Jason reacts to Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, and the Denver Nuggets getting an upset win in Game 1 of their first round series against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder. Then he discusses Jalen Brunson, OG Anunoby, and Mikal Bridges leading the Knicks to a big comeback win over Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and the Boston Celtics.
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see dkang dot co slash audio. All right, Wildred Hoops tonight,
(02:33):
you're at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody. Hope all you
guys are having a great start to your week. While
the NBA Playoffs just delivered us an unbelievable night with
two completely absurd games as the Knicks go down twenty
in the second half and come all the way back
to beat the Celtics in overtime, riding a fifty three
to thirty run with some really interesting basketball on both
(02:54):
ends of the floor. And then our nightcap, the Oklahoma
City Thunder throw a fantastic punch against the den Nuggets,
showing so much of what has made them so good
all season long. But all night long, the Nuggets just
kept scoring the basketball and keeping things close, and then
at the end of the game, scoring every single time
down the floor as they methodically work their way into
(03:16):
one of the most outrageous thefts that I can remember
in my time as an NBA fan, I was getting
ready to come out of that game thing and oh
a lot of encouraging stuff for Denver, but obviously they're
gonna lose this game. Now Denver's up one to zero
in the series has a completely different feel. We're gonna
be breaking down both games from the perspective of both teams.
(03:37):
You guys know the jope before we get started. To
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(03:57):
We will also when we are done here tonight, we
will be heading over to playback. On Playback. We have
callers up on stage, we take questions from the chat,
we watch film. We just hang out and talked basketball
for an extra forty five minutes at the end of
each show. So make sure Ei there's a link in
the description here. Make sure when we're done here, you
guys follow us over to playback for the after show. So,
(04:20):
as I said before the series, I didn't pick the
Nuggets to win. I picked the Thunder to win. The
Thunder were a minus seven hundred favorite. I thought that
was a little too extreme. I said that that should
be somewhere more around the minus three hundred minus three
to fifty side of things, in that Oklahoma City is
clearly the better team. They are healthy and more well rested,
They have home court advantage. They demonstrated a lot of
(04:43):
things this year that show them as one of the
great teams in NBA history. Everything you heard about Boston
last year, the Thunder were basically a better version of
that this year, playing against a substantially tougher schedule. This
is a very, very very good team. But one of
the reasons why I anticipated it being a closer series,
a series where Denver would win multiple games, centered around
(05:04):
the fact that Denver scored against these guys in the
regular season. And this is the beautiful thing about having
Nikola Jokich. We've been talking so much on the show
over the course of the last week about the concept
of superstar players and how valuable they are in the
NBA playoffs, and how there's been kind of a new
light that's been shined on depth of role player talent.
(05:25):
And while I've always felt that that's important, and yeah,
you could argue that as the league has become more
transition based and there's more possessions and there's a lot
more advanced defensive schemes that force your stars to give
up the ball, that yes, having a depth of talent
is more important than it used to be. But ultimately,
time and time again, I saw in the first round
(05:45):
it was the stars that were doing the heavy lifting.
You want to know why Denver beat the Clippers even
though everybody, including myself beat the Clippers because Jokicic was
so much better than James Harden and Kawhi Leonard was.
You want to know why Jalen Brunson was able to
dispend the Pistons because he specifically outplayed Ky down the
stretch of those games, Anthony Edwards out playing Luca Steph,
(06:07):
out playing Fred van Vliet, and Outprinshangun. I can go
down the line over and over again the stars ultimately
are the one guy on the floor that has the
ability to transcend all the surrounding circumstances and to get
the job done. Nikole Joakis just played one of the
best playoff games you'll ever see a player play forty
two points, twenty two rebounds, six assists. He was getting
(06:32):
absolutely mauled all over the place. Oklahoma City threw an
excellent defensive punch in this game, really catching the Nuggets
off guard with their ball pursuit, specifically when guys would
turn their head. Turnovers and getting out in transition off
of turnovers was a huge part of this specific game.
That was actually one of the big ways that Oklahoma
City built as much margin as they did throughout the game.
(06:54):
In the half court, both teams actually struggled to score
relative to their typical efficiency. Oklahoma City logged in eighty
seven offensive rating in the half court. That's pretty low.
Denver logged in eighty three offensive rating in the half court.
That's pretty low. They were able to control things with
Oklahoma City and their offense when they were in the
half court. There was just the turnovers and the getting
(07:15):
out in transition over and over and over again. But
one of the things that started to come to fruition
towards the tail end of the game was Denver stopped
turning the ball over and their offense can generate quality
shots against this team. And one of the things is
if you've got an elite unit, if you've got one
singular thing that you do as a basketball team that
(07:37):
the other team can't handle, then you will have stretches
of games where you're in control. And every time Oklahoma
City built that lead up to twelve, thirteen, fourteen points,
the Nuggets would score two three times in a row
and get the lead back down to six or seven points.
When you watch this game, yeah, there were guys who contributed. Obviously,
(07:58):
Aaron Gordon hits the shot of a light time in
his second game winner in this playoff run. He's having
what hell of a playoff run. You have Russell Westbrook
in his first shift doing all the work that he
was doing on the ball. Jamal hit a couple of
big shots in this game, but over and over again,
it was Nicola Jokic who was the superpower. He was
the guy that no matter what Oklahoma City did, no
(08:18):
matter how many bodies they threw at him, how many
times in that crunch time. Did you see him literally
rumble down the lane against like three four different Thunder
defenders on one single possession and just work his way
through them and get to where he needed to go.
Just an unbelievable performance from Nikola Jokic in this particular game,
like the sheer degree of difficulty. You're watching lou Dord
(08:44):
every time he gets a switch, just chucking him like
he's a football, sled at the foul line, getting hacked
and grabbed chet. Holmgren did a wonderful job in this
game of bringing physicality to Joki, especially early, and that
caused him a lot of problems. Throughout the game, Denver
was struggling as as they turned their head, whether it
was Alex Crusoe or someone else, someone would come flying
(09:04):
in from behind and poke the ball away or block
the shot from behind. Denver's gonna have a lot of
opportunity to look at tape and see opportunities or they
just weren't prepared for the things that Oklahoma City did defensively.
But ultimately, in the third quarter, Denver scored thirty five points.
In the fourth quarter, Denver scored thirty one points, sixty
(09:24):
six points on the road against the best defense not
just in this individual season, but relative to NBA history
in the rest of the league's defensive ratings. This is
an all time great defense that Oklahoma City has statistically,
and Denver is able to score against them. If you
take anything away from this game and look, the series
(09:45):
now has a very different feel now right the series.
