The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - LIVE: THUNDER-NUGGETS REACTION: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander beats Nikola Jokic & Murray in rock fight Game 4

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

Jason reacts live after the Oklahoma City Thunder come up with a clutch win over the Denver Nuggets in Game 4 to tie the series at 2-2. He discusses She Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams having a strong second half to outlast Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. Follow the show on Playback for future “Aftershow” content: https://www.playback.tv/hoopstonight #Volume #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.c.c.O. slash audio. I here at the volume, happy Sunday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a. great weekend. Schedule's a little weird today because I'm going with calling Coward later tonight, so we are not covering Pacers' Cavs in today's show. We're going to be covering that tomorrow mornings. Keep an eye on the feed for that. In today's show, we're just hitting Denver versus OKC.

I viewed this game and the game later this evening as games where whoever wins is most likely going to win the series. The Thunder could either tie it, take it back to OKC for a best of three with all the momentum, especially after having basically choked away two of the games and be in a commanding position to win, or Denver could go up three one and put themselves in a position where it's extremely difficult to lose three games in a row. And same thing goes for Cavs Pacers. Cavs get a win tonight. It's two to two going back to Cleveland, totally different series. Pacers get a win tonight's three one feels like they're in control. And round one of these two big games today goes to the Oklahoma City Thunder down eight in the early.

fourth quarter off of a Peyton Watson hookshot, and they just methodically walk down the Denver Nuggets to get a huge win to save their season and send them back to Oklahoma City. You guys know the Joe before we started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason. I'll tease. You guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast fee wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight.

It's also super helpful if we leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Make sure you guys follow us there for more content throughout the season. then keep dropping mailbag questions into the YouTube comments. Since we only have one game today, we'll probably do a solid 15 minutes or so of questions from the chat at the tail end of the show. So make sure you guys get your questions in there. And then when we finish up here today, we will be going over to watch playback for our typical after show. It's more informal. We take callers. We watch some film. We'll have some fun over there. Probably a little shorter

because I've got to be ready for Collins. We'll probably only go for about a half hour today. but head over to playback. It's playback.tv. Slash hoops tonight. When we are done, you can also find that link in the description of this video. All right, let's talk some basketball. So this was a weird game in the sense that with Denver playing as much zone as they did, both Shay and J-dub had really rough games, taking bad shots against the zone, forcing things early. The two of them, I thought were pretty awful on offense throughout this game. both of them made defensive plays at various points in the game, but I thought both of them really struggled against the zone. And so what I want to talk about here for a few minutes is specifically how Oklahoma City

broke the zone, because that was basically how they won this game. In the late third quarter, they started to hit some of their catch-and-shoot threes against the zone. You could see that rhythm build. And then suddenly they were a runaway freight train in that fourth quarter, ended up scoring 29 points, their most productive offensive quarter of this particular game. And really what a two three zone is designed to do is to break your rhythm. We talked about this concept after the Cavs Pacers game, if you guys remember, because the Cavs utilized a three two zone in that series.

And a three two zone does a very good job of guarding the three point line, but has some vulnerabilities on the back line simply because there are two players that are responsible for both the paint and the corners. And in many cases, also coming up a little bit to the elbows. And so with that being the case, there's just not as much manpower or accommodating the back line. With the two three zone fundamentally different. You've got a guy who's just pretty much sitting back there in Nicola Yokic.

And the four guys around them are, you know, sinking in and jutting back out. But they're there in a position where four guys are covering all that space on the three point line. And so there are open threes that are available against the zone. But one of the things that can be a problem against the zone is when you just start taking the first decent looking three that you get your eyes on. And what happens there is it will disrupt the rhythm of your offense. And all of a sudden, your possessions are quick and they don't really have any flow to them. And a missed three can be kind of disheartening as you head back down the other way. And I thought Jay Billis did an awesome job kind of breaking this down on the broadcast.

