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Speaker 1: dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight,
Speaker 1: presented by Fandel here at the volume Happy Wednesday, everybody,
Speaker 1: halfway through the week. I help all of you are
Speaker 1: having a productive and successful week so far. I was
Speaker 1: so incredibly wrong on the two game seven's in the
Speaker 1: last round, as I backed off of my Celtics pick
Speaker 1: after six games of clinging to well five games of
Speaker 1: clinging to it, and then I was so wrong about
Speaker 1: the Suns. But I've gotten the first two games of
Speaker 1: these two series. Is dead right. As is always the
Speaker 1: case when you're trying to make these predictions, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be right. Sometimes you're gonna be wrong sometimes super interesting
Speaker 1: game tonight though on a bunch of different levels. We're
Speaker 1: gonna get into all of it, and then at the
Speaker 1: end we're gonna bring Carson on. We're gonna talk more.
Speaker 1: Warriors in the Weeds were also going to get into
Speaker 1: I watched a ton of film on Celtics Heat tonight
Speaker 1: this morning. I'm gonna get into the stuff that I
Speaker 1: learned from that as well. To stick around for the end.
Speaker 1: A couple of quick notes. Make sure that you guys
Speaker 1: liked this video and subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channels
Speaker 1: so you don't miss any more of our content. Make
Speaker 1: sure you follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT.
Speaker 1: I have a video that I'm working on right now
Speaker 1: that's not quite finished, but that should be out tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1: That's gonna go over some uh specifics of adjustments that
Speaker 1: the Celtics and the Heat can make in their series.
Speaker 1: It's a great place to see the video content that
Speaker 1: I do, so follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT. Alright,
Speaker 1: so I'm from Tucson, Arizona, which is just down the
Speaker 1: street from Phoenix, and so I've had quite a few
Speaker 1: uh friends and family that were bummed that the Phoenix
Speaker 1: Suns lost. I personally was excited for starters. I have
Speaker 1: no emotional attachment to the Sun's I think the Sons
Speaker 1: have done a horrible job of trying to expand their
Speaker 1: reach down to Tucson, even though it's right down the
Speaker 1: street and it's a metro area of over a million people.
Speaker 1: Feels kind of like a missed opportunity. But I was
Speaker 1: excited that Phoenix lost. I thought they were kind of
Speaker 1: an arrogant type of team. But most importantly, the Dallas
Speaker 1: Mavericks I think are a much more interesting matchup in
Speaker 1: this setting, and specifically this matchup between Golden State and
Speaker 1: Dallas I find to be very interesting because both of
Speaker 1: these teams are so remarkably different, not just from each other,
Speaker 1: but from everyone else around the league. Dallas is the
Speaker 1: quintessential modern basketball team. They do not care about traditional centers,
Speaker 1: traditional coverages. They don't care about traditional offensive sets and
Speaker 1: high motion, high ball movement, all of the things that
Speaker 1: just about every basketball coach since the dawn of this
Speaker 1: sport has leaned heavily on. What Dallas has done is
Speaker 1: created a play style and a roster that is spe
Speaker 1: typically designed to succeed in this environment. Last tear. Last
Speaker 1: time we saw a team that did something similar to
Speaker 1: this was the two thousand eighteen Rockets. Switched absolutely everything.
Speaker 1: Everybody on the floor was a switchable defensive player that
Speaker 1: can knock down threes. And then they had base core
Speaker 1: spacing concepts. Right shooter in each corner, shooter on the wing,
Speaker 1: you know, five out, or if they'd have a guy
Speaker 1: in the dunker spot right and so they Dallas has
Speaker 1: followed that same concept where it's all just mismatch hunting,
Speaker 1: pick on the weakest defender on the other team, Alternate
Speaker 1: ball handling responsibilities between one super nova that's a star
Speaker 1: and then a handful of other guys that are capable
Speaker 1: of spelling the star for stretches right there. The quintessential
Speaker 1: modern basketball team, as forward thinking as you could possibly imagine.
Speaker 1: Golden States also different from the rest of the league,
Speaker 1: but in a way that's impossible to replicate. Like remember
Speaker 1: when the Atlanta Hawks drafted Kevin Horder and Trey Young
Speaker 1: in the same draft to be like they're Stephen Clay.
Speaker 1: Do they play anything like the Warriors? Not not even
Speaker 1: remotely close that. As a matter of fact, they play
Speaker 1: more like the Mavericks than they do like the Warriors.
Speaker 1: It's because in order to play the way the Warriors play,
Speaker 1: there's a certain commitment to selflessness and weaponizing your own
Speaker 1: attention and keeping the ball moving and keeping yourself moving
Speaker 1: as a player. That's really difficult to replicate because there's
Speaker 1: just not that many players who do it, you know.
Speaker 1: I think the closest thing as a guard to replicating
Speaker 1: what step has done in this era is Dame Lillard,
Speaker 1: and Dame Lillard doesn't do anything nearly resembling what Steph
Speaker 1: does off the ball or weaponizing attention, staying moving, creating
Speaker 1: baskets outside of that static isolation environment. Right. And so
Speaker 1: what's super fascinating to me about the series is you
Speaker 1: have this, you know, incredible kind of like like anomaly
Speaker 1: in basketball in the Golden State Warriors versus arguably the
Speaker 1: most forward thinking modern basketball team, both very different from
Speaker 1: the rest of the league, both very different from each other,
Speaker 1: and I expected to be an incredibly interesting series as
Speaker 1: a result, I expected Golden State to win tonight. I
Speaker 1: was fortunate enough to make a little bit of money
Speaker 1: on FanDuel in the process. That five and a half
Speaker 1: line was very safe as it turned out. Um, I
Speaker 1: would actually wouldn't even be surprised if Golden State jumped
Speaker 1: up to zero in this series. But I do think
Speaker 1: that Dallas demonstrated some stuff tonight that that kind of
Speaker 1: backed up some of the reasons why I was confident
Speaker 1: in them and having a chance to win this series.
Speaker 1: To be clear upfront, like I was super confident in Boston,
Speaker 1: Like I think Boston is going to beat Miami, and
Speaker 1: I feel very confident and I'll be shocked if Miami wins.
Speaker 1: These two teams I find to be very close. I
Speaker 1: leaned Dallas, I picked Dallas, but I won't be the
Speaker 1: least bit surprised if Golden State wins. And that's gonna
Speaker 1: be the interesting thing to track as we get further
Speaker 1: into the series. I want to start with Golden State's
Speaker 1: offensive process because I find it to be very interesting.
Speaker 1: I remember when Steph got into the league and he
Speaker 1: really started to ascend in two thousand fifteen, right there
Speaker 1: was this buzzword that started getting thrown around by Warriors
Speaker 1: fans gravity you guys may or may not remember that
Speaker 1: Warriors fans are certain that you have And the gist
Speaker 1: of it was this idea that Steph attracts lots of
Speaker 1: defensive attention and it creates opportunities for other people. And
Speaker 1: at first I had a hard time reconciling with that
Speaker 1: because I wanted to be like, uh, all of the
Speaker 1: stars in the league dictate multiple defenders, and they do.
Speaker 1: You know, Lebron and Janice and k D and all
Speaker 1: these guys, all of the bigger you know, um, you know,
Speaker 1: swing forward superstar type of players are all great at
Speaker 1: applying rim pressure. And when you apply good rim pressure
Speaker 1: as a dominant athlete, you're going to collapse the defense.
