Hoops Tonight - Previewing the Conference Finals

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more interesting of the two series. As is always the case with these NBA playoff matchups, you try your best to find evidence in the regular season, and then you look back and everyone sat out all the games. That's that's typically how this kind of thing goes. Although we did actually have a couple of decent matchups to look at for that Boston Miami series, but Dallas and Golden State played four times this year. Dallas was three one stars missed every single game. The closest thing to the

full strength game was on January five in Dallas. It was the only time Lucas, Steph, and Draymond all played, but obviously Clay Thompson was out of the picture. Dallas at the time was starting Kliba and Powell, which was a unique thing, and Reggie Bullock was was coming off of the bench. Golden State at that point still had Gary Payton too, is expected to be out for this series. They're playing a lot of Juan Tuscano, Anderson and Damian Lee.

So again, everything in terms of the regular season matchups has to be taken with a certain amount of a grain assault just because of the fact that these teams are completely different versions of theirselves at this point. Even just looking a few months ago, so much changes. The playoffs really causes your team to round into the best version of itself. It's purest identity. In their individual matchups.

This year, Steph average twenty points per game on thirty nine percent from the field, percent from three, and six percent from the free throw line. Not great. We're gonna get into a little bit about I think Steph is arguably the biggest swing factor of this series. I'll we'll get into that a little bit later, Luca was awesome, as I expected, um he is. There's nobody on Golden State's roster that can realistically guard Luca. You know, maybe

Draymond it. You really need to keep Draymond and help situations right, So you're not exactly expecting uh Luca to struggle too much to score individually. Well, he averaged thirty two points per game on forty percent from the field, thirty eight percent from three percent from the line, So almost a uh type of mark there from Luca. Um. So again, that's that's all we have in terms of regular season evidence. But we're gonna do our best to try to sift through that and get into some of

the details of the series. So you guys know how I like to do it. I like to start on one side of the ball. We're gonna start with Dallas on offense. And again, like I mentioned, nobody can guard Luca. The difference between the Phoenix matchup was, you know, there Luca didn't have trouble finding guys to attack within Phoenix's scheme, but there were guys on the floor that were difficult to attack, like Dean Drayton was forcing Luca into some

pretty tough followay jump shots. Now, he's one of the top you know, three or four players in the world, so he's gonna make them a lot of the time. But that's in terms of a defense. If you can force Luca to take step backs or falloways, that's about is the best you can do. And DeAndre Ayton did

a really nice job of that. And then Michael Bridges did an amazing job on Luca, And for the most part in the series, Luca did everything he could to avoid trying to shoot against him, specifically everyone else in that roster though he could go at but the problem was is like whether he's calling for screens or whatever, Mchaal would try to fight through the screen, you know, or Luca would be forced to settle for attacking someone

like DeAndre Ayton. And this Golden State matchup, they're gonna probably start Andrew Wiggins on and we saw that in the regular season matchups that they had. He has no problem scoring on Andrew Wiggins. He's not gonna have any problem scoring on anybody on the roster. Again, Draymond is arguably one of the ideal physical profiles for a player to put on Luca. Really low center of gravity, so he's hard to bump off his spots, very strong, super

long wingspan, quick enough to stay with Luca, and smart enough. Right, So in theory, that's smart. Here's the issue. You need Draymond green and help. That's where he's most valuable to this specific Golden State offense. And if you if Dallas puts you in a predicament where you have to put Draymond on Luca for the whole series, You're gonna get picked apart everywhere else on the floor. And most importantly, if Luca happens to get past Draymond, now your back

line defense is significantly worse. So that makes it a lot tougher, and so that that will be one of the dynamics of the series is how is how is Golden State going to be able to use Draymond? Are they gonna have to keep him on Luca? Are they're gonna be able to keep him in help? My guesses is that they'll keep him in help and just try

to sacrifice whatever they get in terms of Luca isolations. Now, the the the issue here specifically for Golden State is obviously matchup attacking takes place all over in the playoffs, but Luca in particular, in my opinion, is the best at it, at least in this field. Lebron typically is the best at this specific skill, but Luca is the best at persistently targeting your worst defenders every time down

