The volume.

All right, welcod to Hoops Tonight.

You're at the volume heavy Tuesday, everybody.

Hope all you guys are having a great week.

Just a quick show today, we're gonna hit both of the peacock games from last night.

So the Denver Nuggets got another win over the Houston Rockets at one point, scoring seven consecutive times in crunch time against that Houston defense to get a big win.

And then in the tail end of the show, we're going to talk about Kay Cunningham and the Detroit Pistons winning their fourteenth clutch game of the season.

Against the Detroit Pistons, I'm gonna be really zooming in on their defense though, which has been driving a lot of their success this season.

You guys are the job.

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All Right, let's talk some basketball.

So another instant classic in Denver between the Rockets and the Nuggets and what's been a very entertaining regular season in the NBA.

I talked about yesterday in our power ranking segment.

If you guys remember about how much I was really enjoying the Rockets clutch offense.

I just think they get really good shots for a team that doesn't have your traditional point guard or your traditional super high level playmaker, like high level passing talent right and their top ten in clutch offensive rating this season, and they had a one to nineteen clutch offensive rating against Denver last night.

And then you have the Nuggets, who haven't been great statistically in the clutch.

The season is kind of an outlier for them, but they have the best half court offense in the entire NBA by a pretty decent margin right now, and they've historically been one of the most reliable clutch kind of like half court slowdown offenses that we've seen.

And so a matchup basically between two very high level clutch offenses and that did not disappoint.

We had an epic show down a high level offense down the stretch and otherworldly shot making.

All four stars showed up.

I want to talk about that a little bit later on in the show, but it was a very very interesting battle down the stretch, and both teams, essentially with the way they were attacking on offense, were trying to put the opposing big in action.

Everything that both teams were doing on both ends of the floor, there were a handful of like little mix ups, like Jamal Murray had a possession where he randomly posted up Reed Shepherd to hit a little right shoulder fad Kevin Durant had a possession where he randomly tried to attack Spencer Jones in the middle of the floor, missed a little right shoulder fade away around the left elbow.

But other than that, it was a steady diet of attacking for Denver attacking Shangoon in pick and roll and for Houston attacking Jokic in pick and roll.

And the reason why is because neither team wanted to switch the action.

Denver actually tried switching it twice the play where Shangun hit what could have been the game winner if it wasn't for the late free throw from Jamal Murray.

What happened on that play two man game with Kadie and Shangoon, they switch it.

That leaves Spencer Jones on Alpern Shangoon in the middle of the floor.

He powered through him, got to that little right shoulder hook, that lefty hook that put the rockets up one and then there was another one.

It was a little bit earlier in the game where it was like a little less than two minutes left in regulation.

Whereas a reed Shepherd Shangun pick and roll, they also switched it more of like a peel switch.

So Tim Hardaway Junior ends up peeling off and Jokic ends up following reed shepherd out to the right corner.

They try to interchange back and while Yokic just closing out to Shangoon right there around the high like the charge circle area, Kevin Durant hits, Shangun hits a little easy too, and so when they tried switching it, they gave up a couple of easy buckets.

So they were trying really hard not to switch it.

And on the other end of the floor, same exact thing.

They weren't gonna switch Shangoon onto Jamal Murray.

And so as a result, there were all sorts of these little like you know, classic pick and roll sequences that we saw down the tail end of this game against drop coverage looks.

So the guard was chasing over the top and the big was coming pretty up close to the level, and both teams are getting good looks out of it.

Like we had pocket passes that led to four on threes that led to open corner three.

Spencer Jones got two wide open corner threes in the right corner off of tags of Jokic on the roll.

Shane Gouon got tagged on a roll that led to a wide open three for Jabari Smith in the left corner.

A lot of those like classic sequences, right, What are other classic drop covered sequences, pull up jump shots.

Kevin Durant hits a pull up three over NICOLEA Jokic in a drop coverage on the right wing.

