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having a great night. Well, the Indiana Pacers have done it again, stealing two games on the road to take a two to zero lead back to Indiana after doing the same thing to Cleveland.
A little bit of a reverse.
In the Cleveland series, they showed that they looked like the better team in game one, and then they get punched in the face in game two, but somehow steal the game, and here in the Knixt series the exact opposite. They get punched in the face in game one, come back to steal that game, and then kind of a wire to wire we're just better than you guys type of performance in game two and what was a must win game for the Knicks that they did not get.
We're gonna be breaking down that series from the perspective of both teams. Talk a little bit about some of the stuff with Karl Anthony Towns and how Tom Thibodeau went away from him for the most part down the stretch of this game, and kind of some realities about what Mitchell Robinson looks like and how it's a proof of concept for what this Knicks team could be in the big picture as we look to the future. Obviously, the series isn't over, but they're in a very tough spot.
We're gonna be leading the show tonight talking about some of the similarities between the Pacers and the Thunder. I think there are some tendencies that these two teams have that everybody in the league should be looking to copy. So we're gonna be talking a lot about big picture stuff with both of these teams, a couple of specific details from this game. At the tail end of the show, we're gonna take ten fifteen minutes of mail bag questions from the chats. Make sure you guys get your questions
in the chat. And then when we wrap up here tonight, we're heading over to Playback again. That's Playback dot TV slash Hoops Tonight, where we're gonna have about forty five minutes to an hour of an after show. Well, it's very informal. We take callers, we watch film, we just have fun talking about basketball for an extra hour at the tail end of the evening. So make sure you guys head over there with us when we finish up here tonight. You guys are the job before we get started.
Subscribe to the Hoops to Night YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLT so you guys don't miss show announcement stuff. Forget about podcast fet wherever you get your post under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if we leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there for more content throughout the year the last but at least keep dropping those mail back questions in the chat so that we can get to them at the tail end of the show tonight. All right, let's talk some basketball. So you know, in the playback session last night, we were talking about the Thunder and one of the things we were talking about is that in addition to just being super talented, they are also a very well coached
team that maximizes their talent. Right, Like, we've had a lot of really talented teams come through the league. I would argue Minnesota and New York are two examples of teams that on paper look extremely talented. There's a reason why there was a lot of buzz surrounding Minnesota's ability to potentially win that series. There's a reason why, even though you know, the Pacers have looked so good, there was a lot of buzz surrounding the Knicks winning their series.
It's because you look at it and it's Jalen Brunson, and it's Michale Bridges, and it's ogn Andobi, and it's Karl Anthony Towns, and it's Mitchell Robinson and Josh Hard a bunch of guys that are respected big game players in this league with Minnesota, like a four time Defensive Player of the Year, Nas Reed, one of the best bench players in the NBA, Julius Randall has been having a magnificent postseason, Anthony Edwards, all of these elite perimeter
defenders like Dante DiVincenzo Nikhil, Alexander Walker, and Jad McDaniels. In theory, they should be able to compete with the Oklahoma City Thunder. They've gotten their ass kicks twice, they've looked like they've been the team that doesn't have the right game plan. They've looked like the team that doesn't
have confidence, that is operating far below what their capability is. Meanwhile, I think we can all agree that the Oklahoma City team that is loaded up with dudes that are twenty six or younger outside of Alex Caruso, looks comfortable, confident like a veteran basketball team. They are achieving their individual ceiling or their team ceiling in this postseason run the Pacers.
There's a lot of talent on that team, and we could go down the line on every single player and their strengths and the things that they do to make this engine work. But ultimately, when you look at that roster, it's Tyrese Halliburton, who's somewhere around like the seventh to tenth best player in the league, depending on how who you ask called stretch that to seven to fifteenth, because I'm sure there are some people that are lower on him than others, but he's not what you would consider
to be a top tier superstar. Pascal Siakam is a secondary star that I think is a very very good player, but certainly not a player that people are looking at as one of the very best players in this league.
