Hoops Tonight - How Kevin Durant & Kyrie Irving saved Brooklyn Nets season

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Happy Tuesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a good start to your week. Today is Brooklyn Nets Day. As I said last night, we're gonna start now that we're in this point of the season where we kind of know a lot more about the teams that we're covering, We're really gonna hone in on the top ten fifteen or so teams in the league and

focus on the winners. Um. The Brooklyn Nets had been winning a lot of games lately, but we're desperate for some signature wins, some wins that add legitimacy to their dominance over the bottom of the league. And they got two of them back to back, dominating the Milwaukee Bucks at home and then last night going into Cleveland against the Calves basically at full strength and man handling them

in their own building. So today we're just gonna be diving into everything that has made the Brooklyn Nets successful over the course of the last couple of months. You guys know the Joe 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 Lts. You guys don't miss any show announcements, and the 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. Remember you can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under hoops tonight, So they beat the Calves last night, seventeen wasn't even really that close. Um. Every time that Cleveland made a run to get it close, the Nets would just smash them again to build a lead back up. At one point they got it late second quarter, they got it back to like forty six to forty five, and then the Nets immediately went on an eighteen o eighteen to two run, making it look

easy to kind of put the game away. At that point, Katie and Kyrie again leading the way sixty four points on thirty seven shots with tennisis Katie really has it going from three now. He started the year thirty two percent from three over his first twenty games, He's forty five percent on five attempts per games in his last in his last thirteen games in fifty two percent in his last six games. Kyrie is also shooting the laces off scent from three on nine attempts in his last

six games. But after last night, and really after this last couple of months of basketball, you can really see an identity starting to round out for the Brooklyn Nets. I always talked about a basketball identity or basketball character because to me, that's what you lean in lean on in a night night and night out. Basis, there are a lot of teams out there that don't know who they are, and they're kind of just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, you know, especially especially

towards the bottom of the lead. They're trying small lineups, so trying big lineups, so trying pairings that work, pairents that don't. Sometimes they run, sometimes they don't, sometimes they defend, sometimes they don't. There's an inconsistency in their basketball character and that kind of fundamentally becomes who they are. They're a team that doesn't know who they are, and the teams that do know who they are, they come out

and they play the same way every single night. They have a pretty consistent rotation and the results tend to follow. And and it's because they've they've seen results that come from the way that they play, and so they're bodying and they believe in what they're doing. Uh. The Nets have now one thirteen out of fourteen games. And we're gonna do just like we did. Um, we're gonna do just like we did with all the other teams that

we did these zoom in videos on. We're gonna focus on the defensive end and then the offensive end on the floor. Um, we're gonna start with defense with the Net cell. On the defensive end, they do a ton of switching. Uh. They do occasionally run drop coverage with guys like Nick Claxton, but even then Nick Nick does a lot of switching, and he's defended really well both at the rim and rim protection situations and out on switches.

Nick Clackston in general has been awesome all year. Um. Uh, just finding ways to impact winning on both ends of the form. We just talked about the defensive end, but even on the offensive end, he's such a good vertical spacer. Um has good timing and when to cut along the baseline for lab passes. And he's also one of the

better offensive rebound put back guys in the league. Gets a lot of extra points just working getting garbage baskets around the rim, and Um one of the best offensive rebounders. I think he's right around two and a half per game in offensive rebounds. UH third in the league in

blocks as well. Just you know, one of the themes that today's show is going to be about how great Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are, and we're gonna talk a lot about Katie and Kyrie here in a little bit, but it's also a supporting cast that has really rounded out into one that is helping them in a very

complimentary way on both ends of the floor. The the UH, the nets and their aggressive switching kind of leads to a given a take because they tend to disrupt offensive flow by switching a lot of actions that kind of shuts off a lot of the actions that team teams run because they're getting ahead of it with switching. But they're also aggressive at the basketball and during this four teen game stretch, they've been forcing a lot of turnovers