Towards the end of regulation, Reed Shepherd hit a pull up three on the left wing against the drop coverage look in crunch time, I was actually amazed at how often Houston was running their ball screen action through Reed Shephard down the stretch.

And you know, to his credit, most of his reps were good reps.

There weren't really any reps in there where I was like, oh, Reid didn't make the right decision or he took a bad shot.

As a matter of fact, he pretty much did the right thing on every single one of those reps.

But it was just kind of strange that they ran through him as much as they did when Kevin Durant wasn't quite as involved in the offense.

Yokic hit a couple of threes.

Those were classic kind of pick and pop style actions.

I talk about this all the time, but the pick and pop is like the antidote to any sort of drop coverage because the drop coverage essentially leaves the big sagging back against the ball handler, maybe a little closer to the level, but dealing with the ball handler any of the guard chasing over the top.

So if the big doesn't roll into the drop coverage but instead pops out to the three point line, he's going to be wide open every single time.

And both threes that he hit were essentially picking pops.

Won a very traditional pick and pop with Jamal Murray where he set the screen, popped out to the top of the key, Jamal pitched it back he hit a three.

The other one, Jamal is actually cutting in an off ball action off of Joki.

Jokic is just holding the ball out up top.

This is the one that was just over a minute left in regulation, and Jamal comes off of a little screen from Tim Hardaway Junior and then curls around Jokic.

And what happens, Shang Gun has to drop back to help on Jamal cutting, which leaves Jokic open.

He just rises up and knocks it down.

So even though Jokic had the ball that whole time, it's still fundamentally as a coverage works the same way as a pick and pop against drop because the big is dropping the on ball guy that in this case, Jokic is popping out and he just hits that three over the top.

And so as a result, like both teams just could not get a stop down the stretch of this game because of the simple fact that they were unable to deal with their uh to get stops with their bigs in these pick and roll actions.

Jamal Murray I thought did a masterful job of managing the ball screens the entirety of crunch time generated a ton of advantages just by getting the ball to Jokic in the pocket.

He had one where one of the consistent things that Denver was doing down the stretch of this game is they were trying to get Amen Thompson off of Jamal Murray.

So the easy way to do that is just to have Tim Hardaway Junior come over and set an early screen.

You set that early screen to get read Shepherd switched on to Jamal, then you run whatever action you want to run.

But they had to play with Jamal just rejected the screen on Tim Hardaway Junior and toasted him and Thompson off the dribble.

Shane Gun had to fly back in rotation easy little pocket past to Jokic, swing to the corner, wide open spencer Jones three another one where he got Read Shepherd in a switch early screen from Tim Hardaway gets red Shepherd switched on to him, then he runs the ball screen with Jokic.

He easily gets read Shepherd caught on the screen.

That forces Shangun to step up easy pocket past the Jokic.

Kevin Durant taggs another wide open corner three for Shanegun.

So what's the natural progression there?

If Jamal Murray's torching you in the pocket, Shangun's gonna be hesitant to leave the pocket, right, So that first layup that Jamal gets in overtime.

What happens there, He's driving off the left side in a ball screen with Joki, which Shangun doesn't want to help because he's getting killed in the pocket.

So Jamal is able to go right by Shangoun and get a wide open layup.

And then we continued to see Jamal hunt Reed Shepherd.

The first bucket he got in ot was that little right shoulder fade.

He got Reed Shepherd on a switch, walked him down to the right block, backed him down and hit a little right shoulder fade again.

They scored on seven consecutive possessions spanning the tail end of the fourth quarter in the start of overtime, and Jamal Murray was masterful running those ball screens in that sequence.

And really where it all turned around where the Nuggets were able to take an advantage is they got three straight stops to start overtime.

And one of the things that they did in order to try to force Houston into making a mistake is they were bringing Jokic up high to the level.

They ended up hitting Shangun on a short real pass on the first play of overtime, and he missed Jabari Smith wide open under the basket because he missed him.

The play kind of broke down.

It ended up in a tough, contested mid range pull up from Reed Shephard on their second possession of overtime.

