Hoops Tonight - Celtics-Nuggets Reaction: Tatum & Boston WELL-OILED MACHINE, Jokic & Denver IMPRESS

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hoops tonight. You're at the volume heavy Friday, everybody. If all of you guys have had a great week so far, well, we have real life NBA basketball today, a preseason game between the Boston Celtics and the Denver Nuggets and Abu Dabi.

We're gonna be having an instant reaction to that game today, covering it from both teams, got a bunch of clips I'm gonna show you guys as well, and then we're gonna debut a brand new segment of the show that we're going to start with this particular episode, but we're

gonna start doing regularly throughout this season. I want to try to incorporate more tape, and one of the ways we're gonna do that is I'm going to grab a small handful somewhere between like three to five of the most interesting plays that I saw in the previous night's games, and we're going to break them down. It's not gonna be like top plays like ESPN like highlights kind of thing. It's gonna be more like plays that I find interesting where we can break down specific concepts. We're kind of

work shopping some different names. We'll see you might be called something like Timp's Tape or Him's Top five, something like that, if you guys have any ideas dropping into comments. But we're going to be debuting that segment at the tail end of this show is like a little test front. We'll want you guys to let me know what you think of it as well. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribed to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels.

You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast speed where you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight. Don't forget it's helpful fe Levia rating and a review on that front. The last, but not least, keep dropping mailback questions in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.

So first of all, kind of big picture about the preseason. What can we take away from preseason games? First of all, you got to know what to expect in preseason. It's gonna be sloppy. A lot of teams have new players. A lot of teams are implementing new schemes or new players are picking up existing schemes on a new team. They've been away from each other for a while. A lot of these guys either playing in different situations for FIBA or just taking a break from basketball. There's also

going to be some inconsistent effort. Right, It's impossible to fake urgency. And this is the least urgent kind of basketball for the starters. Yeah, there are guys at the tail end that are fighting for an opportunity to make the roster, but in terms of the starting units, you're going to see a little bit of a lack of urgency. Also, conditioning is it where it's supposed to be yet by the time you get to late October, So guys aren't

going to play as hard. That's something that we should kind of expect, But there are things to look out for. If a team is playing super hard, to me, that's a strong indicator of an overall level of focus and just a level of urgency that the team has to try to develop good habits that will carry them through the regular season. That's a strong indicator. Serious basketball teams make a habit out of playing hard even when the stakes aren't there. So obviously that's an upside if you

do see it. It's not the end of the world if you don't see it, but it is definitely an upside. You also can start to see some signs of the natural fit between players on some of these teams that have new guys, You're going to to see some guys that kind of naturally fit super well. You're gonna see some guys that kind of seem clunky. Right, Clunky's not a death sentence. It just means it takes a lot of repetition and time for it to work out. Right.

Natural fit, though, is a positive sign. When you see things naturally make sense, that is usually a good indicator that it's going to continue to make sense. I'm a big believer in natural basketball fit, right. So in short, when it comes to preseason, I'm more kind of focused on the good that I'm focused on the bad, because bad things can get fixed. But good stuff that shows up good early in the season I tend to think

is replicable. So again we're looking more for good and uh and just kind of being realistic about some of the bad you're gonna see in sloppy preseason basketball. So let's talk about this game. Both of these teams are established. Boston is more or less the same team from last year. Basically gonna have the same top eight guys, right, Like, it's gonna be Tatum and Brown, it's gonna be White and Holiday, it's gonna be Porzingis, it's gonna be Horford,

it's gonna be Pritchard, it's gonna be Hawserd. Those are like your core eight guys. Right, We're gonna see a lot of different kinds of guys playing more minutes in the early part of the season. With Porzingis being out, You're gonna see more Luke Cornett. You're gonna se some more nemus quota guys like that. Like, there's gonna be guys who end up playing more, But their core eight is the exact same team from last year. Denver has

made one change to the starting lineup. Right, Christian Brown is in with the starters for con Davious Cabbo Pope, and then they've got a lot of turnover on their bench unit. The bench point guard is going from Reggie Jackson to Russell Westbrook. Right, Julian Strauther is the guy that's gonna hopefully kind of slide into that Christian Brown role as the backup too. Right, Dario Sarch getting the backup center minutes. I thought those looked pretty good too.

