Hoops Tonight - Heat-76ers Reaction: Joel Embiid leads Philly past Miami, will face Knicks

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Heat and the Philadelphia seventy six ers. I will say the playing tournament has certainly been fun. One of the things that's kind of worked for it is good teams keep falling into it for various reasons, usually either veteran teams or teams that dealt with injuries, and so we get to see super high stakes, super intense basketball games in a one game sample, and it's living up to

the billing. That was a really really fun game. I enjoyed watching that we're gonna break it down from the perspective of both teams, talk briefly about what's next for both teams, and then we'll get out of here for the night. You guys know the Joe before we get started. Subscribe to a brand new YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore json ltis. You guys, don't miss any show announcements as well as the film threads that I do

from time to time. Don't forget about the podcast speed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops tonight. And last but not out least, keep dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments. I'm gonna be recording a mailbag episode tomorrow. Also in case you missed it earlier today, we did a almost an hour long preview of the Lakers Nuggets series, so you guys, I had like twenty nine clips in that one as well for a film session at the end, so make sure you guys check it out a little

bit further back on the feed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So you know, it's funny every single time a team runs into Miami, they always seem to be caught flat footed just by the way that they play.

It actually reminds me a lot of Golden State right around the time that they were at their peak there in that twenty fifteen to twenty nineteen period there where it's like they just play so differently than everybody else in the league that when you run into them, it's an adjustment to kind of get used to playing that

style of basketball. Now for Golden State, it's more on the offensive event they kind of invented modern ball in player movement, right, and there's just it's so weird to guard an opposing star and have it be chasing them non stop off of off ball screens and constantly having to navigate all these complicated screening actions. And they there for a while, the Warriors were throwing the most passes

in the league by a mile. It's just so you go from teams that are running spread, pick and roll and not as much ball and player movement, and all of a sudden, like you into a playoff series against Golden State, and in Game one, it's just a complete landslide because you're just not ready to deal with the style of play that they have. Right for Miami, it's like that, but it's like on the defensive end of the ball, right, Like Eric Spolster is the best defensive

tactician in the league. He's got his guys so incredibly dialed in in all these specific details of their defense that they can be really really difficult to just walk in and play against. And it can take an adjustment period, and I think you saw that in a big way in the first half of that game. So, but Miami's been a bottom ten offense all a year. That's been a pretty consistent issue. Then you kind of combine that with Jimmy Butler tweaking his knee and like he was

clearly really bothered. There was a turnover where I think Buddy it was either Butterhelder Kyle Lowry had a runout and someone was running back. I think it was Tyler Harroll. But Jimmy Butler's trailing to play and he was taking these like slide steps while he was sprinting, and I'm like, oh, that's not good because he doesn't even trust his knee to like plant hard on it, to run, let alone,

to do anything useful. And so kind of descended down into Tyler Harrow ball, and to Tyler Harrow's credit, I want to shout him out, like he had a really poor shooting night, but he just kept trusting his shot, kept trusting his form, and he made some huge ones late in the game to give the Heat a chance. But the Miami offense is already somewhat limited, right, And so the Sixers come out, they jump out to an early lead by virtue of them just having more offensive talent, right.

And then right around there in the middle of the kind of like early that transition between the first and second quarter, Eric Spolser does what he does often where he goes as soon as bam Adebayo leaves the floor, comes in with Kevin Love, and he goes to his zone defense. And specifically, what they were doing in the zone that was really bothering Philadelphia was they were constantly denying the high post entry in the low post entry. Right.

