Jason reacts to day one of the NBA Playoffs and breaks down all four games. He starts with the Los Angeles Lakers loss against the Minnesota Timberwolves including Luka Doncic scoring at volume but LeBron James and Austin Reaves struggling + Anthony Edwards playing a spectacular playmaking game. Then he discusses the New York Knicks beating the Detroit Pistons behind a huge fourth quarter run from Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns over Cade Cunningham, the Denver Nuggets and Nikola Jokic getting a huge overtime win against Kawhi Leonard and James Harden’s Los Angeles Clippers, and finally the Indiana Pacers dominating Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. The NBA eighty two game grind is done,
and now the real fun begins. The NBA Playoffs aren't here,
and it's time for all the high stakes drama, clutch moments,
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Speaker 2 (00:14):
I can't wait.
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Speaker 2 (01:45):
Slash audio.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the ball,
You'm having playoffs. Everybody happy Saturday as well. We had
a jam packed slate tonight. My Lakers late a total
lag at the tail end of the slate. We're gonna
be leading with that one. But We're gonna hit all
four games from tonight's slate. Lots of interesting stuff to
get into. We're officially in the grind. We're gonna be
doing film breakdowns in the morning. This is the fun part.
(02:19):
I'm excited to be here. You guys know the Joe
before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels.
You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
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over there to get additional content throughout the year. And then,
(02:42):
last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the
YouTube comments. Will still get to a mailbag about once
a week throughout the remainder of the playoffs. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So I thought the Wolves threw
an awesome punch tonight. Every one of these series that
I've been picking, all of the teams are capable of
winning The only series where I see like absolutely no
(03:04):
path are the Orlando Magic over Boston and the two
one eights. I think even though I've picked certain teams
to win every series, every team is capable of beating
that pick, so to speak. And that's why I talked
a lot about the swing factors in every series, the
specific things where hey, if this matchup goes one way
(03:24):
or another. A classic example tonight in the Pacers Bucks game, like,
I talked a lot about Miles Turner and brook Lopez,
these two stretch bigs, and if one of them just
badly outplayed the other could have a huge impact in
the game. Miles Turner kicked Brook lopez'z butt tonight. It
was a huge part of how the Pacers controlled that game.
Every single swing factor that I discussed for the Timberwolves
(03:48):
Lakers series went the Timberwolves way tonight, and what I
thought was an ass kicking. I thought that was quite embarrassing.
I sympathized with JJ Reddick in his early fourth quarter
press conferences. He just you could just tell He's like,
it ain't about schematics, We're just getting punked out here.
And I thought the Wolves absolutely punked the Lakers tonight
the first swing factor I discussed Ants playmaking. We all
(04:10):
knew that the Laker defense since the Lukadancic acquisition and
really dating all the way back to Anthony Davis's injury,
has been geared around, you know, loading in the paint, swarming,
a lot of stunting, a lot of helping, a lot
of forcing teams to beat you by breaking you down
with the pass. And one of the big things I
talked about is if Ant goes into the series and
he just tries to force his way through everybody, it's
(04:33):
not gonna go well. But if he just takes these
simple basic reads that are there, it could be the
first domino in a much better offensive performance for the
Timberwolves as they take control of the series. He was
awesome all night tonight, not even just making simple swing
passes like oh, you're sitting down off of the strong
(04:54):
side corner off of nas Reed, like I'm just gonna
throw a pass there, Like oh, you're gonna double teamy
as I'm about to turn around over my left shoulder
and take like an impossible fade away. Sure, I'm just
gonna drop it off to Julius Randall. Why would I
take this super hard fade away, just taking every easy
shot that came to him. Did you notice he didn't
take any threes in the early part of the game.
(05:14):
He wasn't trying to force the issue. He was just
trying to take what the game delivered to him. And
I just thought he had one of his better like
floor general type of just control the flow of the
game type of games that I've seen Anthony Edwards play.
And if we remember, dating back to the parts of
the Timberwolve excuse me, the Nugget series last year where
it went south, it was a lot of that sort
(05:36):
of thing Aunt struggling to solve the puzzle to the
Dallas series, Ant struggling to solve the puzzle. Now, one
of the things we talked about, the lack of rim
protection is a big part of how he was able
to do what he did to Phoenix and Denver and
what he did to the Lakers tonight compared to Dallas.
But still the swarming aspect still required him to make
a lot of good decisions tonight, and he just made
(05:57):
a lot of good decisions if Aunt plays like that
for the rest of the series. Just strictly talking about
decision making, because there's a lot of other factors we're
gonna talk about that will go the other way, Like
I don't think Jaden McDaniels is going to outplay Austin
Reeves for the entire series, Like there's gonna be games
where you know, Jaden goes oh for three from three
and Austin has twenty seven points. There are certain things
(06:17):
that are gonna swing different, very different directions. But if
ant can control just as decision making throughout the series,
that's gonna give the Wolves a very good chance to win.
Because even though there was crazy shooting, we're gonna talk
about that in a minute, a lot of them were
really good looks, and even streaky shooters, if they're given repeated,
continued opportunities at getting comfortable, comfortable behind the three point line,
(06:39):
they're gonna make shots. Second big swing factor lay role
player shooting. When the Wolves pulled their starters, or I
should say when the Lakers pulled their starters, the Wolves
had finished to that point in the game twenty one
for forty one from three, over twenty made threes and
over fifty percent really impressive shooting every like streaky Wolves
(07:02):
shooter that you're counting on missing shots. Was hitting Julius
Randall four for six from three, Jaden McDaniels three for
three from three. The Nas Reid threes I thought were
entirely on jj Reddick. I thought that was a really
poor bit of their game plan in this game. They
were consistently helping off of him, and I just think
Nas is too good of a shooter to be one
of the guys that you're gapping so significant, so significantly
(07:25):
off of, and a lot of Luka Doncic in those
sorts of possessions just getting caught way down on the
block for easy little kickouts to Nazri. That's a game
plan thing that they've got to clean up. But the
stuff like you gotta if you're gonna guard Anthony Edwards,
if you're the Lakers, you kind of have to live
with Jaden McDaniels taking some moderately contested threes, Julius Randall
taking some moderately contested threes, and to their credit, they
(07:47):
went seven for nine tonight. They just made them. Meanwhile,
the key guys for the Lakers that are part of
their five out spacing groups Ruey Hachimura, Dorian Finney, Smith,
and gave Vincent a combined four for thirteen from three
role players. Shoot skewed heavily towards Minnesota. Now, I want
to be clear, especially when we talk more Lakers later
in the show, that is not a factor that you
(08:07):
can just sit there and just go I hope this changes.
I talk about this all the time. Variance plays a
role in shot resulting games, but it's a much smaller
role than people are willing to give it credit. I
know it's easier to just pretend it's like some math
equation that can spit out a shot value number for us,
But the truth of the matter is is these things
are all intricately connected. Like you know, one of the
(08:27):
big takeaways that I have from this team is that
the Wolves, and dating even back to last year's postseason,
they kind of have this like momentous avalanche feel to
them when they get that part of their game going,
and they're super confident and frankly, I think if the
Lakers are just hoping those guys will miss, it could
go poorly. You have to play them into misses by
(08:47):
controlling different factors of the game.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
The third factor.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I talked a lot about how Lebron and Austin when
need to score the ball, like I'm not worried about Luca,
like Luca's Luca figured it out tonight like he usually
does against the timber Wolves to score at volume inefficiently.
But Lebron and Austin are going to have to bring
that level of shot creation themselves. Maybe not quite that level,
but they need to be reliable. The two of them
thirty five points combined on thirty one shots combined. That's
(09:14):
just not going to cut it. Another massive swing factor
that went towards Minnesota. I talked about how one of
the biggest pathways for Minnesota to win the series would
be defense to transition. They won the fast break points
battle tonight twenty five to six. There was an early
second quarter stretch as I'm banging in my head into
(09:35):
the wall watching Ruey Hachemura and Lebron James repeatedly try
to score at the rim on Rudy Gobert and nas Reed,
which was driving me insane. But as they're doing that,
they're making these mistakes that are leading to these runout opportunities,
and it's just easy runout, not forcing it at the
rim and transition, but taking the easy kickouts to the
corner that were there guys running their lanes to make
(09:55):
sure that their outlets In transition, everything went towards Minnesota
and they kicked their ass pretty much. The only positive
in the game for the Lakers was that Luca was
able to score, and even then, I thought the Wolves
did a good job of avoiding the wide open completely
unguarded threes through ball pressure and closeouts. A couple of
(10:17):
specific things I talked game plan before the series, how
I thought the Wolves should switch with their fives for
the most part in this game, they switched with their fives.
That was another way they stayed out of rotation. Ball
pressure on Luca so that his kickouts are not You
saw that last one that he fired out of bounds.
I think Luca had five turnovers in the game. A
big part of those turnovers is when Luca gets two
to the ball pressure him like hell so that he
(10:40):
has a hard time finding a passing angle to get
a ball out to a specific spot on the floor.
Like you know, I talked to different fans of different teams.
It's a big part of how I get perspective from
people who root for a team every single night. I've
always found. I just know this from personal experience. I
have a understanding of this Lakers team as someone who
has rooted for them every single.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Night for the last several years.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
That you get intimately from being that type of fan, right,
And so I was talking to a Wolves fan buddy
of mine before the series, and one of the things
he was talking about is like, just why Wolves fans
feel so confident, And one of the things he talked
about was, like, it's hard for us not to after
everyone told us we were gonna lose the Phoenix, and
he's not wrong. And that's really that momentous athletic avalanche
(11:27):
thing that I'm talking about, Like there is an identity
that this Wolves team has. I talked about it a
little bit in the regular season. It was a big
part of why Minnesota to me, was like a legitimate
long shot contender relative to what their position was in
the standings. The Timberwolves had the ability in the postseason
to scale up athletically. Every team does to a certain extent.
