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Speaker 2: see dkang dot co slash audio. All right, Wildred Hoops tonight,
Speaker 2: you're at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody. Hope all you
Speaker 2: guys are having a great start to your week. While
Speaker 2: the NBA Playoffs just delivered us an unbelievable night with
Speaker 2: two completely absurd games as the Knicks go down twenty
Speaker 2: in the second half and come all the way back
Speaker 2: to beat the Celtics in overtime, riding a fifty three
Speaker 2: to thirty run with some really interesting basketball on both
Speaker 2: ends of the floor. And then our nightcap, the Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City Thunder throw a fantastic punch against the den Nuggets,
Speaker 2: showing so much of what has made them so good
Speaker 2: all season long. But all night long, the Nuggets just
Speaker 2: kept scoring the basketball and keeping things close, and then
Speaker 2: at the end of the game, scoring every single time
Speaker 2: down the floor as they methodically work their way into
Speaker 2: one of the most outrageous thefts that I can remember
Speaker 2: in my time as an NBA fan, I was getting
Speaker 2: ready to come out of that game thing and oh
Speaker 2: a lot of encouraging stuff for Denver, but obviously they're
Speaker 2: gonna lose this game. Now Denver's up one to zero
Speaker 2: in the series has a completely different feel. We're gonna
Speaker 2: be breaking down both games from the perspective of both teams.
Speaker 2: You guys know the jope before we get started. To
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Speaker 2: It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and
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Speaker 2: sure you guys follow us there. In the last but
Speaker 2: not least, keep dropping mail back questions and those YouTube comments.
Speaker 2: We will also when we are done here tonight, we
Speaker 2: will be heading over to playback. On Playback. We have
Speaker 2: callers up on stage, we take questions from the chat,
Speaker 2: we watch film. We just hang out and talked basketball
Speaker 2: for an extra forty five minutes at the end of
Speaker 2: each show. So make sure Ei there's a link in
Speaker 2: the description here. Make sure when we're done here, you
Speaker 2: guys follow us over to playback for the after show. So,
Speaker 2: as I said before the series, I didn't pick the
Speaker 2: Nuggets to win. I picked the Thunder to win. The
Speaker 2: Thunder were a minus seven hundred favorite. I thought that
Speaker 2: was a little too extreme. I said that that should
Speaker 2: be somewhere more around the minus three hundred minus three
Speaker 2: to fifty side of things, in that Oklahoma City is
Speaker 2: clearly the better team. They are healthy and more well rested,
Speaker 2: They have home court advantage. They demonstrated a lot of
Speaker 2: things this year that show them as one of the
Speaker 2: great teams in NBA history. Everything you heard about Boston
Speaker 2: last year, the Thunder were basically a better version of
Speaker 2: that this year, playing against a substantially tougher schedule. This
Speaker 2: is a very, very very good team. But one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why I anticipated it being a closer series,
Speaker 2: a series where Denver would win multiple games, centered around
Speaker 2: the fact that Denver scored against these guys in the
Speaker 2: regular season. And this is the beautiful thing about having
Speaker 2: Nikola Jokich. We've been talking so much on the show
Speaker 2: over the course of the last week about the concept
Speaker 2: of superstar players and how valuable they are in the
Speaker 2: NBA playoffs, and how there's been kind of a new
Speaker 2: light that's been shined on depth of role player talent.
Speaker 2: And while I've always felt that that's important, and yeah,
Speaker 2: you could argue that as the league has become more
Speaker 2: transition based and there's more possessions and there's a lot
Speaker 2: more advanced defensive schemes that force your stars to give
Speaker 2: up the ball, that yes, having a depth of talent
Speaker 2: is more important than it used to be. But ultimately,
Speaker 2: time and time again, I saw in the first round
Speaker 2: it was the stars that were doing the heavy lifting.
Speaker 2: You want to know why Denver beat the Clippers even
Speaker 2: though everybody, including myself beat the Clippers because Jokicic was
Speaker 2: so much better than James Harden and Kawhi Leonard was.
