Jason reacts to the second day of the first round of the NBA playoffs including Steph Curry leading the Golden State Warriors to a win over Alperen Sengun and the Houston Rockets, Donovan Mitchell's Cleveland Cavaliers dispatching Tyler Herro's Miami Heat, Jayson Tatum leading the Boston Celtics to a win over Paolo Banchero and the Orlando Magic, and the Oklahoma City Thunder embarrassing the Memphis Grizzlies.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume.
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The NBA eighty two game grind is done, and now
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Speaker 1 (01:45):
Slash audio.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
All right, welcome to Hoops to Night. You're at the
volume heavy money everybody. If all of you guys are
having a great start to your week. We have a
film session coming out later today where I'll go into
more detail on the Warriors Rockets game in particular and
a couple other things that I noticed from the film
on Sunday, But today I wanted to just give you
guys my initial impressions on the four game ones from Sunday.
(02:20):
We have the Warriors getting a one zero lead on
the road in Houston against the Rockets, the Cleveland Cavaliers
struggling a little bit with Miami but closing the deal,
the Celtics struggling a little bit with Orlando but closing
the deal, and then an absolute annihilation of the Memphis
Grizzlies by the Oklahoma City Thunder. I'll just give my
initial impressions on the games from the perspective of both teams.
(02:41):
Like I said, more film coming later today, So keep
an eye on the feeds. You guys have the drip
before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and I
YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter, underscore Jason Lts you guys, don't
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(03:02):
the season. Make sure you guys follow us there, and
last not least, keepdropping mailback questions in the YouTube comments.
We can keep getting to him throughout the remainder of
the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So with
Warriors Rockets, I can't start anywhere other than Steph Curry.
I talked a lot about the different dynamics between the
two defenses trying to slow each other down, but I
(03:25):
thought that was one of the better playoff games I've
seen Steph Curry play. When you factor in just how
great this Houston defense is, the specific ways they defend him,
the fact that in a game like this where there
wasn't consistent offense from really anybody else aside from a
few key plays made from a few key Warriors late,
(03:47):
it just was a steady diet of really difficult shot
making from Steph Curry in this game, and over and
over and over again, he came through to hit a
big shot when his team needed him too. There was
a couple easy things he was able to find in
terms of like sustainability throughout the series. You know, we
talked before the series about how the Rockets put Alpurn
(04:07):
Shangun on Moses Moody and how that kind of disrupts
the normal screen game for the Warriors because they want
to use Draymond as a screener for Steph Curry, but
they're going to try to switch those actions as much
as possible, Right, So where would Curry go to be
able to find the separation that he needs to get
more comfortable? Well, Jalen Green ended up being the target
through early screens and the possessions to get Jalen switched
(04:30):
on to Steph. Jalen was having a hard time staying
attached to Steph. He was having a hard time fighting
over screens. He was more likely to batch switches. There
were so many different things that once Steph got Jalen
on him, he had an easier time getting free, and
then he had a couple of other things right. He
was able to batcut him and Thompson a couple times.
He was able to get free and transition a few times.
(04:50):
There was a play where on a made basket, he
pushed the ball at the floor so fast that he
engaged Steven Adams in a transition crossmatch and was able
to be Steven Adams off the dribble for a layup.
There was another one where Fred van Vliet gambled on
him out at half court.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
He's able to avoid that and get a quick, easy transition. Three.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
He found a few easy ones in there, and those
will be ones that are more sustainable throughout the series.
But it was like unbelievable difficult shot making over and
over and over again. The rainbow over Jalen Green at
the shot clock buzzer as he's falling out of bounds.
He had a ridiculously tough step back two over Dylan Brooks,
(05:29):
a ridiculously tough step back to his right over a
Men Thompson. The movement thirty footer that he hit just
like running to his right way above the break off
the right side extended.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
That was a ridiculous shot.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
He had this like leaner on Fred van Vliet where
he pump faked and then stepped through and hit this
crazy leaner. He had like reverse layups through traffic. Steph
just put on a unbelievable display of difficult shot making.
It was almost like you got to see in the
last two Houston Rockets game, like the two furthest edges
of the Steph Curry experience, the like, can't make shots,
(06:05):
but I'm still creating shots for my team, and then like,
oh my god, it doesn't matter what you do or
where I'm at on the floor, get ready to take
that shit out of the net, because it's going in.
It was just an unbelievable Steph Curry game. I told
you guys before the Jimmy Butler trade that what I
was most excited for and one of the main reasons
why I wanted the deal. I obviously saw upside. I
(06:25):
believed in the Warriors roster. I thought they just needed
secondary shot creation. But I also, as a basketball fan,
just wanted more opportunities to see Steph Curry playing high
leverage basketball games. And we got to see that tonight,
and he put on just another incredible show and I
just really really enjoyed watching it. Warriors defense Steve Curry
in a timeout in the first half said, quote unquote,
(06:48):
they cannot score against us unless we turn it over.
That really is the theory for this entire series for
the Warriors. I talked about it beforehand, like there's a
lot of ways that Houston can make gold In State uncomfortable,
and I have no doubt that throughout the series they
will make Golden State uncomfortable. They made Golden State uncomfortable
for extended stretches tonight, but none of that can compare
(07:10):
to the damage that Golden State can do to Houston's offense.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
On the other end of the floor, they.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Struggled a little bit with Shangoon, but credit to Shanguon.
Shangun's a really good player. I've said this many times
on the show. He was the player this season that
in my daily film sessions I most often would find
myself saying, Wow, he's really kicking that dude's ass, Like Wow,
they're really struggling with Shanguon, Like wow, they really can't
guard Shangun. That happened all the time when I was
(07:36):
watching them. He's just a really damn good player. We
need to give Shangun some credit. But they completely neutralized
Jalen Green, played up on him with physicality. I thought
Moses Moody did an amazing job on him all night,
rushed him into bad drives. Fred Van Vliet was the
one Houston perimeter guy that I thought got some decent
looks at, some drop covered shots and some catch and
(07:57):
shoot threes. But he just couldn't hit anything. And by
the way, Fred's not a great jump shooter. Fred van
vliet jump shot all season long has been worth less
than a point. That's a thing that could happen multiple
times in this series. Fred just not being able to
hit shots, and that really is the thing. If you
can cut Jalen Green and Fred Van Vliet out, there's
not enough firepower on this Rockets offense consistently. I've talked
(08:17):
about this year, the Rockets when they get scoring pop,
particularly from Jalen Green, they can beat anybody. They were
thirteen and one this year, which Jalen Green had over
thirty points, and a lot of really good teams were
victims of those types of performances. But if you can
cut the head off the snake, if you can take
out Fred van Vliet and Jalen Green, they do not
(08:39):
have the firepower to keep up with really anybody, and
they completely neutralize those guys their zone defense. That talked
before the series about how any comments about the zone
defense and it bothering the Warriors was insignificant compared to
the Rockets being able to score against the zone and
the major run early in the game when the Warriors
really started to take their first commanding lead came against
(09:02):
came with the Rockets struggling to score against the Warriors zone. Look,
it's just they just don't have the offensive fire power
to score consistently in the half court against a good defense.