And then just a bunch of role players. And yet they are going to win an Eastern Conference that had two teams that won sixty something games, that has Giannis and Tennecoumpo and Jason Tatum and Aalen Brunson and Donovan Mitchell and so many of the elite players in the world, and that not only are they gonna most likely win this series now and go to the finals. They're doing it in dominant fashion. They've lost two games, They've had home court in zero of the series. They've won every
single road game. They are six in a row. I believe they are going to get to the finals, most likely with somewhere between two and four losses in a conference that was stacked with talent. And what stands out to me is when you really look at these two teams, the Pacers in the Thunder, there's one specific concept I want to dive into that I think allows them to reach their stealing more consistently than the other teams in
the league. And it's just attention to detail. I've been thinking a lot about this over the course of the last several seasons as the Lakers have gone through a coaching change. But I've been thinking about it a lot in the last couple of days, stemming from shake Yeal just Alexander's MVP interview in the conversation he had about Mark Dagnault and the fact that Mark just is super obsessive about details and how it actually gets kind of annoying.
I joke about this all the time on the show, but like playing winning basketball actually sucks, there's a lot like, it's not fun sprinting up and down the floor NonStop.
Any of you guys who have ever played organized basketball, No, there's always that day, four or five practices in at the beginning of the season when you're tired and like you start running like some sort of full court drill, and everyone's just a little lethargic, and everyone's just having a little bit of a hard time getting up and down the floor, and the coach throws a hissy fit, just blows his whistle and gets all pissed off and makes you get on the baseline and run. Why because
he knows you're not running. Running is running is the foundational concept that makes the Pacers great, and they do it more often than anybody in the NBA. It's not fun, they just do it regardless. They do it because it's in their basketball character. Crashing, relocating, paying attention to details, picking up full court that sucks.
TJ McConnell had.
An interview the other day talking about how the only reason he did it at the beginning of his career is because he wanted to stand out, and he felt like he couldn't stand out unless he did something that no one else was doing. Lou Dort picks up full court, Aaron E. Smith, TJ. McConnell, Andrew Nemhard they pick up full court. Who else is doing that? There is low hanging fruit in basketball games. All of it is stuff
that sucks. It's physical wear and tear, lots of running, sprinting, cutting, jumping, things that are not as fun as playing the you know, the funner parts of the game, scoring the basketball, shot creation, attacking off the catch, all of those fun things. Playing in transition on offense, there's there. They These teams relentlessly hunt that low hanging fruit. What does low hanging fruit look like in the NBA ball? Pressure is a simple example.
That's a way that you can make your opponent uncomfortable. Guarantee they will be less comfortable in the game. If they have to turn their man, if they have to turn and make four counter moves just to get across half court, it will make them uncomfortable. It'll wear them out over the course of games. That is a margin that if you have the depth and the on court personnel to handle, you can just decide to do practice it all season and it dramatically increases your chances of winning.
Transition just in general, running the floor, leakouts, and kick aheads. Those are things that every team in the NBA can do, and if you do them, you are guaranteed to score more efficiently. On average, NBA offenses are about twenty percent more efficient in transition than they are in the half court. So all you have to do is hunt as many transition opportunities as possible and you will increase your offense's performance.
But you've got to from day one in October sit down with your team and be like, we're going to run non stop all season. That shit's going to suck, but we have to make it part of who we are as a basketball team. And they do it every single time. The Pacers manufactures so many transition opportunities with kick aheads.
There's a big.
One in the third quarter today where the Knicks like gotta stop. That led to a runout bucket that was a huge. It was Josh Hart got like like just ended up with the basketball, lays it up, crowds going crazy, Tyres rints back on defense, grabs it out of the net, quick turns and just rifles a rainbow pass up the court, makes its way to Obi topping and he's it was a top inner Siakam. I can't remember exactly which one it was, but there they are laying the ball up
on the other side of the court. That's just part of their basketball character manifesting in a complete erase, Like they erased a big momentous Knicks play just by doing the same thing that they do every single possession. They stole Game one because down the stretch we watched the footage, we went over it on a film session, the Knicks let go of the rope. They stopped paying attention to detail.
