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Speaker 2: All right, welcome to tonight here at the volume heavy Wednesday.
Speaker 2: Everybody hope ill, If you guys are having a great
Speaker 2: week so far, gonna break down the Knicks going up
Speaker 2: two oh over. The DA Pacers get a little bit
Speaker 2: of a Willis Reed moment from Jalen Brunson as he
Speaker 2: leaves the game in the first quarter with what appears
Speaker 2: to be a foot injury, comes back in the second
Speaker 2: half leads them to a comeback victory. We're gonna break
Speaker 2: it down from the perspective of both teams. You guys,
Speaker 2: are the drill before we get started. Subscribe to our
Speaker 2: brand new YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of
Speaker 2: our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so
Speaker 2: you guys don't miss an show announcements. Don't forget about
Speaker 2: our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops
Speaker 2: Tonight in the last minute, least kep dropping mail back
Speaker 2: questions on those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting
Speaker 2: them throughout the remainder of the postseason. All right, let's
Speaker 2: talk some basketball. I want to open tonight with Jalen Brunson.
Speaker 2: And I know it seems a little bit unusual to
Speaker 2: randomly kind of talk big picture Jalen Brunson when he
Speaker 2: finally breaks his forty points streak after what doing it
Speaker 2: four times in a row and only finishing with twenty
Speaker 2: nine points tonight. But tonight was one of my favorite
Speaker 2: Jalen Brunson games that I've watched because, in addition to
Speaker 2: the adversity from the injury and the Pacers kind of
Speaker 2: taking control of that game in the first half, entering
Speaker 2: into the second half up double figure scoring early in
Speaker 2: the second half and going up by twelve.
Speaker 1: In addition to that, I thought the level of.
Speaker 2: Difficulty on almost every shot attempt he had in that
Speaker 2: second half was off the charts. It was kind of
Speaker 2: like the quintessential expression of Jalen Brunson as a basketball player.
Speaker 2: There's a craftiness to him. I was talking on Twitter
Speaker 2: during the game about how I don't even know how
Speaker 2: you would describe a player like Jalen Brunson to the
Speaker 2: next generation of basketball fans, because we've been talking a
Speaker 2: lot in this postseason about athleticism and strength and how
Speaker 2: this is, you know, prison ball with the increased physicality,
Speaker 2: and it's just so incredibly difficult for anybody to break
Speaker 2: free from anything in these physical, defensive minded environments. And
Speaker 2: Jalen Brunson is a bit undersized, not particularly fast, not
Speaker 2: like he doesn't bring any sort of exceptional physical tools.
Speaker 1: To the table.
Speaker 2: He's pretty strong, has a really good start stop quickness.
Speaker 2: I don't want to part like he's not an excellent athlete,
Speaker 2: but there are definitely guys around them like he's not
Speaker 2: Anthony Edwards. He's not going out there bigger, faster, stronger
Speaker 2: than everybody at his position group, right, and yet he
Speaker 2: just continues to dominate, not just dominate, but dominate efficiently.
Speaker 2: Rough first two games against the Philadelphia seventy six ers,
Speaker 2: and he's just been just completely locked in in the
Speaker 2: six games since then. So I have been a big
Speaker 2: fan of Jalen Brunson's for a long time. Those are
Speaker 2: you guys who have been listening to the show for
Speaker 2: a while, may or may not remember me getting into
Speaker 2: big trouble before the season for saying that I thought
Speaker 2: that as of right now, he's a better basketball player
Speaker 2: than John Moran, and that mainly comes down to game management.
Speaker 2: And where Jalen Brunson really won me over in that
Speaker 2: regard was the twenty twenty two postseason. So if you
Speaker 2: guys remember Luka don Chitz was hurt and missed, I
Speaker 2: want to say the first two games, if I remember correct,
Speaker 2: might have been the first three games of that Utah
Speaker 2: Jazz series, and Jalen Brunson just like found a way.
Speaker 1: To steal a game early in that series with that Luca.
