Hoops Tonight - NBA Cup Reaction: Curry & Warriors STUNNED vs. Rockets, Knicks COLLAPSE vs. Hawks

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I'm gonna give my initial impressions on the two n Season Tournament quarterfinal games last night, as the New York Knicks pretty much controlled things against the Atlanta Hawks for about two and a half quarters before they completely lose control and the Hawks run away with that one. And then the uh Houston Rockets straight up steam game from the Golden State Warriors are really bad. Call that I disagree with at the end, but at the same time, a lot of self sabotage on behalf of the Golden

State Warriors. We're going to get into both of those games briefly from the perspective of both teams. You guys, remember the drill before we get started. Subscribed to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter and underscore JSNLTS. You guys, don't miss show announcements. Some forget about a podcast feed wherever you're podcast under Hoops Tonight. Don't forget. It's also helpful if you leave a rating and a review on

that front. We also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for the Hoops Tonight channel where we're dropping more content. Make sure you guys follow those feeds, and then, last but not least, keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them in our mail bags on Fridays. Too late for mailbag questions for this Friday's mail bag, but plenty of time to get questions in for next Friday's

mail bag. All right, let's talk some basketball. So again, really bad call out to tail end of the game. We'll get into more detail on that in a minute. That said, you guys know how I feel about this sort of thing. You need to go into any game, especially on the road, with the under standing that you're probably going to be the victim of a few bad calls, and so you have to enter that game with the perspective that you need to build in a margin for

that type of that type of variable. Right, And here's the reality. Regardless of the fact that the Warriors, I think got kind of robbed by a bad call at the end of that game, they made so so many mistakes down the stretch and they absolutely should have gotten out of there with a win. Draymond biting on a Shannggoon pump fake around the right elbow. Shangun's shooting thirty two percent on jump shots this year. He's shooting twenty

six percent on unguarded jump shots this year. Leaves his feet, has to like straight up tackle Shangoun on a drive, sends him to the foul line. Right when Fred van Vliet hit that corner three in the right corner, Brandon Pazemski went underneath the pick. When you go underneath the pick on a shooter, especially in a situation like that where they need a quick bucket. He's going to be way too comfortable you chase him over the top. Probably

a very different game. The Warriors had a shot clock violation with a minute and thirty nine seconds left where they didn't even get a shot up. A little Steph Draymond two man game. They were a little sloppy with some of their passes. Draymon had passed up on an opportunity to drive when he was unguarded, ended up in a shot clock violation. Twice down the stretch of the game, Warriors tried to slap at rebounds instead of just grabbing them,

once Draymon and once Brandon Pazemski. Both times they just slapped it out of bounds and they retained possession. One of them directly led to that Fred Van Vliet corner three. Steve Kerr randomly when it was ninety to eighty seven, subs in kevon Looney for Brandon Pajemski and takes Draymond off of Shangoon, moves him off to a different I think moved him on to Jabari Smith. Kevon Looney's on Shangoon Hagoon just immediately just toasts him off the dribble

and gets an easy layup. Steph taking a shot with nine seconds on the game clock when he had plenty of time to work it down more or to try to work closer to the end of the game clock, and then on the final possession, for like the half dozen time of the game, the Warriors literally could not get a shot off. And so again, like anything that you look at involving the call is just excuse making in the context of all of the in your control

mistakes that you made down the stretch. Again, a ref making a bad call, that is a variable that is completely outside of your control. All of those execution mistakes Golden State made down the stretch, those are things that are completely within their control. And so you should leave a game like that not thinking about the officials, but

rather that you cost yourself an opportunity. Now, I will say on the talk about Steph going early and again there was a three second gap between the game between the game clock and the shot clock. It is more complicated than it was being discussed. In my opinion with what I saw people saying on Twitter last night, there are a lot of factors at play. Like, for instance, and Steph got a good look about as good a

look as the Warriors got down the stretch. There's a lot of bad looks in that stretch, the shot clock violation, Brandon Bajemski gets blocked on a three in the right corner, Draymond Green driving layup that he airballs, like, there were a lot of bad shots that ended up in late clock situations in that crunch time period. Steph's little step back over Dylan Brooks was one of the best looks that Golden State got in the second half of that game. Right,

So here's the reality. Late clock shots, when you're working against the end of the shot clock or the game clock, they tend to be bad shots. The Warriors had multiple shot clock violations, air balls, block shots, right, So you have to at least factor in or consider the fact that Steph not waiting did lead to him getting a better look. So let's go through both scenarios real quick.

