Jason Timpf reacts to Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and the Boston Celtics' miraculous 133-128 Game 1 win over Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam, and the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals. Jason breaks down Indiana's late-game collapse, Jayson Tatum's dominant overtime, and the rest of the biggest highlights from a WILD Game 1. #volume #Herd
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(02:16):
here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody up ball, If
you guys are having a great start to your week.
We got a jam pack show for you tonight, very
very entertaining game one of the Eastern Conference Finals, and
it was entertaining before it went completely off the rails
in the final minute and got just unbelievably unorganized and
sloppy for both teams as Boston ends up coming back
(02:38):
in wild fashion to beat Indiana in overtime. We're gonna
break that game down from the perspective of both teams,
and then we'll get out of here for the night.
You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe
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(03:01):
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the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So this was the very best case scenario for Boston
because you got one in the win. Come you're officially
up one to zero in the series, but you played
poorly enough to have lost, right, which is like a
wake up call. It breeds urgency. It's also super discouraging
for the Indiana Pacers, right, and most importantly, I thought
(03:27):
that there was a lot that Boston could clean up,
particularly on the defensive end of the floor. And so
like this is the best case because you can go
into that film session you're a winner, but you can
be pissed off about how you played, address those things
and go into Game two with the requisite adjustments and
level of urgency to try to take a two to
(03:49):
zero lead in the series. So this game kind of
felt like two games to me. There was the actual
basketball game that the Pacers more or less won until
the final minute when they choked it away, and then
it was the overtime sequence.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Right, don't want to start on the late.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Game sequence first, and then we'll get into the basketball
because in the basketball part of the game, there's just
a lot of different things that Boston can improve on
to do a better job, specifically of guarding the Indiana Pacers.
So in terms of the late game sequence, that was
a legendary choke job from the Indiana Pacers. Boston missed
(04:25):
four shots in the final minute in ten seconds of
this game, and somehow still sent it to overtime, just
incomprehensible mistakes from Tyrese Halliburton randomly shoots an early clock
step back three on the left wing that was way
off it almost banked in. They end up committing a
foul on the rebound. They have two awful turnovers after
(04:49):
that point where Tyree's just dribbles the ball up the
floor and just coughs it up. Another one that they
turn over just on the inbounds pass, and then even
on that final possession, like one of the things that
like you'll see coaches do at just about every level
of basketball is specifically on final possessions, and especially when
you're trying to take away a three point shot, you
(05:11):
switch everything because again, usually in a sequence like that,
there's not enough time to try to try to go
for two and then foul again or whatever it is
that you might try to do in a situation like that,
other than taking a three, you're probably gonna be looking
for a three point shot, right, And so in those situations,
the last thing you want to do is have a
guy get caught up on a screen, which let's say
(05:33):
someone throws an illegal screen or something like that. You
don't want to be caught on that and then be
looking at the refs when the rest are probably gonna
swallow their whistle. In a situation like that, as your
man breaks open to shoot a three, instead of switching,
they run a little screening action on the left side
of the floor, like Jalen Brown like loops up to
the top and then comes off the screen and loops
back to the left corner, and Siakam's chasing instead of switching.
(05:55):
And the problem there was once the pass was made
to Jalen Brown now closing out at him, and all
this talk was about, oh, you're supposed to foil, You're
supposed to foul, and like, for all we know, Rick
Carlisle might have said foul. But if Siakam just comes
sprinting at Jlen Brown with his hands out like I'm
gonna foul you, Jalen Brown could just shoot a three
point shot as Siakam comes up, now he's going to
(06:17):
the line to shoot three free throws, and so by
virtue of him getting detached, meaning like him getting caught
up on that screen and having to close out on
Jaylen Brown. It effectively removed fouling from the equation. At
that point, the foul becomes too risky because Jaylen Brown
is staring right at Siakam as he's running at him.
Right from there, Jalen Brown just makes a hell of
a shot. Sacame once he got back into the play.
(06:39):
He did what you're supposed to do. He was right
there up in his face. But Jalen Brown is squared
up to shoot a three. Soakam can't foul anymore because
as soon as he reaches out, Jalen Brown could just
go up with the shot right. So what he did
at that point is he just walled up and just
put his chin back, and Jalen Brown rose up and
he made a really impressive shot to send the game
to overtime. The first part of overtime was and the
(07:00):
Celtics were making all sorts of mistakes again. Jason Tatum
passes early out of a slipped ball screen, and I
think it was Drew Holliday set the screen and then
slipped out of it.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
He threw the pass way too early.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Tyres halliburtn steals it and end up committing a foul
on the other end, and the Pacers go up one
twenty three one twenty one, but Aaron Nesmith ends up
fouling out of the game, And that was a big
moment because again there was there was a driving layup
that Tatum had against Aaron Nesmith where he ball pressured
him out about like thirty five feet from the basket
earlier in the game, where Tatum spun off of him
and got all the way to the basket. But for
(07:31):
the most part, Nie Smith on an island against Jason
Tatum can at least force him to take over the
top jump shots because the Smith's a little quicker than him,
and he's big and strong enough to kind of avoid
getting bullied for the most part, right, And so that
kind of forces Tatum to take pull of jumpers, which,
as we know, Jason Tatum likes to take a lot
of pull of jumpers, but in terms of his actual
efficiency on them, he's not very good at him, right,
(07:51):
And so that matchup kind of was working in Indiana's
favor down the stretch of the game. But as soon
as Nie Smith went out of the game, to Tatum's credit,
he identified the new matchup, which was Andrew Nemhard and
immediately took him to the post and.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Down on the block.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Andrew Emhard opted to try to play defense before the catch,
so instead of like letting Tatum catch and walling him
up as he tries to score in the post, Nemhard
tried to front the post and Tatum just made a
good physical positioning move and Nemhart ended.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Up falling over.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
He got a little and one right Then they come
down the floor and they run two man games. Tyres
Alliburton was guarding Derek White and Andrew Nemhard was guarding
Jason Tatum. Tatum sets the screen and Indiana runs this
really bizarre coverage. They basically guard it like it's a
big man pick and roll, like they guard it like
a drop coverage, like Andrew Emhard drops or Tyres Aliburn
(08:43):
chases over the top, and then Nemhard kind of drops
into the lane, and so as a result, it's just
like any other pick and pop. The guy who sets
the screen and pops the three point line is wide open,
and so Nemharden and Tyris Aliburton tried to get a
late close out, but Tatum finally after missing the one
re really good look he got down the stretch was
a wide open catch and shoot three that would have
(09:05):
tied the game in light regulation that he left just
barely short, like it was dead on straight, just left
at a tiny bit short. But by courtesy of the
Indiana Pacers, he gets another opportunity in overtime and he
hump fakes, takes a little side step, knocks down the
three at the top of the key, and the game
was pretty much over from there.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Shout out to.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Jason Tatum again, just like I talked about with Anthony
Edwards in Game seven against the Denver Nuggets, like you
always have another opportunity to make a play. That's the
beautiful thing about basketball. You can start, you can have
an absolute nightmare game, but you can find a way
to make a play. And this was actually a very
interesting up and down game from Tatum. He came out early,
was super aggressive at the rim, got a couple early buckets.
