A friend once asked me to explain the point of watching an NBA game in its entirety. After all, he said, games are usually decided in the last five minutes. I told him that when you have a large sum of money on the line, every possession is important. Everyone remembers the final five minutes, but they aren’t always the most decisive stretch of a game, even if it goes down to the wire. In a long playoff series, as two teams begin to know each other in and out, every five minute stretch is important. A playoff game can be lost at the start of the first quarter as easily as it can at the end of the fourth.

In the regular season, coaches think long-term, not short-term. They get their best players rest and keep their rotation as stable as possible, in order for everyone on the roster to get comfortable with their roles. An 82-game season is a marathon, not a sprint; it’s more important to be consistent from Game 30-60 than it is to win Game 45. That dynamic changes in the playoffs, as every coach starts to act like Tom Thibodeau and manage games solely for the present, not the future. They shorten their rotation and play the match-up game, trying to create an edge on a possession-by-possession basis.

Micro-management, however, doesn’t necessarily make games any closer. This season, the average margin of victory in the second round is 11.5 points. Some of that margin is padded by two blowouts in the Miami Heat/Chicago Bulls series and cheap points given up on the free throw line at the very end, but the broader point still stands. More often than not, the team that controls the action all game long will end up winning. The collapse of the Golden State Warriors against the San Antonio Spurs in Game 1 of their series is the exception that proves the rule. Before that, NBA teams were 392-0 in playoff history in the same situation.

Nevertheless, the last few minutes have an outsized hold on our collective memories. We remember the most notable moments of a series, condensing hours of action into a few “decisive” seconds. We remember Michael Jordan’s shot in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, not the shots he hit in the first 47 minutes. Jordan had a 28.1 career playoff PER while playing 42 minutes a night. He was great not because he hit the big shot, but because he hit all of the little ones. Over the course of his NBA career, he missed 26 game-winning shots. There are no guarantees in the final moments, even with the greatest closer in basketball history.

The first four games of the Memphis Grizzlies/Oklahoma City Thunder series have come down to the fourth quarter, but important things were happening in the first three quarters. While Oklahoma City’s execution at the end of games has been lacking without Russell Westbrook, the route to the end has been slightly different in each game. Both coaching staffs have been subtly making adjustments back and forth, altering their rotations and trying to find the most effective line-ups. Over the last three games, Lionel Hollins has had better luck with his adjustments, most of which were not made in the fourth quarter.

The big storyline of Game 4 was the adjustment of the Thunder to the Grizzlies' starting line-up. The Thunder shrunk the floor when both Tayshaun Prince, a reluctant three-point shooter, and Tony Allen, a non-shooter, were in. Memphis’ offense isn’t very explosive normally, much less playing 3-on-5. They were -11 with their starters in the first 11 minutes of the game and were lucky to break even at the start of the second half and overtime. They won because Hollins eventually went to a more explosive line-up, with Jerryd Bayless in place of either Allen or Prince. Bayless, who gives them another shooter and playmaker, was +18 in Game 4.

Nevertheless, if the Grizzlies had lost in overtime, the end of regulation would have stuck in everyone’s head. After Kevin Durant tied the game on a brutally efficient drive to the rim with six seconds left, Memphis had a chance to set up a final shot. In years past, Rudy Gay would have been their closer. Gay, an athletic 6’8 220 small forward with an effective step-back jumper, could always create a decent 1-on-1 shot at the end of games. As a result, he has an impressive number of career buzzer-beaters under his belt. But with Gay in Toronto, Hollins drew up an easily snuffed-out Zach Randolph isolation.

Not having Gay in that last six second sequence cost the Grizzlies, but their lack of shooting would have been the biggest reason for a loss. Since they have to stagger the minutes of Randolph and Marc Gasol in order to keep at least one on the floor, they have to maximize the time when they are playing together, the foundation of their best offensive line-ups. As skilled as Gay is off the dribble, he shot 31 percent from beyond the arc in Memphis and couldn’t space the floor for their two star big men. Going forward, Hollins has to find more time for Bayless and Quincy Pondexter, his two best wing shooters, in those minutes.

Nor is having a great closer enough to win an evenly matched series, as Oklahoma City is finding out. Durant is averaging 32 points on 49 percent shooting in the playoffs; he gets points as easily as anyone in the league. The problem is that he has to carry too huge an offensive load over the course of a game without Westbrook and James Harden. Their role players don’t get enough points within the flow of the offense and Brooks’ fairly questionable rotations have backfired without three star players. Durant can’t carry Kendrick Perkins, Thabo Sefolosha and Derek Fisher by himself, not over a seven-game series against the NBA’s best defense.

That’s the fundamental problem with judging individuals by team success. In a seven-game series, the best team, not the best player, will almost always win. While the best player will have the edge when he is in a great situation, like LeBron James in Miami, that doesn’t mean the best player in a series will always be able to carry his team to victory. Basketball is a team sport; the “Green Lantern Theory of the NBA” doesn’t hold. To return to the baseball analogy, it doesn’t matter who the closer is if there isn’t a starter who can get him a lead headed into the ninth inning.

Over time, the mythology surrounding the closer position has overshadowed reality, in both basketball and baseball. Mariano Rivera is widely considered the best closer in baseball history. From 1997-2011, with Rivera in the bullpen, the Yankees won 97.2 percent of the games where they lead in the ninth inning. That sounds impressive, but from 1961-1964, before baseball began using set closers, the Yankees won 97.3 percent of their games when leading in the ninth. It’s the same in every sport. Execute on both sides of the ball all game long and the final moments will care take of themselves.