Showed some of that like physical size in his ability to bully smaller players today. And then Peyton Watson is dealing with some hamstring discomfort, so Vlatco Contar ended up getting those minutes. So the bench unit looked kind of different, but overall, the Denver Nuggets are going to be at least playing the same style in the core lineup. The starting lineup is going to be playing the same style. So not a lot of like new quote unquote to

get into for either of these teams. But I still want to talk about some of the stuff we saw so on the bus Boston front, it's just such a simple and effective brand of basketball. They play such easy offense, right, It's like, get initial advantage for somebody, which all that means is a close out. Right, defenders sprinting out at somebody at the three point line. From there, drive the close out from there, make a read, and then repeat that until you get a good look from three. They

attempted thirty five threes in the first half. They didn't shoot particularly well, but it isn't hard for them to generate quality shots. And again, thirty five threes and a half, that's insane, and obviously, in terms of shot value per attempt, you're not going to do a whole lot better than generating that many threes. They do a lot of little things that make life easy for them. They ran a lot of three man action today, especially with the bench unit. A lot of stack pick and roll or Spain pick

and roll with Peyton, Pritchard and Sam Hauser. All that is is just Pritchard's running the ball screen with Krne, but as Cornett is rolling, Howser comes up and sets a backscreen for him and then pops to the top of the keeps just really difficult to guard. I actually that there's an example of that play that made it into the Tim's tape segment at the tail end of

the show that you guys will see. But a lot of like one of the things I saw today that was kind of interesting too is they ran more post split split action, meaning like they would post up usually one of the j's around the elbow, and then instead of like looking to just quick turn an ISO, they'd

run action out of it. It's really easy for a post up player to be a passing folkrum because they're closer to the basket, they can kind of survey the floor, especially with their back to the basket, they can survey all of the perimeter movement and then you can run that sort of action, and it's difficult for the guys guarding those off ball action because as they're trying to

see man and ball. They're looking in closer to the basket while trying to track people, and they got good looks off of split action, which is basically just imagine there's a guy who makes the post entry on the wing and then there's another guy that's one pass away further along above the break on the other side of the floor. After he makes the post entry, he'll screen for that guy, and that guy'll come over if if

it's an opportunity to slip, he'll slip that action. It might be the opposite where like he'll the guy that's further away will screen for the guy who made the entry pass. And they got some good looks just out of running like split action, which I think is a nice little wrinkle for them to generate quality shots. Again, they just do a lot of little stuff to make things easier for them. On offense, another thing that I

thought they did really well today they're corner crashes. They're really deliberate and consistent with when the shot goes up, the two guys that are in the corner sprinting in to get try to get an offensive rebound before getting back. In transition defense, especially the bench guys like Jaden Springer and Jordan Walsh did an amazing job of this. We talked earlier in the week when we did our Lakers video because JJ Redick has been specifically talking about this.

But you can use corner crashes to generate extra possessions but still get back in transition as long as you have floor balance. So again, like, as long as you still have your two guys above break that can stop the ball and protect the basket, the two guys that are coming out of the corner can still get to

the offensive glass before getting back in transition. There's actually an upside in the sense that a lot of times when guys stand still in the corner and the shot goes up, they take their first couple of steps like walking back or kind of drifting, and then finally when the transition possession starts, then they'll try to get ahead of steam and start sprinting back. When the shot goes up. If you crash out of the corner, I meaning both guys shots in the air, both guys are sprinting towards

the kind of middle of the floor area. Again, you don't sprint towards the rim necessarily, you sprint into like between the semi circle and the restricted area and that little area about ten feet from the basket where when you get in there a long rebound coming off the rim, you have a chance to get right. But one of the upsides is you're already sprinting, so like as the shots up, you're sprinting. If the ball doesn't come to you,

you just veer off and then sprint back. In transition defense, it's just a little way to generate margin, right, to get an advantage in the part of the game that is not the basic half court offense defense battle. It's like special teams in football. Right, It's like an area where you can generate margin, and getting offensive rebounds is a way to do that. Seventeen offensive rebounds for Boston today. Tatum's jump shot looks great. I'm gonna show you guys

some clips here in a second. It looks super fluid, very smoothie at three out of seven. One of the things I talked about, Actually, let's just go look at the clip before we actually talk a little bit more about it. Here's an example of off of an offensive rebound off of Jaylen Brown. Miss. I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. Ball gets worked back around. Watch how smooth and quick the release is smooth, quick, confident, nothing

