Hoops Tonight -LIVE: Game 2 Reactions: Thunder Tie Series vs. Nuggets + Knicks Go Up 2-0 on Celtics

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heading into Game three. And then in our second segment, in just shocking fashion, the New York Knicks come back again down twenty on the road in Boston to beat the Celtics. Now, I thought it was very different than what happened in Game one, So I want to get into a little bit more detail in terms of just the difference between bad shot quality or I should say bad shot selection and just needing to add more variety to your offense, which I think was more of the

problem tonight. So we're gonna be talking about that. I also want to shout out some specific elements of the Knicks defense, a couple of unsung heroes that have been making the things work for the Knicks on the defensive end of the floor. Michale Bridges had a showing in that early fourth quarter was magnificent, as the Celtics actually played some really good basketball during that phase, and McHale just hit shot after shot after shot to keep the

Knicks within striking distance. And then Jalen Brunson again making a case for potentially being the best guard in basketball. I want to dive a little bit into that concept. I think it's between him and Steph right now, and Jalen Brunson's just making a hell of a run once again in these playoffs. So we'll get into that Nicks Celtics game from the perspective of both teams, and then at the tail end of the show, we're going to

take about ten minutes of questions from the chat. So, if you're subscribed to our YouTube channel, hang out, drop your questions. We'll take about ten minutes of questions there at the end. And then when we are done here on YouTube, all you gotta do is go to playback dash or excuse me, playback dot tv slash hoops tonight to get set up on our hoops Tonight playback channel where we're gonna be going to take callers from the audience, take some more questions, watch some film, a bunch of stuff.

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tail end of the show. All right, let's talk some basketball. So how did Oklahoma City bounce back in Game two? I think there's obviously, in these sorts of situations, a pullback and a change in intensity. When a veteran team gets a important win on the road without home court advantage, there's naturally a little bit of a relaxation in Game two. And then I was talking with the guys before we started up. You know, like I've said some things about

Oka See this year. I have my frustrations and frustrations the wrong word. I had my concerns around them surrounding some of their ability to go ice cold on offense, some of their issues with perimeter size on defense. But I still firmly believe this is the second best team in basketball, and they are really fucking good on both ends of the floor, and so in a must win game, I expected them to come out and throw an incredible punch.

That is exactly what they did. But it can be too reductive to just be like, well, okay, okay, see brought the effort, Denver didn't. They won Game two. I want to get into some of those specific dynamics. Ultimately, you know, this is kind of a natural part of that playoff process. I similarly expect Minnesota to kind of beat up on Golden State tomorrow as a veteran team gets a home court advantage in Game one and very similar set of circumstances. But the only way you're going

to flip the scoreboard is by changing basketball dynamics. So let's get into some of the specific basketball things that Oklahoma City did to turn this series back to one point one headed to Denver. So, first of all, in the early part of the game, much better interior passing. As a team, they had eleven assists in the first quarter. They had twelve in the entire second half of Game one, a lot more.

talk about here in a few minutes. I thought they were doing a couple of specific interesting things on the defensive end of the floor, and then in the second quarter run I want to stay focused on JDub here for a minute, because again Jdub's young, and he doesn't have a ton of experience, and he's going to be inconsistent because of that, right, And like I thought, Game one was, you know, an example of that type of inconsistency.

But Jadub is really really good and one of the things that he was struggling with in in Game one was getting into the middle of the floor in precarious situations where he didn't really have much of like a downhill advantage, and he was taking some bad shots in there. I thought Jadubb was fantastic to lead that second quarter unit in the early second quarter, and again that was the group that really blew the lead out into that

like thirty point range. It started with the semi transition drives, like Christian Brown looked like he was hot dead to rights on his heels multiple times in that stretch because Jadub was just getting the ball in bounds and bringing up the floor, bringing the ball to the floor with pace,

and just hitting those semi transition moves. Get up the floor, get into a high hesitation like he's steel cruising at the same speed he was running past half court with sitting the high hesitation and either just boom crossover or push dribble to the right, just making really simple aggressive downhill moves. He had a drive on Christian Brown and again I think it was off of a made basket too, if I remember correctly, But it wasn't like any sort

