May 2, 2025 • 44 mins
Jason reacts to the Los Angeles Clippers forcing a Game 7 against the Denver Nuggets as James Harden and Kawhi Leonard lifted LA over Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. Then he discusses the New York Knicks eliminating the Detroit Pistons after Jalen Brunson’s late game heroics, Cade Cunningham doing his best for the Pistons, and Malik Beasley fumbling the final play.
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see dkang dot co slash audio. All right, welcome to
(02:32):
who tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Thursday, Everyboddy, Hopeful
you guys are having a great night. You got a
quick show for you guys tonight. We're gonna get a
few minutes to break down what happened in that Game
six in Los Angeles as the Clippers extend the series
with a dominant defensive third quarter. That's gonna extend this
to a Saturday night in Denver for all of the marbles.
And then in the second half of the show, the
New York Knicks followed the familiar pattern of the rest
(02:55):
of their first round series with the Pistons, these crazy
back and forth games that inevitably come down to crunch
time sequences where the Knicks, just throughout this series have
demonstrated their maturity and their experience in that situation. As
they dispatch of the Pistons, we're gonna talk a little
bit about the Pistons big picture. We're gonna talk a
little bit about the Knicks and them moving forward into
the Celtics series. There's the tail end of the show.
(03:16):
We're gonna do about ten minutes of mail bag questions
for you guys in the chat. Remember, just subscribe to
our channel. Drop questions in the chat. We'll get to
them at the tail end of the show. No mail
back or no playback tonight, excuse me. We are gonna
be back on playback tomorrow night after the final buzzer
of Game six of the Warriors Rocket series. So if
you're not set up on playback yet, make sure you
guys get over there and follow the Hoops Tonight channel.
(03:39):
We'll be back over there for some film and getting
you guys up on stage and talk some hoops with
us tomorrow night. You guys are the Joe. Before you
get started, subscribe to the Hoops and O YouTube channel.
You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
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Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds. Follow
(04:02):
us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And the last but
not least, keep dropping those mail back questions for the
chat at the tail end of the show. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So on playback last night, we
had it over there after the live show and we
had you know, some of our supporters over the years
come on and talk some hoops with us. We talked
a lot about the concept of creating advantages in the
(04:23):
half court, and specifically with a guy like Luka Doncic
in the Lakers series, and how I thought one of
the primary kind of turning points, one of the primary
folkrums of the series was Jaden McDaniels held up so
much better on an island against Luca, and all of
the other defenders in action held up so well against
(04:43):
Luca that the Lakers weren't able to get the defense
into rotation very often, and that just made everything very difficult.
And for all the talk about their ability to handle
Minnesota's athleticism, they couldn't score, but they couldn't score because
at the very top they couldn't create advantage. And I
thought we saw a very interesting juxtaposition of the difference
(05:04):
between the Los Angeles Clippers when James Harden is doing
that job of creating those initial advantages versus when he's not,
like he did in Game five. And in many ways,
it's frustrating because we know he's capable of this level
of advantage creation, you just don't know if he's gonna
bring it on any given night. We don't know if
(05:24):
he's gonna bring it in Game seven. It reminds me
of the Sixers series in Boston a couple of years ago.
If you guys remember we're in a couple of games
in that series, James Harden was just absolutely unbelievable in wins,
but then in the other games he just wasn't able
to replicate that. Replicate that. To me, it just starts
with a level of intensity on the ball, like in
his ISOs, with his will, willingness and ability to get
(05:47):
down and make that explosive move to beat that first
man off the dribble. And if he succumbs to the
ball pressure and gets passive and all of his drives
get flattened out, all of a sudden, his impacts tonight.
I thought James Harden did an absolutely amazing job of
picking on specifically Jamal Murray and ISO situations and getting
(06:09):
dribble penetration on him and getting downhill and pick and roll.
All of this stuff is connected. You want to know
how James Harden starts getting good separation on a step
back three, It comes from his ability to get dribble penetration.
You want to know how you get Norman Powell in rhythm.
You get him a bunch of really high quality closeout
(06:29):
opportunities or transition opportunities which come off their defense, which
we'll talk about in a minute. But those closeouts, they
come from advantage creation. That's how you generate the three
point volume they did tonight. In the last two losses
they failed to generate over thirty threes. Tonight they generated
thirty nine threes. They didn't shoot particularly well, but they
(06:52):
generated a ton of these situations where the defenders were
chasing them off the three point line with an advantage.
That three point volume is an indicator of the dribble
penetration that they were getting. And then on the defensive
end of the four and all started with Zubots and
him just doing an unbelievable individual job on Nikole Jokic
(07:14):
in the third quarter in particular, but the entire second half,
Zuo was fantastic on specifically guarding Jokic on an island.
Jokic was trying really hard on his post ups to
swing across the lane and Zoo was just sliding with him,
and as Jokic was going for that scoop, he would
just reach around the side and block him. He got
him going both ways with that. In the fourth quarter,
(07:36):
once going to his left hand, once going to his
right hand, he was trying to drive closeouts off the
top of the keet and really pound into that left
shoulders spin move, and Zoo was just absorbing that contact.
Zuo was fantastic preventing Jokic from dislodging his base. That's
the battle against Jokic. You have to win the battle
on the ground. He's gonna chop his feet, he's gonna
(07:56):
bump you a bunch of times, and if you don't
have your base set, he'll this lodge you and he's
going to get to where he wants for a high
quality shot. Zoo won that battle tonight. In the second half,
the refs were letting them be physical Jokics was bringing
the physicality right back. It was an old fashioned big
man battle and I thought Zoo held up really well.
And in general, the Clippers were way more physical in
(08:19):
the paint than they've been defensively over the course of
this last stretch of the series. Like on Jokic's rolls
to the rim, they were just swarming him and being
physical and attacking the basketball Gordon's post ups. Aaron Gordon
had a lot of success early in the game attacking
Chris Dunn in the post. They did a much better
job getting Aaron Gordon's size mismatched post ups under control.
(08:40):
They held Denver's offense under control, and that allowed them
to build the necessary margin they needed to avoid a
clutch situation. And if they end up in clutch situations
with this surgical Nuggets team, it's just going to be
too difficult. And I thought they just did the job
they needed to do tonight on the Denver front. I
just thought Yokic had an awful third quarter by his
(09:02):
standards on offense, and this Nuggets team really needs to
score because that's their elite trait that they bring to
a series. It's really hard for them to get enough
stops to hold up under that sort of scoring drought.
They had twenty two points in the third quarter, and
that was with Christian Brown hitting a couple of bombs
before the end of the quarter. That was that they
(09:23):
could not score in that quarter. Ultimately, Game seven is
gonna come down to which team can reach closer to
their ceiling. Steve Jones Junior used to work for a
couple NBA teams. He does excellent work with the kay
Is Duncan on the Dunker Spot podcast. He tweeted out
today about a quote from JB. Bickerstaff in a timeout
(09:45):
where JB said something along the lines of like, hey,
we know what they're gonna do now, it's just about executing.
And Steve was making the point in his tweet about
how like, when you get late in these playoffs series,
it's not about tactics anymore more. It's about which guys
on the floor are going to win their battles that
they need to win. Have you guys noticed that we
(10:08):
do a lot more film sessions after game one, Game two,
in game three, and then when it gets later in
the series, it's like, there's no I'm not going to
be able to go to the film tonight and present
you with some magical answer to all of the problems.
If James Harden can create that initial advantage, the Clippers
offense hums at a higher level that keeps them mentally
(10:28):
and physically engaged in the game, which brings the defensive
intensity they need to win battles on defense against the Nuggets.
If the Nuggets contain the basketball through their ball pressure
with Christian Brown and in just an overall defensive engagement,
all of a sudden, the Clippers struggle to generate advantages.
Norman Powell struggles to get going, Nick Batoomb struggles to
get going. James Harden can't get a step back three going.
(10:50):
All of a sudden, it becomes about Kawhi Leonard trying
to make a bunch of shots over double teams. All
of a sudden, their defense loses some energy. The Nuggets
start picking them apart. When we get to this point
in the series, it's we everyone knows what they're gonna do.
Every we know what James Harden is gonna do. He's
gonna attack Yo kitchen ball screens, and he's gonna attack
(11:12):
Jamal Murray and switches every single chance that he gets
on the other end of the floor. It's gonna be
a steady diet of two man game with Jamal Murray
at the top of the key. Joki's trying to either
drive on Zoo off of catches at the top or
off of that you know, right block post up that
he likes. We know what they're gonna do. What's gonna
(11:32):
come in, what's gonna determine Game seven is going to
be who does their job better than their counterparts. If
Jamal Murray out plays James Harden and James Harden struggles
to generate advantages, the Nuggets are going to win Game seven.
If James Harden breaks down the Nuggets defense at the
point of attack and him and Kawhi Leonard go blow
(11:54):
for blow with jo Kichen Murray, they've got a slightly
better defense. I think they're gonna win. But there's no
secrets at this point. It's just about who's going to
win their individual matchups. That's the beauty of late series basketball.
Right when we get into the next round, We're gonna
have a bunch of film sessions after Game one, two,
and three. Why because we're gonna learn about how those
(12:15):
teams are attacking each other. There are no secrets anymore.
It's just about man to man, who's better at basketball,
who's better at inflicting their specific strengths or avoiding their
specific weaknesses. So obviously going to be an exciting game
seven on Saturday, tips off at four to thirty Pacific time.
