May 24, 2025 • 44 mins
Jason reacts live after the Indiana Pacers stun Madison Square Garden to take a 2-0 lead with a win over the New York Knicks. He discusses another impressive game from Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam to overcome strong performances from Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns.
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Slash audio. All right, welcome to him tonight. You're at
(02:03):
the volume heavy Friday. Everybody hope all you guys are
having a great night. Well, the Indiana Pacers have done
it again, stealing two games on the road to take
a two to zero lead back to Indiana after doing
the same thing to Cleveland.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
A little bit of a reverse.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
In the Cleveland series, they showed that they looked like
the better team in game one, and then they get
punched in the face in game two, but somehow steal
the game, and here in the Knixt series the exact opposite.
They get punched in the face in game one, come
back to steal that game, and then kind of a
wire to wire we're just better than you guys type
of performance in game two and what was a must
(02:39):
win game for the Knicks that they did not get.
We're gonna be breaking down that series from the perspective
of both teams. Talk a little bit about some of
the stuff with Karl Anthony Towns and how Tom Thibodeau
went away from him for the most part down the
stretch of this game, and kind of some realities about
what Mitchell Robinson looks like and how it's a proof
of concept for what this Knicks team could be in
(03:00):
the big picture as we look to the future. Obviously,
the series isn't over, but they're in a very tough spot.
We're gonna be leading the show tonight talking about some
of the similarities between the Pacers and the Thunder. I
think there are some tendencies that these two teams have
that everybody in the league should be looking to copy.
So we're gonna be talking a lot about big picture
stuff with both of these teams, a couple of specific
(03:21):
details from this game. At the tail end of the show,
we're gonna take ten fifteen minutes of mail bag questions
from the chats. Make sure you guys get your questions
in the chat. And then when we wrap up here tonight,
we're heading over to Playback again. That's Playback dot TV
slash Hoops Tonight, where we're gonna have about forty five
minutes to an hour of an after show. Well, it's
very informal. We take callers, we watch film, we just
(03:43):
have fun talking about basketball for an extra hour at
the tail end of the evening. So make sure you
guys head over there with us when we finish up
here tonight. You guys are the job before we get started.
Subscribe to the Hoops to Night YouTube channels. You don't
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at underscore JCNLT so you guys don't miss show announcement stuff.
Forget about podcast fet wherever you get your post under
Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if we leave a
rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great
(04:04):
work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there for
more content throughout the year the last but at least
keep dropping those mail back questions in the chat so
that we can get to them at the tail end
of the show tonight. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So you know, in the playback session last night, we
were talking about the Thunder and one of the things
(04:25):
we were talking about is that in addition to just
being super talented, they are also a very well coached
team that maximizes their talent. Right, Like, we've had a
lot of really talented teams come through the league. I
would argue Minnesota and New York are two examples of
teams that on paper look extremely talented. There's a reason
(04:48):
why there was a lot of buzz surrounding Minnesota's ability
to potentially win that series. There's a reason why, even
though you know, the Pacers have looked so good, there
was a lot of buzz surrounding the Knicks winning their series.
It's because you look at it and it's Jalen Brunson,
and it's Michale Bridges, and it's ogn Andobi, and it's
Karl Anthony Towns, and it's Mitchell Robinson and Josh Hard
(05:09):
a bunch of guys that are respected big game players
in this league with Minnesota, like a four time Defensive
Player of the Year, Nas Reed, one of the best
bench players in the NBA, Julius Randall has been having
a magnificent postseason, Anthony Edwards, all of these elite perimeter
defenders like Dante DiVincenzo Nikhil, Alexander Walker, and Jad McDaniels.
In theory, they should be able to compete with the
(05:33):
Oklahoma City Thunder. They've gotten their ass kicks twice, they've
looked like they've been the team that doesn't have the
right game plan. They've looked like the team that doesn't
have confidence, that is operating far below what their capability is. Meanwhile,
I think we can all agree that the Oklahoma City
team that is loaded up with dudes that are twenty
(05:55):
six or younger outside of Alex Caruso, looks comfortable, confident
like a veteran basketball team. They are achieving their individual
ceiling or their team ceiling in this postseason run the Pacers.
There's a lot of talent on that team, and we
could go down the line on every single player and
(06:16):
their strengths and the things that they do to make
this engine work. But ultimately, when you look at that roster,
it's Tyrese Halliburton, who's somewhere around like the seventh to
tenth best player in the league, depending on how who
you ask called stretch that to seven to fifteenth, because
I'm sure there are some people that are lower on
him than others, but he's not what you would consider
(06:36):
to be a top tier superstar. Pascal Siakam is a
secondary star that I think is a very very good player,
but certainly not a player that people are looking at
as one of the very best players in this league.
And then just a bunch of role players. And yet
they are going to win an Eastern Conference that had
two teams that won sixty something games, that has Giannis
(06:57):
and Tennecoumpo and Jason Tatum and Aalen Brunson and Donovan
Mitchell and so many of the elite players in the world,
and that not only are they gonna most likely win
this series now and go to the finals. They're doing
it in dominant fashion. They've lost two games, They've had
home court in zero of the series. They've won every
(07:21):
single road game. They are six in a row. I
believe they are going to get to the finals, most
likely with somewhere between two and four losses in a
conference that was stacked with talent. And what stands out
to me is when you really look at these two teams,
the Pacers in the Thunder, there's one specific concept I
(07:43):
want to dive into that I think allows them to
reach their stealing more consistently than the other teams in
the league. And it's just attention to detail. I've been
thinking a lot about this over the course of the
last several seasons as the Lakers have gone through a
coaching change. But I've been thinking about it a lot
in the last couple of days, stemming from shake Yeal
(08:03):
just Alexander's MVP interview in the conversation he had about
Mark Dagnault and the fact that Mark just is super
obsessive about details and how it actually gets kind of annoying.
I joke about this all the time on the show,
but like playing winning basketball actually sucks, there's a lot like,
(08:24):
it's not fun sprinting up and down the floor NonStop.
Any of you guys who have ever played organized basketball, No,
there's always that day, four or five practices in at
the beginning of the season when you're tired and like
you start running like some sort of full court drill,
and everyone's just a little lethargic, and everyone's just having
(08:47):
a little bit of a hard time getting up and
down the floor, and the coach throws a hissy fit,
just blows his whistle and gets all pissed off and
makes you get on the baseline and run. Why because
he knows you're not running. Running is running is the
foundational concept that makes the Pacers great, and they do
it more often than anybody in the NBA. It's not fun,
(09:08):
they just do it regardless. They do it because it's
in their basketball character. Crashing, relocating, paying attention to details,
picking up full court that sucks.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
TJ McConnell had.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
An interview the other day talking about how the only
reason he did it at the beginning of his career
is because he wanted to stand out, and he felt
like he couldn't stand out unless he did something that
no one else was doing. Lou Dort picks up full court,
Aaron E. Smith, TJ. McConnell, Andrew Nemhard they pick up
full court. Who else is doing that? There is low
(09:48):
hanging fruit in basketball games. All of it is stuff
that sucks. It's physical wear and tear, lots of running, sprinting, cutting, jumping,
things that are not as fun as playing the you know,
the funner parts of the game, scoring the basketball, shot creation,
attacking off the catch, all of those fun things. Playing
(10:11):
in transition on offense, there's there. They These teams relentlessly
hunt that low hanging fruit. What does low hanging fruit
look like in the NBA ball? Pressure is a simple example.
That's a way that you can make your opponent uncomfortable.
Guarantee they will be less comfortable in the game. If
they have to turn their man, if they have to
(10:33):
turn and make four counter moves just to get across
half court, it will make them uncomfortable. It'll wear them
out over the course of games. That is a margin
that if you have the depth and the on court
personnel to handle, you can just decide to do practice
it all season and it dramatically increases your chances of winning.
(10:54):
Transition just in general, running the floor, leakouts, and kick aheads.
Those are things that every team in the NBA can do,
and if you do them, you are guaranteed to score
more efficiently. On average, NBA offenses are about twenty percent
more efficient in transition than they are in the half court.
So all you have to do is hunt as many
transition opportunities as possible and you will increase your offense's performance.
(11:18):
But you've got to from day one in October sit
down with your team and be like, we're going to
run non stop all season. That shit's going to suck,
but we have to make it part of who we
are as a basketball team. And they do it every
single time. The Pacers manufactures so many transition opportunities with
(11:42):
kick aheads.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
There's a big.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
One in the third quarter today where the Knicks like
gotta stop. That led to a runout bucket that was
a huge. It was Josh Hart got like like just
ended up with the basketball, lays it up, crowds going crazy,
Tyres rints back on defense, grabs it out of the net,
quick turns and just rifles a rainbow pass up the court,
(12:06):
makes its way to Obi topping and he's it was
a top inner Siakam. I can't remember exactly which one
it was, but there they are laying the ball up
on the other side of the court. That's just part
of their basketball character manifesting in a complete erase, Like
they erased a big momentous Knicks play just by doing
(12:28):
the same thing that they do every single possession. They
stole Game one because down the stretch we watched the footage,
we went over it on a film session, the Knicks
let go of the rope. They stopped paying attention to detail.
