NBA Cup Reaction: Jalen Brunson & Knicks stifle Raptors + Desmond Bane is BACK in Magic win vs. Heat

Jason reacts to the Eastern Conference NBA Cup quarterfinals. He breaks down how Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, plus their defense, led the New York Knicks to a win over Brandon Ingram and the Toronto Raptors. Then he discusses how Desmond Bane bounced back and led the Orlando Magic to a win over Tyler Herro and the Miami Heat.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, welcome to him tonight. You're at
the volume Heavy Wednesday. Everybody. Oh ball. If you guys
are having a great week so far, quick show Today,

(00:22):
we're just gonna be hitting both games from the n
Season Tournament slate. Last night is the New York Knicks
dominate the Raptors the second quarter. Run really want to
dive into their defense today and then after that, the
Orlando Magic beat the Miami Heat for the third time
this season. I want to talk about some of the
specific things that have made Orlando such a tough matchup
for Miami. How nice of a fit Desmond Baine is

(00:42):
in that offense, and why he's been able to kind
of unlock another dimension to the offense that didn't exist.
And I want to talk about why the Miami Heat
have to start running a little bit more pick and
roll to try to help Tyler Harrow. You guys on
the JOP before we get started, to subscribe to our
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(01:04):
episodes like this, just drop questions in the mail bag.
We'll get to them. We're gonna have another mailbag coming
a week from this Friday. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So Nick Raptors actually started as like a really fun
shootout between Brandon Ingram and Jalen Brunson. Really impressive shot
making from both of those guys in that run just
kind of looked like a shootout, highly entertaining game, tons

(01:25):
of energy, Jalen Brunson's talking trash, Brandon Ingram's all fired up,
looked like a really fun game in the making. But
then the Knicks just played one of their best quarters
of basketball of the entire season in that second quarter,
and they just completely ran away with the game and
they never looked back from there. I want to start
by shouting out the defensive trio of Josh Hart, Ognnobi

(01:46):
and Michael Bridges. I'm gonna have some clips of this today.
We're experimenting with some new social media content. I'm gonna
put together some video examples of this for later today.
But those three guys really dominated the defensive end of
the floor during that second quarter run. No surprise there.
That trio has been fantastic all season as a matter
of fact, the Knicks have a one to oh one
defensive rating with Josh hart Mchal Bridges, and Ogananobe on

(02:08):
the floor together, and that group is plus twenty eight
net overall to start the season. But it really comes
down to one of the most important foundational defensive concepts
in the NBA, which is the ability to shrink the
floor while still being able to recover out to the perimeter.
I think this specific concept is what made the Golden
State Warriors such a dominant defense in their peak with

(02:32):
Draymond Green, and whether it was Andrew Wiggins or it
was Harrison Barnes or Kevin Duranta, whatever players they had
on the floor, they are always so good at shrinking
the floor making things feel super compact around the ball.
But whenever you throw these kickouts, they'd be bang banging
their rotations and things would be gone. Oklahoma City is
probably the best team in the league at this specific
concept right now. But the Knicks, when they're at their

(02:54):
best defensively, that is what makes them good. All three
of those particular guys Josh McHale, Bridges, and ojan Andobi
are very good like athletic dig down and recover guys.
They can cover ground when they need to to make
things feel compact, but still get out to the perimeter.

(03:14):
All three guys to damage. In that second quarter run,
the box scorer only showed two blocks for O Jannobe,
but it's because there was this weird one where he
definitely blocks Andre Mama Kailos vi Lee on a driving layup,
but it got logged as a steel for some reason.
I had him for three blocks in the second quarter alone,
and two of those were possessions where he helped off
of a shooter on the weak side to get to

(03:36):
a driver and blow up a play blocking them at
the rim. McHale Bridges had a similar kind of peel
off situation where Scotty Barnes is posting up in the
middle of the floor, looks like he's all alone. As
soon as mckal bridge is guarden somebody right at the
top of the key. As soon as Scotty turns over
his right shoulder to take that little fade away, mckaal
bridges just digs down quickly, gets over the top and

(03:56):
deflects the ball away from Scotty Brown. Scotty Barnes, it's
another block again. The rangey athleticism of those guys. Josh
Hart was doing damage on his dig downs. He had
a steal on Chucky Hepburn in that run where he
just dug down in the lane, swatted down at the basketball,
caused him to lose control and led to a turnover.
Now throughout the quarter, there were several examples where those

