One of my favorite players in the NBA right now is T. J. Mcconno. All right, just do it one more time. T. J. Mcconno is like... Like Draymond as a point guard. Yeah, he's like Draymond as a point guard. He is. I'm talking about T. J. Mcconno, one of my favorite players. T.

J. He's like... There are certain guys, they check into the game, and it changes the flow of the game. Yeah, for sure. Payton Pritchard's like that. Payton Pritchard's- Smith was like that.

Ish Smith was like that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure.

Welcome to episode 4 of Mind the Game podcast with LeBron James and me, JJ Reddick, presented by Uninterrupted and 342 Productions. This discussion is centered around space in the NBA and how to exploit that space, icons in women's college basketball, and of course, one of the most famous defensive plays in NBA history told through the mind, the eyes, and the words of LeBron James. Just a few That's the thing that we cover conceptually in this episode. I want to go through these right now just to give you guys a little precursor to the concepts that we talk about. One of the things I talk about in this episode is the screen assist. Assists are tracked and have been tracked for decades in the NBA. An assist is when a player passes the ball to another player and that player scores. A screen assist is simply acknowledging and documenting that a player has set a screen for another player who then scores. It's Kevin Garnett with a wide, pinned-down screen for Ray Allen, who comes off that screen a jumper. It's Derek Lively setting a high pick and roll screen for Luka Donchik, who then makes a three-pointer.

A screen assist is just an opportunity to get your teammate open who then scores. One of the best screen assisters in the entire NBA is Rudy Gobert, and he has been for a number of years. He actually leads the NBA in screen assist. This is a stat that is tracked through advanced stats. However, I think this should be a box score stat, and I explain why in this episode. The other type of assist we talk about in this episode is the hockey assist. In hockey, if a player passes the tuck to another player who then passes the puck to a goal scorer, and the scorer scores the goal, he gets an assist. A hockey assist is simply the pass that leads to a pass that leads to a score. For example, in high pick and roll, If the ball handler comes off and makes a pass to the big man on the short roll, which we covered in episode 3, and the short roller passes to the wing and the wing guy swings to the corner for an open three, then the big man in the short roll who made the first pass, that's a hockey assist.

The Gortot screen. This is named after one of my former teammates, Martian Gortot, who popularized this type of screen and this concept in the modern NBA. If we talk about a spread pick and roll right here, and you have five offensive players and five defensive players, players. In today's NBA, the X5, the five guarding the five men on the offense, he's oftentimes in drop coverage. Drop coverage is simply the big man in a pick and roll, dropping into the paint. He's not at the level. The level of the strain is at the level of the offensive player setting the strain. Drop coverage is simply your back off of the level. A Gortot strain is when The offensive player comes around the pick and roll. The defensive player goes over the top of the pick and roll. At this point, the offensive player has an advantage, and as LeBron calls it, a hostage dribble or putting a player in jail. He keeps the defender on his back. Instead of rolling to the rim, this screener rolls into another screen on the drop coverage big, which allows the ball handler to get all the way to the basket.

That is something that Martian Gortot ran a ton with John Wall. Something I first really noticed when I went to Philadelphia and I played against the Boston Celtics a bunch, Daniel Tice, Al Horford. Excellent Gortot screeners. That is the Gortot screen. Another concept we talk about, specifically as it relates to Nikola Jokić is court mapping. Court mapping is simply knowing where everyone is on the court and the tendencies of those players based upon NBA concepts. Here's an example. Let's Let's say this is Nikola Jokić with the basketball, and this is two Nuggets players going into a high split. Again, a split is just when two off-ball players go to screen for each other. Let's say that this is Reggie Jackson, and Reggie Jackson sets a screen on Christian Brown, and Christian Brown cuts to the basket. Nikola Jokić has mapped the court. He knows this help defender is not really involved in the play. He's reading what these two defenders are doing. He also knows that as this cutter cuts to the basket, chances are this help defender, because he's been taught this way, is going to help on this cut. Whether it is a scoring cut or not, he's going to help.

He has awareness of this cut. So court mapping is simply, I know this guy is going to be open. I'm going to make this skip pass for a three, Payton Watson, three. That's court mapping. It's simply knowing where everyone is on the court. Another example of that from Nikola Jokić. Nikola Jokić in a post-up right here against the New York Knicks. Josh Hart right here as a help defender. Aaron Gordon in the dunker spot in this area. Josh Hart coming from the baseline side on a double. Nikola Jokić knows that Aaron Gordon is in the dunker spot, assuming he can get inside position. He just makes an over-the-head pass right to Aaron Gordon for a layup. That's court mapping. Spatial awareness. A flood typically happens on a wing isolation. Let's say this is Jason Tatum. He's got a clear side. He's the offensive player. He's the O. He's got a clear side on offense. Let's say the other Boston players are all either at the top of the key or on the weak side, which we explained in a prior episode. Flooding simply means that the low man, the man closest to the rim, floods the lane and comes across the lane.

