Why Kevin Durant & Suns are NBA FINALS THREAT with Bradley Beal | Hoops Tonight

Why Kevin Durant & Suns are NBA FINALS THREAT with Bradley Beal | Hoops Tonight

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So you guys don’t miss any of our content over the course of this season all right let’s talk some basketball there’s a a concept that I talk about a lot on this show the concept of aggregate ball handling what that means is like if you take any five man

Grouping and you have one outstanding ball handler but the other four guys can’t dribble well you have great top end ball handling but you don’t have great down the roster like aggregate ball handling teams like that that would to demonstrate that would be a team like the Dallas Mavericks for instance right

Where you know where Luca donic is this incredible ball handler but down the roster they don’t have great ball handling one of the advantages of aggregate ball handling is it gives you the ability to make multiple attacks at an elite defense which sometimes is the

Best way to beat an elite defense a lot of times when it comes to the top tier defenses in the league your first action is not going to get the job done your first action might get you a little bit of an advantage somewhere on the floor

And you need to take that little advantage and expand it into a greater advantage and so on and so forth until you get a great shot and I actually clipped two examples this morning on my Twitter feed _ jlt where you guys can see some video examples of this where

It’s you know KD is running a ball screen and he kind of gets downhill and he makes a kickback pass to Devin Booker on the wing who then rips to the left and and gets downhill and makes a kick out pass to Bradley Beal who makes one

Extra pass to the wing to Grayson Allen who pump fakes and drives to the Lane and and finishes at the rim and it’s like if you watch the defense on that possession it’s a very well-defended play by an Orlando Magic team that has a ton of athletes and is excellent in help

Side that is their strength that’s what the magic do best even in this recent stretch where the sun uh where the magic are really struggling they’re defending really well they’re huge they’re athletic they have high motor they have excellent point of attack Defenders and

So you’re not going to just get a lot of easy shots right and and the Suns just did an Immaculate job in this particular game of that highle close out attacking and what it helps is like we we we talk so much about the off ball roles and we

Focus so much on shooting and it’s actually a misconception when it comes to spacing where people just think oh I need have a 45% three-point shooter on the weak side well if you’ve got a team especially a defensive scheme that uh rotates really hard and chases guys off

The line all of a sudden spot up shooting doesn’t ma uh mean nearly as much as the actual ability to make reads and attack Closeouts right that that it becomes more valuable and you know what’s interesting is guys like Devin Booker and Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant

Those are guys that we primarily see in on ball roles but by virtue of having three of them on the floor you get to see lots of examples of them playing with an advantage and when you give top tier scores like that in Advantage like a Defender sprinting at them they can

Make the game look really easy at times and they and they did as they stiff armed the magic throughout this game even when the Magic The Magic briefly took a lead in the early fourth quarter where fron Vagner was picking onzi metsu in switches and was just beating him off

The dribble and then the Suns had to try to Blitz to try to prevent that switch and then fron Vagner hit the short roll man which led to a quick kick out three I think for Gary Harris on the left wing and they briefly took a one-point lead

But then Bradley Beal got a couple of buckets and the Suns just regained control of the game never really felt like they didn’t have the uh the more functional half court offense in this particular game as they uh ran away with it and you even saw at stretches after

The the the suns were driving kicking them to death early then you saw these possessions where it’s like uh uh uh Kevin Durant running a pick and roll off of the right wing and getting downhill and it’s Bradley Beal and Devin Booker on the leftwing left corner and

Their guys are just hugged up on them and so KD’s just working by himself getting into the lane and on this particular possession he ended up smoking the layup but he engaged uh bad at the rim and so nurkic ended up getting a put back anyway but like if

You watch Bradley Beal and Devon Booker on the week side and the magic just aren’t helping there’s another one where Bradley Beal is driving off of a leftwing pick and roll and Kevin Durant and Devin Booker are on the weak side on Kevin Durant on the right wing extended

And he’s been deadly with above the break three-point shooting this year right Devin Booker in the right wing magic players glued up to him as a result Bradley Beal got to get all the way downhill and patiently work to get a a shot off at The Rim against Anthony

Black I actually trimmed both of those clips as well you guys can see them on the Twitter feed but the the the moral of the story here is is when you have this much offensive skill on the floor the game gets a lot easier and again a

Lot of the struggles that the Suns had earlier in the year you take Brad Beal out of the equation you put in a much lesser offensive player it starts to look more like a traditional two-star you know configuration like we see everywhere around the league and suddenly those weak side players they

Don’t seem like they have enough Firepower to make it work Kevin Durant Devon Booker fatigue they get into the fourth quarter the aggressive defense starts to force turnovers the Suns start to miss even the open shots that they get and it can crater right but then you

Throw Brad Beal into the equation even the guys like Grayson Allen and Eric Gordon Yousef nket chimi metu has actually been playing a lot for the group lately those guys suddenly get slotted into more achievable roles you’ve got Bradley Beal Devin Booker consistently working in closeout opportunities everything looks a lot

Easier the other thing I like about Brad Beal is he brings a very different type of attack to what Kevin Durant Devon Booker uh bring to the table you know uh Devon Booker is a good athlete Kevin Durant is a uh uh has a great physical

Frame but neither of those guys are like outstanding slashers but Bradley Beal is actually a top tier athlete for his position when he’s healthy and he brings a lot of downhill Force to the table and you know when when France Vagner went on that run in the fourth quarter as the

Magic took the lead it was Bradley Beal’s Rim pressure that actually got them back into the lead there was a possession uh where he got will uh um he got wend Carter Jr on a switch and he was able to just beat him off the dribble like just toast him off the

Dribble and get all the way to the rim that’s a downhill athlete play like that probably ends up in a pull-up jump shot if it’s Kevin Durant or Devin Booker right there was another play where they picked him up full court was like the very next possession and they’re trying

To apply ball pressure one of the best ways to beat ball pressure is to just be the bigger stronger athlete and go past him to the rim and Bradley beel just toasted him off the dribble and got all the way to the rim I think that fit

Makes a ton of sense you even saw one of the things I talked about a lot when the suns were struggling was that KD’s defense wasn’t as good as it it can be and a lot of that came down to workload I thought KD had one of his best

Defensive games of the Season against the magic early in the game he had a couple of steals in just the first few possessions playing in passing Lanes he was uh bothering a ton of shots at The Rim you have to have the energy to do that though and when he’s required to do

To do that much more offensively you can expect his defensive effort to wne that’s just normal especially for guy in his late 30s and so I thought I thought all of it just seems to make a lot more sense with Bradley Beal in the group a very very encouraging sign and one of

The big reasons why I’ve been saying all year with the Suns like my concerns with them are still there as it pertains to the bigger matchups in the western conference right teams like the Wolves teams like the Nuggets teams like the Lakers but I think writing them off was

Silly because the entire configuration of the team was designed to involve all three of those guys like they know they’re not as big and strong on the front but they’re going to have a ton of offensive skill on the floor more offensive skill on the floor than just

About anybody they play and that’s going to be their advantage if they can play to that Advantage if they can drive and kick for layups and threes more often than they drive for tough mid-range pull-up jump shots and they fit that offensive shot profile that they need to

Fit they have a chance they have a chance with that kind of Talent on the Floor

Jason Timpf breaks down the Phoenix Suns play since getting Bradley Beal back from injury. After the Suns struggled without him, Beal has provided a spark to the Suns and Jason has said how easy the offense flows while Beal is on the floor. With three prolific scorers in Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal, a healthy Suns team is a real threat to win a title.

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