(04:18):
guys were in the lane, but those kickout passes were
made by Toronto and they had to make the rotations
to kill those sequences. A perfect example was one with
Scottie Barnes along the right wing. He gets Karl Anthony
Towns on a switch and he drives down the lane
line and as a result, Ojananobi sends like a late
double team. So now you've got kat and Ogananobi double

(04:40):
teaming Scottie Barnes on the right block. This forms a
three on two on the weak side with Josh Hart
and Michale Bridges. So you have Sandra malmal Klosbilli who
tees up right in front of the rim. He's just
standing there wide open, right in front of the rim.
Josh Hart comes off of Grady Dick in the corner
to tag him right that lead. There's a two on
one on the weak side, with Michael Bridges kind of

(05:02):
splitting the difference between Grady Dick and I think it
was Jacoby Walter on the left wing right, So there's
an opening on the weak side, but Josh Hart has
taken away the easy layup. Into Scotty Barnes's credit, he
makes a beautiful kickout pass a cross court on a
rope right into Jacoby Walter's hands, the right read in
that situation. So, in other words, the Raptors did everything right.

(05:24):
They got a favorable matchup by getting Karl Anthony Towns
on too. Scottie Barnes. Scotty Barnes attacked that matchup and
drew a double team, created an advantage on the weak side,
made the read, rifled a great pass to the wide
open guy on the wing. Here's the problem. Mckayl Bridges
flies out to Jacoby Walter, Josh Hart flies out to
Grady Dick in the corner, and Mama kelos Viheli's not

(05:44):
open anymore because kat just quick peels off right down
to Mamu Bam. The advantage is gone. Those are the
kinds of sequences that blow up these that allow the
Knicks to essentially load up on the ball, but not
give up easy opings on the weak side because they
have these rangy athletes that can recover back out to

(06:06):
the perimeter. And by the way, the Knicks defense is
up to tenth in defensive rating now after their performance
in Toronto last night. That has been one of the
driving forces to the successful stretches of Knicks defense dating
even back to last year, like the Celtics series. That
was a big part of how they won the Celtics series.
Michale Bridges and ogn and ob and Josh Hart flying

(06:27):
around in helping recover situations, making the on ball player
feel crowded, but then suddenly getting out and forcing contested
shots or chasing people off the line so that their
defense can recover. Now, I want to come back to
the defense and the bigger picture here in just a second,
but quickly, just to close out the game reaction. I
also thought the Knicks did an amazing job attacking the

(06:49):
rim in that second quarter. We talked about this a
lot in our video on December first, and I encourage
you Knicks fans if you haven't seen that one yet.
That's where we really broke down some of the specifics
of the Knicks offense and how they're driving the basketball
a lot more this year, how they're generating a lot
more spot up opportunities than they did in previous years,
and how that's leading to another level from them offensively

(07:10):
than we saw under Tom Thibodeaux. But last night was
a perfect example of that. In that second quarter, as
the Knicks were just relentlessly attacking the basket, Kat was
attacking the rim that entire run. He had a couple
of really nice drives, including a nasty, nasty poster dunk
where he faked a triple hand off with McHale Bridges
and got down the lane and just hammered it, started screaming.

(07:30):
He had a deep seal where he actually got blocked
on a really nice defensive rotation from Ojaig Boggi, but
he just recovered, got the ball back and fed it
back into the basket. A lot of attacking Grady Dick
in one on one, Jordan Clarkson beat him one on
one on a drive Og Andnobe beat him for a
short little fade away. Og was great in that run.
He actually led the Nixon scoring in the second quarter.

(07:51):
He drew a couple of fouls, attacking the rim, just
really nice work offensively from the next Jalen Brunson, who
was amazing in the first quarter, continued that in the
second quarter run, he just has too much size on
Jamal shed who's easily able to shoot over the top.
He was getting to his floater in that second quarter.
It was just one of the best quarters of Knicks
basketball from this entire season. They outscored the Raptors thirty

(08:13):
four to thirteen in that second quarter run. It's basically
game over from there. The Raptors were never able to
even come close to threatening them the rest of the way.
So I want to dig into two more ideas here
with the Knicks before we move on to a little
bit of Raptors, and then we'll go to the next game.
First of all, how do the Knicks turn this statistically

