Hoops Tonight - EVERY WAY Pacers should beat Thunder in NBA Finals w/ Sam Vecenie

carry their team to the chip? Try placing a bet on your personal MVP to drop thirty, forty or maybe even over fifty. Ready to place your own bet, download the DraftKings sports Book app, lock in your bets and finish the season as a winner. Here's something special for first timers. New DraftKings customers. Bet five dollars to get three hundred dollars in bonus bets if your bet wins. Don't miss your last chance to bet on the NBA

this season. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code hoops that's hoo, that's code hoops for new customers to get three hundred dollars in bonus bets if your bet wins. When you bet five bucks only on DraftKings, the Crown

is yours. Gambling problem called one hundred gambler In New York call eight seven seven eight Hope and why, or text hope and Why to four six seven three sixty nine and Connecticut help is available for problem gambling called eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas twenty one plus. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario. Bet

must win to receive reward. Minimum minus five hundred odds required. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKG dot co. Slash Audio.

are a massive favorite to win the NBA Finals. They are currently minus seven hundred and so under those circumstances, we talked and we came to the conclusion that it would be a fun exercise to pretend that Sam and I are the coaches of the Indiana Pacers and we are attempting to come up with a game plan that might give us the best chance to win this particular series. Sam, before we even get started, how are you doing, man? We haven't talked in a long time. It's been a very,

very busy few months. But it's so nice to have you back on the show.

Like I feel terrible, like we haven't even caught up on the phone because I've just been like literally in front of my computer. This is the time of year where I put on like eight pounds or nine pounds just because I have to watch so much tape, like to stay above water on both I finally get to go to the gym after we're done with this, It's gonna be great. Yeah.

the NBA Finals last year. We discussed this. I asked you what your biggest lesson you learned from the playoffs was, and we both had like similar answers that were like in different kind of like they were more or less

meaning the same thing. But the answer you came up with was ground coverage and essentially having to do with speed and the ability to cover ground in rotation because of the idea that in order to do anything to make a star uncomfortable, you have to do a certain amount of aggressive loading up and that inherently puts you into these rotation situations. And then there's also just the reality of how much of the game is being played. In transition, I kind of became obsessed around the idea

of perimeter speed. This was a concept that I was hitting on a lot around the same time, and it more or less means the same thing. But I can't help but notice that we have these two teams that are not particularly big, but that have a depth of perimeter speed and the ability to cover ground in rotation that vastly supersedes some of the other teams that we've

seen around the league. And so I my first question for you is just what have you really learned from this particular postseason run with Indiana in Oklahoma City ending up in the finals. Does it legitimize anything about your big picture basketball worldview.

Otherwise it's just really hard to be able to survive in the NBA currently because you need different kinds of adjustments you need to be able to make depending on the situation. You know, against the Lakers, Minnesota really thrived by loading up and being able to play as big as possible, but you know, in other situations they certainly needed to be able to go five out and be able to play multiple different offensive looks more than anything.

So being able to go five out would be what I would add at any point, even if it's not your primary look. I would hope that it's your primary look, to be frank, but I think you can make it work without it being your primary look.

playback the other night just this. You know, there's all this low hanging fruit in basketball, in terms of things like picking up full court to make people uncomfortable, in terms of like being able to to play an incredibly hillacious pace, in terms of really having like an overall expectation that everyone in your lineup is allowed to be aggressive, that everyone in your lineup is allowed to turn the

corner and look to score. And I think that there's a reality that you need depth in order to do that. And I think what stood out to me as like a counter example was the Knicks with Tom Thibodeaux, where all year long he's emphasizing heavy minutes for starters under the guys of conditioning. But all year long, those guys were not sharp on the details, in large part because

they had to play such heavy minute loads. And so I'm not saying it's the end all be all, because I do think it's possible for you to have success in the NBA without a ton of depth, especially if

you've got like six rock solid players. The Celtics famously last year they're like a pretty tight eight man rotation, and towards the end they were leaning pretty heavily on their top six guys, But I think there's some reality to the fact that you can exploit more of that low hanging fruit by having a good ten to eleven man rotation of guys that can at least succeed within your scheme on both ends of the floor.

create points off of turnovers immediately. I believe that Indiana and the Thunder right now are currently first and second in the playoffs and points per game off of turnovers, right, and you look at the way that the series is gonna,

you know, flow. In my opinion, it's going to be based on the idea of the turnover battle, because nobody does a better job of forcing turnovers than Oklahoma City, and arguably nobody does a better job of reducing turnovers than Indiana, right, So like that battle, to me, is going to be the key to this series. But Indiana, I think is a really underrated team in terms of forcing points off turnovers, just because while they don't like force an insane number of them, they're always lethal in

how they execute off of them. They are so intentional in the way that they go about finding mismatches if you have anything to exploit, they are incredible at finding different cross matches in transition to be able to attack. That's just the reality of what they do is because they have Haliburton and Emhard, both of whom have grown up playing in these uptempo schemes as point guards. Right, they have this incredible ability to always find the cross match.

