The second round of the 2024 NBA playoffs is shaping up to be a barn burner. After dropping the first two games at home, the Denver Nuggets have stormed back to even their series against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Indiana Pacers have rallied to tie the injury-depleted New York Knicks at two games apiece. And Celtics-Cavs and Mavericks-Thunder will feature pivotal Game 4s on Monday night. To sort through the slim margins and series turning points, we asked four NBA writers five questions about what we’ve seen this round—and where it might be headed.
Which team that was up 2-0 has more reason for optimism—the Wolves or Knicks?
Zach Kram: I think both teams have reason for optimism, so it’s hard to choose: The Wolves are much healthier, while the Knicks have a greater theoretical talent advantage over their second-round opponent. I’ll lean ever so slightly toward New York because the Knicks would have home court advantage in a potential Game 7 and the Wolves wouldn’t.
Danny Chau: The Wolves, who can, at the very least, still trot out their preferred seven-player rotation. One could argue that unlocking a new game plan and sense of urgency from the best player in the world is as prohibitive as it gets when it comes to one’s own odds. Nikola Jokic is warping the calculus for the Wolves’ big men by initiating his attack far faster and from farther out. But there is still enough top-end talent and playable depth in Minnesota to make the necessary adjustments.
I don’t doubt the Knicks’ grit and resolve, but there are simply fewer levers to pull with the entire starting lineup banged up, OG Anunoby still not able to run, and human vacuum Mitchell Robinson out for the remainder of the playoffs. There is so much pressure on Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart to play up to a Herculean standard, and carrying that weight sometimes looks like it did on Sunday: battered, utterly helpless. The Knicks could very well take back control of this series by doing what they’ve done all year: standing atop the mound of dust that they’ve ground their opponents into. But it’d be a Pyrrhic victory: They’ve reduced themselves to dust first.
Seerat Sohi: New York is battling attrition, but the Wolves are battling their own demons—against the champs, no less. The sleeping Serbian giant has woken up, Jamal Murray has found his step, and the NBA’s most devastating two-man game is finally back to doing what it does best: exploiting every defensive configuration and punishing every mistake (and there have been many in the past two games). The Knicks, at least, have the benefit of home court at the raucous Madison Square Garden, with the silver lining that none of their players crossed the 33-minute threshold in their Game 4 blowout loss.
Howard Beck: It has to be the Wolves, by default. I admire the hell out of the Knicks’ resilience and their resolve, but they aren’t fighting a battle against the Pacers as much as they’re fighting a war of attrition. They’re down too many bodies, and the ones that remain are banged up. And they’re facing an opponent that’s younger, healthier, and deeper.
Who has been your favorite player of the second round so far?
Sohi: Jokic is ball faking the best defense of the decade into submission. Donovan Mitchell’s scoring has been Sisyphean. But nothing has captured my attention quite like the fall-down-seven-times-get-up intensity and fortitude of Anthony Edwards, the latest in an electrifying line of off guards to light our collective imaginations on fire. He is, perhaps owing to his doggedness, the kind of player who is even more compelling to watch in a loss. In Game 4, his 3-pointers and paint forays were the only thing keeping Minnesota’s offense afloat. As his teammates fouled, lost their composure, and splintered around him, Edwards did what he does best, giving fans a reason, in the near-total absence of hope, to believe.
Beck: Tyrese Haliburton. He’s 24 years old. His first playoff game was three weeks ago. He’s dealing with back issues. And he stumbled badly in the opener of this series. But he’s been absolutely unflappable and nearly flawless over the past three games, and he’s two wins away from leading the Pacers to the conference finals.
Kram: Guess who leads all players in rebounds in the second round. It’s not an All-Star big man or a future Hall of Famer; it’s not a triple-double machine or a bouncy 7-footer. It’s Josh Hart! The 6-foot-4 guard is pulling down 12 boards per game against the Pacers, after he averaged the same number against the 76ers in the first round. Hart finally got some rest as the Knicks lost a pair in Indiana, but it’s a joy to behold the indefatigable role player hustle on every possession with inexhaustible energy.
Chau: Karl-Anthony Towns. He played through a rough game on Sunday on a painful day of remembrance, but on the whole it’s been a career-affirming postseason run for KAT, especially amid the pressure of overtaking the defending champs. He’s found structure operating in the slipstream of Minnesota’s anchors on both ends of the floor, he’s never been better at moving his feet on the perimeter as a complement to Rudy Gobert, and he’s never had such a clear objective on offense as being a sharpshooting complement to Edwards. Towns has a beautiful game that can finally be appreciated rather than lamented. These next few contests will be the most consequential of his nine-year career, and while he hasn’t been perfect, it’s been more than worthwhile to see the truth of his game emerge under the brightest lights.
What is your prediction for Knicks-Pacers?
