Hoops Tonight - How Giannis & Bucks spark NBA Playoffs run, will Jokic & Nuggets rise to occasion?

Bucks and the Nuggets in their first round series. They're going to be massive favorites no matter what, very very likely to advance to the second round, So the matchup doesn't matter so much as what I'll be looking for from these teams as they progress into tougher matchups into the future. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show

announcements or video breakdowns that I do. And last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish. Don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, all right, so the

Milwaukee Bucks. I expect the Bulls to win tonight, but I'll be rooting for Miami just because I think Miami, from a matchup perspective, should be able to give the Bucks at least a little bit more of an entertaining series. But both teams are gonna get beat. In the season series it was a two to two for both matchups. I'm gonna be picking the Bucks in five, regardless of

who they face. Generally speaking, I'm gonna go in five, regardless of the advantage, just because of home court in the NBA playoffs and teams riding that wave to an upset win. Typically, as you guys noticed the two sweeps I picked in the first round, or the Nets and the Clippers, teams that I viewed a big disadvantage and that don't have a great home court advantage to lean

on to try to win a big game. A couple of things I'm gonna be looking for for the Bucks as like indicators of them being prepped or ready for a long playoff run. Number one. How does Chris Middleton look? We know this Bucks team is much better off the ball than they were last year. Right, Obviously, Chris Middleton being there after not being there, regardless of what's going on with him in his ability to score, he's gonna be able to knock down open threes. Javon Carter is

shooting better than he did last year. Joe Ingles is shooting forty one percent from three in a Bucks uniform. Jay Crowder's not the same physical presence that PJ. Tucker was a couple of years ago, but he's a better offensive player in my opinion. And the Bucks as a team are eighth in spot up efficiency. But why I'm looking at Chris Middleton is you know, Boston's gotten a little bit better. The reality is is last year's series with the Celtics really came down to just a very

slight gap and half court efficiency. When the Celtics could keep the Bucks out of transition, they were a better team in the half court. And like we've talked about all season long, obviously the spot up shooting is a part of it, but there are little things you can do to grind out additional points over the course of a game. You know, I've always talked about the difference between like a one to twelve offensive rating and a one to seventeen to one to eighteen offensive rating in

many cases is shot making. Having guys that can rescue possessions late shot clock situations or late game situations, or a guy when a defense is perfect, because at the end of a game, a locked in defense is not going to give up anything easy. You need guys who can make tough shots. And that's what Chris Middleton does for this specific team. That's going to be the difference between the Bucks hoisting the trophy and them losing somewhere

on the way. And my opinion is going to be, can Chris Middleton get eighty percent of to where he was in that twenty twenty one playoff series. So he's got a month to get there, two full series, because they're going to be heavy favorites in the first round and in the second round. As much as I like that Knicks team that I'm picking to beat the Cavs, and is much as I like the Cavs team, those two teams are not gonna beat the Bucks in all likelihoods. So they've got a month here to try to get

him rounded into shape. He did tweak his knee and he had underwent an MRI, But it looks like he's gonna play in Game one, so that's good. But I'm gonna be really watching just the way his lift looks, and how he's able to get separation, and just how he looks overall athletically in that first round series number two, can Joe Ingles and Jay Crowder contain on the perimeter specifically,

I'm worried about this with Boston. Boston's gonna have the ability, especially when they go small with Al Horford, to pull brook Lopez away from the rim and really attack them from a five out standpoint. There's gonna be lineups out there where it's gonna be Horford Tatum Brown with like Marcus Martin Malcolm Brogden or Marcus Martin Derek White or Derek White and Malcolm Brogden. And in those situations like

conceding corner threes to Al Horford is a errand. And it's even possible that Milwaukee may even have to go small and put Yannis at center. And in that case, so because of that, the further brook Lopez is away from the basket or if he's off the floor, the more important it is to contain on the perimeter. And Joe Ingles, in his absolute athletic prime, was an excellent

perimeter defender, and so is Jay Crowder. But those both of those guys are a little bit on the other side of the hill, and I think specifically with Ingles, Crowder could end up not playing much at all over the course this playoff run we'll see, But specifically with Ingles, I think his second side shot creation, his ability to run action with the basketball in his hands, and him being lights out from three makes him an option that needs to be on the table as an offensive adjustment,

