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Speaker 2: All right, welcome to hops tonight here at the Volume.
Speaker 2: Happy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having
Speaker 2: a great week so far. Got a jam packshow for
Speaker 2: you guys today. We're gonna get both of tonight's game
Speaker 2: to the Boston Celtics close out the injured Cleveland Cavaliers
Speaker 2: to advance to the Conference finals. I thought Jason Tatum
Speaker 2: was absolutely amazing down the stretch of that game after
Speaker 2: Cleveland made a little bit of a run to get
Speaker 2: it close in the early fourth quarter.
Speaker 1: We're gonna break that game down.
Speaker 2: The Dallas Mavericks go into Oklahoma City and amend their
Speaker 2: ugly loss in Game four at home to take a
Speaker 2: three to two lead. Luka Doncic plays one of his
Speaker 2: best games of the postseason. We're gonna break that game down,
Speaker 2: and then at the tail end of the show, we're
Speaker 2: gonna hit about ten to fifteen minutes of mail bag questions.
Speaker 2: I have Paul, our lead producer here, he's gonna be
Speaker 2: tracking you guys in the chat. So drop some mail
Speaker 2: bag questions in the chat and Paul's gonna send them
Speaker 2: to me, and then we're gonna hit them at the
Speaker 2: tail end of the show. You guys know the drill
Speaker 2: before we get started. Subscribe to a brand new YouTube channels.
Speaker 2: You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
Speaker 2: on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't
Speaker 2: miss youw announcements, don't forget about a podcast feed wherever
Speaker 2: you get your podcast under Hoops tonight, and then keep
Speaker 2: dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments and we
Speaker 2: keep hitting them throughout the rest of the postseason. All right,
Speaker 2: let's talk some basketball. So Luka Doncic bounced back, had
Speaker 2: an amazing game tonight. You know, I said about Jamal
Speaker 2: Murray after Game two, there is a tendency like this
Speaker 2: is kind of like the inner battle that every competitor
Speaker 2: tries to have, right when things aren't going your way,
Speaker 2: there's a natural part of you behind the scenes that
Speaker 2: will try to look for a reason, Yeah, well I
Speaker 2: did this yesterday that messed up my routine. Or oh
Speaker 2: I'm dealing with this injury that's kind of preventing me
Speaker 2: from having that little bit of explosiveness. Or oh my
Speaker 2: teammates aren't doing this, or my coaches aren't doing that,
Speaker 2: or the refs aren't letting me do this. It's kind
Speaker 2: of human nature, right, and you know, part of that
Speaker 2: competitiveness is fighting against that and finding a way to
Speaker 2: be great anyway. And like that's the thing, Like with
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray, there were a lot of reasons why you
Speaker 2: could have pointed to that game to shit show, right, Like, oh,
Speaker 2: Minnesota's playing great defense, he's getting hacked and fouled all
Speaker 2: over the court. Obviously, he just came out of a
Speaker 2: difficult series with the Lakers, and now he's dealing with
Speaker 2: this calf injury. There's all these reasons, right, But the
Speaker 2: problem is is Game three is still two days later?
Speaker 2: You know, Well, for every other series, obviously for that
Speaker 2: series he got a little bit of a longer break.
Speaker 2: But that's the thing with Luka Doncic situation. Had a
Speaker 2: really rough Game four, right, more turnovers than made field goals,
Speaker 2: was on the floor seemingly all night long, was really
Speaker 2: really accentuating his injury in terms of his body language,
Speaker 2: was constantly complaining to the referees, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but guess what Game five is on Wednesday, So you
Speaker 2: just gotta find a way. And one of the big
Speaker 2: things I talked about after that game is like cutting
Speaker 2: down on mistakes, right, Like, so much of what makes
Speaker 2: a basketball player effective is decision making. And so even
Speaker 2: when you're banged up, if you just really focus in
Speaker 2: on handling ball pressure soundly, being more diligent about avoiding
Speaker 2: some of the aggressive defensive things that Oklahoma City can do,
Speaker 2: and just read the floor and do what Luka Doncic
Speaker 2: is better than most people at, which is playing half
Speaker 2: court surgery. If you just do that, your decision making
Speaker 2: will rise to the surf and we'll carry you through.
Speaker 2: Then you'll build confidence and rhythm, and then it won't
Speaker 2: matter that you're moving at eighty five.
Speaker 1: Percent of whatever your normal level of mobility was.
Speaker 2: I thought it was abundantly clear from the opening tip
Speaker 2: of this game that Luka Dancich had a different level
Speaker 2: of focus. I thought that he was way less worried
Speaker 2: about the officials, way less worried about whatever jank defense
Speaker 2: lou Dort was playing, way less worried about whatever was
Speaker 2: going on with him physically or whatever. He just was
Speaker 2: focused on the game, and I thought he was magnificent.
Speaker 2: It reminded me a lot of that bounce back from
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray in Game three against Minnesota, in the sense
Speaker 2: that like, you can take a look at all the
Speaker 2: excuses and run to the bank with them and find
Speaker 2: out it's not going to help you win the series,
Speaker 2: or you can confront all those excuses, focus on controlling
Speaker 2: what you can control, and just find a way to
Speaker 2: be better. And Luca did that in a big way tonight.
Speaker 2: He had less than half as many turnovers as he
Speaker 2: did in the last game, hit a bunch of big
Speaker 2: momentum shots, had doubled the number of madefield goals finished
Speaker 2: with thirty nine or thirty one to ten and eleven
Speaker 2: only three turnovers, was plus thirteen in his minutes. Just
Speaker 2: a dominant performance, big thing that was standing out to me,
Speaker 2: especially early in the game. And this is something that
Speaker 2: Luca does better than basically everybody in the league at
Speaker 2: this point.
Speaker 1: As a perimeter player.
Speaker 2: Jokic, I think is a similar level passer, but it's
Speaker 2: obviously a different type of offensive initiation than what Luka
Speaker 2: Dancic does. But Luca's really good at reading all three
Speaker 2: levels of the defense. And when I think about the
Speaker 2: different levels of the defense, the first level is the
Speaker 2: point of attack, that's the guy who's guarding on the basketball.
Speaker 2: The second level is whatever the screen defense is. Right,
Speaker 2: So if there's a ball screen from a big man,
Speaker 2: it's usually gonna involve some form of drop coverage, hedge,
Speaker 2: or blitz, right, Like, it's either gonna be a blitz
Speaker 2: or a hedge, or it's gonna be high drop or
Speaker 2: a low drop, a catch atge, something along those lines, right,
Speaker 2: all those different coverage ideas. Maybe a switch if you
Speaker 2: throw it in there. Right, If it's a guard to
Speaker 2: guard screen, it's either gonna be a switch, or it's
Speaker 2: gonna be a hedge in recover or a blitz.
Speaker 1: Right like those are.
Speaker 2: That's the second level of the defense is reading who's
Speaker 2: involved in the action, meaning if it's a two man
Speaker 2: action or three man action, whatever, those two or three
Speaker 2: defenders reading what they're doing. The third level of the
Speaker 2: defense is the back line, and almost always the third
Speaker 2: level of the defense is going to have an advantage situation. Right,
Speaker 2: It's almost always going to be like a guy in
Speaker 2: the dunker spot and a guy in the weak side
Speaker 2: corner with only one guy guarding him right, or the
Speaker 2: roller will get behind and it'll be like just the roller,
Speaker 2: the low man and the shooter in the corner. It's
Speaker 2: almost always a two on one. And the reason why
Speaker 2: most defenses are willing to concede that is the simple
Speaker 2: fact that most passers can't make those reads. The majority
Speaker 2: of the guys in the league can read that first
Speaker 2: level of the defense. That can the good ones can
Speaker 2: read the second level of the defense. Only the great
Speaker 2: ones can read that third level of the defense. And
Speaker 2: I just thought between making beautiful skip passes to the
Speaker 2: corner to Derek Jones Junior, who was hot at the
Speaker 2: beginning of this game, to finding the vertical spacers between
Speaker 2: Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively and Derek Jones Junior himself
Speaker 2: just constantly finding reading that back line defender, that lowman
Speaker 2: and identifying like, oh, he's glued up to the corner shooter. Well,
Speaker 2: this guy's cutting along the baseline. I can throw the lob. Oh,
Speaker 2: he's more geared up to stop the guy cutting along
Speaker 2: the baseline. Well, my skip pass to Derek Jones Junior
Speaker 2: is open there.
Speaker 1: I thought.
