August 1, 2024 • 25 mins
Jason Timpf reacts to LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Team USA's dominant 103-86 win over South Sudan at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Jason discusses Bam Adebayo's big night, Jayson Tatum and Steph Curry's struggles, and Joel Embiid not playing after multiple disappointing performances. Later, Jason reacts to Victor Wembanyama's performance in France's thrilling 94-90 overtime win over Japan.
3:15 - Introduction
4:30 - USA blows out South Sudan
17:15 - France beats Japan
26:00 - Canada vs Australia
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Episode Transcript
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(01:34):
Slash baseball All right, welcome to hoops todaight here at
the volume baoball. You guys are having a great week.
As promise, we're gonna hit a bunch of games from
the Olympic men's basketball tournaments today. We're gonna start with
(01:57):
tim USA getting a much more convincing victory against South
Sudan this time around, We're gonna break down the starting
lineup change as well as some other details from that game.
After that, I want to hit what I thought was
the most entertaining game from yesterday as Japan almost upsets
as France comes back to beat them in overtime on
the strength of a four point play at the end
(02:18):
of regulation, and then some big time playmaking from Victor
Webbin Yama in overtime. And then at the very end
of the show, we're going to briefly talk about Canada
versus Australia, some of the shot creation data coming from
Shay Gildas Alexander and then Josh Giddy having an impressive
performance in international play. You guys know the Joe before
we get started. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so
you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
(02:39):
on Twitter at underscore JSNLTC. You guys, don't miss you announcement.
So don't forget about a podcast feed where you get
your podcast owner Hoops Tonight. Don't forget it's really helpful
if you guys leave a rating in a review on
the podcast feed and the last, but not out least,
kee dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. Probably gonna
hit a mail bag towards the tail end of this week,
all right, let's talk some basketball. So starting lineup shift
as Anthony Dave, as I've been begging for forever, comes
(03:02):
into the starting lineup for Joel Embiid, and then Jason
Tatum into the starting lineup for Drew Holliday. They immediately
got off to a much better defensive start. We're gonna
talk about the specifics of those substitutions here in just
a minute. The main story of this game, I thought
Wassa just brought a much better defensive effort. Sauthsu Dan,
(03:22):
I know a lot of people just because they don't
have the reputation in Foba that some of these other
countries that we've seen over the years have great success,
like Spain and Argentina. Right, these teams that we've just
seen over the years give USA bigger fights and stuff
like that. Like South Sudan may not have the history
of those teams, but what they do have is probably
the most athletic roster out of any of the Foba teams.
(03:45):
They've just got a bunch of guys who are really
mobile with really long wingspans that can cover ground, that
can pressure the ball. You see, how to continue even
in the convincing win for USA to force a lot
of turnovers and to catch guys not paying attention and
to close get a just a little bit faster than
guys are expecting, and just by fielding a team that
(04:06):
has not just a ton of athleticism, but that team's
athletic by NBA standards. That's a very very athletic team,
and that can be a little bit of an issue
to deal with, especially against USA's typical starting lineup. As
far as the ad for Joel Embiid substitution. Going above
and beyond the simple fact that ad has just been
a better player than Joel Embiid in terms of this
(04:26):
Team USA context, it's also a really tough matchup for
Embiid against that type of foot speed. Again, one of
the big reasons why Sudan had a lot of success
against Team USA in their matchup in the exhibition games
is just getting up and down the floor and catching
guys just not keeping up in that pace. In addition
to that, Sudan likes to shoot a lot of threes,
(04:47):
and so it's important to close out and to make
rotations and all these very important details on defense that
specifically depend on foot speed and so just going with
Anthony Davis, even a guy like Jason Tate in for Drew,
even though Drew's probably a little quicker of foot, Tatum
just brings more length, meaning more ground coverage. And so
(05:07):
even though Tatum still had a little bit of a
struggle offensively in this game, and they're they're, the big
thing with Tatum is the jump shot is just is
still just way off the reservation. He got a wide
open catch and shoot three in the right corner to
start this game, literally hit the side of the backboard
and I pulled the numbers. Per Synergy, Tatum is zero
for eleven on jump shots with Team USA in the
(05:31):
six games that he's played in, including the exhibition. So
like he's just in, He's just in a really tough
space right now in terms of his confidence in his jumper.
And this is on the heels of a playoff run
where he took one hundred and eighty eight jump shots
for only one hundred and fifty one points. That's just
zero point eight points per shot. So Tatum is just
in this extended slump for whatever reason. To me, it
(05:54):
seems to be mostly mechanical. I talk a lot about
energy transfer like energy transfer is getting that power from
your feet up through your release. We think of jump
shooting as like a reach into the cookie jar type
of thing. In terms of your release, that's just one
small part of it. It's a It is a process
that begins with your feet and that extends. There's a
(06:15):
middle portion if it begins with your feet and it
ends with your release. In the middle there's the gather,
and in the gather, tatum has hitches in it, like
multiple hitches where you like the ball stops moving, which
you want to see when a player is catching and shooting,
you want to see the ball just kind of go
from the catch up to the release in a fluid motion,
because if that momentum stops, then any sort of so
(06:38):
for instance, like if you've got good legs on the
shot and you get your lift in your base, but
then you have a hitch in the middle, you lose
that power that you generate from the base and then
you're trying to make up for it at the end
by slinging it with your release, and that's just a
lot more difficult to maintain in terms of muscle memory.
