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Speaker 1: welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Friday, everybody. I appreciate you all coming to hang
Speaker 1: out after an incredible NBA Finals game, the best game
Speaker 1: of this series by far. No calling coward tonight, but
Speaker 1: we will both be back on Monday. Night. For those
Speaker 1: of you guys who have been liking the film deep
Speaker 1: Dives that I've been doing on the day after the finals,
Speaker 1: I still will do one of those tomorrow. I will
Speaker 1: get into the tape either later tonight or tomorrow morning
Speaker 1: and get something out to you. Won't be as long
Speaker 1: and detailed as those other ones, worse since I can
Speaker 1: get into a lot of stuff tonight, but I will
Speaker 1: do one of those tomorrow as well, really quickly. Before
Speaker 1: we get started. Make sure you guys subscribe to the
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Speaker 1: so you guys can see all the video content and
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Speaker 1: podcast feed, which for the time being is under Lakers tonight.
Speaker 1: So you know, I was listening to gosh I I
Speaker 1: think I was just scrolling through Twitter and I saw
Speaker 1: a clip of Brian Windhorse from ESPN talking about how
Speaker 1: you know, oh, I bet you Lebron is sitting somewhere
Speaker 1: talking about how oh look at the shoes on the
Speaker 1: other foot for Steph. Steph doesn't have as much talent anymore.
Speaker 1: Like I bet you he's sitting there doing the cheers
Speaker 1: with this buddy's about it, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: get into that kind of stuff. You guys know how
Speaker 1: I feel about, you know, the taky type of analysis
Speaker 1: when it comes to basketball. I tend to think that
Speaker 1: everyone is kind of unfair on that front. You know,
Speaker 1: all the Warriors fans were unfair to Lebron those years,
Speaker 1: and all the Lebron fans be unfair to staph in
Speaker 1: recent years. It just doesn't interest me. But you know
Speaker 1: what did interest me when I heard that is, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things I didn't like about when Katie
Speaker 1: went to the Warriors was there was no real adversity,
Speaker 1: you know, like like the closest thing was then being
Speaker 1: down three two to the Rockets, and and then Chris
Speaker 1: Paul went down and so then they had a massive
Speaker 1: talent advantage in the last two games, and so it
Speaker 1: just it just didn't you know, I never really saw
Speaker 1: anybody on Golden States roster have to really tap into anything.
Speaker 1: And what I've always appreciated about the game of basketball
Speaker 1: is the way that an individual player can have such
Speaker 1: a monumental impact on winning. That's why star powers so valuable,
Speaker 1: valuable in the NBA, and it's one of the things
Speaker 1: that that makes the framework of NBA history and it's
Speaker 1: why we all love the game so much. And for
Speaker 1: every player, every great player that I've seen in NBA history,
Speaker 1: it's when the it's when they're not at an advantage,
Speaker 1: when the deck is stacked against them, that you see
Speaker 1: these individual players tap into a level of greatness that
Speaker 1: is above and beyond even what I think they thought
Speaker 1: they were capable of. You know, like the game to
Speaker 1: Lebron in two thousand twelve, or game excuse me, Game
Speaker 1: six Lebron in two thousand twelve going into Boston and
Speaker 1: scoring thirty points in the first half to save his
Speaker 1: team from a humiliating loss to the Boston Celtics. You
Speaker 1: think you know? Kevin Durant last year against the Milwaukee
Speaker 1: Bucks at a massive talented a disadvantage, tapping into a
Speaker 1: level of basketball that we've barely seen throughout NBA history.
Speaker 1: Jana's Antenna Gumpo this year without Chris Middleton at a
Speaker 1: massive talent disadvantage against the Boston Celtics put on a
Speaker 1: performance in the Eastern Conference semifinals that was as good
Speaker 1: of a performance and a losing effort as I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: And then night on the road in Boston in a
Speaker 1: bad matchup for the Golden State Warriors against the team
Speaker 1: that I believe has a little bit more to a talent.
Speaker 1: In a situation where he's not getting consistent help from anybody,
Speaker 1: Steph Curry rose to the occasion and tapped into something
Speaker 1: that amounted to a legendary performance. That's why I'm a
Speaker 1: fan of parody. That's why I don't like it when
Speaker 1: I see teams like the two thousand seventeen two thousand
Speaker 1: eighteen Warriors that are so incredibly talented that they can
Speaker 1: bring an eight percent effort and win a title. You know,
Speaker 1: Like in two thousand seventeen, they tried and literally won
Speaker 1: fifteen consecutive playoff games like that's insane, right, And it
Speaker 1: took like one threes from the Calves in Game four
Speaker 1: of the finals just to extend that series to an
Speaker 1: inevitable loss in Game five, right, And then in two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen, they brought trash effort, like a significantly lower
Speaker 1: effort than they did the previous year and still won
Speaker 1: the title, and I and I I just I've always
Speaker 1: I've always thought that that was just a little bit cheap,
Speaker 1: Like it just doesn't it just doesn't have that same
Speaker 1: you know, adversity is what makes it so that when
Speaker 1: you get the trophy, it's that much more special. And
Speaker 1: you know, they can say whatever they want. I promise you,
Speaker 1: if Steph gets this one, it will feel sweeter than
Speaker 1: any of them, because he knows that the deck was
Speaker 1: stacked against him in this series, and he knows that
Speaker 1: he had to tap into a level of basketball that
Speaker 1: he had never played before in this at this stage
Speaker 1: and with this talent situation, and he was able to
Speaker 1: do it to extend this series. Series is not over.