Both of those guys are really sharp, knowing exactly where the advantage is. Gonzaga played it one of the fastest tempos in the league or in the country under Andrew Nemhard, Right, Tyrese Haliburton's been playing this way for years, Right, he just knows how to handle it. Having multiple ball handlers out there who can all shoot, who can all make decisions at the end of the day, Like, what this comes down to for me on some level is a the ground coverage and be just decision making in general.

The ability to to process the court like basketball in the court at such a high level is so incredibly important. It's why we've seen Alex Caruso just you know, elevate his game even further in the playoffs this year. It's why we see guys like chet Holm Grant at the center position be able to you know, make decisions faster than other centers in my opinion, play such a critical role for them. Isaiah Hartenstein's a very good decision maker

for a big for Oklahoma City. On the other side, I would argue that Miles Turner is just so well drilled within that scheme at this point. Pascal Siakam is so problematic in terms of creating mismatches, but he also makes good decisions as well in terms of when to attack those mismatches. The ability to process basketball is just absolutely critical to me. It is the number one thing to me that these two teams, particularly beyond not really having like a weak link on the court to really attack.

That's what these two teams do better than anybody in my opinion.

number one culprit of their transition defense issues. And then they'd have like Mitchell Robinson in one dunker spot and ogn and Obie in the other dunker spot, and Kat just set a ball screen for Brunson and for some reason he's rolling and You're like, You're like, what the fuck are you guys doing? Like this is there's so many like simple things like that where it's like when you watch the Celtics when they were at their best, and I actually think the Thunder are an underrated kind

of like spacing relocating team. They they just kind of whirl around off the ball really well. But like there they're just so much sharper with the little decisions about where they relocate to where they space to where they cut from. Like how you know one of the reasons why they're such good transition defense is is their ability to kind of make sure they always have their floor balance set up well.

Like the intentionality is really critical to me, like having intentional spacing, and that's why, like, to me, I kind of understand, like, even though the Nicks just went to the conference finals, if they want to move on from TIBs, Like,

I'm not gonna sit here and complain. I thought he coached an incredibly poor series against the Indiana Pacers, just both in terms of the lineups he decided to utilize going two bigs against that transition attack, and then additionally, the intentionality of the spacing just feels totally wrong all the time to me with them, not not all the time, but too often, let's go with for a team that

is as talented as they are. So when I look at these two teams, I think that what stands out, you know, of what I've said so far is the coaching. These two coaches are two of the top five coaches

in the league. And I actually wonder I think for a while we were at a point where there were like five really elite coaches, right, like guys that I thought really moved the needle for you, And then I thought there were like five or six, like not great coaches that moved the needle negatively, and then everybody else

is kind of in the middle. Right. I actually wonder if in this new era of basketball where intentionality in regard to spacing, in terms of tempo, in terms of rotations, in terms of making sure you don't have like a week link on the court regularly, I think we might be at a point now where coaching is actually starting to become more important even than what we had been thinking of it as being previously, because that intentionality in spacing,

in rotational alignment is so critical now in the biggest moments in the playoffs.

runway for our transition defense. The top two guys get back. These guys crashing out of the corners can kind of whirl up the floor after they make that crash, And there's just like this kind of understanding that, like, Okay, every time we play in transition, we're twenty percent more efficient, So why would we not hunt that at every single opportunity that we have. You mentioned the cross matches like.

great at not turning the ball over. Yes, both this is these are all like readily attainable things and so like this is one of the things that US Laker fans were bitching and moaning about NonStop with respect to JJ Reddick versus Darvin Ham is, like JJ did not do a good job in this postseason run, and he's got obviously playoff game planning and adjustments to figure out at a higher level than what he figured that what

he had this year. And uh, but like JJ at the very least came in from day one and was like, we're gonna harp on these details. So and they suddenly

were a better team. And like shake gives as Alexander and his MVP speech mentioning how Dagnault was just a pain in the end, Like that stuff is all incredibly important to maximizing, especially when the margins are smaller too, Like this isn't the this isn't what it was ten years ago, where the Calves and the Warriors are so clearly better than everyone that everyone else is just kind

of fighting for second place in their conference. Like this is every if you look at these the playoff field this year kind of felt like anybody could get it done. And here we are. We're with Indiana and Oklahoma City and Oklahoma City was this close to losing in the second round. Like, these are very very tight margins. By the way, Oklahoma City was this close to losing in the second round in a series where they had twenty

seven points per game off of turnovers. So, like, you tell me whether or not low hanging fruit matters in the NBA. But let's get Let's get to this series. And so you and I are the coaching staff. We are trying to figure out who's the lead assistant Indiana right now? Do you know off the top of your hand.

The traditional bigs that are not like apex athletes like Mitchell Robinson are gonna struggle to a certain extent in this type of whirling dervish type of offense. So I think it's gonna be a lot of Chet at the five alongside four perimeter type of players. So I think it's vitally important for the Pacers to force Chet to guard on the perimeter as much as possible. So my next question, if I first pitched to you, is this, should Indiana consider going small in this series?

gonna happen a lot with Chat as well. So, like my idea behind the Pacers going small is the true switch ability to be able to switch ball screens and prevent the easy kind of reads that Indiana or that Oklahoma City can make in pick and roll, but also the ability to consistently force Chat to guard on the perimeter.

