The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - 3 ways Jayson Tatum & Boston Celtics pull off comeback vs. Jimmy Butler & Miami Heat

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Jason Timpf breaks down the three things Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and the Boston Celtics must do in order to come back from their 3-1 series deficit against Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals. Why does Jason think the Celtics have the best chance to pull off a 3-0 series comeback than any team in NBA history? #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying.

Yep, that's me, Clivert Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford show on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. On The Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 is big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors.

Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild. I mean, it was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody.

Coverage of the Eastern Conference Finals here at Hoops tonight is brought to you by Chase Freedom Unlimited. How do you cash back? All right. So the Boston Celtics extend the series with an impressive win on the road in Miami. A dominant win. I have a lot of thoughts. We're going to go over the three things Boston has to do in order to have a chance to come back and win this series.

You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT. So you guys don't miss any show announcements. And if for whatever reason you guys miss one of these videos and you can get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. Last but not least, before we get started,

you guys have heard me talk about game time, the fastest growing ticketing app in the United States. If you're looking to get out to an NBA game, a major league baseball game, a concert, or a comedy show, GameTime has amazing last minute deals on tickets to all of these. So if you're a Nuggets fan, you're trying to get out to a game in the NBA finals, game time's going to have a deal for you.

If you're looking to go out and see Deaden Company on their final tour, I actually was up in Phoenix last night watching The Grateful Dead play. Got to see John Mayer up close in personal for the first time in a couple of years. That was a ton of fun. Game time's got a deal for you there as well. They've taken great care of me in the past. I know they're going to take great care of you guys. So no matter where you live, get out and have some fun this week. Download the GameTime app. Enter email and redeem code hoops for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets for $20. Guaranteed. All right. Let's talk some bass. All right. Let's talk some bass. basketball. So a couple things. First of all, for some of the Celtics fans, the Celtics and Heat fans that had asked me why we didn't go live after every game in this series, kind of fluky. We did after game one. YouTube TV was down, but I still stayed up late and watched the film and recorded, but then when I uploaded it to my team, as fate would have it, Google was

having issues across the board because YouTube was not allowing us to upload videos at all. So we to wait till the next day. Then game two, my wife and I were going to a charity event. That was like a fashion show thing and I had agreed to go with my wife a long time ago. So it just was kind of a scheduling conflict. Game three, we did go live after the game. And then last night, as fate would have it, I was at the Deaden Company concert up in Phoenix tickets that I'd gotten a long time ago. So we are going to be covering immediately after the games moving forward. We actually did for two of the games. One of them we just had some tech difficulties. So I apologize for the delay in some of the coverage of this stuff, but we're going to be right after

the games the rest of the way here. So Boston gets to come from behind win. There's a lot I want to dive into, but I'm going to kind of sort it down into three specific things that I think Boston has to do down the rest of the way to get to be the first team in NBA history to come from down three O. So these are my three points presented by Chase. And the first one is very simple and not one that I'm going to dwell on very long. You absolutely have to fight. The Celtics gave up in game three. I thought it was fair criticism from the announcers watching the game

and from the people who covered the game after the fact. First two games, not so much, right? Like you throw great punches, and Miami just out-executes you down the stretch of the game. That happens. It can be discouraging. But you're a team that has a talent advantage. And the only way that your talent is going to manifest on the floor

is if you bring the record, fight. We talked about this a lot after game three. But in basketball games, when you're trying to win at this level, there is a level of intensity that requires you to give extra efforts when you are truly exhausted. And the only way you're going to do that is if you have a belief in your ability to reach the goal and you have enough competitive fight in you to continue to push when you're out of gas. And in game three, that fight was not there. In this game, every single time Miami came with the run, there was fight from Boston. I have no idea what the deal was. I don't know if it was just the humiliation of game three. I don't know if it was just kind of a look in the

mirror moment for the guys. I don't know if it was something Joe Missoula did. But as a team, they brought a level of effort that they hadn't brought in the first three games of the series. And that is first and foremost, the biggest reason why they extended the series. So number one, in order for them to win four straight and get to the finals, they have to fight every single minute that they are on the floor. Number two, they need to embrace the defensive end as the true identity of the team. The defense has not been as good this year for Boston as it was last year, not only in the regular season, but in this playoff run, before last night,

the Celtics were allowing 114 points per 100 possessions. To give you an idea, last year in the postseason, they allowed 106. So their defense is eight points worse than it was last year. That's a significant decline in one that's tough to make up for on the offensive end. Last night, their defensive rating was 105.3. So last night, really for the first time in this postseason, especially given the stakes in the matchup, they engaged themselves defensively to a level that they have not consistently done this entire season.

