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Speaker 1: welcome to hoop tonight here at the ball. Youme happy Monday, everybody.
Speaker 1: I'll ball if you guys are having a great week,
Speaker 1: jam pack show for you tonight. The most shocked playoff
Speaker 1: game that I can ever remember seeing in my time
Speaker 1: as a basketball fan. As the Wolves go up two
Speaker 1: to oh in Denver without Rudy Gobert, are gonna break
Speaker 1: that game down? And then one of the worst calls
Speaker 1: that I've ever seen, probably not the worst, but certainly
Speaker 1: on the list, an illegal screen at the end of
Speaker 1: the Knicks Pacers game. We're gonna mainly focus on the
Speaker 1: basketball there. But I got a little bit of a rant,
Speaker 1: not based on that specific call, but just officials in
Speaker 1: general around the NBA, because that's becoming a little big,
Speaker 1: a little bit of a problem. But a jam packed
Speaker 1: night of NBA basketball, we're gonna break it all down.
Speaker 1: You guys know the drive before we get started. Subscribe
Speaker 1: to a brand of YouTube channel so you don't miss
Speaker 1: any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements.
Speaker 1: Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your
Speaker 1: podcast under Hoops tonight and the last one not at
Speaker 1: least keep roping mail back questions in those YouTube comments.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk some basketball. So again, as I
Speaker 1: said in the open, I have never been more shocked
Speaker 1: by a playoff result than this one. I have the
Speaker 1: defending champs in a must win game at home, The
Speaker 1: defensive anchor who made many of the biggest plays in
Speaker 1: Game one is out for the birth of his child,
Speaker 1: and they get the living shit kicked out of them.
Speaker 1: Not only that, the Nuggets completely fall apart mentally in
Speaker 1: the process. I just can't ever remember. I've seen crazy sequences,
Speaker 1: like we saw two of them at the end of
Speaker 1: that Sixers Knicks series, right, like a couple games that
Speaker 1: get quite literally snatched from you know, victory from the
Speaker 1: jaws of defeat, so to speak. I've seen crazy sequences.
Speaker 1: I've seen crazy plays. I've never seen a more shocking
Speaker 1: playoff result than this one, even like looking back at
Speaker 1: like some other ones recently, Like remember when the Phoenix
Speaker 1: Suns went into that Game seven against Luca and the
Speaker 1: MAVs and they and Luca just made him quit. Like
Speaker 1: at least you can look at that and go like, well,
Speaker 1: Devin Booker and Chris Paul neither of those guys are
Speaker 1: like real superstar level players, and Luka Dancic is there's
Speaker 1: a huge, like mental advantage that Luca has. He's just
Speaker 1: the best player on the floor by a mile, and
Speaker 1: he just went in there and snatched their soul right
Speaker 1: Like it wasn't It was a shocking result in the
Speaker 1: dynamic that took place in how dramatic it was, but
Speaker 1: like you would have been surprised right to think that
Speaker 1: Luca could do that to another team. It just doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense. Nikola Jokic is the best player in the world.
Speaker 1: The Denver Nuggets are the defending champs, and they've shown
Speaker 1: championship medal in so many different situations. And I want
Speaker 1: to just throw that credit to the Minnesota Timberwolves, because
Speaker 1: I in addition to never being more shocked about a
Speaker 1: playoff result, I don't think I've ever been more wrong
Speaker 1: about a basketball team than I was about the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Speaker 1: This was a team that I just took too much
Speaker 1: stock in their evidence from the regular season. I focused
Speaker 1: too much on how limited their offense was, especially in
Speaker 1: late game situations. Too much stock and Ant's age and
Speaker 1: whether or not he'd be ready to lead a playoff
Speaker 1: run like this, too much stock in some of their
Speaker 1: issues closing games in general on both ends of the floor.
Speaker 1: I focused way too much on that, and I missed
Speaker 1: a simple thing that tilted Minnesota's way, and they took
Speaker 1: advantage of it and they're running with it. And that
Speaker 1: is when the league, right around halfway through the season,
Speaker 1: started to tilt things in terms of officiating more in
Speaker 1: the direction of the defense, which is something I think
Speaker 1: is great for the game, something that all of us
Speaker 1: have been begging for for a long time as that inflated,
Speaker 1: offensively minded league was getting a little bit unwatchable at times.
Speaker 1: And there's still some remnants of it, like we've seen
Speaker 1: some of the officiating over the course of this playoff run,
Speaker 1: especially in like grifty stuff, right, there's still some remnants
Speaker 1: of it. But the league tilting in that direction was
Speaker 1: something that desperately needed to happen in Minnesota, and we
Speaker 1: should have seen this coming. To you, Minnesota Timberwolves fans
Speaker 1: who saw it coming, kudos to you because I missed it.
Speaker 1: But they took advantage of those rule changes, and they've
Speaker 1: leaned into it from the opening tip. They're grabbing, they're
Speaker 1: holding their hand checking, they're being physical, they're they're top
Speaker 1: locking to prevent guys from going on screens. They're picking
Speaker 1: up full court, they're pressuring everybody all over the floor.
Speaker 1: They're pressuring Yokics full court with nasried half the time.