and he needs in order for him to be playable. He can't be a target on the other end of the floor if he can at least provide some resistance at the point of attack. If he gets switched onto a guard or against against one of the for Boston,

it could be a problem. So I'm really gonna be watching athletically just how Joe Ingles in particular, but also a little bit of Jay Crowder, how those two guys perform on the perimeter defensively, and last but not least, how consistent will Drew Holliday be with his shot making. Last year in the playoffs, Drew Holiday went for twenty

plus five times. He had some big games, made some big shots, but he shot below forty percent in seven of the twelve games and had some nightmarishly poor shooting nights. And again, part of that is Chris Middleton being out him being the only real secondary shot creator on that team. But Joe Drew Holiday in general tends to be a little bit inconsistent with his shot making, and so I'm gonna be watching him just to see how efficient he is, how he can rain things back now that they have

Chris Middleton. Look at his shot selection Drew Holiday as a tendency sometimes to just for no particular reason, take extremely difficult pull up jump shots, almost as like a regular part of his shot diet, which when you do that and you're talented player, sometimes they go in and sometimes they don't. Guys who are regularly efficient are guys that rely on extremely difficult shot making only when they have to. It's a supplementary piece, not a core piece

of their offense. I'll be watching Drew Holliday. I do think that getting the one seed was big time for Milwaukee. I talked a lot about this during the season, but they're gonna be in a series where they're heavily favored against the Cavs or Knicks team in the second round, while Boston and Philly are beating the shit out of each other, and that's a big advantage. So nice work from the Bucks to fight for that one seed throughout the season. Denver, I think that very similarly to what

I said about the Bulls and Heat. I think Minnesota is gonna win tonight against the Thunder, but I actually think the Thunder are the more dangerous team for the Nuggets because of their aggregate offensive skill and the trouble they can give to defenses that perform well statistically but have some personnel limitations, like the Pelicans. We talked a

lot about in this morning's show. If you guys remember, I talked about how the Pelicans were third in defense or fourth and defense post deadline, sixth and defense for the season, but the Thunder just lit them on fire because they spaced him out and drove and kicked them to death. You know, in the playoffs, your base defensive scheme becomes less important than your defensive versatility and the overall strength of your defensive personnel. That's gonna be an

issue here with Denver. Denver overall this season defensively wasn't good enough. And one of the big reasons I didn't pick them out of the West is that in this tail end of the season they really let slip a lot of their habits on the defensive end of the floor and got sloppy as they kind of punted the last you know what twenty percent of the season or whatever it was. And the problem there is is when you don't have outstanding defensive personnel, your details have to

be extremely sharp. My favorite example of this is the twenty sixteen Calves versus the twenty seventeen Calves. That team did not have great defensive personnel. Kyrie Irving is an average to blow average defender. Jr. Smith is an average to blow average defender. You know, Kevin Love is an average to blow average defenders. Thompson was only okay. Lebron James and whoever they played it like, Richard Jefferson at the time were the only two like really good defensive

players on that team. But as a team, they really worked hard during the season to dial up those defensive details, and they finished as a top ten defense in the regular season. So when they got to the Golden State Series, even though they got a little bit shell shocked at the beginning of the series, they were locked in enough to get the necessary amount of stops for Lebron James

and Kyrie Irving to carry them home offensively. Then in twenty seventeen they just said screw it and they stopped trying, and the same defensive team that was so good in twenty sixteen was really bad in twenty seventeen with basically the same personnel. And that's because habits matters so much more when you don't have great defensive personnel. If you have excellent defensive personnel, at a certain point, you just flying around athletically is gonna make a lot of things happen.

That's kind of the way I feel about Denver. If you're gonna have Nikol Jokich as a below average rim protector, and you're gonna have basically two good defensive players in your best lineup, which is basically Aaron Gordon and Genthavious Calwell Pope, you have three entry points there. So the only way that's gonna work. Is if all five of those guys are just dialed in and locked in throughout the entire season working on those details so they're ready

to go when the time comes. And that's just not what they did this year. That was a big part of why I did not pick them out of the West. The Thunder in particular, are going to force them to guard in a way that goes away from their defensive scheme as opposed to Minnesota is going to allow them to stay in a lot of the coverages that they used throughout the regular season. So Denver should absolutely Denver

fans should absolutely be rooting for Minnesota tonight. That said, regardless of who they face, even with those limitations, I still would pick them in five over both of these teams. If the Nuggets get exposed offensively, it'll be by Phoenix in the next round. But that's step one of what I'm gonna be watching in this first round series. How locked in is Denver gonna be on the defensive details,

