Hoops Tonight - Why Nikola Jokic & Denver CAN'T BE STOPPED, Nuggets-Heat, Bulls-Pacers + NBA Mailbag

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and I here at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody, hope all if you guys are having an incredible week, got a fun show for you today. We got another NBA Finals rematch last night between the Denver Nuggets and the Miami Heat. We're gonna break that game down from the perspective of both teams. After that, a super entertaining overtime game between the Bulls in the Indiana Pacers, Tomato rows

and goes crazy. Bulls get a big win. We're gonna break that game down from the perspective of both teams. Then I got four or five male bad questions for the end of the show. You guys know the jope for we can started subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. I mean a lot to me if you guys would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you

leave a rating and a review on that front. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss sho announcements as well as the film threads that I do from time to time in the last but not least, keep dropping mail bad questions so that we keep hitting them throughout the rest of the regular season.

All right, let's talk some basketball. So, just like every other, seemingly every other Denver Miami matchup, Aaron Gordon dominated the game early by just bullying some of the Heat players, and you know, Miami, for whatever reason, is kind of content to let Aaron operate in single coverage a lot to start these games to see if they can handle it, and each time they kind of get bullied. There was a double team of Jokichen the post where Aaron Gordon

just had a quick duck in on Jimmy Butler. That's how he got the scoring started. Then he just blew right through Duncan Robinson in kind of like a semi transition possession and had like a nasty dunk. He slapped the backboard and flexed after and then he came up the right wing and just took Nikola Yovic detas just and straight. Iso just dropped his shoulder, beat him to the spot and drew a foul, got to the free

throw line, hit a pull up jumper. In that stretch as well, Aaron Gordon is moving really confidently offensively right now, at least in his aggression. And then KCP early on was playing the passing lanes. He had two picks sixes, and the Nuggets were defending well. Jimmy Butler was missing his jumper. Denver takes an early lead and then Miami.

You know how it is with them, They never kind of relent in terms of their effort and focus and energy, and so they just kind of worked their way back into the game, especially in that stretch when Jokic was off the floor. Eric Spolser knows how Denver likes to play when Jokic is off. It's a lot of Jamal Murray. It's a lot of him just dribbling around looking for his own shot. He's usually going to target whoever he thinks the worst individual defender and go after him. This case,

it's Patty Mills in these Miami lineups, and they were just they Caleb Martin on Jamal. Caleb was doing a really nice shot. They were hedging and recovering with Patty rotating out of it well. And then whenever Jamal did go to work and Iso, they were just sending late double teams. And so they like in a lot of these possessions. Specifically in that first half stretch, the ball was ending up in Justin Holliday's hands and he was missing his jump shot at that phase in the game.

Now Jamal made a couple of shots, you know, like it's he has these like zero pass possessions. They kind of remind me of Kyrie Irving back when he was with the Cleveland Cavaliers with Lebron, where it was like where it's like there's just these possessions where Kyrie would get the inbound pass on the baseline and dribble up the floor and just you know, maybe call for a ball screen, maybe pick on a guy in a switch, but it's just like a few dozen dribbles and then

he's going into a pull up two point shot. There was a possession I clocked where he had Caleb Martin on him, and he called a screen to try to get Paddy Mills into it to they he hedged and recovered out of it. That he called Thomas Bryant into

the screen he had recovered out of it. He ended up taking twenty one dribbles on the possession without a pass and hit a pullback to a really nice little like kind of half spin pullback dribble against Caleb Martin, knocked down a two point shot, hit a step back three on Jimmy Butler in ISO as well, so he hit a couple of shots. But Miami kind of worked their way back into the game and then something to kind of put a pin in for the end of

the game. After Jamal Murray goes out, what the Nuggets typically do is they'll let Jamal Murray run that unit, and then they'll bring all the starters in and pulled Jamal Murray out and put Reggie Jackson, and in the middle of the second middle of the fourth quarter, they'll run Reggie Jackson with the starters, and Reggie in that second quarter stretch had a kickout pass to Michael Porter Junior for three, and then he had a nice little

elbow jumper in a ball screen. So just put a pin in that because that's going to be a big element in this game when we get into the second half. So we're going to the third quarter, Miami starts the third quarter on a run. Just really tense defense, defense, ball pressure and in rotation. Just classic, you know, Miami just being a pain in the ass, right, Terry Roziers chasing Jamal around, doing a really nice job. Bam and

a bio. I've talked about this on the show before, but he's one of the best guys in the league. Aet fronting the post against Nikole Jokic. He's just really quick and has great footwork to kind of whip around and get in front, and then he squats down low and he can kind of stay in front, but he