And again I've said this a couple of times. The
Warriors were quite literally the number one defense in the
NBA after the All Star Break. They've been playing at
that level consistently since they've identified that they have a
(09:23):
real opportunity to win the title. Here, we did see
a late Houston Rockets run, fueled by their competitiveness and
their rebounding some transition pushes shanng guns shot making. The
Warriors will have to be careful throughout this series with
their discipline. They can lose control of these games fast
if they don't stay disciplined in their game plan, discipline,
(09:45):
take care of the basketball, smart shot selection, avoiding those
transition opportunities as much as possible. I thought the closing
group played fantastic after Houston made it close, just defending
Houston into their worst tendency, but on the other end
of the floor, getting really consistent contributions from the entire group.
Moses Moody, who's been really struggling to hit jump shots
(10:07):
as of late, hit two massive jump shots, a rescue
shot at the end of the shot clock, a little
movement catch and shoot jump shot out by like seventeen
feet from the basket that he knocked down, and then
he hit a huge corner three off of that text
textbook steph Curry pocket pass sequence that was a massive
shot to counter three that Houston had hit. I talked
about his individual defense on Jalen Green. Brandon Pajemski in
(10:29):
this game really smart reaid and reacts sequences. He had
a great one late in the game where he caught
Jabari Smith on his backside driving a closeout and just
baited Steven Adams into stepping up a little bit and
threw a perfect bounce past to Gary Payton on the baseline,
who got to finish. Gary Payton had another transition run
out for a bucket, so Gary Payton was scoring. Draymond
(10:51):
Green had an offensive rebound put back on another player.
Brandon Pajemski came flying in and tapped at the rebound. This,
in addition to Jimmy being able to go to his
step back jump shot to the right and knock it
down to rescue some of those possessions. I was on
with Colin Cowhard last night or technically tonight because that's
when I'm recording it. But when I was on with Colin,
I talked about how Jimmy Butler has this go to
(11:13):
move that he really started to build out towards the
end in Minnesota and showed it quite a bit in Philly,
and then a lot here in the last few years
in Miami, and obviously here in Golden State. He can
like hit that hard pound dribble in and out with
his right hand and cover some ground going to the
right and just elevate and square up in mid air.
And that's a good look for Jimmy. He's going to
(11:34):
hit that look at a decent percentage, and he was
able to knock that down. Lots of support for Steph
Curry down the stretch after he had carried them throughout
the game. Really really impressive stuff. We did get a
DMP from Jonathan Kaminga. I think there was probably a
game plan there that had things gone worse, like had
(11:56):
Houston taken a ten point lead in the second quarter,
I think we probably see Jonathan Kaminga but I thought
Steve Kerr played the right cards tonight, sticking with guys
that were gonna make fewer mistakes so they can stay
out of transition. And for the most part I understood
him sticking with that for now. But to be clear,
f it's Game two and Houston's up, you know, thirty
(12:17):
seven to twenty four in the early second quarter, I
think Steve Kerr's gotta pull that card out of the
deck and at least try it. He's got to at
least give Johnan kaminga a little bit of a runway
just to see if he can, I don't know, rebound,
do something to help the team if they start struggling
in that matchup a little bit with the Houston again,
it just even as they were knocking on the door,
(12:38):
they just couldn't They just couldn't finish it with proper execution.
They cut the lead down to four and then like
Jalen Green tries to drive and shoot a layup through
like five dudes, and he misses it. They go down
to the other end. That was when pods hit Gary
Payton on the baseline, then to Men Thompson on the
next possession, drives into traffic and throws a layup literally
into the bottom of the rim, leads to a runout
(13:00):
there where Gary Payton gets a dunk. Like they just
couldn't string together the execution in the half court necessary
to score. And that really is the issue now, if
you're looking for upside, if you're Houston, something to be like,
this is a reason why we feel like we have
a chance to still win this series. I thought Steph
was literally amazing, like one of the better playoff games
I've seen him play. Golden State really struggled to score
(13:23):
without him making shots. Jalen Green and Fred Van Vliet
could not have been worse than they were. And Houston's
athleticism will travel. It'll travel on the road. They're gonna
play hard and be a pain in the ass defensively
on the glass every single night. Golden State's not going
to just get this team to quit eventually because they
don't believe they can win. It's gonna be a pain
throughout and so again there's a way for them to
(13:46):
drag this series out and try to wear on Golden
State physically. The series is certainly not over. It's always
bad to lose game one at home, trust me. I
know as a Lakers fan, but there is an opportunity
for them there if they play good defense, to try
to play Steph into a lower van game and then
to get more out of Jalen and Fred to try
to win on the other end of the floor.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
I just can't.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Predict or expect any example of a situation where the
Houston Rockets would out execute the Warriors four times in
two weeks.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
It just doesn't seem likely to me.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
He Cavs tijerome I talked a lot this year about
how he was the best backup guard that I saw
in the NBA.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
He brought this.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Combination of like truly highly efficient scoring. He was sixty
four percent tr shooting this year, scored at high volume
two about twenty three points per thirty six minutes, and
also brought the playmaking piece, the ability to make the
reads that he made down the stretch tonight, like that
pick and roll kick out to Sam Merrill or the
pocket pass feed to Jared Allen for a layup. He
(14:48):
just can be surgical in a way that no other
backup guard in the NBA can be. And he went
on a wild run down the stretch of this game
came in a bunch of different ways too.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Like.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
He started the run in the fourth quarter by hitting
a three to beat his own look like he was
the inbounder, made a pass, stepped in beat his own look,
knocking down a three. He then just started attacking Tyler
Harrow in a late clock switch, like seven seconds on
the shot clock. Instead of panicking and attacking a good defender.
He waves over Max Truce to get Tyler Harrow into
the action, gets Tyler Harrow, drives on him and draws
(15:22):
a foul on him. Then he started putting Tyler Harrow
in ball screens and that was when he really started
to victimize him because Tyler Harrow was not playing physical
on the ball. He was not pressuring. He was just
kind of running behind ty Jerome as he was coming
off the screens, and so ty was able to just
make simple decisions. Came off the screen, brought in the
low man Davion Mitchell stepped over too far, rifle passed
(15:44):
the same Mary in the right corner. He knocks it down.
He hit a floater against Strop. He brought Bam up
and then threw a perfect packet pass the Jared Allen,
who knocked down a layup, He had a left shoulder
fade over him in an ISO. He just was cooking
him over and over again. Eventually, Tyler tried to go
underneath a ball screen to try to keep ty Jerome
in front, and ty just stepped into like a thirty
(16:07):
footer off the dribble and he knocked it down. Then
finally the Miami, he just said screw it and they
started double teaming and it was just over from there.
They were never able to recover. Even Darius Garland came
in and ended up hitting a shot against Tyler Harrow
in a switch. For the record, Tyler Harrow's problems on
defense started right from the opening tip. This was not
an issue that was just a crunch time issue. He
(16:28):
immediately gave up a easy driving dunk out of the
right corner to Donovan Mitchell early in the game, gave
up an easy close out to Max Struce for a
drop off for a dunk for Jared Allen. He got
back cut by Darius Garland for a floater. He got
blown by Darius Garland multiple times. Darius Garland made a
layup and missed a layup on easy blowbyes of Tyler Harrow.
