Jason Timpf reacts to Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam, and the Indiana Pacers' dominant Game 6 win against Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks to force a Game 7 at Madison Square Garden in their second round series of the NBA Playoffs. Jason breaks down the game's biggest plays and shares his main takeaways. Who is Jason picking to move on to the Eastern Conference Finals against Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics? #volume
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05:00 - Knicks-Pacers Reaction
20:30 - NBA Mailbag
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the ball you Happy
Friday everybody. Oh lo If you guys have been having
a great week so far, we got a Jampaxstowe for
(01:57):
you tonight.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
NBA playoffs have not.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Been very kind to us in the last few weeks,
I should say, in the last week or so. As
we have yet another blowout tonight as the Pacers destroy
the New York Knicks to send this to a game
seven on Sunday.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
We're gonna break that game down.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
From the perspective of both teams, but I want to
I want to bounce around the rest of the league
tonight since we had such a boring game. So why
don't you guys drop some mail bag questions in the
chat and Paul, our producer, is going to be texting
them to me and we'll get to them at the
tail end of the show. I have roughly about ten
to fifteen minutes that we're gonna go over this game,
but then we're gonna get into a mail bag. You
guys are the job before we get started. Subscribe to
(02:32):
a brand new YouTube channels. You don't miss any more
of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason
lt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget
about a podcast feed where you gut your podcast under
hoops tonight. Then keep dropping mail back questions in those
YouTube comments that we can keep get to them over
the course of the rest of the postseason. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So wild oscillations and effort that
have been the story of this series since Game three.
(02:53):
Game three was that kind of like pivot point where
it felt like it could have gone the other way
for the Knicks, but unfortunately we get for the Knicks,
I should say the Andrew Nemhart hits that three and
it's two to one, and then we the injuries start
to stack up. It becomes a problem to get blown
out in game four, then the Pacers get blown out
in Game five, and then the Knicks get blown out
in game six. It's just been going back and forth.
(03:15):
The gap and effort was apparent from the jump. There
was an early shot on the right wing. It was
like the third possessed, second or third possession for the Pacers.
Andrew Nemar gets a pretty decent look at three at
the right wing and he misses it. Josh Hart closes
out get a contest, but after he contests, he leaks
out instead of going for the board. The ball comes
short off the front of the rim. Jalen Brunston's standing
(03:37):
right around the elbow like no one's engaged with him.
He's in position to go get the basketball, but he's
too upright, not in an athletic stance, ready to go,
and Sony Smith ups ends up just chasing his own
shot and getting the offensive rebound.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
It gets works back around.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Tyres Halliburton hits a three in the chaos after it
it's like, this is an opportunity to close out the
Pacers and you're not bringing that effort. You know, immediately
from the that was just abundantly clear. Obviously Indiana was
the one that was the team that was really scaling up.
There was a play that I thought kind of demonstrated
that early too, and it was we went to that
(04:11):
action that the Knicks were spamming so much over the
course of the tail end of this series, which is
having duce McBride's screen for Jalen Brunson, where Halliburton's either
blitzing or hedging and recovering, and then they're getting good
looks out of duce McBride slipping out of that kind
of the top of the key area where he can
either shoot a three or make that extra pass if
(04:31):
the defense rotates to him. And one of the things
that I noticed that was a little bit different. And
I don't even think this is so much execution as
it is just effort. I shouldn't say execution.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I don't know how. I don't know how much of
this is game plan. It's probably more just effort.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
But in the hedge and recover, remember Haliburton when he
hedges he's supposed to stop Jalen Brunson from turning the corner,
but then he's got to sprint back and recover, and
in Game five, he just wasn't doing it. He just
was lingering way too long, and so the duce McBride
would catch there somewhere around on the top of the key,
around the wing, and he'd either get a clean look
at three or a different pacer would have to rotate,
(05:05):
which would allow duce McBride to just make easy reads
out of it. One of the early possessions of the game,
Halliburton hedges, the ball gets dropped from Brunson back to
duce McBride around the top of the key, but Halliburton
sprints back into the play and chases duce McBride off
the line, which makes it so that a different pacer
didn't have to rotate, so they didn't get the defense
(05:26):
in rotation and duce ends up taking like a contested
mid range two where Halliburton's offering some back pressure and
it's like, that's just better execution of a coverage that
you've been running most of the series, Like it's really,
you know, it's funny. I was thinking about this a
lot after the Timberwolves Nuggets game last night, because there
were some tactical things that were done differently, right, Like, specifically,
(05:48):
there was a lot of double teaming of Nicola Yokitch.
That was the main like difference schematically between what the
the Timberwolves did in game five, But the vast majority
of what happened in that game was just the Timos
did a much better job. They did a much better
job of everything in terms of like running harder, screening harder,
competing at the point of attack, running of fighting over
the top of screens, like every little detail, even just
(06:11):
little things like battles where Karl Anthony Towns was trying
to play bullyball earlier in the series. He was getting
stood up and flattened out, and then all of a
sudden he's going through people and getting easy hook shots
in game six, right, So like, so much of this
is just the the oscillations of force, like athletic force
that naturally take place as urgency shifts back and forth
between the two teams. I thought, I thought that was
(06:34):
the story of this game. The Knicks were really bad
in transition defense, in particular, they kept like not getting
matched up or not loading up their shell. They give
up an easy early layup to Andrew Nemhart in transition
because they just didn't have their shell set up. And again,
like all of you guys who have played basketball at
any level are familiar with what the shell is. It's
basically just you're loaded up defensive principles whenever there's just
(06:55):
a guy holding the ball on the wing, right, Like
the guys that are one pass away are typically up
in the past lane, right, the guys that are two
passes away usually have a foot in the paint. That's
like just the very very basic version of what a
shelle is, right, And like every team's gonna have different
principles depending on what type of personnel they have. But
like if you are not in your loaded up position,
like if there's a guy like in this play, Andrew
(07:17):
Nemhard was driving a close out in transition on the
right wing. If Andrew Nemhart drives that close out, but
you have two guys digging down in the driving lanes
one pass away, and then everyone who's two passed away
as a foot in the paint, then there's not a
whole lot of room for Nemhar to operate and he's
probably gonna have to kick and then it's gonna turn
into like a driving kick kind of close out situation. Right,
(07:38):
but if you're not loaded up, then themhard can easily
kind of jump into the lane. I think he went
to a left right euro step for a right handed
layup in too much opening around the basket right. Not
getting matched up was a big problem. They gave Siakam
a wide open layup on like the fourth or fifth
possession of the game because literally just no one picked
him up when they were back in transition, and so
like it was just a really poor execution effort game
(08:01):
from the Knicks. Pascal Siakam really carried the offense early
for Indiana. He has this short and mid range game
really dialed in right now. Miles Turner had a big
bounce back game after having a rough game. Five had
a driving dunk earlier off the left wing that I
thought really set the tone. Similar type of play in
the early second quarter where the Knicks cut it to
five and then he had like a tip dunk where
he was screaming and it just kind of like reasserted
(08:24):
the team after they started to let go of the
rope a little bit. And then from there in the
middle third quarter, Tyre Saliburton finally kind of got going
as a score, really got going with this pull up
jump shot, and that pretty much would put the game
outside of fifteen points where it became just insurmountable for
a Knicks team that can struggle to score sometimes. I
felt like there were two chances in this game for
(08:44):
the Knicks to kind of take some control and send
it into something that could have been a closer and
more competitive game, and in both situations, the Pacers were
the team that ended up taking control instead. In the
middle second quarter, the game was tied at forty six
at one point, and the Pacers just really locked in defensively.
They held the Knicks to just two points over the
following six minutes. Brunson just went brutally cold from the field.
(09:08):
A lot of really good individual and team defense. Aaroney
Smith continues to just do an incredible job on him
since switching onto that assignment in Game three. Andrew Nemhard
also got a couple of big stops on him during
that run, a big one on the left elbow where
he forced Brunston to pick up his dribble and then
pressured him and forced him into a really difficult kind
of like pivoting bank like kind of push shot at
(09:30):
the end of the shot clock. During that span ten
that run where they held the Knicks to only two points,
they ended up scoring fourteen of their own, and INDI
ended up Indian. Indy ended up going up by twelve
points in that span. And then the early third quarter
was the other chance where I thought the Knicks had
a chance. They get a couple of buckets quickly out
(09:51):
of the halftime right, Brunton gets a driving layup, there's
a back cut, they get a couple stops.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
It's back to five, right.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
But then the Pacers immediately went on the tend to
run and on the knickt front, they missed a couple
of open threes in that stretch. Duce McBride missed two
of them and Josh Hart missed a really good look
at the top of the key. Feels like you kind
of need to hit at least a couple of those
to give yourself a chance to win this type of
game in this environment. Yet on the other end of
the floor, Haliburton drives and kicks to Nemhard in the
(10:19):
left wing.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He hits a three.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
There's a play where Halliburton misses a step back jumper
on the baseline Overduce McBride, and there's a tap out
rebound and Halliburton just beats everybody to the ball and
it gets tapped. In the chaos, it ends up working
back to Halliburton and he ends up hitting a three.
Miles Turner hit two buckets in that stretch. He drove
a close out on the right wing, hit a little
bank shot, and then then that tipdunk that I told
(10:41):
you guys about. That kind of like reasserted the Pacers
control of the game. So like these two stretches where
it felt like if a couple things go differently, then
maybe we're looking at a different type of game. But
in both of those situations, the Pacers instead made all
the plays and took control of the basketball game they
deserve to win the night. They brought the energy, they
brought the force. The Knicks did it.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Obviously.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Josh Hart's injury is another factor we got to look
at there. It looked like he strained something in his abdomen.
The dead giveaway there was like when he was trying
to pull that rebound down from Siakam and like that's
just essentially a crunch, right, and you could just tell
it was really bothering him and specifically with his play style.
That's an injury that's gonna be tough for him to
play through. The injury is just keep stacking up for
(11:24):
the Knicks, and like there's some good news, right, Like
if they can survive game seven, it looks like they'll
get ogn and Obi back in the next round against Boston.
But it's gonna be a lot to survive Game seven.
Now as we look through the situation here where we
have basically three straight blowouts, some of them more dramatic
than others, but these teams have not played a competitive
(11:46):
game since Game three, right, So like with that being
the case, it's kind of hard to sift through the noise.
But I just want to kind of give you guys
my overarching thirty thousand foot view of the series as
we go into Game seven, to try to help with
making a prediction or trying to figure out what's going
to happen. The Pacers have been the far better transition
team for cleaning the glass coming into tonight. Fifteen percent
(12:08):
of their possessions have been in transition, and they're scoring
one hundred and sixty one points per transition per one
hundred transition plays. The Knicks are only getting out thirteen
percent of the time and only a one to twenty
nine of one hundred and twenty nine points per one
hundred transition plays. So the Pacers have been a far
more impactful offense in transition tonight per cleaning the glass
(12:29):
as of three and a half minutes left in terms
of the data updating, but in the enda had A
had scored at a rate of two hundred points per
one hundred transition plays and the Knicks were only at fifty.
So there's like a chasm between the two teams in
terms of getting out in transition and scoring. That's obviously
the way the Pacers like to play, but when they've
been good, it's been getting out in transition. The Knicks
(12:51):
have been the better half courteam per cleaning the glass.
Through games one through five, they had a five point
edge per one hundred half court possessions a three point
edge tonight as of three and a half minutes left
per one hundred possession, So the Knicks have a size
like at least a clearly discernible gap in their half
(13:12):
court ability to score the basketball. It really comes down
to two things. They're rebounding thirty eight percent of their
own misses through the first five games, and then Brunston
has been a more reliable shot creator in the half court.