Let's say Steph goes late into the clock, makes no real attempt to just hunt the best shot, but rather just make sure you get something up in the last second or two of the shot clock. If he does that, I have a feeling it's not going to be as good of a look. Let's say it ends in a miss, just for the sake of this argument. If the Rockets get the rebound and call a timeout to advance the ball, they probably have somewhere between two and five seconds. Right now,

let's look at what actually happened. Steph gets a pretty good look. If he makes it, it ends the game, puts the Warriors up four. He misses it, though there's a scrum. Let's say he may Udoka gets a timeout call instead of the foul call or instead of the jump ball. If he may Udoka gets the timeout call, there's five and a half seconds left when that scrum was going down five and a half So how much of a difference does it really make in Golden State's

ability to get a stop. If Houston has five and a half seconds after advancing the ball or two or three seconds, it makes some difference. It's a difference between being able to like maybe driving kick once or twice versus the guy catching and having to put the ball on the floor make a play right away. So it makes some difference. But you can't just factor that, and you have to also factor in that Steph got a

better look on the other end of the floor. So, like, I think it's a lot more complicated than just Steph should have waited to the end of the shot clock. I do think that's a little bit more complicated. What really went wrong in that sequence for the Warriors was that the refs called a loose ball foul, and I thought that that was complete and total bullshit. And again, for the record, like always, that's not why Golden State

lost the game. They lost the game because their execution was terrible down the stretch, and because Steph wasn't creating good shots, and because they didn't have another option to help create good shots down the stretch. That's why the Warriors lost to the Rockets last night. That said, I cannot believe that that situation resulted in free throws for the Rockets. That game was a physical bloodbath. There were fouls going uncalled all over the floor on every single possession.

There is a play where Steph just a few minutes earlier, gets clearly hacked on the forearm on a jump shot, but it doesn't get called because again, nothing is getting called in this game. So how is it that in the flow of this game, you're allowing the players to dictate everything. It's a bloodbath, and then you step in and you have the nerve to call a loose ball foul on the type of contact that you were letting

go all night. It speaks to the much larger problem with NBA officiating, which is that at their core as an organization, NBA officials don't understand their role in NBA games. They are not there to enforce the rule book. They are there to facilitate basketball games. This is a media product. There is an economy surrounding this sport. It is entertainment at the end of the day, and so there is

a natural flow that every basketball tip game takes. Some of them are super physical, get dragged down into the mud. Some of them are more free flowing and turn into skill contests. An official's job is to feel out how that game is going and officiate accordingly. Okay, this game's a physical bloodbath. We're gonna be letting a lot of hand checking. Go. We're gonna be letting a lot of like bumping on the base go. We're gonna be letting

a lot of like off ball holding and grabbing. Go. When things are loose balls, defensive rebounds, it's gonna be a scrum and we're gonna let stuff go. And then there are games where it's a lot more freedom of movement, there's not a lot of physical contact, and so when somebody does foul, it makes more sense to call the game. Takes precedence over anything else, and rests have to feel out that situation and subjectively apply the rule book. That's

always been the way that it goes. We cannot sit here with the straight face and pretend like every NBA game is officiated the same. They're not. And so that's the problem. Everyone understood the assignment last night until that last possession, and somebody just decided it was their chance to put their imprint on that situation. I thought it kind of like it was an ugly ass game, but it was a fun game. I was enjoying watching that game. And what a fucking terrible ending to what was a

really fun game. And again, Golden State has no one to blame but themselves for tricking that game off, but that call definitely frustrated the hell out of me. Four big takeaways that I wanted to get into from that game before we move on to Hawks Knicks. One Houston's

defense is awesome. I really enjoyed watching them, especially when Shan Gun was off the floor, when they could be a little bit more switchy, not give up as many like passes in the pocket or just like four on threes and stuff like that, and they could lean more into their switching and ball pressure. Their defense is just unbelievably awesome though the waves of athletes coming. We're gonna be talking about that with the Hawks here in a

minute too. But their offense can be so bad at times that, like I view Houston as basely incapable of winning multiple playoff series. Do I think they could get one series? Yeah? Absolutely. There's so many Western Conference playoff teams that are flawed that there are a few of them that I would even favor Houston against, especially teams