If you get good footwork into a good base and
(06:58):
to good lift into a clean gather and have smooth
transfer of energy. Then by the end your hands are
basically just guiding the basketball. Any of you guys who
have shot at a high level, you guys know that
it's like one of those things where when you get
your lift, when you get your legs underneath you, the
SHOT's easy. The shot is the easiest part of it.
(07:20):
The hardest part is in a movement situation, getting your
base in an off the dribble situation, getting your base,
making sure you get a clean gather. That's where the
work of the shot is done. The release is the
easy part. And so right now Tatum is just in
a little bit of a little bit of a working
He's kind of working on his form and trying to
figure out what's going on. And the good news is
(07:42):
is they won the title despite the fact that he
was having those struggles, and so that should go a
long way towards some optimism for Celtics fans, because if
Tatum can get his jump shot back next season, then
the whole league could be in some serious trouble because
when Jason Tatum is an elite jump shooter, that's when
he enters into that like five to six area of
player rankings. When he's not shooting the ball, that's when
(08:05):
he dips down into that like eight, nine to ten
area and player rankings. It's kind of a very important
part of his game, especially with how often he settles
for jump shots on a couple of the guys. I
wanted to shout out, but again I want to just
point out before we get into individual shoutouts. This was
just a much better defensive game. They gave up one
hundred points to South Sudan last time, and one of
(08:26):
their weaknesses is they don't have a ton of ball handling.
They've got a lot of guys who can shoot. They
have a couple of core ball handlers, but their front
court guys don't handle the ball or see the floor
super well. And so if you actually defend, you can
get them to make mistakes, you can get them to
take tough shots, you can get them to miss. They
did a much much better job of that tonight. I
think I think they held them tonight to eighty six
(08:46):
points if I remember correctly something around that area. Much
much more impressive defensive effort for USA. Maam in a
bio eight for ten for eighteen points also had two
blocks some good switching to onto South Sudan's I thought
the two corner threes he hit in the first half
were massively important. Sasudan kind of went down to a
(09:08):
substantial deficit in the late first quarter against the Tosa
bench group, and the Tosa bench group was much better
than the starting group today in spite of this starting
lineup change, in large part because Steph Curry had a
really rough game and I thought Lebron, even though his
box score looked fine, I thought Lebron had one of
his rougher games with Tosa so far, mainly just in
the sense that he settled for a couple jump shots
(09:29):
that he missed, and he also had a lot of
turnovers that were live ball turnovers that led to fast
break opportunities for South Sudan. So like the starters between
Tatum obviously still being in an offensive funk and Lebron
and Steph just having a rough game, they weren't as impressive,
but that bench group just they just handled Sausudan today.
That Bam a KD frontline is as good as BAM
(09:51):
was Defensively, I want to shout out Kevin Durant as well.
Some timely shot making from from Anthony Edwards. I thought
Derek White had a big game. He had three steals
as well as three made three point shots. Continues to
just kind of be in the right spot and do
the right thing, make extra effort plays, really really impressive
stuff there. The Steph struggles to me, really like when
(10:11):
we saw this towards the tail end of last season,
teams that have a lot of speed and length, especially
on the perimeter, they just close in those gaps that
Steph is usually accustomed to working with. And again, like,
this is not just an athletic team. This is an
athletic team by NBA standards, and so I think that
kind of that kind of foretells some of the struggles
(10:32):
that Steph's gonna have in these matchups. We talked about
it last year at the end of the year. It's
like they play the Kings, I kind of feel like
Steph's gonna struggle, they play the Pelicans, I kind of
feel like Steph's gonna struggle. Teams that have like really
quick athletic guards with good length that can kind of
bother him on the perimeter are gonna give him some issues.
And that's just been the case. As far as the
Joel and beat thing goes, Like I talked about, it
(10:52):
was just a matchup. It's hard for him to cover
ground and transition in rotation against this team played against Serbia.
My guess is you'll play against Puerto Rico as well,
dott He handled it as well as you could. Obviously,
if you're a recent MVP of the NBA, you're gonna
be a little frustrated to be benched in a game
like this, but I thought it was the right decision overall.
(11:12):
So far through two pool play games for USAY really
impressed by them. Average margin of victory over twenty and
against these quality of teams, that's super impressive. I know
people don't think much of South Sudan, but they're very
good teams. Serbia has the best team or best player
in the world, and they should continue that dominance against
Puerto Rico. And like you know, I actually figured there'd
(11:33):
be more close games to this point, but Team USA
has held up really strong. The defense has been super impressive.
Even they're lesser defenders or guys that don't have a
reputation of being committed to defense have been defending really well.
Tmusa looking really good so far through two games.
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Moving on to Japan versus France. So France makes a
bunch of huge plays late Pan keeps it close, and
Evan forty a hits a really tough step back three
at the top of the key got great separation. Arc
just came perfectly through the net tiede the game, Matthew
Strasl had a four point play on the left wing.
It was a call I didn't necessarily agree with because
(13:08):
the hand was kind of like on the hip. Yuki Kawamura,
the guard from Japan, did a wonderful job in this
particular game orchestrating offense, especially after Ruiya Chimura got ejected.
But I thought he got a tail end of a
really tough call there on that left wing. Again, by
the book, technically hand on the hip. It's like by
(13:29):
the book, it's a foul, but there's a huge difference
between having the hand on the hip and pushing on
the hip, and like that's one of those like incidental
contact things that I think needs to be let go,
especially in such a big moment. And again, like if
France beats you because he makes that shot and then
you foul and he makes one out of two free
throws and then he goes down to the other end
(13:50):
and they hit another three and they win. Fine, tip
the cat, congrats to France, they beat you. That's really
tough to be at four points like that in that
situation and to lose on a call like that. Was
was not a fan, but Victor wembin Yama took over
in overtime. There's a little post up on the right block.
