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Speaker 1: at the volume. Happy Sunday, everybody. Hope all of you
Speaker 1: guys have had a great weekend. Well, the Dallas Mavericks
Speaker 1: have gone up three to zero on the Minnesota Timberwolves
Speaker 1: in a game that kind of felt just like every
Speaker 1: other game in this series has felt to this.
Speaker 2: Point, some few different factors.
Speaker 1: Dallas shoots a little bit better, Anthony Everigs plays a
Speaker 1: little bit better, but the same basic dynamic takes place,
Speaker 1: and Dallas pulls away late and crunch time, he gets
Speaker 1: a win to go up three to zer. We're gonna
Speaker 1: break it down from the perspective of both teams. You
Speaker 1: guys said the drop before we get started. Subscribed to
Speaker 1: the Hoops and I YouTube channels. You don't miss any
Speaker 1: more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLTS.
Speaker 1: You guys, don't miss you announcements. Don't forget about a
Speaker 1: podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight,
Speaker 1: and they keep dropping mailback questions in the YouTube comments
Speaker 1: so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of
Speaker 1: the postseason. All right, let's talk some basketball. So this
Speaker 1: series is actually a kind of reminds me a little
Speaker 1: bit of some of those Lakers Nugget series where it
Speaker 1: just feels like no matter how hard Minnesota plays, no
Speaker 1: matter how hard the Lakers play, the same base issues
Speaker 1: rise to the surface eventually at some point over the
Speaker 1: course of the game, and they all seem to end
Speaker 1: the exact same way, and it's like Minnesota just scrounging
Speaker 1: all these different ways to stay in the game.
Speaker 2: But when it push, when push comes.
Speaker 1: To shove, Dallas is just a much better half court team.
Speaker 1: And when they get into these slow down situations, when
Speaker 1: they get stuck into the half court and it becomes
Speaker 1: about execution, Dallas is just better. Did anybody think when
Speaker 1: it was one o four, one oh four that Minnesota
Speaker 1: was gonna win that game? Of all of the close
Speaker 1: playoff series, and I'm not talking about these Boston ones
Speaker 1: where they're playing against mostly bad or injured teams. Like
Speaker 1: among the relatively evenly matched series, this one has felt
Speaker 1: the most inevitable to me by far, because the basic
Speaker 1: issues that plague Minnesota and the advantages that that Dallas has,
Speaker 1: they are not things that Minnesota can counter. It would
Speaker 1: require just bizarre shot making in order to lift Minnesota
Speaker 1: over the top in these slow down half court environments,
Speaker 1: and it's just unlikely. It's not that it's impossible, it's
Speaker 1: just highly unlikely, and it's certainly unlikely given the fact
Speaker 1: that they now have to do it four consecutive times
Speaker 1: after tonight Tonight. According to Cleaning the Glass, Dallas gets
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty points per one hundred half court plays.
Speaker 1: Minnesota gets one oh two point three, So that's an
Speaker 1: eighteen point per one hundred play gap. Game two is
Speaker 1: one hundred to ninety six point seven in favor of Dallas.
Speaker 1: Game one one oh three point three to eighty three
Speaker 1: point five in favor of Dallas, yet again a twenty
Speaker 1: point gap. It has been a chasm between these two
Speaker 1: teams in terms of actually executing against a set and
Speaker 1: loaded up defense. I shared some of the ISO stats
Speaker 1: for you guys after Game two, but they're like shocking.
Speaker 1: When the teams take a shot out of ISO. Game
Speaker 1: one one point six to zero point five points per
Speaker 1: possession in favor of Dallas. Game two, one point five
Speaker 1: to zero point three points per possession in favor of Dallas.
Speaker 1: One point two to one point zero. Tonight in favor
Speaker 1: of Dallas in Game three. So Minnesota finally had their
Speaker 1: best ISO game of the series in terms of shooting
Speaker 1: out of ISO, and it was beneath where Dallas has
Speaker 1: been in all three games. And that really is wherever
Speaker 1: where this all comes down to. Jaden McDaniels is incapable
Speaker 1: of making Luka Dancich feel uncomfortable, whereas Karl Anthony Towns
Speaker 1: and Anthony Edwards both look completely and totally flummixed from
Speaker 1: the time it was one oh four, one oh four.
