The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Suns-Timberwolves Predictions: Why Kevin Durant & Phoenix will take down Minnesota

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

Jason Timpf shares his predictions for Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and the Phoenix Suns' matchup with Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves in the opening round of the NBA Playoffs. Jason previews the biggest factors, breaks down film from previous Phoenix-Minnesota games, and picks a winner for the series. Later, Jason shares his thoughts on Paolo Banchero and the Orlando Magic's matchup with Donovan Mitchell's Cleveland Cavaliers and discusses playoff scenarios for LeBron James' Los Angeles Lakers during an NBA Mailbag segment. Timeline (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements): 04:00 - Introduction 07:52 - Suns-Timberwolves Predictions 28:14 - Suns-Wolves Film Breakdown 01:11:33 - Magic-Cavs Predictions 01:18:57 - NBA Mailbag #Volume #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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To give you guys a quick breakdown of how this show and the rest of the week is going to go, we're doing two series previews today. We're hitting Suns Timberwolves. Those are two teams that are very high up in my contender list. So we're going to do a deep dive into that series. We're also going to do a film study at the end of that that is 45 clips long. So we're going to get a lot of really good film. Thankfully, we get to watch those two teams play in basically a must-win game for both teams yesterday,

which gives us a really good kind of like a set of sample of basketball to look at in terms of evaluating both teams. After that, the second series we're going to cover is Cavs Magic. Not going to go as deep into that one just because those are two teams that I don't think either of them are legitimate championship contenders, but I'll give you guys my initial thoughts on that series. We have a mailbag with four questions at the end of this show, including a little bit of a conversation around the playing tournament tonight in the Los Angeles Lakers. And giving you guys the rest of the week, we're going to do Bucks Pacers tomorrow during the morning portion of the day. As a whole series preview, we'll have film for that one.

Then tomorrow night, we're going to have an instant reaction to Lakers Pelicans and a live on YouTube show after Kings Warriors. So we've got that going. We're going to have live shows after the playing tournament the rest of the week, as well as more series previews as the matchups actually get finalized. and then we'll get into our playoff kind of routine starting on Saturday. But today you can expect Suns Wolves and Magic Cavs,

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use code hoops for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account in our team code hoops. That's H-O-O-P-S for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So just a heads up so that you guys know, obviously we're doing the film stuff. But for our podcast audience, I'm always going to do the audio-only portion first. And then we're going to get into the film. So if you want film examples, those will be coming later on, just kind of kind of talk through the series to start with for our podcast audience. So Suns Timberwolves, the Sons won the season series three to zero. They dominated every single game. They led by 11

entering the fourth quarter yesterday. They led by 16 entering the fourth quarter on April 5th. And they led by 28 entering the fourth quarter on November 15th. It's been an ass kicking every single time. These two teams have played each other this year. The Sons have a plus 15.6 net rating in this matchup. They've scored at will. They have a 124 offensive rating and they've locked them up on the other end, holding the wolves to a 108 offensive rating when they have the ball. In the series, Anthony Edwards is averaging just 14.3 points per game on 31% from the field and 27% from three. This is something that Frank Vogel, I think, deserves a lot of credit. for he understands the strengths and weaknesses of Minnesota's two best shot creators and plays

coverages that bait both of them into the weaker parts of their games. We're going to break that down in great detail. But the short version is on the ant front, Ant is seeing tons of high drop and digging down into driving lanes and double teams. And they're trying to take advantage of his limitations as a playmaker. And to this point in the season, it has worked. Phoenix has utterly dominated them. Gambling, though, according to draft kings, Phoenix is only a minus 115 favorite. In fact, if you want to bet on Minnesota, the odds are only minus 105. So they view it as more or less of a coin flip type of series. So let's dig into some of the specific dynamics we can expect. So Minnesota on offense,

we're looking at Phoenix on defense, Minnesota on offense to start this breakdown. So the son started with Grace and Allen on Mike Conley. They started with Bradley be a lot, Anthony. We're just trying to match his athleticism as best as they can. Devin Booker on Jaden McDaniels, often offering a lot of help. And then Kevin Durant on Carl Towns and Yusuf Nurkich on Rudy Gobert. Now, in terms of the coverages, anytime Carl, anytime time Carl Towns is actually setting the screen, they're switching it. And then basically what they're doing is they're switching. And if a guard runs down to the post, let's say cat takes that guard down to the post, they're having that guard front the post and force an over

the top pass and then they're bringing weak side help to kind of make that more difficult. And should Carl Towns actually catch the ball in the post, they're basically immediately double teaming him. And the sons have done a really nice job on Carl Towns double teams, rotating out of it and not giving up any sort of real opening. And again, I'm going to have plenty of film examples of that when we get to the film portion of the show. If Rudy Gobert sets a screen and Anthony Edwards has the ball, they're coming up with a high drop. They're bringing NERCITs way up to the level of the screen, and then essentially they're tagging the roller from the weak side,

leaving that skip pass open. And so essentially trying to make Ant beat those ball screens with playmaking, even when UBanks is in the game. So the difference between UBanks and Nerkich, with Nurtch, they high drop. With UBanks, they head, it's more of a hedge. Now, they're two very similar things. The concept involves coming up to the level no matter what.

The difference between a hedge and a high drop is like a high drop. You're more kind of squared up with the offensive player. On a hedge, you're actually coming out to almost like perpendicular their driving lane and try to cut the driving lane off before you rotate back. But they're basically hedging with Eubanks really hard on the Anthony Edwards screens. And then they're offering like kind of like a fake hedge, like kind of like a little stunt when he's going against Conley. And that's the big difference.

All of a sudden when Conley has the ball with Gobert setting his shirt, screen. All of a sudden, Nurkich is running a deep drop. He's sitting way back in the lane, waiting for Conley to kind of funnel into him. Same thing with UBanks. When UBanks is on the floor, his hedge, he's not coming nearly as far out. It's kind of like a token like stunt of a hedge before he drops back. And so Frank Vogel has made it very clear. He wants to force Mike Conley to score the basketball, and he wants to force Anthony Edwards to beat them with the pass. And that that game plan has worked wonderfully against Minnesota in this particular matchup. Mike Conley, for instance, and this, it's like, so to give you an idea, we've talked about Anthony

Edwards is 22 years old, score first type of guy, struggles with playmaking, although he's had his moments this year. He's in the, Anthony Edwards is in the phase of his career now where he's starting to see the stuff. And when he does make these reads, he can get into a groove as a playmaker where he makes a lot of really good things happen. But his natural inclination is to fall back into trying to solve problems as a score. And so essentially, like in the aggregate, in the large sample, he's not a good playmaker, even though he's shown some strides this year to make a long story short. Mike Conley, it's the exact opposite type of issue. Always has been a guy who can make the reads and can pick teams apart with the past, but at this phase of his career is very

passive as a score. Even really throughout his entire career, even when he was at his best, he could score the basketball at a high level, but his natural inclination is point guard. He is one of the few remaining traditional point guards that we have in this league. Mike Conley is a super efficient pull-up jump shooter. He gets 1.27 points per pull-up jump shot. That is the best in the league among a lower volume mark. He has not attempted over 300, which is like my kind of baseline for high-volume pull-up three-point or pull-up shooting. For among the players that have taken at least 200, though, Mike Conley is number one in the entire league. But he only takes about three per game. Anthony Edwards takes nine pull-up jump shots per game. So you can see how that works out.

Ant's coming off these ball screens. He wants to shoot that pull-up three. They're taking it away with Nurkich and trying to force him to beat it with the pass. Nurkich being up there also is dissuading some of the quick driving angles that he can get coming off those screens. Mike Conley, they're sagging off of him and kind of giving him that shot because they know he'll only take it if he's really, really open and gets a ton of separation, right? And so essentially trying to bait Conley into passing on open shots and trying to bait Ant into shooting bad contested shots instead of beating the coverages with the pass. So for instance, yesterday and yesterday's game, Anthony Edwards only took seven shots. Only took seven shots in a must-win game because the Suns consistently got

the ball out of his hands by bringing extra attention over. Mike Conley got much more passive coverages that tried to bait him into scoring and he only took seven shots. So you can kind of see what I'm getting at there. Mike Conley was five for seven, super efficient, but ultimately ineffective because he's not aggressive enough. So the keys for Phoenix, when Minnesota has the ball, has the ball, I like these coverages and I think they're the right way to go. Keeping your hands active.

