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Speaker 1: hoops tonight. You're at the volume heavy Friday, everybody. If
Speaker 1: all of you guys have had a great week so far, well,
Speaker 1: we have real life NBA basketball today, a preseason game
Speaker 1: between the Boston Celtics and the Denver Nuggets and Abu Dabi.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be having an instant reaction to that game today,
Speaker 1: covering it from both teams, got a bunch of clips
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show you guys as well, and then we're
Speaker 1: gonna debut a brand new segment of the show that
Speaker 1: we're going to start with this particular episode, but we're
Speaker 1: gonna start doing regularly throughout this season. I want to
Speaker 1: try to incorporate more tape, and one of the ways
Speaker 1: we're gonna do that is I'm going to grab a
Speaker 1: small handful somewhere between like three to five of the
Speaker 1: most interesting plays that I saw in the previous night's games,
Speaker 1: and we're going to break them down. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: be like top plays like ESPN like highlights kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be more like plays that I find interesting
Speaker 1: where we can break down specific concepts. We're kind of
Speaker 1: work shopping some different names. We'll see you might be
Speaker 1: called something like Timp's Tape or Him's Top five, something
Speaker 1: like that, if you guys have any ideas dropping into comments.
Speaker 1: But we're going to be debuting that segment at the
Speaker 1: tail end of this show is like a little test front.
Speaker 1: We'll want you guys to let me know what you
Speaker 1: think of it as well. You guys know the drill
Speaker 1: before we get started. Subscribed to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels.
Speaker 1: You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at underscore JCNLT so you guys don't miss
Speaker 1: show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast speed where you
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Speaker 1: helpful fe Levia rating and a review on that front.
Speaker 1: The last, but not least, keep dropping mailback questions in
Speaker 1: the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout
Speaker 1: the rest of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1: So first of all, kind of big picture about the preseason.
Speaker 1: What can we take away from preseason games? First of all,
Speaker 1: you got to know what to expect in preseason. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be sloppy. A lot of teams have new players.
Speaker 1: A lot of teams are implementing new schemes or new
Speaker 1: players are picking up existing schemes on a new team.
Speaker 1: They've been away from each other for a while. A
Speaker 1: lot of these guys either playing in different situations for
Speaker 1: FIBA or just taking a break from basketball. There's also
Speaker 1: going to be some inconsistent effort. Right, It's impossible to
Speaker 1: fake urgency. And this is the least urgent kind of
Speaker 1: basketball for the starters. Yeah, there are guys at the
Speaker 1: tail end that are fighting for an opportunity to make
Speaker 1: the roster, but in terms of the starting units, you're
Speaker 1: going to see a little bit of a lack of urgency. Also,
Speaker 1: conditioning is it where it's supposed to be yet by
Speaker 1: the time you get to late October, So guys aren't
Speaker 1: going to play as hard. That's something that we should
Speaker 1: kind of expect, But there are things to look out for.
Speaker 1: If a team is playing super hard, to me, that's
Speaker 1: a strong indicator of an overall level of focus and
Speaker 1: just a level of urgency that the team has to
Speaker 1: try to develop good habits that will carry them through
Speaker 1: the regular season. That's a strong indicator. Serious basketball teams
Speaker 1: make a habit out of playing hard even when the
Speaker 1: stakes aren't there. So obviously that's an upside if you
Speaker 1: do see it. It's not the end of the world
Speaker 1: if you don't see it, but it is definitely an upside.
Speaker 1: You also can start to see some signs of the
Speaker 1: natural fit between players on some of these teams that
Speaker 1: have new guys, You're going to to see some guys
Speaker 1: that kind of naturally fit super well. You're gonna see
Speaker 1: some guys that kind of seem clunky. Right, Clunky's not
Speaker 1: a death sentence. It just means it takes a lot
Speaker 1: of repetition and time for it to work out. Right.
Speaker 1: Natural fit, though, is a positive sign. When you see
Speaker 1: things naturally make sense, that is usually a good indicator
Speaker 1: that it's going to continue to make sense. I'm a
Speaker 1: big believer in natural basketball fit, right. So in short,
Speaker 1: when it comes to preseason, I'm more kind of focused
Speaker 1: on the good that I'm focused on the bad, because
Speaker 1: bad things can get fixed. But good stuff that shows
Speaker 1: up good early in the season I tend to think
Speaker 1: is replicable. So again we're looking more for good and
Speaker 1: uh and just kind of being realistic about some of
Speaker 1: the bad you're gonna see in sloppy preseason basketball. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about this game. Both of these teams are established.
Speaker 1: Boston is more or less the same team from last year.
Speaker 1: Basically gonna have the same top eight guys, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be Tatum and Brown, it's gonna be White
Speaker 1: and Holiday, it's gonna be Porzingis, it's gonna be Horford,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be Pritchard, it's gonna be Hawserd. Those are
Speaker 1: like your core eight guys. Right, We're gonna see a
Speaker 1: lot of different kinds of guys playing more minutes in
Speaker 1: the early part of the season. With Porzingis being out,
Speaker 1: You're gonna see more Luke Cornett. You're gonna se some
Speaker 1: more nemus quota guys like that. Like, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: guys who end up playing more, But their core eight
Speaker 1: is the exact same team from last year. Denver has
Speaker 1: made one change to the starting lineup. Right, Christian Brown
Speaker 1: is in with the starters for con Davious Cabbo Pope,
Speaker 1: and then they've got a lot of turnover on their
Speaker 1: bench unit. The bench point guard is going from Reggie
Speaker 1: Jackson to Russell Westbrook. Right, Julian Strauther is the guy
Speaker 1: that's gonna hopefully kind of slide into that Christian Brown
Speaker 1: role as the backup too. Right, Dario Sarch getting the
Speaker 1: backup center minutes. I thought those looked pretty good too.
