The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Lakers Beat Clippers With Defense, Cavaliers Come Back Vs. Celtics, Nuggets Pick Apart Pistons

Episode Date: March 1, 2025

Jason breaks down how Luka Doncic and LeBron James led the Los Angeles Lakers to a win over the Clippers behind the NBA's best defense over the past 21 games, how Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers won despite a massive Boston Celtics run led by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and how Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets picked apart the Detroit Pistons defense. Timeline 4:00 - Start 5:30 - Lakers/Clippers 24:30 - Celtics/Cavaliers 35:00 - Nuggets/Pistons #Volume #Herd Follow Jason Timpf on social: https://twitter.com/_JasonLT https://www.instagram.com/jtimpf15/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm actually staying up to record this on Friday night. We've got a jam-pack show for you guys today. I'm going to be breaking down the Clippers-lakers showdown from last night, as the Lakers, after getting dominated by the Clippers for a long time, They've actually won five out of seven in that matchup. Another super interesting example of the Lakers dealing with the switching defense. We're going to talk about that. After that we're going to get into a showdown between the two teams that I believe

will eventually face off in the Eastern Conference finals. The Cleveland Cavaliers survive two massive runs from the Boston Celtics to tie the season series at two getting a big win on the road in Boston. Then at the tail end of the show, I want to talk a little bit of Denver Nuggets. They've had an uneven stretch of games here recently. two and one, I believe, on the road trip so far. I want to talk about two concepts with them. One, the concept of inverted spacing as I watched Yokic pick apart the Pistons off ball defenders through just acting as a passing fulcrum at the top of the key. And then I want to talk about

the stuff that Denver has to get better at on defense if they want to make a legitimate run to get back into championship contention. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight 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, get your podcasts under hoops tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. And the last but at least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments.

We'll get to them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So when I looked at the initial matchups to start this Clippers-Lakers game, I saw that Ty Lou put Zubach on Dorian Finney Smith. And so my first impression there was, oh, we might have a repeat of the Knicks game when they put Carl Anthony Towns on Doreen Phiney Smith and the Lakers just spammed a bunch of pick and pop action to get Doreen Fannie Smith in space. But there was a very smart defensive strategy that Tailu implemented in this game. After watching a bunch of film of the Lakers struggling against

switching, he just decided to have Zubach switch all those screens. That's why you saw so many of those ISOs out around the top of the key with either LeBron or Luca attack. Zubotch in space. And I thought generally did a good job. He pretty much contained dribble penetration for the most part and forced those guys into a lot of jump shots over the top. LeBron was really carrying the load in the early part of the game by just settling into that mid-range jump shot right around like 17, 18 feet out kind of by the top of the key area. But again, like the Lakers did struggle again for the most part. And, you know, I don't think they're going to really generate a ton of offense against switching defenses until Luca gets back to the Luca Danchich that we know

he's capable of being an MVP level shot maker, right? We saw even just a tiny little touch of it at the end of the game when Luca made a couple of big step-back threes that led to an adjustment from Ty. We'll get to that in a second. But until Luca really gets back to his MVP-level form on the offensive end, and until the Lakers start knocking down their catching shoot attempts, this is their third straight game where they got less than one point per catch and shoot attempt. They've been struggling to shoot the basketball a lot. I do think

they'll shoot better in the long run, but until those two things turn around, until Luca gets going and until they start knocking down their catch and shoot shots, they're going to struggle against defenses that switch, and they struggled for long stretches in this game. But we did see a little Luca run in that fourth quarter. That was a taste of what things

should look like in the long run when Luca gets going. So it's a couple of step-back threes over Zubach and Switch. one on the left wing, one kind of out on the right side of the floor. Now, at that point, Ty Lou had to make an adjustment. He started putting two on the ball. Once Luca put two on the ball, then they were able to get the defense into rotation and generate quality looks out of that, an open look for Dorian, Finney Smith in the right corner that he knocked down, a dunk for Jackson Hayes on a slip to the rim. They started to get good looks because they got two to the ball.

