1 Thing Every NBA Conference Finals Team Needs To Fix Right Now
Welcome to the 2023 NBA conference finals, where the stakes are higher, the margin for error is slimmer and the hottest takes are hotter still.
Keeping with that theme, we've evaluated each of the high-stakes matchups, pored over the razor-thin margins for error and singled out our most critical take for every team.
Concerns at this level are largely granular. None of the Boston Celtics, Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers or Miami Heat arrived here by accident. Amid what might be all-time parity across the league, they have churned out the types of postseason performances that suggest any one of them can win the whole damn thing.
At the same time, perfection does not exist. Especially this year.
Vulnerability contributed to the Association's wide-open landscape all year long. The conference finals are no different. All four remaining squads have at least one hang-up capable of tilting their upcoming series in the wrong direction if they don't move quickly to clean it up.
Boston Celtics: Offensive Variability
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Harping on the offense of the Celtics feels somewhat counterintuitive. They ranked second in points scored per possession during the second round while spitting out the league's best half-court attack.
Still, there is a real variability to Boston's mode of operations. Some of it is ingrained into the team's DNA. Demonstrative reliance on the three-ball leaves you at the mercy of your perimeter shot-making and all the downsides incumbent of colder nights from the floor.
And yet, that's not actually the Celtics' problem. They make threes. They drilled 38-plus percent of their triples in each of the final three games against the Sixers. Any ruts last for possessions or quarters—maybe a night—not truly extended pockets of time. Their mid-range clips are more topsy-turvy. Ditto for their volume at the rim, their ball movement, and their ball protection.
All that stuff needs to be polished against Miami's defense, which eats loosey-goosey decision-makers alive. Aggressively attacking needs to be a staple. The your-turn, my-turn stagnancy Boston can retreat into isn't going to fly as frequently. When the Celtics are attacking aggressively, they're less likely to settle for junky jumpers, lose the ball or telegraph their passes.
Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum need to consistently keep the rock moving on their drives. Marcus Smart needs to stay under control going downhill; he turned the ball over on 13.5 percent of his drives in the second round. Al Horford can't pass up open threes. Malcolm Brodgon and Derrick White can't hesitate against drop coverages.
The Celtics are at their best when they are driving and kicking and moving and just generally getting into their early offense. They can't afford to deviate from the script as often as they did against Philly—Game 7, of course, notwithstanding.
Denver Nuggets: The Bench Minutes
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The Nuggets proved they could survive minutes without Nikola Jokić at the beginning of their first two playoff series. Those stretches eventually devolved into an issue—particularly against the Phoenix Suns.
Through the final four games of the semifinals, Denver was minus-24 in the 36 minutes Jokić spent on the bench. The Nuggets didn't even win the time without their megastar during the Game 7 beatdown.
That's not revelatory or unique. Really good teams can struggle without their best players. Go figure.
But the Nuggets haven't necessarily pushed all the buttons at their disposal just yet. They can try staggering Jamal Murray from Jokić even more. Or they can at least increase the reps in which both Murray and Michael Porter Jr. are on the court without their superstar running mate rather than trying to buy time using mostly Murray-plus-defensive combinations that skew small.
Focusing on the handful of minutes Jokić won't see the court is not overly nitpicky. He will play 40-plus minutes every night if that's what the Lakers matchup demands. But entire series can be swung in those six-to-eight-minute spurts. Denver needs to be more creative in how it approaches them—even if it ultimately entails extra separation of the two-man divinity that is the Jokić-Murray connection.
Los Angeles Lakers: More LeBron James Mismatch Hunting
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LeBron James is 38, playing on a bad right foot and just averaged 24.7 points and 5.5 assists during the second round while downing 58.6 percent of his twos and catching relative fire from beyond the arc over the final five tilts (38.7 percent) after going 1-of-8 on triples in Game 1.
What more do you want from him?
A little more aggression. Maybe a lot more.
Finding ways to navigate the playoffs while displacing LeBron from the ball more often is mostly a good thing. The Lakers have other levers to toggle that are actually worth exploring. That has seldom been the case during the LeBron era in L.A.
Picking and choosing his spots may not be in the best interests of the Lakers when matching up against the Nuggets, though, mostly because Denver will probably attempt to exploit the selectivity.
Everyone will be watching the Anthony Davis vs. Nikola Jokić rumble, because duh. But the Nuggets may detour from that head-to-head on defense. Sticking Jokić on Jarred Vanderbilt or Rui Hachimura or someone else spares him from the foul-trouble bugaboo. That would shift Aaron Gordon onto AD, leaving someone smaller, sometimes much smaller, to tussle with The King.
Any possession in which Kentavious Caldwell-Pope or Bruce Brown or Christian Braun finds themselves covering LeBron needs to feature some good ol' bully ball. Does that take the form of LeBron post-ups? More physical drives? Probably both—though his drives will be a good barometer. The Lakers juiced his post-ups to 5.0 per game against the Golden State Warriors, but his 7.3 drives are a stark downtick from the 9.7 he averaged in fewer minutes during the regular season.
Miami Heat: Knock Down Open Threes
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After going scorched earth from deep during the first round and nailing 45 percent of its threes against the Milwaukee Bucks, Miami ventured well below sea level versus the New York Knicks, canning just 30.6 percent of its treys.
Things became particularly thorny over the final three games of Round 2, during which the Heat started bricking more of their higher-quality looks. They shot just 31 percent (13-of-42) on triples with defenders six or more feet away.
Miami's biggest offenders through this stretch varied. But Kevin Love (1-of-7), Caleb Martin (2-of-6) and Gabe Vincent (0-of-7), in particular, all must do a better job of capitalizing when defenders afford them more space. This holds doubly true for Love if Robert Williams III is guarding him during Boston' dual-big minutes. It becomes triply true for Martin and Vincent if the Heat fight the Celtics' smaller lineups with one-big units of their own.
Struggling from three wasn't as much of an obstacle against a Knicks team entirely bereft of bold-italics-text shooters. Boston will destroy Miami if it doesn't regularly drop in enough threes.
If the Heat's long-range clunkiness during the second round holds in the conference finals, it's like starting out every game down by more than nine. Maybe they offset that gap with points generated off turnovers and at the free-throw line. But it'd be better if they could also count on everyone to knock down their uncontested opportunities from behind the rainbow.
Unless otherwise noted, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference, Stathead or Cleaning the Glass. Salary information via Spotrac.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.
