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Speaker 2: co slash MMA. All right, welcome to hoops tonight here
Speaker 2: at the volume. Have you Wednesday? Everybody? Oh, all of
Speaker 2: you guys are having a great week so far. So
Speaker 2: we were supposed to get to this show last week,
Speaker 2: but then the JJ Redick News kind of pushed it
Speaker 2: off for a couple of days, and then obviously at
Speaker 2: the beginning of this week, I wanted to get to
Speaker 2: some drafts to just so it had a couple of
Speaker 2: days before the draft actually happened, which is very soon,
Speaker 2: as you guys know. So we are finally going to
Speaker 2: get around to our five biggest takeaways from this NBA postseason.
Speaker 2: This is a podcast that we do every single year
Speaker 2: right after the playoffs. It is a basketball tactics focus podcast,
Speaker 2: and the goal of it is, to put it simply,
Speaker 2: we are trying to learn as much about the game
Speaker 2: in the long run. We are all students of the
Speaker 2: game of basketball, right, so, like we want to learn
Speaker 2: from what happened in this playoff run as well as
Speaker 2: what has happened in recent playoff runs, put all that
Speaker 2: information into like a basketball worldview that helps us understand
Speaker 2: And obviously, predictions are a fool's errand no one ever
Speaker 2: predicts everything correctly, but we do want to try to
Speaker 2: do better, right. It is a it is a It
Speaker 2: is something that we strive to do even though we
Speaker 2: know we're gonna fail, right Like, we're gonna fail, We're
Speaker 2: gonna get wrong picks, we're gonna misread series. But we
Speaker 2: want to try as as hard as we can to
Speaker 2: learn and understand the game at a higher level. And
Speaker 2: so we have two months of dat, yeah, two months
Speaker 2: of new data from these fifteen playoff series that we
Speaker 2: just watched, and we're going to try to sort through
Speaker 2: that to find the five biggest takeaways to help us
Speaker 2: understand NBA basketball at a higher level as we move
Speaker 2: into future seasons. You guys know the drill. Before we
Speaker 2: get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so
Speaker 2: you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
Speaker 2: on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so you guys don't miss
Speaker 2: you announcements. Sont forget about a podcast feed wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcast under Hoops Tonight, and then keep dropping
Speaker 2: mail bag questions in the YouTube comments. I know we
Speaker 2: bumped the mail bag for the JJ Redick News, so
Speaker 2: I owe you guys one. We're going to get to
Speaker 2: that at the end of this week so that it
Speaker 2: can run over the weekend. So keep dropping mailbag questions
Speaker 2: in those YouTube comments. In the last min at least
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Speaker 2: All right, let's talk some basketball. So in terms of picks,
Speaker 2: this is actually kind of a funny playoff run. So
Speaker 2: we had fifteen series, right, we picked ten of them correctly.
Speaker 2: The blind spots were Minnesota and New York. So all
Speaker 2: five series that I picked incorrectly either involved the Knicks
Speaker 2: or the Timberwolves. I picked the Timberwolves to lose to
Speaker 2: the Suns based on their regular season record. Also some
Speaker 2: game plan stuff with Frank Vogel that I thought would
Speaker 2: work against Minnesota could not have been more wrong. That
Speaker 2: was a sweep. I picked the Timberwolves to lose to Denver.
Speaker 2: That was one of the most bizarre series I can
Speaker 2: ever remember seeing, between Minnesota going up two to ozho
Speaker 2: on the road and then getting their ass kicked at
Speaker 2: home twice, and then Denver winning Game five and then
Speaker 2: blowout Game six, Denver being up twenty in the second
Speaker 2: half of Game seven, Minnesota coming back to win with
Speaker 2: that crazy run. That was a wild series. But I
Speaker 2: picked against the Timberwolves in that one and then I
Speaker 2: picked for the Timberwolves against the Mavericks, and then they
Speaker 2: ended up getting their ass kicked. So Timberwolves were a
Speaker 2: major blind spot for me this year. And then the Knicks.
Speaker 2: I picked against the Knicks and the Sixers series because
Speaker 2: I thought Tyres Max and Joel Embiid would just kind
Speaker 2: of present a two layers of top tier shot creation
Speaker 2: against one, and I just thought in the half court
Speaker 2: it'd be too much of an advantage. But the Knicks
Speaker 2: more than made up for it with their toughness. And
Speaker 2: then Jalen Brunson just reached a level in this playoff
Speaker 2: run that I didn't think he was capable of, to
Speaker 2: be honest, and he just proved me wrong in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways. And then I picked the Knicks to
Speaker 2: beat the Pacers. Obviously there were some injuries there, but
Speaker 2: I did think that was funny looking back out of
Speaker 2: the I picked ten out of the fifteen series corrected.
Speaker 2: All five of the incorrect picks were involved with the
Speaker 2: same two teams, So that goes to show you that
Speaker 2: that was Those were major blind spots for me, and
Speaker 2: I got to try to learn from those that we
Speaker 2: can avoid those mistakes in the future. So without any
Speaker 2: further ado, let's get to the five biggest things that
Speaker 2: I learned in this postseason run. Number one, regular season
Speaker 2: success doesn't protect you from a bad matchup. So, for instance,
Speaker 2: the Bucks were a better team than the Pacers all
Speaker 2: year long, but even extend into the regular season, they
Speaker 2: could not handle Indiana's perimeter speed on both ends of
Speaker 2: the floor, just their ability to move quicker, cover more ground,
Speaker 2: beat people to spots on offense, beat people off the
Speaker 2: dribble on when the Bucks were on defense. It was
Speaker 2: just an incessant mismatch and overall speed on the floor.
Speaker 2: Milwaukee could never contain the ball in the half court
Speaker 2: Oran transition. It was a problem for them that they
Speaker 2: never solved. And so yeah, obviously there were injuries involved,
Speaker 2: but that manifested even before Jannis's injury in the regular
Speaker 2: season when the Bucks just consistently struggled with that Indiana
Speaker 2: Pacers team. I think the Nuggets were a better basketball
Speaker 2: team overall top to bottom than Minnesota, but Minnesota had
Speaker 2: the ability to back pressure Jamal Murray in ball screens
Speaker 2: in the size to fatigue Jokic and play him into
Speaker 2: a bad defensive series, and they couldn't keep Anthony Edwards
Speaker 2: in front off the dribble. In retrospect, looking back at
Speaker 2: that Bruce Brown piece that they let go over the summer,
Speaker 2: that would have been a guy that could have swung
Speaker 2: that series back in favor of Denver. Something to keep
Speaker 2: in mind as we see teams that let go of
Speaker 2: important role players after winning a title. We saw the
Speaker 2: Bucks after twenty twenty one they let go of PJ.
Speaker 2: Tucker that they end up losing in the second round
Speaker 2: the next year. Obviously, injuries played a role, right We
Speaker 2: even see just decline from specific players from the Warriors,
Speaker 2: they look like a different team. The Lakers throw out
Speaker 2: their entire championship roster two years later they end up
Speaker 2: falling apart. Like a lot of times, we underrate the
Speaker 2: contributions of important role players, and Bruce Brown was the
Speaker 2: one player on Denver that could have athletically at least
Speaker 2: given Anthony Edwards a tougher job to beat off the
Speaker 2: dribble and in terms of just matching some of his physicality.
