June 2, 2023 • 20 mins
Jason Timpf reacts to Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets' 104-93 victory over Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Jason analyzes Jokic's exceptional 27-point triple-double performance and discusses how the Nuggets seem to dominate the Heat in every aspect of the game. #volume #herd
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at
the Volume, Happy Thursday, everybody. Coverage of the NBA Finals.
Here in Hoops Tonight is brought to you by Chase
(00:22):
Freedom Unlimited. How do you cash back? Well, you're also
live on AMPS, So if you're listening on the YouTube
feed or on a podcast feed, don't forget that AMP
is the very first place that you guys can get
these shows. Well. Game one of the NBA Finals goes
to the Denver Nuggets, who are still undefeated at home.
I thought that that was an especially concerning game for
(00:43):
Miami Heat fans because I thought the Heat did a
lot of things really well in that game. They won
a lot of battles against Denver that Denver has been
winning against everybody else in this postseason run, and they
still lost by double figure. So we're gonna get into it.
I'm not gonna go too deep into the x's and
o's tonight because we're be doing our film sessions on
the day after the Finals, so keep an eye on
the feeds tomorrow in the afternoon time for that full
(01:07):
length film breakdown. But we are gonna dive into a
bunch of stuff that I noticed in the live show.
You guys know the drip before we get started. To
subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss
any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at
underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss an show
announcements in it. For whatever reason, you guys miss one
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Enter your email and code Hoops. That's Hops for twenty
dollars off. Download game Time Today, Last minute tickets, lowest
price guaranteed. All right, I love the NBA Finals. I
was watching that intro video that they always play right
before tip off. It's not as long as it used
to be. Some of you older fans will remember. It
(02:34):
used to be a much more produced video that had
a lot of history in it. You know, this is
kind of an interesting series because there's not a ton
of history in this particular series, Like Jimmy's been there before.
A couple of these guys have been there before, but
a lot of these guys, especially the stars, are guys
that have never won championships before, and kind of reminds
me a little bit of the twenty twenty one NBA Finals,
(02:56):
where it feels more like the beginning of history. You know,
we look back, You look back at a guy like
Steph Curry or Lebron James, and they have four championships each, right,
But what happens is you go back and it's like
there was a time in twenty fifteen when Steph looked
like a baby on ABC competing in the NBA Finals,
and at the time, like, if I would have told
(03:18):
you everything that was coming after and you would have
looked at that for what it was, which was a
little piece of history, you would have had a little
bit more appreciation for it. Same thing goes for Lebron James,
like in the twenty twelve finals, you know they win
a lot of those games were competitive, but they win
in five games and at the time you're like, oh,
you know, Lebron won a title. But it's like it's
(03:39):
kind of the beginning of history there. And that's kind
of what this felt like to me, because not only
for either of these guys, regardless of who wins, it's
a significant marker. If Jimmy Butler wins, it's this huge
career defining achievement. But Jokic winning and I believe he's
going to We're gonna talk about all the reasons why.
It just feels like the one step in what could
(04:02):
be a magnificent career. I mean, the dude's twenty six
years old. I mean he could win. He's gonna be
back on this stage. Every single one of these Denver
Nuggets players that's in their core rotation is under contract
for next year and likely will return. The only guy
that they could end up losing is a guy like
Bruce Brown. But like, they're gonna be right back on
this stage in the future. And that's what kind of
(04:23):
is cool about this. It feels a lot like history
in the making. I was a little concerned about this
series going in. You know, it's funny. There's a lot
of narrative surrounding this series of it being boring from
the standpoint of the drama or the or the interestingness
of the players. I disagree with that. To me, drama
takes away from the game of basketball anyway, and I
(04:45):
actually find these teams to be very interesting from a
basketball perspective. The Heat being this team that squeezes everything
out of their talent by virtue of brilliant coaching and
excellent play from their stars, and just a lot of
guys that have chips on their shoulder, and then Denver
truly achieving unguardability, like we talked about during the Western
Conference Finals, which we're going to spend a lot of
(05:05):
time talking about. It's very interesting on that level. However,
there's a reason why I was rooting for Boston in
the last round, and it's because I have so much
respect for how good this Denver Nuggets team is. Even
though I didn't like Boston, I knew it was going
to require a great deal of talent and athleticism in
size to even attempt to challenge Denver. And that's what's
(05:26):
concerning because as I look at this particular game tonight,
Miami won a lot of battles that Denver's been winning
in earlier rounds. All of the things that can be
squeezed out of talent, Miami won. For instance, they held
up on the glass. Remember the Nuggets obliterated the Lakers
(05:46):
on the glass when they came in Lasadaisical in Game one.
