The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Cavaliers-Celtics Reaction: Donovan Mitchell STUNS Tatum’s Celtics, time to panic?

Episode Date: May 11, 2024

Jason Timpf reacts to Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers' 118-94 win over Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics in Game 2 of the second round of the NBA Playoffs. Jason breaks down film from the game and explains how Boston’s lack of identity on offense and lazy defense lost them this game. After tying the series at 1, do the Cavs have a legit shot at knocking off the Eastern Conference favorites? #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. On The Look Back at it podcast. From 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. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford 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, unfiltered 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 I Heart 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. 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 IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Volume.

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dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Resort in Kansas. 21 plus, age varies by jurisdiction, void in Ontario, bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. See dkng.com slash B-Ball for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms, and responsible gaming resources. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the volume. Happy Friday, everybody. Hope all of you guys have had a great week so far. Going to get into the two games from last night. took the night off last night, just hung out with my wife, got to relax for a little bit before we get back into the grind. I'm going to hit just Celtics Cavs in this video, just for time's sake. As soon as I'm done recording this, I'm going to turn around and record or start

watching Navs Thunder and do the analysis for it, but this one had taken me a little while. I wanted to get it out before I started covering the next games. Just hitting Cavs Celtics in this game or in this video as the Cavs tie the series dominating the Celtics after falling down to an early nine point deficit, pretty much blowing them out the rest of the way. And now we're headed back to Cleveland with the series tied at one. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the brand new 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 show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. And they keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments. So we keep hitting them throughout the rest of the postseason. So let's talk some basketball. Tell me if you've heard this before. Boston had a cold jump shooting night.

And then their offense completely fell apart because they don't really have another way to consistently score unless they're making jump shots. So they lost. Boston got 0.73 points per jump shot in the game, obviously really bad. They did shoot well when they were open. They were five for 12 and wide open threes. That's 42%. Cleveland just did a good job of chasing them off the line and contesting jumpers and playing them into their worst tendencies. They took 21 pull-up jump shots in the game, only made five of them. That was 0.57 points per shot. A lot of the same stuff that you're accustomed to seeing from Boston. And as we talked about all season, their success pretty much is determined by jump shot variance on a night and night out basis.

They were 27th in points in the paint per game in the regular season. That is dead last among the remaining playoff teams in this field. I was kind of doing some digging through the data and just go into NBA.com, go to the little miscellaneous tab and click and sort all the playoff teams by points in the paint. And you will see there's a pretty solid connection between the. the teams that are remaining in this field and the teams have been eliminated. The teams, most of the teams that are remaining are high in the, in the upper echelon and points in the paint among playoff teams. It's been just a consistent theme, especially in this super physical playoff

environment. It's just harder to make jump shots when teams are allowed to foul more and the games are just more physical, more intense. And Boston has tied a lot of their success to those results. And they just don't have a counter when shots aren't falling other than to just take more of them and hope they go in. win. Now, the upside is real. I want to be clear. Their 1.13 points per jump shot was their efficiency with those in the regular season.

That was number one in the NBA, right? So they are the best jump shooting team in the NBA. They just lean into it so heavily that the variance can be a problem. They can get hot too. And they can blow you out in a matter of minutes. And like, no matter who they play, if they win this series and they continue to move on, even if they end up in a series where they lose at some point in the future, let's say they lose to Minnesota, wouldn't be surprised if there's two or three games in that series where Boston just gets super insanely hot from three in wins. That's always a big part of their upside. It just also has a downside that comes with it. And again, these are teams that they're way better than like they're way more talented than

Cleveland. And they are like just there's a chasm in talent difference between them and that Miami Heat team. And even in those matchups, the variance can be an issue. We're going to get more into Boston and just kind of their brand of basketball later on. But again, that was the primary you know, kind of variance in this game. Boston couldn't make a jump shot, couldn't score outside of that. And Cleveland, you know, just kind of leaned into that momentum. Got a bunch of big shot making nights from some key guys. We'll go into that here in just a minute. So the flow of the game, Celtics got out to an early nine point lead. Katz started to chip away in the late first quarter. Big thing I was noticing on film,

Karris Levert and Evan Mobley were really picking on Sam Hauser and Luke Cornyette. Now, the Hauser-Kornet lineups throughout the postseason up until last night were mostly good defensively. And I do think that those guys do their jobs. But it's less about like how good they are within the game plan of doing their jobs and more about do stars feel comfortable against them? And the reality is, is even though Hauser slides his feet and he gets good contests, like when Karras Levert saw him, he felt comfortable dribbling against him. When Donovan Mitchell saw him, he felt comfortable dribbling against him.

