March 10, 2025 • 41 mins
Jason reacts to the Cleveland Cavaliers getting a big win over the Milwaukee Bucks over the weekend behind balanced performances from Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, and Evan Mobley, despite strong play from Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard. Then he discusses the Oklahoma City Thunder getting a win over the Denver Nuggets in a MVP showdown between Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic. Finally he breaks down the Golden State Warriors getting two big wins over the weekend behind Steph Curry who is finding MVP-level form, Jimmy Butler's improved scoring, and huge plays from Draymond Green.
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Timeline
4:15 - Start
5:45 - Cavs/Bucks reaction
29:30 - Thunder/Nuggets reaction
45:15 - Warriors earn two big wins
(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. I am so excited. We are less than
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(01:28):
use it later. Thank you, Sea Geek. All right, welcome
on Hoops toight here at the Volume. Happy Monday, everybody.
Hope all of you guys are having a great start
to your week. Got a jam pack show for you today.
(01:48):
We had a bunch of great basketball games yesterday. We're
gonna be breaking down two of them. Off the top,
the Cleveland Cavaliers getting a big win on the road
against the Milwaukee Bucks, kind of controlling that one throughout.
Want to talk about some of the differences between those
two teams and how it's led to their success and
failures this year. Then we got an MVP showdown the
first of two. We got another one tonight that will
(02:08):
be breaking down in tomorrow's show. But the Denver Nuggets
one on the road against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and
the Thunder pretty much controlled that game throughout and ended
up winning in dominant fashion. Late, we're gonna break that
game down. Then at the tail end of the show,
I want to hit on the last two Golden State
Warriors games, talking about how good Steph has been of
late as he puts on a show against the Brooklyn Nets.
And then I want to talk about how Draymond Green
and Jimmy Butler kind of stole the show down the
(02:30):
stretch in a big win against the Detroit Pistons. You
guys know the job before we get started. Subscribed to
the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore
JSNLT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget
about a podcast for you where you get your podcast
under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave
a rating and a review on that front. We also
have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and
Facebook where we're releasing content throughout the year. Jackson's doing
(02:51):
some amazing work on those channels. Make sure you guys
follow us there. In the last but not least, keep
dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments. All of
the mail bags have been kind of out of way
because of all the trips that I've been going on
this month, and I still have two more at the
tail end of this month, so it's gonna get a
little tricky. But we're gonna be doing a mail bag
that I believe is releasing on Thursday this week that
I'm recording on Friday, so you still have a couple
(03:12):
more days to get in mail bag questions for that.
All right, let's talk some basketball. So once again, every
time I watch these kind of like middle tier teams
in the league. You know, I've talked about this last
night with Colin Coward, but like I kind of view
the inner circle of the NBA as like five teams
that I think have like a real chance to win
(03:32):
the title, and in no particular order, because I'm gonna
end up doing some stuff involving ordering them over the
course of the next month. Jackson and I were talking
this morning about doing very, very in depth breakdowns specifically
on the inner circle contenders involving some film and stuff,
so we're thinking about doing that over the course of
the next month. But those five teams for me right
(03:52):
now are in the Eastern Conference Boston and Cleveland, and
in the Western Conference Oklahoma City, Denver, and the Los
Angeles Lakers. If you look at those teams and you
watch them play every single night, there's a level of
seriousness on both ends of the floor and their execution
and their attention to detail and just their overall pursuit
of maximizing their talent and being the best basketball team
(04:13):
that they can be. And literally as soon as you
go below that, it's a drop off. Even with a
team that has a pretty damn good record like the
New York Knicks, they've been so inconsistent with their defensive
execution this year. Teams like Milwaukee, teams like Minnesota. There's
so many teams in that group that have been very,
very inconsistent in their attention to detail. The one team
(04:35):
that's kind of below there that I'm keeping my eye
on because I don't really know where they're gonna fit
once we see a larger sample of them playing some
tougher teams as the Golden State Warriors. I think they
have a chance to enter into the inner circle. There
are some teams in that group that I think I
am keeping my eye on over the course of the
final month to see, but those are the five teams
that I see, and when you go beyond that, there's
a pretty substantial drop off in terms of just a
(04:58):
level of serious basket caket ball that they play. I
thought it was really interesting as I started to dig
through the numbers, like, if you look at the margins,
these are the areas where all of the good teams
are always good. The margins are the little details that suck.
They're hard to do, but they're such an important part
(05:19):
of winning basketball games, for instance, taking care of the
basketball and making sure you don't give up points off
of turnovers. The Thunder, the Calves, and the Celtics are
all top five and opponent points off of turnovers, and
the Lakers are top ten. Giving up points off of
offensive rebounds, the Calves and Celtics are both in the
top ten. The Thunder have always been a bad defensive
(05:40):
rebounding team, that's their achilles heel, so they're out of
that group, but the Calves and Celtics top ten, and
the Lakers since January fifteenth, when they kind of became
a serious team. They're seventh in that department giving up
fast break points. The Calves, the Celtics, and the Thunder
are all in the top eleven in limiting opponent's fast breakpoints.
This is the lakers Achilles Heel's where they always get beat.
(06:00):
They're unathletic in transition at times, cleaning the glasses. Overall
transition defense stat, the Calves, the Celtics, and the Thunder
are all top ten. The Lakers are top ten since
January fifteenth. Makes in the restricted area allowed so giving
up easy baskets right underneath the rim. The Calves, Celtics,
and Thunder are all top ten. The Lakers are seventh
since January fifteenth. Total number of contested shots this year.
(06:24):
This is a hustle stat on NBA dot Com. The Calves,
the Thunder, and the Celtics are all in the top four.
These are non negotiables. If you want to be a
serious basketball team, you have to be committed to running
the floor in transition, making contact on box outs, competing
for contested rebounds, making rotations, putting your body on the line,
(06:46):
making extra efforts contesting shots. These are non negotiables, and
they're hard. I get it. There's a reason why there's
such a huge swath of the league that's bad at
this stuff on a nightly basis, because it's eighty two
games and you're all a bunch of million and it's
really really hard to get yourself to compete at that
level in a night in a night out basis. That said,
(07:07):
like I said, it's a non negotiable if you want
to get to the finish line, if you want to
get De Larry O'Brian Trophy. Every time I watched the Bucks,
they seem to be heavily lacking in these areas. They
are mediocre to bad and every single one of those
statistical categories that I listed, except for defensive rebounding. It
was jarring again to watch as the Calves just dominated
(07:29):
this game by out running the Bucks all over the floor.
Twenty four easy points in transition, countless possessions where they
would defend well and get a stop and rebound and
run out the other way and get an easy one
against a Bucks team that wasn't willing to run even
in the half court. It's the same sort of concept,
whether it was Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell or somebody
else creating that initial advantage. The Calves just sliced and
(07:52):
diced the Bucks defense with these beautiful driving kick sequences
that often ended in wide open looks for very good shooters.
You could literally see them repeatedly knifing through the lane,
not just on that initial drive but on closeouts, and
as a result, they're able to grow that advantage so
that first close out's only a little bit of a
(08:12):
close out, that second close out's more of a close out,
the third one no chance the dudes wide open. The
Calves generated twenty two unguarded catch and shoot jump shots
in this game. The Milwaukee Bucks generated just nine. That's
the difference. The Calves have this beautiful ability to slice
(08:34):
and dice defenses for these super high quality catch and
shoot looks and at the same time, on the other
end of the floor keep their defense out of rotation
against Milwaukee, and it's not just the commitment to running,
it's the commitment off the ball on defense to tracking
shooters being sharp with your closeouts. Cleveland was so attentive
and sharp. Every catch and shoot look for Milwaukee felt
(08:56):
like it was smothered with a quick and reactive closeout.
How many times did you see Torrian Prince in the
game kind of lingering around five six feet away from
Max Struce and just a quick swing pass and Max
Struce knocks down a shot. How many times did you
see Brook Lopez and Janisantana Kumpo just drifting off of
Evan Mobley and not in position to offer a closeout
(09:16):
as Evan Mobley made them pay knocking down that catch
and shoot on the weak side. Prince in particular had
a really enough rough night in this regard, but as
a team, the Bucks were not attentive in their off
ball defense. That's how you end up with such a
huge chasm in the overall number of wide open catch
and shoot shots that they generated. The Bucks have a
(09:38):
lot of talent, but you can't even get to the
point where you're able to weaponize that talent until you're
willing to commit to the hard work that is consistent
winning basketball that is required to get to that level.
There are some realities with the Bucks regarding their age
in overall foot speed. This is a size team, not
a speed team. We're gonna talk about the difference between
(09:58):
the two here in a minute, but at the same
time every time I watch them. There's just so much
fat that can be trimmed simple transition defense principles like
stopping the ball, stopping the basket, and getting matched up.
There's a big one late in the game where Tori
and Prince left a wide open shooter right at the
top of the key. The on defense in the half
(10:20):
court like simple ideas like making sure that when you're
in help side defense, positioning yourself in a way where
you can see man and ball, and make sure that
if that pass goes, you're already in the close out
while the ball's in the air and you're there on
the catch. These are details that don't necessarily depend on
their overall team speed that can be cleaned up that
they just haven't made the requisite effort to do so. Now,
(10:42):
getting to the game itself, I want to talk about
how the combination of speed and jump shooting is what
actually allows the Cleveland Cavaliers to generate so many quality shots.
