Hoops Tonight - Lakers-Nuggets Reaction: LeBron James & LA fall to Jokic & Denver in Game 1

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keep it really simple tonight. We're just gonna do it. Reactions to all four games in reverse order, starting with Lakers Nuggets and finishing with calvs. Magic. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to a brand new YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT.

That's gonna be important over the next couple of months because I'm gonna be doing a bunch of impromptu film sessions in the mornings when I have time to kind of go over some actual visual examples of the things that we talk about at night in the live shows. And again, those are gonna be just kind of like short notice types of things that don't really plan on. We're just gonna do them when we have some time in the mornings, but I'm gonna announce them and tweet

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All right, let's talk some basketball. So, starting with Lakers Nuggets, I said before the series in our series preview that there were two major dynamics working in Denver's favor. Obviously, the first piece is that Yo Kitchen Murray at this phase of their careers, are a better duo than Lebron James and Anthony Davis, who at this phase in their careers are slower, less consistent athletically. Lebron and ad met

their level tonight. They combined for fifty nine points on just forty one shots that twenty rebounds and thirteen assists. Nicole Yokitchen Jamal Murray at fifty four, eighteen and seventeen. I thought all four of those guys dominated different stretches of the game. Obviously, you know, Jo Kic was really aggressive in the first quarter, then wasn't super aggressive in the middle portion of the game, and then got aggressive late right like Lebron. James was super aggressive early in

the game. Anthony Davis was super aggressive late in the game, different phases of the game, different guys in that group of four all took over, and really high level basketball was being played by those guys. But as I said,

there are two dynamics that are working in Denver's favor. They also have a better rest of their starting lineup. Michael Porter Junior and KCP as well as Aaron Gordon, in my opinion, are a better trio of basketball players than Austin Reeves, D'Angelo Russell and ruiy Haachi Mura. And they got completely blitzed in today's game, those three outscored

the Lakers trio forty three to thirty three. And here's the big one killed them on the glass twenty one to ten rebound advantage between those three guys and those Lakers three. And so I kind of want to start with the del matchup because that obviously was the biggest swing factor that went against the Lakers last year and was my major point of concern coming into this series.

And one of the main reasons why is that when Delo's not hitting shots, because he's also not a good, you know, kind of attentive off ball defender, and that's such an important thing to be against Denver in particular, as soon as you have to take d out because when he's not making shots, he becomes borderline damaging as

a basketball player. You have to bring in one of those backup guards, somebody like Gabe Vincent or Spencer Dinwiddie, and those guys are just nowhere near the level offensive player, and they allowed Denver a lot more leeway with how to guard the Lakers. And so I had my eye on this matchup coming in and again specifically, there's two things, three things excuse me that we're looking at with Delo one, can he actually make shots in an environment this physical?

And what was he one for nine from three tonight? Just couldn't make them. Some bad misses in there too. That's the thing with Delo, Like he's an outstanding shooter that for whatever reason, when the intensity and the physicality picks up, the shots just tend to not go in

decision making. For the most part today, I didn't think it was that bad of a decision making making game from del had a really bad transition kick ahead pass to Ruy Hatchamura took a couple really really tough shots in pick and roll that were in the mid range and at the rim that I didn't think were good shots. But like, that wasn't the worst part of his game today. But on the defensive end of the floor, we saw

that off ball attentiveness. Now again, usually what the Lakers have been able to do with del is put him onto a pretty limited offensive player and so he can kind of roam around and play passing lanes and just kind of do the de Lo float around thing. Can't do that with KCP. KCP is an extremely active offensive player, running his lane and transition, cutting and screening off the ball. He's a guy that can hit movement jump shots, which requires you to be engaged in lock and trail situations.

I tweeted out a clip today of a player de Lo after literally CACP had already made I think two or three threes at this point. A Delo's guarding KCP, CACP setting him up for a screening action. Delos not paying attention when KCP makes the cut. Delo's just the split second late to start his lock and trail. KCP

breaks free again to hit another shot. Now, it's just one game, and Delo has been better in some leverage games this year, not the least of which were the New Orleans Pelicans game, a team that also brings a lot of length and athleticism on the perimeter and can cause problems. So again, that dynamic just has to switch around the other way. You saw that KCP just flat out out played D'Angelo Russell today. That's a matchup that's swung heavily in that favor, I in Denver's favor, I

don't want to go too hard on Ruy. Ruy is being put in a really, really difficult spot in this series. He's being asked to guard Nicole Yokich. Lebron and Ad are basically just leaving him out, hung out to dry there. There was a little bit more AD on Jokic in the fourth quarter, but for the most part they've just kind of let him go down there and get barbecued.