That is flooding right here. Now Jason Tatum, instead of being isolated alone against one defender, has a second defender, all the other defenders on the weak side, then get in help position. But this is the guy right here who comes across the lane and floods. Boxes and elbows. Again, sometimes the meaning of the concept is simply in the word. If you look at a court, typically the lowest hashmark is a box. This part of the court on the lane, these are called the elbows right here. So boxes and elbows simply means that the help defense is stationed at the boxes and elbows. So think about an isolation at the top of the key. Let's say, again, it's Jason Tatum. He's isolating at the top of the key against the defender. Boston is spread out, five out. These defenders are at boxes and elbows. I want to thank you guys again for watching and listening to Mind the Game podcast with LeBron James and JJ Redick. If you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button. We just recorded episodes five and six. I'm biased, of course, but I think they're some of our best work yet.

I saw something on Twitter that TickPick is reporting that they've sold six times more final four tickets, the women's final four. I saw that. And the men's final four. I saw that. Just think about earlier this year, Ryan Ruko, who I work with, of course, who's calling South Carolina LSU, had better ratings on a Thursday night versus a Miami Heat, Boston Celtics TNT game. It feels like there's a surge in popularity right now, even more so than the men's game. The women's basketball, where there's WMBA, but particularly women's college. Why do you think that is?

I think obviously there's a lot of factors that goes into everything.

We're theorizing here, by the way. Yeah, we're theorizing. We're just theorizing.

But I personally think that... It's two things. Obviously, the obvious The biggest one to me is the transfer portal. There's too many guys that are leaving colleges, leaving programs, and it's just hard to keep up with a lot of guys. If I'm a kid that If I'm a fan and my team is Connecticut or Baylor or Duke or North Carolina, and kids are now... They're leaving one year in or two years in a transfer portal, you're like, your fandom of that particular player on your favorite program, it automatically dwindles. It goes down. I think that has something to do with as far as the popularity and the excitement of why you may want to watch the women's college game more than the men's. But I also think the number one thing is in women's sports, compared to the men, we have the ability to go to the NBA right after our freshman year. In the women's game, you have the ability to build Build your legacy and build your rapport and brand with that fan base, with that community. Caitlin Clarke. Back in the day when it was like Diana Tarazi and Sue Bird, Sameca Hoseclough, Candice Parker.

You're watching these girls. They're doing it. Kelsey Plum at Washington. You're watching these girls year after year after year continue to grow. You watch any girl? I mean, there's not much going on in Connecticut besides the Huskies. When you get a popular basketball player, which is the most popular sport in the world. I'm going to stick by it. I know football fans will rebuke my comment, but I believe that. But you get a woman to stay on campus three, four years, I think that a lot to do with the popularity of their sport.

It gets to something Rich Paul said to me. He was talking about NBA players and the scrutiny that the great ones face now in the social media era. But he said to me, there are no more icons. When I think about men's college basketball, there are no more icons. I think the two reasons you mentioned, one and Done, Transfer Portal, are a big part of that. We'll go down the Since the One and Done era, listen to this shit. This is some of the names of women's college basketball players. A lot of these players have won the Wooden Award. Candice Parker, and some of them have won it more than once. Maya Moore, Brittany Griner, Breonna Stewart, Asia Wilson, Alia Boston, Sabrina UNESCO, Kelsey Plum, Kaitlyn Clarke, Angela Reese, Juju Watkins, who's at USA. That's just to name a few. I feel like that, as much as I love the the team aspect of basketball, period. I think the women's game right now, particularly in college, has more icons.

When I was growing up watching college basketball on Big Monday, you had Allen Iverson at Georgetown, you had Kerry Kittles at Vilanova, you had Ray Allen at Connecticut, you had John Wallace at Syracuse. These are all on big Mondays. You You spent four years at Duke. There's no more JJ Reddicks or Shane Badier came back. He came back when he was already... He's going to be a lottery. He came back for a senior year. He's like, I'm coming back. Those That's what I'm talking about. Those are the icons that we're talking about. Those are the college icons that you watched. Yeah, you watched because you had a love for that program, but you also watched because they had certain icons or certain uniforms. I used to watch in North Carolina back in the day. Ed Coda, he didn't sniff the NBA. But you knew who he was. I fucking loved Ed Coda in college. I love Ed Coda, Shaman Williams, that team that they had. You know what I'm saying? I love Cincinnati, with Logan and Ruben Patterson and Kenyan Martin, all those guys. Then when Kenny Satterfield stepped in, Demar Johnson, it was like, I don't know.

