Hoops Tonight - Celtics embarrass Warriors, Thunder beat Suns, Clippers-Wolves + NBA Power Rankings

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Hoops to Night here at the Volume. Happy Monday, everybody. If all of you guys had a great weekend, we have a jam packed show for you today. We're gonna be doing instant reactions to three games from over the weekend. The Golden State Warriors got just absolutely demolished by the Boston Celtics. Tried an interesting strategy off of the opening

tip that we'll talk about. Then. I'm gonna be breaking down the Oklahoma City Thunder going into Phoenix last night and really just dealing a physical pain in the ass win to Phoenix, exposing some specific issues that they've been dealing with most of the year. After that, the Los Angeles Clippers got revenge on the Minnesota Timberwolves by doing to them what they did to them the first time.

So we're gonna be breaking down those three games. Then after that, like we always do on Mondays, we'll have our latest edition of the Power Rankings. You guys are the joefore we get started, subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. I mean a lot to me. If you guys take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you

get your podcasts under Hoops tonight. Follow me on Twitter at underscore jsonlt That's where I put film threads as well as show announcements, and then, last but not least, keep dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments. I think we're gonna have two shorter mail bags on Wednesday and Thursday this week to give you an idea of the schedule really quick. Obviously, today those three game breakdowns and Power Rankings. Tuesday, we're going with Yovan Booja deep

dive on the Lakers. They play the Thunder tonight and they also just have their game against the Nuggets. So we're gonna just kind of talk basketball with Yovann, get some injury updates since he's obviously much closer to the team than I am. Wednesday and Thursday, we're actually going live at night on YouTube after the nationally televised games, but during the day we'll be doing single instant reaction

games and some mailbag stuff. So that's our schedule for the next few days. All right, let's talk some basketball. So starting with Warriors Celtics. So the kind of the story out of the opening tip of this game was the Warriors putting Draymond Green on Jalen Brown. Now there's a lot of criticism there because of the result, but I do understand the general thought process behind it. So just put yourself in the coach's shoes as they're trying

to scout through this type of matchup. Right, they're looking at it like this team has a ton of offensive skill and we're gonna have a lot of issues all over the floor. We've got to come up with something to try to slow them. Down, and I think the general idea was, well, if we have Draymond Green roaming in the paint, that gives us a much better chance to guard the other four guys because those guys don't have to be as worried about getting blown by because

Draymond's on the back line. It gives them the ability to be more aggressive at the point of attack. And specifically with Jalen Brown, He's had a tendency over the course of his career, specifically in big games and in big moments where sometimes like he just like he misses a couple shots and then he gets a little bit in his head, he loses his confidence, and then he can kind of withdraw from the game to a certain extent.

And so the idea there is is like, well, let's try to get in Jalen Brown's head by leaving him wide open, and it'll give us a much better chance to guard elsewhere on the floor. Here's the problem, Jalen Brown's playing some of the best basketball of his career right now. And when you take that type of strategy, which, by the way, that type of strategy happens all over the NBA with about every just about every NBA team, you find a really good help defender that you put

on a guy offensively that you're not particularly worried about any roams around. That's not unheard of. The difference is Boston doesn't really have a good option to do that against. That's really the only difference. Like their lineup is somewhat fool proof in the sense that there's no really an option for you to just straight up ignore. Everybody has to at the very least get a hard close out right.

And so here's the problem. When you take that type of risk with the player of Jalen Brown's caliber, you have the potential to get burned. And boy did day get burned. Jalen Brown got red hot as he blew the game open there in the middle of the first quarter. But I want to obviously Jalen Brown deserves a ton of credit for blowing the game open with a shooting like that, But I really want to draw attention to the defensive end of the floor because that's where I

thought the Celtics won this particular game. And once again, it started with Jaylen Brown on the ball on Steph Curry physical ball pressure. I talked about this in our Celtics video like two or three days ago. But Jalen Brown has just been on an absolute tear on the defensive end of the floor. He is targeting the other team's best player and just putting all of his effort and energy into trying to slow that guy down, and he's had a ton of success on that end of

the floor. But I want to drop past Jalen Brown to the rest of the team because this is an important part of guarding a team like Golden State because of their screening actions, really physical switching hands on when the switch comes, you get right back into the into the offensive player's body right away to make sure that he constantly is feeling that contact and that fatigue making

everything difficult. Another guy I wanted to shout out on this front was Peyton Pritchard, who I thought from the mini he came into the game there in the middle of the first quarter. He had a really nice two way game. He had nineteen points in this game. But he was another guy that was bringing great ball pressure and just getting up underneath Golden State's guards all game long. From there, off of stops and turnovers, getting out in transition.