of crazy turnover or anything. It was like a normal live ball transition situation, and he Christian Brown didn't pick him up until he was like at the charge circle, and he ended up just kind of having to wrap a JDub up and send him to the foul line. Like Jdubb's rim pressure in that early second quarter shift was amazing. In general, I thought Shay and j Dubb just made a concerted effort to apply excellent dribble penetration

at the point of attack. That combined with the way that they were moving the ball better, they were just getting fantastic shots. They found an action that they could spam. In that early second quarter run they started, the Nuggets started with DeAndre Jordan on Kason Wallace, and so they just started running ghost screens and then when Adamman takes DeAndre Jordan out of the action, they end up putt Jamal Murray on him, same exact sort of thing. They

just were spamming again. Jay Dubb coming off of a screen from Kaison Wallace caseon slipping out of it to the three point line, him just pitching that lefty over the top, pass two on the ball, easy slip, wide open three at the top of the key.

See that first half was insane. And again, like I mentioned at the top, I've been critical of OKC and their propensity to go into these extended offensive droughts this year. They had kind of a brief version of one in Game two and crunch time in a couple of minutes of crunched clutch basketball that they played. I think they had a sixty six offensive rating in Game one. It's how they ended up losing the game couple of bad

half court possessions. But this was the third best offense in the NBA this year, and they are certainly capable

of explosions like the one they had tonight. Hell, I was on the wrong end to one as a Lakers fan one of these eighty point halves back in early April in the second one of the games against OKC, where they came out and threw a very similar type of offensive punch, where it's just unbelievable transition, pushes, rim pressure, Chris passing, shot making all over the floor, Dudes just hitting every single open three, whether it's Jaylen Williams coming

off the bench. I thought Jayleen played an amazing shift in that first half, just came in and just started kicking Jokic's ass with physicality, hitting those spot up threes. I thought jay Will was amazing. But eighty seven points in the first half for Oklahoma City. Beautiful half court basketball and beautiful transition basketball. All their units functioned well, even though it was in different ways based on the personnel that was on the floor of the shot making

was absurd. Just a magical half of basketball from OKC in a must win situation. But I want to talk about the defensive end for a minute. More good ball pressure from dort throughout the game, and that was consistent through Game one too, but a lot of really good ball pressure that forced Denver into a lot of late clock situations just because it took them a long time to get into their offense. And then the big thing

that was triggering a lot of their transition sequences. They really kicked Joki's ass in this game and all of the areas where he likes to catch the ball. And we'll talk about Yokichier in a minute, because some of this is on him as well, but every single high post entry they were jumping it and getting like basically just not even making because Jokic wasn't making contact on

his seals. He was just kind of standing at the high post and calling for the ball, and those Thunder players were just shooting the gap with their speed and just taking the ball away from him. We're doing it all over the floor on his post ups, extra efforts digging down at the ball. Every single time he caught the ball in the pocket. There's like three Thunder arms in there grabbing at the ball, jumping those high post

passing lanes, getting out and transition consistently. They forced twenty one more turnovers tonight and scored thirty four points off of those turnovers, so they actually extended their advantage in points off of turnovers over what they had in Game one. It was a twenty point advantage in that specific margin for Denver. And then the last thing I wanted to shout out on the defensive end of the floor, just all the extra efforts that they were making at the rim.

I Uh, the numbers will take a little while to update, so we'll have to get into them on playback later tonight. But I bet you when we pull the rim finishing numbers from Denver in this game, I bet you they shot below forty percent at the rim or within five feet of the rim. The you can you can force guys into misses at the rim just by getting a bunch of dudes making those good vertical contests without fouling, and making it so the guys can't just go into

their traditional rhythm around the rim. You make them change angles on layups, change footwork on layups. Even against good NBA players, You'll force misses there. And every Thunder player was making those extra efforts in rotation at the rim tonight, so many misses at point blank range. In game one, Denver at fifty four points in the paint. They finished tonight with twenty eight, but a lot of those came

in garbage time. When I started focusing on my notes after Denver pulled their starters, I believe they were at like seventeen points in the paint. So like just a dramatic difference in paint dominance between game one and game two. Like the Thunder just threw an incredible punch. They absolutely needed this win, and it might have been their best two way punch of the season. That was an ass kicking of epic proportion, super balance scoring down the roster.

