Hoops Tonight - Celtics-Nuggets Reaction: Jokic powers Denver past Boston, NBA Finals preview?

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terms and responsible gambling resources. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. Well, just like Boston and Denver gave us last time, we got another incredible basketball game off the top. I just want to shout out all the players or whatever they were dealing

with physically, forgiving it a go in this game. I always appreciate it when the players know that we want to see a great game, and obviously when they want to compete when they see an opportunity to measure themselves against the best in the league, and they play through whatever little aches and pains they're dealing with. And we just got another classic between Denver and Boston, clearly the

two best teams in the league in my opinion. We're gonna break down the game from the perspective of both teams, and then we'll get out of here for the night. You guys are the joefore we get started. Subscribe to a brand new YouTube channel. I mean a lot to me if you guys would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you guys get your podcasts under Hoops tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and

a review on that front. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLTS. You guys, don't miss show announcements or the film threads that I do from time to time. And then, last but not least, keep dropping mail back questions and those you to comments. We're gonna have a mail bag in tomorrow's show. On Friday. All right, let's talk some basketball. So Nikola Jokich I got a bunch of crap. About a week and a half ago when I said something that I truly believe. It was a mailbag question that

I got. Someone just asked like, Hey, how would you rank the level Nikola Jokic is at relative to Kevin Durant and Steph Curry and what they were at at their peaks? And I said something I truly believe, which is that I think Nicole Jokic is playing at a higher ceiling than either of those guys. I think his ceiling is at a similar level on a trajectory that what you've seen from the guys that are at the very top of NBA history, guys like Lebron James and

Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant in the light right. And one of the big reasons behind that is like there is an inevitability with NIKOLEA. Jokic. You know, down the stretch of this game. We're gonna talk about the late game execution here in a minute, but down the stretch of his game, it was like there were a couple of massive swings that went Boston's way, Like there was

that play where Nikola Jokic got fouled underneath the basket or may or may not have gotten fouled. He certainly thought he did complain and got a technical. Jalen Brown makes a defensive play, runs out the other end, gets an and one, and they get a technical. It's like a six point swing and turns should have been like a thirteen point lead down into a seven point lead or whatever it was at that point if I remember correctly.

And then there was that sequence late where Jamal Murray makes a couple of big mistakes, takes a bad pull up jump shot early in the shot clock, and then he dribbles too much against Jayleen Brown and gets ripped. And on the other end, Drew Holliday, who had been ice cold all night on his jump shot, takes and makes two pull up jump shots, and these swings are going in Boston's favor. But like, did anybody ever actually

feel like Denver wasn't gonna win that game? Did anybody ever feel like when Nikole Jokic caught the ball on the block or on the roll, regardless of whether or not it was a single coverage situation or a help situation, did you ever think that he wasn't gonna score? I felt like it was inevitable. That's what it was like for me watch the game, and I would imagine that most of you guys would agree. When he was on an island against Porzingis, it wasn't like maybe he'll make it,

maybe he won't. It's like he's going to make it. And then every single time he drew the baseline helper, Aaron Gordon is so big there on the baseline, he just can hit that little pass to him underneath the basket and he can finish. The one time Nikole Jokicic missed a shot at the rim, he engaged the help

defender in this case Jaylen Brown and Aaron Gordon. Because he drew that second defender, Aaron Gordon is free and clear underneath the basket to rise up for the second of his two obscene dunks that he had in this game. You know, like when I look at the other best players in the world, it's like with a guy like Steph Curry or Kevin Durank, just those two guys. For example, Kevin duran had a beautiful game the other night against Denver, got a win. But how did he win the game?

He won the game by hitting a crazy difficult pull up three off the dribble over a great Aaron Gordon contest, a shot that he hits probably against that type of defender situation in the mid thirties, right, and then in overtime hit a bunch of tough, contested pull up jump shots. And KD is one of the best players in the world and he's capable of making those shots, but there's a variance element to it. Might go in, might not.

And we've all seen environments where the other stars in the league that can go cold, and like, meanwhile, Jokic has a bad game against Phoenix, and it's like bizarre because you just never see him have those types of moments because his go to moves around the basket are shots that he makes seventy percent of the time. There is very little variance there, and whatever covers you throw to him in those situations, he will pick you apart.

