ason breaks down the film from day one of the NBA playoffs. He discusses three games including the Lakers taking an ugly loss to the Timberwolves, the Knicks big run against the Pistons, and the Nuggets turnaround against the Clippers.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume.
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The NBA eighty two game grind is done, and now
the real fun begins. The NBA Playoffs aren't here, and
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Speaker 1 (01:45):
Slash audio. All right, well, good hoops tonight you're at
the volume heavy Sunday. Everybody of all.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
You guys are having a great weekend as promised.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
We have a film session today.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I have eighty six clips from three different games.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
To go into.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I have a angry Laker fan film session off the top,
that's like fifty clips long of me just being really
annoyed that the Lakers didn't bring the appropriate playoff intensity.
After that, just some brief clips from the Detroit Pistons
game to demonstrate the difference in the way that Brunson
was attacking versus the way that Cade was attacking that
At the tail end of the show, just some notes
(02:29):
from the Clippers Nuggets series, specifically how Denver upped their
defensive intensity in pick and roll to force the Clippers
into making mistakes. So lots of visual examples of the
stuff that we talked last night in some takeaways looking
forward in the series. You guys are the job before
we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and Not YouTube
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Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLTS. You guysn't misshow announcements.
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Don't forget about a podcast feed where you get your
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we can get to them in our mail bags throughout
the remainder of the year. All right, let's talk some basketball.
(03:13):
So just real quick upfront, just the surface level stuff
with the Lakers game and immediately stood out to me,
just a gap in intensity. I'll show you guys several
examples of just the difference between the way that Minnesota
was attacking each little element of the game in the
way that the Lakers were attacking each little element of
the game. That's why I was so keyed in on
what the first half will look like in Game two,
(03:35):
because in Game two, I thoroughly expect the Lakers to
bring a much higher level of physicality and intensity, and
that will we will get to see a better example
of what the two teams look like in that type
of setting. And that's why if they go into that
game and we go into halftime and the Wolves are
up by five, six points and still kind of in control,
(03:56):
I would take that as a huge sign of concern
for the Lakers. And if the Lakers are as good
as I think they can be, they should take care
of business. That's really, what it keeps coming down to
for me is if the Lakers are the team that
I have thought that they are for most of this
stretch after the All Star Break, they will go into
Game two and they won't just beat Minnesota, They'll control
that game throughout, and I think that'll be a really
(04:17):
strong indicator. I think if it looks rough for the
Lakers out the gates in Game two, that's a really
strong sign that the Wolves are going to get a win.
So let's get into some of these film examples so
that we can start to see exactly the kind of
stuff that I'm talking about. All Right, So in this
first clip, I just wanted to call attention to the
specific matchup of Ruy and Mike Conley. So, as you
(04:40):
can see here, Lebron is going to throw a post
feed to Ruy against Mike Conley, and this is a
textbook example of how not to mismatch attack in the post.
So Ruey's got a small on him here, and as
you can see, as he's attacking, Ant is completely hugged
up on Jackson Hayes, so that Rudy Gobert can help
on the host up. And so Ruy's already accomplished his goal. Here,
(05:03):
he's effectively caused three Wolves to guard two Lakers. All
he needs to do is take one more aggressive dribble
towards the middle and throw this kickout pass to Austin Reeves.
You've done the job. You've taken the mismatch which is
ruy on Mike Conley and turned it into a wide
open three for Austin Reeves. What you can't do is
settle for a highly difficult two point jump shot, and
(05:25):
that's what he does. He settles for a right shoulder fade,
which is a shot he can make, but he's gonna
hit it about forty percent of the time, and that's
a shot that the Wolves are going to live with.
So that was an example of just poor matchup attacking
right out the gates there. This was a thought an
example of just Austin looking a little out of rhythm
early in the game. He's in a ball screen here
(05:46):
with Rudy Gobert going against a drop coverage. He's in
the short range here, but he just leaves this alligator arm.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Floater away short.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I also thought this was an example You'll see several
examples of this in the film where Aunt was just
going right at Austin and really breaking him down off
the dribble, just with really aggressive like counter moves, just
breaks Austin off. He ends up making a bad rim
read here going at Jackson instead of just taking a
kick out read. But that was abundantly clear in the
film that like Austin was really struggling to hang with
(06:18):
Anthony Edwards. I actually thought, even though Ruy struggled in
a bunch of other places which I'll show in the film,
Austin really really struggled in that matchup, and Ruy looked
a little bit better than him. Something to think about
for the matchups throughout the rest of the series. Here's
an example of where Jackson Hayes' vertical spacing was not
much of a factor in this game. In order for
Jackson to play in this lineup, he's got to do
(06:39):
what Derek Lively and Daniel Gafford did, which is be
a legitimate spacing window in the pocket and out of
the dunker spot. This was a simple ball screen with
Lebron and Jackson to a typical drop coverage right, So
Rudy Gobert is defending both the ball handler and the roller.
Lebron hits Jackson in the pocket. He's got the angle,
he's got the advantage. This has to be a make
(07:02):
and Jackson just can't finish over Toy Gobert. That's a
lack of vertical spacing there. Julius Randall, I thought, logged
a lot of really good reps of individual defense against
Luka Doncic and Lebron James. We talked before the series
about how that was going to be an interesting matchup.
This was very good defense from Julius Randall on Luka Doncic,
which I think is encouraging for Wolves fans. That's a
matchup I think they're doing well in. Here's another example
(07:25):
that I'll be pulling that clip up later, switching in
a ball screen and the Lakers looking to attack that
switch with mid range jump shots against again, like.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
If it's Luca.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Luca did really well in his switches against Gobert, but
Lebron and Austin in particular, they were settling for some
really difficult, contested mid range jump shots. It's just not
going to work against these switches. Here is another example
of I thought Austin just looking like he was out
of rhythm and not really ready for the game as
(07:56):
he has this catch here against Jada McDaniels. So look
he's dribbling out against Jada McDaniels. Ruey Hotchimura is standing
against Mike Conley and Austin just for no particular reason
just throws because of Jaden McDaniels applying some ball pressure.
Look at the ball pressure from Jaden. He's up in
his face and Austin just throws the ball away. That's
just not being ready for playoff intensity. Ruy's not going
(08:17):
to do anything with the ball there. You're the point guard.
You need to get the offense organized and get the
guys where they want to where they need to be
to be successful. And that was just panicking against ball pressure.
Here's another example of of Anthony Edwards just doing a
ton of damage right at the point of attack with
aggressive counter moves. Look at this, so he gets sets
up like he's gonna come off the ball screen. Watch
(08:38):
the way he just rips to the left on Gabe.
That forces hard help out of the strong side corner
and then generates a wide open three for Dante DiVincenzo.
A lot of that from ant where he's just like
immediately breaking down the Lakers right off the top of
the possession. Same sort of thing here against Ruy Hatchamura.
Ruy Hatchamura touches the earth here. This was a ridiculous move,
(09:00):
a series of switches Ruy's on Ant. He had some
good reps on Ant in this game. This was not
one of them. Boom boom, just on the ground. But
as you can see, it's like he's coming so hard
downhill towards the rim. There are so many more easy
opportunities for Ant off of those super aggressive dribble moves.
When he breaks you down, that that significantly. You have
(09:22):
to find a way to flatten out that drive, make
it not so clearly devastating to your defense. This was
an example of just Ant taking easy reads that were
in front of him. So he's just driving at Rui, right,
But look at where Gabe is. Gabe is at the nail. Right,
Gabe's at the nail. He drives as Nas cuts through.
Look where Luca is, And I thought Luca made a
(09:43):
lot of poor help decisions like this. So look at
the paint. We have five lakers that are at or
near the paint, right, Luca doesn't need to be this
far in on a simple kickout read like this, especially
when there's all of this help already easy kickout pass
to Jada McDaniels and he knocks it down. I kind
of unders should that one, at least from the standpoint
of the game plan. But you'll see some examples later
(10:03):
everyones that I don't agree with. They got a really
clean look here for Luca after using Luca as a screener.
Jaden McDaniels really did not want to switch off of
Luca if he could avoid it. So this is something
I think the Lakers should explore a lot in Game two,
is just using Luca as a screener on the screen.
He breaks Dante off so bad that Jayden has to switch.
(10:24):
Then they both run with Austin and that ends up
giving Luca wide open three at the top of the key.
Something to keep an eye on. This is actually a
different example from earlier in the game one of the
first possessions where Lucas had a screen for Lebron, same
sort of thing. Look, we have a top lock from
Jada McDaniels. He does not want to switch Lucas. Hats
a good screen that gets Lebron downhill against Rudy. If
(10:45):
Jackson was paying attention instead of spotting up at the
three point line and cut. If you to cut just
a second earlier, this is a dunk, but because he
was late, the window closed up on him. Lebron settles
for that tough well. Lebron ends up throwing the lob,
but it just was too late for that to ever
have worked. Another example I thought of the Lakers just
not being ready for playoff intensity. Look at Nasried coming
off the screening action. It's a clear switch, right, They're
(11:07):
clearly thinking it's a switch. But nas Reed is a
very good offensive player that's gonna look to be aggressive
and try to score. He attacks and Rudy meets him
way down at the foul line in a passive open stance,
and Naz just goes right through him to the rim.
Like that's just not playoff intensity from Ruey Haachimura defensively.
Very similar example from earlier in the game. Jackson in
(11:28):
a switch with Lebron. So Lebron is guarding Julius Randall,
Jackson's guarding Mike Conley. It's an easy switch, but look
at how far back Jackson as both of them are
way far back and they're basically just conceding that shot.
You can see the difference between that and the way
that they're pressing up on every Lakers player.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
In that situation.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I will say, even though I didn't think the Austin
or Lebron attacks against the Bigs were working, Luca was
doing a good job against the Bigs and switches.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
This was working that.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Luca versus Rudy Gobert, He's able to just get him
off balance enough to get down into the paint where
he can hit his little short range shots or break
the defense down.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
That was working.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Here's another example of Ruy just lacking that playoff intensity.
So it's a transition push right, Rui's just backpedaling. Watch
Dorian Phinney Smith. He's already pointing. Ruey's pointing for everybody
to pick up the ball or pick up the other players,
because Dorian thinks he's got go bear right, see pointing.
He points again, but Ruy's just not ready and An
gets a wad up and layup. Watch Ruiy again on
(12:27):
this whole possession, just backpedaling doesn't stop the ball.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That's like that.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
This is a this isn't this is an important playoff game.
You lose Game one of the series. You lose the
series about seventy five percent of the time. Look at
Ruey Hachamura, this is just not ready for playoff basketball.
That's unseerious and like that. That's that happened to Ruey
last year in the Denver series. It came into the
series and just looked completely unready for playoff intensity. So
(12:51):
Ruey just needs to wake up. He needs to figure
it out sooner than later. Here's another screen, a little
screen action.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Look at how.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Luca does not actually make contact with Austin this time
and as a result, or with Ant this time, so
as a result, the action doesn't actually work right. Austin
then gets Rudy Gobert in a switch. So now we
have the switch, right, We have Austin against Rudy in
a switch. But like I talked about earlier, Austin and
Lebron were just settling for some pretty low quality shots.
This is a really tough shot. Austin might hit that
forty five percent of the time maybe, and that's just
(13:20):
not gonna be a shot that Minnesota is gonna really
care about. Similar example from earlier in the game. I
told you guys, I was gonna bring this clip back.
This is Lebron in a switch against Gobert on the
left side of the floor. Same sort of thing, ball
screen switch. Minnesota's gonna live with this.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
They're not.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You're not gonna You're not gonna beat the Timberwolves taking
contested mid range jump shots.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Over Rudy Gobert.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Look at this screen form ruiy Ha Chamura. He goes
to set the screen for Luca, but look doesn't make contact.
