“NBAGameWinner” tag's highlights of related matches, posts & more...
Darius Garland Game Winner! Tatum Sends Osman Flying! 2021 NBA Season
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OUT OF THIS WORLD Pass By Nikola Jokic (+ More...)
On the out of bounds play, the Spurs run a 2-3 zone. But check out this phenomenal play from the Pacers. Keep an eye on Chris Duarte, and Justin Holiday as they’re going to set 2 screens on the inside for Wannamaker to drive. Not the cleanest execution but it does enough for the backside to collapse, leaving an open look for Torey Craig and he swishes it from downtown. Here’s how this great play design looked at full speed and no wonder why they got 3 points out of it. A lot of games last night so let’s check out some more interesting actions. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it. The Sixers forgot that the most dangerous player is often the inbounder. So we see C.J. Mccollum is gonna set a screen for Powell to get a full head of steam towards the basket. At the same time, the pass goes to Covington who will have a better angle to find him under the basket. This turns out to be a much easier score for Portland but on the replay we can see that if Philly switched and Powell couldn’t get it, this flows into a screen for C.J. up top and he would have a 3 point shot. It’s very often that teams have multiple options on out of bounds plays, and we see that being the case right here with this design from the Portland Trail Blazers. Moving on. The Celtics get the ball to Williams outside, and from there we have a screen and a handoff for Brown on the outside curl. So at this moment, since Lavine is trailing, and Jaylen has a driving lane, Vucevic needs to step in and stop that. Nice roll by Williams and this is a great position to be in. But the pass gets deflected so the initial advantage is lost, however great awareness by the big man as he flings a pass to the corner, the swing to Smart and he has a wide open three, that goes in. Once again check out how they created the advantage in the first place, nice effort by Chicago to try and extend this possession as much as possible, but at the end Boston still scores. Next up it’s Nikola Jokic with an insane pass to the corner. As we stop it right here, you see that there are 4 Grizzlies defenders who could intercept the ball on its way to Gordon. But this is Jokic we’re talking about so dude fires away a one handed slingshot across the entire court and defense on the money for Aaron Gordon buuuut unfortunately he misses it. Still I had to put this one in, for you to see it even tho it didn’t end in a score and it wasn’t a play call. Speaking of that, the next few are not necessarily designed plays, but the ball moved as seamlessly as the coach would draw it up. Sabonis and Holiday execute this to perfection. We got the pass and the high pick, Holiday goes up for the shot, at the last second drops it to Sabonis, back to Holiday on the drive, back to Sabonis, the turn and the lefty hook shot. This was amazing. Look at the ball bouncing almost like it’s in a pinball machine. Incredible 2 man game. Similar to that, Quickley and Topin run the high pick and roll, but the Raptors close the driving lane, so the 2 Knicks didn’t stop moving and went straight to it once again. Got a better angle and Obi Topin finishes with a layup. Here’s how that looked at full speed as the 2 young players show their great on court connection. And finally it’s the Nuggets again as they run this in a free flowing way with a lot of passing and movement, penetrating and kicking, to finally end up with a wide open look for Bones Hyland who hits the 3. Once again, check out how that looked on this beautiful Denver Nuggets possession. Let me know in the comments which was your favorite. That’s it for now, subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.
The Brooklyn Nets Have A SECRET That Nobody Mentions...