So like in a two three zone, there's generally an opening in the middle of the floor, and that's what makes Miami zones different, Miami's zone different. I thought JJ Reddick did a really good job of breaking down on the broadcast how it's like kind of like a shape shifting zone. And one of the things you'd specifically see in terms of that shape shifting is there was always somebody on EMBIID regardless of where the ball was on

the floor. So like, for instance, let's say that the ball was on the right wing as Embiid is flashing like he's being guarded by Kevin Love on the baseline side right, and then as he flashes up, Kevin Love follows him there, and then the guy on the opposite wing would shoot down and deny, and then Kevin Love

would drop back. And then if the ball got swung across, that guy would linger for a second and then they would just interchange and someone would deny, ball would go to the corner and they would go back out, and then Kevin Love would step up and grab him, and it would just be like there was constantly someone on embiid and there were just jutting in from the sides to deny that post entry or high post entry every single time he flashed up to the floor. That basically

removed EMBIID from the equation. The other thing it did is it forced some turnovers, because what would happen is there'd be an interchange, right, so like a guy would be a guy would be on EMBIID and he would close out and there'd be like this interchange, and in that gap of the interchange, a player would throw a pass and as a guy shooting in he would steal it. And so they were picking up full court dropping back

into that zone, denying embiid the catches. No one wanted to settle for the early three, which is the thought of the shot that's mainly available in that zone, right, And it just threw Philly for a loop, and next thing you know, it goes from being a game that Philly's in control of too a game that Miami is very much in control that I think they went up

by as much as fourteen if I remember correctly. And like on the shooting standpoint, one of the other main ways that a zone will disrupt an offense is like you're accustomed to shooting a certain way as a catch and shoot player. Right. So for instance, generally speaking, when the ball, when it's a simple ball reversal, your coach will want you to run another ball, screen, run another action. They want you to take threes, the great three that

you generate by virtue of dribble penetration. It's like an inside out style of basketball. That's what coaches won right. So when you're practicing, the majority of the shots you're getting not just in practice but also in the game over the course of the eighty two game regular season in the NBA, the majority of the shots you're getting are like, oh, I as a big man, I picked

and popped to the top of the key. As a weak side guy in the corner, they ran a ball screen, my man tagged, and so now I'm open in the corner. Or oh, they ran a ball screen, my man tagged, they swung to me. A guy rotated from the wing. I rotated to the up the floor, up to the wing.

That guy takes a shot. Right. You're accustomed to shooting in a certain tempo and a certain rhythm and a man de man defense, and then all of a sudden against a zone, it's like I just caught a swing pass and like I'm open for a second, but like then they close out at me, and I feel like that's not a great shot. And so even when you do shoot it, it's like a break rhythm situation. It just feels different than the types of shots that you

typically get. Right. But once again, something that I talk about a lot on the show, like anytime you stick with a look for a long time, people are gonna figure it out. And so several things turned the game around, starting with the zone. Nick Batoom obviously just having the confidence to rise in fire and take those wing threes in corner threes that the offense was generating to tyre smacks. He finally realized that like, hey, I don't need to pass out of this zone. I just have to beat

my man off the dribble. And if I beat my man off the dribble, it effectively accomplishes the same thing as me making that post entry to embiid because again, the majority of the ways that you'll see his zone attacked, especially at the lower levels like high school and college, the majority of the way you'll see his zone attacked is guy flashes to the high post. Make the entry forces the bottom guy in the zone to step up

and guard. As soon as he steps up in guards, it basically creates a three on two on the baseline where the two shooters drop to the corners and then the guy along the baseline kind of cuts under the rim and usually you'll either be able to drop it off to the guy under the basket or kick it out for three. That's how you get the high quality threes against the zone. But you can accomplish more or

less the same thing through dribble penetration. And I thought Tyrese Maxi, even though he had a rough shooting night, I thought he generated a lot of high quality shots driving the zone. Another thing mb did, which I thought was smart, is instead of constantly flashing low post, high post to try to get those catches, he just said, screw it. I'm gonna stand at the three point line right if they're gonna If they're not gonna let me catch inside, I'm not just gonna sit here and be useless.

I'm gonna go stand above the break and I'm gonna knock down those threes when they come to me. And he knocked down a couple of massive threes there in that second half, as as he got catches clean catches up at the top of the key, a couple other key things. The Sixers, through a wrench early second half, went with a lot of ball pressure of their own, kind of changed the tempo, went some zone possessions of their own to try to throw Miami out like again.