We will be live on YouTube after the final buzzer
(12:36):
of that game. I'll see all of you Clippers and
Nuggets fans there. We're gonna talk some Nicks Pistons. Though
this game followed a very similar pattern to the rest
of the series. The Knicks came out in a must win,
close out game and immediately took control. They were really
getting out in transition. They were hitting those driving gaps
and getting to the rim quickly early in the clock.
(12:57):
The Pistons weathered that with several big runs, one in
the first half riding an absurdly hot streak shooting the
basketball from Malik Beasley, who put it all together with
a crazy left shoulder running movement three while he's falling
out of bounds right before half, and then another one
in the fourth quarter where the Knicks had taken control
(13:17):
and taken a double figure lead, but Asar Thompson came
into the game and played some really really quality individual
defense on Jalen Brunson, took him out a rhythm for
a little while, and the Pistons ended up working their
way into a seven point lead. But down the stretch,
despite the Pistons holding a seven point lead, the Knicks
(13:38):
were able to slowly and methodically work their way back
into the game. JV. Bickerstaff did them a favor by
taking a star out of the game for a little bit.
It's so funny. I've been watching Pistons fans have a
meltdown about the lineup decisions from JB. Bickerstaff because they've
just been so much better in this series with the
sar Thompson on the floor, and like for all the
shots that Malik Beasley's made, they've gotten killed in his
(14:00):
minutes for the most part over the course of this series.
And it's because pretty simply, Asar Thompson makes life a
hell of a lot more difficult for Jalen Brunson than
anybody else in a Pisson's jersey can. But Brunson was
able to attack in that stretch when a Sorrow was
off the floor, and he was able to tie the game.
And then we ended up with a really interesting final sequence.
Lasar Thompson gets a stop on Jalen Brunson on an island,
(14:22):
slides his feed extremely well, prevents any sort of like
turning the corner from Brunson, takes contact in the chest.
And then every time you fade over one of your shoulders,
in this case Jalen Brunson kind of turning over his
left shoulder, the ball comes up in the shooting pocket
right in front briefly as he's turning over his left
shoulder right, so the ball is exposed temporarily there for
(14:43):
a minute. And as I always talk about a lot
of these pull up shooters, they don't see you up top,
they don't see the contest, but if you can disrupt
their rhythm down low, and Assar Thompson waited for Brunson
to turn and expose the ball, and he stripped down
and took the ball away. The Knicks were having a
hell of a time trying to get a star switched
(15:03):
off of Brunson in these sequences, so Brunson had no
choice because oursarrow was fighting through all those screens. Brunson
had no choice but to figure out how to get
a bucket against the other team's best defender. And one
of the things that I thought was genius about Brunson's
game winner was the way he identified it, the way
(15:25):
he identified his individual advantage in this matchup. The individual
advantage that Jalen Brunson has in this matchup against a
Star Thompson is he has a lower center of gravity
and he's pretty fucking strong for how big, for how
big he is. So what does he do. He makes
a hard left handed dribble move, an extended, hard left
(15:46):
handed dribble move, gets into a Sar Thompson's body snatch
back dribble, and in that situation, because he's got contact
with the sar's body and because he has the lower
center of gravity, it's a very similar dynamic to what
I've been talking about so much about dislodging your base.
He was able to, with that hard move and that
(16:06):
snatchback dribble Dislodgessar Thompson's base about as dramatically as you'll
ever see in a perimeter matchup. There's an angle from
the scorers table or from I don't know, the media table,
whatever it is, that's on that side of the floor
to the left of where the game winner was and
it's kind of like a portrait style like smartphone video.
And on the snatchback dribblesar Thompson just completely exits the
(16:30):
frame and Jalen's able to just steadily settle into that
off the dribble jump shot right there at the top
of the key. But I just thought it was a
you know, I talk a lot about how the Playoffs
are about solving puzzles, and specifically for Brunson, because of
the way that they look to attack. It's very ISO heavy,
it's very matchup attacking. One of the things Brunson had
(16:50):
to do was figure out how to get a bucket
on Asar Thompson in a big spot when a Sar
had been giving him some issues in that in that
middle of the fourth quarter, Sar Thompson was the reason
Brunson got out of rhythm and started missing clean looks.
As the Pistons took a seven point lead, Asar Thompson
got a stop on the previous possession. Brunson had the
challenge in front of him, He had the puzzle in
(17:10):
front of him, and he figured it out, if I
lose my moment, if I lose my momentum and I
operate around the elbows with a bunch of hesitation dribbles
like he did on the previous possession. I'm not gonna
be able to shake this guy. Now, I'm gonna have
to turn around over him. I'm gonna expose the ball
down low. He's probably gonna get a good contest up high.
But if I get my momentum going, if I get
ahead of steam and I get connected to his body,
(17:33):
I can snatch back and I can shed him, and
I can get the separation that I need. Unbelievable move
from Jalen Brunson to win the series. I talked before
the series about how these teams are pretty evenly matched,
but that there was an experience and execution advantage that
would push the Knicks over the top. I thought it
was evident at the start of the series with the
(17:54):
way Brunson was attacking Tobias Harris and finding a matchup
that he liked, while Cade was like having these zero
pass possessions attacking o Jan Andobi. But it got even
more complicated down the stretches. Once again, you saw the
Knicks found a coverage that worked against Kate We're going
to talk about in a minute and the Pistons found
a way to avoid switches, and so Brunson's challenge was
(18:15):
figuring out how to score against the star. Kate Huntingham
was being faced with a very simple problem. He was
attacking Jalen Brunson in a guard screens and Brunson was
hedging and recovering. But because had had a rough night
shooting the three point shot, he bailed on it and
that was his biggest mistake. And we're going to talk
(18:35):
about Kate a little bit in the big picture here
in a minute, But Kate refused to take the pull
up three that was open in the gaps in that
hedge that Jalen Brunson was throwing, and as a result,
he didn't have a comfortable shot or a comfortable look
that he could go to. And there just was no
consistency for the Pistons and crunch time in the series,
while Brunson knew exactly how he wanted to attack, and
(18:55):
he was just so surgical and making sure that he
maximized those crunch time possessions. No disrespect to Cad, this
was his first time doing it. We've said this a
million times in the series. Jalen Brunson has played in.
This is his ninth playoff series since he left the
Dallas Mavericks. He's got a ton of experience in these situations.
Cade is learning, but that experience gap ultimately ended up
(19:17):
being the difference between these two teams. I want to
talk a little bit about the Boston Series and then
we'll talk a little bit about Kid, because I do
want to talk about his development moving forward. So looking
ahead to the Boston Series, I rewatched their last matchup
earlier today, the matchup where the Knicks actually kind of
like controlled a good portion of the game and ended
up losing in overtime. You can see what the Knick's
(19:40):
best options are on both ends of the floor. The
Knicks approached that game with a very high level of
intensity because they so desperately needed a signature win and
a season that was just utterly devoid of signature wins.
And you found some things. Jalen Brunson was able to
get some advantages attacking chrisops porzingis in action. He definitely
(20:01):
likes his ISO matchups against Derek White more than Drew Holliday.
Drew Holliday is a really good job on him, but
Derek White even it's not a great option there. Derek
White just gets such great contests on pull up jump shots.
But he can get good stuff against Porzingis, and I
think he can get some good stuff against Horford, although
Horford wasn't on the floor down the stretch in this
particular game. On the other end of the floor, though,
(20:25):
it's a steady diet of the Celtics looking to attack
Cat and Jaln Brunson in action. Now, one of the
things that I noticed, instead of just running their hedge
and recover scheme, one of the things that they were
doing down the stretch that allowed them to have some
success is what's called peel switching. It's very different kind
of switching than normal switching. So in normal switching, guy
(20:46):
comes up to set a screen, you just pass him
off right, the other guy closes out, he takes the matchup.
The guy who's guarding the ball sinks underneath the screener
to prevent him from getting a slip into the back line,
and then you just play contain the ball basketball. One
of the things they were doing against Boston down the
stretch in that overtime game was peeloff switching. What that
means is the guys guarding the ball actually chases the
(21:08):
man over the top. By chasing the man over the
top into the switch, it causes him to at least
have to attack right away or rush his decision making
a little bit. Then what they were doing is after
he chased over the top, then he would quit on
that specific chase and bail out and close out to
you know, Christops porzingis popping in action or Derek White
(21:30):
popping in action, and so it does ultimately end in
a switch. And in those situations it's going to come
down to Kat holding up against a Derek White like
he had to down the stretch in that game, or
Jalen Brunson having to hold up against one of the Jays.
The Celtics also found a way to attack that by
dragging out the screening action. Tatum had a really good
(21:51):
one where he generated a clean look for Derek White
at the top of the key, where he just attacked
downhill fast, so that, as I believe it was, Ogbi
tried to peel off, he was so far away that
it was too long of a close out. They ended
up having to close out from the weak side, and
so there are still openings that the Celtics confined there.
But ultimately the Knick's best opportunity to keep themselves out
(22:13):
of rotation is to switch, regardless of whether it's a
peel switch or more of a traditional switch. But that's
gonna be the thing that I noticed on film that's
gonna end up playing a big role in this series.
Is cand Jalen Brunson do a better job of attacking
Porzingis and Horford in screening action than the Jays on
the other end of the floor. Or Derek White as well,
(22:35):
if he's involved, can attack Karl, Anthony Towns and Jalen
Brunson in screening action. That's gonna be the series. The
margin for air for New York is just so incredibly thin.