(08:34):
successful defense into a resilient one that doesn't have the
issues like they had in the postseason last year or
in the Boston game a few games ago. And to me,
it's about acknowledging your strengths and weaknesses. You have a
strength in the athleticism you have around your stars and
their ability to stunt and recover help and recover like

(08:55):
we talked about earlier. Right, you have a weakness in
the form of limited Jalen Brunson, which acts as an
entry point for your defense, and then Kat, who's incredibly
mistake prone. Now, some of Kat's mistake making is just
part of the deal, and there's nothing you can do
to coach that out of the situation or build a
lineup to cover for him. Like that last second or

(09:17):
late kind of crunch time close out on Jordan Wallash
in the left corner of the Celtics game where he
just guy who's three for nine on quarter threes in
the entire season, and Kat's like jumping out of his
shoes to chase him off the line and Jordan Wallash
just driving for a layup Like that's there's nothing that
Mike Brown can do about that. That's just an incredibly
stupid mistake, right, Or the stuff that was happening at

(09:37):
the tail end of the Pacers series where Kat is
like in transition defense position at the top of the
key and he's like crashing off the top and they're
just giving out run They're giving up runouts to Pascal
Siakam the other way because Cat's not paying attention to
like a foundational concept of transition defense, which is when
you're at the top of the key, you're the get backman.
You're not the crash the offensive glass man. Right, Like,

(09:58):
there's a certain amount of that, that sort of thing
that Cat's just gonna do a couple times every game,
and it is what it is. The question is, how
can you avoid some of the other issues that he
has defensively, like in the Celtics game and pick and
roll where he's doing a different thing on three consecutive
Derek White and Nemi Kata pick and rolls, or like
just having these these mental lapses where he'll throw a

(10:21):
crazy hard hedge and give up an easy slip or
whatever it might be. He's generally bad and drop coverage
because he just struggles with that dance between the ball
handler and the big man rolling. He'll give up an
easy dunk or give up an easy driving layup because
he just struggles with that sort of thing. And so
to me, it's about limiting Cat's decision making on the
defensive end as much as possible. The more decisions you

(10:42):
have him make, the more likely he is to make
a bunch of mistakes. This is where I actually like
how much the Knicks were switching on the defensive end
last night. They've done a lot of switching the season
in general, but I talked about this going back to
last season. That's my favorite look for the Knicks is
switching with Kat and Brunson rather than hedging or running
hedging with Brunson or running drop with Kat. I want

(11:04):
to see situations where those guys have really simple decisions
to make, and then you put the defensive job, the
difficult part of those guys's job, which is guarding on
the ball. Put that on those wings to do the
rangey help and recover, dig down and recover stuff that
can counter and make up for some of the shortcomings

(11:25):
from those from those two guys. Right. So, like, for instance,
if you go to cat and it's like, hey man,
your dude's setting a screen, go out and guard the ball.
Make sure you're at the levels you don't give up
an easy catch and shoot through an easy little pull
up three off the other side of the screen, and
just do the best you can to guard the ball.
If you get beat, you know we'll have a plan
for it. Try to get beat towards the sideline or whatever.
It is just have basic stuff. Although again game plan

(11:46):
discipline is not Cat's strength, but you have him just
focus on a simple task of guarding the man in
front of him right now. The second piece of this
is you want to avoid what happened at the end
of the Celtics game where Brunson's attacking or excuse me,
Jalen Brown's attacking Jalen Brunson over and over again and
he's scoring on him one on one and then it

(12:07):
leads to the blitz. And so now you're trying to
protect Brunson. So you start blitzing Jalen Brown thirty feet
from the basket, and it's just just really difficult to
make those rotations because your defense is too spread out
over too large of a space. Right in that situation,
you only have three defenders within thirty feet of the
basket at that point, it's just really difficult to rotate
out of that right. So, like, rather than blitzing or

(12:30):
something that compromises your defense too extensively at the beginning
of possessions, when Cat and Brunson are struggling one on one,
or you're trying to send that second defender, send it
on the drive. Send it on the drive like you
did in this Toronto Raptors game. Have those guys guard
and then once the the offensive player actually looks to
attack and is like head down driving or whatever it is,

(12:52):
that's when you send the second defender. Those are easier
rotations to make because you have all five of your defenders,
you know, within twenty feet of the basket, and you
can throw some more traditional closeouts from there. And so again,
I like the switching. I want to see more of it.
I want to see less hedging. I want to see
less drop, more switching with Cat and Brunson. Don't send
the help aggressively too far away from the basket. Have

