Hoops Tonight - Barkley goes off on Durant, Warriors can't close, Pelicans beat Suns

I sent you. Twenty one plus in president Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana, Permitted parishes only, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia. First online real money wager only. Refund issued as non withdrawalable site credit that expires in fourteen days. Restrictions apply see terms at sports book dot FanDuel dot com.

Gambling problem called one eight hundred, next step or text next step to five three three four two in Arizona one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org slash chat in Connecticut one eight hundred gambler or visit FanDuel dot com slash RG in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, in Virginia one eight seven seven seven seven zero stop in Louisiana one eight hundred to seven zero seven one one seven for confidential

help in Michigan one eight seven seven eight hope and why or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine in New York. In Tennessee redline dial one eight hundred eight eight nine nine seven eight nine in Tennessee visit www one dot one eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume. Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope all of you had a great weekend after

going six days in a row. We had a couple of days off, but my wife, who had been out of town during the whole time, was in Vegas for a work trip, and all she wanted to do is relax. So guess what I did on my two days off. I watched basketball. I told myself I was gonna unplug for a little bit and disconnected. Instead I watched all the games. So that's how it goes sometimes. But on the bright side. I'm kind of in the loop, which

is a good feeling coming off of a weekend. But we have a lot of basketball to talk about tonight. We're gonna start by talking some Sons Pelicans. Obviously that series looks like it's gonna be a lot more of

a war than we expected, obviously fueled by injuries. We'll talk a little bit about the Warriors Nuggets game today and what we might or may not have earned there, and then we're gonna talk a little bit about the Celtics Nets game yesterday, which I think was the top story of the weekend in a lot of different ways, and easily the most interesting series because of the greatness we're seeing on one end and the combustion we're seeing

on the other end. So we'll get into that a little bit, and then at the end, we're gonna go rapid fire through all of the series. No Carson tonight, you guys are stuck with me, but he will be back tomorrow. Let's start with the Suns and the Pelicans. So I want to start with Brandon Brandon Ingram here, and we're not gonna get too deep into his backstory because we did that the last time. He played amazing

in Game two. But what I did want to touch on here is just how comfortable and successful he's been, how comfortable he looks, and how dominant he's been as a first time playoff player against an unbelievably good defensive team. The Phoenix Suns, as I've said, oh year, are a team without holes. Now the whole opened up there in the form of the Devin Booker injury, but not on the defensive end of the floor. And the Sons have always had a plethora of great wings to throw at you,

various different types too. You've got your big, bruising wing and Jay Crowder, and then you've got your longer, you know, more athleticism based wing in Mikhail Bridges, and then they've got other guys that can throw at you, like Tory Craig and like Cam Johnson and so on and so forth. But Brandon Ingram looks completely undeterred, and it's really impressive when you factor in the fact that he's the primary

source of all of the Sun's defensive game planning. When you factor in that, around the league, we're seeing stars struggle, stars that have had a lot of postseason reps. Demarta Rosen once again struggled today you're seeing you know or you know like Demarta Rosen is a tough shot maker, and when they go in like they did in Game two, he looks great. But when they're missing, all of a sudden,

their whole offense feels very disjoined. At brandon Ingram has a lot of Demarda Rosen in his game, but for whatever reason, he is so much more comfortable even though he's in a much more difficult environment. And to me, it's a great bell weather for the rest of this era for the New Orleans Pelicans because if as you see around the league, Draymond Green, our colleague here at the volume touched tweeted the other day very uh in in a very inflammatory manner. He said that I can't

quote him word for word. He said something along the lines of not everybody's meant for the playoffs, and he's right, because of the physicality of the way it's officiated, of the game planning. There are a lot of guys around the league to capitalize on the relatively lack of daisical nature of regular season basketball, and then they get into a postseason setting and they struggle and brandon Ingram is showing us right before our eyes that he has made

for this environment. And I think there's a couple of different reasons why I talk a lot about versatility, especially when we talk about James harden Right, and the ability to attack a defense in a bunch of different ways is the key to not becoming solvable in a postseason series. And that's what I love about Brandon Ingram's game. He's got an isolation game like a triple threat face up game. He can attack you with a live dribble. He's got

all of the dribble combinations. He can do isolation moves from anywhere on the floor. He can attack you out of the low post, out of the high post. He can pass out of pick and roll. He can score out of pick and roll, he can pass out of isolation help. He can do just about everything that you need from an offensive fulcrum, and as a result, he has all these different angles that he can go to.

This is his third straight efficient thirty point playoff game, and I think you're gonna see a lot more of that from Brandon Ingram as the years go by, and it's a very very exciting aspect for Pelicans fans. Obviously, there are a bunch of other things. They've got a round out on that front. I don't think the Pelicans are good. I still would lean Phoenix to win this series in six or seven gay obviously and at least

six games. But even if they win, they're not a team that I have any sort of grand expectations for this season. But it's a very bright future. And seeing if you're a fan of any young star in the league, you're always looking what are they gonna look like in a playoff series? And Brandon Ingram looks great. You're looking at John Morant, for instance, and he's struggling a little bit,

particularly on the defensive end of the floor. You're seeing John Morand get utterly attacked intentionally almost every time by Minnesota. That's a concern. That's something that and we'll talk about

that at a later point this week. But that's an example of of a of a glaring flaw that if you're a Memphis fan, you kind of have to bake into everything that you plan and as as a fan of the Grizzlies, says John Moran looks like he's going to be attacked often on the defensive end of the floor in the playoffs, same things happening to Trey Young right now, Brandon Ingram looks like a bona fide two way star that looks comfortable and successful in the playoffs.

