January 3, 2025 • 37 mins
Jason Timpf reacts to Jayson Tatum's dominant performance in the Boston Celtics' 118-115 win over Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves. Jason discusses how Jayson Tatum has turned his play up a level this season, Anthony Edwards' struggles, and what the future looks like for the Timberwolves who are still trying to find their identity. Later, Jason reacts to Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors' 139-105 blowout win over Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers. Will this win spark the Warriors out of their slump?
Timeline:
4:00 -Start
5:30 - Celtics vs Wolves
33:00 - Warriors vs Sixers
(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Slash b ball. All right, well come to you tonight.
(01:38):
You're at the volume heavy Friday. Everybody hope all if
you guys are having a great week. Just a quick
show for today. We're gonna talk about Celtics Wolves for
the most part, really entertaining a really interesting game on
that front. I want to talk about the Celtics and
the way Jason Tatum is playing. I want to talk
about the Jason Tatum Anthony Edwards debate, which largely centers
around my player rankings from last summer. And then I
(01:58):
want to talk about Anthony Edwards in the world, some
of their issues from the season, and the two part
reality of their path forward, which is how do you
fix this problem in the big picture and how do
you make the most out of this particular season. And
at the very end of the show, I just want
to briefly touch on the Sixers Warriors game before we
get out of here. You guys know the trip before
(02:18):
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you continue to get content throughout the year. Last but
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(02:39):
YouTube comments mailbag on Friday this week because our schedule
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my first ski trip of the year on Sunday, so
the mail bag is going to come out on either Saturday, Sunday,
Monday sometime in that stretch, and then next week will
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time to drop mail bag questions, so get those in
(02:59):
the YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. So
Celtics Wolves. I thought Jason Tatum just played an absolutely
beautiful game. He had all these like different phases in
the way that he was attacking at different points in
the game, Like in the early first quarter, he was
just playing advantage creation basketball, just kind of floating around
taking the easy reads that are available. That's such an
(03:20):
important part of this Boston offense, right, because the real
differentiator from a talent standpoint between like Boston supporting cast
and a lot of the other supporting casts around the
league is their ability, via the coaching staff all the
way down through the roster to generate space and then
to capitalize on extra attention that is devoted towards the
guys that have the ball, right, and it's so much
(03:41):
more complicated than shooting. It was actually really interesting because
there's a lot of discussions surrounding Minnesota's shooting, and we're
going to talk about that today, but it goes deeper
than that because there's a lot of like different things
that happen when you watch other teams play, where like,
for instance, I have a couple of clips that I
posted to demonstrate some of these differences on my Twitter feed.
We're like when Tatum's driving, there's always like shooter left corner,
(04:05):
shooter right corner, guard in the dunker spot, and shooter
opposite wing, and so he's just got all of this
space to work with. And it's not just the shooting. Yeah,
those guys have to be accounted for in terms of
their ability to knock down shots, but it's also floor placement.
It's also like having the right guys in the right spot.
(04:25):
You want to guard in the dunker spot. Why because
he's usually being guarded by a smaller player. So the
guy that's helping out the rim, you would prefer to
be a smaller player. So if you're gonna have somebody
in the dunker spot, if you have a center in
the dunker spot, you're probably gonna have a center helping
at the rim. But if you have a guard at
the dunker spot, you're gonna have a smaller player helping
at the rim. Right. And then if your corners are
occupied and your wing opposite wing is occupied. You have
(04:47):
the distance between the right corner and the opposite wing,
that whole stretch of three point line to work off
the dribble and make things happen. I can't tell you
how many times in that Wolves game it's it goes
deeper than just Jaden McDaniel's can't shoot, or Julius Randall's
not a great spot up shooter, or you know, Rudy
Gobert's stonehands around the basket. It extends deeper into floor placement.
(05:09):
Times where Julius Randall and Rudy Gobert are both standing
directly underneath the basket. Or you have a guy that's
in the opposite wing, but he's standing ten feet away
from the guy that's in the corner, so you can
effectively guard with two guys, or instead of one guy cutting,
you have two guys cut to the exact same spot
(05:31):
make themselves easy to guard. There's a lot of stuff
that goes deeper than that. And I'm saying that mainly
to compliment the Celtics as an organization from the top down,
because it's not just having it goes it's a thing
from the front office in terms of the types of
players that they're targeting, the coaching staff in terms of
organization on the floor, but the players not just shooting
(05:55):
but also basketball IQ and like the natural understanding and
feel of space. There's all these As you're off the ball,
you're constantly reading what's the ball handler doing, what are
the other off ball players doing. So, for instance, if
a guy drives into the lane and makes a kickout pass,
where he decides to relocate is going to directly affect
where you have to relocate. Right There's a lot of
(06:16):
like different decisions that you make in those spacing situations.
And like, again, Boston just does such an amazing job
organizationally of keeping guys on the floor in the right
spots and putting the types of guys out there that
are good with their instincts in their placement off the
ball while also having the ability to knock down shots.
And it's just start contrast between the two teams that
(06:38):
were watching last night. But again, Jason Tatum's within that,
within that ecosystem. One of the things that he does
better than most is he'll just call for a guard screen,
get a inside seal for you know, one of the
the guy who's setting the screen will get an inside seal,
and he's big and tall enough and quick enough with
the decision making to float the ball over the top
so that'll hands right in the guy's hands so that
(06:59):
he has a four run three, or making a skip
pass when Anthony Edwards is leaking into the lane off
of Derek White in the left corner. Like those are
the kinds of like little things that Jason Tatum does
that just greases the wheels for this offense. But then
he had these two massive jump shooting runs in a
late second quarter. He had a jump shooting run where
he hit a bunch of shots that gave the Celtics
(07:19):
their initial large separation that put them up by fourteen.
And then the Wolves, after playing some more desperate basketball
to start the third quarter, they cut the lead down
to four right around the mid third quarter mark, and
he had another jump shooting run in that late third
quarter that put the Celtics back up by thirteen. I
thought Tatum was fantastic in this game. The Wolves played
really well in the fourth quarter. In that early fourth
(07:41):
quarter stretch they went to their spacing group. It's kind
of like this interesting concept with the way the Wolves
play basketball. So you have these two stars, and they're
both stars that like are at their best when they're
going downhill, right. But Anthony Edwards is one of the
best jump shooters in the league, particularly off the dribble,
right he gets, He's up at like one point one
zero points per jump shot this season, very very good
(08:02):
jump shooter, especially off the dribble. Julius Randall not so much. Right.
So one of the things that they're doing is like
the bench groups are always staggered versions of starters and
bench players, right. So one of the things that we're
seeing is like when Anthony Edwards is carrying a bench
group without Julius Randall, they'll put him out there with
Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert, And they do that because
(08:25):
they know the spacing is shit. But ant is a
guy that's capable of knocking down shots over the top,
so we'll put him with that group. But then what
they'll do with the Julius Randall groups is they know
he's not as good shooting over the top, so they'll
put all the spacers with him. So he was playing
with a group that had Dante DiVincenzo Nikhil Alexander Walker
nasried at center, and then Josh miy Not I believe
(08:46):
was the fifth in that group, and he was incredible
in that fourth quarter run. He was blocking shots at
the rim, driving closeouts and dunking on everybody, hitting corner
threes like he was incredible too. But it kind of
is like the best way for them to make use
of that situation the record. I agree with Chris Finch
in the overall kind of ethos of that or thought
process behind that decision making process. There are things that
(09:09):
disagree with Chris Finch with as it pertains to like
specific lineup groups that I'd like to see them use
more in big spots. We'll talk about that in a minute.
But that's kind of the give and take with the
Wolves bench groups. It's like Aunt with Jaden and Rudy
Julius with all the shooters, well Julius with all the
shooters in that early fourth quarter group. They go on
a big run and they actually end up briefly taking
a lead, but then Derek White goes absolutely berserk in
(09:32):
the fourth quarter, hit several tough, heavily contested shots and
it ends up being enough to stiff arm the Wolves
and they get out of Minnesota with a win. So
now I want to There's so much big picture stuff
I want to get into, but before we get into that,
I want to shout out a couple more Celtics. Sam Hauser.
