NBA Power Rankings: Nuggets “laser-focused,” Celtics surging, Clippers sleepwalking | Hoops Tonight

NBA Power Rankings: Nuggets “laser-focused,” Celtics surging, Clippers sleepwalking | Hoops Tonight

All right welcome to Hoops tonight here at the volume happy Monday everybody hope all of you guys had an incredible weekend we got a fun show for you today we’re going to lead off with a game breakdown of Mavs Pacers from last night the Pacers have won six of their last

Eight showing some encouraging signs on both ends of the floor and then the Mavericks had their first test on the road in this four-game road trip that they have of their defense and it did not hold up super well so we’re going to be breaking that game down from the

Perspective of both teams after that as we always do on Monday we’ll have Power Rankings and then after that I’ve got about a it looks like about 10 mailbag questions for us to hit I get some good content out there before I head out of town tomorrow before we come back on

Wednesday you guys know the drill before we get started subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel don’t forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops tonight it’s also really helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front don’t forget

About my Twitter feed _ jlt I threed some clips of Mavs Pacers there today uh I also will put show announcements there and then last but not least keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments we’re going to be hitting some later on this week all right let’s talk some basketball so the

Pacers are a real test for the Dallas Mavericks defense remember the Dallas Mavericks had won seven in a row going into that Pacers game and they had been the very best defense in the league over that span well the Indiana Pacers have the second best offense in the league

And they’re particularly potent at home they have a 123 offensive rating at home this season that is just completely off the charts good and so here we have an example of what’s it an Unstoppable Force versus an immovable object and the Pacers just completely lit them up they had a

127 offensive rating in the game early in the game the issue I thought was overh specifically with Derek Lively Pascal sakam was being really aggressive physically especially in like semi transition whenever he saw a little bit of a a space uh uh alongside him on

The perimeter to try to hit the gap on PJ Washington he would just like hit him with the hard in and out dribble and try to get downhill to his right hand or he’d attack him in the post and in those situations Derrik Lively’s in a spot

There where Miles Turner you know most of the time in these situations Miles Turner was sitting in the dunker spot although there was a couple of them where he was on the three-point line too but Derrik Lively’s in a position there he’s got to make a decision his decision

That he has to make is am I going to help or am I going to stay home and that decision is one of the most important decisions for Rim protectors and defensive anchors to make because here’s the problem when you look at shots that an offensive player is taking in a

Matchup it kind of depends on what the defense is doing the individual defender on the ball as to whether or not it’s a high percentage shot or not so for instance if PJ Washington gets absolutely dusted off the dribble then you have to help because if you don’t

Help it’s a layup which is a 100% shot and yeah you’re going to be leaving Miles Turner but maybe if you get lucky you know PJ can get back into the play and rebound or someone else on the team can rotate and you know clean up the if

You’re lucky your better option there is to take the shot away but let’s say PJ Washington is sliding with Pascal cakam and he’s kind of chesting him up and he’s forcing him into like a tougher scoop shot over the top which maybe in this case a really well-defended

Possession maybe it’s only going to go in half the time well at that point it’s your job as the rim protector or defensive anchor to make the decision that actually it’s more important for me to keep Miles Turner off the glass here because if I sell out to try to block

The shot I might drop the percentage chance of him it from 50 to something slightly below that but if the shot gets over the top and misses anywhere around the basket Miles Turner is just going to grab it and put it back in and Miles Turner made him pay several times in the

Early stretch of the game just for overh helping there was a play where Pascal’s driving along the right side PJ’s right there with him Derek like damn near zones up goes like all the way outside the right block and Pascal Just Hits Miles Turner with a little bounce pass

Right there in front of the rim Miles Turner goes up and finish is with a with an and one there was another one where he just jumped out of his shoes even though PJ Washington was right there on seak and forced him into a really difficult scoop shot that he missed but

As a result Miles Turner was able to just go up and get the offensive rebound then there was another one where I thought that um uh uh PJ Washington was completely in position and he hard helped and you know it was it was more of a three-point look for Miles Turner

Because he was in the corner and some of that is schematic and I could tell just by watching the Mavs throughout the rest to the game you could tell Jason kid kind of had them under the impression that specific guys like Miles Turner they were kind of just going to let him

Shoot Pascal seak they were kind of just going to let him shoot when they caught on the perimeter so that one I I thought was more scheme related but Miles Turner was really active early in the game punishing Derrik Lively for overh helping and then in the second quarter

Tyrese Alberton just completely took over the game in pick and roll and was just picking the Mavericks apart had a uh this was a stretch where Daniel Gafford was on the floor which we’ll get into in a minute but but Daniel Gafford was running like a really like uh it was

Like a really weak drop coverage where he wasn’t exactly bothering the ball handler or bothering the rle man we’ll get a little bit further into that in a second but started with the pocket pass to Miles Turner right up to the basket for an and one on the left side of the

Rim after that it was a pick and pop to the top of the key knocks down a three and then the very next possession in this case obviously Jason kids asking for more help on the backline Tim Hardaway Jr basically abandons Andrew nard in the left corner to essenti I’m

Assuming help tag the roller although I didn’t think he did a particularly good job of it and Tyrese Alberton because he’s literally the guy in the league one of the you know four or five guys in the league that just makes perfect geds damn near every single time down the floor

Hits Andrew nart in the corner knocks down a three that run was what kind of built the Gap because it was very back and forth there in that first half because specifically Luca was like red hot to start the game he picked up the Ben Maan matchup from the opening tip

And just was isoing him every sing single time down the floor I think he scored on him four of the first five possessions of the game so that kind of kept the game close but that little pick and roll run from tyres halberton there in the second quarter built that like