Great sign for the Pelicans. I thought an interesting element of this particular game was the job that Herb Jones did on CP three. Obviously you saw them jawing at each other a lot. You know CP three, This is the theme of this series, now, you know. I talked a lot about how Devin Booker and Chris Paul kind of together amount to what a superstar brings to the table.

You have Chris Paul's playmaking, So if you're playing an overly aggressive defense, he's kind of the perfect guy to put the ball in his hands because he's going to be able to consistently make you pay. We're gonna talk about this a lot later tonight with the Celtics. Like in the in the Nets, there's only like four guys in the entire league that can consistently make guys pay out of these overly aggressive defenses, and Chris Paul's one

of them. So having that guy huge asset. Then we look at Devin Booker in gives you that same extreme high level three level scoring that you're seeing from like Brandon Ingram for instance, and the two of those guys together, Chris Paul and Devin Booker bring to the table what you would expect to get from a bona fide top ten player in the NBA. But then one of them

goes down. Now, with Devin Booker out, that scoring option is not there, and you saw the Sons throw an excuse me, the Appelicans throw a ton of length at Chris Paul at this point. Because of Chris Paul's slowly waning speed as he gets older, a guy like GRB. Jones can cover enough ground to kind of win some of that chess match stuff with Chris PAULI struggled a lot tonight as a score after being a dominant score

in Game three. That's the way that the dynamic of a series can change when you pull out an important cog like that, And it's an interesting dynamic the rest of the series because coming into the series, who is the best player in the entire series Devin Booker, and this would be one of the few matchups where the Sons would have the best player in this series. Moving on,

let's say they faced Dallas in the next round. Like Lucas the best player in that series, right, So like there and moving forward, that's gonna be a perpetual case for the Suns. This was the one series where they had that advantage. Devin Booker is better than brandon Ingram. Well, that was already kind of close with how well Brandon Ingram is playing, and now with Devin Booker out, the Pelicans have the best player in the series. That's a huge swing factor here. Still up in the air. This

series is very close. I would not be surprised if the Pelicans won, but this I would be picking the Suns at this point. But it's a lot closer than it looks. And that's the way things can change based on an injury in the postseason. One other quick note, um or two other quick notes. Jonas Valancinias have been very critical of him in this series. Coming into tonight. Through three games, the Pelicans at a one twenty defensive rating with him on the floor, and we're being outscored

by eight points per one Hunter possessions. And then when they had Nance on the floor without Jonas, they had a one fifteen defensive ratings, so five points better, and they were plus three point three net. I've always liked the way this team plays better with Larry Nance. You guys know how I am with traditional bigs. You guys know how I am with five out basketball and really spreading the floor, prioritizing foot speed and the ability to

dribble and shoot the basketball. I'm always driven towards Larry Nance. Bill tonight, I gotta hand it to Jonas Valatunas. He was a dominant offensive player. It's the one thing you have to do to make up for a massive shortcoming is to have one elite skill that you bring to the table that makes it a net positive trade off. And if Jonas is gonna be that good offensively, that's

a huge asset. I talked a lot after the book or injury with our guy Carson about how important it was gonna be for guys like Mikhail Bridges and guys like DeAndre Aton and guys like Cam Johnson to have a ton of points to fulfill some of the missing scoring from Devin Booker, because all three of those guys have more elements to their offensive scoring game than than we've seen in the last couple of years. As a

result of their roles on this particular team. Well, in Game three, when the Sun's got the big win, Bridges and Etan went forty five and nineteen. Tonight they went for thirty one and fourteen. That's just not enough production. So in order for the Suns to come out with the way in which I believe they will, they just need to be better, uh, in the role players, especially

scoring the basketball. My guess is that this ends up going seven, and the each team wins their home games, and then the Sun's end up advancing to the next round. Let's move on to the Warriors and the Nuggets. This was a game that to me, I've seen dozens and dozens of times over the course of the NBA playoffs. A team, you know, usually when they're down three oh,

one of two things going to happen. They're either going to be thinking about Cancun for lack of a better term, and be willing to wave the white flag just because it's not worth it. Or team will show fight. And usually when they show fight in that down three oh situation,

they win. And the reason why is because it's in terms of human nature, there is no game in a playoff series that a favorite is gonna bring less effort then in an up three oh game on the road with a chance to close out a team that that that that is just again, you can't fight that. That's

just human nature. And I thought the Golden State Guards, even though I've been very complimentary of them of their defense, Stepping Clay in particular, they're great defensive players over the course of their careers because of their commitment, not great. Clay has been great, Step has been good. But those two guys tonight, in conjunction with Jordan Pool, I thought they got bullied a bit by the by the Denver guards.

I thought they didn't move as their feet as well as they needed to, and I thought that was a big part in Monte Morris going off and in Bones Highland going off, and that kind of changed the dynamic of the game. But this is the way I look at it. If you're a Golden State fan and you're looking for a silver lining Golden State more made more field goals, They had more rebounds, then more points in the paint. They had fewer turnovers, so they played a

pretty damn good game. But draym On Green on the floor, they were plus eight team and they blew it in the handful of minutes that Draymond was off the floor, which is kind of the downside of this matchup. We talked a lot about Golden State's lack of interior presence, and you've seen a little bit of that over the course of the last two games, with Draymond starting to give a little bit of ground to Yokich. Defended him

extraordinarily well in the first two games. It defended him well and crunch time of Game three, But for the rest of Game three and for parts of Game four, he's starting to wear down and some of that physicality matchup against Yokich, and that's that's the fear if you're a Warriors fan, is what happens if you run into a player like Eighton has been pretty good in the last two games. It's it's interesting to see how deal

Drayton would hold up in seven games against Draymond. If Ambiad and the Sixers come out of the Eastern Conference, that could get interesting. But to me, is your plus A team with Draymond, You're in great shape. I expect the Warriors to win big in Game five. They'll gay They'll get another big fat check for having into their home game at Chase Center all as well in Warriors Land.