Because this is basically a two week practice. You're gonna get probably five games, four or five games here to maybe six if you're not sharp enough, but you're gonna get two weeks here to sharpen up your defense and try to undo the damage that you did during the regular season. I'd almost treat it like a training camp in that regard. But they're going to have to be

sharp or they're going to get beat by Phoenix. So I'm gonna be watching their defense at all three levels in this series to see how dedicated they are to tightening those things up. Nikola Jokic, how high is he willing to come out of his drop, because he's gonna have to come high out of his drop to have any hope of defending against the Phoenix Suns. When he does so, can he do so effectively? How active is he overall defensively sprinting back in transition and covering ground

on the floor. How active is Jamal Murray at the point of attack? Is he up to that challenge? I know Contavius Callwell Pope is up to the challenge. I know Aaron Gordon's gonna be up to the challenge as a help defender and as a primary wing defender. But is Jamal Murray up to the challenge as a point of attack defender? Is Michael Porter Junior up to the challenge as a help defender? Are they going to have to go with options like Bruce Brown because of defensive

limitations that takes away from their offensive ceiling. Those are the kinds of things that I'm going to be paying very close attention to in that first round series. Number two, Jamal Murray's shot making. It's been a very up and down season for him. Not his fault necessarily. First chunk of the season. He's working his way back from knee injury. Second chunk of the season, he had some brief stretches where his knee kind of flared up a little bit,

So I'm not blaming him per se. But the reality is is if the Nuggets are going to get out of the Western Conference and have a chance to win an NBA championship, they need Joal Murray to play at a like, not a superstar, but an all star level. They need him to efficiently average twenty three to twenty four points per game. So I'm gonna be watching him and how he looks athletically. Two more things, Jokic's aggression

when his teammates are missing. One of the things that I've been critical of Jokic this year is some of that early Lebron stuff where He's playmaking to death, but there are some times when like your team just doesn't have it. Damn Jokic, you're one of the top five players in the league. You need to go make something

happen off the bounce. And there have been a couple of games this year where I've seen him kind of continue to pass, and I'm really going to be watching him, especially on nights when his teammates are not making shots, to see if he steps up his level of aggression. And last, but not least, the bench. The bench has been a huge issue for the Nuggets all season long. The Thomas Bryant acquisition has not worked. Reggie Jackson has

been really inconsistent since he came aboard. They're going to have to play the starters big minutes and do some more staggering to bolster that bench unit, or they could be in some trouble there as well. But either way, I'm picking the Bucks and the Nuggets to win in five. So again, predictions are just predictions. Probably gonna get a certain amount of them right, probably gonna get a certain amount of them wrong. That's just the nature of the business.

I'm sure I'll be made. I'm sure all have people crying about it my mentions no matter what. But that's just life. Final predictions, though, I have the Bucks winning their first round series in five games, Celtics in five games, Sixers in four games, Nicks in six games. Out in the Western Conference, I have the Nuggets in five games. I have the Lakers beating the Grizzlies in six games. I have the Warriors beating the Kings in six games,

and I have the Suns sweeping the Clippers. As of right now, I have the Golden State Warriors coming out of the West, the Bucks coming out of the East, and the Bucks hoisting the trophy when it's all said and done. That said, like, I don't see any point in going down with the ship. With every passing new piece of information that we get, I am going to tell you what my new opinion is, and maybe at the end of the day it'll still be Bucks Warriors,

but I'm gonna react to new information. And so after the first round we'll kind of circle back to those topics and see where we stand at that point. All right, really quickly before we get out of here, I'm gonna do quick hitters on Hawk Celtics. So Hawk Celtics and Net Sixers. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on these series because I expect them to be over quickly.

