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Speaker 1: dot co. Slash b Ball. All right, welcome to hoo
Speaker 1: tonight here at the Volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. I'll ball
Speaker 1: if you guys are having a great week. So bar
Speaker 1: got a jpackshow for you today. We're gonna hit the
Speaker 1: showdown between Chet Holmgren and Victor Weiman Ya I'm a yesterday,
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the thunder to this point
Speaker 1: in the season at large, and then after that we're
Speaker 1: gonna do a deep dive into the Cleveland Cavaliers, who
Speaker 1: are five and zero have the number one offense in
Speaker 1: the NBA in three significant changes to the way they
Speaker 1: play compared to last year that we're gonna break down. Then, also,
Speaker 1: we have a mail bag at the tail end of
Speaker 1: the show, got about a half dozen questions. We're gonna
Speaker 1: be hitting some of the other teams around the league.
Speaker 1: You guys have the drop before we get started. Subscribed
Speaker 1: to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any
Speaker 1: more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter, Underscore Jason Altis,
Speaker 1: You guys, don't miss show announcement sont forget about a
Speaker 1: podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight,
Speaker 1: don't forget. It's also helpful for you leave a rating
Speaker 1: and a review on that front. And the last, but
Speaker 1: not least, keep dropping mail bag questions in those YouTube comments.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to get to at least one mail
Speaker 1: bag a week over the course of the season. We're
Speaker 1: going kind of short on today's mail bag just because
Speaker 1: I'm in a little bit of a time crunch, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to get to a good sized mail
Speaker 1: bag at least once a week. All right, Spurs Thunder.
Speaker 1: So from the opening, tip Chat and Wenby were going
Speaker 1: at it. There was a kind of a set play
Speaker 1: where they were trying to get a lob to get
Speaker 1: Wemby towards the rim, and Chet just swatted it off
Speaker 1: the glass and then turned around and walled up on
Speaker 1: Jeremy Sohan at the rim and had a defensive play.
Speaker 1: Victor Webby Yama took like a pretty aggressive step back
Speaker 1: three over Chet. In a little bit later in the
Speaker 1: first half, Chet tried to like throw a lob off
Speaker 1: the glass to himself to look for the highlight of
Speaker 1: the century on Victor Webbin Yama, which I admire the ambition,
Speaker 1: but you know, really Chet just kicked his ass. Wenby
Speaker 1: was being aggressive too, but he's just not playing very
Speaker 1: well yet to start this year. We're gonna talk a
Speaker 1: little bit more about that later. But Oklahoma City was
Speaker 1: consistently guarding him with power wings instead of putting Chet
Speaker 1: on him, so like Jalen Williams started the game on
Speaker 1: him a lot of Alex Caruso when he came off
Speaker 1: the bench to like the idea there is, we can't
Speaker 1: contest you up high, so why don't we bother you
Speaker 1: down low? Right? And there's actually a male bad question
Speaker 1: I have today that gets a little deeper into this
Speaker 1: concept of attacking the base or attacking the basketball to
Speaker 1: try to disrupt rhythm rather than trying to contest shots
Speaker 1: up top. And when it comes to Victor in particular,
Speaker 1: he's struggling right now because he's a little thin, struggles
Speaker 1: to maintain his base, and he hasn't been very strong
Speaker 1: with the ball this year. This is something I've talked
Speaker 1: about a few times on the show, the idea of
Speaker 1: Victor just kind of like losing control of the basketball
Speaker 1: by exposing it and people being able to easily knock
Speaker 1: it away. This was something that happened a lot to
Speaker 1: Dirk Mimitski. If you guys remember in the early part
Speaker 1: of his prime, where teams basically were like, instead of
Speaker 1: putting centers on this guy or big old power forwards,
Speaker 1: why don't we try guarding him with wings and try
Speaker 1: to get up underneath him, disrupt his base and attack
Speaker 1: the pocket at the pocket right. And if you guys remember,
Speaker 1: the way that Dirk became really good at beating that
Speaker 1: specific type of defensive strategy was he got really good
Speaker 1: at fighting for positions. We could get his catches where
Speaker 1: he wanted. He became very strong with the ball. And
Speaker 1: again that's where it's like, like I talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: instead of exposing the basketball, everything's tight and close to
Speaker 1: the chest, two hands on the ball, being very strong
Speaker 1: with the basketball to prevent being a and then deadly
Speaker 1: over the top shooting. So if you ever got a
Speaker 1: little bit of space with a jab, or if the
Speaker 1: dude did give him a little bit of space, he
Speaker 1: could very quickly get up into a shooting pocket and
Speaker 1: get a shot off. And then lastly, leveraging body position
Speaker 1: for drives, he would just feel what shoulder you're on,
Speaker 1: and he would spin off or he'd do a quick
Speaker 1: rip in a certain direction. And so he actually got
Speaker 1: very very good at scoring against smaller defenders, and that
Speaker 1: was what kind of unlocked that later phase of his
Speaker 1: prime where he became one of the most dominant scorers
Speaker 1: in the league. And so that's going to be a
Speaker 1: coverage that I think Victor is going to deal with
Speaker 1: a lot here early on, as teams are testing his
Speaker 1: ability to maintain his base and to take care of
Speaker 1: the basketball, and he's just going to have to get
Speaker 1: so much better at those specific details to counter that.
Speaker 1: Chet is just in general so much further along in
Speaker 1: his development. The Victor women Yama, the gap between a
Speaker 1: twenty year old and a twenty two year old on
Speaker 1: the basketball court is probably the largest two year development
Speaker 1: gap in the sport. That's when you really start to
Speaker 1: grow into your body and become and also it's like
Speaker 1: your first experience playing against real pros, that's when you learn,
Speaker 1: right Like, Chet has an extra year of NBA strength
Speaker 1: and conditioning under his belt, he has an extra year
Speaker 1: of working out with pros, like he spent an entire
Speaker 1: summer working out with KD. He's just a better basketball
Speaker 1: player right now, and that's to be expected. But obviously
Speaker 1: Victor has a chance to close that gap. But Chet
Speaker 1: kicked his ass yesterday. Because Chet's a better player. Obviously
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City is a better team. But at this phase,
Speaker 1: like Chet is playing better basketball right now, Victor, there's
Speaker 1: all this potential, there's all this upside that he can
Speaker 1: get to. And I wouldn't be surprised if by the
Speaker 1: end of the season Victor starts to more accurate, accurately
Speaker 1: represent you know what we expect from him. This is everyone.
Speaker 1: Everyone's capable of having a bad four game stretch, right, Like,
Speaker 1: everyone's capable of that, but Chet right now just looks
Speaker 1: a little bit older, a little bit more developed, and
Speaker 1: I thought that was on display in the game last night.
Speaker 1: He's Chet's defending at a preposterously high level right now.
Speaker 1: He's averaging five stocks per game. He's being way more
Speaker 1: physically aggressive this year, leveraging his athletic gifts, especially in transition.
