Hoops Tonight - Barkley goes off on Durant, Warriors can't close, Pelicans beat Suns

Jason reacts to Charles Barkley criticizing Kevin Durant for his performance in the Nets-Celtics series, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks’ Game 4 win over DeMar DeRozan and the Bucks, Steph Curry and the Warriors losing to Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets, Jimmy Butler and the Heat pushing Trae Young and the Hawks to the brink of elimination, and Brandon Ingram's Pelicans evening their series with Chris Paul and the Suns.

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Episode Transcript

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(01:46):
dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight,

(02:09):
presented by Fandel here at the volume. Happy Sunday, everybody.
I hope all of you had a great weekend after
going six days in a row. We had a couple
of days off, but my wife, who had been out
of town during the whole time, was in Vegas for
a work trip, and all she wanted to do is relax.
So guess what I did on my two days off.
I watched basketball. I told myself I was gonna unplug

(02:31):
for a little bit and disconnected. Instead I watched all
the games. So that's how it goes sometimes. But on
the bright side. I'm kind of in the loop, which
is a good feeling coming off of a weekend. But
we have a lot of basketball to talk about tonight.
We're gonna start by talking some Sons Pelicans. Obviously that
series looks like it's gonna be a lot more of
a war than we expected, obviously fueled by injuries. We'll

(02:54):
talk a little bit about the Warriors Nuggets game today
and what we might or may not have earned there,
and then we're gonna talk a little bit about the
Celtics Nets game yesterday, which I think was the top
story of the weekend in a lot of different ways,
and easily the most interesting series because of the greatness
we're seeing on one end and the combustion we're seeing

(03:15):
on the other end. So we'll get into that a
little bit, and then at the end, we're gonna go
rapid fire through all of the series. No Carson tonight,
you guys are stuck with me, but he will be
back tomorrow. Let's start with the Suns and the Pelicans.
So I want to start with Brandon Brandon Ingram here,
and we're not gonna get too deep into his backstory
because we did that the last time. He played amazing
in Game two. But what I did want to touch

(03:38):
on here is just how comfortable and successful he's been,
how comfortable he looks, and how dominant he's been as
a first time playoff player against an unbelievably good defensive team.
The Phoenix Suns, as I've said, oh year, are a
team without holes. Now the whole opened up there in

(04:01):
the form of the Devin Booker injury, but not on
the defensive end of the floor. And the Sons have
always had a plethora of great wings to throw at you,
various different types too. You've got your big, bruising wing
and Jay Crowder, and then you've got your longer, you know,
more athleticism based wing in Mikhail Bridges, and then they've

(04:23):
got other guys that can throw at you, like Tory
Craig and like Cam Johnson and so on and so forth.
But Brandon Ingram looks completely undeterred, and it's really impressive
when you factor in the fact that he's the primary
source of all of the Sun's defensive game planning. When
you factor in that, around the league, we're seeing stars struggle,

(04:44):
stars that have had a lot of postseason reps. Demarta
Rosen once again struggled today you're seeing you know or
you know like Demarta Rosen is a tough shot maker,
and when they go in like they did in Game two,
he looks great. But when they're missing, all of a sudden,
their whole offense feels very disjoined. At brandon Ingram has

(05:05):
a lot of Demarda Rosen in his game, but for
whatever reason, he is so much more comfortable even though
he's in a much more difficult environment. And to me,
it's a great bell weather for the rest of this
era for the New Orleans Pelicans because if as you
see around the league, Draymond Green, our colleague here at
the volume touched tweeted the other day very uh in

(05:29):
in a very inflammatory manner. He said that I can't
quote him word for word. He said something along the
lines of not everybody's meant for the playoffs, and he's right,
because of the physicality of the way it's officiated, of
the game planning. There are a lot of guys around
the league to capitalize on the relatively lack of daisical

(05:49):
nature of regular season basketball, and then they get into
a postseason setting and they struggle and brandon Ingram is
showing us right before our eyes that he has made
for this environment. And I think there's a couple of
different reasons why I talk a lot about versatility, especially
when we talk about James harden Right, and the ability
to attack a defense in a bunch of different ways

(06:12):
is the key to not becoming solvable in a postseason series.
And that's what I love about Brandon Ingram's game. He's
got an isolation game like a triple threat face up game.
He can attack you with a live dribble. He's got
all of the dribble combinations. He can do isolation moves
from anywhere on the floor. He can attack you out

(06:32):
of the low post, out of the high post. He
can pass out of pick and roll. He can score
out of pick and roll, he can pass out of
isolation help. He can do just about everything that you
need from an offensive fulcrum, and as a result, he
has all these different angles that he can go to.
This is his third straight efficient thirty point playoff game,

(06:53):
and I think you're gonna see a lot more of
that from Brandon Ingram as the years go by, and
it's a very very exciting aspect for Pelicans fans. Obviously,
there are a bunch of other things. They've got a
round out on that front. I don't think the Pelicans
are good. I still would lean Phoenix to win this
series in six or seven gay obviously and at least
six games. But even if they win, they're not a

(07:15):
team that I have any sort of grand expectations for
this season. But it's a very bright future. And seeing
if you're a fan of any young star in the league,
you're always looking what are they gonna look like in
a playoff series? And Brandon Ingram looks great. You're looking
at John Morant, for instance, and he's struggling a little bit,
particularly on the defensive end of the floor. You're seeing

(07:35):
John Morand get utterly attacked intentionally almost every time by Minnesota.
That's a concern. That's something that and we'll talk about
that at a later point this week. But that's an
example of of a of a glaring flaw that if
you're a Memphis fan, you kind of have to bake
into everything that you plan and as as a fan
of the Grizzlies, says John Moran looks like he's going

(07:56):
to be attacked often on the defensive end of the
floor in the playoffs, same things happening to Trey Young
right now, Brandon Ingram looks like a bona fide two
way star that looks comfortable and successful in the playoffs.
Great sign for the Pelicans. I thought an interesting element
of this particular game was the job that Herb Jones
did on CP three. Obviously you saw them jawing at

