Speaker 1: The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at
Speaker 1: the Volume, Happy Thursday, everybody. Coverage of the NBA Finals.
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Speaker 1: these shows. Well. Game one of the NBA Finals goes
Speaker 1: to the Denver Nuggets, who are still undefeated at home.
Speaker 1: I thought that that was an especially concerning game for
Speaker 1: Miami Heat fans because I thought the Heat did a
Speaker 1: lot of things really well in that game. They won
Speaker 1: a lot of battles against Denver that Denver has been
Speaker 1: winning against everybody else in this postseason run, and they
Speaker 1: still lost by double figure. So we're gonna get into it.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go too deep into the x's and
Speaker 1: o's tonight because we're be doing our film sessions on
Speaker 1: the day after the Finals, so keep an eye on
Speaker 1: the feeds tomorrow in the afternoon time for that full
Speaker 1: length film breakdown. But we are gonna dive into a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff that I noticed in the live show.
Speaker 1: You guys know the drip before we get started. To
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Speaker 1: price guaranteed. All right, I love the NBA Finals. I
Speaker 1: was watching that intro video that they always play right
Speaker 1: before tip off. It's not as long as it used
Speaker 1: to be. Some of you older fans will remember. It
Speaker 1: used to be a much more produced video that had
Speaker 1: a lot of history in it. You know, this is
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting series because there's not a ton
Speaker 1: of history in this particular series, Like Jimmy's been there before.
Speaker 1: A couple of these guys have been there before, but
Speaker 1: a lot of these guys, especially the stars, are guys
Speaker 1: that have never won championships before, and kind of reminds
Speaker 1: me a little bit of the twenty twenty one NBA Finals,
Speaker 1: where it feels more like the beginning of history. You know,
Speaker 1: we look back, You look back at a guy like
Speaker 1: Steph Curry or Lebron James, and they have four championships each, right,
Speaker 1: But what happens is you go back and it's like
Speaker 1: there was a time in twenty fifteen when Steph looked
Speaker 1: like a baby on ABC competing in the NBA Finals,
Speaker 1: and at the time, like, if I would have told
Speaker 1: you everything that was coming after and you would have
Speaker 1: looked at that for what it was, which was a
Speaker 1: little piece of history, you would have had a little
Speaker 1: bit more appreciation for it. Same thing goes for Lebron James,
Speaker 1: like in the twenty twelve finals, you know they win
Speaker 1: a lot of those games were competitive, but they win
Speaker 1: in five games and at the time you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, Lebron won a title. But it's like it's
Speaker 1: kind of the beginning of history there. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of what this felt like to me, because not only
Speaker 1: for either of these guys, regardless of who wins, it's
Speaker 1: a significant marker. If Jimmy Butler wins, it's this huge
Speaker 1: career defining achievement. But Jokic winning and I believe he's
Speaker 1: going to We're gonna talk about all the reasons why.
Speaker 1: It just feels like the one step in what could
Speaker 1: be a magnificent career. I mean, the dude's twenty six
Speaker 1: years old. I mean he could win. He's gonna be
Speaker 1: back on this stage. Every single one of these Denver
Speaker 1: Nuggets players that's in their core rotation is under contract
Speaker 1: for next year and likely will return. The only guy
Speaker 1: that they could end up losing is a guy like
Speaker 1: Bruce Brown. But like, they're gonna be right back on
Speaker 1: this stage in the future. And that's what kind of
Speaker 1: is cool about this. It feels a lot like history
Speaker 1: in the making. I was a little concerned about this
Speaker 1: series going in. You know, it's funny. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of narrative surrounding this series of it being boring from
Speaker 1: the standpoint of the drama or the or the interestingness
Speaker 1: of the players. I disagree with that. To me, drama
Speaker 1: takes away from the game of basketball anyway, and I
Speaker 1: actually find these teams to be very interesting from a
Speaker 1: basketball perspective. The Heat being this team that squeezes everything
Speaker 1: out of their talent by virtue of brilliant coaching and
Speaker 1: excellent play from their stars, and just a lot of
Speaker 1: guys that have chips on their shoulder, and then Denver
Speaker 1: truly achieving unguardability, like we talked about during the Western
Speaker 1: Conference Finals, which we're going to spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time talking about. It's very interesting on that level. However,
Speaker 1: there's a reason why I was rooting for Boston in
Speaker 1: the last round, and it's because I have so much
Speaker 1: respect for how good this Denver Nuggets team is. Even
Speaker 1: though I didn't like Boston, I knew it was going
Speaker 1: to require a great deal of talent and athleticism in
Speaker 1: size to even attempt to challenge Denver. And that's what's
Speaker 1: concerning because as I look at this particular game tonight,
Speaker 1: Miami won a lot of battles that Denver's been winning
Speaker 1: in earlier rounds. All of the things that can be
Speaker 1: squeezed out of talent, Miami won. For instance, they held
Speaker 1: up on the glass. Remember the Nuggets obliterated the Lakers
Speaker 1: on the glass when they came in Lasadaisical in Game one.