(16:49):
They were even giving up drop coverage buckets with Tyler
Harrow to Ti Jerome in the first half before we
even got to the stuff that we saw in the
fourth quarter. So, like, you know, the Heat defense caused
issues for the Calves and short bursts with their abilities
to switch with their bigs, And I thought Davion Mitchell
did a really nice job on Donovan Mitchell, just pressuring
him and making him work really hard. And the Heat
(17:11):
are never going to be a team that goes down easy.
They are a super smart team and they've got some
high level defensive players, and Tyler Harrow is a guy that,
as you saw at stretches, can knock down shots and
drop coverage and if you leave them open behind the
three three point line, he can knock down shots. They
have pathways, but they just simply don't have the firepower
(17:32):
to keep up with Cleveland. It's a lot of Davion
Mitchell running ball screens and like literally initiating offense. It's
a lot of like bam at a bio taking tough
jump shots. It was just really tough, and you know,
the Calves just found solutions. We talked about Harrow, Donovan
Mitchell finally stopped trying to go at Davy. It almost
was like Donovan was taking it personally with Davion and like,
(17:54):
you're wearing my number in my last name, I'm gonna
try to beat you. It's kind of weird. And then
as soon as you stop going at Davion, it started
going at others. He started to have more success. Evan
Mobley did a really nice job of beating switches by
inside seal attacks. He had a dunk on one of
those in the first half. You scored out of the
post against a switch. Like, they just have a lot
of answers because they've got a lot of guys that
(18:14):
can play at a really really high level, super super impressive.
Game one victory for the Cleveland Cavaliers Celtics Magic. This
game went basically exactly as I expected it to. The
Magic are the second best defense in basketball behind the Thunder,
and they have a lot of guys who can switch
and guard multiple positions, and so they can switch, contain,
(18:36):
stay home, take away, some of the catch and shoot
looks play Tatum and Brown into really high difficulty ISO basketball.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
They don't have.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
The offense to be able to hang in this series,
and we'll talk about that a little bit, but they
have the defense too. If they can improve over the
next couple of years and Jalen Suggs can get healthy
and get back on the floor, that's a team that
could present problems for Boston in the big picture if
they can polish up things on off. But they're just
not close to that yet. They held Tatum and Brown
to thirty three points on thirty six shots. That's great,
(19:06):
But outside of a second quarter stretch where Palo got
really hot from three, a couple other guys hit some threes,
the Magic failed to score twenty points in three of
the four quarters, and that was really the difference. I
thought Drew Holliday was the defensive hero of the game
coming out of the half. So Orlando goes on their
big run right before the half. Then there's a couple
of mistakes that paloll has a turnover that leads to
(19:28):
a foul. They cut it to one, but Orlando goes
into the half up one. They've got the momentum. Their
bench is all excited. Drew Holliday came out to start
the second half and just started ball pressuring the hell
out of Franz Wagner and Palo Bancaro and just was
messing those dudes up, forcing turnovers, forcing mishots, running out
the other way, and hitting transition threes. You talk about
(19:48):
it feeling like a shotgun blast to the chest. Imagine
being on the other side of that. You're attacking a
small and a mismatch. Next thing you know, that dude
taking the ball away and going the other way and
hitting a three. It just unbelievable plays from Drew Holliday
and again Drew in terms of just in terms of
just fundamental skill is one of the best like rhythm
(20:09):
or base attackers that have ever seen from a perimeter defender.
This is what makes him so good at guarding bigger players.
I've talked about this all the time. Bigger players, especially
shot makers, they don't see that. They don't see the
hand in the face. They've practiced hitting shots with hands
in their face their entire lives. What you can do, though,
is you can bother their rhythm. There's an energy transfer
(20:29):
if you can, if you calculate it, It's like if
you try to chain it all together. I should say,
the handle connects to the footwork, and then when you
get into the shot, that connects upwards in your energy
transfer from the ground as you're jumping up through the release,
and you chain all of that together through reps. You
(20:50):
go in the gym and you just do all these
reps ball handling and shooting out of all these different
bits of footwork. These post players they're looking at, oh,
you're attacking as small and trying to bump you and
get to my left shoulder hook or my right shoulder
fade or whatever it is that they're trying to get
through or a step through move something along those lines.
And they practice those moves, and they practice those moves,
and they practice those moves, and if you let them
(21:10):
get to their footwork, they're gonna make it. But if
you can disrupt them, if you can stab at the
basketball and disrupt the ball handling a little bit, you
can bump their base and disrupt the footwork a little
bit as they're jumping, If you lean on them a
little bit so that they're losing a little bit of
that balance as they go up into the shot on
their gather. If you swipe down and you deflect the
(21:31):
ball a tiny bit, if you disrupt something along that chain,
it will have a far greater effect on the end
result than you just standing there and putting your hand
up at the end after not disrupting anything else. And
Drew's just really really good at that, stabbing at the ball,
disrupting the base, being physical, jumping one side, then jumping
all the way to the other side and try to
(21:52):
catch a guy off guard. He did that a few
times Apollo in Franz today, like he just is an
unbelievable size mismatched, and that was a huge weapon for
Boston in the second half of this game. Derek White
brought the volume scoring for the Celtics today and it
came in the form of shot making. He had seven threes,
but most of them were high degree of difficulty threes,
(22:14):
like an extra step behind the line or against a
great contest. And again, when you're playing against great defenses
like the Orlando Magic, in a high leverage situation like this,
on many of your possessions, the best shot you can
get is a mildly contested, slightly deeper three. And like
Derek White provided that scoring pop today in a game
(22:34):
where again, when you're playing games like that, games like
the Rockets Warriors series, threes are like touchdowns, So they're
literally like touchdowns because no one can score and and
Derek White just brought that today. I think this series
is actually a great tune up series for the Celtics.
They're not in any real danger. I mean I saw
enough today to feel like Orlando can steal a game.
Like I wouldn't be surprised if Orlando won a game,
(22:56):
you know, ninety three to eighty seven down into Orlando
in Game three or Game four. But they don't have
the firepower to win the series. But the Magic present
real problems for the Celtics offense, and that will help
them prepare for an OKC matchup should they meet in
the finals. It's just great preparation for them. They just
need to hope that Tatum's wrist is okay. But I
think he's fine. But after the hard foul from Kcpu
(23:17):
was just something to keep an eye on, and it
was a shooting risk, which can always be a little
tricky when you need Tatum to be.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
A shot maker for you.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
All right, before we get out of here again, I'll
be back later today with some more film. But let's
talk some Grizzlies thunder. I didn't have a chance to
do serious previews for my two P one eight matchups.
I would have picked the Thunder to beat the Grizzlies
in a sweep, and I would have picked the Calves
to beat the Heat in five games either way, but
it didn't really matter. This Grizzlies team has been bad
for a while. They were just thirteen and eighteen over
the last twenty one games to end the season. They
(23:46):
were sixteenth in offense in that span of nineteenth in defense.