I can't remember exactly who was guarding him, but they
tried to front the post. And when they fronted the post,
Wemby just immediately spun off of it. Passes perfect to
(14:13):
the high point. On the catch, he at his back,
turned the basket, he spun again and went right up
and laid it up and the foul A super super
coordinated play, really really impressive stuff, really really impressive stuff
there from Victor webbin Yama. And then he missed the
three on the right wing, but an offensive rebound he
got another clean look from the top of the key
knocked it down big time, big time play from Victor
(14:36):
webbin Yama. The guard play from France is really where
the issue is. It's like when you look at Canada
and France in particular, Canada has this incredible perimeter core,
but their front line is just too small to really
contend with some of the bigger front lines here in FIBA,
and then you go and you look at France and
they have this incredible front line. I mean even gersha
Onbusel had an incredible game in this one hit a
(14:59):
bunch of tough mid range jump shots. Was competing, was
flying around, and they have that front court presence, but
they like Evan forty a and Frank Millikina, it's just
it's it's not enough in terms of shot creation. Matthew
Streisill had a little stretch there in the second half
where he was spamming ball screens with Gobert and coming
off clean on the right wing and getting some decent looks,
and he hit a couple of pull up jump shots there.
(15:20):
But they just struggle in terms of that that guard play.
Victor women Yama. One of the most impressive things that
I noticed about France in the two games is they're
running a lot of like kind of weird, funky like
big man ball screens. Well where they will have like
Wemby at the elbow, like imagine like the left elbow,
so like where the key the court, the free throw
line extended kind of out to where the edge of
(15:41):
the key is and and he'll catch there and then
go Beart will come out of a triple like Wenby'll
be in a triple threat and go Beart will come
and set a screen. But what he'll do is he'll
deliberately screen the backside of the defender. And what they're
trying to do there is most teams are gonna switch
a four or five pick and roll. What that means
is the power forward in the center in a two
(16:02):
man game together. The reason why they're gonna switch that
is because likely those two defenders are similar in size,
and if those two defenders are similar in size, rather
than allowing Wemby to come off clean as the guys
in trail position, in which case, now Wenby's just going
to go right to the rim. If you just switch it,
it effectively like shuts the action down right. But this
(16:23):
is where high low basketball comes into play. High low
basketball is when you have one of your big guys
operating around the foul line while another one of your
big guys is underneath the basket trying to obtain good
post position because that center can throw good over the
top passes from that foul line area. So what they
were doing, which I thought was really smart, and they
did this with Gobert, but they also did it with
(16:44):
you Bucelet and some of their other bench forwards as well.
But they would have Wenby start with the ball and
as Gobert would screen. He would deliberately screen the backside
of the defender. And the reason why that's important is
then as Wemby comes off into the switch, when he
comes off into switch, the screeners defender is now on
Wemby squared up, but Gobar now has inside position. He
(17:07):
has inside position because he's screened that backside. Then he
can quick turn and seal and Wemby can throw that
over the top pass and there's an automatic angle kind
of bank kind of baked into the set because of
the screening angle you take on the backside. There. They
got a bunch of good stuff out of that. I
thought Wenby passed out of it extremely well, and so
(17:27):
far through two Olympic Games, Victor Wemban Yama one point
one seven points per shot on jump shots, which is
really impressive, So great start to the Olympics for Wemby.
On the Japan side of things, really was impressed by
the overall ball in player movement, some beautiful stuff in
five out, really smart cutting guys like I cut a
(17:48):
couple examples in my film session today and put them
on my Twitter feed at Underscore JSNLT. But remember when
I talked about in the show on Monday, the concept
of like off ball cutting specifically out of the wing,
and how that can when you're running a ball screen
on one side, how a cut on the weak side
can cause confusion for off ball defenders that are trying
(18:08):
to sink into the paint and it's hard to track
man and ball in those situations. They got good looks
out of that. Their guards were quick to come off
of multiple actions. There was ball reversal, the ball was
popping around. They'd have ruy As like their kind of
go to like on an Island score when they needed him.
But everything else was really smart five out ball in
player movement, and that blender did a lot of damage
(18:30):
to a French team that's got really good defenders between
Frank Nilikina and Nick Batoum and Victor Webbin Yama and
Rudy Gobert, this is a very long and athletic defensive
team that Japan was getting a lot of really good
shots against. And it's just a wonderful example of the
concepts that I talked about a lot on the show,
in the sense that you can generate offense with ball
and player movement and good schematic approach to help bolster,
(18:54):
personnel limitations, Ruby hutsch Mura, really impressive offensive game, the
face up stuff, the footwork in the post he had.
He was going right around good defenders and getting into
the lane and finishing in traffic. The jump shot looks great,
he's elevating, he's getting great rotation on it, he's knocking
it down. The one thing and I put a little
thread of about five clips together you can find on
(19:17):
my twitter feed. But Ruey is really struggling on defense
with Japan, specifically off the ball tracking shooters. And remember
this was the specific issue that he ran into in
the playoffs against Denver when he was tracking Michael Porter Junior.
