Hoops Tonight - How Damian Lillard DOMINATED Bucks-Pacers first half + Thunder-Pelicans film study

in my championship rankings the Dallas Mavericks. You can get them on DraftKings right now at plus sixteen hundred. To win the title. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code hoops. That's Hops. New customers bet five dollars and get two hundred dollars in bonus bets instantly. That's code

hoops hops only on DraftKings. The Crown is yours gambling problem called one eight hundred Gambler or in West Virginia visit www dot one eight hundred gambler dot net York call eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine In Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling call 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 varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. See dkang dot co slash b ball for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms and responsible gaming resources. All right, welcoon hoops andight here at the vall you have you Monday, everybody. Hope all of you guys had an incredible weekend. We're moving on

to Day three of the NBA Playoffs. But at the end of the night yesterday we were supposed to cover Pacers Bucks with Colin Cowherd, but we didn't really hit it that much. So I want to spend some time on Pacers Bucks, and then after that we're going to go into that super exciting game one between the Thunder

and the Pelicans. I'm going to have film for both of those games in this episode, and then at the tail end of the show, I wanted to show some video examples of the individual defense that Mitchell Robinson played on Joe El Embiid and how it could change the dynamic of that particular series. You guys know the joke 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, underscore json lts, you guys don't

miss any show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating in a review on that front, and the last, but not least, keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments. We're going to do a mail bag later on this week. All right, let's talk some basketball. So Pacers Bucks was a bizarre game because I thought the Pacers really got great shots

all game long. Now, there's some specific process stuff that we're going to get to that I would like to see the Pacers do differently, namely just tyrase Halliburton's raw level of aggression and how much they looked to target Dame, which we'll get to in a minute. But even in spite of all of that, I thought the Pacers got

good looks. This is a you know, kind of a bad One of the many reasons this is a bad matchup for Milwaukee and why they struggle with the Pacers in the regular season is their defense is kind of constructed to give up jump shots, right They packed the paint dare you to shoot, and the Bucks actually allow the fifth most jump shot attempts in the NBA. According to Synergy, the Pacers are the fourth most efficient jump shooting team in the NBA, so that's part of the issues.

The Bucks defense is designed to give up jump shots. The Pacers are a really good jump shooting team, and my goodness, could they not hit a shot to save their lives to start this particular game. As a matter of fact, they got just zero point seven to seven points per jump shot in this game. In the regular season, they got one point zero nine points per jump shot, which, like I said, was the fourth best mark in the

entire league. As a matter of fact, in this game, the Pacers generated thirty one wide open threes, meaning the defender was at least six feet away. They generated thirty one of them, and they only made six, which is just nineteen percent. So, by the way, they shot forty percent on those wide open threes. During the regular season, there was top ten in the NBA. Now, there were some specific things that we're going to talk about. I didn't love all of their process, and again, shooting luck

is only part of the equation in that regard. But there's no doubt that I'm sure the main topic in the Pacers locker room after the game was centered around the idea of like, hey, we got good looks, we just got to knock them down. But I want to move to the defensive end of the floor before we go any further into the Pacers on offense, because they had a major Damian Lillard problem in this game. And

I'm not talking about the tough jump shots. He had some really tough jump shots, some deep catch and shoot threes, some tough step backs, and contested jumpers in pick and roll. As a matter of fact, he made seven jumpers in this game. Caught an app solute heater in that first half run right. But for the most part, Dame over the course of the season has been a somewhat inefficient by his standards pull up jump shooter, right, And I think over the course of the series, if you're the Pacers,

those shots aren't the ones you're worried about. You want to do a little better, You want to avoid some of the stuff when he's on a heat check, Like there was like a thirty footer he made on the left wing, where like, yeah, it's one of those shots that's a tough shot, but he was in such a good rhythm at that point. You need to find a way to close that gap, right. So, like, there's definitely some stuff that they should be looking at. But I didn't think the jump shot was the main concern with

them defensively. I thought it was their dribble penetration that they were allowing to dam So. One of the things that happens in against most pull up jump shooters is they'll run a high drop coverage, meaning the screen defender is going to come up to the level of the screen to try to kind of contain right. But there's two responsibilities there. It's not just to contest the pull up jump shot. It's also to contain the drive. It's like a catch. You're driving up and you're catching the

ball handler and containing him there. That's why you'll actually see that coverage used often on none pull up jump shooters to try to contain dribble penetration. Teams will do it to Lebron not to stop the pull up three, but to literally stop him from turning the corner as he comes over the top of the screen. Teams will do it to Ant, not just to take away the pulp jumper, but to stop him from getting downhill over

the top of the screen. Right, And so there's two responsibilities to that Big, and they were just giving straight line drive after straight line drive after straight line drive to Dame, just getting past that drop coverage Big, and then there's nobody on the back line, and Dame was getting layups. He had four layups in this game, another one that barely got blocked at the rim by Pascal Siakam. That's the major thing schematically on defense that Indiana has