also has the length to get over the top. And what ends up happening a lot to Denver when Miami does that is they'll find themselves in a late clock situation, like they'll run in action try to get the ball into yokicchen the post, and they can't because he's getting fronted, and next thing you know, there's six or seven seconds left on the shot clock and it's Michael Porter Junior, or it's KCP or it's Jamal Murray, just kind of having to throw up a shot, right, And so they

were doing a good job kind of sending them into the worst parts of their offense. Denver was missing some shots. Miami goes on a little bit of a run. Their largest lead was with one minute left in the third quarter. Duncan Robinson ran a dribble hand off with Thomas Bryant on the right wing. Jokic showed high, Jamal Murray chased

over the top, Thomas Bryant slipped. The Nuggets were not set up in their backside defense in the low man position, and so Thomas Bryant got an easy little floater in the lane and Miami leads seventy one to sixty seven. That was the lead with one minute left. Denver from there went on a thirty three to fifteen run to put the game away. They had the lead in command

within a couple of minutes. Seventy one sixty seven with about a minute left in the third started with the post up double team of Jokic on the other end that got Aaron Gordon a right corner three. Remember Aaron Gordon's not a good three point shooter, but he is out of the right corner. He makes like half of them over there, hit a big one, got it to one.

Then Miami ran that exact same dribble handoff that they typically run, the one that I just talked about where Thomas Bryant got the slip for the layup, except for this time Aaron Gordon was loaded up as the low man. The action got shut down. They had to run it reverse going back the other way. Jokicic got a really good contest on Duncan Robinson. This time he missed it. They go down, they go down to the other end of the floor and Jamal Murray hits like a driving

layup on the baseline. So they go into the fourth quarter with the lead. They literally went from seventy one to sixty seven when a minute left, and the third now they're up seventy two to seventy one, and then Christian Brown Brown excuse me, quickly extends the lead, hits

a transition three in the right corner. He had a close out play where Caleb Martin was kind of digging down to the elbow and he drove out of the left wing or excuse me, the right wing and like bumped Caleb with his shoulder and just hit a little floater over the top. Then, you know, one of the things that Denver's really good at is just identifying when they have in a matchup the advantage and just quickly

wearing it out. In this early fourth quarter stretch, there was a play where he had Patty Mills on him, and so he just brought Aaron Gordon up in a ball scring because Thomas Bryant was guarding Aaron Gordon and he just got right down hill. Thomas Bryant was really bad at his pick and roll defense, was like way out of an any position to be able to help

on the drive. And so Christian Brown just went all the way to the basket and made a little left handed layup, and so pretty quickly it went from again in a matter of a couple of minutes, from Denver being down four to Denver being up for now. Miami fought back. Duncan Robinson hit a three coming off of a screen. Jimmy Butler had to put back dunk off of a bam Miss layup. Bam Anda Bye also had like a short roll possession where he hit jimehawkez right

under the basket. But then Reggie Jackson comes in and this is that same stretch I was talking about from the middle of the second quarter, where it's basically Reggie with the starters and they just start spamming Yoki's pick and roll and he just hits pull up jumper after pull up jump after pull up jumper, starts with like a really nasty left to right crossover to get Terry Rozier out of position. Terry Rozier just dies on the screen as a result of the nice move, gets downhill,

hits a jumper at the right elbow. Next possession, same exact things. After going to the left elbow, hits a pull up jumper. Miami adjust by putting Jimmy Butler on on Reggie, just to put some extra length on him. They run another one, this time Jimmy Butler, though they set the screen further out from the basket and Jimmy just gets caught on the screen anyway, and he walks into a pull up three and knocks it down just

like that. It's a ten point game and the game is basically over at that point, and it was kind of an ugly game. For Denver. But like to me, I've always been more impressed by ugly wins than by pretty wins when things aren't going well, right like they threw the kitchen sink at Jokic like they always do, and so you know, Yokic kind of had to play facilitator all night. Jamal Murray was only five or fourteen from the field, but he hit key shots, had five assists,

zero turnovers. He did what he needed to do in a poor shooting night. Michael Porter Junior scored twenty five, hit two big shots late in the game and a pull up jump shot to put them up by seven in the early fourth, and then he hit the dagger on a skip pass and a play where they were pressuring out high to try to just basically get the

ball out of Jamal Murray's hands. I think it might have been a Yokic double team right around the top of the key, but rifle skip passed to Michael Porter Junior in the left corner basically hit the dagger at that point that put him up eleven. But they won with their defense. Aaron Gordon could take Can Tavis called what popea great is always KCP again, always playing passing lanes, getting out in transition, and getting those easy baskets that kind of just invigorate the team allow them to reset

