Bubble ball muddles NBA championship picture
Last few weeks of play have shown Bucks, Lakers, Clippers all have deficiencies
The longest title KISSIMMEE, FLA. chase in NBA history launched in early July 2019, when Kawhi Leonard left the Toronto Raptors for the Los Angeles Clippers, launching a crosstown rivalry with Lebron James’s Lakers and clearing a path through the East for Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Milwaukee Bucks.
For more than a year, James, Antetokounmpo and Leonard have battled for the right to be called the sport’s best player. Leonard got the best of James on opening night back in October. Antetokounmpo beat James in December, celebrating a three-pointer by placing an invisible crown on his head. James got revenge against both in March shortly before basketball shut down because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, then opened the NBA’S restricted Disney World bubble by hitting a game-winner and stonewalling Leonard to beat the Clippers.
Despite the four-month hiatus, oddsmakers continue to view the Big Three’s teams — the Lakers, Bucks and Clippers — as the favourites to win the Larry O’brien trophy in October, with a second tier composed of the Raptors, Houston Rockets and Boston Celtics trailing far behind. Yet two weeks of bubble play have revealed new vulnerabilities for the top three contenders as the playoffs open Monday.
For the 35-year-old James, whose Lakers claimed the West’s top seed, the bugaboo has been offence during an underwhelming 3-5 bubble stretch. Before the shutdown, the Lakers ranked seventh in scoring, 22nd in three-pointers per game and 17th in three-point percentage. Among the 22 teams invited to Florida, the Lakers have ranked 21st in scoring,
21st in three-pointers and 22nd in three-point percentage, averaging 7.9 fewer points per game than they did before the hiatus.
There have been strong moments, including the opening win over the Clippers, Anthony Davis’s 42-point effort against the Utah Jazz and Kyle Kuzma’s game-winning three-pointer against the Denver Nuggets. Even so, the Lakers have looked overly reliant upon James and Davis, struggling to find a consistent third scorer and becoming unsettled whenever James goes to the bench.
While the Lakers clearly prioritized health over winning meaningless games in the bubble, they will need to shoot significantly better from outside if they hope to make a deep playoff run. Throughout the past five years, premier outside shooting teams such as the Golden State Warriors and Rockets have dominated the West playoffs.
If James needs to get the Lakers’ offence back on track, Antetokounmpo must help the Bucks more effectively to close out wins. Before the shutdown, the Bucks were one of the most dominant teams in league history, posting the NBA’S best record, winning by an average of 11.3 points and compiling a league-leading 19 blowout wins by 20 or more points. At Disney World, Milwaukee has gone 3-5 and blown late leads in close losses to the Rockets, Brooklyn Nets and Dallas Mavericks.
“It’s amazing to beat teams by 10, 20, 30,” Antetokounmpo said, after the sloppy Bucks relinquished an eight-point lead in the final three minutes against the Rockets. “We learned from this. It’s good to play close games. We didn’t play a lot of close games in the other 65 games that we played. We’ve got to be consistent and do it every night. The most important thing is to get shots. We can’t turn the ball over. We’ve got to find the open man and get shots up.”
Ball control is one issue, as are body control and emotion control. Antetokounmpo nearly fouled out of a bubble-opening win against the Celtics before the referees intervened to overturn calls on his behalf. He then committed five fouls in 30 minutes against the Miami Heat, fouled out in 33 minutes against the Mavericks and was ejected from a win over the Washington Wizards for head-butting Moe Wagner.
“Terrible action,” Antetokounmpo said of his head-butt, which came after several hard fouls and drew a one-game suspension. “If I could turn back time and go back to that play, I wouldn’t do it.”
Like Antetokounmpo, Leonard has had a few late-game moments in the bubble that he would like to do over. On the final play against the Lakers, he drove indecisively against James, passing the ball at the last second rather than taking a potential game-winner. In a narrow loss to the Phoenix Suns, he opted against double-teaming on the final play, setting up Devin Booker for a cleaner look at a memorable buzzer-beater.
These were uncharacteristic lapses in judgment from the steely Leonard, whose clutch shots and defensive stops were central to the Raptors’ 2019 title push. Of greater concern to the Clippers is their lack of lineup continuity.
During the regular season, the Clippers had to work around Leonard’s conservative management of a long-term leg injury, all-star forward Paul George’s recovery from shoulder surgeries and guard Landry Shamet’s extended absence with a high ankle sprain. The Clippers also never had the chance to fully integrate numerous pieces — including Reggie Jackson, Marcus Morris Sr. and Joakim Noah — acquired just before the shutdown.
The Clippers’ best five-man lineups, which feature the energetic Harrell as a small ball centre, have yet to log any minutes together in the bubble.
With the top contenders looking less like juggernauts, the door could be opening for the Raptors to defend their title with their gritty defence, for the Celtics to ride rising star Jayson Tatum to a deep run, or for the Rockets to play spoiler with their unorthodox small ball approach.