Again, like, we're going to talk about this a lot when we get into the Celtics game as well, but there's like an order of operations in order to break down a switching defense. You have to start getting a matchup you like and attacking it well enough that you score at a rate that is untenable for the defense. Once you start scoring at a rate that's untenable for the defense, then you can start bringing two to the ball. Once you can start bringing two to the ball, then you can start to generate the same type of opportunities that they got in the Denver game

where it's like now we're getting a lot of these four on threes and the ball's popping around getting wide open shots for people. They actually handled the double teams better in this game than they did. It was the, I believe it was the Dallas game, if I remember correctly, that they kind of struggled against double teams. But again, like, that's a little tiny taste for Lakers fans and what that could look like in the big picture. Luca going on these scoring runs against switches leading to him getting blitzed. Then you have all this opportunity on the backside of that. Now, again, like, it got a little tricky in this game because it's not Austin Reeves. Austin Reeves leaves the game with a calf injury. He's going to be getting an MRI on that. Hopefully

Austin's okay. We'll find out soon. Rui Hachamura. J.J. Reddick talked after the game is dealing with a petal or tendinipathy, if I remember correctly. So like something's going on with the front of his knee, he's going to be out for about a week. So take those two guys out of the rotation. You're bringing guys into the rotation that are lesser offensive players. You know, Trey Jemison basically operating is the backup center when that's been a lot of small ball looks anchored by Rui, and then you're getting a lot more Jordan Goodwin because Austin Reeves is out of the lineup, right? Those guys are not as good in terms of offensive threats, although they scrapped tonight. We're going to talk about it in a little bit. So they're going to be a little

tricky in these four-on-threes in the next couple of weeks as LeBron and Luca have to kind of shoulder more of that offensive load, and there's just not as much offensive talent off the ball. But in general, I thought you got to see a little taste of what it could look like in the big picture as Luca starts to get going. That's the beautiful thing about all of this. They've been winning with defense. This is the sixth consecutive game where the Lakers held their opponents to 102 points or fewer. This is now a 21 game span of the Lakers being the best defense in the NBA. That's over a fourth of the season. It's a beautiful thing for the Lakers fans, because the thing that I've been most excited about with this team in the big picture is what

they're capable of on the offense event. I imagine a five-man grouping with LeBron, Luca, and Austin, Dorian, Finney Smith, and Rui Hachamura that could achieve a level of unguardability in a playoff context, when Luca gets back to the level that we all know that Luca's capable of reaching, right? LeBron was fantastic again in this game, by the way. He's been doing a great job of just kind of like pulling the weight as Luca's been working his way back into rhythm. It's just wild to me how he's consistently night to night playing at an MVP level.

I was in awe of him again tonight. He soundly outplayed Kawhi Leonard, soundly outplayed James Hardin a couple of stars that are a half-decade younger than him. Just, LeBron continues to just be amazing. I wanted to shout out the Lakers bench in this game, though, because obviously Rui Hachamuro is out.

Then we find out Austin's out. The Lakers are down two starters, so I ended up being just LeBron and Luca and a bunch of discounted role players. But one of the things that I've been preaching about for a while is the value of high motor athletes on an NBA roster, especially on your deep bench.

The reason why I'm into this conversation, concept is when your main guys are out of the lineup, just playing super fucking hard will go a long way towards keeping your floor up high and giving you a chance to win games. Jordan Goodwin was insane again in this game. One of the best scrappers that I've rooted for in my time as an NBA fan. Jared Vanderbilt was great. Trey Jemison came in and just played his ass off. Doreen Phine Smith always plays hard. Game Vincent always plays hard. I just think that's how you should build a team when you have championship aspirations and you're trying to survive the regular season, make sure the guys that are outside of your normal rotation are guys who play hard.

Because that is something you can count on every single night. When you have like offensive players that are not very good and that's why they're end of the bench guys, they could be terrible on a night when they don't have their jump shot going or when they don't have a, you know, a matchup where they're facing switching and they have to create more shots for themselves. like you're going to run into a lot more weaknesses in that regard. And here's the thing. Jordan Goodwin struggled to knock down spot out threes today.