Speaker 1: But there's a huge difference between the way that those
Speaker 1: players dictate defensive attention and the way that Steph dictates
Speaker 1: defensive attention. So the way I like to call the
Speaker 1: refer to it because a guy like Lebron, or a
Speaker 1: guy like the Honest, a guy like Katie also have
Speaker 1: gravity and makes what Steph does so interesting. Not just
Speaker 1: step either, it's Steph and Clay and Jordan Pool, but
Speaker 1: they have what I call reverse gravity. What's so unique
Speaker 1: about what they do is they drag defensive players away
Speaker 1: from the basket, and as a result of that, it
Speaker 1: opens up a boatload of opportunities at the rim that
Speaker 1: aren't even that don't even resemble rim opportunities for any
Speaker 1: other team. The vast majority of rim opportunities that other
Speaker 1: teams get are finishing in traffic or drawing the big
Speaker 1: man under the basket and dropping it off to someone
Speaker 1: in the dunker spot, or maybe if you get like
Speaker 1: two or three closeout attacks, you might get somebody who
Speaker 1: gets a free run to the rint. Golden State, it's
Speaker 1: like wide open dunks and wide open layups because the
Speaker 1: paint is vacated, because the defensive attention that Steph draws
Speaker 1: is away from the basket. And it's always been super
Speaker 1: unique to me to see the way that that manifests
Speaker 1: and always manifests in a bunch of assists, because typically
Speaker 1: it's a bang bang play out of a three on
Speaker 1: two or out of a four on three that leads
Speaker 1: to that. How many times tonight did you see Steph
Speaker 1: come off of a trap and drop it to Draymond
Speaker 1: and Draymond rolled down the rim, you know, pulling a
Speaker 1: help defender from the wing and a kick out to
Speaker 1: and Andrew Wiggins three. It's the anatomy of the Golden
Speaker 1: State offense right well, manifested in a dominating paint performance.
Speaker 1: It's the funniest thing about the Warriors. They've become popularized
Speaker 1: as the team that that is like the three point revolution, right,
Speaker 1: But they're really not a high volume three point shooting
Speaker 1: team anymore, not even remotely close to what they were.
Speaker 1: I mean, they are a high volume three point team
Speaker 1: relative to old NBA teams, but compared to the rest
Speaker 1: of the league, there are a lot of teams that
Speaker 1: take more threes. Dallas was getting them up tonight, not
Speaker 1: making them either. But what Golden State does is they
Speaker 1: weaponize their three point shooting better than anybody to create
Speaker 1: advantages elsewhere on the floor. Dallas did a really nice
Speaker 1: job scoring in the paint when the game was over,
Speaker 1: but at one point, Oden State had a forty two
Speaker 1: to twenty advantage in paint points, and that's one thousand
Speaker 1: percent driven by that reverse gravity. Golden State was seventeen
Speaker 1: for twenty one from two point range in the first half.
Speaker 1: Think about how insane that is. Compare that to Boston,
Speaker 1: who at one point was like ten for thirty eight
Speaker 1: from two in a game in like Game one of
Speaker 1: that series against the Bucks. You know, for the vast
Speaker 1: majority of teams going against great NBA defenses in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to score in the paint, and it's
Speaker 1: really difficult to score at the rent. And this Golden
Speaker 1: State team has no trouble in that department because of
Speaker 1: their ability to weaponize their three points shoot. And I
Speaker 1: was really really impressed on everyone played well in Golden
Speaker 1: State offensively at that Jordan Pool was great, Clay Thompson
Speaker 1: made some shots, but Clay Thompson kind of is what
Speaker 1: he is at this point. I feel like Jordan Pool
Speaker 1: and Staff are the more of the offensive fulcrum at
Speaker 1: this point. Andrew Wiggins, you kind of reminds me if
Speaker 1: Spencer did what he in the set. They're very different players,
Speaker 1: but in terms of their reliability, Golden State fans will
Speaker 1: tell you that, you know, three out of four nights
Speaker 1: he's kind of a vagabond or unreliable on the offensive end,
Speaker 1: but then he has that big game where he's confident
Speaker 1: and he's knocking these shots down. I thought he was
Speaker 1: excellent tonight. Um Stephen Jordan Pool both did a really
Speaker 1: nice job of putting pressure, especially in transition, just getting
Speaker 1: up the floor and creating shots. The Golden State offense
Speaker 1: was humming and Dallas did not do nearly a good
Speaker 1: enough job on that front. We will talk about that
Speaker 1: in a few minutes, but I didn't want to start
Speaker 1: to move on before we go into anything with Dallas.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about Golden State on defense. You know,
Speaker 1: I talked about before this series that Luca would be
Speaker 1: able to get any matchup that he wanted, and one
Speaker 1: of the things that I and he, especially early in
Speaker 1: the game, I thought Dallas got whatever they wanted. They
Speaker 1: just couldn't make any shots. They came out the gate
Speaker 1: getting wide open threes almost every time down the floor,
Speaker 1: and they just weren't making any of them, which is
Speaker 1: gonna happen. It's actually in a in a new environment,
Speaker 1: switching your matchups, going from a defensive team like Phoenix
Speaker 1: that's more traditional versus a swarming, faster, quicker defense that
Speaker 1: Golden State has, and it clearly affected them, and then
Speaker 1: also going on the road to a new arena. But
Speaker 1: what I thought Steve Kurry did a really nice job
Speaker 1: of was switching up his coverages. You know, early in
Speaker 1: the game, they didn't send a ton of help to
Speaker 1: Luca on his isolations when he was attacking people. They
Speaker 1: were stunting and doing things. But then what he would
Speaker 1: do is he just switch that up almost every other possession.
Speaker 1: And I really saw this in the second quarter. It
Speaker 1: was like, this time, we're going to jump Luca while
Speaker 1: he's in the middle of the move with a double team.
Speaker 1: The first guy I saw them do this really well
Speaker 1: against was Golden State had some awesome defensive performances against
Speaker 1: Yokis in the regular season, And what they figured out
Speaker 1: is like when an offensive player is in the middle
Speaker 1: of a move, they're unaware of what's happening around them
Speaker 1: because there in the middle of the process of the move.
Speaker 1: It's like when you're in a video game and you
Speaker 1: press like the spin move button in Madden, It's like,
Speaker 1: once the spin move is started, until the spin move
Speaker 1: is stopped, you can't really do anything right. Like that's
Speaker 1: kind of the idea, and they would like Yokich would
Speaker 1: be posting up on Draymond or whoever it was he
Speaker 1: was guarding, and then as soon as he would start
Speaker 1: his spin move, like that's when they would jump in
Speaker 1: because they know that while he's in the process of
Speaker 1: that spin move, that's when he's most vulnerable. They were
Speaker 1: doing that to Luca tonight they were doing that to
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson and Spencer Dinwitty, but sparingly. They'd leave him
Speaker 1: alone on one possession, make him feel comfortable. Then the
Speaker 1: next possession down that's when they would jump. That's sort
Speaker 1: of like keeping teams unstable with your coverages is a
Speaker 1: great way to keep a guy out of rhythm. They
Speaker 1: mixed in zone. They mixed in at one point of
Speaker 1: Boxing one, and thought I thought it was interesting. Luca
Speaker 1: would basically kind of bring the ball over to which
Speaker 1: part of the zone he felt most likely to attack,
Speaker 1: and then he kind of backed down there in the
Speaker 1: against their two three zone that they were running there.
Speaker 1: But that's where the boxing one was genius, because then
Speaker 1: Luca would bring it over to Steph to try to
Speaker 1: like back him down at the top corner of the zone.