The issue specifically, Like again, I'm going out of town on Saturday morning, and I'm gonna be arriving at our destination in Canada at like eleven thirty PM, so we're still covering the playoffs, but I'm losing my entire day Saturday, and it's actually gonna bleed into Sunday morning. We're gonna do like a quick instant reaction on Saturday night, and then we're gonna do a much more in depth reaction

on Sunday morning after I get some sleep. But we don't know the one to eight matchups until tomorrow evening. I'm gonna have a really short video that I'll release tomorrow, but I'm not gonna spend a ton of time diving into these one eight matchups or the Celtic Sixers series, just because they're just such big favorites, like the Celtics are a minus twelve hundred favorite and the Sixers are a minus one thousand favorite ten to one odds, So I'm not gonna spend a half hour breaking down those

particular series, but I'll give you some quick notes. So on the Hawk sixers. The Celtics are a gigantic favorite. Like I said, minus twelve hundred. They swept the season series in March day at a game in Atlanta. They played more recently than that, but everyone rested in March. They played in Atlanta. Watch that game this morning. The entire thing. Oh my god, it was an iesore. There

was no defense from either team out the gates. Finally, in the second half, Boston started switching everything and started locking in defensively, and they immediately generated some separation and pulled away. But there are a couple of specific things. Atlanta did have some success on the offensive glass. Trey Young had a lot of success getting to his spots. They guarded Jalen Brown with de Jonte Murray, and they guarded

Jason Tatum with DeAndre Hunter. I do think that that's a specific set of matchups that they'll have to tinker with a little bit. I'm picking the Celtics to win the series in five games. They're just better on both ends of the floor by mile, and they're athletic enough. I think when they really lock in to survive Atlanta's offensive rebound attack. However, that's step one to an Atlanta upset. Guys like John Collins, Cacapella and Onyeka Congo will have

to absolutely destroy them on the offensive glass. Obviously, Trey Young and de Jontay Murray need to have a massive series. I would consider going away from from John Collins early in the series and playing Sidik Bay heavily for two reasons. One, I think that is a better matchup for Jalen Brown and putting sidek Bay and DeAndre Hunter on the two

Boston Celtics wings. You free up de Jontay Murray to save his legs for the offensive end of the floor, although those Boston guards are always looking to attack to but it's a little bit more of a straightforward matchup. And then also with the amount of switching that Boston will do, close out attacking is going to be viotently important.

Like Trey Young and de Jontay Murray just getting a little bit of dribble penetration and kicking, and then having guys like Sidik Bay extend the advantage, having guys like DeAndre Hunter extend the advantage. Atlanta did not have good spacing in the game that I watched earlier today. That is something they've gotten a lot better at over the course of the end of the season, so I think they might have a little bit more success there. But

it's just from a talent perspective. They're just overmatched in this series, especially once you go past the starting lineup for the Celtics. Things that I'll be watching is their defense as sharp as it was last year in the postseason. They came in locked in defensively against Brooklyn. They need to defend at that level to win the title. I'll be watching that very closely. Secondly, are they gonna make good rim decisions. Clint Capella runs a drop coverage for

the Hawks. He's gonna be around the rim probably most of the series unless they go small with Al Horford, and even then they'll probably concede those shots to try to keep Capella at the rim and try to rotate

around him. And it's gonna be vitally important, not just for this series, but as a process thing as they go forward into the rest of the postseason for Boston to look to driving kick and not necessarily challenge Copella at the rim all series long, which is typically what causes them to miss layups and give up transition opportunities. So rim decisions. I'm gonna be watching, and is their defense as sharp as it was to start last year? In the postseason Net Sixers, the Sixers are minus one

thousand favorite. They swept the season series four oh including two oh after the trades. They had a close win in Brooklyn and then they beat the hell out of them a different time. I'm picking the Sixers to sweep this series. The Nets are twenty third in defense or in offense post trades, to be expected. Guys like Michal Bridges are you know, they can put up numbers, they can score efficiently, but they don't attack the rim enough or playmake enough to be like a really well rounded

offensive engine. And then Spencer Dinwoodie has a ceiling to what he can do, especially a series get more physical. He really struggled last year in the postseason, especially finishing around the rim. So it's not a big surprise that their offense is fallen off. But here's the big thing. They loaded up on wings and this kind of goes back to what I was talking about earlier with New Orleans and with Toronto. But they loaded up on wings

and they can't guard. They are seventeenth in defense post deadline, and that goes back to what I was talking about about balancing point of attack defense with length and athleticism on the wing. They have no hope of guarding Joel Embiid. I think Spencer Dinwoodie, McHale Bridges, and Cam Johnson are going to struggle to generate quality shots and they don't have much of a home court advantage. It's like I've only picked two sweeps in the first round, and it's

the Clippers and the Nets. And it's because you generally would say in five, but you usually get that big upset win in Game three or Game four because of a raucous home crowd and a high energy environment. The Clippers in the Nets probably have the two worst home court advantages of any serious basketball teams in the NBA except for maybe the Miami Heat, but even the Miami

