Speaker 1: The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at
Speaker 1: the Volume. Happy Monday, everybody. We are live on AMPS.
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Speaker 1: of the NBA Playoffs here at Hoops Tonight is brought
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Speaker 1: All right? So we are going to be hitting on
Speaker 1: a bloodbath of a series. I know who would have
Speaker 1: seen that coming between the Nuggets and the Suns in
Speaker 1: a big, a little bit of a predicament that the
Speaker 1: Sons are finding themselves in down two to oh. And
Speaker 1: then James Harden puts the latest chapter in his revenge campaign,
Speaker 1: a forty five point destruction of the Boston Celtics in
Speaker 1: Boston without Joel Embiid as Boston tricks off yet another
Speaker 1: game with late game execution. Lots of stuff to get into,
Speaker 1: you guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe
Speaker 1: to the Volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more
Speaker 1: of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason
Speaker 1: LT and if for whatever reason, you guys miss one
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Speaker 1: YouTube to finish. Don't forget. You can find them wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, all right, let's
Speaker 1: talk some basketball. So you know, when the Lakers were
Speaker 1: engaged in a couple of nasty games, I should say,
Speaker 1: a nasty game with the Minnesota Timberwolves and then this
Speaker 1: nasty series with the Memphis Grizzlies. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of people that were saying things like, hey, those two
Speaker 1: teams are terrible. Both of them can't score. Look at them.
Speaker 1: They they're not as good as these other teams that
Speaker 1: are playing in these free flowing series. And one of
Speaker 1: the things I said during that series is rock fights
Speaker 1: are a natural part of the NBA playoffs. Nobody is
Speaker 1: immune to them. You guys might remember in the twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen NBA Finals a certain very famous Game seven between
Speaker 1: the Cavs and the Warriors. The Warrior scored eighty nine
Speaker 1: points in a game despite being one of the highest
Speaker 1: powered offenses in the league that year. The truth of
Speaker 1: the matter is, no matter what type of team you are,
Speaker 1: as soon as the game takes a certain type of energy,
Speaker 1: whether that's a physical game, where the refs are allowing
Speaker 1: a lot of contact to go where suddenly your skill
Speaker 1: shots stopped working. It devolves into this uber physical lots
Speaker 1: of uncalled fouls. No one can make a damn shot,
Speaker 1: even guys that you expect to make shots and shots
Speaker 1: that they've made their entire career suddenly don't go in
Speaker 1: Nobody is immune. Now when you see two unbelievable defensive teams,
Speaker 1: every game is gonna be like that. That's what Lakers
Speaker 1: Grizzlies was right. This series, there's a lot more offensive
Speaker 1: skill and there's a lot of guys on the floor
Speaker 1: that have known to take some defensive possessions off for
Speaker 1: the sake of kind of saving their legs for the
Speaker 1: offensive ends. So this series will have more free flowing games,
Speaker 1: and I will not be surprised if one of the
Speaker 1: two games in Phoenix ends up being a higher scoring affair,
Speaker 1: as a game takes on that certain type of feel.
Speaker 1: But no matter what, this type of game is the
Speaker 1: type of game that can happen a lot in the
Speaker 1: NBA playoffs, and more and more the further you get along,
Speaker 1: as you run into better and better defenses that are
Speaker 1: playing with more and more physicality, and intensity, and the
Speaker 1: refs are letting more and more go. And that's where
Speaker 1: I think the Suns are in some trouble because one
Speaker 1: of the things that I've said consistently is that when
Speaker 1: you rely on pull up jump shooting as your primary
Speaker 1: form of offense, you have the potential to go cold.
Speaker 1: There is variance in pull up jump shooting. And here's
Speaker 1: the problem. This series has been so physical, at least
Speaker 1: on the Phoenix side of things, that we are two
Speaker 1: games in now when they're not making their pull up
Speaker 1: jump shots, not nearly at the rate that they normally do.