Speaker 2: He just did an excellent job of that half court
Speaker 2: surgery that we're talking about. It is a big time
Speaker 2: bounce back game from Luka Doncic. Really, the ebb and
Speaker 2: flow of this series on the Dallas front has mostly
Speaker 2: come down to Luca's play. He got badly outplayed by
Speaker 2: Shay in Game one, they lost. He got badly outplayed
Speaker 2: by Shay in Game four. They lost. Every other game
Speaker 2: of the series, Luca's been able to at least either
Speaker 2: play that even or win that matchup, and it's gone
Speaker 2: Dallas's direction. That's the responsibility and the expectation that comes
Speaker 2: from being one of the best players in the league
Speaker 2: and being the best player on a team that has
Speaker 2: real championship expectations. Luca passed a big test tonight on
Speaker 2: the road to two series against an elite, physical, pain
Speaker 2: in the ass perimeter defender in Lou Dort. So shout
Speaker 2: out to Luca, big game from him. Derek Jones Jr.
Speaker 2: He was a big part of their early start. You know.
Speaker 2: I was talking about this yesterday with my buddy Sam Vassini.
Speaker 2: We were texting about it, or two days ago we
Speaker 2: were texting about it. I think Derek Jones Jr. Is
Speaker 2: probably the best veteran minimum signing in the.
Speaker 1: League this year.
Speaker 2: The other guy that you'd be looking at is Kelly
Speaker 2: Ubray with the Sixers, and he obviously had more scoring pot,
Speaker 2: but I just don't think he's as good as a
Speaker 2: perimeter defender as Derek Jones Jr. And he's a little
Speaker 2: bit more willing to stay on script, while Kelly's a
Speaker 2: little bit more willing to kind of like freelance and kind.
Speaker 1: Of hijack possessions.
Speaker 2: And so I'm not I think Kelly has also been
Speaker 2: a very good veteran minimum signing, but I think Derek
Speaker 2: Jones Jr. Has probably been the best veteran minimum signing
Speaker 2: in the league this year. And again that's a shout
Speaker 2: out to Dallas's front office because to put it simply,
Speaker 2: when you're operating on the margins the way teams like
Speaker 2: Dallas are. When you go all in on a trade
Speaker 2: for a guy like Kyrie Irving, when you go all
Speaker 2: in again for the Gafford PJ.
Speaker 1: Washington deal, you basically.
Speaker 2: Have to nail all of those little fringe types of
Speaker 2: moves right. And getting a guy like Derek Jones Junior
Speaker 2: at a veteran minimum salary was an absolute home run.
Speaker 2: And he's now one of your five best players. He's
Speaker 2: one of the guys you're leaning on in a big
Speaker 2: way in these environments. I think he's done an outstanding
Speaker 2: job guarding Shake Gilds as Alexander in this series. He's
Speaker 2: been able to convert spot up possessions both by knocking
Speaker 2: down three point shots and slashing into the paint. He's
Speaker 2: got that vertical spacing piece that we were talking about earlier.
Speaker 2: Luca just always has an eye on where Derek Jones is,
Speaker 2: has a really good feel for the timing of Derek
Speaker 2: Jones's footwork when he jumps, and so Luca always seems
Speaker 2: to get him the pass in the absolute perfect spot.
Speaker 2: Those of you guys who have played basketball and are
Speaker 2: athletic or have been playing with real athletes. You know,
Speaker 2: that lob throwing, it's like you either kind of can
Speaker 2: do it or you can't. There's that famous clip that
Speaker 2: was going around in game I think it was Game
Speaker 2: two or three where Jalen Williams was making fun with
Speaker 2: his teammates of Shay for being a bad lob thrower.
Speaker 2: And I think Isaiah Joe might have made a joke
Speaker 2: about how he's bad at passing in general, but like
Speaker 2: that's the thing, Like lob passing is kind of an
Speaker 2: art and Lucas just amazing at it and you can
Speaker 2: tell he's got the chemistry with all of their vertical spacers.
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City's youth, I think has been showing in a
Speaker 2: big way in this series, and again there are examples.
Speaker 2: I think youth is winning in a lot of ways
Speaker 2: in this postseason, but not youth in the early twenties.
Speaker 2: It's mainly been youth in the older twenties that have
Speaker 2: been thriving. It's been the guys that are in their prime,
Speaker 2: the twenty six to twenty nine years old that have
Speaker 2: been kicking the shit out of the early to mid
Speaker 2: thirties veteran stars, right and but Oklahoma City is very,
Speaker 2: very young after Shay, and I think what you're seeing
Speaker 2: in a lot of cases is bad decision making in
Speaker 2: intense environments, which is a typical kind of thing that
Speaker 2: you can see with young basketball players. They struggle to
Speaker 2: slow themselves down when the intensity gets to a certain level.
Speaker 2: The big thing that's been standing out to me in
Speaker 2: this series is bad rim decisions. And I'm gonna start
Speaker 2: by giving you guys a couple of stats because I
Speaker 2: think these two stats will drive this point home. Coming
Speaker 2: into tonight, the Oklahoma City Thunder in this series have
Speaker 2: been generating just sixteen wide open threes per game. Remember
Speaker 2: that's the defender at least six feet away. They're shooting
Speaker 2: well on them. They' shooting forty four percent on them.
Speaker 2: Got some bad luck on those tonight, couple of huge
Speaker 2: ones that Keason Wallace missed, and again he hit the
Speaker 2: big ones in the last game, So that's kind of
Speaker 2: the nature of making miss basketball. But they're not generating
Speaker 2: nearly as many. They're only generating sixteen per game in
Speaker 2: this series, not counting tonight. Obviously the stats haven't updated,
Speaker 2: but they were averaging twenty three per game in the
Speaker 2: regular season, that's a time and a half as many.
Speaker 2: So to put it simply, you're experiencing like a thirty
Speaker 2: percent reduction in the wide open threes that you're generating,
Speaker 2: in large part because you were forcing shots at the
Speaker 2: rim against rim protection.
Speaker 1: Here's the other stat to drive that home.
Speaker 2: They shot sixty eight percent in the regular season in
Speaker 2: the restricted area. That's a really good number. They're shooting
Speaker 2: fifty eight percent in this postseason at the rim.
Speaker 1: It's so much just.
Speaker 2: Like getting worked up and trying to confront problems with
Speaker 2: youthful exuberance and athleticism when so much of this type
Speaker 2: of basketball is about take a deep breath, slow down,
Speaker 2: and take advantage of the easy shots.
Speaker 1: That are available to you.
Speaker 2: We're gonna talk about Jason Tatum here in a minute,
Speaker 2: who had, in my opinion, his best game of the
Speaker 2: postseason tonight and just did an unbelievable job picking apart
Speaker 2: the calves down the stretch of that game when they
Speaker 2: started to get it close. And the beautiful thing about it,
Speaker 2: we're gonna get into the details here in a minute.
Speaker 2: He did it with easy reads like it wasn't like
Speaker 2: he was like deeply manipulating the defense. He was taking
Speaker 2: advantage of easy stuff that was in front of him.
Speaker 1: That is what wins at this level.
Speaker 2: It's all about the guys that can slow down, read
Speaker 2: what's happening in front of them and make decisions. And
Speaker 2: a lot of Oklahoma City's youth has been flashing in
Speaker 2: that regard in this series because they're just so rushed
Speaker 2: and they're forcing things. Ironically, because we're going to go
Speaker 2: back to Tatum and the Celtics here, it reminds me
Speaker 2: of the Celtics Bucks series in twenty twenty two. If
Speaker 2: you guys remember that Bucks team had no Chris Middleton
Speaker 2: and so they had no Chris Middleton and no PJ. Tucker,
Speaker 2: two guys that were really important in the championship run
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, right, and so it put a
Speaker 2: substantially larger shot creation responsibility on Giannis and Tennecompo and
Speaker 2: Drew Holliday when you put him in that big of
Speaker 2: a usage role, can fall apart in terms of his efficiency,
Speaker 2: which he did. And so that was a series the
Speaker 2: Celtics should have won in like five games. But a
Speaker 2: big reason why that series got dragged out. Part of
Speaker 2: it was Giannis's greatness but another part of it but
Speaker 2: was bad rim decisions. That was a series where Milwaukee
Speaker 2: was keeping brook Lopez at the rim, and it was
Speaker 2: like Tatum and Brown that they were just forcing the
Speaker 2: issue downhill and like trying to take bad shots over
Speaker 2: brook Lopez at the rim, and then they'd miss slide
Speaker 2: out of bounds into camera row and Milwaukee would run
Speaker 2: out the other way and Giannis would get something going.
Speaker 2: In transition, that series turned at the end of the
Speaker 2: series in large part one. Tatum had a magnificent shot
Speaker 2: making game in game six, but they also just did
Speaker 2: a better job but finally making those good rim decisions, Like, hey,
Speaker 2: we're doing exactly what Milwaukee wants us to do. We
Speaker 2: are challenging the strength of their defense, which is their
Speaker 2: rim protection. If you're looking at Dallas's defense, it's similar
Speaker 2: to what we were talking about with Oklahoma City in
Speaker 2: terms of the three levels of their defense. The strength
Speaker 2: of Dallas's defense is the point of attack and at
Speaker 2: the rim they have rim protection, and they have good
Speaker 2: point of attack defenders, but they've got guys.