Speaker 1: Showed some of that like physical size in his ability
Speaker 1: to bully smaller players today. And then Peyton Watson is
Speaker 1: dealing with some hamstring discomfort, so Vlatco Contar ended up
Speaker 1: getting those minutes. So the bench unit looked kind of different,
Speaker 1: but overall, the Denver Nuggets are going to be at
Speaker 1: least playing the same style in the core lineup. The
Speaker 1: starting lineup is going to be playing the same style.
Speaker 1: So not a lot of like new quote unquote to
Speaker 1: get into for either of these teams. But I still
Speaker 1: want to talk about some of the stuff we saw
Speaker 1: so on the bus Boston front, it's just such a
Speaker 1: simple and effective brand of basketball. They play such easy offense, right,
Speaker 1: It's like, get initial advantage for somebody, which all that
Speaker 1: means is a close out. Right, defenders sprinting out at
Speaker 1: somebody at the three point line. From there, drive the
Speaker 1: close out from there, make a read, and then repeat
Speaker 1: that until you get a good look from three. They
Speaker 1: attempted thirty five threes in the first half. They didn't
Speaker 1: shoot particularly well, but it isn't hard for them to
Speaker 1: generate quality shots. And again, thirty five threes and a half,
Speaker 1: that's insane, and obviously, in terms of shot value per attempt,
Speaker 1: you're not going to do a whole lot better than
Speaker 1: generating that many threes. They do a lot of little
Speaker 1: things that make life easy for them. They ran a
Speaker 1: lot of three man action today, especially with the bench unit.
Speaker 1: A lot of stack pick and roll or Spain pick
Speaker 1: and roll with Peyton, Pritchard and Sam Hauser. All that
Speaker 1: is is just Pritchard's running the ball screen with Krne,
Speaker 1: but as Cornett is rolling, Howser comes up and sets
Speaker 1: a backscreen for him and then pops to the top
Speaker 1: of the keeps just really difficult to guard. I actually
Speaker 1: that there's an example of that play that made it
Speaker 1: into the Tim's tape segment at the tail end of
Speaker 1: the show that you guys will see. But a lot
Speaker 1: of like one of the things I saw today that
Speaker 1: was kind of interesting too is they ran more post
Speaker 1: split split action, meaning like they would post up usually
Speaker 1: one of the j's around the elbow, and then instead
Speaker 1: of like looking to just quick turn an ISO, they'd
Speaker 1: run action out of it. It's really easy for a
Speaker 1: post up player to be a passing folkrum because they're
Speaker 1: closer to the basket, they can kind of survey the floor,
Speaker 1: especially with their back to the basket, they can survey
Speaker 1: all of the perimeter movement and then you can run
Speaker 1: that sort of action, and it's difficult for the guys
Speaker 1: guarding those off ball action because as they're trying to
Speaker 1: see man and ball. They're looking in closer to the
Speaker 1: basket while trying to track people, and they got good
Speaker 1: looks off of split action, which is basically just imagine
Speaker 1: there's a guy who makes the post entry on the
Speaker 1: wing and then there's another guy that's one pass away
Speaker 1: further along above the break on the other side of
Speaker 1: the floor. After he makes the post entry, he'll screen
Speaker 1: for that guy, and that guy'll come over if if
Speaker 1: it's an opportunity to slip, he'll slip that action. It
Speaker 1: might be the opposite where like he'll the guy that's
Speaker 1: further away will screen for the guy who made the
Speaker 1: entry pass. And they got some good looks just out
Speaker 1: of running like split action, which I think is a
Speaker 1: nice little wrinkle for them to generate quality shots. Again,
Speaker 1: they just do a lot of little stuff to make
Speaker 1: things easier for them. On offense, another thing that I
Speaker 1: thought they did really well today they're corner crashes. They're
Speaker 1: really deliberate and consistent with when the shot goes up,
Speaker 1: the two guys that are in the corner sprinting in
Speaker 1: to get try to get an offensive rebound before getting back.
Speaker 1: In transition defense, especially the bench guys like Jaden Springer
Speaker 1: and Jordan Walsh did an amazing job of this. We
Speaker 1: talked earlier in the week when we did our Lakers
Speaker 1: video because JJ Redick has been specifically talking about this.
Speaker 1: But you can use corner crashes to generate extra possessions
Speaker 1: but still get back in transition as long as you
Speaker 1: have floor balance. So again, like, as long as you
Speaker 1: still have your two guys above break that can stop
Speaker 1: the ball and protect the basket, the two guys that
Speaker 1: are coming out of the corner can still get to
Speaker 1: the offensive glass before getting back in transition. There's actually
Speaker 1: an upside in the sense that a lot of times
Speaker 1: when guys stand still in the corner and the shot
Speaker 1: goes up, they take their first couple of steps like
Speaker 1: walking back or kind of drifting, and then finally when
Speaker 1: the transition possession starts, then they'll try to get ahead
Speaker 1: of steam and start sprinting back. When the shot goes up.