They ended up getting eight players in double figures tonight, albeit there was some garbage time involved, but just a really well rounded ass kicking championship type of effort from the Oklahoma City Thunder on the Denver front. Like I said, Yoki shares, I think the majority of the blame for a lot of those turnovers that were taking place at the high post in the sense that your job there's a passing angle to it where it's like the passer needs to get the ball to where the passing window is.

But at the same time, when that dude's also facing lou Door or somebody else in a lot of ball pressure, there needs to be from Jokic a better effort to just create a cleaner passing angle by finding the defender that's trying to stalk that pass and making contact so that he can't jump into that passing lane, make a clear window available. I thought in general, Jokics just kind of had a little bit of like a lackadaisical night

in a lot of those details. I just thought he just kind of succumbed to the physicality in a lot of ways, and you know, just didn't you just let oh the rope? And I thought I thought he shared a good amount of the blame just for a lot of those turnovers that were taking place in the middle of the floor. Denver's point of attack defense was absolute

garbage tonight. The good amount of this is on Christian Brown, but it goes down the roster is Shay and JDub were both picking on different switches there, but they were just losing control of the ball over and over again right at the top of the key, right in the first few seconds of the possession, and when that dude's slashing downhill. Their only way you're going to contain them is by conceding the types of wide open threes on

kickouts that they were conceding throughout this game. And so Denver just has to do a much better job on the ground at the point of attack of keeping the ball in front, flattening out those drives, making it so that hey, maybe Shay has to make two or three counter moves to get into the paint instead of just high hesitation beat the dude off the dribble. JADB was doing a ton of that type of damage tonight, so got to be much better at the point of attack.

I thought they missed a couple of really good looks early in the game that affected their overall just kind of like energy and belief and their ability to win. They had five like wide open threes for Christian Brown and Michael Port in the first quarter that all missed, and I thought that really kind of took the wind out of Denver sales, and I thought collectively as a group, they just let go of the rope from there and they were just never within any sort of real striking distance.

I still like their shot quality when they don't turn the ball over. There are a couple concerning things. They need to get Michael Porter Junior and Jamal Murray to start hitting a higher percentage of their jump shots. In particular, both of them just look really uncomfortable their misses right now. Or MPJA started to hit a couple later in the game, but both of them have had a lot of outside the rim misses, which tells me that they're just kind

of out of rhythm. Those guys need to get going in Denver for Denver to have a good chance to win this series. So through two games and through rewatching one of them, I rewatched game one obviously, haven't rewatched Game two yet, but I'm still sticking with OKC to win the series by a very slim margin. But I think it's much much closer to a coin flip than what I saw before the series, which was I didn't have Oka see as as substantial as a favorite as

Vegas did. I thought it was going to be a long series, end up picking Oklahoma City in seven if I remember correctly. But but this is a series now that I view much closer to a coin flip.

and winning game six. We'll see how it goes. I think the clear advantage for Oklahoma City that is shown through the first two games is their dribble penetration, Like even in the even in Game one, like they were able to contain the ball through double teams and just kind of baiting Shay and j Dub into some poor decisions and packing the paint, they were able to slow down dribble penetration a little bit today with some zone. I'll be curious to see how the numbers look with

that when the data actually updates. But that's their advantage in the same way that Denver has this huge, huge advantage in the form of size, which manifests with Jokich as this indomitable shot creation force, and then just their ability to get a ton of offensive rebus Blahoma City, it's just their speed, it's their drible penetration and what

they can do in transition. Even though Denver has a win in this series, both of these games, they got sliced and diced in those like points off of turnovers, you know, fast break opportunities off of bad misses and bad turnovers. And so Oklahoma City has their advantages in this series, and they're younger, and they're more athletic, and they're going to stay fresher over the course of the series. I think that's what keeps me from bailing on my

pick to start the series. But I feel much more confident in Denver's ability to win the series now after two games than I did before the series started. All right, let's go on to Boston, New York. What an insane game this was. There's so much interesting stuff to get into with Boston, but I want to kind of set that to a side for the for a minute, because as as poorly as Boston is playing, New York is also playing incredibly well, and there are a bunch of

specific things that need to get shouted out. I want to start on offense, and then we'll work to the defensive end of the floor on offense once again, when they go down twenty. They've been Pacers esque with their willingness to just keep pushing the ball in transition, playing with pace, not letting go of the rope, and just knowing that they have such a high powered offense that in any little short five minute span of time they can score a bunch of points and make something a