I think that foundationally is why they were able to win. Why? Because when you look down the roster, I think Jimmy Butler is actually a better player than Jason Tatum in terms of his overall skill set and basketball IQ, right? And I think Eric Spolster is the best coach in the series. I think down the roster that just simply focusing on the skill set, Miami has a lot of skill. They've got a lot of guys who can dribble and shoot, right? The true advantage for Boston is the combination of that skill with their size and athleticism advantage, particularly on the perimeter.

They just have a lot of guys who are big and tall and can move at a much higher level than the guys in the Miami Heat jerseys. That's their biggest advantage. And so when Boston kind of devotes their resources to the offensive end, it kind of plays more into Miami's strengths, which is their skill set, right? Like if you want to get into an offensive execution match with Miami, Miami's probably going to beat you, right? But if you can devolve it into a rock fight where defense is the name of the game, Boston's going to win a lot of the time because when they devote their resources to that side of the floor, they're just so much bigger and so much more athletic that it can be deeply impactful.

We think a lot about athleticism with offense because it's driving by guys and going up to dunk or rebounding situations because it's jumping up and high pointing the ball. But on the defensive end, that's literally the best way that you can impact winning with your athleticism, just by the ability to keep the basketball in front, fly around in rotation and help situations. That's simple. And it manifested everywhere on the floor in that game when they were making those efforts in ways that they were not earlier in the series. They blocked eight shots. They were averaging five blocks in the series before that. They forced the heat into 16 turnovers and scored 27 points off of those turnovers.

They held Miami to 43.6% shooting. Miami had been shooting 52% in the series before that. As a result, they were able to get more stops and get out in transition. They had 25 points in transition in this game. They had averaged 20 per game in the first three games of the series. So if that's their biggest advantage in the series, which is like, we don't have the same coach, our star is not quite as good, our overall skill set is a little bit closer to even than you would think, but our biggest asset is we are the bigger, stronger, more athletic team. If that's the case, that needs to be where you devote your resources because that's your biggest chance to gain an advantage on Miami. And I thought there was a huge advantage in game four, especially since they are so prone.

to ugly offensive stretches. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds.

I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions,

my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes,

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you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of Tontons and Wampas on the Ice Planet Hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to stuff to bowl your mind on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Angie's list is now Angie, your home for everything home.

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Last but not least, number three, they need to run as much of their stuff through Jason Tatum as possible. So, last night, Jason Tatum had a usage percentage of, 30.4%. Now, usage percentage is an imperfect way to measure this sort of thing, but it basically amounts to the percentage of your possessions where you're either the guy who shoots the ball or makes the pass to the guy who shoots the ball, right? That's your usage percentage. I'm pretty sure that's the calculation. It's some combination of passing and shooting, but it's an advanced analytic. So in game three, Jason Tatum's usage percentage was 25.9. So much lower. In game one and two

at home 29.3. So game four was Jason Tatum's highest usage game of the series. Why is that important? One, he's the best player on the team, obviously. But more specifically, he has the best combination of overall offensive skill and the ability to get the defense in rotation and the playmaking chops to be able to make the read when the defense is in rotation. You could argue Jalen Brown is maybe a little bit better as a slasher and a little bit more versatile as a score. You could argue that, right? I mean, Jason Tatum's been better than him in this series by a mile because Brown's had a rough series, but you could argue Jalen has some of that ability, but he's not in the same stratosphere as Jason Tatum as a passer. Guys like Mark is smart are much better passers than

Jason Tatum, but they don't have nearly the amount of ability to compromise the defense and get the defense into rotation. Jason Tatum is your best combination of those two things. So because he's your best option there, you need to flow through him more. But secondly, It's also the best chance to keep him in rhythm. There are two reasons why Jimmy Butler has been so good in this series. One, he's the best player in the series, but two, he always has the ball in his hands. He is making every decision, so he's always in rhythm, the ball always feels good, his handle feels good, his release feels good. Why? Because everything flows through him.

Jimmy Butler has a usage percentage of 31% in this series. That's higher than any single player in any team in the conference finals so far. So Jimmy Butler is the high usage guy, and that's an advantage to Miami in this series because he's been the best player and he's been in rhythm more frequently. So it's really, it's time to lean into that with Jason Tatum. It's time to get him into that type of rhythm. And they did last night. Jason Tatum was the guy who stifled every single Miami Heat run in that game. And I have three runs in particular that I want to kind of shout out for Jason Tatum.

