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Speaker 1: welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Thursday, everybody. We have almost made it to the
Speaker 1: end of the week, and I hope it's been a
Speaker 1: great one for you guys. We are down to the
Speaker 1: final two in our power rankings, and today we'll be
Speaker 1: doing number two, the Boston Celtics. Before we get started,
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Speaker 1: you can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under
Speaker 1: Hoops tonight. So in the top tier of teams, we
Speaker 1: had the Clippers, the Bucks, the Celtics, and the Warriors
Speaker 1: in that order, and I saw a tiny bit of
Speaker 1: a gap between three and four between the Bucks and
Speaker 1: the Clippers, mainly just because of health. I think of
Speaker 1: all of the teams in that top four, in that
Speaker 1: top tier, they have the most health concerns but it's
Speaker 1: strictly health with them. I'm not concerned about drama with
Speaker 1: them at all. They very well could have the most
Speaker 1: talented roster in the league. I think them and the
Speaker 1: Celtics have the two most talented rosters in the league.
Speaker 1: So it's not like a Net situation where there's weird
Speaker 1: ego stuff going on, or a Lakers situation where there's
Speaker 1: a mal content that they might have to deal with. No,
Speaker 1: the Clippers just might get hurt, and they've shown a
Speaker 1: propensity to do so. That's why I kind of have
Speaker 1: them at the bottom of that pack. The top three,
Speaker 1: the Bucks, Celtics, and Warriors, I view extremely close to
Speaker 1: each other. Don't view much of a gap between any
Speaker 1: of them. The primary reason why I put Boston over
Speaker 1: Milwaukee was this summer. Those three teams all had opportunities
Speaker 1: to get better, and the Bucks basically stood pat and
Speaker 1: the Celtics went out and addressed their biggest weakness, which
Speaker 1: was ball handling with a very good player in Malcolm Brogden,
Speaker 1: a twenty point per game guy, a six assists per
Speaker 1: game guy who's extremely efficient, especially as a pull up
Speaker 1: jump shooter and as a catch and shoot jump shooter.
Speaker 1: So they addressed a need. They got significantly better. When
Speaker 1: you were looking at Boston's closing lineups, there were concerns
Speaker 1: about that fifth man. Right, You're like, okay, I like
Speaker 1: Marcus Smart, Tatum, Brown, Horford, that's great, But are gonna
Speaker 1: play Rob Williams, We're gonna play Grant Williams, We're gonna
Speaker 1: play Derek White, Like, what are we gonna do there?
Speaker 1: All three of those guys came with Big Pro, was
Speaker 1: in Big cons and now they have a sure fire
Speaker 1: five man lineup that they're gonna be finishing games with.
Speaker 1: It's Malcolm Brogden in that fifth spot, a a significantly
Speaker 1: better player than the other three players that we mentioned,
Speaker 1: and something that active actually makes the Celtics considerably better
Speaker 1: basketball team in my opinion. Now, the Warriors did not
Speaker 1: get better this offseason on paper in theory right, And
Speaker 1: in fact, they got a little bit worse with the
Speaker 1: loss of Gary Payton the second and with the loss
Speaker 1: of Otta Porter Jr. We're gonna address that a little
Speaker 1: bit more tomorrow when we're covering them. But the primary
Speaker 1: reason why I didn't drop them, um uh. In addition
Speaker 1: to the obvious basketball reasons, I think they're smarter basketball
Speaker 1: team there. I want to talk a lot about the
Speaker 1: Warriors tomorrow and what they do well, but the primary
Speaker 1: reason why I didn't punish them for the inability or
Speaker 1: unwillingness to go out and be more aggressive in this
Speaker 1: offseason was the simple fact that they've got three rookies
Speaker 1: on the roster and James Wiseman, John and the coming
Speaker 1: gun Moses Moody that to improve rapidly over the course
Speaker 1: of this year. Wiseman didn't even play last year, will
Speaker 1: give them another option in the front court, and they
Speaker 1: have incredible player development over there. So I feel like
Speaker 1: they're going to make improvements simply through their player development
Speaker 1: and their young prospects that they have coming up. There's
Speaker 1: nobody in Milwaukee or in Boston that kind of fits
Speaker 1: that mold of of young player that could see sizeable
Speaker 1: improvements this year. So I went with the Warriors at
Speaker 1: number one because I think that they are the best
Speaker 1: combination of talent, coaching, you know, personnel that fits modern
Speaker 1: basketball there. I think they're the smartest team. I think
Speaker 1: they're the most disciplined team. I think they're the most
Speaker 1: experienced team, and they have the most continuity that's why
Speaker 1: their number one. We're gonna elaborate on that a lot tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I had Boston over Milwaukee, even though they barely beat
Speaker 1: the Bucks without Chris Middleton, because first of all, I
Speaker 1: think Tatum is gonna take a lot from last year
Speaker 1: and improve as a player. We're gonna talk a lot
Speaker 1: about that today, and that now them brogged in signing
Speaker 1: or trade excuse me, significantly improved them in terms of
Speaker 1: their talent and their most important lineups that they'll go
Speaker 1: down with in playoffs series. So that just just to
Speaker 1: give you a little bit of background to where I
Speaker 1: kind of landed with that ranking. Um. But again, as
Speaker 1: you guys know, I care less about that and more
Speaker 1: about the basketball and getting into the analysis, and that's
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do today. Also just in general, and
Speaker 1: we're doing these rankings, so many different things can go
Speaker 1: one way or another. Injuries obviously, can swing things a
Speaker 1: million different ways. Matchups can swing things a million different ways.
Speaker 1: Like that, just just in terms of like maybe one
Speaker 1: team's weakness lines up with another team strength and you
Speaker 1: get beat even though you might be the better team.
Speaker 1: That kind of thing happens a lot around the league.
Speaker 1: I don't think that the Dallas Mavericks were better than
Speaker 1: the Phoenix Suns. I just thought it was kind of
Speaker 1: a bad matchup for them, for instance. So that kind
Speaker 1: of thing always plays a role. What we're really doing
Speaker 1: with these rankings is kind of just putting them in
Speaker 1: order of most likely. Know, just because I see the
Speaker 1: Celtics as the second most likely team to win the title,
Speaker 1: or the Warriors at first, or the Bucks at third,
Speaker 1: or the Clippers at fourth, doesn't mean that's what's going
Speaker 1: to happen. And anything could happen. And obviously, like they're like,
Speaker 1: if things break right for the Brooklyn Nets, they could
Speaker 1: beat everybody. Even the Lakers have a very slim but
Speaker 1: puncher's chance to win the title this year. Anything can happen.