Speaker 1: But then that that one in the box and one
Speaker 1: would be right there being disruptive. That kind of constant
Speaker 1: shuffling of your defensive coverages is what makes it's It's
Speaker 1: what you have to do in these settings to prevent
Speaker 1: people from getting comfortable. I thought Luca in that first
Speaker 1: quarter was way too comfortable, and Golden State did a
Speaker 1: much better job disrupting that as the game progressed, and
Speaker 1: it will be really interesting to see the way that
Speaker 1: they had just over time. You know, we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about Luca here in just a second, because he really
Speaker 1: was feeling things out tonight, and I'll kind of get
Speaker 1: into that further in just a minute. But juxtaposed with
Speaker 1: that was Steph Curry. There was no feeling things out
Speaker 1: from Steph Curry tonight. He was aggressive from the jump
Speaker 1: that I talked a lot about his shot profile and
Speaker 1: the fact that he doesn't take as many you know,
Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen Steph shots as he used to Probably
Speaker 1: it's two things. It's he's coming off a midfoot spring
Speaker 1: and he's not quite athletically what he was last year.
Speaker 1: And with Jordan Pool's ascent, they have so much offensive
Speaker 1: talent on the floor that you know, shot selection has
Speaker 1: a lot to do with what your personnel is. Like, Like,
Speaker 1: even a guy like Luca wouldn't take nearly as many
Speaker 1: tough shots if he was playing alongside another star and
Speaker 1: you could disperse those responsibilities enough, they're cut A lot
Speaker 1: of times. Those tough shots are are like punts, their
Speaker 1: way of like just punting on the possession, but giving
Speaker 1: you a decent opportunity to score in the process. I
Speaker 1: thought Steph had a lot of that two thousand and
Speaker 1: sixteen audacity tonight, running up the floor and transition and
Speaker 1: taking threes off the move, wild step back threes where
Speaker 1: he covers a lot of space. It's important for him
Speaker 1: to demonstrate that because that's what convinces Dallas to want
Speaker 1: to trap him on those screen and rolls. And I
Speaker 1: have in my notes and we're gonna get a little
Speaker 1: bit further into this later, but one of my biggest
Speaker 1: adjustments that I want from Dallas is to not trap
Speaker 1: as much because Steph isn't what he was in two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen, at least I think it remains to
Speaker 1: be seen over the course of the series. Still the
Speaker 1: he's a super duperstar. Still think he's you know, every
Speaker 1: bit is great, you know, in terms of his overall impact,
Speaker 1: But without that high end shot making, I don't think
Speaker 1: you have to trap him as much. What I would
Speaker 1: do is I would as he's coming off of these screens,
Speaker 1: are off of these dribble handoffs or anything off the ball,
Speaker 1: I would just switch and if you're big Man's on him.
Speaker 1: I would press up into him and make him drive
Speaker 1: past you, because I think it's an easier rotation on
Speaker 1: the back line at the rim than it is to
Speaker 1: rotate out of a trap thirty feet from the basket.
Speaker 1: But again, there's a reason why Jason Kidd and everybody,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason wants to keep trapping Steph Curry, and
Speaker 1: it's fear for everything that we've seen in Steps to
Speaker 1: Client and guys like Warriors fans. I I feel like
Speaker 1: a good half of Warriors fans are very aware of
Speaker 1: the fact that Steff has been declining. But then there's
Speaker 1: the other half that's in denial. Guys. It's in the percentages.
Speaker 1: He's not shooting nearly as well over a massive sample
Speaker 1: size compared to what he used to be. Still a superstar,
Speaker 1: but he's not shooting as well. But the audacity taking
Speaker 1: the tough shots, that is what keeps the fear alive.
Speaker 1: And the fear is so necessary to continue the panic chasing,
Speaker 1: to continue the trapping, to continue the things that allowed
Speaker 1: that reverse gravity to take place, so that all those
Speaker 1: paint opportunities are there. And so I think that I
Speaker 1: told you guys before the series, the best opportunity for
Speaker 1: Golden State to win us, for Steph Curry to be
Speaker 1: the best player in the series, for him to outplay Luca,
Speaker 1: and for him to try as hard as he can
Speaker 1: to replicate two thousand sixteen Steph. And we're one game
Speaker 1: in and he did it tonight. I thought he was
Speaker 1: definitely better than Luca tonight, and I thought he was
Speaker 1: definitely closer to that two thousand sixteen version of himself
Speaker 1: in terms of the way he approached the game compared
Speaker 1: to what he's been doing of late. Round one goes
Speaker 1: to Steph Curry Lucas. Round one was weird. I joked
Speaker 1: before the game in my preview that he reminds me
Speaker 1: a lot of Lebron in the way that game ones
Speaker 1: are basically a feel out opportunity for him, and you
Speaker 1: could almost see him just trying stuff just to see
Speaker 1: what works. He was pretty bad tonight. I believe he
Speaker 1: had six turnovers. Wasn't seeing the help defense really well.
Speaker 1: We talked a little bit about Golden State in the
Speaker 1: way that they mixed things up on him. I got
Speaker 1: blocked a couple of times. It was. I thought he
Speaker 1: did some over penetrating and getting into the teeth of
Speaker 1: the defense too far, But at the same time, like
Speaker 1: he also wasn't playing much defense. Looked a lot more
Speaker 1: like the Luca from Games one and two in Phoenix
Speaker 1: that it did from the Luca in games six and
Speaker 1: seven against Phoenix, And that's kind of becoming a staple
Speaker 1: for Luca in this playoff run, which is so weird
Speaker 1: because in each of the last two playoff runs he
Speaker 1: came out guns blaze against the Clippers. But like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's just him aging and maturing faster
Speaker 1: than we expect, or if this is actually a little
Speaker 1: bit of recklessness on his part, because you guys know
Speaker 1: how I feel about tricking off playoff games. These series,
Speaker 1: especially when you get to the conference finals, like these
Speaker 1: series is are decided by the tiniest of margins, and
Speaker 1: so doing something like tossing a game away to feel
Speaker 1: things out, I think it's bad strategy. I used to
Speaker 1: say that with Lebron all the time. I thought they
Speaker 1: tricked off game one against Phoenix last year, feeling things
Speaker 1: out as Anthony Davis got outplayed by DeAndre Ayton, you know,
Speaker 1: And like that's what Luca did tonight. He came out
Speaker 1: there and was loose with the basketball loose with his
Speaker 1: decision making, we uh, poor effort on the defensive end,
Speaker 1: And all I can hope for his sake, if you're
Speaker 1: a Dallas Mavericks fan, is that he did process enough information,
Speaker 1: that he did learn enough from this game to make
Speaker 1: the necessary adjustments. But for what it's worth, in that
Speaker 1: first quarter, before Golden State really started swarming, Dallas was
Speaker 1: getting really good shots. And so it's gonna be important
Speaker 1: for Dallas too, and Luca in particular, to understand what
Speaker 1: Golden State did to him as the game progressed with
Speaker 1: the mixing up coverages with the swarming and make the
Speaker 1: necessary adjustments. But if there's one player right now, I've
Speaker 1: said before that I think Luca is in that conversation
Speaker 1: with your kitchen Stephan, Lebron is the best offensive engines
Speaker 1: and all of basketball. I actually would probably lean Luca
Speaker 1: number one. I expect him to to figure that stuff
Speaker 1: out over the course of this series. All Right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna bring my guy Carson on and we're going to
Speaker 1: get a little bit further into the details of this series.
Speaker 1: How's it going, Carson? Fantastic? Jason, how are you? I
Speaker 1: can't complain? Man, now, That's just what I love to hear. Well,
Speaker 1: obviously you touch on where Lucas stands in that conversation
Speaker 1: for best offensive player, best offensive engine on the planet,
Speaker 1: And obviously that was a really big reason that you
Speaker 1: had confidence in this MAVs team, just how unstoppable it
Speaker 1: seemed he would be in this matchup and why you
Speaker 1: ended up picking them to upset the Warriors. So not
Speaker 1: an ideal start for that pick in terms of result tonight.
