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All right, welcome to Hoopsinight.

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Everybody.

Hope all you guys are having an incredible week.

Well, the nd season tournament lived up to expectations.

The Spurs had a great showing, took an eleven point lead with a couple of minutes left in the third quarter, but a run from the Knicks bench flips the script, and then a methodical half court offense from the Knicks in the fourth quarter ends up closing the deal.

We're gonna be breaking that game down from the perspective of both teams.

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All right, let's talk some basketball.

So the Nicks win one twenty four to one thirteen, a game that the Spurs looked like they were in control of for about three quarters until a huge Knicks run starting in the late third quarter flipped that script, and then again the Knicks offense was able to take them home.

So Victor wiman Yama hits a three with about two minutes left in the third quarter that puts the Spurs up by eleven, and at that point they had a lot of the momentum.

They were playing with a lot of energy.

Looked like they were gonna leave Vegas with the money right.

But I thought the two biggest shots of the game were those two threes on the immediate following possessions from Jordan Clarkson and Tyler Kolek that ended up cutting that lead down to five and kind of changed the complexion of the game.

And they were tough shots too, Like Jordan Clarkson's was a heavily contested three on the right wing where he just caught and step Castle's right there.

He just rose up right over the top and just made a really tough contested three.

And then Tyler Kolex was a pull up in transition.

He had Wemby in front of him.

He just kind of used a head fake looking off to the right to cause the defense to react, found a little opening for him to rise up.

They were pretty high level bits of shot making, and again they just cut that lead from eleven to five, completely wiped out any of that momentum that san Antonio had changed the complexion of the game in thirty seconds, and it kind of went from that feeling of the Spurs and Wemby show the coronation will begin, they'll kind of stiff arm you and put up a bunch of highlights in the fourth quarter to like, oh shit, we have ourselves a close game again, and then again from there during that run, the Knicks also just completely dominated the game on the offensive glass.

I thought Carl Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson both played really well against Victor women Yama in different ways in this game.

So, for instance, like I thought, Carl guarded Wemby super well.

He was super physical with him.

He was beating him to spots, was not letting him get close to the rim, and he was so physical on his base.

I've talked about this before.

When you're playing a bigger player that wants to shoot over the top, you can do more to up to them offensively by disrupting their base than you can by trying to contest them up top.

They're tall guys.

They're gonna shoot over the top of you.

They're not gonna worry about a contest.

But if you can disrupt their base, that's the lift.

There's an energy transfer that happens from your feet all the way up through the top of your shot.

That is that like muscle memory that you work on when you're in the gym by yourself.

If you can disrupt the power at the bottom of the shot, it makes the top of the shot look very different than the shots that they take when they're practicing.

It's the best way to disrupt a guy.

Again, I thought he was just physical with Wemby all night, forced him into tougher off balanced jump shots.

Really nice game defensively from Carltown's on Victor wemin Yama and then Mitchell Robinson just dominated Wenby on the glass.

He has size there, he's famous for his activity and was just physically able to hold him off to get to the ball.

I also thought Wenby had a rough game with his rim decisions on defense, but we'll get more to that in a minute.

But he just kept beating Wenby to the ball around the rim again.

The Knicks had thirty two second chance points in this game.

The big stories of the game, and it was especially a factor in New York's favor in the fourth quarter.

They had an eleven to two offensive rebound advantage in the fourth quarter.

And then once the Knicks had a little lead in the fourth quarter, it kind of devolved into that classic half court style slugfest, which favors the Knicks heavily.

Brunson was able to keep working for his really efficient twos closer to the basket, short jump shots and floaters, and then the Spurs cooled off in a big way.

They missed a few good looks.

Harrison Barnes looks like like really for both of the games in Vegas, looked like he was having flashbacks to the twenty sixteen finals.

He missed another wide open corner three in that stretch, Julian Chimpani missed a wide open wing three on the left wing.

And all those short twos that Jalen Brunson was making, guys like Darren Fox were missing or getting blocked by Josh Hard or Steph Castle was missing, or Devin Vissel was missing some of his short little mid rangers coming off of screens and so the Knicks.

Basically he just methodically out executed the Spurs as they headed to the finish line.

I thought there were a couple of huge sequences late that helped blow it open.

Josh Hart the two way sequence that play where he blocks deer and Fox on that ISO in the middle of the floor.

Deeren gets his own rebound, then he strips him, then they go down to the other end.