Initial little Gap in uh on the scoreboard they end up going into the half up by seven and then in the third quarter kind of back and forth the game hovers in that 7 to1 point range but in the early fourth quarter Kyrie Irving gets Doug mcder on a switch hits him

With a nasty step back jump shot to cut the lead to four and all of a sudden we have ourselves a basketball game and then Ben Shepard and Obi toppen hit backto back massive threes Ben Shepard off of a coming out of the right corner just a little kind of wide pin down

Where he comes up to the wing and catches and shoots a three and then Obi toppen actually hit one turning over his left shoulder above the break a pretty high difficulty catch and shoot shot from Obby toppen but both of those guys hit timely shots all night and those two

Particular threes push the double push the lead back up to double digits wanted to shout out Ben Shepard for a second because I thought he had two really important two-way sequences in this game in the first half there was a sequence where he hit a three on the right wing

Then on the very next possession as Kyrie is pushing the ball up the floor and transition he offers smart help as Kyrie’s kind of got his head down engaged on the on ball Defender and he ends up picking Kyrie clean which leads to a dunk on the other end of the floor

So like a little 0 run basically by himself which was a big stretch in that game I think it was tied when he did that two and it pushed it up uh to put them up five if I remember correctly and then in the second half we talked about

That huge three coming off the wide pin down on the very next possession he had Kyrie in an ISO Kyrie was sizing him up and he Kyrie opted for the jab step jump shot and Ben’s got some long arms got a very good contest and forced Kyrie into

A wedgie like the ball stuck into the side of the rim so an ugly Miss which you don’t typically see from Kyrie iring all that often so credit to Ben Shepard some really good two-way sequences in this particular game and so at that point Tyres Burton checks back into the

Game and he just closes the deal picking the Mavericks apart in pick and roll again just like he did in the second quarter in this stretch he was really picking on Maxi kba and again remember Dallas like they run a drop with Daniel Gafford and and Derek Lively but with

Maxi they do a lot more switching depending on you know how successful the screen was and and Maxi just could not handle Tyrese halberton on the switch he got beat to a step back three going to the right he got beat to the basket for a scoop shot next thing you know you

Look up to the scoreboard and the Pacers are up by 20 and the game is over so really really impressive win for the Pacers to get their sixth win in eight tries couple of other elements on the Pacers offense that I wanted to hit on they ran the floor super well in

Transition something they’ve done well all season long their bigs were on the middle of the floor but they always have Corner Shooters running their Lanes on the wing and then their guards just do a really good job of every single time they see somebody up the floor they make

The kick ahead pass and there’s real value in that for two reasons one you know if you kick the ball up the floor and the guys open he can shoot it Ben Shepard actually his third three second three of the game of the one of the

Three threes he hit we talked about the other two uh was on the left wing in transition just you watch him he’s they get the defensive rebound he’s just sprinting up the floor like head down and then he’s he turns around the ball’s just in his hands and then he’s already

Got his feet set all game long and i’ I’ve noticed this with Ben just really good footwork at move off the move at getting straight up and down nice and balanced uh but they just run the floor and transition super super well and then again I talked about the other advantage

Of of kick ahead passes let’s say that Ben Shepard doesn’t have a shot there because the Mavericks defensive transition defense rotates out to him in that situation all Dallas Defenders are suddenly looking up the floor to the corner where Ben Shepard is right so even if they rotate now all of the

Trailing offensive players have the advantage of the ball being in a situation where their Defender is going to be looking away from them and that creates opportunities for trailers to get open maybe the maybe you’re a trailing shooter and your Defender is looking up the floor at Ben you might be

Able to change your angle a little bit and find a little soft spot for a three or maybe catch a guy not looking with the screen that’s where that’s where you can find a lot of opportunities in transition and in semi- transition but in order to do that you have to make the

Kick ahead pass now the reverse of that is guys are running their lanes and the on ball guy just brings the ball up the floor off the dribble now the defense can essentially backpedal and transition and everything is in front of them so that kind of gives you an idea of the

Difference between or just an idea of the value of making those kick ahead passes uh the other big thing that stood out to me two other things Pascal siakam’s Rim pressure just really really uh uh it’s a it’s a it’s another way to get the defense in transition but I really like

It because it brings a physical imposition to the game it’s something that they didn’t really have before that trade and it’s something I think that translates really well to the playoffs that’s why I put in my notes Brute Force like Brute Force offense is like a an

Important thing to have in your bag when you get to the postseason and there were a lot of possessions where they got great shots not by running some sort of action not by using you know Tyrese halton’s offensive genius but just by Pascal seak being bigger and faster than

The guy guarding him and able to just kind of get downhill into the lane make the defense collapse and make good things happen from there and then lastly a lot of really smart actions uh from Rick Carlile that they were running to take advantage of specific issues in

Dallas’s defense one thing that I noticed a lot in the first half is they were screen Luca and then using Luca’s man it was Ben Maan in this case to then set the ball screen so uh a very common basketball action that we see is what’s called a ram screen which is basically

Where you screen the screener to go set a ball screen and usually it involves big men and the main reason why is big guys struggle to navigate screens right and the reason why you do that is if you can create a separation between the big man and the big man’s Defender it makes

It easier for you to get an advantage in the ball screen imagine I’m the big guy who’s on defense and there’s the big guy that’s offense next to me he runs up to go set a ball screen and it’s tyres halberton so you have to be up at the

Level because he’s such a good pull-up shooter I’m just gonna run right up there behind him right and whatever my coverage is whether it’s a hedge and recover whether it’s a high drop whether it’s a blitz whatever it is I I’m just going to run up and go get into my spot

Right and I’m going to communicate call out the angle of the screen and and it’ll give us our better chance to defend the action right but let’s say someone screens down on me as the guy is running up to go set the screen I know

