The volume Hoops Tonight is presented by FanDuel Sports Book. There's no better place to make every moment more than with FanDuel. I've been having so much fun betting on the NBA Playoffs with FanDuel, with same game parlays with live lines. I've even really enjoyed this cash out future,
especially with all these blowouts. If you make a bet and you're in really good shape with the bet and you don't want to lose your winnings over garbage time, you can sometimes cash out and get some of your winnings out easily and not have to take that risk. It's easy to use, it's safe and secure, and you get your winnings fast. If you are new, just download the FanDuel Sports Book app to get started now. Sign up with promo code Jason T so they know I
sent you. Twenty one plus in president Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana. Permitted parishes only, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia. First online real money wager only refund issued as non withdrawalable site credit that expires in fourteen days.
Restrictions apply see terms that worts book dot fan duel dot com gambling problem called one eight hundred next step or text next step to five three three four two in Arizona one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org slash chat in Connecticut one eight hundred gambler or visit FanDuel dot
com slash RG in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey. In Virginia one eight seven seven seven seven zero stop in Louisiana one eight hundred to seven zero seven one one seven for confidential help in Michigan one eight seven seven eight hope and why or text hope and why to four six seven three six nine in New York. In tennessee redline dial one eight hundred eight eight nine nine seven eight nine in Tennessee visit www one eight dot one
eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. Ye, all right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume. Happy Friday, everybody. I appreciate you all coming to hang out after an incredible NBA Finals game, the best game of this series by far. No calling coward tonight, but we will both be back on Monday. Night. For those of you guys who have been liking the film deep Dives that I've been doing on the day after the finals,
I still will do one of those tomorrow. I will get into the tape either later tonight or tomorrow morning and get something out to you. Won't be as long and detailed as those other ones, worse since I can get into a lot of stuff tonight, but I will do one of those tomorrow as well, really quickly. Before
we get started. Make sure you guys subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you guys don't miss any more of our Follow me on Twitter that underscore Jason lt so you guys can see all the video content and my live tweets throughout the games, and last but not least, if you miss part of this show and you guys can't get back to YouTube for whatever reason, follow our podcast feed, which for the time being is under Lakers tonight.
So you know, I was listening to gosh I I think I was just scrolling through Twitter and I saw a clip of Brian Windhorse from ESPN talking about how you know, oh, I bet you Lebron is sitting somewhere talking about how oh look at the shoes on the other foot for Steph. Steph doesn't have as much talent anymore. Like I bet you he's sitting there doing the cheers with this buddy's about it, and I'm not going to
get into that kind of stuff. You guys know how I feel about, you know, the taky type of analysis when it comes to basketball. I tend to think that everyone is kind of unfair on that front. You know, all the Warriors fans were unfair to Lebron those years, and all the Lebron fans be unfair to staph in
recent years. It just doesn't interest me. But you know what did interest me when I heard that is, you know, one of the things I didn't like about when Katie went to the Warriors was there was no real adversity, you know, like like the closest thing was then being down three two to the Rockets, and and then Chris Paul went down and so then they had a massive talent advantage in the last two games, and so it just it just didn't you know, I never really saw
anybody on Golden States roster have to really tap into anything. And what I've always appreciated about the game of basketball is the way that an individual player can have such a monumental impact on winning. That's why star powers so valuable, valuable in the NBA, and it's one of the things that that makes the framework of NBA history and it's
why we all love the game so much. And for every player, every great player that I've seen in NBA history, it's when the it's when they're not at an advantage, when the deck is stacked against them, that you see these individual players tap into a level of greatness that is above and beyond even what I think they thought
they were capable of. You know, like the game to Lebron in two thousand twelve, or game excuse me, Game six Lebron in two thousand twelve going into Boston and scoring thirty points in the first half to save his team from a humiliating loss to the Boston Celtics. You think you know? Kevin Durant last year against the Milwaukee Bucks at a massive talented a disadvantage, tapping into a level of basketball that we've barely seen throughout NBA history.
Jana's Antenna Gumpo this year without Chris Middleton at a massive talent disadvantage against the Boston Celtics put on a performance in the Eastern Conference semifinals that was as good of a performance and a losing effort as I've ever seen. And then night on the road in Boston in a bad matchup for the Golden State Warriors against the team that I believe has a little bit more to a talent.