and getting out in transition. As a result, they've been top ten in turnovers forced during this span and second in fast break points scored over this fourteen UM game stretch. That is, obviously I always talked about with offensive ratings. You know, you're always trying to find ways to supplement that. So Nick Claxton getting garbage buckets in, putting them in,

that's supplementary. You know, getting out in transition, that's supplementary. Obviously, the high level shot making to rescue possessions and in late clock situations from Katie and Kyrie, that's all supplementary. And during this Hunter Uh, during this fourteen game stretch, they have an offensive rating of one twenty, which has been best in the league. Obviously, UM, there's a given a take to switching on defense, especially when you're as thin as the nets are, they do give up a

lot of points in the paint. They've been struggling to defend the paint during the streak. I think their twentie and opponents points point opponent points in the ain't allowed per one possessions, but they they've been making up for it by defending the three point line really well. They're allowing fewer threes than most of the teams in the league, and then, like I said, forcing a lot of turnovers.

All of that's amounted to them being eleventh in defensive rating over this thirteen and one stretch, which is fine. Like again, when I, like I talked about with the Nuggets last night, when you're scoring as effectively as these teams are, you don't necessarily need to be what Brookly what Milwaukee was defensively, or what um, you know what the Lakers were defensively. You don't have to be that if you're this good on the offensive end of the floor.

On the offensive end of the floor, it's a steady diet of ISOs, pick and rolls and post ups for Katie and Kyrie. Um. But the we're gonna talk about Katie and Kyrie a little bit because the two of them have been so unbelievably off the charts good with their shot creation. But I want to start with the role players for a second, because this is fundamentally what makes the Nets different than so many teams around the league. They have a lot of good basketball all players that

can capitalize on the attention that Katie and Kyrie dropped. Um. You've heard me talk a lot about aggregate offensive skill. I've talked about this a lot with the New York Nicks, and I've talked about this a lot with the Toronto Raptors. Some of these teams that struggle with scoring in the half court. And you know, sometimes we especially with the analytics movement, we've become so focused on what does the guy shoot on catching shoot threes and you know, canny defend.

We just you know, the three and D role player that we always talk about. Um. But the problem is, as the league has gotten quicker and better defensively, Um, there there's a lot more improvisation and spotting up. You know, I've referred to this as close out attacking, but really it's just that natural ability to turn a close out or rotation into a better shot or into a finish for yourself. Um. And I want to use t J.

Warren as an example. So there was a play in this game against the Calves where Katie uh calls for a screen from t J. War and I believe Lamar Stevens was guarding the ball and Kevin Love was was the player guarding t J. Warren on this particular play, and so the Calves did what is called a hedge and recovery, which is typically you don't really see it too much in the NBA now, the way you used to ten years ago, you'd see hedge and recover all

the time. Now it's primarily only with weaker defensive players that you want to not get switched onto a good score. So what they do is when the screen comes, they run out hard to hedge and stop the player from moving laterally across the screen. That forces them to take retreat dribbles out towards half court. Okay, that then buys you time to sprint back and recover to your man. So on this play, t J. Warren sets the screen, Kevin Love hedges out, Kevin Durant has to take the

retreat dribbles. T J. Warren slips to the elbow and Katie hits him with the pass. On the slip, Donovan Mitchell comes out of the corner off of Royce O'Neill to help on t J. Warren. T J. Warren throws a pass fake towards Royce O'Neill. Donovan Mitchell stunts back to the three point line, then t J Warren takes a hard dribble down the middle of the floor, but Kevin Love is screaming back into the play to get

in front of him. Kevin Love cuts him off going to the right, and t J. Warren just as a really nifty and quick between the leg dribble to the center of the floor, right at the semicircle, and rises up and knocks down a ten foot jump shot. That is an extremely high level basketball play. If you throw that to Lamar Stevens, for instance, for the calves, that's exact same sequence, a hedge out. Lamar Stevens slips. He's a good player, an NBA player, but he's not that

high level offensive talent that t J. Warren is. He's not gonna see the floor and make that read quick enough to make that pass fake to get Donovan Mitchell to get off of him, and then the counter move to beat Kevin Love coming back towards the middle. In all likelihood, he ends up making some sort of mistake or struggles to convert that into something that is worth points.

