The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Tatum to blame for Celtics loss vs. Haliburton’s Pacers + Kings-Pelicans reaction

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to the NBA In-Season Tournament games on Monday night between Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics vs. Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers (9:00), and De’Aaron Fox and the Sacramento Kings vs. Zion Williamson and the New Orleans Pelicans (38:30). Haliburton’s triple-double knocked off Tatum and the Celtics last night as Tatum continued to struggle with his jump shot, and Brandon Ingram’s 30-point night was too much for the Kings to overcome. #volume #herd (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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draftkings.com slash basketball terms. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys had a great start to your week. The in-season tournament quarterfinals were last night, or at least the first round of them, and they were highly, highly entertaining. We're going to be breaking down both games from the perspective of all four teams. It's going to be a double show day.

We're also going to be coming back later tonight to break down Knicks, Bucks, and Lakers' sons. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. It would mean a lot to me if you'd scroll down and hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed, wherever you get your podcast under hoops tonight. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT. So you guys don't miss any film threads or show announcements. I did a couple of film threads on both games from last night this morning.

And then last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them at the end of the show. No mailback today, but we'll be doing it again later on this week. Also, basketball is back. It's been a long offseason, and if you're like me, you're psyched to be seeing all these pro and college games on TV. And while I love watching basketball and television, there's nothing better than being there live. And the best way to do that is on Game Time, the fastest-growing ticketing app in the United States. GameTime is the only ticketing app that gives you peace of mind with your purchase.

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Create an account and redeem code Hoops for $20 off your first purchase terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem 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. You know, it's funny, just a big picture about the in-season tournament.

My takeaway when it first happened was as it pertains to the actual tournament itself, I wanted to have a wait-and-see approach, meaning like, let's see what it looks like before we come up with an opinion. However, what I did say is, like, I did think it was the wrong kind of idea in terms of what's wrong with the regular season. Like, in my opinion, when you have this many back-to-backs in your schedule and you have teams not valuing the regular season the way that you'd hope, and it's leading to stars sitting out games, it hurts the total product so much, in my opinion,

that any sort of financial benefit that you have from more games is canceled out by just lower-quality games as teams as teams just don't seem to care as much. And so I've said this many times on the show, I'm a big believer in dropping the season down to 66 games because it gets rid of back-to-backs, makes it far more likely that Stars will play not only from a rest perspective, but also every game is 20% more valuable to the standings

at the end of the day. So in the big picture, that's one of the things that I'd like to see them do. However, as it pertains to the in-season tournament itself, I was interested to see how it would actually play out in practice. And we've seen now through the regular season games and through this first round of quarterfinals that it's just making something different happen

during this phase of the season. If you really look at the NBA regular season, it basically is like the first two-thirds or so just go off the same every single week. Right? It's October, same thing. November, same thing. December, same thing.

January, same thing. First week of February, same thing, right? Then there's like this brief kind of chaotic stretch where it's like we had the trade deadline and after the teams make their trades they play one or two games with their new guys and then we head into the All-Star break and now the All-Star breaks a little bit longer,

so there's that kind of weird stretch there. But then we go into like kind of the ramp up into the playoffs and the Super Bowl's over and all the football fans kind of dial into basketball and it kind of takes off from there, right? But for the first, you know, two-thirds of the season, it gets super repetitive and redundant, and it's a lot of the same stuff, right? And so having something like this

where we've played, you know, a little over a fourth of the season, and we can just do something different for a week, I really appreciate that. And like even in the month leading up to this when we played the seeding games, those Tuesday, Friday, in-season tournament, you know, pool play games actually were pretty entertaining from just adding some differences in the way the games looked in terms of the courts all the way to just the level of intensity that the teams were playing with. It's clear that people want to win this.

Did you see the Pacers bench last night? Like, those guys were going absolutely crazy down the stretch of this game. And so I applaud Adam Silver just simply from the perspective of like, trying something that like even if it doesn't necessarily fix the big picture issues of the regular season, at least gives us something different to kind of break things up. Because now it's like we go a month or so of regular basketball and then you get kind of breakups with the pool games and then you have this exciting tournament the first week of December. Then we'll go rest of December January, another month, month and a half of things kind of settling back down into that cycle,

right? But then it'll be broke up by the trade deadline. And so I think it just kind of breaks up and partitions out the NBA season in a more palatable way. And so I've really enjoyed it so far. And I think it's only going to get better as we had further into this week. So Celtics Pacers is where we're going to start. I want to start with this third quarter run. So the Celtics were up, I think, seven at halftime, a late run there right before the half to kind of build the lead as the Pacers. I think we're up by one with about three, four minutes left.