Speaker 1: He runs the floor super super well. Remember that was
Speaker 1: how he beat Jokic in the first game of the season,
Speaker 1: just by running him up and down the floor. Twenty
Speaker 1: seven percent of Chet's points to this point in the
Speaker 1: year have come in transition. The Thunder also clearly allowing
Speaker 1: him to be more aggressive in their offense. His usage
Speaker 1: rate is up five percent from last year, a lot
Speaker 1: more opportunity to run action in the half court. He's
Speaker 1: running about three pick and rolls, ISOs and post ups
Speaker 1: per game including passes this year. That's up about twenty
Speaker 1: percent from what he was doing last year. He did
Speaker 1: struggle to shoot the ball in the first two games
Speaker 1: of the year, but he's six for eight from three
Speaker 1: over the course of his last two games. And the
Speaker 1: big one is he's doing so much better attacking closeouts.
Speaker 1: When he catches on the perimeter and he's got a
Speaker 1: bigger guy closing out at him. He's doing such a
Speaker 1: nice job of beating that guy off the dribble and
Speaker 1: making quick scoring moves. Last year, Check converted spot up
Speaker 1: opportunities at one point zero three points per possession. This
Speaker 1: year he's doing it at one point five to four
Speaker 1: points per possession. Now, obviously won't stay that high, but
Speaker 1: he's been so much better at scoring with an advantage
Speaker 1: so far this year. Simple moves with simple counters. There
Speaker 1: was a couple plays in the Spurs game that I
Speaker 1: thought demonstrated this drove right got cut off, kind of
Speaker 1: just quickly pivoted over his right shoulder, made a little
Speaker 1: short seven footer in the light. Simple concept, right hard
Speaker 1: drive to the right, cut me off, I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: a counter move. There was another play where he was
Speaker 1: going downhill at Zach Collins and Zak Collins was really
Speaker 1: on his heels and overplaying Chet's right hand drive, and
Speaker 1: so Check just went into a hard spin move and
Speaker 1: then right up to the basket with his left hand
Speaker 1: and finish. That was something he struggled with last year,
Speaker 1: Just quick scoring moves off the dribble that he's doing
Speaker 1: really really well to start this year. Remember, spacing is
Speaker 1: not just about making threes. It's about off ball scoring.
Speaker 1: It's about taking an advantage and turning it into points.
Speaker 1: Everyone thinks that that just means knocking down a shot
Speaker 1: off to catch. It can mean so many different things
Speaker 1: in terms of maintaining your threat off the ball. If
Speaker 1: you never take a catch and shoot three, but you
Speaker 1: managed to successfully turn every catch at the three point
Speaker 1: line into points, somehow, you're still providing spacing because teams
Speaker 1: are not going to want to leave you open for
Speaker 1: that specific reason. Right. Obviously, it's a combination of all
Speaker 1: those different things. But Chet's just doing a really nice
Speaker 1: job driving closeouts this year. Now again, this is all
Speaker 1: very small sample size. Chet has been playing though so
Speaker 1: far this year right around that like kind of top
Speaker 1: fifteen level. He's averaging twenty three points in eleven rebounds
Speaker 1: on sixty six percent true shooting, with truly elite rim
Speaker 1: protection and some real defensive versatility five stocks per game.
Speaker 1: With his super low foul rate, he's committing just two
Speaker 1: point six fouls per thirty six minutes. He's been one
Speaker 1: of the best two way players in the league this year.
Speaker 1: Now again, We'll see how it goes over the large sample.
Speaker 1: I do think Victor is going to be a better
Speaker 1: player and in the long run. But Chet is playing
Speaker 1: better basketball to start this year, and he's playing better
Speaker 1: basketball not just than Wemby, but then a lot of
Speaker 1: players in the NBA that I had ranked above him
Speaker 1: coming into the season. I'm really really curious to see
Speaker 1: how well he can maintain that, because if he can
Speaker 1: maintain that level of play, we're talking about a really
Speaker 1: dangerous team and a team that presents some specific issues
Speaker 1: to a team like the Boston Celtics if they were
Speaker 1: to meet in the NBA Finals. Looking around the rest
Speaker 1: of the roster, Chayes off to a rough start this year,
Speaker 1: but it's mostly because of his jump shot. He looks
Speaker 1: just as quick and dynamic off the bounce as ever,
Speaker 1: if not even a bit more so. But he's really
Speaker 1: trying to build up this pull up three part of
Speaker 1: his game. To give you a basic idea of how
Speaker 1: much he's like really trying to add this to his game.
Speaker 1: Last year, he took about two and a half pull
Speaker 1: up threes per game. This year, he's taken about six
Speaker 1: and a half, So he's basically doubling his pull up
Speaker 1: three point shot volume, and he's experiencing experiencing some growing
Speaker 1: pains as he tries to build that out. I've talked
Speaker 1: read this on the show before, but there's a process
Speaker 1: to adding something to your game as a basketball player,
Speaker 1: and each step of the process comes with a part
Speaker 1: where it looks ugly. So, for instance, starts with a
Speaker 1: loan in the gym. You're in the gym with a rebounder,
Speaker 1: taking step back threes, taking off the dribble threes. Right
Speaker 1: at first, it's gonna look ugly, but eventually you're gonna
Speaker 1: get really good at it, and you're gonna be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think I'm ready to try this against the defender.
Speaker 1: Then you start working one on ones and you're working
Speaker 1: that same step back three or that high hesitation three
Speaker 1: going left and right, whatever the combinations you're working on,
Speaker 1: and there will be a phase where it looks ugly
Speaker 1: against defense because that defender is gonna be disrupting your
Speaker 1: rhythm and doing all these little things to make it
Speaker 1: harder on you. Right, But eventually you're gonna get really
Speaker 1: good at that. Then the next phase is like in practice,
Speaker 1: when you're playing five on five and testing it there,
Speaker 1: and there's gonna be a phase where it looks ugly because
Speaker 1: it's different than what you're used to doing in the
Speaker 1: flow of five out five on five games, right, But
Speaker 1: eventually you get to the point where you're really good
Speaker 1: at it, and then you start trying to leverage it
Speaker 1: in actual games. But even then there's usually a phase
Speaker 1: at the beginning where it's like, try this new move.
Speaker 1: I'm trying this new thing. I'm doing it in games
Speaker 1: and it's not working right now, but you have to
Speaker 1: stick with it. And I think that's just kind of
Speaker 1: part of the process here, Like a lot of guys
Speaker 1: for the Spur or for the Thunder are trying to
Speaker 1: increase their pull up three point volume. Jalen Williams basically
Speaker 1: doubling his pull up three point volume. There's been some
Speaker 1: growing pains there, right, Like, that's kind of part of
Speaker 1: that journey. I don't really get concerned about it until
Speaker 1: you start to enter into that Jason Tatum territory where
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, now we have three consecutive full seasons
Speaker 1: of him being pretty bad at pull up jump shooting,
Speaker 1: and yet he's still trying. But even then, here we
Speaker 1: are this year, albeit very small sample size, but Tatum's
Speaker 1: getting one point two to two points per pull up
Speaker 1: jump shots so far this year. So if it comes
Speaker 1: together and it turns into a reliable thing for him
Speaker 1: in the long run, like I would argue even the
Speaker 1: three years of him being a bad pull up shooter
Speaker 1: were worth it, right, So, like it's all part of
Speaker 1: investing in long term skill development. It's clear that that's
Speaker 1: what Shay is working on. Jalen Williams, same sort of thing.
Speaker 1: He's just eleven for thirty eight on jump shot this year.
Speaker 1: By the way, the Thunder as a team are really
Speaker 1: struggling to shoot the ball, which we'll get two in
Speaker 1: a second, but the Jalen Williams struggling to make jump shots.