Speaker 2: I also think Jamal Murray's injury was something that I
Speaker 2: thought was interesting there in the sense that I talked
Speaker 2: about during the regular season, I would have been surprised
Speaker 2: if Denver didn't win the type as long as all
Speaker 2: five of their starters were healthy, and as it turned out,
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray with his calf that ankle injury that Ecatavious
Speaker 2: call Well Pope suffered in Game five against the Lakers
Speaker 2: where he was starting to get he ended up having
Speaker 2: to go back to the locker room in that game.
Speaker 2: They just got a little banged up, a little fatigued,
Speaker 2: and it ended up being an issue. But during the
Speaker 2: regular season, I thought the Nuggets were a better basketball
Speaker 2: team than Minnesota. The big thing that people forget too
Speaker 2: is when Jamal Murray was healthy, the Nuggets won at
Speaker 2: over a sixty one win pace, So like they were
Speaker 2: a team on Boston's tier when they were actually healthy
Speaker 2: and whole. It was when Jamal Murray was out that
Speaker 2: they you know, kind of hovered around five hundred and
Speaker 2: it put them into a predicament in the standings. But
Speaker 2: the Nuggets were a traditional top tier contender that ran
Speaker 2: into a Tier two contender, But because it was a
Speaker 2: bad matchup, they ended up losing. And we're going to
Speaker 2: get into some of the matchup stuff later, But like
Speaker 2: the Timberwolves were a better team than the Mavericks all
Speaker 2: year long, but the MAVs couldn't protect the rim, and
Speaker 2: Looke was too big for all of Minnesota's excuse me,
Speaker 2: the MAVs could protect the rim. So like, Anthony Edwards
Speaker 2: driving against Yusuf Nurkic, no match up there. Anthony Edwards
Speaker 2: driving against Nicola Jokic, no problem there, right, Anthony Edwards
Speaker 2: driving with Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively under the rim,
Speaker 2: totally different situation. His RIM attempts and efficiency cratered in
Speaker 2: that series. It was a huge problem, right, So like,
Speaker 2: even though the Timberwolves were a better team than the
Speaker 2: Mavericks all year long, the MAVs could keep Anthony Edwards
Speaker 2: away from the rim, and Luca was too big for
Speaker 2: Jane McDaniels, and he was too big for Anthony Edwards,
Speaker 2: and he was too big for everybody, and it rendered
Speaker 2: the strength of Minnesota's defense, their perimeter core. It rendered
Speaker 2: it effectively useless, and that became a problem that Minnesota
Speaker 2: couldn't overcome. So like, regular season success just does not
Speaker 2: protect you from a bad matchup. The last example that
Speaker 2: I wanted to give was the Mavericks defense. Maverick's defense
Speaker 2: was really good in the first three rounds. They had
Speaker 2: one eleven defensive rating, but they fell apart in the finals.
Speaker 2: And everyone's going to point to the offensive rating because
Speaker 2: Boston only was at I think like one to sixteen
Speaker 2: offensive rating or something like that. But it wasn't about
Speaker 2: the aggregate offensive rating. It was moments in time where
Speaker 2: Dallas literally could not get stops. In the first half
Speaker 2: of Game one, Boston had a one to thirty four
Speaker 2: offensive rating as they built that massive deficit, which effectively
Speaker 2: was the game. In Game two, there was a sixteen
Speaker 2: minute span between the second and third quarters, sixteen minutes
Speaker 2: so a little over a quarter where Boston scored forty
Speaker 2: four points on Dallas's defense went from a one point
Speaker 2: game to a thirteen point game in sixteen minutes because
Speaker 2: their defense completely fell apart. In Game three, it was
Speaker 2: a seven point game with three minutes left in the
Speaker 2: third quarter. Boston scores nineteen points over the next four
Speaker 2: minutes and they're up by twenty one. It was an
Speaker 2: onslot where Dallas's defense cracked right. In Game four, Boston
Speaker 2: had a one forty six offensive rating in the first half,
Speaker 2: so just time and time again, that defense for Dallas,
Speaker 2: which was a strength in specific matchups. As soon as
Speaker 2: they ran into Boston, a team that could truly space
Speaker 2: them out, drive and kick at every single position, all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, Dallas's defense looked like it wasn't up
Speaker 2: to the challenge. And so that's the key here. That's
Speaker 2: the first major lesson matchup resiliency matters. To win four
Speaker 2: rounds and again to hoist Hilario O'Brien, you need to
Speaker 2: win four rounds, not three, not two. You have to
Speaker 2: win four. In order to win four rounds, you will
Speaker 2: likely have to beat different types of teams led by
Speaker 2: different types of stars. Minnesota was able to guard Devin
Speaker 2: Booker and Kevin Durant extremely well, and Bradley Beal. They
Speaker 2: were able to guard Jamal Murray extremely well. They could
Speaker 2: not guard Luka Doncics. So like again, it's about beating
Speaker 2: different types of teams. It's about being able to contend
Speaker 2: with different types of stars. That is, look at Denver
Speaker 2: last year having Aaron Gordon to guard every big forward
Speaker 2: along the way. Aaron Gordon can guard Lebron who's big
Speaker 2: and strong like Jaden McDaniels, is a better defender than
Speaker 2: Aaron Gordon. He's capable of guarding more types of guys,
Speaker 2: but Aaron Gordon is good at guarding big forwards. So
Speaker 2: that specific matchup gave Denver a defensive strength for the
Speaker 2: types of players they had to go through. KD no problem,
Speaker 2: Lebron James, no problem, Jimmy Butler, no problem, right, Jaden
Speaker 2: McDaniels on Luca big fucking problem. Right. And so that's
Speaker 2: where that matchup resiliency matters. Number two, the team that
Speaker 2: is the most matchup resilient is always a team that
Speaker 2: is at or near the top of the standings. This
Speaker 2: was a fascinating stat that I pulled. Those of you
Speaker 2: guys who listened to the Cowhard Show after the finals
Speaker 2: will remember this one all righttually. I think this was
Speaker 2: from the Yovann Bouhash Show. In the last thirteen years,
Speaker 2: twelve of the NBA champions had one of the four
Speaker 2: best records in the league, twelve out of thirteen times
Speaker 2: top four in the standings. The one exception was the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one Milwaukee Bucks, who, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 2: Brook Lopez missed a huge chunk of that season. They
Speaker 2: were consistently a top of the standings team in the
Speaker 2: years surrounding that year, and that was that weird COVID
Speaker 2: season where all those replacement players were playing. It was
Speaker 2: just a weird season, right, So you can kind of
Speaker 2: throw that one out. NBA history tells us, Modern NBA
Speaker 2: history tells us, if you want to actually hoist Hilario O'Brien,
Speaker 2: then you need to be one of the four best
Speaker 2: records in the league over the course of the eighty
Speaker 2: two right now. Why is that? Because we do see
Speaker 2: teams get close right over the course of eighty two.
Speaker 2: Is when you establish habits, It's when you demonstrate your
Speaker 2: attention to detail. Habits and attention to detail are what
Speaker 2: carry you in a when you find yourself in a
Speaker 2: big game and it's game five of the series and
Speaker 2: it's eighty five, eighty five, with five minutes left, and
Speaker 2: everyone's nervous, no one's shooting. Well, it's a rock fight.
Speaker 2: What are we gonna do? Generally speaking, the team that
Speaker 2: is really sharp with their habits, that shows great attention
Speaker 2: to detail, they're gonna make fewer mistakes and execute better
Speaker 2: over the final five minutes and give themselves a better
Speaker 2: chance to win. That is why it's one of the
Speaker 2: top four seeds that always wins. It's not just talent.