but the bottom. Here's another one off of a transition drop off, I think from Pritchard if I remember correctly, Watch how quickly and smooth he transitions from catch into shot. Again, there was, like I went back and watched earlier today, a bunch of examples of Tatum shooting in the playoffs, and there was just a little bit of like it was weird to hitch wasn't so much in the as

he got into his shot. The hitch was at the beginning, like as he would catch, he would catch, and then he'd like kind of tuck the ball almost like down on his left side, and then he would like jab that elbow way in before he'd get up into his shot. There was just a little bit of a delay or a hitch in the very very beginning part of his shot that he seems to be a seems to have

knocked out. And again, as I talked about last year, like my focus on Tatum's poor shooting was more in the moment in the sense that, yeah, it was kind of weird. During the postseason run, it was a problem with Team USA. There's The main reason why Tatum wasn't getting minutes with Team USA is Kerr, even though he knew he could bring so much defensively, he didn't trust his ability to confidently step in two shots right Like that was the issue? Is the jump shot? That was

the issue. Now, as I said throughout that tournament, I still would have played Tatum. I mean, yeah, you don't close the game with him obviously if he's not shooting, but he does so much else positive for a basketball team that I still would have played him more than Steve Kerr did. But that was the main reason why Steve Kerr didn't play him. But one of the things I said after that, if you guys remember is I

think this is just a slump. I don't think there's some sort of dramatic dip in Tatum's ability to shoot the basketball. Yeah. Do I think him putting on some muscles made him a little more stiff. Sure, But I think you can be built and still shoot the basketball well. And I still think Jason Tatum will shoot the basketball. As a matter of fact, I'll just put it out

there right now. My bet is that by the time we get twenty games into the season that Tatum's high volume probably about thirty eight thirty nine percent from three. I think he's gonna shoot the ball just fine this year, and like looked really confident in his minutes today. Pritchard shot the ball really well again. He had six threes. Boston is just a well oiled machine on the Denver front.

They have real advantages in this matchup. Boston was doubling Nikola Jokic in post ups and Denver was getting wide open threes out of it every single time. Let's go back over to the film. I want to show you guys a couple of quick examples. I'm gonna go to our next clip. So here's one of the first the first Denver offensive possession of the game. We get the floor. We they just run a little brush screen in transition

that leads to a switch. So now we have Jokic being guarded by Tatum and Cornett is guarding Jamal Murray in space. They make the post entry to Jokic, hard double team right away, wide open three for a great shooter, Michael Porter Junior. Here's one more example from another early first quarter possession. We're gonna get a Jokics post up of Jalen Brown, immediate double team from Cornette, swing pass

to Gordon Tatum, rotates. You could see the kind of play developing, rotate, rotate, Jamal Murray ends up getting an open three out of the corner. That was a kind of a one of the main reasons why I was talking about the importance of matchups in the postseason in the in a weird way, like a team like Dallas was set up to had Minnesota who was set up to handle Denver, right, But Denver is like this unique team that really can punish interior size, right, or a

lack of interior size, right. And like, one of the things that Dallas could not do with Boston is consistently get them in rotation. They couldn't get to the point where they were consistently getting two on the ball and getting easy opportunities for drive and kick offense or catch and shoot threes for quality shooters. Right. That's one of the advantages that Denver has and it's the reason they were the only team I said had any chance to

compete with Boston last year. And again, I don't know who would have won in a playoff series between Denver and Boston last year. I would have picked Denver, probably, but it would have been really close. I'm not over here trying to act like Denver's the Boston beater, and

I'm sure as hell don't think a preseason game proves that. However, in terms of a simple basketball concept a concept, Denver has the ability to get Boston into rotation via double teams of Jokic in a way that a lot of teams around the league can't, because Boston has such quality perimeter personnel and they could switch so easily that a lot of the best perimeter players in the league can't compromise Boston's defense the same way that a guy like

