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Speaker 2: Slash audio. All right, welcome to him tonight. You're at
Speaker 2: the volume heavy Friday. Everybody hope all you guys are
Speaker 2: having a great night. Well, the Indiana Pacers have done
Speaker 2: it again, stealing two games on the road to take
Speaker 2: a two to zero lead back to Indiana after doing
Speaker 2: the same thing to Cleveland.
Speaker 3: A little bit of a reverse.
Speaker 2: In the Cleveland series, they showed that they looked like
Speaker 2: the better team in game one, and then they get
Speaker 2: punched in the face in game two, but somehow steal
Speaker 2: the game, and here in the Knixt series the exact opposite.
Speaker 2: They get punched in the face in game one, come
Speaker 2: back to steal that game, and then kind of a
Speaker 2: wire to wire we're just better than you guys type
Speaker 2: of performance in game two and what was a must
Speaker 2: win game for the Knicks that they did not get.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be breaking down that series from the perspective
Speaker 2: of both teams. Talk a little bit about some of
Speaker 2: the stuff with Karl Anthony Towns and how Tom Thibodeau
Speaker 2: went away from him for the most part down the
Speaker 2: stretch of this game, and kind of some realities about
Speaker 2: what Mitchell Robinson looks like and how it's a proof
Speaker 2: of concept for what this Knicks team could be in
Speaker 2: the big picture as we look to the future. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the series isn't over, but they're in a very tough spot.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be leading the show tonight talking about some
Speaker 2: of the similarities between the Pacers and the Thunder. I
Speaker 2: think there are some tendencies that these two teams have
Speaker 2: that everybody in the league should be looking to copy.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna be talking a lot about big picture
Speaker 2: stuff with both of these teams, a couple of specific
Speaker 2: details from this game. At the tail end of the show,
Speaker 2: we're gonna take ten fifteen minutes of mail bag questions
Speaker 2: from the chats. Make sure you guys get your questions
Speaker 2: in the chat. And then when we wrap up here tonight,
Speaker 2: we're heading over to Playback again. That's Playback dot TV
Speaker 2: slash Hoops Tonight, where we're gonna have about forty five
Speaker 2: minutes to an hour of an after show. Well, it's
Speaker 2: very informal. We take callers, we watch film, we just
Speaker 2: have fun talking about basketball for an extra hour at
Speaker 2: the tail end of the evening. So make sure you
Speaker 2: guys head over there with us when we finish up
Speaker 2: here tonight. You guys are the job before we get started.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to the Hoops to Night YouTube channels. You don't
Speaker 2: miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter
Speaker 2: at underscore JCNLT so you guys don't miss show announcement stuff.
Speaker 2: Forget about podcast fet wherever you get your post under
Speaker 2: Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if we leave a
Speaker 2: rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great
Speaker 2: work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
Speaker 2: and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there for
Speaker 2: more content throughout the year the last but at least
Speaker 2: keep dropping those mail back questions in the chat so
Speaker 2: that we can get to them at the tail end
Speaker 2: of the show tonight. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 2: So you know, in the playback session last night, we
Speaker 2: were talking about the Thunder and one of the things
Speaker 2: we were talking about is that in addition to just
Speaker 2: being super talented, they are also a very well coached
Speaker 2: team that maximizes their talent. Right, Like, we've had a
Speaker 2: lot of really talented teams come through the league. I
Speaker 2: would argue Minnesota and New York are two examples of
Speaker 2: teams that on paper look extremely talented. There's a reason
Speaker 2: why there was a lot of buzz surrounding Minnesota's ability
Speaker 2: to potentially win that series. There's a reason why, even
Speaker 2: though you know, the Pacers have looked so good, there
Speaker 2: was a lot of buzz surrounding the Knicks winning their series.
Speaker 2: It's because you look at it and it's Jalen Brunson,
Speaker 2: and it's Michale Bridges, and it's ogn Andobi, and it's
Speaker 2: Karl Anthony Towns, and it's Mitchell Robinson and Josh Hard
Speaker 2: a bunch of guys that are respected big game players
Speaker 2: in this league with Minnesota, like a four time Defensive
Speaker 2: Player of the Year, Nas Reed, one of the best
Speaker 2: bench players in the NBA, Julius Randall has been having
Speaker 2: a magnificent postseason, Anthony Edwards, all of these elite perimeter
Speaker 2: defenders like Dante DiVincenzo Nikhil, Alexander Walker, and Jad McDaniels.
Speaker 2: In theory, they should be able to compete with the
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City Thunder. They've gotten their ass kicks twice, they've
Speaker 2: looked like they've been the team that doesn't have the
Speaker 2: right game plan. They've looked like the team that doesn't
Speaker 2: have confidence, that is operating far below what their capability is. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: I think we can all agree that the Oklahoma City
Speaker 2: team that is loaded up with dudes that are twenty
Speaker 2: six or younger outside of Alex Caruso, looks comfortable, confident
Speaker 2: like a veteran basketball team. They are achieving their individual
Speaker 2: ceiling or their team ceiling in this postseason run the Pacers.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of talent on that team, and we
Speaker 2: could go down the line on every single player and
Speaker 2: their strengths and the things that they do to make
Speaker 2: this engine work. But ultimately, when you look at that roster,
Speaker 2: it's Tyrese Halliburton, who's somewhere around like the seventh to
Speaker 2: tenth best player in the league, depending on how who
Speaker 2: you ask called stretch that to seven to fifteenth, because
Speaker 2: I'm sure there are some people that are lower on
Speaker 2: him than others, but he's not what you would consider
Speaker 2: to be a top tier superstar. Pascal Siakam is a
Speaker 2: secondary star that I think is a very very good player,
Speaker 2: but certainly not a player that people are looking at
Speaker 2: as one of the very best players in this league.