Speaker 1: On the very next possession for Dallas, they go down
Speaker 1: the floor, we have a huge defensive breakdown from Ant.
Speaker 1: He's on the weak side, PJ Washington's in the corner,
Speaker 1: and I want to say, Kyrie Irving was on the
Speaker 1: left wing, and Luca's dribbling the ball at the top
Speaker 1: of the key and Ant inexplicably for no particular reason
Speaker 1: and just sinks all the way down underneath the basket.
Speaker 1: Luca just throws a simple swing pass to Kyrie, extra
Speaker 1: pass to PJ. Washington in the corner, and he knocks
Speaker 1: down the three.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: This is where it comes down to half court decision making.
Speaker 1: That was the possession where Luca just got rid of
Speaker 1: the ball. Why, Because he is a half court surgeon.
Speaker 1: He's looking at what the defense is doing, finding where
Speaker 1: his advantage is and picking it apart. There is a slow,
Speaker 1: methodical approach to Luca, which is what makes him one
Speaker 1: of the best, if not the best, perimeter half court
Speaker 1: surgeon in the league. You don't need to do anything
Speaker 1: difficult if you're gonna make that stupid mistake and sink
Speaker 1: into the lane and leave a shooter open, especially on PJ. Washington,
Speaker 1: who from above the break has struggled but has burned
Speaker 1: you in the corner for threes in this series. He
Speaker 1: did it in Game one. That was one of the
Speaker 1: biggest shots of the game. There after that Jada McDaniel's
Speaker 1: turnover along the baseline, But from there after Dallas went
Speaker 1: up one o seven to one oh four. Kyrie and
Speaker 1: Luca hit three pull up mid range jump shots, tough
Speaker 1: contested over the top jump shots, and the Timberwolves did
Speaker 1: not make a single field goal until Anthony Edwards got
Speaker 1: a lay up in garbage time when they were already
Speaker 1: down eleven. That's the game, that's all it is. They go,
Speaker 1: Minnesota goes down, Ant comes off a ball screen. Derek
Speaker 1: Jones is in his face. There's a big up high.
Speaker 1: There's swing passes available, but Aunt either it's just a
Speaker 1: little bit slow to make the read or can't get
Speaker 1: the pass on time on target, or Dallas just rotates
Speaker 1: and chase them off the line. Minnesota does have a
Speaker 1: weakness in terms of converting spot up possessions. That's been
Speaker 1: an issue all season long. They were a good catch
Speaker 1: and shoot team, but they weren't a good like after
Speaker 1: you chase them off the line type of team. That
Speaker 1: was an issue again all season long. There's random co
Speaker 1: opted possessions where Karl Anthony Towns just takes a pull
Speaker 1: up three, even though he was zero for six from
Speaker 1: three to that point. There's a random possession that just
Speaker 1: gets run through Mike Conley late. This was a team
Speaker 1: that was a bad half court execution team all season long.
Speaker 1: They had a one oh four offensive rating in crunch
Speaker 1: time when the score was within five with less than
Speaker 1: five minutes left. This has been an issue all season long.
Speaker 1: On the other end of the floor, Kyrie Irving and
Speaker 1: Luka Doncic comfortable getting to their It doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: you have your best perimeter defender on Luca, He's just
Speaker 1: comfortable there. He loves that matchup. Had Jada McDaniel so frustrated.
Speaker 1: He was just committing silly fowls all night as well,
Speaker 1: And like what was crazy is Jaden got really good
Speaker 1: contests on both of those last two the fadeaway towards
Speaker 1: the middle of the floor and then the fadeaway on
Speaker 1: the right side on the right elbow, great contests. It
Speaker 1: just doesn't matter. Those are shots that Luca works on
Speaker 1: and again, like he just doesn't The big thing I
Speaker 1: talk about all the time with fadaway jump shooting, you
Speaker 1: want to disrupt the base. You're trying to disrupt the
Speaker 1: legs so they don't get the lift that they need
Speaker 1: to knock down the shot. Lou Dort was able to
Speaker 1: bother Luca more there than Jada McDaniel's. Its right, And
Speaker 1: like that, honestly, if there's something to look back as
Speaker 1: we go, look back at this series as a whole,
Speaker 1: and like how favored Minnesota was. Minnesota was, like I
Speaker 1: want to say, they were like a minus one ninety
Speaker 1: favorite going into the series. A lot of people picked them.
