The volume Lakers Snida is presented by Fandual Sports Book. There's no better place to make every moment more than with FanDuel. It's America's number one sports book. It's easy to use, and it's fun to combine multiple bets from the same game into a same game parlay and Fandal Sports Book is now live in Ontario, Canada. If you are new, just download the Fandel Sports Book app to
get started. Now signed up with promo co Jason T so they know I sent you twenty one plus in president Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey,
New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia or Wyoming. Gambling problem called one eight hundred, next step or text next step to five three three four two in Arizona one eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit c CpG dot org slash chat in Connecticut one eight gambler or visit FanDuel dot com slash r G in Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Virginia one eight seven seven seven seven zero s t O
P in Louisiana one eight hundred two seven zero seven seven for confidential help. In Michigan one eight seven seven eight Hope and Why, or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine In New York, Tennessee redline is one eight eight nine eight nine. Visit www dot one eight gambler dot net in West Virginia or five to two four seven zero zero in Wyomie. All right, Welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Bandol. Here at the volume, I'm Jason Tip. Happy Saturday, everybody. I hope you all
had a great week. Happy NBA Playoffs day. It is finally here. This next two month stretch is literally my favorite time year. There's nothing like the relentless on slot of quality basketball that we're all about to experience. You know.
Jamond Green went on the Point Forward podcast, which is a new podcast that I just learned about with andre A Guadala and Evan Turner, and they were talking about the NBA media and in it, Draymond Green basically one on a long die tribe that I won't get too far into because it's something I've talked about a lot
on the show. In the last couple of days. But he was talking about how the media has a responsibility to cover the beautiful game of basketball and not the drama and all of the stuff that you see, especially you know, on some of the bigger media networks, the Talking Heads shows, you'll see all of these, all of the focus on seemingly nothing but the basketball, which can
be frustrating. And agree with Draymond, And that's exactly why I love this time year because for the next two months, these teams that are here, it's not about drama anymore. It's about basketball, and we can really really get into the weeds. We don't have to worry about the day and day out grind to the regular season and guys, you know, not being focused on the right things, or guys taking load management, or maybe it's a night in Los Los Angeles where they went out on the town.
Though none of that's happening anymore. This is dead serious basketball. It's what always stands out to me right away from the very beginning, is just how hard it is to score in these games. Everyone talks so much about the way playoff basketball changes compared to the regular season. I feel like it's more of a slow burn to like some of the officiating stuff takes till later rounds for the revs to really decide to swallow the whistle and
a lot of the pace. And these teams they gear up into the playoffs, and by the teams that are still around by the third and fourth round, they're so dialed into and they know exactly who they are. There's just no such thing as easy baskets anymore. And that's
what makes the game so incredibly interesting. You see this moment, it's almost like an O ship moment where the teams get stuck in the half court as soon as they face a set defense or you just realize everyone kind of looks at each other, like what do we do? We gotta figure out a way to score here. This is gonna be hard. It's my favorite. It's my favorite part about NBA playoff basketball. We have three really interesting games today, the Nuggets Warriors game. We're going to lump
in with tomorrow's show. Starting tomorrow night, we'll get back into the tradition a groove of the live YouTube shows that we do and where we have Carson come on and we do a bunch of other stuff as well. Today we're gonna be breaking down that Raptors Sixers game, and then the Grizzlies Wolves Wolves game, as well as the Jazz and the Mavericks. But we're gonna start with that Raptor Sixers game, which was super interesting on a
bunch of different levels. Uh, you know, looking from the not thirty foot view of this series, I talked about how the Sixers were the better team and they had more talent, they should win the series. But there are some advantages with Toronto, specifically with their coaching staff and the fact that Philly has some very specific weaknesses that over the course of the series. Nick Nurse should be
able to exploit. The Raptors while being a team that's at a massive talent disadvantage, are not at they're They're not out of advantages entirely. They have advantages over this Philly roster overall athleticism, overall foot speed, and then like I said at the head coach and so as this series progresses, Toronto I believe will be able to be better with the adjustments. It remains to be seen whether or not that will be enough to overcome the talent
or not. I thought the story of this game from the beginning, which was something we expected I talked to you guys a lot this year about how the Raptors are a team that are super aggressive on defense. They're not a very like discipline, kind of stay home type of defense. They're a gimmicky aggressive defense, which is by design. Nick Nurse is empowered to do it that way. We all remember the boxing one he used on the Warriors.