Ojan and Obi two's passive in his drop coverage, brunts
in in cat a couple of bad defensive rotations, Josh
(12:48):
Hart gives up a backcut, you lose the game. What
were the Pacers doing that time? Picking up full court,
pushing the ball up the floor quickly, and then when
they get in the half court, running their offense quick
and efficiently the same way they did throughout the entire game.
There's so many different examples, just like both of these teams,
(13:09):
don't turn the basketball over. That's a simple thing you
can do that dramatically improves your chances of winning basketball games.
We were looking at it in the Thunder Timberwolve series
last night when we were on playback. The Timberwolves or
the Thunder are far and away the best team in
the league at turning their opponents over and scoring on it.
(13:30):
And they are far and away the best team in
the league at not turning the basketball over and not
giving up points off those turnovers. Every game, there's like
a fifteen something point advantage they have just in points
off of turnovers. It's like you're starting the game down
by fifteen points as the opponent because of them constantly
(13:53):
capitalizing on that low hanging fruit. I think the Pacers
capitalize on a lot of low hanging fruit in the
half court on offense too, And this stems from just
Tyrese Halliburton and his relentless advantage hunting. I talk about
this all the time with young players all the way
to the highest level of pros. If you have them
attack against a set defender versus a defender sprinting at them,
(14:16):
their efficiency skyrockets when they have the defenders sprinting at them.
There's not a player in the NBA that is more
relentless with just simple swings and skips and kick aheads
to just hunt close out opportunities. Tyre's Halliburton has his
team playing with an advantage all night long, and so
(14:40):
they capitalize on that margin. I even think we were
talking about it before the broadcast, finding sixteen game players,
finding players that are the kinds of guys that are
comfortable in this playoff setting. That means they have to
have a certain amount of strength and physicality to their game.
Basketball IQ comes at a huge, huge premium this time
(15:01):
of year. The ability to solve the puzzle, so to speak,
that each possession presents confidence, not wavering in your work
and believing in yourself in this environment. Andrew Nemhart somehow
has made a career out of being a mediocre shooter
in the regular season and then just turning into a
deadly three point shooter when he gets to this time
of year. It's confidence. Guys who play defense. You don't
(15:26):
play defense, You can't stay on the floor in games
like this. The Thunder and the Pacers, you look down
their roster and both of them have more than five
guys that they trust. Meanwhile, you look at New York
and it's like, man, like, we can't defend with Kat,
We're struggling to score with Josh or if it was.
(15:46):
You know, the Warriors struggled finding a fifth man. The
Nuggets their top four is fine, they couldn't find a
fifth guy that they trusted. I just think that the
Thunder and the Pacers are an excellent example of two teams,
tams that are maximizing their potential because of their willingness
to capitalize on all of the controllables, and then from
(16:09):
there their stars lift them over the top, which we'll
talk about in a second. Now, the Thunder they have
the combination of that maximizing their talent and the absurd
on paper talent. That's why they're such a substantial favorite
to win the title at this point. But I think
that what the Pacers have done and what the Thunder
have done are an example or is the example that
(16:31):
everyone should look to follow. Now, this is where the
advantage creation piece steps in, because capitalizing on low hanging
fruit can only get you so far. One of the
things we talked about a lot over the course of the
last couple of years is like the ideal construct for
a NBA basketball team. And obviously there's so many unicorns
out there that like, like, you can't talk about an
(16:53):
ideal construct surrounding Jokic. There's no one else in the
league like Yokic or Steph. There's no one else in
the league like Death or Yiannis. There's no one else
in the league like Giannis. But there are simple concepts
within the within the modern NBA that theoretically every player
can capitalize on. Right in a ball screen, if they're
(17:14):
in a low drop coverage and you set good screens,
there are opportunities to score against the drop, pull up threes, floaters,
mid range jump shots, things along those lines. Or you're
in a deep drop coverage. The pick and pop should,
in theory, be open every single time you come up
to the level. Now, the role to the pocket pass
should be open every single time they're tagging the roller. Well,
(17:37):
then the skip pass should be open every single time.
Oh you're switching, okay, Well then now I've got a
big guy on my Tyres Haliburton guard, or I've got
a small guy on you know, a turner or a
Siakam around the basket. And so we talked about these concepts.
A skill guard a player that can consistently make the
reads within those pick and roll situations based on what
(17:58):
the coverage is dictating and then having what's one of
the position groups that I always talk about, the matchup
attacking forward. This is a player that is primarily kind
of like a tip of the spear. He's not a
guy that's going to be running a ton of on
ball action, but the result of action, whether it be transition,
(18:19):
cross matches or a ball screen that forces a switch,
is going to end up in a lot of situations
where Siakam or your matchup attacking forward gets to attack
a player who's either too small to guard him or
too slow to guard him. And that's what the beauty
of the Pascal Siakam trade was for the pacers. Tyrese
Haliburton was the ideal skill guard, the player that relentlessly
(18:42):
hunted advantages, the player that could score against drop coverage,
that could make all the reads against aggressive pick and
roll coverages, and when his hamstring is healthy, is a
deadly switch beater, and that has made him the quintessential
kind of like on ball skill guard in the NBA.
Right what they were lacking was a player they could
(19:02):
pitch the ball to on the other side of those actions,
a player that could be like, Okay, their bigs are
defending well, on switches, Tyras is having a rough shooting night.
He's five for sixteen, He's three for ten from three.
He's having a little bit of a hard time beating
Mitchell Robinson on switches. Well, who's the guy you can
go to that is in on an island. Get a
(19:22):
bucket guy that can either bully smalls to the basket
or can beat bigs with quickness and speed. And that's
what Pascal Siakamits gets going in this game with transition leakouts,
just that relentless kick ahead passing that Indiana uses and
then just countless times just like last year against Josh Hart,
(19:43):
just beating up Josh Hart against switches, drawing fouls against
Karl Anthony Towns in space, the ability to either get
big guys out of position or get small guys into
a situation where they can't handle how big he is.
He just can score. And that was not working for
the Pacers in the first game. That's one of the
things that's so crazy about this one. The Knicks looked
(20:05):
like they were in control of the Pacer Biggs in
mismatches in Game one. Not in this game. They got
torched thirty nine points for Pascal Siakam just an absolutely
monster night, and then in the fourth quarter it was
the pick and roll ball handlers. I thought TJ McConnell
(20:26):
had a brilliant stretch to start the fourth quarter. That
was where the first margin was. You look at this
game is very back and forth. No team was really separating.
The Pacers finally built a little bit of separation in
the early fourth quarter off TJ McConnell ball screens. They
ran a drop coverage, he beat it with a little
mid range jump shot. Then they started blitzing him or
(20:47):
showing at the level, and he just beat Robinson and
kat over and over again. Just making simple reads like
four or five times in a row to start the
quarter generated a great shot for his team. On the
other end of the floor, Kale Bridges was a little
bit cold to start the fourth quarter. He did hit
a few mid range jumpers in the middle of the
fourth quarter, but Michale couldn't keep up. All of a
(21:09):
sudden we had a little bit of margin, and then
when Tyre's Halliburton came in, just a steady diet of
that textbook high ball screen attack, attacking the Biggs, attacking Brunson.
He had multiple driving kicks against Brunson, making Mitchell Robinson
pay for sagging off of Miles Turner or sagging off
of Pascal Siakam, just beating them with the same decision
(21:33):
making tree that he's been using his entire NBA career,
And once they built that margin, it just ended up
being too much for the nixt to overcome. They had
they almost pulled a little bit of magical comeback of
their own there down the stretch, but ultimately it's just
really difficult to make to make up for a ten
point deficit in the final minutes, like they were dealing with.
(21:55):
The Knicks have a little bit of a problem when
they played car Anthony Towns. They're nowhere near good enough
defensively to keep up with this Pacers team. They got
rolled with kat on the floor tonight, even with him
having extended stretches of successful offense, especially in the first half.
But then with Mitchell Robinson, even though he brings a
(22:17):
ton of good in a late game situation, it's like, well,
he can't shoot free throws and he's got a little
bit of a tendency to sag off of shooters. He
got burned by Siakam and by Turner in the fourth
quarter of this game. So on the one hand, it's
frustrating because I don't think they have an answer for
this series. But I think there's some reality to the
(22:39):
proof of concept that this has been in this postseason run,
which is I think Mkale Bridges and ogn Andobi and
Josh Hart is fly around forwards that can rotate and
wreck havoc defensively, and ogn Andobi is a weak side scorer,
and Mikale Bridges is a guy who can run action
when Jalen Brunson's off the floor, and Jalen Brunson proving
(23:01):
himself over and over again over the last few years
as one of the more reliable playoff shot creators. All
of that is fine, but they need to have an
option at center that can anchor all of this defensively,
and that's where it gets tricked. I don't know that
Karl Anthony Towns fits into the theoretical championship version of
(23:25):
what the Knicks can be, but I think we've seen
enough out of Mitchell Robinson, a extremely talented but flawed player,
that if they get a legitimate center that all of
a sudden, this makes a lot of sense. And I
think that's something that they need to look into this
summer as a vehicle with which to improve this roster.
