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Speaker 1: to Hoops to night here at the volume heavy Tuesday. Everybody.
Speaker 1: Hope all of you guys had a great weekend. It
Speaker 1: is good to be back at a nice little break there.
Speaker 1: Hopefu all of you guys enjoyed the tournament. My last
Speaker 1: ski day of the year. We get lucky because we
Speaker 1: had incredible conditions. On Sunday, A skied over twenty thousand
Speaker 1: vertical feet, which is the most I've done in the
Speaker 1: day this season. And then the temperature spiked by twelve
Speaker 1: degrees the next day and all the snow was ruined,
Speaker 1: so we got incredibly lucky. I was looking around at
Speaker 1: all the different mountains around the country and ski season
Speaker 1: I think is officially over at this point, but it
Speaker 1: was another great season. It's good to be back though.
Speaker 1: We had a lot of interesting basketball. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: hitting on three teams today. A team that's ice cold,
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Lakers, who have dropped seven of their
Speaker 1: last ten. After that, we're going to talk about two
Speaker 1: teams that are red hot, the Suns, you have won
Speaker 1: five out of six, and the Pacers, who have won
Speaker 1: seven out of eight. I believe got another big win
Speaker 1: last night against the Minnesota Timberwolve. So a couple of
Speaker 1: hot teams and a cold team that we'll get out
Speaker 1: of here for the day. You guys know the joke
Speaker 1: before we get started. To subscribe to the Hoops and
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Speaker 1: Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so you guys
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Speaker 1: also super helpful if you leave a rating and a
Speaker 1: review on that front. We also have brand new social
Speaker 1: media fees on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, where our guy
Speaker 1: Jackson is creating some excellent content for us throughout the
Speaker 1: rest of the year. Make sure you guys follow us
Speaker 1: there in the last but not LEAs, keep dry up
Speaker 1: in mailbag questions. I'm recording a mail bag tomorrow, so
Speaker 1: we're gonna be taking questions from this episode as well
Speaker 1: as some of the episodes from last week. Make sure
Speaker 1: you guys drop your questions in the comments for that.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk some basketball. So first of all,
Speaker 1: little disclaimer before we go any further here. I find
Speaker 1: this phase of the season late March early April to
Speaker 1: be the phase of the NBA season that has the
Speaker 1: most noise. There are a few phases like this, Like
Speaker 1: there's a phase like this that's kind of in late
Speaker 1: December early January too, but this I think is probably
Speaker 1: the worst of those phases where you're just gonna get
Speaker 1: some wild oscillations and effort from teams. For instance, Minnesota
Speaker 1: last night when I watched them against the Pacers, that
Speaker 1: was one of the worst games I've seen Minnesota play
Speaker 1: all season. They're one of the best transition defenses in
Speaker 1: the league, and they straight up we're not running back
Speaker 1: on defense to start that game. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff based on a couple of different factors.
Speaker 1: Right like, you get to the trade deadline, and that
Speaker 1: usually is a phase where a lot of teams hit
Speaker 1: the gas, whether it's because they have new players or
Speaker 1: it's because they realize they're not gonna get new players
Speaker 1: and they have to kind of commit to what they
Speaker 1: have and try to make a run. And usually from
Speaker 1: that phase, from right after the deadline, right after the
Speaker 1: All Star Break flowing into the first phase of March,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of really high quality basketball where teams
Speaker 1: are hitting the gas, teams are really pushing it. Once
Speaker 1: we get to this late March phase, this is the
Speaker 1: phase where a lot of teams let their foot off
Speaker 1: the gas. In general, at various points, they're really other
Speaker 1: than the teams that are playing in the play in
Speaker 1: bracket area, the teams that are at real risk of
Speaker 1: entering into the play in tournament. Those are the teams
Speaker 1: that are still going absolutely crazy this time of year.
Speaker 1: But a lot of teams are letting their foot off
Speaker 1: the gas. A lot of teams are losing some of
Speaker 1: that steam from the All Star break, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: get a lot of really weird results, and so in general,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to overreact to anything around this time
Speaker 1: of year. That said, there are still lessons that can
Speaker 1: be learned. One of the things that I've talked about
Speaker 1: a lot is the idea that when a team struggles
Speaker 1: in any sort of basketball game, it usually is a
Speaker 1: combination of two factors. It's one the lack of urgency
Speaker 1: and force that's causing them to struggle to inflict their
Speaker 1: strengths right, They're not pushing their strengths to the forefront,
Speaker 1: so as their strengths fade back, the weaknesses that have
Speaker 1: always been there before. Every team, I think every team
Speaker 1: in this league has weaknesses, even the Celtics and the
Speaker 1: thunder the weaknesses that are there. When those strengths start
Speaker 1: to recede, they start to come to the forefront. And
Speaker 1: a lot of people can kind of hyper focus on
Speaker 1: those things and view them as like a death sentence,
Speaker 1: and I look at it more like these are just
Speaker 1: the flaws of the basketball team that are important to understand,
Speaker 1: that are important to focus on and try to rectify
Speaker 1: if you're in that locker room. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: a lot can be fixed just by bringing those strengths
Speaker 1: back to the forefront. So in short, we can learn
Speaker 1: stuff in March, but I don't find it to be
Speaker 1: in late March, I should say, but I don't find
Speaker 1: it to be the end all be all when we're
Speaker 1: evaluating these teams. And on that front, let's start talking
Speaker 1: about one of the two teams that's in my top
Speaker 1: tier of contenders right now, in the Lakers and the Cavs,
Speaker 1: that are struggling at this phase in the season. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the Lakers. After the Magic game
Speaker 1: last night, JJ spent a good time amount of time
Speaker 1: talking about how good the Magic are, and I'm glad
Speaker 1: he did because that's kind of what happens in a
Speaker 1: lot of these situations, Like the NBA has damn near
Speaker 1: twenty really good teams, and so if on any given
Speaker 1: night you go in to Rhode Arena and you don't
Speaker 1: play your best basketball, you can get beat by anybody. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk a little bit about these struggles. The
Speaker 1: Magic I think have a lot more firepower, so to speak.
