June 11, 2022 • 40 mins
Jason Timpf reacts to Stephen Curry's 43-point performance as the Warriors even the NBA Finals with Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics.
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welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume.
Happy Friday, everybody. I appreciate you all coming to hang
out after an incredible NBA Finals game, the best game
of this series by far. No calling coward tonight, but
we will both be back on Monday. Night. For those
of you guys who have been liking the film deep
Dives that I've been doing on the day after the finals,
(02:39):
I still will do one of those tomorrow. I will
get into the tape either later tonight or tomorrow morning
and get something out to you. Won't be as long
and detailed as those other ones, worse since I can
get into a lot of stuff tonight, but I will
do one of those tomorrow as well, really quickly. Before
we get started. Make sure you guys subscribe to the
Volumes YouTube channel so you guys don't miss any more
of our Follow me on Twitter that underscore Jason lt
(03:02):
so you guys can see all the video content and
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if you miss part of this show and you guys
can't get back to YouTube for whatever reason, follow our
podcast feed, which for the time being is under Lakers tonight.
So you know, I was listening to gosh I I
think I was just scrolling through Twitter and I saw
a clip of Brian Windhorse from ESPN talking about how
(03:28):
you know, oh, I bet you Lebron is sitting somewhere
talking about how oh look at the shoes on the
other foot for Steph. Steph doesn't have as much talent anymore.
Like I bet you he's sitting there doing the cheers
with this buddy's about it, and I'm not going to
get into that kind of stuff. You guys know how
I feel about, you know, the taky type of analysis
(03:50):
when it comes to basketball. I tend to think that
everyone is kind of unfair on that front. You know,
all the Warriors fans were unfair to Lebron those years,
and all the Lebron fans be unfair to staph in
recent years. It just doesn't interest me. But you know
what did interest me when I heard that is, you know,
one of the things I didn't like about when Katie
(04:11):
went to the Warriors was there was no real adversity,
you know, like like the closest thing was then being
down three two to the Rockets, and and then Chris
Paul went down and so then they had a massive
talent advantage in the last two games, and so it
just it just didn't you know, I never really saw
anybody on Golden States roster have to really tap into anything.
(04:34):
And what I've always appreciated about the game of basketball
is the way that an individual player can have such
a monumental impact on winning. That's why star powers so valuable,
valuable in the NBA, and it's one of the things
that that makes the framework of NBA history and it's
why we all love the game so much. And for
(04:55):
every player, every great player that I've seen in NBA history,
it's when the it's when they're not at an advantage,
when the deck is stacked against them, that you see
these individual players tap into a level of greatness that
is above and beyond even what I think they thought
(05:16):
they were capable of. You know, like the game to
Lebron in two thousand twelve, or game excuse me, Game
six Lebron in two thousand twelve going into Boston and
scoring thirty points in the first half to save his
team from a humiliating loss to the Boston Celtics. You
think you know? Kevin Durant last year against the Milwaukee
(05:36):
Bucks at a massive talented a disadvantage, tapping into a
level of basketball that we've barely seen throughout NBA history.
Jana's Antenna Gumpo this year without Chris Middleton at a
massive talent disadvantage against the Boston Celtics put on a
performance in the Eastern Conference semifinals that was as good
of a performance and a losing effort as I've ever seen.
(05:59):
And then night on the road in Boston in a
bad matchup for the Golden State Warriors against the team
that I believe has a little bit more to a talent.
In a situation where he's not getting consistent help from anybody,
Steph Curry rose to the occasion and tapped into something
that amounted to a legendary performance. That's why I'm a
(06:23):
fan of parody. That's why I don't like it when
I see teams like the two thousand seventeen two thousand
eighteen Warriors that are so incredibly talented that they can
bring an eight percent effort and win a title. You know,
Like in two thousand seventeen, they tried and literally won
fifteen consecutive playoff games like that's insane, right, And it
took like one threes from the Calves in Game four
(06:45):
of the finals just to extend that series to an
inevitable loss in Game five, right, And then in two
thousand eighteen, they brought trash effort, like a significantly lower
effort than they did the previous year and still won
the title, and I and I I just I've always
I've always thought that that was just a little bit cheap,
Like it just doesn't it just doesn't have that same
(07:06):
you know, adversity is what makes it so that when
you get the trophy, it's that much more special. And
you know, they can say whatever they want. I promise you,
if Steph gets this one, it will feel sweeter than
any of them, because he knows that the deck was
stacked against him in this series, and he knows that
he had to tap into a level of basketball that
(07:28):
he had never played before in this at this stage
and with this talent situation, and he was able to
do it to extend this series. Series is not over.
I'm still picking Golden State in seven like I did
since the beginning, because I kind of saw a lot
of these things that Boston did tonight coming. But I
just wanted to give a shout out to Steph. That's
my favorite thing about the game of basketball, seeing an
(07:51):
all time great, pantheon level player, with his back against
the wall at a disadvantage, tap into a level of
greatness that carries his team to the victory. That to
me is is what that That to me is the
nuts and bolts of NBA history, and we're very fortunate
to have like four of those guys, like four solid
(08:12):
Pantheon guys and Katie, Stephan, Lebron, and Janice all in
the league at the same time. But to get to
see Steph do that tonight, it was a pleasure to watch.
It was incredible. I I I just I just sat
back and then I enjoyed it. You know, one of
the interesting phenomenon that's going on in this series is
this drop coverage that Boston is playing, and you know,
(08:33):
there's pros and cons to it. You know, you guys
have heard me go over this in my in my
film studies, and there's a bunch of different ways that
it's impacting the Warriors negatively, right, Like, I'm gonna get
into Draymond later in the show, because Draymond had a
pretty bad offensive night again for the second consecutive game.
Really for the whole series, he's been ineffective offensively. A
(08:54):
huge part of that is because Boston is running such
a deep drop coverage. You know, Boston is essentially saying
we are not going to give Draymond the four on
three opportunities and well, we'll get more into that later
in the show, but that's one negative impact on Golden
State from the drop coverage. Right. The other thing, too,
is it's forcing Steph and Jordan Pool and a lot
(09:16):
of these guys to take and make tough shots that
they have to create for themselves. Tonight, the Warriors made
forty shots, only twenty of them were assisted, so that's half.
This is a team in the Warriors that lad the
league in assist percentage this year. Six of their field
goals this year were assisted. One of the ways that
(09:38):
Boston's coverage is throwing Golden State off is it's getting
them out of their system where there where the balls
popping around and everyone's touching it and there's lots of
driving and cutting and lay ups and dunks and all
those different things. The coverage that Boston is going with
is taking Golden State out of that system. They're forcing
(09:59):
Golden State to play a style of basketball that they
don't want to play. But there was a huge potential
downside to that, and I went over this on the
show a couple of times over the course of the
series and before the series. If you let the two
best shooters to ever touch a basketball, come free and
(10:20):
clear off of ball screens and pin downs where the
only pressure is behind. They're going to make you pay.
And they have. One of the huge downsides of them
going to that coverage in this series is they allowed
Staph in his on ball situations to be very comfortable.
(10:40):
I've talked about this before with you guys, but if
you're a great shooter, a contest doesn't matter if it's late,
a contest from behind, a contest from the front, and
contest from the side, if it's late, it does not matter.
There is one thing that bothers a good shooter, and
that is getting in their airspace. You absolutely must stay
(11:01):
persistently connected to a good shooter so that even when
he's going into his gather to pull the ball up
into the shooting pocket, he's worried about where your hands are,
or he's fumbling the basketball, or he's in his own
head about just getting to his release. But if you
let them get to their release, Stephen Clay will make
you pay every single time. And we have back to
(11:24):
back games where you're getting, you know, almost sixty points
out of Stephen Clay, and you know, I I've been
super critical if emad Udoka throughout the whole series, and
I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure those things I mentioned
earlier are exactly what he's telling his team. Hey guys,
I know Steps making shots, but hey, Draymond is in
his head not playing well. Hey guys, and no steps
(11:46):
making shots, but they only have you know, they're only
getting assists on half of their baskets. I'm sure that's
the stuff he's saying. But to me, like the idea
of let guys, Steph Curry has seen a draft coverage
like twice in the playoffs in the last decade. It
was like against the two thousand eighteen or two thousand
(12:07):
nineteen Blazers when they had Enis Canter who was just
physically incapable of sitting up at the level of the screen,
and then the two thousand thirteen Spurs who had Duncan
sitting way back like that, Like, no one does this.
