Hoops Tonight - LIVE: Clippers Force Game 7 vs. Nuggets + Knicks Eliminate Pistons In 6

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with a dominant defensive third quarter. That's gonna extend this to a Saturday night in Denver for all of the marbles. And then in the second half of the show, the New York Knicks followed the familiar pattern of the rest of their first round series with the Pistons, these crazy back and forth games that inevitably come down to crunch time sequences where the Knicks, just throughout this series have

demonstrated their maturity and their experience in that situation. As they dispatch of the Pistons, we're gonna talk a little bit about the Pistons big picture. We're gonna talk a little bit about the Knicks and them moving forward into the Celtics series. There's the tail end of the show. We're gonna do about ten minutes of mail bag questions for you guys in the chat. Remember, just subscribe to our channel. Drop questions in the chat. We'll get to them at the tail end of the show. No mail

back or no playback tonight, excuse me. We are gonna be back on playback tomorrow night after the final buzzer of Game six of the Warriors Rocket series. So if you're not set up on playback yet, make sure you guys get over there and follow the Hoops Tonight channel. We'll be back over there for some film and getting you guys up on stage and talk some hoops with us tomorrow night. You guys are the Joe. Before you get started, subscribe to the Hoops and O YouTube channel.

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chat at the tail end of the show. All right, let's talk some basketball. So on playback last night, we had it over there after the live show and we had you know, some of our supporters over the years

come on and talk some hoops with us. We talked a lot about the concept of creating advantages in the half court, and specifically with a guy like Luka Doncic in the Lakers series, and how I thought one of the primary kind of turning points, one of the primary folkrums of the series was Jaden McDaniels held up so much better on an island against Luca, and all of the other defenders in action held up so well against Luca that the Lakers weren't able to get the defense

into rotation very often, and that just made everything very difficult. And for all the talk about their ability to handle Minnesota's athleticism, they couldn't score, but they couldn't score because at the very top they couldn't create advantage. And I thought we saw a very interesting juxtaposition of the difference between the Los Angeles Clippers when James Harden is doing that job of creating those initial advantages versus when he's not,

like he did in Game five. And in many ways, it's frustrating because we know he's capable of this level of advantage creation, you just don't know if he's gonna bring it on any given night. We don't know if he's gonna bring it in Game seven. It reminds me of the Sixers series in Boston a couple of years ago. If you guys remember we're in a couple of games in that series, James Harden was just absolutely unbelievable in wins, but then in the other games he just wasn't able

to replicate that. Replicate that. To me, it just starts with a level of intensity on the ball, like in his ISOs, with his will, willingness and ability to get down and make that explosive move to beat that first man off the dribble. And if he succumbs to the ball pressure and gets passive and all of his drives get flattened out, all of a sudden, his impacts tonight.

I thought James Harden did an absolutely amazing job of picking on specifically Jamal Murray and ISO situations and getting dribble penetration on him and getting downhill and pick and roll. All of this stuff is connected. You want to know how James Harden starts getting good separation on a step back three, It comes from his ability to get dribble penetration. You want to know how you get Norman Powell in rhythm.

You get him a bunch of really high quality closeout opportunities or transition opportunities which come off their defense, which we'll talk about in a minute. But those closeouts, they come from advantage creation. That's how you generate the three point volume they did tonight. In the last two losses they failed to generate over thirty threes. Tonight they generated

thirty nine threes. They didn't shoot particularly well, but they generated a ton of these situations where the defenders were chasing them off the three point line with an advantage. That three point volume is an indicator of the dribble

penetration that they were getting. And then on the defensive end of the four and all started with Zubots and him just doing an unbelievable individual job on Nikole Jokic in the third quarter in particular, but the entire second half, Zuo was fantastic on specifically guarding Jokic on an island. Jokic was trying really hard on his post ups to swing across the lane and Zoo was just sliding with him, and as Jokic was going for that scoop, he would just reach around the side and block him. He got

him going both ways with that. In the fourth quarter, once going to his left hand, once going to his right hand, he was trying to drive closeouts off the top of the keet and really pound into that left shoulders spin move, and Zoo was just absorbing that contact. Zuo was fantastic preventing Jokic from dislodging his base. That's the battle against Jokic. You have to win the battle

on the ground. He's gonna chop his feet, he's gonna bump you a bunch of times, and if you don't have your base set, he'll this lodge you and he's going to get to where he wants for a high quality shot. Zoo won that battle tonight. In the second half, the refs were letting them be physical Jokics was bringing the physicality right back. It was an old fashioned big man battle and I thought Zoo held up really well.

