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Speaker 1: welcome to hoop tonight. You're at the vall you hav
Speaker 1: me Wednesday? Everybody, oh of all, you guys are having
Speaker 1: a great start to your week. Just the absolutely batshit
Speaker 1: crazy game in Madison Square Garden. I cannot believe what
Speaker 1: I just saw. I don't know what kind of voodoo
Speaker 1: the Indiana Pacers have been engaging in but apparently you've
Speaker 1: got to beat him five times in two weeks to
Speaker 1: send him home. Because for the third consecutive series, trailing
Speaker 1: by at least seven in the final minute, Tonight, trailing
Speaker 1: by eight in the final minute, the Pacers have won
Speaker 1: a game out of the jaws of defeat. I just cannot.
Speaker 1: I looked over at my wife as the last free
Speaker 1: throws were being shot by the Knicks, and I looked
Speaker 1: at her and I said, there's no way they do
Speaker 1: this again. There's absolutely no way they do this again.
Speaker 1: And they did it again, and in just comical fashion,
Speaker 1: as Tyrese Haliburton is dancing in the middle of the
Speaker 1: floor and then just deciding to cover fifteen feet backwards
Speaker 1: towards the top of the key, the shot off the
Speaker 1: heel that goes way up in the air, and the
Speaker 1: entire basketball world just freezes and all of us we're
Speaker 1: thinking the same thing. We're like, that kind of went
Speaker 1: straight up in the air, that's got a chance to
Speaker 1: come down, and it came down, and the Pacers are
Speaker 1: up one oh in the Eastern Conference Finals. On a
Speaker 1: night I was talking with Shane, Shane's works on our show.
Speaker 1: He's a Knicks fan. There is so much to be
Speaker 1: confident and excited about. If you were a Knicks fan
Speaker 1: coming out of that game and you lost, you're down
Speaker 1: one zero in the series. I can't believe it. So
Speaker 1: many interesting things to get into. You guys, owe the
Speaker 1: drill before we get started. Subscribed to the Hoops Toight
Speaker 1: YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos.
Speaker 1: Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LTC. You guys,
Speaker 1: don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight. It's
Speaker 1: also super helpful if you leave a rating and a
Speaker 1: review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our
Speaker 1: social media feeds Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Make sure
Speaker 1: you guys follow us there for content throughout the year,
Speaker 1: and then keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments.
Speaker 1: We're going to take about ten to fifteen minutes of
Speaker 1: questions at the tail end of the show tonight. That's
Speaker 1: where you guys can decide which direction you guys want
Speaker 1: to go in terms of digging into some of the
Speaker 1: deeper details of the series. And then when we wrap
Speaker 1: up here tonight, we're going to be migrating over to
Speaker 1: playback playback dot tv slash Hoops tonight where we have
Speaker 1: our after show. It's a lot more informal. We take callers,
Speaker 1: we take questions from the chat, we watch film, we
Speaker 1: hang out, we talk shit. It's just a fun basketball talking,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of hangout hour that we have after
Speaker 1: the show. So come hang out with us on playback
Speaker 1: when we finish up later tonight. What a bizarre game,
Speaker 1: I feel, like, you know, it's so funny. I joke
Speaker 1: with the people that, you know, the in my friends
Speaker 1: and family that asked me what my job is, like,
Speaker 1: I was telling them, like, the craziest thing is these
Speaker 1: live reaction shows, because like you're trying to piece together
Speaker 1: all these things that happen in the game. And so
Speaker 1: obviously I prep a lot for my job. So I
Speaker 1: put together extensive prep for how I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: the story of the basketball game. And then the Indiana
Speaker 1: Pacers three times in this postseason have made me just
Speaker 1: rip that up and throw it away as they turn
Speaker 1: what looks like a very different game into a PACER's win.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely unbelievable, and everyone knows everyone who's been following
Speaker 1: this Pacers team in this postseason run knows they literally
Speaker 1: never stop playing. You are not done with the Pacers
Speaker 1: until the final buzzer sounds. There is no relenting, there's
Speaker 1: no letting go of the rope. Every single time you
Speaker 1: make a basket or miss a basket, they're picking you
Speaker 1: up full court. Every single time you go get a basket,
Speaker 1: they're taking even if you make it, they're taking it
Speaker 1: out and they're trying to push the ball ahead, first
Speaker 1: available kick, ahead pass, first available advantage. They're hunting it,
Speaker 1: they're looking to attack quickly, feeling as though their ball
Speaker 1: pressure will wear you down, feeling as though they will
Speaker 1: be able to win the large sample battle. And for
Speaker 1: the record, like even though there was a lot of
Speaker 1: really encouraging stuff on the Knicks front, we'll get into it,
Speaker 1: I thought Jalen Brunson looked exhausted in overtime. They had
Speaker 1: a couple he had a couple of buckets, but they
Speaker 1: had a couple of grifts that he got rewarded with
Speaker 1: four foul shots in overtime that you could tell, especially
Speaker 1: on the last step back three, the one before the
Speaker 1: offensive rebound. He did not get a lot of lyft
Speaker 1: on that shot, and he left it way short. And
Speaker 1: that's the game that the Pacers play. It's a wear
Speaker 1: and tear game. It's a leaning on depth kind of game.