I think that Indiana is gonna be able to get a certain amount of like pick and pop type of stuff with Miles Turner, but I think that Okay c He's gonna live with chasing him off with just a late closeout. And so what I'm I'm wondering is could you actually force Chet to guard in more action and force them to guard in the perimeter more by going small, especially with a team that's not particularly big in any case.

struggled to deal with them. I don't so like almost the way I'm gonna think of this as like, you know, you you bring up this idea, and like I'm trying to think of like it from Oklahoma City's perspective, because so much of this is a chess game, right, You're trying to figure out what the counters are going to be ahead of the counters, right, So if you go small, right, do you think that a Siakam based five unit is going to be capable of taking advantage of Hartenstein enough?

Is my question, because if I'm the thunder at that point, I'm just crashing Hartenstein to the glass on the offensive end fairly regularly, especially with how I'm assuming you're gonna have to play defensively, where you're gonna have to play a little bit more like shell coverages as opposed to like getting aggressive and trying to force turnovers because Oklahom City doesn't really do that. So that would create like potentially more situations where Hartenstein might be able to crash the

offensive glass a little bit easier. I do agree with your point that like the Hartenstein minutes will probably only be like twenty ye or so a game. But like, if you're going smaller, do I just match and go bigger with Hartenstein and Chet and say, okay, can Siakam beat Hartenstein in a mismatched situation? My guess is yes, But like at what level? Would be my question to you?

Hart and Stein is fair. I think the way that I would think of it is, in this theoretical scenario, the Pacers have played Hart and Sign off the floor and then they go small. So essentially it would be almost like mirroring Miles Turner's Minutes to Heart and Sign, if that makes sense.

but like basically everybody else played in these games. So like we have like a decent sample here, but Chet did not play and that does like really fundamentally change a lot for the way that Indiana is gonna be able to match up. I think what worries me about this? And I don't even know that you're wrong, Like I think that it's potentially their best option. I think it's

potentially Indiana's best option. Is I do think Chet is better at guarding on the perimeter than like, you know, Carl Towns, and then you know anybody like Jared Allen, like any of these other guys that they played, right, So what would worry me about this is you're just like, Okay, we're just gonna play drop with Chet, and we're gonna

play at the level. Maybe with Chet you're gonna try and what like slip Siakam behind him maybe to get like an easy mismatch at times, maybe you try and run like a quick, little like slide action where it's just like a quick little ghost pick and pop kind of thing in order to catch him. I think Indiana does a really good job of differentiating the kinds of ball screens that they run. For sure, maybe like it

might be their best option is to go small. It's just the issue is, like they haven't really been willing to do this, and I did it.

in our series preview. Like, I look at Chet as the best of both worlds with Hartenstein in the sense that he brings the same kind of vertical spacing element as a guy that can roll behind the defense, but that legitimately can guard on the perimeter in this whirling kind of offense. That said, even within that context, I think he's the smartest target point for Indiana to try to go after, just because he's a big body and if you can get him shifting one way or the other, that could help.

little bit easier on those like in those situations. But what that does is it means that like a lot of the ball screens will be set like guard to guard, right, And I would imagine that like figuring out an answer to the guard to guard screening actions and the small lineups or actually those are actually going to be the critical thing to me trying to figure out, like, Okay, how do we how do we handle the guard to guards?

Are we just switching if it means we're getting Halliburton on Shay, or if it means we're getting you know, Obi Toppin onto Shay, or are we you know, gonna try and like hedge and recover a little bit with Halliburton and top In. Obviously you switch anything, nem Hardne Smith, I would think, but you know, what would your answer be to the way that you guard to guard ball screens if you're going smaller would be my question?

But I think the traditional like kind of guard guard screen where the guard just slips to to the rim torch Haliburton I actually thought he did okay in his shase switches like okay, and like at least enough to make him hit a couple counter moves to where the help defense could get involved, and he actually did force a couple of misses. I know that's a lot to ask for Halliburton, but I'm worried that if they just let him hedge that it's going to end in a

bunch of slips. But you're right, I mean going small, I think the entire game plan shifts more towards switching, because essentially the entire purpose of going small on both ends of the floor, it revolves around being able to attack chat in space more effectively and then being able to switch ball screens so that they don't have the issues they were having with the role man in the regular season. So I find that to be most likely a switching scheme if they were to go small.

to the next one. I had a different one for my second piece, but we'll circle back to that, should they because a lot of my Indiana on offense takes are geared around the idea that they're going to be face guarding Tyres Haliburton and ball pressuring in full court and some of the stuff with him kind of getting disengaged. Haliburton's usage rate in the regular season is low compared to other guards because of how quickly he gets rid of the ball, but even juxtapose with his normal usage rate,

his usage rate against Oklahoma City was hilariously low. It was like twelve percent.

