April 28, 2025 • 36 mins
Jason reacts to the four awesome playoff games of the day, the New York Knicks beating the Detroit Pistons after a controversial no-call on Tim Hardaway Jr.'s final shot attempt, Anthony Edwards & the Minnesota Timberwolves beating LeBron James, Luka Doncic, and the Los Angeles Lakers, the Boston Celtics taking care of business against the Orlando Magic, and the Indiana Pacers dominating the Milwaukee Bucks.
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(01:57):
All right, welcome to Hoop tonight. You're at the volume
heavy sun there everybody. Hope all you guys are having
a great end to your weekend. We got a jam
pack show for you guys today. We're gonna hit on
four games. I'm gonna be primarily leaning into the first
two games of the day. Those are the two games
that I thought were most interesting. So we're going to
talk Lakers Wolves off the top, and then I've got
a lot of thoughts on Nick Pistons. We'll be going
(02:17):
shorter on Celtics Magic as well as Pacers Bucks, but
we'll have some thoughts there at the tail end of
the show too. Also, no mail bag at the tail
end of the show today, just so you guys know,
but we're gonna hitting all four of those games and
then we'll get out of here for the night. You
guys are the job before we get started. Subscribe to
the Hoops and I YouTube channel so you don't miss
any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at
underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss an ShW announcement.
Son't forget about a podcast for you wherever you get
(02:37):
your podcast on our Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful
if you leave a rating and a review on that front.
We also have social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and
Facebook where Jackson's doing great work. Make sure you guys
follow us there. And then, as I mentioned off top last,
but not at least keep dropping mailbag questions and those
YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. I was
telling the guys before the show started. It's a very
rough day for my personal playoff rooting interests. League team
(03:00):
had a playoff game today too, that we lost on
a game winning jump shot at the Buzzert from my
former college teammate, my point guard back when I was
playing in college. Shout out to Dom Banks. Just an
incredible player, good friend of mine. Hit a big time
shot to beat us today. So took that knife to
the chest and then had to go home and watch
the other knife go into my chest in the form
(03:22):
of the Lakers losing that game in the fourth quarter
to the Minnesota Timberwolves. So obviously, before we get any
deeper into it, just congratulations to Wolves fans. I'm sure
you guys are very happy that I am wrong about
what ended up happening in this series. And it's been
especially painful for me because Anthony Edwards just continues to
take a special place in my basketball heart, so to speak,
(03:44):
as I've always loved watching him play and just watching
the way that he has broken my heart so to
speak as a Lakers fan in this series has just
made me love him even more as a player, and
I'm just I'm really happy for you Wolves fans, and
you guys are in great shape moving forward, not just
in this but moving forward for the rest of this
playoff run and for the rest of this era that
(04:04):
you guys have put together. So to me, Game four
basically came down to a gamble that JJ Reddick made
in the second half, a bet based on two things.
One that the Luca Lebron Austin, Dorian Phinney Smith Ruby
hot Chimura lineup was consistently generating great shots against Minnesota's defense,
and he wanted to ride that out as much as
possible and the Lakers effectively after tonight's game or today's game,
(04:28):
had like two and a half full days of rest
before Game five and Wednesday, like they would have had
all night Tonight off, all day Monday off, all day
Tuesday off, most of the day on Wednesday, So I
don't think he was worried about long term wear and tear.
But the gamble was that the Lakers would be able
to survive those twenty four minutes without succumbing to the
physical onslaught of Minnesota, and that ended up being the
(04:52):
give a take, give and take right, and the Lakers
just couldn't quite hold on. I thought Ant's shot making
in the early fourth quarter was the first sign of
that onslaught. I talked a lot after Game three about
how you pretty much just have to cross your fingers
and hope Aunt misses those pull up threes because you
can't realistically take them away. You're just gonna give the
best athlete in the league a crazy runway over and
(05:14):
over again. You have to play with You have to
play essentially to concede a contested pullback or step back
type of three. Right. He hit three of them in
the early fourth quarter, including a twenty eight footer over
Austin Reeves with just under eight minutes left that cut
the lead down to four, and that like immediately changed
(05:36):
the tone and tenor of the game, and it turned
it into a high pressure half court slug fest. And
once again, just like in Game three, Ant and the
Wolves just looked better down the stretch. Nasreg came in,
one of the few fresh legs guys on the floor
there down the stretch. He immediately scored eight points. He
scored against Austin on a switch. He had two long
(05:57):
threes at the top of the key. The Lakers kind
of started to show their fatigue on those two threes.
On the first one, Luca beats Naz Reid off the
dribble and smokes a layup, like right at the rim,
smokes a layup, and then in transition, Luca made a
bad read. He should have matched up with Nas. Him
and Nas were the last two guys back in the play,
but Luca just misread the floor and ran to go
(06:18):
guard Austin Reeves's man, even though Austin Reeves was already there.
That left Nas read open. Just a mental mistake, probably
that came from fatigue to a certain extent. And then
on the second one, Nas broke open on a screening
action kind of a two guys at the elbow. Nas
was on the far elbow and Lebron just was resting
or fatigued or whatever it was. He just was like
(06:39):
flat footed standing upright. And when Nas ran off the
screen like it probably should have been a switch, but
Lebron should have been up like communicating with Austin, like, hey,
Naz is getting ready to come up, you gotta be
ready to switch. Both Lebron and Austin were just a
little slow to react, and nas breaks open at the
top of key and hits another three and made a
very similar kickout read on a baseline drive that looked
(07:00):
very similar to the one in Game three where he
hit nas Reed on the left wing. He hit Dante
DiVincenzo on the left wing, who drove the close out
and got an end one. Another great decision from Ant
down the stretch, Ant be the double team he was
getting double team by Dorian Finney Smith and Ruey Hotchi
murr Out in the kind of like left like just
in front of half court on the left side of
the floor, and Ruy lost contain. Ant actually beat the
(07:23):
double team off the dribble, forced Luca to help. It
turned into effectively a triple team that caught Lebron in
like this weird three on one underneath the basket where
Ant makes a beautiful pass to nas Lebron flashes, Lebron
drops it off to Jaden or excuse me. Nasried makes
a nice connective pass to Jaden McDaniels on the baseline,
Austin Reeves fouls him. That ends up basically being the
(07:44):
game winner. That lineup with Nazrid and Dante Devincenzo. In
for Rudy, Ruey and Rudy have been killing me in
this series. In for Rudy, Gobert and Mike Conley is
probably their best lineup. It creates space while still maintaining
their side in physicality. It closed the deal yet again
for the Wolves tonight, and now they are in serious
(08:06):
control of this series. It's not over. The Lakers will
have their shot. We'll talk about that in a little
bit later on. But this same theme from the end
of tonight's game has repeated itself over and over again
in this series. Even in the Game two when the
Lakers won, it felt like over the course of the
end of the game, the Lakers start to look old
(08:27):
and tired, while the Wolves continued to look like the Wolves,
and then they take control. The Lakers came apart at
the seams at a bunch of basic execution details late
that I do think we're associated with fatigue. On the JD.
McDaniel's game winner, Ruey Hachimura loses contain on a double team.
When you're bracketing in a double team, the ball's here
(08:47):
and these are the two defenders bracketing. This guy has
to prevent him from driving outside. This guy has to
prevent him from driving outside. You have to contain the
ball and force Ant to make a pass. But if
you go back and WoT watch Ruey as he's sliding,
you can literally see how exhausted he is with the
way he was moving on the NAS read threes. Like
I mentioned, Luca smoking the easy layup and losing NAS
(09:10):
with a mental mistake, Lebron getting caught relaxing. Austin missed
several wide open threes in the fourth quarter. Lebron had
zero points in the fourth quarter, was generally uninvolved in
the offense. But this is where it gets tricky. Though
I knew coming into the series that this would be
a physical tug of war. I knew that the Wolves
would wear on the Lakers over the course of games
(09:30):
just by being more athletic. I knew the Lakers would
be able to score, but I also knew they would
wear dam What I didn't predict was just how badly
Anthony Edwards would win the Superstar matchup with Luka Doncic.
