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Jason LT
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Make it a playoff run to remember with DraftKings. Download the DraftKings sportsbook app and use code HOOPS. That's H O O P S. That's code hoops for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets. When you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER in New York, call 877-8-HOPE NY or text HOPENY to 467369 in Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org Please play responsibly on behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Resort in Kansas. 21 plus. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void. In Ontario, new customers only. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG Co Audio all right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Monday everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great start to your week. Well, the NBA NBA Playoffs just delivered us an unbelievable night with two completely absurd games as the Knicks go down 20 in the second half and come all the way back to beat the Celtics in overtime, riding a 53 to 30 run with some really interesting basketball on both ends of the floor. And then our nightcap, the Oklahoma City Thunder throw a fantastic punch against the Denver Nuggets, showing so much of what has made them so good all season long. But all night long, the Nuggets just kept scoring the basketball and keeping things close and then at the end of the game scoring every single time down the floor as they methodically work their way into one of the most outrageous thefts that I can remember in my time as an NBA fan. I was getting ready to come out of that game thinking, oh, a lot of encouraging stuff for Denver, but obviously they're going to lose this game. Now Denver's up one oh, and the series has a completely different feel. We're going to be breaking down both games from the perspective of both teams. You guys know the drill. Before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on twitter_jason lt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Make sure you guys follow us there. And last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments. We will. Also, when we are done here tonight, we will be heading over to playback. On playback, we have callers up on stage, we take questions from the chat, we watch film. We just hang out and talk basketball for an extra 45 minutes at the end of each show. So make sure there's a link in the description here. Make sure when we're done here, you guys follow us over to playback for the after show. So, as I said before the series, I didn't pick the Nuggets to win. I picked the Thunder to win. The Thunder were a minus 700 favorite. I thought that was a little too extreme. I said that that should be somewhere more around the minus 300, minus 350 side of things. In that Oklahoma City is clearly the better team. They are healthy and more well rested. They have home court advantage. They demonstrated a lot of things this year that show them as one of the great teams in NBA history. Everything you heard about Boston last year, the Thunder were basically a better version of that this year, playing against a substantially tougher schedule. This is a very, very, very good team. But one of the reasons why I anticipated it being a closer series, a series where Denver would win multiple games, centered around the fact that Denver scored against these guys in the regular season. And this is the beautiful thing about having Nicola Jokic. We've been talking so much on this show over the course of the last week about the concept of superstar players and how valuable they are in the NBA playoffs and how there's been kind of a new light that's been shined on depth of role player talent. And while I have always felt that that's important, and yeah, you could argue that as the league has become more transition based and there's more possessions and there's a lot more, you know, advanced defensive schemes that force your stars to give up the ball, that, yes, having a depth of talent is more important than it used to be. But ultimately, time and time again, I saw in the first round, it was the stars that were doing the heavy lifting. You want to know why Denver beat the Clippers even though everybody, including myself, beat the Clippers? Because Jokic was so much better than Jo, James Harden and Kawhi Leonard was. You want to know why Jalen Brunson was able to dispatch the Pistons? Because he specifically outplayed Cade down the stretch of those games. Anthony Edwards out playing Luca Steph outplaying Fred Van Vliet and Alper and Changun. I can go down the line over and over again. The Stars ultimately are the one guy on the floor that has the ability to transcend all the surrounding circumstances and to get the job done. Nicole Yokich just played one of the best playoff games you will ever see a player play. 42 points, 22 rebounds, 6 assists. He was getting absolutely mauled all over the place. Oklahoma City threw an excellent defensive punch in this Game really catching the Nuggets off guard with their ball pursuit, specifically when guys would turn their head. Turnovers and getting out in transition off of turnovers was a huge part of this specific game. That was