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Speaker 2: All right, well, good HOOPSINAI here at the volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Tuesday, everybody.
Speaker 2: We'll ball If you guys are having a great nights,
Speaker 2: got a jam pack show for you tonight. We're gonna
Speaker 2: be breaking down that big Game five between the Minnesota
Speaker 2: Timberwolves and the Denver Nuggets as Denver goes up three two,
Speaker 2: one of the better playoff games that we've seen from
Speaker 2: Nicole jokicch in his career. We're gonna break it all
Speaker 2: down for those of you guys looking for a breakdown
Speaker 2: of Knicks Pacers already did it. It's on the YouTube feed.
Speaker 2: Just got to go a little bit further back, broke
Speaker 2: it down. Did some film in that one too, surrounding
Speaker 2: Duce McBride and an action that the Knicks were spamming
Speaker 2: at the beginning of that game to take advantage of
Speaker 2: Tyres Haliburton in an opening in Indiana's coverage. To make
Speaker 2: sure you don't miss that earlier on the feed hit
Speaker 2: in Denver, Minnesota in this one, you guys are the
Speaker 2: Joe before we get started. Subscribe to our brand of
Speaker 2: YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos.
Speaker 2: Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so you guys
Speaker 2: don't misshow announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever
Speaker 2: you get your podcasts under hoops tonight, and then keep
Speaker 2: dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We can keep
Speaker 2: hitting them throughout the remainder of the postseason run. All right,
Speaker 2: let's talk some basketball. So the story of the game
Speaker 2: early on was, I guess Michael Malone just got sick
Speaker 2: of watching Anthony Edwards barbecue everybody that was the one
Speaker 2: guy that they had no chance to guard. In terms
Speaker 2: of the somewhat limited offensive personnel that Minnesota has. Again,
Speaker 2: as we look throughout the large sample, they had a
Speaker 2: very good offensive stretch through the four games against Phoenix
Speaker 2: in the first two games of this series, but over
Speaker 2: the large sample this season, this is the team that
Speaker 2: has some limited offensive personnel, some guys that can score
Speaker 2: when the circumstances are favorable, but when you start to
Speaker 2: shut off the easy stuff, their limitations can be exposed,
Speaker 2: right And so Michael Malone made a took a gamble
Speaker 2: in this game giving some advantages to those players by
Speaker 2: throwing extra bodies at Ant, super high drop coverage with
Speaker 2: Nikola Jokic, to just make sure that Ant was almost
Speaker 2: picking up his dribble every time he come off of
Speaker 2: that ball screen or have to immediately take a retreat dribble,
Speaker 2: which again, as soon as you take that retreat dribble,
Speaker 2: there's no downhill four set play right then, anytime he
Speaker 2: got some sort of favorable matchup in a one on
Speaker 2: one situation, it was just a straight double team to
Speaker 2: get the ball out of his hands. We've seen how
Speaker 2: Ant has destroyed this smaller Denver guards throughout the majority
Speaker 2: of the series, and at the beginning of the game,
Speaker 2: Michael Maloney and the Nuggets paid the price for that, because,
Speaker 2: as I talked about last game, Karl Anthony Towns as
Speaker 2: like an actual shot creator, has some limitations in terms
Speaker 2: of he can't really bully everybody, and then he ends
Speaker 2: up exposing the basketball eventually and guys can kind of
Speaker 2: swipe at it. We did a film breakdown after game four,
Speaker 2: if you guys remember where I showed you guys some
Speaker 2: examples of how Cat can kind of become easier to
Speaker 2: guard in a static situation against a set defense. But
Speaker 2: give him, you know, a guy closing out to him
Speaker 2: in the corner, and he can pump bake and Aaron
Speaker 2: Gordon can fly by and then take a side step
Speaker 2: into a three.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 2: If Aaron Gordon's didn't help elsewhere and he has an
Speaker 2: opportunity to attack a close out, that's good.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Same goes for guys like Nikhil Alexander Walker, right, And
Speaker 2: both of them had big bounce back games tonight. Nikile
Speaker 2: Alexander Walker had four threes at fourteen points. Carl Town's
Speaker 2: had twenty three points on over fifty percent shooting.
Speaker 1: So early on they paid the price for.
Speaker 2: Doubling ant as the rest of Minnesota's offensive players benefited
Speaker 2: from it and got into a rhythm. Right, And as
Speaker 2: a matter of fact, in the early second half, Minnesota
Speaker 2: ends up taking a fifty five to fifty three lead, right,
Speaker 2: and it starts to feel a little bit more like
Speaker 2: Game one of this series.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But we get a time out and Denver all postseason
Speaker 2: long has just been a really good team. And this
Speaker 2: is a testament, in my opinion, to coach Michael Malone,
Speaker 2: who I think is starting to rise up the echelon
Speaker 2: of NBA coaches. We're gonna have to take a deeper
Speaker 2: look at that when we get to the offseason. But
Speaker 2: he calls a time out, refocuses the guys. They immediately
Speaker 2: come out. Aaron Gordon scores on a post up against
Speaker 2: Karl Anthony Towns. They immediately go on eleven to two
Speaker 2: run and regain control. The big thing I noticed was defense.
Speaker 2: From there, they got their defense set. They were having
Speaker 2: some issues in transition where when they didn't score, Minnesota
Speaker 2: would push the ball in transition they wouldn't get their
Speaker 2: high drop set.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Transition defense principles tell you to take away the rim first.
