Hoops Tonight - Why Celtics sluggish defense is to blame for Game 2 loss vs. Heat

in my championship rankings the Dallas Mavericks. You can get them on DraftKings right now at plus sixteen hundred. To win the title. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code hoops. That's Hops. New customers bet five dollars and get two hundred dollars in bonus bets instantly. That's code

hoops hops only on DraftKings. The Crown is yours gambling problem called one eight hundred Gambler or in West Virginia visit www dot one eight hundred gambler dot net York call eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine In Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of

Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas. Twenty one plus age varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. See dkang dot co slash b ball for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms and responsible gaming resources. All right, welcome to you tonight here at the Volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. Hope all you

guys are having an incredible week. Gonna just do a quick show today, Just gonna talk a little bit about the Celtics heat game last night as the Heat just continue to do Miami Heat stuff and upset a Boston Celtics team that is unfathomably more talented last night on the road, winning by double figures, making twenty three threes on fifty four percent. That's the main concept I want to dive in today's shot variants and what went wrong for the Celtics defensively. You guys know the joke before

we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter, underscore JSNLT so you guys don't miss a show announcement. So forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under oops tonight, and then also keep dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments. We hit one in yesterday's show, but we'll hit another one or two every week throughout the rest of the playoffs

and the last. But not at least before we get started, I want to talk to you guys a little bit about Game Time. I think this is a great time for you guys to get out and try to see your favorite NBA players playing live and in person. TV's great, but there's nothing like high stakes basketball in person, especially in the NBA when the intensity goes up to such

a crazy level compared to the regular season. And we got a lot of guys around the league, like Lebron and Kevin Durant that might not be around all that much longer, and so get out there try to see them in person and get that experience. Game Time has an incredible experience compared to other ticketing apps. They have an all in pricing options that you don't have to worry about going into your cart to check out and having a surprise larger amount that you have to pay.

It's easy. You can check out in as few as two taps, so it's not a convoluted process. You can get a good clean view of what your seat's gonna look like before you check out, so you don't have to worry about what you're paying for. And they have awesome deals. They have exclusive flash deals and sponsored deals on tickets for football, basketball, baseball, concerts, comedy theater, and more. In the zone deals, you can pick the section and Game Time picks the seats for you in that section

for big time savings. So take the guesswork out of buying tickets with Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account and use code hoops for twenty dollars off your first purchase terms apply again account and redeem code hoops. That's Hops for twenty dollars off. Download Game Time Today, last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So you know, obviously every time

that this sort of thing happens. And when I say this sort of thing, I mean a team gets red hot from three and makes a bunch of shots, the conversation has a tendency to shift in the direction of luck or shot variants or they just got red hot, you know, making it more a product of something that's out of your control rather than something that's in your control. Now, before we go any further, I want to be clear. I do believe that shot variance does play a role

in basketball games. Anybody who's ever played knows that that's a thing. I just think it gets overplayed a little bit when we're talking about this sort of thing. In addition to that, I think it's absolutely pointless to focus on in any way, shape or form as a basketball team because it doesn't do anything for you. For all of you guy who were listening. Yesterday, I went on with Ethan Strauss from House of Strauss and we talked for an hour and a half all over the place.

We talked a little bit about my origin story. We talked about the media landscape and kind of how interesting things have changed and new avenues to kind of get into the industry. But towards the tail end of the show we got into like a pretty long discussion about the role of luck in sports and how to address that and how to cope with that and deal with that as a basketball team or even just as an individual.

And I thought it was super, super interesting and honestly, flowing into last night's game, it's literally like the perfect kind of setup. So make sure you guys check that one out. I tweeted out the link on my Twitter feed, but anywhere you can get House of Strauss there on YouTube as well if you don't have the substack. But Ethan does great work. I recommend you guys subscribe to him on his substack as well. But make sure you

guys check that one out. But when we were talking, as far as luck goes, there's a certain amount of trying to take control of what you can control, right and especially as a basketball team, as you're as you're trying to compartmentalize something like what happened last night, you have to focus on it from the perspective of what

you can control. So what I did this morning as I went through and I charted every single three point attempt that the Miami Heat attempted in this game against the Celtics, and twenty three may threes on fifty four percent on the surface, feels like, damn man, they just were making everything right, Like, that's the way you're gonna look at that. But of those of those forty three attempts, I had twenty seven of them marked as defensive lapses.