Speaker 1: I picked them myself. Coming into the series. I saw tweet,
Speaker 1: I had a tweet that somebody put I want to
Speaker 1: say it was in a mail bag, might have been
Speaker 1: in a mailbag, It might even just spend a YouTube comment.
Speaker 1: But somebody said something really fascinating. They just said, this
Speaker 1: series is a great reminder that every single matchup should
Speaker 1: be approached in a vacuum. And I thought that was
Speaker 1: super profound, because this is such an interesting example of
Speaker 1: like you watch Minnesota just beat the living shit out
Speaker 1: of a super team and with Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal
Speaker 1: and Devin Booker and like literally just manhandle him for
Speaker 1: four straight games and get him out here quickly. Then
Speaker 1: you see them like eliminate the defending champion and the
Speaker 1: team that has the player that most people think is
Speaker 1: the best player in the world at this point, and
Speaker 1: like goes toe to toe with him and they win, right,
Speaker 1: And then you come into this series and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden they look completely incapable of dealing with the
Speaker 1: Dallas problem. And again, that's where it comes down to
Speaker 1: the matchup elements, right, Like, in the same way that
Speaker 1: in the same way that Minnesota is constructed to beat
Speaker 1: a team like Denver because they have long defenders like
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards and Jae mcdanie to put on Jamal Murray,
Speaker 1: who all of a sudden looks small when he gets
Speaker 1: a defender on his backside in ball screens, or the
Speaker 1: size on the front line with Karl Anthony Towns and
Speaker 1: Nas Red, you know, banging bodies with Luka Doncic and
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert hunting on the back line. All of that
Speaker 1: stuff was excellent for that specific matchup. But then you
Speaker 1: get into this matchup and it's the exact same kind
Speaker 1: of thing in favor of Dallas. Like Jaden McDaniels and
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards on Luka doncicch they're just too small. If
Speaker 1: he puts them in jail, he can comfortably operate in
Speaker 1: the middle of the floor and protect the basketball and
Speaker 1: manipulate the rim protector in the low man until he
Speaker 1: finds whatever opening he wants to attack rim protection versus
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards, Nikola Jokic and Yusuf Nurkicic just could not
Speaker 1: protect the rim. It was just going right around and
Speaker 1: through those guys all series long. He's attempting over seven
Speaker 1: shots in the restricted area per game in the Denver series.
Speaker 1: Right like now you put him against some real athletic
Speaker 1: rim protection. Suddenly this is a young twenty two year
Speaker 1: old downhill athlete that's going up against other young athletic bigs,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, he looks like he's struggling there, right,
Speaker 1: Luca and Rudy Gobert, Right, Like, Luca's just done a
Speaker 1: really good job of taking one of the strengths of
Speaker 1: Minnesota's defense, their ability to protect the rim. He has
Speaker 1: just manipulated the hell out of Go Bear all series long.
Speaker 1: He just has had no idea where to go. Guess
Speaker 1: the ball handler, guess the role man, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: He's been lost. And then even just Derek Jones Junior
Speaker 1: as an on ball defender against Anthony Edwards. Anthony Edwards
Speaker 1: is a top tier perimeter athlete, like the best perimater
Speaker 1: athlete we've seen in the league since Dwayne Wade as
Speaker 1: a primary ball handler. And here's the thing. KCP couldn't
Speaker 1: hang with that. The Bradley Beal couldn't hang with that.
Speaker 1: Roy O'Neil couldn't hang with that. But Derek Jones Junior,
Speaker 1: Go look up some tape of him playing in collegeen
Speaker 1: in high school. Go look at his best dunks as
Speaker 1: a pro in the NBA. Watched him in the way
Speaker 1: he moves around on the basketball court. He is a
Speaker 1: Tier one NBA athlete and the dude is playing by
Speaker 1: the way, he's on a veteran minimum contract this year.