Speaker 1: I'm still picking Golden State in seven like I did
Speaker 1: since the beginning, because I kind of saw a lot
Speaker 1: of these things that Boston did tonight coming. But I
Speaker 1: just wanted to give a shout out to Steph. That's
Speaker 1: my favorite thing about the game of basketball, seeing an
Speaker 1: all time great, pantheon level player, with his back against
Speaker 1: the wall at a disadvantage, tap into a level of
Speaker 1: greatness that carries his team to the victory. That to
Speaker 1: me is is what that That to me is the
Speaker 1: nuts and bolts of NBA history, and we're very fortunate
Speaker 1: to have like four of those guys, like four solid
Speaker 1: Pantheon guys and Katie, Stephan, Lebron, and Janice all in
Speaker 1: the league at the same time. But to get to
Speaker 1: see Steph do that tonight, it was a pleasure to watch.
Speaker 1: It was incredible. I I I just I just sat
Speaker 1: back and then I enjoyed it. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the interesting phenomenon that's going on in this series is
Speaker 1: this drop coverage that Boston is playing, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's pros and cons to it. You know, you guys
Speaker 1: have heard me go over this in my in my
Speaker 1: film studies, and there's a bunch of different ways that
Speaker 1: it's impacting the Warriors negatively, right, Like, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: into Draymond later in the show, because Draymond had a
Speaker 1: pretty bad offensive night again for the second consecutive game.
Speaker 1: Really for the whole series, he's been ineffective offensively. A
Speaker 1: huge part of that is because Boston is running such
Speaker 1: a deep drop coverage. You know, Boston is essentially saying
Speaker 1: we are not going to give Draymond the four on
Speaker 1: three opportunities and well, we'll get more into that later
Speaker 1: in the show, but that's one negative impact on Golden
Speaker 1: State from the drop coverage. Right. The other thing, too,
Speaker 1: is it's forcing Steph and Jordan Pool and a lot
Speaker 1: of these guys to take and make tough shots that
Speaker 1: they have to create for themselves. Tonight, the Warriors made
Speaker 1: forty shots, only twenty of them were assisted, so that's half.
Speaker 1: This is a team in the Warriors that lad the
Speaker 1: league in assist percentage this year. Six of their field
Speaker 1: goals this year were assisted. One of the ways that
Speaker 1: Boston's coverage is throwing Golden State off is it's getting
Speaker 1: them out of their system where there where the balls
Speaker 1: popping around and everyone's touching it and there's lots of
Speaker 1: driving and cutting and lay ups and dunks and all
Speaker 1: those different things. The coverage that Boston is going with
Speaker 1: is taking Golden State out of that system. They're forcing
Speaker 1: Golden State to play a style of basketball that they
Speaker 1: don't want to play. But there was a huge potential
Speaker 1: downside to that, and I went over this on the
Speaker 1: show a couple of times over the course of the
Speaker 1: series and before the series. If you let the two
Speaker 1: best shooters to ever touch a basketball, come free and
Speaker 1: clear off of ball screens and pin downs where the
Speaker 1: only pressure is behind. They're going to make you pay.
Speaker 1: And they have. One of the huge downsides of them
Speaker 1: going to that coverage in this series is they allowed
Speaker 1: Staph in his on ball situations to be very comfortable.
Speaker 1: I've talked about this before with you guys, but if
Speaker 1: you're a great shooter, a contest doesn't matter if it's late,
Speaker 1: a contest from behind, a contest from the front, and
Speaker 1: contest from the side, if it's late, it does not matter.
Speaker 1: There is one thing that bothers a good shooter, and
Speaker 1: that is getting in their airspace. You absolutely must stay
Speaker 1: persistently connected to a good shooter so that even when
Speaker 1: he's going into his gather to pull the ball up
Speaker 1: into the shooting pocket, he's worried about where your hands are,
Speaker 1: or he's fumbling the basketball, or he's in his own
Speaker 1: head about just getting to his release. But if you
Speaker 1: let them get to their release, Stephen Clay will make
Speaker 1: you pay every single time. And we have back to
Speaker 1: back games where you're getting, you know, almost sixty points
Speaker 1: out of Stephen Clay, and you know, I I've been
Speaker 1: super critical if emad Udoka throughout the whole series, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure those things I mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier are exactly what he's telling his team. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: I know Steps making shots, but hey, Draymond is in
Speaker 1: his head not playing well. Hey guys, and no steps
Speaker 1: making shots, but they only have you know, they're only
Speaker 1: getting assists on half of their baskets. I'm sure that's
Speaker 1: the stuff he's saying. But to me, like the idea
Speaker 1: of let guys, Steph Curry has seen a draft coverage
Speaker 1: like twice in the playoffs in the last decade. It
Speaker 1: was like against the two thousand eighteen or two thousand
Speaker 1: nineteen Blazers when they had Enis Canter who was just
Speaker 1: physically incapable of sitting up at the level of the screen,
Speaker 1: and then the two thousand thirteen Spurs who had Duncan
Speaker 1: sitting way back like that, Like, no one does this.
