The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Heat-Celtics Game 2 Reaction: Jimmy Butler & Miami stun Jayson Tatum & Boston

Episode Date: May 21, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat's 111-105 Game 2 win over Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. Jason shares his thoughts on Jimmy Butler's dominant performance in the 4th quarter, Bam Adebayo's big night, and just how much trouble Boston is in. #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 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. The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume.

Happy Saturday, everybody. Coverage of the Eastern Conference Finals here at Hoops Tonight is brought to you by Chase Freedom Unlimited. How do you cash back? Well, after yet another double-digit fourth quarter comeback for the Miami Heat last night, They are now outscoring teams by 20.1 points per 100 possessions in the fourth quarter. That is the time when they're coaching, their execution, and their star talent takeover games.

And man, it just never feels like they're out of a game. I have so much that I want to share from this game. We're going to talk a little bit about that Grant Williams adjustment. A couple of specific things that Spolstra did to cause the Celtics problems defensively. And then obviously, the classic Jimmy Butler ISO attack at the end of the game comes in clutch for the heat. You guys know the Joe 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 last but at least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish.

Don't forget you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. All right, let's talk some basketball. So Jason had this brilliant idea after game one of this series. is hey, why not instead of gift-wrapping Jimmy Butler, one free Malcolm Brogden to attack every single possession down the stretch of the game? Why don't we try a big wing defender? Why is Grant Williams glued to the bench?

Let's get him out there and see what he can do. Well, it turns out Grant Williams has no chance to stop Jimmy Butler either. Same exact moves getting downhill to that 5 to 10-foot area where he can make those short-range shots. Like I talk about a lot over the course of the season, you know, we talk about three-level scoring as like shots at the rim, threes, and these long mid-range jump shots, like these 15 to 18-footers. But there's always that short range as well, which is where a lot of the best playoff players in the league do their damage. That's where LeBron's working in the post and hitting those short fadeaways, right? That's where Jimmy Butler's hitting all those shots.

That's where Nicola Yokic is hitting all of those pop shots in the land. lane, right? Like those, that range is a range that a lot of NBA defenses still concede shots to, but it's much higher percentage than some of the deeper long twos that you can take in the offense. And he just, it didn't matter if he was going right or going left. It didn't matter how much of a contest Grant Williams offered. He was just getting buckets right over the top of him. Now, I do think Grant was a little less physical than he could have been. I mean, and that's going to be one of the themes of the show. You can get away with a lot at the end of NBA playoff games when it comes to using your hands. And the whole point of going with Grant

Williams over someone like Malcolm Brogden, because Grant Williams is only a couple inches taller than Malcolm Brogden. The whole point of going with Grant Williams is he's bigger and stronger and can hold his ground better against Jimmy. There were a lot of possessions where as Jimmy, especially when he was driving towards his left kind of into the paint, where Grant Williams is kind of giving ground and opening up his shoulder and just trying to meet him at a spot, instead of holding his ground with physicality, put the onus on the official to try to call a blocking foul. He's probably not going to, right? And I mean, he's hitting these easy short-range shots. So that was one thing that, like, I don't necessarily think, here's the thing, the Grant Williams adjustment

did not work in this game, but I do still think that is one of their better options. Grant also made a lot of plays offensively down the stretch. He had an important three on the left wing. He had a driving left-handed bank shot off the glass. He had a cut out of the weak side corner for a dunk. I think the Grant Williams thing can work. He just has to do a better job. I also want to defend him on the trash talk front. Like here's the thing. It's obviously not a good look when you talk trash and then get your ass kicked and then the other guy gets to have a moment at your expense. But let's be honest here. Like Jimmy Butler has been torching the entire league regardless of who he's been up against for this entire month and a half. Right. So I don't think.

gets fair to be like, oh, Grant Williams set Jimmy Butler off. It's like the heat have been killing everybody in fourth quarters all season exactly like that. So, or at least all postseason. So I, I, again, I'm not a huge fan of trash talk because I think it can be a distraction sometimes. I didn't think it was a distraction in this game. Really just Grant just has to do a better job defensively. Be more physical, use your size. Grant was a really good defender on Janus in last year's postseason run in large part because he was, holding his ground with physicality. So that's the next step there.

But classic Jimmy Butler. I'm not going to get into the weeds of it again because we've done it like six times this postseason, but it's just classic mini LeBron, right? Just picking on matchups, get into his spots for little short shots. Oh, you sent a double team. Here's the kickout. Although they left him on an island for most of this game. And that's been one of the biggest issues.

