Speaker 1: The volume. All right, welcome to hoops tonight.
Speaker 2: You're at the volume heavy winsay everybody, hope all if
Speaker 2: you guys are having a great week so far, gonna
Speaker 2: jam pack show for you guys today. We're gonna do
Speaker 2: three instant reactions to last night's slate. The Golden State
Speaker 2: Warriors get back on track with a big win over
Speaker 2: the Phoenix Suns. Got some interesting lineup data and some
Speaker 2: thoughts on the way that Steve Kurr has been structuring
Speaker 2: the rotation to this point in the season. After that,
Speaker 2: an incredibly entertaining game between the Chicago Bowls and the
Speaker 2: Philadelphia seventy six Ers. Is the Sixers jump all over
Speaker 2: them in the first half, scoring seventy five points, but
Speaker 2: get held to just thirty six in the second half
Speaker 2: as the Chicago Bulls get a bunch of big stops,
Speaker 2: holding the Sixers scoreless over the final four minutes, and
Speaker 2: change end up winning on a Nicola Vucevich corner three
Speaker 2: out of the right corner. We're gonna be breaking down
Speaker 2: that game from the perspective of both teams. At the
Speaker 2: tail end of the show. We've got the Clippers obviously
Speaker 2: down Kawhi on the tail end of a back to
Speaker 2: back but dropping a game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Speaker 2: I want to zoom in in some detail on the
Speaker 2: second half run from the Thunder in that game, just
Speaker 2: the absolute avalanche that they closed that game with, and
Speaker 2: zooming in on some of their depth of offensive talent
Speaker 2: as Aj Mitchell really closed the deal spamming ball screens
Speaker 2: and getting great shots every single time. And then finally
Speaker 2: before we get out of here today, Steph Curry made
Speaker 2: a surprise appearance on the Mind the Game podcast with
Speaker 2: Lebron James and Steve Nash. I listened to it last night,
Speaker 2: and a lot of really interesting stuff I want to
Speaker 2: get into from that as well. You guys know the
Speaker 2: Joe before we started. Subscribe to the Hoops to Night
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Speaker 2: to them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk some basketball. So the Warriors had
Speaker 2: dropped two in a row to end last week, and
Speaker 2: they were both pretty bad losses. The one in Milwaukee.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like a textbook NBA track game, right,
Speaker 2: Like you're on the road, Milwaukee's without Yannis. That naturally
Speaker 2: leads to like a natural like shift and effort, where
Speaker 2: like the main guys for Golden State aren't going to
Speaker 2: be as keyed up as they normally would be. And
Speaker 2: obviously for Milwaukee, the guys down the roster are all
Speaker 2: getting a lot more opportunity and they're all fired up
Speaker 2: and they want an opportunity to win. Ryan Rollins ended
Speaker 2: up having a career night. Right, that sort of thing
Speaker 2: will happen in the NBA. But the Pacers game that
Speaker 2: was brutal. A winless Pacers team down a bunch of
Speaker 2: guys in Indiana. The Warriors were up by eleven with
Speaker 2: less than six minutes left, and they just fell victim
Speaker 2: to that classic Pacers comeback where they just never stopped pressuring,
Speaker 2: they never stop attacking, hit some big shots late, Steph
Speaker 2: goes cold down the stretch and the Pacers end up
Speaker 2: coming back to steal that game. So a rough little
Speaker 2: stretch to end the week for the Warriors, but they
Speaker 2: got back on track last night with a nice professional
Speaker 2: win versus the Phoenix Suns. I kind of like the
Speaker 2: natural give and take of the way that Steve Kerr
Speaker 2: has structured the starting lineup versus the bench units we
Speaker 2: saw last year Moses Moody and Brandon Pajemski get a
Speaker 2: lot of minutes with the starters, especially as they would
Speaker 2: go smaller with Draymond at center right. It was usually
Speaker 2: Steph with Jimmy and Draymond with pods and Moses Moody
Speaker 2: at the two and the three. And one of the
Speaker 2: things that I kind of like it with this structure
Speaker 2: where now they're going with two bigs, You've got Kaminga
Speaker 2: in with the starters, and Quinton Post is starting. Presumably
Speaker 2: that'll be al Horford at many points during the season.
Speaker 2: Right with that lineup, what I like is, like, specifically
Speaker 2: Quinton Post is more of like a play finisher, right,
Speaker 2: Like he's going to pop out of ball screens, He's
Speaker 2: going to keep the ball moving side to side if
Speaker 2: he gets left open on pick and pops, like he
Speaker 2: got three wide open pick and pop threes to start
Speaker 2: this game. As Mark Williams was really aggressive on the
Speaker 2: ball and pick and roll and sagging off and help,
Speaker 2: and Quinton just kept making him pay with pick and
Speaker 2: pop threes, right or spacing threes like that is a
Speaker 2: play finishing aspect that he brings. But he's not going
Speaker 2: to be like super aggressive with questionable shots, right. So
Speaker 2: it allows like the main guys to kind of play
Speaker 2: their game. And then when the bench guys come in
Speaker 2: with Healed with a Moses Moody, with Brandon Pajemski, those
Speaker 2: guys are a little bit more aggressive in their read
Speaker 2: and react. They want to look for their shot, and
Speaker 2: so those guys when they come in with the bench groups,
Speaker 2: they have an opportunity to be really aggressive. And so
Speaker 2: I'm kind of liking the natural give and take of
Speaker 2: having the bigger lineup with Kaminga and Quintin poster Al
Speaker 2: Horford with the starters, and then bringing in all of
Speaker 2: your super aggressive guys off the bench to come in
Speaker 2: and not have to worry about necessarily getting the ball
Speaker 2: to Steph, but just being aggressive and playing their games.
Speaker 2: And by the way, that lineup, the lineup with the starters,
Speaker 2: so Steph, Jimmy Draymond with Jonathan Kamina and Quinton Post
Speaker 2: is plus twenty eight points net in seventy five possessions
Speaker 2: to start the year. Now, that same lineup with Horford
Speaker 2: has been bad so far, but it's a super small sample,
Speaker 2: only thirty two possessions, and I do believe it will
Speaker 2: be much better in the long run. But then those
Speaker 2: bench guys come in, right, they're a little more shoot first,
Speaker 2: they can be aggressive.
Speaker 1: I like that dynamic.
Speaker 2: Like Brandon Pajemski comes in and immediately starts generating buckets.
Speaker 2: He gets like a little mid range jumper along the baseline.
