The Play That Defines Every Remaining NBA Playoff Team

How do you capture the essence of each remaining NBA playoff team?

With highlights!

You've already seen a few of these looped and gif'd and shared ad nauseam, but some others won't be so familiar. In each case, we're looking for the one play from the recently concluded first round that tells you what you need to know about the team in question.

It might illustrate a strength or a weakness.

It might raise a strategic issue that will determine the team's postseason fate.

Each play will come from a playoff game, since we're focusing on these teams' identities in the present.

If a picture says 1,000 words, video clips have to be at least three or four times that descriptive, right?

Honorable Mention: McGee's Vertical Spacing

The principal, indisputable, "get yourself benched immediately if you break it" rule of playing the Golden State Warriors is this: Do not give Stephen Curry clean looks.

Adhering to it is basically impossible, as Golden State's spacing and chemistry eventually free Curry up against even the tightest coverages. But teams send multiple bodies at him anyway, particularly those that don't embrace switches in the pick-and-roll.

In this clip, the Portland Trail Blazers have a full-on conniption as Curry turns the corner around a staggered screen up top. As he gets into daylight, Golden State's newest weapon, JaVale McGee, gives a high-altitude lesson in the value of vertical spacing.

Meyers Leonard tries to recover, but he has no chance. Curry could have put that pass up around the shot clock, and McGee would have flushed it.

This is a new dimension in Golden State's offense, and we only saw tantalizing hints of it during the season as McGee averaged just 9.6 minutes per game. In his time on the court, though, the Warriors' offensive rating was an unfathomable 121.4, over nine points higher than their league-leading overall rate of 113.2.

There is no defense for this. Not with the Warriors' shooters spacing to the corners, and not with every opponent wetting its pants over paying too little attention to Curry.

Golden State is playing better right now than at any point in its dominant (and ongoing) three-year run. This isn't the only reason why, but it's a big one.

Honorable Mention: Cleveland's 1-3 Pick-and-Roll

The Cleveland Cavaliers, like the Warriors, are best defined by an offense so good it often feels unsporting.

When LeBron James and Kyrie Irving converge in a pick-and-roll action, they create unwinnable situations for the defense.

If it's James setting the pick for Irving, the D can go under and surrender a mid-range shot to a guy who absolutely feasts on those looks. During the year, Irving was one of just 16 players to attempt at least 400 mid-rangers. CJ McCollum was the only man to hit at a higher rate than Irving's 47.6 percent. And if the pick comes above the arc, Irving hit 40.9 percent from there, too.

Switch it, and Irving blows past the bigger player or dumps the rock to James, who now gets to post up against Irving's man, creating a five-alarm mismatch alert.

Chase Irving over the top, or trap him with two defenders, and James, the release valve, gets the ball and heads downhill in a 4-on-3 situation.

Flipping the scenario and making Irving the screener creates the same problems with switching, trapping or chasing over the top. The safest route of all is probably going under screens and hoping James shoots the three off the dribble, but he knocked down 45 percent of his triples in the first round.

Best of luck with all of these terrible options, Eastern Conference defenders!

Utah Jazz: Patience, Patience, Patience

The Utah Jazz are a defense-first operation that generated just enough offense to get the job done.

That's not to say they were a weak scoring team. Rather, it's an acknowledgment that they ranked third in defense and 12th in offense during the year—and check in sixth among the eight teams that advanced out of the first round in postseason offensive rating.

The defense will be there. It's the other end that's questionable.

This play—in which George Hill scrambles toward the rim and then heaves a desperate kickout to Gordon Hayward as the shot clock winds down—is going to define how this team performs going forward.

All year, Utah whipped the ball around and hunted defensive breakdowns in long possessions. No team took shots late in the clock more often than the Jazz, who attempted 10.5 percent of their field goals with 0-4 ticks left on the shot clock.

In the first round, that number climbed to 15.7 percent.

Can they keep doing this against a Warriors defense that will switch liberally and deny passing angles? Will the defensive breakdowns in the chaos of a waning clock still be there?

In one sense, a grind-it-out approach on offense makes sense in the postseason, when the pace slows and execution is critical. But in another, as defenses get better, Utah's deliberate process may not produce results.

Washington Wizards: John Wall Overdrive

Don't worry about the score or the fact that the Atlanta Hawks won the game from which we pulled this clip.