Tragamson had a couple plays where he, you know, fumbled the ball away in traffic. There are, you know, a lot of Jared Vanderbilt, right? There's going to be moments where you're dealing with those guys and their offensive limitations come to the surface. Jared Vanderbilt still struggles to catch anything in traffic, right? But like just by competing and playing their ass off, like, I thought one of the biggest plays of the game was when the Clippers took that lead off of, I believe it was off of a Kaui Leonard 3 at the top of the key on the left side, where I believe Luca goes down and

scores. And on the inbound, Jordan Goodwin gets a steal and another layup, and it reversed it back to the Lakers being in the lead. It like completely flipped the momentum. And Luca ended up taking that group into having a small lead going into the fourth quarter. That's a scrappy play that made a huge difference. Jared Vanderbilt scrapping, getting on the floor, taking the ball away from James Hardin and drawing a foul. Gabe Vincent, he committed a kicking violation on this play, but applying ball pressure and kicking the ball away from James Hardin. And again, if you don't hear the whistle, you just keep playing. And he just ran, beat everybody to the basketball, got that ball, ran it out in transition and got to lay up. Those dudes scrapped all game long.

And it gave the Lakers a chance to win even down two of their most important offensive players. And LeBron and Luca just grinded out enough buckets against switches out above the break in order to get enough to win that particular game. I thought the Zubach matchup was interesting. I mean, it's the same type of player as Yokic in terms of like a guy that's just way too big for any Laker to guard. But it's a very different type of matchup because

Yokich was the center of the game plan and everything they did was built around like helping off of these non-shooters and containing Yokich, right? And like even with Jamal Murray, they were willing to concede these like mildly contested pull-up jump shots out above the break, right? With Zubach though, like he's not the focus

of the game plan. The game plan was focused around Kauai Leonard and James Harden. A lot of similar stuff to what we've seen in other matchups where they were sending all sorts of help at Kauai Leonard, particularly when he would turn his back so that when he would go to spin off of a guy, he would just run into bodies. They just did a great job

of making Kauai Leonard feel like he was playing in a crowd. They pressed up on James Hardin's right shoulder so that they could contest without getting up underneath his landing zone so he wouldn't get to the foul line, although Jackson Hayes did have a really, really bad foul in the fourth quarter where he reached in on James Hardin, just stuck his hand right on James Hardin's left arm.

And that's just James, James has been just had an automatic trigger to just rise in fire when he sees that for the last half, you know, you know, five, seven years of his career to draw additional foul shots, right? So like, but for the most part, they played Hardin's right shoulder. They tried to funnel him into help where Jackson Hayes was always waiting and he was trying to take that floater. I think he ended up going one for 10 from three. They did a good job of closing that gap and keeping things difficult for him, and it worked. They held Kauai and James Harden to 39 points on 39 shots. They forced him into eight turnovers. I thought it was another impressive defensive game plan from JJ Reddick. But again, you end up giving things to take things away, right? Just like

in the Denver series, or Denver game, the Lakers were conceding wide open looks to Aaron Gordon, Russell Westbrook, Christian Brown, right? In this matchup, it was like, Zubach was getting some catches. He was getting some catches on the roll, and like the Lakers were constantly reacting to Zubach when he'd already have deep post position as opposed to denying Yokic, fronting the post, forcing him to catch the ball further out so that they could mitigate some of his size. With Zubach, by the time he caught it underneath the basket, most of the time they were just dead to rights already, and Zubach was just able to shoot a little hook shot over the top where he's so deadly. Zubach is just an awesome player.

I think what do you have, like 27 and 16, something like that in that game? The thing that has been really impressive to me was Zubach in particular is like his floater touch. Like when he would catch and there wouldn't be somebody on him and he'd be seven, eight feet from the basket. He'd just turn and shoot like a little floater that would just softly go in the basket every single time. He's just a really good player. And that was where the Lakers decided to have their defense bend without breaking. And they gave up a ton to Zubatch.

They held everyone else in check. And again, held another opponent to 102 points. less. The Lakers are now 17 and 4 in their last 21 games. That's the best record in the NBA. They're 10th in offense, first in defense, eighth in defensive rebounding. On the clippers front, the only thing I wanted to get into there, the biggest concern for me that stood out was just the amount of lift that Kauai Leonard was getting on his jump shot. Kauai was shooting really flat ball tonight and it was barely getting over the front of the rim unless he was wide open. Like if he was wide open, that thing was going in. And Kauai

just has a very robotic jump shot form to where like if he kind of gets into his energy transfer from the ground up and no one disrupts that, he's going to knock it down. Right? But like just about everything that was contested and everything that involved him trying to shoot through