In order for Miami to set up their zone, they have to score. It's really hard to set up a zone in a live ball situation. The vast majority of teams will just drop back in demand amand like transition defense principles, right sprint back, stop the ball, protect the rim, get matched up, just play basketball from there. That's what

most teams are gonna do when they don't score, right. So, by ball pressuring, getting stops, using their zone and ball pressuring to get those stops and getting out going the other way, they prevented Miami from getting to set up their zone as much. And between all those factors and then the Jimmy Butler injury, it just kind of swung the game back in Philly's favor and they were able to regain control of the situation after being down significantly.

But too made a bunch of huge plays down the stretch, not just the threes, but also he had that big offensive rebound put back that where he was like kind of like sideways in mid air that was insane. Also had a huge stop on Tyler Harrow. Joel Embiid was dropping way back into the paint to protect the rim, and one of the things that that did is it left it so that Tyler Harrow was able to kind of get ball screens and get into drop coverage shots. Right.

Drop coverage shots are like if you get your man caught off the screen and you come over the top and he's chasing you over the top. If you get a lot of separation, you can get to a pull up three, you get a little bit of separate, you can get downhill and take a floater or get to something in the mid range there, right. And what that does when you go into that deep drop coverage is it puts a heavy emphasis on the point of attack guy to get over the top and get rear view contests.

And Nick Patum got a massive block on Tyler Harrow on a shot that could have tied the game late. Shout out to Nick Patum. I also want to shout out Daryl Morey here. You know, I am genuinely impressed by what he got back from the James Harden trade in the sense that he got a useful player in Nick Patum. That obviously is helping you win a big game. But in addition to that, they got draft compensation back.

And so one of the things that is kind of optimistic about the situation with the Sixers is Yeah, they got their opportunity this year. We're going to talk a little bit about the Knicks matchup. They because of the way that the seeding kind of like played out. You know, you've got an injured Bucks team and a six seed in the Pacers that they could potentially face in the next round. Like there's a pathway here where they could

potentially get to the conference finals. But in addition to that, they're really well positioned to this to try to make some sort of all in trade, like let's say, if a Paul George becomes available or Brandon Ingram becomes available, someone along those lines. They have the ability to step in and make a move on something like that through some of the return that they got from the James Harden trade. You can't do better than real draft assets

and a useful player in a playoff setting. Nick with Chum showed that today, just really confident in his shot, a really quick compact release that he was able to get off without much separation, and then obviously just activity with his length and his athleticism on the offensive glass light and then also on the ball against Tyler Harrell. Also, I want to show to shout out Joel Embiid, Like one of the reasons why I didn't have the Sixers very high on my contenders list. As a matter of fact,

they didn't even crack my top ten. One of the main reasons why is Embiide has his playoff limitations. Like once again, with exception of those spot up threes, he really struggled to knock down his mid range little face up you know, whether it's a off the dribble or kind of a jab step type of jumper. All those

jump in the midrange struggle to make him again. And that's kind of like Ben the theme of Embiid's career as he shoots like fifty percent of on him in the regular season, then he gets to the postseason and he can't make him right. But I'm not going to really get on him about that because he's clearly coming back from an injury. He's out of rhythm, he's not in physical condition right now. That's a big part of why I wasn't very high on the Sixers coming into

this playoff run. In order for Joel Embiid to beat the Knicks, to beat whoever comes out of that Pacers Bucks series, and to beat that ridiculously good Celtics team. They need the best version of Joel Embiid, the one that breaks through and destroys all of his playoff demons and is an alpha dog who runs rough shot through the entire league, something that I genuinely believe will happen

one day. I think it's going to happen in the next couple of years, but this specific circumstance, trying to come back from an injury this late in the season, doesn't feel like the time that that will happen. Maybe he'll prove me wrong, but that's kind of my read on the situation. That's it zooming in On this particular game, I thought he was really impressive in the sense that Miami completely took him out of his rhythm with the

