April 30, 2025 • 54 mins
Jason reacts to the Denver Nuggets taking a 3-2 series lead over the Los Angeles Clippers with their big Game 5 win. He discusses Nikola Jokic playing well and Jamal Murray having a bounce back game, plus Kawhi Leonard and James Harden falling short. Then he discusses the Indiana Pacers eliminating the Milwaukee Bucks as well as the altercation after the game between Giannis Antetokounmpo and Tyrese Haliburton’s dad & the Detroit Pistons extending the series against the New York Knicks.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
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Speaker 3 (01:45):
Slash audio. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at
the ball.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
You have you Tuesday, buddy, hopeball. You guys are having
a great start for your week. Got a jam packed
show tonight. We had a four game night on a weekday.
Absolutely insane, all sorts of crazy drama, all sorts of
crazy results. We had a game winner. We have a
bunch of stuff we're going to be getting into today.
You guys are the joke before we get started. Subscribe
to the Hoops and I YouTube channels. You don't miss
any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter, I
(02:19):
Underscore json LTC. You guys, don't miss show announcements. Don't
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We also have social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and
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follow us there. The last but not least, keep dropping
mail bag questions in those YouTube comments and we can get.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
To them in our mail bags. Moving forward.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
At the tail end of the show tonight, we're gonna
take more questions from the chat, so make sure you
guys drop your questions there in the chat. All right,
let's talk some basketball quickly before I get to Clippers Nuggets.
The Celtics game is the game I didn't get to
watch tonight, so we're not gonna get around to that one.
But I saw Jason Tatum thirty five, eight and ten
on just sixteen shots to close out the Magic, his
(02:59):
third consecutive thirty five point game in the entire playoff run.
Last year, he had two thirty five point games total,
and that is the biggest difference between this year's Celtics
and last year's Celtics. Last year, Celtics did not have,
in my opinion, a player that can reach that top tier,
superstar level. Jason Tatum was incredibly versatile in that playoff run.
(03:21):
He did a ton to make that team championship caliber.
But now he's bringing that extra level of shot making
and half court surgery that makes him one of the
very best players in the entire NBA and it just
makes that Celtics team that much more difficult to deal
with in this sort of setting. Again, no more thoughts
on that game, Beau, I didn't get to watch it.
(03:41):
When I saw that number. Again, he already has more
thirty five point games in the first round that he
did in the entire playoff run last year. Great sign
for Celtics fans. We're gonna start with Clippers Nuggets, and
for two games in a row now it has felt
like the Nuggets have had the Clippers. They're bringing late
(04:02):
help on Kawhi when he gets into the mid range
and preventing him from really getting into a good scoring
rhythm as a shot maker there in that short to
mid range where he.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Loves to work.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Although Kawhi did have one of his better passing playoff
games that I've ever seen from him tonight, But Kawhi
has managed to score over twenty five points just once
in this entire series. They're putting a ton of pressure
on Harden. Christian Brown is applying a lot of full
court ball pressure, like just attacking the basketball and making
him uncomfortable. They're bringing Jokic aggressively out to the level
(04:32):
on him, and as the intensity of the series is
picked up, James Harden has looked completely caught off guard
by it. I was joking with my buddy Jason Maples
on Twitter earlier, like, it's still shocking to me even
with James Harden's playoff history, and when you're watching it happen,
it's still jarring to see because like the game has
(04:54):
this level of intensity and you can see it in
all these different ways. Right, it's two to two, game
five of a series, basically a must win for both
team games for obvious reason, it's just very difficult to
put yourself in a situation where you have to win
two games in a row just to survive, right, And
you're seeing like the yelling and screaming of Russell Westbrook,
the yelling and screaming of Christian Brown, even the intensity
from like Nicole Jokicic just like barking at his teammates,
(05:17):
barking at officials, getting super excited every time one of
his teammates makes a play. There's like this emotional momentum
with the team as they're bringing the requisite intensity to
meet the moment. The transition pushes from jokis just his
eyes light up every time he sees an opportunity to
make the defense pay for something. There's a level of
like mental and physical intensity that is president in all
(05:42):
of these series. But you can see in the game tonight,
and then you're watching James Harden and it looks like
he'd much rather be playing in like kind of a
chill pickup game, Like he's operating at a level of
intensity that is just several levels below what the team
needs from him in that moment. And it always again,
this has happened a lot over the course of his career,
(06:03):
and it often comes in this phase of the series,
towards the end of the series, when the team has
been scouted out really well and the defender guarding James
Harden has started to pick up on some of his
cues and some of his little tips that he uses
to tip off the moves that he's going to use,
and the physical intensity and the overall urgency of the
(06:23):
moment picks up, and as it gets crazier and crazier,
he struggles back to back very important games for the Clippers.
James Harden had twenty six points total in the two games.
I do want to credit the Nuggets defense, though, with
exception of the fourth quarter in Game four when they
kind of lost control of things in transition, and then
(06:44):
you could tell just in general the Nuggets got out
of their defensive groove. The Nuggets have looked like the
more intense team. They look like they want to win
the series more. They have pretty quickly recaptured a level
of defensive intensity much closer to what they had in
the playoffs in twenty twenty three. It all starts with
the bracket and the ball screens, the ball pressure that
Christian Brown is applying on James Harden and Jokic getting
(07:07):
out and making sure that Harden is not having an
easy time getting the pass out from those situations. And
you could see James Harden get flummixed that he's like
trying to force a pass to the role man when
the skip passes open. But the guy Garden the skip
pass is like on the role man and it's a
turnover because he's getting sped up and he's struggling to
deal with the physicality and he's not making the same
(07:29):
reads that James Harden can make when things are just
a little less intense or when he is more intense
and ready and engaged in the moment. But it all
starts with those two at the level, Christian Brown and
Nicola Jokic, the two of them are the guys that
have stabilized this defense with what they've done in pick
and roll and then the backside rotations. That's the third
(07:49):
piece of it that they've managed to recapture. Again, the
goal of your defense in the playoffs is to make
opposing stars uncomfortable. Have they done that with Kawhi, Yes,
they've kept him from volume scoring. Have they done that
with James Harden. Yes, they've kept him from picking them
apart in pick and roll. And for as much as
we've talked about the Nuggets defense down the stretch of
(08:11):
the season, which was a major storyline, it was the
main reason so many people, including most of the Nuggets
fans that I follow, picked the Clippers to win the
series was because their defense was in such a bad place.
But they've been operating at an insanely high level on
offense for months. I thought Jokic was so much better
than his box score looked tonight like he's four for
(08:32):
thirteen from the field, But I thought he had complete
command of the pace and flow of the game. He
generated countless advantages. His transition pushes kept everybody out of
position throughout the game. The team was playing out of those.
A lot of the looks that Jamal Murray got were
out of those transition pushes, out of those Jokic post
ups and Jokic high post kind of fulcrum situations where
(08:56):
he's just setting these guys up with great advantages. It
kept everyone in rhythm. As I mentioned earlier, I thought
Yokich was fantastic defensively tonight, a way better game than
the box score would to lead you to believe. And
then Jamal Murray the sixth forty point playoff game of
his career. That's kind of a crazy stat dating back
(09:16):
to his awesome shootout that he had with Donovan Mitchell
back in the bubble. Jamal Murray looked fantastic tonight. Out
of everything we saw, and we saw a ton of
three point shot making. His three point shot was just
dead eye tonight. He was getting separation on his moves,
he was getting great lift all over the floor. But
I thought the most exciting play for Denver's playoff chances
(09:38):
was the transition Dunky had at the end of the game.
He got up and he ammed that thing, and you
could tell he knew it too, and he was like
he was pumped, and you could tell he was feeling
great physically. And that bodes extremely well for the big
picture with this Nuggets team. That really was the story
of the series to this point, in my opinion, the
(09:58):
Nuggets had some other big country since tonight. Russell Westbrook
was amazing in the first half. Vintage like not just
knocking down spot up threes and scoring as a hutter.
He was like getting buckets and causing actual problems for
the Clippers on the ball. Michael Porter and Aaron Gordon
were both excellent tonight. Christian Brown was great on both ends.
Hit that huge three at the end of the third
(10:18):
quarter that built that extra bit of margin going into
the fourth. But at the end of the day, Jamal
Murray and Nikol Jokic have badly outplayed James Harden and
Kawhi Leonard. That's the series. Everything else flows down from there.
That's what dictates the types of advantages the role players
are getting. James Harden is the guy on the Clippers
(10:40):
that can consistently set people up with advantages. He hasn't
done a very good job of that. Nikolejokic, even in
a poor shooting night, set up his team with countless
advantages throughout the game. And again, when I keep talking
about creating advantages, it's a very basic concept. Every basketball player,
even the best basketball players in the world, are going
to be more successful when they have a defender sprinting
(11:01):
at them, versus when they have a defender set on
them when the health defense is out of position and
sprinting into help versus when the help is already pre loaded.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Up.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
That's why advantage creation is so important. That's why I
tend to be very predisposed, so to speak, as a fan,
as a basketball fan, towards players that naturally create a
ton of advantages in games. So I've always liked the
big forwards, the Lebron's, the Lucas, the Nikola Jokic's.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I've liked the.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Deadly high pick and roll playmakers, the guys like Tyrese Halliburton,
for instance. I've always liked the guys that just I mean,
Steph is kind of a unicorn in this regard, but
he can just create a ton of advantages just by
running around the floor and everybody reacting to him Gehannest,
just by being this battering ram that you have to
(11:54):
account for by packing up the paint. Those guys that
can consistently set their teammates up with advantages, they're gonna
have a really high offensive floor. Everything flows down from
those guys, and again the intensity, Like I don't think
it's a coincidence that Nikola Jokic has looked like psychopathically
(12:16):
competitive in these two games and his team has met
the moment and been a buzzsaw versus a Clippers team
that's had a lethargic James Harden and a generally quiet
and like like Kawhi Leonard is not the type of
personality that is going to galvanize a group with energy.
He's he gets called a robot for a reason. Now, Kawhi,
(12:41):
I thought was pretty good tonight, and Kawhi in general
is going to have a certain floor because he is
going to bring the requisite intensity. But Kawhi is not
the kind of guy that's gonna, like legitimately galvanize a
group emotionally and be like, hey, like, wake the fuck up,
It's time to go. What are we doing?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
You're gonna see Kawhi do what Nikola Jokic did in
the huddle after Game two, or he's screaming at his guys.