This was a big time transition game for Boston. They scored forty two points in transition in this game. And you know, one of the things that I've talked a ton about on this show as of late, I've been harping on Boston as a team that needs to bully their way into the paint more the record. It's been working. They've in their last four games are averaging sixty points in the paint per game, and that ranks third in

the NBA over that span. That's been a really nice trend, possibly the most encouraging trend of the season that I've seen so far from Boston. But make no mistake, like I never ever intended or wanted people to think that I don't want Boston shooting jump shots. They're a very good jump shooting team. It's more about balance and having

a counter when the jump shots aren't falling. But they are a team that can straight up beat you making jump shots in games when there's really good rhythm and flow, the balls popping around and everybody feels good and involved in the offense. Right, they took fifty eight jump shots and this game against Golden State, it was a heavy jump shooting game, but they got eighty four points on those fifty eight jump shots. That's one point four to five points per shot. And in these last two massive

blowout wins, they've been able to do both. They've been able to dominate the paint, not so much against Golden State, but they've been able to dominate the paint as of late, while also knocking down a bunch of jump shots efficiently. And those two things kind of tie into each other as well. When you're doing one, it makes the other easier and vice versa. And like I put in my notes, it's great to be able to do both. That really

is the key there. That's what makes Boston such an intriguing playoff threat is the simple fact that, like, they can win from the perimeter, but they are starting to demonstrate that they can win on the interior, and like it's just gonna be about whether or not they can maintain that. And that isn't just some three to four game trend here in the middle of the season, but just an unbelievably impressive and dominant win for the Boston

Celtics over the Golden State Wars. I'm sure it felt good for them too, to get some revenge after they lost in Golden State earlier. This year on the Warriors front, I said this after the Denver win, and I mean this sincerely. Boston and Denver are problems for another day. You're not ready to beat Boston, You're not ready beat Denver.

That's there's no question on that front. However, like there's no guarantee that you're even going to run into Boston unless you get to the finals obviously, right and you're like getting to Denver. There are steps you got to get through before you get to that point, Like this is you got to start with the goal that's right

in front of you right now. And this is where I agree with some of the attitude coming out of the locker room, like Steph Curry is saying, like, yeah, you know, they kicked our butts, but obviously, like we like Steph had a really bad shooting night that obviously plays a role into that sort of thing like long misses,

transition opportunities, right. But also Draymond's like the losses, the losses, the loss We've got to move on, And he is right in the sense that like, right now, I think I think the Warriors are still at the ten seed. You're a ten seed, like you just gotta worry about. First, you gotta worry about getting up to number eight, because if you get up to number eight, that's your capability

to have two opportunities in the play in tournament. That way, if you lose the seven eight game, you have another chance if you can win against the winner of the nine to ten matchup right. So goal number one is

you got to climb out of that ten spot. And when you look at the schedule and you look at where they are, where they're at health wise right now, and when you look at what Moses Moody has been able to do stepping into the Andrew Wiggins role, like, you're in position to do that, and you just need to keep getting better and better and better. Now it's March fourth, Let's say, for instance, that Minnesota and Oklahoma City maintain their stranglehold on the one two seed, which

we'll see. Denver is six and zero right now out of the break, But they were five and one out of the break last year and then they immediately dropped five of their next six games. So who knows if this is Denver like going to lock in down the stretcher, if maybe they keep slipping, But if it's Oklahoma City and Minnesota in that one to two range. I think both of those teams are beatable. I think everybody is beatable, with exception of the top tier teams, right and I

don't include Minnesota and Oklahoma City in that tier. So, like chances are if you do end up facing a team like Denver, there's a good chance that it may not be until May. So you got two months to sort all of this out. You've got two months to build your defensive habits up to another level. You've got two months to kind of establish a way to generate offense outside of what Steph Curry can bring to the table.

Those are bigger picture goals right now. You got to take a game by game, win by win, and you've got to climb out of that nine to ten spot. Those are that would be my way of trying to kind of like keeping your ey keep your eye on the prize in light of a really upsetting, you know, destructive loss on the road in Boston. All right, moving on to thunder Suns. I watched this game last night, super super fun game to watch. Oklahoma City is just a royal pain in the ass to play against. They

play so incredibly hard. I felt bad. I shouldn't say felt bad. I know that KD and Bradley Beal, We're just like, oh man, these dudes are literally picking up full court. They're double teaming the second we cross half court like they weren't. It was. It was one of the most aggressive, like start to finish defensive schemes that

you'll see in the regular season. And it's because Oklahoma City has the combination of a coach that can keep them organized enough to run these sorts of things properly in two the young athletes that have both the physical tools and the motor and energy level to maintain that over the course of a long basketball game most of the time, like Phoenix doesn't even run into these types of super aggressive coverages until the fourth quarter, when teams are just trying to get the ball out of Kevin

Durant's hands or get the ball out of Devin Booker's hands. This was a start to finish. We are pressuring the ball, We are bringing double teams as soon as you cross half court. We are playing passing lanes even just like you know. Here's the thing I've been critical is the wrong word. I've talked a lot about how I don't necessarily believe in Oklahoma City is like a championship contender because they're small and because they're young. But I still

feel that way. You did see again last night, like USUF Nurkics, like what do you have? Thirty one rebounds just like just absolutely demolish them on the glass. And there are teams around the league that bring a combination of what Phoenix brings to the table in terms of

perimmeter talent and interior presence. Teams like Denver even the Clippers, like you're gonna get Kawhi and if you Ka Zubats on the interior, while also having all the perimeter type of talent that a team like Phoenix brings to the table. Those are the teams that I worry about for a team like Oklahoma City. But even though they are perhaps maybe a touch too small and inexperienced to win the title, that doesn't mean that they aren't a physical and scrappy team.

