Knicks = NBA Finals contenders, 76ers optimism, Celtics weird season | Atlantic Division Predictions
October 1, 2025 • 43 mins
Jason makes predictions for all five teams in the Eastern Conference’s Atlantic Division: the New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors, and Brooklyn Nets. He discusses why Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns have a legit chance to make the NBA Finals under new coach Mike Brown, why Joel Embiid and Paul George optimism should be cautious, how Jaylen Brown will handle this season mostly without Jayson Tatum, and what to expect out of the Raptors and Nets.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, well, good to Hoops Tonight. You're
at the volume. We are finally starting our season previews today.
We're gonna be using a different format than we have
(00:23):
in years past. And years pass we only hit the
top fifteen teams and we did a power ranking style.
This year, we're going to do a separate kind of
like contender rankings video as we get closer to the
start of the season. But we're gonna go division by division,
which means we're going to hit all thirty teams. Now,
obviously the teams towards the bottom end of the league
(00:43):
we're not going to spend as much time on. But
over the course of the next six videos, as we
go division to division, we are going to hit all
thirty teams in the NBA season previous style. Today, we
are starting with the Atlantic Division. That would be the
New York Knicks, the Philadelphia seventy six Ers, the Boston Celtics,
the Toronto Raptors, and the Brooklyn Nets. Will be touching
on all five of those teams today. You guys have
(01:04):
the drip before we get started. To subscribe to the
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(01:24):
YouTube comments. We will have at least one more mail
bag before the start of the season, and then they
will be a regular part of our regular season cadence
when we get to that point. All right, let's talk
some basketball. So for starters, I'm just super excited. We
got a nice little break. But we've been talking a
lot of offseason stuff, a lot of digging into the past,
and this is just going to be a super exciting
(01:46):
and super interesting NBA season And there's just like a
lot of stuff that if you're a basketball fan you
should be stoked about. I'm excited to see any changes
that might take place in the New York Knicks offense.
For example, you can actually talk yourself into a little
Sixers optimism with the wide open Eastern Conference and Joel
(02:06):
Embiid being in great shape, I mean, I want to
see it, Like I would like to see this new
version of Joel Embiid and see if there's anything there right, Like,
Boston's not the juggernaut that they were in years past
talent wise, but they have some really interesting storylines this year.
I'm really excited to see what Anthony Simons looks like
in the Joe Missoula drive and kick attack or high
(02:29):
volume Jalen Brown shot creator. There's just a million interesting
storylines all around the league, so many good There's like
two dozen legitimately good teams that we're gonna be covering
throughout the year, and I'm just excited to get into
the season. So let's get started with our Atlantic Division
season preview. With the New York Knicks, quick little offseason recap.
They lost Precious to Chewa, Cameron Payne, Intolon right and
(02:51):
added Malcolm Brogden, Jordan Clarkson, and Gershaon Yabucelli, so in
a lot of ways to shift towards offense with that
part of their bench. Right, Like, Gershan is a much
better offensive player than Precious to Chua, and Jordan and
Malcolm represent a more offensive oriented backcourt than Delon Wright
and Campaign represented. Right, and perhaps the most influential piece
(03:12):
of Knicks news this entire summer is just the change
and head coach from Tom Thibodeau to Mike Brown. We've
already seen a couple of hints as to how that
could change things for the Knicks. In the early part
of the season. We saw a picture from their first
practice where Mitchell Robinson was wearing a starters jersey. Obviously,
that's not a guarantee that he will start, but going
from Josh Harden the starting lineup to Mitchell Robinson would
(03:35):
be a shift from their regular season approach last year.
Obviously a lot of that was initiated by Mitchell's injury
to start the season as well, But if we saw
a lot more Mitchell Robinson at center, especially to start
games at alongside Karl Anthony Towns, that'd be an interesting shift, right.
And then we got an interesting quote from Deuce McBride,
one that centers around a storyline we've discussed a lot
(03:55):
with the Knicks and throughout the end of last season,
which was the quote goes a lot more player movement,
ball movement. Last year, at times we got stagnant and
we depended on a lot of isolation shots, which is
tough down the stretch. This year, it's gonna be a
little more freedom with the movement and a lot of
(04:15):
young guys cutting, guys getting active. This is where I
want to start with the Knicks, because, like obviously, their
defense was their biggest issue last year, and we're going
to talk about that. They logged a defensive rating of
one to twenty three point four in their eight playoff losses,
which is brutally bad. And we are going to discuss
the defense in a bit, but this was a major
(04:36):
talking point with respect to the offense, which was also
an issue for the Knicks in that postseason run. The
Knicks were the fifth best offense in the NBA during
the regular season, logging a one to seventeen point three
offensive rating, but that plummeted down to one twelve point
seven in the postseason. So the strength of the team,
their ability to score failed them when they got into
(04:59):
April and may this stems from a concept that we've
talked a lot about on the show in the last year,
which is the difference between an individual player loading up
the box score in the team the five man unit
effectively scoring the ball. In a large sample, Brunson had
an insane postseason. He averaged twenty nine points and seven
(05:20):
assists on fifty eight percent through shooting at a boltload
of clutch shots. There was a lot of highlights on
the Jalen Brunson front, but the Jalen Brunson led offense
that five man grouping did not perform nearly as well
as the other top offenses around the playoff field. Now,
it'd be clear before we go any further. I'm not
(05:40):
trying to say that Jalen Brunson is overrated, or that
he's bad, or that Brunson ball can't work. That's obviously
not the case. In fact, at the end of games,
when Brunson really struggled things, the strangled things, excuse me,
the Knicks actually scored the ball really well with Brunson
on the floor in the fourth quarter. During this playoff run,
(06:01):
the Knicks logged a one to twenty five offensive rating,
and they were decent in crunch time, not perfect, but decent,
and they wanted quite a few games in those crunch
time situations. I still think, especially in a small handful
of possessions, Brunson is one of the very best half
court weapons in the league, and the Knicks would be
(06:22):
foolish to abandon that. So this is not a let's
put Brunson on the sidelines, so to speak, in the
offensive approach. This is like let's add variety. The truth
remains that in the large sample, the Knicks need to
find a way to score more effectively in the playoffs,
and they have the personnel to do so. This is
(06:45):
not Jalen in a bunch of role players. I've talked
about this over the years, but the way your personnel
is put together should dictate your play style. So, for instance,
if you're the twenty twenty two or the twenty twenty
four Dallas Mavericks, and outside of Luca and Kyrie Irvinger
Jalen Brunson, you just have a bunch of play finishers,
(07:06):
guys like Dorian Finney, Smith, Josh Green, PJ. Washington, Dereck Lively,
Daniel Gafford, so on and so forth. You guys get
the point, You're gonna want to run more of a
brute force for out one in pick and roll heavy
attack because you don't have a ton of ball handling,
and you don't want to have a bunch of possessions
(07:27):
with Dorian Finney Smith coming off of a dribble handoff
needing to create something off the bounce. That's not in
line with the strength of the roster. But to be clear,
this Knicks team is not that type of roster, especially
with the additions of Malcolm Brogden and Jordan Clarkson. Like
Brogden and Clarkson and Brunson and Mikhale Bridges and og
Anobi and Karl Anthony Towns, these are all guys who
(07:49):
can put the ball on the floor and make plays
for others. And so this is the potential upside of
the Mike Brown hiring. You have a guy who's famous
for defensive accountability, which'll talk about in a minute, and
that will certainly help things. But you also get a
guy who has spent time on Steve Kerr's staff in
Golden State, who then brought many of those principles to
(08:11):
the five out attack with the Sacramento Kings, which was
a very high level offense. This team should be able
to score a shit ton of points. This team is
a team that can benefit from a lot of the
ideas that Mike Brown brought from Golden State utilized in Sacramento. Now,
to be clear, does that mean the Knicks should be
(08:32):
playing Warriors basketball with a half dozen dribble handoffs and
a half dozen backcuts every single possession? Of course not.
They're not that type of roster either, but something closer
to that than what they were last year would be
extremely helpful to me. It's about two important pieces of upside.
One is establishing other actions that you can eventually depend
(08:56):
on when you get into a postseason situation and you
need versatility in your offense, finding three or four more
pet sets or pet actions that you feel confident you
can get a great look out of that don't require
Jalen Brunson to do so off the bounce. We talked
(09:17):
about ogn and OBI post ups a lot last year.
You can reach those through several actions that can either
help him get better deeper post position or a better matchup.
So say, for instance, you use Brunson as a screener.
Let's say you just have Brunson cross screen for OG
before coming off of something on the opposite end of
the floor. In that instance, if Brunson sets a good screen.
(09:37):
You're either going to hit the guy and help Og
get really deep post position, and he's already so strong
that could lead to really good opportunities, or you can
force a switch which will then force Jalen Brunson's man
to guard Ogn Andobi on the block. That is something
I'd like to see them build out over the course
of the season. We saw a lot of McHale Bridge's
pick and roll with bench groups last year. They need
(10:00):
to add complications to that so that it's not all
on McHale Bridges as a ball handler to hit mid
range pull ups, three man action with Og and Andobi involved,
as well as Karl Anthony towns that could come out
of horn sets, that could come out of stack pick
and roll where OG's starting under the basket and backscreening
for Cat. Adding those complications that take full advantage of
(10:23):
all of the offensive talent you have on the floor.
