Hoops Tonight - Jalen Williams DOMINATES, Haliburton STRUGGLES in OKC's NBA Finals Game 5 victory

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Havy Tuesday. Everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great start too a week. We are going to be talking a little bit about Game five of the NBA Finals today. I want to get into some of the content, some of the specific angles from the game that we didn't get to get into Last Night with Colin, so we're gonna be breaking that down. I want to at I want to dive into a little bit looking forward in the series, what I expect to happen in

Game six. I want to talk about some of the specific areas where the Pacers have lost control of this series, specific swing factor, some of which we discussed coming into the series, tests that Indiana had to pass in order to thrive in this particular matchup. Lots of stuff we want to get into in the NBA Finals. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter and underscore JSNLTS. You

guysn't miss announcement. So forget about a podcast feed where you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave your rating in a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there. The last but not least, if you guys want to get mailed back questions in in our live shows. But our next live show is on Thursday night.

Just show up to the live show, drop your questions in the chat, then we'll get it to the mail bag at the tail end of the show, and then obviously once we get out of the finals, will shift back towards taking them from the YouTube contents. All right, let's talk some basketball. So last night was the J Dubbs Show. We talked a little bit about it last

night with Colin Coward. I focused on the idea of his downhill power and kind of in the context of what we saw TJ McConnell succeed with the general idea being that there's a lot of handsy, physical defense on the perimeter in the NBA playoffs and big, strong players tend to thrive in those settings. I don't think it's

a coincidence. As you look back through NBA history, the best player on championship teams has been a power player in basically every single series for the last decade and a half, other than Steph you know, like you Obviously last year for the Celtics, it was more of like a bi committee by a kind of thing. But who was the best player for the Celtics in the playoffs in terms of of you know, winning Eastern Conference Finals

MVP and Finals MVP. It was Jalen Brown a power player, even Tatum in his contributions as a defensive player and as a playmaker in that in that playoff run power, Luka Doncic was the best player in that postseason power Right twenty twenty three, Nikole Jokic Power twenty twenty two. Obviously, Steph He's your exception twenty twenty one, Giannis Power twenty twenty,

Lebron Power twenty nineteen, Kawhi Power. We can go back throughout time and you're going to see a pretty consistent trend of like Steph Curry being the exception, the one kind of like finesse perimeter oriented player that thrives in these settings. But it's a lot of power that thrives here. Last night, Jadob had forty points right, but nineteen of those forty points came either in transition runouts or backdoor cuts.

His cutting was incredibly impressive last night. I counted four separate buckets and nine points total because he had an and one on one with Nie Smith, or he just backdoor like just beat like red the defender saw that he was in denial and just cut really hard back door, using that power physical swim move to get around the defender and ended up getting easy stuff at the basket. He did some beautiful work out of ball screens too in the fourth quarter, showcasing similar downhill force in both

actions attacking bigs and guards. But he got himself into a rhythm in this game because that stuff didn't happen until late late in the game, Like, he got himself into a rhythm just by using his Basketball IQ to identify runways opportunities for him to get ahead of steam without the ball, a transition lane, a back door cut opportunity.

Those are areas where in a system like this where the ball, you know, I think the ball will shift towards being in Jdubb's hands more and more over the years as he improves and as Shay kind of like starts to feel a little bit more of like an open partnership with Jdubb. But even in that context, it's going to be useful for him to be a weapon off the ball, and in this context it's a super

valuable weapon. And he did a ton of damage in this game again, nineteen of his forty points literally just running lanes right then he tied it all together with his jump shooting, which is really the piece that separates him from the other similar types of playmaking forwards in the league. He had three open catch and shoot threes that were all very important last night. That little right shoulder fade, that classic Dwayne Wade half spin right at the top of the key, that was kind of the

cherry on top of his finals masterpiece. But we just don't have very many players in the league that bring the combination of downhill power, high level playmaking, and high level shooting. Right you look at Paolo. He brings some high level shooting at least from the mid range, and he brings a lot of power, but he can be a little bit of a tunnel vision guy that can struggle to make the kickout Raads Franz Wagner another kind

of big forward. He brings the high level playmaking and he brings the downhill power, but his jump shot is like an absolute adventure and in many case is downright bad. Jaylen Brown a little bit inconsistent as a jump shooter, but I think he brings that jump shooting piece, and he brings the downhill power piece, but he can struggle to process the defense and to make the appropriate kickout.