Speaker 1: Like even with the overtime period tonight, only two Pacers
Speaker 1: actually went over forty minutes. They will wear you down.
Speaker 1: They never stop again. Ask Cavs fans. They had him
Speaker 1: dead to rights. Max Drus gets a huge three point shot,
Speaker 1: They're up seven, doesn't matter, Game's not over. The Bucks
Speaker 1: Gary Trent Junior three after three, after three, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Games not over. They play with such a furious pace
Speaker 1: and they're so capable of getting insanely hot. Aaron Nei Smith,
Speaker 1: that is one of the greatest heat checks you'll ever
Speaker 1: see in an NBA playoff game. Six threes in the
Speaker 1: final five minutes. Every single one of them was tough
Speaker 1: on the move. One of the things I've been talking
Speaker 1: a lot about with respect to Anthony Edwards is a
Speaker 1: trend that I expect to see really take over in
Speaker 1: the new NBA, in the future of the NBA, which
Speaker 1: is seeing supreme athletes become great shooters. It didn't used
Speaker 1: to be that way back in the day. It used
Speaker 1: to be the supreme athletes didn't work very much on that.
Speaker 1: It was even denigrated in the lower levels of basketball.
Speaker 1: Is settling. If you were a good athlete and you
Speaker 1: took a three, you were wasting an opportunity to use
Speaker 1: your athleticism going towards the basket. We are seeing guys
Speaker 1: like Ant rise and fire and hit tough shots because
Speaker 1: they have ridiculous athleticism. When you combine the shot making
Speaker 1: with the ability to get lift in separation, it's deadly.
Speaker 1: And it didn't matter what the Knicks did with Aaron E.
Speaker 1: Smith down the stretch, he just rows up, got his
Speaker 1: lift and then right at the top, just that flip
Speaker 1: of the wrist. That's where his muscle memory comes in.
Speaker 1: I and Aaron E. Smith is one of several Pacers
Speaker 1: players that has just made these minuscule improvements year over
Speaker 1: year each of the last few years, and they're all
Speaker 1: just better basketball players now than they used to be.
Speaker 1: And then Tyre's Halliburton. We talked about it going into
Speaker 1: this playoff series. As great as Jalen Brunson has been
Speaker 1: and he's been the best clutch player in the NBA
Speaker 1: this postseason, Tyre's Halliburton has been right there behind him,
Speaker 1: and he has a tendency to It's been much lower
Speaker 1: volume than Brunson butt like just unbelievably high efficiency. He
Speaker 1: just keeps making every single big shot at the end
Speaker 1: of games that needs to be made. He seems to
Speaker 1: be very comfortable operating there in the middle of the floor.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I just can't believe it, guys, I
Speaker 1: just can't believe it. All a very interesting flow. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the Pacers come out red hot, hitting every single shot
Speaker 1: they take. I think they start the game eight for eight.
Speaker 1: Then Mitchell Robinson checks into the game and is just
Speaker 1: a human wrecking ball, grabbing a ton of offensive rebounds,
Speaker 1: providing some vertical spacing and ball screens. Is good, great
Speaker 1: work on defense, throwing guys around. With this physicality, the
Speaker 1: Knicks kind of regain control of the situation and they
Speaker 1: kind of stiff arm the Pacers in that you know,
Speaker 1: three to seven point range for a good chunk of
Speaker 1: time going into that early fourth quarter stretch we did
Speaker 1: see as both offenses were very comfortable in the first half,
Speaker 1: we saw both defenses shift to a lot more switching
Speaker 1: in the third quarter, which got rid of some of
Speaker 1: the natural openings that were existing for both teams, and
Speaker 1: both teams started to struggle to score the basketball, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, TJ McConnell drives on Jalen Brunson
Speaker 1: along the baseline, Pump fakes, catches a swiped down on
Speaker 1: his right arm and picks up Brunson's fifth foul, and
Speaker 1: it's ninety four to ninety two with about ten minutes left,
Speaker 1: and the Knicks just completely took over the game from there.
Speaker 1: Ognanobe giving buckets to Ben matherin a step back three,
Speaker 1: an aggressive move in the lane, Carl Anthony Towns draws
Speaker 1: a foul, and a transition cross match from aaron Ne
Speaker 1: Smith as he's trailing to play in transition. Duce McBride
Speaker 1: a smart cut to the top of the key draws
Speaker 1: a foul. Carl Anthony Town's another left shoulder hook over Siakam.
Speaker 1: He kicked Siakam's ass during that stretch. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we look up and the Knicks are up by sixteen points.