Speaker 1: They were a twenty to three at rebounding advantage at
Speaker 1: one of the first TV timeouts, which is insane. Miami
Speaker 1: had forty three rebounds in this game. Denver had forty four.
Speaker 1: They held up really well. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: Miami got eleven offensive rebounds in this game. The Heat
Speaker 1: only had eight turnovers. They had fewer turnovers than Denver
Speaker 1: and in general had a very low amount of turnovers.
Speaker 1: Their transition defense was incredible. They kept Denver out of
Speaker 1: transition for the most part in this game, all those
Speaker 1: Bruce Brown semi transition attacks. You know, Duncan Robinson's putting
Speaker 1: his body on the line, sliding his feet and getting
Speaker 1: in front of guys. They were sprinting back in general
Speaker 1: and building a wall and making guys play in a crowd.
Speaker 1: They did a ton of things extremely well, and it
Speaker 1: just didn't matter. They lost by double figures. Miami even
Speaker 1: made one of their patented fourth quarter runs right where
Speaker 1: they just keep competing while you kind of let your
Speaker 1: foot off the gas a little bit. I think they
Speaker 1: got it to nine at one point during that stretch
Speaker 1: when Nikola Jokicic was off the floor, They're running a
Speaker 1: lot of zone. They were getting out in transition, and
Speaker 1: then Jokis checks back into the game and immediately scores
Speaker 1: twice in a row. There was that against their zone.
Speaker 1: They stayed in the zone, and we're gonna talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about zone because I actually think that might
Speaker 1: be Miami's best chance to get stops in this series,
Speaker 1: as crazy as that sounds, which we'll get to in
Speaker 1: a little bit. But first possession, they come back in
Speaker 1: and they ran a really interesting double screen. So like
Speaker 1: there's two guys in the two top guys in the
Speaker 1: zone in the two three, and Contavious Cobble Pope and
Speaker 1: Yokic come up and set screens on the two guys,
Speaker 1: and Jokic is the last guy. Gabe Vincent is that
Speaker 1: top left guy in the zone. He has to show
Speaker 1: as Jamal Murray is coming out right because if he doesn't,
Speaker 1: Jamal is just gonna turn the corner and get into
Speaker 1: the lane or get a wide open jump shot. Right
Speaker 1: right as Vincent shows, Jokic slips, and right when he slips,
Speaker 1: that's when Jamal Murray throws the pass. He catches and
Speaker 1: makes an easy floater in a lane, a shot he's
Speaker 1: gonna make every single time, because again, that's what causes
Speaker 1: so many problems for teams with Denver. They are completely
Speaker 1: fundamentally unguardable. Then he came back on the very next
Speaker 1: possession they switch back to man. He gets bam at
Speaker 1: a bio in the middle of the lane and makes
Speaker 1: a short, little fadeaway jump shot in the lane, another
Speaker 1: shot he's been making well over fifty percent of the
Speaker 1: time this entire season, And just like that, Bam, it's
Speaker 1: back up to thirteen points and the game feels like
Speaker 1: it's over. Miami did a lot of things right and
Speaker 1: still lost. Now you're gonna say things like Miami didn't
Speaker 1: shoot the ball particularly well. These things are connected. They
Speaker 1: always are. Like the Lakers physically mauled the Warriors, and
Speaker 1: so then the Warriors couldn't make shots because guess what,
Speaker 1: when you're battling bigger players all over the floor, when
Speaker 1: you're boxing out, sprinting, in transition, fronting the post. Miami
Speaker 1: did a ton of fronting the post tonight. When you
Speaker 1: do those sorts of things, it wears your legs out.
