The penny dropped about three minutes into game two. Steven Adams had been fighting in vain for an offensive rebound and as he turned to run back down the court his hand whipped Jarred Vanderbilt in the face. Not particularly hard, nor was it intentional in any way. But Vanderbilt did hit the deck in a bit of pain (perhaps got him in the eye) and Adams was called for his second personal foul.

In fact they reviewed it and upgraded the foul to a flagrant-1. One of those letter of the law calls, cracking down on any contract to the head, even if felt like complete overkill to be honest...

Adams had already been called for a foul on the first play of the game, reaching in on a Karl-Anthony Towns drive. The same silly kind of foul that had gotten him into some PF trouble in the first game of the series. In fairness the refs were calling absolutely everything in that first quarter of G2. At one stage it was 9-9 and there had been nine fouls whistled up (including a flagrant on Adams and an unsportsmanlike on Patrick Beverley). It took more than forty minutes of realtime to finish the first quarter, such were all the interruptions. Not the best spectacle for the NBA playoffs.

It was during one of those interruptions while the officials were looking to determine the flagrant foul that Steven Adams was subbed out of the game. Early foul trouble, two on the board quick-stat. That’s how it tends to go. Towns also picked up a second around the same time but his coach was willing to let him ride through the trouble but for Adams, on the other hand, whose match-up against Towns was already a perilous one for him, there just wasn’t much point in letting him stay out there as the Wolves aggressively targeted him. On when the training shirt and the big fella took a seat. He’d occupy that seat (figuratively speaking) for the entire rest of the game.

They didn’t bring him back in the second quarter when KAT finally had to be benched with his third personal. They started Kyle Anderson ahead of him when the teams re-emerged for the second half. They didn’t slide Adams into any second unit line-ups. Nor did he get garbage time as the Grizzlies strolled to a big win. Steven Adams was benched after three minutes and did not play again that game. There’s a long way to go still and lots can happen in any NBA Playoff series but chances are aren’t hardly going to see Steven Adams again this series.

The Match-Up

How did it come to this? It’s all about the head to head. Steven Adams has always had problems dealing with stretch bigs who can shoot at the perimeter, preventing him from hanging back in drop coverage. Gotta stay close to respect the shot… but when you rush up on those lads it’s not too hard for the other team to get a switch around a screen and suddenly Adams is up against a speedy guard who gives him no chance.

That wasn’t quite what happened against Karl-Anthony Towns though (although it did a few times). That’s because Towns doesn’t need the switch. He’s got enough burst himself to take the ball to the hoop and score, as well as being a knockdown jump shooter. He gave Steve-o absolute fits in Minnesota’s 130-117 game one victory. Towns scored 14 of his 29 points when guarded specifically by Steven Adams, shooting 6/8 with a triple in those possessions (he shot 61% overall, 11/18 FG). Not good at all.

Meanwhile in 24 minutes on the court, Adams was a -13 going scoreless (without a field goal attempt) and only 3 total rebounds. He did have 3 assists but that’s not exactly the kind of production that keeps you on the floor when you’re also getting torched on the defensive end.

To be fair, it might have been different if they’d involved him more in game one. He just never got the ball. They didn’t use him. Too frantic in trying to play catch-up after getting on the wrong end of a 41-point Minny first quarter and therefore Adams was a non-factor. A 12.0% usage rate in the regular season dipped shockingly down to a mere 1.8% in that fixture.

There were some hints of something in the second as Ja Morant began to get going with a few athletic finishes at the rim - on a related note Adams had 8 screen assists for 18 points while the rest of the team only managed 5 for 11 points combined (all stats from NBA.com btw). And Tips did still have those three assists. Like, the things he does well for them on offence... he mostly still did them when he was able to. The issue was that the fella only had 15 total touches all game. Oddly while he had his team’s worst defensive rating that game (140.4 which is terrible tbh), he also had the second best offensive rating amongst Grizz players (120.0).

That’s still a -20.4 net rating though and that’s pretty atrocious for a playoff game especially when you’re playing for the higher seeded team. The more you look at clips from that game the more you have to think that it wasn’t a coincidence that he was so under utilised on offence (and so poor on defence). That was exactly what the Minnesota Timberwolves were planning. They look at the KAT vs Adams thing and saw a mismatch that they could exploit and they seemed to build a lot of their game plan around that.

The lack of touches in the half-court offence was a Grizzlies problem however it was one that stemmed from playing from behind, the Wolves running up the score thanks in large part to the defensive frailties they were exposing in Adams which caused breakdowns which affected the whole unit. A lot of his touches tend to come from rebounds too. This bloke is the number one offensive rebounder in the league and he averaged double digit total boards this season. But he could hardly get his hands on those ones in this game thanks to what looked like another targeted strategy.