But in that third quarter, Tyrese Halliburton completely takes over. and I put together a full thread of the way he was picking apart the Celtics defense in that third quarter run. So I want you guys to go take a look at that again on my Twitter feed out underscore Jason LT. But it started with Buddy Healed ghost screens. Now, last time we did a Pacer's video, we talked a lot about this specific concept, but it's one of the pet actions that the Pacers run a lot. And it's a very simple concept, right? Like you're going to put a point of attack type of dude that is going to guard a dribble drive guy on Tyrese Halliburton,

and you're probably going to put one of your lesser defenders on Buddy Heald is going to be more of a lock and trail position, right? And so a lot of times in those situations, if they're not switching, it's going to be a hedge and recover situation, and Tyrese might be able to get downhill. And if they switch, you're going to get Tyrese or Buddy Heald operating with a little bit of an advantage because there's always that little kind of lag in between switches. There's a specific play where I put it in the film thread where Buddy Heald missed a three

on the left wing on a ghost screen where Drew Holliday was originally guarding Tyrese Halliburton and Derek White was guarding Buddy Heald. But as Buddy Heald ran the screen and then slipped it, Drew Holliday was chasing Halliburton this way. And so when Buddy Heald cut across his face, he had to turn to go back. And by the time he turned and recovered, the ball was already in Buddy Heald's shooting pocket and he was elevating into a shot. So it's just a difficult action to guard in general. Now, to start in this third quarter stretch, the Celtics were not switching this action. And so as a result, of that, Tyrese kept getting downhill because Drew Holiday, just in that little interchange,

kept giving up an angle, and Tyrese is a little bit faster, a little bit bigger, and he was able to get past him and get downhill. And then from there, they were able to get good stuff out of it. The first one that I wanted to point out, this was the one where he kind of switched. He jumped up with his right hand into Horford, and then switched into his left hand and laid it in. On that play, this was a great example of why it's important to run weak side action. There a weak side action between, I think, Knee Smith and Brown, if I remember correctly. But in that weak side action, Al Horford, actually was Miles Turner and Bruce Brown. Miles Turner just set a flare screen for Bruce Brown down towards the corner on the weak side of the

ball. And as a result, because of that action, Horford's attention is directed in that way, right? Because he's got a coverage for any sort of off-ball screening action, right? So as Tyrese turns the corner coming off of that ghost screen as he gets around Drew Holiday because the Celtics weren't switching it, which again, I disagree with from Australia. standpoint because we're talking Derek White and Drew Holiday. There's no reason to make Drew Holiday navigate a screen and have to try to beat Tyrese when he's got that type of advantage, when you can just switch it,

and Derek White's just as capable of a perimeter defender as Drew Holiday is, right? And then Drew Holiday obviously can handle the buddy healed issue, but they weren't switching it, right? So Tyrese gets downhill. Because Horford's watching that back screen for Bruce Brown, he's a second late to get back to the rim and help, which gives Tyrese the angle to get into his body and then switch into his left hand and then make it, right? And then there was another one on the right side of the court. Just a couple possessions later, same sort of thing.

Go screen, no switch. Drew's a little out of position. Tyrese gets all the way downhill, engages Jason Tatum and help, drops off a perfect pass to Obie Topping in the dunker spot who rises up and lays it in, right? So then, from there, the Celtics start switching. When they start switching, immediately Tyrese Halliburton catches, is, I want to say, Derek White in the post on Al Horford, or excuse me, on Miles Turner, and they just dump it into Miles Turner, who quickly just turns and scores right at the basket, right?

Then there was another ball screen on the left side of the floor where, now this is a semi-transition possession, and the Pacers do a lot of this kind of stuff, and I think it's really, really smart, where, like, they will just, if Tyrese is coming down the floor with pace and he's got that little hop in his step, they'll just run and set that ball screen from somebody way out, like 30, 35 feet from the basket, and it just kind of spreads everything out and makes even more room for him to make those reads. And like Tyrese Halliburton is not like this outstanding vertical pop type of athlete, but he is a very quick lateral athlete. And so when he has that kind of space to change direction and kind of snake through the lane and make reads,

he's really, really tough to guard. And so on this particular play, and again, this one's in that film thread, Obie Topping their – Hallibutton is coming up the floor, in a semi-transition set up the left side. Topping comes up to set the screen on that left side. And you see Drew Holiday kind of open up to prepare to run over the top of that screen. It's also possible that he was expecting a different coverage from Horford. I'm not sure exactly what was happening in that possession.

But he just quickly cuts back over to the right and drew his way out of position, gets way downhill. Obie Topping just pops back to the top. Horford comes over and helps. He just slings it back over. his head to Obie topping on the left wing. You get the point here. It didn't matter which coverage it was. They ran a pick and pop with Miles Turner, just a basic pick and pop action that the Celtics

iced, which means Drew Holiday basically denied him the screen. He just cut back to the left and got downhill and engaged Horford and help. Easy drop off pass to Miles Turner at the top of the key for a wide open three. And like this is like separating process from results is important because especially with team like the Celtics, you can have stretches where, they score a shit ton of points, taking bad shots because they're that good. That's how much talent they have. But this is what's interesting about watching this Pacers team. Miles Turner is a good offensive player.