Nikola Jokic cat can. Boston tried leaving him in single coverage a little bit more in the late second quarter, and then he started scoring. He had a little hook shot over Xavier Tillman. He had an and one through Jalen Brown that made our tape list that you guys will see later today. Denver's a well oiled machine too, just in a different way. Boston attempted more threes in the first half than Denver did in the entire game,

but Denver dominated the points in the paint matchup. That's what makes this matchup so interesting, Right, it's like Denver two's versus Boston threes, and it's like an efficiency battle that kind of oscillates back and forth based on how well Boston's shooting at any point in time. Right, Jamal Murray still looked somewhat out of shape. He airballed wide open three in the first half and then barely grazed the rim on another. That to me is a sign

that he doesn't have his legs underneath him yet. But that's kind of his reputation. He has a tendency to show into camp a little bit out of shape, so not overly surprised there. Christian Brown looks like a massive defensive upgrade over Contavious Coldwell Pope, specifically because of his size and strength. He's able to guard forwards in a way that CACP can't. Right, and Brown spent some time

on Tatum and did a pretty good job. And one of the things that I think is fascinating about that is one of the problems that Denver runs into from a matchup standpoint in the postseason is when they run into really good forwards, they typically have to put Aaron Gordon on them and so now you have Aaron Gordon guarding the ball, and if that player can get downhill on Aaron Gordon in ball screens against Jokic, now you don't have as much size on the back line that's

in the help right. By Christian Brown's ability to guard forwards, you can keep Aaron Gordon in the lowman position, in the help side position, so that now when that forward gets downhill and Jokic is sitting in his drop coverage but trying to meet him a little bit higher, or whoever that forward is gets by Jokic, the help on the backside is now anchored by Aaron Gordon instead of

Aaron Gordon having to be on the ball. So like for all to talk about the defense or the offensive difference between KCP and Christian Brown, and KCP is a very good defender of guards, but Christian Brown is just a little bit more versati, a little bigger and stronger, and I think he does create a little bit more matchup versatility for Denver on the defensive end of the floor. I thought Sarch was a nice fit too. Like I mentioned earlier showcase, some of his ability to bold these

smaller players. He had a play where he just buried Jalen Brown under the basket and got an easy layup. That'll be a kind of an interesting fit for them on the offensive end of the floor. The Westbrook experience was exactly what I thought it would be and what I expected to be all season. Lots of good and lots of bad. Right Like, he generated a ton of

rim pressure. He had eight assists in nineteen minutes, a couple of really nice drop offs to bigs, several of his classic like driving corner kicks where like he just gets ahead his team. And there's I talk about rim pressure as a positive all the time, and that is by far the biggest positive that Russell Westbrook brings his rim pressure. But like guys just have like a natural tendency to sync in the guy is pressuring the rim

even when the game plan doesn't dictate that. It's just like human nature when you see a guy barreling towards the rim, you just kind of gravitate towards the rim as an attempt to try to slow that down. Right, Like, a lot of that is going to be the upside that comes with the Russell Westbrook experience. I thought he did some nice work on the ball on defense, he guarded tat him a little bit. He had a possession in a ball screen where he chased hat him over the top and got back in front of him on

the other side of the screen. That's like some of that like really high level on ball defense that Russ is capable of. He hit three threes and all three of them were above the break, which, again I wouldn't get used to that if I were you. Russ has been a mid twenties above the break three point shooter basically his entire career. He shot twenty six point seven percent on above the breakthrees last year, so I wouldn't

get used to that necessarily. But like, he's gonna have nights where he hits him right, but then it was just the classic bad right. Like I talked about those corner crashes for Boston, multiple possessions where Russ just fell asleep and let a guy just sprint right back buy him and get an offensive rebound. He lost track of Peyton Pritchard as an off ball shooter. A couple of times he got back cut by Jalen Brown for a

dunk and then the missed layups. Right. He went zero for three on layups, but that's kind of what you can expect. He shot fifty one percent on layups last year. It's just something he's bad at. He was seven for twenty two on layups in the first round series against Dallas, so literally less than one out of three on layups, right, random out of control possessions. I'll show you an example in the film. But like that's going to be the rough experience leading the bench unit. It's going to be

just a whirlwind of good and bad. Like in any given night, whether or not it's a positive experience, is going to be whether or not there were more good plays than bad. Guess what. That's what it's going to be. Like, there are going to be nights where he makes a lot more good plays than bad plays, and you're like, man, this guy's incredible. He's doing such a good job leading

this bench unit. And then there are gonna be other games where like he just makes a ton of mistakes and very few of the good plays and you're like, holy shit, what are we doing here? Right? So like that's kind of the Westbrook experience. And again, like Denver fans, I had a lot of Denver fans get like really combative with me in the comments. I'm not here trying to like say that you guys don't have a great system. I agree that Jokic is an amazing leader. I agree

that Jokic makes basketball easier for his teammates. I agree that Mike Malone is one of the best coaches in the league and that he sets guys up for success in roles. I agree all that stuff, But guess what, like the same as similar levels of that have been the case at previous destinations. The Clippers are a very good organization. The Clippers are an organization that is well coached. The Clippers are an organization that set him up to succeed.

