Hoops Tonight - Warriors beat Grizzlies, Green ejected, Giannis & Bucks upset Celtics

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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. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume. Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope all of you are having a great weekend so far. An incredible first day of the second round

of the playoffs, which we expected. There's so many good players and good teams left at this point that it's just bound to give us amazing basketball content, and yes it did. We are going to start today with the Warriors and the Grizzlies. After that we're going to do a deep dive into the Bucks and Celtics game. Lots and lots to get to before we get started. A couple of quick housekeeping notes. Make sure that you like this video and subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so

you don't miss any more of our content. Make sure you check out our newsletter. A link to subscribe is in the description. It is a great way to keep up with all of our content. Also, make sure you check out the Colin Cowherd podcast. He's got a surprise winner for this year's NFL Draft. You're gonna want to hear that. And then, of course, this is the place

to get all of your Draymond Green content. I've been saying on my Twitter feed that Draymond Green and his reactions inside of a playoff series, as someone who's as intimately involved as a player can be as some of the best content in sports. Right now, he will be reacting to Game one in the next twenty four hours. You won't want to miss that. And then, lastly, make sure you follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt.

Every morning, I get up and I break down the films from the film from the games in the previous day, and I get into some of the weeds and some of the details that are impossible to get to in these instant reaction videos. So make sure you follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason LT and subscribe to the podcast as well. All right, let's start with the Warriors. So I want to start with the before we actually get to the get the nuts and bolts of the basketball.

I have two refereeing or officiating real lated things that I want to hit on, starting with this, the Draymond suspension, which was obviously, uh, the big story from this specific game.

I at first couldn't tell what had happened, and the clips that were being circulated around that I had seen a close to million times worthy jersey pool and in general, like, I'm the kind of guy that when I am talking about officiating, particularly when it comes to ejections, I want to see absolute, like the unquestionable, you can't leave this guy in the game type of stuff. And so at first, when I was like, Okay, he's pulling his jersey down. Yeah,

it's a little bit dangerous. You could argue he's actually trying to kind of gather Brandon Clark and and help him fall type of deal. Right, Like, to me, what didn't see him as dirty? So I was like amazed at the fact that they would ever even consider suspending him for something as trivial as that. But then I saw the other angles, and I saw the swing down hitting hitting Brandon Clark on the face, and I mean,

we could really make it this simple. There's a very specific reason why players are discouraged from hitting each other in the face in the game, and it's too it's because they don't want to get ejected. That we we have to have a line somewhere, and in this case, the line is like, if you load up and you hit a guy in the face and it's not a real basketball play, then yeah, you gotta eject the guy.

And I love Draymond Green, love everything he brings to the Warriors, but to me, that was a pretty cut and dry ejection. And obviously Draymond Green is gonna have some fun with the crowd in that type of moment. You know, what was interesting is that ejection changed the entire complexion of the game in a bunch of ways that are gonna be difficult to translate forward in the

series because Draymond's gonna play a lot. But there was a kind of a brand of basketball the Golden State played after Draymond went out that was very unique, and we will get to that in a minute. One last thing with the refs, that block charge call on Steph Curry. So Steph drives into the lane and he's got four

fouls and Dylan Brooks has five fouls. And Dylan Brooks kind of like stops in the lane and slides a little bit over to the left, and you can see Steph try to go around Dylan Brooks's left shoulder, but at the end he kind of slides over. Now, what the rest were saying was his left foot was planted, but if you looked at it, his feet were planted in a very spread stance and it's almost giving him too much leeway of position for him to be there.

And I was blown away that, after reviewing that play and seeing all the angles, that they opted to give step that fifth foul and he ended up actually fouling out at the end of the game, which is which is a predicament in its own in its own sense. But my issue with that specific call is I don't think it's good for the game of basketball to have bodies and and people just falling down in the lane. Like there's a reason why when you guys go play pick up with your friends, if you you don't go

take a charge because it's dangerous. It's dangerous to have people driving into the lane and falling down. In fact, what do you guys do and pick up when someone drives into you. You kind of just hold your ground. You're more likely to even like to to instead of flopping backwards, you'll just hold your ground because you don't

want to get hurt. To me, that is real basketball, and the the the bodies falling down to the ground, that's how guys break their wrists or spraying their wrists, that's how guys you know, spraying their ankles as they come landing down on people. It just turns into a

really dangerous environment. And so for me, I'm a big fan with officiating of like, if it's a blatant charge, like if it's as cut in dry as it could possibly be, go ahead and call a charge, because you gotta give defenders some capability of stopping bigger, stronger athletes flying into the lane. But if it's a gray area at all, let it go. Let them play basketball. Call a blocking foul every time so that guys are less willing to slide up underneath athletes as they're flying through

the lane. How bad would it have been if Steph Curry got hurt on that play? That would have been terrible for this series, terrible for the television product, terrible for the NBA and the health of the league to lose Steph Curry in a situation like that. The best way to avoid those kinds of risks is to limit the advantage gained from flopping all over the place underneath the basket, and the easiest way to do that is

to call a lot fewer charges. But I am off of my referee, soapbox, let's get into the game a little bit. So obviously there was a down the stretch of that game. We're gonna get into the lineups that Golden State was using a why I thought they had so much success here in a minute, but down I want to talk about crunch time here at first. So obviously you have the stretch where Jordan Pool and Clay