He had a couple of massive mistakes on that and
including one in Game five that might have cost them
the game where in a semi transition said he just
(19:38):
wasn't paying attention and he lost Michael Porter Junior for
three huge moment. The Lakers had a chance to send
that thing back to the to LA for Game six,
and Rui's just attention to detail in those situations just
has to get better. It's tracking through screens, it's the
relaxation as as soon as his man gets up gives
up the ball. He gave up two threes to Evan
Fournier where he got switched on to Fournier. But then
(19:59):
as soon when Fournier gave up the basketball, Fournier just
cut to a different spot on the three point line
and Ruy wasn't paying attention and Fourtier got clean looks
from three and so like I like, in order for
Ruey to be the type of player that the Lakers
need him to be, those are things that he has
to sharpen up. Shout out to Ukava Moura the quickness
and pull up shooting he showed, especially to try to
(20:22):
close out that game after Ruy Hachimura got eliminated or
excuse me ejected on that second on sportsman like foul
and Rudy Gobert. I had so much fun watching him
in this game. He was an absolute warrior, kept his
team in it. I think he had like twenty eight
twenty nine points, super super fun game. And then one
last guy I wanted to shout out, Hugh want to
not be I'm assuming related to Utah want Namby, but
(20:45):
he had two huge blocks, including this one in regulation
where he came down from the left wing when Rudy
Gobert had a deep catch and Rudy Gobert loaded up
for his like two hand slam and he comes flying
in and just barely gets a piece of it at
the end. Ends up being a huge play that gave
Japan a really good chance to win this game. And
it's such a great example of what I talked about
(21:06):
after Kevin Durank got dunked on by Anthony Edwards, which is, guys,
getting dunked on is a sign of being a great defender.
That's something that you have to that's a commitment that
you have to make. You have to be willing to
risk what could happen if you get dunked on in
order to bring that next level of rimp protection at
another big week side block in the overtime period as well.
(21:27):
But alast Victor webbin Yama made the two big plays
in ot and they got out of there. All right,
Let's move on to Canada Australia real quick before we
get out of here. So Shaka as Alexander picked up
two quick early thousand. There's only five thousand foeba, so
he had to sit for a little bit. That allowed
Australia to take a little bit of an early advantage,
but in the early fourth quarter Canada ends up pulling away.
(21:49):
Dylan Brooks made a couple of plays, a little triple
threat ball screen out of the right corner where I
believe I can't remember who it was, the big man
for for Canon, I'm blinking on his name now, but
he slipped the ball screen. Dylan hit him perfect, he
got a layup, and then he hit a little mid
range jump shot. And then right after that, Jamal Murray
made a couple of plays and ICEO will close out
(22:10):
attack to get RJ. Barrett a wide open three in
the corner and then kind of like one of those
classic Jamal Murray ISO pull up jump shots around the
foul line. All of a sudden, like that, Canada was
up by eleven and the game was over. I wanted
to talk a little bit about the shot creation data
for Shay, Jamal and then Josh Gitty. So, Shay has
been brilliant so far in Olympics play. He's run twenty
(22:30):
five ISOs for thirty six points including passes. That's one
point four to four points per possession. And he's personally
on his own shot attempts out of ISO shooting seven
for twelve, So Shay's locked in looks fantastic forty one
total ISOs, post ups and ball screens in Olympic play
for fifty six points. That's one point three seven points
per possession. Really impressive stuff from Shay. Jamal Murray made
(22:55):
some big plays in this particular game, like we talked
about earlier, but shooting just two for ten on jump
shots so far in Olympic play, and I'm wondering if
he's still a little banged up. I was, I was
talking to some of my Nuggets guys, and the word
on him is that he's just not in shape. And
if that's the thing, if Jamal's just not in shape,
that's kind of disappointing because that's becoming kind of a
reputation for him, that he's showing up into season and
(23:18):
playing his way into shape. And like one of the
things is like that sort of thing can lead to
injuries when you're trying to play your way into shape,
when you're playing with more weight, when you're playing super
intense games, when your body's not prepared for it. So
that obviously was a little bit concerning Josh Giddy, though
really impressive so far for Australia thirty four pick and rolls,
ISOs and post ups for thirty nine points. That's one
(23:39):
point one point five points per possession. He's big, he's
handling the basketball while he's really good at protecting the basketball,
really good with like behind the back tribbles and then
using his shoulders to protect. He can make all the
reads deadly with his floater. He's five for seven so
far in the Olympics on floaters. That's seventy one percent.
And then what he'll do a lot of times in
switches when he sees a small guard in front of him,
(24:00):
there was a hard dribble move like into their chest
and then just gather right around ten feet and rise
up over the top of them and go to his
little floater. Canada was doing some switching against him in
this game, and he ended up beating it with a
step back three as well as a driving floater against
Jamal Murray. Really impressive shot making from Josh Giddy. I'm
curious to see how it translates to the NBA level
(24:20):
in a bigger role with Chicago next year. Last thing
before we get out of here, is Canada a threat.
Like I mentioned earlier as good as they are on
the perimeter, they're just not big enough on the inside.
One of the specific changes with FIBA that's been a
challenge for USA is the defensive three second rule and
the idea that you can park a center underneath the
basket and kind of gum things up and force them
(24:41):
to rely on perimeter jump shooting, where USA it can
go cold sometimes, Although I think Kevin Durant fixes that problem.
With that being the case, Canada just doesn't have the
interior size even if they do part guys under the
basket to bother the bigger American athletes as they're going downhill,
and so as good as Canada is on the perimeter,
I just don't think they're big enough underneath the basket
to make any sort of real problem for USA. All right, guys,
(25:04):
that is all I have for today. We're going a
little quick because I'm just about to hop on a
call with Colin Cowhard and we're going to hit a
bunch of Team USA topics, So keep an eye on
the Colin Cowhard podcast feed to see that in the
coming days. And then we're not going to cover Puerto
Rico versus USA this weekend, will in all likelihood will
be doing a mail bag on Friday, in addition to
probably covering one or two more FEVA games in that show.
