May 25, 2025 • 40 mins
Jason reacts live to Minnesota Timberwolves blowout win vs the OKC Thunder. Jason applauds Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle for their ability to bother OKC’s defensive scheme, and previews what each team must do to win Game 4. Jason wraps up with a mailbag to answer your questions.
#Volume #Herd
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. The NBA Finals are almost here and every
play could be the one that changes everything. This is
the NBA Playoffs where heroes rise, legacies are built, and
the action never lets up. And with DraftKings Sportsbook and
official sports betting partner of the NBA, you don't just
watch the madness, you live it. Back your favorite team,
(00:23):
ride with your clutch, time killer, bet on the buzzer beaters,
the breakout performances, the game winning threes, from player props
to same game parlays. This is how you take your
fandom to the next level. The New York Knicks, after
beating the Celtics are up to plus three sixty, is
the second best odds to win the title. Surprisingly, the
Pacers back at plus six hundred because my initial thought
(00:46):
on that series is I want to pick the Pacers.
But some interesting championship oods right now. New to the game,
no sweat, Download the DraftKings Sportsbook, gap bet just five
dollars and if your bet wins, you'll score three hundred
dollars in bonus bets. It's that easy. I don't know
the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code hoops. That's code
hoops hoops for new customers to get three hundred dollars
(01:07):
in bonus bets if your bet wins. When you bet
just five bucks only on DraftKings, the Crown is yours.
Gambling problem called one hundred gambler. In New York call
eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope
and why to four six seven three six y nine.
In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call eight
eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or
(01:28):
visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of
Boothill Casino and Resort. In Kansas twenty one plus age
in eligibility varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario. Bet must
win to receive reward. Bonus bets expire one hundred and
sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible
gaming resources, see dkang dot co slash audio. All right,
(02:02):
welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the volume heavy Saturday.
Everybody hopefull You guys are having a great start to
your weekend.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
The Minnesota Timberwolves made a couple of key changes to
their game plan tonight. Wrote some hot shooting and unbelievable
shot making from Aunt and Julius ed Julius Randall and
beat the living shit out of the Oklahoma City Thunder
and what was a very interesting game on a bunch
of different levels. Some stuff that's like classic game three
down two Oh buzz sauce stuff, but also some realities
(02:28):
in terms of the ability of this Minnesota team to
make Oklahoma City uncomfortable at stretches, some growth from Minnesota
shot creators, as they had by far their most successful
sustained offense in this particular game. So much interesting stuff
to get into tonight. You guys know the Joe before
we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel
so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow
(02:49):
me on Twitter at underscore json lt so you guys
don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast for
you wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's
also super helpful if you leave a rating in a
review on that front. Check out our Solos media feeds
on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. We're releasing content throughout
the year and then keep dropping questions in the chat
so that we can hit him in our mail bags
(03:09):
towards the towards the end of these shows. Now tonight's
show in particular, Jackson's out of town. So if you
guys want to get questions, we're gonna be taking chat
questions from my Twitter feeds. If you go to my
Twitter feed at underscore json LT and you scroll down,
you'll see a tweet where I asked for questions. Feel
free to drop the questions in there, and when I
get done with the breakdown, we'll head into that that
(03:31):
kind of thread there and I'll start grabbing questions from there. Also,
when we finish tonight, we're gonna be moving over to
playback again. That's playback dot tv slash Hoops tonight there
for you know, another hour or so, we're gonna be
taking callers. We'll watch some film. It's more informal. It's
a lot of fun. We just talk hoops and have
fun for an extra hour at the tail end of
(03:52):
the show. So make sure you guys head over there.
All right, let's talk some basketball. So at in the
playback session last night, we have a thunder fan th
Under a fan named Will who is graced us with
his presence several times, some fun venting and some takes
on his Thunder team, and I asked Will, I said,
what is Shay's biggest weakness? And I was trying to
(04:12):
make a point with respect to his u with the
game plan, and Will mention three point shooting. What I
was trying to say was his playmaking, specifically that if
you packed the pain against him, he's a passer that
can make reads and is a you know, certainly good
enough at the job to still be a top tier
superstar in this league. But no one's going to call
(04:35):
out Shay's playmaking as the strength of his game. And
similarly to what Will was saying, no one's going to
call out Will the SGA's three point shooting as the
strength of his game. The two things there in his
game that you would point to as like not like
the like far down the list of what he's great
at is his three point shooting and his processing in
(04:55):
the half court. What would you consider to be his strengths. Well,
he's the best high volume ISO player in the league
by a mile. Among any player who ran at least
three hundred ISOs this year. Shot out of three hundred ISOs,
he was far and away the most efficient, and he's
far and away the best driver of the basketball in
the league. You have like two hundred more drives than
(05:17):
anyone else in the NBA this year, which you know,
you can do the math there on how many times
that is per game. And so what I didn't like
about the game plan that Chris Finch used in the
first two games was he was picking up Shay really
far away from the basket with Jada McDaniels, often right
when he was crossing half court, and he was staying
glued to shooters off the ball. And one of the
(05:37):
things that did is it allowed Shay to one not
have to rely on his three point shot because he's
beating ball pressure by driving. And so you're playing into
the strength of his game by giving him a much
wider runway, a longer runway to drive past his man.
And then two, he doesn't have to rely on that
three point shot because he's not being you know, baited
(05:59):
into it by a guy playing off of him. And
then the third piece of it is if you stay
home off the ball and you let Shape play a
lot of one on one or a lot of two
on two, you're accentuating his shot, making his foul. Drifting
is scoring ability, which is the kind of thing that
made him the MVP of this league, instead of forcing
him to process tight space environments in the middle of
(06:20):
the floor and show off his passing ability, which again
he's fine at, but it's not his strength. And so
I you know, again, I was immediately annoyed about this
in game one Game two. It was defensible to run
it back just because Minnesota shot.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
So poorly in game one.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
You could talk yourself into thinking that maybe you just
shoot better overall, though, I'm a big believer, and you
spotted the Oklahoma City thunder or two oh lead. Now
they might have gone up two OHO anyway, even with
the right game plan. But you played an inferior game
plan that allowed Oklahoma City to dominate you through the
first two games, when we had a clear example in
the previous round from Denver of how to make this
(07:02):
Oklahoma City team uncomfortable. I pulled the numbers yesterday. I
can't remember exactly off top of my head, but they
had an offensive rating around like one thirteen, I believe,
against Denver, and in the first two games in an
offensive rating of one to twenty against Minnesota. Minnesota is
a substantially more talented defensive roster bigger, longer athletes that
(07:22):
are faster, deeper.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
They just have.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
They probably have two and a half good defenders for
every good defender on the Denver roster. There was no
excuse for them to be getting cut to pieces the
way that they did it. Again, I'm not sitting here
saying that that Minnesota should be up three to Oh No,
the Thunder are amazing, but you just played a game
plan that allowed the Thunder to kick the shit out
of you and score on you easily, which doesn't match
(07:48):
your specific personnel and how good they should be at
stopping this team. In theory, they should be able to
do a better job of what Denver did. The same
game plan but with better personnel should in theory lead
to dramatic results. And we saw that tonight immediately right
(08:09):
out the gates the specific ball pressure adjustment, Jaden was
not meeting Shae outside the three point line. He was
meeting him inside the three point line, not allowing him
to get that head of steam against the ball pressure,
but then against everybody else, And I thought this was
the genius little tweak from Chris Finch against everyone else
(08:29):
he was pressuring. Cause again, those guys aren't the dribble
drive threat that shake Gilders Alexander is and so what
ended up happening is you were able to neutralize that
initial problem, which was Shay he goes four for thirteen
tonight has four turnovers. He was one for four from
three with four turnovers in the first half. So again
(08:51):
you accentuated his processing in his three point shooting. You
could knock down threes and he didn't make the ree.
Simple example, there was like a play where they pinched
in off the ball, because that's the other part of it.
It's not just the ball pressure piece. They were sinking in.
You could see when Jaden is facing up against Shae.
You know, he's standing at the top of the key
(09:12):
and Shae's outside the three point line. There's a little
bit of a gap. You were seeing guys digging down
into the driving lanes. They were bringing doubles, not out
at half court, but bringing the doubles inside the three
point line, and in that zone they were able to
force Shade a pass. There was a play in the
third quarter where they brought a double team of Shae
inside the three point line around the elbow. Isaiah Joe
(09:34):
is wide open in the left corner and Shae just
throws a bad pass to Isaiah Joe And it's like,
if he throws a good pass on time, on target,
that's a three point shot that's probably going to go in.