as an off ball player in this series. So first, the third piece that I wrote down here to kind of circle back to your point about who this fifth guy should be, I think dribble penetration is going to be really important because when things really bogged down for Indiana against Oklahoma City, especially when they start to switch, they're gonna need someone who can beat the man in front of him. And all of a sudden, I start

looking at TJ McConnell as an option. So I'm wondering if, obviously TJ makes no sense if you're going to be playing through Halliburton on ball. But let's say that Dort has a bunch of success against Haliburton early in the series with the niles and physicality, and Halliburton's just clearly super uncomfortable. You know, We're halfway through game two and he has like thirteen total points on like twelve shots,

and we're like, something's gone going on. We gotta find a way to get Haliburton going, I would start to look at like a guard lineup that has TJ alongside Hallie, where he can one space the floor off the ball, but two I would be obsessed with using Halliburton as a screener in this series because if Dort's gonna hug up to him, then that's the best time to use him as a screener because either O Dort will have to help, which will get him separated from that pressure,

or you're gonna get all sorts of dribble penetration off of Dort not helping on screens. But either way, I like the idea of having a guard like TJ who's big and plays bigger than he is, but that has the ability to beat the man in front of him off the dribble. Arguably that's his best NBA Trait is like he can get past his man, and so I think that suddenly becomes really valuable alongside a Halliburton lineup.

in a lot of ways. But I think TJ can get downhill like in a way that is just effective almost against anybody. It's what happens when he gets to the paint that is the question, right, Like can he make the mid range jumper? Can he you know, get all the way downhill and get all the way to

the rim. I think he might struggle there. But I agree with you totally in terms of the idea of using Haliburton as a screener, Like I would like I'd be looking at like double drags into flares right for Halliburton to be able to potentially try and get him loose.

I'd be looking at like, you know, trying to run even like off ball action for Halliburton, where like you know, he's the screener, like you set like a double pin down like a rap pin or something where Halliburton is the initial screener and then you know the guy in the corner. Maybe it's like Obi toppin or something comes around and sets like a rap pin for him to come around and be able to like go up and

get the ball right. Like, those ideas are really interesting to me in the series, Like, those are things that I would almost certainly try to look at. I think that that's gonna be huge because if you look at where the Knicks started to have success with Haliburton later in the series, it was the pickup point, right, like they would pick him up fifty sixty feet from the rim and say, hey, we're gonna make life a little

bit harder on you. We're gonna make sure that you have to work for every single second that you're on the court here, especially whenever you're not running in transition, not off of a make any The key here for the Thunder almost to me, is like can their offensive efficiency be strong enough to where they can stop Indiana from running at the end of the day, because they will run off of missus, they will run off of turnovers.

Like I think that against Oklahoma City, you probably struggle to run off of makes quite as often, just because of the fact that Oklahoma City doesn't really go for the offensive class regularly, Like, it's just not something that they do. I think they were like twenty first twenty seconds something like that in the league and offensive rebounding rate this year, so they're almost always have four guys back.

It's gonna be a little bit harder to run in transition, so you're gonna have to figure out ways to get offensive efficiency in the half court. And to me, making Haliburton a screener and then trying to get him loose off the ball, that's a really that's something I would absolutely do. Yeah.

But same sort of concept like imagine dort Now. I think Oklahoma City would inevitably just start switching this, But I think I like Haliburton's ability to potentially beat Jadub off the dribble more than I like him against Dort, And similarly, I think I like Dor. I think I like Siakam trying to score against Dort in the posts more than I like him trying to score against Jay Dub And so now inevitably I think Oklahoma City will

double post ups over the course of the series. But I think that I would really really explore just Siakam at the top of the key with Haliburton as a screener and then Haliburton basically just slipping out to the three point line if they're gonna if they're not gonna switch, and if they do switch, then using both of those

guys just having more favorable matchups. But to your point, and this is the more important piece of it all, I think Indiana is gonna be running less for buckets in this series because of Oklahoma City's transition defense, but running more for those transition cross matches, because I think those are gonna be the key to getting them earlier, easier opportunities in the half court.

it's Caruso and Halliburton. Now it's uh it's Cason Wallace on Aaron Nesmith now right, Like It's it's hard, right, especially when you have a number of different bodies that I feel okay with guarding Siakam right, Like, like, I feel fine if Caruso is on Siakam, I feel fine. If Jalen is on Siakam, I feel certainly fine. If Cheta is on Siakam. Right, Shay is like, to me, the guy that you probably want to try and bring into the action defensively. And this isn't because sha as

a bad defender. I certainly don't think he is. It's more, can you wear him down and kind of tire him out a little bit over the course of a series. The problem is in the finals there are two days between every game except for one, so it's a little bit trickier to even like try and go with the let's wear somebody down angle, because you know, it's just harder, but like maybe you can wear him down over the course of a game a little bit, like a small amount.

Like who I would imagine that the way that they'll set this up is that Shay is gonna be guarding Nie Smith. We think, yeah, right, So like to me, I'm gonna set a bunch of Nie Smith screens early in the game. I want to make Shae try and guard early in games, is what I'm doing. If I'm Indiana. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but at the very least, I'm making him work defensively and trying to make him engaged in the game defensively a little bit more often

than what you know he might have to be. Otherwise, if he's able to play on Nie Smith and just sitting corner and then he's so long and covers ground so well that he's just going to be able to, you know, sit off of him and kind of relax a little bit, and then it's just very dangerous for Indiana on the other end, because then he's well rested, he's playing that free safety role in the back line. He'll probably get some steals doing that because he's so long.

That's I think my goal early on would be to try and involve Shae in screens. Even though Shae is not a bad like on ball defender necessarily, I think.