I remember as a kid watching When I was growing up, I wanted to go to Cincinnati because of the uniforms and because of hugs. Then I got a little older and I wanted to go to North Carolina because of the uniforms and because Ed Coda and his ability to pass the ball. I was like, Oh, that's insane.

You never wanted to go to Duke?

Fuck no, man. Fuck no, I never wanted to go to Duke. I already told you this. Now, yes.

Now that you know K.

Now that I know K, he's my fucking guy. My sophomore year, they started recruiting me right at the end of the high school season.

My season ends and they say, You can come to Senior Night, Chris Carwell's Senior Night. It was against Carolina. I go. I'm I'm a Duke fan. I'm a dream come true. I go and had a great time. Duke wins. I meet K for the first time, spent some time with Wojo. Wojo takes me around campus or whatever. A month and a half later, I met the first big Nike AAU tournament, which was Boo Williams. We hosted the first tournament in Virginia. We get to the Championship game, and I'm sitting with my teammates. You know how you used to wear shorts underneath your shorts?Of course.Shorts underneath your shorts.Of course. That particular day, I had decided to wear some Carolina shorts. All I want to do in life is go to Duke, but I like the Carolina blue color. I'm rocking these Carolina blue shorts and who fucking walks up and sits next to me. No, Wojo does. He was like, What the fuck are you doing, dude? I was like, There goes my chance. You're trying to kill everything. There goes my chance. Real quick, I didn't want to wrap this up, but Cameron Brink, who a star player for for Stanford.

She had a quote. She said, I keep seeing videos of people saying, I can name five women's basketball players in college, but not men. That's so funny and such a crazy shift. I want to say, overall, the women's game, we have legends still playing and a bunch of future stars. The game is in such a good place. I want to make one last point because I always think about time and progress. First time there was men's basketball in the Olympics was 1936. First time there was women's basketball was 1976. The NBA started in 1951. It was the NBL before that in 1946. Wnba was founded in 1996. The first women's nationally televised game was 1979. Think about that. It was the A-I-A-W. They were going against Larry Bird and Magic. And so that was a tournament for women. It didn't start until 1982. Think about the NBA, still on tape delay in the 1980s. Finals games, playoff games. It's just time and progress. It's inevitable. It's inevitable. These players are so talented. It's only going to get better.

It's only going to get It's better.

This surge we're seeing, it's the trend. It's the trend.

It is the trend. I'm all for it because I love the sport, men or women. I love it.

In talking about role, I want to be clear on this. No, I do. I want to be clear on this.

That is our show.

Our show is very clear. I want to be clear on this because I feel like there are parts of basketball to casual fans. Actually, you know what? Fuck that. We're all guilty of this. We are guilty of this. Where we can watch a game and say, Oh, that guy was awesome. Chances are he was awesome. If we all think he was awesome, he was awesome. There's this other part of us that's like, That guy was a bum. There's the box score watchers there, box score watchers. Oh, yeah.

We know the box score watchers.

I made the point the other night on your game with the Warriors. I said, I I think screen assist should be in the box score. I'm well aware that we can track screen assist. That is an official tracking stat. I want it to be a box score stat because it goes back to roll. Basketball, for some reason, we all have these interchangeable roles at times. Other sports, we don't.

I agree.

If Jason, Kelsey, doesn't allow a sack and has a couple of pancake blocks, then he was awesome. Nobody's saying, Fuck, Jason, why didn't you catch a pass today? Why didn't you score a shutdown, Jason? Yeah, for sure. We need screen assist.

For sure.

Can we capture how good Rudy Gobert is if we had screen assist in a box score? If Steph goes off for 42 and Draymond has seven assists, seven rebounds, seven points.

And seven screen assists. And seven screen assists.

Does that better capture how good Draymond Green is?

Yes. Because his impact don't always show up in a box score like you're saying. Hockey assists. Guys that pass open decent shots for great shots. Right.

Or understand what the pass, what the next pass is going to do.

I'll give you a prime example right now.

Let's hear.