(08:18):
each other a lot. You know CP three, This is
the theme of this series, now, you know. I talked
a lot about how Devin Booker and Chris Paul kind
of together amount to what a superstar brings to the table.
You have Chris Paul's playmaking, So if you're playing an
overly aggressive defense, he's kind of the perfect guy to
put the ball in his hands because he's going to

(08:39):
be able to consistently make you pay. We're gonna talk
about this a lot later tonight with the Celtics. Like
in the in the Nets, there's only like four guys
in the entire league that can consistently make guys pay
out of these overly aggressive defenses, and Chris Paul's one
of them. So having that guy huge asset. Then we
look at Devin Booker in gives you that same extreme

(09:01):
high level three level scoring that you're seeing from like
Brandon Ingram for instance, and the two of those guys together,
Chris Paul and Devin Booker bring to the table what
you would expect to get from a bona fide top
ten player in the NBA. But then one of them
goes down. Now, with Devin Booker out, that scoring option
is not there, and you saw the Sons throw an

(09:24):
excuse me, the Appelicans throw a ton of length at
Chris Paul at this point. Because of Chris Paul's slowly
waning speed as he gets older, a guy like GRB.
Jones can cover enough ground to kind of win some
of that chess match stuff with Chris PAULI struggled a
lot tonight as a score after being a dominant score
in Game three. That's the way that the dynamic of
a series can change when you pull out an important

(09:47):
cog like that, And it's an interesting dynamic the rest
of the series because coming into the series, who is
the best player in the entire series Devin Booker, and
this would be one of the few matchups where the
Sons would have the best player in this series. Moving on,
let's say they faced Dallas in the next round. Like
Lucas the best player in that series, right, So like

(10:07):
there and moving forward, that's gonna be a perpetual case
for the Suns. This was the one series where they
had that advantage. Devin Booker is better than brandon Ingram. Well,
that was already kind of close with how well Brandon
Ingram is playing, and now with Devin Booker out, the
Pelicans have the best player in the series. That's a
huge swing factor here. Still up in the air. This

(10:28):
series is very close. I would not be surprised if
the Pelicans won, but this I would be picking the
Suns at this point. But it's a lot closer than
it looks. And that's the way things can change based
on an injury in the postseason. One other quick note,
um or two other quick notes. Jonas Valancinias have been
very critical of him in this series. Coming into tonight.

(10:48):
Through three games, the Pelicans at a one twenty defensive
rating with him on the floor, and we're being outscored
by eight points per one Hunter possessions. And then when
they had Nance on the floor without Jonas, they had
a one fifteen defensive ratings, so five points better, and
they were plus three point three net. I've always liked
the way this team plays better with Larry Nance. You
guys know how I am with traditional bigs. You guys

(11:10):
know how I am with five out basketball and really
spreading the floor, prioritizing foot speed and the ability to
dribble and shoot the basketball. I'm always driven towards Larry Nance.
Bill tonight, I gotta hand it to Jonas Valatunas. He
was a dominant offensive player. It's the one thing you
have to do to make up for a massive shortcoming
is to have one elite skill that you bring to
the table that makes it a net positive trade off.

(11:32):
And if Jonas is gonna be that good offensively, that's
a huge asset. I talked a lot after the book
or injury with our guy Carson about how important it
was gonna be for guys like Mikhail Bridges and guys
like DeAndre Aton and guys like Cam Johnson to have
a ton of points to fulfill some of the missing
scoring from Devin Booker, because all three of those guys

(11:53):
have more elements to their offensive scoring game than than
we've seen in the last couple of years. As a
result of their roles on this particular team. Well, in
Game three, when the Sun's got the big win, Bridges
and Etan went forty five and nineteen. Tonight they went
for thirty one and fourteen. That's just not enough production.
So in order for the Suns to come out with
the way in which I believe they will, they just

(12:14):
need to be better, uh, in the role players, especially
scoring the basketball. My guess is that this ends up
going seven, and the each team wins their home games,
and then the Sun's end up advancing to the next round.
Let's move on to the Warriors and the Nuggets. This
was a game that to me, I've seen dozens and
dozens of times over the course of the NBA playoffs.

(12:37):
A team, you know, usually when they're down three oh,
one of two things going to happen. They're either going
to be thinking about Cancun for lack of a better term,
and be willing to wave the white flag just because
it's not worth it. Or team will show fight. And
usually when they show fight in that down three oh situation,
they win. And the reason why is because it's in

(13:00):
terms of human nature, there is no game in a
playoff series that a favorite is gonna bring less effort
then in an up three oh game on the road
with a chance to close out a team that that
that that is just again, you can't fight that. That's
just human nature. And I thought the Golden State Guards,
even though I've been very complimentary of them of their defense,
Stepping Clay in particular, they're great defensive players over the

(13:23):
course of their careers because of their commitment, not great.
Clay has been great, Step has been good. But those
two guys tonight, in conjunction with Jordan Pool, I thought
they got bullied a bit by the by the Denver guards.
I thought they didn't move as their feet as well
as they needed to, and I thought that was a
big part in Monte Morris going off and in Bones
Highland going off, and that kind of changed the dynamic

(13:45):
of the game. But this is the way I look
at it. If you're a Golden State fan and you're
looking for a silver lining Golden State more made more
field goals, They had more rebounds, then more points in
the paint. They had fewer turnovers, so they played a
pretty damn good game. But draym On Green on the floor,
they were plus eight team and they blew it in
the handful of minutes that Draymond was off the floor,

(14:06):
which is kind of the downside of this matchup. We
talked a lot about Golden State's lack of interior presence,
and you've seen a little bit of that over the
course of the last two games, with Draymond starting to
give a little bit of ground to Yokich. Defended him
extraordinarily well in the first two games. It defended him
well and crunch time of Game three, But for the

(14:27):
rest of Game three and for parts of Game four,
he's starting to wear down and some of that physicality
matchup against Yokich, and that's that's the fear if you're
a Warriors fan, is what happens if you run into
a player like Eighton has been pretty good in the
last two games. It's it's interesting to see how deal
Drayton would hold up in seven games against Draymond. If
Ambiad and the Sixers come out of the Eastern Conference,

(14:49):
that could get interesting. But to me, is your plus
A team with Draymond, You're in great shape. I expect
the Warriors to win big in Game five. They'll gay
They'll get another big fat check for having into their
home game at Chase Center all as well in Warriors Land.
I'm not particularly concerned. There were two parts of this game, though,
that I wanted to touch on before we move on.