That's that's a bullshit screen. These are bullshit screens. He's
not actually helping get his man open. He's got to
He's got to hit Jaden that The only way you're
going to create those openings is if you actually make
contact on the screens.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Lebron.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
The Keel Alexander Walker this year is shooting forty six
percent field goal percentage forty six percent on unguarded catch
and shoot jump shots. Lebron has Nikayle Alexander Walker right now,
if you're locked in mentally, you know you're guarding a
forty six percent wide open shooter, you cannot be sinking
this far into the lane. He just concedes it to
Nikaile Alexander Walker and he knocks it down. That's really
(14:24):
bad defense that is lacking playoff intensity. I thought this
was an example of just kind of like foreshadowing the
bad process we saw from Lebron later in the game
attacking Bigs. When Lebron attacks Bigs in Switches, he doesn't
have speed against them anymore because he's too old, and
he doesn't have size against them anymore because he's you know,
(14:44):
going against biggs, right, so he gets nasried. This is
not a favorable matchup. I don't like this matchup for Lebron,
and what does he end up doing walks him down,
ends up taking this super contested floater that has no
chance of going in. Lebron is not going to successfully
beat bigs and Switches anymore. He's not good enough over
the top shooter at really at any point in his career,
and at this phase in his career, he doesn't have
(15:05):
the speed to be going against Bigs and Switches like that.
And you'll see a lot of that when we get
into the mid second quarter when the Wolves start to
go on their run. This is something for Minnesota to
continue to exploit throughout the series. As we can see,
we have an action here set up with Austin and
Mike Conley and naseried on Jared Vanderbilt actions that involved
a guard and a forward. The Lakers were not switching,
(15:29):
at least not switching readily. They were switching after the fact,
peel Off switching like hesitantly switching right, and the Wolves
were able to get a lot of easy openings just
kind of baked into the coverage. So as you can
see here we have Austin and Vando off the ball
here actually I'm talking about this action here on the
left side. So we have Dorian Finney Smith on Julius Randall,
(15:50):
and we have Gabe Vincent chasing to kill Alexander Walker.
But they are not switching, and so as a result,
they're able to get an a kil going downhill towards
the rim because of that baked in drive that comes
from the curl. Here's another example from earlier in the game,
same sort of thing. As you can see, Gabe is
chasing over the top on Dante and Lucas in like
(16:10):
a drop coverage. So as a result, nas Reed is
basically the pick and pop big who's always wide open,
and he's able to get this layup. He just happens
to smoke it. But these are examples of opportunities for
the Wolves. If they run any action with a guard
and one of their forwards, they're getting a lot of
these baked in openings that come from the Lakers not switching.
One of the big adjustments I have for the Lakers
(16:32):
for Game two is just switch everything, like just actually
literally switch everything, because those sorts of openings are giving
runways to better athletes than you. Same exact thing here,
nas Reed misses a three, but it's the same type
of action you'll see. I believe it's with Dante as well.
So once again we have a guard and a forward
ball screen. For some reason, they're not switching. Nas Reed
(16:54):
is open. He just happens to miss that. They again,
that's a peel off switch, says. You can see the
Lakers are switching it, but not intentionally, they're switching it reactively.
So Gabe went over the screen and then was like,
oh shit, I should switch and then get back. That's
where the opening is. If you just cleanly switched that
from the start of the possession, you can take away
that opening. I thought Jaden McDaniels showed a lot of
(17:16):
really impressive scoring ability yesterday. Here's an example attacking Austin
Reeves in the post. This is a tough left shoulder
fade over the top. He did a lot of really
high level scoring last night. More confusion from the Lakers
as to whether or not they want to switch with
their forward, same sort of thing Conley and nasried Vando
looks completely unprepared for the drive coming off the screen,
(17:37):
Like if this is a clean switch, then Vanda will
close out on Connolly and engage the ball, but instead
look at him.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
He's pointing.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
He's like, he's like, oh shit, switch and it just
caught him off guard. They're just not ready, and so
that was a little game plan thing that Minnesota did
a lot of work exploiting in the first half, particularly
just the clean openings because the Laker's not switching with
their forwards. Another example of Austin just clearly being out
of rhythm. This is a shot that you will never
(18:05):
see Austin miss, Like he probably shoots ninety five percent
on floaters inside of like this distance, and he just
alligator armed it the time. Austin and Lebron have both
always been rhythm players, and they both have always struggled
after time off, and they get a week off and
they both just look completely unprepared for the game.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Last night.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
This was an example of the Lakers. I talked last
night about how it seemed like to the game plan
for me that the Lakers were just leaving Nazri to
open and treating him the way you would treat a
Jaden McDaniels or Julius Randall, and I thought that was
a mistake.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Here's another example of that. All right, so we have
a post up.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Julius is on Lebron right, Lebron can guard Julius Randall.
Julius can hit a tough shoulder left shoulder fade away
or right shoulder fade away over him, but he's not
going to like bully that matchup. What you're doing here,
Jared Vanderbilt, is you're making life extremely easy for Julius
Randall because Julius Randall has Lebron James, and instead of
having just score on Lebron James, you're allowing him to
(19:02):
just rifle a simple swing pass to a very good
shooter who knocks it down. Nas red by the way,
forty four percent on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots.
It goes down to twenty nine percent when you guard him.
So that is like a very simple game plan piece
that I'm tying more to JJ Reddick just because I
saw so many different defenders make that same mistake last night.
(19:26):
As a game plan adjustment for Game two. You can't
treat Nasrid the way you treat Jaden McDaniels. That's going
to burn you if you do that. In this series,
this was a very clean look for Lebron and pick
and pop. These are shots that Lebron's going to have
to hit in this matchup, simple ball screen. Conley's chasing
what's always open in the pick and pop, what's always
(19:47):
open against the drop coverage the pick and pop. Lebron
just has to hit that shot. Here's an example of
Jaden McDaniels just beating the Lakers to the ball on
the other end of the floor. So as you can see,
Julius Randall takes the three in Lebron's face. We have
four Lakers surrounding Jaden McDaniels, and Jaden McDaniels beats everyone
to the ball. Now, this is where I want to
get on Vando because it's like, Vando, the reason why
(20:08):
you're out here, literally, the weird reason why you're on
the court is what you can do defensively, and on
the glass, shot is in the air. Jaden and Jared
are more or less in the same position, like Jayden
and Vanda are both in position to get this rebound.
The difference is Jaden fought for position and went for it.
Vando did it until it was too late, and Jaden
(20:28):
got an easy put back.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
That's really over and over again.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
You'll see in these examples there's just a level of
playoff intensity that Minnesota was bringing that the Lakers were
not matching. I thought, Lebron, you know, just instead of
just measured and slowly and methodically attacking Smalls, He's got
seven seconds here against Nikaile Alexander Walker, slow the fuck down,
back him down, get to one of your right shoulder
(20:52):
fades at like seven feet. Instead, he just drives in
panics and throws a jump pass to Jackson, who's not
really that open, like nas Reed is there, and so
it ends up being kind of a tough angle and
once again Jackson Hayes not really providing any vertical spacing.
Here's another example of the Laker's not wanting to switch
with their fours, like we talked about, so we got
(21:12):
a ball screen not switching, which allows Jaden McDaniels to
take a drop coverage mid ranger. But look at how
every Laker just stands around and watches Jaden McDaniels go
get his own rebound, Like, like, what's Lebron doing there? Like,
if you're gonna be in a drop, you got to
get the rebound. But everyone's just standing around and watching
(21:34):
Jada McDaniels get it. Look at Ruie, Look at Rui's intensity.
Jaden just beats him.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
To the ball.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Like it almost just looked like the Lakers just were
a step slow to everything in the entire game with
their intensity. Here's another like example of that lack of intensity.
So here's a post entry against Jaden McDaniels. But like,
look at how lazy Austin is on this pass. Look
at this pass from Austin. He just turns and tries
(22:02):
to throw it and it gets deflected by that's Jaden McDaniels.
You're gonna have to make a pass fake and you're
gonna have to like find an angle to make a
post entry. Instead it gets deflected, and now Lebron's attacking
to kill further out Now, for example, This is the
exact same play that I just showed you. Seven seconds left,
Nikkeiel Alexander Walker. Lebron finally turns his back and just
(22:25):
backs him down, gets to that easy right shoulder fade
for eight feed, fucking knocks it down and gets the
foul like this. This is basic execution stuff to improve
your chances of winning in this matchup, like Austin pass fake,
make a post entry. You have to be very disciplined
against this length that Minnesota has. Lebron, your advantage is
(22:45):
your size and strength. It is not over the top shooting.
It is not trying to use your speed against Biggs.
You are too big for these little dudes. That's your advantage.
Playoff intensity. Watch the shot go up, watching Nikil al
Xander Walker. All these Lakers are in here right, Lebron's
down here, Luka Doncic is in here. Nikhil Alexander Walker
(23:08):
is going to lead a runout fast break for an
easy bucket while Lebron and Luke are completely uninvolved. Watch
this look at that. That's not playing playoff basketball. Nikhil
Alexander Walker is just outworking every single one of you guys.
Once again, Austin Reeves setting a screen on Dante DiVincenzo.
If you're playing playoff basketball, you are hitting Dante DiVincenzo
(23:31):
and you are creating separation for Luca. You tell me
what happens here. Dante hit Austin and Austin didn't hold
his ground. That is lacking playoff intensity. As a result,
Dante's able to stay attached throughout the ball screen and
he's able to strip Luca before he can go up
into the shot. That is on Austin for not setting
a good screen. And by the way, look at Lebron
(23:52):
makes an effort in transition. What happens. He was in
the corner. Look he's in the deep corner, and he's
able to get back into this play because he's making
an ef F in transition. Now, am I asking Lebron
to make seventeen chase down blocks a game? No, But
if the team makes the efforts in transition, you can
keep them under control in the transition game. Minnesota won
(24:12):
the transition game twenty three to ten. In this game,
that's not gonna cut it. This is where the wheels
really started to come off for the Lakers in the
second Tell me what you guys notice here we have
Ruby Achimura standing wide open at the top of the
key with an opportunity to take a wide open trailer
three in transition, which is a three he's practiced a
million times, and instead he goes, I'm gonna try to
(24:34):
dunk on Rudy Gobert, and that goes about exactly as
you would have expected it. All right, This was an
example I talked last night about Luca losing some basic
defensive rebound battles. So like, Luca is ignoring nas Reid here,
which once again, like we talked about in the game plan,
is silly. But as he's ignoring nas Reid, Anthony Edwards
takes one of his like forced shots in the game,
which he didn't take too many of, but he took
a few. You got to get this rebound, then, Luca, like,
(24:56):
if you're gonna ignore nas read down here, you gotta
get this rebound instead. As it came off, Luca didn't
go get the ball, so Ant got it. Look at
where the ball fell. The ball fell right to where
Luca should have got it, but he didn't. So now
you've left Nasrid open, failed to get the defensive rebound,
and now Nasried is open. On the offensive rebound kick
out for three. Like, that's a huge momentum play in
(25:18):
this game. You get a stop there, you go the
other way. He scores a three point game instead, Now
you're down by eight because you're just not matching the
intensity of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Lebron just attacking bigs. Okay,
you got Nazrie, this is not your matchup. There's a
small right there you can attack. There's a small right
there you can attack. There are two guys on the
floor that you can easily get to the post and
(25:38):
get an easy bucket against. Instead, he tries to go
at Naserie, doesn't turn the corner on him and gets blocked.
That leads to run out the other way. The Timberwolves
get a layup. Okay, go down to the other end.
Exact same thing, except for this time it's Rudy. So
once again we're they're pre switching to get Nikhil Alexander
Walker up into the action. This is what's crazy, So
like they're deliberately intention only.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Going after the bigs.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Look at this, They pre switched Nikhil Alexander Walker on
too Ruy to save Rudy Gobert from having to defend
on the switch, saying, Lebron, if you want to attack Nikkeiel,
go ahead, and instead they're like, oh shit, it's not
there anymore. So Dorian Finney Smith runs up Ruby gets
out that way they can run the two man games
to get Lebron switched on to Rudy. He gets Lebron
(26:22):
switched on to Rudy, and this is going to go
exactly like it does every other time. Lebron is going
to drive into the person not be able to turn
the corner and get blocked at the rim. This, by
the way, led to another runout for another wide open
corner three for Nazrid that went in so like multiple
repeated foolish attacks with a stupid game plan that just
(26:45):
played right into Minnesota's hands, like literally played right into
Minnesota's hands, giving them easy transition runouts because you're just
playing stupid basketball on offense. And this is I want
to blame this on Lebron specifically because I've heard I've
heard JJ talk about how he wants them to attack
smalls in tight spaces, not bigs in space. He's fine
(27:08):
with Luca doing it. Lebron and Austin that that's not
their game. They don't need to be attacking Rudy Gobaer
in space. That's not an arrangement that's gonna work for them.
