Hoops Tonight - Mavericks-Clippers Reaction: Luka Doncic & Dallas take Game 2, even series vs. Clippers

in my championship rankings the Dallas Mavericks. You can get them on DraftKings right now at plus sixteen hundred. To win the title. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code hoops. That's Hops. New customers bet five dollars and get two hundred dollars in bonus bets instantly. That's code

hoops hops only on DraftKings. The Crown is yours gambling problem called one eight hundred Gambler or in West Virginia visit www dot one eight hundred gambler dot net York call eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine In Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of

Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas. Twenty one plus age varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. See dkang dot co slash b ball for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms and responsible gaming resources. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight here at the volume, Happy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having an incredible week so for so far, Day four of the NBA Playoffs is officially in the books.

We're gonna keep it real simple tonight. You're gonna break down all all three games from the perspective of both teams. You guys did the Joe forbiz started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about my podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight.

If you're into more of the audio format and the last but not least, Kep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We're gonna hit a mail bag later this week. All right, let's talk some basketball. So starting with MAVs Clippers, there's gonna be a lot of talk about the end of that game and the surgical job that Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving did, not just navigating the slow down half court environment, but coming back from down six. I

think it was the biggest lead with six. I think with seventy nine to seventy three is really where the run started, and just methodically walking the Clippers down and getting buckets. Now, obviously Luca and Kyrie were amazing offensively

down the stretch. The shot making was ridiculous, Like Luca hit that ridiculous step back three over James Hard and we all saw that one coming too, Right, Like the dagger shot where Luca has his moment with the crowd, that's kind of like a staple of the Luka Doncic experience, right that. I don't know about you, guys, but did that not just remind you of playoff Luca that we

didn't get to see last year? Obviously, and some of the stuff we saw in the shot that he hit against the Jazz and what was a game three or game four in the twenty twenty two run, or some of the shots that he hit against the Clippers. That's just a big part of the Luca experience is hit the dagger, having a moment at the expense of the fans and the guy that was guarding him. It's almost like on the road exclusively that he likes to do

that too. Kyrie Irving had this kind of ridiculous like fake half spin back over his left shoulder, hook shot slash floater thing that he hit along the baseline that was nasty. They were targeting Harden a lot in switches, giving the Clippers a little bit of a taste of their own medicine. I thought like one of the key kind of elements at the end of the game was beating the Clippers aggression. And I'm not even just talking

about double teams, because like they were doubling Luca posting up Russell Westbrook on the right block, you know, double from one pass away easy kick out past to Kyrie Irving knocks down at three right or a lot of like coming up high to the level of the screen and pick and roll to get Luca to get rid of the ball, and just playing on the short role in the four and three situations. But I thought it

was also just aggression on the ball. There was a Russell Westbrook post up at Luka Doncic where he tried to come up over in a three quarter front to knock the ball away, and by the time Luca actually maintained got control of the basketball, he had inside position on Russ which forced the defense to collapse. Who's kick out? I think that one ended up in a PJ. Washington

three in the left corner if I remember correctly. Then there's one where he's going to work against Paul George and Paul George is reaching in and trying to swipe away the basketball, and he kind of sort of knocks the ball loose for a second, but Luca is able to regain control and he works into the lane because now PG is on outside position and Luca's on inside position, goes inside, draws an extra defender kick out pass to Maxi Kleiba on the right wing. He knocks down to three.

It was just beating the aggression that the Clippers were bringing. We know that that's going to be the Clippers game plan in this series. They're going to try to force the non Luca Kyrie guys to make shots, and they desperately needed somebody to hit a couple shots. They're down the stretch of that game, and ended up being PJ Washington for the most part. He had a bunch of buckets down the stretch. Maxi, like we talked about, hit that huge three on the right wing. As a matter

of fact, Maxi, Cleba and PJ. Washington were five for seven from three in this game. So one of our major adjustments we talked about after game one is really it's this simple. You gotta beat the game plan with shot making on the weak side. They needed guys to hit shots. Maxi and PJ Washington stepped up and hit them. One of the things I talked about in our series preview, you Mavericks fans that watched that video will remember this.

I saw this series tilting heavily towards a Maxi frontcourt, and we saw over the course of the series started with Gafford. Obviously, we saw Jason Kidd go to Derek Lively to start the second half tonight, but the reality is they're not getting good enough defense or rim finishing from either of those guys to really justify playing them when Maxie and PJ are just better basketball players on both ends of the floor right now. And uniquely, Like one of the things that's nice about PJ and Maxie

is they're not just forwards. They're big forwards. You know. I talk about the different archetypes of players, and like, you're you've got your kind of thin, perimeter oriented forward, think like a Jaden McDaniels type of guy, right, but then you have your and Derek Jones Junior kind of fits that mold a little bit too, although I kind of look at him as more of like a hybrid guard wing. And by the way, he's the fifth guy in that lineup, right, and he's the guy that they're

