Hoops Tonight - Giannis shines in Game 5 win, Grizzlies blow doors off Warriors

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through it. We're almost to some relaxation this weekend. Wow. What an incredible performance from Janice, What an incredible performance from the Bucks, from Bobby Portois, from Drew Holiday. Just a Championship metal type of performance and a Pantheon type of game from Johannae Suntana Coumbo. We're gonna break down every single detail of this game. A couple of quick notes before we get started. Make sure you liked this

video and subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel. We're gonna be going live every day this week, with exception of after tonight's game. There's a special thing that the Volume has planned. I will be doing a breakdown of the Warriors game. It will just be recorded and posted to YouTube after the game. But make sure you come back

every other day this week. We'll be going live after the final game of the night, and then make sure you follow me on Twitter and underscore Jason lt so you guys can see the basketball video that backs up a lot of the concepts that I talked about on

the show. We can't start anywhere but with Joannice, I said, coming into this series and a lot of people you know and Boston Celtics, they produce a certain vitoryol from the rest of the basketball community, so everyone obviously has a lot of push back towards any optimism directed in the direction of But I said before the series that Janice overcoming this Celtics team would be similar to Lebron overcoming the O seven Pistons, specifically because the O seven

Pistons were an unbelievably great defensive team that that's where they hung their hat and Lebron was in a situation where he had some creation support but not much, and it was basically him against Essentially, he was responsible for any and all offensive creation in that series, which reminds me a lot of the predicament that Milwaukee was in in this series on account of the Chris Milton injury. And you know, about the halfway through the series, it dawned on me that he was a lot more capable

of pulling that off even than I originally thought. But even going into that game four, when Milwaukee was up two games to one, Boston still was controlling a lot of the areas of the series that made it seem as though they were in control. But there's one thing that was starting to pick up some steam, and it was Johannice. I talked to you guys a lot about the idea of breaking down the wall. It's really easy

to stay, well, not really easy. It's possible to stay in front of Janice once twice, five times, ten times times. And guys like Horford and Grant Williams did a lot to start this series. But it's that fiftieth time and that sixtieth time, in that seventieth time that he starts to wear on you, and he starts to get to the point where now he's getting around you rather than having to go through you. Now the refs are no longer a factor, and he's just getting all the way

to the rim. And that is the weirdest dynamic of trying to play against the honest in a playoff series, because normally you can expect to wear people down, particularly stars, because they have so much on their plate, but you honest just seems to have the reverse effect on people.

It's another great Lebron comparison. It's interesting because the two of them are so different in so many different ways, but they have a lot of similarities, and one of them is both of them historically in their careers have been longevity guys. And I'm not talking about yeah or I should say endurance guys. They are guys that as the series progresses, they get stronger, and multiple times in Janice's career, especially of late, we've seen him come from behind.

We saw him come from behind against Brooklyn, we saw him come from behind against uh Um, we saw him come from behind against the Suns in the finals last year, down two. Oh, do you think you got him? Do you think he's down and dead to rights. But what did I say after Game four? Game four could have been a victory lap for me, at least that's what it seemed like in the moment. Right Like I picked Boston, I picked him to win Game four. I figured they would win by ten fifteen points in that game, and

they had a ten point lead late. But what did I say right after that game? I tweeted the video out in the middle of this game, right at halftime. You could find it there. I said, do not count the bucks. As long as Jana Santanna Coompo is on the floor and as long as he has a chance. That's how all time great he is. He is on a fast track to get into some very very intense basketball conversations involving all time players. That's the direction he's

heading into night. On many different occasions, he hit a level that Boston could not keep up with. In that late second quarter, Boston gets up I think twelve or thirteen points. I can't remember exactly what he checks in. I think he checked back in with about four minutes left in the second quarter and just was completely unstoppable going to the rim. I think he was seven for seven from the field in the quarter, just living at the basket. Boston couldn't do anything with him, completely changed