their defense. Big thing I wanted to call attention to too, is this is something that really stood out to me in the Boston Celtics game too. Denver's just really good

at closing out on shooters. And this is something that I think is highly underrated because like a lot of times we just look at like nearest defender, and this is one of the problems with analytics is they'll just take like tracking data and just how close the defender is and basically equate that to a contest, Whereas there is a difference between like a like running up on a shooter and offering a token late hand up versus

a real contest of a three point shot. And like you can see, Denver like is actually trying to bother these shooters from the top down too, Like Yokic when he's showing on these screens like he's got length, he's getting his hands up there and he's getting good contests. Denver allows just eleven point three made three point shots per game. That is not a coincidence. That is a top down habit that they have of offering good contests on three point shooters on the Miami Front say consistent

themes that we've been talking about all season. Another bad Jimmy Butler game against Denver. He was seven for seventeen back in February. He was six for sixteen last night, just one for six on pull up jump shots. And this has been a season long issue. Last year, a Jimmy Butler pull up jump shot was worth zero point nine to four points per possession. That's in the fifty fifth percentile, so slightly above average for his volume. This year zero point eight to two points per Jimmy Butler

pull up jump shot. That's in the thirtieth percentile, so like well below average at that point. Big difference. And again a lot of times, especially against Denver, those are the shots that their coverages are giving up. That's why they can sometimes struggle against Phoenix, because they have guys that can hit those shots consistently. Bam once again missed seven shots in and around the paint. That's been an issue all season. And then no reliable secondary scoring. Terry

Rogier just fourteen points on thirteen shots. He's had just two twenty plus point games in Miami in eighteen tries. In thirty games with Charlotte, he had twenty one twenty plus point games. Now, I know, obviously that's a different situation in Charlotte, but even accounting for that, they need more out of him than what they've been getting. That's four straight losses for the Heat and they're just twenty

sixth in offense over that span. You know, I feel the same way about Miami that I did last year.

They have the personnel and the collective basketball IQ from the coaching staff down the roster to upset any of the twenty seven other teams in the league that are not Boston in Denver. They can beat any of those teams in a series. That means yes, I think they could beat Milwaukee. Yes they could. Obviously those are the only teams in the East that you're really looking at right like Milwaukee and Boston. But yes, I think they

can beat Milwaukee. Yes, I think I'd be inclined to pick them against just about anybody else in the East if they got out of the East and they went in the NBA Finals and there was a Clippers there, if there was a Suns there, like, I think they could win, but they could also just as easily lose to any of those teams because of their lack of firepower. And if they did run into Boston or Denver, they will lose just simply because they do not have the firepower.

Even compared to last year's Boston team. This year's Boston team has just so much more firepower, and that's just an even bigger gap that exists there that nearly cost them in the series last year and very well might have if it wasn't for Jimmy or excuse me for

Jason Tatums spraining his ankle. So again, like Miami is always somebody that's got to be taken seriously, but like more often than not, it's their personnel limitations that come to the surface, and at a certain point, like I just kind of want to see what this looks like when they have some real significant talent advantages, like most of the good teams in the league do, all right. Moving on to Bulls Pacers, So the Bulls win in overtime. Now, before we even get into any sort of like why

are we talking about the Bulls thing? Since November thirtieth, the Bulls are twenty seven and twenty that's the eleventh best record in the NBA. They've been a really good team for most of the season. They have a ton of perimeter speed, a lot of guards who can defend multiple positions as well. Tomart de Rosen is hooping in his life sixteen games, is averaging twenty seven to five and five on fifty percent from the field, thirty five

percent from three to ninety percent from the line. Kobe White Nikola Vusovich over that same span are both also averaging twenty iodasson moves given them some really good three and D play from the guard position. He's also got like a lot more off the dribble pop than you'd think as well. They're hooping. This is a real a real team, right, and obviously the Pacers are as well.

I want to kind of focus on crunch time in this game, Uh, the going into the clutch period, whether we were inside of five minutes, inside of five points, Pacers were up one oh four to one oh three. Akruso had been hitting threes all night long, and so they end up getting a dunk for Nicola Vusovich on a play where Nie Smith on the weak side did not want to tag Vusovich on the roll just because he had already made so many threes. Vusovich gets a dunk,

the Bulls go up one oh five to one oh four. Yeah, both teams had specific actions that they were targeting on both ends of the floor, So like for the Pacers, they knew that the picking pot for Miles Turner was gonna be wide open all night. Miles Turner hit a bunch of threes at the top the key also had some threes off of doubles, but it hit a bunch of threes at the top of the key in the in that pick and pop situation. Also, there was a stretch at the end of the fourth quarter where the