What you're seeing Boston due to Golden State defensively is
something nobody does and it's super interesting. And you know,
(12:29):
I I'm sure em Judoka is more concerned about the
offensive end, and we're gonna get into that here in
a few minutes, and he's probably right to a certain extent.
And if Boston goes into Game five with the same
game plan but plays better offensively, they might win. But
I I disagreed with the strategy, and here we are
through four games of the series and it's too too
(12:51):
And kudos to Steph for making them pay consistently for
that coverage. I talked about, you know, uh me into
tonight's show in my little film session yesterday. I talked
about how Steph desperately needed some sort of offensive production
elsewhere on the floor because of the fact that Boston
(13:12):
is making Golden State play self creation basketball. Steph can't
score a hundred and twenty points in a game or
a hundred and ten points in a game, so he
needed production elsewhere and he got it tonight. Andrew Wiggins,
I thought, was fantastic, just another really solid game. I saw,
you know, I saw someone on Twitter today talking about
Jeremy Grant like, oh, what's Jeremy Grant for in the
(13:35):
this coming this summer? Like what's he worth? And I
was sitting there thinking, like, man, if you watch Andrew
Wiggins in this NBA Finals, if you are I don't
even care if you're inconsistent offensively or if you've got
a tough shot profile. It's like, if you are a
six eight to six nine freak athlete with long arms
that can defend multiple positions and just is okay scoring
the basketball, you're gonna be a super valuable player in
(13:58):
these playoffs series. And Andrew Wiggins, I I've said this
before on the show, but I think he's the second
best player on this team right now, which is just
an absolutely wild thing to say, given you know where
this team was a couple of years ago, you know,
with when Kevin Durant left and they brought back D'Angelo
(14:19):
Russell and and then they flipped Angelo Russell for Wiggins,
and you're thinking, oh, maybe we can convert him into
a two way wing. No, no no, no, he's He's become
a much better version of what Harrison Barnes was for
this team. Jordan Poole fantastic and fourteen tonight, ten in
the first half, huge plays in that second quarter when
Steph was on the bench to float Golden State, and
(14:43):
then Clay Thompson had eight team just in general, you know,
I was talking with a couple of people coming into
this game, about what Golden State's best chance to win was.
And as I've consistently said throughout this entire playoff run,
Boston is just so inconsistent with their decision making. Like
they've played consecutive good games twice in this playoff run,
(15:05):
the entire first round against the Brooklyn Nets and the
game six in Game seven against Milwaukee. Outside of that,
it has literally been this up and down nature for
Boston's offense. And so I knew that if Golden State
could just keep it close, if they could just keep
(15:27):
it close, Boston would soil themselves, and they did. I
tweeted out before I put it in my series prey
view that one of the big indicators of the way
this series would go is how many close games there are.
Boston coming into the NBA Finals was a negative net
rating team in clutch situations when the game is within
(15:49):
five points with less than five minutes remaining. That that
they've shown that throughout basically this entire Tatum Brown era,
and it was shown again in this playoff run. They
are a bad clutch basketball team coming into this series.
Golden State. I can't remember the exact number, but it
was right around plus twelve net rating and clutch situations
(16:10):
both teams right around thirty minutes for the whole playoff run.
They are a good clutch basketball team. So I knew
that if Boston got into a dog fight in any
one of these games, it would be a massive advantage
for Golden State. So I had a feeling tonight if
they could just keep things close. And again, Boston kept
them at arms length most of the night. They jumped
(16:31):
up I think eleven to four for the most part.
You're peeking at the scoreboard, it's a five or six
point game almost almost two thirds three quarters of the
way through the game. But they just couldn't blow that
six point lead to fifteen or sixteen. Right if they
would have gotten it up to fifteen or sixteen, all
of a sudden, those clutch situations don't matter anymore. But
they couldn't get there. They weren't able to deliver the
(16:54):
killing blow, and so they kept it close. And when
it comes down to close game is at the end.
It becomes about execution. And as I've said persistently throughout
this playoff run, the Boston Celtics are a poorly disciplined,
bad execution team. You know, like I've had all these people,
(17:15):
mainly Heat fans and and Milwaukee fans, say things like,
you know, if Boston is a good team, why do
they keep having these kinds of things happen? And there's
a lot of truth to that, Like good basketball teams,
you're not. If I could bottle up the best version
of Boston, then yeah, they look like the best team,
(17:37):
but they don't hit that very often. If you're a
team that every other night is either great or something
way less than great, then the reality of who you
are is right in the middle, right, And so I'm
not I'm not the least bit surprised that this is
the way that they decided to come out and play tonight.
I thought, you know what I was I was talking
(17:57):
to a friend of mine named Tommy I used to
do my show with about a year and a half ago,
and you know when originally we were you know, essentially
we were talking about what this game would go like.
And one of the things that I initially what I
what I was saying to him was initially in the
first few minutes of the game, like first quarter, if
(18:18):
Golden State tightened up on defense, if they went heavy
into hand checking, holding, guys on the perimeter and preventing
the driving lines. Steve Kurt talked about this a lot
uh in last game. Their perimeter contained their point of
attack defense. When they're when they give up slashes from
the perimeter easy driving lanes, they have to help hard.
(18:41):
When they have to help hard, there's easy kickouts. Then
Boston gets in their driving kick game. When Golden State
just offers a little bit of resistance on the perimeter,
suddenly those slashes turned into like banana drives where you're
you're having to mess around with the basketball more. As
you try to punch through the hole. There's contact and
(19:02):
and you're like caught on the shoulder and you're you're
getting around the guy, but it's like slowly and as
a result, the defense doesn't have too hard help. They
can do what Golden State wants to do, which is
lunge in and recover, you know, stunt and recover and
try to prey on your indecisiveness. And so I was
talking to Tommy before the game and I was like,
(19:23):
if they can defend really well early, they will trigger
Boston's bad defensive tendencies as a team that likes to
settle for shots and turn the ball over and do
all the stupid things that they do. And ironically, I've
vehemently disagreed with Steve Kerr starting small. He started Auto
Porter Jr. Over Kevon Looney, and I disagreed with that.
(19:45):
They were minus eight and eight minutes with Looney and
Draymond in Game three, but it was a bad game
on the road, and they were plus nineteen in the
first two games with that group. But to curse credit,
he noticed immediately it wasn't working. They were too small,
boss and one up eleven four, and he took an
early time out and he got Kevon Looney back into
the game. They went big. They finally settled in defensively,
(20:08):
they started getting stops. That perimeter contained from Golden State
is going to be a huge indicator for us to
watch over the last three games of this series. How
good of a job Golden State does. Stopping the slashing
of Boston is a great indicator of their overall defensive
ability to handle this team. So I want to give
a lot of credit to Golden State and the job
(20:30):
that they did. Um and and that's why I always
will lead the show that way. But to me, another
huge story in this game was Boston's offensive approach. And
I want to start with Jayson Tatum because obviously there's
a lot of stuff I want to get into. Uh.
But you know, if you guys listen to my film
(20:52):
session yesterday, at the end, I ripped through my list
of adjustments and we we sent out a social clip
today of the Warriors one. But I had a Austin
won as well. And one of the things that I
put in that set of adjustments was show Tatum the
stat that I read earlier in the show, which is
when Tatum has at least seven assists, the Boston Celtics
(21:14):
are undefeated in this playoff run and have won fifteen
consecutive games overall and have only lost twice in the
entire season in games or has at least seven assists.