And in general, the Clippers were way more physical in the paint than they've been defensively over the course of this last stretch of the series. Like on Jokic's rolls to the rim, they were just swarming him and being physical and attacking the basketball Gordon's post ups. Aaron Gordon had a lot of success early in the game attacking Chris Dunn in the post. They did a much better job getting Aaron Gordon's size mismatched post ups under control.

They held Denver's offense under control, and that allowed them to build the necessary margin they needed to avoid a clutch situation. And if they end up in clutch situations with this surgical Nuggets team, it's just going to be too difficult. And I thought they just did the job they needed to do tonight on the Denver front. I just thought Yokic had an awful third quarter by his standards on offense, and this Nuggets team really needs to score because that's their elite trait that they bring to

a series. It's really hard for them to get enough stops to hold up under that sort of scoring drought. They had twenty two points in the third quarter, and that was with Christian Brown hitting a couple of bombs before the end of the quarter. That was that they could not score in that quarter. Ultimately, Game seven is gonna come down to which team can reach closer to their ceiling. Steve Jones Junior used to work for a couple NBA teams. He does excellent work with the kay

Is Duncan on the Dunker Spot podcast. He tweeted out today about a quote from JB. Bickerstaff in a timeout where JB said something along the lines of like, hey, we know what they're gonna do now, it's just about executing. And Steve was making the point in his tweet about how like, when you get late in these playoffs series, it's not about tactics anymore more. It's about which guys on the floor are going to win their battles that

they need to win. Have you guys noticed that we do a lot more film sessions after game one, Game two, in game three, and then when it gets later in the series, it's like, there's no I'm not going to be able to go to the film tonight and present you with some magical answer to all of the problems.

If James Harden can create that initial advantage, the Clippers offense hums at a higher level that keeps them mentally and physically engaged in the game, which brings the defensive intensity they need to win battles on defense against the Nuggets. If the Nuggets contain the basketball through their ball pressure with Christian Brown and in just an overall defensive engagement, all of a sudden, the Clippers struggle to generate advantages.

Norman Powell struggles to get going, Nick Batoomb struggles to get going. James Harden can't get a step back three going. All of a sudden, it becomes about Kawhi Leonard trying to make a bunch of shots over double teams. All of a sudden, their defense loses some energy. The Nuggets start picking them apart. When we get to this point in the series, it's we everyone knows what they're gonna do.

Every we know what James Harden is gonna do. He's gonna attack Yo kitchen ball screens, and he's gonna attack Jamal Murray and switches every single chance that he gets on the other end of the floor. It's gonna be a steady diet of two man game with Jamal Murray at the top of the key. Joki's trying to either drive on Zoo off of catches at the top or off of that you know, right block post up that

he likes. We know what they're gonna do. What's gonna come in, what's gonna determine Game seven is going to be who does their job better than their counterparts. If Jamal Murray out plays James Harden and James Harden struggles to generate advantages, the Nuggets are going to win Game seven. If James Harden breaks down the Nuggets defense at the point of attack and him and Kawhi Leonard go blow for blow with jo Kichen Murray, they've got a slightly

better defense. I think they're gonna win. But there's no secrets at this point. It's just about who's going to win their individual matchups. That's the beauty of late series basketball. Right when we get into the next round, We're gonna have a bunch of film sessions after Game one, two, and three. Why because we're gonna learn about how those teams are attacking each other. There are no secrets anymore.

It's just about man to man, who's better at basketball, who's better at inflicting their specific strengths or avoiding their specific weaknesses. So obviously going to be an exciting game seven on Saturday, tips off at four to thirty Pacific time. We will be live on YouTube after the final buzzer of that game. I'll see all of you Clippers and Nuggets fans there. We're gonna talk some Nicks Pistons. Though this game followed a very similar pattern to the rest

of the series. The Knicks came out in a must win, close out game and immediately took control. They were really getting out in transition. They were hitting those driving gaps and getting to the rim quickly early in the clock.