This has been the best offense in the NBA this year.
They're actually almost three points per one hundred possessions ahead
of the second place Boston Celtics. They're the only team
in the league getting over one offensive rating. The Caves
(11:02):
offense is unbelievable. Now, Like we talked about earlier, there's
a difference between size and speed. There are two easy
ways to get the defense into rotation through overwhelming speed
and overwhelming size. For overwhelming size, think like Jokicchure, guys
like Lebron, James Luka, don Should, Chason Tatum, some of
these bigger, stronger players. They find a defender that's too
small to guard them, then they pressure the rim until
(11:24):
they get easy twos, or they draw in that second defender.
Speed works the exact same way when you have guards
that through transition or through ball screens against switches, whatever
it is. When they can consistently get screaming downhill towards
the rim, they either are going to get layups or
they're going to draw in multiple defenders. This is the
(11:44):
part of the Caves roster construct that has really shown
through this year. And for the record, I was originally
a couple of years ago completely out on the Darius Garland,
Donovan Mitchell Perry as like a foundation for the Caves.
Why because it's two small guards, and when you're building
around two small guards, it just presents so many issues
for you on the defensive glass and just on the
(12:04):
defensive end in general. And by the way, they still
occasionally have rebounding issues and they still occasionally have defense issues.
But as Darius Garland has gotten healthy this year and
as he's blossomed into this like super high level guard,
we've gotten to see the other side of that dynamic,
which is that they do have overwhelming speed. Garland this year,
(12:26):
healthy with his legs underneath him, has been one of
my favorite players to watch in the league this year
because of his combination of speed and handle in shot
making and playmaking, which gives him the ability to get
wherever he wants to get on the floor. His probing
and transition off the dribble and in the half court
is responsible for so much of Cleveland's offensive success. The
Cavs offense all year has been about two points better
(12:49):
per one hundred possessions when Darius Garland is on the
floor versus off, Donovan Mitchell brings the same thing. He's
not at the same level of quickness that Darius Garland
is at, but he's close, and he's bigger, and he's
more vertically athletic, and he's a better shot maker and
he's got like a bunch of these really fancy gatherer moves,
like he's been putting on a clinic of that like
(13:09):
windmill over the top gather that Dwayne Wade popularized, and
then he's brought back the sham god with a vengeance
this year. He had another nasty one the other night.
Darius or Donovan Mitchell's ball handling in the middle of
the floor has been unbelievable this year, but he also
has an amazing ability to get wherever he wants on
the floor. That's the initial first step for any driving
(13:30):
kick sequence. You've got to generate that initial advantage that
compromises the defense and generates those kickout opportunities for your
spot up guys. From there, they just have a bunch
of guys who are awesome at playing driving kick basketball.
Max Struz Lightning quick release, can do it on the
move and is a really good driving kick player, can
(13:51):
make basic driving kick reads. Dean Wade is good at
it too. DeAndre Hunter has been brilliant so far as
a CAV as a spot up guy, as a guy
who can do some advanced in the mid range attacking closeouts.
Ti Jerome is good at it. Sam Merrill's good at it.
Mitchell and Garland can both do it when they're off
the ball. Just give you an idea. Here are some
spot up efficiency numbers for Calves players according to Synergy.
(14:14):
DeAndre Hunter one point three seven points per possession. That's outrageous.
Ty Jerome one point three to six points per possession.
That's outrageous. Craig Porter, obviously in a smaller role, one
point two to eight points per possession. Max Streu's one
point twenty four, Donovan Mitchell one point one eight, Sat
Marrill one point one five. They have six players logging
over one point one five points per possession and spot
(14:36):
up situations. As a team, they get one point one
one points per any spot up possession. Only the Celtics
in the NBA are better at converting spot up possessions
than the Cleveland Cavaliers, and they generate so many of
them on the strength of their speed. It's that combination
speed which is necessary to consistently get the defense in
(14:59):
rotation and then having players that can extend advantages and
pay them off even they're bigs. Evan Mobley last night
burned Giannis and Brooke on skip passes by hitting weak
side threes. He's shooting thirty seven percent from on catch
and shoot threes this year. That is helping. Jared Allen
provides his own kind of spacing as a short range
(15:20):
shot maker. There's a play yesterday where Darius Garland was
driving through the lane and Jared ended up like kind
of right outside the right block, and Darius ran into
a bunch of help and just kind of dumped it
off to Jared Allen, and Jared Allen just stuck a
little left handed floater like six feet from the basket.
In all year long, he's been deadly on hooks and floaters.
He provides his own kind of spacing in that way.
(15:42):
It's a principle that works for them in both the
half court and in transition. It makes them nearly impossible
to guard. And it's why they've been head and shoulders
above the rest of the field on offense this year.
The Celtics are in second place three points fewer per
one hundred possessions. That's how ahead of the field their
offense has been. Yeah, as we've talked about, margins shrink
(16:03):
when you get to the postseason. I saw a crazy
stat this morning when I was digging through some old
NBA data, Five of the last seven NBA teams to
win at least sixty games or to win at a
sixty win pace in the two shortened seasons in twenty
twenty and twenty twenty one, five of the last seven
of the teams to accomplish those feats failed to win
(16:26):
their conference in the playoffs. Only one of those five
losers made it out of the second round. The reason
is simple, By the way, the two exceptions there are
the twenty twenty Lakers and last year's Boston Celtics. The
reason why this happens is you're almost exclusively in the
playoffs facing elite locked in defenses that have done extensive
(16:48):
game planning, and as the officiating loosens up and the
game becomes very physical, all of that easy dribble penetration
becomes harder to come by. In the half court. It
gets harder to get to your spot, and the catch
and shoot threes get harder to knock down because everyone's
more tired from being in that super physical environment. The
game actually shifts in the playoffs heavily towards each individual
(17:12):
matchup and how well each team can guard each other
in the half court again. Five out of the last
seven teams to do what Cleveland's doing, to do what
Oklahoma City is doing, failed to make it out of
their conference. Four out of those seven failed to make
it out of the second round. That is a trend
that Cleveland has to find a way to reverse, and
(17:34):
it's going to come down to guys knocking down shots
at the same rate they did in the regular season
and Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell continually being able to
generate those advantages and once again finding ways to make
sure that you can prevent specific matchups from causing you
problems when you get into the in a playoff series.
For instance, we talked about the Celtics Cavs series a
(17:56):
Celtics Calves game the other night. The ability to attack
Sam Hauser in the half court in crunch time that
won't be there, So it'll be about can Jason Tatum
and Jaylen Brown do a better job of attacking Garland
and Tatum is comfortable against both Allen and Mobley as well,
are they going to be able to attack those guys
better than Cleveland can attack Derek White, Al Horford, Chris
(18:22):
aps Porzingis in his drop coverages whatever it may be.
That is the battle. That's the chess match that ultimately
is going to determine who wins the title, not which
team had the better offensive rating in the regular season,
which team had the higher win percentage. That is what
happens in NBA history, and that is why a lot
of these teams that dominate the regular season end up
losing in the postseason. It doesn't matter what you accomplished
(18:44):
in the eighty two. It comes down to the matchups.
Not to be clear, the team that wins the title
is almost always in the upper echelon of teams, basically always,
so there is a mandatory minimum of a commitment to
excellence that you have to have, and all of those
teams had that. But what ends up happening are there
(19:04):
are these teams, usually in that second tier, usually that
don't have quite the sixty win pace, but they're in
the mid fifties or so that were dead serious all year.
But maybe they're a little older, maybe they're a little slower,
and they get run off the floor a bunch of
times in the regular season, but they get into the postseason,
they get their shit together. The Vets leverage their athleticism
and it gets tougher, and that's the challenge that Cleveland
(19:27):
has to overcome when the margins shrink and it becomes
about Garland and Mitchell matchup attacking versus a different team
matchup attacking them. How can they hold up. I think
they're gonna hold up really well against everybody except for
Boston out in the East, and ultimately that's the challenge
and nothing else really matters until we get to that point.
(19:49):
A couple of the shoutouts from the Bucks game again,
I thought Max Struce was just awesome, and I thought
he kicked Torrey in Prince's ass and that was a
significant swing factor in this game. I also thought the
Caves defended Damian Lillard extreme well. Isaacacorro in particular, did
a really nice job. His shifts were excellent in this game.
I also thought it was just a great example of
how devastating Cleveland's driving kick attack can be in the
(20:10):
sense that no player on the team scored over twenty points.
Darius Carland and Donovan Mitchell were both broke on their
pull up threes, and it just didn't matter because they
just picked Milwaukee apart for wide open catch and shoot
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b Ball. All right, let's move on a Nuggets thunder.