Speaker 1: He's also doubled his pull up three point shot volume,
Speaker 1: and he's not making them right now. But he's been
Speaker 1: so good in so many other ways, Like he's rebounding
Speaker 1: super well this year. He's averaging six assists per game
Speaker 1: here in the early part of the season. I'm not
Speaker 1: worried about Jalen in the long run. And again you're four. No,
Speaker 1: that's a scary thing about all of this, Like they're
Speaker 1: not shooting well and they're four to O, and to me,
Speaker 1: it's mostly about shots selection. They're actually shooting over forty
Speaker 1: percent on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots and they're
Speaker 1: getting one point two to one points per attempt in
Speaker 1: those situations, which is great, right, but they have several
Speaker 1: guys working on their pull up jump shots, and their
Speaker 1: pull up jump shots are not going in right now,
Speaker 1: and they're taking a lot of contested catch and shoot
Speaker 1: threes that are not going in. They've taken fifty contested
Speaker 1: catch and shoot threes this season and they're shooting just
Speaker 1: twenty two percent on them. I do think they'll be
Speaker 1: fine in the long run. But the real story of
Speaker 1: this game, the thing that really stood out to me
Speaker 1: just watching this in the Thunder play is just the
Speaker 1: gap in young talent. Like the Thunder just have so
Speaker 1: many good young players in their system. We talked about
Speaker 1: Jaylen Williams, we talked about Chet Holmer, when we talked
Speaker 1: about Shay Gills as Alexander right, but like Aaron Wiggins
Speaker 1: is like a rock solid three and D wing with
Speaker 1: some real off the dribble pop. And again he's another
Speaker 1: guy that's not shooting the three well to start the year.
Speaker 1: But he's a career thirty nine percent three point shoot.
Speaker 1: I'm not worried about it. Kase On Wallace just a
Speaker 1: really good ball pressure guard. Like Kayseon Wallace sparked the
Speaker 1: run at the end of that Atlanta game. If you
Speaker 1: guys remember, Atlanta took a lead on offensive rebound put
Speaker 1: back in the early fourth quarter, and then kayse On
Speaker 1: Wallace really started to get up in Trey Young's jersey
Speaker 1: and forced a couple of back to back turnovers. They
Speaker 1: started to get out and transition, and they blew that
Speaker 1: game open immediately, in large part because of kayse On
Speaker 1: Wallace's ball pressure. He also can shoot the ball extremely well.
Speaker 1: He's also a guy that can really score well on
Speaker 1: rolls to the rim or cuts to the rim. He
Speaker 1: can shoot the ball really well. He's a good screen center.
Speaker 1: Like there's so many different things that Kayson Wallace does
Speaker 1: really well. Isaiah Joe shoots the seams off the basketball.
Speaker 1: Aj Mitchell, the latest rookie for Oklahoma City to look
Speaker 1: good in their system, had twelve points and two steals
Speaker 1: last night. It's just this like one after the other
Speaker 1: of like really good, interesting young players that are coming
Speaker 1: up through Oklahoma City system. Meanwhile, you just suppose it
Speaker 1: with the Spurs young talent, and there just doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be nearly as many exciting options. Like I like
Speaker 1: Devin Vassel. I'm really excited to see what he can
Speaker 1: do when he gets back on the floor this year,
Speaker 1: but like you know, we'll see, it remains to be seen.
Speaker 1: If he has that all star upside. That's probably the
Speaker 1: biggest swing factor in the Spurs development over the next
Speaker 1: few years. I like Jeremy Sohan as a versatile forward,
Speaker 1: and he's putting on some putting up some solid box
Speaker 1: score numbers. But I have a hard time figuring out
Speaker 1: where Jeremy Sohan fits in a good NBA offense. And
Speaker 1: I know that sounds absurd. He's averaging what nineteen points
Speaker 1: a game on fifty percent shooting or something like that
Speaker 1: this year, but it's in the context of a bad offense.
Speaker 1: And that's where it gets tricky, because he really can't shoot,
Speaker 1: and he really can't make contested shots around the rim.
Speaker 1: So it's hard for me to envision him having like
Speaker 1: an easy role in a really good offense. Even if
Speaker 1: you're a great, dirty work player that can do all
Speaker 1: these different things. Like we've just seen how many times
Speaker 1: over the course of NBA history these types of forwards
Speaker 1: get completely ignored by good defenses and high leverage situations.
Speaker 1: It's still early, we'll see what happens in the long run,
Speaker 1: but the context of Jeremy Sohan's scoring right now is
Speaker 1: not something that I think fits into a good offense.
Speaker 1: And that's something that concerns me. Other young guys like
Speaker 1: Trey Jones, he's fine, good player, right, like Keldon Johnson,
Speaker 1: good athlete. With him, it's the kind of like feel
Speaker 1: for the game stuff that's always bothered me. But like
Speaker 1: Malachi Brandam, Julian Champagne, Stefan Castle, who's just struggling to
Speaker 1: shoot the ball to start this year. But like, none
Speaker 1: of those guys are really popping the way that Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City's guys are popping. And that's like directly manifesting and
Speaker 1: how easy it is for Oklahoma City to win basketball games.
Speaker 1: The offensive end is just so bad for the Spurs.
Speaker 1: They have a one zero four offensive rating. Only the
Speaker 1: Jazz have been worse. They can't shoot the ball, they're
Speaker 1: not a good ball handling team, They're not a good
Speaker 1: feel for the game team. Chris Paul hasn't helped the
Speaker 1: offense much at all. He just doesn't threaten the defense
Speaker 1: enough as a scorer to really get defenses to react
Speaker 1: to him. He's not setting up Victor wemen Yama with
Speaker 1: the quality opportunities I was hoping he would. The Spurs
Speaker 1: have just a one oh one offensive rating with CP
Speaker 1: three on the floor. They've actually been better with him
Speaker 1: off the floor. So like, I'm just really curious to
Speaker 1: see what this all looks like in two to three years,
Speaker 1: Like who who among this group does the front office
Speaker 1: view as foundational pieces next to Victor wemen Yama. I'm
Speaker 1: really curious to see Devin Vessel again is going to
Speaker 1: be the big swing factor to see where this team
Speaker 1: can get to. And again on the Wemby front, all
Speaker 1: about strength and shooting, strength in his base, strength with
Speaker 1: the basketball and really working on that. It looks like
Speaker 1: he's clearly trying to become a perimeter score. It seems
Speaker 1: to be his approach to the game. But right now
Speaker 1: he just doesn't shoot the ball well enough. And again,
Speaker 1: anybody can play poorly for four games, let's give it
Speaker 1: some time. I ranked Victor Wemenyam the eighteenth in my
Speaker 1: player rankings before the season, because I obviously view him
Speaker 1: substantially better than what he has shown to this point.
Speaker 1: But he's just not playing well. And right now, the
Speaker 1: Spurs look like a bad basketball team, and I'm curious
Speaker 1: to see how that shapes out over the course of
Speaker 1: the rest of the season. All right, let's move on
Speaker 1: to the Cleveland Cavaliers five and up. To start the year,
Speaker 1: the first three games were against some bad teams, so
Speaker 1: I was waiting to see what they looked like against
Speaker 1: a tougher stretch of their schedule. But then they went
Speaker 1: into New York and they beat the Knicks with a
Speaker 1: really impressive late third quarter early fourth quarter run. And
Speaker 1: then they beat the living shit out of the Lakers
Speaker 1: last night. Lakers fans, if you want to hear what
Speaker 1: I thought about their side of that game. I have
Speaker 1: a couple of thoughts about it that I'm going to
Speaker 1: share in the mailbag, So just kind of hang out
Speaker 1: towards the end. But there are three main differences that
Speaker 1: I'm noticing between this year's Cleveland Cavaliers team and last
Speaker 1: year's Cavaliers team. The first one is the obvious one.
