Jason Timpf reacts to LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Team USA's dominant 110-84 win over Nikola Jokic and Team Serbia at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Jason discusses Kevin Durant's epic return (21 first-half points), Steve Kerr's decision to not play Jayson Tatum, and Joel Embiid's continued struggles with Team USA.
3:15 - Introduction
6:45 - USA blows out Serbia
26:15 - Kevin Durant dominates in return
30:00 - LeBron & Team USA rolling
35:15 - Jokic great, Serbia can't hang
40:30- Jayson Tatum doesn't play
49:30 - What's happening with Joel Embiid?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(01:34):
Slash baseball. All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at
the volume. Happy funday, everybody, hope all if you guys
are having a great start to your week. Well, Team
USA at a very entertaining first game of pool play
(01:57):
in the Olympics against Serbia as they win by twenty
six points. We're gonna be breaking that game down from
a bunch of different angles. I'm gonna start by just
kind of going through the entire game that we're gonna
talk about the decision to bench Jason Tatum and why
I disagree with it, and some of the different angles
that people are taking to try to make their case
and that debate. Kevin Durant in his return, once again
(02:19):
just shows this uncanny ability to just step back out
on the basketball floor after taking time away to nurse
an injury and then just immediately look like Kevin Durant
as he comes out red hot. And then at the
tail end of the show, Joel Embiid once again goes
minus eight in the game his team wins by twenty six.
The obvious sore thumbs sticking out on this Team USA roster.
(02:41):
I want to talk a little bit about some of
the specific reasons why that has been the case. So
a bunch Team USA stuff today. You guys know the
joke before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops to
Night YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of
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(03:01):
the last not at least keep dropping mailback questions in
the YouTube comments. We're going to record one at the
tail end of this week to carry us over the
weekend like we usually do. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Actually have one last note before we get started. So
we came up with a decision for player rankings and
the way that we're going to do it. So we're
just going to do an in a vacuum list, meaning
(03:23):
we're going to do a top twenty five players list
that strictly evaluates the basketball players and how they contribute
to winning in a vacuum, irrespective of the talent that
they are surrounded by. Then to address that like kind
of like bragging rights issue, We're just going to do
one episode at the tail end of that where I
tell you guys, who I think is the bragging rights
(03:47):
Champion of the year, meaning the basketball player that accomplished
the most individually within that season and deserves the recognition
at least the bragging rights so to speak, of being
the best player in the world. I'll give you, guys
the candidates that I think are up for that position,
and then we'll talk about which player I pick for
that spot. So that's our workaround. We're not going to
do two separate top twenty five lists. We'll do one
(04:09):
and then we'll talk about who is the guy who
has the bragging rights. We're going to start releasing that
stuff when I go out of town for the summer,
which is from August eighth to August eighteenth. I'm actually
going to start working on the list tomorrow, but we're
going to kind of bank all that stuff and just
start running it while I'm out of town towards the
tail end of the month in August, because this Team
USA thing moves pretty quickly. There's the South sud A
(04:32):
game on Wednesday, then they played Puerto Rico on Saturday.
Then it's quarterfinals on Tuesday, semi finals on Thursday, gold
medal game on Saturday, and that's it for Olympic basketball.
And so from that point we have the rest of
the summer to work on player rankings, and then pretty
quickly we're going to be in September and we're going
to be doing our season previews and starting to deep
(04:52):
dive into each individual team all the changes they made
over the course of the summer and what we can
expect from them going into next season. And before you
guys know it, we'll be in training camp when we
get to early October. So those are just some scheduling
notes for the next couple of weeks. But for the
rest of this week and going into next week, we're
probably just going to focus on Olympic basketball. I'm probably
gonna try to find some time to cover some other
(05:13):
teams other than Team USA as well. We'll see how
that goes over the course of the next couple weeks.
All right, Serbia USA, let's get into it. So, as
we expected, Steve Kerr finally went with a more typical
rotation instead of his line shift. So like at the
first time out he put in just Anthony Davis for
Joe Lumbeid, then after that he brings in just Anthony
(05:34):
Edwards I think for Devin Booker at that point might
have been for Drew Holliday. But just like bringing in
in one guy at a time, make maybe two guys here,
two guys there, more of a traditional basketball rotation instead
of the line shifts. Say he was doing like a
damn hockey team in the early part of exhibition play right,
which again that's to be expected as he's just basically
(05:54):
testing out lineup combinations and seeing what works right. These
are the real games, these are the ones they have
to win. It also looked a lot like the last
game against Serbia, where Serbia came out with just an
insane amount of defensive pressure to start again, picking up
full court, trying to jump passing lanes, being really physical
with ball pressure in an off ball situations. They knew
(06:15):
that one of their best advantages was we might just
play harder than these guys. That was what we saw
in the exhibition play. That's what we saw yesterday, and
they if you guys remember in the exhibition play, they
got a pick six on steph for like an inbound
play where they they took the ball away from it,
went down and got a layup. They did the same
thing to start the game yesterday as well. They had
(06:37):
another steal on a Joel Embiid lazy inbound pass. They're
very FOURD aggressive, trying to capitalize on sloppiness and lack
of effort from Team USA. But one of the things
I talked about in the last game was that's a
very exhausting way to play. Not only that, like it's
a it's a play, it's a style of play that
most teams don't use in large doses, expect especially old
(07:01):
grown men professional teams, because they're older, they need to
conserve energy resources. A lot of these European teams, athleticisms
not really their strength, so that's not what they lean into.
They lean more into execution and playing playing like really
smart in the half court, you know basketball in terms
of change of pace and just setting really good picks
and using your size, using your IQ, all that kind
(07:23):
of stuff. It's kind of unusual, right, And so one
of the things you'll notice is if I asked you
to shoot fifty catch and shoot threes right now, let's
do a smaller number, ten catch and shoot threes. But
you're nice and warmed up. But you shoot ten catch
and shoot threes, you're gonna shoot a certain percentage on them. Right.
But if I asked you to sprint up and down
the court ten times first, and then I asked you
(07:45):
to go shoot ten threes, like, you're gonna have trouble.
Like there is a muscle memory that you rely on
that depends on your legs feeling a certain way. It
depends on your arms feeling a certain way, and that
muscle memory can get disrupted in a lot of different ways.
Really physical games can disrupt your muscle memories. You get
all keyed up from the adrenaline rush of physical confrontation.
(08:05):
Really fast paced games can affect you in terms of
like if you're a team that's used to playing slow
and then you run into the Steve Nash Phoenix Suns,
they run you up and down the floor, and then
all of a sudden, you're exhausted and you're not making
the same shots that you usually made playing without outside
of norm defensive energy. That can be something that disrupts
(08:26):
your typical muscle memory and situations like that. And so
I thought it was really interesting in both games that
in the exhibition and in this pool play game that
Serbia came out gangbusters, playing with insane effort kept the
game close for about a half but then the bottom
fell out, and the main issue was the inability to
knock down decent looks from the three point line right now.
(08:48):
That was exacerbated by the fact that the USA team
shot extremely well. They made over fifty percent of their
threes and that's why they won by twenty six points
despite falling down ten to two. But Serbia also did
not shoot well. But again, I like to think of
that these things are connected. You know, you guys know
me like I'm I'm going to make sure that we
acknowledge the existence of luck within shooting, but we're going
(09:09):
to prioritize actual controllable factors before we start to talk
about luck as the driving force of the outcome. I
tend to think that when you try to play like that,
it's really hard to after your jumping, passing lanes, picking
up full court, doing all this crazy intense defensive energy stuff,
to then suddenly slow down and trust your muscle memory
(09:30):
to knock down a jump shot. It's just really difficult, right,
So that ended up being the issue. Servey ended up
falling apart late in the game, especially as fatigue became
a factor. Kevin Durant checked in when it was twenty
to fourteen and immediately got hot and they One of
the things I liked about it too, is like Katie
didn't come in gunning trying to take tough shots. His
(09:51):
first two shots were both clean looks in catch and
shoot situations. The first one was ball screen on the
left side of the floor. Ball got swung to the corner.
Hadi's man rotated because the cornerman, the guy who was
guarding the cornerman, had sucked into the paint to help
guard that possession. Katie's man dropped down. I think it
was Drew extra pass up the wing to Kevin Durant
wide open on the wing, knocks down the catch and
(10:13):
shoot three right. The second one that he got was
actually off of a really interesting set that Steve Kerr
had them run coming out of a sideline out of
bounds and it was kind of a very interesting example
of five out offense. So the inbound the ball I
think it was to Derek White on the in the
right corner, and then Bam and Ad both go to
run and set a double staggered ball screen for Derek
(10:35):
White in the corner, but Bam just quickly slips out
of it, runs to the opposite dunker spot. Anthony Davis
sets the pick, Derek White comes off on the weak side.
We had Kevin Durant in the corner and we had
Anthony Edwards on the wing right, so you have three
man action, two guys spotting up on the weak side
right now, in a typical like kind of standstill situation
(10:56):
where everyone's just kind of watching, it's easy for those
weak side defenders to suck into the paint and to
be in a position where they can help but also recover.
But by design, Steve Kerr had Anthony Edwards cut off
of that weak side wing right as the action was
taking place. So there's just a lot of ball in
player movement, you can imagine it. And by the way,
I clipped this play, It's on my twitter feed at
(11:18):
Underscore Jason lt. You guys can find I only clip
two plays from the game, but you can find that
on my Twitter feed if you want to see a
visual example. But as Derek White's coming off the screen,
Bam slips to the opposite dunker spot and Ant cuts through,
and all that is is just off ball player movement.
And you know, I had someone respond to the tweet
because in the let's talk about what happened on the
(11:40):
actual play. First, Ant cuts through, Kd's man actually ends
up following Ant through the lane, so Katie ends up
wide open on the left wing. Derek White hits him,
KDE knocks down the shot right easy offense, but the
whole I had someone that responded to the tweet and
he said, isn't that just a defensive mistake? Yeah, you're right,
(12:03):
and absolutely was bad defense. But that's the point. When
you're guarding off ball, it's a hard job. You gotta
see man and ball. This is why you do shell
drill when you're in college and when you're in high school,
and they still do it in the pros. This is
why you do closeout drills. This is why you work
on defensive positioning. Where you are one pass away, where
(12:25):
you are two passes away, where you are when you're
the low man in pick and roll situations. All those
things get repped out because of Because off ball defense
is difficult, you've got to track multiple things at the
same time. Now, imagine that I am guarding a player
that doesn't want to cut, that doesn't want to relocate,
that doesn't want to set an off ball screen. It's
(12:46):
really easy for me to be like, he's over there,
He's gonna be over there, so I can kind of
key in on this play and I know if the
swing pass goes, I literally know where I'm supposed to
close out too, because this dude's not moving. But when
there's ball in player movement, it's much harder to track
man and ball as guys are going through. And if
you watch on the specific play I'm talking about, as
(13:08):
Ant cuts through, ants man is down at the nail
helping on the ball screen. Super common coverage you see
in professional basketball. Right as the guy's coming off the
ball screen, the guy who's one pass away just sinks
down to like kind of around where the foul line
is so that he can dig down and try to
disrupt things but also close out right. But he's he's
(13:28):
trying to track Ant and the ball. Ant cuts through
and gets behind him. He's not paying attention. He's digging
down at the nail as Ant is cutting through. So
then Kd's man is like, oh shit, Ant's cutting through.
