Jason breaks down the film on Jalen Brunson leading the New York Knicks to a huge win down the stretch of Game 4 against the Celtics. Then he looks at Anthony Edwards becoming a more versatile scorer for the Minnesota Timberwolves, especially off the catch.
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(02:32):
at the volume.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Heavy Tuesday, everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
If all of you guys are having a great start
to your week, we have a film session this morning.
I want to focus on a couple of different concepts.
One the specific ways that the New York Knicks managed
to take a three to one lead over the Boston Celtics.
I want to focus on some of the realities of
living with the results of switching. I also want to
focus on the offensive flow that they generated in the
fourth quarter and the really delicate job that Jalen Brunson
(02:58):
did when he came back into the game of not
taking control of the offense, but rather letting things continue
to flow the way that they had been flowing in
the early fourth quarter, while then asserting himself when needed
a little bit later in the fourth quarter. I thought
the Knicks played their best offensive quarter of the series
in that fourth quarter against the Celtics, and it got
(03:19):
them a three to one lead. And then in the
tail end of the show, I really want to zoom
in on the way that Anthony Edwards got to his
points yesterday against the Golden State Warriors, specifically all the
work that he was.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Doing on the catch.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
It had me thinking a lot after seeing his success
not just in this series but in the Lakers series
in off ball situations, about whether or not that might
be the future of Anthony Edwards as a super high
level player in this league, a player that maybe doesn't
have as much in the way of on ball responsibility,
but that has a ton of responsibility as an off
(03:52):
ball scorer who looks to be super aggressive off the catch,
kind of deployed more in the mold of the old
Michael Jordan archetype rather than as kind of like a
James Harden spread pick and roll type of shot creator,
which puts more of a kind of pressure on his
playmaking ability. So I want to just kind of use
last night's game as an example of what that looks
(04:13):
like in terms of attacking off the catch. You guys
are the job. Before we get started. Subscribe to Hoops
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feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, where Jackson's making great
content throughout the rest of the year. All right, let's
(04:36):
get into the film. So, as I mentioned last night
in the show, the first thing that shoot out to
me was the decision from Tom Thibodeau to go away
from Jalen Bronson and go to Douce McBride to start
the fourth quarter, essentially forcing the Knicks to run offense
through their other players. It essentially puts them in a spot.
I think part of it is the score, them being
(04:57):
up by three instead of down by twelve or down
by eight, you know, kind of where they were in
game one. In game two, it's just like a spot
where you can afford to even potentially lose a little
bit of ground if you have to. But it's a
gamble based on we need Jalen Brunson to make shots
late in the game, so we need his legs and
then two maybe we might be able to catch some
rhythm here. And so what they went to offensively to
(05:19):
start the fourth quarter was the steady diet of just
high ball screen attack against Luke Cornett. Luke Cornette is
in a drop coverage. What this means is Mikale Bridges
doesn't have to straight up iso Derek White. He can
attack what they built in advantage. That built in advantage
being Derek's going to chase over the top of the screen.
He can get him into trail position. So now he's
(05:39):
in trail position. So now it opens up a classic
drop coverage situation. He needs to find a spot somewhere
along this lane line where he's comfortable pulling up. And
this is very well defended by the by Luke Cornette
and by Derek White. But as we know, Mikal Bridges
kind of like exaggerates his lift and his fade on
even catching shoot shots times. And so this is a
(06:01):
spot where he can be comfortable and he just kind
of gets into that short range and knocks down that
little fade away in the middle of the floor. And again,
like the baked in advantage is he's able to actually
get Derek White behind him, which allows him to then
sell that upfake to get that easy separation in the
(06:21):
middle of the floor.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Same thing.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
On the next possession, we're gonna fast forward here, Bridges
up top, same ballscreen. This time Derek White takes away
that inside shoulders so he can't work back towards the
middle of the floor. This is also really well defended,
tough fade away, but again, as we know, that's what
McHale Bridges can do, and now he's in rhythm, and
so gamble is paid off for Tom Thibodeaux because now
(06:45):
he has a secondary ball handler that's feeling really good
in this spot. I talked to last night a lot
about the idea of being willing to live with the
results with Carl Anthony Town's ISOs, the ISOs against Carl
Anthony Town. So this is just a classic transition cross match.
Carltown started on Jalen Brown on this possession, but there
are a lot of examples where they hunt it just
(07:06):
with a basic screening action. But again, Jalen Brown is
able to get a bucket here, but watch the other
four defenders. They're not gonna help. They stay home. They're
taking away those catch and shoot opportunities and they're letting
cat get cooked, so to speak, at the expense of
the flow of the Celtics offense. I thought this was
(07:27):
a really smart read from Ojan and Obi against the
possession of stack pick and roll from the Celtics. So
sideline at a bounds stack pick and roll, all it
is is just a ball screen with the shooter coming
up from behind backscreening the screen defender. And on this play,
as you can see, the great read here from Ojan
and Obi is he anticipates Pritchard making this pass back
(07:48):
to Jalen Brown, and he baits him into making it
by lingering for just a second. If you watch Og,
he lingers, but he knows this is the read, and
you can actually see him already. Pritchard's still dribbling, isn't
even thrown the pass yet, but OG's already planted that
right foot to prepare to jump the passing lane. Prichard
goes to throw it, OG's right in the passing lane,
(08:09):
and this is just understanding the play. This is just
being you know, we talked a lot about IQ last
night as one of the things that translates to the
postseason as it pertains to solving puzzles. This is an
action that every team in the NBA runs, and you
have to know what the reds are. He knows that
Deuce is in a good position to handle it drive.
He doesn't need to overhelp. He bates him into it
(08:30):
and then jumps the passing lane. Really nice work from
og In and Obi's.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Fast forward here a little bit okay.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
So now McHale Bridges has just beat drop coverage two
times in a row to start the quarter, right, So
the natural adjustment from Boston is to switch. So mcale
Bridges comes off the screen. Horford switches the action. Bridges
dribbles it out. But we get our post mismatch with Karl,
Anthony Towns and Derek White. And again this mismatch is
(09:04):
driven directly from the drop covered shot making from Michale Bridges.
He drops it off to Cat Kat just simple right
shoulder turnaround. Floater gets good penetration close to the lane,
two doesn't fade. Excellent move from Cat. Here we go
ball screen to get Tatum onto Cat once again, living
(09:27):
with the results here Tatum on an island against Cat
Tatum series of moves. Cat does defend as well as
he can. They're shrinking the floor a little bit, but
they're not leaving shooters. They're not making clear kickout reads,
even Mitch. Like if you look at Mitch, Mitch's stunting,
but he's not committing. OG's staying home to deal with
(09:49):
Horford on the glass. They're living with this one on
one result, counting on the fact that Boston will just
play a bunch of one on one.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Nice shot.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
It requires a certain patience, a certain willingness to sit
there and watch Cat get his face fried off in
order for that sort of thing to work. Here's another
Michale Bridges jumper. So now this is what I was
talking about with in terms of just the excellent point
guard work from Jalen Brunson. So Jalen Brunson's just checked
(10:21):
back into the game. The score is ninety four to
ninety three, so it's not like they've gained any ground.