As the Nets go in transition of course the attention is on James Harden with the ball. Then it shifts to one of the best shooters in the league Joe Harris. And finally the ball gets to KD, one of the most prolific scorers in NBA history. You gotta try to stop him. So on such a stacked roster, nobody realizes that there is a wide open Patty Mills in the corner. And that includes the cameraman which is crazy. As he goes to shoot this practice shot- we finally see the reason why he was that open. But Mills doesn’t care about Kyle Kuzma because he’s too busy knocking down threes at a staggering 64.0% so far in 4 games. And while 64% is not sustainable of course, Patty Mills could have an insane shooting year because of this 1 thing that nobody talks about. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it. Dude started the season 10 for 10 for 3 point range which is the first time that someone went 10 straight to start the season and broke the 8 for 8 record held by...oh right, held by Patty Mills in 2013. So that’s pretty cool. Now, you may be asking why I am making such a big deal and a video about a 38.7% career shooter from downtown who’s having a little hot streak at the beginning of the season. And to that I say: There’s something that nobody is talking about. Let me show you this little graphic here. As we take a look at the last 7 seasons, we notice a fairly decent percentage from 3 point range, but besides 2016/17 and maybe 2018/19, this is nothing to get excited about. But let’s now focus solely on catch and shoot threes. And all of a sudden we see elite shooting numbers. Consistently being above 40 with the sole exception of that 1 year, which is still solid by itself. Patty Mills is a sniper when it comes to just catching and shooting the ball. And guess what? He is going to get a ton of those this season. In fact, the large majority will be like that, since he of course doesn’t have to create, having guys like KD and Harden on the floor. In transition with the beard attacking and Aldridge diving to the basket, you know that the first rule for the defense is to stop the penetration. So as Harden kicks it out, this becomes a routine practice shot for Patty who went 7 for 7 in this game. And right here on the long rebound, as the ball gets to Durant, Mills already sees the entire defense watching him, so he’s going to relocate, sprinting to the opposite side where no other player is, and look at how much room he’s got for this shot that touches nothing but the bottom of the net. And not to mention how many of these situations there will be throughout the season. KD isolated on the wing, Curry makes the slightest move over there, and we got the pass, the shot and the bucket. Absolutely deadly. With the whole Kyrie Irving saga, and him not being in the roster, Patty Mills has been getting a lot of playing time and a lot of opportunities. But even if Kyrie somehow gets back in the roster and the minutes go down for the Australian, I fully expect him to keep getting the same looks, and to continue to knock them down as this is his favorite way of operating on the floor, and he shows that he can be one of the most dangerous shooters in this particular setup. Maan, the Nets got a great piece for their championship run. In my opinion the best is yet to come from such a battle tested player and a guy molded by Gregg Popovich. We’ll see that when it matters the most, in the playoffs. I’m sure that now that I’ve made this video, he’ll go 1 for 9 in his next 2 games but regardless numbers don’t lie, and they say that he’s a deadly catch and shoot player. If you liked this video, please subscribe. It helps a lot. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.
Giannis Has A NEW JUMPSHOT... And It's DEADLY!!!
Offset your carbon footprint with me on Wren! We'll plant 10 extra trees for the first 100 people who sign up! https://www.wren.co/start/heatcheck This video is sponsored by Wren. As the Bucks are setting up this familiar action of 2 screens up top for Middleton to curl, watch how Holiday is going to slip that pick and go in the paint. Middleton throws a bullet pass off the bounce and you can see that the defense has to collapse to prevent the easy layup. Jrue finds Connaughton in the corner with the extra pass for a completely wide open shot and he knocks it down. This was a genius play call and it shows that the champs are sharp coming into the new season, but most importantly, their leader Giannis, looks like he improved in the off season and could be unstoppable. Let me explain why. