Hoops Tonight - Thunder-Mavericks Reaction: Kyrie Irving's CLUTCH performance beats SGA & Thunder

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you wherever you get podcasts under Hoops tonight. Keep dropping mailback questions in the YouTube comments so that we can keep hitting mailbags are at the rest of the postseason. Also tonight, going live after the final buzzer of Nuggets Timberwolves, a game I'm very excited for, so much on the line for both teams, Very very excited to get into that. We're gonna be hitting both games live on YouTube after the final buzzer of Nuggets Wolves. All right, let's talk

MAVs Thunder. So complete reversal of Game one in so many different ways, much tighter whistle. Game one, the Thunder shot twenty eight free throws, Shay shot thirteen. Game two, the Thunder only shoots seventeen and Shae only shoots six, So huge swing towards Dallas and just the overall amount of physicality. Dallas did get to the free throw line quite a bit, but they were bringing a lot more

physical force to the table. I thought they were the more physically aggressive team throughout reversal.

swing towards Dallas. Rebounding In game one, Oklahoma City grabbed thirty nine percent of their own misses fifty four percent of all available rebounds, so dominant rebounding performance from Oklahoma City in game one. In Game two, Dallas grabs thirty one point four percent of their own misses and fifty two point five percent of all available rebounds. They win the offensive last twelve to eight, and they win second

chance points fourteen to eight. So now again not nearly as dominated as Oklahoma City was in game one, but Dallas does win the physical battle in game two. They can do much better still, but they won the physical battle in game two and anytime you do that on the road, especially against an energetic crowd like that and a young athletic team, that's impressive. So another huge swing

towards Dallas turnovers. A huge part of Oklahoma City's identity as a defense is to play passing lanes, be aggressive, force turnovers, get out in transition. In Game one, Dallas turns the ball over sixteen times and gives up twenty two points to the Thunder off of those turnovers. Game two, Dallas only has ten turnovers and they only allow eleven points off of those turnovers. Another huge swing towards Dallas

generating close out opportunities. Remember in game one I talked about how the Dallas was now generating open opportunities for guys to attack close outs. They only had eighteen spot up opportunities in game one. They generated thirty one spot up opportunities in game two. Both Luca and Kyrie I thought did a magnet magnificent job reading the game, identifying that the role players were feeling comfortable and making those kickout passes hunting looks for them to keep them in

rhythm throughout the game. So all of that amounted all of those swings.

bring it back to getting close. They briefly took a lead in the early third quarter, but Dallas led the entire first half, and from five point fifty six left in the third quarter they led the rest of the way, dominant win for Dallas to steal home court advantage and head back home for Game three. Luka doncic I thought that was his best game of the playoffs so far. Hyper Efficient finally got a step back.

the whole team. The whole team was just do an amazing job chasing shooters off the line, being on a string in rotation, competing on the ball, forcing turnovers, getting out. They did a great job, but Luca in particular did a great job. We're gonna come over, We're gonna cheat. We usually wait till the end to do film, but I only have two clips from this game. I wanted to show you guys an example of the type of closing out that Dallas was doing. So let's take a

look over here at the screen for a second. Let's take a look at these rotations from Dallas. So again, we're gonna start with Shae on Kyrie. We're gonna get a ball screen with Chet slips out of it early. Now we're in a high drop right, Really nice tag here from PJ. Washington. Take away the role. This skip pass is just a really difficult pass to make, so it's not really an opening quick rotate back out of it, nothing's open, there's no advantage. Then we're gonna get a

Jaylen Williams screen. This is gonna end in a switch, and then in the switch there's a little bit of a hesitation. Watch Kyrie though close out hard take away the shot. Stay low in a stance. Now Aaron Wiggins is open. Derek Jones Junior close out hard chase him off the line. Now PJ. Washington steps up. Look at the location of everybody. Everyone's in position to close out. Daniel Gafford is inside position on Dort. Dnca is in position to rotate. We get to skip pass from Jalen

Williams over to Chat. Now watch Luca. Look at where Luca is. Look at where the ball is going. Watch this defensive play from Luca screaming out to the corner. We even get a brush screen from Dort here and he like agilely steps around Dort as Dort just kind of gets in the way and Luke ends up blocking the three point shot on the seven foot whatever seven foot two, seven foot three inch tall Chat holmegrin So just again, the defensive effort was there for the entire team,

but Luca, I thought. I thought that was Luca's best game of the postseason in terms of total shot creation, controlling the feel and pace of the game, commitment to the defensive end of the floor. Again, I understand He's had bigger scoring nights, but I thought this overall was Luca's best game of the postseason so far. I was talking about after Game one. I know he's banged up, but he just has to find a way to impact winning at a higher level. And he was even more

banged up in this game. Hurt his tooth at a player kase I Walls kind of tripped him up in transition. It looked like he tweaked his ankle. Super banged up, but he just found away. He just found a way to help his team get the way. Kyrie Irving.

of feel that in a basketball game too. It's like reading the game, and this is especially important on teams that have multiple stars. So for instance, this is something I actually think Kyrie is better than Luca at at this phase of his career. But Luca's young, and Luca's gonna get better at this as he gets older. But early on throughout the playoffs, Kyrie's been the one that's

had it going. And what have we seen Luca do, Like he continues to kind of try to force the issue, keeps taking those tough step back jumpers even though they're not going in, and Luca's aware of it. He went into the postgame presser during the last series and said, I feel like I'm letting Kyrie down right now, and like, so he's aware of what's happening. But Kyrie's got it going, and Luca at this phase in his career still was struggling to kind of figure out where he fit next to Kyrie.

in the game. In the first half, there's a play he gets switched on to chet Holmgrin runs up, swipes the ball out of his hands, goes the length of the floor. Jalen Williams tries to block him off the glass, and he shoots a beautiful soft scoop shot up high off the window into the basket. Given what Oklahoma City typically gets per possession, you know, like roughly one one point one eight points plus the two you got on the other end, it's like more than a three point swing.