I thought his shooting was huge AllGame. He was the
(09:54):
guy that was paying off the chaos situations that Boston
was generating, so like transition pushes where he would end
up with the ball, knocking down a three, threes off
of offensive rebounds, threes off of mistakes that Minnesota was
making in their help side defense. He was just paying
it off a lot. And then the Bigs. I thought,
specifically Nimi Kuoita just did an amazing job in his bench.
(10:17):
In his bench shifts as at that backup center spot
is touched around the basket was important. I thought he
won some offensive rebound battles, especially on switches where he'd
get inside position on like Julius Randall and get a
big tap out rebound or an offensive rebound. I just
thought he gave really good minutes. It was an impressive
win for the Celtics again, down Jaylen Brown and down
Christops Porzingis on the road in Minnesota and again, like
(10:40):
it was a kind of a showcase of a bunch
of different things. Like I thought it was a showcase
of the fact that Jason Tatum right now is just
a more complete all around basketball player than Anthony Edwards,
something that I've thought most of this season after I
was wrong over the summer. We're going to talk about
that in a minute. But I also thought it was
a demonstration of the gap in organizational competence between Minnesota
(11:01):
and Boston, like we talked about earlier, in terms of
their spacing principles and just the way they make things
easier for their stars. So let's talk about this Aunt
Tatum debate. So this is something I've been getting absolutely
shredded for all season. And the funniest thing about it
is we're talking about two spots. I had Tatum at seven,
and most Celtics fans have him at five. There are
(11:21):
a few more intense Celtics fans that have him higher
at like three or four. But like the point is,
we're talking about just a couple of spots. I had
Tatum down at seven. It was a just something that
Celtics fans got really upset about. I no longer feel
that way I would now have Tatum at five, and
then i'd probably have Ant even lower than seven. Now
(11:43):
i'd probably have him closer to the bottom of the
top ten. But no, it is not because Jason Tatum
beat Anthony Edwards last night. It is not because the
Boston Celtics swept the Timberwolves this season. It is not
because the Boston Celtics are clearly a much much better
basketball team overall, including the Stars, than the Minnesota Timberlves.
(12:04):
That is not why I feel that way. The reason
why I now have Tatum at five when I had
him at seven this summer is last year, Jason Tatum
was not a very good jump shooter, especially in the playoffs,
and then he completely fell apart as a jump shooter
with Team USA. In the playoffs, Tatum, when he took
a jump shot, it was worth zero point eight points
(12:27):
per tempt. That's really really bad. And then he was
zero for sixteen on jump shots with Team USA. So
when I was thinking about Tatum in the context of
the other stars in the league, I liked his versatility.
I thought he was integral to the Celtics defense in
that playoff run, specifically his ability to guard centers. But
(12:48):
also to be able to switch ball screens, which was
like the primary foundation of the Boston defensive scheme that
caused so many problems for people in the postseason run.
Huge testament to Tatum's versatility. I also thought he he
just did a wonderful job of initial advantage creation, like
we talked about earlier, creating those tic tac toe situations
that Boston was so good at turning into points. Jason
(13:10):
Tatum is a Swiss army knife of a basketball player,
which has always been something I'm drawn to because I'm
a Lebron fan and Lebron was a Swiss army knife
of a basketball player still is to this day. But
because of his jump shooting issues, I had him down
at seven instead of five. I had a feeling he
was just in a bad slump. I talked about it
all summer that I expected Tatum to shoot better this year,
(13:30):
but as I factored all of that in, I landed
with him at seven. This season, Tatum is having the
best jump shooting season he's had in five years. He's
at one point zero seven points per jump shot, he's
at one point zero two points per off the dribble
jump shot, and he's at one point two to one
points per jumper off the catch. He hasn't even come
(13:51):
close to those numbers as a jump shooter since twenty twenty.
It's been almost five years, and back then he wasn't
nearly the all around player that he is now. Right, So, like, yeah,
when I combine the Swiss army knife that Jason Tatum
has been the last few years with the jump shooter
that Jason Tatum was in the early part of his career, now,
(14:12):
I do think he is the fifth best player in
the league. I wanted to cover that separately because too
much of this has turned into Anthony Edwards versus Jason Tatum.
I get that. I had a rant in the postseason
that you guys have been pulling back all the time,
where I said I thought Anthony Edwards was better than
Jason Tatum at the time when Jason Tatum, or when
Anthony Edwards averaging twenty eight seven and seven on sixty
(14:33):
percent through shooting, dragging that flawed Minnesota roster to the
Western Conference Finals, at that specific point in time, I
thought Ant was better than Tatum. I no longer feel
that way, but we need to remove Ant from this
discussion for a second, because Ant's a separate issue, and
we'll talk about him in a minute. I just wanted
to talk about Tatum in a vacuum. The reason why
I had Tatum lower was because of his jump shooting issues.
(14:55):
He has now rectified that, and when you combine that
with his all around ability, he is such a deeply
impactful basketball player. And that's what we've been seeing this year,
and that's why he is the fringe MVP candidate that
he is this year. I wanted to cover Tatum separately
than Ant because they aren't actually connected. So on that note,
(15:18):
now let's get into Ant. What's going on in Minnesota
right now is so much deeper than just Anthony Edwards development.
Ant is struggling right now. We talked about it earlier,
but the Wolves are having these spacing issues and they're
confronting them by putting Ant with nonspacers and Julius with spacers.
So ann is playing the majority of the game with
(15:38):
a bunch of non shooters on the floor that teams
can help help off of and send aggressive help. Now
at other points in the season, when his jump shot
is following at a super high rate, it's something that
has worked to a certain extent, but teams are now
starting to send more doubles, more aggressive ball screen coverages
late help all the stuff that Anthony Edwards was talking
(15:59):
about in his post presser last night. And to make
matters worse, Ant is now in a little bit of
a shooting slope. He's at thirty five point four percent
from three over his last ten games, which isn't terrible,
but it's far below where he was to start the year.
Now here's the thing. There are two ways to look
at this solution. There's the big picture, which is confronting
the obvious reality that this is a flawed roster construct
(16:22):
and something needs to be changed for the future of
Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves. But then there's the
short term reality. And the short term reality is that
the Wolves are a second Apron team, meaning they are
heavily handicapped with their ability to make trades this season
and they may not be able to do much before
they get to this summer. So we have to focus
(16:44):
on the short term reality. Because the short term reality
is this season. You gotta find something you can do
to make the most out of this season. Then you
can confront all the issues with the roster when you
get to June. In July, Ant has been comeling a
lot about double teams. The reality is that the best
(17:04):
way for this team to continue is probably to let
Julius keep leading those spacing groups, and Ant has to
try to make the non spacing groups work. If you
put Ant with the spacing groups, those groups will be better.
But if you put Julius with the non spacing groups,
those groups will be a disaster. I actually think Ant
has been making pretty solid passing leads in terms of
(17:25):
like identifying that there's a double team, throwing those skip passes,
getting rid of the ball quickly. I actually think he's
been doing a pretty decent job there. There are two things, though,
that I think are holding him back right now, beyond
the obvious slump which he's going to make shots in
the big picture. One his past location the sharpness of
those passes. There are a lot of times where Ant
(17:46):
is getting double teamed or they're loading up in ball
screens and Ant is throwing a swing pass, throwing a
pocket pass, throwing a drop off pass, throwing a skip pass,
but it's not hitting the ball handler or the shooter
in the post. What happens there is anytime there is
a slight fumble, a slight guy loses his balance when
he's trying to catch the ball. Anytime there's anything involving
(18:09):
the pass being off target, it gives the defense an
opportunity to rotate. Specifically, it buys them more time to rotate,
and so then what happens in those situations is the
advantage disappears. There were a bunch of examples last night
in that Celtics game where Aunt saw the right read,
(18:30):
made the pass but threw it off target and Boston
was able to rotate. It's a big part. I think
he only had like three or four assists despite the
fact that Boston was double teaming them all all night.
Some of that is guy's not making shots, I want
to be clear, But a big part of it too
is he could do himself a favor by being a
little bit more precise with those kickout raads. That is
(18:50):
a big part of how he can try to make
the most out of this season is being better attention
to detail in those passes to make sure they get
where they need to be on time, on target. And
then two on defense. Ant is an incredible on ball defender,
but he has a tendency on ball occasionally to die
(19:10):
on screens. He lost Jason Tatum on the like where
he just died on a screen in the It was
like the early second half if I remember correctly. And
then off ball in particular, he stands upright and he
doesn't track man in ball and he can lose shooters.
