The unheralded MVP of this series? It’s PJ Washington.

There is no question we are witnessing one of the greatest offensive duos ever performing at peak powers and dominating in the clutch. Anyone watching this series would primarily credit those two for the Mavs unbelievable success. Our alley oops are on track to be a playoff record too.

But there is one player who has not gotten enough love amidst all the highlight reel dunks and clutch game winners: PJ Washington.

According to his head-to-head tracking stats he has spent more minutes guarding KAT in three games than any other player this playoffs (26:45 through the first three games.)

KAT is shooting 28.6% FG% and 9.1% 3P% with PJ as his primary defender, Currently he has the ignominy of being the worst true shooting percentage in conference finals history in the 3-point era with > 50 shot attempts.

While a lot of that is Towns' own shortcomings, PJ's disruptive defense has been stifling and prevented him from having a shot to break out of his slump. And Towns's massive underperformance and wasted possessions is easily the difference maker in a series that had three relatively close games where the Mavs were trailing at some point and won in the clutch.

Coming in, many of us were concerned that we didn't have anyone to stop Towns without Kleber but PJ has blown past any expectations and turned KAT into a scrub. If you watch the KAT lowlight videos you see how PJ and our centers are pressuring him and contesting every shot, and how PJ funnels any attempts to drive right into our center to help. Washington isn't allowing him to get started or find any rhythm at all offensively.