Speaker 1: It's one eighteen to one oh two. Pacers don't really
Speaker 1: have anybody in rhythm. You know, the game's not over
Speaker 1: at that point, but at the same time, the Pacers were,
Speaker 1: or the Knicks were able to kind of stiff farm
Speaker 1: him until that five minute mark, and it looked like
Speaker 1: they were going to get out of there with the wind,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, Aaron Nee Smith just
Speaker 1: every single time down the floor. The crazy thing is
Speaker 1: is the Knicks were getting buckets during that stretch. Brunson
Speaker 1: beating Ben Shepherd straight iso at the top of the key,
Speaker 1: Karl Anthony Towns anice little semi transition attack off the
Speaker 1: left wing, gets a layup. They were scoring and it
Speaker 1: didn't matter because the Pacers were scoring every single time
Speaker 1: down the floor. I did think in overtime that the
Speaker 1: Pacers started getting better shots. Now the Knicks looked very
Speaker 1: much shell shocked. They legitimately looked shell shocked. I don't
Speaker 1: blame them. I was shell shocked and I wasn't even
Speaker 1: playing in the game. But like the Pacers did in
Speaker 1: overtime get quality looks in their offense, the Knicks kind
Speaker 1: of degraded down to Jalen Brunson iso ball. I thought
Speaker 1: the play that Andrew Nemhard made on that kind of
Speaker 1: decoy action. The Knicks come out of a time out,
Speaker 1: they run like a decoy action on the right side
Speaker 1: of the floor for McHale bridges, and they have Brunson
Speaker 1: kind of fly all the way through to the opposite
Speaker 1: side and Andrew Nempar jumps it and just gets in
Speaker 1: the passing lane into the ball. It ends up going
Speaker 1: off of Brunson's fingers out of bounds. You guys, saw
Speaker 1: just how relentless Indiana's ball pressure is. There were two
Speaker 1: plays towards the end of regulation where they nearly turned
Speaker 1: the ball over. That play where Josh Hart kind of
Speaker 1: tripped and fell and he somehow managed to recover to
Speaker 1: the ball. Jalen Brunson gets trapped on that first inbounds
Speaker 1: right by the baseline and while he's falling out of bounce,
Speaker 1: has to rifle a bounce into the back into play
Speaker 1: to try to give his team a chance. And thankfully
Speaker 1: og In and Obi had to be there. But the
Speaker 1: Knicks kind of lost their composure against Indiana's ballpressure. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing, guys, It goes back to that point
Speaker 1: that I was making earlier, as it pertains to the
Speaker 1: Pacers just never stopping from the very first possession of
Speaker 1: this game. The Pacers weren't just full court pressuring Jalen Brunson.
Speaker 1: They were denying him on the inbound. They were trying
Speaker 1: to get in front and prevent him from getting the
Speaker 1: ball at all. Whatsoever. It is not like they started
Speaker 1: doing anything unique or different down the stretch in terms
Speaker 1: of their pressure. It's the same shit they were doing
Speaker 1: all game. A few more traps obviously in the back
Speaker 1: court when they got especially desperate, but most of it
Speaker 1: is just ball pressure, ball pressure, physicality, jumping passing lanes,
Speaker 1: trying to turn you over and again, it is a
Speaker 1: forty eight minute job. This is not the first time
Speaker 1: they've done this. Even if you pull away from the
Speaker 1: specifics of the last minute comeback, they have multiple large
Speaker 1: deficit comebacks in this postseason run. They Game five in Cleveland,
Speaker 1: they were down what forty eight to twenty four or
Speaker 1: something like that in the first half, and they ended
Speaker 1: up losing that game. Like they just never stopped coming
Speaker 1: at you. It is a team wide dynamic that manifests
Speaker 1: almost as though it goes beyond what you see on paper.
Speaker 1: With the talent with this team. I just was completely
Speaker 1: blown away tonight. I think the dynamic that this series
Speaker 1: is going to swing on is the ability to contain
Speaker 1: the basketball. This is where I want to get into
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that there is some encouraging stuff.
Speaker 1: If you're a Knicks fan, you now have to beat
Speaker 1: the Pacers five times. That's going to be a pain
Speaker 1: in the ass, but you do have the tools with
Speaker 1: which to do so. I thought that with exception of
Speaker 1: really overtime, I didn't think the Pacers had any sort
Speaker 1: of extended stretch of defensive success against the Knicks. And
Speaker 1: again overtime, the Knicks were shook in the first half
Speaker 1: a lot of traditional coverages. You guys want to know
Speaker 1: why Miles Turner sat out the majority of the second
Speaker 1: half of this game and then played all of what
Speaker 1: ninety seconds in overtime before Carlisle pulled him again. The
Speaker 1: Pacers were running a lot of traditional coverages, especially to
Speaker 1: start the game, and Miles Turner was doing a god
Speaker 1: awful job defending the screener and the ball. There was
Speaker 1: a play where do Bride got an early layup in
Speaker 1: this game where he was like hugged up to Mitchell
Speaker 1: Robinson up at the top of the key. In general,
Speaker 1: the Pacers were trying to account for Cat and his
Speaker 1: catch and shoot threes by staying off of that that
Speaker 1: ball handler and ball screens, and you were just seeing
Speaker 1: Brunson get downhill over and over and over again. Mckaal
Speaker 1: Bridges was getting into the paint whenever he wanted to.
