Rock-paper-scissors is a game usually only played in basketball to determine who gets the first pick in a pickup basketball run.
It’s completely irrelevant to the NBA— until now.
The Los Angeles Lakers, Oklahoma City Thunder and Denver Nuggets are three of the best teams in the Western Conference. An MVP favorite powers each, and they all have the tools to make a deep playoff run.
They all have a key advantage that gives them a leg up on one of the other three teams. However, they all have a weakness that can be exploited by one of the other teams.
Are you starting to see the parallels to rock-paper-scissors now?
Versatility Can Weather The Thunder
The Oklahoma City Thunder have been the best team in the NBA thus far this season.
They are in a neck-and-neck battle with the Cavs for the best record in the NBA, but OKC thrashed them in their most recent matchup.
Against the Celtics, Cavs, Nuggets and Knicks (other top odds-on favorites to win the NBA title this year), OKC is 6-2. None of their losses were by more than seven, and five of the six victories were by double digits.
So how on Earth is any team going to “weather the Thunder” in a seven-game series?
The OKC roster lacks one key component: Size.
The Thunder have only two players taller than 6-foot-9— Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein. However, Holmgren has a much smaller frame, weighing 208 pounds despite being 7-foot-1.
OKC’s next-tallest starter is 6-foot-6 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Off the bench, the only player over 6-foot-5 is Jaylin Williams at 6-foot-9.
Will Luka Traumatize OKC Again?
The Thunder’s inferior size could pose a problem against the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Lakers are by no means a big team, either, but they are versatile in ways the Thunder are not.
The shortest player in the Lakers’ starting lineup is Austin Reaves, who is 6-foot-5 and weighs 197 pounds. The other starters are all at least 6-foot-6 and weigh 220 pounds.
The Lakers also have many bench players in the 6-foot-6 to seven-foot height range. With so many players on the average or taller end, the Lakers get more defensive flexibility than other teams. OKC will have a harder time getting advantageous switches on offense, which SGA is excellent at exploiting.
Furthermore, Luka Doncic took out the Thunder in last year’s Western Conference Semifinals.
He was stellar in that series, averaging 29.2 points, 8.8 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 2.6 steals per game. Now that he has other shot creators around him in LeBron, Reaves and Dalton Knecht, who knows how many more opportunities are open up for him?
Defense Wins Championships
While the Lakers have Doncic and LeBron James, the Nuggets have Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray.
Offensively, they should still be able to score at a decent rate against OKC, the best defensive team in the league, but they could very well be susceptible to a handful of cold spells. On the other hand, no one on the Nuggets will be able to stop Gilgeous-Alexander, who is averaging 32.9 points per game on 52.8% shooting.
The Lakers are no defensive juggernaut, but LeBron may be able to handle the defensive assignment of guarding SGA. He has slacked off defensively in recent years — choosing to spend more energy on offense — but now Luka can take some of the scoring burden.
Who can the Nuggets assign to guard Gilgeous-Alexander? Truthfully, no one.
The Nuggets tie for the 19th-ranked defense in the league as of March 22. On top of that, only five teams have a worse opponent points per game stat.
This spells disaster for a matchup against the league’s third-ranked offense. If you want evidence, look no further than the two matchups the teams have had so far this season.
In their first matchup, OKC held the Joker to 16 points, which was tied for the highest on the Nuggets. The second time around, Russell Westbrook turned back the clock and dropped 29, and Denver STILL only won by two.
The bad news for the Nuggets? In both of those contests, the Thunder were without Hartenstein, their big man who will most likely have an easier time limiting Jokic than their other players.
Furthermore, the Nuggets average more turnovers (14.4) and fewer steals (8.2) than the Thunder (league-best 11.8 turnovers and 10.5 steals). Facing off against what some say is the NBA’s best defense ever will only spotlight and exacerbate this disparity for the Nuggets.
Nuggets are the Lakers’ Kryptonite
The Denver Nuggets have downed the Lake Show in the playoffs in each of the past two years. Can they make it three?
Trading Anthony Davis for Luka Doncic may have been a no-brainer for Lakers GM Rob Pelinka. It may have helped the team in the grand scheme of things, but this is the one scenario where it could backfire.
The Joker is hands-down the best big man in the league, and he has wreaked havoc on the Lakers every time they have met in the playoffs.
In last year’s series matchup, he almost averaged a triple-double. 28.2 points, 16.2 rebounds and 9.8 assists per game is nothing to scoff at— and he did it on 59.1% shooting!
Even when the Lakers play good defense against him, he sinks shots that coaches would yell at any other player for attempting.
Davis was the Lakers’ best chance to stop Jokic. If they meet again in the playoffs, if even AD couldn’t do it, who’s gonna do it now?
The Lakers may be able to beat the Thunder by outsizing them, but the Nuggets are a different story. They run their offense through their big man, who can do anything but throw down a between-the-legs dunk.
Through him, doors open for his teammates. Versatility doesn’t play as much of a factor here. The Lakers just need someone who can slow down Jokic, and they don’t have that.
And yes, after acquiring Doncic, the Lakers did beat the Nuggets by a whopping 23 points. Before that, the Lakers lost the last five regular-season matchups against the Nuggets and won only one of nine total playoff games against Denver in the prior two postseasons.
No team has ever defeated LeBron in the playoffs three years in a row. However, in many card games, the Joker trumps the King. Is the game of basketball just the concept’s newest manifestation?
So Who Wins?
If it is really true that this is a game of rock-paper-scissors, then who stands tall?
That depends on playoff seeding. All three of these teams should hope that the two other teams face each other first in the playoffs. The winner of that first series won’t be able to defeat the team that awaits them. All three will likely be top-four seeds entering the playoffs, so this theory will get put to the test in the Western Conference Semifinals and Finals.
The game of rock-paper-scissors will continue to the end.
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