Speaker 1: Like they are leaning into it. They understand what you know,
Speaker 1: and this is something that I talk about a lot
Speaker 1: with basketball teams, like understand what your advantage is and
Speaker 1: lean into it. Don't go away from your advantage, lean
Speaker 1: into your advantage. Minnesota knows their advantage is their defensive capability,
Speaker 1: their size, their athleticism, and their overall defensive talent. They're
Speaker 1: leaning into that and they're reaping the dividends here in
Speaker 1: the postseason that I've never been more wrong about a
Speaker 1: basketball team. I had a take, probably one of my
Speaker 1: worst takes as a basketball analyst, when I said that
Speaker 1: the Timberwolves had about the same chance to beat Denver
Speaker 1: as La. God, that was stupid. Like, I've never been
Speaker 1: more wrong about a team. I'm completely flow, and so
Speaker 1: shout out to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Man. I owe them,
Speaker 1: I owe them an apology. In addition, they are perfectly
Speaker 1: constructed to beat the Denver Nuggets. Like it's honestly kind
Speaker 1: of diabolical when you think about it. Like Tim Conley
Speaker 1: knows first hand. He must have known that Jokic was coming. Obviously,
Speaker 1: he was there for at least one of the MVP
Speaker 1: runs if I remember correctly. But like he he had
Speaker 1: to have known, and he went into Minnesota and he
Speaker 1: constructed a team to beat the Denver Nuggets. And what's
Speaker 1: crazy is like everyone was really down on the Rudy
Speaker 1: go Bear trade. I was down on it right when
Speaker 1: it happened. But I immediately liked it during the season
Speaker 1: because I loved that dynamic of the elite perimeter defenders
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards, Jade McDaniels, and Rudy Gobert. But where I
Speaker 1: was wrong again there is I was like, okay, but
Speaker 1: the two bigs thing is stupid. You gotta trade Carl Towns.
Speaker 1: And now in retrospect, I'm watching that late first half
Speaker 1: post up where Jokic is posting up Nas Red and
Speaker 1: Nas and he goes to his left shoulder hook and
Speaker 1: Naz just kind of bullies him off of his spot
Speaker 1: and blocks him on a hook shot, and Jokic gets
Speaker 1: the ball back and barely gets another one off and
Speaker 1: just flings it up at the rim and and Minnesota
Speaker 1: gets the rebound and they running the other way. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is genius. They're constructed to beat Denver.
Speaker 1: They have two guys in nas Read and Carl Towns
Speaker 1: who are both big and strong enough to flatten out
Speaker 1: Jokic's post ups. He can't go through them. And then
Speaker 1: when they're healthy, they have already go bear on the
Speaker 1: back line. It's like, Jokic, we didn't we didn't put
Speaker 1: nearly enough stock in what Jokic was saying after Game one,
Speaker 1: I need two of me. You're damn right, because because
Speaker 1: Minnesota is literally just layering size and athleticism on that
Speaker 1: Denver front line and it's working. It's diabolically stuff from
Speaker 1: Tim Conley went into Minnesota and built a roster to
Speaker 1: beat the Denver Nuggets. And then you add to that
Speaker 1: a tweak in the NBA is officiating that this team
Speaker 1: grabbed a hold of, and it's and they're leaning into
Speaker 1: their strength and they're running with it. It's so it's
Speaker 1: so impressive to me. It really comes down to this,
Speaker 1: because of Jada McDaniels and Nikile, Alexander Walker and Anthony Edwards.
Speaker 1: They can guard Jamal Murray really well. And we're gonna
Speaker 1: get into that in more detail in a minute. That's
Speaker 1: not the calf muscle. He's in jail right now. Two,
Speaker 1: they can guard Yokic well. So since they can guard
Speaker 1: Jamal well, and they can guard Yokic well, and they've
Speaker 1: got that two man game under wraps. Now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, it's shining. It's putting a bigger offensive responsibility
Speaker 1: on the other players, and it's expecting Contavious call Well,
Speaker 1: Pope Michael Porter Junior and Aaron Gordon to shoulder more
Speaker 1: of an offensive low. It's just not gonna work. And
Speaker 1: so like there they like I again, I will, I
Speaker 1: will not declare the the series over because I have
Speaker 1: too much respect for the defending champs. And I'm really
Speaker 1: curious to see the postgame presser stuff. I want to
Speaker 1: see where Jamal Murray and and Michael Malone, where their
Speaker 1: heads are at. We're gonna get to that in a minute.
Speaker 1: I won't write them off, but like, I don't know
Speaker 1: how you could pick against Minnesota at this point. They're
Speaker 1: They're like Denver doesn't have anything they can do. There's
Speaker 1: no trump card, there's no adjustment, there's no nothing. Michael
Speaker 1: Malone and and Jokichen and all those guys, they used
Speaker 1: to talk a lot about how we've seen everything, we've
Speaker 1: seen everything. You haven't seen this. You don't have an
Speaker 1: adjustment for this. The only adjustment is to meet their physicality,
Speaker 1: which we're gonna talk about here in a little bit.
Speaker 1: But I was wrong. I just I can't. I can't
Speaker 1: put it any more flatly. I was wrong about the
Speaker 1: Minnesota Timberwolves. And here's how wrong I was. If they're
Speaker 1: allowed to defend with this level of physicality, I think
Speaker 1: they'll win the trophy. You think Dallas or Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: is gonna magically hold up well under this physical onslaught?
