Hoops Tonight: Celtics/Knicks Series Preview and Prediction

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New customers only bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkang dot co slash audio. All right, welcome to hoo'son I here at the volume heavy Friday. Everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great end to your week. Just a quick show today, we're gonna be doing a brief series preview on the second round in the Eastern Conference between the Boston Celtics and the New

York Knicks. We're gonna be talking about why Boston has dominated this matchup throughout the year, why Boston is such a substantial favorite, and what it looks like the tiny little pathway in which the Knicks can make this into a more competitive series. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter,

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of the postseason. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the season series went four to oh to Boston. They logged a one thirty offensive rating in the four games, combined a one to thirteen defensive rating, So for those of you doing the math at home, that's plus seventeen points per one hundred possessions through four games. The Celtics are also grabbing fifty two percent of available rebounds, so they're winning on the glass in those matchups as well.

A couple of little bits of interesting lineup data. The Celtics starters meaning Holiday in White, Tatum, and Brown with Porzingis are plus fourteen net in thirty one minute the season. In this matchup and with Horford instead of Porzingis their plus forty two net in seventeen minutes with a one sixty three offensive rating with that group. I also kind of liked the idea. We talked a little bit about this last night and we're going to talk about it today.

But there's a little bit more of a comfortable It's Jalen Brunson, in particular, in his ball screen attack, is more comfortable going against Porzingis than he is going against Horford, which is a little bit of an interesting piece that I think is reflected in that data as well. The

Knicks starters. So this is Karl Anthony Towns with Jalen Brunson, with Josh Hart, McHale Bridges and og And and Obi in sixty five minutes against the Celtics this year, minus twenty one points per one hundred possessions, the Knick starters have gotten just cleanly beat in this matchup. In the regular season. The closest thing to an encouraging result for the Knicks was their last matchup on April eighth, towards the end of the season, a game where the Knicks

figured some stuff out. Ultimately, the Celtics were able to send that game to overtime with the Tatum step back three over og And and Obi at the top of the key and a Chrisops Porzingis pick and pop three, a pretty well contested one that was about twenty eight feet away from the rim. So I don't want to call it, you know, an easy shot, but an opening that exists in their baseline coverage with Karl Anthony Towns on porzingis a pick and pop at the top of the key

ended up ending that game. So we'll talk about what was encouraging here in a minute, but the point is there isn't much in the way of regular season info that would lead us to believe the Knicks have much of a chance here, and it reflects in the odds. Again, all of our odds are provided by DraftKings. DraftKings has the Celtics as a minus eight hundred favorite to win the series. You'd have to bet eight hundred dollars to win one hundred if the Celtics won the series. That's

pretty substantial for perspective. The Knicks were only about a minus four hundred favorite to beat the Pistons before the series started, for example. So, just like we usually do, we're going to talk about the Celtics on offense, and then we'll talk about the Nicks on offense before we get into our pick at the tail end of the show. So with the Celtics on offense. The Knicks in their

last game against Boston went with these matchups. They wanted to match up strength a little bit more on Jaln Brown, so they went with Josh Hart on Jalen Brown, o j Anobi on Jason Tatum, Karl Anthony Towns on Chrisops Porzingis, Jalen Brunson and Drew Holliday, and Mikhale Bridges on Derek White. In terms of their scheme, we talked a little bit

about this idea of peel switching last night. The only real thing that you need to understand in order to get the idea of how pel switching works differently from a regular switch is it's like it's more like a traditional coverage in the sense that you're temporarily putting two

on the ball. But instead of imagine a pick and pop with Porzingis slipping out of the action, instead of asking Carl Towns to bail on that ball screen action and close out to Porzingis, you're asking the guy on the ball to bail out and close out tops Porzingis. So couple things. It applies token back pressure. So by keeping that two on the ball temporarily you can speed up the ball handler and force him to make a decision quicker rather than processing you in a way that

is more comfortable for him. And then two, very simply put, your on ball defender is probably going to be faster. So like, if it's McHale Bridges on Derek White, he's going to be able to close out to Porzingis faster. If it's og and Andobi on Jason Tatum, he's going to be able to close out to Porzingis faster or Horford faster. Whereas if you ask Kat to close that ground,

it's just a lot for him to ask. And it also is a lot in terms of just energy expended throughout the series to have Brunson and Kat throwing these crazy closeouts throughout the series. And so that's the main thing that you'll see in the early part of this series is in pick and pop action. In particular, the Knicks will ask the on ball defender to basically rotate back, which essentially functions as a switch and so if their closeouts are sharp there, it does expose them to the

switch hunting that you could see. So for instance, now Derek White has Carl Towns on him, Jason Tatum has Carl Towns on him, and those will be situations where they'll look where they will look to attack. And then with by the way we're gonna we're gonna talk a little bit about way the ways that Boston can look to specifically attack those peel switches here in a minute.