(13:13):
those guys just press up on the ball, lean on
your helps help and recover athleticism in the form of
Josh Hart, Ojan Andobi and Michael Bridges. Now, there's a
certain part of me that will always view the Knixt
defense as somewhat vulnerable because of Cat and Brunson. No
matter how good they look statistically in the regular season,
and by the way they were thirteenth in defense last year,
it's not that bad and it's not that far behind

(13:34):
where they are this year, right, But it's about finding
a way to be just a little bit more resilient
against the best offenses that you'll face later on down
the line. That will go a long way towards improving
their chances, which takes me to my second point that
I want to make. I've talked a lot in the
last week about how I viewed the East is somewhat
of a three horse race right now between Detroit, New York,

(13:55):
and Boston. Now, obviously, to be clear, Orlando and Cleveland
are in that mix for me, but both of those
teams just can't stay healthy. So you know it's Franz
or Polo always injured, right You know, Jalen Suggs is
at injury issues over the years, and he's one of
the most important plus minus guys right now. Cleveland, it's
like Darius Garland is not playing him back to backs
and he's looked really bad since he came back. It's

(14:17):
hard for me to really believe in the Calves until
Darius Garland can get back to form. Jared Allen's been
out for a long chunk of the season. Max Strew
still hasn't played right. So just take Orlando and Cleveland
and just set him to the side. For a minute,
because we're just gonna need to see a lot more
from them to have a better idea of what they're
capable of. But what I said in the last week
was like I viewed as like fifty to fifty between

(14:38):
the Pistons and the Knicks, like a coin flip, and
then Boston's hot on their heels for me, pending whatever
trade they make and whether Jason Tatum comes back and
what he looks like when he does. After last night,
I left that game feeling like the Knicks should be
the favorite to win the East at this point. And
so at this point, if the season were to end
today and I had to pick a team that I
thought was gonna win the East, I take the Knicks.

(14:59):
To be clear, that doesn't mean they're going to win.
They sure as hell are vulnerable. It's not like the
Knicks are unbeatable. But there is no twenty twenty four
Celtics or twenty twenty five Calves or twenty twenty five
Pacers in this mix. Like a clear this team is
like one of those bona fide, well rounded championship contender
type of teams. Every team in the East is flawed,

(15:19):
and I think this Knicks team is better than they
were last year. Again, we discussed in the December first
video about how Mike Brown has revamped the offense with
more drives generating more spot up opportunities. Again, I recommend
you guys check out that video if you haven't yet.
And I do think they're a bit better defensively this year,
just mchaleen og in particular, just come into the season
with another level of engagement on the defensive end of
the floor compared to how they started the season last year.

(15:41):
And then also with Yiannis essentially out of the equation
because the Bucks aren't very good and I will see,
I don't I don't know if a trade's gonna get
made in season or not. Again, kind of like Cleveland
and Orlando, you almost have to set Giannis aside as
like a question mark, and who knows, maybe ends up
going out to the Western Conference. Right, but with Giannis
out of the equation, you could make the case that
Jalen Rson is the best player in the conference out

(16:02):
of all these guys. Jalen Brown has a case. But
one of the differences between Brunson and Brown is Jalen
Brunson has a lot of experience as a number one
for full playoff runs. He's used to the defensive game
plan being built entirely around him. Jalen Brown's done it
for like two games at the tail end of the
next series last year, right, So like it's going to
be a little bit harder for Jalen Brown to kind

(16:23):
of figure that out on the fly. So, like, you know,
Brunson's probably your best player in the conference that's on
a legitimate contender. They have more playoff experience than some
of these other teams like Detroit that they would potentially
be going against. Boston has the severe front court limitation
and a star that's never been in this type of
role before for a postseason run. They showed they could
beat Detroit last year, although I certainly think Detroit would

(16:45):
have a better shot to beat them this year. I
haven't been shy about my concerns with the Knicks. Their
defense just seems to break apart against teams that can
really spread them out with speed and shooting. But ultimately
I just think they're a safer bet overall than all
of these other teams out East. Quick notes on the Raptors.
They've now lost six out of their last seven games.
Injuries have played a role. You're down your entire starting

(17:07):
back court last night in Manuel Quickly and RJ. Barrett
Yakaperle missed a couple of those games. They're twenty eighth
in offense over that span, though, and several factors there.
The biggest one is they've cooled off big time from
the three point line. We talked about this earlier. They
were shooting a little above their pay grade to start
the season. They're twenty third and three point percentage in
the seven game slide. The two guys in particular that