How do you make the most out of those lineups
by virtue of making sharper passes, so at least the
(19:31):
guys that are limited shooters have a little bit more
time to knock the shot down or to make a
uh you know, an advantage extending play like driving a
close out. And then two, you have to win with
defense in those groups. If you're gonna have Rudy Gobert
Jada McDaniels on the floor, you better be locking teams up,
and you can't be giving up easy buckets because Ant's
(19:53):
falling asleep off ball, leaving shooters. It's so funny because
I saw so much discussion last night surrounding Ant as
a player maker, and there's no doubt that Ant needs
to improve in some of those areas, Like I talked
about just little details like past location, but I just
think they're so far down the list of the other
things that Minnesota could improve, and even that Aunt can improve,
(20:18):
and I just think that we're we're kind of missing
the boat to a certain extent. The Wolf starting three
four five currently makes one hundred million dollars. Jada McDaniels,
Julius Randall, and Rudy Gobert makes one hundred million dollars.
That is how much of their cap they're taking up
this season. Those guys are combining to make two point
(20:40):
nine threes per game on thirty three percent. That's a
much bigger issue than some of the stuff were nitpicking
Anthony Edwards about before. I talk a little bit more
about that big picture reality though. The one last thing
that I think that Chris Finch has to consider to
try to make the most out of this season is
to be a little bit more willing to go away
(21:01):
from Rudy Gobert. This is a concept that I've been
talking about a lot on this show and with regards
to other teams as well, specifically teams like teams like
Denver in the early in the past. New York is
a big team. I've been talking about it this year
with Karl Anthony Towns at center. You can be a
good defense without an elite rim protector if you have
(21:24):
athletes that compete on the perimeter, both containing the ball
and flying around in rotation. And so this idea that
and again I understand Gobert is a huge regular season
floor racer, but there are limitations there. I just wanted
to think as a thought exercise, I was like, what
would be the ideal lineup for the Wolves to go
(21:44):
down with in a big spot? The lineup that I
think has the most sensical basketball talent within this group
in the in house, meaning you can't go make a
trade Anthony Evergs and Julius got to have your two
best ball handlers. But then nas Reid at center. And
then I was like, how about the two best three
(22:04):
and d guys on the roster? And what I came
up with was Dante de Vincenzo and Nikhil Alexander Walker.
That group, those five guys, Aunt and Julius nos Rat
at center flanked by Dante and Nikiel two hundred and
twenty two possessions is here, according to Cleaning the Glass,
a one thirty one offensive rating, a one to ten
defensive rating, plus twenty one points per one hundred possessions.
(22:26):
That is a lineup that I think Chris Finch should
explore more and maybe cut Rudy Gobert's minutes down and
give that group more opportunity to run because it'll feed
confidence they'll get going on offense, it'll cause them to
thrive on defense. And again, a one ten defensive rating
is a good defensive rating. It's not elite, but it's
a good defensive rating, and it's because you've got a
lot of athletes on the perimeter that compete and rotate
(22:49):
and it helps support a weaker rim protector in nas Reed.
So that's another thing I would do again. AT's got
to be more sharp with this passing in terms of location,
and it's got to be more competent off balld defender.
And I think Chris Finch needs to explore going away
from Rudy Gobert more, especially when in big spots when
they need to get more out of their offense. Now
about the long term reality, as I mentioned, you're starting
(23:11):
front court makes one hundred million dollars. Jaden McDaniels makes
twenty three million, and he's literally shooting thirty one point
five percent on catch and shoot jump shots. Teams just
don't guard him. That is too much money to pay
a guy, too much room in your cap being taken
up by a guy who's a near zero on offense.
(23:32):
Rudy Gobert again one of the best regular season four
raizers in the league, but in the context of this roster,
he's a huge part of the spacing problem, and I
personally think he has a ceiling problem when we get
too late playoff rounds against elite defenses that can protect
the rim ie what happened with Dallas and then Julius Randall,
who can't score off the ball and is really poor
off ball instincts in general in terms of spacing and cutting,
(23:54):
is a big part of the problem. Against Boston last night,
that's one hundred million dollars all for play who make
it harder on Anthony Edwards when he has the basketball.
That's a flawed roster construct. And to top it all off,
you're in the second apron, so you can't aggregate salaries
and trades. There's a million different restrictions on their ability
(24:16):
to tweak this roster. They can't even trade him straight
up for Cam Johnson. They can't even trade Julius Randall
straight up for Cam Johnson. I'm having a hard time
even finding trades that makes sense. They almost just have
to get through this season and then let Julius Randall
walk to have any real chance to tweak the roster.
But again, that was the primary purpose of them trading
Karl Anthony Towns this summer. They deliberately took a risk.
(24:40):
As I said to the summer, I said, this has
much lower of a floor, But yeah, there's a ceiling play,
which is like, what if Julius Randall has an All
NBA season and your defense is great and aunt and
Julius just out execute everybody. That was a possibility. That
was the upside. Hell, it's still the upside. But there
was a huge downside to this deal, which is that
you're spacing is dog sit. It makes life harder on Ant,
(25:02):
but hey, at least you get some cap flexibility moving forward.
The real problem is you have sixty seven million dollars
and Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert invested in two guys
that have to play big minutes because they feel big
salary slots, but they only play one side of the
floor and that's too much. It's a flawed way to
build a basketball team, and they have to find a
(25:23):
way to fix it. It's not over for the Wolves
this year, but their window of opportunity is incredibly slim,
and it's just kind of disappointing because you feel like
you could grow off of that Western Conference Finals run
last year, and all you did was tweak things and
take a gigantic step backwards. All right, quickly, before we
(25:52):
get out of here, I wanted to talk about Warriors
Sixers at least for one night, build and say Warriors
broke out of their slumt Remember I talked about how
in the Cleveland game, there's all this gloom and doom,
and it was like they were just clearly, just miserably
cold from the perimeter. They had fourteen unguarded catch and
shoot jump shots against Cleveland, they made zero. They went
eleven for twenty one against the Sixers' that's gonna help
(26:15):
a lot. Steph Curry eight for eight from three. Dennis
Schroeder was a huge part of the first quarter run.
He had three threes just right away, came out guns blazing.
I'm a huge Dennis Schrueder believer. A lot of Warriors
fans were annoyed with him and how he started anytime
he changed teams. It takes time to kind of figure
out your role and get your confidence, get your rhythm.
I think you guys are gonna love that guy. He's
(26:35):
a really, really good basketball player. I also thought he
just like brought some dribble penetration and made some things happen.
As a team, the Warriors hit twenty two threes and
shot fifty six percent from behind the three point line.
And then they followed the game plan that you're supposed
to follow against Philly, which is like run the floor
every single damn time you can, because and beat his
slow and in general, they've got some older, slower guys.
(26:56):
They're not gonna run the floor. The Warriors had thirty
eight points in transition. This game was their third highest
total of the season. Their highest, I want to say,
was Portland. It was like forty something in the early
part of the season, and they had another forty something
in a loss against the Brooklyn Nets earlier this season.
But that's their third highest transition total this year. And
they just ran Philly off the floor, controlled it throughout.
(27:16):
Philly never let in this game I really didn't like
Philly's offensive approach in this game. They didn't go to
embid in the post at all with the starters. They
were just like kind of playing some freelance basketball and
jacking up bad shots. And then finally when Gershon Yabuseli's
checked into the game, that's when they started going to
embat in the post, and they were getting good stuff
every single time. Yeabucelli was setting up on the opposite
(27:37):
wing and he was just cutting hard and making himself
available in the lane and drawing extra attention, getting catches
there and finishes there. Philly post ups were really good.
