ESPN analyst Zach Kram breaks down the NBA's first round, and explores its impact on the rest of the playoffs and offseason.
thanks to a game-winning 3-pointer that bounced high off the rim before falling safely through the net in Game 6. The league calendar gives almost no time to rest and breathe after that first-round chaos.
Following three Game 7s over the weekend, the second round begins Monday night at Madison Square Garden that would've been the best in the league in the regular season.targeted Brunson, but by and large, they struggled to score against the Knicks.
Atlanta scored at least 100 points in 31 of its last 32 games in the regular season, as well as in Games 1, 2 and 3 of the first round. But the Hawks failed to reach triple digits in each of the last three games, which were all Knicks wins.combined to average 43.3 points on 47% shooting, but they fell to 33.2 PPG on 41% shooting against New York.present very different challenges and playing styles than Johnson and Alexander-Walker.
But the Knicks' unsung stinginess should give them confidence as they attempt to reach the Finals for the first time this century. So much consternation around the Nuggets concerns their defense. After all, they were the 21st-ranked unit on that end, while they led the league in offense. And they've had a top-seven offense in each of the past 10 regular seasons.
But counterintuitively, it's Denver's offense that has been a bigger problem in recent postseasons. In the Nuggets' three playoff defeats since winning the title in 2023, their offensive rating has fallen by double digits compared to the regular season, and they've ranked at or near the bottom of the league in that round.had solid surface stats but substandard efficiency: Jokic shot just 45% from the field and 19% on 3s, and Murray shot 36% from the field and 26% on 3s.
And Denver's supporting cast was inconsistent at best.. Given their personnel, the Nuggets might be tempted to put all of their focus on defense while trusting in the brilliance of Jokic and Murray to lift their offense to league-best heights. But the past few postseasons show that's not good enough. Denver needs help on both ends to win another title..
But it's a topic worth revisiting after the conclusion of the first round, because that decline only accelerated since my initial piece. That's an anachronistic trend in 2026. The league's offensive rating has never been higher than it was this year, and points per game reached its highest level since the turbo-paced 1960s. It should be practically impossible for teams to go on long scoring droughts in this modern pace-and-space environment.
And yet, on Friday the Magic scored 19 points in an entire half, setting a playoff record, as they failed to close out the Pistons in Game 6. Hours later, Houston managed only 78 points in an elimination game. The next night, Boston went 0-for-9 on clutch shooting in its Game 7 loss to Philadelphia. On the whole, after teams averaged 115.6 points per game in the regular season, they're down to 106.6 in the playoffs.
The 9.0-point decline would be the largest in any season in NBA history. Whether that pattern continues through the remainder of the playoffs remains to be seen. But with elite defenses still alive in Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Minnesota, New York and Detroit, the remaining teams are showing that even in an offense-first era, defense can still win championships.have trouble scoring in the first round is the Thunder.
The Suns ranked ninth in defensive rating in the regular season, and they were fifth specifically on half-court plays, per Cleaning the Glass -- so it seems meaningful that Oklahoma City spent four games torching the Suns in exactly that situation. No other team came close to Oklahoma City's efficiency in the first round.
The gap in half-court offensive rating between the Thunder and the second-best team was larger than the gap between second and No. 11. , who followed a record-setting regular season with similar production in the first round. Gilgeous-Alexander led all players with 33.8 PPG in the first round, and he shot an outrageous 61% on his 15.5 2-point attempts per game.
For context, the other 26 players in the first round who attempted at least 10 2-pointers per game shot a collective 50% on their 2s. Gilgeous-Alexander was 11 percentage points higher than that. The defensively stout Thunder have always looked unbeatable when they can turn turnovers into fast breaks, but they've been vulnerable at times when the game slows down. But with Gilgeous-Alexander in rhythm like this, they also might be unguardable in the half court.helped stymie Jokic.
Embiid scored 34 points to win his first Game 7, after three previous losses. And Towns excelled on both ends, with a tactical tweak unleashing his playmaking and turning a 2-1 series deficit into a 4-2 win for the Knicks. The tweak was simple: The Knicks gave Towns the ball more and let him distribute from the middle of the court.
His on-ball percentage in those three wins ranks third, fourth and sixth out of 170 games he has played as a Knick, per GeniusIQ tracking. But the results were profound: Before this postseason, Towns' career high in playoff assists was five. But he exceeded that number three times in a row as the Knicks closed out Atlanta, with 10 in a triple-double in Game 4, six in Game 5 and 10 more in another triple-double in Game 6.