This is where the entire series turned. The Lakers were
tied with four minutes left in Game three. The Lakers
(09:51):
were up to with four minutes left today, Luca had
zero points in both of those sequences. From that point forward,
in this series, Luka Doncic has been five for seventeen
in the fourth quarter, Anthony Edwards ten for twenty three.
Anthony Edwards has made twice as many fourth quarterfield goals
(10:13):
as Luka Doncic in this series. Luca has one fourth
quarter assist, Anthony Edwards has seven. That's the series. That's
it right there. Two games, Game three, in Game four
coin flip games that came down to clutch shot creation
from the two team superstars, and Anthony Edwards went toe
to toe with the guy that many people, including myself
(10:34):
before the season, placed as the second best player in
the league, and Ant just straight up alpha dogged him.
He stared down the guy who beat him in the
playoffs last year and straight up kicked his ass. The
insane shot making, the growth as a playmaker, it's been
incredible to watch. And here's how important it's been. The
(10:56):
Lakers actually outscored the Wolves in the last three games
by seventeen point in the first three quarters, but Anton
the Wolves have won the fourth quarters by twenty three
points turned two of those games into Wolves wins. He
Anthony Edwards has been the swing between this series being
three to one Lakers and it being three to one Wolves. Now,
(11:17):
before we like, I want to be clear before we
talk a little bit about Luca here, Luca is not
the only one to blame for what happened today. As
I mentioned, Lebron made several mistakes. He had a bad
turnover in the final minute. He like it was kind
of on everybody the the There was this weird trip
where Jada McDaniel's trip Luca probably should have been a
(11:38):
foul where that led to his sideline out of bounds
with seventeen seconds on the shot clock. Because they're seventeen
seconds on the shot clock, the Lakers could not inbound
into the back court. They had to inbound into the
front court, so that caused a very tight space. Basically,
Lebron was just on the other side of half court
out on that sideline. It basically took the amount of
space that the Lakers could inbound to and cut it
(11:59):
in half, and the Wolves defended it pretty well. Luca
is kinda in a position where he could catch, but
Jaden was right on his backside and Lebron took a
bad angle. He threw it to Luca's right shoulder, Luca's
left shoulder. He probably catches it, but he threw it
to the wrong shoulder. That's a bad turnover on Lebron.
He took a bad three with five seconds left off
the left wing. In the final minutes, he lost Nasried
(12:20):
on one of his threes. Like we talked about, he
scored zero points. Lebron shares. Some blame Austin Reeves missed
five threes in the fourth quarter. Some a couple of
wide open ones in the final minutes. Ruey Hatcher Murra
made a few defensive mistakes. I want to be clear
tonight is not only Luca's fault, but Luca is the
one player on that team who was truly capable of
closing that deal. And he went one for six and
(12:44):
he looked like completely exhausted and lifeless down the stretch. Now,
before you tell me, well, Jason, he played the entire
second half. That's on jj Reddick. Well so did aunt
aunt played twenty four minutes in the second half. Julius
Randall play two only three and a half minutes in
the second half. Nasried can can pull the I was
(13:04):
fresh card. Everyone was fatigued. And yet I know that
ant is a better athlete and he will look better
when he's fatigued than Luca. But he looked like aunt.
Luca didn't even look like Luca down the stretch of
that game when his team desperately needed him to look
like Luca. And it's been the entire series, five to
seventeen in the fourth quarter. So again, even though tonight
(13:28):
wasn't entirely his fault, it was a team, a set
of mistakes from the team. My initial impression of Luca
in the big picture, even beyond this series, has been
that he consistently wears down at the end of games.
He was also just eleven for twenty seven in clutch
situations for the Lakers in the regular season this year.
(13:50):
I'm not saying this to pick on Luca. I root
for the guy for obvious reasons. I just want to
see him reach his full potential. He's getting passed by
his peers right now. Tatum is playing better than him,
Shay's playing better than him, AT's playing better than him,
Steph is playing better than him. He's leaving meat on
(14:14):
the bone when it comes to his potential. And I
genuinely believe that if he could figure out his conditioning,
that he has a great chance to become the best
basketball player alive as Jokic phases out as he gets older,
there will be no player in the league that has
a better combination of scoring and playmaking ability than Luka Doncic.
(14:38):
If he could become a player that holds up over
the course of games, holds up over the course of
seasons and series, can stay healthy, can be operating at
peak efficiency at the end of games while also being
a plus defender, which he is capable of being. That's
the best player in the world. That's what he's capable
of doing. It is a real and achievable outcome for him,
(15:02):
and it would literally just take one summer, one summer
of obsessive work, the same obsessive work that all of
the greats in NBA history have used to maximize their potential.
The ball is in Luca's court and we all knew
this before. I mean, that was literally the main storyline
behind the trade, right, but we got to see it
(15:22):
up close and personal. Here. I can put it this simply,
had Luca played to his potential in this series, the
Lakers win this series. But instead he faded at the
end of games while his counterpart on the other team
was fantastic, and it flipped entirely in the other direction.
(15:44):
Other notes that I wanted to give before we move
on to the next game. JJ's decision to play everybody
all twenty four minutes in the second half. Look it
was high risk, but it also high reward. And I
hate playing the results because so many things went wrong
down the stretch that could have just as easily ended
in a win for the Lakers. Even with everything that
(16:05):
went wrong, the Lakers led in the final minute, and like,
had they gotten it done, JJ would have looked like
a genius as the Lakers went home for a long
stretch of time off with the series tied. I also
thought the Lakers were on the wrong end of two
late calls. Luca got tripped at half court. He should
have gone to the foul line after that. I thought
(16:25):
Lebron when he stripped Anthony Edwards underneath the basket, he
was more or less in the hand wrist ball area,
and the game was insanely physical. You would just let
a non call go. And Jaden tripped Luca. I didn't
like that call, and by the way, I'm not saying
the Lakers are screwed. You know what, I always said,
bad calls are a part of basketball games. You have
to be prepared for that contingency. I don't blame the
(16:47):
refs for today's outcome. I'm just saying it was a
razor thin margin. The Lakers very easily could have won
that game. They didn't, But I'm not gonna blame it
on JJ based on that result. It was a gamble,
the game became razor thin close to paying off, and
there was an obvious downside, which was fatigue, and the
fatigue did play a role in the loss. I think
(17:09):
that's worth bringing up. But like Chris Finch also played
Anthony Edwards the entire second half and Julius Randall most
of the second half, Like, it's not exactly the craziest
thing we've ever seen, they just were. JJ was looking
at it like, I don't know that I can afford
vandom minutes here. I don't know that I can afford
gave minutes here now, Like I probably would have just
found little short bursts to get them some rest. But like,
(17:30):
I'm not going to over criticize the risk based on
a result that was like this close to going the
other way and looking like JJ was a genius. Right now?
Can the Lakers win the series? Of course? It's really simple. Actually,
if you get down to it, Do I think the
Lakers can beat the Wolves in Game five on Wednesday? Yes,
(17:52):
I actually think they will. I think the Lakers will
win this game. I think the Wolves are gonna win
this series in Game six back in Minnesota. But from there,
if the Lake Bakers win on Wednesday in Game five,
you have Game six on Friday. It's one game in Minnesota.
We know they can win. They were right there in
each of the last two games. So you win on Wednesday,
(18:13):
then you look at it on Friday and you go
just beat the Timberwolves in Minnesota one time. And if
you do, then it's Game seven on Sunday. You're the
home team, You're likely favored. So they absolutely can win
the series. I just think it's unlikely. I don't think
Luca is gonna suddenly get into better shape. He's wearing down,
(18:34):
not because he's not capable of doing the basketball things necessary.
It is a literal conditioning problem. In order for the
Lakers to come back and win the series, Luca would
have to make me look foolish by suddenly transforming into
the best player in the series, which he hasn't been
to this point. So it's on the table. It's an
outcome that can happen. I just think it's far more
(18:55):
likely than not that the Wolves close this out. And
on that note, just again, like I mentioned off the tip,
just I am happy, happy for Wolves fans because you
guys probably got sick and tired of hearing guys like
me and everyone else out there tell you how the
Lakers were gonna win. Hell, the Wolves themselves were sick
of it. And you just have such a great team
and you have such a great star. And I am
(19:16):
really looking forward to watching them as they move forward
in this postseason. Should they be able to close the
deal on Wednesday or on Friday. All right, Nicks, Pistons.