(23:47):
Can the Knicks come back to win this series? They
certainly can. The Pacers after winning the first two games
in Cleveland, came home and got their butt kicked, and
Game four, you know, obviously they come out and utterly
dominate the Cavs. It's gonna be really difficult to get
this done, but the Knicks have shown an ability to
win on the road in this postseason run. I do
(24:10):
think switching is their best option. When they switch, it
puts the onus on matchup attacking. I like that as
an option more than blitzing like they did for stretches
of the fourth quarter, or high drop, low drop, any
of those sorts of things. I would switch, and then
you've got to contain the ball and you've got to rotate.
(24:30):
But at this point, like I thought coming into the
series that the Pacers were just better than the Knicks
on both ends of the four. I thought they were
a better offense and I thought they were a better defense.
And I think they've pretty clearly shown that to this
point through two games. And now you've got to beat
them four times out of five, with three of those
five games being in Indiana, and it's just gonna be
a lot for them to overcome. All right, Jackson's gonna
(24:54):
come on and we're gonna take a couple of questions
before we get out of here for the night.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Let's do it. Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
We got a couple of super Chat questions to start with.
First one super Chet from Cobs. Hi, Jason, do you
think the Knicks offense is too isocentric?
Speaker 4 (25:07):
It feels like they're rely too much on Kat and
sort of.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Expand on that if they do end up moving Cat,
do you think that helps that problem or hurts that problem?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
So I think that there's a certain amount. Like both
teams did more switching with their fives tonight, New York
more than Indiana did. Miles Turner was doing more of
like kind of like a read and react switch, meaning
like he kind of exists in a higher drop and
then if the defender got the on ball guy got
wiped out by the screen, it would just turn into
(25:38):
appeal switch, or if the defender got over the top,
then he would like try to recover, but inevitably with
the amount of switching that the teams do. There's gonna
be a certain amount of isoball that's just part of
NBA basketball. Also, like when you really get into it,
Jalen Brunson, when he's got that left shoulder fade going
the way that he had it going tonight, there's a
(26:01):
certain point where like, that's some of their most reliable offense.
Is that sort of thing. There are opportunities to attack
in driving kick situations. The problem is is it's always
gonna bog down when you have non shooters on the floor. So,
for instance, mkale Bridge is just continually being incapable of
hitting catch and shoot threes in this postseason run, that's
(26:22):
gonna kill a drive and kick attack. Josh Hart being
a guy that's a little bit hesitant to take catch
and shoot three point shots, that can kill drive and
kick attack, right. And so one of the things that
makes the Indiana Pacers ball and player movement work is
every dude on the floor will take that shot, and
we'll take it and make it, and so it allows
(26:43):
their rotation sequences to work better. There's a lot of
sequences with the Knicks where you're like, I kind of
want Daylen Brunson taking this ISO jump shot, because otherwise
it's gonna be McKale Bridges unnaturally jumping super high and
kicking his legs on a random catch and shoot three
like he's getting chased off the line. And so I
think there are some realities to the Nicks roster. My
thing is like, in general, you want to keep everybody
(27:05):
involved in that ISO attack. But also down the stretch
of this game, Tibbs wasn't trusting Cat and really down
the stretch, if you guys really get into it, Brunson
was scoring it. Just they couldn't get stops when they
needed to. What do they give up sixty something points
in the second half.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, it's sort of a tough problem that they have.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
It is their best option, but you can't do it
too much.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
It's like that balance is sort of the ever existing
question for all of these sort of helio centric players
and teams. Honestly, exactly another super Chat question, this one
from John, huge Knicks fan, But as soon as Jannis
got eliminated, I immediately thought about a cat.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
For Yanni's trade thoughts.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Obviously, as everyone said it was responding to John in
the chat, the Knicks would need to add a lot
to their side of the deal. But just as like
the Bucks are probably going to trade Yiannis and the
Knicks may want to trade Cat sort of.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
Mind space.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, it'd be really difficult because of just all the
different salaries involved, Like you'd almost want you'd want Kat,
and you'd want one of their wings, and it's just
really difficult to make all of that work. But just
in theory, like I love the idea of having just
a monstrous defensive forward kind of like anchoring all of this.
But to me, like with Brunson being a big time
(28:19):
pick and role player and with the overall rotational ability
that they have at the forward position, and I honestly
think that Brunson and Og and McHale is plenty of
scoring ability. I'm not necessarily worried about that. I would
be targeting more of like a traditional center. I would
want like a seven foot tall, switchable rim protecting kind
(28:42):
of like mobile, big a guy that can be a
vertical spacer. I do think we underrated just how much
Isaiah Hartenstein, like we're going to talk about this, you know,
like like we were talking about this at the beginning
of the show. In terms of low hanging fruit, like
Isaiah Hartenstein unlocked a whole backcut game for the for
the Thunder this year. There was a big one in
our film session this morning where Shay backcutt Hardenstein hit him.
(29:05):
It generated a wide open three for lou Dort. Like
there's a certain amount of skill that you want at
that position too. Like that's why I think the Cat
Mitchell Robinson dynamic has been super fascinating. If you could
somehow take some of Kat's offensive viability and combine it
with Mitchell Robinson as a defensive weapon, all of a sudden,
(29:27):
this whole thing makes a ton of sense. And in
order to make that happen, like, you need a starting
caliber player at that center spot right now. There's another
way you can look at it too, is like from
the standpoint of payroll, you can't have Brunson making a
ton of money, Og making a ton of money, McHale
(29:49):
making a ton of money, and the center making a
ton of money, And so they might have to make
an even bigger picture decision about which one of the
forwards kind of fits into that mix. But I like
the idea of Brunson being anchored by like a monstrous
defensive center. I think it just covers for a lot
of their weaknesses on that end.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
YEA four.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
It was like, because of the Mavericks roster, everyone is
designing fake trades around Daniel Gafford or Derek Lively and
for a good reason, because I think those guys are
exactly what you're describing. I would be very very helpful
for a lot of teams, including this one.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
It's just a it's like a floor raiser, you know
what I mean, And like, yeah, there's it's tough because
you can't have like like we saw Miles Turner for instance,
like really struggle for extended stretches of of Game one
right there. It needs to be a certain type of
center I've seen, Like Nick Clackson is a name that
gets thrown around a million times this over the course
(30:44):
of this U this season, and like Nick Clason to
me is like the bottom. Any player below Nick Clackson's level,
it doesn't make sense to be paying that much for
that type of player. But like I would be probing
all over the place, I'd be, I'd be, I'd be
I'd be calling on Nick Claxton, I'd be calling on
(31:06):
what's his face? I'm blanking all of a sudden. This
is how brain fried I am through the postseason run.
But what's his face from the Jazz Walks.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Walker Kessler? Excuse me?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I'd be calling on just like dudes that are in
that kind of mid to late twenties, that are just
like rock solid centers that you could potentially anchor with
this group because I think, I think, I think there's
been enough that we've seen from their core players that
this can work.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
They're just clearly not good.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Enough defensively with Karl Anthony Towns on the floor, and
that's a death sentence.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
All right, Let's move a little bit to the Pacers side.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Question is, given the Pacers depth and Hal Britton's ability
to run the offense without turning it over, aren't the
Pacers the best team? The team that's best equipped to
beat Okay?
Speaker 2 (31:49):
See, the problem is is I view it all through
the scope of matchups, right. Every is like with we
were talking about earlier with like Golden State versus Minnesota
or versus Oklahoma City. You know, like there's a certain
amount of like one team might be perfectly equipped to
beat another team vice versa. The I talked about going
(32:13):
into the postseason like there's a certain amount of perimeter
size and playmaking and shooting that you need to beat
Oklahoma City. And really, the only teams that I thought
had that combination, like legitimate size advantages at multiple positions,
the ability to process quickly against a like a swarming defense,
(32:33):
and to knock down the catch and shoot threes that
you get out of it. The only three teams that
I thought had great chances to beat Oklahoma City were Denver,
the Lakers, and the Celtics. Because the Lakers have Lebron
and Luca that can attack their smalls, their elite processors,
and they could put out lineups that could shoot. The
Celtics Tatum and Brown, the ability to attack size mismatches,
(32:54):
the ability to space the floor and shoot Denver through
Aaron Gordon and through Nikola Jokich and even Jamal Murray
to certain extent, the size and strength positionally, the processing,
ability to get the ball out, and the ability to shoot.