In a situation where he's not getting consistent help from anybody, Steph Curry rose to the occasion and tapped into something that amounted to a legendary performance. That's why I'm a fan of parody. That's why I don't like it when I see teams like the two thousand seventeen two thousand eighteen Warriors that are so incredibly talented that they can
bring an eight percent effort and win a title. You know, Like in two thousand seventeen, they tried and literally won fifteen consecutive playoff games like that's insane, right, And it took like one threes from the Calves in Game four of the finals just to extend that series to an inevitable loss in Game five, right, And then in two thousand eighteen, they brought trash effort, like a significantly lower effort than they did the previous year and still won
the title, and I and I I just I've always I've always thought that that was just a little bit cheap, Like it just doesn't it just doesn't have that same you know, adversity is what makes it so that when you get the trophy, it's that much more special. And
you know, they can say whatever they want. I promise you, if Steph gets this one, it will feel sweeter than any of them, because he knows that the deck was stacked against him in this series, and he knows that he had to tap into a level of basketball that he had never played before in this at this stage and with this talent situation, and he was able to do it to extend this series. Series is not over.
I'm still picking Golden State in seven like I did since the beginning, because I kind of saw a lot of these things that Boston did tonight coming. But I just wanted to give a shout out to Steph. That's my favorite thing about the game of basketball, seeing an all time great, pantheon level player, with his back against the wall at a disadvantage, tap into a level of
greatness that carries his team to the victory. That to me is is what that That to me is the nuts and bolts of NBA history, and we're very fortunate to have like four of those guys, like four solid Pantheon guys and Katie, Stephan, Lebron, and Janice all in the league at the same time. But to get to see Steph do that tonight, it was a pleasure to watch. It was incredible. I I I just I just sat
back and then I enjoyed it. You know, one of the interesting phenomenon that's going on in this series is this drop coverage that Boston is playing, and you know, there's pros and cons to it. You know, you guys have heard me go over this in my in my film studies, and there's a bunch of different ways that it's impacting the Warriors negatively, right, Like, I'm gonna get into Draymond later in the show, because Draymond had a pretty bad offensive night again for the second consecutive game.
Really for the whole series, he's been ineffective offensively. A huge part of that is because Boston is running such a deep drop coverage. You know, Boston is essentially saying we are not going to give Draymond the four on three opportunities and well, we'll get more into that later in the show, but that's one negative impact on Golden State from the drop coverage. Right. The other thing, too, is it's forcing Steph and Jordan Pool and a lot of these guys to take and make tough shots that
they have to create for themselves. Tonight, the Warriors made forty shots, only twenty of them were assisted, so that's half. This is a team in the Warriors that lad the league in assist percentage this year. Six of their field
goals this year were assisted. One of the ways that Boston's coverage is throwing Golden State off is it's getting them out of their system where there where the balls popping around and everyone's touching it and there's lots of driving and cutting and lay ups and dunks and all those different things. The coverage that Boston is going with is taking Golden State out of that system. They're forcing Golden State to play a style of basketball that they
don't want to play. But there was a huge potential downside to that, and I went over this on the show a couple of times over the course of the series and before the series. If you let the two best shooters to ever touch a basketball, come free and clear off of ball screens and pin downs where the only pressure is behind. They're going to make you pay.
And they have. One of the huge downsides of them going to that coverage in this series is they allowed Staph in his on ball situations to be very comfortable. I've talked about this before with you guys, but if you're a great shooter, a contest doesn't matter if it's late, a contest from behind, a contest from the front, and contest from the side, if it's late, it does not matter. There is one thing that bothers a good shooter, and
that is getting in their airspace. You absolutely must stay persistently connected to a good shooter so that even when he's going into his gather to pull the ball up into the shooting pocket, he's worried about where your hands are, or he's fumbling the basketball, or he's in his own head about just getting to his release. But if you let them get to their release, Stephen Clay will make
you pay every single time. And we have back to back games where you're getting, you know, almost sixty points out of Stephen Clay, and you know, I I've been super critical if emad Udoka throughout the whole series, and I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure those things I mentioned earlier are exactly what he's telling his team. Hey guys, I know Steps making shots, but hey, Draymond is in his head not playing well. Hey guys, and no steps making shots, but they only have you know, they're only
getting assists on half of their baskets. I'm sure that's the stuff he's saying. But to me, like the idea of let guys, Steph Curry has seen a draft coverage like twice in the playoffs in the last decade. It was like against the two thousand eighteen or two thousand nineteen Blazers when they had Enis Canter who was just physically incapable of sitting up at the level of the screen, and then the two thousand thirteen Spurs who had Duncan sitting way back like that, Like, no one does this.
