Hoops Tonight - Pacers-Celtics Predictions: Will Tatum & Boston face first test vs. RED HOT Indiana?

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We have our first series preview of the Conference finals today. We're hitting the Indiana Pacers and the Boston Celtics. You guys know the job before we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt So you guys don't miss show announcements. So forget about our podcast feed where you get your podcast un

our hoops tonight. Then keep dropping mail bag questions and those YouTube comments that we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the postseason. All right, let's talk some basketball. So we're gonna do just like we usually do on the series previous. We're gonna go through the season series, talk about some stats that we saw from the regular season between these teams, go over the gambling odds, Pacers on offense, Celtics on offense, and then I will give

my pick. So Boston won the season series three to two. Boston beat them by forty one at home in early November. The Pacers beat them in the N Season Tournament quarterfinals. Remember that was in the N season tournament games where you actually hosted the game at home, so Indiana was at home in that game they ended up winning I think one twenty two to one twelve. Boston then went and beat them in Indiana by seventeen in early January, but then two days later, still in Indiana, Indiana one

by two points. So Indiana did get two wins both in Indiana in the series, and then the Celtics beat them by five in Boston on January thirtieth. So I only look at the matchup where Pascal Siakam played, but if I'm not mistaken to think Al Horford did not play in that game, and I think that was one of the games that Tyres Halliburton still missed a good

chunk of the game with his hamstring injuries. So not too much that we can take away from the regular season series except for that Indiana has been more confident in this matchup at home. Stats from the season series, Boston had a one twenty six offensive writing, Indiana a one to fourteen offensive ratings, so that's a plus twelve net in favor of Boston. Boston dominated the rebound the rebounding battle, fifty six point one percent of available rebounds

went to Boston. Indiana one points off of turnovers sixteen point six to thirteen point eight per game, second chance points fifteen point four to fourteen point eight per game, fast break points scored thirteen point four to twelve point eight per game, and points in the paint fifty five

point two to fifty one point six. So Indiana does have advantages in the margins in this series, but I think Boston is very clearly the better half court team, which we'll get into in detail here in just a minute. Per DraftKings, the Celtics are favored once again to win by a massive margin. They are minus nine hundred on DraftKings to advance to the NBA Finals. Right, let's start with the Pacers on offense. I'm gonna go through the matchups really quick and then we'll get into some details.

So Jalen Brown, Drew Holliday, and Derek White all spent time on Tyre Saliburton as a primary matchup during the regular season, but I think they'll probably start with Derek White, and Derek White was the direction they went in their most recent matchup, so I think that's the direction they're gonna go with Andrew Nemhard. I think we'll see Drew Holliday in that matchup with Aaron Nei Smith. I think

we'll see Jalen Brown at least to start. We're gonna go over some options here in a minute with the Siakam Turner matchups. That's where it gets interesting because Miles Turner is shooting forty six percent from three in these playoffs, Pascal Siakam is only shooting thirty two percent. So Boston may end up starting with Horford on Turner, but they'll be extremely vulnerable to the pick and pop there, right Like, that's one of the pet actions that Indiana's gonna run.

Halliburton's gonna bring the ball up the floor. Turner's gonna set the screen. As Halliburton turns the corner, it goes downhill and attacks at Horford or at Porzingis, whoever it is, and Derek White or whoever it is on the ball is chasing after Halliburton. Turner is just gonna pop out to that three point line and he's gonna be wide open. That's gonna be a big coverage gap. That Indiana can take advantage of in this series. This is where Jason

Tatum and his defensive versatility comes to the table. And we talked a lot about this in this playoff run, like for all of the conversations surrounding Tatum's scoring inconsistency, which I think is fair when it comes to his total packages a basketball player, because he's such a big, strong forward, because he has such a high basketball IQ through his experience in all these big games, he's a very useful like Swiss army knife and a lot of

these types of situations we saw, for instance, in the Cleveland series, Jason Tatum take Evan Mobley for long stretches because he could switch ball screens. Right. That's going to be a big direction that I think we'll see Boston go in this series. I think sooner than later we'll see Jason Tatum move over to the Miles Turner matchup. The advantage there is Turner's not going to be able to bully Tatum in the post. And then if you run a ball screen with Haliburton and Turner, you can

literally just switch it. And now Tatum is on Halliburton and Derek White will or excuse me, Now, Tatum's on Haliburton, you have Derek White or whoever it is that's on the ball, that's on Miles Turner. And again if they go if Indiana tries to attack through the post with Miles Turner, you're just kind of ok hey with that there, right, So, like, I think we'll see that direction eventually because Pascal Siakam is shooting only thirty two percent from three, and also