using to guard Paul George for the most part. But

like there's also that big forward position. This is like the Aaron Gordon, Ruychimura rue HACHMURPG at Washington Mexic Ciliba kind of thing, right, And when I look at guys like that, it's like they have some mobility, they can move around on the perimeter, but they also have the physical size to really, you know, deal with some of the physical stuff that you need to do inside, right, And if you're gonna play small ball, if you're gonna give yourself the flexibility to do the things that a

small ball lineup can do, preferably, you want two big forwards out there, right Like, even if we go back and look at some of the great uh uh small ball teams of all time, like the let's just say the the the Hampton's five with the Golden State Warriors, right Like, it's like it's kind of like three big forwards out there with Draymond Green, who's kind of more or less a big forward, and Kevin Durant and Andrea Gudala,

right Like. You need to be able to be small and quick and have offensive skill on the floor, but you also need to have like real size and athleticism

on the front line. And I thought it was really interesting that the Clippers first big win of this series, excuse me, the Mavericks part of my missing there, The Mavericks first big win of this series comes with them going down the stretch to the lineup that I called for in the series preview, which is PJ and MAXI with Derek Jones, Dante Exum could theoretically be in that

spot as well, and then Kyrie and Luca. And remember, in the regular season, albeit in a somewhat small sample size because it was a post a trade deadline kind of thing, that lineup was outscoring teams by like nineteen points for one hundred possessions. Any two forward combination with PJ. Washington and mexically but on the floor were doing work.

And so again, you know, it's kind of it's kind of interesting because you remember when they made the Kyrie Irving trade, those of you guys who've been around this show for a while. I was on a ski trip with my friends in Breckenridge when that trade went down, and I remember talking about how because there was so much negative energy surrounding that trade when it happened, right, it was like they gave up you know, like meaningful

players draft compensation. Dorian Finney's like, there was like a lot of negative energy surrounding that. And one of the things I said on the day of the trade, if you guys remember, I said, this is just step one. You get Kyrie first. You're obviously not gonna have enough right away, right, And we saw that they ended up missing the playoffs last year. There were some also some bad basketball character stuff. Didn't love the way that Luca played down the stretch of the season, especially on the

defensive end of the floor. There's some stuff there, but I don't think he really believed in that team for obvious reasons. They didn't have enough talent. But like, it's not about that. It was get your number two. Then you have a full off season and a trade deadline to fill out the pieces on the margins. Right, And we've seen Derek Jones Junior be like a super useful piece for them in this rotation. Right, we seen PJ. Washington come back in the trade and be a super

useful piece for them. You know, I talk about team building in three phases. Right, You got to get your number one, a guy who's good enough to be the best player on a championship team. From there, step two is get a legitimate number two, preferably a guy who compliments his skill set, preferably a guy who can play both ends of the floor. Right, those are your first

two priorities. From there, find role players that can accentuate the skills and address the weaknesses of your stars and They've just done a really nice job every step along the way, making the trade for Kyrie, getting a piece like Derek Jones Junior, and some other guys that they got over the course of the offseason, even just the sign and trade for Grant Williams, which ended up being the vehicle with which they got PJ. Washington, get PJ

Washington at the deadline. They followed that process to a t and now they got themselves a damn good basketball team. As a matter of fact, the Indiana Pacers are more or less doing the same thing right now. Right, they go and they get Pascal Siakam. They identified, Hey, Tyre's Halliburton is clearly a guy that we think can be the best player on a championship team. Now, Tyree's hasn't

really looked. It's like what we expect from Tyrese since he heard his hamstring and I have not loved his lack of offensive aggression over the course the last portion of the season. But part of that is Siakam being in the equation. But like it was very clear, like, oh my god, goodness, this is one of the best shot creators in the NBA. We can build a champion team championship team around this guy. We need to find

a complimentary star. So they found a guy who can defend and a guy that can get a bucket on an island and plays a position of need, that power forward position that they just didn't have on the roster. They were playing Obi Topen to start the year. They figured that out, probably not good enough to make a real championship run this year, but a couple of smart moves this offseason and they could be right there in

the mix. That's why I like this kind of pathway of team building, and we're seeing a good example of

that with the Mavericks this year. Went on a random tangent there about team building, But we're gonna get back to the game now, Okay, So I want to shift the focus to Luca's defense because again, most of the focus down the stretch of that game is, like I mentioned the shot making, the over aggression from the Clippers, PJ and Maxi hitting shots, all that stuff, But there was a huge portion of this game that doesn't get talked about enough, and that's that, Like, they just basically

strangled the Clippers offense. And if you remember in Game one, the primary focus of the clippers was to try to get Luka Dancic on switches right, And you know, it wasn't like Luca was giving up buckets on the switches that much. He was just getting burned off the dribble. And then, as we talk about the worst form of compromising that you should, let's try to rephrase this. The worst situation you can be in as a defense is