But one of the things that the Thunder started to do a much better job of in the late third quarter was just getting some natural rhythm within their two, three zone attack. So essentially getting the ball from side to side. they would like screen the top swing screen the top drive into the gap swing to the wing then like back screen for somebody swing swing back to the opposite side of the floor the ball was popping around and they were able to generate

some natural rhythm from a zone possession that is typically not there the way you would see it in a man possession and a man possession you run the same actions you've been running all season it's the same reeds that you've been seeing all season there are only you know three or four different types of coverages that you're going to see and you kind of know what to expect in all those situations against his own. It's very different. You have to find a way to be comfortable. And this is where I have to shout out Oklahoma City's bench guys because they

desperately needed somebody to start knocking down shots there in that second half. And Aaron Wiggins and Kayson Wallace in that late third quarter got the lid off of the rim. And that ended up being enough for the entire team to just kind of relax a little bit and start making some plays. Between Kayson, Aaron Wiggins and Alex Crusoe, those guys hit eight threes and fours and four. 14 attempts and every single one of them was vitally important for this thunder team. And then, you know, as bad as J. Dub and Shea were for the majority of the, of this game, they each made some big plays in that fourth quarter stretch. J. Dub had a nice ball screen against the zone where he got into the middle of the paint and threw a lob to Hardinstein. That was the play where Peyton

Watson tried to block him and he got the and one. J. Dub had a nice driving layup off the left wing late. She had a driving layup. There was a fun sequence where the lead was at three off of a thunder bucket. Mark Dagenal calls a timeout, comes out of the timeout with a ton of back court ball pressure, forces a five second out of bounds call. Ball goes back to OKC. They inbound to Shea and Shea just goes right to his right shoulder fade away and finally gets one to go over his right shoulder that pushes the lead to five.

And at that point, like the entire psychology, the game shifted. so heavily towards OKC. It felt like it was beyond Denver's grasp. So for as bad as those guys were offensively, they did make a couple of big plays late in the game and they needed every single one of them. But I want to highlight the defense because obviously if you hold a team to eight points in the opening quarter,

as we had the lowest scoring first quarter in NBA playoff history, or at least tied for it, but then also holding them to 18 in the fourth quarter after giving up that 33 point third quarter. And there's several different elements that I want. want to zoom in on. First of all, Caseaw Wallace, I thought, did an amazing job on Jamal Murray in the first half in particular. He didn't get as much of an opportunity to work on him in the third quarter run when Denver's offense started to get going. But in that first half, he was downright

disruptive to Jamal, especially in that first quarter as Oklahoma City built their initial lead. And then all, like every opportunity that he had, he just did a little bit better job navigating screens. I thought Jamal was able to get a little bit more separation from Lou on some of those screening actions than he was from Kaysan. Kaysan's just so good at navigating those screen situations. And then this is where I want to turn to Isaiah Hartinstein because, you know, there were many reasons why the Thunder went after Isaiah Hartnstein. He kind of landed into a specific gap in their payroll where their younger players weren't going to have to get paid for a few years so they could afford to throw a bunch of money at a starting caliber NBA center that was going to cost a lot,

but not have to worry about it handcuffing their ability to build a roster around their stars in the future. And the actual utility of Hartnstein was the ability to play a too big look with Chet Holmgren at the four. But I bet you if you got into the year of that front office, they would tell you it was mostly about the Yokic matchup. And here's the thing. We're going to talk about Yokich in a bigger picture context because I think Yokic is kind of fumbling the bag here a little bit. But Isaiah Hartensinstein's doing a really good job. There's a couple of key things. Did you guys notice on some of those jab step sequences that Yokic is putting on him?

