Road teams have dominated second round of NBA playoffs. Will it continue?

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We’ve had three major NBA playoff moments on this date. In 1989, Michael Jordan hit the shot over Craig Ehlo to win that year’s Bulls-Cavs first-round series. In 1994, the Nuggets became the first No. 8 seed in NBA history to beat a No. 1 seed by taking out the Supersonics. And, in 1995, the Pacers’ Reggie Miller scored eight points in nine seconds to take Game 1 against the Knicks.

About Last Night

Warriors win Game 1 but lose Steph Curry

We’re five games into the second round of the playoffs and have yet to see the home team win. Last night, the Warriors had an incredible effort in Game 1 against the Timberwolves in Minneapolis to win, 99-88. It wasn’t some brilliant performance by Steph Curry, either. Well, at least not past the eight-minute mark in the second quarter, because he tweaked his hamstring and left the game. He didn’t return, and the Warriors had to figure out how to win on the road without their legend:

They did it in a few ways:

• Their defense was tremendous. They forced a lot of turnovers in this one, mucking it up.
• They ran Minnesota off the 3-point line and didn’t give up many makes. The Wolves shot 5-of-29 from deep (17.2 percent).
• They kept Anthony Edwards out of the flow of the game, limiting him to one point in the first half.
• Buddy Hield stepped up again with 24 points.
• The Warriors shot 18-of-42 from deep (42.9 percent).

This was Edwards’ reaction to the Wolves shooting 12-of-76 from 3 over the last two games — the worst mark in NBA playoff history over a two-game span.

As great as that Game 1 win was, this series is going to come down to how severe Curry’s hamstring injury is. If it keeps him out for multiple games, I’m not sure how much the Warriors can replicate this kind of night on either end of the floor. If he’s limited but able to play, they’ll have to make sure he doesn’t make it worse – maybe use the four-time champion as a decoy.

Pacers go up 2-0 on No. 1 seed Cavaliers

It looked like the Cavs were going to have a much better story for Game 2 at home. Even with Evan Mobley, Darius Garland and De’Andre Hunter all out, the Cavs were getting another heroic effort from Donovan Mitchell. They were up by 20 in the third quarter and took a 14-point lead into the fourth quarter.

Then, the Pacers started chipping away, like we’ve seen from so many teams on the road already in this second round … which started two days ago. The Pacers just kept attacking the paint relentlessly, scoring 26 of their 36 fourth-quarter points in the paint. And, as Mitchell tried to keep the Pacers at bay with his 48 points on the night, it was just getting too close for comfort.

All of a sudden, it was a three-point game. Max Strus turned the ball over to Andrew Nembhard, and Tyrese Haliburton decided to attack the rim some more. He was fouled with 12.1 seconds left for two more free throws. He made the first and missed the second. But Haliburton got the rebound as it was batted around, brought it back out and decided to rip the hearts out of the Cleveland crowd.

Haliburton’s lethal step-back 3-pointer sucked the air out of the arena. Indiana led by one with 1.1 seconds left, and that was the game. Cleveland clearly needs Mobley and Garland back. The Cavs need their 3-point shots to start falling (26.0 percent in two games here). And they need to stop losing fourth quarters (minus-22 through two games).

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The Last 24

Knicks should have Celtics’ attention

🏀 Expected bumps. Boston anticipated some rocky moments in a title defense. Did the defending champions expect this from the Knicks?

🏀 Respect earned. The Knicks are often the butt of the joke. They deserve your attention for good reasons. 

🎙️ AI for voiceover. NBC is using AI to recreate the late Jim Fagan’s voice for promo voiceover. AI is creatively corrupt, but sure, let’s do it. 

📲 We have highlights! Maybe you’ve noticed a new feature in The Athletic’s app and on the site. We’ve got NBA highlights here. Legally!

🎧 Tuning in. Today’s “No Dunks” discusses whether Haliburton is Indiana’s new Reggie Miller.

Panic? NotChet!

Thunder need Chet Holmgren to join party

Individual plus/minus is one of the noisiest stats you can ever observe – noisy like Russell Westbrook screaming after a fast-break dunk. The stat is even noisier when you’re looking at single-game sample sizes. It feels like something you go to for confirmation bias when you want to prove a point. With all that said, I feel like it’s about to prove a theory I’ve had while watching Chet Holmgren and the Thunder against the Nuggets the last two seasons.

When the team is effective with Holmgren on the floor against the Nuggets, it wins the game. When it struggles with him on the floor, it loses. It’s as simple as that. Is that all on Holmgren? I’m not sure! Again, it’s such a noisy stat that it’s hard to tell what’s his fault and what’s not when it comes to wins and losses in these cases. I do know that at no point during the Game 1 loss to the Nuggets did I think Holmgren was in it mentally. He seemed lost and unable to find his place.