Speaker 1: It's going to be one of the biggest wrinkles for
Speaker 1: Dallas into this offseason because if I'm not mistaken, if
Speaker 1: I know the CBA properly, I don't think they're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to offer him more than their their mid
Speaker 1: level exception. Right, So we'll see if they can keep him.
Speaker 1: But he's playing at the level of a player deserves
Speaker 1: to make about fifteen million a year because he's been
Speaker 1: one of the best perimeter defenders in this postseason run.
Speaker 1: And so that's the thing is like Dallas just is
Speaker 1: constructed at the point of attack and at the rim
Speaker 1: on their defensive side of things and on the offensive
Speaker 1: side of things, with the perfect complimentary corner three point
Speaker 1: shooters and vertical spacers for Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving
Speaker 1: and Lucas size to deal with some of the length
Speaker 1: that Minnesota has on the perimeter. It's just a nightmare
Speaker 1: matchup and it's something that it's something that Minnesota can't
Speaker 1: hang with and so I find that really fascinating. Going
Speaker 1: back to that tweeter, that comment that I received, Like,
Speaker 1: that's a big lesson that I've learned in this postseason run,
Speaker 1: is like, don't get caught up in the momentum of
Speaker 1: any individual team, because momentum is only as strong as
Speaker 1: whatever your advantages are in the next series. It's really
Speaker 1: that simple, and we got to keep that in mind
Speaker 1: when we get to the NBA Finals. I'm not making
Speaker 1: any NBA Finals pick today. Both series are three to zero,
Speaker 1: so God knows we're gonna be able to take our
Speaker 1: sweet time working through series preview content and I plan
Speaker 1: on going crazy. We're gonna go through the regular season games,
Speaker 1: We're gonna do deep dive film study, We're gonna do
Speaker 1: it all to get prepared for that series. But we
Speaker 1: got to keep that in mind for the finals. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how hot Boston is or how hot Dallas is.
Speaker 1: It's gonna come down to the matchups. How does this
Speaker 1: guy fair against this guy, How does this scheme fair
Speaker 1: against this player's strengths and weaknesses. That is going to
Speaker 1: be what determines the NBA Finals when we get there,
Speaker 1: one of the things I thought was super fascinating in
Speaker 1: this particular game, and I thought was a great example
Speaker 1: of the dynamic that I taught talked about after game
Speaker 1: one and two. If you guys remember I tweeted out
Speaker 1: during Game two and I talked about after the game,
Speaker 1: no matter what had happened in that game, even if
Speaker 1: Naserit had hit his shot or if Luca had missed his,
Speaker 1: I would have picked Dallas to win the series. I
Speaker 1: thought that the half court dynamic that I just explained
Speaker 1: at nauseum there for a minute, I thought that dynamic
Speaker 1: wasn't going away, and I didn't think that that was
Speaker 1: something Minnesota could solve. And I also thought the gap
Speaker 1: was much wider than it looked, even though both of
Speaker 1: those games came down to a couple of crunch time
Speaker 1: shots from Luka Doncic, I thought Dallas dramatically outplayed Minnesota
Speaker 1: and every single phase of the game except for jump shooting.
Speaker 1: I read the jump shooting numbers in the last show,
Speaker 1: but like massive gaps and jump shot performance in both games,
Speaker 1: and that honestly masked and hid just how big of
Speaker 1: a chasm there was between these two teams in terms
Speaker 1: of half court execution. So what's fascinating about that is
Speaker 1: Minnesota actually played a lot better tonight in a lot
Speaker 1: of different ways. They made one adjustment. They put Mike
Speaker 1: Connelly on on Kyrie Irving to try to save Ant's legs.
Speaker 1: I didn't like that strategy simply because Ant is a
Speaker 1: pretty bad off ball defender, and that ended up burning
Speaker 1: them late in the game when he was on PJ.
Speaker 2: Washington.
Speaker 1: We'll get into that in a little bit more detail
Speaker 1: when we talk about Aunt, but that it did have
Speaker 1: some upside in that Aunt had just a little bit
Speaker 1: more energy to continue to attack the rim downhill and
Speaker 1: certainly looked more aggressive in this game than he has
Speaker 1: all series to this point. They won the rebounding battle,
Speaker 1: they got killed on the glass the first two games.