They are a super physical and scrappy team. It's one of the big reasons why in the long run, I'm such a big believer in what this team can accomplish, because if they do bring in a legitimate forward to the table that raises their physical profile when they do go into this playoff run and get you know, let's say they win a first round series and then end up losing a really tough second round series or losing

in the conference finals. Those are battle scars that build this team up to where in the future they can be a bigger and more experienced version of this crazy talented, crazy physical, crazy competitive Oklahoma City Thunder team. And that's what's going to take them to the promised land of hoisting Delari O'Brien Trophy. But there were a bunch of specific things that I wanted to dive into and to demonstrate just how physical and scrappy they are. First of all,

physical switching. So this is you know, just imagine like Phoenix runs a lot of like off ball screening actions to try to get Kevin Durant into advantage situations around like the elbow and post area, right, Like, That's what makes Kevin Durant different from so many of these other stars around the league in the sense that, like so many of the modern day stars are just operating out of dribble handoffs and ball screens, and Kevin Durant can do that too. That's obviously a big part of his game.

But Kevin Durant will also like come off of some sort of like wide pin down or like or like flare screen or something to try to get him into a position where he can catch with a triple threat, you know, fifteen to eighteen feet from the basket and then turn to face and try to go to work from there. Right. One of the things that Thunder were doing in this game is like lou Dort's on him and he's just hugging on him, like literally like holding him while he's like standing on the block waiting for

that screen. And so then down comes the screen. And there's a difference between passive switching and physical switching. Passive switching is like what the Clippers did to Lebron James and his crazy comeback run the other night. Here comes the screen. You know, Daniel Tice switches, but he just like starts guarding Lebron from you know, three four feet away, and Kawhi will just go away with the other guy, right,

and so no one's there making Lebron feel uncomfortable. He's just mixing up off the dribble and getting to his spot and making something happen. Physical switching is like I'm holding on to KD, I'm lou Dort. Here comes a screen Jylen Williams just like lou Dort literally passes him over to Jaln Williams like well, physical handoff, and Jalen Williams is grabbing him as he's coming off the other side of the screen and denying the catch. And so

as a result, they were creating these really tight passing windows because they're three quarter front and denying KD in all of his spots. He already had to work super hard to fight lou Dort up to the screen to where now he's fighting to try to create a passing angle. And then from there, off the ball, they're constantly digging

down and jumping into passing lanes. Like whenever a team has a bunch of turnovers, we're so quick to focus on the team turning the ball over and being like they're being sloppy, And don't get me wrong, they were. We're going to talk about that in a minute, but like, give some credit to the defense, Like Oklahoma City forced Phoenix to lose their minds and create a bunch of really sloppy turnovers, right, the other thing on the ball.

There is a possession I cliped you can find it on my Twitter feed of shake Yelvis Alexander guarding KD. And on this possession you can literally see like there's two different ways to reach in and and like you know, there's like a lunging reach in right where I like really get out of position to try to get down to get to the basketball, but I can also reach

in while staying balanced. And Shay is uniquely equipped with these like crazy long arms to where he can defensive slide with a guy and not have to really lunge or get out of position, but he can still swipe down at the basketball. And there's this possession, it's a Kdie turnover. Shay's on the ball in KD Haiti gets

driving down to his left hand. Shay literally swipes down at the basketball like six or seven times, just from twenty five feet from the basket down to five feet from the basket, just swiping and swiping and reaching and swiping. And then as soon as he gets downhill, there's a guy digging down from the corner and a guy coming up from the post, and they're all digging down at the basketball. And so it ends up leading to a Kevin Durant turnover. But the point is is, like it's hard.

It's hard to take care of the basketball when a bunch of athletes with really long wingspans who have been by the way picking you up full court all damn night, double teaming you all night long, fighting you off of every single spot, and you get a driving lane like this and they're reaching in like crazy and it's just really difficult to navigate that. I just wanted to give them some credit for that because I didn't think I

didn't think these were just sloppy turnovers. Oklahoma City sped Phoenix up and caused them to make a lot of these mistakes, and then from there jumping passing lanes like they just have so much straight line speed that like when a lane looks like it's open, you know, you'll see a hard double team come and there'll be on the weak side, like a shooter in the corner and a shooter on the wing, and it'll be like Kissan

Wallace or something playing in between the two players. And what he'll do is he'll kind of play back and like kind of bait KD. And the thinking the wing is open and he's standing there. And here's the thing. If he throws the skip pass to the corner, even if he is lunging up, he can still recover to that because there's so much time. But if he throws the skip pass to the wing, he just shoots into

that gap and takes the basketball away. It's just it is a layered attack of ball pressure, physical on the ball, physical on screening actions, physical and passing lanes off the ball, and they were just they cause all sorts of problems for Phoenix, which we'll get into a little bit deeper here in just a minute. Uh shakes. Alexander's ball control was the next thing I wanted to hit on there.