I'm not particularly concerned. There were two parts of this game, though, that I wanted to touch on before we move on. One was the way that Steph was attacking attacking Nicola Yokich late, And again it's not It's not a criticism of Yokis in the sense that I'm calling him a bad basketball player. But when people start putting a very specific standard on these guys, we have to hold them

to that standard. There are a lot of guys in Denver and in the analytics community that have been pushing heavily that Nikola Yokich is the best player in the league. I've always thought of him as like either in the top tier, as the guy who's clearly at the bottom of the top tier, or the top guy of the second tier, give or take, depending on which day you guys know me. I'm pretty open minded, but I the reason why I'm not. My general ideology is not to

race to put people at the top. But the reason why I haven't been so willing to give that kind of credit it in respect to Yoki is because of his limitations on the defensive end of the floor in terms of his foot speed, and I didn't think I thought it was really telling tonight that at the end of the game, I should say today, at the end of the game, when it was time for the Golden State to really lock in and try to steal that game, they were just running quick ball screens with Draymond to

try to get yokich Onto to uh. They were just trying to get yok Onto to step on the left wing by himself. And when I say the only metaphor I could possibly use to describe how easily Steph Curry was just dribbling right around yokich I would say that he was a traffic comp just the first time he literally just dribbled right around him, and then the second time all he had to do was kind of like hesitate and look up at the rim for a second, and he went right down the lane and got an one.

That's a concern because that type of matchup exists all

around the league. Even if it's not Steph the quick guard that's gonna pull Yokis out to the perimeter and a five out system that that kind of thing is going to continue to happen to Yoki throughout his career and all I did so today I tweeted out a link and I said, this is why I can't rightfully call Yokis the best player in the game when literally Golden State is attacking him and getting straight line drives to the basket every single possession at the end of

the game, to the point where Denver literally had to remove him from the lineup. Mike Bloan removed him from the lineup on the biggest defensive possession of the season, and a lot of people were like, well, Steph does that to every big. That's the point. That's part of why I always say that about bigs. People said, Yokis

would do that to Steph. On the other end, You're right, but Steph is at his position an above average defender, and in a five out scheme, what matters more is your ability to dribble, contain then or size at the rim. It's a far more valuable skill. The size at the rim becomes more valuable in a drop coverage. But you can't run drop coverage against the team that's gonna spread you out like that. That's the conundrum here. And to the point everyone was like, oh, well, Steph's not a

fantastic defensive player too. That was the big reason why. Even though I loved Steph and everything that he brought to the table, that was one of the reasons why I had Lebron ahead of him was his ability to ly in physicality on the offensive end, in his ability to impact games defensively. Step for all of his effort, is an above average defensive player, but he's not a

great defensive player. That was the difference. But again, I just thought it was jarring to watch Yoki at the end of the game getting picked on and not just picked on like you know, we're this is just the best matchup for us to go at, so let's try it. No, no, no. When they got him on the wing, it was a straight line drive and there was nothing Denver could do

to recover out of it. It's a major concern. Not doesn't mean Yoki sucks, doesn't mean Yoki isn't an All Star, doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to win m v P or any of those things. All it means is that's why he's closer to the six or seventh best player in the league than the first best player in the league. That's just my opinion. If you guys disagree, that's fine, It's just the way I see the game. I don't like the idea that your super duperstar can be targeted

that easily. Now, the last thing I wanted to hit on this particular game was the final play. Now, everyone loves to bag on their coach, trust me, all of you guys who have been fans of a team for a long time. I dealt with it with Laker fans this year with Frank Vogel, although I thought they were had a little bit more of a like to stand on because Frank did have a particularly rough season. But Steve curse of a very smart coach. In my opinion,

he doesn't do everything that I agree with. But one of the consistent things that Warriors fans dislike about Steve Kerr is their willingness. Is his willingness to use Curry as a decoy rather than using him as the primary option. And on the last play of the game, or the pivotal play of the game, when they needed a basket, they did you step as a decoy and they tried to get a seal under the basket for Andrew Wiggins

and Austin Rivers. Blew it up now before we break down the play Austin Rivers had a really interesting quote after the game. I don't want to play that for you guys here it is no but we had an idea. When I saw Wiggins said in that screen, I knew exactly where he was going. I've seen them run that play a couple of times. They've actually gotten us on that one time earlier in the season. So um, as soon as I saw him do that, I knew they were gonna try to throw it to him in there.