Ojan and Obi two's passive in his drop coverage, brunts in in cat a couple of bad defensive rotations, Josh Hart gives up a backcut, you lose the game. What were the Pacers doing that time? Picking up full court, pushing the ball up the floor quickly, and then when they get in the half court, running their offense quick and efficiently the same way they did throughout the entire game. There's so many different examples, just like both of these teams,
don't turn the basketball over. That's a simple thing you can do that dramatically improves your chances of winning basketball games. We were looking at it in the Thunder Timberwolve series last night when we were on playback. The Timberwolves or the Thunder are far and away the best team in the league at turning their opponents over and scoring on it. And they are far and away the best team in the league at not turning the basketball over and not
giving up points off those turnovers. Every game, there's like a fifteen something point advantage they have just in points off of turnovers. It's like you're starting the game down by fifteen points as the opponent because of them constantly capitalizing on that low hanging fruit. I think the Pacers capitalize on a lot of low hanging fruit in the half court on offense too, And this stems from just
Tyrese Halliburton and his relentless advantage hunting. I talk about this all the time with young players all the way to the highest level of pros. If you have them attack against a set defender versus a defender sprinting at them, their efficiency skyrockets when they have the defenders sprinting at them. There's not a player in the NBA that is more relentless with just simple swings and skips and kick aheads
to just hunt close out opportunities. Tyre's Halliburton has his team playing with an advantage all night long, and so they capitalize on that margin. I even think we were talking about it before the broadcast, finding sixteen game players, finding players that are the kinds of guys that are comfortable in this playoff setting. That means they have to have a certain amount of strength and physicality to their game. Basketball IQ comes at a huge, huge premium this time
of year. The ability to solve the puzzle, so to speak, that each possession presents confidence, not wavering in your work and believing in yourself in this environment. Andrew Nemhart somehow has made a career out of being a mediocre shooter in the regular season and then just turning into a deadly three point shooter when he gets to this time of year. It's confidence. Guys who play defense. You don't play defense, You can't stay on the floor in games
like this. The Thunder and the Pacers, you look down their roster and both of them have more than five guys that they trust. Meanwhile, you look at New York and it's like, man, like, we can't defend with Kat, We're struggling to score with Josh or if it was. You know, the Warriors struggled finding a fifth man. The Nuggets their top four is fine, they couldn't find a
fifth guy that they trusted. I just think that the Thunder and the Pacers are an excellent example of two teams, tams that are maximizing their potential because of their willingness to capitalize on all of the controllables, and then from there their stars lift them over the top, which we'll talk about in a second. Now, the Thunder they have the combination of that maximizing their talent and the absurd on paper talent. That's why they're such a substantial favorite
to win the title at this point. But I think that what the Pacers have done and what the Thunder have done are an example or is the example that everyone should look to follow. Now, this is where the advantage creation piece steps in, because capitalizing on low hanging fruit can only get you so far. One of the things we talked about a lot over the course of the last couple of years is like the ideal construct for
a NBA basketball team. And obviously there's so many unicorns out there that like, like, you can't talk about an ideal construct surrounding Jokic. There's no one else in the league like Yokic or Steph. There's no one else in the league like Death or Yiannis. There's no one else in the league like Giannis. But there are simple concepts within the within the modern NBA that theoretically every player
can capitalize on. Right in a ball screen, if they're in a low drop coverage and you set good screens, there are opportunities to score against the drop, pull up threes, floaters, mid range jump shots, things along those lines. Or you're in a deep drop coverage. The pick and pop should, in theory, be open every single time you come up to the level. Now, the role to the pocket pass
should be open every single time they're tagging the roller. Well, then the skip pass should be open every single time. Oh you're switching, okay, Well then now I've got a big guy on my Tyres Haliburton guard, or I've got a small guy on you know, a turner or a Siakam around the basket. And so we talked about these concepts.