We're going to see this in the film, but KD and Yusuf Nerkich, active hands, getting deflections. That's a big part of what Phoenix does. does defensively. Chasing over the top on Conley, this is going to be on Grayson Allen, applying that back pressure and funneling him inside, at least making those pull-up jump shots when he does take them more difficult. On the Minnesota side of things, Ant has to make the reads. End of story. He just has to be able to beat this coverage with the pass. It's the proper way to beat it. And if he does, things will open up for him as a score,

but he's got to approach it as a playmaker first. The openings are there, too. I'll show you guys on film. Also, using Carl Towns to attack smaller guards and draw double teams to play advantage basketball, they didn't get a ton of great stuff out of cap double teams in this game, but they got to figure out a way to do so. There were some closeout opportunities on the weak side of the floor, though. So if they do it early in the possession, get the ball reversed, attack a closeout, they can play in rotation, and that'll keep Ant and everybody else from having to go up against Phoenix's set loaded up defense. And then lastly, run more set action to get Phoenix in rotation. So again, if you're just going to run ball screens, given those coverages we talked about,

it's going to be hard for them to score. But if they run more action, meaning like running horn sets and multiple interchanges on the same possession to get the defense out of their set configuration, they'll have a better chance looking to attack. Looking on the other side of the ball, Phoenix on offense. We're going to probably get Jada McDaniels on Devin Booker. It's going to be Anthony Edwards on Kevin Durant. The matchups are pretty straightforward for this game, this series, because we literally just saw them play in a game they both needed to win. So we got a good indicator of where both kind of coaching staffs see their teams matching up at this point. Anthony Edwards guarded Durant to start the game, Mike Conley on Bradley Beale.

That's the key matchup for Phoenix. That was an advantage. Carl Towns on Grayson Allen, so you're putting your big power forward chasing around their best off-ball shooter. Excellent close-out opportunities for Grace in there. And lastly, Rudy Gobert on Yusuf Nurkich. They also run a high drop with a tag. Occasionally go bare when he gets caught up elsewhere and the ball gets reversed to the other side. He'll run more of a deep drop.

Like if he's in a position where he can't get up to the level, he'll run his deep drop. But for the most part, they're running high drop. The big specific thing that they do too is in general, they're digging down to the nail. They're helping a lot. We're going to talk a lot about this because I want Minnesota to stay home as much as possible. That's going to be a huge swing factor in this series. Phoenix has a 67.2 percent. assist percentage in this matchup.

For perspective, last year, that number was 57% for Phoenix in the postseason. So, and again, that's just the percentage of your field goals that are assisted. So essentially, right now in this particular matchup, the Sons are playing a lot more driving kick and getting a lot more easy shots off of assists in this matchup than they did in the postseason last year. By the way, for the season, the Sons have been better with that. Last year, 57% in the postseason, you can't really look at the regular season. in numbers because of the late season KD trade. But in this regular season, they were at about 64% in assist percentage.

So there's been a season-long trend for Phoenix, and it's a big part of why I'm so high on them. Like when they play the right way, advantage basketball, which we're going to talk about here in the film session, when they play that way, they're really hard to guard. And it's very different than the Phoenix offense that we saw last year in the postseason. And so beating that high drop coverage in those dig downs involves those weak side offensive players driving closeouts and getting high quality opportunities. I'm not going to try to explain that any further because we have such great film examples.

I'll show you guys here in a little bit. But that's a big part of why Phoenix has a 124 offensive rating in this matchup. That's the best defense in the league and Phoenix has consistently lit them up because they can get them in rotation. It doesn't matter if Rudy Gobert is waiting at the rim to start the possession if Rudy Gobert has to close out at a three-point shooter. As soon as Gobert closes out of the three-point shooter, you beat him off the dribble. There's no longer the type of rim protection waiting on the backside that you're accustomed to when you play against their set defense.

So get him in rotation, play driving kickball. They're in good shape there. Mike Connolly really struggles to guard Bradley Beal. He can get to his spots close to the rim, and then he can really easily just shoot little short turnaround jump shots over the top of him. Nikiel Alexander Walker did better on Bradley Beal than Conley did, but he didn't do that much better. Bradley Beal still looked pretty comfortable. The key is off ball defense for Minnesota.

If they can defend ball screens two on two and ISOs and postups one-on-one, I think they have a good chance to slow Phoenix down because Devin Booker and Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant can make tough pull-up jump shots over Jaden McDaniels and these guys. But I think in the aggregate over a series that would work out in Minnesota's favor. A great example of this is the actual shot result in last night's game. Last night, did you feel as a Minnesota fan that Phoenix shot the lights out? They did. But it was almost all in catch and shoot jump shots.

They got 37 points on 21 catch and shoot jump shots. It's 1.76 points per shot. But on pull-up jumpers, they only got 27 points on 28 shots. That's 0.96 points per pull-up jump shots. So when they actually made the Sons make tough over-the-top jump shots, that dynamic worked in Minnesota's favor. It was when they got in rotation and gave up those catch and shoot threes that they ran into trouble. And so that's going to be a big key for Minnesota in this series, not helping, not digging down too much,

not tagging too far on the roller, just surviving, getting picked apart by the kind of like spread out type of actions that Phoenix runs. Phoenix does try to fight against this issue with three-man actions. And we're going to get into this when we get into the film. but like Minnesota does try to defend two on two whenever they can. The problem is is Phoenix will bring a third guy into that interchange, and then they'll just wait for somebody to make a mistake, and that will be the close-out opportunity. And as long as that first guy beats his man off the dribble,

then from there they're in rotation no matter what coverage you're in, right? And so we'll see some examples, but they'll have like, they'll either set a ball screen on both sides, or they'll set like a staggered pick and roll, or like a lot of times, like they'll have NERCITCH ready at the top the key to set the screen, but they'll have like Royce O'Neill or Grace and Allen go out and set a screen out by like half court to try to get Jada McDaniels into a trail position so that Gobert has to show harder so that Nerkich is more open on the roller so that he brings the tag

over farther, right? So like those are the kinds of ways that Phoenix tries to prevent Minnesota from staying home off the ball is by using those three-man actions. So keys for both teams when Phoenix has the ball, again, for Phoenix being diligent about getting them into rotation, and staying out of their worst tendencies, which is early clock pull-up jump shots. You'll see some examples when we get to the film. They should take those pull-up jump shots as coverage beaters when they have great separation,

meaning like if you're ISOing, like there's a player, Kevin Durant's is isoing Carl Towns. Carl Towns is backpedaling on the ISO. Katie's got to take the pull-up jumper there. And he did, and he just kind of mishandled the ball a little bit, and he missed it. But like, it's a good look. That's a shot that you want, right?

There was a play early in the game where Devin Booker got a really good screen. from Nurkich got good separation from jade McDaniels. Gobert was too far back. It was like a good look at a pull-up three. That's the one you take. There were plenty of shots from both guys, though, that I did not think were good shots, and that kind of played into Minnesota's strength.

So shot selection is going to be a big one for Phoenix. On Minnesota, stay home off the ball. You'll give up buckets, but most likely not enough to beat you when you have the level of perimeter defenders that you have. Two, communicating coverages in three-man actions to prevent opening. So talking, especially through your swing,

which is to make sure that you don't make those mistakes when Phoenix runs those three-man actions. Early guard screens, this is going to be on Jane McDaniels, has to watch out for those little quick little brush screens that they set out at half court and make sure he stays attached over the top. One other thing for Minnesota to try, we know that Phoenix has a weakness with handling from time to time with blitzing. So like when teams get really aggressive on the ball, like hardcore blitz, hands up,

trying to get deflections, jumping, passing, lanes, you can turn Phoenix over and you can get out in transition. That's a huge part of, of, of, of, of, of, of, some of the issues that Phoenix has had in the fourth quarter this season, right? So, like, I would, honestly, like, I would be looking to any, any time that there's a situation where Phoenix kind of has control the game, they're up 10, 12 points. Throw a wrench in there. Just blitz. Do something to try to disrupt Phoenix's flow. That's where they can get into some really bad stretches. So when they start turning the basketball over and giving up shots out the other way in transition.