Every Nick is going to have to play to the
absolute peak of their ability. I'm gonna hold off on
making a pick until tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning, we will
(22:57):
have a series preview on Celtics Nicks that will be
on the channel probably you know, right around noon ish
specific time, So keep an eye on the feeds around there.
But this is gonna be an interesting series. But like
the Knicks are gonna have their work cut out for him.
Boston's got some clear advantages, a clear way to attack.
I was talking with Colin Coward about this on his
show yesterday. But one of the things that's interesting about
(23:20):
the personality of these two teams is there's this idea like, oh,
we went and we got Og and we got McHale.
That's our answer to the Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum problem.
We need lots of big, versatile wings. But I think
people are missing the point about what has made the
Celtics successful over the years. It's not because they have
big versatile wings. It's because they can put together five
man lineups where everybody can guard multiple positions. That's what
(23:43):
gives them the flexibility to switch. That's what makes it
so that you can't very easily break down their defense
at the point of attack. There's an example in the
Celtics film that I was watching today where it's like,
it doesn't matter if Og and Obi's guarding Jason Tatum,
if you can screen with Jalen Brunson's man, and Jalen
Brunson's not gonna switch on to him because then Og
(24:05):
gets caught on the screen and Tatum can get downhill
or Tatum can attack a defense that's in rotation. It
doesn't matter that Josh hart og And and Obi and Michale
Bridges are super versatile forwards if they're anchored by two
players that you can get their defense into rotation and
screening action. That is going to be the key for
the Knicks in the series is trying to find a
way to find a defensive coverage with those two that
(24:27):
can keep them out of rotation. But again, keep an
eye on the feeds. Tomorrow we'll have a series preview
in the middle of the day. Lastly on Kate before
we get into our mailbag. Like, I get it, if
your jump SHOT's not falling, you want to try to
find something else that works. But one of the things
that's going to be very important for Cad in his
(24:48):
development is have you ever watched a Jalen Brunson game
where you feel like he won't take a jump shot
when his team needs him too down the stretch, even
if he's missing. We'll see games this year where Brunson is,
you know, five for nineteen, but he'll take and make
three big jump shots down the stretch. You have to
trust your work and trust your ability to knock down
(25:10):
that shot. The reason why it matters is because of
the coverage. The shot that the Knicks were conceding to
Cad tonight was that interchange gap in the hedge and recover.
So as you seek Cunningham coming off the screen and
Og Andnobi's guarding him. When Tim Hardaway Junior comes up
(25:31):
and sets the pick, Brunson is jumping out to hedge,
getting in Kid's way so that he has to go
round the hedge. Og in that sequence is going underneath
to meet Kate on the other side of the screen.
So as Brunson is bailing on the hedge and as
(25:52):
Og is coming back up to meet on the other side,
there was a clear gap where Cade was looking at
the rim in a high hesitation dribble and wouldn't take
the shot, And ultimately the reason why they lost this
game down the stretches. They didn't score a single time.
They didn't make a bucket after they took that seven
(26:13):
point lead. One bucket. You're sending this to game seven,
and so with KD you need to come down to
a series of very basic moves that you can go
to an isolation situations and basic coverage beating shots that
you cannot bail on that pull up three absolutely has
(26:37):
to be a shot that you trust when you need
to take it, because you might have to take it
because of a coverage in a specific situation late in
the game. We know with Jalen Brunson, he likes to
fade over his left shoulder. He likes to step back
to his right, you know, kind of shooting over his
left shoulder, and then he likes to set himself up
like he's gonna go off of a screen with his
(26:57):
right hand, and then hard right cross, right to left
crossover to try to get downhill to reject a screen.
Those are like the three main go to kind of
things you're gonna see from Brunton down the stretch. He's
gotten incredibly good at those moves. If he gets to
those moves, he's gonna hit him about fifty percent of
the time on his jump shots, and he's gonna get
get to the foul line or get something decent at
the rim at a pretty high rate. On his drives.
(27:18):
He has these dependable, rock solid, we're stuck in the
half court, it's tied, there's five minutes left, types of moves.
That's the type of reliability that Kide needs to build
out in specific parts of his shot making. Late in games,
he took and made like a little left shoulder fade
over o Jan Andobi in the post. That was the
only jump shot that he was willing to take in
(27:40):
that stretch. Okay, let's say that that's one of your moves.
You need to wrap it out so that you have
this left shoulder fade that at any given moment if
your team needs a bucket. Oh shit, there, I can't.
Let's pretend you're dealing with a Nasar Thompson look alike
on the other team. I can't get a Sar Thompson
off me. What am I gonna do? I got a
fine a way to score on this guy. And there's
(28:02):
just a little bit of a passivity that we saw
from Caid, from a little bit of a lack of
trust in what he could do in those situations down
the stretch. I got it reflected throughout this series. There
was no real consistency in the way that Caid looked
to attack down the stretch. And so again I'm not
being critical of Kate. I'm just talking about his long
term development. This is the piece that's missing for him
(28:22):
that when he adds he can take this team to
another level. He was As you can see this, Pisson's
team is closer to being able to make a deeper
playoff run than we originally thought, and Kid's development is
going to be the thing that pushes them over the
top in that regard. All right, Jackson, let's see about
ten minutes of questions. How did that sound.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Let's let's do some questions. We're going to do a
couple from the first game or the Clippers game, and
then we'll do a Clipper from the other game and
go from there. First one, Nick Batoum was huge in
tonight's game. He started the second half, obviously in place
of Chris Dunn. He also took Ben Simmons's sort of
rotation minutes, and he was awesome on both times. Are
the court? How can the Nuggets try and solve this
(29:02):
problem in Game seven?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Containing the ball? It's it's that simple. This is this
is something that you see all over the place. I mean,
it was so funny when I saw JB. Bickerstaff in
his when the Knicks took their double digit lead. There
was another timeout audio clip of JB saying, like we
got to control the ball. We can't and it was
during that stretch when Campaign was just eviscerating Malik Beasley,
(29:26):
and like you like that. That's ultimately what it comes
down to. Like if you if you contain the ball,
help defense doesn't have to overreact. If help defense doesn't
have to overreact, the kickout reads on, it is clean.
If the kickout reads on is clean, the advantages aren't there.
The ball gets stagnant, it turns into tossing the ball
to your star with five or six seconds left on
the shot clock. And like Nick Patoom, there was a
(29:47):
lot of Nick Patuma alongside Norman Powell, which I thought
was very interesting tonight in terms of just floor spacing,
like basically situating themselves in a way where there's just
these two knockdown three point shooters on the floor that
are playing off ball. That just creates a lot of
space for James Harden to look to attack. But again,
if Christian Brown can apply better ball pressure on James
Harden and flat note those flatten out those drives a bit,
(30:09):
that will prevent the close out opportunities that he can
capitalize on. And Nick Watum has always just been an
underrated defensive player. But like if you can get the
best of both worlds. If you can get an athlete
that's covering ground and you know, doing stuff to disrupt
people around the rim the way Ben Simmons can, while
also providing you with shooting on the other end of
the floor. I mean, that's you're getting two players in
one there.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Yeah. And I think patom also in addition to the
physical defensive tools he has, he saw on some of
those deflections he had late is super high Q. He
knows that where they're looking to go in their two
man game, that kind of reads that Jamal is making
and where he can try where he tries to bail
out if he's getting double teamed. I think he had
two or three big deflections late and his his smarts
(30:49):
are on display.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I think this is a great point, Jackson, Like I
feel like at least half the job on defense is
the mental side. Like if you if you're a athlete,
but you can't read what the progression is that's taking place,
then you're gonna struggle on defense. So for instance, like
you you made a great point, Like if you're running
the two man game with Murray and Jokic and he
(31:13):
catches in the pocket, you know that when the lowman
steps up, Aaron Gordon's gonna be kind of sidling in
along the baseline, and Michael Porter Junior is gonna be
sliding down to the corner. And the passing read for
Yokich is gonna be based on whether or not Michael
Porter Junior's man comes down and tags Aaron Gordon and
a lot of that. You can read the eyes and
you can try to jump in front of it. Jokich
post up, same sort of thing. If he gets to
(31:33):
the middle and he sees a guy step up, Aaron
Gordon's gonna slide in underneath the basket, Michael Porter Junior
is gonna relocate to the corner, and there's a two
on one in the form of Gordon and MPJ. And
so to your point, if you can like be in
Jokich's head and understand where he's going next, you're not
always gonna beat him. And sometimes he's gonna be a
genius and he might bait you into being out of position,
(31:53):
and he might beat you, but you can force him
into more mistakes if you can be more anticipatory of
what he's trying to do. I'm not even sure if
that's a word anyway, go ahead, I.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Think I think he nailed it.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Think you nailed it.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Next question, Uh, we've talked a little bit about this,
but you know now that we're one game away, it's
either going to be Denver or Los Angeles. Moving on
with that, we know that for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Do you think that The question is Jackson's Lakers and
nine B.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Right Lakers, And the question is do you think the
Clippers perimeter defense, defensive personnel, and Kawhi having size advantages
over most of Okac's guards makes the Clippers a tougher
component opponent compared to Denver.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
In theory, the Clippers should be a tougher matchup for
Oka se Zoo can present similar problems for their interior
in terms of his size that can present Kawhi Leonard
is this like big forward that can thrive against some
of Okac's smaller perimeter players to get to his spots.
James Harden in theory, is the type of player that
(32:53):
can punish the Thunder for loading up on the strong
side when he's running his ball screens. My big concern
is the Thunder are a excellent turnover forcing defense that
will pressure the hell out of you, speed you up
and if you can't be precise in your connective playmaking
after James Harden makes that first read, you're gonna be
(33:15):
in a track meet and O case is gonna win.