Not a great offensive player. Obie Toppin is a below-average NBA offensive player. Bruce Brown is a very good defensive player, very good athlete. He's not a great offensive player, right? It's not like he's out there surrounded by tons of offensive talent. But what he's doing is he's setting these guys up with great looks. Like, Obie Topin's not a guy that's going to pick you apart in a half court set and postups and pick and rolls and stuff, but if you just get him staying still catch and shoot threes,

you can knock him down. If you get him wide open catches underneath the basket in the dunker spot, he can rise up and finish. If you give Miles Turner wide open catch and shoot threes at the top of the key, he can score. In the fourth quarter, which we haven't even talked about yet, a big part of it was Aaron Neesmith and his ability to attack closeouts. but what do you have to do to give Aaron Neesmith the ability to attack a closeout? You have to consistently have the defense and rotation, which happens as a result of Tyrese Halliburton

and his ability to consistently generate dribble penetration, regardless of the coverage that the Celtics employed against him. So then at this point, I want to say in the run, like the Pacers had gone up by like three, four, five points in that area. T.J. McConnell comes in, and there's this brief bench stretch there to end the third quarter where T.J. is incredible. He ends up beating Cornette on a switch with his nifty kind of step-through move. He has a play and pick and roll where he draws multiple defenders, engages the low man, and makes a kickout pass to Ben Matherin in the left corner. And then he had a big steal on this entire

lineup. It was T.J. McConnell, Obitop, and Aaron Neesmith, Buddy Heald and Ben Matherin. They had an awesome defensive stretch there to end that third quarter. It was rough offense, too, from Drew Holiday and from Jalen Brown. By the way, random stat for you. Celtics fans, the Celtics have had the second worst offense in the league in third quarters this season. This has been a pretty consistent theme for them. But a lot of, after T.J. McConnell gets a steal and throws it ahead and Buddy Heald ends up getting a dunk, a lot of scoring pop and effective defense from that Pacers unit, and they actually built the lead up a little bit. I thought it was a really, really impressive, you know, a stretch from that group to just kind of

extend and expand the lead at that point. Then down the stretch, the Celtics predictably, with all the talent they have, they make a little run, turns into a close game down the stretch. And I want to really paint for you guys the difference in the quality of shots that the pacer's were getting. And what I appreciate about it is like, you know, Tyrese Halliburton is a really good score, right? And he hit two massive pull-up threes down the stretch. I want to be clear. But like Tyrese understood that like in this large sample size of 15-ish clutch possessions in the last five, six minutes of the fourth quarter, it's more important just to continually generate quality shots and trust that a certain amount of them are going to go in than any singular possession

and trying to punish a specific matchup or whatever it might be. Now, what they went with was guard to guard screens. It wasn't always but he healed. A lot of it was Bruce Brown as well, but they were using guard to guard screens to get Tyrese Halliburton downhill. In the event of a switch, he would just attack the switch defender downhill. If they lagged in their switch or didn't make a switch. He'd get downhill out of that, but he was making kickouts to Aaron Neesmith with an advantage. And Aaron Neesmith was just, all fourth quarter, was just ripping through to the right as hard as he could all the way to the rim. There were even a couple of plays that weren't closeouts where he did it off the dribble, one where Jalen Brown swatted him out of bounds and another where he

drew a foul on it. But like Aaron Neesmith actually was producing a lot of the rim pressure that the pacerers were coming up within that fourth quarter run. And by the way, Neesmith had a, He had two close out attacks down the stretch. He had one on the right wing where he kind of did a nice job relocating out of the corner, which created a better angle for him to beat Tatum. Tatum jumped out of his shoes on the pump fake, ripped through, easy floater off the glass. Another one kick out to the left corner. Neesmith just racks to the right, right, gets into Tatum's chest and finishes athletically at the rim.

By the way, Aaron Neesmith this year, 62 closeout opportunities. He's converted into 90 points. 90. 1.45 points per possession. And then obviously the two big shots of the game from Tyrese Halliburton nasty left to right crossover on Drew Holiday into a pull-up three. And then the one against Jalen Brown, which was crazy because he had Horford on a switch. And Halliburton's been cooking switches all year long. He's been up over like 1.3 points per ISO, which is insane. And then Buddy Heald is Jalen Brown on him. And Jailen, Buddy Heald runs over to set another ghost screen. And I'm like, oh, no, what are you doing? Like, don't do that. He's got the right

match. Don't bring an extra defender into it, which is exactly what happened. Jalen Brown just peels off a buddy healed and contests the Tyrese Halliburton pull up three and actually got a really good contest on it. He just fouled him, right? But Tyrese makes it anyway. Because guess what? A Tyrese Halliburton pull-up three has been worth 1.26 points per possession so far this year. He's been one of the best pull-up jump shooters in the league. We're talking that's over 60% in effective field goal percentage. That's like Steph Curry territory that we're seeing out of Tyrese Hallibur. as a pull-up jump shooter. It didn't matter.