(09:44):
You could tell like he's just too big for most
of these guys around the rim. Right then he kind
of starts settling for jumpers in the late first quarter,
he goes through a cold spell. Then in the second quarter,
starts being physically aggressive again, gets going as that. I
think he was eight for fourteen at one point. Then
he goes like ice cold in the second and half,
really really struggling to make those pull up jump shots,
(10:04):
settling a lot in isolation situations, and I think at
one point he was twelve for twenty six from the field.
Has that really bad turnover and overtime looked bad there, right,
but he recovered from that and made a couple of
huge plays down the stretch. And then one of the
big things with Jayson Tatum. We're gonna talk about this
a lot when we get into the ball screen coverage stuff,
but like Jason Tatum can be a very frustrating basketball
(10:25):
player on the offensive end of the floor, but he
is deeply, profoundly impactful on the defensive end. I can't
tell you how many times he made massive swing plays
on defense, switching to Miles Turner and forcing somebody else
for the Pacers to score bucket, which we'll get into
in a little bit. He had a big late steal
on Obi Toppen and I think in their early fourth
(10:47):
quarter if I remember correctly, where Obi was stupid enough
to try to attack Tatum and iso the late switch
on to Tyrese Haliburton in late regulation where he just
switched on to Halliburton and just basically swallowed him up
on the right wing so he could barely even get
a shot off. Like, Jason Tatum is a deeply and
profoundly impactful athlete in this league, and it covers up
a lot of the kind of up and down nature
(11:09):
of his offensive performances, right, and then again it just
kept buying him opportunities to try to make more plays
on offense, and he made several big ones down the
stretch of his game. So absolutely wild, completely insane. If
you're Indiana, like literally all you have to do is
get the ball up the floor and run any offense
and Boston's gonna have to foulue and then you end
(11:30):
up winning. So like, I don't even know what to
say from the Indiana perspective other than like, yet, yet
you played well enough to win and then you just
choked it away.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
There's really no better way to put it.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
You choked the basketball game away by basic inability to
handle ball pressure. Now, credit to Boston, they've got a
lot of really good defenders. Drew Holliday did an amazing
job with physicality on Tyrese Saliburton played him into two
of those turnovers late, but again, like that's stuff that
he should be able to handle. So Indiana's got to
clean that up for the rest of the series. I
(12:04):
want to get into some of the specific basketball dynamics
that took place over the meat and potatoes of the game,
because again, as we look forward, the entire series isn't
going to come down to like chaotic two three minute
stretches at the end, right, Like you play forty eight
minute basketball games, right, and Boston is a more talented
basketball team than the Indiana Pacers, and.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
They shouldn't need to be in a situation.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Where they need Jalen Brown to make some crazy, you know,
face up jumper over a player taller than him when
he's completely smothered in the left corner, right, Like, that
shouldn't need to be the case. So how do you
clean up what happened in the rest of the game
to make sure that you don't find yourself in this
situation again? So first I want to start on a
(12:45):
really basic level as it pertains to their switching. So
there was it. Do you guys remember the nine to
zero run that took place in the It was like
middle third quarter. I want to say Boston went up.
It was like gosh, I want to say it was
like seventy three to or something like that. They were
up thirteen in the in the middle third quarter, if
I remember correctly, and Indiana literally goes on a nine
(13:07):
to zero run in two minutes, and like that's where
Aaron E. Smith hit the trailing three point shot at
the top of the key and just like that, like
it was a it was a four point game, right,
And like there were multiple stretches in this game where
Boston went up by double digits and then they just
lost focus and kind of fell apart. And like, honestly,
the offense during that stretch wasn't that bad. There was
(13:28):
a Jalen Brown turnover a very similar to the turnover
that Jason Tatum had an overtime, where like a guy
slipped out of a hedge and Jalen Brown just telegraphed
to pass and threw it right to Tyres Halliburton. There
was a pretty decent look at three that Sam Hauser
got that he just airballed, but it was like a
decent look. There was one bad shot.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
That I didn't like.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Peyton Pritchard took a thirty footer with fifteen on the
shot clock on the left wing, but he had already
made two threes and another short jumper in the game,
so I think he was just feeling confident. I didn't
really think the offense was the problem in that run.
They were just abysmal defensively in that stretch, specifically botching switches.
They give up four buckets in that two minute stretch,
(14:09):
and three of them where three of them were botched switches,
and the fourth was a really bad close out from
Jalen Brown. So this is one of the things that
Indiana does right. Indiana we talk a lot about different
ways to beat switching, and one of the ways that
you can beat switching is take advantage of the fact
that there's a static defender involved. So, for instance, if
(14:30):
you're guarding another player and I'm dribbling at you fast
and your man screens for me, and I'm coming off
with a lot of pace and you're standing still, you're
at a disadvantage when you switch unless you're very ready
for it, because if you hesitate even for a second,
I'm already in motion. Doesn't matter how quick my first
(14:51):
step is if I'm already moving at full speed and
you're coming from a standstill to try to catch up
with me. And one of the things that Indiana did
in a amazing job of in this game is just
like really quick ball in player movement. It's like swing
pass ball screen, drible handoff, swing pass ball screen, dribble handoff.
Just they were just moving so quickly in the half court,
(15:12):
and basically what they would do is they would just
do it, and Boston would switch and switch and switch
and switch until somebody made a mistake. And as soon
as somebody made a mistake, that guy would turn the
corner and he'd get into the lane and he'd get
a basket. So the main thing is when they get
into this film session, they're gonna notice pretty quickly we
can clean up a lot of this just by communicating
better when it comes to switches and just being in
(15:34):
an athletic stance actually ready to switch when you see
the ball starting to come towards you, just be aware
of the fact that you're gonna need to get moving
quickly because Indiana moves with so much with so much pace.
Like again, that was Boston was in position that was
their biggest lead. They were in position to put this
thing away in two minutes of lazy defense where they
(15:55):
were botching switches, ended up giving Indiana a chance to
to get back into the game. And we're gonna go
into that kind of thing in the film session tomorrow.
All the stuff that I'm talking about right now, we'll
get into some more detail in film tomorrow morning. The
second piece that I want to look at is ball
screen defense. So one of the things that I've talked
about a lot in this playoff round, specifically in the
(16:17):
series preview, is the fact that one of the weaknesses
for Boston is even with porzingis porzingis Al Horford, Luke Cornett.
They when you actually have to guard a good quick
ball handler that can shoot pull up jump shots, like
a Donovan Mitchell, like a Tyree S. Halliburton, like even
like Tyler Harrow is a lesser version of that, but
(16:39):
a guy that in the first round that they played
against to had some success hitting pull up jump shots
and pick and roll. It forces Al Horford, it forces
chrisops Mordingis, it forces Luke Cornette to guard in space
as opposed to a deep drop against a non skill
guard where you can kind of sit in the paint
just wait for the guy to drive that at you.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Right, And this, by the way, is man infested. In
the numbers.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Per Synergy, Boston has been the very worst pick and
roll defense in the playoffs so far, including passes by
a wide margin. They're giving up one point zero nine
points per possession in ball screens including passes. It's like
five hundreds of a point worse than the next team
in line, which by the way was the Indiana Pacers.