This is unacceptable what we're doing right here. The Clippers
just got punched in the face twice, like badly. You
don't see that too often in a playoff series. Won
(13:20):
this competitive or you the regardless of arena, regardless of
where you're at, one team just looks like they're genuinely
playing harder. It usually goes back and forth based on
who won the previous game. Any chance for the Clippers
to reverse the trend of this series is going to
come down to those two flipping the script. Same thing
I said about the Lakers versus the Wolves. Can the
(13:42):
Lakers beat the Wolves? Yes, it starts with Luka doncicin
Lebron James not getting completely outclassed by Anthony Edwards and
naseried and Julius Randall at the end of games. Until
they flip that dynamic, that nothing's gonna change. Same thing
goes here. Until James Harden can bring the requisite intensity
(14:03):
and create the advantages necessary to get this offense to
hum and until Kawhi Leonard can bring that volume scoring
that he brought in Game two, they're going to struggle
to flip this dynamic.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Now.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
I picked the Clippers to win this series, as I mentioned,
like most people did, given what we'd seen from the
Nuggets and the time leading up to the series. But
one of the things I said after Game two, and
it's something that I feel very strongly at this point,
is as a fan, I would like to see Denver
advance because I think they have a much better chance
(14:39):
to deal with Oklahoma City. The Denver Nuggets hung one
hundred and forty points on the Thunder the last time
that they played them. They have the ability to break
down the Thunder defense with their aggregate playmaking. One of
the specific reasons that I've not been as high on
this Clippers team is their lack of playmaking. Once you
(14:59):
get past James and James, Harden can have some issues
as the intensity gets leveraged.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Right, I am.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Worried that the Clippers would go into the Thunder series
and just really fall apart offensively, and so I'm personally
hoping that the Nuggets can close this deal because I
think that they present a very interesting type of challenge
for OKAC even on defense. Their ability to load up
against an Oklahoma City Thunder offense is something that I
think is a favorable matchup for them too. I think
(15:27):
that would be a really fun series, a Thunder Nuggets series,
a series that obviously the Thunder would be rightfully favored,
but I think it would be a really fun example
of two very different styles, a very experienced team versus
an inexperienced team. That's what I'll be rooting for moving
forward in the series.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
It's not over.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
The Clippers absolutely can win Game six, and they absolutely
have the talent to come back to Denver and win
Game seven, but they put themselves in a buying and
it's really hard for me to imagine something different happening
when their leaders haven't seemed to bring the requisite intensity
and to be able to meet them, to meet the
competition that Jamal Murray and NICOLEA yok Which are bringing
straight to them. Before we move on to Pistons Nicks,
(16:05):
I'm gonna do a very short version of the announcement
we made last night. We did just start a new
partnership with Playback. It's a app that I feel very
passionate about. It's an opportunity for you guys to be
more interacted, interactive with us on the show. And so
starting tomorrow tomorrow, after the final buzzer of the Lakers
Wolves game, right after we do our YouTube show, we're
(16:27):
gonna do our normal YouTube show here. When we're done,
we're gonna go immediately after to what we're calling the
Hoops tonight after show, and at the Hoops the night
after show over on Playback, We're gonna take questions from
you guys. We're gonna be able to actually bring you
up on the stage. We're gonna be able to actually
go through film live, so we'll be able to do
a lot of like the actual visual examples of the
stuff that we talked about on the show. It's gonna
(16:49):
be super interactive, a little bit more informal, something I'm
really excited about. It's gonna be with the after show
in this playoff run, and then we have some big
picture goals for next year to start doing some live
watch alongs where like we can watch big NBA League
Pass games together and actually go through the games as
they're happening live together, something I'm really excited about. But
for this season, we're just doing these after shows after
(17:12):
our live YouTube shows. So when you guys have an opportunity,
hit the link in the description, head over to the
Hoops Tonight playback feed. Get set up so that you
guys are ready to go tomorrow night again after the final,
after we finished the live show tomorrow night on YouTube,
we're all gonna head over to playback to start that
new venture I'm super excited about. I hope to see
(17:32):
you guys over there. All right, let's talk Pistons Nicks.
So the Nicks had a chance to close out the
Pistons in the same fashion that they took a three
to one lead with keep things close until you can
out execute them down the stretch, but instead it ended
up being Kate Cunningham and the Pistons that played better
down the stretch and sent the series back to Detroit
for Game six by quickly capitalizing on a late injury
(17:57):
to Jalen Brunson. So it was a crazy seat. Pistons
are up ninety five ninety two, Jalen Brunson tweaks his
ankle on a close out along the left wing. Kat
literally goes down in a four on five and drops
a bomb like a forty foot three from almost the
logo that ties the game at one oh five. Just
a huge shot, but Kate, very smartly, while Brunson is
(18:20):
still on the floor limping around, immediately looks to attack him. Now,
Kid had been attacking Brunson throughout the series, and in
that fourth quarter stretch already he had just hit a
three against a hedge gap on like two or three
possessions earlier. And again, a hedge gap is like when
Caid's coming off the screen and Jalen Brunson tries to
hedge or throw his body out to force Kaid to
(18:41):
retweet retreat. Ojananobi's going underneath the screen to try to
meet him on the other side, and so there's a
gap when right when Brunson's pulling back and OG's coming up.
It's very similar to his switch interchange gap, which we've
talked about a lot on this show. And Kate was
able to hit a three in that situation against the hedge,
but after Jalen Brunson sprained his ankle, he didn't want
(19:03):
to hedge anymore because he didn't want to, like have
to throw his body into a lateral quickness situation, so
instead he just hugged up on the screener. That put
Kate in a situation where he had no hedge. And
what happens if you set a good screen and there's
no hedge, You're gonna get downhill. He goes flying downhill,
challenges the rim protector and misses a layup, but in
(19:24):
the process occupies the rim protector, which allows Jalen Duran
to fill the gap from behind and get the dunk
right under the basket. There's a lot of that down
the stretch. Jalen Brunson had a very similar play that
led to Mitchell Robinson and one where he like when
you get to the basket, even if you miss a layup,
if you engage the rim protector, if you force the
(19:45):
rim protector to leave his feet and get out of position,
you're gonna have your center rolling down the lane with
nobody who's even remotely physical capable, physically capable of hanging
with him on the offensive glass. That's the lenge with
the drop coverage big and that's why you'll see drop
coverage bigs do so much stunting at the ball because
(20:06):
they don't want to leave their feet because if they do,
their out of position to box out and deal with
the big man rolling down the lane, or to even
deal with a lob right and we saw a bunch
of that Jalen Brunson got. Mitchell Robinson opened that way
had on the first possession. After Jalen Brunson's injury, takes
advantage of the lack of a hedge, gets downhill ends
up getting the miss that Jalen Duran cleans up. On
(20:27):
the other end of the floor, Tobias Harris gets a
massive stop against Karl Anthony town So after Jalen Brunson
gets hurt, they have to sub induce McBride right, and
Josh Hart ended up getting hurt as well, and so
we saw we saw a campaign end up coming in
the game as well at one point, but it was
definitely an unfortunate set of circumstances for the Knicks. But Kat,
(20:50):
as we saw it in many points in this series,
has been able to create his own offense when needed.
He's hit a couple of big left shoulder fades in
crunch time, he had that crazy step back three against
Jalen durn in game four or so. In theory, well
we just go to Kat here he can create offense.
Tobias Hairs excellent individual defense against Kat forces him into
a tough fade away, nearly blocks it and actually forces
(21:10):
him into a really tough like a really bad miss,
like a bad bad miss. Kid goes down the other end,
the Knicks are all scrambled and transition defense. Jalen Duran
ends up setting like a little brush screen for Kate
at the top of the key, same exact thing. Kid
goes flying downhill misses but occupies all the help defenders,
and there's Jalen Duran just standing under the basket ready
(21:32):
for another finish. So more value in the form of
rim pressure from Kate, and his rim pressure was fantastic
down the stretch of this game. He got a transition
push for a scoop shot. He was downhill non stop
down the stretch, none of this tough mid range fade
away shit that he was settling for in Game four.
Caid was going to the bucket down the stretch in
this game and had a lot of success that way.
(21:53):
So Kate goes down the hill, gets the miss that
leads to the Jalen dura and put back. Now the
pissons are up for Tim Hart, but the way Junior's
turn to get a big stop. This time they go
to McHale, bridges Tim hardaway, forces him into like a
tough leaning fade away along the right lane line, ends
up missing, and then Cad closes the deal with a
textbook drop coverage attack where he gets Juce McBride trapped
(22:15):
on his side, puts him in jail, hits a little floater,
and then on the very next possession a post fade
where he turns over the double team and Asar Thompson
just slips along the baseline right behind Karl Anthony Towns
and Cad rifles a perfect pass right to him underneath
the basket for the easy layup. Cade was brilliant down
the stretch of this game. And by the way, during
(22:37):
that whole run, Tom Tibodau was never able to get
Jalen Brunson back into the game. Now I understood the
idea from Tim's He had one time out left, and
the ability to advance the ball is it could make
a huge difference in a comeback, right. So, like, first
of all, you gotta remember Brunson was stepped out because
he was.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Having an ankle in jo injury. He needed a minute, right.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Cad scores or generates bucket on three straight possessions, so
it gets to six quickly, all right. So it's already
in a situation where the Knicks basically need to go
like like perfect basketball down the stretch, right, And in
that scenario, it's very possible that you do hit a
shot that forces you to call a timeout after fouling
to advance the ball so that you can get another
(23:19):
shot up with like two seconds left on the game
clock if you run into that scenario. So I think
what Tibbs was thinking is someone's gonna get fouled. Something's
gonna go out of Bound's worst case scenario. This is
why we have Kat, This is why we have Mikhale Bridges,
so that they can run offense if we need to
need them to in a situation. In theory, we have
a better defensive lineup out there, maybe we can buy
(23:40):
Jalen Brunson a few possessions. So I understood, But then
it just by the time you got a chance to
use the timeout, it was too late. But like at
the end of the day, the damage was done in
those first couple of possessions after Jalen Brunson got hurt.
And so I don't want to hyper focus on that
decision there. From Tibbs, I could see what he was thinking.
He just wanted to save that time out for a
final passe ession should they need it. But the story
(24:02):
of the game, and easily the most interesting storyline for
the rest of the series, was Aasar Thompson's individual defense
on Jalen Brunson. Pistons fans had been clamoring for this
adjustment for the entire series. There was some pretty strong
lineup data that the Pistons were about the same on
offense and considerably better on defense. When Aasar Thompson was
(24:23):
on the floor. I was a little bit more on
the fence down the stretch. In Game four, a SAR
made a couple of classic young guy mistakes on offense,
so I thought it was at least defensible to at
least in crunch time for excuse me, for the Pistons
to go with like a more experienced and more polished
offensive player. But down three to one, JB. Bickerstaff finally
(24:44):
leans fully into a SAR. He plays a series high
twenty nine minutes. He was plus nine in those minutes.
Jalen Brunson finishes the game four for sixteen from the field.
Now as a team effort, several guys got big stops
on Brunson on an island, Heyde got stops. Dennis Schroeder
got stops. Guys did It was a team effort on Brunson.
(25:04):
But Asar applied constant ball pressure. Was closing off driving
angles by beating him to spots, was bumping him off
his base on his fade away, got great contests on
his mid range, was pursuing him over the top of
ball screens and getting contests from behind those rear view contests.
And I thought his ball pressure in particular caused Brunson
to play faster than usual. It sped him up throughout
(25:26):
the entire game. He missed a couple of shots that
he usually makes, like easy shots right at the rim.
He took some unusual shots, like there was one where
he had a catch in the left corner and Aasar
Thompson closed out on him textbook closed out, closes out
on the high side shoulder to funnel him towards the baseline.
Brunson rips baseline and ends up taking kind of like
a eurostep floater. But Tobias Harris was like right there,
(25:49):
like right there, and Brunson just shot the floater directly
into Tobias's hands, like it barely got out of his
hands before he got before he got blocked, and like
Brunson usually sees that sort of thing, but I thought
he was just a little bit rushed, just a little
bit uncomfortable compared to what he looked like at other
points in the series. And so, I mean, especially with
(26:09):
where the situation is gone to this point in the series,
I think it was a worthwhile gamble from Jav Bickersoft
to lean into a sar and more and it paid off.
And that will be the biggest key in game six.
Back in Detroit, Canon Brunson solved the SR. Thompson problem
and get more comfortable throughout the game. I think the
Knicks are going to go into Detroit in Game six
(26:31):
and play like a veteran team that knows they need
to win. They had a similar game last year where
they went into Philly, I think, and beat them in
game six, where they kind of like looked a little sketchy,
but then they were able to rise up on the
road and get the job done. My guess is it'll
look a little bit like that, but it'll probably still
be a close game because this Pistons team has had
a lot of success with them again against them with
(26:51):
their physicality, So I think it'll be a close game
and it'll come down to a late game execution and
if the Knicks can be what the Knicks are capable
of beating and Jalen Brunson can stay on the floor,
they should be able to close out the deal there.