Speaker 1: Usually on the weak side.
Speaker 2: It is a guy like Luca, it is a guy
Speaker 2: like Kyrie that's in those two on ones on the
Speaker 2: weak side defensively, and so if you could capitalize in
Speaker 2: some of the weak part of Dallas's defense, you might
Speaker 2: have more success. But instead, by attacking one on one
Speaker 2: and forcing shots against rim protection, you were playing directly
Speaker 2: into Dallas's strength defensively, and it just was like a
Speaker 2: lot of really poor decisions attacking closeouts. They had a
Speaker 2: good stretch at the end of the third quarter, or
Speaker 2: they were making those kickouts passes, they were just missing
Speaker 2: some good looks. Case On Wallace got a couple of
Speaker 2: good looks in that stretch, just happened to miss him.
Speaker 2: Mark Dagenol, if you guys remember, in his interview to
Speaker 2: start the fourth quarter, was like, I like that process
Speaker 2: there at the end of the third quarter. We just
Speaker 2: have to keep trusting it. And then the first couple
Speaker 2: plays of the fourth quarter, there's a play where Aaron
Speaker 2: Wiggins drives a close out in the left corner and
Speaker 2: in chet Holmgren is standing completely wide open in the
Speaker 2: right corner, and instead of making the kickout pass, he
Speaker 2: tries to force like a lefty up and under reverse
Speaker 2: layup while screaming and yelling at the refs and jumping
Speaker 2: and flailing over three defenders and he misses it and
Speaker 2: they're going out the other way.
Speaker 1: There's another play.
Speaker 2: Lou Dort out of the left corner, drives a closeout,
Speaker 2: gets into the lane, there's an open shooter. Instead, he
Speaker 2: forces like a shovel pass to Chat at point blank
Speaker 2: range and throws it too low and it ends up
Speaker 2: being a turnover. It's like the decision making driving closeouts
Speaker 2: was a huge problem throughout this entire series and again
Speaker 2: in the big moments tonight. Honestly, that's the story of
Speaker 2: the series. The main story of the series is Dallas
Speaker 2: has just done a much better job of taking advantage
Speaker 2: of the back line of Oklahoma City's defense in a
Speaker 2: way that Oklahoma City has not done for Dallas. And
Speaker 2: so as a result of that, the only real reliable
Speaker 2: offense that Oklahoma City has had to this point has
Speaker 2: been Shay's shot making. And it's been there and he's
Speaker 2: been great. Another twelve for twenty two tonight for thirty
Speaker 2: one points, hit five threes, right like Shay is or
Speaker 2: excuse me, he's twelve for twenty two, hit two threes.
Speaker 2: He a really efficient game. But that's all you've got
Speaker 2: going because there isn't enough in terms of the overall
Speaker 2: rhythm and flow.
Speaker 1: Of the offense.
Speaker 2: Again, like I said, you're generating about two thirds as
Speaker 2: many wide open threes as you did in the regular season.
Speaker 2: That's a problem, and that is on your offensive approach.
Speaker 2: You have to do a better job looking forward. It's
Speaker 2: like what I said after Game four. I thought after
Speaker 2: Game four it was two to two, but I didn't
Speaker 2: think either team was playing particularly well. Like I thought,
Speaker 2: Dallas played like shit in that game, and if they
Speaker 2: make their free throws, this.
Speaker 1: Series is over right.
Speaker 2: So like it was obvious that both teams could play better,
Speaker 2: and Dallas did tonight. Dallas kind of put it all
Speaker 2: together tonight. Tonight felt like the game where Dallas had
Speaker 2: it all going right.
Speaker 1: Like Luca and.
Speaker 2: Kyrie both played much much better. They defended really well. Again,
Speaker 2: they've defended really well throughout most of the postseason, aside
Speaker 2: from a few stretches. They won the glass big time,
Speaker 2: forty six to thirty three. They won the points in
Speaker 2: the paint battle. They had twenty seven assists to just
Speaker 2: twenty for Oklahoma City. They put it all together tonight,
Speaker 2: and they controlled the basketball game in one right. Okay,
Speaker 2: c He's gonna need to do the exact same thing
Speaker 2: in Dallas in order to extend this series. But part
Speaker 2: of this is the reality of younger basketball players. Like
Speaker 2: I talked about so many times over the years, young
Speaker 2: basketball players really struggle to identify what's working and replicate
Speaker 2: it and identify what's not working and trim that fat.
Speaker 2: Veteran players are much better on the fly at picking
Speaker 2: those things up and making those tweaks to make sure
Speaker 2: that they replicate what's working and stay away from what's
Speaker 2: not working. But Oklahoma City does have the talent to
Speaker 2: go into Dallas and win in Game six. I mean,
Speaker 2: how they did it in Game four without even playing
Speaker 2: particularly well, So it's on the table. They just have
Speaker 2: to identify what's working and repeat it and avoid some
Speaker 2: of the same pitfalls that they've run into over the
Speaker 2: course of the series. I do think Dallas is going
Speaker 2: to close it out in six, but I believe that
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City has a good chance, and we will see
Speaker 2: what happens in a few nights. And I think that
Speaker 2: one is actually pushed to Saturday. I think there's a
Speaker 2: little bit of time off, which is another really nice
Speaker 2: treat for Luca because I'm pretty sure. Tomorrow is Nuggets Wolves,
Speaker 2: and then the following day is Nicks Pacers, which is
Speaker 2: an extra day off that really benefits obviously the Knicks
Speaker 2: with Jalen Brunson dealing with his foot injury. And then
Speaker 2: I think the Dallas game is on Saturday. So depending
Speaker 2: on how things go with our game seven, this might
Speaker 2: be our last two game night of the year. We'll
Speaker 2: see how it goes. All right, Movie on to Boston.
Speaker 2: So kind of a weird game, right close out game.
Speaker 2: You Ma through comes out this hair hair on fire,
Speaker 2: super aggressive, a little bit of like hesitant basketball. Early
Speaker 2: in the game, a lot of Celtics were kind of
Speaker 2: hijacking the show, and Tatum just wasn't very involved. Even
Speaker 2: though Tatum looked locked in, he had this like driving
Speaker 2: contact dunk at the rim early on where I thought
Speaker 2: he got fouled.
Speaker 1: And he didn't get the call. I wasn't really involved early.
Speaker 2: You know how that goes with closeout games, just kind
Speaker 2: of it's really hard to put a team away, right,
Speaker 2: So Cav's going to run. They cut it to three
Speaker 2: in the fourth quarter. It's eighty eight eighty five, and
Speaker 2: I want to kind of go possession by possession through
Speaker 2: what I thought was a really, really fascinating stretch of
Speaker 2: Jason Tatum basketball, and one that I thought was, you know,
Speaker 2: a really a kind of like an exhibition of what
Speaker 2: makes Tatum so good.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And this is something where I have to do a
Speaker 2: better jobs as an analyst because I tend to get
Speaker 2: really focused on, you know, a specific take that I'm
Speaker 2: trying to drive home, and then a lot of times
Speaker 2: I lose sight of the bigger picture. And like, I
Speaker 2: love Anthony Edwards. I think he's something that American basketball
Speaker 2: is desperately needed. Love his personality, love his game, and
Speaker 2: I've kind of used Jason Tatum as a vehicle to
Speaker 2: try to drive that point home. And you know, I
Speaker 2: haven't done a good job of making sure that I
Speaker 2: properly encapsulate what makes Tatum great while also accentuating what
Speaker 2: makes Aunt great.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And so the thing is is, like with Jason Tatum,
Speaker 2: there is a lot of focus on some of his
Speaker 2: scoring limitations, right, Like takes a lot of tough pull
Speaker 2: up jump shots, has a tendency to settle, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a lack of aggression with him. Sometimes there's some
Speaker 2: of that stuff, right, And that is true, But there's
Speaker 2: a bigger picture of Jason Tatum's game, and he is
Speaker 2: a much better playmaker than the majority of his peers
Speaker 2: at the forward position, just an outstanding defensive player and
Speaker 2: rebounder and the guy that just helps a basketball team
Speaker 2: do a lot of stuff to win games. And I
Speaker 2: thought tonight was kind of an interesting example of that,
Speaker 2: where if you were watching the game and you weren't
Speaker 2: paying attention to the specifics of what were happening what
Speaker 2: was happening, you might trick yourself into thinking that Tatum
Speaker 2: was being passive, but all he really was doing was
Speaker 2: playing smart, easy basketball to take advantage of some coverage
Speaker 2: mistakes that the Calves were making. So at eighty eight
Speaker 2: eighty five, Jason Tatum is hanging out around the top
Speaker 2: of the key in like a straight iso and on
Speaker 2: the play, Al Horford sitting in the right corner and
Speaker 2: Evan Mobley is just completely ignoring him and he's just
Speaker 2: sitting right in the paint. Tatum goes, I don't need
Speaker 2: to beat my man off the dribble. I don't need
Speaker 2: to call for a ball screen. The defense is automatically
Speaker 2: in rotation. If I simply make an on time, on
Speaker 2: target pass to al Horford in the corner, whips it
Speaker 2: to Al Horford in the corner. Horford drives the close out,
Speaker 2: forces Garland to help. Drew Holliday kind of does like
Speaker 2: a little banana cut into the front of the basket.
