March and early April can be a dreary portion of the NBA calendar, but it can also be a time that's ripe for experimentation. Every so often, a team stumbles onto something that can have bigger implications for the spring. This year, that something may be the Houston Rockets' gargantuan frontcourt tandem of Steven Adams and Alperen Sengun.
That pairing only saw the court for 162 minutes after coach Ime Udoka decided to give it a look, but the results were extraordinary: The Rockets outscored opponents by 32.5 points per 100 possessions in those minutes. They thrived on defense by suppressing rim attempts and denying second-chance opportunities, and they thrived on offense by scoring in the paint and rebounding over 50% of their own misses.
That double-center alignment was particularly useful in an April 4 win over the league-best Oklahoma City Thunder when Adams started in place of an absent Dillon Brooks. He and Sengun physically overwhelmed the Thunder, outdueling OKC's own towering frontcourt of Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren.
Injuries prevented us from seeing a big sample of Hartenstein-Holmgren minutes this season, but that pairing was generally dominant. The Thunder outscored opponents by 13.5 points per 100 with both 7-footers on the floor across 316 minutes, which notably included them grabbing 56% of all available rebounds. You might recall that last year's Hartenstein-less version of this team was one of the worst-rebounding contenders we've ever seen, ranking 28th on the offensive glass and 29th on the defensive glass.
I've written a lot about the resurgence of double-big lineups over the last five years, including before this season. While each iteration is unique, the tactic typically improves a team's defense through scheme versatility, rim protection, and rebounding, at the cost of spacing, speed, and shot creation at the other end of the floor. However, these lineups can also provide an offensive boost through high-low passing, quality interior finishing, and second-chance generation.
And notably, the balance of benefits associated with two-big lineups tipped further toward offense during the 2024-25 regular season. According to research compiled by Owen Phillips at The F5, lineups with multiple bigs scored 1.9 more points per 100 possessions than single-big lineups and 3.1 more points per 100 than center-less lineups this season.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, long one of the NBA's most prominent double-big adherents, finished with the 16th-best relative offense in league history (7.2 points per 100 better than average) with relative non-shooter Evan Mobley and complete non-shooter Jarrett Allen sharing a starting frontcourt. The Cavs scored slightly more efficiently with both bigs on the floor than with just one of them out there, weaponizing the pair's collective screening, cutting, short-roll passing, and finishing ability as complements to the shot-creating wizardry of their star backcourt.
The advantages of double bigs also manifested at the offensive end for the Thunder, who scored even more efficiently with Hartenstein and Holmgren on the floor than Cleveland did with Mobley and Allen. Holmgren's ability to operate as an oversized wing means he can be used frequently in direct actions with Hartenstein, flying off pindowns or rising and firing out of 4-5 dribble-handoff actions. That allows OKC to engage the two biggest defenders on the floor, in turn opening up opportunities on the back side by forcing smaller defenders to provide cover.
Between Holmgren's shooting gravity and driving prowess, and Hartenstein's wipeout screens, killer push shot, and connective passing from the middle of the floor, the Thunder can reap the benefits of the pair's size without sacrificing much space for their attacking guards. Their 32.3% offensive rebound rate when playing both bigs was equivalent to the fourth-best mark in the league, and those additional shots were being generated for an offense that ranked second to Cleveland's in first-shot half-court scoring.
When the Boston Celtics romped to the title last year while primarily playing wings at power forward, it seemed like their team-building blueprint might become orthodoxy. That hasn't really happened, though - not even for the Celtics themselves. When people think about that team, they tend to envision the platonic ideal of a five-out offense, one that bombs threes and plays drive-and-kick with the swaths of space afforded by its abundant shooting. But while Boston still starts and closes games with Jayson Tatum at the four when fully healthy, two-big lineups have become an important wrinkle for the defending champs.
The Celtics' most used two-big setup features Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford, both of whom can space the floor. But the team played over 1,000 minutes this season with double-big combos that excluded one or both of those guys and included non-shooting backup centers Luke Kornet, Neemias Queta, and Xavier Tillman. That still didn't stop Boston from posting the highest 3-point attempt rate of all time, and the enhanced ability to score inside and control the possession game served as a hedge against the whims of jump-shooting variance.