Speaker 2: And then just a bunch of role players. And yet
Speaker 2: they are going to win an Eastern Conference that had
Speaker 2: two teams that won sixty something games, that has Giannis
Speaker 2: and Tennecoumpo and Jason Tatum and Aalen Brunson and Donovan
Speaker 2: Mitchell and so many of the elite players in the world,
Speaker 2: and that not only are they gonna most likely win
Speaker 2: this series now and go to the finals. They're doing
Speaker 2: it in dominant fashion. They've lost two games, They've had
Speaker 2: home court in zero of the series. They've won every
Speaker 2: single road game. They are six in a row. I
Speaker 2: believe they are going to get to the finals, most
Speaker 2: likely with somewhere between two and four losses in a
Speaker 2: conference that was stacked with talent. And what stands out
Speaker 2: to me is when you really look at these two teams,
Speaker 2: the Pacers in the Thunder, there's one specific concept I
Speaker 2: want to dive into that I think allows them to
Speaker 2: reach their stealing more consistently than the other teams in
Speaker 2: the league. And it's just attention to detail. I've been
Speaker 2: thinking a lot about this over the course of the
Speaker 2: last several seasons as the Lakers have gone through a
Speaker 2: coaching change. But I've been thinking about it a lot
Speaker 2: in the last couple of days, stemming from shake Yeal
Speaker 2: just Alexander's MVP interview in the conversation he had about
Speaker 2: Mark Dagnault and the fact that Mark just is super
Speaker 2: obsessive about details and how it actually gets kind of annoying.
Speaker 2: I joke about this all the time on the show,
Speaker 2: but like playing winning basketball actually sucks, there's a lot like,
Speaker 2: it's not fun sprinting up and down the floor NonStop.
Speaker 2: Any of you guys who have ever played organized basketball, No,
Speaker 2: there's always that day, four or five practices in at
Speaker 2: the beginning of the season when you're tired and like
Speaker 2: you start running like some sort of full court drill,
Speaker 2: and everyone's just a little lethargic, and everyone's just having
Speaker 2: a little bit of a hard time getting up and
Speaker 2: down the floor, and the coach throws a hissy fit,
Speaker 2: just blows his whistle and gets all pissed off and
Speaker 2: makes you get on the baseline and run. Why because
Speaker 2: he knows you're not running. Running is running is the
Speaker 2: foundational concept that makes the Pacers great, and they do
Speaker 2: it more often than anybody in the NBA. It's not fun,
Speaker 2: they just do it regardless. They do it because it's
Speaker 2: in their basketball character. Crashing, relocating, paying attention to details,
Speaker 2: picking up full court that sucks.
Speaker 3: TJ McConnell had.
Speaker 2: An interview the other day talking about how the only
Speaker 2: reason he did it at the beginning of his career
Speaker 2: is because he wanted to stand out, and he felt
Speaker 2: like he couldn't stand out unless he did something that
Speaker 2: no one else was doing. Lou Dort picks up full court,
Speaker 2: Aaron E. Smith, TJ. McConnell, Andrew Nemhard they pick up
Speaker 2: full court. Who else is doing that? There is low
Speaker 2: hanging fruit in basketball games. All of it is stuff
Speaker 2: that sucks. It's physical wear and tear, lots of running, sprinting, cutting, jumping,
Speaker 2: things that are not as fun as playing the you know,
Speaker 2: the funner parts of the game, scoring the basketball, shot creation,
Speaker 2: attacking off the catch, all of those fun things. Playing
Speaker 2: in transition on offense, there's there. They These teams relentlessly
Speaker 2: hunt that low hanging fruit. What does low hanging fruit
Speaker 2: look like in the NBA ball? Pressure is a simple example.
Speaker 2: That's a way that you can make your opponent uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Guarantee they will be less comfortable in the game. If
Speaker 2: they have to turn their man, if they have to
Speaker 2: turn and make four counter moves just to get across
Speaker 2: half court, it will make them uncomfortable. It'll wear them
Speaker 2: out over the course of games. That is a margin
Speaker 2: that if you have the depth and the on court
Speaker 2: personnel to handle, you can just decide to do practice
Speaker 2: it all season and it dramatically increases your chances of winning.
Speaker 2: Transition just in general, running the floor, leakouts, and kick aheads.
Speaker 2: Those are things that every team in the NBA can do,
Speaker 2: and if you do them, you are guaranteed to score
Speaker 2: more efficiently. On average, NBA offenses are about twenty percent
Speaker 2: more efficient in transition than they are in the half court.
Speaker 2: So all you have to do is hunt as many
Speaker 2: transition opportunities as possible and you will increase your offense's performance.
Speaker 2: But you've got to from day one in October sit
Speaker 2: down with your team and be like, we're going to
Speaker 2: run non stop all season. That shit's going to suck,
Speaker 2: but we have to make it part of who we
Speaker 2: are as a basketball team. And they do it every
Speaker 2: single time. The Pacers manufactures so many transition opportunities with
Speaker 2: kick aheads.
Speaker 3: There's a big.
Speaker 2: One in the third quarter today where the Knicks like
Speaker 2: gotta stop. That led to a runout bucket that was
Speaker 2: a huge. It was Josh Hart got like like just
Speaker 2: ended up with the basketball, lays it up, crowds going crazy,
Speaker 2: Tyres rints back on defense, grabs it out of the net,
Speaker 2: quick turns and just rifles a rainbow pass up the court,
Speaker 2: makes its way to Obi topping and he's it was
Speaker 2: a top inner Siakam. I can't remember exactly which one
Speaker 2: it was, but there they are laying the ball up
Speaker 2: on the other side of the court. That's just part
Speaker 2: of their basketball character manifesting in a complete erase, Like
Speaker 2: they erased a big momentous Knicks play just by doing
Speaker 2: the same thing that they do every single possession. They
Speaker 2: stole Game one because down the stretch we watched the footage,
Speaker 2: we went over it on a film session, the Knicks
Speaker 2: let go of the rope. They stopped paying attention to detail.