Speaker 2: He gets a rip through out of the right corner
Speaker 2: where he gets a reverse layup. He hits a little
Speaker 2: mid range turnaround in the middle. He runs the ball
Speaker 2: screen with Trace Jackson Davis and hits him for a
Speaker 2: lob dunk like Mose. This Moodie comes in and starts
Speaker 2: being super aggressive. It's himself going on an offensive rebound
Speaker 2: put back. In transition, he hits a three coming off
Speaker 2: of a pin down from Tray Jackson Davis. He hits
Speaker 2: another three off the dribble in transition, hits another three
Speaker 2: off of a skip in transition from Pat Spencer. He
Speaker 2: just comes in gunning right. I also really liked Tray
Speaker 2: Jackson Davis with that group. He was just really active yesterday.
Speaker 2: But that lineup, the Moses Moody, Brandon Pajemski, Buddy Healed trio,
Speaker 2: just those three guys on the floor together in forty
Speaker 2: nine possessions to start the season, a plus forty five
Speaker 2: net rating. They have been very good to start the year,
Speaker 2: and now Phoenix ended up cutting it to seven in
Speaker 2: the early part of the fourth quarter. Devin Booker, who's
Speaker 2: been fantastic to start the year, was really good in
Speaker 2: that third quarter. They kind of worked their way back
Speaker 2: into the game. But Steph really helps blow it open
Speaker 2: with a little run there right in the early fourth quarter.
Speaker 2: He runs off of a weak side screen off the
Speaker 2: left wing where and we're gonna talk about this a
Speaker 2: little bit more when we get to that mind the
Speaker 2: game segment at the tail end of the show, but
Speaker 2: just textbook Steph gravity come off of a Draymon pinned
Speaker 2: down on the left side. Draymond slips out of it.
Speaker 2: Both guys run with Steph. That forces Moody's man to
Speaker 2: tag Draymond as he's slipping out of it. Draymond throws
Speaker 2: a beautiful over the head pass to Moses Moody in
Speaker 2: the corner. Boom nails a three. Then Steph gets also
Speaker 2: a guitar on a switch toasts him off the dribble,
Speaker 2: gets a driving layup. There was a hilarious play where
Speaker 2: there's an impromptu double team thrown by Grayson Allen out
Speaker 2: of the left corner, and so he double teams I
Speaker 2: think it was Draymond if I remember correctly, and so
Speaker 2: Buddy he or Moses Brandon Pajemski is wide open on
Speaker 2: the left wing and he's just staying in there because
Speaker 2: Grayson Allen double teamed right and Steph Curry's not even
Speaker 2: ten feet away to Brandon's right or right at the
Speaker 2: top of the key right.
Speaker 1: And it was.
Speaker 2: Hilarious because you've got Jordan Goodwin who's hugged up to
Speaker 2: Steph and he's just staring at Brandon Pajemski not maybe
Speaker 2: eight nine feet away, like he could literally take one
Speaker 2: and get a good contest. And he literally just stares
Speaker 2: at Brandon Pajemski and lets him take a wide open
Speaker 2: three on the left wing that he ends up hitting. Now,
Speaker 2: on the one hand, it's like that's probably the right read,
Speaker 2: like you should just stay hugged up on Steph and
Speaker 2: dare Brandon Pejemski to hit the shot. But it's just
Speaker 2: hilarious done the last to see a team essentially refuse
Speaker 2: to make a defensive rotation out of fear of leaving
Speaker 2: Steph Curry open. And then Moses Moody basically ice the game,
Speaker 2: putting them up by nineteen by hitting another contested three
Speaker 2: out of the left corner play where he might have
Speaker 2: gotten fouled as you've got stripped down in the pocket.
Speaker 2: Moses Moody hit five threes in the game, that fifth one,
Speaker 2: putting them up by nineteen. A nice bounce back win
Speaker 2: for Golden State after a rough end to last week.
Speaker 2: They have a brutal early season schedule again. Back to
Speaker 2: back Tonight in Sacramento, they have a bunch of back
Speaker 2: to backs here to start the season. Sacramento has been
Speaker 2: a little bit more feisty in their last couple of games.
Speaker 2: They went in and beat Milwaukee, hanging one hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty five on him, and they hung tough with Denver
Speaker 2: the other night, So it's going to be a challenge.
Speaker 2: Zach Lavine's scoring the ball at an extremely high level.
Speaker 2: Demonis Bonus is finally waking up from his slumber to
Speaker 2: start the season, so it's going to be a tougher
Speaker 2: game to It's a tougher game than you would think
Speaker 2: on the schedule tonight, on the tail end of a
Speaker 2: back to back in Sacramento. Warriors fans, stay tuned for
Speaker 2: the tail end of the show. I want to talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about STEP's appearance on the Mind of
Speaker 2: the Game podcast because I thought that was super interesting.
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Speaker 2: or Virginia. Sixers Bulls just an absolutely wild game. Came
Speaker 2: down to a very simple dynamic. To start the game,
Speaker 2: Chicago got absolutely fried by Tyrese Maxi.
Speaker 1: And Joe Lmbi.
Speaker 2: They had twenty one and the rest of the Sixers
Speaker 2: had twenty four. Playing off of the attention those guys
Speaker 2: were getting, they gave up forty five points in the
Speaker 2: first quarter, seventy five in the first half, and then
Speaker 2: in the fourth quarter the Bulls just completely locked them up.
Speaker 2: Maxi had eight points in the fourth quarter and Beid
Speaker 2: had zero. The rest of the Sixers has had eight
Speaker 2: as they held him to just sixteen points in the
Speaker 2: fourth quarter, just thirty six points total in the second half.
Speaker 2: So tail two halves defensively for the Chicago Bulls, and
Speaker 2: the first quarter, Philly just kind of methodically beat all
Speaker 2: of Chicago's coverages. In two man game with Max and Embiid,
Speaker 2: and Embiid was also giving some problems to one on one.
Speaker 2: So first possession of the game, and be just drives
Speaker 2: at Vusovich. Vu gets his left hand kind of in
Speaker 2: on Embiid's right arm, and you know, Embiid, he's one
Speaker 2: of the best rifters in the league, so he just
Speaker 2: immediately throws up like a running jump shot from like
Speaker 2: eighteen feet away from the basket, gets to the foul line.
Speaker 2: They go right to maximb two man game, first possession,
Speaker 2: Vouch is a little too far back. Maxi hits a
Speaker 2: pull up three. Second possession, Vouch steps up higher to
Speaker 2: the level to take away the pull up three. Maxi
Speaker 2: hits em Bead in the pocket, and Bead hits a
Speaker 2: little jumper in the short role. Then Vouch tries to switch.