Bulls took Tory Crag out. Tory Craig had been guarding Pascal Siakam. They took him out and put Ayot Assummu on Siakam and then they started just attacking uh with Siakam on Iyo Desumo in the post and he was just drawing double teams and kicking out. Actually, Miles Turner hit a three to tie the game at one twelve that came off of a double team of Pascal Siakam in the post and then on the other end of

the floor. It was kind of similar stuff like the uh DeMar DeRos in picking on Miles Turner in screens obviously, like the Kobe White Nikola Vucevich pick and roll was a big one. We talked about the play where they didn't tag the roller, Vusivic gets a dunk. There's another one where they do tag the roller. It gets kicked out to Caruso on the left wing. Extra pass to the corner to uh Tory Craig and he ends up

knocking down a three. So like they both teams were kind of just going to their pet actions again and again and again, and then it just turned into absolute chaos. At the end of the game we had uh So the Pacers go down to Siakam in the post against to soon move. Again the Bulls double team and it's a kickout pass to Andrew Nemhard at the top of the key. By the way, at this point, at this point, the I want to say, the Bulls were up one fifteen or the Pacers were up one fifteen to one fourteen.

So the Pacers they they go to Siakam in the post against the soon move. There's a double team. It's gets kicked out there and Andrew Nemhard. He misses the three, and on the play, DeMar derozen Try is engaging in a rebound with Aaron E. Smith I think, and it ends up getting knocked out of bounce. They review it

stays stays with Indiana. They run the exact They run a Haliburton turner two man game, which is one of the actions they'd been running so much. At the end of the game, the on ball guy falls over, so we end up with Vusivich switched on to Halliburton again. They double team. That was a big thing that was happening,

is like when they'd run those ball screens. Vusavich was essentially having to switch out on Halliburton, and then Haliburton would start mixing up and then the Bulls would have no choice but to come with a late double team. But one of the things that was happening with Indiana's

their spacing wasn't super sharp. And Andrew Emhard was spacing out pretty far away from the basket, like twenty five to twenty six feet, and so these double teams were turning into like long three point shots for Andrew Nemhard. He missed another one miles turner goes up and taps the ball out, but on the tap out, everyone kind of goes to the basketball and Kobe White gets it. All of a sudden, he's got ahead of team going the other way and only Andrew Nemhart's in his way.

Andrew Nemhart sprints and gets back into the play, forces him to change his shot, but Siakam comes flying in from behind and it comes in and blocks it, nearly goes out of bounds, and Nemhart saves it right to aaron Ne Smith. He gets fouled to go to the line to make both free throws. It's one seventeen, one

to fourteen. Indiana intentionally fouls. Demarta Rozen makes the first free throw, misses the second obi top and fails to secure the rebound, taps it out of bounds, and then Demarta Rozen just hits a ridiculous right shoulder fade to send it to overtime. There's a cool quote from DeMar Dea Rosen after the game talking about how clutch situations kind of become like survival mode, and that's literally what it is. And it's something that I've always loved about

the game of basketball. Is like when you get into those situations where it's all on the line and everyone's playing super hard, it almost becomes about survival in the sense that it's very improvisational. It's a lot of like like even talked about, he was like in the time out they had called for him. They kind of had set up a screening action and the key for him to come up towards the top of the key, and they were basically top locking it and preparing to switch.

So Tomart Dorozen did a really smart counter. He ran up like he was gonna go off that screen, and then he kind of just gave a little push and then cut back towards the basketball along the baseline, got just enough separation, and then we're talking about arguably the best fade away jump shooter of this era, depending on

who you ask. He's definitely like, this is this guy who's made his entire living in the NBA off of right shoulder and left shoulder fades in that mid range area, hits that right shoulder fade over the hits the right shoulder fade along the baseline, sends the game to ot

when we go into overtime. Really became about Demart Rosen picking on Myles Turner and switches, setting ball screens, getting Turner on switches, and he was just hitting those classic crossover moves to just get a little bit of separation to elevate knockdown mid range jump shots. Then as a result of that, the Pacers had to start doubling, which is something we'll come back to in a second. On the other end of the floor, Pacers hit a couple

of pick and pop threes for Miles Turner. It was the one action that they just could not figure out. Saliburn's coming off. Uzovich is having to show and many times switch and then the only way they could avoid that kickback past the Turner was to switch, which would then end up in a double team anyway. So they were in a real predicament on that specific front, just guarding and dealing with Tyris Alburt and pick and roll.