Speaker 2: Ojan and Obi two's passive in his drop coverage, brunts
Speaker 2: in in cat a couple of bad defensive rotations, Josh
Speaker 2: Hart gives up a backcut, you lose the game. What
Speaker 2: were the Pacers doing that time? Picking up full court,
Speaker 2: pushing the ball up the floor quickly, and then when
Speaker 2: they get in the half court, running their offense quick
Speaker 2: and efficiently the same way they did throughout the entire game.
Speaker 2: There's so many different examples, just like both of these teams,
Speaker 2: don't turn the basketball over. That's a simple thing you
Speaker 2: can do that dramatically improves your chances of winning basketball games.
Speaker 2: We were looking at it in the Thunder Timberwolve series
Speaker 2: last night when we were on playback. The Timberwolves or
Speaker 2: the Thunder are far and away the best team in
Speaker 2: the league at turning their opponents over and scoring on it.
Speaker 2: And they are far and away the best team in
Speaker 2: the league at not turning the basketball over and not
Speaker 2: giving up points off those turnovers. Every game, there's like
Speaker 2: a fifteen something point advantage they have just in points
Speaker 2: off of turnovers. It's like you're starting the game down
Speaker 2: by fifteen points as the opponent because of them constantly
Speaker 2: capitalizing on that low hanging fruit. I think the Pacers
Speaker 2: capitalize on a lot of low hanging fruit in the
Speaker 2: half court on offense too, And this stems from just
Speaker 2: Tyrese Halliburton and his relentless advantage hunting. I talk about
Speaker 2: this all the time with young players all the way
Speaker 2: to the highest level of pros. If you have them
Speaker 2: attack against a set defender versus a defender sprinting at them,
Speaker 2: their efficiency skyrockets when they have the defenders sprinting at them.
Speaker 2: There's not a player in the NBA that is more
Speaker 2: relentless with just simple swings and skips and kick aheads
Speaker 2: to just hunt close out opportunities. Tyre's Halliburton has his
Speaker 2: team playing with an advantage all night long, and so
Speaker 2: they capitalize on that margin. I even think we were
Speaker 2: talking about it before the broadcast, finding sixteen game players,
Speaker 2: finding players that are the kinds of guys that are
Speaker 2: comfortable in this playoff setting. That means they have to
Speaker 2: have a certain amount of strength and physicality to their game.
Speaker 2: Basketball IQ comes at a huge, huge premium this time
Speaker 2: of year. The ability to solve the puzzle, so to speak,
Speaker 2: that each possession presents confidence, not wavering in your work
Speaker 2: and believing in yourself in this environment. Andrew Nemhart somehow
Speaker 2: has made a career out of being a mediocre shooter
Speaker 2: in the regular season and then just turning into a
Speaker 2: deadly three point shooter when he gets to this time
Speaker 2: of year. It's confidence. Guys who play defense. You don't
Speaker 2: play defense, You can't stay on the floor in games
Speaker 2: like this. The Thunder and the Pacers, you look down
Speaker 2: their roster and both of them have more than five
Speaker 2: guys that they trust. Meanwhile, you look at New York
Speaker 2: and it's like, man, like, we can't defend with Kat,
Speaker 2: We're struggling to score with Josh or if it was.
Speaker 2: You know, the Warriors struggled finding a fifth man. The
Speaker 2: Nuggets their top four is fine, they couldn't find a
Speaker 2: fifth guy that they trusted. I just think that the
Speaker 2: Thunder and the Pacers are an excellent example of two teams,
Speaker 2: tams that are maximizing their potential because of their willingness
Speaker 2: to capitalize on all of the controllables, and then from
Speaker 2: there their stars lift them over the top, which we'll
Speaker 2: talk about in a second. Now, the Thunder they have
Speaker 2: the combination of that maximizing their talent and the absurd
Speaker 2: on paper talent. That's why they're such a substantial favorite
Speaker 2: to win the title at this point. But I think
Speaker 2: that what the Pacers have done and what the Thunder
Speaker 2: have done are an example or is the example that
Speaker 2: everyone should look to follow. Now, this is where the
Speaker 2: advantage creation piece steps in, because capitalizing on low hanging
Speaker 2: fruit can only get you so far. One of the
Speaker 2: things we talked about a lot over the course of the
Speaker 2: last couple of years is like the ideal construct for
Speaker 2: a NBA basketball team. And obviously there's so many unicorns
Speaker 2: out there that like, like, you can't talk about an
Speaker 2: ideal construct surrounding Jokic. There's no one else in the
Speaker 2: league like Yokic or Steph. There's no one else in
Speaker 2: the league like Death or Yiannis. There's no one else
Speaker 2: in the league like Giannis. But there are simple concepts
Speaker 2: within the within the modern NBA that theoretically every player
Speaker 2: can capitalize on. Right in a ball screen, if they're
Speaker 2: in a low drop coverage and you set good screens,
Speaker 2: there are opportunities to score against the drop, pull up threes, floaters,
Speaker 2: mid range jump shots, things along those lines. Or you're
Speaker 2: in a deep drop coverage. The pick and pop should,
Speaker 2: in theory, be open every single time you come up
Speaker 2: to the level. Now, the role to the pocket pass
Speaker 2: should be open every single time they're tagging the roller. Well,
Speaker 2: then the skip pass should be open every single time.
Speaker 2: Oh you're switching, okay, Well then now I've got a
Speaker 2: big guy on my Tyres Haliburton guard, or I've got
Speaker 2: a small guy on you know, a turner or a
Speaker 2: Siakam around the basket. And so we talked about these concepts.