Speaker 1: On a scale of one to ten, how concerned are
Speaker 1: you about your pick for the MAVs to win this
Speaker 1: series over the Doubs zero? Um. First of all, in
Speaker 1: gent Well, in general, I'm never gonna overreact to a
Speaker 1: Game one. I was very confident Golden State would win tonight,
Speaker 1: even though I leaned towards Dallas in the series. The
Speaker 1: only reason I said a four last night with Boston
Speaker 1: was because of the Al Horford thing. Like Al Horford
Speaker 1: is so important to so many things that Boston does
Speaker 1: on the court that him being out is is a
Speaker 1: huge problem. And I heard I heard some reporting today
Speaker 1: that he might miss Game three two, that that he
Speaker 1: might not be able to clear protocols until Game four
Speaker 1: unless he registers a certain number of negative tests, which
Speaker 1: is up in the air, right, So like Boston has
Speaker 1: this like a serious personnel thing that throws off my
Speaker 1: pick a little bit. But like, what did I tell
Speaker 1: you guys? I expected from game one? I expect to
Speaker 1: gold State to win. I expected Luca to feel things
Speaker 1: out and be sloppy. I didn't see. I I saw
Speaker 1: some specific things like I saw. I saw Steph show
Speaker 1: flashes of scoring that I haven't seen much from him
Speaker 1: in this playoff runs. So that's good. That bodes well
Speaker 1: for Golden State. I thought Steph in particular held up
Speaker 1: well against switches. I thought Jordan Pool did not hold
Speaker 1: up well against switches and defense defensively. I thought that.
Speaker 1: I thought that both Jalen Brunson and Luca kind of
Speaker 1: had their way with Jordan Pool. But that's to be expected.
Speaker 1: But it's a good thing for Golden State that Steph
Speaker 1: held up really well. I thought. I thought there were
Speaker 1: a couple of fouls he got called for that were
Speaker 1: bs where he held his position and and played well
Speaker 1: uh defending the ball. So again that in attacking Steph Currans,
Speaker 1: which is has always been a fool's errand because he's
Speaker 1: consistently been one of the most underrated defensive players of
Speaker 1: this era. He but the thing with Steph Curry that
Speaker 1: people forget is that he's freaking strong, Like he's He's
Speaker 1: six ft three and stout, and so even though he's
Speaker 1: not the quickest player in the world, just him having
Speaker 1: effort on the effort and focus and attention to detail
Speaker 1: on the defensive end automatically makes him a plus defender.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like there are positive things for Golden State,
Speaker 1: but I also loved dallas shot. Cality, What did you like, Carson.
Speaker 1: Did you think that Dallas was able to get quality
Speaker 1: shots tonight? Yeah, I thought for a lot of the
Speaker 1: night they were. And I also think that I completely
Speaker 1: agree with you on the point in terms of Luca
Speaker 1: having that feeling out process and it never really feels
Speaker 1: like he's in a spot where he's not getting the
Speaker 1: looks that he wants. And you know, there are some
Speaker 1: shots with him that are closer to toss up propositions
Speaker 1: with the difficult shot making, but it always feels like
Speaker 1: he's in control when he wants to be. And obviously
Speaker 1: it's a really poor shooting night Dallas. They go eleven
Speaker 1: forty eight from deep. It's not like the Warriors had
Speaker 1: a phenomenal shooting night on the other end, but still
Speaker 1: you expect that to level out, and that is so
Speaker 1: important to what Dallas does offensively. So I think I'm
Speaker 1: with you in terms of a never overreacting to a
Speaker 1: game one and be not thinking that if you play
Speaker 1: this game ten times, Dallas is scoring more than eight
Speaker 1: seven points and most of them just as a matter
Speaker 1: of shot making variants. Like, I think this was definitely
Speaker 1: on the very low end of outcomes there. But is
Speaker 1: there one thing that you look at that you think
Speaker 1: you expect to change the most going forwards, to be
Speaker 1: the most different from this game as compared to the
Speaker 1: rest of the series, just in terms of your confidence
Speaker 1: with that outcome Dallas's defense, I think, I think you know,
Speaker 1: and there there are some very clear differences between the
Speaker 1: way that Golden State plays offensively in any of the
Speaker 1: teams that Dallas has played. I mean, we just talked
Speaker 1: about this to open the show. Golden State style so
Speaker 1: incredibly unique that you know it's gonna take an adjustment
Speaker 1: the most a couple of a couple of specific details.
Speaker 1: So Phoenix, for instance, runs a hyper traditional offense. They
Speaker 1: are pick and roll heavy. They have a traditional big,
Speaker 1: They have a playmaking guard that looks to pass before
Speaker 1: he looks to score. Even there to guard that they
Speaker 1: have playing like literally mirrors his game after Kobe Bryant.
Speaker 1: So like they're very vintage style of offense. Golden State
Speaker 1: and everything that they do with like Golden State spaces
Speaker 1: the floor and makes Dallas covered ground defensively in a
Speaker 1: way that none of the teams they've played so far
Speaker 1: has made them defense. In addition to that, Golden State
Speaker 1: is amazing with off ball action. And I'm not just
Speaker 1: talking about Draymond at the top of the key, you know,
Speaker 1: looking for Staff coming off of the screen. It's more
Speaker 1: complicated than that. They'll have like like, for instance, if
Speaker 1: st is in the corner and they're doing a dribble
Speaker 1: handoff with Draymond with Steph coming off and you know, uh,
Speaker 1: even if there's two players involved, like Pool and Staff
Speaker 1: will be They'll have like Wiggins and Clay on the
Speaker 1: other side of the floor, like set a pin down
Speaker 1: or a backscreen for each other. And when they do that,
Speaker 1: the defenders that Dallas has that are supposed to be
Speaker 1: in help side will be navigating that little two man
Speaker 1: game between Clay and Andrew on the other side of
Speaker 1: the floor, and so Steph will like come off of
Speaker 1: that dribble handoff, draw the two defenders and swing it
Speaker 1: over the top to Looney or to Draymond, whoever it is.
Speaker 1: And instead of there being someone under the basket to
Speaker 1: help on that role, there's nobody there because they're dealing
Speaker 1: with interchanges on the other end of the floor. So
Speaker 1: Golden State that runs such a sophisticated offense that it's
Speaker 1: definitely gonna take longer into this series. This is why,
Speaker 1: like I expect Boston to win Game two, I I
Speaker 1: would not be the least bit surprised of Golden State
Speaker 1: went up two oh in this series. And then Dallas
Speaker 1: started to build steam later in the series because Jason
Speaker 1: Kidd is an incredible defensive coach. They Mavericks have demonstrated
Speaker 1: an ability to pick up on coverages Like Phoenix ran
Speaker 1: a half dozen different variations of pick and roll and
Speaker 1: dribble handoff with all these cops, all these complications, and
Speaker 1: by the end of the series, like Phoenix or Dallas
Speaker 1: had just solved them, they had solved all of them.
Speaker 1: Now they may not ever solve them entirely the way
Speaker 1: they did with Phoenix. I feel almost a thousand percent
Speaker 1: certain that Golden State's not gonna have a twenty seven
Speaker 1: point half at some point in this series. But that said,
Speaker 1: I do think Dallas will get better at tightening up
Speaker 1: those defensive rotations and getting better at being in the
Speaker 1: right spot. And most importantly, like I talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: I think at a certain point they're gonna have to
Speaker 1: stop trapping every Steph Curry, pick and roll. And instead
Speaker 1: of doing that, which is giving Golden State that four
Speaker 1: on three advantage that they have literally a decade of
Speaker 1: practice executing, what I would do instead is I would
Speaker 1: hard switch, like almost like a show that turns into
Speaker 1: a switch with pal or cleep by whoever it is
Speaker 1: that's in that action, and then basically tell them like
Speaker 1: I don't give a damn if Steph drives right past you,
Speaker 1: but you have to push up into him and force
Speaker 1: him to drive, because helping at the rim and rotating
Speaker 1: around the shooters is a lot easier than the then
Speaker 1: rotating out of those traps thirty ft from the basket.
