Hoops Tonight - Pacers-Celtics Reaction: Indiana CHOKES, Jayson Tatum TAKES OVER in Boston OT win - podcast episode cover

Hoops Tonight - Pacers-Celtics Reaction: Indiana CHOKES, Jayson Tatum TAKES OVER in Boston OT win

May 22, 202433 min
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Episode description

Jason Timpf reacts to Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and the Boston Celtics' miraculous 133-128 Game 1 win over Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam, and the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals. Jason breaks down Indiana's late-game collapse, Jayson Tatum's dominant overtime, and the rest of the biggest highlights from a WILD Game 1. #volume #Herd

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Transcript

Speaker 1

The volume. We're this close to crowning a new NBA champ, and with the action heating up on the court, it's even hotter. At DraftKings sports Book, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. There's only so many games left, and Draftking Sportsbook has you covered with same game parlays, live betting odds, boosts in so much more. Don't miss out or you'll have to wait until next NBA season to place your bets. It's super easy for first timers

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We got a jam pack show for you tonight, very very entertaining game one of the Eastern Conference Finals, and it was entertaining before it went completely off the rails in the final minute and got just unbelievably unorganized and sloppy for both teams as Boston ends up coming back in wild fashion to beat Indiana in overtime. We're gonna break that game down from the perspective of both teams, and then we'll get out of here for the night. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe

to a brand of YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLTS. You guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight, and then keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments that we keep hitting them throughout the rest of the playoffs.

Speaker 2

All right, let's talk some basketball.

Speaker 1

So this was the very best case scenario for Boston because you got one in the win. Come you're officially up one to zero in the series, but you played poorly enough to have lost, right, which is like a wake up call. It breeds urgency. It's also super discouraging for the Indiana Pacers, right, and most importantly, I thought that there was a lot that Boston could clean up,

particularly on the defensive end of the floor. And so like this is the best case because you can go into that film session you're a winner, but you can be pissed off about how you played, address those things and go into Game two with the requisite adjustments and level of urgency to try to take a two to zero lead in the series. So this game kind of

felt like two games to me. There was the actual basketball game that the Pacers more or less won until the final minute when they choked it away, and then it was the overtime sequence.

Speaker 2

Right, don't want to start on the late.

Speaker 1

Game sequence first, and then we'll get into the basketball because in the basketball part of the game, there's just a lot of different things that Boston can improve on to do a better job, specifically of guarding the Indiana Pacers. So in terms of the late game sequence, that was

a legendary choke job from the Indiana Pacers. Boston missed four shots in the final minute in ten seconds of this game, and somehow still sent it to overtime, just incomprehensible mistakes from Tyrese Halliburton randomly shoots an early clock step back three on the left wing that was way off it almost banked in. They end up committing a foul on the rebound. They have two awful turnovers after that point where Tyree's just dribbles the ball up the

floor and just coughs it up. Another one that they turn over just on the inbounds pass, and then even on that final possession, like one of the things that like you'll see coaches do at just about every level of basketball is specifically on final possessions, and especially when you're trying to take away a three point shot, you switch everything because again, usually in a sequence like that, there's not enough time to try to try to go for two and then foul again or whatever it is

that you might try to do in a situation like that, other than taking a three, you're probably gonna be looking for a three point shot, right, And so in those situations, the last thing you want to do is have a guy get caught up on a screen, which let's say someone throws an illegal screen or something like that. You don't want to be caught on that and then be looking at the refs when the rest are probably gonna

swallow their whistle. In a situation like that, as your man breaks open to shoot a three, instead of switching, they run a little screening action on the left side of the floor, like Jalen Brown like loops up to the top and then comes off the screen and loops back to the left corner, and Siakam's chasing instead of switching.

