Here are the teams with new lineups that will drive the action in the NBA restart.
We left the NBA just after trade and buyout season. Top teams were incorporating new players and adjusting after injuries.
Here are 13 new or newish lineups I’m excited to watch when the games start.
Shake Milton (!), Josh Richardson, Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris, Joel Embiid: 0 minutes.
Just when I think I’m out, the Sixers — my preseason pick to make the NBA Finals, my siren song — pull me back in. Philly experimented with Al Horford as sixth man before Simmons injured his shoulder. The Sixers liked what they saw — including a Feb. 11 home win (because Philly only wins at home) over the Clippers that was one of the most intense and well-played games leaguewide all season.
The Sixers are minus-9 with Simmons, Horford, and Embiid together, and their offense has disintegrated. Their now-mothballed starting five has scored at the rate of the Bulls’ 29th-ranked offense. Editor’s PicksNBA bubble rankings: Predicting the 50 best players in OrlandoEight NBA X factors integral to this year’s title race
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It’s not that Horford is a bad 3-point shooter, or much worse than Milton, though he has been this season. (Milton is shooting 45% from deep.) But Horford is 6-foot-9, and 34, and has lived most of his basketball life from the foul line in.
It just looked slow and unnatural — like everyone was thinking too much about where to stand. There will be more flow with Milton in Horford’s place. Richardson and Harris will find their water levels as ball handlers.
The tradeoff is opponents having a safer haven — Milton — for their weakest defenders, but the benefits should outweigh that. An opposing wing still has to guard Simmons or Harris, giving the Sixers a second bully-ball threat alongside Embiid.
Philly’s defense should be fine with Embiid, Simmons, and Richardson. Horford becomes a traditional backup center and the hub of a second-unit offense. We will still see the Horford-Embiid pairing when matchups and situations dictate.
Brett Brown had four choices to replace Horford: Milton, Furkan Korkmaz, Matisse Thybulle, and Glenn Robinson III. Korkmaz is the best pure shooter, and formed a funky pick-and-pop partnership with Simmons. Milton has learned the same action:
Milton has more north-south zip, and the Sixers really need that. He’s longer than you think on defense.
Thybulle is a strangler on that end, and the Sixers can use him with this group when they have a lead in crunch time. He’s a standstill type on offense, and I understand Brown searching for more shake. (Sorry.) Robinson is meh.
Brown has said in recent interviews he is using Simmons more off the ball, and that gets easier with better spacing and more speed. Simmons is a veteran of the dunker spot, and can be a devastating cutter from outside the arc. He’s a nasty screener, and plays that role more with Horford on the bench, per Second Spectrum. The Milton-Simmons pick-and-roll has worked in small doses; Milton has nice touch on entry passes.
Simmons will still have the ball a ton, and he should be more effective with it in this arrangement. (Milton loves to run the wings for Simmons in transition.) The smaller Sixers have made good use of the “snug” pick-and-roll between Simmons and Embiid on the block — a play that works better with three shooters buzzing around it:
Switching creates bad mismatches. Ducking Embiid’s pick is dicey, because it allows Simmons to get too close to the rim:
This all makes sense. A Sixers team that makes sense is scary. I can’t quit them.
Giannis Antetokounmpo at center: 260 minutes, plus-140 (L-O-L)
Maybe the Bucks won’t need this tool. Maybe they won’t face an opponent who punishes their drop-back defense — centered in most lineups by a Lopez brother — with pull-up 3s and pick-and-pops. Toronto busted through in last season’s conference finals, but the main driver of that is now a Clipper.
Brook Lopez has gotten better scurrying around the arc. No Eastern Conference contender has a pick-and-pop center that strikes fear into the Bucks. The NBA returns in July
The NBA and NBPA have officially approved the details of the season restart, with seeding games tipping off July 30 at Walt Disney World.
• How the Orlando bubble will work
• Team-by-team preview
• 12 most important games
• NBA forecast predictions
The NBA and NBPA have officially approved the details of the season restart, with seeding games tipping off July 30 at Walt Disney World.
• How the Orlando bubble will work
• Team-by-team preview
• 12 most important games
• NBA forecast predictions
But Marc Gasol — 40% from deep — comes close, and still screens for Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet. Boston is perhaps the league’s best pull-up jump-shooting team, with Kemba Walker and Jayson Tatum raining fire. They are sitting on a centerless lineup that could stretch Lopez thin: Walker, Tatum, Marcus Smart, Gordon Hayward, Jaylen Brown. (In fairness, Lopez has squashed little guys in the post on the other end when opponents go small.)
Most Antetokounmpo-at-center lineups trend small, with Khris Middleton as nominal power forward. (I’m not counting groups featuring Ersan Ilyasova.) That’s why Milwaukee’s February acquisition of Marvin Williams intrigued: Were they adding size to these lineups without sacrificing speed (as they do with Ilyasova)?
The touchstone of Milwaukee’s offense is the same regardless of lineup configuration: Antetokounmpo and shooting. But without Lopez, the Bucks amp up the pace and use more varied screening combinations. Antetokounmpo sets 15 ball screens per 100 possessions with Lopez on the floor, and 22 in centerless groups, per Second Spectrum. Also: Lopez has hit just 29.6% from deep this season. Williams is at 36%, and has drained at least 43% on corner 3s in four of the past six seasons. Guess where Mike Budenholzer likes to put him?
The centerless Bucks might have Kyle Korver or some other shooter screen for Antetokounmpo, and fly into open space:
They might pair two shaky shooters (Eric Bledsoe and Antetokounmpo) or their two best players (Antetokounmpo and Middleton) in pick-and-rolls.
When defenses adjust, the Bucks hunt the weak link elsewhere.
Interestingly, these lineups have lived at the rim. About 42% of their shots have come at the basket, a share that would lead all teams, per Cleaning The Glass. They generate heaps of free throws and offensive rebounds — unusual for the Bucks. Basically, they are smaller lineups that play like bigger ones thanks to speed and spacing. They haven’t sacrificed anything on the defensive glass, perhaps because opponents downsize too.
Smart defenses will barricade those paths to the rim by abandoning Milwaukee’s weakest shooter — as the Heat do against Donte DiVincenzo (34% on 3s) below:
The Raptors ignored Bledsoe. Against the best competition, Milwaukee might want to minimize the time Antetokounmpo plays with any two of its so-so shooters. These lineups represent one pathway there.
Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Eric Gordon, Robert Covington, P. J. Tucker: 45 minutes, plus-9
This is Houston’s apex lineup after going all-in on a turbocharged, centerless style.
Houston excising big men feels radical, but it is less about size than skill. Harden’s step-back 3, a revolution almost on par with the rise of Stephen Curry, rendered Clint Capela’s pick-and-roll screening irrelevant. Capela’s new job was scrounging lobs around the basket.