congested defense around him, he struggled to get lift. And again, like when Kauai's at his best, he's always powering through guys, bumping them off with his shoulder, getting to his spot, rising cleanly and just, it just pops in off the back of the rim over and over and over again when he's at his best. And like, he's up to 17 games this year and he's just not getting lift. I think he's actually up to 18 games this year. He's not getting

lift. And that's the part that concerns me as part of, as far as like his base goes. And, and just like whether or not his knee is capable of getting to where it needs to be for the clippers to make a real run. But big one for the Lakers. Again, five out of seven. against the clippers. They flipped that script. The one thing, the last thing I'll say on the Laker front, guys, like I talked about after the Minnesota game, my biggest concern with this team is injuries. They've been playing their asses off. They've been competing, but guys are starting to drop. Brewy goes down. Austin goes down. We haven't even gotten to the 40-year-old or the dude

who's, you know, was significantly overweight a couple weeks ago and has already dealt with calf issues throughout the season. So, like, I'm a little worried about the Lakers on the jury front. It's basically the main piece of pessimism that I'm contending with right now as a fan of the team. But they are playing some really good basketball. And I do think they have a formula to where they can keep things afloat until they

get guys back into the line. Hey, it's us to Jonas Brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast. Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts.

Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts. We're starting a trend. but this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it

one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say,

hey Jonas, and then I wrote down on my little notepad Hey Jonas and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. 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 acapella 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.

Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies,

and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athletes themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever,

you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slical Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levin this went to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive?

The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the Aihar Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. All right, moving on to Cavs Celtics. So the Celtics just jump them right away.

Cavs miss a couple of decent looks from three. The Celtics are just immediately on fire. I thought Tatum came out looking fantastic, hitting jump shots, spraying the ball out to shooters. They jump up 25 to 3. Doris Burke had an interesting comment on the broadcast talking about how like the Cavs just didn't look like they believed they belonged on the same.

floor with the Celtics. Like they just had this energy in that first stretch of the game where they just didn't look like they believed they could win. And there was a really cool quote that the broadcast showed from Kenny Atkinson in the huddle saying like, come on guys. Like this is not us. Like just believe in what you're doing, stepping and knock some shots down, right? And that's what I thought turned it around. There were two things that I thought like kind of just changed the tone and tender of the game after that 25 to 3 start. First, dribble. penetration from Darius Garland. He just started getting by people off the dribble and getting the

defense into rotation to generate some quality shots. That just kind of started to pick up the pace for Cleveland in this game. And then a couple of shooters entered the game, a couple of guys that came in with confidence and knocked down some shots. DeAndre Hunter and Ty Jerome both stepped in in each knock down two threes. Ty Jerome, who can be really aggressive as a pull-up shooter, hit two kind of contested threes and like had a little bit of attitude about. it and it just loosened up the team and you could tell that helped them believe that they could get back into the game and they started to settle down and play calves basketball they started to get stops run out in transition attacking the celtics defense before it got set i thought darius garland did

a really nice job of like getting up the ball the ball at the floor quickly and quickly getting into a screening action to immediately draw two to the ball and then he would drive off of it draw nail help quick to the to the wing and someone was wide open like consistently they started to get like some really great looks, and it got them going on the offensive end of the floor. And then on defense, sticking to the game plan, not overreacting to Tatum and Brown when they were beating switches. This was, you know, this is what I've always talked about in terms of like what I believe is the best strategy to defend the Boston Celtics. And that's switch, contain, try to bait Jalen and Jason into pull up jump shots and hope that they settle a bunch

and that you can keep them out of rotation, keep them from getting the wide open catch and shoot threes and the easy stuff at the rim that makes them unbeatable. And by the way, like, it was, their defense was breaking early on. They were conceding the switches. Tatum was picking on everybody, a lot of Garland, but a ton against the Bigs, a lot of Evan Mobley and Jared Allen in space where Jason Tatum was just going to work. And like, Jalen Brown did most of his work against Darius Garland. Did a ton of damage there. Did some damage there in the fourth quarter. But like, I was really impressed by Jason Tatum in a, his ISO possessions against Evan Mobley and Jared Allen.