You know, this was a classic example of you know, and this is something that Shay has been doing forever, so I don't want to act like this is new, but this I just wanted to dive specifically into Shay Guilt Shay's ball ball handling because you know, we think of Shae as like a slow, methodical player, and don't get me wrong, he is. He's a very like change

of pace and methodical type of on ball player. But this is a guy that is really whipping the basketball around in a really controlled way with advanced dribble combinations in traffic, Like he'll get into his high hesitation and he'll hit that hesitation move where it almost looks like he freezes in space for a second. But then he'll hit that four dribble and he'll get into your body. Now there's contact, right he's got his shoulder into you,

and the the defenders like right up on him. From there, he'll hit like a back dribble, and then from there, instead of just like making a simple move, he'll hit like in and out cross between the legs back to the right, or he'll like double between the legs and back to the left. Are these super advanced dribble combinations in traffic while there's contact going on, and so that to me is a big element of what allows him to maintain control of the basketball while he's making these

complex counter moves. It's a ball handling thing. We think so much about change of pace, we think so much about his strength, We think so much about his mid range jump shooting and some of his footwork stuff that he has. But a big part of it that goes under the radar in a lot of these cases is

his ball handling. You know, there are a lot of players that can dribble when things are free and clear, but then as soon as they get into contact, they lose control of the basketball, and she just has incredible control of the basketball in a physical environment. Then lastly, down the roster shot making. Everybody on this team can make plays off the bounce verse half play cheded Holmgren's bringing the ball off the floor. It's a transition cross match.

He's got Roys O'Neil on him. They just space the floor and shit, just like hits a dribble combination, gets Downhill, bodies roy O'Neil and then pivots over his left shoulder and goes up and finished and screams and one in his face, and you're just like like, it's like, okay, this is the third guy that you have to deal with, and he's just confidently attacking one of your best perimeter defenders. That's punched my mic because I got too excited about it.

But uh uh, or you'll see, like we know what Shay Gills, Alexander and Jama Williams can do. But then like I see Lou Dort in the right corner in the second half, Uh end up hitting Grayson Allen with a dribble combination. It's like between the legs crossover and then he just whips like a crazy left to right crossover and literally like Grayson Allen almost falls over going to his right hand side, and then Dort goes along

the baseline. Now Grays had made a really nice defensive recovery on this plane, got back into the plane, blocked Blue Dort from behind as he missed it dunk. But I'm sitting there thinking like, this is your defensive minded wing, this is your three and D guy. And he hit has the ability to make plays off the bounce. He hit off the dribble jump shots in this game, like that's just another layer of the shot making Josh Giddy. He can attack smaller defenders. He can work and pick

and roll even bench guys. There was a play that the Sons defended perfectly and it led to a skip pass across the court to Cason Wallace in that right corner. And it was a really good close out I think from Aaron Gordon. If I remember correctly, it might have

been Grace Allen. But he catches in the right corner, great close out and he ends up hitting an in and out side step jump shot in the right corner from three like a high level step back three attacking a closeout in the right wing from your bench player who happens to be the guy that you view as your three and D guy off the bench, Like it's just it's layer after layer of insane amounts of offensive skill and all of them can guard, all of them can guard. It was a really impressive win. But like

this is where it gets really scary. For the long run. I said, give these guys some battle scars in a couple of long playoff runs. Give these guys a legitimate forward that can bang inside, that can help them deal with some of their physical limitations. They're going to be a gigantic pain in the ass for a very long time in this league. On the Sun's front, big thing that stands out to me, and this has been a theme throughout the season, when it comes down to the

aggressive double teams of their stars. When they have all three of their stars out there, it's usually them with Grayson Allen and use of Nurkish Right from there, there's so much offensive skill on the floor that they can operate pretty well in the four on threes out of it, right, they're like brief four on threes because none of their stars are great passers, like they all like, if you catch KD on the right night, he can handle a

double team really really well. Like I thought against the Sacramento King is like a week and a half ago, get a really good game handling double teams, right, But then you watch him in other games and he really

struggles with it. That's the thing. Like, you know, when you're talking about the best players in the league that are playmakers, guys like Luka, Jokich, Lebron, right, the guys in that tier, Like you want to make them a score right, Like your best bet is to like leave them on an island and hope they wear themselves out trying to score one on one. And by the way, they're still really good and they're going to do that really well. But that's probably your best strategy for those guys.

