Kevin Durant erupts, Suns sink Jokic & Nuggets in OT, Celtics collapse, NBA Mailbag | Hoops Tonight

Kevin Durant erupts, Suns sink Jokic & Nuggets in OT, Celtics collapse, NBA Mailbag | Hoops Tonight

All right welcome to Hoops tonight here at the volume happy Wednesday everybody hope all of you guys are having a great week got a jam-packed show for you today we’re going to be hitting that insane just just an awesome NBA regular season game last night between the Suns and the

Nuggets got to see a kind of a Peak Denver type of run down the stretch and then KD and Bradley Beal just snatch it back not just with shot making but with Incredible defense on the other end the floor super interesting game we’re going to break that down from the perspective

Of both teams after that Boston had their first loss in what 12 13 games however long it’s been uh against the Cleveland Cavaliers last night BL blowing a 22-point lead in the fourth quarter we’re going to break that game down from the perspective of both teams

Also I’ve had a lot of people asking for film related breakdowns and we’re actually experimenting with that today I recorded something this morning we’re working it up as we speak so at some point either today or tomorrow we will have a film breakdown on our YouTube

Channel of the Boston collaps so we can learn some specific x’s and those things but we are going to go over it in this video today after that we got a mailbag and then we’ll be out of here we’ll be back tonight on uh YouTube live after

The final buzzer of bucks Warriors you guys know the drill before we get started subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel it 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 it’s also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front follow me on Twitter atore jlt so you guys don’t miss show announcements or the film threads that I do from time to time and then last but not least keep

Dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments so we can keep getting to them throughout the rest of the year all right let’s talk some basketball so this was a crazy game uh between the Suns and the Nuggets a fun one last night uh back and forth early Phoenix goes on a big

Run in the second quarter they KD goes on the first of two hot streaks that he has in the game hits a bunch of tough shots in a row they start forcing turnovers and getting out in transition and getting easy baskets there and then Grayson Allen hit goes eight for eight

From the three-point line to start the game really capitalizing on the issues that Denver was having in their defensive backline Denver runs like two different kinds of pick and roll coverages in it basically it’s either Nicole yic up at the level where he’s active with his hands and that kind of

Puts their backline into a position where they’ve got to be really sharp or against teams that aren’t as good with pull-up shooting they’ll have yic drop much further back and then they can kind of do a better job of staying home on the weak side but Bradley Beal and Kevin

Kevin Durant in particular they just bring such a high level of of off the dribble pop from the perimeter that it does bring joic further out and from there it’s just so imperative for that low man to be able to tag the roller but also to be able to rotate back out to

The weak side and Phoenix can put you in some predicaments where you have you know Grayson Allen who’s been I mean one of the very best if not the best spot up players in the league this year out there and usually whoever else is over there can shoot the basketball at least

When they’re in their best lineups obviously they have some stretches of the game or they have some weaker offensive players out there but against fenix’s best lineups like it’s a tough team to deal with on the weak side with all the shooting that they have out

There I did not think Denver was very sharp on their backline until the fourth quarter and when they got sharp at that point then it turned into more of a shot-making contest and so Denver started to methodically work their way back into the game classic Denver offense on one end but then their

Backline gets sharper so they’re starting to take away the easy catch and shoot opportunities Grayson Allen starts missing shots they stopped giving up offensive rebounds and then kyp and Aaron just did a really really good job on Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal getting really good contests and forcing them

Into really tough shots and Denver just starts working their way back and working their way back Bradley Beal hits a pull-up three to put them up 99 to 90 with about four minutes left and after that Denver just goes on This Magnificent 12 run to go up 10299 it was

Perfect basketball on both ends of the floor arguably could have been better too cuz joic got Stripped by Bradley Beal on like a uh like a fake drible handoff as he went towards the uh towards the basket on the right side of the floor but they scored on every other

Possession that they had and then Jamal Murray hits a crazy ISO jump shot over Royce O’Neal the last couple possessions Phoenix goes with Royce O’Neal on jic and they switch the Murray yic pick and roll Jamal Murray just picks on Royce O’Neal hits a really tough jumper

They’re up 10299 you’re like here we go again Denver just Denver their way into winning this game after being down by 22 points and then Kevin Durant just hits a really tough perfectly contested by Aaron Gordon pull up three on the left wing a uh Kevin Duran had been one for

Eight from the field in that fourth quarter makes that one on the other end of the floor joic misses a really tough Runner along the Baseline and we’re going to overtime and in overtime all those same tough shots the difficult shot making that was actually putting Phoenix in a predicament there in the

