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Speaker 1: to Who's Tonight here at the volume heavy Friday. Everybody
Speaker 1: hope all you guys have had a great week so far.
Speaker 1: Got a jampack show for you today. We're gonna hit
Speaker 1: two more preseason games. A couple of teams that we
Speaker 1: haven't hit yet, we haven't talked bucks. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: leading off with them in their matchup with the Lakers
Speaker 1: last night, I'll give you guys a couple updated notes
Speaker 1: on my thought on the thoughts on the Lakers after
Speaker 1: their second game with Lebron James and Anthony Davis in
Speaker 1: the lineup. After that, the Houston Rockets in the Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City Thunder faced off in a game where we got
Speaker 1: to see the Thunder tryout. They're kind of new, super
Speaker 1: charged starting lineup. So we're gonna talk about that game.
Speaker 1: And then I've got fourteen clips for a session of
Speaker 1: Timp's tape at the tail end of the show, so
Speaker 1: we can go over some of these concepts with visuals
Speaker 1: for you guys to look at. You guys are the
Speaker 1: Joe before we get started. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube
Speaker 1: channel so you don't miss any more of our videos.
Speaker 1: Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLT. You guys, don't
Speaker 1: miss you announcementsn't forget about our podcast feeds where we
Speaker 1: get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight, and then keep dropping
Speaker 1: mailback questions and the YouTube comments so we can keep
Speaker 1: hitting them throughout the remainder of the season. Also, I
Speaker 1: had Claire to louon on the show Earlier this week,
Speaker 1: we released the episode this morning though, talking about the
Speaker 1: GM survey, and obviously the GM survey is a little
Speaker 1: complicated because there are some GM who do it something
Speaker 1: that put it off on staffers, but it gave us
Speaker 1: an opportunity to argue about some kind of big picture
Speaker 1: NBA topics, like whether or not Ad and Draymond or
Speaker 1: underrated defensively, whether or not Jason Tatum is the best
Speaker 1: small forward in the league. Kind of like the Luka
Speaker 1: Jokic debate. We talked about the CBA for a little while.
Speaker 1: We hit all sorts of stuff all around the NBA,
Speaker 1: so make sure you guys check out that episode as well.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk some basketball. So Lakers Bucks started
Speaker 1: the buck side of things, so they kind of were
Speaker 1: spamming this action early in the game that I really
Speaker 1: liked because it's going to create some more cleared side
Speaker 1: two man game for Damon Giannis. This is something I've
Speaker 1: been talking about a lot over the course of the
Speaker 1: last year. Basically, like when you I'm a big believer,
Speaker 1: like if you're dealing with a player who's a very
Speaker 1: high level playmaker and I'm not talking like good, I
Speaker 1: mean like in the top tier. I like them operating
Speaker 1: in the middle of the floor more. Why Because in
Speaker 1: the middle of the floor, your court awareness becomes more
Speaker 1: important because you're only really looking at half the floor
Speaker 1: whatever you're facing. Right. But if you have good court awareness,
Speaker 1: if you're really good at just kind of quickly processing
Speaker 1: and cataloging where everything is and making those reads, then
Speaker 1: you can operate out of the middle of the floor
Speaker 1: not worry about having guys behind you that you can't see. Right.
Speaker 1: That's a superpower. There's only a small handful of players
Speaker 1: in the league that I like operating in situations like that, right,
Speaker 1: really really high level playmakers. For guys that are not
Speaker 1: as good with the high level playmaking, I actually like
Speaker 1: more cleared side action, the main reason being when they
Speaker 1: catch on the roll. Let's say, for instance, you run
Speaker 1: a cleared action on the right side, you screen the
Speaker 1: guy come, the ball handler comes off, and I'm rolling
Speaker 1: into the short corner on the right side. When I catch,
Speaker 1: everything is in front of me, and so at that point,
Speaker 1: now this is an easier read to make. Right. So
Speaker 1: this is something I've been calling for for a while,
Speaker 1: but it's just something the Bucks didn't do very often.
Speaker 1: One of these actions that they've been running and they
Speaker 1: spammed in a bunch at the start of this game.
Speaker 1: Was it basically a Torreum print. It's like kind of
Speaker 1: like a horn setup. They had Toryum prints start on
Speaker 1: the right elbow. They run dame through all the way
Speaker 1: over into the right corner right and that guy Torrian
Speaker 1: Prince that could also be Chris Middleton when he's healthy.
Speaker 1: And then I believe that Brook Lopez operating is kind
Speaker 1: of like the passing vocrum at the top of the key.
Speaker 1: And then basically they have Giannis come up in set
Speaker 1: a backscreen for Torrian Prince to come off and look
Speaker 1: for a catch near the left block. Right now, there's
Speaker 1: an easy region make there right, like if Jannis's man
Speaker 1: doesn't help and Giannis, that's a good screen and Tourrion
Speaker 1: or Chris Middleton comes off of that boom layup right.
Speaker 1: That's the easy read that comes if the defense makes
Speaker 1: a mistake. But in a lot of cases, Giannis's defender
Speaker 1: is going to linger back just a tiny bit so
Speaker 1: you can give a little tiny bit of help so
Speaker 1: that it can buy a minute or a second, I
Speaker 1: should say, for Chris Middleton's defender or Torrian Prince's defender
Speaker 1: to recover from that screen, so you can get back
Speaker 1: in front. This way, when Giannis catches on that right elbow,
Speaker 1: he can quick look to turn into attack right. And
Speaker 1: one of the beautiful things there is you've got Dame
Speaker 1: in the strong side corner. They're almost certainly not going
Speaker 1: to help there, so there's a lot of space there
Speaker 1: for Yannis to operate as you're clearing out with the
Speaker 1: cut and you have your best shooter in the strong
Speaker 1: side corner. But one of the things I noticed is
Speaker 1: they have it kind of baked in their offense where
Speaker 1: if Giannis turns and looks and he doesn't like what
Speaker 1: he sees there, or he just simply wants to run
Speaker 1: more action, then he can flow into a dribble handoff
Speaker 1: with Dame out of the right corner. One of the
Speaker 1: big things that stood out to me in this particular
Speaker 1: game is just a lot more dribble handoffs as opposed
Speaker 1: to just simple ball screens. It's kind of more of
Speaker 1: a five out concept, and it's something that I really like.
Speaker 1: It's something that's a helped Dame not have to deal
Speaker 1: with as much ball pressure because he's not dribbling into
Speaker 1: the action, he's running into the action. And then also,
Speaker 1: as I've been breaking down, it can be part of
Speaker 1: larger concepts within the offense. There's multiple options out of
Speaker 1: that type of set. If you guys are looking for
Speaker 1: a visual of what I'm breaking down, this is going
Speaker 1: to be covered in the TIMPs tape segment at the
Speaker 1: tail end of the show, so you guys can check
Speaker 1: that out there after we cover the rest of the games. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm always going to do the monologue stuff first for
Speaker 1: the sake of our podcast audience, and I'm always going
Speaker 1: to the visual tape stuff at the tail end for
Speaker 1: that specific purpose. And we also release our tape our
Speaker 1: film session separately as breakout clips on YouTube, so you
Speaker 1: can check him out there as well. But I like
Speaker 1: that concept. They ran a they got a really good
Speaker 1: two on the ball situation where Janni's cott turned and
Speaker 1: flowed into that dribble hand off with Dame Max. Christy
Speaker 1: was chasing. I can't remember who I think it was.
