Were these NBA playoffs really physical? You can surprise the numbers

I have traveled to seven NBA playoff games in five cities in the past two weeks, and if there was a word that I have heard again and again to speak to trainers, managers and players, it was “physicality”.

Several trainers mentioned physicality during these playoffs. Minnesotas Chris Finch on the day after game 1 against Golden State, Kenny Atkinson from Cleveland after game 1 against Indiana and David Adelman from Denver after game 6 against the Clipperers are some that come to mind, and I am sure that these are not the only ones. However, this only scratches the surface.

In moments that are not intended for public consumption, the wording was stricter. There is the feeling that to There is a lot of relief that it is a dangerous recipe for something bad that happens on the pitch and that the referees have to introduce it again.

One thing that impressed me, however, is that the trainers, managers and observers are much stronger than the players. My admittedly not understandable survey among the players was presented with an idea that they are not as interested in physicality as the consistency.

“To be honest, I have the feeling that the off -season is always physical,” said the Norman Powell of the Clipperm after their 6 -game victory against Denver. “They let things slide, they let you play and they let the best of the best win.”

“It is difficult to compare,” said Minnesotas Rudy Gobert before game 5 of the first rounds of the wolves in Los Angeles. “But (this year) feels that it is very physical. I think it was always about consistency. … The games were physical; we can feel the intensity.”

Obviously, “physicality” can have many elements, and not all of them prefer defense. Is there more contact in the basket? Do officials give the screen more scope to throw an additional link into a defender? Do you enable the defenders to drive ball traders on the farm or bear huts? Is it a free-for all the glass as soon as a shot rises?

Against this background, two plays from game 1 of the Cavaliers-Pacers series stood out. The first was this no-call on Jarrett Allen's Dunk, where he fell on the chest of Myles Turner on the way to the edge, fell awkward and did not seem to be for the rest of the night.

The second, more subtle, was this call of eight seconds against Ty Jerome. It was the first eight-second call that I can remember that did not include a distraction or a brain cramp. Aaron Nesmith was able to keep a forearm on Jerome and maintain contact when he got the ground up, and Jerome just couldn't get far.

I don't choose to Indiana. These were just two games that I wrote down in my notes when I looked at game 1. I also played this game from Jerome-Nesmith because I heard complaints that the contact level against dribblers, the upcours, was particularly striking.

In any case, one can imagine that all of these elements affect the game in different ways, but a large part of the vitriol I heard focuses on shooting fouls around the basket, or the lack of it. Yes, the shooting of fouls is below and I will respond more in a minute. But first I will find that it appears a strange hustle and bustle for the league: if it is too many 3-point attempts, it would theoretically make more 3-point shots theoretically tougher if more contact in the color would become harder.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be the way it works in the Yin and Yang of the NBA, where every action has the same and opposite reaction. If Paint 2S are more difficult to end, the teams have to send less help from the corners, and so it will be More difficult Create a catch-and-shoot 3S. More on the point, the league-wide 3-point rate in the post-season is slightly of the regular season (41.3 percent of the attempts of 42.1 percent in the games on Wednesday), possibly partly to eliminate Boston's 3-point game due to the draconian efforts of Orlando Magic.

But I bury the LEDs a little because the 3s are an effect of the physicality of the second order and we are looking for the first order effects.

In an average NBA season, a little more than half of the playoff games will be in the first round (there are a total of 15 series and we are already finished at eight), so it is a good time to examine the playoff trend line. We threw a few games in the second round for a good measure. (All data occurs on Wednesday game.)

Here is: I can't find anything in the numbers to point out that these playoffs were physical than the last two. Fouls and free throws both have increased From the regular season. These alone are a bad indicator, since they can be replaced by late play fouls (hello, thunder fans) and hack-a strategies (take an arc, Mitchell Robinson and Steven Adams), both of which are historically more common in the playoffs.

However, the overall picture is not so different. This off -season does not appear unusual. If at all, it's the last one three The after -time that the outlier is, compared to everything else that came before. These last three playoffs have presented a much worse 2-point shooting and much lower real shooting percentages than the regular season of the same year and stable 3-point rates. This stands in strong contrast to the ahead of them, in which more whistles, more 3-point attempts and no withdrawal efficiency of the regular season occurred.

In order to find out what these differences look like from year to year, I have created the following diagram in which the changes in some of these statistics are displayed from the regular season to the post -season. In order to facilitate the complicated task of subtraction, I also created a new status “The Diff”, which is simply the difference between the two numbers. I am pretty sure that this has never been tried in the history of mathematics or a regional television station.

As you can see, the crime has decreased in the playoffs in the past four years, and it could surprise you to find out that this is a new phenomenon. From 2015 to 2022 the free throw rates and 2-point percentages rose constant in the playoffs, but in the past three years it has become much more difficult to convert on the arch. The gap of this season is the largest in the table, and the 52.5 percent brand on 2s is nominal the lowest since pandemic.

There is still something going on here that doesn't attract so much attention: Holy Mike Fratello have become slow? The pace factor in the last two post -seasons has dropped by over five possessions per game per team, which is even more than the usual “slow down in the playoffs” that we saw in all previous post -seasons.

This may solve our “physicality” problem or at least the perception of it. Of course, these types of games see more contact than an end-to-end transition game 1 from Boston-Orlando, for example, only had 90 possessions on each side. Naturally It was physical. In today's post -season, the former Grizzlies legend Zach Randolph once explained proudly: “We in the mud.”

Still, playoff games were straight Slower Last season, even when Indiana has reached the conference final. You can probably blame some of them on the Dallas Mavericks who beat the brakes to have Luka Dončić cooked. They played 22 playoff games in the league. But the Mavs were not particularly slower than, for example, the kinks, wolves or Celtics.

I don't play on the floor, so I will not definitely tell you that physicality in the 2025 post -season has not changed compared to previous ones. I only say that it is difficult to find concrete evidence when you are looking for it. Statistically speaking, these playoffs look practically identical to the last two, and if they are looking for a turning point, the 2023 playoffs are not in this year's playoffs.

Regardless of whether the change, plans or a combination of both, it seems to have the side effects of a probable increase in physicality in the latest post -seeds. This is because it slowed down the game considerably and slowed 2-point shooting percentages.

Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, we will be deterred for another day. But it's definitely one thing.

(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The athlete; Top photos: Ethan Miller, Maddie Meyer, Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu / Getty Images)