game like it was Ojan Andobi in Game one. They hit a couple of big a couple of big threes right after they won up twenty that cut the lead down to fourteen. Tonight, it was Josh Hart. Jason Tatum was straight up ignoring Josh Hart, helping off of him. Jalen Brunson was just kind of probing in the paint and made a couple of easy kickout passes to Josh Hart. On basically concession threes from the Celtics defense. He knocked

them both down in that early fourth quarter stretch. Michale Bridges was amazing, And remember he was so good defensively in Game one, but really didn't get going offensively in that game. He got his jump shot going in that early fourth quarter stretch. I think he hit like five or six jump shots. A couple of them were his classic kind of move mint threes, but several of them were really tough mid range jump shots off the bounce. He had a nasty reverse layup with his left hand

out of a ball screen against Drew Holliday. McHale Bridges for a fourth quarter scoring was key in a big way because the Knicks were playing well on offense in that stretch. That was a stretch where Peyton Pritchard got a couple of wide open threes that he hit. I

think Porzing's got an and one in that stretch. Al Horford got a bucket right at the rim like That was this phase of the game when the Celtics offense was actually playing pretty well and continued to kind of stiff arm the Knicks, but mcale bridges just kept scoring and then he hit this three believe off of the right wing that cut the lead to seven right around the middle of the fourth quarter, and then Brunson came in and Brunson just completely took over the game from there.

And once again late in the game, he gets a big three off of an offensive rebound from Josh Hart. He finds a matchup that he likes in drawing two on the ball with Horford that ends up setting up Josh Hart with a layup that he missed, but he occupied the rim protector, so Carl Anthony Towns was able to get an offensive rebound put back for an end one.

defenders are playing at a higher level of intensity. Drew Holliday once again, like just refusing to give up switches, fighting through screens where like there were a coup several possessions late where Jalen Brunson had to create a shot against Drew Holliday like he regardless of this incredible difficulty of these situations, He's literally coming through every single game. This is crazy, guys. This is one of the most

reliably great clutch performers I've ever watched. And you know, again, those Drew ISOs Like Drew Holliday is consistently throughout the season done a phenomenal job one on one against Jaylen Brunt, and he's the one guy on the Celtics that he

really struggles to get separation from. And twice down the stretch there were like three possessions where he attacked him directly, and on two of those possessions he managed to score a nasty one leg fade away, got his shoulder into Drew and then just leaned back on a one leg fadeaway around the right elbow, and then he drew a foul. On that final possession, the one that got the lead.

He knew Drew is going to be aggressive. He knew Drew was going to be physical, and he just trusted his handle, He trusted his counter movee spun off of Drew, Drew got out of position, Drew had no choice but to start hacking him, and he drew a foul there to get to the line. So again four points out of those late ISOs against Drew Holliday. That like, that's

really high level production in those situations. He got a transition right handed layup on Al Horford, just taking, you know, being opportunistic about an advantage that presented itself in transition, just kind of shot the gap, got around Horford, got to that right handed layup. I just can't say enough about Jalen Brunson and the job that he's on in

the clutch for this team. But I want to hold off about the conversation about him and where he stands among the guards right now because he was incredible on defense in this game again, but I want to talk about the Nicks defense in the big picture. We talked a lot about Ognnobi and McHale Bridges after Game one,

and those guys were amazing again tonight. Like Og forced Tatum into a really tough left shoulder fade on a clutch possession late kind of a late clock situation where Tatum had no choice but to attack him, defended him extremely well. McKale Bridges had that late peel off of jaln Brown where he got the deflection off of Tatum

on the final possession that forced the turnover. They both had big, like kind of help defense sequences in the in the fourth quarter, out of the post, like McHale Bridges scram Duce McBride out of a post mismatch Porzingis slipped. He had McBride. He scrammed him out of it and actually forced Porzingis to give up the ball and they ended up forcing a miss. Ognanobe he had that big baseline double team on a post up late in the game. Those guys were amazing. They do so much to clean

up messes for this Knicks defense. But I want to shout out two other guys tonight, Mitchell Robinson and Jalen Brunson. First of all, Mitchell Robinson. One of the big reasons why he continues to be such a reliable piece for New York in this matchup is his ability to defend in switches plus nineteen tonight in twenty two misses or twenty two minutes. I'm pulling up the plus minus from game one because I wanted to see in Game one

