Steph Noh

I was surprised that the Spurs didn't go more to this high horns alignment in Game 1. They got great looks when they tried it. Potential Game 2 adjustment.

KAT's defense on Wemby won the Knicks Game 1.

Watch Wemby motioning to everyone as he comes up to guard this pick-and-roll. Precipitates a super clean three-way switch. -Fox switches onto KAT -Champagnie switches onto Bridges -Wemby switches onto Hart Easy to make a mistake in this coverage, but the Spurs nail it.

Knicks open the second half with Brunson setting that flex screen that has been working so well for them in the playoffs. Spurs switch it and Anunoby has the size advantage on Fox, but Wemby gets down there quick to clean things up.

Knicks gotta get into their stuff way faster when Wemby is out there. They walk the ball across with 16 on the clock, Wemby kills two shot attempts by being in the general area, then Brunson gets the grenade and can't get a shot off.

This is what it's all about

Please, please, please, PLEASE more analysis like this on broadcasts. Explaining the why of this Spurs play.

Imagine perfecting this shot as a kid and then figuring out that it even works against a 7'4" generational shot blocker.

Wemby staying in front of Holmgren's drive, switching to stay in front of Wallace's drive, then switching to stay in front of McCain's drive and block his fadeaway. Then drives through the Thunder defense, spin move, layup. Sheesh.

Just watched all of Isaiah Hartenstein's push shots in this series. He's shooting 58.8 percent (10 of 17) against Wemby on those looks. Thunder as a team are shooting 45.9 percent with Wemby as the closest defender, per league's tracking data

Kingston Flemings on his elite feel: "You can see a player, oh, you got that steal there, but you don’t know how I got that steal. I saw the screen coming off. I saw how the player was looking. I saw how the dude was slipping. You ain’t see all that, you just saw how the steal happened."

Caleb Wilson 11-of-25 on the spot up 3s drill

This was the turning point in Pistons/Cavs G1. Tie score with five minutes left, Cade with beautiful passes to Duren for dunks on three straight trips to get the lead back up to six.

Very well disguised Spain pick-and-roll on the ATO from the Pistons. James Harden with the great help to disrupt the play and prevent an open layup, look at him taking pride in the defense.

Same Raptors rim

Three years ago when I asked Jaden McDaniels about his mentality on defense, he told me "I try to ruin their days, ruin their nights." Jamal Murray just shot 4-of-17 in the Nuggets' Game 6 elimination. Here's McDaniels ruining his night.

You dare use my own spells against me, Potter?

Dyson Daniels on Jalen Brunson last night. Yeah, he forced a lot of missed shots. Also was picking up full court, applying constant pressure, and executing help responsibilities. (check out second clip: guards 80 feet out, tags the roller + recovers out to the 3-point line)

Breakdown of Knicks Game 3 defensive adjustments. Knicks got crushed conceding switches with Jalen Brunson in Game 2. Here's how they tried to protect Brunson at the end of Game 3 and what worked, didn't work.

The C's deep drop was not good in Game 2. Sixers were torching it. But there's a reason why they tried it, and the adjustments weren't better. The best way to learn the game is to try to think of those reasons (worst is to assume coach is a moron). Here's what i came up with:

Two minutes on the end of Hawks/Knicks, with some audio commentary explaining the fun strategy that was happening:

Meanwhile, the Hawks were doing the same thing with CJ McCollum, trying to target Jalen Brunson on three straight trips. The Knicks also switched up their coverage (threw in a double), got CJ to turn the ball over. A ton of cool strategies down the stretch of this one.

Fun chess match at the end of Hawks/Knicks. Brunson was trying to get the Okongwu matchup almost every time down. Hawks mixed coverages up very nicely to try and keep him off balance. Sprinkled in hedges, hedge-and-unders, blitzing, switching, hard doubling.

Seeing a lot about the Hawks being dead against the Knicks. There were cracks in the Knicks' defense in the 1st half of G1. Hawks screening actions were causing miscommunication on a ton of switches/rotations. Hawks gotta figure out how to get back to that.

Cool Lakers ATO from last night. LeBron saw that the Rockets had switched into zone, so he called the audible and made sure everyone knew exactly where to go.

Hurley sprinted to be the first guy to pick up UConn's Silas Demary

Bec Allen on playing for the Chicago Sky and sharing a locker room with the public: "I was really overwhelmed by that. I had a random lady getting changed next to me. I was like, 'Hey, Wendy!'" (via /r/wnba)

Luka Garza is always moving. Doing exercises during timeouts while everyone else is chilling.

Wemby's revenge

Matas Buzelis beating Victor Wembanyama 1-on-1

Hugo Gonzalez sprinted to the bench and punched a folding chair twice after giving up this basket to Nickeil Alexander-Walker

Labaran Philon bagwork

I'm going through Braden Smith games today and I had to share this play.

Yaxel Lendeborg passing reel. Has 3.2 assists to 1.1 turnovers this season, can see over the top of the defense at 6-foot-9, excellent connective passer.

Bennett Stirtz was an elite finisher this season. Shot 70.2% at the rim, ranking in the 91st percentile in points per shot via Synergy. Great cutter, soft touch, rarely out of control, and showed some hops with nine dunks.

