Jason reacts live after the Oklahoma City Thunder tie their second round series at 1-1 against the Denver Nuggets. He discusses Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and Chet Holmgren bouncing back to overpower Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. Then he discusses the New York Knicks being up 2-0 after the Boston Celtics have another meltdown. Jalen Brunson was clutch in the fourth quarter once again while Jayson Tatum struggled in the second half, especially on the final possession.
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co slash audio. All right, Wellcoon to hoops tonight. You're
(02:33):
at the volume heavy Wednesday. Everybody hop all of you
guys are having a great week. Got a jam pack
show for you guys tonight.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Off the top the.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Oklahoma City Thunder and a must win game delivered I
thought one of their best two way performances of the
entire season. We're going to talk about some of the
specific ways on both ends of the floor that Oklahoma
City delivered the blowout victory in a must win game.
We'll talk a little bit about the specific ways that
Denver kind of let go of the rope tonight and
one of the things that they have to clean up
(02:59):
heading into Game three. And then in our second segment,
in just shocking fashion, the New York Knicks come back
again down twenty on the road in Boston to beat
the Celtics. Now, I thought it was very different than
what happened in Game one, So I want to get
into a little bit more detail in terms of just
(03:19):
the difference between bad shot quality or I should say
bad shot selection and just needing to add more variety
to your offense, which I think was more of the
problem tonight. So we're gonna be talking about that. I
also want to shout out some specific elements of the
Knicks defense, a couple of unsung heroes that have been
making the things work for the Knicks on the defensive
end of the floor. Michale Bridges had a showing in
(03:41):
that early fourth quarter was magnificent, as the Celtics actually
played some really good basketball during that phase, and McHale
just hit shot after shot after shot to keep the
Knicks within striking distance. And then Jalen Brunson again making
a case for potentially being the best guard in basketball.
I want to dive a little bit into that concept.
I think it's between him and Steph right now, and
(04:01):
Jalen Brunson's just making a hell of a run once
again in these playoffs. So we'll get into that Nicks
Celtics game from the perspective of both teams, and then
at the tail end of the show, we're going to
take about ten minutes of questions from the chat. So,
if you're subscribed to our YouTube channel, hang out, drop
your questions. We'll take about ten minutes of questions there
at the end. And then when we are done here
(04:22):
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take some more questions, watch some film, a bunch of stuff.
We'll be doing over on playback for an extra forty
five minutes at the tail end of the night. Much
(04:43):
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So just make sure you guys, there's a link in
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(05:05):
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you guys follow us there and then keep dropping those
questions in the chat for the mail bag at the
tail end of the show. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So how did Oklahoma City bounce back in Game two?
I think there's obviously, in these sorts of situations, a
(05:26):
pullback and a change in intensity. When a veteran team
gets a important win on the road without home court advantage,
there's naturally a little bit of a relaxation in Game two.
And then I was talking with the guys before we
started up. You know, like I've said some things about
Oka See this year. I have my frustrations and frustrations
the wrong word. I had my concerns around them surrounding
some of their ability to go ice cold on offense,
(05:48):
some of their issues with perimeter size on defense. But
I still firmly believe this is the second best team
in basketball, and they are really fucking good on both
ends of the floor, and so in a must win game,
I expected them to come out and throw an incredible punch.
That is exactly what they did. But it can be
too reductive to just be like, well, okay, okay, see
brought the effort, Denver didn't. They won Game two. I
(06:11):
want to get into some of those specific dynamics. Ultimately,
you know, this is kind of a natural part of
that playoff process. I similarly expect Minnesota to kind of
beat up on Golden State tomorrow as a veteran team
gets a home court advantage in Game one and very
similar set of circumstances. But the only way you're going
to flip the scoreboard is by changing basketball dynamics. So
(06:31):
let's get into some of the specific basketball things that
Oklahoma City did to turn this series back to one
point one headed to Denver. So, first of all, in
the early part of the game, much better interior passing.
As a team, they had eleven assists in the first quarter.
They had twelve in the entire second half of Game one,
a lot more.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
J Dubb in particular had a couple of nice feeds
to Hartenstein in different spacing spots on the floor. He
also was just taking quicker reads that were availed well
throughout the game. I thought Jadubb just was much crisper
with his decision making in the middle of the floor.
As a team, they looked a lot more like they
did in the Memphis series moving the ball through the
middle of the floor. They were also doing a ton
of scoring and transition off of their defense, which we'll
(07:13):
talk about here in a few minutes. I thought they
were doing a couple of specific interesting things on the
defensive end of the floor, and then in the second
quarter run I want to stay focused on JDub here
for a minute, because again Jdub's young, and he doesn't
have a ton of experience, and he's going to be
inconsistent because of that, right, And like I thought, Game
one was, you know, an example of that type of inconsistency.
But Jadub is really really good and one of the
(07:35):
things that he was struggling with in in Game one
was getting into the middle of the floor in precarious
situations where he didn't really have much of like a
downhill advantage, and he was taking some bad shots in there.
I thought Jadubb was fantastic to lead that second quarter
unit in the early second quarter, and again that was
the group that really blew the lead out into that
(07:56):
like thirty point range. It started with the semi transition drives,
like Christian Brown looked like he was hot dead to
rights on his heels multiple times in that stretch because
Jadub was just getting the ball in bounds and bringing
up the floor, bringing the ball to the floor with pace,
and just hitting those semi transition moves. Get up the floor,
get into a high hesitation like he's steel cruising at
(08:18):
the same speed he was running past half court with
sitting the high hesitation and either just boom crossover or
push dribble to the right, just making really simple aggressive
downhill moves. He had a drive on Christian Brown and
again I think it was off of a made basket too,
if I remember correctly, But it wasn't like any sort
of crazy turnover or anything. It was like a normal
(08:38):
live ball transition situation, and he Christian Brown didn't pick
him up until he was like at the charge circle,
and he ended up just kind of having to wrap
a JDub up and send him to the foul line.
Like Jdubb's rim pressure in that early second quarter shift
was amazing. In general, I thought Shay and j Dubb
just made a concerted effort to apply excellent dribble penetration
(09:01):
at the point of attack. That combined with the way
that they were moving the ball better, they were just
getting fantastic shots. They found an action that they could spam.
In that early second quarter run they started, the Nuggets
started with DeAndre Jordan on Kason Wallace, and so they
just started running ghost screens and then when Adamman takes
DeAndre Jordan out of the action, they end up putt
Jamal Murray on him, same exact sort of thing. They
(09:23):
just were spamming again. Jay Dubb coming off of a
screen from Kaison Wallace caseon slipping out of it to
the three point line, him just pitching that lefty over
the top, pass two on the ball, easy slip, wide
open three at the top of the key.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
He hit two of those there. He had.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Kaison had one of those impressive transition sequences. He had
a nasty kind of like up and under, super explosive
looking right handed layup on the right hand right side
of the rim, and that group ended up blowing the
lead up to twenty nine. And just in general, I
thought it was an extremely impressive offensive game from okay
See that first half was insane. And again, like I
(09:58):
mentioned at the top, I've been critical of OKC and
their propensity to go into these extended offensive droughts this year.
They had kind of a brief version of one in
Game two and crunch time in a couple of minutes
of crunched clutch basketball that they played. I think they
had a sixty six offensive rating in Game one. It's
how they ended up losing the game couple of bad
half court possessions. But this was the third best offense
(10:20):
in the NBA this year, and they are certainly capable
of explosions like the one they had tonight. Hell, I
was on the wrong end to one as a Lakers
fan one of these eighty point halves back in early
April in the second one of the games against OKC,
where they came out and threw a very similar type
of offensive punch, where it's just unbelievable transition, pushes, rim pressure,
Chris passing, shot making all over the floor, Dudes just
(10:42):
hitting every single open three, whether it's Jaylen Williams coming
off the bench. I thought Jayleen played an amazing shift
in that first half, just came in and just started
kicking Jokic's ass with physicality, hitting those spot up threes.
I thought jay Will was amazing. But eighty seven points
in the first half for Oklahoma City. Beautiful half court
(11:03):
basketball and beautiful transition basketball. All their units functioned well,
even though it was in different ways based on the
personnel that was on the floor of the shot making
was absurd. Just a magical half of basketball from OKC
in a must win situation. But I want to talk
about the defensive end for a minute. More good ball
pressure from dort throughout the game, and that was consistent
through Game one too, but a lot of really good
(11:24):
ball pressure that forced Denver into a lot of late
clock situations just because it took them a long time
to get into their offense. And then the big thing
that was triggering a lot of their transition sequences. They
really kicked Joki's ass in this game and all of
the areas where he likes to catch the ball. And
we'll talk about Yokichier in a minute, because some of
this is on him as well, but every single high
(11:44):
post entry they were jumping it and getting like basically
just not even making because Jokic wasn't making contact on
his seals. He was just kind of standing at the
high post and calling for the ball, and those Thunder
players were just shooting the gap with their speed and
just taking the ball away from him. We're doing it
all over the floor on his post ups, extra efforts
digging down at the ball. Every single time he caught
(12:05):
the ball in the pocket. There's like three Thunder arms
in there grabbing at the ball, jumping those high post
passing lanes, getting out and transition consistently. They forced twenty
one more turnovers tonight and scored thirty four points off
of those turnovers, so they actually extended their advantage in
points off of turnovers over what they had in Game one.
It was a twenty point advantage in that specific margin
(12:27):
for Denver. And then the last thing I wanted to
shout out on the defensive end of the floor, just
all the extra efforts that they were making at the rim.
I Uh, the numbers will take a little while to update,
so we'll have to get into them on playback later tonight.
But I bet you when we pull the rim finishing
numbers from Denver in this game, I bet you they
shot below forty percent at the rim or within five
(12:49):
feet of the rim. The you can you can force
guys into misses at the rim just by getting a
bunch of dudes making those good vertical contests without fouling,
and making it so the guys can't just go into
their traditional rhythm around the rim. You make them change
angles on layups, change footwork on layups. Even against good
NBA players, You'll force misses there. And every Thunder player
(13:11):
was making those extra efforts in rotation at the rim tonight,
so many misses at point blank range. In game one,
Denver at fifty four points in the paint. They finished
tonight with twenty eight, but a lot of those came
in garbage time. When I started focusing on my notes
after Denver pulled their starters, I believe they were at
like seventeen points in the paint. So like just a
(13:33):
dramatic difference in paint dominance between game one and game two.
Like the Thunder just threw an incredible punch. They absolutely
needed this win, and it might have been their best
two way punch of the season. That was an ass
kicking of epic proportion, super balance scoring down the roster.
(13:54):
They ended up getting eight players in double figures tonight,
albeit there was some garbage time involved, but just a
really well rounded ass kicking championship type of effort from
the Oklahoma City Thunder on the Denver front. Like I said,
Yoki shares, I think the majority of the blame for
a lot of those turnovers that were taking place at
(14:14):
the high post in the sense that your job there's
a passing angle to it where it's like the passer
needs to get the ball to where the passing window is.
But at the same time, when that dude's also facing
lou Door or somebody else in a lot of ball pressure,
there needs to be from Jokic a better effort to
just create a cleaner passing angle by finding the defender
(14:37):
that's trying to stalk that pass and making contact so
that he can't jump into that passing lane, make a
clear window available. I thought in general, Jokics just kind
of had a little bit of like a lackadaisical night
in a lot of those details. I just thought he
just kind of succumbed to the physicality in a lot
of ways, and you know, just didn't you just let
oh the rope? And I thought I thought he shared
(14:58):
a good amount of the blame just for a lot
of those turnovers that were taking place in the middle
of the floor. Denver's point of attack defense was absolute
garbage tonight. The good amount of this is on Christian Brown,
but it goes down the roster is Shay and JDub
were both picking on different switches there, but they were
just losing control of the ball over and over again
right at the top of the key, right in the
first few seconds of the possession, and when that dude's
(15:19):
slashing downhill. Their only way you're going to contain them
is by conceding the types of wide open threes on
kickouts that they were conceding throughout this game. And so
Denver just has to do a much better job on
the ground at the point of attack of keeping the
ball in front, flattening out those drives, making it so
that hey, maybe Shay has to make two or three
counter moves to get into the paint instead of just
(15:41):
high hesitation beat the dude off the dribble. JADB was
doing a ton of that type of damage tonight, so
got to be much better at the point of attack.