Al Horford is very gifted positional defender. One of the Horford's best traits as a defender is he can read you and find out which direction you're going, beat you to the spot, and then offer contests and make you shoot over the top. Like he's not a super aggressive ball pressure like forced turnovers guy, but he's a guy that can at least play you into your weaknesses as

a basketball player. And so with Siakam, that's what that's going to be, preventing him from getting downhill and all the way to the rim, but rather just beating him to spots and forcing him to make shots over the top. So in ISO situations, I like Horford to at least be able to do a decent job on Siakam and then closing out to the three point line. I expect hit him to be able to close out short and

kind of just contain as he's driving. Now, what if Siakam gets going, Because we've seen this right, Like, Siakam has had issues where like let's say, for instance, that they the Pacers go to Turner ball screens and Tatum switches and they kind of shut that down. So they go, Okay, let's bring Horford up into the ball screen. Let's attack with Siakham as a screener. Right, Siakam's probably going to pop and in those situations you're having Horford off for

a late close out. Now, let's say that Horford, Let's say that Siakam gets going, right, Siakam hits a few threes. Maybe it turns out that Siakam's too fast for Horford at this phase of his career and he just starts toasting Horford off the dribble. Maybe even when Porzingis is in the game later points in the series, if you have similar problems there, there's another option that Boston can

go to that I think makes some sense. You could actually end up sliding Jalen Brown onto Siakam and once again switch those screens in the event that they run Siakam in the ball screen because of the fact that Aaron Smith has not been shooting the ball particularly well from three. He's shooting thirty percent from three in the playoffs. He hit two for two in Game seven against the Nick, but he was pretty cold in the few games before that.

So you could basically just put Horford on Nie Smith in Rome and try conceding those threes, which will allow you to contain the ball screen actions with Halliburton and Siakam or Halliburton in Turner. And that's just the advantage of having two forwards like Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum that have the versatility to guard guards and to guard

bigger players. Now, the biggest issue Boston will have, in my opinion, is going to have to do mainly with Halliburton when he's coming off of those screens with speed when Horford is in the action. So let's say Horford's on Nie Smith and they and Horford comes up to the level of the screen on Halliburton. One of the weaknesses that Boston has, as we saw with Donovan Mitchell in the last round, and as we saw a little

bit with Tyler Harrow in the first round. Although it's a much lesser player, they can be somewhat vulnerable to pull up shooters, right, guys that can come off the screen with pace and kind of cause issues for that screen defender coming up to the level. That's something that

Boston has shown some vulnerability too. So that's like the one thing in the half court where I could see Indiana having a good amount of consistent success is Like, I do think that Tyris Halliburton is capable of doing some damage to Horford in ball screens or Porzingis in ball screens. But outside of that, though, I think they've got the personnel to make things a lot more difficult

elsewhere on the floor. Indiana's main advantage as an offensive team in this series is going to be in transition. So they've scored three hundred and twenty nine points in transition in this playoff run. That's twenty five point three per game. That's the most out of any of the playoff teams that have appeared in this playoff run. They are the only one of the four remaining teams in the Conference finals to average over twenty transition points per game.

So as much as Boston's half court personnel has the ability to match up with Indiana in all of these ways. That's not where Indiana is going to look to attack. They're gonna look to run like absolute crazy. This is

where Halliburton and TJ. McConnell, they are just these these straight line, drive, dribble penetration wreck havoc type of guys right and getting out in transition, getting cross matches, getting you know, they'll they'll they'll try to push and see if they can't get early offense opportunities for Siakam to attack against like a Derek White or one of their smaller guards. Right Like, they're going to constantly be looking to push as much as possible. But there's another side

of this point. Boston has been the best transition defense in our transition defense, i should say, in the playoffs so far, they've allowed just fourteen point six points in transition per game. That is the fewest out of any of the sixteen teams that have appeared in a playoff series this year. So it's kind of like a you know, it's kind of like a clash of two elite units there,

Indiana's transition offense versus Boston's transition defense. Here are the keys for both teams in my opinion, for Boston have to contain the ball. They have excellent guard defenders Drew Holliday and with Derek White right. If they contain drible penetration for TJ McConnell and Tyrs Alliburn, that will shut Indiana's offense off. They're an advantage creation offense. All their guys off the ball are play finishers. Aaron E. Smith

is a play finisher. Andrew Nemhard can run second side action, but not to a super effective level against super elite defenses. So I look at him as a guy that if you can avoid advantage situations, you can contain a little bit. Siakam is a guy that can operate on an island a little bit, but he's an elite play finisher. Miles Turner is a play finisher. The Obi Toppen is a play finisher. These are guys that you know, even Ben Sheppard play finisher. These are guys that are primarily looking

to attack with an advantage. So if you can contain drible penetration not just in the half court, but also in transition by getting back and just kind of containing their ball handlers, you will go do a lot of damage to Indiana's offense. Second part of it protect Horford and Perzingis as much as possible by giving them easier matchups Miles Turner pick and pop. That can be an issue, right Siakam potentially could be an issue, although I think Corford has a chance to do a decent job on him.