And all three of those teams are eliminated. And you know,
it's like like all of them were flawed in their
own ways to begin with, as we look back, and
(33:15):
so honestly the problem for the Pacers is they have
the processing and they have the shooting. They don't have
the size. They don't have the size to cause Oklahoma
City problems on the perimeter. I see it being a
series where Nie Smith, Nemhard, and Halliburton are just literally
in jail all series long because you could not conceptualize
(33:37):
a more well equipped defense to handle all of their
speed on the perimeter. This is the other team that
loves to run more than anybody else in the league.
They're switchable, they're well coached, their attention to detail is fantastic.
They don't turn the ball over. They're they're never gonna
let go of the rope the way the Knicks do.
Like to me, essentially, the the Thunder are just a
(34:01):
substantially better version of the Pacers, and a deeper and
more versatile version. So, like I'm gonna be honest with you, guys,
I would be stunned at this point if the Thunder
didn't win the title, Like, absolutely stunned if they didn't
win the title.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Another sort of question about the Pacers, how sustainable do
you think.
Speaker 4 (34:18):
This play style is for the long term.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Do you think they can be the new team to
beat in the East with Boston seemingly falling off or
is this sort of run and gun style gonna either
get scouted out? Is are there players not gonauild the
hold up? Do you think this is sort of a
long term, big picture of formula for the Pacers to
sort of be the Kings of the East.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I think they're going to be near the top of
the East year and year out, like a team that's
consistently like a conference finalist kind of situation. The problem
is is like when it comes to the simple art
of just getting buckets against elite defensive players, like let's
look at the Thunder series for example, Like I think
(35:01):
in order to beat the Thunder, you've got to be
able to have a guy that like they simply cannot guard.
And like we saw that, like when we'd watch the
Lakers against him, it's like they cannot guard Luca. When
you watch Jokic against him, it's like they cannot guard
nikolea Jokich. I'm not sitting here saying like Pascal Siakam
(35:24):
can't score on the Thunder. Of course he can, But
is he gonna be thirty nine points on twenty three
shots against the Thunder? Probably not, you know, Like Tyrese
Haliburton is a capable switch beater, but is he gonna
be able to stare down Chet Holmgren and Lou dort
In Kason Wallace and like get tough buckets over and
(35:46):
over again the way that you need to. I just
don't think so and so like I think ultimately Indiana's
ceiling is based on the fact that they don't have
a singular top here bucket getter type of dude that
like is invincible to a certain defensive scheme, like I
think the Thunder will most likely end up just doing
(36:09):
a great deal of switching against Indiana and just live
with the results and believe that their defenders are going
to do just fine against Siakam and Halliburton. In order
for Indiana to like truly be what I would consider
to be like a top tier contender in this league,
I think they would need a better version of Siakam,
like if it was like a truly indomitable offensive force
(36:31):
at the forward position, like let's just say it was
like a Kevin Durant Lebron type of guy at the four.
Now I'm looking at that as a team that can
like legitimately beat the very best teams in the league
in the championship round. But I'm just concerned about their
ability against against an Oklahoma City defense to to really
create shots when things bug.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Yeah, yeah, you need a better version of Siakam or
you need Ben Mathrin to become this like super versatile
scoring basically.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah, a better version of Andrew and em Hard, Like
a version of Andrew and Emhard that is like to
the point indomitable. So like if Ben Matherin became like
somewhere around the twentieth to twenty fifth best player in
the league and played at the two next to Halliburton
and as an as a freaky athletic guard was kind
(37:22):
of there. This is the guy that no one can
stop him from getting to his spot, and like you
just kind of have to hope he misses kind of
thing like that. Like that's that's where it gets tough.
I'm just there's a lot of Indiana. A lot of
what Indiana does capitalizes on natural openings that occur in
basketball games, and the Thunder just don't give you a
lot of natural openings. The one thing that will be interesting,
(37:43):
and I'll say this just up front, the Thunder are
very much like a load up the strong side ball, pressure,
aggressive defense, and Tyre's Halliburton is an excellent over the
top passer, So I am curious to see how Mark
Dagnall actually structures his defensive game plan because we have
seen coaches like Chris Finch go like, we're gonna play
(38:04):
our base regular season scheme against the Thunder and even
though it's like legitimately the exact opposite of what Denver
just showed us works. And if Mark Dagnall does the
exact same thing and ty Reese is just throwing skip
passes to Siakam and Ni Smith for the entire first
two games of the series and they get a bunch
of wide open threes, the yeah, like they can steal
(38:26):
a game or two. But like I think, ultimately Dagnall
will I will read the room and be like, what
we really need to do is kind of stay glued
to everybody individually here and trust that our individual defenders
are too much for them to be able to handle
for sure.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Last question for tonight's YouTube stream, thoughts on home court
advantage in the playoffs. It seems like it hasn't mattered
very much so far.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
I think, you know, I've seen a lot of talk
about this. I don't have a real feel for what
is causing it, because statistically, I shouldn't even say statistically
it's just in the win losses. There's an obvious reality
to the fact that road teams are more comfortable now
than they used to be. I don't have like a
(39:10):
reasoning for it, though, because the game is more predicated
on jump shooting than ever, so in theory, like comfort
shooting at home should play an even bigger role. But
if I had to have you, you know, like said, Okay,
you've got to sign it to something, I would assign
it to the physicality. I think the overall physicality increase
(39:32):
in the playoffs in the last couple of years has
in general dragged every game closer and lower scoring, which
has made every game a little bit more of a
coin flip than some of the game, the kind of
like trading off blowouts that we saw in years past.
And then also before we're done here tonight, I had
a buddy of mine shout out to NMZ Hoops, a
(39:52):
guy that does great work covering the league on Twitter,
sent me this question. He said, at this point, this
is a question from the minute Soda series. Should Minnesota
abandon Rudy Gobert setting picks and go to more guard
to guard action. Rudy can hold space in the dunker spot.
All you'd have to do is catch and finish rather
than make decisions in the short role. Have Ant target
(40:14):
Shay for fatigue and foul trouble using more threatening screeners.
So a couple things. This is really interesting question. We
talked a little bit about this last night with the
ghost screens. They were getting clean looks or clean ish
looks for Dante DiVincenzo in particular, slipping out of ghost
screens targeting Shae in particular. Like the specific emphasis here
(40:36):
from NMZ is that threatening screeners part because they are
hedging and recovering with Shay. So it's not like Ant's
going to be able to just pick on Shae and
switches and just look to attack him one on one,
at least not as easily as it could happen from
like a transition crossmatch or some other offensive rebound cross
match something along those lines. But there are openings that
(40:57):
they can get by having guards slip out of screens,
not just with Dante or whoever it is who's being
guarded by Shay, but also inverted because they ran some
inverted action where like Dante would get screened by Ant
and then pitch it back to Ant. Oklahoma City has
a little bit of a natural tendency to linger on
the ball with their second defender anyway, kind of regardless.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Of who it is.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
It's just part of their kind of basketball identity as
a very aggressive, turnover forcing type of team. So I
think you could even get Ant some initial advantages from
him slipping out of inverted ball screens. But my thing is, like,
I think the only chance that the Timberwolves have to
win this series is to attack off the catch with Ant,
to attack off the catch with Julius. This clean catch
(41:40):
and shoot looks Julius got in the first round or
first half of Game one. Ant in general in this
postseason has been so deadly attacking off the catch. The
only way you're gonna do that is early in the
possession to get into your drive and kick, because you
can't be pitching it to the corner with four or
five seconds on the shot clock, the ball will never
get worked back around. So getting the ball up the
(42:00):
floor quickly with pace and then using a guard screen
as a simple example of to his point, instead of
having Rudy trying to operate out of a four on three,
which has been an absolute disaster. Have a more skilled
player start your four on three. So, for instance, let's
say that Dante screens on Ant's right side and quickly
slips out of it to the left wing. Shay lingers
(42:23):
for a second, pitch it to him. Dante needs to
rack left immediately right on the catch, beat the hedge,
the hedge you're recovering in this case, Shay. Now you're
in an advantage creating situation. I do trust Dante to
make the next read. From there, it's on Aunt and
Julius to quickly figure out their spacing and get to
a spot where they can attack on the catch. And
(42:45):
I do think from there they can have some more opportunities.
But to NMC's point, like I am one hundred percent
in agreement, like, get the guy who's leading the four
on three to be a higher level offensive player than
Rudy Gobert, and so having those guards slipping out a
screen is a simple way to get those attacks. They
just need to not immediately settle for the three because
there was a little bit of a tendency in game
(43:07):
two for them to slip out of the ghost screen
and take the movement three, which is not a terrible.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
Shot, but it's a tough shot.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
And I wouldn't necessarily lean on that unless there's you know,
five seconds on the shot clock attack off of that,
get into your drive and kick. Try to generate some
more off the catch opportunities for it and Julius. All right, guys,
that is all we have for tonight on YouTube. We
are heading over to playback again. That's playback dot TV
slash Hoops tonight. No Jackson tonight will just be me
(43:34):
over there, but we're gonna be taking some callers and
watching some film again. As always, as sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting me and supporting us and supporting the show.