Haliburton has brought a lot of value in transition, but
when we actually get stuck in the half court, Brunson
has been the best shot creator in the series. His
action where he targets Haliburton with those Duce McBride screens,
(13:34):
that's probably the most reliable and efficient play for either
team as a half court kind of like get the
defense in rotation and try to make something happen type
of play at this point. And so really if we
sort through that, it's just going to come down to
that battle, the half court first transition battle. If the
Knicks can get back in transition, well, first of all,
execute in the half court offensively and score right. If
(13:57):
they can get back in transition and kind of contain
Indie and keep them in the half court, I think
the Knicks will win. If the Pacers get a lot
of stops and they get out in transition a bunch,
that could be a death sentence for the Knicks, so
that the main battle that's going to determine what happens
in Game seven is going to be who wins that
physical battle. Are the Knicks able to strangle the pace
and keep this thing in the half court as much
(14:18):
as possible or the Pacers gonna get stops and get
out and run. That's gonna be who determines the victor
of Game seven. I believe the Knicks are going to win,
but we'd be foolish to not give the Pacers a chance.
Obviously they got ran out of the gym in Game five,
but they were very, very competitive in both Game one
and Game two of this series. Now, both teams have
(14:39):
kind of made a lot of adjustments since then, have
really settled into their play styles. But the Pacers are
gonna feel confident going into that game that they have
a chance to win. Josh Hart is obviously going to
be a huge question mark there as well, Like if
he's out, that's a huge problem. So yeah, picking the Knicks,
we're gonna be covering the game. It's a three thirty
pm Eastern start. My guess is will go live on
YouTube after that because we'll probably be going with Colin
(15:02):
in the evening after Wolves Nuggets. So I'll see you
guys after the final buzzer of that game. Now, before
we get out of here, let's get to some mailbag questions.
Keep dropping questions with Paul in the chat. Obviously we've
got we're gonna go for like another fifteen to twenty minutes.
So if you guys got anything interesting, anything's fair game,
whatever you guys want to talk about, drop it in
(15:22):
the chat. How can you differentiate a surprise playoff team
like taking the next step versus an overachieving fake run.
To me, that really just comes down to personnel, right,
Like if you're, for instance, like if I'm looking at
a team that like the two examples that were given
in this mailback question, or the twenty twenty three Knicks
(15:45):
versus the twenty twenty one Hawks. So one of the
things for the Knicks in particular, is like they're doing
this even though they've got personnel that's unavailable, right, Like,
it's interesting. I was talking with Paul, our our lead
producer here. He's a big Knicks fan, and we were
talking about this earlier, like before the show, Like, I
one of the things that's a dead giveaway to me,
(16:06):
when the home team wins every game in a series,
is like neither team is particularly good now. Obviously the
Knicks one, they have everybody. When the Knicks have Ognnoby,
when Josh Hart is healthy, when they've got their guys
in the lineup, I think that they're a team that's
much closer to the top tier than they appear right now.
And I actually think that if og and Andoby's healthy,
(16:26):
this series is probably over already, it probably ends in
six games, right, So, like it just there's just a
certain amount of talent loss that they've experienced their injury
that's made them look like a different type of team.
But with a team like the Knicks, no matter what
happens in this postseason run, you're encouraged because Jalen Brunson
is clearly a top ten player in this league. There's
(16:49):
a lot of resiliency to his ability to score that
we've seen over multiple playoff runs, even dating back to
when he was with Dallas and last year as well. Like,
Brunson's just one of those dudes. Now we just have
to kind of consider him one of those guys. And
so Brunson's legit, You've got a real identity a good coach,
a lot of two way personnel. You really just need
(17:09):
an additional shot creator right to tie this all together,
And the Knicks aer in beautiful position to do something
like that this summer. So like, I do think there's
a lot of legitimacy there with the Hawks. Like I
never have really looked at I never have really looked
at Trey Young as one of those guys. Now I
know that that's kind of a polarizing topic that Trey
(17:30):
Young is a lot of fans and a lot of
people think he's really really good.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I think Trey Young's.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
More in that like twenty to thirty range of NBA player,
not in the five to fifteen range, like Jalen Brunson
is right, So like I just think Jalen Brunson is better.
So I think that makes him different. Again, when I'm
looking at the when I'm looking at like whether a
team has a real playoff run, meaning like the potential
to take the next step to get into championship contention,
(17:55):
I mean to look at the same set of rules
that I look at for every franchise. Do do you
have a guy that's good enough to be the best
player on a championship team, and I actually think Jalen
Brunson is capable of being that guy. I think he's
on the very low end of that, but I think
he is on that level. Do they have a legitimate
secondary shot creator this year? They don't, But I Knicks
fans have heard this consistently from me. I love this team.
(18:18):
They've got a really bright future, but I never gave
them a legitimate chance to win the title this year
because they don't have that, like, really reliable secondary shot creator.
If they get that next year, then we're talking about
a more serious team. And then there's all these other
boxes that we look at down the roster, which the
Knicks check with flying colors like championship character, basketball character, coaching,
(18:38):
like two way personnel, like depth of talent, like competitiveness
and spirit, like all of that stuff they have in spades.
There's just this one hole, which is, and I'm talking
about the healthy version of the Knicks, but there's this
one hole, which is they don't have a reliable secondary
shot creator. All right, let's look at another one here.
Denver has been sold as a high floor team, but
they've had two duds. Is this just about the matchup
(19:00):
with Minnesota or actual flaws that teams in later rounds
can exploit if the Nuggets get through. So I think
the really ugly losses have had more to do with
the play styles, and I think I think we've seen
this a little bit in Knicks Pacers as well. Right, Like,
the Knicks are a much better half court team than
the Pacers, but the Pacers are much better transition teams.
So like, if they play a half court based game,
the Knicks win a lot by a lot. If they
(19:22):
play a transition based game, the Pacers win by a lot.
Right for the Nuggets, they have an offensive skill advantage
against Minnesota that is pretty substantial. So when when Denver executes,
and I mean on both ends of the floor, when
they handle ball pressure well, when they set good screens,
when they really get into their offense, and then on
(19:43):
the other end of the floor, when they press up
into Minnesota and make them uncomfortable, you just see this
massive chasm and offensive talent. The games are slower, but
Denver just scores more reliable, and they're winning by what
fIF like somewhere in that twelve to eighteen points range, right, Like,
every one of those games from Game three four and
five kind of looked the same, right in terms of
(20:03):
like Minnesota's offense really struggling. I want to say five
times in those six halves they failed to reach fifty points.
If I remember correctly, I need to go back and
double check. It might have been four times, but they
were consistently being held under fifty points and a half.
Like Minnesota just couldn't score. And Denver had a one
twenty eight or one twenty seven and change offensive rating
over those three games, So like that was the difference, right,
(20:25):
But in games two, in game six games where Denver
really struggles offensively and they are not bringing that same
level of defensive pressure, that's where Minnesota's athleticism advantage just
comes screaming off the screen, and all of a sudden,
it's like, wow, they just look so much faster, so
much lankier, and like they just bring so much more
like downhill force through Anthony Edwards running his lane and
(20:48):
like Kat bullying his way to the basket, Nas Reid
driving and dunking on people. Like there's just like a
level of athleticism that pops for Minnesota when Denver doesn't
have control of the game. But as long as Denver
can control the game. The athleticism stuff doesn't matter as much.
It's just it's very much been to me, like when
Minnesota wins those battles, it's just more extravagant of a
(21:11):
deficit because their athleticism advantage is so big. Does the
winner of Game seven in Minnesota Denver instantly become the
title favorite. So I one of the things that I
was high on. I was much higher on Minnesota after
Game two of this series in the sense that I
looked at they had a lot going for them offensively,
and there were a bunch of different things that were
(21:33):
clicking that weren't clicking in the regular season that had
them looking really good on offensively. Cat was like consistently
good on offense every night. The Keil Alexander Walker was
consistently good on offense every single night. Kat's three point
shot in particular was just like deadly locked in and
Ant was playing super well.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
But then we found out over the course.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Of the series, particularly Game three, four, and five, like
Aunt has had some resiliency in his ability to score
the basketball throughout the different circumstances of the series, but
the rest of his team is not, and that has
been pretty standard for what we've seen from Minnesota all season,
except for it's been even more exaggerated because it wasn't
as good in the regular season. Right, And so when
(22:11):
I look at Denver versus Boston, I think Denver is
to me clearly just the safer bet because they're more
consistently operating at their ceiling. But if we imagine a
Minnesota versus Boston final, Boston's going to be able to
do a lot of the same damage to Minnesota's offense
that Denver has done to Minnesota's offense. And Boston also
(22:33):
has this incredibly high powered offense that can look to
attack entry points. One of the unique things that makes
Boston's offense so scary is when you have five starting
caliber players out there when Porzingis is healthy, or six
with the five when Porzingis is not healthy and six
twenty is. But when Porzingis is out there with that
(22:53):
starting group, not only do you have five high powered
offensive players, you have five high powered offensive players that
are all great at attack king matchups. Drew Holliday can
really do damage to smaller guards in the post. Chris
Apps Porzingas can really do damage on switches in the post.
Jalen Brown can do the same thing, so can Tatum.
Derek White obviously is an offensive initiator of a different type,
but can also do a lot of damage. And so
(23:14):
one of the things is, like, you can't really hide
defenders against Boston the way that you can against other teams.
And like, if if Jada McDaniels is gonna guard Jylen
Brown and uh and.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Drew Holliday is gonna guard or if.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Anthony Everags is gonna guard Jason Tatum, or however it
is that they split up the matchups, Conley's gonna have
to guard one of them, you know, Carl Anthony Towns
was gonna have to guard one of them. Carl Anthony Towns, Like,
my guess is they'll probably end up putting him on
like Drew Holliday and trying to let him roam around
if they end up in that type of series. But
like that, Drew Holliday's a really good cutter and he's
he's found ways to be useful off the ball. He's
(23:50):
been a deadly catching and shoot guy in the regular season,
not so much in the playoffs, but he's made a
few more as of late. But like Boston has like
a a plethora of shot creation, a bbility that makes
them a very difficult challenge in their own rights. So like,
I'm gonna stick with what I said right around the
time that Minnesota was kicking the shit out of Phoenix,
which is like, I look at Denver and Boston as
(24:13):
the top two teams, and Minnesota for me, joined that
tier with their performance through the first two rounds of
the playoffs, And so yeah, I think if Denver loses,
Boston becomes the favorite. I think if Denver wins, Denver
stays the favorite. But certainly all three of those teams
have a really good chance. When was the last time
(24:34):
you were able to get practiced with guitar? So it's
actually kind of a funny story. I played a lot
when I was a kid. My dad was a diehard
Alman Brothers fan, so I kind of grew up on
blues a lot of like Duyne Allman, Derek Truck's, you know,
Warren Haynes, Sticky Bats, those kinds of guys. And when
I went to go play basketball in college, I moved
(24:55):
into a dorm up in up in Utah, and so
I didn't bring my guitars with me and I just
kind of stopped, and like I stopped for a long time.
It wasn't until I was probably I want to say,
I want to say it was like two thousand. It
was right around like twenty nineteen, twenty twenty. Relatively recently.