It was a different level of comfort and ability to get to their spots that it was when they'd face a Derek White or a Tatum or a Brown or a Drew Holiday. So like that the calves were just going way out of their way to attack those two in action in that late first quarter run. It immediately stood out to me and it became a trend later on in the game, which we'll get to. As we talked about, the Celtics started missing shots. You know, they were hitting early. Al Horford did a couple threes. They were hitting early when they went up 14 to 5. But the calves go on a big run riding that two-man game with Lavert and Mowgli, who by the way, had his best game scoring in as a role man of this postseason. We'll get more to that in a minute. But the Cavs going a big run. They go up 30 to

21. Then the Celtics come back in. Their main guys come back in and they reassert control. We basically go into halftime tide. But in that early third quarter, Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland catch a little heater. They make five threes in the first seven minutes. They build that first little bit of margin. Obviously, Boston's still missing. The Garland three's in particular felt huge because he didn't do much scoring elsewhere in the game. Cavs go up by 11 points. Then we go into that late third quarter stretch in exactly like what happened at the end of the first quarter, in comes Cornett and Houser. The calves go right back to attacking them. And a big part of that was Donovan Mitchell did not come out of the game. He stayed in the game during that portion.

And he was going right at Sam Houser. He ended up drawing a foul on a three point shot against Derek White. He had a pull up three in Sam Houser's face. He had a, that bomb that, that, uh, that buzzer beater like step back three that he hit on Jason Tatum to, to send it into the fourth quarter. And then early in the fourth quarter, he hit that banking shot kind of coming off of that, uh, screening action towards the top of the key that he made.

And then the game was basically over. They were up by 16 with like, you know, nine minutes left and it was over. And they, they went on to blow it open from there. But really it came down to a critical hot streak from Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell in the early third quarter. Some really good matchup attacking from Karras Levert in that late first quarter

against that house or cornet duo. and then Mitchell kind of stepping into that, LaVird as well, but Mitchell stepping into that in the second half. And then as long as Boston wasn't able to kind of keep up with them with their three-point shooting, they kind of lost control of the rope and the game was over. I can't say enough about Donovan Mitchell.

He's been the best player in this series so far. That's going to be the biggest thing that Katz fans are going to be leaning on for optimism. Like Jason Tatum, we're going to get to him in more detail in a minute, just not having a good playoffs. He's playing limited competition, just not having a good playoffs. And Donovan Mitchell has been one of the best players in the league in this postseason run and consistently has just had his foot down on the gas, doing everything he can to generate offense for a team that has struggled to generate offense in this postseason run.

He just smelled blood in the water in that second half. And he went after it and got a big win for the Cavs on the road. I don't even know. I think we all kind of have to reevaluate Donovan Mitchell as a playoff player after this playoff run because he's shown a resiliency against against really heavy defensive coverages that has been super, super impressive. Evan Mowbly, playoff career high, 21 points. Great on the role against Sam Houser. He scored six points on the role in this game. Most he's had in the game in this postseason run. I hit a three at the top of the key in that

first quarter run that kind of helped them spark. And most importantly, he was incredible defensively. I'm going to show you guys some examples when we get to the film. But like he does a really good job when he has to leave his band to help of being super active with his hands. to get deflections. And again, like, when you double team and you don't get a deflection and you allow an easy kickout pass, that's when you end up in the problematic four on threes. When you're actually really active when you're with your hands and you can either one, force a turnover or two, get a deflection that slows down the pass. That gives your team a better chance to rotate on the back end. It's one of the most important parts of help and recover

defense is you've got to pressure the ball and make those kickout pass as difficult. Mowbly was just unbelievable in this game. Dary Scarland, like I said, that little three-point shooting run he had early in the third quarter vital to the calves getting this one. And then Karas Levert. Just, you know, he's one of those guys that he kind of has a little bit of that like Dejante Murray, like high hesitation ability to beat people off the dribble and get to spots closer towards the rim. Has that good chemistry with Mobley in the ball screen. Hit a couple of big mid-range pull-up jump shots as well, big-time game from Karis Levert.

