The NBA playoffs are upon us and that means that only 16 teams remain in the race for the Larry O’Brien Trophy. While every team has done a tremendous job getting to this stage, no team is perfect. Every team has its weakness(es) and today we’ll be looking at the biggest one for each team.
Los Angeles Clippers (48-34): No star
The Clippers defied quite a few expectations getting to the playoffs and beating out the big brother Lakers, who weren’t able to get there. The team had no clear-cut star before the season started, besides maybe Tobias Harris, who they traded away to the 76ers at the trade deadline, and were in sort of a rebuild everyone thought, as in the previous year they had let go their big 3 of Chris Paul (Rockets), Blake Griffin (Pistons) and DeAndre Jordan (Knicks).
Not having a star became their strength, as no one expected to take the majority of the shots, the ball kept moving and the team had a strong sense of unity. But their biggest strength is also their biggest weakness. Playoffs basketball is a different animal than the regular season, as possessions become longer, the game slows down, and everything is more Iso-oriented. The Clippers don’t have a star player that can, and will, get you a bucket when it’s going through a rough stretch (no disrespect to Lou Williams).
The ball has to move a lot in order for the Clippers to score, and while that may work perfectly in the regular season and everyone loves to see it, the NBA is a league where stars make the difference and the Clippers don’t have one, whereas the Warriors, their opponent in the first round and the double defending champions, have a whole starting lineup of all-stars.
San Antonio Spurs (48-34): The road
The Spurs made the playoffs. Again. What’s new? This is their 22nd straight playoff appearance, an NBA record. Even after trading their superstar Kawhi Leonard in the offseason, the Spurs have fared pretty well. Correction, they have fared pretty well at home. On the road on the other hand, the Spurs are beyond horrible. They are 16-25 and of all the playoff teams, only the Detroit Pistons have a worse record playing away from home. Better yet, they are the only playoff team in the West winning less than 20 games on the road.
As the 7th seed the Spurs don’t have homecourt advantage against the Denver Nuggets, who are the only other Western playoff team with a losing record on the road, winning 20 out of 41. This means that we could very well see a 7-game series, where both teams just win their home games, as both are incredibly strong at home but below average on the road. But if it goes that way, the Spurs come up short, so they will need to increase their play on the road.
Oklahoma City Thunder (49-33): (Outside) Shooting
The Thunder were a great team for most of the year, standing in the 3rd spot and even challenging for second or first, while having an MVP-candidate in Paul George and former MVP and triple-double machine Russel Westbrook. But then they slipped, very badly so, to the 8th seed, and ultimately ended up in the 6th seed.
So, you might say consistency is their biggest problem, but that isn’t actually that important for OKC, as they struggled against the smaller teams and not the big teams, and the proof is in the pudding. OKC has the best record out of all the WC playoff teams against each other.
Thus, I opted to go with their shooting struggles, and they are not pretty. They rank 19th in the league in FG% (3rd worst amongst all playoff teams); 22nd in 3P% (2nd worst amongst all playoff teams) and 28th from the charity stripe (dead last amongst all playoff teams).
If their shooting struggles continue to haunt them and they exit the playoffs in the first or second round, OKC might be a contender for most disappointing team this season.
Utah Jazz (50-32): The scoring burden on Donovan Mitchell
This is kind of a reach, you might say, as the Utah Jazz don’t really have a glaring weakness. They are an average offensive team, make up for that with their top-5 defense, have good outside shooters, are deep enough and have a lot of people that can switch. But if you think about it, it isn’t that much of a reach.
Donovan Mitchell (still a 22-year old second year player, in case you forgot) averages almost double the shots and 8 more points than anyone else on the team. If we take a quick look back at last years second round series for the Jazz (also against the Rockets, their opponent in the first round this year), Donovan Mitchell was asked to do way too much: He averaged almost a quarter of the teams shot attempts and took 43 more than anyone else throughout 5 games. He shot 36% from the floor and connected on 25% of his triples.