When I turned and faced him and I saw him looking that way, UM, I knew I could get that steal. Uh. So you know, there's a lot of communication though tonight. Guys are telling me, you know what to do. It allows me to to to do what I do best out there, and that's defend um. So I love when we hear that kind of stuff from from players immediately

after the game. One of my favorite things about having Draymond Green at the volume is his reactions within a playoff series from a player on the teams in a podcast format like this is turning into some of the best content that you can find in sports. If you guys haven't heard it, you always gotta check out Draymond Green after his games. In the volume podcast feeds Now

with Austin Rivers. What he brought up, I think is a really interesting point here, because when I saw that play, you know what I thought, I thought Otto Porter Jr. Messed up because Andrew Wiggins wasn't open and he threw the pass. Now, there's a couple of interesting things surrounding that. First of all, what Austin Rivers just said is precisely why sets become less valuable in a postseason setting than

they are in the regular season. Austin seen that play before, and one of the reasons why Steve Kirk called that play is because he's expecting a switch and he knew that the smaller defender was guarding Steph. He knew that if he set a solid screen, he'd get a switch, and there was even a possibility that multiple defenders would run with Steph, and he thought he'd be able to get a lob over the top to Andrew Wiggins. But

that wasn't the only area of the play. If Wiggins had the deep seal on it, Austin Rivers in the past was available, you throw the pass and you get the layout. But Steph came off of that screen and was flying out to the corner, and he had an advantage, and I think he would have been open in the corner. Otto Porter Jr's job is if the read is not there, don't throw it and hits Steph in the corner. So I see why it's easy for I see why it's easy for Warriors fans to be like, here goes Steve

Kerr again. He drew up a play for Andrew Wiggins. No, he drew up a play that had multiple reads, one of which was hit Andrew Wiggins. If he has an advantage because they're overplaying Steph and he it's a small guy pinned on him. That read wasn't open. There was another part of the play Steph coming out to the corner that was the guy out of Porter Jr. Was

supposed to hit. And again if and all the Warriors fans are like, why didn't they just throw it into Steph Curry and let him go to work, Here's something else that might have happened. Steph Curry might have ran out to half court and grabbed the ball and he would have either been doubled at half court or if he dribbled up the floor. As soon as he got to an area of score, they would have doubled him. Or if he called for a ball screen, they would have doubled him, and the ball would have ended up

in someone else's hands. And if that person, that person then suddenly becomes in the exact same position out of Porter Jr. Was in. If he makes the right read out of a full on three, everything is great. If he makes the bad read out of the four on three, the play falls apart. The play call wasn't the issue, Steve Kerr wasn't the issue. OUTO Porter Jr. Just made a bad read and then, just like Austin River said, and this is the last thing I'll say about it.

These guys scout a lot. If you run a set once and it works on them, they remember it, and if it would have worked in this particular game, never would have worked again in the series because they would have snuffed it out for the next time. These these the the idea that like you can xs and oes your way to victory. There's a little bit of truth to that, But at the end of the day, it's about the players. They have to make the reads, they

have to play basketball. That's why the Lakers, with one of the most you know, dumbed down offensive systems in in the entire league, won the title in because they had better players and there are players were able to execute offensively by just using their advantages and making reads. So again, I'm picking the Warriors to win big in Game five. Don't care about Steve Kirk calling that play.

I had it on Auto Porter Jr. And yeah, I'm concerned about Nicolayoku's ability to play defense on the perimeter and how that changes his ceiling, you know, as a championship level player. Before we move on, I wanted you guys to check out this promo for more shows on the volume. I it's Colin Coward. I started the volume to bring you some of the most apathetic voices in sports. While you're here, make sure you hit subscribe. Thanks. Let's move on to the nets. Falling down three games to

zero to the Celtics last night. Like I said in the video that I released right after the game, I wasn't shocked because I saw something in game two that had that forced me to change my outlook on a lot of different things in this playoff run. The night before, Devin Booker had strained his hamstring, and then in that particular game, I saw the Celtics in the second half hit a level of defense that I've never actually seen

before in my time watching the game of basketball. There was a complete inability of the nets to generate even remotely decent quality shots. Even when Katie and Kyrie were getting to their spots, Boston was doing such an incredible job of crowding them that you could tell they weren't comfortable. And it's been one of the most interesting parts of this particular series. Boston is showing flashes of a level of defense that I haven't seen in my time watching basketball.

Over the course of the last decade and a half, there are a couple of teams that have come close. You're I'm talking like the two thousand nineteen Raptors or like the Lakers. There are examples of really, really good defenses over the course of the last few years, but each of them had weaknesses in one way or another. The Lakers were not good at defending on the perimeter. At the point of attack, they actually gave up a lot of straight line drives. They were just great at

rotating out of it. The Toronto Raptors had some size and quickness issues. They played Fred VanVleet and Kyle Lowry in large bursts together, or they play Marc Gasol, a guy who was good in drop coverage and good at protecting the rim, but not very mobile, not good at covering grounds, so when you got him in space, he had some issues. And there were cases to be made that the Raptors were better with Serge Ibaka at the center position. This Celtics defense is completely and utterly devoid

of weaknesses. And what's crazy is they bring in pieces off the bench that even slide well into that same scheme and that same quality of defense that you get out of the core five guys. And it's been really interesting because Katie and Kyrie, you know, there's a lot of people that are focused on them in particular in how this series has gone. And I get it. That's kind of the way that basketball is discussed. Everyone's, especially on Twitter. It's kind of like everyone's on a side.

Are you on the pro k D side of the anti k D side? Are you on the pro Kyrie side and the anti Kyrie side? But it's interesting because to me, this has been so much more about great Celtics defense than it has been about bad Nets offense, and I think we need to remember to give that credit to Boston because it's very, very important as we

look forward to these next few series. Is one of the most interesting dynamics of this particular series is even though Boston is throwing the kitchen sink at trying to stop Kevin Durant and Kyrie, We've we've broken it down in detail on the show. Multiple defenders. Every time there's a dribble drive. The only time they're really operating in single coverage is when they're twenty ft from the basket.