I thought Kevin Durank kind of rushed an ISO on Spencer Jones just dribbled right up into a tough, little left elbow jumper that he left short on the rim.

And then we finally got to see a switch work for Denver as they switched Cam Johnson onto Shangoon and Shangun missed a left shoulder hook over Cam Johnson.

And so three straight misses from Houston to start overtime, three straight makes from Denver to start overtime.

We had a seven point lead.

They were unable to recover from that, even with Jokic fouling out of the game.

And that's really the crux of the problem when it comes to guarding the Denver Nuggets in a close game.

They've gone through again if you look at those sequences, right.

So both teams were struggling to guard the pick and roll, but there was a read that got missed on a Houston ball screen.

To start overtime, they hit a short role to Jabari Smith or to Shanguon and Jabari Smith was wide open in the dunker spot on the right side, Jabari alpurn misses him, whereas on the other end of the floor, whenever they got their four on threes, Jokch is on time, on target, making the right read immediately every single time.

And that's the thing.

Like these guys, like Denver fans have been celebrating this thing.

They're calling it yok miss and I believe I'm if I'm reading the tea leaves here correctly, they're just celebrating that.

Around Christmas in twenty sixteen was when Nikola Jokic entered the starting lineup for them, and it was like essentially the beginning of the Nikola Jokic era.

And it's crazy because you go back and you watch footage for back then and it's like there's Jokich Murray two man game taking place damn near ten years ago.

Guys, like that's the crazy thing about this, Like there's no good answer for them because they've been seeing all of this shit for ten years.

If you run a traditional drop, they're gonna kill you with Jokic popping to the top of the key or Jamal Murray Hitt and pull up jumpers.

If you key in on Jokic on the roll, Jamal's just gonna drive right by you for a layup like he did to start overtime.

Right Like, if you defend the action three on two, yo Kich is so good at making that skip to the corner immediately on time on target that it becomes an extremely difficult rotation for the defense to make.

Those were wide open looks for Spencer Jones, like wide, wide open looks.

And then if you do switch, which Houston didn't really try down the stretch of this game, But if you do switch, that's two of the very best one on one players in the league.

And maybe Houston probably should have tried that, but I'm not sure it would have mattered because again Yo kich is probably going right to the post and he's getting either a great shot for himself or drawing that second defender and causing the same issue again.

Like that was really the gist of the battle there, that both a crunch time offenses were scoring at will, but Denver was able to get a kill a sequence of three straight stops to start overtime while they continued to score on the other end, and that really was the difference in the game.

Now, as far as the late game officiating goes, Houston fans are pissed off this morning because of a couple of bad calls at the end of the game, specifically a foul and a Jokic spin move.

I didn't see.

This is the one with Kevin Durant kind of raked over the top and it looked like he might have blocked him clean.

I didn't get a good solow motion replay of this one, so I couldn't tell you for sure whether or not it was a good call, but yeah, I could have gone either way, right and like if it was a non call in the moment, I don't think it would have been too much of an issue.

And then the foul on a Men Thompson where he trips Tim Hardaway Junior kind of flashing up to the top of the key at the end of regulation, which on replay it did look like a Men Thompson's shin hit Tim Hardaway's foot and initiated the trip.

But at the same time, it's like kind of incidental contact that happens all the time in basketball, and so I understand why that frustrates Rocket fans.

But I'm gonna say the same thing that I've said every single time something like this comes up.

Officiating is a wild card at the end of games.

It is a variable you have to be prepared for.

It can go in your favor and it can go against you.

There's gonna be a half dozen or so whistles in any crunch time game, and you might get four the calls, and then to go against you, you might get two of the calls in four go against you.

That's literally just the nature of the way these games go down the stretch, and it remains to me an absolute loser thing to focus on.

Like you were playing against the Nuggets, down three of their top six players, and down all of their top athletes, No Aaron Gordon, no Christian Brown, no Peyton Watson.

They had zero vertical spacing on the floor.