The Pistons weathered that with several big runs, one in the first half riding an absurdly hot streak shooting the basketball from Malik Beasley, who put it all together with a crazy left shoulder running movement three while he's falling out of bounds right before half, and then another one in the fourth quarter where the Knicks had taken control and taken a double figure lead, but Asar Thompson came into the game and played some really really quality individual

defense on Jalen Brunson, took him out a rhythm for a little while, and the Pistons ended up working their way into a seven point lead. But down the stretch, despite the Pistons holding a seven point lead, the Knicks were able to slowly and methodically work their way back into the game. JV. Bickerstaff did them a favor by taking a star out of the game for a little bit. It's so funny. I've been watching Pistons fans have a

meltdown about the lineup decisions from JB. Bickerstaff because they've just been so much better in this series with the sar Thompson on the floor, and like for all the shots that Malik Beasley's made, they've gotten killed in his minutes for the most part over the course of this series. And it's because pretty simply, Asar Thompson makes life a hell of a lot more difficult for Jalen Brunson than

anybody else in a Pisson's jersey can. But Brunson was able to attack in that stretch when a Sorrow was off the floor, and he was able to tie the game. And then we ended up with a really interesting final sequence. Lasar Thompson gets a stop on Jalen Brunson on an island, slides his feed extremely well, prevents any sort of like turning the corner from Brunson, takes contact in the chest.

And then every time you fade over one of your shoulders, in this case Jalen Brunson kind of turning over his left shoulder, the ball comes up in the shooting pocket right in front briefly as he's turning over his left shoulder right, so the ball is exposed temporarily there for

a minute. And as I always talk about a lot of these pull up shooters, they don't see you up top, they don't see the contest, but if you can disrupt their rhythm down low, and Assar Thompson waited for Brunson to turn and expose the ball, and he stripped down and took the ball away. The Knicks were having a hell of a time trying to get a star switched off of Brunson in these sequences, so Brunson had no

choice because oursarrow was fighting through all those screens. Brunson had no choice but to figure out how to get a bucket against the other team's best defender. And one of the things that I thought was genius about Brunson's game winner was the way he identified it, the way

he identified his individual advantage in this matchup. The individual advantage that Jalen Brunson has in this matchup against a Star Thompson is he has a lower center of gravity and he's pretty fucking strong for how big, for how

big he is. So what does he do. He makes a hard left handed dribble move, an extended, hard left handed dribble move, gets into a Sar Thompson's body snatch back dribble, and in that situation, because he's got contact with the sar's body and because he has the lower center of gravity, it's a very similar dynamic to what I've been talking about so much about dislodging your base.

He was able to, with that hard move and that snatchback dribble Dislodgessar Thompson's base about as dramatically as you'll ever see in a perimeter matchup. There's an angle from the scorers table or from I don't know, the media table, whatever it is, that's on that side of the floor to the left of where the game winner was and it's kind of like a portrait style like smartphone video.

And on the snatchback dribblesar Thompson just completely exits the frame and Jalen's able to just steadily settle into that off the dribble jump shot right there at the top of the key. But I just thought it was a you know, I talk a lot about how the Playoffs are about solving puzzles, and specifically for Brunson, because of the way that they look to attack. It's very ISO heavy,

it's very matchup attacking. One of the things Brunson had to do was figure out how to get a bucket on Asar Thompson in a big spot when a Sar had been giving him some issues in that in that middle of the fourth quarter, Sar Thompson was the reason Brunson got out of rhythm and started missing clean looks. As the Pistons took a seven point lead, Asar Thompson

got a stop on the previous possession. Brunson had the challenge in front of him, He had the puzzle in front of him, and he figured it out, if I lose my moment, if I lose my momentum and I operate around the elbows with a bunch of hesitation dribbles like he did on the previous possession. I'm not gonna be able to shake this guy. Now, I'm gonna have to turn around over him. I'm gonna expose the ball down low. He's probably gonna get a good contest up high.

