Jason Timpf reacts to Nuggets beating Celtics, Possible NBA Finals Matchup? | Hoops Tonight

Jason Timpf reacts to Nuggets beating Celtics, Possible NBA Finals Matchup? | Hoops Tonight

All right welcome to Hoops tonight here at the volume happy Friday everybody hope all of you guys are having an incredible week we have a little bit of a bonus episode right here I was packing for my ski trip getting ready to leave in the morning and then I looked up and

I was like I forgot Denver’s playing Boston tonight and of course I was watching it and of course I have thoughts so here we are we’re doing an extra instant reaction you guys know the drill before we get started subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel mean a lot

To me if you guys would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button don’t forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops tonight if you prefer it in that format also my Twitter feed _ jlt so you guys don’t miss show announcements as

Well as the film threads that I do from time to time in the morning and then last but not least keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments so that we have mailbag questions throughout the rest of the season all right let’s talk some basketball so

Those of you guys who have listened to the show for a while know I have some overarching basketball philosophies and one of the main ones is I believe that most really important games tend to devolve into Rock fights so whether that’s the a random super important nationally televised regular season game

Like this one that kind of is really important for just kind of like the the way both teams feel about their potential or whether it’s you know game four of a playoff series it’s two games to one and the series swings on that game or game five of a 22 series or like

You get the point any sort of super important game most of them tend to devolve into rock fights the question is why why why do they devolve into rock fights it’s because everybody in the game is playing a th% in terms of their effort everything they do is harder than it

Normally is every transition Sprint every defensive slide every offensive crash every box out every little bit of contact on the floor every little bit of movement on the floor is pushed up a level of intensity from where these players normally are it’s actually impossible to practice it’s impossible

To replicate even a normal game in practice let alone that type of game and so one of the things that happens a lot and this is kind of a modern movement in the NBA is a focus on expected shot value or shot quality and there’s going

To be a lot of Celtics fans that are going to be in the YouTube comments and on Twitter all over the place saying we got wide openen looks and we just missed them and that’s kind of a movement around the league right now is this like kind of shooting luck element where does

Luck play into the way this game played out right there was a time last year where I saw this kind of Twitter feed that was like tweeting out like these like shot quality scores every game it was like a different scoreboard and I’m like what are we doing that’s not the actual

Scoreboard right and one of the reasons why I feel so passionately about this is like I’ve played in a lot of really intense basketball games in my life whether it was a big-time conference game in college or whether it was a big one for me is like money tournaments

Like when cash is on the line and all the dudes are out there fighting for the cash it’s like everybody gets this other level of intensity and all those games decline down into rock fights and one of the reasons why is those shots like think of it like this

In my opinion no two shots even a wide openen shot for the same shooter in the same spot on the floor are the same a Jaylen Brown wideopen leftwing three against the Atlanta on a Tuesday is not the same as the wideopen leftwing three that Jaylen Brown got off

Of the offensive rebound from Chris Ops porzingis there at the end of the game they’re not the same because Jaylen Brown just spent 40 something minutes doing every little thing that he does on a basketball court 20% harder like more contact more movement more sprinting harder harder faster more

Intense and so makes it so that that shot has a completely different rhythm in flow to it this is why I tend to gravitate towards teams that have more of a physical imposition on the game because those are the teams that tend to thrive on this level here’s the thing

Boston can win pretty boy can they win pretty like when they get on these runs where the shots are going in no one can even hang with them I’ll even take it a step further Boston is way better at winning pretty than Denver is but Boston struggles winning

Ugly and Denver is excellent at winning ugly did you know that Denver their starting lineup had a 124 offensive rating last year during the regular season did you know that they had an offensive rating below 114 in the NBA Finals like when when things get messy Denver’s shot quality goes down too the

Difference is is they have the beautiful element where it’s Michael Porter Jr hitting threes and cavius Kawa Pope hitting threes and everything looks easy and then they also have this other element where it’s like oh nothing’s working well jic can get to these like short range shots in the post

That he can make 65% of the time Jamal Murray because there’s GNA be a lot of Celtics fans that are gonna be like Jamal Murray was making all these tough twos here I I got some news for you I rooted for the Lakers last year I sat on

My couch and I watched him make those shots and I thought holy is he going to keep making these shots and he kept making the damn shots cuz that’s what he does when it comes to those close to the rim like 15 to 17t jump shots Jamal Murray makes him at a high

Clip and here’s the thing Jason Tatum’s been shooting the out of his stepb three lately he was 12 or 22 for his previous 45 it’s almost a point and a half per shot but he was one for eight from three tonight because like even though in a

Large sample size a pull-up three is worth more points per shot in a large large sample over 82 games in a small sample maybe five six possessions the higher field goal percentage shot is actually more valuable because as all the field goal percentages drop those three-point percentages drop to a point where it’s

Borderline untenable the shots just keep missing but it’s like that that that little 15 footer if he can make 45% of them like that’s super valuable in a playf environment this game Doris Burke did a really nice job calling it out in the broadcast he talked about how like the

