In today’s NBA news, we’re breaking down Rui Hachimura making everything, Donovan Mitchell missing everything and the latest Damian Lillard trade rumors.
The Knicks won Games 3 and 4 at home to push the Cavaliers’ backs to the wall. Among the most notable issues for the Cavs, a complete lack of offense. They are managing a devastating 101.3 points per 100 possessions, shooting 30.8 percent from beyond the arc and getting just 22.0 points per game from Donovan Mitchell, down from 28.3 during the regular season.
What’s wrong with Donovan Mitchell?
Mitchell’s career-high true shooting percentage this season was driven by a few different factors, several of which have completely abandoned him against the Knicks. The first, and most obvious, is that he hit a career-high 39.2 percent of his pull-up 3-pointers during the regular season — he’d only broken 36 percent in one of his previous five seasons.
So far against the Knicks, Mitchell has hit a paltry 6-of-25 a number that reflects some tough luck and bad misses but also relentless ball pressure from the defense, Josh Hart in particular.
According to the NBA’s matchup statistics, Hart has been Mitchell’s primary defender on just over 130 possessions, nearly twice as often as any other New York defender. He’s done a remarkable job keeping Mitchell in front of him and, with the help of the Knicks’ front-line defenders, turned a lot of potential shots at the rim into pull-up mid-range jumpers.
Hart’s ability to cut off penetration and keep Mitchell in front of him is part of the reason Mitchell’s ratio of drives to pull-up jumpers has been so out of whack. The NBA’s player tracking statistics define a drive as any play where a player dribbles from at least 20 feet from the basket to within 10 feet of the basket. Pull-up jumpers are only counted on shots at least 10 feet from the basket. So comparing the too is a (mildly noisy) reflection of both their ability and decision-making — how often they’re able to get through the defense versus forced to (or comfortable) settling with shooting over the top.
During the regular season, Mitchell averaged more drives (12.7) than pull-ups (9.6) per game. Against the Knicks, that ratio has been flipped — 11.3 drives to 12.0 pull-up attempts per game.
Here, Michell neglects to continue his drive and attack Isaiah Hartenstein who is playing very high in pick-and-roll coverage and instead settles for a pull-up jumper.
You can also see what a strong job Hart does fighting over the screen, recovering in time to contest the shot from the side.
The NBA’s matchup statistics are noisy and should be taken with a grain of salt but, they certainly match the eye test. With Hart as his primary defender, Mitchell has averaged just 23.7 points per 100 possessions on a 43.8 effective field goal percentage, compared to 39.6 points per 100 on a 57.5 effective field goal percentage during the regular season. And it’s not just a matter of Hart benefitting from cold shooting on Mitchell’s part — he’s also limited him to 24.4 field goal attempts per 100 possessions, compared to 28.9 in the regular season. Hart is simply allowing Mitchell far fewer reasonable shot opportunities than he’s used to.
There are a few different ways this matchup might eventually bend in Mitchell’s favor. The first is simply mild progression to the mean, with just a few more of these tough shots going down. The second is to be far more aggressive in attacking the Knicks’ bigs off the dribble, forcing the issue by getting himself all the way to the basket or the free-throw line instead of settling for those jumpers that allow Hart to recover and get back into the play.
The third is keeping Mitchell in the pick-and-roll with bigs, particularly Jarrett Allen. As the series has gone along, they have tried throwing him some pick-and-rolls with a more threatening creator screening, like Caris LeVert. The Cavs weren’t really getting better looks for Mitchell out of these actions and it left two bigs clogging the paint, making it even more likely a pull-up would be the best shot. The Cavs need to get Mitchell going in the paint, which means having Jarrett Allen or Evan Mobley out of the paint and screening for him at the top.
The Cavaliers aren’t dead yet. Their defense has been strong and if they can just get a bit more offensive production and efficiency from Mitchell, it could be enough to get them back in the series.