Inverted ball screens for Cat, taking a player like Duce
McBride or Jalen Brunson or even McHale Bridges screening for
Cat and then slipping out to the three point line
if they hedge, there's an easy little kickout pass that
can start your offense, then you can drive and kick
from there. If they don't, Cat's gonna get downhill. That's
(10:46):
what the Bucks and Giannis have been using for years
to get opportunities in their inverted actions. All of these
are potentially ways to get the defense into rotation. Og
Nanobi starts with a comes off a cross screen, draws
a second defender in the post. We can play drive
and kick out of that, a three man action with
McHale Bridges and O Jannobi and Karl Anthony Towns. Maybe
(11:10):
O jan Andobi is popping out of his backscreen and
getting wide open at the top of the key to
start your drive and kick attack. The idea of an
inverted ball screen cat comes barreling downhill, someone helps, it's
an easy kickout pass or playing drive and kick. You're
finding ways to initiate offense without relying heavily on Jalen
Brunson to do so on the ball, which then creates
(11:32):
the initial advantage that all of a sudden, all this
talent we have on the floor can benefit from. The
Key is taking the time to really establish these things
over the course of the season, getting hundreds of reps
with them so that when You need to run it
in the postseason your guys feel comfortable and confident, because
what happens is if they're not comfortable and confident in
(11:53):
these pet actions, then what do you do every time
anyone falls into any kind of adversity on like the
handful of things that you're good at and generally speaking
over the last few years that's been here, Jalen, you
do it, and they need to have more versatility and
more variety that they can depend on. The second piece
of this is saving Jalen Brunson's legs. Jalen Brunson spent
(12:18):
a ton of time last year, especially in like the
first three quarters of games, fighting ball pressure up the floor.
He also ran an insane amount of pick and roll.
He ran the third most pick and rolls per game
in the entire NBA last year per Sentergy. That makes
no sense with the roster that they have. Here are
(12:40):
the top five guys in pick and roll volume last
year according to Synergy. Number one Trey Young. He played
on a team with almost noball handling and he was
surrounded by a bunch of play finishers, so it made
a lot of sense for them to run a ton
of Trey Young pick and roll number two Cade cunning Hand.
He was on a team with very little ball handling
(13:02):
surrounded by a bunch of shooting and play finishers, so
it made a ton of sense for them to run
a ton of Cad pick and roll bruntson third. Number
four Damian Lillard, a team you know, outside of Damon Giannis,
not a lot of ball handling, but the best catch
and shoot team in the league. It made a lot
of sense to run a lot of Dame pick and
(13:23):
roll Number five Shake Gil Just Alexander obviously a much
better roster and more ball handling than some of those
other teams, but compared to the top playoff teams in
the NBA, we discussed throughout the last year's last year's
postseason run that the Thunder were light on ball handling.
It was a weakness that Indiana exposed as they pushed
them towards seven games. In other words, you're wearing Jalen
(13:47):
Brunson out for no reason. He should be facing way
less ball pressure and running way less pick and roll
in addition to establishing other actions like we talked about earlier,
you should then be able to deploy Brunson at the
end of games as the half court surgeon that he
is with way fresher legs so that he doesn't look
(14:09):
as gast as he did at the tail end of
the Indiana series. So Mike Brown's tweaks within the offense
will be something I have my eyes on to start
this season. On the defensive end, it's all about Carl
Anthony Towns, and I want to start by reiterating what
I said often at the end of the year last year.
I don't think you can play championship defense with Karl
(14:31):
Anthony Towns on the floor. There are two different kinds
of bad defenders. This is a concept we've talked a
lot about on the show over the last six months.
There are defenders that have physical limitations. These are guys
that are maybe too small, maybe too slow, but they
have issues with dealing with the physical limitations in certain matchups.
But these guys tend to have high IQs. There are
(14:53):
certain guys that fit that mold where it's like they
have their limitations, but they do have high IQs so
they can play a role within the defense. They're usually
in the right spot. You can plan for their weaknesses.
There's a way to work around those kind of guys.
Then there are bad defenders that just they're all over
(15:14):
the place mentally. They consistently get out of position, they
don't execute the game plan, they do bizarre things in
certain coverages that break their defense. That type of player
is extremely difficult to build a championship defense around because
you can't plan for their issues because they're so mistake prone.
(15:36):
In other words, physical limitations versus mental limitations. Cat kind
of is both, but the most important piece of it
is he is very, very mistake prone on defense. That
is why I don't believe that the Knicks can build
a championship defense around him. But either way, you have
to try to write like it's not like the Knicks
(15:57):
are going to be like, oh we got cap, we
can't compete for a title. I guess as well pack
it in. They're gonna go out there and try to
win this year. So how does that work? Well? Playing
Karl Anthony Towns at the four alongside a player like
Mitchell Robinson will absolutely help them in the regular season context.
The key there is keep Karl Anthony Towns out of
(16:19):
screening action as much as possible. Kat defending screens is
an absolute nightmare. His hedges, he'll go way out out
of position, He'll jump to the wrong side of a screen.
He'll be so out of whack when defending ball screens
that legitimately he'll give up these crazy straight line drives
(16:40):
or crazy openings that are just impossible to account for.
On the backside, you got to try to keep him
out of screens as much as possible. Now, there are
several ways to do that. First, keep him in the
textbook low man position. What that means is you have
a Mitchell Robinson on the floor. He guards the other
team's primary pick and roll screen, and you put Kat
(17:01):
on the worst offensive player on the other team, regardless
of position. You put him on the worst player on
the other team that isn't their main pick and roll screener.
That allows him, as Mitch is defending ball screens with
the traditional screener, to be in the traditional lowman position.
Every team with that type of offensive player is going
to stick that guy in the corner. Why because it's
(17:23):
a shorter three point shot that hopefully he'll make it
a higher percentage. And you can go to that guy
and be like, okay, you can't shoot. But every time
you see this opening cut along the baseline, or every
time the shot goes up corner crash, corner, crash, corner crash,
we might be able to get a bunch of offensive
rebounds that'll make up for the fact that you can't
shoot right. So that guy's gonna be tucked in the corner.
That allows Karl Anthony Towns to play that typical lowman
(17:44):
position where he's guarding the role man as Mitchell Robinson
goes up to the level and closing out to the corner.
If the skip packed skip pass takes place, that is
the best type of off ball position for Kat with
the lowest opportunity for him to make mistakes. Second, pre
switching inevitably, whether it's through a team that has five
good offensive players on the floor, or if a team
(18:07):
just insists on attacking through that screening option, you can
attempt to protect Kat by sending a different player up
to defend the screen. So you can imagine in this situation,
let's say that Mikale Bridges is on the ball, and
you've got you've got Mitchell Robinson on the floor, and
you've got let's say og and and Ob on the
weak side. As Kat is in that low man position.
(18:29):
If they send his man up to screen, all you
have to do is communicate and essentially switch Og onto
that guy. Og can run up and defend the screen,
or let's say Mitch in a different circumstance, Cat can
then run over and grab Mitch's man. Pre switch as
much as possible to keep Kat out of screening actions.
But inevitably there will be teams that can get Cat
into screens, and in those situations, I think you just
(18:51):
got to switch. It makes it far less likely that
Kat will actually make a mistake. And then from there
you can give him very simple rule to help your
five man unit on the backside. So, for instance, play
up on the shot, give up the drive, play back,
concede the shot. If you get beat off the dribble
(19:12):
funnel in this direction, that's where we can plan for it.
Those are the kinds of things you can do with
Kat to try to minimize the damage he can do
in the large sample. I do expect the Knicks to
be a little better this season in the form of
the large sample. Defensively, I wouldn't be surprised if they
cracked into the top like eight, nine to ten of
(19:32):
defensive rating this year. The East is super weak. Mike Brown.
Tom Tabeau is a defensive coach too, but Mike Brown
preaches defensive accountability and he's a new voice, and typically
change in voice always leads into buy in in the
short term. So, for instance, like I expect McHale Bridges
to get off to a better defensive start this year
(19:53):
than he did last year because of the new voice
and just the emphasis coming into camp. Also healthy Mitchell
Robbins for the whole season with more minutes alongside Karl
Anthony Towns, that should help their base defense as well.
But ultimately I viewed the cat piece of this as
somewhat of a barrier between the Knicks and their championship goals. Overall,
(20:14):
with the Knicks, I viewed them firmly as a second
tier contender, just like last year. But I actually think
they have a decent chance to hoist the trophy just
due to the weak Eastern Conference. Boston was the best team.
They're out of the race. Indiana was there, kryptonite? Kryptonite?
Excuse me, they're out of the race. It feels like
Cleveland is their biggest rival. If you get out of
(20:36):
the conference, anything can happen in the Finals, especially if
all those Western Conference beasts beat the hell out of
each other and one of them just barely limps into June.
We were talking about this on playback yesterday, like anything
can happen. You have a team like the twenty eighteen
Rockets with an injured Chris Paul. If they somehow beat
Golden State, you could have a Lebron James Limited twenty
(20:59):
eighteen cash team potentially hoist the trophy just because the
team that won the blood Bath was injured. Those possibilities
are there. That's the kind of possibility that is there
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or Virginia. The Philadelphia seventy six Ers a team that
(22:47):
has suddenly become very intriguing due to the opportunity presented
by this Eastern Conference and some photos and some videos
that came out of Joel Embiid looking like he's in
the best shape of his life. Now it's still very precarious.