(17:22):
Fun fact, but that was the worst out of the
sixteen teams. This has been a consistent problem for them.
When they face like good quick ball handlers that can
attack their big guys in space in pick and roll,
they have problems. Right, So the question is this is
this is just a fact about Boston's roster, So how
do you account for that? By the way, no team
(17:42):
in the league doesn't have a flaw. Boston has better
personnel than most teams, though, and they have so many
good defenders and so many super versatile defenders, guys like
Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown in particular, who are so
big and strong and athletic that they can guard players
that are significantly smaller than them and significantly bigger than them. Right, So, like,
how do you as a team cover for the fact
(18:04):
that you're struggling to guard and pick and roll? And
for me, that is pretty simple. It's about putting Al
Horford similar to what you've seen a lot of teams
do in this postseason run and in the playoffs in general,
instead of putting your center on the opposing center who's
going to set ball screens and has a ton of
pick and roll chemistry with the ball handler. And a
guy like Miles Turner who's like legitimately just shooting the
(18:25):
laces off the basket or shooting the seams off the
basketball in this postseason runs. I think he was up
over forty six percent from three before tonight and is
like has the ability to take off from like twelve
feet away from the basket off of two feet and
just dunk everything like he's a problem. He's flat out
a problem. And then Tyrese Haliburton on the other end
of that can hit the pull up three, can hit
the mid range jumper, and can get all the way
(18:47):
to the basket and finish. So like that pick and
roll duo is a problem. And so as long as
you have Al Horford or Luke Cornett or whoever it
is in that matchup, they're just gonna look to attack NonStop, right,
So you've got to find a way to protect Horford there. Now,
one of the things we talked about in the series previews,
I said I'd move him to Siakam, but I specifically said,
if Siakam gets going as a score, I think you
(19:10):
need to move him to Nie Smith. By the way,
that's exactly what happened. They moved Horford to Siakam. In
early Siakam struggled. He missed a pick and pop three,
he missed a little mid range jumper, like he blocked
Siakam on a driving a layup in the first half
or I think it was early second half, Like they
had some success there. But then Siakam got going late
(19:30):
in the game, right, he got that little mid range
jumper going, the jab step jumper, the kind of like
little step back jumper there in the fifteen foot range.
That's why I think the most the most realistic option
for them to make it be the least effective offensive
player that Indiana has in that lineup, just put him
on Aaron Nee Smith again.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Aaron NEI.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Smith is a slasher, but in this postseason run, he's
barely cracked thirty percent from three. He's a very, very
inconsistent three point shooter. Most importantly, he's not a movement
three point shooter. What that means is because what Haliburton
did is as soon as they move Jason Tatum onto
to Miles Turner, they just started having Pascal Siakam set
the ball screen right like they're targeting Horford wherever he
(20:12):
is on the floor, right, So whatever, you are literally
picking who's gonna be taking the shot by who you
put Horford on, you put Horford.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
On Turner, it's gonna be Turner.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Turner's hitting his threes and he's making everything on the role.
You put Horford on Siakam, he's gonna Sakam's gonna be
the guy shooting. Siakam was making his mid range jumper
in this game. You want Aaron E. Smith to be
the guy that's taking the shot there. So like, this
is the advantage, this is the credit of having a
guy like Jason Tatum on your team. He's so damn big,
he's so damn strong, he's such a gifted defensive player
(20:45):
that you can put him on Miles Turner, switch him
on to Tyree Saliburton, He'll put him in jail.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Two.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Miles Turner is not a guy that can attack post
mismatches very well. He had one bucket shooting over the
top of a post mismatch tonight, but that's not really
his game, right. So like you can just switch that
ball screen, right, you just move j you keep Jalen
Brown on Pascal Siakam. That's a matchup that you like, right.
And then essentially you have Horford be aggressive in a
(21:11):
coverage when Nie Smith sets the ball screen. If Nie
Smith pops to the three point line, you just close
out at him short. You give him a token short
close out, right, because with that short close out, Nie
Smith is only is barely hitting over thirty percent from
his threes. And then and Al Horford's actually very gifted
at kind of at anticipating driving angles and beating guys
(21:32):
to spot spots and taking contact in the chest.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
There are a couple other things that they can do,
and they actually tried both of these during the game
for starters, just really good help and recover on the
weak side. Do you guys remember that play where Jalen
Brown blocked Aaron Nee Smith on a three on the
right wing and then on the block like saved the
ball and threw it off off of a Nie Smith
(21:56):
and saved it and they went out the other way.
That was a ball screen with Horford and Turner where
Turner set the ball screen. Horford was covering Halliburton in
the In the screen, Turner kind of did like a
hoop slash role that kind of took him to the
right elbow area and Halliburton went to throw the skip pass,
but Jalen Brown, who was guarding Aaron Ees Smith on
(22:17):
the right wing, stunted like he was going to tag
the roller from that wing spot. Forced Halliburton to throw
the skip pass. But he's such a good athlete he
closed back out to Denise Smith and ended up blocking
him out of bounds. It was an unbelievable defensive play,
right Like, That's an example of something you can do
to protect al Horford in ball screens. Another thing you
(22:39):
can do pre switching. Do you guys remember that absurd
defensive play that Derek White had where he blocked Obi
Toppin on the lob. On that play, they were running
a ball screen to try to get Al Horford in it.
Al Horford was guarding Myles Turner on this possession. Turner
went to go set the screen. Al Horford literally pointed
(23:00):
to have I think it was Drew Holliday go up instead, right,
And so Drew Holliday just followed Miles Turner up and
Horford switched onto Drew Holliday's man.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Drew Holliday went up to the to.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
The ball screen and literally as Halliburton came off, Uh,
Drew Holliday switched onto him. And then Derek White literally
peeled off and guarded Myles Turner Miles Turner on the
roll as soon as the pass two. Uh, it might
have been I think it was Turner in this possession.
We'll go over and more detail in the film session.
But he got dropped off to Turner and then Derek
White peeled off of Myles Turner too, as Miles Turner
(23:33):
threw the lob to Obi top in and Derek White
came flying in and blocked it. So we executed two
switches in a matter of like two seconds to block
that lob pass along the base on his unbelievable defensive play.
But again, what you did is you took your worst
defensive player and now Horford in this situation and protected
him by pre switching and sending a guard up switching
(23:54):
the ball screen up high. And then now you've got
your two best perim defenders or your two best guard
defenders trying to make a play instead of Al Horford,
who's a little bit slower afoot, trying to make a play.
And guess what, Derek White is just like an unbelievable
shot blocker. And so you put him in a position
where it's a strength of his rather than Horford in
a position that's a weakness of his, and you get
(24:16):
a key stop and like one last little shout out
for Derek White there. Every time I see a game
like this where it's like absolute chaos and anything could
happen and a team barely pulls out a narrow, narrow,
narrow victory, I always think about little plays like that.
I'm always like, man, that was a dunk. That was
an obi top and dunk ninety nine out of one
(24:36):
hundred times, and Derek White literally made one of the
best defensive plays I've seen all postseason and stole two
points off the scoreboard for the Indiana Pacers, so shout
out to Derek White. But again, those are the three
things that I think Boston can do to clean up
their ball screen defense, pre switching better, helping rotations on
(24:57):
the weak side, and then just putting Al Horford, I'm
the worst offensive player for Indiana and just baiting them
into trying to attack that rather than playing through their
better offensive players. And again, like this has been an
issue all postseason, this is something they have to address.