In fact, they've lost two points worth the ground on
the scoreboard. But in this particular spot, he doesn't want to.
He actually has the ability here to turn the corner
on Porzingis. Porzingis is flat footed, He's got the speed advantage.
I mean, he literally does turn the corner, but all
(10:43):
he does is instead of turning and attacking into this gap,
he just goes, hey, McHale Bridges is in a nice
rhythm right now.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I'm just gonna pitch it to him.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Go ahead, and Michale's able to turn the corner and
get into that little.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Mid range again.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
That's just like, that's the kind of stuff when we
talk about like floor game or like under standing the
flow of a game that's so underrated from that point
guard spot, feeling out where the offense is as a
group and what the offense needs in that spot. And
there's still so much time left in this game. Brunson
didn't need to go in there and start just trying
to force the issue with eight and a half minutes left.
(11:18):
He trusted a teammate that was in flow and got
him another opportunity, and he got another bucket. This is
one of those half court ball screens we saw a
lot down the stretch of Game two, if you guys remember,
so they catch Og back at half court. This allows
Tatum to get ahead of Steam, crosses over Kat loses
control of the basketball, which is what stopped him from
(11:40):
getting all the way to the rim, but look at
where Cat had to recover to all the way down
to the charge circle. Tatum's able to pull back out
and hits another jumper in his face. But again this
is again living with the results, like allowing Cat to
get fried in hopes that the Celtics won't have any
other additional offensive rhythm down the stretch, and it doesn't work.
Yet it works right when they get to that one
(12:02):
ninety nine to ninety eight spot. It's like right in
that range where things start to go off the rails
for the Celtics offense. It was about the long game.
Wal Tatum was hot, the game plan wasn't working, but
eventually Tatum started to get tired. He started settling for shots.
You'll see how it goes over the course of the game.
This is an interesting action that the Knicks ran that
(12:24):
got an easy bucket for Mitchell Robinson. It kind of
looks like Stack, but it's not Stack technically because in
Stack you want this guy typically to be a shooter.
But it kind of just looks like it in the
sense that they're setting a ball screen and Mitch's running
up to backscreen for Cat's man. In the action, Jalen
Brunson draws too, he pitches it back to Cat. Porzingis
(12:47):
has to step up. Everyone in the Celtics Jersey switches.
So Horford's now on Brunson, Drew Hollidays now on Mitch.
Porzingis is now on Cat. But Mitchell Robinson has inside position.
So what does he do? He just rolled Drew Holiday
lingers as Cat beats Porzingis on that pump.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Fake.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Now, all of a sudden, there's an easy lobreed in
front of the basket. Just an example of bringing a
third man into the action to confuse things. So like,
if it's just these two, they pitch it back to
Cat and Drew Holiday rotates, but because there's that third defender,
it causes a series of switches, and then there's the
mistake as they leave Mitch Robinson wide open on the roll.
(13:28):
But you guys can probably see at this point a
tangible difference in the types of shots that the Knicks
are getting. The Knicks are getting buckets from a variety
of different guys. Cat's attacking post mismatches, Mikhale Bridges is
hitting mid range jump shots, Mitchell Robinson is getting a
catch on the roll. We're about to see og In and
ob get involved. For the Celtics, it's just a steady
(13:49):
diet of Tatum right now. On this plaint the Knicks
don't get matched up in transition and they lose control
of Tatum. This happened actually a bunch in the especially
in the first half of this game, but you can
see them trying to communicate, but it gets botched. Bridges
is actually pointing over to get someone else to guard Horford,
(14:10):
but then he realizes nobody's gonna do it, so he
runs over. But og doesn't realize it because he clearly
didn't hear the communication from Bridges, so they both go over.
This generates this wide open closeout opportunity for Tatum. Watch
how he beats it with just a really basic jab
step to the right, boom step over pull up three.
(14:31):
This is a move, by the way, that every young
basketball player needs to have in their bag because it's
such an easy way to get a clean look from
three in any sort of nail help or any sort
of like situation where the defender is on your left
shoulder by a wide margin. If you have this type
of margin, this guy's gonna be closing out really hard.
Towards your right hand, because he's gonna expect you to
(14:54):
rack the ball to the right, and so if you
can on that catch, just throw a quick jab and
sell it. This guy's going to lose his balance moving
towards your right hand, then you just easy slide over
to your left. Then there's an easy rise in fire three.
That's a shot that every young basketball player needs to
add to his bag to attack closeouts. But this was
(15:23):
the point in the game where I thought it was interesting.
So Boston's up ninety nine to ninety eight, they're up
by one point, and it was at this point in
the game where I felt pretty strongly that the Knicks
were going to win because they just had so much
more going for them than just Tatum. And it's not
necessarily Tatum's fault. It's just kind of the reality of
the way the Knicks were guarding by switching. If it
would have just required Tatum to pitch the ball to
(15:44):
someone else to go one on one, and that's just
the coverage that the Knicks were running. As you guys
have seen, the Knicks were able to get players in
rhythm by attacking and drop coverage, and the drop coverage
just builds. These like kind of baked in advantages to
where Brunson can pitch the ball to Bridges and not
have to worry about Bridges having to iso Derek White
at like straight up as a defender loaded up. You
(16:06):
can get Bridges clean looks just based on the coverage.
The Knicks coverage was baiting the Celtics into isoball and
Tatum was the only player in rhythm. The Celtics were
running more high drop. As a result, they were able
to or low drop. Actually with McHale Bridges, they were
running more drop coverage and so as a result they
were able to get a different player into rhythm. There's
(16:32):
a classic example right here. Notice Bridges is just running away.
They're actually running this play for McHale Bridge. Excuse me,
Brunson's running away. They're actually running this play from McHale
Bridges in the middle of the floor ballscreen drop coverage.
There's that gap in the drop coverage. We always talked
about the gap in the drop coverage. It's the gap
(16:54):
between the back pressure and the drop coverage. Big Porzingis's
weight is clearly shifted backwards. Derek White is a few
feet behind. He can rise and fire into that spot.
It's a baked in opening in the coverage, and now
he's in great rhythm. This is one of the plays
that I talked about last night where I thought Christaps
(17:15):
Porzingis looked like he just didn't have very good lift
on his rolls to the rim. Watches Porzingis gets that
inside position on this role. How he just loses all
his momentum once he runs into a defender at the
front of the rim. Like, this is a completely manageable
situation for Porzingis. He's got the ball, he's reading, his
(17:38):
eyes are up, he's seeing the floor. But you could
just literally see he doesn't have the lift. He doesn't
even get off the ground there. Probably missed a kick
out read to Derek White there on the left wing too.