Speaker 1: You think Boston is You think you think Jason Tatum
Speaker 1: and Jaylen Brown are just gonna eat these guys up.
Speaker 1: I don't do you do you think Jalen Brunson by
Speaker 1: himself or the Pacers guards are gonna magically solve this
Speaker 1: Minnesota defense. If they are allowed to guard like this,
Speaker 1: with this level of physicality, they are going to hoist
Speaker 1: Hilary O'Brien trophy. It's like down the roster too, Like
Speaker 1: I was blown up. There was a possession with Michael
Speaker 1: Porter Junior on the left wing, and I think the
Speaker 1: third quarter where Mike Conley, the smallest player on the Timberwolves,
Speaker 1: had him pump faking at Ghosts and jacking up a
Speaker 1: contested leaner, And I'm like, Mike Conley's locked in. Carl
Speaker 1: Towns is locked in. Nasried is a guy that's had
Speaker 1: some defensive limitations over the years. Now he's got a
Speaker 1: role here in this series where he can be, you know,
Speaker 1: banging with Jokic. So it's more of a matchup he
Speaker 1: can handle. But even the guys on this roster that
Speaker 1: are like historically not great defensive players, are like is
Speaker 1: playing the best defense of their career. It is a
Speaker 1: cultural thing from the top down. These guys want it.
Speaker 1: You can tell they want the trophy and they are
Speaker 1: willing to beat the hell out of you to get it.
Speaker 1: And someone's got to figure out a way to stop them,
Speaker 1: or they're just gonna do it, and and so like.
Speaker 1: And here's the crazy part too. We're focusing on the defense.
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards pours in another efficient twenty seven points. He's
Speaker 1: been the best player in the NBA in these playoffs.
Speaker 1: He's literally playing like the best player in the world.
Speaker 1: Carl Towns another efficient twenty seven. That's the major subplot here.
Speaker 1: We're all focused on the defense. Their offense has been awesome.
Speaker 1: Their offense has been awesome over the course of this
Speaker 1: playoff run. They're knocking down three point shots. They're driving
Speaker 1: and kicking and making good reads. Their shot creators are
Speaker 1: aggressive and initiating contact and like really being the aggressor.
Speaker 1: Like they're getting consistent production off the bench from nas
Speaker 1: and to Kile Alexander Walker. They're They're playing at an
Speaker 1: insanely high level. Now think about how crazy that is.
Speaker 1: They've won six straight postseason games. Four of them were
Speaker 1: against Kevin Durant, Bradleybial, Devin Booker, and the last two
Speaker 1: were against the undisputed best player in the world, although
Speaker 1: Aunt's trying to horner that territory right now, and the
Speaker 1: and uh in Jamal Murray, the guy who's literally lit
Speaker 1: up everybody else in the league for the last two years.
Speaker 1: It's it's unbelievable. I'm completely stunned. Never been more wrong
Speaker 1: about a basketball team on the Nuggets front. I was
Speaker 1: equally shocked tonight by how Denver fell apart. They completely
Speaker 1: crumbled mentally early in the game too. I was I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe what I was seeing when Aunt drives to
Speaker 1: the basket in KCP, who was late on his rotation
Speaker 1: and jumped vertically but in the charge circle, So there's
Speaker 1: no universe where that's an offensive foul, and Aunt just
Speaker 1: jumps into his body and makes a layup, and Michael
Speaker 1: Malone comes screaming out onto the court, yelling at the
Speaker 1: ref in his face, like lost his damn mind over
Speaker 1: a play that was very clearly not an offensive foul.
Speaker 1: If anything, Aunt should have gone to the line because
Speaker 1: KCP jumped and met him in the charge circle like it.
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting there and I'm like, what are you doing.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to be the leader, You're supposed to be
Speaker 1: cal him and under control. You just bum rushed the
Speaker 1: ref and screened in his face. Very that very easily
Speaker 1: could have been a double tech, let alone a tech.
Speaker 1: He could have been kicked out of the game. He's
Speaker 1: very lucky that he didn't get a technical at all
Speaker 1: in that situation. And immediately I'm like registering that. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: Denver shook right now. And then a few possessions later,
Speaker 1: on another physical defensive possession from Minnesota, Jamal Murray sitting
Speaker 1: at the end of the bench hurls a heat pack
Speaker 1: onto the floor, which, by the way, who the hell
Speaker 1: knows what's gonna happen with that. There could very well
Speaker 1: be a suspension in place. I hope they don't suspend him,
Speaker 1: as stupid as it was, because I want to see
Speaker 1: Minnesota beat Denver at full strength. But like when I
Speaker 1: saw that, I'm like, oh, they don't get it. They
Speaker 1: I think this is about the refs. It's not about
Speaker 1: the refs. The thing is is, if you've been watching
Speaker 1: this postseason all eight series, in the first round, they've
Speaker 1: all had I've talked about this frequently on the show.
Speaker 1: This is the most physical playoffs I've seen. I've said
Speaker 1: that many times on the show. I think that's clear.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of shit people are getting away with.
Speaker 1: There is a play in the Lakers series where Dangel
Speaker 1: Russell got smacked in the face very clearly on video.