Fourth quarter all of them started going in all of a sudden but Kevin Durant was hitting that pull-up jumper and then kcp made a couple of big mistakes he had a bad close out on Bradley Beal at the top of the key where Beal beat him to the

Left and had a drop off to uh Drew Eubanks for a uh for a dunk and then he was flat footed on an offensive rebound Roy Oil they blitzed Kevin Durant pick and roll Royce O’Neal was the short roll man pass over the top Royce O’Neil went

Downhill and missed a floater joic had to come up to contest though the shot came short off the rim and kcp was just standing there he was in a position to grab it didn’t grab it Royce O’Neal got his own rebound kicked it to Bradley Beal so kcp was a double whammy because

Not only did he not get the rebound but then he also wasn’t home on the shooter on the weak side they kick it to Bradley Beal he knocks down the three on the other end of the floor uh joic had Drew Eubanks on him but really wasn’t looking

To score at all which we’re going to talk about in a minute Michael Porter Jr and Jamaal Murray missed some really tough shots against some great individual defense and Phoenix ends up winning comfortably super super entertaining basketball game got to see the best of both teams and the worst of

Both teams in this particular game by far the most impressive element though that I wanted to hit on was Phoenix’s defense after the Oklahoma City game I talked a lot about them needing to be Scrappy the little stretch where they had their comeback against o OKC when

They took the lead involved them double teaming Shake gild Alexander and just doing a much better job of rotating around and chasing guys off the line because like one of the things that Phoenix has is they don’t necessarily have outstanding defensive talent but what they do have is they have a lot of

Speed they have a lot of speed and they actually do have a decent amount of length when you look at like Bo soil has long arms Kevin Durant has long arms they’re guards they’re not they’re not like you know short guys they’re just you know 6’4 65 guys that are pretty

Fast players and so when they really fly around they can be impactful defensively and the reason why this is so important is because there’s a level of inconsistency in Phoenix’s offensive approach when you take a lot of really difficult pull-up jump shots you’re going to have stretches where they go in

Like overtime and then you’re going to have stretches where they don’t like the fourth quarter that inconsistency is baked into that shot profile right especially like it’s one thing when you’re getting the defense in rotation you’re getting wide open Catch and shoot threes but as Denver showed they’re down

The stretch when you’re sharp on your weak side rotations you can kind of Chase guys out of those sorts of shots and the ball will end up back in your stars hands and they’re going to have to take really difficult shots over the top so if there’s inconsistency baked into

Your shot profile you can’t also be inconsistent on the defensive end of the floor that has to be your consistency so that when you go cold you can weather that storm on the defensive end of the floor and that that was what carried them Bradley Beal did an amazing job

Digging down on joic all night I talked about his big steal coming out of the right corner there towards the end of the fourth quarter in OT he was ignoring cavius cwell Pope off the ball and digging down into all of the uh roll angle so like when when yic would throw

The little dribble hand off he rolls into the middle of the floor there and Bradley Beal was just digging down and taking that pass away and Jamal Murray wasn’t you know willing to make that skip pass to kcp to make them pay so kcp is just standing useless on the other

End of the floor that’s how they forced those guys into trying to score on an island and then guys got stops Grayson Allen big stop on Jamal Murray in overtime there forcing him into a travel uh in a postup situation their defense was the thing that carried them through

In this game while their shot making was inconsistent but like um I thought it was their best defensive game of the season Yousef nkic and Drew Eubanks were both super physical with Nicole yic they had five offensive rebounds between those two guys it was just a really really impressive defensive performance

And then here’s the thing Kevin Durant like that’s always a capability that he has he you know I talked a lot about how uh over this the course of the Season how you can defend your way into making guys feel uncomfortable and and they typically will have harder nights where

They have to work harder and and it’s more likely that they’ll Miss like this is a great example that I think KD had 35 points but he took 34 shots to get them right that’s a great defensive game but as cold as he was in the fourth

Quarter KD always has the capability of getting hot the way that he did in OT and once he made that big shot to uh to send it to OT he just was in Rhythm at that point and then it didn’t really matter where Aaron Gordon’s hand was there’s another bad defensive possession

In there where kcp was guarding a KD at the top of the key and then he just died on a screen and so a KD came off and Jamal Murray was kind of back in a drop and he was just way too far back and he knocked it Down K KD was magnificent

Then Bradley Beal you know his ability to beat people off the dribble continually is uh is something that kind of brings a different element to Phoenix’s offense and I thought he made a couple of huge plays um down the stretch of this one too just with his overall speed creating shots on the

Denver front joic having a bad night really kind of threw everything off um nurkic is it’s interesting nurkic is big enough to kind of bang with him in a way that makes him uh work a little bit harder I saw a lot of guys on Twitter saying like