And one of the problems there is like he can't help you on the glass like that, and Lebron and Ad are getting caught in a lot of cross matches anyway, where they're getting pulled away from the rint. One of the things I talked about during the game for those of you guys who follow me on Twitter, like these cross matches were like Ad fall down in the backcourt and then runs down the floor and ends up guarding

Michael Porter Junior. Those are totally disastrous because either his instincts as a helper bring him into the lane and then Michael Porter Junior hits a three over him, which happened in this game, or Ad is stuck contesting threes are guarding him at the three point line, which leaves Ruey and Lebron by themselves underneath the basket to contend with Aaron Gordon and Nikola Jokic, which is gonna end

the same way just about every single time. And this is something with Ad where like he falls down a lot on layup attempts and it's a grifting thing. Like I know, all there's a small I'm gonna reference them as a small segment of the fan base because I don't necessarily think it's a prevailing opinion among normal basketball fans.

But there are some people out there that think the Lakers get basically conspiracy theory whistle and that the league is trying to give them a free throw advantage, and like, really, all it is is the Lakers are a defense that doesn't commit fouls and then they score almost all their points in the pain and they have a bunch of guys who are good at grifting, right, Austin Reeves is a grifter. Anthony Davis is a grifter. But when you grift,

there's a downside to it. Anthony Davis, when he takes shots around the rim and he falls down, sometimes he gets a call and the other team is perplexed and they look over the sideline and they wonder what's going on, And yeah, obviously that's where it works out for Ad. But then when he falls down and he doesn't get the call. The Nuggets are extremely good at pushing out the other way. Yokic. You can always see Yokic like look behind him, identify the ads on the ground, and

he immediately starts pushing the other way. And if they don't get a basket in transition, they get a cross match, and then the cross match ends up causing problems. Anyway, they had twenty one fast break points in this game. They dominated the offensive glass and dominated those fast break situations. Those are execution related mistakes, and like, you know, this is gonna be something we talk a lot about with the Lakers in particular in the series. Denver is the

best execution team in the league. In my opinion. They had just four turnovers in this game. Every time they found a favorable matchup that they liked, they immediately looked to attack it, even like little things like I noticed that when Michael Porter Junior or Jamal Murray would get ad on a switch, whether it was in a screening action or in transition, those guys just know to get a shot up because it doesn't matter if they miss.

Because the Lakers are such a bad back line rebounding team, and you know, like if Lebron is engaged in a box out with nikolea Jokic or ruy Hachamura is engaged in a box out with nicolea Jokic. Even if you happen to keep him ground bound, he's either gonna reach over the top and grab it or any other location for the rebound is gonna be a favorable situation for

Aaron Gordon. And so that's gonna be a big thing that we're gonna be looking at for the Lakers that have any chance to keep this series competitive in the long run, they have to execute better. We talked about d'angela, Russell and KCP. We talked about cross matches in transition situations.

It's almost more important for Ad to just sprint back every time than anything else that he can get on the offensive end, attacking the offensive glass or trying to get to the foul line, because again, those are possessions that Denver is scoring at an extremely efficient rate. I wanted to shout out DeAndre Jordan, you know, so he ended up having to come into this game because I thought the Lakers came out really well early. They came

out super physically aggressive. Lebron and Ad were out playing Yokichen Murray. In the early portion of the game. They were playing super physical defense. Austin Reeves, even though he struggled in specific stretches, I thought he did a solid job chasing Jamal Murray around. They had control early. They got two fouls apiece on both Peyton Watson and Aaron Gordon, and so Mike Malon's in a little bit of a predicament.

He ends up having to go to DeAndre Jordan. I thought DeAndre Jordan was really good, setting good ball screens and rolling into space. He scored on the roll twice, once with a dunk, once with a foul. He held up well against Anthony Davis and Iso. This is actually ironic because ad in isolation was a huge issue for the Lakers last year, and that was something that I

talked about in our series preview. Jokic I can't remember the exact number, but Jokic just like completely put ad in jail in one on one situations last year, and that was a huge problem. One of the encouraging pieces here was Anthony Davis, especially in that fourth quarter run, was like going right at nicolea Jokic and scoring relatively easily, which is if you're if you're looking for silver lining as a Lakers fan, Lebron and Ad looked great, and so if you're all you really need is for your

role players to play better. But again, like this is the thing. It's it's so funny. This is the one series that I'm watching as a fan, right, Like I have a rooting interest in this series for the Lakers. All these other series I'm just covering as an analyst, right, But like as a fan, I've got my basketball brain behind it, right, and all of my experience with the game and all of my film study, and I know the result, right, Like I know how this movie ends.