There is a complete helplessness in that department that makes him, in my opinion, by far, the best player in the world. I like, literally, Boston's getting major swings down the stretch on huge sequences and it just doesn't matter because they could not get a stop, and they could not get a stop because nobody on the planet can do anything

with Nikola Jokic. You just have to pray he has a weird game like he did against Phoenix, where he doesn't want to shoot the basketball like it really is to me, it's the most dominant stretch that I've seen from an individual player since Lebron James in the twenty twelve twenty thirteen stretch when he won those two titles and won the Olympic gold medal. That like, that's that's

where that's the level nikole Yjokic is playing at right now. Now he's got to close the deal, he's got to go into this postseason and he's got to get that second title in a row to demonstrate that dominance. But in terms of just in a vacuum right now as a player, what he's doing, he right now is playing at that level and there's nobody there's there's nobody in the league that can do anything with him. It was it was absurd. Down the stretch of that game, you

just knew it was going in. Oh, he's at single cover. J On Porzingis, He's going to score here. It's just going to happen. Oh, like Jylen Brown stepped over on the baseline like Aaron Gordon's gonna get a dunk here, Like it's it's just going to happen. It's it is.

It is complete helpless basketball. And that's the That is the by far the best regular season team in the league in Boston, a team that has probably the best accumulation of defensive personnel in the league outside of maybe Minnesota, and they had no shot now getting into some of the actual stuff that was happening during the game. Early on in the game, Denver was having a lot of success attacking Boston switching by slipping out of three man action.

So I've we've had a lot of opportunities to talk about switching, but we haven't really had a chance to kind of dive into some of the schematics of it, because like there's multiple ways to attack switching, right, Like one pigging on matchups, right, Like I want to get this smaller defender on this bigger offensive player, and I

want to try to bully into the basket. I want to get this bigger defender who is slower onto my small quick guard and I want to take him out to the perimeter and I want to dust him off the dribble right or the like. That's the matchup attacking part of it right. Second part of it is rebounding right. Like, Okay, I get a switch. I got a big guy underneath the basket. I've now pulled their center out to the perimeter. All I got to do is get it shot up.

As long as it misses in the general vicinity of the rim my guy's gonna get the offensive rebound. That's a way that you can attack switching right. But one of the best ways to do it to get easy shots, to get like shots within the flow of an offense, is to slip out of screening actions, specifically three man actions because they're more confusing. So imagine a two man action. I'm running up the wing and I'm just doing a dribble handoff to the guy coming out of the corner.

The guy guarding on the corner, he's going to take me as I after I throw the dribble handoff and I kind of run through, he's gonna guard me, and the guy that's guarding the ball handler's gonna switch on to the guy who's getting the dribble handoff. There's some easier stuff there. You can still get slips out of there, but only when the defenders are in poor position. As long as they're in decent position, you can kind of contain that. But as soon as a three man action

takes place, it gets way more convoluted. For the switching defense at that point, there has to be so much more communication and like you'll see, like you'll see like Michael Porter Junior kind of walk his man down to the block, like Jamal or like CACP and Nikole Jokic will both like go down to set a pin down screen and then you think Michael Porter Junior is gonna come off, but then suddenly he slips back door and then CACP comes off, and then you'll like they'll just

do these like crazy interchanges in these three man screening actions, and they're designed to take advantage of the confusion that arises when teams are trying to switch. And so Denver had some success against Boston's defense early in this game, capitalizing on the easy shots they could get with complicated three man screening actions and slipping out of it. When we got to the end of the game, it was pretty straightforward. They were switching the Murray Jokis pick and

roll and then every single to every single possession. And again, we talked about this a lot on this show, especially the Celtics fans, Like we've been covering basically every Celtics game for the last for the last month or so, and as we've been trying to kind of build out

our understanding of them heading into the postseason. And you know, one of the things I talk about with Boston all the time is they kind of freelance a lot, and they just kind of play, you know, the same style of basketball at the end of the game that they play during the middle portions of the game, right, like you like, for instance, Djew Holliday got three jump shots down the stretch of this game, missed one badly, and then made the last two right and they ended up

being huge shots in the game. But like, do you think Denver is running offense to get Contavious Calwell Pope shots at the end of the game. No, Like if the ball ends up in Casep's hands, because that's just the way the play developed, as they ran in a two man action or something to try to get to their sweet spots and it ends up in Casey P's hands. Fine, But like Boston just kind of plays freelance basketball regardless

of the situation. To win in crunch time, it is an extremely diligent process on both sides of the floor. On the offensive end, it is about being relentless about hunting down the best possible shot, not just a shot you'd be cool with in the flow of the offense. Like Peyton Watson made some really nice jump shots in this game. He made a kind of a pull up jump shot. Wonder will pull up off of a close out on the left wing, hit like a turnaround jump