(11:50):
But what's weird with Minnesota is like it takes on
this like confidence. It starts from Ant and flows outwards
to the rest of the team. They're all having a
great time just whooping your ass running up and down
the floor, and like they are again, I think there
is a real, a real problem here for the Lakers
that they have to address. And I think the last
(12:11):
thing I want to say in the Wolves before we
get to some specific game plan stuff that the Lakers
can do to try to regain control Jada McDaniels. He,
you know, showed the job he did tonight was different
than the job we've seen him do for the most
part in his time in a Timberwolves jersey. He's had
games like that before. I don't want to pretend like
he's never done that before, but there's a difference between
(12:34):
a D and three wing, meaning a wing whose job
it is to guard the other team's best player who's
gonna get concession three point shots on the other end
of the floor, and he just kind of has to
knock down thirty five percent of him and just you know,
make basic reads and blah blah blah. There's another layer
to that position when you can legitimately score the basketball.
(12:56):
This is where it comes into the role that I've
discussed a lot this year, which is the weak side
scoring forward. If you can do like what Jaden was
doing in this game, like driving closeouts and swallowing through
guys with eurosteps for floaters in the lane. He had
another one where he drove a Dorian Finney Smith close
out off the left corner and got into Luca's chest
and had a layup right at the basket. Those sorts
(13:18):
of like aggressive scoring moves in conjunction with being three
for three from three, in conjunction with bringing transition scoring.
That's the stuff that could make Jaden McDaniels into a
thirty million dollar player is when you bring that legitimate
second side scoring piece in addition to the defense. I
(13:39):
thought he was awesome tonight. The simplest way I could
describe this game is like, once you get off of Luca,
Jaden McDaniels and Nas Reed outplayed every other Laker tonight.
And that's before we even get to other matchups down
the roster. It was a total ass kicking tip of
the caps of the Timberwolves. So let's talk some Lakers.
I'll know everything I need to know about this team
(14:01):
and about where this series is going. In the first
half of Game two. I agree with JJ Reddick and
what he said in the start of the fourth quarter.
There's certain person like I thought he I thought he
was doing a little too much blame shifting there by
saying there's no schematic things that went wrong. You can't
just be conceding threes to Nasri. That's not a good idea.
You need to be coaching up your stars to be
(14:23):
attacking the right types of matchups, like maybe get into
Ruy and Lebron's ear and tell them to stop trying
to shoot layups over Rudy Gobert like, there are certain
things that he could improve, but the majority of this
game came down to a good old fashioned punking and like, yeah,
it's really easy to be like, well, we were playing
regular season basketball. We got to bring the requisite intensity. Yeah,
(14:44):
I agree, but this could turn into last year's first
round series against the Suns really quickly if you don't
bring it. I did think the Lakers after like from
that like late third quarter stretch to the mid fourth quarter,
they started to fight, but it was too little, too late,
and Minnesota was in such a groove with their shot
making that it was just impossible for them to get
(15:06):
over the hump and Anthony Edwards was hitting turn around
Fadawase and Julius Randall's hitting turn around Fatawase and they're
still hitting every damn three they're taking.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
And there's certain there's.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Certain stuff like that where it's like, that's why you
got to bring it early in the game. There's a
certain point where like you try to ratchet up the
defensive intensity, but these guys are already in a groove
that they're gonna hit shots, you know what I mean.
And like, but there they were at least competing physically
in that stretch there in the late third to the
early fourth quarter. But like, the reality is the reason
(15:35):
why Phoenix lost to Minnesota and sweep last year was
they got punked in Game one and then they were
never able to regain control of the situation. There's a
momentum to the way these things go. There is a
version of this where it's like, Okay, you compete better physically,
you don't get punked as much physically at the point
(15:56):
of attacking on the glass. Several things like that. I
thought Luca had a bad night on the defensive glass,
for example, just like standing around while guys were just
jumping over him to get the ball. Like if everyone
just competes better, you do a better job making things
a little bit tougher. Maybe guys miss a few more
of those threes on the other end of the floor,
Lebron and Austin, you pick the right types of matchups
(16:16):
to attack. You do a better job generating shots. You
stay out of transition, You do a better job executing
in the half court. Now as that happens, Minnesota's not
getting into their high octane transition. We're all having the
time of our lives running and jumping through you type
of confidence attack. You can derail that a bit, and
then all of a sudden, it's like we're trapping them
(16:38):
in the half court. They're not hitting fifty percent of
their threes. They're hitting thirty eight percent of their threes.
We're doing a better job on the glass, Lebron, Austin
and luc A generating better shots. There's a version of
this where they can regain control of the situation as
they head into game two, but it starts with all
of those things. Lebron and Austin have to be better
in their execution. Everybody has to battle better on the glass,
(17:01):
battle better at the point of attack, close out sharper.
The role players do have to be more confident, knocking
down shots under duress. All of it has to swing
to stop that Wolve's machine. And like, here's the thing,
I will know everything I need to know in the
first half of Game two. If the Lakers are serious,
if they're serious about accomplishing the things that they want
(17:22):
to accomplish, then they will go out to start Game two,
bring the requisite intensity and control that game and take
like a seven to ten point lead into the halftime buzzer.
If I see that, now we have ourselves a series.
If they lay down and do the exact same thing
to start Game two, this is going to get ugly.
(17:42):
I do think this team is more physically capable of
hanging with Minnesota than Phoenix was last year. I don't
expect it to get that ugly, but this could certainly
get ugly, and you could be looking at a five
or six game victory for the Wolves. If the Lakers
don't wake up for Game two, they have some real
problems that they got to deal with. That the Wolves
demonstrated tonight. All right, let's work our way backwards through
(18:03):
the games. Let's talk Pistons Knicks. So I thought the
Pistons showed a lot of why they're a tough matchup
for the Knicks. For the first three quarters of this game,
Hey doing some nice playmaking out of action attacking Jaln
Brunston and Karl Anthony Towns. All of the Pistons role
players played well. Tobias Harris was great, Tim Hardaway Junior
was great. Malik Beasley was great. Those guys combined for
sixty four points. There was a Dennis Schroeder layup driving
(18:26):
past Karl Anthony Towns in a little like slot iso
off the left wing that put the Pistons up ninety
eight to ninety and the Pistons did not score again
until they were down thirteen points. The Knicks just completely
blitzed them. Brunson found a matchup that he really liked
in the half court, which was Tobias Harris, and he
was doing a lot of really good work against him,
just kind of semi transition attacks to get him where
(18:48):
he's jumping to one side and hitting him with crossover moves.
He was able to beat him with a regular crossover
move in the half court to get inside position on him.
He was doing a lot of quality work against Tobias Harris.
They're down the stretch which is a little note to
five away for the inevitable. You know, it's game four,
two to one, five minutes left, games tied. That's a
matchup that I think the Knicks feel good about. Is
(19:09):
Brunson going after Tobias Harris. Campaign was great in that run.
He actually started the run with a little crossover, one
of his patented left left right crossovers into a scooping layup.
He hit two massive threes to rescue possessions, one off
of an offensive rebound, one off of a crazy stepback
move at the end of the shot clock. Then the
Knicks started forcing turnovers. Uh Oj and Andobi forced to
(19:29):
turnover on Kate in the post. There's another turnover they
forced on Kate on a baseline out of bounds. Kat
forced a turnover on a high post entry where he
jumped it and they were able to get out and transition.
And that's when the Knicks are at their best right
that defensive transition stuff, and literally in just that brief stretch,
that brief little twenty one to zero run, they completely
erased everything else that happened in that game. And then
(19:49):
the Knicks are coasting to an easy win like what
looked like a textbook like, oh, the road team steals
game one type of thing turned into a one zero
lead for New York with just that brief stretch of basketball.
I thought the Nicks guarded Kid Cunningham really well all game.
One of the things I talked about in the series
preview is that I expected the Knicks coaching staff to
look at the tape and to see that Og Andnobi
(20:10):
was a better option to guard Kate Cunningham, and that's
what they did. We talked a lot in the regular
season about how Michael Bridges was just not big enough
in terms of his base to stop Kate from being
comfortable fighting for spots. And that's really the key, Like
that's what Og does as a bigger, stronger player guarding Kate.
Like it's like there's so many different examples, like just
(20:32):
fighting for position, and like as Kid's trying to seal
and create a passing angle, he's trying to seal and
create a passing angle against the guy who's actually bigger
and stronger than him instead of a guy that he's
bigger and stronger than. Right, the last post up that
Kate had against Og where he turned it over like
he tried to swing through with his right shoulder and
power up through Og with his right shoulder. And when
(20:53):
he does that to most defensive players that guard him,
he's so big and strong that he's just blowing through
that player and getting to where he wants to for
his little right shoulder fade away. Not Og, OG's holding
his ground. He's having trouble fighting up through there to
get a shot. He turns the basketball over, just making
him uncomfortable. Like that's the thing when we talk about
shot result, the number one thing you can do to
(21:14):
make any star or role player shoot below their season
averages or below their career averages or whatever you want
to look at it is to make them uncomfortable. Take
the little things that they do in games that come
second nature and make them mature. Like, oh, you want
to catch the ball coming off of like an iverson
cut off of a screen at the high post. Well,
I'm going to fight you like hell until you get
(21:35):
the ball, and by the time you get it, there's
going to be eleven seconds on the shot clock and
you're going to be exhausted. That's the type of work,
that's the type of value that comes from having size
and strength, fighting you off of position, someone that Caid
can't dislodge. I thought that was a really smart game
plan thing from the Knicks. Kat made a couple of
(21:57):
huge defensive plays late in the game after having some
troubles and earlier phases of the game. He had a
couple of plays where you know, Caide split him in
pick and roll, or he just got caught out in
space and struggled to contain the ball. But he made
two massive plays during that run. A rotation back to
the basket where he forced Jalen Duran into a miss
on a catch layup where he was out of position
behind the play, sprinted back and had a nice contest.
(22:19):
He was the one who forced the turnover on the
high post entry just with his uh just physical pressure
like a three quarter front kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
He was great.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Just again, shout out to the Knicks. They turned what
could have been easily a stolen game one into an
early series lead, and I thought that that was a
encouraging note to that. Brunson found a matchup that he
really liked there down the stretch on the Pistons front.
I talked all season law or all series excuse excuse me,
it's been a long day. I've been watching basketball since today.
(22:49):
In the season preview, pot I talked about how NBA
history tells us that the Detroit Pistons usually lose this
series because of the fact that they are just unfamiliar
with the setting, specifically Kate right, and honestly, that was
really the big thing that stood out in crunch time.
