Hoops Tonight - Mavericks-Thunder Predictions: Will Luka Doncic & Dallas end OKC's dream season?, Celtics-Cavs predictions: Why Tatum & Boston will CRUISE past Cavs

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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 bball for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms and responsible gaming resources. All right, welcome to tonight here at the Volume. Have you Monday? Everybody? Hope all if you guys had an incredible weekend. We're going to be starting today off with a couple of series previews. In this video, I'm just hitting MAVs Thunder.

Later today we'll have a shorter series preview on Celtics Cavs coming out, and then later tonight we're going after the final buzzer of Game two of Nuggets Timberwolves break that game down, as well as the Knicks Pacers series having their Game one tonight, so two series previews, previews live show tonight. Also quick note, I released like a Game Breakdown with forty five clips of film on the Nuggets Wolves Game one, but we ran into an issue

with YouTube where it got pulled. So like we just ran the verbal part at the start of the show that may or may not end up happening to this video as well. I have ten clips that we're going to hit at the end, but just know we're still trying to kind of work through that behind the scenes. So I'm gonna do the best that I can. But that's why I'm going to kind of go over everything verbal at the top of the show, so at least we have that if something goes wrong. But again, I

apologize for that issue we have with that video. I promise we're working on it behind the scenes. You guys know the Joe before we get started. Subscribed to our

brand new YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos, follow me on Twitter at Underscore JCNLTC, don't miss sho announcements, don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops tonight, and then last but not least, keep dropping mail back questions in those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the postseason. All right, let's talk some basketball.

So MAVs Thunder. This is of all the series that I've talked about in the first round of the postseason, or I should say the first and second round of the postseason, this one is the hardest one for me to get a feel for it. I kind of had a more concrete feeling going in until I got the news that Maxi Kleiba is going to be out for

at least the next three weeks. I've nick Sixers was close for me, and I ended up picking the wrong side of it, but I at least had a more strong feeling about Philly at the start of that particular series. This series, like, I don't feel good about either team given the injury to Maxi Kleba, but we're going to get into it. The Thunder won the season series three to one. The data is almost useless. Everyone was out

The last game. The MAVs blowout was right after the Gafford Washington trade, and Gafford and Washington both came off the bench. Kind of a weird game. The Thunder were on three straight full days off beforehand, and they just came out flat and got rolled from the opening tip. Really energetic MAVs effort in that game. Luca was out for one of the other MAVs losses. Kyrie was out

for one of the other MAVs losses. The one game all the Stars played, the MAVs dominated, but like I said, it was kind of a weird, a weird game from the start. The metrics, the MAVs won thirteen point five offensive rating in this matchup the thunder one nineteen point seven. The MAVs barely won the rebounding battle. They grabbed fifty point four percent of available rebounds, so they didn't do as much damage to Oklahoma City as some other teams

have done. The thunder one points off of turnovers twenty three point four to seventeen point eight per game, the thunder one second chance points eighteen point three to thirteen point three. By the way, these are actually per one hundred possessions, not per game. MAVs won fast break points eighteen point eight to twelve point five, and MAVs one points in the paint forty six point three to forty five point three. Vegas agrees that this is more or

less a coin flip series. The Thunder are currently favored at minus one fifteen according to DraftKings, but both teams have negative odds. If you want to bet the MAVs to win the series, you're getting it at minus one oh five, which is not a whole lot better. So more or less a coin flip series in Vegas as well. Let's start with the MAVs on offense. So it's going to be interesting because I think when the MAVs are on offense, it is going to be pretty straightforward matchups

for Oklahoma City. When Oklahoma City is on offense, I think Dallas is going to be doing all sorts of different stuff to hang with some of the matchup issues that Oklahoma City can cause. So let's start MAVs on offense, really straightforward matchups for them. It's going to be lou Dort on Luka Doncic very a kind of a different type of defender than some of the guys he was going against in the last round, like Russ and Terrence Man are kind of like low center of gravity athletic guards.