Speaker 1: They won the turnover battle. They protected the paint way better.
Speaker 1: They got demolished in the paint in the first two games.
Speaker 1: It was they allowed fifty four points in game two,
Speaker 1: sixty two points in game three. They held Dallas to
Speaker 1: just forty points in the paint in this game. Specifically,
Speaker 1: from our film session, if you guys remember the film
Speaker 1: session I did yesterday, I talked a lot about Karl
Speaker 1: Anthony Towns and the other guys nas reading Karl Anthony
Speaker 1: Towns mostly as low men being way too preoccupied with
Speaker 1: corner three point shooting and leaving dunkers open. And again,
Speaker 1: like Dallas shot fifty percent from three tonight, Guess how
Speaker 1: much fifty percent from three ranks on a points per
Speaker 1: possession basis, It's one point five. Guess how much a
Speaker 1: wide open unk is worth two points every single damn time.
Speaker 1: If you have your screen defender up at the level
Speaker 1: of the screen and the roller gets behind him and
Speaker 1: you don't tag him, it's a seven foot athlete going downhill.
Speaker 1: He's gonna dunk it every single time. There's no variants there.
Speaker 1: That's just a bucket. And they just did a much
Speaker 1: better job tonight tagging the roller and making those kickout
Speaker 1: passes to the corner. But it didn't matter. It didn't
Speaker 1: matter because Dallas finally had some of the jump shooting
Speaker 1: flip their way. As they shoot fifty percent from three,
Speaker 1: they go fourteen for twenty eight overall. As a team.
Speaker 2: PJ.
Speaker 1: Washington and Derek Jones Junior were five for nine from
Speaker 1: the three point line. Josh Green came in and hit
Speaker 1: a big one it just the shooting swung back towards Dallas,
Speaker 1: and so it didn't even matter that Minnesota did some
Speaker 1: things better, because again, once we peel back the layers
Speaker 1: here underneath the shooting variants, Dallas was out playing Minnesota
Speaker 1: by a wide margin. So even when Minnesota managed to
Speaker 1: close the gap a little bit, Dallas got a little
Speaker 1: bit of shooting support and they get their most convincing
Speaker 1: win of the series to this point. I even thought
Speaker 1: Aunt had a much better offensive game. I know the
Speaker 1: numbers don't really show it, but I thought he attacked
Speaker 1: in a much smarter way in this game. A lot
Speaker 1: of Iso drives like I talked about in her film sessions,
Speaker 1: like forget about the ball screen, just beat your man
Speaker 1: off the dribble and make kickout Raids. Did a really
Speaker 1: nice job with that. Generated a lot of quality shots tonight.
Speaker 1: I think he had eight assists, had his most aggressive
Speaker 1: downhill finish of the series to this point. They cleared
Speaker 1: the side for him, ran him off of a little
Speaker 1: iverson cut, which is basically just you cut from one
Speaker 1: side of the floor to the other. There's usually a
Speaker 1: screen around the elbow to try to get a little
Speaker 1: bit of separation. And then you just looked to attack
Speaker 1: off the catch. It's an action that Alan Iverson used
Speaker 1: to use a lot when he was with the Sixers.
Speaker 1: But they ran that on a cleared side of the floor,
Speaker 1: and I think it was Josh Green was on him.
Speaker 1: He was chasing over the top, so when Aunt caught,
Speaker 1: he just quick ripped towards the baseline, got good separation.
Speaker 1: Gafford was just a step late, and Aunt just absolutely
Speaker 1: jammed on him right. Lots of really good stuff from
Speaker 1: Minnesota that they didn't do in the first two games,
Speaker 1: but it just didn't matter because they were lucky to
Speaker 1: even be in those games with as poorly as they
Speaker 1: were playing. Some of the variants went the other way,
Speaker 1: and then Dallas ended up getting the win tonight. So
Speaker 1: like you know, makeup, make up, make no mistake, Like
Speaker 1: there's no sort of of of adjustment that Minnesota can make.