When it comes to the best scorers in the league. You want to test their playmaking ability. You want to make them have to consistently make the best reads, right, And that's the thing, Like this is the best way to guard the kds and the Devin Bookers and the Bradley Beal type of guys in the world. You want to give them their biggest weakness, which is, if you let them go one on one, they are professional one

on one players. They are going to beat you. If you let them go two on two in ball screens, they are professional two on two scorers. In ball screens, they will beat you. But if you put them in situations which targets their specific weaknesses, you can get inconsistent play out of them, which is what teams have figured out to do with Phoenix now when one of their stars is out, it dips below that mandatory amount of

that minimum amount of offensive talent. Like there was a long saban Lee shift in the second half of this game, and Oklahoma City is just not guarding him. And so if I can double team the ball and there's a guy on the floor, I don't have to guard. I'm only giving up a three on three on the weak side.

That's not an advantage, and so like it really like I was on a radio station in Phoenix this morning for a radio hit and they were asking me specifically what I like, whether or not it was like a coaching issue or what was going on last night, and I'm like, sometimes this is like, this is just what happens when you when you when you start to run out of players, right, and then at the same time, you need guys on the other floor, the other end of the floor that can guard an Oklahoma City team

that brings a ton of ball handling and scoring to the table, right, and and it just it was just one of those things where where I don't know, I don't know, the turnovers they have to be sharper right, Kevin r At, Bradley Beialt, Yusef Nurkic. There was a lot of like bad entry passes, not protecting the basketball, sloppy skip passes. There was a lot of that that

they just have to be better, right. But it's also not an easy job unless you have four guys on the floor that can capitalize on four on three situations quickly and efficiently and as soon as one of their stars drops out of the lineup and ends up being an issue. Now, we did find out from Shamserania this morning that it looks like Kevin or Kisney Devin Booker is not going to be out more than maybe a week,

week and a half. Thing one of the one last note on the Suns when they went on their big run in the second half of the game to get back into it. They got back into it with their defense. They were double teaming Shay Gilles as Alexander, testing his playmaking ability, and they were getting out in transition off of it, and then they started making some threes. It reinvigorated their defense. They continued to pressure Shay with double teams and rotate out of it, and they got back

into the game with it. And so that you know, and this is what I said on the radio this morning, they have to be like Oka. See, they can't just be offensive skill guys because if they're just offensive skill guys, they're gonna lose to offensive skill guys who also are scrappy. They need to be offensive skill guys who are scrappy. They need to be scrappy. They need to fight. They need to be a team that defends in his physical

it flies around in rotation. They have to do what the Thunder do at a higher level, right, because that's the case. The case for a team like Phoenix is like, you know, the Thunder just play harder than everybody in the regular season. We get into the playoffs, we start

playing hard. We're a scrappy team that fights on the perimeter, and we have Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal, which is a better set of shock creators than Jalen Williams and shake kills as Alexander and Ched Holmgren or however you want to sort that out with the Thunder. Now, that remains to be seen if that will play out like that in the postseason. But that's the case for Phoenix. That's the path for Phoenix. They have to be the

scrappy team. They have to be the team that fought back into the game against the Thunder the way that they did. But that's what I said on the radio this morning. That's the case for Phoenix, or the pathway to Phoenix making some sort of noise in the playoffs. You have to be the scrappy team that is also offensively skilled. If you're just the offensive skill group, the Thunder are gonna be every bit as good at you as you at that while also being a much better

defensive team. That's what you have to be you. Because the case is, who would you take in a playoff series?

All other things equal, would you take KD Bradley Beal, Devin Booker or Shake Gibs, Alexander and Jalen Williams, right, And there's a case to be made that they're a little bit more versatile, They're a little bit more experienced, right, the Suns guys, So you might pick them, But if the gap is just so wide in every other area of the game in terms of their physicality and defense and their overall level of competition and fight, then the thunder are gonna win. So that's a pathway for Phoenix.

They have to embrace that same type of scrappy physic attitude that they literally rode to get back into that game. And so I mean, I mean there is a light at the end of the tunnel there. It's just gonna have to require the work on that end of the floor, all right, Moving on to Wolves Clippers. So the Wolves jump up early in the game. They went up like twenty three to seven, and then Norman Powell just got red hot and like almost single handedly brought them back

into the game. And he's been like one of the best heat check guys in the league this year, especially from the three point line, and he hit some preposterous threes in this game, like a like a pivot over his left shoulder in a late clock situation where he picked up his dribble and he just rose and fired that one of the heat check shots where he came off of his screen had very little space and rose and fired like he just can get insanely hot and in a short period of time put a bunch of

points on the board. So they end up getting it back close again and then from there it was just an absolute knockdown, drag out fistfight the rest of the game. I don't think either team took more than like a five point lead. The rest of the way. It was back and forth. It was physical. The refs have been doing a great job really around the league lately of just letting teams play and letting the games get more physical and down the stretch, the Clippers just played better