But really impressive moment of growth there from Cad Cunningham
and the Detroit Pistons. All Right, we'll talk quickly on
Pacers Bucks and then we'll do a mail bag and
then we'll get out of here Milwaukee through a hell
(27:13):
of a punch. Tonight, Giannis played another amazing game in
that like kind of point center role where he's next
to Bobby Portis and he just kind of determines everything
as the half court shot creator. Thirty points, twenty rebounds,
and thirteen assists with two steals and two blocks and
absolutely insane stat line. I tweeted this earlier, like I
was obviously wrong to pick the Bucks to beat the
(27:35):
Pacers for a myriad of reasons, and obviously the Dame
injury was a psychological punch to the gut for the
Bucks in the middle of the series. But I don't
have any regrets for believing in Giannis and his ability
to potentially win this series, like he is just he
is amazing, and he's gonna go play somewhere else this summer,
(27:56):
and some team is going to become frightening when they
add Giannis to the mix, And there are a couple
teams out there that have the assets to make a
move for him, that are already really fucking good, and
it could get incredibly scary. But Giannis played amazing. Gary
Trent Junior and AJ Green go nuclear from three. They
hit fourteen of them, including Gary Trent hitting five of
his eight threes in crunch time. But Tyre's Halliburton was
(28:19):
even better. Think about how good you thought Gary Trent
Junior was down the stretch, Like did it feel like
when you were watching the game that Gary Trent was
scoring every single time? He had fifteen points in crunch time.
Tyres Haliburton had fourteen of his own in crunch time
to go with two assists. The Pacers overcame a seven
point deficit no tee. With a little over a half
(28:40):
minute left, Andrew Nemhard hits a ball bomb coming off
of ball screen like a deep like thirty foot three
off the dribble at the top, and then Tyre's Halliburton
beats his man off the dribble twice, once against aj
Green on the right wing, once against Giannis on Tanakoompo
on the left wing for the win, and on both
of them like Aj Green physicality bumping up on Halliburton,
He's Shiel turns the corner, he bumps him at the
(29:02):
rim and he still gets enough lift to power through
the contact for a soft left handed finish off the
glass and one and then attacking Giannis in a switch
the nasty left to right crossover turns the corner and
for the second time in crunch time, he elevates and
actually gets an up and under to avoid rim protection
and cleanly lay it down off the glass like that
(29:23):
is the most athletic Tyrese has looked on his dribble
drive and rim finishing attacks, especially out of one one
on ones, since the beginning of last year when he
was kicking everybody's ass before he pulled his hamstring like.
There has been a consistent theme with Tyre's Halliburton in
(29:44):
his range of potential outcomes, and it pretty much comes
down to he can make all the reads, but in
order to beat switches, he's got to be able to
beat people off the dribble and hit stuff at the
rim in traffic, and in order to dick take the
type of coverage necessary to generate all the kinds of
openings that he can kill teams with, he's got to
(30:06):
be able to hit his three. If he can hit
his three off the dribble, that's the other ceiling raising
piece that unlocks everything that he does, because if he
can score effectively enough and drop coverage and he can
score effectively enough and switches that unlocks his his peak trait,
which is that he sees every he sees every read
as it's happening, and he makes those reads on time,
(30:28):
on target. The pass is always in the right place.
That's the ceiling raising piece. But it depends on his
ability to be explosive in one on one situations and
to knock down shots and drop coverage and so like, honestly,
we're recording a Pacers Calves preview tomorrow morning, so keep
an eye on the feeds early ish in the day
(30:48):
tomorrow for that. But the main thing that I want
to focus on is that they're going to need Tyrese
Halliburton to be amazing to be able to win that series.
And this is the best that he's looked since the
time that he came onto the scene early last year
and everyone was like, oh my god, what are we watching?
Like evolutionary Steve Nash here, Like he's showing that upside again.
(31:10):
The first step on the move on Giannis was crazy,
Everyone's slaying Giannis, and I mean, the dude had to
do everything for his team, So like, I'm just not
going to be super critical of him in that situation.
This is not like the Luka Doncic situation where he's
being anchored by Lebron James and Austin Reeves and and
somehow still running out of gas at the end of games.
(31:30):
Like Giannis is the engine for everything this team does.
Like who's the second best player on Gianni's team tonight.
It's scary Trent Junior. It's Kevin Porter Junior. You know,
like like he took a bunch of league, like a
replacement level players in the NBA and went in Indiana,
very good Indiana Pacers team and nearly got the job done.
(31:53):
But like in that last iso, Tyree's he toasted him
on that move. He looked expl on that move and
it wasn't like a high hesitation, just shoot the gap.
He changed direction with a sweeping left to right crossover
and then hit the jet moving forward. They're gonna need
him to be incredible to beat the Calves, and I
(32:14):
thought that was a really good sign, how explosive he
looked down the stretch. We had a really weird altercation
at the end of the game with Tyres Alberton's dad,
like walking onto the court to just shit Takianus on
the floor. That was super bizarre, But I thought both
Tyrese and Jannis handled it really well in their postgame pressers,
and that kind of took some of the uh, the
weirdness away because you could see, like, I'm so glad
(32:36):
that we've seen this from Tyrese. Like shit talk can
get nasty sometimes, but there is something to be said
about high level competition and the ability to separate what
is high level competition from what things are like off
the court. And there are a lot of people out
there that, like I mean, we were talking about this
last night, Like I I like to think I'm a
(32:58):
reasonably nice guy. I have been awful to people in
the basketball court before, Like awful to the point where,
like I think about it all week until I see
that person and I can apologize to them. Like there
is a when you get out there and the competitive
juice to start flowing, Like there is it is important
to separate the competition from what things are like off
the court. And like Giannis had a chance to go
(33:21):
into that press conference and just rip Tyrese and talk
all sorts of shit about who he thinks he is
as a person. Nope, tyres is a competitor, wish him
all the best, but then calling attention to the obvious
behavior from his dad, and same thing with Tyres Halliburn.
He could have gone into the presser and been like,
those boys talk shit the entire series and we busted
their ass. Nope, he went up there and he was like, look,
(33:43):
we're outside of the lines now, time to be a
grown up.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
I respect the hell out of Giannis, I respect the
hell out of Dame. This is just what we do
when we compete, and and I just I just want
to applaud those those guys for handling that really sticky
situation with class. All Right, let's hit a couple. Let's
do about ten minutes of mail back questions and then
we'll get out of here for them.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
First question. Uh, you allude to this a little bit
in the Nuggets Clipper supports for the show, but Jokic
seems to have really stepped up on the defensive end.
So not great by any means, but it does feel
like a massive improvement from the regular season. Is that
what you're saying?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yes, part of it is like the juxtaposition, and what
I mean by that is like they were so bad
on defense to end of the season, they were so
so bad, like everybody was bad, and so like there's
a certain amount of like they're just kind of like
competing now and that's making the world of difference and
(34:40):
they just weren't competing earlier. But I mean, like everything
comes down to because of the way that Denver guards,
Everything comes down to just the three parts of their
pick and roll coverage, the ball pressure of Christian Brown,
Nicole Jokic, at the level in their backside rotations, and
they're just substantially sharper on all three fronts than they
were in the regular season.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like they're a lot sharper
in the regular season. That feels obvious. It feels like
he's been sharper just since Game one and two. I mean,
the the at the the intensity and I was about
to say foot speed and that felt like the wrong
word to use for yokch but uh in the the
intensity and sort of purpose with Wick at least he's
guarding out there feels notable. It certainly feels a lot
(35:21):
more like their championship run than it did last season.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
You know, by comparison, he's big and he's smart, so
like if he does, like think of it like this,
he his speed is more useful because he's usually early,
but he's gotta be bringing the requisite intensity. But like, dude,
I thought Jokic's intensity was like palpable, palpable on the
screen tonight, Like you could tell he was like I'm
(35:45):
winning this fucking game, Like like I'm winning this fucking game.
And it just was like the exact opposite of the
energy we were seeing from James Harden, and it was crazy.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeah, it is funny when people like to do the
whole does Yokuchi even care about basketball? Thing? Like when
you watch the dude in the playoffs, I mean he
is as an tens of the competitors anybody.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Dude, it's such bullshit.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
But I was like when I was like when I
heard it was like, oh, Yokich like did this like
you know, four hour coaching class back when he was
in Europe this summer. I'm literally sitting there thinking like
this dude's a basketball nutshob. This dude loves basketball. Let's yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
On the hardened question, are Harden's late series struggles more
about a lack of intensity or being overly scouted by
that point, sort of familiarity with the opponent at that point.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
You know, I've been thinking a lot about this tonight
over the course of the game, like what what is
it that's causing him to do this? And I think
there's a couple of different things. I think there are
some obvious skill things like James Harden has always had
a little bit a little bit of a like a
(36:49):
his bag, has several very reliable moves, but he doesn't
necessarily have like a gigantic variety of shot making. It's
a lot of like the same three or four types
of moves, And so I think there's a certain amount
of like guys pick up on his cues.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
But also, like.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I genuinely think that part of the NBA playoff process
is like overcoming the adversity of a defense kind of
figuring you out throughout NBA history, even the greatest basketball
players that I've watched, Because in the playoffs, you have
to beat four teams over the course of two months,
(37:28):
generally at progressively more difficult levels, right and once you
get into like second third round, you're consistently running into
great defenses. I think what ends up happening is like
over the course of a series, you get tons of tape,
and teams are pretty good at taking away what you
like to do, and like you will find yourself in
(37:50):
a basketball game where you're like, shit, the thing I
like to do is not working.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
What am I gonna do now?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
And like there's it's like a intensity, like confronting the
problem with intensity, which is like, well, if I just
play really fucking hard, I can make these things happen
that are positives for me and my team, and I
can build momentum in the form of confidence that comes
from that, and and I can try to turn this
(38:19):
thing around. And then there's the it's just not my night,
you know, Like I know it does it almost like
feels like that kind of energy from him where he
almost like succumbs to it, and it's like, dude, James,
this happens to everybody. This happens literally everybody in these games.
It gets really fucking hard, Like you just have to
find a way to contribute, Just find a way, you know,
(38:42):
And like for him, it could have literally just been
creating advantages in ball screens by like getting downhill with
the same verve that he brought in the fourth quarter
a game.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Fo Yeah, it's this is probably a bit of an
unfair comparison because it's, you know, one of the best
players of all time. But you think Steph Curry likes
being top locked, he likes being fucking face guarded like.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
He hates it. He hates it, but he at least
puts in.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
The requisit effort required to try to beat it other
ways and create advantage for his team when defenses are
playing gimmicky defenses or trying to do everything they can
to take away your best option, right, Like, that's part
of the equation that you're describing.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
No, you're absolutely right to put it simply like Steph
had a poor shooting night relative to what he's capable
of in Game four, but his impact came in the
form of his intensity throughout the game.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Right, And you can say the exact same for Yokic tonight.
And on that Jokic point, James Harden was tasked with
the at least point of attack defense on Jokic a
lot in the second half. It did seem to have
some success at least, you know, he wasn't yok wasn't
as much of a scorer certainly tonight. Is that something
that you think the Clippers can use next game. Is
(39:54):
a reasonable thing that could affect Jokic and change the series,
or is it's sort of like a gimmicky thing they
tried to do tonight.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
It's gimmicky in the sense that, like Jokich was doing
a lot of work at the top of the key,
and it gave them some flexibility in terms of the
ability to switch. And there's also the reality that like
this is teams have been trying this forever, which is basically,
let's put our bigger forward that's not very good on
the perimeter, Let's put him on Jokic, and then let's
put our center on the back line. And it's just
(40:21):
really as you look through the Clippers roster, they don't
really have like Kawhi effectively is that big forward, but
he's better deployed on the perimeter. So basically, James Harden
is playing the same role that you see so many
teams use against Denver, which is he's basically their defensive four.
I mean, who was this primary matchup earlier in the series.