to give up a straight line drive. Right. Drible penetration is kind of part of the game if you're set up for it right. Drible penetration and pick and roll. When you're in a drop coverage, certain amount of that is expected. Drible penetration. When you're doing a week side close out and you close out on the high side and funnel someone towards the baseline, that's drible penetration that you expect. But when you get beat off the dribble from the top of the key in a straight line driving,

the guy's just flying downhill. It's just really, really difficult to handle. And that was a big part of al Zubas was getting going, just getting offensive rebound putbacks after guys were beating Luca off the dribble. Right. So again, it wasn't Ironically, I talked about after that game that I wanted to see them go to a hedge and recover system. And again with the hedge and recover, there are some other openings that exist there, but it's openings

that you can plan for in your defensive rotations. But they didn't go that route. Luca just did a better job literally that simple and again he was given some space. Some guys got some decent pull up jump shot looks over the top of him, but he contained dribble penetration, which is what you can live with. Right, Like the pull up jump shooting, even the best guys in the world aren't going to be that efficient with it, right.

It's when you get in rotation and guys are getting wide open catch and shoot threes and wide open layups and dunks under the rim. That's when the efficiency equation tilts way out of favor for your defense. So just by sliding his feet and containing the ball, he was able to kind of slow down that specific element of

the Clippers attack. And you know, one of the things that Tylu does a lot is he'll lean into matchup attacking instead of you know, more ball and player movement, and it kind of played directly into Dallas's strengths at that point. And again, it's not just Luca on the ball. There's just a lot of athleticism on the back line as well. And you know, Luca just had the best season of his career defensively, and it wasn't really that much on the ball stuff. It was mostly help in

recover type of stuff on the weak side. But I thought it was really interesting tonight that you saw that Luca's basketball IQ and his size and his length, he has the ability as long as he squares up an offensive player, sits down in a defensive stance, anticipates directional changes, and beats guys to spots and absorbs contact in the chest, he can be a solid on ball defender. And he

showed you that tonight. I actually wanted to come back around to conditioning for a second, because you know, I've been really fascinated by this first four days of the NBA playoffs for a bunch of reasons. One of the main reasons why is home teams have been kicking ass. Like first two days of last year's postseason, the road team won four of the eight games. And it's interesting because the physicality we saw it pick up at the

tail end of the regular season. I don't know about you, guys, and if you disagree, I want to hear it in the comments. But like, I kind of feel like this year in the postseason even it's been significantly more physical and intense and a tighter whistle even than what we saw last year in the postseason. It's like almost everything, including the regular season and the postseason, had been raised

up a level in physicality and intensity. And I thought it was really interesting that through the first thirteen postseason games up until the MAVs got to win tonight, home teams went twelve to one and the only team to get a win on the road was the Indianacers, who are playing against a team that doesn't have their best player right now, and they were up twenty something in the fourth quarter, right And I think it's just an example of like, when these games get super physical, the

home team, which can drive energy from the crowd, is able to kind of persist in that environment and make those extra efforts to higher rate. But one of the big things that stood out to me is like everyone looks super tired. Everyone does the stars, role players, everyone's got their hands on their knees, guys are missing shots. So many stars have been inefficient. I mean, hell, even Luca and Kyrie by their standards, have been inefficient. And

it's just super interesting to me. But I'm gonna circle back around here because I thought it was super fascinating that down the stretch of this game, in game two, just two days removed from a really tough game where you kind of got your ass handed to you, Luca

was playing both ends of the floor. Well. He had the lift to knock down that pull up three y over Harden, he had the lift to battle with Russell Westbrook in the post and to make reads as the Clippers were being aggressive, and he had the leg strength to slide his damn feet and contain the basketball on the other end of the floor. And it's just I don't think we talk enough about conditioning as a part of greatness, in what separates the best from the others.

Like I've said a couple times over the course of the last few weeks, I think the three best players in the world right now are Jokic number one, Luca number two, and I think Lebron James is the third best basketball player right now that we're seeing playing. I don't think it's a coincidence that Luca is hitting big shots and making big offensive plays down the stretch of physical, intense playoff games when a lot of his peers are

getting too tired and struggling. I don't think it's a coincidence that Lebron James last night is getting steals and run out dunks and hitting threes and hitting tough turnaround fadeaways and like somehow still having the energy when so many other guys are not. Or Yokich's just literally getting beat up on every possession and is required to do so much for Denver's offense, and he's walking down the best defensive player in the world and giving him easy

buckets in crunch time of a very close game. Like

it's just super fascinating to me. I don't think we discuss it nearly enough in terms of like basketball player traits as one of the biggest things that set Steph Curry apart from his peers when he was in his prime, Like, conditioning is just a very very important part of your ability to thrive in these particular environments, and I think the super physical game has shined a light on that specifically, so salute to those three guys and several other players