Speaker 1: Or just ordering them based on likelihood. So as you
Speaker 1: guys know, we're gonna go over last year, We're gonna
Speaker 1: go I'm gonna talk a little bit about the email
Speaker 1: Udoka situation. We're gonna talk about what they did this offseason,
Speaker 1: what their depth chart looks like, talk about what they
Speaker 1: do on the offensive end of the floor, what they
Speaker 1: do on the defensive end of the floor. Best case scenario,
Speaker 1: worst case scenario and X factor, lots of different angles
Speaker 1: to go at with the Celtics team. I took my
Speaker 1: sweet time with this one, and I'm gonna do it
Speaker 1: again with the Warriors tomorrow. I watched the first three
Speaker 1: games of the NBA Finals this morning. I wanted to
Speaker 1: get or this morning and yesterday I wanted to get
Speaker 1: a good feel for how Boston got in the lead
Speaker 1: of that series. And then tomorrow I'm gonna dive into
Speaker 1: the footage. This will be my like third or fourth
Speaker 1: time watching the Finals, but digging into how Golden State
Speaker 1: came back in one. I have a in I already
Speaker 1: have a good feel for it from when we were
Speaker 1: covering the Finals, but I'm excited to dive into it again.
Speaker 1: Um So, last year, the Celtics finished fifty one and
Speaker 1: thirty one. They lost the NBA Finals in six games.
Speaker 1: Um Like I said, We're gonna spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time today and tomorrow rehashing the NBA Finals. Just a
Speaker 1: super interesting series on so many levels, very high level basketball,
Speaker 1: two very different teams. I was watching Game one yesterday.
Speaker 1: Game one of the NBA Finals was just an incredible
Speaker 1: basketball game. I've really enjoyed rewatching it um. They finished
Speaker 1: the regular season ninth in offense, first in defense, and
Speaker 1: second in net rating. From January eight to the end
Speaker 1: of the season, they were second in offense. They were
Speaker 1: four point one points per one hundred possessions better than
Speaker 1: everybody in defense, and there were six point three points
Speaker 1: per one hun possessions ahead of everybody in net rating.
Speaker 1: And then they went up two games to one in
Speaker 1: the finals. So from January eight to Game three of
Speaker 1: the Finals, they were far and away the most dominant
Speaker 1: team in all of basketball. That's why I was so
Speaker 1: high on them. That's why I picked them in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases. But I learned a lot about them
Speaker 1: through the first three rounds of that playoffs. I learned
Speaker 1: about their weaknesses and that was a big part of
Speaker 1: why I picked Golden State to win the finals. I
Speaker 1: think I picked them in seven and they ended up
Speaker 1: winning in six. But the reason why I picked them
Speaker 1: to win the finals was because I had a feeling
Speaker 1: of all of the teams, you know, like Miami exploited
Speaker 1: their weaknesses to damn near steal that series. They came
Speaker 1: one shot away from stealing that series, and the Golden
Speaker 1: State Warriors were just a more talented version of the
Speaker 1: Miami Heat. So I had a feeling that they'd be
Speaker 1: able to get the job done. That's why I picked
Speaker 1: against them. But I was a big believer in them
Speaker 1: up to that point because of how dominant they were.
Speaker 1: So looking at the email Udoka situation, you can like
Speaker 1: when you see a coach like email Udoka come in
Speaker 1: and fundamentally change a team in Boston that had been
Speaker 1: pretty disappointing over the previous year and a half, Like,
Speaker 1: I get why you would think, Okay, if he made
Speaker 1: jokes out, this could be catastrophic. I get why you
Speaker 1: would see that. But what he did is super valuable.
Speaker 1: But what he's doing less. So what he did was
Speaker 1: he changed the psychology of the team. He made them tougher,
Speaker 1: he made them more willing to fight. They became a
Speaker 1: very resilient team, which was what If you talk to
Speaker 1: Celtics fans, and again I always encourage you talk to
Speaker 1: the fans because like I do my best to cover
Speaker 1: all thirty teams, I do my very best, but there's
Speaker 1: no way in hell I can ever cover any of
Speaker 1: the thirty teams. As well as one dedicated fan can
Speaker 1: or one dedicated media member that covers one specific team.
Speaker 1: It's just the nature of the job. I only have
Speaker 1: twenty four hours in each day, and I have to
Speaker 1: sleep for a lot of them. Right. But when you're
Speaker 1: when you're looking at Celtics fans and what they thought
Speaker 1: about what they did over the previous few years, Talent
Speaker 1: was never the issue. Scheme was never the issue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they little nitpicky things like, oh, we want Jason Tatum
Speaker 1: to handle the basketball better, Oh, we feel like we
Speaker 1: might need a point guard, that kind of stuff. But
Speaker 1: the large the biggest thing that most Celtics fans pointed
Speaker 1: to was a lack of mental toughness. When things got hard,
Speaker 1: they shrink away. They didn't have any fight. They didn't
Speaker 1: compete well enough to beat the tougher teams around the league,
Speaker 1: especially when they get into tough spots, especially when their
Speaker 1: back was against the wall. Email Udoka helped a lot
Speaker 1: with that. But the truth of the matter is is
Speaker 1: I believe that stuff will stay if they're Those are
Speaker 1: emotional changes. Those aren't basketball changes. Those are emotional changes.
Speaker 1: Everyone in that locker room grew up a lot during
Speaker 1: that year, But when we look at the basketball, they
Speaker 1: were actually a very sloppy basketball team in the conference
Speaker 1: finals and finals. A thought email Judoka went with defensive
Speaker 1: strategies that actively played into the strength of their opponents.
Speaker 1: That was a Miami Heat team that that literally had
Speaker 1: one guy who could create his own shot consistently, and
Speaker 1: instead of switching everything trying to bait them into ISOs,
Speaker 1: they ran their drop coverages and allowed shooters that liked
Speaker 1: to shoot off the off of screens, guys like Tyler Harrow,
Speaker 1: guys like Kyle Lowry, guys like Gabe Vince, and guys
Speaker 1: like Maxter's. He gave them good shooting opportunities that allowed
Speaker 1: them to linger around in that series because of a
Speaker 1: defensive scheme that played directly away from their weakness. And
Speaker 1: then with the Golden State Warriors, they played directly into
Speaker 1: their strength. Steph Curry is the best off the dribble
Speaker 1: shooter ever, and they ran a drop coverage that baited
Speaker 1: Steph into taking off the dribble jump shots, and he
Speaker 1: shot I can't remember the exact percentage, but it was
Speaker 1: in the mid forties. He torched them, and they lost
Speaker 1: the series. So that was schematically something that I've and
Speaker 1: we're gonna dive a little bit deeper into that conversation
Speaker 1: here in a couple of minutes. But those those, uh,
Speaker 1: those defensive strategies I thought were indicative of Email Judoka
Speaker 1: not being up to the chess match of the NBA.
Speaker 1: Of the NBA Playoffs, they were really sloppy and execute
Speaker 1: and this is stuff that that points me directly towards coaching.