(25:17):
Two things kind of got me back into it. One,
I discovered the John Mayer Grateful Dead the whole thing,
where like I'd always thought of John Mayer as John Mayer,
you know, and like I didn't even know he was
doing this kind of music. And my older brother, who
was also a big guitar guy and a big blues guy,
he ended up sending me a link one day that
was like, hey, check this out, and it was John
(25:37):
Mayer playing Alfhea and I was like, holy shit, this
is awesome. And right around the same time, my brother
in law, who doesn't play guitar, gave me a guitar
that he had sitting around. I didn't even I didn't
even have one like my old ones that I genuinely
don't even remember what happened to him, And so I
it was just an acoustic guitar that my older brother,
my brother in law, gave me, and I played it
(26:00):
for a little bit, and I remembered that I loved it,
and so like two days later, I went down to
a guitar center and bought like a cheap it's this
epiphone and Les Paul that I have over here, and
then immediately I was like being a kid again. I
just fell in love with it again. And then I
got like super hooked. And one of the things that
about me that's like kind of different than it was
(26:21):
when I was a kid is like I really struggled
to work hard on things that I that I don't
have a passion for, and I just have a passion
for guitar, and so it's like really easy for me
to work on it. But that said, I don't devote
as much time to it as I do basketball right now.
My guess is, whenever my knees fail me or whenever
I have some sort of serious injury that causes me
to stop playing basketball, I'll probably devote a lot more
(26:42):
time to playing guitar. But it's definitely like something that
I that I love to do and that I'd like
to do more and more as I get older. I
joke with my wife, there are a lot of dive
bars here in Tucson. I'd love to be that like
fifty sixty year old dude who like goes down on
a Tuesday and like plays cover band music at a
dive bar. Just I just I just love that that
(27:04):
kind of music. All right, Let's see when is a
good time to pull the plug when losing in playoff games?
If not down twenty with five minutes remaining in game
seven forty eight hours away, then when, I mean, that's
really it is like I think when you're I think
when you get down twenty plus with like right around
like seven minutes left in that fourth quarter, you're almost
better off buying rest for the next game.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Do you watch the MCU. I watched the entire whatever you.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Call it, phase one with the Fanos story everything through
Avengers endgame.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Loved those. My wife and I a couple times over
the years of rewatch them too. Was a big fan.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I'm a big fan of like anything that's like fantasy
based and that has deep story building and like deep
world building, and the MCU has been like that for me.
But I've had a really hard time getting into it
in the next phase. It's just the villains haven't been
as interesting the characters haven't been as interesting. I've just
had a I've had a hard time getting into it.
Do you classify Jimmy Butler's heat as real contenders or overachievers?
(27:59):
I look at them kind of like in between. I
think they're like the To me, they're like the bouncer
at the championship club, but they're not actually in the club.
What I mean by that is like, if you're a
fraudulent team and you run into Miami, you're gonna lose
when they have Jimmy and Bam healthy. But every time
they end up running into a team that actually has
championship ability, whether it's the Nuggets last year, or it's
the Lakers in twenty twenty or that Celtics team in
(28:21):
twenty twenty two, which I actually think was better than
some of these other Celtics teams because they were so
much more engaged on the defensive end of the floor.
They he just eventually run out of firepower. And so
there's a lot of guards available this summer. Whether it's
de Jontae Murray, or it's Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell,
or it's or Trey Young or whatever it is, there's
a lot of there's just a lot of guys available
(28:43):
this summer. I think Jeremy Grant could be available this summer.
Brandon Ingram could be available this summer. So, like the Heat,
just have to get one of those guys. They simply
do and they have to give it a shot with
Jimmy and Bam and one of those guys to see
if they can get something.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Do you think a good SGA.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Player comp would be the late late nineties MJ with
the way his offensive approaches along with the shot profile,
but now as great as an athlete, you.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Know, I don't really see MJ in Shae.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Shay is such a hesitation based, like stop start, kind
of like methodical player. He's honestly like super unique and
even like his release it's kind of like slow but
then quick at the end, like he kind of has
like a long load up but then a quick snap
at the end. Shay is a very very unique player
(29:31):
that I think is hard to find comps in NBA
history and so like, honestly, that's just kind of unique
about him and one of the things that I think
is really cool about SGA. He's another one of those
guys kind of like Luca where I feel like young
players should watch him because his handle is a lot
tighter than I think people realize. And specifically, like you
(29:53):
will see Shae get into contact with defenders and then
hit a dribble combination. In that dribble comp we'll just
kind of get the defender to lose his like base
and then he'll wait for you to lean one way or.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
To maybe take a hop.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
And when it's like, as soon as the think of it,
like this, whenever an offensive player sees a defensive player
come off of his feet in any way shape or
form or get his footwork messed up, he can't plant
to make the next slide, So like that's the perfect
time to try to hit the gap. Is like find
those moments when the defender just kind of hesitates for
a second. Right Shay has this move where like he'll
(30:30):
go between the legs slow, but then right when it
gets to his right hand, then he'll take off and
it's like it's very much change of pace oriented. There's
a lot of like really good stuff in there for
young basketball players to replicate. And he's unique and I
think that's what makes him kind of a cool player
in NBA history. What are your thoughts on the Christopher
Nolan Batman movies. Absolutely loved him. Dark Knight's one of
(30:50):
my favorite movies to watch. It's been a while since
I've gone back to see him, but really really enjoyed
the Christopher Nolan Batman movies. So the seventy six ers
pursue Paul George, Yeah, they should pursue again. He's another
one of those guys in that long list of stars
that I just unleashed. But like, they got to get
one of those guys, right, Like, I think Embiid has
a little bit more of a clock on him than
people realize with his injury history, and so you got
(31:11):
to try to give it a go. Also, if Embiid
is gonna make it to the playoffs and be ready
to go, you have to cut substantially down on his
workload and make it so that he can load manage
throughout the season. And the only way you're gonna do
that is if you get a secondary star, because as
we saw last year, there was a moment towards the
end of the Embiid injury phase where Maxi kind of
regained control and had them hovering around five hundred, but
(31:32):
they dropped a bunch of games at the beginning, so
in totality they were below five hundred for that whole stretch,
and so I think they just need a little bit
more firepower to be able to weather Embedd being out
of the lineup. Who's a better chance against the Celtics.
The Pacers are the Knicks with all the injuries. I
think it's the Knicks, no question. I think the I
think the Pacers would really really struggle to score and
(31:55):
to guard Boston. One of the things with the Pacers
that we talked about earlier is they've got really good
perimeter defenders, but like they can only really keep two
of them on the floor at the same time, and
so as a result, they run into the same issue
that a lot of teams are gonna have with Boston,
where it's like, just give it to one of the
guys that Tyress Saliburton's garding, like they're just gonna like
one of the things with Duce McBride is you can
(32:17):
put Tyres on Duse McBride because Dus McBride is not
just gonna come down the floor and run, pick and
roll all game long.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
But if they put him.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
On Derek White or Drew Holliday, you bet you're asked
that Boston is just going to look to attack him
every single time they get a chance and get really
good looks out of it. The Knicks, for me, they
represent a couple like when they're healthy and oh, Gnob's
allegedly going to return, but when they're healthy, to me,
the Knicks kind of represents some of the Celtics weaknesses
in terms of like physicality and like the Knicks can
(32:46):
really grind games down into the mud and make teams
not shoot well from jump shot range, and so I
think they can play the Knicks or the Celtics into
some cold shooting stretches. And then obviously with Madison Square
Garden and that just the how borderline unbeatable then have
been there. I think that gives them a chance to
win some games at home. I'll pick the Boston Celtics
to win that series, probably in five or six games.
(33:06):
But I think the Knicks have more of a chance
to keep it competitive than Indiana does. Are the Spurs
the next dynasty with Wemby and thesel Here's the thing,
I think Victor wembin Yama is just a clear bona
fide top tier superstar, like he's probably gonna be that
by halfway through the year next year, and is certainly
going to be that within two to three years. So, like,
we're gonna do a lot of stuff with them Wenby
(33:27):
this summer.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
I planed.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I didn't spend a lot of time on Wenby during
the regular season, just for obvious reasons, as I primarily
focus on the top ten to fifteen teams in the league.
And so we're gonna do a ton of Wemby film
study this summer and just kind of dive into what
he's good and bad at right now and where is
their areas of opportunity are. And I do think the
Spurs are gonna end up doing something in the trade
(33:49):
market this year to try to bring in some more
ball handling to make things easier for him.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
So, like, I mean, here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
If Wenby stays healthy for ten years and is a
Spur for ten years, then they I've been dyningas a
lot just because there's so much talent in the league.
But I think the Spurs are going to be a
perennial contender at some point in the next five years.
How do you approach watching film when breaking down a
player or team? What are the top things that you
(34:15):
look for. So, for instance, if I if I'm looking
at I look at it in two different ways. If
i'm and I'll start with the player. So like, for instance,
I'm gonna scout draft prospects when we get out of
the NBA finals, Like, as soon as the NBA Finals
are over, we're gonna turn all of our attention to
the draft, right, and so I need to try to
scout a player in a short period of time, even
(34:37):
though there are draft guys that do it year round, right,
And so I look at a couple of different things
I look at. I think it's very important to watch
full games, at least one or two of them. And
the main reason why is like a full game is
going to give you the best view of all of
the little things that a player does, Like does he
eb and flow an effort? Does he ebb and flow
in aggressiveness? How is this game management? Like identifying no
(35:01):
matter how like what your points per possession in ball
screens are, if you're not good at identifying when to
be aggressive versus when to be a playmaker in the
flow of a basketball game, right, Like all these little
details leadership details, or do they get can players get
in their head and get him emotional. Like, there's all
these like different things you look at. Defense is a
big one there. Watching full games, you get a much
better view of what it looks like for them and
(35:23):
help and recover situations, what they're like on the defensive glass,
you know, all all that kind of stuff. Right, So
you got to watch a few full games just to
pick up the little details. Then from then from the
from like the individual play type data. It just depends
on what kind of role they're looking at. So like
if I'm looking in lottery at lottery stuff, and like
let's say I'm trying to figure out a Let's say
(35:46):
I'm scouting you know, Tray Jackson Davis.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Right Like, I'll literally go.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
To to Synergy and I'll just watch every single ball
screen that he's involved in, and I'll look at how
well he screens, how good his hands are at catching
in the pocket, how good is decision making is there?
And I was really high on Tray Jackson Davis out
of Indiana, if you guys remember, because one of the
things I talked about with he played with Jalen and
(36:11):
Chafino there in like the when he would catch on
the role. Trace would catch on the role just completely
swarmed because he was one of the best players in
his conference, and so kind of similar to what Yokic
deals with now, where teams are swarming him on the role.
It's just there's a lot of uh, there's a lot
of traffic that he's running into in terms of what
the game plan is is dictating, right, And so what
(36:32):
I was excited about for Trace Jackson Davis with the
Warriors is like he's going to be rolling to the
rim largely unimpeded compared to what it was like for Indiana.
And so for him, he's got so much practice already
making reads out of the role, I just thought he'd
be a good fit there, right. Similarly to like, like
when I scout a ball handler, like I'll look at
(36:55):
every single iso they run, every single pick and roll
they run, every single you know, like a back to
the basket player. We'll look at all their post ups,
so like I'll get play type data to dictate to
learn more about their shot creation ability, and then obviously
I supplement that with actual data in terms of what
their efficiency was in those situations. And then the last one,
I'll look at a lot is like close out attacking,
(37:17):
So like spot up situations are too often, like to me,
oversimplified down into like what's the catch and shoot percentage?
And so much of it is like good defenses will
chase you off the line, So what do you do
when you get chased off the line? Are you capable
of hitting a wonderable pull up? Are you capable of
hitting a like ripping through to beat the close out
(37:39):
defender kind of slowing down waiting to see the play
develop and then like change your angle and get into
the middle of the floor for a float or driving
a kicking to the next guy in line. Like spot
up situations to me need to be examined in a
more full sense than just catch and shoot jump shooting.