the complexion of the game. If Jhannice doesn't do that, they probably go into the halftime looking a lot like Game three or Game two when Boston was up six

to forty. That's where the game was trending. That's the direction this was all headed in, and Janice staved that off and sent you into halftime down seven, and then in the I thought two like unbelievably massive three point shots from Jannice in the fourth quarter, like just like all series long stand Van Gundy has been on the broadcast talking about every time Janice takes a jump shot, it feels like giving a gift to the other team, and he was right. Joannice is shot horrifically bad from

the perimeter this year. Coming into tonight, I think he was right around thirty five from mid range, and then from three it was way worse than that. So every time your honest shot a jump shot, it's been a win for the other team. But against all odds, reaching down into that greatness that's inside of him, he stepped up and he knocked down two incredibly massive three point shots in this game in the second half. One of them came right after a monster three from Jalen Brown

off the dribble. Jalen Brown knocks down this ridiculous step back three. I think it put Boston up eleven, and here comes uh Janice right down early shot clock left wing. It was a it was a screw you type of shot. It was like, I'm not losing this game type of shot. And he knocked it down. And then there at the end on the offensive rebound kick out to him at the top of the key, there's a fresh clock, there's

fourteen seconds. He doesn't need to shoot that, but he just stepped into it and knocked it down and then they're down the stretch. A huge offensive rebound underneath the basket. Offensive rebounding was a massive swing factor in this game. Will get to it in a little bit. Uh Bobby Portis was unbelievably at seven offensive rebounds in this game. Milwaukee had twenty second chance points. Huge swing in this game. Be honestly, two big offensive rebounds himself. Just just an

unbelievable performance. This is what it looks like. This is you know, game five back in Detroit in two thousand seven, Lebron hit a level that the Pistons could not keep up with, and it changed the outcome of a series.

And ironically they went home after that and in mill in Detroit or in Cleveland, Lebron didn't have a great game, and his teammates carried him that that will be the ultimate parallel as if they go back to Milwaukee in a couple of days and they win Game six at home and Jannice doesn't play particularly well, then it'll be the ultimate mirror image there. But he reached down and he had his big game five moments. And I know a lot a lot of people have had some Bucks

fans complaining, why do you bring up Lebron? I bring up Lebron because he's the standard. Lebron and MJ those guys are the standard. Janice is on that trajectory. It's time for us to start having those conversations. If you, honest wins another title this year, which he's very much in that conversation, they get out of this series, then they're gonna probably be the favorite in the next series.

I've been on the record that I think whoever wins this series is gonna win the East, so you're probably a favorite in the conference finals, and then anything can happened in the finals. We've seen Janice peat Phoenix. So if Janice gets this title, he wins this championship, he is fast progressing into into those conversations long before we

ever even could have thought he would have. And I've just been unbelievably impressed stop obviously, Like you know, even in Boston controlling this series through four games, I just was completely blown away throughout the entire process by Janice's greatness. But there's two sides to this point, because if you guys remember after Game four, I said there were two things that would give Milwaukee a chance to win this series.

I said it was Janice and his unguardability is unbelievable greatness and just the level he can reach that nobody in the world can reach. And Boston and their lack of discipline and their lack of consistency in their own

pathway to success. You know, in my notes, I put and make sure I'm reading this rightly, right, I put in my notes Boston's title prospects, and I put that in there when Boston was up in the third quarter, and the reason why I put it in there or shortly after they went up by thirteen, because even when Boston was in con roll this game and I thought they were gonna win, I was becoming more and more

pessimistic about them. Not necessarily for this series because at the time I thought they were gonna win, but looking forward, because they have the most dramatic difference between their ceiling and their floor out of any of the teams in

this field. If you look at the contenders, and if we're looking at the real contenders in this field, it's kind of like Phoenix, Golden State, Boston, Milwaukee, right And in that list, you've got a Phoenix team that is extremely disciplined, that doesn't make mistakes, that doesn't lose their identity, that that stays like they've got that veteran presence. I don't know if it comes from Chris Paul. Uh, It's it's hard to say where it comes from, but that