I will see you guys on playback here in just
a few minutes. What so, guys, As always, I appreciate
you for listening to and supporting Oops tonight. They would
actually be really helpful for us if you guys would
take a second and leave a rating and a review.
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
(43:56):
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
The volume
The volume.
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Slash audio. All right, welcome to him tonight. You're at
(02:03):
the volume heavy Friday. Everybody hope all you guys are
having a great night. Well, the Indiana Pacers have done
it again, stealing two games on the road to take
a two to zero lead back to Indiana after doing
the same thing to Cleveland.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
A little bit of a reverse.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
In the Cleveland series, they showed that they looked like
the better team in game one, and then they get
punched in the face in game two, but somehow steal
the game, and here in the Knixt series the exact opposite.
They get punched in the face in game one, come
back to steal that game, and then kind of a
wire to wire we're just better than you guys type
of performance in game two and what was a must
(02:39):
win game for the Knicks that they did not get.
We're gonna be breaking down that series from the perspective
of both teams. Talk a little bit about some of
the stuff with Karl Anthony Towns and how Tom Thibodeau
went away from him for the most part down the
stretch of this game, and kind of some realities about
what Mitchell Robinson looks like and how it's a proof
of concept for what this Knicks team could be in
(03:00):
the big picture as we look to the future. Obviously,
the series isn't over, but they're in a very tough spot.
We're gonna be leading the show tonight talking about some
of the similarities between the Pacers and the Thunder. I
think there are some tendencies that these two teams have
that everybody in the league should be looking to copy.
So we're gonna be talking a lot about big picture
stuff with both of these teams, a couple of specific
(03:21):
details from this game. At the tail end of the show,
we're gonna take ten fifteen minutes of mail bag questions
from the chats. Make sure you guys get your questions
in the chat. And then when we wrap up here tonight,
we're heading over to Playback again. That's Playback dot TV
slash Hoops Tonight, where we're gonna have about forty five
minutes to an hour of an after show. Well, it's
very informal. We take callers, we watch film, we just
(03:43):
have fun talking about basketball for an extra hour at
the tail end of the evening. So make sure you
guys head over there with us when we finish up
here tonight. You guys are the job before we get started.
Subscribe to the Hoops to Night YouTube channels. You don't
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Forget about podcast fet wherever you get your post under
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(04:04):
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more content throughout the year the last but at least
keep dropping those mail back questions in the chat so
that we can get to them at the tail end
of the show tonight. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So you know, in the playback session last night, we
were talking about the Thunder and one of the things
(04:25):
we were talking about is that in addition to just
being super talented, they are also a very well coached
team that maximizes their talent. Right, Like, we've had a
lot of really talented teams come through the league. I
would argue Minnesota and New York are two examples of
teams that on paper look extremely talented. There's a reason
(04:48):
why there was a lot of buzz surrounding Minnesota's ability
to potentially win that series. There's a reason why, even
though you know, the Pacers have looked so good, there
was a lot of buzz surrounding the Knicks winning their series.
It's because you look at it and it's Jalen Brunson,
and it's Michale Bridges, and it's ogn Andobi, and it's
Karl Anthony Towns, and it's Mitchell Robinson and Josh Hard
(05:09):
a bunch of guys that are respected big game players
in this league with Minnesota, like a four time Defensive
Player of the Year, Nas Reed, one of the best
bench players in the NBA, Julius Randall has been having
a magnificent postseason, Anthony Edwards, all of these elite perimeter
defenders like Dante DiVincenzo Nikhil, Alexander Walker, and Jad McDaniels.
In theory, they should be able to compete with the
(05:33):
Oklahoma City Thunder. They've gotten their ass kicks twice, they've
looked like they've been the team that doesn't have the
right game plan. They've looked like the team that doesn't
have confidence, that is operating far below what their capability is. Meanwhile,
I think we can all agree that the Oklahoma City
team that is loaded up with dudes that are twenty
(05:55):
six or younger outside of Alex Caruso, looks comfortable, confident
like a veteran basketball team. They are achieving their individual
ceiling or their team ceiling in this postseason run the Pacers.
There's a lot of talent on that team, and we
could go down the line on every single player and
(06:16):
their strengths and the things that they do to make
this engine work. But ultimately, when you look at that roster,
it's Tyrese Halliburton, who's somewhere around like the seventh to
tenth best player in the league, depending on how who
you ask called stretch that to seven to fifteenth, because
I'm sure there are some people that are lower on
him than others, but he's not what you would consider
(06:36):
to be a top tier superstar. Pascal Siakam is a
secondary star that I think is a very very good player,
but certainly not a player that people are looking at
as one of the very best players in this league.
And then just a bunch of role players. And yet
they are going to win an Eastern Conference that had
two teams that won sixty something games, that has Giannis
(06:57):
and Tennecoumpo and Jason Tatum and Aalen Brunson and Donovan
Mitchell and so many of the elite players in the world,
and that not only are they gonna most likely win
this series now and go to the finals. They're doing
it in dominant fashion. They've lost two games, They've had
home court in zero of the series. They've won every
(07:21):
single road game. They are six in a row. I
believe they are going to get to the finals, most
likely with somewhere between two and four losses in a
conference that was stacked with talent. And what stands out
to me is when you really look at these two teams,
the Pacers in the Thunder, there's one specific concept I
(07:43):
want to dive into that I think allows them to
reach their stealing more consistently than the other teams in
the league. And it's just attention to detail. I've been
thinking a lot about this over the course of the
last several seasons as the Lakers have gone through a
coaching change. But I've been thinking about it a lot
in the last couple of days, stemming from shake Yeal
(08:03):
just Alexander's MVP interview in the conversation he had about
Mark Dagnault and the fact that Mark just is super
obsessive about details and how it actually gets kind of annoying.
I joke about this all the time on the show,
but like playing winning basketball actually sucks, there's a lot like,
(08:24):
it's not fun sprinting up and down the floor NonStop.
Any of you guys who have ever played organized basketball, No,
there's always that day, four or five practices in at
the beginning of the season when you're tired and like
you start running like some sort of full court drill,
and everyone's just a little lethargic, and everyone's just having
(08:47):
a little bit of a hard time getting up and
down the floor, and the coach throws a hissy fit,
just blows his whistle and gets all pissed off and
makes you get on the baseline and run. Why because
he knows you're not running. Running is running is the
foundational concept that makes the Pacers great, and they do
it more often than anybody in the NBA. It's not fun,
(09:08):
they just do it regardless. They do it because it's
in their basketball character. Crashing, relocating, paying attention to details,
picking up full court that sucks.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
TJ McConnell had.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
An interview the other day talking about how the only
reason he did it at the beginning of his career
is because he wanted to stand out, and he felt
like he couldn't stand out unless he did something that
no one else was doing. Lou Dort picks up full court,
Aaron E. Smith, TJ. McConnell, Andrew Nemhard they pick up
full court. Who else is doing that? There is low
(09:48):
hanging fruit in basketball games. All of it is stuff
that sucks. It's physical wear and tear, lots of running, sprinting, cutting, jumping,
things that are not as fun as playing the you know,
the funner parts of the game, scoring the basketball, shot creation,
attacking off the catch, all of those fun things. Playing
(10:11):
in transition on offense, there's there. They These teams relentlessly
hunt that low hanging fruit. What does low hanging fruit
look like in the NBA ball? Pressure is a simple example.
That's a way that you can make your opponent uncomfortable.
Guarantee they will be less comfortable in the game. If
they have to turn their man, if they have to
(10:33):
turn and make four counter moves just to get across
half court, it will make them uncomfortable. It'll wear them
out over the course of games. That is a margin
that if you have the depth and the on court
personnel to handle, you can just decide to do practice
it all season and it dramatically increases your chances of winning.
(10:54):
Transition just in general, running the floor, leakouts, and kick aheads.
Those are things that every team in the NBA can do,
and if you do them, you are guaranteed to score
more efficiently. On average, NBA offenses are about twenty percent
more efficient in transition than they are in the half court.
So all you have to do is hunt as many
transition opportunities as possible and you will increase your offense's performance.
(11:18):
But you've got to from day one in October sit
down with your team and be like, we're going to
run non stop all season. That shit's going to suck,
but we have to make it part of who we
are as a basketball team. And they do it every
single time. The Pacers manufactures so many transition opportunities with
(11:42):
kick aheads.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
There's a big.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
One in the third quarter today where the Knicks like
gotta stop. That led to a runout bucket that was
a huge. It was Josh Hart got like like just
ended up with the basketball, lays it up, crowds going crazy,
Tyres rints back on defense, grabs it out of the net,
quick turns and just rifles a rainbow pass up the court,
(12:06):
makes its way to Obi topping and he's it was
a top inner Siakam. I can't remember exactly which one
it was, but there they are laying the ball up
on the other side of the court. That's just part
of their basketball character manifesting in a complete erase, Like
they erased a big momentous Knicks play just by doing
(12:28):
the same thing that they do every single possession. They
stole Game one because down the stretch we watched the footage,
we went over it on a film session, the Knicks
let go of the rope. They stopped paying attention to detail.