Speaker 2: A skill guard a player that can consistently make the
Speaker 2: reads within those pick and roll situations based on what
Speaker 2: the coverage is dictating and then having what's one of
Speaker 2: the position groups that I always talk about, the matchup
Speaker 2: attacking forward. This is a player that is primarily kind
Speaker 2: of like a tip of the spear. He's not a
Speaker 2: guy that's going to be running a ton of on
Speaker 2: ball action, but the result of action, whether it be transition,
Speaker 2: cross matches or a ball screen that forces a switch,
Speaker 2: is going to end up in a lot of situations
Speaker 2: where Siakam or your matchup attacking forward gets to attack
Speaker 2: a player who's either too small to guard him or
Speaker 2: too slow to guard him. And that's what the beauty
Speaker 2: of the Pascal Siakam trade was for the pacers. Tyrese
Speaker 2: Haliburton was the ideal skill guard, the player that relentlessly
Speaker 2: hunted advantages, the player that could score against drop coverage,
Speaker 2: that could make all the reads against aggressive pick and
Speaker 2: roll coverages, and when his hamstring is healthy, is a
Speaker 2: deadly switch beater, and that has made him the quintessential
Speaker 2: kind of like on ball skill guard in the NBA.
Speaker 2: Right what they were lacking was a player they could
Speaker 2: pitch the ball to on the other side of those actions,
Speaker 2: a player that could be like, Okay, their bigs are
Speaker 2: defending well, on switches, Tyras is having a rough shooting night.
Speaker 2: He's five for sixteen, He's three for ten from three.
Speaker 2: He's having a little bit of a hard time beating
Speaker 2: Mitchell Robinson on switches. Well, who's the guy you can
Speaker 2: go to that is in on an island. Get a
Speaker 2: bucket guy that can either bully smalls to the basket
Speaker 2: or can beat bigs with quickness and speed. And that's
Speaker 2: what Pascal Siakamits gets going in this game with transition leakouts,
Speaker 2: just that relentless kick ahead passing that Indiana uses and
Speaker 2: then just countless times just like last year against Josh Hart,
Speaker 2: just beating up Josh Hart against switches, drawing fouls against
Speaker 2: Karl Anthony Towns in space, the ability to either get
Speaker 2: big guys out of position or get small guys into
Speaker 2: a situation where they can't handle how big he is.
Speaker 2: He just can score. And that was not working for
Speaker 2: the Pacers in the first game. That's one of the
Speaker 2: things that's so crazy about this one. The Knicks looked
Speaker 2: like they were in control of the Pacer Biggs in
Speaker 2: mismatches in Game one. Not in this game. They got
Speaker 2: torched thirty nine points for Pascal Siakam just an absolutely
Speaker 2: monster night, and then in the fourth quarter it was
Speaker 2: the pick and roll ball handlers. I thought TJ McConnell
Speaker 2: had a brilliant stretch to start the fourth quarter. That
Speaker 2: was where the first margin was. You look at this
Speaker 2: game is very back and forth. No team was really separating.
Speaker 2: The Pacers finally built a little bit of separation in
Speaker 2: the early fourth quarter off TJ McConnell ball screens. They
Speaker 2: ran a drop coverage, he beat it with a little
Speaker 2: mid range jump shot. Then they started blitzing him or
Speaker 2: showing at the level, and he just beat Robinson and
Speaker 2: kat over and over again. Just making simple reads like
Speaker 2: four or five times in a row to start the
Speaker 2: quarter generated a great shot for his team. On the
Speaker 2: other end of the floor, Kale Bridges was a little
Speaker 2: bit cold to start the fourth quarter. He did hit
Speaker 2: a few mid range jumpers in the middle of the
Speaker 2: fourth quarter, but Michale couldn't keep up. All of a
Speaker 2: sudden we had a little bit of margin, and then
Speaker 2: when Tyre's Halliburton came in, just a steady diet of
Speaker 2: that textbook high ball screen attack, attacking the Biggs, attacking Brunson.
Speaker 2: He had multiple driving kicks against Brunson, making Mitchell Robinson
Speaker 2: pay for sagging off of Miles Turner or sagging off
Speaker 2: of Pascal Siakam, just beating them with the same decision
Speaker 2: making tree that he's been using his entire NBA career,
Speaker 2: And once they built that margin, it just ended up
Speaker 2: being too much for the nixt to overcome. They had
Speaker 2: they almost pulled a little bit of magical comeback of
Speaker 2: their own there down the stretch, but ultimately it's just
Speaker 2: really difficult to make to make up for a ten
Speaker 2: point deficit in the final minutes, like they were dealing with.
Speaker 2: The Knicks have a little bit of a problem when
Speaker 2: they played car Anthony Towns. They're nowhere near good enough
Speaker 2: defensively to keep up with this Pacers team. They got
Speaker 2: rolled with kat on the floor tonight, even with him
Speaker 2: having extended stretches of successful offense, especially in the first half.
Speaker 2: But then with Mitchell Robinson, even though he brings a
Speaker 2: ton of good in a late game situation, it's like, well,
Speaker 2: he can't shoot free throws and he's got a little
Speaker 2: bit of a tendency to sag off of shooters. He
Speaker 2: got burned by Siakam and by Turner in the fourth
Speaker 2: quarter of this game. So on the one hand, it's
Speaker 2: frustrating because I don't think they have an answer for
Speaker 2: this series. But I think there's some reality to the
Speaker 2: proof of concept that this has been in this postseason run,
Speaker 2: which is I think Mkale Bridges and ogn Andobi and
Speaker 2: Josh Hart is fly around forwards that can rotate and
Speaker 2: wreck havoc defensively, and ogn Andobi is a weak side scorer,
Speaker 2: and Mikale Bridges is a guy who can run action
Speaker 2: when Jalen Brunson's off the floor, and Jalen Brunson proving
Speaker 2: himself over and over again over the last few years
Speaker 2: as one of the more reliable playoff shot creators. All
Speaker 2: of that is fine, but they need to have an
Speaker 2: option at center that can anchor all of this defensively,
Speaker 2: and that's where it gets tricked. I don't know that
Speaker 2: Karl Anthony Towns fits into the theoretical championship version of
Speaker 2: what the Knicks can be, but I think we've seen
Speaker 2: enough out of Mitchell Robinson, a extremely talented but flawed player,
Speaker 2: that if they get a legitimate center that all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, this makes a lot of sense. And I
Speaker 2: think that's something that they need to look into this
Speaker 2: summer as a vehicle with which to improve this roster.