But in terms of players, it really just comes down
to a combination of full game and play types. Teams
(38:00):
I exact same kind of thing, But one of the
things with teams that I primarily focus on is like
looking at a different phases of the game. So like
bench units, I'll look at a lot of like for
the beginning of the second quarter, beginning of the fourth
quarter type of stuff. But when it comes to starting units,
I feel like you actually learn the most about them
in crunch time situations.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
That's when.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
That's when you actually see them against the defense that's
fully engaged, that has scouted all your plays through the
game to that point and is probably.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Going with whatever they're going to try to do to
win the game.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
And so you can learn a lot about a team
watching a watching crunch time, But again, film for a
team is more of a big picture type of thing,
like I need to watch a team thirty forty times
during the season for an entire game to really get
a good feel for them before we get to the postseason.
Who is higher in current player rankings Booker or Kyrie?
(38:51):
So you know, Devin Booker had a postseason that left
a lot to be desired obviously, although he had a
big game four, But I still think that at Devin Booker,
with his height and his shot making ability, brings a
little bit more to the table than Kyrie. Kyrie's one
of those guys too, where like if you put him
in a situation where the rest of the team can
(39:13):
do everything else and he just needs to focus on scoring,
you could argue he's the best at that, you know
what I mean. But Devin Booker, I think as a
higher level playmaker and ball screens. I think the thing
with Devin Booker that's been an issue is his hamstring injuries.
Like he just continually deals with these soft tissue injuries
that seem to effective his explosiveness, and then he's not
(39:34):
as good getting to his spots and getting a lyft right. So, like,
obviously it's tough, but I'd probably lean. I think Devin
Booker has the edge there for sure. Had the Warriors
gotten the first pick and the twenty twenty NBA Draft
and take an Ant, would the dynasty have extended or
of Ant's development slow they of course it would have extended.
Don't overthink Ant. He's twenty two years old. He's already
(39:54):
better than most of the players in the league. Like
he's just awesome. But at the same time, like he
wasn't available. That's just the reality, right, Like, Like even
as it pertains to the Wiseman pick, like that draft
in particular, everybody was a high risk pick. And I
think there's a lot of like there's a lot of
like what do you call it, Like, there's a lot
(40:15):
of revisionist history in the sense that like so many
people want to pretend that you know, one of these
some of the some of these things were obvious and
it's just not the case. Like Golden State kind of
needed a big Now, should they have taken a LaMelo Ball, maybe,
but like LaMelo balls had injury issues, right, So, like
so much of it is just like it was a
weak draft. Everybody was risky, even Anthony Edwards, even though
(40:37):
he was the clear number one. Anthony Edwards came with
a lot of question marks coming out of Georgia, right,
And so now all those question marks have been answered resoundingly,
And I think, you know, I think Anthony Edwards a
series actually reminds me a lot of Lebron in two
thousand and eight against the Celtics, where it's like he's
clearly playing the best team in the league, and like
it's like he has this like superpower that has kept
(41:00):
them in this series.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
But like Denver's just better.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Now, Aunt has an opportunity on Sunday to etch his
name in history. If Ant goes in on games for
Game seven and he goes for thirty five plus and
he shakes the foundation of that Denver team and they
win and they advance to the next round. You're talking
about going without home court advantage as a substantial underdog
to be the best player in the world on his
(41:25):
home floor, that would be one hell of an early
feather in the cat for Anthony Edwards, especially since that
puts them into a conference final series where I think
they'd probably be the favorite against whoever comes out of Dallas,
Oklahoma City. So huge opportunity for Aunt on Sunday. I
don't think they're gonna win, but that's the type of
opportunity that lays in front of him. Do you watch anime? So,
(41:49):
what was the show with the superheroes.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
That was anime? Paul?
Speaker 1 (41:54):
If you could think of it, let me know. It's
the one where the kid has the dad, not my
hero Academia. What was the It's the one where like
the kid's dad has the has the mustache and he's
like Superman and like and there's a moment in the
first season where he beats the shit out of him.
I can't remember exactly what that show was called, but
like I watched, I watched the Uh that doesn't count
(42:19):
as anime or it's just animation. I guess Invincible. That's
what it's called invincible. Okay, So anime is like Okay,
I see what you're saying. So I watched you know
when I was a kid, you know, like I watched
Yu gi Oh when I was a kid, right, or
Pokemon when I was young. But like, I haven't been
into anime very much. I did really enjoy the Star
Wars Visions shows where they went to a bunch of
(42:41):
anime studios and had them make a bunch of Star
Wars stories. I really really enjoyed those. There's a a
part of Star Wars that I've always enjoyed just in
terms of like I've always been fascinated by the Sith
and like they're kind of like overly dark aura and
like that mixes with anime extremely well. And there was
a lot of really really cool stuff from Star Wars
Visions with that. See, I'm gonna be in trouble now
(43:03):
because I just called Invincible anime and that doesn't count,
all right, any more.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Questions before we get out of here.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Also, I know I've I've mentioned this a couple times
in the last week, but like I I have a
podcast that I have on the side, two sons podcasts,
this one that I do with my buddy Luke, and
we cover basically TV shows and TV series and major
movie releases and stuff like Loved Fallout. We covered Fallout,
loved Showgun. We call it a covered Showgun. We just
(43:33):
did kind of a preview of The Acolyte Acolytes less
than a month away. We're gonna hitting the Acolyte every
single episode. We're gonna be hitting a house of the
Dragon every single episode. I saw the trailer today for
Rings of Power. Super excited for that. We're gonna have
uh episode of breakdowns for all of those, so you
can find that where. I have my other podcast at
two sons. Let's see and someone to give it a
(43:54):
description of anime for me.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I apologize. I didn't mean to disrespect the format. I
have a brother in law as a big anime guy,
and he's always trying to get me to get into it,
but I just haven't been. I love that you went
to Star Wars. I just I one in doubt. I'm
always gonna go to Star Wars. That's just how it goes.
How close is Indiana to being a true contender. I
think part of it is like Tyres Aliburton just needs
(44:17):
to get a little bit better as a score, right,
Like I think they need to get. They need to
get kind of like that nim hard Nee Smith piece, Like,
I think one of those guys can be the fifth
best player on your lineup, but I think you got
to upgrade one of those guys, and then if Tyree's
can become a more reliable scorer in the postseason, I
think that's enough for them to really enter into contention.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
I'm a huge believer in Halliburton.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I think, like, I think he's got a very unique
shot creation ability that goes under the radar. So much
focus on his scoring in this series, and like, I'm
not trying to underplay that the scoring matters, but like,
let's just be honest about the situation and acknowledge that,
Like Halliburton's best skill is getting the defense in rotation,
and he's done a lot of that in this series,
(45:01):
and he's just generating easier offense for his teammates. Should
the next trade Randal, I think they should. I think
they should trade Randal and try to get a star
forward to put next to Og if they can. That's
on Bronni. I thought that a lot of people like,
here's the thing. One of the things that sucks for
Bronni is Lebron is just a super polarizing player, right,
(45:23):
And I want to be clear, like I feel like
the majority of people who are basketball fans are pretty
reasonable about this, Like they either like in respect Lebron
or don't like but respect Lebron. But then there's like
ten percent on the front end that's like so like
(45:44):
problematically obsessed with Lebron that it poisons the discourse. And
then there's like ten percent on the bottom and that's
like so like like hates him in such a toxic
way that it poisons the discourse, right, And so like
I think like that turns it into this like shouting
now about the Bronny stuff. And like one of the
things for Bronnie is like he literally had heart surgery
(46:05):
less than a year ago. I want to see, it
was like nine months ago. So like everyone's like, oh,
his numbers at USC weren't very good. It's like, dude,
he almost died, Like come on, like what are we
doing here? Like this this is not that's not fair
to Bronnie or to anybody involved, right, Like to me,
it's this simple. He's got excellent physical tools, So the
at two ten for a guard, that's like really stocky
(46:29):
and strong, and then in addition to that an outstanding athlete,
super quick first step, great vertical athlete, long arms. He's
got like a six seven six eight wing span, which
for a guard is outstanding. And so to me, I
keep thinking he's like Jalen Suggs. He's a guy that
I think could be a primary point of attack defender
that can be a guard who says guard guard screens
(46:50):
and pops a three point line and can attack close
outs and things along those lines and be a transition weapon.
That's what I look at Bronnie as and I mean,
here's the thing, Like, does does the fact that he
didn't put up great numbers at USC matter? No? But
does that mean that he's just like an automatic shoe
into be an NBA player? No, It's just my thing
is he deserves his chance. I think he's got the
(47:12):
tools to get to He's got the tools to potentially
be a good NBA player. And as far as like
the whole like nepotism angle, here's my thing, Like, like,
would Brownie have gotten an invite to the combine if
he wasn't Lebron James's kid?
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Maybe not, but I mean probably not. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
He is Lebron James's kid, and he did get an invite,
and so he is gonna get a chance. Are we
gonna sit here and be stupid and pretend like there
aren't people that get opportunities because of connections. That's just
how life works. And so if Bronni is able to
take advantage of that and parlay it into an NBA career,
more power to him. You know, you got to get
lucky in life, and like no one ever achieved anything
(47:54):
without some luck, you know what I mean. And so
I think it's I think it's straight hater behavior to
focus on what has benefited Bronnie when the reality is
is like if he goes to the NBA and he's
not good, he won't he won't stay in the NBA.
So like he's going to get his opportunity because of Lebron,
but it's still on him to capitalize on it. No
(48:17):
coach is going to be giving Ronnie real NBA minutes
on a good team if he can't play. So so
just get over it. Let the kid have his opportunity,
Let's see what he makes of it. Let's see last
question better at twenty three Kobe or Anthony Edwards, that's tough.
I here's the thing. Kobe at this age had already
(48:39):
had a lot of deep playoff experience, so I think
he was a little bit more reliable at this point.
And Kobe had like actually made plays in the NBA Finals,
So I think it's foolish to give anthe edge right away.
That said, like Kobe's role in his early twenties was
fundamentally different as the second best player on his team.
If Aunt were to win the title this year, like
(48:59):
let's say Aunt goes in game seven tomorrow or on
Sunday and drops thirty eight, soundly out plays Jokics and
wins the game, and then he goes into the next
round and soundly out plays Luca and wins the Western
Conference finals, and then goes into the finals and soundly
out plays Jason Tatum and they hoist the trophy. He
(49:21):
at age twenty two would have the best case for
best player in the world be the reigning Finals MVP,
and we'll have done it about a half decade earlier then.
The majority of the people that he's getting lumped in
with in terms of his potential, right, like, Kobe was
the second best player on those Lakers teams. He was
vitally important, but he was the second best player on
(49:45):
those on those championship teams, right, And so like, I
think Ant has an opportunity. Again, I expect the Nuggets
to win on Sunday, but I think Ant has an
opportunity to do something truly special on Sunday. And that's
why we're going to be all in front of our
TVs to watch it, which is gonna be exciting. All right, guys,
we're gonna head out of here. I really really appreciate
you guys for supporting the show. I don't say that enough.