And these are all just parts that are inherent in Russell Westbrook's basketball personality that are going to be things that you see this here. Let's show some examples, because again I'm not I'm a big believer in like operating within reality, operating within the facts. I want to show you guys exactly what I'm talking about. So let's go look at the the film for a second. So here's an example of like rush it just kind of struggling

to finish around the rim. I really like this action, Like Russ makes a post entry to Jokic, so he's gonna drive down to this little corner spot post entry, he sees Tatum's step out of his stance and lift up, promptly cuts back door, but then he smokes the layup. Here's an example of like Russ just being super aggressive off the ball for no reason and just gets back cut by Jaylen Brown for an easy dunk. Like that's a mistake that just gives two points to the other team.

Like that has the same negative impact as the positive impact of Russ making a drop off pass to Sarage for a layup. See what I mean. Like it's it's the constant undoing of the good that he brings to the table. Really nice move on a switch, gets a switch on Xavier Tillman toasts him off the dribble, but he's just a bad finisher and he smokes the layup. Another one here in transition, gets a nice head of steam, gets downhill a little brush screen, goes right at Cornet,

just smokes the layup. This one is like the kind of thing that you'll see everyone once in a while with Russ and you're like, dude, just slow down, Like there's no advantage here, but he just puts his head down and tries to force his way down the floor and throws up some bs that has no chance of going in. And now you're going the other way and Russ is in camera row. Here's an example of one of those corner crashes that I'm talking about. I said

this to you guys in the Media day interview. I said, you will watch dozens and dozens and dozens eclipse this year where Russ is just standing with his hands on his knees and not boxing out. Here it is shot goes up, Sarage has recovered to box out Cornett. Russ has one job. Box out Jaden Springer coming out of the left corner. Watch what he does stands there and watches him go right around him and get an offensive rebound Like that is the Russell Westbrook experience. I'm not

talking shit to be an asshole. I'm being realistic about the basketball that's taking place. And when you sign up for the Russell Westbrook experience, this is what you sign up for. It's a lot of up and a lot of down, and it just whether or not he he's a positive impact that night is entirely based on how many mistakes he makes, But I do want to show some of the positives, just an example of just the

brim pressure. So like, look at this example of Russ just getting ahead of Steam driving the basketball and creates a wide open corner. Three. Also, you're not supposed to help out of the strong side corner, but this is what I was talking about in terms of I guess it's not actually the strong side. So this is solid help from Tatum. But again Tatum's in helpside, just gets ahead of Steam on Derek White, Tatum steps in boom,

wide open corner three. That's the kind of stuff that like, the more of that and the less of the mistakes, that's more for a positive Russell Westbrook experience. Here's another one in a ball screen. Jade Springer a nice job navigating, by the way, Celtics fans. We'll see if Jaden Springer gets much opportunity this year. But that dude can guard, but Russ goes right around him. Here draws help from Cornette,

easy layout. So again with Russ, it's all about just that scale and just trying to limit mistakes as much as possible so that the good stuff can actually shine through. All Right, before we get out of here for today, I want to have our first ever edition of Timp's tape. We don't again, we don't know what we're gonna call it. We're gonna kind of workshop some different names. If you

guys have ideas, you can drop them in the comments. Also, this is a segment we're going to be recurring throughout the year, so if you guys have any feedback, make sure you drop it in the comments. But again, I have five plays today. Some days it'll be less, some days it might be more. But I'm just going to give specific examples of plays that reflect concepts that we talked about in the show so that we can learn more about the league over the course of this season.

So our first play is going to be an example of stack pick and roll or spain pick and roll. This was This is an action we see all over the place around the league and it's a very simple concept. You can see as the ball screen starts to set up. As you can see the play setting up, Cornett is setting the ball screen right, Sarrich is getting ready to show at the level of the screen. Look at Howser

though Houser is now getting ready to backscreen Sarage. What I want to do is I want to play it in full speed first, and then I'm gonna throw show it in slow motion so we can talk about some of the specific concepts. Pritchard's gonna come off the screen. Howser is going to break wide open above the at the top of the key, and he misses this three but it's a wide open look generated by the action.