Jalen Brunson again, notice Jalen Brunson is yet to like
(17:58):
really try to himself. He's still just feeling out the
flow of the game. It's a five, it's a four
on five, but the Celtics aren't matched up. Look at
how he identifies. He looks at the situation right here,
he sees the floor. He goes, Okay, I've got four
Celtics all in front of me. He turns and he sees, Okay,
I've got Porzingis trailing the play. Who's trailing Porzingis? Oh,
(18:20):
look at og. OG's going to be running with the
head of steam. Tatum is literally pointing for Porzingis to
grab him. This is an opportunity for og Anobi to
attack a big, slow footed center on a closeout. Pitches
it to him just a little hesitation fake. You can
see just that eyes on the rim right here. He's
a threat to shoot, and you could see Porzingis's weight
(18:40):
immediately shift forward and now he's dead to rights. Og
hits the gap, gets the left handed layup. Another nasty
move from Jason Tatum here. This was the last bucket
that Tatum got during the run. He's posting up og. I'm'
(19:05):
a fast forward a little bit here, And this is
where these shoulder fakes are so important. So on this play, ideally,
if you're og Anobi, you want to force Tatum into
a fadeaway jump shot right. So Tatum is gonna pound
dribble and fake's shoulder back to his left shoulder. But
then he's gonna turn like he's gonna fade over his
right shoulder. Here right shoulder fake to the left shoulder
(19:29):
fake up. He did double dribble here, but this fake
right here. When he turns, you're thinking right shoulder fade.
That causes Og to step up. Look at OG's hand.
He goes up to contest because he thinks the right
shoulder fad is coming. That's literally why ogn Andobi's jumping
like this because he thinks Tatum's about to elevate and
(19:50):
shoot that right shoulder fade. Then that's when Tatum steps
through and gets the end one. And if you if
you watch like Michael Jordan tape, Kobe Bryant tape, Anthony
Edwards is getting good at this move too. If you
watch those two guards, they turn and they pumpake over
their right shoulder, the defender jumps, that's when they step
(20:12):
through and go all the way to the front of
the rim. More drop coverage attacks this time oj and
Obie on a skip. I talked about this last night,
how like Brunson would probe early in possession. So okay,
(20:34):
he's running a drop coverage attack. It's not open, Tatum's
guarded it. Well, I'm gonna just pitch it back out
and now I'm gonna clear out and then we're gonna
run it again on the other side, this time for
og And and Obi o g just got a bucket driving
a close out. Now he's gonna pull to the right
and then step back and knock down the shot in
the switch gap there as Porzingis is coming out.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Everyone's in rhythm for New York.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Really good defense here from Jalen Brunson on a switch
against Jason Tatum. Once again, notice no hedging, no edging
and recovering, no drop coverage with Carl Towns Steady died
of Jalen Brunson and Cat being asked to defend on
an island. This is the game plan. This is literally
how they played the Celtics into this style of basketball.
(21:22):
Beats him to the spot right there, beats him to
the spot again, causes him to lose the handle. Mitchell
Robinson just ends up overplaying the jumper on Drew Holliday
and ends up giving up the layup. And Drew and
everyone else was in such a poor rhythm offensively at
that point shooting the ball that if Mitch would have
just let him shoot, he probably would have missed it. Now,
(21:43):
Jalen Brunson's looking to be more aggressive. Two on the ball,
hesitation moved to beat Derek White, and you can literally
see right when he goes into the step back here,
so he sells that left foot boom, step back. Watch
Derek White's feet, they're both back in the lane line.
Now he jumps right here. So this is the beauty
(22:05):
of this sort of fake. Right here, when he jumps,
Derek White's entire body is off the ground. Now he's
like suspended in mid air. That makes it so that
Jalen Brunson can cover ground and Derek White can't even
look to change direction until he lands, and you can
literally see by the time he lands and changes direction,
(22:25):
Brunson's past him, and then he's able to find that
little angle.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
For the float off the glass.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Breaking people off with dribble combinations, for the most part,
comes down to getting them to shift their weight to
where their weight is not on the leg that they
need to push to get to where you're at to
cut you off. Once you get them to shift their
weight off of their most important foot or in this case,
both of their feet, they're basically dead to rights. Tatum
actually beats Mitchell Robinson in the switch here and gets downhill.
(22:58):
But watch the late stunt from Og and Anobi gets downhill.
Stunt from Og, Tatum's got him beat. He's going all
the way to the rim. If Og doesn't do this
stunt from Og that forces Tatum to settle for the
fade away instead. That's just a really tough shot. I mean,
(23:19):
he was going full speed downhill and now he's leaning
backwards from like thirteen feet. This shot misses. Porzingis does
end up drawing a foul here, but he misses both
free throws. But again it was a stunt too, like
if you watch if you watch Og, as he throws
the stunt, he gets back immediately to Porzingis and boxes out.
He just ends up committing the foul. I absolutely hated
(23:43):
this shot from Derek White one oh seven, one o four.
Brunson misses the layup. You've got a chance here to
get a bucket and restore orders. Four and a half
minutes left, and look at this shot from Derek White,
just a quick, contested corner three with seventeen on the clock.
And again in the flow of the game, Derek White
hadn't touched the ball like in any sort of meaningful
context in a long time, and he's just jacking up
(24:05):
a three with seventeen on the shot clock on the
other end of the floor. Fast forward, Brunson attacks Horford
in a ball screen, dribbles out, gets the spacing the
way he wants it, and then just drives into the
gap and hits a little tough step back moving towards
(24:26):
his left. Notice when Brunson started to assert himself, he's
now looking to assert himself with you know, four and
a half four minutes left, after being more passive and
trusting the flow of his offense. With eight and a
half minutes left, and he's put himself in a position
to win this game. And this is where Tatum starts
(24:49):
to get tired, just settles for a thirty footer way
out above the break, like you could just tell he's tired.
At this point, he's missed two tough pull up jump
shots in a row. This is the beauty of the
game plan. You paid your dues, you took a bunch
of ISO buckets in the face. It's obviously frustrating in
those moments, but you trust the process and you understand
(25:11):
that eventually heal fatigue because we have a bunch of
guys in rhythm. He's the only guy that's in rhythm.
It was a brilliant game plan from Tom Thibodeau. After
the fade, we go up the floor, brunts and attacks.
Early in the possession, Probes pitches it to Michale Bridges
(25:34):
trusts him like he doesn't need to throw a shot here.
McHale's in rhythm. Jab same sort of fake by the
way we talked about earlier.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
By the way, like the.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Vast majority of high school kids that I talked to
and coach can't even do a jab step without traveling.
That's why I'm emphasizing this as a movie. Y'all need
to practice because it takes a lot of work to
do without traveling. A lot of guys what they'll do
is they'll slide this left foot on the jab step.