Speaker 1: Brunson you could tell feels immensely comfortable against Nemhart and
Speaker 1: Nie Smith relative to Drew Holliday. I think one of
Speaker 1: my big thoughts coming out of this game was some
Speaker 1: contender needs to be reading the tea leaves here and
Speaker 1: identify that Drew Holliday is one of the most impactful
Speaker 1: defensive players in the postseason and jump on that guy
Speaker 1: because he could come in and instantly raise the ceiling
Speaker 1: of your defense because Brunson and Nemhart and Nie Smith
Speaker 1: are too very good on ball defenders and Jalen Brunson
Speaker 1: is just too big and too strong for them. The
Speaker 1: big thing I noticed was in those ball screen actions
Speaker 1: when brun and someone was going over the top, that
Speaker 1: automatically put the on ball defender into the sidecar or
Speaker 1: into the back position right trailing or in that like
Speaker 1: kind of jail and on the hip sort of position.
Speaker 1: And Brunson was just very easily able to kind of
Speaker 1: bump guys off in that position and get all the
Speaker 1: way to the rim. Then in the second half when
Speaker 1: they started going into more switching and that there were
Speaker 1: still some traditional schemes that both teams were still like
Speaker 1: trying not to switch if they could, but if anybody
Speaker 1: got hit by the screen, they were willing to switch.
Speaker 1: In that second half, and in that second half, same
Speaker 1: sort of thing. It didn't matter who it was. Brunson
Speaker 1: was able to get to his spots against his primary defender.
Speaker 1: And so there's some encouraging stuff on the Knicks front
Speaker 1: where I do feel like they're going to be able
Speaker 1: to score the ball effectively and consistently in this series.
Speaker 1: On the flip side, I thought that they had some
Speaker 1: extended stretch of successful defense against the Pacers. So for instance,
Speaker 1: in that big run that the Knicks had while Jalen
Speaker 1: Brunson was off the floor, they had success in switching
Speaker 1: and in their traditional schemes. You guys remember that play
Speaker 1: where duce McBride blocked Pascal Siakam on the dunk, traditional coverage,
Speaker 1: Siakam slips pocket pass, Siakam takes off and there's a
Speaker 1: rotation from duce McBride off the baseline, a huge blocked shot.
Speaker 1: A couple possessions later, they run like a little you know,
Speaker 1: wedge screen to try to get Siakam a little separation
Speaker 1: before he sets the ball screen for Halliburton. Halliburton gets
Speaker 1: down into the lane, Josh Hart nail help off of
Speaker 1: Nie Smith, nice kickout, and Josh Hart just throws a
Speaker 1: crazy close out at eron Nie Smith and nearly blocks
Speaker 1: the shot and gets a stop. A few possessions later,
Speaker 1: they straight up switch a ball screen hat ends up
Speaker 1: on Halliburton, he gets a stop. They had some extended
Speaker 1: stretches where they were able to get stops against the
Speaker 1: Pacers in both their switching scheme and in their traditional
Speaker 1: scheme using just chaotic rotations. So again, when the Knicks
Speaker 1: hang onto the rope and they're very where he invested
Speaker 1: mentally and physically, they can be really physically overwhelming for
Speaker 1: this Pacers team and rotation, especially on the glass. A
Speaker 1: lot of interior matchup hunting. It wasn't just cat going
Speaker 1: at Siakam or Cat going at Turner. There was a
Speaker 1: stretch there with og Andnobi went at Ben matherin a
Speaker 1: couple times in a row, was just able to power
Speaker 1: right through him and get to where he wanted to go.
Speaker 1: And I mean a lot of this comes back to
Speaker 1: what I said before the series about the Knicks, which
Speaker 1: is like, there was a reason why most Knicks fans
Speaker 1: I talked to after the Pistons series didn't really like
Speaker 1: the team. Most Knicks fans I talked to throughout the
Speaker 1: season were like, this isn't the same kind of like
Speaker 1: character team that we saw last year when it was
Speaker 1: you know, Isaiah Hartenstein. It was a different team right
Speaker 1: at that point in time. And the reason why was
Speaker 1: there was frustration with the Knicks and their ability to
Speaker 1: consistently execute on both ends the floor, their ability to
Speaker 1: hang onto the rope mentally and physically, and in this game,
Speaker 1: it's these brief stretches where they're just not leveraging their
Speaker 1: gifts to the ability that they're capable of, and the
Speaker 1: Pacers will quite literally never let go of the rope.
Speaker 1: And so there's just so many different things there. There
Speaker 1: are so many different things there to learn from this
Speaker 1: game if you're the Knicks, which is that like you
Speaker 1: cannot let up even for a second in this matchup.
Speaker 1: Let's get into some other notes around the series. So
Speaker 1: a couple things the Knicks rebounding. I think you could
Speaker 1: see a real perimeter size mismatch in this particular series.