Nick Nurse is not afraid to try things. And from the very beginning of this series, when they would run the Joel Embi James James Harden pick and roll, there was a third defender coming over in the middle of the action. They decided, we're playing three on two with this, and guess what, it's a lot easier to slow down the Harden and b pick and roll when you have three defensive players involved. That's that goes without saying. But
what's the obvious downfall? It's rion two for the Sixers on the back end, and to their credit, James Harden and Joel Embi did not force that action. We talked a lot about how James Harden doesn't seem to have the burst to beat guys off the dribble. He wasn't really showing that tonight. It's not like he was flashing around a ton of athleticism. James Harden won this game with his brain, and that's the best thing he can
bring to this table. I don't expect James Harden to suddenly unlock two thousand eighteen James Harden in this series. I released a video the other day that I showed you guys where it went over some numbers. James Harden's finishing at the basket about half as often as he did in his two thousand eighteen season. His pull up jump shooting is down eight percent from where it was in two thousand eighteen. He's relying on free throws for
like almost of his offense. Since he went to Philly, James Harden has some significant decline in his game, but there's one area where he will never experience decline, and it's probably at a higher level than it's ever been, and that's his playmaking, his ability to read what's happening
on the floor and make the right decisions. I've been critic cool of him at times in Philly of forcing the action and trying to play old fashioned James Harden ball, running into bodies and throwing up junk, trying to get foul calls and it not working instead of making the easy reads that are there. Those of you who have listened to the show over the course of the last couple of months have heard me talk about that. Well tonight,
that's not what James Harden did. He made the right play consistently into the credit of the guys on the Sixers. They stepped up and knocked down shots to Bias Harris knockdown shots, Tyris Maxie knocked down shots. They all stepped up in big ways on the back side in order to make that coverage that Toronto was using not work. And then we talked a lot over the course of the preview that I did that Toronto's biggest advantage was transition. This has been a story with the Sixers all season.
Part of it's because Joel Embiid is somewhat slow footed. Part of it is because James Harden can be lazy at times, and they run these actions and they get into the paint with them, beat in James Harden and they usually throw stuff up and they usually complain to the refs And if you run the other way, you can get easy baskets in transition. Well, Toronto could never really get ahold of that pace side of the game. I always talk about like the cascading effect of getting
defensive stops. So if you have a foot speed advantage and you're the Raptors, the way for you to utilize that against the Sixers is by getting stops. You can't get out in transition unless you get stops that extra couple of second you can to be cool, you can get out in transition after they've made shots, it's just a lot, it's a lot harder. So the easiest way
to get out in transition is to get stops. And if you're taking the ball out of the net every time, that buys Philly and extra second or two for their guys to get back. And as you saw tonight, when they got their defense set, it was a lot harder for Toronto to score. And then one of the weirdest things about today's game is the Sixers were getting out in transition going the other way. And the disappointing thing there if you're a Raptors fan, is that just shouldn't happen.
The overall foot speed of these lineups that Toronto is throwing out there is too fat to get to lose a foot race to this Philadelphia team that just can't happen. That's attention to detail stuff. That's a little bit of effort stuff. And you know, I'm not surprised. The Sixers have probably heard all week, including from myself, that they're gonna lose this series, and they're probably like, screw that, man, Like, we're the better team. And so if you're Toronto, you
can't lose those battles. You can't lose the battle that's supposed to be your advantage. You can't get beat in transition when you are the faster team. Those are little details that they're gonna have to work out. A couple of silver linings for the Raptors. I thought their offense looked pretty good overall. It didn't. They didn't again, I couldn't keep up with Philly in this particular game. But
they they have. They scored enough, and they scored easily enough that if they can figure out some of these things on defense, particularly in transition and particularly with guarding the James Harden Joel and be pick and roll, that should like they should be able to score frequently enough. This is something that I talked about. Everyone was concerned about the Raptors half offense, but a lot of their talent was wearing suits all year. You saw you know, uh, we saw h O, g An and Nobi missed a
huge chunk of the season with injuries. We saw Fred van Vleet deal with knee problems as the season was progressing. Guys were in and out of the line up a lot. Pascal Sia was dealing with some injuries early on in the season. So having them all together now there actually is a decent amount of defensive offensive talent on the floor.