Back to blitz and pick and Rolls. There's certain teams in our league that we know will blitz a pick and roll, try to get the ball out of Dilo's hands, try to get the ball out of Austin's hands because they're pretty damn good if you let them get a little, get some space, give them where they can see vision, whatever. A lot of teams have been trying to blitz us. The best play for them to make when you know that's happening with 80s set in the screen is the throw ahead pass.

To the corner. Or to the wing.

Or to the wing. Depending on which way they're going. As soon as you come off and you have two guys on the ball, 80s diving, that means there's a two-sided on the same side that's going to tag 80, which you just drew up.

I can draw it up again.

Yeah, draw it up again.

You want the throw ahead pass to the slot?

The throw ahead pass to the slot.

Coming middle, yeah.

Coming middle. It is the easiest play to recognize, and now you put the onus on the guy in the slot to make the proper read. Nine times out of 10, it's going to be the guy that's sitting right in front of him, right in It's in the corner.

It's interesting, too, because you talk about the hockey assist in this play. So as AD rolls here, these two guys have now committed to the ball, and the pass goes here. Sometimes it's not AD that's going to score either. It's like he can catch and then he get here, or maybe it's a skip pass all the way over. I I think basketball, in some ways, I don't want to simplify it because as Devon Booker said a couple of weeks ago to me, there are certain people that are them ones. I was not one of them ones. But there are certain people that have the ability, like Kevin Durant, or like Devon Booker, or like Jalen Brown, to Kyrie Irving, Luca, whoever. You know who I'm The guys that can score efficiently one-on-one. As we've gotten into this super analytical phase of the NBA, there are coaches who are reading time and score. They're reading the shot chart, the turnovers, and they're saying, I'm going to manage this game. As long as I'm up 7-10 points in this situation, I'm not going to blitz. I'm not going to put two on the ball, and I'm going to live with whoever going 12 for 24 for 29 to 32 points.

But you know what? I'm not going to get in rotation. I'm not going to put two on the ball. I'm not going to give up offensive rebounding. I think that's really interesting. It is.

How far did I get to Hawks?

What's wild about that is they blitzed more than anybody He was playing in the league, and then they decided not to blitz.

And Luka had 70.

I know. Anyways, my point is there are certain guys that can do it, and you live with it, and there are certain plays and actions that cause a reaction and you get two on the ball. The whole thing with defense, at least to me right now, is, can we stay out of rotation?

Can you stay out of rotation? What are you willing to give up is not what you're willing to stop. You can't stop. The The players in certain teams and the coaching now is super diversified and super tricky. They're always trying to... They're just reading to see what you do. Okay, that's how they played it. Okay, we got a counter for that. There's a counter for that. So it's not what you're willing to stop, it's what you're willing to give up. If we go into a game and say, Hey, this team, they fucking shoot the three at a high clip. They shoot 45 threes a game, 53s a So let's try to take away the threes and let's live with the mid-range. Don't foul and put them on a free throw line because we know that's the easiest bucket you can get. And let's try to take away the threes. But that's not switching when it comes to a great player. Because you know what happens when you switch and you play against a great player, you're going to end up in fucking rotations anyways.

You're going to end up in rotation anyways.

Yep, 100%. It's not switching. It's building a defense that keeps everyone at home, keeps the big on the big. The guard has to either navigate or am I going under? Am I going over? Depending on who the point guard or the two guard is. He has to work his ass off for that game in his minutes that he's guarding that player. Everyone has to just be ready on the backside. Obviously, case of emergency, guy fucking falls or something breaks down, the big is up too high and he let the roller get behind him. Shit changes, obviously.

By the way, I wanted to just show you that real quick. That's your second shot. That's what she's on those?

Holy shit.

Isn't that wild?

There's nine guys inside the three of them.

There's nine guys within 12 feet of each other. Yeah, it's wild. We'll make sure this ends up on the video. That's crazy. You mentioned the Luka game against Atlanta. We actually had him right after, and we talked about what I think we're going to do a play breakdown here. What I think is the most unstoppable and ridiculous cheat code in the NBA, if you can time it right. This is you against the Milwaukee Bucks in 2020, in March of 2020.

I already know what it is without even watching it.

What happens on this play?

The fucking Gortas screen.

The Gortas screen.

The fucking Gortas screen is the most unstoppable It's wild.play. Like you said, if you can time it right, it can't be stopped. I scored a few times in that game. One, I got an M1 in the first half versus Brook. And the second one, I hostaged.

You call it a hostage triple? I I see, put them in jail. You said, put them in jail. But some people call it a hostage dribble. You come over, they chase over the screen, you put them on your back, and then you just hostage dribble.