Speaker 2: If I remember correctly, it was Game two and he
Speaker 2: had like forty something points in the game, and it
Speaker 2: was the first time I watched him kind of manage
Speaker 2: a basketball game in a vaguely similar sense to the
Speaker 2: way he does with the new York Knicks, and there's
Speaker 2: a huge difference between filling the box score and managing
Speaker 2: a basketball game. Basketball games have a flow to them
Speaker 2: from a start to finish, a possession by possession type
Speaker 2: of flow, and one of the most important responsibilities for
Speaker 2: a primary ball handler is to manage that. So, for instance,
Speaker 2: if you just go iso a bunch of possessions in
Speaker 2: a row, you can get the rest of your team
Speaker 2: out of rhythm. There is a delicate balance to it,
Speaker 2: and I actually thought we saw a lot of that
Speaker 2: in the fourth quarter of this game, because Brunson knew
Speaker 2: I can score over Andrew Nemhard whenever I want that
Speaker 2: guy can't guard me. And yet he still called for
Speaker 2: ball screens from Tyrese Haliburt, and he still tried to
Speaker 2: work with the pass to kind of keep guys involved.
Speaker 1: Still uses the give and go to.
Speaker 2: Try to get dribble penetration to get downhill and get
Speaker 2: the defense into road. He has a really good feel
Speaker 2: for when it's time for him to shoot and when
Speaker 2: it's time for him to try to get the defense
Speaker 2: into rotation and kind of handle that part of the
Speaker 2: offensive responsibility more proactively. And like again that twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two Jazz series was the first time that I thought
Speaker 2: he really kind of flashed that high end potential.
Speaker 1: Right. And again, like I talked.
Speaker 2: About before the Cavs series last year, if you guys
Speaker 2: remember I specifically said Donovan Mitchell has like more offensively
Speaker 2: obviously with his athleticism, but I viewed Jalen Brunson as
Speaker 2: a better game manager. He's just better at kind of
Speaker 2: navigating that surgical half court environment in the NBA playoffs,
Speaker 2: and he demonstrated that last year beating the Cavs. And honestly,
Speaker 2: like if it wasn't for if Julius Raynald gives him anything,
Speaker 2: like literally anything, last year, they go to the conference finals.
Speaker 2: And this is where we really have to kind of
Speaker 2: like reevaluate the way we look at Jalen relative to
Speaker 2: the rest of the league, because like he's he's really
Speaker 2: getting better still, Like he's.
Speaker 1: A legit four level scorer.
Speaker 2: Now, remember I look at scoring in four levels at
Speaker 2: the rim, short range shot making, mid range shot making,
Speaker 2: and then three point shooting.
Speaker 1: So think of it like long twos, short twos at.
Speaker 2: The rim and the three point line, right, and he's
Speaker 2: got that completely down, Like he's got all the floaters
Speaker 2: and hooks and push shots and all these different kind
Speaker 2: of like crafty shots around the rim that he can
Speaker 2: get all the way to the rim and finish and
Speaker 2: draw fouls. He can shoot from the mid range, but
Speaker 2: he can shoot from the mid range, not just pull
Speaker 2: up jump shots and pick and roll. He can turn
Speaker 2: his back to the basket and he can hit post
Speaker 2: up fade aways over both shoulders. He can take a
Speaker 2: guy in ISO off the dribble and hit short step
Speaker 2: backs and things in straight ISO out of the mid
Speaker 2: range at the three point line. He can shoot pull
Speaker 2: up threes in ball screens. He can shoot pull up
Speaker 2: threes and step back threes in ISO. He has the
Speaker 2: complete scoring package. There's also like this weird craftiness to him.
Speaker 2: There's like a half dozen times a game or it
Speaker 2: looks like he's trapped and it looks like he's got
Speaker 2: nowhere to go, but he just somehow finds a little
Speaker 2: angle and slips around a guy, he gets all the
Speaker 2: way into the basket, makes a layup, or finds an
Speaker 2: opening to make a little short push out. How many
Speaker 2: times in that sixers series last last round did you
Speaker 2: see Jalen Brunson like trapped in that bracket between Nick
Speaker 2: Batoom or Kelly Ubray and Joel Embiid and just somehow
Speaker 2: find the space to like with a funky angle and
Speaker 2: a little bit of a funky release to get a
Speaker 2: shot off. It's like almost improvisational shot making. It's like
Speaker 2: he can tweak his release and tweak his angle at
Speaker 2: any given moment to find an opening that would not
Speaker 2: be there for other players. In addition to that, furn
Speaker 2: himself and do an excellent playmaker. He's averaging eight assists
Speaker 2: in this postseason run. That's not a thing that was
Speaker 2: kind of looked at as a strength of his game
Speaker 2: when he was in Dallas. It's something that he's grown
Speaker 2: into in this role. And then again, like obviously I
Speaker 2: don't like foul grifting and I want it to be
Speaker 2: taken out of the game. But as I've always said,
Speaker 2: I never blame the players for that. That's the players
Speaker 2: are competitors. They're looking for an advantage. Jalen Brunson, and
Speaker 2: you know that a lot of the guys are gonna
Speaker 2: be going against on any given night, or Anthony Edwards
Speaker 2: level athletes, or maybe not Anthony Edwards, but more athletic
Speaker 2: than you. You got to find a way to compete,
Speaker 2: and so you bet you're ass you're gonna try to
Speaker 2: find every single little advantage that you can get, and
Speaker 2: that includes finding gaps in the rules for you to
Speaker 2: grift your.