(50:05):
It's been really cool to see the channel grow over
the course of the last nine months. We built this
thing from scratch back in October, the new YouTube channel,
and I think we're already up at like sixty six
thousand subscribers, And obviously the support has been insane, and
it's open doors for me that I never thought i'd
get access to. Like I'm getting to go watch Team
(50:25):
USA in their scrimmage in Vegas the week before Summer League,
and then I'm going to Summer League, and like, there's
all these opportunities and things that I've been able to experience,
and I have you guys to think for that. So
I just hope you guys understand how much I appreciate you,
and I know that I wouldn't have any of these
opportunities if it wasn't for you guys, and I just
appreciate you guys for supporting the show. All Right, we're
gonna get out of here for the night. We're not
(50:46):
gonna do anything in the morning. Again, I don't really
think anything's worth a film study at this point, So
we're going to run this mail bag as a breakout
in the morning, and then we'll be back at the
final buzzer of thunder MAVs Game six tomorrow night live
on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
I will see you guys.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
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welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the ball you Happy
Friday everybody. Oh lo If you guys have been having
a great week so far, we got a Jampaxstowe for
(01:57):
you tonight.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
NBA playoffs have not.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Been very kind to us in the last few weeks,
I should say, in the last week or so. As
we have yet another blowout tonight as the Pacers destroy
the New York Knicks to send this to a game
seven on Sunday.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
We're gonna break that game down.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
From the perspective of both teams, but I want to
I want to bounce around the rest of the league
tonight since we had such a boring game. So why
don't you guys drop some mail bag questions in the
chat and Paul, our producer, is going to be texting
them to me and we'll get to them at the
tail end of the show. I have roughly about ten
to fifteen minutes that we're gonna go over this game,
but then we're gonna get into a mail bag. You
guys are the job before we get started. Subscribe to
(02:32):
a brand new YouTube channels. You don't miss any more
of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason
lt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget
about a podcast feed where you gut your podcast under
hoops tonight. Then keep dropping mail back questions in those
YouTube comments that we can keep get to them over
the course of the rest of the postseason. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So wild oscillations and effort that
have been the story of this series since Game three.
(02:53):
Game three was that kind of like pivot point where
it felt like it could have gone the other way
for the Knicks, but unfortunately we get for the Knicks,
I should say the Andrew Nemhart hits that three and
it's two to one, and then we the injuries start
to stack up. It becomes a problem to get blown
out in game four, then the Pacers get blown out
in Game five, and then the Knicks get blown out
in game six. It's just been going back and forth.
(03:15):
The gap and effort was apparent from the jump. There
was an early shot on the right wing. It was
like the third possessed, second or third possession for the Pacers.
Andrew Nemar gets a pretty decent look at three at
the right wing and he misses it. Josh Hart closes
out get a contest, but after he contests, he leaks
out instead of going for the board. The ball comes
short off the front of the rim. Jalen Brunston's standing
(03:37):
right around the elbow like no one's engaged with him.
He's in position to go get the basketball, but he's
too upright, not in an athletic stance, ready to go,
and Sony Smith ups ends up just chasing his own
shot and getting the offensive rebound.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
It gets works back around.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Tyres Halliburton hits a three in the chaos after it
it's like, this is an opportunity to close out the
Pacers and you're not bringing that effort. You know, immediately
from the that was just abundantly clear. Obviously Indiana was
the one that was the team that was really scaling up.
There was a play that I thought kind of demonstrated
that early too, and it was we went to that
(04:11):
action that the Knicks were spamming so much over the
course of the tail end of this series, which is
having duce McBride's screen for Jalen Brunson, where Halliburton's either
blitzing or hedging and recovering, and then they're getting good
looks out of duce McBride slipping out of that kind
of the top of the key area where he can
either shoot a three or make that extra pass if
(04:31):
the defense rotates to him. And one of the things
that I noticed that was a little bit different. And
I don't even think this is so much execution as
it is just effort. I shouldn't say execution.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I don't know how. I don't know how much of
this is game plan. It's probably more just effort.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
But in the hedge and recover, remember Haliburton when he
hedges he's supposed to stop Jalen Brunson from turning the corner,
but then he's got to sprint back and recover, and
in Game five, he just wasn't doing it. He just
was lingering way too long, and so the duce McBride
would catch there somewhere around on the top of the key,
around the wing, and he'd either get a clean look
at three or a different pacer would have to rotate,
(05:05):
which would allow duce McBride to just make easy reads
out of it. One of the early possessions of the game,
Halliburton hedges, the ball gets dropped from Brunson back to
duce McBride around the top of the key, but Halliburton
sprints back into the play and chases duce McBride off
the line, which makes it so that a different pacer
didn't have to rotate, so they didn't get the defense
(05:26):
in rotation and duce ends up taking like a contested
mid range two where Halliburton's offering some back pressure and
it's like, that's just better execution of a coverage that
you've been running most of the series, Like it's really,
you know, it's funny. I was thinking about this a
lot after the Timberwolves Nuggets game last night, because there
were some tactical things that were done differently, right, Like, specifically,
(05:48):
there was a lot of double teaming of Nicola Yokitch.
That was the main like difference schematically between what the
the Timberwolves did in game five, But the vast majority
of what happened in that game was just the Timos
did a much better job. They did a much better
job of everything in terms of like running harder, screening harder,
competing at the point of attack, running of fighting over
the top of screens, like every little detail, even just
(06:11):
little things like battles where Karl Anthony Towns was trying
to play bullyball earlier in the series. He was getting
stood up and flattened out, and then all of a
sudden he's going through people and getting easy hook shots
in game six, right, So like, so much of this
is just the the oscillations of force, like athletic force
that naturally take place as urgency shifts back and forth
between the two teams. I thought, I thought that was
(06:34):
the story of this game. The Knicks were really bad
in transition defense, in particular, they kept like not getting
matched up or not loading up their shell. They give
up an easy early layup to Andrew Nemhart in transition
because they just didn't have their shell set up. And again,
like all of you guys who have played basketball at
any level are familiar with what the shell is. It's
basically just you're loaded up defensive principles whenever there's just
(06:55):
a guy holding the ball on the wing, right, Like
the guys that are one pass away are typically up
in the past lane, right, the guys that are two
passes away usually have a foot in the paint. That's
like just the very very basic version of what a
shelle is, right, And like every team's gonna have different
principles depending on what type of personnel they have. But
like if you are not in your loaded up position,
like if there's a guy like in this play, Andrew
(07:17):
Nemhard was driving a close out in transition on the
right wing. If Andrew Nemhart drives that close out, but
you have two guys digging down in the driving lanes
one pass away, and then everyone who's two passed away
as a foot in the paint, then there's not a
whole lot of room for Nemhar to operate and he's
probably gonna have to kick and then it's gonna turn
into like a driving kick kind of close out situation. Right,
(07:38):
but if you're not loaded up, then themhard can easily
kind of jump into the lane. I think he went
to a left right euro step for a right handed
layup in too much opening around the basket right. Not
getting matched up was a big problem. They gave Siakam
a wide open layup on like the fourth or fifth
possession of the game because literally just no one picked
him up when they were back in transition, and so
like it was just a really poor execution effort game
(08:01):
from the Knicks. Pascal Siakam really carried the offense early
for Indiana. He has this short and mid range game
really dialed in right now. Miles Turner had a big
bounce back game after having a rough game. Five had
a driving dunk earlier off the left wing that I
thought really set the tone. Similar type of play in
the early second quarter where the Knicks cut it to
five and then he had like a tip dunk where
he was screaming and it just kind of like reasserted
(08:24):
the team after they started to let go of the
rope a little bit. And then from there in the
middle third quarter, Tyre Saliburton finally kind of got going
as a score, really got going with this pull up
jump shot, and that pretty much would put the game
outside of fifteen points where it became just insurmountable for
a Knicks team that can struggle to score sometimes. I
felt like there were two chances in this game for
(08:44):
the Knicks to kind of take some control and send
it into something that could have been a closer and
more competitive game, and in both situations, the Pacers were
the team that ended up taking control instead. In the
middle second quarter, the game was tied at forty six
at one point, and the Pacers just really locked in defensively.
They held the Knicks to just two points over the
following six minutes. Brunson just went brutally cold from the field.
(09:08):
A lot of really good individual and team defense. Aaroney
Smith continues to just do an incredible job on him
since switching onto that assignment in Game three. Andrew Nemhard
also got a couple of big stops on him during
that run, a big one on the left elbow where
he forced Brunston to pick up his dribble and then
pressured him and forced him into a really difficult kind
of like pivoting bank like kind of push shot at
(09:30):
the end of the shot clock. During that span ten
that run where they held the Knicks to only two points,
they ended up scoring fourteen of their own, and INDI
ended up Indian. Indy ended up going up by twelve
points in that span. And then the early third quarter
was the other chance where I thought the Knicks had
a chance. They get a couple of buckets quickly out
(09:51):
of the halftime right, Brunton gets a driving layup, there's
a back cut, they get a couple stops.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
It's back to five, right.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
But then the Pacers immediately went on the tend to
run and on the knickt front, they missed a couple
of open threes in that stretch. Duce McBride missed two
of them and Josh Hart missed a really good look
at the top of the key. Feels like you kind
of need to hit at least a couple of those
to give yourself a chance to win this type of
game in this environment. Yet on the other end of
the floor, Haliburton drives and kicks to Nemhard in the
(10:19):
left wing.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He hits a three.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
There's a play where Halliburton misses a step back jumper
on the baseline Overduce McBride, and there's a tap out
rebound and Halliburton just beats everybody to the ball and
it gets tapped. In the chaos, it ends up working
back to Halliburton and he ends up hitting a three.
Miles Turner hit two buckets in that stretch. He drove
a close out on the right wing, hit a little
bank shot, and then then that tipdunk that I told
(10:41):
you guys about. That kind of like reasserted the Pacers
control of the game. So like these two stretches where
it felt like if a couple things go differently, then
maybe we're looking at a different type of game. But
in both of those situations, the Pacers instead made all
the plays and took control of the basketball game they
deserve to win the night. They brought the energy, they
brought the force. The Knicks did it.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Obviously.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Josh Hart's injury is another factor we got to look
at there. It looked like he strained something in his abdomen.
The dead giveaway there was like when he was trying
to pull that rebound down from Siakam and like that's
just essentially a crunch, right, and you could just tell
it was really bothering him and specifically with his play style.
That's an injury that's gonna be tough for him to
play through. The injury is just keep stacking up for
(11:24):
the Knicks, and like there's some good news, right, Like
if they can survive game seven, it looks like they'll
get ogn and Obi back in the next round against Boston.
But it's gonna be a lot to survive Game seven.
Now as we look through the situation here where we
have basically three straight blowouts, some of them more dramatic
than others, but these teams have not played a competitive
(11:46):
game since Game three, right, So like with that being
the case, it's kind of hard to sift through the noise.
But I just want to kind of give you guys
my overarching thirty thousand foot view of the series as
we go into Game seven, to try to help with
making a prediction or trying to figure out what's going
to happen. The Pacers have been the far better transition
team for cleaning the glass coming into tonight. Fifteen percent
(12:08):
of their possessions have been in transition, and they're scoring
one hundred and sixty one points per transition per one
hundred transition plays. The Knicks are only getting out thirteen
percent of the time and only a one to twenty
nine of one hundred and twenty nine points per one
hundred transition plays. So the Pacers have been a far
more impactful offense in transition tonight per cleaning the glass
(12:29):
as of three and a half minutes left in terms
of the data updating, but in the enda had A
had scored at a rate of two hundred points per
one hundred transition plays and the Knicks were only at fifty.
So there's like a chasm between the two teams in
terms of getting out in transition and scoring. That's obviously
the way the Pacers like to play, but when they've
been good, it's been getting out in transition. The Knicks
(12:51):
have been the better half courteam per cleaning the glass.
Through games one through five, they had a five point
edge per one hundred half court possessions a three point
edge tonight as of three and a half minutes left
per one hundred possession, So the Knicks have a size
like at least a clearly discernible gap in their half
(13:12):
court ability to score the basketball. It really comes down
to two things. They're rebounding thirty eight percent of their
own misses through the first five games, and then Brunston
has been a more reliable shot creator in the half court.