Speaker 2: So again we're methodically working through the coverages. A lower
Speaker 2: drop than a higher drop. Now a switch. On the switch, uh,
Speaker 2: Tyres Maxi just takes vouch out to the perimeter and
Speaker 2: hits a pull up three right in his face. Then
Speaker 2: Embiid posts up Vusovic and draws a second defender, hits
Speaker 2: Tyres Maxi for a kickout three. Then Embid beats Vucevic
Speaker 2: on a pick and pop three at the top of
Speaker 2: the key. Int to make matters worse, they were getting
Speaker 2: crushed on the margins during that stretch. Philly was getting
Speaker 2: a bunch of offensive rebounds that were leading to kickout threes.
Speaker 2: They were turning Chicago over and getting run out layups
Speaker 2: and dunks.
Speaker 1: They ended up.
Speaker 2: Taking a twenty one point lead in the first quarter,
Speaker 2: just jumped all over Chicago. They went back and forth
Speaker 2: for a little while from there until the mid third quarter,
Speaker 2: and right in that mid third quarter run Chicago just
Speaker 2: massively ramped up their intensity. They forced seven turnovers just
Speaker 2: in the third quarter. They had seventeen transition points just
Speaker 2: in the third quarter. Remember, this has been the best
Speaker 2: transition team in the league to start the season. They
Speaker 2: are averaging thirty six points per game just in transition,
Speaker 2: which leads to the NBA decent margin two. They're about
Speaker 2: three points over the second best team another forty five
Speaker 2: points just last night in transition. In total, over the
Speaker 2: course of the full forty eight minutes, they also completely
Speaker 2: flipped the script on the offensive glass. They became the
Speaker 2: team that's to get those extra possessions. They had nine
Speaker 2: offensive rebounds in just the second half, so just a
Speaker 2: complete and total reversal of just the intensity and all
Speaker 2: the stuff and the margins that they were struggling with
Speaker 2: at the beginning of the game. They finally started to
Speaker 2: have a little bit of success guarding the Embiid Maxi
Speaker 2: two man game. They settled on a coverage that they liked,
Speaker 2: which was basically just bring Vucevic all the way up
Speaker 2: to the level to get the ball out of Tyrese
Speaker 2: Maxi's hands, and then they were coming early in help
Speaker 2: like an early tag and really packing the paint. They
Speaker 2: prayed on one of the weaknesses from Tyrese Maxi and
Speaker 2: Joel Embiid, which is they can be a bit shoot first,
Speaker 2: which isn't the right read when the team's guarding the
Speaker 2: action three on two. The read there is to get
Speaker 2: the ball to the other side of the floor right
Speaker 2: like on the first possession during that run that started
Speaker 2: in the middle of the third quarter. They come up
Speaker 2: to the level, Maxi splits the screen and Josh Gidty's
Speaker 2: just sitting there waiting as that third defender in help
Speaker 2: and instead of making the kickout, Maxi just tries to
Speaker 2: shoot through Giddy at the rim and he smokes the layup.
Speaker 2: The very next possession, Joel Embiid slips out of the
Speaker 2: at the level coverage, Maxi hits him in the pocket.
Speaker 2: Instead of making the read, he just runs over Trey
Speaker 2: Jones and commits an offensive foul. Now, Maxi still had
Speaker 2: a lot to say. He's just been unbelievable to start
Speaker 2: the year. Kept getting downhill on ball screens and hitting
Speaker 2: little floaters and hitting shots. But in the fourth quarter,
Speaker 2: the Bulls really started to swarm him when he was
Speaker 2: getting downhill in those ball screens, and Tyree started forcing
Speaker 2: the issue a little bit, which has been unusual for him.
Speaker 2: He had a season low five assists and last night's game,
Speaker 2: and then he finally started to miss some shots as
Speaker 2: they started to swarm him, especially towards the end of
Speaker 2: the game. He started settling for some tougher step back
Speaker 2: jump shots and he was missing them. Several bulls got
Speaker 2: key one on one stops against Maxie late where they
Speaker 2: were gapping forcing him into those pull ups and he
Speaker 2: was missing them, and they were tough for shots that
Speaker 2: he was missing down the stretcher. It was a little
Speaker 2: bit of them getting gassed, which we'll talk about in
Speaker 2: a minute, and a little bit of the shot difficulty
Speaker 2: kind of increasing as the game went along. And Nikola Vusevich,
Speaker 2: who had struggled mightily against Embid early in the game,
Speaker 2: got five one on one stops against Joel Embiid just
Speaker 2: in the second half of the fourth quarter, just in
Speaker 2: that final minute, final stretch of minutes there at the
Speaker 2: end of the game, five one on one stops against Embid.
Speaker 2: He did something that is usually a death sentence with Embiid.
Speaker 2: He was very aggressive with ball pressure. He was reaching
Speaker 2: in and jabbing at the ball. As we know, that
Speaker 2: usually ends in Joel Embiid going to the foul line
Speaker 2: right like he catches you with your hand in the
Speaker 2: cookie jar and he just does those little ripped throughs
Speaker 2: and gathers where he can get fouls right. But Tavuoch's credit,
Speaker 2: he was surgical with it. He was jabbing with reaches
Speaker 2: but quickly getting his hands out before Embiid could do
Speaker 2: anything about it, and it flustered him. It disrupted his rhythm.
Speaker 2: He poked the ball away from him a couple of times,
Speaker 2: one on like a step through where he's actually going
Speaker 2: up to take a shot, and right when he brought
Speaker 2: the ball up into the pocket, Boots just came down
Speaker 2: and slapped it out of his hands. He poked it
Speaker 2: away from him from behind on a possession where he
Speaker 2: kind of reached around from the opposite side. He just
Speaker 2: dominated that matchup late in the game, and Embiid was
Speaker 2: missing his jumper as he was just kind of getting flustered.
Speaker 2: And then on the other end of the floor, just
Speaker 2: really high level play from Vussevich and from Josh Giddy
Speaker 2: like Vooch did a bunch of damage around the room.
