While Brandin Podziemski was busy delivering arguably the best performance of his career considering the playoff stage, another young member of the Golden State Warriors was stapled to the bench for all but 12 minutes of the 109-106 Game 4 victory on Monday night.
Moses Moody's dwindling role in this series is becoming a fascinating sub-plot to this series, even if it's being overshadowed somewhat by a number of different elements that are perhaps more important to the final result.
Moses Moody's shooting numbers are becoming a real problem for the Warriors
Moody had been an incredibly value starter for the Warriors over 31-straight games, having benefited from the Jimmy Butler trade and developing into the 3-and-D wing the franchise had long envisioned.
Yet rather quickly Moody has not only been removed from the starting lineup over the past two games, but Buddy Hield has surprisingly become a much bigger factor than his younger teammate in Steve Kerr's rotation. Moody finished the regular season averaging six more minutes than Hield following the Butler trade, but the latter played nearly double the minutes across Games 3 and 4 against the Houston Rockets.
There's a couple of reasons for this. The Rockets have been able to hide Alperun Sengun on Moody defensively, with the 22-year-old's inability to penetrate and make plays off the dribble limiting it from being a potential mismatch the Warriors could exploit.
Part of that also has to do with Moody's now elongated stretch of poor shooting, meaning Sengun doesn't need to close out at anywhere near the level he would otherwise have to. Aside from going 3-of-6 from 3-point range in the Game 2 loss at Toyota Center, Moody has struggled to find his stroke in a problem that's stemmed from the end of the regular season.
Despite remaining in the starting lineup and playing a considerable role, Moody shot just 30% from deep over the final 15 games of the regular season. If you include the Play-In matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies, the former 14th overall pick is now 7-of-23 (30.4%) in five postseason games.
We've now got the point where Houston will actually live with Moody taking a number of threes, rather than it being a dangerous and important part of the Golden State offense. It's left Kerr with the decision to turn towards Hield, and so far that's yielded good results as the 32-year-old proved important in back-to-back victories.
The Warriors will still need Moody to play a role and make an impact going forward, and it's not impossible to envisage him re-entering the starting lineup depending on who they face in the second-round should they advance.