Because in the modern n B A your three level
score gunner type can't be your number one CC Devin Booker,
(21:37):
you know, like you need your number one to be
a point forward. Your number one needs to be a
guy who willingly embraces the role of getting his teammates involved.
And from the jump tonight, I tweeted it out Tatum
was flat out gunning and it was a super predictable outcome.
I went on with live moods from UH from our
(22:00):
UH from our company who just gambling stuff for us.
She's awesome. And we were talking about this before the game,
and I said, take the over on Tatum. He's gonna
want finals m v P. Jalen Brown is leading him
and scoring to this point, He's gonna gun And he did,
and so guess what He ended up finishing the game,
I believe, with twenty three shot attempts and only six
(22:21):
assists to go with six turnovers. And guys like that,
box score doesn't even tell the story. If you watched
Tatum tonight, you could tell he cared about one thing primarily,
and it was getting his offense off and as a result,
and I'll be I'll be really interested to pull up
the numbers after the game when NBA dot Com updates
their stats, because in game one, Tatum only took five
(22:43):
pull up jump shots, and then in game two he
took eleven pull up jump shots. My guess is that
when I look at the numbers, Tatum will have taken
close to ten, if not more, pull up jump shots,
which again for a big forward who has got the
best combination of offensive skill set and physical tools on
the floor to take eleven pull up jump shots in
(23:04):
an NBA Finals game is one massive case of settling.
You know Jlen Brown I I he was my long
shot pick for Finals MVP. I was shotting him out
before Game three because he was plus seven fifty on
found on fan duel to win Finals MVP. He's been
better than Tatum in this series. And one of the
big reasons why is his job on this team is
(23:25):
too gun and so like when he gets the ball,
there's no nonsense, it's he's just slashing into the lane.
He's a he's a much better you know Tatum. His
finishing around the rim. Tatum is finishing around the rim
in this series has been atrocious because he's so he's
shying away from contact. He's more concerned about like extending
(23:46):
out and around people rather than going into people. One
of the things that makes Jalen Brown such a great
finisher is he's not going to change his slashing lane
based on you. He's going to the rim. If you're
in his way, he'll go through you. But there's a
lot of Tatum like kind of extending around and kind
of going with these finesse, crafty finishes and when they
(24:10):
go in they look great. But in a game like
tonight where he's getting bumped a little bit around the
ram and they're not calling it, which no no advantage
to anybody because no one's getting those calls, he started
smoking all those lay ups and it ended up being
a problem. And that again, guys, like down the stretch
of this series, there is one way that Boston wins,
(24:31):
and it's if Jason Tatum embraces his role on this team,
which is to be the playmaker. Another huge problem for
Boston in this game. You know, shot selection obviously was
an issue, Tatum taking crazy Kobe fadeaways when hey man,
Kobe is the top five player of all time. Okay,
Like that's why he's able to rely on a steady
(24:53):
diet of those kinds of shots. But like, another big
problem here is over penetration. So I thought that Jeff
Van Gandhi did a really good job of breaking this
down for you guys on the broadcast last game in
Game three. But there there's a difference between making an
early pass and over penetrating. When you get an advantage
(25:13):
on a on a defender as you start to get
going downhill towards the rim, the defense begins to collapse
on you. As they're beginning to collapse, that's the time
to throw the pass because at that point the defenders,
all the health defenders, are already stunting into the lane.
If you hit an on time, on target pass to
a guy on the perimeter, he will catch with the
(25:34):
defender closing out at him and have a good chance
to either knock down a shot or extend the advantage.
But if you take an extra dribble and go deeper
into the defense, now the defense collapses around you. Now
you have to make the pass over length. And when
you're making the pass over length in a crowd, it's
(25:54):
much harder to hit the guy on time and on target.
So yes, the defenders are sucked in more, and so
obviously there's a little bit more of an initial advantage.
But by the time your lollipop pass gets out there,
it's really easy for people to recover and in a
lot of cases get steals, which is what happened a
lot tonight lollipop passes from Tatum or Brown that got
(26:18):
picked off and ran the other way. And so that's
why like their their approach has to be I mean
Jalen Brown gunning that works. That's his role on this team.
But for Tatum in particular, it's hey, man, bring the
ball up the floor. If you're gonna run a ball screen, fine,
but once you start to get downhill, move the ball
and relocate, you're gonna get your offense when the ball
gets back to you, and then someone will be closing
(26:41):
out at you, and you, as a top ten player
in the league, will have an awesome time capitalizing on
defensive on advantages when the dude's closing out at you.
That that approach is the is the number one indicator
of how well this team plays, because as soon as
they start taking bad shots at shots lead to long rebounds.
(27:02):
Long rebounds lead to transition opportunities in Golden State is
barbecuing you and transition. Through three games, Boston has been
a much better half court offense team according to Cleaning
the Glass, and Golden State has been. But Golden State
has a massive advantage in transition because Boston is a
bad transition team, like we've talked about, so lollipop passes
that get picked off for turnovers where Golden State runs
(27:22):
down the other way. In scores and bad shots that
go clanking off the rim and sends Golden State running
the other way. In transition, those allow Golden State to
get easy shots. Now you're taking the ball out of
the net and you're walking it back up against Golden
States set defense. It's a cat scading effect. It makes
things significantly more difficult, and you know, you know, and
(27:43):
there were just all these sequences during the game that
I just didn't understand Tatum. It was in the first half.
Tatum gets the Elites a on a on a switch
on the left wing and has all the space in
the world to attack, but Draymond comes over and zones
up on the left block. So essentially Raymond bandon his
man and stood right outside the lane, basically saying, if
(28:04):
you drive left, I'm right here. But instead of driving
right and making a kickout pass to somebody, he just
picked up his dribble, at which point the entire Beeli's
have pressed up on him and he threw a lazy
cross court skip pass that immediately got stolen. And then
on the very next possession, he comes down and does
one of those over penetration plays that I'm talking about,
(28:26):
gets deep into the lane and tries to throw his
skip pass over two defenders that close in on him,
and he turns it over again. There's a playlet uh
in the late second half where Marcus Smart, you guys
probably remember this one, did that stupid bs pump, fake
foul drifting, try to draw a foul and Steph Curry
thing that which never works and certainly isn't gonna work
(28:46):
in the finals. And then they ran down and Tatum
on a on a ball that went out of bounds,
saved the ball under his own basket directly to Gary Payton,
and Gary Payton gotta lay up. That's two things that
any basketball coach at any level of basketball will tell
you not to do. Don't foul grift because you're putting
the outcome in the whistle which you're probably not gonna get,
and never save the ball under your own basket. And
(29:09):
just in general, I thought Boston every time they're in
the fourth quarter, Tatum and Brown repeatedly getting be Eliza
on switches and taking pull up jump shots like difficult
pull up jump shots against Golden State's worst defender. Now
credit to be Eliza. He's getting them to settle by
giving them space and tricking them into thinking their best
(29:30):
option is to shoot. But that's bad process from Boston,
so inflammation guys like I was. It was amazing to
see Steff dig deep and reach the level of basketball
that we don't see very often, and as a result,
a Pantheon performance from a guy that if he gets
this trophy he will have a level of appreciation for
(29:53):
this one that's different than the others, because here he
is in the finals as an underdog at full strength
for the first time maybe since the Toronto Raptors series. Right,
and and and they got a lot of good help,
a lot of uh production from Clay and Andrew Wiggins.
Jordan Poole was great. Um, their defense was much better.
(30:15):
And then textbook Boston up and down offensive approach, a
great offensive approach in Game three, driving and slashing and kicking,
and then back to the regular bullshit in Game four.
And it's just it's just classic stuff. Um. I wanted
to talk about Draymond Green for a minute. You know,
(30:35):
I I don't spend nearly as much time getting into
the arguments with people on Twitter as I used to,
but I do pay attention and I scrolled through the
fees just to get a feel for what you guys
are talking about, to see if there's anything that's worth
talking about on the show. And you know, Draymond here,
(30:56):
the podcast thing is just stupid. I don't know what
to tell you, guys, Like, if you think a Draymond
hopping on a podcast on the night after games to
talk about how the game is going or the series
is going, is somehow affecting his play, I can't help you.