Thompson play really well, keeps Golden State in the game. Well, Steph hits a monster three with about four minutes left, right around four or five minutes left, and John Brant came back with this incredible sequence where where he drives to the basket and gets this like acrobatic up in under layup in transition. Then he runs back on defense

and reads a rotation from Clay Thompson. Steph makes a beautiful skip pass to the corner to Clay Thompson, and John like closes out like he's gonna close at Clay, but instead of closing at Clay, he closed to the passing lane, so he closed to the spot next to Clay. Clay turned and made the swing pass to the next shooter and hit John right in the hands, and then jaw drives right down the floor and immediately kind of navigates into the lane and hits Brandon Clark for a

layup under the rim, and now we're tied. It was an unbelievable sequence from John Moran on both ends of the floor. He's he's a bad defensive player at this point in his career, but he shows these flashes with his athleticism or he can make defensive plays, and that's a great foundation to build on as he gets, as he gets older and more experienced to become a more

impactful defensive player. There was a play, uh kind of late in the game tied where John Moran got Jordan Pool on an island at the top key was right around uh, right around uh to two minutes left and one are we One of the things we talked about for this series was we know for a fact that Clay Thompson and Steph Curry and Jordan Pool are gonna struggle to guard John Morand in space. That's just that he's too fast and he's too skilled, and it's just

a bad matchup for them. Stephen Clay for for Clay is very good at guarding bigger, more physical wings. Steph is a very good defensive player for the set of physical tools that he has, but there's very few players on the planet that can hope to contain John Moran and dribble drive situations, so you have to crowd him

in those situations. And I thought it was really really interesting the difference in their defense on that play when Jordan Pool blew when uh, John Moran blew right by Jordan Pool and got the layup for the end one. But there was a pivotal play late in the game after Clay Thompson made the three to give Golden State the lead, where the exact same thing happened on the left wing where John Morick got Steph Curry on an island, but instead of leaving him on the island, Golden State

sent quicker help. Before I got even close to the rim, he ended up going into a ton of traffic in missing a layup. And that's the difference. You can give up a matchup and to a guy like Jaw as long as there's tons of backside help. Where you get in trouble. It was when everyone stands around and gets glued up to their man. And now Jah has a head of steam because he goes right by Jordan Pool. And when you give an athlete like that that much of a head of steam, there's just no way you're

gonna stop him around the basket. But Golden State made the adjustment and ended up getting the all important stop at the end of the game against John Murrean. This was not the play after the jump ball, but the one before where John Moran missed the layup over overstep going to the left. Then I was really curious when

they were setting up for the inbounds play. I was they had Desmond bayned as the as the inbounder, and I was I was hoping for Memphis's sake that they would run something because they had Jaren Jackson Jr. Is the first player right by the inbounder with George and Pool on him. So I was thinking they were just gonna inbound to Jordan pool area or inbound to Jaren Jackson and do a quick handoff to Desmond Baine for a jump shot because I thought they could get a

clean look from that. Instead, they had John Moran start out at half court and they did the exact same thing, but instead of looking to Baine, they looked to John Moran with the head of team. The problem is is that's the play you see coming a mile away. This is why we talked about this on the play where Andrew Wiggins uh and Otto Porter Jr. Botched that post entry that like lob over the top on that late inbounds play against Denver and all the Warriors fans were

matt at Steve Kerr. There's a reason why you use your stars as decoys in a lot of situations, and those in those settings, especially when they're shorter players, and it's because the defense keys in on them and it's difficult for them to create their own shot. That's situation John Moran went flying into a ton of traffic and had to take this impossible left handed scoop shot off of the glass. Don't don't play. The Golden State knew that is coming. They were set up to guard job

John Rand in the paint. There was only three seconds left, so you knew that as soon as Job put the ball on the floor, he wasn't gonna have time to make a kick out to a shooter. I would have gone to one of your taller players, someone like Jaren Jackson Jr. Someone like Desmond Bain to try to get a catch and shoot opportunity, because I think you could have gotten a better look in that situation. But just

an incredibly interesting in an incredibly exciting game. I thought, what what allowed Golden State to to stay so successful in the second half without Draymond is the very thing that I've talked about so much on this show over the course the last five years, or over the course the last two years. And that's five out basketball. They uh to start the second half. You know, Steph hit a bunch of threes to kind of keep him in it.

There's a lot of Keevan Looney, right, But then they took kevn Luni out and they brought in Auto Porter Jr. They brought in uh Gary Payton, and they brought in um Jonathan Cominga as your front court. So basically they went with to freak at Fleets and another six eight guy, all three of which are very good at the dirty work things. Otto Porter Jr. Has been a masterful rebounder for Golden State in over the course of this playoff run. It's been a huge weapon for them to make up

for some of their lack of size. Well, they just went with those three guys and Clay Thompson and Jordan Pool, and the offense with Draymond Green works, So I'm not trying to talk about that. It's just a different type of offense. The the difference when Draymond's on the floor is he gets ignored a lot of the time, and what ends up happening is Stephen Clay will hit Draymond when he's open and then immediately cut off of him because Draymond is like instead of catching and shooting, they

look at Draymond as basically an available dribble handoff. So they'll throw the ball to Draymond Green at the top of the key and then they'll fly off of him and Draymond will do a quick handoff. They're almost just there there. They just use him as a release valve to get the ball back. It's not like a spot up roll for Draymond by any stretch of imagination. That's

why he doesn't take a ton of spot up threes. Right. Well, that's a completely different style of offense than when they have all five players as guys that are a little bit more of an offensive threat. And so as a result, uh, Jordan Pool and Clay Thompson at the end of the third quarter and beginning of the fourth quarter were given

a boatload of space to operate in. Both of them put on masterful performances in that second half the the So the super interesting thing about the way that they attack those two guys, in particular when they're on the floor together is it's kind of like they build off of each other's advantages. So what will happen is is like Jordan Poole bring the ball up the floor and he'll be being guarded, uh, you know by someone like Desmond Baine, right, and he'll bring over John Morant's man

