How Luka Doncic & Mavericks have OUTSMARTED Thunder | Hoops Tonight

How Luka Doncic & Mavericks have OUTSMARTED Thunder | Hoops Tonight

what’s up everybody thanks as always for supporting the show it would mean a lot to me if you would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel and then follow me on social media on Tik Tok Instagram and Twitter so you guys don’t miss any of our content over the course of this season all right let’s talk some basketball this to me has been a really fascinating exhibition of the downsides of of having a really young team and one of the main things that I point to there is like you know around the league we’re seeing youth actually win but not youth in the early 20s we’re seeing youth in the late 20s win it’s the it’s the prime guys it’s the guys in that 25 to 29 range that have kicked the out of the 30 to 35 guys right and and that that has been kind of the big story of this postseason and one of the things that’s really not that I’ve really noticed in this series um for the between the Thunder and the Mavs is just the Thunder have been unable to reach their ceiling through a lot of young guy decision-making mistakes and the Mavs have had issues with their Stars being consistent but in terms of overall process they’ve been more diligent about getting the right shots and playing for each other and playing to their strengths which I think is manifested every single time that they’ve really put their foot on the gas as a matter of fact the two losses to me primarily came down to Luca just sucking like in game one and game four and as long as Luca reaches a certain floor I think they’re going to win and so we’re headed back to Dallas for game six which I believe is on Saturday we’ll start with you Carson where you at with this series right now I’m confident in Dallas and I would pick them to close it out at home this should have been over in five like if not for an absolute Luca disaster class in game four and of course Shay coming through huge clutch on the well as well but even Kyrie couldn’t make shots in the fourth quarter of that game like that was just such a collective meltdown clearly we are seeing a more consistent level from this Dallas team because it’s exactly like you say not only has this not been a good Luca series last game he was really good Kyrie a lot of it to me has just been so consistently seeing two Defenders and he’s playmaking well but also I would have liked to see him assert himself more in some of these spots and maybe even go away from pick and roll and just go to work in isolation he’s such a great shot maker like he to me hasn’t quite had the offensive impact you would like to see neither of them have had like the sort of collective big Knight that we know that they’re capable of partly as a product of scheme but also just as a product of their performance the level that they’re playing at and still they’re up 3-2 and again this series should have been over by now so I have a lot more confidence in Dallas’s role players right now I think that PJ Washington and Derrik Jones are kind of running circles around what you’re seeing from the OKC Wings in terms of shot making from PJ but also just in terms of the physicality the athleticism how they’re making plays they are consistently getting the ball to those corners when you’re seeing two guys sent it Kyrie and Luca and they’re making shots and on the flip side I just think OKC’s offense is kind of broken down both these teams are having to deal with awesome Rim protection like the efficiency in the restricted area for both these teams is just brutal it’s like way below the rest of the field in this series and you got to give props to chat there and you got to give props to Gaff Lively there but one team is still producing one team is still getting good open looks in the corners and the other team is just really struggling to move the ball they’re at times forcing finishes which is just not going to work out when you’re dealing with this level of Rim protection and uh they’re forcing some shots from Beyond The Arc as well like where you make an extra swing pass you can get a better look and they also just aren’t really knocking down even the decent looks that they’re getting from 3C I do think it’s mostly a product of just not having very good shot quality though so you can start Isaiah Joe like last game and then you can’t Ro off of Josh giddy super easily but Isaiah Joe wasn’t on as a three-point shooter last game nor was Kayan Wallace nor was Aaron Wiggins those guys have to make shots to uh ultimately figure things out for OKC and JB has just been really really rough has not been nearly the second shot creator that they’ve needed hasn’t been able to consistently create advantages also just has struggled as a shooter like he’s just off so when I think about where Dallas is at without getting like really good Luc in Kyrie consistently they’re just checking more boxes their physical the defensive Foundation is so strong I think they can win even more convincingly on the glass than they have in some of these games so I would confidently expect them to finish out this series I’m with you I just think OKC they’re incredible what they’ve done for being so young they’re the youngest one seed in NBA history that is awesome what an accomplishment but up and down this roster the dudes other than Shay just aren’t ready for this moment yet yeah the supporting cast has really let Oklahoma City down and so when you couple in the other factors like you know sga’s been pulling his weight like he’s 30 points last game this series he’s 3210 and seven on 59% true shooting I know you mentioned this uh last episode Carson when you’re facing this kind of defensive intensity and pressure and these kind of packed lanes and all this defensive attention it really is remarkable that SGA has been this effective and he’s playm well like he’s seven assists this series he’d have way more if his boys could hit a shot like they’re really letting him down jdub is the guy that I point the finger at the most game four he’s 14 points on five of 19 from the field game five he’s 12 points on six of 13 and you can’t overstate like how important three-point shooting is to this team they were number one in three-point percentage in the regular season game five they shoot 10 of 40 uh this series they’ve been at 35% against Dallas and outside of game one uh they’ve shot 35% from or below 35% excuse me from deep in four