rock fight offense. Paul George, to his credit, missed a lot of shots in this game, but he made some big ones rescue shots. He hit a big three in the left corner. I think it was over Rudy Golbert. He had a big pull up jump shot around the right elbow down the fourth quarter stretch. Both of those one of them tied the game, the other one gave him a two point lead if I remember correctly, Like

they were just monumentally important important shots. Those rescue possessions are usually difference makers when you get into rock fights like this, and then James Harden he missed everything but

just made a bunch of timely and key passes. There was a big possession late in the game where James Harden was operating the offense at the kind of like top of the key extended off of the right elbow, and Paul George and Kawhi end up running this like kind of three man screening action with Daniel Tice where Paul George comes off of like a little screen and then turns around and sets a backscreen for Kawhi and James Harden just threw an absolutely perfect pass, and I

think originally the play was designed to probably get Kawuhi a post touch with an advantage on Jada McDaniels, as jad McDaniels would be in trailing position, but there was just a little gap there when when Jaden got caught for a second and kat wasn't there in help and James just hit him in stride right underneath the basket for a layup and getting like layups, like easy layups in a knockdown, drag out fistfight. That's like finding money on the ground. It was, it was. It was a

massive help down the stretch in this game. And then Kawhi Leonard just he brings the physical in position to that specific environment which he can ride to easy shots around the rim. Now, one of the things that that encouraged me the most about this particular game. If you guys remember when Minnesota came in and beat the Clippers and demolished them in Los Angeles, what did I say after the game. I was like, look, Minnesota can do this,

Jaden McDaniels, Anthony Edwards, Rudy Gobert. They can strangle the life out of your offense. But what is their weakness. Their weakness is they can fall apart offensively in the half court. The Clippers have excellent defensive personnel. And so what I said after that game was you got to drag them down into the mud with you. And if you drag them down into the mud with you, you'll be better at it than they are because you have Kawhi Leonard and you have Paul George and you have

Terrence Mann, and you have all these guys that can guard. You just need to drag them down into the mud with you. And that's what they were able to do into this game. And essentially, you know, the Wolves can have similar issues to a lot of teams around the league when they face switching defenses. When you face switching defenses, the baked in coverages that give you driving lanes kind of cease to exist. And in this game, in particular, they were never worried about Gobert catching on the role.

And so even when they were running drop coverage against Gobert, they weren't getting a ton of really really great The Wolves weren't getting very very great looks. They weren't getting good looks out of it. But in that half court setting, when you start switching, it challenges your decision making process of your ball handlers. Right, So Anthony Edwards comes off of a ball screen, he ends up getting Norman Powell on a switch. He's got Mike Conley in the corner.

There's fifteen seconds on the shot clock. It's clutch time. And Anthony Edwards has a tendency kind of like Jason Tatum to settle for really difficult pull up jump shots instead of inflicting his physicality on the game, trying to get downhill and trying to make something happen. And there's a big possession late in this game he gets Norman Powell on a switch and he just takes a really difficult step back three with fourteen seconds on the shot clock.

That's how you can bait Minnesota into their worst tendencies. Switch, dig down, they'll settle for jump they'll settle for tough jump shots. They won't make good driving kick plays, they can fall apart off. And so the Clippers did a good job in this game of dragging Minnesota down into the mud and playing them into their worst tendencies. Now on the Wolves front, as I just said, late game execution has been an issue for them all damn season.

As a matter of fact, they are now down to twenty first in clutch offense, a one to five offensive rating in clutch time that is like atrociously bad. And one of the things that was really bothering me about

their approach down the stretch of this game. They still found some baskets, like there was a late, a late clock possession where they shut down the first action, and then Conley ran a late pick and roll with Gobert and he just threw a ridiculously good skip pass to a cat in the right corner who ripped through baseline and got a dunk. There was the play where Rudy Gobert got an offensive rebound and Jade McDaniels cut out of the corner and he dropped it off to him

and he got a dunk. Like they were able to manufacture some points just based on their incredible gifts that they have, but I absolutely hated their offense process down the stretch of this game. And one of the main reasons why was there was an action that was working. They got two easy baskets for Carl Town's. In actual sets, there's a horn set where you had Conley at the top of the key and you had Carl Town's on the you had Carl Town's on the I believe, the

left elbow and Rudy Gobert on the right elbow. And what they did is they would just have Carl Town's come up and set a ball screen for Mike Conley, and then as soon as he set the ball screen for Mike Conley coming off to that left side, he would come off a flare screen from Gobert. Now, because of the flare screen for Gobert. Remember, like we were talking about earlier, the Clippers were switching everything, but not

with Daniel Tye. They were running a drop with Daniel Tye, and so as Kat would come off with that flare screen, Tys is dropping back and Kat is able to catch and quickly rip through to the right. It's a baked in driving lane because of the coverage they're chasing. Daniel Tye is dropping Carltown's can catch off that flare screen and rip through right and go. They got two easy layups in crunch time off of this play, and after they did it the second time, I'm like, oh, shoot,