Speaker 1: They are playing so so so much faster. They're trying
Speaker 1: to leverage misses in turnovers into fast break basketball, and again,
Speaker 1: it's just a very basic basket on a very basic level,
Speaker 1: it's the concept that every you know, how like I
Speaker 1: talked about the king of the court concept with my
Speaker 1: high school kids and the idea of like how much
Speaker 1: more efficient they are scoring the basketball when a defenders
Speaker 1: sprinting at them versus one a defenders standing in its
Speaker 1: stance in front of them. Like that is a simple
Speaker 1: mathematical concept where it's like, we want to try to
Speaker 1: avoid as many of these one on one situations with
Speaker 1: a set defender as possible, and we want to create
Speaker 1: as many opportunities with the defender sprinting at our offensive
Speaker 1: players as possible. We want to create as many of
Speaker 1: those advantage situations as possible because on a very mathematical level,
Speaker 1: we just score more points per opportunity in those situations
Speaker 1: than when we're going against the set defense. That same
Speaker 1: concept translates to transition basketball. Every NBA team is substantially
Speaker 1: more efficient in transition than they are in the half court,
Speaker 1: and so every opportunity you have to get out in
Speaker 1: transition you need to take advantage of it. Now there's
Speaker 1: a personnel ele to it. If you don't have fast players,
Speaker 1: you're not going to do a ton of scoring in transition, right,
Speaker 1: Like the defense will just beat you back and then
Speaker 1: you'll end up inefficient in transition and that will defeat
Speaker 1: the purpose. Right. But like, if you have the personnel
Speaker 1: to run, you should look to run as much as possible.
Speaker 1: And if you are not, you are missing on an
Speaker 1: opportunity to build margin within your basketball team. And again,
Speaker 1: like this is something that jab bigger staff was just
Speaker 1: not capitalizing on. This is a team that should be running.
Speaker 1: Jared Allen mobile for a big Evan Mobley, one of
Speaker 1: the most mobile bigs in the league, Garland Mitchell. These
Speaker 1: guys are fast, they have speed. They should be playing
Speaker 1: fast and they just weren't. Here are a couple of
Speaker 1: stats to demonstrate just how much of a difference Kenny
Speaker 1: Atkinson has made in the transition play for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Speaker 1: Last year, they were eighth in pace or excuse me,
Speaker 1: last year they were twenty fourth in pace. This year
Speaker 1: they're eighth in pace. Last year they were twelve in
Speaker 1: fast break points scored. This year they are third in
Speaker 1: fast break points scored. Last year, they were seventeenth in
Speaker 1: total transition points scored per game. This year they're fifth
Speaker 1: in total transition point scored per game. Last year there
Speaker 1: were seventh in transition efficiency. This year they are second
Speaker 1: in transition efficiency, so top ten across the board and
Speaker 1: top five for the most part in every transition offense category,
Speaker 1: when they were a middle to below average team in
Speaker 1: the pack of NBA teams last year in those categories,
Speaker 1: just by simply changing their approach. And again, this is
Speaker 1: a concept I've been talking about a ton on this show.
Speaker 1: The base level of basketball is half court offense. And
Speaker 1: the reason why I focus on that so much is
Speaker 1: that when you get to the later phases of the playoffs,
Speaker 1: everybody's good, so it's harder to gain margin or to
Speaker 1: gain ground on the margins because everybody's well coached, everybody
Speaker 1: plays super hard, everybody is sharp and disciplined, and so
Speaker 1: then like those half court battles become so much more important.
Speaker 1: But in the large sample, when you're playing eighty two games,
Speaker 1: and especially when you're looking for opportunities to make quick
Speaker 1: work of lesser playoff teams in the early rounds, where
Speaker 1: building margin can help, how do you build margin, win
Speaker 1: on the specific details that are outside of that half
Speaker 1: court basketball. Are you winning in transition on offense? Are
Speaker 1: you winning in transition on defense? Like are you getting
Speaker 1: back right? Like? Are you generating extra possessions on the
Speaker 1: offensive glass? Are you generating transition opportunities and extra possessions
Speaker 1: off of turnovers? Like all of these different things that
Speaker 1: you can do in the game that build margin, right,
Speaker 1: And like this is a classic example of like, this
Speaker 1: was a mediocre offense last year. Now they're the number
Speaker 1: one offense in the league. And there's another concept we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about with Evan Mobley in a minute,
Speaker 1: But a big part of that is they're just getting
Speaker 1: easier opportunities in transition as much as they possibly can,
Speaker 1: which is something that JB. Bickerstaff was just not taking
Speaker 1: advantage of two on defense. They are doing a lot
Speaker 1: more switching. Kenny Atkinson was an assistant with the Warriors
Speaker 1: for a while before this, and Steve Kerr has been
Speaker 1: a huge proponent of switching, was one of the original
Speaker 1: guys in the league that really leaned into it a lot, right,
Speaker 1: So it's not hard to believe why Kenny Atkinson has
Speaker 1: kind of taking that ideology into Cleveland. But specifically, what
Speaker 1: Steve Kerr is a proponent of is switching containing the
Speaker 1: ball with limited help in playing passing lanes instead of overhelping.
Speaker 1: Why because, yeah, you're gonna have possessions where you give
Speaker 1: up a bucket in a one on one situation. But
Speaker 1: if that guy contains the basketball and forces him to
Speaker 1: pick up his dribble, then he's got to turn and
Speaker 1: start pivoting around and looking for places to throw the
Speaker 1: ball when everyone's in a passing lane instead of overhelping.
Speaker 1: Those passing reads aren't there. And a lot of times,
Speaker 1: especially if the on ball defender starts poking at the
Speaker 1: ball and starts pressuring, that guy will rush a pass.
Speaker 1: And that is when you're in the passing lane and
Speaker 1: you force a turnover and you start to get out
Speaker 1: in transition. He has brought that same philosophy. Kenny Atkinson
Speaker 1: has brought that same philosophy to the Caves and it's
Speaker 1: been a huge boost for them. Last year, they were
Speaker 1: forcing the eighteenth most turnovers in the league. This year,
Speaker 1: they're forcing the fourth most turnovers in the league, and
Speaker 1: they are number one in the entire NBA so far
Speaker 1: in points off of turnovers per game, where last year
Speaker 1: they were twelve. Again, if you switch and you contain
Speaker 1: and you play passing lanes, you start to get deflections
Speaker 1: and turnovers. That's when you get out in transition. The
Speaker 1: Lakers game was a classic example of this. They forced
Speaker 1: six turnovers in the first quarter and scored on every
Speaker 1: single one of them, and five of them were threes.
Speaker 1: They had seventeen points in a single quarter just off
Speaker 1: the strength of their defense, forcing turnovers in running the floor.
Speaker 1: Seventeen points. That's a huge boost to any offense. So
Speaker 1: one playing in transition as much as possible. Two more
Speaker 1: switching which is allowing them to force more turnovers, and
Speaker 1: then three much more involvement of Evan Mobley in the offense.
