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Speaker 1: welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the volume heavy Saturday.
Speaker 1: Everybody hopefull You guys are having a great start to
Speaker 1: your weekend.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: The Minnesota Timberwolves made a couple of key changes to
Speaker 1: their game plan tonight. Wrote some hot shooting and unbelievable
Speaker 1: shot making from Aunt and Julius ed Julius Randall and
Speaker 1: beat the living shit out of the Oklahoma City Thunder
Speaker 1: and what was a very interesting game on a bunch
Speaker 1: of different levels. Some stuff that's like classic game three
Speaker 1: down two Oh buzz sauce stuff, but also some realities
Speaker 1: in terms of the ability of this Minnesota team to
Speaker 1: make Oklahoma City uncomfortable at stretches, some growth from Minnesota
Speaker 1: shot creators, as they had by far their most successful
Speaker 1: sustained offense in this particular game. So much interesting stuff
Speaker 1: to get into tonight. You guys know the Joe before
Speaker 1: we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel
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Speaker 1: the year and then keep dropping questions in the chat
Speaker 1: so that we can hit him in our mail bags
Speaker 1: towards the towards the end of these shows. Now tonight's
Speaker 1: show in particular, Jackson's out of town. So if you
Speaker 1: guys want to get questions, we're gonna be taking chat
Speaker 1: questions from my Twitter feeds. If you go to my
Speaker 1: Twitter feed at underscore json LT and you scroll down,
Speaker 1: you'll see a tweet where I asked for questions. Feel
Speaker 1: free to drop the questions in there, and when I
Speaker 1: get done with the breakdown, we'll head into that that
Speaker 1: kind of thread there and I'll start grabbing questions from there. Also,
Speaker 1: when we finish tonight, we're gonna be moving over to
Speaker 1: playback again. That's playback dot tv slash Hoops tonight there
Speaker 1: for you know, another hour or so, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: taking callers. We'll watch some film. It's more informal. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. We just talk hoops and have
Speaker 1: fun for an extra hour at the tail end of
Speaker 1: the show. So make sure you guys head over there.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk some basketball. So at in the
Speaker 1: playback session last night, we have a thunder fan th
Speaker 1: Under a fan named Will who is graced us with
Speaker 1: his presence several times, some fun venting and some takes
Speaker 1: on his Thunder team, and I asked Will, I said,
Speaker 1: what is Shay's biggest weakness? And I was trying to
Speaker 1: make a point with respect to his u with the
Speaker 1: game plan, and Will mention three point shooting. What I
Speaker 1: was trying to say was his playmaking, specifically that if
Speaker 1: you packed the pain against him, he's a passer that
Speaker 1: can make reads and is a you know, certainly good
Speaker 1: enough at the job to still be a top tier
Speaker 1: superstar in this league. But no one's going to call
Speaker 1: out Shay's playmaking as the strength of his game. And
Speaker 1: similarly to what Will was saying, no one's going to
Speaker 1: call out Will the SGA's three point shooting as the
Speaker 1: strength of his game. The two things there in his
Speaker 1: game that you would point to as like not like
Speaker 1: the like far down the list of what he's great
Speaker 1: at is his three point shooting and his processing in
Speaker 1: the half court. What would you consider to be his strengths. Well,
Speaker 1: he's the best high volume ISO player in the league
Speaker 1: by a mile. Among any player who ran at least
Speaker 1: three hundred ISOs this year. Shot out of three hundred ISOs,
Speaker 1: he was far and away the most efficient, and he's
Speaker 1: far and away the best driver of the basketball in
Speaker 1: the league. You have like two hundred more drives than
Speaker 1: anyone else in the NBA this year, which you know,
Speaker 1: you can do the math there on how many times
Speaker 1: that is per game. And so what I didn't like
Speaker 1: about the game plan that Chris Finch used in the
Speaker 1: first two games was he was picking up Shay really
Speaker 1: far away from the basket with Jada McDaniels, often right
Speaker 1: when he was crossing half court, and he was staying
Speaker 1: glued to shooters off the ball. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that did is it allowed Shay to one not
Speaker 1: have to rely on his three point shot because he's
Speaker 1: beating ball pressure by driving. And so you're playing into
Speaker 1: the strength of his game by giving him a much
Speaker 1: wider runway, a longer runway to drive past his man.
Speaker 1: And then two, he doesn't have to rely on that
Speaker 1: three point shot because he's not being you know, baited
Speaker 1: into it by a guy playing off of him. And
Speaker 1: then the third piece of it is if you stay
Speaker 1: home off the ball and you let Shape play a
Speaker 1: lot of one on one or a lot of two
Speaker 1: on two, you're accentuating his shot, making his foul. Drifting
Speaker 1: is scoring ability, which is the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: made him the MVP of this league, instead of forcing
Speaker 1: him to process tight space environments in the middle of
Speaker 1: the floor and show off his passing ability, which again
Speaker 1: he's fine at, but it's not his strength. And so
Speaker 1: I you know, again, I was immediately annoyed about this
Speaker 1: in game one Game two. It was defensible to run
Speaker 1: it back just because Minnesota shot.
Speaker 2: So poorly in game one.
