The 2025 NBA playoffs have been cuckoo, as up for grabs and unpredictable as ever. We have seen comebacks and game-winners, upsets and blowouts. We have been reminded again and again that the margin for error shrinks in the postseason. Stakes rise, and weaknesses are magnified. The run of play is grueling and muddy. In the regular season, you play basketball. In the playoffs, you play basketball, wrestle alligators, cross-country ski, and run the Oklahoma drill.
When the game slows down and the intensity ratchets up, you need men of action, on the loose, performing various acts of vandalism to their opponents’ offenses, hopes, dreams. You need someone to get offensive rebounds, extend possessions, piss people off. You need someone to do the dirty work on defense and not get ignored on the other end. You need someone who knows the most important thing in basketball is the basketball itself. You need guys with a higher level of want-to, chaos agents hell-bent on destruction. Someone who looks faster than everyone else, is faster than everyone else, covers more ground than everyone else, gets on the floor more than anyone else. You need a high-octane grinder. You need a menace.
menace, noun, men·ace
1. a show of intention to inflict harm
2. a: one that represents a threat; b: an annoying person
A menace is essential for on-court party planning, a supercharged good-time guy who makes sure there are enough cups, enough ice, enough chips. A menace knows you want to err on the side of ordering too much pizza because not having enough is not an option. A menace makes sure everybody on his team is having a blast and everybody on the other team wants to dismember him. A menace makes himself vulnerable for the greater good. He commits to a brighter future, one in which he has the ball. A menace is a pirate.
It’s not just a nose for the ball; it’s an obsession. It means effort won’t be the reason something doesn’t work. Hustling is just good business. I’ll play hard, so that’s covered. Now let’s deal with the other stuff. There will be a lot of horsepower under the hood. There will be something almost abnormal about the effort. A menace will start at 10 and go from there. Sometimes, basketball is not about tactical counters or well-drawn ATOs or game plans. Sometimes it’s just as simple as someone saying, That ball is mine. I understand the rest of you are interested in it too, but unfortunately, I am here, and the ball is mine.
There are many ways to impact a basketball game. A menace does all of them. Maybe it’s on defense, maybe it’s on the boards, likely it’s both. It could be a huge 3 or a timely backdoor cut for something light off the glass. Menaces explore the space, make good decisions with the ball, and hit shots when they need to—but scoring never dictates their effort. The menace will probably never be All-NBA, but they may get their jersey retired. They make essential plays, plays that win you games, plays that win you series. They get you the ball back—again and again and again.
The 2025 playoffs have belonged to the menaces. They’ve provided so many of the signature moments—from Alex Caruso bodying up Nikola Jokic in a Game 7 to Aaron Gordon yamming home the first game-winning, buzzer-beating tip dunk in playoff history. The stars get the headlines and prime poster placement, but the menaces can be just as important. To honor their contributions, we'll highlight the four biggest menaces left standing, one from each team. Chances are, the conference finals will swing on a loose ball, a clutch 3, or a contested rebound—and one of these players will be the main reason why. Be annoyed; be very annoyed. Overlook at your own peril.
Aaron Nesmith, Indiana Pacers
Nesmith darts around like a yoked quail out there. He’s fighting over the top of screens, making ball handlers uncomfortable, hitting timely 3s, taking shots away from opponents at the rim. Nesmith’s a dervish. Or not a dervish; he’s dervish-like. He has dervish tendencies. In the open court, he gets on his horse and hauls ass to the 3-point line, starts lighting everything on fire. He just doesn’t give up on plays. In Game 4 of Indiana’s series against the Bucks, he went up and Tayshaun Prince’d Bobby Portis at the rim.
He’s a 50/40/90 guy in the regular season who has shot 54 percent from 3 during this postseason and upped his help on the boards. Before Wednesday night, his best play of the postseason was via an offensive rebound, a tip dunk off a missed free throw in the Pacers’ improbable Game 2 comeback win over the Cavs—a flying haymaker that exemplifies the menace lifestyle. No holds barred and straight gas. But about Wednesday night—in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, Nesmith went berserk. He played the hero, hit eight total 3s, including six in the last five minutes of regulation. The guy was running hot. He scored 30 points total, 17 of them coming in the final 3:14 of the fourth to bring his Pacers back. He was a nightmare for the Knicks, a quick-hitting bombardier who sucked the energy out of MSG and left the Knicks faithful gasping and Tracy Morgan sad.
Nesmith is sort of a sprints-to-the-moment kind of guy. A net melter who enters the game with his hair already lit. Get to him on the catch, or it’s curtains. He can make you close out hard, put it on the deck, and make a play going to the rim. He can absorb contact in the air, spread some jelly, and double-clutch something off the glass. Knows how to move to open space and make himself available for Pacer playmakers. The flamethrower is deluxe Rick Dalton shit.
Nesmith is an unrelenting scorcher. On defense, he’ll get into your shit and make you hate him. He’ll muscle-hamster his way around and make you work and contest every shot like it’s the most important thing he will ever do. He met Giannis at the mountaintop and lived to tell the tale. The list of people who can say that is not long, and Nesmith might be the shortest among them. He will probably get the Jalen Brunson assignment fairly often, and he will definitely be booed on the catch at MSG by the end of the series. Knicks vs. Pacers will be a chippy series with plenty of jawing, and, if history is any indication, Nesmith will find his way to the middle of the action. It’s where he’s most comfortable.