We had the Paul joyingjury that popped up at Summer League.
We found out last week that Dared McCain toward the
UCL in his shooting thumb. That's obviously not good. Embiid's
(23:07):
knee is still an absolute mess, so the margin for
error is insanely thin. But there's like a legitimate opportunity
now for this Sixers team to thread the needles, so
to speak, and win the conference. They have the only
player in the conference that, when he's healthy, can legitimately
challenge Giannis, and Giannis is on a bad team. So
(23:28):
a healthy Joel Embiid could easily be the best player
in a series against Cleveland or New York. And they
do at least have a somewhat intriguing roster when they're healthy.
Quick offseason recap. They lost Rickey Council, who actually like
he's in Brooklyn now Gershan Yabuselli, and they might lose
Quinton Grimes. Although I'm going to guess that they'll eventually
(23:49):
work something out there, I think there's too much to
be gained for both teams or both parties there. They
added VJ. Edgecomb through the draft, a super athletic, an
exciting young wing in a variety of other young players
through free agency in the draft, and so the Cores
essentially embid Paul George Tyres Maxi, the athletes VJ. Edgecumb
excuse me, and Kelly u Bray, Andre Drummond, Jared McCain,
(24:09):
the old Vets like Kyle Lowry and Air Gordon in
an assortment of younger players. It's not too difficult to
talk yourself into upside here if you're a Sixers fan.
I'm a huge Tyres Maxie fan. Over the course of
the last couple of years, due to injuries on the roster,
he's been kind of foisted into a super high usage role,
and in those situations his efficiency has really tanked. But
(24:33):
like I still really love his combination of insane downhill
speed movement shooting, pull up shooting, and he's improved as
a passer over the years. I just think Tyris Maxey
is an awesome player. I just think he needs to
be in a proper role, which, when healthy, the Sixers
can put him in. I've always loved the idea of
Paul George in theory as like a juiced up Michael
(24:55):
Porter junior who can score off of the weak side,
off of the attention that embid an he gather also
run some second side action, and then Kelly u Brain VJ.
Edgecombe bring athleticism amongst a group that needs it that
you can throw them at opposing perimeter players. I'd be
really curious to see if maybe VJ ends up starting
(25:15):
at the two this year. We'll see what ends up happening.
I generally love the idea of anchoring this particular Big
three with top tier athletes that can guard, and like
that is a theoretical outcome with VJ and Kelly out there.
If you bring Quentin Grimes back, you have like legit
scoring pop off the bench between him and Jared McCain,
(25:38):
Andre Drummond and theory provides injury insurance or rest insurance
for Embiid, although the Sixers would need a bounce back
year from him. He kind of saw some substantial drops
and production across the board last year. This there is
some intriguing stuff going on here with this roster. It's
hard to get too much into the schematic side of
things with this team just because we have so little
(26:00):
information to go on due to their injury history. But
it seems like a pretty straightforward approach in terms of
team construct on both ends of the four. On offense,
this seems like a team that spams two man game,
a lot of maxim bad two man game, Embad post ups,
Paul George spacing on the weak side. Also as a
secondary ball handler, Kelly you bray corner threes, cutting along
(26:24):
the baseline. We'll see what VJ. Edgecomb can provide. Obviously,
you can also go with offensive options at the two guard.
You know a guy like Quinton Grimes who can knock
down above the break threes at a high level. Jared
McCain as well. You can kind of see how that
would piece together, built off the foundation of the maxium
bad two man game and emb being able to play
out of the post embiid off groups. There's a lot
(26:46):
of ball handling there right between Paul George and Tyrese
Maxi and Jared McCain and Quentin Grimes. If they bring
him back, that type of offense could be more five out,
more ball and player move weaponizing the strength of the roster,
which is all that ball handling they have on the perimeter.
That's the type of offense that I could see them
(27:08):
running when embiads off the floor, more of those five
out concepts. And then on defense, it's pretty straightforward, right
traditional coverages embiid in varying versions of drop coverage VJ
Edge Comb and Kelly Ubray chasing over the top on
the best perimeter players Paul George and more or less
a low man type of role, and then Tyrese Maxi,
(27:28):
your stereotypical skill guard who's going to be doing hedging
and recovering that sort of thing, maybe switching with backside help. Well,
we'll get a lot deeper into Philly X's and O's
once we actually have a better idea of what they're
working with this season, but it all comes down to health.
Jared McCain's thumb, Joel Embid's knee, Paul George's everything. Do
(27:51):
you get anything out of Kyle Lowry and Eric Gordon
this year? There's just a lot of variables in Philly
This year, the Boston Celtics lots of turnover, to say
the least. They lost Drew Holliday, Al Horford, Luke Cornette
and chrisop Sportsingis. They added Anthonty Simons, Chris Bouchet, who
I like, Luca Garza, who actually like to just in
a smaller role than he'd be in this year. And
(28:13):
then some interesting young talent Josh Minott from Minnesota, really
good athlete, Hugo Gonzalez, a player they drafted at the
end of the first round, r J Luise Ota, Saint John's,
a bunch of other young guys. They'll take a look
at camp. Kind of an interesting looking depth chart, right
like they obviously an insanely weak center rotation. Xavier Tillman, Nimiasqueta,
Luca Garza. I think we'll probably see some Bouchet at
(28:35):
center this year. That's obviously just not even close to
good enough to compete at the later rounds of the
NBA playoffs, right, But there's some strong perimeter talent there.
Jalen Brown is still a top twenty five player in
the NBA at minimum. Derek White is one of the
best two way guards in the league. Sam Hauser is
a solid defender and an excellent three point shooter. Anthony
(28:56):
Simons is at least interesting and represents a type of
player we haven't seen on this version of the Celtics.
Excuse me, and he's a guy we're gonna talk quite
a bit about here in a minute. And then an
assortment of young talent that we should get a really
good look at this year under the circumstances. Like I
want to see a lot of Hugo Gonzales. I want
to see a lot of Baylor shiremen, and we should
get to see that this year under the circumstances. The
(29:18):
first question is should Jason Tatum attempt to return this year?
There's been a lot of buzz surrounding this idea, and
I do understand where the idea comes from, Like Tatum's
a competitor who loves basketball. Of course he's sitting on
his couch like I'm coming back this year, Like I
totally get that. And then the East appears to be
wide open, so I'm sure, Tatum looks at things and goes,
(29:41):
you know, maybe we can jump in here and get
the job done. But this is obviously a foolish idea.
It's just risky to bring him back from an achilles
tear during the highest leverage, in most intense, in most
physical games of the season, and also have some self awareness.
This is not a championship roster anyway. More. That frontcourt
(30:01):
rotation is just not good enough to win four playoff rounds.
So keep Tatum out, embrace this season as a learning opportunity,
bring him back next year with a reinforced roster and
a body that is actually physically ready for the grind.
So what exactly is the learning opportunity? The Jalen Brown
(30:22):
piece is pretty self explanatory. Let's see what he looks
like when he's the consistent top of the scouting report
shot creator. Let's see how he can perform. Remember, we
talked about this concept a lot, the difference in roles.
There's I'm getting these shots every game and these opportunities,
and I'm really just concerned with like twenty five to
(30:44):
thirty of my team's field goal attempts every game. To
I am now one of the lead initiators of the team,
and more than half of the shots we get are
either going to be shot by me, directly assisted by me,
or created by an advantage that I create at the
beginning of a possession that got driven and kicked a
few times. Whatever it might be, right, that job is
(31:05):
very different. I need to create fifty to sixty shots
tonight is a very different job than I need to
create twenty five shots tonight. And that's the type of
role that Jalen's going to be shifting closer towards. We
know what he's capable of. Game five last year against
New York twenty six points, eight rebounds, twelve assists, just
(31:29):
two turnovers. Wonderful game management throute, if you remember we
covered it at the time, like using the post as
a vehicle with which to get the defense in rotation,
taking easy reads that were available to him, not really
forcing the issue. If I remember correctly, he didn't really
take a pull up jump shot in that game for
a little while. He just eased his way in uped
his aggression at various points. Wonderful game management. Right. Game six,
(31:53):
not so much, although cut him some slack. That was
a buzz saw of a closeout game in Madison Square Garden,
but it goes for twenty six and six with seven turnovers.
He was minus thirty and thirty two minutes. This year
will be a large sample test of his shot creation.
Is it going to be closer to game five or
closer to game six. That's going to be part of
(32:15):
the learning experience with Jalen Brown this year. The next
piece is Anthony Simons, and what I find fascinating here
is we haven't really seen this type of guard in
Joe Mizula's system before. A really dynamic guard with some
downhill burst. He's not like the most athletic downhill guy
in the league, but he can beat people off the dribble,
(32:35):
and he's a solid pull up shooter. Like over, I
think he's like one point zero one points per possession.