(15:11):
One was the way that Steph was attacking attacking Nicola
Yokich late, And again it's not It's not a criticism
of Yokis in the sense that I'm calling him a
bad basketball player. But when people start putting a very
specific standard on these guys, we have to hold them
to that standard. There are a lot of guys in
Denver and in the analytics community that have been pushing

(15:34):
heavily that Nikola Yokich is the best player in the league.
I've always thought of him as like either in the
top tier, as the guy who's clearly at the bottom
of the top tier, or the top guy of the
second tier, give or take, depending on which day you
guys know me. I'm pretty open minded, but I the
reason why I'm not. My general ideology is not to
race to put people at the top. But the reason

(15:56):
why I haven't been so willing to give that kind
of credit it in respect to Yoki is because of
his limitations on the defensive end of the floor in
terms of his foot speed, and I didn't think I
thought it was really telling tonight that at the end
of the game, I should say today, at the end
of the game, when it was time for the Golden
State to really lock in and try to steal that game,

(16:17):
they were just running quick ball screens with Draymond to
try to get yokich Onto to uh. They were just
trying to get yok Onto to step on the left
wing by himself. And when I say the only metaphor
I could possibly use to describe how easily Steph Curry
was just dribbling right around yokich I would say that

(16:39):
he was a traffic comp just the first time he
literally just dribbled right around him, and then the second
time all he had to do was kind of like
hesitate and look up at the rim for a second,
and he went right down the lane and got an one.
That's a concern because that type of matchup exists all
around the league. Even if it's not Steph the quick
guard that's gonna pull Yokis out to the perimeter and

(17:01):
a five out system that that kind of thing is
going to continue to happen to Yoki throughout his career
and all I did so today I tweeted out a
link and I said, this is why I can't rightfully
call Yokis the best player in the game when literally
Golden State is attacking him and getting straight line drives
to the basket every single possession at the end of

(17:22):
the game, to the point where Denver literally had to
remove him from the lineup. Mike Bloan removed him from
the lineup on the biggest defensive possession of the season,
and a lot of people were like, well, Steph does
that to every big. That's the point. That's part of
why I always say that about bigs. People said, Yokis

(17:43):
would do that to Steph. On the other end, You're right,
but Steph is at his position an above average defender,
and in a five out scheme, what matters more is
your ability to dribble, contain then or size at the rim.
It's a far more valuable skill. The size at the

(18:04):
rim becomes more valuable in a drop coverage. But you
can't run drop coverage against the team that's gonna spread
you out like that. That's the conundrum here. And to
the point everyone was like, oh, well, Steph's not a
fantastic defensive player too. That was the big reason why.
Even though I loved Steph and everything that he brought
to the table, that was one of the reasons why

(18:26):
I had Lebron ahead of him was his ability to
ly in physicality on the offensive end, in his ability
to impact games defensively. Step for all of his effort,
is an above average defensive player, but he's not a
great defensive player. That was the difference. But again, I
just thought it was jarring to watch Yoki at the
end of the game getting picked on and not just
picked on like you know, we're this is just the

(18:49):
best matchup for us to go at, so let's try it. No, no, no.
When they got him on the wing, it was a
straight line drive and there was nothing Denver could do
to recover out of it. It's a major concern. Not
doesn't mean Yoki sucks, doesn't mean Yoki isn't an All Star,
doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to win m v P
or any of those things. All it means is that's
why he's closer to the six or seventh best player

(19:11):
in the league than the first best player in the league.
That's just my opinion. If you guys disagree, that's fine,
It's just the way I see the game. I don't
like the idea that your super duperstar can be targeted
that easily. Now, the last thing I wanted to hit
on this particular game was the final play. Now, everyone
loves to bag on their coach, trust me, all of
you guys who have been fans of a team for

(19:33):
a long time. I dealt with it with Laker fans
this year with Frank Vogel, although I thought they were
had a little bit more of a like to stand
on because Frank did have a particularly rough season. But
Steve curse of a very smart coach. In my opinion,
he doesn't do everything that I agree with. But one
of the consistent things that Warriors fans dislike about Steve
Kerr is their willingness. Is his willingness to use Curry

(19:55):
as a decoy rather than using him as the primary option.
And on the last play of the game, or the
pivotal play of the game, when they needed a basket,
they did you step as a decoy and they tried
to get a seal under the basket for Andrew Wiggins
and Austin Rivers. Blew it up now before we break
down the play Austin Rivers had a really interesting quote

(20:17):
after the game. I don't want to play that for
you guys here it is no but we had an idea.
When I saw Wiggins said in that screen, I knew
exactly where he was going. I've seen them run that
play a couple of times. They've actually gotten us on
that one time earlier in the season. So um, as
soon as I saw him do that, I knew they
were gonna try to throw it to him in there.
When I turned and faced him and I saw him
looking that way, UM, I knew I could get that steal. Uh.

(20:39):
So you know, there's a lot of communication though tonight.
Guys are telling me, you know what to do. It
allows me to to to do what I do best
out there, and that's defend um. So I love when
we hear that kind of stuff from from players immediately
after the game. One of my favorite things about having
Draymond Green at the volume is his reactions within a

(21:02):
playoff series from a player on the teams in a
podcast format like this is turning into some of the
best content that you can find in sports. If you
guys haven't heard it, you always gotta check out Draymond
Green after his games. In the volume podcast feeds Now
with Austin Rivers. What he brought up, I think is
a really interesting point here, because when I saw that play,

(21:23):
you know what I thought, I thought Otto Porter Jr.
Messed up because Andrew Wiggins wasn't open and he threw
the pass. Now, there's a couple of interesting things surrounding that.
First of all, what Austin Rivers just said is precisely
why sets become less valuable in a postseason setting than