I thought Scotty Barnes even had some moments where he flashed some offensive creation off the dribble from the top of the key and finding cutters and things along those lines. Toronto is gonna be able to score. It looks like that's a good news, but they have to figure out how to stop Philly. I thought the story of the game tonight was what you saw was that third defender wasn't enough to stop that action because they were making them pay on the backside. So you have two options
from there. You can either sharpen up the backside rotations so that you don't give up open threes there. But it's gonna put a lot of stress on your athletes to fly around the floor, or you have to go to onto with the Harden and Beat pick and roll. There's some little things you can do there. For instance, have that third defender ready to go after and Beat
catches the ball. That's what I would do. I'd switch that screen and roll and basically forced James Harden to pull the ball out and either isolate whoever the big guy, whether it's Precious to Cheo or somebody like that. Whoever it is, pull the ball out, either isolate on the center or have to work it back to the post two and beat. I thought the Raptors actually did a pretty good job on em Beat post ups of crowding him and taking that stuff away. It was the screen
and roll where they were getting killed. So if you can switch that action and force them to make a post entry, I like our chances better there. If I'm Toronto that third defender coming over too soon. They were getting way too easy shots on the back end. So figure out how to play two on two within the with the Embat, Harden pick and roll if you can.
They gotta figure out what went wrong in transition, figure out those details you can't get beat up and down, up and down the floor by the slower team in Philadelphia, and last but not least, you can't if you're gonna slow down. You successfully slowed down Joel Embid and you successfully slowed down James Harden for the most part, especially as putting the ball in the basket goes. But you got killed by Tyres Maxie and by guys on the weekends,
the week side of the floor. So you've gotta figure out how to guard James Harden and Joel Embid without letting the other guys get going really quickly on Tyrees Maxie before we get Before we move on to the other series from today, this is a This is a classic example of how slotting can be advantageous for a team when you bring in somebody like James Harden as
a talent. We're gonna talk about this a lot with the Dalax Dallas Mavericks here in just a minute, because they're experiencing the negative side of this slotting with what happened with Luka don Chich. But everything about the game plan for Toronto is geared around stopping the Harden Ebid pick and roll right, stopping Harden h uh embiid post ups and hardened in that screen and roll action. So as a result, the amount of defensive attention that's devoted
to Tyrese Maxie is not very much at all. And a couple of things a lot of what Tyrese Maxi was doing in transition that can be tightened up by everything we were just talking about with the details for Toronto. But this is what happens when you devote that kind of defensive attention to James Harden and Joel Embid. You have a very talented young guard in Tyres Maxie who's getting off right now because he's getting easy opportunities. That's
the downside of doing that. That's part of why I think it's so important to get that James hard and Joel and be pick and roll down to a two on two coverage so that you don't you're not giving like incredibly easy opportunities for incredible players like Tyres Maxie. Shout out to him. Made a lot of big plays today, took over that game in the third quarter. Incredible performance, a lot of series left. Nick Nurse is the biggest advantage for Toronto. His brain, he's the best coat, one
of the best coaches in the NBA. Definitely a better coach than Doc Rivers in my opinion, he's their advantage. His him figuring this out as the series progresses is Toronto's best bet. I don't think this is anywhere near over yet. Ound one goes to the Sixers. All right, let's move on to this Dallas Mavericks home loss to the Utah Jazz. So Game one goes to the Jazz,
which is not the least bit surprising. I was talking yesterday about how Steph Curry and Draymond Greener two of the most irreplaceable players in the league with respect to what they bring to the table for their specific team, and how difficult it would be to find somebody else to do that, and Lucas in that conversation as well, and you know, there's there's a lot to the system that Dallas brings to the table that still functions when Lucas not there. I thought Dallas competed like crazy on
defense tonight. Credit to them. If they defend like that and Luca comes back, I like their chances in this series. That's a huge plus on the On the offensive end, it's more or less the same type of action that you're seeing with Luca, it's just with lesser, lesser players running it. This is where that staggering thing comes into
the equation that I was talking about. When when you're looking at Tyree s Maxie in the types of defensive attention and defensive coverage that he's seeing, he is so talented that he can have a certain amount of success in that environment. Right. Similar thing has happened with Spencer didn what he and Jalen Brunson this year. Everything is devoted towards Luca done in the way that they uh and at the way the teams have to cover him.