But again, you're forcing Shay to do the thing that
he's not as good at as the other things that
he's great at. And I just thought that worked. But
then the second piece of it is pressuring the hell
(09:56):
out of everyone else, which allows Minnesota to maintain their identity.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
This is a Minnesota team.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
You guys want to know why they were picking up,
you know, picking up at half court and pressuring and
staying home off ball.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
You want to know why they were doing all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
They were doing all that stuff because that's who they
are as a basketball team. It's at their core, it's
their identity, and so they wanted to you know, and
there's a lot of basketball teams that will go about
it this way, thinking like, you know, I want to
beat the other team playing our style, you know, rather
than immediately pivot and like surrender our identity right out
(10:31):
the gates. You know, I understand that thought process, but again, ultimately,
when you get into a series like this against a
team that's better. Oklahoma City demonstrated themselves to be better.
They won nineteen more games than Minnesota this year, and
so the margins are thin, and you need to play
into what gives you the best chance to win this
(10:53):
specific series. Very similarly like I talk about it with
coaching in the big picture, you don't want to coach
for the roster. You want you coach for the roster
you had. So if you're not fast, don't play a
style of basketball that requires you to be fast and run.
Play a slower, methodical, matchup, attacking type of attack. If
you've got a really fast team with a bunch of
(11:14):
fast guards and you're not pushing the ball in transition,
you're not accentuating what your roster is good at. But
even in a very focused level in the postseason, within
one of these two week series, you got to coach
for this matchup. I don't care what your identity is.
Shaye torched you all season in that identity, and so
(11:34):
one of the things that I liked about that specific
tweak from Finch was by sagging off of Shay, but
by pressing up on everyone else, they were able to
when they had the ball, meaning well, obviously when Shaye
had the ball, those guys were sinking in. But by
pressuring up on everyone else when they had the ball,
they were able to maintain some of that aggressive ball
pressure identity that made Minnesota the basketball team that they've
(11:58):
been over the course of the last two years. And ironically,
they were able to actually fulfill, you know, something or
force something out of Oklahoma City that we very rarely see,
which is them turning the basketball over. In that first half,
they turned OKAC over a bunch and got out in
transition a bunch.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Again.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Whenever, whenever I talk about like bizarre outcomes, So this
is a bizarre outcome right Like you're it's five minutes
left in.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
The fourth quarter. You have forty four on the.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Sixty eight win thunder team that beat the shit out
of you twice in Oklahoma City. What causes you to
flip the script that dramatically, Well, like I always say,
it's not one thing. Many things have to go your
way to lead to a dynamic that dramatic. So one,
obviously the shift in the game plan containing Shay. You've
(12:52):
played him into his first bad game of the series.
Full game you have obviously was bad in the first half,
of game one, but you played Shay into a bad
game right two. The ball pressure on the other Thunder players,
forcing turnovers and getting out in transition. Those are the
two things that we've already discussed. The third thing, Ant
and Julius making the corner kicks. We've talked about this
(13:15):
NonStop through the first two games of the series. Minnesota,
for the first time tonight showed the ability to dislodge
Oklahoma City from their base defensive scheme the first time.
Thirty four in the first quarter, thirty eight in the
second quarter, thirty five in the third quarter. That's absurd.
(13:35):
They were finally able to demonstrate, hey, your baseline scheme
doesn't work. In the first two games, they were unable
to do that. Aunt and Julius forcing the issue, taking
bad shots, not making the corner kicks. When the corner
kicks were made, not knocking them down. In the first
two games of the series, the Wolves were nine for
(13:55):
thirty six on corner threes. That's twenty five percent. That's
not going to get the job done. The turnovers that
they were dealing with, all of those things that they
had to do to successfully process against this defense wasn't
getting done. Tonight as of five minutes left in the
fourth quarter, only nine turnovers. Relentlessly in this game, and
(14:20):
and Julius making the corner kickout passes over and over again,
trusting their ability to capitalize on that advantage. And it
wasn't just corner threes. I thought Jaden McDaniels in particular
did an incredible job tonight operating on that weak side
corner as a guy who was hitting threes, but also
(14:41):
making like attacking closeouts, making connective passing reads. There were
a couple of plays in the late first half that
I thought perfectly demonstrated. This one a corner kick from Julius.
Another corner kick from Ann I have in both of
my Twitter feed you can find him at underscore jsnlt.
I put him in a little thread. But Julius drives.
He he draws Shay in and help because again all
(15:02):
series long, Oklahoma City has been packing the paint and
conceding those corner kickouts. Julius makes the corner kickout. There's
a close out. That close out is an advantage, right,
got to capitalize on that advantage. Jayden racks to the
baseline and on that rip the remove because he beats
the close out, He's able to generate dribble penetration and
(15:25):
it forces the big man to step up. Then Rudy
Gobert very smartly teas up, meaning he just kind of
relocates from the opposite dunker spot right in front of
the rim and makes himself available. Jaden drops it off
to him, Rudy catches. Then lou Dort has to because
he has no choice digging, and also it's just kind
of part of the way the Thunder play basketball. Swoop
(15:46):
in to try to steal it from Gobert, and as
a result, Nikil Alexander Walker is wide open at the
top of the key. Rudy another connective past pitches it
to Nikil at the top of the key. Pump fakes
on the close out, gets in the lane and gets
an easy, breezy floater in the lane where Oklahoma City
typically is swarming, but not attacking at the beginning of
(16:09):
the possession, but kicking on the beginning of the possession,
moving the ball, and suddenly things get loose. Suddenly there's
an opportunity in the middle of the floor where you
can look to be aggressive without having to deal with
the swarm of Oklahoma City defenders very similar one. Aunt
drives kicks to the corner to Jaden, draws an extra
(16:29):
rotation from the top of the wing, pitches it to
Nas read another really aggressive closeout. Nas just shows the ball,
Dude goes flying by, puts the ball on the floor,
and then Easy Breezy settles into a wide open three
on the right wing that he knocks down. That's advantage basketball.
That's how you have to break down this Oklahoma City defense.
(16:50):
Get into the middle, make the corner kicks, knock them
down when you're wide open, drive closeouts, make the connective reads.
Then you're gonna see opportunities for Aunt and Julius to
be aggressive on the backside. But again, there's more to
it than just that. Even the Aunt and Julius over
the top shot making like Aunt and Julius just did
(17:11):
a better job of being a little more selective on
the types of pull up jump shots they were taking.
I thought Ant took some really tough ones in the
second half, but he got his rhythm first. He got
it going with some easier looks against drop coverage or
beating gambles, and so when he got his jumper going,
then in the second half, he went to some really
(17:31):
tough bits of shot making, but it came in the
flow after he already built his rhythm. Julius Randalls over
the top shot making in the short range and a
pull up three as well. Like you saw the shot
making from the stars meet the moment as well, guys
knocking down their catch and shoot threes. As of the
time we started the show, there were seven Timberwolves players
that hit multiple threes and going there. Naseri two for three,
(17:54):
Dante DiVincenzo two for two, Ni Kil, Alexander Walker two
for four, Ant five for eight, Mike Conley two for six,
Jada McDaniel's two for four, Julius Randall two for five.
So all those dudes multiple threes, all of them hit
over forty percent except for Mike Conley.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
So the shooting followed right again.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
If you're gonna beat the shit out of a team
that just previously blew you out, you need a bunch
of factors to go your way. Game plan shift, forcing
turnovers and getting out in transition. Aunt and Julius making
the reads, guys knocking down corner threes, connective playmaking, attacking closeouts,
Aunt and Julius hitting shots over the top, and then
what I thought was a really smart little move from
Chris Finch to start in the I think he was
(18:33):
right at the start of the second quarter if I
remember correctly, but it's in the first half. I thought
he read the room right and was like, oh, we're
forcing turnovers, we're getting out in transition. This is very
much like a up and down the floor type of game.
How about we throw Terrence Shannon in there. And Terrence Shannon,
you know, in a league where it's hard to stand
out as an athlete, this guy pops off the screen
(18:55):
every time I watch him as an athlete. And he
got some opportunities to attack, to slash off the wing,
to slash in transition, and I thought he was great
in his shift. I thought, there's just a really smart
move from Chris Finch in that spot. So obviously everything
goes Minnesota's way in this game and they get a
big win. The question is can Minnesota still win this series?
(19:19):
The problem is is you spotted Oklahoma City a two
to oh lead with a foolish game plan. Now, again,
as I mentioned before, there's no guarantee that you would
have had an opportunity to win either of those games,
which you probably have a better chance to win those
games if you end up you starting the series with
an appropriate game plan. The problem is now you still
(19:39):
even after tonight, you have to win three of the
next four games, and at least one of those games
needs to be one in Oklahoma City, maybe two. If
OKAC manages to steal one game in your building, Oklahoma
City will come out and play better in game two.