Speaker 1: This is a concept we actually talked about when we
Speaker 1: talked some calvs. Was it on Monday this week? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it was on Monday this week. That was
Speaker 1: in the Monday show when we did the Stock Rising
Speaker 1: Stock Falling, I talked about Evan Mobley's on ball creation.
Speaker 1: We did some film in that one as well, but
Speaker 1: the general like kind of quick synopsis of it. I
Speaker 1: did a real deep dive on it earlier this week,
Speaker 1: but The basic concept there is Evan Mobley's being guarded
Speaker 1: by Ford, who typically doesn't have to navigate screens, and
Speaker 1: guard setting screens. The guard defender is now navigating as
Speaker 1: a screen defender, which is something that guards don't typically
Speaker 1: need to do. And for the most part, teams are
Speaker 1: going to hedge in situations like that. So if they
Speaker 1: don't hedge, Evan Mobley can turn the corner because his
Speaker 1: man is set. The guard is setting a screen on
Speaker 1: the big forward who's not gonna navigate the screen well,
Speaker 1: and he's gonna get down. Hell, one of two things
Speaker 1: is gonna happen. Either the Ford's gonna die on the
Speaker 1: screen now Evan Mobley's going to the rim, or two,
Speaker 1: the forward's gonna have to go way under the screen.
Speaker 1: Now Evan Mobley can get a runway either to take
Speaker 1: a pull up jump shot, which he's making more frequently
Speaker 1: this year, or to get ahead of Steam so that
Speaker 1: he can get deeper post position for his little short
Speaker 1: hook shots and floaters over the top. Right. That's the
Speaker 1: first part of it, But the second big part of
Speaker 1: it is like getting the defense in rotation, like if
Speaker 1: the defender hedges, like in the Knicks game, For instance,
Speaker 1: in the early fourth quarter stretch, they were spaming like
Speaker 1: a horn set where they were having Merrill set that
Speaker 1: inverted screen for Mobili and then popping out to the
Speaker 1: three point line. They got a wide open three for
Speaker 1: George kniing out of that because Mobley drove on the hedge,
Speaker 1: flipped it back to Meryl, rotate, rotate wide open three
Speaker 1: to George's kneeing in the corner, and he knocks it down.
Speaker 1: And the most important thing here is it gives them
Speaker 1: variety that they did not have in the past. It's
Speaker 1: leveraging Evan Mobley's strengths, and Evan Mobley has some weaknesses, right,
Speaker 1: Like we've talked about this a lot. Scoring on the
Speaker 1: role has been a little bit of an issue for
Speaker 1: him over the years, and finishing at the rim with
Speaker 1: anything that's not a dunk has been an issue. But like,
Speaker 1: he's kind of a decent jump shooter. And then two,
Speaker 1: he like is pretty good at playmaking off the bouts.
Speaker 1: And so you're leveraging those specific gifts with those inverted actions,
Speaker 1: and most importantly, it's adding variety to your offense. This
Speaker 1: allows Donovan Mitchell to conserve energy that knicks game Evan Mobley.
Speaker 1: They ran that action for three four times in a
Speaker 1: row to start the quarter. That allowed Devin Donald Mitchell
Speaker 1: to basically just spot up on the right side of
Speaker 1: the floor. Then when that action started to get controlled
Speaker 1: a little bit by the Knicks, then Donovan Mitchell started
Speaker 1: hitting the Jets and he had like a lot more burst.
Speaker 1: He had this like crazy, just one on one drive
Speaker 1: on Michale Bridges where he got all the way to
Speaker 1: the rim and laid it up like that makes Donovan
Speaker 1: Mitchell's job easier because he doesn't have to do as
Speaker 1: much and he could pick his spots more and be
Speaker 1: more athletic when he's actually picking his spots. Then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, Darius Garland checks in. Darius Garland on
Speaker 1: one of his best games as a pro against the Knicks,
Speaker 1: and he just eviscerates the Knicks with a bunch of
Speaker 1: downhill burst and over the top shot making and so
Speaker 1: like again, that's the beautiful thing. Though offensive variety is
Speaker 1: the key to matchup versatility. A lot of teams have
Speaker 1: a lot of guards that guard guards well, and then
Speaker 1: there are a lot of other teams that have a
Speaker 1: lot of excellent front court defenders. It's exceedingly rare for
Speaker 1: a team to have elite defenders at every position. And
Speaker 1: so when you've got Darius Garland who brings a certain
Speaker 1: type of style to the guard position, and Donovan Mitchell
Speaker 1: who bring a different type of style to the guard position,
Speaker 1: and then Evan Mobley who brings the ability to generate
Speaker 1: some offense by getting the defense in rotation and scoring
Speaker 1: a little bit for himself. In these inverted actions, you
Speaker 1: just add more variety so that you can cater whatever
Speaker 1: you're doing to the opponent that you're playing. That is
Speaker 1: what gives you that matchup versatility. But so those are
Speaker 1: the three main things that are really turning things around
Speaker 1: for the Calves this season. They're just playing so much faster.
Speaker 1: They're doing more switching, which is allowing them to force
Speaker 1: more turnovers, which, by the way, they are leveraging into
Speaker 1: more transition scoring. And then three a lot more involvement
Speaker 1: of Evan Mobley in the offense. Still early in some
Speaker 1: really tough games coming up for the Calves. They play
Speaker 1: Orlando next. That's a tough matchup for them because they
Speaker 1: do have really good front court defenders and really good
Speaker 1: guard defenders, and they have a lot of size to
Speaker 1: look to attack the smaller Cleveland perimeter players. That's gonna
Speaker 1: be a tough one. Then they go to Milwaukee, and
Speaker 1: then they play Milwaukee again at home. I actually like
Speaker 1: Cleveland's matchup with Milwaukee because Milwaukee's another team that is
Speaker 1: lazy and slow, and so they should just be able
Speaker 1: to cook them in transition. I wouldn't be surprised if
Speaker 1: they go too to zero in those two games, but
Speaker 1: we'll see. Then they go to New Orleans to play
Speaker 1: the Pelicans, who've been really struggling to start the year.
Speaker 1: Then they played the Golden State Warriors, which will be
Speaker 1: another really interesting type of matchup because they do have
Speaker 1: Draymond Green to leverage against someone like in Evan Mobley,
Speaker 1: but also have the guard defenders to hang with Cleveland's guards.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna learn a lot about the Cavs Rosher
Speaker 1: over the course of the next five games. All right,
Speaker 1: let's move on to our mailbag. I had a bunch
Speaker 1: of questions around this kind of theme, but I just
Speaker 1: picked one for you guys. What is it with the
Speaker 1: all knowing talking head keep insisting that teams have to
Speaker 1: trade away a bunch of highly promising players in order
Speaker 1: to become competitive. We heard the same thing from endless
Speaker 1: sports commentators about the twenty twenty two Warriors. Let's not
Speaker 1: forget that the Warriors came within a hair's breadth of
Speaker 1: trading Clay for Kevin Love, and that they tried and
Speaker 1: failed to trade Steph for Andrew Boget. And now here
Speaker 1: you are almost raving about how much better the Warriors
Speaker 1: are this season than you expected, but still insisting that
Speaker 1: they get rid of several players in exchange for some
Speaker 1: magic bullet, even though the season is only four games
Speaker 1: old and no one knows just how good this incredibly
Speaker 1: deep team will be, or with the ceiling for some
Speaker 1: of their younger players who just keep getting better every year,
Speaker 1: drives me crazy. But I had dozens of Warriors fans
Speaker 1: complaining about the idea that I say that they need
Speaker 1: to trade a couple of things. First of all, you're right,
Speaker 1: it's only been four games, so I'm not saying they
Speaker 1: should trade make a trade right now. I think it's
Speaker 1: a deadline deal like that you wait till the deadline,
Speaker 1: like I for the exactly because like, here's the thing,
Speaker 1: if you get fifty games under your belt and Buddy
Speaker 1: healed is like still averaging twenty something points per game
Speaker 1: and shooting in the high forties from three, Then maybe
Speaker 1: it is that Steve Kerr unlocked Buddy Heeld and there's
Speaker 1: your secondary shot creator. Like, let's see, it's only been
Speaker 1: four games and he's shooting over fifty percent from three.
