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Speaker 1: welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel here at the volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Tuesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are
Speaker 1: having a good start to your week. Today is Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Nets Day. As I said last night, we're gonna start
Speaker 1: now that we're in this point of the season where
Speaker 1: we kind of know a lot more about the teams
Speaker 1: that we're covering, We're really gonna hone in on the
Speaker 1: top ten fifteen or so teams in the league and
Speaker 1: focus on the winners. Um. The Brooklyn Nets had been
Speaker 1: winning a lot of games lately, but we're desperate for
Speaker 1: some signature wins, some wins that add legitimacy to their
Speaker 1: dominance over the bottom of the league. And they got
Speaker 1: two of them back to back, dominating the Milwaukee Bucks
Speaker 1: at home and then last night going into Cleveland against
Speaker 1: the Calves basically at full strength and man handling them
Speaker 1: in their own building. So today we're just gonna be
Speaker 1: diving into everything that has made the Brooklyn Nets successful
Speaker 1: over the course of the last couple of months. You
Speaker 1: guys know the Joe before we get started. Subscribe to
Speaker 1: the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more
Speaker 1: of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason Lts.
Speaker 1: You guys don't miss any show announcements, and the last
Speaker 1: but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one
Speaker 1: of these videos and you can't get back over to
Speaker 1: YouTube to finish. Remember you can find them wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Under hoops tonight, So they beat the
Speaker 1: Calves last night, seventeen wasn't even really that close. Um.
Speaker 1: Every time that Cleveland made a run to get it close,
Speaker 1: the Nets would just smash them again to build a
Speaker 1: lead back up. At one point they got it late
Speaker 1: second quarter, they got it back to like forty six
Speaker 1: to forty five, and then the Nets immediately went on
Speaker 1: an eighteen o eighteen to two run, making it look
Speaker 1: easy to kind of put the game away. At that point,
Speaker 1: Katie and Kyrie again leading the way sixty four points
Speaker 1: on thirty seven shots with tennisis Katie really has it
Speaker 1: going from three now. He started the year thirty two
Speaker 1: percent from three over his first twenty games, He's forty
Speaker 1: five percent on five attempts per games in his last
Speaker 1: in his last thirteen games in fifty two percent in
Speaker 1: his last six games. Kyrie is also shooting the laces
Speaker 1: off scent from three on nine attempts in his last
Speaker 1: six games. But after last night, and really after this
Speaker 1: last couple of months of basketball, you can really see
Speaker 1: an identity starting to round out for the Brooklyn Nets.
Speaker 1: I always talked about a basketball identity or basketball character
Speaker 1: because to me, that's what you lean in lean on
Speaker 1: in a night night and night out. Basis, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of teams out there that don't know who
Speaker 1: they are, and they're kind of just throwing stuff at
Speaker 1: the wall to see what sticks, you know, especially especially
Speaker 1: towards the bottom of the lead. They're trying small lineups,
Speaker 1: so trying big lineups, so trying pairings that work, pairents
Speaker 1: that don't. Sometimes they run, sometimes they don't, sometimes they defend,
Speaker 1: sometimes they don't. There's an inconsistency in their basketball character
Speaker 1: and that kind of fundamentally becomes who they are. They're
Speaker 1: a team that doesn't know who they are, and the
Speaker 1: teams that do know who they are, they come out
Speaker 1: and they play the same way every single night. They
Speaker 1: have a pretty consistent rotation and the results tend to follow.
Speaker 1: And and it's because they've they've seen results that come
Speaker 1: from the way that they play, and so they're bodying
Speaker 1: and they believe in what they're doing. Uh. The Nets
Speaker 1: have now one thirteen out of fourteen games. And we're
Speaker 1: gonna do just like we did. Um, we're gonna do
Speaker 1: just like we did with all the other teams that
Speaker 1: we did these zoom in videos on. We're gonna focus
Speaker 1: on the defensive end and then the offensive end on
Speaker 1: the floor. Um, we're gonna start with defense with the
Speaker 1: Net cell. On the defensive end, they do a ton
Speaker 1: of switching. Uh. They do occasionally run drop coverage with
Speaker 1: guys like Nick Claxton, but even then Nick Nick does
Speaker 1: a lot of switching, and he's defended really well both
Speaker 1: at the rim and rim protection situations and out on switches.
