The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops and Night. Here at the Volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Round two coverage of the NBA Playoffs Here at Hoops Tonight is brought to you by Chase Freedom Unlimited. How do you Cash Back? So I wake up this morning and walking over to my coffee machine to sit down and watch some film, and it dogs on me. I'm like I said at the beginning of last night's show, I was going to talk about Nick's Heat and then I totally forgot to.
So I sincerely apologize to the Knicks fans and Heat fans or anybody who was interested in hearing a breakdown about that game. We are going to get to it this morning, just gonna go for like eight to ten minutes, given my thoughts on that series. You guys know the drill before we get started. To subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore json lt so you
guys don't miss any show announcements. And if for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these videos and you can't back to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts Under Hoops tonight, All right, let's talk some basketball. I have never in my time covering the league ben as wrong about a team as
I've been about this Miami Heat team. Now, in my defense, you guys know, kind of the way we do this show, I'm going to pay attention to what I'm seeing on film and pay attention to the trends and what we learn about these teams from the regular season and try
to use that to project forward. And the Heat, desperately fighting for playing position, went twelve to thirteen over their last twenty five games, got their asses kicked by the Atlanta Hawks at home in the first playing game, and then we're trailing by three late in the fourth quarter in the second playing game against the Chicago Bulls. So that was the information I was using to project forward.
That said, I think where I went wrong is I did not properly account for the fact that this is a team that won, is extremely well coached, and will inevitably play above their pay great in the playoffs. This is benefit of the doubt that I've given to the Warriors over the years that I should have applied to the Heat. That was my mistake. Jimmy Butler, same type of thing, a player whose impact goes so much higher into the playoffs. And I did factor these things in,
but just not enough. I should have weighed them even more heavily than I did. Even as I looked at that Milwaukee Bucks series, and I look at Giannis missing three games, and just some of the crazy factors like Milwaukee having significant double digit leads in the fourth quarter in each of the last two Miami Heat wins, it just clouded my judgment a little bit, and I was very wrong. I said they didn't have enough shot creation. Jimmy Butler, bam Adebayo and the guards have all been fantastic.
Kyle Lowry again last night, just manufacturing offense for them when they need it. I said they weren't big enough. They've soundly out rebounded the Knicks, who were one of the league's best rebounding teams is here, including just smashing them on the gas in the last two games. And now they're up three to one, and this series looks like I believe the Heat will win at this point,
probably in five, maybe six. There are three dynamics, in my opinion, that I've swung this series away from where I projected it, and I think I picked nix and six originally that's obviously dead on arrival. There are three things I want to hit really quick. One gap in spot up conversion. The spot up situations are are much more convoluted than just three point shooting. A lot of
people focus on three point shooting. I prefer spot up point per possession because one of the things you can do to beat a team in a spot up situation is attack close out right. It's a much more fluid situation. Basketball is more complicated than just how what's your three point percentage? Right? Even when you look at three point percentages, there are different factors. How many isolation threes are you taking, how many bailout and of shot clock threes are you taking,
or are you only taking catch and shoot threes? Are you being left open by the opposing defense, or are they panic chasing you off the line. All of that stuff factors in to what your three point percentage is. So that's why I prefer to look at spot up points per possession. Well, the Knicks were a middle of the pack spot up shooting team during the regular season. They were not as bad as the narrative surrounding them coming into this series. That was a big part of why
I picked them over the Calves. The Knicks were a much much better spot up shooting team in the regular season than the Calves were, and I thought that Manu manifested throughout the series well one point zero three points per possession or in the regular season. In the Game one loss, the Knicks converted spoted possessions at zero point four points per possession, so less than half the efficiency
they had in the regular season. In the Game three loss, zero points seven to six points per possession, so about two thirds to three fourths the efficiency that they had during the regular season. And then in Game three they were slightly better one point per possession, but still below their regular season average. So after and guess what, they were up over one point two points per possession on spot up situations in the Game two win at home.
So again, like Miami, Eric Spolser has been given the lead because of the complete collapse of the Knicks spot up players to load up on these Jalen Brunson pick and rolls in these ISOs, and to load up on these Julius Randall bullyball possessions, and that's allowed them to force turnovers, force missus get out and transition find easier opportunities in the open floor. That to me, has completely
flipped the dynamic of the Knicks on offense. They're spot up shooting and spot up close out attacking, which was reliable for them all season, not great, but reliable, totally let them down in this series and that completely messed up the offensive end for them. Secondly, gap in star performance every single time we did Nicks videos this year's this year, I told you guys that the Knicks will go as far as Jalen Brunson and Julius Randall take them.