You gotta win, but you need to fix these problems
going into Game two. A couple other shoutouts on some
(25:20):
specific Boston offensive stuff that I wanted to talk about.
Drew Holliday was amazing in this game. We saw it
on the defensive end late right with his on ball
defense against Tyrese Haliburton playing him into those turnovers. But
a big part of it was, and that's right, that's
what I was getting so confused about on that stupid
(25:41):
Derek White block, Derek White was actually the guy that
won up in the pre switch Drew Holliday was on Halliburton,
Derek White switched onto to the ball handler and then
peeled off and got the block. It was just an
unbelievable play. Anyway, Drew Holliday not only was the impactful
defensively down the stretch of that game, he also was
the guy that was getting the most favorable matchups throughout
(26:02):
the game.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
We talked about this in the series preview, right like,
he's gonna get Tyrese Haliburton on him for the most part,
and he scored so effectively against Tyrese that they actually
had to switch Tyres onto Derek White, which ended up
being a huge advantage in the late game situation because
now Tyres Haliburton was guarding the ball in the pivotal
(26:23):
on ball possessions in overtime, where Derek White was consistently
generating quality shots. So, like Drew Holliday laid Indiana into
a lot of unfavorable matchups over the course of the game.
He also did some damage to Ben Sheppard when he
was on the floor. Like Drew, this is the advantage
of having five high powered offensive players in your starting lineup.
You're gonna have to put your worst defender on somebody,
(26:45):
and ended up being Drew Holliday for the majority of
the game, and he just cooked all of those guys.
He was incredible in this game. And then lastly, just
typical stuff that I've talked about a lot when it
comes down to Boston in their offensive process, which is
(27:05):
just like having more value for the individual possession and
being more deliberate about getting great shots rather than just
playing with vibes and just taking the.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
First available shot that you get. Right.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
A lot of bad shots selection in this game, but
one of the things I noticed is like typically when
they actually execute properly, they do get good looks. So,
for instance, when there was a I'm trying to remember
who hit the shot, somebody hit a shot that put
the Pacers up by four right in the late I
think it was late third or early fourth quarter, right,
(27:38):
and Boston calls a timeout because now we're down four,
it's a totally different game, right. They immediately come out
of the They immediately come out of the timeout, and
they have Al Horford set the screen on Jason Tatum.
Jason Tatum uses Al Horford in the screen, Miles Turner
ends up hedging Al Horford pops to the three point
(28:00):
Tatum just throws the basic over the top pass to
al Horford, who's wide open to the top of the key,
swing to the left wing rotation, swing to the corner,
wide open three for Derek White and he knocks it down.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
It's like when they slow down and it's like they're
in a time out. It's like, hey, guys, we really
need a bucket here. Let's run this action. Let's get
a great shot. They do that, they score so damn effectively, right,
it's kind of like overtime, Like down the last two
and a half minutes of overtime, they're so deliberate. It's
like Tatum on it has Andrew Nemhart on him, Let's
just go to him in the block, right, easy bucket
and one like, hey, like they have Tyrese Haliburton and
(28:33):
Andrew Nemhart guarding Derek White and Jason Tatum. Let's just
run two man game. And then Tatum like he went
to go set the screen and he identified that they
were both going with Derek White. So he's like, I'm
just gonna pop to the three point line, like I
just got the same shot at the end of regulation.
I'm gonna take my time and I'm gonna knock this down.
Like it's just being more deliberate with their shot selection,
(28:55):
valuing the individual possession because here's the thing, Like, you're
gonna face a team coming up out of the Western
Conference who's better than Indiana. I have a feeling it's
gonna be Minnesota. It's going to be a team that's
going to have You're gonna have a much smaller margin
for air than you do in this Indiana Pacers matchup,
and so I just want to see Boston just be
a little bit more deliberate about valuing each individual possession.
(29:16):
But again, like really encouraging night for Boston because again,
you get the win, you have good motivation going into
Game two because you played poorly enough to lose, and
there's just so much that they can clean up going
into Game two, especially on the defensive end of the four.
I actually think Boston's gonna win convincingly in Game two.
I think they've lost Game two twice already in this
(29:37):
postseason by letting their foot off the gas. They already
know that that's a threat. They have the advantage of
the motivation of playing as poorly as they did tonight.
I think Boston's gonna go up two oh on Thursday
night with a really, really impressive win. On the Indiana front,
you got to take care of the damn basketball, Like
it's literally that simple. You wasted one of your better
(29:58):
offensive nights in a game that you should have won,
just simply because of execution errors down the stretch of
the game. They know what they need to do. They
need to make the series a track meet. They need
to have as much chaotic ball in player movement as
possible to make Boston make mistakes in their switches into
A big part of it, too, is like Boston tends
to like do you remember that shot that Derek White
took when Tyres Haliburton was trailing the play and Tyres
(30:21):
Aliburton blocked him? It was I think it was the
one right before Tyres Haliburton took that stupid ass or
semi transition three on the left wing right in the
final two minutes, Like on that possession, it's like you're
you're playing too chaotically, Like slow the hell down, You can't.
You haven't even looked at the floor yet to realize
that Tyres is not even in the picture yet, Like
(30:42):
he's clearly going to be trailing the play somewhere.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Slow down and execute. That's the thing.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
When Indiana plays fast, it bits Boston into playing fast.
And then they can start making mistakes. And so again,
if you're Indiana, that's your pathway. Just continue to have
as much bond player movement as possible, live in transition
as much as possible, just generate as much chaos as possible,
and then take care of the damn ball when you
do get a situation where you have a lead late
(31:09):
in the game, super entertaining Game one. I you know, Indiana.
One of the things that have been thinking, I think
people forget is like Tyre's Halliburton before his hamstring injury.
The Pacers, I think started the season twenty and fourteen
and they made it to the Ncason Tournament final, beat
Boston and Milwaukee in that process, right, and Tyres Halliburton
(31:29):
was like playing just absurdly good basketball, right, and like
they they were the best offense in the league by
a mile. At that point. They had a one to
twenty three something offensive rating. The gap between them and
number two was the same as the gap between two
and number six. Like that's how good this Indiana offense is.
(31:50):
When Tyres Halliburton is healthy and playing at the level
that we know he's capable of. And like, I will
say that, like even though I think Boston's gonna win,
and I think, especially after tonight, they might win more
more convincingly than we'd think.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
The Pacers are just really fun to watch.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
They make for an entertaining brand of basketball, and I
just really enjoyed watching that basketball game. Looking forward to
Game two on Thursday night, We're gonna be back tomorrow
morning with the film session that's gonna go over some
of the concepts that I was talking about to Celtics fans.
Just come back to tomorrow morning to the feed and
you're gonna see I'll basically just do the same film
session that I expect Boston to do after this game tonight,
(32:25):
and I'll just kind of go over and more detail
some of the execution stuff I think that they can
sharpen up in Game two. And then we'll be back
tomorrow night live on YouTube after the final buzzer of
Game one of Maverick's Wolves, a game I'm super super
excited for.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I will see you guys. Then the volume
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(02:16):
here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody up ball, If
you guys are having a great start to your week.
