NBA Signature Moves 11: 2021 Playoffs

Ryan putting the move on Christie. NBA signature move for the NBA legend, Robert Horton. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to a 2021 NBA Finals episode of NBA Signature Moves. Right now, we are in L.A. at the NBA house. And of course, we are joined by NBA impersonator extraordinaire B-Dot. Yes, sir. What's up, man? Thanks for having me, fella. Thanks for having me. We got Nelly Mel-Chan. What's good, everybody? Who we got? And we're going to be recreating for you this year's playoffs best plays, because as you know, the finals between the Bucks and the Suns is going down right now. All right, so the first move we got to cover is, of course, Chris Paul's mid-range game, and especially we're talking about the one where he curls off the screen and takes that mid-range jumper right there. We're just trying to get space from the defender as a smaller guard. It's hard for us to shoot over the defenders. What's crazy about Chris Paul is that he has different variations of the move. He can throw it behind the back, between his legs. He'll do the cut dribble. He's a magician when it comes to that elbow jumper. Hey, man, they rode that mid-range all the way to the finals. Ain't possibly an NBA championship. So at 36, that's crazy. Is the mid-range back? Man, if Chris Paul it is, I know that for sure. All right. All right, you guys, let's get into it. Show you guys how it was done. Break it down with some game footage. It's about to be lit. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to snake the screen, meaning I'm going to use my body in a snake way demeanor in order to get to my fade away jump shot like Chris Paul. Version two is Chris Paul's reverse between the leg into the pull up. Here we go. Oh, what happened? Move number two. We're going to be covering Giannis onto the Kumpa. All right. So this is something that he did against the Hawks. He's going downhill against Solomon Hill. He spins, holds it up, and then Clint Capella is right there in the middle. But what Giannis does, he goes up. It almost looks like he's going to yam on him. But last second, he pulls into a nice, swift, clean finger roll. Oh! Moussaka, moussaka! Giannis! Oh, and that's it! Oh! Giannis onto the Kumpa. You guys, move number three. We have Trae Young off the glass alley-oop to John Collins. I mean, deep in the playoffs. Yeah, that's tough. Trae Young going to his strong hand, which is his right. The only way he can really get it to John Collins is throwing it off the backboard. So, you know, that's just repetition in practice, something they have done before. What's crazy was that that was a design play. People thought Trae Young just missed it so bad, and then John Collins, you know, put it back. But no, it was a set play. But on the drive, it goes to the left. It's Young setting it up for Collins! That was a pass, too. That was not a shot there. I heard that they actually work on that in practice, but a lot of their teammates were daring him to do it in the game. And it is important to note that they did this pretty much in like the third quarter. Guys, this is not the first quarter. It's not the beginning of the game. This is during a pivotal momentum change. And it was up by two only. Like, it was like... This is something that you only do when you're up by 15, at least. So with this one, John Collins, he slipped the screen, meaning that he really didn't hit anybody. He came, gave a fake screen, off the glass. Boom, time. And it's important that he did dunk on Brooke Lopez. And the crazy thing was when Trae threw the lob, it looked like he took a shot. So it was another fake out. You ready? Yeah, I'm ready. I'm going to get help defense. Oh! All right, hey, hey, Giannis, Giannis, come on, come on. On his head. All right, so our next move has... It might be the play of the playoffs. Okay, this is a game-winning alley-oop from Jay Crowder to DeAndre Ayton. Perfectly executed play. Ayton guides it in beautifully. This play is less than what, I think, one second on the clock. So all you really can do is really tip it in. Jay Crowder made a hell of a pass to DeAndre Ayton. People did not know that there is no goal tending when throwing the ball from out of bounds. Perfect pass from Crowder. Absolutely perfect. And just to reiterate, there's people in here saying, that's goal tending. No, that's a live basketball. You can grab it and finish it. When the ball is in the cylinder and you're throwing it from out of bounds, you can catch it and dunk it. And that's what they did in Suns 1. Great play by the Suns. Oh, that's good, that's good, good, good, good. Oh! Was it good, was it good, was it good, was it good? Hey, watch the screen, though, real quick. Watch the plasma. No, no, no. It was good. Let's go! No! Oh! No, no, no. It's good? It's good! Yeah! One. Basket, basket. Yeah! Go, go! All right, so the next move we got is Kawhi on Derek Faber. Here for LA, Leonard. So why is Kawhi actually low-key able to dunk on a lot of people? Man, because he has a 6'9", 6'10", wingspan, and hands like a goddamn alien. Yes! And a lot of people don't know Kawhi is strong as hell. Yeah. Like, he is ripped, cussed. He can really take the body, the contact in the air, right, and go through people. I mean, he's a robot. So he gotta be strong, right? Kawhi doesn't even have to jump that high in order to dunk on people. Right. So this is exactly what happens here. Oh! Oh, boy! Hey, man! Show some emotion! Hey! Show some emotion, bro! You just destroyed the man! What's up with you? Ow! Board man gets paid. All right, so next move is when the Sixers were playing the Hawks, and you got Ben Simmons throwing a one-handed hook alley-oop to a cutting Joel Embiid. 