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gaming resources, see DKG dot co slash audio. All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the volume, Happy Thursday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week.
As promise.
We're digging into the film from the Eastern Conference Finals Game one, Crazy Wild finish from last night. The idea here today is we're going to start from the Knicks being up by fourteen points with less than three minutes remaining, and we're going to dive into the specific areas where they lost control of the game. As we talked about last night on the show, it was a combination of
two things. There was some unbelievable shot making and playmaking from Pacers players throughout this stretch, some impressive ball pressure that certainly put the Knicks in some complicated situations. But there are also a great deal of mistakes, some simple lack of defensive intensity, mistakes like not being attentive to shooters both on and off the ball, mishandling easy passes around the rim, missed free throws. There are a lot of things along those lines, in with guys knocking down shots.
As we always talk about, there's a certain amount of shooting result that you have control of in your process as a defense, and they lost control of Aaron E. Smith at the end of that game. And as you'll see, there are some shots where it's like, man, that's tough, but there are also some sequences that could have been avoided just by being more attentive to the detail. So how does a team below a fourteen point lead in less than three minutes, a nine point lead in less
than one minute, a four point lead in overtime. That's what we're going to be digging into today. You guys are the job before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and I YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore jcnlts. You guys don't miss announcements. Don't forget about a podcast few where we get your podcast on our hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and
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All right, let's talk so basketball.
So starting it off, nothing too crazy here, just Tyrese Haliburton in his individual greatness, hitting McHale bridges with a little crossover step back three from twenty eight feet above the break. Nothing you can do about that. That's good defense. That's just an unbelievable shot from Tyrese Haliburton. Okay, so now off of this brunts and miss on the other end, and again nothing, not going to complain too much about that shot. You're up eleven with two minutes and fifteen
seconds left and you dribbled out the shot clock. One of the things we talked about last night was this idea that sometimes you almost there's an advantage in holding the ball in late game situations. I know it gets denigrated a lot of the time, and certainly you would like to move the ball and try to attack with the same pace and verve that you did during the lion's share of the game. But there's always just a risk for turnovers, especially when the team is playing super
physical ball, pressure denial, jumping passing lanes. And there are some upsides in dribbling the clock out in terms of like actually guarantee guaranteeing that you eat an clock on
that individual possession. As you wait for it to dribble out, there actually will be a sequence that you guys will see late in the game, the famous challenge on the og An Andobi kind of like mishandled layup attempt where you could argue that Brunson probably should have just dribbled the ball out and so again, these things are complicated and it's hard to Monday Morning quarterback them, if that makes sense. But I didn't hate that shot from Brunson.
I didn't think that was the reason why they lost the game. Indiana pushes the other way. Here's where we get our first defensive mistake. So Brunson is involved in this screening action with Ben Shepherd, and as you guys can see, Ben Shepard is going to inside seal, so he's gonna screen on the bottom side, and as Brunson hedges, he's gonna slip out. When he slips out, we have.
A four on three.
Right, The four on three gets picked up by Josh Hart, who has rotated off of aaron Ne Smith. Kat is staying glue. Well, staying glued is a relative term here, but he's only paying attention to Obi top and he's not worried about Nie Smith at all. When Nie Smith relocates to the wing, Carl Towns lunges back the top end.
Shepherd makes the kickout pass to Nie Smith. Now, mind you, this is Nie Smith's I think, third consecutive three in the final five minutes of this game, so he had already made two in a row before this shot, and you left him wide open again. So, like I would argue in the list of different things that could factor in a shot result, this is an in rhythm shooter that you lost track of in this sequence. So obviously Brunson's not there in time and Nie Smith knocks down
the three. Now, let's take a closer look at two things here. First of all, watch Jalen Brunson. We used to talk about this in terms of getting out of traps fast. I can't even remember which Playoffs series it was, but we had a talk about this a while ago.
With with some team I can't even remember who it was.
It was a few years ago, but we talked about the idea of getting out of traps quickly into rotation, so essentially as soon as you. I think it might have been like Rajon Rondo, like way back in like twenty twenty if I remember correctly. But as Ben Shepherd sets this screen, as Brunson is up top and forces Halliburton because Brunson's there, Halliburton's not looking to attack, he picks up his dribble. Right here, boom, Haliburton has picked
up his dribble. He is no longer a threat. His feet are not in shooting position, he's obviously not driving, He's picked up his dribble. He's certainly getting rid of the basketball right now. The first thing I want you to do, I'm just going to play this in real time. Watch how slow Brunson is to start his rotation again.