What you're seeing Boston due to Golden State defensively is something nobody does and it's super interesting. And you know, I I'm sure em Judoka is more concerned about the offensive end, and we're gonna get into that here in a few minutes, and he's probably right to a certain extent. And if Boston goes into Game five with the same
game plan but plays better offensively, they might win. But I I disagreed with the strategy, and here we are through four games of the series and it's too too And kudos to Steph for making them pay consistently for that coverage. I talked about, you know, uh me into tonight's show in my little film session yesterday. I talked about how Steph desperately needed some sort of offensive production elsewhere on the floor because of the fact that Boston
is making Golden State play self creation basketball. Steph can't score a hundred and twenty points in a game or a hundred and ten points in a game, so he needed production elsewhere and he got it tonight. Andrew Wiggins, I thought, was fantastic, just another really solid game. I saw, you know, I saw someone on Twitter today talking about Jeremy Grant like, oh, what's Jeremy Grant for in the
this coming this summer? Like what's he worth? And I was sitting there thinking, like, man, if you watch Andrew Wiggins in this NBA Finals, if you are I don't even care if you're inconsistent offensively or if you've got a tough shot profile. It's like, if you are a six eight to six nine freak athlete with long arms that can defend multiple positions and just is okay scoring the basketball, you're gonna be a super valuable player in
these playoffs series. And Andrew Wiggins, I I've said this before on the show, but I think he's the second best player on this team right now, which is just an absolutely wild thing to say, given you know where this team was a couple of years ago, you know, with when Kevin Durant left and they brought back D'Angelo Russell and and then they flipped Angelo Russell for Wiggins, and you're thinking, oh, maybe we can convert him into
a two way wing. No, no no, no, he's He's become a much better version of what Harrison Barnes was for this team. Jordan Poole fantastic and fourteen tonight, ten in the first half, huge plays in that second quarter when Steph was on the bench to float Golden State, and then Clay Thompson had eight team just in general, you know, I was talking with a couple of people coming into this game, about what Golden State's best chance to win was.
And as I've consistently said throughout this entire playoff run, Boston is just so inconsistent with their decision making. Like they've played consecutive good games twice in this playoff run, the entire first round against the Brooklyn Nets and the game six in Game seven against Milwaukee. Outside of that, it has literally been this up and down nature for Boston's offense. And so I knew that if Golden State could just keep it close, if they could just keep
it close, Boston would soil themselves, and they did. I tweeted out before I put it in my series prey view that one of the big indicators of the way this series would go is how many close games there are. Boston coming into the NBA Finals was a negative net rating team in clutch situations when the game is within five points with less than five minutes remaining. That that they've shown that throughout basically this entire Tatum Brown era,
and it was shown again in this playoff run. They are a bad clutch basketball team coming into this series. Golden State. I can't remember the exact number, but it was right around plus twelve net rating and clutch situations both teams right around thirty minutes for the whole playoff run. They are a good clutch basketball team. So I knew that if Boston got into a dog fight in any one of these games, it would be a massive advantage for Golden State. So I had a feeling tonight if
they could just keep things close. And again, Boston kept them at arms length most of the night. They jumped up I think eleven to four for the most part. You're peeking at the scoreboard, it's a five or six point game almost almost two thirds three quarters of the way through the game. But they just couldn't blow that six point lead to fifteen or sixteen. Right if they would have gotten it up to fifteen or sixteen, all of a sudden, those clutch situations don't matter anymore. But
they couldn't get there. They weren't able to deliver the killing blow, and so they kept it close. And when it comes down to close game is at the end. It becomes about execution. And as I've said persistently throughout this playoff run, the Boston Celtics are a poorly disciplined, bad execution team. You know, like I've had all these people, mainly Heat fans and and Milwaukee fans, say things like, you know, if Boston is a good team, why do
they keep having these kinds of things happen? And there's a lot of truth to that, Like good basketball teams, you're not. If I could bottle up the best version of Boston, then yeah, they look like the best team,
but they don't hit that very often. If you're a team that every other night is either great or something way less than great, then the reality of who you are is right in the middle, right, And so I'm not I'm not the least bit surprised that this is the way that they decided to come out and play tonight.