That's the difference between a D and three or three and D player in Lamar Stevens in a really well rounded basketball player and t J. Warren and how that allows you to squeeze out offensive points from attention that your stars gather. You know when when players struggle to capitalize on that, that gives them the ability to hedge and recover or hard trap without having to worry about giving up points on the back end. There's another play later in that first half, t J. Warren just because

of a transition cross match guys. In transition, you just grab somebody. Defensive principles change in those situations. Darius Garland ends up on t J. Warren, Katie and Kyrie are out front. No reason to waste energy on a pick and roll, no reason to waste energy on an ice, So to try to draw multiple defenders, t J. Warren just raises his hand. They dumped the ball into him. On Darius Garland on the left block. He uh uses a pound dribble to get a little closer, spins back

towards the baseline pump fakes. Darius Garland leaves his feet and t J. Warren, who's a gifted score, just elevates into Darius Garland's body, draws the contact and hits a little ten foot jump shot for the and one that is an example of matchup attack from the forward position that we talked about. That is another way to generate

offense without having to fatigue your stars. That's the difference between a higher level offensive skilled player and their ability to to play alongside stars versus just the traditional three and D concept. And you know that scoring fluidity. We've talked about this a lot on that show. It's kind

of just a natural feel. It's hard to explain. Like we've all any of you guys who've played basketball a great deal, whether it's in college or in high school, you've probably met guys that can shoot the ball well and can do ball handling drills well, but for some reason, they lack that like natural feel of when to dribble and when to shoot for the purposes of scoring the basketball. They're just a little too rigid, and when they get

out into the improvisation of scoring, they struggle. There's such a natural instinct two good scores um that goes even beyond their actual tangible skill set when it comes to ball handling and shooting to create shots and t J. Warrent I think it's just a perfect encapsulation of that. That's why I wanted to spend some time there, but as we zoom out, the rest of the roster kind of fits that same mold Seth Curry, t J. Warren Royce,

O'Neil ben Simmons. You don want to be All of these guys amount to an enormous amount of ball handling, shooting and passing that are surrounding two of the best shot creators in the world. Looking to get more out of the NFL this season, well, now is the perfect time to download FanDuel America's number one sports book because new customers can get a no sweat first bet up to one thousand dollars. That's free bets back if your first bet doesn't win. Just download the Fandel sports Book app.

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in on the action. Also with great offers just for you, so don't miss the chance to get your no Sweat first bet up to one thousand dollars in free bets when you joined FanDuel with promo code Jason t make every moment more with fan Duel, an official sports betting partner of the NFL, and that aggregate offensive skill leads to absurdly effective half court offense with Katie and Kyrie on the floor. This year, the Nets are scoring a hundred and five points per one hundred half court possessions.

To give you some perspective, Dallas has the best half court offense in the league. Get a hundred and four offensive ready, that's how effectively Brooklyn scores with Katie and Kyrie on the floor. Overall, regardless of line up, for the whole season, the Nets are third in half court offense. I wanted to quick touch on a couple of the guys, Royce O'Neil. He caught a cost a first round pick. With everything that was happening this summer, that was kind of just a throw and move that a lot of

people were confused by. First round pick. Think about how many times fan bases around the league had been like, that guy's not worth the first, that guy is not worth the first. These you guys are worth two first or whatever it is. We've been dealing with that with the Laker fans for a while, right. It's this is such a great example of how draft picks and the

value can't be looked at in the vacuum. Because Royce O'Neil, especially coming off of what he did with the Jazz, You're not sitting there thinking like, oh, he's worth a first round pick. That seems steep, right, But what you're seeing is in a small role with the Nets, alongside two superstars, he has been monumentally valuable to everything that Brooklyn does. First of all, he's an outstanding perimeter defender.