Speaker 1: It got reviewed and it didn't get overturned. The refs
Speaker 1: are letting everything go, so you had to know that
Speaker 1: coming into the series. You had to know that after
Speaker 1: game one, so one of two things is gonna happen here.
Speaker 1: You're either going to blame the refs and crumble, or
Speaker 1: you're gonna meet that physicality with physicality. And the fact
Speaker 1: that Michael Malone had that meltdown and Jamal Murray threw
Speaker 1: a heat pack on the floor, that's not a good sign.
Speaker 1: It was embarrassing. And from there it's so interesting to
Speaker 1: me because I've seen a lot of basketball games like
Speaker 1: this over the years. Physical ball pressure has a tendency
Speaker 1: to speed people up, and it was crazy to see
Speaker 1: everybody on Denver get sped up to the point where
Speaker 1: they just started making mistakes. There were a lot of
Speaker 1: unforced errors in that stretch. Hocket passes into traffic that
Speaker 1: weren't open. Jaal Murray in the second half whipped a
Speaker 1: behind the back pass to a player that was clearly
Speaker 1: guarded underneath the basket. Like they actually played Denver into
Speaker 1: losing their sense of focus and attention to detail. How
Speaker 1: unusual is that they're They're the defending champs, They're the
Speaker 1: team that's supposed to be resilient in that type of situation.
Speaker 1: It was unbelievable. And so this is why I put
Speaker 1: in my notes I'm so curious to see the postgame
Speaker 1: pressers because this is this series is not over. Denver
Speaker 1: can go into Minnesota, win Game three, and you're more
Speaker 1: or less in the position that most teams are in
Speaker 1: after you split at home in the first two because
Speaker 1: the home team almost always wins Game three. That's a
Speaker 1: buzzsaw game. Right you win game three, you're right back
Speaker 1: in this series. It's not over now. I think Minnesota's
Speaker 1: gonna win, but it's not over. And like to me,
Speaker 1: it's all gonna be about mentality. Moving forward. For Denver,
Speaker 1: if you go into that locker room and you're like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that they're letting them do this to us,
Speaker 1: it's over. You lost. It's over because it's not good.
Speaker 1: Game three is gonna be just like this. You can
Speaker 1: politic all you want in the presser, you can call
Speaker 1: the league office, you can you could send him a
Speaker 1: highlight tape like Darryl Moray of all the fouls that
Speaker 1: you thought should have been called. In Game three is
Speaker 1: gonna be a It's gonna be a blood bath again.
Speaker 1: So here's the deal. Do you want to get your
Speaker 1: hands dirty? Do you want to get down in that
Speaker 1: blood bath and meet them at that level? Because you
Speaker 1: got some big, strong dudes. You got Jokic, you got
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon, you got some dudes you can do this too.
Speaker 1: But you better meet them there. Again. I said this
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the series. It's very different from
Speaker 1: the Lakers series in the sense that Denver wanted to
Speaker 1: out execute the Lakers. As a half court offense, you
Speaker 1: have to do more damage to Minnesota's offense than they
Speaker 1: are doing to you. And the only way you're gonna
Speaker 1: do that is if you meet their force with force
Speaker 1: one of the things that Minnesota does. And by the way,
Speaker 1: this was something that stood out to me in the game,
Speaker 1: like Minnesota was getting some foul calls that were of
Speaker 1: similar types of contact to what Denver was getting. The
Speaker 1: difference is it would be like not a lot of
Speaker 1: contact and then someone would foul and they'd call it.
Speaker 1: Minnesota from the opening tip is fouling and fouling and
Speaker 1: fouling and fouling and fouling, and they actually put the
Speaker 1: refs in a bind where they can't call it every
Speaker 1: possession and so they get away with a lot. That's
Speaker 1: what Denver needs to do. You need to come out
Speaker 1: in game three and start fouling and fouling and fouling
Speaker 1: and grabbing and holding and top locking and denying and
Speaker 1: ball pressuring and just beating the hell out of everybody
Speaker 1: all over the floor. That's what you got to do.
Speaker 1: So if I see postgame pressers tonight and I see
Speaker 1: Mike Malone say they kicked our ass tonight and we
Speaker 1: better be ready for a damn war in game three,
Speaker 1: then I like Denver's chances to come back and do it.
Speaker 1: The same thing goes for Jamal Murray. If you go
Speaker 1: in there and you're like, oh, it's my calf. If
Speaker 1: you go in there and you're like, oh, I you
Speaker 1: know they're they're they're founding me like crazy and they're
Speaker 1: getting away with it, then it's over because that's the
Speaker 1: wrong mentality. The only way you're gonna get back in
Speaker 1: this series is by meeting their force with force. For
Speaker 1: the record, I think it's too late. I think this.
Speaker 1: I think Minnesota is gonna win the series. Now it's
Speaker 1: not over. Of course Denver can come back, but I
Speaker 1: think Minnesota is going to win. But the only pathway
Speaker 1: forward for Denver is that they have to they have
Speaker 1: to meet this force with force. We're gonna do a
Speaker 1: little video tomorrow where we go over some film on
Speaker 1: some more like x's and os specifics. Today won about
Speaker 1: x's and o's to me. Today Today was purely about
Speaker 1: force of will and physicality, and in Minnesota punked the
Speaker 1: Denver Nuggets. Tonight they punked him, and now they're in
Speaker 1: real danger of a sweep if they don't get their
Speaker 1: shit together. All right, moving on to Pacers Nicks. I
Speaker 1: want to start with the end of the game and
Speaker 1: we'll work our way backwards. So fifteen. Really interesting sequence.