This could be a super interesting fit in Boston system
for scharters in drive and Kick. He's a knockdown open
catch and shoot shooter. He hit forty four percent of
his unguarded catch and shoot threes last year, so in theory,
the open shots that get generated in the drive and
(32:57):
Kick system, he can knock them down. He was also
a good high volume pick and roll player last year.
He ran nine hundred and thirty one pick and rolls
last year. It's a huge volume, and he got one
point zero four points possession including passes, which is good
and when you really dig into it, like Portland was
not a good play finishing team last year, they were
twenty sixth and spot up efficiency in fifteenth in roleman efficiency,
(33:20):
and he's still got one point zero four points per possession,
in large part because he's a very good scorer out
of ball screens. He was top ten in efficiency shooting
out of pick and roll among players who logged at
least four hundred possessions of that type last year. He's
a good pull up shooter. Shot thirty five percent on
pull up threes, forty seven percent from the mid range,
(33:42):
forty percent from float range. Nothing like insanely impressive, but
good and overall as a pick and roll player, one
of the better ones in the league if you really
look at it, juxtapos with the talent that he was
playing with. So this season will be an excellent case
study when you're looking at big picture roster construction for
the Celtics. You had this championship level roster and you
(34:06):
just completely blew it up for good reason. Brad Stevens
and his media day presser talked about the need to
get out from the second apron. The idea that they
wouldn't have been able to make a trade for a
Drew Holliday or for a chrisops porzingis like they did
two summers ago if they were in the second a bron.
If they were in the second second apron. Excuse me,
so you blew it up. You did what you had
(34:26):
to do. But the next goal is we still have
Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum locked up long term. We
need to put together a championship roster. How do we
do so? It may not look the same as it
did in twenty twenty four, Right, so you might have
to consider a different type of player. What if the
type of player that becomes available is a high usage
on ball pick and roll guard. Right, this is a
(34:49):
good case study. Maybe it is Anferny Simons and maybe
it ends up being a wonderful partnership and he ends
up being a partner with Tatum and Brown moving forward,
or maybe it's a this is a kind of a
proof of concept that this can work. We'll move on
from Anferny and we'll look for this type of dude
in the draft, or we'll look for this type of
(35:10):
dude around the league when the opportunity provides itself. So like,
is Anferny Simons going to thrive in Joe Mizula's system.
That would be a good sign for the future. And
I'm very, very excited to see that. And again, because
you're not necessarily competing for a championship this year, you
get to have a good extended look at your young players,
(35:31):
see which ones make sense to actually factor into your
big picture plans. Definitely be a different type of year
for Celtic Spans, not going to be rooting for one
of the most supremely talented teams in the NBA, but
they are super interesting and they should be fun to
watch and root for for different reasons. All Right, two
more teams. We're going to go more briefly on these two,
(35:52):
starting with the Toronto Raptors. They lost Chris Bouchet, they
added Sandrew Mamokelospeeley kind of they added Murray Boyles in
the lottery as well. Just kind of the classic Toronto Raptors,
defensive minded rang g Ford that can't shoot raptors. Fans
will know exactly what that's like. My biggest thing that
I'm excited for this year is seeing a large sample
(36:14):
of the Brandon Ingram, Scottie Barnes in Emmanuel Quickly core
Scotty Barnes and Emmanuel Quickly logged eight thousand and two
possessions last year. They had a one to eleven offensive rating,
which is bad, in a one to fifteen defensive rating,
which is mediocre. With those two particular players, I'm a
big believer in Brandon Ingram when he's healthy. If he
(36:36):
can stay healthy and in rhythm, I think he's a
guy that will certainly help them on the offensive end
of the four. I don't necessarily love the fit, which
we'll talk about in a second, but I do believe
in Brandon's talent. I think he's a very good passer
for his position. I think he represents, among the Fords
in the league, one of the better advantage creators. I
(36:56):
actually think there's, overall on this roster a good amount
of playmaking talent. There's some potential here, but it's clunky
because of the fit amongst the starters. Like if you
look at the starting group, assuming that Emmanuel Quickley and RJ.
Barrett start in the backcourt. You have Brandon Ingram and
Scotty Barnes at the three and four, Yakaperta at center.
That's a bunch of dudes who can drive and who
(37:19):
can playmake, but very little catch and shoot talent in
that lineup. That's the first swing factor. Brandon Ingram has
been an inconsistent catch and shoot guy in his career,
but he's had stretches where he shot threes well. Scotty
Barnes has been mostly bad. But if those two guys
shoot the ball well this year off the catch, that's
(37:39):
a huge swing for this team in general. With Scotty Barnes,
he's been like Plateauing as a player a lot earlier
in his career than I thought he would, so him
getting back on the ascent would certainly help. Grady Dick
had a up and down year last year, but he
showed some real upside as a shooter. He had ten
games where he had at least twenty point points. His
(38:00):
shooting would certainly help, but they should be an awesome defense,
and this is the foundational piece of a potential playoff
appearance for this team. They were the second best defense
in the league post All Star Break. Last year, Oheoboji
turned into like an awesome three and D weapon. Yaka
Pertl and Scottie Barnes are really nice foundational defensive front court.
(38:22):
As a matter of fact, when those three guys were
on the floor together after the All Star Break this year,
they locked to one to oh four defensive rating, which
in the modern NBA is like frighteningly good. So a
lot of defensive potential there if you combine their defense
with Brandon Ingram being healthy and in rhythm to help
their half court offense, which should help them close games.
Because again, if you look at this team last year,
(38:44):
they had a one hundred point eight offensive rating in
the clutch, which was the second worst in the entire league.
They lost twenty two games last year that came down
into clutch situations, elite defense, Brandon Ingram kind of greased
the wheels in the half court on offense and crunch time.
This is a team that I think has some potential
to make the playoffs this year. Lastly, very quickly, the
(39:06):
Brooklyn Nets just a bizarre team. They're super light on
ball handling. They drafted Egor Demon at number eight, as
well as a bunch of other dudes in the first round.
But Eagle's a big ball handler who will certainly get
a bunch of opportunities this year. But it's basically going
to be the Cam Thomas show. He signed that qualifying offer.
He had another injury shortened season last year, but when
(39:28):
he was healthy, that brief stretch when he was healthy
to start the year, he was a very productive ball handler.
He ran three hundred and eighty seven pick and rolls,
ISOs and post ups and got four hundred and ten points.
It's one point zero six points per possession including passes.
That's really solid. He shot the ball really well from
the perimeter, struggled at the rim, but obviously not a
great spacing team. But if he's healthy, the Knicks are
(39:50):
going to get a really good look at him, and
then maybe Cam can get that long term deal he's
been looking for. The rest of the roster is funky.
Michael Porter juniors should get lots of opportunities. Is kind
of a second side dribble handoff guy, as well as
a week side score if anybody ever passes in the ball,
which remains to be seen. They have some decent perimeter veterans,
guys like Terrence Man and Haywood high Smith, Nick Claxton,
(40:13):
I think is a solid foundational center to build as
a pick and roll partner as well as to build
a defense around. This team's going nowhere. But as you
really dig into it, they're just kind of in that
phase of the rebuild process. As I've talked about so
much over the years, like when you're going through the
rebuilt process, step one is find your foundational guys. And
(40:34):
if you don't know who your foundational guys are, you
kind of just have to try. Shit. Give the ball
to Cam Thomas a lot, see if he can actually
play seventy games without getting hurt, be at the top
of the scouting report every night, and be a high volume,
efficient shot creator. If he does while also being like
a good teammate and a good defender or a useful defender,
someone you can build a defense around, all of a sudden,
(40:57):
you might have to be like, hmm, maybe Cam Thomas
fits ours, or we gave it to him again. He
played forty seven games, dealt with nagging injuries throughout. The
efficiency was good, not great, The defense was bad. Cam's
not the guy for us we need to move on.
You learn that through the draft. You have so many
(41:17):
first round picks that you've tried. You have the ability
to take flyers on young players around the league if
they opportunity pops up. You just keep trying shit until
suddenly you go, this is one of our guys. This
is somebody we can build around for the future. From there,
you decide where he fits in that hierarchy. Is this
a guy that can be the best player on a
championship team. If so, we're looking for a complimentary number two.
(41:40):
If he's more of a complimentary number two, we're still
looking for that best guy. Once we have both, then
we're looking for supporting talent. What are the types of
supporting talent that fit this type of team? Am I
looking for playmakers in a five out system? Am I
looking for play finishers around a guy like a Caid Cunningham.
There's all sorts of steps in this process, but you
(42:01):
can't get to any of those steps until you find
out who your foundational guys are. The nets don't know
who those guys are, So you know what, Flipping Cam
Johnson for an unprotected first round pick that could become
anything in the future as well as a Michael Porter junior.
That's a move in that direction because you get that
first round pick that might become one of those foundational pieces.
(42:22):
For all to talk about the first round picks and
how they should have consolidated them. If there was a
clear guy they had in mind, if they were like, oh,
you know, we really wanted VJ. Edgecomb, then by all
means package the picks and go after them. But if
their scouting department didn't have a specific guy that they loved,
give yourself as many cracksited as you can. My thing
is just they need to be hunting for that foundational player.
(42:45):
That involves a lot of like trial and error in
this phase. It's just the Brooklyn's just they are quite
literally they're just starting their drive. This is like touchback.