Oh like jic succeeds just because there’s no big guys in the NBA and it’s like hold on a second like there aren’t that many people that big in the entire world and you can’t play in the NBA unless you’re that big and you can do a

Lot of other things why is Yousef nurkic and and iika zubach and uh and Nicole yic in the game why are these like big you know rumbling stumbling Center still in the game it’s because they are super skilled right and so that’s the thing like there just aren’t that many people

Like that that is a credit to nurkic the fact that he can be a physical archetype that’s super rare while also being so good at all these things to be the best player in the world that’s a compliment to him however when he runs into some of

These matchups like this it does make things a little bit more challenging for him when he can’t just completely physically overwhelm uh Usef nerkish that said there were tons of possessions where Yousef nkic was off of uh yic from the OT period when he had fouled out and

He had uh uh um Drew Eubanks on in the entire quarter he had there’s that the possessions down the the stretch of the fourth quarter he had Royce O’Neal on him straight up Royce O’Neal on him and he just wasn’t even looking to score and

So like you know every once in a every every player has bad games Nicole yic is kind of in that LeBron James territory where he’s so incredibly efficient he doesn’t rely on tough shot making so like even his uh his bad games are like extraordinarily rare like shot making

Types even the great Michael Jordan like he’d have a 10 for 30 night you know every few games right like that was a part of of what happened with his kind of shot profile right like his there was more variance kind of baked into it for these guys like joic guys like LeBron

Guys that are like offensive engines that rely on Bully ball a lot closer to the basket it’s extremely rare for them to have bad nights but what do the bad LeBron games look like what did the bad joic games look like they look like this it’s when they are not aggressive enough

It’s when they’re too willing to just make the right play when they’re too willing to just keep the ball moving around and I thought I thought that nurkic and the rest of the group with their swarming mentality did a really nice job of just getting joic into a

Mode mentally where he didn’t trust a lot of his shot-making ability and so he was more willing to be passive and look to move the ball around but again extremely rare to see a bad game out of this type of player but this is what it looks like when that sort of thing

Happens right and as a result because yic wasn’t being very aggressive it turned into Murray and Michael Porter Jr controlling the majority of these possessions and they rely on tough Over the Top Shot making so just like KD they can go cold a went cold after they went

Up 112 or 102 to 99 and they weren’t able to make up for that uh kcp I just thought had a bad night he’s a guy that is a super reliable role player and I mean at the same time he made some big shots he had that huge three on the left

Wing that actually put them up 100 to 99 but like I I didn’t think that and also I want to blame Murray a little bit in the sense that he should have identified that Bradley Beal was digging down off of him and been more diligent to get the

Ball to kcp but on the defensive end of the floor I thought it was not kyp’s best crunch time especially there in OT and so that’s something that they can build off of and then lastly bad backline help in recover situations like that was what killed them when they went

Down by 20 plus and it’s just really hard to dig back and they did and they actually had a three-point lead like Denver looked magnificent uh in the last quarter and a half of this game before before they went into OT but like they just dug themselves in such a big hole

That KD really only had to make one shot or two shots he made that one little drifting fade away in the lane and then he hit this the pull-up three those two shots he made were really all they needed to get to OT because of the hole

That they dug themselves in so you know just a bad night this sort of thing happens credit Phoenix defended extremely well um like joic was like losing rebounding battles too that’s something that you’re just not usually accustomed to seeing just a bad uh a bad Denver night credit Phoenix for the win

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That’s eight8 ho o o PS the crown is yours all right moving on to Boston Cleveland so uh just a crazy comeback down 22 points in the fourth quarter Dean Wade gets crazy hot hits a couple of shots on Luke cornette and then um uh gets comfortable gets kind of into a

Rhythm and then from there like Darius scarland and Caris LT just did a really nice job of finding Dean Wade when he was open from there he could hit a couple of shots in transition hit a couple of shots just kind of relocating off the B he was just scalding hot and

Boston kept losing him and he shot them back into the game I wanted to credit George’s neang too he hit two massive ones had a relocation three on Jason Tatum where Tatum turned his back for a second he kind of went to the top of the

Key and knocked it down had a three where he ran his Lane in transition georgees dang also defended really well down the stretch had a couple of big help defense possessions there was a shot that porzingis made over the top of him in the post where he defended it

Really well there was a pick and pop where he made like a chaotic rotation to get back out to is actually kind of funny cuz like he’s so like awkward sometimes on defense just because of his body type but like he was stumbling and all over the place but he was playing