There's also a fatigue element. Luca don Che with his usage rate, is going to take a certain number of pick and roll possessions or just just we'll call it commanding offensive possessions. He's going to command a certain number of possessions over the course of that game. So the ask that's on Spencer didn what he and the ascots on Jalen Brunson is significantly lower. Fatigue becomes less of an issue. There's less repetition. Repetition is a huge thing
that I talked about and playoff basketball. It's one of the big reasons why James Harden struggles as series goes along, he kind of comes at you the same way over and over and over again, and defenses kind of figure it out. So versatility becomes one of the biggest, you know, indicators of success, and Luka Don has a ton of
versatility to the way he attacks. Guys like Jalen Brunson and guys like Spencer didn't what he are a little more one dimensional in their offensive coach, So in larger doses and with more actions on their plate, with more with fatigue playing a bigger role, and with more repetition, those guys are gonna look less effective. And what you saw tonight was Jalen Brunson and Spencer did what he's
struggling to replicate what Dallas usually does on offense. And switching over to Utah for a second, because I think this is a related, very important and kind of understanding why that is. As I've talked about a lot Utah, I called Utah jazz frauds, and it's you know, it's kind of a fun word, right It's it's just, you know, it's kind of just a buzzword in the sports talking head world when we're talking about teams like this that struggle in the postseason. But there's a very specific reason
why I say that. I say that because there is a universe where the Utah Jazz are a very good defensive team, but we see them in certain environments become a very bad defensive team. Right like last year, they were I think third in the entire NBA and defensive writing if I remember correctly, certainly in one of the
top few teams in the league. Then they run into the Clippers without Paul George and or without Kawhi Leonard excuse me, and just get lit on fire and they get I think they had a defensive writing in that series, which is a horrible number. So they're actually a bad defense in certain environments. But there are great defense in other environments. And what is that environment. That environment is the ability of Rudy Gobert to stay in the paint.
You guys probably heard Jeff Van Gundy today say during the broadcast, he specifically came out and said, Rudy Gobert has controlled this game without making a field goal. And he's right because in this specific game, with Luca out, the Dallas offense was incapable of getting Rudy Gobert out of the paint, and as a result, he was camping down there all night long, and every time they ran screen and roll and hit a guy with the pocket pass, they had to try to finish over Rudy and they couldn't.
Anytime somebody beat one of the bad Utah Jazz defensive guards to the basket, Rudy Gobert was just waiting there and so nothing was open there was. One of the things that's consistently happened with Utah with Dallas this year is they've had to play non shooters in the front court, right Dwight Powell not a great shooter, but he's so important to their screening role game he has to be out there. Well. Luca does a better job of navigating that in finding ways to get around Gobert. Dinwoodie and
Brunson really struggled with that. Rudy Gobert sat under the basket all night long and it caused a lot of problems. You saw another classic case of playoff defense with with Josh Green Love. Josh Green came to Tucson and played for the University of Arizona. He's not making his corner threes right now, so Utah's leaving him wide open. That's
even more congestion in the paint. Dallas's offense completely and utterly broke down without Luca, and that's kind of the story of this series, right, like, what are you gonna do? They've tried to go to Burton's for more offense and just relentlessly Donovan Mitchell and Boyan Bogdanovitch just kept attacking Burton's every time down the floor. I thought that's what killed them, particularly in the third quarter. I do want to give some credit to the Jazz. They're not a
great defensive team on the perimeter, but they did compete today. Again, it's easier to do when you're dealing with Jalen Brunson and Spencer Dinwoodie, but the Jazz did compete. But there's really nothing really worth talking about here if they can't get Luca back. Luca is the only thing that matters for Dallas in this series, because if he's not there,
Dnwoodie and Brunson aren't up to the task. They're not gonna be able to get Gobert out of the paint, and they're just simply not going to be able to score enough even with as good as they are defensively, they're not gonna be able to score enough to win this series. So all that matters at this point is they absolutely have to get Luca back. I don't even really see much else to dig into here unless that's the case, because Dallas simply cannot keep up in this
series without him. All Right, last, before we get out of here today, we're gonna look at what I thought was an incredibly entertaining game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Memphis Grizzlies. So Game one went to the Timberwolves. I saw this series being one that Memphis would have control and win, probably in five or six games, but I didn't I think that all the games would be competitive. For those of you who listened to the preview, these