Speaker 1: Way to the foul line. I'm not mad at Jalen
Speaker 1: for that.
Speaker 2: I'm mad at the NBA for that, and I respect
Speaker 2: that he's added that as an additional strength to his game.
Speaker 2: And this is where I want to kind of get
Speaker 2: to where we evaluate Jalen in the big picture, because
Speaker 2: I used to, like many others, be in the camp
Speaker 2: that's like, Jalen can't be the best player on a
Speaker 2: championship team. Even with how much I liked him coming
Speaker 2: out of Dallas and after last year in New York,
Speaker 2: I still thought, ideally you want him in like that
Speaker 2: Kyrie Irving role rather than the actual primary shot creator.
Speaker 2: I think we have to revisit that. I don't think
Speaker 2: that's the case anymore. This is too consistent, too efficient,
Speaker 2: too reliable. Even when he's not feeling great physically, he
Speaker 2: can still find openings and score when defenses are throwing
Speaker 2: the damn kitchen sink at him. And so honestly, like,
Speaker 2: let's just revisit it like this. If he is a
Speaker 2: number one, if he is capable of being the number
Speaker 2: one on a championship team, all you're asking there is
Speaker 2: a legitimate secondary option, which as good as Ojnnob is,
Speaker 2: he's not as good as Dante de Vincenzo is. And
Speaker 2: Dante DiVincenzo is a huge part of that second half run.
Speaker 2: We're gonna get to it in a minute. But I
Speaker 2: don't think Dantete de Vincenzo is that kind of guy either.
Speaker 2: So let's just make a very basic kind of comp
Speaker 2: Let's say we took somebody in that, you know, eighteen
Speaker 2: to twenty five range around the league, like just a
Speaker 2: bona fide number two. Like what if you gave Jalen
Speaker 2: Brunson Paul George. Do you think if you put Paul
Speaker 2: George on this Knicks team that they could win the championship?
Speaker 1: You're damn right they can. They absolutely can. That Like
Speaker 1: that's like they are.
Speaker 2: They're gonna make to the make it to the conference
Speaker 2: finals in all Likelihoo, unless this ojn Andobi injury ends
Speaker 2: up being a bigger issue there, they have a really
Speaker 2: good chance to make it to the conference finals and
Speaker 2: they do not have a secondary shot creator, and and
Speaker 2: he's not on the other side of the bracket, or
Speaker 2: you're playing Orlando in Cleveland, like and a Miami Heat
Speaker 2: team that's that's missing all those guys. He just just
Speaker 2: kicked Joel Embiid out of the postseason. And guess what,
Speaker 2: Joel Embiid did have a legitimate co star he and
Speaker 2: he's doing it right now to Tyre Saliburton in Pascal
Speaker 2: Siakam in the Indiana Pacers. I absolutely think I have
Speaker 2: to I'm changing my mind on this from where I
Speaker 2: had been in the past. I absolutely think Jalen can
Speaker 2: be the best player on a championship team. I just
Speaker 2: think you have to give him a legitimate secondary shot creator. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: I have a feeling he's gonna run into just a
Speaker 2: sheer talent gap when he gets into the later rounds,
Speaker 2: whether it's Boston most likely going to be Boston in
Speaker 2: the in the next round, or if it ends up
Speaker 2: being somebody like a Denver or Minnesota or or OKAC
Speaker 2: or Dallas in the in the in the finals, Like
Speaker 2: at a certain point, the lack of shock creation could
Speaker 2: very much be an issue. But like, I absolutely think
Speaker 2: Jalen can be the best player on a championship team.
