Kevin Durant SCORCHING, Suns biggest threat to Nuggets? | Hoops Tonight

Kevin Durant SCORCHING, Suns biggest threat to Nuggets? | Hoops Tonight

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So you guys don’t miss any of our content over the course of this season all right let’s talk some basketball so the Cavs really dominated the Suns early in this game Phoenix came out in a really deep drop coverage with Yousef nurkic and their guards just weren’t

Really sharp chasing over the top of screens again when we talk about like the uh pick and roll coverages is like a bracket that’s usually the analogy that I use in the sense that like your on ball guy is the top half of the bracket and the screen Defender is the bottom

Half of that bracket and when you do a deep drop coverage when you pull that side of the bracket further back this side of the bracket has to be especially sharp you have to be chasing over the top extremely well and applying a ton of back pressure because if you do you can

Force the guy to keep driving into where your screen Defender is but when you’re sloppy at the point of attack and you’re in a deep drop coverage you’re going to get killed and Darius Garland absolutely torched them in the first half of this game was killing them with pullup

Three-point shooting and then they brought in Drew Eubanks uh towards the end of the first quarter and they started they put Bradley Beal on Darius Garland and started blitzing and at that point he was already in Rhythm so he beat Bradley Beal by rejecting his screen once again like when you bring

The screen Defender way up to the level he has to pick a side of the screen and so it becomes that much more important for the on ball Defender to not get beat the other way because if you get beat the other way you have no backside help

Beel got beat the other way once there was a possession where they hard blitzed and Darius Garland just hit like a crazy drifting three along the along the right corner because at that point he’s just already in rhythm again like a lot of times we Overlook what happens at the

Beginning of the game like it doesn’t set the tone if you allow a ball handler to get comfortable and confid then even when you ratchet up the defensive intensity that guy’s already feeling good that guy’s already in Rhythm it’s really hard to slow them down at that point there was another

Play late first half where they lost Garland on a uh Baseline out of bounds where Eubanks even though he was supposed to be up at the level blitzing he was way far back in the lane on the Baseline out of bounds they just did a quick little uh a dribble handoff with

Damen Jones in the left corner Darius Garland got another three so just nowhere near good enough defensively to start this game theyve themselves down by 19 points but then right around that middle of the second quarter the sun started to get going offensively they really started to attack georgees neang

And this is this is one of those things where having Devin Booker back has a bunch of of positive effects down the roster and it’s not just having the ability to have another player the quality of of Devin Booker to initiate offense it it affects the matchups down

The court it affects your off ball spacing for actions that KD and Deon in Bradley Beal run right like we’re going to be talking a lot about that over the course of the show but specifically as it pertains to them attacking georgees neang when you have Devin Booker out

There and Devin Booker and Bradley Beal are both going to draw a significantly uh tough perimeter defense type of assignment right in that situation you just run out of bodies and so the Cavs ended up opting to put George’s neang on Kevin Durant straight up and so KD was

Doing a lot of work on him in ISO and he screening action where he would get switched Kevin Durant would just point at Devin Booker a point at Bradley Beal and be like go like go take him and they were just literally taking turns just cooking georgees neang on an island to

Georgees nang’s credit like he was competing he was really trying he just he’s overmatched in those specific situations they were also having a lot of success with Spain pick and roll this is an action that the Suns used to run a ton uh uh back in the mon Williams era

Era with Chris Paul and it’s different players obviously aside from Devon Booker different coach now but it’s more l same concept again it’s just a ball screen but you have a shooter come up to back screen the roll man uh the r man’s Defender the screen Defender as he’s

Relocating to the top of the key which opens up two different things it opens up the lob pass but it also makes it really difficult for the screen Defender to get back and help protect the rim so they were having success with that as well and then as they started to get

Going offensively attacking the Yang and scoring in ball screens that triggered their defensive intensity and then from there they were able to regain control of the game after being down 19 they did a much better job on Darius Garland in the second half they brought Yousef nerkish up into a

High drop instead of a deep drop that’s where you’re up at the level contesting and then just rotating back as best as you can and nerkach was like nerkach every time I watch him he had a not his best game in this particular matchup and they ended up closing with with Eubanks

Instead just because of his foot speed and because nkuch wasn’t quite as sharp but nerkish made some defensive plays in this game in his drop coverage especially at the start of the second half and like honestly every I watch nurkic I’m always impressed by just how much he tries to make plays defensively

Despite his lack of foot speed but bringing him up to the level and then just much better on ball defense helped them really cool off Darius Garland in the second half of this game uh in general their intensity went up to the level where we even saw Devin Booker

Flying around and getting a bunch of offensive rebounds in that third quarter he had a possession where he had three offensive rebounds on the same possession just shooting in from the wing and beating people to the ball ended up hitting like a little bank shot on the fourth offensive possession of

Their or fourth shot of that possession he had four offensive rebounds in total at a nice Tapout rebound later on in the third quarter so the Suns just kind of methodically worked their way back in they go up by nine but then Cleveland who again capable of real defensive runs

As well they locked in on defense and the game just turned into an absolute slog on both ends of the floor Cleveland briefly tied the score at 104 uh but then Phoenix got an easy layup for Devin Booker out of another Spain pick and roll they just had