You can actually see Michal Bridge's foot is anchored to
the ground on the jab. It doesn't slip. That's footwork
(26:04):
that you have to work on and takes a lot
of repetition in practice. But once again, you could see
Derek White because he's way on his left shoulder is
guaranteed to close out hard to your right hand because
he thinks that's where you're gonna go. So if you
throw a jab boom, look at where Derek White goes
on the jab boom and it's just done and then
he can get into his little right shoulder fade in
(26:24):
the middle. Oh, Jana nob really wanted that ball too,
as you can tell. But yeah, so just in general,
a lot of flow, really high level point guard play
from Jalen Brunson, and the right game plan to beat
the Boston Celtics. This is I have preached this exact
same game plan for years now as it pertains to
(26:45):
Tatum and Brown and just the idea that like if
you let them get into their driving kick attack and
you let them get into their you know, wide open
catch and shoot threes, that they get out of the
flow of their offense, that's when they peak. But if
you force them to just play a bunch of one
on one basketball, they're good at it, but they're not
you know, Luka don Hitch, you know Nikola Jokic, Lebron
James and his prime that sort of thing. They're not
(27:05):
that type of shot creator, and you can win that
battle in the long run. Let's talk about Anthony Edwards
working off the catch a lot of similar concepts to
what we were just talking about with Michale Bridges and
using the.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Jab step simple relocation.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Here Ant's Ant's literally just walking up the floor and
watching the drive, sees Buddy turn his head, sprints to
the corner, ends up getting himself a clean catch and shoot.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Look there, bucket.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
The main thing I want you guys to focus on
is just how easy the flow is for Ant in
these off the catch situations. This is this one in particular,
is just an on ball iso. But I really liked
him working out of the middle of the floor. He
hit a couple of mid range jump shots in this game,
and this is a shot that I would like to
(27:56):
see him use more as a balance to his three
point shot making.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
I'm just gonna play this full speed.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Watch how easy breezy this jump shot is for it,
Like that's a shot we talked last night with Michael Bridges.
In mid range rhythm. He could catch some real heaters
in that spot on the floor. Here's Ant off the
catch again's fast forward. Okay, so transition situation. Here's this
(28:22):
catch right, Gary Payton's closing out on his right shoulder,
pump fake the pump fake gets him off of his stance.
We talked about that earlier. His weight. Look as soon
as he pump fakes Gary Payton's in mid air, there's
no chance for him to cut Ant off. Now it's over.
Ant beats him off the dribble, gets into the lane,
elevates and finishes around Trace Jackson. Davis a lot more
(28:46):
left handed finishes in this game than he was using
earlier in the series. Watch how badly he breaks off Buddy.
Healed on this move off the catch against the Warrior zone.
So again, off the catch, he jabs. He jabs towards
the corner, which freezes Draymond. You can see Raymond take
(29:08):
that really long step to try to cut that off.
Then he steps up. Draymond recovers. Look at the rhythm
and flow that he's in. Any simple off the catch,
attacks hard off the dribble, jump shot towards his left.
Watch it again in full speed jab to freeze Draymond.
Now I've just got an ISO against Buddy, easy work, boom.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
This is just greatness. There's nothing you can do about this.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
This is just an off the dribble thirty footer against
the double team. He started yelling some shit about sending
their ass home after that too. Here's an Ant off the
catch again once again. Just watch the rhythm pump, side step, easy, breezy, like,
(29:57):
look at how easy this is for him off the catch, pump, sidestep.
I just would love to see Ant get more of
these opportunities off to catch. Just why I keep thinking
about him playing with more of an on ball like
setup man. Here is this nasty the lefty euro fake
(30:18):
that he uses to get.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Into the lane.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
One of the things I want you guys to focus
on in these next couple of clips is just how
much Ant is slowing down on his drives compared to
the past. I talked a lot about this early in
the series, with him missing layups, this idea that he
was just kind of like flying down the lane and
trying to make everything happen with downhill force. He's a
little bit more methodical on these next two drives. Let's
watch him. I'll show you guys what I mean.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Little in and out.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Dribble, just a basic in and out dribble completely freezes pods,
gets into the lane.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Trace is there.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Watch him slow down, slow, He slows down and does
a very deliberate euro fake into the middle. We'll watch
trace as soon as he does the euro fake. Same
thing we talked about earlier. Both feet off the ground.
Now it's over. He's got both feet off the ground
(31:10):
off the euro fake. His head's not even in the
right place now, it's just an easy, breezy left handed
layup off the glass for Ant. Here's the other kind
of slow down drive that he had fast forward, once again,
(31:31):
attacking in an off ball situation. Cominga's already trailing. Now
when he drives Kaminga's entrail position, it's kind of like
a drop coverage. Look watch Ant methodically slow down, low
gather switches to his left hand. I'm gonna play this
one in full speed, and just watch how under control
he is compared to earlier in the series. Just surgical
(32:03):
there in the lane like it was crazy. Like we
talked so much about whether or not he'd be able
to figure it out over the course of this series,
and I think he's been fantastic. Here's another example of
attacking off the catch. It almost like simplifies his thought
process when he's catching in these spots, he's thinking score.
He's effectively a play finisher in these sorts of spots,
(32:27):
and I almost think that's the best way to use him.
It's not to say you don't ever go to ant
on the ball, of course you do, but I just
I think it just kind of idealizes his specific skill
set and his mentality as like an assassin's score.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
This is just nasty. It's a transition step back three.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
But I want you to once again focus on how
slow and under control ant is doesn't rush the shot,
even though he knows Jimmy's there. He doesn't rush the shot.
He just settles slowly into that step back and gets
great lift and sit down and lastly, once again another
play finishing sequence and catches in the middle of the
(33:07):
floor here against the zone, against the box and one
and just gets into the middle of the floor knocks
down another one of those easy, brizzy mid range jump shots.
So yeah, just something to keep in mind for his
development moving forward. I think it's kind of a fascinating concept.
I don't know who that type of player is yet,
but the idea of being paired one day with a
setup guy, someone who's going to routinely get him into
(33:30):
position to score, and then also building the offense that
way Like if I was Chris Finch, I would look
hard this summer into developing a lot more of like
kind of traditional off guard off ball like kind of
two guard sets where he can come attack off the catch,
or simple actions where he's screening and slipping out and
having the defender trailing and chasing him out of the
screening action to where he can get clean opportunities against
(33:53):
the guy closing out against his strong hand. A lot
of different stuff like that I think can simplify it,
especially against these better defenses. I'm not worried about whether
or not you can slice and dice teams like the
Lakers and the Nuggets, but when they run into these
like higher tier defenses, I think there's a lot of potential,
a lot of potential there for Aunt to have success
as an off ball score. All right, guys, it's all
(34:13):
I have for this morning. We will be back tonight
after the final buzzer of Nuggets Thunder, I will.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
See you guys then. What's up guys?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
oops tonight. They would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys
supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
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(02:32):
at the volume.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Heavy Tuesday, everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
If all of you guys are having a great start
to your week, we have a film session this morning.