Speaker 1: You could talk yourself into thinking that maybe you just
Speaker 1: shoot better overall, though, I'm a big believer, and you
Speaker 1: spotted the Oklahoma City thunder or two oh lead. Now
Speaker 1: they might have gone up two OHO anyway, even with
Speaker 1: the right game plan. But you played an inferior game
Speaker 1: plan that allowed Oklahoma City to dominate you through the
Speaker 1: first two games, when we had a clear example in
Speaker 1: the previous round from Denver of how to make this
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City team uncomfortable. I pulled the numbers yesterday. I
Speaker 1: can't remember exactly off top of my head, but they
Speaker 1: had an offensive rating around like one thirteen, I believe,
Speaker 1: against Denver, and in the first two games in an
Speaker 1: offensive rating of one to twenty against Minnesota. Minnesota is
Speaker 1: a substantially more talented defensive roster bigger, longer athletes that
Speaker 1: are faster, deeper.
Speaker 2: They just have.
Speaker 1: They probably have two and a half good defenders for
Speaker 1: every good defender on the Denver roster. There was no
Speaker 1: excuse for them to be getting cut to pieces the
Speaker 1: way that they did it. Again, I'm not sitting here
Speaker 1: saying that that Minnesota should be up three to Oh No,
Speaker 1: the Thunder are amazing, but you just played a game
Speaker 1: plan that allowed the Thunder to kick the shit out
Speaker 1: of you and score on you easily, which doesn't match
Speaker 1: your specific personnel and how good they should be at
Speaker 1: stopping this team. In theory, they should be able to
Speaker 1: do a better job of what Denver did. The same
Speaker 1: game plan but with better personnel should in theory lead
Speaker 1: to dramatic results. And we saw that tonight immediately right
Speaker 1: out the gates the specific ball pressure adjustment, Jaden was
Speaker 1: not meeting Shae outside the three point line. He was
Speaker 1: meeting him inside the three point line, not allowing him
Speaker 1: to get that head of steam against the ball pressure,
Speaker 1: but then against everybody else, And I thought this was
Speaker 1: the genius little tweak from Chris Finch against everyone else
Speaker 1: he was pressuring. Cause again, those guys aren't the dribble
Speaker 1: drive threat that shake Gilders Alexander is and so what
Speaker 1: ended up happening is you were able to neutralize that
Speaker 1: initial problem, which was Shay he goes four for thirteen
Speaker 1: tonight has four turnovers. He was one for four from
Speaker 1: three with four turnovers in the first half. So again
Speaker 1: you accentuated his processing in his three point shooting. You
Speaker 1: could knock down threes and he didn't make the ree.
Speaker 1: Simple example, there was like a play where they pinched
Speaker 1: in off the ball, because that's the other part of it.
Speaker 1: It's not just the ball pressure piece. They were sinking in.
Speaker 1: You could see when Jaden is facing up against Shae.
Speaker 1: You know, he's standing at the top of the key
Speaker 1: and Shae's outside the three point line. There's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a gap. You were seeing guys digging down
Speaker 1: into the driving lanes. They were bringing doubles, not out
Speaker 1: at half court, but bringing the doubles inside the three
Speaker 1: point line, and in that zone they were able to
Speaker 1: force Shade a pass. There was a play in the
Speaker 1: third quarter where they brought a double team of Shae
Speaker 1: inside the three point line around the elbow. Isaiah Joe
Speaker 1: is wide open in the left corner and Shae just
Speaker 1: throws a bad pass to Isaiah Joe And it's like,
Speaker 1: if he throws a good pass on time, on target,
Speaker 1: that's a three point shot that's probably going to go in.
Speaker 1: But again, you're forcing Shay to do the thing that
Speaker 1: he's not as good at as the other things that
Speaker 1: he's great at. And I just thought that worked. But
Speaker 1: then the second piece of it is pressuring the hell
Speaker 1: out of everyone else, which allows Minnesota to maintain their identity.
Speaker 2: This is a Minnesota team.
Speaker 1: You guys want to know why they were picking up,
Speaker 1: you know, picking up at half court and pressuring and
Speaker 1: staying home off ball.
Speaker 2: You want to know why they were doing all that stuff.
Speaker 1: They were doing all that stuff because that's who they
Speaker 1: are as a basketball team. It's at their core, it's
Speaker 1: their identity, and so they wanted to you know, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of basketball teams that will go about
Speaker 1: it this way, thinking like, you know, I want to
Speaker 1: beat the other team playing our style, you know, rather
Speaker 1: than immediately pivot and like surrender our identity right out
Speaker 1: the gates. You know, I understand that thought process, but again, ultimately,
Speaker 1: when you get into a series like this against a
Speaker 1: team that's better. Oklahoma City demonstrated themselves to be better.
Speaker 1: They won nineteen more games than Minnesota this year, and
Speaker 1: so the margins are thin, and you need to play
Speaker 1: into what gives you the best chance to win this
Speaker 1: specific series. Very similarly like I talk about it with
Speaker 1: coaching in the big picture, you don't want to coach
Speaker 1: for the roster. You want you coach for the roster
Speaker 1: you had. So if you're not fast, don't play a
Speaker 1: style of basketball that requires you to be fast and run.
Speaker 1: Play a slower, methodical, matchup, attacking type of attack. If
Speaker 1: you've got a really fast team with a bunch of
Speaker 1: fast guards and you're not pushing the ball in transition,
Speaker 1: you're not accentuating what your roster is good at. But
Speaker 1: even in a very focused level in the postseason, within
Speaker 1: one of these two week series, you got to coach
Speaker 1: for this matchup. I don't care what your identity is.