Like Caid was badly outplayed during the run. There are
some variant stuff right, Like I thought, Malik Beasley and
(23:10):
Tim Hardaway Junior both got fantastic above the break three
point looks that just didn't go in. During the run,
Malik had a movement three going to his right off
of a screen where he got plenty of separation that
he happened to miss, Like during missing that shot on
Kat as a shot we all know he can make.
Like there were shots that they missed during that run.
But the bottom line is is that like a lot
of that was off of chaos, Like Tim Hardaway Junior's
(23:32):
three was on an offensive rebound. Malik Beasley's was on
an offensive rebound. Like there's the actual shot creation piece.
Cad lookes sloppy, he like, why is he trying to
post ogn Nanobi down the stretch of the game. Jalen
Brunson wasn't trying to attack a star Thompson if he
could help it. He's getting a favorable matchup and trying
to find a place to go to work. Caid attacking
(23:53):
the best perimeter defender on the team in crunch time,
that's a decision mistake. He had a very He was
the guy who made the really sloppy inbounds pass on
the baseline out of bounds, and that's the difference, right, Like,
as things were kind of rounding into form down the stretch,
Jalen Brunson kind of figured out how he wanted to
attack and Cad kind of like was decomposing a little bit.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Now. Again that's to be expected. He's young.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
This is playoff basketball super hard, right, and like it's
just it's just relevant within the scope of this series.
In this series, you're going against Jalen Brunson, who for
two years now has led his team through multiple playoff
rounds and is pretty comfortable in this setting. And it's
just something new that Kate is dealing with. I did
(24:37):
think Isaiah Stewart looked better than Jalen Duran tonight, but
Duran ended up getting six more minutes, and they were
closing with Duran during the run and Durn just there's
there's several things he's a little bit late on some
of his short role reads is finishing can be a
tricky can struggle to guard cat in space. Like Isaiah
Stewart has his own issues, but I think I would
(24:57):
go with him a little bit more than I went
with then JB. Bickerstaff went with Duran, and then I
did like Dennis Schroeder on Jalen Brunson. I thought that
was a matchup that they could look to try to
give a little bit more attention to Schroeder played twenty
six minutes. It's not so much that you can scale
that up so much. But like I even thought just
down the stretch when Asar and Dennis were out there,
(25:19):
they went to Asar on Brunson, and like Dennis just
kisses him off, Like it's not so much that a
star is not a better defender. Of course, the sar
is Asar is one of the best perimeter defense prospects
I've ever watched, But like Dennis just has like a
a little bit of like an anticipatory like he knows
how to guard Brunson a little bit, and I just
I think that I would lean on that a little
(25:40):
bit more. I'd have every minute that Schroder's on the floor,
I'd have him guarding Brunson and just trying to piss
him off again. Like I'm going to be doing a
film breakdown in the mornings throughout this throughout the entire postseason.
We'll get into more details on the series as we
go along. That was just my initial takeaways from tonight's game.
All right, let's move on to Clippers Nuggets. Super interesting game.
(26:02):
As we expected this was going to be a super
interesting series. The Clippers came out and did what basically
every team is done to the Nuggets for the second
half of the season, and that's scored the basketball very easily,
just about every single time down the floor. That's how
it looked in the early part of that game. But
right in the middle of the second quarter, there was
a timeout, and out of the time out, Jokic just
like the just applies a ton of ball pressure to
(26:25):
I think it was Zoo catching out on the perimeter,
and like the defensive intensity just skyrocketed for Denver and
it happened to coincide with the stretch when Kawhi Leonard
and James Harden were both in some foul trouble and
Denver worked their way right back into the game, and
then it was a dogfight the rest of the way.
And like one of the big things that stood out
to me, like there was a lot of people talking
and including myself, about how the Clippers were sloppy in
(26:48):
the way that they were capitalizing on some of those
Denver coverage weaknesses that we've talked about, specifically like Denver
being able to put two on the ball effectively and
rotate out of it, which is a weakness for them
all season, or handling, you know, mismatch attacking and shading
and sending help and rotating out of it. They've been
bad with that, right, And so there are a lot
of these like sequences where like you can kind of
(27:09):
see it take shape where it's like two on the ball,
hit the short roller guy cutting out of the baseline,
and like everything is just a little stilted. It's like
the short roll guy is hesitating for just a second.
The guy who cuts along the baseline, the passes a
little off target and he fumbles it a little bit,
and then he like second guesses himself in pump fakes
or something. They're like there was a lot of like
sloppiness and hesitance from the Clippers as they were attacking
(27:32):
some of those gaps, and like I want to give
the Nuggets credit, Like I don't think the Clippers are
a particularly strong playmaking team relative to some of the
other teams in the field. Like James Harden is a
good playmaker, Kawhi can struggle with it from times, Norman
Powell can struggle with it from sometimes, like their Chris
Dunn can struggle with it sometimes, Like they they in
(27:53):
their lineups have two or three guys on the floor
at any given point that can hesitate when they need
to make a decision that aren't necessarily the shark read
and react players in the league, and so denver. Upping
the intensity is what causes that, right, Like if you
don't up the intensity, the reads are very easy, the
runways are very wide. Everything looks easy, breezy as you're
(28:16):
breaking the defense down. If you up the intensity, you
make them have to make some tougher decisions. You make
them have to make some decisions quicker than they would
have to make if you weren't upping that intensity, and
that led to a lot of those mistakes that led
to a lot of the Clippers. What I'm saying is is,
like the Clippers aren't going to pee down their leg
on their own. You have to make them pee down
(28:37):
their leg, and the only way you're going to do
that is by upping the defensive intensity. Right in crunch time,
that was where you could see that execution gap really
take shape. The Clippers were doing a ton of helping
off of Christian Brown and what Russell Westbrook, right, you
have to find a way to make them pay. Christian
Brown hits a massive three in overtime on the left wing.
Russell Westbrook not just the open three that he hit
(28:59):
at the end of regular that put him up too
super active on the offensive glass. As he's getting ignored
in a lot of those sequences into the Nuggets credit,
they kept trusting him Yo Kitchen particular, just he you know,
I talked a lot about in some other matchups, so
specifically after the Lakers game earlier this year, about how
(29:19):
like Yokich when he's getting swarmed, has to kind of
force the issue a little bit from time to time,
be like more willing to be like, yeah, I'm in
a swarm, but I'm just gonna just put my head
down and try to make something happen.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I thought he did a really nice job of balancing
that tonight, like forcing the issue sometimes and yeah, it's
gonna hurt his efficiency. He didn't have the most efficient
shooting night tonight, but forcing the issue sometimes, but then
also being willing to take what the defense was giving him.
That three that Russell Westbrook hit in the left corner,
for instance, watch the way Jokic threw that pass. He
threw that pass like I want Russ to take this shot.
(29:50):
He was trusting him in that spot. I thought that
was a big part of how Denver succeeded an offense
late in the game, nixing spamming their best two players
in spots where they can be aggressive, but then trusting
what the Clipper game plan was giving up to them.
Westbrook's Like it was kind of like a classic Russell
Westbrook game in a lot of ways, because, like I thought,
(30:12):
he was mostly great down the stretch, lots and lots
of huge plays. Famously, at the end of the game,
two gets that big steal as the Clippers have their
chance to tie, but there's like bad plays mixed in,
you know what I mean. But like everything with Russell
Westbrook is a scale, and like if it's four good
plays and five bad plays, it can be pretty damaging
to the team. But tonight it was more like down
(30:33):
the stretch, it was like six good plays, three bad plays,
and it was like really impactful for the Nuggets in
this game. They don't win this game without Russell Westbrook
and the work he did down the stretch. And I
thought it was a really smart move by Adleman as well,
with how Michael Porter Junior just looked kind of unready
for that level of intensity to go with Westbrook. It's
a gamble, right, It's a gamble because you could have
(30:53):
that scale flip the other way. But the gamble paid
off tonight. Again, I thought Jokic was fantastic. I thought
the two man game with Jamal Murray eve though Jamal
struggled for Good a good portion of the game. I
talked a lot before the series about how Jamal is
such a rhythm player and how when he comes back
from injuries sometimes he needs a long runway to kind
of get his legs underneath them and to get his rhythm,
(31:14):
and he struggled a.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Little bit, but he made some shots.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
He made some place hit a couple of huge threes
in two man game with Jokic down the stretch that
were important in this game the crunch time. When we
got down to game within five less than five minutes left,
the Nuggets were up plus fifteen point eight points per
one hundred possessions, a one twenty six offensive rating and
(31:37):
a one to eleven defensive rating. That's really the key
for Denver. If they can get to four minutes left,
we're tied. I absolutely trust jokicch and Murray to out
execute the Clippers in a close game with a few
minutes left. As a matter of fact, like if every
game in this series goes to crunch time, the Nuggets
are gonna win. But it's about that competitiveness in avoiding
(32:01):
the onslaught throughout the game. That's where the intensity cannot
let up. If you come out in Game two and
you let things get out of hand the way you
did to start this game, Kawhi and James Harden might
not get in foul trouble. You might be in a
situation like the Lakers were with the Wolves tonight. Where
you're just clawing from behind the whole time and you
can't ever get over the hump. And so it's about
(32:22):
bringing the requisite amount of intensity on the defensive end
at the level in their ball pressure on the backside
in rotation to keep the game close enough that you
can stare down Kawhi Leonard and James Harden with three
four minutes left, and I would execute them the way
they did tonight. I thought Denver did a really really
nice job playing the long game against the Clippers tonight,
(32:44):
and really like there's another conversation to be had about
how after the Clippers got their big lead, they never
really truly looked as comfortable offensively as they did to
start the game. Kawhi needs to do a much better
job of handling double teams. I thought he did a
poor job in this game of handling those aggressive double teams.
He did a much better job against Golden State. Some
of that spots on the floor to Denver was mixing
(33:06):
up doubling him more when he got closer to the basket,
and then all of a sudden, Kawhi would just retreat
like crazy and dribble out to half court while the
pressure's coming and it just made it really difficult for
him to make the pass. He missed the flasher a
few times and was just throwing swing passes to the corner,
which is not going to compromise the defense. You have
to beat the double by making the right pass. That's
always been Kawi's demon right is his ability to break
(33:27):
down defenses with the pass. And the game plan was
pretty clear with Denver Deny. There were a handful of
ISOs in there, but there was a lot of swarming,
a lot of digging down on him as he's dribbling
into traffic. Kawhi is going to have to process in
the half court and playmake out of it. And then
in those tic tac toe situations like I talked about
those four on threes, they have to do a better
(33:48):
job of quickly processing the situation. You cannot hesitate on
the short roll at making the read. You have to
go up quick and strong on your baseline cuts. If
you hesitate for a split second in the playoffs, someone's
gonna rotate into your space and take that opportunity away.