I want to focus on a couple of different concepts.
One the specific ways that the New York Knicks managed
to take a three to one lead over the Boston Celtics.
I want to focus on some of the realities of
living with the results of switching. I also want to
focus on the offensive flow that they generated in the
fourth quarter and the really delicate job that Jalen Brunson
(02:58):
did when he came back into the game of not
taking control of the offense, but rather letting things continue
to flow the way that they had been flowing in
the early fourth quarter, while then asserting himself when needed
a little bit later in the fourth quarter. I thought
the Knicks played their best offensive quarter of the series
in that fourth quarter against the Celtics, and it got
(03:19):
them a three to one lead. And then in the
tail end of the show, I really want to zoom
in on the way that Anthony Edwards got to his
points yesterday against the Golden State Warriors, specifically all the
work that he was.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Doing on the catch.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
It had me thinking a lot after seeing his success
not just in this series but in the Lakers series
in off ball situations, about whether or not that might
be the future of Anthony Edwards as a super high
level player in this league, a player that maybe doesn't
have as much in the way of on ball responsibility,
but that has a ton of responsibility as an off
(03:52):
ball scorer who looks to be super aggressive off the catch,
kind of deployed more in the mold of the old
Michael Jordan archetype rather than as kind of like a
James Harden spread pick and roll type of shot creator,
which puts more of a kind of pressure on his
playmaking ability. So I want to just kind of use
last night's game as an example of what that looks
(04:13):
like in terms of attacking off the catch. You guys
are the job. Before we get started. Subscribe to Hoops
and I YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of
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that front. And then don't forget about our social media
feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, where Jackson's making great
content throughout the rest of the year. All right, let's
(04:36):
get into the film. So, as I mentioned last night
in the show, the first thing that shoot out to
me was the decision from Tom Thibodeau to go away
from Jalen Bronson and go to Douce McBride to start
the fourth quarter, essentially forcing the Knicks to run offense
through their other players. It essentially puts them in a spot.
I think part of it is the score, them being
(04:57):
up by three instead of down by twelve or down
by eight, you know, kind of where they were in
game one. In game two, it's just like a spot
where you can afford to even potentially lose a little
bit of ground if you have to. But it's a
gamble based on we need Jalen Brunson to make shots
late in the game, so we need his legs and
then two maybe we might be able to catch some
rhythm here. And so what they went to offensively to
(05:19):
start the fourth quarter was the steady diet of just
high ball screen attack against Luke Cornett. Luke Cornette is
in a drop coverage. What this means is Mikale Bridges
doesn't have to straight up iso Derek White. He can
attack what they built in advantage. That built in advantage
being Derek's going to chase over the top of the screen.
He can get him into trail position. So now he's
(05:39):
in trail position. So now it opens up a classic
drop coverage situation. He needs to find a spot somewhere
along this lane line where he's comfortable pulling up. And
this is very well defended by the by Luke Cornette
and by Derek White. But as we know, Mikal Bridges
kind of like exaggerates his lift and his fade on
even catching shoot shots times. And so this is a
(06:01):
spot where he can be comfortable and he just kind
of gets into that short range and knocks down that
little fade away in the middle of the floor. And again,
like the baked in advantage is he's able to actually
get Derek White behind him, which allows him to then
sell that upfake to get that easy separation in the
(06:21):
middle of the floor.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Same thing.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
On the next possession, we're gonna fast forward here, Bridges
up top, same ballscreen. This time Derek White takes away
that inside shoulders so he can't work back towards the
middle of the floor. This is also really well defended,
tough fade away, but again, as we know, that's what
McHale Bridges can do, and now he's in rhythm, and
so gamble is paid off for Tom Thibodeaux because now
(06:45):
he has a secondary ball handler that's feeling really good
in this spot. I talked to last night a lot
about the idea of being willing to live with the
results with Carl Anthony Town's ISOs, the ISOs against Carl
Anthony Town. So this is just a classic transition cross match.
Carltown started on Jalen Brown on this possession, but there
are a lot of examples where they hunt it just
(07:06):
with a basic screening action. But again, Jalen Brown is
able to get a bucket here, but watch the other
four defenders. They're not gonna help. They stay home. They're
taking away those catch and shoot opportunities and they're letting
cat get cooked, so to speak, at the expense of
the flow of the Celtics offense. I thought this was
(07:27):
a really smart read from Ojan and Obi against the
possession of stack pick and roll from the Celtics. So
sideline at a bounds stack pick and roll, all it
is is just a ball screen with the shooter coming
up from behind backscreening the screen defender. And on this play,
as you can see, the great read here from Ojan
and Obi is he anticipates Pritchard making this pass back
(07:48):
to Jalen Brown, and he baits him into making it
by lingering for just a second. If you watch Og,
he lingers, but he knows this is the read, and
you can actually see him already. Pritchard's still dribbling, isn't
even thrown the pass yet, but OG's already planted that
right foot to prepare to jump the passing lane. Prichard
goes to throw it, OG's right in the passing lane,
(08:09):
and this is just understanding the play. This is just
being you know, we talked a lot about IQ last
night as one of the things that translates to the
postseason as it pertains to solving puzzles. This is an
action that every team in the NBA runs, and you
have to know what the reds are. He knows that
Deuce is in a good position to handle it drive.
He doesn't need to overhelp. He bates him into it
(08:30):
and then jumps the passing lane. Really nice work from
og In and Obi's.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Fast forward here a little bit okay.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
So now McHale Bridges has just beat drop coverage two
times in a row to start the quarter, right, So
the natural adjustment from Boston is to switch. So mcale
Bridges comes off the screen. Horford switches the action. Bridges
dribbles it out. But we get our post mismatch with Karl,
Anthony Towns and Derek White. And again this mismatch is
(09:04):
driven directly from the drop covered shot making from Michale Bridges.
He drops it off to Cat Kat just simple right
shoulder turnaround. Floater gets good penetration close to the lane,
two doesn't fade. Excellent move from Cat. Here we go
ball screen to get Tatum onto Cat once again, living
(09:27):
with the results here Tatum on an island against Cat
Tatum series of moves. Cat does defend as well as
he can. They're shrinking the floor a little bit, but
they're not leaving shooters. They're not making clear kickout reads,
even Mitch. Like if you look at Mitch, Mitch's stunting,
but he's not committing. OG's staying home to deal with
(09:49):
Horford on the glass. They're living with this one on
one result, counting on the fact that Boston will just
play a bunch of one on one.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Nice shot.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
It requires a certain patience, a certain willingness to sit
there and watch Cat get his face fried off in
order for that sort of thing to work. Here's another
Michale Bridges jumper. So now this is what I was
talking about with in terms of just the excellent point
guard work from Jalen Brunson. So Jalen Brunson's just checked
(10:21):
back into the game. The score is ninety four to
ninety three, so it's not like they've gained any ground.