All told, Boston used two-big lineups for 35.4% of its total minutes this season, which is more frequently than Cleveland deployed them (27%) and almost quintuple the rate at which Boston used them in last year's playoffs (7.3%). More importantly, those lineups were all wildly successful. The Celtics were actually at their worst when Porzingis played without another big beside him, getting outscored by 1.5 points per 100 in those minutes, per PBP Stats. Their net rating was plus-10.6 with Porzingis and Horford together, plus-15 with Horford and Kornet, and plus-27.5 with Kornet and Porzingis.
Defense is still the strongest selling point of two-big lineups, and all the offensively potent configurations mentioned here also excelled at preventing opponents from scoring. On top of cleaning the defensive glass and effectively turning the restricted area into a no-fly zone, these pairings permit the big men involved a higher level of freedom with coverages and matchups.
The Miami Heat will be hard-pressed to even get out of the play-in, let alone make noise in the playoffs, but their new frontcourt of Bam Adebayo and rookie center Kel'el Ware is still instructive in this regard. The Heat were markedly better this season with both of them on the court than when either one of them played without the other, especially defensively. Shortly after coach Erik Spoelstra started playing them together in January, Adebayo - who'd spent the previous three-and-a-half seasons exclusively playing center - explained what he liked about the change.
"I can get back to switching a little bit," he told Brady Hawk of 5 Reasons Sports. "Guarding my yard, not being in a drop zone all year."
Due to Miami's lack of size behind him, the Heat had to start using Adebayo primarily in drop coverage last season. In other words, arguably the NBA's best switch big was asked to do way less of the thing he was best at, because his team didn't have the secondary rim-protection or rebounding to survive having him out on the perimeter.
It's a good reminder that not all switching defenses are built on the premise of having a bunch of interchangeable wing-sized players. The Cavs with Mobley and Allen on the floor switch as frequently as almost any team in the league. Whether the defense wants to switch, hedge, blitz, zone, or cross-match, having multiple rim-protectors on the floor tends to make everything a bit safer.
For all their positives, two-big lineups are far from infallible; there's a reason they still only make up a small fraction of all minutes league-wide. But having the option to deploy them situationally, and banking enough successful reps to feel confident using them when the stakes are high, gives teams a critical element of versatility. How much these contenders will continue to incorporate this lineup tactic that worked so well in the regular season is an interesting playoff question.
Will the Celtics go back to leaning on five-out spacing, or will Jaylen Brown's ailing knee force them to keep drawing from the double-big well? In a theoretical East finals matchup, would the Cavs close with one of their bigs on the bench, as they did in a couple of their regular-season matchups against Boston?
Do the Rockets trust Adams enough to make him a rotation fixture, or will they abandon their two-center experiment in favor of more conventional frontcourts with Amen Thompson or Jabari Smith Jr. at the four? Will the Thunder feel comfortable rolling out their twin towers in crunch time, or will they retreat to the comforts of their stretchier single-big lineups?
Will Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau keep using Karl-Anthony Towns exclusively at the five to preserve New York's offensive spacing, or will he finally play to type by uncorking the defensively stout Towns-Mitchell Robinson frontcourt (plus-11.3 net rating in 47 minutes) for an extended stretch?
Matchups will dictate a lot of this. We'll see which style wins out when the Minnesota Timberwolves and their two-big frontcourts take on the frequently center-less Los Angeles Lakers in the first round. How quick will the hook be on Rudy Gobert if he can't punish those smaller lineups?
We might also get a matchup between the jumbo Rockets and a Golden State team that doesn't play anyone taller than 6-foot-7 in crunch time. To even get there, however, the Warriors will have to win a play-in game against the Grizzlies, who start the 6-foot-11 Jaren Jackson Jr. next to 7-foot-4 Zach Edey. That combo was Memphis' most productive frontcourt permutation this season (plus-13.1 net rating), just as the Jackson-Adams combo was a couple years ago. Will Steph Curry make it untenable?
We'll have answers to all of these questions pretty soon as this trend helps shape the 2025 postseason. Buckle up.
Joe Wolfond covers the NBA for theScore.