The then rookie wasn’t able to handle it, but will he be able to handle the majority of the scoring load against the team that beat him 4-1 last year?
Houston Rockets (53-29): Live by the 3, die by the 3
The Houston Rockets have had a weird season, starting off slow and finishing red hot. They were troubled by a lot of injuries but fueled by yet another MVP-caliber season from reigning MVP James Harden. But we know all of that already. The Rockets are great in the regular season, as is any team coached by Mike D’antoni, but can they get over the hump this year?
The Rockets were up 3-2 against the reigning champions Golden State in the Western Conference finals. What happened next was… inexplicable. The Rockets lost Chris Paul due to an injury and were up by 17 in the first quarter of game 6 at the Oracle, but somehow lost that game by 29 points. That’s a 46-point swing. Then came game 7, also without Chris Paul. The Rockets went up by 13, but then something unheard of happened. They went on to miss 27 3-pointers in a row, missing a total of 37 out of the 44 they took. Houston lost the game 101-92 and thus the series concluded with a loss for the Rockets.
That’s why they live and die by the three. If they connect, they are virtually unstoppable, but when they don’t it seems like they don’t have another way out, a plan B if you will, even though plan A shouldn’t be launching from deep all the time.
Portland Trail Blazers (53-29): Injury troubles/rotation issues
I couldn’t choose for the Trail Blazers, as one basically goes hand-in-hand with the other. The Blazers lost starting center Jusuf Nurkic to a horrible injury and C.J. McCollum has had a lingering injury with his knee and hasn’t really returned to full strength since. This means that they have to shuffle a whole lot and that’s quite frankly a shame for them, as their starting unit looked great before the injuries and the bench mob looked like one of the best in the NBA.
Now Portland has to get used to not playing with Nurkic and considering giving McCollum less minutes which changes the whole dynamic of a squad that looked as ready as they had ever been to compete.
The Blazers got swept in season series by the Thunder, the team they face in the first round, and also got swept in the past 2 years in the playoffs by Golden State and New Orleans respectively, so the Blazers are looking for revenge on both sides.
Denver Nuggets (54-28): Experience
The Nuggets ended in the second seed after just missing out on the playoffs last year (they lost the deciding game in overtime in a direct battle for the last playoff spot against the Timberwolves). That is already an impressive story. What’s even more impressive is that the Nuggets have been dealing with a whole lot of injuries all year, and we could point to that as their biggest weakness, but we opted for their experience (or lack thereof).
Of their regular rotation players (left out Isaiah Thomas due to a lack of playing time and games played) only Mason Plumlee, Will Barton and Paul Millsap have real playoff experience, combining for 121 games in 13 playoff runs, 87 games and 9 playoff appearances coming from Millsap. So It’s fair to say that their team lacks quite a lot of experience.
What even makes it worse for the Nuggets is that they go up against the afore mentioned San Antonio Spurs and Greg Popovich, with 22 years straight in the playoffs and 5 titles to show for it. Will coach Pop give another masterclass in coaching or will the talent of the Nuggets prevail?
Golden State Warriors (57-25): Bench
Weakness and Golden State are 2 things that don’t really belong together in the same sentence. I was considering putting Demarcus Cousins as the biggest weakness as he hasn’t reached hiss full capacity since his Achilles injury, but saying a 4-time all-star and a 2-time all-NBA player is a weakness is like saying that being a perfectionist is one of your bad traits in a job interview.
That’s why I went with their bench. Golden State’s bench hasn’t been the same since acquiring Kevin Durant 3 years ago, a small price to pay for arguably the best player on the planet, but it still has an effect. Their bench scoring is 28th in the league while also being top 10 for allowing the most points. They get outscored by 9 points, that isn’t nothing.
But it also isn’t everything. Golden State are still the biggest favorites for the NBA championship and the number one team to beat. A lineup of 5 top-30 players in the league is probably going to make up for that 9-point gap, so there is no reason yet for Steve Kerr to start being concerned.
Predicted winner: Golden State Warriors
All stats come from Hoopsstats.com and basketabllreference.com
Courtside 