the floor. Now, Golden State doesn't have any bad defensive players, but they do have small defensive players, and I expect Luca to relentlessly hunt Steph Curry in Jordan Pool every time down the floor. He's gonna try to get them involved in stuff, and Golden State's gonna have a big challenge in in in and attempting to keep those two

away from Luca. We talked about this a little bit in last night's show, but the idea of pre switching or scramming out of switches, essentially doing gimmicky stuff to try to keep Step out of those situations. But Luca is known to be able to capitalize on those little brief windows that open up as you try to pre switch or something like that. So Steph and Jordan Pool are gonna have a lot on their plate to try

to hold their own in isolation matchups against Luca. The other, uh, the other big thing that I expect to become a swing factor in this series is the Kleiba Powell dynamic. We've talked about this a lot with Dallas, but when Dallas plays Cleba, there a true five out team, which is when they have the most space. That's when Lucas at his best, That's when Jalen Brunson's at his best. That's when Spencer din what he's at his best. Right Dwight Powell, it's more of a four out one in thing.

They're running a lot of pick and roll. He's rolling to the rim the space and gets significantly worse. The problem with running Powell in particular is Draymond Green is one of the best pick and roll big defenders that we have in this entire league, arguably the best. And if you allow Draymond to operate in normal pick and roll defense all series long, you're effectively shaving points. You're

You're you're playing directly into Golden State's biggest advantage. I shared some clips of this that you'll be able to see on my twitter feed if you guys look, just go to my Twitter feed and click on media and scroll down and you'll see some clips that are demonstrating what I'm talking about. In the Possessions where Kliba is on the floor instead of Powell, Draymond is on Cliba and he can't help, or if he does, he's leaving

Cleiba open. There were several examples where Dallas Maverick players were driving to the basket and Draymond was kind of helpless, and a lot of times he's too far away to even dig and try to get in there and just reach and recover. And it just it took Draymond's defensive impact and moved it into his spot on the floor where it has less of an impact on what Golden

State is trying to do defensively. So the best strategy I think for Dallas is to run five out Kleiba, primarily a lot less to White Powell, and then trust Luca to relentlessly hunt Stephen Jordan Pool. This is where a series another series we're not having. Gary Payton Jr. I think hurts, and a lot of excuse me, Gary Payton the second I think that hurts in a lot of different ways. Particularly for a guy like Jalen Brunson.

You feel a lot more comfortable with a guy like Gary Payton Jr. On Jalen Brunson because he's so good at fighting through screens. It'll make it harder for Gary Payton to guard or two uh to uh to for Dallas to get Gary Payton off of Jalen Brunson. Because he can fight through, he's not a good option for Luca. He guarded Luca a little bit this year and Luca just took him right to the basket. He's too big for him, but he's a very valuable weapon for someone

like on Sense. That's a significant loss. Now for Golden State, the strategy that I would have is I would do pretty much exactly what Phoenix did for the most part in their home games. Do what you can to to make Lucas score. Stay home on all of the shooters around the elsewhere on the floor. And if Luca scores forty five every night and he beats you on fifty

three shooting, then great. But most likely if you force him into tough shots all night long, it'll he'll shoot a lower percentage and it will stagnate everyone else on the floor. That's your best bet is making Luca a score. I think that's Golden State's best chance on this series. So moving over to the other side, of the floor. Now we're talking warriors on offense. So Dallas does a ton of switching. They their normal pick and roll covers.

We broke this down last night. They do kind of like a version of the drop where the big hedges up to the level of the screen and dissuades whatever is happening right after the handoff or right after the screen. But then we'll recover to the role man. But if the guard gets caught, then they'll audible to a switch. The guard will peel off of Step or peel off of Jordan Pool and just run down to the rollman and try to box him out of the lane. Right.