to come over and set a screen. Whoever that is, whether that's Clay Thompson or Gary Payton Jr. Whoever it is. So Clay Gary Payton Jr. Whill comes at the screen and Jordan Poole will come off of that screen and John Morant does not want to switch because Memphis is trying to hide John Rant as much as possible in this series. So as a result, Jordan Pool will get

into the lane a little bit. So get into about like that ten fifteen foot area with a live dribble, and the defense collapses on it right, But Jordan Pool doesn't force anything. He'll kick it out to the perimeter again to Clay Thompson. Now someone's closing out at Clay Thompson. Now Clay Thompson has an advantage. Clay Thompson will usually like pump fake and get the guy off his feet

and then put the ball on the floor. Now he's got even more separation than Jordan Pool did in his first attack, and then either they'll score on that action or will get worked around again to Jordan's Pool. By this time, the defense has rotated and collapsed like three times and they're getting fantastic looks out of it. Jordan Pool and Clay Thompson and their ability to further compromise the defense with each time they attack a close out.

Off of that first action is what keeps that thing moving so smoothly and how they kept getting such good shots, especially when they go in that five out setting. So the trick is is like, how can you realist stically apply that forward in this series with Draymond on the floor, Well, you try to play heavily into that style when Draymond's off.

What I would do is I would almost Draymond talked a lot on his show about how he likes playing with Kevon Looney because Kevon Looney plays a more traditional back line defensive role and then Draymond can really roam around and be disruptive elsewhere on the floor. Maybe that's your opportunity to play play Looney and then in the minutes when Draymond's off the floor, you go back into

that cominga Auto Porter Jr. And Gary Payton Junr. Front court, because then you have that super freak mobility with all of the shooting on the floor, and that's when you're getting all that five out stuff that you can get. I think there's a way for them to utilize that type of offense even with Draymond in there because you're

better with Draymond. You're flat out better with Draymond because he makes you way way, way, way way better on the defensive end of the floor, and you can still thrive on offense because of all the chemistry that he has with Stephan Clay hunting them as three point shooters. So that was the the most interesting dynamic of this particular game was the way that the offense looked when

Draymond was out. So moving on to Memphis really quick, the uh you could tell and the this was evident evidence in points in the paint and points in the paint. Golden State dominated in this game, and a huge part of that was, like I was saying, getting in the defense and rotation. But you were seeing a lot of opportunities for guys like Jonathan Cominga on the back line, guys like Gary Payton Jr. On the back line, Auto

Porter Junior on the back line. That's where they were getting offensive rebound putbacks, that's where they were getting cuts to the basket for layups. There were There's a huge play at the end of the game where Steph Curry was working on the left side of the floor and they completely lost Andrew Wiggins on the backside as a cutter, and he ended up getting a layup that tied the game. Having that speed and savvy on the back line was giving lots of give, generating lots of quality stuff for

Golden State. A couple things that were really interesting for Memphis that are concerning if you're a Memphis fan. Jared Jackson Jr. Shot the lights out, made six fres John Morant made four threes. I've talked a lot about how I think John Moran is going to project forward as a good shooter as he gets older, but right now he's pretty inconsistent for you to lose a game at

home with Jaren Jackson Jr. Giving you six threes. There was a sequence there in the second half where the dude was flat out gunning off the catch early in the shot clock as the trailing big man and knocking down like seven ft threes. That's that's tough to replicate. And we and as you saw, when the Warriors had their defense set, they did a good job of containing

John Moran and dribble drive scenarios. Where they struggled is when they weren't set and when they got too lazy off the ball and gave John Morant opportunities against weaker defenders on an island. But that'll be an interesting thing moving forward is how well can John morand shoot? How well can Jaren Jackson Jr. Shoot? Because they're not getting great stuff in the paint. You saw that in the Points in the Paint battle tonight. Looking forward in this series,

it's just gonna be curious to see. I talked a lot about how Memphis Is physical advantages will be what carries them as the as the series progresses. In the first half, the Warriors actually out offensive rebounded um Memphis. They had ten in Memphis had eight. In the second half, Memphis started to wear them out on the offensive glass a little bit. We all know how that goes. When the team has the physical advantages, you can make up

for it with effort to a certain extent. But the longer the games go, the longer the series is go, that's when those advantages become problematic. And there are simple physical mismatch type of UH matchups out there that are just gonna be difficult to deal with the entire series. There's a play late in the game, an inbounds play baseline out of bounds, Clay Thompson is guarding Brandon Clark.

That's a huge mismatch. Well, guess what they did. They ran Desmond Bayne out to the perimeter, made it look like Brandon Clark was gonna set a screen for him to get out there, and then Brandon Clark just kind of rolled around to the front of the rim and they just threw it up to Brandon Clark right over

the front of the rim. Clay Thompson had absolutely no no chance there because Brandon Clark is just bigger and taller and more athletic, and they got an easy lay up out of that in crunch time, you know, when when Golden States really dialed in defensively. So those are gonna be Memphis's greatest advantages as the series progresses. They're never gonna outskill Golden State. Golden States backcourt is the

most skilled backcourt in the entire MBA. They have no chance there, but they can win physical matchups with Golden State. That's gonna be the curious part as we move forward in this series is how well can Memphis inflict those things on Golden State over the course of the series. I'm still leaning Golden State. I just still think it's gonna be a long series. I could see this one

going six or seven games easily. All right, before we move on to Bucks and Celtics, I want to show you guys a promo about some other content we have here at the volume. Hi, it's Colin Coward. I started the volume to bring you some of the most apathetic voices in sports. While you're here, make sure you hit subscribe. Thanks. All right, let's move on to Bucks and Celtics. So this is a series that I've been incredibly excited for,