shot over his left shoulder. If he was closing the game, there's no way in hell he's getting that shot. For Denver, they are going to make sure they get him into a position where he's a threat. Usually, if he's closing in that situation, he's gonna be cutting in some sort of situation where his athleticism is a factor right now. Obviously he wasn't playing at the end of this game. But my point is is there's a difference in the offense that Denver runs in the flow of the game

versus what they do in crunch time. In crunch time, it is Jokis Murray two man game, and if Jokich is getting a favorable matchup, he is going to get the ball every single time in that situation. He is going to rumble stumble his way to the basket for a shot that he's gonna make seventy percent of the time, or if you help off of him, he's going to hit Aaron Gordon underneath the basket or a high level shooter for an easy catch and shoot three. On the

weak side, They're extremely diligent about getting the right shot. Again. I talked about it earlier in the show, but like every single time Boston got this close, Denver just got two points again in a way that Boston was completely helpless to stop. Now I have some ideas for what Boston could potentially adjust to do to try to make it a little bit more difficult, and we'll talk about that here in a minute. But that gap in late

game execution just just jumps off the screen. Again. Boston just still doesn't quite know what they want to do at the end of these games. And like they like if the pick and pop three is falling, which is like one of the most common shots that you'll see Boston get either through a porzingis ball screen and pop or you know, a ghost screen from one of their guards.

If the pick and pop threes are falling great. You know, Sam and Gundy after the game went on this rant about how like, oh, if I'm Boston, I feel good about this game. We shot poorly. Here's the thing. You shot poorly against Denver. This time. You shot poorly when you blew the lead against Cleveland for nine straight minutes to end the game. You missed every single jump shot you took. You shot poorly when you lost to Denver. The last time, you shot poorly when you lost to

the Lakers at home. You shot poorly when you lost to the Clippers at home. You shot poorly when you lost to the Bucks. All of their losses look like this, and specifically it tends to happen against higher level competition when the physicality ratchets up a level. You know. And there's some real positives from Boston in this game, and some stuff that makes me even feel even more confident

about their chances in a series against Denver. But the reason why Denver is the safer bet, the reason why, in my opinion, Denver's been sitting there is the best NBA Finals bet this year. They're getting like plus four fifty odds or whatever to win the title as a team, in my opinion, that's like got roughly a coin flip chance of winning it, and if they're healthy, I'd be surprised if they did it. And the reason why is because they do in those situations always get the best

available shot. They do know exactly what they want to do, and then on the other end of the floor they can defend. They did a great job on Jason Tatum in this game. Aaron Gordon got cooked by Jaylen Brown. That's something we're going to talk about in a minute. Even those last two jumpers that chrisops Porzingis took, the one off the dribble, Jokic got a great contest on the one above the break on the left wing. Kic

got a great contest on They're all guarding too. That used to be the rub on this team was you can score on them, and now it's like just they're every bit as good as the other great defenses at the top of the league. Like they may not have the crazy stifling level that you can see in Minnesota get to, but they can get relatively close to that. And when you combine that with that slowdown half court execution.

It just feels inevitable. They did a really good job forcing turnovers in this game and getting out and scoring on him. They scored sixteen points on twelve Boston turnovers, some really critical pick sixes. KCP in particular, were super active in those passing lanes. They outscored Boston nineteen to

eleven in fast break points. Aaron Gordon got, like I said, kind of cooked by Jaylen Brown, which again we're gonna talk about here in a minute, but I thought that he was magnificent along the baseline, that element of him being able to just it's really simple because the pass is always coming on time and on target. He just sits there in the dunker spot and it's not even

about the pass. He waits until whoever's guarding him commits, and then as soon as he commits, he just basically gets into his one to two and jumps and then from there it's like, if it's a miss, he's dunking it. If it's a lot, he's dunking it. You know. Uh. By producer Paul, we were talking about this before the show, that last little hook shot that it looked like Jokic shot and then Aaron Gordon dunked it. There was a similar one against the Lakers. What was that last week

on Saturday? And we were talking before the show, like, did do you think that's on purpose? And you know, I honestly don't know, And I hope I'm gonna I'm doing a show with Adam Mars tomorrow's, I'm gonna ask him about it. But like, I hope that maybe at some point a Denver reporter will ask him about it too.

