An NBA postseason of comebacks ... but don't forget the blowouts
Because there have been lots of those, too
Thunder 461, Timberwolves 460.
That is the composite score of the Western Conference finals entering Wednesday night's Game 5.
This, of course, isn't soccer. Nothing in the playoffs on NBA hardwood is decided on aggregate. Minnesota's 143-101 destruction of 68-win Oklahoma City in Game 3, historically lopsided as it was, only counted for one win in a series that the Thunder can suddenly close out on their home floor.
So why does the word historic even come into it?
Here's why: The Thunder are bidding to become the first team #thisleague has ever seen to win it all after losing a game by 40 points (or more) along the way.
There have actually been some close calls on this front for recent champions: Both the 2021 Milwaukee Bucks and 2022 Golden State Warriors absorbed 39-point poundings en route to their respective titles.
Then again …
Oklahoma City finding a way to win it all after getting throttled by 42 would, in some respects, fall right in line with a postseason that has been plenty weird.
The New York Knicks, remember, entered Tuesday's night crucial Game 4 in Indianapolis as the first team in playoff history with three comebacks from at least 20 points down in the same postseason.
The Indiana Pacers won two games in which they trailed by seven points in the final minute — as the popular Twitter screengrab below reminds — and then another against the Knicks when they trailed by 14 points with less than three minutes to go in regulation and by nine in the final minute.
Yet all of that frequent rallying has served to obscure an absolute slew of blowouts that has been mixed in with all the comebacks. Consider …
Nine games in these playoffs have been decided by 30 points or more.
And six of those nine were decided by 37 or more.
I asked researcher extraordinaire
if she was keeping a running list of all the non-competitive games.Dumb question, Stein.
She also passed along that the single-season record for 30-point wins in the playoffs is 10 in 2015-16. Meaning that we're only one more blowout away from matching that figure this postseason.
Stat Keeks adds: There have been 17 games over the past two playoffs with margins of 30 points or more ... more than the four previous postseasons combined.
So, yeah.
Weird, weird playoffs.
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Publishing Note
As I tweeted Monday when I shared my around-the-league NBA notes one day later than usual, I had to make a quick detour to West London to see Kevin De Bruyne play for Manchester City one last time.
So ...
There was no time for a This Week In Basketball compilation on Monday in addition to the notes. I moved right on to the Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza and will try to make up for it this coming Monday with an array of pictures from my travels mixed in with all the standard roundball discussion in the next TWIB.
Like this snap featuring a pristine brioche croissant and an exquisite
großer brauner from Kipferl in the Angel District:
(Substack) Note of Note
A clever headline in The New York Post that obviously brings scant comfort to Knicks fans now:
And ...
Numbers Game
🏀 30
Follow-up note on the topic covered in Section 1: Oklahoma City has accounted for three of those nine 30-point wins in these playoffs so far. That is tied for the most by one team in any NBA postseason.
🏀 3
The other three teams in league history to achieve that feat: The 1986-87 Lakers, 1995-96 Jazz and 2015-16 Cavaliers.
🏀 1996
Yet another illustration of how different these playoffs have been: Oklahoma City/Minnesota is amazingly the first Western Conference finals matchup without a team from Texas or California since (whoa) Seattle beating Utah in seven games in 1996 … as highlighted by this Yahoo! Sports graphic:
🏀 9
The Pacers have been beaten in eight of their nine previous trips to the Eastern Conference finals but now need only one more win to reach the NBA Finals for the first time since 2000.
🏀 0-4
Sunday's fall-from-ahead Game 3 loss dropped the Pacers to 0-4 in franchise history when they play at home on the same day as the Indianapolis 500.
🏀 1998
Leave it to Sportico's Lev Akabas to spot that there were more Eastern Conference representatives on the All-NBA team than West honorees for the first time since 1998.
🏀 8
The East's eight All-NBA selections: Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo, Boston's Jayson Tatum, Cleveland's Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley, New York's Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, Indiana's Tyrese Haliburton and Detroit's Cade Cunningham.
🏀 7
The West's seven All-NBA selections: Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams, Denver's Nikola Jokić, Minnesota's Anthony Edwards, the Lakers' LeBron James, Golden State's Stephen Curry and the Clippers' James Harden.
🏀 11
Gilgeous-Alexander is the first No. 11 pick in league history to win regular-season MVP honors.
🏀 7
The wait for an American-born MVP, meanwhile, will stretch to an eighth season after Canada's Gilgeous-Alexander beat out Serbia's Jokić for this season's highest individual honor. Since then-Rocket James Harden was named MVP in 2018, Jokić has won the award three times, Greece's Antetokounmpo has won it twice and the other two went to Philadelphia's Joel Embiid (born in Cameroon) and SGA.
🏀 25,000
We recently passed the 25,000-subscriber mark on YouTube at DLLS Sports. Not too shabby for a 9-month-old operation.
🏀 240
I was in the stands at the Etihad on Sept. 22, 2024, when Ballon d'Or winner Rodri sustained a torn right ACL against Arsenal. Last week, after an absence of a mere 240 days, Rodri made his return to the Manchester City lineup and is expected play in next month's Club World Cup in the United States. The Mavericks' Kyrie Irving is 33 — five years older than Rodri — but the midfielder's rapid recovery does remind you that a faster-than-expected rebound from ACL tears is possible in certain cases.
🏀 2025
Our recent family meal at Nick & Sam's in Dallas, where we celebrated Photo Editor Aaron's high school graduation, had us seated near the display of two of the coolest plates you'll ever see in a steakhouse:
PS — Some bonus reading from March on the goalkeeping graduate:
Memories to forever save
Maybe it's the reflective mood that inevitably took hold once it sunk in that this Newsletter Tuesday marked five years to the day that the NBA abruptly shut down in the face of COVID-19 and amazingly played a key role in making the whole world stop spinning
Was at the same match at the Cottage on Sunday. Sat in the new Riverside stand and it was super nice.
Love the plates and what they represent!