Speaker 1: Nick Clackston in general has been awesome all year. Um. Uh,
Speaker 1: just finding ways to impact winning on both ends of
Speaker 1: the form. We just talked about the defensive end, but
Speaker 1: even on the offensive end, he's such a good vertical spacer.
Speaker 1: Um has good timing and when to cut along the
Speaker 1: baseline for lab passes. And he's also one of the
Speaker 1: better offensive rebound put back guys in the league. Gets
Speaker 1: a lot of extra points just working getting garbage baskets
Speaker 1: around the rim, and Um one of the best offensive rebounders.
Speaker 1: I think he's right around two and a half per
Speaker 1: game in offensive rebounds. UH third in the league in
Speaker 1: blocks as well. Just you know, one of the themes
Speaker 1: that today's show is going to be about how great
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are, and we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: a lot about Katie and Kyrie here in a little bit,
Speaker 1: but it's also a supporting cast that has really rounded
Speaker 1: out into one that is helping them in a very
Speaker 1: complimentary way on both ends of the floor. The the UH,
Speaker 1: the nets and their aggressive switching kind of leads to
Speaker 1: a given a take because they tend to disrupt offensive
Speaker 1: flow by switching a lot of actions that kind of
Speaker 1: shuts off a lot of the actions that team teams
Speaker 1: run because they're getting ahead of it with switching. But
Speaker 1: they're also aggressive at the basketball and during this four
Speaker 1: teen game stretch, they've been forcing a lot of turnovers
Speaker 1: and getting out in transition. As a result, they've been
Speaker 1: top ten in turnovers forced during this span and second
Speaker 1: in fast break points scored over this fourteen UM game stretch.
Speaker 1: That is, obviously I always talked about with offensive ratings.
Speaker 1: You know, you're always trying to find ways to supplement that.
Speaker 1: So Nick Claxton getting garbage buckets in, putting them in,
Speaker 1: that's supplementary. You know, getting out in transition, that's supplementary. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the high level shot making to rescue possessions and in
Speaker 1: late clock situations from Katie and Kyrie, that's all supplementary.
Speaker 1: And during this Hunter Uh, during this fourteen game stretch,
Speaker 1: they have an offensive rating of one twenty, which has
Speaker 1: been best in the league. Obviously, UM, there's a given
Speaker 1: a take to switching on defense, especially when you're as
Speaker 1: thin as the nets are, they do give up a
Speaker 1: lot of points in the paint. They've been struggling to
Speaker 1: defend the paint during the streak. I think their twentie
Speaker 1: and opponents points point opponent points in the ain't allowed
Speaker 1: per one possessions, but they they've been making up for
Speaker 1: it by defending the three point line really well. They're
Speaker 1: allowing fewer threes than most of the teams in the league,
Speaker 1: and then, like I said, forcing a lot of turnovers.
Speaker 1: All of that's amounted to them being eleventh in defensive
Speaker 1: rating over this thirteen and one stretch, which is fine.
Speaker 1: Like again, when I, like I talked about with the
Speaker 1: Nuggets last night, when you're scoring as effectively as these
Speaker 1: teams are, you don't necessarily need to be what Brookly
Speaker 1: what Milwaukee was defensively, or what um, you know what
Speaker 1: the Lakers were defensively. You don't have to be that
Speaker 1: if you're this good on the offensive end of the floor.
Speaker 1: On the offensive end of the floor, it's a steady
Speaker 1: diet of ISOs, pick and rolls and post ups for
Speaker 1: Katie and Kyrie. Um. But the we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: Katie and Kyrie a little bit because the two of
Speaker 1: them have been so unbelievably off the charts good with
Speaker 1: their shot creation. But I want to start with the
Speaker 1: role players for a second, because this is fundamentally what
Speaker 1: makes the Nets different than so many teams around the league.
Speaker 1: They have a lot of good basketball all players that
Speaker 1: can capitalize on the attention that Katie and Kyrie dropped. Um.
Speaker 1: You've heard me talk a lot about aggregate offensive skill.
Speaker 1: I've talked about this a lot with the New York Nicks,
Speaker 1: and I've talked about this a lot with the Toronto Raptors.
