May 30, 2025 • 35 mins
Jason breaks down the film on Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers. He discusses how Mikal Bridges played elite defense on Tyrese Haliburton + Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns dominating the other end of the floor.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(02:02):
we'll good to Hoops and I. You're at the volume
heavy Friday. Everybody hope all you guys are having a
great week. We are going to go through a film
session of Game five at the Eastern Conference Finals today.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
The main thing I.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Wanted to dig into because if viewed, Game six is
kind of a pivot point. I think if the Knicks
win Game six, they obviously have a very good chance
to go to the finals because they will be a favorite.
A favorite in Game seven at home. Obviously things wouldn't
be over at that point, But all of a sudden,
you go from the big underdog the team that's got
to overcome the crazy deficit too. More likely than not
(02:31):
you might end up coming out of this thing right.
So I wanted to dig into the film and see
what kind of stuff actually translates forward to get to
a potential Game six. I've got about forty clips for
us to watch. Off the top, will go over just
a couple of the concepts that I noticed on film,
and then we'll get out of here for the rest
of the day. You guys know the Joe before we
get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and I YouTube channels.
(02:53):
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(03:15):
All right, let's talk some basketball. So first and foremost,
this is an important detail. And again this is we
talked about this last night in terms of the natural
kind of human nature oscillations and urgency that take place
in playoff series. It showed up on film when I
rewatched it this morning. A lot of pacers guys just
not quite bringing that requisite energy that you need from
(03:39):
them in order to win this type of road close
out games. Specific guys that stood out to me obviously
Tyrese Haliburton in his passivity. I thought Pascal Siakam was
brutal on both ends of the floor in this game.
Was just leaving a lot of stuff short in the
short to mid range on offense and then on defense,
just in general, not winning the physical battle against Kat
(03:59):
that he needs to win. His job is in his
ISOs is to force Cat towards.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
His left hand.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Indiana with Rick Carlisle has been planning help on the
left hand drive for Cat and so there were several
times that Sakam and Turner and other sequences lost contain
of Cat and let him get to his right hand.
And when he got to his right hand, they weren't
set up to help on that side, because again it's
not the way they were setting up their loaded up defense,
(04:25):
and so when he went to his right hand, he
was able to get all the way to the rim
and in many.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Cases draw fouls as well.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Siakam gave up deep seals and offensive rebound seals to
Cat where it almost looked like he was floating around
and not paying attention, and all of a sudden, Cats
just you know, dropping down and throwing that elbow in
his chest and creating a passing angle. It just kind
of seemed like Siakam was a little bit half asleep
in this game. Aaron Neith Smith stepped up the ball
pressure a couple of points in the game, but didn't
(04:52):
come out with the same level of intensity on the
ball that we know that he's capable of bringing. So,
like a lot of this is some of that natural
back and forth, but there were also some real things
that the Knicks figured out that led to that led
to some success, like the Mikhale Bridges posts ups of
Tyrese Haliburt no g Anobi cleared side post ups, a
(05:12):
lot of stuff from those two that they can continue
to explore. The realities of the fact that if they
deny Tyrese Halliburton and face guard him and keep him
away from the ball, that he has a tendency to
kind of just step away and let other people do it.
The reality of the fact that you have guys like
Andrew Nemhard under control in this series, and that there's
not a ton of other ball handling for the Pacers
(05:33):
to go to in those situations. They're even with me
acknowledging from the tape that the Pacers did not bring
their best last night. There were some obvious things that
the Knicks did that do translate to a potential Game
six that they could look at in order to give
themselves a better chance to extend this series to a
(05:53):
game seven. We've gone through all of that in the film. Today,
let's go ahead and get started with our first clip.
So fun fact, the Knicks have actually scored on their
first possession in every single game of this series, and
they did so again last night off of an action
that may look familiar to you, guys. We'll talk about
(06:15):
it in a second. So we have a little off
ball action. Brunson enters into McHale coming off of a
wide screen. Then he's going to go down for a
double wide pin down with og Anoby. Now, those of
you guys who might remember the Knicks again have scored
on their first possession in every game of the series.
(06:35):
They scored on back cuts from this guy in the
first two games of the series. So in game one
and in game two. Game one, I think it was
Michale Bridges who broke free on this baseline cut, and
then in game two it was og Nobi who broke
free on this baseline cut. But we have seen this
action to start the game three times in the series
from the Knicks to this point double wide pin down.
(06:57):
We see og Nanobe cut through and on the times
that they scored, this guy was actually top locking. And
then og and McHale were literally able to just backcut
as you can see, Indies adjusted by basically hugging the
person and making sure that he can't cut that easily,
but he cuts her in. After the cut, you can
actually see Aaron Nee Smith just a slight step to
(07:20):
the right as OG's cutting through.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Watch as OG's cutting through.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Boom right there, that little step from Nie Smith to
the right as Brunson's coming off gets in that little
extra bit of separation. Now he can take a drop
coverage shot against Turner. Pretty well defended. But again the
action that they've run multiple times in the series to
start games and have gotten a bucket out of second
possession of the game, they run the exact same action.
(07:46):
Kale Bridges comes up, but he's denied, so instead they
go to Kat. Then they go to run the double
wide pin down. They're unable to even set a screen
on Og with the hug. All of a sudden, the
audible is instead of coming up off this way, Kat
just enters to Mitch and then Brunson's gonna wheel around
these two, So he wheels around. Nie Smith once again
(08:10):
defends it pretty well. But Brunson was just all business
last night.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Man.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
He came out with his head on fire. Tough little
step back jump shot. Here's a perfect example of just
some of the physicality the Knicks were bringing early in
the game. So, as you can see, we have full
court pressure on Tyre's Halliburton on the Knemhard on the
Nie Smith screen, We're gonna get a hard headge from Brunson.
(08:33):
Look At how hard he comes out attacks the basketball.
He's like swiping and grabbing. There's a physical, hard blitz
of Haliburton here. Halliburton retreats immediately right and Brunson gets
the hell out. When Brunson gets out, Mitch has to
switch out on the Nie Smith. Watch Brunson tag Turner.
Look At how physically he is on Turner. He's grabbing him,
(08:55):
he's holding him, he's keeping him out of the lane, making.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Sure they can't actually go there.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Then as Brunson passes him off to Og and closes
out to Nemhard, look at the physicality from Og on
Turner right in his back, shoving him, pushing him. So
when the post entry goes, he forces it over the
top because again and these are fouls, but these are
fouls that you're gonna get away with in the postseason. Again,
like we've seen a lot of it going both ways
(09:20):
in this series. That's just playoff basketball. Good physicality on
the post entry forces the turnover. Pacers were laid on
a tag here at a ball screen with Brunson and
Mitchell Robinson. Mitchell Robinson brings vertical spacing, which is a
unique thing to have in the starting lineup that you
(09:40):
don't get when it's just Cat out there.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
All it is simple ball screen.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
As Kat comes off the ball screen, we're in a
drop right Turner's back, but he's up at the level.