that's gonna work. There's three and a half minutes left here. They need to run that again. They did not run it again a single time the rest of the game. They ran different set actions, both to get Anthony Edwards

into ball screens. One of them was a double ball screen out of horns where Anthony Edwards came off and got a wide open pull up three that he missed, and then another one was a play that they were able to just drop back on and then he had to swing the ball and that was what ended up in the Mike Conley gobear ball screen on the left wing that led to the dunk for Cat out of

the right corner. But that same set that ball screen into the flare screen for Cat that got him the wide open layups on Daniel Tice barreling downhill and he just couldn't stop Cat coming at him. They never went back to it. They never went back to it, and it was the one thing, the only thing that they were actually able to run in execute easily for an easy shot at the end of the game. And this

goes back to what I said all season long. Will they be diligent enough, just like I say with Boston, will they be diligent enough to get the right shots at the end of a game, Because again, it's like the Anthony Ewards pull up three. Anthony Edwards shoots thirty five percent on pull up threes. The ball screen, one double screen comes off, he's wide open, he shoots thirty five percent on it. That's you know what one point they want to say, that's like one point five one

point zero five points per shot. So that's a one oh five offensive, right Now that's not bad, right for a pull up jump shot. Anything over a point is good, right. So like on the surface, it looks good. The problem is is the statistics. The overall value of a shot means nothing to the individual possession. The individual possession comes entirely down to field goal percentage. And in that individual possession,

in crunch time, he's a thirty five percent shooter. So you're running a set action that's going to fail two out of three times. See the point, Like in crunch time, it's not about getting a shot, it's about getting the very best shot. I talked about this a lot in the Denver LA game. It's like Ruby Hatchamura pull up fifteen foot or off of a week side action ball gets reversed. Ruey runs a ball screen. I don't I don't hate that shot. Over the course of forty eight minutes.

If he takes that in the middle of the second quarter, you're like, that's a good shot for us. Anthony Edwards pull up three coming off of a ball screen. That's a good shot for us in the middle of the second quarter. But in crunch time, it's not the best shot for the Lakers in that possession. I've talked about it was a floor spacing thing. It should have been Austin Reeves on the wing. It should have been Austin

Reeves ball screen, which is a higher percentage play. If they were more diligent about getting the best shot, the ball would never have ended up in Ruy's hand on that possession. Denver, on the other hand, gets the very best shot that they can possibly get on that possession every single time in crunch time. That is how they win. And that's the thing. It's like with that Minnesota offense down the stretch, It's like they ran some actions. They

ran that double screen for Ant. They ran this other one out of Horns where it kind of led to like a double wide pin down for Ant to come off into a ball screen. But in those situations they're dropping back and they're trying to bait Ant into pull up jump shots. That's not the best shot that they can get in that situation. Cat was the one with

the advantage. If they ran double screening actions with Cat and go Bear, they could get Kat going downhill against a drop coverage big, which was Daniel Tice getting into the paint. Will they be diligent enough in the postseason to get the very best shot. I don't know that that is my major concern with this particular offense, and again it's been they have lost countless games as of late with poor time offense and again a one to

oh five offensive rating for the entire season. And like, it's not a big picture issue like Ants young, this is really typical for teams led by a young superstar. But in the long run, that's what he has to address. In the long run. They like, if it's gonna be led by a primary ballhandler, like a ball handler like Ant, it's the half court execution piece that stands between where he is now and the true greatness of the top tier superstars around the league. All right, moving on to

our power rankings. So we had two teams drop out from last week, the Pacers and the MAVs, who both had pretty disastrous weeks. We have two new teams in the list this week, starting with number ten, the Orlando Magic, IF won six of their last seven games, playing some elite defense in that stretch, they're five to oh in

that seven game span. When Palo Boncaro plays is averaging twenty four points, seven rebounds, and five assists on fifty two percent from the field and forty two percent from three. I'll be a little bit of an easy year stretch of their schedule, but a nice little run from the Magic. Number nine, the Miami Heat. They are ten in three in their last thirteen games. That is the second best record in the league in that span, just behind Boston. They have the second best defense in the league over

that span. And then Jimmy Butler is starting to look like playoff Jimmy again. Since he came back from his injury on January fifteenth. He's averaging twenty three points, six rebounds, and five assists on check this fifty seven percent from the field and fifty six percent from three. So Jimmy Butler peaking at the right time of the Heat starting to gain some steam. Number eight the Cleveland Cavaliers are starting to slip a little bit. There's just four and

five in their last nine games. They needed a wild all time great hot streak for Max Stru's hitting five consecutive threes down the stretch, a stretch against Dallas to win one of those games. Otherwise they'd be three and six. It's their defense that's been slipping, ironically over that span. They're eighteenth in the NBA in defensive rating in their