I do think this is gonna be a long series.
My guess is that when the Clippers win, it'll be
(34:09):
more in that, like we don't go to crunch time.
They just control the game throughout and then when things
get close, I think it's gonna go towards Denver. But like,
this was a series again that I picked the Clippers,
A lot of people picked the Clippers. The Clippers were
heavily favored. Denver got the first one tonight, a big
step forward in their process of potentially stealing this series.
All right, last game before we get out of here
(34:31):
for the night. The Bucks and the Pacers. I've talked
a lot over the years about how when you see
these different types of styles face each other, it's not
about which style is inherently better. It's about which style
wins that particular fight, which group is more capable of
inflicting their strength on their opponent. The Pacers immediately came
(34:52):
out and dictated the terms of this game, getting stops
getting out. In transition, they outscored the Bucks seventeen to five.
I even transitioned just in the first half. Andrew Nemhard
was brilliant in transition to start that game like a
crazy series of crossover moves to like cut through Ajreen
and Toorium prints for a layup two plays where he
(35:13):
just drove right at Brook Lopez's chest and like just
knocked him over and had a little scooping lip. He
had another little drive where he kind of dislodged Giannis
in the second half. So, like I was certain think
Andrew Nemhard might just be a lot stronger than he
looks and just has a real low center of gravity,
and he is really good at just dislodging. Like that's
half the battle on offense is dislodging your defender. If
(35:35):
you can dislodge your defender by just bumping him off
of his base, he's not going to be able to
recover in time for you to do anything. But they
were great in transition. Siakam was finding openings in transition,
both as a spacer and running the lane towards the rim.
Their speed was on display all over the place, especially
in their closeouts. Like I thought the Pacers just perimeter
(35:55):
closeouts did such a great job of just rushing and
catch an unprepared Milwaukee team off guard. There were two
examples in the first half that I thought kind of
demonstrated this. A Yana swing pass to Kyle Kuzma on
the left wing and then a short roll sequence where
Bobby port Is caught wide open in the right corner
(36:15):
and Bobby Portas didn't even get a shot off, and
Kyle Kuzma ended up taking a heavily contested shot because
the two of them just like weren't ready to shoot
under an intense closeout. And like, this is where I
want to read you guys, a stat that I thought
was the stat of the game for Pacers Bucks game one.
Milwaukee logged thirteen guarded catch and shoot jump shots tonight,
(36:37):
so like contested, like the computer logs that as if
the defender's there, right, and Indiana logged twelve, So they
both took about the same number of guarded ketch and
shoot jump shots. Milwaukee went one for thirteen and Indiana
went eight for twelve. Now, some of it was shooting variants,
as we always talked about, that's far down the.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
List for me.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Most of it was the Pacers were closing out and
they weren't just there, they were disruptive. They were there
with intensity and disruption. There were so many Bucks closeouts
in this game where they were literally running up to
the shooter and just standing there with their arms out
to the side where the guy shot over the top
of them and made an uncontested shot. Even though it's
(37:17):
gonna log as guarded because they're standing there, they weren't
bringing the requisite intensity and disruption to the closeout. Pascal
Siakam hit one I think on Bobby Portos at the
top of the key. Bobby closed out and then just
stood there while Pascal turned and shot right over the
top of him.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I thought the best.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Example of it was Andrew Nemhard's first three of the
second half. So Nemhard HiT's two threes in the late
first half like a It looked like one of Milwaukee's
own possessions where Kuzma came way off of the right
side of the floor and there was a skip to
Nemhart in the corner. He's wide open, knocks it down,
and then he had a switch I think against the
(37:54):
honest if I remember correctly, but he just take took
a step back three from like twenty six feet and
it hits the three over the top. So Nemhart just
hit two threes in a row right before the half,
and I would argue at that point, even if it's
in your game plan to close out short, you need
to start closing out harder first three of the second half,
Andrew Namhart catches in the left corner. Torian rotates and
(38:16):
stands there, like just runs up to in front of
Adrenamhart and just stands there with no contest while Andre
Namhart shoots the three over the top, and I'm like,
I'm like, you guys just aren't ready, like the Bucks
and the Lakers today, not ready for playoff basketball and
ended up getting embarrassed as a result. There is a
level of intensity that this environment brings that you have
to be ready for, and the Bucks just weren't ready
(38:39):
for it tonight. They were like those examples that I gave,
like the Torrian Prince one. There were a half dozen
of those in this game where the closeouts just weren't there,
And like when on the other end of the floor,
Kuzma and Portis are second guessing themselves on the catch
because of the intensity of the closeouts. That's a huge
swing in Indiana's favor. Indie speed was on display everywhere
in transition over and over again, like the Bucks just
(39:02):
not stopping the ball, or like leaving a cutter open.
Milwaukee sharpened that up a little bit in the later
portion of the game, but Indy splitzed them so significantly
that the game was basically over a couple of their
shout outs. I wanted to give to Indy. Miles Turner
badly out playing Brook Lopez. I talked in the series
preview about how pick and pop was going to be
one of the primary actions for both teams, and you
(39:23):
know Joannison Brook, they do lots of different variations of it,
or Brook a roll to the basket more, but like
Brook's gonna pop a lot in ball screens, Miles Turner
popping out of Tyree's Haliburton ball screens is one of
the favorite pet actions for the Pacers, and so the
ability of those guys to score in those situations was
going to dictate the types of coverages that the teams
are allowed to use. Right and Turner out scored him
(39:46):
nineteen to nine actually forced the Bucks into switching some
of the Turner Haliburton pick and rolls or picking pops
in the second half, like he was a huge part
of their success against the zone. Looks like he would
screen the top man, which all allowed the Pacer player
to get into the middle of the floor and if
Brooke was hanging back too much. He would pop if
on plays where Brooke would show high out to the
(40:07):
foul line, then Miles would just cut behind him and
get easy opportunities at the basket. I thought he dominated
that matchup today and it was a huge swing factor
in Indiana's favor. Shakham was great balance scoring, transition out
of the post, spacing the floor, off ball, all of
that balance scoring from all of those guys from Namhard,
from TJ McConnell, from Siakam, from Turner that allowed the
(40:30):
Pacers to survive what was a rough shooting night from
Tyrese Halliburton and like I mean, relatively easily survive a
rough shooting night from Tyre's Halliburton. I want to talk
a little bit about Yannis Yiannis was a wrecking ball.
Early in the game. He was a lot of Yannis
Brooke ball screens where they were just switching, and so
(40:51):
he got a lot of one on one opportunities against
Myles Turner, and he was doing a lot of work
getting to the basket and drawing fouls and getting buckets there.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
But you could tell that he started to realize.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
That some of his role players weren't super comfortable, and
I thought Janis kind of went full hero ball, and
that wasn't the way Yannis was playing over the final
few weeks of the regular season. He was much more
trusting of the kickout passes early in the game. What
I thought was interesting is it looked to me like
Yanna started to run out of gas a little bit
in the late second quarter because he was just these
extreme high degree of difficulty, like just bowling ball type
(41:23):
of drives, started to settle for some jump shots, started
to turn the basketball over a little bit. I think again,
especially as Giannis develops in the future as into more
of a point forward, this is a big part of it.
Like it will serve Jianis well to trust the pass
more early in games.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
These are long games.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
He needs to create a lot of shots over forty
eight minutes, right, and so being more willing to just
take easy reads early in the game will make it
so that he has more gas in the tank to
be more physically aggressive as the game progresses. Not to mention,
you can loosen up the defense by doing that obvious
adjustments from just like I said, for the Lakers, it's
(42:02):
time to show up for the playoffs. You can't look
surprised that the other team is playing super hard. You
need to bring the intensity not just the closeouts, the
other side of the closeouts. You need to be down
in a shooting stands the one where Kyle Kuzma ended
up taking that crazy like spinning three his first three
off the left wing. Go watch Kyle Kuzma before the shot.
He's standing completely upright and he's like twenty seven feet
(42:25):
from the basket. Instead, be down in a shooter's crouch,
ready to go, so that on the catch you can
quickly rise up or quickly rip to the basket one way.
Be ready to go on the catch. That's part of
the intensity. That's part of the mental focus you have
to bring during the postseason. Stop the ball and transition defense.
You want to know why brook Lopez is picking up
(42:45):
Andrew demhard at the rim and getting truck sticked because
no one picked him up before he got to Brook Lopez.
Siakim had won in transition too, where no one picked
him up. There's so many examples where the Bucks just
weren't ready for the intensity of the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Tonight.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
They can guard this team. They held the Pacers scoreless
for more than five straight minutes in the fourth quarter
during a run where they cut the lead to twelve,
and in that run, aj Green got a couple of
clean looks, Bobby Porter's got a clean look. They just
didn't go down. The Bucks were out of gas at
that point. There is a pathway though for them to
be able to guard the Pacers and generate quality shots
(43:19):
on the other end of the floor. They just have
to bring the requisite intensity. Because this game was so
early in the day, I was able to get more
data out for the other games. I'll bring more data
in tomorrow morning's show. But shooting went heavily towards the Pacers.
The Bucks generated twenty nine catch and shoots, the Pacers
generated twenty five catch and shoots. The Bucks got zero
point seven to two points per shot. The Pacers got
(43:40):
one point five to six, So they more than double
them in ketch and shoot efficiency in this game. Again,
that's including unguarded shots, but like we talked about earlier
with the guarded shots, there's a level of execution to that.
In the intensity of the closeouts transition points Indy twenty
six to thirteen. Milwaukee allowed only nine of those twenty
six in the second half. Those they did clean that
up a little bit, but it's worth mentioning Indiana did
(44:03):
win the half court battle, just half court efficiency won
a one to twelve offensive rating for the Pacers, just
a ninety eight offensive rating for the Bucks. So totally
totally dominant performance from the Pacers in game one of
that series. All right, guys, it's all I have for tonight.