Because of the pull up shooting threat, these guys have
to tag the roller. They do not tag the roller
us who's open Mitchell Robinson on the lob dunk. Another
example of just kind of like that missing bit of
(10:08):
intensity from the Pacers early in the game is they
were just laid on their tags and laid on some
of their rotations. All right, so o g Nobi little
cleared side post up. Og Nanobe has run eleven post
ups and ISOs in this series, and he has scored
on six of them. One of them technically was a
miss and an offensive rebound put back, but I'm counting
(10:30):
it as a bucket because it more or less worked
the same way. But cleared side just a jab and
go a little low gather draws a foul. This has
been an effective play in the series, just having Og
go one on one against one of the pacers smaller players.
I think it's something they should explore when things bogged down.
Here's a little double drag action. So as you can see,
(10:53):
we have two ball screens being say set for Brunson.
As the double drag gets run, Tyre's Aliburton goes under
that second screen that forces Turner to step up, and
when Turner steps up, Haliburton lets Mitch get by him.
And when Mitch gets by him, now there's no choice
because the roller gets behind the coverage. You've got a
tag from the weak side. The tag is going to
(11:14):
come from top end. Swing back to McHale, extra pass
to Kat in the corner, wide open three bucket. Pretty
consistently in this series, when the Knicks have like trusted
their action instead of just playing one on one, they've
gotten really good stuff out of it. Big theme in
this game was just Cat getting downhill. Here's an example
(11:37):
in semi transition where he's just kind of trailing to
play and by the time he catches it, there's two
on the ball on Brunson. Now it's just an easy
right handed rip for Kat just grabs it and goes
gets all the way to the basket, and he just
knows that once he gets rumbling downhill. These dudes literally
can't stop him. This is just a nasty brunts and
pull up three over turner. Nothing here but just greatness.
(12:00):
Too far back off of a switch. It's contest, it
doesn't matter. Look at how high Karl Anthony Towns is
coming out on this ball screen against Haliburton. You could
just see that they were really trying to play Halliburton
into being passive. Here's Hallie. It gets worked back around.
(12:26):
Watch how high cat comes up. He literally is meeting
Halliburton twenty six feet from the basket. That forces Haliburton
to flatten his drive. Look, he wants to go downhill,
but he has to flatten his drive out sideways and
that forces him into this ridiculously tough leaning jumper going
(12:46):
to his left. Another Brunson full of three. Once again,
this is just greatness. A little step back over Ben
Shepherd boom. He was all business last night. Fourteen points
in the first quarter. A lot of blitzing with Brunson
(13:08):
on Halliburton in the first half when Halliburton would bring
how Jalen Brunson into the action at all, they were
just getting super aggressive with Brunson in those blitzes, ball
gets worked back around. Let me get over there. Okay,
so we have Halliburton nine seconds on the clock. Shepherd's
gonna screen for him. Watch how Brunston gets out there
(13:29):
and this gets worked around to TJ. McConnell, which is
a shot that the Nicks will live with. And this
shot does go in. But the key is is they're
trying to get ted Tyre's Halliburton to not be aggressive.
And you'll look all night long, Halliburton is like in
a race to get rid of the ball. Like Brunson
hasn't even gotten to him yet. He's just in a
race to get rid of the ball. And again there's
nothing wrong with that necessarily with them setting up rotation situations.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
It's just we talked about it last night.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
As a playmaking guard, you've got to mix in the
appropriate amount of aggression to keep the defense. It's honest,
very similar one here on the next possession, nice little
strip from TJ McConnell. We go down to the other end.
Let me fast forward. Okay, so same exact action we
(14:16):
have Shepherd's screen, Brunson comes up, Caliburton passes out of it.
Look at how he like picks up the dribble before
Brunson's even there. That's easy rotation back Shepherd drives, They
the Nicks rotate out of it, great contest force, some
miss get the defensive rebound. So again you forced a
(14:39):
pretty tough contested drive for Ben Shepherd and a catch
and shoot three for TJ McConnell out of that action.
That's something that Nicks will live with once again. Look
at the bodies and the attention thrown at Halliburton in
the ball screen. Three guys on the ball, just forcing
(15:00):
these guys, these lesser shooters to make some tough contested
catch and shoot threes, and the Pacers did miss a
couple of those payoff shots in the first half. Nie Smith,
especially on the Indiana front. As a potential adjustment for them,
we talked a lot last night about being better with
their double teams and just trying to prevent Kat from
(15:22):
having those opportunities to quickly attack. Watch as they go
to post up Cat on the weak side. Here, I'm
gonna get the ball back over there. Okay, so we
have a post up of Ben Mather and balls on
the floor. They gotta go like right, they need to
be double in the double needs to already be there,
especially with this much time on the shot.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Clock, because they wait.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
There's a pretty simple little back down here for Cat,
and by the time the double team comes, he's too
close to the rim. Watch at this point doesn't matter.
He's too he's way bigger than you guys, and he's
right at the rim. The double has to come earlier.
This is another example of Kat attacking one on one
(16:06):
no double and Siakam gives up the right hand just
an absolute disaster defensive possession relative to what their game
plan is. Again, you could see Siakam, he's trying to
send him right, but there's no double team and he
gives up the or excuse me, he's trying to send
him left, but he doesn't even like he needs to
(16:28):
be a little bit higher on this side, and it's
just is too easy for Cat to just rip through
over the top no double team or whatever whatever. This
token kind of fake dig down from Ben Mathern was like,
that's just lacking the defensive intensity you need to actually
like this is a This is a play in Indiana
where Sakam is gonna be on the high side and
(16:49):
they'll be more prepared for this and they'll just play
you know again, they'll just execute their scheme better. But
a lot of like just simple mistakes in their defensive
scheme last night. Here's another example of Cat just kicking
Siakam's ass on the glass, like okay, like I'm just
gonna shots up. SACOM's not really even fighting right, Likeams
(17:11):
just kind of walking and Cat just is like, all right, fine,
I'll just bury you real quick. Like that's just way
too easy. Seacom's not even competing down there. He's got
to compete down there. We're finally gonna get to see
a double team of Cat here. I just thought they
messed up a rotation and gave up way too easy
(17:33):
of a read. So I'll watch it full speed first
and then i'll show you guys what I'm talking about.
So Kat goes to the post. Let's fast forward a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
On the post.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Here comes the double right as he's turning his back right,
easy kick out past the due McBride catching you three.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Now, where does this go wrong?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Watch Ben Matherins actually guarding Ben Matherins guarding Due McBride.
Ben Shepherd's daring delon right, and you can actually see
Ben mather and go you double, you double. He wants
Shepherd to go when Shepherd goes now, Ben is responsible
for both of these guys effectively, right, and he's specifically
(18:15):
responsible for the guy closest to Kat because these two
then become responsible for defending these guys two on three.
