Hoops Tonight - Mavericks-Thunder Reaction: Luka’s BEST playoff game levels series at 1

right now at plus one oh five. Thunder MAVs starts here shortly, and if you like the MAVs to win that series, you can get them at minus one oh five. And if you're new to DraftKings, you gotta check this out. New customers bet five bucks to get one hundred and fifty in bonus bets. Instantly download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and use code hoops that's h oops, that's code hoops for new customers to get one hundred and fifty in bonus bets when you bet just five bucks 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. In New York, call eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and why to four six seven three six nine. In Connecticut, help us available for problem gambling call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit.

that break down this video just doing MAVs Thunder. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to Brandon YouTube channels you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore jsnlts. You guys don't miss you announcement. So forget about my podcast feed. Wherever you get podcasts under hoops tonight, keep dropping mailback questions in the YouTube comments so that we can keep hit

mailbags are at the rest of the postseason. Also tonight, going live after the final buzzer of Nuggets Timberwolves, a game I'm very excited for, so much on the line for both teams, Very very excited to get into that. We're gonna be hitting both games live on YouTube after the final buzzer of Nuggets Wolves. All right, let's talk MAVs Thunder. So complete reversal of Game one in so many different ways, much tighter whistle. Game one, the Thunder

shot twenty eight free throws, Shay shot thirteen. Game two, the Thunder only shoots seventeen and Shae only shoots six, So huge swing towards Dallas, and just the overall amount of physicality. Dallas did get to the free throw line quite a bit, but they were bringing a lot more physical force to the table. I thought they were the more physically aggressive team throughout reversal from Game one. Jump

shooting swings heavily towards Dallas. Oklahoma City gets one point one zero points per jump shot in game one, Dallas only gets zero point nine to eight. Game two, Oklahoma City gets zero point nine to eight. Dallas gets one point three zero points per jump shot, massive difference.

dominant rebounding performance from Oklahoma City in game one. In Game two, Dallas grabs thirty one point four percent of their own misses and fifty two point five percent of all available rebounds. They win the offensive last twelve to eight, and they win second chance points fourteen to eight. So now again not nearly as dominant as Oklahoma City was in Game one, but Dallas does win the physical battle

in game two. They can do much better still, but they won the physical battle in game two, and anytime you do that on the road, especially against an energetic crowd like that and a young athletic team, that's impressive. So another huge swing towards Dallas turnovers. A huge part of Oklahoma City's identity as a defense is to play passing lanes, be aggressive, force turnovers, get out in transition.

In Game one, Dallas turns the ball over sixteen times and gives up twenty two points to the Thunder off of those turnovers. Game two, Dallas only has ten turnovers and they only allow eleven points off of those turnovers. Another huge swing towards Dallas generating close out opportunities. Remember in game one I talked about how the Dallas was now generating open opportunities for guys to attack close outs. They only had eighteen spot up opportunities in game one.

They generated thirty one spot up opportunities in game two. Both Luca and Kyrie I thought did a magnet nificent job reading the game, identifying that their role players were feeling comfortable and making those kickout passes hunting looks for them to keep them in rhythm throughout the game. So all of that amounted all of those swings.

bring it back to getting close. They briefly took a lead in the early third quarter, but Dallas led the entire first half, and from five point fifty six left in the third quarter they led the rest of the way, dominant win for Dallas to steal home court advantage and head back home for Game three. Luka doncic I thought that was his best game of the playoffs so far. Hyper Efficient finally got a step back three going early. Hit a big one late two in a ball screen

where Dork got kind of caught on the screen. He dragged the screen defender out, hit him with the little step back on the left wing and knocked it down as a big shot in this game, a lot of really good skip passes to shooter, especially early in the game he was doing a beautiful job hunting PJ. Washington, and then a really good defensive game, and it was

the whole team. The whole team was just do an amazing job chasing shooters off the line, being on a string in rotation, competing on the ball, forcing turnovers, getting out. They did a great job, but Luca in particular did a great job. Again, the defensive effort was there for the entire team, but Luca. I thought that was Luca's best game of the postseason in terms of total shot creation, controlling the feel and pace of the game, commitment to

the defensive end of the floor. Again, I understand he's had bigger scoring nights, but I thought this overall was Luca's best game of the postseason so far. I was talking about after Game one. I know he's banged up, but he just has to find the way to impact winning at a higher level. And he was even more banged up in this game. Hurd his tooth at a player kasse On Wallace kind of tripped him up in transition. It looked like he tweaked his ankle. Super banged up,

but he just found away. He just found a way to help his team get the way. Kyrie Irving, I absolutely loved this game from Kyrie. Only took eight shots, but this to me is actually one of Kyrie's greatest strengths and one of the most important things for any basketball player, especially you young basketball players out here. This is one of the most important things for you to learn how to do, which is like you know the expression read the room, like identify what's happening in a

social situation and act accordingly. I kind of feel that in a basketball game too. It's like reading the game right, and this is especially important on teams that have multiple stars. So for instance, this is something I actually think Kyrie is better than Luca at at this phase of his career, but Luca's young, and Luca's gonna get better at this as he gets older. But early on throughout the playoffs,