Speaker 1: Some of these teams that struggle with scoring in the
Speaker 1: half court. And you know, sometimes we especially with the
Speaker 1: analytics movement, we've become so focused on what does the
Speaker 1: guy shoot on catching shoot threes and you know, canny defend.
Speaker 1: We just you know, the three and D role player
Speaker 1: that we always talk about. Um. But the problem is,
Speaker 1: as the league has gotten quicker and better defensively, Um,
Speaker 1: there there's a lot more improvisation and spotting up. You know,
Speaker 1: I've referred to this as close out attacking, but really
Speaker 1: it's just that natural ability to turn a close out
Speaker 1: or rotation into a better shot or into a finish
Speaker 1: for yourself. Um. And I want to use t J.
Speaker 1: Warren as an example. So there was a play in
Speaker 1: this game against the Calves where Katie uh calls for
Speaker 1: a screen from t J. War and I believe Lamar
Speaker 1: Stevens was guarding the ball and Kevin Love was was
Speaker 1: the player guarding t J. Warren on this particular play,
Speaker 1: and so the Calves did what is called a hedge
Speaker 1: and recovery, which is typically you don't really see it
Speaker 1: too much in the NBA now, the way you used
Speaker 1: to ten years ago, you'd see hedge and recover all
Speaker 1: the time. Now it's primarily only with weaker defensive players
Speaker 1: that you want to not get switched onto a good score.
Speaker 1: So what they do is when the screen comes, they
Speaker 1: run out hard to hedge and stop the player from
Speaker 1: moving laterally across the screen. That forces them to take
Speaker 1: retreat dribbles out towards half court. Okay, that then buys
Speaker 1: you time to sprint back and recover to your man.
Speaker 1: So on this play, t J. Warren sets the screen,
Speaker 1: Kevin Love hedges out, Kevin Durant has to take the
Speaker 1: retreat dribbles. T J. Warren slips to the elbow and
Speaker 1: Katie hits him with the pass. On the slip, Donovan
Speaker 1: Mitchell comes out of the corner off of Royce O'Neill
Speaker 1: to help on t J. Warren. T J. Warren throws
Speaker 1: a pass fake towards Royce O'Neill. Donovan Mitchell stunts back
Speaker 1: to the three point line, then t J Warren takes
Speaker 1: a hard dribble down the middle of the floor, but
Speaker 1: Kevin Love is screaming back into the play to get
Speaker 1: in front of him. Kevin Love cuts him off going
Speaker 1: to the right, and t J. Warren just as a
Speaker 1: really nifty and quick between the leg dribble to the
Speaker 1: center of the floor, right at the semicircle, and rises
Speaker 1: up and knocks down a ten foot jump shot. That
Speaker 1: is an extremely high level basketball play. If you throw
Speaker 1: that to Lamar Stevens, for instance, for the calves, that's
Speaker 1: exact same sequence, a hedge out. Lamar Stevens slips. He's
Speaker 1: a good player, an NBA player, but he's not that
Speaker 1: high level offensive talent that t J. Warren is. He's
Speaker 1: not gonna see the floor and make that read quick
Speaker 1: enough to make that pass fake to get Donovan Mitchell
Speaker 1: to get off of him, and then the counter move
Speaker 1: to beat Kevin Love coming back towards the middle. In
Speaker 1: all likelihood, he ends up making some sort of mistake
Speaker 1: or struggles to convert that into something that is worth points.
Speaker 1: That's the difference between a D and three or three
Speaker 1: and D player in Lamar Stevens in a really well
Speaker 1: rounded basketball player and t J. Warren and how that
Speaker 1: allows you to squeeze out offensive points from attention that
Speaker 1: your stars gather. You know when when players struggle to
Speaker 1: capitalize on that, that gives them the ability to hedge
Speaker 1: and recover or hard trap without having to worry about
Speaker 1: giving up points on the back end. There's another play
Speaker 1: later in that first half, t J. Warren just because
Speaker 1: of a transition cross match guys. In transition, you just
Speaker 1: grab somebody. Defensive principles change in those situations. Darius Garland
Speaker 1: ends up on t J. Warren, Katie and Kyrie are
Speaker 1: out front. No reason to waste energy on a pick
Speaker 1: and roll, no reason to waste energy on an ice,
Speaker 1: So to try to draw multiple defenders, t J. Warren
Speaker 1: just raises his hand. They dumped the ball into him.