But lou Dort is literally built like a linebacker, and so he's going to be able to kind of handle some of the bully ball stuff that Luca does a little better. But to be clear, in the regular season, Luca lit him up thirty four points per game, fifty six percent from the field forty three percent from three twenty seven assists in the two games that he played. The game that I talked about, the blowout game, he was cooking Lou Dort early. He was duck He ducked

under a pick early, which you shouldn't do with Luca. Luca, he'll pull up three. He hit him with a pump fake and Dort damn near ran into the scorers table as Luca hit a three over the top of him. It was just a complete cook job. It was not pretty. But I do think Lou's capable of doing a much better job. His back pressure was kind of weak in that game, and like I said, he left his feet on pump fakes too much. But he does have the physical traits to beat Luca to spots and to hold

up under his bully ball. I do think that he'll do a better job. I expect Luca to do a lot of work early in possessions to get him off of him as much as possible, and then I also think loud Dort's going to bring a lot of full court ball pressure to try to tire him out again. The last time Luca lost a playoff series against Golden State in twenty twenty two, that was kind of the way that Golden State attacked him was just pick him up full court, try to tire him out, stay home

off the ball, make him into a scorer, right. Jalen Williams on Kyrie. Kyrie also torched him thirty one points per game, sixty two percent from the field, forty three percent from the three main thing that stood out to me on tape is he's just a little too quick for Jalen. Jalen's a really good athlete, but Kyrie is a small guard with a ton of first step quickness. So for Jalen, it's mostly going to be about sticking

to the game plan. What I mean by that is like a lot of it's going to be more about back pressure, doing the best you can to contest shots, more stuff within the team concept defensively, because I think I think Oklahoma City's gonna have to throw some extra bodies in that direction from time to time. Chet's gonna guard whoever the center is whether it's Daniel Gafford or Derek Lively. The MAVs ran a lot of pick and

pop with Maxi Kleba in the regular season. When I talk about Maxi Cleba being out of this series, I'm primarily going to be focusing on Dallas on the defensive end of the floor, because that's where I think his greatest value is. But it's also a loss on the offensive end because Gafford and Lively are not picking, and they ran a lot of pick and pop withk Liba against the Thunder during the regular season. Chet had some

mixed results in drop coverage against Dallas. We'll show you some examples on the film when we get there, But similar to Dort, I think Chet's capable of doing a better job than he did during the regular season. I think we'll see Shay guard Derek Jones Junior, and I think we'll see Josh Gitty guard PJ. Washington, and for

both of them, same sort of thing. A lot of lowman possessions where they're guy's going to be in the corner spotting up and they're gonna need to help on pick and roll, help in defensive rebounding situations, help on drive, so it's gonna be a lot of help and rebound responsibilities from those two guys. They'll primarily run deep drop. They did some trapping with Chet, but they'll primarily run

deep drop. They're gonna when the MAVs try to attack Josh Kitty in particular, I think they'll do a lot of hedging and recovering. They did that in the regular season just to prevent Giddy from getting into any unfavorable matchups keys for both teams for Dallas get favorable matchups for Luca possessions with more guard to guard screens and then also pushing in transition to get cross matches. One of the things that they had a lot of success with Tape on Tape was stack, pick and roll, so

they'd have Luca as the main ball handler. They'd have Gafford or Lively come up and set the screen, and then as Luca comes downhill, they'd have Kyrie underneath the basket backscreen Chet and then pop out to the three point line. They were spamming that in the I want to say it was in the third quarter of one of the games that I was watching. I've watched a bunch of film on this matchup today because I had such a I had such a poor feel for who

I felt comfortable with in this series. I watched more film on this one than I did any of the other series I've watched this year or that I previewed.

In this playoff run and they but there was a game I want to say it was the one the Mavericks won big, and they they really leaned into stack, pick and roll in like an early third quarter run where they kind of started to pull away, and actually I think it was like mid third quarter, not that it matters anyway, they spammed it a bunch times in a row, and they got a bunch of buckets out

of it from a bunch of different reads. So I think they'll run that quite a bit on Oklahoma City side, pressure Luca full court with Dort to eat into the shot clock where Luca out less time to run action that way too. Again, like the MAVs, when you can kind of get them deep in the clock to where some of their lesser offensive players are trying to make plays with like four or five seconds on the shot clock, that's where you can play them into their worst tendencies.

And then again I think it's going to take a team defensive effort with kyrieus. You know, Jalen Williams in particular like it just a little upright for Kyrie. But we'll see he might hold up better in the postseason with more physicality and more intensity. Also, don't be surprised if we see a lot of case on Wallace to try to deal with the Kyrie problem and then again cleaning up the defensive glass. That's gonna be a big one.

Just in general, Dallas was really I know, they didn't do a ton of damage to Oklahoma City in the regular season on the offensive glass. They did a ton of damage to the Clippers though in the first round on the offensive glass. So that's going to be a big one for Oklahoma City moving to Oklahoma City on offense. As I said, I think we're gonna see a lot more variety in the defensive looks that we see from Dallas.