Speaker 1: Devin Booker had a better shooting night tonight, but KD
Speaker 1: was way off. KD had a better shooting night. He
Speaker 1: shot forty percent on pull up jumpers in game one,
Speaker 1: but Devin Booker was way off. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Pull up jump shots they look like these skilled type
Speaker 1: of shots, and they are, but they're massive athleticism play.
Speaker 1: If i am dribbling over the top of a screen
Speaker 1: and I've got a player coming behind me to apply
Speaker 1: back pressure, and I need to elevate over a rint
Speaker 1: protector that's coming up to contest, I need to get
Speaker 1: a ton of lift on those shots. Devin Booker and
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant in particular pride themselves at for the way
Speaker 1: that they practice these shots at game speed, but they're
Speaker 1: used to playing a certain type of effort defensively, and
Speaker 1: in game one they weren't able to match that. The
Speaker 1: Suns came with a much better defensive effort. In game two,
Speaker 1: I thought Devin Booker and Chris and Kevin Durant in
Speaker 1: particular were f criminal on the defensive end of the floor,
Speaker 1: But that takes effort. That effort drains your legs, and
Speaker 1: on the other end of the floor, when you need
Speaker 1: to get that lift into that tough pull up jumper,
Speaker 1: all of the timing is off. You're not getting as
Speaker 1: much lift, so you've got to compensate with more in
Speaker 1: your release. When you're putting more into your release, the
Speaker 1: entire calibration of the thing is off. I saw Devin
Speaker 1: Booker pull up a transition three in the first quarter
Speaker 1: that went three feet over the rim and karened off
Speaker 1: the backboard. He was wide open. I watched Chris Paul
Speaker 1: I believe it was in the second quarter, come over
Speaker 1: a ball screen get tons of separation by the right elbow,
Speaker 1: elevate nice and high and shot it a foot and
Speaker 1: a half over the back of the rim, a shot
Speaker 1: he's been making his entire career. Pull up jump shooting
Speaker 1: requires a great deal of conditioning and lyft, and when
Speaker 1: you play in these super physical games, it's harder to
Speaker 1: get that lift. Nikola Jokic made seventeen field goals in
Speaker 1: this game. Fourteen of them were in the paint. Go
Speaker 1: on your ESPN app or something where you've got a
Speaker 1: shot chart and look up Nikola Jokic's shot chart. Look
Speaker 1: at where all those field goal attempts are In a
Speaker 1: game like this that devolved down into a rock fight,
Speaker 1: where Jamal Murray can't make a shot, Kevin Durant can't
Speaker 1: make a shot, nobody on the floor can make the
Speaker 1: normal pull up jump shots that they make. Who suddenly
Speaker 1: became the best player on the floor Nikola Jokic In
Speaker 1: Game four of that Lakers Grizzly series, when Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: couldn't make a shot and Desmond Bayning got cold and
Speaker 1: John Rant couldn't make a shot, and no one and
Speaker 1: Dangela Russell and Austin Reeves cooled off, Who is the
Speaker 1: one guy who suddenly was able to score. It was
Speaker 1: Lebron James. That's why I look beyond you know what,
Speaker 1: Like there's a culture in basketball these days that focuses
Speaker 1: on the bag, so to speak, and the skill set
Speaker 1: and that stuff. Not only is it monumentally important, it's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite parts of the game, building out
Speaker 1: your skill set, building out all of that dribble package,
Speaker 1: going every direction, shooting off of any footwork, fading over
Speaker 1: both shoulders, step backs, you know, side steps, all the
Speaker 1: little floaters and pop shots in the lane. They're all
Speaker 1: incredibly important. But at the end of the day, basketball
Speaker 1: is a contact sport. And as we go back, look
Speaker 1: at who ends up winning finals MVP every year, Right,
Speaker 1: Like Steph Curry is a finesse player that's kind of
Speaker 1: an outlier, right, But the year before that it's Giannis,
Speaker 1: like a dude who thrives in rock fights. The year
Speaker 1: before that, it's Lebron James, a dude who thrives in
Speaker 1: rock fights. The year before that it's Kawhi Leonard, the
Speaker 1: biggest strongest wing in the on the planet, not named
Speaker 1: Lebron James. These kinds of guys thrive in this environment
Speaker 1: because it from the beautiful form of basketball into a
Speaker 1: different type of beauty, a competitive beauty that is the physical, knockdown,
Speaker 1: drag out fight. I thought that you saw an adjustment
Speaker 1: that we talked about in our series preview. I told
Speaker 1: you guys that I wouldn't be surprised if the Nuggets
Speaker 1: ended up putting Nikola Yokic on Josha Kogi at the
Speaker 1: end of the games. And they ended up doing that tonight,
Speaker 1: bogged down the Sun's offense. I think at one point
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter they were four for twenty from
Speaker 1: the field. And I mean, this is the most concerning part.