But no matter what, they got to find a way to flip the shot quality dynamic. Because here's the thing, Phoenix has shot better than Minnesota, but they've gotten better shots than Minnesota in all three games. The straight up half-court shot creation battle skews heavily towards Phoenix in this game, even factoring in this matchup, even factoring in the defensive end of the floor. And so that's something that Minnesota has to try to find a way to flip. My prediction, I'm going to go Sons in 6. I think this is a really bad match.

up for Minnesota. They're one of the best teams in the league in terms of being equipped to really spread them out and neutralize the strengths of Minnesota's defense. And on the other end of the floor, Frank Vogel is just really good at defensive scheming. And he knows how to play Minnesota into their worst weaknesses. As long as they show game play and discipline, they're going to be able to get stops against Minnesota. Active hands from Durant and Nurkich are big in terms of getting those deflections and playing Ant into the type of turnovers that he was having last night. My guess is that Minnesota wins game one and game five and that Phoenix wins two, three, four, and six. So I'm picking Phoenix in six to eliminate our three seed, the Minnesota

Timberwolves. On that note, let's head over to the film. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football

or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated.

One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. 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. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars.

fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of Tontons and Wampas on the Ice Planet Hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith Rule of Two. Listen to Stuff to Bo Your Mind on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so we're going to start by looking at, this is a play that kind of of demonstrates the base coverages for Phoenix in this game. So what you can see here is we're going to start with a Conley ball screen. So it comes out of a horn set, but because he just ripples off of the first screen,

it's more or less a ball screen. So as Gobert sets the pick, notice Nurkich is dropping. He's not coming up high. He's dropping back. He's worried about keeping Gobert in front. Grayson's chasing from behind. They're letting Mike Conley feel comfortable here in the middle of the floor. Now it's going to get swung around and it's going to go to Ant.

Now watch the difference in Nurkich's approach when Ant has the ball. You're going to literally see Nurkich go, oh, we're going ball screen. Nurk is going to run up to the level. And as soon as he sets, he's up to the level and he's trying to cut Ant off. And they're digging way down off of Kat with Kevin Durant. And in this case, KD's able to close out because he has the length to actually dig down and get back to Carl Towns. And this is going to end up being a turnover on a sloppy behind the backpass. So that gives you an idea of the base coverages again.

Deep drop on Conley, up at the level with Nurkich. And one of the things you'll notice with Nurkich, when he gets up to the level and Gober gets behind, you're going to see Bradley Beal sink way in to help contain that Gobert roll. They're going to tag on that backside. All right. This next one is going to show you what they're going to do when Carl Town sets a ball screen. Carl Town sets a screen.

We're getting a switch. KD is on Conley now. Grason Allen is on Carl Towns. Ball's going to get swung around. Grayson Allen is going to immediately try to front the post. Front the post. Nurkich is bracketing from behind. Here's our double team. Now, if you actually could see the whole floor, Mike Conley be wide open in this corner, right? So again, with Phoenix's coverage is, there's pretty typically a wide open man. But Carl Towns and Anthony Edwards are going to struggle throughout this game at actually making this kill pass to actually beat the double team. This is going to be passed out. You're going to get a windshield wiper rotation from Kevin Durant,

and they're going to take away the opening there. Notice also, because Carl Towns can't see anything, he makes this kickout pass to Ant. As soon as the kickout pass is made, notice Devin Booker. Ant's got the ball. We're not going to just let him drive on Bradley Beal with, like, giant space on both ends. Watch both guys. Devin Booker is digging way down into this driving lane. Grayson Allen's here. They're loaded up.

Ant's driving into four bodies. There's not going to be easy openings and driving lanes. Now, to Ant's credit, he makes the right read here. He makes a kickout pass to Conley all the way in the corner, and he knocks this down. This is how you beat, this type of defense. But notice as we keep going through the clips, clips like that where Aunt makes the read, they're going to be few and far between. And Ant did have more turnovers than assists in this game.

I think he had four assists and five turnovers. Here's an example of a deep drop that Gobert runs. I actually like this shot for Booker. And I also like this defense from Jaden McDaniels. It's going to get kicked out. So we're cleared side here. These guys are all staying home. Booker's there. Gobert's kind of up at the level, but he's not going too crazy, right?

McDaniels is chasing over the top, but this is a good, clean look for Devin Booker. That said, we do get a late contest from Jaden McDaniels. And again, if we look at the numbers, Phoenix got less than a point per shot on pull-up jump shots in this game. They got almost two points per shot on catch-and- shoot jumpers. So you have to just, if you're Jaden McDaniels, the answer here isn't, oh, Gobert has to be higher, or oh, we need to dig down with Carl Towns. No, no, no. Jaden, just do a little bit better job staying attached,

live with the results of this shot over the course of the series. But for Devin Booker, I really like this read. That's a kind of shot for him with that kind of separation that I like. Here's an example of the advantage that Phoenix Suns having three stars brings to the equation. Bradley Beale's being guarded by Mike Conley, and Mike Conley's just too small for him. And so you're going to see Nurkich cut through to try to drag Go Bear as far away as possible. there's going to be a little opening here in the middle of the floor.

We're going to get a little right shoulder fade from Bradley Biel. Here's an example of a three-man action from Phoenix to try to cause some issues for Minnesota defending these actions three on two. So, or two on two, excuse me. So Grayson Allen comes up and sets one of those brush screens that I was talking about. Jaden gets caught on it. So as a result, they end up just, Gobert basically has to switch. But Nurkich ends up getting behind because Carlin,

Carl Towns is worried about his matchup, Grayson Allen. Jaden McDaniels is chasing, but because of this separation, because of this solid screen from Grayson Allen, there's lots of separation. Because Jaden McDaniels is way back here, Gobert has no choice but to come out high. And then Carl Towns, obviously, if Carl Towns works his way down with Nurkich, if Carl, Carl Towns is in a bind now. He's got to either worry about Grayson or he's got to worry about Nurkich. Carl Towns is thinking, I've got Conley getting ready to tag the roller here. I'll just stay home. Conley's late.

Nirkich ends up getting a layup. So that's an example. Again, we saw in the earlier action, Minnesota wants to defend these actions three on two, but Phoenix is using set plays involving three players to get Minnesota in rotation anyway. Here's an example of a digdown that does not work in Minnesota's favor. So we're going to get a Grayson Allen ball screen on Jaden McDaniels. This is going to end in a switch.

So they switched. Carl Towns is on Devin Booker. Now, what I'm advocating for here is trust Carl Towns to force Devin Booker into a lower percentage pull-up jump shot. Instead, Jaden McDaniels digs way down to the nail off of one of the best shooters and close-out attackers in the league. As a result, Grayson Allen has that baked-in driving lane ripping to his left because Jaden McDaniels was closing out on his right-hand side. And when he gets into lane here, he forces Gobert to step into the lane. This creates an easy little pop shot for Nirkich right at the rip. So again, I'd rather have, I'd rather have Devin Booker take a contested jump shot over the top of Carl Towns than have Nirkut shooting a little pop shot in the lane that he's going to make 75% of the time.

Here's an example of Anthony Edwards, kind of just driving right through Bradley Beale on his heels. Phoenix was not set in this position because this is kind of like semi-transition, so everyone's still jogging up the floor. Kevin Durant's kind of like waving his hands. Everyone's talking. they're not set, they're not ready, Anthony Edwards is able to capitalize on it. Kind of moral of the story here is like transition opportunities for Minnesota are going to be to their advantage. When they can get turnovers or push in semi-transition, try to get there

before Phoenix can set up their defense where they're loading up on Ant and forcing him to get rid of the basketball. Again, you saw Aunt make that shot. He only took seven shots in this game. Another kind of example, too, of like for Ant as an adjustment, if you're struggling with the pick and roll coverage, just beat your man off the dribble. because as I've always said, it's harder to deal with a double team in the open court as a defense than it is to deal with a double team on a ball screen.

Here's another good double team in rotation on a Carl Towns postup. We're going to get a double. Watch the rotation. So Royce O'Neill, windshield wiper rotation to Mike Conley, this forces Devin Booker to close out to Ant, throws the close out,

Nurkich gets a late hand up on Jada McDaniels, good contest, forces the miss. and then KD draws an offensive foul on the pivot move there from Kat. Here's a little bit of two-man game between Nurkich and KD. Now, because Gober is on Nurkich and Nas Reid is on KD, the wolves are just going to switch this action, which is to be expected. They know this, so they have Grayson Allen cut through. You can see them both point for them to cut through.