His ass off and made a bunch of big plays on both ends of the floor to get them into it and then the final possession the the the game winner for Dean Wade he just once again identified that Boston was ball watching Drew holiday was on him and he wasn’t paying

Attention he just snuck right along the B uh right along the uh uh left elbow kind of slot cutting through the lane darus Scarlet smokes a left-handed layup off the glass but Dean way comes in and dunks it and puts the Cavs up one and

Then on the other end of the floor the guy I have to shout out is Darius Garland on the defensive end because Boston was really trying to pick on him they kept bringing him up into ball screens and he was hedging and recovering and just doing a really nice

Job of sticking that hand out there to stop them from turning the corner and then sprinting back to the shooter to get a late contest he had a big defensive rebound possession against Luke cornette where Tatum missed a layup off the glass and he shoved cornette

Under the rim to stop him from getting the rebound he stopped Derrik white on a drive or Derrick White got downhill on him and he literally sprinted back to get in front of Derrik white to force him to spin Derek white ended up stumbling and losing his balance and he

Missed a shot and then on the biggest possession of the game there at the end of regulation down up by one he gets switched onto Jason Tatum and holds his ground and forces him into a really tough left shoulder fade away just really really good defense from the guy

That they were trying to Target down the stretch of the game and again I wanted to just credit Cleveland like they they baited Boston into their worst Tendencies they threw that hedge in recover put them in a situation where Boston was kind of baited into taking repeated catch and shoot threes above

The break which they have a tendency every once in a while even though they’re very good shooting team they have a tendency to go cold big time win from Cleveland snatched Victory from the jaws of defeat and did it without Donovan Mitchell once again on the strength of their defense and like

Honestly their defense hasn’t been very good as of late and so I thought this was really encouraging just to recapture some of that identity on the Boston end of the floor I uh I had a Boston fan message me last night on on Twitter saying like hey go easy on us you know

We uh you know this kind of thing happens to everybody and I agree for the record like this kind of thing happens to everyone it’s an 82 Game season you’re G to have ugly moments Denver just last night had a nightmarish game on on both ends of the floor particularly their offense fell

Apart in clutch clutch time joic had one of his worst nights of the season so like yeah you’re right this kind of thing can happen however important checkpoints to getting to the promised land which is the Larry O’Brien trophy is having the self-awareness to look in the mirror identify what you’re bad at

And get better at it so that when you get to May and April and June you don’t make those kinds of mistakes so we’re going to do a quick little I’m going to quickly just go over what I noticed on tape by the way we are working up

Currently a film breakdown version of this so you should see that on the YouTube uh feed soon enough uh with some footage to break it down but uh first of all on the defensive end of the floor the first two shots they got Dean Wade going I didn’t think they were anyone’s

Fault 22-point game uh Luke cornett’s guarding him big guys in general have a tendency with Shooters to not uh be as desperate to chase them off the line it’s just kind of not naturally in their defensive kind of instincts right and then you’re down 20 like you’re not

Really like playing the hardest defense you’ve ever played in your life right so the first two threes Dean Wade hit we’re on Luke cornette on short Closeouts where cornett’s there but he’s more just taking away the drive and like Dean Wade had missed a bunch of Threes earlier in

The game and so he’s just trying to to see if he’ll make it right so he makes a couple of Threes from there though now Dean Wade’s hot a lot of ball watching like there like like you uh um you would see uh like there a critical possession

Late in the game the game that the shot that put him up 10299 Jaylen Brown is on Dean Wade on the right wing and he’s just completely back turned to Dean Wade staring in the lane while Darius Garland and J Jared Allen are running in two-man

Game porzingis and I think I think it was porzingis and Derek white have it like completely under control they have The Possession completely defended there’s no Advantage there and Jaylen Brown is just standing staring at the play Jared Allen gets the ball and ends up throwing the swing pass out to uh

Dean Wade and he knocks down the three another big one and we’re going to talk about their offense in a minute but some bad offensive possessions led to transition runouts and they weren’t getting matched up in transition georgees neang hit a left corner three not matched up in transition Dean Wade

Hit a uh a transition three trailing the play on a dribble handoff from Darius Garland christops porzingis was sprinting back in transition got below the three-point line didn’t realize he was matched up with the best shooter on the floor and lost him you know like

Drew holiday lost Dean Wade on a a key3 at the top of the key when he wasn’t paying attention in transition so like it was a lot of a lot of ball watching a lot of just like like I I talk about like help and stay home decisions a lot

On this show when you are driving into the lane and your on ball Defender is in position to force him into a tough shot and there’s another help Defender that’s in a better position to do something and you leave a shooter from a different spot you’re not helping anybody you’re