Speaker 1: If you crash out of the corner, I meaning both
Speaker 1: guys shots in the air, both guys are sprinting towards
Speaker 1: the kind of middle of the floor area. Again, you
Speaker 1: don't sprint towards the rim necessarily, you sprint into like
Speaker 1: between the semi circle and the restricted area and that
Speaker 1: little area about ten feet from the basket where when
Speaker 1: you get in there a long rebound coming off the rim,
Speaker 1: you have a chance to get right. But one of
Speaker 1: the upsides is you're already sprinting, so like as the
Speaker 1: shots up, you're sprinting. If the ball doesn't come to you,
Speaker 1: you just veer off and then sprint back. In transition defense,
Speaker 1: it's just a little way to generate margin, right, to
Speaker 1: get an advantage in the part of the game that
Speaker 1: is not the basic half court offense defense battle. It's
Speaker 1: like special teams in football. Right, It's like an area
Speaker 1: where you can generate margin, and getting offensive rebounds is
Speaker 1: a way to do that. Seventeen offensive rebounds for Boston today.
Speaker 1: Tatum's jump shot looks great. I'm gonna show you guys
Speaker 1: some clips here in a second. It looks super fluid,
Speaker 1: very smoothie at three out of seven. One of the
Speaker 1: things I talked about, Actually, let's just go look at
Speaker 1: the clip before we actually talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about it. Here's an example of off of an offensive
Speaker 1: rebound off of Jaylen Brown. Miss. I'm gonna fast forward
Speaker 1: a little bit. Ball gets worked back around. Watch how
Speaker 1: smooth and quick the release is smooth, quick, confident, nothing
Speaker 1: but the bottom. Here's another one off of a transition
Speaker 1: drop off, I think from Pritchard if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: Watch how quickly and smooth he transitions from catch into shot. Again,
Speaker 1: there was, like I went back and watched earlier today,
Speaker 1: a bunch of examples of Tatum shooting in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: and there was just a little bit of like it
Speaker 1: was weird to hitch wasn't so much in the as
Speaker 1: he got into his shot. The hitch was at the beginning,
Speaker 1: like as he would catch, he would catch, and then
Speaker 1: he'd like kind of tuck the ball almost like down
Speaker 1: on his left side, and then he would like jab
Speaker 1: that elbow way in before he'd get up into his shot.
Speaker 1: There was just a little bit of a delay or
Speaker 1: a hitch in the very very beginning part of his
Speaker 1: shot that he seems to be a seems to have
Speaker 1: knocked out. And again, as I talked about last year,
Speaker 1: like my focus on Tatum's poor shooting was more in
Speaker 1: the moment in the sense that, yeah, it was kind
Speaker 1: of weird. During the postseason run, it was a problem
Speaker 1: with Team USA. There's The main reason why Tatum wasn't
Speaker 1: getting minutes with Team USA is Kerr, even though he
Speaker 1: knew he could bring so much defensively, he didn't trust
Speaker 1: his ability to confidently step in two shots right Like
Speaker 1: that was the issue? Is the jump shot? That was
Speaker 1: the issue. Now, as I said throughout that tournament, I
Speaker 1: still would have played Tatum. I mean, yeah, you don't
Speaker 1: close the game with him obviously if he's not shooting,
Speaker 1: but he does so much else positive for a basketball
Speaker 1: team that I still would have played him more than
Speaker 1: Steve Kerr did. But that was the main reason why
Speaker 1: Steve Kerr didn't play him. But one of the things
Speaker 1: I said after that, if you guys remember is I
Speaker 1: think this is just a slump. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: some sort of dramatic dip in Tatum's ability to shoot
Speaker 1: the basketball. Yeah. Do I think him putting on some
Speaker 1: muscles made him a little more stiff. Sure, But I
Speaker 1: think you can be built and still shoot the basketball well.
Speaker 1: And I still think Jason Tatum will shoot the basketball.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I'll just put it out
Speaker 1: there right now. My bet is that by the time
Speaker 1: we get twenty games into the season that Tatum's high
Speaker 1: volume probably about thirty eight thirty nine percent from three.
Speaker 1: I think he's gonna shoot the ball just fine this year,
Speaker 1: and like looked really confident in his minutes today. Pritchard
Speaker 1: shot the ball really well again. He had six threes.
Speaker 1: Boston is just a well oiled machine on the Denver front.
Speaker 1: They have real advantages in this matchup. Boston was doubling
Speaker 1: Nikola Jokic in post ups and Denver was getting wide
Speaker 1: open threes out of it every single time. Let's go
Speaker 1: back over to the film. I want to show you
Speaker 1: guys a couple of quick examples. I'm gonna go to
Speaker 1: our next clip. So here's one of the first the
Speaker 1: first Denver offensive possession of the game. We get the floor.