Speaker 2: And Jokich is an excellent transiit big who runs back,
Speaker 2: and it's one of the things that it kind of
Speaker 2: separates him from so many of the bigs around the
Speaker 2: league is he just runs his lane and transition really well,
Speaker 2: and he would run back in transition and there would
Speaker 2: just be a unset defense for Minnesota to attack and
Speaker 2: they'd have some success. Right they started to get some stops,
Speaker 2: started to get their defense set. Those first few Minnesota
Speaker 2: offensive possessions out of that time out.
Speaker 1: Were really ugly.
Speaker 2: There was a Rudy Gobert post up of Nikola Jokic
Speaker 2: in there where he ended up throwing a late you know,
Speaker 2: basically a late grenade to Knikile Alexander Walker on the
Speaker 2: left wing that he missed. There was like a random
Speaker 2: Nikil Alexander Walker ball screen where he took a tough
Speaker 2: contested mid range jump shot. Again, Minnesota's offensive personnel is
Speaker 2: pretty limited, and when Denver really tightens the screws, they
Speaker 2: can slow them down. And then they started going out
Speaker 2: in transition. Aaron Gordon gets a big transition dunk. Jamal
Speaker 2: Murray to cap off the run gets a big transition dunk.
Speaker 2: KCP hits a big three above the break in that sequence,
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray gets a layup in a two man game
Speaker 2: with Nikolea Jokich. It's just classic Denver Nuggets basketball. And
Speaker 2: you know, honestly, like that really has been the story
Speaker 2: of this entire postseason for Denver. Every time they've run
Speaker 2: into a problem or a situation, whether it's Game two
Speaker 2: against the Lakers or down twenty, it's boom, timeout, quick adjustment, refocus,
Speaker 2: lock in, and go on a run. They've just consistently
Speaker 2: been able to do that. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 2: that I was pulling the numbers on Synergy earlier, so
Speaker 2: this is before tonight. Although they not only did they
Speaker 2: score immediately after the timeout in the third quarter, there
Speaker 2: was another one in the fourth quarter where Minnesota went
Speaker 2: on a little run got it to ten, they immediately
Speaker 2: came out of the timeout and scored. According to Synergy,
Speaker 2: the Nuggets are scoring one point one seven points per
Speaker 2: possession after timeouts, which is the best in the league
Speaker 2: in this playoff run among remaining teams. As a matter
Speaker 2: of fact, the Boston Celtics are second on that list
Speaker 2: at one point zero four points per possession, so literally
Speaker 2: a thirteen point per one hundred possession gap between Boston
Speaker 2: and Denver at one to two in execution out of timeouts.
Speaker 2: It's been a huge part of what has made this
Speaker 2: Denver team so good. They can get a little you know,
Speaker 2: just like any other basketball team. They can have a
Speaker 2: two or three possession stretch where they play some poor basketball,
Speaker 2: maybe they don't get back in transition, maybe they take
Speaker 2: a couple of bad shots.
Speaker 1: Things can get a little ugly.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, here's a random Michael Porter junior, you know,
Speaker 2: twenty seven foot heave pivoting over his left shoulder, right
Speaker 2: or something like that.
Speaker 1: But it's like there's always.
Speaker 2: Just a timeout, a quick you know, Mike Malone get
Speaker 2: on their case a little bit, and then they just
Speaker 2: come out and they execute, and they and they do
Speaker 2: what they need to do and they regain control of
Speaker 2: the game.
Speaker 1: That to me is a is.
Speaker 2: A hallmark of championship basketball, the ability to execute when
Speaker 2: you need to regain control of a situation that's slipping
Speaker 2: out of your hands. I talk about this a lot,
Speaker 2: but it's when things are going south that you tend
Speaker 2: to fall back on who your actual core character is
Speaker 2: as a basketball team. And so that's a consistent thing
Speaker 2: for Denver every time things start to kind of get
Speaker 2: a little wacky. They're really good at refocusing and regaining
Speaker 2: control and making sure those runs get too much out
Speaker 2: of hand. Not enough was made about Denver's defense this year.
Speaker 2: I saw a lot of talk I consistently said I
Speaker 2: thought this Denver team was better than last year. I
Speaker 2: saw a lot of people talking about, you know, the
Speaker 2: bench not being as good, not having veterans like Bruce Brown,
Speaker 2: or excuse me, like Jeff Green with like a really good,
Speaker 2: kind of like sixth starter type of guy like Bruce
Speaker 2: Brown coming off the bench. And the big thing that
Speaker 2: I think people missed out on was this is a
Speaker 2: team that was way more focused defensively from day one
Speaker 2: of training camp. This was a top ten defense this year.
Speaker 2: And again, like this was a team that wasn't a
Speaker 2: top ten defense last year that kind of snapped into form.
Speaker 2: They were a switch flipping team when they got into
Speaker 2: the postseason. This team came into this year with a
Speaker 2: level of focus that is not typical for a defending champion, right,
Speaker 2: It's usually the opposite.
Speaker 1: It's usually like the first.
Speaker 2: Time you win, you're this top ten defense, and then
Speaker 2: maybe you get some leeway as you're more of a
Speaker 2: of a fringe defense in following seasons because you become
Speaker 2: a switch flipping type of team. It's been very clear
Speaker 2: that they've been locked in, honestly, Like I think the
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray injury this season and then losing to some
Speaker 2: good teams got people off the scent a little bit
Speaker 2: of Denver, but I think they've been generally locked in
Speaker 2: the majority of the season. I want to talk about
Speaker 2: Nicole Yokich iss a score because she just had a
Speaker 2: ridiculous scoring game.