As wrong as I've been about the Lakers Wolves series,
I've been pretty right about this one. The Pistons have
been right there every single game. They led by eight
in the fourth quarter of Game one, they obviously one
(19:36):
Game two, they were down by three with five minutes
left in Game three, and they led by eleven today
in the fourth quarter of Game four. But over and
over again. The Knicks have been able to out execute
them at the end of these games because they are
the smarter and more experienced team. Malik Beasley hits a
three with eight and a half minutes left that puts
the Pistons up eleven. From that point forward, the Knicks
(19:59):
played their ceiling. They knew they needed that game. They
played peak Knicks basketball while the Pistons on the other
end made mistake after mistake after a mistake. The Knicks
were able to get offense on several fronts. Mikal Bridges
actually started the run with two really tough movement threes
out of the right corner. In a game where he
could make a shot to save his life, hit two
massive ones in the right corner. Jalen Brunson got into
(20:21):
a great rhythm after coming back from an ankle injury
he suffered right along the sideline in front of the
scorer's table. He's really solved Dennis Schroeder at this point
in the series. He's figured out that he's just too
big and strong for him. He had an easy layup
on the left side where he just used the right
to left crossover to get him on his right side
and then just use that shoulder to create separation. Then
he had to drive on the right wing where he
(20:41):
literally went through Dennis's chest for a floater from about
like seven eight feet. But like he has solved the
Dennis Schroeder matchup, he'd beat Kay Cunningham with a simple
jab step move to get into the basket. He gave
Tim Hardaway Junior a couple of tough buckets. He had
a step back going to his left on the three
point line. He had another little short shot along the
left base line. Brunson was fantastic down the stretch, but
(21:02):
it was actually Karl Anthony Towns who saved the day
and stole a win for the knickt hitting three jumpers.
One was a simple catching shoot off of a dumb
overhelp from Jalen Duran. The Jalen Brunson just kind of
baited him into just staring at the basket and pretended
like he was gonna iso. Jalen just kind of sat
there on the block and just was super keyed in
(21:23):
on Brunson, and Jalen just rifled to pass across the
court wide open catch and shoot three for Karl Anthony
Towns knocks it down just capitalizing on a bad defensive
mistake from Jalen duran But then he hit an insane
left shoulder fade away, just like he did in Game three,
this time over Jalen Durrance, over a tougher contest. It
was probably even tougher than the shoty mate in Game three.
(21:44):
Just insane right there along the baseline. Then he hits
his step back three over Jalen Durant, a little shot
clock kind of rescue possession, ends up in the late
clock situation, and hits like a twenty eight footer off
of a step back against a great contest from Jalen Dury.
Just two insane shots that turned that loss into a
win for the Knicks. The Knicks scored twenty six points
(22:06):
over the final eight minutes to steal Game four and
take a three to one lead heading back to New York.
Here's a simple list for you guys of the execution
errors that Detroit made down the stretch their first possession,
after McHale Bridges hit a three in that right corner
to cut the lead down to eight, they ran an
ISO for Asar Thompson against Mkale Bridges, and anybody who
watched that whole game knows. Asar Thompson was really struggling
(22:29):
in that game to do anything on offense. He was
in no position to command that possession that gave it
to him and he missed. That's an execution error from
the vets on the floor putting a Sar Thompson in
that possession position. Then Nisar Thompson threw the ball out
of bounds, cut to the basket off the right slot.
K dropped it off to him and he tried to
make a connective pass him Alik Beasley, but he just
(22:50):
didn't look before he threw it and rifled the ball
out of bounds. JB. Bickerstaff finally puts Dennis Schroeder in
for him, so two big mistakes from Assar Thompson to
start to run. Jalen durn gets a defense rebound and
makes the classic young center mistake of bringing the ball down,
brings the ball down. Josh Hart comes in swipes it
off his leg off the ensuing baseline out of bounds.
Mkale Bridges comes off of a screen, Malik Beasley gets
(23:13):
caught on it. Jalen Duran again when he sees a
shooter coming off a screen is supposed to be up
at the level of the screen. He's way back in
the paint. Mcale Bridges gets another clean look right where
he just made one in the right corner knocks it
down so literally, two Jalen Durham mistakes turned what should
have been a stop into three points for the Knicks.
And again, I'm not trying to pick on Jalen duran
(23:33):
or any of these guys, Zasar Thompson. I'm just pointing
out the obvious fact that these are young players, and
young players are going to struggle with attention to detailing
big in big spots like this, right, they gave up
an easy transition. Take foul to Josh Hart on a
really bad offensive possession where he just stood out by
like the logo while Mikal Bridges was face guarding him
(23:54):
and he just watched Dennis Schroeder and Malik Beasley have
a rough offensive possession, which, like, that's fine. Like rough
offensives sessions are part of the playoffs. It's super physical.
Sometimes you just get exhausted. That's not the problem. The
problem is is both Schroeder and Beasley were slow to
get back. You can't compound the problem by not getting back.
It turned into like a three on one and Kate
had to just wrap up josh Hart. Kate turned it
(24:16):
over trying to split a ball screen. That's a little
spoiler alert. He does it again later in the game
on Kat's first three. Like I talked about, Jalen, Duran
is sinking all the way into the paint. That's just done.
That was the whole reason why they had Tobias Harris
on Cat originally to begin with, was to avoid that
specific problem. Durren just struggles to guard shooting Biggs, which
is why he shouldn't have been in that position in
(24:37):
the first place. That's on JB. Bickerstaff, like they need
to make sure that they had their matchups set up
in a way that they're not going to give up
that sort of problem, especially since Kat was frying Jalen
during anyway on an Island. It's not like you're trying
to protect Tobias Harris there in any any way. Kat
hits the fade away over Jalen during that cuts the
lead to two kid tries to Isojan and Obi, which
(25:00):
is probably the worst matchup he could attack on the floor.
We talked a lot about that. Jalen Brunson has been
much more surgical about being deliberate to get to the matchups.
He wants that hits a three to put the Knicks up.
Kid tries to split a double team again. Josh Hart
is right there, digging down off the strong side corner,
and Kay just tries to split the double team again
(25:20):
and turns it over again, and like it was just
mistake after mistake after poor decision after poor decision. But
this is just the reality of the process of developing
as a basketball team. In order to win at the
highest levels, attention to detail is required, and young, inexperienced
teams have a habit of missing those details, especially in
(25:42):
their first few playoff runs. It's all good, valuable lessons
are being learned. It's just an explanation for why, even
though Detroit presented so many problems for the Knicks over
the course of the season, I had the feeling the
Knicks we're gonna pull this series out. Last note on
the Knicks, I wanted to shout out ogn and Obi
and McHale Bridges. Neither of them had big score knights
Aw the McHale hit a couple of huge threes in
the right corner, but those guys defended about a half
(26:04):
a dozen one on ones against Kid Cunningham down the stretch,
and they didn't get beat off the dribble a single time.
They forced him into a bunch of tough, contested pull
up mid rangers, turnaround jump shots out of the post.
Brunson was getting to the rim and New York's defenders
were forcing Kate into jump shots, which has variants. You
(26:24):
might miss him right, Kate's a good mid range jump shooter,
but he might miss him. There's way less variance right
at the rim. Jalen hit some tough jumpers that step
back to his left side, step three off of against
Tim Hardaway Junior off the left wing. That's an incredibly
tough shot, but he was at the rim, and that
really is the experience element. Like Cat played three playoff
(26:50):
series last year, Jalen Brunton played four playoff series in
the last two years. This team has just a lot
of guys that have been in a lot of serious
basketball over the last few years. That gives them an
advantage in this sort of situation. Looking like the Knicks
are going to close things out in five on Tuesday,
all right, very briefly on Celtics Magic and pacers bus
(27:11):
Uh pacers Bucks. I thought Tatum was fantastic down the
stretch of this game punishing switches. He had like a
little jabstep jumper over Gary Harris. He there was kind
of like an obvious difference in just the level of
patience and deliberate nature with which Tatum was attacking switches
versus the Orlando Wings. Like there was a sequence where
(27:33):
on both ends of the floor, like Franz Vagner gets
Peyton Pritcher and he caught Peyton Pritchard as like a
primary assignment a few times down the stretches pressuring Franz.