If you think of this as a hedge and recover, which is what it is and what it always has been with Brunson in these actions, his job on the hedge is to force the ball handler to either take a retreat dribble or to pick up his dribble, which he has now accomplished. From there, what's the second part of a hedge and recover?
Recover?
He needs to rotate out right now, as soon as he's made his ball handler pick up his dribble. Watch the delay in Brunson. Tell me if you think it plays a role in his ability to get out to Nie Smith.
That's the difference right there.
If he gets out of that and rotates quickly, you probably don't give up that open shot.
Second piece of it.
If I'm Carl Anthony Towns, I am in the two on one. This is the two on one that Carl Anthony Towns is involved in Toppin is not the shooter to be tracking here. Nie Smith is the shooter to be tracking. He's already made two in a row. And this is some of that defensive IQ stuff that we've talked about in the last few in the last few days, like if he is attentive year he closes out to Nie Smith, then Brunson actually rotates the top in, which is both a shorter rotation and he's rotating to a
lesser shooter. So this is a defensive mistake from both Brunson and from Towns. This is an example of something that you had some control over down the stretch of this game, but you didn't do your job. But we go down to the other end and Brunson is going to let's fast forward here through all the action. We end up with Brunson attacking Ben Sheppard one on one. Okay, so here's our Ben Shepherd one on one, nasty right to left crossover, unbelievable switching hands finished.
Just watch one more time.
This is this is a ridiculous finish from Brunson, gets Shepherd on the side, bumps him off with that little hard step. Siakam's coming over, switch his hands to the right and gets it up off the glass. Unbelievable finish from Brunson after all the stuff we just went over. They are up nine with fifty nine seconds left. This is a game they should win. So now we're gonna get to the Knick's second defensive mistake that was avoidable.
Aaron E.
Smith has made three consecutive threes. Your entire defensive approach needs to be geared around stopping him from getting a clean look. They're gonna get a clean look for him out of a basic drop coverage look with Brunson chasing and with Og too far back, like you can tell me, okay, yeah, he got a late contest. You're right, he got a lake contest. Nie Smith didn't see that one. Look at where he's at comfort wise in this moment. His hands,
he's already gathered the ball. He's just chopping his feet. He's gonna elevate. OG's not stopping this shot from this far back. Like he has made three consecutive threes. Og has to be up. He's not up. Aaron Ne Smith makes him pay. The Knicks quickly pushed the ball up the floor, though, and they get another layup for Karl Anthony Towns off of a trap of Brunson. So now we got a four on three. They break it down quickly, kat gets a layup. Okay, so we are still up
eight with forty two seconds left. Very strong position to be in. Ojan Andoby's gonna make the exact same mistake. Okay, Now, Jason, this is a twenty eight footer sprinting to his right with like a leg kick. Yeah, you're right, this is a very tough shot.
I don't care.
He's made what four in a row at this point, He's this is this is you are now, and we're putting out a fire mode. You are now thinking, aaron Ne Smith, We've completely lost control of him. He's made four in a row. We absolutely have to be up on him, and you're not. You're letting him settle into a shot. Again, that late contest doesn't bother the shooter. It's got to be early. You got to disrupt his rhythm. So again, back to back defensive mistakes from Ojan Andobi
causing you to lose control of the shooter. Now he's made five in a row. Og then compounds the issues at the end of the game. Here by losing control of a pass from Brunson. So as you can see, Shepherd's in denial. At Shepherd's in denial, Brunson sheds him with a nice little swim move gets open. Now we have a two on one. I don't hate this pass. I see the case for you. Look at the clock. There's a ten second gap here. You're up five. Just dribble out here and you might be able to work
the clock all the way down to ten seconds left. Right, But I don't hate this. You just playing basketball. Siakam steps up. Brunson throws a bounce pass. It's a little bit hard, but it should be catchable, like it's up high. But it's catchable, and Og just fumbles it. It's all there is to it. That's the game. The game's in his hands right there. He catches that and finishes that. You're up seven with thirty seconds left and you're in really good shape, but he fumbles it. Nice defensive play
from Siakam. I thought it was a really smart challenge from Rick Carlile, and I thought it was a good call to overturn it. This is the shot that you can't do anything about. From Aaron Nee Smith. This is tough now again like that Nie Smith three. There's nothing really you're doing about that. The Tyrese Haliburton step back three over my McHale Bridges, there's nothing you're really doing
about that. But the two drop coverage threes you gave up or the swing pass three to the right key to the right wing, those are jumpers that you can take away just by being sharper in your defensive execution. Then we get into a free throw shooting stretch. Cat goes one for two, Aaron Nee Smith goes two for two, then og and Obi goes one for two. That's how