A skill guard a player that can consistently make the reads within those pick and roll situations based on what the coverage is dictating and then having what's one of the position groups that I always talk about, the matchup attacking forward. This is a player that is primarily kind
of like a tip of the spear. He's not a guy that's going to be running a ton of on ball action, but the result of action, whether it be transition, cross matches or a ball screen that forces a switch, is going to end up in a lot of situations where Siakam or your matchup attacking forward gets to attack a player who's either too small to guard him or too slow to guard him. And that's what the beauty
of the Pascal Siakam trade was for the pacers. Tyrese Haliburton was the ideal skill guard, the player that relentlessly hunted advantages, the player that could score against drop coverage, that could make all the reads against aggressive pick and roll coverages, and when his hamstring is healthy, is a deadly switch beater, and that has made him the quintessential kind of like on ball skill guard in the NBA.
Right what they were lacking was a player they could pitch the ball to on the other side of those actions, a player that could be like, Okay, their bigs are defending well, on switches, Tyras is having a rough shooting night. He's five for sixteen, He's three for ten from three. He's having a little bit of a hard time beating Mitchell Robinson on switches. Well, who's the guy you can go to that is in on an island. Get a bucket guy that can either bully smalls to the basket
or can beat bigs with quickness and speed. And that's what Pascal Siakamits gets going in this game with transition leakouts, just that relentless kick ahead passing that Indiana uses and then just countless times just like last year against Josh Hart, just beating up Josh Hart against switches, drawing fouls against Karl Anthony Towns in space, the ability to either get big guys out of position or get small guys into a situation where they can't handle how big he is.
He just can score. And that was not working for the Pacers in the first game. That's one of the things that's so crazy about this one. The Knicks looked like they were in control of the Pacer Biggs in mismatches in Game one. Not in this game. They got torched thirty nine points for Pascal Siakam just an absolutely monster night, and then in the fourth quarter it was the pick and roll ball handlers. I thought TJ McConnell had a brilliant stretch to start the fourth quarter. That
was where the first margin was. You look at this game is very back and forth. No team was really separating. The Pacers finally built a little bit of separation in the early fourth quarter off TJ McConnell ball screens. They ran a drop coverage, he beat it with a little mid range jump shot. Then they started blitzing him or showing at the level, and he just beat Robinson and kat over and over again. Just making simple reads like four or five times in a row to start the
quarter generated a great shot for his team. On the other end of the floor, Kale Bridges was a little bit cold to start the fourth quarter. He did hit a few mid range jumpers in the middle of the fourth quarter, but Michale couldn't keep up. All of a sudden we had a little bit of margin, and then when Tyre's Halliburton came in, just a steady diet of that textbook high ball screen attack, attacking the Biggs, attacking Brunson.
He had multiple driving kicks against Brunson, making Mitchell Robinson pay for sagging off of Miles Turner or sagging off of Pascal Siakam, just beating them with the same decision making tree that he's been using his entire NBA career, And once they built that margin, it just ended up
being too much for the nixt to overcome. They had they almost pulled a little bit of magical comeback of their own there down the stretch, but ultimately it's just really difficult to make to make up for a ten point deficit in the final minutes, like they were dealing with. The Knicks have a little bit of a problem when they played car Anthony Towns. They're nowhere near good enough
defensively to keep up with this Pacers team. They got rolled with kat on the floor tonight, even with him having extended stretches of successful offense, especially in the first half. But then with Mitchell Robinson, even though he brings a ton of good in a late game situation, it's like, well, he can't shoot free throws and he's got a little bit of a tendency to sag off of shooters. He got burned by Siakam and by Turner in the fourth
quarter of this game. So on the one hand, it's frustrating because I don't think they have an answer for
this series. But I think there's some reality to the proof of concept that this has been in this postseason run, which is I think Mkale Bridges and ogn Andobi and Josh Hart is fly around forwards that can rotate and wreck havoc defensively, and ogn Andobi is a weak side scorer, and Mikale Bridges is a guy who can run action when Jalen Brunson's off the floor, and Jalen Brunson proving himself over and over again over the last few years
as one of the more reliable playoff shot creators. All of that is fine, but they need to have an option at center that can anchor all of this defensively, and that's where it gets tricked. I don't know that Karl Anthony Towns fits into the theoretical championship version of what the Knicks can be, but I think we've seen enough out of Mitchell Robinson, a extremely talented but flawed player, that if they get a legitimate center that all of
a sudden, this makes a lot of sense. And I think that's something that they need to look into this summer as a vehicle with which to improve this roster. Can the Knicks come back to win this series? They certainly can. The Pacers after winning the first two games in Cleveland, came home and got their butt kicked, and Game four, you know, obviously they come out and utterly dominate the Cavs. It's gonna be really difficult to get this done, but the Knicks have shown an ability to
win on the road in this postseason run. I do think switching is their best option. When they switch, it puts the onus on matchup attacking. I like that as an option more than blitzing like they did for stretches of the fourth quarter, or high drop, low drop, any of those sorts of things. I would switch, and then you've got to contain the ball and you've got to rotate. But at this point, like I thought coming into the series that the Pacers were just better than the Knicks
on both ends of the four. I thought they were a better offense and I thought they were a better defense. And I think they've pretty clearly shown that to this point through two games. And now you've got to beat them four times out of five, with three of those five games being in Indiana, and it's just gonna be a lot for them to overcome. All right, Jackson's gonna come on and we're gonna take a couple of questions before we get out of here for the night.