without rim protection. But any team that has rim protection is going to eventually be able to grind that Houston offense to an absolute halt, and it won't matter how good their offense is. So it's all fine because you know, there's a big picture development. There's probably a trade or two in the future for Houston, and I really do

think they have super bright future. I amen Thompson when I watch him, like, I don't even I don't even know what kind of player he's going to be in the big picture, but I'm so excited to find out. I think he has the potential to be so damn good. I'm excited about Houston's future. But this is this year's high seed, exciting regular season team, but their their half court offensive execution is so just so terrible at times that I just don't think they're capable of beating multiple

teams four times in two weeks. They might expose somebody in the first round that's too flawed to make a deep playoff run, but whoever they run into that second round is gonna be a serious team that's gonna grind their offense to a halt and they're gonna end up losing. But exciting future for Houston. As I said two, I'll

print Shangun has the potential to be awesome. This was once again just like he did in the Go Bear game, and just like he's done multiple times this season, going right at Draymond Green at times, really the only guy that seems to facilitate coherent half court offense for the Rockets. He was the one guy who had a big impressive box score game last night. He is the grease that makes that whole engine work for Houston. There are two main things that he needs to improve though, one the

defensive end. Again, he's the one week point. He's the one pathway with which you can break down Houston's defense. That's something he's gonna have to get better at. And again, just like what happened with Jokic, it's about using your brain and active hands to make up for your athletic limitations. And then to the jump shot. If he can get the jump shot up to a place where it's more reliable and he can improve on the defensive end, I think he has the potential to be an All NBA

player in this league. Number three. It always has fascinated to me. It fascinated me how well athletes thrive in environments like that game last night, Like when games get super super physical and there's all these good defenders on the floor and everything just grinds to a halt. I didn't think it was a coincidence that the two guys on the floor that were having the easiest time getting to their spots were guys like Jalen Green and Jonathan Kaminga.

Now they had uneven games, I mean Jalen Green would like five or fifteen, but like he was able to get to his spots, Jonathan Kiminga was able to beat people off the dribble, win some of those confrontations, even like Jabari Smith Junior and some of the work that

he did in this game. Like these, It's always fascinating to me how as the league has leaned more towards this, like athletic perimeter speed, ball pressure, flying around in rotation, just physical athletic blood baths that all of a sudden, those tools matter. They just matter at a super super high level. And again, like I think both of these guys have the potential to get traded within the next

couple of seasons because maybe they don't fit into this timeline. Like, do I think Jonathan Kaminga is ready to be a star on a really good, really serious team that intends to win the title. No, do I think Jalen Green is ready to be a primary ball handler on a team that has serious playoff aspirations in the short term. No, those guys need time, those guys need reps. They probably should be on different timelines. Johnathan Kaminga, I actually think

has even more potential than Jalen Green does. Jalen Green, it's just there's some stuff with him at this phase in his career that you wish he was a little sharper with. That said, those two guys, I still you'll think have the potential to be top thirty, top thirty five MAX level players that are worth the MAX and

that you want to have on your team. And so somebody, if those two guys do end up getting traded in the next couple of years, somebody who's smart has the opportunity to jump on those teams, get them in the right situation, get them the right jump on those players, excuse me, get them in the right situation, get them in the right development trajectory. And I think those guys do have potential. Point being that athleticism to me is

tantalizing in the modern MBA. It's just something that I think has It's just something that I think teams should be betting on in the long run. Doesn't mean it makes sense for the Warriors with their short term pressures for a championship, but somebody can fit into that timeline nicely and make good use of those players. And then lastly, this is why the Warriors so badly need a big scoring forward in settings like I'm gonna give you guys an example. I remember I was watching a regular season

game in two thousand eighteen, middle of season. It was Calves versus was it Timberwolves, I can't remember. I think it was when Jimmy Butler was with the Timberwolves. But it was the Calves versus Jimmy Butler. And on the final possession, the Calves needed to come up with a shot, and so Lebron just kind of like leaned on Jimmy Butler. So, by the way, Jimmy Butler at this point in time especially, it was one of the best defensive players in the league.