Speaker 2: Can the Knicks come back to win this series? They
Speaker 2: certainly can. The Pacers after winning the first two games
Speaker 2: in Cleveland, came home and got their butt kicked, and
Speaker 2: Game four, you know, obviously they come out and utterly
Speaker 2: dominate the Cavs. It's gonna be really difficult to get
Speaker 2: this done, but the Knicks have shown an ability to
Speaker 2: win on the road in this postseason run. I do
Speaker 2: think switching is their best option. When they switch, it
Speaker 2: puts the onus on matchup attacking. I like that as
Speaker 2: an option more than blitzing like they did for stretches
Speaker 2: of the fourth quarter, or high drop, low drop, any
Speaker 2: of those sorts of things. I would switch, and then
Speaker 2: you've got to contain the ball and you've got to rotate.
Speaker 2: But at this point, like I thought coming into the
Speaker 2: series that the Pacers were just better than the Knicks
Speaker 2: on both ends of the four. I thought they were
Speaker 2: a better offense and I thought they were a better defense.
Speaker 2: And I think they've pretty clearly shown that to this
Speaker 2: point through two games. And now you've got to beat
Speaker 2: them four times out of five, with three of those
Speaker 2: five games being in Indiana, and it's just gonna be
Speaker 2: a lot for them to overcome. All right, Jackson's gonna
Speaker 2: come on and we're gonna take a couple of questions
Speaker 2: before we get out of here for the night.
Speaker 4: Let's do it. Let's do it.
Speaker 1: We got a couple of super Chat questions to start with.
Speaker 1: First one super Chet from Cobs. Hi, Jason, do you
Speaker 1: think the Knicks offense is too isocentric?
Speaker 4: It feels like they're rely too much on Kat and
Speaker 4: sort of.
Speaker 1: Expand on that if they do end up moving Cat,
Speaker 1: do you think that helps that problem or hurts that problem?
Speaker 2: So I think that there's a certain amount. Like both
Speaker 2: teams did more switching with their fives tonight, New York
Speaker 2: more than Indiana did. Miles Turner was doing more of
Speaker 2: like kind of like a read and react switch, meaning
Speaker 2: like he kind of exists in a higher drop and
Speaker 2: then if the defender got the on ball guy got
Speaker 2: wiped out by the screen, it would just turn into
Speaker 2: appeal switch, or if the defender got over the top,
Speaker 2: then he would like try to recover, but inevitably with
Speaker 2: the amount of switching that the teams do. There's gonna
Speaker 2: be a certain amount of isoball that's just part of
Speaker 2: NBA basketball. Also, like when you really get into it,
Speaker 2: Jalen Brunson, when he's got that left shoulder fade going
Speaker 2: the way that he had it going tonight, there's a
Speaker 2: certain point where like, that's some of their most reliable offense.
Speaker 2: Is that sort of thing. There are opportunities to attack
Speaker 2: in driving kick situations. The problem is is it's always
Speaker 2: gonna bog down when you have non shooters on the floor. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, mkale Bridge is just continually being incapable of
Speaker 2: hitting catch and shoot threes in this postseason run, that's
Speaker 2: gonna kill a drive and kick attack. Josh Hart being
Speaker 2: a guy that's a little bit hesitant to take catch
Speaker 2: and shoot three point shots, that can kill drive and
Speaker 2: kick attack, right. And so one of the things that
Speaker 2: makes the Indiana Pacers ball and player movement work is
Speaker 2: every dude on the floor will take that shot, and
Speaker 2: we'll take it and make it, and so it allows
Speaker 2: their rotation sequences to work better. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: sequences with the Knicks where you're like, I kind of
Speaker 2: want Daylen Brunson taking this ISO jump shot, because otherwise
Speaker 2: it's gonna be McKale Bridges unnaturally jumping super high and
Speaker 2: kicking his legs on a random catch and shoot three
Speaker 2: like he's getting chased off the line. And so I
Speaker 2: think there are some realities to the Nicks roster. My
Speaker 2: thing is like, in general, you want to keep everybody
Speaker 2: involved in that ISO attack. But also down the stretch
Speaker 2: of this game, Tibbs wasn't trusting Cat and really down
Speaker 2: the stretch, if you guys really get into it, Brunson
Speaker 2: was scoring it. Just they couldn't get stops when they
Speaker 2: needed to. What do they give up sixty something points
Speaker 2: in the second half.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's sort of a tough problem that they have.
Speaker 4: It is their best option, but you can't do it
Speaker 4: too much.
Speaker 1: It's like that balance is sort of the ever existing
Speaker 1: question for all of these sort of helio centric players
Speaker 1: and teams. Honestly, exactly another super Chat question, this one
Speaker 1: from John, huge Knicks fan, But as soon as Jannis
Speaker 1: got eliminated, I immediately thought about a cat.
Speaker 4: For Yanni's trade thoughts.
Speaker 1: Obviously, as everyone said it was responding to John in
Speaker 1: the chat, the Knicks would need to add a lot
Speaker 1: to their side of the deal. But just as like
Speaker 1: the Bucks are probably going to trade Yiannis and the
Speaker 1: Knicks may want to trade Cat sort of.
Speaker 4: Mind space.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'd be really difficult because of just all the
Speaker 2: different salaries involved, Like you'd almost want you'd want Kat,
Speaker 2: and you'd want one of their wings, and it's just
Speaker 2: really difficult to make all of that work. But just
Speaker 2: in theory, like I love the idea of having just
Speaker 2: a monstrous defensive forward kind of like anchoring all of this.
