← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
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- [00:00]
Host 1
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- [00:29]
Host 2
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- [01:05]
Vice Sports Announcer
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- [01:38]
Basketball Analyst
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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 467-369 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 Friday everybody. Hope all of you guys are happy. Having a great week. We got a quick show for you guys tonight. Obviously only one game as the first round is winding down. And there was one dynamic that I talked about as we left for Game 5 as Houston blew out the Golden State Warriors. That was Houston's pathway to make this a series. And it was Fred Van Vleet and Alpern Shangoon and them being able to go blow for blow as scores with the Warrior Stars. And they did it again again tonight. 50 points from those two as the Rockets win 1:15 to 1:07. Extend this series to seven. Heading back to Houston and what has been just a wild series with all sorts of twists and turns and different vibes and different trash talk and different dynamics at play. We're going to be breaking that game down from the perspective of both teams. After that, we're going to take a couple questions from you guys in the chat. After that, we're going to head over to playback. So for those of you guys who haven't been over there yet, we're going to be going right after we finish here live tonight over to Playback. That's where we can be more interactive with you guys. You guys can come on stage with us and ask questions. We can talk about some of the specific details of the series. I also have the ability to put film on the screen and we can talk about some of the specific dynamics that are, that are taking place in this particular game. So make sure you guys are ready after the show to head over to playback to hang out for a little bit when we get done here. 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 JasonLT 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 in a review on that front. Jackson's also doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Make sure you guys follow us there. And then last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We keep getting to them throughout the remainder of the postseason. So Fred Van Vliet, as I mentioned, over the course of this season, a jump shot, Fred Van Vliet was worth less than a point. It was worth 0.99 points per possession, points per shot. And through the first three games of the series, it was a lot of the same kind of thing I've seen from Fred a lot this season, which is he's kind of an important, you know, decision maker for the Rockets in the half court. Just kind of getting the ball into the pocket to Shangoon and just kind of keeping the ball moving from side to side. He's kind of like the guy who greases the wheels for them on offense at the guard spot in, in as, you know, kind of in concert with what Albert Shangoon does in the middle of the floor. In the last three games, though, Fred Van Vliet is 18 for 27 from three, which is just unbelievable. Six for nine again tonight. That's literally the difference in the game. He goes, he goes 3 for 9, which is like in line with the season averages. This is a game Golden State wins. And you know, I talked, I Talked after Game 5 that if there was one little like kind of playing with fire that Golden State did over the tail end of the series, it was that they lost control of Fred Van Vliet. And specifically in game four, he got a bunch of wide open looks. Really, really good looks. If you guys remember down the stretch of that game, that was when we saw a heavy dose because of foul trouble. We saw a heavy dose of like Trace Jackson, Davis and Quentin Post trying to guard Alper and Shangoon. And the, the Rockets were setting up Fred Van Vliet one Pass away. And he was, you know, posting up and drawing that second defender and pitching it out to Fred. Fred was getting clean looks that way. Fred was getting clean looks on offensive rebounds. Fred was getting clean looks on inverted ball screens with Alper and Shangoon. And you know, the warriors have kind of lost control of him and they've lost control of Sengun. And now it's in a situation where, you know, ultimately what's going to happen in Game 7 is going to come down to the play of the stars. I, you know, I, I try to be consistent as much as I can on this show and you guys know that I'll be critical of stars first and foremost more than coaches, more than role players. And one of the main reasons why is because the stars are the guys with the superpowers. The coaches can only do so much to set you up for success before it ultimately becomes about the best guys on one team creating advantages versus the best guys on the other team creating advantages. I talked about it in the Pistons Knicks series about how every series or every game came down the stretch to a gap in decision making and shot making between Jalen Brunson and Cade Cunningham. I talked about how in the Lakers Timberwolves series it's come down to whether or not Luka Doncic could beat his one on one defender effectively enough to get the defense in rotation so the Lakers could play Advantage Basketball because LeBron at age 40 