Speaker 1: We they just run a little brush screen in transition
Speaker 1: that leads to a switch. So now we have Jokic
Speaker 1: being guarded by Tatum and Cornett is guarding Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: in space. They make the post entry to Jokic, hard
Speaker 1: double team right away, wide open three for a great shooter,
Speaker 1: Michael Porter Junior. Here's one more example from another early
Speaker 1: first quarter possession. We're gonna get a Jokics post up
Speaker 1: of Jalen Brown, immediate double team from Cornette, swing pass
Speaker 1: to Gordon Tatum, rotates. You could see the kind of
Speaker 1: play developing, rotate, rotate, Jamal Murray ends up getting an
Speaker 1: open three out of the corner. That was a kind
Speaker 1: of a one of the main reasons why I was
Speaker 1: talking about the importance of matchups in the postseason in
Speaker 1: the in a weird way, like a team like Dallas
Speaker 1: was set up to had Minnesota who was set up
Speaker 1: to handle Denver, right, But Denver is like this unique
Speaker 1: team that really can punish interior size, right, or a
Speaker 1: lack of interior size, right. And like, one of the
Speaker 1: things that Dallas could not do with Boston is consistently
Speaker 1: get them in rotation. They couldn't get to the point
Speaker 1: where they were consistently getting two on the ball and
Speaker 1: getting easy opportunities for drive and kick offense or catch
Speaker 1: and shoot threes for quality shooters. Right. That's one of
Speaker 1: the advantages that Denver has and it's the reason they
Speaker 1: were the only team I said had any chance to
Speaker 1: compete with Boston last year. And again, I don't know
Speaker 1: who would have won in a playoff series between Denver
Speaker 1: and Boston last year. I would have picked Denver, probably,
Speaker 1: but it would have been really close. I'm not over
Speaker 1: here trying to act like Denver's the Boston beater, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure as hell don't think a preseason game proves that. However,
Speaker 1: in terms of a simple basketball concept a concept, Denver
Speaker 1: has the ability to get Boston into rotation via double
Speaker 1: teams of Jokic in a way that a lot of
Speaker 1: teams around the league can't, because Boston has such quality
Speaker 1: perimeter personnel and they could switch so easily that a
Speaker 1: lot of the best perimeter players in the league can't
Speaker 1: compromise Boston's defense the same way that a guy like
Speaker 1: Nikola Jokic cat can. Boston tried leaving him in single
Speaker 1: coverage a little bit more in the late second quarter,
Speaker 1: and then he started scoring. He had a little hook
Speaker 1: shot over Xavier Tillman. He had an and one through
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown that made our tape list that you guys
Speaker 1: will see later today. Denver's a well oiled machine too,
Speaker 1: just in a different way. Boston attempted more threes in
Speaker 1: the first half than Denver did in the entire game,
Speaker 1: but Denver dominated the points in the paint matchup. That's
Speaker 1: what makes this matchup so interesting, Right, it's like Denver
Speaker 1: two's versus Boston threes, and it's like an efficiency battle
Speaker 1: that kind of oscillates back and forth based on how
Speaker 1: well Boston's shooting at any point in time. Right, Jamal
Speaker 1: Murray still looked somewhat out of shape. He airballed wide
Speaker 1: open three in the first half and then barely grazed
Speaker 1: the rim on another. That to me is a sign
Speaker 1: that he doesn't have his legs underneath him yet. But
Speaker 1: that's kind of his reputation. He has a tendency to
Speaker 1: show into camp a little bit out of shape, so
Speaker 1: not overly surprised there. Christian Brown looks like a massive
Speaker 1: defensive upgrade over Contavious Coldwell Pope, specifically because of his
Speaker 1: size and strength. He's able to guard forwards in a
Speaker 1: way that CACP can't. Right, and Brown spent some time
Speaker 1: on Tatum and did a pretty good job. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that I think is fascinating about that
Speaker 1: is one of the problems that Denver runs into from
Speaker 1: a matchup standpoint in the postseason is when they run
Speaker 1: into really good forwards, they typically have to put Aaron
Speaker 1: Gordon on them and so now you have Aaron Gordon
Speaker 1: guarding the ball, and if that player can get downhill
Speaker 1: on Aaron Gordon in ball screens against Jokic, now you
Speaker 1: don't have as much size on the back line that's
Speaker 1: in the help right. By Christian Brown's ability to guard forwards,
Speaker 1: you can keep Aaron Gordon in the lowman position, in
Speaker 1: the help side position, so that now when that forward
Speaker 1: gets downhill and Jokic is sitting in his drop coverage
Speaker 1: but trying to meet him a little bit higher, or
Speaker 1: whoever that forward is gets by Jokic, the help on
Speaker 1: the backside is now anchored by Aaron Gordon instead of
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon having to be on the ball. So like
Speaker 1: for all to talk about the defense or the offensive
Speaker 1: difference between KCP and Christian Brown, and KCP is a
Speaker 1: very good defender of guards, but Christian Brown is just
Speaker 1: a little bit more versati, a little bigger and stronger,
Speaker 1: and I think he does create a little bit more
Speaker 1: matchup versatility for Denver on the defensive end of the floor.
Speaker 1: I thought Sarch was a nice fit too. Like I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier showcase, some of his ability to bold these
Speaker 1: smaller players. He had a play where he just buried
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown under the basket and got an easy layup.