Bennett Stirtz was an elite finisher this season. Shot 70.2% at the rim, ranking in the 91st percentile via Synergy. Great cutter, soft touch, rarely out of control, and showed some hops with nine dunks.

I get the question marks about Tyler Tanner at 6'0". Then I see this finishing and go "hmm." He shot 66.0 percent at the rim overall this season. For comparison, -Darryn Peterson: 58.6% -Kingston Flemings: 55.3% -Keaton Wagler: 55.0% -Darius Acuff: 58.5% -Mikel Brown: 61.7%

Tyler Tanner having 16 (!!!) dunks at 6'0" is wild. Other dunk numbers from the best guards in this class: -Darryn Peterson (6'5" | 10 dunks) -Kingston Flemings (6'4" | 11) -Keaton Wagler (6'6" | 0) -Darius Acuff (6'2" | 6) -Mikel Brown Jr. (6'4" | 10)

Love Jason Benetti on the Aday Mara alley-oop call: "He turns the rim into a bookshelf, like he's just reaching up there for Wuthering Heights."

That shot last night wasn't an anomaly. Chase Johnston can drill jumpers from the parking lot. Shooting 11-of-24 (45.8%) on 3's beyond 28 feet throughout his career at High Point.

Kingston Flemings middies last night, net barely moving on a lot of these. He's at 47.2% on the season from jump shots inside of 17", midrange master.

I heard that Darius Acuff Jr. might be the worst defender in the NBA next year. Watched his defense during the SEC Championship to see if people were exaggerating. It's pretty rough.

The James Harden passing has looked very good in Cleveland

This is how you win a tank off

Nobody wants to shoot a transition layup over Wemby

LaMelo Ball takeover in the last two-ish minutes to get the Hornets the win over the Hawks. Hornets ran the same action for him every time - Stack out for Knueppel, followed by a ballscreen by Diabate to get him the space he needed to work with.

Find someone in your life that cheers for you as loudly as Eric Collins cheers for the Hornets

Beautiful ATO from Billy Donovan using the "screen below stay below" tactic to beat the Cavs coverage and create an easy dunk. Watch Huerter - screening low, then sealing his man to create an easy path to the rim when the Cavs switch.

Eight foot wingspan

What a pass from KAT

Krejci also executed a perfect emergency switch on the last play of the game to prevent what would have been a wide open corner 3 to send it to OT.

Loved seeing this from Vit Krejci. Game on the line, Grimes is waving like a lunatic to try and target Krejci. Sixers get Krejci switched onto Paul George with nowhere to hide, clear out an entire side of the floor. Krejci plays perfect D, Hawks get the win.

Nice adjustment here by Quin Snyder at the end of the first OT, playing around with the spacing to get Jalen Johnson more room to operate.

Fifteen minutes later, Nick Nurse called timeout in the funniest way I've ever seen.

Nick Nurse crash out when the refs didn't grant him a timeout to advance the ball and set up a play.

Spencer Jones is having a nice year for Denver, shooting 40 percent from 3 (low volume). Can't unsee what @dnvr-nuggets.bsky.social pod said about his shooting form though (h/t: @nateduncannba.bsky.social). It looks like he's trying to add new letters to the alphabet when he takes a shot.

Pacers went to this wedge roll twice late to try and get Giddey switched onto Pascal Siakam. Quinn Buckner's commentary once they got that matchup: "Good luck. Good luck. I'm just telling you, there is no chance he can guard him."

Pascal Siakam game-winner

Courtside fan held up the game and got booted at the end of Bulls/Hornets for heckling Giddey

Noa Essengue gets two minutes in his second career stint. It went about as poorly as possible.

Tre Jones' defensive feel won the Bulls this game against the Wizards. Terrific instincts to go for the steal here.

Dying at this Nikola Vucevic postgame interview after the Bulls stole a win against the Wizards

Brian Keefe trying to get the Wizards in the right spots

WOW Cam Whitmore doing this off a made basket!

Kevin Huerter just got ejected for this

Nice back-to-back buckets from Matas Buzelis to end the 2Q

Really short leash for Matas Buzelis last night. Billy Donovan had Patrick Williams walking to the scorers table to sub him out after only the first two minutes of the game. Called a timeout the next possession and got him out of there. Matas didn't come back in until the 2Q.

Pistons run a lot of fun stuff out of Iverson series on inbounds plays. Here was a beautiful one last night, Iverson loop to set up an easy Cade Cunningham layup.

Back-to-back clutch buckets from Cade Cunningham to ice the win and snap the Hawks five-game winning streak.

Javonte Green wiping his sweat on the ball again between free throws. Gross and hilarious!

Javonte Green wiped his sweat on the ball and got Keaton Wallace to miss his second free throw 😆

This is the kind of hustle that you're never going to see in highlight reels but leads to winning. Give Vit Krejci his flowers, had to be low man against a massive dude in Jalen Duren and also recover to an electric shooter in Duncan Robinson.

I thought this was a very insightful story from Matas Buzelis when asked about his "Welcome to the NBA" moment. Matas shared a behind-the-scenes look at the tough conversations in the film room. Reinforces what we've heard about his desire to be coached hard. link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=scPn...

Wemby's defense in that first half. DPOY lock if he plays 65 games.

Some really nice finishes by Stephon Castle in that first half