There's another example of a defensive rebound that Luca just
should have got, but he just didn't go get the basketball,
seat goes up, Luca's got inside position and everything just
doesn't make any contact, and Nazrie comes in and bats
(27:29):
it out.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Ball stays with Minnesota.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Here's another example of Julius Randall defending Luka Doncic really well,
so we get a switch. Julius Randall did really well
on these switches. Man, this is really good defense. Look
at him sliding the feet. Look another thing too, Look
at how he's stabbing at the basketball. This is how
you can disrupt rhythm. Look at how often he's like
stabbing at the basketball, just like reaching, stabbing, reaching, stabbing,
just making sure to disrupt the rhythm as best as
(27:52):
he can. That's really quality individual defense from Julius Randall.
Here's another example of the Lakers over helping off of Naserie.
So you get a screen action that gets the switch.
Look at how many bodies already in the paint. So
Julius is driving at Luka Doncic, Lebron's in position to help,
gave Vincent's there. This is the strong side corner. You
do not help here, and the game plan has consistently
(28:15):
been Gabe is the guy that's hopping across the lane
line and meeting you here. This is really fucking bad defense.
You just allowed Julius Randall to make the easiest passing
read in the history of mankind because you vacated the
strongside corner to help on a situation that didn't need help.
That like, that's just really fucking terrible defense. Luca just
giving up a simple backcut to Anthony Edwards. A lot
(28:38):
of Luca leaving his feet in this game and getting
out of position, like jumping at ball fakes and stuff
like that, just undisciplined. Here's Lebron again, attacking a big
in space. He makes this one, but it's like, this
is what you're gonna get. You're gonna get these like
semi contested mid range jump shots. He's just not gonna
make enough of those for that to be a worthwhile
method for them to attack. Here's an example of the
(28:59):
Wolf was just beating every Laker to the ball again,
so the ball shot goes up.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Let's see we got all. If you looked at this.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Situation, you would think the Lakers are in an advantageous
position for rebounding Rui's inside position on Jaden Lebron's inside
position on Nas Durians and the paint. All these three
wolves are way out here. Watch how much quicker the
wolves are to the ball. That's just that's not fighting.
You think you're gonna get the trophy by not like
fighting and competing, You're you're never going to get the
(29:27):
trophy without fighting or competing.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Look at Gabe.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Watch Gabe when the rebound goes up, still hasn't moved,
still walking. These guys are already shooting towards the ball.
That's like everybody needs to be swarming the way that
the wolves are swarming. Then your skill advantages can take place.
But they're not gonna take place if you get so
badly outworked like that. Remember when I said Austin wasn't
(29:51):
setting good fucking screens.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Watch this one. Watch the difference Boom.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Lays the wood actually hits him, holds his ground, leverage
his body sets a good screen. Now look at what
happens as a result. The entire Wolves defense reacts to
the advantage that Luca created there and it generates a
wide open three for Austin. Now he bricks it because
he's still out of rhythm. And I think Luca missed
the read a little bit there. He should have hit
him earlier. But again, that's that is what happens. When
(30:20):
you meet the intensity of the moment and you set
a good physical screen, you can get openings even against
good defense. And frankly, if you do that every time
down the floor, it'll be much easier for you to
get into a rhythm. First possession of the second half,
Let's see if the Lakers took the adjustment properly at
the just you know, all of the ass chewing that
(30:42):
JJ was delivering at halftime, Let's see if they took
it seriously. First possession, we get a ghost screen, so
this should just be a switch. Instead, it's not. They
fuck it up again and Austin looks confused as to
what's happening. Ruey looks confused, and Ant just drives right downhill,
easy kick out to Jada McDaniels. Why is that not
just a switch? Why isn't Ruy just closing out on Ant?
(31:04):
And Austin closing out to Conley, like like that's a
way to shut down these easy driving lanes that are appearing.
All right, just a few more from this game. Look
at Ruey hatch Mura's defense on Anthony Edwards. Here we
get another couple switches. Now what look at how on
the switch you've got you you're guarding Anthony Edwards on
(31:26):
a switch and you're not in a defensive stance. You're
standing completely upright, and so you can probably guess what's
gonna happen next, and it goes right around him. Like
that's not basketball, that's not playoff intensity, that's not basketball.
But you are standing upright, not even in a defensive
stance on Anthony fucking Edwards, Like are you kidding me?
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Right now?
Speaker 2 (31:46):
As I told you guys, this is gonna be an
angry like er fan film session. And then Lebron, like
Lebron on this possession. If you're not going to be
in there like helping on the drive or rebounding, then
you can't be leaving you Uleius Randall open, so he's
just standing around, doesn't get the rebound, and it gets
his own rebound, and there's Julius Randall wide open, that
(32:07):
three goes in, guys, that three goes in on a
possession where Lebron did the exact same thing Luca did
on the nas Reid three in the first half, where
you're standing in no man's land in the paint, not defending,
not rebounding, conceding a wide open three.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
I did think these.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Luca post ups of Jaden McDaniels worked pretty well. This
is a look I think the Lakers can continue to
go through go to throughout the series. Jaden McDaniels talked
about last night how when Jackson Hayes was off the floor,
it just felt like there were easier opportunities for him
to get to the rim. This is an example of
excellent weak side scoring from a forward. So we have
the close out the closeouts there right, so the three
(32:44):
is taken away. Jaden's move his read here is to
rack baseline and try to get all the way to
the rim, and he does. That's not Jackson Hayes, it's
Luka Dancaje at the rim and he's able to finish
him over him easily. Here's another example of Austin just
making like a sloppy post entry pass and turning it
over like these are just like so many unforced errors
(33:05):
because the Lakers just weren't ready for the intensity of
the moment. Laker's still not switching, so that creating just
easy openings. Once again, why is that not a switch?
As a result, there's an easy corner for Dante DiVincenzo
to turn. Look as he's coming around Van Doo's in
a drop, Austin's chasing, so there's this easy driving lane
(33:27):
causing Luca to sink into the paint. Also make Dante
Devincenzo and Rudy Gobert connect on the lob here. This
is another example of Luca over helping off of nasried
and then I just thought this was a really, really
impressive pass from Anthony Edwards. So Anthony Edwards had just
seen as the team out of the off ball screen,
just generated a look for Nazrid that he made, so
(33:49):
he knows nazrij just made a shot. So we're gonna
get a ball screen here with Nas and he's gonna
attack Luca in the switch. And as he attacks Luca,
look at how he reads Jared. He sees Van Dog
ignoring Nas once again, the Lakers ignoring Nas to help,
just not the right guy for them to be ignoring.
Jared needs to just either signal to Dorian Finney Smith
to stay with Nas and then him sit in the paint,
(34:10):
or all these other guys need to be helping. It
can't be Nas and then as a result to be
a Vando helping at the rim, in Ant makes just
a really nice feed to Nazria in the corner and
knocks it down.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
So again, like I want to be clear, the Wolves
kick their ass, and the Wolves.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Demonstrated that they have some advantages in this series, but
I also thought there were just like dozens of obvious
examples of the Lakers just looking like they were unprepared
for playoff basketball. The Bucks in the Lakers were the
two teams I watched yesterday that looked utterly blindsided by
the intensity of the moment.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
And so here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
The Wolves might just be better than the Lakers, and
that might bear out over the course of the series,
but in Game two, I think we'll get a better
feel of just how big that gap is one way
or the other when the Lakers bring the appropriate intensity,
because there's just a level that they have to get
to that they were just completely unready for in this game.
All right, I have six clips from the Piston's nixt game.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Let's get to that real quick.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I talked about how the Piston should have leaned into
Isaiah Stewart more it looks like it was an injury
related thing. As you can see, this was Campaign's first
bucket of the run. Really nice left to right crossover
on Malik Beasley. But watch Isaiah Stewart in his reaction time,
really slow moving fouls him and then watch him limping after.
So Stu just apparently couldn't go physically, So that just
(35:28):
kind of puts you in a tough spot. If he's
not able to go physically, then that means it's going
to be a lot of Duran, and Duran obviously comes
with his own shortcomings. Here's an example of Brunson finding
the matchup that he liked. So we get a screen
to get us ar Thompson and then you're gonna see
og and Obe come up into the action. Notice how
methodical br Brunson is to get the matchup he wants.
There he goes now he's got his match up with
eight seconds left, uses the double cross to get inside
(35:50):
position on Tobias and knock down the floater. I talked
about how Tim Hardaway Junior missed like a wide open
look during the run, so did Malik Beasley. This is
that miss, but on the transition push, look who Jalen
Brunson sees in front of him, sees Tobias Harris that
little semi transition attack gets by him and draws the
end one. I thought this was one of the really
(36:10):
impressive defensive plays that Cat made down the stretch. So
we have a double ball screen here, double drag that
he gets split, So he has a gets split at
the point of attack and Kay gets all the way
into the paint, but Josh Hart steps up in help,
which forces him to drop the ball off to Jalen Dura.
Look at the effort Cat makes to get back into
the play and disrupt during at the rim and force
the miss. You can make up for a lot of
(36:32):
your shortcomings if you just rotate and then I want
this is where I want you guys to see the
difference in the execution.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
So I just showed you, guys.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
An example of Brunson methodically working to the spot against
the player that he wants and getting a good matchup
and going to work. Here's the difference, six point thirty
four left one oh three to ninety eight. This game
is very much in the balance. It is thirteen to
oh the Knicks run. You need your ball handler to
(37:00):
make a good decision to get this game back under control.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
What does he do? No?
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Nothing, just goes right at oj Ananobe. No attempt to
try to get a favorable matchup, no attempt to try
to bring Brunson into the action. He just goes down
on Ananobe, turns his back, and then here he's trying
to post up a players bigger than stronger, bigger and
stronger than him, and as he tries to power through
with his right shoulder, og wins the battle and forces
the turnover. And it's like, here's the thing. Is that
(37:25):
technically by the book of foul, sure, but that that
kind of thing gets let go all the time in
the playoffs, And you're not doing yourself any favors by
attacking the Knick's best perimeter defender without any attempt to
try to get him off of you. And that it's fine.
Kate is going to figure that stuff out. My guess
is were watching Kate in the playoffs three years from now.
He's the guy asking for three guard guard screens to
(37:45):
get a matchup he wants in a big spot like this.
But this is part of the growth and this is
why teams like the Pistons don't win the series like
this in NBA history. And then this was another example
of Kate just kind of like panicking under the ball pressure.
So Jalen Duran's open on this slip, but look at
this ball pressure from Kat just gets up and pressures
the ball and forces the turnover. Kate had three turnovers
(38:07):
in this run. All right, let's get to Denver Clippers
fun one here. I got about like twenty six clips
twenty seven clips from this game, and then we'll be done.
So Denver comes out of the time out. This is
the timeout that I talked about where Denver really picked
up their defensive intensity. So the Clippers get a buckets
fifty one to thirty six. We're halfway through the second quarter.
This is an example of Yokic kind of forcing the
(38:28):
issue like I talked about. So this is a design play,
little cross screen for Yokic coming across from Gordon. But
notice how on the catch he just powers through Zoo
No matter what. This is a I've made up my mind,
I'm going to the rim kind of play. I thought
Yokic did a really nice job of mixing that in
with him taking the easy reads that were available to
keep the Clippers honest. This is the very first defensive possession. Okay,
(38:48):
so this is out of the time out. Look at
the ball pressure from Yokic and the ball pressure from Gordon.
We're up on the ball, we're pressuring, We're making them uncomfortable.
Gordon's up on him. This is this is how you
can at least make them a little bit more uncomfortable. Now,
Kawhi still breaks free, but we get a contest. It's
a miss. Just making them uncomfortable is going to make
them more likely to miss and more likely to make mistakes.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
I thought this action worked really well.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
There were a lot of opportunities that were there for
the Nuggets because of hardened guarding Gordon, offensive rebounds in
crunch time, where Gordon was able to take advantage plays
like this with an inside seal. So notice Gordon's not
screening Zoo with the intention of getting Yokic downhill because
he knows it's going to be a switch. So what
he's doing is he screens his bottom side and noticees
(39:34):
quickly getting inside position, so that Jokic when he comes off,
just has to see Harden get on inside of Gordon.