zone off the zone defense right. In general, his touch isn't there, his conditioning is not there, but he just found a way to make plays down the stretch to win the game. We talked about going away from trying to catch at the high post in the zone, but spotting up above the break. Rim protection was a huge

story in this game. How many times did you see a Miami Heat player challenge Joel Embiad at the rim in this game and miss that huge offensive rebound late where he got the put back in the and one just finding a way to make key plays down the stretch of the game to win, to get the win,

and like again, this was a huge win. To go from facing that Boston team to facing this Knicks team that has really one primary shot creator on the roster, you give yourself a significantly better chance to get out of the first round and potentially make a longer run which, by the way, if you do beat the Knicks, you have a longer runway for Joel Embiid to get his

legs underneath him. You know, if you end up facing Boston in the conference finals and in the first round, that month of reps could be the difference between an MBAT who's capable of running over those guys in an embid who's not. And so I thought that was a big time performance from Joel did his team a huge favor there down the stretch. Looking at the Knick series, gonna be a fun one. Two really good defenses, two really good guards Jalen Brunson and Tyres Maxi both went

up a big level this year. To me, it's gonna come out, come down to Joel Embiid and whether or not he can reach that superstar level. If he doesn't, I think the Knicks are gonna win. We fortunately have a good piece of film to look at from back in January, right after the oj Anobi trade where the Knicks had ojan Andobi and Philly had Embiid. I'm excited

to go and watch that film. Tomorrow morning. We're gonna have a deep dive series preview for the Knicks versus the seventy six ers that's going to come out tomorrow on the Miami Front. Obviously we're gonna pick them regardless of who wins this Bulls Hawks game. But that Jimmy Butler injury does not look good and they desperately need him, and that kind of worries me. And like, don't get me wrong, like I trust Eric Spolstra. You know. Obviously, Tyler Harrell showed me a lot tonight just in his

resiliency with a shot not following. There's a lot to like about this particular team. I thought Hamy Hawkes, with exception to the stretch run where he had some mistakes, I thought Hamiy Hawks played really good basketball, a lot of good but without Jimmy Butler. They just don't have the firepower. You're turning around two days from now for that game, and then even if they do happen to win on Friday, they have to turn around and play

again on Sunday. That's just a lot to ask. And I'm worried about Jimmy's ney again, Like there's bulky and in like kind of like sore, and then there's oh, I need to sprint back and transition defense and I'm doing a weird speedwalk slidestep and when I saw that, I'm like, uh oh, something more significant is going on. So hopefully that's not the case. Hopefully he's able to get over it relatively quickly. I want to see Miami versus Boston in the first round, because here's the thing.

I can't go. If Miami loses on Friday and we get Chicago or Atlanta against Boston, Boston's gonna beat the shit out of them. And then they're gonna beat the shit out whoever wins the Cavs Magic Series, and then they're gonna literally go two rounds without facing a real team, and then they'll run into somebody in the second or in the conference finals. Who's been through back to back blood bats in round one in round two now, to Boston's credit, that's the reward they get for being the

number one seed in the Eastern Conference. Some of this also is just the reality of the Eastern Conference and the fact that there are some limited teams in the playoff field, which is just not the case in the West. But I'm hopeful that Miami can get the job done on Friday, and that Jimmy's in better shape than it appears, because at least Miami with Derek Spolser is gonna make that first round more interesting, even though I will be picking Boston. All right, guys, that is all I have

for today. One last note before we get out of here. The guys from Jenkins and Jones are gonna be going live on YouTube right after the final buzzer of Hawks versus Bulls, So make sure you guys get over there to check that out. Remember to check my feet out tomorrow morning for the or it should be about tomorrow afternoon for my series preview on the seventy six Ers versus the Knicks, And don't forget to drop some mailbag questions. We're gonna do a mailbag at the end of that show.

As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. Happy to be on this playoff grind with you guys. Long a way to go, It's gonna be fun. I'll see you guys tomorrow. The volume