Speaker 1: So for instance, ogn Andob McHale bridges, even when you
Speaker 1: get down to Josh Hart and Douce McBride, there is
Speaker 1: like a size athleticism advantage in terms of just like
Speaker 1: vertical ability on the perimeter for the Knicks. There's no
Speaker 1: doubt that the Pacers have speed, and that that speed
Speaker 1: can be a problem in different ways, mainly just the
Speaker 1: pace that they're able to play with just furiously throughout
Speaker 1: the entire game. But when it comes to some of
Speaker 1: those battles in the vertical plane, the Knicks can win
Speaker 1: a lot of those battles, and I thought that that
Speaker 1: was pretty clearly evident in Game one. I did think
Speaker 1: that Brunson was more capable to more capable of compromising
Speaker 1: the defense and getting into the paint over the Lion's
Speaker 1: share of the game than Haliburton was, even though we
Speaker 1: can acknowledge that Halliburton was better in the overtime period.
Speaker 1: I thought I thought a classic Caliburton sequence and that
Speaker 1: overtime was that drop off pass to Nemhard cutting off
Speaker 1: of the slot. Just a reminder with Halliburton that he's
Speaker 1: going to score, but he will quite literally never miss
Speaker 1: a read if the red is there. It's just like
Speaker 1: programmed into his brain to play a certain way, and
Speaker 1: he's going to hunt that read every single time he
Speaker 1: gets that opportunity. But I did think that there was
Speaker 1: a dribble penetration advantage for the Knicks. Mitchell Robinson, we
Speaker 1: did not see any sort of I mean, obviously they
Speaker 1: would grab him anytime he got right underneath the basket
Speaker 1: or anything like that, but we did not see a
Speaker 1: hack of Robinson at any point in the game. Mitch
Speaker 1: Robinson in twenty one minutes was even and was pretty
Speaker 1: successful as just a physical monster, offensive, rebounding, defending that
Speaker 1: vertical spacing like we saw in that lob off of
Speaker 1: the Jalen Brunson two man game. A lot of stuff
Speaker 1: for Rick Carlisle to look at, by the way, just
Speaker 1: in general with their ball screen coverages in the job
Speaker 1: that Thomas Bryant and Miles Turner did. Those guys were
Speaker 1: getting absolutely fried everywhere on the floor tonight, and there
Speaker 1: are some real problems there that they're going to have
Speaker 1: to look at. Thomas Bryant was minus eleven Miles Turner
Speaker 1: was minus three and you end up winning this game
Speaker 1: in the small ball groups, though, I did think that
Speaker 1: Knicks had some success with that overall size, especially with
Speaker 1: kat who was really given the business to Pascal Siakam
Speaker 1: in those sequences. On the pacers front, I thought that
Speaker 1: Siakam didn't do a good enough job punishing miss matches
Speaker 1: throughout the game Normles Turner. That is a credit to
Speaker 1: the Knicks. They battled really well in those situations. But
Speaker 1: remember that was a huge part of this series last
Speaker 1: year was Siakam attacking specifically Josh Hart, and he did
Speaker 1: hit a little fade away and he drew a double
Speaker 1: team on Josh Hart that led to a layup for
Speaker 1: Andrew Nemhard. But there was not enough of that punishing
Speaker 1: from Siakam from Turner against switches in the LA Turner
Speaker 1: got multiple deep catches on mismatches that he wasn't able
Speaker 1: to pay off, and so I think there's some opportunity there.
Speaker 1: Nemhard was better in the second half, but I didn't
Speaker 1: think he did much to impact the game offensively. Early,
Speaker 1: Tyrese Haliburton kind of looked like he was off to
Speaker 1: another one of those funky starts in this game, and
Speaker 1: then right around halfway through the second quarter, he really
Speaker 1: hit the Jets with his aggression and you could tell
Speaker 1: he's gonna get looks because of the drop coverage that
Speaker 1: they're running with Karl Anthony Towns, and when he gets
Speaker 1: switches against Carl Anthony Towns, he's gonna be able to
Speaker 1: get to his three point shot. He's just gonna have
Speaker 1: to be able to knock it down consistently. But really
Speaker 1: really fascinating Game one. This is going to be a
Speaker 1: really entertaining series. Every game, I feel like is gonna
Speaker 1: come down to the wire, just with the relentless, never
Speaker 1: ending pressure of the Pacers and with how gifted of
Speaker 1: a crunch time scorer that Jalen Brunson is just an
Speaker 1: instant classic here in Game one of the Eastern Conference Finals.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to get further into it.
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Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna bring Jackson on. We're gonna take
Speaker 1: about five to ten minutes of questions and then we'll
Speaker 1: head over to playback. We'll do ten fifteen minutes of questions.
Speaker 3: Let's do it. First question was was this more of
Speaker 3: a Knicks choke job or a PACER's comebacks theft, theft
Speaker 3: steel whatever.