There are obvious things that will swing and excuse me
in game four, apologize game two minute soda. Oklahoma City
(20:02):
will play better in game four, there's a couple of
obvious things that will tilt back their way. They're gonna
come out with a more desperate defensive effort with a
ton of physicality, like that's just guaranteed right out the gates,
which means Aunt and Julius are gonna have to be
even more deliberate with protecting the ball, with making the
appropriate reads. Guys are gonna have to hit threes against
(20:22):
tighter closeouts. Guys when they drive closeouts are gonna have
to deal with sharper closeouts containing the ball that they're
gonna have to do a better job beating and making
those subsequent reads out of it. Right, Oklahoma City turned
the ball over a lot at the beginning of this game.
I would expect Oklahoma City to turn the ball over
less in Game four. Right, They're gonna be more methodical,
(20:44):
like they have seen this style of defense before. They
saw it in the Denver series. So we're gonna see
them most likely try to bring back some of that
methodical playmaking and shot making that we saw in the
Denver series at stretches right, So like Oklahoma City, you
will play way better in Game four and this margin
will be way tighter. Now, the case if you're a
(21:06):
Minnesota fan and you're looking for a reason to feel
optimistic about your chances to come back and win the series,
the case is that you did some real damage tonight.
This was not a win. This was an ass kicking.
I thought you shook the thunder to their core tonight.
You had them looking disheveled and doing things they don't
(21:27):
normally do. Shae was awful. You played them into a
bunch of turnovers. Look at how many times this year
Shae was four for thirteen tonight. Go look at how
many times this year Shaye shot that poorly from the field.
That's thirty one percent. I pulled the numbers for the
show the other day. He had single digit games this
year below forty percent from the field, guys like Jalen Brunson,
(21:50):
guys like Anthony Edwards, they had more than twenty such games.
You played Shay into an uncharacteristically tough game. You played
a team that doesn't turn the bast over into a
bunch of turnovers. You took a sixty eight win team
that I said the last night, I would be shocked
if they didn't win the title at this point, and
(22:11):
you beat the shit out of them. So if you're
looking for optimism, that's what you cling to. You did
some real damage. I would be shocked if Oklahoma City
blew you out in game four. Game four is going
to most likely be a tight, competitive game that will
come down to some sort of sequence down the stretch.
(22:31):
And if you can execute, and you execute the game
plan specifically, and if Julius and and make the appropriate reads,
the guys play smart off of those advantages and finish
plays with shot making. There is a real chance here.
But there's a reason why in NBA history. I saw
a stat the other day I believe only six times
(22:51):
in the conference finals a team has come back from
down two. Oh, there's a reason why you're not playing
against bums anymore. This is the conference Finalslahoma City has
been the championship favorite since like the last third of
the regular season. This is a real team, and you
got to beat them four out of five times, took
care one, but now you got to win three out
of four, and it's just really hard to do. It's
(23:12):
really hard to sustain. And so with that being the case,
like I still feel like the thunder are in a
commanding position here, but you just got to take it
one game at a time. We talked about this last night.
You win for New York, it's the same kind of thing.
Just win game three, it changes the series. Win game three,
all of a sudden, Game four becomes the pivot point.
(23:35):
If you win game four, you go back to Oklahoma
City in a two to two series with the appropriate
game plan, and you feel like you have a better
chance to win the series at that point. Theoretically, at
that point, you're in better shape than you are in
game one zero zero, because now you know the way
that you want to play and you only got to
beat them twice. Same thing goes with the Knicks win
(23:58):
game three, all of a sudden, Game four becomes the
pivot point. You win game four, it's two to two,
you're going home for a best of three, and you've
figured out some stuff with the way you want to play.
You just have to keep taking it one game at
a time. All right, bear with me for just a
second because Jackson's gone, So I'm gonna pull up the
(24:19):
tweet here so I can get these questions from you guys.
All Right, I know it's the playoffs and adjustments that matter.
But do you think that Finch not adjusting the base
defensive scheme in the first two games is him just
(24:40):
not wanting to overreact and having confidence in his player's
ability to execute. Absolutely, That's what we talked about earlier.
There's there's a kind of push and pull that you
see in every single like weird matchup that kind of
leads to a blink like kind of a staring contest
between the coaches. For instance, like let's say a fast
(25:01):
team and a slow team play against each other. Imagine
like a lightning fast Golden State Warriors team with like
Draymond Green at center in like twenty twenty two and
then like, imagine a two big group, so call it,
you know, this year's Minnesota Timberwolves versus the twenty twenty
two Warriors or another two big team like Houston or
(25:24):
something like that. With those situations, it's like who's gonna blink? Like,
are is the small team gonna be like, shit, we
can't out small these guys, Let's go big, Or is
the big team gonna go like, shit, we're too slow
for these guys, Let's go small like and it's like
who's gonna be the first team that blinks? And I
think there's a certain amount of like I think Chris
(25:46):
Finch wanted to go out there with his base scheme
and just be like, let's see if the thunder can
beat the Timberwolves. The problem is is like they beat
you pretty good in game one, and they cut you
a pieces in that game, and it was pretty clear
right away in game two that they could score whenever
they wanted to. Again, so they're like, there was no
(26:07):
real point in game two where Minnesota took substantial control,
and so they did, for the record, to Finch his credit,
like they did the game was just already out of reach.
They did start doing this like kind of meet and
Shae further back and packing the paint thing on, like
some of the final possessions in the fourth quarter of
Game two.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
It just was one of those things.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Where like, maybe if you do it earlier, this series
is two to one now instead of one to two.
But again, it's it is what it is. I'm I'm
generally of the opinion that in the postseason you cannot
waste time. Ask the Knicks who just blew Game one.
Ask the Lakers who got punched in the face by
the Wolves in Game one. You know, there's so many
(26:47):
different examples like this in all these different series, Like
you cannot afford to spot teams wins in the postseason.
So I'm generally of the belief that you should attack
right away with the method that gives you the best
chance to win that series, and make adjustments quicker rather
than slower. We're talking about this with Jackson yesterday, just
(27:10):
with I think it was Jake Iszenberg yesterday, like be
quick to don't be stubborn, be quick to make the
appropriate adjustment to give you the best chance to win
a playoff series.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
All right, let's look at some other questions here.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Hey, Jason, question here, something I noticed in these playoffs
is the increase significance of elite team conditioning allah the
relentless Pacers and OKC defense. I know you mentioned attention
to detail in the last video, and I think there's
a correlation there.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
What are your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I think we've seen this with the Knicks to just
in general, with the way that they pushed their guys minutes.
The Pacers dominated the second half of the season. The
Knicks underachieved this year, but they played all their guys
big minutes, and like those dudes were asked to do
a ton. The Thunder attacked the regular season relentlessly. Timberwolves
(28:02):
a little bit up and down over the course of
the year, but took down the stretch of the season.
They were playing great basketball. In general, the best way
to prefer, like you know that old expression, the best
indicator of future performance is past performance. Similarly like your
best chance to play your best basketball when you need
to is to practice playing your best basketball. Like as
(28:26):
a Laker fan, for instance, I didn't think the Laker
defense was anywhere near as good as it was before
Lebron heard his groin. When Lebron heard his groin. He
was out for a while, the defense fell off a
cliff when Lebron came back. There was never really a
point from that point to the end of the season
where they looked like the same defense that they were
before the injuries. So yeah, I'm not surprised that they
(28:48):
went into the Minnesota Series and they were playing some
shitty defense. I think there's a certain amount of like
in general preparing for playoff basketball as it pertains specifically
to Oklahoma City in Indiana. These are two teams that
play a very hectic style with full court ball pressure
and a ton of rotation speed and flying up and
down the floor and transition on offense. These are teams
(29:11):
that need to be deep and need to be in
great shape. It's just something that's necessary for their specific
play style. Alrighty is Pascal the underrated X factor in
the Eastern Conference Finals that I think he is? The
Knicks don't seem to have an answer for him. Going
back to what we had last year in the postseason.
(29:31):
If you guys remember when Og and Deobi got hurt,
Pascal caught Josh Hart for a lot of like this
primary assignment stuff, and he was just cooking his ass
all over the place. But like in general, Siakam is
the missing piece to the Indiana Pacer offense from what
it already was before the trade last year, which was
(29:52):
that one of the best pick and role players in
the league, a guy that is going to consistently set
teams up with their team up with an advantage and
they could play advantage basketball with the best of them.
But what a guy like Siakam gives you is the
ability to create his own advantage one on one, and
you know it's gonna be different levels of value in
different games based on the way the flow is. Ideally,
(30:13):
I'm sure the Pacers would like to never have to
use Pascal as an ISO player and have him attacking
with an advantage consistently.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
And by the way he does that, he had a
couple of big catch and shoot threes.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
But like the it's like a break glass in case
of we got stopped by the defense, just give the
ball to passcal he can go get a bucket. And
with that being the case, he becomes vitally important within
that specific Pacers construct.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
All right, let's see.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Here this game in particular by the Wolves involved them
simply playing with a level of intensity and force that okay,
so he expected from them but was unable to match.