Speaker 1: I have a hard time believing that's going to stay
Speaker 1: that hot throughout the remainder of this season. No one
Speaker 1: shoots high volume mid fifties from three, not in the
Speaker 1: history of the league, right, So, like there's that element
Speaker 1: to it too. You don't know what stars are available yet,
Speaker 1: like you gotta wait to see what it is. But
Speaker 1: there's a very specific reason why I've been advocating for this.
Speaker 1: First of all, this is not the twenty twenty two Warriors.
Speaker 1: The twenty twenty two Warriors had Jordan Poole, a better
Speaker 1: version of Andrew Wiggins, and Klay Thompson. All three of
Speaker 1: those guys are better offensive players than anybody on the
Speaker 1: Warriors roster right now not named Steph Kurk. Now, again,
Speaker 1: we'll see if Buddy Heel just suddenly transforms into an
Speaker 1: all star level guard, then we need to have a
Speaker 1: different conversation but now you're leveraging four games of evidence
Speaker 1: versus I mean, Buddy's been in the league a decade
Speaker 1: or close something like that. So like, let's wait to
Speaker 1: see more before we jump on that boat. But there's
Speaker 1: a very specific reason why I've been talking about this.
Speaker 1: I broke it down for you guys the other day.
Speaker 1: But the Warriors, their second and tertiary secondary and tertiary
Speaker 1: shock creators are not nearly at the same level as
Speaker 1: the West of the rest of the Western Conference. There's
Speaker 1: been a very specific thing that has taken place over
Speaker 1: the course of this year. They've beaten the shit out
Speaker 1: of bad teams. And by the way, the Pelicans they
Speaker 1: made a trade where they sent out two high level
Speaker 1: role players and Larry Nnts and Dyson Daniels to Atlanta
Speaker 1: and they got back to Jonte Murray, an All star
Speaker 1: level guard who hasn't played yet this year because he's hurt.
Speaker 1: So like the like, they're a team that is in
Speaker 1: a crisis of talent at this point. They're nowhere near
Speaker 1: as good defensively as they were last year. They were
Speaker 1: supposed to get this offensive boost, they haven't gotten it yet.
Speaker 1: Like it's a good win. Their quality wins. If you
Speaker 1: win down players the way you have against the Pelicans,
Speaker 1: Warriors fans should be through the roof of static. I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to undercut that, but what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: you're not playing that limited version of the Pelicans. When
Speaker 1: you get to the postseason, there are better teams out there.
Speaker 1: You guys have played one really good defense so far
Speaker 1: this year the Clippers, and your offense stalled out and
Speaker 1: you lost, Like even when Steph got hurt, you were
Speaker 1: down double figures. So like that's kind of the main
Speaker 1: thing that I'm getting at here. The Warriors have demonstrated
Speaker 1: through the four or five games or whatever they've played,
Speaker 1: they they have let they've demonstrated that they have an
Speaker 1: extremely high floor and that will beat the injured Pelicans
Speaker 1: and the Blazers and the Jazz, and that's gonna beat
Speaker 1: the shit out of all the bad teams in the league.
Speaker 1: I've said that from the beginning. I am very very
Speaker 1: confident in this Warriors team ability to maintain a good
Speaker 1: record through just a very strong institutional basketball character and
Speaker 1: lots and lots of speed, like we've talked about so much.
Speaker 1: Like I think they're gonna win plenty of games. That's
Speaker 1: not the issue. But you will play better teams. The
Speaker 1: Western Conference is stacked with really good teams, really good defenses.
Speaker 1: The Eastern Conference is really good defense. You guys are
Speaker 1: gonna play the Celtics here, and I want to say,
Speaker 1: like less than a week. So like there's a lot,
Speaker 1: there's a lot more to this journey than we've seen
Speaker 1: to this point. And all I'm saying is you're uniquely equipped.
Speaker 1: You had no Wiggins, no d Anthony Melton, no Steph
Speaker 1: and you beat the Pelicans. I didn't watch last night's game,
Speaker 1: but I watched the first one of the two, and
Speaker 1: I think all three guys were out again for that one.
Speaker 1: But like the point is is, like you're you're deep.
Speaker 1: You can afford to lose a couple of guys. Jason,
Speaker 1: I don't want to trade cominga Moody, Fine, don't trade
Speaker 1: comminga Moody. Trade different guys and include draft compensation whatever
Speaker 1: it is you want to do. That's fine. But you
Speaker 1: have like thirteen rotation players and you have this incredibly
Speaker 1: high floor. You have some assets, draft assets that you
Speaker 1: can send out in a deal, and right now you
Speaker 1: need a more reliable secondary shot creator, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: hang with the better teams in the West. Like, I
Speaker 1: am super optimistic about this Warriors team in the big
Speaker 1: picture because of how high their floor is, but I
Speaker 1: don't think they have enough offensive talent to truly hang
Speaker 1: with the top teams in the league. So then again,
Speaker 1: you got to ask yourself what you want. If what
Speaker 1: you want as a team is to be the feisty
Speaker 1: young team that plays super hard and wins against all
Speaker 1: the bad teams, cool, but then there's not a very
Speaker 1: high ceiling there, and like I know, like, guys, this
Speaker 1: is not the twenty twenty two Warriors. That's not what
Speaker 1: this team is. That the twenty twenty two Warriors had
Speaker 1: more firepower than this team. Steph was a better version
Speaker 1: of himself, Clay was still playing at a pretty high
Speaker 1: level at that point in time. Andrew Wiggins was the best.
Speaker 1: It was the best season Andrew Wiggins ever had in
Speaker 1: his entire career. Like, there's Jordan Poole got a thirty
Speaker 1: million dollar annual deal out of what he did in
Speaker 1: that season. So like, let's just be real for a second,
Speaker 1: Like this team is very deep, tons of hard working
Speaker 1: role players, they're young, they're fast, they're feisty. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of good but they've been beating up on some
Speaker 1: bad teams. I think if they want to contend, that's
Speaker 1: what you got to ask yourself, do you want to contend?
Speaker 1: Because if you want to contend, Steph needs a number
Speaker 1: two that he can count on night in and night
Speaker 1: out to give him twenty plus points without fail efficiently
Speaker 1: and in a way that actually fits well with their
Speaker 1: core lineup. So the Jonathan kaminga stuff like it a
Speaker 1: stretch last year where he scored twenty plus like a
Speaker 1: bunch of times in a row. But it's like, do
Speaker 1: they trust him on defense? Do they trust him when
Speaker 1: Steph is on the floor when they're really running their offense?