Have to navigate a screen to get to my spot in the pick and roll coverage and so a lot of times you can find openings there by creating a gap between the screen Defender and the screener and then that guy can set a ball screen now when tyres Alberton comes off the screen

He’s coming off into open space instead of coming off into where that you know help Defender is supposed to be so they were basically doing that with Luca now the reason why you do it with the big typically is with the big they struggle to navigate screens well Luca especially

In this game and I thought Luka and Kyrie who have been pretty good defensively for the most part this season were both pretty bad in this one Luca just dies on the screen when he dies on the screen Ben Maan runs up and he’s Now setting a free and clear screen

On Tyrese Halbert and he’s able to come off and you know get to his pull-up jump shot or get to uh the next help defender in line to try to make a read so really smart actions there last thing I notice that they were doing was they were doing

A lot of back screening the rle man in their Spain pick uh in their pick and roll which is a variation of Spain pick and roll so Spain pick and roll is basically you have a shooter underneath the basket while the big man’s setting the screen and then they basically roll

In replace so as the big man’s rolling to the basket the shooter is relocating to the top and the two variations of it are sometimes the roll man will intentionally run into the shooter’s man to try to get the shooter open and sometimes the shooter will intentionally

Run into the screener man which will get the screener open right so like that’s like the two variations that you’ll see but they were able to get down down hill and get to the basket for easy layups just by back screening live and back screening Daniel Gafford with whoever it

Was that was under the basket sometimes it was tyres Alberton with Andrew nard on the ball sometimes was Andrew nard with Tyrese Alberton on the wall on the ball a lot of really really smart stuff from Indiana to keep their offense humming again 127 offensive rating in this game against a Dallas Mavericks

Defense that has been dominant um over the course of the last or the previous seven games Pacers last eight games they’re six and two couple equality wins in there against the Knicks and the Mavs fourth in offense 13th in defense and 18th in defensive rebounding so some of the best defense and rebounding

Stretches that we’ve seen from the Pacers this season playing some solid basketball they have a tough schedule coming up though they have the pels in a home and home and then they go to Dallas for a rematch and then they’re home from Minnesota and then they’re at Orlando

And at Oklahoma City so a bunch of bigger more physical front lines it’s going to be a good test for them on the Dallas front they were scoring well enough to keep Pace with Indie for most of the game but then they went ice cold in the fourth quarter they had a

Six-minute span after Kyrie’s pull-up jump shot that cut the ball to cut the score to four they had a six a six-minute span after that where they scored Just Four Points missed a bunch of good looks from three had some bad turnovers so their offense just kind of

Stalled out uh I was more worried about them on the defensive end of the floor in this particular game I’m not worried about Dallas’s ability to score uh especially against a team like Indiana they were never even really able to slow down Indiana’s offense they gave up at

Least 32 points in every single quarter they could not find a coverage that worked they uh I wanted to kind of dive in on The Gafford and Lively thing they’re both very different I think Lively is actually a better pick and roll Defender than Daniel Gafford right

Now Daniel Gafford you know I talked about this after the trade um and I use the concept the comp of like a Montes Herold type of guy Daniel gord’s in my opinion is bigger and stronger and longer and a better athlete than Montes Herold so it’s not like really that

Clean of a comp but the reason why I use that comp is I mean montre harell is an excellent role man with great hands who can who goes up around the rim actively good offensive rebounder right that but on the defensive end of the floor the

Dude was just was just tissue paper now Daniel Gafford has the potential to be much much better because he’s got the physical tools that a guy like montre didn’t have but that is like the archetype that I look at it’s like a really good athlete like uh like pick

And roll guy who’s like an excellent scorer on the rooll who has real vertical spacing but is kind of you know problematic on the defensive end of the floor and one of the specific things that Daniel Gafford will get himself caught into in terms of trouble is he’ll

Get caught in no man’s land in pick and roll so imagine in a ball screen there are two threats right in the two on two action that’s taking place obviously there are threats on but in the two the two threats that are on the ball are the

Guy coming over the top of the screen and you have to worry about a pullup three you have to worry about a floater and you have to worry about him getting down thehill all the way to the rim right and then there’s the rle man that’s coming off the other after he

Sets the screen he rolling hard down the middle of the floor there you’re worried about you know maybe a pocket pass in a little floater or a a mid-range jump shot or any sort of lob pass at the basket you know uh if you step up too

High Tyrese gets the pass over the top there’s dunk there right so you kind of have to do one of two things you have to either concede whatever the ball handler is doing to take away the roll or you have to take away whatever the ball handler is doing and concede the role

Man right and it’s a difficult job some of the very best defensive players in the world can do both the go Bears and the Anthony Davis’s and bayos and such vikor wanyama those guys they cover so much ground that sometimes they can like stunt up and bother the ball handler

While also getting back and making plays at the rim and one of the problems that Daniel Gafford was having a problem with today or last night is when he would come up high out of his drop coverage on a guy like Tyrese halberton he wasn’t coming up high enough to actually bother

Tyrese at all and so Tyrese was able to make easy over the top passes but then at the same time he’s not back far enough to do anything to the rle man and again like if you are active on the ball like if he steps up higher and he uses

His length to get up more into Tyreek Salton he can force that pass to either be deflected or to take a funky angle or to maybe he has to double pump or throw it super high like something to disrupt that pass to make it so that it’s easier

For the backline guys to rotate let’s say PJ Washington’s your low man in in in this sort of situation PJ Washington has a better chance to get over and blow that play up or even a guy like Tim Hardway Jr who they were using as a low

Man during that stretch he’s got the athleticism that if you buy him enough time he might be able to jump up high and and try to make some sort of play on the basketball but if you’re not bothering Tyrese halber ball the passes is easily getting over the top at that

Point if you’re also not bothering the rle man at all you’re effectively in no man like no man’s land and pick and roll coverage if like the best in the world can kind of do both but like your job is you’ve got to make something difficult

