Hoops Tonight - Warriors Go Up 3-1 On Rockets + Cavs Offensive Juggernaut

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we're gonna get to. And then at the tail end of the show, like we always do, we're gonna take some questions from the chat, So stick around for the end and we can bounce around to some of these other series around the league or any follow up questions you got. I really like when you guys use the chat questions as an opportunity to bring up specific parts of series that I may not get to in the instant reaction. You guys know the joke before we get started.

To Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore json lt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast for you wherever. Get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front.

We also have our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, where were making content throughout there to make sure you guys follow us there, And then, last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in YouTube comments so we can get to him throughout the remainder of the postseason. All right, let's talk some basketball. So super weird game, insanely physical,

very contentious. Early, I thought the first scuffle was super dumb, Like I thought Draymond said it perfectly legal playoff screen. I've talked about how the Warriors set a shit ton of illegal screens.

And I thought the technical specifically on Draymond in that situation was really dumb, and that ended up putting the refs into a tough spot on the next sequence because on the Tar Easton play, you bet your ass, Draymond Green deserved a technical as he was like grabbing his leg and tried to supplex him on the middle of the floor, and that put the refs in a really

tough spot. But I actually thought the ref's handled it pretty well by giving him a flagrant instead of giving him a TECH, because Draymond did not deserve to be ejected there because the first tech was bogus. But both Draymond and Steph were just a bit off their game tonight. I thought Steph showed his first signs of some wear and tear in this series, like he was struggling to get open. He had three jump shots that he left way short, like way short off the front of the rim.

That is a strong indicator of a shooter just not really having his legs underneath him. And so I think that under those circumstances, Draymond being in foul trouble that really unlocked this Fred van Vliet alprin Shannghun two man game, which we'll talk about in a second, but the yet Fred van Vliet playing really well in this game, as a team. The Rocket shot forty eight percent from three.

A lot of things went the wrong way for the Warriors tonight, which put a lot of pressure on the rest of the roster to be awesome, and they were. It turned into a super tight game because, as I mentioned, as Draymond got into foul trouble that really unlocked the Fred van Vliet Alpern Shangun two man game. And it was a combination of different things, Like there was a stretch where Shangun was just going straight iso against Quinton

post and having some success. But when him and Fred were out there, what they were doing is they were just posting Alpern Shangoun with Fred van Vliet one pass away. And the thing that makes that tough in particular is if you double from that top side, it's just the

easiest kickout pass in the world. And so then it turned into this like you're letting Shangun play one on one in the post where he's scoring, or you're helping off of Fred VanVleet where he's hitting all of his wide open catch and shoot threes, and that just dragged the game into a much more competitive situation than the Warriors are used to specifically dealing with Rockets actually having some success on offense in the half court.

he was wide open again. That was how he got the three that tied the game. Then after that they were like, okay, well we don't want to give up the pick and pop three in this inverted ball screen, so let's try switching it.

what are you going to do? And for the Rockets, for the first time all series, they found something that they could actually go to and have some real success with in the form of the Alprin Shangun Fred van Vliet two man game, which by the way, I would imagine we'll see quite a bit more of when we

get into game five. But on the final possession, you need one stop to win the game, and they run the exact same action Shanggun at the top Fred van Vliet inverted ball screen step one was not allowing the switch. Both Gary Payton and Draymond Green did a great job

with physicality preventing the switch from occurring. Then I actually thought there was plenty of time for them to try to set it again, but immediately they bailed on the screening action and Shangun went straight ISO against Draymont Now against Gary Payton. Because of the size advantage, he was able to spin over that left shoulder and get all the way to the rim. Draymond Green beats him to the spot, forces him into a deeper hook shot a shot that Shangun can make. And look, here's the thing.