We got a jam pack show for you tonight, very
very entertaining game one of the Eastern Conference Finals, and
it was entertaining before it went completely off the rails
in the final minute and got just unbelievably unorganized and
sloppy for both teams as Boston ends up coming back
(02:38):
in wild fashion to beat Indiana in overtime. We're gonna
break that game down from the perspective of both teams,
and then we'll get out of here for the night.
You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe
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(03:01):
comments that we keep hitting them throughout the rest of
the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So this was the very best case scenario for Boston
because you got one in the win. Come you're officially
up one to zero in the series, but you played
poorly enough to have lost, right, which is like a
wake up call. It breeds urgency. It's also super discouraging
for the Indiana Pacers, right, and most importantly, I thought
(03:27):
that there was a lot that Boston could clean up,
particularly on the defensive end of the floor. And so
like this is the best case because you can go
into that film session you're a winner, but you can
be pissed off about how you played, address those things
and go into Game two with the requisite adjustments and
level of urgency to try to take a two to
(03:49):
zero lead in the series. So this game kind of
felt like two games to me. There was the actual
basketball game that the Pacers more or less won until
the final minute when they choked it away, and then
it was the overtime sequence.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Right, don't want to start on the late.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Game sequence first, and then we'll get into the basketball
because in the basketball part of the game, there's just
a lot of different things that Boston can improve on
to do a better job, specifically of guarding the Indiana Pacers.
So in terms of the late game sequence, that was
a legendary choke job from the Indiana Pacers. Boston missed
(04:25):
four shots in the final minute in ten seconds of
this game, and somehow still sent it to overtime, just
incomprehensible mistakes from Tyrese Halliburton randomly shoots an early clock
step back three on the left wing that was way
off it almost banked in. They end up committing a
foul on the rebound. They have two awful turnovers after
(04:49):
that point where Tyree's just dribbles the ball up the
floor and just coughs it up. Another one that they
turn over just on the inbounds pass, and then even
on that final possession, like one of the things that
like you'll see coaches do at just about every level
of basketball is specifically on final possessions, and especially when
you're trying to take away a three point shot, you
(05:11):
switch everything because again, usually in a sequence like that,
there's not enough time to try to try to go
for two and then foul again or whatever it is
that you might try to do in a situation like that,
other than taking a three, you're probably gonna be looking
for a three point shot, right, And so in those situations,
the last thing you want to do is have a
guy get caught up on a screen, which let's say
(05:33):
someone throws an illegal screen or something like that. You
don't want to be caught on that and then be
looking at the refs when the rest are probably gonna
swallow their whistle. In a situation like that, as your
man breaks open to shoot a three, instead of switching,
they run a little screening action on the left side
of the floor, like Jalen Brown like loops up to
the top and then comes off the screen and loops
back to the left corner, and Siakam's chasing instead of switching.
(05:55):
And the problem there was once the pass was made
to Jalen Brown now closing out at him, and all
this talk was about, oh, you're supposed to foil, You're
supposed to foul, and like, for all we know, Rick
Carlisle might have said foul. But if Siakam just comes
sprinting at Jlen Brown with his hands out like I'm
gonna foul you, Jalen Brown could just shoot a three
point shot as Siakam comes up, now he's going to
(06:17):
the line to shoot three free throws, and so by
virtue of him getting detached, meaning like him getting caught
up on that screen and having to close out on
Jaylen Brown. It effectively removed fouling from the equation. At
that point, the foul becomes too risky because Jaylen Brown
is staring right at Siakam as he's running at him.
Right from there, Jalen Brown just makes a hell of
a shot. Sacame once he got back into the play.
(06:39):
He did what you're supposed to do. He was right
there up in his face. But Jalen Brown is squared
up to shoot a three. Soakam can't foul anymore because
as soon as he reaches out, Jalen Brown could just
go up with the shot right. So what he did
at that point is he just walled up and just
put his chin back, and Jalen Brown rose up and
he made a really impressive shot to send the game
to overtime. The first part of overtime was and the
(07:00):
Celtics were making all sorts of mistakes again. Jason Tatum
passes early out of a slipped ball screen, and I
think it was Drew Holliday set the screen and then
slipped out of it.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
He threw the pass way too early.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Tyres halliburtn steals it and end up committing a foul
on the other end, and the Pacers go up one
twenty three one twenty one, but Aaron Nesmith ends up
fouling out of the game, And that was a big
moment because again there was there was a driving layup
that Tatum had against Aaron Nesmith where he ball pressured
him out about like thirty five feet from the basket
earlier in the game, where Tatum spun off of him
and got all the way to the basket. But for
(07:31):
the most part, Nie Smith on an island against Jason
Tatum can at least force him to take over the
top jump shots because the Smith's a little quicker than him,
and he's big and strong enough to kind of avoid
getting bullied for the most part, right, And so that
kind of forces Tatum to take pull of jumpers, which,
as we know, Jason Tatum likes to take a lot
of pull of jumpers, but in terms of his actual
efficiency on them, he's not very good at him, right,
(07:51):
And so that matchup kind of was working in Indiana's
favor down the stretch of the game. But as soon
as Nie Smith went out of the game, to Tatum's credit,
he identified the new matchup, which was Andrew Nemhard and
immediately took him to the post and.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Down on the block.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Andrew Emhard opted to try to play defense before the catch,
so instead of like letting Tatum catch and walling him
up as he tries to score in the post, Nemhard
tried to front the post and Tatum just made a
good physical positioning move and Nemhart ended.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Up falling over.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
He got a little and one right Then they come
down the floor and they run two man games. Tyres
Alliburton was guarding Derek White and Andrew Nemhard was guarding
Jason Tatum. Tatum sets the screen and Indiana runs this
really bizarre coverage. They basically guard it like it's a
big man pick and roll, like they guard it like
a drop coverage, like Andrew Emhard drops or Tyres Aliburn
(08:43):
chases over the top, and then Nemhard kind of drops
into the lane, and so as a result, it's just
like any other pick and pop. The guy who sets
the screen and pops the three point line is wide open,
and so Nemharden and Tyris Aliburton tried to get a
late close out, but Tatum finally after missing the one
re really good look he got down the stretch was
a wide open catch and shoot three that would have
(09:05):
tied the game in light regulation that he left just
barely short, like it was dead on straight, just left
at a tiny bit short. But by courtesy of the
Indiana Pacers, he gets another opportunity in overtime and he
hump fakes, takes a little side step, knocks down the
three at the top of the key, and the game
was pretty much over from there.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Shout out to.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Jason Tatum again, just like I talked about with Anthony
Edwards in Game seven against the Denver Nuggets, like you
always have another opportunity to make a play. That's the
beautiful thing about basketball. You can start, you can have
an absolute nightmare game, but you can find a way
to make a play. And this was actually a very
interesting up and down game from Tatum. He came out early,
was super aggressive at the rim, got a couple early buckets.