There you either have to get up higher on the ball handler to bother him more or backpedal to take away the roll and hope he misses his floater right like you got to do something and and a two frequent and again I want to be clear with Daniel Gafford he’s got

The tools to be a lot better than he has been it’s just more more often than it’s just schematic him him being in no man’s land and then two just a little bit slow to kind of read and react to some of this stuff and so but just by upping his

Activity and then just by being a part of a better defensive team where he can like kind of pick up what’s happening around him I think he can get better and then again the ca switching didn’t work that’s that’s an important anchor of Dallas’s defense and then their

Transition defense was bad Indiana was just running out on them all night long for the record Dallas’s transitions defense I I want to say their 23rd in defense uh trans transition defense points allowed per possession according to Synergy so that’s pretty bad this road trip was always going to be a test

For Dallas and this is just the first test but they failed their first test and so their next chance is at Cleveland tomorrow night to write the ship get in on the action with draftking Sportsbook an official sports betting partner of the NBA new customers who deposit $5 or

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Real is always Within Reach ensure your next purchase is the real deal visit ebay.com for terms let’s get to our power rankings like we do every Monday so uh we had two teams drop out this week the Suns drops games to the Mavs and the rockets coming out of the

Break offense has a tendency to stall out for them when Bradley Beal is out although they did have an encouraging fourth quarter against the Lakers the other night but they are out of the or yesterday I should say but they are out of the power rankings for this week and

Then the New Orleans Pelicans every time I swear that I feel like I’m about to jump on the Pelicans bandwagon they go and drop a couple of games to mediocre teams and they just dropped back-to-back games to the Heat and the Bulls so they’re out of power rankings for this

Week number 10 the Dallas Mavericks the additions of Daniel Gafford and PJ Washington have upped the athletic profile of the team they’re also healthy now and they are competing better defensively and on the glass than they have all season last night not withstanding but they did fail the first

Trip uh first test of their road trip in Indiana and their defense got absolutely shredded two more tests on this trip in Cleveland and in Boston number nine the Indiana Pacers they’ve won six of their last eight games capped off like I said with the big win over the Mavs yesterday

They are also like Dallas defending and rebounding better than they have most of the Season Tyrese halberton is looking a little bit more like himself with each passing game I’ve been talking about this but like soft tissue injuries and then like bone issues in like feet and

Knees uh or bone or ligament issues in feet and knees there’s always like a two-phase recovery there’s recovery once which is like getting healthy but then recovery two is like actually trusting your body again because when you make really explosive moves it takes a certain amount of confidence in your

Body to hold up and a lot of times you will kind of hold back if you don’t trust your body to hold up and so I I just remember this personally happening to me when I when I broke my foot when I was in college like I just I went

Through half the season where I just didn’t even trust myself to to take off off my right foot right and and spec I had a any of you guys who have had hamstring issues I had a hamstring issue when I was younger I was like 20 like 19

20 years old uh but like H hamstring issues in particular like you’re so nervous you’re going to reinjure it that like it causes you to kind of play with a certain amount of hesitancy played on a minute’s restriction in his first six games coming back from the hamstring

Only 14 points and six assists per game on 50% from the field 35% from three how these last five games back to playing big minutes 20 points and 12 assists per game 48% from the field and 42% from three so looking a little bit more like Tyrese Hal Burton with each passing game

Number eight the New York Knicks they’re still in a freef fall without their front line all down through uh because of injury they did beat the Sixers but they got handled by the Celtics the other night most of or yesterday I should say most of the data and film

That we’re getting out of the Knicks right now is completely useless as it pertains to their playoff potential because this whole team is about like incredibly physically imposing front line plus Jaylen Brunson and right now it’s like Jaylen Brunson with none of their front line guys so it just it just

Doesn’t really give you much to work with in terms of learning about this team couple of Silver Linings though I think precious suu is actually doing a really nice job filling in at power forward and then Dante dienzo shooting the out of the basketball in super high volume he’s scaling up his offense

With guys out with injury and he’s doing well he’s really been a great pickup for them this season big shout out to the Nick who just completely turned around their uh their fortunes over the course of the last couple of years number seven the Cleveland Cavaliers they’ve lost

Three of their last five Donovan Mitchell missed two of those games with an illness it was good to see him back out on the court against the Wizards yesterday in this five game span though ironically it’s been their defense that’s been the issue they have a 120 defensive rating in their three losses

Here’s their Silver Lining though Jared Allen has been absolutely crushing as of late his last 15 games 19 points and 11 rebounds per game on 60% shooting from the field and then scarland he’s another guy who’s really Rhythm oriented and typically when he comes back from

Injuries it can get to a slow start first five games coming back 11 points and five rebounds per game excuse me five assists per game on 46% from the field and 30% from three his last seven games 16 points and eight assists per game 47% from the field and 34% from

Three so starting to get it going three-point shots looked really good over the last four games 40% in his last four number six the Minnesota Timberwolves bounced back against the Nets on the tail end of a back-to-back on Saturday they had a pretty loss to the bucks on Friday

That exposed a lot of issues with their halfcourt offense bucks ran a super deep drop they were not able to hit the pull-up jump shots and floaters necessary to get the defense into rotation but even above and beyond any of that because some of that is just

Their personnel like I I really do think that that’s kind of the way that you can kind of play Minnesota into some issues however the other uh concern that I had in that particular game was just their offensive approach as things started to kind of go off the rails for them a lot

Of rushed shots a lot of unnecessary one-on-one a lot of like walking into a pick and roll without any sort of other action to set it up or do just do something to try to put Milwaukee in the blender before you run that type of action and again that’s been my issue