Speaker 2: Indiana had no idea what to do with him in
Speaker 2: that fourth quarter, Like Jim McConnell's picking up with some
Speaker 2: full court ball pressure and Jalen just get the ball
Speaker 2: across half court, bring Ben Shepard into a screen and
Speaker 2: start attacking Ben Shephard. Eventually, Rick Carlisle just had TJ
Speaker 2: McConnell double him because they had to double team him
Speaker 2: because he was getting off too easy against Ben Shepherd.
Speaker 2: Then they go back to the starters and it's Tyre's
Speaker 2: Halliburton and Andrew Nemhard And we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: the matchups here in a minute, because I basically begged
Speaker 2: Rick Carlisle to try something different than Adren Nemhard after
Speaker 2: Game one, and he just didn't do it. But they
Speaker 2: go in with Nemhard and teach once again, like Jalen
Speaker 2: just knew, I can score on Andrew Nemhar whenever I want,
Speaker 2: But I can't just go iso the rest of this game.
Speaker 1: I have to manage the game. I have to manage
Speaker 1: the flow.
Speaker 2: We have to get the ball into rotation some and
Speaker 2: a big part of it was just getting Tyre's Halliburton
Speaker 2: into the action and drawing that second defender and getting
Speaker 2: them getting the short role man rolling downhill. He was
Speaker 2: so effective attacking with guard guard screens at the in
Speaker 2: that middle portion of the fourth quarter that Rick Carlisle
Speaker 2: had to start trapping him as he was just dribbling
Speaker 2: a past half court. As soon as he did that,
Speaker 2: that was when Dante DiVincenzo started burning them with those
Speaker 2: corner threes.
Speaker 1: And so they they tried everything.
Speaker 2: They tried switching and doubling, they tried hedging with Tyres Halliburton,
Speaker 2: they tried trapping at half court. They tried just like, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe we'll leave him in single coverage, and it just
Speaker 2: nothing works. Indiana has nothing that they can do to
Speaker 2: slow down Jalen Brunton at this point, at least among
Speaker 2: the strategies that they that they've tried.
Speaker 1: And again, I thought that.
Speaker 2: Jalen just did a really good job of managing the
Speaker 2: flow down the stretch of that game, in like making
Speaker 2: sure that he mixed up his approach enough to not
Speaker 2: become predictable. Again, that's the major thing with these NBA
Speaker 2: playoff settings. If you go to James Harden route and
Speaker 2: you just dribble the ball at the floor and you
Speaker 2: attack and straight iso or pick and roll from the
Speaker 2: exact same spot on the floor, and you use the
Speaker 2: same three or four moves every single time. It'll work
Speaker 2: in the regular season, and then you'll run to an
Speaker 2: elite defender in a postseason environment who sees them moves
Speaker 2: for two straight weeks, who sees the same damn action
Speaker 2: that you run for two straight weeks, and he figures
Speaker 2: it out. He slows you down, he makes you less efficient.
Speaker 2: That's not what it's like with Jalen Brunson. I love
Speaker 2: that he'll just like he never if he tries to
Speaker 2: go to some sort of step back and he gets
Speaker 2: cut off. It's the same thing every time. Find that
Speaker 2: release valve and then backcut and then usually he'll end
Speaker 2: up catching the ball in the back cut. They'll all
Speaker 2: collapse around him and he'll make reads from there all
Speaker 2: game long. Honestly, the Nicks did an amazing job catching pacers, defenders,
Speaker 2: ball watching and cutting behind the defense and finding open
Speaker 2: finding openings that way. Honestly, that's where I want to
Speaker 2: kind of get into the early second half ront because
Speaker 2: Dante DiVincenzo was a huge part of how they regained
Speaker 2: control of the game. In that early third quarter stretch,
Speaker 2: hit a couple of corner threes, upped his ball pressure
Speaker 2: and Tyre's Halliburton, who was just lights out in the
Speaker 2: first half and they needed to kind of find a
Speaker 2: way to slow him down. He had a big back
Speaker 2: cut on a dunk where aaron Ne Smith kind of
Speaker 2: lunged out in him at the three point line, just backcut,
Speaker 2: and then literally Myles Turner kind of was like side
Speaker 2: by side with him on the dunk. He just went
Speaker 2: up and just was like, I have to go strong
Speaker 2: because Miles Turner can block this, and he just kind
Speaker 2: of forced it over the front of the rim and
Speaker 2: dunked at home. I thought he was amazing in this game.