Speaker 1: On Darius Garland on the left block. He uh uses
Speaker 1: a pound dribble to get a little closer, spins back
Speaker 1: towards the baseline pump fakes. Darius Garland leaves his feet
Speaker 1: and t J. Warren, who's a gifted score, just elevates
Speaker 1: into Darius Garland's body, draws the contact and hits a
Speaker 1: little ten foot jump shot for the and one that
Speaker 1: is an example of matchup attack from the forward position
Speaker 1: that we talked about. That is another way to generate
Speaker 1: offense without having to fatigue your stars. That's the difference
Speaker 1: between a higher level offensive skilled player and their ability
Speaker 1: to to play alongside stars versus just the traditional three
Speaker 1: and D concept. And you know that scoring fluidity. We've
Speaker 1: talked about this a lot on that show. It's kind
Speaker 1: of just a natural feel. It's hard to explain. Like
Speaker 1: we've all any of you guys who've played basketball a
Speaker 1: great deal, whether it's in college or in high school,
Speaker 1: you've probably met guys that can shoot the ball well
Speaker 1: and can do ball handling drills well, but for some reason,
Speaker 1: they lack that like natural feel of when to dribble
Speaker 1: and when to shoot for the purposes of scoring the basketball.
Speaker 1: They're just a little too rigid, and when they get
Speaker 1: out into the improvisation of scoring, they struggle. There's such
Speaker 1: a natural instinct two good scores um that goes even
Speaker 1: beyond their actual tangible skill set when it comes to
Speaker 1: ball handling and shooting to create shots and t J.
Speaker 1: Warrent I think it's just a perfect encapsulation of that.
Speaker 1: That's why I wanted to spend some time there, but
Speaker 1: as we zoom out, the rest of the roster kind
Speaker 1: of fits that same mold Seth Curry, t J. Warren Royce,
Speaker 1: O'Neil ben Simmons. You don want to be All of
Speaker 1: these guys amount to an enormous amount of ball handling,
Speaker 1: shooting and passing that are surrounding two of the best
Speaker 1: shot creators in the world. Looking to get more out
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Speaker 1: partner of the NFL, and that aggregate offensive skill leads
Speaker 1: to absurdly effective half court offense with Katie and Kyrie
Speaker 1: on the floor. This year, the Nets are scoring a
Speaker 1: hundred and five points per one hundred half court possessions.
Speaker 1: To give you some perspective, Dallas has the best half
Speaker 1: court offense in the league. Get a hundred and four
Speaker 1: offensive ready, that's how effectively Brooklyn scores with Katie and
Speaker 1: Kyrie on the floor. Overall, regardless of line up, for
Speaker 1: the whole season, the Nets are third in half court offense.
Speaker 1: I wanted to quick touch on a couple of the guys,
Speaker 1: Royce O'Neil. He caught a cost a first round pick.
Speaker 1: With everything that was happening this summer, that was kind
Speaker 1: of just a throw and move that a lot of
Speaker 1: people were confused by. First round pick. Think about how
Speaker 1: many times fan bases around the league had been like,
Speaker 1: that guy's not worth the first, that guy is not
Speaker 1: worth the first. These you guys are worth two first
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. We've been dealing with that with
Speaker 1: the Laker fans for a while, right. It's this is
Speaker 1: such a great example of how draft picks and the
Speaker 1: value can't be looked at in the vacuum. Because Royce O'Neil,
Speaker 1: especially coming off of what he did with the Jazz,
Speaker 1: You're not sitting there thinking like, oh, he's worth a
Speaker 1: first round pick. That seems steep, right, But what you're
Speaker 1: seeing is in a small role with the Nets, alongside
Speaker 1: two superstars, he has been monumentally valuable to everything that
Speaker 1: Brooklyn does. First of all, he's an outstanding perimeter defender.
Speaker 1: He's super physical on the ball. He did a number
Speaker 1: on Donovan Mitchell last night from the start, made him
Speaker 1: feel super uncomfortable, was cutting off the rim from him.