(25:26):
As always, I appreciate you guys for supporting the show,
and I'll see you guys then the volume. What's up guys?
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
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(01:34):
Slash baseball All right, welcome to hoops todaight here at
the volume baoball. You guys are having a great week.
As promise, we're gonna hit a bunch of games from
the Olympic men's basketball tournaments today. We're gonna start with
(01:57):
tim USA getting a much more convincing victory against South
Sudan this time around, We're gonna break down the starting
lineup change as well as some other details from that game.
After that, I want to hit what I thought was
the most entertaining game from yesterday as Japan almost upsets
as France comes back to beat them in overtime on
the strength of a four point play at the end
(02:18):
of regulation, and then some big time playmaking from Victor
Webbin Yama in overtime. And then at the very end
of the show, we're going to briefly talk about Canada
versus Australia, some of the shot creation data coming from
Shay Gildas Alexander and then Josh Giddy having an impressive
performance in international play. You guys know the Joe before
we get started. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so
you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
(02:39):
on Twitter at underscore JSNLTC. You guys, don't miss you announcement.
So don't forget about a podcast feed where you get
your podcast owner Hoops Tonight. Don't forget it's really helpful
if you guys leave a rating in a review on
the podcast feed and the last, but not out least,
kee dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. Probably gonna
hit a mail bag towards the tail end of this week,
all right, let's talk some basketball. So starting lineup shift
as Anthony Dave, as I've been begging for forever, comes
(03:02):
into the starting lineup for Joel Embiid, and then Jason
Tatum into the starting lineup for Drew Holliday. They immediately
got off to a much better defensive start. We're gonna
talk about the specifics of those substitutions here in just
a minute. The main story of this game, I thought
Wassa just brought a much better defensive effort. Sauthsu Dan,
(03:22):
I know a lot of people just because they don't
have the reputation in Foba that some of these other
countries that we've seen over the years have great success,
like Spain and Argentina. Right, these teams that we've just
seen over the years give USA bigger fights and stuff
like that. Like South Sudan may not have the history
of those teams, but what they do have is probably
the most athletic roster out of any of the Foba teams.
(03:45):
They've just got a bunch of guys who are really
mobile with really long wingspans that can cover ground, that
can pressure the ball. You see, how to continue even
in the convincing win for USA to force a lot
of turnovers and to catch guys not paying attention and
to close get a just a little bit faster than
guys are expecting, and just by fielding a team that
(04:06):
has not just a ton of athleticism, but that team's
athletic by NBA standards. That's a very very athletic team,
and that can be a little bit of an issue
to deal with, especially against USA's typical starting lineup. As
far as the ad for Joel Embiid substitution. Going above
and beyond the simple fact that ad has just been
a better player than Joel Embiid in terms of this
(04:26):
Team USA context, it's also a really tough matchup for
Embiid against that type of foot speed. Again, one of
the big reasons why Sudan had a lot of success
against Team USA in their matchup in the exhibition games
is just getting up and down the floor and catching
guys just not keeping up in that pace. In addition
to that, Sudan likes to shoot a lot of threes,
(04:47):
and so it's important to close out and to make
rotations and all these very important details on defense that
specifically depend on foot speed and so just going with
Anthony Davis, even a guy like Jason Tate in for Drew,
even though Drew's probably a little quicker of foot, Tatum
just brings more length, meaning more ground coverage. And so
(05:07):
even though Tatum still had a little bit of a
struggle offensively in this game, and they're they're, the big
thing with Tatum is the jump shot is just is
still just way off the reservation. He got a wide
open catch and shoot three in the right corner to
start this game, literally hit the side of the backboard
and I pulled the numbers. Per Synergy, Tatum is zero
for eleven on jump shots with Team USA in the
(05:31):
six games that he's played in, including the exhibition. So
like he's just in, He's just in a really tough
space right now in terms of his confidence in his jumper.
And this is on the heels of a playoff run
where he took one hundred and eighty eight jump shots
for only one hundred and fifty one points. That's just
zero point eight points per shot. So Tatum is just
in this extended slump for whatever reason. To me, it
(05:54):
seems to be mostly mechanical. I talk a lot about
energy transfer like energy transfer is getting that power from
your feet up through your release. We think of jump
shooting as like a reach into the cookie jar type
of thing. In terms of your release, that's just one
small part of it. It's a It is a process
that begins with your feet and that extends. There's a
(06:15):
middle portion if it begins with your feet and it
ends with your release. In the middle there's the gather,
and in the gather, tatum has hitches in it, like
multiple hitches where you like the ball stops moving, which
you want to see when a player is catching and shooting,
you want to see the ball just kind of go
from the catch up to the release in a fluid motion,
because if that momentum stops, then any sort of so
(06:38):
for instance, like if you've got good legs on the
shot and you get your lift in your base, but
then you have a hitch in the middle, you lose
that power that you generate from the base and then
you're trying to make up for it at the end
by slinging it with your release, and that's just a
lot more difficult to maintain in terms of muscle memory.
If you get good footwork into a good base and
(06:58):
to good lift into a clean gather and have smooth
transfer of energy. Then by the end your hands are
basically just guiding the basketball. Any of you guys who
have shot at a high level, you guys know that
it's like one of those things where when you get
your lift, when you get your legs underneath you, the
SHOT's easy. The shot is the easiest part of it.