But the couple of Turner threes keep the Pacers in front, and then to Marta Rosen just hits a nasty hesitation pull up three over Pascal Siakam to put the bulls up. Then the Pacers start f garding to Rosen because he's got forty five points at this point, so they need someone else to get a bucket. Musevich just takes Turner to task in ISO, hits a right shoulder fade. Then

I would assume move drove right by Tyre. Saliburton in an ISO just dusted him off the dribble and got a layup, And then again on the other end of the floor whenever they went back to switching that pick and roll to stop Turner from getting those picking pop threes, and when they did that once again, it just kept ending up at Andrew Nemmar's hands too far away from

the basket. So the Pacers need to do a little bit of work on how to deal with just late double teams on ISOs when Helliburton's picking on the big man, just like maybe having nem hard instead of sitting out that far from the three point line, having somebody flash cut to an opening that's closer to the ball so that maybe they can get something that's a little bit more going towards the rim. Siakam did hit a move on Craig on a baseline out of bounds to get

it to two with forty two seconds left. One of the things that kind of sucked in this game is on that crazy Siakam block at the end of regulation. He landed on top of Kobe White. Looked like he tweaked his knee. I couldn't find any information on what the injury update was with Kobe White, so hopefully he's okay. But Toy Craig came back into the game with h with Uh in overtime and Uh Siakim hit a bucket

on him to put it back to two. DeMar DeRozan dribbling at the kind of out by half court, they throw a late double team, Adam Cruso slips the ball screen throws in his cruise. So it's a textbook four on three situation. I had assume we just kind of sneaks along the baseline and finds a little opening on the left side of the basket, gets a layup, and the game is over. A couple of things. Hopefully Kobe

White is okay. Like we talked about earlier, I wanted to focus before we get a move on from this game. I want to talk about just something that Rick Carlisle talked about after the game, the idea of like minor mistakes, and you know he mentioned after the game we were one rebound away from winning and he's right. If they if Obi topping instead of tapping out that free throw rebound, if he just grabs it and gets fouled, the Pacers

win this game. Now is how well they played. And you know, you know, when we look at games like this, in particular, game that are just super back and forth and both teams have multiple leads late, it's kind of harder to focus on big picture things because, like, you know, either team could have won this game. Again, like Pacers do a basic thing like grabbing a free throw rebound, they just win and then it's an entirely different vibe

coming out of this game. And so what I like to focus on when we look at games like this is why attention to detail is so important on the little things, because, yes, you're right, in these kinds of games, there's a lot of like maybe Demarta Rosen makes the crazy right shoulder fade, maybe Miles Turner is making the pick and pop three. There's a lot of like make and miss type of stuff going on that's a little bit outside of your control. Obviously, it's inside of your

control to work for the best possible shots. It's inside of your control defensively to make as many things as difficult as possible, but there are also some things in that element that are out of your control in terms of makes and misses as far as the details go, though, that's where if you are sharp on the little things, you buy yourselves the margin for air, for maybe for someone to make a big shot for the other team, or maybe for you to miss a big shot for

your team. For example, the free throw rebound, that's a we don't need to get any further into it, just sticking to your fundamentals. Having someone box out the shooter, pinching on the best, pinching on the the best, bigger you know, kind of forward that they have on the block, bringing the guy in, crashing from behind the free throw shoot, or whatever you gotta do. You got to secure your rebound there, right, Also a missed rotation on the double team.

When they double team tomart Rosen out tops a two point game, they get to stop there, they have a chance to go down. They all eyes are on the ball, though no one's tracking the other off ball defenders, and dessu Mo sneaks along the baseline, and like the one thing you can't give up in a four on three is a layup. You got to make someone make a

jump shot in that situation. Even on the bulls front, like that lineup decision, Tory Craig I actually thought was doing a solid job on Pascal Siakam and at the very least you could leave him in single coverage. He had actually stonewall Desiakam a couple of times there down the stretch, and regulation they take out of the game and going with dis Soon Mu put them at the four.

And one of the biggest possessions of the game was when it was one twelve, one oh nine in Siakam just because de Soon was at the four has to has a huge mismatch in size on dis Soon. MoU just takes him down to the block and draws a double team and the ball gets worked around a Miles Turner for three on the left wing. So even on the coaching side of things, like a little decision here, a little decision there, goes a long way in these

kinds of games. And that's why when you see me harp on on on teams like Denver and their execution, that's why because like a lot of playoff games look like that, a lot of playoffs series look like that. They are determined by the slightest of margins, and so you know, the execution piece, the the like, attention to detail piece, those sorts of things tend to be difference makers.

And when you get to the latest levels of the playoffs, and that's why I focus on those things so well, they're really fun game like just like classic NBA regular season gem there from the Pacers and the Bulls. Really enjoyed watching that game this morning. All right, let's move on or a mail bag and then we're gonna get out here for the day. Hey, Jason, love your show.