Speaker 2: Horford hits him, and Drew Holliday makes a little pop
Speaker 2: shot in the lane, an easy drive and drop off
Speaker 2: that was generated from Tatum just taking a deep breath,
Speaker 2: slowing down, reading the floor, making an easy decision. Then
Speaker 2: on the very next possession, he's dribbling up the left
Speaker 2: wing and again, a lot of players would slow down,
Speaker 2: call for a ball screen, try to make it about them. No,
Speaker 2: he just looks up the floor and he goes, oh shit.
Speaker 2: Darius Garland's guarding Jayleen Brown and he's not really eving
Speaker 2: like up on him at this point, so he just
Speaker 2: throws a simple kick ahead past to Jalen Brown. Jalen
Speaker 2: Brown rips to the left and drives downhill. Garland finally
Speaker 2: wakes up and cuts him off, but not until Jaln
Speaker 2: Brown gets pretty deep down to the left block. As
Speaker 2: a result of that, Evan Mobley has to double and
Speaker 2: so Jalen Brown makes a beautiful kickout pass, makes a
Speaker 2: beautiful kickout pass to the to Derek White, who hits
Speaker 2: the three. And it's like, that's an easy basketball play
Speaker 2: that Jason Tatum identified just by seeing that there was
Speaker 2: a transition cross match. Garland's guarding Jalen Brown, and Jalen
Speaker 2: Brown is open on the wing. If I throw it
Speaker 2: to him, he's just gonna be able to rip through.
Speaker 2: He rips through, draws the second defender, which was mobiley,
Speaker 2: and then he hits Derek White. He knocks down the three.
Speaker 2: So the next possession, Garland gets a layup in a
Speaker 2: ball screen that cuts it. That cuts it to ninety
Speaker 2: three eighty seven. They go down to the other end
Speaker 2: of the floor and they run two man game, and
Speaker 2: they run it with Tatum and Derek White right. The
Speaker 2: two defenders involved are I think it was Dean Wade
Speaker 2: was guarding Tatum at this point, and then Darius Garland
Speaker 2: was guarding Derek White.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Tatum has the ball. The coverage that most teams are
Speaker 2: gonna use in that situation is a hedge and recover right.
Speaker 1: So Darius Garland.
Speaker 2: Hedges and on the hedge, Dean Wade for some reason
Speaker 2: chases over the top a lot of times, like when
Speaker 2: you know a hedge is gonna be there, the hedge
Speaker 2: is gonna cut off the drive, so you don't need
Speaker 2: to chase over the top. You can actually go under
Speaker 2: and try to meet him on the other side because
Speaker 2: Garland is gonna cut him off and make him take
Speaker 2: a retreat dribble. Typically, right, Instead, Dean Wade chased over
Speaker 2: the top of the screen, So when Tatum went around
Speaker 2: the hedge, by the time he finally got around Garland,
Speaker 2: Dean Wade had still not recovered to get back in
Speaker 2: front of Tatum. So this is easy basketball, right. Tatum
Speaker 2: just drives at the hedge, sees that Dean Wade hasn't recovered,
Speaker 2: so he turns the corner and goes downhill. When he
Speaker 2: turns the corner and goes downhill, he just drives hard
Speaker 2: at the rim and he ends up pulling in Evan
Speaker 2: Mobley in help, and he just whips a beautiful cross
Speaker 2: court pass to the left corner, completely unguarded. Al Horford
Speaker 2: knocks down the three. Now it's ninety six to eighty seven.
Speaker 2: Similar kind of thing. On the very next possession, Jason
Speaker 2: Tatum is isolating on the left wing against Marcus Morris senior.
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown is in the opposite corner.
Speaker 2: In the right corner. Okay, Max Struce is guarding Jalen Brown,
Speaker 2: but is completely ignoring him and sitting in the paint.
Speaker 2: Once again, Tatum doesn't get baited into thinking Marcus Morris
Speaker 2: is too slow to guard me, I'm gonna try to
Speaker 2: beat him one on one. He just goes, why do
Speaker 2: I need to call for a screen? Why do I
Speaker 2: need to play io ball here? Jalen Brown's standing completely
Speaker 2: unguarded in the right corner, and Max Strus is gonna
Speaker 2: have to close out to him. If I drive by
Speaker 2: Marcus Morris, I'm probably just gonna end up engaging Struce
Speaker 2: in help and making the same type of kickout pass. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Why make it more difficult than he needs to be.
Speaker 2: He just whips a cross court pass, hits Jalen Brown
Speaker 2: right in the shooting pocket. He rips to the baseline
Speaker 2: and beats Stru's off the dribble, drops it off to
Speaker 2: Al Horford, standing wide open underneath the basket, gets a
Speaker 2: layup ninety eight to eighty seven, very next possession, exact
Speaker 2: same type of two man game that they ran with
Speaker 2: Derek White. The exact same functionality Garland hedges, Dean Wade
Speaker 2: chases over the top. For some reason, Tatum comes off
Speaker 2: the hedge, Dean Wade is not there, and as a result,
Speaker 2: he just steps into a wide open pull up three
Speaker 2: at the top of the key knocks it down. It's
Speaker 2: one oh one eighty seven. Game over, takes one shot
Speaker 2: and dribbles off in action twice total, and yet every
Speaker 2: single possession made the decision that got Boston a great look.
Speaker 2: You know, I was kind of thinking about it because,
Speaker 2: like I had a mailback question the other night that
Speaker 2: I didn't actually get to because we ran out of time.
Speaker 2: But one of you guys asked, like, oh, if Jason
Speaker 2: Tatum is not as good as the top tier guys
Speaker 2: in the league, how does that affect Boston and like
Speaker 2: their roster building in the future. You know, because I've
Speaker 2: always talked about how you need the guy right. And
Speaker 2: here's the thing, Like Tatum might not be a top
Speaker 2: tier superstar in the sense that he might not be
Speaker 2: the kind of guy who's gonna like perennially be in
Speaker 2: the MVP conversation, but he might be the perfect star
Speaker 2: for this kind of roster build. He's playing with a
Speaker 2: lot of talented guys. But at the same time, most
Speaker 2: of these guys are talented guys that play best with
Speaker 2: an advantage.
Speaker 1: Right. Jalen Brown's a guy that's got a good.
Speaker 2: Amount of audacity and shot making ability to play on
Speaker 2: an island to kind of create for himself.
Speaker 1: Right. Derek White has shown the ability to create for himself. Right.
Speaker 2: But for the most part, especially against top tier competition,
Speaker 2: you'd prefer to have Jalen Brown operating with advantage. You'd
Speaker 2: prefer to have Derek White operating with an advantage. You'd
Speaker 2: prefer to have Drew Holliday operating with an advantage. You
Speaker 2: prefer to have Al Horford and krisops Porzingis operating with
Speaker 2: an advantage. And so having a somewhat passive superstar that
Speaker 2: is more willing to just kind of take advantage of
Speaker 2: the easy reads that are available. And again, like I
Speaker 2: talked about, I think he's one of the best playmaking
Speaker 2: forwards in the league. I think he's a better passer
Speaker 2: than most of his peers at the position, and I
Speaker 2: thought tonight was a great example of that. And so,
Speaker 2: in a weird way, I actually think he might be
Speaker 2: perfect for this group in the sense that if there
Speaker 2: was a real alpha dog superstar with this group, he
Speaker 2: might actually minimize some of the impact of the other
Speaker 2: five starter caliber players because they probably be relegated more
Speaker 2: to smaller roles. Now there's a fine line, because I
Speaker 2: do think that Tatum is going to have to be
Speaker 2: effective and aggressive and efficient at the highest levels here,
Speaker 2: Like if they face Denver in the finals, I do
Speaker 2: think he's going to have to average thirty two to
Speaker 2: thirty three points per game on something above sixty percent
Speaker 2: true shooting. So like, again there's a fine line. There
Speaker 2: always comes a point Yoku tran into this in this series.
Speaker 2: There always comes a point where it's like, actually, I
Speaker 2: need to do it myself. And the reason is I
Speaker 2: have the best physical gifts of any of my teammates.