There were multiple sequences or Spencer Jones ended up in the dunker spot and Yokich either didn't throw it because he's like, he's not gonna be able to score there against all that size, or there was one where they did throw it to him and he had a deep sealed against Alpern Shangouni.

He took like a little left shoulder hook and he smoked it off the back of the room because he's shooting over a dud who's taller than it.

They didn't have the oh, I can just throw this lob to Aaron Gordon and he's dunking it, or I can throw this lob to Peyton Watson and he's dunking it.

You had more than enough going in your favor to win a game like this.

Do you think you lost because of a single Jamal Murray free throw off of a tripping foul?

Or do you think you lost because you gave up a one forty four offensive rating to Denver in ten minutes of clutch basketball last night?

Do you think you lost because you allowed them to score on seven consecutive possessions spanning the end of the fourth quarter in overtime.

That's why you lost the game, not because of a couple of questionable calls.

I just think that's a loser way to approach the game.

And frankly, it wasn't like there was some blatant, obvious screw job going on.

Well, they were calls that were kind of coin flippy calls that went against you, which is literally something we all know that can happen in a crunch time basketball game.

And that's actually the bigger picture thing I want to focus on for both of these teams.

Both of these teams have struggled a little bit in the clutch this year.

Houston is six and six and clutch games and Denver is four and six, And for both of them, it's been their clutch defense that's been the problem.

And Houston six clutch losses, they've logged a one forty defensive rating.

In Denver's six clutch losses, they've logged a one fifty two defensive rating.

And for both teams it's the same problem.

They're bigs get attacked in ball screens and they can't get stops, and you just have to find a way, like Denver found a way in overtime.

They tried putting two on the ball and Shanggun missed a Reid in the middle of the floor to Jabari Smith in the dunker spot, and they tried switching cam Johnson bodied up four shang Gun into a hook shot that he actually missed.

Houston literally could not find a way to get a stop until Jokic fouled out of the game.

That's why they lost.

If you can't get a stop on seven consecutive possessions, you don't get to bitch about the refs.

And the same goes for Denver.

Like if Denver wants to flip the script on their clutch issues this year and have some sustained success outside of just last night, they got to be better on defense.

They almost lost this game too because they couldn't get a stop at the end of regulation.

But at least with Denver you can look at some reinforcements on the way again, they were down their three best athletes.

One of the things that Denver has done consistently over the years to get stops in crunch time is put Yokic up at the level and trust their ability to rotate on the back line.

That's worked for them in the past, but it's built on those athletes on the back line, which they don't have right now.

For the record, I do think that's what Houston should do too.

I would bring Shandun up higher, either in super high drops where he's up at the level or just straight up switch and then trust your ability to rotate on the back line to help and recover behind him if he switches.

Those are the kinds of things that I think accentuate Houston's strength as a roster, which is their athleticism.

But all four stars showed out in this one.

I thought KD was amazing.

He didn't get many opportunities on offense, but he did capitalize when he did, and he was a problem for Denver with his defense down the stretch, his rim protection, He's he provides an element defensively in terms of that vertical rim protection that they haven't had really in this era.

And it's kind of a force multiplier for this team because of how big and strong they are at the center position and how athletic they are on the perimeter.

KD just brings that other layer and he was blocking shots.

He blocked Jokic at the rim, He blocked Jamal Murray at the rim.

He stripped Nicole Jokic on a double team on a post up late in this game.

He was like a defensive wrecking ball.

And it's a casual reminder, like you know KD in the times that he has won championships, namely in Golden State, he was an incredible defensive weapon for those teams as well.

Shane Gun if you remember the last game, the game down in Houston, jokichate his lunch.

I thought Shanegun had a much better showing this time, thirty three to ten, and ten almost won the game late beating Spencer Jones on that switch.

Did a ton of work one on one against Jokich in this game.

Was attacking him a lot early in the game.

Hit a class like somber shuffle shot over the top of Jokic in the middle of the floor, drove by him for a layup, and overtime did a lot of damage.