As soon as Harden ends up on the inside of Gordon,
the lob is there. Watch there, boom, Yokic sees it.
Now it's inside position. Easy lobb to Gordon. I think
there's a lot of opportunity for the Nuggets to explore
that Jokic Gordon two man game to attack Harden. Here's
(39:56):
an example of one of the botched sequences that I
was talking about with the Clippers. I talked a lot
last night about how the Clippers would get these like
simple reading and react sequences and just not pay it off.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Here's an example.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
So we have a ball screen with Hardin and Zoo
two on the ball, Zoo's on the roll, both low
men react, Zoo actually makes the right read, but it
just gets fumbled.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
And that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
But look at on the fumble, look at the effort
to get back after the two guys, Tag Brown and
Porter Junior both react and so that little fumble ends
up being enough for these guys to get back into
the play.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Same thing.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Zoo ends up catching on the next pass, but they
pressure him and he smokes the layup again. Like the
Clippers will botch some of this stuff if you rush them,
if you make them uncomfortable. But if you don't bring
that requisite level of defensive rotation and activity, they're gonna
pick you apart. Same sort of thing here. Look at
the ball pressure from Jokic at the level. This is
(40:51):
something that Jokicic has been terrible at the tail end
of the season. But watch the ball pressure. Jokicic just
attacks Powell and makes contact, which leads to a swing
pass Powell. Instead of trying to compromise the defense, Palell
just got rid of the ball. Why did you just
get rid of the ball because Jokic pressured him. Then
Kawhi ends up making a mistake throwing into the passing
Liane to Christian Brown, Jokic just literally pressuring the ball
(41:13):
caused the Clippers to pee down their leg Like That's
what I was trying to talk about last night. I
talk about how there's a bracket in ball screens. You
need to apply pressure from the front and from behind.
This is a great example of that. Watch Christian Brown
is attached to Norman Powell. Jokic is at the level.
Active with his hands, forces a deflection. When these guys
do this, they raise their defensive floor to being okay
(41:36):
on defense, which is enough for their great offense to
carry them over the top. These are the things they
weren't doing to finish the season. Second half, same sort
of thing. Look at the efforts and pick and roll defense,
pressure in the ball. Yokic is at the level. Yokic
at the level. Again, look at the activity we've pressured
the ball where they're on the catch, We're making the rotations.
Look at the effort that Jokic makes to get back
(41:57):
into the play. All of a sudden it's gone. Look
at that Clippers botched it. This should be an easy dunk,
right drop off. This should be such an easy sequence
like drop off done, should get a dunk here. The
Clippers will botch these sequences if you apply the appropriate pressure.
See that, just again, they're open. The openings are there.
Harden's able to turn the corner and pick and roll.
(42:19):
But just because the effort, Look, they get back to Jokic,
or they get back to Zubots and just pressure him
a little bit and get him to miss lay up.
You just have to bring that requisite level of defensive intensity.
Another good pick and roll defense rep for the Nuggets.
Look ball pressure Yokich at the level to the Clippers credit,
(42:39):
they made a really nice play here, but you made
it more difficult. Look at the tightness of the window
that Harden has to fit this pass through. He just
happens to. They tag the roller really nicely. Zoo just
makes an unbelievable shot. But notice out of all those sequences,
they scored on that one, but they didn't on the
others because you've made it difficult. And so on the
difficult shots. Zoo, who goes one for two instead of
(43:02):
you know, a higher percentage. That's how you can play
them into two worse outcomes Morgan. Pick and roll defense
from Denver here, Boom at the level. Yo Kich is
active with his hands. They're pressuring the ball. These openings
are there, but it's harder to get them. They end
up throwing to Zoo. He's already tagged. Zoo sees Powell
(43:23):
cutting along the baseline, but Murray does just enough to
distract him there, and it ends up the advantage is
completely gone now and they can play it into a tough,
contested corner three like that. That's really good defense. Yo,
kitchen pick and roll gets a steal with activity with
his hands, ball screen active hands steal like It's like
(43:46):
night and day watching Denver's defense down the stretch of
this game. Compared to what it looked like in the
last few months of the season, this bench group for
the Clippers really struggled to create space for Kawhi Leonard.
They were just basically double teaming him and not worrying
about Ben Simmons, and Kawhi just wasn't handling it very well.
Kaui ended up having I think seven turnovers in this game.
Not a great Quhi playmaking game. Like we talked about
(44:08):
before the series, same sort of thing here. As you
can see, we're gonna get to Kawhi Iso against Peyton Watson.
Notice how they're just shading into the driving lanes right,
And because they're shading into the driving lanes, Kawhi doesn't
have the space to really drive, and so he has
to settle for this contested mid range jump shot that
doesn't go in. It's just tough with Derek Jones and
(44:29):
Ben Simmons out there. They just don't have the shooting
necessary to really create space for Kawhi.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
In that lineup. Zubots defended Jokic really well in the post.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
We talked a lot about that in the series preview,
about how that was going to be something that the
the Nuggets might not go to very much. And Jokic
actually did try to post up Zoo quite a few
times to not much effect. But in crunch time he
got a good one here. And notice he just methodically
slowly dislodged Zoo and got to a really high quality look.
So he can score against Zoo. He just needs to
(44:58):
be more methodical with it. Settle for that jump shot.
This is where Christian Brown could do damage to James Harden.
Notice James Harden is guarding Brown, but he's just not
paying attention. Just a simple backside cut there. Harden's not
doing anything easy lay up for Brown. Here's another great example.
Pick and roll bracket coverage. Right, so we're over the top,
but look at how everyone's attached. Christian Brown was attached
(45:20):
over the top, which forced Harden to rush his drive.
Jokic meets him at the level Harden ends up fumbling
it out of bounds. Just do enough defensively and the
Clippers will pee down their leg. They're not a great
playmaking team. Here's another example of Kawhi not really handling
the double team. Well, go to Christian Brown, double comes,
the flash is open.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
I'll show you guys.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
So here comes the double from Gordon, dribbles away from
the double flashes open right now. All Kawhi has to
do is be aware that that's his read in rifle
a bounce pass right there, and he's created a three
on two where Jamal Murray's gonna have to either take
away a dunk from Zoo or corner three from Batoomb.
But instead Kawhi just does and see the flash and
ends up throwing a swing pass to the corner to
(46:02):
someone who's not open, and but Tom has to try
to basically rescue them with a bailout shot that he misses.
I thought this was just a really impressive physical battle
that Russell Westbrook won against Kawhi.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Leonard in the.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Down on the block, so he gets inside position on Kawhi,
shot goes up. Watch him just win the battle. Look
at him shove Kawi down. He just shoves Kawhi right
in the middle of his back and then gets offensive
rebound in the put back. He just won the physical
battle there. Not an easy guy to win that battle
against either. Here's another example of the Clippers peeing down
their leg in a short roll sequence. So we get
(46:35):
two on the ball hard and makes a nice speed
The tag is there, but Toom is open. All but
Tom has to do here is take a reverse layup.
Take a reverse layup here and it's an easy bucket,
but instead he drops it off to Derek Jones and
throws a little bit of a funky pass. Notice the
pass is just a little off target, like down into
Derek Jones's left I talked about this so much on
the show last night, like so many of these sequences
(46:56):
were just slightly botched by the Clippers because they're just
a little slight in their connective playmaking. Derek Jones ends
up missing that little hook shot. But again to Denver's credit,
I want to show that one more time. Watch Denver's
defense on the possession. Watch just the level of rotation
and how it plays them into that mistake. So, for instance,
like Russ throws a good hard tag, Gordon does rotate
(47:18):
that rotation from Gordon and Murray causes Nick Patom to
panic and make a mistake. You got to play them
into their mistakes. I thought Russell Westbrook just did a
really nice job of his off ball spacing in the
Jokic groups down the stretch. So we have Yokic here
attacking with a pump fake on Zoo and watch a
couple things I want you to look at here. This
(47:38):
is an example of the inverted spacing that you get
with the Nuggets. So first of all, with the inverted spacing,
we have Zoo out on the perimeter guarding Yoki, so
there's no rim protection, right, but Zoo pump fakes or
Yoki pump fake. Zoo goes for it. Chris Dunn ends
up strong side zoning to help. Now Russell Westbrook just
flashes right to the middle of the floor where he
can make himself available and goes right up and gets
(48:01):
a layup. Really nice work there from Russ And then
once again no rim protection because of the inverted spacing
from Jokic. They blitz Murray here, which actually works really well,
forces it to a Russell Westbrook shot. But the here's
that rebounding mismatch. Here's Aaron Gordon against James Harden, he
gets an easy offensive rebound. They get a bunch of
offensive rebounds on this possession. A lot of success there
(48:21):
down the stretch, same thing Murray misses, but all the
athletes are in there. James Harden's not battling, and when
Christian Brown gets a piece of it, who's the guy
that goes and gets the ball? Aaron Gordon. The Clippers
were doing a lot of defending the Jokic Murray two
man game with three players down the stretch. Here was
another example of that two man game. Two on the ball,
(48:42):
but they're flashing with Dunn that ends up leading to
the weak side Skipp being open and too. Yokic's credit,
Jokic trusted him. Look at this twenty seven seconds left
in the game. You're down by one, and Jokic goes,
Russ has got this, and Russ knocks down the big shot.
This is another example of Kawhi doing a poor job
managing a double team. So Kawhi goes here, the double
team's there. What do you guys see as the opening?
(49:03):
As Kristun is cutting through Norman Powell is the opening
because Zoo is engaged with Christian Brown. All Kawhi has
to do is just throw the over the top pass
to Powell, but instead he doesn't actually see the read
until right now. At that point, the rotation is already
there and it's shut off. Like I would just keep
doubling Kawai. I just don't think he's particularly good at it,
at handling the doubles. This was really cool, like a
two man game in transition. This is just the chemistry
(49:27):
of Yokich and Murray. Notice Jokic runs and then he
just sets this brush screen for Murray which creates a
drop coverage look right at the rim and transition. I
thought this was interesting once again, the setting up the
two man game. They're just straight up, outright double teaming
Yokich and Murray out at half court, which leads to
this classic little two on one sequence here, and Russ
makes a really nice pass to Aaron Gordon who finishes.
(49:48):
All right, two more and then we're done. Yokic making
an effort to recover to the role man. So Yokic
is at the level Zoo gets behind him. Look at
the effort from Jokic again, Like, guys, I know Jokic
is capable of being a good defender, and he just
wasn't taking that responsibility seriously to start the game or
the second half of the season. And then lastly we
had our dagger from Christian Brown. More backside help here.
(50:11):
Notice as so if y'oll kitchen the post against Zoo
Chris Dunn, we have Powell basically strong side zoning Chris
Dunn basically digging down unto us Jokics trust Christian Brown
who rises up.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
And knocks down the jump shot.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
I mean, it's not hard to see on tape just
how much better the Nuggets are really executing in the
half court as long as they can defend. So that's
really going to be the key for Denver throughout the
series is if they can bring the requisite defensive intensity
for the first three quarters to keep these games close.
If they can keep these games close and they can
get down to the final you know, three five minutes
and the game is within three five points, I really
(50:48):
like the Nuggets chances to win this series if they
can keep things close. As you can see, the Clippers
just don't quite have that connective playmaking to consistently break
down their defense the way that some of the other
higher level offenses around the league can. All right, guys,
that's a long film session, eighty six clips later. I
hope you guys got a little bit more information about
how those matchups look after game one. A little bit
(51:09):
of news for tonight, we are going with Colin Cowherd
after the Warriors game instead of doing the normal Hoops
Tonight show, so just adds up. Make sure you go
over to Colin Cowherd's podcast feed to see our reaction
to tonight's games. I will see you guys, then what's
up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to
and supporting Hoops tonight. They would actually be really helpful
for us if you guys would take a second.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
And leave a rating and a review. As always, I
appreciate you guys.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
The volume
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
The NBA eighty two game grind is done, and now
the real fun begins. The NBA Playoffs aren't here, and
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
I can't wait.