Nurkich is going to look for an interior seal on the switch. So again, because Nurkich is screening Nasreid, he has the advantage to get inside position. So look, he's got him kind of sealed on the inside position, right? So Nurkich is going to leverage this to swing around and get in front of Nasreid. There he is. Now he's got the seal. KD knows this. They discussed this as they were running up the floor.

KD catches, throws a little over the top pass. Nurgich creates a passing angle. This forces Nikiel Alexander Walker to come over and tag, which leaves Grace and Allen open in the corner. Really, really smart advantage basketball there from Phoenix. Anthony Edwards is going to make a layup here. but I want you guys to look at how difficult this is. So, Ants got Roy Sonea. Look at the digs. So, watch Devin Booker.

He's like, oh, we're switching. Okay, cool. Look at, he's right in this driving lane. KD's right in this driving lane. And Ant's going to snake through all of this and get a layup. But look at how difficult this is. Pullback dribble. Let me shoot through this gap here next to KD.

Like, what a finish. But he had to literally make multiple moves to get past Royce O'Neill, somehow split KD without turning the basketball, and go through a game. contact with Nurkage at the rim, that's just a lot to deal with. And notice, like, the way to beat this, eventually these guys are going to have to get shots. Like, this is a wide open to Kiel Alexander Walker and a wide open Jaden McDaniels. If you allow Phoenix to do that all series, if you allow them to just put five guys in the

paint to defend Ant and you don't beat them with the pass, to put it simply, Ant is not going to make enough of these. Ford to matter. Here's a really good piece of defense from Devin Book and a switch against Nasreid. So here we've got the switch. Slides his feet, comes over and cuts him off, forces him to make a crossover dribble go the other way. Now he's kind of out of position. Watch Devin Booker beat Nasreid to the spot going the other way.

Look, he's completely out of position. He's going to beat him to a spot over here and force a turnover. Really good defense there from Devin Booker. Here's an example, too, of the superpower that Bradley Beale has to be able to dig down into driving lanes and make a rotation. So here we go. Another ant-iso, right? Now look at the game plan here.

Ant's on the ball. It's Kevin Freaking Durant on the ball with all the length that he has defensively. I've got Eubanks digging down in his left-hand driving lane. I've got Booker digging down in his right-hand driving lane. And Bradley Beal is going to sit right here on this high side, and they're all just corralled around it. So Ant's actually going to make a nice pass here. We're going to get a little, this is called a pin-in flare from Kyle Anderson.

He sets like a little flare screen there. The pass gets made. Watch Bradley Beal recover. and block this three-point shot. And so, like, that's part of the thing, too, is, like, if it's Booker on the ball and KD's in the driving lane, that's a lot to deal with as a defender digging down. Bradley Beale's the kind of athlete that can dig down and recover.

And so, honestly, like, Minnesota's in a little bit of a bind here in terms of their ability to beat this specific type of coverage that Frank Vogel has put together for Ant. Here's a really nice piece of pull-up jump shooting from Bradley Beale. A little ball screen. Kyle Anderson tries to duck up. underneath the pick, Bradley Beale just confidently rises into that jump shot, knocks it down. Bradley Beale is just playing at a super, super high level right now. He was amazing

in this game. Once again, we're going to get another Carl Towns double team out of a switch. So we get the ball screen, switch. Cat goes down on Bradley Beal. Here comes the double. Windshield wiper rotation. Nas re-cuts through the middle. Nas misses the cut or throws it a little too slow, little too late, runs into traffic, gets worked out to Nikiel Alexander Walker, but Nikiel Alexander Walker, nice close out from Drew Eubanks has to take this like more difficult side step three. It's a really difficult shot. So, and Ant ends up smoking the offensive rebound. But there's, again, that is, let's take a look at it right when the double team happens here again. Okay. Double right

there, right there at this point, Nikiel Alexander Walker is the wide open guy. Kyle Anderson is basically looking in position to set a pin in flare, right? So we'll talk about this. There's a better example of a pin in flare that I'll show you guys later. But a pin in flare basically is like if you're in the dunker spot and you have a shooter on the weak side corner and the shooter's defender is sagging way in the lane, your job as this guy is to screen whichever one of these guys tries to close out at McKeel Alexander Walker. So if you set that screen, that's called a pin in flare, then if Carl Towns throws the skip pass, And let's say on the skip pass, let's say on the skip pass, let's say on the skip pass that Eubanks tries to close out. Kyle Anderson would that screen Eubanks and then Nikiel Alexander Walker's

open. But instead, they throw it to this cutter here who's cutting into three people. And by the time, Nazareed actually locates the open man, Eubanks is able to make the rotation. And so again, like that's kind of the theme is like where the actual kill pass is, Minnesota is failing to make that kill pass. here's an easy bucket for the suns out of a horn set you're going to watch um after he makes the post entry bradley beale's going to come off of a back screen here from nurkich right and on the back screen that kind of forces gobert to show temporarily then gobert after he shows temporarily is recovering to come up to nurkich which is going to create an opening because gobert

comes up to nurkich bradley beale's going to set a little back screen here on kyle anderson the wolves don't talk it easy dunk for bowl bowl on the back side there. Here's Bradley Beal working against Nikiel Alexander Walker so you guys can get a feel for that specific matchup. He's got Nikiel on him. They're just going to go ISO and he's just going to work him down. They set a little ghost screen here, but it ends up in an ISO. Notice he can just kind of body him and get good separation close to the basket. That's a really high percentage shot. And a good example, too, of what I always talk about with pull-up jump shooting. That's a pull-up jump shot. That's probably worth like 1.5 points per shot because it's so close to the rim and it's in a great matchup.

compare that to a heavily contested one in a bad matchup, all of a sudden it's nowhere near as high value of a shot. Here's a specific area of the game where I think Minnesota might be able to have some advantages. So they go to a look with basically bowl bowl at center, but Thad Young is the guy who's basically playing center in this group. Now, my kind of thought process is when I'm playing a small lineup that doesn't have a drop coverage type of big, what I want to do is I want to switch everything. kind of like what Denver does when they go to their bench without Yokic.

So I would be switching with Thad Young. That's not what Frank Vogel is doing. He's dropping with Thad Young. In Minnesota, got great shots against Phoenix in this stretch of the game because of that. So when we get to this portion of the game, Thad Young at center or effectively playing center, bring him into ball screens and you're going to get great looks out of it. He's just not tall enough to really run, drop.

So, again, he's kind of hedging and recovering, right? but he's going to drop on this one. So Gobert is going to set the screen. Dad Young is dropping, so he's not coming up and switching. Royce O'Neill's chasing over the top. And Kyle Anderson can just throw this pass easily over the top of that young because he's too small. So again, especially on those Gobert ball screens in particular, he's dropping. That's where the opening is.

All right. Here is an easy bucket that the wolves get out of a horn set. start with, it's kind of like horns, but the guys are extended a little bit further out to the perimeter. Conley's going to run through, and he's going to fake like he's setting a back screen on Bull Bowl, and then he's going to slip out. And because he slips out, Thad Young, or Grayson Allen thinks it's a switch, but Bull Bull Bull doesn't. So Grayson Allen runs with Jordan McLaughlin, and Mike Conley slips out of it and gets a three. Again, a great way to attack switching. And it can work off ball or on the ball, but just slip. Slip the screen. You might be able to capitalize.

on a guy not doing his job. Here's another example of the sons running a three-man action to get the defense and rotation. So here, as they go to set basically a double-wide pin-down, right? So like these two guys are both coming to set a couple of pin-downs there for KD to come through. But KD makes a read. KD ends up actually jumping the first screen and curling around it. So instead of coming off that, he just cuts through and he ends up dragging Mike Conley with him. Watch him run into Mike Conley.

So even though Jaden McDaniels is chasing, he's effectively setting kind of like a moving pick that's legal since he's cutting. And as a result, Grayson Allen is able to just come right out free to the perimeter. Mike Conley has to close out. That gives a close out opportunity for Grayson who's just been deadly in close out situations all year long. Here's another example of attacking Thadius Young and drop. So again, we're going to get it worked around here. Thad Young, Gobert's screen. Thad Young is not switching.

He should switch. should just be a switch. But instead, Thad Young is kind of in like a drop. It's a high drop, but he's in a drop. And then basically Conley's able to just go right through him at the rim because he's not a rim protector. I do not understand the purpose of doing that when he's not a rim protector. So like if I was the Suns, the easy counter there is just start switching with Thad Young. But especially early in the series before Frank Vogel kind of figures that out and adjusts, I would just look to spam ball screens against Thadius Young when he's in the game, kind of effectively playing that center position.