(22:02):
This is a really fun MVP showdown. It started off
super high energy and a lot of shot attempts because
the thunder we're running a lot of single coverage against
Jokic with Hartenstein, so both guys were getting a bunch
of shot ups. Shaye and Yokic attempted twenty one shots
between the two of them in the first quarter. It
was kind of crazy and it was funny too, because
neither guy could make a three point shot to save
their life, but they were getting them up. Like Shaye
(22:25):
is so good at driving to the basket that when
he turns that right shoulder and just does that hard
little step back move, he can get a good look
from three literally whenever he wants. And Yokic can get
one whenever he wants just by popping out of ball
screens or spacing above the key because he's generally being
guarded by really big players that are defending in some
sort of drop coverage and he's just gonna be wide
(22:45):
open every time he pops out. Those threes were there,
they were just both missing them. There was a lot
of talk about Jokic's elbow and his jump shot in
the game, and I remember a similar conversation happening last
year when Yokic's jump shot was struggling surrounding his wrist.
And again, I'm not debating whether or not Yokic is
actually hurt. I'm sure he is. But here's the thing,
(23:06):
regardless of whether or not it's an injury, him making
that shot is vitally important to the ceiling of this team. Okay, See,
he was doing an awesome job against Yo kicch in
this game of swarming him on rolls, going under on
inverted ball screens, and basically daring Jokic to make above
the break threes. You know you've seen it before, Like
(23:28):
they'll okay, see will come from the weak side with
guys like JDub or Shay just swiping over the top,
and they got these long arms and they'll just go
at these bigs when they catch on the roll and
just swarm them and make life really difficult for them. There.
Yokic had an uncharacteristic, uncharacteristic poor shooting game because he
had to drop back in those ball screens and start
popping above the break, and he just couldnt knock him down.
(23:51):
That's his counter to that coverage. When they're swarming him
on rolls, he'll pop. And here's the thing. When he's
hitting forty five percent of his threes, that's one point
three to five points per possession. That's untenable for the defense.
Now you're chasing him off the line, he's rumbling downhill
and he's attacking closeouts and you're in trouble. But here's
the problem. Over the last sixteen games, Yo Kids' shooting
(24:14):
just thirty two point nine percent from three. And this
is the thing with the elbow. I'm sure the elbow
is not helping things at this point, but we are
now on almost a fourth of the season where he's
back to shooting the ball extremely poorly. Again, it's just
something to keep an eye on. Again, that's what happened
in the Minnesota series, defending Yogics by daring him to shoot,
(24:34):
and his inability to knock down those three point shots. Again,
it's just something to keep an eye on. Hopefully it's
just a small trend in the season that he can
kick before we get to April. But this game was
just a complete and total outclassing by the Oklahoma City Thunder.
They shot better from two, they shot better from three,
They got to the line more, they shot better when
they got to the line. They out rebounded Denver by eight,
(24:56):
They had more assists, they had fewer turnovers, they had
more points off turnovers, they had more points in the paint.
It was like total domination. I thought Shay and Jadub
just eviscerated Denver's man to man defense with their ability
to get downhill. You know, we've talked a lot about
Jokic in his defense at the level of ball screens,
but they don't have much in the way of perimeter
containment either, just in terms of their guard defenders. Shaye
(25:20):
right away from the start of this game made it
perfectly clear that he can drive past Christian Brown whenever
he wants. Really, the only guy I thought that kind
of made Shaye uncomfortable was Russ, who did some really
nice work with physicality and back pressure, and he actually
forced him into some pretty bad misses. But like everyone else,
he was just going by whenever he wanted. And in
ball screens, Jokic had a couple of different coverages he
(25:42):
was using in this game. He's either coming all the
way up to the level or he's sitting in a
deeper drop, and none of it worked. When he was
in the deeper drop, Shae could just get wherever he
wanted in the mid range. And Shae didn't shoot well
from three in this game, but he was six for
twelve on mid range pull ups. And then when Yokic
came up to the level, he'd just go around it,
either by splitting the ball screen or like in and
out dribble and make that aggressive dribble past him, Shay
(26:04):
was just picking them apart. I thought j Dub was
brilliant in the second half. He did some great work
against Yo kitchen ball screens in the early third quarter.
But he was one of the guys who really helped
the Thunder crack Denver zone. The Thunder eviscerated Denver's man
demand defense in the half court in this game, they
got one point two to three points per half court possession.
(26:25):
A one to twenty three offensive rating in the half
court is outrageous. Denver's man and man defense could not
guard Oklahoma City. So Mike Malone in that second half
go zone and it gets him back into the game.
They run zone for seven possessions in the third quarter.
In the thunderscore zero points. They couldn't get dribble penetration.
They were generating these kind of mediocre catch and shoot
(26:47):
looks on the perimeter off of swing passes, so Denver
worked their way back into the game. I thought Tim
Legler is just an absolute legend, and I've really enjoyed
him being on call on the call in these games lately.
He was doing a great job of explaining how when
the zone is there, it contains dribble penetration, which was
the specific problem that a Denver was having with Oklahoma
City all game long. But in the fourth quarter, the
(27:10):
Thunder found a way to penetrate the zone screens out
the top and then just beating the man in front
of you and getting into the middle of the zone
where everybody reacted, where they generated higher quality catch and
shoot looks. J Dubb did this several times. Alex Crusoe
had a nice driving kick to the left corner as well.
As a result of that, they were able to generate
higher quality catch and shoot looks. Then they started popping
the ball around the perimeter. They had a really nice
(27:31):
dunk that they got for Isaiah Hartenstein by moving the
ball around a bunch of times, getting Denver's zone moving
and Jokic had to rotate out and chet just threw
a beautiful pass from the top of the key to Hartenstein.
He got a dunk. On eight possessions of zone to
start the fourth quarter. The Thunder scored fourteen points and
that caused Mike Malone to bail on that too. Then
(27:51):
Shay comes back in and closes the deal with a
bunch of buckets. He's another mid range jump shot and
pick and roll. He had a nasty hesitation move on
Jamal Murray where he just kind of looked at the
rim as he went forward right hand left side layup
for another bucket, and then he had a step back
three at the top of the key. He finally made
one that ended up being the dagger in this game,
and this ended up being an absolute blowout as the
(28:13):
Thunder one one twenty seven to one ZHO three. I
want to talk a little bit about MVP and about
how this game kind of fits into that in tonight's
rematch as well, but before we do that, I want
to talk a little bit about Jalen Williams, who's been
on an absolute tear. He had twenty six, nine and
eight last night. In his last nineteen games, he's getting
twenty three points per game, five rebounds, and five assists
on fifty nine percent true shooting. Not bad for a
(28:36):
twenty three year old, right. He's been one of the
best defensive players in the league over that span as well.
He's just kind of like the prototypical Swiss Army knife forward,
which is one of my favorite archetypes in the league.
He's big and strong, He's a great athlete, He's a
legit shooter. He had a rough start to this season
jump shooting, but he's been over forty percent from three
in this span, and he was fantastic last year. He's
(28:57):
a legit on ball creator. He can shoot off the dribble,
he can score from all three levels. He's way ahead
of where most forwards are as playmakers at this phase
of his career. Like so many of these forwards can't.
They're like one to one assist the turnover guys. You
can count on j Dubb to just be another level
above as a playmaker at the forward position than most
(29:17):
guys are. He's just kind of a natural at it. Honestly,
I tend to think a lot of that playmaking talent
is natural. And he's a very good defensive player. You
can guard multiple positions, he can defend both on and
off the ball, and he's a good defensive rebounder. Now,
the next step for him is becoming a reliable secondary
ball handling option in the postseason context. It can't turn
(29:38):
into Shay's got to make all the shots. That's where
they get into issues, right, But he's well on his
way to that point. So I'm going to say the
same thing that I said when we were talking about Cleveland.
Five of the last seven teams to win at least
sixty games in a season or to win at a
sixty game pace in the shortened seasons failed to win
their conference in the playoffs. Four of those five teams
(29:58):
lost in the second round or And the reason why,
like we talked about earlier, is margins become less of
a separator. Everyone is really good, defenses are really good,
the game planning is incredible, and now it becomes about
how do you match up against this team? Nothing else
matters For two weeks you're playing against each other. It's
going to denigrate down into half court basketball. It's going
(30:20):
to get super physical, and it's going to come down
to matchups. Okama City is going to run into the
same problem they ran into last year, role players making
catch and shoot shots. And is Jalen Williams going to
be able to be that legitimate secondary option to help
carry weight for Shae Kills with Alexander. That is the
trend they're going to have to overcome if they are
(30:40):
going to beat that trend. Or Five of the last
seven teams to win at this pace have failed to
have success in the postseason. A couple of things. I
want to get to the Denver front and talk a
little bit about the MVP race. So we already talked
about the MVP race in our last show, but yesterday
was a strong statement from Shay drops forty picks apart
(31:02):
Denver's defense. Despite a poor three point shooting game, I
thought he had a good defensive game as well. He's
up to minus five hundred on DraftKings to win the
award after last night's game. But these same two teams
play again tonight in Oklahoma City. If Yo Kich is
gonna get back into the race, he's gonna have to
win tonight, and he's gonna have to look clearly better
(31:25):
than Shay in the process. So what can Denver do
to flip the script tonight? A couple things. One, I
thought yokichs at the level coverages were effective when he
contained the ball. There were a couple times where he
was late up to the level and Shaye was able
to split him or make it in and out dribble
and go the other way. He gave up a little
too much dribble penetration on some of those looks. But
if he gets up to the level quickly and forces
(31:46):
Shaye to not get downhill but to take a retreat dribble.