Once you steal home court advantage, Denver is in a
substantially better position to try to steal this series. I
never overreact to Game one. I'm not going to change
my pick or anything like that. But I went from
feeling like this was a series where Denver might get
a couple of games, maybe three games, to now Denver
(10:05):
has a legitimate chance to win this series. By stealing
Game one, they have changed the entire tone and tenor
of this entire series. And it was Nicol Jokis time
and time again just being the indomitable force on offense
in a way that Oklahoma City simply could not match
up with him. Forty two and twenty two. It's the
(10:27):
seventh time in his career he's had a twenty twenty
game in the playoffs. I just thought he was absolutely
unbelievable tonight. I always talk about adversity in how it
brings the absolute best out of basketball players, and I
used to complain about this in the past, specifically with
Kevin Durant when he went to the Warriors, back when
(10:48):
I was a younger fan who was very upset about
how my Lebron James led Cleveland Cavaliers were being basically
put into a position where they couldn't win because the
second best player, third best player in the league joined
a seventy three win team. And I'm watching him, and
I'm watching him win fifteen straight playoff games, and I'm
watching KD get easy dunks driving down the lane while
(11:09):
calves are running to Steph Curry on the left wing
and transition, and I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, like,
this is not the best basketball I've seen KD play,
Because I've seen KD when the shit hits the fan,
like twenty twenty one in Brooklyn against the Bucks. I've
seen him rise to the occasion when the circumstances demanded
(11:32):
more out of him than he had ever provided in
his career, and he put together a game in that
was a game five or Game six against the Bucks
that was one of the best games you'll ever see
a player play because the adversity brought it out of him.
This was a game Jokicic was frustrated. He's frustrated with
Michael Porter Junior is frustrated with the teams rebounding, frustrated
with the mistakes that were being made. You could see
(11:53):
him just like rubbing his temples during the game, like
working his way through emotionally what he was dealing with
as he's he just wants to win so badly, but
he knows his team is just up against it. But
he never gave up and just kept attacking and just
kept getting buckets and kept generating offense, and as a result,
he puts forth one of the craziest stat lines that
(12:14):
you'll see in the history of the NBA Playoffs. I
just was amazed by Nikola Jokic tonight. He deserves all
the flowers that he's gonna get. He just single handedly
superman backpacked a win for his team on a night
when they were not playing well. Jamal Murray six six
for sixteen, Michael Porter Junior won for eight. This was
(12:37):
a game where he needed to do it all and
he did, and he reached a level that we haven't
seen in a very long time, and Denver gets out
of here with a win. Lots of interesting stuff to
look forward to in the series. You saw over the
course of that of that second half that Denver was
able to kind of pack the paint and gear Oklahoma
City's shot selection towards weak side shots. Four guys like
(12:59):
check home grin, four guys like Alex Caruso. Shout out
to Alex Kruso. By the way, I thought this game
winner from Aaron Gordon overshadowed one of the better role
player games that you'll ever see. He had twenty points
six rebound or excuse me, twenty points, six assists in
five steals and was just an absolute wrecking ball from
the minute he checked into the game, because Denver was
kind of hanging tough. From the minute Alex checked into
(13:21):
the game. He was just an absolute wrecking ball over
and over again, knocking down catch and shoot threes. I
thought it was interesting that Mark Dagenell actually started him
in the second half. Mark Dagenel was coaching this like
it was an important game he wanted to win. And
by the way, I saw some criticism and I understand
that after the fact, it's easy to just be like, oh, well,
they should have done this, they should have done that.
If they hit a game tying three and they go
to overtime and lose, everyone's complaining that they didn't foul
(13:44):
because they're up three. Like, I get it. There are
some different circumstances, like there was one where Yokich was
literally off the floor. But ultimately that scheme, that idea
of fouling intentionally fouling down the stretch when you're up
three works if you make your damn free throws. And
so if there's an if there's any bit of criticism,
it's that either Mark Degnel and the coaching staff did
(14:04):
trust Chet and Chet just happened to miss a couple
of free throws, or there needs to be an adjustment
with your coaching staff based on the fact that you
don't have the requisite free throw shooting on the floor
to get away with that sort of situation. But there
are problems that both teams can't handle in this matchup.
I don't think that I don't think that Jamal Murray's
gonna have a super efficient scoring series. He'll have a
(14:27):
game or two in this series where he shoots the
ball really well, probably in Denver where he has thirty
something and you know, goes twelve for eighteen from the field,
But like, this is a matchup that's going to be
tough for him. I don't think Michael Porter Junior is
going to have a really super efficient, high volume, hig
efficiency scoring series because there's just so much athleticism on
the floor for Okay, see, you can see Denver rushing
(14:50):
a lot of these turnovers. One of the things that's
happening is they are sped up. They are making mistakes
in the open floor and getting swarmed and just not
reading the play as it's developing around them. There's one
problem that Oklahoma City cannot solve with Denver, and that's
Nicola Jokic, and that problem is not going away. And
that is the big reason why I predicted this to
be a longer series. It stems from the simple fact
(15:11):
that Jokic is going to be able to consistently and
comfortably generate offense for this team, and they can do
better than they did. They ended up turning the ball
over eight times for twenty three points off of turnovers
that can't be correct. The ESPN's website is really struggling
with the statistics. I'll have to pull that up on
(15:32):
a different I'll pull it up on playback later tonight.
But they gave up a million points off of turnovers.
It was the difference in the game, and that's stuff
that they're going to have to clean up in game
two if they want to have any sort of sustained
success in this series. But you can see the pathway
for Oklahoma City. The pathway for Oklahoma City is forcing
those turnovers, getting out in transition in the half court,
(15:52):
guys knocking down those threes on the weak side. Shay
was able to get some clean looks in the middle
of the floor against drop coverage late in the game,
including drawing some fouls there. You did see some of
the problem that Oklahoma City has on the defensive glass.
They gave up a considerable i'mount of second chance opportunities,
especially during that second half run that Denver was on.
We're gonna get into this on a lot more detail
in a film session tomorrow morning, but that was just
(16:14):
an unbelievable wild game to start this series, and you
got to see a lot of what both teams can
do to make each other uncomfortable. Again, we will get
deeper into that series later on tonight on playback. We'll
do some more on film tomorrow morning. I want to
get to Nick Celtics now for a little bit. I
actually thought the Knicks came out and played a pretty
(16:35):
quality game. Early they were competing on defense. Kat was
in a great rhythm on offense. But then Kat got
a couple of bullshit calls too that I didn't like.
One on Tatum the textbook, like pump fake and then
he leaves his feet kind of foul. But if you
watch it, like there was still quite a bit of
space between Kat and Tatum. Kat did not come up
into his landing area at all and Tatum jumped way forward.