Like he was just driving hard at Evan Mobley and just like shucking him off with that right shoulder and getting easy looks. He's doing the same thing to Jared Allen, although he can't dislodge him as well, but he was showing a lot of impressive over the top, short and mid-range shot making against Jared Allen. He was beating him off the dribble. There was a lot of good for the Celtics attacking Cleveland's game plan in the first half. But again, the goal there for Kenny Atkinson is to stay out of rotation.

as much as possible and limit Boston's catch-and-shoot looks. In order to do that, you have to not send too much help and count on those guys to just do the best they can and hope that they eventually wear down over the course of the game and that you start to get stops when you need them late. By the way, Boston averages 32 catch-and-shoot jump-shot attempts per game, which is the second most in the entire NBA. They only generated 20 catch-and-shoot shot attempts in this particular game,

they stayed out of rotation because they allowed Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown to play one-on-one. And by the way, in the first half, Boston got 1.54 points per ISO, and they were getting cooked. But in the second half, just one point per ISO flat. That's much more tenable. And then down the stretch, Cleveland took a page right out of Boston's book and started doing hunting of their own, as Donovan Mitchell just started relentlessly picking on Sam Houser and was just consistently generating great stuff against him. He had 12 points and 2 assists in the fourth quarter. I thought he was incredible all night.

Like as great as Jason Tatum was, Donovan Mitchell was basically going step for step with him, and there just aren't that many players in the league who can do that. Super impressive off the dribble shot making. The step back three was going. Really deadly floater tonight. He was getting into the lane and just like shooting that a little easy, five to seven foot shot over the top.

He was killing the Celtics with that. And then Evan Mobley, one of the concepts that I talk a lot about in this show is the idea of like, you know, what it's like as a basketball player when you're playing poorly and how you react to that and how you stay engaged and understand that like nothing really matters. No one's going to remember any of it as long as you make a play that helps your team win and you get out of there with the win. Evan Mobley had a rough game through three quarters.

He was picking up some fouls. he was badly missing some jump shots. He wasn't really accomplishing much as his score, but he was amazing in that fourth quarter. He had two massive threes. He had four offensive rebounds, a couple of putbacks. He finished the fourth quarter with 11 points and eight rebounds, had two of the biggest,

like had several of the biggest shots of the night, and I thought he was amazing. And now no one's going to look back at that game and think Evan Mowley played poorly because he found a way to make plays when his team needed to in the fourth quarter, and they got out of there with a win. really impressive resilience by the whole team,

but especially from Evan Mobley. Big picture with the Cavs. I thought this was an incredibly impressive win regardless of the surrounding context. To survive a 25 to 3 start and another big Celtics run in the third quarter where they go up by 17 to win on the road in that building

against that team, I thought it was just remarkable mental toughness in belief. they were unwavering and they're just like attack and just like eventually Boston will show some cracks and we're going to work our way back into this game and they did they completely turned around the vibes from the beginning of the game

and that's twice this year that they beat the Celtics in games that they looked like they lost control of. Again, if you remember the game in Cleveland that Boston or that Cleveland won, Tatum was picking on Garland doing a bunch of damage, short-range shot making, looked like the Celtics were going to get out of there with the win. Donovan Mitchell again.

just a bunch of crazy shot making down the stretch as he helped pull that game out. But at the same time, I do think it's important to acknowledge that there was a dynamic at play in that fourth quarter that won't be in play if these two teams meet in the playoffs. The Cavs had an easy target to attack in Crunch Time in Sam Houser. In a playoff series, that won't be Sam Houser. That'll be Drew Holiday. That's the thing that's scary about this matchup in the big picture. and what makes the Celtics such a dangerous team to deal with in a two-week context.

The Celtics will always have ways to attack you, especially if you're Cleveland, right? Like Darius Garland, Tatum and Brown both feel very comfortable in that matchup. Jason Tatum, as he demonstrated tonight, looks very comfortable attacking Cleveland's Biggs in switches. But the Cavs will not have those same high-quality options unless the Celtics enter that series with a bunch of injuries. And that's more or less where I'm at with this matchup at this point. If the Celtics are fully healthy, the Cavs can win, but I'm definitely going to pick the Celtics. But if the Cs go into that series with a couple of injuries,

say like two of their core six guys to where someone like a Hauser has to play or someone like a Pritchard has to play, then this series looks a lot more like a coin flip to me. And we'd be foolish should not consider that as a potential outcome when Chris Hopps-Porsingus missed a bunch of time in the playoffs last year. So yeah, I think health is very important for the Celtics. And I think it's important that they continue to manage the injuries the way they have been with all their guys throughout the season because it's so important that they get there