Speaker 1: Like Chris Paul being out's a big deal. It's my
Speaker 1: father in law's birthday, and we were watching the game
Speaker 1: together tonight to celebrate and and he goes like, oh,
Speaker 1: I think they're better without Chris Paul, And I was
Speaker 1: disagreeing with him because I said, yeah, I know, Chris
Speaker 1: Paul is not having the same type of season that
Speaker 1: you expect from a player of his caliber with his resume.
Speaker 1: But the truth of the matter is it goes beyond
Speaker 1: that off of Devin Booker and Kevin Durant. When they
Speaker 1: are applying that much pressure on those guys Chris Paul
Speaker 1: is a connective piece. If Kd's gonna hit Joshakog on
Speaker 1: a roll because Nikola Jokic is ignoring him, they're starting
Speaker 1: a four on three. And if that four on three
Speaker 1: is Chris Paul with Devin Booker, DeAndre Ayton and someone
Speaker 1: like you know, Joshakog or Tory Craig, you might be okay.
Speaker 1: Or Damian Lee, you might be okay. But subout Chris Paul,
Speaker 1: an extremely high IQ great ball handler that can at
Speaker 1: least competently score on high quality shots, and you fill
Speaker 1: that in with another end of the bench guy that's
Speaker 1: a problem. Two guys on the consistently in the rotation
Speaker 1: down the end of this game for Phoenix were guys
Speaker 1: that would not make an NBA rotation anywhere else in
Speaker 1: this playoff field. I told you guys before this playoff
Speaker 1: run that I still believe Phoenix can win a title
Speaker 1: this year, but it's next year that I'll be most
Speaker 1: worried about them, because they'll be able to supplement this
Speaker 1: with more NBA level talent. They're going to be able
Speaker 1: to bring in players that can do these jobs a
Speaker 1: little bit better. And this series is not over. But
Speaker 1: this is what I notice so far. Phoenix has to
Speaker 1: play their stars huge minutes to have any chance, and
Speaker 1: one of them already broke down the Joshakog minutes. He's
Speaker 1: been great on the defensive end of the floor. He
Speaker 1: had a great night tonight defensively, but the dude just can't.
Speaker 1: The dude's killing you on the offensive end. They have
Speaker 1: no depth of offensive talent or that can play both
Speaker 1: ends of the floor, and they rely entirely on pull
Speaker 1: up jump shooting. Devin Booker can get to the rim.
Speaker 1: He gets to the rim better than most players at
Speaker 1: his position, but he's a finesse get to the rim guy.
Speaker 1: He is a guy who beats you off the dribble
Speaker 1: with side to side moves and gets to the rim
Speaker 1: in a physical series where he's getting There were several
Speaker 1: plays tonight where Devin Booker's getting downhill, dudes are grabbing
Speaker 1: his arms. He's getting fouled, but every one's getting fouled.
Speaker 1: He's not the only one. It's not getting called for.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, the massive human beings on the
Speaker 1: floor suddenly become the most valuable now. Kevin Durant missed
Speaker 1: a lot of shots he normally takes and that dude
Speaker 1: normally makes, I should say, and that dude has had
Speaker 1: a lot of games in his career, big playoff games
Speaker 1: under hugely physical environments where he's been great. He's like
Speaker 1: Steph Curry, one of those guys that's somewhat immune to
Speaker 1: that stuff. But again, he doesn't get to the rim.