I thought, you know what I was I was talking to a friend of mine named Tommy I used to do my show with about a year and a half ago, and you know when originally we were you know, essentially we were talking about what this game would go like.
And one of the things that I initially what I what I was saying to him was initially in the first few minutes of the game, like first quarter, if Golden State tightened up on defense, if they went heavy into hand checking, holding, guys on the perimeter and preventing the driving lines. Steve Kurt talked about this a lot uh in last game. Their perimeter contained their point of attack defense. When they're when they give up slashes from the perimeter easy driving lanes, they have to help hard.
When they have to help hard, there's easy kickouts. Then Boston gets in their driving kick game. When Golden State just offers a little bit of resistance on the perimeter, suddenly those slashes turned into like banana drives where you're you're having to mess around with the basketball more. As you try to punch through the hole. There's contact and and you're like caught on the shoulder and you're you're getting around the guy, but it's like slowly and as
a result, the defense doesn't have too hard help. They can do what Golden State wants to do, which is lunge in and recover, you know, stunt and recover and try to prey on your indecisiveness. And so I was talking to Tommy before the game and I was like, if they can defend really well early, they will trigger Boston's bad defensive tendencies as a team that likes to settle for shots and turn the ball over and do all the stupid things that they do. And ironically, I've
vehemently disagreed with Steve Kerr starting small. He started Auto Porter Jr. Over Kevon Looney, and I disagreed with that. They were minus eight and eight minutes with Looney and Draymond in Game three, but it was a bad game on the road, and they were plus nineteen in the first two games with that group. But to curse credit, he noticed immediately it wasn't working. They were too small, boss and one up eleven four, and he took an early time out and he got Kevon Looney back into
the game. They went big. They finally settled in defensively, they started getting stops. That perimeter contained from Golden State is going to be a huge indicator for us to watch over the last three games of this series. How good of a job Golden State does. Stopping the slashing of Boston is a great indicator of their overall defensive ability to handle this team. So I want to give a lot of credit to Golden State and the job that they did. Um and and that's why I always
will lead the show that way. But to me, another huge story in this game was Boston's offensive approach. And I want to start with Jayson Tatum because obviously there's a lot of stuff I want to get into. Uh. But you know, if you guys listen to my film session yesterday, at the end, I ripped through my list of adjustments and we we sent out a social clip today of the Warriors one. But I had a Austin
won as well. And one of the things that I put in that set of adjustments was show Tatum the stat that I read earlier in the show, which is when Tatum has at least seven assists, the Boston Celtics are undefeated in this playoff run and have won fifteen consecutive games overall and have only lost twice in the entire season in games or has at least seven assists.
Because in the modern n B A your three level score gunner type can't be your number one CC Devin Booker, you know, like you need your number one to be a point forward. Your number one needs to be a guy who willingly embraces the role of getting his teammates involved. And from the jump tonight, I tweeted it out Tatum was flat out gunning and it was a super predictable outcome. I went on with live moods from UH from our UH from our company who just gambling stuff for us.