I trust Denver more to make the necessary passing reads
to break down Oklahoma City's defense more than I trust
the Clippers on the other end of the floor. OKAC
is gonna score on the Nuggets. The Nuggets are not
a great enough a good enough defense to like stop
(33:37):
oka se but I think Denver will be able to
get some stops by virtue of the thing we've talked
about all season with Okasee and the fact that you
can load up the strong side a little bit with
them and you're not super concerned about their guys on
the weak side burning you and catch and shoot situations.
So like I to me, it's like, I think you've
got to be big and smart to beat OKAC, and
I'm worried that the Clippers aren't smart enough. Totally agree,
(34:35):
and like, I think it could be a nightmare James
Harden series with their ball pressure and their physicality, and
like him kind of just struggling as that series gets
super intense. The Clippers certainly can beat the Thunder. I'm
not trying to say they can't, but I just I
look at the matchups and I view the Nuggets as
just a better threat, if that makes sense. I just
(34:58):
I think it's just this Clippers team is such a
like a kind of Jekyll and Hide energy and intensity
kind of team too, which I just don't think you
can afford when okay See has home court advantage either.
So like, yeah, I would lean towards Denver speaking.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Of Jekyl and Hide energy teams. Question about the Knicks,
why don't the Knicks always come out with this kind
of urgency?
Speaker 2 (35:21):
You know, it's so funny. Shout out Josh Roger, you guys,
he's done some production work for the show over the years.
Big big, big Knicks fan. He was tweeting earlier about
how like Knicks fans are just done with this team
and how like they just are like reserved to the
fact that they're going to get just crushed by the
Celtics and it just doesn't matter, and like it's just funny.
(35:41):
You and I were texting about this earlier, Jackson. It's
just funny juxtaposed with last year's team, which kind of
had like felt like the heart and soul of the
New York City playing basketball, you know what I mean?
And I think I think there are some valuable lessons
learned in the sense that this team just does have
a lack of like grit compared to the previous iteration
(36:02):
of the team. You could go into a bunch of
different ideas as to what causes that. I think it's
I think it's a combination of things. I think that
they're not as deep as they used to be, and
so there's a little bit of an energy conservation element
to it. I think that Karl Anthony Towns is kind
of a textbook Jekyll and Hyde intensity guy in the
same way that James Harden is. And so, you know,
(36:25):
I look at consistencies like, I know Og can be
part of that character. I know Josh can be part
of that character. I know Brunson can be part of
that character. I don't think McHale Bridges is a guy
who lacks energy and intensity, although he had some stretches
this season where he wasn't as good defensively as he
needed to be. But you know, I think that the idea,
(36:46):
like let's say that the let's say that the Knicks
just gets smashed in the second in the second round
against Boston. I think that Brunson has proven to this
point that he has the ability to create offense in
tight spaces, Like I think he's proven that he doesn't
necessarily need to have you know, perfect five out spacing
to be able to create offense for himself. So if
(37:08):
things go really poorly, I would strongly consider the pivot
centering around Kat and trying to flip him basically for
depth of like just big ass kicking front court athletes
and backcourt athletes, and just really lean into the identity
that worked last year, which is if we surround Brunson
with a ton of toughness in all the margins, he
(37:30):
can carry us over the top offensively. But I think
it's a combination of the lack of depth. They scored
the ball really well for extended stretches this year, which
I think bred some laziness for them on the defensive end.
They felt like they could outscore teams when they needed to,
and then Karl Anthony Towns is just kind of an
inconsistent energy and effort guy. I really think it just
comes down to that. But I get it. It's frustrating
(37:52):
like they there were short, little five minute spurts in
this series where the Knicks looked like they were completely
outclassing Detroit, but they just weren't able to like maintain
that momentum throughout the series.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Yeah, it is weird how a Tom Thibodeau coach team
is so offense dependent and it feels like they can't
They really struggle to get big stops. I mean, you know,
it helps that the Pistons are a young team with
not the many playmakers, but it really does feel like
the next struggle on the defensive end when they need.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
To they do. Yeah, it's it's it's been. It's been
kind of like the story of the season is, like
they last year. They weren't a statistically great defense either,
but they were a good playoff defense and they were
able to cause some real problems. And I think we
underestimate to just how much Isaiah Hartenstein was part of
the heart and soul of this team as just like
another one of those ask kicking front court players. But that,
(38:40):
to me is the key in terms of like, if
you're gonna take a lesson from this year, it's it's that,
you know, there's a identity that works that you lost.
You brought in talent, but you lost identity in the process.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Let's do one more question, what kind of move should
Detroit look at this summer.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
So there's a there's a delicate balance here because you
got to be realistic about your chances. So Cleveland isn't
going anywhere. Boston could take a small step back next
year if they end up making some sort of cost
cutting move, which has been the story around the NBA today.
There is Oklahoma City, who I think is in the
(39:21):
beginning of what should be a three to four year
consistent contending run. So you're not winning the title next year,
is my point. With Detroit. What you need with kid
is playoff experience and sustainable talent and success. So I
(39:42):
think it's very important to avoid getting tied up in
long term free agent contracts. And I think it's very
important to shift their free ag or their draft strategy
towards older, more NBA ready role player talent. So don't
swing for the fence. Is with the and by the way,
this by virtue of them winning as many games as
(40:03):
they won this year, it will naturally slot them into
this part of the draft the middle of the first round.
In the middle of the first round, you can find
guys that are sixty seven, six', eight six' nine that,
can dribble shoot, and pass that have no, Star upside
like you're not Gonna get giannis out. OF here i
mean not unless you draft a super raw player that
can't help you. Right away but that's my, point is
(40:25):
you don't want to be, hunting raw high. Ceiling targets
you want to be looking for Big Picture, Tobias Harrison malik,
beasley replacements Big Picture tim hardaway junior types. Of replacements
what that means is guys that can play off, the
ball that weak side scoring, forward archetype a guard that
can set ghost Screens for kate and slip out of
(40:46):
it and, shoot threes but that can also defend at
the point of attack on the other end of. The
floor they need to be TARGETING older nba ready role
player talent in, the draft avoiding sabotaging yourself a free
agency if you do something stupid like trade a bunch
of draft picks for a player that makes you not
as Good, As cleveland Boston. Or, okay see that's where
you end up. In trouble if you make some sort.
(41:07):
Of trade it needs to be for a, bona fide
like top fifteen player IN. The nba if that's, not
there you don't need to be blown a bunch of
money in. Free agency you don't need to be blown
a bunch of money tying yourself up on the. Cap,
sheet well how do you feel About the pistons? Moving? Forward,
JACKSON yeah i think you make a.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Good point there were some there were some people in
the chat talking about should they try to Go After?
Devin Booker and i'm not Sure the sons Are Trading,
devin booker but that's probably the, you know if they're
going to make, a move it's got to be someone of.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
That caliber he'd be the bottom OF what i, consider, That, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
RIGHT and i think that the comment was partially due
to the fact that he had the sort of he
showed In THE team usa over, the summer that he
has a willingness and ability to be a, secondary star be,
a defend not not that he's a, stopper stopper but
be a sort of a high effort defender as opposed
to just having to be the heliocentric in tern of.
An OFFENSE so i, THINK stylistically i definitely understand, the
(42:03):
fit but it it can't be anybody worse than that
if you're making if, you can't, you know to, your
point ship off a bunch of draft picks for someone
Worse Than devin booker.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
And Jad and ivy's development is gonna. BE key, i
mean like you saw what you Saw With dennis schroeder
with the value of a guard that can defend but
that can also generate, dribble penetration run second side. Action
a jaden showed some pop as a spot up shooter
this year that he didn't show in, The past so
like a lot of it too is gonna come Down
To jaden. Ivy's development, and, like again you're better off
(42:32):
finding Out what jaden's capable of by investing in that and,
maintaining flexibility then you are tying. Yourself up you don't
want to pull A Early lebron Calves like he's the
perfect example of what this looks like if you, get
IMPATIENT and i, get, it like what do you Do
when lebron like clearly looks like the second best player
in the world by two thousand and seven and is
(42:53):
dragging a team TO the, nba, finals like of course
you're gonna, think like we got to do, something urgent
but that's what. They did they went after For A,
Moe williams they made these aggressive Moves For antoine jamison
and Signed signing. Shaquille O'Neil they made these like urgent
win now types of moves that handcuffed their ability to
build Sustainably. Around lebron and that's. The key you've got
(43:15):
a guy you gotta caid show that he's a guy in.
THIS series i really think he did. Like it there's
there is real top tier superstar potential. With him it
just needs to be You gotta this Is not wemby where, it's,
like oh like we legitimately can contend for a championship
right away because he's the anchor for an all time great,
(43:36):
defense potentially and Like, LIKE wemby i feel a little bit.
More urgency But, WITH kate i think you want to
play the. SLOW game i think you want to play the.
Long game, all, right guys that's all we have. For tonight,
as mentioned, tomorrow night not tonight. Tomorrow night we are
going to be going over to playback after the final
part of this YouTube, live show but we are going
(43:56):
to be back tomorrow morning with a series Preview On.
Celtics knicks we'll be back tomorrow Night with game Six Of,
warriors rockets and then after our live Show After, warriors
rockets we will be moving Over to playback where we're
going to be doing a bunch of like interactive stuff
with you guys and probably some film. As well, as
always we sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting.