Speaker 1: Obviously goes for forty points.
Speaker 2: Was just every single time he saw Rudy Gobert on
Speaker 2: his switch, his eyes just lit up. He saw barbecue
Speaker 2: chicken and he immediately went to work. But I think,
Speaker 2: you know, I want to talk about the specifics of
Speaker 2: what makes Jokic such a good score because we talked
Speaker 2: about the touch right, and the touch is obviously a
Speaker 2: big part of it. He's got a deadly hook shot
Speaker 2: over both shoulders, really really good floater, has a little
Speaker 2: bit of a turnaround jumper over both shoulders off of
Speaker 2: like kind of funky footwork too, Like if he goes
Speaker 2: over his left shoulder, it's like the Somber shuffle right
Speaker 2: when it goes over his right shoulder. It's more of
Speaker 2: a traditional right shoulder fade like you see from most
Speaker 2: guards right where it's just a typical right left plant,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of rise up and shoot kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But what I want to focus on is on his footwork.
Speaker 1: You know. I thought it was really interesting.
Speaker 2: There's a quote from Michael Malone after It was actually
Speaker 2: before the game, and he was talking about adjustments, right,
Speaker 2: and he said, quote, yeah, you make adjustments. Sometimes I
Speaker 2: think too much is made of the adjustments. It's not
Speaker 2: really what you're doing, it's how you do it. And
Speaker 2: to me, you look at us in games one and
Speaker 2: two compared to three and four, and our players had
Speaker 2: a completely different disposition about themselves. So yes, maybe we
Speaker 2: did some different things offensively and defensively, but give our
Speaker 2: players credit because they realized what we were doing and
Speaker 2: how and how we were doing it wasn't the answer.
Speaker 2: So what I thought was really fascinating about that quote
Speaker 2: is when we get when we finished game two, if
Speaker 2: you guys remember I said, it's not even about basketball anymore,
Speaker 2: like it can't be about basketball until you join the fight.
Speaker 2: And really, the big thing that stood out to me
Speaker 2: on film when we looked at Game three, was they
Speaker 2: set better screens, particularly okitch opening tip just rocked Anthony
Speaker 2: Edwards with a screen, right, and then Jamal Murray did
Speaker 2: a much better job handling ball pressure and setting up
Speaker 2: his man for screens, which allowed him to get more
Speaker 2: separation from Jada McDaniels and Anthony Edward, which allowed their
Speaker 2: offense to start working, and then even extending to the
Speaker 2: defensive end of the floor, just like you know, guys
Speaker 2: like KCP and Aaron Gordon sending early messages to air
Speaker 2: to Karl Anthony Towns that he can't score on them
Speaker 2: on an island, and just kind of tightening that defensive
Speaker 2: pressure and making what was a mediocre offense all year
Speaker 2: long look like the mediocre offense that they are in
Speaker 2: a way that they did it in the first two games.
Speaker 2: It wasn't some magical adjustment. It's like, yeah, they ran
Speaker 2: some more cleared side action, right, Like, there's some little
Speaker 2: things that they did that were different, but the majority
Speaker 2: of it was they just played better basketball. And what
Speaker 2: I find fascinating about that is a lot of times
Speaker 2: we focus on the spectacular when it comes to stars,
Speaker 2: Right we look at Kyrie, we talked about this crazy
Speaker 2: dribble move that he made, right, We talked about Jason Tatum.
Speaker 2: Here's this crazy step back three that he hits. We
Speaker 2: talked about, you know, Steph Curry. It's this thirty footer
Speaker 2: that he hits some transition off the mound. We talked
Speaker 2: about Nicol Yokich. It's the Somber shuffle, this incredible fadeaway
Speaker 2: jumper that he hits off a one leg leaning away
Speaker 2: from the basket.
Speaker 1: But usually the.
Speaker 2: Most fundamentally sound players in the league are the best
Speaker 2: players in the league. The vast majority of basketball those
Speaker 2: are just dessert. The meat and potatoes of what makes
Speaker 2: a good basketball player is excellent ball handling, excellent footwork,
Speaker 2: you know, understanding of angles and leverage when it comes
Speaker 2: to contact situations. All these like really boring concepts that
Speaker 2: make a basketball player more reliably great on a possession
Speaker 2: by possession basis Jokic the primary driving force of what
Speaker 2: makes him so unguardable in the post is that he
Speaker 2: can consistently get to a short, easy shot. How do
Speaker 2: you consistently get to a short easy shot through footwork?
Speaker 2: Footwork is what allows you to weaponize your physical tools.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of guys out there that have
Speaker 2: a lot of physical tools that can't take advantage of them.
Speaker 1: Look at Rudy Gobert.
Speaker 2: There was a play where he should have gotten called
Speaker 2: for a travel in the second half where he caught
Speaker 2: on the roll in front of Yo Kitch and just
Speaker 2: quick shuffled before he made a kickout pass. It's because
Speaker 2: he's so un coordinated with his feet that when he
Speaker 2: needs to move his large frame into a specific spot
Speaker 2: to do something with the basketball, he can't do that.
Speaker 1: Footwork is the chain that connects.
Speaker 2: Your natural gifts with the ability to actually get to
Speaker 2: spots on the floor, and Nicole Jokic has amazing footwork.
Speaker 2: When you guard over, when you guard post players that
Speaker 2: are bigger than you, it's all about disrupting the base.