to figure out. They've got to figure out a better job of at least making Dame make tough contested pull up jumpers throughout the series instead of giving up those layups. Now, I want to shout out, Dame, this is why you make this sort of trade. The honest injury would have been a death sentence for older iterations of the Bucks before the Damian Lillard trade. It's one had the amount

of offensive firepower that they need. It's you know, it's one of those things where it's one thing to win a couple of games at the end of an Atlanta Hawk series when Trey Young is hurt, but it's different when it's like a full seven game series with adjustments and all those different things. When you lose that star talent, that superstar talent, there's just so much room for the defense to scheme the other guys out of the offense

and slow down everything that you're trying to do. Damian Lillard in his superpower is what gives them a chance in this series because they have to survive until Jannis comes back. And you went out and you kick the shit out of the Pacers on the heels of an outrageously good superstar performance from Damian Lillard. That's why you make that trade. And I thought he was just magnificent, not just the jumpers. Like I said, his speed was

on display. And I mean again, when it comes to the jumpers, there's really nothing you can do about it schematically, you just kind of have to live with the results. He's you could tip the cap to him, but he's just that type of high level player that can make those plays. Now, let's move back to the Pacers on offense, because I did not think the Pacers did nearly enough to actually make Damian Lillard work hard while he was

on the floor. As a matter of fact, Pascals Yakament Tyres Aliburton ran twenty nine pick and rolls combined between the two of them, and in those twenty nine pick and rolls, they only brought Damian Lillard's man up to set the screen once in twenty nine possessions. Now the counterpoint would be, and this is what I'm sure, like I said, the Pacers were thinking after the game, and I'm sure is what a lot of Pacers fans are thinking, is, Hey, we got great looks, though, like what's wrong with our

offensive process? We have that exact same shock quality game. We probably shoot a lot better and have a good chance to win. Right, Yeah, you're right, but there's two sides to the floor, and you might actually give yourself a better chance to slow Damian Lillard down if he's worn out by being involved in more on the offensive end of the four big part of how I think a guy like Luka Doncics has a rough shooting night against the Clippers last night. He's being forced to work

every single trip down the floor defensively. This series, in many ways, is going to come down to Damian Lillard pull up jump shooting. Right. As I've said so many times on the show, pull up jump shooting is not as not nearly as much a touch thing as it is a lift thing. You're these guys are such elite shooters that once they actually get to their spot and get their lift, the end of it's just a jumper.

The end of it is the same shot they shoot thousands of times when they're in the gym by themselves right. But getting to that spot and getting the appropriate lift is generally speaking, what makes the difference between a miss and a make right. And so by wearing him out, wearing his legs out, you can do a better job of helpfully hopefully tilting the series towards bad dame shooting performances. It's something I'd like to see them do in Game two.

Before we get to the film, I wanted to shout out Chris Milton to super efficient twenty three points on fourteen shots. We talked about him needing to do some work on Nie Smith in the post he scored on him twice in the post in the first half, and I thought he hit one of the biggest shots of the game there in that fourth quarter at the beginning

of the fourth quarter. So the Pacers kind of settle down in that third quarter, they start to get the same high quality shots and start to hit them, and they get it back to twelve going into the fourth quarter, and Chris Middleton hits a contested pull up three at the start of the fourth quarter that just immediately pushed it back to fifteen and kind of changed the feel of the game. I thought he was great, Just a

big time win for the Bucks. Again, like I like I said, I think the key to this series is getting the game four with the Bucks up to to one rather than down two one. I think if they're down to one, even if Joannis does come back, it's just a lot to ask to try to beat a good Pacers team that's that kind of is a tough matchup for you that you know three out of four times. So I think it's going to be critical that the

the Bucks get one of these next two games. And you just made your life a hell of a lot easier by winning Game one. Again, big adjustments for Indiana bringing Dame into screen actions more. Their bigs have to do a better job of containing Dame when he's coming off those screens, and then also better backside help rotations. You guys will see some examples in the film here in a second. And then again gotta hit those open

jump shots that you generate. All right, let's take a look at some film real quick before we move to the next series. So I'm want to show you guys some examples of the pacer struggling to handle Dame getting downhill in the ball screens. Right, So here's our configuration

here as Dames getting ready to come down. So as soon as this three man action happens, even though Turner is originally on Lopez, Siakam and Turner switch right, so Turner's now on Portism is on Lopez again, as we talked about before the series, you kind of have to

concede picking pop threes to Lopez. So at this point, because Nemhart is attached and Siakam is up here, he has one job and that is to contain Damian Lillard, and he's got to allow him just to go right around him to the basket and get a left handed layup. I understand the desire to take away the pull up jump shot. But even if he elevates here, Andrew Nemhart's in position to offer a rear view contest. Pascal just has to do a better job containing this driving angle.