You're beyond help. You're being completely unreasonable. I don't know
how to tell you. But there's been a lot of
(31:16):
criticism of Draymond's play, particularly on the offensive end of
the floor. Now, here's the deal, Like, Draymond works for us,
But I've always felt like, as long as I keep
it to basketball, it's fair game. I know Draymond isn't
gonna have a problem with me criticizing something that I
think is happening on the basketball court. Draymond has not
(31:39):
been good on the offensive end in this series. But
there's a couple of things that I think are relevant here.
First of all, Draymond hasn't been a great offensive player
pretty much since two thousand seventeen, maybe not even two
thousand and sixteen, So like this kind of he's always
been for the better part of a half decade now,
(32:00):
a guy who's a very inconsistent to flat out unreliable
perimeter shooter, who struggles to finish around the rim, and
doesn't have much of a mid range pull up floater game,
things like that. But that's always been part of who
he is, and he still is the monumentally impactful basketball
player that he's always been. Guys, the Warriors have been
(32:20):
better in this series with Draymond on the floor than
they've been with him off the floor. So for whatever
you guys think about him on the offensive end, he's
still impacting winning. Draymond has never been the guy that
you look at the box score for. He said that
on his show the other night, and I agree with it.
He that you you points, rebounds and assists aren't gonna
mean anything for Draymond's impact on the game. First of all,
(32:42):
rebounds have become the fakest stat and all of basketball
because the guys doing the actual work fighting in box
outs never get rebounds. It's the wings and guards crashing
from the perimeter that end up getting all the rebounds
for the most part. So like like that's irrelevant, and
then the assist thing. We hinted at this at the
top of the oh it's a matchup thing. One of
(33:03):
the reasons why Draymond is top ten all time in
NBA Finals assists is the fact that almost every team
that has played against the Golden State Warriors in the
playoffs has opted to aggressively guard staff and pick and roll.
As a result, they have a ton of four on
(33:24):
three opportunities and Draymond Green is one of the better
passing big men to ever play, and if you let
him roll down the middle of the floor and four
on threees, he's a very valuable offensive player. But as
we talked talked about at the start of the show,
Boston has taken those opportunities away by playing in their
drop coverage, which has forced the Warriors to play more
(33:47):
isolation heavy basketball, which is why they're assist percentages tanked
in this series. So one of the huge elements of
Draymond's offensive value, which is short role man, is irrelevant
in this series. So it's just a matchup thing. The
extent of what he can bring offensively now is being
a screener, which is still very good at. By the way,
(34:09):
a lot of these shots these guys are getting are
them coming off of screens from Draymond Green and then
crashing the offensive class, which you got a couple of
big offensive rebounds in this game as well. But my
point is it's like, look, Draymond hasn't been good offensively
in this series. He knows it, he'll be the first
to tell you, but this isn't the series for him
to score. If anything, there were a couple of shots
(34:31):
he took tonight where I just thought they weren't the
shots that he should have taken. In this particular game.
With the way Boston is guarding Golden State, Draymond's offensive
value is marginalized. But the flip side of that is
Steph and Clay are getting free and clear looks flying
off screens. It's all every time you have a defensive
scheme that you choose, there is a give and there
(34:51):
is a take. If you opt to throw the kitchen
sink at the Star, you're probably gonna have a lot
of role players go off. If you opt to throw
the chicken, just a home everywhere and let the Star
get whatever he wants. The Star is gonna put up
big numbers and other guys will struggle what has happened
in this series. Steph has had a monumentally amazing statistical
offensive series, and everyone else on the team has been
(35:13):
inconsistent too bat except for Andrew Wiggins, so that that
that's just kind of how the tradeoff works there. But again,
and this is the thing, this is what I would say,
Draymond has still been unbelievable defensively in this series. Yes,
Jalen Brown has made a bunch of really tough shots
over the top of him. He made two impossible fadeaways
over the top of Draymond today and then in the
(35:36):
in the last game he hit like a tough like
eurostep floater, and then he had one really nice slashing
driving lay up with his left hand. But the point
is is guys like Draymond is part of the reason
guarding Jaylen Brown that they haven't had that good of
an offensive series. So all I'm saying is like, as
Draymond played well, no, he's played below his standards. He
hasn't been good on the offensive end. The Warriors statistically
(35:59):
have still been much better here with him on the
floor than when he's off the floor. And his impact
is not something you can measure with the box score,
So stop looking there. That's not the place to look.
And here you are in a series against the team
that has more two way talent than you, and you
are tied at too with home court advantage, So just
count your blessings. This is basically all I'm saying. So
(36:21):
it looks like Golden State is a three and a
half point favorite in Game five. If I'm reading that correctly,
let me check. Yes, Golden State is a three and
a half point Sorry, tiny font issues. Golden State is
a three and a half point favorite in Game five.
I am picking Golden State because I don't trust Boston,
(36:41):
but make no mistake, Boston is very capable of winning
this series. My thing is two games at home for
Golden State. Boston's inability to execute at the end of
basketball games. All Golden State has to do is keep
things close, and they're at a huge advantage. I like.
I like Golden State in Game five. But if so,
(37:02):
if Boston comes out and Tatum comes out playing the
role of the playmaker, and Jalen Brown comes out being
the same aggressive force that he has been, and the
team overall plays the style of basketball they need to play,
Boston is very capable of winning this game. And one
of the note guys Boston has is yet to lose
consecutive games in this in this entire playoff run, So
(37:23):
that would be one hell of an accomplishment for Golden
State if they won Game five, to be the first
team in this playoff field to beat Boston two times
in a row. But I mean again, a couple of
things to look at Tatum's assists. He's got to have
seven or more assists. It's just a classic indicator of
his approach to the game. Another thing to watch Tatum's
pull up jump shots. I'm excited to look at the
(37:44):
stats after uh they get updated on the NBA dot com.
When Tatum's pull up jumpers are lower, it's an indicator
of his overall offensive approach. And Then, last, but not least,
Boston has to just take care of the basketball for
Golden State. Keep playing big more Looney and Draymond. I
know it hurts their spacing, but they just play better
(38:05):
on defense with the two of them on the floor.
Most importantly, when you're giving up the physical mismatches you're
giving up on the perimeter, you need to make up
for that elsewhere on the floor. But I mean, this
is coming into this series, is the last thing I'll say,
and then we'll call it tonight. Coming into the series,
I said that my head wanted me to pick Boston,
but my heart wanted me to pick Golden State. And
(38:28):
the reason why I said that is I genuinely am
a believer in Boston's roster construction and their two way talent.
But persistently they've demonstrated they are a poor execution and
poorly disciplined team. And so what did I say, guys,
Like they're up to one of the series is not over.
If they go back to two, you have two games
(38:48):
at home for Golden State, and I'm gonna trust the
experienced team that's been here before, that has the pain
of loss, that has the requisite scar tissue, that understands
that they can't afford to make the kinds of mistakes
at Boston has willingly stepped into and made all right, guys,
that is all I have for tonight. Like I said, Uh,
Colin Coward and I will both be back for Game
(39:09):
five postgame show on Monday, which should just be another
incredible NBA Finals basketball game. Uh. Sometime in the mid
morning tomorrow, I will have you know twelve fifteen minutes
of additional film study out on YouTube. To keep an
eye out for that, subscribe to The Volume's YouTube channel
if you haven't already, follow me on Twitter at underscore
Jason lt S. You guys can see me live tweet
(39:30):
through the games, as well as some of my video analysis.
And if you missed part of the show for whatever
reason and you can't get back to YouTube, go to
my podcast fee which for the time being is under
Lakers Tonight. As always, guys, I can't possibly express how
much I appreciate you supporting me, and supporting the show
and supporting our company. I'm having a blast, I'm excited
for Game five, and I will see you guys on Monday.