Now I'm waiting in that clip. As soon as I saw Javel goretot it, that's when I took on. Luca does it. They teach it. Yes. J. K. And his staff, they teach that. They teach it.

My favorite part about that clip, by the way, so Marcia and goretot was a teammate of mine in Orlando. When he was in Washington with John Wall, he started doing this. I actually asked him about this today on the flight here. I was like, Hey, bro, I'm going to talk about the Gortat screen. I was like, Where did you get it from? And He's like, Just reading angles. Stan really helped me in understanding the game, and I came up with it myself. Then he said he has three other screening angles that he hasn't shared with anybody. I got to see this shit. But anyways, Martian Gortat would run this with John Wall. If you remember, a lot of teams would go under John.

Exactly.

As they would set the pick lower and lower, they would keep switching the pick lower and lower or flipping the pick lower and lower, John would eventually get over the The big, John was treated as a non- shooting threat. We got to protect the rim against John Wall. The big would be so far back that Martian, instead of rolling to the basket, would just go run right into the big. And just run.

Then he would either run straight into him with his back towards his off as a player or act like he's on a fake post-up and then just turn around. It's so amazing that Martian has a-He has this Martian. You have the Karl Malone area. You have certain things that we have in our game.Iverson Cut.The Iverson Cut. The Iverson Cut. The Iverson Cut. The Iverson Cut is one more. It's a couple more.

My favorite, though, part about that particular clip, if you really slow down and watch it, You had to have just said Javel, Gortot, scream. He doesn't even look at you or the ball at all. He sets the pick. He, out of the corner of his eyes, sees that you have him in jail. Have him in jail? He runs directly tobrook.

Right tobrook.

Yeah.

Right to broke.

I see it now on drives, too. It's not just a pick and roll.

Yeah. Draymond does it all the time. Draymond did it on me the other night, but he actually grabbed my fucking arm. He wouldn't fucking let my arm go. He had me in jail and put the handcuffs on me. It's great. No, it's great. It's great.

Anyways, look for that.

Yeah, look for that.

Look for that. Again, it goes back to you dunk the ball. You dunk the ball. But Javel McGee is going to get no credit on that.

That should be the assist. You're absolutely right.

100%.

You're absolutely right. But that's sacrifice.

Going back to spacing. I love just weaving in and out of this shit. Going back to spacing.

I feel like a 911 Turbo S right now. Just weaving out of traffic.

Not all spacing is created equal. And by that, I mean, you can play five out. You can play five out. You can keep the paint clear. But not every player, as you said earlier, by the way, which is important, not everybody has to be a 40% shooter. You have to be a threat from three. You have to be a threat.

Draymond plays in spacing. Sean Marion played in spacing. There's certain guys that plays in spacing, but it's your IQ that creates the space. Draymond's biggest asset, offensively, is being able to know that guys are going to stack off them because they're daring them to shoot. And Draymond is smart enough to say, You idiots, I'm not going to shoot the ball. You all are playing so far off me. So when I catch it in space, I'm going to find one of my deadly two guys, Clay or Steph, and I'm going to DHO to those guys and get a clean hit. And because you're so far off me, you're not going to be able to contest. And then when you run up out of control, I know that my greatest asset is my pocket pass game four on three. That's playing in space.

Right. The This is the Duncan Robinson. This is the Kyle Corver. This is, of course, Ray Allen. You get to that dribble handoff. You're the big. You've sagged off DeAndre Jordan with me. You've sagged off of him. I've created the separation. Deandre is coming to a dribble hand off me. Oh, shit. There's the overreaction. With Steph and Clay, there's probably not a greater overreaction. Draymond gets behind.

When you have a guy like you're saying, you have those guys that could play in the pocket and understand it, Bam out of Bayou. We played them in the finals. When you have Tyler Hero and Duncan Robinson and those guys flying off, there has to be some chain of reaction.

There has to be. There's this concept It's not a concept, really. But my friend who coaches for the Timberwolves put up these lists of attributes for basketball athleticism. Look, I'm not going to go through all the physical ones. You can guess them. Vertical plane, balance, coordination, agility, all that stuff. But the cognitive side of it, which I think we touched on quite a bit in episode one, but there's one in particular I want to talk about today. The cognitive side of it is pattern recognition, spatial awareness, which is court mapping, anticipation, cognitive load, mental bandwidth, essentially your process. The court mapping part, I think, is really interesting. There's a bunch of guys that do it, I think, at a higher higher level than anyone else. The analogy I would use is if you were to get a new car, and let's say this new car, it was like, we'll say, 2009, before Apple CarPlay, before Android, Google Play. You remember, you used to get a car and the map would have to download. Yeah. Okay. There's some guys, the map only gets 30% downloaded. There's some guys, maybe it gets 60% downloaded. There's a lot of guys that I think are at like 80 or 90%.