When you're doing that job guarding the other team's best offensive player in a one possession situation, you're not going to block them. In all likelihood, you're not likely or going to necessarily take the ball away from them.

wrong way, you just need to make a play. As I always say, it doesn't matter how bad you've played, if you can make a play at the end of the game that can help your team win. Draymond the defense on Shanggon Steph Curry that baseline out of bounds play where he comes off and gets the switch against Shanguon and smartly uses the pump fake to get shangu off of his feet. Biggs typically aren't as disciplined in those sorts of situations. That one shot was a monster

shot from Steph Curry down the stretch. So even though both of them were a little off their game tonight, they both both made huge plays down the stretch. But the circumstances Draymond's foult trouble, Steph's rough kind of like athletic Night, the three point shooting from the Rockets, the Fred van Vliet getting going. Like I always talk about, the rockets are just so much tougher to handle when Fred van Vliet or Jalen Green are going to the

extent that they are going. And it just a lot went against them, and so you needed other guys to step up, and a bunch of guys stepped up. Jimmy Butler was a godsend in this game, just brought a ton of downhill aggression. I think the first and biggest takeaway is that he looks great physically, so any concern surrounding the butt injury, I think you can feel a lot better about that after this game. He did a

great job of attacking bigs and switches. The Warriors did a great job out off of Jimmy Butler cutting off the ball. Buddy healed early in the game. Like, when those guys are driving to the basket, all eyes tend to be directed towards them, and if you can cut and move off the ball, you can create a lot of opportunities there. And guys were moving off of Jimmy. It felt like every single time they needed a stabilizing bucket, Jimmy was able to make something happen. And then Brandon

pa Jemski six made threes some beautiful closeout attacks. Had a huge stop late in the game against Fred van Vliet with a back pressure situation where he blocked Fred on a floater on a key possession. Late in the game, Pods had four offensive rebounds. I thought as a team, the Warriors did a great job in the second half on the offensive glass, like one of the biggest ways you can punish a team for putting two on the

ball or being really aggressive on a star. The way that the Rockets have been with stephfall series is to crash the glass, because if you're open for a three, you're not just open for a three, you're open for a cut. You're open for a crash to get something off of the offensive glass, and the Warriors did a bunch of damage in those situations. Pajemski was amazing tonight. Buddy Heal put in fifteen points. He had some really nice cuts off of Jimmy Butler drives as well. Quinton

Post scored thirteen points. Had some trouble in his minutes because he had to play a lot of one on one defense against Shangoon, but those buckets are important in a series like this where the buckets are hard to come by. In the game, just an absolutely huge win for the Warriors to survive the type of night that they were having. And again, it's just a completely different

series if one single play goes the other way. If Steph doesn't hit that three in the left corner, if Draymond doesn't get that stop against Shanng Gooon, if Brandon Pajemski doesn't beat that close out late in the clock and make that banking runner against Jalen Green, you know like it. There are just so many examples of guys just finding a way to make a play in a

game that is determined by inches. If we've learned anything from the last few days, it's that these playoffs, the margins are just so thin between everything looking different if one thing goes in a different direction, Like the Piston series has swung on a few late game sequences, the Wolves Lakers game has swung on a few late sequences, this Rocket Warriors series has swung on a few late game sequences. It's just it's the margins are so thin, which is why I talk so much during the regular

season about attention to detail. One mistake can be the difference between you winning and losing not just a game, but a series. You go on the road back to La to two if you're the Wolves, totally different series. You go on the road back to Houston to two for the Warriors, that's a totally different series. You lose that game last night if you're or in the morning if you're the Knicks, totally different series going home to two, and it's like it's just it's always comes down to

those small details. Stick around for the mail bag at the tail end of the show if you guys have other questions about that series. Before we talk Calves real quick, I just wanted to make an announcement for the show that is actually something very important that I'm very are excited about. I am excited to do notes that we are starting a partnership with Playback. This is a platform

that I really believe in. Actually personally reached out to the Volume and asked them to explore it specifically because I believe in it. We have a lot of big picture plans. I'm excited to use playback next year potentially as like a watch along kind of thing where we can find Big League pass games and you guys can come hang out during the game and we can actually watch a game together, talk about the game together. I can give like live play by play, live analysis of

the game as things are going on. I have a lot of big picture plans for it. But for this year's playoffs, we're starting with something that we're calling the Oops Tonight after show, So starting on Wednesday, two days from today, after Game five of the Warriors Rocket Series. In Game five, of the Lakers Wolves series immediately after we finished doing the live reaction show here on YouTube.