The clock's running out.

Brunson's kind of tired.

He's sitting at the top of the key.

He just kind of puts his hands on his hips and goes like, you got it, Josh, and Josh just goes to a pull up three over deeron Fox and just nails it.

He's had a great summer, clearly because a bunch of his like kind of polished parts of his game are just so much more refined than they were in years past.

Massive, massive sequence to stop a deeron Fox ISO in the middle of the floor and then just just basically dot his eye with the jumper right in his face from three on the other end.

That was a big shot.

That kind of ice the game.

Put him up eight with just under three minutes left.

And then og Ananobi, who was awesome again last night twenty eight points and zero turnover, some big attacks right at the basket and match up attacking situations.

He hit a couple of threes in the fourth quarter off of kickouts that really helped blow this thing open.

One off of an offensive rebound of Mitch kind of missed a lot pass from Tyler Cole that got his own rebound and og was just wide open on the left wing knocked it down.

The Knicks have done a lot of damage the season on offensive rebound kickout threes.

And then another one where where Tyler Cole like they were running.

There's this action the teams have been running all around the NBA in the last couple of years, where you basically it basically is a version of a ball screen by every measure in terms of the way the reids work, but you're doing it against a shifted defense, and the way they pull it off is by running a weak side flare screen, so you'll have a guard at the top of the key and they can get to it in a bunch of different ways.

I've seen teams run it off of double drag where they just have the guard the second guard in the second ball screen where the guard comes off and then he'll come off the flare.

But it's basically the guard coming off of a flare screen from the big at the top of the key.

Again, you'll see it in a bunch of different ways.

You'll see it a lot in transition.

The Spurs do this all the time with Luke Cornett just setting those flare screens at the top.

But essentially when the guard runs over the top of the flare screen, his man is usually chasing him right and then it forms that same kind of series of drop coverage reads where the guard immediately will try to drive and if he drives, the big man who's guarding the screener is going to sit back in some variation of a drop coverage and his on ball guy is going to try to chase him over the top.

The difference is because it's happening on a skip pass off the flare going across the floor.

It basically accomplishes the goal of setting up that pick and roll sequence while also having the defense suddenly have to shift from one side of the floor to the other.

It's a way to loosen up the defense before you get into a ball screen.

A lot of NBA teams are doing it.

It's a copycat league.

They're getting a lot of good looks out of this.

So Tyler Kolek comes off of one of those flares, immediately rips, and when he rips, Victor Weminyamua, who's guarding Ogananobi in the left corner, makes a decision to slide over again.

The defense is shifting because of that flare screen, and because of that skip pass, Victor women Yama ends up stepping over to help on collect collect rifles a perfect pass to og and Andobi, and he nails that corner three.

Another like kind of interesting rim decision from Victor women Yama.

Again, we'll talk about that when we get a little bit later in the show.

But that was really the story of the game.

Like I thought, the Knicks just showed a lot of poise over the course of this game one by just weathering a lot of good punches from a very talented young Spurs team that played really well and shot the ball really well for the first three quarters, and they just made enough plays to stay in the game.

A couple of quick little burst runs here there.

Every time the Spurs pushed it to eight or pushed it to ten or pushed it to eleven.

They quickly get five or six points back and just keep it close.

Right then their bench guys end up flipping the script, and that late third, early fourth stretch turned it into this close, slow down game.

And then in that close game, the Knicks looked like the far more mature and polished half court offense.

Not only did the Knicks get nine extra possessions in the fourth quarter thanks to a eleven to two offensive rebound advantage just in the fourth quarter, but in their half court possessions, the Knicks logged a one hundred offensive rating in that half court offense against the Spurs, compared to just a sixty eight offensive rating for the San Antonio Spurs in the half court on the other end of the floor versus the Knicks.

And you know that really again, like that's that level of comfort that you can expect from an older team that's been in a lot of big games together.

And I want to dig into that concept for a minute.

Lots of subplots I want to get into here with both teams.

First of all, again, just how poised and mature this Knicks offense is stretches like that fourth quarter where the younger team looks kind of uncomfortable running offense.

But the Knicks know exactly what they want to do and they know exactly how they want to play.

That's a big part of why I've been saying over the last week or so that the Knicks are my pick to win the Eastern Conference if the season ended.

At this point, their core has been together for a while now.