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 which I'm saying. Yep. That's me, Cliver 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, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations,

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Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of taun tons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to Stuff to Blow Your Mind on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your part. podcast. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look

Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me. Not. just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now.

Thank you finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Moving on to Boston, they got smacked. They got outscored 113 to 80 after going up 14 to 5. That's getting 30 pieced on your home floor by a team that in terms of the talent differential, you should have sweat. So this is obviously an ugly look. Now, is Boston going to lose the series? I don't think so. Cleveland might go home and kind of ride the energy and the belief that they have from

this game and they might get another one. But I think Boston's going to win this series in five or six. six games, but it's just a bizarre brand of basketball. Their shot selection is flat out dumb. Al Horford, 90 seconds into the game, takes like a trailing 25 footer off the move. Hadn't made a shot yet. Just decided I'm shooting this drifting, you know, like quick stop and pop three in transition early in the shot clock. Made absolutely no sense. There's a random possession in the first half for Jalen Brown just early in the shot clock shoots a contested step back three at the top of the key. There's a random Drew Holiday post up where he takes a left, left shoulder fade along

the baseline early in the shot clock. Jason Tatum settling for super difficult pull up jump shots in ISO, even though he continues to not be able to make them at a high clip. Then every time he gets into traffic, instead of going up and taking basketball shots, he just sticks his arm out and just throw him up like that and throw some bizarre shot up at the rim that has a small chance of going in. It is unbelievably bizarre. And like, there's no, real hierarchy. You know how in Cleveland it's like we're running everything through Donovan Mitchell? Tatum doesn't have that luxury. If he misses one or two shots, they just go in a different direction. And another guy goes, it's my turn now. Like

Donovan Mitchell, he misses one or two shots in a row. He's just going to go down and take the third one until he gets into a rhythm. There's a clear hierarchy and order of operations offensively for Cleveland. And really for most teams in the league, for Boston, it's like just it's just vibes, man. It's just do whatever the hell you want on the offensive end of the floor. and most importantly, they are not consistently engaged on the defensive end. They have a great defensive fastball. They do, but they don't throw it until they feel some sort of desperation or like if they drop a game. But it's not programmed into their basketball character.

Derek White is really the only guy I see that like on a night in and night out basis really brings it on the defensive end of the floor. And like that's a fundamental difference between what they were under EMA you do. Like under IMEU doca, they were way less dependent on three points shooting. They were ninth in three point attempts per game that year. They were taking about two and a half fewer threes per game in the postseason. They were 17th in points in the paint. This team is 27th in points in the paint. So substantially higher percentage of their offense in the paint,

substantially lower percentage of their offense from the three point line, much better balance in that 2022 season. But by far, the biggest difference, Ime Udoka baked into them a toughness and a commitment to the defensive end that they just have not had since then. That 2020 team, when they beat Brooklyn, that was one of the best defensive efforts I've seen from a playoff team in this era. That is a ceiling that they just have not been able to get to. And yes, I get it. They don't have Chris Hopps Porzingis right now and they don't have the Robert Williams kind of rim protection they had in that season.

But even on the perimeter, Tatum and Brown, all those guys were so much more engaged, consistent. on the perimeter defensively. That team, like literally, if you gave me this roster with the identity of that team, better balance in their shot selection, a more clear hierarchy running through Jason Tatum in a much better commitment to the defensive end of the floor, I think they would be guaranteed to win the title.

They have the most talent. I would feel so much more confident in their abilities to do this if that was the breakdown of their basketball approach. But that's not it. There's no hierarchy. They lean heavily into spamming three-point shots and difficult pull-up jump shots, and they defend when they feel like it.