I'm gonna have to go with him because ants man
is not paying attention. So then he follows Ant on
(13:49):
the cut. Then Katie is wide open. You see the
point the idea there is if Aunt and Katie just stand,
it's easy. I think it was bogged on Bogdanovic, who
is guarding Ant on this play. It's easy for bog
Done to sync down into the lane and dig down
and not really give up that much of an opening, right,
But as soon as there's ball, there's off ball player
(14:10):
movement involved. It makes it a tougher job. Same sort
of thing if you just imagine the interchange. Imagine if
because this one was just a set play, right, this
was a set play. Sideline out of bounds. We're gonna
run this double drag for Derek White coming out of
the corner. We're gonna have Bam slip the screen. We're
gonna have Ant cut off the wing. We're gonna have
Kade relocate. We're gonna get an open shot out of this.
That's a set play. But in traditional five out motion
(14:32):
you're supposed to do this sort of thing instinctually. So
like if they're in free flowing offense and Drew brings
the ball off the floor and semi transition and they
just happen to run a ball screen and Ant and
KD are on the weak side, if Ant is more
willing to just set a pin down for KD as
KD comes up in the exchange, or if kdie backscreens
for Ant, or if they cut, or if they do
(14:54):
any sort of like movement on the weak side, it
makes it that much harder for those off ball defenders.
You can imagine in a pin down situation. Now both
of those guys are they're communicating a switch, or maybe
they're communicating a hedge, whatever it is they're communicating. They
now have to worry about what's going on over here
instead of keying in on what's happening on the strong
(15:16):
side where the ball is. That's why that's so important.
And I actually thought it was really fascinating because I
don't know if you guys saw this morning, but Kevin
Durant was getting into arguments on Twitter again with people,
and he was specifically getting into arguments about running organized
offense versus freelance offense, right, and this is something we've
been talking about a lot on the show recently, and
Katie was talking about how the beauty in the game
(15:37):
is guys just playing and it's not as structured, but
there's reading and reacting, and Katie was making points he
was saying, like that doesn't mean just standing around. He's
like guys can cut and screen and relocate despite that
not being actually a set part of the play that's
read and react basketball. Katie is right, However, where I
(15:59):
disagree with KD is. There has been an extensive amount
of statistical analysis done on this specific debate, and one
of the things that I've talked about krangis Tim Cranis,
who covers the Lakers, did it an immaculate job, like
an incredibly detailed job breaking down the difference in efficiency
on a per possession basis when they run a set
(16:22):
like an actual organized offensive look versus freelance like just
ribble up the floor and do your own thing. That
gap is pretty wide. It's pretty wide around the league,
and so I agree with KD in the sense that,
like the entire the entire purpose of a set is
to get an advantage. So if you just bring the
ball up the floor and you see a quick advantage,
(16:44):
whether that's a transition, crossmatch or just because you're pushing
in transition, the defense isn't set yet, so you can
attack before they get their actual set half court look
on defense, whatever it may be. Yeah, you want to
have balance. KD actually specifically said that in his debate
this more on Twitter. It's about balance, and he's right.
You want to have a good amount of like freedom
(17:06):
for guys to take advantage of advantages that appear naturally
in the game. Oh I'm dribbling the ball at the
court and the wrong dude picked me up he's too small.
Or oh, I'm bringing the ball to the floor. The
guy guarding me, he's clearly tired. I'm just gonna rise
up into my transition pull up three. Katie made one
of those right before the half. It was a two
for one situation, caught the dude on his heels, just
(17:28):
rose up into a shot. Yeah, you want to have freelance.
You want to have freedom baked into your offense for
guys to capitalize on advantages that naturally appear. But it
does take a certain amount of discipline to understand that
freelance basketball is generally less efficient than organized basketball, and
you need to run organized basketball. Now where it gets tricky.
(17:49):
If you guys remember from the Jimihakez interview, Jimi Hakez
talked about how went in the NBA with the shorter
shot clock. Sometimes you only have a chance to get
the ball at the floor and run one or two actions,
and then you have to get a shot up on
the rim and he's right, and so there's a timing
element to it. Did you get the ball at the
floor quickly enough to be able to run organized offense
or is it one of those things where you have
(18:10):
a certain advantage, there's only twelve seconds left, it doesn't
make sense to try to back out and run something organized.
You want to free flow. That balance is an important
thing to try to strike as a basketball team. But
in general, I think most teams are a little too
high on the freelance and not high enough on that
organized offense piece. And I do think that's an area
(18:31):
of opportunity that you see around the league because just
like that play I talked about where Ant cuts through
and it gets Kadi to wide open three. Just something
stupid like saying like, hey, you want to run the
boss screen, that's fine, But every time we see kd
dribble up the right side of the floor and call
for a ball screen, we need to have two or
three kind of preset weak side actions that these guys
(18:52):
are running consistently instead of just standing still, so that
we can just squeeze a little bit more juice out
of this, because that's really the point. Point is like
if Katie running a static ball screen in a freelance
situation is worth one point zero five points per possession.
But if we run a week side cut, a week
side relocation, or a week side screen, it bumps it
(19:13):
up from one point zero five to one point two five,
Then you bet your ass. Then I want my coaches
and I want I want basketball teams to try to
squeeze that little extra bit of efficiency out of it. Right,
And so I know that's a huge detour in this discussion,
but I found it super fascinating in light of the
(19:33):
debate that Kevin Durant was having on Twitter this morning,
because that's kind of one of the things that's going
around the league right now, like how important is it
to give your players freedom to play freelance basketball versus
the realities of how efficient organized basketball is because organized
basketball makes it harder for off ball defenders, end of story,
makes it more to that person who quoted responded to
(19:55):
my tweet. Yet, you're right, it's a defensive mistake. But
that's the whole point running offense. You run offense to
get the defense to make a mistake, and when they
make a mistake, you have an advantage. Then you can
play read and react out of there. And to Kdi's point,
that is where the beauty of basketball takes over when
you run a set and the set generates an opening,
then that So let's say let's say you run that
(20:16):
exact same set and Katie gets a wide open catch
on the left, but a dude throws an excellent rotation
in a great close out, Katie has to drive the
close out and then you get a nifty off ball
screen or a cut or a relocation that ends up
getting somebody open. There is beauty in the flow, but
in order to really get into the flow, you need
to get the defense in rotation. And it's generally easier
to do that when you run an organized offense. And
(20:38):
so that's why it's a more complicated topic.
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Speaker 2 (21:40):
Katie gets too clean looks and catch chose situations to
start right the one on the right wing on the
extra pass, the one off the set play. Then from
there that's when he started to flow into the tougher shots.
Took a wonderbble pull up going to his left in
the middle of the lane, knocked it down. Took that
pull up three in ISO against the backup center at
the top of the key, knocked it down. He had
(22:01):
a contested catch and shoot three against Jokich in the
left corner. He had a one legged fade away on
the right elbow area, the two for one right before
the half. Takes the pull up, or it might have
been right before the end of the first quarter. I
can't remember exactly, but takes the pull up three with
like thirty two seconds left, and I think it was
before the half, and then he had that crazy shot
as he cut along the baseline and he like caught
(22:23):
and turned into like a right shoulder fade right before
the half. It's a beautiful example of like you want
to build your rhythm through easy shots and then you
want to go into the tougher stuff, right and like,
this is something that Kde has always had a really
good grasp on. Kde doesn't come out and just start
taking super tough jump shots. He works his way into
(22:44):
the flow until he finds his rhythm. Then he starts
to see how far his rhythm can carry him with
the higher level shot making that he is capable of.
Having him out there and I think he's gonna end
up starting before too long, if not literally on Wednesday,
but having him out there just fundamentally alls it, like
fundamentally alters the spacing of the unit because he's like
(23:05):
on this team, he's like a super juiced up version
of Michael Porter junior. He's doing a lot of work
off the ball, but we're talking about one of the
most deadly spot up guys literally in the history of
basketball doing his thing over there, like twenty three points
on nine shots. I'm always amazed specifically with Kevin Durant.
(23:26):
I'm always amazed by his ability to step on the
floor and immediately be in rhythm. So any of you
guys who have played college basketball or high school basketball
and they've had an injury know exactly what this is like.
This is something I see with like the vast majority
of NBA players. Think about your favorite NBA team and
then you hear like Lakers fans like, hey, Ruy Hachimura
(23:47):
has been out for two weeks with this injury. He's
coming back tonight. What do you expect from Ruey hat
Chimura in that situation. You expect him to look like
rueyat Chimura, meaning physically he's gonna look like Grewyachimura on
the court, but he's probably going to be rusty, right.
You expect him to probably go one for four from three,
not three for four from three. You expect him to
(24:09):
look a little tired sometimes. You expect him to make
a few defensive mistakes. You expect him to miss a
couple reads because he's adjusting back to the speed of
the game. Again, you expect that with everybody. Well, bron
Like forever I remember, it'd be like he'd take a
day off, or he'd take a couple of weeks off
to nurse and injury, and he'd come back and it's
like it's like he's mishandling the basketball. The jumper's not
(24:31):
quite there. Like that's a super typical thing. I had
a foot injury before my second year playing in college.
I was terrible in the first semester. I was way
better in the second semester, because it's just really hard
to go from being hurt to getting back to like
the full idealized version of yourself. Katie has has this
bizarre superpower, and I mean, the best example of it
(24:53):
was the twenty nineteen Finals. The dude misses a month
of basketball and then step onto the floor in the
NBA Finals in a must win game against one of
the best defenses in the league and just smooth just
comes out, starts hitting shots and has eleven points like
that before he ends up having the Achilles injury like
(25:16):
he It is remarkable his ability to just walk into incredible,
high stakes, high pressure basketball and just look like Kevin Durant.
It's one of the craziest things I've ever seen. I
literally don't know what to make of it. And it
was super fun to watch him out there yesterday alongside
the rest of Team USA. Lebron again was amazing. The
(25:38):
transition pushes are the main one that are standing out
to me, Like he literally looks like old freight train
Lebron with his ability to just get that head of
steam and drop that shoulder, get those little angles and
then power through people for left handed finishes and right
handed finishes. He's still operating as the hub at the
top of the key and hitting cutters. A big one
that you'll see is like again, just like an off
ball screen where you have a shooter come off and
(25:59):
then the screen will slip and like he hit Ant
for a foul on one of those, he hit Drew
Holiday for a wide open layup on a great example
of what I'm talking about in terms of off ball
player movement and trying to bait defenses into making mistakes.