with everyone available. On the Celtics front, I didn't love the idea of Jalen Brown taking nine shots in the fourth quarter with how well Jason Tatum was playing. There were some good possessions there against Darius Garland, but there were some really tough shots mixed in there too. And again, like, as a team, you only managed 18 points in the fourth quarter. Very few of those catch and shoot type of attempts generated in the fourth quarter. That's where it becomes an issue. There was a brief stretch there in the middle of the fourth where Kenny Atkinson went small, took Mowbly and Allen out of the game, and the Celtics immediately

played some really good driving kick basketball. And that's the thing. It's going to be tough. It's going to be tough against a team like Cleveland that can really load up on the ball with their size, right? but like you can't just settle for jump shots. There has to be an attempt to get as much of that. There has to be an attempt to get as much of that rim pressure as possible. It looks kind of Kobe-esque at times with Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown constantly taking really, really difficult off the dribble jump shots.

The Celtics took 40 off the dribble jump shots in this game and only got 36 points out of them, 0.9 points per attempt. that's where the Js have to be more deliberate about that same dynamic we talked about in the Lakers segment earlier in the show. Pressure the rim, force help, make it untenable, got to generate those driving kick attempts. Catch and shoot threes, easy stuff at the rim, that's the championship Celtics. Off the dribble jump shot is a ceiling razor. It's a rescue possessions at the end of the shot clock type of thing, but you can't live and die. on that. 40 off the dribble jump shots is too many in one game. I'm not going to be too

concerned about them on the defensive end in this game. It's just tough to contain the ball without Drew Holiday, but they certainly can do better. The Cavs did cut them to pieces after that first quarter, but again, that's going to be the one thing that is going to look like a potential vulnerability for the Celtics this year in the postseason is if Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown don't bring the requisite level of downhill aggression against switches. All right, let's talk a few minutes of nuggets before we get out of here tonight. So I want to talk about two concepts. The idea of inverted spacing, and then I want to talk a little bit about the nuggets on the defensive end of the floor.

So I was amazed at how easily the nuggets were picking apart the pistons in this game by just having Yokic bring the ball up the floor and dribble up to the elbow or the top of the key kind of extended out above the break. And then they would just have some of their guys run off ball action. And Yokic was just making a read as those guys were either slipping out of a screen or the pistons would botch a screen. screen and put two on the ball on accident, whatever it was that they would do, Yokojah would make an easy little over-the-top pass. And there's a reason why that's so open for Denver. There are a lot of teams that run off ball action. But most of the teams that run off ball action are not using their center as that type of

high-level passing fulcrum to where, one, he can make all the reads, but two, he also is capable of being a scoring threat to where you have to press up on him, right? When you have to press up on Yokic, where's the big? He's on Yokic. So there's a lot of space underneath the basket for guys to get openings slipping out of those actions. And the other part of it is this is where continuity comes to the surface for Denver. MPJ's been playing in this system forever. Jamal Murray's been playing in this system forever.

Aaron Gordon's been playing in the system forever. Christian Brown's been playing in this system for a few years now. These guys have a lot of reps in this system. So they just know what to do. This, okay, if I, if I set a back screen and Jamal Murray cuts through off of my back screen, but his defender is pinned on my top side, I just wait for Jamal to cut through. And then I kind of push off that guy and I know that passing angles right there because he's on my top side. I've got an easy opportunity behind me to get to the rib, right?

Like, oh, it's a, they're not switching and he's kind of staying glued up. I'm just going to curl around it. I have an opportunity to attack that way, or I can come off of Yokic and look to score. They scored a ton on cuts in this game, 19 points of cuts. It was very similar to the Pacers game or the Portland game a few weeks back

where they just picked them apart with offball action with Yokic operating as that passing fulcrum. It actually reminds me a little bit of the Golden State Warriors when they were in their peak there in the mid-2010s because they played such a unique style. that in the regular season context, especially, but even in playoffs in the beginning of series as teams had to adjust,

they would do a lot of damage to teams just because it'd be like, oh, I'm used to playing all these normal NBA teams. Now I'm playing Golden State, and I'm being run through this blender of all of this action as I'm chasing Steph and Clay around and Draymond's throwing fake dribble handoffs. And if we blitz, they're just so good at executing these four-on-threes,