(16:58):
I thought it was a bad call. And then there
was another one where Jaln Brown was driving and Jalen
Brown had been driving on Cat and like flopping almost
every time he got into the basket area, just kind
of flailing his arms and throwing up bad shots. And
you finally ended up getting a call on one where
if you watch Cat just like barely bumps him on
the hip a little bit. And it's just in a
series as physical as well, I should say, in the playoffs,
(17:18):
as physical as this has been. The refs were very
nitpicky in this particular game. But Cat gets a couple
of fouls, he goes off the floor. Then Joe Mizzoula
furthers the damage by smartly employ deploying a hacker Robinson's
strategy in the second quarter. That helped the Celtics gain control.
And then they went on a nice little burst to
start the third quarter and they actually pushed the lead
all the way up to twenty points. But from there
(17:39):
all hell broke loose and we saw a lot of
New York's upside and Boston's downside as the Knicks closed
the game on a fifty three to thirty run to
steal Game one. In overtime, it started with Ojan Andobi
hitting a couple of threes, one on us skip past
where Jalen Brown got caught with his back turned. He
wasn't paying attention And by the way, that's going to
(17:59):
be a recurring theme with Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum
if you guys dig into the film on that. In
that particular game, the other one was kind of a
weird near turnover where the ball just kind of pinballed
around and landed right No Gannobi's hands on the right
wing and he knocked down at three. But it's two
threes in like less than a minute. That cuts the
lead all the way down from twenty to fourteen. And
that changed the tone of the game. It just completely
(18:20):
changed the way the game felt. It felt all of
a sudden, like a more competitive game instead of a
game that was teetering on a blowout. And from there,
from that fourteen point lead, the Knicks just like flat
out badly outplayed the Celtics. Boston played one of the
dumbest halves of basketball I've seen them play in Tatum's
entire tenure as a Celtic. We'll talk about that in
a minute, but the Knicks played about as well as
(18:41):
they could. Starting on defense. They did a lot more
switching with Cat and Brunson. This is something we talked
about in the series preview, trying to avoid the clear
easy reads for Boston as you hedge and recover with
Brunson or as you run some variation of a drop
coverage with Cat, there is still some of that stuff
mixed in, Like the Drew Holliday lay up that tied
the game and send it to overtime was a textbook
(19:03):
hedge and recover from Brunson or Drew just slipped out
of it towards the basket. And that's one of those
things where like I think New York needs to avoid
those sequences as much as possible. Like Brunson did get
stops against Tatum. And here's the thing. If Brunson gets
on an island against Tatum and Tatum hits a fifteen
foot jump shot over him, or even if Tatum drives
to the basket and gets a layup or drives to
(19:24):
the basket and draws help there for a kickout for
a three, at least you made Boston run good offense
to get what they wanted. When you run those hedge
and recover type of schemes or that high drop with
Kat and you make it just like a simple passing
read where Jalen Brown, excuse me, or Jason Tatum don't
even have to put their head down and try to
(19:45):
get closer to the basket. You're making their job too
easy for them. But they did overall do more switching
with Cat and Brunson down the stretch. They did after
that layup for Drew that he got right to send
the game to overtime. They did not hedge and recover
with Brunson single time in overtime. They just tried switching.
That's got to be their scheme moving forward. But that
kind of prevented the easy stuff that Boston was getting
(20:08):
just by simply bringing the ball off the floor and
bringing Brunson into action. But the rest of the defense
is where I want to call attention to o g Anobi,
Josh Hart, and Michale Bridges. Those guys were put in
a lot of help and recover situations because of the
fact that Kat and Brunson were getting attacked in space.
For example, Brunson got caught on a Horford post up
(20:29):
late in the game on the block, or Tatum had
Cat on a switch in overtime where he got dribble
penetration towards the right like got cleanly beat Cat off
the dribble off the top of the key. That stuff's
gonna happen when you switch with Brunson and Cat. So
those three guys were constantly asked to help and recover
to shooters to dig down, get back out, and those
(20:52):
guys did a great job of rushing Boston's shooters off
of their spots. I tweeted out four examples on my
Twitter feed. You guys can find it at unders or
Jason lt We'll get into more examples when we get
into playback later tonight. But those guys were great, and
they didn't just chase guys off the three point line.
They also forced a bunch of turnovers and then they
were flying up the floor in transition. Off of those
(21:12):
misses and turnovers, the Knicks held the Celtics to a
sixty four offensive rating in the half court in the
second half of this game, sixty four. Again, Boston's process
played a big role. We'll talk about that a little bit,
but the Knicks deserves some credit. And then on offense,
ognn Ob was incredible obviously beginning the run with those
two threes, but he also hit a step back three
(21:34):
over Luke Cornette that cut the lead to one. He
his transition runouts were big. He had a runout dunk
off of a steal. He had another dunk in transition
in overtime where he kind of snuck behind Jason Tatum.
Another example of one of the Jays just being lazy
off ball as he let og just cut right behind him.
McHale Bridges hit a huge kickout three in the left
corner on another play where Jaylen Brown was sleeping and
(21:56):
not paying attention off ball and left McHale open. But
it was a huge for McHale after he had struggled
all night. And then Kat who had a rough night
after he had his foul trouble, had two big offensive
rebound putbacks during the Knicks run, including a tap in
over Tatum in overtime. That was a big deal. Once again,
Tatum not doing his job off ball. He was a
really non physical box out and just catches went right
(22:16):
over the top of him and tapped it in. The
Jays were just they were every bit as bad on
defense and off ball in general as they were on
offense down the stretch of this game. That was a
whole other thing. But I thought the obvious storyline for
the Knicks and something that you can take ahead towards
Game two in the series was the work that Brunson
did on Al Horford. We talked about this in the
(22:38):
series preview. It really started to show in their last
regular season matchup, where Brunson was doing most of his
damage versus Porzingis Brunston feels comfortable against Boston's bigs. That's
where he gets good shots, and he was able to
hit a couple of threes over Horford and then start
to draw double teams. Boston tried a bunch of different things.