we end up in this final sequence. And Tyrese Haliburton beats McHale Bridges cleanly with a little hesitation through the legs dribble and just freezes him like hesitation through the legs. Look at where McHale bridges his feet are just toasts him off. The dribble gets past him. Look at the poked from behind for michal Bridges, though just barely gets a piece that causes Halliburton to lose control of the basketball,
he has to look back to find it. When he looks back to find it, by the time he regains control. He's like, I don't even know where Mitchell Robinson is. I have no idea if I'm in position to be able to score here. Although Nie Smith is open on a cut there. Nie Smith might have been able to to tie that game on a little easy cutting layup there, but Halliburton steps back and is just barely one foot on the line up in the air. We had a
Knicks fan yesterday that said it disappeared. Look, the shot literally disappears out of the frame and everyone's just staring waiting for it. Jackson was texting me this morning. He thinks to hit the backboard here. I'll let you guys be the judge. So as it comes off the rim, looks like it hits the backboard right there and gains that little bit of forward momentum right into the bottom. Unbelievable play. That was when I lost control and screamed
in my house. All right, let's get into OT. First bucket of OT. Both teams have missed some jumpers at this point. Both teams are pretty intent on defense, and Turner makes his first mistake of the overtime period. He was given Kat too much space on these face up opportunities. Throughout the game, Cat just gets to an easy little jab step like kind of one leg fade away. They're
on the right side. So now the Knicks are up to This was a kind of a bizarre play where the Pacers end up trapping Brunson out at half court, just kind of an impromptu a trap off of the screen from heart. So we have the trap here, and at this point you got to be playing forward aggressive up into the passing lanes, especially while you have this advantage on the back of Siakama thought it.
Was too far back. Turner's too far back.
But as the pass gets made, like right there, I think that pass is gettable for Turner and he just like straight up doesn't go for it, and then Kat quickly breaks him down on the four on three and gets a lay up. Turner wasn't long for the game at this point, gets a little worse easy drop off pass from Nemhart to Turner. He just straight up fumbles it and then in the ensuing sequence ends up goaltending brunts in at the rim. And it was very lucky
this didn't get called. Now for Knicks fans, I always say bad calls are a part of basketball games, and I thought there were three bad calls in overtime. I thought there was this one that went against the Knicks, and then there were two additional bad calls later in overtime that went for the Knicks. And again, this is part of the game. You just got to play through it. They go down the other end, and this is just a really difficult shot from Nemhart. It's contested, he's he's
literally running into the right corner. He's deep in the corner. He's fading and kicking his leg like this is a This is just brilliant shot making from the Pacers. All right, Knicks force a turnover on Brunson here. This was the last possession that Turner was in the game, and it was the right move from Carlisle because Obi Toppen ended
up making several big plays late. But Turner did make one play before he left the game, and it was this spin off of Niesmith where he was right there where he needed to be, which forced bruns In to lose control of the basketball, which led.
To the tie up.
Right off of the tie up, topping comes in and makes his first play, saves this ball from going out of bounds. They go down to the other end, a quick impromptu ISO of Brunson off of a switch from nies Smith. They clear out the entire side and Nemhard has all this space. Brunson has five fouls, so he just does a quick aggressive move with a low gathered. The low gather was really smart too, because that's a foul drifting play. If Brunson has his hands in there,
he's gonna get himself fouled out. Brunson backs up good verticality contest, but he's just not offering enough resistance as a player as five fouls easy bucket for Nemhart. One thing that was frustrating to me here, like what's Josh Hart doing. Josh Hart is guarding Sakam. Siakam is zero for two from three in this game, literally has not
made a three in this game. Like, come help your five fouls superstar guard that is on an island against al Nemhart, Like you've got to be in there help and you can't just leave him out on an island, all right. So this was the first bad call that I thought went against the Pacers. Just some ball pressure from Nie Smith on Brunson and Brunson watched Brunson, he just starts snapping his head back on every little bit of contact. It's like snap the head back, snap the
head back, snap the head back. Finally gets a call. I didn't think that was a watch Nee Smith one more time on this drive here, because this is where the foul gets called. Tell me where the foul is. That's not a foul, so that I thought that was a bad call. That gave the Knicks the lead with a minute and a half left. A classic screen rejection here from Tyrese Saliburton. So we're gonna dribble up top and is gonna come up to set it. He's gonna reject the screen get into Josh Hart's body for the
unbelievable finish. The big thing I want you guys to pay attention to here is just with screen rejection, it's all about timing McHale Bridges. I want you to think as though Tyre's Haliburton's coming off the action this way. Mckayl Bridges needs to chase over the top like we always talked about with screen navigations, about getting that top foot over top ends top foot. So you're gonna watch Michail Bridges' left foot come up way up here to get over the top of the screen.