And you know, the crazy thing is they might just win the damn championship anyway, because that's how talented they are. I actually think they match up pretty well with Minnesota, certainly better than the Western Conference teams, because they have so much shooting that they can space them out and kind of mitigate some of the size advantages that Minnesota brings to the table. They also have so much ball handling that if you're pressuring the hell out of the basketball with Jaden McDaniels and Anthony Edwards and even with your centers, you can just find one of your guards

to bring the ball up the floor against the Mike Conley or one of your one of the Jays is going to have to be guarded by a Carl Anthony Towns. You can bring the ball up the floor against him. Like Boston has real advantages because they have incredible personnel. And they very well might hoist the Larry O'Brien trophy in June playing this garbage-ass brand of basketball. It's crazy. Like a lot of people think I hate the Celtics because I am a Lakers fan, but I'm not really a Lakers fan. I root for the Lakers because I'm a LeBron James fan. I have nothing against the Celtics. I really liked that 2022 Boston Celtics team. This is this specific brand of basketball under Joe Missoula is so unlikable to me. And it's just every time I'm watching them, I just am completely blown away at the complete lack of regard for the value of every. possession on either end of the floor. And if there's anything to be said about the talent advantage, it is a curse in the sense that I think,

especially in that Eastern Conference where it's so weak, especially after you get, after you get past the top few teams, that you could win 60, 65 games with this roster while playing an iffy brand of basketball. Like I believe if Boston played in the West, they probably would have more commitment to the defensive end of the floor and a little bit more value on each possession.

But they've been allowed to, who kind of play this brand because of that weak schedule out east. And like, again, it just might not even matter. They might just win the damn thing anyway. But like I can just say personally as someone who has covered this team all year, like every time I watch them play, I'm like, what are, what are we doing here? Like, what I'm watching game one. And it's like Jason Tatum is the best player on the team, right?

And a top 10 player in the NBA. And he's basically standing around watching Jalen Brown go to work. And like I get it. Like all of these guys are capable. Derek White is capable of running the offense for an entire game. So is Tatum. So is Jalen Brown. Drew Holiday is capable of doing it as a secondary shot creator.

But it would make way more sense to bake this down into a simpler hierarchy and have guys play smaller roles. It's so equal opportunity. It's so just based on vibes that everyone kind of feels the leeway to hijack a possession. And when everyone has the leeway to hijack a possession, nobody's in rhythm. And that's probably the last. that's the last thing I'm going to say about this and we'll move on to the film. Like, when you have hierarchy, it is much easier to stay in a rhythm.

When everyone can hijack a possession, there is no consistency in where you're getting your touches, what you're doing with your touches, where you're getting your off ball catches, what you're doing with your off ball catches. There's no consistency there. And so no one can really get into a groove when each game just fundamentally looks different. when you watch Cleveland, they play the same damn way every game on offense. Here comes Donovan Mitchell. He's going to run 25 picking rolls tonight.

You know, like Darius Garland is going to be aggressive when Mitchell's off the floor. And when Mitchell's tired, they'll run some through Garland. But you know what you're getting. Okay, Karas Levert came into the game. He's going to spam ball screens. Like you, you understand a very clear hierarchy with Cleveland and with Denver and with Minnesota and with all of these guys that, Boston just doesn't have. Every Boston game looks different. And when it cooks, it cooks.

Like when there's there's an upside to that too. I want to be clear. When you play equal opportunity, there is an upside where like when all the pieces kind of click in simultaneously, it's like, holy shit, all five guys are in rhythm. Now they can't guard us and we just put up 142 points. Right. But the flip side is sometimes none of the pieces fit and then it just completely falls apart. And like, again, I, I'm not concerned about Boston. I feel the exact same way about them that I did before the postseason. Like, am I going to pick if, if Minnesota or Denver gets out of the West and lines up with Boston, I will probably pick them over Boston simply because they have such a clear basketball identity

that they're more likely to reach their ceiling than Boston is consistently. That said, I would still give Boston a very good chance to win that series against both of them and it wouldn't be the least bit surprised. I absolutely think this team can hoist the trophy. but even in that context, it feels like they're underachieving on a night in a night out basis. It feels like they're leaving meat on the bone

with this bizarre-ass brand of basketball. Again, I give Cleveland a good chance to get one in Cleveland just simply because winning this game gives you a certain amount of belief and the crowd will have a certain energy that might not have been there if you were down 02 coming home.

And so I do think Cleveland has a chance to get one at home, but I still think Boston's going to win this series in five or six games. All right, guys, that's all I have for this particular video. I'll be back in a few hours with Mads Thunder. I will see you guys then. The volume. 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. 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, unfills 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 Clifford show on the I Heart 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. For 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84's 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. 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. 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 IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.