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West Game 5 takeaways: Millsap subtly dominates, OG Warriors win without KD

Ezra Shaw / Getty Images Sport / Getty

Both Western Conference semifinals are heading into potential elimination games after the Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors both took care of business at home to go up 3-2 in their respective series.

Here are some takeaways from those Game 5s:

Millsap is mauling the Blazers

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The Nuggets looked to be in real trouble after Game 3. They'd just suffered a physically and spiritually crushing four-overtime defeat to fall behind 2-1 in the series, with the next game coming less than 48 hours later in Portland.

There's plenty of praise to go around for the way the Nuggets responded, but there may not be anyone who's played a bigger part in turning the tide than Paul Millsap. The perpetually solid, un-flashy 34-year-old has enjoyed a renaissance of sorts against Portland. After a season in which he was typically used as a fourth or fifth option, the Nuggets have turned him into an offensive focal point, taking advantage of the Blazers' lack of size at the power forward spot and their lack of mobility at center. Millsap has gorged himself on post-ups, schooling the likes of Al-Farouq Aminu, Moe Harkless, Evan Turner, and Rodney Hood with repeated duck-ins on the right block.

Millsap's best showing came in Game 5, when he poured in 24 points on 19 used possessions and had the Nuggets' second-highest usage rate behind only Nikola Jokic. The Blazers played around with their defensive assignments, trying to find a configuration that could offer some resistance. For a while, they slotted Enes Kanter on Millsap and Aminu on Jokic, which in theory could allow them to slow Millsap in the post while also switching Jokic-Jamal Murray screening actions.

It didn't work on either front, though. Jokic beasted Aminu while Millsap put Kanter through the wringer - whether stretching him out to the 3-point line, hitting him with one-legged fadeaways, or juking him with nifty footwork and spin moves near the basket:

At the other end, Millsap's been terrific defensively all season, but the Blazers' shaky frontcourt shooters have afforded him a different level of freedom as a roving helper. The Nuggets have mostly stashed Millsap on Aminu and Turner, which means most possessions find him playing 10 or 20 feet off those guys in order to clog the lane, stunt at drivers, and stymie the roll man.

As a rover, Millsap's done an expert job of "2.9ing" - lurking in the paint just as long as he can without getting whistled for a 3-second call, before stepping out and jumping right back in again. His help defense (coupled with Aminu's disastrous shooting so far) has allowed the Nuggets to trap Damian Lillard in the pick-and-roll without significant consequences. It's also helped hold the Blazers to the lowest field-goal percentage in the restricted area of any team in the second round.

Portland can pull Millsap away from the rim by using his man as a screener, but he's done such a good job of hedging and recovering and outright switching onto the Blazers' guards that directly involving him in those actions hasn't been particularly fruitful. Millsap's been all over Portland's beloved double-drag screens, taking away Lillard's pull-up threes and buying time for the on-ball defender (usually Gary Harris) to get back into the play:

And when he's been near the basket instead of up high, Millsap has consistently blown up Portland's two-on-ones. He can force turnovers with his incredible hands, or he can stunt and spook the roller into flinging up an awkward floater:

Millsap can hold his own on the perimeter, but the interior is his domain. Almost like a tennis or squash player, he'll rove to the outer reaches of the court as needed, but he's always looking to get back to the T (or in this case, the paint) as soon as he can. You rarely catch him out of position, or leaning the wrong way, or closing out to a bad shooter, or being duped by a decoy. It's subtle but important work.

Matchup-wise, sophomore 7-footer Zach Collins was maybe the only Blazer who had success against Millsap defensively in Game 5, and he's a credible enough 3-point shooter to make Millsap think twice about camping out in the paint. Collins is a more natural center, but given the dearth of other options, Portland might have to consider giving him more minutes at the four moving forward.

The OG Warriors will still mess you up

Even after the diagnosis came back and dispelled the worst fears about Kevin Durant's injury, the Warriors were seriously up against it in Game 5.

Durant had come up limping after a baseline jumper with two minutes left in the third quarter and went straight to the locker room. Less than a minute later, the Rockets - who had trailed by as many as 20 points - took their first lead since the six-minute mark of the first quarter. The Warriors were suddenly facing the prospect of going back to Houston on the brink of elimination without their best player. The possibility that this might be the last Warriors game ever played at Oracle Arena felt very real. Their season, and their dynasty, seemed to hang in the balance.

But losing their best player means something different to the Warriors than it would to other teams. In their case, it means simply having to rely on two of the greatest shooters in history along with one of the greatest defenders and big-man playmakers ever. Those are the guys who led the Warriors to the 2015 title and a 73-win season the following year, even if they've collectively lost a half-step since then. Without knowing the extent of Durant's injury - or whether he'd ever play another minute in a Warriors uniform - Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, and Kevon Looney engineered a thrilling fourth-quarter run to secure the win and guarantee at least one more game at Oracle.