Speaker 2: But to me, like with Brunson being a big time
Speaker 2: pick and role player and with the overall rotational ability
Speaker 2: that they have at the forward position, and I honestly
Speaker 2: think that Brunson and Og and McHale is plenty of
Speaker 2: scoring ability. I'm not necessarily worried about that. I would
Speaker 2: be targeting more of like a traditional center. I would
Speaker 2: want like a seven foot tall, switchable rim protecting kind
Speaker 2: of like mobile, big a guy that can be a
Speaker 2: vertical spacer. I do think we underrated just how much
Speaker 2: Isaiah Hartenstein, like we're going to talk about this, you know,
Speaker 2: like like we were talking about this at the beginning
Speaker 2: of the show. In terms of low hanging fruit, like
Speaker 2: Isaiah Hartenstein unlocked a whole backcut game for the for
Speaker 2: the Thunder this year. There was a big one in
Speaker 2: our film session this morning where Shay backcutt Hardenstein hit him.
Speaker 2: It generated a wide open three for lou Dort. Like
Speaker 2: there's a certain amount of skill that you want at
Speaker 2: that position too. Like that's why I think the Cat
Speaker 2: Mitchell Robinson dynamic has been super fascinating. If you could
Speaker 2: somehow take some of Kat's offensive viability and combine it
Speaker 2: with Mitchell Robinson as a defensive weapon, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: this whole thing makes a ton of sense. And in
Speaker 2: order to make that happen, like, you need a starting
Speaker 2: caliber player at that center spot right now. There's another
Speaker 2: way you can look at it too, is like from
Speaker 2: the standpoint of payroll, you can't have Brunson making a
Speaker 2: ton of money, Og making a ton of money, McHale
Speaker 2: making a ton of money, and the center making a
Speaker 2: ton of money, And so they might have to make
Speaker 2: an even bigger picture decision about which one of the
Speaker 2: forwards kind of fits into that mix. But I like
Speaker 2: the idea of Brunson being anchored by like a monstrous
Speaker 2: defensive center. I think it just covers for a lot
Speaker 2: of their weaknesses on that end.
Speaker 3: YEA four.
Speaker 1: It was like, because of the Mavericks roster, everyone is
Speaker 1: designing fake trades around Daniel Gafford or Derek Lively and
Speaker 1: for a good reason, because I think those guys are
Speaker 1: exactly what you're describing. I would be very very helpful
Speaker 1: for a lot of teams, including this one.
Speaker 2: It's just a it's like a floor raiser, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, And like, yeah, there's it's tough because
Speaker 2: you can't have like like we saw Miles Turner for instance,
Speaker 2: like really struggle for extended stretches of of Game one
Speaker 2: right there. It needs to be a certain type of
Speaker 2: center I've seen, Like Nick Clackson is a name that
Speaker 2: gets thrown around a million times this over the course
Speaker 2: of this U this season, and like Nick Clason to
Speaker 2: me is like the bottom. Any player below Nick Clackson's level,
Speaker 2: it doesn't make sense to be paying that much for
Speaker 2: that type of player. But like I would be probing
Speaker 2: all over the place, I'd be, I'd be, I'd be
Speaker 2: I'd be calling on Nick Claxton, I'd be calling on
Speaker 2: what's his face? I'm blanking all of a sudden. This
Speaker 2: is how brain fried I am through the postseason run.
Speaker 2: But what's his face from the Jazz Walks.
Speaker 3: Walker Kessler? Excuse me?
Speaker 2: I'd be calling on just like dudes that are in
Speaker 2: that kind of mid to late twenties, that are just
Speaker 2: like rock solid centers that you could potentially anchor with
Speaker 2: this group because I think, I think, I think there's
Speaker 2: been enough that we've seen from their core players that
Speaker 2: this can work.
Speaker 3: They're just clearly not good.
Speaker 2: Enough defensively with Karl Anthony Towns on the floor, and
Speaker 2: that's a death sentence.
Speaker 4: All right, Let's move a little bit to the Pacers side.
Speaker 1: Question is, given the Pacers depth and Hal Britton's ability
Speaker 1: to run the offense without turning it over, aren't the
Speaker 1: Pacers the best team? The team that's best equipped to
Speaker 1: beat Okay?
Speaker 2: See, the problem is is I view it all through
Speaker 2: the scope of matchups, right. Every is like with we
Speaker 2: were talking about earlier with like Golden State versus Minnesota
Speaker 2: or versus Oklahoma City. You know, like there's a certain
Speaker 2: amount of like one team might be perfectly equipped to
Speaker 2: beat another team vice versa. The I talked about going
Speaker 2: into the postseason like there's a certain amount of perimeter
Speaker 2: size and playmaking and shooting that you need to beat
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City. And really, the only teams that I thought
Speaker 2: had that combination, like legitimate size advantages at multiple positions,
Speaker 2: the ability to process quickly against a like a swarming defense,
Speaker 2: and to knock down the catch and shoot threes that
Speaker 2: you get out of it. The only three teams that
Speaker 2: I thought had great chances to beat Oklahoma City were Denver,
Speaker 2: the Lakers, and the Celtics. Because the Lakers have Lebron
Speaker 2: and Luca that can attack their smalls, their elite processors,
Speaker 2: and they could put out lineups that could shoot. The
Speaker 2: Celtics Tatum and Brown, the ability to attack size mismatches,
Speaker 2: the ability to space the floor and shoot Denver through
Speaker 2: Aaron Gordon and through Nikola Jokich and even Jamal Murray
Speaker 2: to certain extent, the size and strength positionally, the processing,
Speaker 2: ability to get the ball out, and the ability to shoot.
Speaker 2: And all three of those teams are eliminated. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's like like all of them were flawed in their
Speaker 2: own ways to begin with, as we look back, and
Speaker 2: so honestly the problem for the Pacers is they have
Speaker 2: the processing and they have the shooting. They don't have
Speaker 2: the size. They don't have the size to cause Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City problems on the perimeter. I see it being a
Speaker 2: series where Nie Smith, Nemhard, and Halliburton are just literally
Speaker 2: in jail all series long because you could not conceptualize
Speaker 2: a more well equipped defense to handle all of their
Speaker 2: speed on the perimeter. This is the other team that
Speaker 2: loves to run more than anybody else in the league.