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Rui Hachimura might make things complicated for the Lakers
Rui Hachimura has been one of the breakout stars in these playoffs, averaging 21.7 points per game in three games for the Lakers and hitting on eye-popping 9-of-12 from beyond the arc. Hachimura was mostly overshadowed in the second half of the Lakers’ season by the subsequent trade for Malik Beasley, D’Angelo Russell, Mo Bamba and Jarred Vanderbilt, as well as the ongoing breakout of Austin Reaves.
Of that group, Vanderbilt is the only one the Lakers won’t have to make a decision on this summer — he’s under contract for next year but Russell is an unrestricted free agent, Beasley has a $16 million team option, Bamba’s $10 million salary for next season is only partially guaranteed and both Reaves and Hachimura are restricted free agents.
Hachimura scored slightly less often after joining the Lakers, with no real bump in efficiency from playing with a different class of stars than he played with in Washington. He has no meaningful track record as a versatile or net-positive defender and for his career, he has shot 35.2 percent on nearly 500 open and wide-open 3-pointers.
After Game 3, Darvin Ham praised Hachimura saying, “This kid has All-Star skill. He’s a(n) All-Star type of talent.”
Even if you took his past three games at face value, that may be an exaggeration. Throw in all the evidence that these past three games are more of an outlier than an indicator of his future potential, and it seems like Ham may be simply trying to reward his player with some well-earned praise and help build his confidence.
The problem is that Hachimura is also in the process of inflating the value of his next salary. In March, Lakers’ insider Jovan Buha said he thought Hachimura might get an offer in the $10-million-per-year range from the Lakers, with a willingness to walk away if another team tried to outbid them.
“I think the Lakers are going to try to retain him… I think his range is around the non-taxpayer MLE. I think something in that 2/20 or 3/30 (range). Looking at his numbers in Washington versus L.A., they’re almost identical across the board… I think the Lakers are going to make an offer around $10 million, and if he’s looking for more or another team is willing to come in and make a bigger offer, they might be willing to walk away. They were high enough on him to trade those three second-round picks, and they want to keep him.”
A month later and with “Lakers Playoff Hero” headlining his resume, that price may be going up and it may be harder and harder for the Lakers to walk away from a contract that overpays for a role-playing wing who doesn’t offer much 3 or D.
NBA news and content from around the FanSided network
- This Week in Playoff Mode, Wes Goldberg breaks down five observations from the previous week, including Rui Hachimura a pass away, the Suns’ offensive speed, how the Warriors are defending Sabonis and more.
- If you need more Wes Goldberg, check out his larger breakdown on what Jimmy Butler has done to carry the Heat against the Bucks.
- The series between the Cavs and Knicks has been a battle of offenses with terrible spacing. So far, the Knicks have found adjustments and the Cavs haven’t.
Damian Lillard trade rumors just won’t die
Damian Lillard showed up to watch the Nets take on the Philadelphia 76ers, in Game 3, setting off a new round of trade rumors. Lillard strongly recommitted to Portland last summer but they wasted another sterling individual season and missed the Play-In Tournament. The Trail Blazers have two first-round picks in this year’s draft, their own in the lottery and the Knicks at No. 26, but Lillard has already made clear he’d like the Blazers to trade those picks for more immediate help.
That’s why I thought it was weird that so much of the reaction to his appearance at the Nets’ game seemed to assume his interest in being traded to the Nets, rather than his interest in having the Trail Blazers trade for some of the Nets’ pieces.
Getting the Nets to part with Nic Claxton or Mikal Bridges might be a tough challenge but that could change if the Blazers jump into the top four in the draft lottery. Cam Johnson could be a cheap free-agent replacement for Jerami Grant if he doesn’t want to return or the Blazers don’t want to meet his price. The No. 26 piece and some contract-matching filler might be a workable price for someone like Royce O’Neale or Dorian Finney-Smith. Maybe he just wants Seth Curry back in Portland?
All that is to say, until Lillard explicitly says he wants to leave Portland, I’m going to take him at his word that all of his energy and attention is on helping the Trail Blazers compete for a title.
Today’s NBA Trivia:
Can you name the only three players with multiple 50-point postseason games in the past decade?
The answer for yesterday’s trivia question: In the 3-point era, Robert Parish and Kenyon Martin have fouled out 15 times each in the playoffs, tied for the most of any player.