With the Timberwolves All Season there’s just a little bit on the predictable and and and kind of inconsistent decision-making side of things when it comes to their halfcourt offense and I did not think their performance against the uh uh the Bucks was very encouraging on that front number five the Los

Angeles Clippers they’re sleepwalking out of the All-Star break they got smacked by the Thunder they got smacked by the Kings although kawh Leonard was out for that particular game tyo himself said that the next few days of practice will be mainly about getting the team mentally focused again the Clippers have

Alternated wins and losses over their last eight games and they are 29th in Def defense over to that span think about that the LA Clippers who have been a dominant defense for most of the Year especially in the half court they are really really struggling defensively as

Of late hitting a little bit of a lull here so again this has been a team that’s been really attacking the regular season it’s completely unrealistic to expect a team to do that for all 82 uh so I’m not I’m I don’t think it’s

Unusual for a team to hit a lull the big thing to watch is how quickly they can get out of it and how frequently that happens down the stretch of the season number four the Milwaukee Bucks they had two huge wins over the Sixers and the Wolves to start their

Post All-Star stretch like I said earlier against Minnesota a lot of uh downhill athleticism on that team a lot of power players they perfectly executed their deep drop coverage Brook Lopez dominated the game defensively but the the Sixers game in particular was a very different challenge I was watching some

Film on that this morning Tyrese Maxi brings that downhill speed but he’s one of the best Shooters in the league and so much more of a challenge for their perimeter defense against the drop coverage I thought Malik Beasley had one of his best defensive games of the Season specifically making Tyrese work

Hard to get to his spots applying really good back pressure he’s been getting better and better each game like because again he’s got decent athletic tools he’s not overly big but he is fast like he does have the ability to move he’s just been a guy that hasn’t been that

Focused on the defensive end in his career and you’re actually watching him kind of learn on the Fly how to be this guy and I thought he did a really nice job against Tyrese Maxi I also wanted to shout out Jay Crowder I thought he had a

Bunch of good possessions on Tyrese Maxi especially in the first half and like here’s the thing like Jay Crowder I think has been written off by most people as being a little bit too old um but like this is the best I’ve seen him look physically on defense in a couple

Of years too and I I I think that that’s been kind of an underrated pickup underrated by myself too because I didn’t think he had anything left in the tank and and he’s just been he’s just been particularly solid for them on defense as of late but most importantly

The Bucks offense is humming again if you guys remember during the uh um gosh I can’t even remember which video it was I think it was the uh um I think it was right before the break but I talked about how I had a goal that I hoped the

Milwaukee Bucks would hit for the tail end of the season as an indicator of like kind of like a benchmark that they need to hit to to to feel like they’re on track and that was a 120 offensive rating and a 115 defense rating for those of you guys who are listening 120

Being like we’re humming on all centers off cylinders offensively and the 115 being like we are a solid defense which I think is all they really need to be is if they can reach that level um offensively well the defense has been incredible ever since Doc Rivers took

Over post deadline so far they have a 120 offensive rating and a 105 defensive rating and if they can sustain that forget about it like that now we’re talking about a team that’s on the same tier with Boston and Denver now we’ll see too small of a sample size to

Really judge it at this point but they are on track to hit those specific markers that I’m going to be watching here down the stretch of the season number three the Oklahoma City Thunder they had an undefeated week they beat the Clippers the Wizards and the rockets

Over this span a 126 offensive rating and a 102 defensive rating that’s outrageous plus 24 net really impressive win over the Clippers just ran them off the floor in the third quarter they scored 36 points in transition all five starters scored at least 12 points they blocked 11 shots the Clippers had no

Shot guarding them in ball screens the the Thunder scored 1.48 points per possession in pick and rolls including passes which is outrageous they had 1.16 points per half court possession in that game so just completely picked the Clippers apart big week for them number two the Denver Nuggets they look laser

Focused coming out of the break they had an undefeated week as well Heek halfcourt two-way dominance that we expect from Denver in that g win against Golden State last night they got hit with some Haymakers in that game game too and it just didn’t matter Klay

Thompson was red hot earlier in the game and Golden State’s been a famously good third quarter team and it just didn’t matter and then Nicole yic with a Preposterous 32 points 16 rebounds and 16 assists in that game only been done three other times in NBA history James

Harden had a 5316 and 17 once which is completely ridiculous and then Oscar Robertson did it twice back in the old days number one though the Boston Celtics beat the Bulls and the Knicks this week to extend their streak to eight games I really thought the Knicks

Game in particular was a positive step for them we’ve talked a lot about the Knicks or the Celtics offense as of late as it pertains to their kind of shot selection and them leaning too much on the perimeter not getting enough easy stuff around the basket well they had 58

Points in the paint against the Knicks they only averaged 46 points in the paint per game which is 27th in the NBA we did a deep dive on this uh just a few days ago and if you guys remember I talked about spefic specific things four

Specific things that they could do to up their points in the paint running out for layups and dunks they had seven possessions against the Knicks where they ran out in transition and made a two-point shot hosting up for Bully ball shots at The Rim instead of constantly

Fading away Jaylen Brown is a guy who’s a really good fade away jump shooter over both shoulders I thought he set the tone early in the first half back like backing guys down and getting layups at The Rim out of the post and then Chris Ops porzingis and Al Horford also had

Post up baskets right around the rim the third one was cutting instead of spotting up all the damn time so like again spotting up an important thing to do three-point shots have high value but when a Defender turns his back on you and helps you can also get a 100 point

Shot or 100% shot that was funny okay uh you get a 100% shot which is if you cut back door you can get something easy around the basket and again like a really good spot up shooter the best in the world are going to convert spot up possessions

At like 1.5 points per possession right 1.4 points per possession I think that’s where Norman Pal’s at this year uh it’s usually in that 1.3 1.4 range but like a a back door cut for a layup is going to get you two points the vast majority of