(07:20):
The hardest part is in a movement situation, getting your
base in an off the dribble situation, getting your base,
making sure you get a clean gather. That's where the
work of the shot is done. The release is the
easy part. And so right now Tatum is just in
a little bit of a little bit of a working
He's kind of working on his form and trying to
figure out what's going on. And the good news is
(07:42):
is they won the title despite the fact that he
was having those struggles, and so that should go a
long way towards some optimism for Celtics fans, because if
Tatum can get his jump shot back next season, then
the whole league could be in some serious trouble because
when Jason Tatum is an elite jump shooter, that's when
he enters into that like five to six area of
player rankings. When he's not shooting the ball, that's when
(08:05):
he dips down into that like eight, nine to ten
area and player rankings. It's kind of a very important
part of his game, especially with how often he settles
for jump shots on a couple of the guys. I
wanted to shout out, but again I want to just
point out before we get into individual shoutouts. This was
just a much better defensive game. They gave up one
hundred points to South Sudan last time, and one of
(08:26):
their weaknesses is they don't have a ton of ball handling.
They've got a lot of guys who can shoot. They
have a couple of core ball handlers, but their front
court guys don't handle the ball or see the floor
super well. And so if you actually defend, you can
get them to make mistakes, you can get them to
take tough shots, you can get them to miss. They
did a much much better job of that tonight. I
think I think they held them tonight to eighty six
(08:46):
points if I remember correctly something around that area. Much
much more impressive defensive effort for USA. Maam in a
bio eight for ten for eighteen points also had two
blocks some good switching to onto South Sudan's I thought
the two corner threes he hit in the first half
were massively important. Sasudan kind of went down to a
(09:08):
substantial deficit in the late first quarter against the Tosa
bench group, and the Tosa bench group was much better
than the starting group today in spite of this starting
lineup change, in large part because Steph Curry had a
really rough game and I thought Lebron, even though his
box score looked fine, I thought Lebron had one of
his rougher games with Tosa so far, mainly just in
the sense that he settled for a couple jump shots
(09:29):
that he missed, and he also had a lot of
turnovers that were live ball turnovers that led to fast
break opportunities for South Sudan. So like the starters between
Tatum obviously still being in an offensive funk and Lebron
and Steph just having a rough game, they weren't as impressive,
but that bench group just they just handled Sausudan today.
That Bam a KD frontline is as good as BAM
(09:51):
was Defensively, I want to shout out Kevin Durant as well.
Some timely shot making from from Anthony Edwards. I thought
Derek White had a big game. He had three steals
as well as three made three point shots. Continues to
just kind of be in the right spot and do
the right thing, make extra effort plays, really really impressive
stuff there. The Steph struggles to me, really like when
(10:11):
we saw this towards the tail end of last season,
teams that have a lot of speed and length, especially
on the perimeter, they just close in those gaps that
Steph is usually accustomed to working with. And again, like,
this is not just an athletic team. This is an
athletic team by NBA standards, and so I think that
kind of that kind of foretells some of the struggles
(10:32):
that Steph's gonna have in these matchups. We talked about
it last year at the end of the year. It's
like they play the Kings, I kind of feel like
Steph's gonna struggle, they play the Pelicans, I kind of
feel like Steph's gonna struggle. Teams that have like really
quick athletic guards with good length that can kind of
bother him on the perimeter are gonna give him some issues.
And that's just been the case. As far as the
Joel and beat thing goes, Like I talked about, it
(10:52):
was just a matchup. It's hard for him to cover
ground and transition in rotation against this team played against Serbia.
My guess is you'll play against Puerto Rico as well,
dott He handled it as well as you could. Obviously,
if you're a recent MVP of the NBA, you're gonna
be a little frustrated to be benched in a game
like this, but I thought it was the right decision overall.
(11:12):
So far through two pool play games for USAY really
impressed by them. Average margin of victory over twenty and
against these quality of teams, that's super impressive. I know
people don't think much of South Sudan, but they're very
good teams. Serbia has the best team or best player
in the world, and they should continue that dominance against
Puerto Rico. And like you know, I actually figured there'd
(11:33):
be more close games to this point, but Team USA
has held up really strong. The defense has been super impressive.
Even they're lesser defenders or guys that don't have a
reputation of being committed to defense have been defending really well.
Tmusa looking really good so far through two games.
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Speaker 2 (12:46):
Moving on to Japan versus France. So France makes a
bunch of huge plays late Pan keeps it close, and
Evan forty a hits a really tough step back three
at the top of the key got great separation. Arc
just came perfectly through the net tiede the game, Matthew
Strasl had a four point play on the left wing.
It was a call I didn't necessarily agree with because
(13:08):
the hand was kind of like on the hip. Yuki Kawamura,
the guard from Japan, did a wonderful job in this
particular game orchestrating offense, especially after Ruiya Chimura got ejected.
But I thought he got a tail end of a
really tough call there on that left wing. Again, by
the book, technically hand on the hip. It's like by
(13:29):
the book, it's a foul, but there's a huge difference
between having the hand on the hip and pushing on
the hip, and like that's one of those like incidental
contact things that I think needs to be let go,
especially in such a big moment. And again, like if
France beats you because he makes that shot and then
you foul and he makes one out of two free
throws and then he goes down to the other end
(13:50):
and they hit another three and they win. Fine, tip
the cat, congrats to France, they beat you. That's really
tough to be at four points like that in that
situation and to lose on a call like that. Was
was not a fan, but Victor wembin Yama took over
in overtime. There's a little post up on the right block.
