How Klay Thompson will ELEVATE Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving & Dallas Mavericks | Hoops Tonight

How Klay Thompson will ELEVATE Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving & Dallas Mavericks | Hoops Tonight

what’s up everybody thanks as always for supporting the show it would mean a lot to me if you would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel and then follow me on social media on Tik Tok Instagram and Twitter so you guys don’t miss any of our content over the course of this season all right let’s talk some basketball when the first rumor started coming out that Klay Thompson was thinking about going to the Dallas Mavericks I immediately hated it to be honest at first I’m like this doesn’t make any sense like Klay Thompson came in this like ball and player movement five out flow where he was getting all these uh rep reps coming off of screens to give you an idea of how often clay works with an off ball screen he took a shot off of an off ball screen 430 times last year 430 second place was Steph at 280 so Klay did 150 more than Steph and then there were 13 players who were between 100 in 199 but literally there was nobody in the stratosphere of Klay Thompson in terms of vol volume coming off of screens as a score so like the it’s just a very different type of offensive approach to what Dallas uses right like to give you guys an idea Dallas threw the second fewest passes per game in the NBA last year and they were bottom five in assist percentage this is not a ball and player movement team so at first I hated it I didn’t like it for Dallas I didn’t like it for clay it didn’t make a ton of sense I want to get a but then the the big thing that kind of like changed my perspective on it was when the news of the Naji Marshall signing came down so the Mavericks get Naji Marshalls this guard who played for the Pelicans a guy I actually really like a guy that has a ton of off the dribble pop and then I look at the compared to most role player CS I should say for a non-star the guy can dribble and like kind of like shake and and get to his spot and and kind of just make something out of nothing offensively better than most role player guards can right and then I look at the math on the numbers and derck Jones Jr goes to the clippers for 3 years 30 million so 10 million a year and nji Marshall goes to the Mavs for 3 years 27 so 9 million a year right and so essentially what that means is that Dallas intentionally and purposefully chose Naji Marshall over Derrick Jones Jr now Derrick Jones Jr just had an amazing playoff run as a point of attack Defender he was probably the best veteran minimum value last year in the league so much so that he turned himself into an eight fig player right but he’s a play finisher he’s a guy that can capitalize on advantages but struggles to create or extend advantages Naji Marshall is a guy that can create some advantages but is a very good Advantage extender which is a concept we’re going to get to here in a couple of minutes so when I saw that I started to think a little bit here and now all of a sudden I’m looking at it as a complete change in Philosophy from what happened last year for Dallas on the offensive end of the floor like again like when I look at what happened in the NBA Finals it wasn’t just a loss for Dallas it was a loss in which their offense ceased to function this was a team that was one of the best offenses in the league all season and then when we got into the playoffs they had successful many successful moments including against that really really good Minnesota Timberwolves defense they had an offensive rating over 118 they they could score but Minnesota was running traditional coverages they’re putting their best perimeter defender on Luca they were keeping their Center on on Dallas’s centers they ran you know a high drop with some low uh with some backside help it was all pretty standard and so the reads that Luca had in terms of the lob as Gafford or Lively would be rolling to the basket or the skip pass to the weak side corner all those things were pretty standard and normal Boston didn’t just shut down Dallas’s offense it it completely ceased to function the way that it did in the regular season they had just a 101.4 offensive rating in the four losses against Boston all of a sudden their lob game that they had in ball screens was not there all of a sudden just their basic spacing principles ended up with their worst above the break Shooters above the break and it all stemmed from a couple of basic game plan things from Boston Boston put Jason Tatum their power forward on Dallas’s Center and just said we’re going to switch any ball screen with the center boom now the r r man possessions are gone that’s why you didn’t see any lobs right so now that guy has to stand in the dunker spot now that the guy standing in the dunker spot there’s just not not as much space underneath the basket as opposed to if he’s rolling to the paint with a head of steam where he has vertical spacing capability right now it’s like we want