Twenty seven out of forty three. I charted all three. I charted all forty three three point attempts into three categories. Make them miss, meaning you get an awesome contest and you'd be surprised if the person makes that shot. They only made them miss, so to speak, on five attempts, and one of them went in. There was a heavily contested Duncan Robinsons shot that went in, so they were one for five. They shot twenty percent on shots that you heavily contested. The next tier is what I call

game plan acceptable. These are threes that are like quality looks in the sense that the person is relatively open, has their feed set, it is rising up, but it's either something that you kind of have to concede as part of the coverage, or it's a player that you're comfortable closing out short on. Okay, now, these went in

Miami's favor. They went five for eleven on these. That's a really good percentage on those, right, Like normally you're hoping the game plan acceptable type of shots that they go something like three for eleven, right, But I'm a big believer that even that one make them misshot that went in, and the five out of eleven game plan acceptable shots that went in, they are kind of a

byproduct of how often you let them get comfortable. Twenty seven times in this game they let a good shooter open by virtue of a defensive laps, and they made eighteen of those, and that's a really really high percentage. I want to be clear, Even there is a universe where you play that same defensive game and they don't shoot fifty four percent, that's the very in sliment. But when I talk about controlling what you control, this is

this is literally what I mean. If we all agree that on any given night, it's possible that a team could shoot you out of the gym, if we all just agree that that's a risk, then we have to talk about how often it happens to you and how often you allow it to happen to you. Because if you control what you can control, and you avoid those defensive lapses, and you apply ball pressure and you make shooters feel uncomfortable, and you chase them off the line, and you do all of these things, it is far

more likely that you will avoid the barrage. Right, might still happen. We've all seen games where the Miami Heat or other teams just make a bunch of threes despite the fact that you're playing pretty damn good defense, usually not fifty four percent. We've seen teams play really good defense and a team still shoot forty forty two to forty three percent from three. Right, That's something that can

happen that is out of your control sometimes. But there if you play defense the way the Celtics did last night, you are inviting a higher likelihood that this could happen. And so again, like I'm not going to bury the Boston Celtics today, I think that's that's not something that I agree with. I think they're clearly playing down to their competition. They are the only team in this sixteen team field right now that is playing with a substantial

talent advantage, like a massive talent advantage everyone else. Even series like where Giannis is out, I still think the Pacers and Bucks are kind of close. It's mostly matchups that I think have allowed the Pacers to tie the series. Right, the thunder blew out the Pelicans last night, super impressive, impressive game. They shot the three really well as well.

They are more talented than the Pelicans. But it's it's closer than this, right, the Lakers that they have their issues with Denver, but the talent gap isn't some sort of massive chasm and more has to do with matchups and the Jokics problem. Right, this series, Boston has a gigantic talent advantage. They're playing down to their competition. Now,

where does that matter in the grand scheme? In my opinion, as I mentioned before we got into this postseason run, Boston is going to have a relatively easy second round too. They're gonna get the winner of Cleveland Orlando and they're gonna go. It'll be a smaller talent advantage than this Miami series because Jimmy Butler's been out right and Terry Rosier has been out But in terms of the UH, in terms of the talent advantage versus Cleveland Orlando, it's

still relatively substantial. Right. You're gonna be feeling good and confident in that series. So you're gonna walk into a conference final series against a substantially better team than the first two rounds you played, and then you could potentially run into Denver or the team who survived the Denver Gauntlet in the finals, and you need to be sharp when you get there. You can't afford to drop games

early in the series because you're playing bad basketball. And so, while I'm not out on the Celtics or like view last night as some sort of grand indictment of their capability of hoisting the trophy this year, it is concerning in the sense that, like it makes me feel like they're not all that serious. Right now, guys, wait till you see this film. We're about to look at the film here in a minute. It ain't pretty. There are guys getting lost off ball all the time. They're guys

chasing Tyler Harrow around, jogging around screens. It's not pretty. They did not have a They looked like a regular season team in January. That's the type of effort that we saw, not a NBA playoff team that's trying to stomp on a team's neck. Right. And so again, like as we kind of zoom out and go to look at the film, I just want us to keep that in mind, Like luck is a thing. That happens in basketball games. Luck is the thing that happens in life.