Speaker 1: So Donovan Mitchell had to settle early in the game
Speaker 1: for a lot of really high difficulty pull up jump
Speaker 1: shots that he missed just about all of and it
Speaker 1: kind of set the tone for the rest of his night.
Speaker 1: He's also does little things, dirty work on the glass.
Speaker 1: He's crashes the glass well, the averages five rebounds of game.
Speaker 1: And then on the offensive end, he doesn't have that
Speaker 1: scoring fluidity that t. J. Warren has, but he shooting
Speaker 1: the damn laces off the basketball from three and he
Speaker 1: makes good close out reads. So it's not him trying
Speaker 1: to score when he's driving the ball to the basket,
Speaker 1: but he always makes that right kickout past to the
Speaker 1: next shooter, or the drop off pass to the dunker
Speaker 1: spot or things along those lines. It's been a very
Speaker 1: important piece of connective tissue for the Nets on the
Speaker 1: offensive end of the four cost the first round pick
Speaker 1: and a vacuum. Sounds crazy, but you put a guy
Speaker 1: that's got that particular skill set alongside Kevin freaking Durant
Speaker 1: and Kyrie Irving, he smashes that role out of the
Speaker 1: park and suddenly he's deeply impactful with a limited skill set.
Speaker 1: And that's why, like again, role players are so incredibly
Speaker 1: valuable in the modern NBA. With the way that defense
Speaker 1: has worked to try to take the ball out of
Speaker 1: your star's hands. You do want to be same type
Speaker 1: of thing. Not a super fluid score, but he makes
Speaker 1: good clothes out reads. He's a solid defender with tons
Speaker 1: of length, and he shoots the ship out of the basketball.
Speaker 1: Is shooting from three um on at a rate of
Speaker 1: six attempts per thirty six minutes. Uh Ben Simmons offensively,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a mixed bag, like he had a
Speaker 1: bunch of ugly misses around the room against Cleveland. But
Speaker 1: he's still he's probably the best transition passer. He's really
Speaker 1: good at just getting downhill and applying rim pressure and
Speaker 1: finding shooters. He's also been doing this thing lately where
Speaker 1: he throws these cross court bounced passes in transition that
Speaker 1: are absurdly high difficulty. They're covering like forty to fifty
Speaker 1: feet of court on the bounce while everyone is sprinting.
Speaker 1: He had one against the Calves I think the Royce
Speaker 1: O'Neil for three, and then he had another one against
Speaker 1: the Bucks the other night to Kyrie across the court.
Speaker 1: Super impressive stuff there. And then he's still capable of
Speaker 1: doing so much damage on the defensive end of the floor.
Speaker 1: Uh kind of dominated that game against the Calves, just
Speaker 1: getting deflections and steals and triggering those transition opportunities. But
Speaker 1: I do want to spend a great deal of time
Speaker 1: talking about Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, because at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, they are the two guys that
Speaker 1: make this whole thing work. So obviously, Katie's averaging thirty
Speaker 1: points per game, which is the third highest mark of
Speaker 1: his career, and he's shooting a career high sent in
Speaker 1: true shooting percentage. A lot of this is driven by
Speaker 1: his pull up shooting. He's shooting fifty five percent on
Speaker 1: pull up jumpers. There are eighty three players that have
Speaker 1: attempted at least one d pull up jump shots this year.
Speaker 1: Katie is in first place with no other player in
Speaker 1: the league is over and then Russell Westbrook is eighty
Speaker 1: two out of eighty three percent. If you ever covered
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook, he would understand why I had to slip
Speaker 1: that in there. Um, he's in a class by himself.
Speaker 1: To give you an idea, some other little perspective, Jayson Tatum,
Speaker 1: who's been unbelievably good this year, is shooting twenty one
Speaker 1: percent worse on pull up jumpers than Kevin Durant, shooting
Speaker 1: just thirty percent. Lebron James two percent worse, shooting just
Speaker 1: thirty three percent. So even again, like compared to what
Speaker 1: other pull because a lot of the other pull up
Speaker 1: shooters aroun the league that are good or guards, like
Speaker 1: little guards like Kevin Durant is outperforming all of them,
Speaker 1: and then like vastly outperforming all of the small like
Speaker 1: the small forward UH pull up shooters that we see
Speaker 1: in the league. He he's in a class by himself
Speaker 1: as as a pull up shooter, and then he's been
Speaker 1: out He's been outstanding defensively. Ever since the Nash firing.