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Speaker 1 (01:45):
Slash audio. All right, well, good hoops tonight you're at
the volume heavy Sunday. Everybody of all.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
You guys are having a great weekend as promised.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
We have a film session today.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I have eighty six clips from three different games.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
To go into.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I have a angry Laker fan film session off the top,
that's like fifty clips long of me just being really
annoyed that the Lakers didn't bring the appropriate playoff intensity.
After that, just some brief clips from the Detroit Pistons
game to demonstrate the difference in the way that Brunson
was attacking versus the way that Cade was attacking that
At the tail end of the show, just some notes
(02:29):
from the Clippers Nuggets series, specifically how Denver upped their
defensive intensity in pick and roll to force the Clippers
into making mistakes. So lots of visual examples of the
stuff that we talked last night in some takeaways looking
forward in the series. You guys are the job before
we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and Not YouTube
channel so you don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLTS. You guysn't misshow announcements.
(02:52):
Don't forget about a podcast feed where you get your
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you leave your rating and review on that front. We
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we're doing content throughout the year. Make sure you guys
follow us there. And then last but not least, keep
dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments so that
we can get to them in our mail bags throughout
the remainder of the year. All right, let's talk some basketball.
(03:13):
So just real quick upfront, just the surface level stuff
with the Lakers game and immediately stood out to me,
just a gap in intensity. I'll show you guys several
examples of just the difference between the way that Minnesota
was attacking each little element of the game in the
way that the Lakers were attacking each little element of
the game. That's why I was so keyed in on
what the first half will look like in Game two,
(03:35):
because in Game two, I thoroughly expect the Lakers to
bring a much higher level of physicality and intensity, and
that will we will get to see a better example
of what the two teams look like in that type
of setting. And that's why if they go into that
game and we go into halftime and the Wolves are
up by five, six points and still kind of in control,
(03:56):
I would take that as a huge sign of concern
for the Lakers. And if the Lakers are as good
as I think they can be, they should take care
of business. That's really, what it keeps coming down to
for me is if the Lakers are the team that
I have thought that they are for most of this
stretch after the All Star Break, they will go into
Game two and they won't just beat Minnesota, They'll control
that game throughout, and I think that'll be a really
(04:17):
strong indicator. I think if it looks rough for the
Lakers out the gates in Game two, that's a really
strong sign that the Wolves are going to get a win.
So let's get into some of these film examples so
that we can start to see exactly the kind of
stuff that I'm talking about. All Right, So in this
first clip, I just wanted to call attention to the
specific matchup of Ruy and Mike Conley. So, as you
(04:40):
can see here, Lebron is going to throw a post
feed to Ruy against Mike Conley, and this is a
textbook example of how not to mismatch attack in the post.
So Ruey's got a small on him here, and as
you can see, as he's attacking, Ant is completely hugged
up on Jackson Hayes, so that Rudy Gobert can help
on the host up. And so Ruy's already accomplished his goal. Here,
(05:03):
he's effectively caused three Wolves to guard two Lakers. All
he needs to do is take one more aggressive dribble
towards the middle and throw this kickout pass to Austin Reeves.
You've done the job. You've taken the mismatch which is
ruy on Mike Conley and turned it into a wide
open three for Austin Reeves. What you can't do is
settle for a highly difficult two point jump shot, and
(05:25):
that's what he does. He settles for a right shoulder fade,
which is a shot he can make, but he's gonna
hit it about forty percent of the time, and that's
a shot that the Wolves are going to live with.
So that was an example of just poor matchup attacking
right out the gates there. This was a thought an
example of just Austin looking a little out of rhythm
early in the game. He's in a ball screen here
(05:46):
with Rudy Gobert going against a drop coverage. He's in
the short range here, but he just leaves this alligator arm.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Floater away short.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I also thought this was an example You'll see several
examples of this in the film where Aunt was just
going right at Austin and really breaking him down off
the dribble, just with really aggressive like counter moves, just
breaks Austin off. He ends up making a bad rim
read here going at Jackson instead of just taking a
kick out read. But that was abundantly clear in the
film that like Austin was really struggling to hang with
(06:18):
Anthony Edwards. I actually thought, even though Ruy struggled in
a bunch of other places which I'll show in the film,
Austin really really struggled in that matchup, and Ruy looked
a little bit better than him. Something to think about
for the matchups throughout the rest of the series. Here's
an example of where Jackson Hayes' vertical spacing was not
much of a factor in this game. In order for
Jackson to play in this lineup, he's got to do
(06:39):
what Derek Lively and Daniel Gafford did, which is be
a legitimate spacing window in the pocket and out of
the dunker spot. This was a simple ball screen with
Lebron and Jackson to a typical drop coverage right, So
Rudy Gobert is defending both the ball handler and the roller.
Lebron hits Jackson in the pocket. He's got the angle,
he's got the advantage. This has to be a make
(07:02):
and Jackson just can't finish over Toy Gobert. That's a
lack of vertical spacing there. Julius Randall, I thought, logged
a lot of really good reps of individual defense against
Luka Doncic and Lebron James. We talked before the series
about how that was going to be an interesting matchup.
This was very good defense from Julius Randall on Luka Doncic,
which I think is encouraging for Wolves fans. That's a
matchup I think they're doing well in. Here's another example
(07:25):
that I'll be pulling that clip up later, switching in
a ball screen and the Lakers looking to attack that
switch with mid range jump shots against again, like.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
If it's Luca.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Luca did really well in his switches against Gobert, but
Lebron and Austin in particular, they were settling for some
really difficult, contested mid range jump shots. It's just not
going to work against these switches. Here is another example
of I thought Austin just looking like he was out
of rhythm and not really ready for the game as
(07:56):
he has this catch here against Jada McDaniels. So look
he's dribbling out against Jada McDaniels. Ruey Hotchimura is standing
against Mike Conley and Austin just for no particular reason
just throws because of Jaden McDaniels applying some ball pressure.
Look at the ball pressure from Jaden. He's up in
his face and Austin just throws the ball away. That's
just not being ready for playoff intensity. Ruy's not going
(08:17):
to do anything with the ball there. You're the point guard.
You need to get the offense organized and get the
guys where they want to where they need to be
to be successful. And that was just panicking against ball pressure.
Here's another example of of Anthony Edwards just doing a
ton of damage right at the point of attack with
aggressive counter moves. Look at this, so he gets sets
up like he's gonna come off the ball screen. Watch
(08:38):
the way he just rips to the left on Gabe.
That forces hard help out of the strong side corner
and then generates a wide open three for Dante DiVincenzo.
A lot of that from ant where he's just like
immediately breaking down the Lakers right off the top of
the possession. Same sort of thing here against Ruy Hatchamura.
Ruy Hatchamura touches the earth here. This was a ridiculous move,
(09:00):
a series of switches Ruy's on Ant. He had some
good reps on Ant in this game. This was not
one of them. Boom boom, just on the ground. But
as you can see, it's like he's coming so hard
downhill towards the rim. There are so many more easy
opportunities for Ant off of those super aggressive dribble moves.
When he breaks you down, that that significantly. You have
(09:22):
to find a way to flatten out that drive, make
it not so clearly devastating to your defense. This was
an example of just Ant taking easy reads that were
in front of him. So he's just driving at Rui, right,
But look at where Gabe is. Gabe is at the nail. Right,
Gabe's at the nail. He drives as Nas cuts through.
Look where Luca is, And I thought Luca made a
(09:43):
lot of poor help decisions like this. So look at
the paint. We have five lakers that are at or
near the paint, right, Luca doesn't need to be this
far in on a simple kickout read like this, especially
when there's all of this help already easy kickout pass
to Jada McDaniels and he knocks it down. I kind
of unders should that one, at least from the standpoint
of the game plan. But you'll see some examples later
(10:03):
everyones that I don't agree with. They got a really
clean look here for Luca after using Luca as a screener.
Jaden McDaniels really did not want to switch off of
Luca if he could avoid it. So this is something
I think the Lakers should explore a lot in Game two,
is just using Luca as a screener on the screen.
He breaks Dante off so bad that Jayden has to switch.
(10:24):
Then they both run with Austin and that ends up
giving Luca wide open three at the top of the key.
Something to keep an eye on. This is actually a
different example from earlier in the game one of the
first possessions where Lucas had a screen for Lebron, same
sort of thing. Look, we have a top lock from
Jada McDaniels. He does not want to switch Lucas. Hats
a good screen that gets Lebron downhill against Rudy. If
(10:45):
Jackson was paying attention instead of spotting up at the
three point line and cut. If you to cut just
a second earlier, this is a dunk, but because he
was late, the window closed up on him. Lebron settles
for that tough well. Lebron ends up throwing the lob,
but it just was too late for that to ever
have worked. Another example I thought of the Lakers just
not being ready for playoff intensity. Look at Nasried coming
off the screening action. It's a clear switch, right, They're
(11:07):
clearly thinking it's a switch. But nas Reed is a
very good offensive player that's gonna look to be aggressive
and try to score. He attacks and Rudy meets him
way down at the foul line in a passive open stance,
and Naz just goes right through him to the rim.
Like that's just not playoff intensity from Ruey Haachimura defensively.
Very similar example from earlier in the game. Jackson in
(11:28):
a switch with Lebron. So Lebron is guarding Julius Randall,
Jackson's guarding Mike Conley. It's an easy switch, but look
at how far back Jackson as both of them are
way far back and they're basically just conceding that shot.
You can see the difference between that and the way
that they're pressing up on every Lakers player.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
In that situation.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I will say, even though I didn't think the Austin
or Lebron attacks against the Bigs were working, Luca was
doing a good job against the Bigs and switches.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
This was working that.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Luca versus Rudy Gobert, He's able to just get him
off balance enough to get down into the paint where
he can hit his little short range shots or break
the defense down.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
That was working.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Here's another example of Ruy just lacking that playoff intensity.
So it's a transition push right, Rui's just backpedaling. Watch
Dorian Phinney Smith. He's already pointing. Ruey's pointing for everybody
to pick up the ball or pick up the other players,
because Dorian thinks he's got go bear right, see pointing.
He points again, but Ruy's just not ready and An
gets a wad up and layup. Watch Ruiy again on
(12:27):
this whole possession, just backpedaling doesn't stop the ball.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That's like that.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
This is a this isn't this is an important playoff game.
You lose Game one of the series. You lose the
series about seventy five percent of the time. Look at
Ruey Hachamura, this is just not ready for playoff basketball.
That's unseerious and like that. That's that happened to Ruey
last year in the Denver series. It came into the
series and just looked completely unready for playoff intensity. So
(12:51):
Ruey just needs to wake up. He needs to figure
it out sooner than later. Here's another screen, a little
screen action.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Look at how.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Luca does not actually make contact with Austin this time
and as a result, or with Ant this time, so
as a result, the action doesn't actually work right. Austin
then gets Rudy Gobert in a switch. So now we
have the switch, right, We have Austin against Rudy in
a switch. But like I talked about earlier, Austin and
Lebron were just settling for some pretty low quality shots.
This is a really tough shot. Austin might hit that
forty five percent of the time maybe, and that's just
(13:20):
not gonna be a shot that Minnesota is gonna really
care about. Similar example from earlier in the game. I
told you guys, I was gonna bring this clip back.
This is Lebron in a switch against Gobert on the
left side of the floor. Same sort of thing, ball
screen switch. Minnesota's gonna live with this.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
They're not.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You're not gonna You're not gonna beat the Timberwolves taking
contested mid range jump shots.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Over Rudy Gobert.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Look at this screen form ruiy Ha Chamura. He goes
to set the screen for Luca, but look doesn't make contact.
