Hoops Tonight - Timberwolves-Nuggets Reaction: Jokic SENSATIONAL, Denver becoming unbeatable?, Pacers-Knicks Reaction: Brunson DROPS 44, New York's MAJOR Game 5 bounce back

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it down. Did some film in that one too, surrounding Duce McBride and an action that the Knicks were spamming at the beginning of that game to take advantage of Tyres Haliburton in an opening in Indiana's coverage. To make sure you don't miss that earlier on the feed hit in Denver, Minnesota in this one, you guys are the Joe before we get started. Subscribe to our brand of YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so you guys

don't misshow announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight, and then keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We can keep hitting them throughout the remainder of the postseason run. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the story of the game early on was, I guess Michael Malone just got sick of watching Anthony Edwards barbecue everybody that was the one guy that they had no chance to guard. In terms

of the somewhat limited offensive personnel that Minnesota has. Again, as we look throughout the large sample, they had a very good offensive stretch through the four games against Phoenix in the first two games of this series, but over the large sample this season, this is the team that has some limited offensive personnel, some guys that can score when the circumstances are favorable, but when you start to shut off the easy stuff, their limitations can be exposed,

right And so Michael Malone made a took a gamble in this game giving some advantages to those players by throwing extra bodies at Ant, super high drop coverage with Nikola Jokic, to just make sure that Ant was almost picking up his dribble every time he come off of that ball screen or have to immediately take a retreat dribble, which again, as soon as you take that retreat dribble, there's no downhill four set play right then, anytime he got some sort of favorable matchup in a one on

one situation, it was just a straight double team to

get the ball out of his hands. We've seen how Ant has destroyed this smaller Denver guards throughout the majority of the series, and at the beginning of the game, Michael Maloney and the Nuggets paid the price for that, because, as I talked about last game, Karl Anthony Towns as like an actual shot creator, has some limitations in terms of he can't really bully everybody, and then he ends up exposing the basketball eventually and guys can kind of

swipe at it. We did a film breakdown after game four, if you guys remember where I showed you guys some examples of how Cat can kind of become easier to guard in a static situation against a set defense. But give him, you know, a guy closing out to him in the corner, and he can pump bake and Aaron Gordon can fly by and then take a side step into a three.

run and regain control. The big thing I noticed was defense. From there, they got their defense set. They were having some issues in transition where when they didn't score, Minnesota would push the ball in transition they wouldn't get their high drop set.

started to get their defense set. Those first few Minnesota offensive possessions out of that time out.

in transition. Aaron Gordon gets a big transition dunk. Jamal Murray to cap off the run gets a big transition dunk. KCP hits a big three above the break in that sequence, Jamal Murray gets a layup in a two man game with Nikolea Jokich. It's just classic Denver Nuggets basketball. And you know, honestly, like that really has been the story

of this entire postseason for Denver. Every time they've run into a problem or a situation, whether it's Game two against the Lakers or down twenty, it's boom, timeout, quick adjustment, refocus, lock in, and go on a run. They've just consistently been able to do that. As a matter of fact, that I was pulling the numbers on Synergy earlier, so

this is before tonight. Although they not only did they score immediately after the timeout in the third quarter, there was another one in the fourth quarter where Minnesota went on a little run got it to ten, they immediately came out of the timeout and scored. According to Synergy, the Nuggets are scoring one point one seven points per possession after timeouts, which is the best in the league

in this playoff run among remaining teams. As a matter of fact, the Boston Celtics are second on that list at one point zero four points per possession, so literally a thirteen point per one hundred possession gap between Boston and Denver at one to two in execution out of timeouts. It's been a huge part of what has made this Denver team so good. They can get a little you know,

just like any other basketball team. They can have a two or three possession stretch where they play some poor basketball, maybe they don't get back in transition, maybe they take a couple of bad shots.

of hand. Not enough was made about Denver's defense this year. I saw a lot of talk I consistently said I thought this Denver team was better than last year. I saw a lot of people talking about, you know, the bench not being as good, not having veterans like Bruce Brown, or excuse me, like Jeff Green with like a really good, kind of like sixth starter type of guy like Bruce

Brown coming off the bench. And the big thing that I think people missed out on was this is a team that was way more focused defensively from day one of training camp. This was a top ten defense this year. And again, like this was a team that wasn't a top ten defense last year that kind of snapped into form. They were a switch flipping team when they got into

the postseason. This team came into this year with a level of focus that is not typical for a defending champion, right, It's usually the opposite.

the majority of the season. I want to talk about Nicole Yokich iss a score because she just had a ridiculous scoring game.