(44:16):
The show we will see you. Tomorrow morning what's? Up guys,
AS always i appreciate you for listening to AND supporting.
Oops tonight they 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 but if you could take a minute to,
Do that i'd really. Appreciate it
Speaker 3 (44:37):
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see dkang dot co slash audio. All right, welcome to
(02:32):
who tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Thursday, Everyboddy, Hopeful
you guys are having a great night. You got a
quick show for you guys tonight. We're gonna get a
few minutes to break down what happened in that Game
six in Los Angeles as the Clippers extend the series
with a dominant defensive third quarter. That's gonna extend this
to a Saturday night in Denver for all of the marbles.
And then in the second half of the show, the
New York Knicks followed the familiar pattern of the rest
(02:55):
of their first round series with the Pistons, these crazy
back and forth games that inevitably come down to crunch
time sequences where the Knicks, just throughout this series have
demonstrated their maturity and their experience in that situation. As
they dispatch of the Pistons, we're gonna talk a little
bit about the Pistons big picture. We're gonna talk a
little bit about the Knicks and them moving forward into
the Celtics series. There's the tail end of the show.
(03:16):
We're gonna do about ten minutes of mail bag questions
for you guys in the chat. Remember, just subscribe to
our channel. Drop questions in the chat. We'll get to
them at the tail end of the show. No mail
back or no playback tonight, excuse me. We are gonna
be back on playback tomorrow night after the final buzzer
of Game six of the Warriors Rocket series. So if
you're not set up on playback yet, make sure you
guys get over there and follow the Hoops Tonight channel.
(03:39):
We'll be back over there for some film and getting
you guys up on stage and talk some hoops with
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You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
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Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds. Follow
(04:02):
us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And the last but
not least, keep dropping those mail back questions for the
chat at the tail end of the show. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So on playback last night, we
had it over there after the live show and we
had you know, some of our supporters over the years
come on and talk some hoops with us. We talked
a lot about the concept of creating advantages in the
(04:23):
half court, and specifically with a guy like Luka Doncic
in the Lakers series, and how I thought one of
the primary kind of turning points, one of the primary
folkrums of the series was Jaden McDaniels held up so
much better on an island against Luca, and all of
the other defenders in action held up so well against
(04:43):
Luca that the Lakers weren't able to get the defense
into rotation very often, and that just made everything very difficult.
And for all the talk about their ability to handle
Minnesota's athleticism, they couldn't score, but they couldn't score because
at the very top they couldn't create advantage. And I
thought we saw a very interesting juxtaposition of the difference
(05:04):
between the Los Angeles Clippers when James Harden is doing
that job of creating those initial advantages versus when he's not,
like he did in Game five. And in many ways,
it's frustrating because we know he's capable of this level
of advantage creation, you just don't know if he's gonna
bring it on any given night. We don't know if
(05:24):
he's gonna bring it in Game seven. It reminds me
of the Sixers series in Boston a couple of years ago.
If you guys remember we're in a couple of games
in that series, James Harden was just absolutely unbelievable in wins,
but then in the other games he just wasn't able
to replicate that. Replicate that. To me, it just starts
with a level of intensity on the ball, like in
his ISOs, with his will, willingness and ability to get
(05:47):
down and make that explosive move to beat that first
man off the dribble. And if he succumbs to the
ball pressure and gets passive and all of his drives
get flattened out, all of a sudden, his impacts tonight.
I thought James Harden did an absolutely amazing job of
picking on specifically Jamal Murray and ISO situations and getting
(06:09):
dribble penetration on him and getting downhill and pick and roll.
All of this stuff is connected. You want to know
how James Harden starts getting good separation on a step
back three, It comes from his ability to get dribble penetration.
You want to know how you get Norman Powell in rhythm.
You get him a bunch of really high quality closeout
(06:29):
opportunities or transition opportunities which come off their defense, which
we'll talk about in a minute. But those closeouts, they
come from advantage creation. That's how you generate the three
point volume they did tonight. In the last two losses
they failed to generate over thirty threes. Tonight they generated
thirty nine threes. They didn't shoot particularly well, but they
(06:52):
generated a ton of these situations where the defenders were
chasing them off the three point line with an advantage.
That three point volume is an indicator of the dribble
penetration that they were getting. And then on the defensive
end of the four and all started with Zubots and
him just doing an unbelievable individual job on Nikole Jokic
(07:14):
in the third quarter in particular, but the entire second half,
Zuo was fantastic on specifically guarding Jokic on an island.
Jokic was trying really hard on his post ups to
swing across the lane and Zoo was just sliding with him,
and as Jokic was going for that scoop, he would
just reach around the side and block him. He got
him going both ways with that. In the fourth quarter,
(07:36):
once going to his left hand, once going to his
right hand, he was trying to drive closeouts off the
top of the keet and really pound into that left
shoulders spin move, and Zoo was just absorbing that contact.
Zuo was fantastic preventing Jokic from dislodging his base. That's
the battle against Jokic. You have to win the battle
on the ground. He's gonna chop his feet, he's gonna
(07:56):
bump you a bunch of times, and if you don't
have your base set, he'll this lodge you and he's
going to get to where he wants for a high
quality shot. Zoo won that battle tonight. In the second half,
the refs were letting them be physical Jokics was bringing
the physicality right back. It was an old fashioned big
man battle and I thought Zoo held up really well.
And in general, the Clippers were way more physical in
(08:19):
the paint than they've been defensively over the course of
this last stretch of the series. Like on Jokic's rolls
to the rim, they were just swarming him and being
physical and attacking the basketball Gordon's post ups. Aaron Gordon
had a lot of success early in the game attacking
Chris Dunn in the post. They did a much better
job getting Aaron Gordon's size mismatched post ups under control.
(08:40):
They held Denver's offense under control, and that allowed them
to build the necessary margin they needed to avoid a
clutch situation. And if they end up in clutch situations
with this surgical Nuggets team, it's just going to be
too difficult. And I thought they just did the job
they needed to do tonight on the Denver front. I
just thought Yokic had an awful third quarter by his
(09:02):
standards on offense, and this Nuggets team really needs to
score because that's their elite trait that they bring to
a series. It's really hard for them to get enough
stops to hold up under that sort of scoring drought.
They had twenty two points in the third quarter, and
that was with Christian Brown hitting a couple of bombs
before the end of the quarter. That was that they
(09:23):
could not score in that quarter. Ultimately, Game seven is
gonna come down to which team can reach closer to
their ceiling. Steve Jones Junior used to work for a
couple NBA teams. He does excellent work with the kay
Is Duncan on the Dunker Spot podcast. He tweeted out
today about a quote from JB. Bickerstaff in a timeout
(09:45):
where JB said something along the lines of like, hey,
we know what they're gonna do now, it's just about executing.
And Steve was making the point in his tweet about
how like, when you get late in these playoffs series,
it's not about tactics anymore more. It's about which guys
on the floor are going to win their battles that
they need to win. Have you guys noticed that we
(10:08):
do a lot more film sessions after game one, Game two,
in game three, and then when it gets later in
the series, it's like, there's no I'm not going to
be able to go to the film tonight and present
you with some magical answer to all of the problems.
If James Harden can create that initial advantage, the Clippers
offense hums at a higher level that keeps them mentally
(10:28):
and physically engaged in the game, which brings the defensive
intensity they need to win battles on defense against the Nuggets.
If the Nuggets contain the basketball through their ball pressure
with Christian Brown and in just an overall defensive engagement,
all of a sudden, the Clippers struggle to generate advantages.
Norman Powell struggles to get going, Nick Batoomb struggles to
get going. James Harden can't get a step back three going.
(10:50):
All of a sudden, it becomes about Kawhi Leonard trying
to make a bunch of shots over double teams. All
of a sudden, their defense loses some energy. The Nuggets
start picking them apart. When we get to this point
in the series, it's we everyone knows what they're gonna do.
Every we know what James Harden is gonna do. He's
gonna attack Yo kitchen ball screens, and he's gonna attack
(11:12):
Jamal Murray and switches every single chance that he gets
on the other end of the floor. It's gonna be
a steady diet of two man game with Jamal Murray
at the top of the key. Joki's trying to either
drive on Zoo off of catches at the top or
off of that you know, right block post up that
he likes. We know what they're gonna do. What's gonna
(11:32):
come in, what's gonna determine Game seven is going to
be who does their job better than their counterparts. If
Jamal Murray out plays James Harden and James Harden struggles
to generate advantages, the Nuggets are going to win Game seven.
If James Harden breaks down the Nuggets defense at the
point of attack and him and Kawhi Leonard go blow
(11:54):
for blow with jo Kichen Murray, they've got a slightly
better defense. I think they're gonna win. But there's no
secrets at this point. It's just about who's going to
win their individual matchups. That's the beauty of late series basketball.
Right when we get into the next round, We're gonna
have a bunch of film sessions after Game one, two,
and three. Why because we're gonna learn about how those
(12:15):
teams are attacking each other. There are no secrets anymore.
It's just about man to man, who's better at basketball,
who's better at inflicting their specific strengths or avoiding their
specific weaknesses. So obviously going to be an exciting game
seven on Saturday, tips off at four to thirty Pacific time.
We will be live on YouTube after the final buzzer
(12:36):
of that game. I'll see all of you Clippers and
Nuggets fans there. We're gonna talk some Nicks Pistons. Though
this game followed a very similar pattern to the rest
of the series. The Knicks came out in a must win,
close out game and immediately took control. They were really
getting out in transition. They were hitting those driving gaps
and getting to the rim quickly early in the clock.