Speaker 1: And then when you trigger your muscle memory and then
Speaker 1: wide open shot situation, the energy's off because you don't
Speaker 1: quite have the same amount of lift as you normally do,
Speaker 1: so you start compensating at the top part of your shot.
Speaker 1: Your muscle memory is off. Now you're missing shots. The
Speaker 1: Lakers bullied the Warriors, the Warriors missed a ton of shots.
Speaker 1: Then the Lakers went into a bigger matchup against Denver.
Speaker 1: Denver bullied the Lakers. A bunch of guys shot poorly.
Speaker 1: Lebron had been working on his jump shot like crazy,
Speaker 1: shot thirty nine percent from three over the finals five
Speaker 1: games of the Warriors series and literally couldn't make a
Speaker 1: jumper in the Denver series. And D'Angelo Russell completely crumbled
Speaker 1: and couldn't make a jumper. That's what happens. Everyone wants
Speaker 1: to attribute shot result to luck, and don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of luck at play there. But
Speaker 1: what is it that causes a good shooting night versus
Speaker 1: a bad shooting night. It's all of those other factors
Speaker 1: that lead into it. And so Denver bullied the Lakers
Speaker 1: into missing a bunch of shots. And look at this.
Speaker 1: This is a Miami team that has been lights out
Speaker 1: from three in two of the three series. In this
Speaker 1: postseason run, they finally run into a team that truly
Speaker 1: makes them work to another level. Then they've had to
Speaker 1: work in either any of their previous rounds, and suddenly
Speaker 1: guys like Max Struz are hitting the front rim on
Speaker 1: A lot of these shots. All of a sudden, Gay
Speaker 1: Vincent's hitting the front rim. Kyle Lowry was really the
Speaker 1: only guy on the team that was confidently rising into
Speaker 1: shots and knocking them down. That stuff is all connected, Denver.
Speaker 1: One of their best forms of defense is the way
Speaker 1: they wear on you on the offensive end of the floor.
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Speaker 1: When I look at this series, I was talking to
Speaker 1: my friend Mark Titis over at Barstool Sports yesterday and
Speaker 1: we were just kind of talking about you know, he
Speaker 1: goes to me, he says, is there any way Like
Speaker 1: He's like, rather than me asking you how Miami can win,
Speaker 1: let's just fast forward and pretend Miami wins. Tell me
Speaker 1: how how would it be Like what would be the
Speaker 1: story if Miami had won? And I immediately went to
Speaker 1: the offensive end of the floor because I cannot see
Speaker 1: a scenario or Miami can consistently get stops against this team.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny because everyone's obsessed in sports media
Speaker 1: with predictions like tell us what's gonna happen, and I've
Speaker 1: always thought that's stupid. You know, I do it because
Speaker 1: it's part of the job. I always tell you, guys,
Speaker 1: even when I get predictions right, I'm just lucky, right,
Speaker 1: because this is sports. Sports is chaos. Sports is completely unpredictable.
Speaker 1: How many of you guys in your Eastern Conference Finals
Speaker 1: predictions had the Heat going up three to zero, then
Speaker 1: the Celtics getting back to back blowouts, and then the
Speaker 1: Celtics going up big on the road in Game six,
Speaker 1: toasting away a double digit lead in the final minutes,
Speaker 1: only to steal it at the buzzer, then go home
Speaker 1: and get their ass kicked. How many of you guys
Speaker 1: had that? None of you. Because it's sports and it's chaos.
Speaker 1: I've always been more interested in the post mortem, in
Speaker 1: the briefing, in the diagnosis of what happened after the fact.
Speaker 1: That to me is what's interesting. Where are these basketball
Speaker 1: games won and lost? And what's funny is when you
Speaker 1: look at the defense dynamic that every coach that every
Speaker 1: coach is trying to figure out from a game plan perspective,
Speaker 1: there's a trade off, right, if you leave a guy
Speaker 1: on an island and you stay home on shooters, Like
Speaker 1: you're gonna force that guy to take a lot of
Speaker 1: isolation shots, but are gonna disrupt their rhythm and keep
Speaker 1: them home off ball, and chances are like you're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to get a certain amount of stops or
Speaker 1: fatigue that star to the point where he starts to miss.