And the problem there was once the pass was made to Jalen Brown now closing out at him, and all this talk was about, oh, you're supposed to foil, You're supposed to foul, and like, for all we know, Rick

Carlisle might have said foul. But if Siakam just comes sprinting at Jlen Brown with his hands out like I'm gonna foul you, Jalen Brown could just shoot a three point shot as Siakam comes up, now he's going to the line to shoot three free throws, and so by virtue of him getting detached, meaning like him getting caught up on that screen and having to close out on

Jaylen Brown. It effectively removed fouling from the equation. At that point, the foul becomes too risky because Jaylen Brown is staring right at Siakam as he's running at him. Right from there, Jalen Brown just makes a hell of a shot. Sacame once he got back into the play. He did what you're supposed to do. He was right there up in his face. But Jalen Brown is squared up to shoot a three. Soakam can't foul anymore because as soon as he reaches out, Jalen Brown could just

go up with the shot right. So what he did at that point is he just walled up and just put his chin back, and Jalen Brown rose up and he made a really impressive shot to send the game to overtime. The first part of overtime was and the Celtics were making all sorts of mistakes again. Jason Tatum passes early out of a slipped ball screen, and I think it was Drew Holliday set the screen and then slipped out of it.

Speaker 2

He threw the pass way too early.

Speaker 1

Tyres halliburtn steals it and end up committing a foul on the other end, and the Pacers go up one twenty three one twenty one, but Aaron Nesmith ends up fouling out of the game, And that was a big moment because again there was there was a driving layup that Tatum had against Aaron Nesmith where he ball pressured him out about like thirty five feet from the basket earlier in the game, where Tatum spun off of him

and got all the way to the basket. But for the most part, Nie Smith on an island against Jason Tatum can at least force him to take over the top jump shots because the Smith's a little quicker than him, and he's big and strong enough to kind of avoid getting bullied for the most part, right, And so that kind of forces Tatum to take pull of jumpers, which, as we know, Jason Tatum likes to take a lot of pull of jumpers, but in terms of his actual

efficiency on them, he's not very good at him, right, And so that matchup kind of was working in Indiana's favor down the stretch of the game. But as soon as Nie Smith went out of the game, to Tatum's credit, he identified the new matchup, which was Andrew Nemhard and immediately took him to the post and.

Speaker 2

Down on the block.

Speaker 1

Andrew Emhard opted to try to play defense before the catch, so instead of like letting Tatum catch and walling him up as he tries to score in the post, Nemhard tried to front the post and Tatum just made a good physical positioning move and Nemhart ended.

Speaker 2

Up falling over.

Speaker 1

He got a little and one right Then they come down the floor and they run two man games. Tyres Alliburton was guarding Derek White and Andrew Nemhard was guarding Jason Tatum. Tatum sets the screen and Indiana runs this

really bizarre coverage. They basically guard it like it's a big man pick and roll, like they guard it like a drop coverage, like Andrew Emhard drops or Tyres Aliburn chases over the top, and then Nemhard kind of drops into the lane, and so as a result, it's just like any other pick and pop. The guy who sets the screen and pops the three point line is wide open, and so Nemharden and Tyris Aliburton tried to get a late close out, but Tatum finally after missing the one

re really good look he got down the stretch was a wide open catch and shoot three that would have tied the game in light regulation that he left just barely short, like it was dead on straight, just left at a tiny bit short. But by courtesy of the Indiana Pacers, he gets another opportunity in overtime and he hump fakes, takes a little side step, knocks down the three at the top of the key, and the game was pretty much over from there.

Speaker 2

Shout out to.

Speaker 1

Jason Tatum again, just like I talked about with Anthony Edwards in Game seven against the Denver Nuggets, like you always have another opportunity to make a play. That's the beautiful thing about basketball. You can start, you can have an absolute nightmare game, but you can find a way to make a play. And this was actually a very interesting up and down game from Tatum. He came out early, was super aggressive at the rim, got a couple early buckets. You could tell like he's just too big for most

of these guys around the rim. Right then he kind of starts settling for jumpers in the late first quarter, he goes through a cold spell. Then in the second quarter, starts being physically aggressive again, gets going as that. I think he was eight for fourteen at one point. Then he goes like ice cold in the second and half, really really struggling to make those pull up jump shots, settling a lot in isolation situations, and I think at one point he was twelve for twenty six from the field.