Speaker 1: So me, Jackson and Shane, we're debating this on the
Speaker 1: UH on the zoom call before we went live, and
Speaker 1: as is always the case, it's both. It's never as
Speaker 1: simple as just one or the other. I'm really hesitant
Speaker 1: to just call it a Knicks choke when we have
Speaker 1: three completely different teams that have had this problem. Like,
Speaker 1: at a certain point, I want to give the majority
Speaker 1: of the credit to the Pacers just for their relentless,
Speaker 1: never ending pressure. However, I thought that they this has
Speaker 1: been a Knicks problem all year. Excuse me. They blew
Speaker 1: the game open by keeping the ball moving around and
Speaker 1: by playing through dues, through Kat through og Ananoby, and
Speaker 1: they've had a tendency in crunch time to lean entirely
Speaker 1: into Brunson, and Brunson has been amazing. Brunson's volume in
Speaker 1: the clutch has been a made his efficiency has been
Speaker 1: fine too, and he's won them a lot of games.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to sit here and pretend like
Speaker 1: it's it's like Brunson's doing something wrong necessarily, but there
Speaker 1: are some realities to the fact that when you play
Speaker 1: through one guy for extended stretches like that, the fatigue
Speaker 1: can play a role. And I thought Brunson looked tired
Speaker 1: in ot and I thought, especially over the final minutes
Speaker 1: ot it affected his ability to get separation, And so
Speaker 1: I think that's part of it. The miss free throws
Speaker 1: are part of it. I feel like there's a certain
Speaker 1: verve that Indiana plays with in transition during those late
Speaker 1: game sequences that the Knicks probably do some damage to
Speaker 1: by trying to stop the ball a little bit earlier
Speaker 1: and prevent them from just knifing through them like hot
Speaker 1: like a hot knife through butter like they do in
Speaker 1: those sequences. But I want to give most of the
Speaker 1: credits to Indiana. Man, Like they did it to a
Speaker 1: sixty four win team in the last round, they did
Speaker 1: it to Giannis and Tenna Koumpo in the round before that.
Speaker 1: Like they just they are. They are unlike any team
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. Jackson, I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: any other way to put it.
Speaker 3: I think that's a good transition to a different question
Speaker 3: we got, which was, let me find it if the
Speaker 3: Pacers don't win the title, do you think we will
Speaker 3: look back on this playoff run, on these comebacks as
Speaker 3: fluky comebacks or more of a sign of who the
Speaker 3: Pacers are as sort of an identity.
Speaker 1: I think fluky is disrespectful to the fact that they
Speaker 1: won both series in five games. So I think that
Speaker 1: I think that it's more complicated than just saying, you know,
Speaker 1: they they're you know, voodooing their way to the to
Speaker 1: the finish line.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: Jackson and I were talking before, like kind of in
Speaker 1: the first you know, it was either in the first
Speaker 1: quarter or the second quarter. But I don't think the
Speaker 1: Pacers can beat Oklahoma City. I think Oklahoma City matches
Speaker 1: up extremely well with both of these teams because they're
Speaker 1: both teams that rely heavily on guard shot creation, and
Speaker 1: the Thunder just have a never ending line of elite
Speaker 1: defensive guards that can make life hell for guys like that. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, here's the thing, Like, if let me reapproach
Speaker 1: the question like this, if if the Pacers beat the Thunder,
Speaker 1: it won't be fluky, It'll be because they beat him
Speaker 1: at basketball. So like, I'm not gonna try to undercut
Speaker 1: anything they accomplished at this point they beat. I thought
Speaker 1: that Cavs team was so good. I thought they had
Speaker 1: a legitimate chance to beat Boston towards the end of
Speaker 1: the season with how they were shooting the ball against Miami.
Speaker 1: So like, I think this is I'm a big believer
Speaker 1: in this Pacers team. I picked them to win this series.
Speaker 1: I think that they're just better than they were last year.
Speaker 1: I think Caliburton's one of the more underrated stars in
Speaker 1: the league. I like that even goes beyond the disrespect
Speaker 1: from his peers. I think even just in the media,
Speaker 1: people don't quite appreciate his advantage creation and the job
Speaker 1: that he does to grease the wheels of an elite offense.
Speaker 1: I think the Pacers are really good man.
Speaker 3: I agree. Next question seeing how both Julius Randall and
Speaker 3: Karl Anthony Towns are playing in the conference finals, were
Speaker 3: only one game into the Conference finals. The still looking
Speaker 3: back on the trade, how do you sort of feel
Speaker 3: about it from both teams standpoint?
Speaker 1: Oh Man, this is an interesting question. I think it's
Speaker 1: a little bit more of a mixed results kind of
Speaker 1: conversation on the Knicks front, because Karl Anthony Towns has
Speaker 1: had very high highs in this playoff run, but he's
Speaker 1: also had very low lows. I thought, for the most
Speaker 1: part tonight he was pretty good, So I don't want
Speaker 1: to I don't want to like disparage him specifically tonight.
Speaker 1: I think overall, the totality of the offseason worked out
Speaker 1: well in the sense that, like, if you make those
Speaker 1: sorts of moves, the McHale Bridges move and the Cat move,
Speaker 1: you gotta make the conference finals. You've got to beat
Speaker 1: a Boston in order to make that sort of trade
Speaker 1: worth it. And I think the McHale Bridges deal in
Speaker 1: particular was very uneven in the sense that he was
Speaker 1: not very good in the regular season compared to what
Speaker 1: he was capable of. But I think he's been great
Speaker 1: defensively in the postseason, and I think overall the Josh Hart, McHale,
Speaker 1: Bridges og and an Obi trio between Brunson and Cat
Speaker 1: has made up for a lot of their defensive deficiencies,
Speaker 1: and I think Kat brings a lot of positives. I
Speaker 1: also think there are some realities to the fit with
Speaker 1: Julius Randall, and like how that would have been clunky
Speaker 1: to have Julius on this particular team. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: you could argue that not having a Dante DiVincenzo is
Speaker 1: a depth piece is probably the most painful part of
Speaker 1: that deal because Cat has brought I would argue, let
Speaker 1: me spit this back to you Jackson before we talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the Minnesota side of it. Do
Speaker 1: you think that Cat on the Knicks, forget about the trade.