But if I get my momentum going, if I get ahead of steam and I get connected to his body, I can snatch back and I can shed him, and I can get the separation that I need. Unbelievable move from Jalen Brunson to win the series. I talked before the series about how these teams are pretty evenly matched, but that there was an experience and execution advantage that

would push the Knicks over the top. I thought it was evident at the start of the series with the way Brunson was attacking Tobias Harris and finding a matchup that he liked, while Cade was like having these zero pass possessions attacking o Jan Andobi. But it got even more complicated down the stretches. Once again, you saw the Knicks found a coverage that worked against Kate We're going to talk about in a minute and the Pistons found a way to avoid switches, and so Brunson's challenge was

figuring out how to score against the star. Kate Huntingham was being faced with a very simple problem. He was attacking Jalen Brunson in a guard screens and Brunson was hedging and recovering. But because had had a rough night shooting the three point shot, he bailed on it and

that was his biggest mistake. And we're going to talk about Kate a little bit in the big picture here in a minute, But Kate refused to take the pull up three that was open in the gaps in that hedge that Jalen Brunson was throwing, and as a result, he didn't have a comfortable shot or a comfortable look

that he could go to. And there just was no consistency for the Pistons and crunch time in the series, while Brunson knew exactly how he wanted to attack, and he was just so surgical and making sure that he maximized those crunch time possessions. No disrespect to Cad, this was his first time doing it. We've said this a million times in the series. Jalen Brunson has played in. This is his ninth playoff series since he left the Dallas Mavericks. He's got a ton of experience in these situations.

Cade is learning, but that experience gap ultimately ended up being the difference between these two teams. I want to talk a little bit about the Boston Series and then we'll talk a little bit about Kid, because I do want to talk about his development moving forward. So looking ahead to the Boston Series, I rewatched their last matchup earlier today, the matchup where the Knicks actually kind of like controlled a good portion of the game and ended

up losing in overtime. You can see what the Knick's best options are on both ends of the floor. The Knicks approached that game with a very high level of intensity because they so desperately needed a signature win and a season that was just utterly devoid of signature wins. And you found some things. Jalen Brunson was able to get some advantages attacking chrisops porzingis in action. He definitely likes his ISO matchups against Derek White more than Drew Holliday.

Drew Holliday is a really good job on him, but Derek White even it's not a great option there. Derek White just gets such great contests on pull up jump shots. But he can get good stuff against Porzingis, and I think he can get some good stuff against Horford, although Horford wasn't on the floor down the stretch in this particular game. On the other end of the floor, though, it's a steady diet of the Celtics looking to attack

Cat and Jaln Brunson in action. Now, one of the things that I noticed, instead of just running their hedge and recover scheme, one of the things that they were doing down the stretch that allowed them to have some success is what's called peel switching. It's very different kind of switching than normal switching. So in normal switching, guy comes up to set a screen, you just pass him off right, the other guy closes out, he takes the matchup.

The guy who's guarding the ball sinks underneath the screener to prevent him from getting a slip into the back line, and then you just play contain the ball basketball. One of the things they were doing against Boston down the stretch in that overtime game was peeloff switching. What that means is the guys guarding the ball actually chases the man over the top. By chasing the man over the top into the switch, it causes him to at least have to attack right away or rush his decision making

a little bit. Then what they were doing is after he chased over the top, then he would quit on that specific chase and bail out and close out to you know, Christops porzingis popping in action or Derek White popping in action, and so it does ultimately end in a switch. And in those situations it's going to come down to Kat holding up against a Derek White like he had to down the stretch in that game, or Jalen Brunson having to hold up against one of the Jays.

The Celtics also found a way to attack that by dragging out the screening action. Tatum had a really good one where he generated a clean look for Derek White at the top of the key, where he just attacked downhill fast, so that, as I believe it was, Ogbi tried to peel off, he was so far away that it was too long of a close out. They ended up having to close out from the weak side, and so there are still openings that the Celtics confined there.

But ultimately the Knick's best opportunity to keep themselves out of rotation is to switch, regardless of whether it's a peel switch or more of a traditional switch. But that's gonna be the thing that I noticed on film that's gonna end up playing a big role in this series. Is cand Jalen Brunson do a better job of attacking Porzingis and Horford in screening action than the Jays on the other end of the floor. Or Derek White as well, if he's involved, can attack Karl, Anthony Towns and Jalen

Brunson in screening action. That's gonna be the series. The margin for air for New York is just so incredibly thin. Every Nick is going to have to play to the absolute peak of their ability. I'm gonna hold off on making a pick until tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning, we will have a series preview on Celtics Nicks that will be on the channel probably you know, right around noon ish specific time, So keep an eye on the feeds around there.

But this is gonna be an interesting series. But like the Knicks are gonna have their work cut out for him. Boston's got some clear advantages, a clear way to attack. I was talking with Colin Coward about this on his show yesterday. But one of the things that's interesting about the personality of these two teams is there's this idea like, oh, we went and we got Og and we got McHale. That's our answer to the Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum problem.