And Lebron just leans on him around the y elbow and there's just like a little entry pass over the top. Lebron catches and just turns over his right shoulder and fades away off one leg and gets a little the

seventeen footer and knocks it down for the win. Because one of the advantages with having a big forward that can really beat matchups and shoot over the top is that in the super physical, super intense environments, you can't deny them the ball, you can't stop them from getting a shot off because their size and strength is such an advantage in those situations. So when I talk about somebody like Golden State going after a brandon Ingram or a Jimmy Butler, or even the pipe dream of Lebron James,

that's why. It's because in those types of situations, you ended up in a lot of late clock situations, a lot of shot clock violations, a lot of air balls, a lot of black shots. If you could convert let's say there's ten of those ugly possessions, If you can convert six of those into decent looks for a big scoring forward and he makes two of them out of six,

you win that game like that. That's the difference. The difference is you couldn't convert or win any of those situations because this has been something that's become an issue Steph over the last two seasons or so. When he runs into really athletic perimeter defenses last year with teams like the Kings, like the Pelicans, right, this was something

that showed up a few times last year. When Steph goes against really athletic perimeter defenses, he can struggle to get separation, to get quality looks, you have to support him in that regard, and the way to do that is to bring in a big scoring forward, because again, Steph still does so much well that if you just maybe don't need to rely on him in those specific situations,

you can alleviate that concern to a great extent. Just something to keep in mind, and that's why I've been advocating so much for trade with the Warriors throughout this season. All Right, real quickly, Hawks Knicks. That third quarter run was crazy. The Knicks control all the game, and then it started to slip. Started with some transition stuff, you know, just typical Atlanta athleticism in waves like Jalen Brunson just

beats Jalen beats Dyson Daniels off the dribble. Zachary Rissosche just comes flying in and blocks it off the glass. They run out the other end. Jalen Johnson gets an and one in transition. Then Jalen Johnson misses his free throw and Dyson Daniels comes flying in and taps in the free throw for two more points. Jalen Johnson another transition or to lay up all of a sudden it's a two point game, right, and then just like the

entire tone and tenor of the game has shifted. Steady died of Trey Young pick and roll in the half court where he's hitting floaters and pull up threes and generating advantages. A lot of really nice cutting from guys like Jalen Johnson and Dyson Daniels, a lot of good short role playmaking from guys like a Yaka Coongu, and Atlanta has the ability to really tighten the screws on defense. This has been a top ten defense over the last

fifteen games. Dyson Daniels did an amazing job on Jalen Brunson, had him all out of sorts, had him faking even when he did get separation, missing easier shots. That's when you know he started to get bothered by the length and the quickness that Dyson Daniels brings to the table. And then they just have waves of athletes off the ball. Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels, and Zachary Ressage combined for five

blocks in this game. And then like it literally just went completely off the rails for the Knicks, like they started badly missing open shots mckail Bridges and Ognnobi both missed really good looks during that run. Duce McBride missed a really good look during that run. The Knicks offense is capable of scoring against elite defenses. We've seen it

this year. I've shared this stat the other day, but the Knicks have the fourth best offensive rating in the league against top ten defenses and again Atlanta eighteenth and defensive rating on the season, but they're top ten over their last fifteen games. And so like a lot of that was the Knicks just kind of entered into a funk and they were never really able to get out of it. But I want to credit the Hawks because

when they tightened the screws, that's how basketball. Like this is why I say basketball is more art than science. Like a lot of times, like it's a teetering kind of momentum scale, and like when you kind of shift things back in your direction, a lot of factors just

continue to go that direction. All of a sudden, it's like the open like Dyson Daniels is hitting the open three at the top of the key, and Ojan Andobi's missing the open three at the top of the key, and it's like, oh, jan Anoby's a better shooter, but like the tenor and tone of the basketball game shifted in momentum towards Atlanta. How do you quantify that? It's

it's really really difficult to quantify. And that's why, like again, basketball is more art than science, right, but the game completely goes off the rails, and now the Atlanta Hawks are advancing to the semi finals. Their formula is super fascinating to me. I did a deep dive on the Hawks last week after my Lakers rant, so I think it was the Thursday video last week. But the main thing that I'm looking at with the Hawks as I viewed them as like the Eastern Conference version of the

Los Angeles Clippers in the sense that you lose a star. Obviously, Kawhi Leonard and Jontey Murray are two very different types of stars. And but the flip side of that is Atlanta got returned for de Jontay Murray. The Clippers have just lost Kawhi Leonard for nothing at this point in the season, right, But what became the formula after the

star was gone for the Clippers. It's like this like crazy offensive floor raising point guard and James Harden, Trey Young, right, this guy that he's got a ton of pick and roll chemistry with that can kind of anchor things on

defense and on the glass. In if you Gazubach and Clint Cappella, and then it's like athlete athlete athlete down the line, you know, and the clippers of d injuries, but it's been like, you know, Terrence Man and Derek Jones Junior are like, it's athlete, athlete, athlete right for the Hawk, Zachary Rissosche, Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels, DeAndre Hunter.