They were a twenty to three at rebounding advantage at
one of the first TV timeouts, which is insane. Miami
had forty three rebounds in this game. Denver had forty four.
They held up really well. As a matter of fact,
Miami got eleven offensive rebounds in this game. The Heat
only had eight turnovers. They had fewer turnovers than Denver
(06:07):
and in general had a very low amount of turnovers.
Their transition defense was incredible. They kept Denver out of
transition for the most part in this game, all those
Bruce Brown semi transition attacks. You know, Duncan Robinson's putting
his body on the line, sliding his feet and getting
in front of guys. They were sprinting back in general
and building a wall and making guys play in a crowd.
(06:27):
They did a ton of things extremely well, and it
just didn't matter. They lost by double figures. Miami even
made one of their patented fourth quarter runs right where
they just keep competing while you kind of let your
foot off the gas a little bit. I think they
got it to nine at one point during that stretch
when Nikola Jokicic was off the floor, They're running a
lot of zone. They were getting out in transition, and
(06:50):
then Jokis checks back into the game and immediately scores
twice in a row. There was that against their zone.
They stayed in the zone, and we're gonna talk a
little bit about zone because I actually think that might
be Miami's best chance to get stops in this series,
as crazy as that sounds, which we'll get to in
a little bit. But first possession, they come back in
and they ran a really interesting double screen. So like
there's two guys in the two top guys in the
zone in the two three, and Contavious Cobble Pope and
(07:12):
Yokic come up and set screens on the two guys,
and Jokic is the last guy. Gabe Vincent is that
top left guy in the zone. He has to show
as Jamal Murray is coming out right because if he doesn't,
Jamal is just gonna turn the corner and get into
the lane or get a wide open jump shot. Right
right as Vincent shows, Jokic slips, and right when he slips,
that's when Jamal Murray throws the pass. He catches and
makes an easy floater in a lane, a shot he's
(07:33):
gonna make every single time, because again, that's what causes
so many problems for teams with Denver. They are completely
fundamentally unguardable. Then he came back on the very next
possession they switch back to man. He gets bam at
a bio in the middle of the lane and makes
a short, little fadeaway jump shot in the lane, another
shot he's been making well over fifty percent of the
time this entire season, And just like that, Bam, it's
(07:55):
back up to thirteen points and the game feels like
it's over. Miami did a lot of things right and
still lost. Now you're gonna say things like Miami didn't
shoot the ball particularly well. These things are connected. They
always are. Like the Lakers physically mauled the Warriors, and
so then the Warriors couldn't make shots because guess what,
(08:19):
when you're battling bigger players all over the floor, when
you're boxing out, sprinting, in transition, fronting the post. Miami
did a ton of fronting the post tonight. When you
do those sorts of things, it wears your legs out.
And then when you trigger your muscle memory and then
wide open shot situation, the energy's off because you don't
quite have the same amount of lift as you normally do,
(08:41):
so you start compensating at the top part of your shot.
Your muscle memory is off. Now you're missing shots. The
Lakers bullied the Warriors, the Warriors missed a ton of shots.
Then the Lakers went into a bigger matchup against Denver.
Denver bullied the Lakers. A bunch of guys shot poorly.
Lebron had been working on his jump shot like crazy,
shot thirty nine percent from three over the finals five
games of the Warriors series and literally couldn't make a
(09:03):
jumper in the Denver series. And D'Angelo Russell completely crumbled
and couldn't make a jumper. That's what happens. Everyone wants
to attribute shot result to luck, and don't get me wrong,
there's a little bit of luck at play there. But
what is it that causes a good shooting night versus
a bad shooting night. It's all of those other factors
(09:24):
that lead into it. And so Denver bullied the Lakers
into missing a bunch of shots. And look at this.