You're starting at the twenty yard line. They've got a
long way to go to get to where they're going,
and they're rebuild. 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'll be back with
(43:07):
another division on Wednesday. I'll see you guys,
The volume. All right, well, good to Hoops Tonight. You're
at the volume. We are finally starting our season previews today.
We're gonna be using a different format than we have
(00:23):
in years past. And years pass we only hit the
top fifteen teams and we did a power ranking style.
This year, we're going to do a separate kind of
like contender rankings video as we get closer to the
start of the season. But we're gonna go division by division,
which means we're going to hit all thirty teams. Now,
obviously the teams towards the bottom end of the league
(00:43):
we're not going to spend as much time on. But
over the course of the next six videos, as we
go division to division, we are going to hit all
thirty teams in the NBA season previous style. Today, we
are starting with the Atlantic Division. That would be the
New York Knicks, the Philadelphia seventy six Ers, the Boston Celtics,
the Toronto Raptors, and the Brooklyn Nets. Will be touching
on all five of those teams today. You guys have
(01:04):
the drip before we get started. To subscribe to the
Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of
our videos. Follow me on Twitter, I underscore JCNLTC. You guys,
don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast few
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guys follow us over there. And then, last, but not
out least, keep dropping those mail bag questions in the
(01:24):
YouTube comments. We will have at least one more mail
bag before the start of the season, and then they
will be a regular part of our regular season cadence
when we get to that point. All right, let's talk
some basketball. So for starters, I'm just super excited. We
got a nice little break. But we've been talking a
lot of offseason stuff, a lot of digging into the past,
and this is just going to be a super exciting
(01:46):
and super interesting NBA season And there's just like a
lot of stuff that if you're a basketball fan you
should be stoked about. I'm excited to see any changes
that might take place in the New York Knicks offense.
For example, you can actually talk yourself into a little
Sixers optimism with the wide open Eastern Conference and Joel
(02:06):
Embiid being in great shape, I mean, I want to
see it, Like I would like to see this new
version of Joel Embiid and see if there's anything there right, Like,
Boston's not the juggernaut that they were in years past
talent wise, but they have some really interesting storylines this year.
I'm really excited to see what Anthony Simons looks like
in the Joe Missoula drive and kick attack or high
(02:29):
volume Jalen Brown shot creator. There's just a million interesting
storylines all around the league, so many good There's like
two dozen legitimately good teams that we're gonna be covering
throughout the year, and I'm just excited to get into
the season. So let's get started with our Atlantic Division
season preview. With the New York Knicks, quick little offseason recap.
They lost Precious to Chewa, Cameron Payne, Intolon right and
(02:51):
added Malcolm Brogden, Jordan Clarkson, and Gershaon Yabucelli, so in
a lot of ways to shift towards offense with that
part of their bench. Right, Like, Gershan is a much
better offensive player than Precious to Chua, and Jordan and
Malcolm represent a more offensive oriented backcourt than Delon Wright
and Campaign represented. Right, and perhaps the most influential piece
(03:12):
of Knicks news this entire summer is just the change
and head coach from Tom Thibodeau to Mike Brown. We've
already seen a couple of hints as to how that
could change things for the Knicks. In the early part
of the season. We saw a picture from their first
practice where Mitchell Robinson was wearing a starters jersey. Obviously,
that's not a guarantee that he will start, but going
from Josh Harden the starting lineup to Mitchell Robinson would
(03:35):
be a shift from their regular season approach last year.
Obviously a lot of that was initiated by Mitchell's injury
to start the season as well, But if we saw
a lot more Mitchell Robinson at center, especially to start
games at alongside Karl Anthony Towns, that'd be an interesting shift, right.
And then we got an interesting quote from Deuce McBride,
one that centers around a storyline we've discussed a lot
(03:55):
with the Knicks and throughout the end of last season,
which was the quote goes a lot more player movement,
ball movement. Last year, at times we got stagnant and
we depended on a lot of isolation shots, which is
tough down the stretch. This year, it's gonna be a
little more freedom with the movement and a lot of
(04:15):
young guys cutting, guys getting active. This is where I
want to start with the Knicks, because, like obviously, their
defense was their biggest issue last year, and we're going
to talk about that. They logged a defensive rating of
one to twenty three point four in their eight playoff losses,
which is brutally bad. And we are going to discuss
the defense in a bit, but this was a major
(04:36):
talking point with respect to the offense, which was also
an issue for the Knicks in that postseason run. The
Knicks were the fifth best offense in the NBA during
the regular season, logging a one to seventeen point three
offensive rating, but that plummeted down to one twelve point
seven in the postseason. So the strength of the team,
their ability to score failed them when they got into
(04:59):
April and may this stems from a concept that we've
talked a lot about on the show in the last year,
which is the difference between an individual player loading up
the box score in the team the five man unit
effectively scoring the ball. In a large sample, Brunson had
an insane postseason. He averaged twenty nine points and seven
(05:20):
assists on fifty eight percent through shooting at a boltload
of clutch shots. There was a lot of highlights on
the Jalen Brunson front, but the Jalen Brunson led offense
that five man grouping did not perform nearly as well
as the other top offenses around the playoff field. Now,
it'd be clear before we go any further. I'm not
(05:40):
trying to say that Jalen Brunson is overrated, or that
he's bad, or that Brunson ball can't work. That's obviously
not the case. In fact, at the end of games,
when Brunson really struggled things, the strangled things, excuse me,
the Knicks actually scored the ball really well with Brunson
on the floor in the fourth quarter. During this playoff run,
(06:01):
the Knicks logged a one to twenty five offensive rating,
and they were decent in crunch time, not perfect, but decent,
and they wanted quite a few games in those crunch
time situations. I still think, especially in a small handful
of possessions, Brunson is one of the very best half
court weapons in the league, and the Knicks would be
(06:22):
foolish to abandon that. So this is not a let's
put Brunson on the sidelines, so to speak, in the
offensive approach. This is like let's add variety. The truth
remains that in the large sample, the Knicks need to
find a way to score more effectively in the playoffs,
and they have the personnel to do so. This is
(06:45):
not Jalen in a bunch of role players. I've talked
about this over the years, but the way your personnel
is put together should dictate your play style. So, for instance,
if you're the twenty twenty two or the twenty twenty
four Dallas Mavericks, and outside of Luca and Kyrie Irvinger
Jalen Brunson, you just have a bunch of play finishers,
(07:06):
guys like Dorian Finney, Smith, Josh Green, PJ. Washington, Dereck Lively,
Daniel Gafford, so on and so forth. You guys get
the point, You're gonna want to run more of a
brute force for out one in pick and roll heavy
attack because you don't have a ton of ball handling,
and you don't want to have a bunch of possessions
(07:27):
with Dorian Finney Smith coming off of a dribble handoff
needing to create something off the bounce. That's not in
line with the strength of the roster. But to be clear,
this Knicks team is not that type of roster, especially
with the additions of Malcolm Brogden and Jordan Clarkson. Like
Brogden and Clarkson and Brunson and Mikhale Bridges and og
Anobi and Karl Anthony Towns, these are all guys who
(07:49):
can put the ball on the floor and make plays
for others. And so this is the potential upside of
the Mike Brown hiring. You have a guy who's famous
for defensive accountability, which'll talk about in a minute, and
that will certainly help things. But you also get a
guy who has spent time on Steve Kerr's staff in
Golden State, who then brought many of those principles to
(08:11):
the five out attack with the Sacramento Kings, which was
a very high level offense. This team should be able
to score a shit ton of points. This team is
a team that can benefit from a lot of the
ideas that Mike Brown brought from Golden State utilized in Sacramento. Now,
to be clear, does that mean the Knicks should be
(08:32):
playing Warriors basketball with a half dozen dribble handoffs and
a half dozen backcuts every single possession? Of course not.
They're not that type of roster either, but something closer
to that than what they were last year would be
extremely helpful to me. It's about two important pieces of upside.
One is establishing other actions that you can eventually depend
(08:56):
on when you get into a postseason situation and you
need versatility in your offense, finding three or four more
pet sets or pet actions that you feel confident you
can get a great look out of that don't require
Jalen Brunson to do so off the bounce. We talked
(09:17):
about ogn and OBI post ups a lot last year.
You can reach those through several actions that can either
help him get better deeper post position or a better matchup.
So say, for instance, you use Brunson as a screener.
Let's say you just have Brunson cross screen for OG
before coming off of something on the opposite end of
the floor. In that instance, if Brunson sets a good screen.
(09:37):
You're either going to hit the guy and help Og
get really deep post position, and he's already so strong
that could lead to really good opportunities, or you can
force a switch which will then force Jalen Brunson's man
to guard Ogn Andobi on the block. That is something
I'd like to see them build out over the course
of the season. We saw a lot of McHale Bridge's
pick and roll with bench groups last year. They need
(10:00):
to add complications to that so that it's not all
on McHale Bridges as a ball handler to hit mid
range pull ups, three man action with Og and Andobi involved,
as well as Karl Anthony towns that could come out
of horn sets, that could come out of stack pick
and roll where OG's starting under the basket and backscreening
for Cat. Adding those complications that take full advantage of
(10:23):
all of the offensive talent you have on the floor.