Instead Minnesota won the rebounding battle against the number one rebounding team in the NBA and they did so by muscling up on Adams. As soon as those shots went up, Towns would put a heavy body on Adams, often aided by Jarred Vanderbilt. They crowded him out and forced the Grizzlies to live with their relatively average shooting. Each one of these screenshots is from the first quarter, showing different ways in which they roughed our bloke up...

Three minutes into a game is a pretty unusual time to be benching someone even when foul trouble comes into the picture but the fact is there were all sorts of bad vibes emanating off of game one which coach Taylor Jenkins would have been ruminating on. The early fouls just gave him that excuse to pull the trigger.

(By the way, Adams is the most significant example of a Tough Playoff Decision by Coach Jenkins but he’s not the only one. DeAnthony Melton averaged 22 minutes per night during the regular season but has only played 14, 18 & 7 in this series. His shot’s off and his decision-making’s been average. That’s how it goes)

The Evidence

And here’s the thing: Benching Steven Adams worked. Emphatically.

The Grizzlies got on a roll in the second quarter of G2 in particular, getting Towns into that aforementioned foul trouble and then managing to severely limit D’Angelo Russell and, to a lesser extent, Anthony Edwards. Edwards was the only one of the trio to score 20 and he didn’t go a single point beyond that mark. In the four regular season meetings between these two teams, those three had scored 20+ on 15 of 16 occasions between them.

Brandon Clarke carried on his game one form, Jaren Jackson Jr played a lot at the five (creating more minutes for Kyle Anderson – the only Grizz player other than Adams with any extended playoff experience), and third choice centre Xavier Tillman, the 23 year old second year player, had an excellent cameo ending up playing 21 minutes for 13 points (6/7 FG) and 7 rebounds. JJJ is a different beast, he has all star potential (and all-defensive team potential) about him. But are those other two better players than Steven Adams? Nah, doubt it. However they are clearly better in this particular match-up against this particular team and that’s what counts.

In the 27 minutes that Adams was on the floor in games 1&2, the Grizzlies were outscored by 14 points. In the other 59 minute of those games the Grizzlies have led by a combined 29 points (most of that business being taken care of in game two when Adams hardly featured).

That’s undeniable.

Of course Coach Jenkins could figure out ways in which Steven Adams can be more effective. Plenty of ideas were floated after game one. Maybe play Adams with the second unit. Stagger his minutes so as not to coincide as much with Towns. Have him guard the four and have JJJ guarding Towns at five. Start Brandon Clarke alongside Adams. There could be split duties where Adams protects the paint when KAT drives but Jackson watches him on the perimeter. All sorts of ways in which this series could trend a little more back in Adams’ favour.

But the aim of the game is not to get Steven Adams the best possible stats. The aim is to win a playoff series. And it’s just a whole lot easier to remove the compromised player rather than to ask everybody else on the court to adjust their games to suit him. Fact is, this is just a nightmare match-up for Funaki.

Should the Grizzlies advance then they’ll probably meet the Golden State Warriors in round two, meaning a combination of Kevon Looney and Draymond Green at centre. Neither of them has the offensive toolkit that KAT has to draw upon and therefore Adams would surely come way back into contention. If it’s not the Warriors (and 3-0 up it’s hard to imagine how it wouldn’t be) then it’ll be Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets and Adams played huge minutes up against Denver during the regular season, doing a more commendable job on the Joker than most in his position.

This is not a referendum on Steven Adams as a basketball player. He’s not washed up, he’s not suddenly on the trade block, he’s not an outcast within this Grizzlies roster all of a sudden. This is all about this one series and this one opponent and what’s best for winning basketball. It sucks... but all signs point towards benching Steven Adams being the right decision.

The Response

That, friends, is where we swing back around to Aotearoa sporting gold because many NBA players would see a sudden coaching decision, in which they go from starter to out of the rotation like that, in the major spotlight of the playoffs no less, as a humiliating event. A personal insult. Not Steve though. He’s never been about that kinda thing, with him it’s team first and there is no second. Sure enough...

And that’s pretty much how he has operated ever since. Sitting on the bench but he was on his feet and cheering at every opportunity, being vocal within timeouts and all that (particularly with the centres). Doing all that he could to be the best teammate in the moment.

His role may have changed but that didn’t have to. Seeing him embrace Xavier Tillman with genuine goodwill at the end of the game was a touching sight and a true measure of the man himself...