Speaker 1: Ruey was guarding. Giannis ended up showing high, Jannis got
Speaker 1: a clean catch on the baseline. He ended up turning
Speaker 1: it over, but there was a wide open read on
Speaker 1: the weekside corner too. I believe it was Torri and
Speaker 1: Prince after he kind of cleared out, so or it
Speaker 1: might have been Gary Trent. But like there was an
Speaker 1: easy read there, there's a lot of really good stuff
Speaker 1: that came out of it. So I really liked the dhos.
Speaker 1: I really liked the cleared side stuff that they were running.
Speaker 1: Using Dame as a screener before he gets the ball
Speaker 1: on the ball screen. This is something I saw a
Speaker 1: little bit of in the first half. Same type of
Speaker 1: concept we were just talking about Yannis. Right when Yannis
Speaker 1: sets a screen, Jannis's man has to be the guy
Speaker 1: who hedges or helps as the other players coming off
Speaker 1: the screen. Same thing for Dame. There was a play
Speaker 1: where they got a wide open three for brook Lopez
Speaker 1: because at the beginning of the possession Dame set a
Speaker 1: backscreen and on the backscreen Max Christy had to just
Speaker 1: barely hesitate back to help. Then Dame sprinted out of
Speaker 1: that into the dribble handoff with Giannis. As a result,
Speaker 1: Max was late chasing over the top. This forced Ruy
Speaker 1: to switch out onto Dame at that point Yiannis had
Speaker 1: inside position after setting the screen, Dame hit him boom
Speaker 1: extra pass on the roll to brook Lopez in the corner.
Speaker 1: They got a wide open three. And again, those are
Speaker 1: little details. You can run a ball screen with Giannis
Speaker 1: and you might get two on the ball, you might
Speaker 1: get a decent pocket catch. But if you run action
Speaker 1: leading into it, more opportunity for mistakes, more opportunity for separation,
Speaker 1: and that separation just makes the action work better. These,
Speaker 1: again are little things that I harp on all the
Speaker 1: time because they just help you squeeze a little bit
Speaker 1: more out of the sponge, just a little bit more
Speaker 1: efficiency out of each individual possession. Ball screen stuff looks
Speaker 1: great early on in the season. Dame has run nineteen
Speaker 1: ball screens including passes, and they've generated twenty four points.
Speaker 1: That's one point two to six points per pick and
Speaker 1: roll so far in preseason. That is through the roof
Speaker 1: Good and remember Giannis didn't even play in one of
Speaker 1: those games. Dame is also at one point four to
Speaker 1: two points per jump shot so far through two preseason games,
Speaker 1: and one point five to six points per pull up
Speaker 1: jump shots. So Dame looks awesome, looking like a good
Speaker 1: start to the year for him. Jannis looks great. He
Speaker 1: absolutely bludge into the Lakers in transition. Eighteen of his
Speaker 1: twenty points were in transition. Nine made field goals. He's
Speaker 1: just gonna punish you every single time you don't get
Speaker 1: back and build that wall at the rim and the
Speaker 1: half courty was a little sloppy, but it's his first
Speaker 1: game of the season. He's just one for six from
Speaker 1: the field. Was missing a lot of short range shots
Speaker 1: and missing some of those easy reads on rolls to
Speaker 1: the rim. I'll show you, guys an example in the
Speaker 1: film session stuffing that he'll get better at. Still taking
Speaker 1: some bad early clock jump shots. He took like a
Speaker 1: contested long elbow jump shot with an eighteen seconds left
Speaker 1: on the shot clock in the late second quarters. Like
Speaker 1: those are kind of things that you don't want him taking.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's in preseason. Guys are
Speaker 1: just trying stuff. He's probably been working on that shot
Speaker 1: all summer and he just wants to see if he
Speaker 1: can bring it out this year. So I tend to
Speaker 1: not overreact. There's a lot of reacting to shots selection
Speaker 1: around all these teams, right, you know, all these teams
Speaker 1: want to shoot more threes. But at the same time
Speaker 1: that kind of inherently leads to some bad shots. When
Speaker 1: we get to the Lakers segment, we talk about Anthony Davis.
Speaker 1: I have kind of like a little take that I
Speaker 1: want to go through involving like good three point shots
Speaker 1: versus bad three point shots, promoting confidence versus trying to
Speaker 1: help coach players through bad shots selection. We'll get to
Speaker 1: that here in a minute. Jannis also guarded Lebron really well.
Speaker 1: They kind of got into like a little bit of
Speaker 1: The two of them were really going at it for
Speaker 1: a preseason game. They're physical on each other, trying to
Speaker 1: guard each other, trying to one up each other, trying
Speaker 1: to score on each other. It was fun just watching
Speaker 1: the two of them go at each other in a
Speaker 1: pointless preseason game. Bobby port Is is just completely insane.
Speaker 1: He's just just blazing hot to start the year. He
Speaker 1: has taken thirteen jump shots through two preseason games and
Speaker 1: he's made eleven of them, two four points per shot attempt.
Speaker 1: That's just like completely insane. Through the roof, easy stuff too,
Speaker 1: just like stuff in transition, picking and popping, spacing off
Speaker 1: of post ups, just a little bit of post up
Speaker 1: kind of shot making over either shoulder. He's just locked
Speaker 1: in to start the year. Gary Trent. I thought he
Speaker 1: did a really nice job on d' Angelo Russell. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a good matchup for him because Delo is
Speaker 1: not overly fast and Delo can struggle with ball pressure.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, this is something that Gary
Speaker 1: Trent can do. Gary Trent has not many good defensive
Speaker 1: player for the most part in his career, and especially
Speaker 1: last year not great. But he does have a specific gift,
Speaker 1: which is physical ball pressure in attacking the basketball, and
Speaker 1: so like again, if you just weaponize that specific strength
Speaker 1: and you've got the back line help to help him
Speaker 1: when he gives up dribal penetration, I think he could work.
Speaker 1: He did a really nice job on D'Angelo Russell. They
Speaker 1: were a little sloppy in their transition defense the Bucks.
Speaker 1: That's the main thing that I think they need to
Speaker 1: look at. Both the Lakers and the Bucks are abominable
Speaker 1: transition defenses right now. It's honestly, just you watch that
Speaker 1: game and it's like there's all this kind of high
Speaker 1: level half court basketball going on between the two teams,
Speaker 1: and then like one out of every four possessions for
Speaker 1: either teams just like, oh, we just had a made basket.
Speaker 1: Now we're giving up a dunk three seconds into the
Speaker 1: shot clock because we just didn't get back. Like that
Speaker 1: sort of thing was happening right and left for both teams,
Speaker 1: but definitely something that the Bucks need to be working
Speaker 1: on as well as the Lakers. On the Lakers front,
Speaker 1: I love the transition pushes. Again, these are little things
Speaker 1: about capitalizing on mistakes. I've been harping on this all preseason. Like,
Speaker 1: you against an elite defense in the half court, even
Speaker 1: when you run action, even when you have your best
Speaker 1: players on the floor, your efficiency is going to sync
Speaker 1: a little bit because half court, slow down basketball is
Speaker 1: just tough. So like as much extra points that you
Speaker 1: can generate by pushing in transition to capitalize on mistakes
Speaker 1: or running action early in possessions to get the defense
Speaker 1: to make mistakes, that's where you can kind of supplement
Speaker 1: your offense. Right. So I liked that Anthony Davis was
Speaker 1: taking a ton of jump shots and not hitting him.