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it. Early on in the game we see the Greek Freak here bring the ball up in transition and go to this specific spot on the court. The stop, the pull up and the bucket. Raising up off the dribble like this is a completely different story than these 5-6 dribbles in 1 place with opponents literally giving him the open shot. And look at how fluid this looks. Face up at the elbow, surveying the floor, decides to use his mismatch, and goes into the backdown, gets to where he wants, turnaround fadeaway...nothing but net. He started getting comfortable with this shot in the playoffs, and seeing how unstoppable that was I wanted to see him continuing to work on it, and getting better and better. So this looks beautiful. Again look at the fluidity here. The between the legs, the jab, and then this almost 1 motion shot. The form looks much improved and I like where this is going. Even from downtown, check out how comfortably he steps into this shot in transition. And he has a hand in his face but it doesn’t matter. Bang. Dude went 2 for 3 from downtown but more importantly, I gotta emphasize it, the shot looks natural, looks nice, and Giannis appears very comfortable while taking it. We knew that he wasn’t afraid to take the shots. After all, that’s how the Bucks won last year, he put them on his back and went through every obstacle. And even tho this is a very limited sample size from the preseason, but if he is developing a reliable jumper, he will legitimately be unstoppable. This could have been the single most important adjustment that happened this summer. Moving on, I also love how the Greek Freak was able to find his teammates in this game. You already know this scary looking attack with him getting a head of steam in transition. Goes left, into the spin and if we stop it here, you see how both Gobert and Bogdanovic gotta be there. So check out how Antetokounmpo was able to find Lopez straight off the spin. This is great awareness and reaction by Giannis. On this play, not much to break down but it’s a great 1-2 connection between Middleton and Giannis. Everything happens in the blink of an eye and the Jazz were just eyewitnesses to this amazing execution. I like the patience on this possession as it’s clear to me that he can bulldoze past Eric Paschall, but Giannis backs him down while keeping an eye on the entire floor. Brook Lopez slips to the basket and Antetokounmpo notices that, finds him down low and the easy finish. Terrific job of keeping an eye on the entire court and finding the open guy. And speaking of the open guy, someone that will benefit in a great way will definitely be Grayson Allen. He’s been hovering around 40% from three these past two seasons and even tho he didn’t have a great game in this one, you can only imagine the looks that he will get throughout the season, and there’s no way that the percentage can go down as long as he’s playing on this team. This is definitely 1 thing to follow as Allen is a sneaky good signing for the Bucks and could end up being an extremely important piece in a deep playoff run. Even after winning the championship, I feel like this team did not get enough credit, and we are all kind of penciling in the Brooklyn Nets as the automatic number 1 seed in the Eastern conference as well as the favorite to go to the finals. However, with all the drama from the past few weeks, as well as the newest developments suggesting that Kyrie Irving will not play for the Nets this year, it becomes more interesting and more uncertain in terms of which team is actually the best in the East. And that is even more true now as we see the off season improvement for Giannis. If this translates into this year, things are really about to get crazy, so buckle up. Btw if you liked this breakdown, and what I do in general, subscribe to my second channel and watch the breakdown that I did on myself. Finally exposing all my flaws with a dose of humor. Not to hype it too much but this is personally my favorite video that I’ve ever done.
The Lakers Made A HORRIFIC MISTAKE...
The big 3 of Lebron James, Anthony Davis and now Russell Westbrook is a combined weight of 121 million dollars for the next season. Just those 3 players have a bigger combined salary of the complete rosters for 19 teams in the league. But none of that matters since now the Lakers have a superteam and are for sure winning the title right? On the contrary, if you ask me, they made a horrific mistake. Let me explain why. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it. You know what’s Lebron’s style of play right? On every team he’s been on. Overpowers defenders, attacks the basket, and when the help comes, kicks it out to the shooter. That’s literally the recipe with each and every one of his teams. But in order to get Westbrook, who’s a career 30.5% shooter from downtown, which for those of you that don’t know that’s not good, the Lakers gave away probably their best outside shooter in Caldwell Pope. He shot 38.5% when they won the title, and 41.0% last year. Speaking of shooting, this is how the Lakers themselves defended Westbrook in that playoff series against Houston. Look at all of this space. Do you know how Brodie shot it that entire year? An abysmal 25.8%. Threes that were primarily off of the catch and shot from Harden’s kick outs. Which is the exact same way of operating with Lebron. So since LA gave up so much to get Westbrook, now the depth is depleted as well, but of course they are restricted in terms of the salary cap so things will get trickier for them. And the most mind blowing thing for me is that just hours before acquiring Russell, reporters were saying that the team was trying to trade for Buddy Hield, which was actually the perfect guy to trade for. A career 40.6% shooter from 3, playing alongside Lebron and AD on the perimeter? There’s no way you double them 2. And if you do, there would have been a high price to pay. Plus, the roles would have been