he was plus thirteen and twenty one minutes. So they've consistently been very good with Mitchell Robinson on the floor. And a big part of it is is we saw, you know, they can attack Karl Anthony Towns and pick and roll. That was how Tatum drew that late foul call, the one that brought the three point lead down to two, was he just basically flipped a screening angle on Cat. He Cat had to rush over to the other side

of the screen. He quickly split him with the crossover dribble and then Cat had no choice but to hack him as he was going downhill. But like for the most part, Mitchell Robinson when he switches in those ball screens, has been able to keep the ball in front, force them into a contested mid range pull up or a contested three point pull up, and that's winning those matchups because Tatum and Brown can't make that shot right now. Both of them are just so broke with their jump

with their jump shot. And like there's a little thing that you saw there late that the play where Tatum got the dunk to get the lead, the dead giveaway or the obvious difference was that they just gave Tatum a massive runway and let him run the length of the floor and they set the ball screen damn near at half court, and so he was already he had such a head of steam by the time he got to Mitchell Robinson that it was so easy for him

to break him off with a simple move there. But Mitchell Robinson's defense and his ability to switch in pick and roll on those guys has been a huge part of how they've been able to be so good defensively in the lineups. When he's on the floor, Joe Mizula like flat out admitted after the game that he's hacking him,

not even because of the free throws. He's hacking him because he's trying to get TIBs to take him off the floor, like freely admitted it is like like like he said after the game, he was like, I hacked him on that late passez just to get TIBs to take him off, get off the floor, because look at his plus minus and then look at the plus minus of all the starters. I thought that was a super interesting bit. Like, first of all, for tip for uh Missoula to even admit that in that situation, I thought

was fascinating. But yeah, it's Mitch has been kicking everybody's butt. And then Jalen Brunson. I shouted at him out if you guys remember after game one for a couple of key defensive sequences. He had two stops against Tatum on an island where he beat him to spots and forced him into tough pull ups. He battled Horford on a couple of post mismatches where he fronted the post. A bunch of the same stuff again tonight, just battling in post mismatches, being willing to hold up on an island

again with both guys. With Kat and with Brunson, they're still mixing in the hedge and recover with Brunson, They're still mixing in a bunch of drop with Kat, you know, just just to try to you know, one of the interesting subplots here is I think part of the reason why TIBs is sticking with that is because Boston shooting the ball so poorly, Because like they're getting clean looks out of a lot of those actions late in the game.

They got Horford a couple of wide open looks in pick and pop situations late in the game, just like that. But they're just Brunson is competing defensively and it's making a world of difference. Cat is still really struggling, but Brunson has made it so that there's one really weak defender on the flour instead of two. And like I talked a lot about, you know, during the Knick struggles this year, I've talked a lot about the idea that they kind of you know, that teams have missed the

point about what made Boston great. You know, what made Boston great wasn't necessarily just Tatum and Brown. Obviously those guys are a big part of it, but it's that they can keep putting together these five man lineups where all five defenders are great. And like, by the way, Boston's not losing this series because of defense. They held

the Knicks to ninety one points tonight. They the Celtics can guard one through five in basically all of their lineups, the majority of their lineups, with exception to like Porzingis is like the guy that they're really struggling to guard

with in this particular phase of the season. But like with the Knicks, one of the reasons why they never had any sort of sustained success against great teams this year, frankly, any success against great teams this year was because Brunson and Cat were these like obvious entry points, and so it doesn't matter how good Mkale is on the ball, doesn't matter how good Og is on the ball. They're

just in rotation too much. And like Brunson being able to hold his ground the way that he's been holding his ground in conjunction with the job that Mkale and Og are doing and all these help and recover situations and Josh Hart as well, it's just made it so that the Knicks defense is so much more sturdy in these spots. And like obviously there's a Celtics element with them knocking down shots. And you know this will bear

out over the course of the series. Like whether you want to ask me whether or not the Knicks can win this series, it really is gonna come down to whether or not that defense can hold up, because we're gonna talk about Boston here in a minute. Boston was consistently better on the road than they were at home. This here, this series is not over Boston. I would not be even the slightest bit surprised if Boston went down to MSG in one to two and brought this

series back to Boston at two to two. So like this is not over. But the pathway for the Knicks is that defense that we just talked about, holding up, Brunson, holding up to help and recover, holding up, just them in general holding up on that end of the floor. But hell of a punch from the Knicks, you know,

it's so funny. I was talking with Josh Rodriguez. He's a guy used to do some work for this show, a big Knicks fan, and we were talking after Game seven, Game six of the Piston series, and he was like, man, Knicks fans are so sick of this team because they just didn't have the same like juice, competitive juice that

they did in last year's team. And you know, like you Cat's joking after the series, like we just like to do things the hard way, and it's like, well, you guys kind of don't do the work for large stretches of games and make things really difficult on yourself.