So you guys might remember a sequence in the early third quarter where Max Drew's shoots the three. Jason Tatum's kind of trailing the play in transition, reaches over the top, and blocks the shot. Big, big time defensive play. And the ball just happens to kind of bounce off to the left and Max Struce just goes and gets it and just by pure luck, it happens to land in a place where he's in a spot where he could take another three and he takes it and he makes it. Bad luck play. Down nine. Which first starters brings us back to point one in their fight. This is the kind of time in game three where Boston just let go of the rope. They did not. in this game. Now most importantly, Jason Tatum was the guy who took over the offense from that point.

He had back-to-back threes to get it back to three when they went up nine. One against Kevin Lovin drop coverage where he just comes off of a ball screen, gets a good amount of separation, and then after that on the left wing, just a regular catch and shoot three. But Jason Tatum is the guy that's shooting them back into the game. So the C's going a huge run from there, and they get up by nine. But then Miami goes on a run, and they get it back to four. now it's 73 to 69. And Jason Tateham takes over two of the next three possessions.

There was a clear side ISO against Caleb Martin, which we'll get into the schematics of in a minute. But they clear the floor and leave Jason Tatum solely on the right side of the floor against Caleb Martin, hits him with the jab step and knocks down the shot from the mid-range. Then two possessions later, he runs a pick and pop with Grant Williams at the top of the key. And he's trying to target Max Truce and his switch, but they end up running like a hedge and recover things. So Caleb Martin follows Jason Tatum,

and before Struce can recover, Tatum just hits the, I think it was a behind the back pass, if I remember correctly, to Grant Williams at the top of key, and he hits a three. So again, Tatum running the offense, two buckets and three possessions,

now the leads back up. Then early in the fourth quarter, Miami goes on another run to get it down to 88 to 83. And Jason Tatum kind of starts down on the block, flashes up to the high post, just right above the free throw line and catches and shoots an easy short jumper, knocks it down. And then two possessions later, he's posting up Caleb Martin on the right side of the floor.

Another cleared side post up. So instead of a face up, he's turned his back to the basket, but he's by himself on the right side of the floor. They've cleared the sign. Miami double teams hard with Bamete a bio. Marcus Smart cuts from the top of the key, gets under the basket, Tatum hits him on the bounce. He makes the shot under the rim. So again, three big runs in this game that Jason Tatum stifled by being the focal point of the offense. Shot making the first time and then in the second two bursts a combination of playmaking and shot making.

Because that's the best player on Boston's roster that can do both well. But there's two specific elements there that I think probably stood out to you guys, if you've been listening to the show over the course of the series, that I think also helped Jason Tatum get. going. Clearside Isos. So what I was talking about early in the series was not only is Jimmy Butler having a better series than Jason Tatum, but also Eric Spolstra and Jimmy have been really smart about the way they've been attacking. So again, with the clear side isos, when you run the defender, you run your offensive players to the other side of the floor. Yes, the Celtics can leave them and stay in help,

but it becomes more difficult to do so. So if I'm in a traditional four-hour, set, for instance. And I'm on the left wing, and I've got a shooter in the left corner, and I've got a shooter on the right wing, a shooter in the right corner, and a shooter in the dunker spot. With the regular defensive shell drill, they can dig off on my left-hand driving lanes. They can dig off in my right-hand driving lanes. And then the guy guarding the guy in the dunker spot can kind of pop into the paint, pop out of the paint, pop into the paint, pop out of the paint, right? A lot more help defense that I have to deal with. Now, if I clear the side, and all three shooters are on the other side,

and I've got my big man just kind of oscillating between the dunker spot and kind of like a high post kind of flash area. Now on this right side of the floor, if they want to leave one of those shooters on the weak side, they've got to come all the way to the other side of the paint. Otherwise, it's going to be a defense of three seconds, which is what we call zoning up when you completely ignore your man to come over to the other side of the floor.

You've got to rotate all the way across like 20. feet to the other side if there's a shot. So a lot of teams will opt to just stay on the weeks out of the floor, right? And they'll have a foot in the paint, but they're not in a position where they can help. And you've simplified the action to clear the side. The right-hand driving lane is wide open. The left-handed driving lane goes towards the middle where you're going to draw help from the big man, and you've got your big man there as a release valve.

