Nekias DuncanContributorMon, April 20, 2026 at 5:34 PM UTC·18 min readWe’ve officially made it through the opening game of each NBA playoff series. It’s important not to overreact to these things, but there’s always information to glean. We’re going to take a look at a key number that emerged from each game, one that could serve as a solve-or-sink point as we get deeper into the series.

I was excited about the unknown of this series: all three of the regular-season matchups, all won by the Raptors, happened before Thanksgiving. There were key figures missing in each matchup, and because of the early nature of the meetings, we had no film of James Harden as a Cavalier to gather clues from.

Harden promptly ripped the Raptors, and virtually every defensive coverage they deployed, to shreds in the Cavs’ 126-113 victory on Saturday. A 22-point, 10-assist performance is relatively straightforward; the pick-and-roll dominance — 36 on-ball picks received, an absurd 1.28 points per possession on those trips — was the real story.

What stood out to me, aside from Harden having answers to the schematic test, was how high up the floor a lot of those ball screens happened. It’s one thing to have to deal with talented ball-screen partnerships — it’s another when you have to do so while being stretched thin from a spacing perspective.

Like the flow here from Cleveland.And once again, they are thrashing Toronto with those late lifts from the corner (look at Schroder going from left corner to left wing), another lob opens up. pic.twitter.com/FXsxy5zJ7U

— Nekias (Nuh-KY-us) Duncan (@NekiasNBA) April 18, 2026

More broadly, it felt like the Cavs were consistently intentional about maximizing their space — Spacemaxxing? Can we say that? — with their ball screens in real time. In addition to running them high on the floor, they often paired those actions with their weakside spacer lifting from the corner to the wing to put a help defender in peril.

Help on the roll, and a shooter’s open; stay attached to the shooter, and you have Jarrett Allen or Evan Mobley rolling free to the basket.

An action that's grown in popularity over the last few seasons (feels like an IND favorite for Hali, for example), fun way to get James Harden off the ball and running into an advantage.Note the subtle lift from Donovan Mitchell from the corner to the wing. No help on the roll. pic.twitter.com/TbhFduYeSH

— Nekias (Nuh-KY-us) Duncan (@NekiasNBA) April 18, 2026

To that end: per Second Spectrum, the Cavs ran 28 ball screens 30+ feet from the basket, their fifth-highest total in a game this season.

(If you extend it to 35 feet or more, the number is still 10 — their highest clip in a game, only trailing the Phoenix Suns, who had 12 on Feb. 3 against the Trail Blazers, for the most by anyone in a game this season.)

When operating 30+ feet from the basket, they were just as lethal: 1.21 points per possession on those trips, with the Raptors getting progressively more frustrated as the game went on. Toronto’s screen navigation, drive containment, and help discipline must all be better moving forward, or this series won’t last very long.

You can’t talk about the Denver Nuggets without talking about the dominant pairing of Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray. In Jokić, you have an all-time great who can knock down shots from anywhere and make every pass in the book. In Murray, you have a true three-level scorer who can exhaust you with his on-and-off-ball blend of usage and his overall aggression.

Together, you have a two-man game that nobody really has an answer for.

The Nuggets often exacerbate the problem by mixing in different spacing looks for the two to operate within. My favorite is the “flat spacing” alignment: it’s when there’s a player spaced in each corner, and a third player stashed in the dunker spot (low block area).

Here’s an example of what it looks like. Cam Johnson and Tim Hardaway Jr. are in the corners, while Spencer Jones is in the dunker spot. This gives Murray and Jokić a ton of space to work with since both the left and right wing are empty.

There’s already little you can do to contain these two; the inherent nature of this spacing alignment makes it tough to send help without potentially giving up something even more fruitful. In Denver’s Game 1 victory, the Wolves found that out the hard way — over, and over, and over again.

The Murray/Jokic duo is lethal, as we all know. Those two in action together w a flat spacing look -- both wings empty, corners filled, one in the dunker spot -- is nearly impossible to deal with. I have them at 18 points on 11 possessions (1.64 PPP) in G1 vs MIN.Nonsense. pic.twitter.com/Np1kq7vqff

— Nekias (Nuh-KY-us) Duncan (@NekiasNBA) April 20, 2026