Playoff Deep Dive, End-of-Season Finishes & IRL Watch Parties

Welcome to the NBA Librarian Weekly, where we curate and summarize the best NBA content of the week.

<1000 words each week. I consume so you don’t have to.

Table of Contents

1. 📊 Top Scorers v. The Top 10 Teams

2. 🧠 Tactical Matchups That Could Shift Round 1

   1. Celtics vs. Magic: Clash at the 3-Point Line

   2. Cade vs. Knicks: Hunting Mismatches

3. 🏟️ Clippers Unique Home-Court Advantage?

4. 🏗️ Double Big Lineups: Gimmick or Cheat Code?

5. 🛑 The NBA’s Best Point-of-Attack Defenders

📊 Top Scorers v. The Top 10 Teams

With the playoffs tipping off tomorrow, it’s worth asking: who actually performs against elite competition? This leaderboard shows the top scorers vs. the NBA’s top 10 teams (by Net Rating) — a strong proxy for playoff-level defense.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander tops the list, averaging an absurd 33.9 PPG on 63.0% TS across 30 games — comfortably ahead of the field.

🧠 Tactical Matchups That Could Shift Round 1

Big names, smart schemes. These aren’t just star battles — they’re style clashes that could decide who advances.

From Michael Pina’s latest on The Ringer, here are two matchups that jump out:

Celtics vs. Magic: Clash at the 3-Point Line

Boston launched a league-high 3,955 threes this season — 480 more than any other team. Orlando allowed just 2,570 — the fewest by 263.

In two matchups vs. the Magic, Boston took only 33 and 37 threes, their lowest and fourth-lowest totals all year.

Magic defensive rankings:

• 🥇 1st in full closeouts

• 🥇 1st in closeouts that draw fouls

• 🥉 Last in short closeouts and help on drives/post-ups

👉 Orlando doesn’t contest — they erase. If they replicate that effort, this could be closer than expected.

Cade vs. Knicks: Hunting Mismatches

Cade Cunningham is targeting New York’s soft spots — Towns in drop, Brunson on switches — and it’s working.

• Scored 36 at MSG in January, cooking KAT in PnR.

• Knicks tried switching Towns off screens — Cade adjusted, kept attacking.

• OG Anunoby and Josh Hart helped with stunts, but Detroit still got clean looks early in the clock.

• Brunson avoided switches, but it didn’t matter — Cade found the cracks.

If Thibs doesn’t tweak the scheme, Cade could control the series.

🖐️ The NBA’s Most Contested-Dependent Shooters

Some shooters thrive on clean looks — and fall apart when pressured.
These are the players with the biggest 3P% drop-offs when going from uncontested to contested threes (min. 100 attempts each):

• Keegan Murray: –20%

• Buddy Hield: –19%

• Ty Jerome / Moses Moody / Collin Sexton / Donovan Mitchell: –17%

🧱 Reminder: not all shooters are built for playoff defenses.

🏟️ Clippers Unique Home-Court Advantage?

The Clippers’ first season at the Intuit Dome suggests their new arena might actually be delivering a real home-court advantage. Opponents shot just 74.8% on free throws there—the second-worst mark in the NBA—but it gets even more dramatic when looking at attempts in front of The Wall, a steep, standing-only section packed with Clippers diehards. On that side, opponents shot just 73.4%, compared to 76.1% on the opposite end, a 4.7% drop that ranks as one of the steepest single-side declines in league history. Road teams also hit just 33.5% of their threes at the Dome—32.9% when facing The Wall—and the Clippers posted the biggest home/road net rating swing in the league at +9.0. Whether it’s psychological or environmental, the numbers hint at something real.

Still, the sample size is small, and history offers reason for caution. In 2014, the Thunder saw a similar free-throw drop-off at home, only for opponents’ accuracy to completely normalize the next season. A 20-year league-wide study also showed no consistent year-to-year pattern in opponent free throw shooting by arena, suggesting most venue-based advantages are noise, not signal. So while The Wall looks like a brilliant blend of design and intimidation, it’s still unclear whether it’s a long-term cheat code or just a one-year anomaly.

🏗️ Double Big Lineups: Gimmick or Cheat Code?

The F5 breaks down the rise of two-center lineups around the NBA — and the numbers are eye-opening:

• Lineups with 2 centers: +4.2 net rating per 100 possessions

• Lineups with 0 centers: –1.4 net rating

• Total minutes played: ~10,500 mins of double-big vs. ~90,000 mins of single-big

From Mobley–Allen in Cleveland to Sengun–Adams in Houston, playoff teams are finding success pairing skilled bigs. While the sample is smaller, early returns show these lineups dominate the glass, protect the rim, and don’t sacrifice playmaking or spacing the way they once might’ve.

The real test? Whether this size advantage holds when the postseason starts.

🛑 The NBA’s Best Point-of-Attack Defenders

Who’s really locking up on-ball this year? Using data from Sportradar, here are the top 8 defenders at the point of attack — based on drives stopped per game as the primary defender:

🏆 Dyson Daniels: 6.1 stops/game
🥈 Jaden McDaniels: 5.9
🥉 Amen Thompson: 5.3

All qualify by:

• 25+ MPG

• 50+ DEF Impact

• Guarding a ball-handler 45%+ of time

• Low isolation targets (≤2/40 min)

• 3.5+ stops/game

🐺 Wolves Aren’t Doomed vs. Luka & LeBron

@fleaflickas lays out why Minnesota still has a shot:

• Gobert in drop vs. non-Luka PnR is fine; blitzing Luka = disaster.

• NAW on Reaves works, but foul trouble looms.

• LeBron vs. Edwards matchups need early help before LAL forces switches.

• Wolves’ size + rebounding should crush LAL’s small lineups.

• Conley’s minutes should be limited — he’ll be hunted.

• Playoff Ant has cooked blitzes, and Randle in 4v3s has been effective.

👀 Wolves aren’t favorites, but this isn’t the same Gobert-vs-Luka scenario as years past.