obviously for a lot of different reasons. And it was a really really strange Game one, and in the playoffs, game one is always the strangest game. There's so much that goes into you know, there's a game plan that both teams have when they come into the game, and there's it's always very different from the game plan they

end up having as the series progresses. You also can have things like one team coming in more confident or more comfortable, and to the Bucks credit, in this game, you could tell from the opening tip that they were a lot more confident and comfortable going into Boston than Brooklyn was, and that played out in a bunch of different areas of the game, obviously, and we predicted this

before the series. We thought that mill Wwaukee would be more capable of handling Boston's physicality, and we knew that that was a weakness of Brooklyn's because they played so many thin and non physical players. But at the same time, we had some very specific data and signs that told us that Boston's defense would make Milwaukee struggle, and that's

why I had to pick that I had. We're gonna get further into that as we go along today, but I want to start with the Bucks defense because there were I thought that Boston's offensive struggles, in their inability to consistently make the right reads against Milwaukee's defense, was what led to the transition on slot that compromised Boston's defense,

which is the strength of their team. Obviously, we can't see the final metrics until they update on NBA dot Com, but I would imagine that in the half court, Boston's defensive rating looks excellent, but they got destroyed in transition. They gave up a twenty eight to eight fast breakpoint advantage to Milwaukee. They gave up a twenty seven to six points off of turnovers advantage. That's where this game was one was in the helter skelter up and down.

How do transition possessions begin? Turnovers in bad shots, typically long jump shots that miss off of the rim, or a dude that gets all the way to the rim and misses a lay up. A missed lay up is always one of the most common plays to cause a transition possession because it usually involves a perimeter player driving to the basket and missing a shot around the rim while everyone else is running the other way. It's like

an instantaneous advantage. We knew coming into this series that Milwaukee's defense I believe they were twelve in the regular season. It was either twelve or thirteenth. That can't remember exactly, but that's a middle of the pack defense. But we also knew that when we dove into the numbers, they were amazing at protecting the paint and they were amazing

with their defensive rebounding. The reason why is all season long they tried to primarily play Janie at the four, either alongside Bobby Portis or towards the end of the season with Brooke Lopez, and the entire concept of their defense was owned the painted area at the expense of

everything on the back end. Like we talked about, Milwaukee led the league and giving up wide open threes this season defender at least six feet away, which is exactly why their defensive metrics were nowhere near as good as the other teams around the league. And I thought one of the biggest reasons why most of the Boston offensive players, Tatum, I thought, had a pretty good game, very similar to

his games against Brooklyn. He's observed he's absorbing the most defensive attention, he has the most difficult job, but he still did a lot to create offense. First team, it was the Marcus Smarts and the Jalen Browns and the Derrek Whites, the other guys that had the ball in their hand on the perimeter making decisions that really really struggled against Milwaukee's defense, and even Tatum did at stretches, but it all had to do with like playing right

into Milwaukee's defensive strengths. Think about how many times today you saw, you know, Jalen Brown or Jayson Tatum, test Brook Lopez or Janis Antenna Cumbo at the rim, even though you knew that was a low percentage play. And it's literally the way that Milwaukee's defense is set up. If you play into their strengths around the basket, then Milwaukee becomes an elite defensive team rather than an average

defensive team. There were two plays in particular that I wanted to kind of use to demonstrate what I'm talking about. So there was a play in the second half or Jason Tatum uses a ball screen at the top of the key. I believe it was Al Horford setting it, but I can't remember exactly. But Brook Lopez was the big man up at the screen. He was defending the screen, and because Tatum is so good off the dribble with

his jump shot, Brooke had to come up high. So Brooke is, you know, up around the three point line and Tatum easily splits. But Janice is on the floor, and you know that the next step in Milwaukee's rotation is Janice is gonna come over and protect the rim. And there was a wide open shooter in the left corner and Janie and er Tatum instead decided to test Jannie, and Jannat blocked it. All series are all series long. As often as Boston attempts to challenge sitting shot blockers

at the rim. They're going to struggle. That's just the nature of the way this defense works. In this game. Today, the Celtics were ten for thirty four from two point range. That's twenty points on thirty four possessions, or point five eight points per attempt. Every time they attempted to score in the painted area and went poorly for them, they attempted fifty three point shots. That seems like a lot, right, and they didn't even shoot particularly well. I believe they

only made eighteen. But the differences is when you make eighteen threes on fifty attempts, that comes out to fifty four points on fifty shots, which come out to one point zero eight points per possession. So they were scoring twice as many points on their three point attempts per shot then they were on stuff in the paint. Now people will say, Jason, does that mean that you're just supposed to take threes all game long? No, it's just those are that's the way you Every possession is about

making a read on that specific possession. When Jayson Tatum gets to the rim off of a split with Broglopez, it's not his job to score, just because he feels like it's time for him to score. No, you make the read, and the read was Janice came over to help. There was a wide open shooter in the week side corner. You have to make that read every time. There was a play second play in the second half that I wanted to use to demonstrate this. Jalen Brown. Jalen Brown

had a really bad offensive night. So what do you do when you're having a bad offensive night. You kind of try to continue to force the action. You try to make something happen to get your rhythm going, to get your confidence going, to get it into to score, to hopefully get the lid off the rim so that you feel better about yourself, and so only everything starts to click a little better. So I get that that's why players try to force when they're struggling. There's a

play I believe he was. I believe he was working against Pat connat him and I can't remember exactly who he was guarding in isolation, but Grant Williams was sitting on his left side in the corner, completely unguarded, and Bobby Portis was ignoring Grant Williams and coming over and straight up double teaming Jalen Brown at one point didn't even look at Grant Williams. Then, uh after after that, Portis kind of stunts back out for a second and

Brown goes to work. As soon as he puts the ball on the floor, Portis comes over and doubles again, and Grant Williams is standing wide open on the wing again, and he just didn't look at him, and instead he worked into the land. He pumped, faked, He ended up losing a shot attempt. He ended up losing a shot attempt and kicking it out, and I think Peyton Pritchard had to do a last second heave right before the

end of the shot clock. But again, it's like you don't do what you think you're supposed to do because you haven't scored in a while, or because you're trying to build your rhythm. Every possession you play basketball, you make reads. If the defense is taking away the paint, you have to consistently kick out the three point shooters and trust the results. Even if you miss two or three in a row, you know, over the course of the game, on your shot quality, you're going to score.