Right do starts to relocate. Ben should see this. Ben
should see Deuce is going. Delon writes back over here,
but instead he sticks with Delon and just lets Deuce relocate.
(18:37):
That's bad, double team. You can't when you give up
a when you send a double. The past you got
to give up is this pass. You gotta be like, hey, Kat,
if you can somehow handle this ball pressure and through
the physicality, get it on time and on target. Delandre Shammett, congrats,
will give you a wide open three. What you can't
do is have him be like, oh shit, I'm screwed. Wait,
(19:00):
there's a wide open shooter ten feet right in front
of my face like that. That's not going to get
the job done. Ben Matherin's gotta be tracking Duce McBride
on that possession. Big time bench contribution here. Watch Delawn
Wright as og In Andobi's driving Delawn Wright sneaks behind
Andrew Nemhart along the baseline, sneaks behind him.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
On the strip.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
He's in the right place, in the right time to
get the ball because of that corner. Crash makes the
kickout pass on Andrey Shaman, who then sticks to three.
That's a huge sequence. You go from getting a stop
for Indiana to three points for the Knicks from your bench.
So right here is a classic example of tyrs Halbert
(19:46):
just getting rid of the ball too early. Turner goes
to set the screen. You could see Kat preparing to
come up aggressively up to the level or blitz or
whatever coverage he's gonna run on that play, but on
the right hand side of the screen. Then Haliburton rejects
the screen boom. Notice right as Og hops boom, that's
when he crosses over. Now he's got clean dribble penetration.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
But look at how.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Quickly he gives up the ball. He's already turning around
and jumping. No one's even made contact with him yet,
He's already turning around and jumping to get rid of
the ball. Just not being enough of a scoring threat,
even though he got like a really nice little straight
line drive there. Nice screen navigation from Shaman here too.
(20:31):
Look at Shamant battling through these screens, beats hto the spot,
takes the contact in the chest and gets to stop.
Really nice work from Shamit. I love this little action,
this little kind of like crossing action at the top
of the key to try to get Cat downhill again.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Look all it is is like a little dribble pitch.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Cat kind of trails the play delawn right, just kind
of dribbles right at turner and then just pitches it,
and that just gives Cat an opportunity to get like
a head of scheme when he's already got momentum. Another
example of him getting to his right hand and just
powering through everybody and finishing. Nice work from the pacers
(21:11):
here handling the blitz. On this particular possession. We get
an early guard screen that gets brunts in onto Halliburton.
Hard attack of Halliburton leaves the pocket open. Og has
to step over. We get our week side two on
one swing extra pass wide open three. But Nie Smith
missed a couple of these wide open threes in the
first half.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Here we get.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Another chance for Og and Obi to attack out of
like a clear side iso, they dribble out, they see
the matchup, they like they just pitch it to og.
This is the one that didn't get counted as a bucket,
but was a bucket and an offensive rebound.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
I like that action.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
I think it's something that Nick should explore when everything's
bogged down. So fast forwarding a little bit, Matherin just
hit a transition three, cut the lead to seven, and
over the course of the next you know, half a
quarter or so, the Knicks are about to go on
a twenty to seven run to put themselves up by twenty.
(22:11):
We're gonna cover that real quick and then we'll be
done for the day. So here another example of Karl
Anthony Towns just winning the ground battle against Pascal Siakam.
Watch how he gets this deep seal, so like, look
at Siakam. Watch how Siakam's just kind of floating, walking, floating,
just kind of chilling. Now he takes his eyes off
the cat, like what is he looking at? So Kat's like,
(22:35):
all right, you're just gonna let me in deep seal
here word just creates the passing angle, easy finish. Like
Siakam looked like he was half asleep in this game.
I'm not sure what was going on there.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
So uh.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
And then that's another one of those like little short
shots that Siaka missed. Just just kind of a weird
game from him. Now Mikhale Bridges is going to post
up Jalen Bruns. And by the way, this was the
second time in the game that McHale got a bucket
against Halliburton. In the post, he hit a little left
shoulder fade and here he hits a little right shoulder
fade towards the middle. They're gonna let those guys work
(23:09):
one on one. I would continue to explore that. Look
at the Halliburton face guarding from Bridges faceguard, deny faceguard
deny face guard deny, face guard deny. That actually forces
them to just look another direction. Halliburton just goes and
stands off on the side. They end up running a
(23:30):
little action with Nemhard and Jeris Walker. Jaris Walker misses
the three more denial of Haliburton, full court pressure as
soon as he gives up the ball. Look at Bridges
(23:51):
Bridges deny, deny, deny. One of the things they did
here which I like is this is a great way
to attack it. Deny if he's gonna be in between
the ball and the man quickly reverse the floor. Suddenly
he's on the right side, right, So as soon as
the ball gets reversed, suddenly Haliburton's on the right side
of the action where he can get to the ball
before bridges. So he does, gets there and then immediately
(24:13):
gets rid of the ball, picks up his dribble. But
look look at the aggression that we got Mitchell Robinson
up at the level we got Brunson digging. There's three
on the ball with Haliburton again, good pressure, great defense
from Mitchell Robinson forces the travel and as far as
(24:34):
Hyrys Haliburton goes, guys like this is literally what Okac
is going to do to him. They're going to swarm
him at least to start the series, and his ability
to handle it and get the ball out is going
to be a big part of whether or not they
can force Okac to change their game plan. All right,
this is what it looks like when they actually handle
(24:57):
cat appropriately in terms of sending it in the right
direction and having the help in the right position. So
watch how Sam is way up on the right hand
when they go back to cat here. Okay, boom, Watch
how he hops, like as soon as you see the pass,
watch Siakam hops up on their right hand drive. Oh shit,
I need to send them left. Okay, look at all
the bodies. Everyone's looking and Nie Smith not yet, but
(25:21):
Nemhard and Haliburn, everyone's looking at Kat cat racks to
the left, but look where the help is. They meet
him early and they're prepared and Nie Smith takes a charge.
So again their game plan and they want to send
Kat left and have him in help there.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
If that's fine.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
You just got to make sure the help gets there early,
and I would explore double teaming more. You just got
to take away the easy reads and make him throw
the passes over the top. This was a huge two
way sequence from Jalen Brunson. Nemhar is gonna get downhill
here and he's going to make a nice peel off
kind of help side rotation at the rim and force
a miss big time play there. And again it's just
about making the read. And talked about this earlier. I
(26:01):
was talking about this actually with the guys before we
started the show. Mem Hard was forcing some stuff at
the rim in this game in traffic. This just needs
to be a kickout past Toniesmith and instead he tries
to shoot over Brunson smokes the layup. We go out
the other way on the other end of the floor,
(26:23):
little guard guard screen. The quick guard screen gets Haliburton
switched onto him. Now we're running a ball screen with Haliburton.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Looking out easy.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
This layup is just by getting a more favorable on
ball matchup early in the possession. Bruntson again just win
in the ground battle. Watch how he just dislodges Aaron E.