Speaker 1: Shaye torched you all season in that identity, and so
Speaker 1: one of the things that I liked about that specific
Speaker 1: tweak from Finch was by sagging off of Shay, but
Speaker 1: by pressing up on everyone else, they were able to
Speaker 1: when they had the ball, meaning well, obviously when Shaye
Speaker 1: had the ball, those guys were sinking in. But by
Speaker 1: pressuring up on everyone else when they had the ball,
Speaker 1: they were able to maintain some of that aggressive ball
Speaker 1: pressure identity that made Minnesota the basketball team that they've
Speaker 1: been over the course of the last two years. And ironically,
Speaker 1: they were able to actually fulfill, you know, something or
Speaker 1: force something out of Oklahoma City that we very rarely see,
Speaker 1: which is them turning the basketball over. In that first half,
Speaker 1: they turned OKAC over a bunch and got out in
Speaker 1: transition a bunch.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: Whenever, whenever I talk about like bizarre outcomes, So this
Speaker 1: is a bizarre outcome right Like you're it's five minutes
Speaker 1: left in.
Speaker 2: The fourth quarter. You have forty four on the.
Speaker 1: Sixty eight win thunder team that beat the shit out
Speaker 1: of you twice in Oklahoma City. What causes you to
Speaker 1: flip the script that dramatically, Well, like I always say,
Speaker 1: it's not one thing. Many things have to go your
Speaker 1: way to lead to a dynamic that dramatic. So one,
Speaker 1: obviously the shift in the game plan containing Shay. You've
Speaker 1: played him into his first bad game of the series.
Speaker 1: Full game you have obviously was bad in the first half,
Speaker 1: of game one, but you played Shay into a bad
Speaker 1: game right two. The ball pressure on the other Thunder players,
Speaker 1: forcing turnovers and getting out in transition. Those are the
Speaker 1: two things that we've already discussed. The third thing, Ant
Speaker 1: and Julius making the corner kicks. We've talked about this
Speaker 1: NonStop through the first two games of the series. Minnesota,
Speaker 1: for the first time tonight showed the ability to dislodge
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City from their base defensive scheme the first time.
Speaker 1: Thirty four in the first quarter, thirty eight in the
Speaker 1: second quarter, thirty five in the third quarter. That's absurd.
Speaker 1: They were finally able to demonstrate, hey, your baseline scheme
Speaker 1: doesn't work. In the first two games, they were unable
Speaker 1: to do that. Aunt and Julius forcing the issue, taking
Speaker 1: bad shots, not making the corner kicks. When the corner
Speaker 1: kicks were made, not knocking them down. In the first
Speaker 1: two games of the series, the Wolves were nine for
Speaker 1: thirty six on corner threes. That's twenty five percent. That's
Speaker 1: not going to get the job done. The turnovers that
Speaker 1: they were dealing with, all of those things that they
Speaker 1: had to do to successfully process against this defense wasn't
Speaker 1: getting done. Tonight as of five minutes left in the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter, only nine turnovers. Relentlessly in this game, and
Speaker 1: and Julius making the corner kickout passes over and over again,
Speaker 1: trusting their ability to capitalize on that advantage. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't just corner threes. I thought Jaden McDaniels in particular
Speaker 1: did an incredible job tonight operating on that weak side
Speaker 1: corner as a guy who was hitting threes, but also
Speaker 1: making like attacking closeouts, making connective passing reads. There were
Speaker 1: a couple of plays in the late first half that
Speaker 1: I thought perfectly demonstrated. This one a corner kick from Julius.
Speaker 1: Another corner kick from Ann I have in both of
Speaker 1: my Twitter feed you can find him at underscore jsnlt.
Speaker 1: I put him in a little thread. But Julius drives.
Speaker 1: He he draws Shay in and help because again all
Speaker 1: series long, Oklahoma City has been packing the paint and
Speaker 1: conceding those corner kickouts. Julius makes the corner kickout. There's
Speaker 1: a close out. That close out is an advantage, right,
Speaker 1: got to capitalize on that advantage. Jayden racks to the
Speaker 1: baseline and on that rip the remove because he beats
Speaker 1: the close out, He's able to generate dribble penetration and
Speaker 1: it forces the big man to step up. Then Rudy
Speaker 1: Gobert very smartly teas up, meaning he just kind of
Speaker 1: relocates from the opposite dunker spot right in front of
Speaker 1: the rim and makes himself available. Jaden drops it off
Speaker 1: to him, Rudy catches. Then lou Dort has to because
Speaker 1: he has no choice digging, and also it's just kind
Speaker 1: of part of the way the Thunder play basketball. Swoop
Speaker 1: in to try to steal it from Gobert, and as
Speaker 1: a result, Nikil Alexander Walker is wide open at the
Speaker 1: top of the key. Rudy another connective past pitches it
Speaker 1: to Nikil at the top of the key. Pump fakes
Speaker 1: on the close out, gets in the lane and gets
Speaker 1: an easy, breezy floater in the lane where Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: typically is swarming, but not attacking at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the possession, but kicking on the beginning of the possession,
Speaker 1: moving the ball, and suddenly things get loose. Suddenly there's
Speaker 1: an opportunity in the middle of the floor where you
Speaker 1: can look to be aggressive without having to deal with
Speaker 1: the swarm of Oklahoma City defenders very similar one. Aunt
Speaker 1: drives kicks to the corner to Jaden, draws an extra
Speaker 1: rotation from the top of the wing, pitches it to
Speaker 1: Nas read another really aggressive closeout. Nas just shows the ball,
Speaker 1: Dude goes flying by, puts the ball on the floor,
Speaker 1: and then Easy Breezy settles into a wide open three
Speaker 1: on the right wing that he knocks down. That's advantage basketball.