Speaker 2: He killed the Sixers in the second half, rolling out
Speaker 2: of ball screens and getting offensive rebounds as he would
Speaker 2: get like inside position on the guard or maybe the
Speaker 2: just rolling hard on a harder drive and just getting
Speaker 2: an offensive rebound. He got a big lefty hook in
Speaker 2: the fourth quarter over his right shoulder. Josh Giddy was
Speaker 2: getting his kind of classic big guard drives for floaters
Speaker 2: and layups and then to win the game, a very
Speaker 2: interesting kind of floor setup for Chicago. Instead of going
Speaker 2: to that two man game using Vouch as the screener,
Speaker 2: they end up tucking Vouch in the right corner down
Speaker 2: by one it's one eleven to one ten, and they
Speaker 2: situate Vouch in the right corner, which basically forces Embiid
Speaker 2: to make decision right like, if he's gonna help at
Speaker 2: the basket as a rim protector, you're gonna concede a
Speaker 2: kickout three to Vouch. And so the action they end
Speaker 2: up running is they run a ghost screen, so it's
Speaker 2: Josh Gitty on the left wing. They have Kevin Herder
Speaker 2: come up, who's being guarded by VJ Edgecomb, and it
Speaker 2: works to perfection. Kevin Herder slips out VJ Edgecomb doesn't
Speaker 2: want to switch. He stays glued up to Kevin Herder,
Speaker 2: which causes Kelly Ubray, who's guarding Josh Gitty, to open
Speaker 2: his stance just a little too much to Josh Gitty's
Speaker 2: left hand and Josh just hits that gap. Hits that
Speaker 2: gap as the natural kind of ghost screen opening that
Speaker 2: happens is that switch doesn't occur and Kelly opens up
Speaker 2: his stance, drives left, and Bead steps over to help
Speaker 2: and be got some good pressure on the pass, but
Speaker 2: Giddy made a really nice, like jumping out of bounds
Speaker 2: like lefty hook pass to Vucevich in the corner. He
Speaker 2: nails the corner three. He's been torching teams in spot
Speaker 2: up situations to start this year. He nails the corner
Speaker 2: three that puts Chicago up by two. Quentin Grimes actually
Speaker 2: got a decent look to win the game coming off
Speaker 2: of a pin down at the top of the key,
Speaker 2: but he ended up missing. Now the Bulls are six
Speaker 2: and one and in sole possession of the top seed
Speaker 2: in the Eastern Conference is they come back to win
Speaker 2: that game. This is very much a margin team, to
Speaker 2: be clear. Like they're fourteenth and half court offense. That's average.
Speaker 2: They're eighth and half court defense, that's solid. They're not
Speaker 2: six and one because they're dominating in half court execution.
Speaker 2: They dominate in the margins, and they've been good in
Speaker 2: clutch situations to end games. They dominate the transition game.
Speaker 2: They have a ten point per game margin on average
Speaker 2: every single night in transition points they get thirty six
Speaker 2: Their opponents get twenty six. It's like starting ten to
Speaker 2: ozero on the scoreboard, just in transition points. They're a
Speaker 2: good rebounding team. They do a good job of generating
Speaker 2: open three point looks. Like they're shooting over forty percent
Speaker 2: from three to start the season, and that's going to
Speaker 2: be hard to maintain.
Speaker 1: But you know me, I hate when.
Speaker 2: People just attribute that thing to variants, like variance plays
Speaker 2: a role, but it's it's further down the list than
Speaker 2: some of the other things that determine shot result. And
Speaker 2: let's give them some credit for running quality offense. The
Speaker 2: Bulls generate eighteen unguarded catch and shoot threes per game,
Speaker 2: which is the sixth most in the entire NBA. They
Speaker 2: move the ball well and they get good shots. And
Speaker 2: this is where we need to talk about Josh Gitty
Speaker 2: and Nikola Vusovich. The two of them are just a
Speaker 2: really difficult duo to guard, and they're getting great shots
Speaker 2: out of ball screens and out of post ups. Josh
Speaker 2: Giddy continued his absurd start to the season with twenty
Speaker 2: nine points, fifteen rebounds, and twelve assists last night. He's
Speaker 2: up to twenty three, ten and nine on the season
Speaker 2: for his averages on fifty percent from the field, forty
Speaker 2: two percent from three, seventy five percent from the line.
Speaker 2: That's fifty nine percent in true shooting. And then Vuch's
Speaker 2: torching teams and ball screens and playmaking out of the
Speaker 2: post and spacing the floor with the shooting. He's averaging
Speaker 2: nineteen points, twelve rebounds, and four assists to start the year,
Speaker 2: sixty nine percent true shot shooting, forty eight percent from
Speaker 2: three on four point four three point attempts per game,
Speaker 2: doing a ton of damage on spot ups and especially
Speaker 2: in transition trailing the play. The spot up situations kind
Speaker 2: of like what you saw in that final possession is
Speaker 2: a great example. And then in the post, he's run
Speaker 2: thirty post ups to start the year, and he's been
Speaker 2: getting a one to seventeen offensive rating on his post
Speaker 2: ups including passes. Very much looking like a guy who's
Speaker 2: in a contract year that wants to get paid one
Speaker 2: more time, he's ooping his ass off. He is thirty
Speaker 2: five years old, so I'm sure that will play a
Speaker 2: role in those contract negotiations come come into the equation.
Speaker 2: But he's playing some great basketball to start this year,
Speaker 2: and you know, the Bulls are just getting a lot
Speaker 2: of their success out of playing at an insane pace
Speaker 2: in transition some really high three high level three point
Speaker 2: shooting and clutch play right that transition piece, it just
Speaker 2: requires so much effort on defense and running the floor
Speaker 2: that when they look flat, like in that first half
Speaker 2: last night or in the second against the Knicks as
Speaker 2: another example, it can come apart for them because they're
Speaker 2: not an the elite half court team at least to
Speaker 2: start this season, right, But when they are playing at
Speaker 2: a high intensity, it's really hard to keep up with
Speaker 2: them and how fast they run up and down the floor.
Speaker 2: But the reality is, as we know, teams will start
Speaker 2: to scout that they'll be prepared for that transition attack.
Speaker 2: The three point shooting will come down a bit that
Speaker 2: will put a heavier strain on their half court units
Speaker 2: on both ends of the floor, and that's when we'll
Speaker 2: get a better feel for just how good.
Speaker 1: This Bulls team.
Speaker 2: And by the way, over on hard Rock Bet, the
Speaker 2: Bulls are currently plus three thousand to win the East.
Speaker 2: That is the tenth best line in the conference. I
Speaker 2: thought that was super interesting. I don't think they're going
Speaker 2: to finish the years the one seed or anything like that,
Speaker 2: but tenth best odds is an interesting value bet, and again,
Speaker 2: all of our lines are provided by hard Rock Bet. Now,
Speaker 2: on the Sixers front, I was honestly super impressed by
Speaker 2: them in the first half. I thought Embiid and Maxi
Speaker 2: just tried to do too much down the stretch and
Speaker 2: they kind of gassed themselves out, like a basic kind
Speaker 2: of balance. To explain this to you, guys, those guys
Speaker 2: took twenty six shots in the second half and the
Speaker 2: rest of the team took only nineteen in.
Speaker 1: The first half. There was better balance.
Speaker 2: Those two guys took twenty one shots and the rest
Speaker 2: of the team took twenty eight shots. And I thought,
Speaker 2: especially down the stretch, they just kind of hero balled,
Speaker 2: and you know, they were both cold on their jumpers
Speaker 2: and no one else was in any kind of rhythm. Again,
Speaker 2: Quentin Grimes gets that wide open look late, but that
Speaker 2: was like the only shot attempt he got down the
Speaker 2: stretch of that game. I also just thought they looked exhausted.