On that play, there was a clean strip of Sga actually drives to the basket, just cleanly strips it off his leg out of bounds. In the second half, there's a play where Giddy had the ball at the top of the key and he went full ball denial on Shay, and Shay tried to backcut him and wn't open, Kyrie was there, Giddy tried to force the pass, Kyrie stole it through a beautiful kick head passed to Tim Hardaway,

hit him in stride for the layup. Once again, something over a three point swing based on Oklahoma City's typical efficiency per possession. That's a huge swing play in an NBA playoff game. Right very next possession, there's a trap of a ball screen on the right side and PJ.

Washington gets a deflection. Kyrie's all the way on the other end of the floor and he shoots the gap towards the right wing where the pass was intended, steals the ball, gives it up, gets it back in transition, then hits Tim Hardaway Junior for an and one three on the left wing. Like Kyrie was just unbelievable as a playmaker in this game. And I'm not talking playmakers passing.

I'm talking like making basketball plays just in the game, just these various different ways, whether it's a rim contest where he gets a block, or it's a steal here, or a bal denial there, or a transition kick ahead there, or a driving kick here, like he just there was one in the early second half where he just toasted. I think I think it was Aaron Wiggins just cleanly beats Aaron Wiggins off the dribble, draws Shay and help off of PJ.

He's got it going. Also, my teammates do I'm going to change my approach in this game and do all of this other shit with the entirety of my being to the best that I possibly can. And he did, And I thought he was incredible in this game. PJ Washington just a beautiful two way game, had his jump shot going. He had seven threes, like we talked about, some tough ones too. Hit a jab step ISO three at the top of the key in the first half. He was brilliant defensively at two steps and a bunch

more deflections. Didn't work in the post too the natural matchups because of the way. Okay, so he starts the game, Jalen's on Kyrie Dorts on Luca. Right, they're putting Sga on PJ. Washington, and they went to him on the first possession of the game in the post against Shae. I thought that was fascinating because at the end of the game they went back to him against Shae and he just bullied him under the rim and got an

and one. As a matter of fact, Mark Dagenel is probably gonna have to look to maybe swap that around and move potentially move Shae over to Derek Jones Junior, because Derek Jones is less likely to do damage to him in ISO or post up situations. He had twenty nine points, eleven rebounds, four assists with two steals, and was a plus thirteen.

Josh Green, I thought he hit a couple of huge ones in the late first half as Oklahoma City was starting to kind of regain control of the game on one of their runs. And then Tim Hardaway Junior like started off miss his first couple of shots, but he had like a nice driving close out on the right wing where he threw a lob to Derek Lively. I hit a little shot in the mid range, and then you could tell that just kind of like loosened him up and he felt more comfortable. I ended up hitting

two threes, huge one late in the game. I was running his lane in transition to just really nice game from the role players.

were deadly jump shooting team. Dallas was fourteen. So over the course of the next five games of the series, expecting Dallas to continue to outshoot Oklahoma City, that would be unusual.

dominating the physical battle on the Oklahoma City front. Like I said before, they're gonna remain confident because they they're gonna be able to point to some stuff with the shooting results right still, some stuff they can clean up, some help out of the strong side corner. A few times in the game that they I didn't think they needed. Their transition defense was really bad, just not getting back,

not getting matched up, lost some shooters there. Like I said before, they're going to feel like they can shoot better themself as well, even looking beyond the Dallas point. Some young guy mistakes too, some misreads, a lot of like challenging Dallas's rim protectors when they didn't need to when there were open shooters, and so just being more diligent with reading the floor. I thought it was fascinating

that Mark Dagenel build on Josh Giddy. Josh Gitty, I want to say it was like minus twenty one and eleven minutes or something like that, Like it was kind of a disaster when he was out there, which part of it was Dallas shot really well, but it also is just one of those things where Dallas isn't guarding him and he doesn't really have much value on offense unless he has the ball in his hands and he's

not an elite defensive player, right. They started the second half with Aaron Wiggins on the floor, so that was their like kind of bailing on him in the starting lineup, so to speak.

with a two big look. And again this look, this look played four minutes in the game and was plus six, so they only they've less than four minutes and they were plus six. So this is a look I'd like to see Mark A. Daginal go with a little bit more in game three. So as you can see, look at the configuration. I've got Jaylen Williams on Jaylen Williams on Kyrie and Jaylen Williams on Lively. Chet is on Derek Jones Junior, and Shay is on PJ. Washington still

and Dort is on Luca. Now, what we're looking for here is a tech the lowman position. So typically what this is Chet is up at the level of the screen, and then in this situation we usually have one of these wings, the Shay or Dort or j Dubb here as the lowman and in that situation or Giddy right, and Giddy's taller, but he's not a great athlete, right, So like you just don't have anywhere near as much size and athletic on the back line when you have

Chet up at the level of the screen. So in this case, because Chet is now on the low man, because you have Jalen Williams operating as your big man, Derek Lively rolls to the rim. Really nice pass here from Kyrie, a little rap round pass, but instead of running into an undersized player where Lively is either gonna dunk on him or easily be able to get a shot off over the top.

Dallas immediately started attacking Aaron Wiggins in ISO. Not that Aaron Wiggins is not capable, of course, he's capable, but it's just one of those things where like it's a different look. It gives you a more physically imposing look. And Jala Williams actually shot the three ball. Will He hit a couple threes early in the game. He's the guy that you at least kind of have to worry about out there, right, So it's a look that I consider going to all Right, so one one.