Speaker 1: And so I think I think Dallas defensively like obviously
Speaker 1: they're gonna shoot better as the series progresses, but defensively,
Speaker 1: I thought they had a lot of room for improvement
Speaker 1: after tonight. Well obviously see how they respond there, But
Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right and highlighting just the difficulty
Speaker 1: of them dealing with the off ball movement. And there
Speaker 1: were so many spots today where it was just beautiful
Speaker 1: streaking cuts to the basket nearly uncontested by the Warriors.
Speaker 1: A lot of that set up by off ball screens
Speaker 1: and everything that you talk about, and that's always been
Speaker 1: central to their offense. Like back in the hay to remember,
Speaker 1: they would outpace the rest of the league by like
Speaker 1: in terms of just cut possessions per game, and this
Speaker 1: year they were numb or one there again. And a
Speaker 1: lot of that is empowered by steps off ball gravity,
Speaker 1: what you talk about with the attention that he demands
Speaker 1: with traps and all that, and just how that enables
Speaker 1: the freedom of movement and just attract so much defensive attention.
Speaker 1: So tonight he only had twenty one. It wasn't an
Speaker 1: overwhelming statistical output from him, but you said you felt
Speaker 1: like he was the best player on the floor. You
Speaker 1: certainly felt his impact in creating those quality shots for
Speaker 1: his teammates consistently. So, Jason, do you think Steph will
Speaker 1: be the most impactful player in this series? I don't
Speaker 1: think so, because I think Luca will, over the course
Speaker 1: of the series, get stronger and stronger. That said, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Steph was, and
Speaker 1: if he is, then gold State's gonna win. It's it's
Speaker 1: really that simple again. Like, like, guys, I also think
Speaker 1: Luca has passed Lebron at this point, So I'm not
Speaker 1: this is not some sort of relitigation of Steph's career
Speaker 1: or some sort of insult towards Steph. I Lebron and
Speaker 1: Steph are my two favorite players of this entire era.
Speaker 1: I think they were there. I think they were the
Speaker 1: two best players of this era. I've you I view.
Speaker 1: I have just an unbelievable amount of respect for those
Speaker 1: two guys. It's just it's the year two and these
Speaker 1: days step shoots about thirty from three in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: and Luca is ascending into superstardom just like Steph was
Speaker 1: back in two thousand thirteen and two thousand fourteen, right, So,
Speaker 1: like it's it's just the way I feel about the times.
Speaker 1: It's the question of the series will be does Steph
Speaker 1: have one last ultimately great playoff run in him, Because
Speaker 1: if he does, they're gonna beat Dallas, and they very
Speaker 1: well maybe Phoenix or Miami orho excuse me, Miami or Boston,
Speaker 1: whoever comes out of the Eastern Conference, right. That's that's
Speaker 1: the the name of the game here is is it still?
Speaker 1: Is it still in Steph's window or is it not?
Speaker 1: And we're gonna find out. But like the thing you
Speaker 1: gotta worry about with Luca is one, he's big and strong,
Speaker 1: so he thrives under physicality. So as the series progresses,
Speaker 1: he gets stronger, especially since he has a size advantage
Speaker 1: over basically everybody on Golden States roster. And then secondly,
Speaker 1: he wins with his brain that hit the guys like Luca,
Speaker 1: the guys like Lebron, the guys like Yokich, those the
Speaker 1: guys that are wired as those high end playmakers, they
Speaker 1: always get stronger later in series. I can't tell you
Speaker 1: how many times in Lebron's career he'd be trailing in
Speaker 1: a series and come back to win. They were trailing,
Speaker 1: what you know, in that Eastern Conference finals against the
Speaker 1: against the Bulls. In two thousand eleven and two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: they were trailing against the Pacers, then they were trailing
Speaker 1: aginst the Celtics, and then they were trailing against the
Speaker 1: Thunder in the finals, like they were trailing against the
Speaker 1: Pacers again in two thousand thirteen, and in two thousand
Speaker 1: thirteen they uh they fell behind to the Spurs three
Speaker 1: games too. Like Lebron was constantly behind in playoff series,
Speaker 1: but then in game five, six and seven, he'd always
Speaker 1: be the best player because he's just constantly processing information,
Speaker 1: absorbing all of the adjustments and the things that he
Speaker 1: knows when in the chess match of the NBA Playoffs,
Speaker 1: and he gets stronger as the series progress. That's that's
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen with Luca. It's not that Steph doesn't
Speaker 1: do that as well. I thoroughly expects Steph to be
Speaker 1: every bit as good at the end of the series
Speaker 1: as he is early. But Luca everything's grated on it,
Speaker 1: like everything with him is a different like transition, like
Speaker 1: he's always going to be a lesser player early in
Speaker 1: the series than he is later in the series. I
Speaker 1: agree with you, and it's not that it's a massive margin.
Speaker 1: But I feel like we just have to look at
Speaker 1: the recent resumes, the consistent brilliance of Luca's playoff production
Speaker 1: and just not understate that it is literally over his
Speaker 1: playoff career thirty two nine and eight on fifty percent
Speaker 1: try shooting. And this is something we've talked about before.
Speaker 1: There's a difference between the direct imposition of Luca physically
Speaker 1: on ball, commanding the game as that maestro, manufacturing shots
Speaker 1: for himself, kicking out to wide open teammates for three
Speaker 1: because he collapses the defense every time, and Steph Yes
Speaker 1: attracting a ton of attention but having some of the
Speaker 1: inconsistency in terms of shot making and at the end
Speaker 1: of the day his teammates still having to capitalize on
Speaker 1: his gravity and create for themselves. So certainly both guys
Speaker 1: are fundamental. They make their offenses what they are. Luca
Speaker 1: also though in these playoffs this is before tonight, but
Speaker 1: the maps had been eighteen points pern under possessions better
Speaker 1: with him on the floor. It's just in every way
Speaker 1: he has been the more dominant player as of late.
Speaker 1: He has been the more impactful player in terms of volume,
Speaker 1: physical imposition, and I mean, like you've said, it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like there's any answer for him in this series,
Speaker 1: So I think we need to default to the guy
Speaker 1: who would have been the answer before the series at
Speaker 1: this point, and that to me is still Luca Dodge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to to read a couple of numbers
Speaker 1: to you guys. I tweeted these out earlier, but uh,
Speaker 1: in terms of Dallas is shooting, because I thought they
Speaker 1: get quality shots tonight and I think they they finished
Speaker 1: like ten for forty two from three or something like that.
Speaker 1: So these are These are the Dallas role players on
Speaker 1: wide open threes in this playoff run. So I remember
Speaker 1: that's at least six ft from the nearest defender, which
Speaker 1: Dallas generate just a ton of these types of threes.
Speaker 1: Maxie clebent on four attempts per game, Jalen Brunson forty
Speaker 1: percent on two attempts per game, Dorian Phinney Smith forty
Speaker 1: six percent on four and a half attempts per game,
Speaker 1: Davis Barton's forty percent on one attempt per game, Spencer
Speaker 1: Dinwood percent on one and a half attempts per game.
Speaker 1: Reggie Bullock, who's basically their best shooter, is only thirty
Speaker 1: five percent on four and half attempts per games, So
Speaker 1: like you could argue that he's due for some positive regression,
Speaker 1: like the kick to wide open Shooters game for Dallas
Speaker 1: has been absolutely deadly in this playoff run, and it
Speaker 1: just didn't work tonight, and that that's one of those
Speaker 1: things like Golden State. Also like and again, you always
Speaker 1: gotta you gotta check for your blind spots. And every
Speaker 1: time I make a pick, just inherently, even though you
Speaker 1: guys know, I try extremely hard not to be biased.