This movie ends the way Tonight ended in you know, five or six games, you know as at some point over the course of the next couple of weeks, right, So, like it's kind of like watching a car crash in slow motion when you know exactly what needs to be done, but you know that those guys struggle to do that, and so like you're hoping for something that can't actually happen. There's a certain helplessness and a hopelessness that you feel as a fan watching Denver. But honestly, to get that

type of performance out of DeAndre Jordan. Those are just that's just found money in a playoff series. I thought that was big time, you know. Getting back to the

execution thing. One of the things that the Lakers have done all season long, and you Lakers fans will know exactly what I'm talking about here, is they can go through these like three four minute stretches where they literally lose their fucking mind, like on both ends of the floor, horrible execution mistakes, not sprinting back in transition, giving up cross matches, not sticking to the game plan, bad closeouts, all this kind of stuff, and then on the other

end of the floor also losing their mind in offensive execution. Do you guys remember the Jamal Murray three, the three in the corner. It was a transition play. He was in the deep corners, a transition kick ahead. It was the one where the pass went got kicked up the floor to Aaron Gordon and Lebron was there and kind of like funneled him behind the backboard and then Aaron Gordon kicked it to Jamal Murray in the right corner.

D Loo and Austin both quit on that play. They were both jogging back and neither of them of them were getting matched up. Lebron did his job and forced the kick ahead pass into a position where he couldn't score. From there, your transition defense has to spread out and get matched up. And it's like that, that's not oh, we lost because Jokic is amazing. That's not oh we lost because Jamal Murray keeps hitting shots. That's you not doing your job. And when you don't do your job,

Denver makes you pay. And then they'll go through these rolls on the offensive end of the floor where it's like their success offensively comes through five out and horn sets and three man actions at the top of the key to get the defense into rotation and then playing

off of each other with your aggregate offensive skill. But they'll lose their damn minds and just walk the ball up the floor and run a ball screen, and di Lo will miss some shot, or Lebron will get a switch and take a bad step back three or something like that, and like, really, if you zoom out of the game. The Lakers stayed really competitive throughout, except for a bad stretch in the middle of the second quarter, in a bad stretch in the middle of the third quarter,

but that's what Denver does. They don't stop executing. They just keep playing Denver nugget basketball until you let go of the rope. And then as soon as you let go of the rope, all hell breaks loose and you end up in a really bad position. So again, like as a fan, it was tough to watch, But this is kind of more or less what we expect in this series, right, Like Denver is their duo. Like again, Lebron and ad were able to match Jamal Murray and then Koliokich in a one game setting. Will they be

able to do that throughout the series? I think that's gonna tilt towards Jamal Murray and Nikoliokich over the course of the series. Do I think Ruey and DL and Austin will have a game or two in this series where they outplay the Nuggets role players. Yeah, I think they'll have a game or two where they do so, and when they do, Lakers have a good chance to win. But chances are, over the course of the five, six, seven, however long the series goes, chances are those dynamics are

gonna tilt towards Denver. It's not just a one game thing. This is what they've been doing all season. Like the Lakers have had issues with three four minutes stretches of bad basketball that cost them ten points on the scoreboard all season long. It's part of their basketball character. It's

who they are. So again, like we like to pretend like this stuff doesn't matter, but it does matter because you ended up in a big game here, you threw a great punch, you had a double figure lead, and you choked it away in a matter of minutes in the second quarter. It wasn't like a long drawn out Denver run. It was a handful of possessions and the game was tied. And like it. Like again, so believe teams when they tell you who they are over the

course of the regular season. So good win for Denver again. Expect a couple of adjustments I expect from the Lakers. I think they will eventually have Lebron James and Anthony

Davis take more of than Nicola Jokic assignment. I think offensive execution is going to be a big one from them too, just in the sense that they're going to need to stay into their five out and run action and make sure they don't get stagnant and then Lastly, I think Darvin Ham's gonna have to make a call on nights like tonight when d Lo just doesn't have it. You know, maybe you get instead of getting one for nine out of de Lo, you get one for four

out of Gabe Vincent, but he doesn't lose KCP four times. Right, So, like, those are the types of decisions that Darvin's gonna have to make over the course of the series. You want to give Delo another chance, you needd Lo out there. He's a swing piece in the series, but if he doesn't have it, you gotta pivot, all right. Moving on to Sixers Nicks, I saw so much of what I liked about both teams in this matchup. Right, Like I said in our series preview, the Knicks are the tougher,

more physical team that has better basketball character. Right, they get twenty three offensive rebounds, and they dominate the fast breakpoint advantage twenty seven to eleven. What I say about the Sixers, they are the more talented team, especially when it comes to offensive skill. Well, the Sixers in this game had a ninety nine offense of rating in the half court and the Knicks had just a seventy seven

offensive rating. In the half court. So that's right. The Knicks lost the half court battle by over twenty two points per one hundred possessions. Yet they won the game because they absolutely dominated on the margins twenty six to eight in second chance points, twenty seven to eleven in fast break points. That's a fifty three to nineteen advantage. So like, the reality is for the Sixers that they have to kind of remember here is like the toughness

from the Knicks is not going away. It's their basketball identity, it's who they are. So if the Sixers want to have a chance to win the series, they absolutely have to hold up better on the glass and in transition, better box outs, better efforts for contested rebounds, sprinting back