as well around the league that have been playing at a super high level. As far as the Clipper's not gonna spend too much time on the tonight, I want to do a We're gonna do some film tomorrow. I actually already put together a film session for Suns Wolves that hit tomorrow, but I'm gonna hit a couple of other games tomorrow as well. But just really quickly on the Clippers, I got Kawi just looked obviously out of

shape and out of rhythm. He made a bunch of defensive plays, but you could just tell he didn't have his lift on his jump shot. And then Russell Westbrook. Obviously the field goal percentage isn't gonna show it, but I thought just his overall athletic energy was a huge impact on this game. Rim pressure, creating easy looks around the rim and easy kickout three point shot looks, and then just kind of being a wrecking ball like he can be defensively from time to time. Also hit a

huge three down the stretch in the fourth quarter. So shout out to Russell Westbrook again. We're gonna dig into the film and take a look at what specifically went wrong for the Clippers offense tomorrow. All right, moving out of Suns Wolves. So this game, to me came down to two big second half runs because it was mostly close game. It was sixty four to sixty three about five and a half minutes left in the third quarter.

But we got two big runs, one in the late third quarter, led primarily by Anthony Edwards, and one in the early fourth quarter led by Mike Conley. So I want to dig into each of those runs because I thought they were really interesting tactically, especially based on some of the stuff we talked about in the series preview.

So if sixty four to sixty three with five and a half minutes left in the third, they get up to seventy sixty three with some free throws, and then Anthony Edwards hits that like super nasty sidestep pull up jump shot over Kevin Durant the long to they're on the left wing right, so it's seventy to sixty three. Then Drew u Banks checks into the gate, and what do we talk about is the coverage that the Suns are using in this series. When u Banks is on

the floor right, everything with Ant is more aggressive. It's Nurkic at the level of the screen, and with U Banks in particular, they're doing an even more aggressive version of that, which is a hedge. They're actually having him literally lunge out and cut off the driving lane before he recovers into the lane. So, in a weird way, the high drop is a little bit more of a

like what Nurkic is doing. The high drop is a little bit more of like a windshield wiper type of rotation where the low man is making a read based on how high Nurkic needs to go out, and it's not quite as aggressive of a coverage. With the hedge, it's so aggressive aggressive that the pocket pass can get open and it could be a big problem pretty quickly. So they're tagging the roller aggressively to start the possession.

And so especially in those specific coverages, ants passing is a vital importance for them to be able to beat that coverage. And as I talked about, the offensive pendulum for the Suns or excuse me, for the Wolves in the series is going to center on ants playmaking and his pull up shooting. Right, can he make tough pull up jump shots over the top of multiple defenders like he did at the in game one, or can he

beat the coverage with the pass? And I thought he just did just an amazing job beating the Sun's hedge and recover with U Banks in that third quarter stretch, do you remember that Jaden McDaniels ripped through on the baseline where he drifted underneath the back getting hit the like fade away like like on the opposite side of the rim. That literally started with a hedge and recover that Ant beat with the skip pass. That's it was

his read. He generated a three on two defensively or two on three I should say, And he created a three on two on the weak side, and Jaden beat Kevin Durant on a close out that was created by Ant's pass nas Reed. Do you remember when Nasri caught at the top of the key and drove by Devin Booker and Drew drew free throws right after that? That was literally a hedge and a tag with a kick back to naz Reid wide open at the top of

the key. Devin Booker had to close out on him, and when he closed out on him, he was able to beat him off the dribble and draw foul shots, once again generated by Ant's playmaking the kil Alexander Walker's corner three in the left corner. Devin Booker, if I remember, I think Devin was the guy guarding Nikil on that play. Devin Booker was way up digging down into a driving lane.

In addition to the hedge and recover. It was like a they were defending it like four on two and Ant just instead of trying to force the action, just made the swing pass into keele Alexander Walker in the left corner and he knocked down the three. They were all reads by Anthony Edwards, and again like it's just we talked about the game plan coming into this series.

If Ant can make the reads, if Mike Conley can score and pick and roll, and if the Wolves on defense can stay home off the ball and force them to the Suns to take and make really difficult contested twos, the Wolves are gonna win. And that is exactly what they've done. But if Mike Conley can't score and pick and roll, if an it can't make the reads and makes a bunch of bad decisions on the ball and defensively they end up in rotation, the Suns are gonna win,

and we'll see if that pendulum swings back towards Phoenix when we get to Phoenix in game three. And honestly, I'm genuinely curious to see how this all goes with how bad the home teams have dominated so far through the first four days of the playoffs, really curious to see if that shifts when we get into these game threes. But so far Minnes has won that battle. So ants playmaking in the third Let's move on to the fourth quarter. So in the fourth quarter, it was Mike Conley that