And again you're gonna see it's just like Possession after Possession, that this was an issue in the first half. This time he doesn't even get to the screen. So he comes down and we're gonna get a Lopez screen, and literally, Turner is not gonna be far back enough. And when Dame kind of makes this dribble move to the right, he's gonna actually go right around Nemhart and not even use the screen. But look at where Turner is, He's

not in position to contain, gives up the angle. Dame gets right around him, gets that left handed layup off the glass. Again, the pull up jump shots. There's only so much you can do anyway, and over the course of the series, you like that if that's the best that Milwaukee can do, it is tough contested. Dame pull up jump shots. This is the kind of shit that's gonna get you beat if you let him have four or five of these a game. That's where you're going

to have your your bigger picture issues. Same kind of thing here. Siakam actually blocks this one, but gives up too much of a driving angle. Okay, so one of the things that the Bucks were doing too, and I thought this was really smart, is this like kind of two man staggered screen. Right, So, because Chris is going to set the second screen in this action a Turner and Halliburton, or excuse me, Turner and Sianka. There's a

very easy fix here. You literally just have Turner drop back and Turner take the drop coverage responsibilities and you basically have Siakam stay glued up to Middleton. Instead they have Siakam manage this angle and Turner stays glued up to Lopez way up here at the top of the key. Again, that's a waste of what Turner does best. He's a rim protector. You're taking away a three point shot from a high volume, relatively low percentage three point shooter in

Brook Lopez at the expense of this driving angle. Once again, Dame's able to turn. The corner just happens to get him this time on the glass. But yeah, so I think the easy solution there is you just have Turner drop and you have Siaka manage anything up at the three point line. Jalen Smith, it was, it was definitely rough. Here's an example of Jalen just taking a really bad angle in his drop coverage. So here we go simple ball screen action. Right, Jalen again is look at how

open he is. Look at his feet. So as as Dame's coming off the screen, look at his feet. There he is not in any position to cut off a drive to this left hand side. So again that's there's two responsibilities here. You're here to offer some sort of contest on the pull up three if TJ McConnell gets caught, but your primary responsibility is to catch the ball handler and prevent him from getting downhill because of that angle. And again, if you would have shot a pull up

jump shot here, TJ's there for back pressure. TJ's there for a rearview contest. But instead Jalen Smith has this open angle and Dame just goes right around him and gets an easy layup. That's the kind of stuff once again that they have to figure out that's not allowable. The pull up jump shooting. Some of that's out of your control. This has to be taken care of. Though this is a kind of a different configuration because it's a five shooter lineup from Milwaukee. So again, Bobby Portis

is playing center here. Malik Beasley, great shooter, Green great shooter, Pat Conaton decent shooter, right, Dame, great shooter, Bobby port It's been red hot tail end of the regular season, right, So this is a difficult action to guard in general. But once again, even though all of these jump shooters are a threat here, your primary responsibility is to take away the rim because again, let's say all these guys shoot forty percent. Guess what forty percent is. That's one

point two points per shot. Okay, guess what this layup is that's going to be And Dave actually get draws a foul on that one, but that's going to be a play that's gonna result in closer to one point seven to one point eight points per shot. So again, what I would like to see here on this dribble handoff, especially with Connton in the position where he's not able to shoot immediately, he's got to get his feed set topin has to catch this drive and they have to rotate.

If anything, this should just be a switch. But the one thing you can allow is just to allow him. Top In is glued up on Pat Conntton literally twenty seven feet from the basket, and there's nobody on the bed. These guys, these guys, I understand more. It's like, holy shit, great shooter, holy shit, greade shooter in position to make shots that I understand. Toppin is the guy that's in best position to handle this, or even Jalen Smith can drop back a little bit further and maybe Toppin could

rotate to Bobby Portis. But again, anything other than just allowing these straight line drives. Ben Shephard actually did come over and offer contest on that one, all right. Last one on this configuration that I wanted to get into. This is another one where Miles Turner was just way too glued up on Brook Lopez on the weak side. So again we got Nemhart on Dame. We're gonna get a just a spin move here. There's not even screening action. So as as Dame beats Nemhart off the dribble, watch

this nemhard. Excuse me, Dame beats Nemhart off the dribble. Look at Turner. Though Turner once again is glued up on Lopez on the weak side, and so as a result, he's not in position to help and as Dames making that drive, he's just floating further and further out like that. That's one of those things where like even if Brooke is hitting, you have to concede that to take away these driving lanes again, you got to play the percentages a little bit. When it comes to the stars, you