They tried pre switching, like a different guy instead of
(23:01):
Horford up to the screen with the screener, and New
York was just really good about quickly switching their screener
so the screeners would identify like, oh, this guy's pre switching,
and now Horford's switching on to me. That means I
need to run up and set the screen. They were
just relentless of getting at getting Horford back up into
the action. Drew was really hesitant to give up that switch,
so Brunson was actually able to beat him rejecting the
(23:22):
screen once. That was a big kickout three to og
And and ob in the left corner. I think that was
the one that put them up one ninety eight towards
the end of regulation. He just rejected the screen against
Drew and got right downhill. But that's something that is
legitimately valuable to take forward for the Knicks, Like it's
abundantly clear that if the Knicks can get into a
close game, late against the Celtics. They have a good
(23:44):
chance to win that game. Last night on playback, I
apo apologize if I'm misremembering the name. I believe his
name was Matthew, but it was a Celtics fan who
came on the show and he talked about Tatum's inconsistency
as a jump shooter, which he asked me if I
thought Tatum would keep hitting shots, and I said he would,
and clearly he did not tonight, so I'm sure he's
(24:06):
been thinking about that. But the second piece was he
talked about the idea that he thought Jalen Brunson was
a better basketball player than Jason Tatum and that it
could be a problem in late game situations. I disagreed
with him, based on the premise that Tatum is just
so much more versatile with all the other little things
that he can do. But one of the things that
I did say is I was like, Yeah, if it's
like three minutes left and the entire game is going
(24:28):
to come down to like six offensive possessions for either
team and the game is tied, I absolutely think that
Jalen Brunson is a better late game crunch time score.
I mean, he's arguably the best at it in the NBA,
because time and time and time again in this playoff run,
he just keeps coming through for his team in the
final minutes. And so if there's one thing that Jalen
(24:48):
Brunson can be the best player in the series with,
it's these sorts of late game sequences, and that came
to fruition in Game one tonight. But the bottom line
is Boston is talent enough to avoid that situation entirely.
They should be able to build multiple twenty point leads
in this series and not have to worry about out
(25:09):
executing Brunson down the stretch. And this is where we
have to talk about their offense now before we get
any further. The Celtics absolutely had an uncharacteristically poor shooting night.
They generated twenty five unguarded catch and shoot threes and
made seven of them. They're obviously going to shoot much
(25:31):
better on those throughout the rest of the series. But
they also took seventy one jump shots in this game
out of the ninety seven field goal attempts that they had,
So if you do the math, that means they took
forty six guarded catch and shoot jumpers or off the
dribble jumpers, and it looked every bit that bad on tape.
(25:52):
Drew Holliday took a few of the worst threes I've
ever seen a player take. He took this one in
the left corner off of like an offensive rebound where
it got kicked out to him and he had to
turn his body and he was contested and he was
leaning out of bounds and there was a defender in
his face with like fourteen on the shot clock that
he took. Derek White took like a super rushed catch
(26:14):
and shoot off of a swing pass against a contestant
transition out of the left corner. There were so many examples.
Jayleen Brown took a really bad catch and shoot three
off of a swing pass from Tatum with like ten
seconds on the shot clock in overtime. There were just
so many examples of just really really bad shots. But
I want to focus on Jason Tatum here because he's
the leader of this team, and this is a player
(26:36):
that I've spoken very highly of this year as i've
as I think he's taken a leap in a couple
of key areas as a shot maker and as a
half court surgeon. Emphasis on that last part, the half
court decision maker. He's the leader of this team, and
I thought he was absolutely awful. He was the leader
on the floor. He was the guy on the floor
during the beginning of the Knicks run. There was a
(26:57):
stretch to end the third quarter. I rewatched the entire
second half during the commercial breaks of that Denver, Oklahoma
City game. There was a stretch to end the third
quarter where on their last ten possessions, in seven of
those possessions, the Celtics never even got the ball inside
the three point line, not the paint, not like to
(27:19):
the rim, to the three point line. They never got
the ball inside the three point line on seven of
their last ten possessions. And some of those threes went in,
which is why you know it's fools gold. It was
just them passing the ball around and just taking bad shots,
and some of them went in. But on the other
three where Tatum actually looked to drives, two where Tatum
looked to drive, and one where Pritchard looked to drive.
(27:39):
On the ones where Tatum looked to drive, they generated
wide open catching two threes. In the fourth quarter, over
and over again. Versus switches, Tatum settled for garbage pull
up jump shots, even though his shot was clearly off,
like they were bricks. Guys, they were outside the rim misses.
Some of them went off the backboard first. These were
not like he's this close and the next one's going
(28:01):
to go in. He was clearly out of rhythm and
he just kept taking bad shots. He did not do
his job. His job is to control the flow of
the offense to make sure they're getting the right shots. Again,
we will take a closer look at Boston's offensive process
on playback later tonight. But I have a message for
the Celtics because I think they're playing with some fire here.
(28:22):
I do think the Celtics had the best team in
the NBA. They have the best combination of two way talent,
meaning guys that can play on both ends of the
floor at a high level superstar play. I think Tatum
is a legitimate top tier superstar in a way that
he wasn't in years past. An overall veteran playoff experience.
These are all guys that have been in a ton
of big games. Horford's been in a ton of big games.
(28:43):
Drew Holliday has been in a ton of big games.
Drew and Jason have been in a ton of big games.
Derek White's been in a ton of big games. This
is a savvy veteran playoff roster. But I have been consistent.
Even though I think the Celtics are the best team
in the league, I do not think this is an
all time great team. I heard a lot of Celtics
fans saying that I don't think they're all time great.
(29:06):
I think they're just great. What that means is they
are not so supremely talented that they can ease their
way through this playoff run. Whoever wins in that Indiana
Cleveland series, Indiana's playing at an insanely high level, and
Cleveland had a bad night, but they were at an
insanely high level in the first round. Whoever comes out
(29:27):
of that team that series is going to be a
substantially better team than anybody Boston played in the Eastern
Conference last year in Oklahoma City literally won sixty eight games.
This year, they're a better version of what you were
last year against a better schedule. They are amazing, and
they are likely going to be waiting for you when
(29:48):
you get out. They are substantially better than anyone you
faced last year. Including Dallas. The Celtics need to wake up.
Tatum and Brown were both entirely too on, focused on
both ends of the floor tonight, and then you juxtapose
it with some of the other stars in the league
who are literally coming for their crown. They need to
(30:09):
feel the urgency of this situation here. This nixt series
is another opportunity for them to polish things up, to
prepare for the tougher challenges that are ahead of them,
and instead they spent tonight practicing playing bad basketball. That's
some of the worst they've looked in the last several seasons.
(30:29):
Just not gonna be good enough. I'm looking for a
major response game from the Celtics in Game two. They
need to. They are just operating well below the level
where they need to be in order to get this
deal done. And man, I just I have I've put
my vote of confidence behind this team, and I was so,
(30:50):
so so disappointed in the way they played tonight. All right, guys,
that's all we have for YouTube Tonight. We're gonna be
heading over to playback to do some fan callers, also
going to watch some film, just kind of hang out
for a little while. Make sure you guys click the
link in the description here. We'll see you guys over
on playback here in just a few minutes. What's up, guys.