He's super physical on the ball. He did a number on Donovan Mitchell last night from the start, made him feel super uncomfortable, was cutting off the rim from him. So Donovan Mitchell had to settle early in the game for a lot of really high difficulty pull up jump shots that he missed just about all of and it kind of set the tone for the rest of his night. He's also does little things, dirty work on the glass. He's crashes the glass well, the averages five rebounds of game.

And then on the offensive end, he doesn't have that scoring fluidity that t. J. Warren has, but he shooting the damn laces off the basketball from three and he makes good close out reads. So it's not him trying to score when he's driving the ball to the basket, but he always makes that right kickout past to the next shooter, or the drop off pass to the dunker

spot or things along those lines. It's been a very important piece of connective tissue for the Nets on the offensive end of the four cost the first round pick and a vacuum. Sounds crazy, but you put a guy that's got that particular skill set alongside Kevin freaking Durant and Kyrie Irving, he smashes that role out of the park and suddenly he's deeply impactful with a limited skill set. And that's why, like again, role players are so incredibly

valuable in the modern NBA. With the way that defense has worked to try to take the ball out of your star's hands. You do want to be same type of thing. Not a super fluid score, but he makes good clothes out reads. He's a solid defender with tons of length, and he shoots the ship out of the basketball. Is shooting from three um on at a rate of six attempts per thirty six minutes. Uh Ben Simmons offensively, it's kind of a mixed bag, like he had a

bunch of ugly misses around the room against Cleveland. But he's still he's probably the best transition passer. He's really good at just getting downhill and applying rim pressure and finding shooters. He's also been doing this thing lately where he throws these cross court bounced passes in transition that are absurdly high difficulty. They're covering like forty to fifty feet of court on the bounce while everyone is sprinting.

He had one against the Calves I think the Royce O'Neil for three, and then he had another one against the Bucks the other night to Kyrie across the court. Super impressive stuff there. And then he's still capable of doing so much damage on the defensive end of the floor. Uh kind of dominated that game against the Calves, just

getting deflections and steals and triggering those transition opportunities. But I do want to spend a great deal of time talking about Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, because at the end of the day, they are the two guys that make this whole thing work. So obviously, Katie's averaging thirty points per game, which is the third highest mark of his career, and he's shooting a career high sent in true shooting percentage. A lot of this is driven by

his pull up shooting. He's shooting fifty five percent on pull up jumpers. There are eighty three players that have attempted at least one d pull up jump shots this year. Katie is in first place with no other player in the league is over and then Russell Westbrook is eighty two out of eighty three percent. If you ever covered Russell Westbrook, he would understand why I had to slip that in there. Um, he's in a class by himself.

To give you an idea, some other little perspective, Jayson Tatum, who's been unbelievably good this year, is shooting twenty one percent worse on pull up jumpers than Kevin Durant, shooting just thirty percent. Lebron James two percent worse, shooting just

thirty three percent. So even again, like compared to what other pull because a lot of the other pull up shooters aroun the league that are good or guards, like little guards like Kevin Durant is outperforming all of them, and then like vastly outperforming all of the small like the small forward UH pull up shooters that we see in the league. He he's in a class by himself as as a pull up shooter, and then he's been out He's been outstanding defensively. Ever since the Nash firing.

I received a couple of UH people reaching out in d M s and messages over the last couple of weeks, like talking shit about um uh me saying that the Nash firing was a scapegoat. And I think it's funny because like I never said that UH that Nash shouldn't be fired. In fact, I recommended that the Nets fired Nash. All I said was they're not playing hard for him, which is a fact that isn't an unassailable fact. They were not playing hard for Steve Nash, and then they

did play hard for Jacque Vaught. So like, is Jack von a better coach than Steve Nash? Maybe, But how the hell would we know when one guy had a scheme that the team bought into and worked hard at and the other one they mailed it in. Like I think they were dead last in defense and second to last and rebounding uh for the first chunk of the season when Steve Nash was coached, like, that's just not trying. Like I don't really know what else to tell you,