Speaker 1: There's no sort of shooting result that can hide the
Speaker 1: fact that Dallas is just a better half court team
Speaker 1: than Minnesota. And no matter what happens, even if Minnesota
Speaker 1: comes out just plays a really tough defensive game, they're
Speaker 1: probably gonna end up in a game that's about one
Speaker 1: hundred to one hundred ish with about five minutes left,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be the same damn problem, and and
Speaker 1: Kat don't know what to do. Luca and Kyrie know
Speaker 1: exactly what to do, and that's the bottom line. Like
Speaker 1: Luca is a top tier superstar who's playing like the
Speaker 1: best player in the world, Anthony Edwards is a guy
Speaker 1: that has that potential. But at twenty two years old,
Speaker 1: it's obvious, especially after this series in a different matchup,
Speaker 1: that he needs considerably more time to get to that point.
Speaker 1: Because again, like one of the things we talk about,
Speaker 1: like versatility is the is the hallmark of a top
Speaker 1: tier superstar, being able to succeed against different coverages, being
Speaker 1: able to succeed against different types of players, and ant
Speaker 1: he showed through two matchups that he's capable of playing
Speaker 1: at that level, but he was he could not keep
Speaker 1: up that level of play against a different matchup that
Speaker 1: targeted and exposed some more of his weaknesses. Whereas here
Speaker 1: we are with Luca and he's had some struggles in
Speaker 1: this postseason run, but he's he was able to get
Speaker 1: through those struggles and now he's in a more favorable
Speaker 1: matchup and he's barbecuing these guys, and it's a huge problem.
Speaker 1: Kyrie playing his best playoff basketball since he was hooping
Speaker 1: in the finals alongside Lebron James like again, like just
Speaker 1: a perfect role for him once again. Came in in
Speaker 1: that fourth quarter stretch just started poortne Khill, Alexander Walker.
Speaker 2: He looked helpless out there.
Speaker 1: And the flailing he was doing to try to get
Speaker 1: contests on Kyrie IRV and it just was having absolutely
Speaker 1: no success.
Speaker 2: Like it's just you know, they were.
Speaker 1: Talking about them as the best offensive backcourt in the
Speaker 1: history of the NBA. I need to look at that
Speaker 1: over the summer and really consider all of the other options,
Speaker 1: but they're sure as hell playing at it like that
Speaker 1: right now. Last guy wanted to shout out Daniel Gafford.
Speaker 1: He gets a lot of slander from MAVs fans, surprisingly,
Speaker 1: at least from what I've noticed, and I think it's
Speaker 1: just like it's because Lively is better than him, and
Speaker 1: I get that, and Lively probably is better than him,
Speaker 1: but Gafford brings a lot to the table in terms
Speaker 1: of his athleticism and strength, and I thought he made
Speaker 1: several huge plays down the stretch of this game, protecting
Speaker 1: the rim and rolling hard to the rim in ball
Speaker 1: screens and like he just has that timing down and
Speaker 1: pick and roll with Luca. It was cool to see
Speaker 1: him have that moment after he kind of struggled. If
Speaker 1: you guys remember when Lively went down, he was not
Speaker 1: good in that third quarter stretch and it got a
Speaker 1: little ugly. You could tell he was a little frustrated,
Speaker 1: and honestly like having him to have that moment where
Speaker 1: he got to kind of scream and yell and kind
Speaker 1: of celebrate a little bit that I thought was a
Speaker 1: really cool moment for Daniel Gafford, a big bounce back
Speaker 1: fourth quarter from him. The Derek Lively news looks like
Speaker 1: he's sprained his neck. That was a nasty hit that
Speaker 1: he took on that knee from Karl Anthony Towns. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing, it's bad news, but you can absolutely win
Speaker 1: the series without him, and if you win on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: you'll get eight full days off before the NBA Finals.
Speaker 1: So like, if something like this had to happen, it's
Speaker 1: not the worst timing in the world. But hopefully Derek
Speaker 1: Lively is okay and there's not anything more serious going
Speaker 1: on before we get out of here. I want to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about Anthony Edwards. I feel like
Speaker 1: we've learned a lot about him in this playoff run.