Have you noticed that almost all of the best teams in both conferences have most or all of their core players in their prime twenty five to thirty two Denver, Boston, Cleveland, Minnesota, Phoenix, Dallas, New York, et cetera. Okay, See and the Clippers are the exceptions, but Shay's clearly in his prime as well

as the Clippers' role players. Looking at Golden State and the Lakers, it's no coincidence that they have struggled so much, since the Dubs only have Wiggins in his prime and the Lakers just d Loan reefs Ad is clearly on the decline since twenty twenty. It seems that constructing a roster with all the court players on the same timeline is the biggest factor twinning, which means Oklahoma City, Orlando, and Indiana could dominate in the late twenty twenties. Curious

about your thoughts on this. Yeah, so a couple things. First of all, and this is a big thing that kind of shoot out to me just watching Pacers Bulls as the way the game has changed, the sheer amount of perimeter talent and speed has made it so that older teams, I think struggle just to keep up defensively now in a way that they didn't used to. Like, you really got to get up for these games defensively

against some of these quicker teams on the perimeter. So many teams around the league now are running five out offense. I won't get into it right now, because we did a little bit we did like two summers ago, I think we did a breakdown on five out offense. But like the gist of it is the in a five out offense, you're leaving the paint unoccupied and you're getting

into the paint on rolls and drives. What that means is is like your big man, whoever your vertical spacer is, he's operating out on the perimeter, running dribble handoffs and ball screens and then rolling into the paint rather than waiting in the paint and then coming up to set a ball screen or waiting in the paint, you know, to sit in the dunker spot. And then there's tons of different actions and entries like you can get into five out from pistol, you can get into five out

from horns, you can do that kind of thing. But the gist of it is all five players are on the perimeter and the paint is left open so that guys can roll into it and guys can drive into it, and then from there it's everyone's involved. They're interchangeable spots. You know, all of your perimeter players are able to run a dribble handoff or to run a ball screen. Whereas like a four out offense is much more like think about like what like what Dallas runs. It's much

more of like a brute force. Like our primary ball handler and our secondary ball handler, two guys in the corner. They do nothing but shoot, and we're gonna come set up. We're gonna come and set a ball screen, and we're from the guy starting under the basket to come set the screen. It's just brute force basketball. And usually there's only four perimeter spots occupied. It's not equal opportunity. The guys in the corners are just in the corners the guys at top or the guys running the action, and

so that's kind of the difference. And as most of the league has gone into five out style of play, or at least it's trending in that direction, you had five out basketball with a ton of quick guards and a ton of speed and skill. All of a sudden, the dudes that are in their thirties that their legs don't get as warm as they used to on a

nightly basis. They struggle to guard. Now that is something to keep in mind as well, then when we get to the postseason, because when we get into the postseason, the effort gap shrinks, and then those veteran teams do have advantages vperience and skill. So I think it's I don't think it's smart to write off all those veteran teams, but I do think it's something to keep in mind

when we're talking about regular season basketball. Older, slower teams are going to really start to struggle in the NBA regular season. I truly believe that. Next question, Hi, Jason, I'm curious to know how you assess off ball three and D cutting players. For example, archetypes like ball dominant shot creators or rim runners shot blockers. Is easier to see how they affect the game, and there's always the usual metrics that are used to measure their efficiency and usage.

For the off ball archetype, those usual metrics and eye tests don't always work. Just because you come off of these curl screens and back doors doesn't mean you always receive the pass or the passes and screens aren't great. Plus, your team context matters. If your team is a heavy ISO or post upcentric team, your effectiveness likely won't be as good or as a similarly graded off ball player

whose team is, say, driving kick centric. Every championship team has prioritized off ball threats, so quality players that fit this molder super valuable. I just feel that often the archetype is undervalued in the draft, and perhaps a reason why it's not clear how to measure this this style compared to other archetypes. Thanks again for all the content, so I think like when it comes to the way I look at it. We talked about five out offense

a second ago. So let's take two offenses. For example, Let's say Golden State five out offense and let's take Dallas more of a brute force four out one in offense. Right in, the role players you need in both systems are very different. Okay, so five out basketball is primarily read and react. Well that means is there's a ton of like improvisational basketball going on. I'm gonna backdoor cut here when he's overplaying me, right, Like this is the two man action coming off of a screen. If I

see this, I slip. If I don't see this, I go over the top. Like if I see this, maybe I turn a pin down for the other guy to run off and then I slip or whatever. It is, Like there's a lot of read and react basketball taking place.