(40:01):
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(02:19):
welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume.
Happy Friday, everybody. I appreciate you all coming to hang
out after an incredible NBA Finals game, the best game
of this series by far. No calling coward tonight, but
we will both be back on Monday. Night. For those
of you guys who have been liking the film deep
Dives that I've been doing on the day after the finals,
(02:39):
I still will do one of those tomorrow. I will
get into the tape either later tonight or tomorrow morning
and get something out to you. Won't be as long
and detailed as those other ones, worse since I can
get into a lot of stuff tonight, but I will
do one of those tomorrow as well, really quickly. Before
we get started. Make sure you guys subscribe to the
Volumes YouTube channel so you guys don't miss any more
of our Follow me on Twitter that underscore Jason lt
(03:02):
so you guys can see all the video content and
my live tweets throughout the games, and last but not least,
if you miss part of this show and you guys
can't get back to YouTube for whatever reason, follow our
podcast feed, which for the time being is under Lakers tonight.
So you know, I was listening to gosh I I
think I was just scrolling through Twitter and I saw
a clip of Brian Windhorse from ESPN talking about how
(03:28):
you know, oh, I bet you Lebron is sitting somewhere
talking about how oh look at the shoes on the
other foot for Steph. Steph doesn't have as much talent anymore.
Like I bet you he's sitting there doing the cheers
with this buddy's about it, and I'm not going to
get into that kind of stuff. You guys know how
I feel about, you know, the taky type of analysis
(03:50):
when it comes to basketball. I tend to think that
everyone is kind of unfair on that front. You know,
all the Warriors fans were unfair to Lebron those years,
and all the Lebron fans be unfair to staph in
recent years. It just doesn't interest me. But you know
what did interest me when I heard that is, you know,
one of the things I didn't like about when Katie
(04:11):
went to the Warriors was there was no real adversity,
you know, like like the closest thing was then being
down three two to the Rockets, and and then Chris
Paul went down and so then they had a massive
talent advantage in the last two games, and so it
just it just didn't you know, I never really saw
anybody on Golden States roster have to really tap into anything.
(04:34):
And what I've always appreciated about the game of basketball
is the way that an individual player can have such
a monumental impact on winning. That's why star powers so valuable,
valuable in the NBA, and it's one of the things
that that makes the framework of NBA history and it's
why we all love the game so much. And for
(04:55):
every player, every great player that I've seen in NBA history,
it's when the it's when they're not at an advantage,
when the deck is stacked against them, that you see
these individual players tap into a level of greatness that
is above and beyond even what I think they thought
(05:16):
they were capable of. You know, like the game to
Lebron in two thousand twelve, or game excuse me, Game
six Lebron in two thousand twelve going into Boston and
scoring thirty points in the first half to save his
team from a humiliating loss to the Boston Celtics. You
think you know? Kevin Durant last year against the Milwaukee
(05:36):
Bucks at a massive talented a disadvantage, tapping into a
level of basketball that we've barely seen throughout NBA history.
Jana's Antenna Gumpo this year without Chris Middleton at a
massive talent disadvantage against the Boston Celtics put on a
performance in the Eastern Conference semifinals that was as good
of a performance and a losing effort as I've ever seen.
(05:59):
And then night on the road in Boston in a
bad matchup for the Golden State Warriors against the team
that I believe has a little bit more to a talent.
In a situation where he's not getting consistent help from anybody,
Steph Curry rose to the occasion and tapped into something
that amounted to a legendary performance. That's why I'm a
(06:23):
fan of parody. That's why I don't like it when
I see teams like the two thousand seventeen two thousand
eighteen Warriors that are so incredibly talented that they can
bring an eight percent effort and win a title. You know,
Like in two thousand seventeen, they tried and literally won
fifteen consecutive playoff games like that's insane, right, And it
took like one threes from the Calves in Game four
(06:45):
of the finals just to extend that series to an
inevitable loss in Game five, right, And then in two
thousand eighteen, they brought trash effort, like a significantly lower
effort than they did the previous year and still won
the title, and I and I I just I've always
I've always thought that that was just a little bit cheap,
Like it just doesn't it just doesn't have that same
(07:06):
you know, adversity is what makes it so that when
you get the trophy, it's that much more special. And
you know, they can say whatever they want. I promise you,
if Steph gets this one, it will feel sweeter than
any of them, because he knows that the deck was
stacked against him in this series, and he knows that
he had to tap into a level of basketball that
(07:28):
he had never played before in this at this stage
and with this talent situation, and he was able to
do it to extend this series. Series is not over.
I'm still picking Golden State in seven like I did
since the beginning, because I kind of saw a lot
of these things that Boston did tonight coming. But I
just wanted to give a shout out to Steph. That's
my favorite thing about the game of basketball, seeing an
(07:51):
all time great, pantheon level player, with his back against
the wall at a disadvantage, tap into a level of
greatness that carries his team to the victory. That to
me is is what that That to me is the
nuts and bolts of NBA history, and we're very fortunate
to have like four of those guys, like four solid
(08:12):
Pantheon guys and Katie, Stephan, Lebron, and Janice all in
the league at the same time. But to get to
see Steph do that tonight, it was a pleasure to watch.
It was incredible. I I I just I just sat
back and then I enjoyed it. You know, one of
the interesting phenomenon that's going on in this series is
this drop coverage that Boston is playing, and you know,
(08:33):
there's pros and cons to it. You know, you guys
have heard me go over this in my in my
film studies, and there's a bunch of different ways that
it's impacting the Warriors negatively, right, Like, I'm gonna get
into Draymond later in the show, because Draymond had a
pretty bad offensive night again for the second consecutive game.
Really for the whole series, he's been ineffective offensively. A
(08:54):
huge part of that is because Boston is running such
a deep drop coverage. You know, Boston is essentially saying
we are not going to give Draymond the four on
three opportunities and well, we'll get more into that later
in the show, but that's one negative impact on Golden
State from the drop coverage. Right. The other thing, too,
is it's forcing Steph and Jordan Pool and a lot
(09:16):
of these guys to take and make tough shots that
they have to create for themselves. Tonight, the Warriors made
forty shots, only twenty of them were assisted, so that's half.
This is a team in the Warriors that lad the
league in assist percentage this year. Six of their field
goals this year were assisted. One of the ways that
(09:38):
Boston's coverage is throwing Golden State off is it's getting
them out of their system where there where the balls
popping around and everyone's touching it and there's lots of
driving and cutting and lay ups and dunks and all
those different things. The coverage that Boston is going with
is taking Golden State out of that system. They're forcing
(09:59):
Golden State to play a style of basketball that they
don't want to play. But there was a huge potential
downside to that, and I went over this on the
show a couple of times over the course of the
series and before the series. If you let the two
best shooters to ever touch a basketball, come free and
(10:20):
clear off of ball screens and pin downs where the
only pressure is behind. They're going to make you pay.
And they have. One of the huge downsides of them
going to that coverage in this series is they allowed
Staph in his on ball situations to be very comfortable.
(10:40):
I've talked about this before with you guys, but if
you're a great shooter, a contest doesn't matter if it's late,
a contest from behind, a contest from the front, and
contest from the side, if it's late, it does not matter.
There is one thing that bothers a good shooter, and
that is getting in their airspace. You absolutely must stay
(11:01):
persistently connected to a good shooter so that even when
he's going into his gather to pull the ball up
into the shooting pocket, he's worried about where your hands are,
or he's fumbling the basketball, or he's in his own
head about just getting to his release. But if you
let them get to their release, Stephen Clay will make
you pay every single time. And we have back to
(11:24):
back games where you're getting, you know, almost sixty points
out of Stephen Clay, and you know, I I've been
super critical if emad Udoka throughout the whole series, and
I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure those things I mentioned
earlier are exactly what he's telling his team. Hey guys,
I know Steps making shots, but hey, Draymond is in
his head not playing well. Hey guys, and no steps
(11:46):
making shots, but they only have you know, they're only
getting assists on half of their baskets. I'm sure that's
the stuff he's saying. But to me, like the idea
of let guys, Steph Curry has seen a draft coverage
like twice in the playoffs in the last decade. It
was like against the two thousand eighteen or two thousand
(12:07):
nineteen Blazers when they had Enis Canter who was just
physically incapable of sitting up at the level of the screen,
and then the two thousand thirteen Spurs who had Duncan
sitting way back like that, Like, no one does this.
