We recently covered the most important five-man lineups in the Eastern Conference. The exercise was relatively straightforward. There are three bonafide championship contenders in the East followed by two frisky underdogs. After that? There's just not much worth exploring. The Brooklyn Nets barely clung to a top-six seed thanks to wins accumulated by players no longer on their roster. The Miami Heat can't put the ball in the basket. The Atlanta Hawks may have beaten them in the play-in round, but got humiliated by that same Heat team in the first round a year ago. We knew who was worth covering and who wasn't.
The Western Conference is far more complicated. Denver has more or less held the No. 1 seed wire-to-wire, and Sacramento and Memphis have consistently followed them. Phoenix ascended to No. 4 with Kevin Durant and didn't surrender that slot. But after that? Chaos. Utter chaos.
Do the Clippers warrant coverage with Paul George expected to miss part or all of the first round? How about a Lakers team that just won one of the strangest play-in games you'll ever see? Do we judge the Warriors as the team they used to be, or as the team they've been all season? One of the remaining play-in teams has a player that might finish fifth in MVP voting. The other is getting its star center back on Friday. Could either of them make noise?
We aren't going to cover all nine teams in the Western Conference postseason field. To make things easier, we're cutting three teams. The Thunder and Timberwolves fall out by virtue of their play-in status. The Clippers are out due to George's injury. With apologies to those teams, here are the six most important five-man lineups in the West.
1. Denver Nuggets
The lineup: Jamal Murray, Bruce Brown, Christian Braun, Jeff Green, Zeke Nnaji
Net rating: -18.2
Total possessions this season: 88
The Denver Nuggets exist by a simple law: when Nikola Jokic is on the floor, they are the best team in the NBA. That is true by basically any measure. They outscored their opponents by 640 points with him on the floor this season. The closest non-Nugget is Derrick White at 488. Jokic finished seventh on this list last season despite having virtually no roster support. His on-court net rating of plus-12.5 dwarfs fellow MVP candidates Joel Embiid (plus-8.8) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (plus-7.2). NBA.com tracks team net ratings as far back as 1997, and in that span, no team has ever posted a plus-12.5 net rating across an entire season. The only player to do so with any frequency was Stephen Curry at his peak.
And the moment Jokic leaves the floor? Everything goes to hell. The Nuggets got outscored with Jokic on the floor just 17 times all season. They went 3-14 in those games. Whatever you're imagining happens without him, the truth is far worse. Just take a look at the numbers:
- No non-Jokic lineup has played more than 116 total possessions for the Nuggets all season. Michael Malone has experimented with virtually everything. Nothing works.
- The nine-most used non-Jokic lineups all have negative point-differentials.
- If you want to find a non-Jokic group with a positive point-differential that includes only players in the current rotation, you have to go all the way down to the 19th-most used non-Jokic lineup this season. That group features Denver's four other starters along with backup big Zeke Nnaji.
Four-starter lineups aren't exactly common, but they're not especially rare either. Philadelphia uses them from time to time to try to survive minutes without Joel Embiid. Malone has them in his back pocket, but he's used them sparingly. The lineup above offers something of a middle ground. Murray's presence ensures a modicum of playmaking, but the lineup undeniably skews towards defense and flexibility otherwise.
Almost any lineup featuring Nnaji is going to emphasize that. DeAndre Jordan was a free-agent bust, and as promising an addition as Thomas Bryant seemed at the time, it became clear pretty quickly just how much he was benefitting from passes by LeBron James and Russell Westbrook in Los Angeles. Nnaji has won the backup center position for now. He's not exactly center-sized, but the Lakers and Kings are the only two Western-conference opponents that can really punish them for that (prove me wrong, DeAndre Ayton, prove me wrong). Lineups featuring Nnaji generate 14 turnovers per 100 possessions, the best number on the Nuggets roster. He's not much of a rim-protector, but he can cover ground and switch credibly onto non-star perimeter players.
The Nuggets don't need to win these minutes. They need to survive them. There are a number of ways to do that, but this group will hopefully do so through hustle and Murray's individual brilliance. That can't carry them for 40 minutes. It can keep them afloat for four or five at a time.
2. Memphis Grizzlies
The lineup: Ja Morant, Desmond Bane, Dillon Brooks, Santi Aldama, Xavier Tillman
Net rating: +21.7
Total possessions this season: 70
Hey, speaking of Western Conference contenders playing without their best big man, Jaren Jackson Jr. has entered the chat. Jackson has played 17 playoff games in his career. He's reached 30 minutes in five of them. He's committed at least four fouls in 13 of those 17 games and has finished with less than three fouls only once. The minutes Jackson loses to foul trouble might cost him Defensive Player of the Year. In the past, they haven't been nearly as troublesome as they've needed to be in the playoffs thanks to the incredible depth Zach Kleiman has accumulated in his front court.