and Austin Reeves as a lesser athlete needs advantages to succeed. Looking at the Nuggets Clipper series, I've talked about how James Harden and him consistently getting downhill and breaking the defense of breaking the defense down is what's necessary for the Clippers to succeed. These are I what did I talk about in Game 6 when the Clippers won? I talked about Nicole Jokic in the third quarter not doing the job offensively and this has been the case in this series with the warriors when Steph has gone unreal offensively as a shot maker. The warriors have won 31 points in game one on 19 shots. He gets the win. 36 points in game three, he gets the win. They managed to win a game in game four with him not playing particularly well, getting a bunch of contributions down the roster. But in the games where Steph has struggled to generate great offense, the team has struggled to win. He goes 6 for 15 for 20 points. In game two, they lose. He goes 6 for 13 or excuse me, 4 for 12 in game 5 for 13 points and they lose. Tonight when he was hitting shots through the first three quarters they were attached. What happened in the fourth quarter when Steph went ice cold, the Rockets pulled away, and again, there are lots of other factors at play. The warriors missed a lot of clean looks tonight. They struggled a ton on the offensive glass. They struggled with several basic pieces of action that they couldn't defend tonight. There are a lot of things that the warriors struggled with, but ultimately the one guy in these situations that has the ability to overcome the circumstances and carry his team to where he needs to go is the guy who, who is initiating offense for you. The guy that is starting everything. And in this game, while Steph did still generate a bunch of advantages, he wasn't able to match it with the shot making in that fourth quarter when his team needed to make a run, it was right there. It was a two point game is right there for the taking. And they immediately lost control to start that fourth quarter and they were never able to get back in control of it. And like, I don't think it's a coincidence that when Fred and Shangoon straight up outplay their counterparts that the Rockets look like the better team. And that's going to be, I mean, if you ask me what's going to happen in game seven. You can talk about pods making shots, you can talk about Draymond being more impactful offensively, but I really think it's this simple. If you guys can do a better job guarding Fred and you can get Steph back to where he was offensively earlier in the series, you're going to win it. Is that. It is that simple in my opinion. I've always kind of focused more on the stars than other elements that are just that come with variability. Coach can only do so much. Role players are by design inconsistent. That's why they're role players. If they were consistently great at all those things, they'd make $30 million. I've heard a lot of talk about the roster. The warriors roster was number one in defense after the All Star break. If those dudes were all also awesome offensive players, you'd have a $400 million payroll. Like the construct of this team is we have Draymond Green, we have all these ass kicking athletes that play super hard and play super smart on defense. We get a ton of stops and Steph lifts us over the top on offense. That is the formula. And this series has absolutely swung on. Steph's of production starting to tail off and Fred Van Vliets starting to rise to the surface. So like, we can talk. I've talked about this a lot Last night when we were talking Nuggets, Clippers, when you get to this point in the series, there's, there's nothing really fancy about it, you know, like the, there's no schematic adjustment. There's no thing that Steve Kerr can do. It's your guys versus their guys. @ this point. No one's surprising anybody. You know what the Shangoon Fred Van Vliet two man game's gonna look like. You know, you're gonna see some zone and guess what? Steph's gonna have to get those screens from the top man in the zone and he's gonna have to get downhill and make something happen. And we know he can do it because he's done it at other points in this series. I, I, there's a lot of different elements tonight that went Houston's way. I thought, I thought Stephen Adams was just absolutely unbelievable. He was plus 15 in 31 minutes. Did pretty well at the free throw line, which I think was important with the way that Steve Kerr was deliberately sending him there. He was 9 for 16 at the foul line. Made enough of them to kind of stiff arm the warriors when they were trying to use the Hack Adam strategy. The offensive rebounding from him him was huge. Sengun just brought enough of that tough shot making in the short to mid range. The defensive work that every Rockets player did on the perimeter, rushing the warriors offensive players and forcing them into turnovers, you know, it's the Rockets are playing, they're playing Rockets basketball. And the only way you're going to flip this dynamic is if you can get them to start missing some shots through the strength of your defense. And then on the other end of the floor, if you can get more out of Steph, get more out of Jimmy than what you've been getting at this point in the series. Stephen, Jimmy, 7 for 22 from 3 tonight. A lot, a lot of shots were going up. Not as many were going in as we know that they're capable of.