This was the second clip that I pulled and put
on my Twitter feed. Basic action Lebron at the top
of the key, Drew Holiday goes and sets a pin
(26:21):
down for Steph Curry. Steph Curry's trying to come off
for a three. Both defenders miscommunicate the switch. They both
run out with Steph drew holiday slips, he's wide open,
Lebron hits him wide open layup, and that you gotta
have a guy that can like kind of make those
reads and can see over the top of the defense
and actually get to pass on time and on target.
Lebron's done an amazing job with that. In the second half,
he really started to get that pick and roll chemistry
(26:42):
with Anthony Davis going. He had one on the right
wing where he hit Anthony Davis, he got a left
handed layup, he hit Anthony Davis for an and one
for a lob dunk at one point. Lebron is just
continuing to do a masterful job of just orchestrating this
team USA offense. Twenty one points, seven rebounds, and nine assists,
another monster stat line for him, just thirteen shots. Devin Booker,
(27:03):
I thought, hit a couple of huge threes early in
the game and help situations that kind of loosen things
up when the USA team got off to a slow start.
Steph's gravity, just him running around has been a huge help.
I talked about the play again, like the reason why
those two defenders make that mistake of running out with
Steph so that Drew gets open. Is because as a defender,
you're terrified of Steph getting open, and you're gonna default,
(27:26):
or if you're gonna make a mistake, you're gonna you're
gonna accidentally leave the other guy open. You're never gonna
accidentally leave Steph open. And so that's gravity, that's that's
just the inherent fear of Steph's shooting ability that creates
opening else openings elsewhere on the floor and just in general.
He's running around like absolutely crazy throughout the game, and
it's just creating openings. There was a dribble hand off
(27:48):
with Lebron where his man is top locking him. It's
on the left wing, his man's top locking him, making
it really hard for him to fight over. He curls
around Lebron. Lebron does a nice job of like pivoting
into the DHO to get some more contact on Steph's man.
Hits Steph with the bounce pass as he's going towards
the rim that draws embiids man over. He drops it
(28:09):
off to Embid easy little short five foot jump shot
generated by just Steph being willing to run and run
and run and run, and it's just helping to keep
things open. Drew Holliday hitting open threes. He had fifteen points.
His cutting one of the things that I've talked about
a lot with Drew Holliday with the Celtics, and they
do this with Derek White too, but Drew Holidays as
(28:31):
a really a really good grasp of openings to cut
and not be lazy and go to the three point line.
Generally speaking, you feel like you're doing your job by
staying at the three point line because you're giving three
point spacing. But as I've always said, three point shooting,
while it is the most efficient shot outside of the rim,
it is not as efficient as shots at the rim.
Those continue to be by far the most efficient shots
(28:54):
in basketball. There was a play steph ended up missing
to three on this sequence, but Drew Holliday's running up
the right side of the floor. His man's playing a
little on the high side. There's nobody under the basket,
and there's nobody in the corner, and Drew sees an opportunity.
He could run to the corner or just stay on
the wing. And he's still spotting up and creating spacing right,
but his man was playing on the high side and
(29:15):
staring at the ball, and so Drew's like, screw it.
I'm just gonna cut to the basket, cuts to the basket,
catches underneath all the Serbia dudes just close in on him.
He ends up throwing it out to Steph. Steph gets
a wide open three. He just happened to miss it.
But like Drew has just been a really nice connective
piece on this team because of his ability to cut,
because of his ability to make those extra passes. There
(29:36):
is a play where one of Joel Embid's good plays
in this game, Joel and bad cuts in the middle
of four. Drew Holiday cuts back door and be beautiful
pass to Drew on the cut that draws Lebron's man
and help Lebron cuts and Drew drops it off. Lebron
gets it dunk again. You'd think and be posting, what
if Drew and Lebron just stayed on the wing in
the corner. Yeah, that's technically creating space, But what do
(29:59):
I say? Off ball, cut, relocate screen. Those three things
make it a lot harder for the off ball defender.
Drew cut, his defender got lost as a result, that
forced Lebron's man to step up Lebron could have been like,
I'll take a corner three. No, why would I take
a corner three when I can get a dunk that's
worth that's worth two points every single time he cuts
(30:21):
back door. That's two cuts instead of two spot ups
that leads to a dunk instead of a three. That
might be worth one point four points per shot for
a good shooter. Right, So, like the these are the
kinds of things that I think are vitally important, And
like Steph is doing that all the time. He's just
running and sprinting and running and sprinting. Drew's doing that,
he's cutting, Lebron's cutting. That's what I like about that
starting unit. Like Drew, Steph and Lebron, they're like professional cutters,
(30:44):
that's what they do. And that that sort of thing
has just kind of helped loosen things up for that
offensive unit on the Serbia front. Like I talked about,
same thing that happened last time. They just got really
really Oh one last note on Drew Holiday. Drew Halliday's
defensive pressure continues to be really impressive. He had two
steals that both led to pick sixes. He ripped Jokic
on a post up right around the foul line that
(31:04):
led to Lebron getting it dunk and then he jumped
a passing lane and got a left handed layup out
of it. I think Drew has been amazing, Like it's
interesting on a team like this that he just seems
like he has to start, but he just does like
I think Drew. I think Drew just has to start
on this team Serbia. The cold shooting again, same thing
that happened last time. The swarming of Jokic again. Tmusa
(31:25):
is just constantly throwing three of the best possible dudes
in the world that you can throw at Jokic. I
think embiads a little overrated defensively, and I think that's
been on display in this in this Team USA situation.
But he's one of the few big bodies that can
kind of make things tougher for Jokic in the post.
And he still had twenty points in eight assists. Serbia
played Team USA even in Nikole Jokic's minutes. He played
(31:49):
thirty one minutes they were even. They got outscored by
twenty six in the other nine minutes, which is insane.
He had nine post ups for fourteen points, including passes
that equals one point five six points per possession. Just
Jokic continues to be incredibly impressive. The one thing that
continues to concern me with him though, one for seven
on jump shots against Team USA, struggle to knock down
(32:10):
jump shots in the exhibition game as well. That's the
one thing with Jokic that I can't figure out, Like
he just has not shot the basketball well since he
won the title in twenty twenty three, and I think
he's going to have to fix that, especially in light
of some of the personnel downgrades that Denver's dealing with
going into next season.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
The NFL seasons right around the corner. Will be breaking
down all the off season storylines on the Colin Cowherd
podcast My Best Takes guests like my buddy Nick Wright.
Check out the Colin Coward podcast, part of the Volume network,
available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
All right, two topics that I want to hit for
you out here, Jason Tatum and Joelen So. Jason Tatum
gets a DNP coach's decision and this was a big
surprise to me. Now, before I get into my kind
of rationale on it, I just kind of tried to
dig around and see what people were saying in terms
of what the rationale behind what Steve Kerr's decision was.
(33:23):
And the main case that I saw floating around was
like Katie wasn't ready to start, so Katie would typically start,
but he wasn't, so Katie was kind of in that
bench forward role that Tatum would typically be in. And
then Devin Booker they considered to be like a better
ball mover, a guy who's like a really quick decision
maker in five out, and again that's really what I
think drives most of this for Steve Kerr. There's a
(33:45):
lot of like Celtics fans that are making it like, oh,
the Warriors are just mad because the Celtics are kicked
our butt last year. This is a jealousy thing. It's
I don't think that's the case. Guys like the Warriors
beat the Celtics in the finals two years ago. There's
no reason for them to be insecure about this matchup.
They beat the Celtics on the biggest possible stage to
(34:06):
win the title. They're just old now, that's why they're
bad that that's that's not an issue. So I don't
think it has anything to do with that. I don't
think Kerr has some sort of personal vendetta against Jason Tatum.
I think this is about basketball worldview. This is something
I talk about all the time, Like I have a
basketball worldview. I have a specific way that I like
to play, that I think teams should play, but like,
(34:28):
that's not the only way that teams think, and that
team strategize, and that teams want to play, that coaches strategize,
and that coaches want to play. Everyone's got different strategies here,
and I like and I think I think in retrospect,
we can look at the way that team, that the
Golden State Warriors have played and look at it and
go like wow. Like often Steve Kerr would leave two
(34:49):
of his forwards on the bench. He'd go with like
he'd have you know, Moody and Kaminga on the bench,
and then he would have Brandon Pizemski, Steph Curry, and
Klay Thompson all out there at the same time, and
you're like, wow, they're way too small and not athletic enough.
But what Steve Kerr is thinking there is Steph Lightning,
(35:12):
quick decision maker, lightning, quick read and react guy in
five out, same for Clay, same for Pozamski. That's what
he's thinking. I think that that Jason Tatum as a
guy that has a little bit of a tendency to
catch and hold. I think that Steve Kerr just kind
of like doesn't like his his play style as a
fit within Team USA. I don't buy that, though. I
(35:34):
don't think that's nearly enough of an excuse to leave
a guy who is at Here's the thing do think.
Do I think Tatum is a top five player in
the world. No, he got First Team All NBA because
his team has five thirty million dollar players and they
won sixty four games. I do not think Jason Tatum
is one of the five best basketball players in the world.
But like in this setting, he's still a guy that
(35:56):
absolutely has to be in this rotation. He's at least
he's a top ten player. He's in that six seven,
eight nine range. He belongs in this rotation. He specifically
plays a need. You can't justify starting three guards on
a team that has Tatum, Lebron, Katie, Anthony Davis, and Bam,
(36:17):
all guys that can play the like Bam and AD
can play the four, Lebron can play the four. There
are lots of minutes at the three available that needs.
That is a misallocation of resources to have a top
ten player that plays a specific position of need. You're
starting three guards, Steve Kerr, You're starting three guards, and yeah,
(36:40):
Like Tatum is a bit of a slower decision maker
than most, but I still think he's above average at
reading the floor. I know he hasn't played as well
with Team USA as he's capable of. He's still in
this nightmare shooting slump. His form is all jacked up.
He's got a hitch in there, He's got multiple hitches
in there. His form looks crazy. He's got bad misses,
jumpers off the reservation. But he still brings so much
(37:04):
to the table. We're gonna talk about EMBID in a minute.
The EMBIID thing is so much more complicated because he's
struggling on both ends of the floor. He's jankin things
up for them on offense, and he's not doing enough
on the defensive end of the flour. Tatum is an
elite defensive rebounder and an elite front court defender, So like,
there's literally no excuse that lack of like quick decision
(37:25):
making is not nearly enough of an excuse, in my opinion,
to leave a player of this caliber on the bench.
You can't DNP Tatum and start three guards. That is
a decision that I can't get behind. And so again
what I would do. I think you start Kevin Durant
and Devin Booker spot. I think that's very simple. Shoe
(37:45):
and fit there. Now you don't have three guard lineup.
Katie makes sense with the starters. Then you put Tatum
in Kd's slot with the bench guys. And again, this
is not about the Celtics, Like I saw Bill Simmons
saying that, like Jason Tatum should be in Lebron's spot
running the show because Tatum won a lot more games.