But it's interesting because like Philly's offense this season, when Embiid,
Paul George, and Maxie are all on the floor together,
is only generating one hundred and seven points per one
hundred possessions. And I think there's almost a little you know,
(27:58):
there are certain teams that I think need to be
more of a you know, keep the ball moving side
to side, let's play five out, let's keep everybody involved,
types of teams. And then there are teams where I'm like,
you should spam the same damn thing every single damn
every single time, damn down the floor kind of teams, right,
like earlier Dallas Mavericks teams before they added all this
ball handling, Like it was made sense for them to
play that way, right, Like this Philly team, Like I
(28:21):
don't want Caleb Martin run in action. I don't want
Kelly Ubray running action. I don't even want Kyle Lowry
running action. Like what I would like for this team
to do is to steady diet of and beat pep
post ups. When Paul George and Maxie are on the floor,
I want maximba two man game. You know, when you're staggering,
you can mix it up. That's one thing. But like
(28:41):
there's way too much dicking around from this Sixers team
that doesn't play into the talent that they have, and
it just kind of feels like a wasted opportunity. But anyway,
Golden State took a big lead early on and they
just started feeding off the crowd and they got going
in transition like we talked about, and again it's a
really bad matchup for the Sixers because when they have
the Golden State, it's like a blender, not even just
(29:02):
in transition, but also in the half court. It's just
all these guys moving and cutting and screening, and it's
just it's just a lot to deal with. And that's
a specific thing that Philly has always struggled with, which
is just basically covering in space, whether that's transition or
in the half court. Goldenzan ends up pulling away and
winning by thirty four. Good win too. That six Ers
team had just recently gone through stretch where they had
(29:23):
won ten out of thirteen games. I thought Draymond Green
and Steph Curry were both amazing last night. Steph Curry,
of course eight for eight for three, but I also
thought he just did a brilliant job of advantage creation,
drawing that second defender up at the top of the key,
a lot of inverted action with Kaminga and Wiggins that
he was getting good stuff out of. I thought Draymond
played a brilliant two way game. He had three blocks,
(29:43):
He was disruptive all night. It was a great playmaking
game from him. His transition kick add passes were a
big part of what got Golden State going in transition again.
Kick adad passes are a vitally important part of transition
basketball because it forces the defense to turn their head
So imagine, like in a transition defense situation, all the
guys that are running back, they're looking back towards the
(30:06):
basket they're trying to score on right, Like they're looking
up the floor right, but they're back pedaling back in
transition defense. So they're running back while looking up the
floor right. But as soon as you throw a kick
ahead pass, it forces everyone to turn around and start
looking at the basket they're defending because the ball is
now on the other side of them. That is what
opens up opportunities for the guys that are filling in
lanes behind them to find openings. And that's where you
(30:29):
start to get into rotation basketball in transition. And again,
like if the entire goal of playing offense is to
generate an advantage, meaning whether that's a four on three
or even just beating a guy off a dribble and
it's five on four. When you have that advantage, it's
much easier to play basketball, right, especially when you have
the spacing principles like we talked about earlier with the
Boston Celtics. So once we're in those driving kick situations,
(30:51):
if you've got decent talent on the floor, that guy's
gonna drive, he's gonna kick, he's gonna find the next
open guy. That guy's gonna drive, he's gonna kick, he's
gonna find the next open guy in then event, you're
going to get a wide open three or something at
their end, right. But the hardest part is getting that
initial advantage, and if you get into the half court,
it's much much harder to get that initial advantage. But
if you can get that advantage just by throwing the
(31:14):
ball up the floor in transition, like Draymond, just as
soon as he gets that rebound or as soon as
he gets that outlet pass, he's immediately firing it up
to the first opening that he sees among the guys
running their lanes, because he knows that will get the
defense in rotation. Then they don't have to play crazy
half court basketball. They can just play off of that
advantage until they get something that they like. They literally
(31:35):
can feed into almost like a semi transition sequence attacking
in rotation. I thought Draymond was great on that front.
He also did some surgical work in the half court
as well. Just like you know, high low feeds to
guys cutting along the baseline. Things along those lines point
is Stephan Draymond. These are two guys that have been slumping,
just as the whole team has been slumping. Draymond and
(31:56):
Steph have had some truly ugly games over the course
of the last month. We're not going to beat around
the bush and pretend that wasn't the case. Memphis game
in particular was the bottom of the barrel, right, But
these guys still have a really high ceiling when they
are right. And I believe that what causes a basketball
player to reach their individual ceiling is a combination of
(32:17):
a bunch of factors. It's not just on the player.
The player is going to do the work behind the
scenes to take care of their body, to polish up
their skills, to try to be ready. The coaching staff
is going to do the best they can to get
them in rhythm through the way they're organized. But it
also comes down to the way that the team is
playing as a whole unit, meaning how well they're defending,
(32:37):
how well they're running up and down the floor in transition,
how well guys are capitalizing on the advantages to start
create and it all feeds on each other. Right, So,
for instance, like if you defend and you get a stop,
and then you push the ball up in transition, and
in the transition chaos, Steph draws three defenders and throws
(32:57):
a kickback pass to Buddy Yield at the top of
the key and he knocks down at three or to
Kaminga cutting along the baseline and he gets a dunk.
All of a sudden, when you run back on defense,
your team feels good because they just got to stop,
so they know that works. Your offense just got a bucket.
Kaminga's feeling more confident, or Buddy Heels feeling more confident.
Whoever hits the shot. Steph is feeling good because he
(33:18):
just made a play for a teammate. Now everyone's sitting
back down in a defensive stance, and they're invigorated by that,
which causes them to play better defense, which causes them
to be more likely to get another stop, which causes
them to be more likely to get out and transition again,
which causes them to be more likely to score again.
And it's like this feeding machine, right. It's momentum in
(33:39):
a lot of ways. But the same thing can happen
in reverse. If you don't get a stop and then
you slowly dribble up the floor and you're in the
half court and Steph is having a little bit of
trouble breaking free off of a screening action. But let's
say he still does and you get a little four
on three and it ends in a kickout pass and
the ball ends up in Andrew Wiggins's hand after you
(34:00):
kicked to Kaminga in the corner, makes an extra pass
to Wiggins up on the right wing, and he misses
the three. Uh or like you get an offensive rebound
and it goes right to Stephanie's wide open and he
misses the three like he did against the Caps. Steph
was over four on unguarded catch and shoot threes against
the Cavs. It's discouraging. Everyone slumps their shoulders a bit.
You're unback on defense. Yeah, you're still trying because you're
(34:23):
a team that's an engaged professional basketball team, but there's
just not quite that oomph on the defensive end on
that possession because you're a little discouraged, which makes it
statistically more likely that they'll score, which makes it statistically
less likely that you'll get out and transition again, which
makes it statistically less likely that you'll get a good advantage,
(34:44):
which makes it statistically less likely that your role players
or your stars will be able to capitalize on that advantage.
And it can feed on itself and it can become
this draining thing and it's like, oh, like this is
just isn't working, And then it gets more discouraging and
more discouraging, and now guy, they're saying things in press
conferences and now there's Steve Kurz bitching about shot selection
and all like it turns into this like momentous thing.
(35:07):
So that's why I've always been such a big believer
in like how small tweaks can lead to big results.
If you go get a player, let's just say Cam
Johnson for instance. If you were able to go get
Cam Johnson and he just was able to convert a
few more of those plays, which fights that momentum more
in the positive direction more often, then it's more likely
(35:30):
that you'll be the best version of yourselves when you
need to be. And we've seen that from what we
saw from Stephan Draymond last night. Again, that's good Eastern
Conference team that should beat I know they're out of
the play in now, but we all know the reasons
why Philly's in the position they're in. They've been doing
a lot of winning lately. That's not to say there's
some top tier contender, but that's a decent win for
Golden State last night. The point is when Steph and
(35:50):
Draymond are at their best and everyone else can feed
off of that, this is still a real machine. And
like I talked about in the show yesterday, it's about
this like kind of loser, which is like, do you
guys want to punt? Do you want to punt and
just give up on this thing, or do you want
to go for it? And if you're going to go
for it, then go for it, no half measures you
need like that, You'll you will not have a player
(36:13):
as good as Steph Curry is for a very very
long time. Statistically, it's very improbable in the next decade
that you'll have a player as good as Steph Curry is.
And that's why I'm such a big believer in trying
to make it work to the best that you're capable
of in this situation. All right, guys, that's all I
have for today is always as sincerely appreciate you guys
for supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be back
tomorrow breaking down. I think Nick Thunder is the big
(36:34):
game that I want to watch tonight. That will be
covering in tomorrow's show. And then again, I'll keep dropping
mail back questions. We'll do that either on Sunday or Monday.