in transition. Now, one thing I'll say for the Sixers, I did think they got a little shook up by the Embiid injury there in that late first half situation, and obviously it was a deluge of a run from the New York Knicks there, but they had a similar kind of issue there in the fourth quarter where they were getting pushed around. So that's something that they're gonna have to deal with. But despite all of that, the Sixers did have a fourth quarter lead, it was the

game plan that burned them. We talked about in our series preview that I think that I thought the Sixers had to kind of close out short on Josh Hart, to try to shrink the floor on Jalen Brunson and try to make things tougher on him. And you know, Josh Hart this season shot just thirty two point eight percent on catch and shoot jumpers, but he made four of them in this game, including a couple of massive

ones late in the game. And so some of that is like you just got to tip the cat because as part of the game plan, if you start chasing Josh Hart off the three point line, that's just gonna make things easier for Jalen Brunson. You have to kind of hope that over the course of the series that that works in your favor. I thought the Sixers generally did a good job on Jalen Brunson. I was initially

kind of annoyed at how often they were giving up switches. So, like we talked about this in our series preview, but like what the Knicks will do is they'll run a guard guards screen at the beginning of the possession to get the matchup they like with Jalen Brunson, then they will go run the ball screen right, And so what they were doing in this game is they were bringing up Tyrese Maxey every single time and getting him switched on to Brunson, and then Brunson was going to work,

which was irritating me just because I feel like there's I feel like you can get better screen navigation out of Kelly Ubray and Nick Batum, and I felt like it was just too much of the game plan to concede those switches. But then Tyrese Vaxi just did a really good job. I think he blocked Jalen Brunson from behind with back pressure at least two or three times. Like, did a good job, and they shrunk the floor. They Embiid when he was on the floor, did an amazing

job protecting the rim. It was a very good defensive effort from Philly in the half court. It was on the margins where they lost this game. But easily the biggest story of this game in my opinion, was Mitchell Robinson induced McBride. So one of the things we talked about in the series preview was Deuce McBride being more capable of hanging with Tyrase Maxie in terms of his quickness.

And I showed you guys some clips in the film session, if you guys remember, but I also talked about how Deuce McBride actually has like a little bit more offensive pop than what he gets credit for. And he's a guy he's one of those like classic guards who like wasn't viewed as an NBA level kind of initiator, but was viewed as an NBA level defender, And so his role in the NBA was kind of like defensive focused.

But he is a guard, a guard that has a lot of experience doing work off the bounce, and he has some of that in his game, and a little by a little over the course of the last couple of years, you just see, like on any given night, you just see a little bit more of Deuce and a little bit more of what he can do offensively, especially after they traded away everybody in the OG and ANDOBI deal, right like that just kind of put them in a situation where Deuce had to be more aggressive offensively,

and he's taken advantage of that. He had some big shots in this one, including that big pull up three at the middle of the at the top of the key there in that fourth quarter run, like and you saw it in the minutes Duce played more than Dante DiVincenzo. That clearly is the direction that they're looking to go. I also thought he did a good job flattening out Tyres Maxi Drives. Talked a lot about Tyre's Maxi dribble

penetration in the series preview. It's one of the biggest factors for how I think Philly can keep New York in rotation when they get into the half court, and you saw that, like, especially in that third quarter run. My god, Tyre's Maxi was just dusting everybody off the dribble and getting into the lane. But again, when you flatten out the drive a little bit, just imagine like this, instead of a straight line drive, a little bit more of a banana route to get to where you're going.

That buys time for your back line to actually recover and to get into position defensively. And I thought, I thought, you know, honestly, like it's gonna be one of those things where I think, over the course of the series, we're going to see a lot more of Duce McBride, either in the starting lineup or just playing more minutes and certainly closing the game. As far as Mitchell Robinson goes, I thought he was a revel. I want to shout

out Joel Embiid. I thought he dominated this basketball game for the most part, and like you saw it from the opening tip, he was being physically aggressive, like he made some jump shots, but like he was looking to play bullyball towards the rim, which is something we've all been begging for with him Beid for a really long time, right getting where he wanted to go, having a lot

of success in that. In that fourth quarter run in particular, you saw the advantage that Mitchell Robinson brings in terms of his size. So one of the things that I noticed, and I'll kind of share this as an example just with my experience playing, so like when I'm looking across my across the way at a defender and I know

that I can get a shot over him whenever I want, there's a very comfortable feeling I have where I know that, like I can at any moment, even if I make a move and I get cut off, I can get to this pull up jump shot or this step back jump shot or this whatever off the dribble jump shot

to get a decent look over the top. But whenever I do play against a really lanky wing someone that can actually kind of like provide that contest to where I have to get separation to get to my pull up jump shot, it changes everything about my approach offensively. Now I almost always have to call in a screening action, because why would I try to take an extremely difficult shot over a lanky contest when I can try to navigate him through a screen to try to get to