They're not good at anything. None of their stars is
playing particularly well. They were the one team in that
cluster of teams, the eight teams that made the Western
Conference playoffs. They were the one team that stuck out
like a sore thumb, and boy did they look like
look like it today. I want to shout out the
Okac Thunder first for the level of intensity that they
(24:09):
brought right out of the gates today. I was talking
in my film session this morning about the intensity of
the playoffs. I lamented that last night, teams like the
Bucks and Lakers were just not ready for playoff intensity.
Before I even watched the Thunder game. Today, I was
recording the film session and when we were done, we
(24:31):
were just waiting for a filed upload, and Jackson and
I were just talking and hanging out and Jackson goes like, hey, man, like,
how are you feeling about the Lakers after watching that game?
Speaker 1 (24:39):
You know? I said, like, there's obviously some things.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
That are that they can improve in terms of execution,
in terms of just meeting the playoff intensity and all
that kind of stuff. But what I said to Jackson
was was like I'd be lying to if I wasn't
super concerned that they didn't come out with that intensity,
Like like I said in the show last night, like
they're not going to give you the Larry of Ryan
Trophy without putting in the work. You're not gonna coast
(25:05):
to Larry O'Brian trophy. You're not gonna finesse your way
to Larry O'Brian trophy. It is one through, super intense,
hyper competitive basketball from day one of the NBA playoffs.
And so I said in that moment to Jackson, like
I am discouraged that a team that I believe in,
(25:25):
that I believe has a real chance to win the
title came out for their first playoff game and just
looks completely unprepared for the intensity. That was before I
watched the Thunder game, I walked out of the conversation
with Jackson, sat down on my outdoor couch. It was
beautiful day here in Tucson, and I'm sitting down and
I just watched Okac come out and they said, we
(25:46):
are treating this like like the Okase has talent to
coast against Memphis, they could ease their way into the
second round. Fuck that, They're like, We're going to embarrass
the Memphis Grizzlies today. They brought that level of intensity.
They seem abundantly clear on what is expected of them
(26:07):
to be able to win four playoff rounds, and I
just thought that was a valuable check mark in this process.
They did not ease their way in. They didn't even
show some of the just level of general discomfort that
they showed against the Pelicans in Game one last year.
They they look like a team that knows exactly what
they're trying to accomplish and how great they will have
(26:28):
to be to get there. I even thought the Celtics
came out with a little bit of like a let's
beat the magic, but not over extend ourselves doing it
type of energy. The Thunder did not. They met the
moment and they embarrassed the Grizzlies. The run really took
off with the bench group led by Kaison Wallace.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
And Jalen Williams.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
They repeatedly made plays on defense that led to runouts.
Kaison was amazing. Yeah, Scottie Pippen junior in Hell. He
had a ridiculous transition dunk. I've always known Kayson's a
good athlete that can dunked the basketball, but he had
won in traffic in transition.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
That was ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
He's hanging on the rim after defense to transition was
the primary storyline of this game.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
The thunder force twenty four turnovers. They generated twenty four
points off of those turnovers. They won the transition points advantage.
They won the transition points battle perc Energy thirty one
to eight. Out of Okasees one hundred and twenty possessions
they logged in the game, forty eight of them were
on transition pushes. As I've talked about, generally, it's like
(27:24):
around you know, twenty percent of your offense that's gonna
end up being in transition. In the NBA, okay See
just played forty percent of their game in transition. But
the thunder were also surgical in their half court playmaking.
Memphis has always been an overhelp team. This is something
I've been complaining about with them for years. They consistently
are aggressive in their nail help, meaning like if the
(27:46):
guys driving off the left wing, the defender guarding the
guy in the right wing will be sitting like damn
near at the elbow, like on the strong side elbow,
or like at the foul line, like just sitting there
in like a soft double team. They'll hard low man helps,
so like the guy guarding the guy in the weakside
corner will be all the way over. If you move
the ball against the Grizzlies, you will get open threes.
(28:09):
The Grizzlies allowed sixteen point four unguarded catch and shoot
jump shots per game this year, which was the third
most in the entire NBA, and the Thunder just made
him pay for it. They consistently made simple reads in
traffic generated a ton of great looks. They generated sixteen
unguarded catch and shoot jump shots compared to just five
(28:29):
for Memphis. They shot him at a super high clip.
They got one point six y nine points per jump
shot on those unguarded catch and shoots. They had thirty
seven assists on fifty made field goals, the Thunder were
bottom five and assist percentage this year.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
It's a big part of why. Like I've actually talked about,
I've been worried about the Thunder against teams that packed
the paint, especially teams that can protect the rim, just
playing right into the teeth of the defense and not
making those reads. I thought today was a very, very
important There will be harder to tests then what Okac
faced today. That's not exactly rocket science. Memphis has been
(29:04):
a mediocre to bad basketball team for a while, but
today was a test for their decision making, and they
aced that test, and they did it with Shay going
four for thirteen from the field. I just thought it
was a statement about how ready this Thunder team is
for this playoff run. On the Memphis front, I've been
talking for a while about how their shot creators just
(29:25):
aren't good enough. Jaw hasn't made a single tangible improvement
to his game in three years. Bain really struggles to
create quality shots against elite defense, and Jared Jackson a
complete no show today. Joh was able in his first
shift to create some advantages, but he still just has
that one athletic superpower and Okase was eventually able to
contain him because he can't shoot. He's one for six
(29:47):
from three and then as soon as Joah went to
the bench, it was a steady died of that Scottie
Pippen junior in Desmond Bain unit. They couldn't even score
and they got blitzed. If Memphis gets swept, which I
think they will, they will have finished the season four
teen and twenty three in their last thirty seven games.
You have to think they'll be contemplating some massive changes
to the roster if that happens, which.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
I believe it will.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
All right, guys, this's all I have for tonight slash
this morning for you guys, I am waking up first
thing in the morning and I'm recording a film session
that should be uploaded around like ten thirty eleven Pacific time,
so keep an eye on that as well. Our coverage
continues tomorrow night. Game two of the Pistons Knicks game series,
as well as the Clippers Nuggets series, will be live
(30:32):
on YouTube after the final buzzer of that as well.
Two days down. I'm a little tired, but this is
it gets a little bit easier with each passing day.
I was talking with Colin and the guys tonight. Like
the first two days, that first Saturday Sunday is by
far the hardest stretch of this season or of this
playoff run, because it's eight games, every one of the matters,
(30:54):
every series is zero zero. It's your first impressions. You
get to second weekend, one to eighths are not any
good anymore, right Usually, like I expect Cleveland to be
up three to oho, I expect the Thunder to be
up three to oh. And it gets a little easier
you get to the following weekend. You're getting into the
second round. Now it's like there's only two games a night.
You get into the conference finals. It gets a little
(31:15):
bit easier as we go along. But man, that first
weekend is always tough. But we've made it through and
we are ready to continue our process as we go
through the week. I'm very, very excited to continue to
get into this with you guys. I appreciate you guys
for rocking with us. We're about to pass one hundred
thousand subs. That's pretty fucking cool. I'm super excited about that.
I have you guys to thank for that, and I
can't tell you how much I guys. I appreciate you
(31:36):
guys for supporting the show, Weekend one of the books.