I'll let you guys know, all right, see guys tomorrow
the volume. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you
for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually
be really helpful for us if you guys would take
a second and leave a rating and a review. As always,
(36:57):
I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could
take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.
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Slash b ball. All right, well come to you tonight.
(01:38):
You're at the volume heavy Friday. Everybody hope all if
you guys are having a great week. Just a quick
show for today. We're gonna talk about Celtics Wolves for
the most part, really entertaining a really interesting game on
that front. I want to talk about the Celtics and
the way Jason Tatum is playing. I want to talk
about the Jason Tatum Anthony Edwards debate, which largely centers
around my player rankings from last summer. And then I
(01:58):
want to talk about Anthony Edwards in the world, some
of their issues from the season, and the two part
reality of their path forward, which is how do you
fix this problem in the big picture and how do
you make the most out of this particular season. And
at the very end of the show, I just want
to briefly touch on the Sixers Warriors game before we
get out of here. You guys know the trip before
(02:18):
we get started. To subscribe to the Hoop Tonight YouTube
channel so you don't miss any more of our videos.
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you continue to get content throughout the year. Last but
not at least, keep dropping mail bag questions in the
(02:39):
YouTube comments mailbag on Friday this week because our schedule
is a little different because I'm leaving to go on
my first ski trip of the year on Sunday, so
the mail bag is going to come out on either Saturday, Sunday,
Monday sometime in that stretch, and then next week will
actually start for us on Wednesday. But still plenty of
time to drop mail bag questions, so get those in
(02:59):
the YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. So
Celtics Wolves. I thought Jason Tatum just played an absolutely
beautiful game. He had all these like different phases in
the way that he was attacking at different points in
the game, Like in the early first quarter, he was
just playing advantage creation basketball, just kind of floating around
taking the easy reads that are available. That's such an
(03:20):
important part of this Boston offense, right, because the real
differentiator from a talent standpoint between like Boston supporting cast
and a lot of the other supporting casts around the
league is their ability, via the coaching staff all the
way down through the roster to generate space and then
to capitalize on extra attention that is devoted towards the
guys that have the ball, right, and it's so much
(03:41):
more complicated than shooting. It was actually really interesting because
there's a lot of discussions surrounding Minnesota's shooting, and we're
going to talk about that today, but it goes deeper
than that because there's a lot of like different things
that happen when you watch other teams play, where like,
for instance, I have a couple of clips that I
posted to demonstrate some of these differences on my Twitter feed.
We're like when Tatum's driving, there's always like shooter left corner,
(04:05):
shooter right corner, guard in the dunker spot, and shooter
opposite wing, and so he's just got all of this
space to work with. And it's not just the shooting. Yeah,
those guys have to be accounted for in terms of
their ability to knock down shots, but it's also floor placement.
It's also like having the right guys in the right spot.
(04:25):
You want to guard in the dunker spot. Why because
he's usually being guarded by a smaller player. So the
guy that's helping out the rim, you would prefer to
be a smaller player. So if you're gonna have somebody
in the dunker spot, if you have a center in
the dunker spot, you're probably gonna have a center helping
at the rim. But if you have a guard at
the dunker spot, you're gonna have a smaller player helping
at the rim. Right. And then if your corners are
occupied and your wing opposite wing is occupied. You have
(04:47):
the distance between the right corner and the opposite wing,
that whole stretch of three point line to work off
the dribble and make things happen. I can't tell you
how many times in that Wolves game it's it goes
deeper than just Jaden McDaniel's can't shoot, or Julius Randall's
not a great spot up shooter, or you know, Rudy
Gobert's stonehands around the basket. It extends deeper into floor placement.
(05:09):
Times where Julius Randall and Rudy Gobert are both standing
directly underneath the basket. Or you have a guy that's
in the opposite wing, but he's standing ten feet away
from the guy that's in the corner, so you can
effectively guard with two guys, or instead of one guy cutting,
you have two guys cut to the exact same spot
(05:31):
make themselves easy to guard. There's a lot of stuff
that goes deeper than that. And I'm saying that mainly
to compliment the Celtics as an organization from the top down,
because it's not just having it goes it's a thing
from the front office in terms of the types of
players that they're targeting, the coaching staff in terms of
organization on the floor, but the players not just shooting
(05:55):
but also basketball IQ and like the natural understanding and
feel of space. There's all these As you're off the ball,
you're constantly reading what's the ball handler doing, what are
the other off ball players doing. So, for instance, if
a guy drives into the lane and makes a kickout pass,
where he decides to relocate is going to directly affect
where you have to relocate. Right There's a lot of
(06:16):
like different decisions that you make in those spacing situations.
And like, again, Boston just does such an amazing job
organizationally of keeping guys on the floor in the right
spots and putting the types of guys out there that
are good with their instincts in their placement off the
ball while also having the ability to knock down shots.
And it's just start contrast between the two teams that
(06:38):
were watching last night. But again, Jason Tatum's within that,
within that ecosystem. One of the things that he does
better than most is he'll just call for a guard screen,
get a inside seal for you know, one of the
the guy who's setting the screen will get an inside seal,
and he's big and tall enough and quick enough with
the decision making to float the ball over the top
so that'll hands right in the guy's hands so that
(06:59):
he has a four run three, or making a skip
pass when Anthony Edwards is leaking into the lane off
of Derek White in the left corner. Like those are
the kinds of like little things that Jason Tatum does
that just greases the wheels for this offense. But then
he had these two massive jump shooting runs in a
late second quarter. He had a jump shooting run where
he hit a bunch of shots that gave the Celtics
(07:19):
their initial large separation that put them up by fourteen.
And then the Wolves, after playing some more desperate basketball
to start the third quarter, they cut the lead down
to four right around the mid third quarter mark, and
he had another jump shooting run in that late third
quarter that put the Celtics back up by thirteen. I
thought Tatum was fantastic in this game. The Wolves played
really well in the fourth quarter. In that early fourth
(07:41):
quarter stretch they went to their spacing group. It's kind
of like this interesting concept with the way the Wolves
play basketball. So you have these two stars, and they're
both stars that like are at their best when they're
going downhill, right. But Anthony Edwards is one of the
best jump shooters in the league, particularly off the dribble,
right he gets, He's up at like one point one
zero points per jump shot this season, very very good
(08:02):
jump shooter, especially off the dribble. Julius Randall not so much. Right.
So one of the things that they're doing is like
the bench groups are always staggered versions of starters and
bench players, right. So one of the things that we're
seeing is like when Anthony Edwards is carrying a bench
group without Julius Randall, they'll put him out there with
Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert, And they do that because
(08:25):
they know the spacing is shit. But ant is a
guy that's capable of knocking down shots over the top,
so we'll put him with that group. But then what
they'll do with the Julius Randall groups is they know
he's not as good shooting over the top, so they'll
put all the spacers with him. So he was playing
with a group that had Dante DiVincenzo Nikhil Alexander Walker
nasried at center, and then Josh miy Not I believe
(08:46):
was the fifth in that group, and he was incredible
in that fourth quarter run. He was blocking shots at
the rim, driving closeouts and dunking on everybody, hitting corner
threes like he was incredible too. But it kind of
is like the best way for them to make use
of that situation the record. I agree with Chris Finch
in the overall kind of ethos of that or thought
process behind that decision making process. There are things that
(09:09):
disagree with Chris Finch with as it pertains to like
specific lineup groups that I'd like to see them use
more in big spots. We'll talk about that in a minute.
But that's kind of the give and take with the
Wolves bench groups. It's like Aunt with Jaden and Rudy
Julius with all the shooters, well Julius with all the
shooters in that early fourth quarter group. They go on
a big run and they actually end up briefly taking
a lead, but then Derek White goes absolutely berserk in
(09:32):
the fourth quarter, hit several tough, heavily contested shots and
it ends up being enough to stiff arm the Wolves
and they get out of Minnesota with a win. So
now I want to There's so much big picture stuff
I want to get into, but before we get into that,
I want to shout out a couple more Celtics. Sam Hauser.
I thought his shooting was huge AllGame. He was the
(09:54):
guy that was paying off the chaos situations that Boston
was generating, so like transition pushes where he would end
up with the ball, knocking down a three, threes off
of offensive rebounds, threes off of mistakes that Minnesota was
making in their help side defense. He was just paying
it off a lot. And then the Bigs. I thought,
specifically Nimi Kuoita just did an amazing job in his bench.