Even though Buddy Heald made a bizarre decision, he just made the shot anyway. And then the Pacers ended up icing the game with an inbound play where Buddy Heel came up to the top of the key. Tatum and Drew Holiday kind of miscommunicated on a switch. And Buddy Heel hits a three at the top of the key, and the game is basically over.

One thing I want to point out on the defensive end of the floor, there were a couple of switches where they ended up getting Tyreys Halliburton onto Jason Tatum, and Jason Tatum did them favors by settling for jump shots, which we'll get to in a minute. But for the most part, I thought Aaron Neesmith did a really nice job on Jason Tatum, navigating those screening actions and avoiding switches as much as possible. Every single post-up ISO that Jason Tatum had on Aaron Neesmith down the stretch of that game, he forced him into a tough, long contested two.

Not a single time did he get downhill to the rim in an on-ball set? There was that one horn set where he kind of slipped to the basket and drew a foul when he was off-ball. but he did not beat Aaron Neesmith off the dribble a single time down the stretch of that game. It was, again, and this to me is like what's so exciting about this team in the long run. This team so badly needs like an athletic wing defender, right? And Aaron E Smith, good player who played a great game last night. But like now just imagine what that would look like if you had a above average starter caliber three and D guy on the wing, right? if you actually had like an Arb Jones or Jaden McDaniels type on the wing alongside Tyreys Halliburton.

That's what you're seeing there is like Aaron Neesmith is providing a version of that for the Pacers and it brings great value because they have such a need of that position type. I've been talking about this with the Lakers fans. Like, oh my gosh, look at Max Christi or Cam Reddish. And it's like, yeah, yeah, they're showing you how bad this team needs point of attack defense so that these. bench level guys are producing at a high level because that's what the team needs, right? And they're playing alongside a good rim protector, right? That, like, ideally, you have a better version of that and you get that much more impact out of that position, right? I mean, you can even say that the Denver Nuggets upgrading Jeremy Grant into Aaron Gordon,

a better version of all of the dirty work things that Jeremy Grant did, push them over the top in a lot of ways. And so, again, shout out to Aaron Neesmith. I'm not trying to undercut him, but that to me was an interesting, look ahead at just how important that specific piece is for the Pacers and a team that struggled defensively and has struggled on the glass throughout this season. Having, like, if you could slot Aaron Neesmith properly as an off-the-bench swing, that could even push you guys to a higher level at that point. In general, I was really impressed by the Pacer's defense down the stretch of this game,

and I think it's a strong indicator of what I said during the Pacers deep dive last week. they are an awful defensive team and an awful rebounding team. In some of it is personnel, right? Tyrese Halliburton is a really weak point of attack defender. Buddy healed is a really weak point of attack defender. Bruce Brown is good, but he's not having a great season. And then on the back line, Obie Toppin and Miles Turner is just running around trying to clean up messes all game long, and Obitopin is not the best low man in the world, right?

So like there's some personnel limitations there. But the Pacers have a lot of speed. They're capable of rotating better. They're capable of defending at the point of. have attacked better. They are capable of doing a better job. And so that's the thing. Do you want to be the Sacramento Kings? Or do you want to be a serious team? And if they play and compete in the dirty work details of the game, the way they did down the stretch against Boston, they do have a chance to make noise in the playoffs. Why? Because Tyrese Halliburton is playing like a top 10 player in the league.

That's just the level he's at right now. His pull-up shooting is real. I was on with the watch playback guys last night. And we were breaking down the game and somebody in the comments asked like, hey, is there any parallels between Tyrese Halliburton and Steph Curry in 2015? And the answer is yes on the offensive end of the floor. But the thing is, is Steph Curry and Clay Thompson were coming off of that 2014 Feebo World Cup where they both engaged on the defensive end of the floor and that Warriors team was the best defense in the league.

And Steph and Clay did their part to contribute to that. And so that's the next step. is like Tyrese has Steph Curry 2015 type potential as an offensive creator. He's faster. He's taller. He's showing some similar shooting capability. I wouldn't put him in the same conversation as Steph. I think that's blasphemy, but he's kind of trending in that direction, you know,

like in a lot of ways. And he's such a gifted on-ball passer. Like, he has the potential to kind of lead to that type of renaissance in Indy. But from the top down, there needs to be a commitment to the defensive end. like what you saw in that Celtics game. They can do it. They don't have to be the best defense in the league, but they need to be closer to that 15 mark, right?