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
(31:13):
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.
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see dkang dot co slash audio. All right, Wildred Hoops tonight,
(02:33):
you're at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody. Hope all you
guys are having a great start to your week. While
the NBA Playoffs just delivered us an unbelievable night with
two completely absurd games as the Knicks go down twenty
in the second half and come all the way back
to beat the Celtics in overtime, riding a fifty three
to thirty run with some really interesting basketball on both
(02:54):
ends of the floor. And then our nightcap, the Oklahoma
City Thunder throw a fantastic punch against the den Nuggets,
showing so much of what has made them so good
all season long. But all night long, the Nuggets just
kept scoring the basketball and keeping things close, and then
at the end of the game, scoring every single time
down the floor as they methodically work their way into
(03:16):
one of the most outrageous thefts that I can remember
in my time as an NBA fan, I was getting
ready to come out of that game thing and oh
a lot of encouraging stuff for Denver, but obviously they're
gonna lose this game. Now Denver's up one to zero
in the series has a completely different feel. We're gonna
be breaking down both games from the perspective of both teams.
(03:37):
You guys know the jope before we get started. To
subscribe to the Hoops to Night YouTube channels. You don't
miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter, Underscore, JSNLTS.
You guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our
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It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and
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not least, keep dropping mail back questions and those YouTube comments.
(03:57):
We will also when we are done here tonight, we
will be heading over to playback. On Playback. We have
callers up on stage, we take questions from the chat,
we watch film. We just hang out and talked basketball
for an extra forty five minutes at the end of
each show. So make sure Ei there's a link in
the description here. Make sure when we're done here, you
guys follow us over to playback for the after show. So,
(04:20):
as I said before the series, I didn't pick the
Nuggets to win. I picked the Thunder to win. The
Thunder were a minus seven hundred favorite. I thought that
was a little too extreme. I said that that should
be somewhere more around the minus three hundred minus three
to fifty side of things, in that Oklahoma City is
clearly the better team. They are healthy and more well rested,
They have home court advantage. They demonstrated a lot of
(04:43):
things this year that show them as one of the
great teams in NBA history. Everything you heard about Boston
last year, the Thunder were basically a better version of
that this year, playing against a substantially tougher schedule. This
is a very, very very good team. But one of
the reasons why I anticipated it being a closer series,
a series where Denver would win multiple games, centered around
(05:04):
the fact that Denver scored against these guys in the
regular season. And this is the beautiful thing about having
Nikola Jokich. We've been talking so much on the show
over the course of the last week about the concept
of superstar players and how valuable they are in the
NBA playoffs, and how there's been kind of a new
light that's been shined on depth of role player talent.
(05:25):
And while I've always felt that that's important, and yeah,
you could argue that as the league has become more
transition based and there's more possessions and there's a lot
more advanced defensive schemes that force your stars to give
up the ball, that yes, having a depth of talent
is more important than it used to be. But ultimately,
time and time again, I saw in the first round
(05:45):
it was the stars that were doing the heavy lifting.
You want to know why Denver beat the Clippers even
though everybody, including myself beat the Clippers because Jokicic was
so much better than James Harden and Kawhi Leonard was.
You want to know why Jalen Brunson was able to
dispend the Pistons because he specifically outplayed Ky down the
stretch of those games, Anthony Edwards out playing Luca Steph,
(06:07):
out playing Fred van Vliet, and Outprinshangun. I can go
down the line over and over again the stars ultimately
are the one guy on the floor that has the
ability to transcend all the surrounding circumstances and to get
the job done. Nikole Joakis just played one of the
best playoff games you'll ever see a player play forty
two points, twenty two rebounds, six assists. He was getting
(06:32):
absolutely mauled all over the place. Oklahoma City threw an
excellent defensive punch in this game, really catching the Nuggets
off guard with their ball pursuit, specifically when guys would
turn their head. Turnovers and getting out in transition off
of turnovers was a huge part of this specific game.
That was actually one of the big ways that Oklahoma
City built as much margin as they did throughout the game.
(06:54):
In the half court, both teams actually struggled to score
relative to their typical efficiency. Oklahoma City logged in eighty
seven offensive rating in the half court. That's pretty low.
Denver logged in eighty three offensive rating in the half court.
That's pretty low. They were able to control things with
Oklahoma City and their offense when they were in the
half court. There was just the turnovers and the getting
(07:15):
out in transition over and over and over again. But
one of the things that started to come to fruition
towards the tail end of the game was Denver stopped
turning the ball over and their offense can generate quality
shots against this team. And one of the things is
if you've got an elite unit, if you've got one
singular thing that you do as a basketball team that
(07:37):
the other team can't handle, then you will have stretches
of games where you're in control. And every time Oklahoma
City built that lead up to twelve, thirteen, fourteen points,
the Nuggets would score two three times in a row
and get the lead back down to six or seven points.
When you watch this game, yeah, there were guys who contributed. Obviously,
(07:58):
Aaron Gordon hits the shot of a light time in
his second game winner in this playoff run. He's having
what hell of a playoff run. You have Russell Westbrook
in his first shift doing all the work that he
was doing on the ball. Jamal hit a couple of
big shots in this game, but over and over again,
it was Nicola Jokic who was the superpower. He was
the guy that no matter what Oklahoma City did, no
(08:18):
matter how many bodies they threw at him, how many
times in that crunch time. Did you see him literally
rumble down the lane against like three four different Thunder
defenders on one single possession and just work his way
through them and get to where he needed to go.
Just an unbelievable performance from Nikola Jokic in this particular game,
like the sheer degree of difficulty. You're watching lou Dord
(08:44):
every time he gets a switch, just chucking him like
he's a football, sled at the foul line, getting hacked
and grabbed chet. Holmgren did a wonderful job in this
game of bringing physicality to Joki, especially early, and that
caused him a lot of problems. Throughout the game, Denver
was struggling as as they turned their head, whether it
was Alex Crusoe or someone else, someone would come flying
(09:04):
in from behind and poke the ball away or block
the shot from behind. Denver's gonna have a lot of
opportunity to look at tape and see opportunities or they
just weren't prepared for the things that Oklahoma City did defensively.
But ultimately, in the third quarter, Denver scored thirty five points.
In the fourth quarter, Denver scored thirty one points, sixty
(09:24):
six points on the road against the best defense not
just in this individual season, but relative to NBA history
in the rest of the league's defensive ratings. This is
an all time great defense that Oklahoma City has statistically,
and Denver is able to score against them. If you
take anything away from this game and look, the series
(09:45):
now has a very different feel now right the series.