There's some PTSD if you guys missed the corner crash there, all right, So let's slow this down a little bit and talk about the specific concept that's taking place. So this any sort of three man action makes defensive players make decisions that are infinitely more complicated than any sort of two man action. So in this case, as we see as Pritchard comes off the screen, Sorrich feels the need to show is chasing. So we have two on

the ball, right, But now Howser's gonna backscreen Sarich. And now I think this is BLACKO conchar if I can, I can't tell one hundred percent. But now because Hawser is setting contar feels the need to show because again if he doesn't, if he screens here, Pritcher can just turn the corner and get downhill into the lane. So now Sarrich is showing. Now all of a sudden, we have three on the ball. Notice two, we have two openings here because as Cornette slips to the rim, Russ

has to tag him from the weak side. At this point in the play, we now have three on the ball. The only reason Sarrich was there is because he felt the need to show. The only reason Conchar was there is he felt the need to show because there was a second screen. Now Sarrig sprints and recovers back to Cornette. Look at him sprinting to Cornett. But we still have two on the ball. And now Howser pops wide open, and you can kind of see if there was a

version of this where you don't show. So let's say Conchar is like, shit, I don't want to leave the Howser wide open. I'm just gonna stay home. Then in this case, Howser lays the wood on. Sorry, it's Pritchard's turning the corner, and if he's not there as he's driving downhill, it's gonna be an easy passing read because Russ is going to step up to help, and it's going to be a drop off to Cornett, or if he doesn't and he stays, he can go all the

way to the rim. Or if he doesn't like any of his options around the basket, he can make this kick pass to Jaden Springer. So again it's a simple example of three man action just making things confusing for the defense. Sarge sprints back, Russ recovers, but Howser's wide open because of the three man action at the top of the key. This these next two clips, I'm gonna show a rapid fire style. So this first one, these are both examples of Christian Brown just doing a good

job holding up on Jason Tatum on defense. And again it's just his ability to be able to guard bigger forwards. So Brown's on Tatum. We're going straight to Tatum. He tries to drive at him and try to bully him a little bit, holds his ground, gets a block. Really nice individual defense on Tatum. And then here's an example in transition. So this is again an example of Christian

Brown's athleticism. He's on his heels with Tatum, one of the biggest athlete forwards in the league, coming downhill at him, and he's able to absorb contact and force him into a really tough shot and force him into a miss. So really nice work there from Christian Brown. All right, two more clips and then we're out of here. This is an example of classic Boston Celtics advantage basketball. So, as we talked about in our intro, Boston just plays a really simple and easy brand of basketball. Run a

basic action to get an initial advantage. From that initial advantage, you drive the close out. When you drive the close out, you make a read, and you repeat that process until somebody ends up getting a wide open layup or a wide open three point shot. Right, So we run a little bit of a little transition push, there's a little bit of weak side action. It's defended well. So we turn into this two man game. Right. So, now the

principle of this two man game is very simple. We're gonna make Denver make a decision on how they're going to guard this ball screen. Okay, So as Michael Porter Junior is chasing over the top, Cornette sets the screen, Yokic is going to come up to the level, Okay. So when Yokic comes up to the level, that makes it so that Cornett can slip behind Yokic, right, because if Yokic is going to be at the level, he

can't also account for Cornett rolling to the basket. Watch Jamal Murray as he sees this develop point for Conchard to make the rotation over points over Boom or as Christian Brown, So he points over. Christian Brown is now the low man that is coming over to help guard this action. So we have Yokic up at the level, Christian Brown low man. Right, Prichard engages Jokic, Cornette gets behind Jokic. Cornette's behind Jokic. That's where Christian Brown's job

comes into play. Right, But now as Pritchard starts to drive in the ball screen, here's our advantage. Our advantage is a two to one one one on the weak side with Jamal Murray guarding Derek White and Jason Tatum, two excellent shooters. Right, That's how we got our advantage. We ran a ball screen forced Denver to run a pick and roll coverage. Each pick and roll coverage has