big part of it. He's got a deadly hook shot over both shoulders, really really good floater, has a little bit of a turnaround jumper over both shoulders off of like kind of funky footwork too, Like if he goes over his left shoulder, it's like the Somber shuffle right when it goes over his right shoulder. It's more of a traditional right shoulder fade like you see from most guards right where it's just a typical right left plant, you know, kind of rise up and shoot kind of thing.

a completely different disposition about themselves. So yes, maybe we did some different things offensively and defensively, but give our players credit because they realized what we were doing and how and how we were doing it wasn't the answer. So what I thought was really fascinating about that quote is when we get when we finished game two, if you guys remember I said, it's not even about basketball anymore, like it can't be about basketball until you join the fight.

And really, the big thing that stood out to me on film when we looked at Game three, was they set better screens, particularly okitch opening tip just rocked Anthony Edwards with a screen, right, and then Jamal Murray did a much better job handling ball pressure and setting up his man for screens, which allowed him to get more separation from Jada McDaniels and Anthony Edward, which allowed their offense to start working, and then even extending to the

defensive end of the floor, just like you know, guys like KCP and Aaron Gordon sending early messages to air to Karl Anthony Towns that he can't score on them on an island, and just kind of tightening that defensive pressure and making what was a mediocre offense all year long look like the mediocre offense that they are in a way that they did it in the first two games.

It wasn't some magical adjustment. It's like, yeah, they ran some more cleared side action, right, Like, there's some little things that they did that were different, but the majority of it was they just played better basketball. And what I find fascinating about that is a lot of times we focus on the spectacular when it comes to stars, Right we look at Kyrie, we talked about this crazy dribble move that he made, right, We talked about Jason Tatum.

Here's this crazy step back three that he hits. We talked about, you know, Steph Curry. It's this thirty footer that he hits some transition off the mound. We talked about Nicol Yokich. It's the Somber shuffle, this incredible fadeaway jumper that he hits off a one leg leaning away from the basket.

to contact situations. All these like really boring concepts that make a basketball player more reliably great on a possession by possession basis Jokic the primary driving force of what makes him so unguardable in the post is that he can consistently get to a short, easy shot. How do you consistently get to a short easy shot through footwork? Footwork is what allows you to weaponize your physical tools.

There are a lot of guys out there that have a lot of physical tools that can't take advantage of them.

I know this from my personal experience. When I played in college, I was an undersized big I played a lot of four and five at six six and twenty five pounds, and so I was usually going against six nine six ' ten athletes, but I was bigger and stronger than them, and usually I just push on their base and essentially, when they would try to get to a spot and shoot some sort of shot, over the top.

I basically bump them off of that spot and make it so that their energy transfer from the ground up to their shot gets disrupted and then they take some hook shot that they'd miss or something along those lines that you can't do that with Jokic. His base is not disruptible. When he goes downhill and he makes a pivot move, the guy will try to cut him off and try to bump him, and Yokic bumps you off.

That really is the core of all of it his and that the ability to maintain your base is a footwork thing.

quick plant, and then another pivot towards the basket. Yo kich is really good at like that kind of spin move double pivot, where like he'll rotate over his left shoulder and then duck back underneath and come back over his left shoulder and finish and the whole time, if you watch his feet, he quick shuffles and quicks plant, quick plants, but he's always back on two feet so that no one can shove him off of his spot. And so when you got a guy like Rudy Gobert,

he's got some length, right, he's got some height. He has the ability to meet Jokic up top. But what Jokic does is he disrupts go Bear's base and gets him off of his stable foundation where he can jump and meet Jokic up top. And so as a result, when Jokic goes to shoot, Phil Bear is groundbound. He's groundbound because Jokicic just bumped him right at the time that he would typically jump to try to make a play.

then you become truly unguardable. And Jokics just has that unique combination of like transcendent physical size, like he's just so much bigger than everybody that tries to guard him, incredible detail footwork and fundamental like a fundamental foundation of his skills, and then outstanding touch within ten fifteen feet of the rim. Right we talked about Game four, he was ten for fifteen within five feet and fourteen feet

from the basket. He is deadly in that range. He's going to knock you off balance, get to a spot, and get to a shot. It seemed like it was personal tonight. Every single time he had an opportunity to go at go bear he did.

the league. I think he has the largest chasm between him and the second best player since Lebron in the early twenty tens. And you could argue it's even bigger than that. He like, have you seen anybody play basketball this year that has been able to reach the level that Nikol Jokich has been at in the last three games, Like I would argue this is a higher level than he's ever been at. And that's the beauty of adversity.