Speaker 1: He hit a couple mid range ones, but he wasn't
Speaker 1: hitting his threes. I want to kind of like talk
Speaker 1: about this concept for a minute. So, like the Lakers
Speaker 1: have obviously dramatically increased the amount of three point shots
Speaker 1: that they're hunting in their offense through at least through
Speaker 1: three preseason games. Again, it's early, but here's a basic
Speaker 1: stat to kind of like demonstrate to you guys the
Speaker 1: difference in the types of shots they're taking. So last year,
Speaker 1: the Lakers took forty nine percent of their jump shots
Speaker 1: were classified as guarded by Synergy, meaning more than half
Speaker 1: of the jump shots they took were considered unguarded. So far,
Speaker 1: through three preseason games, fifty seven percent of the jump
Speaker 1: shots the Lakers have taken have been classified as guarded
Speaker 1: and only forty three percent have been classified as unguarded. So,
Speaker 1: in a very very simple sense, the Lakers are taking
Speaker 1: more contested jump shots, specifically early in the clock they
Speaker 1: see anything, if they see any separation, they're just letting
Speaker 1: it fly, and they're not making them. Right now, on
Speaker 1: those guarded jump shots, they're getting just zero point eight
Speaker 1: points per shot. So it's a tricky it's a tricky concept,
Speaker 1: right because again I'm I actually had a mailback question
Speaker 1: about this. Why I believe in hunting the highest quality
Speaker 1: shot that your team can get on any possession. So
Speaker 1: if you're in the very bottom of three point volume,
Speaker 1: you're probably just missing out on too many opportunities, right,
Speaker 1: But I also don't believe in just jacking up threes
Speaker 1: for the sake of jacking up threes. For instance, eight
Speaker 1: of the top twelve teams in the NBA last year
Speaker 1: in three point attempt volume missed the playoffs. So like
Speaker 1: just jacking up threes isn't necessarily good offense either. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the interesting things is the two teams that
Speaker 1: played in the finals, Boston and Dallas, were both extremely
Speaker 1: high three point volume teams. But then we have all
Speaker 1: these other examples in recent NBA history of low volume
Speaker 1: three point teams making long runs or winning the title,
Speaker 1: most recently even just Denver in twenty twenty three. The
Speaker 1: main reason why is there's actually a more valuable shot
Speaker 1: than a three. If you are classifying shot attempts in
Speaker 1: the NBA, by far the most valuable shot attempt in
Speaker 1: the NBA is anything at the rim. That's the most
Speaker 1: valuable shot attempt in the NBA. It's not close either.
Speaker 1: They're far, far, far more efficient than three point shots.
Speaker 1: So those are the number one shots that every offense
Speaker 1: should be hunting every time down the floor. From there,
Speaker 1: the next best thing you can do is a wide
Speaker 1: open catch and shoot three right now after that, if
Speaker 1: you're choosing between contested mid ranges, tougher shots in the
Speaker 1: short range, or a contested three, then yeah, probably a
Speaker 1: contested three is better than a contested mid range shot
Speaker 1: or something along those lines. But when you take a
Speaker 1: contested three early in the shot clock before working your
Speaker 1: offense to try to get one of the other two,
Speaker 1: which is a high quality rim attempt or a high
Speaker 1: quality catch and shoot three, those need to be your
Speaker 1: your entire approach to offense for the majority of the
Speaker 1: shot clock. Okay, now there's six or seven shot seconds
Speaker 1: left on the shot clock. Yeah, I would recommend trying
Speaker 1: to generate something from the three point land because at
Speaker 1: least at that point, if it goes in, you get
Speaker 1: an extra point. It just juices those efficiency numbers a
Speaker 1: little bit. But there is a big difference between increasing
Speaker 1: your three point attempt volume and increasing your shot quality.
Speaker 1: Increasing your shot quality is being deliberate about rim attempts,
Speaker 1: open catch and shoot threes, then contested threes, then contested twos. Right,
Speaker 1: that's our order of operations to improve shot value. But
Speaker 1: to just put up threes for the sake of putting
Speaker 1: up threes, You're gonna get a lot of contested threes,
Speaker 1: which are actually the third best shot that we can
Speaker 1: get on any given possession. Right now, it gets a
Speaker 1: little more complicated than that, because you want to promote confidence, right,
Speaker 1: especially for teams like the Lakers, who were so low
Speaker 1: in three point volume in previous seasons. They basically only
Speaker 1: took open and wide open threes for the most part
Speaker 1: in the last season, which helped them in percentage. The
Speaker 1: three point percentage was one of the best in the
Speaker 1: league over the half second half of the season, but
Speaker 1: it's not as again, there's just not that volume that
Speaker 1: they need. Right. So when you start getting in your
Speaker 1: player's ears and constantly telling them, I want you to
Speaker 1: take more threes. I want you to be confident. You
Speaker 1: have the green light shoot that thing, shoot that thing,
Speaker 1: shoot that thing all day long. Right When you're telling
Speaker 1: guys like that to do that, it promotes confidence. It
Speaker 1: gets them to not think so much and to just
Speaker 1: let it fly. I'm a big believer in it's better
Speaker 1: for you to try to like coach a guy down
Speaker 1: into taking fewer shots than to coach a guy up
Speaker 1: into taking more shots. Right, Like, it's I would rather
Speaker 1: have these guys all confident in firing away and then
Speaker 1: little by little over the season be like, hey, maybe
Speaker 1: this one's not great. Hey maybe we make one extra pass,
Speaker 1: then it's gonna it might make its way back to
Speaker 1: you anyway for higher quality shot. Hey, there were still
Speaker 1: seventeen seconds on the shot clock. I love this shot.
Speaker 1: But how about we take this when there's less than
Speaker 1: ten on the shot clock? Right? Then you trim the
Speaker 1: fat on those. Then you can improve your shot quality
Speaker 1: while also maintaining confidence. So it's a delicate balance, right.
Speaker 1: You want to hunt shot value, but you also don't
Speaker 1: want guys overthinking it and getting tight. Right, So like
Speaker 1: it right now? As far as the Lakers go, do
Speaker 1: I love all these three point shots that they're taking. No,
Speaker 1: But as long as it's part of a larger mission,
Speaker 1: which is promoting confidence and then trimming the fat, I
Speaker 1: think I can get behind it. So again, it's a
Speaker 1: really small sample size. Let's give it more time. Let's
Speaker 1: wait to see how things look through like twenty regular
Speaker 1: season games. If there's still taking a ton of really
Speaker 1: bad threes and there's no real improvement that's taking place,
Speaker 1: now we need to have a separate conversation about the
Speaker 1: Lakers taking bad shots. But I do believe that JJ
Speaker 1: Reddick is firmly in this, like, hey, everybody, be confident,
Speaker 1: green light, let it fly. Let's build this confidence, and
Speaker 1: then we'll kind of work our way back to higher
Speaker 1: shot quality from there. But again, as we look around
Speaker 1: the league and we look about three point shot volume,
Speaker 1: remember just jacking up a three for the sake of
Speaker 1: jacking up threes is not the best shot in basketball.
Speaker 1: The best shot in basketball is a rim attempt, then
Speaker 1: an open three, And so those are the two that
Speaker 1: need to be the priority of an offense throughout the
Speaker 1: first you know, two thirds, three fourths of the shot
Speaker 1: clock before you change change your kind of order of operations.