The map has been downloaded so that you can actually start the car and get most places you want to go. Then there's a handful of guys, the map has 100% downloaded, and they've mapped the whole court. Their pattern recognition is a 10 out of 10. Their anticipation is a 10 out of 10. That, to me, a game changer. We're talking about the not all spacing is creating. You remember in your game the other night against the Warriors, Steph's over in the corner, Gary Payton is in the left wing, and Steph is pointing at him, right? Balls all the way on the right side, all the way in the right corner. Steph is pointing at him, pointing at Gary Payton. Because his man is all the way in the middle of the paint. So he knows if you swing it to Gary Payton-The DHO happens.

And he came off, faked the three, resurface, shot it, and one, Rui Hachimura talks you the deal.

It's part of the reason I don't… Again, it's personnel-based.

I talk to my teammates today.

About that?

About that. About Steph Curry. In the film session, we have a film today, and we watch clips of Golden State. We watch clips of the Hawks game that we just had our last two games. There was a clip where we gave up way too much space to Clay. We got caught looking at the ball in the air. The ball finds the ball in the post to one of the Golden State warriors. For a split second, we had one of our guys looking at the ball. And as soon as that happened, Steph set a rip on Clay in the use of three. The next clip we showed, I had Steph in transition, and Steph cuts back door, and I'm body on body. I didn't fucking look at the ball the whole time. And I know that goes against Every coach, ball, you, basket, see the ball. The ball is the problem. The ball is not the problem with Steph Curry. He's the fucking problem. Steph is most dangerous when he doesn't have the ball, which is not many guys all time in our league that's most dangerous without the ball. I'm telling them, Listen, guys, I've been in more than enough wars with those guys.

More than enough. I understand it, so I get it. I'm coming from a different point of view, POV. But when Steph decides to cut inside the lane, don't relax. He's coming back up. He's coming back up. But you have to have... That's reps and reps and reps and reps of actually guarding something that's uncomfortable. Guarding Steph is uncomfortable. And the problem with our guys in our league, they're not comfortable with being uncomfortable. That's why Steph and Golden State will always be relevant because they play an uncomfortable style of play.

Do you hate that?

I hate it when you don't have the person there to match it.

I'm just using the word hate. I hate it. Going back to that Gary Payton play, though.

I know exactly the play you told me.

No, I know. It's crazy. I got to hold it again. Hold on. There's an anomaly to this, of course. I really hate the Dunker Spot.

I'm not going to make the same mistake as episode one.

It's all good. No, no. I really hate the Dunker Spot. I do. I think there's a time and place for it. I think there's a time and place for it. Was it the spacing?

Yeah. Obviously.

I like when I'm watching games or I'm watching film and I see no one in the paint. So think about it this way. If Aaron Gordon was always in the Dunker spot, They go to their five out splits. They throw it to Jokić. They start running the back screen to a slip.

He's going to be in the way. He's going to be in the way.

There's a time and place.

I like that. There's a time and place for the dunker spot.

Time and place.

70-30, 80-20.

I would say 70-30. 70-30. But on that team- 75-25. On that team, it's a different thing because of Jokić and the court mapping.

Yeah, court mapping, for sure.

There's a play for March second that I love. End game, you know what they're running? Two man.

Yeah, two man.

Jokić crosses the court on the right side. While Murray's got the ball on the left side, they're going to go to that high pick and roll of Murray to his right-hand. Correct. Jokić, I think it was Payton Watson.

He's like, Stay on that.

No, he said, Go to the right corner. Payton Watson was in life. Left wing goes to the right corner. They get to their two man. It eventually ends up with Jokić. Gordon's doing cat and mouse on the baseline. He spins, and it literally looked like a shot.

He's about to shot, and he does like this. Yeah.

And lob dunk, right? Lob dunk. That is court mapping.

It is.

Because he knew getting that guy over there, he knew getting that guy over there, would make you have to make the tough decision. Do I help on his spin? Do I let him score? Do I stay home on Eric Gordon? Yeah. And it helps. Then it's the anticipation, the cognitive load, all that stuff.