(17:28):
have really hurt them Aresandro maml Kalas Vieley and Jamal
shed Those two guys are taking seven point three threes
per game and they're shooting below twenty five percent on them.
That's been bad. It's not like the Stars have been
too bad. They've been okay, but they haven't been great.
They're in like the mid thirties and then some of
your role players have really cooled off. That's hurt their
shooting and so as a result, some of the offensive

(17:49):
concerns we had about the Raptors before the season, ever,
is into the surface, like what happens when you have
a team with a bunch of good ball handlers that
are good driving kick players, but there's not enough shooting
to pay off those sequences with Max, you know, kind
of reminiscent of like that Jimmy Butler, Dwayne Wade, rigim
Rondo kind of construct in Chicago, like it's in the
except for you're dealing with guys that have lower IQs

(18:11):
than even that Trio had right in terms of basketball IQs.
So you're seeing a lot of guys going underneath ball screens.
You're seeing a lot of short close outs, and as
a result, their offense, when it's struggling like this, it's
bleeding into every part of the game. All that swarming
on drives is leading to more turnovers. They've had turnover
issues in this stretch. Lots of misses and turnovers. Means
your defense isn't set. Their defense has fallen off in

(18:34):
a big way during this stretch. They're rebounding terribly in
the stretch as well, So like the offense has kind
of just been the breaking point that has caused them
to slip across the board and in so many facets
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(20:23):
or Virginia. All right, moving on to Miami, Orlando. So
the Magic beat the Heat for the third time in
three tries this season. The Heater are now spiraling, they've
lost five out of six. Will zoom in on them
in a minute. Desmond Baying goes for thirty seven, six
and five in this one, And it was a drop
coverage busting clinic. To be clear, it wasn't all pick

(20:43):
and roll, He had a couple transition buckets. There was
a zone look that the Heat went to that Desmond
Bane busted in the second half with a couple of
threes off the right wing. He attacked Tyler Harrow off
the dribble one on one a couple of times, just
because he doesn't need a screen to score on Tyler Harrow.
But literally everything else came out of attacking bam Adebaio
and kell Aware in screening action and he literally did

(21:05):
it every which way, hitting pull up threes when dudes
would get caught on screens, he rejected screens which allowed
him to get past the screen defender and get all
the way to the basket. He hit midi's and floaters
against the drop. He straight up toasted the bigs a
couple times when they would come up to the level
and he would just turn the corner on that ball
screen get past the big. He got bamed with one
in the second half where he just dusted him off
the dribble for an easy little left handed layup. And

(21:27):
so desmon Bain just absolutely fried the base pick and
roll coverage for the Miami Heat last night, just spamming
two man game and just doing a ton of damage there,
and like we talked about with Bain when the trade
first went down, this is the first time in this era,
in this construct of the team that they've had a
real guard, like a real two guard that can punish

(21:47):
drop coverage to the type of extent you need to,
that unlocks those pocket passes, that unlocks those four on
three sequences where you can really start breaking a defensive
part because you have a ball handler scoring in pick
and roll too much. And as a result, he was
able to set Wendell Carter Junior in crunch time up
with one of the easiest buckets he's had all season,

(22:08):
actually got fouled on it, but Bam came up to
the level. Quick pocket pass was a cleared side pick
and roll on the right side. Wendell Carter in stride
one up with two hands, probably got fouled and laid
it in. He had another play where he hit Wendell
in the pocket in the first half, and those are
those types of sequences that we just didn't see for
Orlando a lot early in this era for them because

(22:28):
they didn't have that type of legitimate two guard or
point guard that could do enough damage in pick and
roll against drop coverage to actually dictate two on the
ball sequences that can lead to those four on threes.
And I talk about all the time, like your value
as a basketball player is unique to your team. How
does your individual skill set complement the team you're playing on.