But like, I wouldn't be surprised if Jokic literally talks to Gordon and goes like, hey man, when I shoot a hook shot, if your defender comes over to help on the hook shot, just intercept the hook shot and dunk it, like, just go for it. Just treat it like a pass. I wouldn't be surprised if that's a conversation that they've had, because again, like, do you think Jokic gives a damn No, He just wants the point. He just wants the points on the scoreboard, and that

that is such a vitally important part of this. Like again, you know people, you know, one of my buddies, Anthony Irwin kind of went commented underneath my tweet. I had a tweet after the game where I talked about how I think Nikole Jokis is at the highest level that I've seen a player be at since Lebron James in twenty thirteen in terms of his how much he is ahead of the rest of the league. And Anthony goes, yeah, well, like that's true, but also he's surrounded by like this

perfectly fitting starting five, And I want to be clear, like, like I obviously that's the case, and Denver has done an immaculate job constructing a roster around Nikole jokicch but you need to have a good basketball team to win. There's nobody out there that's just winning with garbage. That's just not a thing. So to me, like that's a prerequisite, like that, like we're not even talking about a serious basketball team if they don't have talent around their star.

And the difference between what Denver has and what a lot of other teams have is instead of like multiple stars and star power, they have guys that are stars in their roles. And then Jamal Murray, like I think he's a star at a specific skill, which is like he just is an outstanding shot maker, and he's actually become a much better passer over the years as well.

And he finds a way to make defensive plays to get a strip on Christops Porzingis in a post up tonight, and he can find a way to kind of make some plays there. But like everyone is just perfect in their role. And that's the thing. Like Nikole Jokich is the guy that operates further away from the basket off the dribble, whether he's catching on the role in the short role or he's posting up and he's rumbling and stumbling to the basket, like we talked about all the

dribble handoff actions. He runs on the perimeter. So that opens up the baseline because Nikole Jokic is not actually operating along the baseline that often. And so Aaron Gordon's role on the team is to clean stuff up along the baseline. And is he awesome at that? Sure he is, But like again, that to me is not something that takes away from Nikole Jokic. Like every basketball team that's accomplished anything in NBA history is awesome. Right, Like even if we go back and look at like like the

twenty sixteen Calves that beat the Golden State Warriors. It's like Kyrie Irving was the Jamal Murray for that particular team. It's just this all time great shot maker j R. Smith guarded extremely well on that series and was an outstanding shooter. He was kind of like the KCP for that particular team. Right, Like Tristan Thompson was a dude that did a ton of damage on the offensive glass

and could guard in multiple different coverages. Right, Kevin Love was the guy that could dominate on the rebounds and spot up in space the floor. Like, every team has to have these roles filled. And I just think Aaron Gordon, Look, is he perfectly crafted for that role. Yeah, but your value to a basketball team only matters within the scope of your basketball team, and Aaron Gordon is immensely valuable to Denver because of his vertical spacing. There were two

plays tonight. The lob pass from Jamal Murray it was way too high. As I'm watching, I'm like, oh, that's too high. Just somehow grabbed it and dunked it behind his head. It was absurd. And then that one and Nicole Jokic spin along the baseline where he drew Jalen Brown in help, but he missed it over the front of the rim and he just caught it from down here, just jackhammered it over the top of his head. Just an unbelievable air in Gordon. Game did get cooked by

Jaalen Brown. That's something he's gonna have to figure out. But we'll talk about that in a minute. Peyton Watson just an absolute athletic wrecking ball in this game. I had a mailbag question earlier this week from someone asking, like, what is it gonna take for Peyton Watson to become a guy that could be like, you know, a future, you know, a staple in this Denver franchise, just in the long run, right, And like there are little things

that he has to get better at. Right, Like he was hitting his jump shot tonight hit a huge three in the second half and hit three mid range jump shots if I remember correctly, But he struggled to make jump shots against Phoenix. That was an issue, right, And so like there's consistency on that front that he's gonna

have to work out. There was a possession in the first half where the Nuggets had a pick and roll completely under control two on two and he was guarding Sam Hauser as one of Boston's best shooters in the right corner, and he was just sinking way too far in the lane for no reason, and he got beat on a skip pass and he in Sam Houser knocked down the shot. But like, those are little things that he has to get better at in the long run,

but he's already so good in some specific areas. And again we talk about this all the time on the show, but like high motor athletes, high motor athletes alongside stars are so incredibly valuable because they don't need to be great at all of these really intricate skill things. They're just human wrecking balls. And that's what Peyton Watson was

in this game. He was a human wrecking ball. He did a really good job on the ball on Jason Tatum and individual defense, flying around and help blocking shots, hit timely jumpers. Just a monster performance from Peyton Watson, and he just flat out does look like a guy that is gonna be a foundational piece of this roster

in the long run. And then Jamal Murray, you know, this was actually, in my opinion, an interesting example of the type of ebb and flow that you can experience from a Jamal Murray against a really good defensive team like Boston. But I still thought he played a good game. Again, some struggles right, took some bad shots late, had some bad turnovers. Then he had five turnovers in the game.