Speaker 2: They're switchable, they're well coached, their attention to detail is fantastic.
Speaker 2: They don't turn the ball over. They're they're never gonna
Speaker 2: let go of the rope the way the Knicks do.
Speaker 2: Like to me, essentially, the the Thunder are just a
Speaker 2: substantially better version of the Pacers, and a deeper and
Speaker 2: more versatile version. So, like I'm gonna be honest with you, guys,
Speaker 2: I would be stunned at this point if the Thunder
Speaker 2: didn't win the title, Like, absolutely stunned if they didn't
Speaker 2: win the title.
Speaker 1: Another sort of question about the Pacers, how sustainable do
Speaker 1: you think.
Speaker 4: This play style is for the long term.
Speaker 1: Do you think they can be the new team to
Speaker 1: beat in the East with Boston seemingly falling off or
Speaker 1: is this sort of run and gun style gonna either
Speaker 1: get scouted out? Is are there players not gonauild the
Speaker 1: hold up? Do you think this is sort of a
Speaker 1: long term, big picture of formula for the Pacers to
Speaker 1: sort of be the Kings of the East.
Speaker 2: I think they're going to be near the top of
Speaker 2: the East year and year out, like a team that's
Speaker 2: consistently like a conference finalist kind of situation. The problem
Speaker 2: is is like when it comes to the simple art
Speaker 2: of just getting buckets against elite defensive players, like let's
Speaker 2: look at the Thunder series for example, Like I think
Speaker 2: in order to beat the Thunder, you've got to be
Speaker 2: able to have a guy that like they simply cannot guard.
Speaker 2: And like we saw that, like when we'd watch the
Speaker 2: Lakers against him, it's like they cannot guard Luca. When
Speaker 2: you watch Jokic against him, it's like they cannot guard
Speaker 2: nikolea Jokich. I'm not sitting here saying like Pascal Siakam
Speaker 2: can't score on the Thunder. Of course he can, But
Speaker 2: is he gonna be thirty nine points on twenty three
Speaker 2: shots against the Thunder? Probably not, you know, Like Tyrese
Speaker 2: Haliburton is a capable switch beater, but is he gonna
Speaker 2: be able to stare down Chet Holmgren and Lou dort
Speaker 2: In Kason Wallace and like get tough buckets over and
Speaker 2: over again the way that you need to. I just
Speaker 2: don't think so and so like I think ultimately Indiana's
Speaker 2: ceiling is based on the fact that they don't have
Speaker 2: a singular top here bucket getter type of dude that
Speaker 2: like is invincible to a certain defensive scheme, like I
Speaker 2: think the Thunder will most likely end up just doing
Speaker 2: a great deal of switching against Indiana and just live
Speaker 2: with the results and believe that their defenders are going
Speaker 2: to do just fine against Siakam and Halliburton. In order
Speaker 2: for Indiana to like truly be what I would consider
Speaker 2: to be like a top tier contender in this league,
Speaker 2: I think they would need a better version of Siakam,
Speaker 2: like if it was like a truly indomitable offensive force
Speaker 2: at the forward position, like let's just say it was
Speaker 2: like a Kevin Durant Lebron type of guy at the four.
Speaker 2: Now I'm looking at that as a team that can
Speaker 2: like legitimately beat the very best teams in the league
Speaker 2: in the championship round. But I'm just concerned about their
Speaker 2: ability against against an Oklahoma City defense to to really
Speaker 2: create shots when things bug.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you need a better version of Siakam or
Speaker 1: you need Ben Mathrin to become this like super versatile
Speaker 1: scoring basically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a better version of Andrew and em Hard, Like
Speaker 2: a version of Andrew and Emhard that is like to
Speaker 2: the point indomitable. So like if Ben Matherin became like
Speaker 2: somewhere around the twentieth to twenty fifth best player in
Speaker 2: the league and played at the two next to Halliburton
Speaker 2: and as an as a freaky athletic guard was kind
Speaker 2: of there. This is the guy that no one can
Speaker 2: stop him from getting to his spot, and like you
Speaker 2: just kind of have to hope he misses kind of
Speaker 2: thing like that. Like that's that's where it gets tough.
Speaker 2: I'm just there's a lot of Indiana. A lot of
Speaker 2: what Indiana does capitalizes on natural openings that occur in
Speaker 2: basketball games, and the Thunder just don't give you a
Speaker 2: lot of natural openings. The one thing that will be interesting,
Speaker 2: and I'll say this just up front, the Thunder are
Speaker 2: very much like a load up the strong side ball, pressure,
Speaker 2: aggressive defense, and Tyre's Halliburton is an excellent over the
Speaker 2: top passer, So I am curious to see how Mark
Speaker 2: Dagnall actually structures his defensive game plan because we have
Speaker 2: seen coaches like Chris Finch go like, we're gonna play
Speaker 2: our base regular season scheme against the Thunder and even
Speaker 2: though it's like legitimately the exact opposite of what Denver
Speaker 2: just showed us works. And if Mark Dagnall does the
Speaker 2: exact same thing and ty Reese is just throwing skip
Speaker 2: passes to Siakam and Ni Smith for the entire first
Speaker 2: two games of the series and they get a bunch
Speaker 2: of wide open threes, the yeah, like they can steal
Speaker 2: a game or two. But like I think, ultimately Dagnall
Speaker 2: will I will read the room and be like, what
Speaker 2: we really need to do is kind of stay glued
Speaker 2: to everybody individually here and trust that our individual defenders
Speaker 2: are too much for them to be able to handle
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: Last question for tonight's YouTube stream, thoughts on home court
Speaker 1: advantage in the playoffs. It seems like it hasn't mattered
Speaker 1: very much so far.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, I've seen a lot of talk
Speaker 2: about this. I don't have a real feel for what
Speaker 2: is causing it, because statistically, I shouldn't even say statistically
Speaker 2: it's just in the win losses. There's an obvious reality
Speaker 2: to the fact that road teams are more comfortable now
Speaker 2: than they used to be. I don't have like a
Speaker 2: reasoning for it, though, because the game is more predicated
Speaker 2: on jump shooting than ever, so in theory, like comfort
Speaker 2: shooting at home should play an even bigger role. But
Speaker 2: if I had to have you, you know, like said, Okay,
Speaker 2: you've got to sign it to something, I would assign
Speaker 2: it to the physicality. I think the overall physicality increase
Speaker 2: in the playoffs in the last couple of years has
Speaker 2: in general dragged every game closer and lower scoring, which
Speaker 2: has made every game a little bit more of a
Speaker 2: coin flip than some of the game, the kind of
Speaker 2: like trading off blowouts that we saw in years past.