It's marathon, not a sprint. We're gonna be back tomorrow
morning with some more film stuff, and then obviously we
(44:24):
got four more games tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
I will see you guys. Then what's up guys?
Speaker 1 (44:28):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, But if
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
The volume
The volume. The NBA eighty two game grind is done,
and now the real fun begins. The NBA Playoffs aren't here,
and it's time for all the high stakes drama, clutch moments,
and jaw dropping plays.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I can't wait.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
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Speaker 2 (01:45):
Slash audio.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the ball,
You'm having playoffs. Everybody happy Saturday as well. We had
a jam packed slate tonight. My Lakers late a total
lag at the tail end of the slate. We're gonna
be leading with that one. But We're gonna hit all
four games from tonight's slate. Lots of interesting stuff to
get into. We're officially in the grind. We're gonna be
doing film breakdowns in the morning. This is the fun part.
(02:19):
I'm excited to be here. You guys know the Joe
before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels.
You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
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over there to get additional content throughout the year. And then,
(02:42):
last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the
YouTube comments. Will still get to a mailbag about once
a week throughout the remainder of the playoffs. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So I thought the Wolves threw
an awesome punch tonight. Every one of these series that
I've been picking, all of the teams are capable of
winning The only series where I see like absolutely no
(03:04):
path are the Orlando Magic over Boston and the two
one eights. I think even though I've picked certain teams
to win every series, every team is capable of beating
that pick, so to speak. And that's why I talked
a lot about the swing factors in every series, the
specific things where hey, if this matchup goes one way
(03:24):
or another. A classic example tonight in the Pacers Bucks game, like,
I talked a lot about Miles Turner and brook Lopez,
these two stretch bigs, and if one of them just
badly outplayed the other could have a huge impact in
the game. Miles Turner kicked Brook lopez'z butt tonight. It
was a huge part of how the Pacers controlled that game.
Every single swing factor that I discussed for the Timberwolves
(03:48):
Lakers series went the Timberwolves way tonight, and what I
thought was an ass kicking. I thought that was quite embarrassing.
I sympathized with JJ Reddick in his early fourth quarter
press conferences. He just you could just tell He's like,
it ain't about schematics, We're just getting punked out here.
And I thought the Wolves absolutely punked the Lakers tonight
the first swing factor I discussed Ants playmaking. We all
(04:10):
knew that the Laker defense since the Lukadancic acquisition and
really dating all the way back to Anthony Davis's injury,
has been geared around, you know, loading in the paint, swarming,
a lot of stunting, a lot of helping, a lot
of forcing teams to beat you by breaking you down
with the pass. And one of the big things I
talked about is if Ant goes into the series and
he just tries to force his way through everybody, it's
(04:33):
not gonna go well. But if he just takes these
simple basic reads that are there, it could be the
first domino in a much better offensive performance for the
Timberwolves as they take control of the series. He was
awesome all night tonight, not even just making simple swing
passes like oh, you're sitting down off of the strong
(04:54):
side corner off of nas Reed, like I'm just gonna
throw a pass there, Like oh, you're gonna double teamy
as I'm about to turn around over my left shoulder
and take like an impossible fade away. Sure, I'm just
gonna drop it off to Julius Randall. Why would I
take this super hard fade away, just taking every easy
shot that came to him. Did you notice he didn't
take any threes in the early part of the game.
(05:14):
He wasn't trying to force the issue. He was just
trying to take what the game delivered to him. And
I just thought he had one of his better like
floor general type of just control the flow of the
game type of games that I've seen Anthony Edwards play.
And if we remember, dating back to the parts of
the Timberwolve excuse me, the Nugget series last year where
it went south, it was a lot of that sort
(05:36):
of thing Aunt struggling to solve the puzzle to the
Dallas series, Ant struggling to solve the puzzle. Now, one
of the things we talked about, the lack of rim
protection is a big part of how he was able
to do what he did to Phoenix and Denver and
what he did to the Lakers tonight compared to Dallas.
But still the swarming aspect still required him to make
a lot of good decisions tonight, and he just made
(05:57):
a lot of good decisions if Aunt plays like that
for the rest of the series. Just strictly talking about
decision making, because there's a lot of other factors we're
gonna talk about that will go the other way, Like
I don't think Jaden McDaniels is going to outplay Austin
Reeves for the entire series, Like there's gonna be games
where you know, Jaden goes oh for three from three
and Austin has twenty seven points. There are certain things
(06:17):
that are gonna swing different, very different directions. But if
ant can control just as decision making throughout the series,
that's gonna give the Wolves a very good chance to win.
Because even though there was crazy shooting, we're gonna talk
about that in a minute, a lot of them were
really good looks, and even streaky shooters, if they're given repeated,
continued opportunities at getting comfortable, comfortable behind the three point line,
(06:39):
they're gonna make shots. Second big swing factor lay role
player shooting. When the Wolves pulled their starters, or I
should say when the Lakers pulled their starters, the Wolves
had finished to that point in the game twenty one
for forty one from three, over twenty made threes and
over fifty percent really impressive shooting every like streaky Wolves
(07:02):
shooter that you're counting on missing shots. Was hitting Julius
Randall four for six from three, Jaden McDaniels three for
three from three. The Nas Reid threes I thought were
entirely on jj Reddick. I thought that was a really
poor bit of their game plan in this game. They
were consistently helping off of him, and I just think
Nas is too good of a shooter to be one
of the guys that you're gapping so significant, so significantly
(07:25):
off of, and a lot of Luka Doncic in those
sorts of possessions just getting caught way down on the
block for easy little kickouts to Nazri. That's a game
plan thing that they've got to clean up. But the
stuff like you gotta if you're gonna guard Anthony Edwards,
if you're the Lakers, you kind of have to live
with Jaden McDaniels taking some moderately contested threes, Julius Randall
taking some moderately contested threes, and to their credit, they
(07:47):
went seven for nine tonight. They just made them. Meanwhile,
the key guys for the Lakers that are part of
their five out spacing groups Ruey Hachimura, Dorian Finney, Smith,
and gave Vincent a combined four for thirteen from three
role players. Shoot skewed heavily towards Minnesota. Now, I want
to be clear, especially when we talk more Lakers later
in the show, that is not a factor that you
(08:07):
can just sit there and just go I hope this changes.
I talk about this all the time. Variance plays a
role in shot resulting games, but it's a much smaller
role than people are willing to give it credit. I
know it's easier to just pretend it's like some math
equation that can spit out a shot value number for us,
But the truth of the matter is is these things
are all intricately connected. Like you know, one of the
(08:27):
big takeaways that I have from this team is that
the Wolves, and dating even back to last year's postseason,
they kind of have this like momentous avalanche feel to
them when they get that part of their game going,
and they're super confident and frankly, I think if the
Lakers are just hoping those guys will miss, it could
go poorly. You have to play them into misses by
(08:47):
controlling different factors of the game.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
The third factor.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I talked a lot about how Lebron and Austin when
need to score the ball, like I'm not worried about Luca,
like Luca's Luca figured it out tonight like he usually
does against the timber Wolves to score at volume inefficiently.
But Lebron and Austin are going to have to bring
that level of shot creation themselves. Maybe not quite that level,
but they need to be reliable. The two of them
thirty five points combined on thirty one shots combined. That's
(09:14):
just not going to cut it. Another massive swing factor
that went towards Minnesota. I talked about how one of
the biggest pathways for Minnesota to win the series would
be defense to transition. They won the fast break points
battle tonight twenty five to six. There was an early
second quarter stretch as I'm banging in my head into
(09:35):
the wall watching Ruey Hachemura and Lebron James repeatedly try
to score at the rim on Rudy Gobert and nas Reed,
which was driving me insane. But as they're doing that,
they're making these mistakes that are leading to these runout opportunities,
and it's just easy runout, not forcing it at the
rim and transition, but taking the easy kickouts to the
corner that were there guys running their lanes to make
(09:55):
sure that their outlets In transition, everything went towards Minnesota
and they kicked their ass pretty much. The only positive
in the game for the Lakers was that Luca was
able to score, and even then, I thought the Wolves
did a good job of avoiding the wide open completely
unguarded threes through ball pressure and closeouts. A couple of
(10:17):
specific things I talked game plan before the series, how
I thought the Wolves should switch with their fives for
the most part in this game, they switched with their fives.
That was another way they stayed out of rotation. Ball
pressure on Luca so that his kickouts are not You
saw that last one that he fired out of bounds.
I think Luca had five turnovers in the game. A
big part of those turnovers is when Luca gets two
to the ball pressure him like hell so that he
(10:40):
has a hard time finding a passing angle to get
a ball out to a specific spot on the floor.
Like you know, I talked to different fans of different teams.
It's a big part of how I get perspective from
people who root for a team every single night. I've
always found. I just know this from personal experience. I
have a understanding of this Lakers team as someone who
has rooted for them every single.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Night for the last several years.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
That you get intimately from being that type of fan, right,
And so I was talking to a Wolves fan buddy
of mine before the series, and one of the things
he was talking about is like, just why Wolves fans
feel so confident, And one of the things he talked
about was, like, it's hard for us not to after
everyone told us we were gonna lose the Phoenix, and
he's not wrong. And that's really that momentous athletic avalanche
(11:27):
thing that I'm talking about, Like there is an identity
that this Wolves team has. I talked about it a
little bit in the regular season. It was a big
part of why Minnesota to me, was like a legitimate
long shot contender relative to what their position was in
the standings. The Timberwolves had the ability in the postseason
to scale up athletically. Every team does to a certain extent.
(11:50):
But what's weird with Minnesota is like it takes on
this like confidence. It starts from Ant and flows outwards
to the rest of the team. They're all having a
great time just whooping your ass running up and down
the floor, and like they are again, I think there
is a real, a real problem here for the Lakers
that they have to address. And I think the last
(12:11):
thing I want to say in the Wolves before we
get to some specific game plan stuff that the Lakers
can do to try to regain control Jada McDaniels. He,
you know, showed the job he did tonight was different
than the job we've seen him do for the most
part in his time in a Timberwolves jersey. He's had
games like that before. I don't want to pretend like
he's never done that before, but there's a difference between
(12:34):
a D and three wing, meaning a wing whose job
it is to guard the other team's best player who's
gonna get concession three point shots on the other end
of the floor, and he just kind of has to
knock down thirty five percent of him and just you know,
make basic reads and blah blah blah. There's another layer
to that position when you can legitimately score the basketball.