I think you mentioned using him as a screener. I even think I would hunt him off the ball with spot ups for aaron Ne Smith, because I think Aaron Smith is a very good spot up, close out attacker.

And I think if I think, if if Dagnall has Shay doing what he did in the other series, where he's like quite literally in the paint the entire series, just as like a roamer, I think that's where you could end up burning him off ball with like those kickouts, like ultimately before we shift over to the defensive end of the floor. I think this series inevitably tilts as long as Indiana doesn't like quite literally soil themselves against all the ball pressure, which I just don't think they will.

But if if they just as long as they don't like straight up soil themselves, they'll eventually take advantage of the openings in Oklahoma City's base scheme by moving the ball through it and getting those kickouts and knocking them down and just playing Indiana Pacers basketball.

the skip pass. So inevitably, I think the difference in between the two teams is that, uh, I don't know that Indiana has the same kind of defensive solutions that Oklahoma City has. Like Oklahoma City can be like, we're struggling to guard these actions, all right, guys, we're switching everything guard, stay home, off ball. Let's force these guys to play a bunch of one on one and let's see what happens. And like to your point, there's just

not a favorable matchup out there. Like we were talking about the Siakam Halliburton ball screen, I think there's a good chance we see Caruso on Siakam a lot in this series and have him just switch onto guards in action and stuff like that. And so ultimately it comes down to the fact that Oklahoma City just has more solutions. But moving to the defensive end of the floor, the first thing I wrote down is just the ultimate load up, meaning bring Miles Tchurner up to the level every single time,

help hard as the low man live in rotation. The thought probably as there is in this postseason, Oklahoma City is still converting spot up possessions at just zero point nine to six points per possession, which ranks tenth amongst sixteen playoff teams. Now, I would argue that in every big moment they've come through and hit those shots and

driven those close outs and made plays. But I still think it's probably the best chance to slow this team down in the half court and then forcing bigs to score in the pocket, like bringing low man help more towards the rim and less like aggressively up in the middle and making those bigs like catch there. And they're still shooting just forty nine percent as role men in this postseason, and they're turning the ball over about ten

percent of the time there. So essentially by just living in a super aggressive, loaded up traditional coverage where you're at the level coming over as the low man, digging into the paint, forcing them to basically score in the pocket and score on spot ups, I think is still the best base scheme that they could use in this matchup.

get you into a compromising position. So I would start there, but I would potentially if Shae beats the ball pressure easily, I would completely alter the pickup point to more of a contain approach where you're conceding pull up threes and you're ducking underpicks and you're like doing that sort of stuff. The I just I would. I'm a big believer in, like, don't pivot off of your identity until they knock you off of it. So like this is a ball pressure

team that has lived with ball pressure all postseason. I would start with that, but I would I would pivot quickly if Shaye does what he did to Jada McDaniels and just gets past some before you even get into the half court.

the pickup point that high. I agree with you, and don't go away from your identity early in a series. I think you shouldn't do that. But I do think that the best way to guard this Oklahoma City team, and just generally, because what you're trying to do here, if you're Indiana, in my opinion, is you're trying to create variants on some level, right ye you are the underdog. You're trying to create variants. I'm trying to make them a three point shooting team, and I'm trying to make

them a catch and shoot three point shooting team. Particularly or not, I'm sorry, I'll pull up shoot three point shooting team, not a catch and shoot three point shooting team. I want to avoid the catch and shoot three point shot as much as humanly possible. To me. The way to do that is you go under. Chase, you under, and like drop, even not drop, but like you play not a fool drop, but like slightly at the level, right,

like slightly below the level. Maybe just make it so Shay can't walk into like eighteen footers, right, and then you led Jayden get back in recovery and then you make and then they're probably gonna adjust to like more guard to guard action, right, And that's fine to me as well. Maybe you just switch that depending on what your matchup is it it's Halliburton, I don't love that switch you maybe decide to. Yeah, like I just go I think I go under with Haliburton at that point

and don't even like you don't hard heads. You just go under and drop and you make Shae beat you with pull up threes as opposed to pull up two's.

pull up jump shots as possible in this series. But I think if you run too aggressive of a drop and you let him get a runway, Yeah, it's one thing to be like it's fine, just go under the pick, but it's like all it takes is him just doing a nifty ball handling move where he gets you jumping under the pick and then he just reverses or something like that, and you could be in some serious trouble.

So like that, that's the one thing where like I like, I feel like at the level is primarily serving the purpose of stopping the ball handler from getting ahead of steam the hedges. I don't have a good answer for you. The switch is bad with Haliburton. This like modified kind of like Chuck the cutter thing I'm talking about. It's all theoretical, like it's you're just that's just the reality of Tyres Haliburton being Tyres Haliburton and trying to guard in that sort of action. But I still think I

would try switching over anything else. But I generally agree with you that, like the game plan of this particular matchup is to gear them towards the highest variance shot that they can take, which is literally a pull up jump shot for Shay or j Dubb. We talked about going small, that's the true one through five switchability, but that opens the door for offense rebounding in the same sort of problem that we talked about with Halliburton zone. The thing with zone, I was gonna.