Speaker 1: I received a couple of UH people reaching out in
Speaker 1: d M s and messages over the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: like talking shit about um uh me saying that the
Speaker 1: Nash firing was a scapegoat. And I think it's funny
Speaker 1: because like I never said that UH that Nash shouldn't
Speaker 1: be fired. In fact, I recommended that the Nets fired Nash.
Speaker 1: All I said was they're not playing hard for him,
Speaker 1: which is a fact that isn't an unassailable fact. They
Speaker 1: were not playing hard for Steve Nash, and then they
Speaker 1: did play hard for Jacque Vaught. So like, is Jack
Speaker 1: von a better coach than Steve Nash? Maybe, But how
Speaker 1: the hell would we know when one guy had a
Speaker 1: scheme that the team bought into and worked hard at
Speaker 1: and the other one they mailed it in. Like I
Speaker 1: think they were dead last in defense and second to
Speaker 1: last and rebounding uh for the first chunk of the
Speaker 1: season when Steve Nash was coached, like, that's just not trying.
Speaker 1: Like I don't really know what else to tell you,
Speaker 1: and uh. But that said, I recommended firing Nash because
Speaker 1: I thought it would reinvigorate the team under a new voice.
Speaker 1: And it did. And since that uh uh coaching James,
Speaker 1: they've been outstanding defensively and Kevin Durant's been one of
Speaker 1: the best defensive players in the world, and I believe
Speaker 1: he'll make an All Defense team this year. But what
Speaker 1: I want to focus on with Katie because we could
Speaker 1: talk about Katie scoring. I've done videos on Katie scoring
Speaker 1: in the past. It's a mix. It's pull up jump shooting,
Speaker 1: it's um uh, improvisational shooting everywhere on the floor. It's
Speaker 1: setting up his man for easy shots. He's really good
Speaker 1: at working off the ball for easy catch and shoot opportunities.
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant, his efficiency is a is a product of
Speaker 1: tough shot making but also his ability to work hard
Speaker 1: for easy shots. And we could talk about that all
Speaker 1: day long. But what we haven't done enough lately, I
Speaker 1: think in general with the NBA media covering the league, uh,
Speaker 1: Kevin Durants passing has become his most underrated skill and
Speaker 1: the reason why is because he had a tough series
Speaker 1: against the Boston Celtics. Well, first of all, we never
Speaker 1: really thought of Katie as much of a passer. He's
Speaker 1: had big passing moments. Um. I think he's always been
Speaker 1: a little underrated in that area. But then after the
Speaker 1: Boston series, you know, everyone just thought he was a
Speaker 1: tunnel vision scorer that when a shot going is going in,
Speaker 1: you know, he can't impact the game. And the truth
Speaker 1: of the matter is is he actually Um, we have
Speaker 1: to look at the games to see what's happening because
Speaker 1: as we look at the numbers, he's averaging five point
Speaker 1: three assists per game, which is good, not great, right.
Speaker 1: He's also giving you three and a half turnovers per games,
Speaker 1: So when you look at assisted turnover ratio and total
Speaker 1: assist points created, there's a lot of stuff there that
Speaker 1: doesn't look good. And again, in the Boston series, as
Speaker 1: I said, it was more his pull up jump shooting
Speaker 1: that failed him. He was like a fifty percent pull
Speaker 1: up jump shooter all season and then suddenly he shot
Speaker 1: in the low thirties against the Celtics. That's just not
Speaker 1: good enough for in the mid thirties or something like that.
Speaker 1: So too many turnovers and too many missed jump shots
Speaker 1: or what killed Kevin Durant. But at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, like Kevin Durand's job when he's dictating double
Speaker 1: teams are drawing double teams is just to make the
Speaker 1: right read and more often than not, those lead to
Speaker 1: four on three situations, kind of similar to the Steph
Speaker 1: Curry thing um you know, back in like the two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen finals, where he's just getting blitzed on the
Speaker 1: pick and roll, hitting Draymond Green on the short roll.