And this is why I love when there's true parody in the game and you don't see a team just run rough shot over the league and win fifteen straight playoff games, because when this team is down to oh and legacies are on the line and people are talking shit for three days in the media and all of that is coming down on you. That is what pushed Nikole Jokicic to this level. It required adversity to bring out another level of nikol Jokich that we had not

seen before, and I've thoroughly enjoyed watching it. Last guy for Denver, I wanted to shout out before we move on, Contavious Callbo Pope. I thought every single shot he hit in this you know it's funny. Did you guys remember that Jada McDaniel's quote about Jamal Murray talking about how his shots were loud, Like I thought that was the textbook example of that kind of game from KCP only sixteen points.

big moment here in Game five. Last note before before we kind of go into some closing thoughts I had. I saw a lot of Celtics fans just kind of starting to jump on Anthony Edwards's case after he had a bad game. Here's the thing coming into tonight, the average thirty two to seven and six on sixty seven percent tru shooting against outstanding competition on a team that desperately needs him to score because they are a severely limited offensive team. He's also twenty two years old. They're

going to be growing pains along the way. Is he gonna need to figure out how to be more effective in games when he gets double teamed like this?

was the read that Michael Malone played. It's very possible we see a different coverage if Mike Conley's out there, especially given the fact that even though Ant was so effective in Game three, in Game four, the rest of the offense for Minnesota was so dead on arrival. Again, I was talking about and comparing him to Jason Tatum as it pertains to the future of American basketball basketball players. I like Jayson Tatum a lot. I have no issues

with him at all whatsoever. I think he's probably somewhere around the seventh, eighth, ninth best player in the league. I actually think that he's good enough to win a title with this Boston Celtics team, considering how much talent he's surrounded with. All I said is he's not capable of being better than Nikola Jokic. Anthony Edwards, at age twenty two, at least has that potential. Anthony Edwards has more upside, and at this point in his career, I'm

really enjoying watching his development. I'm really enjoying watching his rise. He's probably my favorite player in the league right now to watch and cover. I just think I love his personality. I think he's gonna be so good for our game for a really long time. I think I think America desperately needed somebody to kind of take the reins from that Lebron Steph KD group. And again, like as good as Jason Tatum is, I just don't think he had

that upside. I don't think that he has that personality either. And that's all it was. It was more of a pro ampt thing than an anti Jason Tatum thing. But at the end of the day, like he had a rough game, he had a rough game against the defense. Did you guys hear that interview at the start of the fourth quarter, Michael Malone straight up came out and said, our entire defensive game plan is to stop and he straight up said that he's We're throwing different looks at him,

We're throwing second defenders at it. Like, straight up said that, what does that tell you? Michael Malone took a gamble tonight. We're gonna get the ball out of Anthony Everard's hands and just try to make someone else beat us, and someone else did and it was fifty five to fifty three in the second half, when in the two games

in Minnesota they weren't even competitive. So again, Anthony Edwards's Gigantic Gravitational presence on the court as this unguardable two guard caused Michael Malone to compromise his own defense, and it actually allowed Minnesota to be more competitive than they had been in the previous two games. And yeah, you're right, I do think he can handle it better, and I do think he's capable of taking more and more leaps

as a playmaker, more and more leaps. It's kind of a half court surgeon, like I talked about, right, But like again, here's what I think is lame jumping on Anthony Edwards's case and trying to rewrite the rise of this phase of his career when he averaged thirty two to seven and six against an entirely different class of opponent than what Boston has been playing in the first two rounds out in the Eastern Conference, and on sixty

seven percent true shooting. By the way, Jason Tatum again last night shot below forty five percent from the field. He's done it in every single playoff game this year except for one. So like again, like I don't, it's not I think it's it's completely ridiculous to just flip the script and turn on Anthony Edwards in a bad game that mostly had to do with the game plan.

The reality is, in my opinion, as we look forward in this series at three two Denver, Minnesota can't score against Denver's defense when they're really locked in and engaged. I don't know how they solve that problem. I think it's really hard to beat a team four times in a row. So I wouldn't be surprised if Minnesota won Game six.

games in general are tough. Denver's been playing with all the urgency and intensity that is now going to shift back towards Minnesota at this point. So I do think it's going to be a tough game, but I'm going to go with Denver and six. I saw someone on