Read Zion Williamson obviously more in a super like like a juiced up version of that downhill power, but Zion Williamson again doesn't bring that kind of counterbalance of the shooting right. Like then we have some of the slender forwards, guys like Brandon Ingram and Paul George. They bring the playmaking, they bring the shooting ability, but they don't bring the power, that real downhill power. It's a pretty unique combination to have a player that does all three of those things.

I think that's what makes me think of him as kind of a Jimmy Butler esque type of player. Jimmy Butler, especially in this last half decade, has become that guy, the downhill power guy, the versatile defensive weapon, the playmaker, the guy that can knock down shots over the top, and again, like he's doing all of this right now,

Ja Dub in a supporting context. As he continues to round out the details in his game, he'll get more opportunities to showcase this stuff, like that tough right shoulder fade or some of the tough like step back jump shots that he's been hitting at various points in this postseason. This is a fantastic Finals performance for JDub to add to his resume, and again he's still just barely getting into that groove that he's capable of getting to in

this thunder Championship era. Shay's four game this has been one of the more interesting subplots of the series. In my opinion, I think SGA's two highest scoring games in this series were his two worst games. Outside of Game three. Game one, he goes for thirty eight. I didn't think he was particularly good compared to some of his other games in this postseason. Game four he has thirty five.

Those are his two highest scoring games in this series, and I didn't think he was particularly good compared to some of his other games. Like it reminds me of some of the other rate stars that have come through the NBA. And I mean this as a compliment. I am comparing Shay to some all time greats here, But like when Jokics would have a bad game, when Lebron would have a bad game, and against all relative when I say bad games for these guys, a bad game

for prime Lebron, a bad game for prime Jokich. When I talk about a bad game for Prime SGA. It is not the same as a bad game for Tyrese Haliburton from last night or some of these other guys that we talked about. It's all relative for the record, but this is the conversation that Shay has put himself in. He has put himself in as an MVP, a leader of a sixty eight win team, as soon to be finals MVP. He is now entering into conversations he's being

evaluated at a different standard. And like jokicch and Lebron would have these games where they'd go for like twenty four thirteen and eleven, and you could look at the box score and you could be like, man, it's twenty four thirteen and eleven and sixty three percent true shooting, Like that's an incredible game. But if you watch those games sometimes you'd feel like, man, like they're just not

asserting themselves as much as they need to. They're not bringing that like high level scoring imposition that they're capable of bringing. Lebron had to ultimately in big spots win by scoring the basketball game six against Boston down three to two, comes in had to score forty five that game seven against the Spurs, the need to hit jump

shots that San Antonio was a conceding team. Obviously, making the right play has always been a huge part of Jokic in Lebron's games, but they have to bring the balance and when they're at their best, when they're at the high end of their spectrum, it's always the combination of overwhelming scoring force and that high level playmaking that they bring. Now, Shay is a very different archetype of player. Right,

He's closer to the MJ and Kobe group. But like MJ and Kobe would have some of these games where they'd have now different right, for Lebron and Jokic, it would be these like triple double efficient games where they didn't bring the requisite scoring pop. For guys like MJ Kobe in this case, say it's the games where they have thirty something, thirty five, thirty eight, thirty seven points, but they do a poor job managing the flow of the game, and so they'll have these high scoring totals,

but it manifests as poor team offense. Right, Similarly with Lebron and Jokic high assist totals, but it manifests as poor team offense. There is a balance that scores need to have where they bring the requisite playmaking and floor game and managing the flow of the game that is

required for them to be effective as scores. Just like for the Jokic Lebron archetype, there's got to be a certain amount of scoring, imposition and aggression that balances out their elite floor game in flow game, which is what they do really really well. SGA's credit, he very clearly identified his poor process in each of those two games, because in each case he responded immediately out the gates with brilliant performances, much better floor game, much better managing