Ojan and Obi two's passive in his drop coverage, brunts
in in cat a couple of bad defensive rotations, Josh
(12:48):
Hart gives up a backcut, you lose the game. What
were the Pacers doing that time? Picking up full court,
pushing the ball up the floor quickly, and then when
they get in the half court, running their offense quick
and efficiently the same way they did throughout the entire game.
There's so many different examples, just like both of these teams,
(13:09):
don't turn the basketball over. That's a simple thing you
can do that dramatically improves your chances of winning basketball games.
We were looking at it in the Thunder Timberwolve series
last night when we were on playback. The Timberwolves or
the Thunder are far and away the best team in
the league at turning their opponents over and scoring on it.
(13:30):
And they are far and away the best team in
the league at not turning the basketball over and not
giving up points off those turnovers. Every game, there's like
a fifteen something point advantage they have just in points
off of turnovers. It's like you're starting the game down
by fifteen points as the opponent because of them constantly
(13:53):
capitalizing on that low hanging fruit. I think the Pacers
capitalize on a lot of low hanging fruit in the
half court on offense too, And this stems from just
Tyrese Halliburton and his relentless advantage hunting. I talk about
this all the time with young players all the way
to the highest level of pros. If you have them
attack against a set defender versus a defender sprinting at them,
(14:16):
their efficiency skyrockets when they have the defenders sprinting at them.
There's not a player in the NBA that is more
relentless with just simple swings and skips and kick aheads
to just hunt close out opportunities. Tyre's Halliburton has his
team playing with an advantage all night long, and so
(14:40):
they capitalize on that margin. I even think we were
talking about it before the broadcast, finding sixteen game players,
finding players that are the kinds of guys that are
comfortable in this playoff setting. That means they have to
have a certain amount of strength and physicality to their game.
Basketball IQ comes at a huge, huge premium this time
(15:01):
of year. The ability to solve the puzzle, so to speak,
that each possession presents confidence, not wavering in your work
and believing in yourself in this environment. Andrew Nemhart somehow
has made a career out of being a mediocre shooter
in the regular season and then just turning into a
deadly three point shooter when he gets to this time
of year. It's confidence. Guys who play defense. You don't
(15:26):
play defense, You can't stay on the floor in games
like this. The Thunder and the Pacers, you look down
their roster and both of them have more than five
guys that they trust. Meanwhile, you look at New York
and it's like, man, like, we can't defend with Kat,
We're struggling to score with Josh or if it was.
(15:46):
You know, the Warriors struggled finding a fifth man. The
Nuggets their top four is fine, they couldn't find a
fifth guy that they trusted. I just think that the
Thunder and the Pacers are an excellent example of two teams,
tams that are maximizing their potential because of their willingness
to capitalize on all of the controllables, and then from
(16:09):
there their stars lift them over the top, which we'll
talk about in a second. Now, the Thunder they have
the combination of that maximizing their talent and the absurd
on paper talent. That's why they're such a substantial favorite
to win the title at this point. But I think
that what the Pacers have done and what the Thunder
have done are an example or is the example that
(16:31):
everyone should look to follow. Now, this is where the
advantage creation piece steps in, because capitalizing on low hanging
fruit can only get you so far. One of the
things we talked about a lot over the course of the
last couple of years is like the ideal construct for
a NBA basketball team. And obviously there's so many unicorns
out there that like, like, you can't talk about an
(16:53):
ideal construct surrounding Jokic. There's no one else in the
league like Yokic or Steph. There's no one else in
the league like Death or Yiannis. There's no one else
in the league like Giannis. But there are simple concepts
within the within the modern NBA that theoretically every player
can capitalize on. Right in a ball screen, if they're
(17:14):
in a low drop coverage and you set good screens,
there are opportunities to score against the drop, pull up threes, floaters,
mid range jump shots, things along those lines. Or you're
in a deep drop coverage. The pick and pop should,
in theory, be open every single time you come up
to the level. Now, the role to the pocket pass
should be open every single time they're tagging the roller. Well,
(17:37):
then the skip pass should be open every single time.
Oh you're switching, okay, Well then now I've got a
big guy on my Tyres Haliburton guard, or I've got
a small guy on you know, a turner or a
Siakam around the basket. And so we talked about these concepts.
A skill guard a player that can consistently make the
reads within those pick and roll situations based on what
(17:58):
the coverage is dictating and then having what's one of
the position groups that I always talk about, the matchup
attacking forward. This is a player that is primarily kind
of like a tip of the spear. He's not a
guy that's going to be running a ton of on
ball action, but the result of action, whether it be transition,
(18:19):
cross matches or a ball screen that forces a switch,
is going to end up in a lot of situations
where Siakam or your matchup attacking forward gets to attack
a player who's either too small to guard him or
too slow to guard him. And that's what the beauty
of the Pascal Siakam trade was for the pacers. Tyrese
Haliburton was the ideal skill guard, the player that relentlessly
(18:42):
hunted advantages, the player that could score against drop coverage,
that could make all the reads against aggressive pick and
roll coverages, and when his hamstring is healthy, is a
deadly switch beater, and that has made him the quintessential
kind of like on ball skill guard in the NBA.
Right what they were lacking was a player they could
(19:02):
pitch the ball to on the other side of those actions,
a player that could be like, Okay, their bigs are
defending well, on switches, Tyras is having a rough shooting night.
He's five for sixteen, He's three for ten from three.
He's having a little bit of a hard time beating
Mitchell Robinson on switches. Well, who's the guy you can
go to that is in on an island. Get a
(19:22):
bucket guy that can either bully smalls to the basket
or can beat bigs with quickness and speed. And that's
what Pascal Siakamits gets going in this game with transition leakouts,
just that relentless kick ahead passing that Indiana uses and
then just countless times just like last year against Josh Hart,
(19:43):
just beating up Josh Hart against switches, drawing fouls against
Karl Anthony Towns in space, the ability to either get
big guys out of position or get small guys into
a situation where they can't handle how big he is.
He just can score. And that was not working for
the Pacers in the first game. That's one of the
things that's so crazy about this one. The Knicks looked
(20:05):
like they were in control of the Pacer Biggs in
mismatches in Game one. Not in this game. They got
torched thirty nine points for Pascal Siakam just an absolutely
monster night, and then in the fourth quarter it was
the pick and roll ball handlers. I thought TJ McConnell
(20:26):
had a brilliant stretch to start the fourth quarter. That
was where the first margin was. You look at this
game is very back and forth. No team was really separating.
The Pacers finally built a little bit of separation in
the early fourth quarter off TJ McConnell ball screens. They
ran a drop coverage, he beat it with a little
mid range jump shot. Then they started blitzing him or
(20:47):
showing at the level, and he just beat Robinson and
kat over and over again. Just making simple reads like
four or five times in a row to start the
quarter generated a great shot for his team. On the
other end of the floor, Kale Bridges was a little
bit cold to start the fourth quarter. He did hit
a few mid range jumpers in the middle of the
fourth quarter, but Michale couldn't keep up. All of a
(21:09):
sudden we had a little bit of margin, and then
when Tyre's Halliburton came in, just a steady diet of
that textbook high ball screen attack, attacking the Biggs, attacking Brunson.
He had multiple driving kicks against Brunson, making Mitchell Robinson
pay for sagging off of Miles Turner or sagging off
of Pascal Siakam, just beating them with the same decision
(21:33):
making tree that he's been using his entire NBA career,
And once they built that margin, it just ended up
being too much for the nixt to overcome. They had
they almost pulled a little bit of magical comeback of
their own there down the stretch, but ultimately it's just
really difficult to make to make up for a ten
point deficit in the final minutes, like they were dealing with.
(21:55):
The Knicks have a little bit of a problem when
they played car Anthony Towns. They're nowhere near good enough
defensively to keep up with this Pacers team. They got
rolled with kat on the floor tonight, even with him
having extended stretches of successful offense, especially in the first half.
But then with Mitchell Robinson, even though he brings a
(22:17):
ton of good in a late game situation, it's like, well,
he can't shoot free throws and he's got a little
bit of a tendency to sag off of shooters. He
got burned by Siakam and by Turner in the fourth
quarter of this game. So on the one hand, it's
frustrating because I don't think they have an answer for
this series. But I think there's some reality to the
(22:39):
proof of concept that this has been in this postseason run,
which is I think Mkale Bridges and ogn Andobi and
Josh Hart is fly around forwards that can rotate and
wreck havoc defensively, and ogn Andobi is a weak side scorer,
and Mikale Bridges is a guy who can run action
when Jalen Brunson's off the floor, and Jalen Brunson proving
(23:01):
himself over and over again over the last few years
as one of the more reliable playoff shot creators. All
of that is fine, but they need to have an
option at center that can anchor all of this defensively,
and that's where it gets tricked. I don't know that
Karl Anthony Towns fits into the theoretical championship version of
(23:25):
what the Knicks can be, but I think we've seen
enough out of Mitchell Robinson, a extremely talented but flawed player,
that if they get a legitimate center that all of
a sudden, this makes a lot of sense. And I
think that's something that they need to look into this
summer as a vehicle with which to improve this roster.