Speaker 1: That'll be a kind of an interesting fit for them
Speaker 1: on the offensive end of the floor. The Westbrook experience
Speaker 1: was exactly what I thought it would be and what
Speaker 1: I expected to be all season. Lots of good and
Speaker 1: lots of bad. Right Like, he generated a ton of
Speaker 1: rim pressure. He had eight assists in nineteen minutes, a
Speaker 1: couple of really nice drop offs to bigs, several of
Speaker 1: his classic like driving corner kicks where like he just
Speaker 1: gets ahead his team. And there's I talk about rim
Speaker 1: pressure as a positive all the time, and that is
Speaker 1: by far the biggest positive that Russell Westbrook brings his
Speaker 1: rim pressure. But like guys just have like a natural
Speaker 1: tendency to sync in the guy is pressuring the rim
Speaker 1: even when the game plan doesn't dictate that. It's just
Speaker 1: like human nature when you see a guy barreling towards
Speaker 1: the rim, you just kind of gravitate towards the rim
Speaker 1: as an attempt to try to slow that down. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: a lot of that is going to be the upside
Speaker 1: that comes with the Russell Westbrook experience. I thought he
Speaker 1: did some nice work on the ball on defense, he
Speaker 1: guarded tat him a little bit. He had a possession
Speaker 1: in a ball screen where he chased hat him over
Speaker 1: the top and got back in front of him on
Speaker 1: the other side of the screen. That's like some of
Speaker 1: that like really high level on ball defense that Russ
Speaker 1: is capable of. He hit three threes and all three
Speaker 1: of them were above the break, which, again I wouldn't
Speaker 1: get used to that if I were you. Russ has
Speaker 1: been a mid twenties above the break three point shooter
Speaker 1: basically his entire career. He shot twenty six point seven
Speaker 1: percent on above the breakthrees last year, so I wouldn't
Speaker 1: get used to that necessarily. But like, he's gonna have
Speaker 1: nights where he hits him right, but then it was
Speaker 1: just the classic bad right. Like I talked about those
Speaker 1: corner crashes for Boston, multiple possessions where Russ just fell
Speaker 1: asleep and let a guy just sprint right back buy
Speaker 1: him and get an offensive rebound. He lost track of
Speaker 1: Peyton Pritchard as an off ball shooter. A couple of
Speaker 1: times he got back cut by Jalen Brown for a
Speaker 1: dunk and then the missed layups. Right. He went zero
Speaker 1: for three on layups, but that's kind of what you
Speaker 1: can expect. He shot fifty one percent on layups last year.
Speaker 1: It's just something he's bad at. He was seven for
Speaker 1: twenty two on layups in the first round series against Dallas,
Speaker 1: so literally less than one out of three on layups, right,
Speaker 1: random out of control possessions. I'll show you an example
Speaker 1: in the film. But like that's going to be the
Speaker 1: rough experience leading the bench unit. It's going to be
Speaker 1: just a whirlwind of good and bad. Like in any
Speaker 1: given night, whether or not it's a positive experience, is
Speaker 1: going to be whether or not there were more good
Speaker 1: plays than bad. Guess what. That's what it's going to be. Like,
Speaker 1: there are going to be nights where he makes a
Speaker 1: lot more good plays than bad plays, and you're like, man,
Speaker 1: this guy's incredible. He's doing such a good job leading
Speaker 1: this bench unit. And then there are gonna be other
Speaker 1: games where like he just makes a ton of mistakes
Speaker 1: and very few of the good plays and you're like,
Speaker 1: holy shit, what are we doing here? Right? So like
Speaker 1: that's kind of the Westbrook experience. And again, like Denver fans,
Speaker 1: I had a lot of Denver fans get like really
Speaker 1: combative with me in the comments. I'm not here trying
Speaker 1: to like say that you guys don't have a great system.
Speaker 1: I agree that Jokic is an amazing leader. I agree
Speaker 1: that Jokic makes basketball easier for his teammates. I agree
Speaker 1: that Mike Malone is one of the best coaches in
Speaker 1: the league and that he sets guys up for success
Speaker 1: in roles. I agree all that stuff, But guess what,
Speaker 1: like the same as similar levels of that have been
Speaker 1: the case at previous destinations. The Clippers are a very
Speaker 1: good organization. The Clippers are an organization that is well coached.
Speaker 1: The Clippers are an organization that set him up to succeed.
Speaker 1: And these are all just parts that are inherent in
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook's basketball personality that are going to be things
Speaker 1: that you see this here. Let's show some examples, because
Speaker 1: again I'm not I'm a big believer in like operating
Speaker 1: within reality, operating within the facts. I want to show
Speaker 1: you guys exactly what I'm talking about. So let's go
Speaker 1: look at the the film for a second. So here's
Speaker 1: an example of like rush it just kind of struggling
Speaker 1: to finish around the rim. I really like this action,
Speaker 1: Like Russ makes a post entry to Jokic, so he's
Speaker 1: gonna drive down to this little corner spot post entry,
Speaker 1: he sees Tatum's step out of his stance and lift up,
Speaker 1: promptly cuts back door, but then he smokes the layup.
Speaker 1: Here's an example of like Russ just being super aggressive
Speaker 1: off the ball for no reason and just gets back
Speaker 1: cut by Jaylen Brown for an easy dunk. Like that's
Speaker 1: a mistake that just gives two points to the other team.
Speaker 1: Like that has the same negative impact as the positive
Speaker 1: impact of Russ making a drop off pass to Sarage
Speaker 1: for a layup. See what I mean. Like it's it's
Speaker 1: the constant undoing of the good that he brings to
Speaker 1: the table. Really nice move on a switch, gets a
Speaker 1: switch on Xavier Tillman toasts him off the dribble, but
Speaker 1: he's just a bad finisher and he smokes the layup.