There's a certain amount of things that are out of your control, right, but generally speaking, you can create your own luck. And one of the big ways to do that in the basketball court is if you play the right way, you minimize variance, and that goes on both ends of the floor. But we're gonna focus on shooting for today. So on that note, let's get into the film, all right. So, as I mentioned before, twenty seven of the threes were what I would consider to be defensive lapses,

and they made eighteen of them. I'm going to kind of just as we're working through, I'll just kind of tell you my thoughts on the coverage with each shot. So the first three three point shots of the game, we're all for Nikola Yovich and they were all on pointless help here. So we have a ball screen with Jaimihakes coming downhill here, right, So as he's coming downhill,

Porzingis is in a drop coverage. Right. In addition to that, you have Jaylen Brown who can kind of help off of this this corner side here, there's people in the paint, but there's no advantage here Porzingis is in a good position to kind of contain both of these guys. Right, Derek White is just sagging down to the block for no particular reason. He's not stunting, he's not doubling, I may, He's just standing there. So we're gonna get a catch

and shoot three for nikol Jovitch. Okay, not a bad contest, not a bad defensive possession in like the sense that it was like a catastrophic breakdown, but you overhelped in an unnecessary way, accomplished nothing and gave a relatively clean catch and shoot. Look, especially within the context of the playoffs. Next one's worse by the way, Yovic just made one, right, So now you're thinking, Okay, Yovich is feeling good, he's confident. He just made it three. Right. We have Bam here.

BAM's working against Porzingis. Tyler Harrow is gonna come off of a dhow Here here comes the dribble handoff coming downhill. Porzingis is in position in the drop coverage to handle this. You have guys digging down on the weak side. Two. Jalen Brown is helping out of the strong side corner for absolutely no reason on a guy who just made a three helps out of the strong side corner, easy read for Tyler Harrow on the kickout knocks it down. So now two, we're two for two with Nikole Yovich,

both on overhelp possessions in ball screens. So you'd think we're gonna take this a little bit more seriously. Now Yovich has got it going right, Well, we have a transition possession here. Yovich is gonna catch on the right wing. Now, Jalen Brown knows Yovich just made two. He can see the ball, he knows this is coming here right. So what would you do in this circumstance. You would hard close out to his left hand side to funnel him back towards the baseline. And no matter what, you're chasing

him off the line because he just made two. Instead, Jalen's gonna throw a short clothes out at him, look short close out and just kind of offer a token contest that one missed, but I charted that as a defensive breakdown like that. The guy just made two threes off of your overhelp. He's confident and comfortable. Why are you not hard chasing him off the line. This next one is a bam pick and pop, so again Porzingis is in his drop coverage. Notice all of a sudden

they're not helping as much out of the corners. Then Bam is popping. Bam shot pretty well on these pick and pop threes and these kind of like wide open, uncontested threes. This year, I want to say he was like eighteen for forty or something like that, nineteen for forty, but again, just pretty low volume, and generally speaking, as a game plan, I consider this to be game plan acceptable. So we're zero for one on the game plan acceptable threes at this point. Now on this one, I viewed

this as game plan acceptable too. If you can see here as Tyler Harrow is getting ready for this ball screen, Jalen Brown's just kind of digging down, digging down. I don't have a problem with as long as you're in a position to rotate. It's when you're hard sitting down at the nail and out of positioned to rotate that it doesn't make sense. This is a good a good close out, good short close out, especially at this point.