That's we talked about that a lot last night. That's their typical pick and roll coverage. But everything else on the floor they're gonna switch. And that's where it's interesting because Golden State runs a lot of guard guard action, a lot of like pool screening for Steff or Pool and Steff both in a screening action with Clay or with Looney or whatever it is. Andrew Wiggins will you know,

roll off of those kinds of things. That's their best opportunity to cause problems for Dallas, and their switching attack is multiple player actions off the ball. I believe I shared a clip of this on my Twitter feed as well as you find. But any three player action makes it a lot harder to switch because you're not just saying, hey, I'm getting your guy, you're getting my guy. Now, it's like which one of these two guys am I supposed to grab? Everyone's supposed to be communicating. It gets a

lot more complicated. In the footage that I watched today, there were lots of examples of Golden State running those complicated actions, especially when Steph is involved, because when guys mess up, they want to mess up in the direction of steps. They want to have Steph uh, they want to have the guy the guy's error on the side of going towards Steph, and you'll see cutters get open

and things along those lines on that front. So that Warriors running those complicated actions off the ball, that's the most important thing they can do to make Dallas pay in switching situations. If you get into an isolation contest with Luca don Chich and Jalen Brunson and Spencer Dinwoodie, you're probably gonna lose, especially since Steph hasn't been the same level of isolation player that he was, and you

know even just last year. So the ideally you want to supplement that with as much transition opportunity as you can get, especially since you know Dallas plays at an extremely a slow pace. The more you can get out and transition the better. The more you can score in off ball situations the better, so that you're not stuck in there. Uh, it's not stuck in an isolation contest. When you do have to isolate, you have to make

the slower footed man ricks guard. So Kleiba in particular, Luca don in particular, you gotta do everything you can to attack them off the dribble. Cleiba is actually a pretty good athlete for a big guy. He held his own a lot. Jordan Pool beat him to the basket a few times in the footage that I watched, but you know, he does a decent job of hanging. It's Luca in particular that I think guys like Steph and

Jordan Pool can consistently beat to the basket. As I always tell you guys with switching defense is the best way to attack them is to not isolate for jump shots, but to isolate for rim pressure. Beat people to the basket. When you beat people to the basket, you force help defenders. When you force help defenders, then you can kick to people that are wide open. Then they either can shoot or they can attack a close out. That's a more fluid in motion offense than a stagnant your turn, my

turn isolation type of deal. So when Dallas does those things and they get in those switching situations, it's very important for Jordan Pool and Steph to get as much droubal penetration as possible to keep things moving. The last real wrinkle with Golden State on offense is what Dallas is gonna do with Draymond. And you can just about guarantee that they're going to ignore Draymond, but every team does, and Golden State does a couple of different things to

to attack that. Draymond typically will move to the top of the floor, and if you kick it out to him, he'll instead of shooting, he'll just quick like run over to the nearest guard do a dribble handoff, because again, if you set a good screen on a dribble handoff and you hit the guy, there's no help there because no one's guarding Draymond, right, So that's another way to get open looks. But even that I don't think is enough.

I think it's going to be going to be very important for Draymond to look to score when he catches the ball at the top of the key when he's wide open. Barrel down the lane if you have to shoot. I would shoot the threes to save your legs, but barrel down the lane if you have to, and try to draw help there. But the big one is in short roll situations. Dallas did a lot of trapping of

Steph and pick and roll. Big shock everyone does when they trap Steff and pick and roll and Draymon is rolling down the lane, it's so important for him to look to score the floater, the lay up, anything in the lane, because if you're a threat there, the defense will collapse on you. That's when he can kick to great shooters around the floor. If he doesn't look to score there, no one will collapse on him, and then

you get caught in no man's land. That indecisiveness that Draymond occasionally has there, He's been pretty good about it of late, but that's going to be very important in this series for him to stay a threat. So as far as picking this series, I think that Dallas's shot quality in the half court is going to be better. I believe so because I think Luca is less solvable because of the fact that Steph is not as aggressive trying to score the basketball as he used to be,

particularly in isolation situations. I feel as though Luca is going to like the Golden State does not have an answer for Luca and isolation situations. He's gonna get whatever he wants. And if you make him a score, it might work if he doesn't shoot well, but if he shoots well, you're just gonna lose. And then if you send help, he's just going to spray around the shooters