I thought they missed a couple of really good looks
early in the game that affected their overall just kind
of like energy and belief and their ability to win.
They had five like wide open threes for Christian Brown
and Michael Port in the first quarter that all missed,
(16:02):
and I thought that really kind of took the wind
out of Denver sales, and I thought collectively as a group,
they just let go of the rope from there and
they were just never within any sort of real striking distance.
I still like their shot quality when they don't turn
the ball over. There are a couple concerning things. They
need to get Michael Porter Junior and Jamal Murray to
start hitting a higher percentage of their jump shots. In particular,
both of them just look really uncomfortable their misses right now.
(16:23):
Or MPJA started to hit a couple later in the game,
but both of them have had a lot of outside
the rim misses, which tells me that they're just kind
of out of rhythm. Those guys need to get going
in Denver for Denver to have a good chance to
win this series. So through two games and through rewatching
one of them, I rewatched game one obviously, haven't rewatched
Game two yet, but I'm still sticking with OKC to
(16:45):
win the series by a very slim margin. But I
think it's much much closer to a coin flip than
what I saw before the series, which was I didn't
have Oka see as as substantial as a favorite as
Vegas did. I thought it was going to be a
long series, end up picking Oklahoma City in seven if
I remember correctly. But but this is a series now
(17:05):
that I view much closer to a coin flip.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
I think.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I think Oklahoma City deserves to still be the favorite.
I would pick them to win the series at this point,
but I would not even be the slightest bit surprised
if Denver ended up closing this thing out in six games,
for instance, like winning three and four, losing Game five,
and winning game six. We'll see how it goes. I
think the clear advantage for Oklahoma City that is shown
through the first two games is their dribble penetration, Like
(17:31):
even in the even in Game one, like they were
able to contain the ball through double teams and just
kind of baiting Shay and j Dub into some poor
decisions and packing the paint, they were able to slow
down dribble penetration a little bit today with some zone.
I'll be curious to see how the numbers look with
that when the data actually updates. But that's their advantage
in the same way that Denver has this huge, huge
(17:52):
advantage in the form of size, which manifests with Jokich
as this indomitable shot creation force, and then just their
ability to get a ton of offensive rebus Blahoma City,
it's just their speed, it's their drible penetration and what
they can do in transition. Even though Denver has a
win in this series, both of these games, they got
sliced and diced in those like points off of turnovers,
you know, fast break opportunities off of bad misses and
(18:15):
bad turnovers. And so Oklahoma City has their advantages in
this series, and they're younger, and they're more athletic, and
they're going to stay fresher over the course of the series.
I think that's what keeps me from bailing on my
pick to start the series. But I feel much more
confident in Denver's ability to win the series now after
two games than I did before the series started. All right,
(18:37):
let's go on to Boston, New York. What an insane
game this was. There's so much interesting stuff to get
into with Boston, but I want to kind of set
that to a side for the for a minute, because
as as poorly as Boston is playing, New York is
also playing incredibly well, and there are a bunch of
specific things that need to get shouted out. I want
(18:58):
to start on offense, and then we'll work to the
defensive end of the floor on offense once again, when
they go down twenty. They've been Pacers esque with their
willingness to just keep pushing the ball in transition, playing
with pace, not letting go of the rope, and just
knowing that they have such a high powered offense that
in any little short five minute span of time they
can score a bunch of points and make something a
(19:20):
game like it was Ojan Andobi in Game one. They
hit a couple of big a couple of big threes
right after they won up twenty that cut the lead
down to fourteen. Tonight, it was Josh Hart. Jason Tatum
was straight up ignoring Josh Hart, helping off of him.
Jalen Brunson was just kind of probing in the paint
and made a couple of easy kickout passes to Josh Hart.
On basically concession threes from the Celtics defense. He knocked
(19:42):
them both down in that early fourth quarter stretch. Michale
Bridges was amazing, And remember he was so good defensively
in Game one, but really didn't get going offensively in
that game. He got his jump shot going in that
early fourth quarter stretch. I think he hit like five
or six jump shots. A couple of them were his
classic kind of move mint threes, but several of them
were really tough mid range jump shots off the bounce.
(20:04):
He had a nasty reverse layup with his left hand
out of a ball screen against Drew Holliday. McHale Bridges
for a fourth quarter scoring was key in a big
way because the Knicks were playing well on offense in
that stretch. That was a stretch where Peyton Pritchard got
a couple of wide open threes that he hit. I
think Porzing's got an and one in that stretch. Al
Horford got a bucket right at the rim like That
(20:24):
was this phase of the game when the Celtics offense
was actually playing pretty well and continued to kind of
stiff arm the Knicks, but mcale bridges just kept scoring
and then he hit this three believe off of the
right wing that cut the lead to seven right around
the middle of the fourth quarter, and then Brunson came
in and Brunson just completely took over the game from there.
And once again late in the game, he gets a
(20:46):
big three off of an offensive rebound from Josh Hart.
He finds a matchup that he likes in drawing two
on the ball with Horford that ends up setting up
Josh Hart with a layup that he missed, but he
occupied the rim protector, so Carl Anthony Towns was able
to get an offensive rebound put back for an end one.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
And then late in the.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Game, just continually every single game in this postseason when
the Knicks need him to generate offense late, like he's
literally coming through every single time. Like, I don't think
people realize how crazy this is. Crunch time basketball is
extremely hard, the refs swallow the whistle, all of the
defenders are playing at a higher level of intensity. Drew
(21:26):
Holliday once again, like just refusing to give up switches,
fighting through screens where like there were a coup several
possessions late where Jalen Brunson had to create a shot
against Drew Holliday like he regardless of this incredible difficulty
of these situations, He's literally coming through every single game.
This is crazy, guys. This is one of the most
(21:48):
reliably great clutch performers I've ever watched. And you know, again,
those Drew ISOs Like Drew Holliday is consistently throughout the
season done a phenomenal job one on one against Jaylen Brunt,
and he's the one guy on the Celtics that he
really struggles to get separation from. And twice down the
stretch there were like three possessions where he attacked him directly,
(22:09):
and on two of those possessions he managed to score
a nasty one leg fade away, got his shoulder into
Drew and then just leaned back on a one leg
fadeaway around the right elbow, and then he drew a foul.
On that final possession, the one that got the lead.
He knew Drew is going to be aggressive. He knew
Drew was going to be physical, and he just trusted
his handle, He trusted his counter movee spun off of Drew,
(22:29):
Drew got out of position, Drew had no choice but
to start hacking him, and he drew a foul there
to get to the line. So again four points out
of those late ISOs against Drew Holliday. That like, that's
really high level production in those situations. He got a
transition right handed layup on Al Horford, just taking, you know,
being opportunistic about an advantage that presented itself in transition,
(22:51):
just kind of shot the gap, got around Horford, got
to that right handed layup. I just can't say enough
about Jalen Brunson and the job that he's on in
the clutch for this team. But I want to hold
off about the conversation about him and where he stands
among the guards right now because he was incredible on
defense in this game again, but I want to talk
about the Nicks defense in the big picture. We talked
(23:11):
a lot about Ognnobi and McHale Bridges after Game one,
and those guys were amazing again tonight. Like Og forced
Tatum into a really tough left shoulder fade on a
clutch possession late kind of a late clock situation where
Tatum had no choice but to attack him, defended him
extremely well. McKale Bridges had that late peel off of
jaln Brown where he got the deflection off of Tatum
on the final possession that forced the turnover. They both
(23:34):
had big, like kind of help defense sequences in the
in the fourth quarter, out of the post, like McHale
Bridges scram Duce McBride out of a post mismatch Porzingis slipped.
He had McBride. He scrammed him out of it and
actually forced Porzingis to give up the ball and they
ended up forcing a miss. Ognanobe he had that big
baseline double team on a post up late in the game.
Those guys were amazing. They do so much to clean
(23:55):
up messes for this Knicks defense. But I want to
shout out two other guys tonight, Mitchell Robinson and Jalen Brunson.
First of all, Mitchell Robinson. One of the big reasons
why he continues to be such a reliable piece for
New York in this matchup is his ability to defend
in switches plus nineteen tonight in twenty two misses or
(24:18):
twenty two minutes. I'm pulling up the plus minus from
game one because I wanted to see in Game one
he was plus thirteen and twenty one minutes. So they've
consistently been very good with Mitchell Robinson on the floor.
And a big part of it is is we saw,
you know, they can attack Karl Anthony Towns and pick
and roll. That was how Tatum drew that late foul call,
(24:39):
the one that brought the three point lead down to two,
was he just basically flipped a screening angle on Cat.
He Cat had to rush over to the other side
of the screen. He quickly split him with the crossover
dribble and then Cat had no choice but to hack
him as he was going downhill. But like for the
most part, Mitchell Robinson when he switches in those ball screens,
has been able to keep the ball in front, force
(25:00):
them into a contested mid range pull up or a
contested three point pull up, and that's winning those matchups
because Tatum and Brown can't make that shot right now.
Both of them are just so broke with their jump
with their jump shot. And like there's a little thing
that you saw there late that the play where Tatum
got the dunk to get the lead, the dead giveaway
or the obvious difference was that they just gave Tatum
(25:22):
a massive runway and let him run the length of
the floor and they set the ball screen damn near
at half court, and so he was already he had
such a head of steam by the time he got
to Mitchell Robinson that it was so easy for him
to break him off with a simple move there. But
Mitchell Robinson's defense and his ability to switch in pick
and roll on those guys has been a huge part
of how they've been able to be so good defensively
(25:43):
in the lineups. When he's on the floor, Joe Mizula
like flat out admitted after the game that he's hacking him,
not even because of the free throws. He's hacking him
because he's trying to get TIBs to take him off
the floor, like freely admitted it is like like like
he said after the game, he was like, I hacked
him on that late passez just to get TIBs to
take him off, get off the floor, because look at
his plus minus and then look at the plus minus
(26:05):
of all the starters. I thought that was a super
interesting bit. Like, first of all, for tip for uh
Missoula to even admit that in that situation, I thought
was fascinating. But yeah, it's Mitch has been kicking everybody's butt.
And then Jalen Brunson. I shouted at him out if
you guys remember after game one for a couple of
key defensive sequences. He had two stops against Tatum on
(26:26):
an island where he beat him to spots and forced
him into tough pull ups. He battled Horford on a
couple of post mismatches where he fronted the post. A
bunch of the same stuff again tonight, just battling in
post mismatches, being willing to hold up on an island
again with both guys. With Kat and with Brunson, they're
still mixing in the hedge and recover with Brunson, They're
still mixing in a bunch of drop with Kat, you know,
(26:49):
just just to try to you know, one of the
interesting subplots here is I think part of the reason
why TIBs is sticking with that is because Boston shooting
the ball so poorly, Because like they're getting clean looks
out of a lot of those actions late in the game.
They got Horford a couple of wide open looks in
pick and pop situations late in the game, just like that.
(27:11):
But they're just Brunson is competing defensively and it's making
a world of difference. Cat is still really struggling, but
Brunson has made it so that there's one really weak
defender on the flour instead of two. And like I
talked a lot about, you know, during the Knick struggles
this year, I've talked a lot about the idea that
they kind of you know, that teams have missed the
(27:33):
point about what made Boston great. You know, what made
Boston great wasn't necessarily just Tatum and Brown. Obviously those
guys are a big part of it, but it's that
they can keep putting together these five man lineups where
all five defenders are great. And like, by the way,
Boston's not losing this series because of defense. They held
the Knicks to ninety one points tonight. They the Celtics
can guard one through five in basically all of their lineups,
(27:56):
the majority of their lineups, with exception to like Porzingis
is like the guy that they're really struggling to guard
with in this particular phase of the season. But like
with the Knicks, one of the reasons why they never
had any sort of sustained success against great teams this year, frankly,
any success against great teams this year was because Brunson
and Cat were these like obvious entry points, and so
(28:18):
it doesn't matter how good Mkale is on the ball,
doesn't matter how good Og is on the ball. They're
just in rotation too much. And like Brunson being able
to hold his ground the way that he's been holding
his ground in conjunction with the job that Mkale and
Og are doing and all these help and recover situations
and Josh Hart as well, it's just made it so
that the Knicks defense is so much more sturdy in
(28:39):
these spots. And like obviously there's a Celtics element with
them knocking down shots. And you know this will bear
out over the course of the series. Like whether you
want to ask me whether or not the Knicks can
win this series, it really is gonna come down to
whether or not that defense can hold up, because we're
gonna talk about Boston here in a minute. Boston was
consistently better on the road than they were at home.