(12:56):
This is where it comes into the role that I've
discussed a lot this year, which is the weak side
scoring forward. If you can do like what Jaden was
doing in this game, like driving closeouts and swallowing through
guys with eurosteps for floaters in the lane. He had
another one where he drove a Dorian Finney Smith close
out off the left corner and got into Luca's chest
and had a layup right at the basket. Those sorts
(13:18):
of like aggressive scoring moves in conjunction with being three
for three from three, in conjunction with bringing transition scoring.
That's the stuff that could make Jaden McDaniels into a
thirty million dollar player is when you bring that legitimate
second side scoring piece in addition to the defense. I
(13:39):
thought he was awesome tonight. The simplest way I could
describe this game is like, once you get off of Luca,
Jaden McDaniels and Nas Reed outplayed every other Laker tonight.
And that's before we even get to other matchups down
the roster. It was a total ass kicking tip of
the caps of the Timberwolves. So let's talk some Lakers.
I'll know everything I need to know about this team
(14:01):
and about where this series is going. In the first
half of Game two. I agree with JJ Reddick and
what he said in the start of the fourth quarter.
There's certain person like I thought he I thought he
was doing a little too much blame shifting there by
saying there's no schematic things that went wrong. You can't
just be conceding threes to Nasri. That's not a good idea.
You need to be coaching up your stars to be
(14:23):
attacking the right types of matchups, like maybe get into
Ruy and Lebron's ear and tell them to stop trying
to shoot layups over Rudy Gobert like, there are certain
things that he could improve, but the majority of this
game came down to a good old fashioned punking and like, yeah,
it's really easy to be like, well, we were playing
regular season basketball. We got to bring the requisite intensity. Yeah,
(14:44):
I agree, but this could turn into last year's first
round series against the Suns really quickly if you don't
bring it. I did think the Lakers after like from
that like late third quarter stretch to the mid fourth quarter,
they started to fight, but it was too little, too late,
and Minnesota was in such a groove with their shot
making that it was just impossible for them to get
(15:06):
over the hump and Anthony Edwards was hitting turn around
Fadawase and Julius Randall's hitting turn around Fatawase and they're
still hitting every damn three they're taking.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
And there's certain there's.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Certain stuff like that where it's like, that's why you
got to bring it early in the game. There's a
certain point where like you try to ratchet up the
defensive intensity, but these guys are already in a groove
that they're gonna hit shots, you know what I mean.
And like, but there they were at least competing physically
in that stretch there in the late third to the
early fourth quarter. But like, the reality is the reason
(15:35):
why Phoenix lost to Minnesota and sweep last year was
they got punked in Game one and then they were
never able to regain control of the situation. There's a
momentum to the way these things go. There is a
version of this where it's like, Okay, you compete better physically,
you don't get punked as much physically at the point
(15:56):
of attacking on the glass. Several things like that. I
thought Luca had a bad night on the defensive glass,
for example, just like standing around while guys were just
jumping over him to get the ball. Like if everyone
just competes better, you do a better job making things
a little bit tougher. Maybe guys miss a few more
of those threes on the other end of the floor,
Lebron and Austin, you pick the right types of matchups
(16:16):
to attack. You do a better job generating shots. You
stay out of transition, You do a better job executing
in the half court. Now as that happens, Minnesota's not
getting into their high octane transition. We're all having the
time of our lives running and jumping through you type
of confidence attack. You can derail that a bit, and
then all of a sudden, it's like we're trapping them
(16:38):
in the half court. They're not hitting fifty percent of
their threes. They're hitting thirty eight percent of their threes.
We're doing a better job on the glass, Lebron, Austin
and luc A generating better shots. There's a version of
this where they can regain control of the situation as
they head into game two, but it starts with all
of those things. Lebron and Austin have to be better
in their execution. Everybody has to battle better on the glass,
(17:01):
battle better at the point of attack, close out sharper.
The role players do have to be more confident, knocking
down shots under duress. All of it has to swing
to stop that Wolve's machine. And like, here's the thing,
I will know everything I need to know in the
first half of Game two. If the Lakers are serious,
if they're serious about accomplishing the things that they want
(17:22):
to accomplish, then they will go out to start Game two,
bring the requisite intensity and control that game and take
like a seven to ten point lead into the halftime buzzer.
If I see that, now we have ourselves a series.
If they lay down and do the exact same thing
to start Game two, this is going to get ugly.
(17:42):
I do think this team is more physically capable of
hanging with Minnesota than Phoenix was last year. I don't
expect it to get that ugly, but this could certainly
get ugly, and you could be looking at a five
or six game victory for the Wolves. If the Lakers
don't wake up for Game two, they have some real
problems that they got to deal with. That the Wolves
demonstrated tonight. All right, let's work our way backwards through
(18:03):
the games. Let's talk Pistons Knicks. So I thought the
Pistons showed a lot of why they're a tough matchup
for the Knicks. For the first three quarters of this game,
Hey doing some nice playmaking out of action attacking Jaln
Brunston and Karl Anthony Towns. All of the Pistons role
players played well. Tobias Harris was great, Tim Hardaway Junior
was great. Malik Beasley was great. Those guys combined for
sixty four points. There was a Dennis Schroeder layup driving
(18:26):
past Karl Anthony Towns in a little like slot iso
off the left wing that put the Pistons up ninety
eight to ninety and the Pistons did not score again
until they were down thirteen points. The Knicks just completely
blitzed them. Brunson found a matchup that he really liked
in the half court, which was Tobias Harris, and he
was doing a lot of really good work against him,
just kind of semi transition attacks to get him where
(18:48):
he's jumping to one side and hitting him with crossover moves.
He was able to beat him with a regular crossover
move in the half court to get inside position on him.
He was doing a lot of quality work against Tobias Harris.
They're down the stretch which is a little note to
five away for the inevitable. You know, it's game four,
two to one, five minutes left, games tied. That's a
matchup that I think the Knicks feel good about. Is
(19:09):
Brunson going after Tobias Harris. Campaign was great in that run.
He actually started the run with a little crossover, one
of his patented left left right crossovers into a scooping layup.
He hit two massive threes to rescue possessions, one off
of an offensive rebound, one off of a crazy stepback
move at the end of the shot clock. Then the
Knicks started forcing turnovers. Uh Oj and Andobi forced to
(19:29):
turnover on Kate in the post. There's another turnover they
forced on Kate on a baseline out of bounds. Kat
forced a turnover on a high post entry where he
jumped it and they were able to get out and transition.
And that's when the Knicks are at their best right
that defensive transition stuff, and literally in just that brief stretch,
that brief little twenty one to zero run, they completely
erased everything else that happened in that game. And then
(19:49):
the Knicks are coasting to an easy win like what
looked like a textbook like, oh, the road team steals
game one type of thing turned into a one zero
lead for New York with just that brief stretch of basketball.
I thought the Nicks guarded Kid Cunningham really well all game.
One of the things I talked about in the series
preview is that I expected the Knicks coaching staff to
look at the tape and to see that Og Andnobi
(20:10):
was a better option to guard Kate Cunningham, and that's
what they did. We talked a lot in the regular
season about how Michael Bridges was just not big enough
in terms of his base to stop Kate from being
comfortable fighting for spots. And that's really the key, Like
that's what Og does as a bigger, stronger player guarding Kate.
Like it's like there's so many different examples, like just
(20:32):
fighting for position, and like as Kid's trying to seal
and create a passing angle, he's trying to seal and
create a passing angle against the guy who's actually bigger
and stronger than him instead of a guy that he's
bigger and stronger than. Right, the last post up that
Kate had against Og where he turned it over like
he tried to swing through with his right shoulder and
power up through Og with his right shoulder. And when
(20:53):
he does that to most defensive players that guard him,
he's so big and strong that he's just blowing through
that player and getting to where he wants to for
his little right shoulder fade away. Not Og, OG's holding
his ground. He's having trouble fighting up through there to
get a shot. He turns the basketball over, just making
him uncomfortable. Like that's the thing when we talk about
shot result, the number one thing you can do to
(21:14):
make any star or role player shoot below their season
averages or below their career averages or whatever you want
to look at it is to make them uncomfortable. Take
the little things that they do in games that come
second nature and make them mature. Like, oh, you want
to catch the ball coming off of like an iverson
cut off of a screen at the high post. Well,
I'm going to fight you like hell until you get
(21:35):
the ball, and by the time you get it, there's
going to be eleven seconds on the shot clock and
you're going to be exhausted. That's the type of work,
that's the type of value that comes from having size
and strength, fighting you off of position, someone that Caid
can't dislodge. I thought that was a really smart game
plan thing from the Knicks. Kat made a couple of
(21:57):
huge defensive plays late in the game after having some
troubles and earlier phases of the game. He had a
couple of plays where you know, Caide split him in
pick and roll, or he just got caught out in
space and struggled to contain the ball. But he made
two massive plays during that run. A rotation back to
the basket where he forced Jalen Duran into a miss
on a catch layup where he was out of position
behind the play, sprinted back and had a nice contest.
(22:19):
He was the one who forced the turnover on the
high post entry just with his uh just physical pressure
like a three quarter front kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
He was great.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Just again, shout out to the Knicks. They turned what
could have been easily a stolen game one into an
early series lead, and I thought that that was a
encouraging note to that. Brunson found a matchup that he
really liked there down the stretch on the Pistons front.
I talked all season law or all series excuse excuse me,
it's been a long day. I've been watching basketball since today.
(22:49):
In the season preview, pot I talked about how NBA
history tells us that the Detroit Pistons usually lose this
series because of the fact that they are just unfamiliar
with the setting, specifically Kate right, and honestly, that was
really the big thing that stood out in crunch time.
Like Caid was badly outplayed during the run. There are
some variant stuff right, Like I thought, Malik Beasley and
(23:10):
Tim Hardaway Junior both got fantastic above the break three
point looks that just didn't go in. During the run,
Malik had a movement three going to his right off
of a screen where he got plenty of separation that
he happened to miss, Like during missing that shot on
Kat as a shot we all know he can make.