That's stupid, Like you swap Lebron and Tatum this year,
(38:09):
the Celtics still win the title. They have five thirty
million dollar players. We don't need to overthink this, Like,
it's not about what Tatum deserves in terms of what
he accomplished in the NBA. It's about the fact that
Tatum is too fucking good to leave him sitting when
you're starting a three guard lineup that is getting rolled
at the start of every single game. Slide Katie into
(38:30):
the starting lineup, put Tatum in with that bench group,
make sure he gets his opportunities. He's too good of
a player to not take advantage of what he brings
to the table. But I think this is all about
Steve Kerr's offensive philosophy. He's obsessed with lightning quick decision
making and his blender of an offense and Tatum is
a little too deliberate, and I think as a result
of that, Kerr has favored his guards. That's why he's
(38:51):
playing Devin Booker, That's why he's playing Derek White, that's
why he's playing Drew Holliday. Guards from birth are trained
to be lightening quick decision makers. That's what guards do
at every level. And so I think that's why Steve
Kerr just kind of gravitates to those sorts of guys.
I actually think, like I said, I think it's hilarious
in retrospect watching the way that he was coaching that
(39:14):
Golden State Warriors rotation. And again, this is the thing,
there are different basketball philosophies guys like I talked about earlier,
like there's a trade off. Steve Kerr knows the tradeoff
Steve Kerr knows that when he decides to play three guards,
whether it be with the Warriors or with Team USA,
he knows he's making gains in offensive decision making and quickness,
(39:36):
he's making gains in ball handling, and he's losing ground
in physicality, defensive, rebounding, transition athleticism. Like he's making a
trade off, right, and we, by the way, we've seen
the opposite version of that. The twenty twenty Lakers were
the exact opposite version of that. They sacrifice ball handling
(39:57):
and quick decision making and had some moments where they
struggled in half court offense, but they had Alex Crusoe
and KCP and Danny Green, Lebron and Anthony Davis out there.
They were so damn big and sodamn athletic. They were
a monster defensive rebounding team. They were a monster defensive team.
They were a monster transition team. That was a trade
off that Frank Vogel took. Frank Vogel said, I want
(40:19):
to lean into my team's strength, which is size and
size and mobility on the perimeter, size and mobility underneath
the basket. We're just gonna be a wrecking ball, physical team, right,
And that's the thing. Like Steve Kerr has looked at
a very similar roster. Steve Kirk could do that with
this group. Steve Kerr could look at this group and
he could go, I'm gonna go Steph Tatum, Kadi, Lebron
(40:41):
ad We're just gonna be huge. We're gonna switch everything,
We're gonna lean into that. He could go super athletic.
He could bench KD and he could go we're gonna
go eighty bam, Lebron, Tatum and Anthony Edwards at the
point and be like offense can be a little JANKI,
but we're gonna beat the shit out of people because
we're bigger and stronger and faster at every single position.
(41:03):
Like he has different angles he can go and it's
very clear to me. Again, I don't think this has
anything to do with Kerr having hang ups about the
Celtics or about Tatum. I don't think this has anything
to do with what Tatum accomplished with the Celtics. I
think this is strictly just a basketball philosophy that Steve
Kerr has. He prioritizes quick decision making on the perimeter. Therefore,
(41:25):
he has gone with more of his guards instead of
his forwards. But there's no justification. Look at the course.
Look at the course. The guard corps on this team
is Steph Ant, Derek White, Drew Holliday, Devin Booker. The
ford core on this team is Lebron James, Kevin Durant,
Jason Tatum, Anthony Davis, bam at A Bayo. I would
argue that's the strength of the roster. Lean into size,
(41:48):
Lean into your forwards. So there's no excuse for having
Tatum outside of the ten man rotation. Has nothing to
do with him winning the title, has nothing to do
with winning sixty four games, has nothing to do with
making first team All NBA. It had has everything to
do with the fact that he's too good at basketball
to leave what he brings to the table on the bench.
All right, let's talk to Joel Embid, then we'll get
(42:09):
out of here. So he got off to slow start again,
missed a little short jumper on a catch and pick
and roll. He missed a couple of free throws after
getting fouled underneath the basket by Jokic. He got beat
to the rim by a small guard and drop coverage
like he's in drop coverage, but he's standing really upright.
And then this little unathletic guard just went right around
Embiid and made a layup off the glass. I'm like, dude,
what are you doing? Like this is the bare minimum
(42:31):
of what they have to get out of you in
this role. He immediately on the same play, gives up
the layup, takes the inbound pass and just throws it
right to the other team and they get another They
were down ten two like this, like it. It was
a complete disaster. He was minus eight in a game
that Team USA won by twenty six points. That's that's
(42:52):
legitimately hard to do. And again, like guys like Embiid
has had high moments with this team, He's had good moments.
I had good moments in this game. The back door
cut pass to Drew Holliday that led to the dunk
for Lebron. He had an and one little right shoulder
fade against Jokich, hit a little pocket pass or drop
off pass, short jump shot off a pass from Stapf
like he made. He had a big block on a
(43:13):
play where a guy got behind him and he swatted
him off the glass out of bounds. In the second half,
like Embiid had his moments, but it's these disastrous stretches
of mistakes like he had at the start of the game.
You can't afford to go down ten to two in
single elimination basketball like that could get you beat, that
could cost you a gold medal. And so this is
like a legitimate concern that I have for this team.
(43:36):
And like, and here's the thing, I don't think it's
that complicated. I still think that Joel Embiid is a
better franchise cornerstone, a better best player on the team
than Ad and Bam by a pretty sizable margin. But
the reality is there are different ways to play the
game of basketball. And what Joel Embiid plays with the Sixers,
(43:58):
that style of basketball is it's very different than the
style of basketball the team USA is playing, for instance,
it's very similar. Let's just take it like this put
embad on the seventy six ers. It's a brute force
attack right, much less ball in player movement. The seventy
six Ers had the fourth fewest assists in the entire
league last year by total assists. They're not a team
(44:21):
that it's just flowing from side to side, and there's
a ton of ball in player movement. That's not what
they do. Embiid can catch, he can hold, he can cook,
he can throw two or three jab steps. He can
hit dribble combinations if he wants. Why Because the Sixers
need thirty five points and six assists out of him
every single night. So it's a great fit for Embiid there.
(44:41):
If you took Bam and Ad and put them on
the Sixers, they're immediately a way worse team because they
don't they're not equipped for that style of basketball. That's
not what they do. But if you put Embad on
Team USA, they need him to set ball screens. They
need him to roll quickly into openings in the middle
of the floor. They need him to make decisions when
he catches, their quick decisions off the catch. They need
(45:03):
him when another guard drives to quickly catch outlet passes
and to quickly flow into the next action on the
other end of the floor. They need him to sprint
up and down the floor and transition. They need him
to defend at a high level. They need him to
rebound at a high level. Bam and Ad, that's where
they are in their money. They are professionals at that
kind of thing. That's why those two guys look excellent
(45:24):
in this format, playing this style of basketball, and Embededd struggles.
And this is different from the Tatum thing because it's
similar to the Tatum issue, right, Like Tatum on the
Celtics where they need him to be more of an
advantage crater and more of a screener. It like he's
involved more frequently with the action. It makes sense for Boston, right.
But there's two huge differences between the Tatum thing and
(45:44):
the Embid thing. One, a ball stopper, specifically at the
center position is the worst place for one in five
out offense. That is the bridge guy, that is the
guy that bridges the action from one side to the
next to ball mover at that position. And Secondly, Jason
Tatum is an excellent athlete who's very durable and in
(46:07):
great shape, and he sells at the dirty work stuff.
Embiid doesn't. He looks out of shape and he's struggling.
So like with Tatum, it's like, you're willing to live
with some of this because he's gonna bring so much
other good to the table. Embiid's been a borderline disaster
on both ends of the floor. And like, and we're
getting to the point now, guys, like the sample size
(46:27):
is too small to just hope that Embiid figures it out.
Like they play Sousedan on Wednesday, Puerto Rico on Saturday,
quarterfinals on Tuesday, semi finals on Thursday, next week, finals
on Saturday. That's five games, guys, we have five games
left with this group, Like, there's not enough time, Like
Embiid is miles and miles and miles away from figuring
(46:50):
out how to play this style of basketball, and so
he's not going to figure it out before the end
of the gold medal game. And again, if you keep
starting him and you keep dropping down ten two to
every single team, that could be something that's very dangerous.
When you get to the elimination round, you could make
the case that Embid should benched entirely. Both Bam and
(47:10):
AD are better players in this setting, and you need
to find minutes for Tatum. And an easy way to
do that is stop playing three centers. If you play
a D with the starters and BAM with the bench,
guys Tatum, all of a sudden, all these minutes open
up for Tatum and then Steve Kirk and keep playing
all the guards that he loves to play. Right, you
(47:30):
could argue it should be a Lebron ad front court
and then a Tatum Bam front court for the bench unit.
You could argue that's the way it should be. But
I don't think they're going to bench Embiid entirely for
all the obvious political kind of backlash that would come
from that. Right, But you also can't keep starting him.
If you keep digging a hole like that every game,
that could be really dangerous when you get to the
elimination round. So what I would do is just put
(47:53):
m b with the bench group. At least there you're
surrounding him with more size and athleticism to cover for
his defensive deficiencies. You can't play Embiid alongside thirty seven
year olds about to be thirty seven year old Steph
and about to be forty year old Lebron, especially if
you move Kde and the lineup. He's getting old too.
You can't just play Embiid, the out of shape guy
who sucks at the dirty work stuff, alongside the old guys.
(48:14):
Put him on the bench with Ant and Tatum and
Bam and these freaky athletes. Put him out there with them.
They'll cover for his shortcomings in the dirty work, and
that unit needs help on offense. He can bring that there.
It's just less of a big deal if he co
ops possessions there. But again, like this is not an
indictment of Himbiid as a basketball player. He's one dimensional
(48:36):
in terms of his play style right now. He needs
to play the style he plays with the Sixers, but
he is a world beater at that style. It's unrealistic
to expect him to slot into a five out read
and react, trust your teammates, keep the ball moving type
of offense in a few weeks when he's never done
that in his career. It's just hard to do. And
so I'm not surprised that he's struggling, and I just
(48:58):
hope that Steve Kerr makes the adjustment before it turns
into an issue in the elimination round. All right, guys,
that is all I have for today. Like I said,
TOMORROWM gonna start peeking at player rankings. I'm also going
to start taking a look at some of the other
Olympic games see if there's anything worth hitting on that front.
As always, I appreciate you guys for supporting the show
the game plan for the rest of the week on Wednesday,
south to day in game. I think I'm going with
(49:19):
Colin Coward after the game, so it's very possible that
we won't have a show until Thursday morning because I'll
be going with Colin that day, and then I plan
on doing a mail bag late in the week. I
don't think we'll cover Puerto Rico because it's just not
an interesting enough matchup, and then we're going to head
it in next week and it's pretty quickly going to
be the Metal the elimination round, so it should be
fun from there. Again, I appreciate you guys for rocking
with me. I will see you on Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
The volume well, so, guys.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys
supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
The volume.