The NBA (and America in general) has a culture of instant and extreme reactions. One bad game can take you from underrated hero to overpaid scrub in the opinions of a lot of people... and for sure there was some Adams slander out there during the first couple games of this series. Best just to tune out of all that.

Instead, focus on this aspect of Steven Adams being benched: his selfless reaction. It’s a rare and beautiful thing.

GAME THREE

Thus when the third game of the series swung around, over in Minnesota now, there was a predictable line-up change. It was the same yarn as the start of the second half of G2 with Kyle Anderson replacing Steven Adams. Jaren Jackson Jr at the five (winning the tip-off too which was handy). Had to do what had to be done.

The crazy thing about the Adams thing was how immediately and drastically it seemed to work for the Memphis Grizzlies. We’ve already been through a few areas in which the Timberwolves included Adams in their gameplan, he was clearly a player they targeted as a potential vulnerability. So when Coach Jenkins removed him from the equation it was almost like the rug got pulled out from under the Wolves. They didn’t quite know how to react.

Ah but a lot can change in the space between playoff games and come G3 the Timberwolves knew what to expect... and the response to the response was impressive. In front of their home crowd Minny blasted Memphis out of the water early on with some great shooting and strong defence. Patrick Beverley was an early presence offensively. D’Angelo Russell was instantly more effective. They were given more leeway with their defensive physicality and after scoring the first 12 points of the contest they surged to a 39-21 lead at the end of the first frame before pushing the lead out to as many as 26 points early in the second.

Then the Grizzlies came back. Minnesota scored eight points in the first 92 seconds of the second quarter and then only scored four more points the rest of the way, a remarkable famine of scoring, and it was somehow only a seven point difference at the half despite how bad Memphis had been. Then the Timberwolves adjusted again. A dominant start to the third and the lead was all the way back up to 26 points again as if that comeback had only been a figment of the imagination. Any logical person would have assumed that Minnesota would roar through to a home victory from that position.

Except they didn’t. Points didn’t often come pretty for the Grizz but at least they came, with Desmond Bane’s three pointers, Brandon Clarke’s clean-ups, and all varieties of free throws allowing Memphis to get on a big run and Minnesota were like a deer in the headlights. It was shocking. From 26 points down in the third the Memphis Grizzlies ended up winning by nine, 104-95. Taking a 2-1 series lead and restoring their home court advantage. A genuinely amazing collapse from the Wolves and a downright baffling game of basketball.

Steven Adams played no part in any of it. DNP – Coach’s Decision. They were definitely missing the reliable offensive weapons that Adams offers throughout this one, don’t think that benching him doesn’t have its sacrifices. Brandon Clarke had a fantastic game and more than adequately made up for the offensive rebounding drop but he doesn’t have that playmaking and facilitating gift that Tipene has. The passing from the elbow position. The screen perimeter screen game. Ja Morant had a triple double but struggled with his shooting, almost never finding space with his dribble-drives... what he would have given for some Steve-o screens.

That is something that might come back into the mix later in the series. They’ve taken him out but they could always choose to build Steven Adams back up with a smaller role in order to manufacture a little more offence. It’s an option, at least.

But mostly we’ve gotta look at what Karl-Anthony Towns got up to in game three because despite playing 33 minutes the bloke only took four field goal attempts for a total of 8 points. He was also in foul trouble throughout, yet again. They made him as much of a non-factor as they possibly could. This was the Towns that we saw in the play-in game, only this time against an opponent good enough to fully punish him and his team.

Beneath all the high-octane energy of a close NBA Playoffs series is a tactical game of chess. Moving pieces around, setting things up, trying to anticipate the other team’s moves and responding to them before they happen. Karl-Anthony Towns was magnificent in the first game, average in the second, and invisible in the third. Memphis have made it harder for him with each game.

Steven Adams, an avid chess player himself so he’d appreciate the metaphor, was a sacrifice in that but it’s Minnesota’s turn to adjust now and we don’t yet know what that’ll look like. There probably isn’t anything that they could do that brings Adams back into major contention again but that’s fine, it’s all about winning. Whatever it takes to get that win, coach.

The Schedule

• Game 4 – Memphis Grizzlies @ Minnesota Timberwolves, Sunday at 2pm NZT

• Game 5 - Memphis Grizzlies vs Minnesota Timberwolves, Wednesday at 11.30am NZT

• Game 6 (if necessary) – Memphis Grizzlies @ Minnesota Timberwolves, Saturday TBD

• Game 7 (if necessary) – Memphis Grizzlies vs Minnesota Timberwolves, Monday TBD

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