want to play them into their lowest percentage shots. This I thought was a defensive execution problem for Indiana that they have to clean up, all right, last one here that I wanted to show you guys again, that's actually a better example. Look at Jalen Smith dropping back. He's much further back, trusting to get a rear view contest, and TJ actually falls down on the screen, so Dame gets a decent look. But that's where you have to trust your backside contest and do a better job of

containing the drive, which they do. We're gonna head out the other end, and this is just one example I wanted to show you guys of the lack of intentionality with Indiana trying to attack Dame. So as we dribble over here, I want to freeze right here for a second. Okay, So Tyers Halliburn is going to call a guard guard screen. He's got Malik easily on him, and he wants to target Green in this case. So he's going to call TJ McConnell into the screening action and Ben Shepherd is

going to go through. Right. I would just have Ben Shepherds at the screen. I would bring Dame into every single screening action that I could because in addition to generating quality shots, which you probably will the same kind of quality shots that you'll generate if you attack anybody else with the bucks because of your speed advantage. Right, But in that case, I have a better chance of wearing Dame out and a better chance of forcing him

into tough missus later on in the series. So again I think that that's just an area of opportunity for Indiana. But the main defensive piece there is you got to find a way to contain the UH, to contain the dribble drive of Damian Lillard. All right, let us move on to Pelicans Thunder. So you guys can see, based on the kind of stuff that I was talking about in our series preview, why I viewed this as a competitive series. The Thunder are a more talented team than

the New Orleans Pelicans. You just have to kind of start stacking up the players, right, Like Shay is better than everybody on the New Orleans on the New Orleans Pelicans, right, Like Jalen Williams a really good secondary shot creator, probably a better player overall two way than a guy like c. J. McCollum, right, who was the second best player in this configuration of

the Pelicans with Brandon ingram right. And then just in general, like you're not gonna do like Laron Ants' is a good player, He's not chet Holmgrin, right, you know, like you're gonna you're gonna Elud dort is a is a in my opinion, like a more physically imposing type of perimeter defense threat, although or Herb Jones is very close.

They're very different, different archetypes of players. But I think we can all agree that the Thunder had more talent and that was clearly displayed by them getting the one seed this year. That's it. The Pelicans defense is built to slow down this type of offense because they just have a steady diet of high quality perimeter defenders that can switch, and so they can shut down screening actions and they can force your perimeter based initiation to operate

against unfavorable matchups. And so we saw a steady diet of Herb Jones and Naji Marshall on SGA. The other guys can all do a decent job. Trey Murphy had a bunch of really solid possessions against Shae. Larry Nantz did a solid job. I thought CJ McCollum was clearly their best option to hunt, and they went to that a lot down the stretch in the fourth quarter. That's actually how Shae hit his game winner, little guard guard screening action to get CJ switched on to Shae, Shay

attacked him. Didn't like the and one call thought it was a bad call, but it was a nice shot. Got a quality look there and Shae knocked it down. But in that configuration that they went with late, when you have Trey Murphy, Larry and c J McCollum, Herb Jones and Brandon Ingram all out there together, there's just not a great option for them to attack, even with CJ, who was the best option. I thought CJ did a pretty solid job on the majority of his defensive possessions, right.

So what's nice about that is, like, the Thunder obviously have the same advantages. Right, They can keep Lou Dort on brandon Ingram right, like they can keep Jalen Williams on CJ McCollum. They can run higher quality perimeter defenders against the Pelicans initiators too. It's a problem that goes

both ways. One of the biggest possessions of the game late Keason Wallace came in and did a really nice job on CJ McCollum and forced him into a tough step through three point shot, right, the lowest quality shot that the Pelicans could have hoped for in that sequence. So like they present the same problem. So what does that mean? This whole series is going to be about

perimeter shot creation against high level perimeter defenders. It's going to come down to high level shot making, meaning like one on one type of plays like the big shot that Shay hit to tie the game over Herb Jones late, which we'll see in the film here in a minute, or the shot he hit against CJ. High level close out attacking, taking advantage of close out opportunities and being

able to convert those to points. When a guy, a really fast defender is able to chase you off the line, and there's rim protection waiting at the rim, there's room in the middle of the floor for guys to make plays off the bounce. That's going to be a huge area of this series. Close out attacking, It's going to be a showcase of modern basketball. These are not you know, throwback brute force teams like the Lakers or the Minnesota Timberwolves or the Denver Nuggets, right, these are or the