Anytime there's any action, they're grabbing and they're holding their airing on the side of sending to double two guys towards them. They're facing incredibly aggressive defensive coverage is but Boston is doing such an incredible job rotating out of it. On the back end. I've talked a lot this year about how bad the Bucks defense is because of the fact that they packed the paint and they give up

wide open threes on the back end. The Bucks during the regular season gave up more than twenty wide open threes per game on the back end of their def it well in this playoff run. Through three games, they're giving up twenty wide open threes on the back end. So that's very that's that's an example of the way

that they play defense. This Boston team so far in this series with Brooklyn is only giving up nine point three wide open threes against Brooklyn, less than half as many as Milwaukee is giving up in the fewest out of any of the teams in this entire playoff front. So, and I would argue that Katie and Kyrie are being pretty willing passers. We're gonna talk a little bit more about them as playmakers as we get further into this, but it's not for Katie and Kyrie jacking up shots.

In the last two games combined, Katie and Kyrie combined have only taken fifty eight shots, which means they're averaging between each of them are averaging less than fifteen shots per game. That's they are not out there gunning. The Boston d offense is getting the ball out of their hands, and Boston has good Brooklyn has good offensive players, Guys like Seth Curry, guys like Patty Mills, Guys like Andre Drummond,

who's a pretty skilled center, right. There are good offensive players on the floor for Brooklyn working in a lot of four on three scenarios, and they're not getting anything on the back end. And that's why I keep saying, like, what caused me to have to change my outlook on this entire playoff run. Part of it was the Sons. Devin Booker's hamstring is pulled. That's a significant change in the dynamic of the Western Conference playoffs. We've talked about

that in detail. But in addition to that, I have seen something from Boston that I haven't seen from certainly any other team in this Eastern Conference playoff field, but I would argue that I haven't seen this from any team in recent NBA history. They are touching a level of defense that we are that we are not accustomed to seeing, and we have to adjust our expectations moving forward because of that. Jayson Tatum blocked Kevin Durant again

on a pull up jump shot yesterday. It originally got called a foul, but on the replay I thought it was clean. I thought he got the ball first, and we just don't see that very often. A huge part of that is because of how dominant Boston's team defense is Tatum is given the leeway to crowd Kevin Durant more. And because he's crowding Kevin Durant more, Kevin Durant is playing with the body underneath him more than he's used to. And Jayson Tatum has the length to get to the

top of Kadi's shot. It is this unbelievable team, you know, organism that Boston has working on defense and it's flum mixed one of the best offenses in the league this year. So in second halves this season, I think third and fourth quarter, when Kadi and Kyrie are on the floor together. In the regular season, those guys averaged a hundred and

twenty four point eight points per one possessions. In this decond has against Boston in this series, they're only scoring a hundred and two points six So in addition to everything that they're doing, they're starting to wear them down physically and cause problems as the series and as the games are progressive. If you guys remember back in March, when Boston really was first starting to catch their stride, we did a bunch of stuff on them on our show,

and I had some concerns at the time. Tatum and Brown were shooting particularly well. Obviously you were worried about Boston potentially as a half court offense. But there were a couple of very specific things that I pointed to, And it was after Boston went into Brooklyn and beat the Nets in a very very exciting game. And in that game, I couldn't help but notice that Tatum kept working down and getting Seth Curry on switches. And when he was getting Seth Curry on those switches, he was

getting great looks and scoring. And then Brooklyn had to start doubling, and then Boston was getting wide open shots out of it. Meanwhile, down on the other end of the floor, Boston and was running a lineup of Al Horford and Robert Williams with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart, and there were a handful of possessions where Katie scored it, particularly in switches against Al Horford, tough midrange pull up jump shots, but he wasn't getting

good shots. And it was like, here, I'm attacking Jayson Tatum on a very highly contested pull up three. Here's Robert Williams coming up on a switch and contesting k D on a three that he nearly blocks you were seeing k D was trying to pick from a bunch of really difficult defensive matchups and Jayson Tatum was picking

from significantly easier defensive matchups. And after that game, I did a video breakdown on this very specific thing, and I said that the defense for Boston was able to buy Jason Tatum a margin for error that would allow him to potentially outplay Kevin Durant, and he has in this series, and to his credit, because I didn't see it come. I thought Katie would be the swing factor

in this series, and he hasn't played well. We'll talk a little bit more about that here in a minute, but so let's let's look at this playmaking thing because the most there's been a lot of grave dancing going on, which we'll talk about a little bit more in just a second, but a lot of people that are doing the grave dancing on k D and Kyrie and the nets are pointing at them as playmakers. And I get that because it's not a strength of theirs. I've talked about this a lot on the show. It's a it's

a skill that I personally value a lot. That's why I've always been drawn to guys like Lebron and guys like Luka don Chich. I think it's an extremely valuable playoff skill, but people are forgetting just how rare it is. I think there's only four guys in the league that I would call like true dominant playmakers as perimeter initiators. Luka don Chits, Lebron, James Nicola, Yochi Yoki, and Chris Paul.