Speaker 1: Max Christy interesting game from him. I thought he defended
Speaker 1: Damian Lillard really well. He gets some really nice spot
Speaker 1: up possessions, but once again, all of his on ball
Speaker 1: reps look really bad. And it's one of those things too,
Speaker 1: where he's missing easy reads, like forced to float or
Speaker 1: over three bodies in the paint when there's a wide
Speaker 1: open shooter in the right corner. But then at the
Speaker 1: same time he's like trying to force reads that aren't there,
Speaker 1: like turn the ball over on a pocket pass to
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis. It gets into that, like I talked about
Speaker 1: like all summer about how Max like the one thing
Speaker 1: I'm concerned about with him is his decision making. He
Speaker 1: can shoot the ball really well when he's open, he
Speaker 1: can guard multiple types of defenders. He had a really
Speaker 1: nice possession where he even got peeled off in a
Speaker 1: switch for like, he got screened really hard by Giannis
Speaker 1: and he had to switch, and so Ruey went out
Speaker 1: on Dame and it's like he battled Yep fronted the post,
Speaker 1: which with ad on the floor, I d was behind him,
Speaker 1: which took away the passing angle, and so Yannis wasn't
Speaker 1: able to punish the switch. They had to swing the
Speaker 1: ball around and run more action. Loved all the stuff
Speaker 1: that I saw from Max in role player capacities, but
Speaker 1: every single time they ran action with him, it looked bad.
Speaker 1: So there's this delicate balance, right, It's like, we need
Speaker 1: to give Max reps to see what he can do
Speaker 1: on the ball. But also this team has some real
Speaker 1: urgency around this season to try to make something happen,
Speaker 1: and they already have better ball handlers, So I'm kind
Speaker 1: of the opinion that like the time will come for
Speaker 1: Max to work out on ball reps. Like let's say,
Speaker 1: for instance, Lebron James retires after this season, or he
Speaker 1: has some sort of injuries, some sort of serious injury
Speaker 1: that makes it so that this era is over right,
Speaker 1: Like when Lebron is done, this team's any chance this
Speaker 1: team has to make playoff noises over right. So when
Speaker 1: that happens, whether it's retirement or an injury or something
Speaker 1: like that happens, Max is going to have years with
Speaker 1: a rebuilding Lakers team to dribble to basketball and see
Speaker 1: what he can do. And so within this specific context,
Speaker 1: he actually has the ability to be a highly paid,
Speaker 1: long career role player in this league by just guarding
Speaker 1: the ball and doing role player stuff on offense. And
Speaker 1: so again, I just want to see I just want
Speaker 1: to see like a little bit less of Max on
Speaker 1: the ball when he is on the ball, like quicker
Speaker 1: decisions to get rid of the ball, more like making
Speaker 1: like connective reads rather than trying to actually break down
Speaker 1: the defense. I think that's the sort of thing that'll
Speaker 1: get more out of him. The Lakers showed in the
Speaker 1: last two games actually, but we saw it quite a
Speaker 1: bit last night. This like three to two zone. Look
Speaker 1: where they put Anthony Davis at the top of the key.
Speaker 1: It's a kind of interesting look because you have Lebron
Speaker 1: and they did it with once with Lebron and Jackson
Speaker 1: Hayes on the bottom side. They did it with Lebron
Speaker 1: and Ruey on the bottom side. So you've got these
Speaker 1: two big forwards or backup center that are on the
Speaker 1: baseline kind of running back and forth, right, But then
Speaker 1: you've got your guards up on the wings and you
Speaker 1: have Anthony Davis at the top of the key. It
Speaker 1: kind of gives them the unique ability to cover the
Speaker 1: three point line. Anthony Davis making swing passes very difficult.
Speaker 1: That's why you put ad at the top of the
Speaker 1: key because now all of a sudden, you want to
Speaker 1: reverse the ball to get to the other side of
Speaker 1: the zone to force the zone to shift. But Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis has his long assed arms out there like this,
Speaker 1: making that sort of pass difficult. Right. So like looked
Speaker 1: pretty good. They've run. They ran it ten possessions last
Speaker 1: night and gave up just seven points. That's er point
Speaker 1: seven points per possession. So far in preseason, they've ran
Speaker 1: that three to two zone look for eighteen possessions and
Speaker 1: given up just twelve points, which is a sixty seven
Speaker 1: defensive ratings. So a nice little look there. And obviously
Speaker 1: this is not something that I think will be super
Speaker 1: relevant for the Lakers this year, just simply because their
Speaker 1: roster is so packed and I don't think that Quincy
Speaker 1: Olivari is going to be able to necessarily retain a
Speaker 1: spot on the full time roster. But really cool moment
Speaker 1: at the end of the game, Quincy just picking up
Speaker 1: full court changing the tone and tempo of the game.
Speaker 1: JJ Reddick had a really interesting postgame press or comment
Speaker 1: where he talked about how it just kind of invigorated everybody,
Speaker 1: and it's something that I've always believed very strongly, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of the idea of leading by example, Right.
Speaker 1: We always talk about verbal leadership or like like behind
Speaker 1: the scenes leadership, like in the locker room, navigating personalities
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Leading by example is one of
Speaker 1: the best ways that you can invigorate your basketball team. Like,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to be lazy when your teammate is
Speaker 1: busting his ass, right when your teammates picking up full
Speaker 1: court pressure in the ball, yelling screaming, getting up the
Speaker 1: floor and transition sprinting off of off ball actions, you
Speaker 1: look like an idiot being lazy. And so it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the rising tide that floats all boats, like
Speaker 1: it can be very infectious to have an energetic player
Speaker 1: on the court and like him just bringing that energy.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, the Lakers go on this crazy
Speaker 1: run and they end up getting a win with their
Speaker 1: bench group at the tail end of the game. Big
Speaker 1: moment for Quincy, And it's one of those things where like,
Speaker 1: even if it doesn't necessarily manifest in a roster spot
Speaker 1: for him on the Lakers, am I very well manifesting
Speaker 1: a roster spot for him somewhere else? All right, let's
Speaker 1: move on to the Thunder and the Rockets, and then
Speaker 1: we got some film at the tail end of the show. Thunder.
Speaker 1: First off, first look at their kind of like starting
Speaker 1: lineup configuration with the smaller group. Right, so we basically
Speaker 1: have starters from last year with Alex Crusoe in for
Speaker 1: Josh Kitty, so a little smaller, but a little bit
Speaker 1: more athletic, a lot better defensively, different type of offensive
Speaker 1: player in Alex Crusoe, and we're gonna talk about Alex
Speaker 1: and his fit on offense here in a minute. But
Speaker 1: first thing that stood out to me is a lot
Speaker 1: less heliocentric and a lot more equal opportunity in their
Speaker 1: approach to offense. They were just it wasn't like Shaye
Speaker 1: determining every single possession dribble in the air out of
Speaker 1: the basketball's side to side, quick decisions, guys, everybody, everybody
Speaker 1: getting a chance to do something with the basketball in
Speaker 1: their hands. The easiest way to kind of statistically represent
Speaker 1: this Shay so far, his usage rate is that twenty
Speaker 1: four point four percent in preseason right last year in
Speaker 1: the regular season, it was thirty two percent. Now, do
Speaker 1: I expect Shay's usage rate to drop twenty four No,
Speaker 1: I would imagine it'll be somewhere around like twenty nine
Speaker 1: or thirty. But if you cut it from thirty two
Speaker 1: down to twenty nine or thirty, that will help Shay
Speaker 1: be more efficient. It will help him pick a spots more,
Speaker 1: which will help with fatigue over the course of the season,
Speaker 1: and it makes their offense harder to guard because it's
Speaker 1: more impredictable, not to unpredictable. Not to mention the younger players, guys,
Speaker 1: like chet guys like Jalen, they get more on ball reps,
Speaker 1: which helps them get better in the long run as
Speaker 1: they learn from their mistakes. They're still missing some kickout reads.