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(01:34):
Slash baseball. All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at
the volume. Happy funday, everybody, hope all if you guys
are having a great start to your week. Well, Team
USA at a very entertaining first game of pool play
(01:57):
in the Olympics against Serbia as they win by twenty
six points. We're gonna be breaking that game down from
a bunch of different angles. I'm gonna start by just
kind of going through the entire game that we're gonna
talk about the decision to bench Jason Tatum and why
I disagree with it, and some of the different angles
that people are taking to try to make their case
and that debate. Kevin Durant in his return, once again
(02:19):
just shows this uncanny ability to just step back out
on the basketball floor after taking time away to nurse
an injury and then just immediately look like Kevin Durant
as he comes out red hot. And then at the
tail end of the show, Joel Embiid once again goes
minus eight in the game his team wins by twenty six.
The obvious sore thumbs sticking out on this Team USA roster.
(02:41):
I want to talk a little bit about some of
the specific reasons why that has been the case. So
a bunch Team USA stuff today. You guys know the
joke before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops to
Night YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of
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(03:01):
the last not at least keep dropping mailback questions in
the YouTube comments. We're going to record one at the
tail end of this week to carry us over the
weekend like we usually do. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Actually have one last note before we get started. So
we came up with a decision for player rankings and
the way that we're going to do it. So we're
just going to do an in a vacuum list, meaning
(03:23):
we're going to do a top twenty five players list
that strictly evaluates the basketball players and how they contribute
to winning in a vacuum, irrespective of the talent that
they are surrounded by. Then to address that like kind
of like bragging rights issue, We're just going to do
one episode at the tail end of that where I
tell you guys, who I think is the bragging rights
(03:47):
Champion of the year, meaning the basketball player that accomplished
the most individually within that season and deserves the recognition
at least the bragging rights so to speak, of being
the best player in the world. I'll give you, guys
the candidates that I think are up for that position,
and then we'll talk about which player I pick for
that spot. So that's our workaround. We're not going to
do two separate top twenty five lists. We'll do one
(04:09):
and then we'll talk about who is the guy who
has the bragging rights. We're going to start releasing that
stuff when I go out of town for the summer,
which is from August eighth to August eighteenth. I'm actually
going to start working on the list tomorrow, but we're
going to kind of bank all that stuff and just
start running it while I'm out of town towards the
tail end of the month in August, because this Team
USA thing moves pretty quickly. There's the South sud A
(04:32):
game on Wednesday, then they played Puerto Rico on Saturday.
Then it's quarterfinals on Tuesday, semi finals on Thursday, gold
medal game on Saturday, and that's it for Olympic basketball.
And so from that point we have the rest of
the summer to work on player rankings, and then pretty
quickly we're going to be in September and we're going
to be doing our season previews and starting to deep
(04:52):
dive into each individual team all the changes they made
over the course of the summer and what we can
expect from them going into next season. And before you
guys know it, we'll be in training camp when we
get to early October. So those are just some scheduling
notes for the next couple of weeks. But for the
rest of this week and going into next week, we're
probably just going to focus on Olympic basketball. I'm probably
gonna try to find some time to cover some other
(05:13):
teams other than Team USA as well. We'll see how
that goes over the course of the next couple weeks.
All right, Serbia USA, let's get into it. So, as
we expected, Steve Kerr finally went with a more typical
rotation instead of his line shift. So like at the
first time out he put in just Anthony Davis for
Joe Lumbeid, then after that he brings in just Anthony
(05:34):
Edwards I think for Devin Booker at that point might
have been for Drew Holliday. But just like bringing in
in one guy at a time, make maybe two guys here,
two guys there, more of a traditional basketball rotation instead
of the line shifts. Say he was doing like a
damn hockey team in the early part of exhibition play right,
which again that's to be expected as he's just basically
(05:54):
testing out lineup combinations and seeing what works right. These
are the real games, these are the ones they have
to win. It also looked a lot like the last
game against Serbia, where Serbia came out with just an
insane amount of defensive pressure to start again, picking up
full court, trying to jump passing lanes, being really physical
with ball pressure in an off ball situations. They knew
(06:15):
that one of their best advantages was we might just
play harder than these guys. That was what we saw
in the exhibition play. That's what we saw yesterday, and
they if you guys remember in the exhibition play, they
got a pick six on steph for like an inbound
play where they they took the ball away from it,
went down and got a layup. They did the same
thing to start the game yesterday as well. They had
(06:37):
another steal on a Joel Embiid lazy inbound pass. They're
very FOURD aggressive, trying to capitalize on sloppiness and lack
of effort from Team USA. But one of the things
I talked about in the last game was that's a
very exhausting way to play. Not only that, like it's
a it's a play, it's a style of play that
most teams don't use in large doses, expect especially old
(07:01):
grown men professional teams, because they're older, they need to
conserve energy resources. A lot of these European teams, athleticisms
not really their strength, so that's not what they lean into.
They lean more into execution and playing playing like really
smart in the half court, you know basketball in terms
of change of pace and just setting really good picks
and using your size, using your IQ, all that kind
(07:23):
of stuff. It's kind of unusual, right, And so one
of the things you'll notice is if I asked you
to shoot fifty catch and shoot threes right now, let's
do a smaller number, ten catch and shoot threes. But
you're nice and warmed up. But you shoot ten catch
and shoot threes, you're gonna shoot a certain percentage on them. Right.
But if I asked you to sprint up and down
the court ten times first, and then I asked you
(07:45):
to go shoot ten threes, like, you're gonna have trouble.
Like there is a muscle memory that you rely on
that depends on your legs feeling a certain way. It
depends on your arms feeling a certain way, and that
muscle memory can get disrupted in a lot of different ways.
Really physical games can disrupt your muscle memories. You get
all keyed up from the adrenaline rush of physical confrontation.
(08:05):
Really fast paced games can affect you in terms of
like if you're a team that's used to playing slow
and then you run into the Steve Nash Phoenix Suns,
they run you up and down the floor, and then
all of a sudden, you're exhausted and you're not making
the same shots that you usually made playing without outside
of norm defensive energy. That can be something that disrupts
(08:26):
your typical muscle memory and situations like that. And so
I thought it was really interesting in both games that
in the exhibition and in this pool play game that
Serbia came out gangbusters, playing with insane effort kept the
game close for about a half but then the bottom
fell out, and the main issue was the inability to
knock down decent looks from the three point line right now.
(08:48):
That was exacerbated by the fact that the USA team
shot extremely well. They made over fifty percent of their
threes and that's why they won by twenty six points
despite falling down ten to two. But Serbia also did
not shoot well. But again, I like to think of
that these things are connected. You know, you guys know
me like I'm I'm going to make sure that we
acknowledge the existence of luck within shooting, but we're going
(09:09):
to prioritize actual controllable factors before we start to talk
about luck as the driving force of the outcome. I
tend to think that when you try to play like that,
it's really hard to after your jumping, passing lanes, picking
up full court, doing all this crazy intense defensive energy stuff,
to then suddenly slow down and trust your muscle memory
(09:30):
to knock down a jump shot. It's just really difficult, right,
So that ended up being the issue. Servey ended up
falling apart late in the game, especially as fatigue became
a factor. Kevin Durant checked in when it was twenty
to fourteen and immediately got hot and they One of
the things I liked about it too, is like Katie
didn't come in gunning trying to take tough shots. His
(09:51):
first two shots were both clean looks in catch and
shoot situations. The first one was ball screen on the
left side of the floor. Ball got swung to the corner.
Hadi's man rotated because the cornerman, the guy who was
guarding the cornerman, had sucked into the paint to help
guard that possession. Katie's man dropped down. I think it
was Drew extra pass up the wing to Kevin Durant
wide open on the wing, knocks down the catch and
(10:13):
shoot three right. The second one that he got was
actually off of a really interesting set that Steve Kerr
had them run coming out of a sideline out of
bounds and it was kind of a very interesting example
of five out offense. So the inbound the ball I
think it was to Derek White on the in the
right corner, and then Bam and Ad both go to
run and set a double staggered ball screen for Derek
(10:35):
White in the corner, but Bam just quickly slips out
of it, runs to the opposite dunker spot. Anthony Davis
sets the pick, Derek White comes off on the weak side.
We had Kevin Durant in the corner and we had
Anthony Edwards on the wing right, so you have three
man action, two guys spotting up on the weak side
right now, in a typical like kind of standstill situation
(10:56):
where everyone's just kind of watching, it's easy for those
weak side defenders to suck into the paint and to
be in a position where they can help but also recover.
But by design, Steve Kerr had Anthony Edwards cut off
of that weak side wing right as the action was
taking place. So there's just a lot of ball in
player movement, you can imagine it. And by the way,
I clipped this play, It's on my twitter feed at
(11:18):
Underscore Jason lt. You guys can find I only clip
two plays from the game, but you can find that
on my Twitter feed if you want to see a
visual example. But as Derek White's coming off the screen,
Bam slips to the opposite dunker spot and Ant cuts through,
and all that is is just off ball player movement.
And you know, I had someone respond to the tweet
because in the let's talk about what happened on the
(11:40):
actual play. First, Ant cuts through, Kd's man actually ends
up following Ant through the lane, so Katie ends up
wide open on the left wing. Derek White hits him,
KDE knocks down the shot right easy offense, but the
whole I had someone that responded to the tweet and
he said, isn't that just a defensive mistake? Yeah, you're right,
(12:03):
and absolutely was bad defense. But that's the point. When
you're guarding off ball, it's a hard job. You gotta
see man and ball. This is why you do shell
drill when you're in college and when you're in high school,
and they still do it in the pros. This is
why you do closeout drills. This is why you work
on defensive positioning. Where you are one pass away, where
(12:25):
you are two passes away, where you are when you're
the low man in pick and roll situations. All those
things get repped out because of Because off ball defense
is difficult, you've got to track multiple things at the
same time. Now, imagine that I am guarding a player
that doesn't want to cut, that doesn't want to relocate,
that doesn't want to set an off ball screen. It's
(12:46):
really easy for me to be like, he's over there,
He's gonna be over there, so I can kind of
key in on this play and I know if the
swing pass goes, I literally know where I'm supposed to
close out too, because this dude's not moving. But when
there's ball in player movement, it's much harder to track
man and ball as guys are going through. And if
you watch on the specific play I'm talking about, as
(13:08):
Ant cuts through, ants man is down at the nail
helping on the ball screen. Super common coverage you see
in professional basketball. Right as the guy's coming off the
ball screen, the guy who's one pass away just sinks
down to like kind of around where the foul line
is so that he can dig down and try to
disrupt things but also close out right. But he's he's
(13:28):
trying to track Ant and the ball. Ant cuts through
and gets behind him. He's not paying attention. He's digging
down at the nail as Ant is cutting through. So
then Kd's man is like, oh shit, Ant's cutting through.