Speaker 2: You want to know why Jalen Brunson was able to
Speaker 2: dispend the Pistons because he specifically outplayed Ky down the
Speaker 2: stretch of those games, Anthony Edwards out playing Luca Steph,
Speaker 2: out playing Fred van Vliet, and Outprinshangun. I can go
Speaker 2: down the line over and over again the stars ultimately
Speaker 2: are the one guy on the floor that has the
Speaker 2: ability to transcend all the surrounding circumstances and to get
Speaker 2: the job done. Nikole Joakis just played one of the
Speaker 2: best playoff games you'll ever see a player play forty
Speaker 2: two points, twenty two rebounds, six assists. He was getting
Speaker 2: absolutely mauled all over the place. Oklahoma City threw an
Speaker 2: excellent defensive punch in this game, really catching the Nuggets
Speaker 2: off guard with their ball pursuit, specifically when guys would
Speaker 2: turn their head. Turnovers and getting out in transition off
Speaker 2: of turnovers was a huge part of this specific game.
Speaker 2: That was actually one of the big ways that Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City built as much margin as they did throughout the game.
Speaker 2: In the half court, both teams actually struggled to score
Speaker 2: relative to their typical efficiency. Oklahoma City logged in eighty
Speaker 2: seven offensive rating in the half court. That's pretty low.
Speaker 2: Denver logged in eighty three offensive rating in the half court.
Speaker 2: That's pretty low. They were able to control things with
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City and their offense when they were in the
Speaker 2: half court. There was just the turnovers and the getting
Speaker 2: out in transition over and over and over again. But
Speaker 2: one of the things that started to come to fruition
Speaker 2: towards the tail end of the game was Denver stopped
Speaker 2: turning the ball over and their offense can generate quality
Speaker 2: shots against this team. And one of the things is
Speaker 2: if you've got an elite unit, if you've got one
Speaker 2: singular thing that you do as a basketball team that
Speaker 2: the other team can't handle, then you will have stretches
Speaker 2: of games where you're in control. And every time Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City built that lead up to twelve, thirteen, fourteen points,
Speaker 2: the Nuggets would score two three times in a row
Speaker 2: and get the lead back down to six or seven points.
Speaker 2: When you watch this game, yeah, there were guys who contributed. Obviously,
Speaker 2: Aaron Gordon hits the shot of a light time in
Speaker 2: his second game winner in this playoff run. He's having
Speaker 2: what hell of a playoff run. You have Russell Westbrook
Speaker 2: in his first shift doing all the work that he
Speaker 2: was doing on the ball. Jamal hit a couple of
Speaker 2: big shots in this game, but over and over again,
Speaker 2: it was Nicola Jokic who was the superpower. He was
Speaker 2: the guy that no matter what Oklahoma City did, no
Speaker 2: matter how many bodies they threw at him, how many
Speaker 2: times in that crunch time. Did you see him literally
Speaker 2: rumble down the lane against like three four different Thunder
Speaker 2: defenders on one single possession and just work his way
Speaker 2: through them and get to where he needed to go.
Speaker 2: Just an unbelievable performance from Nikola Jokic in this particular game,
Speaker 2: like the sheer degree of difficulty. You're watching lou Dord
Speaker 2: every time he gets a switch, just chucking him like
Speaker 2: he's a football, sled at the foul line, getting hacked
Speaker 2: and grabbed chet. Holmgren did a wonderful job in this
Speaker 2: game of bringing physicality to Joki, especially early, and that
Speaker 2: caused him a lot of problems. Throughout the game, Denver
Speaker 2: was struggling as as they turned their head, whether it
Speaker 2: was Alex Crusoe or someone else, someone would come flying
Speaker 2: in from behind and poke the ball away or block
Speaker 2: the shot from behind. Denver's gonna have a lot of
Speaker 2: opportunity to look at tape and see opportunities or they
Speaker 2: just weren't prepared for the things that Oklahoma City did defensively.
Speaker 2: But ultimately, in the third quarter, Denver scored thirty five points.
Speaker 2: In the fourth quarter, Denver scored thirty one points, sixty
Speaker 2: six points on the road against the best defense not
Speaker 2: just in this individual season, but relative to NBA history
Speaker 2: in the rest of the league's defensive ratings. This is
Speaker 2: an all time great defense that Oklahoma City has statistically,
Speaker 2: and Denver is able to score against them. If you
Speaker 2: take anything away from this game and look, the series
Speaker 2: now has a very different feel now right the series.