Franz is having a lot of success attacking Porzingis. It's
kind of an interesting kind of matchup decision there to
just try to throw Franz off. But Franz tries to
like drive against Pritchard, but he rushes, he drives, and
he spins and he spins in this like rushed floater
(27:54):
and leaves it short. Right on the other end of
the floor, Tatum gets Anthony Black and he methodically takes
his time to back him down way into the lane,
and Anthony Black ends up hacking the shit out of
him and dragging him down into camera row and he
gets two free throws, And it was just kind of
crazy to see the difference between the super experienced dude
who's played in the like damn near two hundred playoff
(28:15):
games and the you know, young inexperienced team that's like
kind of figuring this out on the fly and seeing
the difference in just like how deliberate they were in
their matchup. Attacking down the stretch, Tatum hit a crazy
step back mid range of over Pala Bonkaro. He drew
three shooting fouls just by getting people to jump up
underneath his base. I just continue to be amazed by
(28:36):
Tatum's growth as a half court decision maker. The big
thing that stands out to me is just as overall comfort,
there's you see this a lot with like stars that
are at the peak of their powers in their like
early thirties, where they have so much playoff experience already
and they're so sure of who they are as a player.
They may not be quite as athletic as they used
(28:57):
to be, but they're just so smart because they've had
so much experience playing. You'll see a lot of those
guys like in high pressure situations, even late round playoff
series like Conference finals finals, You'll just see them look
comfortable and relaxed while they're playing. Tatum's in his mid
twenties and he's out there looking like one of those guys.
I that's been the thing that stood out to me
(29:18):
all season with Tatum. It's just his overall level of
comfort executing in the half court, getting this team into
the right spots to get the right shots. I loved
the set that Joe Mizula ran out of the time
out that got porzingis the dunk where he dunked his
own miss. Classic example of what happens when you try
to involve screening actions with two very different types of players,
Derek White and Chris Hops. Porzingis not a kind of
(29:41):
action that you want to switch. You don't want to
switch with Wendell Carter Junior. There, Derek White seit's a
great screen. Wendell Carter Junior falls the magic don't switch.
Porzingis is wide open under the ram. He actually smokes
the layup, but he gets a really quick second jump,
which is a strong indicator of how he's feeling physically,
and just dunks it down. Just an unb believable play
from Porzingis, Al Horford had a huge rebound or he
(30:03):
beat Franz Wagner to the ball that led to a
Derek White layup. I had a Celtics fan tweet at
me after the game that this was the type of
series that the Celtics would have been tied to two
or maybe even down three to one a couple of
years ago. But here they are up three to one
and this was super important. They need to get the
(30:23):
hell away from the Orlando Magic before someone gets hurt.
Tatum felt the urgency, executed accordingly and got the job done.
And that's why I always put such a premium on that,
like veteran presence, that experience, because a lot of times
these games are decided by the thinnest of margins. The
Magic have been in this series for the most part.
(30:45):
Outside of game too, They've been in every game. It's
like a more exaggerated example of some of the other
series we've seen, like Rockets Warriors and like Nick's Pistons,
and it just comes down to late game execution, and
the grown ups just tend to do it better in
that situation. Right. It's actually been the interesting part of
the Minnesota Timberwolve series is they've been the younger team
(31:06):
that has beat the veteran, more experienced team. But here
they are. They're up three to one, a good spot
for the Celtics to be in good shape to close
out this series all right, really quickly before we get
out of here tonight, Pacers Bucks. First of all, I
feel terrible for Dame to work as hard as he's
worked behind the scenes to get back on the court
for that series and to suffer the type of injury
that he suffered. I just hope that he's doing okay mentally.
(31:29):
I can't even imagine where he's at right now, especially
after they had just got a big win and it
was early in the game and you're in a position
where you can potentially tie the series and give yourself
a real chance to win. And it kind of reminded me.
Obviously very different type of injury, but it kind of
reminded me what happened after reminded me of what happened
in the Lakers Sun series in Game five. Yeah, I
(31:51):
think it was Game five, So the Suns were up
three to one, right if I remember correctly, and Anthony
Davis comes back, They're like Oh, Anthony Davis is back.
You know, here we go. We're gonna we're gonna have
a chance to win the series, and probably shouldn't have
come back, as Groin was obviously hurt, But in the
first few minutes of the game, Anthony Edwards just or
excuse me, Anthony Davis just suddenly realizes that, like, no,
(32:12):
I can't be playing out here right, so he has
to leave the game, and like you could just literally
see the entire body language and the belief and the
mentality of the Lakers just fall apart because they're like shit,
like we can't, like we can't win this game, this
game without Anthony Davis, Like he's our anchor to everything
that we do, right, And that's kind of what it
reminded me of tonight. Like obviously, Jannis is more important
(32:35):
to the Bucks than Dame and I and Dame at
this phase of his career is a different type of player.
But you could literally see the Bucks just kind of
let go of the rope a little bit after that
Dame injury in a weird way where it's like you
almost feel like if Dame was just out with the
blood plot for the series, you almost feel like the
Bucks would have had like a different approach going into
that game, like, all right, we don't have Dame tonight,
(32:56):
but we're gonna give this our best shot. And you
could just tell it just suck the life out of them,
and they just didn't do anything well enough. And to
make matters worse, the Pacers played a phenomenal game and
seven guys in double figures thirty six. I checked this
with two minutes left, so this might be a little
bit updated, but at like a minute forty five seconds
left in the game, they had thirty six assists on
forty eight made field goals. That's insane. That's a seventy
(33:17):
five percent assist percentage. That's like outrageous. They shot the
shit out of the basketball they shot. Damn you're forty
five percent from three. Watching them versus the Calves is
going to be a ton of fun, specifically the speed matchup.
One of the things that I'm really excited about with
that matchup is the Calves and a lot of what
they do to teams is play with pace, get into
the teeth of the defense with their speed, and the
(33:37):
Pacers do match up directly with that in a lot
of ways. To me, the Calves are just a better
version of the Pacers, right, Like you're gonna like Evan
Mobley and Jared Allen is a better front court than
Pascal Siakam and Miles Turner, Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell.
Obviously better backcourt than Andrew Mhart and Tyrese Halliburton. You
(33:58):
you know, the Calves have a different guys that they
can plug in at the three. But like the point
is is like they are kind of similar archetypes of teams,
but the Calves are just a little better at everything, right,
And that's what makes it a super interesting series because
that speed element, a lot of the things that the
Pacers do they should be comfortable with going against the Calves,
(34:19):
and I think that's going to make for a very
interesting series. That's my big prep for tomorrow. We're not
doing a film session tomorrow morning, but what I'm going
to be doing tomorrow morning is starting to watch film
on Calves Pacers. I'm really excited to dig into that series.
As for Yannis an Achilles, Tear for Dame massively devalues
the one trade asset that the Bucks would have had
to attempt to pivot this summer. So now the chances
(34:41):
of Yannis getting traded are astronomically higher than they were
before the injury, obviously, But just for the record, I'm
not going to get into anything regarding Yanni's trades at
this point until the postseason, or excuse me, until we're
done with the postseason. That's a summer conversation. It just
I haven't even really thought about it much. Maybe we
can do for fun over a mail bag one of
(35:01):
these nights. But like, I feel relatively certain that Jannis
will get traded this summer, but like, we just don't
know what how things are gonna shake down. Like it
could be a team in this playoff field that gets
eliminated and is disappointed and wants to make a super
aggressive move. It could literally be the thunder for God's sake,
Like we we have no idea what it's gonna be.
We'll talk about it a lot this summer. I just
don't want to get into it tonight. But again, I
(35:23):
feel terrible for Dame and I'm sure Bucks fans are
in a really tough spot right now. It's not a
good spot to be and I just sympathize with you guys,
and I'm thankful for you guys that you did get
a championship out of the honest and Tenakumbo era and
you can literally never take that away. All Right, guys,
that's all I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.
No morning film session tomorrow, but we will be live
(35:43):
after the final buzzer of Game four of Warriors Rockets.