to attack Horford well Horford just switched on to Luca and did a pretty damn good job most of the series oh well porzingis is out there let’s attack porzingis well now Derrick Jones Jr is popping above the break and he’s not a good above the breake shooter PJ Washington’s popping above the break and he’s not a good Above The Brak shooter and so essentially the four out Brute Force ball screen spread attack just ceased to function there were some other factors there right like Kyrie and Luca both had tough pull-up jump shooting series like they took 103 or they took 122 pullup jumpers between the two of them in the five games and they got just 103 points so like there were some other factors there but the main thing is schematically their offense ceased to function and again like this is something I talked about after that series it wasn’t close like they Trail by over 20 in three of the losses and they Trail by 14 and the other so it’s like they got their butt kicked in the finals and so one of the things if you guys remember the show immediately after the finals the next morning I did an episode in which I talked about where Dallas needs to go from here and I specifically said they need to find a way to incorporate more ball and player movement in their offense they need to find a way to beef up the roster with ball handling and shooting and passing so that they can run more modern five out offensive Concepts that is where I suddenly came around on this deal now I’m a little bit worried for Clay’s benefit if the Mavs don’t make these sorts of changes because then he could end up in kind of a clunky offensive fit but and like I I saw a lot of Mavs fans go like oh this is an offense that generates a ton of catch and shoot threes that’s going to be great for clay and it’s like yeah he’s going to get some catch and shoot threes but defensive game planning is going to be geared towards leaving PJ Washington open it’s going to be geared towards leaving everyone else open they’re going to stay glued up to Clay whenever they can it’s not like when Luca was driving in the finals they were helping off of Kyrie Irving and leaving him wide open no they good NBA defenses gear the ball to end up in the hands of your non-shooters and so while clay will dictate more attention and certainly there will be better space than if you have two mediocre Shooters on the floor like if Derrick Jones and PJ Washington are on the floor that’s too bad above the break shooter so having clay out there will certainly help that situation but make no mistake like it’s not like Clay’s just going to be get getting left wide open on the left wing all season long teams are going to try to gear their defense towards making sure that ball ends up in PJ Washington’s hands for him to take jump shots right and so from that standpoint like I I’m I’m hoping that this Naji Marshall piece and this Klay Thompson piece and maybe like a shift of Derrik Lively permanently into the starting five I view that as a substantial increase in the aggregate ball handling shooting and passing ability of the roster and of the lineup right from there that’s where you open up the ability to have more five Out Concepts now what does that mean what does it mean to run more five Out Concepts all that means is that you don’t have the big man sitting in the dunker spot and you don’t have like permanent Corner three-point Shooters and you’re running ball screens into open space instead there is complete and total like uh uh malleability in terms of ball and player placement on the floor so for instance let’s say Derek Lively is at the top of the key and Luca has the ball and let’s say Kyrie Irving is in the right corner instead of just spacing the floor and running a ball screen Luca might dribble into a dribble handoff with Kyrie then Kyrie might then come off of Derek Lively in the ball screen he might draw in some nail help from Klay Thompson he might swing the ball to Klay Thompson who will then run another ball screen with Derrik Lively who comes over or maybe that’s PJ Washington above the break and you swing to PJ Washington and he dribbles down and hands it to Clay then Clay comes off PJ Washington and off of lively maybe the ball Works its way back to Luca but now Luca has the ball with six or seven seconds on the shot clock and there’s been multiple reversals of the ball every player in a Mavericks Jersey has touched the ball and the defense is no longer loaded on the strong side when you’re running just Brute Force four out ball screens the defense is loaded up on you whereas when there’s real ball and player movement side to side now who knows how many switches they’ve had the defense might have switched one or two of those actions U the weak side defense which might have been loaded up in a first action in a possession might still be glued up to their players on the other side of the the floor as you’re getting to that third action the the main point of contention here is when you play the truly Elite defenses in Minnesota I think should have been better than they did they