Speaker 1: That's something that I work hard at. I do the work.
Speaker 1: I don't just make a pick and then just stick
Speaker 1: to the pick. I'll watch film and and and I
Speaker 1: to be honest, I don't care about the pick. I
Speaker 1: don't care if people rub it in my face if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. That's why I picked Milwaukee and game seven,
Speaker 1: even though I was on Boston for the first five games.
Speaker 1: Like I care more, to quote a colonism, I care
Speaker 1: more about getting it right than I do about being right.
Speaker 1: And so from that standpoint, like I just want I
Speaker 1: tried to check my blind spots. And maybe in this
Speaker 1: case it's Golden State. You know they're they're clay Thompson
Speaker 1: can obviously shoot a lot better than he did Tonight's
Speaker 1: Steph is capable of explosive games. I mean Draymond Green. Actually,
Speaker 1: I thought he did a decent job looking to score tonight,
Speaker 1: but he's capable of more. But I thought Dallas in
Speaker 1: general vastly underperformed their shot quality tonight, and so I
Speaker 1: think over the course of the series that would get
Speaker 1: better for them. Regardless of what we think in terms
Speaker 1: of that progression to the mean and talking about Luca
Speaker 1: is the best guy in this series. It was not
Speaker 1: a great night for them, and it was not a
Speaker 1: great night at all for Luca individually. And there was
Speaker 1: a photo going around. I'm sure many of you saw
Speaker 1: it of Luca. It kind of surfaced this morning, but
Speaker 1: I think we can assume it was last night out
Speaker 1: with boban on the town in the Bay, sipping on
Speaker 1: a beer. So should he have not done that? Should
Speaker 1: he have not gone out for that brew last night? Jason,
Speaker 1: what do you think given the result? I I think
Speaker 1: Luca having a beer before the game? Um even Okay,
Speaker 1: so I think it was I think it determined. Somebody
Speaker 1: found out through a Golden State redded page that it
Speaker 1: was from yesterday, but even if it was the morning
Speaker 1: of that would that would be the most on brand
Speaker 1: thing from Luca ever? Or like what what was it
Speaker 1: Hukah done Hitch this offseason? But like, you know, the
Speaker 1: thing with Luca is he We've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: like the dude, the dude doesn't operate under normal you know,
Speaker 1: professional athlete like standards. Like I've I was literally thinking
Speaker 1: during the game tonight as I was watching, I'm like,
Speaker 1: there are these lineups on the floor, and it's like
Speaker 1: there are nine basketball players on the floor that are
Speaker 1: all in peak physical condition. Like arguably the most DOUGHI
Speaker 1: player on the floor not named Luca is Draymond Green.
Speaker 1: And he's not Doughey, like he's he's just big, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, And like and like Lucas just
Speaker 1: he looks like a fish out of water in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases in the sense that like he's just
Speaker 1: sticking out like crazy on the floor. Is this one
Speaker 1: guy that doesn't you know, that doesn't look like he's
Speaker 1: in the same physical condition. I mean it's really the
Speaker 1: simple guys like a sixteen announced beer that like let's
Speaker 1: let's let's pretend it's a cours light something light right,
Speaker 1: like it's it's still at sixt announces that's still like
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty calories, right, or like a hundred forty
Speaker 1: calories like you have to those at dinner. That's that's
Speaker 1: the hefty amount of calories that you're taking in, right.
Speaker 1: So Like, my thing is like, I don't think there's
Speaker 1: anything wrong with consuming alcohol in the day before game.
Speaker 1: All the all the pros are like drinking wine and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, but man, when you start putting down
Speaker 1: a few beers, like I feel like, I feel like
Speaker 1: that just makes it hard to keep the pounds off.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of thoughts here. I think he
Speaker 1: touched on very good stuff. It's incredibly on brand. And
Speaker 1: if I were to go with the most on brand
Speaker 1: things an NBA player could do would probably be Zion
Speaker 1: doing a Mountain Dew commercial, Lebron posting a picture of
Speaker 1: a book that he is on page one through twenty
Speaker 1: of and lupa down in some bruise publicly before one
Speaker 1: of the biggest games of his NBA career. I love it.
Speaker 1: It's his thing. And also, by the way, he's a
Speaker 1: Slav and he's out there with another Slav and I
Speaker 1: come from yugoslav blood. Jason, my dad or my grandpa
Speaker 1: grew up in Yugoslavia. Yes, he's Croatian. My middle name
Speaker 1: is Velamir. And those guys aren't gonna lay off the bruise. Really,
Speaker 1: it's a miracle that he wasn't hammered off. Shlivovitz, I
Speaker 1: think so for it. And one more thing. Luca is
Speaker 1: a legend manufacturer. He has the personality, the confidence, the swag.
Speaker 1: We all saw the clip of him after Game five
Speaker 1: now where he says, everybody you know acting tough when
Speaker 1: they're up. He was laughing at the suns throughout Game seven.
Speaker 1: He lives for the legendary moment and so how amazing
Speaker 1: would it have been if that in at surface and
Speaker 1: then he dropped fifty Like that would be a hilarious
Speaker 1: story that you hear about him for decades. So I
Speaker 1: love it in every way. You will hear no Luca
Speaker 1: drinking beer publicly criticism for me. I think it's great Luca.
Speaker 1: Luca and Steph are two of the biggest psychopaths in
Speaker 1: the entire NBA. It's I again I I. I texted Ryan,
Speaker 1: our producer before the show. I was like, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad Dallas one because I find this series to be
Speaker 1: so much more interesting than that boring Phoenix team against
Speaker 1: this Warriors team, and like again you just there, they
Speaker 1: could not be more different. And the way that like
Speaker 1: Steph is there are no inefficiencies with Steph, Like I
Speaker 1: guarantee you there's not a thing that goes in his
Speaker 1: body that doesn't improve him as an athlete. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Um, I wouldn't be surprised, like like
Speaker 1: comparing those two are They're so different, but at the
Speaker 1: same time up here they're both like legitimately I want
Speaker 1: to murder you, like they're like like I want to
Speaker 1: I want to embarrass you and and trounce you and
Speaker 1: and step on your name and make you go home
Speaker 1: and feel like you don't belong in this league and
Speaker 1: and that dynamic. I think you're gonna have moments from
Speaker 1: both of them in the series where they it looked
Speaker 1: like on an early missed free throw from Steph that
Speaker 1: Luca said something to him and then Steph looked back
Speaker 1: with a kind of an intense look and said something back.
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell exactly what he said, but I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised that they got into it a little bit
Speaker 1: as a series progressed because their personalities do clash on
Speaker 1: a lot of levels. But all I can say is,
Speaker 1: as a basketball fan, I am so stoked for this
Speaker 1: series and I hope, I hope Luca drags it out,
Speaker 1: and I hope it's a six or seven gamer because
Speaker 1: I can't get this matchup. I'm one with you. The
Speaker 1: contrast in era in terms of the superstars, obviously the
Speaker 1: rising young guy and the possibly descending all time legend
Speaker 1: and style, as far as the team's personality, all of it,
Speaker 1: I think is so much fun. And I hope that
Speaker 1: this is a long and very exciting series, and I
Speaker 1: think that it should be. Let's talk about the other
Speaker 1: series for a second, because obviously we're one game deep
Speaker 1: into both conference finals. Now we have Game two of
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference Finals tomorrow. Celtics went down in Game one. Jason,
Speaker 1: what do you think is the biggest adjustment that they
Speaker 1: can make going forward in this series? So there are two,
Speaker 1: but I'll focus on one here really quick because I'll
Speaker 1: say the other one is a Miami thing because I
Speaker 1: think it relates to Miami as well. Um So I
Speaker 1: have a video that I'm gonna be coming out with
Speaker 1: probably tomorrow morning because I cut a ton of plays together,
Speaker 1: uh Boston, And again we've talked about this. Teams don't
Speaker 1: want to switch early in this series a couple of reasons.