He's not going for the jab step and he's sitting on that right shoulder. So basically he's opening up his stance and conceding the drive because he knows he has all sorts of help on the back line. And he's just getting his left foot almost like up where Yokic's right foot is to the point where he's just sitting on that right shoulder. So Yokic can't get the separation on his jab step to try to get a clean look from three. he's just driving to the left right into the teeth of the defense. And the other thing too is like Yokic will go to his left hand with his short range shot making. But as Isaiah is riding that right shoulder all the way into the lane,

it's having a substantial effect disrupting Yokic's short range shot making. He's not, he's having to power through Hartinstein with that right shoulder just to get to that little floater, that hook shot somewhere in the lane. And Hartnstein is just doing a great job. It's, again, part of it is Nicole Yokic and him just going through one of the most bizarre shooting slumps I've seen from him in a very long time. He's not even making free throws right now. But at the very least, Isaiah is doing the job of making life more difficult on Nicola Yokic. And then all of the guys around that making plays, Alex Cruz, I think, has been particularly important for them on the defensive rebounding.

This was another thing that Jay Billis called out in the broadcast that I thought was really smart. Jay is doing a great job, by the way. coming over from college basketball completely agenda-free and just doing some high-quality MBA analysis. But he was talking about Alex Crusoe tap-out rebounds. And, you know, when you get into these offensive rebounding situations, Yokic is like leaning on a person. And the upside of him leaning on a person is he can, you know,

shove that person down and create a rebounding angle. But it makes it so that Yolkich can't really jump. And so in those situations, they call it crackdown rebound. It's super important for the guys on the outside to come, flying in and to tap at the ball to prevent it from falling into the offensive rebounders hands when he's got great position like that. I thought Alex Caruso had several of those sequences where he came flying in and knocked the ball away. He had like all these like just little tiny plays that made a huge difference. Like, oh, big transition sequence. The nuggets are on a run.

Jamal Murray goes for behind the back dribble. He just reaches in there and pokes it out or like, uh, did did a similar thing to Russell Westbrook forcing a turnover earlier in the game. There's just a lot activity down the roster as they just kind of play Denver into a lot of their mistakes. Like the whole thing with Oklahoma City is like, you guys see it. There was a possession where Aaron Gordon was dribbling up the right wing. And he ended up drawing a foul. But like you could see like whenever there's a big guy for Denver dribbling up the floor, you literally just see all the OKC guards just swarm them because their whole style is predicated on just forcing you to make mistakes by rushing you and getting you to not be disciplined with your decision making and like you're

protecting the ball and finding passing angles when you're just trying to get into your offense. Like, oh, you're sloppy here. We're going to take the ball away. You're sloppy there. We're going to cause a problem. Michael Porter Jr. wide open on a baseline cut late and get set up right in front of the basket, but he's just rushing because of how Oklahoma City's defense can speed you up. And I think like in a lot of ways, like we can talk all we want about Oklahoma the city's offense and I think most of the criticism of Oklahoma City's offense that you've seen throughout the year has been kind of proven correct in a lot of ways in this series. But their defense is one of the greats. And, you know, I was talking with Jackson before we got on

on the live here. There was, there was like a dynamic at play in game one where it felt like Denver was physically dominating them. I've shared some clips in the film session of Yokic just like literally like a man amongst boys on the back line just getting every single rebound that he wanted. And they did 21 offensive rebounds in game one to just 13 for Oklahoma City. But as we go down the line after that, game two, Oklahoma City held up better. They held Denver to just 13 offensive rebounds. And then in game three and in game four, they actually out rebounded Denver on the offensive glass. 18 to 5 in offensive rebounds in game three. And then once again today out rebounding Denver. to 49 overall 15 to 12 on the offensive glass.

And I think there's several dynamics there because it's not, it's ball pursuit because again, we talked about those crackdown rebounds. There's a lot of opportunities where the ball's coming long off the rim and OKC's just faster to the ball. And then also just OKC's pressure and their athleticism, it wears you down. And for all to talk about Denver's home court advantage and the way it can wear people down, like Oklahoma City's athleticism wears you down. And you can literally see Denver losing some of the.

the physical battles that they typically win because they're just overwhelmed by the intensity and the physicality that Oklahoma City brings to the table. On the Denver front, I want to kind of focus on Nicole Yokic for a minute because, you know, we can nitpick certain things like Russell Westbrook had a really rough night tonight. He was minus 20 and 27 minutes. That's brutal. Two for nine from three, two for 12 overall missed a airballed a wide open three in the left corner. That could have given them a lead late in the game. Just didn't bring that offensive pop that he brought earlier in the series. You could talk about, you know,

Jamal Murray not being as reliable as a shot maker as you need. You can talk about Michael Porter Jr. Going one for seven, 0 for five from three. I thought he missed a couple of key rebounds, where he just was sloppy with the ball in case on Waus would just come in and knock the ball away from it. We talked about him smoking that wide open layup opportunity and transition.