Speaker 1: So Brunston had been cooking Andrew and Nemhart all night long,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get into more detail on that in
Speaker 1: a few minutes. But Jalen Brunson was isoating Andrew Nemhart
Speaker 1: kind of around the elbow on the right side of
Speaker 1: the floor, and Aaron Nee Smith is guarding Dante DiVincenzo
Speaker 1: on the left wing and he's kind of sitting down,
Speaker 1: digging down into the driving line. Haliburton's guarding Josh Hart
Speaker 1: in the left corner, and Nie Smith throws a double
Speaker 1: team at Brunson, And what I thought was really interesting
Speaker 1: is Halliburton did his windshield wipeer rotation. He rotated at
Speaker 1: the same time as Nie Smith. But Devincenzo positioned himself
Speaker 1: about five feet behind the three point line. It's like
Speaker 1: a deep three, you know, one of those classic Ryan
Speaker 1: Anderson three. Your old Rockets fans will remember that. And
Speaker 1: as a result of that, Halliburton's close out just didn't
Speaker 1: matter because he was so far away from the rim,
Speaker 1: and den de Vincenzo just stuck the three pointer. And
Speaker 1: again the big thing there is Jalen Brunsy was cooking
Speaker 1: Andrew Nembard the entire game to draw that specific double team.
Speaker 1: So Devincenzo hits a three, it's one eighteen, one to fifteen.
Speaker 1: We go down the other end. Siakam hits like a
Speaker 1: really tough driving layup over Og and Obi and Og
Speaker 1: defended it well. But Siakim's big advantage in this matchup
Speaker 1: is length, and he just kind of reached out and
Speaker 1: got that scoop shot extended outside of him and put
Speaker 1: it in off the glass. Really really impressive shots. So
Speaker 1: now it's one eighteen, one seventeen. Then the Pacers forced
Speaker 1: a turnover with some pressure on Brunson. Pressure in the
Speaker 1: back court that they got away with, and then pressure
Speaker 1: in the front court. After a timeout, Brunson throws the
Speaker 1: ball off at Haliburton. It bounces back and hits Brunts
Speaker 1: and now it's PACER's ball and we get an illegal
Speaker 1: screen called on Miles Turner. Now, for the record, I
Speaker 1: don't care about it in the context of this game.
Speaker 1: Bad calls happen in basketball games. As a player and
Speaker 1: as a team, you know that going into the game,
Speaker 1: if you let a game stay close, you're always at
Speaker 1: risk that a bad call could hurt you. Maybe even
Speaker 1: a couple of bad calls, and the Pacers got on
Speaker 1: the bad end of two bad ones at the end
Speaker 1: of this game, not just that one, but also the
Speaker 1: bruntson pocket past. I think it was to Heartenstein, I
Speaker 1: can't remember, but it was a pocket past. It might
Speaker 1: have been Josh Hart, can't remember. Brunton throws that pocket
Speaker 1: past and Nie Smith hits it with his hand and
Speaker 1: gets called for a kickball. Like that was a bad call.
Speaker 1: So but like that's the thing. As a pacer, you
Speaker 1: gotta be looking at that, like we got. We were
Speaker 1: on the wrong end of some bad calls today. Totally
Speaker 1: just part of the game of basketball. What I have
Speaker 1: a problem with is the larger issue that the NBA
Speaker 1: is having with officiating now, because why in the hell
Speaker 1: was that called in that situation, That specific type of
Speaker 1: screen where it's like there's a little bit of movement,
Speaker 1: a little bit of nudge at the end. That same
Speaker 1: screen happens like fifty times in an NBA game, and
Speaker 1: it might get called once or twice, and usually in
Speaker 1: the first quarter or something like that, almost never at
Speaker 1: the end of games. And this is the larger issue.