It was literally Aaron Gordon or Michael Porter Junior for
(40:44):
the most part. So like the idea there though, is
like what James Harden is doing. Getting super aggressive up
underneath Jokic is one part of the team defensive scheme
of handling him, which really involves packing things on the
back line and like making difficult passing reads as you
have some non shooters on the floor.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
For sure. I agree. All right, let's move away from
the series to a couple other questions. Given the Knicks
Piston series has been dead even or close to debt,
even are you does that make you lower on the
New York Knicks ceiling or higher on Detroit's presence last
future Given the fact they're doing all this also without
Isaiah Stewart and Jade and.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Ivy, I think that there's I mean, you texted me
during the game, Jackson, You're like, I think this is
going to be a series that the Knicks will win,
but that we will look back on one day and
be like, hey, this is one of the series where
Caid kind of like showed some of what he's capable of,
like an important part of his story, so to speak.
It's like the old Lebron Wizard series for instance, you know,
(41:42):
and like it's one of those things where you know,
Kate has learned some valuable lessons over the course of
this series. Caid early in the series was like not
being as deliberate with hunting, screening actions in crunch time.
It was attacking too much one on one in the
middle of the series, made some bad reads where it's
like trying to like split double teams and stuff and
turning the basketball over tonight. Very decisive in the actions
(42:06):
that he was attacking and was relentlessly getting downhill, wasn't
settling for some of the mid range jump shots that
he was settling earlier in the series. For like, Caid
has shown growth over the course of this series, He's
been really good defensively for stretches in this series, Like
you're seeing a lot of stuff come to the surface
of sar Thompson and what he's shown you as like
kind of the literally the m N Thompson role just
(42:28):
guard the other team's best guard and then operate as
a baseline vertical spacer like the there's obviously a lot
of exciting stuff there. I personally was never very high
on the Knicks at any point this season, Like there
was not a single day from from the day they
got the shit kicked out of him by the Celtics
there was never a single day that I really took
the Knicks that seriously as a championship contender. We'll see,
(42:51):
we'll see if they can flip that script going against
the Knicks, but like Eric going against the Celtics. But
like it also is a little tricky to me with
this Jalen Brunson ankle thing, Like if he's not super
explosive in game six and he deals with another game
of Asar Thompson all over him, I could see things
going south. Like I think the Knicks are gonna win,
and I think they'll probably win in six, but there's
(43:13):
like a hefty, like twenty percent chance that the Pistons
get this done. Like they are a real problem for
the Knicks on a bunch of different levels.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean, it's crazy watching these
playoffs with this sort of extra level of scrutiny that
we're watching it with. And it's crazy how much the
Thompson Twins jump off the screen still as rookies to
have to be the best athletes on the floor every
time they're on the floor to be it's rare to
see a defender have the this kind of size. Also,
(43:43):
they're kind of huge and have the lateral quickness to
constantly be beating people to the spots that they want
to be getting to. All the time.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
I've been thinking about this a lot within the context
of like, okay, so like why there was a reason
why I was disagreeing with a lot of people talking
about the Luka Doncicic like roster structure with the Lakers,
and like there's a obvious thing where it's like you you,
of course want to have Luca with a rim, like
a like a vertical spacer, like obviously, and the Lakers
will get one this summer, I'm sure. But outside of that,
(44:14):
like I like the idea of Luca being surrounded with
guys that don't just finish plays, but that can extend
advantages and play out of like like kind of complex
clothes out attacking and connective playmaking and all that kind
of stuff. I you know, I've had this like vision
for what the Lakers can be that has never really
come to fruition yet, which involves basically Luca creating advantage
(44:39):
and then Lebron and Austin and everyone else just playing
off of that advantage and having a ton of success.
But here we are the Lakers, are down three to one,
and last year a team of Luca surrounded with play
finishing was more successful. So then I look at why
why were they more successful? And I keep coming back
to Derek Jones Junior and Derek and Daniel Gafford.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
And the specific.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
Dynamic of having a legitimate guy like what Jaden's doing
to Luca, which is having a legitimate on ball guy
that can be a pest that you that will switch
if needed, but that is really hard to get to
switch because he's so nifty getting around screens that can
(45:24):
make a guy uncomfortable all game and that can be
bracketed by rim protection on the backside. I think that's
how they beat the Thunder, That's how they beat Minnesota.
They press up, like Derek Jones was able to press
up on Ant's pull up jump shot enough that he
wasn't very comfortable with it, and Ant was dealing with
a ton of rim protection when he would get past
(45:45):
that first layer. And I want to be clear, and
deserves more credit. He's not just beating the Lakers because
of a lack of rimp protection. He has beat them
with his passing and his three point shooting, which is
just a testament to his development. But I think there's
something to be said about these types of guys. You're
watching a Men Thompson have some success defensively, You're watching
(46:05):
Asar Thompson have a lot of success defensively. You're like
these Like, I think it's actually better to surround your
supremely gifted offensive player with defense than offense. And one
of the big reasons why I'm thinking that way, Jackson,
(46:26):
is these these shooters that don't make shots. There's all
these shooters that don't make shots out there, and it's like,
so it's like, what good is the shooter that doesn't
make shots compared to the athlete that's athletic every single night,
And so like at a certain point, I almost look
at it and I go, like, how much different is
(46:49):
the average like non athletic skill guard shooting on wide
open catch and shoots in this series than some of
the better athletes who maybe aren't as good as shooters,
but they feel fresher, they get more lift on their
jump shot, and they can impact the game in all
these other ways.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
It's really interesting shooters not making shots, because that's what
I have been thinking many of the games watching the Pistons,
where I'm like, can their shooters just hit a shot?
What the hell is going on? And not that these
two are the same caliber of player, because I think
we can all agree that overall, Jaden McDaniels is, you know,
a tier or two above someone like Malik Beasley. But
(47:24):
from a just a conceptual standpoint, Jaden's gonna have some
games where he hits three. It's like Malik Beasley. Yeah,
he's not gonna do it every game, maybe one out
of every five or two out of every five or whatever,
but he is going to do that on occasion. And
he's every single night going to bring the athleticism in
size and speed and strength that someone like you know,
just for the example, Malik Beasley is not providing.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
And when they do make shots, it makes them like
kind of unbeatable, kind of like they looked in Game one,
and then they can have a game like Jayden didn't
shoot particularly well in Game four, but was like super
super impactful defensively. It's just, you know, every single year
I cover the league, I feel like I learned a
little bit more, and you always are everything's also about
(48:07):
the context, Like you you also, we've seen teams like
Denver pull it off to where they can win without
a ton of supreme athleticism on the floor just by
overwhelming skill and size, or Golden State, where it's like
Golden State has continued to win without much physical size
(48:27):
on the floor repeatedly over the course of the last decade,
and so like there I there is no harder fast rule,
to be clear, But as I'm looking specifically, like as
a fan of the Lakers, for instance, as I look
at that team I've been, all I can think about
for the summer is getting more athletic.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Yeah, It's all I can think about.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
And just thinking about it more really just in real time,
as in the playoffs, specifically, when defenses are so you know,
focused on the guys who are the best players obviously,
but then they're also very focused on the elite, the
elite level play finishers like a Malik Beasley. They are
on that dude's hip, right, Milik Beasley is not getting
many half court remotely open three pointers, while Jaden McDaniels,
(49:11):
someone of that sort of ILK is getting open three
pointers because defense are like, we will live with that,
we will live with him shooting threes, and so then
the equation changes even further where it's like, what would
you prefer a contested in Malik Beasley three or a
wide open Jayden McDaniels three, And the numbers probably I
don't even know what the numbers say. They would probably
(49:32):
still land in Malik Beasley. But it's a lot closer.
You're not actually comparing contested three for contested three. You're
comparing contest for much of the game. You're comparing contested
three from shooter versus open three from quote unquote non shooter.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
It's a little more complicated than that, because I think
there's value in being guarded a certain type of way.
But I think, like I think Malik Beasley is a
class of shooter that get that that gets guarded that
type of I'll give you an example like bogged In Agdanovich,
you know, or like when you're looking at like like
Tim Hardaway Junior is a great example. Tim Hardaway Junior
(50:07):
at stretches in this series has not been able to
make shots. Like to me, it's that's that tier below
Malik Beasley where it's like that where the other team
just puts a decent lock and trail defender on them
that takes away the easy ones. And then like all
of a sudden he becomes a useless player. Like but
there's it's just it's just the volatility, because like I
feel like Buddy Healed was this guy, and Buddy.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
Heeld's had a couple of good games in a row,
so like it.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
But my point is, though, is like like Buddy Healed,
when he's got the shot going the way he did
in the last two games, looks like a good player.
But like Buddy's looked really bad in the games when
he hasn't been hitting shots. And so that that's where
it just gets stricky. And I think that there's something
to be said about the dependability of athleticism and like
ideally that guy can hit a catch and shoot three.
(50:52):
But like to me, it'd be like a guy like
Chris Dunn, like how much value is there and a
guy like Chris Dunn versus a guy like a Tim
Hardaway junior, you know, And it's a complicated discussion, and like,
you know, there are other times. There are other times
I watch a game and I'm like, oh my god,
shot making is the only thing that matters, Like it's
all I feel like it all depends on like having
the perfect mixture of things. It's just I tend to
(51:15):
think of it like like having Luka Doncic as like
this supremely gifted offensive player that can create advantages.
Speaker 3 (51:21):
I just want to put him in.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
A situation where his athletic job is really easy, so
that over the course of games, he can just focus
on creating shots. There's something to be said about being
problematic how much they switch with him. And this is
why his conditioning is so important, because it would be
good for him to be able to add a hedge
and recover look to what he can do, but he
just needs to get faster and he needs to be
(51:44):
able to cover ground more over the course of games.
But yeah, I've just been I've been very keyed in
on the athletes, and we've just seen a lot of
examples of the athletes kind of having big impact at
this point.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
For sure, Let's do one more question in a caz
Verus Celtics potential Eastern Conference matchup, assuming that that does happen,
does Donovan Mitchell need to reach the level of a
top five player and do you think he's capable of
reaching that type of ceiling.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
I think where Donovan Mitchell is going to become incredibly
important for the Caves Celtics matchup is crunch time when
it turns into the matchup hunting, slow down type of thing,
because the Calves, I think, are gonna have a lot
of success in that series just with their blender and
what I mean by that is just the incessant transition pushes,
the quick, decisive attacks, the diversity in the way that
(52:30):
they attack. But at the end of games, the Celtics
will be able to strangle the pace and it's going
to become about picking on matchups and there's no doubt
that Donovan Mitchell is gonna have to go toe to toe.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
With those guys.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
The key there is, though, is like hand the Calves
get so for instance, I'm one of the reasons why
I view in that series is more of a coin flip,
is like the home court advantage piece, Like what if
if the Calves win Game one or Game two by
fifteen eighteen points and it doesn't come down to crunch time,
they could put themselves themselves in a situation where like
if they win two games like that in a series,
(53:02):
then Donovan Mitchell might only need to out execute the
Celtics and crunch time you know twice, you know, Like
that's really the key to me is like I think
if the I think if the Calves are going to
beat the Celtics, they need like a couple of those
games to be like run like between game one, two
and five, they would need to win two of those
games by like ten fifteen points, because I think it'd
be I think it would be really difficult to ask
(53:22):
Mitchell to out execute Tatum four times in a series
in a crunch time, you know, slow down type of game.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
Yeah, yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 3 (53:30):
All right, guys.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
That's all we have for tonight is always be sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show.
As mentioned tomorrow, we are going to be doing our
series preview on Pacers Calves with Carter Rodriguez tomorrow night
Live after the final buzzer of Lakers Timberwolves. Don't forget,
we're also doing our first hoops tonight after show on playback,
So make sure you guys get down there on the
to the link in the description and head over to
(53:52):
playback and get signed up and get subscribed to our channel,
Jampack Day for the show tomorrow. We'll see you guys
in the morning, what some guys. As always, I appreciate
you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would
actually be really helpful for us if you guys would
take a second and leave a rating and a review.