Here's the thing, though. When I look at those guys, they're not an advantageous situation against Oklahoma City. When we talk about Oklahoma City and their roster, they're flat out better than Denver. They're like flat out better in terms of just talent than Denver. They are way more athletic. I don't like Jamal Murray's getting hounded by Alex Caruso and Lou Dort

the entire series like Russell Westbrook is not dealing with the same athletic advantages he has in other matchups. Michael Porter Jr. in general has struggled against peak level athletes. like I don't view those guys as capable of solving this problem. But I think Nicole Yokic is the best basketball player in the world. And I hold him to an extremely high standard as a result of that. And he does have favorable matchups. I think Isaiah Hardinstein's a good defender.

And I think he's done a good job on Yokic. But he's still getting to all the same types of little bits of short range and long range shot making that he's had access to over the course of his entire prime. here and he's just missing everything. He's missing all of his threes. He's missing all of his mid-range shot making that little jab step mid-range face-up jump shot that Hartinstein's been given him all series. He just literally can't make it. He's not making any of his like sombor shuffle shots or any of his turnarounds over either shoulder out of the post. He's even if he unfloaters when he gets into that range here. He's missing layups right at the front of the rim. His shot making has been absolutely brutal.

seven for 22 today. He goes in game three. In game three is eight for 25. And then I think he was six for 16 in game two. If I remember correctly, I'm pulling it up real quick. And then he goes six for 16 in game two. This is three games in a row where Yoko's shot making is just not there. I was talking with Jackson before we went live.

It actually reminds me this series. And the series isn't over, obviously. But it reminds me a lot of the, Cleveland Golden State series in 2015, where now it's different because for Cleveland, it was because of injuries. For Oklahoma City, it's because they're just, you know, one of the more talented rosters in the league. But there's a clear talent gap, right?

But LeBron at that phase in his career, I, you know, I know, I know Steph fans are inclined to disagree, but I thought LeBron was clearly the best player in the series. I think Yokic is clearly the best player in this series. And I thought it was gettable. When I go back and I think about 2015, I thought it was getable. But the thing is, is that that one season, that 2015 season was the one time in that stretch from like 2012 to 2020 when LeBron was the best player in the world where he just couldn't shoot. That was the year LeBron couldn't shoot. And I feel like if you literally just take 2016 LeBron and put him in that series, they win the championship.

But it was like kind of just a missed opportunity. LeBron was still the best player. And he still, you know, because Steph was struggling his ass off in that series too, but he's still the best player. he's still making all these plays and he's still doing all these good things, but just that little bit of shot making wasn't there, and it was just the difference between them closing that deal and them not closing that deal. And that's literally how I feel about Nicole Yokic in this series.

Oklahoma City's better. They're substantially favored. They should be favored because of the talent advantage. But here we are, Oklahoma City's struggling a little bit under the pressure and intensity of the moment, just like Golden State did in that final series. and Nicole Yokic has the ability to snatch this series. It's sitting there right in front of him and he can't make a shot.

And it's just weird. It's just weird to be in this kind of situation again where it just feels like you've got the best player in the world just kind of missing such a vitally important part of his game. And it kind of feels like the difference. Like I don't know about you guys. I feel like the difference between Denver being up, not just up 3-1, but having one easily in game 3 and game 4

is just Yokic making shots. and he can't make shots. And that's it, like I've, I've heard people talking about Shay and J-Dub and Shane and J-Dub were bad today. Here's the thing, guys. I've, I've never used the phrase, Shea-Shege Alexander's best player in the world. I don't, I don't think Shea's that level of player.