I'm gonna have to go with him because ants man
is not paying attention. So then he follows Ant on
(13:49):
the cut. Then Katie is wide open. You see the
point the idea there is if Aunt and Katie just stand,
it's easy. I think it was bogged on Bogdanovic, who
is guarding Ant on this play. It's easy for bog
Done to sync down into the lane and dig down
and not really give up that much of an opening, right,
But as soon as there's ball, there's off ball player
(14:10):
movement involved. It makes it a tougher job. Same sort
of thing if you just imagine the interchange. Imagine if
because this one was just a set play, right, this
was a set play. Sideline out of bounds. We're gonna
run this double drag for Derek White coming out of
the corner. We're gonna have Bam slip the screen. We're
gonna have Ant cut off the wing. We're gonna have
Kade relocate. We're gonna get an open shot out of this.
That's a set play. But in traditional five out motion
(14:32):
you're supposed to do this sort of thing instinctually. So
like if they're in free flowing offense and Drew brings
the ball off the floor and semi transition and they
just happen to run a ball screen and Ant and
KD are on the weak side, if Ant is more
willing to just set a pin down for KD as
KD comes up in the exchange, or if kdie backscreens
for Ant, or if they cut, or if they do
(14:54):
any sort of like movement on the weak side, it
makes it that much harder for those off ball defenders.
You can imagine in a pin down situation. Now both
of those guys are they're communicating a switch, or maybe
they're communicating a hedge, whatever it is they're communicating. They
now have to worry about what's going on over here
instead of keying in on what's happening on the strong
(15:16):
side where the ball is. That's why that's so important.
And I actually thought it was really fascinating because I
don't know if you guys saw this morning, but Kevin
Durant was getting into arguments on Twitter again with people,
and he was specifically getting into arguments about running organized
offense versus freelance offense, right, and this is something we've
been talking about a lot on the show recently, and
Katie was talking about how the beauty in the game
(15:37):
is guys just playing and it's not as structured, but
there's reading and reacting, and Katie was making points he
was saying, like that doesn't mean just standing around. He's
like guys can cut and screen and relocate despite that
not being actually a set part of the play that's
read and react basketball. Katie is right, However, where I
(15:59):
disagree with KD is. There has been an extensive amount
of statistical analysis done on this specific debate, and one
of the things that I've talked about krangis Tim Cranis,
who covers the Lakers, did it an immaculate job, like
an incredibly detailed job breaking down the difference in efficiency
on a per possession basis when they run a set
(16:22):
like an actual organized offensive look versus freelance like just
ribble up the floor and do your own thing. That
gap is pretty wide. It's pretty wide around the league,
and so I agree with KD in the sense that,
like the entire the entire purpose of a set is
to get an advantage. So if you just bring the
ball up the floor and you see a quick advantage,
(16:44):
whether that's a transition, crossmatch or just because you're pushing
in transition, the defense isn't set yet, so you can
attack before they get their actual set half court look
on defense, whatever it may be. Yeah, you want to
have balance. KD actually specifically said that in his debate
this more on Twitter. It's about balance, and he's right.
You want to have a good amount of like freedom
(17:06):
for guys to take advantage of advantages that appear naturally
in the game. Oh I'm dribbling the ball at the
court and the wrong dude picked me up he's too small.
Or oh, I'm bringing the ball to the floor. The
guy guarding me, he's clearly tired. I'm just gonna rise
up into my transition pull up three. Katie made one
of those right before the half. It was a two
for one situation, caught the dude on his heels, just
(17:28):
rose up into a shot. Yeah, you want to have freelance.
You want to have freedom baked into your offense for
guys to capitalize on advantages that naturally appear. But it
does take a certain amount of discipline to understand that
freelance basketball is generally less efficient than organized basketball, and
you need to run organized basketball. Now where it gets tricky.
(17:49):
If you guys remember from the Jimihakez interview, Jimi Hakez
talked about how went in the NBA with the shorter
shot clock. Sometimes you only have a chance to get
the ball at the floor and run one or two actions,
and then you have to get a shot up on
the rim and he's right, and so there's a timing
element to it. Did you get the ball at the
floor quickly enough to be able to run organized offense
or is it one of those things where you have
(18:10):
a certain advantage, there's only twelve seconds left, it doesn't
make sense to try to back out and run something organized.
You want to free flow. That balance is an important
thing to try to strike as a basketball team. But
in general, I think most teams are a little too
high on the freelance and not high enough on that
organized offense piece. And I do think that's an area
(18:31):
of opportunity that you see around the league because just
like that play I talked about where Ant cuts through
and it gets Kadi to wide open three. Just something
stupid like saying like, hey, you want to run the
boss screen, that's fine, But every time we see kd
dribble up the right side of the floor and call
for a ball screen, we need to have two or
three kind of preset weak side actions that these guys
(18:52):
are running consistently instead of just standing still, so that
we can just squeeze a little bit more juice out
of this, because that's really the point. Point is like
if Katie running a static ball screen in a freelance
situation is worth one point zero five points per possession.
But if we run a week side cut, a week
side relocation, or a week side screen, it bumps it
(19:13):
up from one point zero five to one point two five,
Then you bet your ass. Then I want my coaches
and I want I want basketball teams to try to
squeeze that little extra bit of efficiency out of it. Right,
And so I know that's a huge detour in this discussion,
but I found it super fascinating in light of the
(19:33):
debate that Kevin Durant was having on Twitter this morning,
because that's kind of one of the things that's going
around the league right now, like how important is it
to give your players freedom to play freelance basketball versus
the realities of how efficient organized basketball is because organized
basketball makes it harder for off ball defenders, end of story,
makes it more to that person who quoted responded to
(19:55):
my tweet. Yet, you're right, it's a defensive mistake. But
that's the whole point running offense. You run offense to
get the defense to make a mistake, and when they
make a mistake, you have an advantage. Then you can
play read and react out of there. And to Kdi's point,
that is where the beauty of basketball takes over when
you run a set and the set generates an opening,
then that So let's say let's say you run that
(20:16):
exact same set and Katie gets a wide open catch
on the left, but a dude throws an excellent rotation
in a great close out, Katie has to drive the
close out and then you get a nifty off ball
screen or a cut or a relocation that ends up
getting somebody open. There is beauty in the flow, but
in order to really get into the flow, you need
to get the defense in rotation. And it's generally easier
to do that when you run an organized offense. And
(20:38):
so that's why it's a more complicated topic.
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Speaker 2 (21:40):
Katie gets too clean looks and catch chose situations to
start right the one on the right wing on the
extra pass, the one off the set play. Then from
there that's when he started to flow into the tougher shots.
Took a wonderbble pull up going to his left in
the middle of the lane, knocked it down. Took that
pull up three in ISO against the backup center at
the top of the key, knocked it down. He had
(22:01):
a contested catch and shoot three against Jokich in the
left corner. He had a one legged fade away on
the right elbow area, the two for one right before
the half. Takes the pull up, or it might have
been right before the end of the first quarter. I
can't remember exactly, but takes the pull up three with
like thirty two seconds left, and I think it was
before the half, and then he had that crazy shot
as he cut along the baseline and he like caught
(22:23):
and turned into like a right shoulder fade right before
the half. It's a beautiful example of like you want
to build your rhythm through easy shots and then you
want to go into the tougher stuff, right and like,
this is something that Kde has always had a really
good grasp on. Kde doesn't come out and just start
taking super tough jump shots. He works his way into
(22:44):
the flow until he finds his rhythm. Then he starts
to see how far his rhythm can carry him with
the higher level shot making that he is capable of.
Having him out there and I think he's gonna end
up starting before too long, if not literally on Wednesday,
but having him out there just fundamentally alls it, like
fundamentally alters the spacing of the unit because he's like
(23:05):
on this team, he's like a super juiced up version
of Michael Porter junior. He's doing a lot of work
off the ball, but we're talking about one of the
most deadly spot up guys literally in the history of
basketball doing his thing over there, like twenty three points
on nine shots. I'm always amazed specifically with Kevin Durant.
(23:26):
I'm always amazed by his ability to step on the
floor and immediately be in rhythm. So any of you
guys who have played college basketball or high school basketball
and they've had an injury know exactly what this is like.
This is something I see with like the vast majority
of NBA players. Think about your favorite NBA team and
then you hear like Lakers fans like, hey, Ruy Hachimura
(23:47):
has been out for two weeks with this injury. He's
coming back tonight. What do you expect from Ruey hat
Chimura in that situation. You expect him to look like
rueyat Chimura, meaning physically he's gonna look like Grewyachimura on
the court, but he's probably going to be rusty, right.
You expect him to probably go one for four from three,
not three for four from three. You expect him to
(24:09):
look a little tired sometimes. You expect him to make
a few defensive mistakes. You expect him to miss a
couple reads because he's adjusting back to the speed of
the game. Again, you expect that with everybody. Well, bron
Like forever I remember, it'd be like he'd take a
day off, or he'd take a couple of weeks off
to nurse and injury, and he'd come back and it's
like it's like he's mishandling the basketball. The jumper's not
(24:31):
quite there. Like that's a super typical thing. I had
a foot injury before my second year playing in college.
I was terrible in the first semester. I was way
better in the second semester, because it's just really hard
to go from being hurt to getting back to like
the full idealized version of yourself. Katie has has this
bizarre superpower, and I mean, the best example of it
(24:53):
was the twenty nineteen Finals. The dude misses a month
of basketball and then step onto the floor in the
NBA Finals in a must win game against one of
the best defenses in the league and just smooth just
comes out, starts hitting shots and has eleven points like
that before he ends up having the Achilles injury like
(25:16):
he It is remarkable his ability to just walk into incredible,
high stakes, high pressure basketball and just look like Kevin Durant.
It's one of the craziest things I've ever seen. I
literally don't know what to make of it. And it
was super fun to watch him out there yesterday alongside
the rest of Team USA. Lebron again was amazing. The
(25:38):
transition pushes are the main one that are standing out
to me, Like he literally looks like old freight train
Lebron with his ability to just get that head of
steam and drop that shoulder, get those little angles and
then power through people for left handed finishes and right
handed finishes. He's still operating as the hub at the
top of the key and hitting cutters. A big one
that you'll see is like again, just like an off
ball screen where you have a shooter come off and
(25:59):
then the screen will slip and like he hit Ant
for a foul on one of those, he hit Drew
Holiday for a wide open layup on a great example
of what I'm talking about in terms of off ball
player movement and trying to bait defenses into making mistakes.
This was the second clip that I pulled and put
on my Twitter feed. Basic action Lebron at the top
of the key, Drew Holiday goes and sets a pin
(26:21):
down for Steph Curry. Steph Curry's trying to come off
for a three. Both defenders miscommunicate the switch. They both
run out with Steph drew holiday slips, he's wide open,
Lebron hits him wide open layup, and that you gotta
have a guy that can like kind of make those
reads and can see over the top of the defense
and actually get to pass on time and on target.