Uh um they just had Grayson Allen come up and back scre Jared Allen as they were running the ball screen and Devin Booker was able to kind of kind of uh gather through the digging down Defender out of the left corner and finish with a left-handed layup then a couple

Possessions later they had a really good defensive possession where they blitzed Darius Garland at the top of the key and got into rotation as Garland hit Jared Allen slipping and Jared Allen made a kick out to the left corner and it was like bang bang bang P balls getting

Passed around but every sun was just on a string flying around they ended up for ing a tough skip pass that Royce O’Neal was splitting the difference between two offensive players and was able to get a steal they ran out the other way and Kevin Durant got a layup Suns built a

Little bit of a margin again and they were able to kind of stiff arm him from there got a little sketchy late Phoenix got a little sloppy in the late fourth quarter here couple of bad turnovers uh gave up four offensive rebounds in the corner they were just a quarter they

Just weren’t boxing out but Grayson Allen got two key stops at the end of the game in ISO against Darius Garland first time he slid his feet really well and stopped him in the middle of the floor killed The Possession and then after that there was the play where

Jared Allen actually uh had a decent opportunity to tie the game with the lob pass but I want to give Grayson Allen some credit here so I think it was 113 111 so it’s a two-point game darus Garland had just tried attacking Grayson Allen and couldn’t beat him so then on

This possession he’s on the left wing Grayson Allen on an island he’s picking on him in a switch they’re specifically going after Grayson Allen here Grayson Allen slides his feet and cuts off like four or five different different moves from Darius Garland and then finally after like the fifth or sixth move

Garland’s able to get a angle on Grayson and beat him off the dribble but at that point when he beat him off the dribble he was so sped up by just the sheer number of moves he had just made that when he threw the lot pass he threw it

Too high and it’s one of those things like you have your jobs in when you switch when you’re the weaker Defender that someone’s targeting no one’s expecting you to suddenly turn into Jaden McDaniels and get a bunch of stops like what they’re expecting you is just

To do the best you can and that situation against a quick guard like Darius Garland especially one that had been shooting the three really well and you got to factor in CL uh uh time and score like in a two-point game the last thing you want to do is give up a step

Back three to a guy who’s been hitting his three all night long and suddenly you’re down by one and it’s a completely different game trust your backside help chase him off the line and he just made him make enough moves made him work hard enough that he sped the play up and just

A little bit of a difference like that pass is 6 in lower and six Ines to the right jar Allen dunks the ball and it’s a tie game but no it was a little bit too high and a little bit to the left Jared Allen the ball was like on the

Backboard when Jared Allen caught it and that kind of disrupted his catch and he fumbled it away and they were able to get a stop and they escaped with a huge Road win in Cleveland again like especially after you you C like you know this is typical right especially on the

Road especially against a team that I don’t think Phoenix sees as particularly threatening especially without Donovan Mitchell in the lineup like it’s just kind of Trap game especially after a couple of really tough games against the nuggets and Celtics right and you get slapped in the face early and you find

Yourself down big but they methodically executed their way back into the game and then they were able to close the game out in the fourth quarter which obviously has been an issue for them at times this season major takeaways on the Suns front uh good comeback game for

Devin Booker 27 points and seven assists on 50% shooting really active as an athlete in the second half not just on the glass but defensively as well interesting adjustment from Frank vogle to go with Drew Eubanks late in the game so they had more speed on the floor to

Deal with Garland especially they did some switching and more blitzing at the end of the game with Garland and they just needed more speed in that situation Kevin Durant still on an absolute heater that’s his fourth straight game with at least 35 points barbecuing georgees neing like we were talking about but

Again one of the key things for Phoenix that I’ve been paying attention to real defensive runs we’ve seen that uh in the Denver matchup we saw that even for stretches in the Celtics game again to get back into the game in that third quarter run and then held the Cavs to 20

Points in the fourth quarter as well just just a like really impressive defensive ceiling that they’re starting to demonstrate even if it’s not as consistent as you would like it to be I saw a a video from KOC Kevin oconor from the ringer this morning he was um on his

Podcast with Chris Vernon talking about whether or not the suns were the biggest threat to the nuggets out west and you know it’s interesting I I’m I’m still a little bit on the fence because I think uh the Clippers just have better defensive Personnel but the Clippers

Have been pretty mediocre for like a month now and the suns are really starting to put together some high level basketball they’re starting to attach some highle defense to the work that they’re doing offensively with the three stars and it’s really starting to take shape

I’m I’m kind of like let’s just put it this way I still think I lean slightly towards the clippers but I’d put the Suns like pretty much on that level at this point really starting to believe in them I think they have some good matchup advantages across the board again

Specifically like when KD is making his pull-up jump shot he doesn’t really get bothered that much by Aaron Gordon it’s just a question of whether or not he can make them and then Yousef nkuch just a big body that can actually bang with yic and cause him some issues down there

They they do they are absolutely a threat I’m just not quite sure if I’d put them on the same level as the Clippers

Jason Timpf breaks down the Phoenix Suns as Kevin Durant has been playing like an MVP as of late. Can anybody take down an offense led by Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal in a 7 game series?

Timeline:
00:00 – Suns take down Cavaliers
09:13 – Devin Booker returns, KD on fire
10:09 – Suns biggest threat to Nuggets?

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