went to work as a playmaker. But before we get into this, I want to go back in time for a minute to the second quarter, because remember the base coverage for Phoenix when it comes to Conley was very different than their coverage for Anthony Edwards. Anthony Edwards is high drop with Nurkic with a tag and it's a hedge with U Banks with a tag. Right with Conley, they're trying to bait him into being a score and

try to stay home off the ball. So they were having Nurkic sit way back in a deep drop and they're just chasing him over the top of the screen. Well in that second quarter. Mike Conley went on a hell of a scoring run in that against that coverage. In his two man game with Rudy Gobert, who, by the way, is a bunch of credit a chemistry with from their time together in Utah and obviously a year

and a half if they spent playing together. Now started off with a couple of floaters and a really difficult left handed floater getting downhill to start that run in the second quarter. Then he hit another float that one was a little bit easier. There was an off ball flare screen from Gobert on the right corner where Conley got a wide open corner three. Remember off ball coverages

actually have very similar principles to on ball coverages. So in an on ball drop coverage, right, Conley is has the ball guy's chasing him over the top, Nurkic is sitting way back and basically waiting for him and containing both the role maan and the ball handler. Right, That's exactly what happens in an off ball screen. The difference is the ball is just in a passer at the

top of the key. So passer at the top of the key, let's say Conley is on the right wing, and Gobert sets a flare screen to him in the corner. Nurkic is in the exact same coverage. He's dropping to the short corner and he's waiting for Conley to try to score between him, and if the screener slips, go Bear slips, Nurkic is there to handle both of them. So even though it was an off ball play, it's more or less the same coverage. It's just set up

in an off ball configuration. Finally sinks that three in the corner. Then he hits a pull up three on the right wing go Bear screen. Grayson Allen dies on the screen, Condy comes off of it. Bam, hits that pull up. Patent did pull up three that he's been hitting his entire career right on the on the right wing. Then he hits this like ridiculous up and under left handed scoop shot. So he literally had twelve points as a score in that second quarter run and all of

them were against the deep drop coverage. Now here's where it gets interesting. He did not make a field goal in the third quarter. Most of those shots were tough. The first floater was tough, the corner three was tough. He was like flying into the corner. The layup, the up and under layup was super tough. Only the second floater and the pull up three were what I would

qualify as easy shots. And honestly, it was on the on ball guy for giving too much separation chasing over the top of the screens, so as we So when you factor in that they were tough shots and that he didn't make a field goal in the third quarter, that kind of sets the stage for this fourth quarter situation. So Vogel has a decision to make there. You either stick with the game plan and say, we just got to do a better job on ball. He hit some tough shots. He might be out of rhythm because he

didn't score in the third quarter. Why don't we just stick with our deep drop coverage and see what happens or make an adjustment. And Frank Vogel decided to make an adjustment, and it burned him. He ended up putting Nurkic in an aggressive high drop coverage and then Conley immediately started picking them apart with the pocket pass to go Bear. First possession comes off the ball screen, high drop from Nurkic, easy pocket pass to go Bear Hadi is way too slow tagging on the back line. Gobert

goes down the lane and dunks it. They're the very next next time they run it high drop pocket pass to go Bear. Carl Towns huts along the baseline. There's a tag of the roller. Carl Towns gets a layup. Jaden McDaniels got a wide open three on the left wing, same sort of thing up. Pocket pass to go Bear, tag the roller, kick out to Jade McDaniels on the

left wing. He happened to miss that one, but as everyone was closing out at him, there was a long rebound to the right side of the floor and Conley was standing there by himself caught it in the right corner and made the three. That really was the dagger of this game and put the Wolves up thirteen and they never looked back. So like super super interesting a work from Conley and Ant in this game. To beat the coverages that Phoenix was using, they baited Ant into

his worst tendencies. He confronted them, and he beat them with the pass. They baited Conley into his worst tendencies passivity. He beat it with scoring forced them to make an adjustment which then unlocked his best trait, which is him as a playmaker, and he picked them apart. So shout out to Anthony Edwards ants to Mike Conley. I thought they were the story of this game. They're the two

primary initiative initiators from Minnesota. The biggest rub on Minnesota this season has been their inability to score in the half court against elite defenses that load up on them. And they just got over that today and over the course of this series so far, and again specifically in

late game situations, Minnesota. Gosh, like, Minnesota has been awful in slow down half court environments at the end of these games, and it's it's been such a weak point and they're just confronting it in this series and they're

beating it. I also want to shout out Jaden McDaniels another example of like how in this super physical and intense environment, it's been the athletes that have been thriving driving closeouts, like he was just torching the sun, specifically KD, and now Kd's getting into help position and he's closing out and like we talked about, you kind of have to with Jayden. And here's the thing, Jade McDaniels was not a good closeout player this year. He was below

