Five ways the NBA playoffs differ from the league’s regular season
Everyone hears that the NBA playoffs are so very different than the regular season. How? Here are five ways.
NO RUNS
In a run-of-the-mill NBA game, teams might figure they can weather the storm of an 8-0, 10-0 or even a 12-0 run. There’s plenty of time to come back most nights; teams that get on a roll have a tendency to take their feet off the pedal once they get rolling. No so in the post-season. If a team gives up even three baskets in a row there’s a timeout called to quell the uprising, to catch their breath, to calm down and find someway to stop what seems like an onslaught. It’s a stark contrast to what transpires all too often from November until late April.
ADJUSTMENTS
A chess match, that’s what it is. And coaches need to be more quick- thinking with so much on the line. Toronto’s Dwane Casey has been through this on several occasions, and he put it this way earlier this week:
“In my years in the playoffs, and when we won in Dallas, it was a different storyline not only every game but every quarter almost.
“Definitely game to game there’s a chess match. We were the underdog in every series and we had to make adjustments after every game. One game it was transition defence, the next game it was post defence, next game it was how do we trap Kevin Durant. There’s always going to be something that’s an emphasis game to game.”
ADAPT TO THE CALLS
Playoff games are officiated differently, there’s a bit more clutching and grabbing and the sneaky stuff veteran players know how to get away with.
Screens move a bit more, and the jostling for rebounds is more intense. It’s not knowing what you can get away with that is the biggest difference, though. It’s fighting through the physical play that would usually bring a regular season whistle. The soft teams, the new teams, have a tendency to whine and complain and give in; the good ones fight through it. But it is a differently-called game.
EVERY POSSESSION
The margin for error is so slim it’s almost non-existent. Turnovers that a coach or a team might be able to put up with in the regular season can be killers in the post-season. And watch how the successful teams value the ball far more in late April than they do in, say, mid-January. Baskets are hard to come by most nights in the playoffs, as teams take care not to do anything foolish or out of the ordinary. You won’t see many long lobs or silly cross-court fast-break passes in the playoffs. Not by the winning teams, that is.
END OF GAME EXECUTION
Everyone is scouted so well and so heavily that when a team makes a play call, opponents react immediately. That’s why crisp execution and creativity is so important, and so noticeable, in the playoffs. It is one of the few times when coaches get away from what they’ve done all season to try something new as an element of surprise. But they had better be ready before the moments arrive with new, seat-of-thepants thinking. If you’ve watched a team run a certain play on multiple occasions during the year, so has the other team.