But the other piece of it is when they look to attack Brunson, he's still looking for that classic hedge and recover that he's been using against basically everybody in the league. Essentially, Brunson, when his man comes in sets the screen, he's going to hedge out to stop the ball handler from turning the corner, preferably force him to take a retreat, dribble or something away from the basket. Then he'll recover as the on ball guy ducks underneath and meets him on the other side of the screen.

You can force the switch there by just rescreening a few times, and the Celtics had some success there where like they'll call for a ball screen, Brunson will hedge, the guy will come off, and they'll just rescreen, rescreen, rescreen until Brunson inevitably has to switch because the guy slips out of it pretty well and forces the Knicks to react in that way the way that Boston will

look to attack. In those actions, specifically against the Peel Switches, what worked pretty well was one creating more distance between the ball handler and the popper. What that means is if you'd imagine this guy's Tatum, this guy's Porzingis. Instead of like creating just a tiny bit of separation in the action, Porzingis needs to really cover ground on his slip and Tatum needs to really drag out the action with that initial dribble that creates a longer close out.

The longer the closeout is, the more likely it is that the Knicks will bail and actually rotate from the weak side. As soon as they rotate from the weak side, now the skip passes wide open or the extra passes wide open, and you're in rotation. And as we're going to talk about, rotation is going to be death for

the Knicks against the Celtics in this series. The second thing I noticed on film that seemed to work against the Peel Switches, and we saw a good example of this in crunch time of their last game, was just having Porzingis roll so like obviously the natural inclination for this Celtics team when they're running those ball screens with Horford and Porzingis is to have them pop and they primarily will use the dunker spot as like a spacing mechanism,

using like a guard or something like that when they're attacking matchups, and they'll have the bigs primarily operate picking and popping or spacing the floor behind the three point line. Right. Well, if you have Porzingis roll, now you can imagine how the peel switch is impossible. Right. So, Like, let's say og and Andobi's guarding Tatum and Kat is guarding Porzingis, and Kat gets involved in the screen as Porzingi sets

the screen and instead of popping, Porzingis rolls to the rim. Now, as that guy is chasing over the top, the on ball guy og and Obi chasing over the top, there's no way for him to recover in time to a rolling big, whereas with a pick and pop big he might be able to throw really hard clothes out and chase him off the line. Right. So, like they ended up getting a really good look out of that in crunch time of their last game, hitting poor Zingis in

the pocket as they came off of that action. The other ways that I wanted to look at in terms of ways that Boston will attack in the half court won straight post steps of Brunson with Drew Holiday. They went to this early in the last game. Again, Brunston's got to hide somewhere in a traditional one on one matchup, and they're hiding him on Drew Holiday. The specific reason

there being Derek White is a better movement shooter. So one of the easiest ways to attack a hedge and recover is to have the guard setting the screen, get out of the action quickly pitch it back to him while his defender is hedging. There's an opportunity for a three, but it's usually sprinting into a three while having to get your feet set on the move, and Derek White's just better at that than Drew Holliday. So by putting Brunson on Drew Holiday, you're a little less exposed to

him slipping out of screens and taking threes. But the Celtics still look to attack that by having Drew Holiday drive those closeouts, and there are lots of examples of the Celtics getting good stuff out of Drew driving past Jalen Brunson, but they will also just dribble the ball off the floor and give the ball to Drew and be like, Okay, go to work, and he'll just attack Jalen Brunson on an island and they'll get stuff out of that. They got really good stuff out of off

ball action involving both Brunson and Cat. So you can imagine a scenario where you have you know, Jylen Brown and Derek White and Jason Tatum kind of like in five out spacing on the right side of the floor where it's like, you know, Tatum's at the top of key, Derek White's on the wing, Jaylen Brown's on the corner, and they'll have Tatum with the ball up top and they'll just literally have Carl Anthony Towns. They'll have him.

They'll have Porzingis come off of a screen where where Drew Holliday will screen down on Carl Anthony Towns and Carl Towns will chase Porzingis over the top and Brunson will have to help and they'll just put two on the ball against Porzingis and they'll just pitch it over to Drew Holliday and he's wide open and he'll drive, essentially looking to attack the knicks two worst defenders in action. They got a wide open three for Derek White out of an action like that in their mouth in their

last matchup. Jalen Brown also seems to like the Josh Hart matchup for whatever reason. I think he just likes the size and strength advantage that he has there, even though Josh Hart's a pretty big and strong dude. But they will go straight at Josh Hart in ISO and post up situations with Jalen Brown the keys for both teams. For the Celtics, it's really it's really as simple. This is the dynamic of the series. For the Celtics, it's about getting the Knicks in rotation and for the Knicks

about keeping themselves out of rotation. The Knicks are just so good at turning a close out of any kind into a wide open three somewhere else on the floor with their crisp driving kick attack right, So like that's the dynamic they have to keep under control. For Boston,

it's about avoiding falling into the ISO trap. So one use Brunson as a vehicle to get the defense in rotation by making him hedge not as a defender to try to shoot over if you can help it, meaning like as long as he's edging and recovering, slip out of those screens quickly, ask Drew to attack off the bounce. Have that be the entry point for your driving kick attack. If you obsessively look at hunting Brunson in switches, I

think that's where you can get a little stagnant. But if they do start switching with them, which there's a version of this series where the Knicks just are like, screw it, We're sick of giving up these driving kick threes. We need to just switch everything to try to contain the ball. That's where you have to punish Brunson enough to make it untenable for the defense, meaning not settling for bad pull up jump shots that end up being a net positive for the Knicks in the big picture.