team is incredibly disciplined. Golden State has consistently been the most grown up team. They were literally beating a Memphis team soundly based on their own experience and their discipline. And then we go out and uh, we go out East and we look at Milwaukee, and this whole series has been a story about Milwaukee being the older, wiser, smarter,

more discipline team. And you know, extensively in this series, I've been preaching about how when Boston in the half court makes smart reads and plays smart basketball, they get good shots and they win. When they get sloppy on disciplined, when they settle for long contested jump shots, when they take threes early in the shot clock, when they turned the basketball over, Milwaukee runs it right down their throat

and scores. Yet even though that was clearly discipline, that was clearly evident in the film, even though Yudoka explicitly talked about this in the pregame presser in Game two, so we know Boston knows about it, they still can't help themselves. They cannot help themselves. Any time they get up in this series there have any sort of success, they revert back to the things that that that are

that represent their floor. When Boston is at their peak, they have the best defense of this era, in conjunction with a great combination of guys that can all pass, drouble, and shoot, and so they're extremely difficult to guard when they play that well, right remember from January through the end of the season, so almost half the season, Boston was the number one offense in the league. And they've been better on offense than Milwaukee in the half court

in this series. But that's just that only represents the ceiling, that only represents what it looks like when it's good. Their floor is considerably lower than any of those teams in that contender list they and it goes to show you the value of having a high level playmaker, someone who can really control the pace and flow of a game, which everywhere else in this field you see that guy. You see it in Janice, you see it in Chris All, you see it in Steph Curry, you see it in

Draymond Green. They're those guys are very good at when they see the train getting off the tracks, they're very good at pulling it back in. And Boston doesn't have that guy. It's our biggest weakness right now. Tatum is just as likely to go rogue as any of the other guys. All series along, Jayson Tatum seems like I'm gonna fall down on every single jump shot, even though it's consistently torched us in transition, like consistently torched us.

I'm gonna fall down on every jump shot, even though I haven't gotten a foul call on any of them. I'm gonna keep falling down. And he fell down a half dozen times at least tonight, if not more, and gets burned every single time. There was a play where he was bitching at the ref and after a made basket he went down and made a shot, ran down the floor, bitching at the ref and Wesley Matthews was wide open on the wing after a maid shot and Wesley Matthews knocked it down. But that that's the thing.

He's supposed to be your leader, your alpha, And that's the problem when you've got Marcus Smart who's not a real point guard, and you've got Jalen Brown who's a number two or a number three type of guy, and you have Jayson tATu who was a number one, but he's not a great playmaker. He's not a great he's not a great you know, control the pace of the game typeic got game manager or whatever you wanna call it. They don't have that guy their best option in that

type of situation. The guy who's the adult in the room is Al Horford. But the problem is he's not a perimeter initiator, so you can't have him bring the ball up the floor and put everybody into spots. And so this was the risk the whole time, and even

after it was in my notes. Even if Boston would have won tonight, I would have had a serious conversation or a serious topic about on the show about whether or not I thought they could beat the likes of Phoenix or the likes of Golden State, because that lack of discipline will get you killed. The main reason why I picked Boston over Milwaukee was the Chris Middleton injury. The main reason why I was high on Boston to

win the type was the Devin Booker injury. Those things were the reasons why things kind of opened up for Boston to become the favorite, and during since that time, Booker has gotten back, and they can't beat the Box despite being a minus two unter favorite to start the series, despite being a minus one ninety favorite after Game four, despite everything going like they were in control, despite having extended stretches of bad basketball, they were in control, and

they still on their home court, could not close a thirteen point lead late because of their persistent need to fall back into bad habits missing box out. So this was this is on email. Udoka is gonna be incensed by this as he's looking into the film, and I'm sure he's gonna be talking about it after the game. You can't give up. I think they gave up seventeen offensive rebounds if I if I remember correctly, off the