(28:59):
This here, this series is not over Boston. I would
not be even the slightest bit surprised if Boston went
down to MSG in one to two and brought this
series back to Boston at two to two. So like
this is not over. But the pathway for the Knicks
is that defense that we just talked about, holding up, Brunson,
holding up to help and recover, holding up, just them
(29:20):
in general holding up on that end of the floor.
But hell of a punch from the Knicks, you know,
it's so funny. I was talking with Josh Rodriguez. He's
a guy used to do some work for this show,
a big Knicks fan, and we were talking after Game seven,
Game six of the Piston series, and he was like, man,
Knicks fans are so sick of this team because they
(29:41):
just didn't have the same like juice, competitive juice that
they did in last year's team. And you know, like
you Cat's joking after the series, like we just like
to do things the hard way, and it's like, well,
you guys kind of don't do the work for large
stretches of games and make things really difficult on yourself.
But for whatever reason, it's like all come to fruition
(30:02):
here in the first two games of the series, and
all of a sudden, this looks like a Knicks team
that has a decent chance to win the title, Like
they're a legitimate threat in a way that I did
not see them as a legitimate threat at all coming
into this postseason run. So shout out to the Knicks
for discovering a sturdy defensive identity. And then there's the
second piece of it, which is Jalen Brunson. And again,
(30:23):
like this is a conversation for the summer, and I
would lean Steph still at this point because I just
am such a believer in late round playoff success. But
Jalen Brunson, you know, especially with Steph starting to age out,
Jalen Brunson is making a strong case to be the
best small guard in the league with the way that
he's been playing as of late, for him to be
(30:44):
as sturdy defensively as he has been, and then to
just routinely be arguably the very best closer in all
of basketball. To the point where the Knicks did the
job of getting them into two close games against the
Celtics late and twice Jalen Brunson they aired down Jason
Tatum and was just flat out better than him. And
(31:04):
I just want to shout out Brunson. I think I
think he at the very least now has a case
to be the best small guard in the league. And
again we'll approach that again this summer, but man like,
he's just playing at a crazy high level. So let's
talk about Boston's offense couple of things. First of all,
the hilarious thing was that after OG's offensive foul when
(31:26):
he dunked all over, who was it that got in
front of him?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Was it Derek White?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
I think it was Derek White. Dunk's all over, Derek White.
Derek White gets the charge call and the Celtics immediately
go on a run and blow the lead.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Up to twenty.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
What's hilarious is after the charge they got five buckets
right at the rim. In that run to get it
up to twenty. Derek White went right through brunts into
the rim. Tatum went had this angry looking post up
at Michale Bridges where he just backed him down and
got right to the front of the rim. Derek White
had another driving layup and pick and roll. Then Tatum
and White both said up Cornette and porzingis for buckets
(32:02):
right at the front of the rim. They got that
lead up to twenty getting stuff right at the rim.
And we're gonna talk about that in a little bit
as it pertains to the versatility element. But honestly, guys,
Like when I watched the second half of Game one,
I was like, I called it CTE basketball as a joke,
but like it was just an enormous amount of poor
(32:23):
process and terrible shot selection. I didn't feel that way
at all watching the second half of this game. I
thought their process was generally good, and I thought they
mostly got great shots. Yes, there were some bad ones
mixed in there. That Tatum had that bad left shoulder
fade over og Nnobi in clutch time that he missed.
(32:43):
Jlen Brown had a shot where he went right at
Brunson and tried to like grift a foul around the
left elbow. That was a bad possession obviously. The final
possession where Tatum shot tried to pass out of a
double team and turned it over against Michel Bridges, that
was a bad possession. But there was a lot of
good you know. I saw Jason Tatum trying to split
ball screens against cat and Mitchell Robinson late and getting
(33:08):
to the rim. Jalen Brown did.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Have a play where he tried to bully.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Jalen Brunson right to the front of the rim and
he just missed like a really easy shot right at
the front of the rim, and like Horford butt naked
three in the right corner missed, Derek White butt naked
three on the left wing missed. Jason Tatum and Jalen
Brown both missed about the easiest wide open threes you'll
(33:32):
ever see down the stretch of this game. Tatum's was
off the catch in the right corner and kind of
a semi transition sequence. Jylen Brown missed one at the
top of the key out of a ball screen where
there was nobody up at the level and the screen
wiped out the defense. I mean he's standing unguarded. And
so it was very different from Game one in the
sense that, like you know, the Celtics of Tate, the
(33:55):
Celtics took sixty threes in Game one, but they were
bad threes. I've seen the Celtic take fifty to fifty
five threes in a game and have them mostly be
good threes. It has nothing to do with the volume
of threes for me, It has to do with where
they get them. But there is a reality to the
fact that if your offense is primarily designed to generate
(34:20):
threes and the propensity of the team is to hunt
those threes, even if they're good threes, every three has
a certain degree of variance to it. To take it
a step further, shooting in general is kind of a
mind fuck. The best shooters in the world don't make
(34:41):
half their threes, meaning like, if you take a three,
you're probably going to miss, and so as they start
to stack up on you, often it can get in
your head you start to tweak your release. Like, guys,
Jason Tatum's jump shot has not just been off, it's been.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Way off over the course of this year.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
He's clearly in his head about it, because that's what
happens when when shots start to miss, it can spiral
on you.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
There's been a lot of like analytical attempts over the
years to try to explain shooting variants, and I've seen
pieces that try to say that there's no such thing
as the hot hand. I don't have any idea of
how to explain it to you, guys, other than to
say that if you've played, you know, you know that
it's a real thing, and it could just as easily flip.
They could go into game three and suddenly Tatum, Brown
(35:27):
and White could go, you know, twelve for twenty from
three and they could blow out the Knicks and you know,
send this to a game for it two games to one.
But there is variance. It's an inherent part of shooting,
and it tends to be streaky. It tends to be
as a team you'll go cold and as a team
you'll go hot. There is a momentum behind that sort
of thing. Now, this is where the variety comes into
(35:49):
the to the picture. The closer you can get to
the basket with pet action, meaning like let's say that
Jason Tatum just made a concerted effort to post up
legitimately like six seven, eight, nine times a game. If
he made that effort, that makes it so that there's
a huge chunk of the way that he can generate
(36:11):
offense that generates shots that are closer to the rim.
The closer you get to the rim, the less variance
there is. Tatum is absolutely big and strong enough to
be a guy that can bump a defender off and
take a left shoulder hook. There's nothing that says that
he can't take that type of shot. Tatum, also with
his jump shot, will have less variants on short, little
(36:34):
ten foot turnarounds. Then he will on seventeen foot turnarounds
or on three point shots. As a team, this offense
is entirely geared around the ability to generate three point shots.
This is where I got to go to the stars
and guys like Jason Tatum had the best season of
(36:55):
his career, and this was the first season where I
said that I thought that he was a legitimate top
tier superstar in this league. He combined the versatility that
he had really built out over the previous years as
a big, strong athlete that could do everything as a
rebounder and as a defender. He combined that with a
dramatically improved overall just like floor presence as a playmaker
(37:15):
and as just like a half court kind of flow
of the game guy. And then he took a leap
as a shot maker to the extent to where he
looked fantastic in the first round. But as I've consistently said,
like when Tatum can't make his jump shot, he is
no longer a top tier superstar in this league. And
the reason is is because he doesn't have any elite
(37:39):
first step that can consistently beat people off the dribble
good defenders, and he doesn't have any sort of legitimate, reliable,
close range game, and so if his jump shot isn't there,
if he can't rely on that piece of his offense,
he dramatically dips overall as an offensive talent. And suddenly
(38:01):
this Celtics team and again, like remember last year when
Tatum was faltering, Jylen Brown was playing the best basketball
of his career. The problem is is Jalen Brown is
also in just as big of a shooting slum. And
so it's really tricky because the two guys that are
primarily responsible for generating shots for this offense are two
(38:21):
guys that rely on consistently getting to the rim and
knocking down pull up jump shots. And neither of them
can get to the rim right now, and neither of
them can make their jump shot. And so all of
a sudden, you have a Celtics offense that, even though
they're surrounded by all of this play finishing talent, they
are unable to generate something that doesn't have a great
(38:44):
deal of variance involved, which is that three point shot attack.
When we look at the top players in the league,
when you look at like Nikola Jokics, for instance, his
game is impervious to variants because he shoots like sixty
five percent on shots that are within ten feet of
the basket that are not layups. Shake Gildos, Alexander is
(39:06):
going to get into the mid range and he's over
fifty percent from there. He's much less susceptible to variants.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
There.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
These guys at the top of the league.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
They have a reliable element to their game that at
this point in Tatum's career he hasn't really developed. And
so as a result, it's like Tatum's making jump shots.
He's the third best player in the league. Tatum's not
making jump shots, He's like the eighth or ninth best
player in the league. And like you want to know
(39:36):
why the Celtics are down two, oh, it's because their
best player is like completely decomposing in these games. Now, again,
the series is not over. I would not be the
slightest bit surprised if Boston went down in one game, three, four, five,
and six. But it's going to turn on Jason Tatum.
(39:57):
If Tatum goes down there and gets back to that
top tier, superstar level, the Celtics will win. If he
goes down there and drops another five for seventeen, then
they're not going to win.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
The series.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
It like, once again, these series keep coming down to
the play of these superstars, and I just think it's
really fascinating. All right, let's bring Jackson. Let's take about
ten minutes of questions, and then we'll head over to playback.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
Let's do it.
Speaker 5 (40:22):
Let's do some questions. We got mostly questions about the
Celtics game. We'll take a couple about some other stuff,
but let's start with this one, which I think is
sort of a prevailing sentiment. Is this the quote unquote
same old Celtics from twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
And sort of years past before they had gotten over
the hump and won the championship.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
So game one felt like same old Celtics to me,
where they just took a lot of really bad shots.
I thought this game was mostly specifically about Tatum, like
I saw, I saw Celtics talking about it on Twitter.
(41:01):
I can't even remember who it was, but someone was
saying something along the lines of Tatum's in like the
complete upside down right now, and you can tell all
of the other players like don't know what to do
about it. Like you can tell all the other players
are like one of us should probably take control, but
like who's going to be the guy that goes like, hey, Tatum,
(41:21):
give me the ball, you know what I mean, And like,
that's like I thought. I thought this game in particular
came down to the fact that, like the Celtics stars
are just legitimately unable to make shots right now. Game
one felt much more like years past, where it's like,
why do these guys keep taking these really stupid shots?
But I didn't really have a problem with their shot
selection in the second half of this game. What did
(41:41):
you feel, like, your Celtics fan, Jackson, what did you
feel about the shot selection late in this game?
Speaker 5 (41:45):
I thought the shot selection and the process was mostly
fine this game.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
I agree with you in that sense.
Speaker 5 (41:51):
The thing that I think you can point to you
if you were trying to say this is this quote
unquote same old Celtics is I think the same old
Celtics did two things poorly. They settled for way too
many threes, much like Game one. And then also they
were making a lot of the right plays, and they
were just like making a lot of the right plays
from a process standpoint, but not finishing those right plays.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
And that's that's the version that you saw tonight. They
it's it.
Speaker 5 (42:18):
Game one, it felt like they were playing stupid, they
were just playing so dumb, and this game, it's like it.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
Almost felt a little bit worse.