Also a good example of how desperately important it is for Minnesota that Mike Conley looks to score the basketball. All righty. So in this case, we get a ball screen and on the ball screen, it's hedging and recovering. So Mike Conley's chasing Grayson over the top. As Grayson gets downhill, he engages Carl Towns in help. Because he engages Carl Towns in help, this allows Eubanks to flow into a dribble handoff with Devin Booker, but Carl Towns is out of position. because Carl Towns is out of position because he had to help on Grayson, this forces Nas Reid to be the guy that kind of shows high. As soon as he steps up, Bull Bull makes a read. There's a really smart read from Bull Bull.

Nobody's on this backline here. Nas Reid just had to show on a Devin Booker pull up. I'm just going to slip behind. Devin Booker hits him. They get an easy dunk. So one other thing that's just kind of like an overarching basketball concept. This is why it's important to reverse the basketball. That means this is why it's important to get to.

to the second side of the floor and run second side action. First action, they're loaded up, right? So even though Grace and Allen actually gets, makes a nice job, does a nice job setting up Mike Conley for the screen, that aggressive downhill move. Notice he can't come off the ball screen yet. He's got, and Mike Conley is actually trying to funnel him towards the baseline side. So he makes a hard aggressive move down here in a pullback dribble that creates the angle for KD to set the screen. KD sets the screen. It hedges and recovers. That hedge, forces Grayson to come out a little bit further, but he's still able to get downhill, but the defense is loaded up, right? So that primary side action was not, it did not serve the

purpose of generating a shot. But what it did do is it got them slightly in rotation by pulling Kat into help here. Then the second side action is Devin Booker Eubanks, but Carl Towns is out position, which forces Nasreid to abandon his man, which creates the opening. So again, that's why it's so important to have second side shot creation and to make sure you reverse the basketball and get it into a position where you're running against a defense that isn't set. That is the specific issue that Minnesota is having. They're not getting the ball to the second side. They're not attacking a defense in rotation. They're constantly attacking Phoenix's set defense and they're not having any success as a result. Here's another Anthony Edwards turnover

against crazy overhelp from Phoenix. So again, it catches. This is a quick, Quick swing, so Phoenix isn't really set, right? Quick swing. But just watch all of these sons just immediately move in on Ant as soon as he makes his move. Boom. Everyone's in there. Now he's driving into all these bodies. This is not there. There's nothing open. Nasreid is setting a pin in flare. Jaden McDaniels is wide open. Actually, he's not sending a pin in flare. It could have, but he didn't need to because Jaden McDaniels is so open. But instead, Ant tries to shoot through everybody and ends up turning it over. But like watch. Again, Everyone's collapsing. That's the read. That's how you beat the coverage. That's the pass he has to make to eventually get Phoenix to soften up their defensive attack. And he's just not making that pass. Here's another matchup that I think Minnesota can take advantage of over the course of the series. U banks is struggling to guard both Nas Reid and Carl Towns. Carl Towns had an easy little rip-through layup against him earlier in the game. I just didn't pull that clip. Here's Nas Reid scoring against Eubanks in the post. By the way, really quick, notice that we're going to see a couple of

of U-Banks hedges here in a second. Two clips from now is the next U-Banks hedge. Watch the difference in this U-Banks hedge on Ant versus the one we're going to see with Conley. Here's the hedge on Ant. Oh, Ant has the ball? I'm getting way out there. Look at that.

He's coming way out for the ant hedge. But with Conley, we're going to see something fundamentally different. You'll see that in a second. Eubanks recovers, but watch Nasreid easily go to work against U-Banks and get a baseline bucket off the glass. So again, those are matchups that I think Minnesota can attack more too, is just looking to get at UBanks when he's in the game. Here's another example of those early guard screens I was talking about.

So Grayson Allen sets that early brush screen. That gets Jaden McDaniels into trail position. That forces Gobert to come further out. That leaves Eubanks wide open on the roll, which forces Ant to kind of tag. It does recover and Gobert recovers. But in this deep post catch, it naturally just, tricks cat into thinking he's in trouble. So he turns his head and kind of takes a step in, which allows Grace and Allen to break open for three. So again, like, that's actually a really

solid rotation and a good job here by the wolves to shut this down with that little tag and recover. But because of the deep catch, and by the way, Eubanks probably could have just shot that. But because of the deep catch, Carl Towns gets pulled in and we get a Grace and Allen catch and shoot three, best shooter in the league. So again, just consider. consistently getting Minnesota in rotation and finding openings there. Here's the example of the UBanks hedge that's not as severe when we go with Mike Conley here. Okay. Notice, ball screen, Conley coming off.

We're not going to get that super aggressive hedge. UBanks is going to kind of stunt at him. Look, see, it's like a little fake hedge, and then he gets back, and his main priority is to stay on Gobert. Now, Conley ends up hitting that shot, but that's kind of the point. they're trying to bait Conley into making a bunch of those, and he's just not going to take that many. He only took seven in the game, but he'll make him watch. We're going to see a bunch of examples.

I think there's two more in the second half. He's coming off, and like Conley can make this shot. They just need him to take a lot more of them. And I love the idea of the coverage as a means with which to kind of bait him into that. And it's going to miss a three here. Again, they stay home. They defend the action two on two. Book misses the shot, and Minnesota gets out in transition.

Notice, Phoenix can't set their defense. It's like a freight train, nice little Euro step, bucket, and one. That is the best pathway to victory for Minnesota in this series. Defend, force turnovers, get out in transition. But the only way you're going to defend well enough is if you defend the actions one-on-one and two-on-two, handle those three-on-three actions without getting in rotation, force those tough pull-up jump shots, force Phoenix to turn the basketball over, get out in transition.

Here's an example of flipping the angle of a screen to get an advantage. So, Grayson Allen's going to change his screening angle. He's going to run up on that, see how he ran up like he was coming on the left side, but then switch to the right side. So as he's running up, look, Carl Towns is situated to help on this side of the screen. See where he is? We're getting Carl Town situated to help on this side of the screen. But Grayson Allen just flips and goes around the other side.

That allows Devin Booker to actually get downhill and really engage Cat. who's trying to hedge and recover. Then as the Keel Alexander or Jade McDaniels recovers, that creates the opening for Grayson Allen on the slip. Drive the closeout. Once you beat Gobert, there's nobody at the rim. So again, you guys can kind of see the purpose of what I'm talking about here. They're trying to defend the action two on two,

trying to prevent getting in rotation. But a really smart little reversal of the screen angle from Grayson engages Kat really hard, which allows Grayson to slip. And again, what did I say in the actual series preview that was the audio part? Make Gobert close out on a three-point shooter. There won't be anybody on the back line. Here's a really nice defensive possession to start the third quarter from Nurkich, an example of how good he can be with active hands.

So, KD gets beat on this post up by Kat. Nurkich is going to deflect that pass and then deflect Gobert on the rise-up. By the way, just so that everyone knows, Yusuf Nurkich averages 2.2 deflections per game. That is the same as Bamatabio and Evan Mobley, for example. So, like, he's a guy that, like, I think doesn't get enough credit defensively for what he can do. He's a little bit vulnerable to certain matchups, but overall, I think he's a useful defensive player. Here's another example of Conley shooting in ball screens.

Watch Nirk on the coverage. See how he's back? He's not coming out as high as he did against Ant. They're trying to bait him into that shot. But Conley makes it. Again, he can. That's the crazy part. He makes it.

He just doesn't take it. get often enough. Here's an example of a bad early clock shot from Kevin Durant that the sons have to try to avoid. So, Katie comes off this dribble handoff. There's 15 seconds on the shot clock. Ant is right there. This is heavily contested. And he takes that shot. That's the shot that's like late clock, fine. Aunt dies on the screen, fine. Ant's playing off of you, fine. But like that type of shot, all that's going to do is gift Minnesota transition opportunities and put them into some trouble. All righty. So this is an example of how I think Minnesota should cover the suns. Notice they're all glued up off the ball. Mike Conley's not helping. Carl Towns is on

Grayson Allen. It's on a KD. They're letting this action get defended two on two, right? But in this case, Jayden McHales is a good job. He fights over the top. He gets back in front of KD. And Devin Booker just happens to score. I do not think that should have been a foul. I thought Jaden had him squared up. And I thought he had his hands up. And I thought he just absorb the contact with the chest. That should have been a no call. But really nice move from Devin Booker. But here's the thing.