Speaker 1: NBA refs do not understand why they're there. We have
Speaker 1: refs to facilitate basketball games. That's it. It's not about
Speaker 1: enforcing the rule book to the letter. That's not what
Speaker 1: this is about. The goal is for us to not
Speaker 1: even notice they're there. There is a lot of discretion
Speaker 1: in this job, and the discretion is let the players
Speaker 1: decide the game, not the officials. And so what I
Speaker 1: have a problem with is when there's a call in
Speaker 1: a gray area in the ref defaults to blow the whistle. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, if a ball screen's coming and you're the ref,
Speaker 1: you have to watch out for an illegal screen, you're right,
Speaker 1: And like there have been times where the wrong end
Speaker 1: of this. What was the one God it was the
Speaker 1: was it that Rockets team that the Jazz It was
Speaker 1: in the late nineties and John, I think it was
Speaker 1: John Stockton broke three, broke free for a three at
Speaker 1: the top of the key that won the series. And
Speaker 1: there was just a like an obnoxious illegal screen. Like
Speaker 1: so it looked like, you know, like Zach Martin pulling
Speaker 1: and and blocking him like he's a pulling guard. It like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't want you have to call it if it's outrageous,
Speaker 1: if it's outside of that gray area. But what bothers
Speaker 1: meme is inside of that gray area, when rep's a
Speaker 1: default to blowing the whistle, it makes no sense to
Speaker 1: me like that dude was looking for an excuse to
Speaker 1: blow the whistle, which means he doesn't understand why he
Speaker 1: was there. You're not there to blow the whistle. You're
Speaker 1: there to facilitate a basketball game, and I thought that
Speaker 1: was the Anthony Edwards tech is another example. All he
Speaker 1: did was walk over and stare. There have been a
Speaker 1: dozen more boisterous trash talking sessions or complaints just in
Speaker 1: the few games since then that went uncalled as technicals,
Speaker 1: which means that ref was just waiting for a reason,
Speaker 1: and we have to find a way to get that
Speaker 1: out of the game. There needs to be like an
Speaker 1: overhaul of the way that we train refs to help
Speaker 1: them understand that when things are in the gray area,
Speaker 1: we would prefer to watch the players determine the outcome,
Speaker 1: and that means not gifting a team a point over
Speaker 1: a stare down, And that means not calling every damn
Speaker 1: illegal screen or you could call a carry on every possession.
Speaker 1: If you slow the game down and watching slow motion,
Speaker 1: almost every ball handler puts their hand a little bit
Speaker 1: under the ball and the ball stops spinning. By the book,
Speaker 1: that's a carry, But somehow we have discretion there. And
Speaker 1: that was just so frustrating because that was such an
Speaker 1: entertaining basketball game. Back and forth. Pacers are playing really well.
Speaker 1: Runson hits a bunch of big shots laid You're in
Speaker 1: this dog fight, and all of a sudden, you get
Speaker 1: this amazing Siakam layup in this big time defensive play
Speaker 1: from the Pacers to get the ball back, and they
Speaker 1: don't even get a shot because of a really iffy
Speaker 1: illegal screen. I had a huge problem with that call.
Speaker 1: But let's get back to the game at large. So
Speaker 1: obviously after the illegal screen, the Knicks closed the game
Speaker 1: out at the foul line that it's over from there.
Speaker 1: Right on the Knicks front, Brunson was just unreal. He
Speaker 1: burnt Andrew embar to a crisp in that game and
Speaker 1: literally forced the Pacers to double team in at the
Speaker 1: end in that same matchup, which led to the eventual
Speaker 1: game winner from Dante DiVincenzo. Now the most consecutive forty
Speaker 1: point playoff game since Michael Jordan. That's some rare company
Speaker 1: for you there. I was thinking about this earlier, you
Speaker 1: could make the case that Brunson has been the best
Speaker 1: small guard in the league this year, like last year
Speaker 1: it was Stephen Dane. I think you could say that
Speaker 1: that Jalen Brunson and Donovan Mitchell have kind of made
Speaker 1: their move on that corner. Again, it's a small sample.
Speaker 1: You want to see it sustained. But within this season
Speaker 1: the two best small guards have been Jalen Brunson and
Speaker 1: Donovan Mitchell. They've been killing. And on that note, what
Speaker 1: I thought was really interesting. I couldn't believe the stat
Speaker 1: when I saw it. I was scrolling through Instagram earlier today.
Speaker 1: So they are eight teams remaining, right, that means what
Speaker 1: forty starters? Six players out of those forty are over
Speaker 1: thirty years old? How interesting is that? Like the younger
Speaker 1: like when we talk about experience now it doesn't mean,
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to mean as much like the younger
Speaker 1: guys are taking over the league. Six players over thirty
Speaker 1: in the starting lineups out of forty remaining here in
Speaker 1: the second round, I thought that was super fascinating. Dante
Speaker 1: Di Vincenzo and Josh Hart a bunch of timely scoring
Speaker 1: that huge and one late from Josh Hart, got a
Speaker 1: couple of big offensive rebounds to Dante DiVincenzo, not just
Speaker 1: that three really lively as a shot creator all night.
Speaker 1: The starting lineup, just the starters for the Knicks scored
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighteen points. And then one of the
Speaker 1: big things that I wanted to shout out, I thought
Speaker 1: Dante DiVincenzo did an unbelievable job on Tyrese Haliburton. And
Speaker 1: this kind of goes back to what we were talking
Speaker 1: about with Jamal Murray earlier, but Dante DiVincenzo. When you
Speaker 1: like what happened with Murray, they're pressuring in full court,
Speaker 1: they're randomly trapping in, they're being physical all over the place,
Speaker 1: and it plays Jamal into this like not just poor shooting,
Speaker 1: but poor decision making, right I thought. I thought Halliburton
Speaker 1: was really bad down the stretch of this game and
Speaker 1: super passive throughout, and a big part of that was
Speaker 1: Dante DiVincenzo just got up in his grill, got physical,
Speaker 1: in handsy, and threw him out of whack. He hit
Speaker 1: What was I talking about in the Nugget series, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: they were trying to force pocket passes that weren't there.