- [13:25]
Host 1
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- [14:14]
Basketball Analyst
I want to open it up to the floor here. I'm. I want to. I'm going to bring Jackson on. We're going to take some questions. We'll stay here for Jackson. We'll stay here for about 10 minutes before we head over to to playback. But again, we're going to take some questions here for a little bit and then we'll move the show over to playback.
- [14:29]
Co-Host
Let's do it. Let's do it. First question about Stephen Adams. He's obviously presented a ton of problems for the Warriors. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Rockets have won two games when he's playing a lot more minutes. Do you think the warriors counter should be to stay with their smaller lineup? You know what generally is more effective for them as a, as a team or play bigger? Let a big try to box out Adams while Draymond gets to guard Chengu?
- [14:56]
Basketball Analyst
It's a tough question. I actually think the answer to dealing with Steven Adams more has to do with the offensive end of the floor. By the way, as we look at the numbers, quinton post in 18 minutes tonight was minus nine. So having that second big on the floor wasn't exactly doing a ton of positive work in this position specific case. I look at it like this. There was a stretch in the third quarter there where Steph was actually doing quite a bit of damage to Stephen Adams in space, and that really is the key. If you guys remember dating back to earlier in the series, one of the ways that Steph was having a lot of success was he was attacking up the floor with pace and getting onto Stephen Adams in screening action and then immediately attacking and drawing that initial dribble penetration. When they have Stephen Adams and Alper and Shangoon on the floor, they. They've got to get those guys in the blender and they got to make them cover ground on the perimeter more and more. I did think that there were several examples tonight, specifically Moses Moody and Brandon Pajemski, which is ironic because the two of them were kind of the more reliable younger players throughout this season. I thought both of them took a few too many shots tonight that were in that like eight, nine seconds on the shot clock where we can at least work to try to get it back to Stephen. Because at the end of the day, like, those guys just aren't going to hit enough of them for it to be that impactful. And I do, I do think there's something to be said about like, Steph putting a shot up is your best chance to generate points and you need to get it like, empty the clip. Steph needs to be taking like a lot more shots than even. Than he even has been taking in situations like this when they're not going down.
- [16:31]
Co-Host
Yeah, yeah, I agree. There's. We've gotten a lot of questions about the rotation. Is Jonathan Kuminga the guy? There's a lot of potentially misplaced. Maybe Pat Spencer should get some run talk in the chat right now. I'm not sure I would quite go that far. It's obviously comes down to the stars like you're saying, but if you were going to make any sort of rotation adjustments for the warriors, is it more Moses Mooney, more Buddy Hield, more Gary Payton, more Quinton Post Trace Jackson Davis? What would your sort of chess move be?
- [17:01]
Basketball Analyst
I was surprised at how quickly Steve Kerr bailed on Buddy healed. I know he was in some foul trouble, but like Buddy, when he's been on the floor in this series as like a counterpart to Steph, spacing has actually generated a lot of openings for Steph, mainly meaning like, when Buddy's on the weak side, he's at least being accounted for. And like, I, I just, I thought he had a lit. Just a little bit of too quick of a hook tonight. Especially considering the fact that it wasn't like Brandon Pajemski was hitting everything he was taking and having, having some sort of profound defensive impact. Again, like, I understand the desire to start looking down the roster and being like, who. What if, what, what if we get more out of this guy? What if we get more out of that guy? But this is just my personal philosophy and I know that there are a lot of warriors fans who disagree with me. I was arguing with a couple warriors fans before the show. Like, there, there are warriors fans that are like, Steph's doing his job. It's on everyone else. And, and like, and I, I don't disagree that there are obviously some elements down the roster that need to perform better than they've been performing But I, I, I am a firm believer that the superstar is the superpower and they're the ones that can overcome. And so yeah, you can lean a little bit more into Buddy Heel than I would. I would lean into Buddy Heel specifically for that. Counter spacing having less congestion when Steph is looking to attack into the middle of the floor. One of the things that was missing in tonight's game is it was a lot of threes from Stephen. 16 of his 23 attempts from three. If you remember in earlier games in the series he was really aggressive in the short to mid range, curling around action, taking stuff that was closer to the basket and I think counter spacing with Steph playing Buddy alongside him more I think would be helpful. While you're asking the next question, I'm actually going to go up to cleaning the glass and see what Buddy's on off numbers are in this series because I think they're pretty strong for sure.