Speaker 3 (54:07):
As always, I appreciate you guys.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
The volume
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
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Speaker 3 (01:45):
Slash audio. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at
the ball.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
You have you Tuesday, buddy, hopeball. You guys are having
a great start for your week. Got a jam packed
show tonight. We had a four game night on a weekday.
Absolutely insane, all sorts of crazy drama, all sorts of
crazy results. We had a game winner. We have a
bunch of stuff we're going to be getting into today.
You guys are the joke before we get started. Subscribe
to the Hoops and I YouTube channels. You don't miss
any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter, I
(02:19):
Underscore json LTC. You guys, don't miss show announcements. Don't
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you leave your rating and a review on that front.
We also have social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and
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follow us there. The last but not least, keep dropping
mail bag questions in those YouTube comments and we can get.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
To them in our mail bags. Moving forward.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
At the tail end of the show tonight, we're gonna
take more questions from the chat, so make sure you
guys drop your questions there in the chat. All right,
let's talk some basketball quickly before I get to Clippers Nuggets.
The Celtics game is the game I didn't get to
watch tonight, so we're not gonna get around to that one.
But I saw Jason Tatum thirty five, eight and ten
on just sixteen shots to close out the Magic, his
(02:59):
third consecutive thirty five point game in the entire playoff run.
Last year, he had two thirty five point games total,
and that is the biggest difference between this year's Celtics
and last year's Celtics. Last year, Celtics did not have,
in my opinion, a player that can reach that top tier,
superstar level. Jason Tatum was incredibly versatile in that playoff run.
(03:21):
He did a ton to make that team championship caliber.
But now he's bringing that extra level of shot making
and half court surgery that makes him one of the
very best players in the entire NBA and it just
makes that Celtics team that much more difficult to deal
with in this sort of setting. Again, no more thoughts
on that game, Beau, I didn't get to watch it.
(03:41):
When I saw that number. Again, he already has more
thirty five point games in the first round that he
did in the entire playoff run last year. Great sign
for Celtics fans. We're gonna start with Clippers Nuggets, and
for two games in a row now it has felt
like the Nuggets have had the Clippers. They're bringing late
(04:02):
help on Kawhi when he gets into the mid range
and preventing him from really getting into a good scoring
rhythm as a shot maker there in that short to
mid range where he.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Loves to work.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Although Kawhi did have one of his better passing playoff
games that I've ever seen from him tonight, But Kawhi
has managed to score over twenty five points just once
in this entire series. They're putting a ton of pressure
on Harden. Christian Brown is applying a lot of full
court ball pressure, like just attacking the basketball and making
him uncomfortable. They're bringing Jokic aggressively out to the level
(04:32):
on him, and as the intensity of the series is
picked up, James Harden has looked completely caught off guard
by it. I was joking with my buddy Jason Maples
on Twitter earlier, like, it's still shocking to me even
with James Harden's playoff history, and when you're watching it happen,
it's still jarring to see because like the game has
(04:54):
this level of intensity and you can see it in
all these different ways. Right, it's two to two, game
five of a series, basically a must win for both
team games for obvious reason, it's just very difficult to
put yourself in a situation where you have to win
two games in a row just to survive, right, And
you're seeing like the yelling and screaming of Russell Westbrook,
the yelling and screaming of Christian Brown, even the intensity
from like Nicole Jokicic just like barking at his teammates,
(05:17):
barking at officials, getting super excited every time one of
his teammates makes a play. There's like this emotional momentum
with the team as they're bringing the requisite intensity to
meet the moment. The transition pushes from jokis just his
eyes light up every time he sees an opportunity to
make the defense pay for something. There's a level of
like mental and physical intensity that is president in all
(05:42):
of these series. But you can see in the game tonight,
and then you're watching James Harden and it looks like
he'd much rather be playing in like kind of a
chill pickup game, Like he's operating at a level of
intensity that is just several levels below what the team
needs from him in that moment. And it always again,
this has happened a lot over the course of his career,
(06:03):
and it often comes in this phase of the series,
towards the end of the series, when the team has
been scouted out really well and the defender guarding James
Harden has started to pick up on some of his
cues and some of his little tips that he uses
to tip off the moves that he's going to use,
and the physical intensity and the overall urgency of the
(06:23):
moment picks up, and as it gets crazier and crazier,
he struggles back to back very important games for the Clippers.
James Harden had twenty six points total in the two games.
I do want to credit the Nuggets defense, though, with
exception of the fourth quarter in Game four when they
kind of lost control of things in transition, and then
(06:44):
you could tell just in general the Nuggets got out
of their defensive groove. The Nuggets have looked like the
more intense team. They look like they want to win
the series more. They have pretty quickly recaptured a level
of defensive intensity much closer to what they had in
the playoffs in twenty twenty three. It all starts with
the bracket and the ball screens, the ball pressure that
Christian Brown is applying on James Harden and Jokic getting
(07:07):
out and making sure that Harden is not having an
easy time getting the pass out from those situations. And
you could see James Harden get flummixed that he's like
trying to force a pass to the role man when
the skip passes open. But the guy Garden the skip
pass is like on the role man and it's a
turnover because he's getting sped up and he's struggling to
deal with the physicality and he's not making the same
(07:29):
reads that James Harden can make when things are just
a little less intense or when he is more intense
and ready and engaged in the moment. But it all
starts with those two at the level, Christian Brown and
Nicola Jokic, the two of them are the guys that
have stabilized this defense with what they've done in pick
and roll and then the backside rotations. That's the third
(07:49):
piece of it that they've managed to recapture. Again, the
goal of your defense in the playoffs is to make
opposing stars uncomfortable. Have they done that with Kawhi, Yes,
they've kept him from volume scoring. Have they done that
with James Harden. Yes, they've kept him from picking them
apart in pick and roll. And for as much as
we've talked about the Nuggets defense down the stretch of
(08:11):
the season, which was a major storyline, it was the
main reason so many people, including most of the Nuggets
fans that I follow, picked the Clippers to win the
series was because their defense was in such a bad place.
But they've been operating at an insanely high level on
offense for months. I thought Jokic was so much better
than his box score looked tonight like he's four for
(08:32):
thirteen from the field, But I thought he had complete
command of the pace and flow of the game. He
generated countless advantages. His transition pushes kept everybody out of
position throughout the game. The team was playing out of those.
A lot of the looks that Jamal Murray got were
out of those transition pushes, out of those Jokic post
ups and Jokic high post kind of fulcrum situations where
(08:56):
he's just setting these guys up with great advantages. It
kept everyone in rhythm. As I mentioned earlier, I thought
Yokich was fantastic defensively tonight, a way better game than
the box score would to lead you to believe. And
then Jamal Murray the sixth forty point playoff game of
his career. That's kind of a crazy stat dating back
(09:16):
to his awesome shootout that he had with Donovan Mitchell
back in the bubble. Jamal Murray looked fantastic tonight. Out
of everything we saw, and we saw a ton of
three point shot making. His three point shot was just
dead eye tonight. He was getting separation on his moves,
he was getting great lift all over the floor. But
I thought the most exciting play for Denver's playoff chances
(09:38):
was the transition Dunky had at the end of the game.
He got up and he ammed that thing, and you
could tell he knew it too, and he was like
he was pumped, and you could tell he was feeling
great physically. And that bodes extremely well for the big
picture with this Nuggets team. That really was the story
of the series to this point, in my opinion, the
(09:58):
Nuggets had some other big country since tonight. Russell Westbrook
was amazing in the first half. Vintage like not just
knocking down spot up threes and scoring as a hutter.
He was like getting buckets and causing actual problems for
the Clippers on the ball. Michael Porter and Aaron Gordon
were both excellent tonight. Christian Brown was great on both ends.
Hit that huge three at the end of the third
(10:18):
quarter that built that extra bit of margin going into
the fourth. But at the end of the day, Jamal
Murray and Nikol Jokic have badly outplayed James Harden and
Kawhi Leonard. That's the series. Everything else flows down from there.
That's what dictates the types of advantages the role players
are getting. James Harden is the guy on the Clippers
(10:40):
that can consistently set people up with advantages. He hasn't
done a very good job of that. Nikolejokic, even in
a poor shooting night, set up his team with countless
advantages throughout the game. And again, when I keep talking
about creating advantages, it's a very basic concept. Every basketball player,
even the best basketball players in the world, are going
to be more successful when they have a defender sprinting
(11:01):
at them, versus when they have a defender set on
them when the health defense is out of position and
sprinting into help versus when the help is already pre loaded.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Up.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
That's why advantage creation is so important. That's why I
tend to be very predisposed, so to speak, as a fan,
as a basketball fan, towards players that naturally create a
ton of advantages in games. So I've always liked the
big forwards, the Lebron's, the Lucas, the Nikola Jokic's.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I've liked the.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Deadly high pick and roll playmakers, the guys like Tyrese Halliburton,
for instance. I've always liked the guys that just I mean,
Steph is kind of a unicorn in this regard, but
he can just create a ton of advantages just by
running around the floor and everybody reacting to him Gehannest,
just by being this battering ram that you have to
(11:54):
account for by packing up the paint. Those guys that
can consistently set their teammates up with advantages, they're gonna
have a really high offensive floor. Everything flows down from
those guys, and again the intensity, Like I don't think
it's a coincidence that Nikola Jokic has looked like psychopathically
(12:16):
competitive in these two games and his team has met
the moment and been a buzzsaw versus a Clippers team
that's had a lethargic James Harden and a generally quiet
and like like Kawhi Leonard is not the type of
personality that is going to galvanize a group with energy.
He's he gets called a robot for a reason. Now, Kawhi,
(12:41):
I thought was pretty good tonight, and Kawhi in general
is going to have a certain floor because he is
going to bring the requisite intensity. But Kawhi is not
the kind of guy that's gonna, like legitimately galvanize a
group emotionally and be like, hey, like, wake the fuck up,
It's time to go. What are we doing?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
You're gonna see Kawhi do what Nikola Jokic did in
the huddle after Game two, or he's screaming at his guys.