Speaker 1: Another one here in transition, gets a nice head of steam,
Speaker 1: gets downhill a little brush screen, goes right at Cornet,
Speaker 1: just smokes the layup. This one is like the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that you'll see everyone once in a while
Speaker 1: with Russ and you're like, dude, just slow down, Like
Speaker 1: there's no advantage here, but he just puts his head
Speaker 1: down and tries to force his way down the floor
Speaker 1: and throws up some bs that has no chance of
Speaker 1: going in. And now you're going the other way and
Speaker 1: Russ is in camera row. Here's an example of one
Speaker 1: of those corner crashes that I'm talking about. I said
Speaker 1: this to you guys in the Media day interview. I said,
Speaker 1: you will watch dozens and dozens and dozens eclipse this
Speaker 1: year where Russ is just standing with his hands on
Speaker 1: his knees and not boxing out. Here it is shot
Speaker 1: goes up, Sarage has recovered to box out Cornett. Russ
Speaker 1: has one job. Box out Jaden Springer coming out of
Speaker 1: the left corner. Watch what he does stands there and
Speaker 1: watches him go right around him and get an offensive
Speaker 1: rebound Like that is the Russell Westbrook experience. I'm not
Speaker 1: talking shit to be an asshole. I'm being realistic about
Speaker 1: the basketball that's taking place. And when you sign up
Speaker 1: for the Russell Westbrook experience, this is what you sign
Speaker 1: up for. It's a lot of up and a lot
Speaker 1: of down, and it just whether or not he he's
Speaker 1: a positive impact that night is entirely based on how
Speaker 1: many mistakes he makes, But I do want to show
Speaker 1: some of the positives, just an example of just the
Speaker 1: brim pressure. So like, look at this example of Russ
Speaker 1: just getting ahead of Steam driving the basketball and creates
Speaker 1: a wide open corner. Three. Also, you're not supposed to
Speaker 1: help out of the strong side corner, but this is
Speaker 1: what I was talking about in terms of I guess
Speaker 1: it's not actually the strong side. So this is solid
Speaker 1: help from Tatum. But again Tatum's in helpside, just gets
Speaker 1: ahead of Steam on Derek White, Tatum steps in boom,
Speaker 1: wide open corner three. That's the kind of stuff that like,
Speaker 1: the more of that and the less of the mistakes,
Speaker 1: that's more for a positive Russell Westbrook experience. Here's another
Speaker 1: one in a ball screen. Jade Springer a nice job navigating,
Speaker 1: by the way, Celtics fans. We'll see if Jaden Springer
Speaker 1: gets much opportunity this year. But that dude can guard,
Speaker 1: but Russ goes right around him. Here draws help from Cornette,
Speaker 1: easy layout. So again with Russ, it's all about just
Speaker 1: that scale and just trying to limit mistakes as much
Speaker 1: as possible so that the good stuff can actually shine through.
Speaker 1: All Right, before we get out of here for today,
Speaker 1: I want to have our first ever edition of Timp's tape.
Speaker 1: We don't again, we don't know what we're gonna call it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna kind of workshop some different names. If you
Speaker 1: guys have ideas, you can drop them in the comments. Also,
Speaker 1: this is a segment we're going to be recurring throughout
Speaker 1: the year, so if you guys have any feedback, make
Speaker 1: sure you drop it in the comments. But again, I
Speaker 1: have five plays today. Some days it'll be less, some
Speaker 1: days it might be more. But I'm just going to
Speaker 1: give specific examples of plays that reflect concepts that we
Speaker 1: talked about in the show so that we can learn
Speaker 1: more about the league over the course of this season.
Speaker 1: So our first play is going to be an example
Speaker 1: of stack pick and roll or spain pick and roll.
Speaker 1: This was This is an action we see all over
Speaker 1: the place around the league and it's a very simple concept.
Speaker 1: You can see as the ball screen starts to set up.
Speaker 1: As you can see the play setting up, Cornett is
Speaker 1: setting the ball screen right, Sarrich is getting ready to
Speaker 1: show at the level of the screen. Look at Howser
Speaker 1: though Houser is now getting ready to backscreen Sarage. What
Speaker 1: I want to do is I want to play it
Speaker 1: in full speed first, and then I'm gonna throw show
Speaker 1: it in slow motion so we can talk about some
Speaker 1: of the specific concepts. Pritchard's gonna come off the screen.
Speaker 1: Howser is going to break wide open above the at
Speaker 1: the top of the key, and he misses this three
Speaker 1: but it's a wide open look generated by the action.
Speaker 1: There's some PTSD if you guys missed the corner crash there,
Speaker 1: all right, So let's slow this down a little bit
Speaker 1: and talk about the specific concept that's taking place. So
Speaker 1: this any sort of three man action makes defensive players
Speaker 1: make decisions that are infinitely more complicated than any sort
Speaker 1: of two man action. So in this case, as we
Speaker 1: see as Pritchard comes off the screen, Sorrich feels the
Speaker 1: need to show is chasing. So we have two on
Speaker 1: the ball, right, But now Howser's gonna backscreen Sarich. And
Speaker 1: now I think this is BLACKO conchar if I can,
Speaker 1: I can't tell one hundred percent. But now because Hawser
Speaker 1: is setting contar feels the need to show because again
Speaker 1: if he doesn't, if he screens here, Pritcher can just
Speaker 1: turn the corner and get downhill into the lane. So
Speaker 1: now Sarrich is showing. Now all of a sudden, we
Speaker 1: have three on the ball. Notice two, we have two
Speaker 1: openings here because as Cornette slips to the rim, Russ
Speaker 1: has to tag him from the weak side. At this
Speaker 1: point in the play, we now have three on the ball.
Speaker 1: The only reason Sarrich was there is because he felt
Speaker 1: the need to show. The only reason Conchar was there
Speaker 1: is he felt the need to show because there was
Speaker 1: a second screen. Now Sarrig sprints and recovers back to Cornette.