Speaker 2: Talent is a big part of it. And that's what
Speaker 2: I have next on the notes, reflection of talent. Super
Speaker 2: talented teams will just find the way to win games
Speaker 2: and therefore will be at the top of the standings.
Speaker 2: But it is both. It is a demonstration of your
Speaker 2: talent and it is a demonstration of your attention to
Speaker 2: detail and the time you've spent establishing habits that will
Speaker 2: carry you when you get into adverse situations in the
Speaker 2: NBA postseason. So we know from number one, you gotta
Speaker 2: be able to beat different types matchups, right like that,
Speaker 2: Like teams lose to lesser teams than the standings all
Speaker 2: the time because of a bad matchup. That said, the
Speaker 2: team that is most matchup resilient is always at the top.
Speaker 2: Now I say in the top four, meaning sometimes those
Speaker 2: guys get exposed, but the team that actually holds the
Speaker 2: trophies going to be one of those teams. What that
Speaker 2: means is next year, when there's a team that is
Speaker 2: the seventh best record in the league or the ninth
Speaker 2: best record in the league, and we're like, this team
Speaker 2: can win the title. Probably not, though NBA history tells
Speaker 2: us probably not right. And again like that, that to
Speaker 2: me is a consistent piece. It's like I'm a I'm
Speaker 2: a Lakers fan. You guys know I have bias there. Right,
Speaker 2: There's a reason why I never put them in that
Speaker 2: top tier of contenders. And the reason was simple. NBA
Speaker 2: history tells us, you gotta be one of those teams.
Speaker 2: You it is always Oh, the one Laker team that
Speaker 2: won under Lebron James started twenty four and three was
Speaker 2: the number one seed in the Western Conference. That's not
Speaker 2: a coincidence. That is a reflection of one how talented
Speaker 2: that team was and two how seriously they approached the
Speaker 2: regular season from day one. So I do think that
Speaker 2: at some point in the next ten years, we'll see
Speaker 2: a team that's outside of the top four that sneaks
Speaker 2: in and wins a championship. It'll probably happen just like
Speaker 2: the Bucks did in twenty twenty one. Right, But that
Speaker 2: is exceedingly rare. And so when we're talking about these things,
Speaker 2: when it comes time to rank contenders at the end
Speaker 2: of the year or in the middle of the year,
Speaker 2: chances are the team that hoists the trophy will be
Speaker 2: in that Top four.
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Speaker 2: Number three Getting into some basketball tactics. Rim pressure is
Speaker 2: the primary driving force behind shot quality. However, it can
Speaker 2: be generated into a bunch of you. It is a
Speaker 2: team endeavor. What is rim pressure? Rim pressure is the
Speaker 2: ability to get the ball close to the rim, either
Speaker 2: for quality rim attempts or to draw multiple defenders for
Speaker 2: quality perimeter attempts, Right, but everything starts with rim pressure.
Speaker 2: A good NBA shot, a good basketball shot begins with
Speaker 2: a paint touch, begins with the ability to get the
Speaker 2: ball in the paint in some way, shape or form,
Speaker 2: and that is a prerequisite. So what I mean by
Speaker 2: that is when we see teams that struggle to generate
Speaker 2: rim pressure, something to keep in mind when we get
Speaker 2: into later playoff rounds and how resilient their offense can be. Right,
Speaker 2: how do you generate rim pressure? As I mentioned, there's
Speaker 2: a bunch of different ways. One beating people off the dribble.
Speaker 2: This is the most basic version of it, right, This
Speaker 2: is what Boston does most of the time. They Boston
Speaker 2: generates rim pressure in other ways too, like they'll slip
Speaker 2: out of actions into the short roll area and just
Speaker 2: throw the ball over the top. They'll post up sometimes
Speaker 2: Boston does it different ways. But the main way that
Speaker 2: Boston generates room pressure is just you can't keep Jason
Speaker 2: Tatum in front off the dribble. You can't keep Jalen
Speaker 2: Brown in front off the dribble. Neither is like you're
Speaker 2: gonna see Drew Holliday beat people off the dribble. You're
Speaker 2: gonna see Derek White beat people off the dribble. They
Speaker 2: generate space and they beat people off the dribble. That
Speaker 2: is the foundational starting point of Boston's offense. Once they
Speaker 2: beat someone off the dribble, that's when they start playing
Speaker 2: advantage basketball, which we've talked about at length on this show.
Speaker 2: But that first step is the important part. If you
Speaker 2: can't get that first bit of dribble penetration, then Boston's
Speaker 2: offense can struggle. Right If you can't get that first
Speaker 2: slip of a ball screen that gets that paint touch,
Speaker 2: that's where everything starts. Like when remember when Boston had
Speaker 2: that really rough stretch of offense spanning the second and
Speaker 2: third quarters of Game one in the Finals. There was
Speaker 2: a stretch there for like four minutes where they literally
Speaker 2: didn't get a single paint touch. That is the foundational
Speaker 2: piece of quality. NBA shots got to get the ball
Speaker 2: in the paint, So beating people off the dribble, roll
Speaker 2: gravity and pick and roll right. So like Dallas, for instance,
Speaker 2: their rim pressure wasn't Luca or Kyrie toasting people off
Speaker 2: the dribble on straight line drives. It was methodically working
Speaker 2: downhill with this vertical space or this rim threat barreling
Speaker 2: down the lane that if you didn't tag, he was
Speaker 2: get dunking everything. And if you did tag, that was
Speaker 2: where they got the quality perimeter attempts in the skip
Speaker 2: passed to the corner. Right, So roll gravity and pick
Speaker 2: and roll is another way to generate rim pressure that
Speaker 2: extends beyond traditional pick and roll two to slipping. So
Speaker 2: like when Luca would get blitzed, if you could throw
Speaker 2: the ball to Derek Lively and Derek Liively's barreling down
Speaker 2: the lane, that's rim pressure in a different way. Right three,
Speaker 2: cutting along the baseline. So this is like like I
Speaker 2: talked about earlier. If Derek Glively's barreling down the lane
Speaker 2: and you have that opening for a guy to cut
Speaker 2: along the baseline, if it's an athlete that can dunk everything,
Speaker 2: that is rim pressure. Aaron Gordon does that for the Nuggets,
Speaker 2: Ruby Hachimura and on an Ad all three of them
Speaker 2: do that for the Lakers. Right, Like, rolling and cutting
Speaker 2: are important ways to generate rim pressure in similar ways
Speaker 2: to what dribble penetration does. And then lastly, attacking the
Speaker 2: offensive glass. This was what the New York Knicks did
Speaker 2: for rim pressure. Jalen Brunson wasn't toasting people off the dribble.
