Speaker 1: The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight. Here at
Speaker 1: the Volume, Happy Saturday, everybody. Coverage of the Eastern Conference Finals.
Speaker 1: Here at Hoops Tonight is brought to you by Chase
Speaker 1: Freedom Unlimited. How do you cash back? Well? After yet
Speaker 1: another double digit fourth quarter comeback for the Miami Heat
Speaker 1: last night, they are now outscoring teams by twenty point
Speaker 1: one points per one hundred possessions in the fourth quarter.
Speaker 1: That is the time when they're coaching, their execution and
Speaker 1: their star talent takeover games, and man, it just never
Speaker 1: feels like they're out of a game. I have so
Speaker 1: much that I want to share from this game. We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk a little bit about that Grant Williams adjustment,
Speaker 1: a couple of specific things that Spolstra did to cause
Speaker 1: the Celtics problems defensively, and then obviously the classic Jimmy
Speaker 1: Butler ice attack at the end of the game comes
Speaker 1: in clutch for the Heat. You guys know the joke
Speaker 1: before we get started. To Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube
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Speaker 1: Hoops tonight, All right, let's talk some basketball. So Jason
Speaker 1: had this brilliant idea after Game one of this series. Hey, like,
Speaker 1: why not instead of gift wrapping Jimmy Butler one free
Speaker 1: Malcolm Brogden to attack every single possession down the stretch
Speaker 1: of the game. Why don't we try a big wing defender.
Speaker 1: Why is Grant Williams glued to the bench. Let's get
Speaker 1: him out there and see what he can do. Well,
Speaker 1: it turns out Grant Williams has no chance to stop
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler either, same exact moves getting downhill to that
Speaker 1: five to ten foot area where he can make those
Speaker 1: short range shots like I talk about a lot over
Speaker 1: the course of the season. You know, we talked about
Speaker 1: three level scoring as like shots at the rim, threes
Speaker 1: and these long mid range jump shots like these fifteen
Speaker 1: to eighteen footers. But there's always that short range as well,
Speaker 1: which is where a lot of the best playoff players
Speaker 1: in the league do their damage. That's where Lebron's working
Speaker 1: in the post and hitting those short fadeaways right. That's
Speaker 1: where Jimmy Butler's hitting all those shots. That's where Nikola
Speaker 1: Jokic is hitting all of those pop shots in the
Speaker 1: lane right like those That range is a range that
Speaker 1: a lot of NBA defenses still concede shots to, but
Speaker 1: it's much higher percentage than some of the deeper long
Speaker 1: twos that you can take in the offense. And he
Speaker 1: just it didn't matter if he was going right or
Speaker 1: going left. It didn't matter how much of a contest
Speaker 1: Grant Williams offered. He was just getting buckets right over
Speaker 1: the top of him. Now, I do think Grant was
Speaker 1: a little less physical than he could have been. I mean,
Speaker 1: and that's gonna be one of the themes of the show,
Speaker 1: Like you can get away with a lot at the
Speaker 1: end of NBA playoff games when it comes to using
Speaker 1: your hands, and the whole point of going with Grant
Speaker 1: Williams over some one like Malcolm Brogden, because Grant Williams
Speaker 1: is only a couple inches taller than Malcolm Brogden. The
Speaker 1: whole point of going with Grant Williams is he's bigger
Speaker 1: and stronger and can hold his ground better against Jimmy.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of possessions whereas Jimmy, especially when
Speaker 1: he was driving towards his left, kind of into the
Speaker 1: paint where Rob or Grant Williams is kind of giving
Speaker 1: ground and opening up his shoulder and just trying to
Speaker 1: meet him at a spot instead of holding his ground
Speaker 1: with physicality. Put the onus on the official to try
Speaker 1: to call a blocking val. He's probably not going to right,
Speaker 1: and I mean he's hitting these easy short range shots.