actually one of the big ways that Oklahoma City built as much margin as they did throughout the game in the half court. Both teams actually struggled to score relative to their typical efficiency. Oklahoma city logged in 87 offensive rating in the half court. That's pretty low. Denver logged in 83 offensive rating in the half court. That's pretty low. They were able to control things with Oklahoma City in their offense when they were in the half court. There was just the turnovers and the getting out in transition over and over and over again. But one of the things that started to come to fruition towards the tail end of the game was Denver stopped turning the ball over and their offense can generate quality shots against this team. And one of the things is, if you've got an elite unit, if you've got one singular thing that you do as a basketball team that the other team can't handle, then you will have stretches of games where you're in control. And every time Oklahoma City built that lead up to 12, 13, 14 points, the Nuggets would score 2, 3 times in a row and get the lead back down to six or seven points. When you watch this game, yeah, there were guys who contributed. Obviously. Aaron Gordon hits the shot of a lifetime in his second game winner in this playoff run. He's having one hell of a playoff run. You have Russell Westbrook in his first shift doing all the work that he was doing on the ball. Jamal hit a couple big shots in this game, but over and over again, it was Nicola Jokic who was the superpower. He was the guy that no matter what Oklahoma City did, no, no matter how many bodies they threw at him, how many times in that crunch time did you see him literally rumble down the lane against like three, four different Thunder defenders on one single possession and just work his way through them and get to where he needed to go. Just an unbelievable performance from Nicola Jokic in this particular game. Like the, The. The sheer degree of difficulty. You're watching Lou Dort every time he gets a switch, just chucking him like he's a football sled at the foul line, getting hacked and grabbed. Chad Holmgren did a wonderful job in this game of bringing physicality to Jokic, especially early, and that caused them a lot of problems throughout the game. Denver was struggling as soon as they turned their head, whether it was Alex Crusoe or someone else, someone would come flying in from behind and poke the ball away or block the shot from behind. Denver's going to have a lot of opportunity to look at tape and see opportunities where they just weren't prepared for the things that Oklahoma City did did defensively. But ultimately in the third quarter, Denver scored 35 points. In the fourth quarter, Denver scored 31 points, 66 points on the road against the best defense, not just in this individual season, but relative to NBA history in the rest of the league's defensive ratings. This is an all time great defense that Oklahoma City has statistically and Denver is able to score against them. If you take anything away from this game and look, this series now has a very different feel now, right, the series, once you steal home court advantage, Denver is in a substantially better position to try to steal this series. I never overreact to game one. I'm not going to change my pick or anything like that, but I went from feeling like this was a series where Denver might get a couple of games, maybe three games, to now Denver has a legitimate chance to win this series by stealing game one. They have changed the entire tone and tenor of this entire series. And it was Nicole Jokic time and time again just being the indomitable force on offense in a way that Oklahoma City simply could not match up with him. 42 and 22. It's the seventh time in his career he's had a 2020 game in the playoffs. I just thought he was absolutely unbelievable tonight. I always talk about adversity in how it brings the absolute best out of basketball players. And I used to complain about this in the past, specifically with Kevin Durant when he went to the warriors. Back when I was a younger fan who was very upset about how my LeBron James led Cleveland Cavaliers were being basically put into a position where they couldn't win because the second best player, third best player in the league joined a 73 win team. And I'm watching them, and I'm watching them win 15 straight playoff games. And I'm watching KD get easy dunks driving down the lane while Cavs are running to Steph Curry on the left wing in transition. And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking like, this is not the best basketball I've seen KD play because I've seen KD when the shit hits the fan, like 2021 in Brooklyn against the, against the Bucks. I've seen him rise to the occasion when the circumstances demanded more out of him than he had ever provided in his career. And he put together a game in that. What was a game five or game six against the Bucks. That was one of the best games you'll ever see a player play because the adversity brought it out of him. This was a game Jokic was frustrated. He's frustrated with Michael Porter Jr. He's frustrated with the team's rebounding, frustrated with the mistakes that were being made. You could see him just like rubbing his temples