They need star production and Jalen Brunson has been great throughout this postseason run, but Julius Randall just has not. Now, in his defense, I do think the ankle has played a role. He was in such a great jump shooting rhythm throughout the regular season and that got disrupted by him being away from the game to rest and ankle injury. So I mean, I'd love it might have something to do with the postseason, might have something to do the way he's guarded, but I do think the injury has
played a role. But the reality is is in this series They've combined to average just forty five points per game on only okay efficiency, and both have been ice cold from three. That's the one thing with Jalen Brunson that hasn't been working is he's calling for these ball screens and he's getting pretty good looks going to his right, which is where left handed shooters like good balance, good lift, and Jalen Brunston just can't stick these pull up threes
right now. It's been a big problem. Julius Randall has thirteen turnovers so far in three games. I think Jimmy Butler and bam Adebayo have soundly outplayed them. They're also averaging forty five points per game, but on much higher efficiency, much better playmaking, and both of them are monumentally better as defensive players. So after out playing Mitchell and Garland in Round one to swing that series, the Brunson Randall duo just has not been good enough in this second
round series against the Miami Heat. And last but not at least, the rebounding. The Knicks were the second best rebounding team in the league this year. They grabbed thirty two percent of their own misses. That's how dominant they were on the offensive glass. Guess what, The Miami Heat grabbed fifty five point five percent of all available rebounds in the two wins in Miami to go up three
to one. So even though the Knicks are the bigger, more physical, more athletic team, the Heat have played more physical, have played bigger, and have looked like the more well coached, more desperate team throughout this series, and it's allowed them to beat a Knicks team that I think has more talent up and down the roster. Albeit I think you can say definitively that Butler and baman Obayo are a much better playoff duo in terms of their star performance.
But you know, on the Knicks front, it's it's just something that they're gonna have to come to terms with. That Julius Randall piece. Is Is it the injury? I don't know, but that's gonna be the weak piece I think. I think Jalen Brunson has definitively proved himself as a playoff player and a guy that you can have in this role, but I think they might need to upgrade that wing forward star position to have a real chance to contend looking into the future. Last note of the
Miami Heat. This is guys. They're one win away from being in the conference finals three times in the last four years in a conference that has a really good Boston Celtics team, a really good Philadelphia seventy six Ers team, and outstanding Milwaukee Bucks team. The fact that they've been one of the final two standing in three of the
last four years is incredibly impressive. It's a testament to Eric Spolster, who I believe is the best coach in basketball, the best at making opposing teams and schemes uncomfortable and making teams go to areas of their game that they're not great at. It's a testament to Jimmy Butler and his success as a playoff player. This guy has soundly outplayed Tatum and Brown in the twenty twenty Bubble to go to the NBA Finals, soundly outplayed Giannis and Tanan
Kombo this year right to and now. Giannis was hurt, but in the two games down the stretch in Game four, in Game five of that series, Jimmy was just a better player, particularly at the end of games. I thought he soundly outplayed Jason Tatum in the conference finals last year, just obviously didn't quite have the talent at his disposal, but he still was one shot away from stealing that series despite being at a like a massive talent disadvantage.
And here he is right now out playing Jalen Brunson and Julius Randall. So I mean, I've learned my lesson and this team is going to be just like the Golden State Warriors for me moving forward, where I just have to give them a huge amount of the benefit of the doubt. And if we're sitting in early April next year and the Miami Heat are, you know, thirty nine and thirty eight, and we're like, man, they're mediocre. This roster isn't very good. Blah blah blah blah blah.
It comes time to start picking in the playoffs. I'm gonna be tempted to pick Miami in every single series because they just find they just find a way. It's it's it's truly impressive. It's a testament to just everything I love about the game of basketball. Talent's important, but it's not what wins the day. It's a combination of your talent with your schematic approach, your basketball IQ. You're coaching the superstars and their ability to overcome uh less
than ideal situations. Shout out to the mind heat many. They're doing it again. They're doing it again, right in front of our eyes. All right, guys, I will be back. We're doing a double video tonight, so we'll be going live on AMP, I believe, right after Celtic sixers, and then we'll be going uh just on YouTube later in the evening after Nuggets suns. I appreciate you, guys, and I'll see you later tonight. The volume