just focused on traditional coverages but like when you face a truly Elite defense that throws legitimate game plan wrenches into things you can’t just expect to crack the defense on the first approach you’ve got to little by little crack the defense until you until it finally breaks on the final action to kind of simplify it down to a three-part process it’s play it’s Advantage creation Advantage extending and play finishing in the past Dallas has primarily been a Advantage creation and play finishing team they skip that middle step there’s not multiple attacks in the same possession it’s usually Luca makes a move draws multiple Defenders and throws a kickout pass or a lob pass that guy might shoot or drive the close out but that’s pretty much it that’s the extent of what you might have seen for the most part for Dallas they I’m not going to act like they didn’t do anything they ran some ACT they run guard screens early in possessions to get switches for Luca they’d run some stack pick and roll where they’d back screen for the r man’s man as he’s trying to get downhill into the lane they would run double drag to uh try to complicate the switches at the top of the ball screen but there was very little in the way of actual side to side flow and that’s where Advantage extending comes into the picture right because if you’re a play finisher and Luca is only able to generate for you a little bit of an advantage because it’s a truly Elite defense with an excellent game plan that play finisher is going to struggle to finish that play which is pretty much exactly what happened to the Mavericks in the finals right but when you have more ball handling and shooting on the floor that’s where you have the advantage the ability to extend that Advantage so for instance if that ends up being a let’s say a Klay Thompson and he throws a really good pump fake because he’s clay freaking Thompson and the dude goes flying by him and then clay who his entire life has learned how to weaponize his shooting ability to generate dribble penetration and playmaking opportunities drives that close out and generates an even better opportunity on the weak side and let’s let’s pretend that’s PJ Washington or AI Marshall and that guy gets an even better opportunity like that’s where you extend the advantage with that side to side flow which in my opinion is more resilient against something like what you might have seen against Boston you can imagine a situation where if you actually ran three sides of action against Boston now Tatum probably isn’t on lively anymore he’s probably been switched twice by the time the gets back to Luca on the on the right side of the floor after multiple interchanges at this point the rim protector for Boston’s probably in a weird place Tatum’s probably in a weird there’s probably a guard guarding Luca like there’s going to be something weird in Boston’s configuration by virtue of you adding those complications by the way I’m not just picking on Dallas here this is something that was one of my major takeaways from this last season I’ve watched multiple of these Brute Force Five out teams the Lakers two years ago when they lost in the conference finals the Mavericks last year where that it just seems to have a certain ceiling in terms of the adjustment like the Lakers their most important point of attack Defender was Jared Vanderbilt they couldn’t play him because he couldn’t knock down Corner threes and in their offense because they were running four out that Year Jared Vanderbilt was just parking his ass in the in the corner all game and he and he couldn’t do anything there you know but then all of a sudden last year in the five out offense for the Lakers before Vanderbilt got hurt he was successful in having all these double figure scoring games because he was functioning as a dribble handoff and roll guy right when there’s ball in player movement it makes it so much harder to ignore a non-shooter you that there’s a resilience that you get from that type of ball and player movement so one of the things that I said after that NBA final series was I wanted to see the Mavs try to take a shift in offensive approach in philosophy towards five out ball and player movement and these signings the clay sign trade and the Naji Marshall deal they are both significant moves in that direction my one of the main reasons too why I want this not just for the Mavericks but for clay is there’s a diminishing return on spot-up shooting Klay Thompson is not just a shooter he’s a movement shooter like we talked about earlier 430 reps last year second place was Steph 280 there were only 13 players ran over a 100 and all those guys were under under 200 that like it’s it’s kind of a unique thing he does he shot 43% coming off of screens waited for threes 57% he got 1.10 points per shot coming off of screens like he was a a legitimate offensive threat in those situations he’s also a pretty solid playmaker in those situations in his time in Golden State he got good at hitting the pocket like he’d hit Trace Jackson Davis if his man showed on the