Speaker 1: What you're seeing Boston due to Golden State defensively is
Speaker 1: something nobody does and it's super interesting. And you know,
Speaker 1: I I'm sure em Judoka is more concerned about the
Speaker 1: offensive end, and we're gonna get into that here in
Speaker 1: a few minutes, and he's probably right to a certain extent.
Speaker 1: And if Boston goes into Game five with the same
Speaker 1: game plan but plays better offensively, they might win. But
Speaker 1: I I disagreed with the strategy, and here we are
Speaker 1: through four games of the series and it's too too
Speaker 1: And kudos to Steph for making them pay consistently for
Speaker 1: that coverage. I talked about, you know, uh me into
Speaker 1: tonight's show in my little film session yesterday. I talked
Speaker 1: about how Steph desperately needed some sort of offensive production
Speaker 1: elsewhere on the floor because of the fact that Boston
Speaker 1: is making Golden State play self creation basketball. Steph can't
Speaker 1: score a hundred and twenty points in a game or
Speaker 1: a hundred and ten points in a game, so he
Speaker 1: needed production elsewhere and he got it tonight. Andrew Wiggins,
Speaker 1: I thought, was fantastic, just another really solid game. I saw,
Speaker 1: you know, I saw someone on Twitter today talking about
Speaker 1: Jeremy Grant like, oh, what's Jeremy Grant for in the
Speaker 1: this coming this summer? Like what's he worth? And I
Speaker 1: was sitting there thinking, like, man, if you watch Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiggins in this NBA Finals, if you are I don't
Speaker 1: even care if you're inconsistent offensively or if you've got
Speaker 1: a tough shot profile. It's like, if you are a
Speaker 1: six eight to six nine freak athlete with long arms
Speaker 1: that can defend multiple positions and just is okay scoring
Speaker 1: the basketball, you're gonna be a super valuable player in
Speaker 1: these playoffs series. And Andrew Wiggins, I I've said this
Speaker 1: before on the show, but I think he's the second
Speaker 1: best player on this team right now, which is just
Speaker 1: an absolutely wild thing to say, given you know where
Speaker 1: this team was a couple of years ago, you know,
Speaker 1: with when Kevin Durant left and they brought back D'Angelo
Speaker 1: Russell and and then they flipped Angelo Russell for Wiggins,
Speaker 1: and you're thinking, oh, maybe we can convert him into
Speaker 1: a two way wing. No, no no, no, he's He's become
Speaker 1: a much better version of what Harrison Barnes was for
Speaker 1: this team. Jordan Poole fantastic and fourteen tonight, ten in
Speaker 1: the first half, huge plays in that second quarter when
Speaker 1: Steph was on the bench to float Golden State, and
Speaker 1: then Clay Thompson had eight team just in general, you know,
Speaker 1: I was talking with a couple of people coming into
Speaker 1: this game, about what Golden State's best chance to win was.
Speaker 1: And as I've consistently said throughout this entire playoff run,
Speaker 1: Boston is just so inconsistent with their decision making. Like
Speaker 1: they've played consecutive good games twice in this playoff run,
Speaker 1: the entire first round against the Brooklyn Nets and the
Speaker 1: game six in Game seven against Milwaukee. Outside of that,
Speaker 1: it has literally been this up and down nature for
Speaker 1: Boston's offense. And so I knew that if Golden State
Speaker 1: could just keep it close, if they could just keep
Speaker 1: it close, Boston would soil themselves, and they did. I
Speaker 1: tweeted out before I put it in my series prey
Speaker 1: view that one of the big indicators of the way
Speaker 1: this series would go is how many close games there are.
Speaker 1: Boston coming into the NBA Finals was a negative net
Speaker 1: rating team in clutch situations when the game is within
Speaker 1: five points with less than five minutes remaining. That that
Speaker 1: they've shown that throughout basically this entire Tatum Brown era,
Speaker 1: and it was shown again in this playoff run. They
Speaker 1: are a bad clutch basketball team coming into this series.
Speaker 1: Golden State. I can't remember the exact number, but it
Speaker 1: was right around plus twelve net rating and clutch situations
Speaker 1: both teams right around thirty minutes for the whole playoff run.
Speaker 1: They are a good clutch basketball team. So I knew
Speaker 1: that if Boston got into a dog fight in any
Speaker 1: one of these games, it would be a massive advantage
Speaker 1: for Golden State. So I had a feeling tonight if
Speaker 1: they could just keep things close. And again, Boston kept
Speaker 1: them at arms length most of the night. They jumped
Speaker 1: up I think eleven to four for the most part.
Speaker 1: You're peeking at the scoreboard, it's a five or six
Speaker 1: point game almost almost two thirds three quarters of the
Speaker 1: way through the game. But they just couldn't blow that
Speaker 1: six point lead to fifteen or sixteen. Right if they
Speaker 1: would have gotten it up to fifteen or sixteen, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, those clutch situations don't matter anymore. But
Speaker 1: they couldn't get there. They weren't able to deliver the
Speaker 1: killing blow, and so they kept it close. And when
Speaker 1: it comes down to close game is at the end.