Speaker 2: So in this hell hole of a fistfight of a
Speaker 2: stuck in the mud environment, I'm gonna need to be
Speaker 2: the guy that uses my size and strength to be
Speaker 2: impactful here. Right, So I do think he's gonna gonna
Speaker 2: have to be more aggressive as a scorer. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, like he's just had his three best
Speaker 2: this three game stretch here over the tail end of
Speaker 2: the Cavs series has been the best kind of scoring
Speaker 2: basketball that he's played in this postseason run. So he's
Speaker 2: kind of starting to get that rhythm and groove going
Speaker 2: at the right time. But you know, I just want
Speaker 2: to say, like I you know, Jason Tatum. We've talked
Speaker 2: a lot about him on the show over the course
Speaker 2: the last couple of weeks by virtue of the whole
Speaker 2: debate with Anthony Edwards right, which by the way, was
Speaker 2: pitched as a mailback question by one of you guys.
Speaker 2: But like, when it comes to to Tatum in a
Speaker 2: weird way, he might be the perfect fit for this team.
Speaker 2: I just think the final challenge for him, the final
Speaker 2: piece to push over the top if he wants to
Speaker 2: get the trophy, is gonna be identifying when it's like, hey,
Speaker 2: screw this, oh hierarchy stuff, give me the damn basketball.
Speaker 2: And by the way he did tonight, he didn't do
Speaker 2: it as a score. He did it as a passer.
Speaker 2: But he will eventually face a team down the line
Speaker 2: that has better personnel. Probably Denver could could be a
Speaker 2: little bit of a challenge in the next round if
Speaker 2: the Knicks make it right, But like he will face
Speaker 2: a challenge where that specific type of heliocentric shot creation
Speaker 2: kind of stretch at the talent of a game requires
Speaker 2: him to be more aggressive as a scorer, and when
Speaker 2: he gets to that point, he'll need to confront that
Speaker 2: challenge and pass that challenge. But I just want to
Speaker 2: shout out Jason tATu. I thought he had a great,
Speaker 2: a great close to the game tonight. We're not gonna
Speaker 2: really work a focus on the next round yet for
Speaker 2: Boston until we find out who their opponent is. It's
Speaker 2: gonna be interesting if it ends up being the Knicks,
Speaker 2: who I believe it will be, just simply because the
Speaker 2: Knicks do not have the talent to hang with Boston,
Speaker 2: but they sure as hell can drag you down into
Speaker 2: the mud, and they're gonna play hard all the time,
Speaker 2: and Boston has had a little bit of an issue
Speaker 2: with inconsistent effort, and so I do think that'll be
Speaker 2: a longer series, although I'll be picking Boston to win.
Speaker 2: But we'll get in to more detail on that when
Speaker 2: we get out of the out of this round entirely
Speaker 2: moving on to Cleveland, where did they go from here?
Speaker 2: There's a report released from the athletic immediately after the game.
Speaker 2: A couple of interesting kind of like tidbits in there.
Speaker 2: First of all, there's growing optimism around the league that
Speaker 2: Mitchell might extend. Thought that was interesting because there's been
Speaker 2: a lot of narrative based stuff about him, about him
Speaker 2: wanting to leave. I don't think you can take that
Speaker 2: to the bank necessarily, but that's somewhat encouraging if you're
Speaker 2: a Cavs fan, Right, But then it immediately got kind
Speaker 2: of counteracted by this report from Darius Garland, who is
Speaker 2: with Clutch Sports excuse me, that some of his production
Speaker 2: has gone down since the Mitchell trade, and that if
Speaker 2: Cleveland extends Donovan Mitchell, that he may want a trade.
Speaker 2: And so the point is is they're definitely it's looking
Speaker 2: more and more like they're gonna they need to choose
Speaker 2: between one of those two guys. Now, I want to
Speaker 2: kind of talk about the roster build in general. First, before,
Speaker 2: we talked about some specific some specific kind of strategy
Speaker 2: stuff for them going into the offseason, so we knew
Speaker 2: going into this year it's kind of a similar type
Speaker 2: of problem that the Lakers had, where they've got some redundancies. Right,
Speaker 2: the Lakers have two skill guards and they have two
Speaker 2: power forwards playing at the three and four right, and
Speaker 2: so there's some diminishing returns because it's like, all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, you don't have a four decking guard on
Speaker 2: the perimeter. So now Rui's chasing Michael Porter Junior around.
Speaker 2: That's a disaster. It was one of the big factors
Speaker 2: that cost him a series. You have two skill guards,
Speaker 2: no real athletes, so you get inconsistent play from both
Speaker 2: of them, and then Austin Reeves is forced to guard
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray all series, which is something that hurt them,
Speaker 2: especially at the end of games.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So like when you have diminishing returns because of red
Speaker 2: or when you have redundancies in your roster, you tend
Speaker 2: to get diminishing returns.
Speaker 1: Cavs kind of have a similar type of situation, right.
Speaker 2: Two interior based bigs that play at the same time,
Speaker 2: and then two ball dominant pick and roll guards, neither
Speaker 2: of which is particularly big and neither of which is
Speaker 2: particularly committed to the point of attack defensively, and so
Speaker 2: there can be some redundancy, there can be some diminishing
Speaker 2: returns there. Now I want to focus on each of
Speaker 2: them individually. So first of all, the two guard build.
Speaker 2: I actually grew more optimistic about it this year just
Speaker 2: because of Donovan Mitchell's defense. I thought he had the
Speaker 2: best defensive season of his career. But when they got
Speaker 2: to the playoffs, Donovan Donovan's workload went up such a
Speaker 2: huge level that it kind of became untenable to ask
Speaker 2: him to continue to do the athletic guard stuff defensively
Speaker 2: while also carrying everything he was carrying offensively. And Donovan
Speaker 2: did not have as good of a defensive postseason as
Speaker 2: he did in the regular season, particularly in help he
Speaker 2: got burned quite frequently. Right, So, like, I do think
Speaker 2: that when you really kind of take a second to
Speaker 2: decompress and look back at this season, it's just a
Speaker 2: lot to ask for those two guards to kind of
Speaker 2: mesh in the right way. And so I do believe
Speaker 2: that that's probably the direction that you have to go,
Speaker 2: is splitting up the two guard build. Also, I think
Speaker 2: Max Strus, because of his kind of his willingness to
Speaker 2: play off the ball offensively, is kind of like an
Speaker 2: off screen threat and as a spot up threat. And
Speaker 2: then a Strus is just is just completely committed to
Speaker 2: the defensive end in terms of like will he will
Speaker 2: give you high motor effort there the point of attack
Speaker 2: all season. Right, So I actually think of Strusmore as
Speaker 2: a two next to Garland or Mitchell, whichever one you
Speaker 2: end up keeping, And I look at the three as
Speaker 2: the position you want to upgrade and try to find
Speaker 2: a starting caliber two way player there. Right, you got
Speaker 2: to base the decision based on what Donovan Mitchell wants,
Speaker 2: because Donovan Mitchell is a better player than Darius Garland.
Speaker 2: I like Darius Garland. I don't think he has too
Speaker 2: much of a ceiling that's going to be super, super encouraging. Right, So,
Speaker 2: if Mitchell extends, I think you look to trade Garland
Speaker 2: for starting caliber three. If Mitchell doesn't extend, then I
Speaker 2: would trade Donovan Mitchell and keep and commit to Darius Garland.
Speaker 2: Right now, the interesting thing there is which one of
Speaker 2: those guys commits. If it ends up being Mitchell wants
Speaker 2: to trade and you keep Garland, I think you have
Speaker 2: to look for more of a high powered, offensive minded forward.
Speaker 2: That's where it might be worthwhile, especially with Evan Mobley's
Speaker 2: defensive versatility and his ability to compete on the perimeter,
Speaker 2: to look more or at some of the offensive guys
Speaker 2: like maybe you do look for a guy like a
Speaker 2: lowri market in right, Like, maybe you do look for
Speaker 2: a more of like a an offensive thread at that position, right,
Speaker 2: maybe a Kyle Kuzma or something like that. Right, But
Speaker 2: if it's Mitchell that you keep and you end up
Speaker 2: trading Garland, Mitchell is such a high powered offensive player,
Speaker 2: I'd be looking for more of a two way thread
Speaker 2: at the three. That's where I'd be looking more at
Speaker 2: like a McHale Bridges. Maybe you call Brooklyn and you
Speaker 2: try to see if you can trade Darius Garland for
Speaker 2: a guy like Michale Bridges. Right like that, that's kind
Speaker 2: of the tipping point there is. I don't think Garland
Speaker 2: is high powered enough offensively for you not to have
Speaker 2: a scoring forward next to him. Mitchell, I think can
Speaker 2: play with more of like a versatile two way Swiss
Speaker 2: Army knife type of forward because of the impact that
Speaker 2: he has offensively. As far as the two Bigs looks
Speaker 2: look goes, Mobley's offensive development isn't where you want it
Speaker 2: to be at this point, but it is coming along
Speaker 2: little by little, and he did make progress this year. Also,
Speaker 2: like he's just not big enough to be a full
Speaker 2: time center and so the way I look at it,
Speaker 2: the athletic in size and rebounding advantages that come from
Speaker 2: the Mobley Allen front court exceed the downsides of some
Speaker 2: of their offensive limitations, and Mobili will continue to get
Speaker 2: better over the years.