Speaker 1: Later in the game, you're gonna have some success. Or
Speaker 1: the opposite, Right, you're double teaming the star, and now
Speaker 1: you're getting these off ball shots, but like you're forcing
Speaker 1: them to the right shooters, and so they're converting them
Speaker 1: at a lower rate, and so you're starting to have
Speaker 1: some success because the right guys are shooting in their
Speaker 1: missing shots. Right. That is that concept right there. Denver
Speaker 1: broke that they've destroyed that concept. If you leave Yokic
Speaker 1: on an island, he is going to score almost every
Speaker 1: single time if you double team him. It's not an
Speaker 1: average shooter on the back line. It is a dead eye,
Speaker 1: knockdown shooter. And so they are fundamentally unguardable. Man de
Speaker 1: man situations. We saw this in all the film this
Speaker 1: from this regular season. We talked about it in man
Speaker 1: de man situations this year when Miami ran drop coverage
Speaker 1: against Nicol yokicch and Jamal Murray. They did it four times.
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray scored on all four possessions. So are you
Speaker 1: stunned that tonight when they ran their drop coverage, Jamal
Speaker 1: Murray got going and scored a bunch. I mean, they
Speaker 1: can't be guarded that way, Okay, So let's try switching. Well,
Speaker 1: we started switching these actions and Jokic is scoring in
Speaker 1: the post. Oh, we're switching off ball actions with Aaron Gordon.
Speaker 1: Let's just pound the ball inside to Aaron Gordon. He
Speaker 1: scores what twelve points by the second TV timeout? Like
Speaker 1: that's crazy. During the regular season, Denver posted up Miami
Speaker 1: thirty times and scored forty seven points. So we saw
Speaker 1: a ton of examples of that switching and it just
Speaker 1: didn't work. Okay, you go zone and Miami actually had
Speaker 1: a little bit of success with zones. And I haven't
Speaker 1: seen the numbers yet because it hadn't been updated by
Speaker 1: the time I went live, but we will go over
Speaker 1: those numbers in the film session tomorrow. They had some success,
Speaker 1: but when it really came down to it at the
Speaker 1: end of the game and they needed buckets, they got
Speaker 1: buckets in the zone. Every single time, getting the ball
Speaker 1: to Jokic in the middle of the floor, him either
Speaker 1: scoring or hitting cutters along the baseline or hitting shooters
Speaker 1: on the wing. It's just too difficult. There is no
Speaker 1: defensive answer for this Denver team. Again, Guys, last round,
Speaker 1: it was Lebron James and Ruey Hatchamura, two guys that
Speaker 1: were six ' nine and just chiseled with muscle, banging
Speaker 1: in with Nikola Jokic, with Anthony Freakin Davis on the
Speaker 1: back line, and they were helpless. They had nothing, there
Speaker 1: was nothing they could do. They lit them up for
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty two points per one hundred possessions.