(21:45):
they are in the regular season. Austin seen that play before,
and one of the reasons why Steve Kirk called that
play is because he's expecting a switch and he knew
that the smaller defender was guarding Steph. He knew that
if he set a solid screen, he'd get a switch,
and there was even a possibility that multiple defenders would

(22:07):
run with Steph, and he thought he'd be able to
get a lob over the top to Andrew Wiggins. But
that wasn't the only area of the play. If Wiggins
had the deep seal on it, Austin Rivers in the
past was available, you throw the pass and you get
the layout. But Steph came off of that screen and
was flying out to the corner, and he had an advantage,

(22:28):
and I think he would have been open in the corner.
Otto Porter Jr's job is if the read is not there,
don't throw it and hits Steph in the corner. So
I see why it's easy for I see why it's
easy for Warriors fans to be like, here goes Steve
Kerr again. He drew up a play for Andrew Wiggins. No,

(22:49):
he drew up a play that had multiple reads, one
of which was hit Andrew Wiggins. If he has an
advantage because they're overplaying Steph and he it's a small
guy pinned on him. That read wasn't open. There was
another part of the play Steph coming out to the
corner that was the guy out of Porter Jr. Was
supposed to hit. And again if and all the Warriors

(23:11):
fans are like, why didn't they just throw it into
Steph Curry and let him go to work, Here's something
else that might have happened. Steph Curry might have ran
out to half court and grabbed the ball and he
would have either been doubled at half court or if
he dribbled up the floor. As soon as he got
to an area of score, they would have doubled him.
Or if he called for a ball screen, they would
have doubled him, and the ball would have ended up

(23:32):
in someone else's hands. And if that person, that person
then suddenly becomes in the exact same position out of
Porter Jr. Was in. If he makes the right read
out of a full on three, everything is great. If
he makes the bad read out of the four on three,
the play falls apart. The play call wasn't the issue,
Steve Kerr wasn't the issue. OUTO Porter Jr. Just made

(23:54):
a bad read and then, just like Austin River said,
and this is the last thing I'll say about it.
These guys scout a lot. If you run a set
once and it works on them, they remember it, and
if it would have worked in this particular game, never
would have worked again in the series because they would
have snuffed it out for the next time. These these
the the idea that like you can xs and oes

(24:16):
your way to victory. There's a little bit of truth
to that, But at the end of the day, it's
about the players. They have to make the reads, they
have to play basketball. That's why the Lakers, with one
of the most you know, dumbed down offensive systems in
in the entire league, won the title in because they

(24:36):
had better players and there are players were able to
execute offensively by just using their advantages and making reads.
So again, I'm picking the Warriors to win big in
Game five. Don't care about Steve Kirk calling that play.
I had it on Auto Porter Jr. And yeah, I'm
concerned about Nicolayoku's ability to play defense on the perimeter
and how that changes his ceiling, you know, as a

(24:58):
championship level player. Before we move on, I wanted you
guys to check out this promo for more shows on
the volume. I it's Colin Coward. I started the volume
to bring you some of the most apathetic voices in sports.
While you're here, make sure you hit subscribe. Thanks. Let's

(25:21):
move on to the nets. Falling down three games to
zero to the Celtics last night. Like I said in
the video that I released right after the game, I
wasn't shocked because I saw something in game two that
had that forced me to change my outlook on a
lot of different things in this playoff run. The night before,

(25:42):
Devin Booker had strained his hamstring, and then in that
particular game, I saw the Celtics in the second half
hit a level of defense that I've never actually seen
before in my time watching the game of basketball. There
was a complete inability of the nets to generate even
remotely decent quality shots. Even when Katie and Kyrie were

(26:06):
getting to their spots, Boston was doing such an incredible
job of crowding them that you could tell they weren't comfortable.
And it's been one of the most interesting parts of
this particular series. Boston is showing flashes of a level
of defense that I haven't seen in my time watching basketball.
Over the course of the last decade and a half,

(26:27):
there are a couple of teams that have come close.
You're I'm talking like the two thousand nineteen Raptors or
like the Lakers. There are examples of really, really good
defenses over the course of the last few years, but
each of them had weaknesses in one way or another.
The Lakers were not good at defending on the perimeter.
At the point of attack, they actually gave up a

(26:47):
lot of straight line drives. They were just great at
rotating out of it. The Toronto Raptors had some size
and quickness issues. They played Fred VanVleet and Kyle Lowry
in large bursts together, or they play Marc Gasol, a
guy who was good in drop coverage and good at
protecting the rim, but not very mobile, not good at
covering grounds, so when you got him in space, he
had some issues. And there were cases to be made

(27:08):
that the Raptors were better with Serge Ibaka at the
center position. This Celtics defense is completely and utterly devoid
of weaknesses. And what's crazy is they bring in pieces
off the bench that even slide well into that same
scheme and that same quality of defense that you get
out of the core five guys. And it's been really

(27:30):
interesting because Katie and Kyrie, you know, there's a lot
of people that are focused on them in particular in
how this series has gone. And I get it. That's
kind of the way that basketball is discussed. Everyone's, especially
on Twitter. It's kind of like everyone's on a side.
Are you on the pro k D side of the
anti k D side? Are you on the pro Kyrie
side and the anti Kyrie side? But it's interesting because

(27:53):
to me, this has been so much more about great
Celtics defense than it has been about bad Nets offense,
and I think we need to remember to give that
credit to Boston because it's very, very important as we
look forward to these next few series. Is one of
the most interesting dynamics of this particular series is even
though Boston is throwing the kitchen sink at trying to

(28:17):
stop Kevin Durant and Kyrie, We've we've broken it down
in detail on the show. Multiple defenders. Every time there's
a dribble drive. The only time they're really operating in
single coverage is when they're twenty ft from the basket.
Anytime there's any action, they're grabbing and they're holding their
airing on the side of sending to double two guys
towards them. They're facing incredibly aggressive defensive coverage is but

(28:39):
Boston is doing such an incredible job rotating out of it.
On the back end. I've talked a lot this year
about how bad the Bucks defense is because of the
fact that they packed the paint and they give up
wide open threes on the back end. The Bucks during
the regular season gave up more than twenty wide open
threes per game on the back end of their def