Shay struggles compared to most of his peers at skipping
the ball out of ball pressure. So they can actually
do a good job of putting two on the ball
with Shay and keeping their defense out of rotation as
long as Yo Kic gets up there quickly and is
active with his hands to prevent Shae from splitting him
off the dribble two. As a team, they need to
(32:08):
do a better job of containing dribble penetration at all positions.
We talked about that earlier. Three. I would absolutely try
the zone again. I'd wait, I'd wait until Oklahoma City
makes a second half run and try to just use
it as a rhythm disruptor. I think Yokic is gonna
have to hit some of those pick and pop jumpers
like we talked about it like that again, when you
look at the way Oklahoma City is guarding him on
(32:30):
those rolls, it's just the easy counter. It's for him
to pop. He just has to knock the shot down.
If Yo Kitchen the Nuggets get a big win tonight,
it will flip the script and get things back to
where they were yesterday. And if you looked at the
odds yesterday, Jokicch was like plus two hundred. He was
back within striking distance. The narrative was gaining strength. If
he gets a win tonight and Yokicch is amazing the
(32:52):
rest of the season and he demonstrates a little bit
of a closing of that gap, maybe he can make
up ground and get to his fourth envy. But it's
going to start tonight by flipping the script against the
thunder all right, Let's talk a little bit about the
(33:20):
Golden Saved Warriors before we get out of here for today.
A couple of big wins over the weekend against the
Brooklyn Nets and the Detroit Pistons. Steph put on an
absolute show against Brooklyn. Dropped forty points, hit one of
the craziest shots of his career, left shoulder fade from
forty feet to beat the halftime buzzer. Just a ridiculous shot.
I want to talk a little bit about that specific
footwork and how Steph's just been deadly on it here
(33:41):
in a little bit. He hit two threes in the
final six minutes that ice that game. He continues to
be absolutely brilliant. He dropped thirty two more against the
Pistons yesterday. We're now at a fifteen games span from Steph,
where he's played every night, hasn't missed a game, averaged
thirty one points, four rebounds, and six assists on sixty
five percent true shooting. Remember Steph's animous MVP campaign, he
(34:02):
averaged thirty points a game on sixty seven percent trough shooting.
He's basically at that level and he looks like it too.
I talked about how the best example of it is
his paint scoring in a video a while back. I
shared some stats with you guys about how since Jimmy
Butler came to the team, his rim attempts and his
efficiency of skyrocket skyrocketed since Jimmy came to town. But
(34:22):
another example that has come to light to me is
his movement shooting, particularly sprinting to his right. I've talked
about this concept on the show before, but it is
the hardest shot for a right handed shooter. Most right
handed shooters, when they're taking a jump shot, their shoulders
are not square to the basket. They're tilted slightly to
the left. Why Because it's just kind of a natural
(34:43):
spot for the shooting motion to exist. Most right handed
shooters are very comfortable moving to the left, shooting to
the left, because as they're running, it's an easy one
to two with that right foot left foot as they're
planning their feet to get up, straight up and down,
and when they're off to dribble, they're already canted in
that direction, so they can take step backs and shoot.
Shay's a great example that step back that Shay shoots
all the time. He's using that right foot to jab
(35:06):
because his right foot's going to be forward when he
shoots anyway, and so like as you're moving as a
shooter to your left, it's easier. Most ball handling shooters
in the league, if you funnel them to the right,
they're going to go to the rim. If you funnel
them to the left, they're going to settle for a
pull up jump shot. It's like a basic defensive principle
that works for the most part at all levels. But
(35:27):
the very best shooters in the world can also shoot
really well moving to the right. It's just way more difficult.
Specifically on your legs, that same dynamic is reversed. I
want to shoot with my right foot slightly canted forward
and my left foot slightly back, but I'm running towards
my right hand side. So as I'm running, my left
(35:49):
foot is closer to the basket and my right foot
is closer to half court. And so in order to
rise up and knock down a shot sprinting to my right,
I have to plant that left foot, swing that right
foot all the way around, and plant it as close
to forward as possible, usually not. And then as I'm jumping,
I have to square up in mid air in order
(36:11):
to rise up and knock the shot down. It is
a very difficult shot, specifically on your legs. And that's
the most exciting part that I've seen from Steph over
the course the last couple of weeks, other than the
stuff and the paint. He's sprinting into that jump shot,
running to his right, and he's hitting that thing. He
had a big one against the Pistons late. He had
(36:31):
a big one against the nets late. He had another
one a couple games earlier, the fade away that he
hit against the nets. That's also a same sort of concept.
He's pivoting over his left shoulder and squaring up in
mid air to knock down a shot. That to me
is a great sign that Steph has a really strong
base right now, and that to me is the most
important part. You're seeing it too. Yeah, he had a
(36:52):
little step back jumper that he missed against a Star
Thompson in the I think it was in the late third,
it could have been in the fourth quarter, but he
got tons of separate against a Star Thompson, and I'm like, oh,
my goodness, Like Sar Thompson is one of the most
athletic perimeter defenders we have in the league, and Steph
just just basically shucked him off and got an easy look.
Steph is looking fantastic, and that is exciting because there
(37:15):
is no championship ceiling for this team, even with trades,
even with roster upside, even with Jimmy Butler. There's no
championship upside for this team unless Steph Curry gets back
to top tier superstar level, and we're at about a
month now of him being at that level, which is
super super encouraging. But I want to shout out some
of Steph's teammates from the Pistons game. The Pistons defended
(37:39):
Steph pretty well. He grinded out his thirty two points
because he's a legend, but it wasn't easy. Sar Thompson
did a good job on him in this game. Jalen
Duran logged some really good at the level reps in
that fourth quarter, even got a strip on Steph trying
to cross over in front of him in that stretch,
but the Warriors were able to go somewhere else for
offense down the stretch. Jimmy was fantastic all night. He
(38:00):
had twenty six to nine and five, one of his
better stat lines as a Warrior. Did a lot of
work against Isaiah Stewart in switches in the bench groups.
He's already showing some nice chemistry with Quinton Post as
like a ballscreen guy. He can get some favorable switches
there because nobody wants to leave Quinton Posts open on
the pop if they can avoid it. He's good at
like kind of operating in the dunker spot off of Jimmy,
and Jimmy's just doing a really nice job with those
(38:20):
bench groups. But he also hit one of the biggest
shots of the game late ty game a little over
a minute left, just cleared the left side of the floor,
gave the ball to Jimmy against Tobias Harris, and he
just sat in that hesitation dribble and rose up over
the top and knocked down a big shot to put
the Warriors up too. And then Draymond Green two massive
(38:40):
plays a beautiful pass to Steph on a cut where
he was cutting through the lane and Malik Beasley was
like face guarding Steph, and Draymond identified that he was
face guarding him, and that means he's open and he's
being face guarded. It means he's not watching man and ball.
He's only watching man. So Draymon just this easy, breezy
(39:01):
little pass and Steph saw it. Just sealed Malik a
little bit, allowed the pass to come in right over
the top and then flipped it in for an and
one beautiful read from Draymond Green, and then the game
winner with about thirty seconds left, just confidently stepped into
a three on the right wing and swished it. There
was a lot of time on the shot clock when
that shot went up, so Draymond literally trusted himself down
(39:23):
what was it down two or down one, I can't
remember exactly down in the final minute to rise up
and knock down a shot with plenty of time left
in the shot clock swished it to just unbelievable plays.
On one hand, the luxury of having an apex star
to give the ball too late to go get a bucket,
but on the other hand, a confident veteran who can
(39:43):
make simple reads and step up and make big shots
and big moments. I thought it was awesome that those
two stepped up and made the plays late to beat
the Pistons. I want to sho shout out some of
the other role players as well. Moses Moody. He had
a rough shooting night overall, but he made two huge
plays late. He had a big catching shoot three out
of the right corner, and then after Draymond's three, playing
some good ball pressure to Kay Cunningham and strips Cade
(40:06):
at half court. One of the biggest plays of the game,
a big steal. He had three steals in this game.
And then Gi Santos just active all over the floor.
He had an incredible offensive rebound put back where he
got knocked to the floor off of like a little shove,
but he just kind of fed the ball into the
basket and got an and one. He had this nice
play too late in the game where he was operating
with the ball at the right wing, and there was
(40:27):
off ball action running and the pistons were just completely
geared towards the off ball action, and he just ripped
through to the right side driving lane and got all
the way to the basket and made a layup. He
looked awesome. He had fifteen points and six rebounds and
was a plus twelve. The Warriors are eleven and two
in their last thirteen games, now just five games back
from the two seed as they continued to climb in
(40:49):
the standings. All right, guys, that is all I have
for tonight. As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys for
supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow
with a breakdown of that rematch between the Thunder and
the Nuggets, to swallow some a couple other games from tonight's slate.