Speaker 1: And so when I.
Speaker 2: Look at like the core build of Cleveland, I think
Speaker 2: of it as whichever one of the two guards you
Speaker 2: keep struce at the two, I'd stick with Mobley Allen
Speaker 2: and just try to upgrade that three spot depending on
Speaker 2: which one of the two guards that you.
Speaker 1: End up getting.
Speaker 2: All Right, before we get out here, let's take a
Speaker 2: look at our mail bag. Assuming they stay healthy. Is
Speaker 2: this version of the Nuggets unstoppable? I can't see anyone
Speaker 2: left beating them in a seven game series. So I've
Speaker 2: been really impressed by Denver, and I do think that
Speaker 2: their offense is unstoppable in the sense that, like over
Speaker 2: the last three games, they have an offensive rating over
Speaker 2: one twenty seven. And we're talking about a Minnesota Timberwolves
Speaker 2: team that not only was the best defense the league
Speaker 2: in the regular season, was clearly the best defense in
Speaker 2: the league through the first six playoff games, and is
Speaker 2: literally constructed by a former Denver executive to be Taylor
Speaker 2: made to beat the Denver Nuggets, right, and they.
Speaker 1: Sure as hell can't stop.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, there's been a lot of talk about
Speaker 2: Rudy Gobert after last night's game, and like, do I
Speaker 2: think Rudy Gobert deserves all four Defensive Player of the Year?
Speaker 1: Not necessarily.
Speaker 2: I don't think he's the best defensive player in the league,
Speaker 2: and I think he's got a deeply entrenched media backing
Speaker 2: that kind of gives him a lot of a leg
Speaker 2: up when it comes to reward season. But I do
Speaker 2: think he's a top five ish defensive player in the league.
Speaker 2: And it's more just fascinating that Rudy Gobert was targeting
Speaker 2: him simply from the standpoint of Jokic's greatness that for him,
Speaker 2: he's thinking, Oh, that guy, that guy that's the best
Speaker 2: defensive player of the world. I'd rather attack him on
Speaker 2: an island because then I don't have to worry about
Speaker 2: him and help and I know that I can go
Speaker 2: through him whenever I want. And so that's more of
Speaker 2: a testament to Jokic than anything else. But I do
Speaker 2: think that Denver clearly demonstrated that they can score on anybody.
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing.
Speaker 2: The Lakers and the Timberwolves gave the Nuggets issues for
Speaker 2: different reasons. Right, The Lakers gave the Nuggets issues because
Speaker 2: they have incredible interior passing Lebron James and Anthony Davis
Speaker 2: and Ruey Hotcha Mura cutting along the baseline, rolling to
Speaker 2: the basket and ball screens, Lebron going downhill, Dlo and
Speaker 2: Austin Is spacing shooters. They have so much offensive firepower
Speaker 2: in their starting lineup. Remember that team was what third
Speaker 2: and second or third in offense for the last half
Speaker 2: of the season if I remember correctly, so like that
Speaker 2: was an elite offense. But their issue was they didn't
Speaker 2: have the personnel to contain Jamal Murray and so they
Speaker 2: constantly ended up dealing with problems Layden games with getting
Speaker 2: stops on Jamal Murray. So Denver was able to overcome
Speaker 2: that matchup by being like, oh, that's great that you
Speaker 2: guys are so good offensively, but we're better offensively.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The Minnesota series was different because Minnesota, it's like they've
Speaker 2: got excellent perimeter defenders. Instead of Austin Reeves on Jamal Murray,
Speaker 2: now it's Nikkeil Alexander Walker, and Jada McDaniels and Anthony Edwards,
Speaker 2: and they have given him hell in this series for
Speaker 2: the most part, Right, Jokic, It's like wave after wave
Speaker 2: of size. Like the Lakers did not have a two
Speaker 2: big look Minnesota does.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Minnesota's got these kind of big, trunky, power forward center
Speaker 2: hybrids that they put in front of Gobert. And so
Speaker 2: there's like this layered approach to their defense that really
Speaker 2: gave Denver some problems. But the way that Denver was
Speaker 2: able to regain control of that series is Minnesota's offense sucks,
Speaker 2: and so as soon as Denver really engaged themselves defensively,
Speaker 2: they were able to grind that Minnesota offense into the ground.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: This is where Boston is unique. Boston has both the
Speaker 2: perimeter talent to make life more difficult on Jamal Murray,
Speaker 2: Kintavious Kalbo Pope, Reggie Jackson, and Michael Porter Junior, while
Speaker 2: also having the and I'm talking about the defensive end,
Speaker 2: while also having the super high powered offense on the
Speaker 2: other end. Now, the counterpoint is Chrisops Perzingis and Al Horford,
Speaker 2: knt Garden, Kola Jokic, You're absolutely right, You're absolutely right,
Speaker 2: that's gonna be a disaster. But the way I would
Speaker 2: the flip side there is if Minnesota can't stop them, Like,
Speaker 2: what advantage is there really, Because if Yokich and Murray
Speaker 2: in that offense are gonna rip through Minnesota's defense to
Speaker 2: the tune of one hundred and twenty seven something points
Speaker 2: per one hundred possessions, then it really doesn't matter what
Speaker 2: defensive personnel Minnesota has, especially when they go over to
Speaker 2: the other end in Minnesota can't score, and so Boston
Speaker 2: I actually think has the capability to get into a
Speaker 2: shootout with Denver and win. Now I will be picking
Speaker 2: Denver to win that series. I think they are more
Speaker 2: consistently at their ceiling and I think they are the
Speaker 2: safe bet. I believe Denver's going to win the championship,
Speaker 2: but I do not think this is just over. I
Speaker 2: think Boston has a really good chance. I think Boston specifically,
Speaker 2: one of the things with Boston, we talked about the
Speaker 2: high drop coverage that they've been using against Anthony Edwards. Right,
Speaker 2: did a whole video breakdown on it today. Jokic did
Speaker 2: an amazing job in Game five at the level of
Speaker 2: the screen containing Anthony Edwards using active hands to force turnovers.
Speaker 2: He just had a great defensive game. He's been great
Speaker 2: defensively for the last three games. But the problem there
Speaker 2: is you can take the ball out Anthony Edwards's hands
Speaker 2: because there's just no offensive talent around him, especially with
Speaker 2: Mike Conley's not out there. It's like, oh, you went
Speaker 2: with a high drop against ant or you double teamed
Speaker 2: ant on an ISO and you got the ball out
Speaker 2: of his hands.
Speaker 1: That's great, well off the.
Speaker 2: Ball, Aye Rudy Gobert, who can barely catch and finish,
Speaker 2: can't read the floor, is just an absolute disaster offensively.
Speaker 2: Carl Anthony Towns, who like, yeah, if he's making his
Speaker 2: three point shot, can get going offensively, but Aaron Gordon
Speaker 2: has basically contained him on the drive. The Keil Alexander
Speaker 2: Walker who's really streaky, and Jada McDaniels has been bad
Speaker 2: offensively through this entire postseason run, right, So like they
Speaker 2: just don't have offensive talent off of Anthony Edwards to
Speaker 2: capitalize on those aggressive coverages. If Denver goes with similar coverages,
Speaker 2: and I actually think Denver will probably run more deep
Speaker 2: drop against we'll get into that more. If those two
Speaker 2: teams actually advance to the finals, but in the event
Speaker 2: that they run more aggressive coverages and load up Jason
Speaker 2: Tatum is one of the best skip passers in the league,
Speaker 2: and he's not passing to limited offensive players. He's passing
Speaker 2: passing to really high level offensive players that can all shoot.
Speaker 2: And so Boston, I think is actually uniquely equipped to
Speaker 2: score on Denver and also make things somewhat more difficult
Speaker 2: for them on the defensive end. Again, I will be
Speaker 2: picking Denver, but I it's gonna be close. I think
Speaker 2: it's gonna be a great series, and I do think
Speaker 2: that Boston certainly presents a lot of challenges for Denver.
Speaker 2: By the way, Boston shot like shit in both of
Speaker 2: the regular season games against Denver and they were still
Speaker 2: right there in both of those games. So again, picking Denver,
Speaker 2: but don't ride off Boston. I absolutely think they can
Speaker 2: win that series. And I do not think this is
Speaker 2: over and that's how it should be. I want it
Speaker 2: to be difficult. That's the best part about adversity and
Speaker 2: NBA history. You want you want to see what Jokic
Speaker 2: can do against that next level of the challenge, and
Speaker 2: I'm glad it's going to be in the finals. And
Speaker 2: by the way, neither team is there. Denver still us
Speaker 2: to get past Oklahoma City Dallas, and obviously Boston still
Speaker 2: us to get past New York Indiana. I just expect
Speaker 2: them to those of you guys who listened to the show.