Speaker 2: And again he was the guy who hit those two
Speaker 2: big threes out of the traps of Jalen Brunson out
Speaker 2: at half court earlier in that fourth quarter stretch. Moving
Speaker 2: to Pacers, I let's say in the nixt for a second,
Speaker 2: because I got hit a couple of other things. They
Speaker 2: were really struggling on the offensive glass through the first
Speaker 2: three quarters, and the Pacers actually won that battle and
Speaker 2: they managed to flip the script and they actually brought
Speaker 2: the rebounding the offensive rebounding total down to fourteen to
Speaker 2: twelve as they kind of closed that gap. Now as
Speaker 2: far as the og And Andobi injury goes, they're referring
Speaker 2: to it as sorenis. That is a little sketchy to
Speaker 2: me because of the way he pulled up. He pulled
Speaker 2: up so aggressively and like he was in so much
Speaker 2: pain that they it kind of seemed like it was
Speaker 2: a more substantial twenty two to seventeen was the second
Speaker 2: chance points advantage for Indiana, So they kind of closed
Speaker 2: that gap from where it was in the early part.
Speaker 2: So obviously the way he pulled up makes me feel
Speaker 2: like it's a little more serious. Now, you don't know,
Speaker 2: because it could be it's either pulled a hamstring, or
Speaker 2: it could also be that he had some sort of cramp,
Speaker 2: Like he could literally have just cramped and then just
Speaker 2: kind of bailed on it and not put any more
Speaker 2: weight on it and taking it easy.
Speaker 1: Right, So, like we'll see. Now here's the thing.
Speaker 2: I actually think they're capable of beating Indiana without og
Speaker 2: In and Obi. You can kiss any hope of beating
Speaker 2: Boston goodbye without og And So hopefully if it is
Speaker 2: something more serious, hopefully it can he can get better
Speaker 2: in a couple of weeks because he's gonna need to
Speaker 2: be back in time for Boston. But I do think
Speaker 2: that the Knicks are capable of beating Indiana without Og,
Speaker 2: and and ob it'll be hard. I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 2: without Og if they went back and tied the series.
Speaker 2: But again, it's really hard to beat a team four
Speaker 2: times in five tries, especially when they've got Glen Brunson
Speaker 2: on the team and when he's playing at the level
Speaker 2: he's playing. Also, hopefully his foot is not more serious
Speaker 2: than he's letting on and hopefully he's able to rebound
Speaker 2: quickly from that. But obviously injuries are a big thing
Speaker 2: to keep an eye on. Obviously it's been a disaster
Speaker 2: for the Knicks with injuries. Mitchell Robinson out for the
Speaker 2: rest of the postseason with what appears to be some
Speaker 2: sort of stress injury and his ankle. So obviously a
Speaker 2: lot kind of coming apart at the seams in terms
Speaker 2: of injuries. But thankfully the Knicks do have a good
Speaker 2: amount of depth, and getting Precious to Chua in that
Speaker 2: deal gives you just another big forward who can help,
Speaker 2: and obviously Precious has some work to do. He had
Speaker 2: a couple of bad defensive breakdowns late in the game,
Speaker 2: but he also had a couple of big finishes around
Speaker 2: the rim in offensive rebound situations at the end of
Speaker 2: the game. So we found a way to impact. But yeah,
Speaker 2: injuries are the one thing that could end up derailing
Speaker 2: this for the Knicks. Now on the pacer side, I
Speaker 2: still don't like the matchups for Rick Carlisle that Rick
Speaker 2: Carlisle is using in this series. Again, I understood why
Speaker 2: they went away from TJ a little bit. TJ was
Speaker 2: doing a really good job on TJ was doing a
Speaker 2: really good job on Brunson. But as soon as you
Speaker 2: go to TJ, you kind of have to run the
Speaker 2: offense through TJ right because that he's just off the
Speaker 2: ball because he's not a good three point shooter. It
Speaker 2: becomes a little bit of an issue when Tyre's Halliburton
Speaker 2: has the ball right and if you have Tyre's Halliburton
Speaker 2: out there and he's just spotting up in the corner
Speaker 2: while TJ's running offense, now you have Tyrese Haliburton spotting
Speaker 2: up on one end and being a bad defensive player
Speaker 2: on the other end, and that's just like a really
Speaker 2: bad trade off. And so I kind of get why
Speaker 2: Carlisle is willing to go to TJ and Tyrese at
Speaker 2: the same time. Maybe in the middle portions of games
Speaker 2: for stretches, but maybe not at the end of the game.