This is unacceptable what we're doing right here. The Clippers
just got punched in the face twice, like badly. You
don't see that too often in a playoff series. Won
(13:20):
this competitive or you the regardless of arena, regardless of
where you're at, one team just looks like they're genuinely
playing harder. It usually goes back and forth based on
who won the previous game. Any chance for the Clippers
to reverse the trend of this series is going to
come down to those two flipping the script. Same thing
I said about the Lakers versus the Wolves. Can the
(13:42):
Lakers beat the Wolves? Yes, it starts with Luka doncicin
Lebron James not getting completely outclassed by Anthony Edwards and
naseried and Julius Randall at the end of games. Until
they flip that dynamic, that nothing's gonna change. Same thing
goes here. Until James Harden can bring the requisite intensity
(14:03):
and create the advantages necessary to get this offense to
hum and until Kawhi Leonard can bring that volume scoring
that he brought in Game two, they're going to struggle
to flip this dynamic.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Now.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
I picked the Clippers to win this series, as I mentioned,
like most people did, given what we'd seen from the
Nuggets and the time leading up to the series. But
one of the things I said after Game two, and
it's something that I feel very strongly at this point,
is as a fan, I would like to see Denver
advance because I think they have a much better chance
(14:39):
to deal with Oklahoma City. The Denver Nuggets hung one
hundred and forty points on the Thunder the last time
that they played them. They have the ability to break
down the Thunder defense with their aggregate playmaking. One of
the specific reasons that I've not been as high on
this Clippers team is their lack of playmaking. Once you
(14:59):
get past James and James, Harden can have some issues
as the intensity gets leveraged.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Right, I am.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Worried that the Clippers would go into the Thunder series
and just really fall apart offensively, and so I'm personally
hoping that the Nuggets can close this deal because I
think that they present a very interesting type of challenge
for OKAC even on defense. Their ability to load up
against an Oklahoma City Thunder offense is something that I
think is a favorable matchup for them too. I think
(15:27):
that would be a really fun series, a Thunder Nuggets series,
a series that obviously the Thunder would be rightfully favored,
but I think it would be a really fun example
of two very different styles, a very experienced team versus
an inexperienced team. That's what I'll be rooting for moving
forward in the series.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
It's not over.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
The Clippers absolutely can win Game six, and they absolutely
have the talent to come back to Denver and win
Game seven, but they put themselves in a buying and
it's really hard for me to imagine something different happening
when their leaders haven't seemed to bring the requisite intensity
and to be able to meet them, to meet the
competition that Jamal Murray and NICOLEA yok Which are bringing
straight to them. Before we move on to Pistons Nicks,
(16:05):
I'm gonna do a very short version of the announcement
we made last night. We did just start a new
partnership with Playback. It's a app that I feel very
passionate about. It's an opportunity for you guys to be
more interacted, interactive with us on the show. And so
starting tomorrow tomorrow, after the final buzzer of the Lakers
Wolves game, right after we do our YouTube show, we're
(16:27):
gonna do our normal YouTube show here. When we're done,
we're gonna go immediately after to what we're calling the
Hoops tonight after show, and at the Hoops the night
after show over on Playback, We're gonna take questions from
you guys. We're gonna be able to actually bring you
up on the stage. We're gonna be able to actually
go through film live, so we'll be able to do
a lot of like the actual visual examples of the
stuff that we talked about on the show. It's gonna
(16:49):
be super interactive, a little bit more informal, something I'm
really excited about. It's gonna be with the after show
in this playoff run, and then we have some big
picture goals for next year to start doing some live
watch alongs where like we can watch big NBA League
Pass games together and actually go through the games as
they're happening live together, something I'm really excited about. But
for this season, we're just doing these after shows after
(17:12):
our live YouTube shows. So when you guys have an opportunity,
hit the link in the description, head over to the
Hoops Tonight playback feed. Get set up so that you
guys are ready to go tomorrow night again after the final,
after we finished the live show tomorrow night on YouTube,
we're all gonna head over to playback to start that
new venture I'm super excited about. I hope to see
(17:32):
you guys over there. All right, let's talk Pistons Nicks.
So the Nicks had a chance to close out the
Pistons in the same fashion that they took a three
to one lead with keep things close until you can
out execute them down the stretch, but instead it ended
up being Kate Cunningham and the Pistons that played better
down the stretch and sent the series back to Detroit
for Game six by quickly capitalizing on a late injury
(17:57):
to Jalen Brunson. So it was a crazy seat. Pistons
are up ninety five ninety two, Jalen Brunson tweaks his
ankle on a close out along the left wing. Kat
literally goes down in a four on five and drops
a bomb like a forty foot three from almost the
logo that ties the game at one oh five. Just
a huge shot, but Kate, very smartly, while Brunson is
(18:20):
still on the floor limping around, immediately looks to attack him. Now,
Kid had been attacking Brunson throughout the series, and in
that fourth quarter stretch already he had just hit a
three against a hedge gap on like two or three
possessions earlier. And again, a hedge gap is like when
Caid's coming off the screen and Jalen Brunson tries to
hedge or throw his body out to force Kaid to
(18:41):
retweet retreat. Ojananobi's going underneath the screen to try to
meet him on the other side, and so there's a
gap when right when Brunson's pulling back and OG's coming up.
It's very similar to his switch interchange gap, which we've
talked about a lot on this show. And Kate was
able to hit a three in that situation against the hedge,
but after Jalen Brunson sprained his ankle, he didn't want
(19:03):
to hedge anymore because he didn't want to, like have
to throw his body into a lateral quickness situation, so
instead he just hugged up on the screener. That put
Kate in a situation where he had no hedge. And
what happens if you set a good screen and there's
no hedge, You're gonna get downhill. He goes flying downhill,
challenges the rim protector and misses a layup, but in
(19:24):
the process occupies the rim protector, which allows Jalen Duran
to fill the gap from behind and get the dunk
right under the basket. There's a lot of that down
the stretch. Jalen Brunson had a very similar play that
led to Mitchell Robinson and one where he like when
you get to the basket, even if you miss a layup,
if you engage the rim protector, if you force the
(19:45):
rim protector to leave his feet and get out of position,
you're gonna have your center rolling down the lane with
nobody who's even remotely physical capable, physically capable of hanging
with him on the offensive glass. That's the lenge with
the drop coverage big and that's why you'll see drop
coverage bigs do so much stunting at the ball because
(20:06):
they don't want to leave their feet because if they do,
their out of position to box out and deal with
the big man rolling down the lane, or to even
deal with a lob right and we saw a bunch
of that Jalen Brunson got. Mitchell Robinson opened that way
had on the first possession. After Jalen Brunson's injury, takes
advantage of the lack of a hedge, gets downhill ends
up getting the miss that Jalen Duran cleans up. On
(20:27):
the other end of the floor, Tobias Harris gets a
massive stop against Karl Anthony town So after Jalen Brunson
gets hurt, they have to sub induce McBride right, and
Josh Hart ended up getting hurt as well, and so
we saw we saw a campaign end up coming in
the game as well at one point, but it was
definitely an unfortunate set of circumstances for the Knicks. But Kat,
(20:50):
as we saw it in many points in this series,
has been able to create his own offense when needed.
He's hit a couple of big left shoulder fades in
crunch time, he had that crazy step back three against
Jalen durn in game four or so. In theory, well
we just go to Kat here he can create offense.
Tobias Hairs excellent individual defense against Kat forces him into
a tough fade away, nearly blocks it and actually forces
(21:10):
him into a really tough like a really bad miss,
like a bad bad miss. Kid goes down the other end,
the Knicks are all scrambled and transition defense. Jalen Duran
ends up setting like a little brush screen for Kate
at the top of the key, same exact thing. Kid
goes flying downhill misses but occupies all the help defenders,
and there's Jalen Duran just standing under the basket ready
(21:32):
for another finish. So more value in the form of
rim pressure from Kate, and his rim pressure was fantastic
down the stretch of this game. He got a transition
push for a scoop shot. He was downhill non stop
down the stretch, none of this tough mid range fade
away shit that he was settling for in Game four.
Caid was going to the bucket down the stretch in
this game and had a lot of success that way.
(21:53):
So Kate goes down the hill, gets the miss that
leads to the Jalen dura and put back. Now the
pissons are up for Tim Hart, but the way Junior's
turn to get a big stop. This time they go
to McHale, bridges Tim hardaway, forces him into like a
tough leaning fade away along the right lane line, ends
up missing, and then Cad closes the deal with a
textbook drop coverage attack where he gets Juce McBride trapped
(22:15):
on his side, puts him in jail, hits a little floater,
and then on the very next possession a post fade
where he turns over the double team and Asar Thompson
just slips along the baseline right behind Karl Anthony Towns
and Cad rifles a perfect pass right to him underneath
the basket for the easy layup. Cade was brilliant down
the stretch of this game. And by the way, during
(22:37):
that whole run, Tom Tibodau was never able to get
Jalen Brunson back into the game. Now I understood the
idea from Tim's He had one time out left, and
the ability to advance the ball is it could make
a huge difference in a comeback, right. So, like, first
of all, you gotta remember Brunson was stepped out because
he was.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Having an ankle in jo injury. He needed a minute, right.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Cad scores or generates bucket on three straight possessions, so
it gets to six quickly, all right. So it's already
in a situation where the Knicks basically need to go
like like perfect basketball down the stretch, right, And in
that scenario, it's very possible that you do hit a
shot that forces you to call a timeout after fouling
to advance the ball so that you can get another
(23:19):
shot up with like two seconds left on the game
clock if you run into that scenario. So I think
what Tibbs was thinking is someone's gonna get fouled. Something's
gonna go out of Bound's worst case scenario. This is
why we have Kat, This is why we have Mikhale Bridges,
so that they can run offense if we need to
need them to in a situation. In theory, we have
a better defensive lineup out there, maybe we can buy
(23:40):
Jalen Brunson a few possessions. So I understood, But then
it just by the time you got a chance to
use the timeout, it was too late. But like at
the end of the day, the damage was done in
those first couple of possessions after Jalen Brunson got hurt.
And so I don't want to hyper focus on that
decision there. From Tibbs, I could see what he was thinking.
He just wanted to save that time out for a
final passe ession should they need it. But the story
(24:02):
of the game, and easily the most interesting storyline for
the rest of the series, was Aasar Thompson's individual defense
on Jalen Brunson. Pistons fans had been clamoring for this
adjustment for the entire series. There was some pretty strong
lineup data that the Pistons were about the same on
offense and considerably better on defense. When Aasar Thompson was
(24:23):
on the floor. I was a little bit more on
the fence down the stretch. In Game four, a SAR
made a couple of classic young guy mistakes on offense,
so I thought it was at least defensible to at
least in crunch time for excuse me, for the Pistons
to go with like a more experienced and more polished
offensive player. But down three to one, JB. Bickerstaff finally
(24:44):
leans fully into a SAR. He plays a series high
twenty nine minutes. He was plus nine in those minutes.
Jalen Brunson finishes the game four for sixteen from the field.
Now as a team effort, several guys got big stops
on Brunson on an island, Heyde got stops. Dennis Schroeder
got stops. Guys did It was a team effort on Brunson.
(25:04):
But Asar applied constant ball pressure. Was closing off driving
angles by beating him to spots, was bumping him off
his base on his fade away, got great contests on
his mid range, was pursuing him over the top of
ball screens and getting contests from behind those rear view contests.
And I thought his ball pressure in particular caused Brunson
to play faster than usual. It sped him up throughout
(25:26):
the entire game. He missed a couple of shots that
he usually makes, like easy shots right at the rim.
He took some unusual shots, like there was one where
he had a catch in the left corner and Aasar
Thompson closed out on him textbook closed out, closes out
on the high side shoulder to funnel him towards the baseline.
Brunson rips baseline and ends up taking kind of like
a eurostep floater. But Tobias Harris was like right there,
(25:49):
like right there, and Brunson just shot the floater directly
into Tobias's hands, like it barely got out of his
hands before he got before he got blocked, and like
Brunson usually sees that sort of thing, but I thought
he was just a little bit rushed, just a little
bit uncomfortable compared to what he looked like at other
points in the series. And so, I mean, especially with
(26:09):
where the situation is gone to this point in the series,
I think it was a worthwhile gamble from Jav Bickersoft
to lean into a sar and more and it paid off.
And that will be the biggest key in game six.
Back in Detroit, Canon Brunson solved the SR. Thompson problem
and get more comfortable throughout the game. I think the
Knicks are going to go into Detroit in Game six
(26:31):
and play like a veteran team that knows they need
to win. They had a similar game last year where
they went into Philly, I think, and beat them in
game six, where they kind of like looked a little sketchy,
but then they were able to rise up on the
road and get the job done. My guess is it'll
look a little bit like that, but it'll probably still
be a close game because this Pistons team has had
a lot of success with them again against them with
(26:51):
their physicality, So I think it'll be a close game
and it'll come down to a late game execution and
if the Knicks can be what the Knicks are capable
of beating and Jalen Brunson can stay on the floor,
they should be able to close out the deal there.