double check, Bobby Port has had seven offensive rebounds. They gave up twenty second chance points time and time again in the fourth quarter. They weren't boxing out. How many times in that fourth quarter did you see off like rebounds off of miss free throws. That's that's the stuff that keeps coaches up at night, and so that that that's the damn shame in all of this is like, look, look,

there's two stories. There's two stories here tonight. Story one is Jansantenna COOPO is demonstrating for us that he is on an all time great trajectory. And this Milwaukee Bucks team is making their not out of this series yet. But if they escape this series, that buys you time for Chris Middleton to get back your favorite in the next round. This is all kind of lining up for them to make a run at the championship. That's story

number one. Story number two is Boston the heavy favorite five and a half point favorite, Tonight minus one favorite in the series at this point before the game went out, Tonight commanded the game on multiple On two different occasions, they had a big lead in the second quarter, they blew that, and then they had a big lead in the third quarter and they blew that too. And at a certain point, like I don't know, if Bawston ends up losing this series, that's gonna be a thing that

they're gonna have to confront this offseason. Who's gonna be the adult on the perimeter, who's gonna be the guy that can settle them down, because that's that's one of the weaknesses of modern basketball, and having your Jason Tatum type of guy, to be a guy who's bringing the ball up the floor and running offense. There are there's it's a unique skill. I talked with Carson all the time. I think there are four guys in the entire league that are really high level game managers Lebron, Luca don

Ch and Chris Paul. A lot of people struggle with that. I think you can make a case that Steph is on that tier two. You can make a case that Janice is on that tier two. But there's not a lot of guys that can do that. And but there are lower level guys that can at least replicate that to a certain extent. They give like a Ricky Rubio type of player. Just a savvy Tias Jones is kind

of doing this for Memphis right now. Just say an old school point guard, somebody that can be like, hey, let's stop taking stupid shots, Let's get into our positions and let's run sets. That's that's part of the game. I want to hit on a bunch of other specific details about this game. Let's talk about my Buddenholzer for a minute and UH specifically his strategy. So I talked.

I went on with UH with Matt Moore from the Action Network on his podcast yesterday and we talked about this game, and I talked about how I wanted UH Milwaukee to drop brook Lopez out of the lineup entirely and lean into switching more. And any of you guys who have been following me for a long time, no, I'm a big believer in switching as a strategy, especially juxtaposed with the drop coverages. And the main reason why is because I think it stagnates teams and it bates

teams into bad isolation shot selection. Do you guys look at my Twitter feed throughout that game, even when Boston was in control, I kept begging for them to pull Brooke and they finally did in that fourth quarter. Actually it was like late third quarter buddenholz Are pulled Lopez when with Bobby Portis and Janice they started switching every screen.

And what happened Boston became a jump pull up, jump shooting team with exception of a handful of aggressive drives to the rim that that it is, that it is human nature the way that switching can cause the game to denigrate down into isolation basketball. Because if you're running a pick and roll and you're are you're running in action, or you're running a set and they switch it, well, nothing's open, and so everyone's kind of staring at each

other like what do we do now? What you're supposed to do to attack a switching defense is get dribble penetration. If you get dribble penetration, you force help. If you force help, you can swing to someone on the wing. If you swing to someone on the wing and they're open either the defense. The defense has to rotate and you can attack that close out, and that's when you can further compromise the defense and get wide open shots.

But you have more often than not. What ends up happening is the Jason Tatum types and the Jalen Brown types get into those situations. You start switching screens on them. They start looking at Wesley Matthews and they start thinking it's time to take a pull up jump shot instead of understanding that that's exactly what they want you to do. Even if you make it, that's exactly what they want

you to do, they are baiting you into that. Coming into tonight, in a hundred and eleven minutes this series, with Brooke on the floor, the Bucks had a minus eleven point five net rating, so they were getting outscored by eleven and a half points per one possessions with Brooke on the floor in eighty one minutes without Brook in this series, coming into tonight, they were a plus two point three net and they were better on both ends. Tonight they were minus three with Brooke plus six without it.