Smith on this drive. Watch the bump once he gets
downhill against the pressure. Downhill, down hill, downhill, boom. See
(26:51):
that bump. You're gonna ride my hip. That's great, I'm
gonna bump you off. Knocks him loose. Now he's got
an easy layer in the gap there. Brunston was phenomenal
in this game. Hand down, man down on this one.
Another little short range missed from Siakam. We're going down
(27:11):
the other end. Ball gets swung over to Brunson and
Nie Smith has his hands down. That ain't gonna work.
He's feeling too good with the jumper Tonight. Some really
high quality drop coverage defense here by Mitchell Robinson on Haliburton.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
So the denial.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
There's a temporary sequence where Brunson is switched on too Haliburt,
which kind of gets him out of their denial. By
the time they actually execute the switch again, it's just
a quick hitch over to Haliburt and now he's got
the ball. Also, because of the positioning, McHale's not really
in a spot to beat him over the top of
the screen, so Haliburton gets downhill. Watch Mitch. This is
textbook drop coverage defense. He's accounting for the role man,
(27:57):
he's dropping back. He's made him make a decision. Haliburton
doesn't like any of his passing reads, so he's got
a default back to the scoop shot, and Mitch is
there to swat that shit.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Out of bounce.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
So you're gonna see a lot of off ball denials
here over the course of the next few possessions. Watch
we have Miles Turner with the ball. Watch everyone else
off ball denying, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny, not letting
that easy swing pass, even like getting away with physicality.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Again, this is the Playoffs.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
All that physicality and while all this aggression is happening
in the off ball denials, watch Mitch attacking the basketball
and he swipes it off of Turner's leg. As we
always talk about, there are two sides to a switch, right,
So we get a ball screen. In the ball screen,
(28:52):
Nie Smith switches on to Mitchell Robinson and Turner switches
onto Jalen Brunson. Jalen Brunson gets the ball back and
goes to attack, misses a step back three. But what's
the other side of the switch. The other side of
the switch is you've got Mitchell Robinson on Aaron Nesmith.
Watch how aaron Ne Smith just gets buried by Mitch
(29:12):
easy offensive rebound put back. More off ball denials. Fast
forward a little bit here, so throw the ball Turner.
Watch all the denials. See that they're trying to get
Siakam to screen for Haliburton, so you can come off
the screen. But look at McHale. Just physical hugging denial there.
(29:35):
That's what you got to bring immediately in game six, Now,
all of a sudden, we have Turner dribbling out the
clock out at half court, nowhere to go. Finally gets
the ball. Denie Smith with six on the shot clock,
and he's got to take this bad pull up three.
You can play the Pacers into a lot of those
bad possessions if you bring that pressure, which again is
kind of what concerns me about a potential Oklahoma City matchup.
(29:59):
Here's another they're successful double team of by the way,
also after the turner or the Nie Smith miss, we
do get another offensive rebound. But look at the off
ball denials or in the passing lanes, and Indiana is
really starting to come apart at the seams now with
the turnovers. Here's a double team of Cat that works.
(30:23):
Notice they just bring the double, Like just as soon
as he puts the ball on the floor, boom, here
comes the double attack the basketball and they end up
calling the foul on Cat there. So like, I really
think Indiana's got a double and bring early help. Keep
sending Cat towards that left hand. When you have the
early help coming, they can't just keep letting him get
(30:44):
to his right hand in single coverage. Look at the
hard hedge from Brunts and look at that they're hedging
with Brunson forty five feet from the basket. Haliburton immediately
getting rid of the basketball. Again, like these guys aren't
even in scoring position, and Halliburton's getting rid of the basketball.
(31:06):
He's like he has an opportunity here to drive, like
just keep going. OG's not in position. Turn the corner,
turn the corner and attack like this. At this point
in time, Halliburton's gotta shoot this gap and make something
better happen. He's just getting rid of the ball away
too early. Great defense by Bruntson strips it off of
(31:31):
Neie Smith's leg. A really good rotation out of a
double team of Siakam here, so Siakam's got Brunson hard double.
Watch the rotations. Bridges is over, Boom, Bridges is over
(31:51):
a little bit of a missed extra pass here from
Nie Smith that's got to go over to Halliburton. I
thought Tyres Sliburton really telegraphed this pass. See as we
get up here, look at how he's looking through the
(32:12):
whole time as he's coming off the ball screen, not
even looking at the rim, looking down at the pocket,
looking down at the pocket, looking down at the pocket,
looking down at the pocket, still looking down at the pocket.
Here's the pocket pass. Mitch's recovery athleticism gets the block.
(32:32):
Mitch's recovery athleticism always blows me away. But yeah, I'd
like Haliburton is like, straight up not even looking to
score the basketball. Two more clips, guys once again losing
control of Kat to his strong hand and go back
(32:59):
out to Kat here. Okay, so we have Kat, we're
supposed to be sending him to his left, that's where
all the help is. There's no help on the right
hand side Kat, Like this is just a straight up
loaded up iso. Siakam is going to try to send
him to his left, but Kat just beats him to
the right, like he's just as soon as you do that,
(33:19):
it's dead on arrival. Like, look at where the help is.
Look at them Hart. They are planned to meet Kat
on a left handed drive. Haliburn's not even thinking about
it because he's thinking he's gonna send Kat towards his left.
He doesn't gives up the right hand. Now by the
time Thomas Bryant meets him at the rim, it's too
late that a big steal for Mitchell Robinson. In transition,
(33:44):
Lob to og Andnobi draws a foul, goes to the line,
makes both free throws, and all of a sudden the
Knicks are up twenty and heading down to Indiana for
a game six. So again as you guys can see
on the tape, some obvious Lackaday's goal stuff from the Pacers,
but some obvious stuff that works right, some obvious examples
of physicality and bal denials, and how they can play
Tyree Saliburton into his worst tendencies. Some reality is about
(34:10):
finding opportunities to post up ogn and o B and
Michale Bridges. Some reality is about the fact that we
know Brunson can play better than he did on the
road in Indiana in Game four, and so it's all
there on the table. The job is. There's no complication
there in terms of what kind of game plan they
need to run or whether or not they can do
the job. They just have to be the best version
(34:31):
of the Knicks when they go down to Indiana. Get
to give themselves a chance. And again, as you guys
can see here, we're watching the tape. What do you
think the Pacers are doing today? They're watching the tape,
and I guarantee you there's been some ass chewings for
some specific guys. I guarantee you Siakam's watching the tape
and a little embarrassed with the way he played, And
you're gonna get a just a hillacious effort from the
(34:52):
Pacers on Saturday night. That should be a super super
interesting game. Again, we will be covering it live on
YouTube after the final buzzer.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
We'll see you guys then. What's up, guys? Theres always I.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They
would actually be really helpful for us if you guys
would take a second and leave a rating and a review.