(22:51):
Is Desmond Baying the best two guard in the NBA?
Hell no, but he's really damn good at all the
two guard stuff. Like he's a deadly shooter, he's three
levels score. You can make the reads that naturally come
out of action when you're scoring the ball effectively. And
it was something that this Magic team was missing, and
so Desmond Baine specifically has slotted into that void and

(23:11):
he's been a godsend for them. He's been one of
the best on off guys this season. Obviously there's Jalen Suggs,
who's been insane. It's like something crazy like twelve points
better per one Hunter posessions when Jalen Suggs is on
the floor, But their second best on off guy is
Desmond bay. Orlando is five points better per one Hunter
possessions when Desmond bain is on the floor versus off.
Also another thirty sister game for the Magic because they've again,

(23:34):
one of the big stories of their offensive improvement during
this recent run has been their ball movement. They're just
moving the ball way more than they have in the
last couple of seasons. But I want to zoom in
on their defense for a minute, specifically how it counters
what Miami likes to do. Because Miami got off to
a great start in this game. They were up fifteen
to oho some impressive jump shooting from Norm pal and
Andrew Wiggins in that stretch. They lost Tyler Harrow in

(23:57):
transition a few times, but again and Miami's offense is
built around the pace they play with. Right, they get
the ball up the floor quickly, they seek early drives.
When the defense isn't fully set, they get you to
react and they start driving kick sequences. But when they
get stopped in transition, they continue to try to probe
your defense with drives. They're not looking to run a

(24:19):
lot of pick and roll. And this is where this
particular matchup is fascinating. And again Orlando's three to zero
against Miami this year. Orlando's not giving up much in
the way of like physical mismatches against Miami. In fact,
I'd argue they're bigger stronger and faster at most of
their position groups. It's really only the bam kelll Kell

(24:40):
aware like center rotation, where you'd be like, yeah, like
they're probably a little faster, a little more athletic in
that group. But on the perimeter, the Magic are just bigger, faster, stronger.
So as long as Orlando gets back in transition and
they make a good effort to keep the ball in front,
they can stifle Miami's offense and really quickly. To Miami's credit,
they've had success in this matchup on offense four stretches,

(25:03):
but consistently over the course of games, the Magic have
been able to tighten the screws and really shut down
this Miami offense. And in fact, they have allowed just
a ninety nine offensive rating against Miami in all three
of their second halves in this matchup this season. Like
Anthony Black just had Tyler Harrow in jail last night,
like Tyler Harrow was really only getting free in transition

(25:25):
or chaos generated by others, Anthony Black had him completely
under control. One on one. Davion Mitchell wasn't able to
get much drible penetration. Andrew Wiggins and Jim Hawkes were
really the only two guys that were able to get
some separation against their defender. And Andrew was pretty damn
good last night, but Jime missed a bunch of a looks,
and I thought Jim missed some looks that he could
easily make. He had a spin move for a lefty

(25:47):
layup that he just fed too long off the back rim.
He had a little short jumper around the kind of
left block area that he missed. Those those are makeable
shots for Hime. But for the most part, in this
style of attack where my aimy's just trying to drive
the ball, I thought it played right into Orlando's hands
because they're just the physically and athletically superior team. So

(26:07):
really impressive win for the Magic and this game with
the Knicks on Saturday should be a really fun one.
We're going to be live on YouTube on Saturday night,
so make sure you guys come hang out to watch
our reaction to that game when we get to that point.
Some thoughts on the Heat. So the Heat are also spiraling.
They've lost five of their last six games. Some of
the similar type of stuff we talked about with the Raptors,

(26:29):
where their offense is faltering which is starting to bleed
into every other facet of the game. Their defense hasn't
been as good as it was to start the season.
They're rebounding poorly. They're twenty second rebounding in this stretch.
They're getting beat in transition because their offense is faltering.
There's definitely some slippage across the board from Miami, but
I want to zoom it on the offense for a second, because,
similar to Toronto, I do think that's the genesis of it,

(26:50):
their offense kind of faltering. We did see a bit
more ball screen action from the Heat in the second
half last night, and just again, what I'm looking at
there is just attacking Orlando's bit in action, whether it's
a pick and roll or it's some sort of off
ball action, something to get Orlando's bigs involved in the screen.
And I actually thought they got good looks out of
those sequences, but they just didn't run it nearly enough.