Chau: Pacers in seven. I don’t think the Knicks have it in them to get swept in the final four games of the series after being up 2-0, but the squeeze they’re feeling due to injury is very real, and Anunoby hasn’t historically been a player who has rushed back. The Knicks wear teams down by extending possessions; the Pacers wear teams down by overloading the number of possessions in a game. The Pacers played at the second-fastest pace in the NBA this season and led the league in shortest time per possession—and continue to do so in the playoffs. Maybe the most prudent decision Tom Thibodeau has made in the series thus far was allowing Sunday’s blowout to happen. It had been a month since Brunson had logged so few minutes in a game; same goes for Hart. There ought to be more gas in the tank for Game 5, but will they be able to keep up for one or two more games after that?
Kram: Knicks in seven, and it will come down to Thibodeau playing the Villanova trio a full 144 minutes (that’s 48 minutes multiplied by three players) in Game 7.
Sohi: Pacers in seven. Haliburton has figured out how to negotiate his injuries, and he’s regained confidence in his stepback 3s. The exhausted Knicks, without Anunoby and Robinson, are running out of Thibs-approved options. After playing seven guys (and four minutes of Jericho Sims) in Game 3 on Friday night, they predictably ran out of gas on Sunday afternoon. That same treacherous turnaround is scheduled between Game 6 and a possible Game 7—except with travel in between.
Beck: Pacers in six, owing to the Knicks’ depleted state.
What is your prediction for Nuggets-Wolves?
Kram: Nuggets in seven, just because I now expect this series to go the distance and the Nuggets would host the finale in Denver.
Chau: Nuggets in seven. The Wolves are certainly good enough, but in a best-of-three series, I can’t find the courage to pick them to win. Not with the way Jokic has looked the past two games; not with Aaron Gordon shooting 71.8 percent from the field and 66.7 percent from 3, and holding it down as a playmaking hub as a small-ball 5 in non-Jokic minutes.
Beck: Nuggets in seven, because I’m not betting against the three-time MVP.
Sohi: God, I don’t know. I want to say Nuggets in seven, but there are so many screws the Wolves can tighten. Imagine a full game of Edwards and Nickeil Alexander-Walker being the only defenders on Murray. Imagine the coaching staff pulling Towns if he can’t stop making nonsensical plays. Imagine never conceding a Mike Conley–on–Aaron Gordon switch again. Plus, will Denver ever double Minnesota’s bench production again, like it did in Game 4? Then again, will it matter? Edwards can’t do it alone, and his gaps are shrinking, while Jokic, with every new look at Minnesota’s defense, is processing more of that sweet, sweet information.
What is the biggest thing you’re looking for in Celtics-Cavs or Thunder-Mavs?
Kram: I was shocked that Coach of the Year Mark Daigneault stuck with Josh Giddey in the starting lineup in Game 3 of Thunder-Mavs. The Thunder weren’t quite as terrible in the Giddey minutes in Game 3, but still: Oklahoma City is now minus-28 in Giddey’s 41 minutes in the series, versus plus-37 in 103 minutes when he’s off the floor. (Converted to net rating, that’s a difference of FORTY EIGHT POINTS per 100 possessions.)
So I’m curious to see (a) whether Giddey remains in the starting lineup, or whether he’s rightfully cast out to the fringes of the rotation, to play only as a backup point guard when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander sits; and (b) how the matchups adjust if Isaiah Joe, Cason Wallace, or Aaron Wiggins joins the starting lineup in Giddey’s stead. Would Dallas feel comfortable with Daniel Gafford chasing a shooter like Joe on the perimeter? Would the Thunder find better pick-and-roll opportunities if Gafford guards Chet Holmgren instead? Would the Thunder defense still be too small to guard this version of P.J. Washington? Just three games in, this series still has plenty of strategic wrinkles to explore.
Beck: Can the Celtics—who clearly have more talent, experience, and depth—put the Cavaliers away quickly, or will they continue to periodically lose focus (and games), while risking injury in a longer series?
Sohi: Between Kyrie Irving, Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and a one-legged Luka Doncic, the shotmaking creativity in Thunder-Mavericks has been a fever dream. Both teams have the perimeter defenders to make things hard on the other, with the Lu Dort vs. Doncic matchup yielding the most fruit for the defense so far, but as Jamal Murray just taught us, a great scorer is only ever a film session away from breaking free of even the most wretched designs.
Chau: Gilgeous-Alexander, a frightening model of consistency, is averaging exactly 31 points per game in the Mavs series, a point total he’s logged in 13 different games in the regular season (and was his season average last year). He was one of the finalists for the 2023-24 Jerry West NBA Clutch Player of the Year award, but in these playoffs, he’s been quiet late. In the games against the Mavs, he’s been downright ineffectual, shooting just 21.4 percent from the field in fourth quarters. The margins are tightening with each passing game in the series. Consistency may be key, but sooner or later the Thunder will need something extraordinary from SGA to keep barking up the Western Conference ladder.