Speaker 2: They weren't getting the lift they needed on those jump shots,
Speaker 2: and that's something that can happen when there's not a
Speaker 2: lot of variety and you're just playing a lot of
Speaker 2: that one on one, it's seventy five points in the
Speaker 2: first half and just thirty six points in the second half.
Speaker 2: I think that was just like a weird kind of
Speaker 2: like step back for them offensively in terms of their
Speaker 2: ball movement and like they're driving kick attack compared to
Speaker 2: what they were doing earlier in the season. All right,
Speaker 2: So the thunder in their late game run against the Clippers,
Speaker 2: the Clippers controlled the first two thirds of that game
Speaker 2: or so, James Harden was excellent.
Speaker 1: They were shooting the ball really well as a team.
Speaker 1: They got one.
Speaker 2: Point six y nine points per catch and shoot jump
Speaker 2: shot in the first half. But Oklahoma City closes the
Speaker 2: game on a sixty one to thirty seven run to
Speaker 2: go up by as much as twenty five before winning
Speaker 2: the game by nineteen. It got sparked by a couple
Speaker 2: of those classic like defense to transition sequences, So like
Speaker 2: Alex Cruz, So they were running this like little cross
Speaker 2: screen for Zubots to try to get him in the
Speaker 2: post on the block, and you run the cross screen
Speaker 2: essentially to either force a switch so Zubots gets a
Speaker 2: smaller defender to post up, or if you're going to trail,
Speaker 2: so if that guy like fights over the top of
Speaker 2: the screen, Zubots now gets deep post position because instead
Speaker 2: of having to back that guy down close to the basket,
Speaker 2: he's already trailing him on his back side, so he
Speaker 2: just runs over to the block and wherever he stops,
Speaker 2: as long as he holds his ground, he's going to
Speaker 2: get a good.
Speaker 1: Deep post catch, right well.
Speaker 2: Crusoe spent a good amount of time in the second
Speaker 2: half on Chris Dunn where he was able to roam
Speaker 2: and do a bunch of damage, and then the rest
Speaker 2: of the time he's on James Harden. Did a really
Speaker 2: good job on James Harden as well, but on the
Speaker 2: possessions with Chris Donn, he was doing a lot of
Speaker 2: stunting off of him and just kind of being a
Speaker 2: disruptive roamer, and he sparked the run the first play
Speaker 2: on that sixty one to thirty seven run, he ends
Speaker 2: up peeling off of Chris Dunn as Zubots breaks open
Speaker 2: on that little cross screen and he jumps back and
Speaker 2: ends up deflecting the post entry pass that ends up
Speaker 2: running out the other way for a Crusoe layup on
Speaker 2: the other end of the floor. Then Chet gets in
Speaker 2: on the action. He gets two great contests, one on
Speaker 2: a hard end floater where he steps up late, and
Speaker 2: then another one on a Zubot's offensive rebound attempt as
Speaker 2: he left Zubots to make the contest. Zoo got the rebound,
Speaker 2: but he recovered and got a great contest on Zoo
Speaker 2: and forced another miss case on Wallace pays it off
Speaker 2: with a big driving layup and trainransition the other way.
Speaker 2: So stop turn or turnover, layup, stop layup, classic thunder
Speaker 2: defensive transition sequences that got the lead down from five
Speaker 2: to one. And by the way, I want to shout
Speaker 2: out Chet here because like Zoo won a lot of
Speaker 2: battles on the glass in that game. I think he
Speaker 2: had four offensive rebounds, but Chet was battling with him,
Speaker 2: and as a team they were doing a great job
Speaker 2: of like gang rebounding in those situations and they won
Speaker 2: some battles and Chet got some big defensive rebounds during
Speaker 2: that third quarter run. Then Shay goes on a little run.
Speaker 2: He attacks Harden in a guard guard screen. Harden defends
Speaker 2: it like shit. Shae gets a wide open layup, he
Speaker 2: gets Batoom in a guard guard screen hits him with
Speaker 2: a quick dribble combination, hits a step back three over
Speaker 2: the top. All of a sudden, Oklahoma City's up four.
Speaker 2: The momentum is shifted. Clippers up five. Now the Thunder
Speaker 2: are up four. He attacks Zu Bots in a ball screen,
Speaker 2: makes a beautiful spin move over his left shoulder and
Speaker 2: makes a kickout to Aaron Wiggins on the right wing.
Speaker 2: He hits a three bang right Bogdan Bogdanovich with a
Speaker 2: quick couple of scissor dribbles right to left, gets to
Speaker 2: the basket for a layup. The run is starting to
Speaker 2: gain a ton of momentum. Now right Isaiah Joe comes
Speaker 2: in and hits a couple of threes, one off the dribble,
Speaker 2: one off of a skip pass. Shay hits another pull
Speaker 2: up three over Malcolm brogged into or over Bogdan Bogdanovitch
Speaker 2: excuse me to end the third quarter. All of a sudden,
Speaker 2: the Thunder are up by eight going into the fourth quarter,
Speaker 2: and it could have been worse too. Brook Lopez hit
Speaker 2: a couple of bombs against pretty good contests, one against
Speaker 2: jay Lynn Williams, who came in and got a great
Speaker 2: contest on a Brook Lopez three at the top of
Speaker 2: the key just hit a tough shot and then another
Speaker 2: one where he pumped fake to get the defender off
Speaker 2: his feet knock down a shot. Otherwise, the thunder could
Speaker 2: have been in big time control before we got to
Speaker 2: the fourth quarter, but in that fourth quarter the thunder
Speaker 2: just completely slammed the door shut. Crusoe and Hartenstein combined
Speaker 2: for like a classic like Steph Curry action, like they
Speaker 2: looked like Steph Curry and Draymond Green, where Crusoe's cutting
Speaker 2: along the baseline. Hartenstein gets the ball and just throws
Speaker 2: like a between the legs pass backwards to Crusoe running
Speaker 2: out to the corner, and Cruso just running out to
Speaker 2: his left side right left footwork just rises up and
Speaker 2: knocks down the three like the spitting image of that
Speaker 2: classic Golden State Warriors action. Thunder up by eleven, AJ
Speaker 2: Mitchell gets a put back chet Holmgren hits a right
Speaker 2: shoulder fade over the top of Brook. All of a sudden,
Speaker 2: it's thunder by fifteen. And then at this point in
Speaker 2: the middle of the earl ish kind of early third
Speaker 2: of the fourth quarter, with a thunder up by fifteen,
Speaker 2: AJ Mitchell came in and just utterly closed the game
Speaker 2: with excellent pick and roll shot creation over and over
Speaker 2: and over again, just putting the clippers in the blender,
Speaker 2: scoring the ball and making great reads as he blows
Speaker 2: the game open. Starts with a drop coverage look, he
Speaker 2: attacks the big gets a left handed layup, so as
Speaker 2: a result, the very next possession, brook Lopez wants to
Speaker 2: step out higher, why so that he can stop aj
Speaker 2: Mitch from getting ahead of Steam going towards the basket.