And the main reason why is, like, you know, even forget about the the everything I just said about switching for a second. In addition to that, what happens when you run drop coverages, which is what they do with Brooke on the floor. What happens when you run drop coverages is players get disconnected from the ball handler because they die on a screen. There are a handful of guys in the league that do amazing at it, like, for instance, Michal Bridges is putting on a drop coverage

clinic in this postseason for Phoenix. But for the most part, people die on the screens, especially because the refs allow a ton of contact on those ball screens. You're seeing you're seeing a moving pick on those ball screens almost every time for every team in the league. But what happens is the defender gets disconnected. And so now from the three point line to basically to the charge circle, Tatum Brown, Marcus Smart, all these guys are operating free.

There's nobody on them. Now. Yes, they're trying to bait you into a mid range jump shot, right, So there's

there's another element to that, But it's about comfort. When you are you are allowing them to be comfortable because they are disconnected from the defense temporarily in that zone, whereas when you switch everything, there's no time on the floor where you're disconnected unless you drive by somebody, and driving by people takes energy, and driving by people it takes a very intentional effort, and so because of that,

it's easy to get baited out of that. It's easy to get wrapped up into taking pull up jump shots, especially when all you worked on all off season was your turnaround jump shot and your step back jump shot and your sidestep jump shot and your hesitation pull up jump shot, because those are the things you work on when you do skill work, and it's just what you

get baited into and one on one situations. So to Bud's credit, and you guys could see my tweets during the game, I'm like, when is Bud gonna do it? When is Budd gonna bench Lopez? Is he saving it

for later? What's going Well? It turns out he was saving it for later, and I would imagine that his thought process there was I need Brook to eat minutes for as long as possible in this early stretch in the game, and then at the end of the game, I'll be able to go to this and I won't exhaust your honest, because there definitely was some stuff in Game four where you honest was getting tired. But you know is looking forward in the series. Can't Boston out Boston? Man?

I had had Boston one tonight, I would have had games six as a coin flip. Well, I was prepared to come out here and say, bet whoever the underdog is, like if Milwaukee was plus two out of Bet Milwaukee, if Boston was plus two out of Bet Boston, because to me, that Game six would have been a textbook coin flip. Had Boston lost, there, had Boston one, excuse me? Seeing as they lost. Now Boston has a huge motivational advantage going into Game six. So it's not here. Here's

the thing, it's not over. Boston still has the better defense, Boston still has the better half court offense when they play the way they want to play, when they play the way they're supposed to play. But ask yourself, guys, youse Celtics fans that are listening, do you believe this Boston team can stay disciplined? They were extremely undisciplined in Game one, They were pretty undisciplined in the second half of Game two, they were really undisciplined for the first

three quarters of Game three. Game four, they were really undisciplined the first three quarters, and then they locked into the fourth quarter and closed the deal. And then in Game five in the second quarter, in the fourth quarter they lost their discipline again. They consistently go they they're like Jekyl and Hide. They're Jekyl and Hide basketball team. And so who are you gonna bet on? Are you gonna bet on the championship team that has an opportunity

to close Boston out at home? Are you gonna bet on the better team that who knows what's gonna happen when they show up. All of the film and everything has been demonstrated. I guarantee you. Emi Udoka has said this a half dozen times to them in this series. When you guys play the right way, they can't guard you. When you guys play the right way, they can't score on you. But they just they can't. They can't help themselves.