In fact, they've lost two points worth the ground on
the scoreboard. But in this particular spot, he doesn't want to.
He actually has the ability here to turn the corner
on Porzingis. Porzingis is flat footed, He's got the speed advantage.
I mean, he literally does turn the corner, but all
(10:43):
he does is instead of turning and attacking into this gap,
he just goes, hey, McHale Bridges is in a nice
rhythm right now.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I'm just gonna pitch it to him.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Go ahead, and Michale's able to turn the corner and
get into that little.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Mid range again.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
That's just like, that's the kind of stuff when we
talk about like floor game or like under standing the
flow of a game that's so underrated from that point
guard spot, feeling out where the offense is as a
group and what the offense needs in that spot. And
there's still so much time left in this game. Brunson
didn't need to go in there and start just trying
to force the issue with eight and a half minutes left.
(11:18):
He trusted a teammate that was in flow and got
him another opportunity, and he got another bucket. This is
one of those half court ball screens we saw a
lot down the stretch of Game two, if you guys remember,
so they catch Og back at half court. This allows
Tatum to get ahead of Steam, crosses over Kat loses
control of the basketball, which is what stopped him from
(11:40):
getting all the way to the rim, but look at
where Cat had to recover to all the way down
to the charge circle. Tatum's able to pull back out
and hits another jumper in his face. But again this
is again living with the results, like allowing Cat to
get fried in hopes that the Celtics won't have any
other additional offensive rhythm down the stretch, and it doesn't work.
Yet it works right when they get to that one
(12:02):
ninety nine to ninety eight spot. It's like right in
that range where things start to go off the rails
for the Celtics offense. It was about the long game.
Wal Tatum was hot, the game plan wasn't working, but
eventually Tatum started to get tired. He started settling for shots.
You'll see how it goes over the course of the game.
This is an interesting action that the Knicks ran that
(12:24):
got an easy bucket for Mitchell Robinson. It kind of
looks like Stack, but it's not Stack technically because in
Stack you want this guy typically to be a shooter.
But it kind of just looks like it in the
sense that they're setting a ball screen and Mitch's running
up to backscreen for Cat's man. In the action, Jalen
Brunson draws too, he pitches it back to Cat. Porzingis
(12:47):
has to step up. Everyone in the Celtics Jersey switches.
So Horford's now on Brunson, Drew Hollidays now on Mitch.
Porzingis is now on Cat. But Mitchell Robinson has inside position.
So what does he do? He just rolled Drew Holiday
lingers as Cat beats Porzingis on that pump.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Fake.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Now, all of a sudden, there's an easy lobreed in
front of the basket. Just an example of bringing a
third man into the action to confuse things. So like,
if it's just these two, they pitch it back to
Cat and Drew Holiday rotates, but because there's that third defender,
it causes a series of switches, and then there's the
mistake as they leave Mitch Robinson wide open on the roll.
(13:28):
But you guys can probably see at this point a
tangible difference in the types of shots that the Knicks
are getting. The Knicks are getting buckets from a variety
of different guys. Cat's attacking post mismatches, Mikhale Bridges is
hitting mid range jump shots, Mitchell Robinson is getting a
catch on the roll. We're about to see og In and
ob get involved. For the Celtics, it's just a steady
(13:49):
diet of Tatum right now. On this plaint the Knicks
don't get matched up in transition and they lose control
of Tatum. This happened actually a bunch in the especially
in the first half of this game, but you can
see them trying to communicate, but it gets botched. Bridges
is actually pointing over to get someone else to guard Horford,
(14:10):
but then he realizes nobody's gonna do it, so he
runs over. But og doesn't realize it because he clearly
didn't hear the communication from Bridges, so they both go over.
This generates this wide open closeout opportunity for Tatum. Watch
how he beats it with just a really basic jab
step to the right, boom step over pull up three.
(14:31):
This is a move, by the way, that every young
basketball player needs to have in their bag because it's
such an easy way to get a clean look from
three in any sort of nail help or any sort
of like situation where the defender is on your left
shoulder by a wide margin. If you have this type
of margin, this guy's gonna be closing out really hard.
Towards your right hand, because he's gonna expect you to
(14:54):
rack the ball to the right, and so if you
can on that catch, just throw a quick jab and
sell it. This guy's going to lose his balance moving
towards your right hand, then you just easy slide over
to your left. Then there's an easy rise in fire three.
That's a shot that every young basketball player needs to
add to his bag to attack closeouts. But this was
(15:23):
the point in the game where I thought it was interesting.
So Boston's up ninety nine to ninety eight, they're up
by one point, and it was at this point in
the game where I felt pretty strongly that the Knicks
were going to win because they just had so much
more going for them than just Tatum. And it's not
necessarily Tatum's fault. It's just kind of the reality of
the way the Knicks were guarding by switching. If it
would have just required Tatum to pitch the ball to
(15:44):
someone else to go one on one, and that's just
the coverage that the Knicks were running. As you guys
have seen, the Knicks were able to get players in
rhythm by attacking and drop coverage, and the drop coverage
just builds. These like kind of baked in advantages to
where Brunson can pitch the ball to Bridges and not
have to worry about Bridges having to iso Derek White
at like straight up as a defender loaded up. You
(16:06):
can get Bridges clean looks just based on the coverage.
The Knicks coverage was baiting the Celtics into isoball and
Tatum was the only player in rhythm. The Celtics were
running more high drop. As a result, they were able
to or low drop. Actually with McHale Bridges, they were
running more drop coverage and so as a result they
were able to get a different player into rhythm. There's
(16:32):
a classic example right here. Notice Bridges is just running away.
They're actually running this play for McHale Bridge. Excuse me,
Brunson's running away. They're actually running this play from McHale
Bridges in the middle of the floor ballscreen drop coverage.
There's that gap in the drop coverage. We always talked
about the gap in the drop coverage. It's the gap
(16:54):
between the back pressure and the drop coverage. Big Porzingis's
weight is clearly shifted backwards. Derek White is a few
feet behind. He can rise and fire into that spot.
It's a baked in opening in the coverage, and now
he's in great rhythm. This is one of the plays
that I talked about last night where I thought Christaps
(17:15):
Porzingis looked like he just didn't have very good lift
on his rolls to the rim. Watches Porzingis gets that
inside position on this role. How he just loses all
his momentum once he runs into a defender at the
front of the rim. Like, this is a completely manageable
situation for Porzingis. He's got the ball, he's reading, his
(17:38):
eyes are up, he's seeing the floor. But you could
just literally see he doesn't have the lift. He doesn't
even get off the ground there. Probably missed a kick
out read to Derek White there on the left wing too.