Speaker 2: They pressured the rim with relentless crashing from the perimeter,
Speaker 2: mainly by their guards but also from their bigs to
Speaker 2: dominate on the offensive glass. That was how they pressured
Speaker 2: the rim. Right, But all of those different methods, dribble penetration,
Speaker 2: roll gravity, cutting gravity, offensive glass crashing, all of those
Speaker 2: have counters that defenses can use to minimize. Right. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, like Minnesota was really good at beating people
Speaker 2: off the dribble, but as soon as they packed the
Speaker 2: paint with rim protection, it rendered that useless and suddenly
Speaker 2: Minnesota had a big problem. Right, Dallas, they had the
Speaker 2: advantage of roll gravity for their rim pressure. Sure well,
Speaker 2: Boston puts Jason Tatum onto their center and Al Horford
Speaker 2: switching screens that involved Derek Jones Jr. Suddenly that role
Speaker 2: gravity is completely mitigated. Dallas can't generate rim pressure. Their
Speaker 2: offense falls apart. Right. So, as much as rim pressure
Speaker 2: is valuable, it's important to be able to do it
Speaker 2: in a resilient way against different kinds of defense. How
Speaker 2: do you handle beating people off the dribble by packing
Speaker 2: the paint. How do you handle roll gravity, switching ball screens,
Speaker 2: how do you handle cutting along the baseline. In order
Speaker 2: for cuts to be open, you have to have that
Speaker 2: initial advantage. So as long as you shut off the
Speaker 2: dribble and shut off the pick and roll, those cuts
Speaker 2: aren't even open anymore. As far as the offensive glas goes,
Speaker 2: it's much harder to defensive rebound when you're in rotation.
Speaker 2: So if you're containing the ball and you're containing the role,
Speaker 2: offensive rebounds are that much harder to get right. So
Speaker 2: it's not just rim pressure, it's resilient pressure. So, for instance,
Speaker 2: Dallas was good at generating rim pressure on the roll,
Speaker 2: but bad on the dribble, and so when the role
Speaker 2: was shut down, they had no other way to generate
Speaker 2: rim pressure right offense falls apart. Minnesota great at driving,
Speaker 2: but no additional kinds of rim pressure. Their roller Rudy
Speaker 2: Gobert is one of the worst role men in the league.
Speaker 2: Has stone hands, struggles to make layups. If it's not
Speaker 2: a wide open dunk, he's not getting it right. Also,
Speaker 2: Minnesota's passers are not great at actually making the lob
Speaker 2: pass when it's available, and so basically the role gravity
Speaker 2: piece is missing for Minnesota, right, And so when one
Speaker 2: gets shut off, everything gets shut off. Right. So what's
Speaker 2: fascinating to me about Boston is they had resilient rim pressure.
Speaker 2: If you put an excellent perimeter defender on Jason Tatum
Speaker 2: and you made his life a living hell, someone else
Speaker 2: was beating somebody off the dribble, try packing the paint
Speaker 2: against Boston. It's not gonna work. They're too good at shooting, right.
Speaker 2: So like when we see a dribble drive team with
Speaker 2: a dribble drive guard, if they're gonna win four rounds,
Speaker 2: they're probably gonna need to space the floor really well,
Speaker 2: meaning they're gonna need to have a lot of shooting
Speaker 2: around them. Right. If they're a pick and roll team
Speaker 2: and they generate their rim pressure through the role, they
Speaker 2: better have a counter. So, for instance, one of the
Speaker 2: things that I was kind of disappointed in is I
Speaker 2: did not think Luca did enough work in the post
Speaker 2: against Boston. That is a great counter, and I should
Speaker 2: have listed that as one of the ways you can
Speaker 2: generate rim pressure. Posting up is a way to generate
Speaker 2: rim pressure. And that's the thing like when teams switch
Speaker 2: ball screens against Lebron and ad. What do they do
Speaker 2: They spam Lebron and AD post ups as a counter
Speaker 2: to that. Right, So, like again, having multiple ways to
Speaker 2: generate rim pressure so that you can do so against
Speaker 2: multiple types of defenses that ultimately will lead to consist
Speaker 2: high quality shots. Right. So the last piece of this
Speaker 2: is creating space. If you can create space that allows
Speaker 2: you to maintain rim pressure. How can you create space
Speaker 2: two ways shooting and spacing the floor with ball and
Speaker 2: player movement. Right, start was shooting. The last three champions
Speaker 2: were all elite shooting teams Boston elite shooters at all
Speaker 2: eight rotation spots. That was how they generated spacing. Denver,
Speaker 2: it was kind of inverted, but because Aaron Gordon was
Speaker 2: running along the baseline and he's not a good spacer.
Speaker 2: But because Jokic could operate away from the basket, that
Speaker 2: created a spot for Aaron Gordon to operate along the baseline.
Speaker 2: And then all four other starting spots were elite shooters
Speaker 2: when they won the title. Jokic was an elite shooter,
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray was an elite shooter. Michael Porter Junior was
Speaker 2: an elite shooter. Kentavious Callwell Pope was an elite shooter,
Speaker 2: so like they had elite shooting at the other four
Speaker 2: spots and a perfect spot on the floor that was
Speaker 2: vacant for Aaron Gordon to operate. That was where they
Speaker 2: generated their spacing Golden State. Kevon Looney and Raymond Green
Speaker 2: were dribble handoff guys, so like they didn't need to shoot.
Speaker 2: They were primarily operating as fulcrums in the offense. But
Speaker 2: every other player could shoot. They shot thirty eight percent
Speaker 2: from three as a team in that playoff run. Lots
Speaker 2: of guys for them stepped up and knocked down shots,
Speaker 2: and so the ability to shoot the basketball is a
Speaker 2: prerequisite nowadays. The last three champions were all really good
Speaker 2: shooting teams. The second piece of it spacing the floor
Speaker 2: with ball in player movement. So this was the rub
Speaker 2: on Dallas, right. They ran the occasional action, but for
Speaker 2: the most part it was a brute force. Here's a
Speaker 2: guard screen at the start of the possession to get
Speaker 2: a switch for Luca. Now we're going to run a
Speaker 2: ball screen. They did some things like they clear the side. Occasionally,
Speaker 2: they'd occasionally run a stack pick and roll or a
Speaker 2: double drag or something like that. They ran occasional action.
Speaker 2: But for the most part, it was very heliocentric, very
Speaker 2: brute force, very methodical, very predictable. Right, and they they
Speaker 2: made themselves easy to guard in Boston shut them down.