a different spot on the floor. That gap there is about the length. If the length isn't there, I'm always comfortable because I know it can get over the top. If the length is there, it fundamentally changes the way you have to approach things offensively. Right, did you notice the difference in the Joel Embiid jumpers when Mitchell Robinson was on him in the second half. They weren't just misses,

they were bad misses. Mitchell Robinson's contest was damn near at Embiid's release point, significantly bothering him, and he was missing him like way short, barely grazing the front of the rim. On some of these. Why does that matter, Because when Embiid is in those like when he's catching at the top of the key in the pick and pop, or when he's working in that you know, eighteen foot area off of the short roll and he's catching and

he's jab stepping. Typically what happens the dynamic that he runs into with other defenders around the league is the guy either is too far off and Embiid can just easily jab step to gain his rhythm and rise up over the top and knock down that shot at a high percentage, or the guy has to pressure because he doesn't have the length to bother the shot, so he has to bother the shooting pocket. That's when they get

into issues committing fouls. Right. What gives Mitchell Robinson the advantage in this matchup is he can actually play off a little bit while also getting a great contest. He blocked him beat on a three earlier in the game. I showed a clip in a film session a while back of a play of him blocking Damian Lillard in drop coverage once when he was sprinting back in transition. His reach when he gives a contest is freaking insane

and he can really cause problem there. And so now like Embiid is going to have to solve that, and he did draw. He drew a foul on Mitch Robinson late in the game on a rip through move when he just got really physically aggressive. But that's gonna be his kind of like chess match that he's gonna have to solve Mitchell Robinson. And by the way, this is this is part of what it takes, you know, reaching where you want to reach as a basketball player. It's

not always going to be easy. Even the best players in the world, they have advantages over the vast majority of players in the league, but they end up running into a guy or a handful of guys that can kind of hang with them physically, and then it becomes more of a challenge. Think like Lebron James in his prime against Kawhi Leonard or Andre woodall Right, it's like these guys can really match up with Lebron athletically, which makes it so that he has to work a lot

harder for his buckets. Right. We've even seen it with Jokic. With some of the bigger, stronger centers around the league, like Embiid, like use off Nerkic. When there are guys that can kind of, you'll kitchen some of his size and strength, it just makes the game a little bit tougher, right, And so Embiid is running into a challenge here. Mitchell Robinson can kind of sort of hang with him physically, and so that's the advantage, that's the the swing factor

that he has to deal with. Right. Deuce McBride can kind of hang with Tyres Maxey's speed, Mitchell Robinson can kind of hang with Joel Embiid's size. So adjustments for Philly moving forward in the series. Philly has to match

New York's toughness at some level. They can't keep letting Josh Hart run rough shot over them for every offensive rebound, and they have to make their box out so they have to get back and transition all of those details, right, But secondly, Joel Embiid has to find a way to

solve the Mitchell Robinson problem. And again, like I said, I think what it's gonna be is physical, physical aggression and trying to get him into foul trouble because if he can get him off the floor of foul trouble, He's had a lot of success against Hartenstein in this particular game. All Right, moving on to Suns Wolves. So there are two endulums in this series that we're going to see swing back and forth. And so I want

to start with the Suns on offense. If you guys remember all season long, I've been talking about with the Suns the difference between when they play advantage basketball versus when they play one on one or two on two basketball. One on one obviously meaning ISO post ups, two on two obviously meaning ball screens, right, And they've been really good with that this year. Right, they're sixty four percent in assist percentage this season. They were fifty seven percent

in the postseason last year. Obviously they're the data, and the regular season's messed up because of the Kevin Durant trade, but post All Star Break this year they've been even better. They've been at sixty six percent in assist percentage. But they had just sixteen assists on thirty three made field goals against Minnesota. That's just a forty eight point five percent assists percentage. So, like that is the pendulum for

Phoenix offensively? Are they playing advantage basketball, playing driving kick and getting guys close out opportunities or are they trying to make tough contests to pull up jump shots over elite individual defenders, right, And you saw that today and the Stars mostly struggled. Kad was great, but he had by far the most favorable matchup, right. Minnesota went with Carl Towns on him to start the game. He went eleven for seventeen from the field with thirty one points. Right.

But Bradley Beal was just six for ten with fifteen points and Devin Booker was just five for sixteen with eighteen points. Right, So that's what that's eleven for twenty six for thirty three points. That's just not good enough from those two guys, right. I want to shout out the Wolves primiitter defenders. I thought Anthony Edwards was incredible. I thought Jaden McDaniels did an insanely good job. Nikaile

Alexander Walker was really good. And then Mike Conley, you know, for you know, a guy that doesn't really have a reputation as being a quality perimeter devender. I thought he defended extremely well in this game. So here's the question, though, Jason, you also said in your series preview that Minnesota's game plan should be to guard those things one on one and two on two, stay home off the ball, and bait them into that you are correct. And that is

absolutely what Minnesota is trying to do. So Minnesota won that game plan battle in this particular situation. Right. They're trying to make Phoenix make shots tough contested shots in one on one and two on two situations. So how do you counter that? How do you counter when a defense is trying to make you play one on one on two on two and stay home off the ball. You have to take advantage of the little tiny windows

that do materialize. Right, So the way that you avoid those those one on one and two v two situations is when they're running their screening actions, you do a good job communicating switches and pursuing over the top so that you don't leave openings right. And when the openings appear, you chase them off by closing out right, and you quickly close those openings and you get back into your one on one situations, and then it's just about not overhelping.