Finch finally made the defensive adjustments on Shay as well.
What is sustainable for the going into Game four? For
the talked a little bit about this early earlier, but
like again, I think the Thunder will absolutely bring a
(31:07):
better defensive effort right away, Like you're probably not going
to score seventy two points in the first half, right
and they certainly will take better care of the basketball.
I can't remember exactly what the numbers were because they've
been adopted adapted to the full game. I guess I
can give you the full game numbers real quick. They
gave up sixteen points off of turnovers in this game,
but I think thirteen or fifteen of them, like most
(31:27):
of those came in the first half, and by the way,
Oklahoma City cleaned that up literally in the second half
of this game. So I think they will take care
better care of the ball.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
So what are the And.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Also I think Aunt and Julius hitting really tough pull
up jump shots. There's a certain amount of variance in that,
so there's a there's a version of Game four where
those guys just don't hit the same shots. So what
is it going to be that Minnesota can certainly bring
into the next game the right game plan. So again,
just sagging off of Shay packing the paint, ball, pressuring
the other guys when they have the ball, and then
(31:57):
on offense, Julius and Aunt making the corner kicks whenever
they can, and then playing advantage basketball out of that
whenever they have an opportunity to that. They found a
formula now that has shown the ability to work. Tea
Wolves fan, but do you think fatigue played a factor?
If so, it's going to be a long series. No,
(32:17):
that everybody in Oklahoma City, Jersey is who plays in
their rotation is twenty six or younger except for Alex Crusoe.
So any of you guys who still play basketball at
my age in your mid thirties will be able to
tell you how it feels a lot different when you're
twenty five twenty four, when you've got to play every
other night.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I still remember.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Playing legitimately, like four hours of pickup basketball a night
when I was that age, you know, So like it's
just a different it's just a different physical ask for
an Oklahoma City team. That said, there is like just
part of human nature in terms of the natural kind
of pullback of intensity that is going to take place
(32:57):
naturally as part of urgency. Like this same Thunder team
kind of got smacked by Memphis and would have lost
Game three if John Moran didn't get hurt, and so like,
there is a certain natural tendency to see that kind
of pullback in these sorts of situations. How much defensively
would the Wolves actually lose if they replaced Rudy with
(33:19):
a mid level guy who can actually shoot. I generally
am of the belief, and I thought Rudy was better tonight.
Just was more active on the defensive glass and had
a couple of sequences where he had better success against
Shaye than he did in earlier parts of the series.
But the thing with Rudy is his value as a
rimp protector is actually less in a scheme where you've
(33:39):
got so many quality perimeter defenders relative to what his
value looked like in Utah, for example, where you know
he was cleaning up messes constantly because there were you know,
Donovan Mitchell couldn't guard, Joe Ingles couldn't guard, you know,
Mike Conley couldn't guard you know, Jordan Clarson couldn't guard.
They just had a bunch of dudes who couldn't slide
their feet. It was like Royce O'Neill was the only
(33:59):
guy who could like really guard, you know, for that team.
And so you know, in this particular type of scheme, Like,
I think there's a reason why Minnesota's consistently all year
looked fantastic when it's Nas reading Dante DiVincenzo. It's because
it's just a bunch of elite perimeter defenders and the
ability to space the floor with NAS's shooting ability. All right,
(34:20):
what suggestion do you have for changing the knicks starting
and closing lineups? What do you think of changing out
Heart for Deuce in the starting lineup just to keep
up with the Pacers during that time, then win the
minutes with Mitch closing with Mitch og Deuce, McHale and Brunson.
So this is the thing. Mitchell Robinson to me, is
very much a player that relies on exerting energy. And
(34:45):
by the way, if you pull up his numbers from
last night, in the second half, he had I think
one offensive rebound, I think he had one block, and
I think he was minus seven in his minutes. He
was dominant in his first half stretch. The thing with
Mitch is, I think you want to keep his minutes
in that like eighteen to twenty two range because that's
(35:06):
where he is most effective with his motor. You want
him playing, you know, basically two shifts a game, right,
you know, bridging the first and second quarters and bridging
the third and fourth quarters. Like, that's what you want.
And again there's a conversation to be had about the
big picture in terms of whether or not you should
try to find a player that can kind of approximate
what Mitch Mitch does, but is capable of playing thirty
(35:28):
thirty five minutes a night. But with this, within this
scale of this, within the scope of this particular postseason series.
You know, Mitch played what twenty nine minutes I think
in game in game two, like and in those final minutes,
you know, in his twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight,
twenty ninth minute, that was when he was like leaving
(35:49):
Siakam and leaving Turner open and making a couple of
sketchy decisions defensively and like helping recover situations. So like,
I think, if you're going to try to close with
min which by the way, opens up some other problems
in terms of spacing. But if you close with Mitch,
you want to make sure that he's closing within the
(36:09):
scope of a minute load that he can handle. And
so it's one thing to say, let's put Deuce in
the starting lineup. I think Deuce can handle heavy minutes.
And the reality is Josh Hart is just not doing
enough damage offensively out there in his minutes. But with
Mitch in particular, I don't think you want to be
necessarily closing with him unless you can keep his minutes down,
(36:29):
and so he might just have to get kind of
creative with the rotation in order to make that happen.
All right, let me double check really quick to make
sure I didn't miss any. Are there any defensive adjustments
you think the Knicks can make versus Indy or are
they just going to have to try to beat them
in shootouts. I'm gonna be honest with you guys, Like,
if you watch the film from the first two games
of this series, Kat is like utterly lost on the
(36:51):
defensive end of the four. It looks like he has
no idea what he wants to do. He's like I
saw some clips, some defensive clips from game two where
like he threw some of the worst high drop kind
of hedge blitz whatever you want to call him, type
of looks i've ever seen where he's coming out way
too high and then in rotation he's just kind of
running around like a chicken with his head cut off,
(37:12):
and then like the ball go in the basket or
a cutter will catch it open, he kind of just
looks around like like what do you guys want me
to do? And and it just he just looks lost
out there. And so I you know, if you asked
me what was the best possible game plan to try
to proceed with moving forward, to me, it would be
with Cat. It would just be switching everything to prevent
the obvious drop coverage looks that you can get and
(37:35):
then just communicate like crazy behind Cat to make sure
that he doesn't get lost. But it's when he's in
these two on the ball situations and he has to
rotate that he's getting lost. And so I would just,
you know, try as hard as you can to turn
Indiana into an ISO team, and the best way to
do that is by switching. But there are some realities
to the fact that you know, I saw someone say,
I saw a Celtics fans say, or as a Pacers
(37:56):
fan say on Twitter, like this is going to be
very different than keeping Tatum in front. And I was
like when I read that, I was like, I was
trying to tell you guys this, like it's a very
different series. Like it's the Celtics succumb to switching. They
allow switching to stagnate them because they want to play
one on one and yeah, Tatum and Brown are two
guys that will absolutely settle if you slide your feet
(38:21):
reasonably well. The Pacers do not succumb to switching until
the end of the clock or for a very deep
post up. They are a team that plays with so
much pace and verve in the half court. They'll make
you execute fifteen to twenty switches before the end of
the possession, and inevitably you're gonna fuck one of them up.
(38:41):
And when you do, now they don't have to play
ice of ball. They can play drive and pick out
of that. And so again, like it's it's just it's
a really tough matchup with Cat out there, and you
can't just like bench Cat. You don't have the depth
for that, and so, like, you know, honestly, like all
all you can hope for is that they just play better,
that they do a better job within their scheme. By
(39:01):
the way, like I I think the Knicks have a
decent chance to win tomorrow night. Like I'm I'm not
gonna sit here and be surprised if if the Knicks
win tomorrow night. Now, like I feel almost certain that
Indiana's gonna get one of those two games, which means
they're gonna be up three to one, which means they're
gonna probably go to the finals. But like there's this
series isn't over. You just got to take it one
game at a time. But it's just the construct of
(39:22):
this team depends too much on Jalen Brunson and and
uh uh Karl Anthony Towns to be attentive and focused
and to give the requisite intensity in their rotations, and
the two of them are just not good at that.
And so it just it just to me looks like
a matchup that's gonna be tough for them to overcome.
All right, guys, that's all we have for right now.
(39:43):
We're gonna head over to playback again. That's playback dot
TV slash Hoops tonight. We'll hang out there for about
forty five minutes or so. We'd be taking callers and
watching some film. Again is always sincerely appreciate you guys
for supporting me and supporting the show. We will see
you guys next time. What's up guys? As always, I
appreciate you for listening to and supporting Hoops tonight. They
would actually be really helpful for us if you guys
would take a second and leave a rating and a review.