I think they'll probably start Game one with Kyrie on Shay, as crazy as that sounds, Derek Jones Junior on Jalen Luca on Lou Dort, and then PJ. Washington on Josh Giddy and then Daniel Gafford on Chet. I think that's how they'll start, but we very well might see Kyrie shift onto Josh Gitty and move PJ. Washington onto one of their main two shot creators. I think that'll be a more more of like a primary look we'll see throughout the series is Derek Jones on Shae, PJ. Washington

on Jalen, and then Kyrie to Josh Gitty. But Kyrie's been defending really well, and I wouldn't be surprised if in their team film sessions and stuff and in their prep, I wouldn't be surprised if Kyrie's speaking up to Jason Kidd and saying, I want to guard one of those guys, and we'll see if he ends up doing so. Again. One of the things that's going to be interesting is the Derek Jones PJ. Washington, Shay Jalen kind of dynamic.

I think you can go both ways. There's gonna be I think they're gonna start Derek Jones on Shay because Derek Jones has been taking the higher leverage point of attack assignments for the most part here down the tail end of the season. But there's a case to be made that PJ. Washington is actually a better matchup for Shay. Shay's not as athletic downhill. Shae gets a ton of drives to the basket, but it's more hesitation and it's

a lot of shiftiness. Jalen's like a real downhill threat, And so part of me wonders if Derek Jones Junior actually matches up better with Jalen Williams in terms of his ability to beat him to spots, whereas Shay when he's doing the herky jerky shifty kind of thing and when he tries to get into your body and use that off arm to kind of get separation to take those short step backs, I wonder if PJ. Washington can absorb that contact better and get and has better length

to get contests. So I bet you they kind of tweaked that around back and forth a little bit. And again, what you do is early in the series you kind of let both guys have opportunities on both guys, and then you make a read on tape like which guy's doing a better job making which guy feel uncomfortable? The

Chet problem. So Chet's only three for nine on pick and Pop three so far in this postseason, so I expect him to start with Gafford Lively on Chet and just run drop and then if Chet catches on the three point line, they'll have Gafford or Lively just close out as best as they can. But there will almost certainly be at least one game in the series, if not a few, or Chet's hitting and it could just be like Miles Turner against the Bucks, or maybe he's

just hitting the entire series. And if that happens, that's where the Maxi Kleeba loss is huge, because he's the kind of versatile defender that can make that job a lot more achieva achievable. So imagine you have Derek Jones Junior on in PJ. Washington on Jalen Jalen Williams and Shake Gills Alexander. If you're matched up on those two guys, if you have Kleiba on Chet, then you can just switch everything. Any Jalen Chet ball screen, just switch. You

trust Kleiba or do a decent job on Jalen. Right, if it's a Shaye Chet ball screen, you just switch. You trust Kleba to do a good job on Shay right. And then on the flip side of that, you don't think Chet's gonna bully PJ. Washington or Derrek Jones Junior. Right, So like those are those are that's an easy fix if Kleiba is available. But without Kliba, I think we'll see Dallas try two different things. First, I think they

might just try putting the center on Josh Gitty. This is a look they went with during the regular season that I'll show you guys when we get to the tape. But you just take Derek Lively or Josh Kitty which everyone's on there, excuse me, Gafford and which everyone's on the floor, and Giddy will just be sitting in the corner and you just have them sit in the paint and help. Then you move PJ. Washington to Chet Holmgren.

That's when you put Kyrie Irving on Shay and then you basically switch any chet ball screen with PJ and Will. That will at least allow you to prevent Chet from breaking open on those picking pops. Now, one of the things you have to be prepared for there. And I'll show you guys this on tape as well. Okgahoma City has seen this coverage before. Teams have been putting their center on Giddy often throughout the regular season, and so one of the things you'll see is they'll just bring

up whoever. They'll just bring up Giddy into the ball screen instead of running it with Chet. In that case, you live with the results. Just running deep drop Giddy is not a good movement shooter, so he's not gonna slip out of that ball screen quickly and knock down shots. You just run your deep drop coverage. You chase with Kyrie over the top on Shay, and you funnel into to Gafford and if Giddy catches on the perimeter, you

just close out right. But that is what Oklahoma City will do sometimes to counter putting the center on Giddy. They'll just start setting ball screens with Giddy. The second thing that I think we'll see them do is just go super small and just go this is not ideal. The ideal small ball group for Dallas would be Kleeba

and PJ. Washington together with Derek Jones and Kyrie and Luca and hopefully the news with kleab his shoulder is that he's able to come back in three weeks and if Dallas can somehow win the series, then he returns halfway through the conference finals, right that's what you're crossing your fingers for. But in the short term, you got to have some sort of small ball look. I think you go with PJ. Washington at center, and then what you do is you bring in either Dante Xhem or