Has that really bad turnover and overtime looked bad there, right, but he recovered from that and made a couple of huge plays down the stretch. And then one of the big things with Jayson Tatum. We're gonna talk about this a lot when we get into the ball screen coverage stuff, but like Jason Tatum can be a very frustrating basketball player on the offensive end of the floor, but he

is deeply, profoundly impactful on the defensive end. I can't tell you how many times he made massive swing plays on defense, switching to Miles Turner and forcing somebody else for the Pacers to score bucket, which we'll get into

in a little bit. He had a big late steal on Obi Toppen and I think in their early fourth quarter if I remember correctly, where Obi was stupid enough to try to attack Tatum and iso the late switch on to Tyrese Haliburton in late regulation where he just switched on to Halliburton and just basically swallowed him up on the right wing so he could barely even get

a shot off. Like, Jason Tatum is a deeply and profoundly impactful athlete in this league, and it covers up a lot of the kind of up and down nature of his offensive performances, right, and then again it just kept buying him opportunities to try to make more plays on offense, and he made several big ones down the

stretch of his game. So absolutely wild, completely insane. If you're Indiana, like literally all you have to do is get the ball up the floor and run any offense and Boston's gonna have to foulue and then you end up winning. So like, I don't even know what to say from the Indiana perspective other than like, yet, yet you played well enough to win and then you just choked it away.

Speaker 2

There's really no better way to put it.

Speaker 1

You choked the basketball game away by basic inability to handle ball pressure. Now, credit to Boston, they've got a lot of really good defenders. Drew Holliday did an amazing job with physicality on Tyrese Saliburton played him into two of those turnovers late, but again, like that's stuff that he should be able to handle. So Indiana's got to

clean that up for the rest of the series. I want to get into some of the specific basketball dynamics that took place over the meat and potatoes of the game, because again, as we look forward, the entire series isn't going to come down to like chaotic two three minute stretches at the end, right, Like you play forty eight minute basketball games, right, and Boston is a more talented basketball team than the Indiana Pacers, and.

Speaker 2

They shouldn't need to be in a situation.

Speaker 1

Where they need Jalen Brown to make some crazy, you know, face up jumper over a player taller than him when he's completely smothered in the left corner, right, Like, that shouldn't need to be the case. So how do you clean up what happened in the rest of the game to make sure that you don't find yourself in this situation again? So first I want to start on a really basic level as it pertains to their switching. So

there was it. Do you guys remember the nine to zero run that took place in the It was like middle third quarter. I want to say Boston went up. It was like gosh, I want to say it was

like seventy three to or something like that. They were up thirteen in the in the middle third quarter, if I remember correctly, and Indiana literally goes on a nine to zero run in two minutes, and like that's where Aaron E. Smith hit the trailing three point shot at the top of the key and just like that, like it was a it was a four point game, right, And like there were multiple stretches in this game where Boston went up by double digits and then they just

lost focus and kind of fell apart. And like, honestly, the offense during that stretch wasn't that bad. There was a Jalen Brown turnover a very similar to the turnover that Jason Tatum had an overtime, where like a guy slipped out of a hedge and Jalen Brown just telegraphed to pass and threw it right to Tyres Halliburton. There was a pretty decent look at three that Sam Hauser got that he just airballed, but it was like a decent look. There was one bad shot.

Speaker 2

That I didn't like.

Speaker 1

Peyton Pritchard took a thirty footer with fifteen on the shot clock on the left wing, but he had already made two threes and another short jumper in the game, so I think he was just feeling confident. I didn't really think the offense was the problem in that run. They were just abysmal defensively in that stretch, specifically botching switches.