Speaker 1: It's all pull up jump shooting. So they will go
Speaker 1: as pull up jump shooting goes. And if Kevin like
Speaker 1: this is what happened against against Boston last year, he
Speaker 1: wasn't making him in game one, and then he wasn't
Speaker 1: making him in Game two, and you keep telling yourself like,
Speaker 1: maybe they'll go in, but then he doesn't make him
Speaker 1: in Game three, and then he makes some of them
Speaker 1: in Game four, but it's not enough. And here we
Speaker 1: are two games and that problem is at the surface again.
Speaker 1: I believe Kevin Durant will get going in Game three,
Speaker 1: in Game four in Phoenix, and I believe he will
Speaker 1: have an imprint on this series. I refuse to believe
Speaker 1: that KD will go out like he did last year.
Speaker 1: I think too highly of him as a basketball player,
Speaker 1: but as a team, that's what KD and Devin Booker
Speaker 1: rely on and it's a problem. And Chris Paul's out.
Speaker 1: So your aggregate ball handling and shooting has now fallen off.
Speaker 1: And Denver looks like they're in great shape because they
Speaker 1: lost it. They won a game where nobody else could
Speaker 1: make a damn shot. I do want to give them
Speaker 1: a bunch of credit. The defensive effort was insane tonight.
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon was amazing, Bruce Brown was amazing. I thought
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray did an excellent job on the defensive end
Speaker 1: to compensate for some of the issues he was having
Speaker 1: on offense. Nikola Jokis did a nice job just playing
Speaker 1: center field on everything. Denver deserves a ton of credit.
Speaker 1: Phoenix is in some trouble, man. I it just doesn't
Speaker 1: They're not getting anything easy. There's no bread and butter
Speaker 1: that they're getting that You're like, oh, we're gonna get
Speaker 1: this eight out of ten possessions here in a big game,
Speaker 1: five down down the stretch, and that concerns me. They better.
Speaker 1: They need to get a good boost from their home crowd,
Speaker 1: and they need to and they need they're going to
Speaker 1: need Chris Paul to come back. All right, let's move
Speaker 1: on to that. Like what I think was one of
Speaker 1: the wildest and most embarrassing playoff losses that I can
Speaker 1: remember seeing. This is a Boston Celtics team, by the way,
Speaker 1: that wasn't overly impressive in the first round that pretty
Speaker 1: much ever since the loss to Golden State about midway
Speaker 1: through the season, wasn't the same type of dominant squad
Speaker 1: that they were earlier in the season. Ended up losing
Speaker 1: that one seed that they you know, that I believe
Speaker 1: they needed. Of course they got bailed out by that
Speaker 1: from that by the Milwaukee early exit. But this team
Speaker 1: is just they've been getting buy morel on reputation as
Speaker 1: of late, and a lot of the same ugly things
Speaker 1: that you would expect that we've grown to expect from
Speaker 1: Boston in certain situations came to the surface again in
Speaker 1: this one. Joe Missoula, for whatever reason, as this game
Speaker 1: denigrated into a five out contest again, take Joel Embiat out.
Speaker 1: Suddenly you've got James Harden, Tyree Smaxy right, two good guards.
Speaker 1: You've got Tobias Harris, who was amazing defensively in this game,
Speaker 1: but as a guy who can make some plays off
Speaker 1: the bounce, had a big driving layup on Al Horford
Speaker 1: at the end. But then you've got two non factors
Speaker 1: offensively on the floor at all given at any given moment,
Speaker 1: whether it was you know, PJ. Tucker and Jaden McDaniel
Speaker 1: or Jalen McDaniels or PJ. Tucker and Paul Reid, there's
Speaker 1: no non threats on the floor at any given moment
Speaker 1: versus a five out lineup in Boston. That was what
Speaker 1: Malcolm Brogden, Marcus Smart, Jason and Jalen and Al Horford,
Speaker 1: every single one of them is an offensive threat. And look,
Speaker 1: I was disappointed in Joe Miszula tactically for not getting
Speaker 1: the ball out of James Harden's hands when there were
Speaker 1: two non scorers on the floor. But let's forget about
Speaker 1: that for a second and just look at the simple
Speaker 1: fact that even if they're playing one on one all
Speaker 1: game long, how in the world do you lose that matchup?