This exact approach might not work in the second round against Philadelphia, as the 76ers' big men will present a stiffer challenge in the post than any of Atlanta's smaller centers. But the general lesson -- to keep Towns involved in the offense and let him both score and create, so Brunson doesn't have to do it all himself -- remains.in the span of two drafts, they won 47 games -- the franchise's best record in 13 years -- and pushed the Cavaliers to seven games in the first round.
Few teams in the NBA, let alone the Eastern Conference, looked to have a brighter future. But development isn't always linear, and the Magic have yet to replicate that initial burst.
Amid various injuries, they slid to a 41-41 record, play-in appearance and five-game loss in the first round last season, and -- despite trading four first-round picks and a swap forThen came an apparent turnaround: Orlando nabbed the No. 8 seed with a blowout win over Charlotte in the play-in round, then took a 3-1 lead against the top-seeded Pistons. They were a win away from becoming the seventh No. 8 seed to win a round.
And then, as has happened so often over the past few years, the inconsistent Magic couldn't sustain their success, due to a combination of injuries and underperformance. The Magic lost Game 5, blew a 24-point lead in a historically inept Game 6 and were blown out in Game 7. Defeating Detroit could have allowed the Magic to redeem an otherwise lost season.
But now they face major questions, and potentially major changes, this summer; they're already projected over the first apron next season, but not good or healthy enough to have won a single playoff series with this core. Coach Jamahl Mosley has been on the hot seat.is up for an extension. And Banchero and Wagner have always had a tenuous partnership, whose results have never matched the talent.
Other teams that lost in the first round, including Denver, Houston and Boston, could also do significant work reshaping their rosters this summer. But nowhere is that need more pressing than Orlando. The good news for the two Central Division contenders is that they survived the first round. Now one of them is guaranteed to reach the conference finals.
But the bad news is that just about every concern about the two teams was magnified in their unexpectedly tricky first-round wins, casting doubt on their legitimacy as Finals contenders. The Pistons fell behind 3-1 against the Magic, and though they deserve ample credit for their mental resilience in coming back -- as well as for their typically stellar defense -- they probably would have lost the series if not for Wagner's absence in Games 5, 6 and 7, or if not for Orlando's sudden inability to make a shot down the stretch in Game 6.
's dramatic playoff regression is a huge concern as he prepares to match up against Cleveland's star bigs, and the Pistons struggle to score when their No. 2 scorer is lost the way Duren was against the Magic. After, no Piston averaged more than 10.6 points in the first round. As a team, Detroit ranked last in 3-pointers, with just 9.7 makes per game.
The Cavaliers, meanwhile, struggled to put away the Raptors despite a talent advantage and several key Raptors injuries. Cleveland lost all three games on the road and trailed for most of the first half in Game 7, at home, before turning on the jets after halftime.combined for just 43.7 PPG on 44% shooting. That's also a concern looking ahead, as Detroit's defense is even tougher than Toronto's.
So Detroit and Cleveland can breathe a momentary sigh of relief for avoiding a humiliating upset loss. But then they have to regroup and play better going forward, if they want any chance at a title run.
If this first round was broadly defined by its strangeness, then it's fitting to end these takeaways with the two series that didn't fit that theme: Oklahoma City swept Phoenix, and San Antonio beat Portland in five games -- with its only loss coming in a game Wembanyama left early. Oklahoma City and San Antonio ranked first and second in the regular season in wins and net rating, per Cleaning the Glass.
And with respect to the Lakers and Timberwolves, who survived seemingly calamitous injuries to reach the second round, and to all four Eastern Conference teams in the playoff bracket, three of which stormed to first-round victories with three-game winning streaks, nobody else appears anywhere near the same lofty level as the Thunder and Spurs. More strange surprises might arise as the postseason continues.
But for now, a potential Thunder vs. Spurs conference finals looks like the top series to await over the rest of the playoffs.
Oklahoma-City-Thunder Orlando-Magic Minnesota-Timberwolves 2025-26-Nba-Season Detroit-Pistons Denver-Nuggets Nba Los-Angeles-Lakers New-York-Knicks Philadelphia-76Ers 2024-Nba-Rookies 2024-Nba-Draft San-Antonio-Spurs 19032971
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