Speaker 1: Do they trust him not to make stupid decisions? Right? Like,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the thing that I'm talking about. I
Speaker 1: don't know what that player is. I'm not saying you
Speaker 1: make that deal now, it's a deal for February. But
Speaker 1: if this team, the exciting thing is you have thirteen
Speaker 1: rotation players, you can afford to package three rotation players
Speaker 1: and draft compensation to somebody else for a high level
Speaker 1: player that will then bring you back a deep team
Speaker 1: that has Steph and a legit number two and a
Speaker 1: much better chance to contend this year. That's the type
Speaker 1: of question you got to ask yourself again, Let's see
Speaker 1: what happens. Like, we'll see if guys, I'll be right
Speaker 1: there with you if you start beating the shit out
Speaker 1: of the good teams too, if you start like if
Speaker 1: you beat Boston and you beat Denver and you beat
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City, and it's just like, oh my goodness, this
Speaker 1: is something special here. Yeah, I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: advocating for a trade anymore, but I'm saying I don't
Speaker 1: think that's going to happen. This is a really exciting story.
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of teams that have a
Speaker 1: lot more firepower in the NBA than the Golden State Warriors,
Speaker 1: and when they run into them, their offensive limitations I
Speaker 1: expect will show just like they did in the Clippers
Speaker 1: game earlier this year, which is the one really good
Speaker 1: defense that they've played to this point in the season. Hello, Jason,
Speaker 1: what do you think might who do you think might
Speaker 1: be the next Derek White or PJ Washington that can
Speaker 1: help it contender, reach reach the finals, or win a
Speaker 1: title in twenty twenty five. This is an interesting question,
Speaker 1: and so again we're lon that guys here that are
Speaker 1: like good defensive players that can guard multiple positions, but
Speaker 1: that are also useful within the context of a team offense.
Speaker 1: And the four names that I wrote down, and there's
Speaker 1: probably a bunch more of these, I just wanted to
Speaker 1: come up with some off the top of my head.
Speaker 1: But Bill Bill Alkolabali with Washington had an amazing game
Speaker 1: last night, did an incredible job defensively on Trey Young.
Speaker 1: That's a that's the type of guy that like legitimately
Speaker 1: just does so much dirty work that he just raises
Speaker 1: the floor of your team substantially. Ryan Dunn and we
Speaker 1: talked a lot about with the Phoenix Suns the other day.
Speaker 1: Cassan Wallace is another guy with Oklahoma City, his unique
Speaker 1: ability to really guard the ball but also be this
Speaker 1: like kind of cog in an offense that can shoot, screen, cut,
Speaker 1: finished around the room, all that stuff. And then Dyson
Speaker 1: Daniels is another guy who's been doing a really good
Speaker 1: job for the Atlanta Hawks. I think all all four
Speaker 1: of those guys are guys that I'd keep an eye
Speaker 1: on as guys that will play big roles on really
Speaker 1: good teams in the future. Lots of Laker related questions.
Speaker 1: The this was a question about the I want to
Speaker 1: say this was the Cavs game. This game was a
Speaker 1: hard watch. Not gonna lie. D Lo kept getting burned
Speaker 1: all game. Transition d was embarrassing. No one was boxing
Speaker 1: out or grabbing rebounds. I'm trying to give them the
Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt because it's a new system, but
Speaker 1: we'll see if they can get it together. So really
Speaker 1: ugly game for the Lakers last night. I too, am
Speaker 1: trying to cut them some slack in the sense that
Speaker 1: it was your fourth game, your fourth game in six nights,
Speaker 1: you're traveling across the country. It was less than forty
Speaker 1: eight hours of rest because they went from a seven
Speaker 1: pm game time to a four pm game time in
Speaker 1: Pacific time, right, so you're turning around really quickly with travel.
Speaker 1: Lebron is old. That's a lot of basketball for an
Speaker 1: old guy to play in a short period of time.
Speaker 1: And they've been really sharp for the other four games.
Speaker 1: So like, I'm trying to cut them some slack too,
Speaker 1: but I'm not gonna lie. That was a pretty depressing
Speaker 1: performance in Cleveland. It looked like the team from last
Speaker 1: year in December where there was like almost like a
Speaker 1: lifeless a quality and an unwillingness to fight. But I'm
Speaker 1: trying to just crumple that game and throw it away.
Speaker 1: And the main reason why is because there literally wasn't
Speaker 1: a single Laker who played well. Anthony Davis played like
Speaker 1: he's been playing like the best player in the world
Speaker 1: for the first four games, played so bad. Yesterday, Jared
Speaker 1: Allen whooped his ass. There was this weird play in
Speaker 1: the first half where Jared Allen accidentally caught him in
Speaker 1: the face with his forearm, and ad just like from
Speaker 1: that point forward, just like mentally checked out of the
Speaker 1: game like it was crazy. And then Lebron James like
Speaker 1: he put up box score numbers, but I thought he
Speaker 1: was really bad in this game. Austin Reeves is really
Speaker 1: bad in this game. Is throwing the ball away all
Speaker 1: over the place. Dangelo Russell once again just not hitting
Speaker 1: enough shots to justify the fact that he's getting relentlessly
Speaker 1: attacked on defense every single time down the floor. Is
Speaker 1: a third straight game where he just got absolutely barbecued.
Speaker 1: Ruly had a rough game as well, once again still
Speaker 1: trying to dunk on everybody underneath the basket, which isn't working.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of stuff with their spacing that
Speaker 1: was off the Like everyone was like, oh, Dalton connect,
Speaker 1: he had eighteen points. I thot d was awful in
Speaker 1: the times when the game was actually within reach. He's
Speaker 1: played two really bad games in a row. Everyone played poorly.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a single Laker I could point to and
Speaker 1: be like, you know, he played well today, and usually
Speaker 1: that is Usually you drop a game on the road
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, hey, so and so had a
Speaker 1: good game. This other dude off the bench played really well. Like, no,
Speaker 1: every Laker played poorly, So I'm trying to just crumple
Speaker 1: it up and throw it away. Here's the thing, Like,
Speaker 1: this is part of the this is part of basketball. Right,
Speaker 1: Like the Lakers are not as good as the Boston Celtics,
Speaker 1: to be clear, but the Boston Celtics similarly went in Indiana
Speaker 1: it yesterday and found themselves down twenty plus, right, Like
Speaker 1: that's the NBA is so good and there's so much talent,
Speaker 1: and teams are so fast now and they play with
Speaker 1: so much pace because all the coaches have figured out
Speaker 1: that you want to play with the pace that like
Speaker 1: you show up on the road in front of a
Speaker 1: Bracus crowd and they're playing hard. It's like a Buzzsot's
Speaker 1: really really hard to win those games. And so like
Speaker 1: the thing is, though, is Boston can afford, because of
Speaker 1: their talent level, to have a certain amount of you know,
Speaker 1: lackadaisical performances that pop up from time to time. And
Speaker 1: even in that game, they said overtime, they had a
Speaker 1: good chance to come back and win that one, right,
Speaker 1: But like for the Lakers, you're not as talented. You
Speaker 1: have to be super sharp, you have to establish really
Speaker 1: good habits throughout the season. So I'm okay with what
Speaker 1: happened last night as long as that's few and far between.