Speaker 1: You've got about twice as much aggregate offensive skill and
Speaker 1: about twice as much aggregate defensive talent in a five
Speaker 1: out drive and kick contest. And I put most of
Speaker 1: the blame on the defensive end of the floor. Like
Speaker 1: I went back and I watched every single Boston Celtics'
Speaker 1: offensive possession down the stretch. There were some bad ones
Speaker 1: in there, Like, I don't know why you're posting up
Speaker 1: Marcus Smart on the final possession. I don't really see
Speaker 1: the point there. They were pretty late into the shot
Speaker 1: clock to attack there there was and every time they
Speaker 1: got into late shot clock situations, Doc Rivers did a
Speaker 1: nice job of sending doubles. Bosson was really trying to
Speaker 1: attack Tyrese Maxey. And there were a couple tricky things
Speaker 1: in there, right, Like they've one time Jason Tatum got
Speaker 1: switched on Tyrese Maxey and then like dribbled the clock out,
Speaker 1: and then James Harden was able to double and there
Speaker 1: wasn't enough time on the clock, so they ended up
Speaker 1: throwing up. He ended up thrown up a crazy fade away.
Speaker 1: There's another play Marcus Smart gets Tyrese Maxey switched on
Speaker 1: to him, gets the switch he wants, and then passes
Speaker 1: out of it to Jaylen Brown who ends up like
Speaker 1: driving on on on somebody out of the corner. I
Speaker 1: think it was off of PJ. Tucker. So that like,
Speaker 1: there was some bad execution in there, but they got
Speaker 1: a lot of good looks. Malcolm Brogden shot a wide
Speaker 1: open three that he missed down the stretch. Al Horford
Speaker 1: had a wide open three in the left corner that
Speaker 1: he missed. Malcolm Brogden had a wide open, wonderable pull
Speaker 1: up that he missed coming out of the left corner.
Speaker 1: There was a play where, uh, there was a play
Speaker 1: where Jason Tatum may or may now have gotten fouled
Speaker 1: on a chaotic sequence where he's right at the rim.
Speaker 1: There there was some bad had luck in there. But
Speaker 1: how in the world were you allowing James Harden to
Speaker 1: work in single coverage? Every other team that we've seen
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, we're gonna ignore Josha Kogi and have
Speaker 1: Nikolay Yokiz just double team or come way up high
Speaker 1: and and and bother everything in Phoenix's pick and roll action.
Speaker 1: Oh you know Jared Vanderbilts out there, We're just gonna
Speaker 1: have Jared Jackson just ignore him and and just double
Speaker 1: every single time. Like, how is it that you're letting
Speaker 1: James Harden just get to his step back and not
Speaker 1: either doubling him on these ball screens, telling Al Horford
Speaker 1: and these other guys like push up on him if
Speaker 1: he drives by you, we have help. We don't have
Speaker 1: to guard two of these guys. I just thought it
Speaker 1: was such a bizarre game. It was such a bizarre game,
Speaker 1: and I want to give James Harden credity. He made
Speaker 1: the shots and like the last shot he hit that
Speaker 1: that step back three over over al Horford. Like, that's
Speaker 1: a tough shot, that's defended perfectly well, but you gave
Speaker 1: James Harden the chance for his elite shot making to
Speaker 1: carry you over the top if you press him and
Speaker 1: force him to drive there. He's driving into all this help,
Speaker 1: the help that's there because you don't have to guard
Speaker 1: two of the guys. There was a play. Do you
Speaker 1: guys remember that Tobias Harris three at the top of
Speaker 1: the key. That was literally, I want to say it
Speaker 1: was Tatum in Horford in a Harris hardened screen. That's
Speaker 1: gotta be a switch. That's gotta be a switch. Instead,
Speaker 1: they ran a drop Tatum chasing over the top as
Speaker 1: as Harden's driving left. Just bit what is the number
Speaker 1: one thing you can use to beat a drop? Coverage?