Speaker 1: They want to avoid having small guards jockeying for rebound
Speaker 1: position with giant players all night long because it's fatiguing, right.
Speaker 1: The other thing, too, is you want to keep your
Speaker 1: rim protection as close to the rim as possible for rotations.
Speaker 1: So like if Robert Williams, for instance, on a simple
Speaker 1: dribble handoff ends up getting switched onto Gabe Vincent and
Speaker 1: Gave Vincent just dribbles over to the other wing and
Speaker 1: then swings it over to Jimmy Butler and then Jimmy
Speaker 1: Butler drives to the basket. Now Robert Williams is stuck
Speaker 1: on a shooter on the other side of the floor
Speaker 1: and he can't help at the rim. So they're like
Speaker 1: little dynamics like that that are why teams don't want
Speaker 1: to switch. But at the end of the day, like
Speaker 1: you can still help off of another player to help
Speaker 1: on a Jimmy Butler drive, and most importantly, you're forcing
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler at that point to score over defenders. At
Speaker 1: least there there is a clear line. It went about
Speaker 1: about eight minutes into the first quarter where Boston, chasing
Speaker 1: over the top of all those dribble handoffs was working
Speaker 1: like disruptive working. And it's a combination of fatigue from
Speaker 1: Game seven and some of the stuff from UH, some
Speaker 1: of the stuff from just how difficult it is to
Speaker 1: chase over the top of screens. But right around that
Speaker 1: eight minute mark, like Tyler Harrow actually checked in a
Speaker 1: few minutes prior, but Tyler Harrow got going, and he
Speaker 1: got going with the fact that all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Derek White, the same guy who was doing in a
Speaker 1: easing job fighting over those driple handoffs for the first
Speaker 1: half of the first quarter, he just suddenly started getting
Speaker 1: caught on the screens. And there is a clear delineation
Speaker 1: in shot quality between what what Miami got when Boston
Speaker 1: was switching versus when Boston was in their drop and
Speaker 1: and and they're eventually going to they just simply have
Speaker 1: to eventually start switching these handoffs because at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, Miami's biggest weakness is shot creation. Outside
Speaker 1: of Jimmy Butler, you as the Celtics have like four
Speaker 1: dudes who can create their own shot, right like Marcus
Speaker 1: Smart can, Jalen Brown can, Jayson Tatum can, like even
Speaker 1: Peyton Pritchard is like he's just as capable of creating
Speaker 1: his own shot as like a gay Vincent, right. Like,
Speaker 1: So at the end of the day, play to your strengths.
Speaker 1: If you get into that contest with them, you can
Speaker 1: force them to become an isolation team. And like, wait
Speaker 1: till you see this video, guys, And again, if you
Speaker 1: gotta follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason lt I'll
Speaker 1: be releasing it tomorrow. I have dozens of examples all
Speaker 1: lined up that demonstrate exactly what I'm talking about. Miami
Speaker 1: got great shots against Boston's drop and they're just gonna avenge.
Speaker 1: And this is a team now some of its personnel,
Speaker 1: because obviously without Horford out there and Marcus Smart out there,
Speaker 1: it's easier to switch. But the reality is that they
Speaker 1: were doing it still with like they were still doing
Speaker 1: with Grant Williams and Robert Williams in the back court
Speaker 1: and those actions and those guys could very well still
Speaker 1: be playing a lot when Al Horford and Marcus Smart
Speaker 1: come back. So some of it is just strategy type stuff.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that they did, you know,
Speaker 1: and and this is this is I only saw it
Speaker 1: once in the game, but they have to do it
Speaker 1: more frequently. But there was a play where where Tyler
Speaker 1: Harrow is working on the right wing and he brings
Speaker 1: the ball up the floor and he calls for Robert
Speaker 1: Williams's man to come set his screen, and he did
Speaker 1: that deliberately, and it was Bam by the way. He
Speaker 1: did that deliberately because he knows Robert Williams is gonna drop.
Speaker 1: So he knows if Bam comes up and sets a
Speaker 1: good screen on Derrick White, I'm gonna get a wide
Speaker 1: up and shot well. On that play, in the corner
Speaker 1: was Jayson Tatum guarding someone else for the heat, I
Speaker 1: can't remember who was, and Robert Williams. When they called
Speaker 1: for the screen, Robert Williams looked at Tatum and pointed
Speaker 1: and said you go, And so literally Tatum ran up
Speaker 1: with Bam and Robert Williams just ran over to get
Speaker 1: Tatum's man, and Tatum jumped the handoff or jumped to
Speaker 1: the screen, and so instead of instead of Tyler Harrow
Speaker 1: coming off of that screen and being freed up and
Speaker 1: having space to operate. He came off that screen and
Speaker 1: Tatum was on him, like on him, and immediately Harrow
Speaker 1: had to pick up his dribble and Tatum knocked it
Speaker 1: free and ran down the other end and had a
Speaker 1: lay up. And so here's the thing. If you're obsessed
Speaker 1: with keeping Robert Williams at the basket at for the
Speaker 1: fear of at the expense of any switching, then you
Speaker 1: need a pre switch and you need to send Tatum
Speaker 1: up there or Brown up there, whoever it is. But
Speaker 1: those are those little details, Boston. This is a Miami
Speaker 1: team that struggles to create shots if you let them
Speaker 1: operate with an advantage that and there we went. Did
Speaker 1: a whole thing on this last night. Miami is an
Speaker 1: advantage offense. Everything they do is predicated on getting lesser
Speaker 1: offensive players with separation from a defender so that they
Speaker 1: have opportunity to succeed even though they are lesser offensive players.
Speaker 1: And so at a certain point, you were playing into
Speaker 1: Miami's advantage every possession that you dropped. Now they went
Speaker 1: switching late in the game, and when they did, what
Speaker 1: happened Jimmy Butler relentlessly attacked Peyton Pritchard every single time
Speaker 1: down the floor. They would run action with gay Vincent,
Speaker 1: either a dribble handoff or a high ball screen, and
Speaker 1: it was like Tatum on on Jimmy Butler and Peyton
Speaker 1: Pritchard on gay Vincent, and they would get those switches,
Speaker 1: and then Jimmy Butler would score on Peyton Pitcher. And
Speaker 1: he had some baskets, but there were there were some
Speaker 1: tough ones in there. He took a spinning fade away
Speaker 1: that Peyton Pritchard defended perfectly. He just knocked it down.
Speaker 1: And what I'm saying is I'd rather have them make
Speaker 1: that then them get the easy shots against your drop.
Speaker 1: And most importantly, Peyton Pritchard won't even be out there
Speaker 1: as the series progresses, especially in game two. In Game two,
Speaker 1: it won't be Peyton Pritchard. It'll probably be Marcus Smart
Speaker 1: and Peyton Pitcher broll and be out there for a
Speaker 1: few minutes. So it's a it's a simple adjustment that
Speaker 1: Boston has to make at some point if they're going
Speaker 1: to take away Miami's biggest advantage. Let's slip this to
Speaker 1: the other side. What's the biggest adjustment you think the
Speaker 1: heat need to make. So I'm not gonna call it
Speaker 1: an adjustment because they already made the adjustment. They made
Speaker 1: it to start the second half. But in the first half,
Speaker 1: Miami was very conventional defensively. They still did a lot
Speaker 1: of switching. They would be willing to put Bam off
Speaker 1: on drible hand offs or ball screens and things like that,
Speaker 1: but they were not anywhere near as aggressive. They weren't
Speaker 1: they weren't applying full court pressure, they weren't stunting and
Speaker 1: doubling and playing passing lanes. In that second half, Miami
Speaker 1: came out with unbelievably aggressive defense, jumping every single passing lane,
Speaker 1: applying a ton of ball pressure. And the reason why
Speaker 1: that's so specifically important is because of the fact that
Speaker 1: Boston's biggest offensive weakness is their ability to manage a
Speaker 1: basketball game, their ability to to do the things that
Speaker 1: a point guard normally does. The job of the point
Speaker 1: guard is not just to feel the flow of the game,
Speaker 1: which we've talked about extensively on the show, so I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna get into it again tonight, but what another
Speaker 1: job for the point guard is navigate ball pressure and
Speaker 1: get you into your offense, get the ball up the
Speaker 1: floor against someone who's pressuring you, and get the ball
Speaker 1: to whoever it is that's starting the action. That's their job.