Speaker 2: Once you steal home court advantage, Denver is in a
Speaker 2: substantially better position to try to steal this series. I
Speaker 2: never overreact to Game one. I'm not going to change
Speaker 2: my pick or anything like that. But I went from
Speaker 2: feeling like this was a series where Denver might get
Speaker 2: a couple of games, maybe three games, to now Denver
Speaker 2: has a legitimate chance to win this series. By stealing
Speaker 2: Game one, they have changed the entire tone and tenor
Speaker 2: of this entire series. And it was Nicol Jokis time
Speaker 2: and time again just being the indomitable force on offense
Speaker 2: in a way that Oklahoma City simply could not match
Speaker 2: up with him. Forty two and twenty two. It's the
Speaker 2: seventh time in his career he's had a twenty twenty
Speaker 2: game in the playoffs. I just thought he was absolutely
Speaker 2: unbelievable tonight. I always talk about adversity in how it
Speaker 2: brings the absolute best out of basketball players, and I
Speaker 2: used to complain about this in the past, specifically with
Speaker 2: Kevin Durant when he went to the Warriors, back when
Speaker 2: I was a younger fan who was very upset about
Speaker 2: how my Lebron James led Cleveland Cavaliers were being basically
Speaker 2: put into a position where they couldn't win because the
Speaker 2: second best player, third best player in the league joined
Speaker 2: a seventy three win team. And I'm watching him, and
Speaker 2: I'm watching him win fifteen straight playoff games, and I'm
Speaker 2: watching KD get easy dunks driving down the lane while
Speaker 2: calves are running to Steph Curry on the left wing
Speaker 2: and transition, and I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 2: this is not the best basketball I've seen KD play,
Speaker 2: Because I've seen KD when the shit hits the fan,
Speaker 2: like twenty twenty one in Brooklyn against the Bucks. I've
Speaker 2: seen him rise to the occasion when the circumstances demanded
Speaker 2: more out of him than he had ever provided in
Speaker 2: his career, and he put together a game in that
Speaker 2: was a game five or Game six against the Bucks
Speaker 2: that was one of the best games you'll ever see
Speaker 2: a player play because the adversity brought it out of him.
Speaker 2: This was a game Jokicic was frustrated. He's frustrated with
Speaker 2: Michael Porter Junior is frustrated with the teams rebounding, frustrated
Speaker 2: with the mistakes that were being made. You could see
Speaker 2: him just like rubbing his temples during the game, like
Speaker 2: working his way through emotionally what he was dealing with
Speaker 2: as he's he just wants to win so badly, but
Speaker 2: he knows his team is just up against it. But
Speaker 2: he never gave up and just kept attacking and just
Speaker 2: kept getting buckets and kept generating offense, and as a result,
Speaker 2: he puts forth one of the craziest stat lines that
Speaker 2: you'll see in the history of the NBA Playoffs. I
Speaker 2: just was amazed by Nikola Jokic tonight. He deserves all
Speaker 2: the flowers that he's gonna get. He just single handedly
Speaker 2: superman backpacked a win for his team on a night
Speaker 2: when they were not playing well. Jamal Murray six six
Speaker 2: for sixteen, Michael Porter Junior won for eight. This was
Speaker 2: a game where he needed to do it all and
Speaker 2: he did, and he reached a level that we haven't
Speaker 2: seen in a very long time, and Denver gets out
Speaker 2: of here with a win. Lots of interesting stuff to
Speaker 2: look forward to in the series. You saw over the
Speaker 2: course of that of that second half that Denver was
Speaker 2: able to kind of pack the paint and gear Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City's shot selection towards weak side shots. Four guys like
Speaker 2: check home grin, four guys like Alex Caruso. Shout out
Speaker 2: to Alex Kruso. By the way, I thought this game
Speaker 2: winner from Aaron Gordon overshadowed one of the better role
Speaker 2: player games that you'll ever see. He had twenty points
Speaker 2: six rebound or excuse me, twenty points, six assists in
Speaker 2: five steals and was just an absolute wrecking ball from
Speaker 2: the minute he checked into the game, because Denver was
Speaker 2: kind of hanging tough. From the minute Alex checked into
Speaker 2: the game. He was just an absolute wrecking ball over
Speaker 2: and over again, knocking down catch and shoot threes. I
Speaker 2: thought it was interesting that Mark Dagenell actually started him
Speaker 2: in the second half. Mark Dagenel was coaching this like
Speaker 2: it was an important game he wanted to win. And
Speaker 2: by the way, I saw some criticism and I understand
Speaker 2: that after the fact, it's easy to just be like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: they should have done this, they should have done that.