Speaker 1: Remember that was the thing in Dallas. There's a simple
Speaker 1: example like Jalen Williams driving into the paint trying this
Speaker 1: like crazy up and under through three bodies when Aaron
Speaker 1: Wagins is like wide open in the right corner, and
Speaker 1: so like there's again, I think the idealized version of
Speaker 1: this team is like the Boston Celtics. We talked about
Speaker 1: it earlier, the shot value thing, and I kind of
Speaker 1: put rim attempts as like all one thing. But there's
Speaker 1: two different kinds of rim attempts too, right, Like there's
Speaker 1: high quality rim attempts and there's bad rim attempts. Right,
Speaker 1: Ideally we want high quality room attempts, high quality threes,
Speaker 1: then low quality rim attempts, right, So like we want
Speaker 1: to hunt a wide open catch and shoot three is
Speaker 1: going to be a higher quality shot than trying a
Speaker 1: shot around four bodies in the paint, right, So like
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of stuff like that they have
Speaker 1: to work out again, what made Boston come together wasn't
Speaker 1: just jacking up a bunch of threes. It was putting
Speaker 1: up good threes and good shots at the rim. That's
Speaker 1: the key for Oklahoma City to reach their ceiling. It's
Speaker 1: just kind of tapping a little bit more into that
Speaker 1: driving kick stuff. But they're getting the ball side to side,
Speaker 1: everyone's touching. It looks pretty on offense right now. On defense,
Speaker 1: a lot of really smart switching and positioning. Again, like
Speaker 1: with Jalen Williams and Lou Dort and Alice Cruso out there,
Speaker 1: you could switch just about everything Shay can switch to.
Speaker 1: You had a really nice defensive possession. I think on
Speaker 1: Jabari Smith on an island where he tried to post
Speaker 1: him up and he ended up just meeting him at
Speaker 1: the summit and blocking and clean. Shehadkin Garden switches too.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of different stuff that can do there,
Speaker 1: but a lot of like really smart positioning stuff right.
Speaker 1: So like for instance, especially when Hartenstein was on the four,
Speaker 1: they have Chet in lowmanhelp, which is where you want him, right.
Speaker 1: He's your best vertical athlete and probably your best player
Speaker 1: at like covering ground with his overall length, right, And
Speaker 1: so he's a guy that can be in two places
Speaker 1: at once. He can help at the rim but also
Speaker 1: take a shooter away in the corner. But one of
Speaker 1: the little things you'll see is like as the ball
Speaker 1: and player movement's happening for Houston, they do a really
Speaker 1: good job of like switching off ball to make sure
Speaker 1: Chet is in that lowman spot. I have a very
Speaker 1: specific example of this that I'll show you guys when
Speaker 1: we get into our film session. But these are just
Speaker 1: little details. And Alex Cruso is just such a smart
Speaker 1: defensive player and he's so keyed in on the game plan.
Speaker 1: It's just it's fun watching him where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: he realizes that he's in the lowman position and chets
Speaker 1: up on the wing. He's the one that grabs Chet,
Speaker 1: pushes him back down and gets that defense set on
Speaker 1: the weak side. Or there was a play where he
Speaker 1: ended up getting switched onto Alprin Shangoun. Alprin Shangun is
Speaker 1: not really much of a jump shooting threat. As soon
Speaker 1: as he switches on to Shangun, he just SAgs all
Speaker 1: the way off because Shangoon went to the left wing,
Speaker 1: and he just sits there and helps on the ball
Speaker 1: and just makes that player give up the basketball. He's
Speaker 1: so keyed in on the game plan. He's so keyed
Speaker 1: in all the time on what he's supposed to do
Speaker 1: on the offensive end of the floor. Again, he missed
Speaker 1: a couple threes in the first half, but it's like
Speaker 1: he does so much more off the ball that makes
Speaker 1: him a connective piece and a plus offensive player in
Speaker 1: a way that Josh Giddy isn't quite as good at that.
Speaker 1: Cruso can maintain himself as a threat offensively tons of
Speaker 1: screening off the ball. If you watch, Alex is always
Speaker 1: setting off ball screens to try to free up his
Speaker 1: teammates and then cutting. If this was something I noticed
Speaker 1: with the Lakers, is such a natural fit with Lebron
Speaker 1: James because of his feel for cutting, and it kind
Speaker 1: of reminds me of the Celtics in the way that
Speaker 1: he can kind of slip into that area in the
Speaker 1: dunker spot there, kind of like Derek White and Drew
Speaker 1: Holliday do and creates space as a guard that can
Speaker 1: quickly finish in traffic underneath the rim. Because he's got
Speaker 1: good size for the position. He's just such a natural
Speaker 1: and easy fit. He's gonna make them so damn good,
Speaker 1: Shaye was hunting more pull up threes. Last year's Shaye
Speaker 1: he shot forty seven percent on pull up jump shots,
Speaker 1: which is an extremely high percentage, but he got only
Speaker 1: one point zero three points per shot, which is good
Speaker 1: but not amazing because so many of them were long two's,
Speaker 1: and so supplementing that with just a few more threes
Speaker 1: will help you get two easy pull up threes. In
Speaker 1: the first half that looked smooth and easy for him.
Speaker 1: You could tell he's been working on it all summer.
Speaker 1: We talked about Hartenstein and how he puts Chet in
Speaker 1: lowman position. Again. What that means is if Chet is
Speaker 1: at center, he's defending ball screens most likely right. But
Speaker 1: if you put Hartenstein at center, he's defending ball screens.
Speaker 1: Now Chet is the guy that can operate as the
Speaker 1: lowman off the ball. They ran some two man game
Speaker 1: for Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet, where like they'd have the
Speaker 1: ball up at the top of the key and Hartenstein
Speaker 1: would just pin down for Chet and Chet would like
Speaker 1: come over and like quickly look for a quick catch
Speaker 1: right in front of the rim. They drew in a
Speaker 1: third defender doing that, which got lou dort An easy
Speaker 1: close out opportunity. Hartenstein was operating as that five out
Speaker 1: passing fulkrim at the top of the key that I
Speaker 1: talked about. He hit a guy for a backcut for
Speaker 1: a layup. He was flowing action from side to side.
Speaker 1: He had a catch into short row where he hit
Speaker 1: a lefty floater in the lane. He just is once again,
Speaker 1: both Caruso and harden segn are just natural shoeing fits
Speaker 1: on this team that are just going to make them
Speaker 1: so much better. Not to mention hart and sign is
Speaker 1: just a legit backup center, which is something that they
Speaker 1: didn't have in years. Pass. I like jay Lynn Williams,
Speaker 1: but Hardenstein's a better player, is the reason why he
Speaker 1: makes almost thirty million a year. Only concern for the
Speaker 1: Thunder there's still as a team giving up an offensive
Speaker 1: rebound on over thirty percent of their opponent's misses. Right now,
Speaker 1: it is just preseason, but something to keep an eye
Speaker 1: on because that was their biggest weakness last year and
Speaker 1: something that we knew they needed to address coming into
Speaker 1: this offseason. A couple notes on the Rockets. Their defense
Speaker 1: looks great. They're really athletic on the perimeter. They did
Speaker 1: a great job contesting shots. They match up pretty well
Speaker 1: with some of these perimeter teams just because how many athletes.