Speaker 1: In the first few minutes of Game one of the finals,
Speaker 1: they failed to match up with Steph in a walk
Speaker 1: up possession. He literally dribbled the ball off the floor,
Speaker 1: stopped at no one was guarding him, walked into wide
Speaker 1: open three. That's in the first handful of possessions of
Speaker 1: an NBA Finals game. That's not having your team ready
Speaker 1: to go. That's not them not understanding matchups, so they're
Speaker 1: not communicating well enough. That's on coaching in the in
Speaker 1: the level of discipline that they have. They botched a
Speaker 1: baseline out of bounce play where Robert Williams was hugged
Speaker 1: up on Kevan Luney and uhum, I believe it was
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown was guarding Clay Thompson or something and literally, uh,
Speaker 1: Kevan Luney just set a backscreen on Klay Thompson. Robert
Speaker 1: Williams just wasn't even paying attention. He just went right
Speaker 1: under the basket and laid it in. I'm literally watching
Speaker 1: this game and I'm like, they're the one team looks
Speaker 1: prepared and ready to go, and one team looks like
Speaker 1: they're trying to ride the strength of their talent to
Speaker 1: winning a playoff series against a team that that that's
Speaker 1: just not gonna work against Robert Williams, and their scheme
Speaker 1: does a lot of roaming. It's kind of the way
Speaker 1: they use him, and on tape it looks really bad
Speaker 1: the the way that Robert Williams is just randomly doubling
Speaker 1: people without any purpose or or leaving his man to
Speaker 1: over help when he doesn't need to. And they got
Speaker 1: absolutely torched on the back side of that by com
Speaker 1: On Looney again. We're gonna get into that a little
Speaker 1: bit more later. The team frequently oscillated between playing good
Speaker 1: a good brand of basketball, and a bad brand of basketball,
Speaker 1: particularly in their driving kick game, initiating offense with the
Speaker 1: intention of drawing to help defenders and kicking rather than
Speaker 1: over penetrating and trying to score every time, and then
Speaker 1: turning over the basketball. They just simply did not play
Speaker 1: well often enough, and they were inconsistent enough that it
Speaker 1: would lead you to believe that their coach didn't have
Speaker 1: them disciplined. Their defensive metrics, they gave up one point
Speaker 1: three four points per possession and transition in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: which is absolutely atrocious. That's on coaching. If you're what
Speaker 1: have I been saying this entire our ranking series transition defense,
Speaker 1: that's on coaching. Defensive rebounding, that's on coaching. They only
Speaker 1: rebounded of their opponent's misses in the playoffs. That's really bad.
Speaker 1: That would have ranked in the bottom five or six
Speaker 1: in the league during the regular season by percentage. So
Speaker 1: they're super talented team. Email Judoka made them a mentally
Speaker 1: tough team, but they're not an especially smart team, and
Speaker 1: they weren't a very discipline team, and they weren't a
Speaker 1: very detailed team. And so as I don't think Email
Speaker 1: Yudoka leaving for this season and potentially permanently is going
Speaker 1: to hurt them that much on the basketball court, especially
Speaker 1: if Missoula comes in and does a better job of
Speaker 1: holding them to a higher standard of level, a higher
Speaker 1: level of detail, attention to detail, or if Brad Stevens
Speaker 1: gets more involved in the day to day coaching, or
Speaker 1: if they bring in an assistant, someone like a Quinn
Speaker 1: Snyder or a Frank Vogel to help in that department.
Speaker 1: I believe they could actually be a little bit better
Speaker 1: this year in that regard. I didn't factor that in
Speaker 1: when I was considering them, UH, when I was considering
Speaker 1: them in this power rankings list. I considered a lot
Speaker 1: of different things, but email Judoka leaving the team was
Speaker 1: not something I worked about. Is The only concern would
Speaker 1: be is if somehow they descend back into a lack
Speaker 1: of mental toughness and things like that. But I just
Speaker 1: don't think that's gonna be a case. I also don't
Speaker 1: think it was just email. I think it was a
Speaker 1: lot of Al Horford too, And I think it was
Speaker 1: a lot of Marcus Smart, And I think it was
Speaker 1: a lot of Jayson Tatum and Jalleen Brown just growing
Speaker 1: up and turning into solid veteran basketball players. So this offseason,
Speaker 1: they UH traded for Malcolm Brogden, the only rotation player
Speaker 1: they gave up in that deal. With this Daniel tys
Speaker 1: he this this was a really smart, ceiling raising trade.
Speaker 1: It addressed a specific weakness, which was their ball handling,
Speaker 1: which we're gonna talk a lot about here in a minute.
Speaker 1: It's a very natural fit with the Stars with their
Speaker 1: kind of like driving kick system that they like to run.
Speaker 1: He feels that fifth starter slash fifth closer spot that
Speaker 1: I was talking about earlier that was too inconsistent. They
Speaker 1: were really inconsistent with guys like you know, Derek White,
Speaker 1: and with guys like Robert Williams and guys like Grant
Speaker 1: will Ums. You plug Malcolm Brogden in there, that's five
Speaker 1: really really good basketball players, five like not quite all
Speaker 1: star but fringe all star level talents across the floor.
Speaker 1: There um outstanding shooter looking at it. He only played
Speaker 1: like thirty five games or something last year, so I
Speaker 1: looked at the previous season. He shot on catch and
Speaker 1: shoot threes, which is a sixty seven percent effective fieldgal percentage.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. He shot on seven pull up jumpers per game.
Speaker 1: As I've said, pull up jumpers are the pull up
Speaker 1: jump shooting is becoming one of the most important offensive
Speaker 1: skills in the league because it's the primary way you
Speaker 1: beat any coverage. The best way to beat you know,
Speaker 1: pick and roll coverages is pull up jump shooting. The
Speaker 1: best way to beat help defense that meets you at
Speaker 1: the rim is pull up jump shooting. It's just a very,
Speaker 1: very important skill and he's great at it. He averaged
Speaker 1: six assists to just two turnovers. He was one of
Speaker 1: only twelve players in the league last year excuse me,
Speaker 1: to average at least five and a half assists with
Speaker 1: less than two and a half turnovers. Marcus Smart was
Speaker 1: on that list as well. By the way, but this
Speaker 1: gets the ball out of Tatum and Brown's hands more
Speaker 1: to start possessions, which is good. Let them catch and
Speaker 1: work with an advantage or work out of triple threat
Speaker 1: so that their ball handling weaknesses don't get exposed as much.
Speaker 1: It's just an increase in aggregate ball handling on the
Speaker 1: floor at any given moment in the Celtics driving kick system,
Speaker 1: which is gonna be one of the big themes of
Speaker 1: this show today. Their offense is predicated on generating high
Speaker 1: quality spot up possessions. They lead the league in spot
Speaker 1: up possessions generated per game. That's possessions where a guy
Speaker 1: caught the ball with a defender closing out at him
Speaker 1: and he was able to score um out of that
Speaker 1: play or take a shot out of that play. He's
Speaker 1: the reason why I have the Celtics at number two.
Speaker 1: I think he dramatically improves their ball handling. I think
Speaker 1: he fits great into their system. It raises the level
Speaker 1: of talent on the roster. The buck State put the
Speaker 1: Celtics got better. That's why I put them in at
Speaker 1: number two. They also signed down DANIELO Gallinari, but he
Speaker 1: towards a c L likely won't play this year. So
Speaker 1: um looking at their depth chart, it's it gets a
Speaker 1: little finicky because there's not a whole lot of depth
Speaker 1: here at the guard position. It's a lot of really
Speaker 1: good players, but not a lot of depth at the
Speaker 1: guard position. Malcolm Brogden, Marcus Smart, Derek White, and Peyton Pritchard.
Speaker 1: On the wings, Jayson Tatum, Jalen Brown, Grant Williams, and
Speaker 1: then a huge drop off to the likes of Sam
Speaker 1: Houser and Justin Jackson, Bigs, Al Horford and Robert Williams.