last nine games. Number seven the New York Knicks. After Jaylen Brunson went down in pain coming off of that wide pin down action against the Calves, it was like a low point for the season for Knicks fans. Right like you, obviously, Jalen Brunson goes down in the game, You're already down your entire front court. It's a big game, an important game against the Calves that you feel like is winnable. It looks terrible, right, but then you end

up beating the Calves anyway. Just bully them on the glass, just like they did in the postseason. And Dante DiVincenzo had a big scoring n I also bought boy and Bgdanovic, a guy who can scale up his offense when needed, stepped in and I think he poured in forty or twenty points if I remember correctly. And then after the game you get great news. Jalen Brunson just a knee contusion, so it sounds like he just bumped knees, didn't twist his knee. That's great news. That means Brunson should be

coming back. And again Ojan and Obi I believe just ramped up his basketball related activities, so help is on the way. We should get a better feel for the Knicks here in the next couple of weeks. Number six the Minnesota Timberwolves. Two more clutch losses to the Kings and the Clippers this week. As we mentioned earlier in our Wolves breakdown, a five offensive rating in the clutch this season, where tranks twenty first in the NBA. That's gonna be the biggest question for them when we get

to the postseason. Will they ever be able to diligently seek out the best possible shot in the slow down half court environment at the end of games. Number five the La Clippers two in one week. They did lose to the Lakers and that crazy Lebron James come back. But again, like I said after that game, sometimes Lebron just does Lebron stuff and you lose. But they did take a big step forward against Minnesota on the defensive

end of the foard. Their defense has been what slipped a lot during this kind of mediocre stretch here in the last two three weeks. That's that game against Minnesota. They got they got down into the mud and they slowed Minnesota down and they won with their defense, which I thought was super encouraging. Number four, the Oklahoma City Thunder. It took a bad loss to the Spurs where they

really struggled with Victor women Yama, but they did bounce back with a really impressive win against the Suns last night. You know, I'm I'm having a hard time with this team because like the stuff with their size in physical reality, in their lack of experience or their size, I should say, not their physicality. They're very physical team. The stuff with their size and their experience is just overarching basketball philosophies that I have and I truly believe in, and it

still gives me a ton of reticence. But when I look at their combination of shot creation down the roster, the incredible physical brand of basketball that they play, the competition, and the nastiness of this group, I think they're wired right. Like I love their basketball character. I think they're super

well coached. I I'm having a really hard time with the Thunder because I've got this like voice in the back of my head which is like, take them more seriously, take them more seriously, take them more seriously, so we'll see I've reserved the right to change my mind about the thunder, but when we get to the beginning of the postseason. But right now, I just still lean back on my overarching basketball beliefs involving their lack of size

and experience. Number Three, the Milwaukee Bucks a three and oher week, albeit against an easy stretch of their schedule. Fifteen games of Doc rivers one oh nine point six deep defensive rating, which ranks fifth in the NBA over that span. Offense is still struggling a little bit, although it's been way better as of late, but there at a one to fifteen offensive rating since Doc took over. They can get that offensive rating back up to one

twenty while maintaining this level of defense. We have to move Milwaukee into back into that top tier of contenders because everything we had talked about with them was based around their defense having severe limitations, and they've just been defending really well now for a stretch of the season, which really amounts to like what like about a fifth of the season. That's not a non existent sample size,

but a lot of tests on the horizon. Milwaukee's next five games against the Clippers at home, but then a road trip against the Warriors the Lakers, the Clippers, and the Kings. That's a tough stretch. A lot of really high powered offenses in that span. We're going to find out and guard play too. Clippers obviously with James Harden, the Warriors with Steph Curry, the Lakers with D'Angelo Russell in Austin Reeves, and then even going into Malik Monk

and Deer and Fox like. Although Deer and Fox missed their last game, Leage Monk actually carried them to a win against the Wolves. But that stretch is gonna put a big strain on their perimeter defense. We're gonna learn a lot about the Bucks defense during that stretch. Number two the Denver Nuggets six and zero now out of the All Star Break. This time last year, this was where they let their foot off the gas. They were five and one out of the break, and then they

promptly lost five of their next six games. So I'm really curious to see if they can keep their foot on the gas at this point and maintain big matchup with Boston this week. That will be going live for I think it's on Thursday nights. We'll be live on YouTube after the final buzzer of that game. But Denver, they look like the best version of themselves that they've

ever been as of late. And I'm really really intrigued because, like you know, we talked about the checking boxes for championship contention, and like one of the big ones is like ramping up as you get into the postseason. It was a one that it was one that Denver missed last year and then they still dominated. It just makes me all the more confident and what Denver is capable of. I still think they're the best team in the league. Number one in our power rankings for regular season results.

The Boston Celtics another undefeated week. They're on an eleven game winning streak now and one of the big things, as I've been harping on all season, needed them to be more aggressive in the paint. They are averaging sixty points in the per game in their last four games, which is the third most in the NBA over that span. All right, guys, that's it for our power rankings. That's it for our show today. As always, I appreciate you guys. We'll be back tomorrow with Yovann. I will see you guys.

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