Speaker 5 (42:24):
It felt much more like a mental meltdown for me
than Game one because Game one they played so dumb,
like like we I have no problem saying they played
idiotic offensive basketball.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
In Game one.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
Right tonight, it's like they're in their head because they're
missing a lot of shots. You're seeing Jason Tatum brick
butt naked threes from the corner. Jalen Brown is missing
wide open threes. Al Horford is one for ten from
three this series. They are just bricking shots, missing them
badly in a way where you're like, man, are they
thinking about it?
Speaker 3 (42:55):
Are they?
Speaker 5 (42:56):
And that's why I feel like it's a little bit
worse than Game one, because you see the Game one result.
Process wise, you've solved the problems from the Game one,
But once you get into the fourth quarter and the
Nicks start coming back, it's like, Uh, oh, are they
gonna do this? Are they gonna do this again? Are
we gonna do this again? You know, it's it's becoming
more of like, at least on the surface, I don't
know what these guys are actually thinking, obviously, but from
(43:17):
a viewer standpoint, it feels much more like they are.
Speaker 4 (43:21):
Falling mentally as opposed.
Speaker 5 (43:23):
To just playing a little bit stupid if you can
want to see you know, part of the difference of those.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
I think you're absolutely right about that. I think this
is like they are entering into the yips. Yeah, and
it's gonna be a question of it's gonna be a
question of whether or not they can get that right.
They generated fourteen unguarded catch and shoot jump shots in
this game, made three of them, three of them. Like,
that's that's that's brutal and like, but that's the thing, Like, guys,
(43:48):
that was not what happened in game one. In game one,
they actually shot well on their open shots. In the
second half tonight, totally different second half. Seven unguarded jump
shots catch shoot zero point four to three points per attempt.
So like they just they're just they're just completely out
of whack with their jumptioning. But this is the thing, Like,
(44:09):
this is the advantage of having a player that can
consistently generate quality twos close to the rim. When you
have that type of player, it gives you a certain
floor offensively to where like even when you're missing your threes,
you're still getting a handful of layups during that stretch
or easier shots during that stretch that kind of raise
your floor, Like even like with Steph Curry, because like
(44:30):
Steph Curry's always had a great deal of variance in
his game. I mean, the first half of the Rockets
game is a Rockets game seven is a good example, right,
But with Steph, he because he inverts the spacing by
bringing multiple defenders to the perimeter constantly.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
He will generate easy twos.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
For his teammates over the course of the game. Where
like you're seeing Steph like have a night where he
shoots poorly, but the offense still functions at a really
high level. And so Steph is like the one guy
that I can think of in my life that is
like a jump shooter primarily. That is, like there's variance
in his game, but there's still a pretty high floor
(45:09):
in those situations. And ultimately, Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum
are incapable of generating quality two's on a consistent basis
close to the basket, which makes them very dependent on
tough jump shot making and that's been an issue for
them consistently in the series.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
Yeah, and I think it's where you see the biggest
difference between those two players in Jalen Brunson.
Speaker 4 (45:29):
Right.
Speaker 5 (45:30):
And it's a thing that I've sort of I am
no problem admitting that I am generally pro analytics, and
that's why I'm a fan of the Celtics and missou
La ball as an overall concept. But the thing that
I think most people miss about analytics and the three
point in take away the mitt no more mid rent
shooting is three point shooting high volume is better from
a macro long term perspective, you are going points per shot.
(45:53):
The more shot you get in a high points per
shot better for your offense. Undeniable, it's just math. But
at the end of a game, when there's only so
many shots left to come in the game, it's not
about the best expected value of the shot, it's are
you going to score at all on the shot? Right,
Which is why it's not that doesn't become a one
point one to four game anymore. It becomes a two
(46:15):
or a zero, or a three or a zero. So
it's it's not about expected value, it's about is it
going to go in, which is why you want a
closer or a mid range shot or a you know
in the paint, a paint touch, which is what Jalen
Brunson is doing at a dramatically, dramatically dramatically higher level
than Tatum and Jalen Brown.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
Yeah, Jalen Brunson can beat elite defenders off the dribble
consistently like that. That that's an important detail. Like he
solved Dennis Schroeder over the course of that series. Like
he was able to get close range twos or to
the foul line against Drew multiple times late him hitting
the gap against Horford. That's not to say that Tatum
(46:52):
can't do it. Tatum can, but Tatum needs like some
circumstances like oh, we got to give him a massive
runway and set the screen at half court, you know,
like that sort of thing for him beat a Mitchell
Robinson off the dribble, Whereas like, yeah, like if he
gets a favorable matchup, he can beat that guy off
the dribble. But like that's the thing, Like the Celtics
did that stuff well tonight. They did the hunting the
right matchups, building the advantages, generating the quality shots My
(47:15):
thing is like, sometimes you got to stare down the
best defender that's guarding you and be able to generate
a quality too.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Like that.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
That's the difference that that like prevents Tatum from being
like a consistent guy that produces at that top tier
superstar level one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (47:31):
Sort of big picture here.
Speaker 5 (47:32):
The Knicks now on DraftKings, are minus one twenty to
win the series. The Celtics are plus one hundred, so
Nick slightly favored over a pick them up too well
in the series going home? Where do you land on
the series at large? On that price on the Knicks,
you know, potential to actually win the series.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
I think that's perfect. That's exactly how I'd put it.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
I think the I think the Knicks deserve to be
slight favorites at this point. I think I think if
you're a Knicks fan and you think the series is over,
you're an idiot, like I, Like I this is not
the team that got almost swept by the Miami Heat
and it ended up forcing a Game seven. Like that
team was less mature, less able to like stabilize in
(48:16):
terms of process, Like there's a chance that the Celtics
come out and play the exact same game in Game
three that they played in Game two and win by fifteen.
Like they are, they are definitely capable of going down
there and winning, but it's really hard to win four
times in five prize and that dude Madison Square Garden
is going to be bumping in Game three, and that's
(48:39):
that's where I kind of feel like it makes sense
for it to be a coin flip, because, like, I
think the Knicks are about a coin flip to win
Game three, even with like you're gonna get what whatever
the best version of the Celtics is, You're getting that
in Game three, like that, they're gonna come out like
guns blazing in that game. But the Knicks are also
going to be playing with an opportunity to really put
(49:00):
the series away and to go up three to zero.
So like I view that game as a coin flip,
and I think whoever wins that game probably wins the series.
And so at that with that being the case, it
kind of feels to me like roughly a coin flip.
But you get you're gonna obviously give the team that
has like a big home court advantage at this point
in the Knicks the advantage to.
Speaker 5 (49:19):
Put the hammer on the coin flip analogy to to
to lose two twenty point leads, you also have to
gain two twenty point leads. Right this, Celtons have been
up by twenty in both games.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Period.
Speaker 4 (49:30):
Did they lose both games?
Speaker 3 (49:32):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (49:32):
Did they lose it an embarrassing fashion, yes they were,
but they were up by twenty in both games.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
So the series is by no means over.
Speaker 5 (49:39):
One more question about this series. Who is I guess
it's sort of about this series. Who is more clutch
Jalen Brunson or Tyres Haliburt.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
I'm gonna go Brunson just because Brunson it feels like
a career long thing for him. Halliburton's on one hell
of a clutch run. And if you ask me who
the most clutch player this season is, that probably go
with Halliburton because I mean he's literally hit two game
ending jump shit or shots in.
Speaker 3 (49:59):
This in this playoff run.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
But like Brunton, this has been a multi year sequence
where he's like this, So I would give the slight
edge to Brunson at this point.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
Great question, though, for sure.
Speaker 4 (50:11):
We got some a few questions on the refereeing.
Speaker 5 (50:14):
One a specific question, which is do you have a
take on the officiating in the Denver game tonight, because
a lot of Nuggets fans are in the chat screaming
about Scott Foster letting the thunder mal Nikola Jokic. So
first question is sort of a more specific view about
the officiating tonight, and then sort of big picture do
you like the physicality that the refs are allowing in
(50:34):
the playoffs so far?
Speaker 4 (50:35):
Is there? How would you?
Speaker 5 (50:36):
I know consistency is important, but how would you How
is your feeling about the officiating sort of a large.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
So first of all, and I just fair warning for
Nuggets fans, I am the worst person to ask this
question too, because I will never blame the refs ever
for a game ever, So that that's the first little
bit of context. But I am a generally of belief
that the team that plays with more force gets the
(51:03):
better whistle. And I thought Oklahoma City came out and
kicked your ass tonight, and I thought it also manifested
in a lot of these like whistle situations where Oklahoma
City was on the right side of it. I generally
feel that way, Like there's there's so many examples where
like you'll see a team win a game, and then
the other team will win the next game by bringing
(51:24):
the requisite effort, and in that game they'll get a
better whistle, and everyone will think it's like the league
off is stepping in and being like, we need to
tie this series, and it's like, no, what's happening is
the team that's desperate, that absolutely has to win this game,
Like this is not like Boston New York, Like Boston
could afford to lose tonight, and still they've been better
on the road all seed, Like Boston has lost so
(51:46):
many games at the TV Garden it's not even funny
this year, like the I think they have like I
think this is like their fourteenth loss at home this year.
It's something crazy like that. They have been a very
good road team all year. They've looked much more likeast
year's team on the road than they did at home
this year. And so Denver, Oka, see, it's very different.
(52:06):
You you drop that game tonight like and send Denver
home like you're not winning two in Denver. You might
get lucky to get one there, like the series could
be over if you lose tonight. So like Oklahoma City
brought the requisite effort, they're an awesome team. They physically
kick dress guys. I'm watching Jokic not even seal at
the high post, like I'm not gonna blame the refs
(52:27):
when Jokic I thought, played just a poor game by
his standards, and like, guys, that's the thing I'm I
like in order for me to feel like it means
something for me to say that Game one was one
of the greatest playoff performances that I've ever watched. We
also have to be willing to look and be like
he sucked tonight. If we don't do that, then it
(52:50):
means nothing when we say he was awesome, and it
also means nothing when we say somebody sucks. We have
to be honest about the way that these guys played.
Yokic was awesome in Game one, his team one. Jokic
was not good tonight and it was a big part
of why they lost. And by the way, he's not
the only one ever. Michael Porter Junior was awful again tonight.
There's point of attack defense was awful all night long.
(53:11):
Christian Brown had a bad night. They a lot of
guys down the roster were bad. But you know, obviously
Joki is a guy hold to a very high standard.
I think he's the best player in the world and
one of the best players in NBA history, and I
don't think he did his job tonight.
Speaker 5 (53:23):
Let's do one more question and then we will go
over to playback. This is not about any games from tonight,
but do you feel that Jimmy Butler still has it
in him to be playoff Jimmy but as a lead scorer,
as a we need you to lead us to a
win tonight type or is he sort of pass that
phase a little bit.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
We're gonna find out, that's for sure. This is a
really tough matchup in terms of just the types of
defenders that he's gonna consistently go against. I also think
that Jimmy's gonna need to provide a certain amount of
scoring over the course of these games. But I think
it's still the ball in player movement of Golden State
putting Minnesota in the blender. That is their best pathway
(54:08):
to succeed Minnesota if you play into the matchup attacking
trap with them. That's right up there outy. Trust me,
I just went through that as a Laker fan. Like
as much as I like Jimmy Lucas better and Luca
was having a hard time finding advantages from to attack
one on one. This is not a one on one
type of attack kind of series. Your advantage is Yes,
(54:28):
Jimmy looks to be aggressive. Yes, every time there's four
seconds on the shot clock, you want to throw him
the ball and he needs to go try to create
something off the dribble. But this is a series you're
gonna win defense to transition and by putting Minnesota in
the blender in the half court. All right, guys, uh,
playback playback dot tv slash hoops tonight. The link is
(54:51):
in the description. Head over there right now. We're gonna
be starting out there in just a couple of minutes.
We'll take some callers, we'll take some questions from the chat,
we'll hang out and just watch some film, talk, some basketball,
and an informal setting for about forty five minutes. We'll
see guys over there in just a minute. Thanks as
always for supporting the show. We'll see you guys in
just a couple of minutes.