Speaker 2: That opens the short roll past to Hartenstein. Hartenstein sees
Speaker 2: Chet cutting along the baseline, perfect lob dunk that's created
Speaker 2: by the lefty layup by AJ Mitchell that forced brook
Speaker 2: Lopez to try to stop his momentum further away from
Speaker 2: the basket. Now the thunder are up. By nineteen, he
Speaker 2: had another one where he comes screaming down the lane
Speaker 2: in a ball screen and he smokes a layup, but
Speaker 2: he occupies brook Lopez as the rim protector. That leaves
Speaker 2: Hartenstein a runway to just come in right behind him
Speaker 2: and get an offensive rebound put back. We even got
Speaker 2: a little Chet Isaiah Hartenstein two man game mixed in
Speaker 2: here where Chet gets the ball screen from hart and
Speaker 2: Sign and Chet returns the favor with a beautiful little
Speaker 2: lobb to Hartenstein over the top. It's just an avalanche.
Speaker 2: It's like bucket after bucket after bucket. Another aj Mitchell
Speaker 2: ball screen where Lopez comes high on the at the
Speaker 2: level coverage that forces James Harden to tag Isaiah Hartenstein
Speaker 2: on the roll kick back to Chet on the pop
Speaker 2: extra pass to Aaron Wiggins wide open on the left
Speaker 2: wing because Harden went to tag the roller wide open three.
Speaker 1: Once again.
Speaker 2: Aj Mitchell's scoring twice in the early fourth quarter. He
Speaker 2: gets ahead of Steam on the ball screen. If you
Speaker 2: let him get over the top and you give him
Speaker 2: a runway, he's so damn fast. He just explodes off
Speaker 2: that right leg and he finishes with his left hand right.
Speaker 2: They got two easy buckets like that. That forces the
Speaker 2: big to come up to the level. As soon as
Speaker 2: the big comes up to the level, you're defending the
Speaker 2: action three on two. Now Now it's just about making
Speaker 2: the reads and it's like easy, little tic tac toe
Speaker 2: Hartenstein to Chet on the lob dunk, easy to little
Speaker 2: tic tac toe, toss back to Chet on the pop,
Speaker 2: extra pass to Wiggins on the left wing, wide open three.
Speaker 1: That goes in.
Speaker 2: It was just an absolute avalanche, and then aj closes it.
Speaker 2: They're up twenty two. He gets a ball screen off
Speaker 2: the left side, same exact thing at the level tag
Speaker 2: beautiful cross court lefty skip pass that hits Isaiah Joe
Speaker 2: right in the shooting pocket the right corner. He knocks
Speaker 2: it down and now the Thunder are up by twenty five.
Speaker 2: It was just an avalanche. They never stopped defending at
Speaker 2: that crazy chaos causing level. And you can handle it
Speaker 2: for a time, But how many games have we seen
Speaker 2: like that with the Thunder where it's like teams are
Speaker 2: hanging with them for like twenty four minutes, maybe for
Speaker 2: thirty minutes, but then right around that, like mid to
Speaker 2: late third quarter, it's just that onslot for the Thunder
Speaker 2: just gets too much. The other team starts to let
Speaker 2: go of the rope a little bit, and next thing
Speaker 2: you know, they're up twenty five. It happens all the time.
Speaker 2: It happened dozens of times last year. And they're just
Speaker 2: playing beautiful offense right now, Shay's playing like an MVP.
Speaker 2: I continue to be blown away by the level of
Speaker 2: offense that they're getting from their deeper bench. Since JDub
Speaker 2: has been out like AJ Mitchell was downright surgical and
Speaker 2: pick and roll down the stretch. As we broke down
Speaker 2: in detail, you have guys like Aaron Wiggins who are
Speaker 2: hitting shots and Isaiah Joe since he's come back, has
Speaker 2: been a godsend in terms of their spacing. Chet and
Speaker 2: Isaiah Hartenstein have just such brilliant I low chemistry on
Speaker 2: their lobs. They read each other in the middle of
Speaker 2: the floor and on the baseline so well, and they're
Speaker 2: obviously going to do so much damage to you and
Speaker 2: transition off of their stops eight to no to start
Speaker 2: the year looking like an absolute juggernaut. And you know,
Speaker 2: I was frustrated when I heard that Kawhi was out
Speaker 2: because the Thunder had played a light schedule last week
Speaker 2: and I just wanted to see them challenged. I wanted
Speaker 2: to get another look at them against a good team.
Speaker 2: And here's the thing, this is just what the Thunder do.
Speaker 2: Like they're Superstar and Shaye, he never misses a game.
Speaker 2: He's one of the most reliable guys in the league.
Speaker 2: And then as a team they win the war of attrition.
Speaker 2: We talked about this in the Lakers segment yesterday. But
Speaker 2: when I see teams that start to rack up wins
Speaker 2: when main guys are out of the lineup, it's always
Speaker 2: evidence for me of depth of talent in strong basketball culture.
Speaker 2: And there's a clear depth of talent as we're seeing
Speaker 2: guys like Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins and aj Mitchell
Speaker 2: slide into bigger offensive roles and chet and Isaiah Hartenstein
Speaker 2: in their read and react in the middle of the floor,
Speaker 2: just giving them another level on offense that you didn't
Speaker 2: see a couple of years ago. Right like that is
Speaker 2: the depth of talent the strong basketball culture is the Hey,
Speaker 2: we're down our second best player, but we're a kick
Speaker 2: ass defensive team, and we're gonna play this way every
Speaker 2: single night, every single possession. And you might be able
Speaker 2: to keep up with it for a little while, but
Speaker 2: the minute you let go of the rope, we're gonna
Speaker 2: blow the game open. I mean, they're eight to zero
Speaker 2: and they've been down their second best player all season.
Speaker 2: They've just been looking like the best team in the
Speaker 2: league by far. To start this campaign, right before we
Speaker 2: get out of here today, I want to talk about
Speaker 2: this Steph interview with Lebron. I had several little takeaways.
Speaker 2: First of all, I want to shout out Lebron because,
Speaker 2: like you would think in a situation like that, Lebron
Speaker 2: is just he's very much the center of attention type
Speaker 2: of personality. To Lebron's credit, I thought he did a
Speaker 2: good job of backing the hell off and just letting
Speaker 2: Steph run the interview like that. Everyone's there to see Steph.