of the flow of the offense. I think his Game two in Game five performances were his best two games of the series by far. Once again, in both games just a super deliberate effort to take the available kickout reads early in possessions. He had eighteen assists in those two games. In the other three games of the finals combine, he had seven assists. Huge difference in process. The Thunder generated more threes in the first half last night than

they generated the entirety of Game four. They generated eighteen unguarded catch and shoot jump shots. According to Synergy, they generated just six in Game four, that's tripling the output

of open catch and shoot jump shots. Overall, as a team, the Thunder scored forty two points on catch and shoot jump shots after scoring just nine points on catch and shoot jump shots in Game four, and most importantly, according to Cleaning the Glass, in Game two and in Game five, those were the only two games in this series where the Thunder managed and offensive rating over one fifteen. They had a one twenty seven offensive rating in Game two

a one twenty offensive rating in Game five. Every single other game of the series they've been below a one fifteen offensive rating. The team's offense, the Thunder offense flows based on how Shay approaches the game, and the idea that it needs to affect his scoring is foolish. He managed sixty five points in those two games, thirty four

in Game two and thirty one last night. He ends up inevitably finding opportunities to score as the defense loosens up from him setting the tone by taking those easy reads. And the scary part is, I really do think that Shay has learned some valuable lessons on this front in this postseason run. I talk about this all the time. Young basketball players tend to struggle to identify what's not working and cut it out and identify what's working and

repeat it. A lot of times. They'll bounce back and forth between the two because they struggled to tie process to results. Over time. With this experience, Shay is gonna learn. He's gonna look back and go like, I remember what happened in game one when I came out hunting my own shot, and then suddenly none of my teammates were in rhythm, and at the end of the game when I did start making those kickouts, guys couldn't knock down shots.

I remember Game four when I generally just did a horrible job of managing the flow of the game, and it took me having to make some crazy shots at the end to bail my team out of a game we probably should have won by fifteen to twenty points.

He'll remember Game two in him coming out immediately hunting his teammates, the same thing in game five, and how it resulted in this free flowing offense where more people are involved and his co stars playing better, and more guys are getting catching shoot looks and guys are knocking down shots, and the team lights up the scoreboard. He'll remember those things, he'll replicate those things, and it'll just make this Thunder team that much harder to beat in

the coming years. Shay also was amazing on defense in this game. He had four blocks, had this insane help side rotation on Obi Toppin in the late second half where he blocked him at the rim. Had a couple of nice blocks in transition, including one on a like a little euro step from Tony Bradley. Just really, really impressive game from Shae Gilvis Alexander two of the better games I've seen him play in his career in game two. In Game five of this playoff run, he got lost

in the flow because of Ja Dubbs massive game. Jada was incredibly deserves to be recognized as the hero, but I thought Shay really set the tone with his overall approach to start last night's game.

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points per possession. There are forty six players in this playoff field that have defended at least fifteen ISOs, and Chet's efficiencies defensive efficiency in those ISOs ranks fifth out of those forty six players. Been one of the best ISO defenders in the league in this playoff run. Just for those who are curious, Anthony Edwards ranked number one

on that list. Cason Wallace, ranked at number two on that list, had another big time steal on Siakam in the post last night, Austin Reeves always has been an underrated defender, was number three on that list, and then Russell Westbrook was number four. But yeah, chet right there at number five out of forty six players to defend at least fifteen ISOs in this playoff run. But last night, obviously there was still some good defense and switches, but we got to see a lot more of the rim

protection side of his game. Last night. Erased two offensive rebound put backs and help side rotations. His length is part of the layering of Oklahoma City's defense. We talked about this a lot in the series preview. Having to pass the tests that Oklahoma City presents. The first step is ball pressure, get the ball up the floor. The

second step is denial. So in order to get the ball into your offense, you got to get the ball to your screeners because they run so many dribble handoffs and dribble pitches right and Oklahoma City's constantly denying off ball. Every time someone picks up their dribble. They're just immediately denying those off ball sequences. Once you get the ball into the paint in any way, shape or form, you're

immediately getting swarmed. You've got to be able to process those kickouts out of those swarming help side rotations from Oka see. And then the fourth layer is shooting, like finishing the play either against an intense closeout on the three point line or against the contest at the rim with chet holmgrin. And every time Indiana was able to work through those first three layers, chet Holmgren is just