Only shot seven for eighteen, but most of those seven shots were timely, some big ones during the stretches when Nikole Jokic was off the floor, some big ones to stop runs into bolster leads. Had eight assists in this game. To me, if that's Jamal Murray's floor in this type of series, Like, here's the thing. Jamal Murray flat out out played Jason Tatum tonight and this was a bad Jamal Murray game. That's a super encouraging thing for Denver

in the big picture. Awesome, awesome performance from Denver again. Even in that Phoenix game, they ran into a red hot Kevin Durant in the down the stretch after he made that shot to tie it at one twelve. But they looked magnificent in that game from the middle of the third quarter on as they just methodically worked their way back in, had this beautiful twelve zero run late that should have won the game. Just Kevin Durant' Kevin

Durant and Kevin Durant. Kevin duranted them, and they ended up losing as they went into ot right on the Boston side of things, a couple of things. You know, like a lot of times in matchups like this, you find out things that work and find out things that don't right, Like defensively, they're just completely you know, screwed on the Yokich thing, which we're going to talk about here in a minute. But like there's some stuff that

did pop in a really positive way. Like Jalen Brown just barbecued Aaron Gordon at the start of the game. This is one of my favorite Jalen Brown games that I've ever seen. He came out with a physical aggression in this game that set a tone and was the only reason this game was close after they got such a like another you know, kind of ineffective Jason Tatum performance. Jason Tatum five for thirteen in this game. He was

nine for twenty four the first time they played. He had five turnovers in this game, including some really bad ones that led to pick sixes going the other way. Like Tatum's got some issues and watching the physical aggression juxtaposition, like Jalen Brown was going through Aaron Gordon to the rim, like through him, and Aaron Gordon is a big dude, but he was just beating him with lower angles, like getting lower to the ground, getting his shoulder down, getting

around him. Even in opportunities where Aaron Gordon did actually chest him up, he was bringing the force and going through him to the basket. He was super active on the glass, specifically on the offensive glass. Like you know,

there's this thing that happens with young basketball players. Now, Jalen Brown's much further along in his process, but obviously I coach in high school and I spend a lot of time working with basketball players here in town, and there's always this moment with a young player in his development where he finds out what his superpower is, like the thing that he does better than most people, whether it's shooting, whether it's passing, whether it's ball handling, whether

it's athleticism, whether it's strength, whether it's what like defense. There's a kid that was on my varsity team last year, a kid that worked really hard on skill development but couldn't really get to that level, but he was just an outstanding on ball defender and he just leaned into that and it was his way of kind of staying involved within the team, right And like that is that is to me, such an important part of a basketball player's development. And like, Jalen Brown has demonstrated a ton

of skill over his time in the league. He's been

like the best fadeaway jump shooter in the league this year. He's a guy that can get red hot from the three point line as well. He's got great footwork, He's got all of these really cool things that he can do from his skill perspective. But his superpower is he's one of the best athletes in the league. He's one of the best athletes in the league, and dudes can't hang with him when he really engages himself in that area.

And this is, by the way, for people who haven't been watching Boston very closely, Jalen Brown's been playing at this level. Maybe not forty whatever points that he had, but he's been playing at one of the highest levels of his career now for about a month even longer. Like, he's been incredible at the point of attack defensively. That last possession that he did to Jamal Murray where he

ripped him and went the other way. He's been doing that to people for weeks now, like the downhill aggression towards He's kind of developed this little left handed hook in the lane that he goes to. He hit two of them again tonight. That's something he's been going to for a few weeks now. He's not fading as much

in the post. He's going aggressively towards the basket. Like I've talked a lot about how Boston needs to generate more points in the pain, Jalen Brown is the pathway there in so many different ways, and I just thought he was unbelievably good in this game. And then the other major positive for Boston, something that translates to a series, was Chris hops Porzingis. He was killing him with above

the break. I didn't even think he shot as well as he could have, but he made I think it was three for ten from three, but he made some big threes from above the break and then beating switches. Whenever Denver did end up with KCP or Jamal Murray on him, he was able to turn and face and hit some shots there in the mid range to do some damage like that is something that that is something