Game kind of ebbed and flowed on Boston’s three-point shooting and it did they’d make two or three in a row and they’d go up eight or nine points but the whole time Denver’s just chipping away two two two two oh you finally got Jamal Murray to miss a long jump shot

Well here’s two 610 guys on the backline Michael Porter Jr and Aaron Gordon had six offensive rebounds in this game and and they were just able to kind of methodically stay involved and keep getting their twos and Boston shot 30% from three and again like I think we’re

Missing the plot if we just refer to that as shooting luck and not the reality of what it’s like trying to shoot in that environment they’re not the same shots they’re just not your historical shooting performance against Atlanta in Detroit in Orlando it’s not the same as what it’s like in this type

Of game it’s just not the same how many times over the years all of you NBA fans of all of your teams have you watched one of your guys in a playoff run and you’re like ah like he was making that shot all season and now he’s

Missing it Nick patum was the latest guy last year it’s like why isn’t Nick patum making his Corner threes It’s like because they’re not the same in the playoffs they’re not the same when the physicality ratchets up they’re not the same when everything gets more intense

Now to be clear I I I want to point this out I don’t think Denver is going to sweep Boston in a playoff series they barely won they won 102 to 100 right Boston has advantages I have like 12 different notes here that we’re going to

Go over of all the little different like kind of chess match things that I noticed over the course of the game but the bottom line is I’m always going to trust a team that can win multiple ways meaning they can win in a free flowing every like kind of offensive shootout

Type of style and they can also win in a knockdown drag out fist fight of a game over a team that’s super dependent on something like shot variants and that’s what Boston is right now when the they take 40 something threes every night like when they go in it looks amazing

But sometimes they don’t and they can’t they don’t have another punch from there there were multiple different uh postup mismatches down the stretch for both Tatum and porzingis all of them turned into jump shots all of them turned into jump shots now Tatum had a couple of drives especially on on possessions where

Denver didn’t have their help defense set up and look look Tatum’s an incredible player and he’s going to find a way to make plays bottom line is though he had fewer points than he had shot attempts Jaylen Brown 13 points on 19 shot attempts so like it just I thought this

Was kind of like a little bit of a microcosm of the difference between these two thing these two teams things kind of went wrong for Denver in a lot of ways tonight but yic can get to that little hook shot he can get to that little short bank shot and

He can make it damn near 70% of the time and Jamal Murray can make that 15-footer he can make that 17-footer and he he’s done it on the biggest stage in the sport so like all I’ll say is for Boston to reach the potential that they want

And this is still completely on the table this is not tonight is not a death nail for Boston it’s not they they just need to find a way to win ugly they have to find a way when things get mucked up to consistently generate something that isn’t a catch

And shoot three for a player that can make it or miss it that’s that’s the difference Denver made 10 more twos in this game than Boston did and it was enough now I wanted to kind of go through some of the specific notes that that that kind of just screamed off the

Screen in this particular game first of all Nicole yoka is just the best player on the floor and it’s not close like Tatum is really good the dude’s On The Rise I’ve said this on the show before but like I think Tatum by the time he’s in his late 20s being in

The conversation for best player in the world is as sure of bet as you’ll find in the league he just continues to add strength he continues to add versatility all a lot of this issue for Tatum is mostly related to just kind of him learning how to win at this this this

Type of game and like I it frustrates me that he made the decision to lean into this pullup three thing because again I I talked about on the show show like it’s can he keep making him 22 for 45 over 10 game span that’s great but he

Missed it for 2 and a half years before that and here we are a big game one for eight from three it’s just a really tough shot it’s just a really tough shot to be hunting as often as he hunts it right but like jokic is just clearly the

Best player that that’s the first thing that screamed off the screen uh also big shock but porzingis and Horford can’t guard Nicole yic in the post one-on-one they’re going to have to do some sort of like double team uh in rotate approach to of deal with that one of the looks

That I really liked was when they put porzingis on Aaron Gordon and there were multiple possessions in this game where christops porzingis actually caused an issue for joic where the lob pass to Aaron Gordon was kind of open but porzingis is so damn long that

Getting the pass over the top of him m is kind of low percentage and there were multiple times where yic saw that develop and didn’t throw the pass because he thought it was too risky and so that’s kind of an interesting thing that I could see them doing in a playoff

Series that other teams kind of have tried and failed with which is porzingis is kind of uniquely long enough to cover that much kind of like air space and ground space around the rim which I think is super valuable the porzingis pick and pop generated a lot of open

Shots especially earlier in the game I thought that was really interesting uh Jamal Murray shot making the question was Boston has all these lanky Wings is Jamal Murray going to be able to hit hit his same tough twos over them that he hit over everybody in the playoffs last

Year absolutely no problem he was unbelievable in this game he was hitting him over Jaylen Brown he was hitting him over Jason Tatum he was hitting him over the guards he was hitting him over everybody uh Jaylen Brown 13 points on 19 shots once again like just kind of

Taking a lot of really difficult shots and then struggling to knock down the catch and shoot ones that were available in that physical game ignoring Aaron Gordon and pton Watson this was a consistent issue for Denver specifically in the corners Boston was ignoring those two guys in