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
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(02:02):
we'll good to Hoops and I. You're at the volume
heavy Friday. Everybody hope all you guys are having a
great week. We are going to go through a film
session of Game five at the Eastern Conference Finals today.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
The main thing I.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Wanted to dig into because if viewed, Game six is
kind of a pivot point. I think if the Knicks
win Game six, they obviously have a very good chance
to go to the finals because they will be a favorite.
A favorite in Game seven at home. Obviously things wouldn't
be over at that point, But all of a sudden,
you go from the big underdog the team that's got
to overcome the crazy deficit too. More likely than not
(02:31):
you might end up coming out of this thing right.
So I wanted to dig into the film and see
what kind of stuff actually translates forward to get to
a potential Game six. I've got about forty clips for
us to watch. Off the top, will go over just
a couple of the concepts that I noticed on film,
and then we'll get out of here for the rest
of the day. You guys know the Joe before we
get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and I YouTube channels.
(02:53):
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the last but not least, keep dropping mail bag questions
in our chats for our night mail bags after our lives.
(03:15):
All right, let's talk some basketball. So first and foremost,
this is an important detail. And again this is we
talked about this last night in terms of the natural
kind of human nature oscillations and urgency that take place
in playoff series. It showed up on film when I
rewatched it this morning. A lot of pacers guys just
not quite bringing that requisite energy that you need from
(03:39):
them in order to win this type of road close
out games. Specific guys that stood out to me obviously
Tyrese Haliburton in his passivity. I thought Pascal Siakam was
brutal on both ends of the floor in this game.
Was just leaving a lot of stuff short in the
short to mid range on offense and then on defense,
just in general, not winning the physical battle against Kat
(03:59):
that he needs to win. His job is in his
ISOs is to force Cat towards.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
His left hand.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Indiana with Rick Carlisle has been planning help on the
left hand drive for Cat and so there were several
times that Sakam and Turner and other sequences lost contain
of Cat and let him get to his right hand.
And when he got to his right hand, they weren't
set up to help on that side, because again it's
not the way they were setting up their loaded up defense,
(04:25):
and so when he went to his right hand, he
was able to get all the way to the rim
and in many.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Cases draw fouls as well.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Siakam gave up deep seals and offensive rebound seals to
Cat where it almost looked like he was floating around
and not paying attention, and all of a sudden, Cats
just you know, dropping down and throwing that elbow in
his chest and creating a passing angle. It just kind
of seemed like Siakam was a little bit half asleep
in this game. Aaron Neith Smith stepped up the ball
pressure a couple of points in the game, but didn't
(04:52):
come out with the same level of intensity on the
ball that we know that he's capable of bringing. So,
like a lot of this is some of that natural
back and forth, but there were also some real things
that the Knicks figured out that led to that led
to some success, like the Mikhale Bridges posts ups of
Tyrese Haliburt no g Anobi cleared side post ups, a
(05:12):
lot of stuff from those two that they can continue
to explore. The realities of the fact that if they
deny Tyrese Halliburton and face guard him and keep him
away from the ball, that he has a tendency to
kind of just step away and let other people do it.
The reality of the fact that you have guys like
Andrew Nemhard under control in this series, and that there's
not a ton of other ball handling for the Pacers
(05:33):
to go to in those situations. They're even with me
acknowledging from the tape that the Pacers did not bring
their best last night. There were some obvious things that
the Knicks did that do translate to a potential Game
six that they could look at in order to give
themselves a better chance to extend this series to a
(05:53):
game seven. We've gone through all of that in the film. Today,
let's go ahead and get started with our first clip.
So fun fact, the Knicks have actually scored on their
first possession in every single game of this series, and
they did so again last night off of an action
that may look familiar to you, guys. We'll talk about
(06:15):
it in a second. So we have a little off
ball action. Brunson enters into McHale coming off of a
wide screen. Then he's going to go down for a
double wide pin down with og Anoby. Now, those of
you guys who might remember the Knicks again have scored
on their first possession in every game of the series.
(06:35):
They scored on back cuts from this guy in the
first two games of the series. So in game one
and in game two. Game one, I think it was
Michale Bridges who broke free on this baseline cut, and
then in game two it was og Nobi who broke
free on this baseline cut. But we have seen this
action to start the game three times in the series
from the Knicks to this point double wide pin down.
(06:57):
We see og Nanobe cut through and on the times
that they scored, this guy was actually top locking. And
then og and McHale were literally able to just backcut
as you can see, Indies adjusted by basically hugging the
person and making sure that he can't cut that easily,
but he cuts her in. After the cut, you can
actually see Aaron Nee Smith just a slight step to
(07:20):
the right as OG's cutting through.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Watch as OG's cutting through.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Boom right there, that little step from Nie Smith to
the right as Brunson's coming off gets in that little
extra bit of separation. Now he can take a drop
coverage shot against Turner. Pretty well defended. But again the
action that they've run multiple times in the series to
start games and have gotten a bucket out of second
possession of the game, they run the exact same action.
(07:46):
Kale Bridges comes up, but he's denied, so instead they
go to Kat. Then they go to run the double
wide pin down. They're unable to even set a screen
on Og with the hug. All of a sudden, the
audible is instead of coming up off this way, Kat
just enters to Mitch and then Brunson's gonna wheel around
these two, So he wheels around. Nie Smith once again
(08:10):
defends it pretty well. But Brunson was just all business
last night.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Man.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
He came out with his head on fire. Tough little
step back jump shot. Here's a perfect example of just
some of the physicality the Knicks were bringing early in
the game. So, as you can see, we have full
court pressure on Tyre's Halliburton on the Knemhard on the
Nie Smith screen, We're gonna get a hard headge from Brunson.
(08:33):
Look At how hard he comes out attacks the basketball.
He's like swiping and grabbing. There's a physical, hard blitz
of Haliburton here. Halliburton retreats immediately right and Brunson gets
the hell out. When Brunson gets out, Mitch has to
switch out on the Nie Smith. Watch Brunson tag Turner.
Look At how physically he is on Turner. He's grabbing him,
(08:55):
he's holding him, he's keeping him out of the lane, making.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Sure they can't actually go there.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Then as Brunson passes him off to Og and closes
out to Nemhard, look at the physicality from Og on
Turner right in his back, shoving him, pushing him. So
when the post entry goes, he forces it over the
top because again and these are fouls, but these are
fouls that you're gonna get away with in the postseason. Again,
like we've seen a lot of it going both ways
(09:20):
in this series. That's just playoff basketball. Good physicality on
the post entry forces the turnover. Pacers were laid on
a tag here at a ball screen with Brunson and
Mitchell Robinson. Mitchell Robinson brings vertical spacing, which is a
unique thing to have in the starting lineup that you
(09:40):
don't get when it's just Cat out there.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
All it is simple ball screen.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
As Kat comes off the ball screen, we're in a
drop right Turner's back, but he's up at the level.