that I think can translate as an advantage to a Boston Denver series. The question is, how do you combine that with getting Jason Tatum going and again, like, this is the thing. Jalen Brown had possessions where Aaron Gordon was in front of him and there were guys digging down and he just was like, screw it, I'm going through all these guys. And he's so damn good athletically he was able to get there. Tatum is that kind

of athlete. He is, and like Tatum has this tendency when he sees the defenders squared up with him and he sees guys kind of digging down into driving lanes, He's like, ah, man, it's not there. Gonna take a pull up jump shot right or gonna pass the basketball, not look to be aggressive. That's the kind of thing I'd like to see from Tatum. I want to see Tatum be like I am going through everybody here. It's gonna get ugly. You don't think Jalen Brown has some

bad turnovers. Jalen Brown gets roasted for turnovers all the time. He gets roasted for not being able to dribble with his left hand. He gets all this shit but guess what, Like he'll have games like this where he just goes through everybody. That's the thing for Jason Tatum, like it has to be for him a willingness to barrel into traffic and make some mistakes sometimes. And the thing is is more often than not, there's more good than bad

that comes from that. You barrel into the lane and you throw up some bs layup that misses, but you draw three defenders in. There's people there to clean up the mess, especially if Jalen Brown is doing that. If they can get both of those two, Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum to play with the level of physical aggression that Jalen Brown played with tonight. No one's beating these

guys because they're so damn talented. Like like Denver, Denver's gap over this team is an execution in Jokic. Boston is more talented. They are capable of winning this matchup. But I, unlike stan Van Gundy, I don't think it's gonna be because they just shoot threes really well for an entire series. I think it's gonna be because they meet force with force with Denver, and they have all sorts of advantages on the floor in this series, and so I want to see them capitalize that more. And

I think I think Tata I don't. I don't think it was a decision making problem for Tatum tonight. I thought it was a passivity problem. It was a physical passivity problem. Now, one last thing I wanted to hit on Boston before we get out of here. The problem with Nicole Jokic in the post so porzingis can't guardim, Horford can't guard him, none of their guards can guard him. Single coverage is it's just over Like Jokic is scoring every single time. You cannot bring baseline help while not

occupying Aaron Gordon. If you do that, you're gonna run into issues with Aaron Gordon dunking every single thing around the rim. This is where I would like to see Boston play into variants for Denver the same way that

Denver plays into variants for Boston. So, for instance, like you know, Jason Tatum got a wide open and right corner three at the end of this game and just missed it, which, by the way, even if you're one of the best corner three point shooters in the world, you're gonna miss bout half of them. Right, Like, there's real variance on that shot, and that's the thing is like play into that variance with Denver when you I would double Yokich and make sure it's KCP or MPJ

that's being left open. Yes, those guys are gonna make shots sometimes it's a suicide mission. That's why Denver's the best team in the world. But wouldn't you rather have a shot that they might miss half the time than a shot that they're going to make every single time Like that, That to me is the trade off, Like you gotta take away the bully ball stuff and force them to make jump shots and hope that they'll be tired. Like, guess what, KCP missed a wide open corner three at

the end of this game. It was great offense if I remember correctly. It was a all screen Yolkic caught in the middle of the floor, drew the extra defender and kicked the bad It was beautiful Denver offense. But there is variance on that shot. He might miss it, and he did. Just like Boston can go go cold, Denver can go cold, and so again, Like from a strategy standpoint, I think that was the biggest mistake they made. Down the stretch of the game, they let Aaron Gordon

into Coole Yokic take all the shots. That's where they've

got to get them out of that rhythm. They've got a double team Jokic either do a windshield wipe or rotation where they get inside position on Gordon from the corner to seal him out so that whoever that baseline guy is can help Jokic but force a skip pass, or they need to bring the double team from the front side and like like from whoever it is that's on the wing or whatever it is on the weekside, bring that double team from the front side, so that

just something to make it into a jump shot. They've got to force Denver to make jump shots at the end of the game because they will make everything around the rim. That that would be the one big tactical adjustment I looked at from the defensive possessions down the stretch against uh that post up and pick and roll attack from Denver. All right, so we're gonna we're gonna call it a night for right now. We're gonna be

back tomorrow. We're gonna break down Denver, my excuse me, Dallas Miami and a couple of other games, and then we're gonna do mailbags. Make sure you guys drop some mail back questions. But that's it for tonight. As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys, I will see you tomorrow. The volume