Twitter refer to it as the Gangster sweep. It's interesting because it's the sweep, the gentleman sweep, which is when you win four to one, and I guess the definition of the gangster sweep is you lose your first two at home and then you win four straight with three being on the road. Obviously, they still need to do it, but that would be pretty epic because I think think

all games have been by double digits. Yeah, they won by fifteen tonight, and I'm pretty sure Game three and four were by double digits, So that would be that would whoever whoever coined that term, I should have I should have quoted whoever that was, But that I did think was funny. But hopefully I will see if Denver can pull off the gangster sweep here in a couple

of days. I don't want to get too far into the nitty gritty in this game, really, because the last couple of games, Game four in Indiana and Game five in New York, were mostly just about effort. In Game four, the Knicks looked exhausted and the Pacers ran them out of the gym, and they played limited minutes and came home. And that was also a much earlier start in the day On Sunday, if you guys remember, So they got like a substantially larger amount of rest compared to what

they got between Game three and Game four. They're also coming home also having lost two in a row. The desperation shifts heavily towards the Knicks. The Pacers have a little bit of come knowing that it's two to two and you've got another game at home, right, and the Knick's just kind of capitalized on that. You know, there was a quote that I saw from the pregame presser from Mike Malone tonight, Michael Malone, head coach of the Denver Nuggets, and he said, quote, yeah, you make adjustments.

Sometimes I think too much is made of the adjustments. It's not really what you're doing, it's how you do it. And to me, you look at us in games one and two, and compared to games three and four, our players had a completely different disposition about themselves. So, yes, maybe we did some things, some different things offensively and defensively, but give our players credit because they realized what we were doing and how we were doing it wasn't the answer.

And I thought that was really fascinating because I said the same thing after Game two of that series, the one really about basketball, Denver just had not really joined the series physically, And like we're going to talk about some specific x's and those things that took place in today's game, like Duce McBride joining the starting lineup, how that allowed the the Knicks to attack Tyres Halliburton, you know, Jalen Brunson kind of getting that early fallon Aaroni Smith,

leading him to Rick Carlisle to shift to Andrew and Embard on the ball, and some stuff about Tyres Haliburton being kind of passive. We're going to get into some of the basketball stuff, but none of that played nearly as big of a role as just the Knicks brought a hell of a lot more force tonight. They just played better basketball, and the Pacers did the same thing

in Game four. We have a tendency and I've noticed this for a long time in the realm of basketball analysis, and like, tactics are an important part of basketball analysis, but I agree with Michael Malone. I think it's leaned on a lot a lot more than it probably actually

relates to the outcomes of a lot of these games. Say, for instance, the story of this game is going to be duce McBride joining the starting lineup, and everything he did tonight guarding Tyres Halliburton, the attacking Haliburton when he was hedging and blitzing and deuced me Bride like quickly kind of like slipping out of those actions. Right, But here's the thing. They got off to a twenty to fourteen start. The Pacers were up twenty to fourteen in

this game. So like like in duce McBride still was playing a lot. We said after I think it was in game three, I said, now that Ojan and Obi's out, the best five man group that the Knicks have is Duce McBride, Dante DiVincenzo, Josh hart Jalen Bronson, and Isaiah Hartenstein. Like we've already known that was the five best guys. Like you know, honestly, the Knicks energy didn't even really start to take over in this game until the middle to late first quarter. And so again, like it's important

for us to talk about the tactics. I think it's a really good thing for us all to learn more about so that we can have a better understanding of

what's taking place on the court. But make no mistake, generally speaking, the team that wins it has more to do with who's playing the best basketball and all these little fundamental areas, who's cutting harder, who's running in transition harder, who's sliding their feet better on the ball, who's setting better screens, who's being sharper when they're with their decision making, who's doing a better job attacking closeouts and making reads

like those are usually the things that determine who wins the game more so than any sort of tactic, right. You know, like I literally thought that the Nuggets turned the Minnesota series around literally just by setting way better screens and handling ball pressure better. I thought those were the two things that helped Jamal Murray break free more often, which allowed Denver's offense to function in a way it wasn't functioning in the first two games of the series.

And so again I think like these last two games have been a good example of that. Do you think Indiana had a magic adjustment in Game four? Do you think the Knicks had a magic adjustment here in Game five? No, they just the Pacers played better basketball in Game four and the Knicks played better basketball in Game five. On that note, let's talk a little bit about some of the specific basketball dynamics that took place.