Speaker 1: So if you look at like their top eight guys,
Speaker 1: which is Robert Williams, you know Grant Williams, Al Horford,
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, uh Derek White, Marcus Smart, Malcolm Brogden,
Speaker 1: those eight guys are probably the most talented top eight
Speaker 1: in the entire league in my opinion. But after eight,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty significant drop off to Peyton Pritchard, and
Speaker 1: then it's an even bigger drop off to everybody else.
Speaker 1: They do not have depth, and eight guys is more
Speaker 1: than enough to win you a bunch of playoff series
Speaker 1: if you stay healthy. But during the regular season with
Speaker 1: guys in and out of the lineup, like Robert Williams
Speaker 1: is expected to miss some time to start the season.
Speaker 1: In that case, being down to seven usable players and
Speaker 1: having to play lesser NBA players after that point, that
Speaker 1: could hurt them a little bit in the standings early
Speaker 1: in the season. I would not be surprised if they
Speaker 1: attempted to trade Danilo Gallinari around the deadline in conjunction
Speaker 1: with one or two more minimum contracts to try to
Speaker 1: bring back a usable rotation player to kind of bolster them,
Speaker 1: particularly on the wing. I mean a guy that I'd
Speaker 1: look out for. There is if for some reason, Jay
Speaker 1: Crowder doesn't get traded before Danilo's no trade timeline lapses.
Speaker 1: Once Danilo becomes available available for trade off, jay Crowder
Speaker 1: is still available, he'd be the kind of guy that
Speaker 1: I'd be looking at there, so looking at the offensive
Speaker 1: end of the four um the The most of their
Speaker 1: sets came out of three looks that I saw. They
Speaker 1: ran a lot of five outsets. They ran four low
Speaker 1: sets where you have one guy at the top of
Speaker 1: the key, four players along the baseline, and then they
Speaker 1: ran some horns sets. So out of horns, they run
Speaker 1: a lot of double pick and roll. They'll do it
Speaker 1: both ways, like they'll either have both bigs come up
Speaker 1: and set ball screens on both sides, and then Marcus
Speaker 1: Smarter Tatum a Brown will like pick a side to
Speaker 1: go off of, and then one guy will roll to
Speaker 1: the basket and the other will pop. Sometimes they both
Speaker 1: go on the same side and do the same concept.
Speaker 1: We talked about this a little bit um yesterday with Milwaukee.
Speaker 1: The concept behind double pick and roll is you want
Speaker 1: your shooting big to pop to the three point line,
Speaker 1: and you're rolling big to roll to the basket. Generally speaking,
Speaker 1: both screen defenders will drop and usually get great stuff
Speaker 1: at the top of the key at the very least,
Speaker 1: if not a jump shot. You can quickly flow a
Speaker 1: new dribble handoff from there and get some good stuff
Speaker 1: also out of horns. I saw them run a lot
Speaker 1: of uh like little interchanges before they'd run double pick
Speaker 1: and roll. So they'd have like Horford down screening for
Speaker 1: Marcus Smart, and Marcus Smart would come up and then
Speaker 1: Smart and Williams would set the ball screen. And the
Speaker 1: big thing there is guards just don't know how to
Speaker 1: defend ball screen actions as the screener we see. I
Speaker 1: talked about this a lot when we talked about inverted
Speaker 1: pick and roll with the Denver Nuggets. But essentially, when
Speaker 1: you turn a guard into a screen defender, they just
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of experience with that. More often
Speaker 1: than not, they just hug up to their man, and
Speaker 1: your ball handler can get good advantages going off that.
Speaker 1: And there are four low sets. The most frequent thing
Speaker 1: they would do is have Tatum start on the block
Speaker 1: and have one of the bigs, even either Williams or
Speaker 1: Horford coming pinned down for Tatum, and then have Tatum
Speaker 1: sprint up to the top of the key. Now Marcus
Speaker 1: Smart is up there with the basketball, and from there
Speaker 1: they'll do a couple of different things. They'll either have
Speaker 1: Smart use Tatum as a ball screen, or they'll have
Speaker 1: Tatum come off of a drible handoff. But almost every
Speaker 1: time they did that, it would result in a guard
Speaker 1: getting switched onto Tatum and almost immediately if Tatum had
Speaker 1: the basketball, he'd give it back up to Marcus Smart
Speaker 1: and then go post to the elbow. Or if he
Speaker 1: set the ball screen and Marcus Smart came off to
Speaker 1: get the switch, he would just run to the elbow. Now,
Speaker 1: the idea there is if Tatum comes off of a
Speaker 1: pin down at the block, his defender is now trailing
Speaker 1: the play. When his defender is trailing the play, and
Speaker 1: he sets a ball screen, that forces the switch because
Speaker 1: now at that point Tatum's man is trailing the play,
Speaker 1: He's not in position shin to do anything else at
Speaker 1: that point. Same thing with the dribble handoff. It just
Speaker 1: basically forces the switch on the screening action in that case,
Speaker 1: but all of its designed to get Tatum at the
Speaker 1: elbow with a triple threat attacking a guard. He's That's
Speaker 1: one of the spots on the floor where he's pretty successful. Um,
Speaker 1: they also run a bunch of stuff out of five out.
Speaker 1: The main thing that I saw there was uh like
Speaker 1: actions that set up dribble handoff. So they'd have like
Speaker 1: Tatum and Brown on the wings, smart uptop and then
Speaker 1: Williams and Horford in the corners. They'd have them both
Speaker 1: come up and set flare screens, and then Tatum and
Speaker 1: Brown will come off, but then they'd immediately turn around
Speaker 1: and set another pin down, or they'd make a post
Speaker 1: entry to Horford on the wing and then he'd go
Speaker 1: do a dribble handoff with Tatum again. All all little
Speaker 1: like interchanges that are designed to get that first drive.
Speaker 1: Because this is a driving kick offense. It is predicated
Speaker 1: on everyone's ability to extend the advantage and everyone's ability
Speaker 1: to shoot at the end of the play or to
Speaker 1: finish at the rim, whether that says a cutter um
Speaker 1: or driving all the way to the basket. But everything
Speaker 1: is designed to get that initial advantage so they can
Speaker 1: do their driving kick. As you can imagine, a pretty
Speaker 1: common theme around the league, but this is one of
Speaker 1: the better driving kick teams in the league. This team
Speaker 1: and the Clippers um are the two best that I've
Speaker 1: seen at it. A couple other offensive looks that I
Speaker 1: wanted to go over transition ball screens. They'll do a
Speaker 1: lot like pointless ball screens just to get switches. The
Speaker 1: Clippers did a ton of this too on tape. But
Speaker 1: like you know, Marcus Smart comes up the floor and
Speaker 1: they're not really running everything the defenses and seat the
Speaker 1: offensive players aren't even in their spacing yet. But tatums
Speaker 1: down the floor. He'll just come and set a quick
Speaker 1: ball screen for Marcus Smart get the switch and then
Speaker 1: run down to the elbow or if it's a if
Speaker 1: it's a big man like al Horford, then they'll quickly
Speaker 1: run out and drag the big man out and try
Speaker 1: to drive past him to the basket. Um. The other
Speaker 1: thing that I've seen them do a lot is transition
Speaker 1: drivel handoffs, uh with two with the double screen, So
Speaker 1: like Tatum and Brown will sprint the wings and they'll
Speaker 1: get to the deep corner and then Al horfor like
Speaker 1: Marcus smartle bring the ball up the floor, and what
Speaker 1: he'll do is he'll just pitch it to al Reford
Speaker 1: at the top of the key and then he'll run
Speaker 1: down and set a pin down for Tatum, and Horford
Speaker 1: will dribble into it like a dribble handoff, so it
Speaker 1: acts as like a double screen, but the last guy
Speaker 1: dribble hand hands the ball off off the dribble to Tatum,
Speaker 1: then he curls around that and he has an opportunity
Speaker 1: to get downhill again. Everything is designed to start the
Speaker 1: driving kick. That's the fundamental um foundation of their offense.