during the game, like working his way through emotionally what he was dealing with as he's. He just wants to win so badly, but he knows his team is just up against it. But he never gave up and just kept attacking and just kept getting buckets and kept generating offense. And as a result he puts forth one of the craziest stat lines that you'll see in the history of the NBA playoffs. I just was amazed by Nikola Jokic tonight. He deserves all the flowers that he's going to get. He just single handedly Superman backpacked a win for his team on a night when they were not playing well. Jamal Murray 6 for 6 for 16, Michael Porter Jr. 1 for 8. They this was a game where he needed to do it all and he did. And he reached a level that we haven't seen in a very long time. And Denver gets out of here with the win. Lots of interesting stuff to look forward to in the series. You saw over the course of that, of that second half that Denver was able to kind of pack the paint and gear. Oklahoma City's shot selection towards weak side shots. 4 guys like Chet Holmgren, 4 guys like Alex Caruso. Shout out to Alex Caruso. By the way, I thought this game winner from Aaron Gordon overshadowed one of the better role player games that you'll ever see. He had 20 points, six rebound or excuse me, 20 points, six assists and five steals and was just an absolute wrecking ball from the minute he checked into the game. Cause Denver was kind of hanging tough from the minute Alex checked into the game. He was just an absolute wrecking ball over and over again, knocking down catch and shoot threes. I thought it was interesting that Mark Dagal actually started him in the second half. Mark Dagonault was coaching this like it was an important game. He wanted to win. And by the way, I saw some criticism and I understand after the fact it's easy to just be like oh well they should have done this, they should have done that. If they hit a game tying three and they go to overtime and lose, everyone's complaining that they didn't foul because they're up 3. Like, I get it. There are some different circumstances. Like there was one where Jokic was literally off the floor. But ultimately that scheme, that idea of fouling, intentionally fouling down the stretch when you're up three works if you make your damn free throws. And so if there's an, if there's any bit of criticism, it's that either Mark Dagot and the coaching staff did trust Chet and Chet just happened to miss a couple of free throws, or there needs to be an adjustment with your coaching staff based on the fact that you don't have the requisite free throw shooting on the floor to get away with that sort of situation. But there are problems that both teams can't handle in this matchup. I don't think that. I don't think that Jamal Murray is going to have a super efficient scoring series. He'll have a game or two in this series where he shoots the ball really well, probably in Denver where he, you know, has 30 something and, and, you know, goes 12 for 18 from the field. But like, this is a matchup that's going to be tough for him. I don't think Michael Porter Jr. Is going to have a really super efficient, high volume, high efficiency scoring series because there's just so much athleticism on the floor for okc. You can see Denver rushing a lot of these turnovers. One of the things that's happening is they are sped up. They are making mistakes in the open floor and getting swarmed and just not reading the play as it's developing around them. But there's one problem that Oklahoma City cannot solve with Denver, and that's Nikola Jokic. And that problem is not going away. And that is the big reason why I predicted this to be a longer series. It stems from the simple fact that Jokic is going to be able to consistently and comfortably generate offense for this team and they can do better than they did. They ended up turning the ball over eight times for 23 points off of turnovers. That can't be correct. ESPN's website is really struggling with the statistics. I'll have to pull that up on a different. I'll pull that up on playback later tonight. But they gave up a million points off of turnovers. It was the difference in the game. And that's stuff that they're going to have to clean up in Game two if they want to have any sort of sustained success in this series. But you can see the pathway for Oklahoma City. The pathway for Oklahoma City is forcing those turnovers, getting out in transition in the half court guys knocking down those threes on the weak side. Shay was able to get some clean looks in the middle of the floor against drop coverage late in the game, including drawing some fouls there. You did see some of the problem that Oklahoma City has on the defensive glass. They gave up a considerable amount of second chance opportunities, especially during that second half run that Denver was on. We're going to get into this in a lot more detail in a film session tomorrow morning, but that was just an unbelievable run wild game to start this series and you got to see a lot of what both teams can do to make each other uncomfortable again. We will get deeper into that series later on tonight on playback. We'll do some more on film tomorrow morning. I want to get to Nick Celtics now for a little bit T Mobile's.