(23:47):
Can the Knicks come back to win this series? They
certainly can. The Pacers after winning the first two games
in Cleveland, came home and got their butt kicked, and
Game four, you know, obviously they come out and utterly
dominate the Cavs. It's gonna be really difficult to get
this done, but the Knicks have shown an ability to
win on the road in this postseason run. I do
(24:10):
think switching is their best option. When they switch, it
puts the onus on matchup attacking. I like that as
an option more than blitzing like they did for stretches
of the fourth quarter, or high drop, low drop, any
of those sorts of things. I would switch, and then
you've got to contain the ball and you've got to rotate.
(24:30):
But at this point, like I thought coming into the
series that the Pacers were just better than the Knicks
on both ends of the four. I thought they were
a better offense and I thought they were a better defense.
And I think they've pretty clearly shown that to this
point through two games. And now you've got to beat
them four times out of five, with three of those
five games being in Indiana, and it's just gonna be
a lot for them to overcome. All right, Jackson's gonna
(24:54):
come on and we're gonna take a couple of questions
before we get out of here for the night.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Let's do it. Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
We got a couple of super Chat questions to start with.
First one super Chet from Cobs. Hi, Jason, do you
think the Knicks offense is too isocentric?
Speaker 4 (25:07):
It feels like they're rely too much on Kat and
sort of.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Expand on that if they do end up moving Cat,
do you think that helps that problem or hurts that problem?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
So I think that there's a certain amount. Like both
teams did more switching with their fives tonight, New York
more than Indiana did. Miles Turner was doing more of
like kind of like a read and react switch, meaning
like he kind of exists in a higher drop and
then if the defender got the on ball guy got
wiped out by the screen, it would just turn into
(25:38):
appeal switch, or if the defender got over the top,
then he would like try to recover, but inevitably with
the amount of switching that the teams do. There's gonna
be a certain amount of isoball that's just part of
NBA basketball. Also, like when you really get into it,
Jalen Brunson, when he's got that left shoulder fade going
the way that he had it going tonight, there's a
(26:01):
certain point where like, that's some of their most reliable offense.
Is that sort of thing. There are opportunities to attack
in driving kick situations. The problem is is it's always
gonna bog down when you have non shooters on the floor. So,
for instance, mkale Bridge is just continually being incapable of
hitting catch and shoot threes in this postseason run, that's
(26:22):
gonna kill a drive and kick attack. Josh Hart being
a guy that's a little bit hesitant to take catch
and shoot three point shots, that can kill drive and
kick attack, right. And so one of the things that
makes the Indiana Pacers ball and player movement work is
every dude on the floor will take that shot, and
we'll take it and make it, and so it allows
(26:43):
their rotation sequences to work better. There's a lot of
sequences with the Knicks where you're like, I kind of
want Daylen Brunson taking this ISO jump shot, because otherwise
it's gonna be McKale Bridges unnaturally jumping super high and
kicking his legs on a random catch and shoot three
like he's getting chased off the line. And so I
think there are some realities to the Nicks roster. My
thing is like, in general, you want to keep everybody
(27:05):
involved in that ISO attack. But also down the stretch
of this game, Tibbs wasn't trusting Cat and really down
the stretch, if you guys really get into it, Brunson
was scoring it. Just they couldn't get stops when they
needed to. What do they give up sixty something points
in the second half.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, it's sort of a tough problem that they have.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
It is their best option, but you can't do it
too much.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
It's like that balance is sort of the ever existing
question for all of these sort of helio centric players
and teams. Honestly, exactly another super Chat question, this one
from John, huge Knicks fan, But as soon as Jannis
got eliminated, I immediately thought about a cat.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
For Yanni's trade thoughts.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Obviously, as everyone said it was responding to John in
the chat, the Knicks would need to add a lot
to their side of the deal. But just as like
the Bucks are probably going to trade Yiannis and the
Knicks may want to trade Cat sort of.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
Mind space.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, it'd be really difficult because of just all the
different salaries involved, Like you'd almost want you'd want Kat,
and you'd want one of their wings, and it's just
really difficult to make all of that work. But just
in theory, like I love the idea of having just
a monstrous defensive forward kind of like anchoring all of this.
But to me, like with Brunson being a big time
(28:19):
pick and role player and with the overall rotational ability
that they have at the forward position, and I honestly
think that Brunson and Og and McHale is plenty of
scoring ability. I'm not necessarily worried about that. I would
be targeting more of like a traditional center. I would
want like a seven foot tall, switchable rim protecting kind
(28:42):
of like mobile, big a guy that can be a
vertical spacer. I do think we underrated just how much
Isaiah Hartenstein, like we're going to talk about this, you know,
like like we were talking about this at the beginning
of the show. In terms of low hanging fruit, like
Isaiah Hartenstein unlocked a whole backcut game for the for
the Thunder this year. There was a big one in
our film session this morning where Shay backcutt Hardenstein hit him.
(29:05):
It generated a wide open three for lou Dort. Like
there's a certain amount of skill that you want at
that position too. Like that's why I think the Cat
Mitchell Robinson dynamic has been super fascinating. If you could
somehow take some of Kat's offensive viability and combine it
with Mitchell Robinson as a defensive weapon, all of a sudden,
(29:27):
this whole thing makes a ton of sense. And in
order to make that happen, like, you need a starting
caliber player at that center spot right now. There's another
way you can look at it too, is like from
the standpoint of payroll, you can't have Brunson making a
ton of money, Og making a ton of money, McHale
(29:49):
making a ton of money, and the center making a
ton of money, And so they might have to make
an even bigger picture decision about which one of the
forwards kind of fits into that mix. But I like
the idea of Brunson being anchored by like a monstrous
defensive center. I think it just covers for a lot
of their weaknesses on that end.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
YEA four.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
It was like, because of the Mavericks roster, everyone is
designing fake trades around Daniel Gafford or Derek Lively and
for a good reason, because I think those guys are
exactly what you're describing. I would be very very helpful
for a lot of teams, including this one.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
It's just a it's like a floor raiser, you know
what I mean, And like, yeah, there's it's tough because
you can't have like like we saw Miles Turner for instance,
like really struggle for extended stretches of of Game one
right there. It needs to be a certain type of
center I've seen, Like Nick Clackson is a name that
gets thrown around a million times this over the course
(30:44):
of this U this season, and like Nick Clason to
me is like the bottom. Any player below Nick Clackson's level,
it doesn't make sense to be paying that much for
that type of player. But like I would be probing
all over the place, I'd be, I'd be, I'd be
I'd be calling on Nick Claxton, I'd be calling on
(31:06):
what's his face? I'm blanking all of a sudden. This
is how brain fried I am through the postseason run.
But what's his face from the Jazz Walks.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Walker Kessler? Excuse me?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I'd be calling on just like dudes that are in
that kind of mid to late twenties, that are just
like rock solid centers that you could potentially anchor with
this group because I think, I think, I think there's
been enough that we've seen from their core players that
this can work.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
They're just clearly not good.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Enough defensively with Karl Anthony Towns on the floor, and
that's a death sentence.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
All right, Let's move a little bit to the Pacers side.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Question is, given the Pacers depth and Hal Britton's ability
to run the offense without turning it over, aren't the
Pacers the best team? The team that's best equipped to
beat Okay?
Speaker 2 (31:49):
See, the problem is is I view it all through
the scope of matchups, right. Every is like with we
were talking about earlier with like Golden State versus Minnesota
or versus Oklahoma City. You know, like there's a certain
amount of like one team might be perfectly equipped to
beat another team vice versa. The I talked about going
(32:13):
into the postseason like there's a certain amount of perimeter
size and playmaking and shooting that you need to beat
Oklahoma City. And really, the only teams that I thought
had that combination, like legitimate size advantages at multiple positions,
the ability to process quickly against a like a swarming defense,
(32:33):
and to knock down the catch and shoot threes that
you get out of it. The only three teams that
I thought had great chances to beat Oklahoma City were Denver,
the Lakers, and the Celtics. Because the Lakers have Lebron
and Luca that can attack their smalls, their elite processors,
and they could put out lineups that could shoot. The
Celtics Tatum and Brown, the ability to attack size mismatches,
(32:54):
the ability to space the floor and shoot Denver through
Aaron Gordon and through Nikola Jokich and even Jamal Murray
to certain extent, the size and strength positionally, the processing,
ability to get the ball out, and the ability to shoot.
And all three of those teams are eliminated. And you know,
it's like like all of them were flawed in their
own ways to begin with, as we look back, and
(33:15):
so honestly the problem for the Pacers is they have
the processing and they have the shooting. They don't have
the size. They don't have the size to cause Oklahoma
City problems on the perimeter. I see it being a
series where Nie Smith, Nemhard, and Halliburton are just literally
in jail all series long because you could not conceptualize
(33:37):
a more well equipped defense to handle all of their
speed on the perimeter. This is the other team that
loves to run more than anybody else in the league.