Speaker 1: They destroyed that Lakers defense. This Miami defense is more
Speaker 1: fundamentally sound, especially in transition, and they're a little bit
Speaker 1: better in the half court as well. Their rotations are
Speaker 1: a little sharper. They compete more on a possession by
Speaker 1: possession basis. But you're downsizing. Bam Adebayo is giving up
Speaker 1: what thirty forty pounds in several inches to Nikola Jokic.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler is giving up three four inches to Aaron
Speaker 1: Gordon and twenty thirty pounds. You know, Max Struz has
Speaker 1: given up a bunch of weight to Michael Port like
Speaker 1: they're They're just completely overmatched physically down the line, and
Speaker 1: there's no amount of coaching or schematic approach or just
Speaker 1: give a shit chip on your shoulder competitiveness that can
Speaker 1: make up for that. That's the problem again. Against the
Speaker 1: three teams that came before Miami or Miami played Boston,
Speaker 1: New York and Milwaukee, ye had crippling weaknesses in their
Speaker 1: half court offense that Miami was able to exploit, and
Speaker 1: Boston's defense wasn't as sharp and so they were to
Speaker 1: be able to capitalize with relocating shooters. This Denver team
Speaker 1: is excellent at all of the things Miami has been
Speaker 1: capitalizing on during this postseason. That makes it extremely difficult
Speaker 1: to counter all of the things that we saw in
Speaker 1: the regular season. Came to fruition, They dominated the heat
Speaker 1: in the poets, They killed them in pick and roll
Speaker 1: with Murray's scoring. Michael Porter Junior was excellent. I actually
Speaker 1: thought Denver in general defended a hell of a lot
Speaker 1: better than they've been given credit for throughout this entire
Speaker 1: playoff run. Bruce Brown came in off the bench and
Speaker 1: was hitting shots. You know, it's crazy. I was looking
Speaker 1: it up today. Bruce Brown shot below forty percent on
Speaker 1: floaters during the regular season, sixty four percent on floaters
Speaker 1: during the playoffs. He was nine for fourteen. Made two
Speaker 1: more of them tonight, just getting downhill and pick and roll,
Speaker 1: pinning the defender on that other side, just kind of
Speaker 1: bumping him off a little bit and making that little
Speaker 1: floater in the lane. Ever, this team is so damn good.
Speaker 1: I think they're great even juxtaposed against recent champions, and like, look,
Speaker 1: the Miami could shoot better. They have some adjustments they
Speaker 1: can make. I put down a few of them. They
Speaker 1: can go bigger, like they can go with h They
Speaker 1: can go with Kevin Love. And Kevin Love obviously is
Speaker 1: not as quick as he used to be, but he's
Speaker 1: an expert at body position and leverage, so you can
Speaker 1: ask him to front the post a little bit, or
Speaker 1: bang with Yokic on different spots and put bam At
Speaker 1: a bio into a help situation. They can play a
Speaker 1: lot more zone. Again, I don't have the numbers yet,
Speaker 1: but they did have some success with zone. It seemed
Speaker 1: to actually disrupt Denver's flow a little bit. Uh, But
Speaker 1: like the reality is is the Nuggets are kind of
Speaker 1: adjustment proof on that end of the floor and like
Speaker 1: praying that everything is connected like Phoenix. Game one mails
Speaker 1: it in right. Then in game two they bring all
Speaker 1: this defensive effort, they turn it into a slugfest. But
Speaker 1: then they can't hit any shots. Why cause their bodies
Speaker 1: are beat the shit from battling with everybody all game long.
Speaker 1: Like again, when you're fronting the post or you're banging
Speaker 1: with a dude in a box out, that's literally like
Speaker 1: you're on a like press machine. Like watch footage of
Speaker 1: Bam at a bio fronting the post. He's down in
Speaker 1: a squad, he's got his back, Yoki is pushing on
Speaker 1: his back and he's like pressing him up. You're in
Speaker 1: the gym, like pressing two hundred and fifty pounds and
Speaker 1: then going down and trying to take a floating jump
Speaker 1: shot in the lane. Like it's I don't see a
Speaker 1: scenario where they just suddenly are knocking down all these shots.
Speaker 1: Maybe when they get back to Miami and they have
Speaker 1: a little bit of adrenaline rush. But I said this
Speaker 1: before the series, and I mean it. I struggle to
Speaker 1: find basketball reasons for how Miami can win games in
Speaker 1: this series. And I hope I'm wrong because I would
Speaker 1: love to have a more competitive NBA Finals, But I
Speaker 1: think we could be in some trouble here. I think
Speaker 1: Denver has an opportunity to get this thing over with
Speaker 1: relatively quickly. All right, guys, that is all I have
Speaker 1: for tonight. Like I said, I'm not gonna do to
Speaker 1: too much of a deep dive into the x's and o's.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna wake up tomorrow morning. I'm gonna watch all
Speaker 1: the film over and over again. Get some numbers. Follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter because I usually tweet out video links
Speaker 1: as well as some of the stats that I find
Speaker 1: for my analytical platforms, and then I'll be recording that
Speaker 1: film session. It'll be on the feeds sometime tomorrow afternoon.
Speaker 1: As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys, and I'll see
Speaker 1: you then. The volume