I'll see you tomorrow morning for some film What so guys.
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
Oops tonight. They would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
And leave a rating and a review.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I really
appreciate it. The volume
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
The NBA eighty two game grind is done, and now
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
I can't wait.
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Speaker 1 (01:45):
Slash audio.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
All right, welcome to Hoops to Night. You're at the
volume heavy money everybody. If all of you guys are
having a great start to your week. We have a
film session coming out later today where I'll go into
more detail on the Warriors Rockets game in particular and
a couple other things that I noticed from the film
on Sunday, But today I wanted to just give you
guys my initial impressions on the four game ones from Sunday.
(02:20):
We have the Warriors getting a one zero lead on
the road in Houston against the Rockets, the Cleveland Cavaliers
struggling a little bit with Miami but closing the deal,
the Celtics struggling a little bit with Orlando but closing
the deal, and then an absolute annihilation of the Memphis
Grizzlies by the Oklahoma City Thunder. I'll just give my
initial impressions on the games from the perspective of both teams.
(02:41):
Like I said, more film coming later today, So keep
an eye on the feeds. You guys have the drip
before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and I
YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter, underscore Jason Lts you guys, don't
miss you announcements. Don't forget about a podcast few wherever
you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super
helpful if you leave your rating and a review on
that front. Jackson's doing great work on our news media.
If heeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook making content throughout
(03:02):
the season. Make sure you guys follow us there, and
last not least, keepdropping mailback questions in the YouTube comments.
We can keep getting to him throughout the remainder of
the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So with
Warriors Rockets, I can't start anywhere other than Steph Curry.
I talked a lot about the different dynamics between the
two defenses trying to slow each other down, but I
(03:25):
thought that was one of the better playoff games I've
seen Steph Curry play. When you factor in just how
great this Houston defense is, the specific ways they defend him,
the fact that in a game like this where there
wasn't consistent offense from really anybody else aside from a
few key plays made from a few key Warriors late,
(03:47):
it just was a steady diet of really difficult shot
making from Steph Curry in this game, and over and
over and over again, he came through to hit a
big shot when his team needed him too. There was
a couple easy things he was able to find in
terms of like sustainability throughout the series. You know, we
talked before the series about how the Rockets put Alpurn
(04:07):
Shangun on Moses Moody and how that kind of disrupts
the normal screen game for the Warriors because they want
to use Draymond as a screener for Steph Curry, but
they're going to try to switch those actions as much
as possible, Right, So where would Curry go to be
able to find the separation that he needs to get
more comfortable? Well, Jalen Green ended up being the target
through early screens and the possessions to get Jalen switched
(04:30):
on to Steph. Jalen was having a hard time staying
attached to Steph. He was having a hard time fighting
over screens. He was more likely to batch switches. There
were so many different things that once Steph got Jalen
on him, he had an easier time getting free, and
then he had a couple of other things right. He
was able to batcut him and Thompson a couple times.
He was able to get free and transition a few times.
(04:50):
There was a play where on a made basket, he
pushed the ball at the floor so fast that he
engaged Steven Adams in a transition crossmatch and was able
to be Steven Adams off the dribble for a layup.
There was another one where Fred van Vliet gambled on
him out at half court.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
He's able to avoid that and get a quick, easy transition. Three.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
He found a few easy ones in there, and those
will be ones that are more sustainable throughout the series.
But it was like unbelievable difficult shot making over and
over and over again. The rainbow over Jalen Green at
the shot clock buzzer as he's falling out of bounds.
He had a ridiculously tough step back two over Dylan Brooks,
(05:29):
a ridiculously tough step back to his right over a
Men Thompson. The movement thirty footer that he hit just
like running to his right way above the break off
the right side extended.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
That was a ridiculous shot.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
He had this like leaner on Fred van Vliet where
he pump faked and then stepped through and hit this
crazy leaner. He had like reverse layups through traffic. Steph
just put on a unbelievable display of difficult shot making.
It was almost like you got to see in the
last two Houston Rockets game, like the two furthest edges
of the Steph Curry experience, the like, can't make shots,
(06:05):
but I'm still creating shots for my team, and then like,
oh my god, it doesn't matter what you do or
where I'm at on the floor, get ready to take
that shit out of the net, because it's going in.
It was just an unbelievable Steph Curry game. I told
you guys before the Jimmy Butler trade that what I
was most excited for and one of the main reasons
why I wanted the deal. I obviously saw upside. I
(06:25):
believed in the Warriors roster. I thought they just needed
secondary shot creation. But I also, as a basketball fan,
just wanted more opportunities to see Steph Curry playing high
leverage basketball games. And we got to see that tonight,
and he put on just another incredible show and I
just really really enjoyed watching it. Warriors defense Steve Curry
in a timeout in the first half said, quote unquote,
(06:48):
they cannot score against us unless we turn it over.
That really is the theory for this entire series for
the Warriors. I talked about it beforehand, like there's a
lot of ways that Houston can make gold In State uncomfortable,
and I have no doubt that throughout the series they
will make Golden State uncomfortable. They made Golden State uncomfortable
for extended stretches tonight, but none of that can compare
(07:10):
to the damage that Golden State can do to Houston's offense.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
On the other end of the floor, they.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Struggled a little bit with Shangoon, but credit to Shanguon.
Shangun's a really good player. I've said this many times
on the show. He was the player this season that
in my daily film sessions I most often would find
myself saying, Wow, he's really kicking that dude's ass, Like Wow,
they're really struggling with Shanguon, Like wow, they really can't
guard Shangun. That happened all the time when I was
(07:36):
watching them. He's just a really damn good player. We
need to give Shangun some credit. But they completely neutralized
Jalen Green, played up on him with physicality. I thought
Moses Moody did an amazing job on him all night,
rushed him into bad drives. Fred Van Vliet was the
one Houston perimeter guy that I thought got some decent
looks at, some drop covered shots and some catch and
(07:57):
shoot threes. But he just couldn't hit anything. And by
the way, Fred's not a great jump shooter. Fred van
vliet jump shot all season long has been worth less
than a point. That's a thing that could happen multiple
times in this series. Fred just not being able to
hit shots, and that really is the thing. If you
can cut Jalen Green and Fred Van Vliet out, there's
not enough firepower on this Rockets offense consistently. I've talked
(08:17):
about this year, the Rockets when they get scoring pop,
particularly from Jalen Green, they can beat anybody. They were
thirteen and one this year, which Jalen Green had over
thirty points, and a lot of really good teams were
victims of those types of performances. But if you can
cut the head off the snake, if you can take
out Fred van Vliet and Jalen Green, they do not
(08:39):
have the firepower to keep up with really anybody, and
they completely neutralize those guys their zone defense. That talked
before the series about how any comments about the zone
defense and it bothering the Warriors was insignificant compared to
the Rockets being able to score against the zone and
the major run early in the game when the Warriors
really started to take their first commanding lead came against
(09:02):
came with the Rockets struggling to score against the Warriors zone. Look,
it's just they just don't have the offensive fire power
to score consistently in the half court against a good defense.