Speaker 1: And on this Boston team, because they don't really have
Speaker 1: a point guard. Marcus Smart is a defensive point guard,
Speaker 1: but he's not an actual point guard. As a result,
Speaker 1: all of those point guard responsibilities are falling to Jayson Tatum,
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown and last night's game, and then in Marcus
Speaker 1: Smart as well when he's actually available. And so the
Speaker 1: more Miami presses, the more they're aggressive, the more they're
Speaker 1: up in their passing lanes, the more they're they test
Speaker 1: Boston's biggest weakness. Now I expect Boston to eventually settle
Speaker 1: down and figure that out, but I think Miami's best
Speaker 1: chance to win this series is to continue to press
Speaker 1: as much as they can, and then on offense, anything
Speaker 1: that Boston is not switching. So usually if Daniel Tys
Speaker 1: is on the floor, Robert Williams, just anything, any action
Speaker 1: that Boston is reluctant to switch. Continue to hunt that
Speaker 1: stuff because they're getting great looks when they go up
Speaker 1: against Boston's drop. All right, last question of the night
Speaker 1: for you here, related to that same series, who do
Speaker 1: you think has a bigger game tomorrow, Jason Tatum or
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler. That's a good question. Uh. Statistically, it could
Speaker 1: be a number of different things, Um, because Jimmy Butler
Speaker 1: is putting up just unbelievable monster numbers right now, and
Speaker 1: he's so good at manufacturing scoring numbers just by grinding
Speaker 1: out points at the free throw line. And in transition,
Speaker 1: we did a whole thing on that last night. Um, Tatum,
Speaker 1: it looks like it looks like Miami is gonna do
Speaker 1: everything they can to attack Tatum and get the ball
Speaker 1: out of his hands. And I believe they did that
Speaker 1: specifically as an adjustment because in the first quarter, Tatum
Speaker 1: was doing an amazing job getting middle penetration, getting into
Speaker 1: the paint, and kicking too wide open shooters. So I
Speaker 1: think I think it's very possible that Tatum doesn't have
Speaker 1: a dominant statistical game because it's gonna be difficult to
Speaker 1: score against Miami's defense with the amount of attention they're
Speaker 1: paying to him. But here's the thing. If Tatum does
Speaker 1: exactly what he did in that first half last night,
Speaker 1: in the second half, meaning just take care of the basketball,
Speaker 1: and navigate the ball pressure better, even if it even
Speaker 1: it ends up not being you and you get the
Speaker 1: ball after you get the ball across half court. It's
Speaker 1: just like for him, it's just managing the game, continuing
Speaker 1: to draw defensive attention so that your teammates can make plays,
Speaker 1: continue to get dribble penetration as much as you can,
Speaker 1: and then continue to be the dominant defensive player that
Speaker 1: you are. It's very possible that he has and five
Speaker 1: but is the best player on the floor tomorrow. So
Speaker 1: it's hard to say what will manifest in the box score.
Speaker 1: But I expect Boston to win tomorrow, and I think
Speaker 1: Tatum will be the best player on the floor. How
Speaker 1: confident are you in his ability to not force the issue,
Speaker 1: to remain patient, to remain in control, to make those good,
Speaker 1: un selfish decisions, to play within the flow. How likely
Speaker 1: do you think it is that he actually executes in
Speaker 1: that way. I am confident that he will for stretches.
Speaker 1: I'm just also confident that he will continually devolve into that,
Speaker 1: because I mean, he learned that lesson against Milwaukee, but
Speaker 1: then he did it again last night. You know, like
Speaker 1: it's just the we've talked about this before, Like Tatum
Speaker 1: and Brown have gotten better as playmakers, they have, but
Speaker 1: they have a natural tendency. We did a whole thing
Speaker 1: on this literally in the first round against Brooklyn. Like,
Speaker 1: no matter how much, no matter how much you improve
Speaker 1: as a basketball player on the margins, you have your
Speaker 1: core ide entity. Like my core identity is a score.
Speaker 1: It's always been the way I've played. Kind of matches
Speaker 1: some things in my personality. My personality, I have a
Speaker 1: very narrow focus. I am not good at multitasking. I'm
Speaker 1: not good at seeing. I'm not observant of what's happening
Speaker 1: around me, but I'm very good at the things that
Speaker 1: I'm specifically focusing on. So my personality matches that of
Speaker 1: a score, because when I'm on the court, I am
Speaker 1: relentlessly attacking you and trying to score the basketball. Over
Speaker 1: the years, I've gotten better at making reads. Over the years,
Speaker 1: I've gotten better at kicking the shooters and things like that.
Speaker 1: But no matter what, there's no amount of work I
Speaker 1: could put in into playmaking to become a great playmaker.
Speaker 1: Like that's the guys who are wired like that are
Speaker 1: a different personality. They're more you know, they they tend
Speaker 1: to be more like upbeat personalities that are very like
Speaker 1: outgoing and like Lebron or a magic right, they're usually
Speaker 1: like high energy socialites that that that are very friendly
Speaker 1: and outgoing and at the same time they're they're great
Speaker 1: with divided focus and they have great awareness of what's
Speaker 1: happening around them, and they those guys have to fight
Speaker 1: their natural tendency to be aggressive. Remember with Lebron, it's
Speaker 1: like Lebron keeps passing up the shot. Lebron keeps passing
Speaker 1: up the shot. It's like Lebron had to fight that
Speaker 1: to get to the point where he was more aggressive. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: that's the situation here with Boston. Like Tatum has made
Speaker 1: leaps as a playmaker and as a decision maker, but
Speaker 1: he'll never be a natural with that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: He'll fight that for the rest of his career. And
Speaker 1: so he could come out in Game two, Game three,
Speaker 1: and Game four and be excellent running the offense and
Speaker 1: then come back to Miami for Game five and I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he had another
Speaker 1: stretch like that. I mean, dude, he had six turnovers
Speaker 1: in that third quarter. Six Like that's that's a complete combustion.
Speaker 1: There were he had three consecutive pick sixes, three consecutive
Speaker 1: possessions where he came down to turn the ball over
Speaker 1: for run out dunks or layups. So, like you know,
Speaker 1: for everything that he learned against Milwaukee, he regressed in
Speaker 1: Game one because that's just kind of gonna be his
Speaker 1: natural process. I I don't think there's any chance that
Speaker 1: ever goes away, but I do think he'll be good
Speaker 1: enough to win the series. Alright, guys, that is all
Speaker 1: I have for tonight. I sincerely appreciate your support. We
Speaker 1: will be back tomorrow night after the final buzzer of
Speaker 1: Celtics Heat. Don't forget to like this video. Subscribe to
Speaker 1: the Volumes YouTube channel. Follow me on Twitter at underscore
Speaker 1: Jason lt for video content. I'll have a Celtics Heat
Speaker 1: video coming out tomorrow. As always, I sincerely appreciate you
Speaker 1: guys support rocking with the show. I will see you
Speaker 1: guys tomorrow night. Volume