Speaker 2: And then also before we're done here tonight, I had
Speaker 2: a buddy of mine shout out to NMZ Hoops, a
Speaker 2: guy that does great work covering the league on Twitter,
Speaker 2: sent me this question. He said, at this point, this
Speaker 2: is a question from the minute Soda series. Should Minnesota
Speaker 2: abandon Rudy Gobert setting picks and go to more guard
Speaker 2: to guard action. Rudy can hold space in the dunker spot.
Speaker 2: All you'd have to do is catch and finish rather
Speaker 2: than make decisions in the short role. Have Ant target
Speaker 2: Shay for fatigue and foul trouble using more threatening screeners.
Speaker 2: So a couple things. This is really interesting question. We
Speaker 2: talked a little bit about this last night with the
Speaker 2: ghost screens. They were getting clean looks or clean ish
Speaker 2: looks for Dante DiVincenzo in particular, slipping out of ghost
Speaker 2: screens targeting Shae in particular. Like the specific emphasis here
Speaker 2: from NMZ is that threatening screeners part because they are
Speaker 2: hedging and recovering with Shay. So it's not like Ant's
Speaker 2: going to be able to just pick on Shae and
Speaker 2: switches and just look to attack him one on one,
Speaker 2: at least not as easily as it could happen from
Speaker 2: like a transition crossmatch or some other offensive rebound cross
Speaker 2: match something along those lines. But there are openings that
Speaker 2: they can get by having guards slip out of screens,
Speaker 2: not just with Dante or whoever it is who's being
Speaker 2: guarded by Shay, but also inverted because they ran some
Speaker 2: inverted action where like Dante would get screened by Ant
Speaker 2: and then pitch it back to Ant. Oklahoma City has
Speaker 2: a little bit of a natural tendency to linger on
Speaker 2: the ball with their second defender anyway, kind of regardless.
Speaker 3: Of who it is.
Speaker 2: It's just part of their kind of basketball identity as
Speaker 2: a very aggressive, turnover forcing type of team. So I
Speaker 2: think you could even get Ant some initial advantages from
Speaker 2: him slipping out of inverted ball screens. But my thing is, like,
Speaker 2: I think the only chance that the Timberwolves have to
Speaker 2: win this series is to attack off the catch with Ant,
Speaker 2: to attack off the catch with Julius. This clean catch
Speaker 2: and shoot looks Julius got in the first round or
Speaker 2: first half of Game one. Ant in general in this
Speaker 2: postseason has been so deadly attacking off the catch. The
Speaker 2: only way you're gonna do that is early in the
Speaker 2: possession to get into your drive and kick, because you
Speaker 2: can't be pitching it to the corner with four or
Speaker 2: five seconds on the shot clock, the ball will never
Speaker 2: get worked back around. So getting the ball up the
Speaker 2: floor quickly with pace and then using a guard screen
Speaker 2: as a simple example of to his point, instead of
Speaker 2: having Rudy trying to operate out of a four on three,
Speaker 2: which has been an absolute disaster. Have a more skilled
Speaker 2: player start your four on three. So, for instance, let's
Speaker 2: say that Dante screens on Ant's right side and quickly
Speaker 2: slips out of it to the left wing. Shay lingers
Speaker 2: for a second, pitch it to him. Dante needs to
Speaker 2: rack left immediately right on the catch, beat the hedge,
Speaker 2: the hedge you're recovering in this case, Shay. Now you're
Speaker 2: in an advantage creating situation. I do trust Dante to
Speaker 2: make the next read. From there, it's on Aunt and
Speaker 2: Julius to quickly figure out their spacing and get to
Speaker 2: a spot where they can attack on the catch. And
Speaker 2: I do think from there they can have some more opportunities.
Speaker 2: But to NMC's point, like I am one hundred percent
Speaker 2: in agreement, like, get the guy who's leading the four
Speaker 2: on three to be a higher level offensive player than
Speaker 2: Rudy Gobert, and so having those guards slipping out a
Speaker 2: screen is a simple way to get those attacks. They
Speaker 2: just need to not immediately settle for the three because
Speaker 2: there was a little bit of a tendency in game
Speaker 2: two for them to slip out of the ghost screen
Speaker 2: and take the movement three, which is not a terrible.
Speaker 3: Shot, but it's a tough shot.
Speaker 2: And I wouldn't necessarily lean on that unless there's you know,
Speaker 2: five seconds on the shot clock attack off of that,
Speaker 2: get into your drive and kick. Try to generate some
Speaker 2: more off the catch opportunities for it and Julius. All right, guys,
Speaker 2: that is all we have for tonight on YouTube. We
Speaker 2: are heading over to playback again. That's playback dot TV
Speaker 2: slash Hoops tonight. No Jackson tonight will just be me
Speaker 2: over there, but we're gonna be taking some callers and
Speaker 2: watching some film again. As always, as sincerely appreciate you
Speaker 2: guys for supporting me and supporting us and supporting the show.
Speaker 2: I will see you guys on playback here in just
Speaker 2: a few minutes. What so, guys, As always, I appreciate
Speaker 2: you for listening to and supporting Oops tonight. They would
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Speaker 3: The volume