Speaker 1: It becomes about execution. And as I've said persistently throughout
Speaker 1: this playoff run, the Boston Celtics are a poorly disciplined,
Speaker 1: bad execution team. You know, like I've had all these people,
Speaker 1: mainly Heat fans and and Milwaukee fans, say things like,
Speaker 1: you know, if Boston is a good team, why do
Speaker 1: they keep having these kinds of things happen? And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of truth to that, Like good basketball teams,
Speaker 1: you're not. If I could bottle up the best version
Speaker 1: of Boston, then yeah, they look like the best team,
Speaker 1: but they don't hit that very often. If you're a
Speaker 1: team that every other night is either great or something
Speaker 1: way less than great, then the reality of who you
Speaker 1: are is right in the middle, right, And so I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not the least bit surprised that this is
Speaker 1: the way that they decided to come out and play tonight.
Speaker 1: I thought, you know what I was I was talking
Speaker 1: to a friend of mine named Tommy I used to
Speaker 1: do my show with about a year and a half ago,
Speaker 1: and you know when originally we were you know, essentially
Speaker 1: we were talking about what this game would go like.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I initially what I
Speaker 1: what I was saying to him was initially in the
Speaker 1: first few minutes of the game, like first quarter, if
Speaker 1: Golden State tightened up on defense, if they went heavy
Speaker 1: into hand checking, holding, guys on the perimeter and preventing
Speaker 1: the driving lines. Steve Kurt talked about this a lot
Speaker 1: uh in last game. Their perimeter contained their point of
Speaker 1: attack defense. When they're when they give up slashes from
Speaker 1: the perimeter easy driving lanes, they have to help hard.
Speaker 1: When they have to help hard, there's easy kickouts. Then
Speaker 1: Boston gets in their driving kick game. When Golden State
Speaker 1: just offers a little bit of resistance on the perimeter,
Speaker 1: suddenly those slashes turned into like banana drives where you're
Speaker 1: you're having to mess around with the basketball more. As
Speaker 1: you try to punch through the hole. There's contact and
Speaker 1: and you're like caught on the shoulder and you're you're
Speaker 1: getting around the guy, but it's like slowly and as
Speaker 1: a result, the defense doesn't have too hard help. They
Speaker 1: can do what Golden State wants to do, which is
Speaker 1: lunge in and recover, you know, stunt and recover and
Speaker 1: try to prey on your indecisiveness. And so I was
Speaker 1: talking to Tommy before the game and I was like,
Speaker 1: if they can defend really well early, they will trigger
Speaker 1: Boston's bad defensive tendencies as a team that likes to
Speaker 1: settle for shots and turn the ball over and do
Speaker 1: all the stupid things that they do. And ironically, I've
Speaker 1: vehemently disagreed with Steve Kerr starting small. He started Auto
Speaker 1: Porter Jr. Over Kevon Looney, and I disagreed with that.
Speaker 1: They were minus eight and eight minutes with Looney and
Speaker 1: Draymond in Game three, but it was a bad game
Speaker 1: on the road, and they were plus nineteen in the
Speaker 1: first two games with that group. But to curse credit,
Speaker 1: he noticed immediately it wasn't working. They were too small,
Speaker 1: boss and one up eleven four, and he took an
Speaker 1: early time out and he got Kevon Looney back into
Speaker 1: the game. They went big. They finally settled in defensively,
Speaker 1: they started getting stops. That perimeter contained from Golden State
Speaker 1: is going to be a huge indicator for us to
Speaker 1: watch over the last three games of this series. How
Speaker 1: good of a job Golden State does. Stopping the slashing
Speaker 1: of Boston is a great indicator of their overall defensive
Speaker 1: ability to handle this team. So I want to give
Speaker 1: a lot of credit to Golden State and the job
Speaker 1: that they did. Um and and that's why I always
Speaker 1: will lead the show that way. But to me, another
Speaker 1: huge story in this game was Boston's offensive approach. And
Speaker 1: I want to start with Jayson Tatum because obviously there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff I want to get into. Uh.
Speaker 1: But you know, if you guys listen to my film
Speaker 1: session yesterday, at the end, I ripped through my list
Speaker 1: of adjustments and we we sent out a social clip
Speaker 1: today of the Warriors one. But I had a Austin
Speaker 1: won as well. And one of the things that I
Speaker 1: put in that set of adjustments was show Tatum the
Speaker 1: stat that I read earlier in the show, which is
Speaker 1: when Tatum has at least seven assists, the Boston Celtics
Speaker 1: are undefeated in this playoff run and have won fifteen
Speaker 1: consecutive games overall and have only lost twice in the
Speaker 1: entire season in games or has at least seven assists.
Speaker 1: Because in the modern n B A your three level
Speaker 1: score gunner type can't be your number one CC Devin Booker,
Speaker 1: you know, like you need your number one to be
Speaker 1: a point forward. Your number one needs to be a
Speaker 1: guy who willingly embraces the role of getting his teammates involved.
Speaker 1: And from the jump tonight, I tweeted it out Tatum
Speaker 1: was flat out gunning and it was a super predictable outcome.