I thought he acquitted himself much much better this time than he did the last time they faced off, but ultimately jokicch and Murray were better.

Jokic goes for thirty nine, fifteen and ten.

Just bullied Houston at the basket.

He had four putbacks in this game.

One of the things with Jokic that's so ridiculous is when he catches the ball in the middle of the floor and he shoots one of his floaters, he just follows his shot by battering ramming his way to the rim and he just gets so many offensive rebounds that way.

He had four of those where he missed a shot, got his own rebound and just put it right back up and in we talk about his kickouts in the short roll situations.

Those were key generating those quality looks for Spencer Jones, the five threes that he hit in this game, killing the rockets popping out of ball screens.

And then Jamal Murray thirty five, three and five was a maister at the end of the game and pick and roll generating advantages.

He did a really good job getting to the foul line.

He had a play where he saw Shane gun trying to fight or an inverted ball screen and he knew he was like Shaneguon's gonna drop his shoulder and run me over.

So he basically like took a charge so to speak, on a screen, got some free throws out of it.

Had another one where he got Shangon in a switch where he dribbled all the way around the floor and then drove on him and ended up getting to the foul line.

I think he had like fourteen or fifteen foul shot attempts in this game.

Did a good job working his way to the line, and then again just making all those decisions and pick and roll that ran the Denver offense down the stretch, highly entertaining game.

I would love to see these two teams face off in a playoff series.

Kind of an interesting sort of set of strengths and weaknesses between these two teams because they're so good, but they just just have that issue getting stops at the end of games.

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Piston Celtics really just a masterpiece from Kate Cunningham.

The Pistons defense was phenomenal in this game and really strangled the life out of that red hot Celtics offense.

That's been frying everybody.

I do want to deep dive into that concept, specifically that defensive end of the floor here in a little bit.

But we have to start with Kate thirty two points and tennis sists in this one ice the game with back to back mid range pull ups over Derek White and just looked really comfortable in his one on ones down the stretch.

In this game.

It wasn't just Derek White and like size mismatchups.

He had a little iso against Jordan Walsh where he just hit a couple of scissor dribbles, got to that kind of left lane line and just bumped him off with that right shoulder and hit a short, little fade away.

Hit it the same kind of shot against Derek White, and then that nasty spin move in the middle of the floor that ice the game.

He's again we talked about this last week, but he's been the second best clutch player in the entire NBA this season behind Shake kild of Alexander.

He's twenty six for forty eight eight from the field.

A few more clutch buckets for him last night.

He also had some big catch and shoot threes in the second half.

One off of a post up at Tobias Harris and then another off of a baseline drive by Tobias Harris.

And that's encouraging because that's been a random week point for kid this season.

Like he's been considerably better on pull up threes than he was last year.

He was like thirty two percent last year.

He's like thirty six and a half percent this year.

But his catch and shoot shooting has fallen off a cliff.

He's been brutally bad in catch and shoot three point shot situations.

Good signed last night him hitting those couple in the second half.

But the formula for the Pistons is clear.

They're a good offense, but not a great one in the large sample.

Nothing super surprising there.

They play a lot of defensive personnel and they only have one super high level offensive player, So they're not the kind of team that's going to go hang a one twenty two offensive rating like some of these other teams in the league.

But they're an absolutely dominant team on defense, and they're absolutely dominant on the margins.

They can keep any game close, and then when they get into a close game late, they have this devastating combination of being an elite defense.

They're the best clutch defensive rebounding team in the NBA this year.

And then Caid is just this surgical shot creator when they get into the half court, and that just wasn't the case last year.

Caid was bad in the clutch last year.

He had as many turnovers as assists.

He was twenty two for sixty four from the field in clutch last year, So he already has four more clutch shots made than he did the entirety of last season.

Their defense wasn't as good last year.

Their defensive rebounding team, they were like bottom half in the league in clutch defensive rebounding and so as a result, last year in forty four clutch games, they were twenty one in twenty three.

