NBA playoffs 2026: Five first-round trends we're watching - ESPN

It might not seem like it, but in one sense the 2026 NBA playoffs are already almost halfway over. Through Wednesday, there have been 39 postseason games played; over the past decade, the number of playoff games each year ranged from 79 to 87, with an average of 83 per postseason.

So it's high time to analyze the most important trends of these playoffs. Let's run through five key developments of the first round, starting with an in-depth exploration of a significant leaguewide change on the scoreboard.

Jump to a trend:
A sizable scoring slump
Rudy Gobert, redeemed
Bottom-seed Magic
Jayson Tatum's terrific return
Injury woes

The most important trend of the playoffs thus far is the massive decline in scoring.

In the regular season, teams scored in double digits — rather than triple digits — in 260 out of 2,460 games, or 11%. But in the playoffs through Tuesday, they've been stuck below 100 points in 21 of 72 games, or 29%.

Denver had two sub-100-point games all regular season, then matched that total in back-to-back games in Minnesota last week.

Points production typically declines in the postseason. Since 1983-84, when the NBA moved to 16 playoff teams, postseason scoring has fallen by an average of 2.8 points per game compared with the regular season.

Yet even against that historical context, the 2025-26 playoffs stand out. Scoring has declined by 8.3 points per team per game this year, which is the third-largest gap in league history.

But wait, there's more. This postseason, the overall true shooting percentage has declined by 2.3 percentage points compared with the regular season, which is the second-largest drop ever. (The gap in 1978-79 was 2.7%.) And offensive rating has fallen by 4.3 points per 100 possessions, per