Lebron's done an amazing job with that. In the second half,
he really started to get that pick and roll chemistry
(26:42):
with Anthony Davis going. He had one on the right
wing where he hit Anthony Davis, he got a left
handed layup, he hit Anthony Davis for an and one
for a lob dunk at one point. Lebron is just
continuing to do a masterful job of just orchestrating this
team USA offense. Twenty one points, seven rebounds, and nine assists,
another monster stat line for him, just thirteen shots. Devin Booker,
(27:03):
I thought, hit a couple of huge threes early in
the game and help situations that kind of loosen things
up when the USA team got off to a slow start.
Steph's gravity, just him running around has been a huge help.
I talked about the play again, like the reason why
those two defenders make that mistake of running out with
Steph so that Drew gets open. Is because as a defender,
you're terrified of Steph getting open, and you're gonna default,
(27:26):
or if you're gonna make a mistake, you're gonna you're
gonna accidentally leave the other guy open. You're never gonna
accidentally leave Steph open. And so that's gravity, that's that's
just the inherent fear of Steph's shooting ability that creates
opening else openings elsewhere on the floor and just in general.
He's running around like absolutely crazy throughout the game, and
it's just creating openings. There was a dribble hand off
(27:48):
with Lebron where his man is top locking him. It's
on the left wing, his man's top locking him, making
it really hard for him to fight over. He curls
around Lebron. Lebron does a nice job of like pivoting
into the DHO to get some more contact on Steph's man.
Hits Steph with the bounce pass as he's going towards
the rim that draws embiids man over. He drops it
(28:09):
off to Embid easy little short five foot jump shot
generated by just Steph being willing to run and run
and run and run, and it's just helping to keep
things open. Drew Holliday hitting open threes. He had fifteen points.
His cutting one of the things that I've talked about
a lot with Drew Holliday with the Celtics, and they
do this with Derek White too, but Drew Holidays as
(28:31):
a really a really good grasp of openings to cut
and not be lazy and go to the three point line.
Generally speaking, you feel like you're doing your job by
staying at the three point line because you're giving three
point spacing. But as I've always said, three point shooting,
while it is the most efficient shot outside of the rim,
it is not as efficient as shots at the rim.
Those continue to be by far the most efficient shots
(28:54):
in basketball. There was a play steph ended up missing
to three on this sequence, but Drew Holliday's running up
the right side of the floor. His man's playing a
little on the high side. There's nobody under the basket,
and there's nobody in the corner, and Drew sees an opportunity.
He could run to the corner or just stay on
the wing. And he's still spotting up and creating spacing right,
but his man was playing on the high side and
(29:15):
staring at the ball, and so Drew's like, screw it.
I'm just gonna cut to the basket, cuts to the basket,
catches underneath all the Serbia dudes just close in on him.
He ends up throwing it out to Steph. Steph gets
a wide open three. He just happened to miss it.
But like Drew has just been a really nice connective
piece on this team because of his ability to cut,
because of his ability to make those extra passes. There
(29:36):
is a play where one of Joel Embid's good plays
in this game, Joel and bad cuts in the middle
of four. Drew Holiday cuts back door and be beautiful
pass to Drew on the cut that draws Lebron's man
and help Lebron cuts and Drew drops it off. Lebron
gets it dunk again. You'd think and be posting, what
if Drew and Lebron just stayed on the wing in
the corner. Yeah, that's technically creating space, But what do
(29:59):
I say? Off ball, cut, relocate screen. Those three things
make it a lot harder for the off ball defender.
Drew cut, his defender got lost as a result, that
forced Lebron's man to step up Lebron could have been like,
I'll take a corner three. No, why would I take
a corner three when I can get a dunk that's
worth that's worth two points every single time he cuts
(30:21):
back door. That's two cuts instead of two spot ups
that leads to a dunk instead of a three. That
might be worth one point four points per shot for
a good shooter. Right, So, like the these are the
kinds of things that I think are vitally important, And
like Steph is doing that all the time. He's just
running and sprinting and running and sprinting. Drew's doing that,
he's cutting, Lebron's cutting. That's what I like about that
starting unit. Like Drew, Steph and Lebron, they're like professional cutters,
(30:44):
that's what they do. And that that sort of thing
has just kind of helped loosen things up for that
offensive unit on the Serbia front. Like I talked about,
same thing that happened last time. They just got really
really Oh one last note on Drew Holiday. Drew Halliday's
defensive pressure continues to be really impressive. He had two
steals that both led to pick sixes. He ripped Jokic
on a post up right around the foul line that
(31:04):
led to Lebron getting it dunk and then he jumped
a passing lane and got a left handed layup out
of it. I think Drew has been amazing, Like it's
interesting on a team like this that he just seems
like he has to start, but he just does like
I think Drew. I think Drew just has to start
on this team Serbia. The cold shooting again, same thing
that happened last time. The swarming of Jokic again. Tmusa
(31:25):
is just constantly throwing three of the best possible dudes
in the world that you can throw at Jokic. I
think embiads a little overrated defensively, and I think that's
been on display in this in this Team USA situation.
But he's one of the few big bodies that can
kind of make things tougher for Jokic in the post.
And he still had twenty points in eight assists. Serbia
played Team USA even in Nikole Jokic's minutes. He played
(31:49):
thirty one minutes they were even. They got outscored by
twenty six in the other nine minutes, which is insane.
He had nine post ups for fourteen points, including passes
that equals one point five six points per possession. Just
Jokic continues to be incredibly impressive. The one thing that
continues to concern me with him though, one for seven
on jump shots against Team USA, struggle to knock down
(32:10):
jump shots in the exhibition game as well. That's the
one thing with Jokic that I can't figure out, Like
he just has not shot the basketball well since he
won the title in twenty twenty three, and I think
he's going to have to fix that, especially in light
of some of the personnel downgrades that Denver's dealing with
going into next season.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
The NFL seasons right around the corner. Will be breaking
down all the off season storylines on the Colin Cowherd
podcast My Best Takes guests like my buddy Nick Wright.
Check out the Colin Coward podcast, part of the Volume network,
available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
All right, two topics that I want to hit for
you out here, Jason Tatum and Joelen So. Jason Tatum
gets a DNP coach's decision and this was a big
surprise to me. Now, before I get into my kind
of rationale on it, I just kind of tried to
dig around and see what people were saying in terms
of what the rationale behind what Steve Kerr's decision was.
(33:23):
And the main case that I saw floating around was
like Katie wasn't ready to start, so Katie would typically start,
but he wasn't, so Katie was kind of in that
bench forward role that Tatum would typically be in. And
then Devin Booker they considered to be like a better
ball mover, a guy who's like a really quick decision
maker in five out, and again that's really what I
think drives most of this for Steve Kerr. There's a
(33:45):
lot of like Celtics fans that are making it like, oh,
the Warriors are just mad because the Celtics are kicked
our butt last year. This is a jealousy thing. It's
I don't think that's the case. Guys like the Warriors
beat the Celtics in the finals two years ago. There's
no reason for them to be insecure about this matchup.
They beat the Celtics on the biggest possible stage to
(34:06):
win the title. They're just old now, that's why they're
bad that that's that's not an issue. So I don't
think it has anything to do with that. I don't
think Kerr has some sort of personal vendetta against Jason Tatum.
I think this is about basketball worldview. This is something
I talk about all the time, Like I have a
basketball worldview. I have a specific way that I like
to play, that I think teams should play, but like,
(34:28):
that's not the only way that teams think, and that
team strategize, and that teams want to play, that coaches strategize,
and that coaches want to play. Everyone's got different strategies here,
and I like and I think I think in retrospect,
we can look at the way that team, that the
Golden State Warriors have played and look at it and
go like wow. Like often Steve Kerr would leave two
(34:49):
of his forwards on the bench. He'd go with like
he'd have you know, Moody and Kaminga on the bench,
and then he would have Brandon Pizemski, Steph Curry, and
Klay Thompson all out there at the same time, and
you're like, wow, they're way too small and not athletic enough.
But what Steve Kerr is thinking there is Steph Lightning,
(35:12):
quick decision maker, lightning, quick read and react guy in
five out, same for Clay, same for Pozamski. That's what
he's thinking. I think that that Jason Tatum as a
guy that has a little bit of a tendency to
catch and hold. I think that Steve Kerr just kind
of like doesn't like his his play style as a
fit within Team USA. I don't buy that, though. I
(35:34):
don't think that's nearly enough of an excuse to leave
a guy who is at Here's the thing do think.
Do I think Tatum is a top five player in
the world. No, he got First Team All NBA because
his team has five thirty million dollar players and they
won sixty four games. I do not think Jason Tatum
is one of the five best basketball players in the world.
But like in this setting, he's still a guy that
(35:56):
absolutely has to be in this rotation. He's at least
he's a top ten player. He's in that six seven,
eight nine range. He belongs in this rotation. He specifically
plays a need. You can't justify starting three guards on
a team that has Tatum, Lebron, Katie, Anthony Davis, and Bam,
(36:17):
all guys that can play the like Bam and AD
can play the four, Lebron can play the four. There
are lots of minutes at the three available that needs.
That is a misallocation of resources to have a top
ten player that plays a specific position of need. You're
starting three guards, Steve Kerr, You're starting three guards, and yeah,
(36:40):
Like Tatum is a bit of a slower decision maker
than most, but I still think he's above average at
reading the floor. I know he hasn't played as well
with Team USA as he's capable of. He's still in
this nightmare shooting slump. His form is all jacked up.
He's got a hitch in there, He's got multiple hitches
in there. His form looks crazy. He's got bad misses,
jumpers off the reservation. But he still brings so much
(37:04):
to the table. We're gonna talk about EMBID in a minute.
The EMBIID thing is so much more complicated because he's
struggling on both ends of the floor. He's jankin things
up for them on offense, and he's not doing enough
on the defensive end of the flour. Tatum is an
elite defensive rebounder and an elite front court defender, So like,
there's literally no excuse that lack of like quick decision
(37:25):
making is not nearly enough of an excuse, in my opinion,
to leave a player of this caliber on the bench.
You can't DNP Tatum and start three guards. That is
a decision that I can't get behind. And so again
what I would do. I think you start Kevin Durant
and Devin Booker spot. I think that's very simple. Shoe
(37:45):
and fit there. Now you don't have three guard lineup.
Katie makes sense with the starters. Then you put Tatum
in Kd's slot with the bench guys. And again, this
is not about the Celtics, Like I saw Bill Simmons
saying that, like Jason Tatum should be in Lebron's spot
running the show because Tatum won a lot more games.
