Sport Linkers 2
PHOENIX — As the saying goes, styles make fights. And the matchup in the first round of the NBA playoffs that best defines that saying is one between the Phoenix Suns and Minnesota Timberwolves.
In a league trending toward the importance of spacing and versatility, Minnesota bet big that size still matters and has championship viability, trading for Rudy Gobert two summers ago to form a jumbo frontcourt with him and Karl-Anthony Towns. It doubled down by re-signing reserve 5 Naz Reid last summer, the favorite for Sixth Man of the Year.
The Suns had their hands tied this past offseason in terms of rebuilding the roster around Devin Booker and Kevin Durant. The best they could do, which has proven to be an admirable effort all things considered, was a rotation that essentially doesn’t have a traditional forward-sized player beyond Durant and that starts three guards, none of whom are point guards. Minnesota has 6-foot-9 Jaden McDaniels as its small forward, with Kyle Anderson at that size off the bench, too.
The game-to-game adjustments that make NBA postseason basketball what it is will likely stay centralized around each team’s effort to maximize its edge around the concepts attacking mismatches.
The Timberwolves will want to keep their defensive shape intact well enough to not only keep Gobert on the floor as much as possible but funnel the ball-handlers and openings toward him. The Suns will want to reach the 100th percentile of floor spacing to make those openings too large, putting Gobert into impossible predicaments.
If anything is brought up to Booker about the offense, he has almost always responded with spacing as the key this year, so that goes toward everyone being in the absolute right spot to keep everything freed up.
(Side note: Will the Suns finally use small-ball lineups outside of break-glass-in-case-of-emergency situations? You’d only need one hand to count the number of times Phoenix did so in the regular season, missing out on time for that unit to grow and see what it looks like when the house isn’t on fire.)