Speaker 1: They have a lot of swarming and rotating. They were
Speaker 1: digging down on lobs, digging down on pocket passes, and
Speaker 1: just kind of making those catches and finishes really difficult
Speaker 1: around the basket. They held Oklahoma City's half court offense
Speaker 1: to a one h two offensive rating in the first half,
Speaker 1: which is really good against a team like Oka See
Speaker 1: that has so much offensive talent. But Houston's offense was
Speaker 1: really really ugly. I want to credit okay See. They're
Speaker 1: going to be one of the best defensive teams in
Speaker 1: the league this year. But there's a specific problem that's
Speaker 1: rising to the surface, which is the Rockets can't shoot.
Speaker 1: They were a bottom ten jump shooting team last year.
Speaker 1: They just have a lot of mediocre shooters who are
Speaker 1: struggling to hit shots. The stat from the stat of
Speaker 1: the night, basically from last night. In the first half
Speaker 1: when the starters were still playing, the Thunders scored six
Speaker 1: more points on jump shots than Houston despite taking six
Speaker 1: fewer attempts. Houston got just zero point seven to eight
Speaker 1: points per jump shot in the first half. Guys like
Speaker 1: Jabari Smith Junior and Jalen Green just haven't developed into
Speaker 1: reliable shooters yet. Dylan Brooks is a guy that teams
Speaker 1: are comfortable helping off and rotating. I talked about Shangun
Speaker 1: and the Cruso possession. It's clearly in the game plan.
Speaker 1: If you have Shangun on the perimeter, don't worry about
Speaker 1: him shooting. You can help into the lane. Amen Thompson
Speaker 1: is the guy teams are going to completely ignore. Jalen
Speaker 1: Green in particular, the thunder were running a very deep
Speaker 1: drop coverage against him, so he was able to come
Speaker 1: off of those ball screens free and clear to take
Speaker 1: pull threes, but they're just not concerned about him making them.
Speaker 1: He made one of them in the first half, but like,
Speaker 1: it's just it's not an issue that teams are gonna
Speaker 1: be worried about over the course of the large sample
Speaker 1: right now. Hopefully Read Shepherd will help with that issue,
Speaker 1: but it's something to keep an eye on. This team
Speaker 1: can't shoot and a lot of teams are gonna pack
Speaker 1: the pain against them and it's gonna make life harder
Speaker 1: for them on the offensive end of the floor. Last
Speaker 1: note on the on the rockets read Shepperd looked good again.
Speaker 1: I only watched the first half, but he had a
Speaker 1: couple of nice pull up twos out of action, like
Speaker 1: little mid range shots around the elbow. Had this beautiful
Speaker 1: skip pass to Jeff Green where he ran a ball screen,
Speaker 1: dumped it back to Shangun, came off of the screen again,
Speaker 1: and then while backpedaling into like a one leg kind
Speaker 1: of fade, he rifled a two hand over the top
Speaker 1: pass that beat the low man help and hit Jeff
Speaker 1: Green wide open in the right corner. He ended up
Speaker 1: missing the shop, but it's just a really high level read.
Speaker 1: On defense, you could tell he struggles a little bit
Speaker 1: with size. There was a play where Jalen Williams just
Speaker 1: went like right through him to the basket with like
Speaker 1: almost no resistance. He ended up getting and one. But
Speaker 1: you can tell he's gonna be a good option against guards.
Speaker 1: He can press the ball, he's good at attacking the
Speaker 1: dribble pocket. But most importantly, reach effort brings shooting and
Speaker 1: that's something that this team desperately needs. And again, like
Speaker 1: just putting him on the floor compared to some of
Speaker 1: the other shooters that they have in the lineup just
Speaker 1: dramatically changes they're facing. All right, let's get into timp's tape.
Speaker 1: So our first clip, we have an example of weak
Speaker 1: side screening with Max Christie. So we have our a
Speaker 1: little kind of like off ball screening action to get
Speaker 1: Ruey a catch, but he flows through because it's not open.
Speaker 1: So now we're flowing to the opposite side. Right, we
Speaker 1: have Max Christy and Rui. Here, Jannis is running through,
Speaker 1: but as Lebron and Ad run their two man game,
Speaker 1: Yannis ends up taking the lowman help position right, So
Speaker 1: this puts Dame in a two on one on this
Speaker 1: side the floor. Max is going to set a really
Speaker 1: good screen on Dame, and by the way, I am
Speaker 1: fully aware the screen is illegal. We'll get to that
Speaker 1: in a minute. Max Christie sets an illegal screen on Dame,
Speaker 1: basically throws a block, generates this wide open catch for Ruie.
Speaker 1: Once again, really nice off ball screen for Max. Dame
Speaker 1: then rotates and it ends up getting a wide open
Speaker 1: shot for Max on the right wing. So like good
Speaker 1: action that drags. One of the things that I notice
Speaker 1: here too, it's like, as Ruy is cutting through, he
Speaker 1: goes through, but Yannis ends up lingering in help. So
Speaker 1: that cut through ends up creating space on this weak side. Now,
Speaker 1: as far as the illegal screen goes, this is something
Speaker 1: that I feel very strongly about. Everyone acts as though
Speaker 1: the rules are very cut and dry, and they're not.
Speaker 1: The rules are the rules, but they are officiated in
Speaker 1: a way that is imperfect. Right hand checking, for instance,
Speaker 1: technically illegal. Watch any NBA basketball game. I don't care
Speaker 1: if it's preseason, the regular season, the summer league, or
Speaker 1: the playoffs. There will be guys that are hand checking
Speaker 1: all the time. It just goes on called, right, And
Speaker 1: one of the things like I'm a big believer, like
Speaker 1: I'd rather pick up two or three or four or
Speaker 1: five even hand check fouls over the course of the game,
Speaker 1: but be really physical at the point of attack and
Speaker 1: do a really good job defensively. Then to never pick
Speaker 1: up a hand checking penalty and give up straight line
Speaker 1: drives all damn game loan, Right, same thing goes for
Speaker 1: my screening, Right, I would rather get called for two, three,
Speaker 1: four illegal screens a game, but I get a bunch
Speaker 1: of open shots because guys are playing super physical off
Speaker 1: the ball to get dudes open. Then to never get
Speaker 1: called for an illegal screen, but nobody gets open. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing. This is right in front of the ref.
Speaker 1: Look at fifty four. He's got ringside seats to the
Speaker 1: left guard pulling on a on a run play here
Speaker 1: and it doesn't get called. That's right in front of
Speaker 1: the ref. So like again it's gamesmanshit understand that like
Speaker 1: these are little like I want to be a physical,
Speaker 1: ass kicking basketball team that gets some fouls called, but
Speaker 1: that I'm better on both ends of the floor as
Speaker 1: a result. Again, it's a fine line. You want to
Speaker 1: foul shooters, you want you want to get in them
Speaker 1: penalty too fast. There's a lot of like, there's a
Speaker 1: fine line. But I'm a big believer in operate a
Speaker 1: little bit in that gray area and you'll be better
Speaker 1: off as a basketball team. Really good possession of ball
Speaker 1: pressure from Gary Trent Junior on D'Angelo Russell. Again, Remember,
Speaker 1: as I talked about, GTJ is not necessarily a very
Speaker 1: good defensive player in terms of his reputation over the
Speaker 1: last few years, but what he is is a good
Speaker 1: ball pressure guard. Watch how he just gets his left arm,
Speaker 1: stays attached to d Lo through the whole drive, gets
Speaker 1: over the top of the screen. Good navigation. Notice that
Speaker 1: left hand staying attached, staying attached, and he ends up
Speaker 1: actually forcing a turnover on de Lo because he's got
Speaker 1: that arm in that shooting pocket and reaches in and
Speaker 1: takes it out again. If you'll get Gary Trent will
Speaker 1: get called for some on ball fouls this year, but
Speaker 1: I'd rather haven't get called for some on ball fouls.