They give up four buckets in that two minute stretch, and three of them where three of them were botched switches, and the fourth was a really bad close out from Jalen Brown. So this is one of the things that Indiana does right. Indiana we talk a lot about different ways to beat switching, and one of the ways that you can beat switching is take advantage of the fact

that there's a static defender involved. So, for instance, if you're guarding another player and I'm dribbling at you fast and your man screens for me, and I'm coming off with a lot of pace and you're standing still, you're at a disadvantage when you switch unless you're very ready for it, because if you hesitate even for a second, I'm already in motion. Doesn't matter how quick my first step is if I'm already moving at full speed and you're coming from a standstill to try to catch up

with me. And one of the things that Indiana did in a amazing job of in this game is just like really quick ball in player movement. It's like swing pass ball screen, drible handoff, swing pass ball screen, dribble handoff. Just they were just moving so quickly in the half court, and basically what they would do is they would just do it, and Boston would switch and switch and switch

and switch until somebody made a mistake. And as soon as somebody made a mistake, that guy would turn the corner and he'd get into the lane and he'd get

a basket. So the main thing is when they get into this film session, they're gonna notice pretty quickly we can clean up a lot of this just by communicating better when it comes to switches and just being in an athletic stance actually ready to switch when you see the ball starting to come towards you, just be aware of the fact that you're gonna need to get moving quickly because Indiana moves with so much with so much pace. Like again, that was Boston was in position that was

their biggest lead. They were in position to put this thing away in two minutes of lazy defense where they were botching switches, ended up giving Indiana a chance to to get back into the game. And we're gonna go into that kind of thing in the film session tomorrow. All the stuff that I'm talking about right now, we'll get into some more detail in film tomorrow morning. The second piece that I want to look at is ball

screen defense. So one of the things that I've talked about a lot in this playoff round, specifically in the series preview, is the fact that one of the weaknesses for Boston is even with porzingis porzingis Al Horford, Luke Cornett.

They when you actually have to guard a good quick ball handler that can shoot pull up jump shots, like a Donovan Mitchell, like a Tyree S. Halliburton, like even like Tyler Harrow is a lesser version of that, but a guy that in the first round that they played against to had some success hitting pull up jump shots

and pick and roll. It forces Al Horford, it forces chrisops Mordingis, it forces Luke Cornette to guard in space as opposed to a deep drop against a non skill guard where you can kind of sit in the paint just wait for the guy to drive that at you.

Speaker 2

Right, And this, by the way, is man infested. In the numbers.

Speaker 1

Per Synergy, Boston has been the very worst pick and roll defense in the playoffs so far, including passes by a wide margin. They're giving up one point zero nine points per possession in ball screens including passes. It's like five hundreds of a point worse than the next team in line, which by the way was the Indiana Pacers. Fun fact, but that was the worst out of the sixteen teams. This has been a consistent problem for them.

When they face like good quick ball handlers that can attack their big guys in space in pick and roll, they have problems. Right, So the question is this is this is just a fact about Boston's roster, So how do you account for that? By the way, no team

in the league doesn't have a flaw. Boston has better personnel than most teams, though, and they have so many good defenders and so many super versatile defenders, guys like Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown in particular, who are so big and strong and athletic that they can guard players that are significantly smaller than them and significantly bigger than them. Right, So, like, how do you as a team cover for the fact that you're struggling to guard and pick and roll? And

for me, that is pretty simple. It's about putting Al Horford similar to what you've seen a lot of teams do in this postseason run and in the playoffs in general, instead of putting your center on the opposing center who's going to set ball screens and has a ton of pick and roll chemistry with the ball handler. And a guy like Miles Turner who's like legitimately just shooting the laces off the basket or shooting the seams off the

basketball in this postseason runs. I think he was up over forty six percent from three before tonight and is like has the ability to take off from like twelve feet away from the basket off of two feet and just dunk everything like he's a problem. He's flat out a problem. And then Tyrese Haliburton on the other end of that can hit the pull up three, can hit the mid range jumper, and can get all the way to the basket and finish. So like that pick and

roll duo is a problem. And so as long as you have Al Horford or Luke Cornett or whoever it is in that matchup, they're just gonna look to attack NonStop, right, So you've got to find a way to protect Horford there. Now, one of the things we talked about in the series previews, I said I'd move him to Siakam, but I specifically said, if Siakam gets going as a score, I think you need to move him to Nie Smith. By the way, that's exactly what happened. They moved Horford to Siakam. In

early Siakam struggled. He missed a pick and pop three, he missed a little mid range jumper, like he blocked Siakam on a driving a layup in the first half or I think it was early second half, Like they had some success there. But then Siakam got going late in the game, right, he got that little mid range jumper going, the jab step jumper, the kind of like little step back jumper there in the fifteen foot range.