Speaker 1: That's how you have to break down this Oklahoma City defense.
Speaker 1: Get into the middle, make the corner kicks, knock them
Speaker 1: down when you're wide open, drive closeouts, make the connective reads.
Speaker 1: Then you're gonna see opportunities for Aunt and Julius to
Speaker 1: be aggressive on the backside. But again, there's more to
Speaker 1: it than just that. Even the Aunt and Julius over
Speaker 1: the top shot making like Aunt and Julius just did
Speaker 1: a better job of being a little more selective on
Speaker 1: the types of pull up jump shots they were taking.
Speaker 1: I thought Ant took some really tough ones in the
Speaker 1: second half, but he got his rhythm first. He got
Speaker 1: it going with some easier looks against drop coverage or
Speaker 1: beating gambles, and so when he got his jumper going,
Speaker 1: then in the second half, he went to some really
Speaker 1: tough bits of shot making, but it came in the
Speaker 1: flow after he already built his rhythm. Julius Randalls over
Speaker 1: the top shot making in the short range and a
Speaker 1: pull up three as well. Like you saw the shot
Speaker 1: making from the stars meet the moment as well, guys
Speaker 1: knocking down their catch and shoot threes. As of the
Speaker 1: time we started the show, there were seven Timberwolves players
Speaker 1: that hit multiple threes and going there. Naseri two for three,
Speaker 1: Dante DiVincenzo two for two, Ni Kil, Alexander Walker two
Speaker 1: for four, Ant five for eight, Mike Conley two for six,
Speaker 1: Jada McDaniel's two for four, Julius Randall two for five.
Speaker 1: So all those dudes multiple threes, all of them hit
Speaker 1: over forty percent except for Mike Conley.
Speaker 2: So the shooting followed right again.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna beat the shit out of a team
Speaker 1: that just previously blew you out, you need a bunch
Speaker 1: of factors to go your way. Game plan shift, forcing
Speaker 1: turnovers and getting out in transition. Aunt and Julius making
Speaker 1: the reads, guys knocking down corner threes, connective playmaking, attacking closeouts,
Speaker 1: Aunt and Julius hitting shots over the top, and then
Speaker 1: what I thought was a really smart little move from
Speaker 1: Chris Finch to start in the I think he was
Speaker 1: right at the start of the second quarter if I
Speaker 1: remember correctly, but it's in the first half. I thought
Speaker 1: he read the room right and was like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: forcing turnovers, we're getting out in transition. This is very
Speaker 1: much like a up and down the floor type of game.
Speaker 1: How about we throw Terrence Shannon in there. And Terrence Shannon,
Speaker 1: you know, in a league where it's hard to stand
Speaker 1: out as an athlete, this guy pops off the screen
Speaker 1: every time I watch him as an athlete. And he
Speaker 1: got some opportunities to attack, to slash off the wing,
Speaker 1: to slash in transition, and I thought he was great
Speaker 1: in his shift. I thought, there's just a really smart
Speaker 1: move from Chris Finch in that spot. So obviously everything
Speaker 1: goes Minnesota's way in this game and they get a
Speaker 1: big win. The question is can Minnesota still win this series?
Speaker 1: The problem is is you spotted Oklahoma City a two
Speaker 1: to oh lead with a foolish game plan. Now, again,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned before, there's no guarantee that you would
Speaker 1: have had an opportunity to win either of those games,
Speaker 1: which you probably have a better chance to win those
Speaker 1: games if you end up you starting the series with
Speaker 1: an appropriate game plan. The problem is now you still
Speaker 1: even after tonight, you have to win three of the
Speaker 1: next four games, and at least one of those games
Speaker 1: needs to be one in Oklahoma City, maybe two. If
Speaker 1: OKAC manages to steal one game in your building, Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City will come out and play better in game two.
Speaker 1: There are obvious things that will swing and excuse me
Speaker 1: in game four, apologize game two minute soda. Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: will play better in game four, there's a couple of
Speaker 1: obvious things that will tilt back their way. They're gonna
Speaker 1: come out with a more desperate defensive effort with a
Speaker 1: ton of physicality, like that's just guaranteed right out the gates,
Speaker 1: which means Aunt and Julius are gonna have to be
Speaker 1: even more deliberate with protecting the ball, with making the
Speaker 1: appropriate reads. Guys are gonna have to hit threes against
Speaker 1: tighter closeouts. Guys when they drive closeouts are gonna have
Speaker 1: to deal with sharper closeouts containing the ball that they're
Speaker 1: gonna have to do a better job beating and making
Speaker 1: those subsequent reads out of it. Right, Oklahoma City turned
Speaker 1: the ball over a lot at the beginning of this game.
Speaker 1: I would expect Oklahoma City to turn the ball over
Speaker 1: less in Game four. Right, They're gonna be more methodical,
Speaker 1: like they have seen this style of defense before. They
Speaker 1: saw it in the Denver series. So we're gonna see
Speaker 1: them most likely try to bring back some of that
Speaker 1: methodical playmaking and shot making that we saw in the
Speaker 1: Denver series at stretches right, So like Oklahoma City, you
Speaker 1: will play way better in Game four and this margin
Speaker 1: will be way tighter. Now, the case if you're a
Speaker 1: Minnesota fan and you're looking for a reason to feel
Speaker 1: optimistic about your chances to come back and win the series,
Speaker 1: the case is that you did some real damage tonight.
Speaker 1: This was not a win. This was an ass kicking.
Speaker 1: I thought you shook the thunder to their core tonight.