Those are the only four that consistently make reads that thrive in that environment going against the offenses like Boston that are overly aggressive. And don't get me wrong, I've watched every one of these games twice in this series, and there have been a lot of misreads. There have been opportunities where Katie and Kyrie have missed open guys, but the same could be said for like I said, every other player in the league, with exception of that

select four. Now, that's what makes them so great is they never missed those reads. Guys like Luca, guys like Lebron, Yr Kitchen, CP three, they are obsessive and they are programmed in a way that they never missed those reads, and that's what makes it very difficult to play very aggressive defense against them. But the flip side of that is, none of those guys are as good in isolation scoring as Katie and Kyrie are. It's just a different archetype

of player. You're given some and you're getting some. Obviously, if I swapped Lebron James into this series, Boston's probably not as aggressive, and Lebron is gonna face a lot more single coverage because Boston is gonna be scared to double a passer as great as Lebron. But the flip side of that is Lebron in single coverage attacking guys like Tatum and Brown and now Horford all night long, he might not have as much success there as a guy like k D could, at least at this point

in his career prime. Lebron, that's a different story. But my point is is like, if you're asking Katie and Kyrie to consistently make high level reads as passers against an overly aggressive defense, that's an unrealistic expectation that that's not their strength. And if you were, if they were capable of that, that very specific skill, they probably wouldn't be as good in other areas of the game. From what I can tell in this series, k D is

being a willing passer. He's not forcing shots. I talked about this earlier. Katie and Kyrie have combined to attempt only fifty eight shots in the last two games. There are some forces in there, there are some possessions, particularly Kyrie. Kyrie has been a lot more recklessly aggressive than k D has. I would argue k D is actually kind

of overpassed. In Game three, in particular, you can tell all of this super aggressive defense is starting to get into his head a little bit because there are plays where he's the second defender is coming, but he's not even there yet, and Katie's already panicked getting rid of the ball. So Katie hasn't been perfect here. I want to talk a little bit more about how I feel about how Katie's played in this series here in just

a minute. But the point is is that Katie and Kyrie are doing the best that they can within their individual skill sets, at least to try to make Boston pay for their over aggressiveness. It's just they're not the type of players that are built to thrive against that specific type of defense, which brings me to honest, because Milwaukee took a two, took a three, one lead yesterday and uh and with Boston being up three, oh, that's

probably what we're headed towards. We're probably headed towards Milwaukee versus Boston. And the truth of the matter is Janice is also not a fantastic playmaker. Got into an argument with some Bucks fans today, is he better than k d They both average right around six assists per game. It kind of depends on who you ask. I think Katie is a better passer than Janice, but it's not some big difference, right. Both of them are just your typical guys that are capable of making reads on occasion,

but they're not dominant playmakers. Janice is gonna have very similar problems. Now there are differences. Janice is going to be able to thrive in the physicality. If Boston tries to hold him and grab him off the ball, he's gonna win that type of matchup. They're gonna be a lot of like dunks and offensive rebound putbacks and things like that from Joannice. That are his unbeatable, high level skill that he brings to the table that Boston will

not be able to match up with. But the flip side of that is he doesn't have any of the pull up jump shooting game that guys like Kyrie and Katie have. Now, Kyrie and Katie have been atrocious as pull up jump shooters in this series, which is a credit to Boston's defense. But my point is is that Janice is going to be in some similar predicaments. He's

also gonna get doubled on the catch a lot. They're gonna test his handle, They're gonna see if he can really dribble the basketball as well as as as he thinks he can. They're gonna see, they're gonna test his ability to make reads. They're going to send multiple bodies to him, and he's gonna have to make the same reads that Katie and Kyrie have been asked to make, and I don't know if he's gonna be able to make them. Johanna's fans seems supremely confident and and this

is your big opportunity, Chris Middleton's out. You're not gonna have a high level three level score that you can throw the ball to as like an outletter of release valve for you in these settings, A lot is gonna be on Janice as a half court creator in this series. My prediction is that he will also struggle, just like Kadi did in my prediction as Milwaukee will lose. If he goes in there and he dominates that series, that's when I have to have a wake up call about

just how good Jannie is. I just don't think that's going to happen. I think the other outcome is far more likely now with Brooklyn. This is where we're gonna get to the gray dancing here, because it's been an absolute party over the course of the last day and a half with everybody and their brother talking about how bad this Brooklyn experience has been, and it has for

a lot of reasons. Should should Katie have partnered with Kyrie, a very very finicky person who's not very reliable and isn't exactly a guy that you can count on in a lot of different ways. Yeah, I disagree with that strategy. Was Steve Nash the right coach for the job? You know? Maybe not? Was it worth it to sell to go after James hard and knowing everything that was wrong with him? Yeah? Probably not? But they did find in the trade on the back end, right, there are some moves there that

I disagree with. Moves on the periphery going after really old guys like LaMarcus Aldridge and Paul Millsap and Blake Griffin. Yet those are moves that I disagree with, But at the same time, let's be honest about what what they have going forward. They've got Ben Simmons coming back. I'm not surprised that he's not gonna play in Game four.

Just doesn't make sense to risk his back under the circumstances. Right, I've got Joe Harris coming back six ft five mobile shooter who is an okay defensive player, significantly improved offensive play over a bunch of the options that they've had to play in this series. And then Ben Simmons gives you some of that physical presence that they were lacking in this series. So that's a massive influxive talent coming

into this next season. And again, Kyrie and Katie are aging, but they're not old yet, so you can probably expect that Katie and Kyrie are going to be mostly Katie and Kyrie next year. Not to mention if there's no vaccine mandate, as long as Katie doesn't excuse me, as long as Kyrie doesn't just disappear on without telling everybody for a month. Chances are they won't be a seven seed. Chances are they'll be a higher seed. They'll have more talent.