That's a really difficult play. That's a really difficult play, a highly difficult shot that he's going to miss a lot of the time, a bad call that he's not going to get most of the time. That is the type of play. If you're going to lose, if you're going to lose to Phoenix, that's how you want to lose. You want to lose with Kevin Durant,

Devin Booker, and Bradley Beale making these super tough shots. This one I just clipped because it was an absolutely disgusting move from Bradley Beal. Literally put Grow Bear. running, Gobert was literally moving in circles. So we have a little reversal of the ball screen here. Look at this little, that little, gosh, watch that little hesitation into the step back. Gobert's lost. Easy little pull of jumper.

That was nasty. Here's Carl Towns taking a bad shot. And then on the other end, so Carl Towns right here has Bradley Beale. Bradley Beal, really smart defense. He knows Kevin Durant's digging. And so he's sitting up on that right-handed. right-handed side of Kat to kind of force him. But Kat ends up taking this early clock jab step jumper and misses it.

Sons go the other way. They play advantage basketball. Good reversal of the screening angle forces go bare to come up to the level. Again, this is the base coverage for Minnesota. They're at the level with the tag. That's going to leave Grayson Allen open. He's going to drive the close out, gets into the lane. At this point, they're all janked up and in rotation.

And as a result, look at on this little pass, all it takes is the catch for Nurkich. and has his back turns to KD. Now Kevin Durant's getting a wide open catch and shoot jump shot. Consistent theme you guys are going to see. Bradley Beale has no problem scoring over Gobert at the rim. So you just saw that little pull of jumper hit earlier. Here Gobert's waiting on him. Watch him get into his body and then shoot that left hand over the top.

Really nice finish from Bradley Beal. Here's another hard hedge on Anthony Edwards. Got to beat it with Reeds, right? Let's see if he makes a read this time. I think he does on this one, if I remember correctly. So here we go. And it comes off, hard hedge. One of the things that I, this is a, this is a perfectly acceptable move.

Get rid of the ball quickly and have Kat make the read. Get rid of the ball. Cat hits Gobert. Gobert makes, because Gobert catches, he pulls Booker in from the corner. Again, as soon as, as Eubanks is up high, if you can get the ball behind everybody quickly, there's a four on three there. You get the ball to Gobert, Booker tags, easy shot for Jaydenyals. Also, Gobert has a rebound.

mismatch because Eubanks was so far out on his hedge and gets an easy putback. So again, use the sun's coverage against them, beat it with the pass. Here's an example of the blitzing that I was talking about. So watch KD just come off of the blitz and get completely blindsided by Gobert aggressively coming up to the screen. So here we go. KD's coming off this dribble handoff. Watch Gobert immediately get up and force a turnover.

Boom. That's going to be the wrinkle that I want to see Minnesota. to go to try to disrupt Phoenix when they're in a flow is to bring that blitz out. Here's an example of how they use Cat to switch three-man actions. So again, ball screen, cat switches out. Now we have our advantage, right? So just pull it out. Now Bradley Beale all Bradley Beale has to do.

He has to understand his job. His job here is not to get a bucket. His job here is just to generate the next advantage. He's got a great mismatch. He can beat him off the dribble. He's going to beat him off a dribble. This is our pin and flare that I was looking for. So in this particular situation,

excuse me, Eubanks is in the dunker spot, right? And Devin Booker is in the... Sorry, I have no idea what just happened. So because Eubanks is in the dunker spot and Devin Booker is in the weak side corner, Eubanks isn't offering a ton of spacing. So one of the ways he can counter that

is to set a screen to help Devin Booker get open should Bradley Beal beat his man off the dribble and engage Gobert. So Bradley Beal beats him. Gobert comes over. Watch Eubanks screen on the backside of Jada McDaniels to create the passing angle for Beal. Do you see that? Now, he kind of just moved into his way, but he more or less is trying to set a screen that generates the opening for Devin Booker to knock down the three.

All right, here's an example of a pull-up jumper that I like for Phoenix. I talked about this one in the opening. KD's got cat on him. watch the way Cat's defending. He's on his heels. He's playing back. He's basically baiting KD into the pull-up jumper. That's a great look for Phoenix.

You can actually see KD on the pullback dribble. He kind of mishandles it and pins it on his hip a little bit. And that's basically the one thing that disrupted that shot. Here's an example of how for Phoenix or for Minnesota, I wouldn't even offer help even in mismatches. So this is like a disaster, right? You're like, oh, no, we have Conley on Devin Booker. This is a problem.

What are we going to do? No, just make him score. He takes a tough turnaround. Look, that's a good look for Devin Booker. He's going to make that sometimes. But that is a much lower value shot on a per possession basis than some of the looks that Phoenix has been getting in rotation. Guard it one-on-one. Make these guys score.

Here's an example of how they need Carl Towns to capitalize on some of these smaller Phoenix guards when they get those matchups. So we have KD on Towns. And it's going to set a little pin down. It's going to get a switch. so now Booker's going to be on Cat. Gobert cuts through. Now, Gobert has to beat him off the dribble. So he does.

Just makes a good physically aggressive move, gets into the basket. He actually misses, but because he drives, he's able to engage Eubanks. As soon as he engages Eubanks, it's Gobert on the backside against Grayson Allen, and that's just a battle he's going to lose every single time.

Grayson Allen's going to lose, I mean. They're really bad offensive possession for Minnesota where they don't even get the ball inside the three-point arc. Come off, swing. swing swing three that's just a really bad offensive possession got to do something to try to get the defense and rotation here's another example of bradley beel easily scoring against rudy gobert at the rim you can actually see you can actually see gober saying telling everybody stay home stay home see that that's going to be the key gober needs to be screaming that every possession everybody

stay home do not help but that said it's going to be a problem if be able keeps scoring over him like this. So here comes the ball screen, fight over the top, and Beale just easily gets in and finishes. So again, that's a lot of evidence in this particular game that Beal's not too dissuaded by Rudy Beaure at the rim. Here's an example of Anthony Edwards still trying to beat double teams with the dribble instead of with the pass. So here we're going to get that little, I mean, I guess you can call that a brush screen. Phoenix ends up basically putting two on the ball. And it's got two guys on him. Kyle Anderson's open. Kyle Anderson still open. Kyle Anderson is wide open underneath the basket. All it has to do is throw it up to Kyle Anderson. He's probably going to score over

Devin Booker. Instead, he's like, I got this, drives through everybody and tries to finish, ends up drawing a foul. But once again, just not the right approach for beating this defensive coverage. Juxtapose it with going the other way, here the Sons play more advantage basketball. We get a blitz on Devin Booker here because remember the wolves have gone to blitzing at this portion in the game, which again, I like as a mix-up, but you've got to force turnovers for it to work. Grayson Allen comes off the blitz, makes the swing to Nurkich. Gobert is dropped down to deal with KD if he slips out of that blitz. Now we're on the second side, right?

And because we're in the second side, we've got Bradley Beal with, I think that's Nikiel Alexander Walker. No, it's Mike Conley. Mike Conley's trailing the play because Mike Conley turned his head. Notice this. This is, again, an example of why you reverse the floor. after uh, Grayson gets it out of the blitz,

watch Mike Conley turn his head because now he's a weak side defender. As Bradley Beale's cutting through, he's officially a weak side defender. Now he's in help, right? So he's there. Now he's out of position to chase Beal. Because Booker gets, or, uh,

Grayson Allen gets it out. Now they're running to the second side and now Mike Conley's trailing the play too much. So that puts everybody in a bind. Now Bradley Beal's super comfortable coming off this triple handoff easily gets down into the lane and makes the floater. That's just that's that's the right way to attack the defense that Minnesota's bring into the equation here. Here's another example of advantage basketball for the sun's last one and then we're done for today.

So again, chasing over the top, Nerkich rolls. McLaughlin has to offer kind of a token tag on Nerkich. Grayson Allen beats the closeout. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all,

embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th.

You might have seen the skisks of a win. hits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment. And the next, we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music.

The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. 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. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars. fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of taun tons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business

sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to stuff to blow your mind on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so you guys can kind of get the gist of the the situation from the film, like Phoenix is going to put everybody on Ant and basically try to make them pass and they're going to sag way off on Mike Conley and try to make him score. They got to find a way to flip that dynamic.