Speaker 2: The last three teams to win the title were all
Speaker 2: teams that either had excellent ball or player movement. How
Speaker 2: did Boston win ball movement? Right? Beating someone off the dribble,
Speaker 2: trusting the pass, the ball's popping around, this guy's driving,
Speaker 2: that guy's driving, this guy's driving, that guy's driving. We're
Speaker 2: getting a great shot out of it. Right. How did
Speaker 2: Denver win awesome player movement? Right? They're a quintessential five
Speaker 2: out offense. How did Golden State win awesome player movement?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: They're a quintessential five out offense. They had to rely
Speaker 2: on some pick and roll against Boston's drop coverage in
Speaker 2: the NBA Finals, but they also ran a lot of
Speaker 2: their five out motion over the course of that series,
Speaker 2: so they generated space with ball and player movement. You
Speaker 2: have to be able to shoot. You have to keep
Speaker 2: defenses guessing with the ball in players moving around as
Speaker 2: much as possible. Number four offensive organization matters. This is
Speaker 2: something that I was late to the party on and
Speaker 2: It's something that I had a little bit too close
Speaker 2: mind of an opinion on before the last couple of seasons,
Speaker 2: and something that just covering the NBA very closely helped
Speaker 2: me learn. I used to be Those of you guys
Speaker 2: who have listened to the show for a while will
Speaker 2: remember this. I used to believe. I used to be
Speaker 2: a believer in brute force offense. And part of that
Speaker 2: is because I grew up watching Lebron James, the one
Speaker 2: guy in NBA history who's been able to like dominate
Speaker 2: games in a very heliocentric type of manner. Although I
Speaker 2: think it's overstated how heliocentric he was compared to some
Speaker 2: of the guys that do it now. But Lebron was
Speaker 2: a guy who could slowly dribble the ball off the
Speaker 2: floor and call for a ball screen and it just
Speaker 2: somehow was resilient through four rounds of the playoffs consistently right,
Speaker 2: Like it worked for him in a way. But I mean, like,
Speaker 2: Lebron is probably the most gifted athlete to ever play
Speaker 2: in the NBA, if not the most gifted athlete to
Speaker 2: ever play a sport, so like he's the accept that
Speaker 2: proves the rule right, But like when it comes to
Speaker 2: brute force offense. It worked in NBA history with overly
Speaker 2: dominant physical presences, right, But for the most part, in
Speaker 2: order to be a functional offense through multiple rounds, through
Speaker 2: multiple matchups, with real resiliency, you do have to be
Speaker 2: more complicated in your offensive approach. This is something again
Speaker 2: I was late to the party, but to me, the
Speaker 2: Dallas series just hammered it home Luca in terms of
Speaker 2: the heliocentric guy, no one's doing it better than Luca
Speaker 2: right now, and strictly on the offensive end, he was
Speaker 2: doing it at a level pretty close to what prime
Speaker 2: Lebron did, right, Like, that's how good Luca was. And
Speaker 2: Boston shut their offense down. Guys, it wasn't they were
Speaker 2: down a little bit. They were down like twenty percent
Speaker 2: from where they were in the regular season. Their offense
Speaker 2: completely cratered against Boston because they were too rudimentary. There
Speaker 2: wasn't enough complication in their approach. They made themselves easy
Speaker 2: to guard. And even the guy that might be the
Speaker 2: best player in the world, I think he's probably closer
Speaker 2: to second. But a guy who's a bona fide top
Speaker 2: tier superstar was rendered relatively ineffective regardless of what his
Speaker 2: box score numbers were, their offense didn't function, and that,
Speaker 2: to me was like the final nail in the coffin
Speaker 2: for that archaic belief that I had. I think you
Speaker 2: need to have legitimate ball in player movement to win
Speaker 2: in the modern NBA. And so I broke this down
Speaker 2: into four parts, I should say, three parts with an
Speaker 2: overarching take. First of all, you gotta run action to
Speaker 2: start possessions, Like at the very least, you need to
Speaker 2: be diligent when you get the ball up the floor
Speaker 2: in the early phase of the clock to run something
Speaker 2: that is more complex than just a ball screen with
Speaker 2: a space floor. To me, what I'm looking at here
Speaker 2: for the most part is things like three man action.
Speaker 2: So let's just take horn sets for example. If you
Speaker 2: at least start the possession with three guys involved, a
Speaker 2: ball handler and two additional screeners, and maybe it's a
Speaker 2: screen the screener, maybe it's a double drag, maybe it's
Speaker 2: just something complicated at the start of the possession, it
Speaker 2: will make it harder for the base defense to run
Speaker 2: their base defensive scheme. Right, They're going to get into
Speaker 2: some confusing situations because there's three people involved. In that
Speaker 2: initial action rather than two. And like again, there are
Speaker 2: going to be possessions where you run two man game
Speaker 2: early in sets. Right, if you push in transition and
Speaker 2: the transition defense gets back and you swing it back
Speaker 2: out to the perimeter and you flow into a ball screen.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that you're not going to have possessions
Speaker 2: like that that are in the flow. Of course you are.
Speaker 2: But I think every NBA team should be striving to
Speaker 2: have a higher percentage of their offense, a higher percentage
Speaker 2: of their possessions that begin with something more complicated, just
Speaker 2: something simple like like think of, for example, like Horn's chest,
Speaker 2: the play that the Lakers used to run for Lebron
Speaker 2: to or still run for Lebron to get a jump shot. Right,
Speaker 2: So Anthony Davis, just imagine I'm the ball handler. I'm
Speaker 2: standing at the top of the key, extended out close
Speaker 2: to half court. Right, I've got Anthony Davis on the
Speaker 2: left elbow extended up to up to three point line,
Speaker 2: and I have Lebron at the right elbow extended up
Speaker 2: to the three point line. I dribble off of Lebron
Speaker 2: on a ball screen, and then Lebron comes off of
Speaker 2: a d and a flare screen, you skip the ball
Speaker 2: to Lebron over there. From there, if he's not open,
Speaker 2: Lebron can catch and flow into a dribble hand off
Speaker 2: with the guy coming out of the corner. And now
Speaker 2: we can run five out motion right. But at the
Speaker 2: very least at the start of the possession, we're gonna
Speaker 2: make them defend something complicated, right, And the idea is,
Speaker 2: let's say that's Austin Reeves that's on the ball. If
Speaker 2: Austin Reeves comes off of Lebron at that right elbow,
Speaker 2: if Lebron's man shows at all, then Lebron already has
Speaker 2: separation as he comes off that second screen. If Lebron's
Speaker 2: man doesn't show, and Lebron sets a good screen, Austin
Speaker 2: Reeves is going downhill in the basket. He has to show, right.
Speaker 2: But once he shows, now as Lebron comes off the
Speaker 2: screen from Ad, now AD's man has to show. If
Speaker 2: he doesn't, then Lebron gets a wide open catch and
Speaker 2: shoot three. And he got a lot of wide open
Speaker 2: catch and shoot threes out of that set this year.
Speaker 2: Is a big part of They ran it a lot
Speaker 2: because Lebron was shooting catching shoot three, so well, right,
Speaker 2: So if Lebron's man doesn't show, Austin's going to the rim.
Speaker 2: If he does when Lebron comes off Ad, now AD's
Speaker 2: man has to make a decision. If AD's man shows
Speaker 2: and Austin's man is chasing him and Lebron's man showed
Speaker 2: on Austin, now AD's wide open on the roll. Right,
Speaker 2: it gets much more complicated even from the standpoint of switching.
Speaker 2: There are ways that that gets complicated. Okay, Austin's man
Speaker 2: switches on to Lebron on Lebron's man switches on to Austin.
Speaker 2: Then AD's man switches on to Lebron. Blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: That gets complicated. And now that opens things up for switches,
Speaker 2: bot switches slips, Like what if Lebron ran like he
Speaker 2: was gonna go off AD and then just suddenly cut
Speaker 2: down to the basket. They fuck up the switch. Now
Speaker 2: he's wide open on the slip like that sort of
Speaker 2: three man action is just so much harder to guard
Speaker 2: than a two man action. A two man action, it's like,
Speaker 2: are we switching cool? Are we icing cool? Are we
Speaker 2: in drop? Are we in deep drop? Or am I blitzing?
Speaker 2: Am I hedging, whatever it is. It's just so much
Speaker 2: easier to manage in a two man get in a
Speaker 2: two man game than it is in a three man game.
Speaker 2: If you just run up the floor and run stack,
Speaker 2: pick and roll, meaning like you set up a ball screen,
Speaker 2: but you have as Lebron's coming off of Ad, you
Speaker 2: have Austin backscreen for AD's man. It's the same sort
Speaker 2: of thing. There's if Austin's man shows to stop Ad
Speaker 2: on the roll, then Austin's gonna be wide open for
Speaker 2: three at the top of the key, right. If he doesn't,
Speaker 2: then AD's gonna be wide open on the lot or
Speaker 2: Lebron's gonna be able to go all the way to
Speaker 2: the rim for layup because Austin just backscreened their rim protector. Right.