But really impressive moment of growth there from Cad Cunningham
and the Detroit Pistons. All Right, we'll talk quickly on
Pacers Bucks and then we'll do a mail bag and
then we'll get out of here Milwaukee through a hell
(27:13):
of a punch. Tonight, Giannis played another amazing game in
that like kind of point center role where he's next
to Bobby Portis and he just kind of determines everything
as the half court shot creator. Thirty points, twenty rebounds,
and thirteen assists with two steals and two blocks and
absolutely insane stat line. I tweeted this earlier, like I
was obviously wrong to pick the Bucks to beat the
(27:35):
Pacers for a myriad of reasons, and obviously the Dame
injury was a psychological punch to the gut for the
Bucks in the middle of the series. But I don't
have any regrets for believing in Giannis and his ability
to potentially win this series, like he is just he
is amazing, and he's gonna go play somewhere else this summer,
(27:56):
and some team is going to become frightening when they
add Giannis to the mix, And there are a couple
teams out there that have the assets to make a
move for him, that are already really fucking good, and
it could get incredibly scary. But Giannis played amazing. Gary
Trent Junior and AJ Green go nuclear from three. They
hit fourteen of them, including Gary Trent hitting five of
his eight threes in crunch time. But Tyre's Halliburton was
(28:19):
even better. Think about how good you thought Gary Trent
Junior was down the stretch, Like did it feel like
when you were watching the game that Gary Trent was
scoring every single time? He had fifteen points in crunch time.
Tyres Haliburton had fourteen of his own in crunch time
to go with two assists. The Pacers overcame a seven
point deficit no tee. With a little over a half
(28:40):
minute left, Andrew Nemhard hits a ball bomb coming off
of ball screen like a deep like thirty foot three
off the dribble at the top, and then Tyre's Halliburton
beats his man off the dribble twice, once against aj
Green on the right wing, once against Giannis on Tanakoompo
on the left wing for the win, and on both
of them like Aj Green physicality bumping up on Halliburton,
He's Shiel turns the corner, he bumps him at the
(29:02):
rim and he still gets enough lift to power through
the contact for a soft left handed finish off the
glass and one and then attacking Giannis in a switch
the nasty left to right crossover turns the corner and
for the second time in crunch time, he elevates and
actually gets an up and under to avoid rim protection
and cleanly lay it down off the glass like that
(29:23):
is the most athletic Tyrese has looked on his dribble
drive and rim finishing attacks, especially out of one one
on ones, since the beginning of last year when he
was kicking everybody's ass before he pulled his hamstring like.
There has been a consistent theme with Tyre's Halliburton in
(29:44):
his range of potential outcomes, and it pretty much comes
down to he can make all the reads, but in
order to beat switches, he's got to be able to
beat people off the dribble and hit stuff at the
rim in traffic, and in order to dick take the
type of coverage necessary to generate all the kinds of
openings that he can kill teams with, he's got to
(30:06):
be able to hit his three. If he can hit
his three off the dribble, that's the other ceiling raising
piece that unlocks everything that he does, because if he
can score effectively enough and drop coverage and he can
score effectively enough and switches that unlocks his his peak trait,
which is that he sees every he sees every read
as it's happening, and he makes those reads on time,
(30:28):
on target. The pass is always in the right place.
That's the ceiling raising piece. But it depends on his
ability to be explosive in one on one situations and
to knock down shots and drop coverage and so like, honestly,
we're recording a Pacers Calves preview tomorrow morning, so keep
an eye on the feeds early ish in the day
(30:48):
tomorrow for that. But the main thing that I want
to focus on is that they're going to need Tyrese
Halliburton to be amazing to be able to win that series.
And this is the best that he's looked since the
time that he came onto the scene early last year
and everyone was like, oh my god, what are we watching?
Like evolutionary Steve Nash here, Like he's showing that upside again.
(31:10):
The first step on the move on Giannis was crazy,
Everyone's slaying Giannis, and I mean, the dude had to
do everything for his team, So like, I'm just not
going to be super critical of him in that situation.
This is not like the Luka Doncic situation where he's
being anchored by Lebron James and Austin Reeves and and
somehow still running out of gas at the end of games.
(31:30):
Like Giannis is the engine for everything this team does.
Like who's the second best player on Gianni's team tonight.
It's scary Trent Junior. It's Kevin Porter Junior. You know,
like like he took a bunch of league, like a
replacement level players in the NBA and went in Indiana,
very good Indiana Pacers team and nearly got the job done.
(31:53):
But like in that last iso, Tyree's he toasted him
on that move. He looked expl on that move and
it wasn't like a high hesitation, just shoot the gap.
He changed direction with a sweeping left to right crossover
and then hit the jet moving forward. They're gonna need
him to be incredible to beat the Calves, and I
(32:14):
thought that was a really good sign, how explosive he
looked down the stretch. We had a really weird altercation
at the end of the game with Tyres Alberton's dad,
like walking onto the court to just shit Takianus on
the floor. That was super bizarre, But I thought both
Tyrese and Jannis handled it really well in their postgame pressers,
and that kind of took some of the uh, the
weirdness away because you could see, like, I'm so glad
(32:36):
that we've seen this from Tyrese. Like shit talk can
get nasty sometimes, but there is something to be said
about high level competition and the ability to separate what
is high level competition from what things are like off
the court. And there are a lot of people out
there that, like I mean, we were talking about this
last night, Like I I like to think I'm a
(32:58):
reasonably nice guy. I have been awful to people in
the basketball court before, Like awful to the point where,
like I think about it all week until I see
that person and I can apologize to them. Like there
is a when you get out there and the competitive
juice to start flowing, Like there is it is important
to separate the competition from what things are like off
the court. And like Giannis had a chance to go
(33:21):
into that press conference and just rip Tyrese and talk
all sorts of shit about who he thinks he is
as a person. Nope, tyres is a competitor, wish him
all the best, but then calling attention to the obvious
behavior from his dad, and same thing with Tyres Halliburn.
He could have gone into the presser and been like,
those boys talk shit the entire series and we busted
their ass. Nope, he went up there and he was like, look,
(33:43):
we're outside of the lines now, time to be a
grown up.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
I respect the hell out of Giannis, I respect the
hell out of Dame. This is just what we do
when we compete, and and I just I just want
to applaud those those guys for handling that really sticky
situation with class. All Right, let's hit a couple. Let's
do about ten minutes of mail back questions and then
we'll get out of here for them.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
First question. Uh, you allude to this a little bit
in the Nuggets Clipper supports for the show, but Jokic
seems to have really stepped up on the defensive end.
So not great by any means, but it does feel
like a massive improvement from the regular season. Is that
what you're saying?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yes, part of it is like the juxtaposition, and what
I mean by that is like they were so bad
on defense to end of the season, they were so
so bad, like everybody was bad, and so like there's
a certain amount of like they're just kind of like
competing now and that's making the world of difference and
(34:40):
they just weren't competing earlier. But I mean, like everything
comes down to because of the way that Denver guards,
Everything comes down to just the three parts of their
pick and roll coverage, the ball pressure of Christian Brown,
Nicole Jokic, at the level in their backside rotations, and
they're just substantially sharper on all three fronts than they
were in the regular season.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like they're a lot sharper
in the regular season. That feels obvious. It feels like
he's been sharper just since Game one and two. I mean,
the the at the the intensity and I was about
to say foot speed and that felt like the wrong
word to use for yokch but uh in the the
intensity and sort of purpose with Wick at least he's
guarding out there feels notable. It certainly feels a lot
(35:21):
more like their championship run than it did last season.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
You know, by comparison, he's big and he's smart, so
like if he does, like think of it like this,
he his speed is more useful because he's usually early,
but he's gotta be bringing the requisite intensity. But like, dude,
I thought Jokic's intensity was like palpable, palpable on the
screen tonight, Like you could tell he was like I'm
(35:45):
winning this fucking game, Like like I'm winning this fucking game.
And it just was like the exact opposite of the
energy we were seeing from James Harden, and it was crazy.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeah, it is funny when people like to do the
whole does Yokuchi even care about basketball? Thing? Like when
you watch the dude in the playoffs, I mean he
is as an tens of the competitors anybody.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Dude, it's such bullshit.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
But I was like when I was like when I
heard it was like, oh, Yokich like did this like
you know, four hour coaching class back when he was
in Europe this summer. I'm literally sitting there thinking like
this dude's a basketball nutshob. This dude loves basketball. Let's yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
On the hardened question, are Harden's late series struggles more
about a lack of intensity or being overly scouted by
that point, sort of familiarity with the opponent at that point.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
You know, I've been thinking a lot about this tonight
over the course of the game, like what what is
it that's causing him to do this? And I think
there's a couple of different things. I think there are
some obvious skill things like James Harden has always had
a little bit a little bit of a like a
(36:49):
his bag, has several very reliable moves, but he doesn't
necessarily have like a gigantic variety of shot making. It's
a lot of like the same three or four types
of moves, And so I think there's a certain amount
of like guys pick up on his cues.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
But also, like.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I genuinely think that part of the NBA playoff process
is like overcoming the adversity of a defense kind of
figuring you out throughout NBA history, even the greatest basketball
players that I've watched, Because in the playoffs, you have
to beat four teams over the course of two months,
(37:28):
generally at progressively more difficult levels, right and once you
get into like second third round, you're consistently running into
great defenses. I think what ends up happening is like
over the course of a series, you get tons of tape,
and teams are pretty good at taking away what you
like to do, and like you will find yourself in
(37:50):
a basketball game where you're like, shit, the thing I
like to do is not working.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
What am I gonna do now?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
And like there's it's like a intensity, like confronting the
problem with intensity, which is like, well, if I just
play really fucking hard, I can make these things happen
that are positives for me and my team, and I
can build momentum in the form of confidence that comes
from that, and and I can try to turn this
(38:19):
thing around. And then there's the it's just not my night,
you know, Like I know it does it almost like
feels like that kind of energy from him where he
almost like succumbs to it, and it's like, dude, James,
this happens to everybody. This happens literally everybody in these games.
It gets really fucking hard, Like you just have to
find a way to contribute, Just find a way, you know,
(38:42):
And like for him, it could have literally just been
creating advantages in ball screens by like getting downhill with
the same verve that he brought in the fourth quarter
a game.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Fo Yeah, it's this is probably a bit of an
unfair comparison because it's, you know, one of the best
players of all time. But you think Steph Curry likes
being top locked, he likes being fucking face guarded like.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
He hates it. He hates it, but he at least
puts in.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
The requisit effort required to try to beat it other
ways and create advantage for his team when defenses are
playing gimmicky defenses or trying to do everything they can
to take away your best option, right, Like, that's part
of the equation that you're describing.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
No, you're absolutely right to put it simply like Steph
had a poor shooting night relative to what he's capable
of in Game four, but his impact came in the
form of his intensity throughout the game.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Right, And you can say the exact same for Yokic tonight.
And on that Jokic point, James Harden was tasked with
the at least point of attack defense on Jokic a
lot in the second half. It did seem to have
some success at least, you know, he wasn't yok wasn't
as much of a scorer certainly tonight. Is that something
that you think the Clippers can use next game. Is
(39:54):
a reasonable thing that could affect Jokic and change the series,
or is it's sort of like a gimmicky thing they
tried to do tonight.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
It's gimmicky in the sense that, like Jokich was doing
a lot of work at the top of the key,
and it gave them some flexibility in terms of the
ability to switch. And there's also the reality that like
this is teams have been trying this forever, which is basically,
let's put our bigger forward that's not very good on
the perimeter, Let's put him on Jokic, and then let's
put our center on the back line. And it's just
(40:21):
really as you look through the Clippers roster, they don't
really have like Kawhi effectively is that big forward, but
he's better deployed on the perimeter. So basically, James Harden
is playing the same role that you see so many
teams use against Denver, which is he's basically their defensive four.
I mean, who was this primary matchup earlier in the series.