Speaker 3 (55:07):
What's up, guys.
Speaker 2 (55:08):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys
supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (55:23):
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(02:33):
at the volume heavy Wednesday. Everybody hop all of you
guys are having a great week. Got a jam pack
show for you guys tonight.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Off the top the.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Oklahoma City Thunder and a must win game delivered I
thought one of their best two way performances of the
entire season. We're going to talk about some of the
specific ways on both ends of the floor that Oklahoma
City delivered the blowout victory in a must win game.
We'll talk a little bit about the specific ways that
Denver kind of let go of the rope tonight and
one of the things that they have to clean up
(02:59):
heading into Game three. And then in our second segment,
in just shocking fashion, the New York Knicks come back
again down twenty on the road in Boston to beat
the Celtics. Now, I thought it was very different than
what happened in Game one, So I want to get
into a little bit more detail in terms of just
(03:19):
the difference between bad shot quality or I should say
bad shot selection and just needing to add more variety
to your offense, which I think was more of the
problem tonight. So we're gonna be talking about that. I
also want to shout out some specific elements of the
Knicks defense, a couple of unsung heroes that have been
making the things work for the Knicks on the defensive
end of the floor. Michale Bridges had a showing in
(03:41):
that early fourth quarter was magnificent, as the Celtics actually
played some really good basketball during that phase, and McHale
just hit shot after shot after shot to keep the
Knicks within striking distance. And then Jalen Brunson again making
a case for potentially being the best guard in basketball.
I want to dive a little bit into that concept.
I think it's between him and Steph right now, and
(04:01):
Jalen Brunson's just making a hell of a run once
again in these playoffs. So we'll get into that Nicks
Celtics game from the perspective of both teams, and then
at the tail end of the show, we're going to
take about ten minutes of questions from the chat. So,
if you're subscribed to our YouTube channel, hang out, drop
your questions. We'll take about ten minutes of questions there
at the end. And then when we are done here
(04:22):
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We'll be doing over on playback for an extra forty
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(04:43):
more informal, much more casual, much more interactive with you guys.
So just make sure you guys, there's a link in
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(05:05):
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you guys follow us there and then keep dropping those
questions in the chat for the mail bag at the
tail end of the show. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So how did Oklahoma City bounce back in Game two?
I think there's obviously, in these sorts of situations, a
(05:26):
pullback and a change in intensity. When a veteran team
gets a important win on the road without home court advantage,
there's naturally a little bit of a relaxation in Game two.
And then I was talking with the guys before we
started up. You know, like I've said some things about
Oka See this year. I have my frustrations and frustrations
the wrong word. I had my concerns around them surrounding
some of their ability to go ice cold on offense,
(05:48):
some of their issues with perimeter size on defense. But
I still firmly believe this is the second best team
in basketball, and they are really fucking good on both
ends of the floor, and so in a must win game,
I expected them to come out and throw an incredible punch.
That is exactly what they did. But it can be
too reductive to just be like, well, okay, okay, see
brought the effort, Denver didn't. They won Game two. I
(06:11):
want to get into some of those specific dynamics. Ultimately,
you know, this is kind of a natural part of
that playoff process. I similarly expect Minnesota to kind of
beat up on Golden State tomorrow as a veteran team
gets a home court advantage in Game one and very
similar set of circumstances. But the only way you're going
to flip the scoreboard is by changing basketball dynamics. So
(06:31):
let's get into some of the specific basketball things that
Oklahoma City did to turn this series back to one
point one headed to Denver. So, first of all, in
the early part of the game, much better interior passing.
As a team, they had eleven assists in the first quarter.
They had twelve in the entire second half of Game one,
a lot more.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
J Dubb in particular had a couple of nice feeds
to Hartenstein in different spacing spots on the floor. He
also was just taking quicker reads that were availed well
throughout the game. I thought Jadubb just was much crisper
with his decision making in the middle of the floor.
As a team, they looked a lot more like they
did in the Memphis series moving the ball through the
middle of the floor. They were also doing a ton
of scoring and transition off of their defense, which we'll
(07:13):
talk about here in a few minutes. I thought they
were doing a couple of specific interesting things on the
defensive end of the floor, and then in the second
quarter run I want to stay focused on JDub here
for a minute, because again Jdub's young, and he doesn't
have a ton of experience, and he's going to be
inconsistent because of that, right, And like I thought, Game
one was, you know, an example of that type of inconsistency.
But Jadub is really really good and one of the
(07:35):
things that he was struggling with in in Game one
was getting into the middle of the floor in precarious
situations where he didn't really have much of like a
downhill advantage, and he was taking some bad shots in there.
I thought Jadubb was fantastic to lead that second quarter
unit in the early second quarter, and again that was
the group that really blew the lead out into that
(07:56):
like thirty point range. It started with the semi transition drives,
like Christian Brown looked like he was hot dead to
rights on his heels multiple times in that stretch because
Jadub was just getting the ball in bounds and bringing
up the floor, bringing the ball to the floor with pace,
and just hitting those semi transition moves. Get up the floor,
get into a high hesitation like he's steel cruising at
(08:18):
the same speed he was running past half court with
sitting the high hesitation and either just boom crossover or
push dribble to the right, just making really simple aggressive
downhill moves. He had a drive on Christian Brown and
again I think it was off of a made basket too,
if I remember correctly, But it wasn't like any sort
of crazy turnover or anything. It was like a normal
(08:38):
live ball transition situation, and he Christian Brown didn't pick
him up until he was like at the charge circle,
and he ended up just kind of having to wrap
a JDub up and send him to the foul line.
Like Jdubb's rim pressure in that early second quarter shift
was amazing. In general, I thought Shay and j Dubb
just made a concerted effort to apply excellent dribble penetration
(09:01):
at the point of attack. That combined with the way
that they were moving the ball better, they were just
getting fantastic shots. They found an action that they could spam.
In that early second quarter run they started, the Nuggets
started with DeAndre Jordan on Kason Wallace, and so they
just started running ghost screens and then when Adamman takes
DeAndre Jordan out of the action, they end up putt
Jamal Murray on him, same exact sort of thing. They
(09:23):
just were spamming again. Jay Dubb coming off of a
screen from Kaison Wallace caseon slipping out of it to
the three point line, him just pitching that lefty over
the top, pass two on the ball, easy slip, wide
open three at the top of the key.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
He hit two of those there. He had.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Kaison had one of those impressive transition sequences. He had
a nasty kind of like up and under, super explosive
looking right handed layup on the right hand right side
of the rim, and that group ended up blowing the
lead up to twenty nine. And just in general, I
thought it was an extremely impressive offensive game from okay
See that first half was insane. And again, like I
(09:58):
mentioned at the top, I've been critical of OKC and
their propensity to go into these extended offensive droughts this year.
They had kind of a brief version of one in
Game two and crunch time in a couple of minutes
of crunched clutch basketball that they played. I think they
had a sixty six offensive rating in Game one. It's
how they ended up losing the game couple of bad
half court possessions. But this was the third best offense
(10:20):
in the NBA this year, and they are certainly capable
of explosions like the one they had tonight. Hell, I
was on the wrong end to one as a Lakers
fan one of these eighty point halves back in early
April in the second one of the games against OKC,
where they came out and threw a very similar type
of offensive punch, where it's just unbelievable transition, pushes, rim pressure,
Chris passing, shot making all over the floor, Dudes just
(10:42):
hitting every single open three, whether it's Jaylen Williams coming
off the bench. I thought Jayleen played an amazing shift
in that first half, just came in and just started
kicking Jokic's ass with physicality, hitting those spot up threes.
I thought jay Will was amazing. But eighty seven points
in the first half for Oklahoma City. Beautiful half court
(11:03):
basketball and beautiful transition basketball. All their units functioned well,
even though it was in different ways based on the
personnel that was on the floor of the shot making
was absurd. Just a magical half of basketball from OKC
in a must win situation. But I want to talk
about the defensive end for a minute. More good ball
pressure from dort throughout the game, and that was consistent
through Game one too, but a lot of really good
(11:24):
ball pressure that forced Denver into a lot of late
clock situations just because it took them a long time
to get into their offense. And then the big thing
that was triggering a lot of their transition sequences. They
really kicked Joki's ass in this game and all of
the areas where he likes to catch the ball. And
we'll talk about Yokichier in a minute, because some of
this is on him as well, but every single high
(11:44):
post entry they were jumping it and getting like basically
just not even making because Jokic wasn't making contact on
his seals. He was just kind of standing at the
high post and calling for the ball, and those Thunder
players were just shooting the gap with their speed and
just taking the ball away from him. We're doing it
all over the floor on his post ups, extra efforts
digging down at the ball. Every single time he caught
(12:05):
the ball in the pocket. There's like three Thunder arms
in there grabbing at the ball, jumping those high post
passing lanes, getting out and transition consistently. They forced twenty
one more turnovers tonight and scored thirty four points off
of those turnovers, so they actually extended their advantage in
points off of turnovers over what they had in Game one.
It was a twenty point advantage in that specific margin
(12:27):
for Denver. And then the last thing I wanted to
shout out on the defensive end of the floor, just
all the extra efforts that they were making at the rim.
I Uh, the numbers will take a little while to update,
so we'll have to get into them on playback later tonight.
But I bet you when we pull the rim finishing
numbers from Denver in this game, I bet you they
shot below forty percent at the rim or within five
(12:49):
feet of the rim. The you can you can force
guys into misses at the rim just by getting a
bunch of dudes making those good vertical contests without fouling,
and making it so the guys can't just go into
their traditional rhythm around the rim. You make them change
angles on layups, change footwork on layups. Even against good
NBA players, You'll force misses there. And every Thunder player
(13:11):
was making those extra efforts in rotation at the rim tonight,
so many misses at point blank range. In game one,
Denver at fifty four points in the paint. They finished
tonight with twenty eight, but a lot of those came
in garbage time. When I started focusing on my notes
after Denver pulled their starters, I believe they were at
like seventeen points in the paint. So like just a
(13:33):
dramatic difference in paint dominance between game one and game two.
Like the Thunder just threw an incredible punch. They absolutely
needed this win, and it might have been their best
two way punch of the season. That was an ass
kicking of epic proportion, super balance scoring down the roster.
(13:54):
They ended up getting eight players in double figures tonight,
albeit there was some garbage time involved, but just a
really well rounded ass kicking championship type of effort from
the Oklahoma City Thunder on the Denver front. Like I said,
Yoki shares, I think the majority of the blame for
a lot of those turnovers that were taking place at
(14:14):
the high post in the sense that your job there's
a passing angle to it where it's like the passer
needs to get the ball to where the passing window is.
But at the same time, when that dude's also facing
lou Door or somebody else in a lot of ball pressure,
there needs to be from Jokic a better effort to
just create a cleaner passing angle by finding the defender
(14:37):
that's trying to stalk that pass and making contact so
that he can't jump into that passing lane, make a
clear window available. I thought in general, Jokics just kind
of had a little bit of like a lackadaisical night
in a lot of those details. I just thought he
just kind of succumbed to the physicality in a lot
of ways, and you know, just didn't you just let
oh the rope? And I thought I thought he shared
(14:58):
a good amount of the blame just for a lot
of those turnovers that were taking place in the middle
of the floor. Denver's point of attack defense was absolute
garbage tonight. The good amount of this is on Christian Brown,
but it goes down the roster is Shay and JDub
were both picking on different switches there, but they were
just losing control of the ball over and over again
right at the top of the key, right in the
first few seconds of the possession, and when that dude's
(15:19):
slashing downhill. Their only way you're going to contain them
is by conceding the types of wide open threes on
kickouts that they were conceding throughout this game. And so
Denver just has to do a much better job on
the ground at the point of attack of keeping the
ball in front, flattening out those drives, making it so
that hey, maybe Shay has to make two or three
counter moves to get into the paint instead of just
(15:41):
high hesitation beat the dude off the dribble. JADB was
doing a ton of that type of damage tonight, so
got to be much better at the point of attack.