Speaker 2: If they hit a game tying three and they go
Speaker 2: to overtime and lose, everyone's complaining that they didn't foul
Speaker 2: because they're up three. Like, I get it. There are
Speaker 2: some different circumstances, like there was one where Yokich was
Speaker 2: literally off the floor. But ultimately that scheme, that idea
Speaker 2: of fouling intentionally fouling down the stretch when you're up
Speaker 2: three works if you make your damn free throws. And
Speaker 2: so if there's an if there's any bit of criticism,
Speaker 2: it's that either Mark Degnel and the coaching staff did
Speaker 2: trust Chet and Chet just happened to miss a couple
Speaker 2: of free throws, or there needs to be an adjustment
Speaker 2: with your coaching staff based on the fact that you
Speaker 2: don't have the requisite free throw shooting on the floor
Speaker 2: to get away with that sort of situation. But there
Speaker 2: are problems that both teams can't handle in this matchup.
Speaker 2: I don't think that I don't think that Jamal Murray's
Speaker 2: gonna have a super efficient scoring series. He'll have a
Speaker 2: game or two in this series where he shoots the
Speaker 2: ball really well, probably in Denver where he has thirty
Speaker 2: something and you know, goes twelve for eighteen from the field,
Speaker 2: But like, this is a matchup that's going to be
Speaker 2: tough for him. I don't think Michael Porter Junior is
Speaker 2: going to have a really super efficient, high volume, hig
Speaker 2: efficiency scoring series because there's just so much athleticism on
Speaker 2: the floor for Okay, see, you can see Denver rushing
Speaker 2: a lot of these turnovers. One of the things that's
Speaker 2: happening is they are sped up. They are making mistakes
Speaker 2: in the open floor and getting swarmed and just not
Speaker 2: reading the play as it's developing around them. There's one
Speaker 2: problem that Oklahoma City cannot solve with Denver, and that's
Speaker 2: Nicola Jokic, and that problem is not going away. And
Speaker 2: that is the big reason why I predicted this to
Speaker 2: be a longer series. It stems from the simple fact
Speaker 2: that Jokic is going to be able to consistently and
Speaker 2: comfortably generate offense for this team, and they can do
Speaker 2: better than they did. They ended up turning the ball
Speaker 2: over eight times for twenty three points off of turnovers
Speaker 2: that can't be correct. The ESPN's website is really struggling
Speaker 2: with the statistics. I'll have to pull that up on
Speaker 2: a different I'll pull it up on playback later tonight.
Speaker 2: But they gave up a million points off of turnovers.
Speaker 2: It was the difference in the game, and that's stuff
Speaker 2: that they're going to have to clean up in game
Speaker 2: two if they want to have any sort of sustained
Speaker 2: success in this series. But you can see the pathway
Speaker 2: for Oklahoma City. The pathway for Oklahoma City is forcing
Speaker 2: those turnovers, getting out in transition in the half court,
Speaker 2: guys knocking down those threes on the weak side. Shay
Speaker 2: was able to get some clean looks in the middle
Speaker 2: of the floor against drop coverage late in the game,
Speaker 2: including drawing some fouls there. You did see some of
Speaker 2: the problem that Oklahoma City has on the defensive glass.
Speaker 2: They gave up a considerable i'mount of second chance opportunities,
Speaker 2: especially during that second half run that Denver was on.
Speaker 2: We're gonna get into this on a lot more detail
Speaker 2: in a film session tomorrow morning, but that was just
Speaker 2: an unbelievable wild game to start this series, and you
Speaker 2: got to see a lot of what both teams can
Speaker 2: do to make each other uncomfortable. Again, we will get
Speaker 2: deeper into that series later on tonight on playback. We'll
Speaker 2: do some more on film tomorrow morning. I want to
Speaker 2: get to Nick Celtics now for a little bit. I
Speaker 2: actually thought the Knicks came out and played a pretty
Speaker 2: quality game. Early they were competing on defense. Kat was
Speaker 2: in a great rhythm on offense. But then Kat got
Speaker 2: a couple of bullshit calls too that I didn't like.
Speaker 2: One on Tatum the textbook, like pump fake and then
Speaker 2: he leaves his feet kind of foul. But if you
Speaker 2: watch it, like there was still quite a bit of
Speaker 2: space between Kat and Tatum. Kat did not come up
Speaker 2: into his landing area at all and Tatum jumped way forward.