This is a Miami team that has been lights out
from three in two of the three series. In this
postseason run, they finally run into a team that truly
makes them work to another level. Then they've had to
work in either any of their previous rounds, and suddenly
(09:44):
guys like Max Struz are hitting the front rim on
A lot of these shots. All of a sudden, Gay
Vincent's hitting the front rim. Kyle Lowry was really the
only guy on the team that was confidently rising into
shots and knocking them down. That stuff is all connected, Denver.
One of their best forms of defense is the way
they wear on you on the offensive end of the floor.
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When I look at this series, I was talking to
my friend Mark Titis over at Barstool Sports yesterday and
we were just kind of talking about you know, he
goes to me, he says, is there any way Like
He's like, rather than me asking you how Miami can win,
(11:32):
let's just fast forward and pretend Miami wins. Tell me
how how would it be Like what would be the
story if Miami had won? And I immediately went to
the offensive end of the floor because I cannot see
a scenario or Miami can consistently get stops against this team.
You know, it's funny because everyone's obsessed in sports media
(11:53):
with predictions like tell us what's gonna happen, and I've
always thought that's stupid. You know, I do it because
it's part of the job. I always tell you, guys,
even when I get predictions right, I'm just lucky, right,
because this is sports. Sports is chaos. Sports is completely unpredictable.
How many of you guys in your Eastern Conference Finals
predictions had the Heat going up three to zero, then
the Celtics getting back to back blowouts, and then the
(12:15):
Celtics going up big on the road in Game six,
toasting away a double digit lead in the final minutes,
only to steal it at the buzzer, then go home
and get their ass kicked. How many of you guys
had that? None of you. Because it's sports and it's chaos.
I've always been more interested in the post mortem, in
the briefing, in the diagnosis of what happened after the fact.
That to me is what's interesting. Where are these basketball
(12:37):
games won and lost? And what's funny is when you
look at the defense dynamic that every coach that every
coach is trying to figure out from a game plan perspective,
there's a trade off, right, if you leave a guy
on an island and you stay home on shooters, Like
you're gonna force that guy to take a lot of
(12:57):
isolation shots, but are gonna disrupt their rhythm and keep
them home off ball, and chances are like you're gonna
be able to get a certain amount of stops or
fatigue that star to the point where he starts to miss.
Later in the game, you're gonna have some success. Or
the opposite, Right, you're double teaming the star, and now
you're getting these off ball shots, but like you're forcing
them to the right shooters, and so they're converting them
(13:21):
at a lower rate, and so you're starting to have
some success because the right guys are shooting in their
missing shots. Right. That is that concept right there. Denver
broke that they've destroyed that concept. If you leave Yokic
on an island, he is going to score almost every
single time if you double team him. It's not an
(13:43):
average shooter on the back line. It is a dead eye,
knockdown shooter. And so they are fundamentally unguardable. Man de
man situations. We saw this in all the film this
from this regular season. We talked about it in man
de man situations this year when Miami ran drop coverage
against Nicol yokicch and Jamal Murray. They did it four times.
(14:05):
Jamal Murray scored on all four possessions. So are you
stunned that tonight when they ran their drop coverage, Jamal
Murray got going and scored a bunch. I mean, they
can't be guarded that way, Okay, So let's try switching. Well,
we started switching these actions and Jokic is scoring in
the post. Oh, we're switching off ball actions with Aaron Gordon.
(14:26):
Let's just pound the ball inside to Aaron Gordon. He
scores what twelve points by the second TV timeout? Like
that's crazy. During the regular season, Denver posted up Miami
thirty times and scored forty seven points. So we saw
a ton of examples of that switching and it just
didn't work. Okay, you go zone and Miami actually had
(14:49):
a little bit of success with zones. And I haven't
seen the numbers yet because it hadn't been updated by
the time I went live, but we will go over
those numbers in the film session tomorrow. They had some success,
but when it really came down to it at the
end of the game and they needed buckets, they got
buckets in the zone. Every single time, getting the ball
to Jokic in the middle of the floor, him either
scoring or hitting cutters along the baseline or hitting shooters
(15:10):
on the wing. It's just too difficult. There is no
defensive answer for this Denver team. Again, Guys, last round,
it was Lebron James and Ruey Hatchamura, two guys that
were six ' nine and just chiseled with muscle, banging
in with Nikola Jokic, with Anthony Freakin Davis on the
(15:32):
back line, and they were helpless. They had nothing, there
was nothing they could do. They lit them up for
one hundred and twenty two points per one hundred possessions.