Inverted ball screens for Cat, taking a player like Duce
McBride or Jalen Brunson or even McHale Bridges screening for
Cat and then slipping out to the three point line
if they hedge, there's an easy little kickout pass that
can start your offense, then you can drive and kick
from there. If they don't, Cat's gonna get downhill. That's
(10:46):
what the Bucks and Giannis have been using for years
to get opportunities in their inverted actions. All of these
are potentially ways to get the defense into rotation. Og
Nanobi starts with a comes off a cross screen, draws
a second defender in the post. We can play drive
and kick out of that, a three man action with
McHale Bridges and O Jannobi and Karl Anthony Towns. Maybe
(11:10):
O jan Andobi is popping out of his backscreen and
getting wide open at the top of the key to
start your drive and kick attack. The idea of an
inverted ball screen cat comes barreling downhill, someone helps, it's
an easy kickout pass or playing drive and kick. You're
finding ways to initiate offense without relying heavily on Jalen
Brunson to do so on the ball, which then creates
(11:32):
the initial advantage that all of a sudden, all this
talent we have on the floor can benefit from. The
Key is taking the time to really establish these things
over the course of the season, getting hundreds of reps
with them so that when You need to run it
in the postseason your guys feel comfortable and confident, because
what happens is if they're not comfortable and confident in
(11:53):
these pet actions, then what do you do every time
anyone falls into any kind of adversity on like the
handful of things that you're good at and generally speaking
over the last few years that's been here, Jalen, you
do it, and they need to have more versatility and
more variety that they can depend on. The second piece
of this is saving Jalen Brunson's legs. Jalen Brunson spent
(12:18):
a ton of time last year, especially in like the
first three quarters of games, fighting ball pressure up the floor.
He also ran an insane amount of pick and roll.
He ran the third most pick and rolls per game
in the entire NBA last year per Sentergy. That makes
no sense with the roster that they have. Here are
(12:40):
the top five guys in pick and roll volume last
year according to Synergy. Number one Trey Young. He played
on a team with almost noball handling and he was
surrounded by a bunch of play finishers, so it made
a lot of sense for them to run a ton
of Trey Young pick and roll number two Cade cunning Hand.
He was on a team with very little ball handling
(13:02):
surrounded by a bunch of shooting and play finishers, so
it made a ton of sense for them to run
a ton of Cad pick and roll bruntson third. Number
four Damian Lillard, a team you know, outside of Damon Giannis,
not a lot of ball handling, but the best catch
and shoot team in the league. It made a lot
of sense to run a lot of Dame pick and
(13:23):
roll Number five Shake Gil Just Alexander obviously a much
better roster and more ball handling than some of those
other teams, but compared to the top playoff teams in
the NBA, we discussed throughout the last year's last year's
postseason run that the Thunder were light on ball handling.
It was a weakness that Indiana exposed as they pushed
them towards seven games. In other words, you're wearing Jalen
(13:47):
Brunson out for no reason. He should be facing way
less ball pressure and running way less pick and roll
in addition to establishing other actions like we talked about earlier,
you should then be able to deploy Brunson at the
end of games as the half court surgeon that he
is with way fresher legs so that he doesn't look
(14:09):
as gast as he did at the tail end of
the Indiana series. So Mike Brown's tweaks within the offense
will be something I have my eyes on to start
this season. On the defensive end, it's all about Carl
Anthony Towns, and I want to start by reiterating what
I said often at the end of the year last year.
I don't think you can play championship defense with Karl
(14:31):
Anthony Towns on the floor. There are two different kinds
of bad defenders. This is a concept we've talked a
lot about on the show over the last six months.
There are defenders that have physical limitations. These are guys
that are maybe too small, maybe too slow, but they
have issues with dealing with the physical limitations in certain matchups.
But these guys tend to have high IQs. There are
(14:53):
certain guys that fit that mold where it's like they
have their limitations, but they do have high IQs so
they can play a role within the defense. They're usually
in the right spot. You can plan for their weaknesses.
There's a way to work around those kind of guys.
Then there are bad defenders that just they're all over
(15:14):
the place mentally. They consistently get out of position, they
don't execute the game plan, they do bizarre things in
certain coverages that break their defense. That type of player
is extremely difficult to build a championship defense around because
you can't plan for their issues because they're so mistake prone.
(15:36):
In other words, physical limitations versus mental limitations. Cat kind
of is both, but the most important piece of it
is he is very, very mistake prone on defense. That
is why I don't believe that the Knicks can build
a championship defense around him. But either way, you have
to try to write like it's not like the Knicks
(15:57):
are going to be like, oh we got cap, we
can't compete for a title. I guess as well pack
it in. They're gonna go out there and try to
win this year. So how does that work? Well? Playing
Karl Anthony Towns at the four alongside a player like
Mitchell Robinson will absolutely help them in the regular season context.
The key there is keep Karl Anthony Towns out of
(16:19):
screening action as much as possible. Kat defending screens is
an absolute nightmare. His hedges, he'll go way out out
of position, He'll jump to the wrong side of a screen.
He'll be so out of whack when defending ball screens
that legitimately he'll give up these crazy straight line drives
(16:40):
or crazy openings that are just impossible to account for.
On the backside, you got to try to keep him
out of screens as much as possible. Now, there are
several ways to do that. First, keep him in the
textbook low man position. What that means is you have
a Mitchell Robinson on the floor. He guards the other
team's primary pick and roll screen, and you put Kat
(17:01):
on the worst offensive player on the other team, regardless
of position. You put him on the worst player on
the other team that isn't their main pick and roll screener.
That allows him, as Mitch is defending ball screens with
the traditional screener, to be in the traditional lowman position.
Every team with that type of offensive player is going
to stick that guy in the corner. Why because it's
(17:23):
a shorter three point shot that hopefully he'll make it
a higher percentage. And you can go to that guy
and be like, okay, you can't shoot. But every time
you see this opening cut along the baseline, or every
time the shot goes up corner crash, corner, crash, corner crash,
we might be able to get a bunch of offensive
rebounds that'll make up for the fact that you can't
shoot right. So that guy's gonna be tucked in the corner.
That allows Karl Anthony Towns to play that typical lowman
(17:44):
position where he's guarding the role man as Mitchell Robinson
goes up to the level and closing out to the corner.
If the skip packed skip pass takes place, that is
the best type of off ball position for Kat with
the lowest opportunity for him to make mistakes. Second, pre
switching inevitably, whether it's through a team that has five
good offensive players on the floor, or if a team
(18:07):
just insists on attacking through that screening option, you can
attempt to protect Kat by sending a different player up
to defend the screen. So you can imagine in this situation,
let's say that Mikale Bridges is on the ball, and
you've got you've got Mitchell Robinson on the floor, and
you've got let's say og and and Ob on the
weak side. As Kat is in that low man position.
(18:29):
If they send his man up to screen, all you
have to do is communicate and essentially switch Og onto
that guy. Og can run up and defend the screen,
or let's say Mitch in a different circumstance, Cat can
then run over and grab Mitch's man. Pre switch as
much as possible to keep Kat out of screening actions.
But inevitably there will be teams that can get Cat
into screens, and in those situations, I think you just
(18:51):
got to switch. It makes it far less likely that
Kat will actually make a mistake. And then from there
you can give him very simple rule to help your
five man unit on the backside. So, for instance, play
up on the shot, give up the drive, play back,
concede the shot. If you get beat off the dribble
(19:12):
funnel in this direction, that's where we can plan for it.
Those are the kinds of things you can do with
Kat to try to minimize the damage he can do
in the large sample. I do expect the Knicks to
be a little better this season in the form of
the large sample. Defensively, I wouldn't be surprised if they
cracked into the top like eight, nine to ten of
(19:32):
defensive rating this year. The East is super weak. Mike Brown.
Tom Tabeau is a defensive coach too, but Mike Brown
preaches defensive accountability and he's a new voice, and typically
change in voice always leads into buy in in the
short term. So, for instance, like I expect McHale Bridges
to get off to a better defensive start this year
(19:53):
than he did last year because of the new voice
and just the emphasis coming into camp. Also healthy Mitchell
Robbins for the whole season with more minutes alongside Karl
Anthony Towns, that should help their base defense as well.
But ultimately I viewed the cat piece of this as
somewhat of a barrier between the Knicks and their championship goals. Overall,
(20:14):
with the Knicks, I viewed them firmly as a second
tier contender, just like last year. But I actually think
they have a decent chance to hoist the trophy just
due to the weak Eastern Conference. Boston was the best team.
They're out of the race. Indiana was there, kryptonite? Kryptonite?
Excuse me, they're out of the race. It feels like
Cleveland is their biggest rival. If you get out of
(20:36):
the conference, anything can happen in the Finals, especially if
all those Western Conference beasts beat the hell out of
each other and one of them just barely limps into June.
We were talking about this on playback yesterday, like anything
can happen. You have a team like the twenty eighteen
Rockets with an injured Chris Paul. If they somehow beat
Golden State, you could have a Lebron James Limited twenty
(20:59):
eighteen cash team potentially hoist the trophy just because the
team that won the blood Bath was injured. Those possibilities
are there. That's the kind of possibility that is there
for the Knicks. Today's show is brought to you by
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called one eight hundred gambler in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia. The Philadelphia seventy six Ers a team that
(22:47):
has suddenly become very intriguing due to the opportunity presented
by this Eastern Conference and some photos and some videos
that came out of Joel Embiid looking like he's in
the best shape of his life. Now it's still very precarious.