I'll see you guys then the volume. What's up guys,
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
(41:11):
hoops 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. I am so excited. We are less than
a month away from going to the Sphere to see
Dead End Company. I'm actually seeing three shows in a
row if you haven't seen them yet. Even if it's
not the Dead the Sphere is like an incredible concert
venue experience. You guys gotta get over there and check
it out, Which is why I want to give the
sponsor of today's video, Seek Geek a huge shout out.
(00:23):
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(01:28):
use it later. Thank you, Sea Geek. All right, welcome
on Hoops toight here at the Volume. Happy Monday, everybody.
Hope all of you guys are having a great start
to your week. Got a jam pack show for you today.
(01:48):
We had a bunch of great basketball games yesterday. We're
gonna be breaking down two of them. Off the top,
the Cleveland Cavaliers getting a big win on the road
against the Milwaukee Bucks, kind of controlling that one throughout.
Want to talk about some of the differences between those
two teams and how it's led to their success and
failures this year. Then we got an MVP showdown the
first of two. We got another one tonight that will
(02:08):
be breaking down in tomorrow's show. But the Denver Nuggets
one on the road against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and
the Thunder pretty much controlled that game throughout and ended
up winning in dominant fashion. Late, we're gonna break that
game down. Then at the tail end of the show,
I want to hit on the last two Golden State
Warriors games, talking about how good Steph has been of
late as he puts on a show against the Brooklyn Nets.
And then I want to talk about how Draymond Green
and Jimmy Butler kind of stole the show down the
(02:30):
stretch in a big win against the Detroit Pistons. You
guys know the job before we get started. Subscribed to
the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore
JSNLT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget
about a podcast for you where you get your podcast
under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave
a rating and a review on that front. We also
have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and
Facebook where we're releasing content throughout the year. Jackson's doing
(02:51):
some amazing work on those channels. Make sure you guys
follow us there. In the last but not least, keep
dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments. All of
the mail bags have been kind of out of way
because of all the trips that I've been going on
this month, and I still have two more at the
tail end of this month, so it's gonna get a
little tricky. But we're gonna be doing a mail bag
that I believe is releasing on Thursday this week that
I'm recording on Friday, so you still have a couple
(03:12):
more days to get in mail bag questions for that.
All right, let's talk some basketball. So once again, every
time I watch these kind of like middle tier teams
in the league. You know, I've talked about this last
night with Colin Coward, but like I kind of view
the inner circle of the NBA as like five teams
that I think have like a real chance to win
(03:32):
the title, and in no particular order, because I'm gonna
end up doing some stuff involving ordering them over the
course of the next month. Jackson and I were talking
this morning about doing very, very in depth breakdowns specifically
on the inner circle contenders involving some film and stuff,
so we're thinking about doing that over the course of
the next month. But those five teams for me right
(03:52):
now are in the Eastern Conference Boston and Cleveland, and
in the Western Conference Oklahoma City, Denver, and the Los
Angeles Lakers. If you look at those teams and you
watch them play every single night, there's a level of
seriousness on both ends of the floor and their execution
and their attention to detail and just their overall pursuit
of maximizing their talent and being the best basketball team
(04:13):
that they can be. And literally as soon as you
go below that, it's a drop off. Even with a
team that has a pretty damn good record like the
New York Knicks, they've been so inconsistent with their defensive
execution this year. Teams like Milwaukee, teams like Minnesota. There's
so many teams in that group that have been very,
very inconsistent in their attention to detail. The one team
(04:35):
that's kind of below there that I'm keeping my eye
on because I don't really know where they're gonna fit
once we see a larger sample of them playing some
tougher teams as the Golden State Warriors. I think they
have a chance to enter into the inner circle. There
are some teams in that group that I think I
am keeping my eye on over the course of the
final month to see, but those are the five teams
that I see, and when you go beyond that, there's
a pretty substantial drop off in terms of just a
(04:58):
level of serious basket caket ball that they play. I
thought it was really interesting as I started to dig
through the numbers, like, if you look at the margins,
these are the areas where all of the good teams
are always good. The margins are the little details that suck.
They're hard to do, but they're such an important part
(05:19):
of winning basketball games, for instance, taking care of the
basketball and making sure you don't give up points off
of turnovers. The Thunder, the Calves, and the Celtics are
all top five and opponent points off of turnovers, and
the Lakers are top ten. Giving up points off of
offensive rebounds, the Calves and Celtics are both in the
top ten. The Thunder have always been a bad defensive
(05:40):
rebounding team, that's their achilles heel, so they're out of
that group, but the Calves and Celtics top ten, and
the Lakers since January fifteenth, when they kind of became
a serious team. They're seventh in that department giving up
fast break points. The Calves, the Celtics, and the Thunder
are all in the top eleven in limiting opponent's fast breakpoints.
This is the lakers Achilles Heel's where they always get beat.
(06:00):
They're unathletic in transition at times, cleaning the glasses. Overall
transition defense stat, the Calves, the Celtics, and the Thunder
are all top ten. The Lakers are top ten since
January fifteenth. Makes in the restricted area allowed so giving
up easy baskets right underneath the rim. The Calves, Celtics,
and Thunder are all top ten. The Lakers are seventh
since January fifteenth. Total number of contested shots this year.
(06:24):
This is a hustle stat on NBA dot Com. The Calves,
the Thunder, and the Celtics are all in the top four.
These are non negotiables. If you want to be a
serious basketball team, you have to be committed to running
the floor in transition, making contact on box outs, competing
for contested rebounds, making rotations, putting your body on the line,
(06:46):
making extra efforts contesting shots. These are non negotiables, and
they're hard. I get it. There's a reason why there's
such a huge swath of the league that's bad at
this stuff on a nightly basis, because it's eighty two
games and you're all a bunch of million and it's
really really hard to get yourself to compete at that
level in a night in a night out basis. That said,
(07:07):
like I said, it's a non negotiable if you want
to get to the finish line, if you want to
get De Larry O'Brian Trophy. Every time I watched the Bucks,
they seem to be heavily lacking in these areas. They
are mediocre to bad and every single one of those
statistical categories that I listed, except for defensive rebounding. It
was jarring again to watch as the Calves just dominated
(07:29):
this game by out running the Bucks all over the floor.
Twenty four easy points in transition, countless possessions where they
would defend well and get a stop and rebound and
run out the other way and get an easy one
against a Bucks team that wasn't willing to run even
in the half court. It's the same sort of concept,
whether it was Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell or somebody
else creating that initial advantage. The Calves just sliced and
(07:52):
diced the Bucks defense with these beautiful driving kick sequences
that often ended in wide open looks for very good shooters.
You could literally see them repeatedly knifing through the lane,
not just on that initial drive but on closeouts, and
as a result, they're able to grow that advantage so
that first close out's only a little bit of a
(08:12):
close out, that second close out's more of a close out,
the third one no chance the dudes wide open. The
Calves generated twenty two unguarded catch and shoot jump shots
in this game. The Milwaukee Bucks generated just nine. That's
the difference. The Calves have this beautiful ability to slice
(08:34):
and dice defenses for these super high quality catch and
shoot looks and at the same time, on the other
end of the floor keep their defense out of rotation
against Milwaukee, and it's not just the commitment to running,
it's the commitment off the ball on defense to tracking
shooters being sharp with your closeouts. Cleveland was so attentive
and sharp. Every catch and shoot look for Milwaukee felt
(08:56):
like it was smothered with a quick and reactive closeout.
How many times did you see Torrian Prince in the
game kind of lingering around five six feet away from
Max Struce and just a quick swing pass and Max
Struce knocks down a shot. How many times did you
see Brook Lopez and Janisantana Kumpo just drifting off of
Evan Mobley and not in position to offer a closeout
(09:16):
as Evan Mobley made them pay knocking down that catch
and shoot on the weak side. Prince in particular had
a really enough rough night in this regard, but as
a team, the Bucks were not attentive in their off
ball defense. That's how you end up with such a
huge chasm in the overall number of wide open catch
and shoot shots that they generated. The Bucks have a
(09:38):
lot of talent, but you can't even get to the
point where you're able to weaponize that talent until you're
willing to commit to the hard work that is consistent
winning basketball that is required to get to that level.
There are some realities with the Bucks regarding their age
in overall foot speed. This is a size team, not
a speed team. We're gonna talk about the difference between
(09:58):
the two here in a minute, but at the same
time every time I watch them. There's just so much
fat that can be trimmed simple transition defense principles like
stopping the ball, stopping the basket, and getting matched up.
There's a big one late in the game where Tori
and Prince left a wide open shooter right at the
top of the key. The on defense in the half
(10:20):
court like simple ideas like making sure that when you're
in help side defense, positioning yourself in a way where
you can see man and ball, and make sure that
if that pass goes, you're already in the close out
while the ball's in the air and you're there on
the catch. These are details that don't necessarily depend on
their overall team speed that can be cleaned up that
they just haven't made the requisite effort to do so. Now,
(10:42):
getting to the game itself, I want to talk about
how the combination of speed and jump shooting is what
actually allows the Cleveland Cavaliers to generate so many quality shots.