Same thing goes for the the big guy on the ball, right, Like, if he sees and if he sees his defender sagging back and he has an opportunity to set a good screen, you want to throw the dribble pit if you see your defender showing high and the guy's chasing you want to fake the dribble hand off and then turn and go to the basket. That's a read that Draymond Green's

really good at, for instance. Right, So everything in the five out is read and react, and the four out one in it's way less about read and react and way more about play finishing. What that means is like, the only guy really making reads is the Luca or the Kyrie in that situation. Right, he's got the ball, he's dribbling up at the left wing. He's calling Derek Lively to come up and set the screen. All of the other guys have the exact same job. Left corner.

If it's Josh Green, he's spotting up, right corner. If it's PJ. Washington, he's spotting up Kyrie Irving second side creator. He's in the right wing, he's spotting up Derek Gliley's going to come set a ball screen. As soon as he sets the screen, he's rolling hard to the basket. Okay, if the action gets shut down, maybe Luca will swing to Kyrie. Luca will run back out to the left wing. Two guys will stay in the corner. Derek Gliveley will

up and set the next screen. It's the exact same damn thing, right Like, that's it's very brute force, right, So the only thing Derek Lively has to do is screen and roll hard and have the vertical spacing element. The only thing Josh Green needs to do is hit a corner three or attack of close out. The only thing PJ. Washington needs to do is hit a three or attack to close out Kyrie Irving hit a three attack to close out, or if the ball gets swung

to you run the next ball screen. So it's super simplified. So what matters so much more in that four out one end system is those guys that are spacing hand they knock down threes in attack closeouts, much more simplified. For the screen and roll guy, does he have the ability to set good screens and roll hard to the rim and provide vertical spacing with good hands and verticality? Right? Like?

Does he have those abilities? So like, when I'm evaluating a role player for that system, I'm really going to be looking at things like, you know, spot up points per possession, just like a simple thing that just evaluates how good this guy is at converting spot up opportunities. A guy who's a great spot up player is not necessarily a great read and react player. Those are two potentially different things. I'm going to be leaning on metrics a lot more there for reading reacted so much more

about the eye test. In my opinion, it's so much more about watching a player play in his system, seeing whether or not he's good at interpreting what's happening on the floor quickly. And then if you're looking at him in free agency and you're a five out offense, maybe that's the kind of guy that you want to target. But again, read and react, everybody's got to be able to do so many different things versus brute force. I've got play starters and play finishers, and that's pretty much it.

Hopefully that's an explanation that kind of hits at what you were getting at in that question. Have you noticed a change in NBA players shot making in the last two years. Seems like there's been a breakthrough in sports psychology and these players can enter and stay in a flow state, allowing the offense and shooting efficiency to explode. Hope you can ask an NBA player if you ever get the chance. I will if we ever get an NBA player on the show, as hard as shot making goes.

I talked about this a little bit yesterday. You know, every single bit of shot making is actually just fundamental basketball attached in chains. What that means is like, let's say, for instance, I hit a James Harden style, you know, like in and out out crossover, aggressive step forward, step back to my left, pull up jump shot right Like, that's an advanced piece of shot making put together by

James Harden. Right, But if you really break it down, it's a hard in and out dribble that's a fundamental thing. It's a crossover dribble that's a fundamental thing. It's an advanced dribble with a hard right foot step to step back. I'm looking at it from James Harden. He's a lefty. I'm looking at it for me as a righty. But that hard right step forward in that step back, and then there's a footwork element to getting my base sets so that I can go straight up and down on

the move. And if I make the move properly, I will go straight up and down. And if I took a video of just the end of that shot, it's going to look just like a catch and shoot jumper at least that's the way it is for me. So like that is a bunch of fundamentals attached together. There are certain things in basketball that have existed forever, and what's happening is NBA players are finding new ways to kind of daisy chain those things together and make new

ways to score the basketball. It's like even like just the idea of like hitting three point shots in ball screens, which is a thing that used to just basically not be a thing in the NBA fifteen years ago, and now it's like a must for any sort of primary ball handler to be able to punish teams that die on screens or go under screens. Right. Really, it's the same exact thing your high hesitation, which is a fundamental thing. And then oh the defender got caught, or oh I

have maybe a little bit of space. If the defender got caught, I could just elevate from there. If I need to advance to get a little further up so that he can't back pressure, it's a wonderable pull up. It's just a wonderable pull up. These are all fundamental things that people have attached together. But over time, everyone's got the existing manual from the last group of players, so like you know, the like the new generation learned

from Lebron's generation. Lebron's generation learn from Kobe's generation. Kobe's the generation learn from MJ's generation. MJ generation learn from Bird and Magic and so on and so forth, and so they're all just building on each other and it's stacking, and it's stacking, and that's how basketball players are getting better. Two more and then we're out of here. Hey, Jason,

can you explain how Delo's dribbling is legal? To me, as a relatively unexperienced fan, it seems like every few dribbles he holds the ball, Remember he's not supposed to do that, and then he lets it go and it drops back to the floor. I hope you can picture what I mean in my head. I see it clearly. Thanks for these mailbag sessions. I know you can't get to everything, but I wish you. But I wish you could. Since I have a ton more questions, keep asking them.