What you're seeing Boston due to Golden State defensively is
something nobody does and it's super interesting. And you know,
(12:29):
I I'm sure em Judoka is more concerned about the
offensive end, and we're gonna get into that here in
a few minutes, and he's probably right to a certain extent.
And if Boston goes into Game five with the same
game plan but plays better offensively, they might win. But
I I disagreed with the strategy, and here we are
through four games of the series and it's too too
(12:51):
And kudos to Steph for making them pay consistently for
that coverage. I talked about, you know, uh me into
tonight's show in my little film session yesterday. I talked
about how Steph desperately needed some sort of offensive production
elsewhere on the floor because of the fact that Boston
(13:12):
is making Golden State play self creation basketball. Steph can't
score a hundred and twenty points in a game or
a hundred and ten points in a game, so he
needed production elsewhere and he got it tonight. Andrew Wiggins,
I thought, was fantastic, just another really solid game. I saw,
you know, I saw someone on Twitter today talking about
Jeremy Grant like, oh, what's Jeremy Grant for in the
(13:35):
this coming this summer? Like what's he worth? And I
was sitting there thinking, like, man, if you watch Andrew
Wiggins in this NBA Finals, if you are I don't
even care if you're inconsistent offensively or if you've got
a tough shot profile. It's like, if you are a
six eight to six nine freak athlete with long arms
that can defend multiple positions and just is okay scoring
the basketball, you're gonna be a super valuable player in
(13:58):
these playoffs series. And Andrew Wiggins, I I've said this
before on the show, but I think he's the second
best player on this team right now, which is just
an absolutely wild thing to say, given you know where
this team was a couple of years ago, you know,
with when Kevin Durant left and they brought back D'Angelo
(14:19):
Russell and and then they flipped Angelo Russell for Wiggins,
and you're thinking, oh, maybe we can convert him into
a two way wing. No, no no, no, he's He's become
a much better version of what Harrison Barnes was for
this team. Jordan Poole fantastic and fourteen tonight, ten in
the first half, huge plays in that second quarter when
Steph was on the bench to float Golden State, and
(14:43):
then Clay Thompson had eight team just in general, you know,
I was talking with a couple of people coming into
this game, about what Golden State's best chance to win was.
And as I've consistently said throughout this entire playoff run,
Boston is just so inconsistent with their decision making. Like
they've played consecutive good games twice in this playoff run,
(15:05):
the entire first round against the Brooklyn Nets and the
game six in Game seven against Milwaukee. Outside of that,
it has literally been this up and down nature for
Boston's offense. And so I knew that if Golden State
could just keep it close, if they could just keep
(15:27):
it close, Boston would soil themselves, and they did. I
tweeted out before I put it in my series prey
view that one of the big indicators of the way
this series would go is how many close games there are.
Boston coming into the NBA Finals was a negative net
rating team in clutch situations when the game is within
(15:49):
five points with less than five minutes remaining. That that
they've shown that throughout basically this entire Tatum Brown era,
and it was shown again in this playoff run. They
are a bad clutch basketball team coming into this series.
Golden State. I can't remember the exact number, but it
was right around plus twelve net rating and clutch situations
(16:10):
both teams right around thirty minutes for the whole playoff run.
They are a good clutch basketball team. So I knew
that if Boston got into a dog fight in any
one of these games, it would be a massive advantage
for Golden State. So I had a feeling tonight if
they could just keep things close. And again, Boston kept
them at arms length most of the night. They jumped
(16:31):
up I think eleven to four for the most part.
You're peeking at the scoreboard, it's a five or six
point game almost almost two thirds three quarters of the
way through the game. But they just couldn't blow that
six point lead to fifteen or sixteen. Right if they
would have gotten it up to fifteen or sixteen, all
of a sudden, those clutch situations don't matter anymore. But
they couldn't get there. They weren't able to deliver the
(16:54):
killing blow, and so they kept it close. And when
it comes down to close game is at the end.
It becomes about execution. And as I've said persistently throughout
this playoff run, the Boston Celtics are a poorly disciplined,
bad execution team. You know, like I've had all these people,
(17:15):
mainly Heat fans and and Milwaukee fans, say things like,
you know, if Boston is a good team, why do
they keep having these kinds of things happen? And there's
a lot of truth to that, Like good basketball teams,
you're not. If I could bottle up the best version
of Boston, then yeah, they look like the best team,
(17:37):
but they don't hit that very often. If you're a
team that every other night is either great or something
way less than great, then the reality of who you
are is right in the middle, right, And so I'm
not I'm not the least bit surprised that this is
the way that they decided to come out and play tonight.
I thought, you know what I was I was talking
(17:57):
to a friend of mine named Tommy I used to
do my show with about a year and a half ago,
and you know when originally we were you know, essentially
we were talking about what this game would go like.
And one of the things that I initially what I
what I was saying to him was initially in the
first few minutes of the game, like first quarter, if
(18:18):
Golden State tightened up on defense, if they went heavy
into hand checking, holding, guys on the perimeter and preventing
the driving lines. Steve Kurt talked about this a lot
uh in last game. Their perimeter contained their point of
attack defense. When they're when they give up slashes from
the perimeter easy driving lanes, they have to help hard.
(18:41):
When they have to help hard, there's easy kickouts. Then
Boston gets in their driving kick game. When Golden State
just offers a little bit of resistance on the perimeter,
suddenly those slashes turned into like banana drives where you're
you're having to mess around with the basketball more. As
you try to punch through the hole. There's contact and
(19:02):
and you're like caught on the shoulder and you're you're
getting around the guy, but it's like slowly and as
a result, the defense doesn't have too hard help. They
can do what Golden State wants to do, which is
lunge in and recover, you know, stunt and recover and
try to prey on your indecisiveness. And so I was
talking to Tommy before the game and I was like,
(19:23):
if they can defend really well early, they will trigger
Boston's bad defensive tendencies as a team that likes to
settle for shots and turn the ball over and do
all the stupid things that they do. And ironically, I've
vehemently disagreed with Steve Kerr starting small. He started Auto
Porter Jr. Over Kevon Looney, and I disagreed with that.
(19:45):
They were minus eight and eight minutes with Looney and
Draymond in Game three, but it was a bad game
on the road, and they were plus nineteen in the
first two games with that group. But to curse credit,
he noticed immediately it wasn't working. They were too small,
boss and one up eleven four, and he took an
early time out and he got Kevon Looney back into
the game. They went big. They finally settled in defensively,
(20:08):
they started getting stops. That perimeter contained from Golden State
is going to be a huge indicator for us to
watch over the last three games of this series. How
good of a job Golden State does. Stopping the slashing
of Boston is a great indicator of their overall defensive
ability to handle this team. So I want to give
a lot of credit to Golden State and the job
(20:30):
that they did. Um and and that's why I always
will lead the show that way. But to me, another
huge story in this game was Boston's offensive approach. And
I want to start with Jayson Tatum because obviously there's
a lot of stuff I want to get into. Uh.
But you know, if you guys listen to my film
(20:52):
session yesterday, at the end, I ripped through my list
of adjustments and we we sent out a social clip
today of the Warriors one. But I had a Austin
won as well. And one of the things that I
put in that set of adjustments was show Tatum the
stat that I read earlier in the show, which is
when Tatum has at least seven assists, the Boston Celtics
(21:14):
are undefeated in this playoff run and have won fifteen
consecutive games overall and have only lost twice in the
entire season in games or has at least seven assists.