being guarded by Tyre's Halliburton. And there's two things that you absolutely have to be able to do when you're being guarded by a player who that specific player's team is going to ask him to hedge and recover or to blitz. Basically meaning when that player comes off the screen, Tyre's Halliburton is either going to jump out to cut off the driving lane or jump out to blitz, meaning

leaving duce McBride. You have to be able to hit threes quickly while sliding your feet out of the screen and quickly getting set up at the three point line. And two, you have to be able to make quick

decisions when the defense reacts to you. And duce McBride just did an amazing job of that in this game, hitting those threes on the pick and pop out of the hedge and recover in the blitz, and then also when the rotation would come to him making that next pass in the line to the next shooter that might be open. He just did an incredible job and it gave Jalen Brunson an action that he could spam to consistently generate quality shots for the nixt Tonight, Jalen Brunson

was amazing again, another forty plus point night. Was just cooking in Iso all night long. You could tell that additional rest really helped him. He just had more lift than he did in Game four. He got Brick Carlisle to bail on Aaron Nesmith with about eight minutes and thirty seconds left in the first quarter after he picked up a foul on him on an and one. The Pacers were up twelve to nine at that point and

Brunson had only made one field goal. But I guess that Rick Carlile was mainly just thinking, let's try to avoid getting let's try to avoid picking up that second foul, and we just know Jalen Brunson's really comfortable against Andrew Nemhard He had an in.

picking on Tyre's house Burton screens. By the way, I have four clips of film I'm going to show you guys at the end of the show to kind of demonstrate some of the specifics with Duce McBride, you know, kind of making Tyres Saliburton pay for his hedges and his blitzes. Tyr's Saliburton's pasivity. So every archetype of basketball player, in my opinion, has a weakness. Right, There's like pros

and cons that come to every personality type. It's no different with like than like, I'm a pretty OCD guy, right, But at the same time, like my obsessive focus on stuff makes it so that I can be sometimes oblivious to things that are happening around me. Right, You know I I have a certain way that I organize a simple thing. My wife had to borrow my truck to go to Low's the other day, and I took my basketball bag out of that truck to take it take

her car instead. Then when I went back into my truck, I didn't take my basketball bag with me. So the last two times I went to the gym early, because I always go to the gym early to do my shooting workout before I play, I didn't have my basketball bag. I was like super frustrated. But it's because I'm such a creature of habit that anytime anything kind of disrupts my rhythm, my whole life tends to fall apart, you know what I mean. Like it's a downside of my personality.

But the upside is my OCD leads to me getting into really good rhythms, and so I'm really good at like kind of keeping a daily routine which helps me be a better basketball player. It helps me run a better show. Like there's upsides and there's downsides, right, same thing goes with basketball players, Like if you're a high motor player, usually that helps you bring energy when your team needs it, and it can you know, invigorate your team.

But at the same time, those guys tend to gamble a lot, they tend to make mistakes, they tend to foul too much. That's those are all characteristics of high motor players because they're always going one hundred miles an hour. Super emotional guys like they can They can get their team to kind of meet them at a level emotionally,

which can be a good thing. They can also get the other team to overreact to things and get caught up in some of the emotional elements, but as we know, that can lead to technicals overly physical play getting themselves ejected or suspended. Right, that's a down side of the super emotional players. Right assassin minded scorers that are always looking for their own shot. They can get hot and they can carry you home, but they can also miss

easy reads and play their teammates out of rhythm. Right pass first offensive engines like a Tyrese Halliburton, other players like Nikole jokicch Lebron James when he was in his prime. Those pass first guys, they can keep everyone in rhythm and control the offense, and they're usually like offensive engines that can really lead an offense to a high level,

almost individually, but they sometimes can be too passive. There were moments in Lebron's career where he needed to look to shoot, but instead he would make the right play right. There were times where early in the Timberwolf series where you're like, why is Nikola Jokic passing out a single coverage and he's like, but you even hear him after the game, it's like, maybe we should trust the pass more.

It's like it's programmed into their basketball identity, right. And with Tyre's Halliburton, he takes nine shots tonight, and take nine shots on the road in a two to two game when you're offense is struggling to score. That's part of your job as the offensive engine. He's been taking eleven threes a game over the last few weeks and hitting over forty percent of them, and he only took

four of them tonight. Now, some of that is a credit to Douce McBride, but again there's a certain part of that where like tyrese just like Lebron did over the course of his career, just like Jokic did in this series, and we know that he's capable of Tyree's part of his development is going to be understanding that there are times when he has to be aggressive and there are going to be times when he has to look to score. And he's been a little inconsistent, especially

on the road in this playoff run. In that regard first playoff run really as the leader of his team, obviously there's going to be some growing pains along the way. I thought tonight was an example of him being overly passive. I think the Pacers will probably extend this series to seven, just because it's a shorthanded mixed team and they're really undersized, and it's difficult to win on the road when you

have physical disadvantages. Can't count the Knicks out, though they certainly can win Game six, but I am sticking with my pick pick for the Knicks to win the series. I just think they'll probably do it in seven. The volume