They destroyed that Lakers defense. This Miami defense is more
fundamentally sound, especially in transition, and they're a little bit
better in the half court as well. Their rotations are
a little sharper. They compete more on a possession by
possession basis. But you're downsizing. Bam Adebayo is giving up
(15:55):
what thirty forty pounds in several inches to Nikola Jokic.
Jimmy Butler is giving up three four inches to Aaron
Gordon and twenty thirty pounds. You know, Max Struz has
given up a bunch of weight to Michael Port like
they're They're just completely overmatched physically down the line, and
(16:15):
there's no amount of coaching or schematic approach or just
give a shit chip on your shoulder competitiveness that can
make up for that. That's the problem again. Against the
three teams that came before Miami or Miami played Boston,
New York and Milwaukee, ye had crippling weaknesses in their
half court offense that Miami was able to exploit, and
(16:39):
Boston's defense wasn't as sharp and so they were to
be able to capitalize with relocating shooters. This Denver team
is excellent at all of the things Miami has been
capitalizing on during this postseason. That makes it extremely difficult
to counter all of the things that we saw in
the regular season. Came to fruition, They dominated the heat
(16:59):
in the poets, They killed them in pick and roll
with Murray's scoring. Michael Porter Junior was excellent. I actually
thought Denver in general defended a hell of a lot
better than they've been given credit for throughout this entire
playoff run. Bruce Brown came in off the bench and
was hitting shots. You know, it's crazy. I was looking
it up today. Bruce Brown shot below forty percent on
(17:21):
floaters during the regular season, sixty four percent on floaters
during the playoffs. He was nine for fourteen. Made two
more of them tonight, just getting downhill and pick and roll,
pinning the defender on that other side, just kind of
bumping him off a little bit and making that little
floater in the lane. Ever, this team is so damn good.
I think they're great even juxtaposed against recent champions, and like, look,
(17:45):
the Miami could shoot better. They have some adjustments they
can make. I put down a few of them. They
can go bigger, like they can go with h They
can go with Kevin Love. And Kevin Love obviously is
not as quick as he used to be, but he's
an expert at body position and leverage, so you can
ask him to front the post a little bit, or
(18:05):
bang with Yokic on different spots and put bam At
a bio into a help situation. They can play a
lot more zone. Again, I don't have the numbers yet,
but they did have some success with zone. It seemed
to actually disrupt Denver's flow a little bit. Uh, But
like the reality is is the Nuggets are kind of
adjustment proof on that end of the floor and like
praying that everything is connected like Phoenix. Game one mails
(18:30):
it in right. Then in game two they bring all
this defensive effort, they turn it into a slugfest. But
then they can't hit any shots. Why cause their bodies
are beat the shit from battling with everybody all game long.
Like again, when you're fronting the post or you're banging
with a dude in a box out, that's literally like
you're on a like press machine. Like watch footage of
(18:53):
Bam at a bio fronting the post. He's down in
a squad, he's got his back, Yoki is pushing on
his back and he's like pressing him up. You're in
the gym, like pressing two hundred and fifty pounds and
then going down and trying to take a floating jump
shot in the lane. Like it's I don't see a
scenario where they just suddenly are knocking down all these shots.
Maybe when they get back to Miami and they have
(19:14):
a little bit of adrenaline rush. But I said this
before the series, and I mean it. I struggle to
find basketball reasons for how Miami can win games in
this series. And I hope I'm wrong because I would
love to have a more competitive NBA Finals, But I
think we could be in some trouble here. I think
Denver has an opportunity to get this thing over with
relatively quickly. All right, guys, that is all I have
(19:36):
for tonight. Like I said, I'm not gonna do to
too much of a deep dive into the x's and o's.
I'm gonna wake up tomorrow morning. I'm gonna watch all
the film over and over again. Get some numbers. Follow
me on Twitter because I usually tweet out video links
as well as some of the stats that I find
for my analytical platforms, and then I'll be recording that
film session. It'll be on the feeds sometime tomorrow afternoon.