Speaker 2: Like those are again, I'm not sitting here acting like
Speaker 2: they're the magic elixer. Like if you run three man action,
Speaker 2: you're just gonna get a wide open look every single time.
Speaker 2: It just makes it harder. It makes it easier for
Speaker 2: you as the offense to get the defense in rotation. Again,
Speaker 2: if Lebron, let's imagine the horns chest set like I
Speaker 2: just described, which again is just Austin dribbles off Lebron.
Speaker 2: Lebron comes off of flare from Ad at the top
Speaker 2: of the key. If Lebron catches there on the wing
Speaker 2: and he's not wide open, chances are the defenders closing
Speaker 2: out at him. If he's closing out at him, Lebron
Speaker 2: can flow into a dribble handoff. And now that next
Speaker 2: action gets complicated because Lebron's defender is out of position.
Speaker 2: All it is is like think of it as like
Speaker 2: trying to crack the defense the defenses, right, you crack
Speaker 2: it at first, so it breaks on the next action.
Speaker 2: And those are the phases, right, There's all these phases
Speaker 2: to offense. Right, there's the push and transition. Right. Then
Speaker 2: there's early offense, which is like semi transition. So if
Speaker 2: like you push in transition and you don't get a dunk,
Speaker 2: usually teams will have basic transition principles for early offense. Right,
Speaker 2: Like early things, you run in the first few seconds
Speaker 2: of the clock. Right, In the event that that doesn't work,
Speaker 2: you either run into five out flow or you go
Speaker 2: run a set right, depending on how much time is
Speaker 2: left on the clock. Right, but let's say a guy
Speaker 2: makes a free throw. Guy makes a free throw. You're
Speaker 2: walking up the floor. The first step is run an action.
Speaker 2: Run that three man action somewhere some sort of set
Speaker 2: to at least crack the defense. Then you go into
Speaker 2: your five out flow. Five out flow is just playing
Speaker 2: basketball off of whatever the initial advantage is. So, for instance,
Speaker 2: if Lebron in Horn's chest catches on the left wing
Speaker 2: and he dribbles into a dribble hand off with let's
Speaker 2: call it Ruey Hatchramura coming out of the left corner,
Speaker 2: there would be a second guard, so let's call it
Speaker 2: D'Angelo Russell or hypothetical third guard or second guard that
Speaker 2: the Lakers trade for. Okay, so let's just say pretend
Speaker 2: it's to John Taymury. Okay, Lebron go flows into the
Speaker 2: dribble handoff, hands it to de Jonte Murray. As Dejontay
Speaker 2: Murray comes out, Anthony Davis is sliding over to set
Speaker 2: the second ball screen right, and it's just you're flowing
Speaker 2: in basic five out principles, which are basically just dribble
Speaker 2: handoffs and ball screens that flow into one another, and
Speaker 2: whoever's in that opposite corner, whoever catches the kickout pass.
Speaker 2: If he's not open for three. If he's not open
Speaker 2: to drive a close out, he can flow into another action.
Speaker 2: You run your initial set, and then you run five
Speaker 2: out motion until you get some sort of compromising of
Speaker 2: the defense, meaning they're actually in a straight up closeout situation.
Speaker 2: Then you play driving kick basketball. Right, there's a phase
Speaker 2: to it, and what I'm saying here is too many
Speaker 2: teams skip that first phase, which is running an action
Speaker 2: at the start of the possession, and when you skip that,
Speaker 2: you just make life harder for you. If I'm Lebron
Speaker 2: James and I'm just running a dribble handoff with de
Speaker 2: Jontay Murray out of the left corner in a set
Speaker 2: ded defense situation, it is very unlikely to end in
Speaker 2: something successful. But if I run that dribble handoff as
Speaker 2: it flows out of a three man action on the
Speaker 2: top of the key, it's much more likely that there'll
Speaker 2: be They'll just be more disheveled on that side of
Speaker 2: the floor, which will create opportunities to extend the advantage there.
Speaker 2: And then you just keep running it until you get
Speaker 2: a close out, and from there you play drive and kick.
Speaker 2: It's just it's to me, it's really this symbol. It's
Speaker 2: about being resilient to defensive adjustments. If you run brute force,
Speaker 2: slow down, spread, spread, pick and roll, spread, post up,
Speaker 2: whatever it is you're gonna do. If you run that stuff,
Speaker 2: a specific matchup like a defender who's good at guarding
Speaker 2: your star could cause problems an adjustment like switching matchups
Speaker 2: like okay, we're gonna have a forward guard your center.
Speaker 2: That can screw things up. But as soon as you
Speaker 2: turn your offense into a blender with lots of ball
Speaker 2: and player movement, it just makes you more resilient to
Speaker 2: those defense of adjustments. And so one of the biggest
Speaker 2: lessons that I've learned this year, and it's been a
Speaker 2: lesson that I've been slowly learning over the last few years,
Speaker 2: is like, it doesn't matter how good your star is,
Speaker 2: you need to run complicated, organized offense to try to
Speaker 2: make these defenses work harder. NBA defenses have I know,
Speaker 2: it's hard to imagine, just with the way scoring has
Speaker 2: gone over the last few years, but most of that
Speaker 2: has to do with three point shooting. NBA defenses are
Speaker 2: profoundly sophisticated. They're profoundly sophisticated, and they're profoundly athletic. Everyone's
Speaker 2: so fast, everyone can cover so much ground in rotation.
Speaker 2: The game plans are getting more and more complex in
Speaker 2: a good way, like they're figuring out how to slow
Speaker 2: down these modern offenses. You have to be one step
Speaker 2: ahead of them, and the only way you're going to
Speaker 2: be one step ahead of them is if you mess
Speaker 2: up their execution. It's one thing to have a game
Speaker 2: plan in place, it's another thing to actually do it.
Speaker 2: And it's easier to defend a two man action than
Speaker 2: a three man action. It's easy to defend a two
Speaker 2: man action against a set defense than a two man
Speaker 2: action when the defense is disheveled, and so everything is
Speaker 2: about making those diligent steps early in possessions to break
Speaker 2: down the defense and make things easier for you. Lastly,
Speaker 2: number five defensive versatility. It doesn't matter if you have
Speaker 2: a good base scheme if you can't handle a team
Speaker 2: that takes you out of your base scheme. So Dallas,
Speaker 2: they were a load up the strong side like pack
Speaker 2: the paint type of defense didn't matter against Boston when
Speaker 2: they could spread them out. Right. Minnesota was a drop
Speaker 2: coverage team with Rudy Gobert Right with excellent perimeter defenders,
Speaker 2: they wanted to stay home off the ball. That didn't
Speaker 2: work because of specific personnel issue is that they had
Speaker 2: involving Luka Doncic right, just being too big for them.
Speaker 2: Their Their defense didn't just fail against Dallas, it failed miserably, right,
Speaker 2: something silly like Miles Turner hitting pick and pop threes
Speaker 2: and the issues that presented for Milwaukee and for New
Speaker 2: York and even for Boston early in the series. Right,
Speaker 2: they ended up having to put Jason Tatum on him
Speaker 2: and and have Pascal Siakam be guarded by Al Horford. Right.
Speaker 2: So like, it's one thing for your defense to succeed
Speaker 2: against against a specific type of matchup or in your
Speaker 2: base scheme, but you need to be able to guard
Speaker 2: in different ways. What do you need to be able
Speaker 2: to guard in different ways? You need you need to
Speaker 2: have all five players on the floor be at least
Speaker 2: decent at guarding in space. This is where they're I
Speaker 2: want to draw attention to the difference between Luka Doncicic
Speaker 2: and Steph Curry. Steph Curry is a weaker defender, right.