Josh Hart, New York Knicks
“I’m not in this league because I’m a great shooter. But it’s hard for people to really stay with me because I have such a tremendous work ethic as far as going for the ball. It’s mine. It belongs to me coming off that rim.”
That’s a Dennis Rodman quote from ’89, but you could tell me Hart said this yesterday, and I’d believe you. No current basketball player embodies that ethos more than Hart. Might be the most electrifying rebounder in the league. Hart crashes the glass angry, rockets in from nowhere. He will leave his feet furious and grab one among the ’scrapers. He will hunt down long clanks off the rim and either give the Knicks an extra possesh or go like lightning to lead the break. This is one of the best transition players in the Association, a guy who runs like mad in the open floor. Someone who makes you batten down the hatches. Someone whose effort you can count on.
Hart attacks 50/50 balls and is the first to hit the deck. This man leaves nothing to chance. No matter the outcome, he will be able to look in the mirror at the end of the night and say, Hey, beautiful, you did all you could.
Your simple words just don’t move him. The league should let Hart play in workout gloves. He should play in workout gloves and a Knicks jersey that he’s cropped into a belly shirt. Don’t know if he has a gold tooth but seems like the kind of dude who should have a gold tooth. A gold tooth and a little vial worn round his neck holding the once-cried tears of his enemies. Can stack hustle play on hustle play on hustle play and work the Garden into a frenzy. That’s the thing these hustle kings have going for them: They are uniquely equipped to pump up the volume. Hart’s a full-blown hellhound. You almost feel bad for the guy asked to box him out.
Alex Caruso, Oklahoma City Thunder
Performing Crank cosplay on a nightly basis. He Stathams his way through possessions. Throws his body around with no regard for his personal safety. Treats himself like a piece of meat and generally does not stop for anyone or anything other than to shoot, screen, or wait on a rebound. He will give you a premium wiliness on both ends and be an absolute nightmare for the other team. You can learn the other team’s plays. You can know a player’s tendencies, go-to moves, favorite places to shoot, etc. What cannot be accounted for is a human missile rocketeering his ass off from one place to the other until he has successfully laid waste to your entire possession.
Check out this sticky bandito. Your man’s got the nimble hands of a thief. He’s a defender you swear by. In the Thunder’s Game 1 loss to the Nuggets, Caruso became the first bench player (since the NBA started counting steals and blocks) to go for 20-plus points, five-plus steals, five-plus assists, and two-plus blocks in a playoff game. In Game 7, Thunder coach Mark Daigneault audibled their defensive strategy and put Caruso on Jokic. Caruso bodied him and harassed him and [gasp] fouled him. He kept him guessing, made him work for every centimeter, contested every dribble and entry pass. Caruso is sizzling on arrival. If he’s a microwave, he’s the one from Spy Kids. He doesn’t need to take his time getting into the flow of the game. He shows up and changes the flow entirely.
Caruso sprints after the ball in transition like a puppy. He sets his sights on the ball handler and slowly reels them in. The vet is a constant annoyance, a constant presence where you don’t want him to be. He just keeps showing up, getting in the way, being a nuisance, sticking his red-cheeked face in the other team’s business.
What’s the opposite of a wallflower? A sledgehammer? Cher? The Succulent Chinese Meal Guy? Caruso is the Succulent Chinese Meal Guy of the NBA. It’ll take the whole force to move him. Caruso puts his back into it, goes for broke, flies headlong into chairs. He hurls himself around the court like he’s made of adamantium and flubber, and he will have his vengeance in this life or the next. It is something to see a man who looks like Elmer Fudd in Space Jam frustrate a behemoth who also happens to be the best basketball player in the world.
Donte DiVincenzo, Minnesota Timberwolves
Those who know, know. The Big Ragu goes full tilt. It’s all he knows. DiVincenzo’s going to show up and operate without fear, zip around in search of ways to help. What can he do for you? How can he be of service? What could he do to improve your basketball experience today? He offers a number of services. Could be a 3, could be a steal, could be a screen, rebound, block, assist. DiVincenzo offers so much juice off the bench. He is often characterized as a sniper (current playoff struggles notwithstanding), but DiVincenzo is more menace than 3-point specialist. He’s too additive in other areas. Lord knows he’s due for some makes this postseason, but missed shots don’t keep him from being active on the other end. The Big Ragu’s jumping out in passing lanes, being a ball hawk, fighting for extra possessions.
There should be more said about the Big Ragu. Gus Johnson has given us many gifts over his illustrious career, but none more important than his coining of “the Big Ragu.” This is one of the best nicknames of all time, and I’m not sure why people haven’t started calling him this exclusively. The wattage popping off the Big Ragu, the power in that, it should make people use it just as often as they use “Joker” for Jokic. It’s like Sweetness, Chocolate Thunder, Prime Time, then the Big Ragu.
TBR’s not afraid to dance with it and launch a 3 off the bounce if that’s what the offense needs. In the early fourth quarter of Game 3 of their first-round series against the Lakers, DiVincenzo hit Dorian Finney-Smith with a crossover so pure that DFS palmed the court. He got up in time for DiVincenzo to lace the 3 face-to-face.
This is a winning player who will enhance the flow of the offense and guard elite scorers. He is a flower that does not wilt and one of the finest visor wearers of his or any generation. Not afraid to talk a little shit. He makes a play on you, he’ll tell you all about it when he sees you again.