As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys, and I'll see
(19:56):
you then. The volume
The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at
the Volume, Happy Thursday, everybody. Coverage of the NBA Finals.
Here in Hoops Tonight is brought to you by Chase
(00:22):
Freedom Unlimited. How do you cash back? Well, you're also
live on AMPS, So if you're listening on the YouTube
feed or on a podcast feed, don't forget that AMP
is the very first place that you guys can get
these shows. Well. Game one of the NBA Finals goes
to the Denver Nuggets, who are still undefeated at home.
I thought that that was an especially concerning game for
(00:43):
Miami Heat fans because I thought the Heat did a
lot of things really well in that game. They won
a lot of battles against Denver that Denver has been
winning against everybody else in this postseason run, and they
still lost by double figure. So we're gonna get into it.
I'm not gonna go too deep into the x's and
o's tonight because we're be doing our film sessions on
the day after the Finals, so keep an eye on
the feeds tomorrow in the afternoon time for that full
(01:07):
length film breakdown. But we are gonna dive into a
bunch of stuff that I noticed in the live show.
You guys know the drip before we get started. To
subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss
any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at
underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss an show
announcements in it. For whatever reason, you guys miss one
of these videos, you can't get back over to YouTube
to finish. Don't forget. You can find them wherever you
get your podcasts Under Hoops Tonight, Last min nott Least,
(01:28):
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Enter your email and code Hoops. That's Hops for twenty
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price guaranteed. All right, I love the NBA Finals. I
was watching that intro video that they always play right
before tip off. It's not as long as it used
to be. Some of you older fans will remember. It
(02:34):
used to be a much more produced video that had
a lot of history in it. You know, this is
kind of an interesting series because there's not a ton
of history in this particular series, Like Jimmy's been there before.
A couple of these guys have been there before, but
a lot of these guys, especially the stars, are guys
that have never won championships before, and kind of reminds
me a little bit of the twenty twenty one NBA Finals,
(02:56):
where it feels more like the beginning of history. You know,
we look back, You look back at a guy like
Steph Curry or Lebron James, and they have four championships each, right,
But what happens is you go back and it's like
there was a time in twenty fifteen when Steph looked
like a baby on ABC competing in the NBA Finals,
and at the time, like, if I would have told
(03:18):
you everything that was coming after and you would have
looked at that for what it was, which was a
little piece of history, you would have had a little
bit more appreciation for it. Same thing goes for Lebron James,
like in the twenty twelve finals, you know they win
a lot of those games were competitive, but they win
in five games and at the time you're like, oh,
you know, Lebron won a title. But it's like it's
(03:39):
kind of the beginning of history there. And that's kind
of what this felt like to me, because not only
for either of these guys, regardless of who wins, it's
a significant marker. If Jimmy Butler wins, it's this huge
career defining achievement. But Jokic winning and I believe he's
going to We're gonna talk about all the reasons why.
It just feels like the one step in what could
(04:02):
be a magnificent career. I mean, the dude's twenty six
years old. I mean he could win. He's gonna be
back on this stage. Every single one of these Denver
Nuggets players that's in their core rotation is under contract
for next year and likely will return. The only guy
that they could end up losing is a guy like
Bruce Brown. But like, they're gonna be right back on
this stage in the future. And that's what kind of
(04:23):
is cool about this. It feels a lot like history
in the making. I was a little concerned about this
series going in. You know, it's funny. There's a lot
of narrative surrounding this series of it being boring from
the standpoint of the drama or the or the interestingness
of the players. I disagree with that. To me, drama
takes away from the game of basketball anyway, and I
(04:45):
actually find these teams to be very interesting from a
basketball perspective. The Heat being this team that squeezes everything
out of their talent by virtue of brilliant coaching and
excellent play from their stars, and just a lot of
guys that have chips on their shoulder, and then Denver
truly achieving unguardability, like we talked about during the Western
Conference Finals, which we're going to spend a lot of
(05:05):
time talking about. It's very interesting on that level. However,
there's a reason why I was rooting for Boston in
the last round, and it's because I have so much
respect for how good this Denver Nuggets team is. Even
though I didn't like Boston, I knew it was going
to require a great deal of talent and athleticism in
size to even attempt to challenge Denver. And that's what's
(05:26):
concerning because as I look at this particular game tonight,
Miami won a lot of battles that Denver's been winning
in earlier rounds. All of the things that can be
squeezed out of talent, Miami won. For instance, they held
up on the glass. Remember the Nuggets obliterated the Lakers
(05:46):
on the glass when they came in Lasadaisical in Game one.