Jalen Brunson og Andnobi Josh Hart and Mitchell Robinson, those dudes have been in a lot of big games together over the last three years.

Add In Towns and Bridges now too.

Those guys have been in a lot of big games over the last two years with the Knicks, and both played in a lot of big games in their previous stops.

Like Kat had a Western Conference Finals run with the Timberwolves back in twenty twenty four, McKale Bridges came within two wins of winning a championship with the Phoenix Suns played in a couple other big playoff series over the course of the following seasons.

McHale Bridges and Karl Anthony Towns have been in a lot of big games and the Knicks Corps.

The guys that have been around for the last three years, They've been in a lot of games, a lot of big playoff moments, right, So they had that combination of continuity and big game experience that I think gives it, I'm a real advantage over some of the younger teams in the league.

And there's some younger teams in that East.

Orlando's younger, Detroit is younger.

There's an experience advantage there that the Knicks have that I think is real, especially in a relatively weak Eastern Conference.

And now with the help of Mike Brown, they're squeezing more out of the sponge in every detail of their offense, so many more interesting wrinkles.

In this game, we saw another one of those sequences I talked about this in the semi final game against Orlando.

We saw another one of those sequences where Og and McHale kind of crossed under the basket while Brunson was dribbling.

This time, Og Andnobi broke wide open for a dunk because the two off ball guys are staring at Brunson while he's working into his ISO game.

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We saw guards in the dunker spot.

Tyler Coolly got a really easy layup in the fourth quarter just by cutting along the baseline once again, while Brunson's dribbling with the basketball.

These are all important elements of maximizing your offense.

Jalen Brunson is the type of player that draws a lot of eyeballs from help defenders.

If you just stay in and play finishing positions.

If you stand in the corners, and you stand on opposite wing, and you stand in the dunker spot, you certainly are still a threat there if Jalen Brunson can work his way to a spot where he finds a passing angle to hit you.

But if you move around without the basketball, that's going to create some of the really easy opportunities, the wide open threes, the easy layups when a guy's out of rotation position because he lost sight of you for a second and you moved right.

Really impressive showing from the Knicks in this tournament.

They ran through some really tough physical defenses between Toronto, Orlando and San Antonio to get this done again.

San Antonio statistically hasn't been an elite defense this year, but when Wemby's on the floor, they have been, and they have a lot of really big athletic guards that can be a problem.

They hung one hundred and thirty two points on Orlando one hundred and twenty four on the Spurs with Wemby.

That's a couple of big time offensive nights and single elimination games against really high caliber defenses.

Their defense continues to look really good with the Wings flying around once again.

Down the stretch, you've got ogn Andobi rotating and blocking a dude at the rim, Josh Hart getting a big block on deeron Fox like that Josh Hart Ognobi Michael Bridges trio has just been fantastic on defense this year and has turned them into a more formidable unit on that end of the floor.

I just think the Knicks are on the right track.

They're hitting all those checkpoints that you want to hit if you're going to have a shot to win the East this year.

Again, I don't view them as a runaway favorite.

I don't view them as a team that's like a serious threat to like a Denver, to like a Oka See.

But I think if the season ended right now, there might pick to win the Eastern Conference among a field full of flawed teams.

I just trust their continuity, I trust their experience.

They've got a lot of guys that have been in a lot of really big games, and I think that's a big advantage for them in this particular Eastern Conference field.

The biggest thing Knicks fans got to watch out for now is complacency.

The nd season tournament provides this kind of strange psychological phenomena.

Essentially, what's happening is you have a early December mid December stretch of these like super intense games and then you just go back to a regular kind of like regular season flow with late December being you know, from December to January to March to April, you've got you You're literally four months away from playing like serious, serious basketball again, right, So that can actually be kind of like a massive, like uh, just drop off in intensity and adrenaline, right, And so it can be really sketchy for a team when you go back to playing really low leverage games.

You can start to build some bad habits if you're not careful.

And that has happened to each of the last two N Season Tournament champions.

So like two years ago when the Lakers won, they dropped ten of their next thirteen games after that point.

The Bucks last year they were three and five, and they're following eight games after winning the N Season Tournament.

So that'll be the challenge for the Knicks to try to buck that trend, like stay focused, stay disciplined, don't start establishing bad habits now after you get a massive win like this again, especially for a Knixt team, where I would argue their best chance to win is to be super sharp on the details.