high than it was last year. In my opinion, they could try some inventive zones like a three to two or a one to three one, but I think chet and Hartenstein and Caruso and Cason Wallace, I think all of those guys have been great with like teeing up and working along the baseline and like finding opportunities against

any sort of like front loaded defense. So like I I think ultimately things come back down to what you just mentioned, which is like that contain the ball, forced them to play in drop some variation of drop, either a high dropper or a low dropper, a mid somewhere in the middle, and ducking under whenever possible, and basically just putting the ball handler into this like decision zone where it's like will I take this mediocre shot or will I attempt to continue to work things around.

different looks, you know what I mean? Like Denver in games, what was it like three four and five maybe if I remember correctly, they came out like a goofy one three to one, where like Jokic was on the left wing, you know what I mean, Like, and then they would sync back into like their normal two three zone, and then there'd be possessions where they played and drop, and then there'd be possessions where they hedged like they gave

them different looks. And to me, you know, the days off going into the finals, the days off between games in the finals, that gives you ample opportunity to be able to throw some of these things in, you know what I mean, you can throw in the idea of Okay, we're going to give them five different looks in the

first quarter like Denver did. We're gonna say, hey, we need to be really solid with our two to three defense, where like Denver's two three was really interesting, Like they would lift Jokic pretty high toward like the foul line area in order to take away that ability for you know, Caruso to shoot into the foul line area or Check to shoot into the foul line area, or for Shay to feel comfortable once he got into that area because

he'd always have someone to contest. And then they'd have the base, the back line guys in the corners, you know, rotate in and rotate out right. Like it was like a weird like almost like a two to one two like two three zone. Half the time, Like if if I'm them, I'm Indiana, I'm looking at it, like, Okay, let's throw some of those looks in. Let's throw some of those, like, let's throw a one to three one look in, Let's throw a man de man look in. And this is all very hard. This is all very

difficult on the fly when you haven't done it all season. Right, this is the whole point of having all these days off and having a team that I frankly think is like filled with really freaking smart basketball players. Right, they can probably figure that, like this team of guys, Like I didn't really trust Minnesota's guys to figure it out, because both Aunt and Julius Randall are just not attentive enough off the ball defensively to be able to like

effectively be able to play his own. But most of Indiana's guys are like pretty solid, Like even Tyreese is like a pretty solid off ball defender. He knows where he's supposed to rotate, he knows where he's supposed to go. If I'm them, I'm just throwing all sort of different looks at them. More than anything. I'm throwing different ball screen coverages. I'm throwing different occasional zone looks, And if I have some success, I see what's like you're throwing

spaghetti at a wall. Whenever you have like a fork in the middle of the wall and you're seeing which strand falls onto the fork and stays hanging as opposed to falling to the ground. Right.

more time to implement these sort of things. I almost think of it like, you know, like in the NFL when they talk about like your first drive being scripted, and then you know, after you get off script, like how well can you, you know, play call in the moment. I almost feel like if you're gonna mix up coverages, you almost go into it with like an incredibly scripted approach where it's like, here's how we're coming out, here's

what we're gonna do. After the first time out, as soon as they go to you know, this lineup, this is what we're gonna do. As soon as they go

to that lineup, this is what we're gonna do. Then we're suddenly gonna come out in the second half and do this, and then when we're in an early fourth quarter stretch, when you know, this is how we anticipate the game to be going, this is what we're gonna do, just have like an incredibly scripted approach to the mixing up of coverages and essentially just calling your guys to spend their off days mentally engaged, kind of figuring out how they're gonna do that kind of stuff, because to

your point, they're gonna need every inch. They're gonna need every inch to win this series. And so before we wrap up today, I said on my show that I would be absolutely stunned if Indiana won. I picked Oklahoma City in five. I'm having a really hard time even

conceptualizing a universe where they win this series. Why don't you just tell us, like your thirty thousand feet like outlook on the series in terms of who you think is gonna win, how you expect the series to go, just like what your read is on the series from your perspective.

just slow them down and annoy them. And then you're making at that point, Nie Smith Siakam be the guys that either bring them all off the court or have to initiate offense or whatever you want to do in order to have a real degree of effectiveness if those guys get wiped out, so that worries me offensively. I mean, look like the numbers say that Oklahoma City has been better with the five out alignment of Chet at the

five and then four small guys jadab typically at the four. Right, I am interested to see what the two big lineup looks like against the Pacers, if only because I think that because they do generally kind of abandon the offensive glass outside of Hartenstein, that they might have a little bit more success than teams like Cleveland in New York did against Indiana in terms of just being able to get all the way back in transit and avoid cross

matches in significant ways. The big things that really worry me though, for the Pacers here are we're talking about this all in a manner in which we know that like they're entirely healthy, and like Miles Turner to me, has not moved quite as well as he was early in the playoffs since he went down the tunnel in game two, if I remember correctly of the Knick series, like I mean, Carl Towns like absolutely obliterated him in that series in any like bench unit situation. I was like,

I did not love the way he was moving. And then Aaron Nesmith as well obviously Sprain's's ankle or whatever in game what was that four? Right?

this series as well. And like you know, I'm not sitting here saying that I think Jarris Walker is like an impact player by any stretch of the imagination in an NBA Finals, I mean, maybe down the road, but I don't really know what to expect from him even when he gets back and losing him gives you like another chess piece that you can throw down at the table.