They can't help themselves. It's just it's an interesting basketball dynamic because this Boston team is damn near a per fixed team in the way they're constructed, except for the adult ball handler, the veteran savvy guard that knows when the game is getting off the rails. Think about how many times tonight, in like a pivotal situation, you would see, you know, someone throw the ball to Grant Williams and then they're like denying Tatum and denying Brown and and

no one's cutting to get open. And then Grant Williams tries to put the ball on the floor and he gets the ball poked away. Or how many times you'd see Jalen Brown or Jayson Tatum drive into traffic and not really know what they're doing. It's just, it's just it's it's just the difference between high level game management and everything else that's on the table. And that will

be the thing. And you know, here's the thing. If they don't add that type of guy, if they don't figure that out, then it's on Tatum to develop into that. He has to learn, He has to learn to understand what that His job isn't just to score or to create shots for his teammates, but to manage the game, to feel what's happening around you. Yeah, what what what do you guys think? You know, encouraged Janice to take those two threes in that second half Lebron used to

do this a lot too. I gotta keep doing the Lebron comps with the honest. So they just have so many similarities in their in their rise. But like that three that he took after Jalen Brown took the step back, all that is is him feeling the train getting off the tracks and understanding that if he can knock that shot down and changes the complexion in the game. Same thing on the offensive rebound three, that's him feeling the situation.

Even on Drew Holiday on that last second played, Drew Holiday was unbelievable tonight and eight in all three wins, he's been excellent. But on that block, the final block on Marcus Smart. How many times have they sent a random double team to Marcus Smart in this series? Almost never, on dozens of dry lives. That's Drew Holiday feeling the moment. That's him understanding the what was happening on the train tracks. He read the situation and goes, oh, Marcus isn't passing that.

Marcus has his head down. He's going to the rim. And so Drew bailed on his man and Hard doubled Marcus smarton got a block. That's all just savvy, championship metal experience, everything that, everything that you see in championship teams. And the coolest part about it is like you know that's that that's the monkey that gets off your back

when you win a title. There's the next level of confidence and comfort that comes from you being there before, especially when you've been down, especially when you've been behind in a series. You know what it takes to come back. But just in summation, just unbelievable performance from be honest, We're gonna have to have some really serious conversation. Is about the trajectory that he's on because it's not a Kevin or Durant trajectory, it's not a Steph Curry trajectory.

He's on a Lebron trajectory. He's on a Michael Jordan trajectory. That's the pace that he's at to this point in his career. And I just I can tell I I have I have not been this blown away by how good a basketball player is since Lebron in the early two thousand tents. That's the level that he's reaching. And then you know, story of the series has been Janice's greatness and Boston's inconsistent. You know, just basketball like you and it it bit them in the ass again. I

tweeted out early fourth quarter. I tweeted, Boston is playing with fire and it might get them beat. And that's what happened. Boston got beat Game six and a couple of days. Really curious to see what the line is. I I would say that I would say that it's too early to say that Boston's out. But if I'm Milwaukee, you have an amazing opportunity here to end this series and get Chris Middleton back. They're gonna be coming out like gangbusters in that game. That crowd is gonna be

behind him. Janice absolutely smells blood in the water. My guess is he's gonna go for the killing Game six. So at this point, finally after five games, I have no longer on Boston. I think I think Milwaukee is gonna win this series. The playoffs are heating up, and you can make every game feel like Game seven. On Fandel Sports Book, an official partner of the NBA. Throughout the playoffs, all customers can place say No Sweat same game parlay each week. You'll get up to twenty dollars

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doesn't win. Fandel sports Book an official partner of the NBA. Alright, Well, on a night that one of my biggest predictions went up in flames, my prediction that the Boston Celtics would come back to beat the Bucks in six games, Jana Santanna Cumbo took that and crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. But that's part of the deal. Making Predictions is hard. You're gonna be right sometimes, you're

gonna be wrong sometimes. And I was dead wrong about that at least to this point, although that series is not completely over. But one thing I was right about is I thought Golden Stayed would get their butt kick tonight. I said it was a buzz saw environment they were running into in Memphis, especially without Jaw, and I thought Memphis would beat the crap out of them, and they did. Doesn't change my prediction for the series. I still think Golden State wins this series in six games, but I've

just seen this type of game before. Memphis, especially without Jaw, has an incredible physical advantage over just about everybody in everybody in the league. If you look around to all of the teams in the league, all the teams have a specific identity, right, Like Golden State is the ball movement skilled team. The right, they're undersized, but everybody's incredibly skilled.