They reversed all those trends this year.

Now they're fourteen to four in clutch games.

That's a huge part of why they are where they are where they're at in the standings.

But I want to get back to the defense, because that's the thing that makes this sustainable.

Sometimes, especially in a smaller sample a third of the season, sometimes shot making can go in and sometimes it can go cold, right like Denver for example.

That's a historically great clutch offense, and they were great last night, but they've generally been down in the clutch this year compared to years past.

Sometimes the shots just don't go in, but defense is much more consistent night tonight.

And this Piston's defense is elite by any measure.

They're now second in the entire NBA in defensive rating, right behind Oklahoma City.

Albeit there's a gap there because Okay s he's so transcendently great.

But they're the second best defense in the league and it's not hard to see why on tape.

Similarly to ok See, and this is just a formula that works in the NBA, the Pistons have like a half dozen dudes who sit in a damn stance and get up into the basketball and can really guard on the perimeter.

They're super athletic and strong.

They get up underneath ball handlers that make them uncomfortable.

One of the big swing portions of this game again, those bench groups and the end of the third quarter and started the fourth quarter where you've got some combination of Jade and Ivy and Karis Zavonte Green and Ron Holland out there.

Those guys had the Celtics guards in Hell.

Javonte Green had one of the highlights of the season to play where he kind of stonewalled a lefty drive from Peyton Pritchard, caused him to lose control of the basketball, swiped it from him, ran out to the other end, and just jackhammer smashed it on the entire Celtics team and ended up bumping into the ref and picking up a technical.

Unbelievable highlight from Javonte Green.

They had seventeen points off of Boston turnovers in this game, by the way, that came right off the heels of him hitting a massive three off the right wing to beat some nail help they were swarming at the rim.

I thought it was one of Isaiah Stewart's better defensive games this season, especially in that second half of some of his rotations at the rim.

The Celtics were cold from three all night, but I thought the Pistons really played them into that result.

Like the Celtics attempted thirty nine threes, but Synergi only sified nine of them as unguarded catch and shoots, meaning thirty of those thirty nine threes were either off the dribble or some form of contested catch and shoot, and again, there is just a proven formula for winning games in the NBA that Detroit's following here defend at an extremely high level, win the margins like this is crazy.

They're plus two point three points every single night in the fast break, they're plus one point two points every night, and second chance points.

They're plus three point nine points every night in points off of turnovers, and they win their bench units.

They're plus seven this year per one hundred possessions.

With Kaid off the floor, they get dribble penetration from guys like Ron Holland and Jaden Ivy, just hard rips to the basket where they can get easy layups.

Kris LeVert was a zone buster last night, hit a couple of huge threes off the right wing and had big driving layup against the zone.

All of those guards get up into the ball.

Non kid lineups again were plus five last night.

So if you're defending at an elite level and you're winning on the margins, that keeps you in every game.

Then you get into a close game light and they have one of the best clutch players in the entire NBA, a half court surgeon that can beat any coverage in pick and roll and can beat mismatches in ISO.

You blitz him.

He showed early this year he's just gonna make the right read every time the Pistons find a way to score on the four and threes, you run a drop coverage, he just methodically Lucas style, works his way into the lane, shields off the defender, and gets some sort of quality look for himself.

You switch.

He's one of the best ISO scorers in the league.

He's just a problem in that sort of slow down half court environment.

Do I think the Pistons could use a little bit more offensive firepower?

Yeah, this is still my favorite Michael Porter junior team.

I just think he rounds out things perfectly in their best lineups, like essentially as a massive upgrade of Tobias Harris.

And I think it's like a realistic thing.

Like you know, I'm a Laker fan.

I want a guy like Herb Jones for the Lakers.

It just seems like such a long shot.

I don't know if they have enough.

I don't know if the Pelicans want to get rid of him.

Brooklyn really should flip Michael Porter Junior for another first round pick so they can say they turned Cam Johnson into two first round picks.