Speaker 1: For instance, like if you don't have a top tier
Speaker 1: athlete on the perimeter and you can't protect the rim,
Speaker 1: forget about it. He's just gonna kill you. He's gonna
Speaker 1: cut you to pieces, right, But I think the weaknesses
Speaker 1: have been made clear in this particular round. And then
Speaker 1: a little bit towards the end of the Denver Series one,
Speaker 1: he struggles to pick up hard a loaded up defense,
Speaker 1: So like when you throw consistent doubles at him, are
Speaker 1: consistent in ball screens, he doesn't really know how to
Speaker 1: attack that yet, and so it'll take work for him
Speaker 1: to kind of learn how to be more methodical in
Speaker 1: those situations to find the kill pass, meaning the pass
Speaker 1: that beats the coverage, not the pass that just gets
Speaker 1: rid of the basketball. Specifically in ball screens, when he
Speaker 1: faces that high drop with the low tag, that means
Speaker 1: defending three on two essentially schematically, when it comes over
Speaker 1: the screen, the defender chases him. The screen defender's waiting
Speaker 1: for him right when he gets off the screen, and
Speaker 1: even when Go Bear rolls, they have a third defender
Speaker 1: tagging and so they're fully loaded up on him in
Speaker 1: those situations. That's the same coverage Minnesota has used in
Speaker 1: large portions of the series against Luca. What you have
Speaker 1: to do is do what Luca did. Come over the
Speaker 1: top of the screen, put the defender in jail, get
Speaker 1: him trapped on your backside. As go bear rolls, the
Speaker 1: screen defender will kind of roll back with him. You
Speaker 1: methodically work downhill, and then you have a three on two.
Speaker 1: The three on two is your ability to make that
Speaker 1: mid range shot, the little floater as the defender's trapped
Speaker 1: on your backside, the role man going downhill, and the
Speaker 1: shooter in the corner. It is a three on two
Speaker 1: because you have the screen defender in front of you
Speaker 1: and you have the low man, and you are basically
Speaker 1: manipulating those two. If they stay glued to the roller
Speaker 1: into the a week side shooter, that's when you got
Speaker 1: to take that little floater in the lane right, or
Speaker 1: do what Luca does and sometimes yank a pullback dribble
Speaker 1: as the guy's chasing behind you so that he gets
Speaker 1: back in front, and then shoot a little mid range
Speaker 1: jump shot right. Or if they come up to you
Speaker 1: and tag the roller, it's the skip pass. If they
Speaker 1: come up to you and they don't tag the roller,
Speaker 1: it's the lob pass. It's all those little reads working
Speaker 1: more methodically in ball screens that Ant's going to have
Speaker 1: to get a lot better at over the years. Secondly,
Speaker 1: passes on time and on target. How many times in
Speaker 1: this series have you seen Aunt make the right read,
Speaker 1: but the pass is like a like a little bit
Speaker 1: off target or like a high lob, so the defense
Speaker 1: can rotate again when you One of the things that
Speaker 1: lucas amazing at is that pass is always hitting the
Speaker 1: shooter right in the shooting pocket. So like, even if
Speaker 1: you're actually set up to rotate, there's just less time
Speaker 1: for you to get out there because the shooter can
Speaker 1: go right up with it off of the catch. If
Speaker 1: you throw that pass off target, he has another couple
Speaker 1: of seconds while you're gathering and getting into your shooting
Speaker 1: pocket to get and close out and chase you off
Speaker 1: of the line. So like being more diligent and deliberate
Speaker 1: about making sure those passes get there on target. And
Speaker 1: then lastly, on the defensive end of the floor, I
Speaker 1: thought he's been mostly bad outside of some specific responsibilities
Speaker 1: some on an Island Iso defense. I thought he did
Speaker 1: a really good job funneling on Jamal Murray in the
Speaker 1: second half of Game seven against Denver. But like a
Speaker 1: lot of his screen navigation has been bad in all
Speaker 1: serieses all series. Excuse me and his off ball awareness
Speaker 1: in particular, just anytime he's not like actively engaged on
Speaker 1: the ball, he tends to relax, get out of a
Speaker 1: defensive stance and kind of just meander into the lane.
Speaker 1: He got burned in a big way tonight on that
Speaker 1: with the PJ. Washington corner three and so like in general,
Speaker 1: those are all things that are going to take time.