It was literally Aaron Gordon or Michael Porter Junior for
(40:44):
the most part. So like the idea there though, is
like what James Harden is doing. Getting super aggressive up
underneath Jokic is one part of the team defensive scheme
of handling him, which really involves packing things on the
back line and like making difficult passing reads as you
have some non shooters on the floor.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
For sure. I agree. All right, let's move away from
the series to a couple other questions. Given the Knicks
Piston series has been dead even or close to debt,
even are you does that make you lower on the
New York Knicks ceiling or higher on Detroit's presence last
future Given the fact they're doing all this also without
Isaiah Stewart and Jade and.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Ivy, I think that there's I mean, you texted me
during the game, Jackson, You're like, I think this is
going to be a series that the Knicks will win,
but that we will look back on one day and
be like, hey, this is one of the series where
Caid kind of like showed some of what he's capable of,
like an important part of his story, so to speak.
It's like the old Lebron Wizard series for instance, you know,
(41:42):
and like it's one of those things where you know,
Kate has learned some valuable lessons over the course of
this series. Caid early in the series was like not
being as deliberate with hunting, screening actions in crunch time.
It was attacking too much one on one in the
middle of the series, made some bad reads where it's
like trying to like split double teams and stuff and
turning the basketball over tonight. Very decisive in the actions
(42:06):
that he was attacking and was relentlessly getting downhill, wasn't
settling for some of the mid range jump shots that
he was settling earlier in the series. For like, Caid
has shown growth over the course of this series, He's
been really good defensively for stretches in this series, Like
you're seeing a lot of stuff come to the surface
of sar Thompson and what he's shown you as like
kind of the literally the m N Thompson role just
(42:28):
guard the other team's best guard and then operate as
a baseline vertical spacer like the there's obviously a lot
of exciting stuff there. I personally was never very high
on the Knicks at any point this season, Like there
was not a single day from from the day they
got the shit kicked out of him by the Celtics
there was never a single day that I really took
the Knicks that seriously as a championship contender. We'll see,
(42:51):
we'll see if they can flip that script going against
the Knicks, but like Eric going against the Celtics. But
like it also is a little tricky to me with
this Jalen Brunson ankle thing, Like if he's not super
explosive in game six and he deals with another game
of Asar Thompson all over him, I could see things
going south. Like I think the Knicks are gonna win,
and I think they'll probably win in six, but there's
(43:13):
like a hefty, like twenty percent chance that the Pistons
get this done. Like they are a real problem for
the Knicks on a bunch of different levels.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean, it's crazy watching these
playoffs with this sort of extra level of scrutiny that
we're watching it with. And it's crazy how much the
Thompson Twins jump off the screen still as rookies to
have to be the best athletes on the floor every
time they're on the floor to be it's rare to
see a defender have the this kind of size. Also,
(43:43):
they're kind of huge and have the lateral quickness to
constantly be beating people to the spots that they want
to be getting to. All the time.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
I've been thinking about this a lot within the context
of like, okay, so like why there was a reason
why I was disagreeing with a lot of people talking
about the Luka Doncicic like roster structure with the Lakers,
and like there's a obvious thing where it's like you you,
of course want to have Luca with a rim, like
a like a vertical spacer, like obviously, and the Lakers
will get one this summer, I'm sure. But outside of that,
(44:14):
like I like the idea of Luca being surrounded with
guys that don't just finish plays, but that can extend
advantages and play out of like like kind of complex
clothes out attacking and connective playmaking and all that kind
of stuff. I you know, I've had this like vision
for what the Lakers can be that has never really
come to fruition yet, which involves basically Luca creating advantage
(44:39):
and then Lebron and Austin and everyone else just playing
off of that advantage and having a ton of success.
But here we are the Lakers, are down three to one,
and last year a team of Luca surrounded with play
finishing was more successful. So then I look at why
why were they more successful? And I keep coming back
to Derek Jones Junior and Derek and Daniel Gafford.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
And the specific.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
Dynamic of having a legitimate guy like what Jaden's doing
to Luca, which is having a legitimate on ball guy
that can be a pest that you that will switch
if needed, but that is really hard to get to
switch because he's so nifty getting around screens that can
(45:24):
make a guy uncomfortable all game and that can be
bracketed by rim protection on the backside. I think that's
how they beat the Thunder, That's how they beat Minnesota.
They press up, like Derek Jones was able to press
up on Ant's pull up jump shot enough that he
wasn't very comfortable with it, and Ant was dealing with
a ton of rim protection when he would get past
(45:45):
that first layer. And I want to be clear, and
deserves more credit. He's not just beating the Lakers because
of a lack of rimp protection. He has beat them
with his passing and his three point shooting, which is
just a testament to his development. But I think there's
something to be said about these types of guys. You're
watching a Men Thompson have some success defensively, You're watching
(46:05):
Asar Thompson have a lot of success defensively. You're like
these Like, I think it's actually better to surround your
supremely gifted offensive player with defense than offense. And one
of the big reasons why I'm thinking that way, Jackson,
(46:26):
is these these shooters that don't make shots. There's all
these shooters that don't make shots out there, and it's like,
so it's like, what good is the shooter that doesn't
make shots compared to the athlete that's athletic every single night,
And so like at a certain point, I almost look
at it and I go, like, how much different is
(46:49):
the average like non athletic skill guard shooting on wide
open catch and shoots in this series than some of
the better athletes who maybe aren't as good as shooters,
but they feel fresher, they get more lift on their
jump shot, and they can impact the game in all
these other ways.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
It's really interesting shooters not making shots, because that's what
I have been thinking many of the games watching the Pistons,
where I'm like, can their shooters just hit a shot?
What the hell is going on? And not that these
two are the same caliber of player, because I think
we can all agree that overall, Jaden McDaniels is, you know,
a tier or two above someone like Malik Beasley. But
(47:24):
from a just a conceptual standpoint, Jaden's gonna have some
games where he hits three. It's like Malik Beasley. Yeah,
he's not gonna do it every game, maybe one out
of every five or two out of every five or whatever,
but he is going to do that on occasion. And
he's every single night going to bring the athleticism in
size and speed and strength that someone like you know,
just for the example, Malik Beasley is not providing.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
And when they do make shots, it makes them like
kind of unbeatable, kind of like they looked in Game one,
and then they can have a game like Jayden didn't
shoot particularly well in Game four, but was like super
super impactful defensively. It's just, you know, every single year
I cover the league, I feel like I learned a
little bit more, and you always are everything's also about
(48:07):
the context, Like you you also, we've seen teams like
Denver pull it off to where they can win without
a ton of supreme athleticism on the floor just by
overwhelming skill and size, or Golden State, where it's like
Golden State has continued to win without much physical size
(48:27):
on the floor repeatedly over the course of the last decade,
and so like there I there is no harder fast rule,
to be clear, But as I'm looking specifically, like as
a fan of the Lakers, for instance, as I look
at that team I've been, all I can think about
for the summer is getting more athletic.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Yeah, It's all I can think about.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
And just thinking about it more really just in real time,
as in the playoffs, specifically, when defenses are so you know,
focused on the guys who are the best players obviously,
but then they're also very focused on the elite, the
elite level play finishers like a Malik Beasley. They are
on that dude's hip, right, Milik Beasley is not getting
many half court remotely open three pointers, while Jaden McDaniels,
(49:11):
someone of that sort of ILK is getting open three
pointers because defense are like, we will live with that,
we will live with him shooting threes, and so then
the equation changes even further where it's like, what would
you prefer a contested in Malik Beasley three or a
wide open Jayden McDaniels three, And the numbers probably I
don't even know what the numbers say. They would probably
(49:32):
still land in Malik Beasley. But it's a lot closer.
You're not actually comparing contested three for contested three. You're
comparing contest for much of the game. You're comparing contested
three from shooter versus open three from quote unquote non shooter.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
It's a little more complicated than that, because I think
there's value in being guarded a certain type of way.
But I think, like I think Malik Beasley is a
class of shooter that get that that gets guarded that
type of I'll give you an example like bogged In Agdanovich,
you know, or like when you're looking at like like
Tim Hardaway Junior is a great example. Tim Hardaway Junior
(50:07):
at stretches in this series has not been able to
make shots. Like to me, it's that's that tier below
Malik Beasley where it's like that where the other team
just puts a decent lock and trail defender on them
that takes away the easy ones. And then like all
of a sudden he becomes a useless player. Like but
there's it's just it's just the volatility, because like I
feel like Buddy Healed was this guy, and Buddy.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
Heeld's had a couple of good games in a row,
so like it.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
But my point is, though, is like like Buddy Healed,
when he's got the shot going the way he did
in the last two games, looks like a good player.
But like Buddy's looked really bad in the games when
he hasn't been hitting shots. And so that that's where
it just gets stricky. And I think that there's something
to be said about the dependability of athleticism and like
ideally that guy can hit a catch and shoot three.
(50:52):
But like to me, it'd be like a guy like
Chris Dunn, like how much value is there and a
guy like Chris Dunn versus a guy like a Tim
Hardaway junior, you know, And it's a complicated discussion, and like,
you know, there are other times. There are other times
I watch a game and I'm like, oh my god,
shot making is the only thing that matters, Like it's
all I feel like it all depends on like having
the perfect mixture of things. It's just I tend to
(51:15):
think of it like like having Luka Doncic as like
this supremely gifted offensive player that can create advantages.
Speaker 3 (51:21):
I just want to put him in.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
A situation where his athletic job is really easy, so
that over the course of games, he can just focus
on creating shots. There's something to be said about being
problematic how much they switch with him. And this is
why his conditioning is so important, because it would be
good for him to be able to add a hedge
and recover look to what he can do, but he
just needs to get faster and he needs to be
(51:44):
able to cover ground more over the course of games.
But yeah, I've just been I've been very keyed in
on the athletes, and we've just seen a lot of
examples of the athletes kind of having big impact at
this point.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
For sure, Let's do one more question in a caz
Verus Celtics potential Eastern Conference matchup, assuming that that does happen,
does Donovan Mitchell need to reach the level of a
top five player and do you think he's capable of
reaching that type of ceiling.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
I think where Donovan Mitchell is going to become incredibly
important for the Caves Celtics matchup is crunch time when
it turns into the matchup hunting, slow down type of thing,
because the Calves, I think, are gonna have a lot
of success in that series just with their blender and
what I mean by that is just the incessant transition pushes,
the quick, decisive attacks, the diversity in the way that
(52:30):
they attack. But at the end of games, the Celtics
will be able to strangle the pace and it's going
to become about picking on matchups and there's no doubt
that Donovan Mitchell is gonna have to go toe to toe.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
With those guys.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
The key there is, though, is like hand the Calves
get so for instance, I'm one of the reasons why
I view in that series is more of a coin flip,
is like the home court advantage piece, Like what if
if the Calves win Game one or Game two by
fifteen eighteen points and it doesn't come down to crunch time,
they could put themselves themselves in a situation where like
if they win two games like that in a series,
(53:02):
then Donovan Mitchell might only need to out execute the
Celtics and crunch time you know twice, you know, Like
that's really the key to me is like I think
if the I think if the Calves are going to
beat the Celtics, they need like a couple of those
games to be like run like between game one, two
and five, they would need to win two of those
games by like ten fifteen points, because I think it'd
be I think it would be really difficult to ask
(53:22):
Mitchell to out execute Tatum four times in a series
in a crunch time, you know, slow down type of game.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
Yeah, yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 3 (53:30):
All right, guys.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
That's all we have for tonight is always be sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show.
As mentioned tomorrow, we are going to be doing our
series preview on Pacers Calves with Carter Rodriguez tomorrow night
Live after the final buzzer of Lakers Timberwolves. Don't forget,
we're also doing our first hoops tonight after show on playback,
So make sure you guys get down there on the
to the link in the description and head over to
(53:52):
playback and get signed up and get subscribed to our channel,
Jampack Day for the show tomorrow. We'll see you guys
in the morning, what some guys. As always, I appreciate
you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would
actually be really helpful for us if you guys would
take a second and leave a rating and a review.
Speaker 3 (54:07):
As always, I appreciate you guys.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
The volume
Host
Jason Timpf
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