(29:00):
it well in this playoff run. Through three games, they're
giving up twenty wide open threes on the back end.
So that's very that's that's an example of the way
that they play defense. This Boston team so far in
this series with Brooklyn is only giving up nine point
three wide open threes against Brooklyn, less than half as

(29:23):
many as Milwaukee is giving up in the fewest out
of any of the teams in this entire playoff front. So,
and I would argue that Katie and Kyrie are being
pretty willing passers. We're gonna talk a little bit more
about them as playmakers as we get further into this,
but it's not for Katie and Kyrie jacking up shots.
In the last two games combined, Katie and Kyrie combined

(29:47):
have only taken fifty eight shots, which means they're averaging
between each of them are averaging less than fifteen shots
per game. That's they are not out there gunning. The
Boston d offense is getting the ball out of their hands,
and Boston has good Brooklyn has good offensive players, Guys
like Seth Curry, guys like Patty Mills, Guys like Andre Drummond,

(30:09):
who's a pretty skilled center, right. There are good offensive
players on the floor for Brooklyn working in a lot
of four on three scenarios, and they're not getting anything
on the back end. And that's why I keep saying, like,
what caused me to have to change my outlook on
this entire playoff run. Part of it was the Sons.
Devin Booker's hamstring is pulled. That's a significant change in

(30:32):
the dynamic of the Western Conference playoffs. We've talked about
that in detail. But in addition to that, I have
seen something from Boston that I haven't seen from certainly
any other team in this Eastern Conference playoff field, but
I would argue that I haven't seen this from any
team in recent NBA history. They are touching a level
of defense that we are that we are not accustomed

(30:55):
to seeing, and we have to adjust our expectations moving
forward because of that. Jayson Tatum blocked Kevin Durant again
on a pull up jump shot yesterday. It originally got
called a foul, but on the replay I thought it
was clean. I thought he got the ball first, and
we just don't see that very often. A huge part
of that is because of how dominant Boston's team defense

(31:17):
is Tatum is given the leeway to crowd Kevin Durant more.
And because he's crowding Kevin Durant more, Kevin Durant is
playing with the body underneath him more than he's used to.
And Jayson Tatum has the length to get to the
top of Kadi's shot. It is this unbelievable team, you know,
organism that Boston has working on defense and it's flum

(31:41):
mixed one of the best offenses in the league this year.
So in second halves this season, I think third and
fourth quarter, when Kadi and Kyrie are on the floor together.
In the regular season, those guys averaged a hundred and
twenty four point eight points per one possessions. In this
decond has against Boston in this series, they're only scoring

(32:04):
a hundred and two points six So in addition to
everything that they're doing, they're starting to wear them down
physically and cause problems as the series and as the
games are progressive. If you guys remember back in March,
when Boston really was first starting to catch their stride,
we did a bunch of stuff on them on our show,
and I had some concerns at the time. Tatum and

(32:25):
Brown were shooting particularly well. Obviously you were worried about
Boston potentially as a half court offense. But there were
a couple of very specific things that I pointed to,
And it was after Boston went into Brooklyn and beat
the Nets in a very very exciting game. And in
that game, I couldn't help but notice that Tatum kept
working down and getting Seth Curry on switches. And when

(32:48):
he was getting Seth Curry on those switches, he was
getting great looks and scoring. And then Brooklyn had to
start doubling, and then Boston was getting wide open shots
out of it. Meanwhile, down on the other end of
the floor, Boston and was running a lineup of Al
Horford and Robert Williams with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown
and Marcus Smart, and there were a handful of possessions

(33:08):
where Katie scored it, particularly in switches against Al Horford,
tough midrange pull up jump shots, but he wasn't getting
good shots. And it was like, here, I'm attacking Jayson
Tatum on a very highly contested pull up three. Here's
Robert Williams coming up on a switch and contesting k
D on a three that he nearly blocks you were

(33:28):
seeing k D was trying to pick from a bunch
of really difficult defensive matchups and Jayson Tatum was picking
from significantly easier defensive matchups. And after that game, I
did a video breakdown on this very specific thing, and
I said that the defense for Boston was able to
buy Jason Tatum a margin for error that would allow

(33:52):
him to potentially outplay Kevin Durant, and he has in
this series, and to his credit, because I didn't see
it come. I thought Katie would be the swing factor
in this series, and he hasn't played well. We'll talk
a little bit more about that here in a minute,
but so let's let's look at this playmaking thing because
the most there's been a lot of grave dancing going on,

(34:14):
which we'll talk about a little bit more in just
a second, but a lot of people that are doing
the grave dancing on k D and Kyrie and the
nets are pointing at them as playmakers. And I get
that because it's not a strength of theirs. I've talked
about this a lot on the show. It's a it's
a skill that I personally value a lot. That's why
I've always been drawn to guys like Lebron and guys
like Luka don Chich. I think it's an extremely valuable

(34:36):
playoff skill, but people are forgetting just how rare it is.
I think there's only four guys in the league that
I would call like true dominant playmakers as perimeter initiators.
Luka don Chits, Lebron, James Nicola, Yochi Yoki, and Chris Paul.
Those are the only four that consistently make reads that

(34:57):
thrive in that environment going against the offenses like Boston
that are overly aggressive. And don't get me wrong, I've
watched every one of these games twice in this series,
and there have been a lot of misreads. There have
been opportunities where Katie and Kyrie have missed open guys,
but the same could be said for like I said,
every other player in the league, with exception of that

(35:18):
select four. Now, that's what makes them so great is
they never missed those reads. Guys like Luca, guys like Lebron,
Yr Kitchen, CP three, they are obsessive and they are
programmed in a way that they never missed those reads,
and that's what makes it very difficult to play very
aggressive defense against them. But the flip side of that is,

(35:40):
none of those guys are as good in isolation scoring
as Katie and Kyrie are. It's just a different archetype
of player. You're given some and you're getting some. Obviously,
if I swapped Lebron James into this series, Boston's probably
not as aggressive, and Lebron is gonna face a lot
more single coverage because Boston is gonna be scared to