So we're still doing the normal live reaction show, but right when we're done and we're gonna head over to playback for an after show and playback. One of the big things that I love about it is amazing for interaction with listeners, So you can actually come on stage and ask questions to myself and to Jackson. We can talk coops as a community together. We're gonna watch film together.

So like, imagine we're watching game one of the second round series between the Warriors and the Timberwolves, and the Warriors win the game with like a huge eighteen to two run, or like it's Thunder versus Clippers Nuggets and they win a game on a huge fourth quarter run. We'll watch it together and you guys will be able to ask questions as we go. I just think it's going to be an incredible addition to what we do here at Hoops tonight. And I think there's a ton

of big picture potential too. So we have a link in the description of this video for you guys to follow to get set up with a playback account, and that link will take you directly to our channel, so you guys can get set up. Head over there, get subscribed to our channel, and we will get started with what is going to be a really cool new venture for the show.

one to eighteen. Their offensive rating in the half court in this series is higher than the Celtics last year logged against the Heat overall in the first round series, counting transition, counting everything in the game, they had a one the heat or the Calves in this first round series. This first round sweep logged a one thirty six overall offensive rating counting transition, possessions and everything else, sixteen points better per one hundred possessions than any other team in

this playoff run. They demolished the heat and transition. They scored forty three transition points just in the last two games down in Miami. Their bigs run the floor extremely well. Jared Allen did a ton of damage there. Evan Mobley has been kind of an interesting connective passer for them in transition. As he catches the ball up the floor, they move the ball well. They'll fill three or four passes right away on these transition possessions. You're in the

blender immediately. But as I mentioned, in the half court, they are lighting teams up. They got this is crazy on pick and roll. Just on pick and rolls in the half court, including passes, the Cavs logged one point three to two points per possession. That's astronomical. Three of the very best in the league to do it. We all know what Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland can do Tied Jerome in the first round, obviously in a smaller role coming off the bench, twenty six points, six rebounds,

and eight assists per thirty six minutes. So that's the level at which he's producing in the minutes that he's on the floor relative to what it would look like in a larger role. On sixty eight percent true shooting. He ran forty five ball screens in the first round. That led to sixty three points one point four points per possession a one forty offensive rating on ti Jerme ball screens including passes. He personally shot fourteen for twenty three from the field out of ball screens. The shot

making is insane. Obviously the floaters, but he's been hitting like crazy contested off.

of ball screens per game. It's so important to have everybody involved to play at the pace that the Cavs play at, because if you have play finishers surrounding guys that start everything, it's hard to play in transition because guys hesitate, they don't feel empowered to be aggressive in those situations. You need decisive and aggression. You need decisive and aggressive offense around the entire floor. In order to run this style of offense, you gotta have Max Strews

feel like I like this shot, I'm taking it. You have to have Max Shrew's thinking I can curl off of this screen and make a play for myself for my teammates. You have to have Evan Mobley feeling like He's empowered to be aggressive off the bounce. Everybody on the floor has to be empowered in order for this style to work, and it's working. The catch and shoot

plays insane DeAndre Hunter and Max Struce. I was watching a bunch of offensive tape earlier this afternoon and like the kinds of like smothered catch and shoot looks that Struce and DeAndre Hunter will knock down are insane. Guys are right there up on them and they're just rising up over the top and knocking down shots. DeAndre Hunter shot seven for nine on guarded catch and shoot threes in this series. Max Struce was eight for nineteen. That's

forty two percent. Those guys made fifteen catch and shoot threes in the series with the defender right up on them. I am dangerously close to picking the Calves to beat the Celtics should they meet in the conference finals. I'm not going to decide until after the second round. The this is a team that is quite literally humming on

all cylinders. Again, for comparison, last year, the Celtics against the Heat in the first round obviously a little bit different team, but against the Heat last year logged a one to eighteen offensive rating. The Calves are at one thirty six in that first round. The Calves are operating at a higher level offensively right now than any team in the league by a wide margin. They have home court advantage, They're a bit less banged up, although Darius Garland did miss the last two games with a big