Jime hasn't made a three yet and it's early in the game, so you're not viewing this as a Miami Brage yet didn't have a problem with that one. This is just a really bad pick and roll defense. There's no ball pressure, no one's making Tyler uncomfortable, no one's flattening out his drive. Al Horford is skewed way too far over to Bam, so Tyler is able to kind of get really far downhill into here. That forces porzingis to come over, easy clean catch for Bam, easy pass

to Jovich, easy extra pass to Hakez. So again that's just you're giving up way too easy dribble penetration in pick and roll. So again, all three threes that Miami has made to this point have been on defensive breakdowns. Tyler Harrow is their best pull up shooter, right, and this is basically triggering triggering a what a switch, right, So normally the Celtics would switch this action right. So essentially as that balls comes this kind of smart action

from uh from Miami to begin with. Usually, when you are switching a screen like this, you want to make sure you don't give up inside position for the slip, so Jalen's dropping onto that low side. But this is we gotta there's gotta be more ball pressure and something making Tyler Harrow uncomfortable. Notice just from the start of this possession, there's no contact, there's no physicality. Tyler Harrow is just confidently and comfortably setting into a step back

jump shot. I viewed that as a defensive breakdown as well, simply because Tyler Harrow is their best pull up shooter and their best ball handler and you're doing nothing to make him uncomfortable. Now we're dying on a screen with no show. Okay, Tyler just made one. Tyler just made one. BAM's coming up to set a ball screen. Guy on ball is dying on the screen. No show from from

Porzingis that misses. But that's not good defense, Like you're you're fortunate when you when you when Tyler Harrow misses that shot. This was I thought a really uh Tyler Harrow did a lot of this today or last night's game. E would pick on Samer, he'd pick on Horford, get him in switches or porzingis as well to get him in switches and then put him into additional actions. So we have this ball screen and then the dribble handoff right,

so that leads to the switch. So now you have to understand the play is developing at this point, So Tyler Harrow gets the matchup he wants. Now they're going to flow into a ghost screen with Duncan Robinson. So Jalen Brown is staring at this entire situation, and he's guarding Caleb Martin, who's a guy who can make shots, especially when he's uncontested, but a guy that you're less worried about than Duncan Robinson. Right, So on the ghost screen, we know we're going to get a hedge from Peyton

Pritchard because he wants to cut off that driving lane. Right, So there's our hedge, but there's still no rotation. Jalen Brown hasn't moved Duncan Robinson. You have to understand, as he's just staring at this entire action, he has to see the ghost screen coming and understand that this is going to get open by virtue of the hedge, and instead Duncan Robinson gets a clean look and knocks it down. So every single three point make to this point has

been on a defensive breakdown on this one. As we get see Peyton Pritchard just gets caught on another screen. As a result of him getting caught on another screen, Jalen Brown has no choice but to step up, and Horford obviously is worried about the role. And again, Caleb Martin, you're thinking, I'm sure there were a lot of Celtics fans last night, like, damn it, Caleb Martin keeps making shots. This is such bullshit. Caleb Martin always gets hot against us.

Caleb Martin wide open catch and shoot threes for the entire regular season one point twenty four points per shot. This is a very high quality shot for Caleb Martin. You can't you can close out short and you can offer token contests, you cannot leave him uncontested. He will make that shot. He did it all season long. And again we also know he's a streaky shooter, so once he gets going with shots like this, he will make the tougher ones. So we're still at this point. Every

single defensive breakdown has led to a made shot. Again, same sort of thing here that one I called game plan acceptable. It's a transition pull up three kind of type of shot for Caleb Martin. You live with that with the results there. So, by the way, they have not made a shot yet that was either acceptable to the game plan or well defended to the point where he made the miss. Gotta love the random transition three

is from Boston just a staple at this point. So so okay, Tyler Harrow has already made a three and is their best ball hand alert. Nobody picks him up and he just walks into a transition pull up three, Like, this is not good defense, guys, they'll double drag this time. Peyton Pritchard stays attached and doesn't get screened. That's good defense, but we miss him. Hawks on the backside drives. I actually thought this was game plan acceptable as well, so

as Hi May drives on Peyton Pritchard. Jim has been killing smaller guards and post ups most of the season. I understood the aggressive uh the aggressive show here. I think you kind of have to live with that shot. And also I thought Tatum had a good rotation back again, like you're as a game plan, you kind of have to double here, really good effort and close out from Tatum and you force a miss even if that goes in.