clear there since Buddy is a shooter. Whereas Westbrook is best when the ball is in his hands, but we know that the Lakers are the best when James has it in his possession. So this will be similar to that hybrid “on the ball, off the ball” that Rockets had him play when Brodie was in Houston alongside Harden. They were great friends too, as is the case now, so I’ve already seen the comments saying: they’ll find a way to make it work. But honestly I got fooled with that the first time around. I honestly thought that Westbrook and Harden will make things work, but we saw how they barely even got out of the first round in 7 games against the OKC Thunder. So look: At the end of the day, Russell is going to do his thing especially during the regular season. He’ll have nights where he’s unstoppable, racking up triple doubles, and providing firepower enough to win games against some teams and for Lebron to be a bit more rested. But I’m viewing this from the standpoint of the playoffs, where teams look to exploit every possible weakness, and where shooting is especially important. And now it’s clear that Schroeder is not going to be coming back and obviously the Lakers are not done making moves yet, but they need to be creative in terms of filling out the roster with good pieces who can contribute under the brightest lights when it matters the most, in the hunt for the championship. Until then, and until I’m proven wrong, my stance is that they made a mistake. I expect a lot of passionate comments, so whether you agree or disagree, let me know down below. Keep it respectable tho. That’s it for now, subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.
WTF Just Happened In Game 2?!
How are there people complaining about this year’s finals matchup? Just look at how the ball flies offensively, but also the great effort by the Bucks on defense to close out and contest. At the end however Phoenix is able to penetrate inside and Ayton finishes with the and 1. This is absolutely beautiful and great effort from both teams. And despite the 2-0 lead, I have a feeling that the series is far from over. Let me explain. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it. After getting burned on the pick and roll and those switches with Lopez in the first game, now you could see the adjustment by Milwaukee right from the start. They fought hard to get over the screens and got a second defender to help out forcing CP3 and Booker into taking a more contested shot, or the second option- the Bucks basically said: We know that these 2 can beat us, so we wanna see if the others can make shots. Thing is, they did make a lot of these kick out threes off of these kick outs. The Suns made 20 out of 40 threes, 50% on that many makes, will pretty much get you the win every single game. Booker was the only one to take and make a few of those hero shots, but the large majority of those threes were open shots like these off of the help. But despite the loss, I’m intrigued by the adjustments that Milwaukee made, and they could have won this game. First of all, they got to where they wanted and took good shots. The Bucks had 54 points in the paint as most of those were Giannis dominating every single defender, but also check out all these great looks that Jrue and Middleton are getting with Antetokounmpo as the screener. These are automatic buckets, and just as Phoenix plays the pick and roll with Chris Paul over and over and over again looking for mismatches, Milwaukee needs to be way more frequent in featuring the Greek Freak in these 2 man actions. The only reason I would say for why the series is not tied at the moment, is the horrific shooting night by Holiday and Middleton. Khris had a few open shots that just rimmed out, and if I’m him I continue to be aggressive and forget about this one. On the other hand, this is the second bad offensive game in a row for Jrue. I love how he gets inside and creates great looks for himself, but at the same time you can’t miss these. Not in the finals where every basket is invaluable. He even missed this layup on a fast break opportunity. And this sequence pretty much tells the story of the game for him. Gets all the way to the rim and misses the layup, but fights for the ball, and moments later look at how he finds himself completely wide open for the three. And misses that one as well. I love this player, and what he gives them defensively every single game including this one is indispensable but at the same time, Giannis needs help for this team to win. We saw that even by going nuclear with 42 points he cannot do it alone. And that’s how we get to my point. I think that back home in Milwaukee, with their backs against the wall, all of these easy shots will start to fall. There will be no missed layups, the intensity is going to be even higher, and we all know that role players play way better at home. So despite the 0-2 hole, I feel like they found an answer for the exploits from game 1 defensively, and now it’s only a matter of getting the offense right and executing. And even tho I’d love the Suns and CP3 to win it all, at the same time, I’m in for a long and interesting series. We’ll see if they give that to us. That’s it for now, subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.