Because of the pull up shooting threat, these guys have
to tag the roller. They do not tag the roller
us who's open Mitchell Robinson on the lob dunk. Another
example of just kind of like that missing bit of
(10:08):
intensity from the Pacers early in the game is they
were just laid on their tags and laid on some
of their rotations. All right, so o g Nobi little
cleared side post up. Og Nanobe has run eleven post
ups and ISOs in this series, and he has scored
on six of them. One of them technically was a
miss and an offensive rebound put back, but I'm counting
(10:30):
it as a bucket because it more or less worked
the same way. But cleared side just a jab and
go a little low gather draws a foul. This has
been an effective play in the series, just having Og
go one on one against one of the pacers smaller players.
I think it's something they should explore when things bogged down.
Here's a little double drag action. So as you can see,
(10:53):
we have two ball screens being say set for Brunson.
As the double drag gets run, Tyre's Aliburton goes under
that second screen that forces Turner to step up, and
when Turner steps up, Haliburton lets Mitch get by him.
And when Mitch gets by him, now there's no choice
because the roller gets behind the coverage. You've got a
tag from the weak side. The tag is going to
(11:14):
come from top end. Swing back to McHale, extra pass
to Kat in the corner, wide open three bucket. Pretty
consistently in this series, when the Knicks have like trusted
their action instead of just playing one on one, they've
gotten really good stuff out of it. Big theme in
this game was just Cat getting downhill. Here's an example
(11:37):
in semi transition where he's just kind of trailing to
play and by the time he catches it, there's two
on the ball on Brunson. Now it's just an easy
right handed rip for Kat just grabs it and goes
gets all the way to the basket, and he just
knows that once he gets rumbling downhill. These dudes literally
can't stop him. This is just a nasty brunts and
pull up three over turner. Nothing here but just greatness.
(12:00):
Too far back off of a switch. It's contest, it
doesn't matter. Look at how high Karl Anthony Towns is
coming out on this ball screen against Haliburton. You could
just see that they were really trying to play Halliburton
into being passive. Here's Hallie. It gets worked back around.
(12:26):
Watch how high cat comes up. He literally is meeting
Halliburton twenty six feet from the basket. That forces Haliburton
to flatten his drive. Look, he wants to go downhill,
but he has to flatten his drive out sideways and
that forces him into this ridiculously tough leaning jumper going
(12:46):
to his left. Another Brunson full of three. Once again,
this is just greatness. A little step back over Ben
Shepherd boom. He was all business last night. Fourteen points
in the first quarter. A lot of blitzing with Brunson
(13:08):
on Halliburton in the first half when Halliburton would bring
how Jalen Brunson into the action at all, they were
just getting super aggressive with Brunson in those blitzes, ball
gets worked back around. Let me get over there. Okay,
so we have Halliburton nine seconds on the clock. Shepherd's
gonna screen for him. Watch how Brunston gets out there
(13:29):
and this gets worked around to TJ. McConnell, which is
a shot that the Nicks will live with. And this
shot does go in. But the key is is they're
trying to get ted Tyre's Halliburton to not be aggressive.
And you'll look all night long, Halliburton is like in
a race to get rid of the ball. Like Brunson
hasn't even gotten to him yet. He's just in a
race to get rid of the ball. And again there's
nothing wrong with that necessarily with them setting up rotation situations.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
It's just we talked about it last night.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
As a playmaking guard, you've got to mix in the
appropriate amount of aggression to keep the defense. It's honest,
very similar one here on the next possession, nice little
strip from TJ McConnell. We go down to the other end.
Let me fast forward. Okay, so same exact action we
(14:16):
have Shepherd's screen, Brunson comes up, Caliburton passes out of it.
Look at how he like picks up the dribble before
Brunson's even there. That's easy rotation back Shepherd drives, They
the Nicks rotate out of it, great contest force, some
miss get the defensive rebound. So again you forced a
(14:39):
pretty tough contested drive for Ben Shepherd and a catch
and shoot three for TJ McConnell out of that action.
That's something that Nicks will live with once again. Look
at the bodies and the attention thrown at Halliburton in
the ball screen. Three guys on the ball, just forcing
(15:00):
these guys, these lesser shooters to make some tough contested
catch and shoot threes, and the Pacers did miss a
couple of those payoff shots in the first half. Nie Smith,
especially on the Indiana front. As a potential adjustment for them,
we talked a lot last night about being better with
their double teams and just trying to prevent Kat from
(15:22):
having those opportunities to quickly attack. Watch as they go
to post up Cat on the weak side. Here, I'm
gonna get the ball back over there. Okay, so we
have a post up of Ben Mather and balls on
the floor. They gotta go like right, they need to
be double in the double needs to already be there,
especially with this much time on the shot.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Clock, because they wait.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
There's a pretty simple little back down here for Cat,
and by the time the double team comes, he's too
close to the rim. Watch at this point doesn't matter.
He's too he's way bigger than you guys, and he's
right at the rim. The double has to come earlier.
This is another example of Kat attacking one on one
(16:06):
no double and Siakam gives up the right hand just
an absolute disaster defensive possession relative to what their game
plan is. Again, you could see Siakam, he's trying to
send him right, but there's no double team and he
gives up the or excuse me, he's trying to send
him left, but he doesn't even like he needs to
(16:28):
be a little bit higher on this side, and it's
just is too easy for Cat to just rip through
over the top no double team or whatever whatever. This
token kind of fake dig down from Ben Mathern was like,
that's just lacking the defensive intensity you need to actually
like this is a This is a play in Indiana
where Sakam is gonna be on the high side and
(16:49):
they'll be more prepared for this and they'll just play
you know again, they'll just execute their scheme better. But
a lot of like just simple mistakes in their defensive
scheme last night. Here's another example of Cat just kicking
Siakam's ass on the glass, like okay, like I'm just
gonna shots up. SACOM's not really even fighting right, Likeams
(17:11):
just kind of walking and Cat just is like, all right, fine,
I'll just bury you real quick. Like that's just way
too easy. Seacom's not even competing down there. He's got
to compete down there. We're finally gonna get to see
a double team of Cat here. I just thought they
messed up a rotation and gave up way too easy
(17:33):
of a read. So I'll watch it full speed first
and then i'll show you guys what I'm talking about.
So Kat goes to the post. Let's fast forward a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
On the post.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Here comes the double right as he's turning his back right,
easy kick out past the due McBride catching you three.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Now, where does this go wrong?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Watch Ben Matherins actually guarding Ben Matherins guarding Due McBride.
Ben Shepherd's daring delon right, and you can actually see
Ben mather and go you double, you double. He wants
Shepherd to go when Shepherd goes now, Ben is responsible
for both of these guys effectively, right, and he's specifically
(18:15):
responsible for the guy closest to Kat because these two
then become responsible for defending these guys two on three.