Is Brooklyn gonna win the title next year? I don't. I don't know. They're not gonna be favored. So it's not like a question of of like, oh, just wait for Brooklyn next year. They're gonna run everybody. Over All I'm saying is don't dance on their grave just yet. They have moves to make, they have talent coming into the fold. They're gonna be good. A lot of people did this with the two thousand nineteen Lakers. Oh, Lebron's bringing wine to the bench. Oh, oh, Lebron is getting

blocked on game winners. Lebron looks washed. And then they were holding the trophy the next year because they made some savvy moves in the off season, brought in a superstar player and Anthony Davis and a lot of things changed. So don't right off Brooklyn just yet. So let's move on to k D. I have always hated this about the way that we talk about NBA players, and it's a very twitter It's a very Twitter fueled dynamic with a lot a lot less focus on what's actually happening

on the court and a lot more opportunistic slander. And we had today after uh we had today on T and T. Charles Barkley give a perfect example of what I'm talking about with his comments on k D. I want to show you guys this clip first and then I will respond to it. Let me tell you something I don't want a bad amounth to do, but I'm so you guys always talk about that championship stuff. I try to tell you all these buzz routers, they don't mean nothing to me. If you ain't driving the bus.

Don't walk around and talk about Julia Champion. If you're riding the bus, I don't want to hear Come on, Shack tell him all these guys walk around to the the championship ring. Hey, y'all bus riders, were you bust Were you the bus driver? And you've got all that pressure where you have to play? Well, are you gonna get

to blame? That's a different animal. That literally sounds like a tweet from a faceless account underneath, like something random that Katie would tweet in the middle of the summer. That's the kind of discourse that we're getting surrounding this, and it's disappointing to me at a bunch of different levels.

First of all, throw some credit to Boston. How many times like Katie is as rounded and confident and experience two superstars you have in this league, and they have literally cut him off at the knees in this series. Give some credit to Boston. That's That's a huge part of this. The second part of it is the obsession to make this about head to head match instead of

team basketball. I told you guys before this postseason even started, I said, I'm not looking forward to the Celtics potentially beating the Nets and everyone saying Tatum is better than KD now. And the reason why I said that is because I knew this would happen. Because this is how we respond to this sort of thing. I try to be consistent with this kind of stuff in two thousand seventeen.

In two thousand eighteen, I thought Lebron James was the best basketball player in the world by a comfortable margin. He had just firmly demonstrated it against Steph Curry in two thousand sixteen, and then this is what happened. The seventy three win Warriors that just went to seven games with Lebron requiring a game winning pull up jump shot from Kyrie Irving in a monster, amazing block from Lebron

James to get the trophy. After that game, uh, Kevin Durant signed with the Golden State Warriors, so everyone with a brain knew that they were gonna probably win the next year. And guess what they did. They won fifteen playoff games, but or they lost one. They had injuries during the season and still won sixties seven regular season games. They were an incredibly dominant team. And what was everyone saying after that series? Oh, Katie outplayed Lebron. Katie's better

than Lebron. Get the two thousand and eighteen. Now Kyrie is out of the picture. So same talented Warriors team one less Kyrie Irving and the Calves get swept and everyone's like, Katie's better than Lebron. Look at him out playing Lebron, look at him hitting this massive dagger shot over Lebron in Game three. And it was unfair then and it's unfair now. Basketball is a team sport. I know, it seems like fun and it's entertaining to to to pretend as though it's so that it's just this this

like little mono amano boxing match. But that's not the way it works. That's incredibly low brow analysis, and so I'm gonna call it out when I see it. I thought that was really lame from Charles Barkley. Now with k D has he been great in this series? Know? There, Katie deserves some criticism. He has not been impactful enough on the defensive end and as a rebounder that could have been a swing factor in this series. I have

to criticize him for that. Throughout his entire career, He's always put that as less important than some of the scoring areas of his game. I believe had he embraced that throughout his career, we'd probably be having a different conversation about Kevin Durant potentially being the greatest basketball player ever right now. That's something I've consistently criticized him for. His inability to handle physicality has been a player a problem in this series. Has not been a problem at

almost any other point in his career. Not since like the Memphis Grizzlies in in two thousand thirteen or whatever, have we seen a team really disrupt Katie with physicality. But in this series, it's been a problem. He's been worn down off the ball when he gets to his shots, He's missing shots he normally makes. And I believe that's a huge part of that. He has strong gold with Jayson Tatum in isolation defense because of the physicality and his ability to press up on Katie and his inability

to thrive in that physic physical environment. That's fair criticism. Also, he has not made enough high level reads. We talked about that in detail earlier in this segment. He needs to be able to make a defense pay for being that aggressive. That's all fair criticism. Katie did not play good enough in this series, that is fair. But he could have played way better and they still would have lost.

That's how good this Boston team is. Kevin Durant could have exerted more in the physical areas of the game of defense and they still would have lost. Kevin Durant could have made more of these pull up jump shots and they still would have lost. It just would have been in five or six games instead of in four. And so what I'm saying is like, if you want to get on there and you want to show clips and talk about Katie missing reads, I'm right there with you.

That's criticism, let's do it. But this lame thirty feet his rings are frauds, He's not a real champion. He sucks at all this stuff. You know that to me is just really really lame analysis. And I would hope that at some point we would be better than that. And most importantly, if I swapped Lebron and Kadi in this series and Lebron ran all of these possessions that Katie is running, would it have looked different? Potentially, meaning

like Boston probably doesn't help as much. Boston is probably less aggressive, Boston probably tries to turn Lebron into a score. But I still think Brooklyn loses why because Boston is one of the best defenses I've ever seen, and they're the better team in this series. So let's let's just if you want to be critical of Katie, that's fine. Let's just at least keep it, you know fair, If that makes sense. Hi, it's Colin Coward. I started the volume to bring you some of the most apathetic voices

in sports. While you're here, make sure you hit subscribe. Thanks. All right, before we get out of here for the night, we're going to do a segment that we're calling fast break where I just really quickly hit on the other series is going on around the league. I want to start with the Bucks. I thought it was really really interesting in Game three the way they went with Bobby Portis in for Chris Middleton. That going with three bigs

was kind of the textbook. Mike Budenholzer, We're gonna double down on protecting the paint now for this particular matchup. It's genius because the Bulls don't know how to generate quality three is. I've talked about this a lot. Over the course of the last couple of months. The Bulls were dead last in the league in three pointers attempted per game, and so are you shocked that they could only make eighteen total threes and their two home games.