are two teams that share a lot of similarities. They both played in extremely high pace. Minnesota plays the fastest pace in the league. Grizzlies play the fourth fastest pace in the league. They both have a ton of long and athletic wings, and they both play extremely hard. That's been one of the interesting dynamics surrounding the Grizzlies all season. They're very good, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to undercut them. They're one of the most talented teams
in the NBA. Every time John Murray sits out, it's like, here comes another young athletic guard. Whether it's Zaire Williams or Danthony Melton or whoever it might be. There's always just another guy that they have on the roster who's young and athletic and super talented. That team has a super super bright future. But this season, they played harder most of the time. They were a young team and uh an athletic team. They played well at home. They talked a lot of trash. They had like this youthful
exuberance to them, which I liked a lot. But it led to an advantage in the effort and energy parts of the game on most nights, which worked great, especially when they play veteran basketball teams. Well, here's the thing. Minnesota does the same exact thing. That team also plays extremely hard, and they came into this game one and they punched Memphis in the mouth and the effort and energy parts of the game. They had eleven offensive rebounds.
I've been amazed by Minnesota's perimeter defense. I talked about this a lot. In the series preview, they are sixth in the number of drives that they allow per game, despite the fact that they play the fastest pace in
the entire NBA. NBA dot Com doesn't let you filter for things like per one possessions in their tracking data, but if you could, they probably be either leading the league or very close to leading the league and preventing drives from the perimeter because they sit down in the defensive stance and they make things extremely difficult for you. I thought they did an outstanding job defending the dribble
drive all game long with Memphis. They stayed in front of Jaren Jackson and made him shoot over the top. I've been telling you guys NonStop. Jaren Jackson Jr. Super bright future, incredible defensive player. He's a bowl in a China shop offensively, and I thought he would struggle in a playoff environment with a team that consistently built a wall in front of him and slid their feet and made him shoot over the top. They did, and he struggled.
Desmond Baine, I thought struggled generating quality shots. He's not a great shot creator. That this kind of all broke down exactly how I expected from Memphis. It came down to John Moran in his ability to create shots, and just like James Harden made the right reads. I thought John Moray forced a lot of actions in the paint instead of making the right reads. Crowds of bodies would come in when he would beat people off the dribble.
Even with as good as Minnesota is with their perimeter defense, they are not fast enough to stay in front of John Moray. He was getting into the paint. But you have two options when you're there. You can either throw yourself into the throng of bodies in hopes of drawing a foul or making a layup, or you can make the easy reads to guys on the week side and hope that guys will knock down shots. That's not what John Morey did. He just threw his He just repeatedly
threw himself into traffic. He did get a lot of calls until late in the game. Then those calls went away, those opportunities went away, and their offense kind of fell dead. That's gonna be the biggest adjustment that Memphis has to make as this this series progresses. You know, the Wolves are happy to make those plays when they get into
the lane, they're constantly kicking out the shooters. The Wolves are number one in the league this year and three pointers attempted in number one in the league this year and three pointers made. So it's not a big shock that they took forty one of them today and they made sixteen of them for thirty nine percent. That's the way their offense is designed to function. That's the kind of shot they're gonna get. The Grizzlies are not great
in that department. There twenty three this year and three pointers attempted there twenty three this year and three pointers made, and I believe they're seventeen in percentage. So they're not a great three point shooting team. So part of this particular matchup is the Grizzlies have to to understand the way this chess matches unfolding. The Grizzlies are the Timberwolves are sliding their feet on the perimeter and are taking
away a lot of your easy driving opportunities. And when you get into the paint, they're packing the paint and they're giving up shots. On the week side, you have to make those reads when they're they're just like James Harden and Joyl and b did tonight. That's gonna be the story of the game. They with seven for seven from three tonight. Only that's nowhere near enough attempts for
how often Minnesota was overplaying the paint. You have to be taking high thirties, low forties threes in this particular matchup as this kind of goes along. That's gonna be their biggest area of opportunity is finding those three point shots on the week side of the floor. Another adjustment that I think the Grizzlies absolutely have to make. They gotta get Steven Adams out of the lineup. I will never understand the obsession that coaches have with slow plotting.