Like again, I'm not gonna get to every single question, but we're gonna keep doing them throughout the season, and so I will try to eventually get to as many as I can. Over time, every NBA player carries like it's if you really slow down the ball handling for literally, and like some guys are worse than others, like Katie's another guy who like really kind of holds it under

his hand when he does his high hesitation. But the thing is is like it it's legal by interpretation, meaning like the refs just allow it around the league, and so like again, like I don't get upset about anybody around the league doing it because it's literally something that every single team has two or three guys that do,

if that makes sense. Last question, after their twenty two championship, you praise the Warriors for roster praise the Warriors roster building in patience, and you said that you appreciated that good process from owner's front office and coaching staff and

even players that led to success. Do you feel like the Warriors are still abiding by that process or do you feel like they've been winging it since things have gone south after the punch, especially after Bob Meyers, who you praised in that June twenty two video left, If you do trust that they're still abiding by that process. JK has been bolling, Moody's been good drafting Brandon Pitzamski

and Trace Jackson Davis. How much of a chance compared to back in twenty twenty two do you give them to reach their ultimate goal again this year or next year or however long Steph, Drey and Clay may still play a couple of things. So, first of all, you know, I was critical of the Warriors after the during the twenty two run, just because I'm a big pusher chips

in the middle of the table guy. I'm a big believer that like, winning an NBA championship is super hard, and the last thing you want to do is lose in a series where you didn't have enough firepower and you had trade assets available that you held on too. And here's the thing, like the winner gets to tell the story. There's a version of that where they lose to Boston and you're like, we didn't play Jonathan Kamingo, didn't play James Wiseman, we didn't play Moses Moody. This

was this was a waste. We didn't get anything out of this, right, Like, there's a version of that where that's what happened. That's not what happened. Though Steph Curry was amazing in Game four. They they won the series, and so now you get the trophy and you get all of the assets that come from it. From there, it's been tricky because they have not had enough firepower

in the twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four season. Now, for the first year and a half of that stretch, I was a big advocate of making a trade because I thought Steph, you know, think Steph is still at the top of that you know, kind of seven or eight players in the NBA, and you got to give that dude a chance to win a championship because he's one of the rare players who's capable of doing it. But what happened was is in the middle of this season,

Jonathan Kaminga took a leap. And once Jonathan Kaminga took a leap, a real leap, a leap that makes you believe legitimately he can be probably the second best player on a championship team one day at some point in his career. Once you see that, that changes the calculus, and now all of a sudden, it's like, ugh, like whatever minuscule improvement we get through making some sort of trade, it actually makes more sense to kind of hang on to these guys and see what they how it develops.

And so again, like there might have been a point before Jonathan Aminga's you know, seven straight twenty plus point games or whatever, there might have been a point during that phase where it made sense to move him to try to bring in more firepower. But you know, at the end of the day, new information came into the equation, and now the Warriors are kind of in a situation where like, here's the deal focusing on this season, Do

I think they have much of a chance? No, there they don't have a legitimate secondary, like a reliable secondary option at this point in terms of a guy that you can count on for four playoff rounds to give you reliable scoring, which that was kind of Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole combined in the twenty twenty two playoff run. Jordan Poole's not here anymore, and Klay Thompson is not

the same player that he used to be. Andrew Wiggins is not the same player that he used to be, and so they just don't have the same amount of firepower that they had then. Even like little things like a guy like out of Porter Junior, who was super valuable in that particular season, right, Like they just aren't as as deep with like reliable playoff guys. That said, I still think it's a really encouraging time to be

a Warriors fan. Because Jonathan Minga is so good, Because Steph Curry still has years left, right, because Tray Jackson Davis has been a revelation, because Moses Moody is a guy that can defend on the perimeter and has them off the dribble popp and can knock down spot of three.

It's like they've got a lot of encouraging stuff. It's more of a big picture move at this point where you're kind of hoping that you can overlap some of these young guys getting into their prime with the tail end of Steph's prime and maybe find a year in there where you can sneak to the top. All right, guys, that is all I have for today has always been sincerely appreciate you for supporting the show when we're we

have two more shows this week. We're going tomorrow morning breaking down Celtic Suns and then on Saturday night Lakers Warriors Live on YouTube. After the final buzzer, I will see you guys tomorrow morning. The volume,