We need lots of big, versatile wings. But I think people are missing the point about what has made the Celtics successful over the years. It's not because they have big versatile wings. It's because they can put together five man lineups where everybody can guard multiple positions. That's what gives them the flexibility to switch. That's what makes it so that you can't very easily break down their defense

at the point of attack. There's an example in the Celtics film that I was watching today where it's like, it doesn't matter if Og and Obi's guarding Jason Tatum, if you can screen with Jalen Brunson's man, and Jalen Brunson's not gonna switch on to him because then Og gets caught on the screen and Tatum can get downhill

or Tatum can attack a defense that's in rotation. It doesn't matter that Josh hart og And and Obi and Michale Bridges are super versatile forwards if they're anchored by two players that you can get their defense into rotation and screening action. That is going to be the key for the Knicks in the series is trying to find a way to find a defensive coverage with those two that can keep them out of rotation. But again, keep an eye on the feeds. Tomorrow we'll have a series preview

in the middle of the day. Lastly on Kate before we get into our mailbag. Like, I get it, if your jump SHOT's not falling, you want to try to find something else that works. But one of the things that's going to be very important for Cad in his development is have you ever watched a Jalen Brunson game where you feel like he won't take a jump shot when his team needs him too down the stretch, even

if he's missing. We'll see games this year where Brunson is, you know, five for nineteen, but he'll take and make three big jump shots down the stretch. You have to trust your work and trust your ability to knock down that shot. The reason why it matters is because of the coverage. The shot that the Knicks were conceding to Cad tonight was that interchange gap in the hedge and recover. So as you seek Cunningham coming off the screen and

Og Andnobi's guarding him. When Tim Hardaway Junior comes up and sets the pick, Brunson is jumping out to hedge, getting in Kid's way so that he has to go round the hedge. Og in that sequence is going underneath to meet Kate on the other side of the screen.

So as Brunson is bailing on the hedge and as Og is coming back up to meet on the other side, there was a clear gap where Cade was looking at the rim in a high hesitation dribble and wouldn't take the shot, And ultimately the reason why they lost this game down the stretches. They didn't score a single time. They didn't make a bucket after they took that seven

point lead. One bucket. You're sending this to game seven, and so with KD you need to come down to a series of very basic moves that you can go to an isolation situations and basic coverage beating shots that you cannot bail on that pull up three absolutely has to be a shot that you trust when you need to take it, because you might have to take it because of a coverage in a specific situation late in the game. We know with Jalen Brunson, he likes to

fade over his left shoulder. He likes to step back to his right, you know, kind of shooting over his left shoulder, and then he likes to set himself up like he's gonna go off of a screen with his right hand, and then hard right cross, right to left crossover to try to get downhill to reject a screen. Those are like the three main go to kind of things you're gonna see from Brunton down the stretch. He's

gotten incredibly good at those moves. If he gets to those moves, he's gonna hit him about fifty percent of the time on his jump shots, and he's gonna get get to the foul line or get something decent at the rim at a pretty high rate. On his drives. He has these dependable, rock solid, we're stuck in the half court, it's tied, there's five minutes left, types of moves. That's the type of reliability that Kide needs to build

out in specific parts of his shot making. Late in games, he took and made like a little left shoulder fade over o Jan Andobi in the post. That was the only jump shot that he was willing to take in that stretch. Okay, let's say that that's one of your moves. You need to wrap it out so that you have this left shoulder fade that at any given moment if your team needs a bucket. Oh shit, there, I can't. Let's pretend you're dealing with a Nasar Thompson look alike

on the other team. I can't get a Sar Thompson off me. What am I gonna do? I got a fine a way to score on this guy. And there's just a little bit of a passivity that we saw from Caid, from a little bit of a lack of trust in what he could do in those situations down the stretch. I got it reflected throughout this series. There was no real consistency in the way that Caid looked to attack down the stretch. And so again I'm not being critical of Kate. I'm just talking about his long

term development. This is the piece that's missing for him that when he adds he can take this team to another level. He was As you can see this, Pisson's team is closer to being able to make a deeper playoff run than we originally thought, and Kid's development is going to be the thing that pushes them over the top in that regard. All right, Jackson, let's see about ten minutes of questions. How did that sound.