Though I kind of more or less view that one as acceptable within the game plan, you know, a little ghost screen action, So this one too, I put his game plan acceptable, Like you're closing out short on Hakez here he just knocks down the shot, the one, the one gripe, I have theirs. There's not much time left on the shot clock. But also it's worth mentioning like this is where things involving comfort and confidence play into the equation. Guys are gonna start that's our first shot

that got made. That was a good like kind of like an acceptable shot within the game plan. You're gonna see those go in more often on nights when you have defensive breakdowns on twenty seven of your forty three three point attempts. That's really good defense. That's that's I put that one as the first one where you made him miss. Played excellent defense on the ball, forced him into a really difficult step back contest to jump shot.

You forced a miss. So for those keeping track, they're like one or one for five or one for six on game plan acceptable shots, and then they've made a bunch of the defensive breakdown shots I had. That one is good defense. He's coming downhill, there's a little bit of a token help from a Hoarford, but he immediately identifies the pass, closes out hard and gets a good

contest and forces a miss. This one's on Drew Holiday and by the way, guys, there's a lot of Drew Holiday in this set here, so like over the course of the rest of this game. So Drew's on the ball, He's guarding Duncan. Right, Tatum kind of digs, recovers back out, look at Drew. Watch Drew as soon as he passes. As Duncan passes the ball, Drew relaxes. Duncan's already sprinting back out to the three point line. Drew is still chilling.

Drew still chilling. Now there's separation. Now it's a close out and Duncan beats him with a pump fake and that one actually misses. But that's a huge defensive breakdown. You lost connection to their best shooter. So on this one, Heywood high Smith is one of the best catch and shoot guys for Miami, and not just contested, but uncontested as well. He or not just uncontested, but contested as well.

We're gonna get a guard guard action. So because both of these guys are guards, you kind of have to just switch this. But instead of switching it, they treat it like a traditional pick and roll. But either way, Howser has to make the rotation here. You have to rotate here because this is not BAM out of bio. You're not going to concede this shot. You have to chase high Smith off the line. They leave them wide open.

That's a defensive breakdown. So again, are you guys seeing Boston make a bunch of really tough contested shots here yet, or are you seeing them make a bunch of wide open shots for good shooters by virtue of defensive breakdowns? It's not I don't view variants as a major factor at this point in the game. Here we go, Caleb Martin already made one, Kayleb Martin made a three. Howser's in pursuit. Okay, off the switch, pull back, dribble right,

Harrow's pulling it back. Howser's still chasing back over. He's gonna get a good contest here. Derek White just digs down for no particular reason. And again we know Caleb Martin uncontested threes are going in at a high rate this season. Also, one other thing here, and this is a consistent theme. See this dynamic here. This is defending a two man game with three players, and that is going to be a consistent theme, especially when we get

into the second half. They just too often were putting a third man into ball screens and leaving shooters open in the process. Turnover, we're out in transition, pick and pop. See that's the rotation. That's the rotation that I was just calling for on the on the Haywood high Smith play. So again you have a guard a guard guard kind of action. Yovic obviously is a power forward, but more

or less a perimeter oriented player. Right, So you're getting a ball screen, so they're defending it the same way Horford did. Right. But notice Derek White makes the rotation the rotation that wasn't made on that last one. I had this one as a game play discipline one too, because Caleb's catching on the on the right corner and he's made a couple threes, but he's primarily a slasher. And you can tell this is game play and discipline from Houser because watch him close out to the baseline

side right here to handle the rip through remove. See See how that's part of just understanding your personnel and knowing like Caleb loves that quick rip through to the baseline, especially in a rotation situation like this and you turned it into a late contest. I didn't have any problem with that. However, Caleb Martin has it going now, so maybe that should color some of the coverages the rest of the way. And also again, Caleb Martin got too easy,