They were a twenty to three at rebounding advantage at
one of the first TV timeouts, which is insane. Miami
had forty three rebounds in this game. Denver had forty four.
They held up really well. As a matter of fact,
Miami got eleven offensive rebounds in this game. The Heat
only had eight turnovers. They had fewer turnovers than Denver
(06:07):
and in general had a very low amount of turnovers.
Their transition defense was incredible. They kept Denver out of
transition for the most part in this game, all those
Bruce Brown semi transition attacks. You know, Duncan Robinson's putting
his body on the line, sliding his feet and getting
in front of guys. They were sprinting back in general
and building a wall and making guys play in a crowd.
(06:27):
They did a ton of things extremely well, and it
just didn't matter. They lost by double figures. Miami even
made one of their patented fourth quarter runs right where
they just keep competing while you kind of let your
foot off the gas a little bit. I think they
got it to nine at one point during that stretch
when Nikola Jokicic was off the floor, They're running a
lot of zone. They were getting out in transition, and
(06:50):
then Jokis checks back into the game and immediately scores
twice in a row. There was that against their zone.
They stayed in the zone, and we're gonna talk a
little bit about zone because I actually think that might
be Miami's best chance to get stops in this series,
as crazy as that sounds, which we'll get to in
a little bit. But first possession, they come back in
and they ran a really interesting double screen. So like
there's two guys in the two top guys in the
zone in the two three, and Contavious Cobble Pope and
(07:12):
Yokic come up and set screens on the two guys,
and Jokic is the last guy. Gabe Vincent is that
top left guy in the zone. He has to show
as Jamal Murray is coming out right because if he doesn't,
Jamal is just gonna turn the corner and get into
the lane or get a wide open jump shot. Right
right as Vincent shows, Jokic slips, and right when he slips,
that's when Jamal Murray throws the pass. He catches and
makes an easy floater in a lane, a shot he's
(07:33):
gonna make every single time, because again, that's what causes
so many problems for teams with Denver. They are completely
fundamentally unguardable. Then he came back on the very next
possession they switch back to man. He gets bam at
a bio in the middle of the lane and makes
a short, little fadeaway jump shot in the lane, another
shot he's been making well over fifty percent of the
time this entire season, And just like that, Bam, it's
(07:55):
back up to thirteen points and the game feels like
it's over. Miami did a lot of things right and
still lost. Now you're gonna say things like Miami didn't
shoot the ball particularly well. These things are connected. They
always are. Like the Lakers physically mauled the Warriors, and
so then the Warriors couldn't make shots because guess what,
(08:19):
when you're battling bigger players all over the floor, when
you're boxing out, sprinting, in transition, fronting the post. Miami
did a ton of fronting the post tonight. When you
do those sorts of things, it wears your legs out.
And then when you trigger your muscle memory and then
wide open shot situation, the energy's off because you don't
quite have the same amount of lift as you normally do,
(08:41):
so you start compensating at the top part of your shot.
Your muscle memory is off. Now you're missing shots. The
Lakers bullied the Warriors, the Warriors missed a ton of shots.
Then the Lakers went into a bigger matchup against Denver.
Denver bullied the Lakers. A bunch of guys shot poorly.
Lebron had been working on his jump shot like crazy,
shot thirty nine percent from three over the finals five
games of the Warriors series and literally couldn't make a
(09:03):
jumper in the Denver series. And D'Angelo Russell completely crumbled
and couldn't make a jumper. That's what happens. Everyone wants
to attribute shot result to luck, and don't get me wrong,
there's a little bit of luck at play there. But
what is it that causes a good shooting night versus
a bad shooting night. It's all of those other factors
(09:24):
that lead into it. And so Denver bullied the Lakers
into missing a bunch of shots. And look at this.