they would just pick teams apart like that, right? That's a similar effect that Denver can have on teams to where they just have such a unique play style. Actually, I think Tyrese Hallibor, if I remember correctly, I saw a social media clip of Tyre's Halbert making a mention of this himself, talking about his experience in defending some of the stuff that he's seen online about people saying all the teams in the NBA play the same. No, they don't, and I agree. But that's part of the disadvantage that Denver presents the teams, is they just play such a unique style that it can kind of catch teams off guard

if they're not used to it, right? I just thought it was really interesting watching the Pistons games. They got, again, a very convincing win against a Pistons team that had been kicking everybody's butt for a while. By the way, Javall Murray was amazing in that game. I want to shout out Zik Naji too. Zik Naji had like a ridiculous defensive set of plays in the first half. Like he had a dig down play where he dug down on a drive

and closed out to Tim Hardaway Jr. and blocked him at the three-point line. He, like, met a Sar Thompson at the rim in transition and blocked him. He had another block on a rearview contest of Tim Hardaway, Jr. where he chased him over the top of the screen. He defended Tobias Harris well on a post-up. He did a lot of good work on Kate Cunningham in the second half where he's just absorbing contact and just making him feel like he was playing in a crowd.

I thought Zeke was fantastic. Big win for the Nuggets to bounce back from that Bucks game. But I do want to talk a little bit about the defense because they got picked apart at stretches in the Bucks game, and they really got picked apart in the Lakers game. And there's this consistent issue that's risen to the surface that I've seen, which is the Nuggets are getting picked apart in rotation. Now, as we talked about after the Nuggets game,

there's a certain amount of existing in rotation for Denver that they can't avoid. Basically because how in the world are you going to be able to defend with Luca, or with, excuse me, Nicole Yokic in space. You can't. If you have him switch ball screens, you're asking him to guard on the perimeter, that's not going to work. He's not a good enough rim protector to run deep drop. So you're kind of limited in terms of defensive scheme for Denver

with Yokic at the level in ball screens. But they've been getting killed there. So how do the Nuggets get to the point where they can defend at a level that is high enough to win the championship within the concept of that defensive scheme? And there are two elements that I want to do a little bit of a deeper dive in today. First, this is on Yokic. When he is at the level, he has to be much, much, much more active with his hands. For the record, against Detroit, I thought he had a lot more quality possessions like that.

Early in the game, met Cade up at the level, got a deflection as he was trying to gather his dribble. There was another one where he got up on the level against Cade and applied good ball pressure, and Cade kind of panicked and rifled a pass out of bounds through the big. baseline. The reason why being active at the level is so important with Yokic's hands is because being in rotation is hard. One of the things you can do to make existing in rotation easier is to disrupt the first pass. If you get up to the level and the first pass is just easily rifled across the court or easily dropped off to the roll man, now you're existing in rotation and you're dead to rights because every close-out is like a 15-20-foot close-out and you're just behind the

eight ball, so to speak. But if you apply a little pressure and you either get a little bit of a deflection or you force that pass to be off target a little bit or you force that pass to go up in the air for a while before it gets to where it needs to go, all of a sudden, the first rotation has a head start because the ball. getting from point A to point B, whether that's the roll man or the weak side, the ball getting to that point is now delayed. And if it's delayed by a split second, that split second can be what it takes for you to make that first rotation. And then from there, you have to be as sharp as possible with your rotations on the backside. Denver's not been good with their rotations for the most

part this season. You can do a lot to make shooters shoot poorly by making the them feel rushed. And you can make them feel rushed by being sharper with your closeouts. Again, the openings are going to be there. They're baked into the coverage. You're bringing Yokic up to the level. That's unavoidable. But you can be more prepared for it on the back end. And I think that that's going to be a non-negotiable for the nuggets for them to get to where they need to go. They need Yokich to be more active with his hands at the level. And they need their weak side rotations to be substantially sharper as they try to contain these teams. All right, guys, that is all I have.

As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We will be back. I'm recording another episode on Sunday night before I go out of town next week. That'll be released on Monday morning. That'll break down a bunch of games from Sunday. I'm also pre-recording a mailbag that will most likely be airing on Tuesday. So that's why we're doing the mailbag on Tuesday instead of Friday this week. But again, as always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.

And I'll see you guys next time. The volume. What's up, guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting hoops tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys. But if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it. Hey, guys, it's us.

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