But finding ways to stash him on a guy like a Nie Smith, who you don't need to necessarily worry about to a great extent on the three point line, that could go a long way to protecting those guys

in ball screens. Nie Smith is also not a great movement shooter, so if he pops to the three point line in ball screens, as long as they're up at the level and they contain the ball, you can almost deal with some of the issues that you have in terms of foot speed containing Haliburton by like just being super aggressive, like coming way out to the level, just making him get rid of the basketball because he's going to be getting rid of it to Niemith, who hasn't

shot the ball particularly well. Now, Nie Smith will slash off the catch on the wing, and that's a way he can do a lot of damage. Hit a lot of that in Game seven against the Knicks, right, But that's something that you can deal with in defensive rotation. So again, containing the ball in transition in the half court is going to be the major piece there, and protecting Horford in porzingis by giving them easier matchups for Indiana,

attack Horford whatever he is. As we saw, like I talked about earlier with Donovan Mitchell and Tyler Harrow, you can have success against Boston's defense by attacking them in ball screens with pull up shooters. Right, tyres Alburton has been shooting the ball a lot better as of late. He brings a lot of speed to the equation there. That is their best entry point in the half court. Attacking the big guys in ball screens push in transition

to the maximum possible extent. This is going to have another layer to it on the defensive end, which we'll get to in a minute. But I think they're going to lose the half court battle. Boston is better half court personnel, so you have to sow chaos as much as possible. Get push the ball at the floor, look for quick cross matches for Siakam, look for runouts, quick early threes, early offense, just upping the pace as much as possible to turn the series into a track meet.

That to me is their only hope. Let's look at Boston on offense with Derek White. I think I think we'll see Andrew Nemhart there with Drew Holliday. I think we'll see Tyre's Halliburton. Their main reason why is Drew Holliday is not as good of a movement shooter as Derek White is. Right, So if Halliburton's going to hedge and recover, you want to hedge and recover and leave an opening with Drew Holliday. Like we talked about with

the Knicks series. I remember there's a lot of hedging and blitzing from Halliburton, but it was Duce McBride who was primarily operating out of that right, So you want to make the worst movement shooter of the group try to move a work off of those Halliburton hedges. I think we'll see Siakam on Jaln Brown, and I think we'll see Aaron Nesmith on Jason Tatum at least to start. We'll see if they tweak the matchups over the course of the series. The Tatum White. So here's the thing

I want to start with. Let's start with Aaron E. Smith on Jason Tatum. So Aaron Nesmith is quicker than Jason Tatum, and he's got a really strong build, so he can avoid some of the bully ball stuff. So on an island, whenever they go like one on one, he should be able to force Tatum to settle into

pull up jumpers. And the main issue there is just fouling because like in the for instance, in Season Tournament championship game, there were a bunch of possessions down the stretch of that game where Nie Smith forced Tatum to settle for tough contested mid range jumpers, but he like fouled him on one on the left baseline where he kind of pressed too far up underneath him. So that's the main piece is just be careful not to foul him.

But in the on an Island of situations, I really really like that matchup, specifically with the Tatum White two

man game. They ran that a bunch down the stretch of the n Season Tournament not championship, excuse me, quarterfinal, but in the Ncason Tournament quarterfinal, they ran a lot of Derek White, Jason Tatum two man game and in those setups, Nee Smith was able to fight over the top of the screens and avoid switches in many of those cases, and that actually helped stagnate Boston's offense down the stretch of that game. Anything with Drew Holliday, like