That's that's a bullshit screen. These are bullshit screens. He's
not actually helping get his man open. He's got to
He's got to hit Jaden that The only way you're
going to create those openings is if you actually make
contact on the screens.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Lebron.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
The Keel Alexander Walker this year is shooting forty six
percent field goal percentage forty six percent on unguarded catch
and shoot jump shots. Lebron has Nikayle Alexander Walker right now,
if you're locked in mentally, you know you're guarding a
forty six percent wide open shooter, you cannot be sinking
this far into the lane. He just concedes it to
Nikaile Alexander Walker and he knocks it down. That's really
(14:24):
bad defense that is lacking playoff intensity. I thought this
was an example of just kind of like foreshadowing the
bad process we saw from Lebron later in the game
attacking Bigs. When Lebron attacks Bigs in Switches, he doesn't
have speed against them anymore because he's too old, and
he doesn't have size against them anymore because he's you know,
(14:44):
going against biggs, right, so he gets nasried. This is
not a favorable matchup. I don't like this matchup for Lebron,
and what does he end up doing walks him down,
ends up taking this super contested floater that has no
chance of going in. Lebron is not going to successfully
beat bigs and Switches anymore. He's not good enough over
the top shooter at really at any point in his career,
and at this phase in his career, he doesn't have
(15:05):
the speed to be going against Bigs and Switches like that.
And you'll see a lot of that when we get
into the mid second quarter when the Wolves start to
go on their run. This is something for Minnesota to
continue to exploit throughout the series. As we can see,
we have an action here set up with Austin and
Mike Conley and naseried on Jared Vanderbilt actions that involved
a guard and a forward. The Lakers were not switching,
(15:29):
at least not switching readily. They were switching after the fact,
peel Off switching like hesitantly switching right, and the Wolves
were able to get a lot of easy openings just
kind of baked into the coverage. So as you can
see here we have Austin and Vando off the ball
here actually I'm talking about this action here on the
left side. So we have Dorian Finney Smith on Julius Randall,
(15:50):
and we have Gabe Vincent chasing to kill Alexander Walker.
But they are not switching, and so as a result,
they're able to get an a kil going downhill towards
the rim because of that baked in drive that comes
from the curl. Here's another example from earlier in the game,
same sort of thing. As you can see, Gabe is
chasing over the top on Dante and Lucas in like
(16:10):
a drop coverage. So as a result, nas Reed is
basically the pick and pop big who's always wide open,
and he's able to get this layup. He just happens
to smoke it. But these are examples of opportunities for
the Wolves. If they run any action with a guard
and one of their forwards, they're getting a lot of
these baked in openings that come from the Lakers not switching.
One of the big adjustments I have for the Lakers
(16:32):
for Game two is just switch everything, like just actually
literally switch everything, because those sorts of openings are giving
runways to better athletes than you. Same exact thing here,
nas Reed misses a three, but it's the same type
of action you'll see. I believe it's with Dante as well.
So once again we have a guard and a forward
ball screen. For some reason, they're not switching. Nas Reed
(16:54):
is open. He just happens to miss that. They again,
that's a peel off switch, says. You can see the
Lakers are switching it, but not intentionally, they're switching it reactively.
So Gabe went over the screen and then was like,
oh shit, I should switch and then get back. That's
where the opening is. If you just cleanly switched that
from the start of the possession, you can take away
that opening. I thought Jaden McDaniels showed a lot of
(17:16):
really impressive scoring ability yesterday. Here's an example attacking Austin
Reeves in the post. This is a tough left shoulder
fade over the top. He did a lot of really
high level scoring last night. More confusion from the Lakers
as to whether or not they want to switch with
their forward, same sort of thing Conley and nasried Vando
looks completely unprepared for the drive coming off the screen,
(17:37):
Like if this is a clean switch, then Vanda will
close out on Connolly and engage the ball, but instead
look at him.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
He's pointing.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
He's like, he's like, oh shit, switch and it just
caught him off guard. They're just not ready, and so
that was a little game plan thing that Minnesota did
a lot of work exploiting in the first half, particularly
just the clean openings because the Laker's not switching with
their forwards. Another example of Austin just clearly being out
of rhythm. This is a shot that you will never
(18:05):
see Austin miss, Like he probably shoots ninety five percent
on floaters inside of like this distance, and he just
alligator armed it the time. Austin and Lebron have both
always been rhythm players, and they both have always struggled
after time off, and they get a week off and
they both just look completely unprepared for the game.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Last night.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
This was an example of the Lakers. I talked last
night about how it seemed like to the game plan
for me that the Lakers were just leaving Nazri to
open and treating him the way you would treat a
Jaden McDaniels or Julius Randall, and I thought that was
a mistake.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Here's another example of that. All right, so we have
a post up.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Julius is on Lebron right, Lebron can guard Julius Randall.
Julius can hit a tough shoulder left shoulder fade away
or right shoulder fade away over him, but he's not
going to like bully that matchup. What you're doing here,
Jared Vanderbilt, is you're making life extremely easy for Julius
Randall because Julius Randall has Lebron James, and instead of
having just score on Lebron James, you're allowing him to
(19:02):
just rifle a simple swing pass to a very good
shooter who knocks it down. Nas red by the way,
forty four percent on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots.
It goes down to twenty nine percent when you guard him.
So that is like a very simple game plan piece
that I'm tying more to JJ Reddick just because I
saw so many different defenders make that same mistake last night.
(19:26):
As a game plan adjustment for Game two. You can't
treat Nasrid the way you treat Jaden McDaniels. That's going
to burn you if you do that. In this series,
this was a very clean look for Lebron and pick
and pop. These are shots that Lebron's going to have
to hit in this matchup, simple ball screen. Conley's chasing
what's always open in the pick and pop, what's always
(19:47):
open against the drop coverage the pick and pop. Lebron
just has to hit that shot. Here's an example of
Jaden McDaniels just beating the Lakers to the ball on
the other end of the floor. So as you can see,
Julius Randall takes the three in Lebron's face. We have
four Lakers surrounding Jaden McDaniels, and Jaden McDaniels beats everyone
to the ball. Now, this is where I want to
get on Vando because it's like, Vando, the reason why
(20:08):
you're out here, literally, the weird reason why you're on
the court is what you can do defensively, and on
the glass, shot is in the air. Jaden and Jared
are more or less in the same position, like Jayden
and Vanda are both in position to get this rebound.
The difference is Jaden fought for position and went for it.
Vando did it until it was too late, and Jaden
(20:28):
got an easy put back.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
That's really over and over again.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
You'll see in these examples there's just a level of
playoff intensity that Minnesota was bringing that the Lakers were
not matching. I thought, Lebron, you know, just instead of
just measured and slowly and methodically attacking Smalls, He's got
seven seconds here against Nikaile Alexander Walker, slow the fuck down,
back him down, get to one of your right shoulder
(20:52):
fades at like seven feet. Instead, he just drives in
panics and throws a jump pass to Jackson, who's not
really that open, like nas Reed is there, and so
it ends up being kind of a tough angle and
once again Jackson Hayes not really providing any vertical spacing.
Here's another example of the Laker's not wanting to switch
with their fours, like we talked about, so we got
(21:12):
a ball screen not switching, which allows Jaden McDaniels to
take a drop coverage mid ranger. But look at how
every Laker just stands around and watches Jaden McDaniels go
get his own rebound, Like, like, what's Lebron doing there? Like,
if you're gonna be in a drop, you got to
get the rebound. But everyone's just standing around and watching
(21:34):
Jada McDaniels get it. Look at Ruie, Look at Rui's intensity.
Jaden just beats him.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
To the ball.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Like it almost just looked like the Lakers just were
a step slow to everything in the entire game with
their intensity. Here's another like example of that lack of intensity.
So here's a post entry against Jaden McDaniels. But like,
look at how lazy Austin is on this pass. Look
at this pass from Austin. He just turns and tries
(22:02):
to throw it and it gets deflected by that's Jaden McDaniels.
You're gonna have to make a pass fake and you're
gonna have to like find an angle to make a
post entry. Instead it gets deflected, and now Lebron's attacking
to kill further out Now, for example, This is the
exact same play that I just showed you. Seven seconds left,
Nikkeiel Alexander Walker. Lebron finally turns his back and just
(22:25):
backs him down, gets to that easy right shoulder fade
for eight feed, fucking knocks it down and gets the
foul like this. This is basic execution stuff to improve
your chances of winning in this matchup, like Austin pass fake,
make a post entry. You have to be very disciplined
against this length that Minnesota has. Lebron, your advantage is
(22:45):
your size and strength. It is not over the top shooting.
It is not trying to use your speed against Biggs.
You are too big for these little dudes. That's your advantage.
Playoff intensity. Watch the shot go up, watching Nikil al
Xander Walker. All these Lakers are in here right, Lebron's
down here, Luka Doncic is in here. Nikhil Alexander Walker
(23:08):
is going to lead a runout fast break for an
easy bucket while Lebron and Luke are completely uninvolved. Watch
this look at that. That's not playing playoff basketball. Nikhil
Alexander Walker is just outworking every single one of you guys.
Once again, Austin Reeves setting a screen on Dante DiVincenzo.
If you're playing playoff basketball, you are hitting Dante DiVincenzo
(23:31):
and you are creating separation for Luca. You tell me
what happens here. Dante hit Austin and Austin didn't hold
his ground. That is lacking playoff intensity. As a result,
Dante's able to stay attached throughout the ball screen and
he's able to strip Luca before he can go up
into the shot. That is on Austin for not setting
a good screen. And by the way, look at Lebron
(23:52):
makes an effort in transition. What happens. He was in
the corner. Look he's in the deep corner, and he's
able to get back into this play because he's making
an ef F in transition. Now, am I asking Lebron
to make seventeen chase down blocks a game? No, But
if the team makes the efforts in transition, you can
keep them under control in the transition game. Minnesota won
(24:12):
the transition game twenty three to ten. In this game,
that's not gonna cut it. This is where the wheels
really started to come off for the Lakers in the
second Tell me what you guys notice here we have
Ruby Achimura standing wide open at the top of the
key with an opportunity to take a wide open trailer
three in transition, which is a three he's practiced a
million times, and instead he goes, I'm gonna try to
(24:34):
dunk on Rudy Gobert, and that goes about exactly as
you would have expected it. All right, This was an
example I talked last night about Luca losing some basic
defensive rebound battles. So like, Luca is ignoring nas Reid here,
which once again, like we talked about in the game plan,
is silly. But as he's ignoring nas Reid, Anthony Edwards
takes one of his like forced shots in the game,
which he didn't take too many of, but he took
a few. You got to get this rebound, then, Luca, like,
(24:56):
if you're gonna ignore nas read down here, you gotta
get this rebound instead. As it came off, Luca didn't
go get the ball, so Ant got it. Look at
where the ball fell. The ball fell right to where
Luca should have got it, but he didn't. So now
you've left Nasrid open, failed to get the defensive rebound,
and now Nasried is open. On the offensive rebound kick
out for three. Like, that's a huge momentum play in
(25:18):
this game. You get a stop there, you go the
other way. He scores a three point game instead, Now
you're down by eight because you're just not matching the
intensity of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Lebron just attacking bigs. Okay,
you got Nazrie, this is not your matchup. There's a
small right there you can attack. There's a small right
there you can attack. There are two guys on the
floor that you can easily get to the post and
(25:38):
get an easy bucket against. Instead, he tries to go
at Naserie, doesn't turn the corner on him and gets blocked.
That leads to run out the other way. The Timberwolves
get a layup. Okay, go down to the other end.
Exact same thing, except for this time it's Rudy. So
once again we're they're pre switching to get Nikhil Alexander
Walker up into the action. This is what's crazy, So
like they're deliberately intention only.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Going after the bigs.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Look at this, They pre switched Nikhil Alexander Walker on
too Ruy to save Rudy Gobert from having to defend
on the switch, saying, Lebron, if you want to attack Nikkeiel,
go ahead, and instead they're like, oh shit, it's not
there anymore. So Dorian Finney Smith runs up Ruby gets
out that way they can run the two man games
to get Lebron switched on to Rudy. He gets Lebron
(26:22):
switched on to Rudy, and this is going to go
exactly like it does every other time. Lebron is going
to drive into the person not be able to turn
the corner and get blocked at the rim. This, by
the way, led to another runout for another wide open
corner three for Nazrid that went in so like multiple
repeated foolish attacks with a stupid game plan that just
(26:45):
played right into Minnesota's hands, like literally played right into
Minnesota's hands, giving them easy transition runouts because you're just
playing stupid basketball on offense. And this is I want
to blame this on Lebron specifically because I've heard I've
heard JJ talk about how he wants them to attack
smalls in tight spaces, not bigs in space. He's fine
(27:08):
with Luca doing it. Lebron and Austin that that's not
their game. They don't need to be attacking Rudy Gobaer
in space. That's not an arrangement that's gonna work for them.