Philadelphia seventy six ers, the Milwaukee Bucks. These are These are new school, perimeter oriented, relatively thin, you know, highly skilled lineups, right, and the the advantages physically have to do with quickness and length rather than size and strength. Right. So that's that's kind of the the idea, kind of like foundation of this series, which I really really appreciate. It's cool because the two best advantages for both teams. For the Pelicans, I really really liked brands in Ingram

and pick and roll. I thought that was where they got their best opportunities. I talked before the series about brandon Ingram's pick and roll passing. I'm gonna show you guys some clips to kind of demonstrate I thought the Pels got their best quality looks out of those types of configurations. And then for the Thunder, there's about hunting

transition opportunities as much as possible. They had an eighty five offensive raiding in the half court and a one p fifty six offensive rating in transition, so they're literally twice as effective when they can get out in transition in this matchup. Because of the quality perimeter defenders that New Orleans has when they're loaded up, when they do get into the half court, I think their best bet

is to just keep hunting. CJ McCollum, again, not just for the shot quality, kind of like what we were talking about with Dame earlier. CJ is going to be a very important shot maker for the Pelicans in this series, and he was literally the guy they went to at the end of the game to try to get a three. Right. So with that being the case, play into the fatigue element, wear them out, bring him into actions, see if you

can't force him into some misses. All right, let's go take a look at some film, all right, So this first one is an example of brandon Ingram's pick and roll passing. One of the things I talked about in the series preview is he is one of the best forwards in the league because of his height and length, and he just has a good feel for a floor vision. He's really good at making the skip pass, which is the best way to beat modern NBA defenses who are

constantly tagging the roller from the weak side. Right, So we got jadab on Ingram right, and we're going to get a staggered pick and roll with Trey Murphy and yonas valanciinas right and as Yonah slips, Chet's in a high drop right. So Check came up to the level and Yonis got behind. Because Yonis got behind, Shay is the guy that's got to kind of slide over to yonas brandon Ingram immediately makes the skip pass and generates a high quality quarter three point shot for Herb Jones.

That's a really easy way to and you can actually run that same configuration with Herb Jones in the action and to make sure it's Trey Murphy on the weak side. But I love the idea of running stuff like this to prevent Brandon Ingram and c J McCall from constantly having to attack high level isolation defenders one on one, get the defense, get the defense in rotation, play advantage basketball. This next clip is an example of the Thunder hunting

CJ McCollum and switches. So you're gonna see here loud Dort's got CJ on him, brandon Ingram's guarding Jadubb here comes the screen, can see the switch. Now Jadub's gonna start working in CJ McCom And again there's a counter for this. We've talked about this with all these teams in the league. Where teams are attacking matchups. There's no real threat there, and loud Dort's not a great movement shooter, so just head you and recover. There's no reason to

give the switch. Just for the sake of giving the switch. Jadub's able to easily get downhill and create enough separation. That's solid defense. By the way, Like I said, I want to give c J mccoms some credit. All these buckets and you're gonna see him down the stretch. This is a good contest. Like I mean, basically, high five to him on the shot. The point is that probably gets blocked by Herb Jones. It probably gets blocked by

Trey Murphy. Okay, so like and you'll see both Trey Murphy and Herb Jones forced some bad misses down the stretch from j dub and s GA, but they were able to find a more favorable matchup. And again in the playoffs. It's not about finding great shots, because because it's hard to find great shots, it's about finding the highest quality shots that the defense will allow. Here's an example of Herb Jones's individual defense on SGA. So ball's gonna end up in Chase hands here on the kickout

from Chet and he's going to go to work. Herb Jones just has the ability to absorb contact and bother shots with his length. He's going to force s Shee into a bad miss. Here again cuts off the drive, forces him literally into an airball. That's literally He's Shaye's been one of the most deadly mid range pull up shooters in the league this year, and he just got forced into an air ball by Herb Jones. Here's another

example of Brandon Ingram's passing in pick and roll. It's gonna come off of a backscreen for Herb Jones to get a matchup. So he did that to get Shase switched on to him, comes off the screen again, chet in a high drop, Jonis rolling, Giddy tagging swing pass to Trey Murphy. Okay, now Trey Murphy's atagging and closes out. I don't like this read. I thought he should have ripped more towards the right to kind of a bad angle. But playing advantage basketball is gonna be there the Pelicans'

best opportunity to stay competitive in this series. So I like the setup, even though I don't like the finish of that play. Here's another example of brandon Ingram's pick and roll passing, just simple dig down from get Josh Gitty. So here comes the ball screen again. Giddy is just kind of sitting a little too far back. Trey Murphy's

deadly from this twenty six foot mark. Easy easy basketball again, When you can take advantage of the easy opportunities that are there and avoid playing on an island as much as possible, that's your best bet. And then this is just a good a good example of the total defensive personnel that the Pelicans bring to the table. Okay, so we got Dyson Daniels really really good perimeter defender. Na

Gi Marshall, good perimeter DEFENDERO good perimeter defender. Larry Nance among the guys who play minutes at center in the league, A good perimeter defender ce J McCollum. Like we talked about the one kind of weak link, but he's done a really good job when he's been asked to in this series. Right, So first of all, it's the switch ability that shuts down the screening action. So Kenridge Williams comes up and sets the screen Larry Nance switch right.