I saw a stat on Jokies last year, and I don't know the exact number, but In the finals versus Miami, he shot 70% from the free throw line in. Catching the ball in the free throw line, either this or floaters when he catches in the pocket, like 74%. That's insane. When he turns and he's going to this, you're thinking, Okay, let me try to get a contest. Meanwhile, he has Aaron Superman-Gordon flying in from the corner.

By the way, give credit to Aaron Gordon because he's figured that out, that part of it out. The reason I don't normally like the dunker spot, though, is because I think what Gary Payton did and what Ben Simmons did, and to an extent in LA, when we ran five out, we called it delay. When we ran delay, we would have Blake at the top and DJ in one of the slots. Then he's screening off the ball for Jamal, for me, for CP, whatever. It's just harder to guard them.

Eric Gordon, how lucky. He unlocked everything for-100%.

Yeah, for them. This is, again, terrible.

I like your courts.

It's a different course, depending on where we are. The more one I've had, the worst these courts have got. All right, I'm going to put a Dunker Spot out. That is the Dunker Spot out. Okay. All right. You're an ISO on the left wing.

Yeah.

I'm very curious about this. If you don't want to give away secrets, that's fine. Obviously, if you look at a... Fuck it, I'll troll. If you look at 1980s, 1990s, and you had an ISO on the left wing, this is what you're looking at, right? There's no 2.9. No, you can't move. You can't move. You can't move. You can't move. You can't move.

You can't move.

In today's NBA, this guy can 2.9..

He tilts all the way over. 2.9 is all the way But let's say he just floods all the way.

Let's say he floods all the way, this guy moves inside. Okay, so now you're looking at essentially defense, defense, defense, defense, I hate it.

I don't like it.

What is your checklist here on this?

Depends on what the clock is. Obviously, if I have more time in the shot clock, then I'm going to rearrange that lineup. Meaning, I'm sorry, not lineup, alignment. Alignment, yeah. I'm going to rearrange the alignment to make it better for not only me, but for the team. I don't like catching on the wing and sitting on the wing and allowing a defender X5 to come over and tilt, strong side, cleanse yourself, and just stay there. X4, X3, or X2, get to sit inside the big on the other side, and now you got the box and the elbow's covered. If I have enough time, I'm going to send one of my best shooter on the floor to the strong corner. Strong corner. Now, if they want to tilt strong side, I create the three on two. I want to create the three on two. It'll be very difficult.

Just to be clear on that, you want to create the three on two. By sending the top guy, essentially, to the strong side, your side, you want to now get middle, create a two on the ball. Now you've got a three on the two.

If that big wants to stay on the strong side that I was ice on, I got too much room to work with on that side for my teammates. It's not about for me, it's about creating the advantage on the other side. There's not much advantage when I'm sitting on the wing and I have four guys staring at me. If it's a short clock, Obviously, my job is to tell the big that's being in the pain in the dunker. You got to duck in, get to the middle of the rim to make him guard you. So when I do swing, we do have an advantage on the other side, but I don't like that alignment. I'm more of a three I have one guy. When I have the ball, I like my best shooter in the strong corner, either from on the left wing or the right wing. And I like a three-line assembled on the other side.

You want to get the flood guy the fuck out of there, basically.

Yeah, the fuck out of there. And I like a guy down in the… I know you don't like the dunker, but I like him down. And then guy in the corner, guy on the slot. No, no, no. Hold on.

I will say this. On a left wing or right wing ISO or post up, I got no problem with the dunker. It's good. Because if no one's at the basket in that spot, if you're the only guy on the side of the corner and everybody's around the three-point line, then everybody can help.

Yeah, everybody can. There's no space in.

You have to put some pressure on the rim with the dunker in that situation. I'm talking about balls up top, either in the right high quadrant, left high quadrant, or top of the key.

It's pretty bad space in there. I agree. It's pretty bad space, and I agree.

All right. We did the Gore Top play. I want to go through two more plays. We'll add these to whatever episode we decide we want to add them to. All right. The one specific play I want to go through with you is the block in game seven. Okay. Of 2016. Okay. Take me through What proceeded on the offensive end to your mindset in that chase down?