all night long. Dallas is an extremely disciplined defense, and over the course of each of these last couple of series is they've got stronger defensively, especially in that Phoenix series. As you saw, they are going to learn to over the course of the series be in the right spots for a lot of the cutting, the actions and the cutting and the things that that Golden State does off the ball. So I am picking Dallas in six. I believe they will win close out this series at home

in Game six. However, the biggest swing factor of this series. Golden State's biggest chance is the return of old Steph. Dallas is going to try to turn him into his score as well, particularly in on ball situations. If Steph is aggressive and looks to punish mismatches, particularly going to the rim, Golden State has a chance, especially with home

court advantage not counting them out. But I believe that Dallas has more cards in the deck to target this version of Steph, who did not play well in the last round, offensively played amazingly at the end of games, was savvy, veteran, did all the right things to close the deal, which is why he's such a great player. But at this point in his career, he's going to be He's going to be asked to do more offensively as a score in this series, and if he doesn't,

I don't think they can win. And so I'm picking Dallas in six. But Golden States chance is the step from last year making his sighting some you know, averaging around thirty points, shooting percentage true shooting percentage around. That's Golden State's best chance to get it done. All right,

let's preview Boston Miami for a little bit. I think this is going to be an incredibly ugly series between two incredible defensive teams, But at the same time, I think it's gonna be very entertaining once again, just like in the Golden State Series. Like we talked about earlier, this series is there's not a whole lot to go off of. In the regular season, Boston went two in one, but one of the games was way back in November when like Dennis Shrewder was coming off the bench and

shooting a bunch of shots and things like that. There was another Boston blowout win at home that Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry both missed, so can't take too much from that one. But there was one game just before the end of the season where Miami went into Boston in one, and I watched that whole game again today and it went a lot like some of these Boston losses that they've had in the Milwaukee Bucks series. It was their offense that failed them over the course of

the game. And as Boston's offense was failing them in the fourth quarter, they only scored fifteen points in the fourth quarter of this particular game. Miami fed off of that that that collapse from Boston, and Jimmy Butler made some big shots and Kyle Lowry made some big shots

and ended up stealing that game. They did a bunch of interesting stuff on defense, will get to in a minute, but you know, it was a perfect example of the kind of thing that manifested against Milwaukee, a better, more talented team that loses its offensive identity from time to time, and it causing them to have issues on the defensive end to ended up costing them a game. So we're

gonna start with Boston an offense. So Miami really switches everything, like really really switches everything they um, especially in pick and roll. They'll do They're They're just not They're not worried about putting Bam at a bio on any guard in any situation. They're not worried about the likes of Jimmy Butler, Max Rus or Kyle Lowry and their capability to box a person out on a mismatch, you know, in terms of offensive rebounding situations. You know, obviously they

don't switch for no reason at all. So if Bam can hang out by the rim because the drible handoff isn't very close or a screen isn't set properly, then ah, he'll be around the rim. But they're willing to switch. The biggest difference between them and what Boston does because Boston also switches everything. Miami mixes in a lot of zone, and their zone is really well run. This isn't like l A Lakers, like we're all just kind of standing around in different spots on the floor, b s ing

through the game kind of zone. This is a real disciplined, extended zone. It's it's it has like a matchup zone type of field where if you dribble the ball into the specific area of the zone, whoever's in that zone will apply ball pressure. They're trying to bait you into quick, long threes, and that actually ended up being what costs Boston in this particular fourth quarter that I'm talking about

right before the end of the regular season. They ran zone for the most part to start the fourth quarter, and they persistently swung the ball around the perimeter and took bad early threes, and that specifically ended up being what caused the slide that led to the shift in momentum to Miami c a game. Boston actually had a lead late in the fourth quarter in that game, so if you have a Miami defense that's going to switch everything. Just like again, if you guys remember I wanted Milwaukee

in Game seven to switch everything, they did not. They played dropped the entire game, especially thirty seven minutes of Brook Lopez when you honest was out there, he was in drop as well. They did not go to the strategy that was proven to stagnate Boston that we saw in the stats. We talked about that at length on

the show. This Miami team absolutely will do that. They absolutely will put Boston in situations that will bait them into isolations, that will bait them into bad jump shots, and it will be imperative for Boston to stay disciplined. So we gotta look at two things here. How does Boston beat Miami's man and how does Boston beat Miami's zone? So in the in the man situation, like we've talked about so much on this show, it's about applying rim pressure.