Speaker 2: I know this from my personal experience. When I played
Speaker 2: in college, I was an undersized big I played a
Speaker 2: lot of four and five at six six and twenty
Speaker 2: five pounds, and so I was usually going against six
Speaker 2: nine six ' ten athletes, but I was bigger and
Speaker 2: stronger than them, and usually I just push on their
Speaker 2: base and essentially, when they would try to get to
Speaker 2: a spot and shoot some sort of shot, over the top.
Speaker 2: I basically bump them off of that spot and make
Speaker 2: it so that their energy transfer from the ground up
Speaker 2: to their shot gets disrupted and then they take some
Speaker 2: hook shot that they'd miss or something along those lines
Speaker 2: that you can't do that with Jokic. His base is
Speaker 2: not disruptible. When he goes downhill and he makes a
Speaker 2: pivot move, the guy will try to cut him off
Speaker 2: and try to bump him, and Yokic bumps you off.
Speaker 2: That really is the core of all of it his
Speaker 2: and that the ability to maintain your base is a
Speaker 2: footwork thing.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You're constantly playing off two feet right, Your feet are
Speaker 2: moving around, and you constantly have to have both your
Speaker 2: feet anchored in the ground so that when somebody bumps you,
Speaker 2: you don't lose balance. And the only way you're gonna
Speaker 2: be able to do that is if you constantly rep
Speaker 2: out every single drop step to the left, drop step
Speaker 2: to the to the right, every single step through, which
Speaker 2: is basically just like a pivot over one shoulder, a
Speaker 2: quick plant, and then another pivot towards the basket. Yo
Speaker 2: kich is really good at like that kind of spin
Speaker 2: move double pivot, where like he'll rotate over his left
Speaker 2: shoulder and then duck back underneath and come back over
Speaker 2: his left shoulder and finish and the whole time, if
Speaker 2: you watch his feet, he quick shuffles and quicks plant,
Speaker 2: quick plants, but he's always back on two feet so
Speaker 2: that no one can shove him off of his spot.
Speaker 2: And so when you got a guy like Rudy Gobert,
Speaker 2: he's got some length, right, he's got some height. He
Speaker 2: has the ability to meet Jokic up top. But what
Speaker 2: Jokic does is he disrupts go Bear's base and gets
Speaker 2: him off of his stable foundation where he can jump
Speaker 2: and meet Jokic up top. And so as a result,
Speaker 2: when Jokic goes to shoot, Phil Bear is groundbound. He's
Speaker 2: groundbound because Jokicic just bumped him right at the time
Speaker 2: that he would typically jump to try to make a play.
Speaker 1: He is a master of physical leverage in footwork.
Speaker 2: That is such a boring thing that doesn't make highlight reels,
Speaker 2: That isn't going to be something that is fun to
Speaker 2: work on when you go to the gym, But that
Speaker 2: is the kind of thing that will make you unguardable.
Speaker 1: When you have physical tools.
Speaker 2: That is what allows you if you're a young basketball
Speaker 2: player out there and you happen to be a big
Speaker 2: guard or a big wing or a big center. If
Speaker 2: you don't rep out the footwork, you will play smaller
Speaker 2: than the size that you bring to the table. And
Speaker 2: when you connect that footwork piece with real shot making,
Speaker 2: you can become an unstoppable scorer. When you become an
Speaker 2: unstoppable score, you will start to bring multiple defenders. When
Speaker 2: you bring multiple defenders and you learn to read the floor,
Speaker 2: then you become truly unguardable. And Jokics just has that
Speaker 2: unique combination of like transcendent physical size, like he's just
Speaker 2: so much bigger than everybody that tries to guard him,
Speaker 2: incredible detail footwork and fundamental like a fundamental foundation of
Speaker 2: his skills, and then outstanding touch within ten fifteen feet
Speaker 2: of the rim. Right we talked about Game four, he
Speaker 2: was ten for fifteen within five feet and fourteen feet
Speaker 2: from the basket. He is deadly in that range. He's
Speaker 2: going to knock you off balance, get to a spot,
Speaker 2: and get to a shot. It seemed like it was
Speaker 2: personal tonight. Every single time he had an opportunity to
Speaker 2: go at go bear he did.
Speaker 1: It was just you know, again.
Speaker 2: I talked about this after game two, like, I was
Speaker 2: really interested to see how Yo kids would respond to
Speaker 2: the adversity. Anthony Edwards straight up made a play for
Speaker 2: his spot. He basically was like, you're the best player
Speaker 2: in the world. That's great. Me and my team were
Speaker 2: punking you. You guys can't guard me. I'm coming for
Speaker 2: your spot. And Jokic said, hell, no, you're not, and
Speaker 2: he resoundingly reaffirmed his position as the best player in
Speaker 2: the league. I think he has the largest chasm between
Speaker 2: him and the second best player since Lebron in the
Speaker 2: early twenty tens. And you could argue it's even bigger
Speaker 2: than that. He like, have you seen anybody play basketball
Speaker 2: this year that has been able to reach the level
Speaker 2: that Nikol Jokich has been at in the last three games,
Speaker 2: Like I would argue this is a higher level than
Speaker 2: he's ever been at. And that's the beauty of adversity.