Speaker 1: So that was one thing that I don't necessarily think.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. The Grant Williams adjustment did not work
Speaker 1: in this game, but I do still think that is
Speaker 1: one of their better options. Grant also made a lot
Speaker 1: of plays offensively down the stretch. He had an important
Speaker 1: three on the left wing. He had a driving left
Speaker 1: handed bank shot off the glass. He had a cut
Speaker 1: out of the weak side corner for a dunk. I
Speaker 1: think the Grant Williams thing can work, he just has
Speaker 1: to do a better job. I also want to defend
Speaker 1: him on the trash talk front, like, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's obviously not a good look when you talk trash
Speaker 1: and get your ass kicked and then the other guy
Speaker 1: gets to have a moment at your expense. But let's
Speaker 1: be honest here, Like Jimmy Butler has been torching the
Speaker 1: entire league, regardless of who's who he's been up against,
Speaker 1: for this entire month and a half, right, So I
Speaker 1: don't think it's fair to be like, oh, Grant Williams
Speaker 1: set Jimmy Butler off. It's like the heat have been
Speaker 1: killing everybody in fourth quarters all season exactly like that,
Speaker 1: so or at least all postseason. So I I again
Speaker 1: should I'm I'm not a huge fan of trash talk
Speaker 1: because I think it can be a distraction sometimes. I
Speaker 1: didn't think it was a distraction in this game. Really,
Speaker 1: just Grant just has to do a better job defensively,
Speaker 1: be more physical, use your size. Grant was a really
Speaker 1: good defender on Giannis in last year's postseason run, in
Speaker 1: large part because he was holding his ground with physicality.
Speaker 1: So that's the next step there. But classic Jimmy Butler.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get into the weeds of it again
Speaker 1: because we've done it like six times this postseason. But
Speaker 1: it's just classic Minnie Lebron, Right, just picking on matchups,
Speaker 1: getting to his for little short shots. Oh you sent
Speaker 1: a double team. Here's the kickout. Although they left him
Speaker 1: on an island for most of this game, and that's
Speaker 1: been one of the biggest issues. We're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: Spolster's defensive scheme here in a few minutes. And you know,
Speaker 1: spols just trying everything to get stops right, and I
Speaker 1: keep seeing Jimmy Butler operating on an island and they've
Speaker 1: just got to figure out something they've got. And a
Speaker 1: lot of the problem is that they keep clearing the side,
Speaker 1: like really clearing the side for Jimmy to go to work.
Speaker 1: And one of the advantages there is when there's three
Speaker 1: shooters on the weak side. So if I got a
Speaker 1: shooter in the corner, shooter on like the high corner,
Speaker 1: and then a shooter on the wing, and then Bam
Speaker 1: is kind of operating in that you know, dunker spot
Speaker 1: slash kind of rotate to the top of the or
Speaker 1: to like the semi circle, so you can catch and
Speaker 1: finish in the short part of the paint, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's an easy rotation on the weak side. So if
Speaker 1: you bring an extra defender over to help Jimmy because
Speaker 1: they're clearing the whole damn. Then those three shooters on
Speaker 1: the weak side are so close to each other that
Speaker 1: you can rotate out of it. But like they've got
Speaker 1: to try something different because the whole leaving Jimmy on
Speaker 1: an island thing is getting him cooked. That's not Bam
Speaker 1: at a bio is incredible. Down the stretch of this game.
Speaker 1: He had a key driving bank shot on Robert Williams.
Speaker 1: He had another one where he posted up on Al
Speaker 1: Horford and drew a foul, really did a bunch of
Speaker 1: damage to Al Horford. I was watching the game with
Speaker 1: my wife on the couch this morning, and we were
Speaker 1: just having some coffee together, and I see Gabe Vincent
Speaker 1: miss a three on the right wing and Al Horford
Speaker 1: like turns to box out, turns to box out. Bam
Speaker 1: had a bio and kind of just like stands next
Speaker 1: to him with his arms spread, doesn't actually hit him,
Speaker 1: just stands next to him, and the ball comes carrying
Speaker 1: off the back rim and because he didn't dislodge Bam
Speaker 1: at all, Bam just reaches over the top and grabs
Speaker 1: the rebound, and so I pause it. And a lot
Speaker 1: of the things that I'm saying to you guys, when
Speaker 1: my wife is sitting next to me, I'll be like, honey,
Speaker 1: look at this, like like he didn't hit him, he's
Speaker 1: got a hit him, you know. And I was literally
Speaker 1: telling her on the couch, I'm like, it's a playoff game,
Speaker 1: Like you can hit him and it's not gonna be
Speaker 1: a foul. Like you've gotta be physical in these situations.