Like there were shots that they missed during that run.
But the bottom line is is that like a lot
of that was off of chaos, Like Tim Hardaway Junior's
(23:32):
three was on an offensive rebound. Malik Beasley's was on
an offensive rebound. Like there's the actual shot creation piece.
Cad lookes sloppy, he like, why is he trying to
post ogn Nanobi down the stretch of the game. Jalen
Brunson wasn't trying to attack a star Thompson if he
could help it. He's getting a favorable matchup and trying
to find a place to go to work. Caid attacking
(23:53):
the best perimeter defender on the team in crunch time,
that's a decision mistake. He had a very He was
the guy who made the really sloppy inbounds pass on
the baseline out of bounds, and that's the difference, right, Like,
as things were kind of rounding into form down the stretch,
Jalen Brunson kind of figured out how he wanted to
attack and Cad kind of like was decomposing a little bit.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Now. Again that's to be expected. He's young.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
This is playoff basketball super hard, right, and like it's
just it's just relevant within the scope of this series.
In this series, you're going against Jalen Brunson, who for
two years now has led his team through multiple playoff
rounds and is pretty comfortable in this setting. And it's
just something new that Kate is dealing with. I did
(24:37):
think Isaiah Stewart looked better than Jalen Duran tonight, but
Duran ended up getting six more minutes, and they were
closing with Duran during the run and Durn just there's
there's several things he's a little bit late on some
of his short role reads is finishing can be a
tricky can struggle to guard cat in space. Like Isaiah
Stewart has his own issues, but I think I would
(24:57):
go with him a little bit more than I went
with then JB. Bickerstaff went with Duran, and then I
did like Dennis Schroeder on Jalen Brunson. I thought that
was a matchup that they could look to try to
give a little bit more attention to Schroeder played twenty
six minutes. It's not so much that you can scale
that up so much. But like I even thought just
down the stretch when Asar and Dennis were out there,
(25:19):
they went to Asar on Brunson, and like Dennis just
kisses him off, Like it's not so much that a
star is not a better defender. Of course, the sar
is Asar is one of the best perimeter defense prospects
I've ever watched, But like Dennis just has like a
a little bit of like an anticipatory like he knows
how to guard Brunson a little bit, and I just
I think that I would lean on that a little
(25:40):
bit more. I'd have every minute that Schroder's on the floor,
I'd have him guarding Brunson and just trying to piss
him off again. Like I'm going to be doing a
film breakdown in the mornings throughout this throughout the entire postseason.
We'll get into more details on the series as we
go along. That was just my initial takeaways from tonight's game.
All right, let's move on to Clippers Nuggets. Super interesting game.
(26:02):
As we expected this was going to be a super
interesting series. The Clippers came out and did what basically
every team is done to the Nuggets for the second
half of the season, and that's scored the basketball very easily,
just about every single time down the floor. That's how
it looked in the early part of that game. But
right in the middle of the second quarter, there was
a timeout, and out of the time out, Jokic just
like the just applies a ton of ball pressure to
(26:25):
I think it was Zoo catching out on the perimeter,
and like the defensive intensity just skyrocketed for Denver and
it happened to coincide with the stretch when Kawhi Leonard
and James Harden were both in some foul trouble and
Denver worked their way right back into the game, and
then it was a dogfight the rest of the way.
And like one of the big things that stood out
to me, like there was a lot of people talking
and including myself, about how the Clippers were sloppy in
(26:48):
the way that they were capitalizing on some of those
Denver coverage weaknesses that we've talked about, specifically like Denver
being able to put two on the ball effectively and
rotate out of it, which is a weakness for them
all season, or handling, you know, mismatch attacking and shading
and sending help and rotating out of it. They've been
bad with that, right, And so there are a lot
of these like sequences where like you can kind of
(27:09):
see it take shape where it's like two on the ball,
hit the short roller guy cutting out of the baseline,
and like everything is just a little stilted. It's like
the short roll guy is hesitating for just a second.
The guy who cuts along the baseline, the passes a
little off target and he fumbles it a little bit,
and then he like second guesses himself in pump fakes
or something. They're like there was a lot of like
sloppiness and hesitance from the Clippers as they were attacking
(27:32):
some of those gaps, and like I want to give
the Nuggets credit, Like I don't think the Clippers are
a particularly strong playmaking team relative to some of the
other teams in the field. Like James Harden is a
good playmaker, Kawhi can struggle with it from times, Norman
Powell can struggle with it from sometimes, like their Chris
Dunn can struggle with it sometimes, Like they they in
(27:53):
their lineups have two or three guys on the floor
at any given point that can hesitate when they need
to make a decision that aren't necessarily the shark read
and react players in the league, and so denver. Upping
the intensity is what causes that, right, Like if you
don't up the intensity, the reads are very easy, the
runways are very wide. Everything looks easy, breezy as you're
(28:16):
breaking the defense down. If you up the intensity, you
make them have to make some tougher decisions. You make
them have to make some decisions quicker than they would
have to make if you weren't upping that intensity, and
that led to a lot of those mistakes that led
to a lot of the Clippers. What I'm saying is is,
like the Clippers aren't going to pee down their leg
on their own. You have to make them pee down
(28:37):
their leg, and the only way you're going to do
that is by upping the defensive intensity. Right in crunch time,
that was where you could see that execution gap really
take shape. The Clippers were doing a ton of helping
off of Christian Brown and what Russell Westbrook, right, you
have to find a way to make them pay. Christian
Brown hits a massive three in overtime on the left wing.
Russell Westbrook not just the open three that he hit
(28:59):
at the end of regular that put him up too
super active on the offensive glass. As he's getting ignored
in a lot of those sequences into the Nuggets credit,
they kept trusting him Yo Kitchen particular, just he you know,
I talked a lot about in some other matchups, so
specifically after the Lakers game earlier this year, about how
(29:19):
like Yokich when he's getting swarmed, has to kind of
force the issue a little bit from time to time,
be like more willing to be like, yeah, I'm in
a swarm, but I'm just gonna just put my head
down and try to make something happen.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I thought he did a really nice job of balancing
that tonight, like forcing the issue sometimes and yeah, it's
gonna hurt his efficiency. He didn't have the most efficient
shooting night tonight, but forcing the issue sometimes, but then
also being willing to take what the defense was giving him.
That three that Russell Westbrook hit in the left corner,
for instance, watch the way Jokic threw that pass. He
threw that pass like I want Russ to take this shot.
(29:50):
He was trusting him in that spot. I thought that
was a big part of how Denver succeeded an offense
late in the game, nixing spamming their best two players
in spots where they can be aggressive, but then trusting
what the Clipper game plan was giving up to them.
Westbrook's Like it was kind of like a classic Russell
Westbrook game in a lot of ways, because, like I thought,
(30:12):
he was mostly great down the stretch, lots and lots
of huge plays. Famously, at the end of the game,
two gets that big steal as the Clippers have their
chance to tie, but there's like bad plays mixed in,
you know what I mean. But like everything with Russell
Westbrook is a scale, and like if it's four good
plays and five bad plays, it can be pretty damaging
to the team. But tonight it was more like down
(30:33):
the stretch, it was like six good plays, three bad plays,
and it was like really impactful for the Nuggets in
this game. They don't win this game without Russell Westbrook
and the work he did down the stretch. And I
thought it was a really smart move by Adleman as well,
with how Michael Porter Junior just looked kind of unready
for that level of intensity to go with Westbrook. It's
a gamble, right, It's a gamble because you could have
(30:53):
that scale flip the other way. But the gamble paid
off tonight. Again, I thought Jokic was fantastic. I thought
the two man game with Jamal Murray eve though Jamal
struggled for Good a good portion of the game. I
talked a lot before the series about how Jamal is
such a rhythm player and how when he comes back
from injuries sometimes he needs a long runway to kind
of get his legs underneath them and to get his rhythm,
(31:14):
and he struggled a.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Little bit, but he made some shots.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
He made some place hit a couple of huge threes
in two man game with Jokic down the stretch that
were important in this game the crunch time. When we
got down to game within five less than five minutes left,
the Nuggets were up plus fifteen point eight points per
one hundred possessions, a one twenty six offensive rating and
(31:37):
a one to eleven defensive rating. That's really the key
for Denver. If they can get to four minutes left,
we're tied. I absolutely trust jokicch and Murray to out
execute the Clippers in a close game with a few
minutes left. As a matter of fact, like if every
game in this series goes to crunch time, the Nuggets
are gonna win. But it's about that competitiveness in avoiding
(32:01):
the onslaught throughout the game. That's where the intensity cannot
let up. If you come out in Game two and
you let things get out of hand the way you
did to start this game, Kawhi and James Harden might
not get in foul trouble. You might be in a
situation like the Lakers were with the Wolves tonight. Where
you're just clawing from behind the whole time and you
can't ever get over the hump. And so it's about
(32:22):
bringing the requisite amount of intensity on the defensive end
at the level in their ball pressure on the backside
in rotation to keep the game close enough that you
can stare down Kawhi Leonard and James Harden with three
four minutes left, and I would execute them the way
they did tonight. I thought Denver did a really really
nice job playing the long game against the Clippers tonight,
(32:44):
and really like there's another conversation to be had about
how after the Clippers got their big lead, they never
really truly looked as comfortable offensively as they did to
start the game. Kawhi needs to do a much better
job of handling double teams. I thought he did a
poor job in this game of handling those aggressive double teams.
He did a much better job against Golden State. Some
of that spots on the floor to Denver was mixing
(33:06):
up doubling him more when he got closer to the basket,
and then all of a sudden, Kawhi would just retreat
like crazy and dribble out to half court while the
pressure's coming and it just made it really difficult for
him to make the pass. He missed the flasher a
few times and was just throwing swing passes to the corner,
which is not going to compromise the defense. You have
to beat the double by making the right pass. That's
always been Kawi's demon right is his ability to break
(33:27):
down defenses with the pass. And the game plan was
pretty clear with Denver Deny. There were a handful of
ISOs in there, but there was a lot of swarming,
a lot of digging down on him as he's dribbling
into traffic. Kawhi is going to have to process in
the half court and playmake out of it. And then
in those tic tac toe situations like I talked about
those four on threes, they have to do a better
(33:48):
job of quickly processing the situation. You cannot hesitate on
the short roll at making the read. You have to
go up quick and strong on your baseline cuts. If
you hesitate for a split second in the playoffs, someone's
gonna rotate into your space and take that opportunity away.