This has been the best offense in the NBA this year.
They're actually almost three points per one hundred possessions ahead
of the second place Boston Celtics. They're the only team
in the league getting over one offensive rating. The Caves
(11:02):
offense is unbelievable. Now, Like we talked about earlier, there's
a difference between size and speed. There are two easy
ways to get the defense into rotation through overwhelming speed
and overwhelming size. For overwhelming size, think like Jokicchure, guys
like Lebron, James Luka, don Should, Chason Tatum, some of
these bigger, stronger players. They find a defender that's too
small to guard them, then they pressure the rim until
(11:24):
they get easy twos, or they draw in that second defender.
Speed works the exact same way when you have guards
that through transition or through ball screens against switches, whatever
it is. When they can consistently get screaming downhill towards
the rim, they either are going to get layups or
they're going to draw in multiple defenders. This is the
(11:44):
part of the Caves roster construct that has really shown
through this year. And for the record, I was originally
a couple of years ago completely out on the Darius Garland,
Donovan Mitchell Perry as like a foundation for the Caves.
Why because it's two small guards, and when you're building
around two small guards, it just presents so many issues
for you on the defensive glass and just on the
(12:04):
defensive end in general. And by the way, they still
occasionally have rebounding issues and they still occasionally have defense issues.
But as Darius Garland has gotten healthy this year and
as he's blossomed into this like super high level guard,
we've gotten to see the other side of that dynamic,
which is that they do have overwhelming speed. Garland this year,
(12:26):
healthy with his legs underneath him, has been one of
my favorite players to watch in the league this year
because of his combination of speed and handle in shot
making and playmaking, which gives him the ability to get
wherever he wants to get on the floor. His probing
and transition off the dribble and in the half court
is responsible for so much of Cleveland's offensive success. The
Cavs offense all year has been about two points better
(12:49):
per one hundred possessions when Darius Garland is on the
floor versus off, Donovan Mitchell brings the same thing. He's
not at the same level of quickness that Darius Garland
is at, but he's close, and he's bigger, and he's
more vertically athletic, and he's a better shot maker and
he's got like a bunch of these really fancy gatherer moves,
like he's been putting on a clinic of that like
(13:09):
windmill over the top gather that Dwayne Wade popularized, and
then he's brought back the sham god with a vengeance
this year. He had another nasty one the other night.
Darius or Donovan Mitchell's ball handling in the middle of
the floor has been unbelievable this year, but he also
has an amazing ability to get wherever he wants on
the floor. That's the initial first step for any driving
(13:30):
kick sequence. You've got to generate that initial advantage that
compromises the defense and generates those kickout opportunities for your
spot up guys. From there, they just have a bunch
of guys who are awesome at playing driving kick basketball.
Max Struz Lightning quick release, can do it on the
move and is a really good driving kick player, can
(13:51):
make basic driving kick reads. Dean Wade is good at
it too. DeAndre Hunter has been brilliant so far as
a CAV as a spot up guy, as a guy
who can do some advanced in the mid range attacking closeouts.
Ti Jerome is good at it. Sam Merrill's good at it.
Mitchell and Garland can both do it when they're off
the ball. Just give you an idea. Here are some
spot up efficiency numbers for Calves players according to Synergy.
(14:14):
DeAndre Hunter one point three seven points per possession. That's outrageous.
Ty Jerome one point three to six points per possession.
That's outrageous. Craig Porter, obviously in a smaller role, one
point two to eight points per possession. Max Streu's one
point twenty four, Donovan Mitchell one point one eight, Sat
Marrill one point one five. They have six players logging
over one point one five points per possession and spot
(14:36):
up situations. As a team, they get one point one
one points per any spot up possession. Only the Celtics
in the NBA are better at converting spot up possessions
than the Cleveland Cavaliers, and they generate so many of
them on the strength of their speed. It's that combination
speed which is necessary to consistently get the defense in
(14:59):
rotation and then having players that can extend advantages and
pay them off even they're bigs. Evan Mobley last night
burned Giannis and Brooke on skip passes by hitting weak
side threes. He's shooting thirty seven percent from on catch
and shoot threes this year. That is helping. Jared Allen
provides his own kind of spacing as a short range
(15:20):
shot maker. There's a play yesterday where Darius Garland was
driving through the lane and Jared ended up like kind
of right outside the right block, and Darius ran into
a bunch of help and just kind of dumped it
off to Jared Allen, and Jared Allen just stuck a
little left handed floater like six feet from the basket.
In all year long, he's been deadly on hooks and floaters.
He provides his own kind of spacing in that way.
(15:42):
It's a principle that works for them in both the
half court and in transition. It makes them nearly impossible
to guard. And it's why they've been head and shoulders
above the rest of the field on offense this year.
The Celtics are in second place three points fewer per
one hundred possessions. That's how ahead of the field their
offense has been. Yeah, as we've talked about, margins shrink
(16:03):
when you get to the postseason. I saw a crazy
stat this morning when I was digging through some old
NBA data, Five of the last seven NBA teams to
win at least sixty games or to win at a
sixty win pace in the two shortened seasons in twenty
twenty and twenty twenty one, five of the last seven
of the teams to accomplish those feats failed to win
(16:26):
their conference in the playoffs. Only one of those five
losers made it out of the second round. The reason
is simple, By the way, the two exceptions there are
the twenty twenty Lakers and last year's Boston Celtics. The
reason why this happens is you're almost exclusively in the
playoffs facing elite locked in defenses that have done extensive
(16:48):
game planning, and as the officiating loosens up and the
game becomes very physical, all of that easy dribble penetration
becomes harder to come by. In the half court. It
gets harder to get to your spot, and the catch
and shoot threes get harder to knock down because everyone's
more tired from being in that super physical environment. The
game actually shifts in the playoffs heavily towards each individual
(17:12):
matchup and how well each team can guard each other
in the half court again. Five out of the last
seven teams to do what Cleveland's doing, to do what
Oklahoma City is doing, failed to make it out of
their conference. Four out of those seven failed to make
it out of the second round. That is a trend
that Cleveland has to find a way to reverse, and
(17:34):
it's going to come down to guys knocking down shots
at the same rate they did in the regular season
and Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell continually being able to
generate those advantages and once again finding ways to make
sure that you can prevent specific matchups from causing you
problems when you get into the in a playoff series.
For instance, we talked about the Celtics Cavs series a
(17:56):
Celtics Calves game the other night. The ability to attack
Sam Hauser in the half court in crunch time that
won't be there, So it'll be about can Jason Tatum
and Jaylen Brown do a better job of attacking Garland
and Tatum is comfortable against both Allen and Mobley as well,
are they going to be able to attack those guys
better than Cleveland can attack Derek White, Al Horford, Chris
(18:22):
aps Porzingis in his drop coverages whatever it may be.
That is the battle. That's the chess match that ultimately
is going to determine who wins the title, not which
team had the better offensive rating in the regular season,
which team had the higher win percentage. That is what
happens in NBA history, and that is why a lot
of these teams that dominate the regular season end up
losing in the postseason. It doesn't matter what you accomplished
(18:44):
in the eighty two. It comes down to the matchups.
Not to be clear, the team that wins the title
is almost always in the upper echelon of teams, basically always,
so there is a mandatory minimum of a commitment to
excellence that you have to have, and all of those
teams had that. But what ends up happening are there
(19:04):
are these teams, usually in that second tier, usually that
don't have quite the sixty win pace, but they're in
the mid fifties or so that were dead serious all year.
But maybe they're a little older, maybe they're a little slower,
and they get run off the floor a bunch of
times in the regular season, but they get into the postseason,
they get their shit together. The Vets leverage their athleticism
and it gets tougher, and that's the challenge that Cleveland
(19:27):
has to overcome when the margins shrink and it becomes
about Garland and Mitchell matchup attacking versus a different team
matchup attacking them. How can they hold up. I think
they're gonna hold up really well against everybody except for
Boston out in the East, and ultimately that's the challenge
and nothing else really matters until we get to that point.
(19:49):
A couple of the shoutouts from the Bucks game again,
I thought Max Struce was just awesome, and I thought
he kicked Torrey in Prince's ass and that was a
significant swing factor in this game. I also thought the
Caves defended Damian Lillard extreme well. Isaacacorro in particular, did
a really nice job. His shifts were excellent in this game.
I also thought it was just a great example of
how devastating Cleveland's driving kick attack can be in the
(20:10):
sense that no player on the team scored over twenty points.
Darius Carland and Donovan Mitchell were both broke on their
pull up threes, and it just didn't matter because they
just picked Milwaukee apart for wide open catch and shoot
threes for their role players. Who's scoring big in the
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b Ball. All right, let's move on a Nuggets thunder.