This is a Miami team that has been lights out
from three in two of the three series. In this
postseason run, they finally run into a team that truly
makes them work to another level. Then they've had to
work in either any of their previous rounds, and suddenly
(09:44):
guys like Max Struz are hitting the front rim on
A lot of these shots. All of a sudden, Gay
Vincent's hitting the front rim. Kyle Lowry was really the
only guy on the team that was confidently rising into
shots and knocking them down. That stuff is all connected, Denver.
One of their best forms of defense is the way
they wear on you on the offensive end of the floor.
(10:07):
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When I look at this series, I was talking to
my friend Mark Titis over at Barstool Sports yesterday and
we were just kind of talking about you know, he
goes to me, he says, is there any way Like
He's like, rather than me asking you how Miami can win,
(11:32):
let's just fast forward and pretend Miami wins. Tell me
how how would it be Like what would be the
story if Miami had won? And I immediately went to
the offensive end of the floor because I cannot see
a scenario or Miami can consistently get stops against this team.
You know, it's funny because everyone's obsessed in sports media
(11:53):
with predictions like tell us what's gonna happen, and I've
always thought that's stupid. You know, I do it because
it's part of the job. I always tell you, guys,
even when I get predictions right, I'm just lucky, right,
because this is sports. Sports is chaos. Sports is completely unpredictable.
How many of you guys in your Eastern Conference Finals
predictions had the Heat going up three to zero, then
the Celtics getting back to back blowouts, and then the
(12:15):
Celtics going up big on the road in Game six,
toasting away a double digit lead in the final minutes,
only to steal it at the buzzer, then go home
and get their ass kicked. How many of you guys
had that? None of you. Because it's sports and it's chaos.
I've always been more interested in the post mortem, in
the briefing, in the diagnosis of what happened after the fact.
That to me is what's interesting. Where are these basketball
(12:37):
games won and lost? And what's funny is when you
look at the defense dynamic that every coach that every
coach is trying to figure out from a game plan perspective,
there's a trade off, right, if you leave a guy
on an island and you stay home on shooters, Like
you're gonna force that guy to take a lot of
(12:57):
isolation shots, but are gonna disrupt their rhythm and keep
them home off ball, and chances are like you're gonna
be able to get a certain amount of stops or
fatigue that star to the point where he starts to miss.
Later in the game, you're gonna have some success. Or
the opposite, Right, you're double teaming the star, and now
you're getting these off ball shots, but like you're forcing
them to the right shooters, and so they're converting them
(13:21):
at a lower rate, and so you're starting to have
some success because the right guys are shooting in their
missing shots. Right. That is that concept right there. Denver
broke that they've destroyed that concept. If you leave Yokic
on an island, he is going to score almost every
single time if you double team him. It's not an
(13:43):
average shooter on the back line. It is a dead eye,
knockdown shooter. And so they are fundamentally unguardable. Man de
man situations. We saw this in all the film this
from this regular season. We talked about it in man
de man situations this year when Miami ran drop coverage
against Nicol yokicch and Jamal Murray. They did it four times.
(14:05):
Jamal Murray scored on all four possessions. So are you
stunned that tonight when they ran their drop coverage, Jamal
Murray got going and scored a bunch. I mean, they
can't be guarded that way, Okay, So let's try switching. Well,
we started switching these actions and Jokic is scoring in
the post. Oh, we're switching off ball actions with Aaron Gordon.
(14:26):
Let's just pound the ball inside to Aaron Gordon. He
scores what twelve points by the second TV timeout? Like
that's crazy. During the regular season, Denver posted up Miami
thirty times and scored forty seven points. So we saw
a ton of examples of that switching and it just
didn't work. Okay, you go zone and Miami actually had
(14:49):
a little bit of success with zones. And I haven't
seen the numbers yet because it hadn't been updated by
the time I went live, but we will go over
those numbers in the film session tomorrow. They had some success,
but when it really came down to it at the
end of the game and they needed buckets, they got
buckets in the zone. Every single time, getting the ball
to Jokic in the middle of the floor, him either
scoring or hitting cutters along the baseline or hitting shooters
(15:10):
on the wing. It's just too difficult. There is no
defensive answer for this Denver team. Again, Guys, last round,
it was Lebron James and Ruey Hatchamura, two guys that
were six ' nine and just chiseled with muscle, banging
in with Nikola Jokic, with Anthony Freakin Davis on the
(15:32):
back line, and they were helpless. They had nothing, there
was nothing they could do. They lit them up for
one hundred and twenty two points per one hundred possessions.