I think Yokch is better than him. I hold him to a different standard. I view Yokic as a guy who's rapidly ascending the all-time great players in NBA history list. I'm holding him to a different standard. And I feel like this was a series Denver could have won. and Yokic's inability to make anything outside of the paint or really anything outside of three feet in front of the basket

has been such a huge difference in their ability to contend in these games. And now it feels really tough. Like I don't know. The athleticism is really starting to wear on Denver. And I just don't feel confident in their ability to go win a game again in Oklahoma City, especially when you really zoom out from this series. And it's felt it's felt like Oklahoma City's been in control for the most part outside of these clutch situations.

And here we were in another clutch situation tonight. And Yokic couldn't make a shot. And Shay and J. Dubb made shots and role players made shots. And here, Oklahoma City is tying the series. So I think Oklahoma City should be a substantial favorite now. While we're taking questions, we'll look at draft kings and see how the odds have moved. But I would assume Oklahoma City is like minus 500 to win the series or somewhere in that department now. Hey, it's us to Jonas Brothers.

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Let's do a good 15, 20 minutes of questions, and then we'll head over to playback. Let's do it. Let's do it. First question about Yokic in his offensive struggles. Yokic has zero touch right now. Are you seeing anything that could explain that? Is he hurt? How does he just lose his touch, especially from such close range, something you've talked about him and almost being up until this point sort of slump proof because of how many shots he gets so close to? By the way, Oklahoma City is minus 550 to win the series now and that crazy. Kings. So, you know, Jackson, I'm sure you'll agree with me on this, but like any of you guys out there that play a good amount of basketball know that like shooting is a fickle thing in general. You can pretty much, even the greatest shooters of all time, you can go into their game logs and

you can find three, four game long stretches where they can't make a shot. And the reason why is because it's like the best shooters in the world miss more than half of their shots. So if you're going to miss more than half of your shots, it's like you can do everything right and it's probably not going to go in. And so that ends up leading to like kind of a mental dynamic. The bigger one I'm seeing is Yokic is long on everything. Like everything's off the heel of the rim. And so his touch is just off right now. I think he's in his head about it. It gets to the point where like when I saw him missing those free throws and like literally missing like his easy little like touch shots right three, four, five feet in front of the rim, to me, I just think he's got like,

I think it's like in Yip's territory. Like he just has lost. confidence in his ability to knock down shots and it's become a huge problem. Yeah, it's really bizarre to watch. I can't. I mean, the free throws, it's everything. He really cannot, all three levels, he is struggling to make shots and I have not, I cannot remember seeing a time that he's struggled so consistently. It's very bizarre to watch.

Yeah, I'm going to try to, I'm going to try to see if Synergy's updated a shot making numbers and I'll let you guys know once I see him. All right. Next question. Do you feel like SGA and Yokic are dropping their best in the world status? I feel like considering how they're both struggling to score so much right now that Yannis has a real argument at the moment. Janice hasn't won a playoff series since 2022.

So I don't think anyone's going to be moving Janus up the list. Here's the thing. I still think Yokic has been very good in this series in every way other than shot making. He's been a little bit sloppy with the basketball. He's had some turnovers, but he wasn't as bad today as he was in game three in game two. But like Yokic actually has played phenomenally well defense. in the series. I want to give him some credit for that. I, to me, there isn't a, there isn't a player out there who's clearly playing at a level higher than what I've

seen Yokich be at in the past. It's just, Yokic right now is underachieving to his relative ceiling. But I think, I don't know about you, Jackson. I still think he's the best part in the world, don't you? I do too. And I also think that maybe I'm giving too much lee to the superstars. But there's a lot of superstars. Yeah, that's a good point. Because the The physicality in the playoffs is, I think, pretty inarguably, a level up from the past years of the playoffs, obviously from the regular season. And I think even definitely compared to the last couple years of the playoffs, which isn't an excuse to let's say, oh, they can just play bad. But it's, it's fair to point out that Tatum is shooting poorly, SGA is shooting poorly, Yokic is shooting poorly. Steph has had some good games.