help defense doesn't have to overreact. If help defense doesn't have to overreact, the kickout reads on, it is clean. If the kickout reads on is clean, the advantages aren't there. The ball gets stagnant, it turns into tossing the ball to your star with five or six seconds left on

the shot clock. And like Nick Patoom, there was a lot of Nick Patuma alongside Norman Powell, which I thought was very interesting tonight in terms of just floor spacing, like basically situating themselves in a way where there's just these two knockdown three point shooters on the floor that are playing off ball. That just creates a lot of

space for James Harden to look to attack. But again, if Christian Brown can apply better ball pressure on James Harden and flat note those flatten out those drives a bit, that will prevent the close out opportunities that he can capitalize on. And Nick Watum has always just been an underrated defensive player. But like if you can get the

best of both worlds. If you can get an athlete that's covering ground and you know, doing stuff to disrupt people around the rim the way Ben Simmons can, while also providing you with shooting on the other end of the floor. I mean, that's you're getting two players in one there.

then you're gonna struggle on defense. So for instance, like you you made a great point, Like if you're running the two man game with Murray and Jokic and he catches in the pocket, you know that when the lowman steps up, Aaron Gordon's gonna be kind of sidling in along the baseline, and Michael Porter Junior is gonna be sliding down to the corner. And the passing read for Yokich is gonna be based on whether or not Michael Porter Junior's man comes down and tags Aaron Gordon and

a lot of that. You can read the eyes and you can try to jump in front of it. Jokich post up, same sort of thing. If he gets to the middle and he sees a guy step up, Aaron Gordon's gonna slide in underneath the basket, Michael Porter Junior is gonna relocate to the corner, and there's a two on one in the form of Gordon and MPJ. And so to your point, if you can like be in Jokich's head and understand where he's going next, you're not

always gonna beat him. And sometimes he's gonna be a genius and he might bait you into being out of position, and he might beat you, but you can force him into more mistakes if you can be more anticipatory of what he's trying to do. I'm not even sure if that's a word anyway, go ahead, I.

side when he's running his ball screens. My big concern is the Thunder are a excellent turnover forcing defense that will pressure the hell out of you, speed you up and if you can't be precise in your connective playmaking after James Harden makes that first read, you're gonna be in a track meet and O case is gonna win. I trust Denver more to make the necessary passing reads to break down Oklahoma City's defense more than I trust the Clippers on the other end of the floor. OKAC

is gonna score on the Nuggets. The Nuggets are not a great enough a good enough defense to like stop oka se but I think Denver will be able to get some stops by virtue of the thing we've talked about all season with Okasee and the fact that you can load up the strong side a little bit with them and you're not super concerned about their guys on the weak side burning you and catch and shoot situations. So like I to me, it's like, I think you've got to be big and smart to beat OKAC, and

I'm worried that the Clippers aren't smart enough. Totally agree, and like, I think it could be a nightmare James Harden series with their ball pressure and their physicality, and like him kind of just struggling as that series gets super intense. The Clippers certainly can beat the Thunder. I'm not trying to say they can't, but I just I look at the matchups and I view the Nuggets as

just a better threat, if that makes sense. I just I think it's just this Clippers team is such a like a kind of Jekyll and Hide energy and intensity kind of team too, which I just don't think you can afford when okay See has home court advantage either. So like, yeah, I would lean towards Denver speaking.

You and I were texting about this earlier, Jackson. It's just funny juxtaposed with last year's team, which kind of had like felt like the heart and soul of the New York City playing basketball, you know what I mean? And I think I think there are some valuable lessons learned in the sense that this team just does have a lack of like grit compared to the previous iteration of the team. You could go into a bunch of different ideas as to what causes that. I think it's

I think it's a combination of things. I think that they're not as deep as they used to be, and so there's a little bit of an energy conservation element to it. I think that Karl Anthony Towns is kind of a textbook Jekyll and Hyde intensity guy in the same way that James Harden is. And so, you know, I look at consistencies like, I know Og can be part of that character. I know Josh can be part of that character. I know Brunson can be part of

that character. I don't think McHale Bridges is a guy who lacks energy and intensity, although he had some stretches this season where he wasn't as good defensively as he needed to be. But you know, I think that the idea, like let's say that the let's say that the Knicks just gets smashed in the second in the second round