Once you steal home court advantage, Denver is in a
substantially better position to try to steal this series. I
never overreact to Game one. I'm not going to change
my pick or anything like that. But I went from
feeling like this was a series where Denver might get
a couple of games, maybe three games, to now Denver
(10:05):
has a legitimate chance to win this series. By stealing
Game one, they have changed the entire tone and tenor
of this entire series. And it was Nicol Jokis time
and time again just being the indomitable force on offense
in a way that Oklahoma City simply could not match
up with him. Forty two and twenty two. It's the
(10:27):
seventh time in his career he's had a twenty twenty
game in the playoffs. I just thought he was absolutely
unbelievable tonight. I always talk about adversity in how it
brings the absolute best out of basketball players, and I
used to complain about this in the past, specifically with
Kevin Durant when he went to the Warriors, back when
(10:48):
I was a younger fan who was very upset about
how my Lebron James led Cleveland Cavaliers were being basically
put into a position where they couldn't win because the
second best player, third best player in the league joined
a seventy three win team. And I'm watching him, and
I'm watching him win fifteen straight playoff games, and I'm
watching KD get easy dunks driving down the lane while
(11:09):
calves are running to Steph Curry on the left wing
and transition, and I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, like,
this is not the best basketball I've seen KD play,
Because I've seen KD when the shit hits the fan,
like twenty twenty one in Brooklyn against the Bucks. I've
seen him rise to the occasion when the circumstances demanded
(11:32):
more out of him than he had ever provided in
his career, and he put together a game in that
was a game five or Game six against the Bucks
that was one of the best games you'll ever see
a player play because the adversity brought it out of him.
This was a game Jokicic was frustrated. He's frustrated with
Michael Porter Junior is frustrated with the teams rebounding, frustrated
with the mistakes that were being made. You could see
(11:53):
him just like rubbing his temples during the game, like
working his way through emotionally what he was dealing with
as he's he just wants to win so badly, but
he knows his team is just up against it. But
he never gave up and just kept attacking and just
kept getting buckets and kept generating offense, and as a result,
he puts forth one of the craziest stat lines that
(12:14):
you'll see in the history of the NBA Playoffs. I
just was amazed by Nikola Jokic tonight. He deserves all
the flowers that he's gonna get. He just single handedly
superman backpacked a win for his team on a night
when they were not playing well. Jamal Murray six six
for sixteen, Michael Porter Junior won for eight. This was
(12:37):
a game where he needed to do it all and
he did, and he reached a level that we haven't
seen in a very long time, and Denver gets out
of here with a win. Lots of interesting stuff to
look forward to in the series. You saw over the
course of that of that second half that Denver was
able to kind of pack the paint and gear Oklahoma
City's shot selection towards weak side shots. Four guys like
(12:59):
check home grin, four guys like Alex Caruso. Shout out
to Alex Kruso. By the way, I thought this game
winner from Aaron Gordon overshadowed one of the better role
player games that you'll ever see. He had twenty points
six rebound or excuse me, twenty points, six assists in
five steals and was just an absolute wrecking ball from
the minute he checked into the game, because Denver was
kind of hanging tough. From the minute Alex checked into
(13:21):
the game. He was just an absolute wrecking ball over
and over again, knocking down catch and shoot threes. I
thought it was interesting that Mark Dagenell actually started him
in the second half. Mark Dagenel was coaching this like
it was an important game he wanted to win. And
by the way, I saw some criticism and I understand
that after the fact, it's easy to just be like, oh, well,
they should have done this, they should have done that.
If they hit a game tying three and they go
to overtime and lose, everyone's complaining that they didn't foul
(13:44):
because they're up three. Like, I get it. There are
some different circumstances, like there was one where Yokich was
literally off the floor. But ultimately that scheme, that idea
of fouling intentionally fouling down the stretch when you're up
three works if you make your damn free throws. And
so if there's an if there's any bit of criticism,
it's that either Mark Degnel and the coaching staff did
(14:04):
trust Chet and Chet just happened to miss a couple
of free throws, or there needs to be an adjustment
with your coaching staff based on the fact that you
don't have the requisite free throw shooting on the floor
to get away with that sort of situation. But there
are problems that both teams can't handle in this matchup.
I don't think that I don't think that Jamal Murray's
gonna have a super efficient scoring series. He'll have a
(14:27):
game or two in this series where he shoots the
ball really well, probably in Denver where he has thirty
something and you know, goes twelve for eighteen from the field,
But like, this is a matchup that's going to be
tough for him. I don't think Michael Porter Junior is
going to have a really super efficient, high volume, hig
efficiency scoring series because there's just so much athleticism on
the floor for Okay, see, you can see Denver rushing
(14:50):
a lot of these turnovers. One of the things that's
happening is they are sped up. They are making mistakes
in the open floor and getting swarmed and just not
reading the play as it's developing around them. There's one
problem that Oklahoma City cannot solve with Denver, and that's
Nicola Jokic, and that problem is not going away. And
that is the big reason why I predicted this to
be a longer series. It stems from the simple fact
(15:11):
that Jokic is going to be able to consistently and
comfortably generate offense for this team, and they can do
better than they did. They ended up turning the ball
over eight times for twenty three points off of turnovers
that can't be correct. The ESPN's website is really struggling
with the statistics. I'll have to pull that up on
(15:32):
a different I'll pull it up on playback later tonight.
But they gave up a million points off of turnovers.
It was the difference in the game, and that's stuff
that they're going to have to clean up in game
two if they want to have any sort of sustained
success in this series. But you can see the pathway
for Oklahoma City. The pathway for Oklahoma City is forcing
those turnovers, getting out in transition in the half court,
(15:52):
guys knocking down those threes on the weak side. Shay
was able to get some clean looks in the middle
of the floor against drop coverage late in the game,
including drawing some fouls there. You did see some of
the problem that Oklahoma City has on the defensive glass.
They gave up a considerable i'mount of second chance opportunities,
especially during that second half run that Denver was on.
We're gonna get into this on a lot more detail
in a film session tomorrow morning, but that was just
(16:14):
an unbelievable wild game to start this series, and you
got to see a lot of what both teams can
do to make each other uncomfortable. Again, we will get
deeper into that series later on tonight on playback. We'll
do some more on film tomorrow morning. I want to
get to Nick Celtics now for a little bit. I
actually thought the Knicks came out and played a pretty
(16:35):
quality game. Early they were competing on defense. Kat was
in a great rhythm on offense. But then Kat got
a couple of bullshit calls too that I didn't like.
One on Tatum the textbook, like pump fake and then
he leaves his feet kind of foul. But if you
watch it, like there was still quite a bit of
space between Kat and Tatum. Kat did not come up
into his landing area at all and Tatum jumped way forward.