Haliburton has brought a lot of value in transition, but
when we actually get stuck in the half court, Brunson
has been the best shot creator in the series. His
action where he targets Haliburton with those Duce McBride screens,
(13:34):
that's probably the most reliable and efficient play for either
team as a half court kind of like get the
defense in rotation and try to make something happen type
of play at this point. And so really if we
sort through that, it's just going to come down to
that battle, the half court first transition battle. If the
Knicks can get back in transition, well, first of all,
execute in the half court offensively and score right. If
(13:57):
they can get back in transition and kind of contain
Indie and keep them in the half court, I think
the Knicks will win. If the Pacers get a lot
of stops and they get out in transition a bunch,
that could be a death sentence for the Knicks, so
that the main battle that's going to determine what happens
in Game seven is going to be who wins that
physical battle. Are the Knicks able to strangle the pace
and keep this thing in the half court as much
(14:18):
as possible or the Pacers gonna get stops and get
out and run. That's gonna be who determines the victor
of Game seven. I believe the Knicks are going to win,
but we'd be foolish to not give the Pacers a chance.
Obviously they got ran out of the gym in Game five,
but they were very, very competitive in both Game one
and Game two of this series. Now, both teams have
(14:39):
kind of made a lot of adjustments since then, have
really settled into their play styles. But the Pacers are
gonna feel confident going into that game that they have
a chance to win. Josh Hart is obviously going to
be a huge question mark there as well, Like if
he's out, that's a huge problem. So yeah, picking the Knicks,
we're gonna be covering the game. It's a three thirty
pm Eastern start. My guess is will go live on
YouTube after that because we'll probably be going with Colin
(15:02):
in the evening after Wolves Nuggets. So I'll see you
guys after the final buzzer of that game. Now, before
we get out of here, let's get to some mailbag questions.
Keep dropping questions with Paul in the chat. Obviously we've
got we're gonna go for like another fifteen to twenty minutes.
So if you guys got anything interesting, anything's fair game,
whatever you guys want to talk about, drop it in
(15:22):
the chat. How can you differentiate a surprise playoff team
like taking the next step versus an overachieving fake run.
To me, that really just comes down to personnel, right,
Like if you're, for instance, like if I'm looking at
a team that like the two examples that were given
in this mailback question, or the twenty twenty three Knicks
(15:45):
versus the twenty twenty one Hawks. So one of the
things for the Knicks in particular, is like they're doing
this even though they've got personnel that's unavailable, right, Like,
it's interesting. I was talking with Paul, our our lead
producer here. He's a big Knicks fan, and we were
talking about this earlier, like before the show, Like, I
one of the things that's a dead giveaway to me,
(16:06):
when the home team wins every game in a series,
is like neither team is particularly good now. Obviously the
Knicks one, they have everybody. When the Knicks have Ognnoby,
when Josh Hart is healthy, when they've got their guys
in the lineup, I think that they're a team that's
much closer to the top tier than they appear right now.
And I actually think that if og and Andoby's healthy,
(16:26):
this series is probably over already, it probably ends in
six games, right, So, like it just there's just a
certain amount of talent loss that they've experienced their injury
that's made them look like a different type of team.
But with a team like the Knicks, no matter what
happens in this postseason run, you're encouraged because Jalen Brunson
is clearly a top ten player in this league. There's
(16:49):
a lot of resiliency to his ability to score that
we've seen over multiple playoff runs, even dating back to
when he was with Dallas and last year as well. Like,
Brunson's just one of those dudes. Now we just have
to kind of consider him one of those guys. And
so Brunson's legit, You've got a real identity a good coach,
a lot of two way personnel. You really just need
(17:09):
an additional shot creator right to tie this all together,
And the Knicks aer in beautiful position to do something
like that this summer. So like, I do think there's
a lot of legitimacy there with the Hawks. Like I
never have really looked at I never have really looked
at Trey Young as one of those guys. Now I
know that that's kind of a polarizing topic that Trey
(17:30):
Young is a lot of fans and a lot of
people think he's really really good.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I think Trey Young's.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
More in that like twenty to thirty range of NBA player,
not in the five to fifteen range, like Jalen Brunson
is right, So like I just think Jalen Brunson is better.
So I think that makes him different. Again, when I'm
looking at the when I'm looking at like whether a
team has a real playoff run, meaning like the potential
to take the next step to get into championship contention,
(17:55):
I mean to look at the same set of rules
that I look at for every franchise. Do do you
have a guy that's good enough to be the best
player on a championship team, and I actually think Jalen
Brunson is capable of being that guy. I think he's
on the very low end of that, but I think
he is on that level. Do they have a legitimate
secondary shot creator this year? They don't, But I Knicks
fans have heard this consistently from me. I love this team.
(18:18):
They've got a really bright future, but I never gave
them a legitimate chance to win the title this year
because they don't have that, like, really reliable secondary shot creator.
If they get that next year, then we're talking about
a more serious team. And then there's all these other
boxes that we look at down the roster, which the
Knicks check with flying colors like championship character, basketball character, coaching,
(18:38):
like two way personnel, like depth of talent, like competitiveness
and spirit, like all of that stuff they have in spades.
There's just this one hole, which is, and I'm talking
about the healthy version of the Knicks, but there's this
one hole, which is they don't have a reliable secondary
shot creator. All right, let's look at another one here.
Denver has been sold as a high floor team, but
they've had two duds. Is this just about the matchup
(19:00):
with Minnesota or actual flaws that teams in later rounds
can exploit if the Nuggets get through. So I think
the really ugly losses have had more to do with
the play styles, and I think I think we've seen
this a little bit in Knicks Pacers as well. Right, Like,
the Knicks are a much better half court team than
the Pacers, but the Pacers are much better transition teams.
So like, if they play a half court based game,
the Knicks win a lot by a lot. If they
(19:22):
play a transition based game, the Pacers win by a lot.
Right for the Nuggets, they have an offensive skill advantage
against Minnesota that is pretty substantial. So when when Denver executes,
and I mean on both ends of the floor, when
they handle ball pressure well, when they set good screens,
when they really get into their offense, and then on
(19:43):
the other end of the floor, when they press up
into Minnesota and make them uncomfortable, you just see this
massive chasm and offensive talent. The games are slower, but
Denver just scores more reliable, and they're winning by what
fIF like somewhere in that twelve to eighteen points range, right, Like,
every one of those games from Game three four and
five kind of looked the same, right in terms of
(20:03):
like Minnesota's offense really struggling. I want to say five
times in those six halves they failed to reach fifty points.
If I remember correctly, I need to go back and
double check. It might have been four times, but they
were consistently being held under fifty points and a half.
Like Minnesota just couldn't score. And Denver had a one
twenty eight or one twenty seven and change offensive rating
over those three games, So like that was the difference, right,
(20:25):
But in games two, in game six games where Denver
really struggles offensively and they are not bringing that same
level of defensive pressure, that's where Minnesota's athleticism advantage just
comes screaming off the screen, and all of a sudden,
it's like, wow, they just look so much faster, so
much lankier, and like they just bring so much more
like downhill force through Anthony Edwards running his lane and
(20:48):
like Kat bullying his way to the basket, Nas Reid
driving and dunking on people. Like there's just like a
level of athleticism that pops for Minnesota when Denver doesn't
have control of the game. But as long as Denver
can control the game. The athleticism stuff doesn't matter as much.
It's just it's very much been to me, like when
Minnesota wins those battles, it's just more extravagant of a
(21:11):
deficit because their athleticism advantage is so big. Does the
winner of Game seven in Minnesota Denver instantly become the
title favorite. So I one of the things that I
was high on. I was much higher on Minnesota after
Game two of this series in the sense that I
looked at they had a lot going for them offensively,
and there were a bunch of different things that were
(21:33):
clicking that weren't clicking in the regular season that had
them looking really good on offensively. Cat was like consistently
good on offense every night. The Keil Alexander Walker was
consistently good on offense every single night. Kat's three point
shot in particular was just like deadly locked in and
Ant was playing super well.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
But then we found out over the course.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Of the series, particularly Game three, four, and five, like
Aunt has had some resiliency in his ability to score
the basketball throughout the different circumstances of the series, but
the rest of his team is not, and that has
been pretty standard for what we've seen from Minnesota all season,
except for it's been even more exaggerated because it wasn't
as good in the regular season. Right, And so when
(22:11):
I look at Denver versus Boston, I think Denver is
to me clearly just the safer bet because they're more
consistently operating at their ceiling. But if we imagine a
Minnesota versus Boston final, Boston's going to be able to
do a lot of the same damage to Minnesota's offense
that Denver has done to Minnesota's offense. And Boston also
(22:33):
has this incredibly high powered offense that can look to
attack entry points. One of the unique things that makes
Boston's offense so scary is when you have five starting
caliber players out there when Porzingis is healthy, or six
with the five when Porzingis is not healthy and six
twenty is. But when Porzingis is out there with that
(22:53):
starting group, not only do you have five high powered
offensive players, you have five high powered offensive players that
are all great at attack king matchups. Drew Holliday can
really do damage to smaller guards in the post. Chris
Apps Porzingas can really do damage on switches in the post.
Jalen Brown can do the same thing, so can Tatum.
Derek White obviously is an offensive initiator of a different type,
but can also do a lot of damage. And so
(23:14):
one of the things is, like, you can't really hide
defenders against Boston the way that you can against other teams.
And like, if if Jada McDaniels is gonna guard Jylen
Brown and uh and.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Drew Holliday is gonna guard or if.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Anthony Everags is gonna guard Jason Tatum, or however it
is that they split up the matchups, Conley's gonna have
to guard one of them, you know, Carl Anthony Towns
was gonna have to guard one of them. Carl Anthony Towns, Like,
my guess is they'll probably end up putting him on
like Drew Holliday and trying to let him roam around
if they end up in that type of series. But
like that, Drew Holliday's a really good cutter and he's
he's found ways to be useful off the ball. He's
(23:50):
been a deadly catching and shoot guy in the regular season,
not so much in the playoffs, but he's made a
few more as of late. But like Boston has like
a a plethora of shot creation, a bbility that makes
them a very difficult challenge in their own rights. So like,
I'm gonna stick with what I said right around the
time that Minnesota was kicking the shit out of Phoenix,
which is like, I look at Denver and Boston as
(24:13):
the top two teams, and Minnesota for me, joined that
tier with their performance through the first two rounds of
the playoffs, And so yeah, I think if Denver loses,
Boston becomes the favorite. I think if Denver wins, Denver
stays the favorite. But certainly all three of those teams
have a really good chance. When was the last time
(24:34):
you were able to get practiced with guitar? So it's
actually kind of a funny story. I played a lot
when I was a kid. My dad was a diehard
Alman Brothers fan, so I kind of grew up on
blues a lot of like Duyne Allman, Derek Truck's, you know,
Warren Haynes, Sticky Bats, those kinds of guys. And when
I went to go play basketball in college, I moved
(24:55):
into a dorm up in up in Utah, and so
I didn't bring my guitars with me and I just
kind of stopped, and like I stopped for a long time.
It wasn't until I was probably I want to say,
I want to say it was like two thousand. It
was right around like twenty nineteen, twenty twenty. Relatively recently.
(25:17):
Two things kind of got me back into it. One,
I discovered the John Mayer Grateful Dead the whole thing,
where like I'd always thought of John Mayer as John Mayer,
you know, and like I didn't even know he was
doing this kind of music. And my older brother, who
was also a big guitar guy and a big blues guy,
he ended up sending me a link one day that
was like, hey, check this out, and it was John
(25:37):
Mayer playing Alfhea and I was like, holy shit, this
is awesome. And right around the same time, my brother
in law, who doesn't play guitar, gave me a guitar
that he had sitting around. I didn't even I didn't
even have one like my old ones that I genuinely
don't even remember what happened to him, And so I
it was just an acoustic guitar that my older brother,
my brother in law, gave me, and I played it
(26:00):
for a little bit, and I remembered that I loved it,
and so like two days later, I went down to
a guitar center and bought like a cheap it's this
epiphone and Les Paul that I have over here, and
then immediately I was like being a kid again. I
just fell in love with it again. And then I
got like super hooked. And one of the things that
about me that's like kind of different than it was
(26:21):
when I was a kid is like I really struggled
to work hard on things that I that I don't
have a passion for, and I just have a passion
for guitar, and so it's like really easy for me
to work on it. But that said, I don't devote
as much time to it as I do basketball right now.