Speaker 2: I've been on Boston Denver in the finals basically the
Speaker 2: entire season. All right, Hey, Jason, love the show and
Speaker 2: MAV's okay, see, both stars performed, both teams decent from three,
Speaker 2: But the difference is the use of the bigs. Chet
Speaker 2: needs the ballmore, do you agree. So it's tough because
Speaker 2: with the way that with the way that Dallas is
Speaker 2: loading up on ball screens, particularly at the rim and
Speaker 2: at the point of attack, and in ISO, there's not
Speaker 2: really a ton of opportunity for Chet to score on
Speaker 2: the role because there's a lot of congestion in there.
Speaker 2: So most of it comes down to Chet needs to
Speaker 2: be operating in advantage situations more and that's not going
Speaker 2: to happen unless those kickout passes were happening. And again,
Speaker 2: like I talked about earlier, Oklahoma City just hasn't done
Speaker 2: a very good job of taking advantage of those kickout opportunities.
Speaker 2: How do the MAVs get Kyrie going, so Kyrie is
Speaker 2: getting Both teams have really good perimeter defenders, right, It's
Speaker 2: been difficult for everybody. Luca and Shae have managed to
Speaker 2: break out a little bit because they're both you know,
Speaker 2: top six or seven players in the NBA, depending on
Speaker 2: where you want to rank Shay. I think Luca is
Speaker 2: the second best player in the NBA, right. I think
Speaker 2: we'll take a look at it in the offseason. But
Speaker 2: I think saying Shay's top five is not, you know,
Speaker 2: completely out of the realm of reality, right, Like he's
Speaker 2: I want to see how the rest of the postseason
Speaker 2: goes before I do those rankings. But those are two really, really,
Speaker 2: really good players, and so they've managed to break out
Speaker 2: in a couple of games, but they've also had bad games, right,
Speaker 2: Like I thought Shay was pretty bad in Game two,
Speaker 2: in Game three. I think Game three in particular, I
Speaker 2: think he was like ten for twenty three from the
Speaker 2: field and was really struggling to knock down those mid
Speaker 2: range jumpers.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Luca was a disaster in game four, right, Like a
Speaker 2: lot of this is just lou Dort's awesome at defense.
Speaker 2: Jalen Williams case on Wallace. These guys are awesome at defense,
Speaker 2: Dearrek Jones Junior PJ. Washington the rim protection. Chet Holmgren
Speaker 2: has been amazing defensively in the series. It'saw a crazy
Speaker 2: stat today. I don't know if it actually survive tonight
Speaker 2: off the check real quick, but I saw it. Sad
Speaker 2: that Chet has won his shifts in every single game
Speaker 2: this year in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
Speaker 2: Let's see if he did it again tonight minus ten.
Speaker 2: So Chet lost his shift tonight, his shifts for the
Speaker 2: first time in the entire postseason. So, like, both of
Speaker 2: these teams are really strong at the point of attack
Speaker 2: and really strong at the rim. But yeah, as far
Speaker 2: as Kyrie goes like, I actually think Kyrie has done
Speaker 2: a really nice job of just doing what he can
Speaker 2: to help winning. Like tonight even just there's a huge
Speaker 2: three he hit off of a ball screen to put
Speaker 2: them up fourteen. I think it was in the early
Speaker 2: fourth quarter if I remember correctly, And it's like he's
Speaker 2: not getting great looks, but he's just finding a way
Speaker 2: to make shots in timely moments. Kyrie's playmaking has been
Speaker 2: a huge asset to the series. Kyrie's been excellent defensively
Speaker 2: in this series. I'm sure you MAVs fans would agree,
Speaker 2: but like, yeah, Kyrie needs to get going offensively if
Speaker 2: you're gonna like beat Denver in the next round, there's
Speaker 2: no doubt. But like credit Oklahoma City and Kyrie's just
Speaker 2: finding other ways to impact winning well. The Nuggets beat
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty two Warriors. I think the Nuggets are
Speaker 2: the best team in the leite that I've seen in
Speaker 2: the NBA since the Kadie Steph Warriors, So I do
Speaker 2: think they beat the twenty twenty two Warriors. Again, that's
Speaker 2: not a discredit to the twenty twenty two Warriors as
Speaker 2: a championship team. They're a bona fide championship winning team,
Speaker 2: but so much of that was Steph just overcoming everything
Speaker 2: for his team, and that team a bunch of key
Speaker 2: guys overachieved, particularly Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins. But in
Speaker 2: terms of like sheer, force of power and size, I
Speaker 2: do think that the that Denver was better, This version
Speaker 2: of Denver is better. But again, like I think Denver
Speaker 2: is gonna repeat this year. So like the last team
Speaker 2: to repeat was the Kadie Staph Warriors. Before that, it
Speaker 2: had been almost what had been what six years or
Speaker 2: so earlier that it was the Lebron James heat right,
Speaker 2: and before that it was the Lakers. Like it happens
Speaker 2: really rarely in NBA history, and so if Denver can
Speaker 2: pull that off, that's impressive. Not to mention that, I
Speaker 2: think the league is just freaking stacked with talent right now,
Speaker 2: so a repeat championship would be a really special accomplishment.
Speaker 2: How much does the krisops Porzingis injury impact the Celtics
Speaker 2: title chances in your opinion? Obviously, I think they need
Speaker 2: him to beat Denver, But you've got three weeks until Denver,
Speaker 2: so I don't think it matters all that much, just
Speaker 2: simply because I think he's gonna be healthy when the
Speaker 2: time comes. But yeah, if christops Porzingis gets hurt or
Speaker 2: gets re injured along the way, that just makes it
Speaker 2: difficult because Denver is just a really damn good team
Speaker 2: and I think you need all hands on deck for it.
Speaker 1: Let's see.
Speaker 2: Who's more valuable to the Nuggets, Murray or Gordon. To me,
Speaker 2: it seems Gordon is more valuable. Is the more valuable player.
Speaker 2: He anchors the defense and has many outstanding offensive traits
Speaker 2: a couple things Murray is. Again from the Stanme point
Speaker 2: of process, you can't talk about Murray's injury. He just
Speaker 2: needs to find a way to be better, like we've
Speaker 2: talked about. But he obviously is a little bit hampered,
Speaker 2: and a lot of it is matchup based, right, Like
Speaker 2: this is a series that Denver is dominated on the interior.
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray was never going to be the way you
Speaker 2: beat Minnesota. Minnesota's perimeter defenders are too good, right And honestly,
Speaker 2: like I thought, he got pretty good looks against the Lakers,
Speaker 2: he just was cold and then he got hot at
Speaker 2: the right times, and like every single time they needed
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray in the Lakers series, he showed up and
Speaker 2: he made shots. I do think that overall it's very
Speaker 2: close between those two guys, but I think I'd lean
Speaker 2: very slightly towards Jamal Murray. But every single one of
Speaker 2: those defense players in that starting lineup is pretty close
Speaker 2: in terms of impact. Like, can't write off Michael Porter Junior.
Speaker 2: He was unbelievable, especially through the first like six playoff
Speaker 2: games this year. Minnesota has been way more keyed in
Speaker 2: on him over the last few games, but He's hit
Speaker 2: some big shots too. I think Michael Porter Junior, especially
Speaker 2: as a help defender and rebounder, he brings a lot
Speaker 2: to the table. Kntavi's Collop Pope is the guy you're
Speaker 2: asking to guard the other team's best perimeter player every night,
Speaker 2: so you got to give him some credit there too.
Speaker 2: And he hit a bunch of huge threes in Game five.
Speaker 2: So I think all those guys are of are vitally important.
Speaker 2: But if I had to pick a true number two,
Speaker 2: even though Aaron Gordon's having a magnificent playoff run, I
Speaker 2: think I still lean slightly towards Jamal Murray. Let's see,
Speaker 2: I'll do two more then we'll get out of here.
Speaker 2: Does Dallas matchup well with Denver or Minnesota? So I again,
Speaker 2: I think Denver is gonna win. So I'll talk about
Speaker 2: it more from the Dallas Denver perspective. Obviously we'll confront
Speaker 2: it from Minnesota's perspective if they happen to flip the
Speaker 2: script and win the last two games. But the thing
Speaker 2: with Dallas, again, it's gonna be a big part of
Speaker 2: it is going to be Luca. I think you're gonna
Speaker 2: see similar types of coverages from the standpoint of Denver,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of being at the level and Yoka
Speaker 2: the specifically Luca has that gift, like we talked about earlier,
Speaker 2: manipulating the back line of the defense. But a big
Speaker 2: advantage there is they have the Aaron Gordon piece. So like,
Speaker 2: what a huge luxury to have Aaron Gordon. If you
Speaker 2: do run into a kd if you do run into
Speaker 2: a Lebron, if you do run into a Kawhi, if
Speaker 2: you do run into a Luca, that you can put
Speaker 2: him on a big forward from the other team. And
Speaker 2: I think Aaron Gordon is a guy that's gonna have
Speaker 2: some size and quickness to make things somewhat difficult on
Speaker 2: Luka Dancic. I think Dallas will be able to score
Speaker 2: in that series. But similarly to what we talked about earlier,
Speaker 2: I think that the front line for Denver would do
Speaker 2: a ton of damage. I think it'll I'm going to
Speaker 2: say exactly what I said after the Lakers series. I
Speaker 2: thought Minnesota had a similar type of chance to be
Speaker 2: Denver because they were so bad offensively, right, Dallas, I
Speaker 2: actually think kind of brings a better combination of offensive
Speaker 2: ability and defensive ability. I do think that they'll compete
Speaker 2: with Denver, but I just think overall, it's the same
Speaker 2: kind of story we've been talking about. They're a really
Speaker 2: good offense, but they're not as good offensively as Denver.