Jalen Brunson again, notice Jalen Brunson is yet to like
(17:58):
really try to himself. He's still just feeling out the
flow of the game. It's a five, it's a four
on five, but the Celtics aren't matched up. Look at
how he identifies. He looks at the situation right here,
he sees the floor. He goes, Okay, I've got four
Celtics all in front of me. He turns and he sees, Okay,
I've got Porzingis trailing the play. Who's trailing Porzingis? Oh,
(18:20):
look at og. OG's going to be running with the
head of steam. Tatum is literally pointing for Porzingis to
grab him. This is an opportunity for og Anobi to
attack a big, slow footed center on a closeout. Pitches
it to him just a little hesitation fake. You can
see just that eyes on the rim right here. He's
a threat to shoot, and you could see Porzingis's weight
(18:40):
immediately shift forward and now he's dead to rights. Og
hits the gap, gets the left handed layup. Another nasty
move from Jason Tatum here. This was the last bucket
that Tatum got during the run. He's posting up og. I'm'
(19:05):
a fast forward a little bit here, And this is
where these shoulder fakes are so important. So on this play, ideally,
if you're og Anobi, you want to force Tatum into
a fadeaway jump shot right. So Tatum is gonna pound
dribble and fake's shoulder back to his left shoulder. But
then he's gonna turn like he's gonna fade over his
right shoulder. Here right shoulder fake to the left shoulder
(19:29):
fake up. He did double dribble here, but this fake
right here. When he turns, you're thinking right shoulder fade.
That causes Og to step up. Look at OG's hand.
He goes up to contest because he thinks the right
shoulder fad is coming. That's literally why ogn Andobi's jumping
like this because he thinks Tatum's about to elevate and
(19:50):
shoot that right shoulder fade. Then that's when Tatum steps
through and gets the end one. And if you if
you watch like Michael Jordan tape, Kobe Bryant tape, Anthony
Edwards is getting good at this move too. If you
watch those two guards, they turn and they pumpake over
their right shoulder, the defender jumps, that's when they step
(20:12):
through and go all the way to the front of
the rim. More drop coverage attacks this time oj and
Obie on a skip. I talked about this last night,
how like Brunson would probe early in possession. So okay,
(20:34):
he's running a drop coverage attack. It's not open, Tatum's
guarded it. Well, I'm gonna just pitch it back out
and now I'm gonna clear out and then we're gonna
run it again on the other side, this time for
og And and Obi o g just got a bucket driving
a close out. Now he's gonna pull to the right
and then step back and knock down the shot in
the switch gap there as Porzingis is coming out.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Everyone's in rhythm for New York.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Really good defense here from Jalen Brunson on a switch
against Jason Tatum. Once again, notice no hedging, no edging
and recovering, no drop coverage with Carl Towns Steady died
of Jalen Brunson and Cat being asked to defend on
an island. This is the game plan. This is literally
how they played the Celtics into this style of basketball.
(21:22):
Beats him to the spot right there, beats him to
the spot again, causes him to lose the handle. Mitchell
Robinson just ends up overplaying the jumper on Drew Holliday
and ends up giving up the layup. And Drew and
everyone else was in such a poor rhythm offensively at
that point shooting the ball that if Mitch would have
just let him shoot, he probably would have missed it. Now,
(21:43):
Jalen Brunson's looking to be more aggressive. Two on the ball,
hesitation moved to beat Derek White, and you can literally
see right when he goes into the step back here,
so he sells that left foot boom, step back. Watch
Derek White's feet, they're both back in the lane line.
Now he jumps right here. So this is the beauty
(22:05):
of this sort of fake. Right here, when he jumps,
Derek White's entire body is off the ground. Now he's
like suspended in mid air. That makes it so that
Jalen Brunson can cover ground and Derek White can't even
look to change direction until he lands, and you can
literally see by the time he lands and changes direction,
(22:25):
Brunson's past him, and then he's able to find that
little angle.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
For the float off the glass.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Breaking people off with dribble combinations, for the most part,
comes down to getting them to shift their weight to
where their weight is not on the leg that they
need to push to get to where you're at to
cut you off. Once you get them to shift their
weight off of their most important foot or in this case,
both of their feet, they're basically dead to rights. Tatum
actually beats Mitchell Robinson in the switch here and gets downhill.
(22:58):
But watch the late stunt from Og and Anobi gets downhill.
Stunt from Og, Tatum's got him beat. He's going all
the way to the rim. If Og doesn't do this
stunt from Og that forces Tatum to settle for the
fade away instead. That's just a really tough shot. I mean,
(23:19):
he was going full speed downhill and now he's leaning
backwards from like thirteen feet. This shot misses. Porzingis does
end up drawing a foul here, but he misses both
free throws. But again it was a stunt too, like
if you watch if you watch Og, as he throws
the stunt, he gets back immediately to Porzingis and boxes out.
He just ends up committing the foul. I absolutely hated
(23:43):
this shot from Derek White one oh seven, one o four.
Brunson misses the layup. You've got a chance here to
get a bucket and restore orders. Four and a half
minutes left, and look at this shot from Derek White,
just a quick, contested corner three with seventeen on the clock.
And again in the flow of the game, Derek White
hadn't touched the ball like in any sort of meaningful
context in a long time, and he's just jacking up
(24:05):
a three with seventeen on the shot clock on the
other end of the floor. Fast forward, Brunson attacks Horford
in a ball screen, dribbles out, gets the spacing the
way he wants it, and then just drives into the
gap and hits a little tough step back moving towards
(24:26):
his left. Notice when Brunson started to assert himself, he's
now looking to assert himself with you know, four and
a half four minutes left, after being more passive and
trusting the flow of his offense. With eight and a
half minutes left, and he's put himself in a position
to win this game. And this is where Tatum starts
(24:49):
to get tired, just settles for a thirty footer way
out above the break, like you could just tell he's tired.
At this point, he's missed two tough pull up jump
shots in a row. This is the beauty of the
game plan. You paid your dues, you took a bunch
of ISO buckets in the face. It's obviously frustrating in
those moments, but you trust the process and you understand
(25:11):
that eventually heal fatigue because we have a bunch of
guys in rhythm. He's the only guy that's in rhythm.
It was a brilliant game plan from Tom Thibodeau. After
the fade, we go up the floor, brunts and attacks.
Early in the possession, Probes pitches it to Michale Bridges
(25:34):
trusts him like he doesn't need to throw a shot here.
McHale's in rhythm. Jab same sort of fake by the
way we talked about earlier.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
By the way, like the.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Vast majority of high school kids that I talked to
and coach can't even do a jab step without traveling.
That's why I'm emphasizing this as a movie. Y'all need
to practice because it takes a lot of work to
do without traveling. A lot of guys what they'll do
is they'll slide this left foot on the jab step.