(10:17):
In his bench shifts as at that backup center spot
is touched around the basket was important. I thought he
won some offensive rebound battles, especially on switches where he'd
get inside position on like Julius Randall and get a
big tap out rebound or an offensive rebound. I just
thought he gave really good minutes. It was an impressive
win for the Celtics again, down Jaylen Brown and down
Christops Porzingis on the road in Minnesota and again, like
(10:40):
it was a kind of a showcase of a bunch
of different things. Like I thought it was a showcase
of the fact that Jason Tatum right now is just
a more complete all around basketball player than Anthony Edwards,
something that I've thought most of this season after I
was wrong over the summer. We're going to talk about
that in a minute. But I also thought it was
a demonstration of the gap in organizational competence between Minnesota
(11:01):
and Boston, like we talked about earlier, in terms of
their spacing principles and just the way they make things
easier for their stars. So let's talk about this Aunt
Tatum debate. So this is something I've been getting absolutely
shredded for all season. And the funniest thing about it
is we're talking about two spots. I had Tatum at seven,
and most Celtics fans have him at five. There are
(11:21):
a few more intense Celtics fans that have him higher
at like three or four. But like the point is,
we're talking about just a couple of spots. I had
Tatum down at seven. It was a just something that
Celtics fans got really upset about. I no longer feel
that way I would now have Tatum at five, and
then i'd probably have Ant even lower than seven. Now
(11:43):
i'd probably have him closer to the bottom of the
top ten. But no, it is not because Jason Tatum
beat Anthony Edwards last night. It is not because the
Boston Celtics swept the Timberwolves this season. It is not
because the Boston Celtics are clearly a much much better
basketball team overall, including the Stars, than the Minnesota Timberlves.
(12:04):
That is not why I feel that way. The reason
why I now have Tatum at five when I had
him at seven this summer is last year, Jason Tatum
was not a very good jump shooter, especially in the playoffs,
and then he completely fell apart as a jump shooter
with Team USA. In the playoffs, Tatum, when he took
a jump shot, it was worth zero point eight points
(12:27):
per tempt. That's really really bad. And then he was
zero for sixteen on jump shots with Team USA. So
when I was thinking about Tatum in the context of
the other stars in the league, I liked his versatility.
I thought he was integral to the Celtics defense in
that playoff run, specifically his ability to guard centers. But
(12:48):
also to be able to switch ball screens, which was
like the primary foundation of the Boston defensive scheme that
caused so many problems for people in the postseason run.
Huge testament to Tatum's versatility. I also thought he he
just did a wonderful job of initial advantage creation, like
we talked about earlier, creating those tic tac toe situations
that Boston was so good at turning into points. Jason
(13:10):
Tatum is a Swiss army knife of a basketball player,
which has always been something I'm drawn to because I'm
a Lebron fan and Lebron was a Swiss army knife
of a basketball player still is to this day. But
because of his jump shooting issues, I had him down
at seven instead of five. I had a feeling he
was just in a bad slump. I talked about it
all summer that I expected Tatum to shoot better this year,
(13:30):
but as I factored all of that in, I landed
with him at seven. This season, Tatum is having the
best jump shooting season he's had in five years. He's
at one point zero seven points per jump shot, he's
at one point zero two points per off the dribble
jump shot, and he's at one point two to one
points per jumper off the catch. He hasn't even come
(13:51):
close to those numbers as a jump shooter since twenty twenty.
It's been almost five years, and back then he wasn't
nearly the all around player that he is now. Right, So, like, yeah,
when I combine the Swiss army knife that Jason Tatum
has been the last few years with the jump shooter
that Jason Tatum was in the early part of his career, now,
(14:12):
I do think he is the fifth best player in
the league. I wanted to cover that separately because too
much of this has turned into Anthony Edwards versus Jason Tatum.
I get that. I had a rant in the postseason
that you guys have been pulling back all the time,
where I said I thought Anthony Edwards was better than
Jason Tatum at the time when Jason Tatum, or when
Anthony Edwards averaging twenty eight seven and seven on sixty
(14:33):
percent through shooting, dragging that flawed Minnesota roster to the
Western Conference Finals, at that specific point in time, I
thought Ant was better than Tatum. I no longer feel
that way, but we need to remove Ant from this
discussion for a second, because Ant's a separate issue, and
we'll talk about him in a minute. I just wanted
to talk about Tatum in a vacuum. The reason why
I had Tatum lower was because of his jump shooting issues.
(14:55):
He has now rectified that, and when you combine that
with his all around ability, he is such a deeply
impactful basketball player. And that's what we've been seeing this year,
and that's why he is the fringe MVP candidate that
he is this year. I wanted to cover Tatum separately
than Ant because they aren't actually connected. So on that note,
(15:18):
now let's get into Ant. What's going on in Minnesota
right now is so much deeper than just Anthony Edwards development.
Ant is struggling right now. We talked about it earlier,
but the Wolves are having these spacing issues and they're
confronting them by putting Ant with nonspacers and Julius with spacers.
So ann is playing the majority of the game with
(15:38):
a bunch of non shooters on the floor that teams
can help help off of and send aggressive help. Now
at other points in the season, when his jump shot
is following at a super high rate, it's something that
has worked to a certain extent, but teams are now
starting to send more doubles, more aggressive ball screen coverages
late help all the stuff that Anthony Edwards was talking
(15:59):
about in his post presser last night. And to make
matters worse, Ant is now in a little bit of
a shooting slope. He's at thirty five point four percent
from three over his last ten games, which isn't terrible,
but it's far below where he was to start the year.
Now here's the thing. There are two ways to look
at this solution. There's the big picture, which is confronting
the obvious reality that this is a flawed roster construct
(16:22):
and something needs to be changed for the future of
Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves. But then there's the
short term reality. And the short term reality is that
the Wolves are a second Apron team, meaning they are
heavily handicapped with their ability to make trades this season
and they may not be able to do much before
they get to this summer. So we have to focus
(16:44):
on the short term reality. Because the short term reality
is this season. You gotta find something you can do
to make the most out of this season. Then you
can confront all the issues with the roster when you
get to June. In July, Ant has been comeling a
lot about double teams. The reality is that the best
(17:04):
way for this team to continue is probably to let
Julius keep leading those spacing groups, and Ant has to
try to make the non spacing groups work. If you
put Ant with the spacing groups, those groups will be better.
But if you put Julius with the non spacing groups,
those groups will be a disaster. I actually think Ant
has been making pretty solid passing leads in terms of
(17:25):
like identifying that there's a double team, throwing those skip passes,
getting rid of the ball quickly. I actually think he's
been doing a pretty decent job there. There are two things, though,
that I think are holding him back right now, beyond
the obvious slump which he's going to make shots in
the big picture. One his past location the sharpness of
those passes. There are a lot of times where Ant
(17:46):
is getting double teamed or they're loading up in ball
screens and Ant is throwing a swing pass, throwing a
pocket pass, throwing a drop off pass, throwing a skip pass,
but it's not hitting the ball handler or the shooter
in the post. What happens there is anytime there is
a slight fumble, a slight guy loses his balance when
he's trying to catch the ball. Anytime there's anything involving
(18:09):
the pass being off target, it gives the defense an
opportunity to rotate. Specifically, it buys them more time to rotate,
and so then what happens in those situations is the
advantage disappears. There were a bunch of examples last night
in that Celtics game where Aunt saw the right read,
(18:30):
made the pass but threw it off target and Boston
was able to rotate. It's a big part. I think
he only had like three or four assists despite the
fact that Boston was double teaming them all all night.
Some of that is guy's not making shots, I want
to be clear, But a big part of it too
is he could do himself a favor by being a
little bit more precise with those kickout raads. That is
(18:50):
a big part of how he can try to make
the most out of this season is being better attention
to detail in those passes to make sure they get
where they need to be on time, on target. And
then two on defense. Ant is an incredible on ball defender,
but he has a tendency on ball occasionally to die
(19:10):
on screens. He lost Jason Tatum on the like where
he just died on a screen in the It was
like the early second half if I remember correctly. And
then off ball in particular, he stands upright and he
doesn't track man in ball and he can lose shooters.