So no advantage gained dig down in driving lanes right because of the speed to be able to rotate. That makes things difficult. That's why Shay doesn't look to attack. Why isn't she attacking there? He's not attacking there because there's no because there's no advantage. There's nothing. There's nothing that looks easy about this. Nance is ready. Guys are in driving lanes. If he throws these swing passes, there's not gonna be some sort of open shot that's generated.

We even get some ball pressure here from Larry Nance's It gets swung about once again. We get a little screening action here. Kenridge Williams runs down, throws a dribble pitch to Hayward and he goes down and screens Najie Marshall. Cool, we got switched. Now Gordon Hayward has another elite perimeter defender on him. We throw out to Shay. Larry nants is ball denying forces the catch way back out at half court. Now Shay goes. He manages to kind of

shake off Nance, but once again Daniels and CJ. McCollum are right there. Daniels is gonna come with a late double team here because there's only four point seven seconds left on the shot clock. So even after at the point that Shaye makes this pass, there's not enough time for a ton of action there. But we have a three on two. Right. We have Isaiah Joe here, with Gordon Hayward here, ken Rich Williams here, and the two

guys that we have in rotation or Naji Marshall. You can't see him because he's behind here in Jose Alvarado, But look at these Look at the speed in rotation on the backside. Naji Marshall's there on the catch. No advantage swing past Isaiah Joe. Great shooter. Here's the problem. Jose Alvarado is super fast. Jose Alvarado, Bam, He's there. He chases him off the line. Now they're forcing him into a mid range jump shot up against the clock. Right.

That's just really really good defense, an example of why this is a tough matchup for the Thunder and why even though it's a one to eight, even though the Pelicans are the Pelicans are the one team in the top eight in the Western Conference that I think is beneath all of the rest. I think the top seven are all a considerable level above the Pelicans, But the Pelicans are a good matchup for the Thunder, and so I think they're gonna be able to keep the series

more competitive. These next two clips are going to be just some examples of the problem with playing with Yonas. Valenciunas on the four killed him on the glass, did some damage underneath the rim, but on the defensive end is where he becomes completely unplayable. As you can see here. It just they can't switch. So they're going to run a drop coverage which is going to allow downhill rim pressure.

So you'll see on this ball screen from I think it's Jay Dub if I'm ever correctly so J Dub ballscreen with Trey Murphy because Jonas is in a drop. Jayalai Williams is able to get downhill and he draws Najie Marshall to help. That generates a close out opportunity. Aaron Wiggins beats the closeout literally. Jonas Valencuna is just too late in his rotation and just commits a silly foul, gives up an end one. That's just bad defense and you're gonna be super vulnerable to any sort of chet

pick and pop because of Jonas's lack of speed. So again here comes that high drop coverage. Chet sets the screen. He's gonna slip out. Now Yonas has to close out from this far. Look at how slow this closeout is, so it's an open three for Chat. So again, I just think I think their best bet is to lean into lean into Nance in that switchability in perimeter defense dynamic as much as possible. Here's another example of brandon

Ingram making a play and pick and roll. So we're gonna get a They try to do a guard guard screen to get a favorable matchup of lou Dort stays attached. Now he layer in Nant's ball screen. The cleared corner is going to create an opening for Nance to roll into. So as Ingram comes down Dorts chasing Chet in a

hyghdro that opens up the pocket pass for Nance. Shay can come over and tag here, but because it's on this far side of the floor and there's an unoccupied corner, he can't sit in the lane without getting a defensive three seconds. So he's situated out here outside the block and his rotation is just slow. And now, even though Shay is there as the lowman, Larry Nance is just in takeoff position here to just rise up and throw

down the dunk right. This, by the way, is a big part of why I've been talking about how the Thunder need a power forward, eventually a real power forward next to Chet, because you need a lowman. This is lowman defense. The problem for the Thunder is when Sheet

gets pulled out in ball screens. Their lowman are all small like Shaye's what six ' five, Jane Williams sixty six, Aaron Wiggins sixty six, Lou Dort sixty to four whatever, give or take an inch, They're all giving up a ton of height on these hard rolls to the rim, and Shay's just not going to be able to really bother Larry Nance in that situation, But nice little piece of playmaking from Brandon Ingram. Again, I think that's their best offen when the game slows down. All right, let's

get into some clutch time stuff. This I thought was a gigantic play in this game. The Pelicans were in a really good position to win this one, and honestly, like if I'm the Pels, I feel really really good about my chances after game one because they had had their opportunities to win this one. So we're gonna get another ball screen chats in this Chets in this high drop right, we get the role opportunity here for Larry and Ants coming downhill. Boom. Okay, So here's the situation