And then for the Knicks, it's about executing their game plan, meaning they're peel switches and their regular switches, executing them well to make sure that they don't give those natural openings. If they get into rotation, they'll die a quick death. That is the story of the series for them. Containing the ball and staying out of rotation. With the Knicks on offense, the Celtics are going to match up with

the Knicks and their classic Boston Celtics fashion. That means they're going to put Jason Tatum on Karl Anthony Towns so that they can switch any ball screens that involve Jalen Brunson, and they're they're gonna hide chrisops Porzingis just like they did in the NBA Finals last year on

the weaker above the break three point shooters. So just like they put him on Derek Jones Junior last year in the Conference finals or in the NBA Finals, They're gonna put him on Josh Hart and basically be like Josh Hart, if you want to take these wide open pick and pop threes at the top of the key, be our guests, right, And that's the first swing factor of the series, right there, is Josh Hart being able to beat chrisps Porzingis for helping off of him. Right.

That means Josh Hart's gonna have to take and make above the break threes. He's gonna have to slash out of that spot and create opportunities. He's gonna have to rebound out of that spot. Josh Hart needs to punish the Celtics for putting Porzingis on him. That is the first big swing factor of this series. But we all know how this goes for the Knicks. Right when they're getting stops and they're getting out in transition, it's very

equal opportunity everyone's involved. That's where they can be scary. But in the half court it inevitably devolves down into brunts and attacking. In ball screens and in ISOs, Drew does a fantastic job against him. Jalen needs to get Drew off of him whenever he can. He's strong enough to disrupt his base and quick enough to beat him to spots. He's just one of the very best defenders in the league. It's something that Brunson's got to avoid.

He does have a little bit of a strength advantage against Derek White, so similar to what we talked about yesterday with the sar Thompson. His advantage in that matchup is strength and his low center of gravity, so hard attacking moves, getting contact with that right shoulder, pull back, dribbles, those are the ways that he can look to shed

Derek White to get some advantage. He does have some success attacking porzingis in action a little bit less with Al Horford, but I do think that we'll see a lot of Brunson attacking the Celtics bigs in space whenever he can. Horford's just better at sliding his feet. He's a little bit better at like getting like sneaking shots off against porzingis as he like ships his weight around and gets into a position where he can't move quick

enough or contest quick enough. But the bottom line is is this is really why the Knicks have such a hard time in this matchup. The defensive answers that this that the Knicks have for the Celtics are kind of flimsy, right,

actually require the Knicks to concede these gaps. Appeal switch still leaves two on the ball temporarily, there are opportunities for the Celtics to look to attack there or just regular switches involve switching mediocre to bad defenders onto high level dribble drive guys, and so their answers are just flimsy. The Celtics have just so many quality answers for the Knicks for what the Knicks like to do on offense. No,

That's why I'm picking the Celtics in five games. It's just a nightmare matchup and it should honestly be the springboard into a summer for the Knicks where they end up making some substantial roster turnover, likely centering around to Karl Anthony Towns trade. That's a conversation for a couple of weeks from now. So what is the case for the Knicks to win? To me, it's defense to transition,

they have to perfectly execute their defensive scheme. They need superhuman efforts relative to their defensive talent from Karl Anthony Towns, from Jalen Brunson, containing the ball in switches, flying around in their hedge and recover situations, rotating when they end up in driving kick situations. They need the Celtics to fall into the trap of poor decision making, which I think is wishful thinking, but that's something that I think

they'll need if they're gonna win the series. And then I think the Knicks need to play at an insane pace all series where they can take advantage of their aggregate talent in the open court. That's when they're so hard to deal with offensively. So when they're running up the floor and it's Michale Bridges doing what he's doing last night and hitting those gaps, and Ogan Ando be getting clean corner threes and Karl Anthony Town's getting trailer threes.

That's where they get their higher quality shots against this elite Boston Celtics defense. So again, lots of advantages for Boston, picking Boston to win, very thin pathway to victory for the Knicks. We will be covering this series throughout every single time live on YouTube. After the final game of the night, it's all I have for today, guys, or for this morning, I should say, I will see you guys live on YouTube after the final buzzer of Warriors

Rockets Game six. We will also be going to playbacks after the final buzzer or after we finish our YouTube live show. In that show, we'll be going through some film, We'll be taking questions from the audience, bringing you guys up on stage, doing lots of interactive stuff. So make sure you guys head over there and get all situated so that you're ready for tonight. All right, guys, that's all we have. I will see you later tonight. What's up guys. As always, I appreciate you for listening to

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