Right do starts to relocate. Ben should see this. Ben
should see Deuce is going. Delon writes back over here,
but instead he sticks with Delon and just lets Deuce relocate.
(18:37):
That's bad, double team. You can't when you give up
a when you send a double. The past you got
to give up is this pass. You gotta be like, hey, Kat,
if you can somehow handle this ball pressure and through
the physicality, get it on time and on target. Delandre Shammett, congrats,
will give you a wide open three. What you can't
do is have him be like, oh shit, I'm screwed. Wait,
(19:00):
there's a wide open shooter ten feet right in front
of my face like that. That's not going to get
the job done. Ben Matherin's gotta be tracking Duce McBride
on that possession. Big time bench contribution here. Watch Delawn
Wright as og In Andobi's driving Delawn Wright sneaks behind
Andrew Nemhart along the baseline, sneaks behind him.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
On the strip.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
He's in the right place, in the right time to
get the ball because of that corner. Crash makes the
kickout pass on Andrey Shaman, who then sticks to three.
That's a huge sequence. You go from getting a stop
for Indiana to three points for the Knicks from your bench.
So right here is a classic example of tyrs Halbert
(19:46):
just getting rid of the ball too early. Turner goes
to set the screen. You could see Kat preparing to
come up aggressively up to the level or blitz or
whatever coverage he's gonna run on that play, but on
the right hand side of the screen. Then Haliburton rejects
the screen boom. Notice right as Og hops boom, that's
when he crosses over. Now he's got clean dribble penetration.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
But look at how.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Quickly he gives up the ball. He's already turning around
and jumping. No one's even made contact with him yet,
He's already turning around and jumping to get rid of
the ball. Just not being enough of a scoring threat,
even though he got like a really nice little straight
line drive there. Nice screen navigation from Shaman here too.
(20:31):
Look at Shamant battling through these screens, beats hto the spot,
takes the contact in the chest and gets to stop.
Really nice work from Shamit. I love this little action,
this little kind of like crossing action at the top
of the key to try to get Cat downhill again.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Look all it is is like a little dribble pitch.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Cat kind of trails the play delawn right, just kind
of dribbles right at turner and then just pitches it,
and that just gives Cat an opportunity to get like
a head of scheme when he's already got momentum. Another
example of him getting to his right hand and just
powering through everybody and finishing. Nice work from the pacers
(21:11):
here handling the blitz. On this particular possession. We get
an early guard screen that gets brunts in onto Halliburton.
Hard attack of Halliburton leaves the pocket open. Og has
to step over. We get our week side two on
one swing extra pass wide open three. But Nie Smith
missed a couple of these wide open threes in the
first half.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Here we get.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Another chance for Og and Obi to attack out of
like a clear side iso, they dribble out, they see
the matchup, they like they just pitch it to og.
This is the one that didn't get counted as a bucket,
but was a bucket and an offensive rebound.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
I like that action.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
I think it's something that Nick should explore when everything's
bogged down. So fast forwarding a little bit, Matherin just
hit a transition three, cut the lead to seven, and
over the course of the next you know, half a
quarter or so, the Knicks are about to go on
a twenty to seven run to put themselves up by twenty.
(22:11):
We're gonna cover that real quick and then we'll be
done for the day. So here another example of Karl
Anthony Towns just winning the ground battle against Pascal Siakam.
Watch how he gets this deep seal, so like, look
at Siakam. Watch how Siakam's just kind of floating, walking, floating,
just kind of chilling. Now he takes his eyes off
the cat, like what is he looking at? So Kat's like,
(22:35):
all right, you're just gonna let me in deep seal
here word just creates the passing angle, easy finish. Like
Siakam looked like he was half asleep in this game.
I'm not sure what was going on there.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
So uh.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
And then that's another one of those like little short
shots that Siaka missed. Just just kind of a weird
game from him. Now Mikhale Bridges is going to post
up Jalen Bruns. And by the way, this was the
second time in the game that McHale got a bucket
against Halliburton. In the post, he hit a little left
shoulder fade and here he hits a little right shoulder
fade towards the middle. They're gonna let those guys work
(23:09):
one on one. I would continue to explore that. Look
at the Halliburton face guarding from Bridges faceguard, deny faceguard
deny face guard deny, face guard deny. That actually forces
them to just look another direction. Halliburton just goes and
stands off on the side. They end up running a
(23:30):
little action with Nemhard and Jeris Walker. Jaris Walker misses
the three more denial of Haliburton, full court pressure as
soon as he gives up the ball. Look at Bridges
(23:51):
Bridges deny, deny, deny. One of the things they did
here which I like is this is a great way
to attack it. Deny if he's gonna be in between
the ball and the man quickly reverse the floor. Suddenly
he's on the right side, right, So as soon as
the ball gets reversed, suddenly Haliburton's on the right side
of the action where he can get to the ball
before bridges. So he does, gets there and then immediately
(24:13):
gets rid of the ball, picks up his dribble. But
look look at the aggression that we got Mitchell Robinson
up at the level we got Brunson digging. There's three
on the ball with Haliburton again, good pressure, great defense
from Mitchell Robinson forces the travel and as far as
(24:34):
Hyrys Haliburton goes, guys like this is literally what Okac
is going to do to him. They're going to swarm
him at least to start the series, and his ability
to handle it and get the ball out is going
to be a big part of whether or not they
can force Okac to change their game plan. All right,
this is what it looks like when they actually handle
(24:57):
cat appropriately in terms of sending it in the right
direction and having the help in the right position. So
watch how Sam is way up on the right hand
when they go back to cat here. Okay, boom, Watch
how he hops, like as soon as you see the pass,
watch Siakam hops up on their right hand drive. Oh shit,
I need to send them left. Okay, look at all
the bodies. Everyone's looking and Nie Smith not yet, but
(25:21):
Nemhard and Haliburn, everyone's looking at Kat cat racks to
the left, but look where the help is. They meet
him early and they're prepared and Nie Smith takes a charge.
So again their game plan and they want to send
Kat left and have him in help there.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
If that's fine.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
You just got to make sure the help gets there early,
and I would explore double teaming more. You just got
to take away the easy reads and make him throw
the passes over the top. This was a huge two
way sequence from Jalen Brunson. Nemhar is gonna get downhill
here and he's going to make a nice peel off
kind of help side rotation at the rim and force
a miss big time play there. And again it's just
about making the read. And talked about this earlier. I
(26:01):
was talking about this actually with the guys before we
started the show. Mem Hard was forcing some stuff at
the rim in this game in traffic. This just needs
to be a kickout past Toniesmith and instead he tries
to shoot over Brunson smokes the layup. We go out
the other way on the other end of the floor,
(26:23):
little guard guard screen. The quick guard screen gets Haliburton
switched onto him. Now we're running a ball screen with Haliburton.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Looking out easy.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
This layup is just by getting a more favorable on
ball matchup early in the possession. Bruntson again just win
in the ground battle. Watch how he just dislodges Aaron E.