Speaker 1: They weren't seeing help defenders that were there. What happened
Speaker 1: with Halliburton at the end of this game. There was
Speaker 1: that random pocket pass that he tried to force when
Speaker 1: nothing was open. It was a turnover. There was the
Speaker 1: play where he was driving along the white the right
Speaker 1: side and og Ananobi was guarding the strong side corner
Speaker 1: and Halliburton just didn't even see him and og went
Speaker 1: in and swiped the ball free. I think that was
Speaker 1: the play where he went down the other end he
Speaker 1: got the dunk. There was like a play where he
Speaker 1: came off a ball screen and picked up his dribble
Speaker 1: for no reason and then threw like this crazy lob
Speaker 1: back across the court to Miles Turner and I'm like, whoa,
Speaker 1: Like he's losing his focus and decision making now, and
Speaker 1: so like again, it's a much smaller version of what
Speaker 1: the Timberwolves did to the Nuggets. But but Dante Divincenzo's
Speaker 1: individual defense on Halliburton did a number on the Pacers.
Speaker 1: It was a big part of why they had to
Speaker 1: lean so much on Andrew Nemhart late in the game, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, was really good. But so it worked out.
Speaker 1: But they had to lean a lot on how on
Speaker 1: Nemhard and Siakam late in the game because Devincenzo basically
Speaker 1: like just pressured Haliburton out of it. Now. I know
Speaker 1: Haliburton hadn't really looked the same since he uh, since
Speaker 1: he got back from his hamstring injury, but like this,
Speaker 1: this is playoff basketball, and it looks like it's gonna
Speaker 1: be playoff basketball for the foreseeable future. And so Halliburton's
Speaker 1: got it. I don't know if it's putting on a
Speaker 1: little bit more muscle or just getting better at handling
Speaker 1: ball pressure, but he's got to figure that out because
Speaker 1: that problem is not going away in this series. Devincenzo's
Speaker 1: gonna be in his grill in Game two, and he's
Speaker 1: gonna be in his girl in Game three, and he's
Speaker 1: gonna be in his grill in Game four. And if
Speaker 1: you somehow get some success on Devincenzo and they switch
Speaker 1: him off, it'll probably be a Duce McBride doing the
Speaker 1: exact same thing. On the Pacers front, I was really
Speaker 1: really surprised with the matchups that Indiana went with. I
Speaker 1: talked about before the series. I thought Nie Smith should
Speaker 1: guard Brunson and that they should put em Hard on
Speaker 1: Devincenzo and then put Halliburton on Josh Hart. Obviously, some
Speaker 1: rebounding issues there were Josh Hart, but you can rebound
Speaker 1: as a team. There are ways to address that at
Speaker 1: the team level. I thought that a Nie Smith gave
Speaker 1: the best combination of size, strength, physicality and athleticism on
Speaker 1: the ball on Brunson, and I thought Lati Vincenzo, being
Speaker 1: the secondary creator Nemhart would be a good matchup there.
Speaker 1: Nemhart on Brunson I just didn't get. He's not very
Speaker 1: big and he's not very strong. He's a good guard defender,
Speaker 1: but Brunson's playing at an insanely high level. And the
Speaker 1: main thing I noticed early in the game, first possession,
Speaker 1: Brunson just walks him down to the right block and
Speaker 1: easily shoots a fade away over the top of him.
Speaker 1: Brunson feels really comfortable shooting over the top of Nemhart.
Speaker 1: Here's why that matters. The Sixers series was not like that.
Speaker 1: Jalen did not feel comfortable shooting a pull up jumper,
Speaker 1: like like straight up face to face against Kelly Ubrey
Speaker 1: or Nick Batum to the same degree that he does
Speaker 1: against Nemhart famously in game five, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: that was the overtime game, and Brunson tried to shoot
Speaker 1: a pull up three and batom guests and like almost
Speaker 1: blocked it, and brunts him threw the ball out of
Speaker 1: bounds because length, length is something that bothers pull up
Speaker 1: shots when you're face to face, right, So what Brunson
Speaker 1: did against the Sixers is he found soft spots in
Speaker 1: pick and roll. He get batum or ubre in the
Speaker 1: trail position on a ball screen and try to get
Speaker 1: some separation in the ball screen, and then he'd hit
Speaker 1: something in the middle before he got to embiid. Very
Speaker 1: different type of shot making, which, by the way, is
Speaker 1: why I talked about in this series the Pacers putting
Speaker 1: more of like a I talked about it after the
Speaker 1: Sixers series too, Just more of like a like a
Speaker 1: like a Bruce Brown archetype, like a low center of gravity, bigger,
Speaker 1: stronger guard that can flatten out some of Brunson's drives.
Speaker 1: The problem is is when he's too small, like Nemhard,
Speaker 1: he can just too easily shoot over the top, and
Speaker 1: so didn't like that matchup. Dante DiVincenzo was really good
Speaker 1: in this whole game. I didn't understand putting I didn't
Speaker 1: understand putting Haliburton on him because Devincenzo was getting comfortable
Speaker 1: and was active as a scorer in this game. One
Speaker 1: of the big things that down the stretch that was
Speaker 1: interesting we talked about from one to fifteen on, but
Speaker 1: a big part of the Nick's scoring down the stretch
Speaker 1: before one fifteen was ghost screens with guard guard screens
Speaker 1: with Dante de vincenz Would we talked about in the
Speaker 1: series preview was gonna be a huge part of the
Speaker 1: Knicks offense. They were going to try to get better
Speaker 1: matchups regard guard screens. So what they did is they
Speaker 1: kept getting Brunson downhill by having Halliburton's man set the
Speaker 1: screen Devincenzo. Halliburton would hedge, but Halliburton was doing a
Speaker 1: bad job of hedging. Like like, again, your one job
Speaker 1: on the hedge is to cut off the drive, but
Speaker 1: Halliburton was bailing on the hedge and kind of even
Speaker 1: getting in the way of Nemhard. So Brunson was able
Speaker 1: to get downhill easily. And again, Devincenzo scored a bunch
Speaker 1: in this game. And so like you want to hedge
Speaker 1: and recover on a guy that's not a good movement shooter.