(40:05):
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I really
appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
The volume
The volume. The NBA Finals are almost here and every
play could be the one that changes everything. This is
the NBA Playoffs where heroes rise, legacies are built, and
the action never lets up. And with DraftKings Sportsbook and
official sports betting partner of the NBA, you don't just
watch the madness, you live it. Back your favorite team,
(00:23):
ride with your clutch, time killer, bet on the buzzer beaters,
the breakout performances, the game winning threes, from player props
to same game parlays. This is how you take your
fandom to the next level. The New York Knicks, after
beating the Celtics are up to plus three sixty, is
the second best odds to win the title. Surprisingly, the
Pacers back at plus six hundred because my initial thought
(00:46):
on that series is I want to pick the Pacers.
But some interesting championship oods right now. New to the game,
no sweat, Download the DraftKings Sportsbook, gap bet just five
dollars and if your bet wins, you'll score three hundred
dollars in bonus bets. It's that easy. I don't know
the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code hoops. That's code
hoops hoops for new customers to get three hundred dollars
(01:07):
in bonus bets if your bet wins. When you bet
just five bucks only on DraftKings, the Crown is yours.
Gambling problem called one hundred gambler. In New York call
eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope
and why to four six seven three six y nine.
In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call eight
eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or
(01:28):
visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of
Boothill Casino and Resort. In Kansas twenty one plus age
in eligibility varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario. Bet must
win to receive reward. Bonus bets expire one hundred and
sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible
gaming resources, see dkang dot co slash audio. All right,
(02:02):
welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the volume heavy Saturday.
Everybody hopefull You guys are having a great start to
your weekend.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
The Minnesota Timberwolves made a couple of key changes to
their game plan tonight. Wrote some hot shooting and unbelievable
shot making from Aunt and Julius ed Julius Randall and
beat the living shit out of the Oklahoma City Thunder
and what was a very interesting game on a bunch
of different levels. Some stuff that's like classic game three
down two Oh buzz sauce stuff, but also some realities
(02:28):
in terms of the ability of this Minnesota team to
make Oklahoma City uncomfortable at stretches, some growth from Minnesota
shot creators, as they had by far their most successful
sustained offense in this particular game. So much interesting stuff
to get into tonight. You guys know the Joe before
we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel
so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow
(02:49):
me on Twitter at underscore json lt so you guys
don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast for
you wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's
also super helpful if you leave a rating in a
review on that front. Check out our Solos media feeds
on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. We're releasing content throughout
the year and then keep dropping questions in the chat
so that we can hit him in our mail bags
(03:09):
towards the towards the end of these shows. Now tonight's
show in particular, Jackson's out of town. So if you
guys want to get questions, we're gonna be taking chat
questions from my Twitter feeds. If you go to my
Twitter feed at underscore json LT and you scroll down,
you'll see a tweet where I asked for questions. Feel
free to drop the questions in there, and when I
get done with the breakdown, we'll head into that that
(03:31):
kind of thread there and I'll start grabbing questions from there. Also,
when we finish tonight, we're gonna be moving over to
playback again. That's playback dot tv slash Hoops tonight there
for you know, another hour or so, we're gonna be
taking callers. We'll watch some film. It's more informal. It's
a lot of fun. We just talk hoops and have
fun for an extra hour at the tail end of
(03:52):
the show. So make sure you guys head over there.
All right, let's talk some basketball. So at in the
playback session last night, we have a thunder fan th
Under a fan named Will who is graced us with
his presence several times, some fun venting and some takes
on his Thunder team, and I asked Will, I said,
what is Shay's biggest weakness? And I was trying to
(04:12):
make a point with respect to his u with the
game plan, and Will mention three point shooting. What I
was trying to say was his playmaking, specifically that if
you packed the pain against him, he's a passer that
can make reads and is a you know, certainly good
enough at the job to still be a top tier
superstar in this league. But no one's going to call
(04:35):
out Shay's playmaking as the strength of his game. And
similarly to what Will was saying, no one's going to
call out Will the SGA's three point shooting as the
strength of his game. The two things there in his
game that you would point to as like not like
the like far down the list of what he's great
at is his three point shooting and his processing in
(04:55):
the half court. What would you consider to be his strengths. Well,
he's the best high volume ISO player in the league
by a mile. Among any player who ran at least
three hundred ISOs this year. Shot out of three hundred ISOs,
he was far and away the most efficient, and he's
far and away the best driver of the basketball in
the league. You have like two hundred more drives than
(05:17):
anyone else in the NBA this year, which you know,
you can do the math there on how many times
that is per game. And so what I didn't like
about the game plan that Chris Finch used in the
first two games was he was picking up Shay really
far away from the basket with Jada McDaniels, often right
when he was crossing half court, and he was staying
glued to shooters off the ball. And one of the
(05:37):
things that did is it allowed Shay to one not
have to rely on his three point shot because he's
beating ball pressure by driving. And so you're playing into
the strength of his game by giving him a much
wider runway, a longer runway to drive past his man.
And then two, he doesn't have to rely on that
three point shot because he's not being you know, baited
(05:59):
into it by a guy playing off of him. And
then the third piece of it is if you stay
home off the ball and you let Shape play a
lot of one on one or a lot of two
on two, you're accentuating his shot, making his foul. Drifting
is scoring ability, which is the kind of thing that
made him the MVP of this league, instead of forcing
him to process tight space environments in the middle of
(06:20):
the floor and show off his passing ability, which again
he's fine at, but it's not his strength. And so
I you know, again, I was immediately annoyed about this
in game one Game two. It was defensible to run
it back just because Minnesota shot.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
So poorly in game one.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
You could talk yourself into thinking that maybe you just
shoot better overall, though, I'm a big believer, and you
spotted the Oklahoma City thunder or two oh lead. Now
they might have gone up two OHO anyway, even with
the right game plan. But you played an inferior game
plan that allowed Oklahoma City to dominate you through the
first two games, when we had a clear example in
the previous round from Denver of how to make this
(07:02):
Oklahoma City team uncomfortable. I pulled the numbers yesterday. I
can't remember exactly off top of my head, but they
had an offensive rating around like one thirteen, I believe,
against Denver, and in the first two games in an
offensive rating of one to twenty against Minnesota. Minnesota is
a substantially more talented defensive roster bigger, longer athletes that
(07:22):
are faster, deeper.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
They just have.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
They probably have two and a half good defenders for
every good defender on the Denver roster. There was no
excuse for them to be getting cut to pieces the
way that they did it. Again, I'm not sitting here
saying that that Minnesota should be up three to Oh No,
the Thunder are amazing, but you just played a game
plan that allowed the Thunder to kick the shit out
of you and score on you easily, which doesn't match
(07:48):
your specific personnel and how good they should be at
stopping this team. In theory, they should be able to
do a better job of what Denver did. The same
game plan but with better personnel should in theory lead
to dramatic results. And we saw that tonight immediately right
(08:09):
out the gates the specific ball pressure adjustment, Jaden was
not meeting Shae outside the three point line. He was
meeting him inside the three point line, not allowing him
to get that head of steam against the ball pressure,
but then against everybody else, And I thought this was
the genius little tweak from Chris Finch against everyone else
(08:29):
he was pressuring. Cause again, those guys aren't the dribble
drive threat that shake Gilders Alexander is and so what
ended up happening is you were able to neutralize that
initial problem, which was Shay he goes four for thirteen
tonight has four turnovers. He was one for four from
three with four turnovers in the first half. So again
(08:51):
you accentuated his processing in his three point shooting. You
could knock down threes and he didn't make the ree.
Simple example, there was like a play where they pinched
in off the ball, because that's the other part of it.
It's not just the ball pressure piece. They were sinking in.
You could see when Jaden is facing up against Shae.
You know, he's standing at the top of the key
(09:12):
and Shae's outside the three point line. There's a little
bit of a gap. You were seeing guys digging down
into the driving lanes. They were bringing doubles, not out
at half court, but bringing the doubles inside the three
point line, and in that zone they were able to
force Shade a pass. There was a play in the
third quarter where they brought a double team of Shae
inside the three point line around the elbow. Isaiah Joe
(09:34):
is wide open in the left corner and Shae just
throws a bad pass to Isaiah Joe And it's like,
if he throws a good pass on time, on target,
that's a three point shot that's probably going to go in.
But again, you're forcing Shay to do the thing that
he's not as good at as the other things that
he's great at. And I just thought that worked. But
then the second piece of it is pressuring the hell
(09:56):
out of everyone else, which allows Minnesota to maintain their identity.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
This is a Minnesota team.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
You guys want to know why they were picking up,
you know, picking up at half court and pressuring and
staying home off ball.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
You want to know why they were doing all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
They were doing all that stuff because that's who they
are as a basketball team. It's at their core, it's
their identity, and so they wanted to you know, and
there's a lot of basketball teams that will go about
it this way, thinking like, you know, I want to
beat the other team playing our style, you know, rather
than immediately pivot and like surrender our identity right out
(10:31):
the gates. You know, I understand that thought process, but again, ultimately,
when you get into a series like this against a
team that's better. Oklahoma City demonstrated themselves to be better.