Smith on this drive. Watch the bump once he gets
downhill against the pressure. Downhill, down hill, downhill, boom. See
(26:51):
that bump. You're gonna ride my hip. That's great, I'm
gonna bump you off. Knocks him loose. Now he's got
an easy layer in the gap there. Brunston was phenomenal
in this game. Hand down, man down on this one.
Another little short range missed from Siakam. We're going down
(27:11):
the other end. Ball gets swung over to Brunson and
Nie Smith has his hands down. That ain't gonna work.
He's feeling too good with the jumper Tonight. Some really
high quality drop coverage defense here by Mitchell Robinson on Haliburton.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
So the denial.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
There's a temporary sequence where Brunson is switched on too Haliburt,
which kind of gets him out of their denial. By
the time they actually execute the switch again, it's just
a quick hitch over to Haliburt and now he's got
the ball. Also, because of the positioning, McHale's not really
in a spot to beat him over the top of
the screen, so Haliburton gets downhill. Watch Mitch. This is
textbook drop coverage defense. He's accounting for the role man,
(27:57):
he's dropping back. He's made him make a decision. Haliburton
doesn't like any of his passing reads, so he's got
a default back to the scoop shot, and Mitch is
there to swat that shit.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Out of bounce.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
So you're gonna see a lot of off ball denials
here over the course of the next few possessions. Watch
we have Miles Turner with the ball. Watch everyone else
off ball denying, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny, not letting
that easy swing pass, even like getting away with physicality.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Again, this is the Playoffs.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
All that physicality and while all this aggression is happening
in the off ball denials, watch Mitch attacking the basketball
and he swipes it off of Turner's leg. As we
always talk about, there are two sides to a switch, right,
So we get a ball screen. In the ball screen,
(28:52):
Nie Smith switches on to Mitchell Robinson and Turner switches
onto Jalen Brunson. Jalen Brunson gets the ball back and
goes to attack, misses a step back three. But what's
the other side of the switch. The other side of
the switch is you've got Mitchell Robinson on Aaron Nesmith.
Watch how aaron Ne Smith just gets buried by Mitch
(29:12):
easy offensive rebound put back. More off ball denials. Fast
forward a little bit here, so throw the ball Turner.
Watch all the denials. See that they're trying to get
Siakam to screen for Haliburton, so you can come off
the screen. But look at McHale. Just physical hugging denial there.
(29:35):
That's what you got to bring immediately in game six, Now,
all of a sudden, we have Turner dribbling out the
clock out at half court, nowhere to go. Finally gets
the ball. Denie Smith with six on the shot clock,
and he's got to take this bad pull up three.
You can play the Pacers into a lot of those
bad possessions if you bring that pressure, which again is
kind of what concerns me about a potential Oklahoma City matchup.
(29:59):
Here's another they're successful double team of by the way,
also after the turner or the Nie Smith miss, we
do get another offensive rebound. But look at the off
ball denials or in the passing lanes, and Indiana is
really starting to come apart at the seams now with
the turnovers. Here's a double team of Cat that works.
(30:23):
Notice they just bring the double, Like just as soon
as he puts the ball on the floor, boom, here
comes the double attack the basketball and they end up
calling the foul on Cat there. So like, I really
think Indiana's got a double and bring early help. Keep
sending Cat towards that left hand. When you have the
early help coming, they can't just keep letting him get
(30:44):
to his right hand in single coverage. Look at the
hard hedge from Brunts and look at that they're hedging
with Brunson forty five feet from the basket. Haliburton immediately
getting rid of the basketball. Again, like these guys aren't
even in scoring position, and Halliburton's getting rid of the basketball.
(31:06):
He's like he has an opportunity here to drive, like
just keep going. OG's not in position. Turn the corner,
turn the corner and attack like this. At this point
in time, Halliburton's gotta shoot this gap and make something
better happen. He's just getting rid of the ball away
too early. Great defense by Bruntson strips it off of
(31:31):
Neie Smith's leg. A really good rotation out of a
double team of Siakam here, so Siakam's got Brunson hard double.
Watch the rotations. Bridges is over, Boom, Bridges is over
(31:51):
a little bit of a missed extra pass here from
Nie Smith that's got to go over to Halliburton. I
thought Tyres Sliburton really telegraphed this pass. See as we
get up here, look at how he's looking through the
(32:12):
whole time as he's coming off the ball screen, not
even looking at the rim, looking down at the pocket,
looking down at the pocket, looking down at the pocket,
looking down at the pocket, still looking down at the pocket.
Here's the pocket pass. Mitch's recovery athleticism gets the block.
(32:32):
Mitch's recovery athleticism always blows me away. But yeah, I'd
like Haliburton is like, straight up not even looking to
score the basketball. Two more clips, guys once again losing
control of Kat to his strong hand and go back
(32:59):
out to Kat here. Okay, so we have Kat, we're
supposed to be sending him to his left, that's where
all the help is. There's no help on the right
hand side Kat, Like this is just a straight up
loaded up iso. Siakam is going to try to send
him to his left, but Kat just beats him to
the right, like he's just as soon as you do that,
(33:19):
it's dead on arrival. Like, look at where the help is.
Look at them Hart. They are planned to meet Kat
on a left handed drive. Haliburn's not even thinking about
it because he's thinking he's gonna send Kat towards his left.
He doesn't gives up the right hand. Now by the
time Thomas Bryant meets him at the rim, it's too
late that a big steal for Mitchell Robinson. In transition,
(33:44):
Lob to og Andnobi draws a foul, goes to the line,
makes both free throws, and all of a sudden the
Knicks are up twenty and heading down to Indiana for
a game six. So again as you guys can see
on the tape, some obvious Lackaday's goal stuff from the Pacers,
but some obvious stuff that works right, some obvious examples
of physicality and bal denials, and how they can play
Tyree Saliburton into his worst tendencies. Some reality is about
(34:10):
finding opportunities to post up ogn and o B and
Michale Bridges. Some reality is about the fact that we
know Brunson can play better than he did on the
road in Indiana in Game four, and so it's all
there on the table. The job is. There's no complication
there in terms of what kind of game plan they
need to run or whether or not they can do
the job. They just have to be the best version
(34:31):
of the Knicks when they go down to Indiana. Get
to give themselves a chance. And again, as you guys
can see here, we're watching the tape. What do you
think the Pacers are doing today? They're watching the tape,
and I guarantee you there's been some ass chewings for
some specific guys. I guarantee you Siakam's watching the tape
and a little embarrassed with the way he played, And
you're gonna get a just a hillacious effort from the
(34:52):
Pacers on Saturday night. That should be a super super
interesting game. Again, we will be covering it live on
YouTube after the final buzzer.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
We'll see you guys then. What's up, guys? Theres always I.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They
would actually be really helpful for us if you guys
would take a second and leave a rating and a review.
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
appreciate it. The volume
Host
Jason Timpf
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