So if you see guy working downhill or a guy rolling and pick and roll, instead of tagging the roller, you stay home instead of digging down on the driver, you stay home, and essentially you bank on the fact that Rudy Gobert and Jade McDaniels or Rudy Gobar and Anthony Edwards are going to be able to make those into low enough per percented shots. Right. That's kind of

like the game plan version of it. Right. But even when that's happening, and we're gonna do a film session on this, I don't know if I'll be able to get one in tomorrow, but we'll certainly have a film session on Monday, So at some point in the next two days, certainly before game two of all these series. I'll give you guys some visual examples to demonstrate what I'm talking about. But there are openings that do briefly kind of appear in Minnesota's defense. Those have to be

capitalized on every single time. If there's a hedge and recover, even if it's only a little bit open, throw the swing pass, because even if the defenders closing out, there's usually a baked in rip through right hedge recover. He's recovering on the let's just say the ball handlers on the left wing and the screeners on the right wing, and it's Grayson Allen and he sets a brush screen and he slips out and the you know on ball defender throws a or the Grayson Allen's defender throws quick

hedge and recovers out. He's closing out on Grayson Allen's right hand, so Grayson has to catch and it little examples like when Kevin Durant was getting doubled in the post on Carl Towns and Jade McDaniels was guarding Grayson Allen on the left wing and Grayson Allen's playing that stupid back and forth re enter kickout, re enter kickout game. At one point, Grayson Allen pump faked, McDaniels jumped out of his shoes and Grayson Allen just threw another post entry.

It's like no, no, no, no, no, that's it. That's it, the job is done. He left his feet. You drive now. As soon as you drive, you wait for the next offender to come up. You make the read. That is when the Suns are at their best because they have such amazing driving kick talent, and I really do think they're the most talented driving kick team in the league when they actually play that way. But they get away

from that too. Frequently, so obviously taking advantage of those little openings that show up any three man action that causes switching, so like it talks about this with the Lakers, but being deliberate about running your sets at the beginning of the possession to create those small openings. So like, usually when there's a switch, there's usually a small like a small gap in time right when the defender switches where the new defender on the ball is not quite

in position to take advantage of it. Those have to be quickly taken. Advantage of getting multiple actions in the

same possession. Those of you guys have followed our film sessions have seen when you run action on the strong side and then move it around and run action again, that second side action is almost always more effective because the defense isn't loaded up, it's rotating over as you're running the action, versus loaded up as you're running the action right, So like, be deliberate about playing with more pace.

Get the ball across half court, quickly, run something, reverse the ball to the other side, run it again, and then you'll have a better chance of getting the defense in rotation. Lastly, find an entry point. So for instance, Kat was on Kevin Durant and Kevin Durant was mainly using that as an opportunity to hunt his own shot. Totally fine, Katie's super efficient. Those are efficient possessions. What I would do is use Kadi on Kat as an entry point, use it as a means with which to

get the defense in rotation. Those double teams like I was talking about Grace and Al pump fake get out of his shoes, drive the clothes out right Katie using those dribble combinations to get catoff balance and then beat him off the dribble, get into the lane, draw second defender, kick out. Use entry points to get the defense in rotation. Again, you've got to generate closeout opportunities for Bradley Beal and Devin Booker. They're not going to be efficient enough against

the top tier perimeter defense talent that Minnesota has. And then I want to shout out Rudy Gobert in a lot of these two on two situations. So again, we've talked so much about the one on one element in ball screens. In two on two, Ridy Gobert's ability to credibly defend on the ball screen while also we're defending

the role man is what makes this work. And then in a lot of situations when the Phoenix ball handlers were dragging the ball screens out, like go Bear, sliding with him and switching and then guarding these guys on an island, and then they're comfortable, you know, kind of just keeping Nurkic off the glass by just kind of peeling off and boxing him out. Right, So like that that dynamic, it's the bracket coverage that I always talked about.

And you're not going to find a better bracket in the league, then Go Bare and Jaden McDaniels, right, Like, those are two of the very best at that specific dynamics. So that pendulum is gonna be with Phoenix on offense, is going to swing back and forth over the course of the series, with Phoenix gets Minnesota in rotation a lot and gets really fluid, beautiful basketball, beautiful shots in high level offense, or back the other way, stagnant one on one and two on two, really tough contested pull

up jumpers against outstanding individual defenders. Minnesota on offense, the pendulum is Anthony Edwards, his playmaking and his pull up shooting. You saw the Phoenix game play early. We talked about this in the series preview, when Anthony has the ball, they're running a high drop with Nurkic and they're hedging with uh with U Banks, and they're tagging the roller.