Kyrie's been the one that's had it going. And what have we seen Luca do, Like he continues to kind of try to force the issue, keeps taking those tough step back jumpers even though they're not going in, and lucas aware of it. He went into the postgame presser during the last series and said, I feel like I'm letting Kyrie down right now, and like so he's aware

of what's happening. But Kyrie's got it going, and Luca at this phase in his career still was struggling to kind of figure out where he fit next to Kyrie. As Kyrie's dominating games tonight. It was very clear early on Luca had it going right, Like, hit a short, little mid range pull up jump shot early, hit three threes in the first few minutes of the game. Like he just very clearly had it going. And so Kyrie reads the room and he goes, Luca's got it going.

in the game. In the first half, there's a play he gets switched on to chet Holmgren runs up, swipes the ball out of his hands, goes the length of the floor. Jalen Williams tries to block him off the glass, and he shoots a beautiful soft scoop shot up high off the window into the basket. Even what Oklahoma City typically gets per possession, you know, like roughly one one point one eight points plus the two you got on the other end, it's like more than a three point swing.

On that play, there was a clean strip of Sga actually drives to the basket, just cleanly strips it off his leg out of bounds. In the second half, there's a play where Giddy had the ball to the top of the key and he went full ball denial on Shay and Shay tried to backcut him and wn't open. Kyrie was there. Giddy tried to force the pass. Kyrie stole it through a beautiful kick ahead pass to Tim Hardaway,

hit him in stride for the layup. Once again, something over a three point swing based on Oklahoma City's typical efficiency per possession. That's a huge swing play in an NBA playoff game. Right very next possession, there's a trap of a ball screen on the right side and PJ.

Washington gets a deflection. Kyrie's all the way on the other end of the floor and he shoots the gap towards the right wing where the pass was intended, steals the ball gives it up, gets it back in transition, then hits Tim Hardaway Junior for an and won three on the left wing. Like Kyrie was just unbelievable as a playmaker in this game. And I'm not talking playmakers passing.

I'm talking like making basketball plays just in the game, just these various different ways, whether it's a rim contest where he gets a block, or it's a steal here, or a bald denial there, or a transition kick ahead there, or a driving kick here, like he just there was one in the early second half where he just toasted I think I think it was Aaron Wiggins. He beat like just cleanly beats Aaron Wiggins off the dribble, draws

Shay and help off of PJ Washington. Just easy little scoop pass to the right corner to PJ Washington, who's been red hot all game, and he knocks down the corner three like just It was one of those games that was a textbook example of the lack of reality that exists in box score results. Sometimes I thought Kyrie was unbelievable in this game, and he didn't put up massive box score numbers. And again, what it most impressed me about it was he identified early in the game. Hey,

my co star has been strong ugglin tonight. He's got it going. Also, my teammates do I'm going to change my approach in this game and do all of this other shit with the entirety of my being to the best that I possibly can. And he did, And I thought he was incredible in this game. PJ Washington just a beautiful two way game, had his jump shot going. He had seven threes, like we talked about, some tough ones too. Hit a jab step ISO three at the

top of the key in the first half. He was brilliant defensively at two steals at a bunch more deflections. Didn't work in the post too, the natural matchups because of the way okay See starts the game. Jalen's on Kyrie, Dorts on Luca, right, they're putting sga on PJ. Washington, and they went to him on the first possession of the game in the post against Shae. I thought that was fascinating because at the end of the game they went back to him against Shae and he just bullied

him under the rim and got an and one. As a matter of fact, Mark dagel Is probably gonna have to look to maybe swap that around and move potentially move Shaye over to Derek Jones Junior, because Derek Jones is less likely to do damage to him in ice or post up situations. He had twenty nine points, eleven rebounds, four assists, with two steals, and was a plus thirteen.

feet around. And then Tim Hardaway Junior and Josh Green. They just need those guys to hit shots, and they did. Josh Green, I thought, hit a couple of huge ones in the late first half as Oklahoma City was starting

to kind of regain control of the game. On one of their runs, and then Tim Hardaway Junior like started off miss his first couple of shots, but he had like a nice driving close out on the right wing where he threw a lob to Derek Lively hit a little shot in the mid range, and then you could tell that it just kind of like loosened him up and he felt more comfortable and ended up hitting two threes huge one late in the game, I was running his lane in transition to just really nice game from

the role players.

season long, they were deadly jump shooting team. Dallas was fourteen so over the course of the next five games of the series, expecting Dallas to continue to outshoot Oklahoma City, that would be unusual, that would be a flukey type.

dominating the physical battle on the Oklahoma City front. Like I said before, They're gonna remain confident because they they're gonna be able to point to some stuff with the shooting results right, still, some stuff they can clean up, some help out of the strong side corner. A few times in the game that they I didn't think they needed. Their transition defense was really bad, just not getting back,

not getting matched up, lost some shooters there. Like I said before, they're gonna feel like they can shoot better themselves as well, even looking beyond the Dallas point. Some young guy mistakes too, some missed reads, a lot of challenging Dallas's rim protectors when they didn't need to, and there were open shooters and so just being more diligent with reading the floor. I thought it was fascinating that

Mark Daginal build on Josh Gitty. Josh Kitty, I want to say it was like minus twenty one and eleven minutes or something like that, Like it was kind of a disaster when he was out there, which part of it was Dallas shot really well, but it also is just one of those things where Dallas isn't guarding him and he doesn't really have much value on offense unless he has the ball in his hands, and he's not an elite defensive player.