Speaker 2: That said, the problem is not like the problem is
Speaker 2: with Nemmark. He's too small and Brunson can easily shoot
Speaker 2: over the top of him. With a guy like Aaron
Speaker 2: Nee Smith, you at least have a better chance of
Speaker 2: making it more difficult for him shooting over the top.
Speaker 2: Now Brunson has drawn fouls on Aeron Smith, Brunson has
Speaker 2: managed to drive pass aaron Ne Smith. He's a superstar.
Speaker 2: You're not gonna just put him on him and throw
Speaker 2: him in jail. I just think you have a better
Speaker 2: chance by putting Nie Smith on Brunson and at least
Speaker 2: putting him in a situation where he doesn't feel comfortable
Speaker 2: attacking as comfortable attacking one on one when you've kind
Speaker 2: of dug down around him, so that Nemhard or that
Speaker 2: Nie Smith can't be driven past as easily. And again
Speaker 2: it's gonna put you in some rebounding predictments. Obviously, when
Speaker 2: you have Josh Hart and Dante Di Vincenzo crashing from
Speaker 2: the perimeter and Nie Smith is on the ball, some
Speaker 2: bigger challenge on that back line. But once again, you're
Speaker 2: not getting rebounds anyway, So like, at least give yourself
Speaker 2: a better chance to guard Brunson. What I don't understand
Speaker 2: is sticking with Nemhart. Even going with TJ would have
Speaker 2: been a better option, even with all the offensive limitations
Speaker 2: than going with them hard because even though Nemhart is
Speaker 2: a good defensive player, he's a bad matchup for Brunson.
Speaker 2: Runson is not gonna have a size advantage over many
Speaker 2: perimeter defenders in the league.
Speaker 1: He does have a size advantage over Andrew Nemhart.
Speaker 2: So again, I just want to see I want to
Speaker 2: see Nie Smith on the ball, and I want to
Speaker 2: see a better team effort on the glass, and I
Speaker 2: think they can close.
Speaker 1: I make the at least a little bit tougher.
Speaker 2: One last note, Tyrius Halliburton much better game, really dynamic
Speaker 2: in that first half. I disagreed with some of the
Speaker 2: assertion in the second half from stan Van Gundy that,
Speaker 2: like Tyrese was like more or less ineffectual because there
Speaker 2: were stretches in that early second early third quarter run
Speaker 2: where Tyree's was like Tyree set up Pascal Siakam with
Speaker 2: an absolutely perfect pocket pass and Siakam just smoked a
Speaker 2: point blank layup wide open at the rim. Halliburton set
Speaker 2: Aaron Nee Smith up with a wide open wing catch
Speaker 2: and shoot three during like they got a lot of
Speaker 2: good looks over that stretch that didn't go in. And
Speaker 2: again I understand because he had twenty something in the
Speaker 2: first half and only finished with thirty four. But like,
Speaker 2: Halliburton is more like Steve Nash two point zero. He's
Speaker 2: not you know, you can't think of him like Jalen Brunson.
Speaker 2: He's not a score first kind of guy. He can score,
Speaker 2: and he demonstrated that tonight, but he's more of like
Speaker 2: the twelve thirteen assists kind of guy, right, And so
Speaker 2: I thought Haliburton did an okay job in that second
Speaker 2: half of generating shots.
Speaker 1: He could do better.
Speaker 2: He needs to learn to deal with physicality a little
Speaker 2: bit better. Dante DiVincenzo up to that ball pressure in
Speaker 2: the second half kind of slowed him down a little bit.
Speaker 2: So there is a lot of room for improvement. He
Speaker 2: still is missing that athletic burst that he had before
Speaker 2: his hamstring injury. Like early in the season, he would
Speaker 2: just toast people off the dribble and he had this
Speaker 2: deadly scoop shot off the glass that he'd attack bigs
Speaker 2: on switches with, and he hasn't really been able to
Speaker 2: go to that because he just doesn't quite have that
Speaker 2: athletic burst. So he's got to get that athletic burst back.