Speaker 1: Draymond Green's making plays and so Draymond Green's racking up
Speaker 1: assists and Andrea Gudala is racking up corner threes. But
Speaker 1: the actual play itself was initiated by Steph's ability to
Speaker 1: draw the double teams. So that's what I want to
Speaker 1: focus on here for a minute, because Katie, again five
Speaker 1: point three is this for game nothing to to really
Speaker 1: get excited about. But when you watch what's happening on
Speaker 1: the floor, there's a lot of high quality shots that
Speaker 1: are being created. So when Katie has the ball and
Speaker 1: passes out of pick and roll seven hundred forty five
Speaker 1: times this year, hit the nets have scored a hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty seven points. That's one point one five points
Speaker 1: per possession, which is in the nineties second percentile. What
Speaker 1: that amounts to is he's been the very best pick
Speaker 1: and roll ball handler in the league. Overall. Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: pick and rolls including shots and passes, have led to
Speaker 1: one point to six points per pent, which is by
Speaker 1: far the best in the league for players who run
Speaker 1: at least five a game. Steph is in second place
Speaker 1: at about one point two points per possession. You know,
Speaker 1: and this is the latest in a long line of
Speaker 1: examples of box scores not really being revealing about what's
Speaker 1: happening on the court. But for the most part, Katie's
Speaker 1: getting doubled on picks. He's hitting the short roller, the
Speaker 1: short rollers making decisions, and its ending in shot attempts
Speaker 1: for other players. Katie is getting hockey ass is there.
Speaker 1: One of the things that Brooklyn has been doing really well.
Speaker 1: Um is putting a good playmaker in that position. Like
Speaker 1: lately it's been a lot of Kyrie Irving. Have Kyrie
Speaker 1: Irving set the screen. We saw this against the Raptors
Speaker 1: and heavy doses in the fourth quarter the other night
Speaker 1: where it's like Kyrie sets the screen, catches the ball
Speaker 1: in the short roll, gets downhill into the paint and
Speaker 1: makes a kickout past you to want not bey in
Speaker 1: the corner for three. Like that kind of thing. We're
Speaker 1: seeing a lot Um. But between Katie's playmaking, which has
Speaker 1: been off the charts, his pick and roll, ball handling
Speaker 1: off the charts, is scoring off the charts, his defense amazing. Um,
Speaker 1: this year's MVP race is absolutely stacked. Is obviously you've
Speaker 1: got Jason Tatum, You've got Jannese and Yokich, all guys
Speaker 1: that have great cases. But I think overall, when I
Speaker 1: set aside everything and I just focus on who's playing
Speaker 1: the best basketball in the league this year, with who's
Speaker 1: been the best player in the best team, the Nets
Speaker 1: are only two games back of the best record in
Speaker 1: basketball and an overall value brought to the team. I
Speaker 1: actually think if the season ended right now today that
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant would be my m v P pick. Moving
Speaker 1: on to Kyrie Irving, obviously, he's also scoring the ball
Speaker 1: really well. It's twenty six points per game, fourth best
Speaker 1: mark of his career. True shooting, third best mark of
Speaker 1: his career. He's always been very good in pick and roll, UM,
Speaker 1: and he's been very good in pick and roll again
Speaker 1: this year, one point one two points per possession including passes,
Speaker 1: which is in the eighty nine percentile, eleven in the
Speaker 1: league among players who run at least five per games.
Speaker 1: So they got two of the top eleven pick and
Speaker 1: roll players in the league, including the best. But he's
Speaker 1: been the very best ISO player in the league this year.
Speaker 1: So when Kyrie Irving shoots out of isolation, one point
Speaker 1: to six points perposes, which is just completely outrageous, best
Speaker 1: in the league among players who attempt at least three
Speaker 1: ISOs per game to Marta Rosen is a close second. UM.
Speaker 1: A big part of this is Kyrie Irving is shooting
Speaker 1: at the rim. We've always thought about Kyrie is a
Speaker 1: great rim finisher, UM, but as we look at it,
Speaker 1: you know, most of the guards in the league are
Speaker 1: hovering in the mid fifties, right, and then bad room finishers,
Speaker 1: guys like Russell Westbrook, they're hovering in the low fifties
Speaker 1: and some of the better like good rim finishers for
Speaker 1: guards around and Kyrie is just completely off the charts
Speaker 1: in the mid sixties at six percent. That you usually
Speaker 1: don't see that unless you're dealing with big athletic wings.