The Celtics did not shoot well tonight, and they still got one point zero eight points per every three point shot they took. So then what you'll see if you consistently make those reads and you consistently kick out, your three point shots will go up early in the game. But what will happen is it starts to lead to an outcome on the scoreboard where Milwaukee's giving up too many points. Suddenly they'll be a little less willing to double, a little less willing to rotate back to the paint.

That's when your opportunities are easier around the basket. You look at the point of the shot dispersion tonight, you're taking fifty three's and thirty four twos. If you do those reads exactly like I'm saying, it may result in the same split. It might be fifty threes again, and it might be thirty four two s, but the differences more of the threes might be earlier in the game, and the paint will be open later in the game. Now you're shooting percentages go up because the quality of

all of those shots are better. Instead of taking thirty four bad twos and fifty if e three's, you're taking thirty four good twos and fifty good threes. And then your shot quality goes up, your percentages go up, and that's when you start to see it manifest on the scoreboard. But all of those dynamics, that dynamic of Boston perpetually driving into the teeth of Milwaukee's defense and having no success. That led to Marcus Smart having a rough night, That

led to Jalen Brown having a rough night. That led to a lot of guys feeling uncomfortable in in in out of rhythm offensively. So what happens on the other end, Drew Holiday and Bobby Portis they feel very comfortable because they're playing the same style of basketball that they always played by Bobby Portis. Drew Holiday at forty points on thirty two shots, compared to Jalen Brown and Marcus Smart

having twenty two points on twenty four shots. If you were ranking the players in this game, you're probably naming at least four Milwaukee Bucks before you get to a second Celtic, if not more. That's the dynamic that happened there. A bunch of Celtics players played poorly because they were getting out of rhythm offensively, and then on the other end of the floor, Milwaukee was getting fantastic looks in

transition because of the struggle that Boston was had. Looking at Boston on defense, I actually thought they defended really well. They made Joanna struggle. He was nine for twenty five from the field. A lot of people were saying, like, oh, Janice had a poor shooting night. That's by design. Guys like uh, and again, and Janice played a great game. For the record, we're gonna talk about janice is all

around impact here in a minute. I didn't a couple of things that people need to understand about when I'm making these picks. I didn't say that. I thought, you know, uh, Janice was gonna struggle because I dislike Janice. I thought, honest was gonna struggle because I think Kevin Durant was the best player in the league. I that's what I thought before the series. But he's no worse than a top three player in the league, and he really struggled.

So that's the credit. Boston's defense has been the best defense in the league all season. They've been by far the best defense in the league in the last half of the season. There's a reason why I thought Janice would struggle the way that he did, and he did. To Janice his credit. He did a lot of things that I talked about succeeding in transitioning around the rim, you know, because he thrives in the physicality and the biggest area where Janice and this is something that Katie

really struggled with. In the last round. Janice had twelve assists tonight. Some of that was his teammates shooting the ball really well. Milwaukee shot really well while the game was still in question early on, but Janice was consistently willing to make the right reads to make Boston pay for their overaggression. I thought Milwaukee did some really smart stuff.

They would have um Grayson Allen always one pass away so that when the double teams came in and the alter skelter, when all the bodies were coming at Janice,

he always had this easy kick out to Grayson. And one of the nice things with Grayson is he's not only a confident three point shooter, but he's confident further out, like it's the NBA three point line is, you know, right around that fet right, but the the Grayson would is comfortable out to like twenty seven feet, So it's like a release valve where you can kick to him, and he's comfortable knocking down these deep three point shots.

A lot of like really smart stuff from Milwaukee to make it so that Janice the double teams resulting were resulting in quality shots on the other end. But again I thought, I thought shot making was a huge part of this. Look at the look at all of the times Drew Holiday in this game scored over contests. So I'm excited to get into the film on this tomorrow. But one of the things that really hurt Boston is they didn't have anybody if you look at their shot chart.

If you look at Boston shot chart, it's all threes and then misses in the painted area. They didn't have anybody that was like comfortable operating out of the mid range. And Drew Holiday in particular was getting all these little pop shots and floaters and and pull up two's and

things in the midrange that he was making. It was like it was where Milwaukee was getting a lot of their offense in the half court in particular, A ton of a credit to him, Bobby Portis was able to attack Jalen Brown in the post and get good shots almost every time. That's a that's a matchup thing that you can't lose if your Boston. You can't have your second best player lose a matchup head to head on both ends of the floor to like the fifth best

player on Milwaukee. That's gonna be a problem for Boston. Those are little areas where they that there's not really much scheming you can talk about. It's just they have to be better. Jalen Brown has to be better at making shots in isolation situations then Bobby Portis is. If that dynamic goes the other way, that's gonna be a problem.