toast brain on his left foot. I'm leaning much closer to that being a coin flip series with how both teams are looking at this point, and I'm again I'm gonna wait till after the next round. How things look in the next round will obviously be something I keep an eye on. As I mentioned last night, the Pacers and Calves are a really interesting matchup because I think the Pacers are a very similar type of team to

the Calves. They just are a little less talented at most of their position groups, but they play a very similar style. They did give the Calves some issues at times this year, so I'm just really interested to see how the Calves look in that matchup. The Knicks, obviously, from this Pistons team have been forced to improve on both ends of the floor over the course of the series, as they've diversified their offense and had to get stops in big moments late in games that they've been able

to get. Calves are Calves, Pacers and Nick Celtics is gonna be a really fun second round in the Eastern Conference. I'm gonna wait until we get to the conference finals before I make any sort of pick there, but I am dangerously close to picking Cleveland. They're just playing at

such an insanely high level. And when you look at like and again, I know guys were out of the lineup for Boston in the last win that the Calves had, but the way that the Celtics jumped them by like twenty in the first quarter, and the Calves just chewed them up and spit them out over the rest of the game, just by playing with pace and just driving and kicking them to death. The Calves literally in this first round made one of the most tough and disciplined organizations in the NBA.

playing every other day. But like I look at it like this, Steph is wearing down a little bit, so is everybody. These playoffs are extremely physical. The most important

thing you can do is end a series early. And so I actually think it's more important to play an extra three to four minutes here or there and end of series and five than it is to cut minutes down but then have to play an entire additional game, an entire different especially when you get later in the series, and the travel schedule gets crazier as you go back and forth, like game four, Game five, Game six, Game seven are all in different cities, so like it can

get really tough at that point. I think it's a valuable I think it's a worthwhile risk to try to end a series early.

regular season as opposed to Jalen Brunson playing thirty nine. Right, that is part of the equation if you're the Golden State Warriors.

are you taking me out? And you I obviously I am not a lip reader, but it looked like Steve Kerr kind of leaned into him and said like, hey, just get a quick breather here so that you can come in and close the deal. And so again, there's two different ways to look at it. There's the JJ Reddick Tom Thibodeau type of style, where it's like, all we have to do is survive this game when we get this extra time off, these are my guys. I trust these guys. Let's ride him through to the finish line.

And then there's the Steve Kerr approach, which is like, if Steph is closer to one hundred percent of his ability for five minutes, do we have a better chance of winning the game than Steph being at eighty three percent of his ability for seven minutes In a fourth quarter, and I feel like he's constantly kind of weighing that balance, and a lot of times it's a lot of times it's a judgment call based on how the game's going, Like if the bench group is struggling, he might pull

the trigger a little bit earlier. It's in that game three, I think Steve literally was thinking, like, we're kind of in control here. We can afford to buy Steph a minute or two so that he has a chance to rest. But it's always complicated, and there are conflicting ideologies, and a lot of it is just playing the results. Like if the Knicks lose a game and they look tired, everyone's going to call Tom Thibdau an idiot. After game four,

everyone calls JJ Redick an idiot. But if it works all of a sudden, there are geniuses, and so a lot of it's just playing the results.

Shangun has been kicking people's asses all year. Ye I. I joke on the show that he's been like the winner of my Like Film Session award for the guy that most frequently has to be watching the film, like, holy shit, he's kicking his ass like Shanggun is an ass kicker. Like he he is a very good player. If you can't match up with him physically, and Post was getting cooked, they needed to buy a few minutes. It was worth the try. It didn't work out, but

I mean it is what it is. I don't blame Trace though, because he got put in a really tough spot.