(36:00):
double a passer as great as Lebron. But the flip
side of that is Lebron in single coverage attacking guys
like Tatum and Brown and now Horford all night long,
he might not have as much success there as a
guy like k D could, at least at this point
in his career prime. Lebron, that's a different story. But
my point is is like, if you're asking Katie and
Kyrie to consistently make high level reads as passers against

(36:23):
an overly aggressive defense, that's an unrealistic expectation that that's
not their strength. And if you were, if they were
capable of that, that very specific skill, they probably wouldn't
be as good in other areas of the game. From
what I can tell in this series, k D is
being a willing passer. He's not forcing shots. I talked
about this earlier. Katie and Kyrie have combined to attempt

(36:45):
only fifty eight shots in the last two games. There
are some forces in there, there are some possessions, particularly Kyrie.
Kyrie has been a lot more recklessly aggressive than k
D has. I would argue k D is actually kind
of overpassed. In Game three, in particular, you can tell
all of this super aggressive defense is starting to get
into his head a little bit because there are plays

(37:06):
where he's the second defender is coming, but he's not
even there yet, and Katie's already panicked getting rid of
the ball. So Katie hasn't been perfect here. I want
to talk a little bit more about how I feel
about how Katie's played in this series here in just
a minute. But the point is is that Katie and
Kyrie are doing the best that they can within their
individual skill sets, at least to try to make Boston

(37:30):
pay for their over aggressiveness. It's just they're not the
type of players that are built to thrive against that
specific type of defense, which brings me to honest, because
Milwaukee took a two, took a three, one lead yesterday
and uh and with Boston being up three, oh, that's
probably what we're headed towards. We're probably headed towards Milwaukee

(37:53):
versus Boston. And the truth of the matter is Janice
is also not a fantastic playmaker. Got into an argument
with some Bucks fans today, is he better than k
d They both average right around six assists per game.
It kind of depends on who you ask. I think
Katie is a better passer than Janice, but it's not
some big difference, right. Both of them are just your

(38:13):
typical guys that are capable of making reads on occasion,
but they're not dominant playmakers. Janice is gonna have very
similar problems. Now there are differences. Janice is going to
be able to thrive in the physicality. If Boston tries
to hold him and grab him off the ball, he's
gonna win that type of matchup. They're gonna be a

(38:33):
lot of like dunks and offensive rebound putbacks and things
like that from Joannice. That are his unbeatable, high level
skill that he brings to the table that Boston will
not be able to match up with. But the flip
side of that is he doesn't have any of the
pull up jump shooting game that guys like Kyrie and
Katie have. Now, Kyrie and Katie have been atrocious as
pull up jump shooters in this series, which is a

(38:54):
credit to Boston's defense. But my point is is that
Janice is going to be in some similar predicaments. He's
also gonna get doubled on the catch a lot. They're
gonna test his handle, They're gonna see if he can
really dribble the basketball as well as as as he
thinks he can. They're gonna see, they're gonna test his
ability to make reads. They're going to send multiple bodies
to him, and he's gonna have to make the same

(39:15):
reads that Katie and Kyrie have been asked to make,
and I don't know if he's gonna be able to
make them. Johanna's fans seems supremely confident and and this
is your big opportunity, Chris Middleton's out. You're not gonna
have a high level three level score that you can
throw the ball to as like an outletter of release
valve for you in these settings, A lot is gonna
be on Janice as a half court creator in this series.

(39:37):
My prediction is that he will also struggle, just like
Kadi did in my prediction as Milwaukee will lose. If
he goes in there and he dominates that series, that's
when I have to have a wake up call about
just how good Jannie is. I just don't think that's
going to happen. I think the other outcome is far
more likely now with Brooklyn. This is where we're gonna

(39:59):
get to the gray dancing here, because it's been an
absolute party over the course of the last day and
a half with everybody and their brother talking about how
bad this Brooklyn experience has been, and it has for
a lot of reasons. Should should Katie have partnered with Kyrie,
a very very finicky person who's not very reliable and
isn't exactly a guy that you can count on in
a lot of different ways. Yeah, I disagree with that strategy.

(40:21):
Was Steve Nash the right coach for the job? You know?
Maybe not? Was it worth it to sell to go
after James hard and knowing everything that was wrong with him? Yeah?
Probably not? But they did find in the trade on
the back end, right, there are some moves there that
I disagree with. Moves on the periphery going after really
old guys like LaMarcus Aldridge and Paul Millsap and Blake Griffin.
Yet those are moves that I disagree with, But at

(40:43):
the same time, let's be honest about what what they
have going forward. They've got Ben Simmons coming back. I'm
not surprised that he's not gonna play in Game four.
Just doesn't make sense to risk his back under the circumstances. Right,
I've got Joe Harris coming back six ft five mobile
shooter who is an okay defensive player, significantly improved offensive

(41:04):
play over a bunch of the options that they've had
to play in this series. And then Ben Simmons gives
you some of that physical presence that they were lacking
in this series. So that's a massive influxive talent coming
into this next season. And again, Kyrie and Katie are aging,
but they're not old yet, so you can probably expect
that Katie and Kyrie are going to be mostly Katie

(41:24):
and Kyrie next year. Not to mention if there's no
vaccine mandate, as long as Katie doesn't excuse me, as
long as Kyrie doesn't just disappear on without telling everybody
for a month. Chances are they won't be a seven seed.
Chances are they'll be a higher seed. They'll have more talent.
Is Brooklyn gonna win the title next year? I don't.
I don't know. They're not gonna be favored. So it's
not like a question of of like, oh, just wait

(41:46):
for Brooklyn next year. They're gonna run everybody. Over All
I'm saying is don't dance on their grave just yet.
They have moves to make, they have talent coming into
the fold. They're gonna be good. A lot of people
did this with the two thousand nineteen Lakers. Oh, Lebron's
bringing wine to the bench. Oh, oh, Lebron is getting
blocked on game winners. Lebron looks washed. And then they
were holding the trophy the next year because they made
some savvy moves in the off season, brought in a