We're going to talk about Spolstra's defensive scheme here in a few minutes. And, you know, Spolstra's trying everything. to get stops, right? And I keep seeing Jimmy Butler operating on an island. And they've just got to figure out something. They've got, and a lot of the problem is they're, they keep clearing the side, like really clearing the side for Jimmy to go to work. And one of the advantages there is when, when there's three shooters on the weak side. So if I got a shooter in the corner, shooter on like the high corner and then a shooter on the wing, and then Bam is kind of operating in that, you know, dunker spot slash kind of rotate to the top of the,

or to like the semi-circle so you can catch and finish in the short part of the paint, right? Like, that's an easy rotation on the weak side. So if you bring an extra defender over to help Jimmy, because they're clearing the whole damn side, then those three shooters on the weak side are so close to each other that you can rotate out of it. But like,

they've got to try something different because the whole leaving Jimmy on an island thing is getting them cooked. I thought, bam, Metabio was incredible down the stretch of this game. He had a key driving bank shot on Robert Williams. He had another one where he posted up on Al Horford and Drew Fowl. Really did a bunch of damage to Al Horford. I was watching the game with my wife on the couch this morning.

And we were just having some coffee together. And I see Gabe Vincent miss a three on the right wing. And Al Horford, like, turns to box out. Turns to box out, Bamadabio. It kind of just like stands next to him with his arm spread. doesn't actually hit him, just stands next to him. And the ball comes carrying off the back rim, and because he didn't dislodge Bam at all,

Bam just reaches over the top and grabs the rebound. And so I pause it, and a lot of the things that I'm saying to you guys, when my wife is sitting next to me, I'll be like, honey, look at this. Like, he didn't hit him. He's got to hit him, you know? And I was literally telling her on the couch, and I'm like, it's a playoff game. Like, you can hit him and it's not going to be a foul.

Like, you've got to be physical in these situations. Very next possession. Off the offensive rebound, I think Jimmy Butler ends up taking another short fade away on the right block. And on the possession, Al Horford turns again and just kind of puts his arms out like he's going to box out, Bam, out of bio. And Bam just hits him with a swim move and just throws him to the side, gets the basketball, and goes up and dunks it with two hands.

And again, like, technically that's a foul. But the point is, it's the playoffs. It's the playoffs. And one team is bringing this ferocious physicality to try to win the damn game. and the other team is giving ground, whether it's Grant Williams giving ground on Jimmy Butler drives, or it's Al Horford giving ground to Bametabio, instead of embracing it for what it is, which is a fist fight.

And those two matchups, Jimmy Kill and Grant and Bam, torching Al Horford on the offensive glass, ended up being the things that killed them at the end of the game. Now, again, with the defensive scheme, like I said, on the Boston front, pretty vanilla. Go to the other end of the first. floor. Eric Spulcher runs zero zone in the first quarter. He runs 11 possessions of zone in the second quarter. He runs zero possessions of zone in the third quarter. Then he runs 19 possessions

of his two, three zone in the fourth quarter. And again, that's the key of rhythm disruption in preventing a large sample size to give Boston a chance to solve the zone, right? Like, that's the thing is you get into a rhythm and a flow, you're playing well in the third quarter, all of a sudden we're up 11, everything's looking good, here comes the zone. And it just completely breaks the rhythm and puts Boston into a lot of their worst tendencies. And specifically against zone, Boston can go through these long extended droughts. And Miami zone is pretty interesting because I, there was one point in particular that I'm going to call out to kind of teach exactly what makes the zone a lot different from other zones.

It's a very aggressive zone in passing lanes, and they treat their traditional two, three spots as basically the spot they rotate to as soon as things kind of break down. So there's a possession where Grant Williams ends up kind of attacking Bam at a bio right in the paint on an island. Pumpfakes gets into his body and misses like a short little floater. That play started with Jason Tatum pick and roll on the left wing. And in the pick and roll, they actually bring Grant and one other guy up.

can't remember, but Al Horford is in the left corner, right? So in the zone, Bam, is just outside the paint on the left block so that he doesn't get a defensive three second, but he's technically the bottom guy in the zone. Al Horford's actually open. Jimmy Butler comes way up. So all the heat players in the top of the zone, the two guys in the top and Jimmy Butler on the right wing are way up on this Jason Tatum pick and roll, basically like guarding it three on three out there, right and they're taking that away because you know jason tatham's trying to get to that pull up three that he likes to take so as a result grant williams kind of finds a soft spot right behind and tatum throws the pass to grant williams kind of leading him towards the rim the all three guys

just immediately rotate where they're supposed to go gave vincent just flashes back to the top to the shooter jimmy butler just rotates back to alhorford in the corner on the shooter and bam it abio's just right there on grant on the catch whereas like if jason tato makes that swing pass to the corner to Al Horford, Bay Meta Bios there and can rotate. Their rotations are just so damn sharp. And like, just like that, they just snap back and they're into their positions

