Five NBA Things I May or May Not Like Playoff Edition: Dr. Russell & Mr. Westbrook, 1>8, Rock(et) Fight, Minnesota Miracle, Clippers-Nuggets

I'm talking about the PLAYOFFS

After a week off for NBA awards, Five NBA Things is back, and it’s officially the playoffs. At the time of this typing, every series has one game under its belt, and while there’s still plenty of basketball left to be played, that’s not going to be the case for a few teams. Here are five things I may or may not have liked from the first round’s first games.

Dr. Russell & Mr. Westbrook

Russell Westbrook has had a Hall of Fame career, but at this stage, he’s functionally the NBA equivalent of Jameis Winston. His play is so wildly variable that he can single-handedly win and lose you a game, and he’ll generally do it on consecutive possessions. I’m not sure if I love it or hate it, but it makes for absolutely insane viewing. Like, seriously, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills watching him in crunch time.

If you haven’t watched the final few minutes and overtime of the Nuggets-Clippers game, do whatever it takes to see it. It was the full Westbrook experience, cranked to 11. Honestly, I don’t think I’d play him in these situations. Yes, his defense is better than Michael Porter Jr’s, but his inability to be a threat from beyond the arc inevitably forces him to be the main character on offense, and that’s a problem when you employ Nikola Jokic.

Every single crunchtime possession, the Clippers did not think for a second about covering Westbrook. This inevitably meant the ball found him as Jokic and Jamal Murray passed out of double-teams to the guy left wide open. Even when he didn’t get the ball, the Clippers' utter disregard for him gave him a clear path to grab offensive rebounds. The Nuggets ended up winning game one, and Westbrook played a huge role, but that’s kind of the problem. In 2025, you don’t want your playoff hopes hinging on someone who plays so unhinged.

Eight Seed Cannon Fodder

The NBA will never do this, but there is no earthly reason for eight teams in each conference to make the playoffs. The gulf between the first and eighth seeds almost always makes for an embarrassingly lopsided series. The Thunder beat the Grizzlies by 51, held them to a 75.3 offensive rating, and an effective field goal percentage of 37.6%. They completely dominated, even though Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the presumptive MVP, went four of thirteen from the field for 15 points.

While the beatdown in the Eastern Conference didn’t look nearly as bad, it too was a massacre. The Cavaliers beat the Heat by 21 with an offensive rating of 140.1. If the game hadn’t been played at a glacial 86.4 possession pace, this could have easily been a 30-point blowout. There’s nothing to learn from these series outside of the fact that a team that finishes over seven spots in the standings above another in a 15-team conference is way better. At a certain point, we need to think about the dignity of these eighth seeds.

Rock(et) Fight

The Golden State Warriors’ 95-85 victory over the Houston Rockets was both a thrilling old-school slugfest and one of the worst offensive basketball games you’ll see. The Rockets, despite an offensive rebound rate of 42.3%, only managed an offensive rating of 96.3 because they shot 39.1% from the field and 20.7% from three. It wasn’t just that shots weren’t falling; the Rockets played jumbo-sized lineups with practically no spacing, and there were long stretches where every possession looked like a Medieval battle sequence.

In comparison, the Warriors’ 107.7 musket-powered offensive rating looks sizzling. However, they needed Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler to hit a ton of contested shots to have an offense as good as the Charlotte Hornets. The Warriors will have better spacing and offensive flow than the Rockets, but the Rockets’ defense is good enough to dictate terms. At the end of the day, this series will come down to who can manufacture enough offense from tough situations. For the Rockets, that means bludgeoning the Warriors on the offensive glass, and for the Warriors, that means hoping Curry and Butler have three more games like this.

Even though the Rockets dropped game one at home, this series is far from over, and it’s shaping up to be one of the best rock fights in modern NBA history. If you believe basketball was better back in the day, this is the series for you. The Rockets and Warriors, through one game, have successfully dragged basketball back two decades. Let’s see if they can keep it up, or down in the mud.

Battle of Minnesota Past and Present

The Minnesota Timberwolves shocked the world with their 117-95 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers, except it shouldn’t have been shocking in the slightest. Eleven out of ESPN’s twelve experts picked the Lakers to win the series in either six or seven games, and the general media consensus was that the Lakers were real threats to make a deep playoff run. However, that good old trusty net rating thing said otherwise.

The Lakers finished the season with a net rating of +1.2, and were only at +3.1 since Luka Doncic entered the lineup. On the other hand, the Timberwolves had a net rating of +5.1 on the season and a net rating of +8.3 since the All-Star break. Just about any way you slice it, the Timberwolves are the demonstrably better team than the Lakers.

I know what you’re thinking: the Lakers have Luka Doncic and LeBron James. Yeah, about that. With Luka and LeBron on the court, the Lakers only managed a net rating of +1.94 (119.66 ORtg, 117.72 DRtg), per PBPStats. When the Timberwolves had their two best players, Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert, on the court, they posted a net rating of +6.12 (ORtg 117.0, DRtg 110.88).

Not to beat a dead horse, but there was overwhelming evidence that the Timberwolves were significantly better than the Lakers. I love how their success in game one will be treated as an underdog story, when they should have been the heavy favorites from the get-go. As an aside, congratulations to Tim Bontemps for being the only person at ESPN to pick the Timberwolves. The bravery to take the coward’s way out and rely on the statistics.

Clippers v. Nuggets

The series so nice, I had to like it twice. With all due respect, the Nuggets and Clippers first-round series is by far the most interesting. You have two All-Time greats playing at near peak form in Nikola Jokic and Kawhi Leonard, two excellent side-kicks in Jamal Murray and James Harden, and a host of excellent role players tasked with shutting these four down. From a talent standpoint, this series was set up to be a classic, and game one did not disappoint.

The Nuggets’ 112-110 overtime victory saw them hold serve at home, but it took them grinding away a 15-point second-quarter deficit. Nikola Jokic was masterful as always, James Harden provided his obligatory “maybe he won’t suck in the playoffs this time” performance, and the game was decided by Russell Westbrook wildin’ out.

From a pure basketball entertainment standpoint, Nuggets-Clippers has it all. It’s a shame that this is a first-round series and not a Conference Finals, but that shouldn’t take away what has a chance to go down as one of the great playoff series in history. Hopefully, we get six more games of peak playoff basketball, but even if we don’t, that game one is already an all-time classic.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.