylan Harper came off the bench to score 27 points on 9-for-12 shooting in a comeback win in Portland, with Victor Wembanyama sidelined by a concussion.
Unfortunately, recent history suggests that injuries will continue to affect the playoffs. So expect more teams to require reserves to fill in as reinforcements over the next few rounds.
Five games is a small sample, but that performance was the continuation of months of hot shooting for the Spurs. After Feb. 4, San Antonio ranked third with a 37.9% 3-point mark, with Stephon Castle and Harper showing particular improvement from distance.
It’s difficult to fathom how opponents will be able to slow the Spurs’ offense if Wembanyama is healthy and his teammates are knocking down open 3s.
But even with the offense-inclined Towns and Jalen Brunson as their stars, the Knicks are almost as potent on the other end of the court as they are on offense. In the regular season, they ranked fourth in offensive rating and seventh on defense. And out of 16 teams in the first round, they were second on offense and third on defense, with a defensive rating (103.8) that would’ve been the best in the league in the regular season.
The Atlanta Hawks found early success when CJ McCollum targeted Brunson, but by and large, they struggled to score against the Knicks. Atlanta scored at least 100 points in 31 of its last 32 games in the regular season, as well as in Games 1, 2 and 3 of the first round. But the Hawks failed to reach triple digits in each of the last three games, which were all Knicks wins.
In particular, the Knicks shut down Atlanta’s top two scorers because of the stout perimeter play of OG Anunoby, Bridges and Hart. In the regular season, Jalen Johnson and Nickeil Alexander-Walker combined to average 43.3 points on 47% shooting, but they fell to 33.2 PPG on 41% shooting against New York.
Looking ahead to the next round, Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid present very different challenges and playing styles than Johnson and Alexander-Walker. But the Knicks’ unsung stinginess should give them confidence as they attempt to reach the Finals for the first time this century.
So much consternation around the Nuggets concerns their defense. After all, they were the 21st-ranked unit on that end, while they led the league in offense. And they’ve had a top-seven offense in each of the past 10 regular seasons.
But counterintuitively, it’s Denver’s offense that has been a bigger problem in recent postseasons. In the Nuggets’ three playoff defeats since winning the title in 2023, their offensive rating has fallen by double digits compared to the regular season, and they’ve ranked at or near the bottom of the league in that round.
Against Minnesota, Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray had solid surface stats but substandard efficiency: Jokic shot just 45% from the field and 19% on 3s, and Murray shot 36% from the field and 26% on 3s. And Denver’s supporting cast was inconsistent at best.
This is an important point to understand, as Denver approaches a potentially tumultuous offseason. Given their personnel, the Nuggets might be tempted to put all of their focus on defense while trusting in the brilliance of Jokic and Murray to lift their offense to league-best heights. But the past few postseasons show that’s not good enough. Denver needs help on both ends to win another title.
That’s an anachronistic trend in 2026. The league’s offensive rating has never been higher than it was this year, and points per game reached its highest level since the turbo-paced 1960s. It should be practically impossible for teams to go on long scoring droughts in this modern pace-and-space environment.
And yet, on Friday the Magic scored 19 points in an entire half, setting a playoff record, as they failed to close out the Pistons in Game 6. Hours later, Houston managed only 78 points in an elimination game. The next night, Boston went 0-for-9 on clutch shooting in its Game 7 loss to Philadelphia.
On the whole, after teams averaged 115.6 points per game in the regular season, they’re down to 106.6 in the playoffs. The 9.0-point decline would be the largest in any season in NBA history.
Whether that pattern continues through the remainder of the playoffs remains to be seen. But with elite defenses still alive in Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Minnesota, New York and Detroit, the remaining teams are showing that even in an offense-first era, defense can still win championships.
One team that didn’t have trouble scoring in the first round is the Thunder. The Suns ranked ninth in defensive rating in the regular season, and they were fifth specifically on half-court plays, per Cleaning the Glass — so it seems meaningful that Oklahoma City spent four games torching the Suns in exactly that situation.
No other team came close to Oklahoma City’s efficiency in the first round. The gap in half-court offensive rating between the Thunder (112.2 points per 100 halfcourt plays) and the second-best team (the Knicks, at 101.4) was larger than the gap between second and No. 11.
Naturally, much of that success comes from reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who followed a record-setting regular season with similar production in the first round. Gilgeous-Alexander led all players with 33.8 PPG in the first round, and he shot an outrageous 61% on his 15.5 2-point attempts per game.
For context, the other 26 players in the first round who attempted at least 10 2-pointers per game shot a collective 50% on their 2s. Gilgeous-Alexander was 11 percentage points higher than that.
The defensively stout Thunder have always looked unbeatable when they can turn turnovers into fast breaks, but they’ve been vulnerable at times when the game slows down. But with Gilgeous-Alexander in rhythm like this, they also might be unguardable in the half court.
Several veteran All-NBA big men enjoyed arguably the best playoff highlights of their careers in the first round. Rudy Gobert helped stymie Jokic. Embiid scored 34 points to win his first Game 7, after three previous losses. And Towns excelled on both ends, with a tactical tweak unleashing his playmaking and turning a 2-1 series deficit into a 4-2 win for the Knicks.
The tweak was simple: The Knicks gave Towns the ball more and let him distribute from the middle of the court. His on-ball percentage in those three wins ranks third, fourth and sixth out of 170 games he has played as a Knick, per GeniusIQ tracking.
But the results were profound: Before this postseason, Towns’ career high in playoff assists was five. But he exceeded that number three times in a row as the Knicks closed out Atlanta, with 10 in a triple-double in Game 4, six in Game 5 and 10 more in another triple-double in Game 6.
This exact approach might not work in the second round against Philadelphia, as the 76ers’ big men will present a stiffer challenge in the post than any of Atlanta’s smaller centers. But the general lesson — to keep Towns involved in the offense and let him both score and create, so Brunson doesn’t have to do it all himself — remains.