Speaker 1: So in isolation, they were the fifth most frequent isolation team,
Speaker 1: a twelfth most efficient. A consistent theme here, um Uh.
Speaker 1: Tatum's numbers and isolation and post up are actually not
Speaker 1: that great. He's he's more of a point forward than
Speaker 1: he is a scoring forward. He just doesn't know it yet.
Speaker 1: But we'll get into that here in a minute. So
Speaker 1: Tatum only average zero point nine one points per possession
Speaker 1: and isolation. Jalen Brown was awesome one point zero four
Speaker 1: points per possession. They were middle of the pack pick
Speaker 1: and roll frequency and efficiency team. They were fourth in
Speaker 1: post up efficiency, which is really good. Jalen Brown and
Speaker 1: Al Horford are pulling the weight there once again. Jalen
Speaker 1: Brown excellent post player in terms of scoring efficiency. Jason
Speaker 1: Tae him not so much. Um off screen actions. Uh,
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff reminds me of of what the
Speaker 1: Chicago Bulls did. Again, when you're talking about having Tatum
Speaker 1: and Brown coming off of curling off of screens, or
Speaker 1: dribble handoffs rather than just attacking with a live dribble.
Speaker 1: It just gives them more advantages. We talked about this
Speaker 1: a lot with the Chicago Bulls with Zach Lavine and
Speaker 1: Demarta Rosen, Like, it's just easier to play basketball when
Speaker 1: you're defender isn't set in up in your airspace to
Speaker 1: start the possession, but rather he's trailing the play or
Speaker 1: he's closing out at you. The more advantaged situations that
Speaker 1: you create, the better. Jalen Brown once again amazing off
Speaker 1: of screens. Jalen Brown one point one one points per possession,
Speaker 1: which is in the seventy seven percentile. Marcus Martin Derrek
Speaker 1: White both did really well in those situations this year.
Speaker 1: But spot up is where this where this team is
Speaker 1: most successful, and that is the result of driving and kicking.
Speaker 1: They had the most spot up possessions in the league.
Speaker 1: Um uh, it's funny too, like when you when I
Speaker 1: watch tape and I like because obviously you guys know,
Speaker 1: I use a big combination of metrics and film right now,
Speaker 1: the metrics that I focus on our possession by possession,
Speaker 1: like I don't ever look I hate catchalls, like I
Speaker 1: don't want you to tell me what you know, Uh
Speaker 1: what Jayson Tatum's offensive real plus minuses like that? Just
Speaker 1: to me, that's insignificant stat that accomplishes absolutely nothing. That's
Speaker 1: just my opinion. I think the game of basketball is
Speaker 1: way too complicated to simplify every single type of possession
Speaker 1: into one single number. But I love looking at points
Speaker 1: per possession on specific play types because that's just the scoreboard.
Speaker 1: Like if you run a hundred post ups and you
Speaker 1: score a hundred and eleven points out of it, then
Speaker 1: you averaged one point one one points per possession. That's
Speaker 1: just the scoreboard, and I'm I'm simplifying it down to that, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: spot up possessions, this is how many points you scored
Speaker 1: out of them. That's how good you were attacking closeouts.
Speaker 1: That's just that. That's just the scoreboard. There's some context
Speaker 1: on tape, right, Like maybe you're, uh, you're playing with
Speaker 1: better creators so you get better spot up reps. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that absolutely is a factor. Maybe you're a post player
Speaker 1: but you don't have great shooting around you, so you're
Speaker 1: running all your post ups and wor spacing. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there is some context there. But I at least can
Speaker 1: take scoreboard information from those numbers that I'm grabbing, whereas
Speaker 1: with the catchalls, I don't get anything from it. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, like I I always
Speaker 1: think it's interesting when I see connections between what I'm
Speaker 1: seeing on tape and what I'm seeing in the numbers.
Speaker 1: When I watched the Boston Celtics, I think they're a
Speaker 1: great driving kick team. When I watched the l A Clippers,
Speaker 1: I think they're a great driving kick team that stands
Speaker 1: out on tape. So when I go to the numbers
Speaker 1: and I see that the Clippers and Celtics are two
Speaker 1: of the very best spot up teams in the league,
Speaker 1: that tells me that my eye test is correct, which
Speaker 1: is good. And sometimes you need to go both ways there,
Speaker 1: Like if I'm watching, you know, Kendrick Nunn this year
Speaker 1: for the Lakers, and I'm thinking, man, it seems like
Speaker 1: he's struggling and pick and roll, But then I look
Speaker 1: at his pick and roll ball handler possessions and he's
Speaker 1: torching everybody like he's averaging one point one four points
Speaker 1: per possession. Then that means I'm I mean, they're not
Speaker 1: watching the film correctly enough, or I need to go
Speaker 1: back and look at it again and see if there's
Speaker 1: something that I'm missing there. You kind of use the
Speaker 1: two to help each other, if that makes sense. But
Speaker 1: their spot of possessions are the result of driving kick basketball.
Speaker 1: They were eight in spot of efficiency. This is where
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatum was the most effective, finishing driving kick possessions.
Speaker 1: He had one point one two points per spot up possession,
Speaker 1: which was seventy nine percentile in the league. Uh Jalen Brown,
Speaker 1: Marcus Smart, Grant Grant Williams, al Horford, and Peyton Pritchard
Speaker 1: were all over one point one point per possession in
Speaker 1: closeout situations. So essentially, they're really good at driving and
Speaker 1: kicking the basketball, and they're really good at finishing when
Speaker 1: they get those opportunities. That's why they were the second
Speaker 1: best offense in the league after January eight. UM. So
Speaker 1: looking at the offensive end of the floor in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: because this is where this is where Boston had the
Speaker 1: most struggle UM in this playoff run. There were two
Speaker 1: specific areas that I wanted to look at, turnovers taking
Speaker 1: care of the basketball, and then their general offensive process,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about in a second. Their inability to
Speaker 1: take care of the basketball and consistently make good decisions,
Speaker 1: consistently undercut themselves in the playoffs, in every single one
Speaker 1: of the series. They were talented enough to beat that
Speaker 1: Milwaukee team in five games without Chris Middleton. They were
Speaker 1: talented enough to beat that Miami team in four games.