Speaker 2: I thought it was a bad call. And then there
Speaker 2: was another one where Jaln Brown was driving and Jalen
Speaker 2: Brown had been driving on Cat and like flopping almost
Speaker 2: every time he got into the basket area, just kind
Speaker 2: of flailing his arms and throwing up bad shots. And
Speaker 2: you finally ended up getting a call on one where
Speaker 2: if you watch Cat just like barely bumps him on
Speaker 2: the hip a little bit. And it's just in a
Speaker 2: series as physical as well, I should say, in the playoffs,
Speaker 2: as physical as this has been. The refs were very
Speaker 2: nitpicky in this particular game. But Cat gets a couple
Speaker 2: of fouls, he goes off the floor. Then Joe Mizzoula
Speaker 2: furthers the damage by smartly employ deploying a hacker Robinson's
Speaker 2: strategy in the second quarter. That helped the Celtics gain control.
Speaker 2: And then they went on a nice little burst to
Speaker 2: start the third quarter and they actually pushed the lead
Speaker 2: all the way up to twenty points. But from there
Speaker 2: all hell broke loose and we saw a lot of
Speaker 2: New York's upside and Boston's downside as the Knicks closed
Speaker 2: the game on a fifty three to thirty run to
Speaker 2: steal Game one. In overtime, it started with Ojan Andobi
Speaker 2: hitting a couple of threes, one on us skip past
Speaker 2: where Jalen Brown got caught with his back turned. He
Speaker 2: wasn't paying attention And by the way, that's going to
Speaker 2: be a recurring theme with Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum
Speaker 2: if you guys dig into the film on that. In
Speaker 2: that particular game, the other one was kind of a
Speaker 2: weird near turnover where the ball just kind of pinballed
Speaker 2: around and landed right No Gannobi's hands on the right
Speaker 2: wing and he knocked down at three. But it's two
Speaker 2: threes in like less than a minute. That cuts the
Speaker 2: lead all the way down from twenty to fourteen. And
Speaker 2: that changed the tone of the game. It just completely
Speaker 2: changed the way the game felt. It felt all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, like a more competitive game instead of a
Speaker 2: game that was teetering on a blowout. And from there,
Speaker 2: from that fourteen point lead, the Knicks just like flat
Speaker 2: out badly outplayed the Celtics. Boston played one of the
Speaker 2: dumbest halves of basketball I've seen them play in Tatum's
Speaker 2: entire tenure as a Celtic. We'll talk about that in
Speaker 2: a minute, but the Knicks played about as well as
Speaker 2: they could. Starting on defense. They did a lot more
Speaker 2: switching with Cat and Brunson. This is something we talked
Speaker 2: about in the series preview, trying to avoid the clear
Speaker 2: easy reads for Boston as you hedge and recover with
Speaker 2: Brunson or as you run some variation of a drop
Speaker 2: coverage with Cat, there is still some of that stuff
Speaker 2: mixed in, Like the Drew Holliday lay up that tied
Speaker 2: the game and send it to overtime was a textbook
Speaker 2: hedge and recover from Brunson or Drew just slipped out
Speaker 2: of it towards the basket. And that's one of those
Speaker 2: things where like I think New York needs to avoid
Speaker 2: those sequences as much as possible. Like Brunson did get
Speaker 2: stops against Tatum. And here's the thing. If Brunson gets
Speaker 2: on an island against Tatum and Tatum hits a fifteen
Speaker 2: foot jump shot over him, or even if Tatum drives
Speaker 2: to the basket and gets a layup or drives to
Speaker 2: the basket and draws help there for a kickout for
Speaker 2: a three, at least you made Boston run good offense
Speaker 2: to get what they wanted. When you run those hedge
Speaker 2: and recover type of schemes or that high drop with
Speaker 2: Kat and you make it just like a simple passing
Speaker 2: read where Jalen Brown, excuse me, or Jason Tatum don't
Speaker 2: even have to put their head down and try to
Speaker 2: get closer to the basket. You're making their job too
Speaker 2: easy for them. But they did overall do more switching
Speaker 2: with Cat and Brunson down the stretch. They did after
Speaker 2: that layup for Drew that he got right to send
Speaker 2: the game to overtime. They did not hedge and recover
Speaker 2: with Brunson single time in overtime. They just tried switching.
Speaker 2: That's got to be their scheme moving forward. But that
Speaker 2: kind of prevented the easy stuff that Boston was getting
Speaker 2: just by simply bringing the ball off the floor and
Speaker 2: bringing Brunson into action. But the rest of the defense
Speaker 2: is where I want to call attention to o g Anobi,
Speaker 2: Josh Hart, and Michale Bridges. Those guys were put in
Speaker 2: a lot of help and recover situations because of the
Speaker 2: fact that Kat and Brunson were getting attacked in space.