My guess is, whenever my knees fail me or whenever
I have some sort of serious injury that causes me
to stop playing basketball, I'll probably devote a lot more
(26:42):
time to playing guitar. But it's definitely like something that
I that I love to do and that I'd like
to do more and more as I get older. I
joke with my wife, there are a lot of dive
bars here in Tucson. I'd love to be that like
fifty sixty year old dude who like goes down on
a Tuesday and like plays cover band music at a
dive bar. Just I just I just love that that
(27:04):
kind of music. All right, Let's see when is a
good time to pull the plug when losing in playoff games?
If not down twenty with five minutes remaining in game
seven forty eight hours away, then when, I mean, that's
really it is like I think when you're I think
when you get down twenty plus with like right around
like seven minutes left in that fourth quarter, you're almost
better off buying rest for the next game.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Do you watch the MCU. I watched the entire whatever you.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Call it, phase one with the Fanos story everything through
Avengers endgame.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Loved those. My wife and I a couple times over
the years of rewatch them too. Was a big fan.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I'm a big fan of like anything that's like fantasy
based and that has deep story building and like deep
world building, and the MCU has been like that for me.
But I've had a really hard time getting into it
in the next phase. It's just the villains haven't been
as interesting the characters haven't been as interesting. I've just
had a I've had a hard time getting into it.
Do you classify Jimmy Butler's heat as real contenders or overachievers?
(27:59):
I look at them kind of like in between. I
think they're like the To me, they're like the bouncer
at the championship club, but they're not actually in the club.
What I mean by that is like, if you're a
fraudulent team and you run into Miami, you're gonna lose
when they have Jimmy and Bam healthy. But every time
they end up running into a team that actually has
championship ability, whether it's the Nuggets last year, or it's
the Lakers in twenty twenty or that Celtics team in
(28:21):
twenty twenty two, which I actually think was better than
some of these other Celtics teams because they were so
much more engaged on the defensive end of the floor.
They he just eventually run out of firepower. And so
there's a lot of guards available this summer. Whether it's
de Jontae Murray, or it's Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell,
or it's or Trey Young or whatever it is, there's
a lot of there's just a lot of guys available
(28:43):
this summer. I think Jeremy Grant could be available this summer.
Brandon Ingram could be available this summer. So, like the Heat,
just have to get one of those guys. They simply
do and they have to give it a shot with
Jimmy and Bam and one of those guys to see
if they can get something.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Do you think a good SGA.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Player comp would be the late late nineties MJ with
the way his offensive approaches along with the shot profile,
but now as great as an athlete, you.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Know, I don't really see MJ in Shae.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Shay is such a hesitation based, like stop start, kind
of like methodical player. He's honestly like super unique and
even like his release it's kind of like slow but
then quick at the end, like he kind of has
like a long load up but then a quick snap
at the end. Shay is a very very unique player
(29:31):
that I think is hard to find comps in NBA
history and so like, honestly, that's just kind of unique
about him and one of the things that I think
is really cool about SGA. He's another one of those
guys kind of like Luca where I feel like young
players should watch him because his handle is a lot
tighter than I think people realize. And specifically, like you
(29:53):
will see Shae get into contact with defenders and then
hit a dribble combination. In that dribble comp we'll just
kind of get the defender to lose his like base
and then he'll wait for you to lean one way or.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
To maybe take a hop.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
And when it's like, as soon as the think of it,
like this, whenever an offensive player sees a defensive player
come off of his feet in any way shape or
form or get his footwork messed up, he can't plant
to make the next slide, So like that's the perfect
time to try to hit the gap. Is like find
those moments when the defender just kind of hesitates for
a second. Right Shay has this move where like he'll
(30:30):
go between the legs slow, but then right when it
gets to his right hand, then he'll take off and
it's like it's very much change of pace oriented. There's
a lot of like really good stuff in there for
young basketball players to replicate. And he's unique and I
think that's what makes him kind of a cool player
in NBA history. What are your thoughts on the Christopher
Nolan Batman movies. Absolutely loved him. Dark Knight's one of
(30:50):
my favorite movies to watch. It's been a while since
I've gone back to see him, but really really enjoyed
the Christopher Nolan Batman movies. So the seventy six ers
pursue Paul George, Yeah, they should pursue again. He's another
one of those guys in that long list of stars
that I just unleashed. But like, they got to get
one of those guys, right, Like, I think Embiid has
a little bit more of a clock on him than
people realize with his injury history, and so you got
(31:11):
to try to give it a go. Also, if Embiid
is gonna make it to the playoffs and be ready
to go, you have to cut substantially down on his
workload and make it so that he can load manage
throughout the season. And the only way you're gonna do
that is if you get a secondary star, because as
we saw last year, there was a moment towards the
end of the Embiid injury phase where Maxi kind of
regained control and had them hovering around five hundred, but
(31:32):
they dropped a bunch of games at the beginning, so
in totality they were below five hundred for that whole stretch,
and so I think they just need a little bit
more firepower to be able to weather Embedd being out
of the lineup. Who's a better chance against the Celtics.
The Pacers are the Knicks with all the injuries. I
think it's the Knicks, no question. I think the I
think the Pacers would really really struggle to score and
(31:55):
to guard Boston. One of the things with the Pacers
that we talked about earlier is they've got really good
perimeter defenders, but like they can only really keep two
of them on the floor at the same time, and
so as a result, they run into the same issue
that a lot of teams are gonna have with Boston,
where it's like, just give it to one of the
guys that Tyress Saliburton's garding, like they're just gonna like
one of the things with Duce McBride is you can
(32:17):
put Tyres on Duse McBride because Dus McBride is not
just gonna come down the floor and run, pick and
roll all game long.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
But if they put him.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
On Derek White or Drew Holliday, you bet you're asked
that Boston is just going to look to attack him
every single time they get a chance and get really
good looks out of it. The Knicks, for me, they
represent a couple like when they're healthy and oh, Gnob's
allegedly going to return, but when they're healthy, to me,
the Knicks kind of represents some of the Celtics weaknesses
in terms of like physicality and like the Knicks can
(32:46):
really grind games down into the mud and make teams
not shoot well from jump shot range, and so I
think they can play the Knicks or the Celtics into
some cold shooting stretches. And then obviously with Madison Square
Garden and that just the how borderline unbeatable then have
been there. I think that gives them a chance to
win some games at home. I'll pick the Boston Celtics
to win that series, probably in five or six games.
(33:06):
But I think the Knicks have more of a chance
to keep it competitive than Indiana does. Are the Spurs
the next dynasty with Wemby and thesel Here's the thing,
I think Victor wembin Yama is just a clear bona
fide top tier superstar, like he's probably gonna be that
by halfway through the year next year, and is certainly
going to be that within two to three years. So, like,
we're gonna do a lot of stuff with them Wenby
(33:27):
this summer.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
I planed.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I didn't spend a lot of time on Wenby during
the regular season, just for obvious reasons, as I primarily
focus on the top ten to fifteen teams in the league.
And so we're gonna do a ton of Wemby film
study this summer and just kind of dive into what
he's good and bad at right now and where is
their areas of opportunity are. And I do think the
Spurs are gonna end up doing something in the trade
(33:49):
market this year to try to bring in some more
ball handling to make things easier for him.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
So, like, I mean, here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
If Wenby stays healthy for ten years and is a
Spur for ten years, then they I've been dyningas a
lot just because there's so much talent in the league.
But I think the Spurs are going to be a
perennial contender at some point in the next five years.
How do you approach watching film when breaking down a
player or team? What are the top things that you
(34:15):
look for. So, for instance, if I if I'm looking
at I look at it in two different ways. If
i'm and I'll start with the player. So like, for instance,
I'm gonna scout draft prospects when we get out of
the NBA finals, Like, as soon as the NBA Finals
are over, we're gonna turn all of our attention to
the draft, right, and so I need to try to
scout a player in a short period of time, even
(34:37):
though there are draft guys that do it year round, right,
And so I look at a couple of different things
I look at. I think it's very important to watch
full games, at least one or two of them. And
the main reason why is like a full game is
going to give you the best view of all of
the little things that a player does, Like does he
eb and flow an effort? Does he ebb and flow
in aggressiveness? How is this game management? Like identifying no
(35:01):
matter how like what your points per possession in ball
screens are, if you're not good at identifying when to
be aggressive versus when to be a playmaker in the
flow of a basketball game, right, Like all these little
details leadership details, or do they get can players get
in their head and get him emotional. Like, there's all
these like different things you look at. Defense is a
big one there. Watching full games, you get a much
better view of what it looks like for them and
(35:23):
help and recover situations, what they're like on the defensive glass,
you know, all all that kind of stuff. Right, So
you got to watch a few full games just to
pick up the little details. Then from then from the
from like the individual play type data. It just depends
on what kind of role they're looking at. So like
if I'm looking in lottery at lottery stuff, and like
let's say I'm trying to figure out a Let's say
(35:46):
I'm scouting you know, Tray Jackson Davis.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Right Like, I'll literally go.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
To to Synergy and I'll just watch every single ball
screen that he's involved in, and I'll look at how
well he screens, how good his hands are at catching
in the pocket, how good is decision making is there?
And I was really high on Tray Jackson Davis out
of Indiana, if you guys remember, because one of the
things I talked about with he played with Jalen and
(36:11):
Chafino there in like the when he would catch on
the role. Trace would catch on the role just completely
swarmed because he was one of the best players in
his conference, and so kind of similar to what Yokic
deals with now, where teams are swarming him on the role.
It's just there's a lot of uh, there's a lot
of traffic that he's running into in terms of what
the game plan is is dictating, right, And so what
(36:32):
I was excited about for Trace Jackson Davis with the
Warriors is like he's going to be rolling to the
rim largely unimpeded compared to what it was like for Indiana.
And so for him, he's got so much practice already
making reads out of the role, I just thought he'd
be a good fit there, right. Similarly to like, like
when I scout a ball handler, like I'll look at
(36:55):
every single iso they run, every single pick and roll
they run, every single you know, like a back to
the basket player. We'll look at all their post ups,
so like I'll get play type data to dictate to
learn more about their shot creation ability, and then obviously
I supplement that with actual data in terms of what
their efficiency was in those situations. And then the last one,
I'll look at a lot is like close out attacking,
(37:17):
So like spot up situations are too often, like to me,
oversimplified down into like what's the catch and shoot percentage?
And so much of it is like good defenses will
chase you off the line, So what do you do
when you get chased off the line? Are you capable
of hitting a wonderable pull up? Are you capable of
hitting a like ripping through to beat the close out
(37:39):
defender kind of slowing down waiting to see the play
develop and then like change your angle and get into
the middle of the floor for a float or driving
a kicking to the next guy in line. Like spot
up situations to me need to be examined in a
more full sense than just catch and shoot jump shooting.