Speaker 1: They were talented enough to beat that Warrior's team and
Speaker 1: maybe six games, right, but they were. But in all
Speaker 1: cases it extended much further than sure should. Seven games
Speaker 1: against the Bucks, seven games against the Heat, three consecutive
Speaker 1: losses against the Warriors to actually blow that series. That
Speaker 1: that's that's where that offensive process stuff ended up biting them. Turnovers,
Speaker 1: ignite the fast break, which they were such a terrible
Speaker 1: transition defense team. Like I said, and I shared those
Speaker 1: numbers earlier, like when teams faced Boston set defense in
Speaker 1: the half court, they really struggled to score. They did.
Speaker 1: But when teams are able to avoid that situation entirely
Speaker 1: because you keep turning the damn basketball over and now
Speaker 1: they're attacking your helter skelter bad transition defense, they don't
Speaker 1: have to score against your half court defense, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna kill you there. Also, when you turn the basketball over,
Speaker 1: it prevents you getting a shot on the rim. It's
Speaker 1: like worse than a miss. It's like a worst version
Speaker 1: of a miss. They were fourteen and three when they
Speaker 1: held their turnovers to fifteen or fewer. They were owing
Speaker 1: seven when they went over fifteen turnovers. That's how much
Speaker 1: of an indicator it was for them and their success
Speaker 1: last year. And then simply when I when I'm saying
Speaker 1: offensive process, I'm referring basically to the approach of their
Speaker 1: ball handlers. Like I said earlier, Jayson Tatum is a
Speaker 1: point forward. He just doesn't know it yet. He's got
Speaker 1: a little bit too much of that Kobe Bryant mentality,
Speaker 1: Like I'm this three level score, And the truth of
Speaker 1: the matter is is he's not that great creating his
Speaker 1: own shot in isolation. He's not that great pull up
Speaker 1: jump shooting. He's not that great finishing at the rim.
Speaker 1: His one real rank offensively where he actually excels compared
Speaker 1: to the rest of the league is three point shooting,
Speaker 1: pull up three point shooting, catching shoot three point shooting.
Speaker 1: Everything else he does offensively, Jalen Brown is better than him,
Speaker 1: But Jayson Tatum is actually a very good passer when
Speaker 1: he actually plays to that archetype. He is a point forward.
Speaker 1: He is a big forward that can score the basketball,
Speaker 1: but his main gift is the ability to create advantages
Speaker 1: and get his offense moving with the past. That's his
Speaker 1: best skill. They were seven and oh when Jayson Tatum
Speaker 1: had at least eight assists in this playoff run. They
Speaker 1: were seven and ten when Tatum had seven or fewer.
Speaker 1: He too frequently lost sight of his best identity and
Speaker 1: played a bad brand of basketball for his skill set
Speaker 1: and hurt the team a lot. Check this out. In wins,
Speaker 1: the Boston Celtics had an assistant turnover ratio of two
Speaker 1: point zero three. In losses, they had an assistant turnover race.
Speaker 1: You have one point to nine. That's a thirty seven
Speaker 1: percent drop and assist the turnover efficiency from wins the losses.
Speaker 1: So to put it simply, when they drove the basketball
Speaker 1: to kick it two teammates to start the driving kick,
Speaker 1: they kicked everyone's ass when they drove the basketball and
Speaker 1: over penetrated and tried to force the action for themselves.
Speaker 1: They turned the basketball over, they didn't get their driving
Speaker 1: kick going, and they hurt their defense and they lost
Speaker 1: basketball games. And that's why you had like these really
Speaker 1: ugly stretches of basketball, but then these like incredibly dominant
Speaker 1: stretches of basketball, huge runs in games. They blew out
Speaker 1: a ton of teams from January eight to the end
Speaker 1: of the season. That game one of the NBA Finals,
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter, when they got going on both
Speaker 1: ends of the floor, when they were really driving and
Speaker 1: kicking the basketball, when like getting wide open catch and
Speaker 1: shoot threes for Peyton Pritchard and Marcus Smart and now
Speaker 1: Horford and you know, Jalen Brown made a couple of
Speaker 1: tough ones. But it's a lot of driving kick in there.
Speaker 1: When they play that style and they're locked in defensively,
Speaker 1: they're just in their damn near impossible to beat in
Speaker 1: those situations moving to the defensive end of the floor.
Speaker 1: So their scheme, they switch one through three when Horford
Speaker 1: and Williams are on the floor, and they switch one
Speaker 1: through four when they have one center on the floor,
Speaker 1: and then they run a drop without Horford and Robert Williams.
Speaker 1: Now in their drop, they're supposed to be at the
Speaker 1: level of the screen. That's the way that drop coverages
Speaker 1: account for pull up jump shooting in theory. But it's
Speaker 1: so much harder to do in theory than it is
Speaker 1: in practice. Fatigue inevitably caused their coverages to fail against
Speaker 1: the teams like Miami and and UH and Golden State.
Speaker 1: So for instance, UH, if you run a drop coverage
Speaker 1: right and the guard chases over the top of the
Speaker 1: screen and you have a big at the level of
Speaker 1: the screen, then there is no pull up three. And
Speaker 1: the more that the guard is attached to the backside,
Speaker 1: the more Horford or Williams can drop back and take
Speaker 1: away the role. When it's run properly, it works great.
Speaker 1: The problem is is when you get tired, it's very
Speaker 1: easy to get caught on a ball screen as the guard.
Speaker 1: When you get tired and you're the big, it's very
Speaker 1: easy to run up maybe to the top of the
Speaker 1: key instead of to the NBA line. Maybe you run up,
Speaker 1: you know, between the free throw line and the top
Speaker 1: of the key, like you just don't quite get high
Speaker 1: enough because you're tired. That's what happens. Whereas when it
Speaker 1: was switching, you offset all of that physical wear and
Speaker 1: tear onto mental focus and energy and and so that's
Speaker 1: the thing. Like in theory, I get you Dooka's game plan. Hey,
Speaker 1: We're gonna be super physical on the ball. We're gonna
Speaker 1: chase him over the top. You know, here's our big
Speaker 1: man waiting at the level of the screen. In theory,
Speaker 1: it makes sense, but in practice it's just really, really
Speaker 1: difficult to execute. But yeah, so again I'm talking a
Speaker 1: lot about bad Boston as it pertains to UM, as
Speaker 1: it pertains to this Warrior series, because that's why I
Speaker 1: have them at number two and the Warriors at number one.
Speaker 1: But making no mistake, this is a very good basketball team,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about why here in just a second.
Speaker 1: So looking at their metrics, they were first in defensive rating.
Speaker 1: As I said, they were second in defending the paint,
Speaker 1: second in blocks per one hundred possessions. Robert Williams and
Speaker 1: Al hor for just menaces around the rim at all times.
Speaker 1: They were eleventh in defending the three, which is really
Speaker 1: solid when you consider how good they are defending the paint.