Speaker 2: For example, Brunson got caught on a Horford post up
Speaker 2: late in the game on the block, or Tatum had
Speaker 2: Cat on a switch in overtime where he got dribble
Speaker 2: penetration towards the right like got cleanly beat Cat off
Speaker 2: the dribble off the top of the key. That stuff's
Speaker 2: gonna happen when you switch with Brunson and Cat. So
Speaker 2: those three guys were constantly asked to help and recover
Speaker 2: to shooters to dig down, get back out, and those
Speaker 2: guys did a great job of rushing Boston's shooters off
Speaker 2: of their spots. I tweeted out four examples on my
Speaker 2: Twitter feed. You guys can find it at unders or
Speaker 2: Jason lt We'll get into more examples when we get
Speaker 2: into playback later tonight. But those guys were great, and
Speaker 2: they didn't just chase guys off the three point line.
Speaker 2: They also forced a bunch of turnovers and then they
Speaker 2: were flying up the floor in transition. Off of those
Speaker 2: misses and turnovers, the Knicks held the Celtics to a
Speaker 2: sixty four offensive rating in the half court in the
Speaker 2: second half of this game, sixty four. Again, Boston's process
Speaker 2: played a big role. We'll talk about that a little bit,
Speaker 2: but the Knicks deserves some credit. And then on offense,
Speaker 2: ognn Ob was incredible obviously beginning the run with those
Speaker 2: two threes, but he also hit a step back three
Speaker 2: over Luke Cornette that cut the lead to one. He
Speaker 2: his transition runouts were big. He had a runout dunk
Speaker 2: off of a steal. He had another dunk in transition
Speaker 2: in overtime where he kind of snuck behind Jason Tatum.
Speaker 2: Another example of one of the Jays just being lazy
Speaker 2: off ball as he let og just cut right behind him.
Speaker 2: McHale Bridges hit a huge kickout three in the left
Speaker 2: corner on another play where Jaylen Brown was sleeping and
Speaker 2: not paying attention off ball and left McHale open. But
Speaker 2: it was a huge for McHale after he had struggled
Speaker 2: all night. And then Kat who had a rough night
Speaker 2: after he had his foul trouble, had two big offensive
Speaker 2: rebound putbacks during the Knicks run, including a tap in
Speaker 2: over Tatum in overtime. That was a big deal. Once again,
Speaker 2: Tatum not doing his job off ball. He was a
Speaker 2: really non physical box out and just catches went right
Speaker 2: over the top of him and tapped it in. The
Speaker 2: Jays were just they were every bit as bad on
Speaker 2: defense and off ball in general as they were on
Speaker 2: offense down the stretch of this game. That was a
Speaker 2: whole other thing. But I thought the obvious storyline for
Speaker 2: the Knicks and something that you can take ahead towards
Speaker 2: Game two in the series was the work that Brunson
Speaker 2: did on Al Horford. We talked about this in the
Speaker 2: series preview. It really started to show in their last
Speaker 2: regular season matchup, where Brunson was doing most of his
Speaker 2: damage versus Porzingis Brunston feels comfortable against Boston's bigs. That's
Speaker 2: where he gets good shots, and he was able to
Speaker 2: hit a couple of threes over Horford and then start
Speaker 2: to draw double teams. Boston tried a bunch of different things.