something that you just see. But like his aggression. They went to him on that late ISO on the right wing, which I thought was interesting when he took the left shoulder fate that he ended up missing. I thought Jimmy's aggression was fine as far as the rim decisions, Like in a series this physical, there's a lot of misses around the rim that are not leading to foul shots, and so if you don't feel really good about your chances of making the shot, you don't want to put

the outcome in the hand of the ref. Like, that's the big issue with grifting that I have and why I'm not a huge fan of it in the big picture. And by the way, I'm not. I have grifters on the team that I root for, and the Warriors have a grifter on their team. Like the downside to grifting is you take control of the situation and you put it in the hands of the official, whereas if you function more as a shot maker, you put the control

of the situation into your hands. And so, honestly, like, I think it was good that Jimmy wasn't trying to just grift at the rim all game and that he was trying to like make the kickout reads that were there, because that keeps control of the situation in the hands of the players.

a contested Draymond Green layup attempt. It's a better shot, period, point blank, no matter what the context is surrounding those two elements, right, And so if Draymond Green is not gonna pass the layup, a wide open one off, a fake handoff where the guy defense totally bites, right, But is he is it in the team's best interest to challenge Steven Adams, for example, who was in for long stretch of the game in the second half at the rim.

avalanche later on. Like you're investing, Like that's that's part of the point guard position. Like you've got to invest in the rhythm of your teammates over the course of games. And like all of this stuff is intricately connected. And you know, there's a reason why there's a Warriors culture that's like make the extra pass. Like, hey, buddy, this

is your teammate. Let me introduce to you. His name is Steph or like you know, Jimmy Butler saying, hey, don't ever dribble the ball, buddy, healed, because like they're all working together to maximize this offensive system through their communication, and like the best version of the Warriors is the version of the Warriors you saw in game three and in game one, which is when Steph Curry is When Steph Curry is cooking, the other team literally gets like

emotionally demolished, and they like curl up within themselves and every other warrior gets invigorated on defense and they just become incredibly difficult to handle. It's been like that for a decade. You got to invest in Steph as much as possible as a shot.

like I've never been like a manipulative trash talker. I'm much more of like guy state. I focused on what I can control with my teammates, and I'm a big, like teammate energy guy, like trying to help everybody on my team stay confident and engaged on both ends of the four throughout the game. But like I'm there's a better person to ask that question too, I just don't

have much experience trying to manipulatively trash talk. But that said, one thing I will say I have seen examples of guys do that in at work, where a player succumbs to it in the form of trying to get out of the game and focus on just winning his individual matchup. So like start to force the issue. I've also seen guys like completely crumble in their confidence and fall apart.

So like I suppose it can work, But I've also seen trash talkers get themselves out of whack by getting too invested into trash talk situations, and like Draymond played a dangerous game almost getting himself ejected today by getting

into a bunch of altercations. There was a play where Jimmy Butler and Dylan Brooks were like talking shit to each other at the fou and on the box out, Jimmy Butler's hands ended up around Dylan Brooks's neck and like had Dylan Brooks like thrown a hand and like tried to hit him back or something, that could have immediately gone into a full on like scrum, but Dylan just fell down and it ended up just being a

play on. But like I would imagine, just like anything else, there's given a take with it.

But for a defender who's not required to methodically run offense or take a bunch of jump shots, they can afford to get super worked up and have it not have as much of a downside. So I don't think it's a coincidence that you see a lot of guys like Dylan Brooks, like Patrick Beverley, like dray Mungreen that end up embodying that type of personality.

it steady throughout every court. By the way, they only ran four possessions of zone total in the first three games of the series. They ran thirty one tonight, So definitely something we talked about that after Game three though, that we expected them to run a lot more zone

later in the series. But honestly, I think you know, we talked so much about coaching within the context of like, oh, well, here's what this lineup data show, or oh, here's what you know this player should theoretically do to be able to compliment what this other player does, and often, like as a coach, in the moment, you're trying to read how guys are playing, like, oh, like Jalen Green doesn't really have it tonight, let's lean more into Jabari Smith Junior,