(12:57):
The Pistons weathered that with several big runs, one in
the first half riding an absurdly hot streak shooting the
basketball from Malik Beasley, who put it all together with
a crazy left shoulder running movement three while he's falling
out of bounds right before half, and then another one
in the fourth quarter where the Knicks had taken control
(13:17):
and taken a double figure lead, but Asar Thompson came
into the game and played some really really quality individual
defense on Jalen Brunson, took him out a rhythm for
a little while, and the Pistons ended up working their
way into a seven point lead. But down the stretch,
despite the Pistons holding a seven point lead, the Knicks
(13:38):
were able to slowly and methodically work their way back
into the game. JV. Bickerstaff did them a favor by
taking a star out of the game for a little bit.
It's so funny. I've been watching Pistons fans have a
meltdown about the lineup decisions from JB. Bickerstaff because they've
just been so much better in this series with the
sar Thompson on the floor, and like for all the
shots that Malik Beasley's made, they've gotten killed in his
(14:00):
minutes for the most part over the course of this series.
And it's because pretty simply, Asar Thompson makes life a
hell of a lot more difficult for Jalen Brunson than
anybody else in a Pisson's jersey can. But Brunson was
able to attack in that stretch when a Sorrow was
off the floor, and he was able to tie the game.
And then we ended up with a really interesting final sequence.
Lasar Thompson gets a stop on Jalen Brunson on an island,
(14:22):
slides his feed extremely well, prevents any sort of like
turning the corner from Brunson, takes contact in the chest.
And then every time you fade over one of your shoulders,
in this case Jalen Brunson kind of turning over his
left shoulder, the ball comes up in the shooting pocket
right in front briefly as he's turning over his left
shoulder right, so the ball is exposed temporarily there for
(14:43):
a minute. And as I always talk about a lot
of these pull up shooters, they don't see you up top,
they don't see the contest, but if you can disrupt
their rhythm down low, and Assar Thompson waited for Brunson
to turn and expose the ball, and he stripped down
and took the ball away. The Knicks were having a
hell of a time trying to get a star switched
(15:03):
off of Brunson in these sequences, so Brunson had no
choice because oursarrow was fighting through all those screens. Brunson
had no choice but to figure out how to get
a bucket against the other team's best defender. And one
of the things that I thought was genius about Brunson's
game winner was the way he identified it, the way
(15:25):
he identified his individual advantage in this matchup. The individual
advantage that Jalen Brunson has in this matchup against a
Star Thompson is he has a lower center of gravity
and he's pretty fucking strong for how big, for how
big he is. So what does he do. He makes
a hard left handed dribble move, an extended, hard left
(15:46):
handed dribble move, gets into a Sar Thompson's body snatch
back dribble, and in that situation, because he's got contact
with the sar's body and because he has the lower
center of gravity, it's a very similar dynamic to what
I've been talking about so much about dislodging your base.
He was able to, with that hard move and that
(16:06):
snatchback dribble Dislodgessar Thompson's base about as dramatically as you'll
ever see in a perimeter matchup. There's an angle from
the scorers table or from I don't know, the media table,
whatever it is, that's on that side of the floor
to the left of where the game winner was and
it's kind of like a portrait style like smartphone video.
And on the snatchback dribblesar Thompson just completely exits the
(16:30):
frame and Jalen's able to just steadily settle into that
off the dribble jump shot right there at the top
of the key. But I just thought it was a
you know, I talk a lot about how the Playoffs
are about solving puzzles, and specifically for Brunson, because of
the way that they look to attack. It's very ISO heavy,
it's very matchup attacking. One of the things Brunson had
(16:50):
to do was figure out how to get a bucket
on Asar Thompson in a big spot when a Sar
had been giving him some issues in that in that
middle of the fourth quarter, Sar Thompson was the reason
Brunson got out of rhythm and started missing clean looks.
As the Pistons took a seven point lead, Asar Thompson
got a stop on the previous possession. Brunson had the
challenge in front of him, He had the puzzle in
(17:10):
front of him, and he figured it out, if I
lose my moment, if I lose my momentum and I
operate around the elbows with a bunch of hesitation dribbles
like he did on the previous possession. I'm not gonna
be able to shake this guy. Now, I'm gonna have
to turn around over him. I'm gonna expose the ball
down low. He's probably gonna get a good contest up high.
But if I get my momentum going, if I get
ahead of steam and I get connected to his body,
(17:33):
I can snatch back and I can shed him, and
I can get the separation that I need. Unbelievable move
from Jalen Brunson to win the series. I talked before
the series about how these teams are pretty evenly matched,
but that there was an experience and execution advantage that
would push the Knicks over the top. I thought it
was evident at the start of the series with the
(17:54):
way Brunson was attacking Tobias Harris and finding a matchup
that he liked, while Cade was like having these zero
pass possessions attacking o Jan Andobi. But it got even
more complicated down the stretches. Once again, you saw the
Knicks found a coverage that worked against Kate We're going
to talk about in a minute and the Pistons found
a way to avoid switches, and so Brunson's challenge was
(18:15):
figuring out how to score against the star. Kate Huntingham
was being faced with a very simple problem. He was
attacking Jalen Brunson in a guard screens and Brunson was
hedging and recovering. But because had had a rough night
shooting the three point shot, he bailed on it and
that was his biggest mistake. And we're going to talk
(18:35):
about Kate a little bit in the big picture here
in a minute, But Kate refused to take the pull
up three that was open in the gaps in that
hedge that Jalen Brunson was throwing, and as a result,
he didn't have a comfortable shot or a comfortable look
that he could go to. And there just was no
consistency for the Pistons and crunch time in the series,
while Brunson knew exactly how he wanted to attack, and
(18:55):
he was just so surgical and making sure that he
maximized those crunch time possessions. No disrespect to Cad, this
was his first time doing it. We've said this a
million times in the series. Jalen Brunson has played in.
This is his ninth playoff series since he left the
Dallas Mavericks. He's got a ton of experience in these situations.
Cade is learning, but that experience gap ultimately ended up
(19:17):
being the difference between these two teams. I want to
talk a little bit about the Boston Series and then
we'll talk a little bit about Kid, because I do
want to talk about his development moving forward. So looking
ahead to the Boston Series, I rewatched their last matchup
earlier today, the matchup where the Knicks actually kind of
like controlled a good portion of the game and ended
up losing in overtime. You can see what the Knick's
(19:40):
best options are on both ends of the floor. The
Knicks approached that game with a very high level of
intensity because they so desperately needed a signature win and
a season that was just utterly devoid of signature wins.
And you found some things. Jalen Brunson was able to
get some advantages attacking chrisops porzingis in action. He definitely
(20:01):
likes his ISO matchups against Derek White more than Drew Holliday.
Drew Holliday is a really good job on him, but
Derek White even it's not a great option there. Derek
White just gets such great contests on pull up jump shots.
But he can get good stuff against Porzingis, and I
think he can get some good stuff against Horford, although
Horford wasn't on the floor down the stretch in this
particular game. On the other end of the floor, though,
(20:25):
it's a steady diet of the Celtics looking to attack
Cat and Jaln Brunson in action. Now, one of the
things that I noticed, instead of just running their hedge
and recover scheme, one of the things that they were
doing down the stretch that allowed them to have some
success is what's called peel switching. It's very different kind
of switching than normal switching. So in normal switching, guy
(20:46):
comes up to set a screen, you just pass him
off right, the other guy closes out, he takes the matchup.
The guy who's guarding the ball sinks underneath the screener
to prevent him from getting a slip into the back line,
and then you just play contain the ball basketball. One
of the things they were doing against Boston down the
stretch in that overtime game was peeloff switching. What that
means is the guys guarding the ball actually chases the
(21:08):
man over the top. By chasing the man over the
top into the switch, it causes him to at least
have to attack right away or rush his decision making
a little bit. Then what they were doing is after
he chased over the top, then he would quit on
that specific chase and bail out and close out to
you know, Christops porzingis popping in action or Derek White
(21:30):
popping in action, and so it does ultimately end in
a switch. And in those situations it's going to come
down to Kat holding up against a Derek White like
he had to down the stretch in that game, or
Jalen Brunson having to hold up against one of the Jays.
The Celtics also found a way to attack that by
dragging out the screening action. Tatum had a really good
(21:51):
one where he generated a clean look for Derek White
at the top of the key, where he just attacked
downhill fast, so that, as I believe it was, Ogbi
tried to peel off, he was so far away that
it was too long of a close out. They ended
up having to close out from the weak side, and
so there are still openings that the Celtics confined there.
But ultimately the Knick's best opportunity to keep themselves out
(22:13):
of rotation is to switch, regardless of whether it's a
peel switch or more of a traditional switch. But that's
gonna be the thing that I noticed on film that's
gonna end up playing a big role in this series.
Is cand Jalen Brunson do a better job of attacking
Porzingis and Horford in screening action than the Jays on
the other end of the floor. Or Derek White as well,
(22:35):
if he's involved, can attack Karl, Anthony Towns and Jalen
Brunson in screening action. That's gonna be the series. The
margin for air for New York is just so incredibly thin.
Every Nick is going to have to play to the
absolute peak of their ability. I'm gonna hold off on
making a pick until tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning, we will
(22:57):
have a series preview on Celtics Nicks that will be
on the channel probably you know, right around noon ish
specific time, So keep an eye on the feeds around there.
But this is gonna be an interesting series. But like
the Knicks are gonna have their work cut out for him.