She's awesome. And we were talking about this before the game, and I said, take the over on Tatum. He's gonna want finals m v P. Jalen Brown is leading him and scoring to this point, He's gonna gun And he did, and so guess what He ended up finishing the game, I believe, with twenty three shot attempts and only six assists to go with six turnovers. And guys like that,
box score doesn't even tell the story. If you watched Tatum tonight, you could tell he cared about one thing primarily, and it was getting his offense off and as a result, and I'll be I'll be really interested to pull up the numbers after the game when NBA dot Com updates their stats, because in game one, Tatum only took five pull up jump shots, and then in game two he
took eleven pull up jump shots. My guess is that when I look at the numbers, Tatum will have taken close to ten, if not more, pull up jump shots, which again for a big forward who has got the best combination of offensive skill set and physical tools on the floor to take eleven pull up jump shots in an NBA Finals game is one massive case of settling. You know Jlen Brown I I he was my long shot pick for Finals MVP. I was shotting him out before Game three because he was plus seven fifty on
found on fan duel to win Finals MVP. He's been better than Tatum in this series. And one of the big reasons why is his job on this team is too gun and so like when he gets the ball, there's no nonsense, it's he's just slashing into the lane. He's a he's a much better you know Tatum. His finishing around the rim. Tatum is finishing around the rim in this series has been atrocious because he's so he's shying away from contact. He's more concerned about like extending
out and around people rather than going into people. One of the things that makes Jalen Brown such a great finisher is he's not going to change his slashing lane based on you. He's going to the rim. If you're in his way, he'll go through you. But there's a lot of Tatum like kind of extending around and kind of going with these finesse, crafty finishes and when they
go in they look great. But in a game like tonight where he's getting bumped a little bit around the ram and they're not calling it, which no no advantage to anybody because no one's getting those calls, he started smoking all those lay ups and it ended up being a problem. And that again, guys, like down the stretch of this series, there is one way that Boston wins, and it's if Jason Tatum embraces his role on this team, which is to be the playmaker. Another huge problem for
Boston in this game. You know, shot selection obviously was an issue, Tatum taking crazy Kobe fadeaways when hey man, Kobe is the top five player of all time. Okay, Like that's why he's able to rely on a steady diet of those kinds of shots. But like, another big problem here is over penetration. So I thought that Jeff Van Gandhi did a really good job of breaking this down for you guys on the broadcast last game in Game three. But there there's a difference between making an
early pass and over penetrating. When you get an advantage on a on a defender as you start to get going downhill towards the rim, the defense begins to collapse on you. As they're beginning to collapse, that's the time to throw the pass because at that point the defenders, all the health defenders, are already stunting into the lane.
If you hit an on time, on target pass to a guy on the perimeter, he will catch with the defender closing out at him and have a good chance to either knock down a shot or extend the advantage. But if you take an extra dribble and go deeper into the defense, now the defense collapses around you. Now you have to make the pass over length. And when you're making the pass over length in a crowd, it's much harder to hit the guy on time and on target.
So yes, the defenders are sucked in more, and so obviously there's a little bit more of an initial advantage. But by the time your lollipop pass gets out there, it's really easy for people to recover and in a lot of cases get steals, which is what happened a lot tonight lollipop passes from Tatum or Brown that got picked off and ran the other way. And so that's why like their their approach has to be I mean Jalen Brown gunning that works. That's his role on this team.
But for Tatum in particular, it's hey, man, bring the ball up the floor. If you're gonna run a ball screen, fine, but once you start to get downhill, move the ball and relocate, you're gonna get your offense when the ball gets back to you, and then someone will be closing out at you, and you, as a top ten player in the league, will have an awesome time capitalizing on defensive on advantages when the dude's closing out at you.
That that approach is the is the number one indicator of how well this team plays, because as soon as they start taking bad shots at shots lead to long rebounds. Long rebounds lead to transition opportunities in Golden State is barbecuing you and transition. Through three games, Boston has been a much better half court offense team according to Cleaning
the Glass, and Golden State has been. But Golden State has a massive advantage in transition because Boston is a bad transition team, like we've talked about, so lollipop passes that get picked off for turnovers where Golden State runs down the other way. In scores and bad shots that go clanking off the rim and sends Golden State running the other way. In transition, those allow Golden State to get easy shots. Now you're taking the ball out of the net and you're walking it back up against Golden
States set defense. It's a cat scading effect. It makes things significantly more difficult, and you know, you know, and there were just all these sequences during the game that I just didn't understand Tatum. It was in the first half. Tatum gets the Elites a on a on a switch on the left wing and has all the space in the world to attack, but Draymond comes over and zones up on the left block. So essentially Raymond bandon his man and stood right outside the lane, basically saying, if