I'll see you guys then tomorrow night. So guys, as always,
I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight.
It would actually be really helpful for us if you
guys would take a second and leave a rating and
a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us.
You could take a minute to do that, I really
appreciate it. The volume
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(01:57):
All right, welcome to Hoop tonight. You're at the volume
heavy sun there everybody. Hope all you guys are having
a great end to your weekend. We got a jam
pack show for you guys today. We're gonna hit on
four games. I'm gonna be primarily leaning into the first
two games of the day. Those are the two games
that I thought were most interesting. So we're going to
talk Lakers Wolves off the top, and then I've got
a lot of thoughts on Nick Pistons. We'll be going
(02:17):
shorter on Celtics Magic as well as Pacers Bucks, but
we'll have some thoughts there at the tail end of
the show too. Also, no mail bag at the tail
end of the show today, just so you guys know,
but we're gonna hitting all four of those games and
then we'll get out of here for the night. You
guys are the job before we get started. Subscribe to
the Hoops and I YouTube channel so you don't miss
any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at
underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss an ShW announcement.
Son't forget about a podcast for you wherever you get
(02:37):
your podcast on our Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful
if you leave a rating and a review on that front.
We also have social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and
Facebook where Jackson's doing great work. Make sure you guys
follow us there. And then, as I mentioned off top last,
but not at least keep dropping mailbag questions and those
YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. I was
telling the guys before the show started. It's a very
rough day for my personal playoff rooting interests. League team
(03:00):
had a playoff game today too, that we lost on
a game winning jump shot at the Buzzert from my
former college teammate, my point guard back when I was
playing in college. Shout out to Dom Banks. Just an
incredible player, good friend of mine. Hit a big time
shot to beat us today. So took that knife to
the chest and then had to go home and watch
the other knife go into my chest in the form
(03:22):
of the Lakers losing that game in the fourth quarter
to the Minnesota Timberwolves. So obviously, before we get any
deeper into it, just congratulations to Wolves fans. I'm sure
you guys are very happy that I am wrong about
what ended up happening in this series. And it's been
especially painful for me because Anthony Edwards just continues to
take a special place in my basketball heart, so to speak,
(03:44):
as I've always loved watching him play and just watching
the way that he has broken my heart so to
speak as a Lakers fan in this series has just
made me love him even more as a player, and
I'm just I'm really happy for you Wolves fans, and
you guys are in great shape moving forward, not just
in this but moving forward for the rest of this
playoff run and for the rest of this era that
(04:04):
you guys have put together. So to me, Game four
basically came down to a gamble that JJ Reddick made
in the second half, a bet based on two things.
One that the Luca Lebron Austin, Dorian Phinney Smith Ruby
hot Chimura lineup was consistently generating great shots against Minnesota's defense,
and he wanted to ride that out as much as
possible and the Lakers effectively after tonight's game or today's game,
(04:28):
had like two and a half full days of rest
before Game five and Wednesday, like they would have had
all night Tonight off, all day Monday off, all day
Tuesday off, most of the day on Wednesday, So I
don't think he was worried about long term wear and tear.
But the gamble was that the Lakers would be able
to survive those twenty four minutes without succumbing to the
physical onslaught of Minnesota, and that ended up being the
(04:52):
give a take, give and take right, and the Lakers
just couldn't quite hold on. I thought Ant's shot making
in the early fourth quarter was the first sign of
that onslaught. I talked a lot after Game three about
how you pretty much just have to cross your fingers
and hope Aunt misses those pull up threes because you
can't realistically take them away. You're just gonna give the
best athlete in the league a crazy runway over and
(05:14):
over again. You have to play with You have to
play essentially to concede a contested pullback or step back
type of three. Right. He hit three of them in
the early fourth quarter, including a twenty eight footer over
Austin Reeves with just under eight minutes left that cut
the lead down to four, and that like immediately changed
(05:36):
the tone and tenor of the game, and it turned
it into a high pressure half court slug fest. And
once again, just like in Game three, Ant and the
Wolves just looked better down the stretch. Nasreg came in,
one of the few fresh legs guys on the floor
there down the stretch. He immediately scored eight points. He
scored against Austin on a switch. He had two long
(05:57):
threes at the top of the key. The Lakers kind
of started to show their fatigue on those two threes.
On the first one, Luca beats Naz Reid off the
dribble and smokes a layup, like right at the rim,
smokes a layup, and then in transition, Luca made a
bad read. He should have matched up with Nas. Him
and Nas were the last two guys back in the play,
but Luca just misread the floor and ran to go
(06:18):
guard Austin Reeves's man, even though Austin Reeves was already there.
That left Nas read open. Just a mental mistake, probably
that came from fatigue to a certain extent. And then
on the second one, Nas broke open on a screening
action kind of a two guys at the elbow. Nas
was on the far elbow and Lebron just was resting
or fatigued or whatever it was. He just was like
(06:39):
flat footed standing upright. And when Nas ran off the
screen like it probably should have been a switch, but
Lebron should have been up like communicating with Austin, like, hey,
Naz is getting ready to come up, you gotta be
ready to switch. Both Lebron and Austin were just a
little slow to react, and nas breaks open at the
top of key and hits another three and made a
very similar kickout read on a baseline drive that looked
(07:00):
very similar to the one in Game three where he
hit nas Reed on the left wing. He hit Dante
DiVincenzo on the left wing, who drove the close out
and got an end one. Another great decision from Ant
down the stretch, Ant be the double team he was
getting double team by Dorian Finney Smith and Ruey Hotchi
murr Out in the kind of like left like just
in front of half court on the left side of
the floor, and Ruy lost contain. Ant actually beat the
(07:23):
double team off the dribble, forced Luca to help. It
turned into effectively a triple team that caught Lebron in
like this weird three on one underneath the basket where
Ant makes a beautiful pass to nas Lebron flashes, Lebron
drops it off to Jaden or excuse me. Nasried makes
a nice connective pass to Jaden McDaniels on the baseline,
Austin Reeves fouls him. That ends up basically being the
(07:44):
game winner. That lineup with Nazrid and Dante Devincenzo. In
for Rudy, Ruey and Rudy have been killing me in
this series. In for Rudy, Gobert and Mike Conley is
probably their best lineup. It creates space while still maintaining
their side in physicality. It closed the deal yet again
for the Wolves tonight, and now they are in serious
(08:06):
control of this series. It's not over. The Lakers will
have their shot. We'll talk about that in a little
bit later on. But this same theme from the end
of tonight's game has repeated itself over and over again
in this series. Even in the Game two when the
Lakers won, it felt like over the course of the
end of the game, the Lakers start to look old
(08:27):
and tired, while the Wolves continued to look like the Wolves,
and then they take control. The Lakers came apart at
the seams at a bunch of basic execution details late
that I do think we're associated with fatigue. On the JD.
McDaniel's game winner, Ruey Hachimura loses contain on a double team.
When you're bracketing in a double team, the ball's here
(08:47):
and these are the two defenders bracketing. This guy has
to prevent him from driving outside. This guy has to
prevent him from driving outside. You have to contain the
ball and force Ant to make a pass. But if
you go back and WoT watch Ruey as he's sliding,
you can literally see how exhausted he is with the
way he was moving on the NAS read threes. Like
I mentioned, Luca smoking the easy layup and losing NAS
(09:10):
with a mental mistake, Lebron getting caught relaxing. Austin missed
several wide open threes in the fourth quarter. Lebron had
zero points in the fourth quarter, was generally uninvolved in
the offense. But this is where it gets tricky. Though
I knew coming into the series that this would be
a physical tug of war. I knew that the Wolves
would wear on the Lakers over the course of games
(09:30):
just by being more athletic. I knew the Lakers would
be able to score, but I also knew they would
wear dam What I didn't predict was just how badly
Anthony Edwards would win the Superstar matchup with Luka Doncic.
This is where the entire series turned. The Lakers were
tied with four minutes left in Game three. The Lakers
(09:51):
were up to with four minutes left today, Luca had
zero points in both of those sequences. From that point forward,
in this series, Luka Doncic has been five for seventeen
in the fourth quarter, Anthony Edwards ten for twenty three.