POINT GOD REVEALED: How CP3 Got To The NBA Finals
The Clippers had success with the zone in game 5 so they started off with it again. However, Phoenix was expecting it and, check out the response this time. Crowder cuts along the middle creating the misdirection, all the attention is right here, but at the same time, Bridges takes off to the basket and gets a back screen from the big man, and you can already see it happening. The lob and the dunk. Next possession, we got the screen up top, allowing Chris Paul to penetrate in the middle and he kicks it to the corner. The pass is not perfect but a good catch by Crowder, fires and knocks down the three. The Suns started off blazing hot from downtown in the first quarter forcing LA to switch to a man to man defense and with that neutralizing the advantage that they had last game. And that’s only the beginning of this story, one that finally had a happy ending for CP3. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it. The type of defense didn’t matter for Devin Booker in terms of his approach for this game. He was going to attack at all costs. You could see him early on pushing in transition, and either going all the way to the basket, or stopping at his favorite spot right here at the elbow for the pull up and the swish. Booker and the Suns didn’t wanna allow the Clippers to set up their defense, and that worked extremely well for them early on. In the half court however, all the looks that Devin got, involved movement. Right here, he starts at the elbow, and great maneuvering going under the screen, leaving Beverley trailing behind as he goes on the outside. So there is no stopping as he catches the ball, rather going straight back to that right elbow where he fires and hits the jumper. Again, starts off ball at the wing, great handoff by Payne stopping Batum on the chase. Book goes around the Ayton pick and is all alone for this three pointer. You know that he’s going to punish the Clippers. Pretty much the same play in the second half. The handoff, the big man is waiting here, but actually slips the screen this time. So now you can see we got a 2 on 1 situation, Cousins leaves a lot of room for this floater and of course it goes in. And once again, only this time it’s contested way better but Devin is already in a nice rhythm so even the good defense doesn’t make a difference on this possession as we got another floater. And, I criticized Deandre the last game for the lack of aggression, so you can see him sealing the smaller defenders inside the paint and actively looking for the ball. As he should be. I mean, there’s no way that this small lineup that Los Angeles had on the court could contain him. I still think that this is not enough touches. Dude went 8/10 from the field. That’s 80%. Let’s try to see if he can go double that, 16 for 20. All night until the opposing team does something about it. Anyway, 16 points and 17 rebounds, another big night for him. Phoenix had a comfortable lead for a big portion of the game. But as the Clippers started to make a run, and you could feel the game getting close at the end of the third, it was none other than Chris Paul that took control and would not let go of the lead. 3 straight possessions in a 90 second span, of straight iso CP3, to get the lead from 7, all the way back up to 15 to enter the 4th quarter. He single handedly stopped the momentum of the home team, and continued even harder in the last 12 minutes of the game. 31 of his 41 points came in the second half with everything on the line. An unbelievable performance. You could see him sensing that this is the moment, the time for him to take matters into his own hands and after so many heartbreaks and missed opportunities, to finally step on the biggest stage that we all agree he deserves to be on. The NBA finals. For the first time in his career at age 36. Never say never baby. At the end, you could see how emotional Paul was, and how much this means to him. To be honest, I am super happy for Chris. As a person who appreciates smart and efficient play, to me he is the player when you talk about basketball IQ so I’ve been pulling for him to finally win the championship. Whoever comes out of the east, the Suns and CP3 certainly feel they have a great chance to win it all. I absolutely agree and wish that they do it. One time for the point god. Let me know in the comments who do you think come out of the east, and who you got in the finals. That’s it for now, subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.
WHAT IS GIANNIS DOING HERE?!?! (Nobody Is Talking About This!!!)