Ant has to make the reads and they've got to try to avoid Phoenix's half court a defense as much as possible. Again, also kind of like what I was showing you there with Phoenix, get the ball to the second side. If you get to the second side, it won't be as loaded up on you. So maybe start with Conley on the ball. Have Ant on that second side. Try to get the ball.

them into rotation a little bit, at least by putting some pressure on the rim or something, do something to get the ball to the other end of the floor where they're not as loaded up. And then for the suns on the other end, it's really this simple. They have to try to find a way to stay in rotation. Minnesota has to try to find a way to stay out of rotation. And that's all going to be about shot selection for Phoenix and discipline in the game plan for Minnesota. But I mean, you guys can see the other games have gone more or less similar to this as well.

Bad matchup for Minnesota. it's a big part of why I'm picking Phoenix in this series. All right, let's move on to Orlando Cleveland. I'm not going to go nearly as long on this one. Like I said, I don't view either of these teams as legitimate championship contenders, but I'll give you guys my thoughts on my research from this morning. So the season series is tied at two. The Magic won most recently on February 22nd,

but Dary Scarlane and Donovan Mitchell have not played together in this particular matchup since way back in December, which was like four months ago. They're one in one in the games that Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Franz Wagner and Palo Boncaro all four of them play. They're one in one in those matchups. For the season series, all four games, Cleveland has a 119 offensive rating. Orlando has a 113 offensive rating. So Cleveland has been the more effective offense.

Both teams have struggled to clean up the defensive glass in this matchup. On the gambling front on Draft Kings, right now the calves are a minus 195 favorite. Some of the stuff I've seen on film, Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland have not. played together since December 11th, which means like there's not a whole lot we can get from this in terms of actually seeing what this series is going to look like because not just injuries to the stars, but injuries to the role players. Both teams have had really different starting lineups throughout the season as key important front court players have been out with injuries or back court players for Orlando have been out with injuries. And so not a whole lot to see on film,

but you can see some stuff in the individual numbers. Donovan Mitchell and three games in this matchup is averaging 27, 4 and 7, 44% from the field, 36% from 3. I watched some film this morning. I think he looks pretty solid against Jalen Suggs. He's got the quickness to kind of get away from his ball pressure. So I think that matchup is actually something that Donovan Mitchell can do pretty well in. Darius Garland in three games, 27 points, four rebounds, eight assists per game, 51% from the field and 39% from three. So Garland's been great in this particular matchup.

Palo and Franz have played in all four games. Palo 23, 6 and 4 on 46% from the field and 25% from 3. Franz Wagner, 16, 5 and 5 on 39% from the field and 16% from 3. Dean Wade was available, though, and guarded him for the most part in those games, and he's out of the lineup now. So I do think Franz will have more of a size advantage in this particular series than he did over the course of the regular season. For the Cavs on offense, Caves are a heavy pick and roll attack.

They run 37 of them a game. game, which is the ninth most in the NBA. The Magic are a solid pick and roll defense, though. They're the 11th best pick and roll defense in the league, including passes. They allow just 0.983 points per possession. Most of this is going to come down to Jalen Suggs and Gary Harris and just the job they do on Donovan Mitchell and Dary's Carlin. Got to find a way to make those guys feel uncomfortable and apply back pressure.

I would go with a similar strategy that I talked about with Phoenix in Minnesota. With Garland, I would come with a lower drop and try to bait him as a score. and with Mitchell, I'd bring extra defenders and try to play into his biggest weakness, which is he can be a little score first from time to time, although Mitchell's taking great strides as a playmaker over the last couple of years. But those are the schemes that I would use in these particular matchups. Cleveland has to avoid the problem from last year, which is last year against New York,

they were able to basically just play three on two against pick and roll because Evan Mobley could not score on the role. He was 0 for 10 shooting out of the role last year against the Knicks in that first round series. this season shooting just 53% on the role and is a 36th percentile score as a role man. So that's still kind of an issue. Look for the magic to have Wendell Carter Jr. Just kind of guard Jared Allen and sit underneath the basket and kind of defend both of them and have them use like Palo Boncaro to come up to the level and basically force Evan

Mobley to score in the mid range in the pick and roll. That's what I'm expecting them to do schematically. Orlando on offense, there are also a high volume pick. and roll team, believe it or not, they run more pick and roll than Cleveland, but they only get 0.95 points per possession in pick and roll. This is just 23rd in the NBA. So they're not a very good pick and roll team, even though they do it a lot. Main issue there is they can't shoot. They're dead last and three-pointers made per game. 24th in three-point percentage. So teams can just load up on them in ball screens. Also, both of their main shot creators, Franz and Polo are guys that

you can kind of back off of. Franz is just a bad jump shooter at this point in his career, although I think he will be a better one in the long run. Palo is solid, especially in the short to mid-range, but for the most part, teams are going to be comfortable playing off of him and daring him to shoot. I think Cleveland's going to do that basically to both guys. Franz and Palo are at their best when they get switches onto smaller guards and try to play bully ball. It's made up one of the best ISO teams in the league. They get 1.03 points per ISO. That ranks fourth in the NBA. They will have some size advantages in this series. The big thing for Cleveland is they're going to have to find a way to avoid those switches.

So hedging and recovering with Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland to make sure that they don't get up on Franz and Palo, that could be a problem. A couple other keys for Cleveland. They really need to pack the paint on defense and force Orlando to make jump shots, load up on their pick and rolls, dig down on ISOs, bait them into their worst tendencies, which is like they can just go really cold from the perimeter, right? And then, like I said, avoiding those switches. On offense, they need Garland and Mitchell to take care of the basketball.

This is a turnover forcing team from Orlando. This is what they do best. They're the second best turnover forcing team in the league. They're the second best team in scoring off of turnovers. And so decision making and ball security for Garland and Mitchell are going to be huge. And then Evan Mobley has to score on the roll. Or if he's struggling to score on the role, they need to flip their ball screen dynamic and have Jared Allen set the screens and have Evan Mobley sit in the short role.

Don't go down the same way. Or excuse me, have Evan Mobley sit in a dunker spot. Don't go down the same way you did in the first round. last year. On the Orlando front, do not fall into the jump shot trap. When they're playing off, don't fall into that by just taking jumpers. Go into ball and player movement to try to fight that as much as possible, at least for the 24 seconds of the shot clock, do everything you can with the ball and player movement to avoid settling for those types of shots. And then they need to ride the defense to transition train as much as possible. They've got to get into Darius Garland,

Donovan Mitchell, Donovan Mitchell forced turnovers and run, run as much as they can. Muck the Gana. game up, drag it down into the mud. You are the bigger, stronger team. You have an advantage there if you can win in the physicality. My prediction, I view both of these teams on a pretty similar to level, but I lean Cleveland for three reasons. One, I trust Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland more as decision makers in a seven game series than Palo and Franz. They're more experienced and they are better jump shooters. It's actually kind of similar to why I picked against Cleveland last year. I trusted Jalen Brunson more than I trusted Donovan Mitchell. I trust Don't of him Mitchell and Garland more than I trust Franz and Palo. That's a big part of why I'm picking them.

I also think Orlando is really going to struggle to score in the half court. Cleveland will too, I just think to a lesser extent. Secondly, Cleveland got their ass kicked in the playoffs last year. And so they have a pretty good idea of what to expect in this first round series in terms of the level of physicality, the adversity they're going to face, the pressure, the magic are really young and have no experience in this type of setting. I think that's a big advantage to Cleveland. And then lastly, Cleveland has home court, which I think especially for young defensive-minded teams is a big deal. So I'm going to be picking the Cleveland Cavaliers to win this series in six games. All right.

Moving on to our mailbag. So first question. Genuine question, if you were the Lakers, as bad as this is, would you tank the Pelicans game just for a chance to play Oklahoma City and be on the other side of the bracket from Denver? So here's the thing. I've actually, by the way, not only did I get a bunch of mailback, bad questions about this. I've seen a lot of like reputed sports media professionals going out on their shows today and saying the Lakers should do this. I think that's insane. To put it simply, there has never been a winner who has approached things like that. The idea of lose intentionally

is not in a winner's vocabulary. You handle your business against the Pelicans and then you go up against Denver and you either slay the dragon or you die trying. That is the appropriate response to this situation. Obviously, if you happen to be the eighth seed, you like your chances of making a deeper run if you can play Oklahoma City first and then the winner of Mavs Clippers in the second round. Obviously, Oklahoma City is a really good matchup for the Lakers. If the Lakers played the Thunder in the first round, I would pick the Lakers to win that series. Whereas with Denver, I'm picking Denver. So I understand the situation. But the bottom line is two things. First of all, It's a loser mentality to ever run away from a challenge or to purposefully lose anything.