Here having Tony Bradley and Thomas Bryant like you probably play them like minutes of this series unless Obi top Im proves that he's able to like play the five consistently and frankly, Rick Carlisle proves that he's willing to play small consistently, which like he hasn't done yet. Yeah, look, I think they steal one for sure because I just have an immense amount of faith in this Indiana team. But the biggest thing for me here is look like I had Oklahoma City. I don't even think I picked

a winner of these two in the preseason. I had Oklahoma City in Boston as the two teams that I thought would be in finals in the preseason. I picked Oklahoma City. At the start of the playoffs, Like, I think we're just way underrating how good this team is and how well they've been built. This is a genuinely

historic defense that they've built. That they are one of the best defensive teams I've ever watched play in my entire life, and they have an MVP candidate to be able to get them enough on offense, and they have the five out structure to be able to play well enough on offense to be able to make it work. Like they have Shay Gills Alexander who could probably retire

now and be a Hall of Famer. They have Chet and Jalen Williams, who, like frankly like if they go down and become Hall of Famers, I don't think anybody should be surprised based on what they've shown so far. I'm not going to sit here and say these guys are Hall of Famers right now, but like that trajectory is very open to them still in a real way. And they just have like a tremendous number of role

players that are really hard to deal with. So they won sixty eight games and have a like elite elite defense. This might just be like a truly great team, right, It's okay, Like it's okay for the Pacers to lose like a truly truly great team, And I think that that's kind of where this is setting up at this point.

the fourth quarter. They could have been a second round exit, but to their credit, they conquered their demons in those moments and got the job done. And so like it. I thought Oklahoma City had all the markers of one of those great teams, but I thought the skepticism surrounding

them was also fair. I had them second going into the postseason, behind Boston just because I looked at Boston is essentially a team that could reach not that same level defensively, but a very high level defensively, but also just a more experienced, veteran reliable offense. And that ended up being completely wrong, as Boston quite literally fell apart in that Nick series. But I agree with you, like

I think I think Indiana gets Game three. I think it's completely reasonable to think that Indiana can get a game based on that rickety offense, Like they're they just have the ability still to go very cold, and their guard initiators are still somewhat prone to stretches of poor decision making that you can you can see them losing a game their defense. Though I'm one hundred percent with you.

I think it's one of the greats. I listed this earlier today on our other pod, because our actual full series preview pod, because I was just so fascinated by the line of just body bags that Oklahoma City has left behind in this postseason, Desmond Bayne had a three for twelve with four turnovers, A three for fourteen with five turnovers, Jaron Jackson at two for thirteen with four points, Jared Jackson at three for twelve, Jokics for three straight games,

went thirty three percent from the field eighteen percent from three with more turnovers than assists. Julius Randall a two for eleven with six points and one for seven with five points. Like they have like straight up embarrassed some of the better players in our league, and I think they have the potential to do that again. Like we didn't even talk about it, but like I think there's

a chance to Tyres Haliburton. We leave this series thinking of him very differently because of the damage that this team can do. Like, in my opinion, all time great is something that you start throwing around when you win multiple championships. But speaking strictly within the scope of one season, I'd argue this since since like Kobe's last title in twenty ten, Like, if you went from like twenty eleven moving forward, it's the twenty seventeen Warriors, and then I

think it would be this team. I think they would be the next team on that list. Like I think they've been more dominant and more successful against tougher competition than like the twenty thirteen eat. You know, like if you really dig into it, like i'd argue, I'd probably like if you're if you're asking me who i'd taken a series, I'd probably take the twenty thirteen heat because

it's like Lebron and Dayne Wade. But like if you're just strictly speaking of like what's happening within the season, what did they accomplish. We've discussed this Western Conference as being an absolute blood bath going into the season, and guess what, it was an absolute blood bath. We talked about there being seven legitimate contenders in the Western Conference, and they've won it. They won the conference, and they won it relatively easily. Obviously a little bit of a

threat from Denver. They've played some really good teams. I think it's pretty undeniable that if they close this out, they're one of the great single season champions. Obviously, you got to sustain, and the NBA has a weird way of just positioning new adversity and your path. Just ask Celtics fans, like as they lose to in a series,

they were a minus eight hundred favorite. But yeah, like i I've been so, I thought game I thought Game four against Minnesota was the defining moment of this playoff run in the sense that you have Shay putting together probably the best individual game of his career in that like he was fake that Minnesota completely shifted their scheme

and played a very similar type of like pack. The paint forced him to make decisions and over the top shots to what Oklahoma said he was doing to ant and he had forty and ten assists in that same game. J dub, the guy who's been consistently criticized as a

guy who doesn't show up, just was fucking awesome. And then Chet Holmgren hitting huge catch and shoot threes, their defense hold it like Game four against Minnesota to me was like the kids growing up and them showing that all of the demons that stood in their way they were able to conquer and get the job done. And I think they absolutely are one of those special teams. And frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if they won the

title again next year. I mean, honestly, let me just this will be my last little thing towards to ask you, what do you if you, let's say Oklahoma City wins, what do you think would be the preseason odds for Oklahoma City to win the title next year?