and uh. But that said, I recommended firing Nash because I thought it would reinvigorate the team under a new voice. And it did. And since that uh uh coaching James, they've been outstanding defensively and Kevin Durant's been one of the best defensive players in the world, and I believe he'll make an All Defense team this year. But what I want to focus on with Katie because we could talk about Katie scoring. I've done videos on Katie scoring in the past. It's a mix. It's pull up jump shooting,

it's um uh, improvisational shooting everywhere on the floor. It's setting up his man for easy shots. He's really good at working off the ball for easy catch and shoot opportunities. Kevin Durant, his efficiency is a is a product of tough shot making but also his ability to work hard for easy shots. And we could talk about that all

day long. But what we haven't done enough lately, I think in general with the NBA media covering the league, uh, Kevin Durants passing has become his most underrated skill and the reason why is because he had a tough series against the Boston Celtics. Well, first of all, we never really thought of Katie as much of a passer. He's had big passing moments. Um. I think he's always been

a little underrated in that area. But then after the Boston series, you know, everyone just thought he was a tunnel vision scorer that when a shot going is going in, you know, he can't impact the game. And the truth of the matter is is he actually Um, we have to look at the games to see what's happening because as we look at the numbers, he's averaging five point three assists per game, which is good, not great, right.

He's also giving you three and a half turnovers per games, So when you look at assisted turnover ratio and total assist points created, there's a lot of stuff there that doesn't look good. And again, in the Boston series, as I said, it was more his pull up jump shooting that failed him. He was like a fifty percent pull up jump shooter all season and then suddenly he shot in the low thirties against the Celtics. That's just not good enough for in the mid thirties or something like that.

So too many turnovers and too many missed jump shots or what killed Kevin Durant. But at the end of the day, like Kevin Durand's job when he's dictating double teams are drawing double teams is just to make the right read and more often than not, those lead to four on three situations, kind of similar to the Steph Curry thing um you know, back in like the two thousand fifteen finals, where he's just getting blitzed on the pick and roll, hitting Draymond Green on the short roll.

Draymond Green's making plays and so Draymond Green's racking up assists and Andrea Gudala is racking up corner threes. But the actual play itself was initiated by Steph's ability to draw the double teams. So that's what I want to focus on here for a minute, because Katie, again five point three is this for game nothing to to really get excited about. But when you watch what's happening on the floor, there's a lot of high quality shots that

are being created. So when Katie has the ball and passes out of pick and roll seven hundred forty five times this year, hit the nets have scored a hundred and sixty seven points. That's one point one five points per possession, which is in the nineties second percentile. What that amounts to is he's been the very best pick

and roll ball handler in the league. Overall. Kevin Durant pick and rolls including shots and passes, have led to one point to six points per pent, which is by far the best in the league for players who run at least five a game. Steph is in second place at about one point two points per possession. You know, and this is the latest in a long line of examples of box scores not really being revealing about what's happening on the court. But for the most part, Katie's

getting doubled on picks. He's hitting the short roller, the short rollers making decisions, and its ending in shot attempts for other players. Katie is getting hockey ass is there. One of the things that Brooklyn has been doing really well. Um is putting a good playmaker in that position. Like lately it's been a lot of Kyrie Irving. Have Kyrie

Irving set the screen. We saw this against the Raptors and heavy doses in the fourth quarter the other night where it's like Kyrie sets the screen, catches the ball in the short roll, gets downhill into the paint and makes a kickout past you to want not bey in the corner for three. Like that kind of thing. We're seeing a lot Um. But between Katie's playmaking, which has been off the charts, his pick and roll, ball handling off the charts, is scoring off the charts, his defense amazing. Um,

this year's MVP race is absolutely stacked. Is obviously you've got Jason Tatum, You've got Jannese and Yokich, all guys that have great cases. But I think overall, when I set aside everything and I just focus on who's playing the best basketball in the league this year, with who's been the best player in the best team, the Nets are only two games back of the best record in basketball and an overall value brought to the team. I actually think if the season ended right now today that

Kevin Durant would be my m v P pick. Moving on to Kyrie Irving, obviously, he's also scoring the ball really well. It's twenty six points per game, fourth best mark of his career. True shooting, third best mark of his career. He's always been very good in pick and roll, UM, and he's been very good in pick and roll again this year, one point one two points per possession including passes, which is in the eighty nine percentile, eleven in the league among players who run at least five per games.