Speaker 1: Very next possession, off the offensive rebound, they working around.
Speaker 1: I think Jimmy Butler ends up taking another short fade
Speaker 1: away on the right block, and on the possession, Al
Speaker 1: Horford turns again and just kind of puts his arms
Speaker 1: out like he's gonna box out Bam at a bio
Speaker 1: and Bam just hits him with a swim move and
Speaker 1: just throws him to the side, gets the basketball, he
Speaker 1: goes up and dunks it with two hands, and again
Speaker 1: like technically that's a foul. But the point is, it's
Speaker 1: the playoffs. It's the playoffs, and one team is bringing
Speaker 1: this ferocious physicality to try to win the damn game,
Speaker 1: and the other team is giving ground, whether it's Grant
Speaker 1: Williams giving ground on Jimmy Butler drives, or it's Al
Speaker 1: Horford giving ground to Bam at a bio instead of
Speaker 1: embracing it for what it is, which is a fist fight.
Speaker 1: And those two matchups, Jimmy killing Grant and Bam torching
Speaker 1: Al Horford on the offensive glass ended up being the
Speaker 1: things that killed them at the end to the game.
Speaker 1: Now again with the the defensive scheme, like I said,
Speaker 1: on the Boston front, pretty Vanilla, go to the other
Speaker 1: end of the floor. Eric Spolser runs zero zone in
Speaker 1: the first quarter, he runs eleven possessions of zone in
Speaker 1: the second quarter, he runs zero possessions of zone in
Speaker 1: the third quarter, then he runs nineteen possessions of his
Speaker 1: two three zone in the fourth quarter. And again that's
Speaker 1: the key of rhythm disruption in preventing a large sample
Speaker 1: size to give Boston a chance to solve the zone. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's the thing is, you get into a rhythm and
Speaker 1: a flow, you're playing well. In the third quarter, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, we're up eleven, everything's looking good. Here
Speaker 1: comes the zone and it just completely breaks the rhythm
Speaker 1: and puts Boston into a lot of their worst tendencies
Speaker 1: and specifically against zone. Boston can go through these long,
Speaker 1: extended droughts and Miami Zone is pretty interesting because I
Speaker 1: there was one play in particular that I kind of
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call out to kind of teach exactly what
Speaker 1: makes the zone a lot different from other zones. It's
Speaker 1: a very aggressive zone in passing lanes, and they treat
Speaker 1: their traditional two to three spots as basically the spot
Speaker 1: they rotate to as soon as things kind of break down.
Speaker 1: So there's a possession where Grant Williams ends up kind
Speaker 1: of attacking Bam at a bio right in the paint
Speaker 1: on an island. Pump fakes, gets into his body and
Speaker 1: misses like a short little floater. That play started with
Speaker 1: a Jason Tatum pick and roll on the left wing,
Speaker 1: and in the pick and roll they actually bring Grant
Speaker 1: and one other guy up I can't remember, but Al
Speaker 1: Horford is in the left corner right, so in the zone,
Speaker 1: Bam is just outside the paint on the left block
Speaker 1: so that he doesn't get a defensive three second, but
Speaker 1: he's technically the bottom guy in the zone. Al Horford's
Speaker 1: actually open. Jimmy Butler comes way up, so all the
Speaker 1: Heat players in the top of the zone, the two
Speaker 1: guys in the top and Jimmy Butler on the right
Speaker 1: wing are way up on this Jason Tatum pick and
Speaker 1: roll basically like guarding it three on three out there
Speaker 1: right and that they're taking that away because you know,
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum's trying to get to that pull up three
Speaker 1: that he likes to take. So as a result, Grant
Speaker 1: Williams kind of finds a soft spot right behind and
Speaker 1: Tatum throws the pass to Grant Williams kind of leading
Speaker 1: him towards the rim. The all three guys just immediately
Speaker 1: rotate where they're supposed to go. Gay Vincent just flashes
Speaker 1: back to the top to the shooter, Jimmy Butler just
Speaker 1: rotates back to Al Horford and the corner on the shooter,
Speaker 1: and Bamana Bayo's just right there on Grant on the catch.