Not actually causing that shot to be lower percentage all you’re doing is giving an outlet that’s how you force teams into turnovers you force teams into turnovers by defending actions one-on-one and Two on Two and staying home off the ball at least least to at least close enough to the shooter that

You’re always back in that position and you want to play the passing lane cuz then what happens is is when you shut the action down one-on one or two on two Whoever has the ball has to get rid of it somehow and usually they’re looking

To get it back out to the perimeter and when you get them into tough spots where they’re rushing they’ll force a pass out there and if you’re in the passing Lane you can force the turnover when you’re ball watching all you’re doing is watching your guys do a good job

Defensively on the ball while conceding an easy kickout opportunity and it’s just it’s one of those things where the offensive approach we’re going to talk about in a second that’s an important part of Boston’s issues that they have to rectify but none of it matters if they defend so damn well that there’s

Just a massive margin for error and like again we’ve talked about that a lot on this show like Boston’s defense is so much more under their control than their offense and they just got really really sloppy off the ball down the stretch on the offensive end of the

Floor one of the things I’ve talked about and I’ve been harping on Non-Stop over the course of the last month is Boston needing to find a way to generate offense on the interior when their jump shots stop falling from The 99-minute Mark when Boston was up by 22 they missed every

Single jump shot they took down the stretch by the way that can happen that is a thing that happens in basketball games that is a thing that has happened to Boston a bunch of times this season so it doesn’t matter over the 82 if you’re the best three-point shooting

Team in the league it doesn’t matter over the 82 if you have the most volume of three-point shots it doesn’t matter if in that individual game you have gone cold the Celtics made five shots during that run those five shots were all physically aggressive moves towards the

Rim what are the four ways that I talked about for Boston to generate points in the paint uh posting up with aggression towards the rim right crashing the offensive glass running in transition for layups and dunks and then cutting off of the three-point line instead of constantly spotting up their five made baskets

During the 22-point blown lead was a Luke cornette offensive rebound putback Al for Al Horford making an aggressive move in the post to a hook with his right hand christops porzingis making aggressive move in the post to a hook with his right hand Drew holiday cutting

Off of the weak side Wing instead of spotting up and getting a layup and Christof porzingis running his layup his Lane in transition for a layup so that is why I harp on that concept when this happens when the defenses ratchet up the intensity gets crazy maybe your team

Loses some confidence from the three-point line and the shots aren’t falling that has resiliency attacking the paint has resiliency in that environment you’re jump shooting you might make them but you might not and when it gets in the team’s head and the Palms get sweaty you’re probably not

Going to make them you missed every single jumper you took during that run the the the biggest problem with it too they were running actions that are actually designed to generate above the break three-point shots for example porzingis pick and pop they ran a couple of uh they ran I think two porzingis

Pick and Pops down the stretch of this game two or three of them but two of them led to three-point shots and on on him like is exactly what you expect like ball screen you know George’s kneeing helps recovers back out chrisop is catches and shoots like a 26f footer

Here’s the thing chrisop foringa shoots 39% on above the break threes but that means he misses them 61% of the time and in a game like that when it’s super physical and when there’s nerves and there’s sweaty palms and all that stuff it’s actually even more likely

That he’ll miss it doesn’t matter what the shot value is over the 500 of them he might take in a season or whatever it is all that really matters is that specific possession in that specific game can you get a high percentage shot and like that is that action is going to

Lead to a shot that porzingis is going to miss probably two-thirds of the time in a big sample size but in that sample size it’s far more likely that he’s going to miss just because that’s the way the game is going also they were picking on Darius Garland and they the

Idea behind it is set a ball screen let me get Darius Garland switched onto me if I get Darius Garland switched onto me then I can be aggressive but they couldn’t identify that Cleveland was hedging and recovering so if Darius Garland is hedging and recovering and you’re sitting guard guard screens they

Are going to result in above the break threes because you’re going to come off that ball screen Garland’s gonna hedge you’re gonna have to pull back as you pull back the shooter is slipping to the three-point line you’re going to throw it to him and and you’re going to get a

Three-point shot off of it right Jason Tatum missed and above the break three off of a pick and pop Drew holiday missed and above the break three off of a pick and pop they were running actions that were leading to that specific type of shot why it’s concerning is they were

Actually able to get better matchups and get opportunities to attack the rim but even when they did that they either couldn’t sustain it or they rushed the situation first not sustaining it there was a stretch there at the beginning of the run where Drew holiday and Al

Horford were running pick and roll they were trying to pick on Sam Merill this was before the starters came back into the game they run a ball screen Al Horford gets Sam Marill switched onto him he immediately backs him down in the post and gets an easy uh right-handed