We witnessed a legendary performance by Kevin Durant. By now you’ve seen all the highlights, But did you notice how and why Giannis wasn’t guarding him on any of those possessions? Let me go deep and break down the hidden details that you may have missed. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it. First things first, let me start off by saying I admire the courage of James Harden to go out there clearly injured and limited in what he could do but regardless give everything he got. Although he looked awful and I kind of felt sorry for him at times. Watch how he’s getting blown by guys in their first step. I know the joke was on him for years about his defense, but let me tell you there is no way he gets abused on defense like this if he’s healthy. Like look at this: Pat Counaghton just flies by him like there’s nobody in front. And there were multiple instances where Harden’s man created an advantage which resulted in a 3 for Milwaukee. And the situation was just as obvious offensively. 1 for 10 shooting, and you can clearly see that there’s no burst of speed, no acceleration, just jogging up and down the court, trying to preserve that hamstring which is where you fire off of when you want to speed up. Still despite all of that Harden played almost 46 minutes which is crazy. The team needed him to be on the court to just be a threat and have a defender close to him at all times, which as we saw was enough to open things up for KD to go ballistic. To me the real hero of this game was Jeff Green. 7 for 8 from downtown, a scorching hot shooting night when nobody expected that from him. With virtually nobody else stepping up to help KD carry the load, Green was out there knocking down shot after shot, keeping the team within striking distance, and allowing for that offensive explosion by their leader to secure a comeback. And that same leader was loud in praising these 2 guys Green and Harden for how they battled in this game. DURANT PRAISING HARDEN AND GREEN But let’s now go to the main point of this video. Why and how did Kevin Durant score his 49 points, and could the Bucks players as well as coaching staff do something else to prevent this catastrophic outcome for them. This tweet by CJ Mccollum might look weird at first glance but let me decode it for you. This right here means easy money. And this is who that is. Easy Money Sniper on IG. So CJ is trying to say that while KD has been cooking in the second half, Giannis kept standing to the side guarding guys like Bruce Brown and Landry Shamet. Like for real, the Nets absolutely destroyed Milwaukee with this high screen for Durant letting him get a head of steam, switch the primary defender off of him, and then Brook Lopez is left on an island here, he drops to protect the basket, and KD just raises up and knocks down the jumper. This is exactly how Brooklyn cut down the lead in the third quarter that was as big as 16 points and made this game interesting. While that was in transition- in the fourth quarter in the half court, it was pretty much the same thing of just trying to get the main guy whether PJ or Middleton switched off of him. And once that happens, you can see how easy it is for Easy Money Sniper to get a shot up and splash it. And you can see throughout that whole time, Giannis Antetokounmpo- the 2020 defensive player of the year, and this year’s first team all defense is standing in the corner guarding guys who are nowhere near the threat of scoring 50 points in a game. And the media kind of pressed him on this topic in the postgame interview, about him taking the challenge and guarding the best player in this series. GIANNIS INTERVIEW So as he says right here, I guess it’s Coach Bud to blame for not putting him on KD? I don’t know, at some point when you’re the leader of the team, you gotta step up and take the responsibility in my opinion. And I guess I can understand the fact that Giannis is the main weapon offensively so maybe the strategy was to save him as much as possible on defense so that he could go all out on the other end, but maaan, KD was playing alone in this game and he still battled on defense. To me there had to be some possessions where if not directly on him, Giannis should have at least been higher up closer to the perimeter so that it’s tougher for Brooklyn to look for the switch. This way, Durant got blistering hot and when the game was on the line, he was able to fire off one last heat check, a contested shot from waaay downtown, which ultimately sealed it. And this reaction says it all. KD CELEBRATION Of course we don’t know what happens in games 6 or possibly 7, but to me, this iconic performance by KD a triple double with 49 points 17 rebounds and 10 assists, playing every single second of the game. Exactly 48 minutes out of 48 minutes on the court.