one point per possession in spot up situations. He was like a low fortieth percentile guy compared to his peers. He shot just forty two percent this year in spot up situations. He had zero points in spot up situations. In Game one, he torched the Suns tonight, had fourteen points just in spot up situations, shot six for eight from the field. He's been an absolute athletic wrecking ball in this series. It's been one of the most interesting things that stood out to me through the first four

days of the postseason. The real athletes have thrived in the thin finesse players have really struggled, and I find that super interesting as the league kind of shifts towards a more physical environment. On the Suns front, they just really struggled to handle the physicality. They had twenty more turnovers tonight. They just start to get tired and then they get sloppy. They're up to thirty five turnovers for

the series. Their stars can't score efficiently in this environment, and they're still really struggling to get the defense in rotation. They have sixty eight made field goals so far in this series, they've only gotten assists thirty five of them. That's a fifty one percent assist percentage. And remember this team was sixty six percent in assist percentage post All Star Break. It was one of the defining characteristics of them, kind of achieving some of the high highs that they

achieved down the stretch of the season. They're also just not generating any catch and shoot looks. Post All Star Break, they were generating twenty seven catch and shoot jump shots per game. That was the twelfth most in the league, very unlike the Phoenix team that we saw last year.

So far in this series total, they've generated nineteen catch and shoot jump shots, just nine point five per game, or another way of looking at it, one third as many catch and shoot jump shot attempts as they were getting per game over the last chunk of the season post All Star Break. It is a major problem for them in this series, and it goes beyond the assist percentage. They're just not scoring. They're at a ninety eight point nine offensive ratings so far through two games. They were

a top ten offense in the regular season. Now there's three things that I want to call attention to that are causing those problems. They're struggling to handle the physicality on drives. When they start to get downhill in the hands and everyone starts grabbing, They're falling over, they're losing their balance, they're not getting lyft, they're losing control of basketball. Two, they're turning the basketball over fatigue leading to sloppiness. And

you'll see this in the film session. I have twenty clips that I'm gonna show you guys in a film session tomorrow that kind of goes over some of these concepts. But they're just they get tired and they make some really sloppy turnovers. Devin Booker had two really bad ones in the second half. Just threw the ball out of bounds on a swing pass to Bradley Beal, tried to make a high post entry and just threw the ball right into the Keile Alexander Walker's hands. That's not Devin

Booker not being able to handle ball pressure. He's tired, and when he's tired, he's getting sloppy. And like, here's the thing. In physical games, the stronger team is usually the team that holds up better in terms of fatigu and the Sons are just not the stronger team in this matchup. So but by far the biggest problem they're having is they're just missing too many reads. And there's literally so many examples. And I'm gonna, like I said in the film session tomorrow, I'm gonna give you guys

a bunch of those examples. But I'm gonna give you guys three examples tonight to just explain what I'm talking about. And these are all just in the first half. So, there was a Katie Grayson Allen goes screen at the top of the key. Katie has the ball. He's kind of like top of the key area. Grayson Allen's standing on the right wing. Grayson Allen is being guarded by Mike Conley. Kevin Durant's being guarded by Carl Towns. Grayson Allen runs over to the right side of Kevin Durant

to set a ball screen. When he does, we know what happens next. Right, Donley hedges because he doesn't want to give up the drive to Kevin Durant. Right because if if he stays glued up to Grayson and he and he screens Cat, Katie's just gonna drive right around into the right hand side to get to the rims. So the hedge, Mike Conley lunges out to cut off the drive right Grayson Allen slips it, goes to the left wing on the three point line. He's wide open.

Katie throws him the pass. Mike Conley is closing out to his right hand side, there is a baked in driving lane if he if he just catches and rips to the left, he has a baked in driving lane that is almost certainly gonna draw in another defender and is going to generate a closeout opportunity for Devin Booker or Bradley Beal And those guys operating with a close out are gonna be typer efficient, not the inefficient scores

that they've been in this game. So what happens? Do you guys remember in game one where Devin Booker or excuse me, where Grayson Allen pump faked and got Jane McDaniels off the floor and instead of driving it, he just threw it back to KD. Did the exact same thing tonight has the catch, could rack left and draw

the next defender. Instead, he just throws it right back to KD and Carl Towns is right there, and now it's a straight static ISO against Carl Towns, and k drives on him and has to settle for a really difficult, tough contested two that he misses. Why'd you even run the ghost screen? The whole purpose of the ghost screen is to generate the close out opportunity for Grayson so that he can further the advantage for the next guy. That's why you run the action, and you bailed on

it and gave up the advantage. It makes literally no sense. You turned an action for a close out into a tough contested two. In ISO. The next one, Bradley Beal runs a double stagger use. If Nurkic sets the first screen, Royce O'Neil sets the second screen. On the first screen, Nurkic rolls, Bradley Beal, turns the corner and goes downhill. On the second screen, Royce O'Neil pops to the top of the key. All three wolves go with Nurkic and Bradley Beal Royce O'Neil standing wide open at the top