Speaker 2: And this is why I love when there's true parody
Speaker 2: in the game and you don't see a team just
Speaker 2: run rough shot over the league and win fifteen straight
Speaker 2: playoff games, because when this team is down to oh
Speaker 2: and legacies are on the line and people are talking
Speaker 2: shit for three days in the media and all of
Speaker 2: that is coming down on you. That is what pushed
Speaker 2: Nikole Jokicic to this level. It required adversity to bring
Speaker 2: out another level of nikol Jokich that we had not
Speaker 2: seen before, and I've thoroughly enjoyed watching it. Last guy
Speaker 2: for Denver, I wanted to shout out before we move on,
Speaker 2: Contavious Callbo Pope. I thought every single shot he hit
Speaker 2: in this you know it's funny. Did you guys remember
Speaker 2: that Jada McDaniel's quote about Jamal Murray talking about how
Speaker 2: his shots were loud, Like I thought that was the
Speaker 2: textbook example of that kind of game from KCP only
Speaker 2: sixteen points.
Speaker 1: Every shot he hit was loud.
Speaker 2: Hit a huge three above that of the above the break
Speaker 2: during that eleven to two run after the timeout when
Speaker 2: Minnesota went up fifty five to fifty three. Hit two
Speaker 2: massive corner threes in the fourth quarter when Minnesota was
Speaker 2: trying like hell to get back into the game. He's
Speaker 2: been amazing defensively throughout the series, despite being kind of
Speaker 2: physically overmatched in his individual matchup. He hasn't really had
Speaker 2: many moments in this series. I thought he had a
Speaker 2: big moment here in Game five. Last note before before
Speaker 2: we kind of go into some closing thoughts I had.
Speaker 2: I saw a lot of Celtics fans just kind of
Speaker 2: starting to jump on Anthony Edwards's case after he had
Speaker 2: a bad game. Here's the thing coming into tonight, the
Speaker 2: average thirty two to seven and six on sixty seven
Speaker 2: percent tru shooting against outstanding competition on a team that
Speaker 2: desperately needs him to score because they are a severely
Speaker 2: limited offensive team. He's also twenty two years old. They're
Speaker 2: going to be growing pains along the way. Is he
Speaker 2: gonna need to figure out how to be more effective
Speaker 2: in games when he gets double teamed like this?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 2: Like, I actually think that Mike Michael Malone looked at
Speaker 2: the situation and goes, oh, Mike Conley's not playing. Well,
Speaker 2: if Mike Conley's not playing, there's not a like a
Speaker 2: really really high IQ offensive player on the floor other
Speaker 2: than Anthony Edwards, So like we might as well just
Speaker 2: get the ball out of his hands and make these
Speaker 2: guys play off of him. I really think that that
Speaker 2: was the read that Michael Malone played. It's very possible
Speaker 2: we see a different coverage if Mike Conley's out there,
Speaker 2: especially given the fact that even though Ant was so
Speaker 2: effective in Game three, in Game four, the rest of
Speaker 2: the offense for Minnesota was so dead on arrival. Again,
Speaker 2: I was talking about and comparing him to Jason Tatum
Speaker 2: as it pertains to the future of American basketball basketball players.
Speaker 2: I like Jayson Tatum a lot. I have no issues
Speaker 2: with him at all whatsoever. I think he's probably somewhere
Speaker 2: around the seventh, eighth, ninth best player in the league.
Speaker 2: I actually think that he's good enough to win a
Speaker 2: title with this Boston Celtics team, considering how much talent
Speaker 2: he's surrounded with. All I said is he's not capable
Speaker 2: of being better than Nikola Jokic. Anthony Edwards, at age
Speaker 2: twenty two, at least has that potential. Anthony Edwards has
Speaker 2: more upside, and at this point in his career, I'm
Speaker 2: really enjoying watching his development. I'm really enjoying watching his rise.
Speaker 2: He's probably my favorite player in the league right now
Speaker 2: to watch and cover. I just think I love his personality.
Speaker 2: I think he's gonna be so good for our game
Speaker 2: for a really long time. I think I think America
Speaker 2: desperately needed somebody to kind of take the reins from
Speaker 2: that Lebron Steph KD group. And again, like as good
Speaker 2: as Jason Tatum is, I just don't think he had
Speaker 2: that upside. I don't think that he has that personality either.
Speaker 2: And that's all it was. It was more of a
Speaker 2: pro ampt thing than an anti Jason Tatum thing. But
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, like he had a
Speaker 2: rough game, he had a rough game against the defense.
Speaker 2: Did you guys hear that interview at the start of
Speaker 2: the fourth quarter, Michael Malone straight up came out and said,
Speaker 2: our entire defensive game plan is to stop and he
Speaker 2: straight up said that he's We're throwing different looks at him,
Speaker 2: We're throwing second defenders at it. Like, straight up said that,
Speaker 2: what does that tell you? Michael Malone took a gamble tonight.
Speaker 2: We're gonna get the ball out of Anthony Everard's hands
Speaker 2: and just try to make someone else beat us, and
Speaker 2: someone else did and it was fifty five to fifty
Speaker 2: three in the second half, when in the two games
Speaker 2: in Minnesota they weren't even competitive. So again, Anthony Edwards's
Speaker 2: Gigantic Gravitational presence on the court as this unguardable two
Speaker 2: guard caused Michael Malone to compromise his own defense, and
Speaker 2: it actually allowed Minnesota to be more competitive than they
Speaker 2: had been in the previous two games. And yeah, you're right,
Speaker 2: I do think he can handle it better, and I
Speaker 2: do think he's capable of taking more and more leaps
Speaker 2: as a playmaker, more and more leaps. It's kind of
Speaker 2: a half court surgeon, like I talked about, right, But
Speaker 2: like again, here's what I think is lame jumping on
Speaker 2: Anthony Edwards's case and trying to rewrite the rise of
Speaker 2: this phase of his career when he averaged thirty two
Speaker 2: to seven and six against an entirely different class of
Speaker 2: opponent than what Boston has been playing in the first
Speaker 2: two rounds out in the Eastern Conference, and on sixty
Speaker 2: seven percent true shooting. By the way, Jason Tatum again
Speaker 2: last night shot below forty five percent from the field.