The time and so it’s not something that’s open all the time but when you see those opportunities you can get baskets there Drew holiday had a basket on I think it was a jayen brown postup where he cut along the Baseline when he saw his man turn his head instead of

Waiting at the three point line um Jaylen Brown had a cut off of the left wing out of a I think it was a porzingis post up just slashed down the middle of the floor they hit him he had an easy layup that’s a great way to generate

Points in the paint in the flow of the offense uh then the last one was crashing the offensive glass they had 11 points on offensive Rebound putbacks in this game they typically only average six per game so just scaling up in some specific possession types to drive some

More offense in the paint to add more offensive versatility they also hit 15 threes in this game but they also added some versatility they were able to to to score in the paint more effectively than they had for most of the season I thought it was a really encouraging game for the Celtics

They are at number one in our power rankings for God knows how many consecutive weeks now all right let’s move on to our mailbag hey Jason can you discuss how you would suggest defending a team like Denver you always mention about how fluent and Unstoppable Denver’s offense

Is but if you did but if you had to strategize a defensive game plan for Denver how would you do that awesome job in the show I always enjoy your basketball knowledge best in the business thank you so much for the kind words so here’s the deal as you

Mentioned not really a good option and most of it has to do with Personnel too like if you are a team that has you know really really bad perimeter defense and really really bad like not don’t have the quality of help defender or I shouldn’t say help Defender post

Defender to really match up with Nicole yic you might have to be just really sharp in your double teaming and rotations right right but if you have ball Personnel in the post and on the perimeter it might reflect differently in the event let’s just say that I have an average NBA

Defense I I’ll just pick a particular matchup for example let’s say the Golden State Warriors if I was coaching the Warriors and I was trying to get stops against the uh uh the Denver Nuggets what I would do is I would try as often as possible to make Nicole yic and Jamal

Murray score now now here’s the thing they will do it sometimes they did it last night in large doses the Boston game the game in Boston where Jamal Murray and Nicole yic just made shot after shot after shot after shot but in my opinion your best chance to beat

Denver is Nicole yic and Jamal Murray hopefully fatiguing at some point in starting to miss shots because tough shot making is all about leg strength and getting lift in physicality right and so in my opinion I would ra there’s there’s there’s two two specific reasons why I would rather try to defend Murray

And joic one-on-one and two on two versus sending multiple Defenders one fatigue like I just mentioned wear them out hopefully they miss shots but two it keeps the other three players out of rhythm so if for whatever reason the ball does end up in a Michael Porter Jr’s hand in a transition three

Situation or the ball does end up uh in post up of Aaron Gordon on a random possession here or there maybe just because they haven’t touched the ball as much in that particular game as they usually do they won’t be as confident as in Rhythm as they usually are and again

That strategy that I’m the strategy that I’m pitching which is basically defending them two on Two And one-on-one and just forcing them to make tough shots teams have tried that against Denver and it doesn’t work so I’m not trying to sit here and act like I’ve

Solved Denver but as a like if I was a coach thinking about it from the standpoint of what strategy I would want to implement over the course of a playoff series I would try to leave them on an island as much as possible but there’s another side to that I also am a

Big believer in disguising coverages flipping cover CES trying to disrupt Rhythm just by keeping them off balance so like I would probably do a good amount of Two on Two one-on-one coverage then I probably would have Looney on the ball with Draymond roaming on the backline sometimes ignoring Aaron Gordon

To offer more help yic was killing Looney with the chicken wing drop step in that game and it’s like he needs to be chicken wing drop stepping right into Draymond Green just like they ready physical trying to get a deflection something like that right I thr Zone

Looks at him I like I would do all sorts of things and randomly Blitz Jamal Murray like five times a game you know like I you just just try to find ways to kind of just keep them off balance a little bit but the primary coverage that

I would go with is a two on two or a one-on-one with my best on ball defender on Jamal chasing over the top and with my most physical post defender on Nicole yic and just be like okay yeah that’s a really tough shot you hit gotta keep

Making them but again I’m not trying to pretend like that’s gonna work um hi Jason big fan of your show keep up the work we all know that yic is by far the best player in the world today and maybe has been for two plus years but how does this version of yic

Compare to the best versions of other great players in the last 10 to 15 years hard to pick him over Prime LeBron who uh who would beat him who would beat him in most categories apart from half court offense but do you think this version of

Joic is better than any version of ktie and step I think this version of joic is much better than than ktie and step to to put it simply ktie and Steph neither of them ever had a point in time where you could definitively say they were the

Best player in the league there were Kevin Durant fans during the prime of his career who thought he was better than LeBron and a lot of those people were just people who didn’t like LeBron but like and then there was Warrior fans like Warriors fans think Steph is the

Best player in the world and has been for you know the better part of a decade but you were not finding many people outside of the Golden State fan base that thought Steph Curry was the best player in the world that’s the difference between Nicole joic and those

Guys like like I would I’d venture to guess if I pulled a hundred random NBA fans of all 30 NBA fan bases including some casual fans that don’t really have a team I’d venture to guess more than 90% of them would say Nicole yic is the

Best player in the world that just never was the case for Steph Curry and that just never was the case for Kevin Durant so you have to go back to guys like LeBron Kobe MJ like like here’s the thing joic isn’t on that level because he hasn’t accumulated the

Accomplishments yet but he is on that trajectory Nicole yic is very firmly on a goat level trajectory it’s just a a question of whether or not he can sustain this dominance over the course of the next decade but if he does like if Nico sustains his dominance what is

He like 26 27 years old now if he goes like six or seven years and wins you know four titles four additional titles and wins you know one or two more MVPs like he just automatically cracks into that like top five six players of NBA history you know and Steph has gotten