Boston's got some clear advantages, a clear way to attack.
I was talking with Colin Coward about this on his
show yesterday. But one of the things that's interesting about
(23:20):
the personality of these two teams is there's this idea like, oh,
we went and we got Og and we got McHale.
That's our answer to the Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum problem.
We need lots of big, versatile wings. But I think
people are missing the point about what has made the
Celtics successful over the years. It's not because they have
big versatile wings. It's because they can put together five
man lineups where everybody can guard multiple positions. That's what
(23:43):
gives them the flexibility to switch. That's what makes it
so that you can't very easily break down their defense
at the point of attack. There's an example in the
Celtics film that I was watching today where it's like,
it doesn't matter if Og and Obi's guarding Jason Tatum,
if you can screen with Jalen Brunson's man, and Jalen
Brunson's not gonna switch on to him because then Og
(24:05):
gets caught on the screen and Tatum can get downhill
or Tatum can attack a defense that's in rotation. It
doesn't matter that Josh hart og And and Obi and Michale
Bridges are super versatile forwards if they're anchored by two
players that you can get their defense into rotation and
screening action. That is going to be the key for
the Knicks in the series is trying to find a
way to find a defensive coverage with those two that
(24:27):
can keep them out of rotation. But again, keep an
eye on the feeds. Tomorrow we'll have a series preview
in the middle of the day. Lastly on Kate before
we get into our mailbag. Like, I get it, if
your jump SHOT's not falling, you want to try to
find something else that works. But one of the things
that's going to be very important for Cad in his
(24:48):
development is have you ever watched a Jalen Brunson game
where you feel like he won't take a jump shot
when his team needs him too down the stretch, even
if he's missing. We'll see games this year where Brunson is,
you know, five for nineteen, but he'll take and make
three big jump shots down the stretch. You have to
trust your work and trust your ability to knock down
(25:10):
that shot. The reason why it matters is because of
the coverage. The shot that the Knicks were conceding to
Cad tonight was that interchange gap in the hedge and recover.
So as you seek Cunningham coming off the screen and
Og Andnobi's guarding him. When Tim Hardaway Junior comes up
(25:31):
and sets the pick, Brunson is jumping out to hedge,
getting in Kid's way so that he has to go
round the hedge. Og in that sequence is going underneath
to meet Kate on the other side of the screen.
So as Brunson is bailing on the hedge and as
(25:52):
Og is coming back up to meet on the other side,
there was a clear gap where Cade was looking at
the rim in a high hesitation dribble and wouldn't take
the shot, And ultimately the reason why they lost this
game down the stretches. They didn't score a single time.
They didn't make a bucket after they took that seven
(26:13):
point lead. One bucket. You're sending this to game seven,
and so with KD you need to come down to
a series of very basic moves that you can go
to an isolation situations and basic coverage beating shots that
you cannot bail on that pull up three absolutely has
(26:37):
to be a shot that you trust when you need
to take it, because you might have to take it
because of a coverage in a specific situation late in
the game. We know with Jalen Brunson, he likes to
fade over his left shoulder. He likes to step back
to his right, you know, kind of shooting over his
left shoulder, and then he likes to set himself up
like he's gonna go off of a screen with his
(26:57):
right hand, and then hard right cross, right to left
crossover to try to get downhill to reject a screen.
Those are like the three main go to kind of
things you're gonna see from Brunton down the stretch. He's
gotten incredibly good at those moves. If he gets to
those moves, he's gonna hit him about fifty percent of
the time on his jump shots, and he's gonna get
get to the foul line or get something decent at
the rim at a pretty high rate. On his drives.
(27:18):
He has these dependable, rock solid, we're stuck in the
half court, it's tied, there's five minutes left, types of moves.
That's the type of reliability that Kide needs to build
out in specific parts of his shot making. Late in games,
he took and made like a little left shoulder fade
over o Jan Andobi in the post. That was the
only jump shot that he was willing to take in
(27:40):
that stretch. Okay, let's say that that's one of your moves.
You need to wrap it out so that you have
this left shoulder fade that at any given moment if
your team needs a bucket. Oh shit, there, I can't.
Let's pretend you're dealing with a Nasar Thompson look alike
on the other team. I can't get a Sar Thompson
off me. What am I gonna do? I got a
fine a way to score on this guy. And there's
(28:02):
just a little bit of a passivity that we saw
from Caid, from a little bit of a lack of
trust in what he could do in those situations down
the stretch. I got it reflected throughout this series. There
was no real consistency in the way that Caid looked
to attack down the stretch. And so again I'm not
being critical of Kate. I'm just talking about his long
term development. This is the piece that's missing for him
(28:22):
that when he adds he can take this team to
another level. He was As you can see this, Pisson's
team is closer to being able to make a deeper
playoff run than we originally thought, and Kid's development is
going to be the thing that pushes them over the
top in that regard. All right, Jackson, let's see about
ten minutes of questions. How did that sound.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Let's let's do some questions. We're going to do a
couple from the first game or the Clippers game, and
then we'll do a Clipper from the other game and
go from there. First one, Nick Batoum was huge in
tonight's game. He started the second half, obviously in place
of Chris Dunn. He also took Ben Simmons's sort of
rotation minutes, and he was awesome on both times. Are
the court? How can the Nuggets try and solve this
(29:02):
problem in Game seven?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Containing the ball? It's it's that simple. This is this
is something that you see all over the place. I mean,
it was so funny when I saw JB. Bickerstaff in
his when the Knicks took their double digit lead. There
was another timeout audio clip of JB saying, like we
got to control the ball. We can't and it was
during that stretch when Campaign was just eviscerating Malik Beasley,
(29:26):
and like you like that. That's ultimately what it comes
down to. Like if you if you contain the ball,
help defense doesn't have to overreact. If help defense doesn't
have to overreact, the kickout reads on, it is clean.
If the kickout reads on is clean, the advantages aren't there.
The ball gets stagnant, it turns into tossing the ball
to your star with five or six seconds left on
the shot clock. And like Nick Patoom, there was a
(29:47):
lot of Nick Patuma alongside Norman Powell, which I thought
was very interesting tonight in terms of just floor spacing,
like basically situating themselves in a way where there's just
these two knockdown three point shooters on the floor that
are playing off ball. That just creates a lot of
space for James Harden to look to attack. But again,
if Christian Brown can apply better ball pressure on James
Harden and flat note those flatten out those drives a bit,
(30:09):
that will prevent the close out opportunities that he can
capitalize on. And Nick Watum has always just been an
underrated defensive player. But like if you can get the
best of both worlds. If you can get an athlete
that's covering ground and you know, doing stuff to disrupt
people around the rim the way Ben Simmons can, while
also providing you with shooting on the other end of
the floor. I mean, that's you're getting two players in
one there.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Yeah. And I think patom also in addition to the
physical defensive tools he has, he saw on some of
those deflections he had late is super high Q. He
knows that where they're looking to go in their two
man game, that kind of reads that Jamal is making
and where he can try where he tries to bail
out if he's getting double teamed. I think he had
two or three big deflections late and his his smarts
(30:49):
are on display.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I think this is a great point, Jackson, Like I
feel like at least half the job on defense is
the mental side. Like if you if you're a athlete,
but you can't read what the progression is that's taking place,
then you're gonna struggle on defense. So for instance, like
you you made a great point, Like if you're running
the two man game with Murray and Jokic and he
(31:13):
catches in the pocket, you know that when the lowman
steps up, Aaron Gordon's gonna be kind of sidling in
along the baseline, and Michael Porter Junior is gonna be
sliding down to the corner. And the passing read for
Yokich is gonna be based on whether or not Michael
Porter Junior's man comes down and tags Aaron Gordon and
a lot of that. You can read the eyes and
you can try to jump in front of it. Jokich
post up, same sort of thing. If he gets to
(31:33):
the middle and he sees a guy step up, Aaron
Gordon's gonna slide in underneath the basket, Michael Porter Junior
is gonna relocate to the corner, and there's a two
on one in the form of Gordon and MPJ. And
so to your point, if you can like be in
Jokich's head and understand where he's going next, you're not
always gonna beat him. And sometimes he's gonna be a
genius and he might bait you into being out of position,
(31:53):
and he might beat you, but you can force him
into more mistakes if you can be more anticipatory of
what he's trying to do. I'm not even sure if
that's a word anyway, go ahead, I.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Think I think he nailed it.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Think you nailed it.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Next question, Uh, we've talked a little bit about this,
but you know now that we're one game away, it's
either going to be Denver or Los Angeles. Moving on
with that, we know that for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Do you think that The question is Jackson's Lakers and
nine B.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Right Lakers, And the question is do you think the
Clippers perimeter defense, defensive personnel, and Kawhi having size advantages
over most of Okac's guards makes the Clippers a tougher
component opponent compared to Denver.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
In theory, the Clippers should be a tougher matchup for
Oka se Zoo can present similar problems for their interior
in terms of his size that can present Kawhi Leonard
is this like big forward that can thrive against some
of Okac's smaller perimeter players to get to his spots.
James Harden in theory, is the type of player that
(32:53):
can punish the Thunder for loading up on the strong
side when he's running his ball screens. My big concern
is the Thunder are a excellent turnover forcing defense that
will pressure the hell out of you, speed you up
and if you can't be precise in your connective playmaking
after James Harden makes that first read, you're gonna be
(33:15):
in a track meet and O case is gonna win.