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Jason LT
I actually thought the Knicks came out and played a pretty quality game early. They were competing on defense. Cat was in a great rhythm on offense. But then Cat got a couple of bullshit calls. Two that I didn't like, one on Tatum, the textbook like pump fake and then he leaves his feet kind of foul. But if you watch it like there was still quite a bit of space between Cat and Tatum. Cat did not come up into his landing area at all and Tatum jumped way forward. I thought it was a bad call. And then there was another one where Jalen Brown was driving and Jalen Brown had been driving on Cat and like flopping almost every time he got into the basket area, just kind of flailing his arms and throwing up bad shots and he finally ended up getting a call on one where if you watch Cat just like barely bumps him on the hip a little bit. And it's just in a series as physical as, well, I should say in a playoffs as physical as this has been. The refs were very nitpicky in this particular game, but Cat gets a couple of fouls, he goes off the floor. Then Joe Missoula furthers the damage by smartly employ deploying a Hacker Robinson strategy in the second quarter that helped the Celtics gain control. And then they went on a nice little burst to start the third quarter and they actually pushed the lead all the way up to 20 points. But from there all hell broke loose and we saw a lot of New York's upside and Boston's downside as the Knicks closed the game on a 53:30 run to steal game one in overtime. It started with OG Anunoby hitting a couple of threes, one on a skip pass where Jaylen Brown got caught with his back turned. He wasn't paying attention. And by the way, that's going to be a recurring theme with Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum if you guys dig into the film on that in that particular game. The other one was kind of a weird near turnover where the ball just kind of pinballed around and landed right in OG Anunoby's hands on the right wing and he knocked down a three. But he hits two threes in like less than a minute. That cuts the lead all the way down from 20 to 14. And that changed the tone of the game. It just completely changed the way the game felt. It felt all of a sudden like a more competitive game instead of a game that was teetering on a blowout. And from there, from that 14 point lead, the Knicks just like flat out badly outplayed the Celtics. Boston played one of the dumbest halves of basketball I've seen them play in Tatum's entire tenure as a Celtic. We'll talk about that in a minute. But the Knicks played about as well as they could starting on defense. They did a lot more switching with Cat and Brunson. This was something we talked about in the series preview. Trying to avoid the clear easy reads for Boston as you hedge and recover with Brunson, or as you run some variation of a drop coverage with Cat, there was still some of that stuff mixed in. Like the Drew Holiday layup that tied the game and sent it to overtime was a textbook hedging recover from Brunson. Or Drew just slipped out of it towards the basket. And that's one of those things where like, I think, I think New York needs to avoid those sequences as much as possible. Like Brunson did get stops against Tatum. And here's the thing, if Brunson gets on an island against Tatum and Tatum hits a 15 foot jump shot over him, or even if Tatum drives to the basket and gets a layup or drives to the basket and draws help there for a kick out for a three. At least you made Boston run good offense to get what they wanted. When you run those hedging recover type of schemes or that high drop with Cat and you make it just like a simple passing read where Jalen Brown, excuse me, or Jason Tatum don't even have to put their head down and try to get closer to the basket. You're making their job too easy for them. But they did overall do more switching with Cat and Brunson down the stretch. They did after that layup for Drew that he got right to send the game to overtime. They did not hedge and recover with Brunson a single time in overtime. They just tried switching. That's got to be their scheme moving forward. But that kind of prevented the easy stuff that Boston was getting just by simply bringing the ball up the floor and bringing Brunson into action. But the rest of the defense is where I want to call attention to OG Anunoby, Josh Hart and Mikhail Bridges. Those guys were put in a lot of help and recover situations because of the fact that Kat and Brunson were getting attacked in space. For example, Brunson got caught on a Horford post up late in the game on the block. Or Tatum had Cat on a on a switch in overtime where he got dribble penetration towards the right like got cleanly beat Cat off the dribble off the top of the key. That stuff's going to happen when you switch with Brunson and Cat. So those three guys were constantly asked to help and recover to shooters to dig down, get back out. And those guys did a great job of rushing Boston's shooters off of their spots. I tweeted out four examples on my Twitter feed. You guys can find it at Underscore. Jason LT we'll get into more examples when we get into playback later tonight. But those guys were great and they didn't just chase guys off the three point line, they also forced a bunch of turnovers and then they were flying