Speaker 1: I went on with live moods from UH from our
Speaker 1: UH from our company who just gambling stuff for us.
Speaker 1: She's awesome. And we were talking about this before the game,
Speaker 1: and I said, take the over on Tatum. He's gonna
Speaker 1: want finals m v P. Jalen Brown is leading him
Speaker 1: and scoring to this point, He's gonna gun And he did,
Speaker 1: and so guess what He ended up finishing the game,
Speaker 1: I believe, with twenty three shot attempts and only six
Speaker 1: assists to go with six turnovers. And guys like that,
Speaker 1: box score doesn't even tell the story. If you watched
Speaker 1: Tatum tonight, you could tell he cared about one thing primarily,
Speaker 1: and it was getting his offense off and as a result,
Speaker 1: and I'll be I'll be really interested to pull up
Speaker 1: the numbers after the game when NBA dot Com updates
Speaker 1: their stats, because in game one, Tatum only took five
Speaker 1: pull up jump shots, and then in game two he
Speaker 1: took eleven pull up jump shots. My guess is that
Speaker 1: when I look at the numbers, Tatum will have taken
Speaker 1: close to ten, if not more, pull up jump shots,
Speaker 1: which again for a big forward who has got the
Speaker 1: best combination of offensive skill set and physical tools on
Speaker 1: the floor to take eleven pull up jump shots in
Speaker 1: an NBA Finals game is one massive case of settling.
Speaker 1: You know Jlen Brown I I he was my long
Speaker 1: shot pick for Finals MVP. I was shotting him out
Speaker 1: before Game three because he was plus seven fifty on
Speaker 1: found on fan duel to win Finals MVP. He's been
Speaker 1: better than Tatum in this series. And one of the
Speaker 1: big reasons why is his job on this team is
Speaker 1: too gun and so like when he gets the ball,
Speaker 1: there's no nonsense, it's he's just slashing into the lane.
Speaker 1: He's a he's a much better you know Tatum. His
Speaker 1: finishing around the rim. Tatum is finishing around the rim
Speaker 1: in this series has been atrocious because he's so he's
Speaker 1: shying away from contact. He's more concerned about like extending
Speaker 1: out and around people rather than going into people. One
Speaker 1: of the things that makes Jalen Brown such a great
Speaker 1: finisher is he's not going to change his slashing lane
Speaker 1: based on you. He's going to the rim. If you're
Speaker 1: in his way, he'll go through you. But there's a
Speaker 1: lot of Tatum like kind of extending around and kind
Speaker 1: of going with these finesse, crafty finishes and when they
Speaker 1: go in they look great. But in a game like
Speaker 1: tonight where he's getting bumped a little bit around the
Speaker 1: ram and they're not calling it, which no no advantage
Speaker 1: to anybody because no one's getting those calls, he started
Speaker 1: smoking all those lay ups and it ended up being
Speaker 1: a problem. And that again, guys, like down the stretch
Speaker 1: of this series, there is one way that Boston wins,
Speaker 1: and it's if Jason Tatum embraces his role on this team,
Speaker 1: which is to be the playmaker. Another huge problem for
Speaker 1: Boston in this game. You know, shot selection obviously was
Speaker 1: an issue, Tatum taking crazy Kobe fadeaways when hey man,
Speaker 1: Kobe is the top five player of all time. Okay,
Speaker 1: Like that's why he's able to rely on a steady
Speaker 1: diet of those kinds of shots. But like, another big
Speaker 1: problem here is over penetration. So I thought that Jeff
Speaker 1: Van Gandhi did a really good job of breaking this
Speaker 1: down for you guys on the broadcast last game in
Speaker 1: Game three. But there there's a difference between making an
Speaker 1: early pass and over penetrating. When you get an advantage
Speaker 1: on a on a defender as you start to get
Speaker 1: going downhill towards the rim, the defense begins to collapse
Speaker 1: on you. As they're beginning to collapse, that's the time
Speaker 1: to throw the pass because at that point the defenders,
Speaker 1: all the health defenders, are already stunting into the lane.
Speaker 1: If you hit an on time, on target pass to
Speaker 1: a guy on the perimeter, he will catch with the
Speaker 1: defender closing out at him and have a good chance
Speaker 1: to either knock down a shot or extend the advantage.
Speaker 1: But if you take an extra dribble and go deeper
Speaker 1: into the defense, now the defense collapses around you. Now
Speaker 1: you have to make the pass over length. And when
Speaker 1: you're making the pass over length in a crowd, it's
Speaker 1: much harder to hit the guy on time and on target.
Speaker 1: So yes, the defenders are sucked in more, and so
Speaker 1: obviously there's a little bit more of an initial advantage.
Speaker 1: But by the time your lollipop pass gets out there,
Speaker 1: it's really easy for people to recover and in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases get steals, which is what happened a
Speaker 1: lot tonight lollipop passes from Tatum or Brown that got
Speaker 1: picked off and ran the other way. And so that's
Speaker 1: why like their their approach has to be I mean
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown gunning that works. That's his role on this team.