And it's something that they have the personnel to do, in my opinion. 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 IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, 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 Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs?

Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s.

To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so you all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you finishing that sentence. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really?

Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In sports, the scoreboard doesn't tell the full story. But Netflix does. Stories about dads who happen to be world-class quarterbacks, untold tales of athletes you thought you knew. The heart racing pressure for the heart, soul, and survival of the multi-billion dollar business of F1.

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and so many more, Netflix has the stories for every type of fan. Netflix turns us all into fans. On the Celtics front, I have been saying forever, even including this season, that the Celtics could win 40 games in a row, and I would still be skeptical of their ability to win on the biggest state. at the highest level of the NBA playoffs. You'll notice the Celtics are number one or were number one in my power rankings yesterday, but in my contender list, I've consistently had them behind Denver,

regardless of the fact that they've looked better this season. And it's just because time and time again, specifically, when they get alpha-dogged by a star, they fail to regain control of a basketball game. Specifically with offensive execution, right? Yeah, they can beat the Sixers. Why? Because Joel Embed specifically really struggles in the playoff setting. And James Hardin specifically really struggles in the playoff setting.

Yeah, you beat Jimmy Butler once. You beat Jimmy Butler once and he still came this close to beating you, a pull up three in game seven that literally would have sent you home. And then the next year he did send you home. And then when you ran into Steph Curry in 2022, he alpha-dogged you guys and he sent you home. This is a consistent problem with this team. Down the stretch of that game,

I had Tyris Halliburton consistently generating great offensive opportunities for lesser offensive players. And then on the other end of the floor, Jason Tatum could not generate quality shots. He made a couple. He made a step-back mid-range jump shot over Aaron Nees-Smith on a clear side post up on the right side of the floor. He made like a jab-step jumper against Aaron Nees-Smith, about a 21-footer up on the kind of right elbow extended out, right? he made a couple of tough shots. But where was the easy shot? Where was the I'm going to back Aaron Neesmith down,

draw a second defender, and make a kickout pass to a high-quality three-point shot? Where was the... He had Tyrese Halliburton twice on switches. Once with a cleared side and 10 seconds on the shot clock. And he literally stood there and waited for the shot clock to run down and jacked up a jumper. And he missed it.

there was another one, Tyreys Halliburton, switch, left wing, this time like 12 seconds on the shot clock. Now, I would have had Jalen Brown clear out the side, but it would have been easy enough to have Jalen Brown just run through to the other side, and then Tatum just ripped through to the left, turn his back, post up, back down, draw the second defender, make the kickout pass, get a wide open three. Nope, he stood there, dribbled until the shot clock ran out and took a pull-up three, and he missed it. And by the way, like, this is the concern with Jason Tatum. one of the things I said before the season is like the positive, you know, spin of this situation is Tatum keeps getting better, right? And Tatum made some steps at the end of the heat series last year, clearing the side, working out of the post. But to start this season, he was posting up more and he was making the threes.

But his post-up attempts per game has been trending downwards and now his pull-up jump shot is falling apart. Do you remember at the beginning part of the season when he was making all his pull-up jump shots? he's now back down to 0.87 points per pull-up jump shot. So a Tatum pull-up jump shot is objectively a bad shot for this team. It was a bad shot in this regular season so far. It was a bad shot last year in the regular season. He cannot even get more than one point per pull-up jumper, yet is a consistent part of his shot diet.

Meanwhile, he's had success backing down in the post, drawing fouls getting closer to the rim, and what I need to see is in a big, game like last night when he's getting alpha dogged by Tyrese Halliburton, when he needs to arrest control of the situation, he can't go generate a quality shot. And that's what's discouraging to me because he holds the keys. I've said this to Celtics fans nonstop over the years. It's not about a trade. It's not about bringing another guard in. It's not about, you know, I miss misdiagnosed the situation after the, the, the, um, I.

after the Warriors series, that it wasn't about aggregate ball handling. I was like, oh, they just need to go get another guard. They got Malcolm Brogden. No, that's not the trick. What dawned on me last year is like, it just doesn't matter because the ball ends up in Jason Tatum's hands at the end of the day. That's where it ends up. And so it really is up to him.

And this was, again, he's going to have a lot more chances, especially as we get into the postseason, right? But this was a high leverage game, single elimination, first in-season tournament, on the road, tough crowd, top 10 player in the league, at least in terms of the level of play he's playing at right now, and Tyree Saliburton is taking it to him. And like, he can't regain control the game on the other end of the floor. And again, I'm a big process over a results guy.

This wasn't, oh, the Celtics just missed their open threes. No, that's not what happened. The jumpers they got down the stretch were tough jumpers. Jalen Brown tough mid-range pull-up over Bruce Brown missed it. Jalen Brown, tough step back three out of the left side corner over Miles Turner. Missed it. Jason Tatum, tough fadeaway, right shoulder fade over Aaron Neesmith that he got bailed out on and drew a foul. Another tough fadeaway over Aaron Neesmith on the left side that he missed.