And then two, let's say you do lose on Tuesday, which by the way, they might lose. I don't know if you guys notice. The Pelicans are favored. They're a one-point favorite against the Lakers tomorrow. I think the Lakers are going to win tomorrow. But I do think the Pelicans have a chance. They just got humiliated. The Lakers will come out more relaxed than they did in the Sunday game.

The Pelicans will come out more desperate than they did in the Sunday game. All they have to do is linger around for two of them. and a half quarters, and then it becomes about shot making, and maybe the Pelicans make enough shots and they win. If that happens and the Lakers try to beat the Pelicans and they happen to lose, yeah, then it's after the game. When you're in the locker room, you're like, man, this sucks. We really tried to win. We lost. But hey, all we got to do is beat the winner of this Kings Warriors game, and then we get a really good first round matchup. So yeah, you can kind of think that way if you happen to lose, but no doubt you go into that Tuesday game.

trying like crazy to win. And most importantly, you never want to be in a single elimination game, especially when you can't guard Deere and Fox and you can't guard Steph Curry. That is a completely unacceptable risk in this particular type of situation. You take the win against the Pelicans if you can get it, and then you roll the dice against Denver. This Lakers team and last year's Laker team are very, very different. I would pick Denver, but I do think this Lakers team is a little better than last

year's Lakers team, and I do think that they have a chance to, they have some small chance to win that series. It's the same chance that they're going to have to deal with in a later round. Personally, as a Lakers fan, I'd rather go into that series with a healthy Jared Vanderbilt and a little bit more defensive kind of like polishing over a couple weeks of playoff games, but that's not the situation. This is the situation. You don't lose on purpose. You go beat the Pelicans, let the chips fall where they make against Denver. Hey, Jason, looking forward to the draft, which is deemed to be weak. What do you think the spurs should be looking at?

Who do you think the spurs should be looking at taking with their high pick? I think Modus Buzellis is the best option for them to find a genuine running mate to victory. What do you think? Thanks for the amazing content. I hope you have a big coffee supply for the playoffs. Love your playoff content. Thank you for supporting the show. And yeah, it's always a grind, but it's also fun.

I was actually talking about that yesterday. The playoffs are a ton of work, but they're also just a ton of fun because it's incredible basketball every single night, high stakes basketball every single night. Can't beat that. Here's the thing. I have not covered the draft yet. So I'm not going to give you guys a take on who I think the Spurs should draft. Also, there are guys that cover the draft year round.

I do it for like a couple weeks. So like I'm not really the, that's, I don't claim to be some sort of draft expert. That said, I will do a bunch of draft work once we get outside of the NBA finals. And I'll give you guys my take when we get there. As far as the Spurs go, though, like I would be using. that first round draft pick to bring in a veteran shot creator. That's what I would do, especially in a draft this particularly week. But it depends on which player is available. If they find a good player, and again, I have to scout the players to really give you an informed

opinion on that. But I think Victor is going to be a, like, let me pull these stats up because I ran into these stats after Victor sat out game 82. I wanted to kind of pull up his numbers. But Victor has been preposterously good. To give you guys an idea, last 45, games this season. Victor Wemnon Yama, 23 points, 11 rebounds, and four assists per game. 5.1 steals plus blocks, 59% true shooting percentage. And in those 45 games, the Spurs were plus 28 with Victor on the floor, minus 230 with him off the floor. So to put it simply, I think that, I think Victor Weminiama is right around the corner from being a top 10, top five player in this league. Your timeline is different. So you don't have time to bring in some rookies. You

that's going to take six, seven years to turn into a good basketball player. Your timeline is now. And so because of that, I would be looking to bring in higher level talent. There are ways to do that in terms of the timeline. Like you can go target lottery picks that flamed out at other teams. And that's kind of how the Lakers got like Rui Hachamura or Malik Munk or Lonnie Walker over the last couple of years, right? Like you can find those guys around the league.

You can find talented young players to kind of maintain some of your flexibility. But at the end of the day, like, I want to see Victor alongside a veteran shot creator. He's the top 10 player in the league next year in all likelihood. I want to see what that looks like. I want to give him a real fighting chance. Obviously, it's all about, like, proper decision making and spending. So, like, you don't want to overpay. But in terms of, like, where you're looking, I would be looking for that type of trade upgrade first.

If nothing like that is there, then you look at the draft and you look for what kind of player is available. And again, we'll give you guys some more picks when we get further down the line. Next picture. Next question, I should say. Would you entertain the idea of doing interviews with NBA players? If so, who would you be interested in having on the show? Here's the thing. We haven't done it before. We'll probably do it eventually. My thing with interviews of NBA players is like I really only find them interesting when they talk about basketball. And a lot of the guys, they don't really want to talk about basketball when they do interviews or they're more, they serve a different purpose than an actual just authentic basketball conversation. So in terms of like talking with a player, I won't throw a specific player out. I'll just say this. Players that actually want to sit down and get in the weeds of basketball, I'm always down to talk with. I think that'd be a lot of fun.

It's not really the, but this is not an interview show. It's not really what we do, right? Like this is kind of just a film study show and a basketball analysis show, but I'm not going to say it'll never happen and it probably will happen at some point in the future. I just personally would like to do it on a basketball level and not so much a superficial level. Last question.

Hey, Jason, great podcast. love it. I was just wondering, do you play all those guitars behind you? Because there are some lovely PRSs there on the wall every time. So yeah, I do play. I'm not particularly good at it. Like, I will freely admit that I think I'm a good basketball player. I know that because I've put in the work to be a good basketball player. I'm a hell of a lot better than I was when I was in college. And when I was in college, I was a pretty limited player, but I was good enough to get my school paid for, right? And I feel confident saying that I'm a good basketball player because I've paid the dues, right? I would never say that about guitar. Like, I

It's my second hobby. I do devote a good amount of time to it, probably like five hours a week. And so I love it. I have fun with it. But I'll probably dive more full into it when I'm done playing basketball. I'm 32. I turned 33 in August. Got probably a solid five years left of playing basketball at a high level.

I'm going to ride that out as long as I can. And when the knees and ankles or whatever goes for me, then I'll probably devote more energy to guitar. my guitars are my basically the only thing I collect it's funny I'm like cheap with everything else I'm cheap with basketball shoes I'm cheap I'm generally a cheap guy uh but guitars I I splurge on I Paul Reed Smith is my favorite brand I've got three of them this one here is the uh you PRS fans will recognize this as a silver sky it's the John mayor signature model basically a stratocaster absolutely absolutely love this guitar this is my favorite guitar I've ever had uh super super super super easy to play. This is an old school Fender Strat. I love the color on that one. This was the first

PRS I got. This is a CE 24. So it's like their classic electric. It's an American made one, but it's their lower quality wood. And then they have like bolt on necks and steel trim on it. This one's really fun to play, really easy to play. And last but not least, long reach for that one. This is my favorite. This is probably my nicest guitar, I should say. I do I do prefer playing the silver sky. But this is a, this is a hollow body two Piazzo. The Piazzo is basically a fancy pickup that's in the, uh, the bridge that like makes acoustic sounds. But actually, ironically, I bought this because I was excited about some of the acoustic stuff that you can do. But these are the vintage 5815 pickups from PRS and they are absolutely beautiful sounding. And because it's completely hollow,

it gets like really good resonance throughout the guitar. This one is just beautiful. This one's like literally like probably the nicest like piece of art that I own. I absolutely love this guitar. As you can see, it's got like two inputs in it so that you can do the acoustic and the electric stuff. But anyway, like I said, you're not going to, you're not going to see any videos to be playing for a while. But, but I do love playing guitar. It is like kind of like my side hobby. And I do plan on diving into it more when the basketball days are over. That's all I got for today, guys. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. Again, we're going to do.

going to be back tomorrow morning with the preview of Pacers Bucks. And then after that, we're going to get into our instant reaction shows for the playing games tomorrow. I will see you guys then. Volume. Another podcast from some SNL, late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel 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 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. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged.

It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.

Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hardweight with your favorite therapist and hosts Care Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor. It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to.

Listen and learn the hard way on the IHard radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHart podcast. Guaranteed human.