They won nineteen more games than Minnesota this year, and
so the margins are thin, and you need to play
into what gives you the best chance to win this
(10:53):
specific series. Very similarly like I talk about it with
coaching in the big picture, you don't want to coach
for the roster. You want you coach for the roster
you had. So if you're not fast, don't play a
style of basketball that requires you to be fast and run.
Play a slower, methodical, matchup, attacking type of attack. If
you've got a really fast team with a bunch of
(11:14):
fast guards and you're not pushing the ball in transition,
you're not accentuating what your roster is good at. But
even in a very focused level in the postseason, within
one of these two week series, you got to coach
for this matchup. I don't care what your identity is.
Shaye torched you all season in that identity, and so
(11:34):
one of the things that I liked about that specific
tweak from Finch was by sagging off of Shay, but
by pressing up on everyone else, they were able to
when they had the ball, meaning well, obviously when Shaye
had the ball, those guys were sinking in. But by
pressuring up on everyone else when they had the ball,
they were able to maintain some of that aggressive ball
pressure identity that made Minnesota the basketball team that they've
(11:58):
been over the course of the last two years. And ironically,
they were able to actually fulfill, you know, something or
force something out of Oklahoma City that we very rarely see,
which is them turning the basketball over. In that first half,
they turned OKAC over a bunch and got out in
transition a bunch.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Again.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Whenever, whenever I talk about like bizarre outcomes, So this
is a bizarre outcome right Like you're it's five minutes
left in.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
The fourth quarter. You have forty four on the.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Sixty eight win thunder team that beat the shit out
of you twice in Oklahoma City. What causes you to
flip the script that dramatically, Well, like I always say,
it's not one thing. Many things have to go your
way to lead to a dynamic that dramatic. So one,
obviously the shift in the game plan containing Shay. You've
(12:52):
played him into his first bad game of the series.
Full game you have obviously was bad in the first half,
of game one, but you played Shay into a bad
game right two. The ball pressure on the other Thunder players,
forcing turnovers and getting out in transition. Those are the
two things that we've already discussed. The third thing, Ant
and Julius making the corner kicks. We've talked about this
(13:15):
NonStop through the first two games of the series. Minnesota,
for the first time tonight showed the ability to dislodge
Oklahoma City from their base defensive scheme the first time.
Thirty four in the first quarter, thirty eight in the
second quarter, thirty five in the third quarter. That's absurd.
(13:35):
They were finally able to demonstrate, hey, your baseline scheme
doesn't work. In the first two games, they were unable
to do that. Aunt and Julius forcing the issue, taking
bad shots, not making the corner kicks. When the corner
kicks were made, not knocking them down. In the first
two games of the series, the Wolves were nine for
(13:55):
thirty six on corner threes. That's twenty five percent. That's
not going to get the job done. The turnovers that
they were dealing with, all of those things that they
had to do to successfully process against this defense wasn't
getting done. Tonight as of five minutes left in the
fourth quarter, only nine turnovers. Relentlessly in this game, and
(14:20):
and Julius making the corner kickout passes over and over again,
trusting their ability to capitalize on that advantage. And it
wasn't just corner threes. I thought Jaden McDaniels in particular
did an incredible job tonight operating on that weak side
corner as a guy who was hitting threes, but also
(14:41):
making like attacking closeouts, making connective passing reads. There were
a couple of plays in the late first half that
I thought perfectly demonstrated. This one a corner kick from Julius.
Another corner kick from Ann I have in both of
my Twitter feed you can find him at underscore jsnlt.
I put him in a little thread. But Julius drives.
He he draws Shay in and help because again all
(15:02):
series long, Oklahoma City has been packing the paint and
conceding those corner kickouts. Julius makes the corner kickout. There's
a close out. That close out is an advantage, right,
got to capitalize on that advantage. Jayden racks to the
baseline and on that rip the remove because he beats
the close out, He's able to generate dribble penetration and
(15:25):
it forces the big man to step up. Then Rudy
Gobert very smartly teas up, meaning he just kind of
relocates from the opposite dunker spot right in front of
the rim and makes himself available. Jaden drops it off
to him, Rudy catches. Then lou Dort has to because
he has no choice digging, and also it's just kind
of part of the way the Thunder play basketball. Swoop
(15:46):
in to try to steal it from Gobert, and as
a result, Nikil Alexander Walker is wide open at the
top of the key. Rudy another connective past pitches it
to Nikil at the top of the key. Pump fakes
on the close out, gets in the lane and gets
an easy, breezy floater in the lane where Oklahoma City
typically is swarming, but not attacking at the beginning of
(16:09):
the possession, but kicking on the beginning of the possession,
moving the ball, and suddenly things get loose. Suddenly there's
an opportunity in the middle of the floor where you
can look to be aggressive without having to deal with
the swarm of Oklahoma City defenders very similar one. Aunt
drives kicks to the corner to Jaden, draws an extra
(16:29):
rotation from the top of the wing, pitches it to
Nas read another really aggressive closeout. Nas just shows the ball,
Dude goes flying by, puts the ball on the floor,
and then Easy Breezy settles into a wide open three
on the right wing that he knocks down. That's advantage basketball.
That's how you have to break down this Oklahoma City defense.
(16:50):
Get into the middle, make the corner kicks, knock them
down when you're wide open, drive closeouts, make the connective reads.
Then you're gonna see opportunities for Aunt and Julius to
be aggressive on the backside. But again, there's more to
it than just that. Even the Aunt and Julius over
the top shot making like Aunt and Julius just did
(17:11):
a better job of being a little more selective on
the types of pull up jump shots they were taking.
I thought Ant took some really tough ones in the
second half, but he got his rhythm first. He got
it going with some easier looks against drop coverage or
beating gambles, and so when he got his jumper going,
then in the second half, he went to some really
(17:31):
tough bits of shot making, but it came in the
flow after he already built his rhythm. Julius Randalls over
the top shot making in the short range and a
pull up three as well. Like you saw the shot
making from the stars meet the moment as well, guys
knocking down their catch and shoot threes. As of the
time we started the show, there were seven Timberwolves players
that hit multiple threes and going there. Naseri two for three,
(17:54):
Dante DiVincenzo two for two, Ni Kil, Alexander Walker two
for four, Ant five for eight, Mike Conley two for six,
Jada McDaniel's two for four, Julius Randall two for five.
So all those dudes multiple threes, all of them hit
over forty percent except for Mike Conley.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
So the shooting followed right again.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
If you're gonna beat the shit out of a team
that just previously blew you out, you need a bunch
of factors to go your way. Game plan shift, forcing
turnovers and getting out in transition. Aunt and Julius making
the reads, guys knocking down corner threes, connective playmaking, attacking closeouts,
Aunt and Julius hitting shots over the top, and then
what I thought was a really smart little move from
Chris Finch to start in the I think he was
(18:33):
right at the start of the second quarter if I
remember correctly, but it's in the first half. I thought
he read the room right and was like, oh, we're
forcing turnovers, we're getting out in transition. This is very
much like a up and down the floor type of game.
How about we throw Terrence Shannon in there. And Terrence Shannon,
you know, in a league where it's hard to stand
out as an athlete, this guy pops off the screen
(18:55):
every time I watch him as an athlete. And he
got some opportunities to attack, to slash off the wing,
to slash in transition, and I thought he was great
in his shift. I thought, there's just a really smart
move from Chris Finch in that spot. So obviously everything
goes Minnesota's way in this game and they get a
big win. The question is can Minnesota still win this series?
(19:19):
The problem is is you spotted Oklahoma City a two
to oh lead with a foolish game plan. Now, again,
as I mentioned before, there's no guarantee that you would
have had an opportunity to win either of those games,
which you probably have a better chance to win those
games if you end up you starting the series with
an appropriate game plan. The problem is now you still
(19:39):
even after tonight, you have to win three of the
next four games, and at least one of those games
needs to be one in Oklahoma City, maybe two. If
OKAC manages to steal one game in your building, Oklahoma
City will come out and play better in game two.
There are obvious things that will swing and excuse me
in game four, apologize game two minute soda. Oklahoma City
(20:02):
will play better in game four, there's a couple of
obvious things that will tilt back their way. They're gonna
come out with a more desperate defensive effort with a
ton of physicality, like that's just guaranteed right out the gates,
which means Aunt and Julius are gonna have to be
even more deliberate with protecting the ball, with making the
appropriate reads. Guys are gonna have to hit threes against
(20:22):
tighter closeouts. Guys when they drive closeouts are gonna have
to deal with sharper closeouts containing the ball that they're
gonna have to do a better job beating and making
those subsequent reads out of it. Right, Oklahoma City turned
the ball over a lot at the beginning of this game.