They destroyed that Lakers defense. This Miami defense is more
fundamentally sound, especially in transition, and they're a little bit
better in the half court as well. Their rotations are
a little sharper. They compete more on a possession by
possession basis. But you're downsizing. Bam Adebayo is giving up
(15:55):
what thirty forty pounds in several inches to Nikola Jokic.
Jimmy Butler is giving up three four inches to Aaron
Gordon and twenty thirty pounds. You know, Max Struz has
given up a bunch of weight to Michael Port like
they're They're just completely overmatched physically down the line, and
(16:15):
there's no amount of coaching or schematic approach or just
give a shit chip on your shoulder competitiveness that can
make up for that. That's the problem again. Against the
three teams that came before Miami or Miami played Boston,
New York and Milwaukee, ye had crippling weaknesses in their
half court offense that Miami was able to exploit, and
(16:39):
Boston's defense wasn't as sharp and so they were to
be able to capitalize with relocating shooters. This Denver team
is excellent at all of the things Miami has been
capitalizing on during this postseason. That makes it extremely difficult
to counter all of the things that we saw in
the regular season. Came to fruition, They dominated the heat
(16:59):
in the poets, They killed them in pick and roll
with Murray's scoring. Michael Porter Junior was excellent. I actually
thought Denver in general defended a hell of a lot
better than they've been given credit for throughout this entire
playoff run. Bruce Brown came in off the bench and
was hitting shots. You know, it's crazy. I was looking
it up today. Bruce Brown shot below forty percent on
(17:21):
floaters during the regular season, sixty four percent on floaters
during the playoffs. He was nine for fourteen. Made two
more of them tonight, just getting downhill and pick and roll,
pinning the defender on that other side, just kind of
bumping him off a little bit and making that little
floater in the lane. Ever, this team is so damn good.
I think they're great even juxtaposed against recent champions, and like, look,
(17:45):
the Miami could shoot better. They have some adjustments they
can make. I put down a few of them. They
can go bigger, like they can go with h They
can go with Kevin Love. And Kevin Love obviously is
not as quick as he used to be, but he's
an expert at body position and leverage, so you can
ask him to front the post a little bit, or
(18:05):
bang with Yokic on different spots and put bam At
a bio into a help situation. They can play a
lot more zone. Again, I don't have the numbers yet,
but they did have some success with zone. It seemed
to actually disrupt Denver's flow a little bit. Uh, But
like the reality is is the Nuggets are kind of
adjustment proof on that end of the floor and like
praying that everything is connected like Phoenix. Game one mails
(18:30):
it in right. Then in game two they bring all
this defensive effort, they turn it into a slugfest. But
then they can't hit any shots. Why cause their bodies
are beat the shit from battling with everybody all game long.
Like again, when you're fronting the post or you're banging
with a dude in a box out, that's literally like
you're on a like press machine. Like watch footage of
(18:53):
Bam at a bio fronting the post. He's down in
a squad, he's got his back, Yoki is pushing on
his back and he's like pressing him up. You're in
the gym, like pressing two hundred and fifty pounds and
then going down and trying to take a floating jump
shot in the lane. Like it's I don't see a
scenario where they just suddenly are knocking down all these shots.
Maybe when they get back to Miami and they have
(19:14):
a little bit of adrenaline rush. But I said this
before the series, and I mean it. I struggle to
find basketball reasons for how Miami can win games in
this series. And I hope I'm wrong because I would
love to have a more competitive NBA Finals, But I
think we could be in some trouble here. I think
Denver has an opportunity to get this thing over with
relatively quickly. All right, guys, that is all I have
(19:36):
for tonight. Like I said, I'm not gonna do to
too much of a deep dive into the x's and o's.
I'm gonna wake up tomorrow morning. I'm gonna watch all
the film over and over again. Get some numbers. Follow
me on Twitter because I usually tweet out video links
as well as some of the stats that I find
for my analytical platforms, and then I'll be recording that
film session. It'll be on the feeds sometime tomorrow afternoon.
As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys, and I'll see
(19:56):
you then. The volume
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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