Speaker 1: Do you think that Cat on the Knicks is a
Speaker 1: better fit than Julius Randall on these Knicks.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 1: I think so too.
Speaker 3: And I think Julius Randall is a better fit on
Speaker 3: the Timberwolves just in a vacuum than Karl Anthony Towns is.
Speaker 3: So in that sense, I think both teams made a
Speaker 3: move that was you know, at least well in ten.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to your point, I think the Timberwolf side of
Speaker 1: this deal was a slam dunk home run, and like
Speaker 1: I talked about this before the season, I said, if
Speaker 1: Randall goes with Randall going to Minnesota, I didn't like
Speaker 1: the deal, but I said there was an obvious upside.
Speaker 1: The obvious upside is Julius Randall is a better high post,
Speaker 1: low post shot creator than Karl Anthony Towns. He flat
Speaker 1: out is, and he's also a better defensive player. But
Speaker 1: that I think has been more of a revelation. Didn't
Speaker 1: I didn't think Julius had that reputation before this year.
Speaker 1: But Julius is flat out a better high post, low
Speaker 1: post shot creator, and specifically within what Minnesota has needed
Speaker 1: in this postseason run, that has been immensely valuable to them.
Speaker 1: So like that's been a home run, Dante in the
Speaker 1: depth has been a home run. There was a range
Speaker 1: of outcomes for the Julius Randall deal on the Minnesota front,
Speaker 1: and it has skewed heavily towards the high range of
Speaker 1: those outcomes. So it's like a slam dunk for Minnesota.
Speaker 1: I think it's a little more complicated on the Knicks front,
Speaker 1: But as we mentioned earlier, I think Pad is just
Speaker 1: a natural fit that Julius isn't in this system, So
Speaker 1: it might just be a rare example of a trade
Speaker 1: that kind of worked for both teams. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I agree. I agree with all that there's really quickly.
Speaker 1: There's one other thing that's kind of interesting. I see
Speaker 1: these stretches kind of like this stretch when Mitchell Robinson
Speaker 1: was dominating in that late first quarter. I do think
Speaker 1: there's a version of this team that has a more
Speaker 1: defensive center, like an athlete center instead of cat that
Speaker 1: that could potentially reach higher highs than this team. And
Speaker 1: I think that's the question they're gonna have to ask
Speaker 1: themselves this summer, depending on what happens in the next
Speaker 1: four weeks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good point. Next question, Jason, do you
Speaker 3: think that the Knicks can last playing at this pace
Speaker 3: with the Pacers over the course of the series, especially
Speaker 3: considering the minute totals that those guys play do the Pacers?
Speaker 1: Guys, here's the thing, they can last, but they can't
Speaker 1: afford to lose games like this. I mean, like tonight,
Speaker 1: like you play well enough to be because here's the thing, guys,
Speaker 1: like the Pacers didn't play as well as they were
Speaker 1: capable of during the majority of this game. Siakam was
Speaker 1: pretty bad. Nemhard was pretty bad. There was Uh. Turner
Speaker 1: was good to start the game on offense, but was
Speaker 1: brutal in a bunch of other ways. Uh, they didn't
Speaker 1: get a ton of scoring pop off their bench the
Speaker 1: way they usually do. Like Ben Mathern has been their
Speaker 1: highest scoring player per minute in this postseason run. He
Speaker 1: had nine points and twenty one minutes. Like, there were
Speaker 1: a lot of things that didn't go their way. You
Speaker 1: gotta win that game, and that's where it gets discouraging.
Speaker 1: That said, the difference in the pace is like obvious
Speaker 1: just looking at the scoreboard. So they scored one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty five points tonight. They scored one nineteen in
Speaker 1: Game five six against Boston, one oh two in Game five,
Speaker 1: one twenty one in Game four, uh ninety three in
Speaker 1: Game three, ninety one in Game two, one oh eight
Speaker 1: in Game one. Like their score. They haven't scored over
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty one points in any playoff game
Speaker 1: except for Game one against the Pistons. So this is
Speaker 1: now we're all the way up at one thirty eight.
Speaker 1: So there's like a clear like just sheer number of
Speaker 1: possessions type of dynamic at play. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to pull up the specific number of possessions.