Speaker 1: A pick and pop with a real shooter just throws
Speaker 1: it back to Tobias Harris. He's wide open at the
Speaker 1: top of the key. Basically, Joe Mizoula and the Celtics
Speaker 1: allowed James Harden to play pick up basketball like he
Speaker 1: was at the YMCA down the stretch of this game,
Speaker 1: while on the other end of the floor, it was
Speaker 1: timely doubles, it was chaotic rotations, it was frenetic effort,
Speaker 1: and Philly just outplayed them on both ends of the floor.
Speaker 1: And James Harden just outfit those dudes in Boston. And again, like,
Speaker 1: here's the deal. My guess is that Joel Embiid sits
Speaker 1: out Game two as well since they got their split,
Speaker 1: try to buy him some rest. I think there's a
Speaker 1: hefty chunk of days off in there somewhere too, if
Speaker 1: I remember correctly. With the schedule, Bostin's gonna beat the
Speaker 1: shit out of them in game two. I like, they're
Speaker 1: just better again, Like, look at those lineups I told
Speaker 1: you about. How does Paul Reed and PJ. Tucker with
Speaker 1: Tobias Harris, Tyres, Max and James Harden soundly outplay Jalen
Speaker 1: and Jason with Malcolm Brogden, Marcus Martin al Horford. That
Speaker 1: should never happen. They are twice as talented on both
Speaker 1: ends of the floor. They should dominate Game two. But
Speaker 1: what happened in this game is everything that's so discouraging
Speaker 1: about this Celtics team, playing down to the competition, not
Speaker 1: recognizing the opportunity that they have. Milwaukee just lost to Miami.
Speaker 1: You were gonna play the winner of Nick's Heat. You
Speaker 1: were gonna be a monster favorite in that series. There
Speaker 1: are four teams in the Western Conference that are going
Speaker 1: to murder each other Lebron and Draymond and Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: and Andrew Wiggins and Steph Curry. They're gonna beat the
Speaker 1: shit out of each other for six or seven games.
Speaker 1: You literally are watching the Nuggets and Sons doing it
Speaker 1: to each other. Then the winner of those two serieses
Speaker 1: are gonna do it to each other. Beat the Sixers
Speaker 1: without Embiid, go beat the Heat or the Knicks and
Speaker 1: get like this is parting like the Red Sea for
Speaker 1: you to win the NBA Championship, and you were going
Speaker 1: out there and getting out played by James Harden in
Speaker 1: a phase of his career where he has no business
Speaker 1: doing that to you. I easily one of the worst
Speaker 1: playoff losses I've ever seen. I can't I can't even
Speaker 1: believe it. That's all we have for tonight. We're gonna
Speaker 1: come back to tomorrow night breaking down Game one of
Speaker 1: the Warriors and Celtics series and excuse me, Warriors Lakers,
Speaker 1: and then I believe that's Nick's Heat Game two. And
Speaker 1: then Wednesday morning, we're gonna be doing a show with
Speaker 1: the Nerd Sash guys, the New guys, welcome to the volume.
Speaker 1: Those of you guys who remember Carson from our shows
Speaker 1: that we did, We're gonna be doing a show with
Speaker 1: them on Wednesday, and we'll dive back into both of
Speaker 1: these serieses. At that point, I'm gonna watch some tape,
Speaker 1: try to learn a little bit more about how these
Speaker 1: series are going the way that they're going. But man,
Speaker 1: another bizarre night in the NBA playoffs. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: that is all I have. I'll see you tomorrow. Even
Speaker 1: the volume