It's just wave and wave and wave of athlete. It's important because when you've got elite playmakers like Trey Young and James Harden, a lot of their playmaking ability gets unlocked with guys that can cut and run the floor, because again, a lot of the rudimentary basic playmaking in basketball is like, oh, i'd be this guy off the dribble, this guy steps up and help. Here's an easy kickout pass to a three point shooter on the win. And

those are important reads to make. But the advanced reads that the best passers in the league can make are reads that don't appear to be open like a guy cuts back door. You can't throw the ball when he's already open. You got to throw it before he's open, right, because that window is very tight vertical spacing like lobs and stuff like that again doesn't look open. You have to read the play and you have to position the ball to where the player can run and jump into

that window. And so like James Harden and Trey Young have the basketball iq, the natural instincts to capitalize on those opportunities, and now they're surrounded by all these athletes that are just constantly running and cutting and running and cutting and running and cutting, and they're just picking people apart. Both of those guys have had issues with scoring volume relative to their historic scoring volume, but who the hell cares.

They're defending better, keeping the games close, and Trey Young and James Harden are making just enough plays to make things work, and they're getting just enough contributions through Kazubach and Norman Powell, right through guys like Bogdan mcdonovich, Jalen Johnson, who's done a bunch more high level on the ball work in the last couple of weeks compared to the beginning of the season, and DeAndre Hunter, who's really having a nice season off the bench for the Atlanta Hawks.

And so again, the formula is real. The defense is everything, though it's all They did not defend super well in the early part of the season. They lost a lot of games to some bad teams. Now that has stabilized, they're getting consistent defensive effort, and now they're starting to rack up wins. And my guess is that their success over the course of the season will kind of oscillate

back and forth based on their defensive commitment. But really really fun team and most importantly, just the latest example of a basketball concept that I've been preaching. Like some annoying dude like that you see out on the streets who's just like screaming at the top of his lungs on a microphone all all day on a Sunday. That's been me for two years. Screaming speed, athletic, covering ground in rotation, pressuring the ball, winning defensive rebound battles, winning

the transition defense and transition offense battle. All of that comes down to big, strong, fast, quick That is the stuff that is winning in the modern NBA. On the perimeter in Atlanta, starting to have this success as of late, to me, is just like the latest in a long line of examples of why that's been working on the Knicks front. Obviously a super disappointing loss, but I wouldn't overreact.

Like again, they straight up entered a funk like Brunson out of play where he drove and like just threw a swing pass between two players, because he's just clearly just in a funk based on that defensive job that Dyson Daniels did on him, all the missed open shots, the bad transition defense. Again, it sucks. It's disappointing, but that can be cleaned up. And again, like I talked about, basketball,

games are weird. Like sometimes it's like, oh, everything's fine, we're doing well, look at our offense, and then it's like, oh my god, we're out of well, you completely lost control of this game, and now we're down eleven with four minutes left and we're gonna lose, you know, like it can. It can slip on you quickly, and especially in the modern NBA with how much shooting result is

tied to the outcome of games. And so again, they have their issues, but like they're I'm a big believer in New York's offense even against elite defenses, and they just kind of entered into a major funk in that game. Obviously, we have we have Hawks Bucks in our semi final game. I'm gonna go ahead and pick the Hawks in that game just because their athleticism provided major problems for the Bucks in their last matchup, just out running them down

the floor in transition. They had something crazy like thirty seven or thirty eight transition points in their last matchup going out West, I think the Thunder are going to handle Houston. They ended up in a big blood bath type of game a couple of weeks back, but I think the Thunder are going to really strangle that Houston offense, and I just think they have more offensive skill of

their own to counter Houston's defense. So that means I'm predicting Thunder versus the Hawks, and the finals should be a fun one. The semi finals are on Saturday. We'll be covering them on the Monday Morning Show, and then obviously the championship championship game is on Tuesday, which would be covering next week. All right, guys, this all I have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you for

supporting me and supporting the show. I am recording a mail bag later today that will be up and up on tomorrow morning for our Friday show, and then, as you know, after the weekend, we'll be back on Monday with power rankings and some in season tournament reaction. How so you guys, then the volume. What's up? Guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and

a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.