You can actually see Michal Bridge's foot is anchored to
the ground on the jab. It doesn't slip. That's footwork
(26:04):
that you have to work on and takes a lot
of repetition in practice. But once again, you could see
Derek White because he's way on his left shoulder is
guaranteed to close out hard to your right hand because
he thinks that's where you're gonna go. So if you
throw a jab boom, look at where Derek White goes
on the jab boom and it's just done and then
he can get into his little right shoulder fade in
(26:24):
the middle. Oh, Jana nob really wanted that ball too,
as you can tell. But yeah, so just in general,
a lot of flow, really high level point guard play
from Jalen Brunson, and the right game plan to beat
the Boston Celtics. This is I have preached this exact
same game plan for years now as it pertains to
(26:45):
Tatum and Brown and just the idea that like if
you let them get into their driving kick attack and
you let them get into their you know, wide open
catch and shoot threes, that they get out of the
flow of their offense, that's when they peak. But if
you force them to just play a bunch of one
on one basketball, they're good at it, but they're not
you know, Luka don Hitch, you know Nikola Jokic, Lebron
James and his prime that sort of thing. They're not
(27:05):
that type of shot creator, and you can win that
battle in the long run. Let's talk about Anthony Edwards
working off the catch a lot of similar concepts to
what we were just talking about with Michale Bridges and
using the.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Jab step simple relocation.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Here Ant's Ant's literally just walking up the floor and
watching the drive, sees Buddy turn his head, sprints to
the corner, ends up getting himself a clean catch and shoot.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Look there, bucket.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
The main thing I want you guys to focus on
is just how easy the flow is for Ant in
these off the catch situations. This is this one in particular,
is just an on ball iso. But I really liked
him working out of the middle of the floor. He
hit a couple of mid range jump shots in this game,
and this is a shot that I would like to
(27:56):
see him use more as a balance to his three
point shot making.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
I'm just gonna play this full speed.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Watch how easy breezy this jump shot is for it,
Like that's a shot we talked last night with Michael Bridges.
In mid range rhythm. He could catch some real heaters
in that spot on the floor. Here's Ant off the
catch again's fast forward. Okay, so transition situation. Here's this
(28:22):
catch right, Gary Payton's closing out on his right shoulder,
pump fake the pump fake gets him off of his stance.
We talked about that earlier. His weight. Look as soon
as he pump fakes Gary Payton's in mid air, there's
no chance for him to cut Ant off. Now it's over.
Ant beats him off the dribble, gets into the lane,
elevates and finishes around Trace Jackson. Davis a lot more
(28:46):
left handed finishes in this game than he was using
earlier in the series. Watch how badly he breaks off Buddy.
Healed on this move off the catch against the Warrior zone.
So again, off the catch, he jabs. He jabs towards
the corner, which freezes Draymond. You can see Raymond take
(29:08):
that really long step to try to cut that off.
Then he steps up. Draymond recovers. Look at the rhythm
and flow that he's in. Any simple off the catch,
attacks hard off the dribble, jump shot towards his left.
Watch it again in full speed jab to freeze Draymond.
Now I've just got an ISO against Buddy, easy work, boom.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
This is just greatness. There's nothing you can do about this.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
This is just an off the dribble thirty footer against
the double team. He started yelling some shit about sending
their ass home after that too. Here's an Ant off the
catch again once again. Just watch the rhythm pump, side step, easy, breezy, like,
(29:57):
look at how easy this is for him off the catch, pump, sidestep.
I just would love to see Ant get more of
these opportunities off to catch. Just why I keep thinking
about him playing with more of an on ball like
setup man. Here is this nasty the lefty euro fake
(30:18):
that he uses to get.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Into the lane.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
One of the things I want you guys to focus
on in these next couple of clips is just how
much Ant is slowing down on his drives compared to
the past. I talked a lot about this early in
the series, with him missing layups, this idea that he
was just kind of like flying down the lane and
trying to make everything happen with downhill force. He's a
little bit more methodical on these next two drives. Let's
watch him. I'll show you guys what I mean.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Little in and out.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Dribble, just a basic in and out dribble completely freezes pods,
gets into the lane.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Trace is there.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Watch him slow down, slow, He slows down and does
a very deliberate euro fake into the middle. We'll watch
trace as soon as he does the euro fake. Same
thing we talked about earlier. Both feet off the ground.
Now it's over. He's got both feet off the ground
(31:10):
off the euro fake. His head's not even in the
right place now, it's just an easy, breezy left handed
layup off the glass for Ant. Here's the other kind
of slow down drive that he had fast forward, once again,
(31:31):
attacking in an off ball situation. Cominga's already trailing. Now
when he drives Kaminga's entrail position, it's kind of like
a drop coverage. Look watch Ant methodically slow down, low
gather switches to his left hand. I'm gonna play this
one in full speed, and just watch how under control
he is compared to earlier in the series. Just surgical
(32:03):
there in the lane like it was crazy. Like we
talked so much about whether or not he'd be able
to figure it out over the course of this series,
and I think he's been fantastic. Here's another example of
attacking off the catch. It almost like simplifies his thought
process when he's catching in these spots, he's thinking score.
He's effectively a play finisher in these sorts of spots,
(32:27):
and I almost think that's the best way to use him.
It's not to say you don't ever go to ant
on the ball, of course you do, but I just
I think it just kind of idealizes his specific skill
set and his mentality as like an assassin's score.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
This is just nasty. It's a transition step back three.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
But I want you to once again focus on how
slow and under control ant is doesn't rush the shot,
even though he knows Jimmy's there. He doesn't rush the shot.
He just settles slowly into that step back and gets
great lift and sit down and lastly, once again another
play finishing sequence and catches in the middle of the
(33:07):
floor here against the zone, against the box and one
and just gets into the middle of the floor knocks
down another one of those easy, brizzy mid range jump shots.
So yeah, just something to keep in mind for his
development moving forward. I think it's kind of a fascinating concept.
I don't know who that type of player is yet,
but the idea of being paired one day with a
setup guy, someone who's going to routinely get him into
(33:30):
position to score, and then also building the offense that
way Like if I was Chris Finch, I would look
hard this summer into developing a lot more of like
kind of traditional off guard off ball like kind of
two guard sets where he can come attack off the catch,
or simple actions where he's screening and slipping out and
having the defender trailing and chasing him out of the
screening action to where he can get clean opportunities against
(33:53):
the guy closing out against his strong hand. A lot
of different stuff like that I think can simplify it,
especially against these better defenses. I'm not worried about whether
or not you can slice and dice teams like the
Lakers and the Nuggets, but when they run into these
like higher tier defenses, I think there's a lot of potential,
a lot of potential there for Aunt to have success
as an off ball score. All right, guys, it's all
(34:13):
I have for this morning. We will be back tonight
after the final buzzer of Nuggets Thunder, I will.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
See you guys then. What's up guys?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
oops tonight. They would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys
supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
The volume
Host
Jason Timpf
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