Speaker 1: Um Usually for teams that sell out to defend the paint,
Speaker 1: they're gonna give up a lot of three point shots,
Speaker 1: but they run around like crazy and rotation and they
Speaker 1: take that stuff away. This is a damn good defensive team,
Speaker 1: especially in the half court. Their half court defense held
Speaker 1: three of the four teams they played in this playoff
Speaker 1: run under um Um. I think they held excuse me,
Speaker 1: they held. Their overall defense held three of their four
Speaker 1: opponents to ten offensive rating or less, and then only
Speaker 1: the nets scored more than that. And then in the
Speaker 1: half court they stifled everybody. If you look up scoring
Speaker 1: against Boston and the half court on cleaning the glass,
Speaker 1: it's kind of frightening how good they were. Um their
Speaker 1: areas for improvement. They need to be better as a
Speaker 1: defensive rebounding team and better as a transition defense team.
Speaker 1: That's on coaching. I don't know if Missoula is going
Speaker 1: to fix that. I don't know if they'll bring in
Speaker 1: another assistant. I don't know if it was just a
Speaker 1: bad season for them. They're gonna have to figure out
Speaker 1: those particular things. The other thing, too, is their offensive
Speaker 1: process is directly related to their transition defense. When they
Speaker 1: take care of the basketball, when they play driving, kicked
Speaker 1: basketball and generate good shots, they have an opportunity to
Speaker 1: get their defense set while the ball is being taken
Speaker 1: out of the basket. The two are very intricately related.
Speaker 1: But that's what's so cool about the game of basketball. Um.
Speaker 1: Tatum's rim finishing in particular really hurt them. In transition defense,
Speaker 1: he missed of his layups against Golden State. That's just really,
Speaker 1: really really bad. The other thing to the other last
Speaker 1: area improvement for Boston potentially defensively is forcing more turnovers.
Speaker 1: They were the middle of the pack turnover team. With
Speaker 1: how athletic they are, they should be able to force
Speaker 1: more turnovers turnovers playing the passing lanes and being more
Speaker 1: aggressive on the ball. UM looking in defense on the
Speaker 1: UH on the in the Warriors series, Steve Kerr's plan
Speaker 1: look like, what I'm gonna do here too, is I'm
Speaker 1: gonna talk a little bit about the game plan that
Speaker 1: Steve Kerr used against Boston in UH in this particular
Speaker 1: segment tomorrow, I want to focus on some of the
Speaker 1: personnel things and the actual, like just basketball technique things
Speaker 1: that Golden State did to swing that series. UM. Steve
Speaker 1: Kurr's plan was to attack Boston's desire to not switch
Speaker 1: screens with their bigs. They showed up in the numbers
Speaker 1: pretty crazy. So the Warriors attempted twenty one point seven
Speaker 1: pull up jumpers per game in the regular season one
Speaker 1: point seven that went up. That went up to twenty
Speaker 1: eight point two against Boston, So they had a significant
Speaker 1: increase in pull up jump shooting against Boston. They were
Speaker 1: spamming high pick and roll even though they don't like
Speaker 1: to to get Steph Curry pull up jump shop opportunity
Speaker 1: to pull up jump shot opportunities, because they knew that
Speaker 1: was the weakness in Boston's defense. Their incessant for a
Speaker 1: lot a desire to run drop coverage even though it
Speaker 1: doesn't work against teams like Golden State. Golden State's a
Speaker 1: smart team, They're gonna find ways to attack it. They
Speaker 1: massively increase their pull up jump shooting volume and then
Speaker 1: in percentage. The Celtics shot on pull up jumpers in
Speaker 1: that series, which is not a strength of Theirs. The
Speaker 1: Warriors shot pull up jumpers, it's their strength. So that's
Speaker 1: it's easy to see how that ended up backfiring on
Speaker 1: them the way that it did. They also were dropping
Speaker 1: on off ball screens, which I thought was really weird.
Speaker 1: Sometimes Rob would just like hug up onto Looney while
Speaker 1: he was setting off ball screens, and so there was
Speaker 1: just no help in Clay Thompson and Steph Curry would
Speaker 1: just come flying off and get wide open threes. Other
Speaker 1: times he just dropped a way back into the paint.
Speaker 1: Al Horford just ran like kind of like a modified
Speaker 1: drop coverage on off ball pin downs and stuff. And
Speaker 1: too often he was just way too low as Clay
Speaker 1: Thompson and staff would come running off for shots. Just
Speaker 1: just a really poor, poor XS and nose game planning
Speaker 1: from Boston in that series. UM. The other thing too,
Speaker 1: and this, this is this is something that I'd like
Speaker 1: to see the Boston addressed this year. And I talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about this at the beginning of the show.
Speaker 1: One of the fundamental concepts of Boston's defense is using
Speaker 1: Rob Williams as a roamer. So they attached him to
Speaker 1: somebody that can't shoot right, so Kevin Looney for instance,
Speaker 1: in the UM in the Warrior series, or put him
Speaker 1: on bam at a bio in in the Miami Heat series.
Speaker 1: But what will end up doing is he just kind
Speaker 1: of runs around it, does whatever the hell he wants.
Speaker 1: Like you know, Draymond Green will catch the ball on
Speaker 1: the block and he'll just randomly run over and double
Speaker 1: even though Draymond Green is not gonna hurt you out
Speaker 1: of the post right, or he'll randomly over help on
Speaker 1: a guy who doesn't need help on a drive because
Speaker 1: he's got it contained. And what it ended up happening
Speaker 1: as a result is his man is free to do
Speaker 1: whatever the hell he wants around the rim. Kevon Looney
Speaker 1: had twenty one offensive rebounds in the NBA Finals, and
Speaker 1: then just in general, his random double teams opened up
Speaker 1: those Golden State blender possessions where it's past past past,
Speaker 1: closeout attack, close out attack, lay up, wide open three,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It got it got it
Speaker 1: got them into that Golden State chaos that is so bad,
Speaker 1: that's so difficult to handle. It did not look good
Speaker 1: on tape. So I'd really like to see Boston kind
Speaker 1: of rain in UM Rob Williams this year and give
Speaker 1: him a little bit more of a structured role defensively,
Speaker 1: because I think even though you'll lose some of his
Speaker 1: highlight blocks and some of the crazy plays you can create,
Speaker 1: I think he actually does more damage than good when
Speaker 1: he's recklessly roaming around like that. UM, looking back at
Speaker 1: their coaching staff for a second, this is an incredibly
Speaker 1: talented team that was unbeatable when they played well, but
Speaker 1: they frequently lost sight of their offensive identity and they
Speaker 1: were sloppy in the details of defense. So if they
Speaker 1: get somebody in there, whether that's Missoula or it's a
Speaker 1: Frank Volgo or Quinn Snyder that they add to the staff,
Speaker 1: or it's Brad Stevens coming down in the end of
Speaker 1: the season, if they get someone in there that runs
Speaker 1: a little bit of a tighter ship on the details,
Speaker 1: they could become a very very dangerous basketball team. I
Speaker 1: think coaching is actually a weakness on this particular roster.