If my mind is serving me right, both teams can score. Three, four minutes of actually game time. When you're in the game, it actually feels like it's fucking 25, 30 minutes. I think it was 89, 89 at the time, if I'm not mistaken. At that point in I felt like Kyrie could get us the best shot. And if I'm not mistaken, I believe Kyrie drove, got a great look, shot of a floater. And I'm sitting in the corner by their bench. I'm opposite Kyrie I'm sitting in the corner by their bench. In my head, I said, If I'm correct with the trajectory of the ball, what I'm seeing, I got to get my ass back because Iggy's going to be on a sprint, Steph's going to be on a sprint, and we're outnumbered. Because I'm below the free throw line, Tristan's below the free throw line, Kyrie's shooting the ball, he's below the free throw line. And all I see is Swish, J. R. I thought, I got to get back. For soon as the ball, when the ball is missed, I didn't... If I was to follow my coach's orders or a coach's orders, you're supposed to get back on the raise.

On the release. Yeah.

On the release. Get back on the release. I did not get back on the release. I did not get back on the release. I didn't start to actually get back until I actually saw it was a miss. But in my mind, I could see the ball feeling like it was going to be a little long. I just hauled ass, man. I just hauled ass. And when I'm running, I think, if I'm not mistaken, I don't know who it was that I run around. I don't know who it was. I don't know if it was a Golden State player or one of our guys. I had to run around or move around because I was in the left corner and Iggy Sider on the right side. But when I'm running, all I'm telling myself, I'm like, Swish, do not follow him. So you Can I ask any of my teammates throughout the course of my career or throughout the course of that season, anytime that you see me trailing to play, all I need is a little adjustment from the officer player, and I promise you I'll track it down. Do not fucking foul. Do not fucking foul.

I told the guys all year, if you see me hauling ass, just make him, instead of just going in for a layup, make him change it a little bit. Just a little bit. And Switch gets a lot of shit today because of the blunder he had the following year or two years later, whatever the fuck it was, not understanding the time and score, whatever the case may be. He executed to perfection. He made Iggy change his shot just a little bit, and that's all I asked.

It's interesting because-I went up with both hands, too, by the way.

I was ready.

No, you hit the rim with your left hand.

I was ready for the reverse or the strong side. I was like, If these fucking refs call goal 10, I might get kicked out of this most important game of my life because it was still over two minutes, and you couldn't review back then unless it was under two minutes because I knew I had got it cleaned. That's all I was saying myself. I'm getting this shit.

So many of your chasetowns, by the way, is you do your little run. I'm just saying, bro, I'm not an impressionist. You do your little run, and then it's the quick burst. You know what I mean? That was different, though. That was like, once you said, Okay, I got to go get this. I was like, yeah. I've got... I I don't have time. A little window to get there.

Yeah. It was different. The last leg of the fucking 4x1 relay with the same boat. I was like, I got to fucking go.

All right, I got one more play for you. Let me pull it up real quick.

We could literally do this shit all day, bro. You're not on the Wi-Fi here? They didn't give you your Wi-Fi?

I just hit play on that.

I already know what the fuck this play is, you motherfucker. By the way, you fucked me up.

What happened here?

What happened here? What happened here is I didn't know that your ass could go and stop and go like this. What the fuck? I didn't know that you had that in your arsenal.

The little...

Yeah, the little wrap. Has it been behind That has your rap. Yeah, the little Hezzy rap. Yeah, the Hezzy rap. You fucking turned me all the way around.

I'm serious when I say this.

I love the fact that you missed it. Thank you. I appreciate it.

If I had made that shot, I would have that That highlight pinned on every social media account at the very top of my account. This is 94-94 in overtime.

In overtime.

I know. How did you miss that? I think we won like 104-98. We won that game.

You all won that game? Yeah. I turned all the way around.

I think that was a lockout year. Yeah, Shane was on the team. Yeah, Shane was on the team. Shane was on the team because he guarded me that game. He actually switched. He was on Ryan Anderson. He switched right before that.

We got a fucking foul after that.

He didn't call for it. God, if I had made that shot, man. It's not a highlight. It's not a highlight.

It's not a highlight.

It should not be on YouTube. It should not be on YouTube as a highlight.

You know why it's on YouTube? Because it was against fucking me. Everything is on YouTube. If it's done against me, no matter if it's a highlight or not, everything.

I'll take half of it. I'll take a half credit.

You do know how I create super teams, though, right? That's it.

Cheers, man. I'm glad I didn't dive into that.

That was so good.

That was great. All right, we're good?

He said, Okay, I get it. This motherfucker? Oh, this motherfucker nice. He points at me. This motherfucker, he going to get his. We can't stop him. This motherfucker, okay, he had his 15-foot shots and shit. Okay, all right, cool. But this motherfucker, this motherfucker ain't shit. How does he have 18 points? Oh, my God. That shit is so funny, man.

Hey, guys. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching Mind the Game podcast. If you like it, please hit that subscribe button. Thank you..