once again. Shay is the low man right, and he's giving up. This is not a big six ' ten power forward like Aaron Gordon. This is a six to five wing. But both both Chet and Shaye make an insane effort to get back and bother this one. Both of them get a hand on the basketball somehow against a freak athlete in Larry Nants, and they forced a miss again. One of many pretty solid looks for the Pelicans down the stretch, like Larry Nts dunks that you

have a really good chance to win that game. There's a couple open threes they miss later, you make one of those, you have a really good chance to win the game. So obviously some very stuff there, but really really good defensive play there from Chet and Shae. You only have about a twenty percent chance of forcing a miss when you're that compromised, and they hit that twenty percent with an insane defensive effort there on the back line from Chet and Shae. By the way, not Chet's

last big time defensive player on the back line. We're gonna get to another one here in a minute, all right, This was the play that tied the game. Tough bucket for Shae over Herb Jones. They're gonna run some action to try to get him switched off, but they're gonna fail. So here come the screening actions, right, Herb stays attached, doesn't fall, Ford, stays on ball, and then this is just a really nice piece of shot making. Like I talked about, what are the keys of the series gonna be.

In addition to high level clothes out attacking, one of the biggest pieces of the series is CJ and Brandon and Jalen and Shae are gonna have to hit tough, contested pull up jumpers over elite perimeter defenders. This is really good defense, a great contest, and Shaye just sinks it to tie the game with a minute through, thirty six seconds left. Huge shot for Shay. All right, So this was the play that I'm sure that's gonna haunt

Pelicans fans for a while. So you run the same kind of ball screen action, you get the same tag, right, So this was the same play that they just ran that Shay and Chet blocked. Right this time, Larry Nance makes the read to Herb Jones, who's been shooting the shit out of the basketball as of Lake. It's a great wide open look in and out that sucks offensive rebound from Larry Nant's kickout. CJ McCollum, wide open catch and shoot three clangs it. So like again, if you're

the Pelicans, you were this close. You were this close to getting out of there with the win, so you gotta feel good about your chances. Again, I'm still picking Oklahoma City to win this series, but these are all examples of why I do think this is going to be a longer and more competitive series than people think. Who knows maybe I'll just be wrong, but that's my theory at this point. This last shot from Brandon Ingram didn't love, but he ends up missing that one. All right,

here's the biggest defensive play of the game. So same kind of configuration, right, We're getting the exact same coverage, exact same situation. As you can see, this is what the Pelicans were spamming late in the game to get these role opportunities for Larry Nance. By the way, I didn't dislike this action. I thought it was a good action. They got some really good looks at it. So again,

the idea here is pick and roll. Anything that involves Chet and pick and roll is getting Oklahoma City and rotation. Whether it's Brandon Ingham or c J McCollum, I just think CJ is only hitting the role man. Brandon Ingram is capable of skipping this process entirely. So again, like Brandon will be able to kind of get down into this range and bring Shaye over and make the pass directly. That's just one of the advantages of going through him instead.

But there these are all quality looks that that CJ's generating. So on this play, Chet's in the high drop Shay's tagging. Those are two on one, right, two on one with Nance, Herb and Shay. Now as he catches there, there's your read. The read's easy if he gets a bounce pass there, doesn't even need to throw a bounce pass. Just throw a soft little lob pass that hits Herb in stride as he's running, and you got yourself a dunk. Right.

Chet's panicking to try to get back into the play, and he might have got back there in time, right, but Larry Nance, this is look at Chet. Chet recovers in time to offer. Like It's hard to say whether or not if Larry Nance had made that pass it would have worked out, who knows, but either way, really good defensive rotation from Chet. Once Chet gets there, he's

shut off this cut out of the corner. Now Larry Nance is going to default to shooting a little shot in the lane and he goes right up and Chet goes straight vert and blocks it. So I'm gonna show this again in slow motion. I just want you guys to watch Chet's recovery speed. Here again ball screen. We're in high drop pocket pass. Chet sprints back to get to Herb Jones at the basket and then goes straight vert to block Larry Nance Junior. Just an insane defensive

play from chet Holmgrin. Then we go to the other end of the floor for the game winner, very very simple action. We got Jadubb being guarded by CJ. McCollum and we have herb Jones being guarded by Shay. We're gonna get a basic guard guard screen to get the switch. We're waiting for the clock. Here goes up and sets a screen, gives a switch once again. I just wouldn't concede this switch that easily. I just don't understand that part. But they concede the switch, go back down to Shae.

I didn't think this was a foul. I thought this was good physical defense in the playoffs. But still just a really really nice piece of shot making from Shae to get his leg strength off of one leg up and to knock down that shot. Big, big, big time finished that game from Shae. Struggled a little bit with the Pelicans defense throughout, but made a bunch of big plays down the stretch to get the win, which is all you can ask for. Game one goes to the Thunder.