There's another example of a defensive rebound that Luca just
should have got, but he just didn't go get the basketball,
seat goes up, Luca's got inside position and everything just
doesn't make any contact, and Nazrie comes in and bats
(27:29):
it out.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Ball stays with Minnesota.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Here's another example of Julius Randall defending Luka Doncic really well,
so we get a switch. Julius Randall did really well
on these switches. Man, this is really good defense. Look
at him sliding the feet. Look another thing too, Look
at how he's stabbing at the basketball. This is how
you can disrupt rhythm. Look at how often he's like
stabbing at the basketball, just like reaching, stabbing, reaching, stabbing,
just making sure to disrupt the rhythm as best as
(27:52):
he can. That's really quality individual defense from Julius Randall.
Here's another example of the Lakers over helping off of Naserie.
So you get a screen action that gets the switch.
Look at how many bodies already in the paint. So
Julius is driving at Luka Doncic, Lebron's in position to help,
gave Vincent's there. This is the strong side corner. You
do not help here, and the game plan has consistently
(28:15):
been Gabe is the guy that's hopping across the lane
line and meeting you here. This is really fucking bad defense.
You just allowed Julius Randall to make the easiest passing
read in the history of mankind because you vacated the
strongside corner to help on a situation that didn't need help.
That like, that's just really fucking terrible defense. Luca just
giving up a simple backcut to Anthony Edwards. A lot
(28:38):
of Luca leaving his feet in this game and getting
out of position, like jumping at ball fakes and stuff
like that, just undisciplined. Here's Lebron again, attacking a big
in space. He makes this one, but it's like, this
is what you're gonna get. You're gonna get these like
semi contested mid range jump shots. He's just not gonna
make enough of those for that to be a worthwhile
method for them to attack. Here's an example of the
(28:59):
Wolf was just beating every Laker to the ball again,
so the ball shot goes up.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Let's see we got all. If you looked at this.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Situation, you would think the Lakers are in an advantageous
position for rebounding Rui's inside position on Jaden Lebron's inside
position on Nas Durians and the paint. All these three
wolves are way out here. Watch how much quicker the
wolves are to the ball. That's just that's not fighting.
You think you're gonna get the trophy by not like
fighting and competing, You're you're never going to get the
(29:27):
trophy without fighting or competing.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Look at Gabe.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Watch Gabe when the rebound goes up, still hasn't moved,
still walking. These guys are already shooting towards the ball.
That's like everybody needs to be swarming the way that
the wolves are swarming. Then your skill advantages can take place.
But they're not gonna take place if you get so
badly outworked like that. Remember when I said Austin wasn't
(29:51):
setting good fucking screens.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Watch this one. Watch the difference Boom.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Lays the wood actually hits him, holds his ground, leverage
his body sets a good screen. Now look at what
happens as a result. The entire Wolves defense reacts to
the advantage that Luca created there and it generates a
wide open three for Austin. Now he bricks it because
he's still out of rhythm. And I think Luca missed
the read a little bit there. He should have hit
him earlier. But again, that's that is what happens. When
(30:20):
you meet the intensity of the moment and you set
a good physical screen, you can get openings even against
good defense. And frankly, if you do that every time
down the floor, it'll be much easier for you to
get into a rhythm. First possession of the second half,
Let's see if the Lakers took the adjustment properly at
the just you know, all of the ass chewing that
(30:42):
JJ was delivering at halftime, Let's see if they took
it seriously. First possession, we get a ghost screen, so
this should just be a switch. Instead, it's not. They
fuck it up again and Austin looks confused as to
what's happening. Ruey looks confused, and Ant just drives right downhill,
easy kick out to Jada McDaniels. Why is that not
just a switch? Why isn't Ruy just closing out on Ant?
(31:04):
And Austin closing out to Conley, like like that's a
way to shut down these easy driving lanes that are appearing.
All right, just a few more from this game. Look
at Ruey hatch Mura's defense on Anthony Edwards. Here we
get another couple switches. Now what look at how on
the switch you've got you you're guarding Anthony Edwards on
(31:26):
a switch and you're not in a defensive stance. You're
standing completely upright, and so you can probably guess what's
gonna happen next, and it goes right around him. Like
that's not basketball, that's not playoff intensity, that's not basketball.
But you are standing upright, not even in a defensive
stance on Anthony fucking Edwards, Like are you kidding me?
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Right now?
Speaker 2 (31:46):
As I told you guys, this is gonna be an
angry like er fan film session. And then Lebron, like
Lebron on this possession. If you're not going to be
in there like helping on the drive or rebounding, then
you can't be leaving you Uleius Randall open, so he's
just standing around, doesn't get the rebound, and it gets
his own rebound, and there's Julius Randall wide open, that
(32:07):
three goes in, guys, that three goes in on a
possession where Lebron did the exact same thing Luca did
on the nas Reid three in the first half, where
you're standing in no man's land in the paint, not defending,
not rebounding, conceding a wide open three.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
I did think these.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Luca post ups of Jaden McDaniels worked pretty well. This
is a look I think the Lakers can continue to
go through go to throughout the series. Jaden McDaniels talked
about last night how when Jackson Hayes was off the floor,
it just felt like there were easier opportunities for him
to get to the rim. This is an example of
excellent weak side scoring from a forward. So we have
the close out the closeouts there right, so the three
(32:44):
is taken away. Jaden's move his read here is to
rack baseline and try to get all the way to
the rim, and he does. That's not Jackson Hayes, it's
Luka Dancaje at the rim and he's able to finish
him over him easily. Here's another example of Austin just
making like a sloppy post entry pass and turning it
over like these are just like so many unforced errors
(33:05):
because the Lakers just weren't ready for the intensity of
the moment. Laker's still not switching, so that creating just
easy openings. Once again, why is that not a switch?
As a result, there's an easy corner for Dante DiVincenzo
to turn. Look as he's coming around Van Doo's in
a drop, Austin's chasing, so there's this easy driving lane
(33:27):
causing Luca to sink into the paint. Also make Dante
Devincenzo and Rudy Gobert connect on the lob here. This
is another example of Luca over helping off of nasried
and then I just thought this was a really, really
impressive pass from Anthony Edwards. So Anthony Edwards had just
seen as the team out of the off ball screen,
just generated a look for Nazrid that he made, so
(33:49):
he knows nazrij just made a shot. So we're gonna
get a ball screen here with Nas and he's gonna
attack Luca in the switch. And as he attacks Luca,
look at how he reads Jared. He sees Van Dog
ignoring Nas once again, the Lakers ignoring Nas to help,
just not the right guy for them to be ignoring.
Jared needs to just either signal to Dorian Finney Smith
to stay with Nas and then him sit in the paint,
(34:10):
or all these other guys need to be helping. It
can't be Nas and then as a result to be
a Vando helping at the rim, in Ant makes just
a really nice feed to Nazria in the corner and
knocks it down.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
So again, like I want to be clear, the Wolves
kick their ass, and the Wolves.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Demonstrated that they have some advantages in this series, but
I also thought there were just like dozens of obvious
examples of the Lakers just looking like they were unprepared
for playoff basketball. The Bucks in the Lakers were the
two teams I watched yesterday that looked utterly blindsided by
the intensity of the moment.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
And so here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
The Wolves might just be better than the Lakers, and
that might bear out over the course of the series,
but in Game two, I think we'll get a better
feel of just how big that gap is one way
or the other when the Lakers bring the appropriate intensity,
because there's just a level that they have to get
to that they were just completely unready for in this game.
All right, I have six clips from the Piston's nixt game.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Let's get to that real quick.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I talked about how the Piston should have leaned into
Isaiah Stewart more it looks like it was an injury
related thing. As you can see, this was Campaign's first
bucket of the run. Really nice left to right crossover
on Malik Beasley. But watch Isaiah Stewart in his reaction time,
really slow moving fouls him and then watch him limping after.
So Stu just apparently couldn't go physically, So that just
(35:28):
kind of puts you in a tough spot. If he's
not able to go physically, then that means it's going
to be a lot of Duran, and Duran obviously comes
with his own shortcomings. Here's an example of Brunson finding
the matchup that he liked. So we get a screen
to get us ar Thompson and then you're gonna see
og and Obe come up into the action. Notice how
methodical br Brunson is to get the matchup he wants.
There he goes now he's got his match up with
eight seconds left, uses the double cross to get inside
(35:50):
position on Tobias and knock down the floater. I talked
about how Tim Hardaway Junior missed like a wide open
look during the run, so did Malik Beasley. This is
that miss, but on the transition push, look who Jalen
Brunson sees in front of him, sees Tobias Harris that
little semi transition attack gets by him and draws the
end one. I thought this was one of the really
(36:10):
impressive defensive plays that Cat made down the stretch. So
we have a double ball screen here, double drag that
he gets split, So he has a gets split at
the point of attack and Kay gets all the way
into the paint, but Josh Hart steps up in help,
which forces him to drop the ball off to Jalen Dura.
Look at the effort Cat makes to get back into
the play and disrupt during at the rim and force
the miss. You can make up for a lot of
(36:32):
your shortcomings if you just rotate and then I want
this is where I want you guys to see the
difference in the execution.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
So I just showed you, guys.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
An example of Brunson methodically working to the spot against
the player that he wants and getting a good matchup
and going to work. Here's the difference, six point thirty
four left one oh three to ninety eight. This game
is very much in the balance. It is thirteen to
oh the Knicks run. You need your ball handler to
(37:00):
make a good decision to get this game back under control.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
What does he do? No?
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Nothing, just goes right at oj Ananobe. No attempt to
try to get a favorable matchup, no attempt to try
to bring Brunson into the action. He just goes down
on Ananobe, turns his back, and then here he's trying
to post up a players bigger than stronger, bigger and
stronger than him, and as he tries to power through
with his right shoulder, og wins the battle and forces
the turnover. And it's like, here's the thing. Is that
(37:25):
technically by the book of foul, sure, but that that
kind of thing gets let go all the time in
the playoffs, And you're not doing yourself any favors by
attacking the Knick's best perimeter defender without any attempt to
try to get him off of you. And that it's fine.
Kate is going to figure that stuff out. My guess
is were watching Kate in the playoffs three years from now.
He's the guy asking for three guard guard screens to
(37:45):
get a matchup he wants in a big spot like this.
But this is part of the growth and this is
why teams like the Pistons don't win the series like
this in NBA history. And then this was another example
of Kate just kind of like panicking under the ball pressure.
So Jalen Duran's open on this slip, but look at
this ball pressure from Kat just gets up and pressures
the ball and forces the turnover. Kate had three turnovers
(38:07):
in this run. All right, let's get to Denver Clippers
fun one here. I got about like twenty six clips
twenty seven clips from this game, and then we'll be done.
So Denver comes out of the time out. This is
the timeout that I talked about where Denver really picked
up their defensive intensity. So the Clippers get a buckets
fifty one to thirty six. We're halfway through the second quarter.
This is an example of Yokic kind of forcing the
(38:28):
issue like I talked about. So this is a design play,
little cross screen for Yokic coming across from Gordon. But
notice how on the catch he just powers through Zoo
No matter what. This is a I've made up my mind,
I'm going to the rim kind of play. I thought
Yokic did a really nice job of mixing that in
with him taking the easy reads that were available to
keep the Clippers honest. This is the very first defensive possession. Okay,
(38:48):
so this is out of the time out. Look at
the ball pressure from Yokic and the ball pressure from Gordon.
We're up on the ball, we're pressuring, We're making them uncomfortable.
Gordon's up on him. This is this is how you
can at least make them a little bit more uncomfortable. Now,
Kawhi still breaks free, but we get a contest. It's
a miss. Just making them uncomfortable is going to make
them more likely to miss and more likely to make mistakes.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
I thought this action worked really well.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
There were a lot of opportunities that were there for
the Nuggets because of hardened guarding Gordon, offensive rebounds in
crunch time, where Gordon was able to take advantage plays
like this with an inside seal. So notice Gordon's not
screening Zoo with the intention of getting Yokic downhill because
he knows it's going to be a switch. So what
he's doing is he screens his bottom side and noticees
(39:34):
quickly getting inside position, so that Jokic when he comes off,
just has to see Harden get on inside of Gordon.