Speaker 1: But their on ball pressure is better throughout the game
Speaker 1: because that don't read benefits in the In the large sample,
Speaker 1: here's an example of Max Christy kind of making a
Speaker 1: decision and a ball situation, so again they run a little.
Speaker 1: This is again it's a wedge screen into a pick
Speaker 1: and roll. This is really common action you'll see around
Speaker 1: the NBA. Basically, Gabe is setting this wedge screen for Ad.
Speaker 1: Ad is going to flow into the ball screen. The
Speaker 1: general ideas you get separation between Ad and Brooke. Then
Speaker 1: when he sets this screen, it'll be easier for Max
Speaker 1: to get downhill. That's the general idea. But Brooke gets
Speaker 1: through it kind of easy. Now we're head to get
Speaker 1: to this ball screen. Right, it's cleared side. We have
Speaker 1: Gabe spacing, we have Dalton spacing. Watch Jackson. Jackson in
Speaker 1: the dunker spot is going to set a backpick on
Speaker 1: Pat Conatton gets into position. There's our backscreen. Max is
Speaker 1: going into basically five bodies in the paint. Dalton connect
Speaker 1: is one of the best shooters on the team, is
Speaker 1: wide open, and Max is going to once again that's three,
Speaker 1: that's the ree, but he's going to force a floater
Speaker 1: over all these bodies and miss. These are those like
Speaker 1: kind of decisions that it's like Max needs reps to
Speaker 1: kind of figure out how to do this better. But
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that this season and is the best
Speaker 1: opportunity for him to get those reps. Really good defensive
Speaker 1: possession with Max on Dame. Just watch the screen navigation.
Speaker 1: They're far enough away from the basket, like this is
Speaker 1: a decision. Typically you want to chase Dame, right, but
Speaker 1: now we're like a legit thirty thirty two feet away
Speaker 1: from the basket. So Max goes under the first pick,
Speaker 1: meets him on the other side, absorbs the contact, gets
Speaker 1: a great contest, forces a miss on Dame. Really really,
Speaker 1: it's crazy to even just watch a good point of
Speaker 1: attack defender playing for the Lakers, because it just was
Speaker 1: not in the rotation at the tail end of the year.
Speaker 1: Last year. One more example a really good defense from Max.
Speaker 1: Here's an example of him getting caught into a switch
Speaker 1: because of a good screen right. So two man game,
Speaker 1: you can see it setting up a lot of as
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, a lot more dribble handoff stuff with
Speaker 1: the bucks. In this game, dribble handoff runs into the screen.
Speaker 1: Now we got a switch, right, So Ruy does a
Speaker 1: good job cutting off that initial drive and forces Dame
Speaker 1: to pull the ball out. So now the natural next
Speaker 1: kind of read is Giannis is being guarded by Max. Christie,
Speaker 1: we want to go attack this in the post, right,
Speaker 1: So Dame dribbles it out. Giannis tries to post, but
Speaker 1: he's got that leg in front. Now watch Max battle
Speaker 1: to get back in front of Giannis. Watched his left
Speaker 1: leg swoops around, gets that left foot in front. Now
Speaker 1: he's got that front position and as a result, Ad
Speaker 1: can now split the difference between Brooke and Giannis and
Speaker 1: make it so that the only passing read for Dame
Speaker 1: is to throw this over the top. And if he
Speaker 1: throws it over the top, Ad is gonna get it.
Speaker 1: But if he throws a skip pass, AD's also in
Speaker 1: position to close out. So Max doing a good job
Speaker 1: fronting the post, shuts down the counter to this switch.
Speaker 1: Really nice defense for Max. You can see like he
Speaker 1: wants to throw it, but he just can't. It's just
Speaker 1: not open with ad bracketing on that week side. I
Speaker 1: don't even remember what happens at the end of this possession.
Speaker 1: Looks like a little contested midi from Gary Trent. So
Speaker 1: good defense from Max in this game. All right, let's
Speaker 1: talk about that Milwaukee Bucks action that I was talking
Speaker 1: about in the beginning of today's show. So this is
Speaker 1: the action they were spanning at the beginning of the game.
Speaker 1: That kind of naturally sets up some cleared side action
Speaker 1: for Giannis. Right, So all we're doing is it's a
Speaker 1: dribble hand off with Dame Tatorium Prince out of the
Speaker 1: right corner that's going to flow into a swing pass
Speaker 1: to Brook Lopez. From there, Giannis is going to backscreen
Speaker 1: for Taurian Prince. As you can see in this situation,
Speaker 1: Rui has to kind of offer a little bit of help.
Speaker 1: If Ruey doesn't and he stays glued up, Torrian's gonna
Speaker 1: cut through and end up getting a layup, or Dlo
Speaker 1: will have to help and Gary Trent will be open, right,
Speaker 1: But this gives Yannis the ability to catch, and Rui's
Speaker 1: not up on him yet, so Jannis can immediately look
Speaker 1: to attack on the catch, gets downhill, gets in a lane,
Speaker 1: he just smokes the shot. And again, as we talked
Speaker 1: about in the show, I think Giannis was one for
Speaker 1: six and a half court just kind of struggled to
Speaker 1: finish around the rim in this game. But that's not
Speaker 1: something I expect to happen in the large sample. But
Speaker 1: so that's like the kind of initial look, right, The
Speaker 1: initial look is yanis looking to attack. There. Here's the
Speaker 1: exact same thing, exact same setup. Dame brings the ball
Speaker 1: off the floor, dribble hand of a Torreum Prince swing
Speaker 1: past the Lopez. Here's the screen. This time Torrian doesn't
Speaker 1: cut quite as hard, so Jannis doesn't get as good
Speaker 1: of a look. Ruy's right on him, right, But that's okay.
Speaker 1: Now we're flowing into the cleared side ball screen. See
Speaker 1: how that's kind of naturally set up as the read.
Speaker 1: If it's not there for Giannis to attack, they can
Speaker 1: flow into this cleared side action. Dame comes off the
Speaker 1: dho watch Ruy Ruey has to show boom two on
Speaker 1: the ball. Now we have Yannis going downhill and he's
Speaker 1: got a really easy read available. He makes the wrong
Speaker 1: read here. He should have just thrown the skip past
Speaker 1: the trum Prince. It's a wide open three every single time.
Speaker 1: Instead he tries to force it to Brook Lopez and
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis gets a piece of it, knocks it out
Speaker 1: of bounds. But again, look at how easy that is though.
Speaker 1: Run the action Giannis catches. We flow into the dhow
Speaker 1: with Dame. One of the beautiful things about dribble handoffs
Speaker 1: instead of on ball screens too, is he doesn't have
Speaker 1: to mess around with ball pressure. He just sprints to
Speaker 1: the basketball. It's a great counter for ball pressure. All right,
Speaker 1: let's move on to the Oklahoma City Thunder example of
Speaker 1: Caruso's activity off the ball. Okay, so we have Jalen
Speaker 1: Williams running a two man game with chat Holmgren comes
Speaker 1: off the ball screen. Watch Alex Crusoe. Instead of just standing,
Speaker 1: he's going to be like, I need to do something
Speaker 1: to be active off the ball. He's gonna set a screen.