Speaker 1: You had them looking disheveled and doing things they don't
Speaker 1: normally do. Shae was awful. You played them into a
Speaker 1: bunch of turnovers. Look at how many times this year
Speaker 1: Shae was four for thirteen tonight. Go look at how
Speaker 1: many times this year Shaye shot that poorly from the field.
Speaker 1: That's thirty one percent. I pulled the numbers for the
Speaker 1: show the other day. He had single digit games this
Speaker 1: year below forty percent from the field, guys like Jalen Brunson,
Speaker 1: guys like Anthony Edwards, they had more than twenty such games.
Speaker 1: You played Shay into an uncharacteristically tough game. You played
Speaker 1: a team that doesn't turn the bast over into a
Speaker 1: bunch of turnovers. You took a sixty eight win team
Speaker 1: that I said the last night, I would be shocked
Speaker 1: if they didn't win the title at this point, and
Speaker 1: you beat the shit out of them. So if you're
Speaker 1: looking for optimism, that's what you cling to. You did
Speaker 1: some real damage. I would be shocked if Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: blew you out in game four. Game four is going
Speaker 1: to most likely be a tight, competitive game that will
Speaker 1: come down to some sort of sequence down the stretch.
Speaker 1: And if you can execute, and you execute the game
Speaker 1: plan specifically, and if Julius and and make the appropriate reads,
Speaker 1: the guys play smart off of those advantages and finish
Speaker 1: plays with shot making. There is a real chance here.
Speaker 1: But there's a reason why in NBA history. I saw
Speaker 1: a stat the other day I believe only six times
Speaker 1: in the conference finals a team has come back from
Speaker 1: down two. Oh, there's a reason why you're not playing
Speaker 1: against bums anymore. This is the conference Finalslahoma City has
Speaker 1: been the championship favorite since like the last third of
Speaker 1: the regular season. This is a real team, and you
Speaker 1: got to beat them four out of five times, took
Speaker 1: care one, but now you got to win three out
Speaker 1: of four, and it's just really hard to do. It's
Speaker 1: really hard to sustain. And so with that being the case,
Speaker 1: like I still feel like the thunder are in a
Speaker 1: commanding position here, but you just got to take it
Speaker 1: one game at a time. We talked about this last night.
Speaker 1: You win for New York, it's the same kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Just win game three, it changes the series. Win game three,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Game four becomes the pivot point.
Speaker 1: If you win game four, you go back to Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City in a two to two series with the appropriate
Speaker 1: game plan, and you feel like you have a better
Speaker 1: chance to win the series at that point. Theoretically, at
Speaker 1: that point, you're in better shape than you are in
Speaker 1: game one zero zero, because now you know the way
Speaker 1: that you want to play and you only got to
Speaker 1: beat them twice. Same thing goes with the Knicks win
Speaker 1: game three, all of a sudden, Game four becomes the
Speaker 1: pivot point. You win game four, it's two to two,
Speaker 1: you're going home for a best of three, and you've
Speaker 1: figured out some stuff with the way you want to play.
Speaker 1: You just have to keep taking it one game at
Speaker 1: a time. All right, bear with me for just a
Speaker 1: second because Jackson's gone, So I'm gonna pull up the
Speaker 1: tweet here so I can get these questions from you guys.
Speaker 1: All Right, I know it's the playoffs and adjustments that matter.
Speaker 1: But do you think that Finch not adjusting the base
Speaker 1: defensive scheme in the first two games is him just
Speaker 1: not wanting to overreact and having confidence in his player's
Speaker 1: ability to execute. Absolutely, That's what we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: There's there's a kind of push and pull that you
Speaker 1: see in every single like weird matchup that kind of
Speaker 1: leads to a blink like kind of a staring contest
Speaker 1: between the coaches. For instance, like let's say a fast
Speaker 1: team and a slow team play against each other. Imagine
Speaker 1: like a lightning fast Golden State Warriors team with like
Speaker 1: Draymond Green at center in like twenty twenty two and
Speaker 1: then like, imagine a two big group, so call it,
Speaker 1: you know, this year's Minnesota Timberwolves versus the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two Warriors or another two big team like Houston or
Speaker 1: something like that. With those situations, it's like who's gonna blink? Like,
Speaker 1: are is the small team gonna be like, shit, we
Speaker 1: can't out small these guys, Let's go big, Or is
Speaker 1: the big team gonna go like, shit, we're too slow
Speaker 1: for these guys, Let's go small like and it's like
Speaker 1: who's gonna be the first team that blinks? And I
Speaker 1: think there's a certain amount of like I think Chris
Speaker 1: Finch wanted to go out there with his base scheme
Speaker 1: and just be like, let's see if the thunder can
Speaker 1: beat the Timberwolves. The problem is is like they beat
Speaker 1: you pretty good in game one, and they cut you
Speaker 1: a pieces in that game, and it was pretty clear
Speaker 1: right away in game two that they could score whenever
Speaker 1: they wanted to. Again, so they're like, there was no
Speaker 1: real point in game two where Minnesota took substantial control,
Speaker 1: and so they did, for the record, to Finch his credit,
Speaker 1: like they did the game was just already out of reach.
Speaker 1: They did start doing this like kind of meet and
Speaker 1: Shae further back and packing the paint thing on, like
Speaker 1: some of the final possessions in the fourth quarter of
Speaker 1: Game two.
Speaker 2: It just was one of those things.
Speaker 1: Where like, maybe if you do it earlier, this series
Speaker 1: is two to one now instead of one to two.