Speaker 1: So as we zoom out, the Nets have the very
Speaker 1: best pick and roll ball handler in the league and
Speaker 1: the very best isolation player in the league, and each
Speaker 1: is great at the other. Kyrie is eleventh and pick
Speaker 1: and roll ball handling at least five run per game.
Speaker 1: Katie is ninth in ISOs points per possession to run
Speaker 1: at least three a game. Um, so you've got to
Speaker 1: kind of round it out. You've got to the top
Speaker 1: ten shot creators when it comes to just creating shots
Speaker 1: for teammates are for themselves. You've got two of the
Speaker 1: ten best shot creators in the entire world, and you've
Speaker 1: got a ton of offensive skills surrounding them. Like we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier with the likes of you to want
Speaker 1: n B. T. J. Warren Royce O'Neil Seth Curry, you know,
Speaker 1: we talked we talked about that earlier. All of that
Speaker 1: amounts to twenty offensive rating in this thirteen and one stretch,
Speaker 1: which is the very best in the league. UM. And
Speaker 1: then they're committing enough on the defensive end to get
Speaker 1: enough stops to be a damn good basketball team. UM.
Speaker 1: And you know how it goes with these win streaks.
Speaker 1: I always talking about inferior competition. You need that signature
Speaker 1: win to legitimize it. And uh, you know, when they
Speaker 1: lost to Boston, which is their one loss during this
Speaker 1: for fourteen game streak, you know, it can be discouraging
Speaker 1: because that makes you feel like you're not quite to
Speaker 1: that level. But then these last two wins have been
Speaker 1: really impressive. That's the dominant win over the Bucks and
Speaker 1: a dominant win on the road over the Calves. My
Speaker 1: only concern with this particular team right now is the
Speaker 1: Boston matchup UM. Specifically Boston's ability to mix up coverages,
Speaker 1: to switch and force Katie and Kyrie to ISO against
Speaker 1: much better defensive players or to trap and rotate out
Speaker 1: of it. Which is the aggregate athleticism that they have
Speaker 1: on the floor. They get really physical on the ball.
Speaker 1: Katie and Kyrie last year, as I mentioned earlier, really
Speaker 1: fell apart with their pull up shooting. Both of them
Speaker 1: tanked and pull up and pull up shooting percentage, and
Speaker 1: then both of them turned the basketball over way too much.
Speaker 1: So the reality is is Katie and Kyrie are just
Speaker 1: going to have to play a lot better against Boston
Speaker 1: this year than they did last year. They are better,
Speaker 1: they have they have better role players around them this
Speaker 1: year than they did last year. But I think Boston
Speaker 1: is better than they were last year. With the Malcolm Brogden' acquisition,
Speaker 1: with Jayson Tatum's improvements, with Jalen Brown's improvements, you know,
Speaker 1: just in general that they are a deeper um, they
Speaker 1: have more continuity than they did last year, and they've
Speaker 1: learned some valuable lessons from their playoff failures. So that
Speaker 1: Boston matchup is the one that freaks me out. But
Speaker 1: if they can somehow get through Boston, I'd like their
Speaker 1: I'd like their chances. I wouldn't pick them necessarily, but
Speaker 1: I'd like their chances against just about any other team
Speaker 1: in the league. Um So what does that amount to.
Speaker 1: It means they have a real chance to an NBA
Speaker 1: championship this year, which sounds crazy after everything that happened
Speaker 1: to begin the season, but I had them sixth in
Speaker 1: my power rankings to start the year. In that uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if things go right, contender list, and things
Speaker 1: didn't go right to start the season, but things are
Speaker 1: starting to go right now and you're seeing all of
Speaker 1: that talent on the roster start to materialize into a
Speaker 1: damn good basketball team. Alright, guys, that is all I
Speaker 1: have for tonight. We will be back on Thursday, UM
Speaker 1: covering the games from Wednesday night. As always, I appreciate
Speaker 1: your support and I'll see you guys. Then the volume