Hook over his left shoulder and he banks it in very next possession they get the same switch they get the same P post touch on the left elbow this time Horford doesn’t even look at the basket he turns and runs a dribble hand off with Jason Tatum just just immediately

Bails on it they just got it to work and they immediately bailed on it that’s one of those things where the really smart teams in the League will go this is our advantage let’s keep going to it and then the second one is when they got advantages rushing the situation I

Talked about Darius Carlin stopping Derek white on a drive uh Dereck white comes off the ball screen was out of a horn Set uh darus scarland does a really nice job beating him back down the floor Cleveland goes home everyone stays home George neang had rotated but he sprinted

Back out to the perimeter he is on an island with just Garland not a Defender within eight feet of him and instead of slowing down turning his basket and taking his time bull buing Darius Garland into the basket he rushes a spinning shot and he like loses

His balance and falls over and misses the shot and then that actually led to a transition run out for another bucket then there’s another one big possession late in the game they run a ball screen they get a switch it’s georgees Nang on Tatum Jared Allen on Christo porzingis

Jared Allen they just run the switch Jared Allen is still right next to Tatum with georgees NI Tatum has the switch he wants instead of pulling it out there’s tons of on the shot clock there’s like 14 seconds on the shot clock instead of pulling it out and going further to the

Side to create some space maybe even clearing the corner and working on the empty side and trying to beat him off the dribble and get to the basket to the layup Tatum spazzes out like just spazzes and immediately starts trying to drive on on on George’s KNE in Jared

Allen’s right there and so guess what happens porzingis because he didn’t move over far enough Jared Allen’s in this position where he can help and then get a good close out on porzingis so Tatum drives into the into Jared Allen throws the ball back out to porzingis and we

Get another contested above the break three if he literally just would have chilled for a second and took it two or three steps off to the right now if he drives and gets Jared Allen to help it’s a wide openen three for chrisop porzingis not in a movement situation

Where he’s sliding out of a ball screen but he’s standing squared up to the basket or maybe you can turn the corner and Jared Allen doesn’t help enough in P it stays home on porzingis and you get some kind of layup but it’s like there’s no patience there’s no diligence there’s

No like let’s be super particular about getting the right shot in this situation it’s the same kind of free flowing offense that you see in the meat and potatoes of the game and again they’ll have cold stretches like that in the meat and potatoes of the game too but it

Usually doesn’t matter because they’ll get hot at a different time make a bunch of shots and win but in these late game situations when the shots aren’t falling they have to to do a better job of identifying where their advantages are and being super diligent about getting

The ball to the right spots for the right shots and again it’s just a bad night bad nights happen they’ve been kicking everyone’s ass they’ve been the best regular season team in the league this year but we know this is what it looks like when Boston loses they have

To identify these things and fix these problems before they get to the postseason all right really quickly before get before we get out of here let’s get to the mailbag first question has pton Watson shown enough this season for you to think he could be Sixth Man starter SL

Starter for nuggets Dynasty love the show been watching for a while thanks for supporting the show uh I think he’s incredible on the defensive end of the floor you saw a little bit of his his issues with the jump shot last night uh especially in that second half where

Just guys are leaving him open and uh that can be a little bit of an issue in the long run I think he can get better at that uh also like cutting more like Aaron Gordon does is a big part of that pton Watson has had a lot of stretches

This year where he is super active as a cutter I think that’s a big way that he can um kind of mitigate some of the issues with his jump shot similar to what Aaron Gordon does but he he’s so damn good defensively that that that uh one-legged block block that he had on

Bradley Beal and Bradley Beal tried to bury him under the basket was such an impressive defensive play had a bunch of blocks against the Lakers in the Laker game too like pton Watson is just insane I’m a big believer in him I absolutely think he is capable of being not just

Not just a sixth man but like he’s one of those guys where if there’s a version of this two three years from now where you lose Aaron Gordon and pton Watson has to slide into that four spot with a few more years of Player Development I absolutely think he could slot into that

Role next question how do you think about the defensive impact when ranking top players in the league for example joic vers Giannis Luca vers SGA and Tatum so here’s the thing I do think defensive impact matters I think it’s more important uh to call out guys who

Are bad defensive players guys like joic and uh Steph Curry for instance guys who have like worked hard enough on the defensive details to at least not hurt your defense those guys while also being top tier offensive talents are guys that I’m always going to gravitate towards

This by the way this is what makes LeBron the second greatest player of all time is like when he was at his Peak he was probably the best defensive player in the world and the best offensive player in the world and that’s kind of like the thing that kind of sets him