That's why I think the most the most realistic option for them to make it be the least effective offensive player that Indiana has in that lineup, just put him on Aaron Nee Smith again.

Speaker 2

Aaron NEI.

Speaker 1

Smith is a slasher, but in this postseason run, he's barely cracked thirty percent from three. He's a very, very inconsistent three point shooter. Most importantly, he's not a movement

three point shooter. What that means is because what Haliburton did is as soon as they move Jason Tatum onto to Miles Turner, they just started having Pascal Siakam set the ball screen right like they're targeting Horford wherever he is on the floor, right, So whatever, you are literally picking who's gonna be taking the shot by who you put Horford on, you put Horford.

Speaker 2

On Turner, it's gonna be Turner.

Speaker 1

Turner's hitting his threes and he's making everything on the role. You put Horford on Siakam, he's gonna Sakam's gonna be the guy shooting. Siakam was making his mid range jumper in this game. You want Aaron E. Smith to be the guy that's taking the shot there. So like, this is the advantage, this is the credit of having a

guy like Jason Tatum on your team. He's so damn big, he's so damn strong, he's such a gifted defensive player that you can put him on Miles Turner, switch him on to Tyree Saliburton, He'll put him in jail.

Speaker 2

Two.

Speaker 1

Miles Turner is not a guy that can attack post mismatches very well. He had one bucket shooting over the top of a post mismatch tonight, but that's not really his game, right. So like you can just switch that ball screen, right, you just move j you keep Jalen Brown on Pascal Siakam. That's a matchup that you like, right. And then essentially you have Horford be aggressive in a coverage when Nie Smith sets the ball screen. If Nie Smith pops to the three point line, you just close

out at him short. You give him a token short close out, right, because with that short close out, Nie Smith is only is barely hitting over thirty percent from his threes. And then and Al Horford's actually very gifted at kind of at anticipating driving angles and beating guys to spot spots and taking contact in the chest.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 1

There are a couple other things that they can do, and they actually tried both of these during the game for starters, just really good help and recover on the weak side. Do you guys remember that play where Jalen Brown blocked Aaron Nee Smith on a three on the right wing and then on the block like saved the ball and threw it off off of a Nie Smith and saved it and they went out the other way. That was a ball screen with Horford and Turner where

Turner set the ball screen. Horford was covering Halliburton in the In the screen, Turner kind of did like a hoop slash role that kind of took him to the right elbow area and Halliburton went to throw the skip pass, but Jalen Brown, who was guarding Aaron Ees Smith on the right wing, stunted like he was going to tag the roller from that wing spot. Forced Halliburton to throw the skip pass. But he's such a good athlete he closed back out to Denise Smith and ended up blocking

him out of bounds. It was an unbelievable defensive play, right Like, That's an example of something you can do to protect al Horford in ball screens. Another thing you can do pre switching. Do you guys remember that absurd defensive play that Derek White had where he blocked Obi Toppin on the lob. On that play, they were running a ball screen to try to get Al Horford in it. Al Horford was guarding Myles Turner on this possession. Turner

went to go set the screen. Al Horford literally pointed to have I think it was Drew Holliday go up instead, right, And so Drew Holliday just followed Miles Turner up and Horford switched onto Drew Holliday's man.

Speaker 2

Drew Holliday went up to the to.