And again I've said this a couple of times. The
Warriors were quite literally the number one defense in the
NBA after the All Star Break. They've been playing at
that level consistently since they've identified that they have a
(09:23):
real opportunity to win the title. Here, we did see
a late Houston Rockets run, fueled by their competitiveness and
their rebounding some transition pushes shanng guns shot making. The
Warriors will have to be careful throughout this series with
their discipline. They can lose control of these games fast
if they don't stay disciplined in their game plan, discipline,
(09:45):
take care of the basketball, smart shot selection, avoiding those
transition opportunities as much as possible. I thought the closing
group played fantastic after Houston made it close, just defending
Houston into their worst tendency, but on the other end
of the floor, getting really consistent contributions from the entire group.
Moses Moody, who's been really struggling to hit jump shots
(10:07):
as of late, hit two massive jump shots, a rescue
shot at the end of the shot clock, a little
movement catch and shoot jump shot out by like seventeen
feet from the basket that he knocked down, and then
he hit a huge corner three off of that text
textbook steph Curry pocket pass sequence that was a massive
shot to counter three that Houston had hit. I talked
about his individual defense on Jalen Green. Brandon Pajemski in
(10:29):
this game really smart reaid and reacts sequences. He had
a great one late in the game where he caught
Jabari Smith on his backside driving a closeout and just
baited Steven Adams into stepping up a little bit and
threw a perfect bounce past to Gary Payton on the baseline,
who got to finish. Gary Payton had another transition run
out for a bucket, so Gary Payton was scoring. Draymond
(10:51):
Green had an offensive rebound put back on another player.
Brandon Pajemski came flying in and tapped at the rebound. This,
in addition to Jimmy being able to go to his
step back jump shot to the right and knock it
down to rescue some of those possessions. I was on
with Colin Cowhard last night or technically tonight because that's
when I'm recording it. But when I was on with Colin,
I talked about how Jimmy Butler has this go to
(11:13):
move that he really started to build out towards the
end in Minnesota and showed it quite a bit in Philly,
and then a lot here in the last few years
in Miami, and obviously here in Golden State. He can
like hit that hard pound dribble in and out with
his right hand and cover some ground going to the
right and just elevate and square up in mid air.
And that's a good look for Jimmy. He's going to
(11:34):
hit that look at a decent percentage, and he was
able to knock that down. Lots of support for Steph
Curry down the stretch after he had carried them throughout
the game. Really really impressive stuff. We did get a
DMP from Jonathan Kaminga. I think there was probably a
game plan there that had things gone worse, like had
(11:56):
Houston taken a ten point lead in the second quarter,
I think we probably see Jonathan Kaminga but I thought
Steve Kerr played the right cards tonight, sticking with guys
that were gonna make fewer mistakes so they can stay
out of transition. And for the most part I understood
him sticking with that for now. But to be clear,
f it's Game two and Houston's up, you know, thirty
(12:17):
seven to twenty four in the early second quarter, I
think Steve Kerr's gotta pull that card out of the
deck and at least try it. He's got to at
least give Johnan kaminga a little bit of a runway
just to see if he can, I don't know, rebound,
do something to help the team if they start struggling
in that matchup a little bit with the Houston again,
it just even as they were knocking on the door,
(12:38):
they just couldn't They just couldn't finish it with proper execution.
They cut the lead down to four and then like
Jalen Green tries to drive and shoot a layup through
like five dudes, and he misses it. They go down
to the other end. That was when pods hit Gary
Payton on the baseline, then to Men Thompson on the
next possession, drives into traffic and throws a layup literally
into the bottom of the rim, leads to a runout
(13:00):
there where Gary Payton gets a dunk. Like they just
couldn't string together the execution in the half court necessary
to score. And that really is the issue now, if
you're looking for upside, if you're Houston, something to be like,
this is a reason why we feel like we have
a chance to still win this series. I thought Steph
was literally amazing, like one of the better playoff games
I've seen him play. Golden State really struggled to score
(13:23):
without him making shots. Jalen Green and Fred Van Vliet
could not have been worse than they were. And Houston's
athleticism will travel. It'll travel on the road. They're gonna
play hard and be a pain in the ass defensively
on the glass every single night. Golden State's not going
to just get this team to quit eventually because they
don't believe they can win. It's gonna be a pain
throughout and so again there's a way for them to
(13:46):
drag this series out and try to wear on Golden
State physically. The series is certainly not over. It's always
bad to lose game one at home, trust me. I
know as a Lakers fan, but there is an opportunity
for them there if they play good defense, to try
to play Steph into a lower van game and then
to get more out of Jalen and Fred to try
to win on the other end of the floor.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
I just can't.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Predict or expect any example of a situation where the
Houston Rockets would out execute the Warriors four times in
two weeks.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
It just doesn't seem likely to me.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
He Cavs tijerome I talked a lot this year about
how he was the best backup guard that I saw
in the NBA.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
He brought this.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Combination of like truly highly efficient scoring. He was sixty
four percent tr shooting this year, scored at high volume
two about twenty three points per thirty six minutes, and
also brought the playmaking piece, the ability to make the
reads that he made down the stretch tonight, like that
pick and roll kick out to Sam Merrill or the
pocket pass feed to Jared Allen for a layup. He
(14:48):
just can be surgical in a way that no other
backup guard in the NBA can be. And he went
on a wild run down the stretch of this game
came in a bunch of different ways too.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Like.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
He started the run in the fourth quarter by hitting
a three to beat his own look like he was
the inbounder, made a pass, stepped in beat his own look,
knocking down a three. He then just started attacking Tyler
Harrow in a late clock switch, like seven seconds on
the shot clock. Instead of panicking and attacking a good defender.
He waves over Max Truce to get Tyler Harrow into
the action, gets Tyler Harrow, drives on him and draws
(15:22):
a foul on him. Then he started putting Tyler Harrow
in ball screens and that was when he really started
to victimize him because Tyler Harrow was not playing physical
on the ball. He was not pressuring. He was just
kind of running behind ty Jerome as he was coming
off the screens, and so ty was able to just
make simple decisions. Came off the screen, brought in the
low man Davion Mitchell stepped over too far, rifle passed
(15:44):
the same Mary in the right corner. He knocks it down.
He hit a floater against Strop. He brought Bam up
and then threw a perfect packet pass the Jared Allen,
who knocked down a layup, He had a left shoulder
fade over him in an ISO. He just was cooking
him over and over again. Eventually, Tyler tried to go
underneath a ball screen to try to keep ty Jerome
in front, and ty just stepped into like a thirty
(16:07):
footer off the dribble and he knocked it down. Then
finally the Miami, he just said screw it and they
started double teaming and it was just over from there.
They were never able to recover. Even Darius Garland came
in and ended up hitting a shot against Tyler Harrow
in a switch. For the record, Tyler Harrow's problems on
defense started right from the opening tip. This was not
an issue that was just a crunch time issue. He
(16:28):
immediately gave up a easy driving dunk out of the
right corner to Donovan Mitchell early in the game, gave
up an easy close out to Max Struce for a
drop off for a dunk for Jared Allen. He got
back cut by Darius Garland for a floater. He got
blown by Darius Garland multiple times. Darius Garland made a
layup and missed a layup on easy blowbyes of Tyler Harrow.