Speaker 1: Whereas like if Jason Tatum makes that swing pass to
Speaker 1: the corner to Al Horford, baman A Baio's there and
Speaker 1: can rotate. Their their rotations are just so damn sharp,
Speaker 1: and like just like that, they just snap back and
Speaker 1: they're into their positions and all of those openings are gone,
Speaker 1: and now you end up with Grant Williams isolating baman
Speaker 1: A Baio under the basket. It did a ton of
Speaker 1: damage to Boston's offensive confidence. Down the stretch of that game,
Speaker 1: Boston scores just zero point seven points per possession against
Speaker 1: Miami's zone. And then all the classic late game execution
Speaker 1: stuff that you've grown to expect from the Boston Celtics
Speaker 1: came to the surface down the stretch of this game.
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown in the middle of the fourth quarter a crazy,
Speaker 1: out of control spinning drive into traffic, into four bodies
Speaker 1: and misses like a floater off the back rim. Then
Speaker 1: there was a possession where he gets an offensive rebound
Speaker 1: on a I think Grant William shoots at three in
Speaker 1: the corner, gets an offensive rebound surrounded by four bodies.
Speaker 1: Tatum is standing wide open. I think Horford was wide
Speaker 1: open in the left corner too. He tries to shoot
Speaker 1: over four bodies underneath the basket, predictably gets blocked. Tatum
Speaker 1: and all them are like, dude, swing the ball out.
Speaker 1: Then it was when it was one oh three, one hundred,
Speaker 1: with like nineteen seconds on the shot clock, despite being
Speaker 1: way off with his jump shot all game, just elevates
Speaker 1: into a three early clock on the right wing, instead
Speaker 1: of trying to work it around to get something better
Speaker 1: to a shooter that's in a better rhythm. You know.
Speaker 1: Uh that game for Jalen Brown, he was seven for
Speaker 1: twenty three from the fet It kind of reminded me.
Speaker 1: I call him like trying to smash your head through
Speaker 1: a brick wall. It's kind of like this idea where
Speaker 1: nothing's working and rather than trying to do something else
Speaker 1: to impact winning, you just keep trying the same shit
Speaker 1: that's not working. And it's like, dude, your your floaters
Speaker 1: are off, your jumpers off, like you gotta try something different,
Speaker 1: and instead it was just more of the same down
Speaker 1: the stretch of the game. It's it's it's it's just
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that is an execution error that
Speaker 1: can cost you a game. There was that weird play
Speaker 1: where they just simply fumbled the ball away. I can't
Speaker 1: remember who it was, but through a pasting Marcus Smart
Speaker 1: on the kind of like right wing extended, he just
Speaker 1: fumbles the ball away. There's the Tatum charge at the
Speaker 1: end of the game. Jason Tatum driving down the down
Speaker 1: the lane line on the right side of the floor
Speaker 1: and Max Strus helps out of the strong side corner
Speaker 1: and Jalen Brown is wide open on the wing. Malcolm
Speaker 1: Brogden is completely unguarded on the left wing. I posted
Speaker 1: a freeze frame as Tatum is driving down the lane
Speaker 1: on my Twitter feed. You'll see it, and you just
Speaker 1: see Malcolm Brogden standing there with his arms up and
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown standing with his hands ready in the corner,
Speaker 1: and rather than making that kickout, Jason Tatum just runs
Speaker 1: into the lane and commits an offensive foul. You know,
Speaker 1: I know it's cliche, but basketball games are won on
Speaker 1: the margins, and this is a huge part of why
Speaker 1: I you know, this was a huge thing that we
Speaker 1: talked about during the Golden State Warriors Boston Celtics series
Speaker 1: last year. You know, your your fun, your talent might