He's also had some really bad shooting performances. A lot of stars are shooting the ball poorly. Well, and the thing that's specifically frustrating about it with Yokic is like, we've talked about this specific. concept before. Like I, one of the reasons why I've gravitated towards bigger, stronger power players in the postseason over the years, uh, is because of the fact that they have a certain resilience in rock fights. But the problem is, is like, Yokic's superpower, which is the ability to like, oh, I can battle to close to the rim where variance isn't an issue. He's shooting, like, he's literally not making anything right at the front of the rim. So like it's, it's, it's,

I don't necessarily, it's really hard for me to process this because it's just so unusual compared to the rest of his career. But like this is supposed to be the one type of basketball that Yokic is impervious to unlike the other stars in the league. And so that's where it's discouraging. Even Yonis over the years has struggled as like a half court surgeon in rock fight environments. But like Yokic hasn't. And like this is just the first substantial stretch where he has. And so I want again, I want to give. okay seek credit. They're doing a great job swarming him. Hartenstein's doing a good job.

But I think a good chunk of this is just, Yokic is just playing well below his capability. Yeah. Speaking of playing below his capability, another question, SGA with another bad shooting game in the playoffs, can we hold him to the same standard that we hold players like Jason Tatum to? I, here's the thing with with Shea. Like once again, like I, you know, I have my feelings about who Shea is and what he's capable of. But Shea, me is kind of still in this like phase of player ranking where I don't it's all theoretically

because it hasn't come to fruition in the playoff stage. But like the criticism is absolutely fair. And we, I mean, I don't know about you like Jackson, we've been criticizing him through this entire series. I feel like he's pretty consistently at the end of these games kind of resulted to high ISO's. I thought he made some better plays against the zone in the final 15 minutes or so of this game. The big thing that he's running into is like there'll be these sequences where like Denver will get going and they'll hit a couple shots in a row and he'll just come down and take a contested 15 footer and it'll brick and then it'll be like it'll just feel like a punch to the gut for okayc's offense and then in that late third quarter stretch like he straight up like for

like seven straight minutes of game clock just like wouldn't shoot like he just was dribbling the ball before and just throwing swing passes and so it's like okay the no one's saying that you shouldn't shoot at all against the zone we're just saying that you need to function as like the thing that gets the zone moving. And so once, once him and J. Dubb started actually looking to get the ball into the middle of the floor to pass instead of get the ball into the middle of the floor to shoot, they started to have the ball pop around some more and have some of those better sequences. But the other thing, too, is like you want to let the series play out. Like there's a, you know, they still ought to win two more games and we'll see how Shea looks at that point. And there's

more series in the future for them. But this is the first playoff run in Shea's entire. career where they are legitimately the championship favorites and all the pressure is on them. And so far through the seven games or eight games, he hasn't been very good, but there's still plenty of basketball left for him to figure it out. And here they are. They're two, two. They still have a very good chance to win the series. And so similarly with Jason Tatum, like, he deserves criticism for the way that he played during the two games as they dropped down 02. But the opportunity is still in front of him to claw out of this. And all we're going to do is just cover it game to game. She's been pretty bad. I thought he was pretty bad again tonight. I thought he made a couple

of huge plays late in this game, which we're going to credit when it happens. And if he breaks out and starts playing amazing, we'll then start discussing it in that context. But we're all just taking this game to game. We're writing this story as it goes. Yeah, it's sort of the nature, the challenging nature of the playoffs is how easy it is to overreact from game to game basis. Like, you're so right that this series feels like one that is going to go seven. It certainly, I mean, it's guaranteed to go six. It feels like it's going to go seven, which means we are barely over half of the games played.