Bigs A dealt with it with Frank Vogel this year and DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard in large doses. You know, Sixers fans of dealt with it. Was going to h DeAndre Jordan coming off the bench for them. There Steven Adams in Memphis, it's the exact same problem. Jaren Jackson Jr. Is every bit capable of playing the five for you all the time, Okay, And you can go to Brandon Clark or play small in the minutes that he's not on the floor, you're so athletic around him, and you're
so strong around him. Desmond Baine is big and strong. Jaren Jackson is big and strong. Dylan Brooks is as big and physical perimeter player that we have in this league. You do not need Steven Adams on the floor. When he's on the floor, they're going to run you up and down, and they did tonight. I'll have to pull up the box score, but they were big minus when Steven Adams was on the floor. That's an easy adjustment to make moving forward. Get out of your traditional lineups.
This is the postseason. You don't need to manufacture stops against the weak opponents in the eighty two game schedule. This is winning time. You can't afford to lose another game. You have to get uh, Steven Adams out of the lineup and then don't get out worked anymore. You have to find a way to make sure that, especially when you're at home, you win the effort and energy parts of the game. You get more offensive rebounds than Minnesota gets, you play better in transition. Those are the areas of
the game that they have to control. Special shout out to all the role players from Minnesota who made a ton of big shots tonight. Patrick Beverley made a huge side step three. Jada McDaniels made a huge three out of the corner. That kind of I sed it. Tore and Prince made some big shots. Uh, Mike uh. Malik Beasley, what an amazing performance from him. He is, you know, he's kind of like a depends on when you watch
him kind of guy, inconsistent. Not entirely uncommon for players like that with that type of that archetype of kind of volatile offensive shooting guard. But man, he played really really well as well. This is gonna be a very competitive series. I think that the Grizzlies have easy adjustments that they can make, and they are the more talented team, they should be able to swing things. But great first step from Minnesota. Last a note on Minnesota before we
get out of here for the day. Really impressed to Karl Anthony Towns on the way he bounced back. He had a really unfortunate game against the Clippers. I thought you let the foul trouble get into his head. The way the Clippers swarmed him clearly bothered him in a bunch of different ways. It'd be really easy to shrink mentally from that and under and just feel like it's just not it's just not your night or whatever it is. Cat rebounded and he played extremely well tonight. He was
dominant on the offensive glass. Huge part of their offense tonight was the ability to give Karl Anthony Towns the ball at the top of the key in space out around him where he could easily beat guys off the dribble with his face up game. It's where he got his incredible dunk. It was on a gamble on a on an entry there to the high post, and he
was beating guys off the dribble there. He's so strong and his ability to draw contact and finished through contact at the rim out of that position was a huge part of their offense. So what's interesting there is, with exception of Jaren Jackson Jr. I don't think anybody on Memphis can guard him on that spot of the floor. So that's gonna be a really interesting chess piece for
minute Soda as this series progresses. How frequently can they get the ball to Cat there without Jaren Jackson Jr. There Because even when Jaren Jackson Jr. Comes over to help, when Cat has a head of steam. It just doesn't matter. Like you saw with that ridiculous dunk, super entertaining first day of games. Like I said, we're gonna get to the Warriors Nuggets game in tomorrow's show back to normal.
Right after the last game of the day, we'll be going live on YouTube and on Twitter Spaces will have Carson in the whole shebang going on there. As always, I appreciate your guys support. I'm really excited that we're getting this playoff journey off and started. I will see you guys tomorrow. The volume