against Boston. I think that Brunson has proven to this point that he has the ability to create offense in tight spaces, Like I think he's proven that he doesn't necessarily need to have you know, perfect five out spacing

to be able to create offense for himself. So if things go really poorly, I would strongly consider the pivot centering around Kat and trying to flip him basically for depth of like just big ass kicking front court athletes and backcourt athletes, and just really lean into the identity that worked last year, which is if we surround Brunson with a ton of toughness in all the margins, he can carry us over the top offensively. But I think

it's a combination of the lack of depth. They scored the ball really well for extended stretches this year, which I think bred some laziness for them on the defensive end. They felt like they could outscore teams when they needed to, and then Karl Anthony Towns is just kind of an inconsistent energy and effort guy. I really think it just

comes down to that. But I get it. It's frustrating like they there were short, little five minute spurts in this series where the Knicks looked like they were completely outclassing Detroit, but they just weren't able to like maintain that momentum throughout the series.

another one of those ask kicking front court players. But that, to me is the key in terms of like, if you're gonna take a lesson from this year, it's it's that, you know, there's a identity that works that you lost. You brought in talent, but you lost identity in the process.

is playoff experience and sustainable talent and success. So I think it's very important to avoid getting tied up in long term free agent contracts. And I think it's very important to shift their free ag or their draft strategy towards older, more NBA ready role player talent. So don't swing for the fence. Is with the and by the way, this by virtue of them winning as many games as they won this year, it will naturally slot them into this part of the draft the middle of the first round.

In the middle of the first round, you can find guys that are sixty seven, six', eight six' nine that, can dribble shoot, and pass that have no, Star upside like you're not Gonna get giannis out. OF here i mean not unless you draft a super raw player that can't help you. Right away but that's my, point is you don't want to be, hunting raw high. Ceiling targets you want to be looking for Big Picture, Tobias Harrison malik,

beasley replacements Big Picture tim hardaway junior types. Of replacements what that means is guys that can play off, the ball that weak side scoring, forward archetype a guard that can set ghost Screens for kate and slip out of it and, shoot threes but that can also defend at

the point of attack on the other end of. The floor they need to be TARGETING older nba ready role player talent in, the draft avoiding sabotaging yourself a free agency if you do something stupid like trade a bunch of draft picks for a player that makes you not as Good, As cleveland Boston. Or, okay see that's where you end up. In trouble if you make some sort. Of trade it needs to be for a, bona fide like top fifteen player IN. The nba if that's, not there you don't need to be blown a bunch of

money in. Free agency you don't need to be blown a bunch of money tying yourself up on the. Cap, sheet well how do you feel About the pistons? Moving? Forward, JACKSON yeah i think you make a.

An OFFENSE so i, THINK stylistically i definitely understand, the fit but it it can't be anybody worse than that if you're making if, you can't, you know to, your point ship off a bunch of draft picks for someone Worse Than devin booker.

maintaining flexibility then you are tying. Yourself up you don't want to pull A Early lebron Calves like he's the perfect example of what this looks like if you, get IMPATIENT and i, get, it like what do you Do when lebron like clearly looks like the second best player in the world by two thousand and seven and is dragging a team TO the, nba, finals like of course you're gonna, think like we got to do, something urgent

but that's what. They did they went after For A, Moe williams they made these aggressive Moves For antoine jamison and Signed signing. Shaquille O'Neil they made these like urgent win now types of moves that handcuffed their ability to build Sustainably. Around lebron and that's. The key you've got a guy you gotta caid show that he's a guy in. THIS series i really think he did. Like it there's

there is real top tier superstar potential. With him it just needs to be You gotta this Is not wemby where, it's, like oh like we legitimately can contend for a championship right away because he's the anchor for an all time great, defense potentially and Like, LIKE wemby i feel a little bit. More urgency But, WITH kate i think you want to play the. SLOW game i think you want to play the. Long game, all, right guys that's all we have. For tonight,

as mentioned, tomorrow night not tonight. Tomorrow night we are going to be going over to playback after the final part of this YouTube, live show but we are going to be back tomorrow morning with a series Preview On. Celtics knicks we'll be back tomorrow Night with game Six Of, warriors rockets and then after our live Show After, warriors rockets we will be moving Over to playback where we're going to be doing a bunch of like interactive stuff

with you guys and probably some film. As well, as always we sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting. The show we will see you. Tomorrow morning 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'd really. Appreciate it