Speaker 1: Look at him sprinting to Cornett. But we still have
Speaker 1: two on the ball. And now Howser pops wide open,
Speaker 1: and you can kind of see if there was a
Speaker 1: version of this where you don't show. So let's say
Speaker 1: Conchar is like, shit, I don't want to leave the
Speaker 1: Howser wide open. I'm just gonna stay home. Then in
Speaker 1: this case, Howser lays the wood on. Sorry, it's Pritchard's
Speaker 1: turning the corner, and if he's not there as he's
Speaker 1: driving downhill, it's gonna be an easy passing read because
Speaker 1: Russ is going to step up to help, and it's
Speaker 1: going to be a drop off to Cornett, or if
Speaker 1: he doesn't and he stays, he can go all the
Speaker 1: way to the rim. Or if he doesn't like any
Speaker 1: of his options around the basket, he can make this
Speaker 1: kick pass to Jaden Springer. So again it's a simple
Speaker 1: example of three man action just making things confusing for
Speaker 1: the defense. Sarge sprints back, Russ recovers, but Howser's wide
Speaker 1: open because of the three man action at the top
Speaker 1: of the key. This these next two clips, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: show a rapid fire style. So this first one, these
Speaker 1: are both examples of Christian Brown just doing a good
Speaker 1: job holding up on Jason Tatum on defense. And again
Speaker 1: it's just his ability to be able to guard bigger forwards.
Speaker 1: So Brown's on Tatum. We're going straight to Tatum. He
Speaker 1: tries to drive at him and try to bully him
Speaker 1: a little bit, holds his ground, gets a block. Really
Speaker 1: nice individual defense on Tatum. And then here's an example
Speaker 1: in transition. So this is again an example of Christian
Speaker 1: Brown's athleticism. He's on his heels with Tatum, one of
Speaker 1: the biggest athlete forwards in the league, coming downhill at him,
Speaker 1: and he's able to absorb contact and force him into
Speaker 1: a really tough shot and force him into a miss.
Speaker 1: So really nice work there from Christian Brown. All right,
Speaker 1: two more clips and then we're out of here. This
Speaker 1: is an example of classic Boston Celtics advantage basketball. So,
Speaker 1: as we talked about in our intro, Boston just plays
Speaker 1: a really simple and easy brand of basketball. Run a
Speaker 1: basic action to get an initial advantage. From that initial advantage,
Speaker 1: you drive the close out. When you drive the close out,
Speaker 1: you make a read, and you repeat that process until
Speaker 1: somebody ends up getting a wide open layup or a
Speaker 1: wide open three point shot. Right, So we run a
Speaker 1: little bit of a little transition push, there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of weak side action. It's defended well. So we
Speaker 1: turn into this two man game. Right. So, now the
Speaker 1: principle of this two man game is very simple. We're
Speaker 1: gonna make Denver make a decision on how they're going
Speaker 1: to guard this ball screen. Okay, So as Michael Porter
Speaker 1: Junior is chasing over the top, Cornette sets the screen,
Speaker 1: Yokic is going to come up to the level, Okay.
Speaker 1: So when Yokic comes up to the level, that makes
Speaker 1: it so that Cornett can slip behind Yokic, right, because
Speaker 1: if Yokic is going to be at the level, he
Speaker 1: can't also account for Cornett rolling to the basket. Watch
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray as he sees this develop point for Conchard
Speaker 1: to make the rotation over points over Boom or as
Speaker 1: Christian Brown, So he points over. Christian Brown is now
Speaker 1: the low man that is coming over to help guard
Speaker 1: this action. So we have Yokic up at the level,
Speaker 1: Christian Brown low man. Right, Prichard engages Jokic, Cornette gets
Speaker 1: behind Jokic. Cornette's behind Jokic. That's where Christian Brown's job
Speaker 1: comes into play. Right, But now as Pritchard starts to
Speaker 1: drive in the ball screen, here's our advantage. Our advantage
Speaker 1: is a two to one one one on the weak
Speaker 1: side with Jamal Murray guarding Derek White and Jason Tatum,
Speaker 1: two excellent shooters. Right, That's how we got our advantage.
Speaker 1: We ran a ball screen forced Denver to run a
Speaker 1: pick and roll coverage. Each pick and roll coverage has
Speaker 1: a strength and a weakness. The strength of bringing the
Speaker 1: big up to the level is it makes it harder
Speaker 1: on the ball handler to get an easy shot for him.
Speaker 1: But the weakness is it lets the role man get behind,
Speaker 1: which forces you to tag from the weak side. That
Speaker 1: creates the two on one. Pritchard makes the first read.
Speaker 1: The first reid is this kick to Derek White right
Speaker 1: now Dallas or excuse me, Denver's in rotation. Right, Jamal
Speaker 1: is gonna rotate to Derek White. But now Christian Brown
Speaker 1: because he had tagged all the way over, let me
Speaker 1: rewind a little bit. Now, Christian Brown, because he tagged
Speaker 1: all the way over on Cornett, he has to close
Speaker 1: out from the opposite block on Tatum. Here in the corner.
Speaker 1: Derek White throws the extra pass. This is our second advantage, right,
Speaker 1: So the first read was Pritchard to Jamal Murray. Derek
Speaker 1: White didn't even need to drive that close out. There
Speaker 1: was already an easy read for him to make to
Speaker 1: the corner. Now Tatum is playing advantage basketball, right, Tatum
Speaker 1: is going to drive the close out on Christian Brown
Speaker 1: with a little ball fake boom. Now he's past Christian Brown.