Speaker 1: Look at him screening to try to create an opening
Speaker 1: for lou Dort. But then also he's going to slip
Speaker 1: into the dunker spot here. Watch just kind of creates
Speaker 1: an availability for himself, seals Jalen Green to make sure
Speaker 1: Jalen Green can't get in there. And he's big and
Speaker 1: strong enough to finish in traffic around bigger players around
Speaker 1: the rim. Again, that's a lot of the of the
Speaker 1: stuff that you see Boston do with their guards. Alex Crusoe.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have the reputation as like a knockdown three
Speaker 1: point shooter, but he is a successful off ball offensive
Speaker 1: player because because of his activity. Here's some good side
Speaker 1: to side action for the Thunder. We get like a
Speaker 1: little brush screen with Crusoe. We're flowing into Chet. Chet's
Speaker 1: flowing into this action with Shay Shays coming off the ball,
Speaker 1: We're back to Chet. Now we're coming back to Jalen Williams.
Speaker 1: Jalen william gets a wide open catch and shoot three.
Speaker 1: So really good action. But let's watch a couple of
Speaker 1: specific things. Watch as Jalen Williams cuts through, Dylan Brooks
Speaker 1: follows him at first, but then Dylan Brooks gets sucked
Speaker 1: into help in this three man action. Right, watch Crusoe too.
Speaker 1: Watch Crusoe as this is taking place. Crusoe is going
Speaker 1: to set a screen here on Jalen Green, just making
Speaker 1: making sure he's got a little bit of contact, and
Speaker 1: that gets this separation for Jalen Williams coming off. So
Speaker 1: again off ball activity from Cruso. The side to side
Speaker 1: action pulls Dylan Brooks into help. It's just really hard
Speaker 1: to track man and ball when everyone's moving around. As
Speaker 1: a result, Jalen Williams gets wide open. Here's an example
Speaker 1: of those defensive principles I was talking about. So the
Speaker 1: first thing we're gonna see here, as we set up
Speaker 1: into our ball screen, clear out all right, seven on
Speaker 1: the shot clock. Watch how this develops. So first of all,
Speaker 1: as we see when Hartensteign is on the floor, Chet
Speaker 1: doesn't have to guard ball screens because hard and signs
Speaker 1: guarding the ball screen. This allows Chet to be in help.
Speaker 1: These are the kinds of smart things that the thunderdo. Though.
Speaker 1: Watch Caruso. He sees this play developing. We have a
Speaker 1: two man game. We have two guys spacing here read
Speaker 1: Shepard is spacing above the break. So you can't bring
Speaker 1: low man help from the left side. The low man
Speaker 1: help has to come from Cruso right, So Caruso is
Speaker 1: going to be like, I shouldn't be the low man.
Speaker 1: Chet should be. Look at him. Point He points at
Speaker 1: Chet and he switches spots with him, pushes him down.
Speaker 1: Get down, get down. I need you to be the lowman.
Speaker 1: Now Hartenstein can come up to the level not have
Speaker 1: to worry about Jack Landale getting behind him again. Most
Speaker 1: pick and roll coverages that want to guard two on
Speaker 1: two don't want to let the roller get behind. But
Speaker 1: when you have an athlete like Chet, look at how
Speaker 1: Chet can be in two places at once. Throw it
Speaker 1: to Landale, I dare you, Chet's right there. Skip it
Speaker 1: to Cam Whitmore, Chet's gonna close out. He is probably
Speaker 1: the best player on the team in term of overall
Speaker 1: ground coverage, combination of mobility and length right. So if
Speaker 1: you put him in a position where you need him
Speaker 1: to be in two places at once, it allows Hartenstein
Speaker 1: to do a simple job. Attack the basketball right. As
Speaker 1: soon as the guard doesn't turn the corner, then he
Speaker 1: can drive. But that will stop guards from turning the
Speaker 1: corner on this team, and the passing reads that are available,
Speaker 1: Chet can cover both of them. Now hard Siege ends
Speaker 1: up committing a foul on this play on a little
Speaker 1: driving move from Jalen Green, but he appears to think
Speaker 1: that he got all ball to which I didn't see replay.
Speaker 1: But the point is more focusing on those principles, the
Speaker 1: pre switch from Crusoe off the ball to keep Chet
Speaker 1: and low Man help, and just how devastating Check can
Speaker 1: be in low man position. We have four more. This
Speaker 1: is that off ball action with Hartenstein and Chat. So
Speaker 1: you can't see it because of the way that the
Speaker 1: screen is setting up, but Chet's kind of down in
Speaker 1: the dunker spot. Hartenstein's around the free throw line. He's
Speaker 1: gonna pin down for Chet. You can see it now,
Speaker 1: So he goes to pin down for Chet. Cam Whitmore
Speaker 1: is trying to chase Chet over the top of this action. Okay,
Speaker 1: as he chases Chet over the action that forces jack
Speaker 1: Landale to show As jack Landale shows that forces I
Speaker 1: believe that's Jalen Green. I can't tell in this exact situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that forces Jalen Green to step over and tag Hartenstein.
Speaker 1: Right If he doesn't do that, Chet's just throwing a
Speaker 1: little floating past and Hartenstein's getting a finish. This generates
Speaker 1: a close out opportunity for Lou Dord on the weak side.
Speaker 1: Here's our closeout just looks at the rim and that
Speaker 1: gives him the ability to beat Jalen Green off. The
Speaker 1: dribble gets downhill known as to Hartenstein's. I was talking
Speaker 1: about this in the other game, the one where check
Speaker 1: out the dunk when the guards didn't play but Chet
Speaker 1: and Isaiah did. Isaiah's just really good at these like
Speaker 1: seals in the lane to keep big guys away from
Speaker 1: the rim. That puts Cam Whitmore as the helper. Lou's
Speaker 1: able to pretty easily finish around him with a little
Speaker 1: up and undermove. Here's that beautiful skip pass from Reed
Speaker 1: Shepherd to Jeff Green. So he's gonna start with the
Speaker 1: ball scream and again this is the beauty of like rescreening, right.
Speaker 1: So the first screen, Keason Walls guards it really well,
Speaker 1: but then he throws the pass back and gets the
Speaker 1: dribble handoff. This time he gets a little bit more
Speaker 1: separation that pulls Hartenstein up. Because Hartenstein comes up, that
Speaker 1: pulls Jalen Williams over and help. Look at this beautiful
Speaker 1: one legged fade away two handed skip pass that's on
Speaker 1: a rope that hits Jeff Green right in the shooting
Speaker 1: pocket ready to shoot, gets a really good look, really
Speaker 1: nice passing read from Reed Shepherd by two more quick ones,
Speaker 1: then we'll be out of here. I talked about Isaiah
Speaker 1: Hartenstein is kind of like a five out fulcrum. Here's
Speaker 1: a great example Isaiah's going. These are the kinds of
Speaker 1: decisions you're making as a passing fulcrum. Everyone's cutting and
Speaker 1: screening around him. He's got to find the openings. Oh,
Speaker 1: slip the screen there it is, boom, easy layoup. Hardenstein's
Speaker 1: really good at making those reads. And then if you
Speaker 1: leave him open on the roll, flows to the side,
Speaker 1: hand off to Crusoe, ball screen, flowing back shay two
Speaker 1: man game, pocket pass, patented lefty floater that he's gonna
Speaker 1: make a great percentage of the time. Such a nice
Speaker 1: pickup for the Thunder. He's gonna make them so much better.
Speaker 1: All right, guess that's all I have for today. As always,
Speaker 1: I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and for
Speaker 1: supporting the show. I hope you guys have a great weekend.
Speaker 1: We'll be back on Monday with more preseason reaction. I
Speaker 1: will see you guys. Then the volume what's up guys.
Speaker 1: As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
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Speaker 1: if you guys would take a second and leave a
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