Speaker 2: He's done it in every single playoff game this year
Speaker 2: except for one. So like again, like I don't, it's
Speaker 2: not I think it's it's completely ridiculous to just flip
Speaker 2: the script and turn on Anthony Edwards in a bad
Speaker 2: game that mostly had to do with the game plan.
Speaker 2: The reality is, in my opinion, as we look forward
Speaker 2: in this series at three two Denver, Minnesota can't score
Speaker 2: against Denver's defense when they're really locked in and engaged.
Speaker 2: I don't know how they solve that problem. I think
Speaker 2: it's really hard to beat a team four times in
Speaker 2: a row. So I wouldn't be surprised if Minnesota won
Speaker 2: Game six.
Speaker 1: But it's hard for.
Speaker 2: Me to imagine Minnesota winning two in a row at
Speaker 2: this point. Win for three consecutive games, Denver has basically
Speaker 2: rendered their offense useless. I don't know how they go
Speaker 2: from there, but I can't count them out obviously, just
Speaker 2: really difficult to beat a team four times in a row.
Speaker 2: Obviously we're likely to get a bounced back game from
Speaker 2: Anthony Edwards. It's going to be a ROCKUS crowd. Elimination
Speaker 2: games in general are tough. Denver's been playing with all
Speaker 2: the urgency and intensity that is now going to shift
Speaker 2: back towards Minnesota at this point. So I do think
Speaker 2: it's going to be a tough game, but I'm going
Speaker 2: to go with Denver and six. I saw someone on
Speaker 2: Twitter refer to it as the Gangster sweep. It's interesting
Speaker 2: because it's the sweep, the gentleman sweep, which is when
Speaker 2: you win four to one, and I guess the definition
Speaker 2: of the gangster sweep is you lose your first two
Speaker 2: at home and then you win four straight with three
Speaker 2: being on the road. Obviously, they still need to do it,
Speaker 2: but that would be pretty epic because I think think
Speaker 2: all games have been by double digits. Yeah, they won
Speaker 2: by fifteen tonight, and I'm pretty sure Game three and
Speaker 2: four were by double digits, So that would be that
Speaker 2: would whoever whoever coined that term, I should have I
Speaker 2: should have quoted whoever that was, But that I did
Speaker 2: think was funny. But hopefully I will see if Denver
Speaker 2: can pull off the gangster sweep here in a couple
Speaker 2: of days. I don't want to get too far into
Speaker 2: the nitty gritty in this game, really, because the last
Speaker 2: couple of games, Game four in Indiana and Game five
Speaker 2: in New York, were mostly just about effort. In Game four,
Speaker 2: the Knicks looked exhausted and the Pacers ran them out
Speaker 2: of the gym, and they played limited minutes and came home.
Speaker 2: And that was also a much earlier start in the
Speaker 2: day On Sunday, if you guys remember, So they got
Speaker 2: like a substantially larger amount of rest compared to what
Speaker 2: they got between Game three and Game four. They're also
Speaker 2: coming home also having lost two in a row. The
Speaker 2: desperation shifts heavily towards the Knicks. The Pacers have a
Speaker 2: little bit of come knowing that it's two to two
Speaker 2: and you've got another game at home, right, and the
Speaker 2: Knick's just kind of capitalized on that. You know, there
Speaker 2: was a quote that I saw from the pregame presser
Speaker 2: from Mike Malone tonight, Michael Malone, head coach of the
Speaker 2: Denver Nuggets, and he said, quote, yeah, you make adjustments.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I think too much is made of the adjustments.
Speaker 2: It's not really what you're doing, it's how you do it.
Speaker 2: And to me, you look at us in games one
Speaker 2: and two, and compared to games three and four, our
Speaker 2: players had a completely different disposition about themselves. So, yes,
Speaker 2: maybe we did some things, some different things offensively and defensively,
Speaker 2: but give our players credit because they realized what we
Speaker 2: were doing and how we were doing it wasn't the answer.
Speaker 2: And I thought that was really fascinating because I said
Speaker 2: the same thing after Game two of that series, the
Speaker 2: one really about basketball, Denver just had not really joined
Speaker 2: the series physically, And like we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: some specific x's and those things that took place in
Speaker 2: today's game, like Duce McBride joining the starting lineup, how
Speaker 2: that allowed the the Knicks to attack Tyres Halliburton, you know,
Speaker 2: Jalen Brunson kind of getting that early fallon Aaroni Smith,
Speaker 2: leading him to Rick Carlisle to shift to Andrew and
Speaker 2: Embard on the ball, and some stuff about Tyres Haliburton
Speaker 2: being kind of passive. We're going to get into some
Speaker 2: of the basketball stuff, but none of that played nearly
Speaker 2: as big of a role as just the Knicks brought
Speaker 2: a hell of a lot more force tonight. They just
Speaker 2: played better basketball, and the Pacers did the same thing
Speaker 2: in Game four. We have a tendency and I've noticed
Speaker 2: this for a long time in the realm of basketball analysis,
Speaker 2: and like, tactics are an important part of basketball analysis,
Speaker 2: but I agree with Michael Malone. I think it's leaned
Speaker 2: on a lot a lot more than it probably actually
Speaker 2: relates to the outcomes of a lot of these games. Say,
Speaker 2: for instance, the story of this game is going to
Speaker 2: be duce McBride joining the starting lineup, and everything he
Speaker 2: did tonight guarding Tyres Halliburton, the attacking Haliburton when he
Speaker 2: was hedging and blitzing and deuced me Bride like quickly
Speaker 2: kind of like slipping out of those actions. Right, But
Speaker 2: here's the thing. They got off to a twenty to
Speaker 2: fourteen start. The Pacers were up twenty to fourteen in
Speaker 2: this game. So like like in duce McBride still was
Speaker 2: playing a lot. We said after I think it was
Speaker 2: in game three, I said, now that Ojan and Obi's out,
Speaker 2: the best five man group that the Knicks have is
Speaker 2: Duce McBride, Dante DiVincenzo, Josh hart Jalen Bronson, and Isaiah Hartenstein.