If you are in a man demand situation and they're switching screens so you're not getting easy stuff off of actions, then you have two options. You can score in isolation, or you can collapse the defense and help side and kick two players. On the week side of the floor that can then further attack the close out, further compromise the defense. That's how you get quality shots and most importantly, keep all of your players in rhythm rather than stagnant.

And so the Jayson Tatum, Jalen Brown, Marcus Smart, even Derek White, all of those guys are going to have to be very intentional about getting into the seams of that man to man defense by beating people off the dribble, which is gonna be difficult to do. Miami is a very disciplined defense. All of their players are in great shape.

They have a lot of guys that are strong with low centers of gravity that are tough to you know, punch gaps on to get a little bit of separation and break through their shoulder and get get get leverage to get downhill. It's going to be difficult to do. But as in the moments of the series, that they do that they have more often of talent and they will have a lot of success specifically against the zone.

And you saw this a lot in the fourth quarter of that game that I'm referencing, when they swung the ball around the perimeter and took threes they didn't score when they made a concerted effort to get the ball into the paint. That's when they were able to score. Now, with the zone, you can do it off the dribble. And I'm a big believer, you know, even with the high school kids that I coach, like, drive the zone.

Drive the zone. A lot of times we will run our man offense against the zone just to try to get our guys in the headspace of driving, because zones are designed to try to dissuade you from playing normal basketball. But normal basketball works against zones, and so most like you can do it driving, but also through passing guys flashing to the high post, catching and turning and making reads.

In that fourth quarter, Jayson Tatum in particular, when he would catch the ball around the free throw line and turn and make reads, the defense would collapse on and Bama Baio would have to come up from the basket, and that's when things would open up along the back line for layups and dunks and things along those lines. So again, against both Miami's switching man and against Miami zone, it's going to be incredibly important for Boston to apply

rim pressure and to get into the paint. I expect Boston because of what they've shown us in this playoff run. I expect them to go through extended stretches in this series where they do not perform well offensively, and I think Miami will beat them in those settings. It's one of the biggest reasons I'm gonna go into I'm picking Boston and six and I'll explain why. But one of the biggest reasons why I expect Miami to uh to have wins in this series is extended offensive slumps from Boston.

So moving over to Miami and offense, I expect him to start Al Horford on bam Um, possibly Robert Williams if he comes back. But you know, as you're seeing, that's the same thing as the Dwight Powell problem. Even with everything that Robert Williams brings defensively, even with everything that he brings as a vertical spacing threat, vertical spacing is just not the same as five out spacing. It's

just not. And so I would imagine Boston at some point is gonna have to think hard about shelving Robert Williams in this series as well or using him sparingly, especially with how big the likes of Grant Williams and Al Horford are playing, so if they if they don't play Robert Williams, Al Horford should start on BAM. And my guess is, you know, we've talked about this with Miami before. They run a lot of similar stuff to

what Denver runs. It's very Yoki esque, like BAM out of the high post at both elbows, running a ton of dribble handoffs, a ton of ball screens, and looking to score at like aggressively as a slasher out of the high post, like fake dribble handoffs, things that ripped throughs, things along those lines, right, So it's I would imagine Boston will try at at first to have Horford stay home on BAM and try to basically make the Boston

guards chase everybody over the top. But in this game that I'm referencing right before, at the end of the regular season, Miami was getting fantastic looks on those dribble handoffs because the guys like Jalen Brown, the guys like Marcus Smart, they were getting caught on BAM on those handoffs and on those screens. So I think eventually they're gonna need to start switching those and that I think

will be Boston's best chance to stagnate Miami. The biggest issue here is Miami does not have a ton of offensive creation in an isolation situation. Bam is good, not great as a score. You know all of these They've got a lot of guys that come come off a green screens and shoot, like Dave Vinson can come off with screens and shoot, Tyler Harrow, Duncan Robinson, you know,