But for whatever reason, it's like all come to fruition here in the first two games of the series, and all of a sudden, this looks like a Knicks team that has a decent chance to win the title, Like they're a legitimate threat in a way that I did not see them as a legitimate threat at all coming into this postseason run. So shout out to the Knicks for discovering a sturdy defensive identity. And then there's the

second piece of it, which is Jalen Brunson. And again, like this is a conversation for the summer, and I would lean Steph still at this point because I just

am such a believer in late round playoff success. But Jalen Brunson, you know, especially with Steph starting to age out, Jalen Brunson is making a strong case to be the best small guard in the league with the way that he's been playing as of late, for him to be as sturdy defensively as he has been, and then to just routinely be arguably the very best closer in all

of basketball. To the point where the Knicks did the job of getting them into two close games against the Celtics late and twice Jalen Brunson they aired down Jason Tatum and was just flat out better than him. And I just want to shout out Brunson. I think I think he at the very least now has a case to be the best small guard in the league. And again we'll approach that again this summer, but man like, he's just playing at a crazy high level. So let's

talk about Boston's offense couple of things. First of all, the hilarious thing was that after OG's offensive foul when he dunked all over, who was it that got in front of him?

right at the front of the rim. They got that lead up to twenty getting stuff right at the rim. And we're gonna talk about that in a little bit as it pertains to the versatility element. But honestly, guys, Like when I watched the second half of Game one, I was like, I called it CTE basketball as a joke, but like it was just an enormous amount of poor process and terrible shot selection. I didn't feel that way

at all watching the second half of this game. I thought their process was generally good, and I thought they mostly got great shots. Yes, there were some bad ones mixed in there. That Tatum had that bad left shoulder fade over og Nnobi in clutch time that he missed. Jlen Brown had a shot where he went right at Brunson and tried to like grift a foul around the

left elbow. That was a bad possession obviously. The final possession where Tatum shot tried to pass out of a double team and turned it over against Michel Bridges, that was a bad possession. But there was a lot of good you know. I saw Jason Tatum trying to split ball screens against cat and Mitchell Robinson late and getting to the rim. Jalen Brown did.

a semi transition sequence. Jylen Brown missed one at the top of the key out of a ball screen where there was nobody up at the level and the screen wiped out the defense. I mean he's standing unguarded. And so it was very different from Game one in the sense that, like you know, the Celtics of Tate, the Celtics took sixty threes in Game one, but they were bad threes. I've seen the Celtic take fifty to fifty five threes in a game and have them mostly be

good threes. It has nothing to do with the volume of threes for me, It has to do with where they get them. But there is a reality to the fact that if your offense is primarily designed to generate threes and the propensity of the team is to hunt those threes, even if they're good threes, every three has a certain degree of variance to it. To take it a step further, shooting in general is kind of a

mind fuck. The best shooters in the world don't make half their threes, meaning like, if you take a three, you're probably going to miss, and so as they start to stack up on you, often it can get in your head you start to tweak your release. Like, guys, Jason Tatum's jump shot has not just been off, it's been.

They could go into game three and suddenly Tatum, Brown and White could go, you know, twelve for twenty from three and they could blow out the Knicks and you know, send this to a game for it two games to one. But there is variance. It's an inherent part of shooting, and it tends to be streaky. It tends to be as a team you'll go cold and as a team you'll go hot. There is a momentum behind that sort of thing. Now, this is where the variety comes into

the to the picture. The closer you can get to the basket with pet action, meaning like let's say that Jason Tatum just made a concerted effort to post up legitimately like six seven, eight, nine times a game. If he made that effort, that makes it so that there's a huge chunk of the way that he can generate offense that generates shots that are closer to the rim. The closer you get to the rim, the less variance

there is. Tatum is absolutely big and strong enough to be a guy that can bump a defender off and take a left shoulder hook. There's nothing that says that he can't take that type of shot. Tatum, also with his jump shot, will have less variants on short, little ten foot turnarounds. Then he will on seventeen foot turnarounds or on three point shots. As a team, this offense is entirely geared around the ability to generate three point shots.