you drive left, I'm right here. But instead of driving right and making a kickout pass to somebody, he just picked up his dribble, at which point the entire Beeli's have pressed up on him and he threw a lazy cross court skip pass that immediately got stolen. And then on the very next possession, he comes down and does one of those over penetration plays that I'm talking about, gets deep into the lane and tries to throw his skip pass over two defenders that close in on him,
and he turns it over again. There's a playlet uh in the late second half where Marcus Smart, you guys probably remember this one, did that stupid bs pump, fake foul drifting, try to draw a foul and Steph Curry thing that which never works and certainly isn't gonna work in the finals. And then they ran down and Tatum on a on a ball that went out of bounds, saved the ball under his own basket directly to Gary Payton,
and Gary Payton gotta lay up. That's two things that any basketball coach at any level of basketball will tell you not to do. Don't foul grift because you're putting the outcome in the whistle which you're probably not gonna get, and never save the ball under your own basket. And just in general, I thought Boston every time they're in the fourth quarter, Tatum and Brown repeatedly getting be Eliza on switches and taking pull up jump shots like difficult
pull up jump shots against Golden State's worst defender. Now credit to be Eliza. He's getting them to settle by giving them space and tricking them into thinking their best option is to shoot. But that's bad process from Boston,
so inflammation guys like I was. It was amazing to see Steff dig deep and reach the level of basketball that we don't see very often, and as a result, a Pantheon performance from a guy that if he gets this trophy he will have a level of appreciation for this one that's different than the others, because here he is in the finals as an underdog at full strength
for the first time maybe since the Toronto Raptors series. Right, and and and they got a lot of good help, a lot of uh production from Clay and Andrew Wiggins. Jordan Poole was great. Um, their defense was much better. And then textbook Boston up and down offensive approach, a great offensive approach in Game three, driving and slashing and kicking, and then back to the regular bullshit in Game four. And it's just it's just classic stuff. Um. I wanted
to talk about Draymond Green for a minute. You know, I I don't spend nearly as much time getting into the arguments with people on Twitter as I used to, but I do pay attention and I scrolled through the fees just to get a feel for what you guys are talking about, to see if there's anything that's worth talking about on the show. And you know, Draymond here,
the podcast thing is just stupid. I don't know what to tell you, guys, Like, if you think a Draymond hopping on a podcast on the night after games to talk about how the game is going or the series is going, is somehow affecting his play, I can't help you. You're beyond help. You're being completely unreasonable. I don't know how to tell you. But there's been a lot of criticism of Draymond's play, particularly on the offensive end of
the floor. Now, here's the deal, Like, Draymond works for us, But I've always felt like, as long as I keep it to basketball, it's fair game. I know Draymond isn't gonna have a problem with me criticizing something that I think is happening on the basketball court. Draymond has not been good on the offensive end in this series. But there's a couple of things that I think are relevant here.
First of all, Draymond hasn't been a great offensive player pretty much since two thousand seventeen, maybe not even two thousand and sixteen, So like this kind of he's always been for the better part of a half decade now, a guy who's a very inconsistent to flat out unreliable perimeter shooter, who struggles to finish around the rim, and doesn't have much of a mid range pull up floater game,
things like that. But that's always been part of who he is, and he still is the monumentally impactful basketball player that he's always been. Guys, the Warriors have been better in this series with Draymond on the floor than they've been with him off the floor. So for whatever you guys think about him on the offensive end, he's still impacting winning. Draymond has never been the guy that you look at the box score for. He said that on his show the other night, and I agree with it.
He that you you points, rebounds and assists aren't gonna mean anything for Draymond's impact on the game. First of all, rebounds have become the fakest stat and all of basketball because the guys doing the actual work fighting in box outs never get rebounds. It's the wings and guards crashing from the perimeter that end up getting all the rebounds for the most part. So like like that's irrelevant, and then the assist thing. We hinted at this at the
top of the oh it's a matchup thing. One of the reasons why Draymond is top ten all time in NBA Finals assists is the fact that almost every team that has played against the Golden State Warriors in the playoffs has opted to aggressively guard staff and pick and roll. As a result, they have a ton of four on three opportunities and Draymond Green is one of the better passing big men to ever play, and if you let him roll down the middle of the floor and four
on threees, he's a very valuable offensive player. But as we talked talked about at the start of the show, Boston has taken those opportunities away by playing in their drop coverage, which has forced the Warriors to play more isolation heavy basketball, which is why they're assist percentages tanked in this series. So one of the huge elements of Draymond's offensive value, which is short role man, is irrelevant
in this series. So it's just a matchup thing. The extent of what he can bring offensively now is being a screener, which is still very good at. By the way, a lot of these shots these guys are getting are them coming off of screens from Draymond Green and then crashing the offensive class, which you got a couple of big offensive rebounds in this game as well. But my point is it's like, look, Draymond hasn't been good offensively