Max s Trus, Kyle Lowry. All of those guys are great at coming off of screens and shooting, but they're not guys that are gonna stare you in the eyes and create shots in isolation situations. So the more switching Boston does, the more it forces Miami to do that kind of thing, the better success they'll They'll have. The one guy on the roster that's gonna have their best

chance at attacking mismatches is going to be Jimmy Butler. Now, they put Jalen Brown on Jimmy Butler in this particular game that I watched, although I expect it to be a lot more Jason Tatum in this series. But one of the things that I noticed is they were able to get Jimmy Butler going downhill in situations where Boston was not switching. Again, teams will try to not switch, especially during the regular season, because it's less taxing and

rebounding situations. You don't watch your guards for eight two games banging with big guys from the other team. It's just two taxing. They get hurt, right, So you'll see teams try to manufacture possessions in the regular season where they switch less. But Boston I think needs to lean heavily into that so that Jimmy Butler doesn't have those

easy downhill opportunities. Make Jimmy Butler work hard to get onto a Derek White or to get on you know, to uh Daniel Tyson, Grant Williams, and make him try to beat those guys off the dribble. And trust your help because you do have much better perimeter defenders than anybody that Miami has played in this series. Bottom line, and one last note, BAM's perimeter shooting consistently has been

an issue in playoffs settings. Obviously, Miami's had one of the easier pathways to this point in this playoff runs, so they haven't really been forced to score in that type of setting. Um, But I think Bam and his ability to turn and face and shoot at fifteen feet is gonna be so important to keep Al Horford honest so that he has to be up on him, so that there's openings on the backside for cutters, factor cuts, slashing things along those lines. So a lot of pressure

on Bameda knockdown shots. I expect Miami to have a really hard time scoring against this Boston defense. You saw how hard of a time Brooklyn had, You saw how hard of a time Milwaukee had, and they had significantly

better primary offensive options. We did this whole thing last night when we were talking about the Phoenix Suns and Chris Paul and Devin Booker and about how in these settings when defense has really turned up the intensity, there's just only a handful of guys that can truly consistently

breakdown a defense. Jimmy's had an incredibly playoff, an incredible playoff run so far, but this is going to be a significantly tougher match up for him than anything he's faced to this point, and it's going to be absolutely vitally important for him to play like an absolute super duper star. He's capable of it. But I watched Johannae Syntenna Kumbo fall apart in his efficiency last round amazing counting stats. Janice was amazing. We don't have to get

into that again. But he dropped from a sixty three percent true shooting in the regular season to a fifty two percent true shooting in this series, which is horrible by Janice's standards. K D dropped from a sixty percent true shooting in the regular season to fifty three in that series against Miami. Jimmy Butler is not better than Janice. He's not better than k D. He will also experience a significant decline in this series. He will struggle mightily,

and that's why I'm picking Boston. As much as Boston is going to go through extensive stretches of offensive struggles that will cause them, in my opinion, to lose basketball games, I think Miami will have much worse versions of that specific problem. My guests on how this series will progress is Boston will lose Game one a lot because of fatigue. Miami is coming off a significantly more rest. It's a

quick turnaround. Boston in general has shown a tendency in this playoff run particularly in the Milwaukee series, to let up when they have a big win. Game seven was the exception. So I expect some fatigue and a little bit of letdown and game one. Then I think Boston will steal Game two, that I think the win Game three and four, then they'll lose Game five in Miami, and then I think they'll win Game six. I'm picking Boston and six. But this one's gonna be a super

interesting defensive slug fest. And if I was a betting man, I would If I were you guys and you're spending some time on FanDuel, I would hit the under on every single one of these games are gonna be. It's gonna be an old fashioned Eastern Conference defensive slugfest. The volume