Speaker 1: So the Knicks had one hundred and twenty seven possessions tonight,
Speaker 1: trim off the fourteen in overtime, that's one fourteen. And
Speaker 1: if we just pull like a random I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: pull like one of the Celtics wins, like Game four
Speaker 1: against Boston. That game they had one hundred and four possessions,
Speaker 1: so it's ten additional possessions. So it's like it's more,
Speaker 1: but it's not dramatically so much more that it should
Speaker 1: cause that much of a problem. The main thing to
Speaker 1: me is just you can't afford like to me, in
Speaker 1: playoff series, there's so much weirdness anyway, Like you're gonna
Speaker 1: go on the road to Indiana. You could have a
Speaker 1: game where Obi Tappen has twenty points. You could go
Speaker 1: and Ben Mathern could have twenty five points. Like there
Speaker 1: are already these kind of weird variables in a playoff series.
Speaker 1: You can't afford to lose the game where you looked
Speaker 1: like the better team for the majority of the game.
Speaker 3: As a Celtics fan, I know that last question before
Speaker 3: we go over to playback. If it's thunder Pacers in
Speaker 3: the finals, do you think teams will start putting depth
Speaker 3: and specifically speed depth as a priority for roster.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I think that, you know, I feel like that's
Speaker 1: been the story of this entire season, dating back to
Speaker 1: those of you guys who've been listening to the show
Speaker 1: for a while. You think back to the conversations we
Speaker 1: were having in October November. What was the number one buzzword?
Speaker 1: I was thrown around perimeter speed, perimeter speed, talked about
Speaker 1: it with Golden State. I was like, Golden State is
Speaker 1: one secondary shot creator away from being good because they're
Speaker 1: loaded up with simitter speed. Houston loaded up to perimeter speed,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City perimeter speed. Like it just because of the
Speaker 1: game being more in transition, because of the game being
Speaker 1: played more in rotation, because of the long rebounds that
Speaker 1: are coming off of these threes. Everything is a foot race,
Speaker 1: and it's just turning into a situation where I think
Speaker 1: you've got to have a certain amount of speed and
Speaker 1: a certain amount of depth just to be able to
Speaker 1: handle the grueling realities of the NBA Playoffs. I mean,
Speaker 1: even if we dig into it further, like there's a
Speaker 1: more of attrition aspect to all of this. Indiana has
Speaker 1: outlasted teams that have dealt with injuries now multiple playoff
Speaker 1: runs in a row, between the you know, Darius Garland
Speaker 1: injury last in the last round, Evan Mobley missed a
Speaker 1: game in the last round last year, the Donovan Mitchell injury,
Speaker 1: the Yannis injury, the Dame injury. This year, Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: even just withstanding a Job Moran injury, was standing a
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon injury, that the Michael Porter junior injury, like
Speaker 1: the thunder and the Pacers look healthier than everybody. And
Speaker 1: it's because they're super deep. As I mentioned before the series.
Speaker 1: There before tonight, and I'm not sure if tonight's numbers
Speaker 1: threw it off at all, there wasn't a single Pacer
Speaker 1: averaging over thirty five minutes per game like they're just
Speaker 1: they're able to dig deep into their bench and get
Speaker 1: production and keep everyone's minutes. Now, I think that's a
Speaker 1: I think that's a huge part of their ability to
Speaker 1: survive these deep playffrons and pulling up the minutes per
Speaker 1: game stats in the postseason real quick for the Thunder.
Speaker 1: So for the Thunder, Shay is the only player playing
Speaker 1: over thirty five minutes per game, thirty six point eight minutes.
Speaker 1: Ja Dub's at thirty five. Every other Thunder player aside
Speaker 1: from Shay and Jay Dubb, is playing less than thirty
Speaker 1: minutes per game in this postseason, less than thirty. They're
Speaker 1: all playing about half the game. Chet twenty nine point eight,
Speaker 1: Lou Dort twenty six point eight, Isaiah Hartenstein twenty five
Speaker 1: point three. This is all half the game. They're playing
Speaker 1: half a playoff game. Meanwhile, everyone else is like, like
Speaker 1: JJ Redicks, Like we're playing everybody all twenty four minutes
Speaker 1: in the second half. Tom Thibodeau is playing his guys
Speaker 1: nassive minutes. I think there are some realities to the
Speaker 1: way that that depth is allowing them to survive the
Speaker 1: war of attrition in the postseason. All right, guys, that's
Speaker 1: all we have for tonight on YouTube. At least, we're
Speaker 1: about to head over to playback so again that's playback
Speaker 1: dot tv slash oops tonight, head over there right now.
Speaker 1: We'll hang out for another forty five minutes or so,
Speaker 1: just you know, taking callers talking about the game, getting
Speaker 1: into some of the footage. Again, As always, as sincerely
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We will be
Speaker 1: having a film session tomorrow morning, so come back to
Speaker 1: YouTube tomorrow early, like right around noon ish, and we
Speaker 1: will have a film breakdown from Game one of the
Speaker 1: Eastern Conference Finals. I'll see you guys in playback. Otherwise
Speaker 1: I'll see you guys tomorrow morning. What's up guys. As always,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight.
Speaker 1: They would actually be really helpful for us if you
Speaker 1: guys would take a second and leave a rating and
Speaker 1: a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us,
Speaker 1: but if you could take a minute to do that,
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