I think they open quite low. I would say in terms of the odds, not quite like like to me, it's like, you know Scotti Scheffler in golf right now, you know somebody that like bets on golf, right Like Scotti Scheffler has won like his last three tournaments, right and I think we're looking at it's something like he

wins like once every like four times. He wants every three or four times he plays right, so and like with the way he's playing right now, like I kind of think he should be like plus one hundred to plus one fifty every single time that he takes the course because it's just ridiculous, Like he's so far ahead of everybody. It's like a tiger effect thing right now.

I kind of think that given that this is the year before Oklahoma City gets expensive and there are gonna be decisions that have to be made in the summer of twenty twenty six, maybe even starting this year, where they have to figure things out in order to get ahead of it. But they also have like a million draft picks to get ahead of it too, and they

do a pretty good job drafting. They're not like infallible, like they will take Uzban Jangen Dylan Jones sometimes, but like they're pretty damn good at drafting, right, so they're really well equipped to keep this thing going. And really the financial problems don't start next year, they start the year after. So it's yeah, like they should be very

much the favorite going into next year. Old Like, even if they lose the series, I think they should be the favorite going into next year because Jalen and Ched aren't getting worse. Guys, Like, those guys are gonna get better. Ched Olgrin is like scratching the surface of how good he's gonna be. He's nowhere near that level yet, is the crazy thing. So yeah, to me, yeah, this team is awesome. And by the way, like Jadub can we like just like chill on the like, hey, is this

guy like a failure or whatever? Is this guy like a guy who doesn't raise the occasion. I'm not saying you did that obviously, but you know in the Minnesota series twenty two points, seven rebounds, four assists, shooting forty nine forty six eighty three. In the Memphis series, I

thought he was their best player. Scored over twenty points every game, you know, shot twenty three five and five on fifty four, twenty nine sixty like they didn't really need him to go nuts, but he's still did it most nights and the efficiency can go from time to time. But like his ability to create shots and then he's doing it also while being one of the fifteen best defenders in the league too. It's crazy he is. I

continue to say this. We did a show on my podcast, what like maybe a year and twenty year in two months ago, year in three months ago, like the guys that are like rising stars in the NBA, right, like

the guys that aren't getting talked about enough. And my first pick was Jalen Williams because it's like, I do not think people understand how hard it is to find this skill set in a single player who can shoot, create his own shot, defend at a high level, switch against one through like four and a half, let's call it, like these guys are impossible to find like he is.

This is like a Jimmy Butler. This is like this era is coming Up's Jimmy Butler and he might get one like when he's twenty three or twenty four years old. Is where we're at, Like, yeah, he.

just one of those classic guys. I think it's so funny that you said we literally landed on the exact same number. We had a little exercise where we were like, what what would be the championship odds for Oklahoma City at open next year? And we both said the same thing right around that one fifty plus one fifty range. I I'm not as worried about the big picture costs stuff because I think I think I think they're just I think they're literally just going to try to use

the draft to find supplemental role player talent. Yeah, I think that's what they're gonna do. I think they're gonna I think they're gonna have their max guys, and I think they're just gonna rotate through trusting their draft department. I like, I don't think they're going to trade a bunch of draft picks for their generations. Dorian Finney Smith. You know what I mean, Like they're gonna for a

twenty million dollar role player. They're gonna be targeting smart upperclassmen that have been playing in organized programs for great coaches that they can trust to come in and play ten to fifteen minutes in a playoff game. You know, basically the case on Wallace types. Uh, Like they're gonna

be They're gonna be hunting those guys NonStop. And I think they'll pivot off of expensive role players and they'll trust their core, and I think they're here to stay, and I think that is an excellent coach.

you can play for this team. If you can't, then you're you know, not everybody's gonna tick every single one of those boxes, but you need to be able to like potentially get there at some point to be able to tick that box. And you know, if you don't hit a certain threshold in all of those categories, you

probably are not an Oklahoma City Thunder guy. And to me, they were just so far ahead of it in terms of the rest of the league where they knew that these guys were the most valuable guys and they put their stamp on it by going out and getting Alex Caruso this summer through our tourist carness of this incompetence, but like you know, they're always there to take advantage of those front offices that maybe don't value a player quite a quite enough and get the right value for them.

a really good player? I thought Julius Randall was the latest example in that in like Game four of the Oklahoma City series, where like when things don't go their way, they just kind of shut down, like there's a lot of guys who are like that, Like it's it's like a fight or flight response, and like you, when the shit gets tough, do you have a dude who like knuckles down and like really tries to just find a

way to impact winning one way or another. It's I think it's I think it's such an important foundational basketball trade. But Sam, I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to come on the show. Tell everybody where they can find your work.

be forthcoming relatively soon. I don't want to put a date on it because I don't want to jinx the fact that if I put a date on it, things could get hairy. But like could be as soon his next week, let's say so. Once that goes live. Go hit the subscribe button, go hit the you know, go go subscribe to the New York Times and all that stuff where I go work.

thank you so much for the time. I will give you a call sometime in the next week too, so we can catch up and just see how you're doing over there. But as always, we appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Make sure you guys head over and subscribe to Sam's YouTube channel and his work on the Athletic and we will see you guys tomorrow for the top five storylines of the NBA Finals.