Let's do it. Let's do it.
We got a couple of super Chat questions to start with. First one super Chet from Cobs. Hi, Jason, do you think the Knicks offense is too isocentric?
It feels like they're rely too much on Kat and sort of.
Expand on that if they do end up moving Cat, do you think that helps that problem or hurts that problem?
So I think that there's a certain amount. Like both teams did more switching with their fives tonight, New York more than Indiana did. Miles Turner was doing more of like kind of like a read and react switch, meaning like he kind of exists in a higher drop and then if the defender got the on ball guy got wiped out by the screen, it would just turn into appeal switch, or if the defender got over the top, then he would like try to recover, but inevitably with
the amount of switching that the teams do. There's gonna be a certain amount of isoball that's just part of NBA basketball. Also, like when you really get into it, Jalen Brunson, when he's got that left shoulder fade going the way that he had it going tonight, there's a certain point where like, that's some of their most reliable offense. Is that sort of thing. There are opportunities to attack in driving kick situations. The problem is is it's always
gonna bog down when you have non shooters on the floor. So, for instance, mkale Bridge is just continually being incapable of hitting catch and shoot threes in this postseason run, that's gonna kill a drive and kick attack. Josh Hart being a guy that's a little bit hesitant to take catch and shoot three point shots, that can kill drive and
kick attack, right. And so one of the things that makes the Indiana Pacers ball and player movement work is every dude on the floor will take that shot, and we'll take it and make it, and so it allows their rotation sequences to work better. There's a lot of sequences with the Knicks where you're like, I kind of want Daylen Brunson taking this ISO jump shot, because otherwise it's gonna be McKale Bridges unnaturally jumping super high and kicking his legs on a random catch and shoot three
like he's getting chased off the line. And so I think there are some realities to the Nicks roster. My thing is like, in general, you want to keep everybody involved in that ISO attack. But also down the stretch of this game, Tibbs wasn't trusting Cat and really down the stretch, if you guys really get into it, Brunson was scoring it. Just they couldn't get stops when they needed to. What do they give up sixty something points in the second half.
Yeah, it's sort of a tough problem that they have.
It is their best option, but you can't do it too much.
It's like that balance is sort of the ever existing question for all of these sort of helio centric players and teams. Honestly, exactly another super Chat question, this one from John, huge Knicks fan, But as soon as Jannis got eliminated, I immediately thought about a cat.
For Yanni's trade thoughts.
Obviously, as everyone said it was responding to John in the chat, the Knicks would need to add a lot to their side of the deal. But just as like the Bucks are probably going to trade Yiannis and the Knicks may want to trade Cat sort of.
Mind space.
Yeah, it'd be really difficult because of just all the different salaries involved, Like you'd almost want you'd want Kat, and you'd want one of their wings, and it's just really difficult to make all of that work. But just in theory, like I love the idea of having just a monstrous defensive forward kind of like anchoring all of this.