Miami's been great with that the entire series. When Jimmy's attacking Marcus Smart, or excuse me, when Jimmy's attacking Malcolm Brogden or Derek White or Al Horford, they clear the side. And for the most part, for Boston, it's been a lot more kind of like in the flow of their four-out one-in stuff. They'll give the ball to Jason Tatum or Jalen Brown and have them attack. And the spacing just isn't as good. It's a lot easier for Miami to dig and recover. And like I've said before, Boston has a lot of guys that can shoot, but none of them are like absolute dead eye, like Duncan Robinson type shooters where you cannot leave them open even with a tiny bit of space, kind of like with KCP and

Michael Porter Jr., which makes that a lot harder to close out on. Like, if you are digging down into a driving lane on Jason Tatum, and that's Marcus Smart on the wing, and he throws that pass, a good hard closeout is probably going to bother him or chase him off the line. So it's so important for Boston to have good spacing principles for Jason Tatum to go to work and clearing the side is the best way to do that just like Miami has been doing. Those two baskets I talked about, the jab step jumper on Caleb Martin, and then the post up where he hits Marcus Smart on the cut, those were both cleared side actions. So that's one thing I want Boston to run a lot more as we look forward in the series. And then secondly, attacking from the mid-range, two of those runs, there was that

flash to the high post where he hit the jumper over the top of Bam at a bio, and then the jab step jumper on Caleb Martin. Those are like 19, 20-foot jump shots. They're just much higher percentage for Jason Tatum. And again, analytically, I understand the advantage of taking a three, but against a defense that is chasing you off the three-point line and trying to funnel you into the paint and a little bit more willing to concede those mid-range shots, you're just going to hit him at a higher percentage, which is going to make them worth more per possession anyway, not to mention it makes you more unpredictable and harder to solve over the course of a game. So again, Jason Tatum's not as good as Jimmy Butler. I think Jimmy's proven that. But he's very

close. And so if you run everything through Jason Tatum, he's going to come close to playing that matchup evenly. And then from there, the rest of your talent will make up the gap, especially on the defensive end of the floor. But they've got to run through Tatum. They've got to set him up to succeed with proper spacing. And Tatum has to be more willing to score in the midrange. That to me is the third and final key to the Celtics getting back in winning this series. My three points were brought to you by Chase Freedom Unlimited. Earn 5% on travel. register chase, 3% on dining, including takeout, 3% at drugstores,

and 1.5% on everything else. How do you cash back? All right, what do I think will happen? I believe the heat are going to win the series because I think it will be extremely difficult to beat Jimmy Butler and Bametabio and Eric Spolster up four times in a row. Simply put, standing right now at 3-1,

that's just a safer bet. But can the Celtics do it? Absolutely. In fact, I would argue that they now probably the best chance to do it in NBA history. Again, and it's funny because I was so dead on in first round and second round, I've been so off in these conference finals. It's not even funny. But like I told you guys, before the playoff run, that's how it's supposed to be. I was literally just getting lucky when I was picking matchups in the first two rounds. But I said that I thought

the Celtics were far more likely to get swept than the Lakers were because they had quit. And at the time, through three games, that was the evidence that we had. The Lakers had competed in all three games. The Celtics had only competed in two of the three games and it most recently quit in game three and got their butts kicked. So it just seemed like the safer bet. They have flipped that dynamic simply by fighting. And so as a result, a fighting desperate Celtics team that has a legitimate talent advantage against Miami, that's where you're getting the real capability for them to come back and pull this off. Like guys, they're an eight point favorite in game five.

Like, they're down 3-1, but they are going to be a significant favorite in every game. Like, they're an 8-point favorite in game 5. If they win, game 6 in Miami, Boston will be a 5-point favorite in all likelihood, or somewhere along those lines. Then if they go home for game 7, they're going to be like an 8 or 9-point favorite, right? So, like, clearly, Vegas thinks they're the more talented team. I think they're the more talented team.

Jimmy and the Heat and Eric Spolstra have deservedly gone up 3-0 by demonstrating that they're a better overall basketball team through people embracing their roles, competing in all the areas of the game, execution, and coaching, right? They've demonstrated that. But Boston does have more talent, which is why, even after they had quit, Miami was only a one-point favorite in game four, at home.

This team has the talent to do it. They just have to fight and they have to execute. Again, the heat are by far the safer bet, but the Celtics can absolutely do this. They are every bit as likely, if not more, than any team in NBA history, to do so. All right guys, that is all I have for today. So the plan for right now, tomorrow morning,

I'm going to be working on kind of like an obituary for the Los Angeles Lakers going into their offseason, so keep an eye on that. And then tomorrow night we'll be going live after the final buzzer of game five of the Eastern Conference finals between the Celtics and the heat. And then we got lots of plans over the course of the next week or so breaking down the NBA finals from a bunch of different angles. We're going to be doing some stuff with the nerdsash guys. We're going to be doing deep dives on both ends of the floor. It'll be a lot of fun. All right, guys.

I appreciate you. And I'll see you tomorrow night. The volume. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. on Humor Me with Robert Smygel and Friends, me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel,

help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to Humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win. A win is a win.

I don't care which I'll say. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Cliford Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it.

Listen to The Cliford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast. Podcast Network on TikTok. On The Look Back at it podcast. For 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J.

And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to Look Back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.