They're switchable, they're well coached, their attention to detail is fantastic.
They don't turn the ball over. They're they're never gonna
let go of the rope the way the Knicks do.
Like to me, essentially, the the Thunder are just a
(34:01):
substantially better version of the Pacers, and a deeper and
more versatile version. So, like I'm gonna be honest with you, guys,
I would be stunned at this point if the Thunder
didn't win the title, Like, absolutely stunned if they didn't
win the title.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Another sort of question about the Pacers, how sustainable do
you think.
Speaker 4 (34:18):
This play style is for the long term.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Do you think they can be the new team to
beat in the East with Boston seemingly falling off or
is this sort of run and gun style gonna either
get scouted out? Is are there players not gonauild the
hold up? Do you think this is sort of a
long term, big picture of formula for the Pacers to
sort of be the Kings of the East.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I think they're going to be near the top of
the East year and year out, like a team that's
consistently like a conference finalist kind of situation. The problem
is is like when it comes to the simple art
of just getting buckets against elite defensive players, like let's
look at the Thunder series for example, Like I think
(35:01):
in order to beat the Thunder, you've got to be
able to have a guy that like they simply cannot guard.
And like we saw that, like when we'd watch the
Lakers against him, it's like they cannot guard Luca. When
you watch Jokic against him, it's like they cannot guard
nikolea Jokich. I'm not sitting here saying like Pascal Siakam
(35:24):
can't score on the Thunder. Of course he can, But
is he gonna be thirty nine points on twenty three
shots against the Thunder? Probably not, you know, Like Tyrese
Haliburton is a capable switch beater, but is he gonna
be able to stare down Chet Holmgren and Lou dort
In Kason Wallace and like get tough buckets over and
(35:46):
over again the way that you need to. I just
don't think so and so like I think ultimately Indiana's
ceiling is based on the fact that they don't have
a singular top here bucket getter type of dude that
like is invincible to a certain defensive scheme, like I
think the Thunder will most likely end up just doing
(36:09):
a great deal of switching against Indiana and just live
with the results and believe that their defenders are going
to do just fine against Siakam and Halliburton. In order
for Indiana to like truly be what I would consider
to be like a top tier contender in this league,
I think they would need a better version of Siakam,
like if it was like a truly indomitable offensive force
(36:31):
at the forward position, like let's just say it was
like a Kevin Durant Lebron type of guy at the four.
Now I'm looking at that as a team that can
like legitimately beat the very best teams in the league
in the championship round. But I'm just concerned about their
ability against against an Oklahoma City defense to to really
create shots when things bug.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Yeah, yeah, you need a better version of Siakam or
you need Ben Mathrin to become this like super versatile
scoring basically.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah, a better version of Andrew and em Hard, Like
a version of Andrew and Emhard that is like to
the point indomitable. So like if Ben Matherin became like
somewhere around the twentieth to twenty fifth best player in
the league and played at the two next to Halliburton
and as an as a freaky athletic guard was kind
(37:22):
of there. This is the guy that no one can
stop him from getting to his spot, and like you
just kind of have to hope he misses kind of
thing like that. Like that's that's where it gets tough.
I'm just there's a lot of Indiana. A lot of
what Indiana does capitalizes on natural openings that occur in
basketball games, and the Thunder just don't give you a
lot of natural openings. The one thing that will be interesting,
(37:43):
and I'll say this just up front, the Thunder are
very much like a load up the strong side ball, pressure,
aggressive defense, and Tyre's Halliburton is an excellent over the
top passer, So I am curious to see how Mark
Dagnall actually structures his defensive game plan because we have
seen coaches like Chris Finch go like, we're gonna play
(38:04):
our base regular season scheme against the Thunder and even
though it's like legitimately the exact opposite of what Denver
just showed us works. And if Mark Dagnall does the
exact same thing and ty Reese is just throwing skip
passes to Siakam and Ni Smith for the entire first
two games of the series and they get a bunch
of wide open threes, the yeah, like they can steal
(38:26):
a game or two. But like I think, ultimately Dagnall
will I will read the room and be like, what
we really need to do is kind of stay glued
to everybody individually here and trust that our individual defenders
are too much for them to be able to handle
for sure.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Last question for tonight's YouTube stream, thoughts on home court
advantage in the playoffs. It seems like it hasn't mattered
very much so far.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
I think, you know, I've seen a lot of talk
about this. I don't have a real feel for what
is causing it, because statistically, I shouldn't even say statistically
it's just in the win losses. There's an obvious reality
to the fact that road teams are more comfortable now
than they used to be. I don't have like a
(39:10):
reasoning for it, though, because the game is more predicated
on jump shooting than ever, so in theory, like comfort
shooting at home should play an even bigger role. But
if I had to have you, you know, like said, Okay,
you've got to sign it to something, I would assign
it to the physicality. I think the overall physicality increase
(39:32):
in the playoffs in the last couple of years has
in general dragged every game closer and lower scoring, which
has made every game a little bit more of a
coin flip than some of the game, the kind of
like trading off blowouts that we saw in years past.
And then also before we're done here tonight, I had
a buddy of mine shout out to NMZ Hoops, a
(39:52):
guy that does great work covering the league on Twitter,
sent me this question. He said, at this point, this
is a question from the minute Soda series. Should Minnesota
abandon Rudy Gobert setting picks and go to more guard
to guard action. Rudy can hold space in the dunker spot.
All you'd have to do is catch and finish rather
than make decisions in the short role. Have Ant target
(40:14):
Shay for fatigue and foul trouble using more threatening screeners.
So a couple things. This is really interesting question. We
talked a little bit about this last night with the
ghost screens. They were getting clean looks or clean ish
looks for Dante DiVincenzo in particular, slipping out of ghost
screens targeting Shae in particular. Like the specific emphasis here
(40:36):
from NMZ is that threatening screeners part because they are
hedging and recovering with Shay. So it's not like Ant's
going to be able to just pick on Shae and
switches and just look to attack him one on one,
at least not as easily as it could happen from
like a transition crossmatch or some other offensive rebound cross
match something along those lines. But there are openings that
(40:57):
they can get by having guards slip out of screens,
not just with Dante or whoever it is who's being
guarded by Shay, but also inverted because they ran some
inverted action where like Dante would get screened by Ant
and then pitch it back to Ant. Oklahoma City has
a little bit of a natural tendency to linger on
the ball with their second defender anyway, kind of regardless.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Of who it is.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
It's just part of their kind of basketball identity as
a very aggressive, turnover forcing type of team. So I
think you could even get Ant some initial advantages from
him slipping out of inverted ball screens. But my thing is, like,
I think the only chance that the Timberwolves have to
win this series is to attack off the catch with Ant,
to attack off the catch with Julius. This clean catch
(41:40):
and shoot looks Julius got in the first round or
first half of Game one. Ant in general in this
postseason has been so deadly attacking off the catch. The
only way you're gonna do that is early in the
possession to get into your drive and kick, because you
can't be pitching it to the corner with four or
five seconds on the shot clock, the ball will never
get worked back around. So getting the ball up the
(42:00):
floor quickly with pace and then using a guard screen
as a simple example of to his point, instead of
having Rudy trying to operate out of a four on three,
which has been an absolute disaster. Have a more skilled
player start your four on three. So, for instance, let's
say that Dante screens on Ant's right side and quickly
slips out of it to the left wing. Shay lingers
(42:23):
for a second, pitch it to him. Dante needs to
rack left immediately right on the catch, beat the hedge,
the hedge you're recovering in this case, Shay. Now you're
in an advantage creating situation. I do trust Dante to
make the next read. From there, it's on Aunt and
Julius to quickly figure out their spacing and get to
a spot where they can attack on the catch. And
(42:45):
I do think from there they can have some more opportunities.
But to NMC's point, like I am one hundred percent
in agreement, like, get the guy who's leading the four
on three to be a higher level offensive player than
Rudy Gobert, and so having those guards slipping out a
screen is a simple way to get those attacks. They
just need to not immediately settle for the three because
there was a little bit of a tendency in game
(43:07):
two for them to slip out of the ghost screen
and take the movement three, which is not a terrible.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
Shot, but it's a tough shot.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
And I wouldn't necessarily lean on that unless there's you know,
five seconds on the shot clock attack off of that,
get into your drive and kick. Try to generate some
more off the catch opportunities for it and Julius. All right, guys,
that is all we have for tonight on YouTube. We
are heading over to playback again. That's playback dot TV
slash Hoops tonight. No Jackson tonight will just be me
(43:34):
over there, but we're gonna be taking some callers and
watching some film again. As always, as sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting me and supporting us and supporting the show.
I will see you guys on playback here in just
a few minutes. What so, guys, As always, I appreciate
you for listening to and supporting Oops tonight. They would
actually be really helpful for us if you guys would
take a second and leave a rating and a review.
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
(43:56):
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
The volume
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Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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