Anthony Edwards has made twice as many fourth quarterfield goals
(10:13):
as Luka Doncic in this series. Luca has one fourth
quarter assist, Anthony Edwards has seven. That's the series. That's
it right there. Two games, Game three, in Game four
coin flip games that came down to clutch shot creation
from the two team superstars, and Anthony Edwards went toe
to toe with the guy that many people, including myself
(10:34):
before the season, placed as the second best player in
the league, and Ant just straight up alpha dogged him.
He stared down the guy who beat him in the
playoffs last year and straight up kicked his ass. The
insane shot making, the growth as a playmaker, it's been
incredible to watch. And here's how important it's been. The
(10:56):
Lakers actually outscored the Wolves in the last three games
by seventeen point in the first three quarters, but Anton
the Wolves have won the fourth quarters by twenty three
points turned two of those games into Wolves wins. He
Anthony Edwards has been the swing between this series being
three to one Lakers and it being three to one Wolves. Now,
(11:17):
before we like, I want to be clear before we
talk a little bit about Luca here, Luca is not
the only one to blame for what happened today. As
I mentioned, Lebron made several mistakes. He had a bad
turnover in the final minute. He like it was kind
of on everybody the the There was this weird trip
where Jada McDaniel's trip Luca probably should have been a
(11:38):
foul where that led to his sideline out of bounds
with seventeen seconds on the shot clock. Because they're seventeen
seconds on the shot clock, the Lakers could not inbound
into the back court. They had to inbound into the
front court, so that caused a very tight space. Basically,
Lebron was just on the other side of half court
out on that sideline. It basically took the amount of
space that the Lakers could inbound to and cut it
(11:59):
in half, and the Wolves defended it pretty well. Luca
is kinda in a position where he could catch, but
Jaden was right on his backside and Lebron took a
bad angle. He threw it to Luca's right shoulder, Luca's
left shoulder. He probably catches it, but he threw it
to the wrong shoulder. That's a bad turnover on Lebron.
He took a bad three with five seconds left off
the left wing. In the final minutes, he lost Nasried
(12:20):
on one of his threes. Like we talked about, he
scored zero points. Lebron shares. Some blame Austin Reeves missed
five threes in the fourth quarter. Some a couple of
wide open ones in the final minutes. Ruey Hatcher Murra
made a few defensive mistakes. I want to be clear
tonight is not only Luca's fault, but Luca is the
one player on that team who was truly capable of
closing that deal. And he went one for six and
(12:44):
he looked like completely exhausted and lifeless down the stretch. Now,
before you tell me, well, Jason, he played the entire
second half. That's on jj Reddick. Well so did aunt
aunt played twenty four minutes in the second half. Julius
Randall play two only three and a half minutes in
the second half. Nasried can can pull the I was
(13:04):
fresh card. Everyone was fatigued. And yet I know that
ant is a better athlete and he will look better
when he's fatigued than Luca. But he looked like aunt.
Luca didn't even look like Luca down the stretch of
that game when his team desperately needed him to look
like Luca. And it's been the entire series, five to
seventeen in the fourth quarter. So again, even though tonight
(13:28):
wasn't entirely his fault, it was a team, a set
of mistakes from the team. My initial impression of Luca
in the big picture, even beyond this series, has been
that he consistently wears down at the end of games.
He was also just eleven for twenty seven in clutch
situations for the Lakers in the regular season this year.
(13:50):
I'm not saying this to pick on Luca. I root
for the guy for obvious reasons. I just want to
see him reach his full potential. He's getting passed by
his peers right now. Tatum is playing better than him,
Shay's playing better than him, AT's playing better than him,
Steph is playing better than him. He's leaving meat on
(14:14):
the bone when it comes to his potential. And I
genuinely believe that if he could figure out his conditioning,
that he has a great chance to become the best
basketball player alive as Jokic phases out as he gets older,
there will be no player in the league that has
a better combination of scoring and playmaking ability than Luka Doncic.
(14:38):
If he could become a player that holds up over
the course of games, holds up over the course of
seasons and series, can stay healthy, can be operating at
peak efficiency at the end of games while also being
a plus defender, which he is capable of being. That's
the best player in the world. That's what he's capable
of doing. It is a real and achievable outcome for him,
(15:02):
and it would literally just take one summer, one summer
of obsessive work, the same obsessive work that all of
the greats in NBA history have used to maximize their potential.
The ball is in Luca's court and we all knew
this before. I mean, that was literally the main storyline
behind the trade, right, but we got to see it
(15:22):
up close and personal. Here. I can put it this simply,
had Luca played to his potential in this series, the
Lakers win this series. But instead he faded at the
end of games while his counterpart on the other team
was fantastic, and it flipped entirely in the other direction.
(15:44):
Other notes that I wanted to give before we move
on to the next game. JJ's decision to play everybody
all twenty four minutes in the second half. Look it
was high risk, but it also high reward. And I
hate playing the results because so many things went wrong
down the stretch that could have just as easily ended
in a win for the Lakers. Even with everything that
(16:05):
went wrong, the Lakers led in the final minute, and like,
had they gotten it done, JJ would have looked like
a genius as the Lakers went home for a long
stretch of time off with the series tied. I also
thought the Lakers were on the wrong end of two
late calls. Luca got tripped at half court. He should
have gone to the foul line after that. I thought
(16:25):
Lebron when he stripped Anthony Edwards underneath the basket, he
was more or less in the hand wrist ball area,
and the game was insanely physical. You would just let
a non call go. And Jaden tripped Luca. I didn't
like that call, and by the way, I'm not saying
the Lakers are screwed. You know what, I always said,
bad calls are a part of basketball games. You have
to be prepared for that contingency. I don't blame the
(16:47):
refs for today's outcome. I'm just saying it was a
razor thin margin. The Lakers very easily could have won
that game. They didn't, But I'm not gonna blame it
on JJ based on that result. It was a gamble,
the game became razor thin close to paying off, and
there was an obvious downside, which was fatigue, and the
fatigue did play a role in the loss. I think
(17:09):
that's worth bringing up. But like Chris Finch also played
Anthony Edwards the entire second half and Julius Randall most
of the second half, Like, it's not exactly the craziest
thing we've ever seen, they just were. JJ was looking
at it like, I don't know that I can afford
vandom minutes here. I don't know that I can afford
gave minutes here now, Like I probably would have just
found little short bursts to get them some rest. But like,
(17:30):
I'm not going to over criticize the risk based on
a result that was like this close to going the
other way and looking like JJ was a genius. Right now?
Can the Lakers win the series? Of course? It's really simple. Actually,
if you get down to it, Do I think the
Lakers can beat the Wolves in Game five on Wednesday? Yes,
(17:52):
I actually think they will. I think the Lakers will
win this game. I think the Wolves are gonna win
this series in Game six back in Minnesota. But from there,
if the Lake Bakers win on Wednesday in Game five,
you have Game six on Friday. It's one game in Minnesota.
We know they can win. They were right there in
each of the last two games. So you win on Wednesday,
(18:13):
then you look at it on Friday and you go
just beat the Timberwolves in Minnesota one time. And if
you do, then it's Game seven on Sunday. You're the
home team, You're likely favored. So they absolutely can win
the series. I just think it's unlikely. I don't think
Luca is gonna suddenly get into better shape. He's wearing down,
(18:34):
not because he's not capable of doing the basketball things necessary.
It is a literal conditioning problem. In order for the
Lakers to come back and win the series, Luca would
have to make me look foolish by suddenly transforming into
the best player in the series, which he hasn't been
to this point. So it's on the table. It's an
outcome that can happen. I just think it's far more
(18:55):
likely than not that the Wolves close this out. And
on that note, just again, like I mentioned off the tip,
just I am happy, happy for Wolves fans because you
guys probably got sick and tired of hearing guys like
me and everyone else out there tell you how the
Lakers were gonna win. Hell, the Wolves themselves were sick
of it. And you just have such a great team
and you have such a great star. And I am
(19:16):
really looking forward to watching them as they move forward
in this postseason. Should they be able to close the
deal on Wednesday or on Friday. All right, Nicks, Pistons.