(09:44):
You could tell like he's just too big for most
of these guys around the rim. Right then he kind
of starts settling for jumpers in the late first quarter,
he goes through a cold spell. Then in the second quarter,
starts being physically aggressive again, gets going as that. I
think he was eight for fourteen at one point. Then
he goes like ice cold in the second and half,
really really struggling to make those pull up jump shots,
(10:04):
settling a lot in isolation situations, and I think at
one point he was twelve for twenty six from the field.
Has that really bad turnover and overtime looked bad there, right,
but he recovered from that and made a couple of
huge plays down the stretch. And then one of the
big things with Jayson Tatum. We're gonna talk about this
a lot when we get into the ball screen coverage stuff,
but like Jason Tatum can be a very frustrating basketball
(10:25):
player on the offensive end of the floor, but he
is deeply, profoundly impactful on the defensive end. I can't
tell you how many times he made massive swing plays
on defense, switching to Miles Turner and forcing somebody else
for the Pacers to score bucket, which we'll get into
in a little bit. He had a big late steal
on Obi Toppen and I think in their early fourth
(10:47):
quarter if I remember correctly, where Obi was stupid enough
to try to attack Tatum and iso the late switch
on to Tyrese Haliburton in late regulation where he just
switched on to Halliburton and just basically swallowed him up
on the right wing so he could barely even get
a shot off. Like, Jason Tatum is a deeply and
profoundly impactful athlete in this league, and it covers up
a lot of the kind of up and down nature
(11:09):
of his offensive performances, right, and then again it just
kept buying him opportunities to try to make more plays
on offense, and he made several big ones down the
stretch of his game. So absolutely wild, completely insane. If
you're Indiana, like literally all you have to do is
get the ball up the floor and run any offense
and Boston's gonna have to foulue and then you end
(11:30):
up winning. So like, I don't even know what to
say from the Indiana perspective other than like, yet, yet
you played well enough to win and then you just
choked it away.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
There's really no better way to put it.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
You choked the basketball game away by basic inability to
handle ball pressure. Now, credit to Boston, they've got a
lot of really good defenders. Drew Holliday did an amazing
job with physicality on Tyrese Saliburton played him into two
of those turnovers late, but again, like that's stuff that
he should be able to handle. So Indiana's got to
clean that up for the rest of the series. I
(12:04):
want to get into some of the specific basketball dynamics
that took place over the meat and potatoes of the game,
because again, as we look forward, the entire series isn't
going to come down to like chaotic two three minute
stretches at the end, right, Like you play forty eight
minute basketball games, right, and Boston is a more talented
basketball team than the Indiana Pacers, and.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
They shouldn't need to be in a situation.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Where they need Jalen Brown to make some crazy, you know,
face up jumper over a player taller than him when
he's completely smothered in the left corner, right, Like, that
shouldn't need to be the case. So how do you
clean up what happened in the rest of the game
to make sure that you don't find yourself in this
situation again? So first I want to start on a
(12:45):
really basic level as it pertains to their switching. So
there was it. Do you guys remember the nine to
zero run that took place in the It was like
middle third quarter. I want to say Boston went up.
It was like gosh, I want to say it was
like seventy three to or something like that. They were
up thirteen in the in the middle third quarter, if
I remember correctly, and Indiana literally goes on a nine
(13:07):
to zero run in two minutes, and like that's where
Aaron E. Smith hit the trailing three point shot at
the top of the key and just like that, like
it was a it was a four point game, right,
And like there were multiple stretches in this game where
Boston went up by double digits and then they just
lost focus and kind of fell apart. And like, honestly,
the offense during that stretch wasn't that bad. There was
(13:28):
a Jalen Brown turnover a very similar to the turnover
that Jason Tatum had an overtime, where like a guy
slipped out of a hedge and Jalen Brown just telegraphed
to pass and threw it right to Tyres Halliburton. There
was a pretty decent look at three that Sam Hauser
got that he just airballed, but it was like a
decent look. There was one bad shot.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
That I didn't like.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Peyton Pritchard took a thirty footer with fifteen on the
shot clock on the left wing, but he had already
made two threes and another short jumper in the game,
so I think he was just feeling confident. I didn't
really think the offense was the problem in that run.
They were just abysmal defensively in that stretch, specifically botching switches.
They give up four buckets in that two minute stretch,
(14:09):
and three of them where three of them were botched switches,
and the fourth was a really bad close out from
Jalen Brown. So this is one of the things that
Indiana does right. Indiana we talk a lot about different
ways to beat switching, and one of the ways that
you can beat switching is take advantage of the fact
that there's a static defender involved. So, for instance, if
(14:30):
you're guarding another player and I'm dribbling at you fast
and your man screens for me, and I'm coming off
with a lot of pace and you're standing still, you're
at a disadvantage when you switch unless you're very ready
for it, because if you hesitate even for a second,
I'm already in motion. Doesn't matter how quick my first
(14:51):
step is if I'm already moving at full speed and
you're coming from a standstill to try to catch up
with me. And one of the things that Indiana did
in a amazing job of in this game is just
like really quick ball in player movement. It's like swing
pass ball screen, drible handoff, swing pass ball screen, dribble handoff.
Just they were just moving so quickly in the half court,
(15:12):
and basically what they would do is they would just
do it, and Boston would switch and switch and switch
and switch until somebody made a mistake. And as soon
as somebody made a mistake, that guy would turn the
corner and he'd get into the lane and he'd get
a basket. So the main thing is when they get
into this film session, they're gonna notice pretty quickly we
can clean up a lot of this just by communicating
better when it comes to switches and just being in
(15:34):
an athletic stance actually ready to switch when you see
the ball starting to come towards you, just be aware
of the fact that you're gonna need to get moving
quickly because Indiana moves with so much with so much pace.
Like again, that was Boston was in position that was
their biggest lead. They were in position to put this
thing away in two minutes of lazy defense where they
(15:55):
were botching switches, ended up giving Indiana a chance to
to get back into the game. And we're gonna go
into that kind of thing in the film session tomorrow.
All the stuff that I'm talking about right now, we'll
get into some more detail in film tomorrow morning. The
second piece that I want to look at is ball
screen defense. So one of the things that I've talked
about a lot in this playoff round, specifically in the
(16:17):
series preview, is the fact that one of the weaknesses
for Boston is even with porzingis porzingis Al Horford, Luke Cornett.
They when you actually have to guard a good quick
ball handler that can shoot pull up jump shots, like
a Donovan Mitchell, like a Tyree S. Halliburton, like even
like Tyler Harrow is a lesser version of that, but
(16:39):
a guy that in the first round that they played
against to had some success hitting pull up jump shots
and pick and roll. It forces Al Horford, it forces
chrisops Mordingis, it forces Luke Cornette to guard in space
as opposed to a deep drop against a non skill
guard where you can kind of sit in the paint
just wait for the guy to drive that at you.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Right, And this, by the way, is man infested. In
the numbers.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Per Synergy, Boston has been the very worst pick and
roll defense in the playoffs so far, including passes by
a wide margin. They're giving up one point zero nine
points per possession in ball screens including passes. It's like
five hundreds of a point worse than the next team
in line, which by the way was the Indiana Pacers.
(17:22):
Fun fact, but that was the worst out of the
sixteen teams. This has been a consistent problem for them.