(22:02):
This is a really fun MVP showdown. It started off
super high energy and a lot of shot attempts because
the thunder we're running a lot of single coverage against
Jokic with Hartenstein, so both guys were getting a bunch
of shot ups. Shaye and Yokic attempted twenty one shots
between the two of them in the first quarter. It
was kind of crazy and it was funny too, because
neither guy could make a three point shot to save
their life, but they were getting them up. Like Shaye
(22:25):
is so good at driving to the basket that when
he turns that right shoulder and just does that hard
little step back move, he can get a good look
from three literally whenever he wants. And Yokic can get
one whenever he wants just by popping out of ball
screens or spacing above the key because he's generally being
guarded by really big players that are defending in some
sort of drop coverage and he's just gonna be wide
(22:45):
open every time he pops out. Those threes were there,
they were just both missing them. There was a lot
of talk about Jokic's elbow and his jump shot in
the game, and I remember a similar conversation happening last
year when Yokic's jump shot was struggling surrounding his wrist.
And again, I'm not debating whether or not Yokic is
actually hurt. I'm sure he is. But here's the thing,
(23:06):
regardless of whether or not it's an injury, him making
that shot is vitally important to the ceiling of this team. Okay, See,
he was doing an awesome job against Yo kicch in
this game of swarming him on rolls, going under on
inverted ball screens, and basically daring Jokic to make above
the break threes. You know you've seen it before, Like
(23:28):
they'll okay, see will come from the weak side with
guys like JDub or Shay just swiping over the top,
and they got these long arms and they'll just go
at these bigs when they catch on the roll and
just swarm them and make life really difficult for them. There.
Yokic had an uncharacteristic, uncharacteristic poor shooting game because he
had to drop back in those ball screens and start
popping above the break, and he just couldnt knock him down.
(23:51):
That's his counter to that coverage. When they're swarming him
on rolls, he'll pop. And here's the thing. When he's
hitting forty five percent of his threes, that's one point
three to five points per possession. That's untenable for the defense.
Now you're chasing him off the line, he's rumbling downhill
and he's attacking closeouts and you're in trouble. But here's
the problem. Over the last sixteen games, Yo Kids' shooting
(24:14):
just thirty two point nine percent from three. And this
is the thing with the elbow. I'm sure the elbow
is not helping things at this point, but we are
now on almost a fourth of the season where he's
back to shooting the ball extremely poorly. Again, it's just
something to keep an eye on. Again, that's what happened
in the Minnesota series, defending Yogics by daring him to shoot,
(24:34):
and his inability to knock down those three point shots. Again,
it's just something to keep an eye on. Hopefully it's
just a small trend in the season that he can
kick before we get to April. But this game was
just a complete and total outclassing by the Oklahoma City Thunder.
They shot better from two, they shot better from three,
They got to the line more, they shot better when
they got to the line. They out rebounded Denver by eight,
(24:56):
They had more assists, they had fewer turnovers, they had
more points off turnovers, they had more points in the paint.
It was like total domination. I thought Shay and Jadub
just eviscerated Denver's man to man defense with their ability
to get downhill. You know, we've talked a lot about
Jokic in his defense at the level of ball screens,
but they don't have much in the way of perimeter
containment either, just in terms of their guard defenders. Shaye
(25:20):
right away from the start of this game made it
perfectly clear that he can drive past Christian Brown whenever
he wants. Really, the only guy I thought that kind
of made Shaye uncomfortable was Russ, who did some really
nice work with physicality and back pressure, and he actually
forced him into some pretty bad misses. But like everyone else,
he was just going by whenever he wanted. And in
ball screens, Jokic had a couple of different coverages he
(25:42):
was using in this game. He's either coming all the
way up to the level or he's sitting in a
deeper drop, and none of it worked. When he was
in the deeper drop, Shae could just get wherever he
wanted in the mid range. And Shae didn't shoot well
from three in this game, but he was six for
twelve on mid range pull ups. And then when Yokic
came up to the level, he'd just go around it,
either by splitting the ball screen or like in and
out dribble and make that aggressive dribble past him, Shay
(26:04):
was just picking them apart. I thought j Dub was
brilliant in the second half. He did some great work
against Yo kitchen ball screens in the early third quarter.
But he was one of the guys who really helped
the Thunder crack Denver zone. The Thunder eviscerated Denver's man
demand defense in the half court in this game, they
got one point two to three points per half court possession.
(26:25):
A one to twenty three offensive rating in the half
court is outrageous. Denver's man and man defense could not
guard Oklahoma City. So Mike Malone in that second half
go zone and it gets him back into the game.
They run zone for seven possessions in the third quarter.
In the thunderscore zero points. They couldn't get dribble penetration.
They were generating these kind of mediocre catch and shoot
(26:47):
looks on the perimeter off of swing passes, so Denver
worked their way back into the game. I thought Tim
Legler is just an absolute legend, and I've really enjoyed
him being on call on the call in these games lately.
He was doing a great job of explaining how when
the zone is there, it contains dribble penetration, which was
the specific problem that a Denver was having with Oklahoma
City all game long. But in the fourth quarter, the
(27:10):
Thunder found a way to penetrate the zone screens out
the top and then just beating the man in front
of you and getting into the middle of the zone
where everybody reacted, where they generated higher quality catch and
shoot looks. J Dubb did this several times. Alex Crusoe
had a nice driving kick to the left corner as well.
As a result of that, they were able to generate
higher quality catch and shoot looks. Then they started popping
the ball around the perimeter. They had a really nice
(27:31):
dunk that they got for Isaiah Hartenstein by moving the
ball around a bunch of times, getting Denver's zone moving
and Jokic had to rotate out and chet just threw
a beautiful pass from the top of the key to Hartenstein.
He got a dunk. On eight possessions of zone to
start the fourth quarter. The Thunder scored fourteen points and
that caused Mike Malone to bail on that too. Then
(27:51):
Shay comes back in and closes the deal with a
bunch of buckets. He's another mid range jump shot and
pick and roll. He had a nasty hesitation move on
Jamal Murray where he just kind of looked at the
rim as he went forward right hand left side layup
for another bucket, and then he had a step back
three at the top of the key. He finally made
one that ended up being the dagger in this game,
and this ended up being an absolute blowout as the
(28:13):
Thunder one one twenty seven to one ZHO three. I
want to talk a little bit about MVP and about
how this game kind of fits into that in tonight's
rematch as well, but before we do that, I want
to talk a little bit about Jalen Williams, who's been
on an absolute tear. He had twenty six, nine and
eight last night. In his last nineteen games, he's getting
twenty three points per game, five rebounds, and five assists
on fifty nine percent true shooting. Not bad for a
(28:36):
twenty three year old, right. He's been one of the
best defensive players in the league over that span as well.
He's just kind of like the prototypical Swiss Army knife forward,
which is one of my favorite archetypes in the league.
He's big and strong, He's a great athlete, He's a
legit shooter. He had a rough start to this season
jump shooting, but he's been over forty percent from three
in this span, and he was fantastic last year. He's
(28:57):
a legit on ball creator. He can shoot off the dribble,
he can score from all three levels. He's way ahead
of where most forwards are as playmakers at this phase
of his career. Like so many of these forwards can't.
They're like one to one assist the turnover guys. You
can count on j Dubb to just be another level
above as a playmaker at the forward position than most
(29:17):
guys are. He's just kind of a natural at it. Honestly,
I tend to think a lot of that playmaking talent
is natural. And he's a very good defensive player. You
can guard multiple positions, he can defend both on and
off the ball, and he's a good defensive rebounder. Now,
the next step for him is becoming a reliable secondary
ball handling option in the postseason context. It can't turn
(29:38):
into Shay's got to make all the shots. That's where
they get into issues, right, But he's well on his
way to that point. So I'm going to say the
same thing that I said when we were talking about Cleveland.
Five of the last seven teams to win at least
sixty games in a season or to win at a
sixty game pace in the shortened seasons failed to win
their conference in the playoffs. Four of those five teams
(29:58):
lost in the second round or And the reason why,
like we talked about earlier, is margins become less of
a separator. Everyone is really good, defenses are really good,
the game planning is incredible, and now it becomes about
how do you match up against this team? Nothing else
matters For two weeks you're playing against each other. It's
going to denigrate down into half court basketball. It's going
(30:20):
to get super physical, and it's going to come down
to matchups. Okama City is going to run into the
same problem they ran into last year, role players making
catch and shoot shots. And is Jalen Williams going to
be able to be that legitimate secondary option to help
carry weight for Shae Kills with Alexander. That is the
trend they're going to have to overcome if they are
(30:40):
going to beat that trend. Or Five of the last
seven teams to win at this pace have failed to
have success in the postseason. A couple of things. I
want to get to the Denver front and talk a
little bit about the MVP race. So we already talked
about the MVP race in our last show, but yesterday
was a strong statement from Shay drops forty picks apart
(31:02):
Denver's defense. Despite a poor three point shooting game, I
thought he had a good defensive game as well. He's
up to minus five hundred on DraftKings to win the
award after last night's game. But these same two teams
play again tonight in Oklahoma City. If Yo Kich is
gonna get back into the race, he's gonna have to
win tonight, and he's gonna have to look clearly better
(31:25):
than Shay in the process. So what can Denver do
to flip the script tonight? A couple things. One, I
thought yokichs at the level coverages were effective when he
contained the ball. There were a couple times where he
was late up to the level and Shaye was able
to split him or make it in and out dribble
and go the other way. He gave up a little
too much dribble penetration on some of those looks. But
if he gets up to the level quickly and forces
(31:46):
Shaye to not get downhill but to take a retreat dribble.