But I wanted to give some credit to overall to the championship poise of Milwaukee, because in all the things that I just discussed with Boston really struggling with their decision jian making and just being smart basketball players, they got out of whack. They didn't even really resemble themselves, right, That's that's the lack of experience and the lack of

confidence to handle that type of situation. Milwaukee, they came in like we're you know, we know exactly who we are, we know what this environment is going to be, like, we don't care how physical it is. We've been trailing to zero in the series before, just like they did last year against Phoenix. They've been They were down to zero against Brooklyn, like like Milwaukee is just not scared of anything, and they came in like champs and they

were confident all night long. And as a result, they threw a very good first punch and Boston's first punch in the series was one of their worst punches. That's

an example of inexperience. And that's something that they'll have to figure out when I'm looking at Boston looking for And then one last note there with Janice again, just the difference between him and KD right now, and the reason why I have to put Janice ahead of k D now is he's demonstrating for us in this series that even though he's shooting poorly just like k D did, even though he's turning the ball over a lot, just like he did it had five I think he had

at least five turnovers tonight. Again, like he's having all the same struggles that k D did, just like we predicted he would in this series. But he's impacting, winning monstrously as a rim protector on defense and as a playmaker on offense, and just those two things were a massive swing factor in this game. And that's the reason why I valued those skills so much over the years. And it's a massive credit to honest And those are the leaps that he's made as a player that have

made him the best player in the world. Not a jump shot, not a turnaround, nifty post up, not a one legged fade away, not him knocking down threes. It's that stuff. Defending like crazy, like a defensive player of the Year, and playmaking when defensive send you tons of attention, those are the things that end up determining, uh, these outcomes. A couple of quick notes before we move on for those of people, people who want to take victory apps. Because I was very high in Boston. I said, I

thought they were the best defense of this era. I picked them to win the series in five games. First of all, wasn't that crazy of the take? Boston was a minus two hundred favorite in Vegas before before the series, like they were the better team from everybody who was paying attention up until this point. Okay, Like it's not exactly a shock. It would app if you picked Milwaukee to win this series, you were picking an upset. If

you happen to be right, that's awesome. I will absolutely acknowledge that if we get to that point, but there's a lot of evidence to back up the claims that I was making. I said Boston was the best defense of this era. They literally were the number one defense in the league for the entire regular season. Ever since January three, they were five points better per one hund

possession than everybody in the entire league. On the defensive end of the floor, they took Katie and Kyrie, who averaged a hundred and twenty three points per Hunter possessions on offense in the regular season, and brought that down to one thirteen. They held him ten points below the regular season average. We have tons of evidence of how great this Boston defense is, and they were excellent again tonight in the half court. So Boston played poorly there there.

Milwaukee clearly demonstrated some things that are going to be interesting as the series progresses, but I'm still picking Boston. I never overreact to Game ones. I literally watched I've seen so many all of you guys have seen so many examples over the years of a team going on the road in Game one and having an impressive win and then the better team taking control no different than when the Celtics one in Milwaukee with Kyrie a couple of years ago and then got swept the rest of

the way. It's the better team is Boston. They've demonstrated that over an extensive stretch. If Milwaukee wins this series, it will be an example of the fact that we are that the evidence that we saw over the course of the last six months was was inaccurate compared to what Milwaukee's playoff ceiling was. And if that happens, we react at that point. But I'm never going to react after Game one. Guys, if Milwaukee sweeps Boston, I'm not gonna sit here and go down with the ship. I

will happily admit that I was wrong about something. We're just not there yet. If we get there, we'll confronted at that point. And then last note, looking forward in this series with Boston again, it's just role players have to play better. Marcus Smartin and Jalen Brown have to be able to at least compete as shot makers and decision makers with Drew Holiday and Bobby Portis. You can't get beaten those matchups. Their half court defense was excellent.

We will take a closer look at that tomorrow in some film. Um, but they got killed in transition, so they need to execute better on offense so that they don't get killed in transition. And then one adjustment for Milwaukee with Joannice. I thought Joannice was a little bit uh. He did some great playmaking, but he also was a little bit of a gunner and took some shots in

traffic that he probably shouldn't have. I think Milwaukee, Uh, it's similar to the way Tatum is just kind of taking attention and trying to make plays for his teammates. I'd like to see Janice tone back a little bit on some of the shots in traffic because those I think in at her punch from Boston, that kind of dynamic could get you beat. You're getting easy looks when you're passing out of that. That needs to be honest as approach. Moving forward, super excited to see the rest

of the series. Again, I'm still sticking with Boston, but this makes it complicated. I picked Boston in five. The trick is is I think Milwaukee gets one of Game three or four on their home floor, so now that suddenly pushes it to six. Game six is in Milwaukee. That's gonna be a game where now with with them having home court, that could be a game that Milwaukee is probably gonna be favored in. Right, So I'm still leaning Boston, but this probably means it's gonna be a

longer series and could very well go seven. Hi, It's Colin Coward. I started the volume to bring you some of the most apathetic voices in sports. While you're here, make sure you hit subscribe. Thanks. One last note on the Celtics. They did update the NBA dot Com numbers and Celtics only gave up a hundred points per one

possessions today, which is a great number. And when you look at how successful Milwaukee was in transition, we laid those numbers out to eight in fast breakpoint advantages, you know, twenty six to seven and points off the turnovers. My guess is tomorrow, when I go look into cleaning the glass and see the stats that Boston's half court defense against Milwaukee was phenomenal. That is a good thing that

they can move forward with in this series. A good way too, because now they have to win four the next six games, right, and a good way to do that is to be able to get stops in the half court because you can limit your mistakes with better decision making in the half court, avoiding turnovers, better shot selection to avoid those runouts. That is a positive sign

if you're Boston looking forward. Before we move on, because we're gonna talk a little bit about this Joel and Beat News, I wanted to hit our housekeeping notes one more time. Make sure you like this video and subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our content. Check out our newsletter. There is a link to subscribe to it in the description of this video. It's a great way to keep up with