When they face like good quick ball handlers that can
attack their big guys in space in pick and roll,
they have problems. Right, So the question is this is
this is just a fact about Boston's roster, So how
do you account for that? By the way, no team
(17:42):
in the league doesn't have a flaw. Boston has better
personnel than most teams, though, and they have so many
good defenders and so many super versatile defenders, guys like
Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown in particular, who are so
big and strong and athletic that they can guard players
that are significantly smaller than them and significantly bigger than them. Right, So, like,
how do you as a team cover for the fact
(18:04):
that you're struggling to guard and pick and roll? And
for me, that is pretty simple. It's about putting Al
Horford similar to what you've seen a lot of teams
do in this postseason run and in the playoffs in general,
instead of putting your center on the opposing center who's
going to set ball screens and has a ton of
pick and roll chemistry with the ball handler. And a
guy like Miles Turner who's like legitimately just shooting the
(18:25):
laces off the basket or shooting the seams off the
basketball in this postseason runs. I think he was up
over forty six percent from three before tonight and is
like has the ability to take off from like twelve
feet away from the basket off of two feet and
just dunk everything like he's a problem. He's flat out
a problem. And then Tyrese Haliburton on the other end
of that can hit the pull up three, can hit
the mid range jumper, and can get all the way
(18:47):
to the basket and finish. So like that pick and
roll duo is a problem. And so as long as
you have Al Horford or Luke Cornett or whoever it
is in that matchup, they're just gonna look to attack NonStop, right,
So you've got to find a way to protect Horford there. Now,
one of the things we talked about in the series previews,
I said I'd move him to Siakam, but I specifically said,
if Siakam gets going as a score, I think you
(19:10):
need to move him to Nie Smith. By the way,
that's exactly what happened. They moved Horford to Siakam. In
early Siakam struggled. He missed a pick and pop three,
he missed a little mid range jumper, like he blocked
Siakam on a driving a layup in the first half
or I think it was early second half, Like they
had some success there. But then Siakam got going late
(19:30):
in the game, right, he got that little mid range
jumper going, the jab step jumper, the kind of like
little step back jumper there in the fifteen foot range.
That's why I think the most the most realistic option
for them to make it be the least effective offensive
player that Indiana has in that lineup, just put him
on Aaron Nee Smith again.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Aaron NEI.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Smith is a slasher, but in this postseason run, he's
barely cracked thirty percent from three. He's a very, very
inconsistent three point shooter. Most importantly, he's not a movement
three point shooter. What that means is because what Haliburton
did is as soon as they move Jason Tatum onto
to Miles Turner, they just started having Pascal Siakam set
the ball screen right like they're targeting Horford wherever he
(20:12):
is on the floor, right, So whatever, you are literally
picking who's gonna be taking the shot by who you
put Horford on, you put Horford.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
On Turner, it's gonna be Turner.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Turner's hitting his threes and he's making everything on the role.
You put Horford on Siakam, he's gonna Sakam's gonna be
the guy shooting. Siakam was making his mid range jumper
in this game. You want Aaron E. Smith to be
the guy that's taking the shot there. So like, this
is the advantage, this is the credit of having a
guy like Jason Tatum on your team. He's so damn big,
he's so damn strong, he's such a gifted defensive player
(20:45):
that you can put him on Miles Turner, switch him
on to Tyree Saliburton, He'll put him in jail.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Two.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Miles Turner is not a guy that can attack post
mismatches very well. He had one bucket shooting over the
top of a post mismatch tonight, but that's not really
his game, right. So like you can just switch that
ball screen, right, you just move j you keep Jalen
Brown on Pascal Siakam. That's a matchup that you like, right.
And then essentially you have Horford be aggressive in a
(21:11):
coverage when Nie Smith sets the ball screen. If Nie
Smith pops to the three point line, you just close
out at him short. You give him a token short
close out, right, because with that short close out, Nie
Smith is only is barely hitting over thirty percent from
his threes. And then and Al Horford's actually very gifted
at kind of at anticipating driving angles and beating guys
(21:32):
to spot spots and taking contact in the chest.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
There are a couple other things that they can do,
and they actually tried both of these during the game
for starters, just really good help and recover on the
weak side. Do you guys remember that play where Jalen
Brown blocked Aaron Nee Smith on a three on the
right wing and then on the block like saved the
ball and threw it off off of a Nie Smith
(21:56):
and saved it and they went out the other way.
That was a ball screen with Horford and Turner where
Turner set the ball screen. Horford was covering Halliburton in
the In the screen, Turner kind of did like a
hoop slash role that kind of took him to the
right elbow area and Halliburton went to throw the skip pass,
but Jalen Brown, who was guarding Aaron Ees Smith on
(22:17):
the right wing, stunted like he was going to tag
the roller from that wing spot. Forced Halliburton to throw
the skip pass. But he's such a good athlete he
closed back out to Denise Smith and ended up blocking
him out of bounds. It was an unbelievable defensive play,
right Like, That's an example of something you can do
to protect al Horford in ball screens. Another thing you
(22:39):
can do pre switching. Do you guys remember that absurd
defensive play that Derek White had where he blocked Obi
Toppin on the lob. On that play, they were running
a ball screen to try to get Al Horford in it.
Al Horford was guarding Myles Turner on this possession. Turner
went to go set the screen. Al Horford literally pointed
(23:00):
to have I think it was Drew Holliday go up instead, right,
And so Drew Holliday just followed Miles Turner up and
Horford switched onto Drew Holliday's man.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Drew Holliday went up to the to.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
The ball screen and literally as Halliburton came off, Uh,
Drew Holliday switched onto him. And then Derek White literally
peeled off and guarded Myles Turner Miles Turner on the
roll as soon as the pass two. Uh, it might
have been I think it was Turner in this possession.
We'll go over and more detail in the film session.
But he got dropped off to Turner and then Derek
White peeled off of Myles Turner too, as Miles Turner
(23:33):
threw the lob to Obi top in and Derek White
came flying in and blocked it. So we executed two
switches in a matter of like two seconds to block
that lob pass along the base on his unbelievable defensive play.
But again, what you did is you took your worst
defensive player and now Horford in this situation and protected
him by pre switching and sending a guard up switching
(23:54):
the ball screen up high. And then now you've got
your two best perim defenders or your two best guard
defenders trying to make a play instead of Al Horford,
who's a little bit slower afoot, trying to make a play.
And guess what, Derek White is just like an unbelievable
shot blocker. And so you put him in a position
where it's a strength of his rather than Horford in
a position that's a weakness of his, and you get
(24:16):
a key stop and like one last little shout out
for Derek White there. Every time I see a game
like this where it's like absolute chaos and anything could
happen and a team barely pulls out a narrow, narrow,
narrow victory, I always think about little plays like that.
I'm always like, man, that was a dunk. That was
an obi top and dunk ninety nine out of one
(24:36):
hundred times, and Derek White literally made one of the
best defensive plays I've seen all postseason and stole two
points off the scoreboard for the Indiana Pacers, so shout
out to Derek White. But again, those are the three
things that I think Boston can do to clean up
their ball screen defense, pre switching better, helping rotations on
(24:57):
the weak side, and then just putting Al Horford, I'm
the worst offensive player for Indiana and just baiting them
into trying to attack that rather than playing through their
better offensive players. And again, like this has been an
issue all postseason, this is something they have to address.