I thought they missed a couple of really good looks
early in the game that affected their overall just kind
of like energy and belief and their ability to win.
They had five like wide open threes for Christian Brown
and Michael Port in the first quarter that all missed,
(16:02):
and I thought that really kind of took the wind
out of Denver sales, and I thought collectively as a group,
they just let go of the rope from there and
they were just never within any sort of real striking distance.
I still like their shot quality when they don't turn
the ball over. There are a couple concerning things. They
need to get Michael Porter Junior and Jamal Murray to
start hitting a higher percentage of their jump shots. In particular,
both of them just look really uncomfortable their misses right now.
(16:23):
Or MPJA started to hit a couple later in the game,
but both of them have had a lot of outside
the rim misses, which tells me that they're just kind
of out of rhythm. Those guys need to get going
in Denver for Denver to have a good chance to
win this series. So through two games and through rewatching
one of them, I rewatched game one obviously, haven't rewatched
Game two yet, but I'm still sticking with OKC to
(16:45):
win the series by a very slim margin. But I
think it's much much closer to a coin flip than
what I saw before the series, which was I didn't
have Oka see as as substantial as a favorite as
Vegas did. I thought it was going to be a
long series, end up picking Oklahoma City in seven if
I remember correctly. But but this is a series now
(17:05):
that I view much closer to a coin flip.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
I think.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I think Oklahoma City deserves to still be the favorite.
I would pick them to win the series at this point,
but I would not even be the slightest bit surprised
if Denver ended up closing this thing out in six games,
for instance, like winning three and four, losing Game five,
and winning game six. We'll see how it goes. I
think the clear advantage for Oklahoma City that is shown
through the first two games is their dribble penetration, Like
(17:31):
even in the even in Game one, like they were
able to contain the ball through double teams and just
kind of baiting Shay and j Dub into some poor
decisions and packing the paint, they were able to slow
down dribble penetration a little bit today with some zone.
I'll be curious to see how the numbers look with
that when the data actually updates. But that's their advantage
in the same way that Denver has this huge, huge
(17:52):
advantage in the form of size, which manifests with Jokich
as this indomitable shot creation force, and then just their
ability to get a ton of offensive rebus Blahoma City,
it's just their speed, it's their drible penetration and what
they can do in transition. Even though Denver has a
win in this series, both of these games, they got
sliced and diced in those like points off of turnovers,
you know, fast break opportunities off of bad misses and
(18:15):
bad turnovers. And so Oklahoma City has their advantages in
this series, and they're younger, and they're more athletic, and
they're going to stay fresher over the course of the series.
I think that's what keeps me from bailing on my
pick to start the series. But I feel much more
confident in Denver's ability to win the series now after
two games than I did before the series started. All right,
(18:37):
let's go on to Boston, New York. What an insane
game this was. There's so much interesting stuff to get
into with Boston, but I want to kind of set
that to a side for the for a minute, because
as as poorly as Boston is playing, New York is
also playing incredibly well, and there are a bunch of
specific things that need to get shouted out. I want
(18:58):
to start on offense, and then we'll work to the
defensive end of the floor on offense once again, when
they go down twenty. They've been Pacers esque with their
willingness to just keep pushing the ball in transition, playing
with pace, not letting go of the rope, and just
knowing that they have such a high powered offense that
in any little short five minute span of time they
can score a bunch of points and make something a
(19:20):
game like it was Ojan Andobi in Game one. They
hit a couple of big a couple of big threes
right after they won up twenty that cut the lead
down to fourteen. Tonight, it was Josh Hart. Jason Tatum
was straight up ignoring Josh Hart, helping off of him.
Jalen Brunson was just kind of probing in the paint
and made a couple of easy kickout passes to Josh Hart.
On basically concession threes from the Celtics defense. He knocked
(19:42):
them both down in that early fourth quarter stretch. Michale
Bridges was amazing, And remember he was so good defensively
in Game one, but really didn't get going offensively in
that game. He got his jump shot going in that
early fourth quarter stretch. I think he hit like five
or six jump shots. A couple of them were his
classic kind of move mint threes, but several of them
were really tough mid range jump shots off the bounce.
(20:04):
He had a nasty reverse layup with his left hand
out of a ball screen against Drew Holliday. McHale Bridges
for a fourth quarter scoring was key in a big
way because the Knicks were playing well on offense in
that stretch. That was a stretch where Peyton Pritchard got
a couple of wide open threes that he hit. I
think Porzing's got an and one in that stretch. Al
Horford got a bucket right at the rim like That
(20:24):
was this phase of the game when the Celtics offense
was actually playing pretty well and continued to kind of
stiff arm the Knicks, but mcale bridges just kept scoring
and then he hit this three believe off of the
right wing that cut the lead to seven right around
the middle of the fourth quarter, and then Brunson came
in and Brunson just completely took over the game from there.
And once again late in the game, he gets a
(20:46):
big three off of an offensive rebound from Josh Hart.
He finds a matchup that he likes in drawing two
on the ball with Horford that ends up setting up
Josh Hart with a layup that he missed, but he
occupied the rim protector, so Carl Anthony Towns was able
to get an offensive rebound put back for an end one.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
And then late in the.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Game, just continually every single game in this postseason when
the Knicks need him to generate offense late, like he's
literally coming through every single time. Like, I don't think
people realize how crazy this is. Crunch time basketball is
extremely hard, the refs swallow the whistle, all of the
defenders are playing at a higher level of intensity. Drew
(21:26):
Holliday once again, like just refusing to give up switches,
fighting through screens where like there were a coup several
possessions late where Jalen Brunson had to create a shot
against Drew Holliday like he regardless of this incredible difficulty
of these situations, He's literally coming through every single game.
This is crazy, guys. This is one of the most
(21:48):
reliably great clutch performers I've ever watched. And you know, again,
those Drew ISOs Like Drew Holliday is consistently throughout the
season done a phenomenal job one on one against Jaylen Brunt,
and he's the one guy on the Celtics that he
really struggles to get separation from. And twice down the
stretch there were like three possessions where he attacked him directly,
(22:09):
and on two of those possessions he managed to score
a nasty one leg fade away, got his shoulder into
Drew and then just leaned back on a one leg
fadeaway around the right elbow, and then he drew a foul.
On that final possession, the one that got the lead.
He knew Drew is going to be aggressive. He knew
Drew was going to be physical, and he just trusted
his handle, He trusted his counter movee spun off of Drew,
(22:29):
Drew got out of position, Drew had no choice but
to start hacking him, and he drew a foul there
to get to the line. So again four points out
of those late ISOs against Drew Holliday. That like, that's
really high level production in those situations. He got a
transition right handed layup on Al Horford, just taking, you know,
being opportunistic about an advantage that presented itself in transition,
(22:51):
just kind of shot the gap, got around Horford, got
to that right handed layup. I just can't say enough
about Jalen Brunson and the job that he's on in
the clutch for this team. But I want to hold
off about the conversation about him and where he stands
among the guards right now because he was incredible on
defense in this game again, but I want to talk
about the Nicks defense in the big picture. We talked
(23:11):
a lot about Ognnobi and McHale Bridges after Game one,
and those guys were amazing again tonight. Like Og forced
Tatum into a really tough left shoulder fade on a
clutch possession late kind of a late clock situation where
Tatum had no choice but to attack him, defended him
extremely well. McKale Bridges had that late peel off of
jaln Brown where he got the deflection off of Tatum
on the final possession that forced the turnover. They both
(23:34):
had big, like kind of help defense sequences in the
in the fourth quarter, out of the post, like McHale
Bridges scram Duce McBride out of a post mismatch Porzingis slipped.
He had McBride. He scrammed him out of it and
actually forced Porzingis to give up the ball and they
ended up forcing a miss. Ognanobe he had that big
baseline double team on a post up late in the game.
Those guys were amazing. They do so much to clean
(23:55):
up messes for this Knicks defense. But I want to
shout out two other guys tonight, Mitchell Robinson and Jalen Brunson.
First of all, Mitchell Robinson. One of the big reasons
why he continues to be such a reliable piece for
New York in this matchup is his ability to defend
in switches plus nineteen tonight in twenty two misses or
(24:18):
twenty two minutes. I'm pulling up the plus minus from
game one because I wanted to see in Game one
he was plus thirteen and twenty one minutes. So they've
consistently been very good with Mitchell Robinson on the floor.
And a big part of it is is we saw,
you know, they can attack Karl Anthony Towns and pick
and roll. That was how Tatum drew that late foul call,
(24:39):
the one that brought the three point lead down to two,
was he just basically flipped a screening angle on Cat.
He Cat had to rush over to the other side
of the screen. He quickly split him with the crossover
dribble and then Cat had no choice but to hack
him as he was going downhill. But like for the
most part, Mitchell Robinson when he switches in those ball screens,
has been able to keep the ball in front, force
(25:00):
them into a contested mid range pull up or a
contested three point pull up, and that's winning those matchups
because Tatum and Brown can't make that shot right now.
Both of them are just so broke with their jump
with their jump shot. And like there's a little thing
that you saw there late that the play where Tatum
got the dunk to get the lead, the dead giveaway
or the obvious difference was that they just gave Tatum
(25:22):
a massive runway and let him run the length of
the floor and they set the ball screen damn near
at half court, and so he was already he had
such a head of steam by the time he got
to Mitchell Robinson that it was so easy for him
to break him off with a simple move there. But
Mitchell Robinson's defense and his ability to switch in pick
and roll on those guys has been a huge part
of how they've been able to be so good defensively
(25:43):
in the lineups. When he's on the floor, Joe Mizula
like flat out admitted after the game that he's hacking him,
not even because of the free throws. He's hacking him
because he's trying to get TIBs to take him off
the floor, like freely admitted it is like like like
he said after the game, he was like, I hacked
him on that late passez just to get TIBs to
take him off, get off the floor, because look at
his plus minus and then look at the plus minus
(26:05):
of all the starters. I thought that was a super
interesting bit. Like, first of all, for tip for uh
Missoula to even admit that in that situation, I thought
was fascinating. But yeah, it's Mitch has been kicking everybody's butt.
And then Jalen Brunson. I shouted at him out if
you guys remember after game one for a couple of
key defensive sequences. He had two stops against Tatum on
(26:26):
an island where he beat him to spots and forced
him into tough pull ups. He battled Horford on a
couple of post mismatches where he fronted the post. A
bunch of the same stuff again tonight, just battling in
post mismatches, being willing to hold up on an island
again with both guys. With Kat and with Brunson, they're
still mixing in the hedge and recover with Brunson, They're
still mixing in a bunch of drop with Kat, you know,
(26:49):
just just to try to you know, one of the
interesting subplots here is I think part of the reason
why TIBs is sticking with that is because Boston shooting
the ball so poorly, Because like they're getting clean looks
out of a lot of those actions late in the game.
They got Horford a couple of wide open looks in
pick and pop situations late in the game, just like that.
(27:11):
But they're just Brunson is competing defensively and it's making
a world of difference. Cat is still really struggling, but
Brunson has made it so that there's one really weak
defender on the flour instead of two. And like I
talked a lot about, you know, during the Knick struggles
this year, I've talked a lot about the idea that
they kind of you know, that teams have missed the
(27:33):
point about what made Boston great. You know, what made
Boston great wasn't necessarily just Tatum and Brown. Obviously those
guys are a big part of it, but it's that
they can keep putting together these five man lineups where
all five defenders are great. And like, by the way,
Boston's not losing this series because of defense. They held
the Knicks to ninety one points tonight. They the Celtics
can guard one through five in basically all of their lineups,
(27:56):
the majority of their lineups, with exception to like Porzingis
is like the guy that they're really struggling to guard
with in this particular phase of the season. But like
with the Knicks, one of the reasons why they never
had any sort of sustained success against great teams this year, frankly,
any success against great teams this year was because Brunson
and Cat were these like obvious entry points, and so
(28:18):
it doesn't matter how good Mkale is on the ball,
doesn't matter how good Og is on the ball. They're
just in rotation too much. And like Brunson being able
to hold his ground the way that he's been holding
his ground in conjunction with the job that Mkale and
Og are doing and all these help and recover situations
and Josh Hart as well, it's just made it so
that the Knicks defense is so much more sturdy in
(28:39):
these spots. And like obviously there's a Celtics element with
them knocking down shots. And you know this will bear
out over the course of the series. Like whether you
want to ask me whether or not the Knicks can
win this series, it really is gonna come down to
whether or not that defense can hold up, because we're
gonna talk about Boston here in a minute. Boston was
consistently better on the road than they were at home.