Apart but when it comes to guys that have some offensive limitations so guys like Giannis who can struggle a little bit in the half court offensively guys like Jason Tatum who can struggle a little bit in the half court offensively with like game execution them being

Awesome at defense to me isn’t enough to make up for their offensive limitations for me like ideally I I always am going to weigh offense a little bit more and I’m always going to be more willing to overlook a defensive issue as long as those guys work hard enough to not hurt

Their defense because at least you can construct a good defense around them I’ve seen the Warriors and Nuggets construct Championship defenses around Nicole jic and around Steph Curry that’s the question can you build a championship defense around a guy like LCA donic that’s what we’re going to

Find out in the long run next question you mentioned the variance of the Celtics offense as it’s riant on a lot of jump shooting in the past I feel this is way more easily reflected last season with many bad losses whereas this year only one in any game against someone

Under 500 can it be the variance as lessons due to the added pieces in KP and Drew as well as long as well as long as Marcus Smart’s inconsistent offense or is that attributed to a much larger margin for error than last year them beating bad teams is all about the

Margin for error they’re so damn talented that they’re just not going to lose to bad teams the vast majority of the time right um the variance to me is it’s not so much in them relying on jump shooting like I think they should be a team that takes a lot of jump shots

That’s they have a lot of really good jump Shooters it’s just they’ve gone comically so far in that direction up until late as of late they’ve been much more active in the paint but they’ve gone comically so so far in that direction that they’ve added variance to

To to a larger extent than it needs to be that’s really all I’m asking for I’m just asking for balance I’m just asking for a little bit more balance and then more like a a read the room kind of thing the best teams in the league like

Nicole yic let’s look at let take yic or Lebron for instance LeBron knows when it’s the kind of game where he needs to be a passer and LeBron knows where it’s the kind of game where he needs to be more aggressive as a scorer Nicole yic last night not withstanding is one of

Those kinds of guys too those offenses in the best offenses of the league in general they know what their advantage is on that given night and they lean into to it Boston needs to kind of be better at that specifically hey tonight the jumpers aren’t falling we need to

Adjust into more of this play style or hey our jumpers are falling everyone’s confident let’s keep hunting these things let’s get 50 of them up in this game because we’re going to make 25 of them right like those are the kinds of uh of kind of adjustments that Boston needs to get better

At uh next question big fan of the show and your breakdowns seen you say before that your big playmaking forward like LeBron or Luca is your favorite archetype of player do you think that this type of player inherently has more value than the big two-way forward like

Kawhai KD Tatum LeBron at his Peak was obviously an elite Defender too but if you had to compare Peak Luca or Harden uh guard but big and could control pace for example to Peak KD kawhai Tatum which has more value to build a perfect roster around in your opinion here’s the

Tough one Luca and Harden are are they are like Luca is a big playmaking forward but him and Harden they both play such a heliocentric style that there’s another conversation to have about like their heliocentrism so for instance uh not last Pacers game but two Pacers games Ago by the way Dallas is

Falling apart their they can’t get a stop on anybody but uh two Indiana Pacers games ago uh Tatum had Ben Maan on him and he straight ised him five consecutive times to start the game Kyrie didn’t even touch the ball for like three minutes and I remember watching that and I’m

Like this is weird basketball and I love Luca like Luca I think is an incredible basketball player and and I’m a huge believer in his ability and for both Luca and Harden I find things as a basketball fan that I’m drawn to specifically footwork stuff Harden I have stolen most of his stepback

Footwork stuff uh that I use myself Luca donic like I use him as an example when I’m training my high school kids about the advantages of selling every move with every part of your body and how it’s less about whipping the basketball around and more about selling things

With your body language there’s a lot to learn from those two guys but their play styles to me are very different from the LeBron CU like I would when I think like big playmaking forward I actually think more like y and LeBron as in like they’re guys that have like a ton of

Offensive versatility they always keep all their teammates involved not just with catch and shoot threes and dunks but with actual actions and and they they operate as screeners and rollers and like to me the LeBron jic archetype is the one that I’d take over the kawhai KD Tatum the Luca Harden archetype you

Know I I think I think Luca is going to make the adjustments in the long run and get better at this but I think they’re a little bit different and they’re kind of a new archetype that we’re still learning about and for the record we have not seen yet a heliocentric player

Like lucar Harden win a championship or even make the finals for that matter next question uh two uh three more quick ones just the two guys I’ve been waiting for can I get a segment on five reasons why you guys were wrong about trading DLo I remember what you said this was a

Comment in the the Laker video I had to hit this one because this is one of my biggest pet peeves like sometimes new information comes to the table and then I changed my mind that’s all this was I didn’t switch up on D I didn’t I wasn’t