Whether it was Aaron Gordon throwing down a TikTok (have we agreed on what replaces a poster dunk?) and-1 on Holmgren or Nikola Jokić carving him up on defense or him choking on two free throws in the final 10 seconds, Holmgren never really got into a rhythm, and the Thunder really need him in this matchup. His final line was 12 points (5-of-11 shooting, 0-of-3 from 3, 2-of-4 from the line), six rebounds, two assists, one steal, four blocks, two turnovers and five fouls in 28 minutes. But remember that noisy plus/minus stat? The Thunder were a minus-14 with him on the court in a game they lost by two.

To be fair, they were minus-6 with Jalen Williams, minus-16 with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and minus-21 with Lu Dort. The bench had a massive impact on the game, in terms of this stat so murky the Swamp Thing would emerge from it, and Isaiah Hartenstein was a plus-2. But it made me dive back into Holmgren’s other games in his two years against Denver, and I found a similar pattern:

• 10/29/2023, 128-95 loss: 19 points, four rebounds, minus-23
• 12/16/2023, 118-117 win: 17 points, 11 rebounds, eight blocks, plus-10
• 12/29/2023, 119-93 win: 24 points, six rebounds, three assists, two blocks, plus-9
• 01/31/2024, 105-100 win: 18 points, 13 rebounds, three assists, five blocks, plus-13
• 10/24/2024, 102-87 win: 25 points, 14 rebounds, five assists, four blocks, plus-9
• 11/06/2024, 124-122 loss: 15 points, 10 rebounds, one block, minus-11
• 03/09/2025, 127-103 win: 14 points, eight rebounds, four blocks, plus-32
• 03/10/2025, 140-127, loss: eight points, four rebounds, two blocks, minus-20

Counting the Game 1 loss, the Thunder are an average of minus-17 with Holmgren on the court in their four losses to the Nuggets over the last two seasons. And they’re very effective (plus-14.6) with Holmgren on the floor in the five wins over Denver. Noisy stat aside, his performance in Game 1 wasn’t acceptable, and it goes well beyond the choke job at the free-throw line.

Holmgren, 23, has to be far more active and far more of a threat against Denver. He was way too passive in Game 1. He had a 21.0 percent usage rate in Game 1. In games where Holmgren had above a 21 percent usage rate this season, the Thunder were 22-1, including the playoffs. In games with a 21.0 percent usage rate or lower, the Thunder were 8-6, including the postseason. Three of those six losses? Against Denver.

Holmgren has to defend beyond just the blocks. He has to stretch the floor. He has to attack the basket. He has to move the ball. He has to be a force. There are no excuses and there is no time to waste. OKC can’t go down 0-2 headed back to Denver. That would be a massive minus.

Be Intentional

A brief pitch to NBA on intentional fouls

In the biggest moments of the NBA playoffs, I want to see basketball. I don’t think that’s asking too much. I think most basketball fans want to see basketball when it comes to watching basketball – especially in the playoffs. A few times in the postseason so far, I’ve sighed or groaned in disgust when that hasn’t happened. (No, I’m not talking about the Heat losing by 100 points at home.)

I’m talking about watching opponents run up to Steven Adams or Mitchell Robinson when they don’t have the ball, pat them repeatedly on the chest or back and tell the referee they’re fouling these players. Why? Because it’s the “hack-a” strategy, and those players’ poor free-throw shooting is now here to stall out the game and hopefully force their coaches to remove them from the court. Or when we’re down to an exciting moment, like if a team is down three with 10 seconds to go and no timeouts left, and the leading squad is instructed to foul them before they can get into a shooting motion.

Accounting loopholes are far more entertaining than watching a potential game-tying shot, apparently. Funnily enough, the Thunder may have cost themselves Game 1 by implementing this strategy, which allowed Jokić to re-enter the game, instead of trusting their world-class defense to get a stop.

The league has tried to remove some of these elements by regulating when the “hack-a” strategy is allowed to be employed, and implementing the “take foul” rule that prevents teams from fouling to intentionally stop a fast-break opportunity. Why can’t we just have the broad, sweeping rule of the “intentional foul” and allow basketball to be played? 

You want to send a bad free-throw shooter to the line? They should have the ball in their hands, instead of having them 40 feet away from the rock while an opponent pretends to put out the tiniest fire on their jersey. The excitement of a game-tying shot should be the entertainment goal, rather than sucking all of the air out of the building with an intentional foul that kills the drama. It’s a simple ask and a simple fix that helps the entertainment product. The NBA is still putting on a show, right? Let’s be intentional with the product, then.

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(Top photo: Bruce Kluckhohn / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

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