Boom way up.
He's doing that because he's preparing to go over the top of the screen. But that is right when Bridges lifts his weight off of that left foot right here, weight up. When weight is off of that left foot, mcale, Bridges cannot push his body back to the right. That is the perfect time for Halliburton, who does have his right foot planet to launch himself that way and capitalize
on that weight shift gap. As Mikal Bridges is still planning his foot, still planning his foot, Haliburton's already going and so that's why he has no chance to keep him back in front. He gets all the way downhill and finishes through traffic. This was Brunson's next trip to the foul line. In the live moment, I thought this was a bad call, but on rewatch last night we determined that Nie Smith definitely tripped Brunson. But once again
they try to trap him and Brunson falls. If you watch Nie Smith's right foot, you can see him right here step on Brunson's foot and trip him. So that was a good call. Andrew Nemhart is gonna get the defense in rotation by attacking Brunson's right shoulder. Here beats him downhill.
Okay.
Once he beats him downhill, that forces oj Anobi to step up. We have our swing to Siakam heart rotates, bridges, rotates. That's gonna get Haliburton wide open at the top of the key.
Okay.
From here, Brunson throws a close out which forces Haliburton to pumpake right. Okay, that's fine. Whatever. This is where everything goes south. Mitchell Robinson, you are twenty feet away from Tyrese Haliburton. You are not blocking this shot. Watch, Mitchell Robinson. One giant false step that accomplishes absolutely nothing, clears a runway for Obi topping to sneak in right
along the back line for this tip dunk. So again, defensive, there were a lot of knicks defensive mistakes mixed in here. This was just an absolutely nasty move from Jalen Brunton and hits Nie Smith with a jab step and.
Gets a floater.
We'll watch it full speed and then I'll show you guys the fast the fast speed here we go floater. All right, So first of all, watch on the jab step, how he just breaks knee Smith off like Hard jab shows the ball. Look at Nie Smith's feet. Oh shit, Oh no, Now he's like literally in a full back pedal, like he's just dead to writes. Nasty move, low, gather through the nail, help and the floater over the rim. Protector barely gets it over, topping his fingertips. Just just
an unbelievable offensive play from Jalen Brunson. On the other end, Tyre Salliburton relently relentlessly making reads Josh Hart nothing too crazy to get into here. He just gives up a back cut to nem Hart layup another defensive mistake. Here's that big defensive play from nem Hart, strong action, a little dribble hand off with Kat and McHale bridges while
Brunson is locating through. The idea here is they want to get the Pacers to load up the defense this way so that Brunson can attack a shifting defense on the opposite end of the floor. But watch Nemhard jump the passing lane here and get a hand on the ball. And then the second great review from Ri Carlisle forces a turnover there. Here's the other bad call that went against the Pacers down the stretch of the game. Topping slips out of this ball screen gets fouled by mckaal
Bridges on the dunk. We were joking last night, just an absurd level of athleticism to catch the ball right here, to have a six' eight good athletic wing meeting you at the rim in a play where you cannot afford to miss a layup or miss a.
Dunk and he's, like it's. Cool i'll just.
Jump And i'll double pump WHILE i wait for McHale bridges to foul, me and Then i'll just finish through. It an lievable athletic play and obi top and lots of big plays down the stretch of this, game final, Possession brunson doesn't get very much, separation and then another big contest From toppin' On Karl Anthony towns at the
top of the key game one goes to The. Pacers, so as you guys can see from the, film plenty of examples of the reality that, like, yeah there's some crazy shot, making but a lot of mistakes from the, knicks a lot of stuff that was, avoidable and it sticks to what we talked about at the beginning before the. Series in our series. Preview The pacers will literally never stop Playing pacers. Basketball they will not stop until you're in the locker, Room so you cannot at any point
in time let go of the. Rope doesn't matter if you're up fourteen with two minutes two and a half minutes, left or if you're up nine with one minute left or four and, overtime you can literally never. Stop you have to keep, executing keep being attentive to those, details and avoid the potential pitfalls of. Mistakes all, right, guys that's all we have for this. Morning is always we sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us in supporting the.
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