Or like, oh, our zone looks are causing them some problems, let's lean into Steven Adams more well, look at this, like Steven Adams's rim protection is having a real impact on the on the Warriors at the rim, Like this

is something that we should be investing in. Like that is always a call that you're making in the moment as a coach, And it's a lot harder than it looks in the moment when everything is going down and the game is moving way faster than you think it would in that sort of situation, and it's just it's a tough call. But I think I think, like whether or not you see a bunch of Steven Adams in game in game five is going to come down to how it looks and by the way, we saw him

a lot in the second half. In those zone possessions, the Warriors were actually one point three points per possession in the first half, but in the second half and twenty two possessions, the Warriors were zero point eighty six points per possession. So emai Udoka is probably making a call in the moment saying like, this is what.

they're doing. They're pow wowing as a group before they go to the bench to talk like that's as soon as the timeout is called. The players all go sit down, they start drinking water and they take a break. The coaches all huddle up and they decide what they're going

to do. Then they head over to the bench and then they relay the message that they want to relay, and a lot of times it's getting information like, oh, hey, by the way, we're defending really well with Steven Adams, were plus you know whatever in his minutes, we're getting this point per possession on zone. And then he made you don't come out go like Okay, I'm gonna ride Steven Adams for longer. It's all like an in the moment type of decision.

has been closed, Lakers Wolves has been closed. So when you get all of these teams, and by the way, every single team I listed except for Detroit and Orlando have like legitimate championship aspirations, like they think they're gonna win the title. So what that leads to is like an insane level of intensity and competitiveness that manifests in physicality. And now the ref's job is to try to control it.

But if they control it by calling a bunch of fouls, it's just gonna bog the game down into the mud. And as you saw, like at any point tonight, did it feel like the physicality lightened up even though the refs were calling stuff like no, like it just it's really hard to stop the play from competing the way that they're competing. That said, if I had to choose between this and the opposite, I would take this every

single time. You know, I just think there's a handful of Like the big thing that I've struggled with is the inconsistency. Like there's been a lot of instances where like certain types of foul, like the perfect examples that Jimmy Butler foul in the corner, so Josh Hart's foul on Tim Hardaway Junior was substantially more of a foul,

but then this one ends up getting called. There's no consistency there, and like that that really is the only thing I'll ever get on officials about, like certain games take on different feel based on how the teams are playing, But inconsistency, to me is you not doing your job.

right now because it was a long time ago. But he did an extensive report on officiating in the NBA and like how they do it, and they have like basically these two things, this thing called the rule book and this thing called the case book, and they basically is like the pathway with which that they try to like come up with a standard for officiating games. And I one of the things I was trying to talk to him about is like I think that you need

subjectivity in officiating. You can't be letter of the law because basketball games don't work that way. Basketball games are all unique. They're each their own kind of like individual tapestry. Like look at how much different tonight was than Game three. Fundamentally different game, different players were playing, different guys were playing well, Like it was just a totally different type of game. And so the point is is, like you have to be willing to in the moment be like, oh, yeah,

Lebron fouled and a little bit there. But with the way we've been officiating this game, that would have probably not been called it wasn't called live, Let's not call it now now. The one with Dylan Brooks on the sideline with Jimmy Butler's a little tougher because it got called a foul live, but same sort of thing. I would have gone in there and it'd been like, okay.

In my inititional I was talking to the guys before the show, like on the baseline angle, it looked like a foul because you're like, why the hell is Dylan Brooks like shoving Jimmy while he's shooting.

same way they do live. You can't suddenly operate by a totally different rule book or like standard in a slowdown than you would live.

refed one game in my life. It was a students versus teachers game when I was at Arizona Christian and they just asked one of the guys on the basketball team if they'd be willing to like volunteer, and I was like, sure, I'll do it, And like the campus pastor was cussing me out after the game, like cussing me out because I was the only ref reffing a five on five game and I opted to just basically not call anything unless I was one hundred percent sure.

So there was like a ton of uncalled fouls because that was the way I chose tor. I was like, I'm not gonna guess what happens in this game. And it's like this casual students versus teachers and the dude is like cussing me out, like and I'm like, this.

gonna go the Calves. I mean the thunder got punched in the mouth in game three.

We're not doing a film session tomorrow. We're gonna be live tomorrow night after the final buzzer of Clippers Nuggets Game five, which would be a really fun one. I'll see you guys then. Whats so, guys, As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review.