We'll see I think the Pelicans have a decent chance to get Game two, but we'll see what happens. All right, let's move on to our final topic of the day. We're gonna be talking about Joel Embiid and the Mitchell Robinson matchup. So if you guys remember I talked a lot after the Sixers Knicks game that one of the most encouraging pieces of information that came out of that game was, holy shit, Mitchell Robinson might be able to guard Joel Embiid pretty well because again, the half court

shot making dynamic skewed heavily in philadel Adelphia's favor. They outscored the Knicks by twenty two points per one hundred possessions in the half court. They just got absolutely dominated on the offensive glass and in transition. So for Philly, your whole angle coming into game two is we just have to find a way to hold up better physically. If we hold up better physically and transition in on the glass, we should dominate them in the half court.

We have more offensive skill. But the one thing for the Knicks that can kind of swing that back towards their favor is what if this guy, mister one of this guy, mister Mitchell Robinson can physically match up with Joel Embiid and make his life more difficult. So I pulled five clips to kind of demonstrate the job that Mitchell did on Joe Well Embiid. This is going to

start with a transition. Pull up three watch Mitchell. So Mitchell's kind of on his heels, Joelle's coming down at him, and Embiid gets into his high hesitation and Mitchell literally blocks him on the three point shots. So that's gonna be the key here. The whole thing that I'm talking about here is Mitchell's ability to give space while also having the length to rise up and contest shots to make it simply, To put it simply, I talked about this on the show after the Knick Sixers game after

Game one on Saturday. But most defenders who guard Embiid either have to play off of him and Embiid can just comfortably get into that jab step jumper, which he's hitting well over fifty percent this year, or they can get close to him impress him, but then they start committing fouls because Embid's so good at manipulating that shooting pocket to catch people's arms in the cookie jar. Right, Mitchell is uniquely a capable of closing that gap without

having to physically be in his airspace. So he can play back and bait Embiid into those pull up jumpers and then take one step forward and reach his arm up and get a really, really good contest. And you're gonna see some more examples of that here on tape. Here's the same sort of thing out of a jab step situation. I'll show you guys the example when he catches.

So this is icing the screen right. So the reason why Embid's not actually setting it is because Brunson's sitting way on the high side to try to funnel Maxi into the sideline area. But Joel Embiid is the easy read to deal with an ice just by throwing that little pocket pass. He's gonna throw the ball to Embiid again right here. Look, he's his stands is open. He looks like he's gonna be kind of favoring the drive. Right, he's giving space. He's not having to press way up

into Embiid to take away the jumper. But then when Embiid goes to that step back, he could take one step forward, get a really good contest and force a bad miss. Off the front of the rim. Now we're going to see a couple examples out of the post. So this one's on the right block. He's gonna try to back him down, not gonna get great separation. He's not easily dislodging him, so he's gonna go to a left shoulder fade. As he goes to his left shoulder fade,

look at the contest for Mitchell Robinson. Great contest forces literally an airball, same sort of thing here on the left block. Obviously there's help defense involved. No defender can guard a guy one on one. There's obviously help defense involved, but this is really really good physical defense. He's jocking for position. Look at where he forces the catch, and Bead's right foot is literally about eighteen inches from the

three point line. He's forcing a deep catch, so he's doing his work early and bad tries to bully him as he gets into the lane. He's got him kind of swallowed up now and Bead's throwing a hell of a chain can wing at him there to try to get into the lane. And look at that closing the gap forcing a bad miss out of the post. Like you don't see too many six foot left shoulder hooks.

That miss that bad. Now, So if we've just went over all the examples of Mitchell Robinson being able to close the gap, especially as a jump shooter, what's a counter for Embiid to attack as we look into Game two. I would look to do aggressive rip throughs off of the catch in these triple threat situations. So one of the things I really like as Embid pops here, Max, he throws the past time at the three point line, but Embiid uses a little footwork trick to get better position.

Watch where Embiid actually establishes his triple threat on the catch. So he brought the triple threat in a good solid four feet right. The other thing, too, is as he does that forward move, it gets Mitchell on his heels. Watch Mitchell sliding back on the catch. Right, so he catches here. But watched Mitchell's first few steps. They're backwards. Bang bang bang, He's taken four steps back. He's on

his heels. What I like about this is instead of trying to go to some sort of jump shot move and be just gonna make a physically aggressive move on the catch on a rip Thurcy rip get that now, Mitchell absorbs the contact. But then and Bid goes to that eurostep inside and is able to draw foul. And I think that's honestly gonna be Embiid's best route to attack Mitchell under these circumstances. Physical aggression, quick decisive rip through moves. You might even be able to get him

into foul trouble there. And then in that case, if Isaiah Hartenstein gets back onto the floor, you like that matchup better anyway. All Right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We will be back tonight live on YouTube. After the final buzzer of Nuggets Lakers Game two, I will see you guys. Then the volume