Note instead that John Wall beats everyone down the floor for a ridiculous behind-the-back dunk after a made basket.

A made basket.

Not a turnover. Not a long offensive rebound that wound up in his lap.

A made basket.

Wall leads a fantastic starting five with little help from the bench, knowing that the second he goes to the pine, any lead he's generated will soon disappear. So he makes the most of his minutes by pushing the pace with end-to-end speed at every opportunity, and if he can't find a shooter in the corner when defenses scramble to get in his way (as the Hawks don't do here), he's finishing on his own.

It's possible we should have featured Wall hitting a mid-ranger from the right elbow as the opposing big man sags in pick-and-roll coverage, as that single shot may have more to do with Washington's fate than anything else.

But, really, it's tough to find a play that better summarizes who Wall is and what he does to make the Wizards dangerous than this one.

Houston Rockets: The James Harden Keeper

This highlight isn't what the Houston Rockets have been about all season, even if most people's vision of James Harden's game looks pretty much exactly like this.

The real difference in Houston's offensive explosion this year has been Harden using the threat of his own offense—whether in isolation like this or as a downhill attacker in the pick-and-roll—to set up others.

Nobody created more points via the assist than Harden this year, who in addition to scoring 29.1 points on his own, directly facilitated another 27.1. Against OKC, that average fell to 16.8 as the Thunder doggedly defended the pick-and-roll with two bodies and stayed glued to shooters on the perimeter.

Harden had 35 assists in the first round, and not a single one involved him getting into the lane off a big man's screen and then hitting a wing in the corner for a trey. Trust me, I watched all 35.

If the San Antonio Spurs defend Harden similarly, he'll have no choice but to finish plays on his own. Only instead of Enes Kanter on a switch, he'll be contending with Kawhi Leonard, who tends to stick pretty close to his man.

It's kind of his thing.

Normally, trusting Harden to get his own buckets wouldn't be cause for concern. But this year has been different, and forcing him to keep the ball—rather than pass it—when he gets into the lane may become a bizarre norm.

Toronto Raptors: Ugly and Effective

DeMar DeRozan had loads of aesthetically incredible finishes in the Toronto Raptors' first-round victory over the Milwaukee Bucks, which we need to mention because we're about to define the Raps by singling out one of his patented ugly-effective buckets.

There's DeRozan taking the ball to an inefficient spot on the floor, hunting a foul call (see the weird leg pump?) and drilling a contested two-pointer off the dribble.

There aren't many scorers more comfortable with looks like that one than DeRozan, but we've seen the well run dry several times in the playoffs. Paul George shut him down a year ago for most of a series, and the Bucks stifled him in an 0-of-8 outing during Game 3.

Consider DeRozan a microcosm of Toronto's offense.

All year, the Raptors got the job done unconventionally, finishing sixth in offensive rating despite placing last in assist percentage. DeRozan scored with ridiculous volume, but mostly did it on his own. Against Milwaukee, 80.9 percent of his field goals were unassisted, which is unusually high for a player who isn't his team's primary ball-handler.

If shots like this from DeRozan make up a significant portion of Toronto's offense against the Cavs, it'll be a massive strategic error.

Cleveland hasn't played defense since the 2016 Finals, and it is almost comically vulnerable against crisp ball movement and the pick-and-roll.

The Raptors have a chance to beat the Cavs if they attack collectively. But every DeRozan attempt that looks like this one will cut into those odds.

San Antonio Spurs: Kawhi's Two-Way Takeover

Some highlights explain a team with nuance. They reveal strategic pressure points or underscore the complicated interplay of a roster's skills. Complex stuff, you know?

This one shows a dude stealing the ball and scoring through contact, basically doing everything for his team. On both ends. Quietly. In the clutch.

Ironically, and in a manner not in keeping with Kawhi Leonard's vow of silence, this one says more.

Leonard's personal two-way takeovers swung several games in the first round against the Memphis Grizzlies, but the San Antonio Spurs' over-reliance on him to generate points will be an issue going forward. If Tony Parker doesn't have a few more 2008 nights left in him, the Spurs will face the Rockets without a second creator.

Which, at least, will be cool to watch.