Speaker 2: They tried pre switching, like a different guy instead of
Speaker 2: Horford up to the screen with the screener, and New
Speaker 2: York was just really good about quickly switching their screener
Speaker 2: so the screeners would identify like, oh, this guy's pre switching,
Speaker 2: and now Horford's switching on to me. That means I
Speaker 2: need to run up and set the screen. They were
Speaker 2: just relentless of getting at getting Horford back up into
Speaker 2: the action. Drew was really hesitant to give up that switch,
Speaker 2: so Brunson was actually able to beat him rejecting the
Speaker 2: screen once. That was a big kickout three to og
Speaker 2: And and ob in the left corner. I think that was
Speaker 2: the one that put them up one ninety eight towards
Speaker 2: the end of regulation. He just rejected the screen against
Speaker 2: Drew and got right downhill. But that's something that is
Speaker 2: legitimately valuable to take forward for the Knicks, Like it's
Speaker 2: abundantly clear that if the Knicks can get into a
Speaker 2: close game, late against the Celtics. They have a good
Speaker 2: chance to win that game. Last night on playback, I
Speaker 2: apo apologize if I'm misremembering the name. I believe his
Speaker 2: name was Matthew, but it was a Celtics fan who
Speaker 2: came on the show and he talked about Tatum's inconsistency
Speaker 2: as a jump shooter, which he asked me if I
Speaker 2: thought Tatum would keep hitting shots, and I said he would,
Speaker 2: and clearly he did not tonight, so I'm sure he's
Speaker 2: been thinking about that. But the second piece was he
Speaker 2: talked about the idea that he thought Jalen Brunson was
Speaker 2: a better basketball player than Jason Tatum and that it
Speaker 2: could be a problem in late game situations. I disagreed
Speaker 2: with him, based on the premise that Tatum is just
Speaker 2: so much more versatile with all the other little things
Speaker 2: that he can do. But one of the things that
Speaker 2: I did say is I was like, Yeah, if it's
Speaker 2: like three minutes left and the entire game is going
Speaker 2: to come down to like six offensive possessions for either
Speaker 2: team and the game is tied, I absolutely think that
Speaker 2: Jalen Brunson is a better late game crunch time score.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's arguably the best at it in the NBA,
Speaker 2: because time and time and time again in this playoff run,
Speaker 2: he just keeps coming through for his team in the
Speaker 2: final minutes. And so if there's one thing that Jalen
Speaker 2: Brunson can be the best player in the series with,
Speaker 2: it's these sorts of late game sequences, and that came
Speaker 2: to fruition in Game one tonight. But the bottom line
Speaker 2: is Boston is talent enough to avoid that situation entirely.
Speaker 2: They should be able to build multiple twenty point leads
Speaker 2: in this series and not have to worry about out
Speaker 2: executing Brunson down the stretch. And this is where we
Speaker 2: have to talk about their offense now before we get
Speaker 2: any further. The Celtics absolutely had an uncharacteristically poor shooting night.
Speaker 2: They generated twenty five unguarded catch and shoot threes and
Speaker 2: made seven of them. They're obviously going to shoot much
Speaker 2: better on those throughout the rest of the series. But
Speaker 2: they also took seventy one jump shots in this game
Speaker 2: out of the ninety seven field goal attempts that they had,
Speaker 2: So if you do the math, that means they took
Speaker 2: forty six guarded catch and shoot jumpers or off the
Speaker 2: dribble jumpers, and it looked every bit that bad on tape.
Speaker 2: Drew Holliday took a few of the worst threes I've
Speaker 2: ever seen a player take. He took this one in
Speaker 2: the left corner off of like an offensive rebound where
Speaker 2: it got kicked out to him and he had to
Speaker 2: turn his body and he was contested and he was
Speaker 2: leaning out of bounds and there was a defender in
Speaker 2: his face with like fourteen on the shot clock that
Speaker 2: he took. Derek White took like a super rushed catch
Speaker 2: and shoot off of a swing pass against a contestant
Speaker 2: transition out of the left corner. There were so many examples.
Speaker 2: Jayleen Brown took a really bad catch and shoot three
Speaker 2: off of a swing pass from Tatum with like ten
Speaker 2: seconds on the shot clock in overtime. There were just
Speaker 2: so many examples of just really really bad shots. But
Speaker 2: I want to focus on Jason Tatum here because he's
Speaker 2: the leader of this team, and this is a player
Speaker 2: that I've spoken very highly of this year as i've
Speaker 2: as I think he's taken a leap in a couple
Speaker 2: of key areas as a shot maker and as a
Speaker 2: half court surgeon. Emphasis on that last part, the half
Speaker 2: court decision maker. He's the leader of this team, and
Speaker 2: I thought he was absolutely awful. He was the leader
Speaker 2: on the floor. He was the guy on the floor
Speaker 2: during the beginning of the Knicks run. There was a
Speaker 2: stretch to end the third quarter. I rewatched the entire
Speaker 2: second half during the commercial breaks of that Denver, Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City game. There was a stretch to end the third
Speaker 2: quarter where on their last ten possessions, in seven of
Speaker 2: those possessions, the Celtics never even got the ball inside
Speaker 2: the three point line, not the paint, not like to
Speaker 2: the rim, to the three point line. They never got
Speaker 2: the ball inside the three point line on seven of
Speaker 2: their last ten possessions. And some of those threes went in,
Speaker 2: which is why you know it's fools gold. It was
Speaker 2: just them passing the ball around and just taking bad shots,
Speaker 2: and some of them went in. But on the other
Speaker 2: three where Tatum actually looked to drives, two where Tatum
Speaker 2: looked to drive, and one where Pritchard looked to drive.