So they got two of the top eleven pick and roll players in the league, including the best. But he's been the very best ISO player in the league this year. So when Kyrie Irving shoots out of isolation, one point to six points perposes, which is just completely outrageous, best in the league among players who attempt at least three ISOs per game to Marta Rosen is a close second. UM. A big part of this is Kyrie Irving is shooting

at the rim. We've always thought about Kyrie is a great rim finisher, UM, but as we look at it, you know, most of the guards in the league are hovering in the mid fifties, right, and then bad room finishers, guys like Russell Westbrook, they're hovering in the low fifties and some of the better like good rim finishers for guards around and Kyrie is just completely off the charts in the mid sixties at six percent. That you usually don't see that unless you're dealing with big athletic wings.

So as we zoom out, the Nets have the very best pick and roll ball handler in the league and the very best isolation player in the league, and each is great at the other. Kyrie is eleventh and pick and roll ball handling at least five run per game. Katie is ninth in ISOs points per possession to run at least three a game. Um, so you've got to kind of round it out. You've got to the top ten shot creators when it comes to just creating shots

for teammates are for themselves. You've got two of the ten best shot creators in the entire world, and you've got a ton of offensive skills surrounding them. Like we talked about earlier with the likes of you to want n B. T. J. Warren Royce O'Neil Seth Curry, you know, we talked we talked about that earlier. All of that amounts to twenty offensive rating in this thirteen and one stretch, which is the very best in the league. UM. And then they're committing enough on the defensive end to get

enough stops to be a damn good basketball team. UM. And you know how it goes with these win streaks. I always talking about inferior competition. You need that signature win to legitimize it. And uh, you know, when they lost to Boston, which is their one loss during this for fourteen game streak, you know, it can be discouraging because that makes you feel like you're not quite to that level. But then these last two wins have been really impressive. That's the dominant win over the Bucks and

a dominant win on the road over the Calves. My only concern with this particular team right now is the Boston matchup UM. Specifically Boston's ability to mix up coverages, to switch and force Katie and Kyrie to ISO against much better defensive players or to trap and rotate out of it. Which is the aggregate athleticism that they have on the floor. They get really physical on the ball. Katie and Kyrie last year, as I mentioned earlier, really

fell apart with their pull up shooting. Both of them tanked and pull up and pull up shooting percentage, and then both of them turned the basketball over way too much. So the reality is is Katie and Kyrie are just going to have to play a lot better against Boston this year than they did last year. They are better, they have they have better role players around them this year than they did last year. But I think Boston

is better than they were last year. With the Malcolm Brogden' acquisition, with Jayson Tatum's improvements, with Jalen Brown's improvements, you know, just in general that they are a deeper um, they have more continuity than they did last year, and they've learned some valuable lessons from their playoff failures. So that Boston matchup is the one that freaks me out. But if they can somehow get through Boston, I'd like their

I'd like their chances. I wouldn't pick them necessarily, but I'd like their chances against just about any other team in the league. Um So what does that amount to. It means they have a real chance to an NBA championship this year, which sounds crazy after everything that happened to begin the season, but I had them sixth in

my power rankings to start the year. In that uh, you know, if things go right, contender list, and things didn't go right to start the season, but things are starting to go right now and you're seeing all of that talent on the roster start to materialize into a damn good basketball team. Alright, guys, that is all I have for tonight. We will be back on Thursday, UM covering the games from Wednesday night. As always, I appreciate your support and I'll see you guys. Then the volume