14-point lead for E with a series tied at one apiece. Game four, Monday night. Oh! Now, a lot of people don't know about this play, right? Yeah, I didn't even know about this play until y'all showed me. This was a very underrated, slept-on pass by Ben Simmons. It was a great pass. Yo, Simmons made it look easy. Now, what was it? Like, was it just his nonchalantness? Like, it looks like he's not even thinking. Exactly, exactly. To me, I thought it was really dope how casual and nonchalant he was. He was just like, eh, casual. Just one-handed palm in his eye. Oh! All right, so our next play is KD's game-tying two-pointer on the Bucs in game seven. It was crazy because it was 107-109, so they're down. So I think he wanted the three, but he ended up getting the two. Gets it in to Durant. Here is Durant moving on Tucker. He turns. He shoots. Yes! In a way, it's one of the most heartbreaking plays because he was like two inches away from going to the conference finals. Inside 17s, man. If that toe was a little bit shorter, they would have been in the second round. All right, let's reenact what happened. KD, get open! Oh! Yeah! Two! Yeah! Let's go! All right, man, it's all good, man. We still got overtime, though. We know we got overtime. We're not going to make it in overtime. All right, so our next play is by Chris Middleton. He does this super nasty, like, little fake shimmy on Landry Schmidt. Man, it was a nice basket. He has a lot in his bag, especially that mid-range pull-up. And, I mean, obviously you see him with the fake like he's about to spin back left, right to right, and his cash money records. Man, I just think he's a super smooth player. He's kind of like, obviously, a shorter, not as highly elevated KD. But, no, they got similar aspects in their game. You know, I feel like he has a lot of shakes, but they're more footwork, body-based rather than, like, handles-based. All right, so our next play is by D. Bookman. This guy has been tearing up the league for many, many years, but now he's on the main stage and he is showing his bag. He basically goes off the screen. Terrence Mann is trailing him. He's able to hold him off, and he waits until Terrence Mann is in front of him and then he takes a little step back. And D. Book's a tough shot maker. All he needs is just a little space and D. Book mid-range is up there with CP. So that's exactly what he did. He just needed a little space with that pull-back jump shot and cash money. So our next play is by Blake Griffin. He had an amazing dunk against the Bucs. Basically, Bruce Brown gets a pick-and-roll. He draws two. He's coming down. He kicks it right off to Griffin and Griffin almost kind of slams it on Giannis. Oh, boy! He didn't have to, bro. I thought you couldn't do that anymore. Yeah, I still got it. The next move is Trey Young's shimmy three. How did he get so much space off of Drew Holiday that he could have shimmied before he shot? This man right here. Oh, my goodness. Oh, no, he didn't. No, he didn't. He showed the left-to-right crossover like he was about to go back to the left to use the screen. Drew guessed wrong and Trey had 15 years and 13 days to knock down the shot and shimmy with it. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for watching that. Wraps it up for our 2021 NBA Finals Edition of NBA Signature Moves. Big shout-out to B-Dot and Nelly for joining us. We're at the NBA house in L.A. right now. Guys, what can we learn from this video? Because I know we just reenacted highlights, but what can kids take away? I think for me, the main thing is like sometimes when you want to train the fundamentals and all these moves it can get really boring for kids, but when they see it executed in real life, in an NBA game, it actually gets them interested to learn all the layers. Right, right. It's different from just telling them how to do it when they actually, you know, you can implement it and you show their favorite players actually doing these moves. The stuff that trainers and we actually work on is implemented in the game. It's pretty dope. B-Dot, how hard is it to pull off some of these moves in-game against amazing, athletically tall defenders? Man, it's pretty hard. Obviously, they practice every day. They do these moves every day and a lot of it is reaction, but that's what they work on. So, honestly, extremely hard. But them, they're pros, so it comes easy for them. At the end of the day, I think it's all about the amount of repetitions you put into that certain move or the specific drills that you're doing. You know, the more reps you put in, you're just going to get better. It's just like anything, guys, training the muscle, trying to memorize something. Everything's a muscle. Your brain is a muscle. Your muscle is a muscle. Anyway, guys, thank you so much for watching that episode of NBA Signature Moves. All right, you guys, let us know in the comment section below what was your favorite move that we covered. Let us know your favorite moves that we didn't get to cover and make sure you let us know your NBA Finals prediction in the comment section below. All right, make sure to tune in to the NBA Finals on ABC. That's game. Game, baby.