Speaker 2: This is your podcast. You're gonna have plenty of opportunity
Speaker 2: to talk in other situations. Lebron just kind of backed off.
Speaker 2: Steve Nash did a wonderful job just kind of queuing
Speaker 2: up questions and Lebron like popped in here and then
Speaker 2: to offer his perspective. But it was very focused on
Speaker 2: Steph and his upbringing, his basketball development, his basketball philosophies,
Speaker 2: and honestly, one of the biggest things that stood out
Speaker 2: to me, Steph is just a remarkably smart dude. He's
Speaker 2: a great speaker, He's great at explaining his basketball philosophy.
Speaker 2: I found it to just be like, very easy to
Speaker 2: listen to and very easy to understand how he feels
Speaker 2: about the game. There were so many interesting things that
Speaker 2: he dug into. I loved when he started talking about
Speaker 2: his body and the work that he put in behind
Speaker 2: the scenes to essentially build out all the elements of
Speaker 2: strength training to facilitate his style of play. He kept
Speaker 2: talking about this idea of building the chain, and like
Speaker 2: I talk about shooting with the concept of energy transfer, right,
Speaker 2: this idea of like there's a power you push down
Speaker 2: on the floor with your feet right as you're jumping,
Speaker 2: but there is a chain of energy that goes all
Speaker 2: the way from your ankles to your knees, to your hips,
Speaker 2: to your core, all the way up through your shoulders.
Speaker 2: That that is the transfer of energy through to the
Speaker 2: top of your shot. And any power that you lose
Speaker 2: in that chain puts extra stress on the top of
Speaker 2: your shot, and then it gets harder for muscle memory.
Speaker 2: When the muscle memory can be very easy and light,
Speaker 2: it's easy to replicate it, right, But when you lose
Speaker 2: energy up the chain, that's what forces it to be
Speaker 2: a higher stress shot at the top.
Speaker 1: Of the shot.
Speaker 2: And it's one of those things where like I just
Speaker 2: loved hearing him break down like all the specific details.
Speaker 2: He specifically emphasized core, which I thought was really interesting.
Speaker 2: He kind of was talking about like that kind of
Speaker 2: popping of the hips that occurs on most basketball movements
Speaker 2: and the idea that like that is an area where
Speaker 2: a lot of players lose power. And I just thought
Speaker 2: it was a really interesting breakdown of the weight room
Speaker 2: because the weight room is like something that we've talked
Speaker 2: about this on the show, Like, I think it's one
Speaker 2: of the most underrated elements basketball development. Basketball is contact sport,
Speaker 2: and you're dealing with physicality in every phase, whether you're
Speaker 2: setting screens, fighting through screens, fighting to get open, driving
Speaker 2: to the basket and winning that leverage battle and drives,
Speaker 2: boxing out for rebounds.
Speaker 1: We can go on and on.
Speaker 2: There's a million different ways that strength plays a role,
Speaker 2: but one of the biggest ones that we talked about
Speaker 2: is your base on your shot. You're like Steph talked
Speaker 2: a lot about this, not in this particular interview, but
Speaker 2: in previous interviews. About the summer of twenty fifteen, after
Speaker 2: having won the title and should have one finals MVP.
Speaker 2: In that summer, he dramatically increased his leg strength and
Speaker 2: he experienced like a six point per game leap in
Speaker 2: his scoring average literally from like strength from increasing the
Speaker 2: strength of his base. That is the when you're sprinting
Speaker 2: full speed and you stop on a dime and rise up.
Speaker 2: It is all leg strength and footwork that is what
Speaker 2: allows you to get into your shots. Steph's superpower, right
Speaker 2: is his jump shot. It's when Steph is open. Ever
Speaker 2: since the Davidson days, that shit's going in. And so
Speaker 2: the battle is how do you get the amount of
Speaker 2: shots that you need? And actually thought he did an
Speaker 2: interesting job talking about how like h with Bob Myers
Speaker 2: coming up to him and being like, hey, like, I
Speaker 2: think we should get you up to fifteen threes per game,
Speaker 2: and like Steph's initial reaction was kind of like damn,
Speaker 2: Like you know how hard it is to get fifteen
Speaker 2: threes up in a game? And He's right. The point
Speaker 2: is is like when you're a shooter and they're guarding
Speaker 2: you like a shooter, You're not just open fifteen times
Speaker 2: a game. It's not like, oh, I'm gonna get my
Speaker 2: eighteen shots, I might as well make fifteen of them threes. No,
Speaker 2: you gotta get open fifteen times for decent quality three
Speaker 2: point shots. And that is all in that leg strength,
Speaker 2: that chain that Steph is talking about the ability to
Speaker 2: move and then to stop at any point in time
Speaker 2: and rise up and shoot. There's other elements to it, right,
Speaker 2: Like we're gonna talk about the offense in a minute,
Speaker 2: the ball handling piece, the fluidity of connecting your dribble
Speaker 2: to your shot. There's obviously a lot more that goes
Speaker 2: into it. But I just thought all the stuff that
Speaker 2: Steph was talking about with building the chain physically to
Speaker 2: be an elite shooter was just a you think of
Speaker 2: shooting as being like, oh, let's just go shoot a
Speaker 2: thousand shots a day, and I'm not gonna sit here
Speaker 2: and pretend like that's not the case. Like you've got
Speaker 2: to put in the work behind the scenes. But there
Speaker 2: is a huge, like body building element to it that
Speaker 2: I think is under discussed, and I really enjoyed him
Speaker 2: breaking that down. I loved the bit that he talked
Speaker 2: about was Steve Kerr's offense, So he essentially talked about
Speaker 2: that transition from you know, they win fifty games with
Speaker 2: Mark Jackson summer of twenty fourteen, they end up bringing
Speaker 2: in Steve Kerr. And one of the things that Steve
Speaker 2: Kerr that Stephan said that Steve Kerr said to him
Speaker 2: when he was kind of holding out the initial offense
Speaker 2: was the idea of he was like, I just want
Speaker 2: to make the defense make a ton of decisions on
Speaker 2: every single possession. And of course, my ears, those of
Speaker 2: you guys who have listened to the show over the years,
Speaker 2: you know that's a concept that we talked about all
Speaker 2: the time. My ears immediately perked up because I was like,
Speaker 2: that's super fascinating, because talk about being ahead of your time.
Speaker 2: This has been something that I've been keyed in a
Speaker 2: lot over the last years. Twenty fourteen is eleven years ago.