But in terms of players, it really just comes down
to a combination of full game and play types. Teams
(38:00):
I exact same kind of thing, But one of the
things with teams that I primarily focus on is like
looking at a different phases of the game. So like
bench units, I'll look at a lot of like for
the beginning of the second quarter, beginning of the fourth
quarter type of stuff. But when it comes to starting units,
I feel like you actually learn the most about them
in crunch time situations.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
That's when.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
That's when you actually see them against the defense that's
fully engaged, that has scouted all your plays through the
game to that point and is probably.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Going with whatever they're going to try to do to
win the game.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
And so you can learn a lot about a team
watching a watching crunch time, But again, film for a
team is more of a big picture type of thing,
like I need to watch a team thirty forty times
during the season for an entire game to really get
a good feel for them before we get to the postseason.
Who is higher in current player rankings Booker or Kyrie?
(38:51):
So you know, Devin Booker had a postseason that left
a lot to be desired obviously, although he had a
big game four, But I still think that at Devin Booker,
with his height and his shot making ability, brings a
little bit more to the table than Kyrie. Kyrie's one
of those guys too, where like if you put him
in a situation where the rest of the team can
(39:13):
do everything else and he just needs to focus on scoring,
you could argue he's the best at that, you know
what I mean. But Devin Booker, I think as a
higher level playmaker and ball screens. I think the thing
with Devin Booker that's been an issue is his hamstring injuries.
Like he just continually deals with these soft tissue injuries
that seem to effective his explosiveness, and then he's not
(39:34):
as good getting to his spots and getting a lyft right. So, like,
obviously it's tough, but I'd probably lean. I think Devin
Booker has the edge there for sure. Had the Warriors
gotten the first pick and the twenty twenty NBA Draft
and take an Ant, would the dynasty have extended or
of Ant's development slow they of course it would have extended.
Don't overthink Ant. He's twenty two years old. He's already
(39:54):
better than most of the players in the league. Like
he's just awesome. But at the same time, like he
wasn't available. That's just the reality, right, Like, Like even
as it pertains to the Wiseman pick, like that draft
in particular, everybody was a high risk pick. And I
think there's a lot of like there's a lot of
like what do you call it, Like, there's a lot
(40:15):
of revisionist history in the sense that like so many
people want to pretend that you know, one of these
some of the some of these things were obvious and
it's just not the case. Like Golden State kind of
needed a big Now, should they have taken a LaMelo Ball, maybe,
but like LaMelo balls had injury issues, right, So, like
so much of it is just like it was a
weak draft. Everybody was risky, even Anthony Edwards, even though
(40:37):
he was the clear number one. Anthony Edwards came with
a lot of question marks coming out of Georgia, right,
And so now all those question marks have been answered resoundingly,
And I think, you know, I think Anthony Edwards a
series actually reminds me a lot of Lebron in two
thousand and eight against the Celtics, where it's like he's
clearly playing the best team in the league, and like
it's like he has this like superpower that has kept
(41:00):
them in this series.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
But like Denver's just better.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Now, Aunt has an opportunity on Sunday to etch his
name in history. If Ant goes in on games for
Game seven and he goes for thirty five plus and
he shakes the foundation of that Denver team and they
win and they advance to the next round. You're talking
about going without home court advantage as a substantial underdog
to be the best player in the world on his
(41:25):
home floor, that would be one hell of an early
feather in the cat for Anthony Edwards, especially since that
puts them into a conference final series where I think
they'd probably be the favorite against whoever comes out of Dallas,
Oklahoma City. So huge opportunity for Aunt on Sunday. I
don't think they're gonna win, but that's the type of
opportunity that lays in front of him. Do you watch anime? So,
(41:49):
what was the show with the superheroes.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
That was anime? Paul?
Speaker 1 (41:54):
If you could think of it, let me know. It's
the one where the kid has the dad, not my
hero Academia. What was the It's the one where like
the kid's dad has the has the mustache and he's
like Superman and like and there's a moment in the
first season where he beats the shit out of him.
I can't remember exactly what that show was called, but
like I watched, I watched the Uh that doesn't count
(42:19):
as anime or it's just animation. I guess Invincible. That's
what it's called invincible. Okay, So anime is like Okay,
I see what you're saying. So I watched you know
when I was a kid, you know, like I watched
Yu gi Oh when I was a kid, right, or
Pokemon when I was young. But like, I haven't been
into anime very much. I did really enjoy the Star
Wars Visions shows where they went to a bunch of
(42:41):
anime studios and had them make a bunch of Star
Wars stories. I really really enjoyed those. There's a a
part of Star Wars that I've always enjoyed just in
terms of like I've always been fascinated by the Sith
and like they're kind of like overly dark aura and
like that mixes with anime extremely well. And there was
a lot of really really cool stuff from Star Wars
Visions with that. See, I'm gonna be in trouble now
(43:03):
because I just called Invincible anime and that doesn't count,
all right, any more.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Questions before we get out of here.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Also, I know I've I've mentioned this a couple times
in the last week, but like I I have a
podcast that I have on the side, two sons podcasts,
this one that I do with my buddy Luke, and
we cover basically TV shows and TV series and major
movie releases and stuff like Loved Fallout. We covered Fallout,
loved Showgun. We call it a covered Showgun. We just
(43:33):
did kind of a preview of The Acolyte Acolytes less
than a month away. We're gonna hitting the Acolyte every
single episode. We're gonna be hitting a house of the
Dragon every single episode. I saw the trailer today for
Rings of Power. Super excited for that. We're gonna have
uh episode of breakdowns for all of those, so you
can find that where. I have my other podcast at
two sons. Let's see and someone to give it a
(43:54):
description of anime for me.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I apologize. I didn't mean to disrespect the format. I
have a brother in law as a big anime guy,
and he's always trying to get me to get into it,
but I just haven't been. I love that you went
to Star Wars. I just I one in doubt. I'm
always gonna go to Star Wars. That's just how it goes.
How close is Indiana to being a true contender. I
think part of it is like Tyres Aliburton just needs
(44:17):
to get a little bit better as a score, right,
Like I think they need to get. They need to
get kind of like that nim hard Nee Smith piece, Like,
I think one of those guys can be the fifth
best player on your lineup, but I think you got
to upgrade one of those guys, and then if Tyree's
can become a more reliable scorer in the postseason, I
think that's enough for them to really enter into contention.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
I'm a huge believer in Halliburton.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I think, like, I think he's got a very unique
shot creation ability that goes under the radar. So much
focus on his scoring in this series, and like, I'm
not trying to underplay that the scoring matters, but like,
let's just be honest about the situation and acknowledge that,
Like Halliburton's best skill is getting the defense in rotation,
and he's done a lot of that in this series,
(45:01):
and he's just generating easier offense for his teammates. Should
the next trade Randal, I think they should. I think
they should trade Randal and try to get a star
forward to put next to Og if they can. That's
on Bronni. I thought that a lot of people like,
here's the thing. One of the things that sucks for
Bronni is Lebron is just a super polarizing player, right,
(45:23):
And I want to be clear, like I feel like
the majority of people who are basketball fans are pretty
reasonable about this, Like they either like in respect Lebron
or don't like but respect Lebron. But then there's like
ten percent on the front end that's like so like
(45:44):
problematically obsessed with Lebron that it poisons the discourse. And
then there's like ten percent on the bottom and that's
like so like like hates him in such a toxic
way that it poisons the discourse, right, And so like
I think like that turns it into this like shouting
now about the Bronny stuff. And like one of the
things for Bronnie is like he literally had heart surgery
(46:05):
less than a year ago. I want to see, it
was like nine months ago. So like everyone's like, oh,
his numbers at USC weren't very good. It's like, dude,
he almost died, Like come on, like what are we
doing here? Like this this is not that's not fair
to Bronnie or to anybody involved, right, Like to me,
it's this simple. He's got excellent physical tools, So the
at two ten for a guard, that's like really stocky
(46:29):
and strong, and then in addition to that an outstanding athlete,
super quick first step, great vertical athlete, long arms. He's
got like a six seven six eight wing span, which
for a guard is outstanding. And so to me, I
keep thinking he's like Jalen Suggs. He's a guy that
I think could be a primary point of attack defender
that can be a guard who says guard guard screens
(46:50):
and pops a three point line and can attack close
outs and things along those lines and be a transition weapon.
That's what I look at Bronnie as and I mean,
here's the thing, Like, does does the fact that he
didn't put up great numbers at USC matter? No? But
does that mean that he's just like an automatic shoe
into be an NBA player? No, It's just my thing
is he deserves his chance. I think he's got the
(47:12):
tools to get to He's got the tools to potentially
be a good NBA player. And as far as like
the whole like nepotism angle, here's my thing, Like, like,
would Brownie have gotten an invite to the combine if
he wasn't Lebron James's kid?
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Maybe not, but I mean probably not. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
He is Lebron James's kid, and he did get an invite,
and so he is gonna get a chance. Are we
gonna sit here and be stupid and pretend like there
aren't people that get opportunities because of connections. That's just
how life works. And so if Bronni is able to
take advantage of that and parlay it into an NBA career,
more power to him. You know, you got to get
lucky in life, and like no one ever achieved anything
(47:54):
without some luck, you know what I mean. And so
I think it's I think it's straight hater behavior to
focus on what has benefited Bronnie when the reality is
is like if he goes to the NBA and he's
not good, he won't he won't stay in the NBA.
So like he's going to get his opportunity because of Lebron,
but it's still on him to capitalize on it. No
(48:17):
coach is going to be giving Ronnie real NBA minutes
on a good team if he can't play. So so
just get over it. Let the kid have his opportunity,
Let's see what he makes of it. Let's see last
question better at twenty three Kobe or Anthony Edwards, that's tough.
I here's the thing. Kobe at this age had already
(48:39):
had a lot of deep playoff experience, so I think
he was a little bit more reliable at this point.
And Kobe had like actually made plays in the NBA Finals,
So I think it's foolish to give anthe edge right away.
That said, like Kobe's role in his early twenties was
fundamentally different as the second best player on his team.
If Aunt were to win the title this year, like
(48:59):
let's say Aunt goes in game seven tomorrow or on
Sunday and drops thirty eight, soundly out plays Jokics and
wins the game, and then he goes into the next
round and soundly out plays Luca and wins the Western
Conference finals, and then goes into the finals and soundly
out plays Jason Tatum and they hoist the trophy. He
(49:21):
at age twenty two would have the best case for
best player in the world be the reigning Finals MVP,
and we'll have done it about a half decade earlier then.
The majority of the people that he's getting lumped in
with in terms of his potential, right, like, Kobe was
the second best player on those Lakers teams. He was
vitally important, but he was the second best player on
(49:45):
those on those championship teams, right, And so like, I
think Ant has an opportunity. Again, I expect the Nuggets
to win on Sunday, but I think Ant has an
opportunity to do something truly special on Sunday. And that's
why we're going to be all in front of our
TVs to watch it, which is gonna be exciting. All right, guys,
we're gonna head out of here. I really really appreciate
you guys for supporting the show. I don't say that enough.
(50:05):
It's been really cool to see the channel grow over
the course of the last nine months. We built this
thing from scratch back in October, the new YouTube channel,
and I think we're already up at like sixty six
thousand subscribers, And obviously the support has been insane, and
it's open doors for me that I never thought i'd
get access to. Like I'm getting to go watch Team
(50:25):
USA in their scrimmage in Vegas the week before Summer League,
and then I'm going to Summer League, and like, there's
all these opportunities and things that I've been able to experience,
and I have you guys to think for that. So
I just hope you guys understand how much I appreciate you,
and I know that I wouldn't have any of these
opportunities if it wasn't for you guys, and I just
appreciate you guys for supporting the show. All Right, we're
gonna get out of here for the night. We're not
(50:46):
gonna do anything in the morning. Again, I don't really
think anything's worth a film study at this point, So
we're going to run this mail bag as a breakout
in the morning, and then we'll be back at the
final buzzer of thunder MAVs Game six tomorrow night live
on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
I will see you guys.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Then the volume
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