That's stupid, Like you swap Lebron and Tatum this year,
(38:09):
the Celtics still win the title. They have five thirty
million dollar players. We don't need to overthink this, Like,
it's not about what Tatum deserves in terms of what
he accomplished in the NBA. It's about the fact that
Tatum is too fucking good to leave him sitting when
you're starting a three guard lineup that is getting rolled
at the start of every single game. Slide Katie into
(38:30):
the starting lineup, put Tatum in with that bench group,
make sure he gets his opportunities. He's too good of
a player to not take advantage of what he brings
to the table. But I think this is all about
Steve Kerr's offensive philosophy. He's obsessed with lightning quick decision
making and his blender of an offense and Tatum is
a little too deliberate, and I think as a result
of that, Kerr has favored his guards. That's why he's
(38:51):
playing Devin Booker, That's why he's playing Derek White, that's
why he's playing Drew Holliday. Guards from birth are trained
to be lightening quick decision makers. That's what guards do
at every level. And so I think that's why Steve
Kerr just kind of gravitates to those sorts of guys.
I actually think, like I said, I think it's hilarious
in retrospect watching the way that he was coaching that
(39:14):
Golden State Warriors rotation. And again, this is the thing,
there are different basketball philosophies guys like I talked about earlier,
like there's a trade off. Steve Kerr knows the tradeoff
Steve Kerr knows that when he decides to play three guards,
whether it be with the Warriors or with Team USA,
he knows he's making gains in offensive decision making and quickness,
(39:36):
he's making gains in ball handling, and he's losing ground
in physicality, defensive, rebounding, transition athleticism. Like he's making a
trade off, right, and we, by the way, we've seen
the opposite version of that. The twenty twenty Lakers were
the exact opposite version of that. They sacrifice ball handling
(39:57):
and quick decision making and had some moments where they
struggled in half court offense, but they had Alex Crusoe
and KCP and Danny Green, Lebron and Anthony Davis out there.
They were so damn big and sodamn athletic. They were
a monster defensive rebounding team. They were a monster defensive team.
They were a monster transition team. That was a trade
off that Frank Vogel took. Frank Vogel said, I want
(40:19):
to lean into my team's strength, which is size and
size and mobility on the perimeter, size and mobility underneath
the basket. We're just gonna be a wrecking ball, physical team, right,
And that's the thing. Like Steve Kerr has looked at
a very similar roster. Steve Kirk could do that with
this group. Steve Kerr could look at this group and
he could go, I'm gonna go Steph Tatum, Kadi, Lebron
(40:41):
ad We're just gonna be huge. We're gonna switch everything,
We're gonna lean into that. He could go super athletic.
He could bench KD and he could go we're gonna
go eighty bam, Lebron, Tatum and Anthony Edwards at the
point and be like offense can be a little JANKI,
but we're gonna beat the shit out of people because
we're bigger and stronger and faster at every single position.
(41:03):
Like he has different angles he can go and it's
very clear to me. Again, I don't think this has
anything to do with Kerr having hang ups about the
Celtics or about Tatum. I don't think this has anything
to do with what Tatum accomplished with the Celtics. I
think this is strictly just a basketball philosophy that Steve
Kerr has. He prioritizes quick decision making on the perimeter. Therefore,
(41:25):
he has gone with more of his guards instead of
his forwards. But there's no justification. Look at the course.
Look at the course. The guard corps on this team
is Steph Ant, Derek White, Drew Holliday, Devin Booker. The
ford core on this team is Lebron James, Kevin Durant,
Jason Tatum, Anthony Davis, bam at A Bayo. I would
argue that's the strength of the roster. Lean into size,
(41:48):
Lean into your forwards. So there's no excuse for having
Tatum outside of the ten man rotation. Has nothing to
do with him winning the title, has nothing to do
with winning sixty four games, has nothing to do with
making first team All NBA. It had has everything to
do with the fact that he's too good at basketball
to leave what he brings to the table on the bench.
All right, let's talk to Joel Embid, then we'll get
(42:09):
out of here. So he got off to slow start again,
missed a little short jumper on a catch and pick
and roll. He missed a couple of free throws after
getting fouled underneath the basket by Jokic. He got beat
to the rim by a small guard and drop coverage
like he's in drop coverage, but he's standing really upright.
And then this little unathletic guard just went right around
Embiid and made a layup off the glass. I'm like, dude,
what are you doing? Like this is the bare minimum
(42:31):
of what they have to get out of you in
this role. He immediately on the same play, gives up
the layup, takes the inbound pass and just throws it
right to the other team and they get another They
were down ten two like this, like it. It was
a complete disaster. He was minus eight in a game
that Team USA won by twenty six points. That's that's
(42:52):
legitimately hard to do. And again, like guys like Embiid
has had high moments with this team, He's had good moments.
I had good moments in this game. The back door
cut pass to Drew Holliday that led to the dunk
for Lebron. He had an and one little right shoulder
fade against Jokich, hit a little pocket pass or drop
off pass, short jump shot off a pass from Stapf
like he made. He had a big block on a
(43:13):
play where a guy got behind him and he swatted
him off the glass out of bounds. In the second half,
like Embiid had his moments, but it's these disastrous stretches
of mistakes like he had at the start of the game.
You can't afford to go down ten to two in
single elimination basketball like that could get you beat, that
could cost you a gold medal. And so this is
like a legitimate concern that I have for this team.
(43:36):
And like, and here's the thing, I don't think it's
that complicated. I still think that Joel Embiid is a
better franchise cornerstone, a better best player on the team
than Ad and Bam by a pretty sizable margin. But
the reality is there are different ways to play the
game of basketball. And what Joel Embiid plays with the Sixers,
(43:58):
that style of basketball is it's very different than the
style of basketball the team USA is playing, for instance,
it's very similar. Let's just take it like this put
embad on the seventy six ers. It's a brute force
attack right, much less ball in player movement. The seventy
six Ers had the fourth fewest assists in the entire
league last year by total assists. They're not a team
(44:21):
that it's just flowing from side to side, and there's
a ton of ball in player movement. That's not what
they do. Embiid can catch, he can hold, he can cook,
he can throw two or three jab steps. He can
hit dribble combinations if he wants. Why Because the Sixers
need thirty five points and six assists out of him
every single night. So it's a great fit for Embiid there.
(44:41):
If you took Bam and Ad and put them on
the Sixers, they're immediately a way worse team because they
don't they're not equipped for that style of basketball. That's
not what they do. But if you put Embad on
Team USA, they need him to set ball screens. They
need him to roll quickly into openings in the middle
of the floor. They need him to make decisions when
he catches, their quick decisions off the catch. They need
(45:03):
him when another guard drives to quickly catch outlet passes
and to quickly flow into the next action on the
other end of the floor. They need him to sprint
up and down the floor and transition. They need him
to defend at a high level. They need him to
rebound at a high level. Bam and Ad, that's where
they are in their money. They are professionals at that
kind of thing. That's why those two guys look excellent
(45:24):
in this format, playing this style of basketball, and Embededd struggles.
And this is different from the Tatum thing because it's
similar to the Tatum issue, right, Like Tatum on the
Celtics where they need him to be more of an
advantage crater and more of a screener. It like he's
involved more frequently with the action. It makes sense for Boston, right.
But there's two huge differences between the Tatum thing and
(45:44):
the Embid thing. One, a ball stopper, specifically at the
center position is the worst place for one in five
out offense. That is the bridge guy, that is the
guy that bridges the action from one side to the
next to ball mover at that position. And Secondly, Jason
Tatum is an excellent athlete who's very durable and in
(46:07):
great shape, and he sells at the dirty work stuff.
Embiid doesn't. He looks out of shape and he's struggling.
So like with Tatum, it's like, you're willing to live
with some of this because he's gonna bring so much
other good to the table. Embiid's been a borderline disaster
on both ends of the floor. And like, and we're
getting to the point now, guys, like the sample size
(46:27):
is too small to just hope that Embiid figures it out.
Like they play Sousedan on Wednesday, Puerto Rico on Saturday,
quarterfinals on Tuesday, semi finals on Thursday, next week, finals
on Saturday. That's five games, guys, we have five games
left with this group, Like, there's not enough time, Like
Embiid is miles and miles and miles away from figuring
(46:50):
out how to play this style of basketball, and so
he's not going to figure it out before the end
of the gold medal game. And again, if you keep
starting him and you keep dropping down ten two to
every single team, that could be something that's very dangerous.
When you get to the elimination round, you could make
the case that Embid should benched entirely. Both Bam and
(47:10):
AD are better players in this setting, and you need
to find minutes for Tatum. And an easy way to
do that is stop playing three centers. If you play
a D with the starters and BAM with the bench,
guys Tatum, all of a sudden, all these minutes open
up for Tatum and then Steve Kirk and keep playing
all the guards that he loves to play. Right, you
(47:30):
could argue it should be a Lebron ad front court
and then a Tatum Bam front court for the bench unit.
You could argue that's the way it should be. But
I don't think they're going to bench Embiid entirely for
all the obvious political kind of backlash that would come
from that. Right, But you also can't keep starting him.
If you keep digging a hole like that every game,
that could be really dangerous when you get to the
elimination round. So what I would do is just put
(47:53):
m b with the bench group. At least there you're
surrounding him with more size and athleticism to cover for
his defensive deficiencies. You can't play Embiid alongside thirty seven
year olds about to be thirty seven year old Steph
and about to be forty year old Lebron, especially if
you move Kde and the lineup. He's getting old too.
You can't just play Embiid, the out of shape guy
who sucks at the dirty work stuff, alongside the old guys.
(48:14):
Put him on the bench with Ant and Tatum and
Bam and these freaky athletes. Put him out there with them.
They'll cover for his shortcomings in the dirty work, and
that unit needs help on offense. He can bring that there.
It's just less of a big deal if he co
ops possessions there. But again, like this is not an
indictment of Himbiid as a basketball player. He's one dimensional
(48:36):
in terms of his play style right now. He needs
to play the style he plays with the Sixers, but
he is a world beater at that style. It's unrealistic
to expect him to slot into a five out read
and react, trust your teammates, keep the ball moving type
of offense in a few weeks when he's never done
that in his career. It's just hard to do. And
so I'm not surprised that he's struggling, and I just
(48:58):
hope that Steve Kerr makes the adjustment before it turns
into an issue in the elimination round. All right, guys,
that is all I have for today. Like I said,
TOMORROWM gonna start peeking at player rankings. I'm also going
to start taking a look at some of the other
Olympic games see if there's anything worth hitting on that front.
As always, I appreciate you guys for supporting the show
the game plan for the rest of the week on Wednesday,
south to day in game. I think I'm going with
(49:19):
Colin Coward after the game, so it's very possible that
we won't have a show until Thursday morning because I'll
be going with Colin that day, and then I plan
on doing a mail bag late in the week. I
don't think we'll cover Puerto Rico because it's just not
an interesting enough matchup, and then we're going to head
it in next week and it's pretty quickly going to
be the Metal the elimination round, so it should be
fun from there. Again, I appreciate you guys for rocking
with me. I will see you on Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
The volume well, so, guys.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys
supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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