a strength and a weakness. The strength of bringing the big up to the level is it makes it harder on the ball handler to get an easy shot for him. But the weakness is it lets the role man get behind, which forces you to tag from the weak side. That creates the two on one. Pritchard makes the first read. The first reid is this kick to Derek White right now Dallas or excuse me, Denver's in rotation. Right, Jamal

is gonna rotate to Derek White. But now Christian Brown because he had tagged all the way over, let me rewind a little bit. Now, Christian Brown, because he tagged all the way over on Cornett, he has to close out from the opposite block on Tatum. Here in the corner. Derek White throws the extra pass. This is our second advantage, right, So the first read was Pritchard to Jamal Murray. Derek White didn't even need to drive that close out. There was already an easy read for him to make to

the corner. Now Tatum is playing advantage basketball, right, Tatum is going to drive the close out on Christian Brown with a little ball fake boom. Now he's past Christian Brown. Now Christian Brown is compromised. This forces Michael Porter Junior to come over and help. Michael Porter Junior comes over and help. Pritchard quickly identifies it creates a passing angle. They don't even have great spacing here because they're a little bunched up. But Pritchard is the guy that's wide open.

Now that's the next read. We get our read. Pritchard really good shooter, he made six threes in this game. Steps into an easy catch and shoot three there on the left wing. That is textbook Boston Celtics advantage basketball. Beautiful work from the seas. All right, let's look at let's look at one last example, an example of what makes the Denver two man game super hard to guard. This is going to be Jamal Murray and Nicole Yokich. So we get a little action. Jamal Murray is guarding

as being guarded by Jalen Brown. Xavier Tillman is on Jokic. Run some action. Notice two, there's the earlier action is designed to get Jalen Brown into a trail position. Although the Boston broadcast that's a big thing in the way. Okay, so I want you to notice too. Instead of just running a two man game, just a regular ball screen, they're running early possession action for Jamal Murray. There's a

very specific reason why you do this. You do this so that Jalen Brown gets separated from Jamal Murray so that when Jamal comes off the last action, Jokic's man has to show, right. So look at how glued up Jalen Brown is on Jamal Murray. We want to create separation. There there's our first screen. Get a little bit of separation, now, Tillman, these are our little gamesmanship things you'll see in NBA games. Watch how Tillman grabs Jamal Murray. This is technically a foul,

but it goes uncalled all the time. A little bit of a grab on Jamal Murray to try to slow him down. This is all the little chess match that takes place as you're trying to win that separation battle on the ball, right or for your uh the guy who's gonna run the action. So Yokic lays the wood a little bit, Get a little bit of separation. Now we get another screen from Aaron Gordon. We have even more separation. It just forces Jalen Brown to take this kind of funky step. Right now we're in our two

man game. Our two man game. Now technically it's a three man game because Aaron Gordon's in it. But now we're getting to the portion of the action with the Murray Jokic two man game. Jokic sets another screen now because of this separation, this forces Xavier Tillman to come out and show is Xavier Tillman stays glued up to Jokic. Jamal is curling this and he's getting right down into the lane for one of his floaters that he shoots at a high percentage. Right, This forces Tilman to come out.

Now that Tilman's coming out, it's basically turning into a switch. Notice what Jokic is doing now. He knows this is going to end in a switch because of the the pre action. This probably isn't a switch if you just run a dribble handoff, but because you ran two screening actions for Murray before this, Jalen Brown's trailing the play. Now it turns into a switch. Notice how Jokic is trapping Jaylen Brown on his top side using his strength. He's going to now slowly roll. Look at he's almost

like posting up reverse. Typically you'd see Jokich post up for a basket that's right here with the player right, but he's trapping Jalen Brown on his backside so that he can roll to the basket. Now he's got created the passing angle. He's created a nice wide passing angle. Jamal Murray makes the pass. Now Jokic knows he's got Jaylen Brown trap behind him. Watch how he just kind of slowly and rumbles to the basket and makes the easy shot for the and one is Jalen Brown's crawling

all over his back. Great example of what makes Denver's five out offense so difficult to attack, the action that flows into the action, and then the advantage ability of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray to punish teams for having a size mismatch on Jokic. All right, that's our first version of Timp's tape. Ever, let me know what you guys think in the comments. Let me know if you got any ideas for names. As always, I sincerely appreciate you supporting the show. We will be back later today.

Right after I'm done with this, I'm recording our season preview for the Philadelphia seventy six ers, as well as a little mail bag. I'll see you guys then the volume. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.