(16:58):
I thought it was a bad call. And then there
was another one where Jaln Brown was driving and Jalen
Brown had been driving on Cat and like flopping almost
every time he got into the basket area, just kind
of flailing his arms and throwing up bad shots. And
you finally ended up getting a call on one where
if you watch Cat just like barely bumps him on
the hip a little bit. And it's just in a
series as physical as well, I should say, in the playoffs,
(17:18):
as physical as this has been. The refs were very
nitpicky in this particular game. But Cat gets a couple
of fouls, he goes off the floor. Then Joe Mizzoula
furthers the damage by smartly employ deploying a hacker Robinson's
strategy in the second quarter. That helped the Celtics gain control.
And then they went on a nice little burst to
start the third quarter and they actually pushed the lead
all the way up to twenty points. But from there
(17:39):
all hell broke loose and we saw a lot of
New York's upside and Boston's downside as the Knicks closed
the game on a fifty three to thirty run to
steal Game one. In overtime, it started with Ojan Andobi
hitting a couple of threes, one on us skip past
where Jalen Brown got caught with his back turned. He
wasn't paying attention And by the way, that's going to
(17:59):
be a recurring theme with Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum
if you guys dig into the film on that. In
that particular game, the other one was kind of a
weird near turnover where the ball just kind of pinballed
around and landed right No Gannobi's hands on the right
wing and he knocked down at three. But it's two
threes in like less than a minute. That cuts the
lead all the way down from twenty to fourteen. And
that changed the tone of the game. It just completely
(18:20):
changed the way the game felt. It felt all of
a sudden, like a more competitive game instead of a
game that was teetering on a blowout. And from there,
from that fourteen point lead, the Knicks just like flat
out badly outplayed the Celtics. Boston played one of the
dumbest halves of basketball I've seen them play in Tatum's
entire tenure as a Celtic. We'll talk about that in
a minute, but the Knicks played about as well as
(18:41):
they could. Starting on defense. They did a lot more
switching with Cat and Brunson. This is something we talked
about in the series preview, trying to avoid the clear
easy reads for Boston as you hedge and recover with
Brunson or as you run some variation of a drop
coverage with Cat, there is still some of that stuff
mixed in, Like the Drew Holliday lay up that tied
the game and send it to overtime was a textbook
(19:03):
hedge and recover from Brunson or Drew just slipped out
of it towards the basket. And that's one of those
things where like I think New York needs to avoid
those sequences as much as possible. Like Brunson did get
stops against Tatum. And here's the thing. If Brunson gets
on an island against Tatum and Tatum hits a fifteen
foot jump shot over him, or even if Tatum drives
to the basket and gets a layup or drives to
(19:24):
the basket and draws help there for a kickout for
a three, at least you made Boston run good offense
to get what they wanted. When you run those hedge
and recover type of schemes or that high drop with
Kat and you make it just like a simple passing
read where Jalen Brown, excuse me, or Jason Tatum don't
even have to put their head down and try to
(19:45):
get closer to the basket. You're making their job too
easy for them. But they did overall do more switching
with Cat and Brunson down the stretch. They did after
that layup for Drew that he got right to send
the game to overtime. They did not hedge and recover
with Brunson single time in overtime. They just tried switching.
That's got to be their scheme moving forward. But that
kind of prevented the easy stuff that Boston was getting
(20:08):
just by simply bringing the ball off the floor and
bringing Brunson into action. But the rest of the defense
is where I want to call attention to o g Anobi,
Josh Hart, and Michale Bridges. Those guys were put in
a lot of help and recover situations because of the
fact that Kat and Brunson were getting attacked in space.
For example, Brunson got caught on a Horford post up
(20:29):
late in the game on the block, or Tatum had
Cat on a switch in overtime where he got dribble
penetration towards the right like got cleanly beat Cat off
the dribble off the top of the key. That stuff's
gonna happen when you switch with Brunson and Cat. So
those three guys were constantly asked to help and recover
to shooters to dig down, get back out, and those
(20:52):
guys did a great job of rushing Boston's shooters off
of their spots. I tweeted out four examples on my
Twitter feed. You guys can find it at unders or
Jason lt We'll get into more examples when we get
into playback later tonight. But those guys were great, and
they didn't just chase guys off the three point line.
They also forced a bunch of turnovers and then they
were flying up the floor in transition. Off of those
(21:12):
misses and turnovers, the Knicks held the Celtics to a
sixty four offensive rating in the half court in the
second half of this game, sixty four. Again, Boston's process
played a big role. We'll talk about that a little bit,
but the Knicks deserves some credit. And then on offense,
ognn Ob was incredible obviously beginning the run with those
two threes, but he also hit a step back three
(21:34):
over Luke Cornette that cut the lead to one. He
his transition runouts were big. He had a runout dunk
off of a steal. He had another dunk in transition
in overtime where he kind of snuck behind Jason Tatum.
Another example of one of the Jays just being lazy
off ball as he let og just cut right behind him.
McHale Bridges hit a huge kickout three in the left
corner on another play where Jaylen Brown was sleeping and
(21:56):
not paying attention off ball and left McHale open. But
it was a huge for McHale after he had struggled
all night. And then Kat who had a rough night
after he had his foul trouble, had two big offensive
rebound putbacks during the Knicks run, including a tap in
over Tatum in overtime. That was a big deal. Once again,
Tatum not doing his job off ball. He was a
really non physical box out and just catches went right
(22:16):
over the top of him and tapped it in. The
Jays were just they were every bit as bad on
defense and off ball in general as they were on
offense down the stretch of this game. That was a
whole other thing. But I thought the obvious storyline for
the Knicks and something that you can take ahead towards
Game two in the series was the work that Brunson
did on Al Horford. We talked about this in the
(22:38):
series preview. It really started to show in their last
regular season matchup, where Brunson was doing most of his
damage versus Porzingis Brunston feels comfortable against Boston's bigs. That's
where he gets good shots, and he was able to
hit a couple of threes over Horford and then start
to draw double teams. Boston tried a bunch of different things.