Speaker 1: But for Tatum in particular, it's hey, man, bring the
Speaker 1: ball up the floor. If you're gonna run a ball screen, fine,
Speaker 1: but once you start to get downhill, move the ball
Speaker 1: and relocate, you're gonna get your offense when the ball
Speaker 1: gets back to you, and then someone will be closing
Speaker 1: out at you, and you, as a top ten player
Speaker 1: in the league, will have an awesome time capitalizing on
Speaker 1: defensive on advantages when the dude's closing out at you.
Speaker 1: That that approach is the is the number one indicator
Speaker 1: of how well this team plays, because as soon as
Speaker 1: they start taking bad shots at shots lead to long rebounds.
Speaker 1: Long rebounds lead to transition opportunities in Golden State is
Speaker 1: barbecuing you and transition. Through three games, Boston has been
Speaker 1: a much better half court offense team according to Cleaning
Speaker 1: the Glass, and Golden State has been. But Golden State
Speaker 1: has a massive advantage in transition because Boston is a
Speaker 1: bad transition team, like we've talked about, so lollipop passes
Speaker 1: that get picked off for turnovers where Golden State runs
Speaker 1: down the other way. In scores and bad shots that
Speaker 1: go clanking off the rim and sends Golden State running
Speaker 1: the other way. In transition, those allow Golden State to
Speaker 1: get easy shots. Now you're taking the ball out of
Speaker 1: the net and you're walking it back up against Golden
Speaker 1: States set defense. It's a cat scading effect. It makes
Speaker 1: things significantly more difficult, and you know, you know, and
Speaker 1: there were just all these sequences during the game that
Speaker 1: I just didn't understand Tatum. It was in the first half.
Speaker 1: Tatum gets the Elites a on a on a switch
Speaker 1: on the left wing and has all the space in
Speaker 1: the world to attack, but Draymond comes over and zones
Speaker 1: up on the left block. So essentially Raymond bandon his
Speaker 1: man and stood right outside the lane, basically saying, if
Speaker 1: you drive left, I'm right here. But instead of driving
Speaker 1: right and making a kickout pass to somebody, he just
Speaker 1: picked up his dribble, at which point the entire Beeli's
Speaker 1: have pressed up on him and he threw a lazy
Speaker 1: cross court skip pass that immediately got stolen. And then
Speaker 1: on the very next possession, he comes down and does
Speaker 1: one of those over penetration plays that I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: gets deep into the lane and tries to throw his
Speaker 1: skip pass over two defenders that close in on him,
Speaker 1: and he turns it over again. There's a playlet uh
Speaker 1: in the late second half where Marcus Smart, you guys
Speaker 1: probably remember this one, did that stupid bs pump, fake
Speaker 1: foul drifting, try to draw a foul and Steph Curry
Speaker 1: thing that which never works and certainly isn't gonna work
Speaker 1: in the finals. And then they ran down and Tatum
Speaker 1: on a on a ball that went out of bounds,
Speaker 1: saved the ball under his own basket directly to Gary Payton,
Speaker 1: and Gary Payton gotta lay up. That's two things that
Speaker 1: any basketball coach at any level of basketball will tell
Speaker 1: you not to do. Don't foul grift because you're putting
Speaker 1: the outcome in the whistle which you're probably not gonna get,
Speaker 1: and never save the ball under your own basket. And
Speaker 1: just in general, I thought Boston every time they're in
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter, Tatum and Brown repeatedly getting be Eliza
Speaker 1: on switches and taking pull up jump shots like difficult
Speaker 1: pull up jump shots against Golden State's worst defender. Now
Speaker 1: credit to be Eliza. He's getting them to settle by
Speaker 1: giving them space and tricking them into thinking their best
Speaker 1: option is to shoot. But that's bad process from Boston,
Speaker 1: so inflammation guys like I was. It was amazing to
Speaker 1: see Steff dig deep and reach the level of basketball
Speaker 1: that we don't see very often, and as a result,
Speaker 1: a Pantheon performance from a guy that if he gets
Speaker 1: this trophy he will have a level of appreciation for
Speaker 1: this one that's different than the others, because here he
Speaker 1: is in the finals as an underdog at full strength
Speaker 1: for the first time maybe since the Toronto Raptors series. Right,
Speaker 1: and and and they got a lot of good help,
Speaker 1: a lot of uh production from Clay and Andrew Wiggins.
Speaker 1: Jordan Poole was great. Um, their defense was much better.
Speaker 1: And then textbook Boston up and down offensive approach, a
Speaker 1: great offensive approach in Game three, driving and slashing and kicking,
Speaker 1: and then back to the regular bullshit in Game four.
Speaker 1: And it's just it's just classic stuff. Um. I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about Draymond Green for a minute. You know,
Speaker 1: I I don't spend nearly as much time getting into
Speaker 1: the arguments with people on Twitter as I used to,
Speaker 1: but I do pay attention and I scrolled through the
Speaker 1: fees just to get a feel for what you guys
Speaker 1: are talking about, to see if there's anything that's worth
Speaker 1: talking about on the show. And you know, Draymond here,
Speaker 1: the podcast thing is just stupid. I don't know what
Speaker 1: to tell you, guys, Like, if you think a Draymond
Speaker 1: hopping on a podcast on the night after games to
Speaker 1: talk about how the game is going or the series
Speaker 1: is going, is somehow affecting his play, I can't help you.