Speaker 1: And so that's where it makes more sense for me
Speaker 1: to in my opinion, to put him on Josh Hart. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, if you put him on Josh Hart, you're
Speaker 1: gonna open up some issues on the glass, but again,
Speaker 1: Josh Hart was doing damage on the glass anyway. That's
Speaker 1: a team concept. You have to rebound as a team, right.
Speaker 1: So a big adjustment that I'm expecting from Indiana either
Speaker 1: expecting a game to you were hoping for in game two,
Speaker 1: I would move Nie Smith over to Brunson's so that
Speaker 1: you have a bigger, stronger, taller athlete that can at
Speaker 1: least bother Brunson's over the top shooting. Right. Then I
Speaker 1: would put an em Hard on Devincenzo. So if they
Speaker 1: run guard guard screens with Devincenzo, you can just switch
Speaker 1: at that point at least or you could try to
Speaker 1: fight through, but or if you hedge and recover, it's
Speaker 1: a better athlete guard who can do a better job
Speaker 1: of hedging and recovering out to Devincenzo. And then at
Speaker 1: if you try to bring Josh Hart into those screens
Speaker 1: and you have Josh Hart screen and you have Haliburton hedge,
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about the movement shooting aspect
Speaker 1: that Devincenzo brings to the table. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: see the Pacers kind of mix up all their matchups
Speaker 1: in games two, but I guess we'll see. But I
Speaker 1: want to shout a couple guys for the Pacers though.
Speaker 1: I thought Aaron NEI Smith was awesome with his slashing,
Speaker 1: especially late in the game. That dunk that he had
Speaker 1: on Mitchell Robinson was disgusting. That was a really really
Speaker 1: good playoff dunk. Andrew Nemhard's shot creation late had a
Speaker 1: couple of big time driving layups that were really high
Speaker 1: level plays at a short little pull up jump or two.
Speaker 1: It was big time that he stepped up the way
Speaker 1: he did because Haliburton was struggling so much. And then
Speaker 1: Pascal Siakam again, he's got one of the toughest defensive
Speaker 1: matchups in the series because og is kind of constructed
Speaker 1: to make him shoot over the top or at least
Speaker 1: around him to the sides, and Siakam just had a
Speaker 1: couple of really big shots here, that short pull up jumper,
Speaker 1: the step back late and then he had that big
Speaker 1: scoop layup that got it down to one eighteen, one seventeen.
Speaker 1: So gonna be a really good series. I'd like to
Speaker 1: see the Pacers mix up the matchups. Haliburton has to
Speaker 1: be better just in general, regardless of circumstance. Tyres Haliburton,
Speaker 1: you're the leader of this team. You have to find
Speaker 1: a way to be more impactful offensively, and again, handling
Speaker 1: that ball pressure is gonna be key. But this is
Speaker 1: gonna be a really fun series. I think you saw
Speaker 1: some of the advantages that the Pacers have. TJ McConnell
Speaker 1: was unbelievable. TJ McConnell's dribble penetration is just like one
Speaker 1: of those things that I think is like a lot
Speaker 1: of people in the league don't even realize, Like TJ's
Speaker 1: literally one of the very best guards in the league
Speaker 1: at just beating people off the dribble. I was watching
Speaker 1: it tonight, just like cleanly toasting you know, guys like
Speaker 1: Dante Di Vincenzo and Duce McBride off the dribble and
Speaker 1: getting into the lane relatively easily. He's added that, you
Speaker 1: know that little mid range pull up jump shot. He's
Speaker 1: very good passer as well. It's just an unbelievable competitor,
Speaker 1: big time night from TJ McConnell. But again, just like
Speaker 1: shout out to the Knicks, shout out to Jalen Brunson
Speaker 1: playing at the highest four game stretch as a score
Speaker 1: since Michael Jordan. Gonna be a fun series, all right, guys.
Speaker 1: I feel like that entire episode is just me yelling
Speaker 1: it was crazy. It was a crazy night, all right, guys.
Speaker 1: That is all I have for tonight. I'm planning on
Speaker 1: doing something small tomorrow, just a little bit of film,
Speaker 1: probably on Wolves Nuggets, just talking about how they kind
Speaker 1: of got them out of there, out of whack mentally.
Speaker 1: But I appreciate you guys for supporting the show. Don't forget.
Speaker 1: We had series previews earlier this morning for Celtics Cavs
Speaker 1: and MAVs Thunder. You can find that on our YouTube feed,
Speaker 1: and they were also going live tomorrow night after those
Speaker 1: games Game ones. I will see you guys. Then the
Speaker 1: volume