I would expect Oklahoma City to turn the ball over
less in Game four. Right, They're gonna be more methodical,
(20:44):
like they have seen this style of defense before. They
saw it in the Denver series. So we're gonna see
them most likely try to bring back some of that
methodical playmaking and shot making that we saw in the
Denver series at stretches right, So like Oklahoma City, you
will play way better in Game four and this margin
will be way tighter. Now, the case if you're a
(21:06):
Minnesota fan and you're looking for a reason to feel
optimistic about your chances to come back and win the series,
the case is that you did some real damage tonight.
This was not a win. This was an ass kicking.
I thought you shook the thunder to their core tonight.
You had them looking disheveled and doing things they don't
(21:27):
normally do. Shae was awful. You played them into a
bunch of turnovers. Look at how many times this year
Shae was four for thirteen tonight. Go look at how
many times this year Shaye shot that poorly from the field.
That's thirty one percent. I pulled the numbers for the
show the other day. He had single digit games this
year below forty percent from the field, guys like Jalen Brunson,
(21:50):
guys like Anthony Edwards, they had more than twenty such games.
You played Shay into an uncharacteristically tough game. You played
a team that doesn't turn the bast over into a
bunch of turnovers. You took a sixty eight win team
that I said the last night, I would be shocked
if they didn't win the title at this point, and
(22:11):
you beat the shit out of them. So if you're
looking for optimism, that's what you cling to. You did
some real damage. I would be shocked if Oklahoma City
blew you out in game four. Game four is going
to most likely be a tight, competitive game that will
come down to some sort of sequence down the stretch.
(22:31):
And if you can execute, and you execute the game
plan specifically, and if Julius and and make the appropriate reads,
the guys play smart off of those advantages and finish
plays with shot making. There is a real chance here.
But there's a reason why in NBA history. I saw
a stat the other day I believe only six times
(22:51):
in the conference finals a team has come back from
down two. Oh, there's a reason why you're not playing
against bums anymore. This is the conference Finalslahoma City has
been the championship favorite since like the last third of
the regular season. This is a real team, and you
got to beat them four out of five times, took
care one, but now you got to win three out
of four, and it's just really hard to do. It's
(23:12):
really hard to sustain. And so with that being the case,
like I still feel like the thunder are in a
commanding position here, but you just got to take it
one game at a time. We talked about this last night.
You win for New York, it's the same kind of thing.
Just win game three, it changes the series. Win game three,
all of a sudden, Game four becomes the pivot point.
(23:35):
If you win game four, you go back to Oklahoma
City in a two to two series with the appropriate
game plan, and you feel like you have a better
chance to win the series at that point. Theoretically, at
that point, you're in better shape than you are in
game one zero zero, because now you know the way
that you want to play and you only got to
beat them twice. Same thing goes with the Knicks win
(23:58):
game three, all of a sudden, Game four becomes the
pivot point. You win game four, it's two to two,
you're going home for a best of three, and you've
figured out some stuff with the way you want to play.
You just have to keep taking it one game at
a time. All right, bear with me for just a
second because Jackson's gone, So I'm gonna pull up the
(24:19):
tweet here so I can get these questions from you guys.
All Right, I know it's the playoffs and adjustments that matter.
But do you think that Finch not adjusting the base
defensive scheme in the first two games is him just
(24:40):
not wanting to overreact and having confidence in his player's
ability to execute. Absolutely, That's what we talked about earlier.
There's there's a kind of push and pull that you
see in every single like weird matchup that kind of
leads to a blink like kind of a staring contest
between the coaches. For instance, like let's say a fast
(25:01):
team and a slow team play against each other. Imagine
like a lightning fast Golden State Warriors team with like
Draymond Green at center in like twenty twenty two and
then like, imagine a two big group, so call it,
you know, this year's Minnesota Timberwolves versus the twenty twenty
two Warriors or another two big team like Houston or
(25:24):
something like that. With those situations, it's like who's gonna blink? Like,
are is the small team gonna be like, shit, we
can't out small these guys, Let's go big, Or is
the big team gonna go like, shit, we're too slow
for these guys, Let's go small like and it's like
who's gonna be the first team that blinks? And I
think there's a certain amount of like I think Chris
(25:46):
Finch wanted to go out there with his base scheme
and just be like, let's see if the thunder can
beat the Timberwolves. The problem is is like they beat
you pretty good in game one, and they cut you
a pieces in that game, and it was pretty clear
right away in game two that they could score whenever
they wanted to. Again, so they're like, there was no
(26:07):
real point in game two where Minnesota took substantial control,
and so they did, for the record, to Finch his credit,
like they did the game was just already out of reach.
They did start doing this like kind of meet and
Shae further back and packing the paint thing on, like
some of the final possessions in the fourth quarter of
Game two.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
It just was one of those things.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Where like, maybe if you do it earlier, this series
is two to one now instead of one to two.
But again, it's it is what it is. I'm I'm
generally of the opinion that in the postseason you cannot
waste time. Ask the Knicks who just blew Game one.
Ask the Lakers who got punched in the face by
the Wolves in Game one. You know, there's so many
(26:47):
different examples like this in all these different series, Like
you cannot afford to spot teams wins in the postseason.
So I'm generally of the belief that you should attack
right away with the method that gives you the best
chance to win that series, and make adjustments quicker rather
than slower. We're talking about this with Jackson yesterday, just
(27:10):
with I think it was Jake Iszenberg yesterday, like be
quick to don't be stubborn, be quick to make the
appropriate adjustment to give you the best chance to win
a playoff series.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
All right, let's look at some other questions here.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Hey, Jason, question here, something I noticed in these playoffs
is the increase significance of elite team conditioning allah the
relentless Pacers and OKC defense. I know you mentioned attention
to detail in the last video, and I think there's
a correlation there.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
What are your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I think we've seen this with the Knicks to just
in general, with the way that they pushed their guys minutes.
The Pacers dominated the second half of the season. The
Knicks underachieved this year, but they played all their guys
big minutes, and like those dudes were asked to do
a ton. The Thunder attacked the regular season relentlessly. Timberwolves
(28:02):
a little bit up and down over the course of
the year, but took down the stretch of the season.
They were playing great basketball. In general, the best way
to prefer, like you know that old expression, the best
indicator of future performance is past performance. Similarly like your
best chance to play your best basketball when you need
to is to practice playing your best basketball. Like as
(28:26):
a Laker fan, for instance, I didn't think the Laker
defense was anywhere near as good as it was before
Lebron heard his groin. When Lebron heard his groin. He
was out for a while, the defense fell off a
cliff when Lebron came back. There was never really a
point from that point to the end of the season
where they looked like the same defense that they were
before the injuries. So yeah, I'm not surprised that they
(28:48):
went into the Minnesota Series and they were playing some
shitty defense. I think there's a certain amount of like
in general preparing for playoff basketball as it pertains specifically
to Oklahoma City in Indiana. These are two teams that
play a very hectic style with full court ball pressure
and a ton of rotation speed and flying up and
down the floor and transition on offense. These are teams
(29:11):
that need to be deep and need to be in
great shape. It's just something that's necessary for their specific
play style. Alrighty is Pascal the underrated X factor in
the Eastern Conference Finals that I think he is? The
Knicks don't seem to have an answer for him. Going
back to what we had last year in the postseason.
(29:31):
If you guys remember when Og and Deobi got hurt,
Pascal caught Josh Hart for a lot of like this
primary assignment stuff, and he was just cooking his ass
all over the place. But like in general, Siakam is
the missing piece to the Indiana Pacer offense from what
it already was before the trade last year, which was
(29:52):
that one of the best pick and role players in
the league, a guy that is going to consistently set
teams up with their team up with an advantage and
they could play advantage basketball with the best of them.
But what a guy like Siakam gives you is the
ability to create his own advantage one on one, and
you know it's gonna be different levels of value in
different games based on the way the flow is. Ideally,
(30:13):
I'm sure the Pacers would like to never have to
use Pascal as an ISO player and have him attacking
with an advantage consistently.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
And by the way he does that, he had a
couple of big catch and shoot threes.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
But like the it's like a break glass in case
of we got stopped by the defense, just give the
ball to passcal he can go get a bucket. And
with that being the case, he becomes vitally important within
that specific Pacers construct.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
All right, let's see.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Here this game in particular by the Wolves involved them
simply playing with a level of intensity and force that okay,
so he expected from them but was unable to match.
Finch finally made the defensive adjustments on Shay as well.
What is sustainable for the going into Game four? For
the talked a little bit about this early earlier, but
like again, I think the Thunder will absolutely bring a
(31:07):
better defensive effort right away, Like you're probably not going
to score seventy two points in the first half, right
and they certainly will take better care of the basketball.