Speaker 1: You're beyond help. You're being completely unreasonable. I don't know
Speaker 1: how to tell you. But there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: criticism of Draymond's play, particularly on the offensive end of
Speaker 1: the floor. Now, here's the deal, Like, Draymond works for us,
Speaker 1: But I've always felt like, as long as I keep
Speaker 1: it to basketball, it's fair game. I know Draymond isn't
Speaker 1: gonna have a problem with me criticizing something that I
Speaker 1: think is happening on the basketball court. Draymond has not
Speaker 1: been good on the offensive end in this series. But
Speaker 1: there's a couple of things that I think are relevant here.
Speaker 1: First of all, Draymond hasn't been a great offensive player
Speaker 1: pretty much since two thousand seventeen, maybe not even two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen, So like this kind of he's always
Speaker 1: been for the better part of a half decade now,
Speaker 1: a guy who's a very inconsistent to flat out unreliable
Speaker 1: perimeter shooter, who struggles to finish around the rim, and
Speaker 1: doesn't have much of a mid range pull up floater game,
Speaker 1: things like that. But that's always been part of who
Speaker 1: he is, and he still is the monumentally impactful basketball
Speaker 1: player that he's always been. Guys, the Warriors have been
Speaker 1: better in this series with Draymond on the floor than
Speaker 1: they've been with him off the floor. So for whatever
Speaker 1: you guys think about him on the offensive end, he's
Speaker 1: still impacting winning. Draymond has never been the guy that
Speaker 1: you look at the box score for. He said that
Speaker 1: on his show the other night, and I agree with it.
Speaker 1: He that you you points, rebounds and assists aren't gonna
Speaker 1: mean anything for Draymond's impact on the game. First of all,
Speaker 1: rebounds have become the fakest stat and all of basketball
Speaker 1: because the guys doing the actual work fighting in box
Speaker 1: outs never get rebounds. It's the wings and guards crashing
Speaker 1: from the perimeter that end up getting all the rebounds
Speaker 1: for the most part. So like like that's irrelevant, and
Speaker 1: then the assist thing. We hinted at this at the
Speaker 1: top of the oh it's a matchup thing. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons why Draymond is top ten all time in
Speaker 1: NBA Finals assists is the fact that almost every team
Speaker 1: that has played against the Golden State Warriors in the
Speaker 1: playoffs has opted to aggressively guard staff and pick and roll.
Speaker 1: As a result, they have a ton of four on
Speaker 1: three opportunities and Draymond Green is one of the better
Speaker 1: passing big men to ever play, and if you let
Speaker 1: him roll down the middle of the floor and four
Speaker 1: on threees, he's a very valuable offensive player. But as
Speaker 1: we talked talked about at the start of the show,
Speaker 1: Boston has taken those opportunities away by playing in their
Speaker 1: drop coverage, which has forced the Warriors to play more
Speaker 1: isolation heavy basketball, which is why they're assist percentages tanked
Speaker 1: in this series. So one of the huge elements of
Speaker 1: Draymond's offensive value, which is short role man, is irrelevant
Speaker 1: in this series. So it's just a matchup thing. The
Speaker 1: extent of what he can bring offensively now is being
Speaker 1: a screener, which is still very good at. By the way,
Speaker 1: a lot of these shots these guys are getting are
Speaker 1: them coming off of screens from Draymond Green and then
Speaker 1: crashing the offensive class, which you got a couple of
Speaker 1: big offensive rebounds in this game as well. But my
Speaker 1: point is it's like, look, Draymond hasn't been good offensively
Speaker 1: in this series. He knows it, he'll be the first
Speaker 1: to tell you, but this isn't the series for him
Speaker 1: to score. If anything, there were a couple of shots
Speaker 1: he took tonight where I just thought they weren't the
Speaker 1: shots that he should have taken. In this particular game.
Speaker 1: With the way Boston is guarding Golden State, Draymond's offensive
Speaker 1: value is marginalized. But the flip side of that is
Speaker 1: Steph and Clay are getting free and clear looks flying
Speaker 1: off screens. It's all every time you have a defensive
Speaker 1: scheme that you choose, there is a give and there
Speaker 1: is a take. If you opt to throw the kitchen
Speaker 1: sink at the Star, you're probably gonna have a lot
Speaker 1: of role players go off. If you opt to throw
Speaker 1: the chicken, just a home everywhere and let the Star
Speaker 1: get whatever he wants. The Star is gonna put up
Speaker 1: big numbers and other guys will struggle what has happened
Speaker 1: in this series. Steph has had a monumentally amazing statistical
Speaker 1: offensive series, and everyone else on the team has been
Speaker 1: inconsistent too bat except for Andrew Wiggins, so that that
Speaker 1: that's just kind of how the tradeoff works there. But again,
Speaker 1: and this is the thing, this is what I would say,
Speaker 1: Draymond has still been unbelievable defensively in this series. Yes,
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown has made a bunch of really tough shots
Speaker 1: over the top of him. He made two impossible fadeaways
Speaker 1: over the top of Draymond today and then in the
Speaker 1: in the last game he hit like a tough like
Speaker 1: eurostep floater, and then he had one really nice slashing
Speaker 1: driving lay up with his left hand. But the point
Speaker 1: is is guys like Draymond is part of the reason
Speaker 1: guarding Jaylen Brown that they haven't had that good of
Speaker 1: an offensive series. So all I'm saying is like, as
Speaker 1: Draymond played well, no, he's played below his standards. He
Speaker 1: hasn't been good on the offensive end. The Warriors statistically
Speaker 1: have still been much better here with him on the
Speaker 1: floor than when he's off the floor. And his impact
Speaker 1: is not something you can measure with the box score,
Speaker 1: So stop looking there. That's not the place to look.