up the floor in transition off of those misses and turnovers. The Knicks held the Celtics to a 64 offensive rating in the half court in the second half of this game. 64. Again, Boston's process played a big role. We'll talk about that in a little bit, but the Knicks deserve some credit. And then on offense, OG Anunoby was incredible, obviously beginning the run with those two threes, but he also hit a step back three over Luke Cornette that cut the lead to one. He was transition. Runouts were big. He had a run out dunk off of a steal. He had another dunk in transition in overtime where he kind of snuck behind Jason Tatum. Another example of one of the Jays just being lazy. Off ball as he let OG just cut right behind him. Mikhail Bridges hit a huge kick out three in the left corner on another play where Jaylen Brown was sleeping and not paying attention. Off ball and let left McHale open. But it was a huge shot for McHale after he'd struggled all night. And then Cat, who had a rough night after he had his foul trouble, had two big offensive rebound putbacks during the Knicks run, including a tap in over Tatum in overtime. That was a big deal. Once again, Tatum not doing his job. Off ball. It was a really non physical box out and just, just catches. Went right over the top of him and tapped it in. The Jays were just, they were every bit as bad on defense and off ball in general as they were on offense down the stretch of this game. That was a whole other thing. But I thought the obvious storyline for the Knicks, it's something that you can take ahead towards game two in this series, was the work that Brunson did on Al Horford. We talked about this in the series preview. Really started to show in their last regular season matchup where Brunson was doing most of his damage versus Porzingis. Brunson feels comfortable against Boston's bigs. That's where he gets good shots. And he was able to hit a couple of threes over Horford and then start to draw double teams. Boston tried a bunch of different things. They tried pre switching, like sending a different guy instead of Horford up to the screen with the screener. And New York was just really good about quickly switching their screeners so the, the screeners would identify like, oh, this guy's pre switching and now Horford switching onto me. That means I need to run up and set the screen. They were just relentless of getting at getting Horford back up into the action. Drew was really hesitant to give up that switch, so Brunson was actually able to beat him. Rejecting the screen once, that was a big kick out. Three to OG and an OBI in the left corner. I think that was the one that put them up 198 towards the end of regulation. He just rejected the screen against Drew and got right downhill. But that's, that's something that is legitimately valuable to take forward for the Knicks. Like, it's abundantly clear that if the Knicks can get into a close game late against the Celtics. They have a good chance to win that game last night. On playback. I, I'm, I'm, I, I apologize. Apologize if I'm misremembering the name. I believe his name was Matthew, but it was a Celtics fan who came on the, on the, the show and he talked about Tatum's inconsistency as a jump shooter, which he asked, you know me, if I thought Tatum would keep hitting shots. And I said he would. And clearly he did not tonight. So I'm sure he's been thinking about that. But the second piece was he talked about the idea that he thought Jalen Brunson was a better basketball player than Jason Tatum and that it could be a problem in late game situations. I disagreed with him based on the premise that Tatum is just so much more versatile with all the other little things that he can do. But one of the things that I did say is I was like, yeah, if it's like three minutes left in the entire game's gonna come down to like six offensive possessions for either team and the game is tied. I absolutely think that Jalen Brunson is a better late game crunch time scorer. I mean, he's arguably the best at it in the NBA because time and time and time again in this playoff run, he just keeps coming through for his team in the final minutes. And so if there's one thing that Jalen Brunson can be the best player in the series with, it's these sorts of late game sequences. And that came to fruition in game one tonight. But the bottom line is Boston is talented enough to avoid that situation entirely. They should be able to build multiple 20 point leads in this series and not have to worry about out executing Brunson down the stretch. And this is where we have to talk about their offense. Now before we get any further, the Celtics absolutely had an uncharacteristically poor shooting night. They generated 25 unguarded catch and shoot threes and made seven of them. They're obviously going to shoot much better on those throughout the rest of the series, but they also took 71 jump shots in this game out of the 97 field goal attempts that they had. So if you do the math, that means they took 46 guarded catch and shoot jumpers or off the dribble jumpers. And it looked every bit that bad on tape. Drew Holiday took a few of the worst threes I've ever seen a player take. He took this one in the left corner off of like an offensive rebound where it got kicked out to him and he had to turn his body and he was contested and he was leaning out of bounds