Josh Green. Those are two of your stockier guards that can guard up a little bit. And then you run those two guys with Kyrie Luca and Derek Jones. And then from there you put PJ on Chet, You put Derek Jones on Shay or Jalen, and then you put the other Dante Eximmer Josh Green on the other one of those guys do more switching. Like I talked about,

that I think is another look that we'll see. I think you can get away with going super small against Oklahoma City in a way that you can't with some other teams around the league, just because Oklahoma City is pretty small. But definitely the Cleblad loss is going to be big. But I think those are a couple of looks that Dallas can go with to deal with the Chet problem if he gets going and pick and pop predictions. Again, I viewed this series as more or less of a

coin flip. Mac was healthy. I'd give Dallas a clear edge, I wouldn't get it. They wouldn't be a massive favorite, but I'd pick Dallas and feel more comfortable with it. But without him, I think it's a really tough series to call either way, and I think the Vegas odds are a clear sign of that as well. Both teams have negative odds, so if you bet a hundred bucks, you're winning less than one hundred on either team if you bet them to win the series. So I'm gonna

pick Dallas still for three reasons. One, I've been really impressed with Dallas' overall physicality on the frontline so far in this postseason. Now, obviously Kleiba being out it affects that, but they were the third best offensive rebounding team in the first round. They grabbed thirty two percent of their own misses, and as we know, that's a huge weakness for Oklahoma City. I think they're twenty eight in defensive rebounding in the regular season. Two, I think Luca is

a better player than Shae. He's bigger, he's stronger, and he's substantially more playoff experience. And then three, I'm a big believer in Jalen Williams's long term potential. I've said this before. I think he has the potential to be better than Shae, But I think Kyrie is a little bit more prepared for this type of series in terms of experience, and so those three things kind of give

me a tiny bit of an edge. Honestly, that gap almost gets closed for me because I think Oklahoma City does have more offensive skilled down the roster after their stars, and Oklahoma City has an incredible home court advantage and they're gonna get four home games in this series. So it's still razor razor thin for me. I'm gonna pick Dallas in six, but I don't feel good about it. So we're just gonna do a quick series preview of

Cavs Celtics. We're running a little tight on time. Also, this is by far the biggest long shot of any of the second round series. The Celtics are favored at minus twelve hundred, which is like a massive, massive number for a second round playoff series. But I want to give my two cents on just my outlook on the series going in. We're gonna break it down and I'll give a prediction at the end. You guys know, the

Joe before we get started. Subscribe to a brand new YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore jsnlts you guys, don't miss you announcements. Don't forget about a podcas feed wherever you get your podcast under hoops Tonight. And the last, but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions underneath this video so that we can keep hitting mail bags throughout the rest of the postseason. All right, let's talk some basketball.

So the Celtics won the season series two to one. The only loss was in the Dean Wade game. That was the game where the Calves were down by twenty two nine minutes left. Dean Wade got red hot from three. He had a tip dunk or it was either a tipdunk or offensive rebound dunk. I can't even remember, but he I vividly remember Drew Holiday not boxing him out.

That's all I remember is Drew not boxing out Dean crash it in getting a dunk, and then on the other end of the floor, Tatum attack Sterarius Garland on a switch, gets a fadaway jump shot off, draws a foul. They review it, they overturn it Calves pull off the improbable comeback. The metrics from the season series one seventeen point two offensive rating for the Celtics, a one to thirteen point two offensive rebound or offensive rating for the Calves.

Celtics dominated the glass. They grabbed fifty four point five perc of available rebounds, the Celtics one points off of turnovers twenty point three to seventeen point nine per one hundred possessions. Calves won second chance points fourteen point eight to fourteen point one per one hundred possessions. Celtics won fast break points thirteen point four to nine point three per one hundred, and the Celtics one points in the paint forty five point five to forty per one hundred.