Speaker 1: And here you are in a series against the team
Speaker 1: that has more two way talent than you, and you
Speaker 1: are tied at too with home court advantage, So just
Speaker 1: count your blessings. This is basically all I'm saying. So
Speaker 1: it looks like Golden State is a three and a
Speaker 1: half point favorite in Game five. If I'm reading that correctly,
Speaker 1: let me check. Yes, Golden State is a three and
Speaker 1: a half point Sorry, tiny font issues. Golden State is
Speaker 1: a three and a half point favorite in Game five.
Speaker 1: I am picking Golden State because I don't trust Boston,
Speaker 1: but make no mistake, Boston is very capable of winning
Speaker 1: this series. My thing is two games at home for
Speaker 1: Golden State. Boston's inability to execute at the end of
Speaker 1: basketball games. All Golden State has to do is keep
Speaker 1: things close, and they're at a huge advantage. I like.
Speaker 1: I like Golden State in Game five. But if so,
Speaker 1: if Boston comes out and Tatum comes out playing the
Speaker 1: role of the playmaker, and Jalen Brown comes out being
Speaker 1: the same aggressive force that he has been, and the
Speaker 1: team overall plays the style of basketball they need to play,
Speaker 1: Boston is very capable of winning this game. And one
Speaker 1: of the note guys Boston has is yet to lose
Speaker 1: consecutive games in this in this entire playoff run, So
Speaker 1: that would be one hell of an accomplishment for Golden
Speaker 1: State if they won Game five, to be the first
Speaker 1: team in this playoff field to beat Boston two times
Speaker 1: in a row. But I mean again, a couple of
Speaker 1: things to look at Tatum's assists. He's got to have
Speaker 1: seven or more assists. It's just a classic indicator of
Speaker 1: his approach to the game. Another thing to watch Tatum's
Speaker 1: pull up jump shots. I'm excited to look at the
Speaker 1: stats after uh they get updated on the NBA dot com.
Speaker 1: When Tatum's pull up jumpers are lower, it's an indicator
Speaker 1: of his overall offensive approach. And Then, last, but not least,
Speaker 1: Boston has to just take care of the basketball for
Speaker 1: Golden State. Keep playing big more Looney and Draymond. I
Speaker 1: know it hurts their spacing, but they just play better
Speaker 1: on defense with the two of them on the floor.
Speaker 1: Most importantly, when you're giving up the physical mismatches you're
Speaker 1: giving up on the perimeter, you need to make up
Speaker 1: for that elsewhere on the floor. But I mean, this
Speaker 1: is coming into this series, is the last thing I'll say,
Speaker 1: and then we'll call it tonight. Coming into the series,
Speaker 1: I said that my head wanted me to pick Boston,
Speaker 1: but my heart wanted me to pick Golden State. And
Speaker 1: the reason why I said that is I genuinely am
Speaker 1: a believer in Boston's roster construction and their two way talent.
Speaker 1: But persistently they've demonstrated they are a poor execution and
Speaker 1: poorly disciplined team. And so what did I say, guys,
Speaker 1: Like they're up to one of the series is not over.
Speaker 1: If they go back to two, you have two games
Speaker 1: at home for Golden State, and I'm gonna trust the
Speaker 1: experienced team that's been here before, that has the pain
Speaker 1: of loss, that has the requisite scar tissue, that understands
Speaker 1: that they can't afford to make the kinds of mistakes
Speaker 1: at Boston has willingly stepped into and made all right, guys,
Speaker 1: that is all I have for tonight. Like I said, Uh,
Speaker 1: Colin Coward and I will both be back for Game
Speaker 1: five postgame show on Monday, which should just be another
Speaker 1: incredible NBA Finals basketball game. Uh. Sometime in the mid
Speaker 1: morning tomorrow, I will have you know twelve fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: of additional film study out on YouTube. To keep an
Speaker 1: eye out for that, subscribe to The Volume's YouTube channel
Speaker 1: if you haven't already, follow me on Twitter at underscore
Speaker 1: Jason lt S. You guys can see me live tweet
Speaker 1: through the games, as well as some of my video analysis.
Speaker 1: And if you missed part of the show for whatever
Speaker 1: reason and you can't get back to YouTube, go to
Speaker 1: my podcast fee which for the time being is under
Speaker 1: Lakers Tonight. As always, guys, I can't possibly express how
Speaker 1: much I appreciate you supporting me, and supporting the show
Speaker 1: and supporting our company. I'm having a blast, I'm excited
Speaker 1: for Game five, and I will see you guys on Monday.
Speaker 1: The Volume