and there was a defender in his face with like 14 on the shot clock that he took. Derek White took like a super rushed catch and shoot off of a swing pass against a contestant transition out of the left corner. There were so many examples. Jalen Brown took a really bad catch and shoot three off of a swing pass from Tatum with like 10 seconds on the shot clock in overtime. There were just so many examples of just really, really bad shots. But I want to focus on Jayson Tatum here because he's the leader of this team and this is a player that I've spoken very highly of this year as I've as. I think he's taken a leap in a couple of key areas as a shot maker and as a half court surgeon. Emphasis on that last part. The half court decision maker. He's the leader of this team and I thought he was absolutely awful. He was the leader on the floor. He was the guy on the floor during the beginning of the Knicks run. There's a stretch to end the third quarter. I rewatched the entire second half during the commercial breaks of that Denver Oklahoma City game. There was a stretch to end the third quarter where on their last 10 possessions, in seven of those possessions, the Celtics never even got the ball inside the three point line. Not the paint, not like to the rim, to the three point line. They never got the ball inside the three point line on seven of their last 10 possessions. And some of those threes went in, which is why, you know, it's fool's gold. It was just them passing the ball around and just taking bad shots and some of them went in. But on the, on the other three where Tatum actually looked to drives, two were Tatum looked to drive and one where Pritchard looked to drive. On the ones where Tatum looked to drive, they generated wide open catch and shoot threes. In the fourth quarter over and over again versus switches. Tatum settled for garbage pull up jump shots even though his shot was clearly off. Like they were. They were bricks, guys. They were outside the rim misses. Some of them went off the backboard first. These were not like he's this close and the next one's going to go in. He was clearly out of rhythm and he just kept taking bad shots. He did not do his job. His job is to control the flow of the offense to make sure they're getting the right shots again. We will take a Closer look at Boston's offensive process on playback later tonight. But I have a message for the Celtics because I think they're playing with some fire here. I do think the Celtics have the best team in the NBA. They have the best combination of two way talent, meaning guys that can play on both ends of the floor at a high level superstar play. I think Tatum is a legitimate top tier superstar in a way that he wasn't in years past. An overall veteran playoff experience. These are all guys that have been in a ton of big games. Horford's been in a ton of big games. Drew Holiday's been in a ton of big games. Drew and Jason have been in a ton of big games. Derek White's been in a ton of big games. This is a savvy veteran playoff roster. But I have been consistent. Even though I think the Celtics are the best team in the league, I do not think this is an all time great team. I heard a lot of Celtics fans saying that. I don't think they're all time great. I think they're just great. What that means is they are not so supremely talented that they can ease their way through this playoff run. Whoever wins in that Indiana Cleveland series, Indiana's playing at an insanely high level. And Cleveland had a bad night, but they were at an insanely high level in the first round. Whoever comes out of that, that series is going to be a substantially better team than anybody. Boston played in the Eastern Conference last year in Oklahoma City, literally won 68 games. This year they're a better version of what you were last year against a better schedule. They are amazing and they are likely going to be waiting for you when you get out. They are substantially better than anyone you faced last year, including Dallas. The Celtics need to wake up. Tatum and Brown were both entirely too unfocused on both ends of the floor tonight. And then you juxtapose it with some of the other stars in the league who are literally coming for their crown. They need to feel the urgency of this situation here. This Knicks series is another opportunity for them to polish things up, to prepare for the tougher challenges that are ahead of them. And instead they spent tonight practicing playing bad basketball. That's some of the worst they've looked in the last several seasons. Just not going to be good enough. I'm looking for a major response game from the Celtics in game two. They need to. They are just operating well below the level where they need to be in order to get this deal done. And, and man, I just I. I have. I've put my vote of confidence behind this team and I was so, so, so disappointed in the way they played tonight. All right, guys, that's all we have for YouTube tonight. We're going to be heading over to playback to do some fan callers. We're also going to watch some film. Just kind of hang out for a little while. Make sure you guys click the link in the description here. We'll see you guys over on playback here in just a few minutes. What's up, guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting Hoops tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.