He made a tough one-legged fadeaway out of the right block. He made a tough jab step pull-up jump shot. He missed another tough pull-up three-point shot over Tyrese house. It's not like I can point to, oh, they did this process thing correctly and generated high quality shots and they just missed them. No, down the stretch of that game, Tyrese Halliburton generated significantly higher shot quality than Jason Tatum over a large sample of like 15, 20 possessions to determine a single elimination game. And so the Pacers won comfortably. It's literally that simple. Like, and here's the thing, Jason, Tyrese Halliburton took two pull-up threes.

Why aren't you getting mad at him? Couple things. Tyrese Halliburton's just way better at pull-up threes. A Tyrese Halliburton jump shot is worth about 40% more than a Jason Tatum pull-up jump shot. So just from the simple standpoint of shot value, it's much better. And then secondly, he only took two of them.

What did he do the rest of the time? Running his pet actions, whether it was ball screens, like traditional ball screens, or ghost screens with, with Buddy Heald, getting downhill, making kickout passes to guys who had an advantage. It empowers the whole system. Everybody's in a flow. They get better shots.

They make them. It's that simple. Now, one thing. Can Christopps Porzingis help the Celtics issues in late game situations? Because obviously he didn't play last night. Yes, but only if they execute properly. So, for instance, like I was asked last night on the broadcast, what do you think is the Celtics? pet action, like the thing they're going to run if they need a bucket.

And what I said was Tatum, Derek White, go scream, which ended up being primarily what they ran at the end of the game, which was how they got Halliburton switched on to him a few times. Aaron Neesmith in general did a good job of avoiding those switches. But that was the primary action they ran down the stretch of that game. And they actually did get into some good matchups. Even in the Aaron Neesmith stuff, like Aaron Neesmith is a lesser perimeter defender or lesser wing defender than the vast majority of the... the guys that are going to be guarding Tatum in late game situations in the postseason.

And so what I like about the Porzingis piece is he's going to draw big in all likelihood, which means they're not going to switch. They're going to run probably a traditional drop coverage, which is going to allow him to make kickout passes to Porzingis wide open at the top of the key. And that's good. Question is, let's say that Tatum identifies that as his advantage. Let's say they're playing the Cavs in a playoff series. and it's like he knows Jared Allen is going to, in all likelihood, run a drop,

and, you know, it's Max Truce on the ball. And he's chasing over the top. And he knows he can consistently get the defense in rotation by just hitting Porzingis at the top of the key in a pick and pop. Will he do it? Will he spam it? Will he go down the floor five times in a row and just draw the second defender and make the drop-off pass to Porzingis so that he can extend the advantage

or knock down the shot or whatever it is. Will he do that? Because I watched him have Halliburton cleared side plenty of time on the shot clock and just stand there and do nothing. And so that's the concerning thing to me is it's like something has to click there with Tatum to where, because we've all seen him do it for bursts.

We saw him just pick on the Sixers down the stretch of game seven. We saw him in game five and six of the Celtics Heat series last year, clear the side, work methodically, generate quality shots. We know he can do it, but will he do it and do it consistently? That's the thing that we have to keep an eye on moving forward. And then last note on the Celtics, I was really confused in general by their defensive process in this game.

They were really sloppy on their switches and they blew a bunch of them. They got obviously Buddy Yield's final three-point shot that he made was on a blown switch. They had this weird play where Aaron Neesmith got an easy bucket on a baseline out of bounds because Al Horford did this wildly aggressive show on a Buddy Heald screen when Buddy Heel was running like 30 feet away from the basket, and Aaron Neesmith just slipped it and got a wide open layup. All of those actions where Tyrese Halliburton was getting downhill, a lot of those were coming out of actions the Celtics should have been switching, especially the guard-to-guard actions.

Now I get it, like, even in switching guard-to-guard actions, it is difficult. But I think it's an easier goal than asking Drew Holiday to stay in front of Tyreville. Haliburton somehow while he's getting go-screened, right? And, you know, again, with the go-screen action, more often than not, it just forces the defensive player to open up a little bit as he kind of works his way around. And just that little bit of advantage is all a speed guard like Tyrese Halliburton needs to beat him off the dribble. And so in general, I didn't think it was their best defensive effort.