Be I wasn’t wrong about DLo before and then wrong again about him now or or whatever it is what happened was is since DLo rejoined the starting lineup in the last 23 games he’s averaging 23 points and seven assists on 47% from the field and 44% from three on massive

Volume before that in 35 games he averaged 15 points in six assists on 46% from the field and 39% from three he is a much better basketball player now than he was before this stretch he’s playing the very best basketball of his career I wasn’t wrong about D’Angelo Russell I’m

Just not a stubborn idiot who won’t change my mind when new information comes to the table I’m I don’t have an invested interest in being disrespectful or mean to D’angelo Russell that’s not the case I talked about the basketball player he was when he was averaging 15-

Six and I talked about how they should trade him because he wasn’t good enough in addition to being a redundancy with Austin Reeves to not justify using his contract to improve the roster now he’s playing way better and it’s a completely different conversation like this this

Kind of thing it it drives me crazy because like all the time we’re getting new information the Bucks sucked at defense the entire year now they’re awesome I’m excited to watch them against Golden State tonight let’s let’s find out what the new stuff is and let’s

Learn from it and then and and by the way if you said if if you said the Bucks defense sucked and then suddenly BOS uh the Bucks defense gets great and they win the title you’re not wrong for saying Boston or Milwaukee’s defense sucked yes it did and then they changed

Like that that that kind of thing happens DLo is averaging eight more points significantly more efficiently and another assist per game compared to the way he started the season and he’s defending better like like he’s just playing way better that that is why I feel differently about D’Angelo Russell

I am not married to any opinion I will always respond to new information next question what is D Derrick Lively’s ceiling what does he need to improve to get there I look at Derk Derrick livley as like a Tyson Chandler type type of archetype I think he’s uh three things

That I think he could get better at one help in stay home decisions so just being better at identifying kind of like we were talking about in the Celtics game when you’re on ball guy has things under control and you’re more important to stay home and get the defensive

Rebound versus one a guy’s compromise and he needs to help uh becoming a master of the role not just the vertical spacing but also the short roll passing out of it and then lastly against teams that switch it’d be really nice if you could add a little left shoulder

Right-handed hook to just quickly hit a shot over the top when teams try to switch on him last question before we get out of here why isn’t anyone talking about the Absurd season Giannis is having averaging 31 11 and six uh with 2.3 stocks on an insane 62% field goals

Only Kareem has averaged 310 and5 on 50% field goals Giannis did so last year on 55 and his now on Pace to be the only player in history to average 30 points on 60% field goals now people may say that he only dunks but they only but

They forget that not even sha did this I think in some years in some years to come we will look back and realize that they that this may have been the most underrated individual season of all time uh so I said this on the show a couple

Of weeks ago I Nicole yic is going to win MVP um Nicole yic has a huge fan base among the media and so that’s a big part of why he’s going to control MVP voting for a while I think and it’s very possible that he racks up a bunch of

Them but I actually even though I think joic is the best player in the world and I think joic is better at basketball than Giannis I think Giannis has had the most impressive regular season this year said it on the show a few weeks ago I

Would give the MVP to Giannis like I think on a team that has had some significant Personnel limitations in the back court Giannis has just been a a wrecking ball trying to overcome those issues and I think he’s mostly been awesome this year uh I I think people

That say that Giannis just dunks the ball are silly I mean the reason why I think Giannis is not the same level as a guy like Nicole joic is just in that halfcourt slowdown environment Janis still struggles to uh when he has to kind of do everything uh as the

Offensive initiator we saw that again against Miami last year although he was injured he did not play well in that environment he still hasn’t developed a go-to Over the Top Shot so like these are limitations that I think of in the big picture of player rankings but I

100% agree with you I think Giannis is having a massively underrated season and I personally would give him the MVP all right guys that is all I have for today as always I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show I will see you guys tonight Live on YouTube after

The final buzzer of Warriors Bucks

Jason Timpf reacts to Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns’ OT win over Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets. Jason explains how Kevin Durant took over late in the game and in overtime to defeat the NBA champs in what was a rare bad night for Jokic. Jason then breaks down the Boston Celtics’ collapse to Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Is this cause for concern for Boston, or just a slip up in the midst of a dominating regular season.

Timeline:
00:00 – Introduction
01:34 – Suns take down Nuggets in OT
06:03 – Suns defense steps up
08:47 – Kevin Durant takes over
10:55 – Rare bad night for Nikola Jokic
15:00 – Celtics collapse vs. Cavaliers
30:18 – NBA Mailbag

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