Shay struggles compared to most of his peers at skipping
the ball out of ball pressure. So they can actually
do a good job of putting two on the ball
with Shay and keeping their defense out of rotation as
long as Yo Kic gets up there quickly and is
active with his hands to prevent Shae from splitting him
off the dribble two. As a team, they need to
(32:08):
do a better job of containing dribble penetration at all positions.
We talked about that earlier. Three. I would absolutely try
the zone again. I'd wait, I'd wait until Oklahoma City
makes a second half run and try to just use
it as a rhythm disruptor. I think Yokic is gonna
have to hit some of those pick and pop jumpers
like we talked about it like that again, when you
look at the way Oklahoma City is guarding him on
(32:30):
those rolls, it's just the easy counter. It's for him
to pop. He just has to knock the shot down.
If Yo Kitchen the Nuggets get a big win tonight,
it will flip the script and get things back to
where they were yesterday. And if you looked at the
odds yesterday, Jokicch was like plus two hundred. He was
back within striking distance. The narrative was gaining strength. If
he gets a win tonight and Yokicch is amazing the
(32:52):
rest of the season and he demonstrates a little bit
of a closing of that gap, maybe he can make
up ground and get to his fourth envy. But it's
going to start tonight by flipping the script against the
thunder all right, Let's talk a little bit about the
(33:20):
Golden Saved Warriors before we get out of here for today.
A couple of big wins over the weekend against the
Brooklyn Nets and the Detroit Pistons. Steph put on an
absolute show against Brooklyn. Dropped forty points, hit one of
the craziest shots of his career, left shoulder fade from
forty feet to beat the halftime buzzer. Just a ridiculous shot.
I want to talk a little bit about that specific
footwork and how Steph's just been deadly on it here
(33:41):
in a little bit. He hit two threes in the
final six minutes that ice that game. He continues to
be absolutely brilliant. He dropped thirty two more against the
Pistons yesterday. We're now at a fifteen games span from Steph,
where he's played every night, hasn't missed a game, averaged
thirty one points, four rebounds, and six assists on sixty
five percent true shooting. Remember Steph's animous MVP campaign, he
(34:02):
averaged thirty points a game on sixty seven percent trough shooting.
He's basically at that level and he looks like it too.
I talked about how the best example of it is
his paint scoring in a video a while back. I
shared some stats with you guys about how since Jimmy
Butler came to the team, his rim attempts and his
efficiency of skyrocket skyrocketed since Jimmy came to town. But
(34:22):
another example that has come to light to me is
his movement shooting, particularly sprinting to his right. I've talked
about this concept on the show before, but it is
the hardest shot for a right handed shooter. Most right
handed shooters, when they're taking a jump shot, their shoulders
are not square to the basket. They're tilted slightly to
the left. Why Because it's just kind of a natural
(34:43):
spot for the shooting motion to exist. Most right handed
shooters are very comfortable moving to the left, shooting to
the left, because as they're running, it's an easy one
to two with that right foot left foot as they're
planning their feet to get up, straight up and down,
and when they're off to dribble, they're already canted in
that direction, so they can take step backs and shoot.
Shay's a great example that step back that Shay shoots
all the time. He's using that right foot to jab
(35:06):
because his right foot's going to be forward when he
shoots anyway, and so like as you're moving as a
shooter to your left, it's easier. Most ball handling shooters
in the league, if you funnel them to the right,
they're going to go to the rim. If you funnel
them to the left, they're going to settle for a
pull up jump shot. It's like a basic defensive principle
that works for the most part at all levels. But
(35:27):
the very best shooters in the world can also shoot
really well moving to the right. It's just way more difficult.
Specifically on your legs, that same dynamic is reversed. I
want to shoot with my right foot slightly canted forward
and my left foot slightly back, but I'm running towards
my right hand side. So as I'm running, my left
(35:49):
foot is closer to the basket and my right foot
is closer to half court. And so in order to
rise up and knock down a shot sprinting to my right,
I have to plant that left foot, swing that right
foot all the way around, and plant it as close
to forward as possible, usually not. And then as I'm jumping,
I have to square up in mid air in order
(36:11):
to rise up and knock the shot down. It is
a very difficult shot, specifically on your legs. And that's
the most exciting part that I've seen from Steph over
the course the last couple of weeks, other than the
stuff and the paint. He's sprinting into that jump shot,
running to his right, and he's hitting that thing. He
had a big one against the Pistons late. He had
(36:31):
a big one against the nets late. He had another
one a couple games earlier, the fade away that he
hit against the nets. That's also a same sort of concept.
He's pivoting over his left shoulder and squaring up in
mid air to knock down a shot. That to me
is a great sign that Steph has a really strong
base right now, and that to me is the most
important part. You're seeing it too. Yeah, he had a
(36:52):
little step back jumper that he missed against a Star
Thompson in the I think it was in the late third,
it could have been in the fourth quarter, but he
got tons of separate against a Star Thompson, and I'm like, oh,
my goodness, Like Sar Thompson is one of the most
athletic perimeter defenders we have in the league, and Steph
just just basically shucked him off and got an easy look.
Steph is looking fantastic, and that is exciting because there
(37:15):
is no championship ceiling for this team, even with trades,
even with roster upside, even with Jimmy Butler. There's no
championship upside for this team unless Steph Curry gets back
to top tier superstar level, and we're at about a
month now of him being at that level, which is
super super encouraging. But I want to shout out some
of Steph's teammates from the Pistons game. The Pistons defended
(37:39):
Steph pretty well. He grinded out his thirty two points
because he's a legend, but it wasn't easy. Sar Thompson
did a good job on him in this game. Jalen
Duran logged some really good at the level reps in
that fourth quarter, even got a strip on Steph trying
to cross over in front of him in that stretch,
but the Warriors were able to go somewhere else for
offense down the stretch. Jimmy was fantastic all night. He
(38:00):
had twenty six to nine and five, one of his
better stat lines as a Warrior. Did a lot of
work against Isaiah Stewart in switches in the bench groups.
He's already showing some nice chemistry with Quinton Post as
like a ballscreen guy. He can get some favorable switches
there because nobody wants to leave Quinton Posts open on
the pop if they can avoid it. He's good at
like kind of operating in the dunker spot off of Jimmy,
and Jimmy's just doing a really nice job with those
(38:20):
bench groups. But he also hit one of the biggest
shots of the game late ty game a little over
a minute left, just cleared the left side of the floor,
gave the ball to Jimmy against Tobias Harris, and he
just sat in that hesitation dribble and rose up over
the top and knocked down a big shot to put
the Warriors up too. And then Draymond Green two massive
(38:40):
plays a beautiful pass to Steph on a cut where
he was cutting through the lane and Malik Beasley was
like face guarding Steph, and Draymond identified that he was
face guarding him, and that means he's open and he's
being face guarded. It means he's not watching man and ball.
He's only watching man. So Draymon just this easy, breezy
(39:01):
little pass and Steph saw it. Just sealed Malik a
little bit, allowed the pass to come in right over
the top and then flipped it in for an and
one beautiful read from Draymond Green, and then the game
winner with about thirty seconds left, just confidently stepped into
a three on the right wing and swished it. There
was a lot of time on the shot clock when
that shot went up, so Draymond literally trusted himself down
(39:23):
what was it down two or down one, I can't
remember exactly down in the final minute to rise up
and knock down a shot with plenty of time left
in the shot clock swished it to just unbelievable plays.
On one hand, the luxury of having an apex star
to give the ball too late to go get a bucket,
but on the other hand, a confident veteran who can
(39:43):
make simple reads and step up and make big shots
and big moments. I thought it was awesome that those
two stepped up and made the plays late to beat
the Pistons. I want to sho shout out some of
the other role players as well. Moses Moody. He had
a rough shooting night overall, but he made two huge
plays late. He had a big catching shoot three out
of the right corner, and then after Draymond's three, playing
some good ball pressure to Kay Cunningham and strips Cade
(40:06):
at half court. One of the biggest plays of the game,
a big steal. He had three steals in this game.
And then Gi Santos just active all over the floor.
He had an incredible offensive rebound put back where he
got knocked to the floor off of like a little shove,
but he just kind of fed the ball into the
basket and got an and one. He had this nice
play too late in the game where he was operating
with the ball at the right wing, and there was
(40:27):
off ball action running and the pistons were just completely
geared towards the off ball action, and he just ripped
through to the right side driving lane and got all
the way to the basket and made a layup. He
looked awesome. He had fifteen points and six rebounds and
was a plus twelve. The Warriors are eleven and two
in their last thirteen games, now just five games back
from the two seed as they continued to climb in
(40:49):
the standings. All right, guys, that is all I have
for tonight. As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys for
supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow
with a breakdown of that rematch between the Thunder and
the Nuggets, to swallow some a couple other games from tonight's slate.
I'll see you guys then the volume. What's up guys,
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
(41:11):
hoops 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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