I can't remember exactly who was guarding him, but they
tried to front the post. And when they fronted the post,
Wemby just immediately spun off of it. Passes perfect to
(14:13):
the high point. On the catch, he at his back,
turned the basket, he spun again and went right up
and laid it up and the foul A super super
coordinated play, really really impressive stuff, really really impressive stuff
there from Victor webbin Yama. And then he missed the
three on the right wing, but an offensive rebound he
got another clean look from the top of the key
knocked it down big time, big time play from Victor
(14:36):
webbin Yama. The guard play from France is really where
the issue is. It's like when you look at Canada
and France in particular, Canada has this incredible perimeter core,
but their front line is just too small to really
contend with some of the bigger front lines here in FIBA,
and then you go and you look at France and
they have this incredible front line. I mean even gersha
Onbusel had an incredible game in this one hit a
(14:59):
bunch of tough mid range jump shots. Was competing, was
flying around, and they have that front court presence, but
they like Evan forty a and Frank Millikina, it's just
it's it's not enough in terms of shot creation. Matthew
Streisill had a little stretch there in the second half
where he was spamming ball screens with Gobert and coming
off clean on the right wing and getting some decent looks,
and he hit a couple of pull up jump shots there.
(15:20):
But they just struggle in terms of that that guard play.
Victor women Yama. One of the most impressive things that
I noticed about France in the two games is they're
running a lot of like kind of weird, funky like
big man ball screens. Well where they will have like
Wemby at the elbow, like imagine like the left elbow,
so like where the key the court, the free throw
line extended kind of out to where the edge of
(15:41):
the key is and and he'll catch there and then
go Beart will come out of a triple like Wenby'll
be in a triple threat and go Beart will come
and set a screen. But what he'll do is he'll
deliberately screen the backside of the defender. And what they're
trying to do there is most teams are gonna switch
a four or five pick and roll. What that means
is the power forward in the center in a two
(16:02):
man game together. The reason why they're gonna switch that
is because likely those two defenders are similar in size,
and if those two defenders are similar in size, rather
than allowing Wemby to come off clean as the guys
in trail position, in which case, now Wenby's just going
to go right to the rim. If you just switch it,
it effectively like shuts the action down right. But this
(16:23):
is where high low basketball comes into play. High low
basketball is when you have one of your big guys
operating around the foul line while another one of your
big guys is underneath the basket trying to obtain good
post position because that center can throw good over the
top passes from that foul line area. So what they
were doing, which I thought was really smart, and they
did this with Gobert, but they also did it with
(16:44):
you Bucelet and some of their other bench forwards as well.
But they would have Wenby start with the ball and
as Gobert would screen. He would deliberately screen the backside
of the defender. And the reason why that's important is
then as Wemby comes off into the switch, when he
comes off into switch, the screeners defender is now on
Wemby squared up, but Gobar now has inside position. He
(17:07):
has inside position because he's screened that backside. Then he
can quick turn and seal and Wemby can throw that
over the top pass and there's an automatic angle kind
of bank kind of baked into the set because of
the screening angle you take on the backside. There. They
got a bunch of good stuff out of that. I
thought Wenby passed out of it extremely well, and so
(17:27):
far through two Olympic Games, Victor Wemban Yama one point
one seven points per shot on jump shots, which is
really impressive, So great start to the Olympics for Wemby.
On the Japan side of things, really was impressed by
the overall ball in player movement, some beautiful stuff in
five out, really smart cutting guys like I cut a
(17:48):
couple examples in my film session today and put them
on my Twitter feed at Underscore JSNLT. But remember when
I talked about in the show on Monday, the concept
of like off ball cutting specifically out of the wing,
and how that can when you're running a ball screen
on one side, how a cut on the weak side
can cause confusion for off ball defenders that are trying
(18:08):
to sink into the paint and it's hard to track
man and ball in those situations. They got good looks
out of that. Their guards were quick to come off
of multiple actions. There was ball reversal, the ball was
popping around. They'd have ruy As like their kind of
go to like on an Island score when they needed him.
But everything else was really smart five out ball in
player movement, and that blender did a lot of damage
(18:30):
to a French team that's got really good defenders between
Frank Nilikina and Nick Batoum and Victor Webbin Yama and
Rudy Gobert, this is a very long and athletic defensive
team that Japan was getting a lot of really good
shots against. And it's just a wonderful example of the
concepts that I talked about a lot on the show,
in the sense that you can generate offense with ball
and player movement and good schematic approach to help bolster,
(18:54):
personnel limitations, Ruby hutsch Mura, really impressive offensive game, the
face up stuff, the footwork in the post he had.
He was going right around good defenders and getting into
the lane and finishing in traffic. The jump shot looks great,
he's elevating, he's getting great rotation on it, he's knocking
it down. The one thing and I put a little
thread of about five clips together you can find on
(19:17):
my twitter feed. But Ruey is really struggling on defense
with Japan, specifically off the ball tracking shooters. And remember
this was the specific issue that he ran into in
the playoffs against Denver when he was tracking Michael Porter Junior.