wide open catch and shoot threes before that shot. So if your view on that shot is like, man, Caleb Martin's making everything, it's like, well, he's a streaky shooter that you let get too clean, catch and shoot looks to get his rhythm. This one is about not a dunket or Derek White getting caught ball watching a little bit. So notice Derek White is on Harrow right now. We have this two man game over here. Porzingis is in drop. Okay, Porzingis is in drop and is capable of handling anything

that Jovic does. Here, watch Derek White hesitate and lose sight of Tyler Harrow's See Derek White's helping here for no damn reason Porzingis is there. You even have other guys on the back line. Tyler Harrow is the biggest threat on the floor. Derek White loses him for a second and that buys that separation for Tyler Harrow. To break for free on the weak side. That's another defensive breakdown.

It's a quality contest. Again, I still don't love this, like defending every ball screen with four players thing that to me is just dumb overhelp. But Tatum gets a good contest on it, at least a solid effort to get out there. Also, you defend the action four on two, but you still can't get the defensive rebound. Here we are, guys with Jylen Brown just hits a huge three, gives the Celtics the lead. All right, guys, we're ready to lock in, right, let's do this. Let's go on our

run now. Oh wait, no one picked up Tyler Harrow. You're like, you're lucky that missed. But like guys, the vast majority of these attempts are defensive breakdowns, the vast majority of them this one. I put his game plan as acceptable. Within the game plan. Again, if you're with Tyler Harrow, you don't want to just blitz him or come out way too high, because then you're just gonna

exist in rotation all nights. You kind of have to trust Derek White to offer rear view contests and Al Horford to kind of make him at least take the pull up jumper a little further out. And really all that happened there is Derek White bid on that jab step too much and gave up separate too much separation, and that that is a clean look for Tyler Harrow. But that's more just Derek White has to do a better job on the ball. No one's guarding Bam. We

got a kickout pass here. This is Drew Holliday again. So watch watch as this action is taking place at the top of the key. Here, watch Drew. So Drew gets switched onto Yovich. We have our ball screen. We have a kick to Bam. Okay, Porzingis is there, He's not compromised. There's no problem there, and you trust Porzingis on an island against Bam. Drew Holliday is guarding a player who has already made two three pointers in this game and is just sitting at the block for no

particular reason. Look at that. That's not good defense. This is just not This is not playoff effort. That's January regular season effort. Good pursuit over the top there, Watch Jalen Brown. So, Jalen Brown is guarding high mayhawkez Okay once again, we have a two man game. Two guys are on the ball. I understand BAM's rolling and someone needs to tag him, but you need to tag him with the low man, not one pass away. Jalen Brown instead is tagging one pass away Jimehawkez just relocates to

the top. That's another huge defensive breakdown to leave a shooter open. You're very fortunate that that shot was missed. This one is bad on ball defense. You're gonna see a couple of these on harrow. So again it's a This is a stagger where you're leading with a guarde screen. This is that play that the Phoenix Suns run all the time, right, So like normally you want this guy to chase, but Boston's gonna switch the first screen, right, So now Tatum's on ball, but he's too passive and

passive switching again. The difference between a passive switch and an aggressive switch is this. As that screen comes, look, Tatum's now on harrow, but he's not meeting him on the other side of the screen. Basically, if this has been communicated to be a switch, you basically need Drew to immediately switch on to Caleb Martin and you need Tatum to aggressively meet Harrow with physicality. Instead he doesn't.

He's passive. Since he's passively switched, he's not in position to navigate the screen that allows Harrow to break free clean coming off the other side of the screen. That's a major defensive breakdown for yet another made three. Remember correctly, I think this one might be the same. Okay, so this is really good defense. I put this was the one I put down as a make a miss that went in, So the one for five on make a misses.