Most of that depth is now gone. Steven Adams and Brandon Clarke are both out for the postseason. Kyle Anderson plays for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Memphis is now going to have to lean on Santi Aldama, David Roddy and Kenneth Lofton Jr. for backup front-court minutes. None of them have played in a playoff game. Xavier Tillman is a bit more experienced, but he's never averaged 20 minutes per game in a full season.
This is going to be problematic considering who the Grizzlies are about to face in the first round. Nobody is better at getting to the line than the Lakers. They fell behind the Minnesota Timberwolves by as many as 15 points in Tuesday's play-in game, but fought back largely because they were able to get Karl-Anthony Towns off of the floor due to foul trouble. The Lakers won the 12 minutes he sat by 26 points. Darvin Ham's game-plan for this series is going to revolve around getting Jackson out of the game. It's very, very difficult not to foul Anthony Davis and LeBron James.
So what happens when Jackson does inevitably go to the bench with foul trouble in this series? Well... that's hard to say. No Memphis lineup that lacks Jackson, Clarke and Adams has played more than 116 possessions this season. Their best hope at surviving those minutes involves their four other starters. Pairing that quartert with Aldama has succeeded in a small sample this season, and Aldama is at least a credible enough 3-point threat to maintain offensive structure without Jackson.
But the thought of extended minutes without Jackson is very scary against Davis, specifically. Tillman, Roddy and Lofton are all 6-foot-7 or shorter. Memphis can try to scheme away that difference. Oklahoma City has successfully kept the ball out of the post without a center all season. But playoff-level game-planning is going to make that more difficult, and Davis has the widest catch radius in the NBA. Keeping the ball away from him is going to be difficult without Jackson in the game. If the Grizzlies hope to advance, they are going to have to figure out how to do so.
3. Sacramento Kings
The lineup: Davion Mitchell, Kevin Huerter, Harrison Barnes, Keegan Murray, Domantas Sabonis
Net rating: +6
Total possessions this season: 541
Once again, we find ourselves covering a four-starters lineup. However, unlike the Nuggets and Grizzlies, the Kings use theirs quite often. The unit above, with Mitchell filling in for De'Aaron Fox, was actually the second-most used five-man lineup in terms of minutes this season that featured a full-time reserve.
The logic here is straightforward. Sabonis is such a uniquely gifted offensive center that the Kings can get away with removing Fox from the game without inserting a traditional, offense-first point guard to replace him. If the offense is going to run through Sabonis anyway, it makes sense for the Kings to emphasize defense in the Fox slot. Huerter, Barnes and Murray all shoot so well that they can function in practically any setting that features a Sabonis-caliber shot-creator, and the No. 24 defense in the NBA can use the Mitchell boost against any opponent.
Of course, the Warriors aren't just any opponent. The ability to track Stephen Curry across the entire court is essential to containing Golden State's offense (insomuch as doing so is even possible). The Kings have performed admirably defensively against the Warriors this season, holding them to a respectable 114.6 points per 100 possessions. That's not a particularly impressive figure in a vacuum, but it's enough when you score as easily as Sacramento does.
The Warriors don't hunt mismatches as aggressively as most postseason offenses do, but they're still going to try to force Sabonis to switch onto Curry on the perimeter. Fox can't prevent that by fighting over screens. Mitchell might be able to. The Kings are going to have to get creative in finding him minutes, especially since he won't be starting, but don't be surprised when you see him playing plenty of minutes alongside the rest of Sacramento's starters for this exact reason.
4. Phoenix Suns
The lineup: Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Josh Okogie, Kevin Durant, DeAndre Ayton
Net rating: +15.5
Total possessions this season: 258
Suns skeptics asked a simple and fair question after the Kevin Durant trade: who is Phoenix's fifth-best player? There were, and remain, a number of viable answers. Torrey Craig? Landry Shamet? Buyout addition Terrence Ross? Monty Williams has largely eschewed all of them in favor of Josh Okogie. The Suns aren't even really experimenting with anybody else. Phoenix's starters have played 258 possessions together since the deadline. No other lineup featuring Durant tops 44.
Okogie checks a number of boxes for Phoenix. He's a metrics darling on defense, not quite Mikal Bridges' equal, but at the very least capable of chasing almost any guard in the NBA without sacrificing the strength necessary for most forwards. He's also one of the NBA's best offensive rebounding guards, which is a necessity for a team that rarely gets to the rim and needs to make up for that lost efficiency in other ways.