Speaker 2: They're really good defense, but Denver's as good, if not better, defensively.
Speaker 2: Denver's top ten defense this year. So again, I think
Speaker 2: Dallas will compete, but i'd be picking down and we'll
Speaker 2: get into the the to the nitty gritty of that
Speaker 2: series if it ends up coming to fruition. Let's see, Oh,
Speaker 2: we got a Star Wars one, so I'll do I'll
Speaker 2: do one more basketball question and then we'll do a
Speaker 2: Star Wars question for the Wolves. Would you trade Kat
Speaker 2: for a reliable perimeter initiator guard that can score, slash
Speaker 2: playmake like a Kyrie Dejonte archetype next to Ant Yes,
Speaker 2: the idea is the ideal situation. You want a really
Speaker 2: good skill guard next to Ant, answer your athlete guard.
Speaker 2: You want a skill guard, Just think like a a
Speaker 2: kind of like a bigger, better version of Mike Conley.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I still like Jada McDaniels at the three, but I
Speaker 2: think you need a really high level offensive player, especially
Speaker 2: as a shooter.
Speaker 1: At the two.
Speaker 2: In that case, Karl Anthony Towns gives you the means
Speaker 2: with which to make that type of deal because he
Speaker 2: has value around the league and you have a redundancy there.
Speaker 2: You have nas reed and you have to kind of
Speaker 2: look at it from the standpoint of luxury. Doesn't matter
Speaker 2: how much depth you have. If you're top five is
Speaker 2: not good enough. And so I do think that the
Speaker 2: best option moving forward from Minnesota is to trade Karl
Speaker 2: Anthony Towns. You gotta wait to see who becomes available
Speaker 2: this summer. Dejonte Murray is actually an interesting type of
Speaker 2: player in the sense that he can kind of take
Speaker 2: some more of the primary point of attack assignments to
Speaker 2: save Ant's legs. Dejonte just had his best perimeter shooting
Speaker 2: season of his career. It also gives you another offensive
Speaker 2: creator that can create dribble penetration, which is something nobody
Speaker 2: else on that team can do. But Ant, like Cat,
Speaker 2: can't beat people off the dribble. My common can't beat
Speaker 2: people off the dribble, So, like Dejonte is kind of
Speaker 2: an interesting kind of guy to look at. Also, if
Speaker 2: I'm Atlanta, I'd be really interested in Karl Anthony Towns.
Speaker 2: As the partner alongside Jalen Johnson in Trey Young, So
Speaker 2: that might actually be an interesting route for them to
Speaker 2: look at. What is your favorite Star Wars movie from
Speaker 2: the first two trilogies. This is an interesting one. I
Speaker 2: think I'm gonna go with Revenge of the Sith, and
Speaker 2: the reason reason why is like, I've always been super
Speaker 2: fascinated by the history of the Sith. Those of you
Speaker 2: guys who don't know, I'm a diehard Star Wars fan,
Speaker 2: but I'm particularly big on fantasy, really like Star Wars,
Speaker 2: really like Game of Thrones, really like Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 2: I have a podcast that I do with my buddy Luke.
Speaker 2: It's called Two Sons. You can actually see the logo
Speaker 2: down here. We just recently hit like the Showgun series,
Speaker 2: we hit Fallout.
Speaker 1: Really really loved Fallout.
Speaker 2: Don't know how many of you guys were into that
Speaker 2: video game growing up, but that was an incredible one
Speaker 2: for me. But we actually just did a big breakdown
Speaker 2: on the Acolyte trilogy, or the Acolyte trailer, i should say,
Speaker 2: And in that trailer there there were some easter eggs
Speaker 2: that that really kind of lead me to believe that
Speaker 2: that show has a lot more to do with kind
Speaker 2: of flushing out some of the history of the Sith.
Speaker 2: I got super I Paul messages that are the Twitter
Speaker 2: rumors true that you love episode and then applauded in
Speaker 2: the theater when Palpatine returned.
Speaker 1: I'll get to that to minute.
Speaker 2: I have a story, but anyway, The Acolyte I think
Speaker 2: is going to be about some of the history of
Speaker 2: the Siths, particularly surrounding how the Jedi I discover the
Speaker 2: Rule of Two. It's kind of like a big plot
Speaker 2: hole in Star Wars. I wi'll get into it right now,
Speaker 2: because if you want to listen to that, you can
Speaker 2: go to my other podcast to see it. But some
Speaker 2: of my favorite Star Wars books are like the Darth
Speaker 2: Baine trilogy, which explains the actual origin, original origination of.
Speaker 1: The Rule of Two.
Speaker 2: And then also this book called Darth Plagis, which Darth
Speaker 2: Plagas effectively. It effectively kind of functions as a as
Speaker 2: a as a what's the word I'm looking for, as
Speaker 2: a a precursor, I'm blanking on the obvious word for
Speaker 2: movie that that comes before the actual series. Paul, you
Speaker 2: could probably text it to me, but it's a precursor
Speaker 2: to the Phantom Menace, right, prequel, thank you. It's a
Speaker 2: prequel basically functions as a prequel to the Phantom Menace.
Speaker 2: In it, it just goes into excruciating detail of like
Speaker 2: where you know, there's a Sith lord named Darth Pennebrius
Speaker 2: who had an apprentice named darth Plagus who ended up
Speaker 2: finding Palpatine, And it intricately lays out what's called the
Speaker 2: Sith Grand Plan. And basically the Sith used to be thousands, right,
Speaker 2: and then a thousand years before the Phantom Menace, there's
Speaker 2: this big war with the Brotherhood of Darkness, the Jedi
Speaker 2: one partially through a manipulation of Darth Baine, which you
Speaker 2: can read in those books. But from there, the Sith
Speaker 2: started to realize they can't win against the Jedi because
Speaker 2: they don't have the game war cability to be able
Speaker 2: to come together and reach a common goal. The Sith
Speaker 2: all backstab each other because they all want to be
Speaker 2: the dark Lord of the Sith, right, And so they
Speaker 2: come up with this system called the Rule of two
Speaker 2: and where there's always one master, one apprentice, and it
Speaker 2: just kind of allows them to operate in hiding. But
Speaker 2: the major theme is they they are trying to secretly
Speaker 2: subvert the galaxy. They obviously conceptualizing come up with the
Speaker 2: Clone War. They obviously they create the Clone Army. They
Speaker 2: do all of this stuff right, and it all comes
Speaker 2: to fruition in Revenge of the Sith. And so every
Speaker 2: time I watch Revenge of the Sith, I always just
Speaker 2: think back to the Baine books and the Plaguis books,
Speaker 2: and I just think about specifically, like this genius grand
Speaker 2: plan that that obviously George Lucas conceptualized, but that the
Speaker 2: Sith came up with, and it kind of all comes
Speaker 2: together in that in that particular movie. So of all
Speaker 2: the of all the the prequel trilogy, I think I
Speaker 2: would say Revenge of the Sith is my favorite. But again,
Speaker 2: I've done deep dive summaries and reviews of all those
Speaker 2: books I just mentioned, and basically every piece of Star
Speaker 2: Wars content on my Two Sons podcast with my buddy Luke.
Speaker 2: I'm also going to be doing every episode of The
Speaker 2: Acolyte when it comes out, which is less than a
Speaker 2: month from now, So make sure you guys head over
Speaker 2: there and subscribe to that channel so you guys can
Speaker 2: see some of that content in the future. All right, guys,
Speaker 2: let's call it a night. We're just gonna run a
Speaker 2: breakout of the the mail Bag tomorrow morning, so there
Speaker 2: will be some content tomorrow morning between the other segments
Speaker 2: we did tonight. But I'm not gonna do a show
Speaker 2: like a new show in the morning. I'll just see
Speaker 2: you guys after the final buzzer of Nuggets Wolves tomorrow night.
Speaker 2: I think Denver is gonna go in there and win
Speaker 2: and in complete the Gangster Suite. But we will see
Speaker 2: what happens, and I will see you guys live on
Speaker 2: YouTube tomorrow night. The Volume