Because in the modern n B A your three level
score gunner type can't be your number one CC Devin Booker,
(21:37):
you know, like you need your number one to be
a point forward. Your number one needs to be a
guy who willingly embraces the role of getting his teammates involved.
And from the jump tonight, I tweeted it out Tatum
was flat out gunning and it was a super predictable outcome.
I went on with live moods from UH from our
(22:00):
UH from our company who just gambling stuff for us.
She's awesome. And we were talking about this before the game,
and I said, take the over on Tatum. He's gonna
want finals m v P. Jalen Brown is leading him
and scoring to this point, He's gonna gun And he did,
and so guess what He ended up finishing the game,
I believe, with twenty three shot attempts and only six
(22:21):
assists to go with six turnovers. And guys like that,
box score doesn't even tell the story. If you watched
Tatum tonight, you could tell he cared about one thing primarily,
and it was getting his offense off and as a result,
and I'll be I'll be really interested to pull up
the numbers after the game when NBA dot Com updates
their stats, because in game one, Tatum only took five
(22:43):
pull up jump shots, and then in game two he
took eleven pull up jump shots. My guess is that
when I look at the numbers, Tatum will have taken
close to ten, if not more, pull up jump shots,
which again for a big forward who has got the
best combination of offensive skill set and physical tools on
the floor to take eleven pull up jump shots in
(23:04):
an NBA Finals game is one massive case of settling.
You know Jlen Brown I I he was my long
shot pick for Finals MVP. I was shotting him out
before Game three because he was plus seven fifty on
found on fan duel to win Finals MVP. He's been
better than Tatum in this series. And one of the
big reasons why is his job on this team is
(23:25):
too gun and so like when he gets the ball,
there's no nonsense, it's he's just slashing into the lane.
He's a he's a much better you know Tatum. His
finishing around the rim. Tatum is finishing around the rim
in this series has been atrocious because he's so he's
shying away from contact. He's more concerned about like extending
(23:46):
out and around people rather than going into people. One
of the things that makes Jalen Brown such a great
finisher is he's not going to change his slashing lane
based on you. He's going to the rim. If you're
in his way, he'll go through you. But there's a
lot of Tatum like kind of extending around and kind
of going with these finesse, crafty finishes and when they
(24:10):
go in they look great. But in a game like
tonight where he's getting bumped a little bit around the
ram and they're not calling it, which no no advantage
to anybody because no one's getting those calls, he started
smoking all those lay ups and it ended up being
a problem. And that again, guys, like down the stretch
of this series, there is one way that Boston wins,
(24:31):
and it's if Jason Tatum embraces his role on this team,
which is to be the playmaker. Another huge problem for
Boston in this game. You know, shot selection obviously was
an issue, Tatum taking crazy Kobe fadeaways when hey man,
Kobe is the top five player of all time. Okay,
Like that's why he's able to rely on a steady
(24:53):
diet of those kinds of shots. But like, another big
problem here is over penetration. So I thought that Jeff
Van Gandhi did a really good job of breaking this
down for you guys on the broadcast last game in
Game three. But there there's a difference between making an
early pass and over penetrating. When you get an advantage
(25:13):
on a on a defender as you start to get
going downhill towards the rim, the defense begins to collapse
on you. As they're beginning to collapse, that's the time
to throw the pass because at that point the defenders,
all the health defenders, are already stunting into the lane.
If you hit an on time, on target pass to
a guy on the perimeter, he will catch with the
(25:34):
defender closing out at him and have a good chance
to either knock down a shot or extend the advantage.
But if you take an extra dribble and go deeper
into the defense, now the defense collapses around you. Now
you have to make the pass over length. And when
you're making the pass over length in a crowd, it's
(25:54):
much harder to hit the guy on time and on target.
So yes, the defenders are sucked in more, and so
obviously there's a little bit more of an initial advantage.
But by the time your lollipop pass gets out there,
it's really easy for people to recover and in a
lot of cases get steals, which is what happened a
lot tonight lollipop passes from Tatum or Brown that got
(26:18):
picked off and ran the other way. And so that's
why like their their approach has to be I mean
Jalen Brown gunning that works. That's his role on this team.
But for Tatum in particular, it's hey, man, bring the
ball up the floor. If you're gonna run a ball screen, fine,
but once you start to get downhill, move the ball
and relocate, you're gonna get your offense when the ball
gets back to you, and then someone will be closing
(26:41):
out at you, and you, as a top ten player
in the league, will have an awesome time capitalizing on
defensive on advantages when the dude's closing out at you.
That that approach is the is the number one indicator
of how well this team plays, because as soon as
they start taking bad shots at shots lead to long rebounds.
(27:02):
Long rebounds lead to transition opportunities in Golden State is
barbecuing you and transition. Through three games, Boston has been
a much better half court offense team according to Cleaning
the Glass, and Golden State has been. But Golden State
has a massive advantage in transition because Boston is a
bad transition team, like we've talked about, so lollipop passes
that get picked off for turnovers where Golden State runs
(27:22):
down the other way. In scores and bad shots that
go clanking off the rim and sends Golden State running
the other way. In transition, those allow Golden State to
get easy shots. Now you're taking the ball out of
the net and you're walking it back up against Golden
States set defense. It's a cat scading effect. It makes
things significantly more difficult, and you know, you know, and
(27:43):
there were just all these sequences during the game that
I just didn't understand Tatum. It was in the first half.
Tatum gets the Elites a on a on a switch
on the left wing and has all the space in
the world to attack, but Draymond comes over and zones
up on the left block. So essentially Raymond bandon his
man and stood right outside the lane, basically saying, if
(28:04):
you drive left, I'm right here. But instead of driving
right and making a kickout pass to somebody, he just
picked up his dribble, at which point the entire Beeli's
have pressed up on him and he threw a lazy
cross court skip pass that immediately got stolen. And then
on the very next possession, he comes down and does
one of those over penetration plays that I'm talking about,
(28:26):
gets deep into the lane and tries to throw his
skip pass over two defenders that close in on him,
and he turns it over again. There's a playlet uh
in the late second half where Marcus Smart, you guys
probably remember this one, did that stupid bs pump, fake
foul drifting, try to draw a foul and Steph Curry
thing that which never works and certainly isn't gonna work
(28:46):
in the finals. And then they ran down and Tatum
on a on a ball that went out of bounds,
saved the ball under his own basket directly to Gary Payton,
and Gary Payton gotta lay up. That's two things that
any basketball coach at any level of basketball will tell
you not to do. Don't foul grift because you're putting
the outcome in the whistle which you're probably not gonna get,
and never save the ball under your own basket. And
(29:09):
just in general, I thought Boston every time they're in
the fourth quarter, Tatum and Brown repeatedly getting be Eliza
on switches and taking pull up jump shots like difficult
pull up jump shots against Golden State's worst defender. Now
credit to be Eliza. He's getting them to settle by
giving them space and tricking them into thinking their best
(29:30):
option is to shoot. But that's bad process from Boston,
so inflammation guys like I was. It was amazing to
see Steff dig deep and reach the level of basketball
that we don't see very often, and as a result,
a Pantheon performance from a guy that if he gets
this trophy he will have a level of appreciation for
(29:53):
this one that's different than the others, because here he
is in the finals as an underdog at full strength
for the first time maybe since the Toronto Raptors series. Right,
and and and they got a lot of good help,
a lot of uh production from Clay and Andrew Wiggins.
Jordan Poole was great. Um, their defense was much better.
(30:15):
And then textbook Boston up and down offensive approach, a
great offensive approach in Game three, driving and slashing and kicking,
and then back to the regular bullshit in Game four.
And it's just it's just classic stuff. Um. I wanted
to talk about Draymond Green for a minute. You know,
(30:35):
I I don't spend nearly as much time getting into
the arguments with people on Twitter as I used to,
but I do pay attention and I scrolled through the
fees just to get a feel for what you guys
are talking about, to see if there's anything that's worth
talking about on the show. And you know, Draymond here,
(30:56):
the podcast thing is just stupid. I don't know what
to tell you, guys, Like, if you think a Draymond
hopping on a podcast on the night after games to
talk about how the game is going or the series
is going, is somehow affecting his play, I can't help you.