So one of these two stars who's been struggling, Yokoja, SGA, maybe we end up with, you know, four consecutive rock fights to end the series. It's possible. But I would assume that one of the two superstars is going to elevate their play and start making some shots and we'll have to rewrite the way where,

whichever guy, it ends up being, we're going to have to rewrite the story in real time. Absolutely. Like, it's the, my whole thing is like just be consistent with it. Like I think where we,

go go into some dangerous territory is when you criticize a guy when he sucks and then don't bring it up at all when he plays well or vice versa. And like that's the thing. Like I have routinely come on the show and said that I personally have never watched an offensive basketball player that generates offense easier than Nicole Yokic. Like I think he's the best offensive player I've ever watched.

He's stunk it up the last three games and it's been a problem. Like Denver scored 87 points today. Like that's not good enough for a guy that I consider to be the best offensive player that I've ever seen. And so like that that's really my whole thing that I'll try to do is just try to be as consistent as possible and try very hard to not let, you know, my personal biases get in the way even though they naturally will to a certain extent. Next question. We'll take a couple more. How does Jalen Williams get out of his slump? It feels like when he's

playing his best, nobody in the West can compete with the Thunder. I don't even know if he's that big of a slump. He had a pretty decent game last year. Yeah, he was he was amazing in game three, um, outside of overtime really. And I don't even blame him for going off. rails and regulation because Shay just kind of looked him off and co-opted those final couple possessions. But like as far as as today goes, like it was like a steady die at a zone. Let me actually pull up the numbers. I bet you, I bet you they ran zone 50 possessions today. But it just, zone is such a different responsibility. Zone shifts the responsibility almost entirely to catch and shoot playing,

players and not, they ran 45 possessions of zone today, 45 possessions. And Denver got, or Oklahoma City got just 0.78 points per possession. But it really just comes down to like those guys at the point of attack, just getting the ball moving. Whereas in man-to-man situations, it's very much about like setting people up for like play-finishing situations and looking to score. But like if you try to score on the ball against the zone,

you're going to have problems. But OKC to their credit, 10 possessions of zone in the fourth quarter, they did get one point per possession in the fourth quarter. So they did slowly start to figure it out over the course. the game. Let's do one more question and then we'll go over to playback. Prentice is not just about OKC. What is the best scheme throughout the NBA that you have seen at guarding Yokic in his career? And if a, and if you had to make a plan for a singular game, a game seven against Nicola Yokic, how would you try and go? So I think Oklahoma City has shown a

really strong example of how a too big look can work. And if Denver were to have won this series, which I don't think they will anymore. I think Minnesota would have similar capability to do this, and they've shown it over the years. But the problem is when you put a smaller forward, so like let's talk, like with the Lakers series, it was always Ruby Hachemura, someone like that, right? If you put a Ruby Hachemura on Nicole Yokic

and you have Anthony Davis behind him, you have the rim protection piece, but it's just so easy for Yokic to get to, short-range shot making against Rui because he's so much bigger than Rui. And so what he can do is he can just kind of bump Rui and get to like little short seven-foot shots over both shoulders and he's going to make him 65% of the time. The uniqueness of the Chet-Hartinstein partnership is Chet provides the vertical length that you get from a center on the back line.

But Isaiah Hartenstein provides the trunky like strength. that you get from a center. And so it's basically like a literal to center look, where instead of it being Rui that's funneling you into Anthony Davis, it's Isaiah Hartnstein playing Yokic's right hand. So basically forcing him to drive. So Yokic can't even get to higher quality short range looks, and they're funneling him into Chet, who's got the length on the back line. And so I think they just kind of uniquely have the personnel to put a big, strong player on Yokic that is not, you know, six, nine, but is rather seven feet, but then also having real length behind him. And then

they're swarming and closing out really well. But I still think Yokic should be able to solve this Hartnstein problem and he needs to just do a better job. And most of it just comes down to his jump shots, not going in at all. But I do think that's like the thing that is specifically different is just Hartenstein being so big, but also having a center behind him. All right, guys, that's all we have for today on the YouTube Live. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We're going to go over to Playback and hang out for a little bit. I will see you guys there again. That's playback. Dot TV slash hoops tonight. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and

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