(28:59):
This here, this series is not over Boston. I would
not be even the slightest bit surprised if Boston went
down to MSG in one to two and brought this
series back to Boston at two to two. So like
this is not over. But the pathway for the Knicks
is that defense that we just talked about, holding up, Brunson,
holding up to help and recover, holding up, just them
(29:20):
in general holding up on that end of the floor.
But hell of a punch from the Knicks, you know,
it's so funny. I was talking with Josh Rodriguez. He's
a guy used to do some work for this show,
a big Knicks fan, and we were talking after Game seven,
Game six of the Piston series, and he was like, man,
Knicks fans are so sick of this team because they
(29:41):
just didn't have the same like juice, competitive juice that
they did in last year's team. And you know, like
you Cat's joking after the series, like we just like
to do things the hard way, and it's like, well,
you guys kind of don't do the work for large
stretches of games and make things really difficult on yourself.
But for whatever reason, it's like all come to fruition
(30:02):
here in the first two games of the series, and
all of a sudden, this looks like a Knicks team
that has a decent chance to win the title, Like
they're a legitimate threat in a way that I did
not see them as a legitimate threat at all coming
into this postseason run. So shout out to the Knicks
for discovering a sturdy defensive identity. And then there's the
second piece of it, which is Jalen Brunson. And again,
(30:23):
like this is a conversation for the summer, and I
would lean Steph still at this point because I just
am such a believer in late round playoff success. But
Jalen Brunson, you know, especially with Steph starting to age out,
Jalen Brunson is making a strong case to be the
best small guard in the league with the way that
he's been playing as of late, for him to be
(30:44):
as sturdy defensively as he has been, and then to
just routinely be arguably the very best closer in all
of basketball. To the point where the Knicks did the
job of getting them into two close games against the
Celtics late and twice Jalen Brunson they aired down Jason
Tatum and was just flat out better than him. And
(31:04):
I just want to shout out Brunson. I think I
think he at the very least now has a case
to be the best small guard in the league. And
again we'll approach that again this summer, but man like,
he's just playing at a crazy high level. So let's
talk about Boston's offense couple of things. First of all,
the hilarious thing was that after OG's offensive foul when
(31:26):
he dunked all over, who was it that got in
front of him?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Was it Derek White?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
I think it was Derek White. Dunk's all over, Derek White.
Derek White gets the charge call and the Celtics immediately
go on a run and blow the lead.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Up to twenty.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
What's hilarious is after the charge they got five buckets
right at the rim. In that run to get it
up to twenty. Derek White went right through brunts into
the rim. Tatum went had this angry looking post up
at Michale Bridges where he just backed him down and
got right to the front of the rim. Derek White
had another driving layup and pick and roll. Then Tatum
and White both said up Cornette and porzingis for buckets
(32:02):
right at the front of the rim. They got that
lead up to twenty getting stuff right at the rim.
And we're gonna talk about that in a little bit
as it pertains to the versatility element. But honestly, guys,
Like when I watched the second half of Game one,
I was like, I called it CTE basketball as a joke,
but like it was just an enormous amount of poor
(32:23):
process and terrible shot selection. I didn't feel that way
at all watching the second half of this game. I
thought their process was generally good, and I thought they
mostly got great shots. Yes, there were some bad ones
mixed in there. That Tatum had that bad left shoulder
fade over og Nnobi in clutch time that he missed.
(32:43):
Jlen Brown had a shot where he went right at
Brunson and tried to like grift a foul around the
left elbow. That was a bad possession obviously. The final
possession where Tatum shot tried to pass out of a
double team and turned it over against Michel Bridges, that
was a bad possession. But there was a lot of
good you know. I saw Jason Tatum trying to split
ball screens against cat and Mitchell Robinson late and getting
(33:08):
to the rim. Jalen Brown did.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Have a play where he tried to bully.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Jalen Brunson right to the front of the rim and
he just missed like a really easy shot right at
the front of the rim, and like Horford butt naked
three in the right corner missed, Derek White butt naked
three on the left wing missed. Jason Tatum and Jalen
Brown both missed about the easiest wide open threes you'll
(33:32):
ever see down the stretch of this game. Tatum's was
off the catch in the right corner and kind of
a semi transition sequence. Jylen Brown missed one at the
top of the key out of a ball screen where
there was nobody up at the level and the screen
wiped out the defense. I mean he's standing unguarded. And
so it was very different from Game one in the
sense that, like you know, the Celtics of Tate, the
(33:55):
Celtics took sixty threes in Game one, but they were
bad threes. I've seen the Celtic take fifty to fifty
five threes in a game and have them mostly be
good threes. It has nothing to do with the volume
of threes for me, It has to do with where
they get them. But there is a reality to the
fact that if your offense is primarily designed to generate
(34:20):
threes and the propensity of the team is to hunt
those threes, even if they're good threes, every three has
a certain degree of variance to it. To take it
a step further, shooting in general is kind of a
mind fuck. The best shooters in the world don't make
(34:41):
half their threes, meaning like, if you take a three,
you're probably going to miss, and so as they start
to stack up on you, often it can get in
your head you start to tweak your release. Like, guys,
Jason Tatum's jump shot has not just been off, it's been.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Way off over the course of this year.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
He's clearly in his head about it, because that's what
happens when when shots start to miss, it can spiral
on you.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
There's been a lot of like analytical attempts over the
years to try to explain shooting variants, and I've seen
pieces that try to say that there's no such thing
as the hot hand. I don't have any idea of
how to explain it to you, guys, other than to
say that if you've played, you know, you know that
it's a real thing, and it could just as easily flip.
They could go into game three and suddenly Tatum, Brown
(35:27):
and White could go, you know, twelve for twenty from
three and they could blow out the Knicks and you know,
send this to a game for it two games to one.
But there is variance. It's an inherent part of shooting,
and it tends to be streaky. It tends to be
as a team you'll go cold and as a team
you'll go hot. There is a momentum behind that sort
of thing. Now, this is where the variety comes into
(35:49):
the to the picture. The closer you can get to
the basket with pet action, meaning like let's say that
Jason Tatum just made a concerted effort to post up
legitimately like six seven, eight, nine times a game. If
he made that effort, that makes it so that there's
a huge chunk of the way that he can generate
(36:11):
offense that generates shots that are closer to the rim.
The closer you get to the rim, the less variance
there is. Tatum is absolutely big and strong enough to
be a guy that can bump a defender off and
take a left shoulder hook. There's nothing that says that
he can't take that type of shot. Tatum, also with
his jump shot, will have less variants on short, little
(36:34):
ten foot turnarounds. Then he will on seventeen foot turnarounds
or on three point shots. As a team, this offense
is entirely geared around the ability to generate three point shots.
This is where I got to go to the stars
and guys like Jason Tatum had the best season of
(36:55):
his career, and this was the first season where I
said that I thought that he was a legitimate top
tier superstar in this league. He combined the versatility that
he had really built out over the previous years as
a big, strong athlete that could do everything as a
rebounder and as a defender. He combined that with a
dramatically improved overall just like floor presence as a playmaker
(37:15):
and as just like a half court kind of flow
of the game guy. And then he took a leap
as a shot maker to the extent to where he
looked fantastic in the first round. But as I've consistently said,
like when Tatum can't make his jump shot, he is
no longer a top tier superstar in this league. And
the reason is is because he doesn't have any elite
(37:39):
first step that can consistently beat people off the dribble
good defenders, and he doesn't have any sort of legitimate, reliable,
close range game, and so if his jump shot isn't there,
if he can't rely on that piece of his offense,
he dramatically dips overall as an offensive talent. And suddenly
(38:01):
this Celtics team and again, like remember last year when
Tatum was faltering, Jylen Brown was playing the best basketball
of his career. The problem is is Jalen Brown is
also in just as big of a shooting slum. And
so it's really tricky because the two guys that are
primarily responsible for generating shots for this offense are two
(38:21):
guys that rely on consistently getting to the rim and
knocking down pull up jump shots. And neither of them
can get to the rim right now, and neither of
them can make their jump shot. And so all of
a sudden, you have a Celtics offense that, even though
they're surrounded by all of this play finishing talent, they
are unable to generate something that doesn't have a great
(38:44):
deal of variance involved, which is that three point shot attack.
When we look at the top players in the league,
when you look at like Nikola Jokics, for instance, his
game is impervious to variants because he shoots like sixty
five percent on shots that are within ten feet of
the basket that are not layups. Shake Gildos, Alexander is
(39:06):
going to get into the mid range and he's over
fifty percent from there. He's much less susceptible to variants.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
There.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
These guys at the top of the league.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
They have a reliable element to their game that at
this point in Tatum's career he hasn't really developed. And
so as a result, it's like Tatum's making jump shots.
He's the third best player in the league. Tatum's not
making jump shots, He's like the eighth or ninth best
player in the league. And like you want to know
(39:36):
why the Celtics are down two, oh, it's because their
best player is like completely decomposing in these games. Now, again,
the series is not over. I would not be the
slightest bit surprised if Boston went down in one game, three, four, five,
and six. But it's going to turn on Jason Tatum.
(39:57):
If Tatum goes down there and gets back to that
top tier, superstar level, the Celtics will win. If he
goes down there and drops another five for seventeen, then
they're not going to win.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
The series.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
It like, once again, these series keep coming down to
the play of these superstars, and I just think it's
really fascinating. All right, let's bring Jackson. Let's take about
ten minutes of questions, and then we'll head over to playback.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
Let's do it.
Speaker 5 (40:22):
Let's do some questions. We got mostly questions about the
Celtics game. We'll take a couple about some other stuff,
but let's start with this one, which I think is
sort of a prevailing sentiment. Is this the quote unquote
same old Celtics from twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
And sort of years past before they had gotten over
the hump and won the championship.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
So game one felt like same old Celtics to me,
where they just took a lot of really bad shots.
I thought this game was mostly specifically about Tatum, like
I saw, I saw Celtics talking about it on Twitter.
(41:01):
I can't even remember who it was, but someone was
saying something along the lines of Tatum's in like the
complete upside down right now, and you can tell all
of the other players like don't know what to do
about it. Like you can tell all the other players
are like one of us should probably take control, but
like who's going to be the guy that goes like, hey, Tatum,
(41:21):
give me the ball, you know what I mean, And like,
that's like I thought. I thought this game in particular
came down to the fact that, like the Celtics stars
are just legitimately unable to make shots right now. Game
one felt much more like years past, where it's like,
why do these guys keep taking these really stupid shots?
But I didn't really have a problem with their shot
selection in the second half of this game. What did
(41:41):
you feel, like, your Celtics fan, Jackson, what did you
feel about the shot selection late in this game?
Speaker 5 (41:45):
I thought the shot selection and the process was mostly
fine this game.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
I agree with you in that sense.
Speaker 5 (41:51):
The thing that I think you can point to you
if you were trying to say this is this quote
unquote same old Celtics is I think the same old
Celtics did two things poorly. They settled for way too
many threes, much like Game one. And then also they
were making a lot of the right plays, and they
were just like making a lot of the right plays
from a process standpoint, but not finishing those right plays.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
And that's that's the version that you saw tonight. They
it's it.
Speaker 5 (42:18):
Game one, it felt like they were playing stupid, they
were just playing so dumb, and this game, it's like it.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
Almost felt a little bit worse.