consecutive games against Dallas so you couple the fact that Oklahoma City has consistently gotten very little from their Supporting Cast Dallas has gotten everything and then you get to the physicality Department which is why I really give the edge to Dallas they’ve won every game on the glass outside of game one they’re plus 12 in defensive rebounds or excuse me total rebounds they’re plus nine in offensive rebounds like those are just things that don’t change like I trust Dallas’s defense I trust them on the glass if Luca can shut up and stop crying to the refs and do what he did in game five like I’m very confident that the Dallas is going to come through and handle business uh but it really comes down to Oklahoma City supporting castman I just don’t think they have done enough to propel Shay Shay has done everything you could have asked for him in this series like he has gone above and beyond and I’m really disappointed at how The Supporting Cast has let him down in this series yeah the stat that I gave to just kind of demonstrate the bad process is they’re actually shooting 42% on wide open 3es in the series they’re they’re making them the problem is they’re only generating 16 of them they generated 23 of them per game in the regular season they were just so much more diligent about that something I’ve noticed for a long time I work with a lot of young basketball players obviously through a bunch of different Avenues I work with the the college kids that come back to town I I work with my high school team that I coach and one of the most frequent things I notice and I’ve used this kind of like uh um this story on the show before but like young basketball players struggle to identify what’s working and repeat it and then identify what’s not working and like trim that fat out of whatever they’re doing is they they have a tendency to kind of bounce back and forth and not really be aware of the value of what every possession is and I think the dead giveaway there is like look at how Dallas is like PJ Washington has it going so they’re just like hunting him with skip passes every single time he’s being left open you can literally see Kyrie and and Luca like like just trying to find reasons to give him the basketball you know what I mean and with Oklahoma City it’s kind of just they’re just playing so read and react but not like not with any sort of diligence and bigger picture sense of what’s happening in the game everyone’s just kind of playing you know what I mean and like I I’ll see that with young players where it’s like you’ll you’ll run a basic action what what maybe it’s a ball screen where you’re attacking a specific mismatch and this one guy can’t guard when a guy’s going downhill at it and you’ll get an easy layup and then you’ll go down the floor the next time and I’ll be sitting there thinking like let’s do the same thing again and then someone will just go off script and take a random pull-up jumper and you’re like what are you doing we just got an easy layup doing this so how about we do that until they figure out how to stop it and then we figure out what we’re going to do next right like basketball doesn’t need to be as difficult is as it is sometimes and like honestly like one of the big things that’s dawned me in this series I actually do think Oklahoma City has more offensive Talent than Dallas and I think they’ve demonstrated that throughout the throughout the season right the problem is is like Dallas is just playing better basketball they’re just playing a more diligent and smart brand of basketball I do think one of the things that has stood out in a big way is Dallas’s defense is for Real particularly at the perimeter and at the rim and this is one of those things I remember after the trade deadline they went on an East Coast road trip and that that was the game where Max dreu hit the that was the trip where maxu beat him on a on the full PT game winner if you guys remember but their defense was just straight ass on that road trip like it was so bad and I remember sitting there thinking like man like I don’t know if this team is capable of really locking in on that in the way that they need to but they did down the stretch of the season and like I I legitimately have been super impressed by them in this playoff run and one of the things too that I want to say before we move on kyre there are some funky box scores in there and and like I get it I know I’m a Kyrie fan but like I think he’s been pretty damn good in this series like Kyrie is just a basketball player man like he just does all of these little things really well and and and just kind of has a feel for like the timeliness of what’s happening in a game like he didn’t have I can’t even remember how many points he scored in in in game five it wasn’t much but he hit this like huge pullup three I want to say it was in the early fourth quarter that put them up 14 and like he hadn’t even been being aggressive but he was aggressive on that possession and it almost felt like he was like I can hit this shot I’m GNA hit right here it’s just going to change the mental Dynamic of the game because 14 just feels insurmountable in a lot of ways and so yeah like I I I I just want to shout out Dallas I’ve been really really impressed with them I they flipped me in the last month of the season I had them considerably lower in my Contender rankings and I ended up moving them up to third behind Denver and Boston at the very end of the season after watching that last that last stretch just because I thought they were peing at the right time and I really thought they were figuring some things out defensively and like it’s been cool to kind of see that come to fruition and I’ve just been really really impressed by them and honestly I think Dallas if if Dallas and Denver both Escape I think that would be a really really fun Western Conference finals and to me that does feel like a proper Conference Finals type of matchup [Music] he

Jason Timpf is joined by the ‘Nerd Sesh’ guys to share their predictions for Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, and the Dallas Mavericks’ Game 6 matchup with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren, and the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round of the NBA Playoffs. The guys discuss how Dallas seized control of the series and how the Thunder’s youth has been on display against a more experienced Mavericks team.

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