Each summer, when the teams try to upgrade their lists, a filter is often used: can this guy help us swing a eliminatory match?
Because let's be honest. If you work with exceptions, or even minimum offers, it is unlikely that you will find a player who can catapult your franchise, from the candidate expected to the favorite of the championship.
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As such, the question is often summarized to find out if a specific player has the ability to get up and help win a play in playoffs. After all, a victory in the playoffs represents 25% of the mission to go to the next round.
Sometimes these players also come in the form of previous draft selections, even if they have not made stars.
For the first round of the NBA 2025 qualifiers, here are five players who can help swing a match:
(Illustration by Joseph Raines / Yahoo Sports)
Malik Beasley, Detroit Pistons
This can be an obvious choice, but it does not make the selection less true.
When you have a player who can space the ground insofar as Beasley can – he has drained 319 3 points this season on an accuracy of 41.6% – You just know that there is a possibility of a well invented eruption.
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Beasley, who has spent this season playing on the star goalkeeper Cadenningham, enters the playoffs with consecutive games of seven triples. In the playoffs, when the key defenses on the stars unlike the regular season, Cunningham will have to move the ball faster, and probably more often, which could benefit Beasley.
Of course, it remains to be seen if it strikes these blows. But the 4-inch 6-inch shooting guard has a good chance of removing a match, or even a few, with its outdoor shot against the Knicks.
It could be to cheat to go with a guy who collected on average 16.3 points, but since 957 of the 1,336 Beasley points in the regular season came in the long term, it is not exactly because he is competent in other ways of scoring.
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In addition, with Josh Hart from New York and Mikal Bridges pursuing him, Beasley will have to make the most of the looks he will receive.
Jaden McDaniels, Minnesota Timberwolves
For years, McDaniels has been a reluctant shooter who would regularly refuse open shots and even open channels.
This season, with Karl-Anthony Towns out of the mixture and the offense that needs a little more juice, the 24-year-old has started to increase his volume and to experiment with an widened score role.
In 13 games in February, McDaniels' investment borne fruit when he won an average of 18.5 points and 8.4 rebounds, another area of improvement for him. Although its effectiveness is far from notable, it is the desire to take photos that are important here.
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The story is not only his attack, because McDaniels is obviously much superior on the other side of the ball. Defense has always been its business card, but if it can add a little more will to its offensive role and become more assertive by shooting on the ball, it is an immediate asset for head coach Chris Finch, especially against a team of Lakers with three players who can go for more than 30 evenings.
McDaniels is likely to see all minutes of LeBron James, Austin Reaves and Luka Dončić, which will not be easy. There is a world where Finch decides that his attacker will have to exercise more energy by defending this trio than looking for his own blow. It would probably be an error because it would leave too much responsible for Anthony Edwards, Julius Randle and Naz Reid to offer a quality score.
For the Wolves to enter this series on a firmer land, McDaniels must be engaged on both sides of the ball and not to refuse opportunities. If he is confident and ready to take shots, he could return several games in favor of Minnesota.
Julian Strawther, Denver Nuggets
Lost throughout the drama of head coach Mike Malone pulled 79 games in the season and director general Calvin Booth after the costume is the fact that the Nuggets still have basketball in playoffs to play.
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All year round, the nuggets were incoherent in their secondary rotation, whether offensive, defensively or simply with a global lack of cohesion.
Strawther, a second year wing, has seen his minutes decline lately, but there is a good reason for the acting head coach David Adelman to use him against the Los Angeles clippers.
The straw has a legitimate size at 6-7, 210 pounds. He has a score talent, which includes an outdoor shot, and the possibility of putting the ball on the ground to get to the basket.
The trick for strawberries work as X-Factor is to have it played with Nikola Jokić Plus, essentially imitating the role of Michael Porter Jr. in the sense that the strawberry must react to the models of Jokić movement to identify open spaces.
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It is a high task for a guy who has only taken 14.2% of his shots near the edge this year, but given the need for the production of bench and nose of Frai to score, there is no time to waste. He must immediately look at a larger and more impactful role. Pour or swim.
Andrew Nembhard, Indiana Pacers
It is almost unfair to put a stimulator on this list because the whole rotation still works well in the structure of its role.
But hey, these are the playoffs, and in playoffs, you are not going to win a chip while being simply coherent. This also applies to Pacers, especially Nembhard, who has always worked as a player with a high level of roles acceptance and who probably sacrificed hundreds of shots during his first three years in the League.
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For the Pacers to burst, Nembhard must get out of his modest production model. His 10 points and five assists in 28.9 minutes per game were good and useful, but the Indiana will need him to improve his creation to open the ground to Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam, Myles Turner and Benédict Mathurin, the four top scorers of the team.
It is not that the Pacers do not have enough score in themselves. It is more than their current score leaders are not exactly the most unpredictable group. Turner will obtain a ton of 3-point pick-fop and mark near the edge. Haliburton will create outdoor looks, Siakam operating in the elbows.
It was effective, but in a series where the adjustments are made to the game, the Pacers simply need to offer something new and diversify their attack. It is there that Nembhard, looking for his shot, can draw attention and use his own threat of score to simultaneously rise to his creation of games.
The training effect of Nembhard's transformation into a more focused version will make pacers much more difficult to read.
Tari Eason, Houston Rockets
Sometimes, in the playoffs, especially if you are a team that has trouble generating a coherent perimeter offense, you have to light a firecracker and get out of its way.
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Houston has two in Eason and Amen Thompson, but the secret is more or less in Thompson, while Eason always seems to catch teams by surprise.
The 6-8 combo attacker is extremely athletic, a very influential defender, a solid rock rebounder and a pure and simple intrepid in transition, both on and outside the ball.
The empowerment of Eason's mean game style, allowing it to push the ball after forced reversals, inject energy into the game and constantly put pressure on defense could be a way to compensate for the lack of houston shooting and keeping the emotional advantage.
Writing games for the 23-year-old to obtain descent opportunities, even at the expense of certain more stable half-lodge options, could prove to be a solid investment, especially if it is able to finish the games near the edge (67.8% efficiency at the RIM during the season) and to force the defenses to collapse.
Eason has always been a statistical monster per minute and could now be a good time for Houston to deploy it in an extended role.