Speaker 2: He is just a little bit small, right, and he's
Speaker 2: he's bigger than people think, but he's he's a little
Speaker 2: bit small, right, and teams are gonna target them. That's
Speaker 2: just smart. Often going after Luca is in a sign
Speaker 2: of disrespect. It's just being smart. If you're not, if
Speaker 2: you don't get extra points for attacking the other team's
Speaker 2: best defender, you need to find the weak link and
Speaker 2: attack it for the sake of your offense. Right. But
Speaker 2: from there, there's a baseline level of competence you need
Speaker 2: in order for the team to still function defensively around you.
Speaker 2: Steph Curry understood. If I do my job, if I
Speaker 2: hedge and recover, I can protect myself from switches when
Speaker 2: I get in switches. If I just slide my feet
Speaker 2: and contain and force into tough contested jump shots, maybe
Speaker 2: they go in, but at least it's lower percentage. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: Steph has lost some of those battles. Lonnie Walker hitting
Speaker 2: jumpers in his face in the twenty twenty three season, right,
Speaker 2: that was a big swing factor in Game four, Kyrie
Speaker 2: Irving hitting the step back jumper over Steph in the
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen finals. He's lost some of those battles, but
Speaker 2: statistically speaking, if Steph can at least force them into
Speaker 2: a tough pull up jump shot. He's done his job.
Speaker 2: Where Luca became a problem was he was straight up
Speaker 2: completely incapable of doing anything against Boston spread out defense.
Speaker 2: He's getting toasted off the dribble like literally no resistance,
Speaker 2: just getting beat in rotation, was constantly lost in getting
Speaker 2: caught in no man's land where he's not contesting shots
Speaker 2: or running to the next guy on the defensive glass.
Speaker 2: Part of this was fatigue, but he kept getting beat
Speaker 2: to loose balls like he was so bad on defense
Speaker 2: that it became the way that Boston blew the series open.
Speaker 2: Those runs, those big defensive runs that I talked about,
Speaker 2: many of them involved Luka Doncic. There were two runs
Speaker 2: that I specifically mentioned. I think it was Game five
Speaker 2: in Game two where they were runs that spanned the
Speaker 2: half where Boston was straight up attacking Luca every single
Speaker 2: possession down the floor. And so again, it's not about
Speaker 2: having five excellent perimeter defenders. You have to have it
Speaker 2: five that are at least decent at guarding in space
Speaker 2: so that you can construct a team defense around them.
Speaker 2: That is what I'm hoping for from Luca next year,
Speaker 2: just another level of competency when it comes to guarding
Speaker 2: in space. I know he can be a weak side defender.
Speaker 2: I know that he can make plays when they've loaded
Speaker 2: up kind of off the ball, when he's focusing more
Speaker 2: on defensive playmaking. But that's not what it's going to
Speaker 2: be like when you have to win four rounds. When
Speaker 2: you have to win four rounds, you're going to face
Speaker 2: at least one, if not multiple teams that can truly
Speaker 2: space you out and force you to guard in open ground.
Speaker 2: And it's just harder that way. Right, ground coverage in rotation.
Speaker 2: This was a big piece that Sam Bessini was talking
Speaker 2: about when we did the pod during the finals and
Speaker 2: we talked about the different things that we have learned
Speaker 2: from this postseason run, and this is something I think
Speaker 2: he's right on about. When you get in rotation, your
Speaker 2: ability to make those shots tougher matters. That's where your
Speaker 2: overall foot speed in length matters. This is something where
Speaker 2: Boston was great. I'll give you guys an example. Do
Speaker 2: you remember in the Pacers series, I did a film
Speaker 2: session where I showed up play where Jalen Brown was
Speaker 2: guarding Aaron Nesmith on the right wing and he dug
Speaker 2: way down into the lane down almost to the nail
Speaker 2: and help. And when he was down there, the Pacers
Speaker 2: threw a swing pass to aaron Ne Smith on the
Speaker 2: right wing where Jalen Brown was like on the ball,
Speaker 2: and he recovered out and blocked aaron NEI Smith and
Speaker 2: then saved the ball off of aaron Ei Smith's slag
Speaker 2: out of bounds. That's ground coverage. That's being two places
Speaker 2: at once, having a low man that can contest pick
Speaker 2: and roll at the rim while also contesting the weak
Speaker 2: side corner on the skip pass. That's what Giannis used
Speaker 2: to do for the Milwaukee Bucks defense when they were
Speaker 2: at their best a couple years ago. These are all
Speaker 2: elements of ground coverage. The overall foot speed and length
Speaker 2: of your team will give you more defensive resilience when
Speaker 2: you end up in trouble. It also helps you with
Speaker 2: defensive rebounding, which is a vital part of defense. Four.
Speaker 2: The big, strong, athletic forward continues to be the most
Speaker 2: valuable defense archetype. This was Jason Tatum this year for
Speaker 2: the Boston Celtics. This was Aaron Gordon last year for
Speaker 2: the This is Aaron Gordon last year for the Denver Nuggets.
Speaker 2: I even think Andrew Wiggins kind of fell into this
Speaker 2: role a little bit with the Warriors, although with them
Speaker 2: they've just Draymond Green does a lot of this as well,
Speaker 2: and we saw dre On Green switch out and guard
Speaker 2: Jaylen Brown for parts of the early portion of the
Speaker 2: NBA Finals, right, But having that big, strong, athletic forward
Speaker 2: is just a must. And I'm not talking about the
Speaker 2: perimeter three. I'm not talking about like the Jada McDaniel's archetype.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the big forard. This is Lebron James,
Speaker 2: This is Ruya Chamura, this is Aaron Gordon, this is
Speaker 2: Jason Tatum. These are guys like six ' nine or taller,
Speaker 2: and like with real bulk to them, those are very
Speaker 2: extremely valuable. One, they can guard centers, allowing for your
Speaker 2: rim protector to then focus on a poor shooting wing.
Speaker 2: This was something we saw in the Boston series that
Speaker 2: I think we're going to see a ton of over
Speaker 2: the course of the next few years in the NBA.
Speaker 2: You're going to see teams put their big forward on
Speaker 2: limited off defensive centers that are rim runners, and then
Speaker 2: rim protectors will be put on guys that struggle to
Speaker 2: shoot above the break. Threes because from there they can
Speaker 2: row them off and present all sorts of issues locking
Speaker 2: down the paint. Right. That's a specific matchup strategy that
Speaker 2: you can only employ if you have a forward who's
Speaker 2: big enough to guard a center. They're vitally important on
Speaker 2: the defensive glass. These are the guys when the big
Speaker 2: guy is to be pulled out to the level of
Speaker 2: the screen and there's a pull up jump shot. He's
Speaker 2: the one big body on the back line who can
Speaker 2: high point the basketball. So they're vitally important there, and
Speaker 2: they are most well equipped to guard the best players
Speaker 2: in the league. If I was listing the best players
Speaker 2: in the league after Jokic, it's a bunch of big forwards.