all of our content and see what's coming on the horizon. Also, make sure you check out our boss man, Colin Cowards podcast. He's got a surprising winner for this year's NFL Draft, and Draymond Green all. This is the place to get Draymond Green content. It's the best content in sports right now. You're getting instant reactions from a player that's in the trenches in this playoff series. I think it's such incredible content. He will be reacting to Game one of this series

in the next twenty four hours. You won't want to miss that. And then last but not least, do not forget to follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT. Every morning, I wake up and I watched the film from the previous night, and I do breakdowns and I give you video examples of all of the things that I'm talking about, so you can kind of see the actual basketball stuff that that that you can actually see how I reach these conclusions. And I do those breakdowns

each morning. So follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT. All right, so let's move on to this Joel embiad news. So we did a full length YouTube breakdown of this series that you can find on our Volume YouTube channel right now just by scrolling down. And so if you want to see all of the details and the weeds, that's the play to go. The thing that was a throwoff for me in this particular series was how much is MBI gonna play? When the original shampsire any report

came out, it was so like vague. It was like, we're shutting him down, but like we don't know how long. Does this mean he's out for the season. Does this mean he's you know, gonna come back in time for

Game one? Well, we got more information on that he's going to miss at least games one and two in Miami, and that is that's tough because when I was when I did my breakdown, I factored in and beat available for all the games because I was like, I have no idea what to expect here, might as well try to prep for the series as if O L is playing.

And I had originally picked the sixers in six games, and I did a I had a bunch of reasons for that, Mainly, I think people are underestimating just how important it is to have great shooting off of Joel Embiid. And one of the huge swing factors in that Toronto Raptors series was Tobias Harris, Tyrese Maxie and Danny Green and George's kneeing, those four guys just being deadly in spot up roles. Those four guys were eleven for twenty three from three in the close out game in Toronto.

And so what's happening is even though Embiad is struggling with the double teams at first, even though he's just making like that quick swing pass out to the perimeter, they're working it around and really good, frankly overqualified players for the roles that they're being asked to field are capitalizing off of all that attention, and so I thought that specifically, uh Philly's ability to capitalize on that defensive tension was going to give them their best chance to

win this series. Miami. There's a lot of like p J. Tucker in there. There's a lot of like bamat a Bio, guys that you don't necessarily have to guard out at the three point line that can really affect their spacing. The core lineup for Philly Joel m b James Hard and Tyrese Maxie, Danny Green and Tobias Harris. There's nobody in that group that you can leave wide open. They will burn you consistently. And so that's the dynamic in that series that that that I liked a lot. But

with Joel em beat out, it gets tricky. We just talked about this with the Celtics. You know, the home court thing plays a significant role a lot of times. While you pick an underdog in Game six is because they steal a game on the road and then they win a home game in Game six. As if that dynamic gets thrown off by a winner a loss. Early on, I picked the Celtics in five because I thought they'd

win games one and two. Then I thought they'd lose one of the two games in Milwaukee and then take a three one lead home to Boston, where it'd be extremely difficult to lose a closeout game in front of your home crowd. But losing game one now puts you in a weird predicament where to have a close out opportunity at home, you either have to win both games in Milwaukee or you have to close them out in

game seven, where anything can happen. That's the dynamic of home court advantage in a playoff series, and how tricky that can get. So for the Sixers, like you're going to Miami without Joel Embiid, You're probably gonna lose both of those games. So now you're down two games to none. There's a lot of pressure on you at home to hold home court if you lose one of those games. Now you're down three one going back to Miami in

a closeout game. So it gets really tricky for me to continue saying sixers and six when Joe, when Joel embiads gonna miss the first two games, And what's so funny about that is, like, let's back up in time really quick to two eighteen, and Chris Paul and James Harden are at the top of the basketball world practically with an opportunity to beat the Warriors and have a chance to win an NBA championship. Chris Paul pulls his hamstring.

They lose. Then in two thousand nineteen, they have a disappointing loss to the Warriors where Kevin Durank goes down and they still lose in six games. Right, Well, at for that, we have a falling out between James Harden and Chris Paul. He ships Chris Paul off. He thinks he's not good enough to be a teammate of his ops for Russell Westbrook instead. Not the first guy too, I'm not the last guy, I should say to make that mistake. Well, what's super interesting about this is now

we fast forward two. Chris Paul is the old guy. Chris Paul is the one that's at an age disadvantage here with all the mileage. Okay, Devin Booker goes down the hamstring injury in Game two. What did I tell you guys on the show? I said, Chris Paul will win this series without Devin Booker. He is playing some of the best basketball of his career. All he has to do is float the ship long enough for Devin

Booker to get back, then they'll have the chance. Do any of you think that James Harden can go into Miami and steal a game. He might, and if he does again, I'll be the first guy to come up here and give him props. But if I said, if I said Philly was gonna steal a game in Miami over the course of the next three days, what do

you think would be the driving force behind that? I would say the most likely outcome there as Tyrese max He goes off and Tyrese Maxie has like a thirty eight point night where he just torches everybody in transition,

flying up and down the floor. Like your confidence factor in James Harden and his ability to steal one of these games to buy Joel Embi the opportunity to get right and get back on on the core on the court, your confidence factor and James Harden is extraordinarily low, right, whereas Chris Paul, You're like, yeah, he's probably gonna do it.