in this series. He knows it, he'll be the first to tell you, but this isn't the series for him to score. If anything, there were a couple of shots he took tonight where I just thought they weren't the shots that he should have taken. In this particular game. With the way Boston is guarding Golden State, Draymond's offensive value is marginalized. But the flip side of that is Steph and Clay are getting free and clear looks flying
off screens. It's all every time you have a defensive scheme that you choose, there is a give and there is a take. If you opt to throw the kitchen sink at the Star, you're probably gonna have a lot of role players go off. If you opt to throw the chicken, just a home everywhere and let the Star get whatever he wants. The Star is gonna put up big numbers and other guys will struggle what has happened
in this series. Steph has had a monumentally amazing statistical offensive series, and everyone else on the team has been inconsistent too bat except for Andrew Wiggins, so that that that's just kind of how the tradeoff works there. But again, and this is the thing, this is what I would say, Draymond has still been unbelievable defensively in this series. Yes, Jalen Brown has made a bunch of really tough shots
over the top of him. He made two impossible fadeaways over the top of Draymond today and then in the in the last game he hit like a tough like eurostep floater, and then he had one really nice slashing driving lay up with his left hand. But the point is is guys like Draymond is part of the reason guarding Jaylen Brown that they haven't had that good of an offensive series. So all I'm saying is like, as Draymond played well, no, he's played below his standards. He
hasn't been good on the offensive end. The Warriors statistically have still been much better here with him on the floor than when he's off the floor. And his impact is not something you can measure with the box score, So stop looking there. That's not the place to look. And here you are in a series against the team that has more two way talent than you, and you are tied at too with home court advantage, So just
count your blessings. This is basically all I'm saying. So it looks like Golden State is a three and a half point favorite in Game five. If I'm reading that correctly, let me check. Yes, Golden State is a three and a half point Sorry, tiny font issues. Golden State is a three and a half point favorite in Game five. I am picking Golden State because I don't trust Boston, but make no mistake, Boston is very capable of winning this series. My thing is two games at home for
Golden State. Boston's inability to execute at the end of basketball games. All Golden State has to do is keep things close, and they're at a huge advantage. I like. I like Golden State in Game five. But if so, if Boston comes out and Tatum comes out playing the role of the playmaker, and Jalen Brown comes out being the same aggressive force that he has been, and the team overall plays the style of basketball they need to play,
Boston is very capable of winning this game. And one of the note guys Boston has is yet to lose consecutive games in this in this entire playoff run, So that would be one hell of an accomplishment for Golden State if they won Game five, to be the first team in this playoff field to beat Boston two times in a row. But I mean again, a couple of things to look at Tatum's assists. He's got to have seven or more assists. It's just a classic indicator of
his approach to the game. Another thing to watch Tatum's pull up jump shots. I'm excited to look at the stats after uh they get updated on the NBA dot com. When Tatum's pull up jumpers are lower, it's an indicator of his overall offensive approach. And Then, last, but not least, Boston has to just take care of the basketball for Golden State. Keep playing big more Looney and Draymond. I know it hurts their spacing, but they just play better on defense with the two of them on the floor.
Most importantly, when you're giving up the physical mismatches you're giving up on the perimeter, you need to make up for that elsewhere on the floor. But I mean, this is coming into this series, is the last thing I'll say, and then we'll call it tonight. Coming into the series, I said that my head wanted me to pick Boston, but my heart wanted me to pick Golden State. And the reason why I said that is I genuinely am a believer in Boston's roster construction and their two way talent.
But persistently they've demonstrated they are a poor execution and poorly disciplined team. And so what did I say, guys, Like they're up to one of the series is not over.
If they go back to two, you have two games at home for Golden State, and I'm gonna trust the experienced team that's been here before, that has the pain of loss, that has the requisite scar tissue, that understands that they can't afford to make the kinds of mistakes at Boston has willingly stepped into and made all right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. Like I said, Uh, Colin Coward and I will both be back for Game five postgame show on Monday, which should just be another
incredible NBA Finals basketball game. Uh. Sometime in the mid morning tomorrow, I will have you know twelve fifteen minutes of additional film study out on YouTube. To keep an eye out for that, subscribe to The Volume's YouTube channel if you haven't already, follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt S. You guys can see me live tweet through the games, as well as some of my video analysis.
And if you missed part of the show for whatever reason and you can't get back to YouTube, go to my podcast fee which for the time being is under Lakers Tonight. As always, guys, I can't possibly express how much I appreciate you supporting me, and supporting the show and supporting our company. I'm having a blast, I'm excited for Game five, and I will see you guys on Monday. The Volume