Particular now pton Watson had a couple of crazy sequences he had a crazy helps side block he had some run outs in transition he did hit a big three there was a double close out he had in the um early second half where he chased Horford off of shooting a three on the

Left wing and then closed out to the corner and got a good contest on Jaylen Brown his athleticism is just so interesting he just I thought he settled for a lot of jumpers that he probably didn’t need to take specifically in the mid-range um where like I think that’s

Why they ended up going away from him he was four for 11 from the field and the catch and shoot threes are one thing but I don’t think he needs to rush kind of mid-range jump shots early in the clock uh but Aaron Gordon in particular they

Were leaving wide open in the corner and he was missing badly that’s kind of an interesting thing to keep an eye on neither team really trust anyone on their bench as a matter of fact every single starter except for Drew holiday played at least 36 minutes in a regular

Season game that’s pretty uh uh revealing and the reason why Drew played 30 was they were leaning a lot on Al Horford and they’re kind of two big groups both teams were excellent on the offensive glass there were a bunch of shots where like uh nuggets Players

Missed but then Michael Porter Jr and Aaron Gordon were active on the backside Denver’s starting lineup over the course of the season has grabbed 75% of available defensive rebounds which would rank number one in the league Sacramento is number one at 74% in defensive rebounding percentage they gave up what

12 offensive rebounds in this game and there were multiple sequences where Denver starters gave up multiple offensive rebounds in the same possession that to me is the biggest test estimate of Boston’s big advantage and this is where like if Boston’s going to win this is how they win and that is

They they are one of the few teams in the league that has the amount of ball handling and speed and passing and shooting ability to truly spread Denver out and wear them out with speed and I thought Denver looked tired for stretches I thought that was what caused

Them to struggle on the offensive with offensive rebounding um from Boston was just literally they look tired from Boston’s speed I thought that was a real Advantage Derrik white in particular was getting everywhere he wanted he was cooking yic with some pull-up jump shots there in that third quarter too that to

Me is Boston’s biggest advantage in this kind of matchup is they are much faster Denver’s bigger Boston is faster but again like I I I I want to be clear Boston Denver’s not an easy team to beat they’re the best team in the league in my opinion they’re my championship

Contender I’ve said this on the show before I believe if if Denver’s core five are healthy they’re going to win the title but Boston has advantages in this series and Boston is capable of beating Denver in a series but they have to find a way

To win ugly they’ve got to find a way to turn more of these mismatches into Tatum right at the damn basket and yes there were some plays where Tatum drove and got layups and dunks and he had a floater over kcp had a nasty drive on Aaron Gordon for two hand flush like

Tatum can beat people off the dribble but Denver’s helps side defense was weak in that situation in a large part because they were so fatigued like they have to find a way to like defender on Tatum’s backside get him closer to the rim so he can get easy shots right near

The basket that is vitally important in my opinion but man what an entertaining basketball I mean I want to shout out both teams too just for all their Stars playing how often this year have we seen like oh this guy’s feeling a little sore he’s gonna sit out no these guys love

Basketball and they wanted to go out and they wanted to compete I respect the hell out of them for doing so and then lastly I wanted to complain about the officiating for a second Boston got was on the short end of a really bad call at

The end of the game which was the over thebat call of porzingis on Nicole yic where had an offensive rebound and kind of took away a chance for Boston to tie now you know my thing as it comes to the teams uh don’t complain about officiating it’s one play it’s outside

Of your control so it’s a complete waste of your effort to even think about but big picture we had a hanging on the rim technical on Jason Tatum we had that over theb call from Chris Ops porzingis NBA officials are the one thing standing in the way of this league reaching its full

Potential because they keep doing stupid stuff like that huge game huge possession late two centers battling for a rebound and you calling over the back foul are you serious yic wasn’t even boxing him out he was just standing there and like and like here’s the thing by the book

It’s an over thebat call but it should not be called in that specific situation the the the hanging on the rim technical I swear they need to like set up a trampoline at the NBA referee training center and just have these dudes run and dunk so that they can understand how

Difficult that is and I don’t know maybe try having fun every once in a while but like again I don’t think it had an impact on the game I I I I’m a staunch believer not even approaching that in terms of a mentality but that was kind of annoying

And kind of took a little bit of the Shine off the apple of a great basketball game all right guys now I’m actually going to take the next few days off unless someone gets traded but I appreciate you guys for supporting the show thanks for taking the time to watch

This I will see you guys on Wednesday

Jason Timpf reacts to the Denver Nuggets taking down the Boston Celtics 102-100, led by 35 points from Jamal Murray and 34 points from Nikola Jokic. He breaks down Jayson Tatum’s shot selection down the stretch and what adjustments the Celtics can make to get over the hump.

00:00 – Introduction
00:44 – Nuggets beat Celtics
05:50 – Tatum’s shot selection
10:24 – Nikola Jokic still best player alive
16:30 – NBA refs struggle again.

Denver Nuggets vs Boston Celtics – Full Game Highlights | January 19, 2024 | 2023-24 NBA Regular Season

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