But the basic question any presumptive fifth-Sun needs to answer is this: can they make open 3's? Their March contest with the Mavericks offered a preview of the sort of defenses the Suns will see in the playoffs: aggressive help on Durant and Booker, wide-open looks for everyone else. Okogie shot 1-for-9 on 3's in that game. He's made a career-best 33.5% this season, but he remains below 30% in across his five NBA seasons.
The Suns aren't just going to see aggressive help in the postseason. They're going to get every junk defense Western Conference coaches can think up. They'll see box-and-one looks. They'll see some triangle-and-two when Durant and Booker are on the floor together. Teams are going to switch relentlessly knowing that Ayton isn't especially interested in punishing them for it. Whoever fills that fifth slot for Phoenix is going to make or break their championship hopes with his 3-point shooting.
Which makes it all the more surprising that Williams has seemingly written Okogie's name into that slot in pen. Granted, we're dealing with a tiny sample here due to Durant's ankle injury, but the lack of reps that players like Ross and Craig have gotten in that slot are a bit concerning. The Suns are going to have to feel those groups out in the playoffs themselves. Hopefully they won't need to. All of this becomes a whole lot simpler if Okogie just makes his shots.
5. Golden State Warriors
The lineup: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green, Kevon Looney
Net rating: +22.1
Total possessions this season: 705
Throughout all of the struggles of this season, the injuries, the rumors, the locker room discord, the lingering contract issues, the inability to win road games, the Warriors have been able to hold onto one, remarkable number as proof that their championship selves were still in there. When their five starters share the floor, the Warriors have outscored their opponents by 145 points this season. That's the second-best figure in basketball this season, and the only lineup to top it (Denver's starting five) has played twice as many minutes.
The problem for the Warriors has been that they've hardly ever actually been able to get their five best players on the court at the same time. Their starters have appeared in only 27 games together. That's going to change in the postseason, but we don't know what version of Andrew Wiggins we're going to get after a lengthy, personal absence.
There's also the reality of their age to contend with. The Warriors have struggled to stay in front of young, fast guards all season. They're getting De'Aaron Fox in the first round. Curry and Thompson can't guard him. Gary Payton II probably could, but he comes with his own health concerns after missing most of the season. Curry and Thompson can space the floor with almost anybody, but lineups featuring Payton, Green and Looney stretch even the Splash Brothers.
The Warriors have always been adaptable in the playoffs. Green will play more center. The youngsters will cycle in and out of the rotation based on matchups. But ultimately if you believe in the Warriors to make a serious run at their fifth championship, they are going to do it because their best lineup dominates the minutes it plays to the degree that it has all season long. The Warriors may only be a 44-win team this season, but this group specifically has been far better.
6. Los Angeles Lakers
The lineup: D'Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, LeBron James, Jarred Vanderbilt, Anthony Davis
Net rating: +22.2
Total possessions this season: 167
The Lakers have three reliable, two-way players. LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Austin Reaves are all net positives both offensively and defensively. They are the only three players about which that is almost always going to be true. The rest of the roster? That's more complicated.
The Lakers added three valuable players at the deadline when they swapped Russell Westbrook for D'Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt, but none of them could be relied on the play both ends of the court. Russell and Beasley can supercharge the offense. Vanderbilt is probably the best perimeter defender on the team, and is certainly its best offensive rebounder. All three were sorely necessary additions. The Lakers simply couldn't space the floor properly with Westbrook. They had no answer for opposing stars before Vanderbilt. But they were and remain an imperfect solution to a flawed roster. The Lakers won the 2020 championship precisely because their role players could survive on both ends of the floor.
The starting lineup they've landed on is the closest this roster can get to balance. It pairs their three best overall players with their best remaining offensive and defensive options. You can survive on either end of the floor with one liability. This group, as a whole, has done far better. In a tiny post-deadline sample, they've largely blown the doors off of everyone they've faced.
But their play-in game against Minnesota was troubling. Russell shot 1-of-9 from the floor. Vanderbilt couldn't catch the ball. When it counted most, Darvin Ham trusted Dennis Schroder and Rui Hachimura over the two of them. It worked. It also wasn't sustainable. Schroder's size and off-ball limitations offensively make him much more valuable as a reserve. Hachimura has the tools to be a strong defender. In practice, he survived largely because the Timberwolves are a favorable matchup.
The Lakers need Russell to supplement James as a shot-creator. They need Vanderbilt to defend opposing stars. Both have checkered postseason histories. Neither has played in a playoff series next to James and Davis. If the Lakers are going to be viable as a contender, it's going to come down to this group of five players. It is the only fivesome this roster can produce that theoretically scores and defends well enough to hang with the NBA's best teams. The play-in game against Minnesota was a poor first showing. If they can't rebound against Memphis, that win will have been for nothing.