They have a ton of experience things like that. Right, They're probably the most skilled team remaining in this playoff field. Phoenix is the most like adult, grown up team. They are. They have a like an old school point guard who's thirty seven years old who runs the team. They're traditionally built, they have traditional bigs, they run traditional coverages, they have a traditional three level score that's flanking Chris Paul. It's

very like old school dominant basketball team. And you look at Boston and it's like defense modern all wings switch everything, impossible to score on, all time great type of defense. And then you look at the Milwaukee Bucks and it's best player in the world, Jana Sintenna Cumpo, absolutely the best player in the world. Right, that's their identity. Each of those teams has their identity. Well, Memphis identity is that they've consistently been the biggest and most athletic team

in the in the league. This year now with Jaw, it's still big an athletic, it's just different. It's more offense oriented. Jaw is a much better offensive creator, but he's a significantly lesser defensive player. And he's short and thin, right, so he struggles a little bit in physicality. Memphis when they when they play without Jaw, there's a very specific reason why they whipped everybody's asks this year, there were

twenty and five without Jaw. They were like, I think six and a half points positive per one possessions with him off the floor, which was actually better than they were with him on the floor. And again everything with

this has to be framed. John Morant is absolutely necessary to this team ever winning a championship because that elite, high end offensive creation, especially in the of court, becomes an absolute must at a certain point, and it will be an absolute must in Game six when they go to go to Golden State, which is exactly why I'm picking Golden State. So the ceiling is not the same, but without Jaw, they have an extremely high floor. They have a ton of size, ton of athleticism. They've been

playing Steven Adams in these last two games. Without Jaw, and especially in front of that home crowd down three to one, with all of that size and athleticism, they were just going to be extremely difficult to beat. And they did. They did everything that I thought they would do. They absolutely bludgeoned Golden State on the offensive glass. Really for the first time in this series. They absolutely bludgeoned Golden State. In transition, they forced a million turnovers they

dominated in the painted area. It was everything that I expected from this type of game. So why doesn't Golden State come in here and win tonight. Well, it's pretty simple to me. It's just really hard to do and

it in it in it like. In order to to do this job, like which Golden State has done for the first four games of this series, to win the physical matchup against the physically superior team, you your attention to detail has to be perfect, and to their credit through four games to have had amazing attention to detail in those areas. When I say attention to detail, that means running back in transition on transition defense every single time, always being in uh in position to box out and

secure rebounds. When you have guys boxing out, guys crashing from the wing right, doing all of the little details of physicality, you have to do them perfectly. Because even if I let's say I'm six six and let's say I'm boxing out a six ten guy, Yeah, if I don't box out and we get in a jumping contest, he's gonna get every single rebound. But if I sit and I box him out and push him out of the lane, yes, if the ball comes directly at me.

He might grab it right over the top of me, but if it goes anywhere else on the floor, he's not getting it because I've got him pinned on my back right. So if there's a job on the floor in or or to secure those rebounds, if the people do their job, even when they're undersized, and the other job there is I'm locked in a box out my wings have to crash around me to secure to secure the rebound. All of that was on the table to

do tonight. It just was gonna be hard because you knew that Memphis on every single miss was gonna crash. You knew that Memphis on every single one of your misses was gonna sprint the other way in transition. It's just really physically taxing to do so. And I think what happens a lot in these kinds of situations, especially with veteran teams, is they think, in the back of their head, we'll just get him on. We'll get him