Speaker 1

The ball screen and literally as Halliburton came off, Uh, Drew Holliday switched onto him. And then Derek White literally peeled off and guarded Myles Turner Miles Turner on the roll as soon as the pass two. Uh, it might have been I think it was Turner in this possession. We'll go over and more detail in the film session. But he got dropped off to Turner and then Derek White peeled off of Myles Turner too, as Miles Turner threw the lob to Obi top in and Derek White

came flying in and blocked it. So we executed two switches in a matter of like two seconds to block that lob pass along the base on his unbelievable defensive play. But again, what you did is you took your worst defensive player and now Horford in this situation and protected him by pre switching and sending a guard up switching

the ball screen up high. And then now you've got your two best perim defenders or your two best guard defenders trying to make a play instead of Al Horford, who's a little bit slower afoot, trying to make a play. And guess what, Derek White is just like an unbelievable shot blocker. And so you put him in a position where it's a strength of his rather than Horford in a position that's a weakness of his, and you get a key stop and like one last little shout out

for Derek White there. Every time I see a game like this where it's like absolute chaos and anything could happen and a team barely pulls out a narrow, narrow, narrow victory, I always think about little plays like that. I'm always like, man, that was a dunk. That was an obi top and dunk ninety nine out of one hundred times, and Derek White literally made one of the best defensive plays I've seen all postseason and stole two points off the scoreboard for the Indiana Pacers, so shout

out to Derek White. But again, those are the three things that I think Boston can do to clean up their ball screen defense, pre switching better, helping rotations on the weak side, and then just putting Al Horford, I'm the worst offensive player for Indiana and just baiting them into trying to attack that rather than playing through their better offensive players. And again, like this has been an issue all postseason, this is something they have to address.

You gotta win, but you need to fix these problems going into Game two. A couple other shoutouts on some specific Boston offensive stuff that I wanted to talk about. Drew Holliday was amazing in this game. We saw it on the defensive end late right with his on ball

defense against Tyrese Haliburton playing him into those turnovers. But a big part of it was, and that's right, that's what I was getting so confused about on that stupid Derek White block, Derek White was actually the guy that won up in the pre switch Drew Holliday was on Halliburton, Derek White switched onto to the ball handler and then peeled off and got the block. It was just an

unbelievable play. Anyway, Drew Holliday not only was the impactful defensively down the stretch of that game, he also was the guy that was getting the most favorable matchups throughout the game.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 1

We talked about this in the series preview, right like, he's gonna get Tyrese Haliburton on him for the most part, and he scored so effectively against Tyrese that they actually had to switch Tyres onto Derek White, which ended up being a huge advantage in the late game situation because now Tyres Haliburton was guarding the ball in the pivotal on ball possessions in overtime, where Derek White was consistently

generating quality shots. So, like Drew Holliday laid Indiana into a lot of unfavorable matchups over the course of the game. He also did some damage to Ben Sheppard when he was on the floor. Like Drew, this is the advantage of having five high powered offensive players in your starting lineup. You're gonna have to put your worst defender on somebody, and ended up being Drew Holliday for the majority of the game, and he just cooked all of those guys.

He was incredible in this game. And then lastly, just typical stuff that I've talked about a lot when it comes down to Boston in their offensive process, which is just like having more value for the individual possession and being more deliberate about getting great shots rather than just playing with vibes and just taking the.

Speaker 2

First available shot that you get. Right.

Speaker 1

A lot of bad shots selection in this game, but one of the things I noticed is like typically when they actually execute properly, they do get good looks. So, for instance, when there was a I'm trying to remember who hit the shot, somebody hit a shot that put the Pacers up by four right in the late I think it was late third or early fourth quarter, right, and Boston calls a timeout because now we're down four,

it's a totally different game, right. They immediately come out of the They immediately come out of the timeout, and they have Al Horford set the screen on Jason Tatum. Jason Tatum uses Al Horford in the screen, Miles Turner ends up hedging Al Horford pops to the three point Tatum just throws the basic over the top pass to al Horford, who's wide open to the top of the key, swing to the left wing rotation, swing to the corner, wide open three for Derek White and he knocks it down.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 1

It's like when they slow down and it's like they're in a time out. It's like, hey, guys, we really need a bucket here. Let's run this action. Let's get a great shot. They do that, they score so damn effectively, right, it's kind of like overtime, Like down the last two and a half minutes of overtime, they're so deliberate. It's like Tatum on it has Andrew Nemhart on him, Let's just go to him in the block, right, easy bucket and one like, hey, like they have Tyrese Haliburton and

Andrew Nemhart guarding Derek White and Jason Tatum. Let's just run two man game. And then Tatum like he went to go set the screen and he identified that they were both going with Derek White. So he's like, I'm just gonna pop to the three point line, like I just got the same shot at the end of regulation. I'm gonna take my time and I'm gonna knock this down.