of the key. Bradley Beal's not even getting ball pressured at this point. All he has to do is whip it back over his shoulder to Royce O'Neil. He's either shooting a catch and shoot three or someone's closing out at him and he can either make an extra pass or drive the clothes out to break in an advantage situation where you can generate another close out opportunity for Devin Booker or Bradley Beal. Instead, Bradley Beal looks off Royce O'Neil, drags the pick and roll way down to

the baseline. Heels go bear off in a switch and then a tax go bear in a switch and settles for an impossible step through like floater shot that has like almost no chance of going in and he misses it. That's just bad process. And then lastly, later on in the first half, they run a guard guard screen with Royce O'Neil that gets Monti Morris switched onto Devin Booker. Devin Booker's thinking, Okay, I have a size advantage. I'm gonna post him up like that, backs him down, gets

into the lane. We start to set up a situation where the Wolves zone up on the backside, so Bradley Beal clears out and goes to the right corner. His man is Anthony Edwards. Anthony Edwards completely ignores Bradley Beal and literally goes and stands right underneath the basket. Okay, so now, Drew you Banks sets what's called a pin in flair on I believe Gobert on the baseline. It was either it was Gobert or one of the I

think it was Carl Town's. Actually at this point the pin and flair again is all he's doing is making it so that if Bradley Devin Booker decides to throw that skip pass to Bradley Beal, who's wide open in the corner, if Kat tries to close out, U Banks is there to screen him. U Banks is literally set up. He's positioned himself right between Kat and Bradley Beal in

the corner. It's cleanly set up to generate a wide open catch and shoot three for Bradley Beal, who's been deadly in catch and shoot three points situations all season long. And instead of making the pass, and you can literally see on the video a clear window for the pass, instead of making the pass, Devin Booker settled for an impossible well not an impossible quality shot for Booker, I guess, but in a super physical game like this, where they

can't make shots. It's a much lower percentage, much lower value shot. Takes a left shoulder fade over Moni Morris and misses it. And again I'm not saying you don't take those shots. Work on those shots for a reason. They serve a very important purpose in basketball games, for rescue possessions, coverage beaters in late game situations. There's a

reason why you work on those shots. But what made the Suns a great team down the stretch of the season was advantage basketball, getting guys into advantage situations because they're way more efficient attacking a closeout versus attacking a set defender. And they've played directly into Minnesota's hands in this series. And again, you guys are gonna see the examples when we get into the film tomorrow. But like, I was watching that today and I'm like, what are

you guys doing? Like you're losing sight of exactly what made you great, and you're playing into the lesser version of yourself, and you're allowing a team in Minnesota that has some weaknesses that you can attack to play to their strengths. And now you're down two to oh and you haven't had a decent chance to win either of these games. Sons are in some real trouble and they're going to have to flip that dynamic when they get home, and it all starts with decision making from their starf

all right, Moving on to Pacers Bucks. Jump shooting was a major story of this game. You guys, remember in Game one I talked about how the Bucks are a top five team in the NBA in allowing jump shots, and the Pacers are a top five team in the NBA in converting jump shots into points, and they just could not make them in Game one. As a matter of fact, they got zero points seven to seven points per jump shot in Game one. Well, they shot like the Pacers today and then some they had one point

two to two points per jump shot. So basically like the Damnure doubled up their jump shot efficiency from the last game, and it just completely changed the dynamic. A bunch of key guys got going. Miles Turner was hitting his threes in picking pop and in spot up situations, very key for the game plan because remember the Bucks are basically going to concede those to protect the rim, right, and so Miles Turner hitting those shots is important to

burn the coverage. Siakam hit three threes, Aeronne hit three threes, Tyrese Halliburton hit three threes. So like just getting that jump shot result back into the to the ballpark of what you expect from the Pacers. It got them engaged defensively. They started to play like the Pacers in general. They

were pushing off of makes and misses. How many times did you see, Like you know, there was a play where in the first half of I remember correctly, where Brook Lopez like makes a layup but kind of like trips and falls over, and you just see the Pacers go like he's down, let's go and on a made basket, they push up the floor and Brooke gets up and he's sprinting back, but Siakam just kind of like navigates and finds a little opening and Tyrese hits him and

he makes the layup. On the other end, it might have been ob top and I can't remember exactly, but they were just running on makes and misses and getting out. They got out in transition on twenty percent of their possessions in this game, and then they finally got control of Damian Lillard. Remember I talked a lot in Game one about how some of the jump shot results you kind of have to with. Dame is a superstar and he's he's capable of making tough, contested pull up threes,

and to Dame's credit, tip the cap to him. He's been hitting those shots through two games, and like I'm sure Pacers fans have felt a certain amount of like fear and hopelessness surrounding Dame and just his his supreme talent, and that has been on full display through two games. But the bigger problem they were having in the first game was not the pull up threes, but rather the