Heat that they show up late to the game. But they'll get invested in a real way if they once they finally make their way to their seats, whenever that actually happens. The other thing, too, Nick Claxton is just going to allow Joel Embiid to hang out at the rim The biggest susceptibility in the Philly defense is if you can get em beat on the perimeter. He's not

good at containing driving like slashing. Toronto had a lot of success slashing by him last year, and I just with Nick Claxton out there, I just don't think that's going to be an option. Here's the path of victory for the Nets, the very slim paths of victory. They need to double the hell out of Joel Embiid and tighten up their rotations over the court of the course of the series. They need to leave James Harden on

an island and turn him into a score. They need to get back in transition to make sure Tyrese Maxey doesn't get those easy runouts. And they need to completely ignore PJ. Tucker and pray to God that he misses every shot that he takes out of the corner on offense. Just spread him out, spread them out as much as you can take advantage of their weak perimeter defense by driving and kicking them to death. You can have there

are spacing concepts within four out one end. You know you put you do the best you can to keep Guys like Dorian Phinney Smith in one corner as an easy outlet at any given moment, and you know, maybe you go high on offensive skill and play Cam Johnson and Spencer Dinwitty because of the little bit of undersized Philly backcourt that doesn't play a lot of defense and doesn't do a ton of dirty work, and you put

McHale Bridges in the other corner. Yeah, you're gonna have to navigate him beat around the rim, but you put Claxton in a position where you can catch and dunk really quick. He's also excellent offensive rebounder, and you just overload on offensive skill and take advantage of Philly's lack of perimeter defense. But it's extremely unlikely things I'll be watching from Philly. How engaged is James Harden in the physicality of the playoffs on both ends of the floor, Like,

is he ready for a damn war? Because this is gonna be a war, not necessarily this series, but next series is gonna be a damn war against the Boston Celtics, and Boston is gonna do everything they can to make him feel uncomfortable. And if he just tries to do the James Harden thing where he kind of floats his way through the games, they're gonna lose pretty quick. So I'm really gonna be watching James Harden and his overall competitive energy. How well does Joel Embiid handle double teams.

I think this is gonna be a good sample of it against the Nets, and I think you're gonna see it a lot against the Sixers. Joel and b destroyed, excuse me, against the Celtics. Joel andbi destroyed the Celtics the last time they played when they left him in single coverage and then they started doubling him at the end of the game and he made some good reads to PJ. Tucker. I think it'll be very important for him to demonstrate a capable handling of double teams in

order to win a championship. And last, but not least, Phillies weakness in their defense is perimeter de So I just want to look at guys like Tyras Maxey and James Harden and just how like I just want to see how locked in they are in their ability to contain the basketball, because especially against Boston, when the matchups work out, you know you're gonna see de Anthony Melton guarding one of tayt and Tatum Brown, Right, you're gonna

see are You're gonna see Tobias Harris and PJ. Tucker guard one of Tatum bar Brown, a lot of d Anthony Melton too when they go to when they took put PJ. Tucker on the bench. But like Derek White's gonna be out there, Marcus Smart's gonna be out there, Malcolm Brogden's gonna be out there, and guys like Tyras Maxey and James Harden are going to have to slide

their feet. And in that particular game, Derek White and the one I mentioned where Joel Embiid went off, Derek White and Malcolm Brogden did a lot of damage to them. So that's something I'll be keeping an eye on. All Right, guys, that's all I have for today. We'll have one last video before the playoffs late tomorrow night, just a quick little breakdown of the one to eight matchups. Won't spend

that video will be like ten to fifteen minutes. I'm not gonna invest a ton of a ton of energy in massive favorite playoff series like that, but guys, right around the corner two days we are going to be in the grind and I'm very, very excited. I thought the playing tournament was super entertaining, a nice little teaser for what we're getting into. Tons of you guys supported the show over the course of this week, and I

can't tell you how much I appreciate. I've been looking at some of our year over year growth from February to March and April, and it's been really really cool to see this show grow and I have you guys to thank for that. So thank you guys for supporting me and the rest of the team, and hey, let's have some fun over the next couple of months. The volume