at home. When we play him at home, they won't play us hard, so it'll be easier for us to match their physicality. We'll be feeding on some of that energy from our home crowd, so we'll just do it in game six. And that's why I made that prediction because I've just seen this so many times before. My favorite example of this was the two eighteen Calves, So the two thousand eighteen Calves in the first round. In game five, they have a very similar game to UH,

kind of to what happened with Golden State UH. In game four, Lebron comes out, especially in clunch and clutch time is incredible. Hits a game winner, so they basically steal the game, and Cleveland, I think, was very confident at that point we'll beat him in seven. But Indiana was the younger, faster, bigger team that Cleveland team was playing. Kevin Love att center Lebron at the four, you know, Jr. Smith, it was getting older. It was way falling off on

the backside. Defensively, Kyle Korver was very old at that point. George Hill had been dealing with back spasms all year. They were an older, fragile team, and so their whole strategy was like, I don't know they will be able to match what Indiana can do to us on their home floor. Let's just punt that game and then we'll come back and get him in game seven. So what happens. They went into Indiana and just got absolutely obliterated and like like Victor Oladipo dunked all over Lebron. It is

like the crowd was freaking crazy. They were feeding on all that energy. They were the bigger, more athletic, faster team playing against an older veteran team, and the older veteran team was like, I just don't feel like it tonight. And so that's what happened. And then Cleveland took him home in game seven and closed the deal. And that's what I expect from Golden State in game six. But here's the issue, and this is why you again, this is why you have to try to get this game.

And it didn't work out, which happens sometimes, right, But the reason why you try to get this game is because you never want to play with fate, because anything can happen. Auto Porter Junior got hurt tonight, and we don't know the details of specifically if he's out for the series or if he just was out for tonight.

We don't know the details, right but Auto Porter Jr. As we've talked about on the show, him and Andrew Wiggins are vitally important to Golden State's ability to win the rebounding battle because it's those guys that have been those wings crashing while Draymond and Kevin Looney and whoever it is has been locked in box outs underneath the basket. That wing crashing is vitally important. So Auto Porter Jr.

Being out that's a loss. Now, hopefully he's okay and he's ready to go in game six, But that's why you don't play with fire. Also, anything can happen in game In game four, Golden State didn't do well against this lineup. They pulled it out late, but it it went pretty poorly for the most part. They shot terribly, They struggled against Memphis defense, They struggled in some of the physical matchups on the floor. So now I don't expect that to happen in game six, but there's always

that risk. What happens if you go in game six, Step happens to be extremely cold for whatever reason, Clay happens to be extremely cold. What if Draymond gets in foul trouble. What if you know, Kevin Looney gets in foul trouble. What if Jordan Pool has Jordan Pool had a bad night tonight what if Jordan Pool has a bad night. What if a bunch of things break against you and at the same night, what if Jaren Jackson

makes four threes? You know what if Tis Jones makes four makes four threes, you could find yourself heading back into Memphis for a game seven where you'll have this same physical task in front of you, except for this time you have to do it. Except for this time you have to match their physicality. That's the that's the playing with fire element of this, right. But I have seen this before. This is a textbook older team on the road struggling against the younger, more athletic team that

is desperate. And that's just a really difficult tempo and pace and and fervor and energy to match. And they didn't match it tonight, but I expect him to match it in game six. I think Golden State will close the deal. They played the fire a little bit, but I still think they closed the deal in six. This is just when you see these kinds of things in

the future, especially for betting opportunities. Whenever you see a veteran team that has a closeout game at home on the horizon and they're going on the road, especially against the team that's bigger and more athletic than them. Home crowds always feed that physical energy. That physical energy is what dominates in games like this. So just for all you betters out there, games like tonight are the perfect

ones to jump on his betting opportunities. Still very I on Golden States, still view them as a top tier contender. Absolutely think they're going to win the series. This is just what happened sometimes in the NBA playoffs. The volume