I mentioned earlier, you hedge and recover with Aliburton. If Boston looks to just attack Haliburton, so like they just throw the ball to Drew Holiday and try to post up or Iso Halliburton, I take that as a win for Indiana because that's like a rhythm disruptor for the

rest of the offense. Even if he scores a few buckets in the post each half, like it just kind of disrupts the flow of Boston's offense, which at its best is i and kicking for wide open threes right keys for both teams with Boston ball movement, don't get carried away with matchup hunting, generate a quick advantage and playoff of that. The main advantage actions that I look at for them are Horford pick and pop right because Miles Turner is going to run a drop coverage. So

just like we talked about earlier with Miles Turner. If like let's say Aaron E. Smith is on Tatum. If Nie Smith is gonna chase Tatum over the top and Turner is gonna corral him in a drop coverage, then Horford can pop to the three point line. He's gonna be open every single time from there. If he's got the three point shot going, he can keep shooting it. If not, he can play drive and kick. Just rip to the middle, bring that next defender, or swing to

a probably a really good shooter standing in the corner. Right, So that's a good entry point for them. Secondly, Drew slipping out of the hedge and blitz just like what the Knicks did with with Duce McBride, right, Halliburton hedges just quickly get rid of the ball to Drew on the roll. I think that's where you go with Tatum because Tatum can see over the time really well and he'll handle those blitzes really well. I think Tatum's the

best passer, So just have that. Have Tatum handle that action. When Haliburton hedges, just dump it off to Drew. Same thing we just talked about with Al Horford. If he's got the shot going, take the shot. If not, just drive the drive that advantage from the top of the key, bring in an extra defender, make those kickouts from there. But again, ball movement's gonna be key. Do not play down to the competition. Hunt elite shot quality throughout this series.

And again this you gotta look at it like there's a decent chance. According to Vegas, I think Minnesota is a minus one ninety favorite to beat Dallas. I will be picking Minnesota in all likelihood. I haven't done my series preview yet, but that's what I'm most likely gonna pick. You're gonna be playing just an unbelievably good defense potentially in the championship round. And I think Dallas is better

defense than Indiana anyway. So like, it's gonna be a tough battle in the NBA Finals, And like, this is another series where you have an opportunity to kind of polish up some of your decision making before you get to that point. Lastly, get favorable Tatum. I like Tatum attacking literally anybody except for Aaron Nesmith on this Pacers roster. I think he's got a quickness and strength advantage against

Pascal Siakam. I think he's got a speed advantage against any of any of the bigger players that Indiana will play. I think he can do damage to the smaller guards, guys like or Nemhard and Halliburton. But Nis Smith specifically, I think is like the fire hydrant type that can keep him in front and force him into contested jumpers. So set solid screens to four switches, pushing the ball

in transition to get cross matches. And then whenever you get those mismatches for Tatum, just clear the side and let him go to work. That's where I think Tatum is at his best. Cleared side usually from the right block, is where I prefer Tatum going to work. And then lastly, I put this in all bold just shot selection, just decision making and shot selection. Like I mentioned earlier, you're

prepping for a much tougher challenge in the future. This is a series where you've got to tighten those things up before you get into the next round. On the Indie A front, how do you play Boston into poor shooting Knights. That's your best chance to win, right. The easiest way to play a team and do a poor shooting night is by fatiguing them. How do you fatigue them through physicality, which is like ball pressure right, just doing everything with force to make sure they're tired, and

then two push the pace. This is the defensive element of making the game into a track meet. Tired legs are more likely to miss shots, make Boston play faster than they're typically used to playing. You have a better opportunity of playing them into poor shooting nights. But the reality is Boston is going to get good looks from three in this series, and if they make them, you're

probably going to lose. That's the problem with having five shooters on the floor the way that Boston does and having a guy like Halliburton that you can easily attack and get the defense in rotation. So even just having a pick and pop pig like the Celtics are gonna have two easy actions they can run at any given time, which is the Horford pick and pop or the Drew Holiday pick and slip. Any one of those, you're gonna

get the defense in rotation. From there, you're playing drive and kick with five shooters, so Boston's gonna get great looks in the half court. Really, I think Indiana's only chance is to just play crazy fast and try to fatigue Boston into having poor shooting nights and just kind of leaning into their specific advantages. I'm picking Boston. I think they have better personnel on both ends of the floor, and I think they have the best player in the series.

But I do think Indiana is gonna push this series to six games. Boston has a tendency to ease up after getting a lead, which we've seen multiple times in this playoff run already, and Indiana's really good at home. Indiana six to oh, undefeated at home in this postseason. They have a one twenty six offensive rating at home. They've beat Boston at home twice this year. So I think that Indiana's gonna find ways to extend the series through just the energy of their home crowd and through

their speed and just them playing super super hard. But I just have a hard time believing Indiana can win a series like this four times out of seven when Boston has the personnel advantages that they have on both ends of the floor. We will be live on YouTube after the final buzzer of Game one tomorrow night to break it all down. I will see you guys there. The volume