As soon as Harden ends up on the inside of Gordon,
the lob is there. Watch there, boom, Yokic sees it.
Now it's inside position. Easy lobb to Gordon. I think
there's a lot of opportunity for the Nuggets to explore
that Jokic Gordon two man game to attack Harden. Here's
(39:56):
an example of one of the botched sequences that I
was talking about with the Clippers. I talked a lot
last night about how the Clippers would get these like
simple reading and react sequences and just not pay it off.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Here's an example.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
So we have a ball screen with Hardin and Zoo
two on the ball, Zoo's on the roll, both low
men react, Zoo actually makes the right read, but it
just gets fumbled.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
And that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
But look at on the fumble, look at the effort
to get back after the two guys, Tag Brown and
Porter Junior both react and so that little fumble ends
up being enough for these guys to get back into
the play.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Same thing.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Zoo ends up catching on the next pass, but they
pressure him and he smokes the layup again. Like the
Clippers will botch some of this stuff if you rush them,
if you make them uncomfortable. But if you don't bring
that requisite level of defensive rotation and activity, they're gonna
pick you apart. Same sort of thing here. Look at
the ball pressure from Jokic at the level. This is
(40:51):
something that Jokicic has been terrible at the tail end
of the season. But watch the ball pressure. Jokicic just
attacks Powell and makes contact, which leads to a swing
pass Powell. Instead of trying to compromise the defense, Palell
just got rid of the ball. Why did you just
get rid of the ball because Jokic pressured him. Then
Kawhi ends up making a mistake throwing into the passing
Liane to Christian Brown, Jokic just literally pressuring the ball
(41:13):
caused the Clippers to pee down their leg Like That's
what I was trying to talk about last night. I
talk about how there's a bracket in ball screens. You
need to apply pressure from the front and from behind.
This is a great example of that. Watch Christian Brown
is attached to Norman Powell. Jokic is at the level.
Active with his hands, forces a deflection. When these guys
do this, they raise their defensive floor to being okay
(41:36):
on defense, which is enough for their great offense to
carry them over the top. These are the things they
weren't doing to finish the season. Second half, same sort
of thing. Look at the efforts and pick and roll defense,
pressure in the ball. Yokic is at the level. Yokic
at the level. Again, look at the activity we've pressured
the ball where they're on the catch, We're making the rotations.
Look at the effort that Jokic makes to get back
(41:57):
into the play. All of a sudden it's gone. Look
at that Clippers botched it. This should be an easy dunk,
right drop off. This should be such an easy sequence
like drop off done, should get a dunk here. The
Clippers will botch these sequences if you apply the appropriate pressure.
See that, just again, they're open. The openings are there.
Harden's able to turn the corner and pick and roll.
(42:19):
But just because the effort, Look, they get back to Jokic,
or they get back to Zubots and just pressure him
a little bit and get him to miss lay up.
You just have to bring that requisite level of defensive intensity.
Another good pick and roll defense rep for the Nuggets.
Look ball pressure Yokich at the level to the Clippers credit,
(42:39):
they made a really nice play here, but you made
it more difficult. Look at the tightness of the window
that Harden has to fit this pass through. He just
happens to. They tag the roller really nicely. Zoo just
makes an unbelievable shot. But notice out of all those sequences,
they scored on that one, but they didn't on the
others because you've made it difficult. And so on the
difficult shots. Zoo, who goes one for two instead of
(43:02):
you know, a higher percentage. That's how you can play
them into two worse outcomes Morgan. Pick and roll defense
from Denver here, Boom at the level. Yo Kich is
active with his hands. They're pressuring the ball. These openings
are there, but it's harder to get them. They end
up throwing to Zoo. He's already tagged. Zoo sees Powell
(43:23):
cutting along the baseline, but Murray does just enough to
distract him there, and it ends up the advantage is
completely gone now and they can play it into a tough,
contested corner three like that. That's really good defense. Yo,
kitchen pick and roll gets a steal with activity with
his hands, ball screen active hands steal like It's like
(43:46):
night and day watching Denver's defense down the stretch of
this game. Compared to what it looked like in the
last few months of the season, this bench group for
the Clippers really struggled to create space for Kawhi Leonard.
They were just basically double teaming him and not worrying
about Ben Simmons, and Kawhi just wasn't handling it very well.
Kaui ended up having I think seven turnovers in this game.
Not a great Quhi playmaking game. Like we talked about
(44:08):
before the series, same sort of thing here. As you
can see, we're gonna get to Kawhi Iso against Peyton Watson.
Notice how they're just shading into the driving lanes right,
And because they're shading into the driving lanes, Kawhi doesn't
have the space to really drive, and so he has
to settle for this contested mid range jump shot that
doesn't go in. It's just tough with Derek Jones and
(44:29):
Ben Simmons out there. They just don't have the shooting
necessary to really create space for Kawhi.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
In that lineup. Zubots defended Jokic really well in the post.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
We talked a lot about that in the series preview,
about how that was going to be something that the
the Nuggets might not go to very much. And Jokic
actually did try to post up Zoo quite a few
times to not much effect. But in crunch time he
got a good one here. And notice he just methodically
slowly dislodged Zoo and got to a really high quality look.
So he can score against Zoo. He just needs to
(44:58):
be more methodical with it. Settle for that jump shot.
This is where Christian Brown could do damage to James Harden.
Notice James Harden is guarding Brown, but he's just not
paying attention. Just a simple backside cut there. Harden's not
doing anything easy lay up for Brown. Here's another great example.
Pick and roll bracket coverage. Right, so we're over the top,
but look at how everyone's attached. Christian Brown was attached
(45:20):
over the top, which forced Harden to rush his drive.
Jokic meets him at the level Harden ends up fumbling
it out of bounds. Just do enough defensively and the
Clippers will pee down their leg. They're not a great
playmaking team. Here's another example of Kawhi not really handling
the double team. Well, go to Christian Brown, double comes,
the flash is open.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
I'll show you guys.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
So here comes the double from Gordon, dribbles away from
the double flashes open right now. All Kawhi has to
do is be aware that that's his read in rifle
a bounce pass right there, and he's created a three
on two where Jamal Murray's gonna have to either take
away a dunk from Zoo or corner three from Batoomb.
But instead Kawhi just does and see the flash and
ends up throwing a swing pass to the corner to
(46:02):
someone who's not open, and but Tom has to try
to basically rescue them with a bailout shot that he misses.
I thought this was just a really impressive physical battle
that Russell Westbrook won against Kawhi.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Leonard in the.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Down on the block, so he gets inside position on Kawhi,
shot goes up. Watch him just win the battle. Look
at him shove Kawi down. He just shoves Kawhi right
in the middle of his back and then gets offensive
rebound in the put back. He just won the physical
battle there. Not an easy guy to win that battle
against either. Here's another example of the Clippers peeing down
their leg in a short roll sequence. So we get
(46:35):
two on the ball hard and makes a nice speed
The tag is there, but Toom is open. All but
Tom has to do here is take a reverse layup.
Take a reverse layup here and it's an easy bucket,
but instead he drops it off to Derek Jones and
throws a little bit of a funky pass. Notice the
pass is just a little off target, like down into
Derek Jones's left I talked about this so much on
the show last night, like so many of these sequences
(46:56):
were just slightly botched by the Clippers because they're just
a little slight in their connective playmaking. Derek Jones ends
up missing that little hook shot. But again to Denver's credit,
I want to show that one more time. Watch Denver's
defense on the possession. Watch just the level of rotation
and how it plays them into that mistake. So, for instance,
like Russ throws a good hard tag, Gordon does rotate
(47:18):
that rotation from Gordon and Murray causes Nick Patom to
panic and make a mistake. You got to play them
into their mistakes. I thought Russell Westbrook just did a
really nice job of his off ball spacing in the
Jokic groups down the stretch. So we have Yokic here
attacking with a pump fake on Zoo and watch a
couple things I want you to look at here. This
(47:38):
is an example of the inverted spacing that you get
with the Nuggets. So first of all, with the inverted spacing,
we have Zoo out on the perimeter guarding Yoki, so
there's no rim protection, right, but Zoo pump fakes or
Yoki pump fake. Zoo goes for it. Chris Dunn ends
up strong side zoning to help. Now Russell Westbrook just
flashes right to the middle of the floor where he
can make himself available and goes right up and gets
(48:01):
a layup. Really nice work there from Russ And then
once again no rim protection because of the inverted spacing
from Jokic. They blitz Murray here, which actually works really well,
forces it to a Russell Westbrook shot. But the here's
that rebounding mismatch. Here's Aaron Gordon against James Harden, he
gets an easy offensive rebound. They get a bunch of
offensive rebounds on this possession. A lot of success there
(48:21):
down the stretch, same thing Murray misses, but all the
athletes are in there. James Harden's not battling, and when
Christian Brown gets a piece of it, who's the guy
that goes and gets the ball? Aaron Gordon. The Clippers
were doing a lot of defending the Jokic Murray two
man game with three players down the stretch. Here was
another example of that two man game. Two on the ball,
(48:42):
but they're flashing with Dunn that ends up leading to
the weak side Skipp being open and too. Yokic's credit,
Jokic trusted him. Look at this twenty seven seconds left
in the game. You're down by one, and Jokic goes,
Russ has got this, and Russ knocks down the big shot.
This is another example of Kawhi doing a poor job
managing a double team. So Kawhi goes here, the double
team's there. What do you guys see as the opening?
(49:03):
As Kristun is cutting through Norman Powell is the opening
because Zoo is engaged with Christian Brown. All Kawhi has
to do is just throw the over the top pass
to Powell, but instead he doesn't actually see the read
until right now. At that point, the rotation is already
there and it's shut off. Like I would just keep
doubling Kawai. I just don't think he's particularly good at it,
at handling the doubles. This was really cool, like a
two man game in transition. This is just the chemistry
(49:27):
of Yokich and Murray. Notice Jokic runs and then he
just sets this brush screen for Murray which creates a
drop coverage look right at the rim and transition. I
thought this was interesting once again, the setting up the
two man game. They're just straight up, outright double teaming
Yokich and Murray out at half court, which leads to
this classic little two on one sequence here, and Russ
makes a really nice pass to Aaron Gordon who finishes.
(49:48):
All right, two more and then we're done. Yokic making
an effort to recover to the role man. So Yokic
is at the level Zoo gets behind him. Look at
the effort from Jokic again, Like, guys, I know Jokic
is capable of being a good defender, and he just
wasn't taking that responsibility seriously to start the game or
the second half of the season. And then lastly we
had our dagger from Christian Brown. More backside help here.
(50:11):
Notice as so if y'oll kitchen the post against Zoo
Chris Dunn, we have Powell basically strong side zoning Chris
Dunn basically digging down unto us Jokics trust Christian Brown
who rises up.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
And knocks down the jump shot.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
I mean, it's not hard to see on tape just
how much better the Nuggets are really executing in the
half court as long as they can defend. So that's
really going to be the key for Denver throughout the
series is if they can bring the requisite defensive intensity
for the first three quarters to keep these games close.
If they can keep these games close and they can
get down to the final you know, three five minutes
and the game is within three five points, I really
(50:48):
like the Nuggets chances to win this series if they
can keep things close. As you can see, the Clippers
just don't quite have that connective playmaking to consistently break
down their defense the way that some of the other
higher level offenses around the league can. All right, guys,
that's a long film session, eighty six clips later. I
hope you guys got a little bit more information about
how those matchups look after game one. A little bit
(51:09):
of news for tonight, we are going with Colin Cowherd
after the Warriors game instead of doing the normal Hoops
Tonight show, so just adds up. Make sure you go
over to Colin Cowherd's podcast feed to see our reaction
to tonight's games. I will see you guys, then what's
up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to
and supporting Hoops tonight. They would actually be really helpful
for us if you guys would take a second.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
And leave a rating and a review. As always, I
appreciate you guys.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
The volume
Host
Jason Timpf
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