(16:49):
They were even giving up drop coverage buckets with Tyler
Harrow to Ti Jerome in the first half before we
even got to the stuff that we saw in the
fourth quarter. So, like, you know, the Heat defense caused
issues for the Calves and short bursts with their abilities
to switch with their bigs, And I thought Davion Mitchell
did a really nice job on Donovan Mitchell, just pressuring
him and making him work really hard. And the Heat
(17:11):
are never going to be a team that goes down easy.
They are a super smart team and they've got some
high level defensive players, and Tyler Harrow is a guy that,
as you saw at stretches, can knock down shots and
drop coverage and if you leave them open behind the
three three point line, he can knock down shots. They
have pathways, but they just simply don't have the firepower
(17:32):
to keep up with Cleveland. It's a lot of Davion
Mitchell running ball screens and like literally initiating offense. It's
a lot of like bam at a bio taking tough
jump shots. It was just really tough, and you know,
the Calves just found solutions. We talked about Harrow, Donovan
Mitchell finally stopped trying to go at Davy. It almost
was like Donovan was taking it personally with Davion and like,
(17:54):
you're wearing my number in my last name, I'm gonna
try to beat you. It's kind of weird. And then
as soon as you stop going at Davion, it started
going at others. He started to have more success. Evan
Mobley did a really nice job of beating switches by
inside seal attacks. He had a dunk on one of
those in the first half. You scored out of the
post against a switch. Like, they just have a lot
of answers because they've got a lot of guys that
(18:14):
can play at a really really high level, super super impressive.
Game one victory for the Cleveland Cavaliers Celtics Magic. This
game went basically exactly as I expected it to. The
Magic are the second best defense in basketball behind the Thunder,
and they have a lot of guys who can switch
and guard multiple positions, and so they can switch, contain,
(18:36):
stay home, take away, some of the catch and shoot
looks play Tatum and Brown into really high difficulty ISO basketball.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
They don't have.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
The offense to be able to hang in this series,
and we'll talk about that a little bit, but they
have the defense too. If they can improve over the
next couple of years and Jalen Suggs can get healthy
and get back on the floor, that's a team that
could present problems for Boston in the big picture if
they can polish up things on off. But they're just
not close to that yet. They held Tatum and Brown
to thirty three points on thirty six shots. That's great,
(19:06):
But outside of a second quarter stretch where Palo got
really hot from three, a couple other guys hit some threes,
the Magic failed to score twenty points in three of
the four quarters, and that was really the difference. I
thought Drew Holliday was the defensive hero of the game
coming out of the half. So Orlando goes on their
big run right before the half. Then there's a couple
of mistakes that paloll has a turnover that leads to
(19:28):
a foul. They cut it to one, but Orlando goes
into the half up one. They've got the momentum. Their
bench is all excited. Drew Holliday came out to start
the second half and just started ball pressuring the hell
out of Franz Wagner and Palo Bancaro and just was
messing those dudes up, forcing turnovers, forcing mishots, running out
the other way, and hitting transition threes. You talk about
(19:48):
it feeling like a shotgun blast to the chest. Imagine
being on the other side of that. You're attacking a
small and a mismatch. Next thing you know, that dude
taking the ball away and going the other way and
hitting a three. It just unbelievable plays from Drew Holliday
and again Drew in terms of just in terms of
just fundamental skill is one of the best like rhythm
(20:09):
or base attackers that have ever seen from a perimeter defender.
This is what makes him so good at guarding bigger players.
I've talked about this all the time. Bigger players, especially
shot makers, they don't see that. They don't see the
hand in the face. They've practiced hitting shots with hands
in their face their entire lives. What you can do, though,
is you can bother their rhythm. There's an energy transfer
(20:29):
if you can, if you calculate it, It's like if
you try to chain it all together. I should say,
the handle connects to the footwork, and then when you
get into the shot, that connects upwards in your energy
transfer from the ground as you're jumping up through the release,
and you chain all of that together through reps. You
(20:50):
go in the gym and you just do all these
reps ball handling and shooting out of all these different
bits of footwork. These post players they're looking at, oh,
you're attacking as small and trying to bump you and
get to my left shoulder hook or my right shoulder
fade or whatever it is that they're trying to get
through or a step through move something along those lines.
And they practice those moves, and they practice those moves,
and they practice those moves, and if you let them
(21:10):
get to their footwork, they're gonna make it. But if
you can disrupt them, if you can stab at the
basketball and disrupt the ball handling a little bit, you
can bump their base and disrupt the footwork a little
bit as they're jumping, If you lean on them a
little bit so that they're losing a little bit of
that balance as they go up into the shot on
their gather. If you swipe down and you deflect the
(21:31):
ball a tiny bit, if you disrupt something along that chain,
it will have a far greater effect on the end
result than you just standing there and putting your hand
up at the end after not disrupting anything else. And
Drew's just really really good at that, stabbing at the ball,
disrupting the base, being physical, jumping one side, then jumping
all the way to the other side and try to
(21:52):
catch a guy off guard. He did that a few
times Apollo in Franz today, like he just is an
unbelievable size mismatched, and that was a huge weapon for
Boston in the second half of this game. Derek White
brought the volume scoring for the Celtics today and it
came in the form of shot making. He had seven threes,
but most of them were high degree of difficulty threes,
(22:14):
like an extra step behind the line or against a
great contest. And again, when you're playing against great defenses
like the Orlando Magic, in a high leverage situation like this,
on many of your possessions, the best shot you can
get is a mildly contested, slightly deeper three. And like
Derek White provided that scoring pop today in a game
(22:34):
where again, when you're playing games like that, games like
the Rockets Warriors series, threes are like touchdowns, So they're
literally like touchdowns because no one can score and and
Derek White just brought that today. I think this series
is actually a great tune up series for the Celtics.
They're not in any real danger. I mean I saw
enough today to feel like Orlando can steal a game.
Like I wouldn't be surprised if Orlando won a game,
(22:56):
you know, ninety three to eighty seven down into Orlando
in Game three or Game four. But they don't have
the firepower to win the series. But the Magic present
real problems for the Celtics offense, and that will help
them prepare for an OKC matchup should they meet in
the finals. It's just great preparation for them. They just
need to hope that Tatum's wrist is okay. But I
think he's fine. But after the hard foul from Kcpu
(23:17):
was just something to keep an eye on, and it
was a shooting risk, which can always be a little
tricky when you need Tatum to be.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
A shot maker for you.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
All right, before we get out of here again, I'll
be back later today with some more film. But let's
talk some Grizzlies thunder. I didn't have a chance to
do serious previews for my two P one eight matchups.
I would have picked the Thunder to beat the Grizzlies
in a sweep, and I would have picked the Calves
to beat the Heat in five games either way, but
it didn't really matter. This Grizzlies team has been bad
for a while. They were just thirteen and eighteen over
the last twenty one games to end the season. They
(23:46):
were sixteenth in offense in that span of nineteenth in defense.