This was Caleb Martin with his weird like Kobe kind of drifting rip through a move like you just have to live with Caleb Martin to taking that that set Caleb Martin streaky shooter, gains his confidence can make tough shots. So like, the reason that went in, in my opinion, is directly related to you giving him too clean catch and shoot looks to start the game and then him hitting a more contest one in the right corner after

that airbalald contested three for Boston. I actually put this as a defensive breakdown to Tyler Harrow's red hot, red hot. Watch Jalen Brown relax here, watch him relax. See how is he not like immediately pressing up on harrow. This is I put this one as fortunate to have missed like that that he's a red hot shooter, best shooter on the floor from Miami, and you're kind of passively just letting him sit there comfortably and rise up. Now watch Jalen Brown. I'm just gonna put this. I'm gonna

put this one in slow motion. Watch watch Jalen Brown jog to chase Tyler. So again, you're chasing a movement shooter. This needs to be lock and trail. You need to be contacting him and following him with contact. Watch Jalen Brown jog. That's just not good effort. That's a red hot shooter that you're jogging to chase around screens instead of physically aggressively pressuring him into whatever shot he wants

to take. So this is an inverted ball screen. This is a difficult action to guard for the record, so we have inverted ball screen. Again, big guys don't know how to navigate screens. Guards typically don't understand how to run a drop or anything along those lines, so they end up switching it right. Then they immediately double Okay, but here's the problem. Haywood high Smith is over here on the right wing, and he's ready to relocate to the top. What are Porzingis and Derek White. They're just

standing underneath the basket. They're not accomplishing anybody anything. They're not guarding anybody. There's already a double team on the ball. So there's no real point in like helping here. I understand you want to be in defensive rebound position, but like, neither guy's in a defensive stance. They're completely upright, and so of course there's just an easy swing swing to Haywood high Smith at the top of the key. It is so it is so appallingly bad the three point

defense in this game. So like a dh O to Duncan is such an obvious call here, and watch how passive Tatum is in his on ball defense. You're fortunate that missed this one. I put as a game plan discipline like an acceptable within the game plan any sort of two man game like this with Duncan. You have to trust this guy to chase over the top and contest, and trust Awl to cut al Horford to contain both. You get a really good rear view contest from Howser

and he makes it. So again Duncan actually missed the open one on the defensive breakdown, and then he made the one where you did your job. So obviously variance is a part of this. But again, if you look at the shot result in this game, what percentage of the shots have gone in when there's been a defensive breakdown versus one there's been quality defense within the game plan. Oh look, you played great defense and chase him off the line the entire possession and they didn't get a

clean look and they missed. That was the fourth make them miss attempt of the game. Drew Holiday on the ball switch. Notice their attacking Howser. A lot of attacking Hawser in this game. But I didn't think it was his fault that things went the way they went. Drew Holliday again, watch Drew so Drew switches Drew's on Delon Right now, Delon Wright relocates once again, Houser is attached. Horford's in a drop. There is no reason to defend this action. Three on two, Drew Holliday gets sucked in

for no particular reason. Al Horford is there. He's there and ready to help, even Tatum's in a better position to tag the roller. You're allowing an easy help or an easy kickout to the strong side corner for three. Now he's in a close out situation. He has to leave his feet. It's the exact same mistake he made on the Duncan Robinson three in the first half. Duncan just missed that one. Delon Wright does not miss this one.

Drew Holliday was a major culprit in this one. Two on the ball that one again, that's good, that's good defense. Within the game plan. They're targeting Hawser again, Howser fights over the top and gets a rear view contest. He did his job. Like again, those contested Tyler Harrow pull up threes, they're not going to go in at nearly the same rate as those two that Jalen Brown gave up. Jalen and Jason Tatum gave up when they were just jogging around trying to chase him over the top of screens.