Speaker 1: But again, it's it is what it is. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: generally of the opinion that in the postseason you cannot
Speaker 1: waste time. Ask the Knicks who just blew Game one.
Speaker 1: Ask the Lakers who got punched in the face by
Speaker 1: the Wolves in Game one. You know, there's so many
Speaker 1: different examples like this in all these different series, Like
Speaker 1: you cannot afford to spot teams wins in the postseason.
Speaker 1: So I'm generally of the belief that you should attack
Speaker 1: right away with the method that gives you the best
Speaker 1: chance to win that series, and make adjustments quicker rather
Speaker 1: than slower. We're talking about this with Jackson yesterday, just
Speaker 1: with I think it was Jake Iszenberg yesterday, like be
Speaker 1: quick to don't be stubborn, be quick to make the
Speaker 1: appropriate adjustment to give you the best chance to win
Speaker 1: a playoff series.
Speaker 2: All right, let's look at some other questions here.
Speaker 1: Hey, Jason, question here, something I noticed in these playoffs
Speaker 1: is the increase significance of elite team conditioning allah the
Speaker 1: relentless Pacers and OKC defense. I know you mentioned attention
Speaker 1: to detail in the last video, and I think there's
Speaker 1: a correlation there.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts.
Speaker 1: I think we've seen this with the Knicks to just
Speaker 1: in general, with the way that they pushed their guys minutes.
Speaker 1: The Pacers dominated the second half of the season. The
Speaker 1: Knicks underachieved this year, but they played all their guys
Speaker 1: big minutes, and like those dudes were asked to do
Speaker 1: a ton. The Thunder attacked the regular season relentlessly. Timberwolves
Speaker 1: a little bit up and down over the course of
Speaker 1: the year, but took down the stretch of the season.
Speaker 1: They were playing great basketball. In general, the best way
Speaker 1: to prefer, like you know that old expression, the best
Speaker 1: indicator of future performance is past performance. Similarly like your
Speaker 1: best chance to play your best basketball when you need
Speaker 1: to is to practice playing your best basketball. Like as
Speaker 1: a Laker fan, for instance, I didn't think the Laker
Speaker 1: defense was anywhere near as good as it was before
Speaker 1: Lebron heard his groin. When Lebron heard his groin. He
Speaker 1: was out for a while, the defense fell off a
Speaker 1: cliff when Lebron came back. There was never really a
Speaker 1: point from that point to the end of the season
Speaker 1: where they looked like the same defense that they were
Speaker 1: before the injuries. So yeah, I'm not surprised that they
Speaker 1: went into the Minnesota Series and they were playing some
Speaker 1: shitty defense. I think there's a certain amount of like
Speaker 1: in general preparing for playoff basketball as it pertains specifically
Speaker 1: to Oklahoma City in Indiana. These are two teams that
Speaker 1: play a very hectic style with full court ball pressure
Speaker 1: and a ton of rotation speed and flying up and
Speaker 1: down the floor and transition on offense. These are teams
Speaker 1: that need to be deep and need to be in
Speaker 1: great shape. It's just something that's necessary for their specific
Speaker 1: play style. Alrighty is Pascal the underrated X factor in
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference Finals that I think he is? The
Speaker 1: Knicks don't seem to have an answer for him. Going
Speaker 1: back to what we had last year in the postseason.
Speaker 1: If you guys remember when Og and Deobi got hurt,
Speaker 1: Pascal caught Josh Hart for a lot of like this
Speaker 1: primary assignment stuff, and he was just cooking his ass
Speaker 1: all over the place. But like in general, Siakam is
Speaker 1: the missing piece to the Indiana Pacer offense from what
Speaker 1: it already was before the trade last year, which was
Speaker 1: that one of the best pick and role players in
Speaker 1: the league, a guy that is going to consistently set
Speaker 1: teams up with their team up with an advantage and
Speaker 1: they could play advantage basketball with the best of them.
Speaker 1: But what a guy like Siakam gives you is the
Speaker 1: ability to create his own advantage one on one, and
Speaker 1: you know it's gonna be different levels of value in
Speaker 1: different games based on the way the flow is. Ideally,
Speaker 1: I'm sure the Pacers would like to never have to
Speaker 1: use Pascal as an ISO player and have him attacking
Speaker 1: with an advantage consistently.
Speaker 2: And by the way he does that, he had a
Speaker 2: couple of big catch and shoot threes.
Speaker 1: But like the it's like a break glass in case
Speaker 1: of we got stopped by the defense, just give the
Speaker 1: ball to passcal he can go get a bucket. And
Speaker 1: with that being the case, he becomes vitally important within
Speaker 1: that specific Pacers construct.
Speaker 2: All right, let's see.
Speaker 1: Here this game in particular by the Wolves involved them
Speaker 1: simply playing with a level of intensity and force that okay,
Speaker 1: so he expected from them but was unable to match.
Speaker 1: Finch finally made the defensive adjustments on Shay as well.
Speaker 1: What is sustainable for the going into Game four? For
Speaker 1: the talked a little bit about this early earlier, but
Speaker 1: like again, I think the Thunder will absolutely bring a
Speaker 1: better defensive effort right away, Like you're probably not going
Speaker 1: to score seventy two points in the first half, right
Speaker 1: and they certainly will take better care of the basketball.
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly what the numbers were because they've
Speaker 1: been adopted adapted to the full game. I guess I
Speaker 1: can give you the full game numbers real quick. They
Speaker 1: gave up sixteen points off of turnovers in this game,
Speaker 1: but I think thirteen or fifteen of them, like most
Speaker 1: of those came in the first half, and by the way,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City cleaned that up literally in the second half
Speaker 1: of this game. So I think they will take care
Speaker 1: better care of the ball.