waiting behind it to clean up the mess. But what I want to amp size here as I thought, Oklahoma City really blew this game open in the fourth quarter with the first two layers of their defense, the ball pressure and the denials. They forced eight turnovers in the fourth quarter, several just guarding the ball handler up the floor and rushing him into either traveling or coughing up

the basketball. Several in denials. They turned over Andrew Nemhard three different times where they forced him to pick up his dribble and then denied the kickout passes and he threw the ball away. We talked earlier about Indiana needing to pass the test of Oklahoma City's ball pressure, and after four games and three quarters in that fourth quarter, they were just as far away from solving that test as ever, it was just a masterclass from the Oklahoma

City defense. If Indiana can't survive the basic element of getting the ball into their offense, they're dead on arrival. Looking forward in the series, I obviously don't want to count Indiana out. They are absolutely capable going home and pushing this series to seven games. But I think Oklahoma City has found the perfect formula in this matchup. They have multiple actions that they can work with a two man game with Ja dub and Shaye to attack guards

and switches, high ball screens attacking bigs. This works for both Shaye, but especially for Jay Dubbs had most of his success attacking bigs downhill and switches using those ball screens against ball pressure like the extended ball screens out to thirty five to forty feet. When they get early dribble penetration off of that, they get great stuff every single time. Shae just his process as long as he passes through the help defense for those quality closeout opportunities

and then laid in the clock. That's when they can lean on the shot making from Shaye and Jay dub which is just so much more reliable than the shot

making from tyres In Pascal Siakam. And then on defense, like we talked about before the series, Indy gonna We talked about before the series, like, is Oklahoma City gonna have to change their defense because Indiana gets the ball through their ball pressure gets the ball to the high post, gets into their ball screen, whirling blender attack gets the ball into the middle of the floor, makes the appropriate kickouts, knocks down all these threes. Would Oklahoma City have to adjust,

start switching everything and stay home. No, Their base scheme has consistently, up to the fourth quarter of the fifth game in the series, has managed to shake the foundation of Indiana's offense. They haven't had to change anything. The Indiana ultimately hasn't been able to solve that test. I believe Oklahoma City will go in there on Thursday and beat the Pacers for the trophy. But even if they don't,

I think Oklahoma City wins big in Game seven. The fear like if you're a Pacer fan and you're looking for some sort of hope. The hope is you go home and you win a game which you know you're capable of. Then just like tonight, you have one of those late second half runs. Siakam hits a three off of an offensive rebound, it's ninety five nine. Maybe it just goes the other way and you pull out a

game seven. But every time it's been in that situation, every time it's been like, here's this five minutes that's gonna determine who wins this game. Okahoma City tightens the screws and Indiana falls apart. In Game four, Okahoma City tightened the screws. Indiana couldn't score last night, ninety five, ninety three, that's cute. You got it back to two. Then you turn the ball over on four consecutive possessions

against the first two layers of Oklahoma City's defense. Because their defense, every time it's needed to be, becomes indomitable. And that's why they're gonna be the champions. Now. As I zoom out from the series, there are several areas, some specific areas, where I just didn't think the Pacers were good enough if there was any chance for them to win this series. Tyre's Halliburton I talked about before the series. One of the major storylines is like what

if Oklahoma City just like kind of embarrasses him. Now, Tyres has had some nice games in the series. I thought he was great in Game three. Obviously, hits a game winner at the end of Game one. He's had his moments, I would argue Tyrese has not been embarrassed in this series. But outside of those moments, it's been

pretty rough. I saw a tweet from buddy mind Jamal Christopher shout out, Jamal does good work covering the Clippers, big Clippers fan, And I'm reading this tweet because I think it is an important kind of like bit of context to what happened last night. To me, in my opinion, it's pretty disingenuous to act like Halliburton isn't capable of some dangerous lows even when he's at one hundred percent. And that was my big takeaway from last night. I

agree with Jamal completely. Yeah, Tyres Halliburton was a little banged up. You can see that really awkward step that he took where his foot kind of slipped out from underneath him. We know he's been dealing with some some sort of ankle, achilles something in his right foot. Clearly he tweaked it a little bit more last night on that move. I'm not gonna sit here and pretend like Tyrese wasn't a little banged up. But again, I agree