But like, with the offensive quality of shot they were getting, it didn't matter. They weren't going to win that game. and that to me is the more concerning part. Moving on to Pelicans Kings. The Kings are nine and four in their last 13 games, and they've beat a bunch of good teams in that span. They beat the Thunder, they beat the Cavs, they went into L.A. and beat the Lakers, blew them out,

went into Dallas and blew out the Mavs, went into Minnesota and blew out the Timberwolves. Then they had that wild 20-plus-point comeback against Golden State to win on the Malik Monk game winner. They even beat the Nuggets. That was as impressive. a nine wins and 13 span as you can find around the league right now. But the four losses, they lost to the clippers on a back-to-back after the Warriors game,

and then three losses to the Pelicans. And it's interesting to me, because after last night, obviously, the third loss. And it's interesting to me because it's an interesting example of basketball matchups. Because the Pelicans have been a pretty mediocre team. Just lost to the Bulls last. They just lost two games in Utah. They have been pretty mediocre, right? They're 12 and 10 this year.

they've had the CJ McCollum injury, but there's a case to me made that they've been better without him just in terms of overall point of attack defense with Dyson Daniels in the starting lineup, right? And what's interesting to me is like that is, how does a team that's that mediocre have the number of a King's team that's dominated most of the good teams in the league? And to me, that's where it's, this is why I always talk about basketball being more art than science. This is why you could never just assign a single catch-all metric to quantify the ability. of a basketball player. Matchups matter. The specific reason why the king struggle so much against the pelicans is they have the specific type of defensive personnel to bother them at all three levels of their offense.

So like, it starts with the point of attack, guys. Whether it's Erb Jones or it's Dyson Daniels or it's Najee Marshall or it's Jose Alvaredo, it is just a steady diet of outstanding. point of attack defenders on Malik Monk and Dair and Fox. Then, even if you do get switches, guys like Brandon Ingram and Trey Murphy are not slouches in that area. They've got the length and athleticism to at least do a decent job. I even thought C.J. McCollum did a really good job on the ball in this game. At several deflections, he was locked in. And with how high they bring Jonas Valichunis up in their drop,

it's a doable job. And again, this is where, this is what I meant when I'm talking about all three levels, because then you end up with this. backside situation where it's Brandon Ingram or Zion Williamson or Trey Murphy, usually two of those three guys in any given possession. So I've got 6-9 athlete with long arms. I've got Zion Williamson one of the most freaky athletes in the NBA right now. And I've got Trey-Murphy, Trey-Murphy has 6-8-69 long-armed freak athlete that are on the backside. And so those guys are just blowing plays up. Zion Williamson, once again, two possessions that he blew up as a low man. He reached in and ripped Keegan Murray on a play where he was coming out of the low man spot there out of the left corner.

He had that play where I think it was – I'm trying to remember who was fronting, but there was that play where you saw Sabonis get the deep seal in transition. And I want to say it was one of the Pelicans guards, I think, that was fronting the post. and Zion's way up on the left wing and Fox or Monk or whoever it is throws the over-the-top pass to Sabonis and it looks like the side's cleared behind him Zion just comes flying in from the wing

and just snatches the basketball out from over the top and like that to me is what makes that defense so exciting is it's like like Zion has that kind of potential he's got the anticipation, he's got the instincts, he's got the athleticism Brandon Ingram and Trey Murphy bring that same type of disruption And so when you've got that athleticism on the weak side and you've got that sort of point of attack personnel,

you can afford to bring Jonas up in ball screens. This is the Denver Nuggets thing. Everybody's wondering, how is it the Denver Nuggets are getting stops when they have a weak rim protector? And it's literally because they can do whatever they want with Yokic. They can drop him deep. They can drop him up at the level of the screen.

It doesn't matter because Contavius-Callelope is getting over the top of that screen. he's applying back pressure. Christian Brown is getting over the top of that screen and he's applying back pressure, right? And then on the weak side, athletes like Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon are blowing actions up by anticipating and using their length and athleticism. And it is allowed them to not need Jonas Fallon Chunas to clean up all the messes. It's allowed the nuggets to not need Nicole Yokic to clean up all the messes. And that's what's kind of interesting to me about modern defense.

is like you kind of have to be strong in two of your cores, right? One of the things, like the Lakers have been one of the best defenses in the league over the last, you know, month or so. They've been top five. And a big part of that is they have outstanding rim protection and their help defense has been good. They've been, like, the point of attack's been a little bit of a mess. Austin's a little rough. DeL's a little rough.

You've been getting stretches out of Max and Cam, but it's been a little rough, right? but the weak side, the Rui Hachamura, the LeBron James, the Christian Wood, the weak side help and the rim protection of Anthony Davis has allowed them to be a great defense despite having below average point of attack personnel. And that's what's exciting now Jared Vanderbilt coming back is they could potentially then take a leap up to the next level from there. But I think it's an interesting example of that. Like if you have strong point of attack personnel and strong help person,

personnel, you can get away with the weak rim protector. If you have, you know, like if you're excellent at the point of attack and you're excellent in rim protection, you don't even need to send a third defender into ball screens. And so now your weak side defense isn't as important. You guys kind of get the point. I think it's an interesting example of that. But this defense has given the Kings in particular a lot of issues to give you an idea. In the three games against the Pelicans, Darren Fox, who, by the way, has been playing

like an MVP against everyone else, 23 points per game, 40, percent from the field, 19 percent from three, and more turnovers than assists in three games. Malik Monk, three games versus the Pels. 13 points per game, 36 percent from the field, 38 percent from three. They've consistently given this team issues. And then on the other end, I mean, I thought the Kings did a better job swarming Zion Williamson in this game, keeping him under control. And the first two losses, Zion Williamson just sliced and diced him.