Speaker 1: manifest as a half court points per possession on both
Speaker 1: ends of the floor over a massive sample size, Right, Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this team has got, you know, significantly more firepower. So
Speaker 1: if I give them five hundred possessions, they're going to
Speaker 1: score more points. Right, But basketball games often come down
Speaker 1: to a small handful of possessions, and when it's one
Speaker 1: hundred to ninety six with four minutes left, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if Boston has more talent if Miami values every
Speaker 1: possession and Boston does not. If Miami on every single
Speaker 1: possession is getting their best player to a good spot
Speaker 1: on the floor and a shot that he knows he
Speaker 1: can make half the time, that's a possession that they
Speaker 1: can reliably get one point per possession, right, and then
Speaker 1: Bam is gonna gift wrap you three or four extra
Speaker 1: possessions just working his butt off on the offensive glass
Speaker 1: or one of the other guards will, So not only
Speaker 1: do they value possessions, but they generate extra possessions. Then
Speaker 1: on the other end of the floor, Boston's just casually
Speaker 1: throwing possessions away with poor shot selection, turnovers, lack of
Speaker 1: attention to detail, forcing things in traffic, all these different things.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, honestly, this series has been such
Speaker 1: just such a great example of like everything that coaches preach,
Speaker 1: you know, And I've been saying, I've been saying since
Speaker 1: during the regular season, I think Eric Spolser is the
Speaker 1: best coach in the league. And the combination of what
Speaker 1: he's doing, with what Jimmy's doing, with what BAM has
Speaker 1: been so unbelievable good in this postseason, right, and then
Speaker 1: just timely contribution contributions from guys like Caleb Martin Gabe Vincent.
Speaker 1: Another massive step back jump shot just just shook Jason
Speaker 1: Tatum out of his shoes so bad that Tatum was
Speaker 1: looking at the ref like he wanted to push off. Dude,
Speaker 1: it's Gabe Vincent. Get a stop. You know the series
Speaker 1: is not over, but we'd all be foolish to pick
Speaker 1: Boston at this point. What has Boston shown you to
Speaker 1: make you think that they can come back and beat
Speaker 1: this team Four times out of five doesn't mean they can't,
Speaker 1: But what have they shown you? And it could get
Speaker 1: like Boston's got some weird chemistry stuff, right, Like Jaylen
Speaker 1: Brown's been saying weird stuff all the time. There's bad
Speaker 1: body language on the court there. Stuff going down two
Speaker 1: at home is just gonna cause a lot of that
Speaker 1: stuff to boil to the surface too. Now, Boston is
Speaker 1: four and two on the road this postseason, so they
Speaker 1: tend to play a little more loose. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's the lack of pressure from the home crowd
Speaker 1: or what the deal is, but they tend to play
Speaker 1: a little more loose and a little better on the road.
Speaker 1: So maybe that gets them back going. But there's some
Speaker 1: cerious trouble man, and and this I'm having so much
Speaker 1: fun just as because it just as a nerd about
Speaker 1: basketball the way that I am, especially when it comes
Speaker 1: to the details of winning games. I'm having so much
Speaker 1: fun just watching the way that Miami is going about
Speaker 1: this playoff run. And i'm i'm, i'm, I find myself
Speaker 1: rooting for them pretty hard at this point. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: that is all I have for right now. We will
Speaker 1: be back later tonight after the final buzzer of Lakers
Speaker 1: Nuggets Game three. I will see you guys. Then the
Speaker 1: volume