Speaker 5 (42:24):
It felt much more like a mental meltdown for me
than Game one because Game one they played so dumb,
like like we I have no problem saying they played
idiotic offensive basketball.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
In Game one.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
Right tonight, it's like they're in their head because they're
missing a lot of shots. You're seeing Jason Tatum brick
butt naked threes from the corner. Jalen Brown is missing
wide open threes. Al Horford is one for ten from
three this series. They are just bricking shots, missing them
badly in a way where you're like, man, are they
thinking about it?
Speaker 3 (42:55):
Are they?
Speaker 5 (42:56):
And that's why I feel like it's a little bit
worse than Game one, because you see the Game one result.
Process wise, you've solved the problems from the Game one,
But once you get into the fourth quarter and the
Nicks start coming back, it's like, Uh, oh, are they
gonna do this? Are they gonna do this again? Are
we gonna do this again? You know, it's it's becoming
more of like, at least on the surface, I don't
know what these guys are actually thinking, obviously, but from
(43:17):
a viewer standpoint, it feels much more like they are.
Speaker 4 (43:21):
Falling mentally as opposed.
Speaker 5 (43:23):
To just playing a little bit stupid if you can
want to see you know, part of the difference of those.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
I think you're absolutely right about that. I think this
is like they are entering into the yips. Yeah, and
it's gonna be a question of it's gonna be a
question of whether or not they can get that right.
They generated fourteen unguarded catch and shoot jump shots in
this game, made three of them, three of them. Like,
that's that's that's brutal and like, but that's the thing, Like, guys,
(43:48):
that was not what happened in game one. In game one,
they actually shot well on their open shots. In the
second half tonight, totally different second half. Seven unguarded jump
shots catch shoot zero point four to three points per attempt.
So like they just they're just they're just completely out
of whack with their jumptioning. But this is the thing, Like,
(44:09):
this is the advantage of having a player that can
consistently generate quality twos close to the rim. When you
have that type of player, it gives you a certain
floor offensively to where like even when you're missing your threes,
you're still getting a handful of layups during that stretch
or easier shots during that stretch that kind of raise
your floor, Like even like with Steph Curry, because like
(44:30):
Steph Curry's always had a great deal of variance in
his game. I mean, the first half of the Rockets
game is a Rockets game seven is a good example, right,
But with Steph, he because he inverts the spacing by
bringing multiple defenders to the perimeter constantly.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
He will generate easy twos.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
For his teammates over the course of the game. Where
like you're seeing Steph like have a night where he
shoots poorly, but the offense still functions at a really
high level. And so Steph is like the one guy
that I can think of in my life that is
like a jump shooter primarily. That is, like there's variance
in his game, but there's still a pretty high floor
(45:09):
in those situations. And ultimately, Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum
are incapable of generating quality two's on a consistent basis
close to the basket, which makes them very dependent on
tough jump shot making and that's been an issue for
them consistently in the series.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
Yeah, and I think it's where you see the biggest
difference between those two players in Jalen Brunson.
Speaker 4 (45:29):
Right.
Speaker 5 (45:30):
And it's a thing that I've sort of I am
no problem admitting that I am generally pro analytics, and
that's why I'm a fan of the Celtics and missou
La ball as an overall concept. But the thing that
I think most people miss about analytics and the three
point in take away the mitt no more mid rent
shooting is three point shooting high volume is better from
a macro long term perspective, you are going points per shot.
(45:53):
The more shot you get in a high points per
shot better for your offense. Undeniable, it's just math. But
at the end of a game, when there's only so
many shots left to come in the game, it's not
about the best expected value of the shot, it's are
you going to score at all on the shot? Right,
Which is why it's not that doesn't become a one
point one to four game anymore. It becomes a two
(46:15):
or a zero, or a three or a zero. So
it's it's not about expected value, it's about is it
going to go in, which is why you want a
closer or a mid range shot or a you know
in the paint, a paint touch, which is what Jalen
Brunson is doing at a dramatically, dramatically dramatically higher level
than Tatum and Jalen Brown.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
Yeah, Jalen Brunson can beat elite defenders off the dribble
consistently like that. That that's an important detail. Like he
solved Dennis Schroeder over the course of that series. Like
he was able to get close range twos or to
the foul line against Drew multiple times late him hitting
the gap against Horford. That's not to say that Tatum
(46:52):
can't do it. Tatum can, but Tatum needs like some
circumstances like oh, we got to give him a massive
runway and set the screen at half court, you know,
like that sort of thing for him beat a Mitchell
Robinson off the dribble, Whereas like, yeah, like if he
gets a favorable matchup, he can beat that guy off
the dribble. But like that's the thing, Like the Celtics
did that stuff well tonight. They did the hunting the
right matchups, building the advantages, generating the quality shots My
(47:15):
thing is like, sometimes you got to stare down the
best defender that's guarding you and be able to generate
a quality too.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Like that.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
That's the difference that that like prevents Tatum from being
like a consistent guy that produces at that top tier
superstar level one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (47:31):
Sort of big picture here.
Speaker 5 (47:32):
The Knicks now on DraftKings, are minus one twenty to
win the series. The Celtics are plus one hundred, so
Nick slightly favored over a pick them up too well
in the series going home? Where do you land on
the series at large? On that price on the Knicks,
you know, potential to actually win the series.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
I think that's perfect. That's exactly how I'd put it.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
I think the I think the Knicks deserve to be
slight favorites at this point. I think I think if
you're a Knicks fan and you think the series is over,
you're an idiot, like I, Like I this is not
the team that got almost swept by the Miami Heat
and it ended up forcing a Game seven. Like that
team was less mature, less able to like stabilize in
(48:16):
terms of process, Like there's a chance that the Celtics
come out and play the exact same game in Game
three that they played in Game two and win by fifteen.
Like they are, they are definitely capable of going down
there and winning, but it's really hard to win four
times in five prize and that dude Madison Square Garden
is going to be bumping in Game three, and that's
(48:39):
that's where I kind of feel like it makes sense
for it to be a coin flip, because, like, I
think the Knicks are about a coin flip to win
Game three, even with like you're gonna get what whatever
the best version of the Celtics is, You're getting that
in Game three, like that, they're gonna come out like
guns blazing in that game. But the Knicks are also
going to be playing with an opportunity to really put
(49:00):
the series away and to go up three to zero.
So like I view that game as a coin flip,
and I think whoever wins that game probably wins the series.
And so at that with that being the case, it
kind of feels to me like roughly a coin flip.
But you get you're gonna obviously give the team that
has like a big home court advantage at this point
in the Knicks the advantage to.
Speaker 5 (49:19):
Put the hammer on the coin flip analogy to to
to lose two twenty point leads, you also have to
gain two twenty point leads. Right this, Celtons have been
up by twenty in both games.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Period.
Speaker 4 (49:30):
Did they lose both games?
Speaker 3 (49:32):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (49:32):
Did they lose it an embarrassing fashion, yes they were,
but they were up by twenty in both games.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
So the series is by no means over.
Speaker 5 (49:39):
One more question about this series. Who is I guess
it's sort of about this series. Who is more clutch
Jalen Brunson or Tyres Haliburt.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
I'm gonna go Brunson just because Brunson it feels like
a career long thing for him. Halliburton's on one hell
of a clutch run. And if you ask me who
the most clutch player this season is, that probably go
with Halliburton because I mean he's literally hit two game
ending jump shit or shots in.
Speaker 3 (49:59):
This in this playoff run.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
But like Brunton, this has been a multi year sequence
where he's like this, So I would give the slight
edge to Brunson at this point.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
Great question, though, for sure.
Speaker 4 (50:11):
We got some a few questions on the refereeing.
Speaker 5 (50:14):
One a specific question, which is do you have a
take on the officiating in the Denver game tonight, because
a lot of Nuggets fans are in the chat screaming
about Scott Foster letting the thunder mal Nikola Jokic. So
first question is sort of a more specific view about
the officiating tonight, and then sort of big picture do
you like the physicality that the refs are allowing in
(50:34):
the playoffs so far?
Speaker 4 (50:35):
Is there? How would you?
Speaker 5 (50:36):
I know consistency is important, but how would you How
is your feeling about the officiating sort of a large.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
So first of all, and I just fair warning for
Nuggets fans, I am the worst person to ask this
question too, because I will never blame the refs ever
for a game ever, So that that's the first little
bit of context. But I am a generally of belief
that the team that plays with more force gets the
(51:03):
better whistle. And I thought Oklahoma City came out and
kicked your ass tonight, and I thought it also manifested
in a lot of these like whistle situations where Oklahoma
City was on the right side of it. I generally
feel that way, Like there's there's so many examples where
like you'll see a team win a game, and then
the other team will win the next game by bringing
(51:24):
the requisite effort, and in that game they'll get a
better whistle, and everyone will think it's like the league
off is stepping in and being like, we need to
tie this series, and it's like, no, what's happening is
the team that's desperate, that absolutely has to win this game,
Like this is not like Boston New York, Like Boston
could afford to lose tonight, and still they've been better
on the road all seed, Like Boston has lost so
(51:46):
many games at the TV Garden it's not even funny
this year, like the I think they have like I
think this is like their fourteenth loss at home this year.
It's something crazy like that. They have been a very
good road team all year. They've looked much more likeast
year's team on the road than they did at home
this year. And so Denver, Oka, see, it's very different.
(52:06):
You you drop that game tonight like and send Denver
home like you're not winning two in Denver. You might
get lucky to get one there, like the series could
be over if you lose tonight. So like Oklahoma City
brought the requisite effort, they're an awesome team. They physically
kick dress guys. I'm watching Jokic not even seal at
the high post, like I'm not gonna blame the refs
(52:27):
when Jokic I thought, played just a poor game by
his standards, and like, guys, that's the thing I'm I
like in order for me to feel like it means
something for me to say that Game one was one
of the greatest playoff performances that I've ever watched. We
also have to be willing to look and be like
he sucked tonight. If we don't do that, then it
(52:50):
means nothing when we say he was awesome, and it
also means nothing when we say somebody sucks. We have
to be honest about the way that these guys played.
Yokic was awesome in Game one, his team one. Jokic
was not good tonight and it was a big part
of why they lost. And by the way, he's not
the only one ever. Michael Porter Junior was awful again tonight.
There's point of attack defense was awful all night long.
(53:11):
Christian Brown had a bad night. They a lot of
guys down the roster were bad. But you know, obviously
Joki is a guy hold to a very high standard.
I think he's the best player in the world and
one of the best players in NBA history, and I
don't think he did his job tonight.
Speaker 5 (53:23):
Let's do one more question and then we will go
over to playback. This is not about any games from tonight,
but do you feel that Jimmy Butler still has it
in him to be playoff Jimmy but as a lead scorer,
as a we need you to lead us to a
win tonight type or is he sort of pass that
phase a little bit.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
We're gonna find out, that's for sure. This is a
really tough matchup in terms of just the types of
defenders that he's gonna consistently go against. I also think
that Jimmy's gonna need to provide a certain amount of
scoring over the course of these games. But I think
it's still the ball in player movement of Golden State
putting Minnesota in the blender. That is their best pathway
(54:08):
to succeed Minnesota if you play into the matchup attacking
trap with them. That's right up there outy. Trust me,
I just went through that as a Laker fan. Like
as much as I like Jimmy Lucas better and Luca
was having a hard time finding advantages from to attack
one on one. This is not a one on one
type of attack kind of series. Your advantage is Yes,
(54:28):
Jimmy looks to be aggressive. Yes, every time there's four
seconds on the shot clock, you want to throw him
the ball and he needs to go try to create
something off the dribble. But this is a series you're
gonna win defense to transition and by putting Minnesota in
the blender in the half court. All right, guys, uh,
playback playback dot tv slash hoops tonight. The link is
(54:51):
in the description. Head over there right now. We're gonna
be starting out there in just a couple of minutes.
We'll take some callers, we'll take some questions from the chat,
we'll hang out and just watch some film, talk, some basketball,
and an informal setting for about forty five minutes. We'll
see guys over there in just a minute. Thanks as
always for supporting the show. We'll see you guys in
just a couple of minutes.
Speaker 3 (55:07):
What's up, guys.
Speaker 2 (55:08):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys
supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (55:23):
The volume
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Colin Cowherd
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