Speaker 2: So what are the And.
Speaker 1: Also I think Aunt and Julius hitting really tough pull
Speaker 1: up jump shots. There's a certain amount of variance in that,
Speaker 1: so there's a there's a version of Game four where
Speaker 1: those guys just don't hit the same shots. So what
Speaker 1: is it going to be that Minnesota can certainly bring
Speaker 1: into the next game the right game plan. So again,
Speaker 1: just sagging off of Shay packing the paint, ball, pressuring
Speaker 1: the other guys when they have the ball, and then
Speaker 1: on offense, Julius and Aunt making the corner kicks whenever
Speaker 1: they can, and then playing advantage basketball out of that
Speaker 1: whenever they have an opportunity to that. They found a
Speaker 1: formula now that has shown the ability to work. Tea
Speaker 1: Wolves fan, but do you think fatigue played a factor?
Speaker 1: If so, it's going to be a long series. No,
Speaker 1: that everybody in Oklahoma City, Jersey is who plays in
Speaker 1: their rotation is twenty six or younger except for Alex Crusoe.
Speaker 1: So any of you guys who still play basketball at
Speaker 1: my age in your mid thirties will be able to
Speaker 1: tell you how it feels a lot different when you're
Speaker 1: twenty five twenty four, when you've got to play every
Speaker 1: other night.
Speaker 2: I still remember.
Speaker 1: Playing legitimately, like four hours of pickup basketball a night
Speaker 1: when I was that age, you know, So like it's
Speaker 1: just a different it's just a different physical ask for
Speaker 1: an Oklahoma City team. That said, there is like just
Speaker 1: part of human nature in terms of the natural kind
Speaker 1: of pullback of intensity that is going to take place
Speaker 1: naturally as part of urgency. Like this same Thunder team
Speaker 1: kind of got smacked by Memphis and would have lost
Speaker 1: Game three if John Moran didn't get hurt, and so like,
Speaker 1: there is a certain natural tendency to see that kind
Speaker 1: of pullback in these sorts of situations. How much defensively
Speaker 1: would the Wolves actually lose if they replaced Rudy with
Speaker 1: a mid level guy who can actually shoot. I generally
Speaker 1: am of the belief, and I thought Rudy was better tonight.
Speaker 1: Just was more active on the defensive glass and had
Speaker 1: a couple of sequences where he had better success against
Speaker 1: Shaye than he did in earlier parts of the series.
Speaker 1: But the thing with Rudy is his value as a
Speaker 1: rimp protector is actually less in a scheme where you've
Speaker 1: got so many quality perimeter defenders relative to what his
Speaker 1: value looked like in Utah, for example, where you know
Speaker 1: he was cleaning up messes constantly because there were you know,
Speaker 1: Donovan Mitchell couldn't guard, Joe Ingles couldn't guard, you know,
Speaker 1: Mike Conley couldn't guard you know, Jordan Clarson couldn't guard.
Speaker 1: They just had a bunch of dudes who couldn't slide
Speaker 1: their feet. It was like Royce O'Neill was the only
Speaker 1: guy who could like really guard, you know, for that team.
Speaker 1: And so you know, in this particular type of scheme, Like,
Speaker 1: I think there's a reason why Minnesota's consistently all year
Speaker 1: looked fantastic when it's Nas reading Dante DiVincenzo. It's because
Speaker 1: it's just a bunch of elite perimeter defenders and the
Speaker 1: ability to space the floor with NAS's shooting ability. All right,
Speaker 1: what suggestion do you have for changing the knicks starting
Speaker 1: and closing lineups? What do you think of changing out
Speaker 1: Heart for Deuce in the starting lineup just to keep
Speaker 1: up with the Pacers during that time, then win the
Speaker 1: minutes with Mitch closing with Mitch og Deuce, McHale and Brunson.
Speaker 1: So this is the thing. Mitchell Robinson to me, is
Speaker 1: very much a player that relies on exerting energy. And
Speaker 1: by the way, if you pull up his numbers from
Speaker 1: last night, in the second half, he had I think
Speaker 1: one offensive rebound, I think he had one block, and
Speaker 1: I think he was minus seven in his minutes. He
Speaker 1: was dominant in his first half stretch. The thing with
Speaker 1: Mitch is, I think you want to keep his minutes
Speaker 1: in that like eighteen to twenty two range because that's
Speaker 1: where he is most effective with his motor. You want
Speaker 1: him playing, you know, basically two shifts a game, right,
Speaker 1: you know, bridging the first and second quarters and bridging
Speaker 1: the third and fourth quarters. Like, that's what you want.
Speaker 1: And again there's a conversation to be had about the
Speaker 1: big picture in terms of whether or not you should
Speaker 1: try to find a player that can kind of approximate
Speaker 1: what Mitch Mitch does, but is capable of playing thirty
Speaker 1: thirty five minutes a night. But with this, within this
Speaker 1: scale of this, within the scope of this particular postseason series.
Speaker 1: You know, Mitch played what twenty nine minutes I think
Speaker 1: in game in game two, like and in those final minutes,
Speaker 1: you know, in his twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight,
Speaker 1: twenty ninth minute, that was when he was like leaving
Speaker 1: Siakam and leaving Turner open and making a couple of
Speaker 1: sketchy decisions defensively and like helping recover situations. So like,
Speaker 1: I think, if you're going to try to close with
Speaker 1: min which by the way, opens up some other problems
Speaker 1: in terms of spacing. But if you close with Mitch,
Speaker 1: you want to make sure that he's closing within the
Speaker 1: scope of a minute load that he can handle. And
Speaker 1: so it's one thing to say, let's put Deuce in
Speaker 1: the starting lineup. I think Deuce can handle heavy minutes.