Like it's just being more deliberate with their shot selection, valuing the individual possession because here's the thing, Like, you're gonna face a team coming up out of the Western Conference who's better than Indiana. I have a feeling it's

gonna be Minnesota. It's going to be a team that's going to have You're gonna have a much smaller margin for air than you do in this Indiana Pacers matchup, and so I just want to see Boston just be a little bit more deliberate about valuing each individual possession.

But again, like really encouraging night for Boston because again, you get the win, you have good motivation going into Game two because you played poorly enough to lose, and there's just so much that they can clean up going into Game two, especially on the defensive end of the four. I actually think Boston's gonna win convincingly in Game two. I think they've lost Game two twice already in this postseason by letting their foot off the gas. They already

know that that's a threat. They have the advantage of the motivation of playing as poorly as they did tonight. I think Boston's gonna go up two oh on Thursday night with a really, really impressive win. On the Indiana front, you got to take care of the damn basketball, Like it's literally that simple. You wasted one of your better offensive nights in a game that you should have won, just simply because of execution errors down the stretch of the game. They know what they need to do. They

need to make the series a track meet. They need to have as much chaotic ball in player movement as possible to make Boston make mistakes in their switches into A big part of it, too, is like Boston tends to like do you remember that shot that Derek White took when Tyres Haliburton was trailing the play and Tyres

Aliburton blocked him? It was I think it was the one right before Tyres Haliburton took that stupid ass or semi transition three on the left wing right in the final two minutes, Like on that possession, it's like you're you're playing too chaotically, Like slow the hell down, You can't. You haven't even looked at the floor yet to realize that Tyres is not even in the picture yet, Like he's clearly going to be trailing the play somewhere.

Speaker 2

Slow down and execute. That's the thing.

Speaker 1

When Indiana plays fast, it bits Boston into playing fast. And then they can start making mistakes. And so again, if you're Indiana, that's your pathway. Just continue to have as much bond player movement as possible, live in transition as much as possible, just generate as much chaos as possible, and then take care of the damn ball when you do get a situation where you have a lead late in the game, super entertaining Game one. I you know, Indiana.

One of the things that have been thinking, I think people forget is like Tyre's Halliburton before his hamstring injury. The Pacers, I think started the season twenty and fourteen and they made it to the Ncason Tournament final, beat Boston and Milwaukee in that process, right, and Tyres Halliburton was like playing just absurdly good basketball, right, and like they they were the best offense in the league by a mile. At that point. They had a one to

twenty three something offensive rating. The gap between them and number two was the same as the gap between two and number six. Like that's how good this Indiana offense is. When Tyres Halliburton is healthy and playing at the level that we know he's capable of. And like, I will say that, like even though I think Boston's gonna win, and I think, especially after tonight, they might win more more convincingly than we'd think.

Speaker 2

The Pacers are just really fun to watch.

Speaker 1

They make for an entertaining brand of basketball, and I just really enjoyed watching that basketball game. Looking forward to Game two on Thursday night, We're gonna be back tomorrow morning with the film session that's gonna go over some of the concepts that I was talking about to Celtics fans.

Just come back to tomorrow morning to the feed and you're gonna see I'll basically just do the same film session that I expect Boston to do after this game tonight, and I'll just kind of go over and more detail some of the execution stuff I think that they can sharpen up in Game two. And then we'll be back tomorrow night live on YouTube after the final buzzer of Game one of Maverick's Wolves, a game I'm super super excited for.

Speaker 2

I will see you guys. Then the volume

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