"'Kawhi, do your thing' has become the Spurs' offensive scheme," The Vertical's Michael Lee tweeted, "and he's so good, nobody's complaining about death of beautiful ball movement."

Leonard as lone wolf in San Antonio's offense is no joke. Nicholas Sciria of BBall Breakdown noted that only 14 percent of his field goals were assisted in the first round. No matter; Leonard averaged 31.2 points on 71.5 percent true shooting, with that accuracy rate topping all other postseason performers.

Harden will pose a far greater challenge in the second round. Leonard's stamina and ability to control both ends will be tested.

If he turns in more two-way highlights like this, he'll not only cement himself as the embodiment of the new Spurs. He'll also get them through to the Western Conference Finals.

Cleveland Cavaliers: Trifecta

We already hit the small-small pick-and-roll that symbolizes so much of what makes Cleveland a nightmare to cover, but that was more specific than necessary.

Broadly, it's the Cavs' surplus of shooters orbiting James and his infectious ball movement that defines this team.

Just look at that play. James makes a cut and catch no one his size has the right to make, then he starts the tic-tac-toe passing action that springs Kyle Korver for a clean look. It doesn't end there, though, and that's what makes the Cavs offense so terrifying.

Korver, one of the greatest shooters of all time, passes up the look, even with Monta Ellis half-heartedly closing out, and finds Channing Frye for a better one.

Frye, it should be mentioned, is playing center in this clip—creating five-out spacing that no team in the league can match. Incredibly, if he hadn't liked that look from straight on, he had Deron Williams, who shot 41.5 percent from deep after joining the Cavs and buried seven of his nine three-point attempts in the first round, open on the right wing.

This is why Cleveland's defensive apathy may not matter. They're a basketball squadron of F-15s dealing death from distance, boasting more high-efficiency weapons than anyone. And James is the man in the control tower.

Boston Celtics: Bad Boarding

It was tempting to feature Isaiah Thomas getting downhill around a screen and finishing some loopy, hanging, odd-angled lefty scoop.

A three-pointer would have made sense, too, as no team devoted a higher percentage of its first-round offense to the long ball than the Boston Celtics.

But in this case, the play that best expresses Boston's identity is one in which it's not doing something.

Namely rebounding.

The Celtics can defend on the perimeter and wall off the paint. They can score inside and out. They have a star who closes games. They have as many terrifying wings to sic on opposing scorers as anyone.

But they don't control the glass, and it makes them vulnerable.

Remember that 0-2 hole they fell into against the eighth-seeded Bulls? That happened because they got out-rebounded by a combined margin of 97-74 in the first two games.

The Celtics posted the lowest overall rebound rate, 45.5 percent, during the first round. But the real trouble was on the defensive boards, where Boston corralled the ball only 70.4 percent of the time—worst among all postseason teams and cause for major alarm against an offense that could do more with all those second chances.

The answer for the Celtics was small ball, effectively steering into the skid and doing everything possible to force the Bulls' bigger bodies off the floor.

It worked, but only because Chicago didn't have the personnel to counter.

Chicago, which ranked 13th out of 16 first-round offenses and turned the ball over on a higher percentage of its possessions than any other playoff team, wasn't equipped to punish Boston for its weakness.

The Wizards are better equipped, but the Celtics may be addressing their greatest weakness. They tied Washington on the glass in Game 1, 38-38.

Golden State Warriors: Casual Destruction

The Warriors registered assists on a higher percentage of their buckets this year than anyone.

So this clip could have been a nice setup for an open look.

Draymond Green guarded all five positions during the season and in the Warriors' dominant first-round sweep against the Portland Trail Blazers, helping the Dubs to a postseason-best 96.3 defensive rating.

So this clip could have been a sequence in which Green switched four different times and stymied the unfortunate soul stuck with the ball at the end of a hopeless possession. In fact, that clip exists.

But Curry firing a 30-footer in transition to crush the spirits of a road crowd is the truest embodiment of the Warriors.

It serves as a reminder of the separate set of rules for guarding Golden State. It highlights the outright unfairness of its talent. It shows straight-up, unabashed hubris. Confidence spilling into carelessness.

The shot is a smirk. It is cruelty incarnate by a team glorying in one-way carnage—delivered with a smile from a cherubic assassin.

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Stats courtesy of Basketball Reference or NBA.com. Accurate through May 1.