How do you make the most out of those lineups
by virtue of making sharper passes, so at least the
(19:31):
guys that are limited shooters have a little bit more
time to knock the shot down or to make a
uh you know, an advantage extending play like driving a
close out. And then two, you have to win with
defense in those groups. If you're gonna have Rudy Gobert
Jada McDaniels on the floor, you better be locking teams up,
and you can't be giving up easy buckets because Ant's
(19:53):
falling asleep off ball, leaving shooters. It's so funny because
I saw so much discussion last night surrounding Ant as
a player maker, and there's no doubt that Ant needs
to improve in some of those areas, Like I talked
about just little details like past location, but I just
think they're so far down the list of the other
things that Minnesota could improve, and even that Aunt can improve,
(20:18):
and I just think that we're we're kind of missing
the boat to a certain extent. The Wolf starting three
four five currently makes one hundred million dollars. Jada McDaniels,
Julius Randall, and Rudy Gobert makes one hundred million dollars.
That is how much of their cap they're taking up
this season. Those guys are combining to make two point
(20:40):
nine threes per game on thirty three percent. That's a
much bigger issue than some of the stuff were nitpicking
Anthony Edwards about before. I talk a little bit more
about that big picture reality though. The one last thing
that I think that Chris Finch has to consider to
try to make the most out of this season is
to be a little bit more willing to go away
(21:01):
from Rudy Gobert. This is a concept that I've been
talking about a lot on this show and with regards
to other teams as well, specifically teams like teams like
Denver in the early in the past. New York is
a big team. I've been talking about it this year
with Karl Anthony Towns at center. You can be a
good defense without an elite rim protector if you have
(21:24):
athletes that compete on the perimeter, both containing the ball
and flying around in rotation. And so this idea that
and again I understand Gobert is a huge regular season
floor racer, but there are limitations there. I just wanted
to think as a thought exercise, I was like, what
would be the ideal lineup for the Wolves to go
(21:44):
down with in a big spot? The lineup that I
think has the most sensical basketball talent within this group
in the in house, meaning you can't go make a
trade Anthony Evergs and Julius got to have your two
best ball handlers. But then nas Reid at center. And
then I was like, how about the two best three
(22:04):
and d guys on the roster? And what I came
up with was Dante de Vincenzo and Nikhil Alexander Walker.
That group, those five guys, Aunt and Julius nos Rat
at center flanked by Dante and Nikiel two hundred and
twenty two possessions is here, according to Cleaning the Glass,
a one thirty one offensive rating, a one to ten
defensive rating, plus twenty one points per one hundred possessions.
(22:26):
That is a lineup that I think Chris Finch should
explore more and maybe cut Rudy Gobert's minutes down and
give that group more opportunity to run because it'll feed
confidence they'll get going on offense, it'll cause them to
thrive on defense. And again, a one ten defensive rating
is a good defensive rating. It's not elite, but it's
a good defensive rating, and it's because you've got a
lot of athletes on the perimeter that compete and rotate
(22:49):
and it helps support a weaker rim protector in nas Reed.
So that's another thing I would do again. AT's got
to be more sharp with this passing in terms of location,
and it's got to be more competent off balld defender.
And I think Chris Finch needs to explore going away
from Rudy Gobert more, especially when in big spots when
they need to get more out of their offense. Now
about the long term reality, as I mentioned, you're starting
(23:11):
front court makes one hundred million dollars. Jaden McDaniels makes
twenty three million, and he's literally shooting thirty one point
five percent on catch and shoot jump shots. Teams just
don't guard him. That is too much money to pay
a guy, too much room in your cap being taken
up by a guy who's a near zero on offense.
(23:32):
Rudy Gobert again one of the best regular season four
raizers in the league, but in the context of this roster,
he's a huge part of the spacing problem, and I
personally think he has a ceiling problem when we get
too late playoff rounds against elite defenses that can protect
the rim ie what happened with Dallas and then Julius Randall,
who can't score off the ball and is really poor
off ball instincts in general in terms of spacing and cutting,
(23:54):
is a big part of the problem. Against Boston last night,
that's one hundred million dollars all for play who make
it harder on Anthony Edwards when he has the basketball.
That's a flawed roster construct. And to top it all off,
you're in the second apron, so you can't aggregate salaries
and trades. There's a million different restrictions on their ability
(24:16):
to tweak this roster. They can't even trade him straight
up for Cam Johnson. They can't even trade Julius Randall
straight up for Cam Johnson. I'm having a hard time
even finding trades that makes sense. They almost just have
to get through this season and then let Julius Randall
walk to have any real chance to tweak the roster.
But again, that was the primary purpose of them trading
Karl Anthony Towns this summer. They deliberately took a risk.
(24:40):
As I said to the summer, I said, this has
much lower of a floor, But yeah, there's a ceiling play,
which is like, what if Julius Randall has an All
NBA season and your defense is great and aunt and
Julius just out execute everybody. That was a possibility. That
was the upside. Hell, it's still the upside. But there
was a huge downside to this deal, which is that
you're spacing is dog sit. It makes life harder on Ant,
(25:02):
but hey, at least you get some cap flexibility moving forward.
The real problem is you have sixty seven million dollars
and Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert invested in two guys
that have to play big minutes because they feel big
salary slots, but they only play one side of the
floor and that's too much. It's a flawed way to
build a basketball team, and they have to find a
(25:23):
way to fix it. It's not over for the Wolves
this year, but their window of opportunity is incredibly slim,
and it's just kind of disappointing because you feel like
you could grow off of that Western Conference Finals run
last year, and all you did was tweak things and
take a gigantic step backwards. All right, quickly, before we
(25:52):
get out of here, I wanted to talk about Warriors
Sixers at least for one night, build and say Warriors
broke out of their slumt Remember I talked about how
in the Cleveland game, there's all this gloom and doom,
and it was like they were just clearly, just miserably
cold from the perimeter. They had fourteen unguarded catch and
shoot jump shots against Cleveland, they made zero. They went
eleven for twenty one against the Sixers' that's gonna help
(26:15):
a lot. Steph Curry eight for eight from three. Dennis
Schroeder was a huge part of the first quarter run.
He had three threes just right away, came out guns blazing.
I'm a huge Dennis Schrueder believer. A lot of Warriors
fans were annoyed with him and how he started anytime
he changed teams. It takes time to kind of figure
out your role and get your confidence, get your rhythm.
I think you guys are gonna love that guy. He's
(26:35):
a really, really good basketball player. I also thought he
just like brought some dribble penetration and made some things happen.
As a team, the Warriors hit twenty two threes and
shot fifty six percent from behind the three point line.
And then they followed the game plan that you're supposed
to follow against Philly, which is like run the floor
every single damn time you can, because and beat his
slow and in general, they've got some older, slower guys.
(26:56):
They're not gonna run the floor. The Warriors had thirty
eight points in transition. This game was their third highest
total of the season. Their highest, I want to say,
was Portland. It was like forty something in the early
part of the season, and they had another forty something
in a loss against the Brooklyn Nets earlier this season.
But that's their third highest transition total this year. And
they just ran Philly off the floor, controlled it throughout.
(27:16):
Philly never let in this game I really didn't like
Philly's offensive approach in this game. They didn't go to
embid in the post at all with the starters. They
were just like kind of playing some freelance basketball and
jacking up bad shots. And then finally when Gershon Yabuseli's
checked into the game, that's when they started going to
embat in the post, and they were getting good stuff
every single time. Yeabucelli was setting up on the opposite
(27:37):
wing and he was just cutting hard and making himself
available in the lane and drawing extra attention, getting catches
there and finishes there. Philly post ups were really good.