(42:07):
superstar player and Anthony Davis and a lot of things changed.
So don't right off Brooklyn just yet. So let's move
on to k D. I have always hated this about
the way that we talk about NBA players, and it's
a very twitter It's a very Twitter fueled dynamic with

(42:28):
a lot a lot less focus on what's actually happening
on the court and a lot more opportunistic slander. And
we had today after uh we had today on T
and T. Charles Barkley give a perfect example of what
I'm talking about with his comments on k D. I
want to show you guys this clip first and then
I will respond to it. Let me tell you something

(42:49):
I don't want a bad amounth to do, but I'm
so you guys always talk about that championship stuff. I
try to tell you all these buzz routers, they don't
mean nothing to me. If you ain't driving the bus.
Don't walk around and talk about Julia Champion. If you're
riding the bus, I don't want to hear Come on,
Shack tell him all these guys walk around to the the

(43:10):
championship ring. Hey, y'all bus riders, were you bust Were
you the bus driver? And you've got all that pressure
where you have to play? Well, are you gonna get
to blame? That's a different animal. That literally sounds like
a tweet from a faceless account underneath, like something random
that Katie would tweet in the middle of the summer.

(43:32):
That's the kind of discourse that we're getting surrounding this,
and it's disappointing to me at a bunch of different levels.
First of all, throw some credit to Boston. How many
times like Katie is as rounded and confident and experience
two superstars you have in this league, and they have
literally cut him off at the knees in this series.
Give some credit to Boston. That's That's a huge part

(43:55):
of this. The second part of it is the obsession
to make this about head to head match instead of
team basketball. I told you guys before this postseason even started,
I said, I'm not looking forward to the Celtics potentially
beating the Nets and everyone saying Tatum is better than
KD now. And the reason why I said that is
because I knew this would happen. Because this is how

(44:15):
we respond to this sort of thing. I try to
be consistent with this kind of stuff in two thousand seventeen.
In two thousand eighteen, I thought Lebron James was the
best basketball player in the world by a comfortable margin.
He had just firmly demonstrated it against Steph Curry in
two thousand sixteen, and then this is what happened. The
seventy three win Warriors that just went to seven games

(44:38):
with Lebron requiring a game winning pull up jump shot
from Kyrie Irving in a monster, amazing block from Lebron
James to get the trophy. After that game, uh, Kevin
Durant signed with the Golden State Warriors, so everyone with
a brain knew that they were gonna probably win the
next year. And guess what they did. They won fifteen

(44:59):
playoff games, but or they lost one. They had injuries
during the season and still won sixties seven regular season games.
They were an incredibly dominant team. And what was everyone
saying after that series? Oh, Katie outplayed Lebron. Katie's better
than Lebron. Get the two thousand and eighteen. Now Kyrie
is out of the picture. So same talented Warriors team

(45:20):
one less Kyrie Irving and the Calves get swept and
everyone's like, Katie's better than Lebron. Look at him out
playing Lebron, look at him hitting this massive dagger shot
over Lebron in Game three. And it was unfair then
and it's unfair now. Basketball is a team sport. I know,
it seems like fun and it's entertaining to to to

(45:41):
pretend as though it's so that it's just this this
like little mono amano boxing match. But that's not the
way it works. That's incredibly low brow analysis, and so
I'm gonna call it out when I see it. I
thought that was really lame from Charles Barkley. Now with
k D has he been great in this series? Know? There,
Katie deserves some criticism. He has not been impactful enough

(46:06):
on the defensive end and as a rebounder that could
have been a swing factor in this series. I have
to criticize him for that. Throughout his entire career, He's
always put that as less important than some of the
scoring areas of his game. I believe had he embraced
that throughout his career, we'd probably be having a different
conversation about Kevin Durant potentially being the greatest basketball player
ever right now. That's something I've consistently criticized him for.

(46:29):
His inability to handle physicality has been a player a
problem in this series. Has not been a problem at
almost any other point in his career. Not since like
the Memphis Grizzlies in in two thousand thirteen or whatever,
have we seen a team really disrupt Katie with physicality.
But in this series, it's been a problem. He's been

(46:51):
worn down off the ball when he gets to his shots,
He's missing shots he normally makes. And I believe that's
a huge part of that. He has strong gold with
Jayson Tatum in isolation defense because of the physicality and
his ability to press up on Katie and his inability
to thrive in that physic physical environment. That's fair criticism. Also,

(47:12):
he has not made enough high level reads. We talked
about that in detail earlier in this segment. He needs
to be able to make a defense pay for being
that aggressive. That's all fair criticism. Katie did not play
good enough in this series, that is fair. But he
could have played way better and they still would have lost.

(47:35):
That's how good this Boston team is. Kevin Durant could
have exerted more in the physical areas of the game
of defense and they still would have lost. Kevin Durant
could have made more of these pull up jump shots
and they still would have lost. It just would have
been in five or six games instead of in four.
And so what I'm saying is like, if you want
to get on there and you want to show clips

(47:56):
and talk about Katie missing reads, I'm right there with you.
That's criticism, let's do it. But this lame thirty feet
his rings are frauds, He's not a real champion. He
sucks at all this stuff. You know that to me
is just really really lame analysis. And I would hope
that at some point we would be better than that.

(48:18):
And most importantly, if I swapped Lebron and Kadi in
this series and Lebron ran all of these possessions that
Katie is running, would it have looked different? Potentially, meaning
like Boston probably doesn't help as much. Boston is probably
less aggressive, Boston probably tries to turn Lebron into a score.
But I still think Brooklyn loses why because Boston is

(48:40):
one of the best defenses I've ever seen, and they're
the better team in this series. So let's let's just
if you want to be critical of Katie, that's fine.
Let's just at least keep it, you know fair, If
that makes sense. Hi, it's Colin Coward. I started the
volume to bring you some of the most apathetic voices
in sports. While you're here, make sure you hit subscribe. Thanks.