with Jamal. I think Tyrese is just as capable of that type of game even when he's at his best. And we've talked about it before. It's the reason why he's not a top tier superstar. In order to get up into that you know, five to six range, he's got to become substantially more reliable as a scorer. To me, this kind of just is the reality of what can

happen with Tyrese. If he runs into a really good defense, with a really good defensive guard that can beat him over the top of screens and a big that can guard him in switches, it's gonna render him borderline ineffective as a score. And we saw an exaggerated version of it last night because of the issues that were going on with this calf muscle. But I agree. I think just writing off Tyrese's game last night is like, oh, he was hurt, that's the only reason that happened. I

agree with Jamal. I think that's disingenuous. I think they're there's so many examples over the years, over the last couple of years, to where Tyrese can have some to quote Jamal dangerous lows in these sorts of situations, lows that can be difficult to overcome. And thankfully the Pacers got a ton out of Pascal Siakam last night. Ear could have gotten particularly ugly, but Tyrese ultimately wasn't good enough in this series in order to give his team

a better chance to win. Miles Turner's offense. I talked about it before the series, as he was the biggest swing factor for Indiana. He was going to need to be able to hit the open threes. He was just four for nineteen through the first five games of this series on catch and shoot jump shots. Just not good enough. He wasn't good in his ball screen coverages. We're about to talk about it in a minute, but I want to cut him some slack on that because I blame

Carlyle more than I blame him. But on the offensive end, that was where he needed to be better. If he goes, you know, eight for nineteen on those catch and shoot jump shots, it might have been the difference in this series. Potentially that was a missed opportunity. The ball screen coverages. I've been mentioning about this the entire series. The specific thing I've been complaining about is on especially extended ball screens.

It's one thing in the half court in a situation where Shae doesn't have ahead of steam, or he's standing, you know, twenty four feet from the basket on the left wing, and here comes the ball screen and he comes off the ball screen and Turner's at the level. That's one thing where Turner has a fighting chance to keep Shaye in front because Shae doesn't have ahead of steam.

I would have been more okay with that coverage. But in these extended ball pressure screens where Hart and Stein and shd or screening for Shay sometimes beyond half court sixty feet from the rim, sometimes in front of half court forty thirty five feet from the rim. For Turner to be up that high, for Tony Bradley to be

up that high on a ball screen is foolish. And they were giving up dribble penetration where where Shaye or Jadub was getting past Turner or getting past Bradley so far out from the basket that they're just parading down the lane for layups, fouls, easy kickouts, while Turner and Bradley are jogging in from behind the play and it's stupid because Miles Turner's best attribute on defense is his length that has value at the rim. It is a

non factor out that far from the basket. You know what is a factor that far from the basket his slow foot speed, which was consistently exploited. If he's out underneath the basket, it's a much more achievable defensive job for Miles Turner to do. And Guys, I don't think we've seen this again. We saw this with Minnesota, to a more exaggerated version of it. This extended pressure against Oklahoma City hasn't worked. Guys, Guess who has been the

most efficient defense against Oklahoma City in these playoffs. Guess which team has done the best job guarding the Thunder. The Denver Nuggets. They've lo likeed a one to thirteen point eight defensive rating against the Thunder in seven games. And what did they do. They sagged back, they gapped,

They ran a ton of zone. They forced Oklahoma City to beat them by processing and by hitting jump shots, not by allowing them to get easy, easy dribble penetration over and over again with a foolishly over extended defense. And again, I wasn't even necessarily against the ball pressure. I understood some of the fatigue advantages there. I just did not understand Rick Carlyle's approach bringing his bigs out that far for the entire series. I thought that was

a mistake. The pathways there for the Pacers, It's not over by any stretch of the imagination. It's just so narrow. And then even if they end up in a situation where like they win Game six and they have a tie game with four minutes left in Game seven, I just don't think they've established anything that is reliable to score against Oklahoma City's defense. And it just seems like

such a narrow pathway for me at this point. All right, guys, That's all I have for today is always a sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We will be back live on YouTube on Thursday night for Game six of the NBA Finals. I will see you guys there. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review.

As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I really appreciate it.