Speaker 2: He's got to put on a little bit more muscle
Speaker 2: to handle some of that ball pressure. But I do
Speaker 2: think overall he had a good shot creation game, and again,
Speaker 2: thirty four points and nine to as sists is nothing
Speaker 2: to just completely dismiss, but his impact did tail off
Speaker 2: a little bit in that second half, and I did
Speaker 2: think that was an indicator of some of his struggles
Speaker 2: with physical ball pressure and individual shot creation for himself.
Speaker 2: But again, I think Indiana obviously is gonna be a
Speaker 2: buzzag game home and going home in Game three, it's
Speaker 2: gonna be really tough game for the Knicks to win,
Speaker 2: especially banged up series is not over. Indiana certainly has
Speaker 2: a chance to get back into it, just really hard
Speaker 2: to beat a team like the Knicks led by Jalen
Speaker 2: Brunson four times out of five, So good start for
Speaker 2: the Knicks, up two to zero in the series. All right, guys,
Speaker 2: that's all I have for today. Tomorrow morning, we have
Speaker 2: a mail bag coming out. I recorded it today, that'll
Speaker 2: be up first thing in the morning, and we went
Speaker 2: for about a half hour hit like a dozen questions
Speaker 2: went all around the league. Tomorrow night, we're actually taking
Speaker 2: off taking a short break for Game two of Celtics
Speaker 2: Heat and MAVs Thunder, but I am going to be
Speaker 2: covering both of those games on Friday morning, So mail
Speaker 2: back tomorrow morning. Breakdowns are the Thursday night games on
Speaker 2: Friday morning, and then we're back for what is going
Speaker 2: to be a huge Game three live on YouTube after
Speaker 2: Nuggets Timberwolves on Game three, first bit of real, first
Speaker 2: bit of real adversity for Nikola Jokic in the Nuggets
Speaker 2: in Game three going into Minnesota again, I got a
Speaker 2: lot of Nuggets fans were disagreeing with me because of
Speaker 2: the idea that you know, they've had seasons in the
Speaker 2: past where guys have been hurt, came back from three
Speaker 2: to one in the bubble twice.
Speaker 1: You know, guys were.
Speaker 2: Injured in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two. Yeah, no
Speaker 2: doubt those were. That's a different kind of adversity. That's
Speaker 2: adversity in terms of like bad things happening to you. However,
Speaker 2: I'm looking at adversity through the lens of expectations. And
Speaker 2: last year there was real expectations on the Nuggets. Okay,
Speaker 2: two time, MVP, you're healthy, now show us what you got.
Speaker 2: And the Nuggets absolutely demolished that test and passed it
Speaker 2: with flying colors, right as they ran through the league
Speaker 2: and dominated the playoffs. But this this is the first
Speaker 2: time in this era where they've had they have real expectations.
Speaker 2: You're the better team, you were the favorite going into
Speaker 2: the series. You have the undisputed best player in the world,
Speaker 2: and you got punked on your home court and went
Speaker 2: down oh two. That's real adversity. I look back at
Speaker 2: the other stars, like Lebron, you know, dropping Game five
Speaker 2: in Miami before they before they have to go on
Speaker 2: the road to Game six in Boston down three to
Speaker 2: two as the favorite.
Speaker 1: That's real adversity. Right Like there I was. I was
Speaker 1: looking at like.
Speaker 2: The H that Steph series in twenty twenty two against
Speaker 2: the Celtics down to one on the road in Boston. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you entered the series as the favorite. That's real adversity, right,
Speaker 2: like that, that is that is different. This is what
Speaker 2: happened in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two, where
Speaker 2: Yokic like stole a game off Golden State or beat Portland.
Speaker 2: That's more in line with like Jannis in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: where like Chris Middleton got hurt and he had that
Speaker 2: crazy run through seven games to push that series long,
Speaker 2: but no one like expected the Bucks to win that series.
Speaker 2: They were an underdog without Chris Middleton Like that, to
Speaker 2: me is not the same level of pressure and expectation.
Speaker 2: So I'm really excited for that Friday night game. That
Speaker 2: to me is gonna be the first real opportunity for
Speaker 2: Jokics to just shut everybody the hell up and show
Speaker 2: him what he's capable of, show everybody what he's capable of.
Speaker 2: And so we'll be going live on YouTube after that.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, it's all for tonight. I see you
Speaker 2: tomorrow morning for the mailbag. Appreciate you guys.
Speaker 1: See that
Speaker 2: The volume