handoff he’d hit him slipping to the basket he showed some uh some ability to read the low man and make skip passes to the weak side corner like if you just have Clay takes stand still above the break threes you’re diminishing what he brings to the table for example clay shot 38% on guarded catch and shoot three last year he shot 40% on unguarded catch and shoot threes last year it’s not like there’s not this idea that like Clay’s I think klay’s the second best shooter ever right it’s not like Clay’s going to shoot 75% on wide openen threes that’s not how basketball Works what makes clay the best shoot there’s a variance Varian is baked into shooting the best Shooters in the world are like in that 45 to 50% Range High Volume right like the very best in the world the all the really good ones are maybe in that 40 to 45 range there’s nobody out there that’s just shooting 70% from three so for example if you just had a professional standstill shooter out there who’s not worth 17 18 million a year but a guy who’s just a veteran minimum guy who can knock down catch and shoot threes he can approximate what Klay Thompson would do if he was standing on the wing in Dallas’s offense in order to really get the value out of what Klay Thompson brings in that contract you need him to have the ball occasionally not just occasionally but consistently in the flow of the offense coming off of those screens and so again like to be clear I hate this deal if Dallas plays the same way they did last year I think you’ll get a diminished return on what Klay Thompson brings to the table you obviously took a hit in terms of defensive Personnel you’re going to run into the same issues when you get into a a matchup in the NBA Finals right with Boston if if you were lucky to get there again but I love this deal if it’s an acknowledgment of the reality of what Dallas needs to do to become a more resilient playoff offense which is if they use Klay Thompson with the ball in his hands as part of a five out flow going from side to side if Naji Marshall is just another wave of that coming off the bench if Derek Lively who I think has the potential to be a really good five out fulam at the center position then I love the deal and so again most of this just comes down to the type of basketball that Dallas wants to play next year and and I I I’ll be really really interested to see what their offense looks like as we get into the start of next season um let’s take a look at the I like I I just really quickly before we move on to the warrior side of this like let’s just look at the Maverick’s top seven players right now LCA donic Kyrie Irving PJ Washington who PJ showed a considerable amount of off the dribble pop in the in the playoff run Derek Lively Klay Thompson Naji Marshall Daniel Gafford in that top seven there’s just so much more ball handling and shooting than they had last year so I really like that deal in the context of that type of shift like even like Dante exm was is on a non-guaranteed deal right now we’ll see if if they end up uh keeping him but like do you guys remember in the in the uh it was happened in the finals we like the Mavs would have Dante exom run like inverted ball screens with Luca where Luca would set the screen but Luca’s man would not want to leave Luca so he wouldn’t hedge so Dante would just get right downhill into the lane he had a big dunk that way if you guys remember like that’s that’s the advantage of having a player that can dribble next to Luca cuz Luca brings that kind of attention to the table right and so like I I really like that that fit you know I I like the idea of again when we include Naj Marshall Off the Bench when we include Dante exom Off the Bench like the the there’s just a lot of there’s a lot of capability there to reach another level Jaden Hardy as well like there’s just a lot of capability uh within the context of the roster now to have a higher ceiling offensively the biggest question is going to be can they defend with this group because again Derrick Jones was very important to their defense last year now PJ Washington slides into that primary point of attack role instead of like a secondary point of attack role Klay Thompson is probably going to have to guard a perimeter player with some skill and he struggled in that area last year so it’s it’s going to be a little bit of a test of their defense but again I I’m a big believer in that you can coach up and scheme up a somewhat effective defense but if they can reach another level offensively with this addition of offensive skill it could be more than enough to make up for that Gap a [Music]

Jason Timpf reacts to Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, and the Dallas Mavericks adding Klay Thompson from the Golden State Warriors. Jason discusses what schematic changes Dallas must implement to get the most out of Klay, and whether this addition is enough after a 4-1 loss to the Boston Celtics in the 2024 NBA Finals.

Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/14GInsgTUhA

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