But this time, Brandon Ingram just completely picked them apart. 30 points, six assists. Kings got within five, and then Brandon just took the game over. He hit this really nice jab-step pull-up jumper going left over Keegan Murray. Then he had this ball screen where he drew a second defender, Subonis up to the level of the screen. And it's actually this really cool possession where Yonis rolls, and Harrison Barnes comes over and stands right under the basket and basically takes away that easy roll pass. And Brandon, like, Yonis gives him a window that's kind of out to the side.

And Brandon throws a beautiful pass that hits Yonis in that side so that he can just quick turn and shoot the hook shot. over Harrison Barnes who has no chance of blocking the hook shot, he catches it and makes it. I thought it was a really nice play from Brandon Ingram to get a high-quality shot out of a good defensive possession from Sacramento. And then it ended with just a simple double team. Brandon ISO out of the right wing, gets downhill, gets down to kind of like the dunker spot area, draws a second defender, makes a kickout pass, hockey assist,

Trey Murphy on the left wing, knocks down the three and the game is over. But like it was just methodical, beautiful shot creation from Brandon Ingram with excellent defense on the other end of the floor closing things out. A couple of guys I want to shout out. Herb Jones, I should say, had 20. I'm trying to work on pronouncing names correctly, so please keep correcting me when I mess that up. Herb Jones had 23 points. He had a huge offensive rebound after the Kings. Malik Monk goes down, hits a pull-up three, gets it to five, and then the Kings have a great defensive possession and four C.J. McCollum into a tough step-back jump shot that he misses,

but Herb Jones is just completely unboxed out underneath the basket, gets an offensive rebound put back, which is a lot of that's on the Kings, which we'll talk about in a minute. And then we talked about this when we covered a Pelican's game a week or two ago, but he's doing a lot of work putting the ball on the floor. He had a couple of huge possessions put in the ball on the floor in this game. He converted nine spotted possessions in this game into 13 points.

And I think that that's just, again, with it, when you have that specific skill set that he has, which is he's an outstanding perimeter defender, right? When you have that, if you can be a, not just a guy who can knock down a three, but also be a dribble shoot and pass guy, if you can actually be a connective piece in a driving kick system,

that just pushes your value that much higher. And that, you know, that's the different, like, like Herb Jones, if he can get on that Jaden McDaniels track where he's got a little bit more of that off the dribble pop, it can just push him up to that next level and raise the ceiling of this team. And then last thing I wanted to shout out

Trey Murphy. I've been shouting out this type of guy around the league a lot lately. It's this, you know, whether it's Sam Houser, it's Duncan Robinson, or it's Michael Porter Jr. But like the taller spot-up guy on the weak side has a little bit off the dribble pop and is hyper-aggressive in catch-and-shoots situations even when he's not really open.

I think that brings a ton of value. Trey Murphy, this season's 5 for 11 on guarded catch-and-shoot threes, which is a huge asset. like he hit a couple of them in this game where it's like the guy's there and it just doesn't matter and I think that having Trey Murphy back has been a lot this team this team has potential to be really really great with the defensive personnel that they have if they can continue to get high-level shot creation at Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson on the king's front I don't want to

like I don't want to overdo it because I think some of this is in their head uh like there were some good looks down the stretch of that game that they missed some good catch-and-shoot threes that they miss. Subonis smoked a lefty hook right at the rim that he shot way long off the back of the rim that would have cut it to like four, I think, uh, down the stretch. So I think some of it's in their head. They were sloppy on the glass. Like the kings have been the best defensive rebounding team in the league over the last month. And they just had a bunch of mistakes on the glass in this game. They gave him 13 offensive rebounds. So like I don't want to overthink it, but I think one of the things you'll see happen in basketball is especially with the bad matchup, a team

struggle with some of the mental elements of it. And you almost just kind of like need to get the monkey off your back, right? You need to get a big win against this team just to kind of reset your confidence. And I'm not, now that they've played three times, I would assume because they're both in the West they'll play at least one more time this year. But I think especially because you don't want to run into a playoff series with that problem if they were to catch each other in a matchup. And so I think it's important for the Kings to not to win against the Pelicans at some

point this season. All right, guys, that's all I have for this part of today. We're going to be back later tonight for a breakdown. of the Knicks Bucks as well as the Sons and the Lakers. I will see you guys then. The volume. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite.

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