We had the Paul joyingjury that popped up at Summer League.
We found out last week that Dared McCain toward the
UCL in his shooting thumb. That's obviously not good. Embiid's
(23:07):
knee is still an absolute mess, so the margin for
error is insanely thin. But there's like a legitimate opportunity
now for this Sixers team to thread the needles, so
to speak, and win the conference. They have the only
player in the conference that, when he's healthy, can legitimately
challenge Giannis, and Giannis is on a bad team. So
(23:28):
a healthy Joel Embiid could easily be the best player
in a series against Cleveland or New York. And they
do at least have a somewhat intriguing roster when they're healthy.
Quick offseason recap. They lost Rickey Council, who actually like
he's in Brooklyn now Gershan Yabuselli, and they might lose
Quinton Grimes. Although I'm going to guess that they'll eventually
(23:49):
work something out there, I think there's too much to
be gained for both teams or both parties there. They
added VJ. Edgecomb through the draft, a super athletic, an
exciting young wing in a variety of other young players
through free agency in the draft, and so the Cores
essentially embid Paul George Tyres Maxi, the athletes VJ. Edgecumb
excuse me, and Kelly u Bray, Andre Drummond, Jared McCain,
(24:09):
the old Vets like Kyle Lowry and Air Gordon in
an assortment of younger players. It's not too difficult to
talk yourself into upside here if you're a Sixers fan.
I'm a huge Tyres Maxie fan. Over the course of
the last couple of years, due to injuries on the roster,
he's been kind of foisted into a super high usage role,
and in those situations his efficiency has really tanked. But
(24:33):
like I still really love his combination of insane downhill
speed movement shooting, pull up shooting, and he's improved as
a passer over the years. I just think Tyris Maxey
is an awesome player. I just think he needs to
be in a proper role, which, when healthy, the Sixers
can put him in. I've always loved the idea of
Paul George in theory as like a juiced up Michael
(24:55):
Porter junior who can score off of the weak side,
off of the attention that embid an he gather also
run some second side action, and then Kelly u Brain VJ.
Edgecombe bring athleticism amongst a group that needs it that
you can throw them at opposing perimeter players. I'd be
really curious to see if maybe VJ ends up starting
(25:15):
at the two this year. We'll see what ends up happening.
I generally love the idea of anchoring this particular Big
three with top tier athletes that can guard, and like
that is a theoretical outcome with VJ and Kelly out there.
If you bring Quentin Grimes back, you have like legit
scoring pop off the bench between him and Jared McCain,
(25:38):
Andre Drummond and theory provides injury insurance or rest insurance
for Embiid, although the Sixers would need a bounce back
year from him. He kind of saw some substantial drops
and production across the board last year. This there is
some intriguing stuff going on here with this roster. It's
hard to get too much into the schematic side of
things with this team just because we have so little
(26:00):
information to go on due to their injury history. But
it seems like a pretty straightforward approach in terms of
team construct on both ends of the four. On offense,
this seems like a team that spams two man game,
a lot of maxim bad two man game, Embad post ups,
Paul George spacing on the weak side. Also as a
secondary ball handler, Kelly you bray corner threes, cutting along
(26:24):
the baseline. We'll see what VJ. Edgecomb can provide. Obviously,
you can also go with offensive options at the two guard.
You know a guy like Quinton Grimes who can knock
down above the break threes at a high level. Jared
McCain as well. You can kind of see how that
would piece together, built off the foundation of the maxium
bad two man game and emb being able to play
out of the post embiid off groups. There's a lot
(26:46):
of ball handling there right between Paul George and Tyrese
Maxi and Jared McCain and Quentin Grimes. If they bring
him back, that type of offense could be more five out,
more ball and player move weaponizing the strength of the roster,
which is all that ball handling they have on the perimeter.
That's the type of offense that I could see them
(27:08):
running when embiads off the floor, more of those five
out concepts. And then on defense, it's pretty straightforward, right
traditional coverages embiid in varying versions of drop coverage VJ
Edge Comb and Kelly Ubray chasing over the top on
the best perimeter players Paul George and more or less
a low man type of role, and then Tyrese Maxi,
(27:28):
your stereotypical skill guard who's going to be doing hedging
and recovering that sort of thing, maybe switching with backside help. Well,
we'll get a lot deeper into Philly X's and O's
once we actually have a better idea of what they're
working with this season, but it all comes down to health.
Jared McCain's thumb, Joel Embid's knee, Paul George's everything. Do
(27:51):
you get anything out of Kyle Lowry and Eric Gordon
this year? There's just a lot of variables in Philly
This year, the Boston Celtics lots of turnover, to say
the least. They lost Drew Holliday, Al Horford, Luke Cornette
and chrisop Sportsingis. They added Anthonty Simons, Chris Bouchet, who
I like, Luca Garza, who actually like to just in
a smaller role than he'd be in this year. And
(28:13):
then some interesting young talent Josh Minott from Minnesota, really
good athlete, Hugo Gonzalez, a player they drafted at the
end of the first round, r J Luise Ota, Saint John's,
a bunch of other young guys. They'll take a look
at camp. Kind of an interesting looking depth chart, right
like they obviously an insanely weak center rotation. Xavier Tillman, Nimiasqueta,
Luca Garza. I think we'll probably see some Bouchet at
(28:35):
center this year. That's obviously just not even close to
good enough to compete at the later rounds of the
NBA playoffs, right, But there's some strong perimeter talent there.
Jalen Brown is still a top twenty five player in
the NBA at minimum. Derek White is one of the
best two way guards in the league. Sam Hauser is
a solid defender and an excellent three point shooter. Anthony
(28:56):
Simons is at least interesting and represents a type of
player we haven't seen on this version of the Celtics.
Excuse me, and he's a guy we're gonna talk quite
a bit about here in a minute. And then an
assortment of young talent that we should get a really
good look at this year under the circumstances. Like I
want to see a lot of Hugo Gonzales. I want
to see a lot of Baylor shiremen, and we should
get to see that this year under the circumstances. The
(29:18):
first question is should Jason Tatum attempt to return this year?
There's been a lot of buzz surrounding this idea, and
I do understand where the idea comes from, Like Tatum's
a competitor who loves basketball. Of course he's sitting on
his couch like I'm coming back this year, Like I
totally get that. And then the East appears to be
wide open, so I'm sure, Tatum looks at things and goes,
(29:41):
you know, maybe we can jump in here and get
the job done. But this is obviously a foolish idea.
It's just risky to bring him back from an achilles
tear during the highest leverage, in most intense, in most
physical games of the season, and also have some self awareness.
This is not a championship roster anyway. More. That frontcourt
(30:01):
rotation is just not good enough to win four playoff rounds.
So keep Tatum out, embrace this season as a learning opportunity,
bring him back next year with a reinforced roster and
a body that is actually physically ready for the grind.
So what exactly is the learning opportunity? The Jalen Brown
(30:22):
piece is pretty self explanatory. Let's see what he looks
like when he's the consistent top of the scouting report
shot creator. Let's see how he can perform. Remember, we
talked about this concept a lot, the difference in roles.
There's I'm getting these shots every game and these opportunities,
and I'm really just concerned with like twenty five to
(30:44):
thirty of my team's field goal attempts every game. To
I am now one of the lead initiators of the team,
and more than half of the shots we get are
either going to be shot by me, directly assisted by me,
or created by an advantage that I create at the
beginning of a possession that got driven and kicked a
few times. Whatever it might be, right, that job is
(31:05):
very different. I need to create fifty to sixty shots
tonight is a very different job than I need to
create twenty five shots tonight. And that's the type of
role that Jalen's going to be shifting closer towards. We
know what he's capable of. Game five last year against
New York twenty six points, eight rebounds, twelve assists, just
(31:29):
two turnovers. Wonderful game management throute, if you remember we
covered it at the time, like using the post as
a vehicle with which to get the defense in rotation,
taking easy reads that were available to him, not really
forcing the issue. If I remember correctly, he didn't really
take a pull up jump shot in that game for
a little while. He just eased his way in uped
his aggression at various points. Wonderful game management. Right. Game six,
(31:53):
not so much, although cut him some slack. That was
a buzz saw of a closeout game in Madison Square Garden,
but it goes for twenty six and six with seven turnovers.
He was minus thirty and thirty two minutes. This year
will be a large sample test of his shot creation.
Is it going to be closer to game five or
closer to game six. That's going to be part of
(32:15):
the learning experience with Jalen Brown this year. The next
piece is Anthony Simons, and what I find fascinating here
is we haven't really seen this type of guard in
Joe Mizula's system before. A really dynamic guard with some
downhill burst. He's not like the most athletic downhill guy
in the league, but he can beat people off the dribble,
(32:35):
and he's a solid pull up shooter. Like over, I
think he's like one point zero one points per possession.
This could be a super interesting fit in Boston system
for scharters in drive and Kick. He's a knockdown open
catch and shoot shooter. He hit forty four percent of
his unguarded catch and shoot threes last year, so in theory,
the open shots that get generated in the drive and
(32:57):
Kick system, he can knock them down. He was also
a good high volume pick and roll player last year.