I trust Denver more to make the necessary passing reads
to break down Oklahoma City's defense more than I trust
the Clippers on the other end of the floor. OKAC
is gonna score on the Nuggets. The Nuggets are not
a great enough a good enough defense to like stop
(33:37):
oka se but I think Denver will be able to
get some stops by virtue of the thing we've talked
about all season with Okasee and the fact that you
can load up the strong side a little bit with
them and you're not super concerned about their guys on
the weak side burning you and catch and shoot situations.
So like I to me, it's like, I think you've
got to be big and smart to beat OKAC, and
I'm worried that the Clippers aren't smart enough. Totally agree,
(34:35):
and like, I think it could be a nightmare James
Harden series with their ball pressure and their physicality, and
like him kind of just struggling as that series gets
super intense. The Clippers certainly can beat the Thunder. I'm
not trying to say they can't, but I just I
look at the matchups and I view the Nuggets as
just a better threat, if that makes sense. I just
(34:58):
I think it's just this Clippers team is such a
like a kind of Jekyll and Hide energy and intensity
kind of team too, which I just don't think you
can afford when okay See has home court advantage either.
So like, yeah, I would lean towards Denver speaking.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Of Jekyl and Hide energy teams. Question about the Knicks,
why don't the Knicks always come out with this kind
of urgency?
Speaker 2 (35:21):
You know, it's so funny. Shout out Josh Roger, you guys,
he's done some production work for the show over the years.
Big big, big Knicks fan. He was tweeting earlier about
how like Knicks fans are just done with this team
and how like they just are like reserved to the
fact that they're going to get just crushed by the
Celtics and it just doesn't matter, and like it's just funny.
(35:41):
You and I were texting about this earlier, Jackson. It's
just funny juxtaposed with last year's team, which kind of
had like felt like the heart and soul of the
New York City playing basketball, you know what I mean?
And I think I think there are some valuable lessons
learned in the sense that this team just does have
a lack of like grit compared to the previous iteration
(36:02):
of the team. You could go into a bunch of
different ideas as to what causes that. I think it's
I think it's a combination of things. I think that
they're not as deep as they used to be, and
so there's a little bit of an energy conservation element
to it. I think that Karl Anthony Towns is kind
of a textbook Jekyll and Hyde intensity guy in the
same way that James Harden is. And so, you know,
(36:25):
I look at consistencies like, I know Og can be
part of that character. I know Josh can be part
of that character. I know Brunson can be part of
that character. I don't think McHale Bridges is a guy
who lacks energy and intensity, although he had some stretches
this season where he wasn't as good defensively as he
needed to be. But you know, I think that the idea,
(36:46):
like let's say that the let's say that the Knicks
just gets smashed in the second in the second round
against Boston. I think that Brunson has proven to this
point that he has the ability to create offense in
tight spaces, Like I think he's proven that he doesn't
necessarily need to have you know, perfect five out spacing
to be able to create offense for himself. So if
(37:08):
things go really poorly, I would strongly consider the pivot
centering around Kat and trying to flip him basically for
depth of like just big ass kicking front court athletes
and backcourt athletes, and just really lean into the identity
that worked last year, which is if we surround Brunson
with a ton of toughness in all the margins, he
(37:30):
can carry us over the top offensively. But I think
it's a combination of the lack of depth. They scored
the ball really well for extended stretches this year, which
I think bred some laziness for them on the defensive end.
They felt like they could outscore teams when they needed to,
and then Karl Anthony Towns is just kind of an
inconsistent energy and effort guy. I really think it just
comes down to that. But I get it. It's frustrating
(37:52):
like they there were short, little five minute spurts in
this series where the Knicks looked like they were completely
outclassing Detroit, but they just weren't able to like maintain
that momentum throughout the series.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Yeah, it is weird how a Tom Thibodeau coach team
is so offense dependent and it feels like they can't
They really struggle to get big stops. I mean, you know,
it helps that the Pistons are a young team with
not the many playmakers, but it really does feel like
the next struggle on the defensive end when they need.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
To they do. Yeah, it's it's it's been. It's been
kind of like the story of the season is, like
they last year. They weren't a statistically great defense either,
but they were a good playoff defense and they were
able to cause some real problems. And I think we
underestimate to just how much Isaiah Hartenstein was part of
the heart and soul of this team as just like
another one of those ask kicking front court players. But that,
(38:40):
to me is the key in terms of like, if
you're gonna take a lesson from this year, it's it's that,
you know, there's a identity that works that you lost.
You brought in talent, but you lost identity in the process.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Let's do one more question, what kind of move should
Detroit look at this summer.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
So there's a there's a delicate balance here because you
got to be realistic about your chances. So Cleveland isn't
going anywhere. Boston could take a small step back next
year if they end up making some sort of cost
cutting move, which has been the story around the NBA today.
There is Oklahoma City, who I think is in the
(39:21):
beginning of what should be a three to four year
consistent contending run. So you're not winning the title next year,
is my point. With Detroit. What you need with kid
is playoff experience and sustainable talent and success. So I
(39:42):
think it's very important to avoid getting tied up in
long term free agent contracts. And I think it's very
important to shift their free ag or their draft strategy
towards older, more NBA ready role player talent. So don't
swing for the fence. Is with the and by the way,
this by virtue of them winning as many games as
(40:03):
they won this year, it will naturally slot them into
this part of the draft the middle of the first round.
In the middle of the first round, you can find
guys that are sixty seven, six', eight six' nine that,
can dribble shoot, and pass that have no, Star upside
like you're not Gonna get giannis out. OF here i
mean not unless you draft a super raw player that
can't help you. Right away but that's my, point is
(40:25):
you don't want to be, hunting raw high. Ceiling targets
you want to be looking for Big Picture, Tobias Harrison malik,
beasley replacements Big Picture tim hardaway junior types. Of replacements
what that means is guys that can play off, the
ball that weak side scoring, forward archetype a guard that
can set ghost Screens for kate and slip out of
(40:46):
it and, shoot threes but that can also defend at
the point of attack on the other end of. The
floor they need to be TARGETING older nba ready role
player talent in, the draft avoiding sabotaging yourself a free
agency if you do something stupid like trade a bunch
of draft picks for a player that makes you not
as Good, As cleveland Boston. Or, okay see that's where
you end up. In trouble if you make some sort.
(41:07):
Of trade it needs to be for a, bona fide
like top fifteen player IN. The nba if that's, not
there you don't need to be blown a bunch of
money in. Free agency you don't need to be blown
a bunch of money tying yourself up on the. Cap,
sheet well how do you feel About the pistons? Moving? Forward,
JACKSON yeah i think you make a.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Good point there were some there were some people in
the chat talking about should they try to Go After?
Devin Booker and i'm not Sure the sons Are Trading,
devin booker but that's probably the, you know if they're
going to make, a move it's got to be someone of.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
That caliber he'd be the bottom OF what i, consider, That, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
RIGHT and i think that the comment was partially due
to the fact that he had the sort of he
showed In THE team usa over, the summer that he
has a willingness and ability to be a, secondary star be,
a defend not not that he's a, stopper stopper but
be a sort of a high effort defender as opposed
to just having to be the heliocentric in tern of.
An OFFENSE so i, THINK stylistically i definitely understand, the
(42:03):
fit but it it can't be anybody worse than that
if you're making if, you can't, you know to, your
point ship off a bunch of draft picks for someone
Worse Than devin booker.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
And Jad and ivy's development is gonna. BE key, i
mean like you saw what you Saw With dennis schroeder
with the value of a guard that can defend but
that can also generate, dribble penetration run second side. Action
a jaden showed some pop as a spot up shooter
this year that he didn't show in, The past so
like a lot of it too is gonna come Down
To jaden. Ivy's development, and, like again you're better off
(42:32):
finding Out what jaden's capable of by investing in that and,
maintaining flexibility then you are tying. Yourself up you don't
want to pull A Early lebron Calves like he's the
perfect example of what this looks like if you, get
IMPATIENT and i, get, it like what do you Do
when lebron like clearly looks like the second best player
in the world by two thousand and seven and is
(42:53):
dragging a team TO the, nba, finals like of course
you're gonna, think like we got to do, something urgent
but that's what. They did they went after For A,
Moe williams they made these aggressive Moves For antoine jamison
and Signed signing. Shaquille O'Neil they made these like urgent
win now types of moves that handcuffed their ability to
build Sustainably. Around lebron and that's. The key you've got
(43:15):
a guy you gotta caid show that he's a guy in.
THIS series i really think he did. Like it there's
there is real top tier superstar potential. With him it
just needs to be You gotta this Is not wemby where, it's,
like oh like we legitimately can contend for a championship
right away because he's the anchor for an all time great,
(43:36):
defense potentially and Like, LIKE wemby i feel a little bit.
More urgency But, WITH kate i think you want to
play the. SLOW game i think you want to play the.
Long game, all, right guys that's all we have. For tonight,
as mentioned, tomorrow night not tonight. Tomorrow night we are
going to be going over to playback after the final
part of this YouTube, live show but we are going
(43:56):
to be back tomorrow morning with a series Preview On.
Celtics knicks we'll be back tomorrow Night with game Six Of,
warriors rockets and then after our live Show After, warriors
rockets we will be moving Over to playback where we're
going to be doing a bunch of like interactive stuff
with you guys and probably some film. As well, as
always we sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting.
(44:16):
The show we will see you. Tomorrow morning what's? Up guys,
AS always i appreciate you for listening to AND supporting.
Oops tonight they 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 but if you could take a minute to,
Do that i'd really. Appreciate it
Speaker 3 (44:37):
The volume
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Colin Cowherd
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