- [18:42]
Co-Host
And I think the, that's, that's one thing that, I mean the zone has obviously, the rocket zone has obviously thrown the warriors offense off in a lot of ways. And I think the biggest, I mean the reason why they deploy, one of the reasons why they deployed is it's working. It's keeping Steven Adams close to the basket and it really makes it nevermind, get, get the ball even inside the paint, which they struggle to do. But Steph Curry is not getting any remotely easy looks inside the inside the arc when they're playing zone. It is very, it has definitely been very, very effective at its goal which is to muck, muck it up and then keep the warriors out of the paint.
- [19:17]
Basketball Analyst
Another question really quickly just so that you guys have the number. Buddy Heald has the best plus minus of any role player in the series. The warriors are 10.2 points better per 100 possessions with Buddy on versus off moving Gary Payton into the starting lineup. Gary Payton in this series and you and Jackson and I are both big. Gary Payton troopers but he is. The warriors are 13.2 points worse per 100 possessions in the series. When he's on the floor. I just, what I'm seeing with my eyes is the counter spacing like they're. Steph and Buddy are consistently on opposite sides of the floor and pulling help defenders away from each other and making life easy for each other. I know he was in foul trouble tonight, but I did think that he was capable of providing more than he did.
- [20:00]
Co-Host
Next question. This is not necessarily directed at you because you are critical of stuff today, but why does it feel like Steph gets less criticism than other stars?
- [20:09]
Basketball Analyst
I think. I think all of this really comes down to Stan behavior. Like, I. Like, I. I try to be consistent. I openly came on the show after the Lakers game and was like, LeBron was shitty on the defensive glass tonight. It was a huge part of why they lost the game. Like, I am a big LeBron fan, but, like, I. I believe in trying to be consistent with that kind of stuff. I also know that when I'm dealing with the general public, like, every Step fan is going to say, he's never done anything wrong. He's the goat, you know? You know, like, like. And then every LeBron fan is going to be like, why are we never critical of Steph? And it's like, most of the people that I watch that cover the league do a pretty good job of trying to be honest as. And fair as best as they can. And so I think, like, I think, honestly, it's. It's just about, like, the echo chambers online. Like, yeah, if you. If you go online and you are scrolling through Twitter and you're watching a bunch of warriors fans, they're probably not going to be blaming Steph for what happened tonight. And for the record, I don't think Steph's at fault for what's happening tonight or what's happening in this series. It's. I always. It's. It's this simple to me. He's the one guy who can save them. He's the one guy who can save them. Jackson, who was the one guy who could have saved the Lakers in the.
- [21:13]
Co-Host
First round, I mean, it probably would have been Luka Doncic.
- [21:16]
Basketball Analyst
It was Luka. Luka was the one guy who was capable of saving them by being so good on an island, one on one, that everything else trickled down from that. Like, that. That. I. I'm a big believer in, like, looking at Moses Moody and being like, why can't you do more? Is like, you're. You're asking. You're asking someone who's not capable of it.
- [21:35]
Co-Host
It's like you're playing, like, meme basketball. Like, why can't this other guy do it?