Into that conversation because of his longevity and his accumulation of accolades but again there was never a version of Steph Curry where definitively around the league everyone thought he was the best player in the world like I briefly got on that train in like 2022 but it didn’t last it just

It’s just one of those things where you gota accom you gota you gotta compliment Nicole yic on the dominance the dominance is just um like like like literally you watch him and you’re like wow this dude’s just way better than everybody now again the dominance has to

Extend season to season to season like if joic goes into the postseason this year and gets outplayed by somebody and gets beat you know that that question changes but I do think I do think the overarching opinion of the basketball Community is that Nicole yic is by far

The best player in the world right now do you know why Curry has struggled to score against Denver in the last two years I find it funny that funny that kcp keeps clamping his ass up and he really isn’t doing anything so um I don’t think it really here’s the thing

Kcp is a really good perimeter Defender I’m not trying to undercut that but I don’t think it’s any one thing that’s slowing Curry down I think it has to do with just the configuration of Denver’s defense Denver’s backline is Denver’s defense has good on ball Personnel at the

Forward position and in the guard spot right like kcp and Aaron Gordon but the flip side of that is like their other guys they’re all just like do their job guys so for instance guys like Michael Porter Jr and Nicole yic are really good help Defenders right and so as long as

They can stay in help they can be a really impactful defense but the problem is is Golden State doesn’t have enough off-ball offensive tent to consistently punish help and so Steph Curry is in this predicament where Denver’s defense is kind of built to slow him down because they can have KP just ball

Pressure the hell out of him be super physical off the ball and they can trap and hedge in all of his ball screens and there’s just not enough offensive talent to make them punish to punish them on the backline because Aaron Gordon is an excellent help Defender and Michael

Porter Jr is an excellent help Defender Nicole yic is really active with his hands and ball screens and is really good at reading the uh Golden State offall actions and jumping in front of him he had a bunch of steals last I think he get four steals last night

Right so like I don’t blame Curry for that I just think it’s a bad matchup for the team and it manifests in curry offensive struggles next one my man hates Toren Prince um I had uh my producer uh one of our producers Paul was complaining at at

Me joking about this last night I want to be clear I don’t have any issue with tan Prince I actually was really excited when the Lakers signed him this summer I don’t blame him at all for what’s happened this season this is a textbook example of a guy who for like the better

Part of a half decade was a bench player in the NBA that’s what he is he’s a bench NBA wing and Darvin ham has miscast him as a high you know High minutes in many cases starting forward and he just has struggled there because that’s that’s not what his place in I

Want to be clear I have no issues with torian Prince by all indicators he’s a great guy really coachable and plays hard he’s just being there’s I talk about slotting a lot on this show and this is like intentional horse slotting from the Lakers because they have better

Players than him that they can play better uh higher minutes but toian Prince is being slotted into a role that’s kind of above what he’s capable of if you slot him properly then all of a sudden things start to make more sense all right four more questions and then we’re

Done hey love the show and have been watching for so long that even if I don’t watch the games every day I’ll still watch your show thank you again um even though you don’t cover the lower teams in the league what do you think happened to Jordan P his work ethic was

Insane from being a terrible player first two years to being a key piece in the finals run he also led the Warriors as number as the number one when Curry was out he can easily be the number one so what’s up with him I love the guy but

It’s hard getting moved to the bench on the Wizards I am so not off the Jordan pool train yet I think he is a really really good combination of like Eed with skill but also audacity which I think is actually a good thing when it comes to

Guards um I don’t think his success in Golden state was an accident I I I I don’t have the numbers in front of me but I tweeted them out the other day cuz I kind of had the reason why I pulled this question is I was actually thinking

About this the the other day but like for three straight seasons in Golden State before he went to Washington he was like a good efficient score and you’re right like he led the units in most cases when Steph was off there were stretches where Steph got hurt and he

Carried the team to to being good enough to kind of float the ship so like couple of things I I I attribute it to two things one he’s a young guard who just got paid so like think about all the think about where your headspace was

Those of you guys who are older think about where your heads space was when you were in your early 20s and your priorities and and all that kind of stuff like he’s got he’s learning how to be a pro in a lot of ways and you know

Like I just think it’s way too early to jump off that bandwagon and the second piece of it the warrior or the Wizards are a show like like what if we took Jordan p and we dropped him in Dallas in like in like Jaden Hardy’s role and he was like the third ball

Handler for the Dallas Mavericks you don’t think he’d be awesome there I think he’d be awesome there so like part of it’s just bad organization bad team and then another part of it is like he’s got to grow up a little bit he’s got to

Grow up a little bit and kind of tighten up his decision- making tighten up like his overall like shot selection and just his approach to the game and and another big thing with Jordan p is like I think he makes things unnecessarily difficult on the floor sometimes and so just by

Kind of like learning how to identify the easy ways that he can imp impact when leaning more into those and using his like you know that audacity that I was talking about more as a counter rather than as like the foundational part of his offense I think that would

Go a long way to turning his uh slump around I had multiple comments along this line pretending like a deep drop will work against Boston is pretty funny not gonna lie hope the Bucks try it so I’m not going to sit here and pretend like the Bucks can’t beat a deep drop of

Course they can’t Derek uh Derek white can hit pullup threes Jaylen Brown can hit pullup threes Jason Tatum can hit pullup threes some Boston fans in the comments rightly pointed out that a great counter to drop coverage is a pick and pop with chrisop porzingis the

Reason why I talked about it is because the Celtics have a tendency to occasionally go very cold and so like I said if I was coaching against Boston and by the way this I want to be clear up front I don’t think I don’t think the

Bucks are gonna beat the Celtics in a series I’ve picked Boston uh ever since that early stretch of the season when Milwaukee really struggled if Boston played Milwaukee in a series tomorrow I’d pick Boston every single time I’m talking about that would be their best chance to play Boston into their worst