But to me, like with Brunson being a big time pick and role player and with the overall rotational ability that they have at the forward position, and I honestly think that Brunson and Og and McHale is plenty of scoring ability. I'm not necessarily worried about that. I would be targeting more of like a traditional center. I would want like a seven foot tall, switchable rim protecting kind of like mobile, big a guy that can be a
vertical spacer. I do think we underrated just how much Isaiah Hartenstein, like we're going to talk about this, you know, like like we were talking about this at the beginning of the show. In terms of low hanging fruit, like Isaiah Hartenstein unlocked a whole backcut game for the for the Thunder this year. There was a big one in our film session this morning where Shay backcutt Hardenstein hit him.
It generated a wide open three for lou Dort. Like there's a certain amount of skill that you want at that position too. Like that's why I think the Cat Mitchell Robinson dynamic has been super fascinating. If you could somehow take some of Kat's offensive viability and combine it with Mitchell Robinson as a defensive weapon, all of a sudden, this whole thing makes a ton of sense. And in order to make that happen, like, you need a starting
caliber player at that center spot right now. There's another way you can look at it too, is like from the standpoint of payroll, you can't have Brunson making a ton of money, Og making a ton of money, McHale making a ton of money, and the center making a ton of money, And so they might have to make an even bigger picture decision about which one of the forwards kind of fits into that mix. But I like the idea of Brunson being anchored by like a monstrous
defensive center. I think it just covers for a lot of their weaknesses on that end.
YEA four.
It was like, because of the Mavericks roster, everyone is designing fake trades around Daniel Gafford or Derek Lively and for a good reason, because I think those guys are exactly what you're describing. I would be very very helpful for a lot of teams, including this one.
It's just a it's like a floor raiser, you know what I mean, And like, yeah, there's it's tough because you can't have like like we saw Miles Turner for instance, like really struggle for extended stretches of of Game one right there. It needs to be a certain type of center I've seen, Like Nick Clackson is a name that gets thrown around a million times this over the course of this U this season, and like Nick Clason to
me is like the bottom. Any player below Nick Clackson's level, it doesn't make sense to be paying that much for that type of player. But like I would be probing all over the place, I'd be, I'd be, I'd be I'd be calling on Nick Claxton, I'd be calling on what's his face? I'm blanking all of a sudden. This is how brain fried I am through the postseason run. But what's his face from the Jazz Walks.
Walker Kessler? Excuse me?
I'd be calling on just like dudes that are in that kind of mid to late twenties, that are just like rock solid centers that you could potentially anchor with this group because I think, I think, I think there's been enough that we've seen from their core players that this can work.
They're just clearly not good.
Enough defensively with Karl Anthony Towns on the floor, and that's a death sentence.
All right, Let's move a little bit to the Pacers side.
Question is, given the Pacers depth and Hal Britton's ability to run the offense without turning it over, aren't the Pacers the best team? The team that's best equipped to beat Okay?
See, the problem is is I view it all through the scope of matchups, right. Every is like with we were talking about earlier with like Golden State versus Minnesota or versus Oklahoma City. You know, like there's a certain amount of like one team might be perfectly equipped to beat another team vice versa. The I talked about going into the postseason like there's a certain amount of perimeter size and playmaking and shooting that you need to beat
Oklahoma City. And really, the only teams that I thought had that combination, like legitimate size advantages at multiple positions, the ability to process quickly against a like a swarming defense, and to knock down the catch and shoot threes that you get out of it. The only three teams that I thought had great chances to beat Oklahoma City were Denver, the Lakers, and the Celtics. Because the Lakers have Lebron and Luca that can attack their smalls, their elite processors,
and they could put out lineups that could shoot. The Celtics Tatum and Brown, the ability to attack size mismatches, the ability to space the floor and shoot Denver through Aaron Gordon and through Nikola Jokich and even Jamal Murray to certain extent, the size and strength positionally, the processing, ability to get the ball out, and the ability to shoot.
And all three of those teams are eliminated. And you know, it's like like all of them were flawed in their own ways to begin with, as we look back, and so honestly the problem for the Pacers is they have the processing and they have the shooting. They don't have the size. They don't have the size to cause Oklahoma
City problems on the perimeter. I see it being a series where Nie Smith, Nemhard, and Halliburton are just literally in jail all series long because you could not conceptualize a more well equipped defense to handle all of their speed on the perimeter. This is the other team that loves to run more than anybody else in the league. They're switchable, they're well coached, their attention to detail is fantastic.