Speaker 1: So the best case scenario, know is that toughness lingers
Speaker 1: with Udoka gone, that they still have that same mentality
Speaker 1: that they had from him, that Joe Missoula just does
Speaker 1: a better job of coaching the details and the xs
Speaker 1: and ohs. Maybe Brad Stevens gets involved, like I said,
Speaker 1: maybe they signed somebody the bench. Uh, Malcolm Brogden significantly
Speaker 1: improves their ball handling and decision making, you know. Again,
Speaker 1: and with with this Malcolm Brogden piece, it's the aggregate
Speaker 1: ball handling that helps with avoiding turnovers. The other thing, too,
Speaker 1: is just it's just giving you another matchup opportunity. So
Speaker 1: if Marcus Smart Jayson Tatum, Jalen Brown, and Malcolm Brogden
Speaker 1: are all on the floor, and they've got You're playing
Speaker 1: a team like the Warriors last year, for instance, and
Speaker 1: they got Gary Payton the second just like up in
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatum, just like disrupting his handle, doing all this
Speaker 1: crazy stuff. And they got Andrew Wiggins on Jalen Brown,
Speaker 1: and you know they've got you know, Draymond Green, you know,
Speaker 1: guarding Marcus Smart. I'm just throwing out random matchups. Maybe
Speaker 1: Malcolm Brogden that fourth one, he has a better matchup.
Speaker 1: Maybe he's getting guarded by a guy who struggles a
Speaker 1: little bit more in full court defense, like an Auto
Speaker 1: Porter junior or Moses Moody or something like that. Right,
Speaker 1: that's kind of where your advantage is. Particularly, Miami did
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of damage um to Boston
Speaker 1: by full court pressure or attacking them right when they
Speaker 1: cross half court. Just increasing your aggregate ball handling helps
Speaker 1: in those situations and most importantly helping it so that
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatum and Jylen Brown can attack with an advantage
Speaker 1: and with a triple threat, rather than having to bring
Speaker 1: the ball off the floor and get to their spots.
Speaker 1: I think that the Malcolm Brogden addition is really really
Speaker 1: going to help them. Um, they need Rob Williams to
Speaker 1: be fully healthy for this playoff run instead of playing
Speaker 1: on a balky knee, and he needs to find a
Speaker 1: more structured defensive role. Like I said, if all of
Speaker 1: those things go right, that edges them past Milwaukee to me,
Speaker 1: and actually it gives them a really good chance to
Speaker 1: win the title this year. The worst case scenario is
Speaker 1: that the loss of you Man Udoka's emotional leadership hurts
Speaker 1: the team in their toughness health issues, particularly really with
Speaker 1: Rob Williams and Malcolm Brogden. Malcolm Brogden, I don't think
Speaker 1: has played over sixty games in the last three years,
Speaker 1: so that's something he's got to figure out. Rob Williams,
Speaker 1: obviously with a knee, had to get another surgery. They're
Speaker 1: not very deep. Like I said, They've got a really
Speaker 1: talented top eight, but there's not a whole lot after that. Um,
Speaker 1: and then maybe Brogden ends up not solving their ball
Speaker 1: handling issues. I believe he will to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: but that would be the worst case scenario is that
Speaker 1: their ball handling issues linger, and then what will end
Speaker 1: up happening is that if all those things happen, they'll
Speaker 1: just get beat by a smarter basketball team. They'll get
Speaker 1: beat by a team that's sharper in those details, that's
Speaker 1: more disciplined, and they'll end up going home unhappy. Biggest
Speaker 1: X factor for this team is Jayson Tatum. I had
Speaker 1: him six in my player rankings because I think that
Speaker 1: he's potentially the best wing defender in basketball. I have
Speaker 1: never seen a basketball player do a better job guarding
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant then Jayson Tatum did in the first round
Speaker 1: of this playoffs of this year's playoff run, and then
Speaker 1: when he plays to his strengths offensively, when he is
Speaker 1: point forward, he looks like a bona fide superstar in
Speaker 1: wins in this playoff run, he averaged seven and seven
Speaker 1: on six true shooting. That's Lebron James type of numbers.
Speaker 1: That's superstar stuff. That's how good Jayson Tatum is when
Speaker 1: he has his head on straight. That's why I had
Speaker 1: him at number six. The problem is is he has
Speaker 1: these nights where he just loses sight of that and
Speaker 1: he hunts his own shot, takes bad pull up threes,
Speaker 1: doesn't look to be the facilitator and rather looks to
Speaker 1: be the score in losses. In this playoff run, he
Speaker 1: average twenty three, seven and five on true shooting, and
Speaker 1: like I said, seven and oh when he had at
Speaker 1: least eight assists, seven and ten when he did it.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a legitimate thing with Tatum is inconsistency.
Speaker 1: I would argue that the reason why the Celtics lost
Speaker 1: in this playoff run was in large part due to
Speaker 1: the Tatum's inconsistency. I think him getting out played so
Speaker 1: badly by Steph Curry was a huge part of why
Speaker 1: they lost in the NBA Finals. So a couple of
Speaker 1: specific flaws that he needs to address to be more
Speaker 1: consistent his rim finishing. Like I said in the restricted
Speaker 1: area against Golden State, the reason here is he hunts
Speaker 1: for fouls instead of going out strong. He sticks his
Speaker 1: arms out as far as he can and tries to
Speaker 1: like scoop up to the rim, trying to draw that
Speaker 1: hack foul. But they just let too much of that
Speaker 1: stuff go during the playoffs, and so what ends up
Speaker 1: happening is he just misses all of his layups. Not
Speaker 1: only does that hurt him in his in his efficiency,
Speaker 1: it hurts the team in transition defense when he smokes
Speaker 1: a layup, falls down into camera, Row, turns and complains
Speaker 1: to the refs while the team is running the other way.
Speaker 1: If he takes on the role of point forward rather
Speaker 1: than scoring wing and takes care of the basketball focuses
Speaker 1: on creating the initial advantage, then he's a superstar. Jalen
Speaker 1: Brown is the better pure score anyway. Jalen Brown is
Speaker 1: better in isolation by a lot, and Jalen Brown is
Speaker 1: better in post ups by a lot. It's a more
Speaker 1: organic fit between the two of them. If Tatum takes
Speaker 1: on more of that point forward role and Jalen Brown
Speaker 1: takes on more of that scoring role. Either way, the
Speaker 1: ball ends up working its way back to Tatum anyway.
Speaker 1: And he's an excellent play finisher like we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: So that's what makes him the biggest X factor for
Speaker 1: the Celtics team in my opinion, Like he could be
Speaker 1: the sixth best player in the world, or he could
Speaker 1: be the sixteenth best player in the world. That's the
Speaker 1: gap between his good and his bat And he was
Speaker 1: the sixth best player in the world for a good
Speaker 1: two thirds of this playoff run. But it wasn't every night,
Speaker 1: and he played poorly in the finals and it costs
Speaker 1: his team. So I don't see any scenario where he's
Speaker 1: not the X factor. The way he plays will be
Speaker 1: the largest determining factor and how in in the in
Speaker 1: the fortunes of the Boston Celtics this year. Al Right, guys,
Speaker 1: that is all I have for today. Tomorrow we're covering
Speaker 1: the Golden State Warriors. I want to dive a lot
Speaker 1: further into some of the things that they did really
Speaker 1: well against Boston from a personnel standpoint, basketball technique, stuff
Speaker 1: that I find to be very interesting, a very deserving
Speaker 1: number one for me, and I'm excited to talk about them.
Speaker 1: I will see you guys tomorrow. The volume