Because of how good their offense is, you want to put them in a position to where they can use that as a trait to push them over the top, and if they lose too much ground on the details, they won't be able to.

So keep an eye next ten games or so on this next team to see how focused they stay after such a switch from high leverage basketball to low leverage basketball on the Spurs front.

In many ways, I thought this tournament was an announcement.

Beating the Nuggets to get into the tournament the way they did, then dominating a seventeen and six Lakers team, then beating a seemingly unbeatable Oklahoma City thunder team, and being in position up eleven late in the third quarter to potentially take down the Knicks before things fell apart from there, I thought they flashed a clear upside, a potential on both ends of the floor that's gonna be a huge problem, not just this year but for years to come in this Western Conference.

I think the main thing standing in the way of them becoming a true top tier contender of the ILK of OKC in Denver Houston is becoming a more reliable half court team that won't run into the doldrums of offense that they ran into in that fourth quarter when things slow down in big games.

These are all very important reps for them.

In time, they will look as comfortable as Okac has looked in the half court over the course of this season, or like the Knicks in that fourth quarter.

But there's a process.

There's a lot of losses, a lot of tough games, a lot of failures between now and becoming that version of yourself.

And again, that doesn't mean they can't win this year or that they don't have championship upside within the season.

They still do.

It just always ends up being way tougher than you think it will be.

Each round of the playoffs is like another level in the game.

Like take the Timberwolves for example.

Sometimes you look super impressive for a few rounds and you upset a really good team and then you run into an elite offense or excuse me, an elite defense that can protect the rim and is led by one of the top two players in the league on offense, and you just get exposed as being not quite ready yet.

But that said, I am now fully convinced that the Spurs will eventually reach that level.

I'm betting heavy on these guys.

They're gonna be insanely good these steph Castle high ball screens and ISOs.

They're getting great shots every time.

He's consistently getting two feet in the paint.

He's playing off of two feet and scoring there consistently.

He's throwing amazing kickouts and generating high quality threes or advantaged situations there.

He's just barely scratching the surface of his potential.

I was talking about this with the nerd Sash guys yesterday, Carson and Logan, But I think he's like kind of this evolutionary hybrid guard version of Jimmy Butler in the making, Like a devastating two way player who can do a ton of damage on defense, but also is like on the other end, a matchup problem because he's too big and strong for guards.

He can just easily get to his spots just powering through guards and then way too fast for any of these bigger fowards that might be physically capable of handling it.

And then he's always on two feet.

That's a Jimmy Butler kind of staple.

He can get a good shot for himself whenever he wants, and then he has super high level playmaking chops.

So I actually think he has the potential to be even better than Jimmy was at his peak, And I mean that is a compliment like this is Jimmy was a guy who, like was a consistent top ten player in his prime in many situations outplayed some of the best players in the league in playoff series.

Like I think Steph Castle has unbelievable potential in this league to be a two way superstar victor woman.

Yamo is pretty bad last night by his standards, but he still had a few, you know, like a half dozen jaw dropping highlights.

I just think there's a lot of obvious areas for improvement that he will eventually figure out.

Like again, I talked about his rim decisions defensively, like going after shots he probably shouldn't have staying home when he probably should have gone after the shot, Like I went over that one where he made it, Like the Tyler Coolek kicked out to og and Andobi in the left corner.

Tyler Kolek was not in scoring position, he didn't have an angle, and Wemby just abandoned one of the most dead eye three point shooters in the league to help on a drive that he didn't need to help on.

These are the kinds of decisions that he will eventually be surgical with.

He's too smart of a guy.

He just needs the reps.

He needs big game reps.

He needs the reps against different types of offenses.

He's going to figure it out.

And then he kind of in both of these games, the next game and the Thunder game kind of struggled with physicality on his drives in ISOs.

He'll eventually figure that stuff out too.

You know, I was thinking about this as I was watching the game.

I don't think he's going to be a dude who's going to drive the basketball to the rim a ton.

He's not overly quick, you know, compared to the best athletes in the world, and his center of gravity is so high that if a dude beats him to his spot, he can just kind of physically run him off of his line.

That doesn't mean he can't be a dominant paint scorer.

I just think his I think it's going to be timely drives, kind of like the way Kevin Durant was in his prime, where it was like a really efficient ris attacker, but just you know, two or three times a game he just hits a gap and he gets a big drive because similarly with Kevin Durant, he's faster than seven footers, but he's not like faster than most forwards that are guarding him.