And even above and beyond that game six, Chris Paul has one of the greatest playoff performances of all time and goes fourteen for fourteen from the field, the staving off that game seven where anything can happen. It's just an unbelievably ironic turn of events to where Chris Paul is like, definitively a better basketball player than James Harden right now at his age, which is completely ridiculous, a far more dependable playoff player. Just a bizarre turn of

a and and honestly like it. Kind of I hate revisionist history, but it kind of we have to look back at that two thousand eighteen rockets run is a little bit more of a Chris Paul thing. Not that James Harden wasn't amazing at that time, because he was, but Chris Paul and what he brought to the table complimented James Harden so well and covered so many of

his flaws. Hopefully one day James Harden appreciates that, because that was that was a significant ally that he had in his corner that he turned away, you know, for a lot of different reasons, but I would argue and had a lot to do with the fact that Chris Paul is that type of dead serious competitor that James Harden cannot be from time to time, and that causes problems as far as it pick for this series. It's so difficult to tell. There's no guarantee that that joe

El Embie is gonna come back in game three. To me, losing those first two games of Joel Embi just puts them too far behind the eight ball. It's just too difficult to expect them to win the games that they would need to win without him and have a chance to win this series. So now with the news that all and Beat is out for the first two games of the series, I'm actually gonna go back to uh picking Miami to win this series. Going down two oh is just it's it's just an incredibly difficult hole to

dig yourself out of. So I'm gonna go with Miami really quickly. Before we get out of here tonight, I just want to talk for a quick second about Luca and the Sons again. We did a full We did a full breakdown of this on the YouTube channel, so you can scroll down and you could see it there. This series, to me, there's two dynamics that I think are gonna swing that are gonna be the key swing factors.

So for Dallas on offense, it's gonna be how frequently can Luca get Chris Paul and Devin Booker on an island? Because he is one of the best big body mismatch attackers that we have in the league because of his ability, he's kind of like Yokich in the sense that he's so good at using body positioning on smaller defenders to kind of pin them in places where they don't affect

him shooting. And he has all these arsenals, this like deep arsenal of mid range jump shots that are turning around over both shoulders to like push shots and floaters and things around that ten foot line that makes him so incredibly difficult to guard. And this is not like a This is not gonna be like a team that has a ton of length and athleticism on the floor at all times. Phoenix will regularly have guys like Devin Booker Chris Paul campaign on the floor where you have

opportunities for Luca to attack. How willing is Phoenix to give up those switches because they're gonna have Michhail Bridges guard Luca the entire game if they can find a way to navigate all those screens with Michael Bridges so that he doesn't get off a Luca that often. That could be a big swing factor for Phoenix. And then on the other end of the floor, it's the opposite of the Utah Jazz dynamic. Dallas was able to have a lot of success switching against Utah because when they'd switched,

Rudy Gobert could not make them pay. Rudy Gobert is not capable of it. He's one of the worst, like as far as guys who are highly paid, he's one of the worst, like interior scorers in the league as as a big man. That's that's that's difficult to deal with in a switching scheme because you're gonna put a guy like Jalen bruntson and onto Rudy Gobert and back him into the paint and he's holding his arm of calling for the ball no one, no one even wants to give it to him. Well, that's not the case

with DeAndre Aton. Chris Paul and DeAndre Aton have this amazing chemistry to where when they get those switches, which Dallas is gonna do a lot of switching in those scenarios. My guess is they'll drop in specific scenarios, but they'll do a lot of switching in those switch scenarios. Chris Paul is just gonna pull the bout ball back out

and he's gonna dump it into DeAndre Ayton. DeAndre Ayton is great at doing a quick seal and then turning over his left shoulder with a right handed hook, and he makes it about half the time, which is a really good way to go attacking switches. That's a dominant card to have in your hand in that type of situation. That's gonna be really interesting series. Again, if you guys want to see more detailed in a breakdown of this series,

scroll down on our YouTube page. My my head tells me that Phoenix is gonna dominate, that they're gonna win quickly, but I just can't. I said the same thing about the Clippers series is the last two years, because they had so much more talent than Dallas in Luca, because he's one of the greatest basketball players we have in the league right now, just found a way through his

greatness to drag that series out. Attacking matchups. He strangles the pace of a game in a way that disrupts the real The only other player I've seen in the league that does it to this extent is Lebron. But there's this dynamic when Luca is really in a flow that reminds me of when Lebron was in a flow.

And Lebron still has this to a certain extent, but especially when he was in his prime, where everyone else on the floor, especially on the the other team, everybody on the other team is out of rhythm and their confidence dips because you just can feel that Luca slash. Lebron just has like a stranglehold over the game. And Luca has just done that too many times in his career for me to sit up here and say that the Sons are gonna get him out of here quickly.

They very well might, and if they do, that'll be what all the evidence was pointing towards Phoenix is the better team. But I I I think that Dallas is gonna find a way to drag this out. So I'm going Phoenix in a long, a long series. The the interesting the opportunity for Dallas to steal this series is early. Devin Booker is not a percent yet. You saw that

a little bit. He made two massive shots down the stretch of that Pelicans game, a Wonder will pull up to his right like a contested pull up too, and then a spot up three in the left corner, and those were massive shots, but they were not leaning on Devin Booker as like a high intensity shot creator in

those settings. It kind of looked a lot more like James Harden last year in the playoffs in Brooklyn, where he's kind of like a decoy consuming defensive attention in a spot up role, trying to make plays off the bounce with this passing rather than shooting a lot because he had that hamstring issue. That's kind of like what Devin Booker looked like. Chances are he's not going to be close to in the first few games of the series.

That's your chance when your Dallas, if you can somehow get this to a three one, steal a game in Phoenix control home court when Devin Booker is limited, and somehow that buys you that that buys you margin for error to try to steal a game later in the series when Devin Booker is closer to and he gets cooking and the Suns get back to their full confidence on offense, that's gonna be their opportunity Dallas needs to get an early lead in the series. Al Right, guys,

that is all I have for tonight. Don't forget to check out my Twitter feed tomorrow morning for some breakdowns of these of today's games. We will be back tomorrow night after the final buzzer the final game of the night for a normal live show like usual as always. I sincerely appreciate your guys support and I will see you tomorrow. The volume