(49:08):
All right, before we get out of here for the night,
we're going to do a segment that we're calling fast
break where I just really quickly hit on the other
series is going on around the league. I want to
start with the Bucks. I thought it was really really
interesting in Game three the way they went with Bobby
Portis in for Chris Middleton. That going with three bigs

(49:29):
was kind of the textbook. Mike Budenholzer, We're gonna double
down on protecting the paint now for this particular matchup.
It's genius because the Bulls don't know how to generate
quality three is. I've talked about this a lot. Over
the course of the last couple of months. The Bulls
were dead last in the league in three pointers attempted
per game, and so are you shocked that they could

(49:52):
only make eighteen total threes and their two home games.
I'm not shocked. That's kind of the whole, the whole
point of this matchup. Milwaukee's greatest defensive weakness also happens
to be Chicago's greatest offensive weakness, so it's not surprising
at all that they would struggle to capitalize on the

(50:12):
Bucks going all in on size. The tricky part there
is I don't think that same strategy will work in
later matchups, especially against the Celtics, Like you're seeing what
the nets, it's so important to have guys around Kyrie
and KD that can score because of all the attention
thrown that way. That is going to happen again in
the next round. They're gonna throw a ton of bodies

(50:34):
at Janice and a ton of bodies that Drew, and
they're gonna be asking other people to whoop to beat you.
And I'm not sure that going with three bigs is
the way to do that, but I did think it
was a smart card to pull in this particular series.
And here's the deal. Chris Middleton's out with the knee brain,
he says, two weeks. We'll see I would be shocked
if he showed up before game four, Game five of

(50:55):
next round. But you needed to win this series, Chicago's
sole game too. It was very much still kind of
up in doubt at that point. You had to do something.
I thought it was a smart adjustment for this particular series.
I'm just really curious to see, like we talked about earlier,
how they deal with the Celtics. Moving on to the Heat.
You know, I had a bunch of Heat fans comment

(51:17):
recently about how we haven't talked enough about the heat.
I get that. In my defense, this Atlanta Hawks team,
in my opinion, is by far the most uninteresting team
in this field. They're like fifteen good teams in the
Atlanta Hawks in here. Sorry, if you're a Hawks fan listening,
that's just the reality of this situation. Jim Jackson, who

(51:39):
does an amazing job doing color commentary, he was the
color commentator for this particular game, and he made a
comment and he said, this is like watching a professional
team playing a college team. And again, there's not that
much of a gap in talent. But what he was
trying to say, which is something that I agree with,
they're not great at the details of being a professional

(52:00):
basketball team. They don't have their rotations down sharply, they're
not consistent in their effort on a possession by possession basis.
They look really unorganized, particularly on the defensive end. How
many times tonight did you see somebody from Miami break
wide open? When the other series is around the league,
you don't see as many wide open players. The Hawks
have only held Miami below twenty points in a quarter

(52:24):
twice in this series, and they lost both of those quarters.
So even when the Hawks have been able to lock
in and get stops, the Heat have been better than them.
In those quarters. They were the sore thumb of this
entire playoff field. And yes, they'll be going home in
Game five, Heat fans, we will be talking a lot
more Miami Heat in the next round against the Sixers

(52:46):
or the Raptors, depending on who wins that series, which
takes us to the Raptors. So what did I tell
you guys before the series was the most important part
for Toronto to have a chance to win. I told
you guys two things. I said. They have to get
out and transit, and they have to have multiple players
play better than James Harden. And in this particular game,

(53:08):
they force sixteen turnovers and at twenty two points on
those turnovers, they had twenty one fast break points, which
is more than twice as many as Philly had. And
both Gary Trent Jr. And Pascal Siakom we're better than
James Harden. And what do you know, you get a
win as a results. Yakom was awesome. He at thirty four,
eight and five in that game. Them beat thumb injury
is interesting. I have never uh torn a ligate my

(53:31):
ligament in my thumb. But I've sprained my thumb before.
It's no fun. I had a shooting coach once back
when I was playing in Utah talk about how your
thumb is one of the most important parts of your
shot because that's how you avoid left right misses. My
there was a coach I had in Utah. I was
obsessed with watching YouTube videos, and he'd watched these videos
of Ray Allen, and Ray Allen would always talk about

(53:53):
spreading your hands wider, getting your hands wider around the
basketball because that helps you get more control over the basketball.
Having a sprained the ligament in your thumb, I keep
trying to imagine what it would be like to shoot
with that, and that's complicated, and especially since Joel Embiide
and his jump shooting has been kind of a weird
important weapon for the Sixers in this series. That's how

(54:14):
they stole Game three again. I am obviously picking the
Sixers to win the series. That there We've never seen
a team come back from three out. But as a
basketball fan, I've told you guys at length how they're
the team that I want to lose because their foul
grifting offends me. As a basketball fan, if there was
one team that you'd love to see lose three, oh,

(54:36):
it would be these guys. And this is how it is.
You go into Philly and you win. Once you do that,
you take them back to Toronto. It's gonna be a madhouse,
and all of a sudden, the pressures on the Sixers,
and you hope that that pressure ends up breaking down
a lot of their players and ruining their confidence. That
would be your hope. That's not going to happen. I
don't think, but I would be lying if I told

(54:59):
you I wasn't rooting for that last quick hitter of
the night. This Ben Simmons story, there was this conflicting reporting.
Yet a report come out Ben Simmons not gonna play
in Game four. Then you had reports come out that
the Nets were disappointed that he decided not to play.
It's a herniated disc, guys, he didn't tweak his ankle.
He's got a bulging disc in his back. There's absolutely

(55:21):
no reason to bring him back to play in this game.
Regardless of whether or not Ben Simmons is coming back
next year, there's just no point. The Celtics are the
better team. They're going to win this series. All that
could stand to happen by bringing Ben Simmons back is
maybe you steal a game or two if he's a
massive impact player, but you're still gonna lose the series.

(55:41):
And Ben Simmons is back in his health in that
area is more valuable at this point. I have no
doubts that he would have played if they would have
won Game three. To me, that's a big non story. Alright, guys,
that is all I have for tonight. As always, I
sincerely appreciate your support. We will be back after the
final game. Actually, no tomorrow, We're going early. We're going

(56:02):
right after NETS Celtics tomorrow, so be ready for that
here on YouTube like usual, right after the final buzzer
of Celtics NETS. I will see you guys. Then the

(56:24):
volume