dribble penetration. His Dame was coming off these ball screens, the big guy in the high drop, whether it was Siakam or Miles Turner, whoever it was, or Jalen Smith, he was just beating that guy off the dribble and the Pacers had no backside help at that point. He

was getting lay up after layup after foul. He got four layups in the restricted area, drew a foul, and got to the foul line there Like he just was killing them in that specific situation while they cut his restricted area, finishing in half in this game, and they finally slowed him down in the second half, he was

just three for nine from the field. So shout out to the Pacers for finally getting control of the situation defensively, and then Pascalsiyakam, he just gave them that patented mid range shot making that is so desperately needed when you get into the postseason. He's been getting close to the rim and taking short range jump shots. And again I talk about this a lot, but like mid range jump shooting a lot of times, it's when you get out

past fifteen feet that the actual efficiency metrics tank. When you're inside of fifteen feet, they actually turn into shots that you can hit sixty sixty five percent of the time if you're a really really good pull up shooter, right, Like,

that's kind of the story with Jokic. The reason why he's so damn efficient is the majority of the shots that he takes is over the top shot making shots are inside of fifteen feet and so they're floaters and push shots and short turnarounds, and they're just shots that he can hit an extremely high rate. And like you're

seeing that value from Pascal Siaka. In fact, he's eight for thirteen from the mid range in this series so far, he hits so much any big shots tonight, including some huge ones in the fourth quarter when they blew the game. Open talked about this in the Maverick segment. But for the people who the Pacers fans who check this out as a breakout clip, I'm gonna just kind of go over it again, like I really like this approach to

team building. Talked about it with Dallas, But they went and got Kyrie Irving, and in the process they kind of gutted their roster, right, and it caused a problem. They missed the playoffs last year, right, But then in the offseason or in the in the off season, they got Derek Jones Junior, and they got Grant Williams, and they used Grant Williams at the deadline to flip to get PJ. Washington. All of a sudden, they put together some quality role players around their number one Luca and

their number two Kyrie Irving. And now you're seeing a team that is the first team, not counting the Pacers who are going against a team without their best player and Giannis, but the first team to win against a full strength team on the road in the playoffs so far this year, so like you're seeing the reward of that kind of team building approach. And it was clear what happened this year with the Pacers the exact same thing.

Tyrese Haliburton went on that crazy run to start the year where he was like twenty four points and I think like twelve thirteen assists and shooting fifty forty ninety, and it became clear, like, oh, Tyres is one of the top five offensive engines in the NBA, like already, like this is insane. This guy is clearly capable of being a guy we build around to win a championship. And so what did they do at the deadline exactly

what the MAVs did last year. They gave up a couple of really good players, right giving up Buddy Healed, but Hel was such an important part of this team with his ghost screen game with Tyres Halliburton. Obviously Bruce Brown was their best like kind of like athlete wrecking

ball in the backing court. They gave those guys up and they got in Pascal Siakam, a complimentary star that is good at the things that that Halliburton's not as good at, like being that defensive forward being that on an island score, although Tyree's before his hamstring injury was an awesome, awesome on an island scorer too, But like,

I love it because now it's like, not only do you have this good team this year that's fun and has a decent chance to make it out of the first round, and we'll have a fighting chance in that second round series against whether depending on whether or not it's the Knicks or the Sixers, right, but like they have this chance and then going into the offseason they can look at it and be like, all right, we got our one Tyres, we got our two Pascal Siakam,

Let's find some complimentary role players that kind of tie this whole thing together and make a run from there. And just Siakam, I don't think you could have. I mean, Pacers fans, are you not just completely thrilled with the production you've got out of Siakam through two games? But the Pacers did what they need to do tonight. They played to their advantages. They use their speed to spread

Milwaukee out, keep them on their heels. They defended better, they made their jump shots, and they got out of there with a win. If they can go get Game three at home, and they go up to one before Giannis gets back. I think they'll win the series, but if they drop Game three, they could be in some trouble. But I do believe they'll win Game three. That's gonna

be the big one. And again, I'm gonna be really curious to see just in general, some of the trends surrounding the home teams when we shift to the lower seeds being at home. All right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for rocking with me and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow with some film breakdowns, and then obviously we're actually taking tomorrow night off because we have a

relatively late light slate. If I remember correctly, it's Celtics heat, which is the biggest favorite in the first round, and then it's I think it's Thunder Pelicans is the second game. We will cover those games on Thursday Mornings show, but we're gonna take that as an opportunity to take a night.

I'm gonna actually hang out with my wife. Been putting her through hell for the last four nights as she comes home every night from work and I'm just working, so I'm gonna spend some time with her and then we'll get back to it on Thursday morning, and then again on Thursday night for the for the night Slate that night. So again, I appreciate you guys for rocking with me. I will see you tomorrow morning. The volume