Speaker 2: Like we've already known that was the five best guys.
Speaker 2: Like you know, honestly, the Knicks energy didn't even really
Speaker 2: start to take over in this game until the middle
Speaker 2: to late first quarter. And so again, like it's important
Speaker 2: for us to talk about the tactics. I think it's
Speaker 2: a really good thing for us all to learn more
Speaker 2: about so that we can have a better understanding of
Speaker 2: what's taking place on the court. But make no mistake,
Speaker 2: generally speaking, the team that wins it has more to
Speaker 2: do with who's playing the best basketball and all these
Speaker 2: little fundamental areas, who's cutting harder, who's running in transition harder,
Speaker 2: who's sliding their feet better on the ball, who's setting
Speaker 2: better screens, who's being sharper when they're with their decision making,
Speaker 2: who's doing a better job attacking closeouts and making reads
Speaker 2: like those are usually the things that determine who wins
Speaker 2: the game more so than any sort of tactic, right.
Speaker 2: You know, like I literally thought that the Nuggets turned
Speaker 2: the Minnesota series around literally just by setting way better
Speaker 2: screens and handling ball pressure better. I thought those were
Speaker 2: the two things that helped Jamal Murray break free more often,
Speaker 2: which allowed Denver's offense to function in a way it
Speaker 2: wasn't functioning in the first two games of the series.
Speaker 2: And so again I think like these last two games
Speaker 2: have been a good example of that. Do you think
Speaker 2: Indiana had a magic adjustment in Game four? Do you
Speaker 2: think the Knicks had a magic adjustment here in Game five? No,
Speaker 2: they just the Pacers played better basketball in Game four
Speaker 2: and the Knicks played better basketball in Game five. On
Speaker 2: that note, let's talk a little bit about some of
Speaker 2: the specific basketball dynamics that took place.
Speaker 1: In this game.
Speaker 2: So Deuce McBride did an amazing job defending Tyris Halliburn
Speaker 2: and played him into some of his worst tendencies, which
Speaker 2: have to do being passive and not looking to score enough.
Speaker 2: We'll talk a little bit more about that in a
Speaker 2: little bit when we get to the Pacers. The big
Speaker 2: thing that duce McBride was helping with was he was
Speaker 2: being guarded by Tyre's Halliburton. And there's two things that
Speaker 2: you absolutely have to be able to do when you're
Speaker 2: being guarded by a player who that specific player's team
Speaker 2: is going to ask him to hedge and recover or
Speaker 2: to blitz. Basically meaning when that player comes off the screen,
Speaker 2: Tyre's Halliburton is either going to jump out to cut
Speaker 2: off the driving lane or jump out to blitz, meaning
Speaker 2: leaving duce McBride. You have to be able to hit
Speaker 2: threes quickly while sliding your feet out of the screen
Speaker 2: and quickly getting set up at the three point line.
Speaker 2: And two, you have to be able to make quick
Speaker 2: decisions when the defense reacts to you. And duce McBride
Speaker 2: just did an amazing job of that in this game,
Speaker 2: hitting those threes on the pick and pop out of
Speaker 2: the hedge and recover in the blitz, and then also
Speaker 2: when the rotation would come to him making that next
Speaker 2: pass in the line to the next shooter that might
Speaker 2: be open. He just did an incredible job and it
Speaker 2: gave Jalen Brunson an action that he could spam to
Speaker 2: consistently generate quality shots for the nixt Tonight, Jalen Brunson
Speaker 2: was amazing again, another forty plus point night. Was just
Speaker 2: cooking in Iso all night long. You could tell that
Speaker 2: additional rest really helped him. He just had more lift
Speaker 2: than he did in Game four. He got Brick Carlisle
Speaker 2: to bail on Aaron Nesmith with about eight minutes and
Speaker 2: thirty seconds left in the first quarter after he picked
Speaker 2: up a foul on him on an and one. The
Speaker 2: Pacers were up twelve to nine at that point and
Speaker 2: Brunson had only made one field goal. But I guess
Speaker 2: that Rick Carlile was mainly just thinking, let's try to
Speaker 2: avoid getting let's try to avoid picking up that second foul,
Speaker 2: and we just know Jalen Brunson's really comfortable against Andrew
Speaker 2: Nemhard He had an in.
Speaker 1: And out dribble on him where he literally like in.
Speaker 2: And outed Hardy nevvrd W was flying off the screen
Speaker 2: to the right, and Brunson just had like a wide
Speaker 2: open layup, like he's just really comfortable in that matchup.