They tried pre switching, like a different guy instead of
(23:01):
Horford up to the screen with the screener, and New
York was just really good about quickly switching their screener
so the screeners would identify like, oh, this guy's pre switching,
and now Horford's switching on to me. That means I
need to run up and set the screen. They were
just relentless of getting at getting Horford back up into
the action. Drew was really hesitant to give up that switch,
so Brunson was actually able to beat him rejecting the
(23:22):
screen once. That was a big kickout three to og
And and ob in the left corner. I think that was
the one that put them up one ninety eight towards
the end of regulation. He just rejected the screen against
Drew and got right downhill. But that's something that is
legitimately valuable to take forward for the Knicks, Like it's
abundantly clear that if the Knicks can get into a
close game, late against the Celtics. They have a good
(23:44):
chance to win that game. Last night on playback, I
apo apologize if I'm misremembering the name. I believe his
name was Matthew, but it was a Celtics fan who
came on the show and he talked about Tatum's inconsistency
as a jump shooter, which he asked me if I
thought Tatum would keep hitting shots, and I said he would,
and clearly he did not tonight, so I'm sure he's
(24:06):
been thinking about that. But the second piece was he
talked about the idea that he thought Jalen Brunson was
a better basketball player than Jason Tatum and that it
could be a problem in late game situations. I disagreed
with him, based on the premise that Tatum is just
so much more versatile with all the other little things
that he can do. But one of the things that
I did say is I was like, Yeah, if it's
like three minutes left and the entire game is going
(24:28):
to come down to like six offensive possessions for either
team and the game is tied, I absolutely think that
Jalen Brunson is a better late game crunch time score.
I mean, he's arguably the best at it in the NBA,
because time and time and time again in this playoff run,
he just keeps coming through for his team in the
final minutes. And so if there's one thing that Jalen
(24:48):
Brunson can be the best player in the series with,
it's these sorts of late game sequences, and that came
to fruition in Game one tonight. But the bottom line
is Boston is talent enough to avoid that situation entirely.
They should be able to build multiple twenty point leads
in this series and not have to worry about out
(25:09):
executing Brunson down the stretch. And this is where we
have to talk about their offense now before we get
any further. The Celtics absolutely had an uncharacteristically poor shooting night.
They generated twenty five unguarded catch and shoot threes and
made seven of them. They're obviously going to shoot much
(25:31):
better on those throughout the rest of the series. But
they also took seventy one jump shots in this game
out of the ninety seven field goal attempts that they had,
So if you do the math, that means they took
forty six guarded catch and shoot jumpers or off the
dribble jumpers, and it looked every bit that bad on tape.
(25:52):
Drew Holliday took a few of the worst threes I've
ever seen a player take. He took this one in
the left corner off of like an offensive rebound where
it got kicked out to him and he had to
turn his body and he was contested and he was
leaning out of bounds and there was a defender in
his face with like fourteen on the shot clock that
he took. Derek White took like a super rushed catch
(26:14):
and shoot off of a swing pass against a contestant
transition out of the left corner. There were so many examples.
Jayleen Brown took a really bad catch and shoot three
off of a swing pass from Tatum with like ten
seconds on the shot clock in overtime. There were just
so many examples of just really really bad shots. But
I want to focus on Jason Tatum here because he's
the leader of this team, and this is a player
(26:36):
that I've spoken very highly of this year as i've
as I think he's taken a leap in a couple
of key areas as a shot maker and as a
half court surgeon. Emphasis on that last part, the half
court decision maker. He's the leader of this team, and
I thought he was absolutely awful. He was the leader
on the floor. He was the guy on the floor
during the beginning of the Knicks run. There was a
(26:57):
stretch to end the third quarter. I rewatched the entire
second half during the commercial breaks of that Denver, Oklahoma
City game. There was a stretch to end the third
quarter where on their last ten possessions, in seven of
those possessions, the Celtics never even got the ball inside
the three point line, not the paint, not like to
(27:19):
the rim, to the three point line. They never got
the ball inside the three point line on seven of
their last ten possessions. And some of those threes went in,
which is why you know it's fools gold. It was
just them passing the ball around and just taking bad shots,
and some of them went in. But on the other
three where Tatum actually looked to drives, two where Tatum
looked to drive, and one where Pritchard looked to drive.
(27:39):
On the ones where Tatum looked to drive, they generated
wide open catching two threes. In the fourth quarter, over
and over again. Versus switches, Tatum settled for garbage pull
up jump shots, even though his shot was clearly off,
like they were bricks. Guys, they were outside the rim misses.
Some of them went off the backboard first. These were
not like he's this close and the next one's going
(28:01):
to go in. He was clearly out of rhythm and
he just kept taking bad shots. He did not do
his job. His job is to control the flow of
the offense to make sure they're getting the right shots. Again,
we will take a closer look at Boston's offensive process
on playback later tonight. But I have a message for
the Celtics because I think they're playing with some fire here.
(28:22):
I do think the Celtics had the best team in
the NBA. They have the best combination of two way talent,
meaning guys that can play on both ends of the
floor at a high level superstar play. I think Tatum
is a legitimate top tier superstar in a way that
he wasn't in years past. An overall veteran playoff experience.
These are all guys that have been in a ton
of big games. Horford's been in a ton of big games.
(28:43):
Drew Holliday has been in a ton of big games.
Drew and Jason have been in a ton of big games.
Derek White's been in a ton of big games. This
is a savvy veteran playoff roster. But I have been consistent.
Even though I think the Celtics are the best team
in the league, I do not think this is an
all time great team. I heard a lot of Celtics
fans saying that I don't think they're all time great.
(29:06):
I think they're just great. What that means is they
are not so supremely talented that they can ease their
way through this playoff run. Whoever wins in that Indiana
Cleveland series, Indiana's playing at an insanely high level, and
Cleveland had a bad night, but they were at an
insanely high level in the first round. Whoever comes out
(29:27):
of that team that series is going to be a
substantially better team than anybody Boston played in the Eastern
Conference last year in Oklahoma City literally won sixty eight games.
This year, they're a better version of what you were
last year against a better schedule. They are amazing, and
they are likely going to be waiting for you when
(29:48):
you get out. They are substantially better than anyone you
faced last year. Including Dallas. The Celtics need to wake up.
Tatum and Brown were both entirely too on, focused on
both ends of the floor tonight, and then you juxtapose
it with some of the other stars in the league
who are literally coming for their crown. They need to
(30:09):
feel the urgency of this situation here. This nixt series
is another opportunity for them to polish things up, to
prepare for the tougher challenges that are ahead of them,
and instead they spent tonight practicing playing bad basketball. That's
some of the worst they've looked in the last several seasons.
(30:29):
Just not gonna be good enough. I'm looking for a
major response game from the Celtics in Game two. They
need to. They are just operating well below the level
where they need to be in order to get this
deal done. And man, I just I have I've put
my vote of confidence behind this team, and I was so,
(30:50):
so so disappointed in the way they played tonight. All right, guys,
that's all we have for YouTube Tonight. We're gonna be
heading over to playback to do some fan callers, also
going to watch some film, just kind of hang out
for a little while. Make sure you guys click the
link in the description here. We'll see you guys over
on playback here in just a few minutes. What's up, guys.
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
(31:13):
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 1 (31:23):
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