- [21:40]
Basketball Analyst
Yeah, exactly. And like, And. And that's the thing. It's. We're not. What. Yeah. When we're discussing Steph with respect to Damian Lillard, like, yeah, I'm going to start saying stuff like, Steph's a way better defender. He's way better off ball. He's way better at this, this, this, and that. But when I'm comparing Steph to Shay Gilders and Alexander and Nicola Jokic and the guys at the top of the league like they, Steph to me was playing at a top five level coming into this series. That was the level he was at. I, I thought he was better than Luka Doncic coming into this playoff run and like he is again the one guy who can save them. And it really is that simple to me. Really quickly, before you ask the next question, 34 possessions of zone for Houston tonight. 0.824 points per possession. I'm pulling. I thought it was particularly bad in the. Yeah, it was all in the fourth quarter where they fell apart in the first three quarters. In 16 possessions the warriors got 1.438. Jesus points points per possession against zone in the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter again, zone, 18 possessions, only six points. So yeah, if, when, when we head over to playback here in a little bit, guys, we will watch all eight. We will watch all 18 of those possessions and we'll see if there's something obvious that they can get away from. But yeah, the, the, the zone definitely picked them to part. Picked them to pieces in that fourth quarter. I thought Steph was obviously fatigued too. Like, I thought Steph got some good looks. I thought Steph got very makeable Steph Curry shots in that fourth quarter that he just didn't make. And I think, I think like, I think there's a wear and tear factor. I think there's, you know, some of the reality of the variance that comes with really difficult shot making. But yeah, I mean that, that, that's some crazy numbers coming out of the zone defense there.
- [23:22]
Co-Host
That is crazy. Let's see one more question and then we'll head over to playback. You talked a lot about the, the formula for the warriors in game seven is one thing on each end. Can they defend the Fred Van Vliet sengun two man action better, dramatically better on the defensive end and can Steph Curry, you know, lift them up with shot making the other on the offensive end, if you were watching the warriors and you had to pick one of those two things that going into game seven you were like, they're doing this, check it off. They are doing one of those two things. Would you pick what would give them the better chance to win? Being much, much better defensively against that two man game or Steph Curry? I'm not going to say Steph Curry going God mode because that's the obvious. You know, if he gets 50, they're going to win. But if he is a better shot maker than he was tonight, I think.
- [24:04]
Basketball Analyst
I think the controllable is defense. I think there's only so much you can cross your fingers and hope in terms of Steph's shot making. Like, and if he's, if it's there, they're going to win. But this is the thing. Like, they, they won in like, there is a way to win on Sunday in game seven without Steph Curry having to score 30 points. And it's. You get Sengun and Fred Van Vliet under control. I think there's a certain amount of, like, those, there's certain guys that you don't want shooting and there are certain guys that you're more comfortable with shooting, like Jabari Smith Jr got to chase him off the line. Dylan Brooks over three. Amen Thompson over one from three. Alpern Shangun over two from three. Jalen Green one for six from three. Like, they, they need to be pinching and making sure that specifically Fred is not getting looks. Specifically Jabari Smith is not getting looks. The other guys, who cares? Like, Tar Eason made two threes tonight. If, if, if Tar Eason gets a bunch of open looks in Game seven. I don't think they're going to go in at a super high clip. But like, the, they need to do a better job of shrinking the floor. I would switch. That was, I would switch without switching consent, without conceding switches. What that means is like, like, try to do what you did on the final possession of Game four, bust through the switch as best you can, but ultimately don't give Fred Van Vliet clean looks that come out of him slipping out of action because you put two on the ball. And I mean, there is something to be said about leaning into size. Like, you know, I'm not even necessarily talking about quitting post necessarily, but just playing your bigger, better athletes as much as possible in the game for the purpose of trying to get more stops and get out and transition. Because transition is another way that can get going. I would lean into it in different ways. Like, I think they're, I think with the starting group, I still really like having Buddy healed out there next to Steph. But I think you need to have lineups that, especially when Steven Adams is on the floor where you're built more around the athleticism piece and try to get out in transition. All right, guys, so as we mentioned, there's a link in the description. We're headed over to playback right now. We're going to take some questions, have some of you guys come on stage if you want and we will watch some of the film from the warriors struggling against the Rocket Zone. We'll see you guys over there 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.
- [26:21]
Host 2
The volume.
- [26:25]
Host 1
Okay, have you heard about this? Last year, Degree changed the formula for their Cool Rush deodorant. The fans rebel and wanted the old scent back and Degree listened and that doesn't happen often. They admitted they effed up and are bringing the original Cool Rush scent back. And it's exactly how you remember it. Cool, crisp and fresh. There's a reason why it's the number one men's antiperspirant. And it's back in Walmart, Target and other stores now for under $4. So try it and see what the fuss is about. Head to your local Walmart Target and try the OG Cool Rush for yourself.