This is where I got to go to the stars and guys like Jason Tatum had the best season of his career, and this was the first season where I said that I thought that he was a legitimate top tier superstar in this league. He combined the versatility that he had really built out over the previous years as a big, strong athlete that could do everything as a

rebounder and as a defender. He combined that with a dramatically improved overall just like floor presence as a playmaker and as just like a half court kind of flow of the game guy. And then he took a leap as a shot maker to the extent to where he looked fantastic in the first round. But as I've consistently said, like when Tatum can't make his jump shot, he is

no longer a top tier superstar in this league. And the reason is is because he doesn't have any elite first step that can consistently beat people off the dribble good defenders, and he doesn't have any sort of legitimate, reliable, close range game, and so if his jump shot isn't there, if he can't rely on that piece of his offense,

he dramatically dips overall as an offensive talent. And suddenly this Celtics team and again, like remember last year when Tatum was faltering, Jylen Brown was playing the best basketball of his career. The problem is is Jalen Brown is also in just as big of a shooting slum. And so it's really tricky because the two guys that are primarily responsible for generating shots for this offense are two guys that rely on consistently getting to the rim and

knocking down pull up jump shots. And neither of them can get to the rim right now, and neither of them can make their jump shot. And so all of a sudden, you have a Celtics offense that, even though they're surrounded by all of this play finishing talent, they are unable to generate something that doesn't have a great deal of variance involved, which is that three point shot attack.

When we look at the top players in the league, when you look at like Nikola Jokics, for instance, his game is impervious to variants because he shoots like sixty five percent on shots that are within ten feet of the basket that are not layups. Shake Gildos, Alexander is going to get into the mid range and he's over fifty percent from there. He's much less susceptible to variants.

the series is not over. I would not be the slightest bit surprised if Boston went down in one game, three, four, five, and six. But it's going to turn on Jason Tatum. If Tatum goes down there and gets back to that top tier, superstar level, the Celtics will win. If he goes down there and drops another five for seventeen, then they're not going to win.

about it. Like you can tell all the other players are like one of us should probably take control, but like who's going to be the guy that goes like, hey, Tatum, give me the ball, you know what I mean, And like, that's like I thought. I thought this game in particular came down to the fact that, like the Celtics stars are just legitimately unable to make shots right now. Game one felt much more like years past, where it's like, why do these guys keep taking these really stupid shots?

But I didn't really have a problem with their shot selection in the second half of this game. What did you feel, like, your Celtics fan, Jackson, what did you feel about the shot selection late in this game?

we gonna do this again? You know, it's it's becoming more of like, at least on the surface, I don't know what these guys are actually thinking, obviously, but from a viewer standpoint, it feels much more like they are.

second half tonight, totally different second half. Seven unguarded jump shots catch shoot zero point four to three points per attempt. So like they just they're just they're just completely out of whack with their jumptioning. But this is the thing, Like, this is the advantage of having a player that can

consistently generate quality twos close to the rim. When you have that type of player, it gives you a certain floor offensively to where like even when you're missing your threes, you're still getting a handful of layups during that stretch or easier shots during that stretch that kind of raise your floor, Like even like with Steph Curry, because like Steph Curry's always had a great deal of variance in

his game. I mean, the first half of the Rockets game is a Rockets game seven is a good example, right, But with Steph, he because he inverts the spacing by bringing multiple defenders to the perimeter constantly.

in those situations. And ultimately, Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum are incapable of generating quality two's on a consistent basis close to the basket, which makes them very dependent on tough jump shot making and that's been an issue for them consistently in the series.

shot better for your offense. Undeniable, it's just math. But at the end of a game, when there's only so many shots left to come in the game, it's not about the best expected value of the shot, it's are you going to score at all on the shot? Right, Which is why it's not that doesn't become a one point one to four game anymore. It becomes a two

or a zero, or a three or a zero. So it's it's not about expected value, it's about is it going to go in, which is why you want a closer or a mid range shot or a you know in the paint, a paint touch, which is what Jalen Brunson is doing at a dramatically, dramatically dramatically higher level than Tatum and Jalen Brown.