Speaker 2: He got going then even when Niesmith came back on him,
Speaker 2: he kind of was a little bit more comfortable and
Speaker 2: in rhythm. Like I talked about before, he was really
Speaker 2: picking on Tyre's house Burton screens. By the way, I
Speaker 2: have four clips of film I'm going to show you
Speaker 2: guys at the end of the show to kind of
Speaker 2: demonstrate some of the specifics with Duce McBride, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of making Tyres Saliburton pay for his hedges and
Speaker 2: his blitzes. Tyr's Saliburton's pasivity. So every archetype of basketball player,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, has a weakness. Right, There's like pros
Speaker 2: and cons that come to every personality type. It's no
Speaker 2: different with like than like, I'm a pretty OCD guy, right,
Speaker 2: But at the same time, like my obsessive focus on
Speaker 2: stuff makes it so that I can be sometimes oblivious
Speaker 2: to things that are happening around me. Right, You know
Speaker 2: I I have a certain way that I organize a
Speaker 2: simple thing. My wife had to borrow my truck to
Speaker 2: go to Low's the other day, and I took my
Speaker 2: basketball bag out of that truck to take it take
Speaker 2: her car instead. Then when I went back into my truck,
Speaker 2: I didn't take my basketball bag with me. So the
Speaker 2: last two times I went to the gym early, because
Speaker 2: I always go to the gym early to do my
Speaker 2: shooting workout before I play, I didn't have my basketball bag.
Speaker 2: I was like super frustrated. But it's because I'm such
Speaker 2: a creature of habit that anytime anything kind of disrupts
Speaker 2: my rhythm, my whole life tends to fall apart, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. Like it's a downside of my personality.
Speaker 2: But the upside is my OCD leads to me getting
Speaker 2: into really good rhythms, and so I'm really good at
Speaker 2: like kind of keeping a daily routine which helps me
Speaker 2: be a better basketball player. It helps me run a
Speaker 2: better show. Like there's upsides and there's downsides, right, same
Speaker 2: thing goes with basketball players, Like if you're a high
Speaker 2: motor player, usually that helps you bring energy when your
Speaker 2: team needs it, and it can you know, invigorate your team.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, those guys tend to gamble
Speaker 2: a lot, they tend to make mistakes, they tend to
Speaker 2: foul too much. That's those are all characteristics of high
Speaker 2: motor players because they're always going one hundred miles an hour.
Speaker 2: Super emotional guys like they can They can get their
Speaker 2: team to kind of meet them at a level emotionally,
Speaker 2: which can be a good thing. They can also get
Speaker 2: the other team to overreact to things and get caught
Speaker 2: up in some of the emotional elements, but as we know,
Speaker 2: that can lead to technicals overly physical play getting themselves
Speaker 2: ejected or suspended. Right, that's a down side of the
Speaker 2: super emotional players. Right assassin minded scorers that are always
Speaker 2: looking for their own shot. They can get hot and
Speaker 2: they can carry you home, but they can also miss
Speaker 2: easy reads and play their teammates out of rhythm. Right
Speaker 2: pass first offensive engines like a Tyrese Halliburton, other players
Speaker 2: like Nikole jokicch Lebron James when he was in his prime.
Speaker 2: Those pass first guys, they can keep everyone in rhythm
Speaker 2: and control the offense, and they're usually like offensive engines
Speaker 2: that can really lead an offense to a high level,
Speaker 2: almost individually, but they sometimes can be too passive. There
Speaker 2: were moments in Lebron's career where he needed to look
Speaker 2: to shoot, but instead he would make the right play right.
Speaker 2: There were times where early in the Timberwolf series where
Speaker 2: you're like, why is Nikola Jokic passing out a single
Speaker 2: coverage and he's like, but you even hear him after
Speaker 2: the game, it's like, maybe we should trust the pass more.
Speaker 2: It's like it's programmed into their basketball identity, right. And
Speaker 2: with Tyre's Halliburton, he takes nine shots tonight, and take
Speaker 2: nine shots on the road in a two to two
Speaker 2: game when you're offense is struggling to score. That's part
Speaker 2: of your job as the offensive engine. He's been taking
Speaker 2: eleven threes a game over the last few weeks and
Speaker 2: hitting over forty percent of them, and he only took
Speaker 2: four of them tonight. Now, some of that is a
Speaker 2: credit to Douce McBride, but again there's a certain part
Speaker 2: of that where like tyrese just like Lebron did over
Speaker 2: the course of his career, just like Jokic did in
Speaker 2: this series, and we know that he's capable of Tyree's
Speaker 2: part of his development is going to be understanding that
Speaker 2: there are times when he has to be aggressive and
Speaker 2: there are going to be times when he has to
Speaker 2: look to score. And he's been a little inconsistent, especially
Speaker 2: on the road in this playoff run. In that regard
Speaker 2: first playoff run really as the leader of his team,
Speaker 2: obviously there's going to be some growing pains along the way.
Speaker 2: I thought tonight was an example of him being overly passive.
Speaker 2: I think the Pacers will probably extend this series to seven,
Speaker 2: just because it's a shorthanded mixed team and they're really undersized,
Speaker 2: and it's difficult to win on the road when you
Speaker 2: have physical disadvantages. Can't count the Knicks out, though they
Speaker 2: certainly can win Game six, but I am sticking with
Speaker 2: my pick pick for the Knicks to win the series.
Speaker 2: I just think they'll probably do it in seven. The
Speaker 2: volume