They're not good at anything. None of their stars is
playing particularly well. They were the one team in that
cluster of teams, the eight teams that made the Western
Conference playoffs. They were the one team that stuck out
like a sore thumb, and boy did they look like
look like it today. I want to shout out the
Okac Thunder first for the level of intensity that they
(24:09):
brought right out of the gates today. I was talking
in my film session this morning about the intensity of
the playoffs. I lamented that last night, teams like the
Bucks and Lakers were just not ready for playoff intensity.
Before I even watched the Thunder game. Today, I was
recording the film session and when we were done, we
(24:31):
were just waiting for a filed upload, and Jackson and
I were just talking and hanging out and Jackson goes like, hey, man, like,
how are you feeling about the Lakers after watching that game?
Speaker 1 (24:39):
You know? I said, like, there's obviously some things.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
That are that they can improve in terms of execution,
in terms of just meeting the playoff intensity and all
that kind of stuff. But what I said to Jackson
was was like I'd be lying to if I wasn't
super concerned that they didn't come out with that intensity,
Like like I said in the show last night, like
they're not going to give you the Larry of Ryan
Trophy without putting in the work. You're not gonna coast
(25:05):
to Larry O'Brian trophy. You're not gonna finesse your way
to Larry O'Brian trophy. It is one through, super intense,
hyper competitive basketball from day one of the NBA playoffs.
And so I said in that moment to Jackson, like
I am discouraged that a team that I believe in,
(25:25):
that I believe has a real chance to win the
title came out for their first playoff game and just
looks completely unprepared for the intensity. That was before I
watched the Thunder game, I walked out of the conversation
with Jackson, sat down on my outdoor couch. It was
beautiful day here in Tucson, and I'm sitting down and
I just watched Okac come out and they said, we
(25:46):
are treating this like like the Okase has talent to
coast against Memphis, they could ease their way into the
second round. Fuck that, They're like, We're going to embarrass
the Memphis Grizzlies today. They brought that level of intensity.
They seem abundantly clear on what is expected of them
(26:07):
to be able to win four playoff rounds, and I
just thought that was a valuable check mark in this process.
They did not ease their way in. They didn't even
show some of the just level of general discomfort that
they showed against the Pelicans in Game one last year.
They they look like a team that knows exactly what
they're trying to accomplish and how great they will have
(26:28):
to be to get there. I even thought the Celtics
came out with a little bit of like a let's
beat the magic, but not over extend ourselves doing it
type of energy. The Thunder did not. They met the
moment and they embarrassed the Grizzlies. The run really took
off with the bench group led by Kaison Wallace.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
And Jalen Williams.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
They repeatedly made plays on defense that led to runouts.
Kaison was amazing. Yeah, Scottie Pippen junior in Hell. He
had a ridiculous transition dunk. I've always known Kayson's a
good athlete that can dunked the basketball, but he had
won in traffic in transition.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
That was ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
He's hanging on the rim after defense to transition was
the primary storyline of this game.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
The thunder force twenty four turnovers. They generated twenty four
points off of those turnovers. They won the transition points advantage.
They won the transition points battle perc Energy thirty one
to eight. Out of Okasees one hundred and twenty possessions
they logged in the game, forty eight of them were
on transition pushes. As I've talked about, generally, it's like
(27:24):
around you know, twenty percent of your offense that's gonna
end up being in transition. In the NBA, okay See
just played forty percent of their game in transition. But
the thunder were also surgical in their half court playmaking.
Memphis has always been an overhelp team. This is something
I've been complaining about with them for years. They consistently
are aggressive in their nail help, meaning like if the
(27:46):
guys driving off the left wing, the defender guarding the
guy in the right wing will be sitting like damn
near at the elbow, like on the strong side elbow,
or like at the foul line, like just sitting there
in like a soft double team. They'll hard low man helps,
so like the guy guarding the guy in the weakside
corner will be all the way over. If you move
the ball against the Grizzlies, you will get open threes.
(28:09):
The Grizzlies allowed sixteen point four unguarded catch and shoot
jump shots per game this year, which was the third
most in the entire NBA, and the Thunder just made
him pay for it. They consistently made simple reads in
traffic generated a ton of great looks. They generated sixteen
unguarded catch and shoot jump shots compared to just five
(28:29):
for Memphis. They shot him at a super high clip.
They got one point six y nine points per jump
shot on those unguarded catch and shoots. They had thirty
seven assists on fifty made field goals, the Thunder were
bottom five and assist percentage this year.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
It's a big part of why. Like I've actually talked about,
I've been worried about the Thunder against teams that packed
the paint, especially teams that can protect the rim, just
playing right into the teeth of the defense and not
making those reads. I thought today was a very, very
important There will be harder to tests then what Okac
faced today. That's not exactly rocket science. Memphis has been
(29:04):
a mediocre to bad basketball team for a while, but
today was a test for their decision making, and they
aced that test, and they did it with Shay going
four for thirteen from the field. I just thought it
was a statement about how ready this Thunder team is
for this playoff run. On the Memphis front, I've been
talking for a while about how their shot creators just
(29:25):
aren't good enough. Jaw hasn't made a single tangible improvement
to his game in three years. Bain really struggles to
create quality shots against elite defense, and Jared Jackson a
complete no show today. Joh was able in his first
shift to create some advantages, but he still just has
that one athletic superpower and Okase was eventually able to
contain him because he can't shoot. He's one for six
(29:47):
from three and then as soon as Joah went to
the bench, it was a steady died of that Scottie
Pippen junior in Desmond Bain unit. They couldn't even score
and they got blitzed. If Memphis gets swept, which I
think they will, they will have finished the season four
teen and twenty three in their last thirty seven games.
You have to think they'll be contemplating some massive changes
to the roster if that happens, which.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
I believe it will.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
All right, guys, this's all I have for tonight slash
this morning for you guys, I am waking up first
thing in the morning and I'm recording a film session
that should be uploaded around like ten thirty eleven Pacific time,
so keep an eye on that as well. Our coverage
continues tomorrow night. Game two of the Pistons Knicks game series,
as well as the Clippers Nuggets series, will be live
(30:32):
on YouTube after the final buzzer of that as well.
Two days down. I'm a little tired, but this is
it gets a little bit easier with each passing day.
I was talking with Colin and the guys tonight. Like
the first two days, that first Saturday Sunday is by
far the hardest stretch of this season or of this
playoff run, because it's eight games, every one of the matters,
(30:54):
every series is zero zero. It's your first impressions. You
get to second weekend, one to eighths are not any
good anymore, right Usually, like I expect Cleveland to be
up three to oho, I expect the Thunder to be
up three to oh. And it gets a little easier
you get to the following weekend. You're getting into the
second round. Now it's like there's only two games a night.
You get into the conference finals. It gets a little
(31:15):
bit easier as we go along. But man, that first
weekend is always tough. But we've made it through and
we are ready to continue our process as we go
through the week. I'm very, very excited to continue to
get into this with you guys. I appreciate you guys
for rocking with us. We're about to pass one hundred
thousand subs. That's pretty fucking cool. I'm super excited about that.
I have you guys to thank for that, and I
can't tell you how much I guys. I appreciate you
(31:36):
guys for supporting the show, Weekend one of the books.
I'll see you tomorrow morning for some film What so guys.
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
Oops tonight. They would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
And leave a rating and a review.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I really
appreciate it. The volume
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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