They don't turn the ball over. They're they're never gonna let go of the rope the way the Knicks do. Like to me, essentially, the the Thunder are just a substantially better version of the Pacers, and a deeper and more versatile version. So, like I'm gonna be honest with you, guys, I would be stunned at this point if the Thunder didn't win the title, Like, absolutely stunned if they didn't win the title.
Another sort of question about the Pacers, how sustainable do you think.
This play style is for the long term.
Do you think they can be the new team to beat in the East with Boston seemingly falling off or is this sort of run and gun style gonna either get scouted out? Is are there players not gonauild the hold up? Do you think this is sort of a long term, big picture of formula for the Pacers to sort of be the Kings of the East.
I think they're going to be near the top of the East year and year out, like a team that's consistently like a conference finalist kind of situation. The problem is is like when it comes to the simple art of just getting buckets against elite defensive players, like let's look at the Thunder series for example, Like I think in order to beat the Thunder, you've got to be able to have a guy that like they simply cannot guard. And like we saw that, like when we'd watch the
Lakers against him, it's like they cannot guard Luca. When you watch Jokic against him, it's like they cannot guard nikolea Jokich. I'm not sitting here saying like Pascal Siakam can't score on the Thunder. Of course he can, But is he gonna be thirty nine points on twenty three shots against the Thunder? Probably not, you know, Like Tyrese Haliburton is a capable switch beater, but is he gonna be able to stare down Chet Holmgren and Lou dort In Kason Wallace and like get tough buckets over and
over again the way that you need to. I just don't think so and so like I think ultimately Indiana's ceiling is based on the fact that they don't have a singular top here bucket getter type of dude that like is invincible to a certain defensive scheme, like I think the Thunder will most likely end up just doing a great deal of switching against Indiana and just live with the results and believe that their defenders are going
to do just fine against Siakam and Halliburton. In order for Indiana to like truly be what I would consider to be like a top tier contender in this league, I think they would need a better version of Siakam, like if it was like a truly indomitable offensive force at the forward position, like let's just say it was like a Kevin Durant Lebron type of guy at the four. Now I'm looking at that as a team that can like legitimately beat the very best teams in the league
in the championship round. But I'm just concerned about their ability against against an Oklahoma City defense to to really create shots when things bug.
Yeah, yeah, you need a better version of Siakam or you need Ben Mathrin to become this like super versatile scoring basically.
Yeah, a better version of Andrew and em Hard, Like a version of Andrew and Emhard that is like to the point indomitable. So like if Ben Matherin became like somewhere around the twentieth to twenty fifth best player in the league and played at the two next to Halliburton and as an as a freaky athletic guard was kind of there. This is the guy that no one can stop him from getting to his spot, and like you just kind of have to hope he misses kind of
thing like that. Like that's that's where it gets tough. I'm just there's a lot of Indiana. A lot of what Indiana does capitalizes on natural openings that occur in basketball games, and the Thunder just don't give you a
lot of natural openings. The one thing that will be interesting, and I'll say this just up front, the Thunder are very much like a load up the strong side ball, pressure, aggressive defense, and Tyre's Halliburton is an excellent over the top passer, So I am curious to see how Mark Dagnall actually structures his defensive game plan because we have seen coaches like Chris Finch go like, we're gonna play our base regular season scheme against the Thunder and even
though it's like legitimately the exact opposite of what Denver just showed us works. And if Mark Dagnall does the exact same thing and ty Reese is just throwing skip passes to Siakam and Ni Smith for the entire first two games of the series and they get a bunch of wide open threes, the yeah, like they can steal
a game or two. But like I think, ultimately Dagnall will I will read the room and be like, what we really need to do is kind of stay glued to everybody individually here and trust that our individual defenders are too much for them to be able to handle for sure.
Last question for tonight's YouTube stream, thoughts on home court advantage in the playoffs. It seems like it hasn't mattered very much so far.