can't do it. Tatum can, but Tatum needs like some circumstances like oh, we got to give him a massive runway and set the screen at half court, you know, like that sort of thing for him beat a Mitchell Robinson off the dribble, Whereas like, yeah, like if he gets a favorable matchup, he can beat that guy off the dribble. But like that's the thing, Like the Celtics

did that stuff well tonight. They did the hunting the right matchups, building the advantages, generating the quality shots My thing is like, sometimes you got to stare down the best defender that's guarding you and be able to generate a quality too.

and it ended up forcing a Game seven. Like that team was less mature, less able to like stabilize in terms of process, Like there's a chance that the Celtics come out and play the exact same game in Game three that they played in Game two and win by fifteen.

Like they are, they are definitely capable of going down there and winning, but it's really hard to win four times in five prize and that dude Madison Square Garden is going to be bumping in Game three, and that's that's where I kind of feel like it makes sense for it to be a coin flip, because, like, I think the Knicks are about a coin flip to win Game three, even with like you're gonna get what whatever the best version of the Celtics is, You're getting that

in Game three, like that, they're gonna come out like guns blazing in that game. But the Knicks are also going to be playing with an opportunity to really put the series away and to go up three to zero. So like I view that game as a coin flip, and I think whoever wins that game probably wins the series. And so at that with that being the case, it kind of feels to me like roughly a coin flip.

But you get you're gonna obviously give the team that has like a big home court advantage at this point in the Knicks the advantage to.

City was on the right side of it. I generally feel that way, Like there's there's so many examples where like you'll see a team win a game, and then the other team will win the next game by bringing the requisite effort, and in that game they'll get a better whistle, and everyone will think it's like the league off is stepping in and being like, we need to tie this series, and it's like, no, what's happening is the team that's desperate, that absolutely has to win this game,

Like this is not like Boston New York, Like Boston could afford to lose tonight, and still they've been better on the road all seed, Like Boston has lost so many games at the TV Garden it's not even funny this year, like the I think they have like I think this is like their fourteenth loss at home this year. It's something crazy like that. They have been a very good road team all year. They've looked much more likeast year's team on the road than they did at home

this year. And so Denver, Oka, see, it's very different. You you drop that game tonight like and send Denver home like you're not winning two in Denver. You might get lucky to get one there, like the series could be over if you lose tonight. So like Oklahoma City brought the requisite effort, they're an awesome team. They physically

kick dress guys. I'm watching Jokic not even seal at the high post, like I'm not gonna blame the refs when Jokic I thought, played just a poor game by his standards, and like, guys, that's the thing I'm I like in order for me to feel like it means something for me to say that Game one was one of the greatest playoff performances that I've ever watched. We also have to be willing to look and be like he sucked tonight. If we don't do that, then it means nothing when we say he was awesome, and it

also means nothing when we say somebody sucks. We have to be honest about the way that these guys played. Yokic was awesome in Game one, his team one. Jokic was not good tonight and it was a big part of why they lost. And by the way, he's not the only one ever. Michael Porter Junior was awful again tonight. There's point of attack defense was awful all night long. Christian Brown had a bad night. They a lot of

guys down the roster were bad. But you know, obviously Joki is a guy hold to a very high standard. I think he's the best player in the world and one of the best players in NBA history, and I don't think he did his job tonight.

I just went through that as a Laker fan. Like as much as I like Jimmy Lucas better and Luca was having a hard time finding advantages from to attack one on one. This is not a one on one type of attack kind of series. Your advantage is Yes, Jimmy looks to be aggressive. Yes, every time there's four seconds on the shot clock, you want to throw him the ball and he needs to go try to create

something off the dribble. But this is a series you're gonna win defense to transition and by putting Minnesota in the blender in the half court. All right, guys, uh, playback playback dot tv slash hoops tonight. The link is in the description. Head over there right now. We're gonna be starting out there in just a couple of minutes. We'll take some callers, we'll take some questions from the chat, we'll hang out and just watch some film, talk, some basketball,

and an informal setting for about forty five minutes. We'll see guys over there in just a minute. Thanks as always for supporting the show. We'll see you guys in just a couple of minutes.