But it's interesting because like Philly's offense this season, when Embiid,
Paul George, and Maxie are all on the floor together,
is only generating one hundred and seven points per one
hundred possessions. And I think there's almost a little you know,
(27:58):
there are certain teams that I think need to be
more of a you know, keep the ball moving side
to side, let's play five out, let's keep everybody involved,
types of teams. And then there are teams where I'm like,
you should spam the same damn thing every single damn
every single time, damn down the floor kind of teams, right,
like earlier Dallas Mavericks teams before they added all this
ball handling, Like it was made sense for them to
play that way, right, Like this Philly team, Like I
(28:21):
don't want Caleb Martin run in action. I don't want
Kelly Ubray running action. I don't even want Kyle Lowry
running action. Like what I would like for this team
to do is to steady diet of and beat pep
post ups. When Paul George and Maxie are on the floor,
I want maximba two man game. You know, when you're staggering,
you can mix it up. That's one thing. But like
(28:41):
there's way too much dicking around from this Sixers team
that doesn't play into the talent that they have, and
it just kind of feels like a wasted opportunity. But anyway,
Golden State took a big lead early on and they
just started feeding off the crowd and they got going
in transition like we talked about, and again it's a
really bad matchup for the Sixers because when they have
the Golden State, it's like a blender, not even just
(29:02):
in transition, but also in the half court. It's just
all these guys moving and cutting and screening, and it's
just it's just a lot to deal with. And that's
a specific thing that Philly has always struggled with, which
is just basically covering in space, whether that's transition or
in the half court. Goldenzan ends up pulling away and
winning by thirty four. Good win too. That six Ers
team had just recently gone through stretch where they had
(29:23):
won ten out of thirteen games. I thought Draymond Green
and Steph Curry were both amazing last night. Steph Curry,
of course eight for eight for three, but I also
thought he just did a brilliant job of advantage creation,
drawing that second defender up at the top of the key,
a lot of inverted action with Kaminga and Wiggins that
he was getting good stuff out of. I thought Draymond
played a brilliant two way game. He had three blocks,
(29:43):
He was disruptive all night. It was a great playmaking
game from him. His transition kick add passes were a
big part of what got Golden State going in transition again.
Kick adad passes are a vitally important part of transition
basketball because it forces the defense to turn their head
So imagine, like in a transition defense situation, all the
guys that are running back, they're looking back towards the
(30:06):
basket they're trying to score on right, Like they're looking
up the floor right, but they're back pedaling back in
transition defense. So they're running back while looking up the
floor right. But as soon as you throw a kick
ahead pass, it forces everyone to turn around and start
looking at the basket they're defending because the ball is
now on the other side of them. That is what
opens up opportunities for the guys that are filling in
lanes behind them to find openings. And that's where you
(30:29):
start to get into rotation basketball in transition. And again,
like if the entire goal of playing offense is to
generate an advantage, meaning whether that's a four on three
or even just beating a guy off a dribble and
it's five on four. When you have that advantage, it's
much easier to play basketball, right, especially when you have
the spacing principles like we talked about earlier with the
Boston Celtics. So once we're in those driving kick situations,
(30:51):
if you've got decent talent on the floor, that guy's
gonna drive, he's gonna kick, he's gonna find the next
open guy. That guy's gonna drive, he's gonna kick, he's
gonna find the next open guy in then event, you're
going to get a wide open three or something at
their end, right. But the hardest part is getting that
initial advantage, and if you get into the half court,
it's much much harder to get that initial advantage. But
if you can get that advantage just by throwing the
(31:14):
ball up the floor in transition, like Draymond, just as
soon as he gets that rebound or as soon as
he gets that outlet pass, he's immediately firing it up
to the first opening that he sees among the guys
running their lanes, because he knows that will get the
defense in rotation. Then they don't have to play crazy
half court basketball. They can just play off of that
advantage until they get something that they like. They literally
(31:35):
can feed into almost like a semi transition sequence attacking
in rotation. I thought Draymond was great on that front.
He also did some surgical work in the half court
as well. Just like you know, high low feeds to
guys cutting along the baseline. Things along those lines point
is Stephan Draymond. These are two guys that have been slumping,
just as the whole team has been slumping. Draymond and
(31:56):
Steph have had some truly ugly games over the course
of the last month. We're not going to beat around
the bush and pretend that wasn't the case. Memphis game
in particular was the bottom of the barrel, right, But
these guys still have a really high ceiling when they
are right. And I believe that what causes a basketball
player to reach their individual ceiling is a combination of
(32:17):
a bunch of factors. It's not just on the player.
The player is going to do the work behind the
scenes to take care of their body, to polish up
their skills, to try to be ready. The coaching staff
is going to do the best they can to get
them in rhythm through the way they're organized. But it
also comes down to the way that the team is
playing as a whole unit, meaning how well they're defending,
(32:37):
how well they're running up and down the floor in transition,
how well guys are capitalizing on the advantages to start
create and it all feeds on each other. Right, So,
for instance, like if you defend and you get a stop,
and then you push the ball up in transition, and
in the transition chaos, Steph draws three defenders and throws
(32:57):
a kickback pass to Buddy Yield at the top of
the key and he knocks down at three or to
Kaminga cutting along the baseline and he gets a dunk.
All of a sudden, when you run back on defense,
your team feels good because they just got to stop,
so they know that works. Your offense just got a bucket.
Kaminga's feeling more confident, or Buddy Heels feeling more confident.
Whoever hits the shot. Steph is feeling good because he
(33:18):
just made a play for a teammate. Now everyone's sitting
back down in a defensive stance, and they're invigorated by that,
which causes them to play better defense, which causes them
to be more likely to get another stop, which causes
them to be more likely to get out and transition again,
which causes them to be more likely to score again.
And it's like this feeding machine, right. It's momentum in
(33:39):
a lot of ways. But the same thing can happen
in reverse. If you don't get a stop and then
you slowly dribble up the floor and you're in the
half court and Steph is having a little bit of
trouble breaking free off of a screening action. But let's
say he still does and you get a little four
on three and it ends in a kickout pass and
the ball ends up in Andrew Wiggins's hand after you
(34:00):
kicked to Kaminga in the corner, makes an extra pass
to Wiggins up on the right wing, and he misses
the three. Uh or like you get an offensive rebound
and it goes right to Stephanie's wide open and he
misses the three like he did against the Caps. Steph
was over four on unguarded catch and shoot threes against
the Cavs. It's discouraging. Everyone slumps their shoulders a bit.
You're unback on defense. Yeah, you're still trying because you're
(34:23):
a team that's an engaged professional basketball team, but there's
just not quite that oomph on the defensive end on
that possession because you're a little discouraged, which makes it
statistically more likely that they'll score, which makes it statistically
less likely that you'll get out and transition again, which
makes it statistically less likely that you'll get a good advantage,
(34:44):
which makes it statistically less likely that your role players
or your stars will be able to capitalize on that advantage.
And it can feed on itself and it can become
this draining thing and it's like, oh, like this is
just isn't working, And then it gets more discouraging and
more discouraging, and now guy, they're saying things in press
conferences and now there's Steve Kurz bitching about shot selection
and all like it turns into this like momentous thing.
(35:07):
So that's why I've always been such a big believer
in like how small tweaks can lead to big results.
If you go get a player, let's just say Cam
Johnson for instance. If you were able to go get
Cam Johnson and he just was able to convert a
few more of those plays, which fights that momentum more
in the positive direction more often, then it's more likely
(35:30):
that you'll be the best version of yourselves when you
need to be. And we've seen that from what we
saw from Stephan Draymond last night. Again, that's good Eastern
Conference team that should beat I know they're out of
the play in now, but we all know the reasons
why Philly's in the position they're in. They've been doing
a lot of winning lately. That's not to say there's
some top tier contender, but that's a decent win for
Golden State last night. The point is when Steph and
(35:50):
Draymond are at their best and everyone else can feed
off of that, this is still a real machine. And
like I talked about in the show yesterday, it's about
this like kind of loser, which is like, do you
guys want to punt? Do you want to punt and
just give up on this thing, or do you want
to go for it? And if you're going to go
for it, then go for it, no half measures you
need like that, You'll you will not have a player
(36:13):
as good as Steph Curry is for a very very
long time. Statistically, it's very improbable in the next decade
that you'll have a player as good as Steph Curry is.
And that's why I'm such a big believer in trying
to make it work to the best that you're capable
of in this situation. All right, guys, that's all I
have for today is always as sincerely appreciate you guys
for supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be back
tomorrow breaking down. I think Nick Thunder is the big
(36:34):
game that I want to watch tonight. That will be
covering in tomorrow's show. And then again, I'll keep dropping
mail back questions. We'll do that either on Sunday or Monday.
I'll let you guys know, all right, see guys tomorrow
the volume. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you
for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually
be really helpful for us if you guys would take
a second and leave a rating and a review. As always,
(36:57):
I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could
take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Host
Jason Timpf
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