Ezra Shaw / Getty Images Sport / Getty

Curry had been struggling mightily all series, and until the final frame, this was somehow on track to be his worst game of them all. He wasn't hitting shots, or finishing at the rim, or holding onto the basketball. But with the offense running through him, and operating with a bit more pace, he found his footing.

Curry hit a gorgeous running floater, then a driving layup, then a trailer three against a scrambled defense, then a pull-up three after he got a switch and danced with Clint Capela, and then free throws off an offensive rebound following his own miss with a minute to play. Overall, he scored 16 points on 5-of-9 shooting in the 14 minutes following Durant's departure.

Green was instrumental in pushing the pace, rebounding, screening, and quarterbacking the defense. Up three with under four minutes to play, he stepped in - with five fouls already to his name - to successfully draw a bang-bang charge on Chris Paul. He then received a technical foul for celebrating too exuberantly and seemingly hitting Paul with a knee. Next, he hoisted a 3-ball from the wing - despite there being plenty of time left on the shot clock, and despite having clanked one off the side of the backboard earlier in the quarter - and hit it.

Meanwhile, Thompson rediscovered his metronomic form after a couple of rough games. He D'd up James Harden, hit a mid-range pull-up and a timely 3-pointer of his own off a Looney offensive rebound, and ultimately iced the win with a layup following a chaotic end-of-game sequence.

It's not like the Warriors haven't played and thrived without Durant over the past three years - hell, they won 13 straight while he sat out with a knee injury in 2016-17 - but his impending free agency, and the overwhelming consensus that he's going to sign elsewhere this summer, gave the ending of the game a different connotation.

"We can still do this," the remaining Warriors seemed to say. Curry has always played better when given full control of the offense. As transcendent as Durant has been, his methodical pace and propensity for mid-range iso-ball are anathema to the principles that built the first edition of this Warriors dynasty. Their offensive rating in the fourth quarter of Game 5 was a cool 145.5.

The game offered a glimpse of the Warriors' past, and possibly of their future. There's been a lot of speculation throughout the year about where Golden State will be in the NBA's pecking order if Durant does leave in July. Will the team still be the championship favorite? You never want to see anyone get injured - especially not a guy who'd spent the first two rounds of these playoffs staking his claim to the title of Best Player in the World - but with Durant likely out for the remainder of this series, we may be getting a sneak peek of Golden State's life without him.

So far, so good.

Harden gets passive down the stretch

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Lost in the Durant angst and the throwback Warriors takeover was Harden's strangely invisible finish to Game 5.

He was in the midst of one of his best, most ruthlessly efficient games of the playoffs. He'd led the third-quarter charge as the Rockets erased a huge deficit and subdued the Oracle crowd. Durant was out of the game, and the Rockets were right there with a chance to nudge the Warriors to the brink.

But, after missing a 3-pointer at the 8:58 mark of the fourth, Harden did not attempt a field goal until finishing a coast-to-coast layup that the Warriors essentially conceded to him while leading by five with under 20 seconds to play. He took one (technical) free throw during that entire span.

Yes, the Warriors were blitzing Harden to get the ball out of his hands, and Iguodala and Thompson took turns hounding him, either denying him the ball or enveloping him when he had it. But Harden hardly made any effort to shed those defenders or to draw contact. When he didn't have the ball, he mostly just stayed out of the way, drifting out near half court as a bystander. On a couple of occasions, he gave up the ball in the backcourt when he didn't have to, ambled into the frame a few seconds later, and didn't touch it again for the rest of the possession:

His crunch-time usage rate was 12.5 percent. To put into perspective just how uncharacteristic that was, his crunch-time usage rate in the regular season was 49 percent, and it was 42.9 percent in the playoffs coming into this game.

It wasn't necessarily unhelpful. Harden's defender stuck with him no matter how far he drifted, so the Rockets were effectively playing four-on-four in the half court. Chris Paul and Eric Gordon assumed playmaking duties, and both of them created plenty of good looks. The Rockets posted a robust 122.7 offensive rating in the quarter. It was still perplexing, though.

Harden did play 45 minutes in the game, so it's entirely possible this was just fatigue catching up to him. Maybe he really thought he'd be serving the team best by deferring to Paul and Gordon while conserving his energy for the defensive end. But Paul had a rough game, scoring just 11 points on 20 used possessions. Harden had been brilliant, scoring 31 on 22 possessions. Why take a back seat at that pivotal moment?

Again, maybe Harden had his reasons. Still, given the insane workload he's taken on this season, and given how similar workloads have worn him down in previous years, and given the way he's mentally and physically checked out of playoff games in the past, it's fair to raise an eyebrow.

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