As wrong as I've been about the Lakers Wolves series,
I've been pretty right about this one. The Pistons have
been right there every single game. They led by eight
in the fourth quarter of Game one, they obviously one
(19:36):
Game two, they were down by three with five minutes
left in Game three, and they led by eleven today
in the fourth quarter of Game four. But over and
over again. The Knicks have been able to out execute
them at the end of these games because they are
the smarter and more experienced team. Malik Beasley hits a
three with eight and a half minutes left that puts
the Pistons up eleven. From that point forward, the Knicks
(19:59):
played their ceiling. They knew they needed that game. They
played peak Knicks basketball while the Pistons on the other
end made mistake after mistake after a mistake. The Knicks
were able to get offense on several fronts. Mikal Bridges
actually started the run with two really tough movement threes
out of the right corner. In a game where he
could make a shot to save his life, hit two
massive ones in the right corner. Jalen Brunson got into
(20:21):
a great rhythm after coming back from an ankle injury
he suffered right along the sideline in front of the
scorer's table. He's really solved Dennis Schroeder at this point
in the series. He's figured out that he's just too
big and strong for him. He had an easy layup
on the left side where he just used the right
to left crossover to get him on his right side
and then just use that shoulder to create separation. Then
he had to drive on the right wing where he
(20:41):
literally went through Dennis's chest for a floater from about
like seven eight feet. But like he has solved the
Dennis Schroeder matchup, he'd beat Kay Cunningham with a simple
jab step move to get into the basket. He gave
Tim Hardaway Junior a couple of tough buckets. He had
a step back going to his left on the three
point line. He had another little short shot along the
left base line. Brunson was fantastic down the stretch, but
(21:02):
it was actually Karl Anthony Towns who saved the day
and stole a win for the knickt hitting three jumpers.
One was a simple catching shoot off of a dumb
overhelp from Jalen Duran. The Jalen Brunson just kind of
baited him into just staring at the basket and pretended
like he was gonna iso. Jalen just kind of sat
there on the block and just was super keyed in
(21:23):
on Brunson, and Jalen just rifled to pass across the
court wide open catch and shoot three for Karl Anthony
Towns knocks it down just capitalizing on a bad defensive
mistake from Jalen duran But then he hit an insane
left shoulder fade away, just like he did in Game three,
this time over Jalen Durrance, over a tougher contest. It
was probably even tougher than the shoty mate in Game three.
(21:44):
Just insane right there along the baseline. Then he hits
his step back three over Jalen Durant, a little shot
clock kind of rescue possession, ends up in the late
clock situation, and hits like a twenty eight footer off
of a step back against a great contest from Jalen Dury.
Just two insane shots that turned that loss into a
win for the Knicks. The Knicks scored twenty six points
(22:06):
over the final eight minutes to steal Game four and
take a three to one lead heading back to New York.
Here's a simple list for you guys of the execution
errors that Detroit made down the stretch their first possession,
after McHale Bridges hit a three in that right corner
to cut the lead down to eight, they ran an
ISO for Asar Thompson against Mkale Bridges, and anybody who
watched that whole game knows. Asar Thompson was really struggling
(22:29):
in that game to do anything on offense. He was
in no position to command that possession that gave it
to him and he missed. That's an execution error from
the vets on the floor putting a Sar Thompson in
that possession position. Then Nisar Thompson threw the ball out
of bounds, cut to the basket off the right slot.
K dropped it off to him and he tried to
make a connective pass him Alik Beasley, but he just
(22:50):
didn't look before he threw it and rifled the ball
out of bounds. JB. Bickerstaff finally puts Dennis Schroeder in
for him, so two big mistakes from Assar Thompson to
start to run. Jalen durn gets a defense rebound and
makes the classic young center mistake of bringing the ball down,
brings the ball down. Josh Hart comes in swipes it
off his leg off the ensuing baseline out of bounds.
Mkale Bridges comes off of a screen, Malik Beasley gets
(23:13):
caught on it. Jalen Duran again when he sees a
shooter coming off a screen is supposed to be up
at the level of the screen. He's way back in
the paint. Mcale Bridges gets another clean look right where
he just made one in the right corner knocks it
down so literally, two Jalen Durham mistakes turned what should
have been a stop into three points for the Knicks.
And again, I'm not trying to pick on Jalen duran
(23:33):
or any of these guys, Zasar Thompson. I'm just pointing
out the obvious fact that these are young players, and
young players are going to struggle with attention to detailing
big in big spots like this, right, they gave up
an easy transition. Take foul to Josh Hart on a
really bad offensive possession where he just stood out by
like the logo while Mikal Bridges was face guarding him
(23:54):
and he just watched Dennis Schroeder and Malik Beasley have
a rough offensive possession, which, like, that's fine. Like rough
offensives sessions are part of the playoffs. It's super physical.
Sometimes you just get exhausted. That's not the problem. The
problem is is both Schroeder and Beasley were slow to
get back. You can't compound the problem by not getting back.
It turned into like a three on one and Kate
had to just wrap up josh Hart. Kate turned it
(24:16):
over trying to split a ball screen. That's a little
spoiler alert. He does it again later in the game
on Kat's first three. Like I talked about, Jalen, Duran
is sinking all the way into the paint. That's just done.
That was the whole reason why they had Tobias Harris
on Cat originally to begin with, was to avoid that
specific problem. Durren just struggles to guard shooting Biggs, which
is why he shouldn't have been in that position in
(24:37):
the first place. That's on JB. Bickerstaff, like they need
to make sure that they had their matchups set up
in a way that they're not going to give up
that sort of problem, especially since Kat was frying Jalen
during anyway on an Island. It's not like you're trying
to protect Tobias Harris there in any any way. Kat
hits the fade away over Jalen during that cuts the
lead to two kid tries to Isojan and Obi, which
(25:00):
is probably the worst matchup he could attack on the floor.
We talked a lot about that. Jalen Brunson has been
much more surgical about being deliberate to get to the matchups.
He wants that hits a three to put the Knicks up.
Kid tries to split a double team again. Josh Hart
is right there, digging down off the strong side corner,
and Kay just tries to split the double team again
(25:20):
and turns it over again, and like it was just
mistake after mistake after poor decision after poor decision. But
this is just the reality of the process of developing
as a basketball team. In order to win at the
highest levels, attention to detail is required, and young, inexperienced
teams have a habit of missing those details, especially in
(25:42):
their first few playoff runs. It's all good, valuable lessons
are being learned. It's just an explanation for why, even
though Detroit presented so many problems for the Knicks over
the course of the season, I had the feeling the
Knicks we're gonna pull this series out. Last note on
the Knicks, I wanted to shout out ogn and Obi
and McHale Bridges. Neither of them had big score knights
Aw the McHale hit a couple of huge threes in
the right corner, but those guys defended about a half
(26:04):
a dozen one on ones against Kid Cunningham down the stretch,
and they didn't get beat off the dribble a single time.
They forced him into a bunch of tough, contested pull
up mid rangers, turnaround jump shots out of the post.
Brunson was getting to the rim and New York's defenders
were forcing Kate into jump shots, which has variants. You
(26:24):
might miss him right, Kate's a good mid range jump shooter,
but he might miss him. There's way less variance right
at the rim. Jalen hit some tough jumpers that step
back to his left side, step three off of against
Tim Hardaway Junior off the left wing. That's an incredibly
tough shot, but he was at the rim, and that
really is the experience element. Like Cat played three playoff
(26:50):
series last year, Jalen Brunton played four playoff series in
the last two years. This team has just a lot
of guys that have been in a lot of serious
basketball over the last few years. That gives them an
advantage in this sort of situation. Looking like the Knicks
are going to close things out in five on Tuesday,
all right, very briefly on Celtics Magic and pacers bus
(27:11):
Uh pacers Bucks. I thought Tatum was fantastic down the
stretch of this game punishing switches. He had like a
little jabstep jumper over Gary Harris. He there was kind
of like an obvious difference in just the level of
patience and deliberate nature with which Tatum was attacking switches
versus the Orlando Wings. Like there was a sequence where
(27:33):
on both ends of the floor, like Franz Vagner gets
Peyton Pritcher and he caught Peyton Pritchard as like a
primary assignment a few times down the stretches pressuring Franz.