Speaker 1: And the reality is Josh Hart is just not doing
Speaker 1: enough damage offensively out there in his minutes. But with
Speaker 1: Mitch in particular, I don't think you want to be
Speaker 1: necessarily closing with him unless you can keep his minutes down,
Speaker 1: and so he might just have to get kind of
Speaker 1: creative with the rotation in order to make that happen.
Speaker 1: All right, let me double check really quick to make
Speaker 1: sure I didn't miss any. Are there any defensive adjustments
Speaker 1: you think the Knicks can make versus Indy or are
Speaker 1: they just going to have to try to beat them
Speaker 1: in shootouts. I'm gonna be honest with you guys, Like,
Speaker 1: if you watch the film from the first two games
Speaker 1: of this series, Kat is like utterly lost on the
Speaker 1: defensive end of the four. It looks like he has
Speaker 1: no idea what he wants to do. He's like I
Speaker 1: saw some clips, some defensive clips from game two where
Speaker 1: like he threw some of the worst high drop kind
Speaker 1: of hedge blitz whatever you want to call him, type
Speaker 1: of looks i've ever seen where he's coming out way
Speaker 1: too high and then in rotation he's just kind of
Speaker 1: running around like a chicken with his head cut off,
Speaker 1: and then like the ball go in the basket or
Speaker 1: a cutter will catch it open, he kind of just
Speaker 1: looks around like like what do you guys want me
Speaker 1: to do? And and it just he just looks lost
Speaker 1: out there. And so I you know, if you asked
Speaker 1: me what was the best possible game plan to try
Speaker 1: to proceed with moving forward, to me, it would be
Speaker 1: with Cat. It would just be switching everything to prevent
Speaker 1: the obvious drop coverage looks that you can get and
Speaker 1: then just communicate like crazy behind Cat to make sure
Speaker 1: that he doesn't get lost. But it's when he's in
Speaker 1: these two on the ball situations and he has to
Speaker 1: rotate that he's getting lost. And so I would just,
Speaker 1: you know, try as hard as you can to turn
Speaker 1: Indiana into an ISO team, and the best way to
Speaker 1: do that is by switching. But there are some realities
Speaker 1: to the fact that you know, I saw someone say,
Speaker 1: I saw a Celtics fans say, or as a Pacers
Speaker 1: fan say on Twitter, like this is going to be
Speaker 1: very different than keeping Tatum in front. And I was
Speaker 1: like when I read that, I was like, I was
Speaker 1: trying to tell you guys this, like it's a very
Speaker 1: different series. Like it's the Celtics succumb to switching. They
Speaker 1: allow switching to stagnate them because they want to play
Speaker 1: one on one and yeah, Tatum and Brown are two
Speaker 1: guys that will absolutely settle if you slide your feet
Speaker 1: reasonably well. The Pacers do not succumb to switching until
Speaker 1: the end of the clock or for a very deep
Speaker 1: post up. They are a team that plays with so
Speaker 1: much pace and verve in the half court. They'll make
Speaker 1: you execute fifteen to twenty switches before the end of
Speaker 1: the possession, and inevitably you're gonna fuck one of them up.
Speaker 1: And when you do, now they don't have to play
Speaker 1: ice of ball. They can play drive and pick out
Speaker 1: of that. And so again, like it's it's just it's
Speaker 1: a really tough matchup with Cat out there, and you
Speaker 1: can't just like bench Cat. You don't have the depth
Speaker 1: for that, and so, like, you know, honestly, like all
Speaker 1: all you can hope for is that they just play better,
Speaker 1: that they do a better job within their scheme. By
Speaker 1: the way, like I I think the Knicks have a
Speaker 1: decent chance to win tomorrow night. Like I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna sit here and be surprised if if the Knicks
Speaker 1: win tomorrow night. Now, like I feel almost certain that
Speaker 1: Indiana's gonna get one of those two games, which means
Speaker 1: they're gonna be up three to one, which means they're
Speaker 1: gonna probably go to the finals. But like there's this
Speaker 1: series isn't over. You just got to take it one
Speaker 1: game at a time. But it's just the construct of
Speaker 1: this team depends too much on Jalen Brunson and and
Speaker 1: uh uh Karl Anthony Towns to be attentive and focused
Speaker 1: and to give the requisite intensity in their rotations, and
Speaker 1: the two of them are just not good at that.
Speaker 1: And so it just it just to me looks like
Speaker 1: a matchup that's gonna be tough for them to overcome.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, that's all we have for right now.
Speaker 1: We're gonna head over to playback again. That's playback dot
Speaker 1: TV slash Hoops tonight. We'll hang out there for about
Speaker 1: forty five minutes or so. We'd be taking callers and
Speaker 1: watching some film. Again is always sincerely appreciate you guys
Speaker 1: for supporting me and supporting the show. We will see
Speaker 1: you guys next time. What's up guys? As always, I
Speaker 1: appreciate you for listening to and supporting Hoops tonight. They
Speaker 1: would actually be really helpful for us if you guys
Speaker 1: would take a second and leave a rating and a review.
Speaker 1: As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
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Speaker 1: appreciate it.
Speaker 2: The volume