Speaker 1: Like the personnel limitations on display, like the d LO
Speaker 1: just constantly getting attacked. That's a real problem. They're gonna
Speaker 1: have to figure that out. We'll talk about that a
Speaker 1: little bit more here in a second. But like, as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, I got another question here, what
Speaker 1: do you think about Ruey Hachamura's contributions this season? All
Speaker 1: last season on the The Lakers Nation preseason podcast, you've
Speaker 1: seem really low on RUI. Now, we needed to upgrade
Speaker 1: those two wing spots between Austin at the one and
Speaker 1: Lebron and ad at the four or five. As Rui's
Speaker 1: performance throughout the start the start of the season changed
Speaker 1: your mind, I think that they're fine at that position
Speaker 1: with the development of Ruiy over the course of this year,
Speaker 1: but that two spot desperately needs to be upgraded with
Speaker 1: a real athlete that can guard Austin. Reeves can't guard
Speaker 1: Donovan Mitchell. It's too much to ask. He needs to
Speaker 1: guard a Darius Garland level offensive player. Right you need
Speaker 1: a real athlete to put in that specific situation. You
Speaker 1: can't have a defender on the floor that every single
Speaker 1: time the offense puts them in an action they get
Speaker 1: a bucket or a foul out of it. That's what
Speaker 1: they're getting with d LO right now. It's a huge problem.
Speaker 1: So there are some personnel weaknesses that the Lakers need
Speaker 1: to address. But sometimes you just have a shitty night
Speaker 1: in the NBA, and I thought that's what happened to
Speaker 1: the Lakers last night. The key is they need to
Speaker 1: be few and far between. I want to see them
Speaker 1: go into Toronto, take care of business. Go into Detroit,
Speaker 1: take care of business, Go get a win in Memphis.
Speaker 1: No one's going to give a shit that you had
Speaker 1: a bad night in Cleveland. It's about that being the
Speaker 1: exception and not the normal thing that you're running into.
Speaker 1: All Right, two last questions, both from the same guy,
Speaker 1: just actually more on a personal level with me. When
Speaker 1: you play basketball, what's usually your role on defense or
Speaker 1: your point of attack perimeter defender or wing defender, or
Speaker 1: you considered a big at six ' six, since there
Speaker 1: probably isn't that many big guys. So on my men's
Speaker 1: league team, we have a lot of of guys who
Speaker 1: played Division one overseas professionally, things along those lines. And
Speaker 1: we have a big guy on our team named Aaron
Speaker 1: Anderson who played professionally overseas, and he's about my size
Speaker 1: and he played big his entire career. So like, fortunately
Speaker 1: with that group, I get to leverage more as a
Speaker 1: perimeter defender. I am at my best guarding on the
Speaker 1: perimeter because I have really long arms and I can
Speaker 1: move my feet pretty well. But like typically when I
Speaker 1: go play pick up, I almost always have to guard
Speaker 1: the big just because like you said, there's just not
Speaker 1: that many big guys in the city. And I weigh
Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty pounds and so I'm just the
Speaker 1: best option to throw at people like that. But like
Speaker 1: on defense, like when I was at Arizona Christian my
Speaker 1: last year, this is how I stayed in the rotation.
Speaker 1: I was a scorer in junior college and average double
Speaker 1: figures and had a bunch of twenty plus point games,
Speaker 1: and I had a career hide over thirty. But like
Speaker 1: that was at a lower level of basketball. And then
Speaker 1: I went to play Anaia and I was playing with
Speaker 1: two All American guards. I was not good enough to
Speaker 1: get action run for me, and all the action was
Speaker 1: being run for the guards for good reason. They were
Speaker 1: much better basketball players than me, right, or at least
Speaker 1: like they were certainly better offensive basketball players than me.
Speaker 1: And so the way I stayed in the rotation on
Speaker 1: that team was I just became the team's best wing defender.
Speaker 1: And so like I just watched a bunch of film
Speaker 1: on every single guard that we would be playing in
Speaker 1: any particular game and try to figure out their tendencies.
Speaker 1: And I just really channeled my abilities in the direction
Speaker 1: of perimeter defense, and I was actually able to maintain
Speaker 1: a role on that team within that context. That's always
Speaker 1: been like I would actually argue when I was in college,
Speaker 1: that was the one thing I was really really good at.
Speaker 1: Even when I scored a lot of it was like
Speaker 1: bad team scoring. Like I could shoot, but I was very,
Speaker 1: very streaky. So I'd have games where I shot super
Speaker 1: well and scored a bunch of points, and then I
Speaker 1: have games where I couldn't make shit right, So like
Speaker 1: that was kind of fool's gold in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: I was a limited ball handler and I didn't see
Speaker 1: the floor well when I was younger. So like, even
Speaker 1: though I had a bunch of big scoring games, a
Speaker 1: limited offensive player at that point in time, but I
Speaker 1: was big, I was athletic, I could guard. That was
Speaker 1: like the one thing I could really do at a
Speaker 1: high level when I was in college. Now that I've
Speaker 1: gotten older, I'm so much better on the offensive end
Speaker 1: of the floor, and I've developed a lot in that way.
Speaker 1: But when I was in college, that was the way
Speaker 1: that I was deployed. Last one, what's your vertical jump?
Speaker 1: So I was two hundred and five pounds when I
Speaker 1: was playing in junior college, and I was freaky athletic,
Speaker 1: like elbows above the rim, freaky athletic. But then I
Speaker 1: had a foot injury. And when the foot injury happened,
Speaker 1: I spent the entire rehab doing upper body lifting and
Speaker 1: I put on like twenty pounds of muscle. And when
Speaker 1: I came back, I was still a very good athlete
Speaker 1: and it was worth it because I'm a much better
Speaker 1: basketball player because of my strength. But I kind of
Speaker 1: lost that like crazy over the rim ability. I'm still
Speaker 1: a good athlete still to this day. I can I
Speaker 1: can jump and dunk pretty well. But like every once
Speaker 1: in a while, I'll see a video of me when
Speaker 1: I was younger, before the foot injury, playing and I'm
Speaker 1: like holy shit, because I was like I was just
Speaker 1: skinny and I had, you know, super long arms, and
Speaker 1: I could like just fly in a way that I
Speaker 1: couldn't I can't at this point in my life. But
Speaker 1: the big thing is I'm thirty three now and like
Speaker 1: like I'm about to go play basketball later today, and
Speaker 1: like I we'll see how I feel. Like I went
Speaker 1: out there on Tuesday, I wasn't feeling great. Like That's
Speaker 1: It's always like on any given day, I might feel great,
Speaker 1: i might feel absolutely terrible. But that's just kind of
Speaker 1: the journey as you as you start to put the
Speaker 1: miles on. All right, guys, that is all I have
Speaker 1: for today. All of the concepts I talked about today,
Speaker 1: I clipped six different clips, but it's just not enough
Speaker 1: for TIMPs tape episodes. I'm gonna save that for tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So tomorrow we'll do some game breakdowns. We'll do another
Speaker 1: TIMPs tape. There's always. I sincerely appreciate you guys for
Speaker 1: supporting the show, and I will see you then the volume.
Speaker 1: What's up, guys, theres always. I appreciate you for listening
Speaker 1: to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really
Speaker 1: helpful for us if you guys would take a second
Speaker 1: and leave a rating and a review. As always, I
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take
Speaker 1: a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.