The Pistons have the means with which to make that happen.

I think they should be front and center in the Michael Porter Junior race.

And again, he adds another element to their defense too.

He's not quite as good on the ball as a guy like Tobias Harris for obvious reasons.

He's not as quick and he's not as physical.

But he's a very good defensive rebounder for a team that's what fourteenth in defensive rebounding overall this season.

He's a very good secondary rim protector, which can help for a couple of undersized centers.

He's a guy that is like a dead eye, knockdown, catch and shoot shooter that also has the ability to drive closeouts and do a little bit of work on the ball.

He'd be a beautiful transition weapon for those kick aheads from Kate Cunningham.

I just think in general, he's the guy that rounds everything out for them.

I think he's the guy that they should be lining up for.

But this is a truly special basketball team.

And when you can defend like that and you can win on the margins like that, you put Kate in position to lift you over the top, and I think they're absolutely a threat to make it to the NBA Finals this year.

On the Celtics front, it's just a bad matchup for their guards in a lot of ways.

Like Derek White showed some impressive shot making, like over the top shot making in that second half that helped keep them in it, but all of their guards, including Derek, struggled to like truly break down the Pistons defense, meaning like break them down in a way that generates easy shots, not tough over the top shots.

Like Jalen Brown was really the only guy who looked comfortable driving the basketball in this game.

Jalen was fantastic.

He was also a battering ram last night, just bullying through guys to the front of the rim following his own misses for offensive rebounds.

It was super impressive.

Jalen again like in a physical, blood bath type of game, and it's a tough Detroit team.

I thought he was really really good, but I found myself feeling like this is the sort of matchup or a guy like Jason Tatum becomes super helpful.

I've talked about this concept a lot with the Lakers as it pertains to their matchup with a team like the thunder Rhetically, the best way to counter ball pressure guards is to have big forwards, big wings who can overpower them and either score easy twos or draw the defense for kickouts.

They have the strength to counter the pressure, right And you saw that just with how comfortable Jaylen Brown was last night.

Another guy like that in Jason Tatum, that gives you a much better chance to score in a game last night like last night, Like another layer, another method with which to break down the defense.

Again, that's the fundamental difference between this guy's hitting tough shots and we're generating layups and open threes that is gonna come from a player that breaks down the defense, and having another guy like Jayson Tatum, especially with how much more of a gifted passer Tatum is even than a guy like Jaylen Brown.

I just think having him back, all I could think about last night is I was like, man, this is now that it seems like a real possibility, not just a real possibility, it seems like a likelihood that Jayson Tatum comes back and plays basketball this season.

I just thought about him as just another layer to help that offense, because like, ultimately You're not gonna shoot better unless you generate quality shots.

Adam Taylor does a great job covering the Celtics on an individual level.

He was tweeting out these stats last night.

The Celtics are now three for thirteen when shooting under thirty five percent from three.

They're on pace for thirty nine games this year shooting under thirty five percent.

That's the worst of the Joe Missoula era, and they're winning those games at under a twenty five percent clip.

The only way to rectify that is generate better shots.

Last season, they generated the second most unguarded catch and shoot three point attempts in the entire league.

This year they generate the seventh most.

It's a modest drop off, but it's a dropoff overall.

To be clear, I still think the Celtics offense is awesome.

You can't deny it.

They're fourth in offensive rating this season.

But they just aren't quite as resilient as they were with Tatum because their shot quality is a little bit worse than it was last season.

And I think again it's that extra layer, that extra help in the form of another big shot creator that can help break down ball pressure.

Teams like the Detroit Pistons.

All Right, guys, It's all I have for today is always a sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us in supporting the show.

Again, I mentioned this yesterday, but I have a little bit of a scheduling conflict tonight, so I'm not gonna be able to go live on YouTube after the n Season Tournament final, but we will have a reaction to it first thing tomorrow morning.

Again, that's all I have for today is always a sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us, and I will see you tomorrow morning for in season tournament finale reaction.