I'm not shocked. That's kind of the whole, the whole point of this matchup. Milwaukee's greatest defensive weakness also happens to be Chicago's greatest offensive weakness, so it's not surprising at all that they would struggle to capitalize on the

Bucks going all in on size. The tricky part there is I don't think that same strategy will work in later matchups, especially against the Celtics, Like you're seeing what the nets, it's so important to have guys around Kyrie and KD that can score because of all the attention thrown that way. That is going to happen again in the next round. They're gonna throw a ton of bodies at Janice and a ton of bodies that Drew, and they're gonna be asking other people to whoop to beat you.

And I'm not sure that going with three bigs is the way to do that, but I did think it was a smart card to pull in this particular series. And here's the deal. Chris Middleton's out with the knee brain, he says, two weeks. We'll see I would be shocked if he showed up before game four, Game five of next round. But you needed to win this series, Chicago's sole game too. It was very much still kind of up in doubt at that point. You had to do something.

I thought it was a smart adjustment for this particular series. I'm just really curious to see, like we talked about earlier, how they deal with the Celtics. Moving on to the Heat. You know, I had a bunch of Heat fans comment recently about how we haven't talked enough about the heat. I get that. In my defense, this Atlanta Hawks team, in my opinion, is by far the most uninteresting team in this field. They're like fifteen good teams in the

Atlanta Hawks in here. Sorry, if you're a Hawks fan listening, that's just the reality of this situation. Jim Jackson, who does an amazing job doing color commentary, he was the color commentator for this particular game, and he made a comment and he said, this is like watching a professional team playing a college team. And again, there's not that

much of a gap in talent. But what he was trying to say, which is something that I agree with, they're not great at the details of being a professional basketball team. They don't have their rotations down sharply, they're not consistent in their effort on a possession by possession basis. They look really unorganized, particularly on the defensive end. How many times tonight did you see somebody from Miami break wide open? When the other series is around the league,

you don't see as many wide open players. The Hawks have only held Miami below twenty points in a quarter twice in this series, and they lost both of those quarters. So even when the Hawks have been able to lock in and get stops, the Heat have been better than them. In those quarters. They were the sore thumb of this

entire playoff field. And yes, they'll be going home in Game five, Heat fans, we will be talking a lot more Miami Heat in the next round against the Sixers or the Raptors, depending on who wins that series, which takes us to the Raptors. So what did I tell you guys before the series was the most important part for Toronto to have a chance to win. I told you guys two things. I said. They have to get out and transit, and they have to have multiple players

play better than James Harden. And in this particular game, they force sixteen turnovers and at twenty two points on those turnovers, they had twenty one fast break points, which is more than twice as many as Philly had. And both Gary Trent Jr. And Pascal Siakom we're better than James Harden. And what do you know, you get a win as a results. Yakom was awesome. He at thirty four, eight and five in that game. Them beat thumb injury is interesting. I have never uh torn a ligate my

ligament in my thumb. But I've sprained my thumb before. It's no fun. I had a shooting coach once back when I was playing in Utah talk about how your thumb is one of the most important parts of your shot because that's how you avoid left right misses. My

there was a coach I had in Utah. I was obsessed with watching YouTube videos, and he'd watched these videos of Ray Allen, and Ray Allen would always talk about spreading your hands wider, getting your hands wider around the basketball because that helps you get more control over the basketball.

Having a sprained the ligament in your thumb, I keep trying to imagine what it would be like to shoot with that, and that's complicated, and especially since Joel Embiide and his jump shooting has been kind of a weird important weapon for the Sixers in this series. That's how they stole Game three again. I am obviously picking the Sixers to win the series. That there We've never seen

a team come back from three out. But as a basketball fan, I've told you guys at length how they're the team that I want to lose because their foul grifting offends me. As a basketball fan, if there was one team that you'd love to see lose three, oh, it would be these guys. And this is how it is. You go into Philly and you win. Once you do that,

you take them back to Toronto. It's gonna be a madhouse, and all of a sudden, the pressures on the Sixers, and you hope that that pressure ends up breaking down a lot of their players and ruining their confidence. That would be your hope. That's not going to happen. I don't think, but I would be lying if I told you I wasn't rooting for that last quick hitter of the night. This Ben Simmons story, there was this conflicting reporting. Yet a report come out Ben Simmons not gonna play

in Game four. Then you had reports come out that the Nets were disappointed that he decided not to play. It's a herniated disc, guys, he didn't tweak his ankle. He's got a bulging disc in his back. There's absolutely no reason to bring him back to play in this game. Regardless of whether or not Ben Simmons is coming back next year, there's just no point. The Celtics are the

better team. They're going to win this series. All that could stand to happen by bringing Ben Simmons back is maybe you steal a game or two if he's a massive impact player, but you're still gonna lose the series. And Ben Simmons is back in his health in that area is more valuable at this point. I have no doubts that he would have played if they would have won Game three. To me, that's a big non story. Alright, guys, that is all I have for tonight. As always, I

sincerely appreciate your support. We will be back after the final game. Actually, no tomorrow, We're going early. We're going right after NETS Celtics tomorrow, so be ready for that here on YouTube like usual, right after the final buzzer of Celtics NETS. I will see you guys. Then the volume