They're digging down in driving lanes. They're overloading on Ant and basically trying to bait him in to not making the reads and settling for bad shots, either driving into traffic and turning it over, which he did six times tonight, or picking early bad pull up jump shots. Right, that's

the pendulum. And then with Mike Conley, they're doing a low drop, staying home off the ball, trying to bait him into being a score, trying to take advantage of his lack of aggressions to two very different game plans for two very different types of ball handlers. Now, early in the game, Anthony Edward struggled, and you saw that on the scoreboard as Phoenix was hanging around. He wasn't hitting shots. He was turning the basketball over. It was bad, right,

But this is where it gets weird. The game plan is set up to get Ant to settle for bad shots, but consistently Ant has made him in the postseason. That's where it gets tricky. He's been one of the worst volume pull up jump shooters in the league over the last few years in the regular season, but he consistently turns around and hits them in the postseason. So twenty twenty two zero point nine to one points per pull up jumper, point one four against Memphis in the playoffs.

Twenty twenty three, zero point nine to one again over the course of the regular season, one point zero nine against Denver in the playoffs. This year even worse, zero point eight to eight points per shot attempt and pull up jump shot situations. Today he was eight for fourteen. It came out to one point three six points per pull up jumper. He hit three in a row, right in Katie's face, Like, there's no game plan for that with Ant. If he's gonna hit those, they're not just

gonna win this series. They have a good chance to win it all because part of the thing with An is his downhill force is so oppressive that every defender is back on their heels. So all he really needs to do is kind of do one of these and he can get into a pull up jumper. He can he can do a step back, he can do some sort of fancy footwork, but he really doesn't need to. When he's hitting that high hesitation dribble, guys are on their heels worried that he's gonna hit the jets and

get downhill. So he It's like again we talked about this Jaylen Williams with the Thunder as well, Like when you have real downhill force, it creates really high quality pull up jump shots. But for the most part Ant hasn't been able to hit them, but he has been able to hit them in the postseason. This again, all that's relatively small sample, only one series in twenty twenty two, only one series in twenty twenty three. Obviously only one

game so far in this series. But I mean, I don't from a game plan standpoint, I don't really think that a Phoenix can do anything with Ant making pull up jump shots. Like I mean, I suppose you can go to flat out blitzing to get the ball out of his hands, but I mean those are much easier reads for Ant to make than the higher level reads and a loaded up pick and roll coverage. So what does it look like when the pendulum swings the other

way with Ant? That's when he's kind of like what you saw in the first half right like missing those shots, missing reads, turning the basketball over. I actually I'll show you guys in the when we do some film. But Ant was actually reasonably solid making reads in the first half, taking advantage of the easy kickout passes that were there. Naz Reid hit a left wing three off of a guy digging down on him once he made a really

nice skip pass into the right corner. I think to Nikil Alexander Walker for a big three early in the game. He had some of those reads go through for him. But the bad version of that pendulum is when he's not making those reads and when he's missing those shots, and not only does that affect Minnesota's offense, but it also gets opportunities for Phoenix to get out in transition. One last shot out for Minnesota. I thought Alexander Walker was amazing on both ends of the floor in this game.

I obviously finished some spot up plays, but he also ran some action for some buckets as well, and then defended super well on the perimeter. Big time win for Minnesota. That was like their best version of themselves in this matchup, just dominating the physical part of the game. In Anthony edwards out playing the opposing Stars. Adjustments for Phoenix again, play with more pace, run more action, get the ball to the opposite side, find entry points, do all those

little things to get Minnesota in rotation. You want to see that assist percentage tick up into the sixty percent range, sixty percent using Kevin Durant as an entry point rather than as a score. He's got the most favorable matchup in the series. He's the guy who's most capable of getting Minnesota's defense in rotation. And then lastly, I think you kind of have to just trust the defensive game plan with Ant and hope you get a better result. And especially like when you're on the road, he's just

got to get one of these in Minnesota. Anyway, all right, moving on to Magic Cavs, and then we're gonna get out here for the night. So sorry of the game was Magic's half court offense. They had just a sixty two point seven offensive rating in the half court according to Cleaning the Glass. In this game. They were twenty first in half court offense in the regular season, so

that's kind of what they are. Right. As a matter of fact, their half court offensive rating was dead last out of all twenty teams that made either the playoff or the play in tournament. The Magic also got only zero point six to four points per jump shot in this game. They are twenty fourth in the NBA in

jump shot efficiency. That was deadline last out of all twenty teams that made the playoff or the play And so what you saw from Orlando in this game a sixty three offensive rating in the half court and zero point six to four points per jump shot. That's more or less a continuation of a regular season trend with Orlando. Halo determines most of their possessions. He's their primary ball handler.