Tendencies would you be incredibly shocked if Tatam and white just missed a bunch of Pull-Up jump shots and porzingis only shot 32% on picking pop threes instead of 38% or 42% or something like that and they had a few cold nights and all of a sudden it’s a

Series tied at two and there’s a game in Boston and they start three for 15 from three and all sudden Milwaukee’s up seven and Giannis is bullying his way to the rim and like like it’s not inconceivable right right that’s all I’m saying I’m saying deep drop is probably

Milwaukee’s best chance to play Boston into their worst Tendencies which is to settle for jump shots from the perimeter particularly off the dribble that’s all I meant by that that doesn’t mean it’s going to work it’s just their best available strategy whereas the Knicks and the heat

In particular they are teams that that actually kind of plays into their strengths if you let Tyler Harrow and Robinson come free and clear off of screens all night that’s literally their favorite way to play and they’re not a team that can beat you know switching coverages and things like that because

They’re not great at beating guys off the dribble right like that that’s kind of what I meant Jaylen Brunson if you run a deep drop coverage against him the dude’s gonna average 3738 points a game in a series because that’s just that’s like his best way to play the game right

That’s all I meant by that and I Celtics fans to have really like Celtics F have really struggled to differentiate the difference between like me talking about what they need to do to win the title versus criticism those are two completely different things like all of

These teams have like Denver is the only team that you guys will hear me talk about that I don’t like really nitpick and it’s because I trust them at a different level but like all the other 29 teams in the league I cover them the exact same way here’s what they’re good

At here’s what they’re bad at here’s what they need to fix in order to reach their individual ceiling that’s all we’re talking about with Boston for them it’s their shot selection approach trying to get into the paint more and I I don’t want to be overarching because I

Know there’s been a lot of Celtics fans that have been uh that have not only been receptive to it but that have also provided really good feedback in the comments that have helped me understand the team better so like I’m just more referring to a certain segment of

Celtics fans but I want to be clear I’m not trying to be overly negative or undercut their title chances I think the Celtics would beat the Bucks I’m just literally talking about strengths and weaknesses which is kind of the point of the show if that makes sense two more

Used to love watching you and Newman hoop back in the day Brandon new Newman was my point guard uh one of our twoo guards at uh Arizona Christian my last year playing in college he ended up making an All-American team the year after I left uh he was kind of in and

Out of the lineup with injuries the year that I was there because he was coming off of an ACL te but Brandon Newman was the closest thing that I played with to a guy that kind of played like Chris Paul in terms of just like super methodical pick and roll play with

Outstanding passing ability and the ability to hit all of those like kind of in between shots Brandon’s an outstanding player shout out to Brandon um if if you leave another comment tell me how tell me how you know him uh last one this is a quote from Jason the

Milwaukee Bucks will never be an elite defense end quote Milwaukee Bucks ranked sixth in defense since the Griffin fire LOL I think they’re looking consistently solid on defense that’s a 15 game sample size for tough opponents I have said many times on the show that they’re defending way better since uh Doc Rivers

Took over the head coaching job in in large part they’re just competing better Crowder and Malik Beasley are doing a better job on perim on the perimeter than they’ve been getting uh early in the season that said what an elite defense is about Personnel an elite defense is like Minnesota who has

Anthony Edwards and Jen McDaniels like two top tier perimeter on ball Defenders and Rudy goar a like top tier rim protector the Bucks have an elite defensive front line but their perimeter Personnel is average at Best in closer to low average what that means is they

Will have stretches 10 15 games at a time where they defend better by defensive rating but to me an elite defense is about Personnel I don’t think Milwaukee needs to be an elite defense to win the title because I think they can be a transcendently elite offense so

It’s not about what their ultimate ceiling is I think this team what they’re doing right now in this ranking sixth in defense since the Adrian Griffin firing they are building out out the good defensive habits that will give them the best chance of being a good enough defense when they get to the

Postseason to beat the best teams in the league but I think you’re fooling yourself if you think Milwaukee is one of the best defenses in the league uh just given their personnel all right guys that is all I have for today as always I appreciate you guys for

Supporting the show no show tomorrow I’m headed up to Northern Arizona to do some skiing for just the day we’ll be back on Wednesday for some game breakdowns and probably another mailbag so drop some more mailbag questions he

Jason Timpf reacts to Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, and the Dallas Mavericks’ 133-111 loss to Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers. Later, Jason reveals his Monday NBA power rankings featuring many familiar faces such as Nikola Jokic’s Denver Nuggets and Jayson Tatum’s Boston Celtics atop the list. Lastly, Jason answers mailbag questions including why Steph Curry has struggled against Denver, how Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks can approach a series against the Celtics, and much more!

Timeline:
00:00 – Introduction
01:05 – Pacers beat Mavericks
08:35 – Indiana offense humming
14:53 – Dallas defense struggles
22:04 – NBA Power Rankings
22:38 – #10: Dallas Mavericks
23:02 – #9: Indiana Pacers
24:37 – #8: New York Knicks
25:30 – #7: Cleveland Cavaliers
26:23 – #6: Minnesota Timberwolves
27:32 – #5: Los Angeles Clippers
28:26 – #4: Milwaukee Bucks
31:04 – #3: Oklahoma City Thunder
31:41 – #2: Denver Nuggets
32:21 – #1: Boston Celtics
35:08 – How do you defend Denver?
38:45 – Jokic better than peak Steph or Durant?
41:30 – Why Curry has struggled vs. Nuggets
43:03 – Jason does not hate Taurean Prince
44:10 – Jason is still high on Jordan Poole
46:36 – Bucks vs. Celtics
49:49 – Throwback to Jason’s playing days
50:29 – Jason doubles down on Bucks statement

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