On DraftKings, the Celtics are currently a minus twelve hundred favorite. As I mentioned earlier, that's just a massive number. Let's get into it very briefly. On both ends of the floor. The Caves. On offense, the Celtics started Drew Holliday on him. During the regular season. Mitchell played really well. He averaged thirty points per game on fifty percent shooting. In the two games he played just nine assists to six turnovers in those two games, though Derek White well in all

likelihood guard Darius Garland. Huge factor in the series is whether or not Jared Allen's actually going to play right like I would have thought he would have played in Game seven if he was feeling up for it, and he clearly didn't, So who knows if we'll see him in this series. I'm going to proceed as though he does. I don't think whether or not he plays makes that much of a difference in whether or not the Cavs can win the series. But we're gonna break it down

from the perspective of Jared playing with that. With Jared Allen on the floor, I expect a bunch of random stuff from Boston with their back line guys. So they played a like they played a two games in Boston two days apart early in the season, and at the end of the first game, one of the things that Celtics did is they put Jason Tatum on Jared Allen so that they could switch ball screens that involved Jared Allen and Tatum is a big, strong forward that can

kind of hang physically in that matchup right. Then two days later they actually started and closed the game with Jason Tatum guarding Jared Allen. So if Jared Allen plays, I think we may see that. And there are versions of this where we may see that even with Evan Mobley, where like they do something like if Allen's out and Isaaca Corro starts, then you might see Al Horford guard Isaacacorro and just kind of roam around in the paint and then have Tatum guard Evan Mobley and switch ball screens.

So don't be surprised if we see a lot of JANKI stuff like that from Boston where they put their forwards on Cleveland Biggs that try to disrupt the Calves ball screen attack. As we know, the Calves run a lot of pick and roll. It's the primary driving force of their offensive attack, and if you have the ability to switch that action, it turns them into an ISO team.

And again, that's just a lot to ask for Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland in a large sample, But the truth is we're like, it's gonna take a heroic performance from Garland and Mitchell under any circumstances to keep this series competitive. Moving to the Celtics on offense again, assuming Allen is back. I think we'll see Max Struce on Jason Tatum. The Cavs defended Tatum well in the regular season.

They held him to thirty nine percent shooting. Again, the game plan there is you want to shrink the gaps to take away his driving lanes and bait him into pull up jumpers. Tatum has cooled off, like way off on his pull up jumper. Again. He got hot a little bit there in like January, but he's just thirty six percent on them post All Star Break or zero

point ninety four points per shot. Again, below a point is pretty inefficient for pull up jumpers, especially on a volume guy like Tatum who takes so many of them. He shot just fourteen for thirty seven on them in the first round, zero point ninety five points per shot. So we're on like three months of basketball now where Tatum has been back to where he's typically been as

a pull up jump shooter, which is inefficient. And so if you can sit in the driving lanes and bait him into pull up jumpers, you'll bait him into an inefficient series. I think we'll see Evan Mobley on Jylen Brown. Did a good job contesting his pull up jumpers in this matchup. However, he did give up some drives, some quick slashing drives, and Brown is stronger than him, and so when he gets those angles, he can kind of

get physical and get angles to the basket. So for mobilely, it's about keeping a level stance, so not opening up any driving lanes and then just giving more space you can offer a contest when the shot does go up. I think we'll see Donovan Mitchell on Derek White again, a lot of two man game with Derek White and Jason Tatum, So it's gonna be about game plan discipline. When Derek White has the ball, if they're not switching,

it's gonna be about chasing over the top. When Derek White it sets those screens on Tatum, it's gonna be about hedging and recovering and getting back to Derrek White. Derek White is a good movement shooter, so closeouts are gonna be key. Darius Garland on Drew Holliday. We know Boston is gonna look to attack Garland in the post with Drew, but it's kind of just the best version of those matchups anyway. And again, the Calves are gonna

have a lot of favorite. The Celtics are gonna have a lot of favorable matchups over the course of the series. That's it. The Calves are a really good defense. They're fast, they play really hard. They defend the three point line really well. They allowed the sixth fewest wide open threes

in the league this year. That's defender at least six feet away, and they're top twelve and both three point attempts allowed and three pointers made per one hundred possession. So they will play the Celtics into some cold streaks. I mean when they won that game that they blew the twenty two point lead. I did a full film session on that in the regular season and so you

guys who follow the show will remember this. But the Celtics missed every single jump shot they took in that nine minute stretch, Like, and you make one of them, you win the game. So like, they will play the Celtics into some cold streaks. But I just think the Celtics are gonna be able to play the Calves into many, many more cold streaks. So I'm picking the Celtics in five. I think the Calves will get one because I trust

their defense and they have a great home crowd. But if they even managed to push this to six, I would consider that to be an incredibly impressive achievement considering the talent gap, So picking the Celtics in five. All right, guys, that was a quick one. That's all I got for today. I will see you guys later tonight after the final buzzer of Nuggets Wolves for a game two instant reaction, also covering Nick pacers in that game. I will see you guys. Then the volume