You're beyond help. You're being completely unreasonable. I don't know
how to tell you. But there's been a lot of
(31:16):
criticism of Draymond's play, particularly on the offensive end of
the floor. Now, here's the deal, Like, Draymond works for us,
But I've always felt like, as long as I keep
it to basketball, it's fair game. I know Draymond isn't
gonna have a problem with me criticizing something that I
think is happening on the basketball court. Draymond has not
(31:39):
been good on the offensive end in this series. But
there's a couple of things that I think are relevant here.
First of all, Draymond hasn't been a great offensive player
pretty much since two thousand seventeen, maybe not even two
thousand and sixteen, So like this kind of he's always
been for the better part of a half decade now,
(32:00):
a guy who's a very inconsistent to flat out unreliable
perimeter shooter, who struggles to finish around the rim, and
doesn't have much of a mid range pull up floater game,
things like that. But that's always been part of who
he is, and he still is the monumentally impactful basketball
player that he's always been. Guys, the Warriors have been
(32:20):
better in this series with Draymond on the floor than
they've been with him off the floor. So for whatever
you guys think about him on the offensive end, he's
still impacting winning. Draymond has never been the guy that
you look at the box score for. He said that
on his show the other night, and I agree with it.
He that you you points, rebounds and assists aren't gonna
mean anything for Draymond's impact on the game. First of all,
(32:42):
rebounds have become the fakest stat and all of basketball
because the guys doing the actual work fighting in box
outs never get rebounds. It's the wings and guards crashing
from the perimeter that end up getting all the rebounds
for the most part. So like like that's irrelevant, and
then the assist thing. We hinted at this at the
top of the oh it's a matchup thing. One of
(33:03):
the reasons why Draymond is top ten all time in
NBA Finals assists is the fact that almost every team
that has played against the Golden State Warriors in the
playoffs has opted to aggressively guard staff and pick and roll.
As a result, they have a ton of four on
(33:24):
three opportunities and Draymond Green is one of the better
passing big men to ever play, and if you let
him roll down the middle of the floor and four
on threees, he's a very valuable offensive player. But as
we talked talked about at the start of the show,
Boston has taken those opportunities away by playing in their
drop coverage, which has forced the Warriors to play more
(33:47):
isolation heavy basketball, which is why they're assist percentages tanked
in this series. So one of the huge elements of
Draymond's offensive value, which is short role man, is irrelevant
in this series. So it's just a matchup thing. The
extent of what he can bring offensively now is being
a screener, which is still very good at. By the way,
(34:09):
a lot of these shots these guys are getting are
them coming off of screens from Draymond Green and then
crashing the offensive class, which you got a couple of
big offensive rebounds in this game as well. But my
point is it's like, look, Draymond hasn't been good offensively
in this series. He knows it, he'll be the first
to tell you, but this isn't the series for him
to score. If anything, there were a couple of shots
(34:31):
he took tonight where I just thought they weren't the
shots that he should have taken. In this particular game.
With the way Boston is guarding Golden State, Draymond's offensive
value is marginalized. But the flip side of that is
Steph and Clay are getting free and clear looks flying
off screens. It's all every time you have a defensive
scheme that you choose, there is a give and there
(34:51):
is a take. If you opt to throw the kitchen
sink at the Star, you're probably gonna have a lot
of role players go off. If you opt to throw
the chicken, just a home everywhere and let the Star
get whatever he wants. The Star is gonna put up
big numbers and other guys will struggle what has happened
in this series. Steph has had a monumentally amazing statistical
offensive series, and everyone else on the team has been
(35:13):
inconsistent too bat except for Andrew Wiggins, so that that
that's just kind of how the tradeoff works there. But again,
and this is the thing, this is what I would say,
Draymond has still been unbelievable defensively in this series. Yes,
Jalen Brown has made a bunch of really tough shots
over the top of him. He made two impossible fadeaways
over the top of Draymond today and then in the
(35:36):
in the last game he hit like a tough like
eurostep floater, and then he had one really nice slashing
driving lay up with his left hand. But the point
is is guys like Draymond is part of the reason
guarding Jaylen Brown that they haven't had that good of
an offensive series. So all I'm saying is like, as
Draymond played well, no, he's played below his standards. He
hasn't been good on the offensive end. The Warriors statistically
(35:59):
have still been much better here with him on the
floor than when he's off the floor. And his impact
is not something you can measure with the box score,
So stop looking there. That's not the place to look.
And here you are in a series against the team
that has more two way talent than you, and you
are tied at too with home court advantage, So just
count your blessings. This is basically all I'm saying. So
(36:21):
it looks like Golden State is a three and a
half point favorite in Game five. If I'm reading that correctly,
let me check. Yes, Golden State is a three and
a half point Sorry, tiny font issues. Golden State is
a three and a half point favorite in Game five.
I am picking Golden State because I don't trust Boston,
(36:41):
but make no mistake, Boston is very capable of winning
this series. My thing is two games at home for
Golden State. Boston's inability to execute at the end of
basketball games. All Golden State has to do is keep
things close, and they're at a huge advantage. I like.
I like Golden State in Game five. But if so,
(37:02):
if Boston comes out and Tatum comes out playing the
role of the playmaker, and Jalen Brown comes out being
the same aggressive force that he has been, and the
team overall plays the style of basketball they need to play,
Boston is very capable of winning this game. And one
of the note guys Boston has is yet to lose
consecutive games in this in this entire playoff run, So
(37:23):
that would be one hell of an accomplishment for Golden
State if they won Game five, to be the first
team in this playoff field to beat Boston two times
in a row. But I mean again, a couple of
things to look at Tatum's assists. He's got to have
seven or more assists. It's just a classic indicator of
his approach to the game. Another thing to watch Tatum's
pull up jump shots. I'm excited to look at the
(37:44):
stats after uh they get updated on the NBA dot com.
When Tatum's pull up jumpers are lower, it's an indicator
of his overall offensive approach. And Then, last, but not least,
Boston has to just take care of the basketball for
Golden State. Keep playing big more Looney and Draymond. I
know it hurts their spacing, but they just play better
(38:05):
on defense with the two of them on the floor.
Most importantly, when you're giving up the physical mismatches you're
giving up on the perimeter, you need to make up
for that elsewhere on the floor. But I mean, this
is coming into this series, is the last thing I'll say,
and then we'll call it tonight. Coming into the series,
I said that my head wanted me to pick Boston,
but my heart wanted me to pick Golden State. And
(38:28):
the reason why I said that is I genuinely am
a believer in Boston's roster construction and their two way talent.
But persistently they've demonstrated they are a poor execution and
poorly disciplined team. And so what did I say, guys,
Like they're up to one of the series is not over.
If they go back to two, you have two games
(38:48):
at home for Golden State, and I'm gonna trust the
experienced team that's been here before, that has the pain
of loss, that has the requisite scar tissue, that understands
that they can't afford to make the kinds of mistakes
at Boston has willingly stepped into and made all right, guys,
that is all I have for tonight. Like I said, Uh,
Colin Coward and I will both be back for Game
(39:09):
five postgame show on Monday, which should just be another
incredible NBA Finals basketball game. Uh. Sometime in the mid
morning tomorrow, I will have you know twelve fifteen minutes
of additional film study out on YouTube. To keep an
eye out for that, subscribe to The Volume's YouTube channel
if you haven't already, follow me on Twitter at underscore
Jason lt S. You guys can see me live tweet
(39:30):
through the games, as well as some of my video analysis.
And if you missed part of the show for whatever
reason and you can't get back to YouTube, go to
my podcast fee which for the time being is under
Lakers Tonight. As always, guys, I can't possibly express how
much I appreciate you supporting me, and supporting the show
and supporting our company. I'm having a blast, I'm excited
for Game five, and I will see you guys on Monday.
(40:01):
The Volume
Host
Jason Timpf
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