I think, you know, I've seen a lot of talk about this. I don't have a real feel for what is causing it, because statistically, I shouldn't even say statistically it's just in the win losses. There's an obvious reality to the fact that road teams are more comfortable now than they used to be. I don't have like a reasoning for it, though, because the game is more predicated on jump shooting than ever, so in theory, like comfort
shooting at home should play an even bigger role. But if I had to have you, you know, like said, Okay, you've got to sign it to something, I would assign it to the physicality. I think the overall physicality increase in the playoffs in the last couple of years has in general dragged every game closer and lower scoring, which has made every game a little bit more of a coin flip than some of the game, the kind of like trading off blowouts that we saw in years past.
And then also before we're done here tonight, I had a buddy of mine shout out to NMZ Hoops, a guy that does great work covering the league on Twitter, sent me this question. He said, at this point, this is a question from the minute Soda series. Should Minnesota abandon Rudy Gobert setting picks and go to more guard to guard action. Rudy can hold space in the dunker spot. All you'd have to do is catch and finish rather
than make decisions in the short role. Have Ant target Shay for fatigue and foul trouble using more threatening screeners. So a couple things. This is really interesting question. We talked a little bit about this last night with the ghost screens. They were getting clean looks or clean ish looks for Dante DiVincenzo in particular, slipping out of ghost screens targeting Shae in particular. Like the specific emphasis here from NMZ is that threatening screeners part because they are
hedging and recovering with Shay. So it's not like Ant's going to be able to just pick on Shae and switches and just look to attack him one on one, at least not as easily as it could happen from like a transition crossmatch or some other offensive rebound cross
match something along those lines. But there are openings that they can get by having guards slip out of screens, not just with Dante or whoever it is who's being guarded by Shay, but also inverted because they ran some inverted action where like Dante would get screened by Ant and then pitch it back to Ant. Oklahoma City has a little bit of a natural tendency to linger on the ball with their second defender anyway, kind of regardless.
Of who it is.
It's just part of their kind of basketball identity as a very aggressive, turnover forcing type of team. So I think you could even get Ant some initial advantages from him slipping out of inverted ball screens. But my thing is, like, I think the only chance that the Timberwolves have to win this series is to attack off the catch with Ant, to attack off the catch with Julius. This clean catch and shoot looks Julius got in the first round or first half of Game one. Ant in general in this
postseason has been so deadly attacking off the catch. The only way you're gonna do that is early in the possession to get into your drive and kick, because you can't be pitching it to the corner with four or five seconds on the shot clock, the ball will never get worked back around. So getting the ball up the floor quickly with pace and then using a guard screen as a simple example of to his point, instead of having Rudy trying to operate out of a four on three,
which has been an absolute disaster. Have a more skilled player start your four on three. So, for instance, let's say that Dante screens on Ant's right side and quickly slips out of it to the left wing. Shay lingers for a second, pitch it to him. Dante needs to rack left immediately right on the catch, beat the hedge, the hedge you're recovering in this case, Shay. Now you're in an advantage creating situation. I do trust Dante to
make the next read. From there, it's on Aunt and Julius to quickly figure out their spacing and get to a spot where they can attack on the catch. And I do think from there they can have some more opportunities. But to NMC's point, like I am one hundred percent in agreement, like, get the guy who's leading the four on three to be a higher level offensive player than Rudy Gobert, and so having those guards slipping out a
screen is a simple way to get those attacks. They just need to not immediately settle for the three because there was a little bit of a tendency in game two for them to slip out of the ghost screen and take the movement three, which is not a terrible.
Shot, but it's a tough shot.
And I wouldn't necessarily lean on that unless there's you know, five seconds on the shot clock attack off of that, get into your drive and kick. Try to generate some more off the catch opportunities for it and Julius. All right, guys, that is all we have for tonight on YouTube. We are heading over to playback again. That's playback dot TV slash Hoops tonight. No Jackson tonight will just be me over there, but we're gonna be taking some callers and
watching some film again. As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting us and supporting the show. I will see you guys on playback here in just a few minutes. What so, 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.
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