And he's kind of thin and upright, so defenders can get up underneath him.

So he's not gonna slash to the basket the way prime Lebron James is.

That's not how this is going to work for Victor women Yama.

I think a lot of his pain attempts in the big picture are going to be like really efficient short range shot making, like actions that get him deep post catches to where he doesn't have to beat the dude off the dribble, but he can just turn over his left shoulder and shoot little hooks or over his right shoulder and little hooks or those like easy little quick step through is where he goes to the rim.

A lot of it is going to be getting him good deep post position.

Those are going to be things that he eventually figures out.

I think he's going to be a deadly short range over the top guy like we see it.

We saw that in the OKC game, those little short right shoulder fades over Alex Caruso.

He hit a couple of those in this game off of movement like those are the kinds of things that I think are going to turn into super reliable shots for him in the long run.

He's eventually going to figure out how to become a very dynamic, very consistent offensive player.

It's only a matter of time.

Dylan Harper was incredible last night, especially with the spot up shooting.

That's a big encouraging trend for him as we look forward, and I'm a big believer in his talent driving the basketball.

I think he's going to be yet another element to this team.

With three guards that can just get into the paint whenever they want.

And then between now and when these younger guards are more mature and more consistent, Darren Fox is the perfect stop gap solution.

This team will go toe to toe with Oklahoma City in the coming years, probably more dangerous than we think in the short term too, But I'm betting big on this team being the victor.

Was talking about how he doesn't view any team as Okac's rival yet, and he's right about that.

Oklahoma City's on a different level.

They're on a tier on their own.

But I do think in the big picture, this will be the team that can physically contend with Oklahoma City and cause problems for them.

I am just as a basketball fan, really excited to see their development because on the one hand, they're super fun to watch, but on the other hand, they are the team that will keep things interesting with a very, very talented Oklahoma City roster that's gonna be really difficult for any GM in the league to compete with on paper.

Really enjoyed the N Season Tournament.

I'm a big fan of the N Season Tournament in general.

I just love the high leverage basketball at this point in the season.

Every year it kind of turns into an opportunity for us to see, you know, big games for some of our you know, some of our more interesting teams in the league, like last year Oklahoma City getting to where they got and then like getting another big game rep against Milwaukee, which helped shape them into the team they were in the postseason when they ended up poisting the trophy.

Like getting to see Giannis play really high leverage basketball and getting a win on a team that's been you know, deficient and talent over the last few years and keeps breaking down physically in the postseason.

You know, two years ago the Lakers kind of capitalizing and continuing their momentum from their Western Conference Finals run and hitting a special level there and playing some really high level basketball the Indiana Pacers.

That was kind of like the first moment where the Indiana Pacers looked like a team that was going to be a super dangerous big game team in this league.

That was that was very prescient as it pertains to what Indiana did in the following two postseason runs this year, getting to see the Spurs blossom into what will be a perennial contender in this league, like the N Season Tournament to me has been a place where we've gotten to see a showcase in big games for some of the highest level talent in the league.

I just love it.

And frankly, like I think people who complain about the N Season Tournament, like I just want to be like like why are you?

Like why are you?

Why is your attitude like that?

Like don't you love basketball?

Don't you love big games?

Like how could you not like the opportunity to watch a couple of big, high leverage, meaningful games in December, Like I just I'm a big fan of it.

I love that the league did this, I want to see them.

I would even like to see it extended a little bit, like I'd love to see a sixteen team single elimination tournament instead of an eight team single elimination tournament.

I just think these games produce some really high level basketball that's really fun to watch on television.

I really enjoyed the n Season Tournament again this year.

And you know, the NBA regular season will slow down here a little bit, but you guys know the drill.

I always look at the NBA regular season as like tent poles.

You have your tent pole that is the n Season Tournament.

You have your tent pole that is like the trade deadline.

You have your tent pole that is like the end of the postseason.

The n Season Tournament, and that trade deadline just kind of boost the regular season from syncing into too much of a monotonous process through that eighty two games, and I'm just a big fan of it.

All right, guys, this is all I have for today is always sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show.

We will be back tomorrow morning with a break down of a couple of games from the Wednesday Night Slate.

Don't forget if you want to get mail bag questions.

And I'll be recording that mail bag tomorrow, so this video will be your last opportunity to drop mailbag questions into the YouTube comments.

Alright, guys, I will see you tomorrow morning.