and all of those openings are gone. And now you end up with Grant Williams isolating Bay Mettabio under the basket. It did a ton of damage to Boston's offensive confidence down the stretch of that game. Boston scored just 0.7 points per possession against Miami's zone. And then all the classic late game execution,

stuff that you've grown to expect from the Boston Celtics came to the surface down the stretch of this game. Jalen Brown in the middle of the fourth quarter, a crazy out of control spinning drive into traffic into four bodies and misses like a floater off the back rim. Then there was a possession where he gets an offensive rebound on a, I think Grant William shoots a three in the corner, gets an offensive rebound surrounded by four bodies. Tatum is standing wide open. I think Horford was wide open in the left corner too. He tries to show. shoot over four bodies underneath the basket predictably gets blocked. Tatum and all them are like, dude, swing the ball out. Then it was when it was 103, 100 with like 19 seconds on the shot clock,

despite being way off with his jump shot, all game, just elevates into a three early clock on the right wing instead of trying to work it around to get something better to a shooter that's in a better rhythm. You know, that game for Jaylon Brownie was seven for 23 from the field. It kind of reminded me, I call them like trying to smash your head through a brick wall. It's kind of like this idea where nothing's working. And rather than trying to do something else to impact winning, you just keep trying the same shit that's not working. And it's like, dude, your floaters are off, your jumpers off,

like you've got to try something different. And instead it was just more of the same down the stretch of the game. It's just the kind of thing that is an execution error that can cost you a game. There was that weird play where they just simply, fumbled the ball away. I can't remember who it was, but threw a pass to Marcus Smart on the kind of like right wing extended. He just fumbles the ball away. There's the Tatum charge at the end of the game. Jason Tatum driving down the lane line on the right side of the floor. And Max Trues helps out of the strong side corner and Jalen Brown is wide open on the wing.

Malcolm Brogden is completely unguarded on the left wing. I posted a freeze frame as Tatum is driving down the lane on my Twitter feed. You'll see it. And you just see Malcolm Brog and standing there with his arms up and Jalen Brown standing with his hands ready in the corner. And rather than making that kickout, Jason Tatum just runs into the lane and commits an offensive foul. You know, I know it's cliche, but basketball games are won on the margins. And this is a huge part of why I, you know, this was a huge thing that we talked about during the Golden State Warriors Boston Celtic series last year. You know, your talent might manifest as a half-court points per possession on both ends of the floor over a massive sample size, right? Like, okay, this team has got, you know, significantly more firepower.

So if I give them 500 possessions, they're going to score more points, right? But basketball games often come down to a small handful of possessions. When it's 100 to 96 with four minutes left, it doesn't matter if Boston has more talent. if Miami values every possession and Boston does not. If Miami on every single possession is getting their best player to a good spot on the floor and a shot that he knows he can make half the time, that's a possession that they can reliably get one point per possession, right? And then bam is going to gift wrap you three or four extra possessions

just working his butt off on the offensive glass or one of the other guards will. So not only do they value possessions, but they generate extra possessions. Then on the other end of the floor, Boston's just casually throwing possessions away. With poor shot selection, turnovers, lack of attention to detail, forcing things in traffic, all these different things. And so, you know, honestly, this series has been such a great example of, like, everything that coaches preach, you know. and I've been saying since during the regular season, I think Eric Spolster is the best coach in the league. And the combination of what he's doing with what Jimmy's doing

with what Bam has been so unbelievably good in this postseason run. And then just timely contributions from guys like Caleb Martin, Gabe Vincent, another massive step-back jump shot. Just shook Jason Tatum out of his shoes. So bad that Tatum was looking at the ref like he wanted to push off. Dude, it's Gabe Vincent. Get a stop, you know? The series is not over, but we'd all be foolish to pick Boston at this point.

What has Boston shown you to make you think that they can come back and beat this team four times out of five? Doesn't mean they can't, but what have they shown you? And it could get, like, Boston's got some weird chemistry stuff, right? Like Jalen Brown's been saying weird stuff all the time. There's bad body language on the court. Their stuff, going down 02 at home is just going to cause a lot of that stuff to boil to the surface too. Now, Boston is four and two on the road this postseason. So they tend to play a little more loose.

I don't know if it's the lack of pressure from the home crowd or what the deal is, but they tend to play a little more loose and a little better on the road. So maybe that gets them back going. But they're in some serious trouble, man. And I'm having so much fun just as a nerd about basketball the way that I am, especially when it comes to the details of winning games. I'm having so much fun just watching the way that Miami is going about this. playoff run.

And I'm, I'm, I'm, I find myself rooting for them pretty hard at this point. All right. All right. We will be back later tonight after the final buzzer of Lakers Nuggets game three. 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 Headwere or street or sidel, 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. In 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 here, 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.

It 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. Now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford 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 IHeart 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. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.