Franz is having a lot of success attacking Porzingis. It's
kind of an interesting kind of matchup decision there to
just try to throw Franz off. But Franz tries to
like drive against Pritchard, but he rushes, he drives, and
he spins and he spins in this like rushed floater
(27:54):
and leaves it short. Right on the other end of
the floor, Tatum gets Anthony Black and he methodically takes
his time to back him down way into the lane,
and Anthony Black ends up hacking the shit out of
him and dragging him down into camera row and he
gets two free throws, And it was just kind of
crazy to see the difference between the super experienced dude
who's played in the like damn near two hundred playoff
(28:15):
games and the you know, young inexperienced team that's like
kind of figuring this out on the fly and seeing
the difference in just like how deliberate they were in
their matchup. Attacking down the stretch, Tatum hit a crazy
step back mid range of over Pala Bonkaro. He drew
three shooting fouls just by getting people to jump up
underneath his base. I just continue to be amazed by
(28:36):
Tatum's growth as a half court decision maker. The big
thing that stands out to me is just as overall comfort,
there's you see this a lot with like stars that
are at the peak of their powers in their like
early thirties, where they have so much playoff experience already
and they're so sure of who they are as a player.
They may not be quite as athletic as they used
(28:57):
to be, but they're just so smart because they've had
so much experience playing. You'll see a lot of those
guys like in high pressure situations, even late round playoff
series like Conference finals finals, You'll just see them look
comfortable and relaxed while they're playing. Tatum's in his mid
twenties and he's out there looking like one of those guys.
I that's been the thing that stood out to me
(29:18):
all season with Tatum. It's just his overall level of
comfort executing in the half court, getting this team into
the right spots to get the right shots. I loved
the set that Joe Mizula ran out of the time
out that got porzingis the dunk where he dunked his
own miss. Classic example of what happens when you try
to involve screening actions with two very different types of players,
Derek White and Chris Hops. Porzingis not a kind of
(29:41):
action that you want to switch. You don't want to
switch with Wendell Carter Junior. There, Derek White seit's a
great screen. Wendell Carter Junior falls the magic don't switch.
Porzingis is wide open under the ram. He actually smokes
the layup, but he gets a really quick second jump,
which is a strong indicator of how he's feeling physically,
and just dunks it down. Just an unb believable play
from Porzingis, Al Horford had a huge rebound or he
(30:03):
beat Franz Wagner to the ball that led to a
Derek White layup. I had a Celtics fan tweet at
me after the game that this was the type of
series that the Celtics would have been tied to two
or maybe even down three to one a couple of
years ago. But here they are up three to one
and this was super important. They need to get the
(30:23):
hell away from the Orlando Magic before someone gets hurt.
Tatum felt the urgency, executed accordingly and got the job done.
And that's why I always put such a premium on that,
like veteran presence, that experience, because a lot of times
these games are decided by the thinnest of margins. The
Magic have been in this series for the most part.
(30:45):
Outside of game too, They've been in every game. It's
like a more exaggerated example of some of the other
series we've seen, like Rockets Warriors and like Nick's Pistons,
and it just comes down to late game execution, and
the grown ups just tend to do it better in
that situation. Right. It's actually been the interesting part of
the Minnesota Timberwolve series is they've been the younger team
(31:06):
that has beat the veteran, more experienced team. But here
they are. They're up three to one, a good spot
for the Celtics to be in good shape to close
out this series all right, really quickly before we get
out of here tonight, Pacers Bucks. First of all, I
feel terrible for Dame to work as hard as he's
worked behind the scenes to get back on the court
for that series and to suffer the type of injury
that he suffered. I just hope that he's doing okay mentally.
(31:29):
I can't even imagine where he's at right now, especially
after they had just got a big win and it
was early in the game and you're in a position
where you can potentially tie the series and give yourself
a real chance to win. And it kind of reminded me.
Obviously very different type of injury, but it kind of
reminded me what happened after reminded me of what happened
in the Lakers Sun series in Game five. Yeah, I
(31:51):
think it was Game five, So the Suns were up
three to one, right if I remember correctly, and Anthony
Davis comes back, They're like Oh, Anthony Davis is back.
You know, here we go. We're gonna we're gonna have
a chance to win the series, and probably shouldn't have
come back, as Groin was obviously hurt, But in the
first few minutes of the game, Anthony Edwards just or
excuse me, Anthony Davis just suddenly realizes that, like, no,
(32:12):
I can't be playing out here right, so he has
to leave the game, and like you could just literally
see the entire body language and the belief and the
mentality of the Lakers just fall apart because they're like shit,
like we can't, like we can't win this game, this
game without Anthony Davis, Like he's our anchor to everything
that we do, right, And that's kind of what it
reminded me of tonight. Like obviously, Jannis is more important
(32:35):
to the Bucks than Dame and I and Dame at
this phase of his career is a different type of player.
But you could literally see the Bucks just kind of
let go of the rope a little bit after that
Dame injury in a weird way where it's like you
almost feel like if Dame was just out with the
blood plot for the series, you almost feel like the
Bucks would have had like a different approach going into
that game, like, all right, we don't have Dame tonight,
(32:56):
but we're gonna give this our best shot. And you
could just tell it just suck the life out of them,
and they just didn't do anything well enough. And to
make matters worse, the Pacers played a phenomenal game and
seven guys in double figures thirty six. I checked this
with two minutes left, so this might be a little
bit updated, but at like a minute forty five seconds
left in the game, they had thirty six assists on
forty eight made field goals. That's insane. That's a seventy
(33:17):
five percent assist percentage. That's like outrageous. They shot the
shit out of the basketball they shot. Damn you're forty
five percent from three. Watching them versus the Calves is
going to be a ton of fun, specifically the speed matchup.
One of the things that I'm really excited about with
that matchup is the Calves and a lot of what
they do to teams is play with pace, get into
the teeth of the defense with their speed, and the
(33:37):
Pacers do match up directly with that in a lot
of ways. To me, the Calves are just a better
version of the Pacers, right, Like you're gonna like Evan
Mobley and Jared Allen is a better front court than
Pascal Siakam and Miles Turner, Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell.
Obviously better backcourt than Andrew Mhart and Tyrese Halliburton. You
(33:58):
you know, the Calves have a different guys that they
can plug in at the three. But like the point
is is like they are kind of similar archetypes of teams,
but the Calves are just a little better at everything, right,
And that's what makes it a super interesting series because
that speed element, a lot of the things that the
Pacers do they should be comfortable with going against the Calves,
(34:19):
and I think that's going to make for a very
interesting series. That's my big prep for tomorrow. We're not
doing a film session tomorrow morning, but what I'm going
to be doing tomorrow morning is starting to watch film
on Calves Pacers. I'm really excited to dig into that series.
As for Yannis an Achilles, Tear for Dame massively devalues
the one trade asset that the Bucks would have had
to attempt to pivot this summer. So now the chances
(34:41):
of Yannis getting traded are astronomically higher than they were
before the injury, obviously, But just for the record, I'm
not going to get into anything regarding Yanni's trades at
this point until the postseason, or excuse me, until we're
done with the postseason. That's a summer conversation. It just
I haven't even really thought about it much. Maybe we
can do for fun over a mail bag one of
(35:01):
these nights. But like, I feel relatively certain that Jannis
will get traded this summer, but like, we just don't
know what how things are gonna shake down. Like it
could be a team in this playoff field that gets
eliminated and is disappointed and wants to make a super
aggressive move. It could literally be the thunder for God's sake,
Like we we have no idea what it's gonna be.
We'll talk about it a lot this summer. I just
don't want to get into it tonight. But again, I
(35:23):
feel terrible for Dame and I'm sure Bucks fans are
in a really tough spot right now. It's not a
good spot to be and I just sympathize with you guys,
and I'm thankful for you guys that you did get
a championship out of the honest and Tenakumbo era and
you can literally never take that away. All Right, guys,
that's all I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.
No morning film session tomorrow, but we will be live
(35:43):
after the final buzzer of Game four of Warriors Rockets.
I'll see you guys then tomorrow night. So guys, as always,
I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight.
It would actually be really helpful for us if you
guys would take a second and leave a rating and
a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us.
You could take a minute to do that, I really
appreciate it. The volume
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Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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