He had a couple of massive mistakes on that and
including one in Game five that might have cost them
the game where in a semi transition said he just
(19:38):
wasn't paying attention and he lost Michael Porter Junior for
three huge moment. The Lakers had a chance to send
that thing back to the to LA for Game six,
and Rui's just attention to detail in those situations just
has to get better. It's tracking through screens, it's the
relaxation as as soon as his man gets up gives
up the ball. He gave up two threes to Evan
Fournier where he got switched on to Fournier. But then
(19:59):
as soon when Fournier gave up the basketball, Fournier just
cut to a different spot on the three point line
and Ruy wasn't paying attention and Fourtier got clean looks
from three and so like I like, in order for
Ruey to be the type of player that the Lakers
need him to be, those are things that he has
to sharpen up. Shout out to Ukava Moura the quickness
and pull up shooting he showed, especially to try to
(20:22):
close out that game after Ruy Hachimura got eliminated or
excuse me ejected on that second on sportsman like foul
and Rudy Gobert. I had so much fun watching him
in this game. He was an absolute warrior, kept his
team in it. I think he had like twenty eight
twenty nine points, super super fun game. And then one
last guy I wanted to shout out, Hugh want to
not be I'm assuming related to Utah want Namby, but
(20:45):
he had two huge blocks, including this one in regulation
where he came down from the left wing when Rudy
Gobert had a deep catch and Rudy Gobert loaded up
for his like two hand slam and he comes flying
in and just barely gets a piece of it at
the end. Ends up being a huge play that gave
Japan a really good chance to win this game. And
it's such a great example of what I talked about
(21:06):
after Kevin Durank got dunked on by Anthony Edwards, which is, guys,
getting dunked on is a sign of being a great defender.
That's something that you have to that's a commitment that
you have to make. You have to be willing to
risk what could happen if you get dunked on in
order to bring that next level of rimp protection at
another big week side block in the overtime period as well.
(21:27):
But alast Victor webbin Yama made the two big plays
in ot and they got out of there. All right,
Let's move on to Canada Australia real quick before we
get out of here. So Shaka as Alexander picked up
two quick early thousand. There's only five thousand foeba, so
he had to sit for a little bit. That allowed
Australia to take a little bit of an early advantage,
but in the early fourth quarter Canada ends up pulling away.
(21:49):
Dylan Brooks made a couple of plays, a little triple
threat ball screen out of the right corner where I
believe I can't remember who it was, the big man
for for Canon, I'm blinking on his name now, but
he slipped the ball screen. Dylan hit him perfect, he
got a layup, and then he hit a little mid
range jump shot. And then right after that, Jamal Murray
made a couple of plays and ICEO will close out
(22:10):
attack to get RJ. Barrett a wide open three in
the corner and then kind of like one of those
classic Jamal Murray ISO pull up jump shots around the
foul line. All of a sudden, like that, Canada was
up by eleven and the game was over. I wanted
to talk a little bit about the shot creation data
for Shay, Jamal and then Josh Gitty. So, Shay has
been brilliant so far in Olympics play. He's run twenty
(22:30):
five ISOs for thirty six points including passes. That's one
point four to four points per possession. And he's personally
on his own shot attempts out of ISO shooting seven
for twelve, So Shay's locked in looks fantastic forty one
total ISOs, post ups and ball screens in Olympic play
for fifty six points. That's one point three seven points
per possession. Really impressive stuff from Shay. Jamal Murray made
(22:55):
some big plays in this particular game, like we talked
about earlier, but shooting just two for ten on jump
shots so far in Olympic play, and I'm wondering if
he's still a little banged up. I was, I was
talking to some of my Nuggets guys, and the word
on him is that he's just not in shape. And
if that's the thing, if Jamal's just not in shape,
that's kind of disappointing because that's becoming kind of a
reputation for him, that he's showing up into season and
(23:18):
playing his way into shape. And like one of the
things is like that sort of thing can lead to
injuries when you're trying to play your way into shape,
when you're playing with more weight, when you're playing super
intense games, when your body's not prepared for it. So
that obviously was a little bit concerning Josh Giddy, though
really impressive so far for Australia thirty four pick and rolls,
ISOs and post ups for thirty nine points. That's one
(23:39):
point one point five points per possession. He's big, he's
handling the basketball while he's really good at protecting the basketball,
really good with like behind the back tribbles and then
using his shoulders to protect. He can make all the
reads deadly with his floater. He's five for seven so
far in the Olympics on floaters. That's seventy one percent.
And then what he'll do a lot of times in
switches when he sees a small guard in front of him,
(24:00):
there was a hard dribble move like into their chest
and then just gather right around ten feet and rise
up over the top of them and go to his
little floater. Canada was doing some switching against him in
this game, and he ended up beating it with a
step back three as well as a driving floater against
Jamal Murray. Really impressive shot making from Josh Giddy. I'm
curious to see how it translates to the NBA level
(24:20):
in a bigger role with Chicago next year. Last thing
before we get out of here, is Canada a threat.
Like I mentioned earlier as good as they are on
the perimeter, they're just not big enough on the inside.
One of the specific changes with FIBA that's been a
challenge for USA is the defensive three second rule and
the idea that you can park a center underneath the
basket and kind of gum things up and force them
(24:41):
to rely on perimeter jump shooting, where USA it can
go cold sometimes, Although I think Kevin Durant fixes that problem.
With that being the case, Canada just doesn't have the
interior size even if they do part guys under the
basket to bother the bigger American athletes as they're going downhill,
and so as good as Canada is on the perimeter,
I just don't think they're big enough underneath the basket
to make any sort of real problem for USA. All right, guys,
(25:04):
that is all I have for today. We're going a
little quick because I'm just about to hop on a
call with Colin Cowhard and we're going to hit a
bunch of Team USA topics, So keep an eye on
the Colin Cowhard podcast feed to see that in the
coming days. And then we're not going to cover Puerto
Rico versus USA this weekend, will in all likelihood will
be doing a mail bag on Friday, in addition to
probably covering one or two more FEVA games in that show.
(25:26):
As always, I appreciate you guys for supporting the show,
and I'll see you guys then the volume. What's up guys?
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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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.