He ran nine hundred and thirty one pick and rolls
last year. It's a huge volume, and he got one
point zero four points possession including passes, which is good
and when you really dig into it, like Portland was
not a good play finishing team last year, they were
twenty sixth and spot up efficiency in fifteenth in roleman efficiency,
(33:20):
and he's still got one point zero four points per possession,
in large part because he's a very good scorer out
of ball screens. He was top ten in efficiency shooting
out of pick and roll among players who logged at
least four hundred possessions of that type last year. He's
a good pull up shooter. Shot thirty five percent on
pull up threes, forty seven percent from the mid range,
(33:42):
forty percent from float range. Nothing like insanely impressive, but
good and overall as a pick and roll player, one
of the better ones in the league if you really
look at it, juxtapos with the talent that he was
playing with. So this season will be an excellent case
study when you're looking at big picture roster construction for
the Celtics. You had this championship level roster and you
(34:06):
just completely blew it up for good reason. Brad Stevens
and his media day presser talked about the need to
get out from the second apron. The idea that they
wouldn't have been able to make a trade for a
Drew Holliday or for a chrisops porzingis like they did
two summers ago if they were in the second a bron.
If they were in the second second apron. Excuse me,
so you blew it up. You did what you had
(34:26):
to do. But the next goal is we still have
Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum locked up long term. We
need to put together a championship roster. How do we
do so? It may not look the same as it
did in twenty twenty four, Right, so you might have
to consider a different type of player. What if the
type of player that becomes available is a high usage
on ball pick and roll guard. Right, this is a
(34:49):
good case study. Maybe it is Anferny Simons and maybe
it ends up being a wonderful partnership and he ends
up being a partner with Tatum and Brown moving forward,
or maybe it's a this is a kind of a
proof of concept that this can work. We'll move on
from Anferny and we'll look for this type of dude
in the draft, or we'll look for this type of
(35:10):
dude around the league when the opportunity provides itself. So like,
is Anferny Simons going to thrive in Joe Mizula's system.
That would be a good sign for the future. And
I'm very, very excited to see that. And again, because
you're not necessarily competing for a championship this year, you
get to have a good extended look at your young players,
(35:31):
see which ones make sense to actually factor into your
big picture plans. Definitely be a different type of year
for Celtic Spans, not going to be rooting for one
of the most supremely talented teams in the NBA, but
they are super interesting and they should be fun to
watch and root for for different reasons. All Right, two
more teams. We're going to go more briefly on these two,
(35:52):
starting with the Toronto Raptors. They lost Chris Bouchet, they
added Sandrew Mamokelospeeley kind of they added Murray Boyles in
the lottery as well. Just kind of the classic Toronto Raptors,
defensive minded rang g Ford that can't shoot raptors. Fans
will know exactly what that's like. My biggest thing that
I'm excited for this year is seeing a large sample
(36:14):
of the Brandon Ingram, Scottie Barnes in Emmanuel Quickly core
Scotty Barnes and Emmanuel Quickly logged eight thousand and two
possessions last year. They had a one to eleven offensive rating,
which is bad, in a one to fifteen defensive rating,
which is mediocre. With those two particular players, I'm a
big believer in Brandon Ingram when he's healthy. If he
(36:36):
can stay healthy and in rhythm, I think he's a
guy that will certainly help them on the offensive end
of the four. I don't necessarily love the fit, which
we'll talk about in a second, but I do believe
in Brandon's talent. I think he's a very good passer
for his position. I think he represents, among the Fords
in the league, one of the better advantage creators. I
(36:56):
actually think there's, overall on this roster a good amount
of playmaking talent. There's some potential here, but it's clunky
because of the fit amongst the starters. Like if you
look at the starting group, assuming that Emmanuel Quickley and RJ.
Barrett start in the backcourt. You have Brandon Ingram and
Scotty Barnes at the three and four, Yakaperta at center.
That's a bunch of dudes who can drive and who
(37:19):
can playmake, but very little catch and shoot talent in
that lineup. That's the first swing factor. Brandon Ingram has
been an inconsistent catch and shoot guy in his career,
but he's had stretches where he shot threes well. Scotty
Barnes has been mostly bad. But if those two guys
shoot the ball well this year off the catch, that's
(37:39):
a huge swing for this team in general. With Scotty Barnes,
he's been like Plateauing as a player a lot earlier
in his career than I thought he would, so him
getting back on the ascent would certainly help. Grady Dick
had a up and down year last year, but he
showed some real upside as a shooter. He had ten
games where he had at least twenty point points. His
(38:00):
shooting would certainly help, but they should be an awesome defense,
and this is the foundational piece of a potential playoff
appearance for this team. They were the second best defense
in the league post All Star Break. Last year, Oheoboji
turned into like an awesome three and D weapon. Yaka
Pertl and Scottie Barnes are really nice foundational defensive front court.
(38:22):
As a matter of fact, when those three guys were
on the floor together after the All Star Break this year,
they locked to one to oh four defensive rating, which
in the modern NBA is like frighteningly good. So a
lot of defensive potential there if you combine their defense
with Brandon Ingram being healthy and in rhythm to help
their half court offense, which should help them close games.
Because again, if you look at this team last year,
(38:44):
they had a one hundred point eight offensive rating in
the clutch, which was the second worst in the entire league.
They lost twenty two games last year that came down
into clutch situations, elite defense, Brandon Ingram kind of greased
the wheels in the half court on offense and crunch time.
This is a team that I think has some potential
to make the playoffs this year. Lastly, very quickly, the
(39:06):
Brooklyn Nets just a bizarre team. They're super light on
ball handling. They drafted Egor Demon at number eight, as
well as a bunch of other dudes in the first round.
But Eagle's a big ball handler who will certainly get
a bunch of opportunities this year. But it's basically going
to be the Cam Thomas show. He signed that qualifying offer.
He had another injury shortened season last year, but when
(39:28):
he was healthy, that brief stretch when he was healthy
to start the year, he was a very productive ball handler.
He ran three hundred and eighty seven pick and rolls,
ISOs and post ups and got four hundred and ten points.
It's one point zero six points per possession including passes.
That's really solid. He shot the ball really well from
the perimeter, struggled at the rim, but obviously not a
great spacing team. But if he's healthy, the Knicks are
(39:50):
going to get a really good look at him, and
then maybe Cam can get that long term deal he's
been looking for. The rest of the roster is funky.
Michael Porter juniors should get lots of opportunities. Is kind
of a second side dribble handoff guy, as well as
a week side score if anybody ever passes in the ball,
which remains to be seen. They have some decent perimeter veterans,
guys like Terrence Man and Haywood high Smith, Nick Claxton,
(40:13):
I think is a solid foundational center to build as
a pick and roll partner as well as to build
a defense around. This team's going nowhere. But as you
really dig into it, they're just kind of in that
phase of the rebuild process. As I've talked about so
much over the years, like when you're going through the
rebuilt process, step one is find your foundational guys. And
(40:34):
if you don't know who your foundational guys are, you
kind of just have to try. Shit. Give the ball
to Cam Thomas a lot, see if he can actually
play seventy games without getting hurt, be at the top
of the scouting report every night, and be a high volume,
efficient shot creator. If he does while also being like
a good teammate and a good defender or a useful defender,
someone you can build a defense around, all of a sudden,
(40:57):
you might have to be like, hmm, maybe Cam Thomas
fits ours, or we gave it to him again. He
played forty seven games, dealt with nagging injuries throughout. The
efficiency was good, not great, The defense was bad. Cam's
not the guy for us we need to move on.
You learn that through the draft. You have so many
(41:17):
first round picks that you've tried. You have the ability
to take flyers on young players around the league if
they opportunity pops up. You just keep trying shit until
suddenly you go, this is one of our guys. This
is somebody we can build around for the future. From there,
you decide where he fits in that hierarchy. Is this
a guy that can be the best player on a
championship team. If so, we're looking for a complimentary number two.
(41:40):
If he's more of a complimentary number two, we're still
looking for that best guy. Once we have both, then
we're looking for supporting talent. What are the types of
supporting talent that fit this type of team? Am I
looking for playmakers in a five out system? Am I
looking for play finishers around a guy like a Caid Cunningham.
There's all sorts of steps in this process, but you
(42:01):
can't get to any of those steps until you find
out who your foundational guys are. The nets don't know
who those guys are, So you know what, Flipping Cam
Johnson for an unprotected first round pick that could become
anything in the future as well as a Michael Porter junior.
That's a move in that direction because you get that
first round pick that might become one of those foundational pieces.
(42:22):
For all to talk about the first round picks and
how they should have consolidated them. If there was a
clear guy they had in mind, if they were like, oh,
you know, we really wanted VJ. Edgecomb, then by all
means package the picks and go after them. But if
their scouting department didn't have a specific guy that they loved,
give yourself as many cracksited as you can. My thing
is just they need to be hunting for that foundational player.
(42:45):
That involves a lot of like trial and error in
this phase. It's just the Brooklyn's just they are quite
literally they're just starting their drive. This is like touchback.
You're starting at the twenty yard line. They've got a
long way to go to get to where they're going,
and they're rebuild. 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'll be back with
(43:07):
another division on Wednesday. I'll see you guys,
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