He had nine turnovers as he's trying to learn how to do this on the fly and the playoffs, there is a possession in I want to say it was in I want to say it was in the third quarter, might have been the second quarter, I can't remember, but both Wagner brothers were on the court and Palo was on the court, and they're all standing at the three point line and they're just throwing swing passes back and forth to each other, and all the Cavs are just

closing out short. So there's no advantage because you know the advantage is that they're being left open to shoot, but they can't shoot, so there's not really anything being gained there. And so even when they do look to drive and play their bully ball, they're just doing it in an insane amount of traffic and it's leading to misshots and turnovers. It just Orlando has a major half court offensive production issue in this series. Honestly, it's funny.

I picked against the Calves in the Knixt series last year because I thought Brunson would be a better half court shot creator than Donovan Mitchell. And it's ironic because I picked Cleveland in this series against Orlando because I think their half court shot creation is just so so so much better than Orlando's. Now on the other end of the floor, I thought the Calves did an amazing job of baiting Orlando's rim protectors in pick and roll.

So again, because Orlando went with the look that they went with a couple times at the end of the season where they went with Jonathan Isaac and the starting lineup next to Pala Boncaro and then basically like they did some switching, but a lot of times Jonathan Isaac and Palo Buoncaro running deep drop coverages like and with that deep drop coverage it allows Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell,

and Karris Lovert to get downhill. And one of the things that you saw in this game, did it feel like to you guys that the Calves got a bunch of dunks on dumpoffs and drop offs and pocket passes. Part of the reason for that is they were engaging Jonathan Isaac and Pwa Bancaro with their ball handlers close to the rim. And once you engage the rim protector,

the role man becomes open. You have to engage him, though if you allow him to split the difference or stay home, that puts the onus on the guard to actually make a shot. But as soon as you engage that rim protector, and you saw a lot of them, Mitchell, LeVert and Garland were getting deep penetration, like behind the backboard before they would drop it off to Jared Allen or Evan Mobley around the rim for a dunk they had. The Calves had thirty nine points on forty two pick

and rolls in this game. They had eighteen points on twelve rolls and cuts to the rim. And if you remember that was a huge issue last year in the Knick series, very different coverage, which we'll get into in a second, but they were much more successful in pick and roll against Orlando today. Just to juxtapose this for you, So again, the Calves ran forty two pick and rolls, the Magic ran thirty seven. The Calves got thirty nine points out of those forty two pick and rolls including passes.

The Magic only got fourteen points out of those thirty seven pick and rolls including passes for comparison, so obviously that was a major issue on a coverage standpoint, though I mentioned there's a different coverage. So one of the reasons why the series last year with New York went south for Cleveland and pick and roll was the Knicks brought Julius Randall up to the level of the screen every single time. That forced the short role pass to

Evan Mobley. Evan Mobley was then working downhill with Mitchell Robinson, kind of splitting the difference between him and Jared Allen, and that two on one was very rarely ending in a basket, and so Cleveland's offense fell apart. One of the advantages with aggressive pick and roll coverages so high drop blitz hedge anything that involves the screen defender coming out high. That puts the onus on the short role

man to be the playmaker. When you run low, it puts the onus on the guard to be the playmaker. The Cavs guards are good playmakers. The Cavs forwards and centers are not good playmakers. And so honestly, that's gonna be the biggest adjustment that I want to see from Orlando is either, first of all, either just have Paalo and Jonathan Isaac switch those ball screens, which they did do more of in the second half of this game.

But I would just be aggressive up at the level consistently in all their pick and roll coverages, because that actually bates Cleveland into their biggest weakness offensively, which is their short role playmaking and scoring. And so again, like that, that's kind of a little coverage thing that I think that Orlando can do to try to kind of turn the tide in this particular series. But shout out to Donovan Mitchell, though I thought he was amazing in this game.

He came out guns blazing. I think he's the best player in the series and he played like it today. All Right, So there we go, All four games in the books for day one. Again, these night time shows are gonna be a little more surface level, a little bit more kind of big picture. The film sessions will be more in the we more in the weeds. I may or may not do one tomorrow morning. Keep an eye on the feeds my schedule for tomorrow, just so you guys know, I'm gonna do an upload after the

final buzzer of MAVs Clippers. That's just gonna go on YouTube, and then we're going with Colin Cowherd after Pacers Bucks. So we'll have two shows tomorrow for sure, potentially a third in the morning film session. Just keep an eye on my Twitter feed. I'll let you guys know if we get to that point. All right, guys, that's all I have for today, Day one of the books. This is gonna be fine. It's gonna be crazy a couple of months, but I appreciate you guys rocking with me.

We're gonna have a good time along the way. I will see you guys tomorrow. The volume