Speaker 2: It's Luca, it's Giannis, it's Tatum, it's Anthony Davis, it's
Speaker 2: Lebron James, it's Kawhi Leonard. It's gonna be Palo Bancaro
Speaker 2: here in a couple of years. Like the best players
Speaker 2: are big forwards, and so you need a big forward
Speaker 2: that can guard the other team's big forward, otherwise they're
Speaker 2: going to bully you. This is a position because Karl
Speaker 2: Anthony Towns is basically a center. This is the position
Speaker 2: where Minnesota struggled. They did not have a big forward
Speaker 2: that was good enough offensively. Kyle Anderson did a decent job,
Speaker 2: but he has his offensive issues. They didn't have a
Speaker 2: forward it was big enough to guard Luca but also
Speaker 2: be a plus offensive player. It's a personnel weakness for them.
Speaker 2: But again, that specific archetype is vitally important. So all
Speaker 2: of this amounts to one thing. You need to have
Speaker 2: multiple effective half court defensive looks. You need a quality
Speaker 2: drop coverage look, preferably with a big forward that can
Speaker 2: guard on the perimeter and a rim protector so that
Speaker 2: you can tinker with matchups like we just talked about,
Speaker 2: like Boston did to Dallas. It allows you to deal
Speaker 2: with pick and roll without getting into rotation. So this
Speaker 2: is your defending ball screens two on two look. You
Speaker 2: have to have this look, just a basic drop coverage look.
Speaker 2: Imagine what Minnesota does a lot with Rudy Gobert, or
Speaker 2: they try to stay home off the ball defend the
Speaker 2: action two on two. You need an aggressive look look.
Speaker 2: This is like a high drop or a blitz something
Speaker 2: where you bring your rim protector out to the ball
Speaker 2: screen and you have to tag on the weak side
Speaker 2: This is defending ball screens three on two, you have
Speaker 2: to have this look. This requires rotation. This means as
Speaker 2: you're aggressive on the ball to get the ball out
Speaker 2: of Luca's hands or whoever the primary ball handler is.
Speaker 2: When the ball does get moved, you have to be
Speaker 2: able to quickly spread out and react in rotation. So
Speaker 2: you need a deep drop. You need an aggressive look.
Speaker 2: You need a switching look. Switching is what allows you
Speaker 2: to shut off pick and roll and to stagnate the component. Right.
Speaker 2: Some teams will look to matchup hunt in those situations.
Speaker 2: That's where you need the five guys on the perimeter
Speaker 2: that can at least do a competent job guarding in space. Right.
Speaker 2: So in order to have a switching look, you need
Speaker 2: to have those that like kind of aggregate perimeter defense
Speaker 2: right to go through them all. To have a drop
Speaker 2: coverage look, you need a rim protector that can really
Speaker 2: protect the rim.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: To have an aggressive look, you need a big four
Speaker 2: that can help on the backside as your rim protector's
Speaker 2: pulled out to the perimeter. In order to have a
Speaker 2: switching look, you can't have weak links on the defensive
Speaker 2: end of the floor. Right. So like those looks all
Speaker 2: require certain types of personnel. I think you need a
Speaker 2: zone look. This is a rhythm disruptor. It's something that
Speaker 2: you just throw into the game to just kind of
Speaker 2: jank things up when you need to change the speed
Speaker 2: teams on a run, they're on a twelve zero run.
Speaker 2: You throw a zone look. It might get a by
Speaker 2: you two or three possessions before they figure it out,
Speaker 2: where you get some quality defensive stops and you can
Speaker 2: run out the other way. And again, if you understand
Speaker 2: that you need to be four quality opponents in increasing
Speaker 2: levels of difficulty, you're gonna need these types of looks. Right, So,
Speaker 2: insummation before we get out of here for the day,
Speaker 2: what will next year's champion look like? From what we learned,
Speaker 2: they'll most likely be in the top four of the standings.
Speaker 2: They'll most likely be led by a bona fide top
Speaker 2: tier superstar. Again, Boston was the exception, and I continue
Speaker 2: that exception in the next pending personnel moves. We don't
Speaker 2: know what's gonna happen over the next couple of weeks,
Speaker 2: but Boston as of right now is my favorite to
Speaker 2: win next year. As for my optimism surrounding Denver, It
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with oh, Boston won the trophy
Speaker 2: this year. It's a basketball thing for me watching Boston
Speaker 2: pick Dallas apart in space. I know Denver won the
Speaker 2: two regular season matchups, but they were close. I worry
Speaker 2: about Denver's ability to guard in space as well. I
Speaker 2: lean slightly towards Boston now in that matchup, in a
Speaker 2: way where I lean slightly towards Denver before watching this
Speaker 2: playoff run. So again, I'm not just trying to default
Speaker 2: to the champion. It's a basketball thing. Boston showed me
Speaker 2: something with the way that they punished Dallas, and I
Speaker 2: think that they would cause similar problems for Denver in
Speaker 2: a series. It'd be much closer. I think that'd be
Speaker 2: a six or seven game series, and I would not
Speaker 2: be surprised if Denver won. But like Boston is my
Speaker 2: favorite for next year as of right now. Pending personnel
Speaker 2: moves right and we haven't even talked about Cruso yet.
Speaker 2: We'll hit that at a later date. But NBA history
Speaker 2: tells us Yo Kitchen twenty twenty three, Steph in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two, Johannis in twenty twenty one, Lebron in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty Kawhi and twenty nineteen, Katie and Steph twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: KT and Steph twenty seventeen. You have Lebron in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: you have Steph in twenty fifteen. Like, generally speaking, you
Speaker 2: need a top tier star to win the title. Boston
Speaker 2: is the one exception because they have five thirty million
Speaker 2: dollar players. That's the one thing that makes them different
Speaker 2: in this regard. But NBA history, what we've learned tells
Speaker 2: us top four in the standings most likely led by
Speaker 2: a bona fide top tier superstar. Excellent spacing by virtue
Speaker 2: of shooting and ball and player movement. The last three champs, Boston, Denver,
Speaker 2: and Golden State were all great spacing teams by virtue
Speaker 2: of shooting and ball and player movement. You need to
Speaker 2: have multiple elite defensive looks, and you need to have
Speaker 2: matchup versatility, which to me means fewer weaknesses. The more
Speaker 2: weaknesses you have, the more likely you are to run
Speaker 2: into a team that can exploit those weaknesses and beat you.
Speaker 2: So that's again we've gone for fifty three minutes at
Speaker 2: this point. That to me is just like a really
Speaker 2: like I know, that was kind of like an overwhelming
Speaker 2: amount of information. But that to me was like kind
Speaker 2: of my synopsis of this postseason run in what I've learned,
Speaker 2: Like that, those are the kinds of things that I'm
Speaker 2: going to try to refer back to as we're looking
Speaker 2: through a team's next season. If I see a team
Speaker 2: that is intriguing, but they can't win enough games in
Speaker 2: the regular season to be in the top four, chances
Speaker 2: are they're not winning the title. Right. If we see
Speaker 2: a team that looks really good in their base scheme,
Speaker 2: but when they get teams that take them out of
Speaker 2: their base scheme, they struggle, that's something that probably will
Speaker 2: get them beat when they get to the postseason. Huge weaknesses,
Speaker 2: that's probably a thing that will get you beat when
Speaker 2: you get into the postseason, right, So like, let's just
Speaker 2: try to kind of keep these things in mind as
Speaker 2: we get into next season. All right, guys, That is
Speaker 2: all I have for today is always as sincerely appreciate
Speaker 2: you guys for supporting the show. We are going to
Speaker 2: be back on Thursday mornings break down the rest rounded
Speaker 2: the NBA Draft and any trades that took place. I'll
Speaker 2: see you guys then the volume
Speaker 1: M HM