I can't remember exactly what the numbers were because they've
been adopted adapted to the full game. I guess I
can give you the full game numbers real quick. They
gave up sixteen points off of turnovers in this game,
but I think thirteen or fifteen of them, like most
(31:27):
of those came in the first half, and by the way,
Oklahoma City cleaned that up literally in the second half
of this game. So I think they will take care
better care of the ball.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
So what are the And.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Also I think Aunt and Julius hitting really tough pull
up jump shots. There's a certain amount of variance in that,
so there's a there's a version of Game four where
those guys just don't hit the same shots. So what
is it going to be that Minnesota can certainly bring
into the next game the right game plan. So again,
just sagging off of Shay packing the paint, ball, pressuring
the other guys when they have the ball, and then
(31:57):
on offense, Julius and Aunt making the corner kicks whenever
they can, and then playing advantage basketball out of that
whenever they have an opportunity to that. They found a
formula now that has shown the ability to work. Tea
Wolves fan, but do you think fatigue played a factor?
If so, it's going to be a long series. No,
(32:17):
that everybody in Oklahoma City, Jersey is who plays in
their rotation is twenty six or younger except for Alex Crusoe.
So any of you guys who still play basketball at
my age in your mid thirties will be able to
tell you how it feels a lot different when you're
twenty five twenty four, when you've got to play every
other night.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I still remember.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Playing legitimately, like four hours of pickup basketball a night
when I was that age, you know, So like it's
just a different it's just a different physical ask for
an Oklahoma City team. That said, there is like just
part of human nature in terms of the natural kind
of pullback of intensity that is going to take place
(32:57):
naturally as part of urgency. Like this same Thunder team
kind of got smacked by Memphis and would have lost
Game three if John Moran didn't get hurt, and so like,
there is a certain natural tendency to see that kind
of pullback in these sorts of situations. How much defensively
would the Wolves actually lose if they replaced Rudy with
(33:19):
a mid level guy who can actually shoot. I generally
am of the belief, and I thought Rudy was better tonight.
Just was more active on the defensive glass and had
a couple of sequences where he had better success against
Shaye than he did in earlier parts of the series.
But the thing with Rudy is his value as a
rimp protector is actually less in a scheme where you've
(33:39):
got so many quality perimeter defenders relative to what his
value looked like in Utah, for example, where you know
he was cleaning up messes constantly because there were you know,
Donovan Mitchell couldn't guard, Joe Ingles couldn't guard, you know,
Mike Conley couldn't guard you know, Jordan Clarson couldn't guard.
They just had a bunch of dudes who couldn't slide
their feet. It was like Royce O'Neill was the only
(33:59):
guy who could like really guard, you know, for that team.
And so you know, in this particular type of scheme, Like,
I think there's a reason why Minnesota's consistently all year
looked fantastic when it's Nas reading Dante DiVincenzo. It's because
it's just a bunch of elite perimeter defenders and the
ability to space the floor with NAS's shooting ability. All right,
(34:20):
what suggestion do you have for changing the knicks starting
and closing lineups? What do you think of changing out
Heart for Deuce in the starting lineup just to keep
up with the Pacers during that time, then win the
minutes with Mitch closing with Mitch og Deuce, McHale and Brunson.
So this is the thing. Mitchell Robinson to me, is
very much a player that relies on exerting energy. And
(34:45):
by the way, if you pull up his numbers from
last night, in the second half, he had I think
one offensive rebound, I think he had one block, and
I think he was minus seven in his minutes. He
was dominant in his first half stretch. The thing with
Mitch is, I think you want to keep his minutes
in that like eighteen to twenty two range because that's
(35:06):
where he is most effective with his motor. You want
him playing, you know, basically two shifts a game, right,
you know, bridging the first and second quarters and bridging
the third and fourth quarters. Like, that's what you want.
And again there's a conversation to be had about the
big picture in terms of whether or not you should
try to find a player that can kind of approximate
what Mitch Mitch does, but is capable of playing thirty
(35:28):
thirty five minutes a night. But with this, within this
scale of this, within the scope of this particular postseason series.
You know, Mitch played what twenty nine minutes I think
in game in game two, like and in those final minutes,
you know, in his twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight,
twenty ninth minute, that was when he was like leaving
(35:49):
Siakam and leaving Turner open and making a couple of
sketchy decisions defensively and like helping recover situations. So like,
I think, if you're going to try to close with
min which by the way, opens up some other problems
in terms of spacing. But if you close with Mitch,
you want to make sure that he's closing within the
(36:09):
scope of a minute load that he can handle. And
so it's one thing to say, let's put Deuce in
the starting lineup. I think Deuce can handle heavy minutes.
And the reality is Josh Hart is just not doing
enough damage offensively out there in his minutes. But with
Mitch in particular, I don't think you want to be
necessarily closing with him unless you can keep his minutes down,
(36:29):
and so he might just have to get kind of
creative with the rotation in order to make that happen.
All right, let me double check really quick to make
sure I didn't miss any. Are there any defensive adjustments
you think the Knicks can make versus Indy or are
they just going to have to try to beat them
in shootouts. I'm gonna be honest with you guys, Like,
if you watch the film from the first two games
of this series, Kat is like utterly lost on the
(36:51):
defensive end of the four. It looks like he has
no idea what he wants to do. He's like I
saw some clips, some defensive clips from game two where
like he threw some of the worst high drop kind
of hedge blitz whatever you want to call him, type
of looks i've ever seen where he's coming out way
too high and then in rotation he's just kind of
running around like a chicken with his head cut off,
(37:12):
and then like the ball go in the basket or
a cutter will catch it open, he kind of just
looks around like like what do you guys want me
to do? And and it just he just looks lost
out there. And so I you know, if you asked
me what was the best possible game plan to try
to proceed with moving forward, to me, it would be
with Cat. It would just be switching everything to prevent
the obvious drop coverage looks that you can get and
(37:35):
then just communicate like crazy behind Cat to make sure
that he doesn't get lost. But it's when he's in
these two on the ball situations and he has to
rotate that he's getting lost. And so I would just,
you know, try as hard as you can to turn
Indiana into an ISO team, and the best way to
do that is by switching. But there are some realities
to the fact that you know, I saw someone say,
I saw a Celtics fans say, or as a Pacers
(37:56):
fan say on Twitter, like this is going to be
very different than keeping Tatum in front. And I was
like when I read that, I was like, I was
trying to tell you guys this, like it's a very
different series. Like it's the Celtics succumb to switching. They
allow switching to stagnate them because they want to play
one on one and yeah, Tatum and Brown are two
guys that will absolutely settle if you slide your feet
(38:21):
reasonably well. The Pacers do not succumb to switching until
the end of the clock or for a very deep
post up. They are a team that plays with so
much pace and verve in the half court. They'll make
you execute fifteen to twenty switches before the end of
the possession, and inevitably you're gonna fuck one of them up.
(38:41):
And when you do, now they don't have to play
ice of ball. They can play drive and pick out
of that. And so again, like it's it's just it's
a really tough matchup with Cat out there, and you
can't just like bench Cat. You don't have the depth
for that, and so, like, you know, honestly, like all
all you can hope for is that they just play better,
that they do a better job within their scheme. By
(39:01):
the way, like I I think the Knicks have a
decent chance to win tomorrow night. Like I'm I'm not
gonna sit here and be surprised if if the Knicks
win tomorrow night. Now, like I feel almost certain that
Indiana's gonna get one of those two games, which means
they're gonna be up three to one, which means they're
gonna probably go to the finals. But like there's this
series isn't over. You just got to take it one
game at a time. But it's just the construct of
(39:22):
this team depends too much on Jalen Brunson and and
uh uh Karl Anthony Towns to be attentive and focused
and to give the requisite intensity in their rotations, and
the two of them are just not good at that.
And so it just it just to me looks like
a matchup that's gonna be tough for them to overcome.
All right, guys, that's all we have for right now.
(39:43):
We're gonna head over to playback again. That's playback dot
TV slash Hoops tonight. We'll hang out there for about
forty five minutes or so. We'd be taking callers and
watching some film. Again is always sincerely appreciate you guys
for supporting me and supporting the show. We will see
you guys next time. What's up guys? As always, I
appreciate you for listening to and supporting Hoops tonight. They
would actually be really helpful for us if you guys
would take a second and leave a rating and a review.
(40:05):
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I really
appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
The volume
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
Popular Podcasts
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Betrayal: Season 4
Karoline Borega married a man of honor – a respected Colorado Springs Police officer. She knew there would be sacrifices to accommodate her husband’s career. But she had no idea that he was using his badge to fool everyone. This season, we expose a man who swore two sacred oaths—one to his badge, one to his bride—and broke them both. We follow Karoline as she questions everything she thought she knew about her partner of over 20 years. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-3 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.