Speaker 2: On the ones where Tatum looked to drive, they generated
Speaker 2: wide open catching two threes. In the fourth quarter, over
Speaker 2: and over again. Versus switches, Tatum settled for garbage pull
Speaker 2: up jump shots, even though his shot was clearly off,
Speaker 2: like they were bricks. Guys, they were outside the rim misses.
Speaker 2: Some of them went off the backboard first. These were
Speaker 2: not like he's this close and the next one's going
Speaker 2: to go in. He was clearly out of rhythm and
Speaker 2: he just kept taking bad shots. He did not do
Speaker 2: his job. His job is to control the flow of
Speaker 2: the offense to make sure they're getting the right shots. Again,
Speaker 2: we will take a closer look at Boston's offensive process
Speaker 2: on playback later tonight. But I have a message for
Speaker 2: the Celtics because I think they're playing with some fire here.
Speaker 2: I do think the Celtics had the best team in
Speaker 2: the NBA. They have the best combination of two way talent,
Speaker 2: meaning guys that can play on both ends of the
Speaker 2: floor at a high level superstar play. I think Tatum
Speaker 2: is a legitimate top tier superstar in a way that
Speaker 2: he wasn't in years past. An overall veteran playoff experience.
Speaker 2: These are all guys that have been in a ton
Speaker 2: of big games. Horford's been in a ton of big games.
Speaker 2: Drew Holliday has been in a ton of big games.
Speaker 2: Drew and Jason have been in a ton of big games.
Speaker 2: Derek White's been in a ton of big games. This
Speaker 2: is a savvy veteran playoff roster. But I have been consistent.
Speaker 2: Even though I think the Celtics are the best team
Speaker 2: in the league, I do not think this is an
Speaker 2: all time great team. I heard a lot of Celtics
Speaker 2: fans saying that I don't think they're all time great.
Speaker 2: I think they're just great. What that means is they
Speaker 2: are not so supremely talented that they can ease their
Speaker 2: way through this playoff run. Whoever wins in that Indiana
Speaker 2: Cleveland series, Indiana's playing at an insanely high level, and
Speaker 2: Cleveland had a bad night, but they were at an
Speaker 2: insanely high level in the first round. Whoever comes out
Speaker 2: of that team that series is going to be a
Speaker 2: substantially better team than anybody Boston played in the Eastern
Speaker 2: Conference last year in Oklahoma City literally won sixty eight games.
Speaker 2: This year, they're a better version of what you were
Speaker 2: last year against a better schedule. They are amazing, and
Speaker 2: they are likely going to be waiting for you when
Speaker 2: you get out. They are substantially better than anyone you
Speaker 2: faced last year. Including Dallas. The Celtics need to wake up.
Speaker 2: Tatum and Brown were both entirely too on, focused on
Speaker 2: both ends of the floor tonight, and then you juxtapose
Speaker 2: it with some of the other stars in the league
Speaker 2: who are literally coming for their crown. They need to
Speaker 2: feel the urgency of this situation here. This nixt series
Speaker 2: is another opportunity for them to polish things up, to
Speaker 2: prepare for the tougher challenges that are ahead of them,
Speaker 2: and instead they spent tonight practicing playing bad basketball. That's
Speaker 2: some of the worst they've looked in the last several seasons.
Speaker 2: Just not gonna be good enough. I'm looking for a
Speaker 2: major response game from the Celtics in Game two. They
Speaker 2: need to. They are just operating well below the level
Speaker 2: where they need to be in order to get this
Speaker 2: deal done. And man, I just I have I've put
Speaker 2: my vote of confidence behind this team, and I was so,
Speaker 2: so so disappointed in the way they played tonight. All right, guys,
Speaker 2: that's all we have for YouTube Tonight. We're gonna be
Speaker 2: heading over to playback to do some fan callers, also
Speaker 2: going to watch some film, just kind of hang out
Speaker 2: for a little while. Make sure you guys click the
Speaker 2: link in the description here. We'll see you guys over
Speaker 2: on playback here in just a few minutes. What's up, guys.
Speaker 2: As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
Speaker 2: OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
Speaker 2: if you guys would take a second and leave a
Speaker 2: rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys
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Speaker 2: do that, I'd really appreciate it.
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