Speaker 2: Like Steve Kerr was so ahead of the curve with
Speaker 2: his like basketball philosophy in the idea of generating good
Speaker 2: shots through essentially making a defense make a ton of
Speaker 2: decisions on every single possession. So, for instance, like if
Speaker 2: you're running, let's just look at the two like most
Speaker 2: dramatic opposite examples. Right, So we have the Steph Curry
Speaker 2: Golden State Warriors ball and player movement offense, and then
Speaker 2: we've got like the Luca don chicch spread pick and
Speaker 2: roll offense. Now there's a lot more complications in the
Speaker 2: Lakers version of it, but if you go back to like,
Speaker 2: you know, twenty twenty two or twenty twenty four, where
Speaker 2: it's like a lot of like just spread, pick and
Speaker 2: roll type of stuff with Luca. It's there's not a
Speaker 2: lot of decisions being made on the possession right, like
Speaker 2: the balls getting brought out the floor. It's very brute force.
Speaker 2: It's can you guard Luca in this one coverage or
Speaker 2: in this one on one right, Like there's you know,
Speaker 2: at the level, there's deeper drop, there's blitz, there's switch,
Speaker 2: and in each of those four, you're essentially like removing
Speaker 2: decision making and putting all of it on the job
Speaker 2: of Luca. To beat that coverage like deeper drop, he's
Speaker 2: got to go hit mid range jump shots right against that.
Speaker 2: As the defender gets trapped on a side, he works
Speaker 2: him into the lane, hits those little floaters right higher
Speaker 2: drop or blitz. It's gonna be the short role. You're
Speaker 2: hitting the guy in the pocket. Now we're playing four
Speaker 2: on three out of that right the switch.
Speaker 1: Now we're.
Speaker 2: Get giving a big an opportunity to guard Luka Danci
Speaker 2: John an island, or a small guard an opportunity to
Speaker 2: guard Luka Dancijohn an island. The lack of ball in
Speaker 2: player movement removes a lot of the decision making. The
Speaker 2: guys who are off the ball have pretty basic roles
Speaker 2: right that each of them have a help and recover
Speaker 2: responsibility depending on which spot they are in that shell
Speaker 2: drill right. Then you flip the script to the Golden
Speaker 2: State Warriors offense and it starts with pace.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You're playing the ball up the floor quickly early in
Speaker 2: the shot clock, and then there's multiple interchanges. Steph made
Speaker 2: this like really simple example. He was like, He's like,
Speaker 2: let's say that there's a guy who gets a kickout
Speaker 2: three on the right wing out of like one action.
Speaker 2: So just imagine a guy rips from the left wing,
Speaker 2: nail help from the right wing, swing pass guy takes
Speaker 2: a three. Steph was like, that's not the same as
Speaker 2: the exact same shot that comes out of a possession
Speaker 2: where the balls already switched sides of the floor two
Speaker 2: or three times. There's a rhythm that from people touching
Speaker 2: the basketball. There are upsides to getting deeper into the
Speaker 2: possession and making them guard multiple actions above and beyond
Speaker 2: the rhythm part. Over the course of that, you present
Speaker 2: all of these opportunities for someone to mess up. If
Speaker 2: Steph runs off of five screens in a possession and
Speaker 2: you defend the first three really well, you switch them properly,
Speaker 2: or you stay attached physically and have help on any
Speaker 2: sort of back cut, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: on the fourth one, two guys run with Steph. Someone
Speaker 2: messed up. Now someone's wide open on the slip, and
Speaker 2: someone's getting a wide open shot. A perfect example last
Speaker 2: night is Steph running off of that wide pin down
Speaker 2: from Draymond. Draymond slips into the open space, then he
Speaker 2: throws the behind the head pass to Moses Moody in
Speaker 2: the corner. That's a mistake that comes from the ball
Speaker 2: and player movement that forces a defense to make so
Speaker 2: many decisions on each possession. And when I heard that,
Speaker 2: I was just like, of course, Steve or was on
Speaker 2: top of this concept, like way back in the summer
Speaker 2: of twenty fourteen, he was ahead of the curve, and
Speaker 2: he took what was already a good team in that
Speaker 2: Golden State Warriors team, and pushed him up to sixty
Speaker 2: seven wins by essentially weaponizing the threat of Stephan Clay's
Speaker 2: shooting through multiple actions on every single possession that forced
Speaker 2: defenses to make a ton of decisions. And as soon
Speaker 2: as somebody messes up, there's your opening. It's it takes
Speaker 2: an enormous amount of trust, and like Steph talked about it,
Speaker 2: how it was kind of sloppy at first, and it
Speaker 2: took them a little while to kind of like figure
Speaker 2: out what kind of shots they were going to get
Speaker 2: in the offense and how to you know.
Speaker 1: Basically how to execute it.
Speaker 2: But I was just really fascinating to hear Steve, like
Speaker 2: Steph essentially point out that Steve Kerr was breeding this
Speaker 2: idea of like using ball in player movement to force
Speaker 2: defenses to make a ton of decisions on every single possession,
Speaker 2: inevitably leading to the mistakes that lead to the openings.
Speaker 2: Last thing I'll say overall, you know, I just was
Speaker 2: thinking about it as I was watching the show. I
Speaker 2: just think Steph is so damn cool, and he's so smart,
Speaker 2: and he's so fun to listen to talk about the game,
Speaker 2: and he's become you know, I think he's the fifth
Speaker 2: best perimeter player of all time. He's become literally one
Speaker 2: of the very best basketball players to ever touch the floor.
Speaker 2: And it's just kind of funny because I hated his
Speaker 2: ass ten years ago. I hated him because obviously I
Speaker 2: was a younger fan and I was rooting for the
Speaker 2: for the Lebron led Cleveland Cavaliers, right, and so rooting
Speaker 2: against him made me hate him. But it's been so
Speaker 2: funny because like over the course of the last you know,
Speaker 2: six or seven years, especially as I've started to really
Speaker 2: learn about the game, as I've studied the NBA and
Speaker 2: tried to become more familiar with how NBA basketball works,
Speaker 2: and then obviously just getting distance from from the rivalry.
Speaker 1: Like Steph's just one of.
Speaker 2: My favorite basketball players of all time, and he he's
Speaker 2: just completely won me over and I just really really
Speaker 2: enjoyed listening to him just talk about basketball for forty
Speaker 2: five minutes yesterday. It was an excellent pod. I'm looking
Speaker 2: forward to part two. I'm hoping that they kind of
Speaker 2: dive more into the Steph Lebron rivalry in that second episode.
Speaker 2: I would imagine they will, and so I'm excited to
Speaker 2: see that when they come.
Speaker 1: Out with that.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, it's all I have for today, As always,
Speaker 2: to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting
Speaker 2: the show. We'll be back tomorrow with more game reaction.
Speaker 2: I'll see you guys then.