So notice this is again game plan discipline from Howser was really good in this one. On Delon Wright was like zero point six points per pull up jump shot with Miami this season, so clearly the game plan was duck underneath the pick. He ducks under both picks and concedes that pull up three. That's a pull up three you're willing to give up obviously under the circumstances. Oh look, you had a really good contest on a screening action

of Duncan Robinson and he missed. They're not making the super tough contested ones added even in the same stratosphere of percentage as they are all of these defensive breakdowns. This one is a botch switch between Drew Holliday and Jason Tatum. So again we have our three man action here, right. Our three man action is Harrow, high Smith and Bam

with porzingis Tatum and Drew. So the main thing here is because it's effectively a double stagger, you want to defend it the same way you did some of those other double staggers we're talking about. As soon as this screen gets set gets set, you want Tatum to take Harrow. Tatum should be sprinting out to Harrow, and you want Drew to stay on high Smith. It needs to be communicated. It's clear that Tatum is running over to Harrow instead Drew goes over there with them. Now they're just randomly

double teaming Tyler Harrow for no reason. Okay, it's very clear at this point, like right right here, Tatum should know, Oh shit, Drew's recovering. Okay, no, he no longer needs me. I'm gonna sprint back. But nope, neither of them do. They both stay on the ball, and then all Tyler Harrow has to do is just dribble off the screen this way and he hits Hayward high Smith wide open. That's a major defensive breakdown because your guards aren't communicating switches.

Drew Holliday, Look at Drew Holiday. Now Tatum has to do a better job fighting over the screen. He just walked into it. But still, even then, if Harrow looks to push Downhill Porzingis is there and drop. What is Drew doing? He's not doing He's not accomplishing anything in help, and he's just leaving a shooter open, still defending the action three on two for no damn reason at all whatsoever. And Caleb Martin's wide open. Look at this man, what are they doing? What is Derek White doing? I just

don't I just don't get it. I really really don't get it. These are all wide open looks, guys, high Smith. So that's got to be a switch, right, there's our switch. Here comes the ball screen. That needs to be another switch, And like, I don't I don't understand why that wasn't immediately switched the second ball screen. And Tatum's actually a little bit late closing out here, and it allows Tyler Harrow to get a decent look. But at least he

got him to break his rhythm a little bit. And then this last one I think was a Caleb Mark or heimhak has shot. Let's see. But this one was a good look too, if I remember correctly. Yeah, just a random double team from Jalen Brown that left Hawk has wide open. He just happened to miss it. That was forty three. So again, guys, if we really dig into it, do you think just be honest with yourself?

And I'm curious in the comment Celtics fans, if you think I'm being overly critical here, I want to hear it. Do you think the Celtics made Miami uncomfortable last night? Do you think the Celtics played Miami more into a lower quality shooting game, or do you think the Celtics let Miami get comfortable from the opening tip and never made a concerted effort to try to break their rhythm with multiple defensive efforts and making them uncomfortable at the

three point line. Just be honest. I want to hear. I want to hear if you guys disagree with me. And again, like, we also know that there's a psychological element to this series. Jimmy Butler is talking shit on Instagram. We know Eric Spolstra is going to play into variance as much as possible. I would not be surprised if shoot a ton of threes was the game plan coming into the game, because we're not as talented and we need to find a way to try to close the gap.

You know this is coming, you know this is how they're going to try to beat you. And I don't look again, I'm not changing my opinion on the Celtics at all. I still view them as a as the second best contender in the league with a legitimate shot to beat Denver if they were to get out of the West and they were to get out of the East.

I still believe in this team, but last night was not a strong indicator of where their focus is at right now, and they're gonna have to sharpen that up or they're gonna fall into a hole against the team that they're better than, like in the Eastern Conference finals, or a team that they're relatively even with, if not a little bit worse than in Denver in the NBA Finals. Things need to get sharpened up before we get to that point. And again, when we talk about shot variants,

I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm not saying it's not a part of a game. But that was pretty clear evidence that Boston played a defensive game that is likely to lead to a shooting barrage, and it did. There were a lot of clean looks in that game that Miami missed. And so again, like that's one of those things where it's so easy to be like, oh, they got one point six to two points per catch

and shoot three in this game. That's kind of ridiculous, and it's like, yeah, you're you're not wrong in terms of that being a highly productive three point shooting game. But if you actually dig into the basketball, basketball is more art than science. If you actually dig in the basketball, those are really high quality shots that we're getting missed. All right, guys, That is all I have for Today is always as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show.

We're gonna be back tonight live on YouTube. Out to the final buzzer of Nuggets Lakers. I will see you guys. Then the volume