Speaker 1: Now Christian Brown is compromised. This forces Michael Porter Junior
Speaker 1: to come over and help. Michael Porter Junior comes over
Speaker 1: and help. Pritchard quickly identifies it creates a passing angle.
Speaker 1: They don't even have great spacing here because they're a
Speaker 1: little bunched up. But Pritchard is the guy that's wide open.
Speaker 1: Now that's the next read. We get our read. Pritchard
Speaker 1: really good shooter, he made six threes in this game.
Speaker 1: Steps into an easy catch and shoot three there on
Speaker 1: the left wing. That is textbook Boston Celtics advantage basketball.
Speaker 1: Beautiful work from the seas. All right, let's look at
Speaker 1: let's look at one last example, an example of what
Speaker 1: makes the Denver two man game super hard to guard.
Speaker 1: This is going to be Jamal Murray and Nicole Yokich.
Speaker 1: So we get a little action. Jamal Murray is guarding
Speaker 1: as being guarded by Jalen Brown. Xavier Tillman is on Jokic.
Speaker 1: Run some action. Notice two, there's the earlier action is
Speaker 1: designed to get Jalen Brown into a trail position. Although
Speaker 1: the Boston broadcast that's a big thing in the way. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I want you to notice too. Instead of just
Speaker 1: running a two man game, just a regular ball screen,
Speaker 1: they're running early possession action for Jamal Murray. There's a
Speaker 1: very specific reason why you do this. You do this
Speaker 1: so that Jalen Brown gets separated from Jamal Murray so
Speaker 1: that when Jamal comes off the last action, Jokic's man
Speaker 1: has to show, right. So look at how glued up
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown is on Jamal Murray. We want to create separation.
Speaker 1: There there's our first screen. Get a little bit of separation, now, Tillman,
Speaker 1: these are our little gamesmanship things you'll see in NBA games.
Speaker 1: Watch how Tillman grabs Jamal Murray. This is technically a foul,
Speaker 1: but it goes uncalled all the time. A little bit
Speaker 1: of a grab on Jamal Murray to try to slow
Speaker 1: him down. This is all the little chess match that
Speaker 1: takes place as you're trying to win that separation battle
Speaker 1: on the ball, right or for your uh the guy
Speaker 1: who's gonna run the action. So Yokic lays the wood
Speaker 1: a little bit, Get a little bit of separation. Now
Speaker 1: we get another screen from Aaron Gordon. We have even
Speaker 1: more separation. It just forces Jalen Brown to take this
Speaker 1: kind of funky step. Right now we're in our two
Speaker 1: man game. Our two man game. Now technically it's a
Speaker 1: three man game because Aaron Gordon's in it. But now
Speaker 1: we're getting to the portion of the action with the
Speaker 1: Murray Jokic two man game. Jokic sets another screen now
Speaker 1: because of this separation, this forces Xavier Tillman to come
Speaker 1: out and show is Xavier Tillman stays glued up to Jokic.
Speaker 1: Jamal is curling this and he's getting right down into
Speaker 1: the lane for one of his floaters that he shoots
Speaker 1: at a high percentage. Right, This forces Tilman to come out.
Speaker 1: Now that Tilman's coming out, it's basically turning into a switch.
Speaker 1: Notice what Jokic is doing now. He knows this is
Speaker 1: going to end in a switch because of the the
Speaker 1: pre action. This probably isn't a switch if you just
Speaker 1: run a dribble handoff, but because you ran two screening
Speaker 1: actions for Murray before this, Jalen Brown's trailing the play.
Speaker 1: Now it turns into a switch. Notice how Jokic is
Speaker 1: trapping Jaylen Brown on his top side using his strength.
Speaker 1: He's going to now slowly roll. Look at he's almost
Speaker 1: like posting up reverse. Typically you'd see Jokich post up
Speaker 1: for a basket that's right here with the player right,
Speaker 1: but he's trapping Jalen Brown on his backside so that
Speaker 1: he can roll to the basket. Now he's got created
Speaker 1: the passing angle. He's created a nice wide passing angle.
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray makes the pass. Now Jokic knows he's got
Speaker 1: Jaylen Brown trap behind him. Watch how he just kind
Speaker 1: of slowly and rumbles to the basket and makes the
Speaker 1: easy shot for the and one is Jalen Brown's crawling
Speaker 1: all over his back. Great example of what makes Denver's
Speaker 1: five out offense so difficult to attack, the action that
Speaker 1: flows into the action, and then the advantage ability of
Speaker 1: Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray to punish teams for having
Speaker 1: a size mismatch on Jokic. All right, that's our first
Speaker 1: version of Timp's tape. Ever, let me know what you
Speaker 1: guys think in the comments. Let me know if you
Speaker 1: got any ideas for names. As always, I sincerely appreciate
Speaker 1: you supporting the show. We will be back later today.
Speaker 1: Right after I'm done with this, I'm recording our season
Speaker 1: preview for the Philadelphia seventy six ers, as well as
Speaker 1: a little mail bag. I'll see you guys then the volume.
Speaker 1: What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening
Speaker 1: to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really
Speaker 1: helpful for us if you guys would take a second
Speaker 1: and leave a rating and a review. As always, I
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take
Speaker 1: a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.