I do think this is gonna be a long series.
My guess is that when the Clippers win, it'll be
(34:09):
more in that, like we don't go to crunch time.
They just control the game throughout and then when things
get close, I think it's gonna go towards Denver. But like,
this was a series again that I picked the Clippers,
A lot of people picked the Clippers. The Clippers were
heavily favored. Denver got the first one tonight, a big
step forward in their process of potentially stealing this series.
All right, last game before we get out of here
(34:31):
for the night. The Bucks and the Pacers. I've talked
a lot over the years about how when you see
these different types of styles face each other, it's not
about which style is inherently better. It's about which style
wins that particular fight, which group is more capable of
inflicting their strength on their opponent. The Pacers immediately came
(34:52):
out and dictated the terms of this game, getting stops
getting out. In transition, they outscored the Bucks seventeen to five.
I even transitioned just in the first half. Andrew Nemhard
was brilliant in transition to start that game like a
crazy series of crossover moves to like cut through Ajreen
and Toorium prints for a layup two plays where he
(35:13):
just drove right at Brook Lopez's chest and like just
knocked him over and had a little scooping lip. He
had another little drive where he kind of dislodged Giannis
in the second half. So, like I was certain think
Andrew Nemhard might just be a lot stronger than he
looks and just has a real low center of gravity,
and he is really good at just dislodging. Like that's
half the battle on offense is dislodging your defender. If
(35:35):
you can dislodge your defender by just bumping him off
of his base, he's not going to be able to
recover in time for you to do anything. But they
were great in transition. Siakam was finding openings in transition,
both as a spacer and running the lane towards the rim.
Their speed was on display all over the place, especially
in their closeouts. Like I thought the Pacers just perimeter
(35:55):
closeouts did such a great job of just rushing and
catch an unprepared Milwaukee team off guard. There were two
examples in the first half that I thought kind of
demonstrated this. A Yana swing pass to Kyle Kuzma on
the left wing and then a short roll sequence where
Bobby port Is caught wide open in the right corner
(36:15):
and Bobby Portas didn't even get a shot off, and
Kyle Kuzma ended up taking a heavily contested shot because
the two of them just like weren't ready to shoot
under an intense closeout. And like, this is where I
want to read you guys, a stat that I thought
was the stat of the game for Pacers Bucks game one.
Milwaukee logged thirteen guarded catch and shoot jump shots tonight,
(36:37):
so like contested, like the computer logs that as if
the defender's there, right, and Indiana logged twelve, So they
both took about the same number of guarded ketch and
shoot jump shots. Milwaukee went one for thirteen and Indiana
went eight for twelve. Now, some of it was shooting variants,
as we always talked about, that's far down the.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
List for me.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Most of it was the Pacers were closing out and
they weren't just there, they were disruptive. They were there
with intensity and disruption. There were so many Bucks closeouts
in this game where they were literally running up to
the shooter and just standing there with their arms out
to the side where the guy shot over the top
of them and made an uncontested shot. Even though it's
(37:17):
gonna log as guarded because they're standing there, they weren't
bringing the requisite intensity and disruption to the closeout. Pascal
Siakam hit one I think on Bobby Portos at the
top of the key. Bobby closed out and then just
stood there while Pascal turned and shot right over the
top of him.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I thought the best.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Example of it was Andrew Nemhard's first three of the
second half. So Nemhard HiT's two threes in the late
first half like a It looked like one of Milwaukee's
own possessions where Kuzma came way off of the right
side of the floor and there was a skip to
Nemhart in the corner. He's wide open, knocks it down,
and then he had a switch I think against the
(37:54):
honest if I remember correctly, but he just take took
a step back three from like twenty six feet and
it hits the three over the top. So Nemhart just
hit two threes in a row right before the half,
and I would argue at that point, even if it's
in your game plan to close out short, you need
to start closing out harder first three of the second half,
Andrew Namhart catches in the left corner. Torian rotates and
(38:16):
stands there, like just runs up to in front of
Adrenamhart and just stands there with no contest while Andre
Namhart shoots the three over the top, and I'm like,
I'm like, you guys just aren't ready, like the Bucks
and the Lakers today, not ready for playoff basketball and
ended up getting embarrassed as a result. There is a
level of intensity that this environment brings that you have
to be ready for, and the Bucks just weren't ready
(38:39):
for it tonight. They were like those examples that I gave,
like the Torrian Prince one. There were a half dozen
of those in this game where the closeouts just weren't there,
And like when on the other end of the floor,
Kuzma and Portis are second guessing themselves on the catch
because of the intensity of the closeouts. That's a huge
swing in Indiana's favor. Indie speed was on display everywhere
in transition over and over again, like the Bucks just
(39:02):
not stopping the ball, or like leaving a cutter open.
Milwaukee sharpened that up a little bit in the later
portion of the game, but Indy splitzed them so significantly
that the game was basically over a couple of their
shout outs. I wanted to give to Indy. Miles Turner
badly out playing Brook Lopez. I talked in the series
preview about how pick and pop was going to be
one of the primary actions for both teams, and you
(39:23):
know Joannison Brook, they do lots of different variations of it,
or Brook a roll to the basket more, but like
Brook's gonna pop a lot in ball screens, Miles Turner
popping out of Tyree's Haliburton ball screens is one of
the favorite pet actions for the Pacers, and so the
ability of those guys to score in those situations was
going to dictate the types of coverages that the teams
are allowed to use. Right and Turner out scored him
(39:46):
nineteen to nine actually forced the Bucks into switching some
of the Turner Haliburton pick and rolls or picking pops
in the second half, like he was a huge part
of their success against the zone. Looks like he would
screen the top man, which all allowed the Pacer player
to get into the middle of the floor and if
Brooke was hanging back too much. He would pop if
on plays where Brooke would show high out to the
(40:07):
foul line, then Miles would just cut behind him and
get easy opportunities at the basket. I thought he dominated
that matchup today and it was a huge swing factor
in Indiana's favor. Shakham was great balance scoring, transition out
of the post, spacing the floor, off ball, all of
that balance scoring from all of those guys from Namhard,
from TJ McConnell, from Siakam, from Turner that allowed the
(40:30):
Pacers to survive what was a rough shooting night from
Tyrese Halliburton and like I mean, relatively easily survive a
rough shooting night from Tyre's Halliburton. I want to talk
a little bit about Yannis Yiannis was a wrecking ball.
Early in the game. He was a lot of Yannis
Brooke ball screens where they were just switching, and so
(40:51):
he got a lot of one on one opportunities against
Myles Turner, and he was doing a lot of work
getting to the basket and drawing fouls and getting buckets there.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
But you could tell that he started to realize.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
That some of his role players weren't super comfortable, and
I thought Janis kind of went full hero ball, and
that wasn't the way Yannis was playing over the final
few weeks of the regular season. He was much more
trusting of the kickout passes early in the game. What
I thought was interesting is it looked to me like
Yanna started to run out of gas a little bit
in the late second quarter because he was just these
extreme high degree of difficulty, like just bowling ball type
(41:23):
of drives, started to settle for some jump shots, started
to turn the basketball over a little bit. I think again,
especially as Giannis develops in the future as into more
of a point forward, this is a big part of it.
Like it will serve Jianis well to trust the pass
more early in games.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
These are long games.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
He needs to create a lot of shots over forty
eight minutes, right, and so being more willing to just
take easy reads early in the game will make it
so that he has more gas in the tank to
be more physically aggressive as the game progresses. Not to mention,
you can loosen up the defense by doing that obvious
adjustments from just like I said, for the Lakers, it's
(42:02):
time to show up for the playoffs. You can't look
surprised that the other team is playing super hard. You
need to bring the intensity not just the closeouts, the
other side of the closeouts. You need to be down
in a shooting stands the one where Kyle Kuzma ended
up taking that crazy like spinning three his first three
off the left wing. Go watch Kyle Kuzma before the shot.
He's standing completely upright and he's like twenty seven feet
(42:25):
from the basket. Instead, be down in a shooter's crouch,
ready to go, so that on the catch you can
quickly rise up or quickly rip to the basket one way.
Be ready to go on the catch. That's part of
the intensity. That's part of the mental focus you have
to bring during the postseason. Stop the ball and transition defense.
You want to know why brook Lopez is picking up
(42:45):
Andrew demhard at the rim and getting truck sticked because
no one picked him up before he got to Brook Lopez.
Siakim had won in transition too, where no one picked
him up. There's so many examples where the Bucks just
weren't ready for the intensity of the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Tonight.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
They can guard this team. They held the Pacers scoreless
for more than five straight minutes in the fourth quarter
during a run where they cut the lead to twelve,
and in that run, aj Green got a couple of
clean looks, Bobby Porter's got a clean look. They just
didn't go down. The Bucks were out of gas at
that point. There is a pathway though for them to
be able to guard the Pacers and generate quality shots
(43:19):
on the other end of the floor. They just have
to bring the requisite intensity. Because this game was so
early in the day, I was able to get more
data out for the other games. I'll bring more data
in tomorrow morning's show. But shooting went heavily towards the Pacers.
The Bucks generated twenty nine catch and shoots, the Pacers
generated twenty five catch and shoots. The Bucks got zero
point seven to two points per shot. The Pacers got
(43:40):
one point five to six, So they more than double
them in ketch and shoot efficiency in this game. Again,
that's including unguarded shots, but like we talked about earlier
with the guarded shots, there's a level of execution to that.
In the intensity of the closeouts transition points Indy twenty
six to thirteen. Milwaukee allowed only nine of those twenty
six in the second half. Those they did clean that
up a little bit, but it's worth mentioning Indiana did
(44:03):
win the half court battle, just half court efficiency won
a one to twelve offensive rating for the Pacers, just
a ninety eight offensive rating for the Bucks. So totally
totally dominant performance from the Pacers in game one of
that series. All right, guys, it's all I have for tonight.
It's marathon, not a sprint. We're gonna be back tomorrow
morning with some more film stuff, and then obviously we
(44:24):
got four more games tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
I will see you guys. Then what's up guys?
Speaker 1 (44:28):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, But if
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
The volume
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Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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