You gotta win, but you need to fix these problems
going into Game two. A couple other shoutouts on some
(25:20):
specific Boston offensive stuff that I wanted to talk about.
Drew Holliday was amazing in this game. We saw it
on the defensive end late right with his on ball
defense against Tyrese Haliburton playing him into those turnovers. But
a big part of it was, and that's right, that's
what I was getting so confused about on that stupid
(25:41):
Derek White block, Derek White was actually the guy that
won up in the pre switch Drew Holliday was on Halliburton,
Derek White switched onto to the ball handler and then
peeled off and got the block. It was just an
unbelievable play. Anyway, Drew Holliday not only was the impactful
defensively down the stretch of that game, he also was
the guy that was getting the most favorable matchups throughout
(26:02):
the game.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
We talked about this in the series preview, right like,
he's gonna get Tyrese Haliburton on him for the most part,
and he scored so effectively against Tyrese that they actually
had to switch Tyres onto Derek White, which ended up
being a huge advantage in the late game situation because
now Tyres Haliburton was guarding the ball in the pivotal
(26:23):
on ball possessions in overtime, where Derek White was consistently
generating quality shots. So, like Drew Holliday laid Indiana into
a lot of unfavorable matchups over the course of the game.
He also did some damage to Ben Sheppard when he
was on the floor. Like Drew, this is the advantage
of having five high powered offensive players in your starting lineup.
You're gonna have to put your worst defender on somebody,
(26:45):
and ended up being Drew Holliday for the majority of
the game, and he just cooked all of those guys.
He was incredible in this game. And then lastly, just
typical stuff that I've talked about a lot when it
comes down to Boston in their offensive process, which is
(27:05):
just like having more value for the individual possession and
being more deliberate about getting great shots rather than just
playing with vibes and just taking the.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
First available shot that you get. Right.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
A lot of bad shots selection in this game, but
one of the things I noticed is like typically when
they actually execute properly, they do get good looks. So,
for instance, when there was a I'm trying to remember
who hit the shot, somebody hit a shot that put
the Pacers up by four right in the late I
think it was late third or early fourth quarter, right,
(27:38):
and Boston calls a timeout because now we're down four,
it's a totally different game, right. They immediately come out
of the They immediately come out of the timeout, and
they have Al Horford set the screen on Jason Tatum.
Jason Tatum uses Al Horford in the screen, Miles Turner
ends up hedging Al Horford pops to the three point
(28:00):
Tatum just throws the basic over the top pass to
al Horford, who's wide open to the top of the key,
swing to the left wing rotation, swing to the corner,
wide open three for Derek White and he knocks it down.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
It's like when they slow down and it's like they're
in a time out. It's like, hey, guys, we really
need a bucket here. Let's run this action. Let's get
a great shot. They do that, they score so damn effectively, right,
it's kind of like overtime, Like down the last two
and a half minutes of overtime, they're so deliberate. It's
like Tatum on it has Andrew Nemhart on him, Let's
just go to him in the block, right, easy bucket
and one like, hey, like they have Tyrese Haliburton and
(28:33):
Andrew Nemhart guarding Derek White and Jason Tatum. Let's just
run two man game. And then Tatum like he went
to go set the screen and he identified that they
were both going with Derek White. So he's like, I'm
just gonna pop to the three point line, like I
just got the same shot at the end of regulation.
I'm gonna take my time and I'm gonna knock this down.
Like it's just being more deliberate with their shot selection,
(28:55):
valuing the individual possession because here's the thing, Like, you're
gonna face a team coming up out of the Western
Conference who's better than Indiana. I have a feeling it's
gonna be Minnesota. It's going to be a team that's
going to have You're gonna have a much smaller margin
for air than you do in this Indiana Pacers matchup,
and so I just want to see Boston just be
a little bit more deliberate about valuing each individual possession.
(29:16):
But again, like really encouraging night for Boston because again,
you get the win, you have good motivation going into
Game two because you played poorly enough to lose, and
there's just so much that they can clean up going
into Game two, especially on the defensive end of the four.
I actually think Boston's gonna win convincingly in Game two.
I think they've lost Game two twice already in this
(29:37):
postseason by letting their foot off the gas. They already
know that that's a threat. They have the advantage of
the motivation of playing as poorly as they did tonight.
I think Boston's gonna go up two oh on Thursday
night with a really, really impressive win. On the Indiana front,
you got to take care of the damn basketball, Like
it's literally that simple. You wasted one of your better
(29:58):
offensive nights in a game that you should have won,
just simply because of execution errors down the stretch of
the game. They know what they need to do. They
need to make the series a track meet. They need
to have as much chaotic ball in player movement as
possible to make Boston make mistakes in their switches into
A big part of it, too, is like Boston tends
to like do you remember that shot that Derek White
took when Tyres Haliburton was trailing the play and Tyres
(30:21):
Aliburton blocked him? It was I think it was the
one right before Tyres Haliburton took that stupid ass or
semi transition three on the left wing right in the
final two minutes, Like on that possession, it's like you're
you're playing too chaotically, Like slow the hell down, You can't.
You haven't even looked at the floor yet to realize
that Tyres is not even in the picture yet, Like
(30:42):
he's clearly going to be trailing the play somewhere.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Slow down and execute. That's the thing.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
When Indiana plays fast, it bits Boston into playing fast.
And then they can start making mistakes. And so again,
if you're Indiana, that's your pathway. Just continue to have
as much bond player movement as possible, live in transition
as much as possible, just generate as much chaos as possible,
and then take care of the damn ball when you
do get a situation where you have a lead late
(31:09):
in the game, super entertaining Game one. I you know, Indiana.
One of the things that have been thinking, I think
people forget is like Tyre's Halliburton before his hamstring injury.
The Pacers, I think started the season twenty and fourteen
and they made it to the Ncason Tournament final, beat
Boston and Milwaukee in that process, right, and Tyres Halliburton
(31:29):
was like playing just absurdly good basketball, right, and like
they they were the best offense in the league by
a mile. At that point. They had a one to
twenty three something offensive rating. The gap between them and
number two was the same as the gap between two
and number six. Like that's how good this Indiana offense is.
(31:50):
When Tyres Halliburton is healthy and playing at the level
that we know he's capable of. And like, I will
say that, like even though I think Boston's gonna win,
and I think, especially after tonight, they might win more
more convincingly than we'd think.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
The Pacers are just really fun to watch.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
They make for an entertaining brand of basketball, and I
just really enjoyed watching that basketball game. Looking forward to
Game two on Thursday night, We're gonna be back tomorrow
morning with the film session that's gonna go over some
of the concepts that I was talking about to Celtics fans.
Just come back to tomorrow morning to the feed and
you're gonna see I'll basically just do the same film
session that I expect Boston to do after this game tonight,
(32:25):
and I'll just kind of go over and more detail
some of the execution stuff I think that they can
sharpen up in Game two. And then we'll be back
tomorrow night live on YouTube after the final buzzer of
Game one of Maverick's Wolves, a game I'm super super
excited for.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I will see you guys. Then the volume
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