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Podcast Summary: The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - LIVE: Game 1 Upsets: Nuggets Go Up 1-0 on Thunder, Knicks Go Up 1-0 on Celtics
Release Date: May 6, 2025
In this episode of Hoops Tonight, hosted by Jason LT on iHeartPodcasts and The Volume, listeners are treated to an in-depth analysis of the NBA Playoffs' thrilling Game 1 upsets. The episode delves into two significant matches: the Denver Nuggets taking an early lead against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the New York Knicks stunning the Boston Celtics by overturning a 20-point deficit to win in overtime. Jason LT provides comprehensive breakdowns, player performances, coaching strategies, and future implications for both series.
Overview
Game 1 between the Denver Nuggets and the Oklahoma City Thunder delivered an intense matchup, showcasing both teams' resilience and strategic prowess. Initially, the Thunder were favored to dominate, but the Nuggets demonstrated why they are a formidable force in the playoffs.
Key Moments and Performances
Nikola Jokić's Dominance
Thunder's Defensive Strategy
Denver's Offensive Resurgence
Strategic Insights
Turnover Management
Coaching Decisions
Implications for the Series
Overview
The Knicks' comeback against the Celtics is a testament to their tenacity and strategic execution. Overcoming a 20-point deficit, New York secured a victory in overtime, setting the tone for what promises to be a competitive series.
Key Moments and Performances
Knicks' Second-Half Surge
OG Anunoby's Impact
Jalen Brunson's Clutch Performance
Strategic Insights
Defensive Schemes
Offensive Execution
Player Evaluations
Jayson Tatum's Performance
Alex Caruso's Defense
Implications for the Series
Jason LT wraps up the episode by emphasizing the unpredictable nature of the NBA Playoffs and the significance of star performances and strategic coaching. Both series—Nuggets vs. Thunder and Knicks vs. Celtics—exhibit the high stakes and competitive intensity that define postseason basketball.
Denver Nuggets' Path Forward
New York Knicks' Rising Potential
Jason LT anticipates that both series will continue to deliver compelling basketball, with adjustments and standout performances likely to shape the outcomes in the ensuing games.
“I have put my vote of confidence behind this team and I was so, so, so disappointed in the way they played tonight.” [31:50]
Jason LT encourages listeners to engage with Hoops Tonight through various platforms, emphasizing the importance of community interaction and feedback. The episode concludes with a preview of upcoming content, including film sessions and fan call-ins on the Playback segment.
“Make sure there's a link in the description here. Make sure when we're done here, you guys follow us over to playback for the after show.” [17:02]
This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the episode, providing listeners with detailed insights into the NBA Playoffs' pivotal Game 1 upsets. Through strategic analysis and notable player performances, Hoops Tonight delivers a nuanced perspective on the unfolding basketball drama.