Speaker 1: The defense stuff, it comes down to two things for me,
Speaker 1: scar tissue. What I refer to that as is like
Speaker 1: you need to lose and have it be painful so
Speaker 1: that you realize just how important it is to be
Speaker 1: so locked in on the defensive end of the floor.
Speaker 1: Like I think this will hurt Ant to be eliminated
Speaker 1: in the conference finals and to play very.
Speaker 2: Poorly doing so. He's gonna understand.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that a lot of his mistakes have been
Speaker 1: called out in film sessions or that he's been made
Speaker 1: aware in some way, shape or form, he's going to
Speaker 1: look back at that and be like, man, like I
Speaker 1: let my team down. I got to get better in
Speaker 1: that way. Maybe it'll require him losing a few more times.
Speaker 1: Maybe when he's twenty five years old, he'll lose a
Speaker 1: big conference finals series, and then finally he'll be like,
Speaker 1: I have to get better at these specific things. The
Speaker 1: second piece of it is conditioning. You can tell that
Speaker 1: that's an area where Aunt tries to save energy right now.
Speaker 1: And look, I get it when it's an old guy.
Speaker 1: I get it when you're in your mid to late
Speaker 1: thirties and you're trying to conserve energy. But all of
Speaker 1: the all time grates, all of the all time greats,
Speaker 1: Kobe Lebron, Michael Jordan, those are literally the three best
Speaker 1: perimitive players in the history of the league.
Speaker 2: In my opinion.
Speaker 1: All three of those guys had runs where they made
Speaker 1: all defense year after year, and they did it because
Speaker 1: they did it while being the primary offensive initiator for
Speaker 1: their team. That is a level that he has to
Speaker 1: get at. Get two if he wants to be regarded
Speaker 1: on the same level of those guys all time. He
Speaker 1: has to be willing and capable physically of committing himself
Speaker 1: to both ends of the floor. I still feel very
Speaker 1: strongly that there is a player in there that can
Speaker 1: reach the level that Luca and Nicole Yokich are on
Speaker 1: right now, I think, and has that potential. He's just
Speaker 1: gonna need more time. And this is very valuable experience
Speaker 1: playing against a really bad matchup for him Like this,
Speaker 1: this goes a long way towards towards him him, like
Speaker 1: learning about what it's like when you get to these
Speaker 1: stages again, Like he's gonna know forever now that no
Speaker 1: matter what happens, no matter how good he looks in
Speaker 1: one round, no matter how good of a regular season
Speaker 1: he has, He's gonna know eventually, I'm going to run
Speaker 1: into sometime over a four round stretch. I'm going to
Speaker 1: run into a team that has an athlete on the
Speaker 1: perimeter that can kind of hang with me and rim
Speaker 1: protection to funnel me into. How am I going to
Speaker 1: solve that problem? That is the problem that every single
Speaker 1: great player has to solve, right, Kobe had to learn
Speaker 1: how to manipulate defenses with the past Lebron James, like
Speaker 1: the two thousand and seven Spurs and the two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight Celtics, both really sagged off of him and
Speaker 1: packed the paint and he had to learn how to
Speaker 1: consistently knock down jump shots. That became a problem again
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven as well, as they've played a lot
Speaker 1: of two big lineups and the paint was packed against Dallas.
Speaker 1: A lot of his post footwork and bullyball game had
Speaker 1: to be refined. He had to encounter teams that exposed
Speaker 1: his weaknesses and humiliated him for him to learn how
Speaker 1: to polish up those specific weaknesses. These are all part
Speaker 1: of the journey, right and so like I'm still a
Speaker 1: big believer in Aunt, my opinion on it and his
Speaker 1: potential has changed zero over the course of this series. However,
Speaker 1: I think that Dallas has revealed that he has a
Speaker 1: little bit longer to go to get to that point
Speaker 1: than maybe we thought after that Denver series. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: that is all I have for tonight. As always, I
Speaker 1: sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We're going
Speaker 1: to be back tomorrow morning with a little film session
Speaker 1: on this particular game, probably a mail bag as well.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I've been doing the mailbags
Speaker 1: from Twitter. Why don't you guys drop the mailbag questions
Speaker 1: in this video and I'll use this particular videos comments
Speaker 1: to do the mail bag tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I will see you guys. Then the volume