(27:10):
They ran only eleven pick and rolls in the entire
game last night. I want to zoom in on Desmond
Bain as a counter example to this, because Hero and
Bain are very similar players on offense. At their core,
they're mediocre athletes at the two guard position. Right, Bain's
a little stronger than hero Is. Heroes a little taller,

(27:32):
but neither guy is Anthony Edwards or Shay Gildes Alexander
like a supremely gifted athlete at the position. These are
skilled players that are very good at making the types
of shots that are naturally generated in typical NBA offense
and the reids that come out of it. So screening
action is what allows them to gain advantage by allowing

(27:54):
them to shed their on ball defender and to work
downhill against a backpacking big Bain got those opportunities last night,
ran a ton of ball screens. As a result, he
caught a real rhythm and he torched the heat. Hero
got a handful, generated some decent shots out of him,
came right out the gates to start the second half

(28:16):
a little ball screen with Bam rejected the screen, got
a wide open pull up three on the left wing.
He was able to generate some stuff in the pocket
during that game. In pick and roll he got some
good looks, but there wasn't nearly enough and so as
a result he had to work one on one a
lot and outside of like some transition chaos. I mean,
he got a couple of buckets in certain situations, some transition,

(28:37):
some off ball sequences, but he was unable to gain
advantage against Anthony Black. He was unable to break Orlando's
defense down as a one on one player in the
half court. Desmond Bain had a couple of one on
ones favorable matchups against Tyler Harrow where he just drove
by him for little right handed layups. But for the

(28:59):
most part, Bain was gaining advantage or breaking down Miami's
defense through attacking their bigs in ball screens. Orlando had
those same entry points Wendell Carter, Junior, Goga Bitadze. They
had the same vehicle with which to enter that defense,
and they just weren't going to it enough. I want

(29:22):
to see because we've seen this problem arise before with Harrow.
Like Harrow, for the record, overall, has been really good
in this system in the large sample. His scoring volume
has been great, his efficiency has been better than ever.
The pure numbers in the large sample are still really
good for Tyler Harrow. But I've seen a couple of things. One,

(29:43):
his playmaking has fallen off of a cliff. Look at
his assist average, year over here, it's like less than
half what it was last year, So he's not getting
as many playmaking opportunities that he was getting in his
pick and roll sequences. And then two, we've seen specific
individual circumstances. Individual matchups were hair really struggle. The two
games that I look at are last night's Heat game
as an example against Anthony Black, but also the Dallas

(30:06):
Mavericks game, especially down the stretch against Najie Marshall. He
didn't look comfortable attacking Najie Marshall, and it kind of
removed Tyler Harrow offensively from the equation down the stretch.
So I want to see Eric Spols to show more
flexibility with allowing Tyler Harrow to work a higher volume
of ball screens when things do get stuck in the
half court. And that's like, if you asked me my

(30:27):
first impression of this Heat offense. We're about a quarter
of the way through the season, right, so we've seen
a decent sample size of it. That's my first impression. Like,
I love the transition attack, love that idea. It's a
great margin to try to hunt in the NBA. I
love the early I love the idea of the driving
kick play as an early offense concept. What you're doing
in the first seven or eight seconds of the shot clock,

(30:49):
get the ball to the floor quickly, try to attack
a drive when you have favorable matchups. I like attacking
those matchups one on one with drives. But once the
early offense is shut down, So once they stop the
transition attack and there isn't an obvious matchup to attack,
Let's get the ball to hit Tyler Harrow in a
high ball screen. It unlocks his playmaking more, it unlocks

(31:13):
some of the natural skill set that he has as
an off screen player. Again, I'm not saying bail on
the offense. I'm just saying, when you get into the
last ten seconds of the shot clock and you don't
have the obvious this guy can't guard this guy one
on one type of matchup to attack, treat your base
offensive concept as more of a like an early offense

(31:35):
type of concept, and lean more on that Tyler Harrow
ball screen as your later clock. This is our best
vehicle with which to break down the defense when our
early offense stuff doesn't work. I just want to see
some more flexibility from Spolsure. There. For the record, we
did see a little bit more of it in the
second half, feels like it's trending a little bit more
in that direction. I just think it's inevitable. This inevitably

(31:57):
is gonna have to be a team that runs more
like twenty twenty five pick and rolls, a game where
you're using Tyler Harrow as the last ten seconds of
the shot clock primary shot creator with bam Adebayo, just
to give you another vehicle with which to break down
the defense. And more importantly, you gotta get those reps
in because inevitably that's gonna be something you're gonna have
to do in the postseason. I want to just see
them get the reps in over the course of the season.

(32:19):
All right, guys, That's all I have for today is
always to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and
supporting the show. We will be back tonight live on
YouTube after the final buzzer of Spurs Lakers. We've breaking
down both games from tonight's in season tournament slate. I
will see you guys then,