Speaker 1: But the Bulls just went in and beat Denver last night.
Speaker 1: They've won seven out of nine. I think they're a feisty,
Speaker 1: young team. In the NBA, if you don't play good basketball,
Speaker 1: you get punished. That's just the way it is with
Speaker 1: the depth of talent that there is. And the magic
Speaker 1: has been they've been flying under the radar this year
Speaker 1: mostly because of injuries, and even when they've been healthy,
Speaker 1: they've just been kind of out of rhythm. But they
Speaker 1: present some real matchup problems for teams with these two
Speaker 1: really big forwards that are excellent at going through you
Speaker 1: and over the top of you, which is kind of
Speaker 1: something that you can't handle. Like Palo has a certain
Speaker 1: ability to get to his spots and get certain shots
Speaker 1: that nobody can really stop him. It's just a question
Speaker 1: of whether or not he makes them. Same thing goes
Speaker 1: for Frands. Like when Franz drives down that right lane
Speaker 1: line and he just elevates over the top and shoots
Speaker 1: that floating bank shop, your defense is just hope he misses.
Speaker 1: That's what you do, because he's just that big and
Speaker 1: strong and he's got that high release point on that
Speaker 1: little floating hook and you kind of just sit there
Speaker 1: and cross your fingers and hope he misses. And again,
Speaker 1: like we've talked about, the magic, the rub with them
Speaker 1: is they're the worst jump shooting team in the league
Speaker 1: by a mile. It's not even close, and it's true,
Speaker 1: but reputation doesn't mean shit once they toss the ball
Speaker 1: up in the air at center court to start a
Speaker 1: basketball game. The Magic have had more than a few
Speaker 1: hot shooting games lately. In their last nine games, they've
Speaker 1: gotten well over a point per jump shot in six
Speaker 1: of them. In those games, they're five to one. In
Speaker 1: the three of those nine games that they shot below
Speaker 1: one point per jump shot, they went zero to three.
Speaker 1: The Cavs gave them a bunch of open catch and
Speaker 1: shoot looks too. They made them, and they lost. So
Speaker 1: did the Bucks. They made them, and they lost. So
Speaker 1: did the Lakers. They made them and they lost. The Magic.
Speaker 1: When they're making jump shots, especially at home, riding all
Speaker 1: that energy, with their size and athleticism, they're a really
Speaker 1: difficult team to beat. And to make matters worse, the
Speaker 1: Lakers just aren't playing good basketball right now again, three
Speaker 1: and seven in their last ten. They're bottom ten in
Speaker 1: both defense and rebounding in that span. That said, I'm
Speaker 1: not really worried about it. They were decimated by injuries
Speaker 1: for the majority of the early phase of that stretch, Like,
Speaker 1: if you're down your entire starting front core, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be hard for you to win games. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: hard for you to defend and rebound, right, That's gonna
Speaker 1: be difficult for anybody to imagine to manage. And then
Speaker 1: the way they've responded to that is changing the way
Speaker 1: they play a little bit, trying to outscore teams, really
Speaker 1: leaning in on the offense of Luca and Austin. Well,
Speaker 1: that was probably the right strategy to try to float
Speaker 1: things in that stretch of games. But now they've got
Speaker 1: everybody back, and these last two games, it's been difficult
Speaker 1: for them to recapture that same identity, that same momentum
Speaker 1: that they had before. And again, when your first two
Speaker 1: games with the full squad are against a red hot
Speaker 1: Bulls team that's kind of beating everybody right now, and
Speaker 1: also is a bad matchup for the Lakers, which we'll
Speaker 1: get into in a minute, and then a magic team
Speaker 1: at home that, like we talked about, is really difficult
Speaker 1: to beat when they're making jump shots. So yeah, like
Speaker 1: if the Lakers and their first two games back with
Speaker 1: Lebron James are gonna be playing at a level well
Speaker 1: below what they're capable of. I think they're gonna get
Speaker 1: beat against good NBA teams that are playing good basketball.
Speaker 1: The point is is, I'm not going a bail on
Speaker 1: a team because of a short term trend when the
Speaker 1: team has been excellent in the long term. It's like
Speaker 1: the exact same thing I talked about when we were
Speaker 1: talking about the Calves. Their struggles in that three game
Speaker 1: losing streak are just examples of their weaknesses. That's examples
Speaker 1: of what it will look like if they do lose.
Speaker 1: And by the way, almost everybody loses twenty nine to
Speaker 1: the thirty teams will lose a playoff, will either lose
Speaker 1: before the playoffs or lose a playoff series this year,
Speaker 1: and so when they lose, it's usually those weaknesses that
Speaker 1: rise to the surface. But most of it comes down
Speaker 1: to the Calves just weren't leveraging their strengths the way
Speaker 1: they normally do in those games. The Lakers right now
Speaker 1: are struggling on both ends of the floor. We know
Speaker 1: they can defend they did it for two months. Just
Speaker 1: because they didn't do it for two games against a
Speaker 1: mediocre team and a decent team doesn't mean that that
Speaker 1: two months didn't happen. I believe Luka Dancis, Lebron James
Speaker 1: and Austin Reeves and Ruya Tamura and Jackson As are
Speaker 1: gonna be able to score the basketball. So I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna overreact to them struggling to score in a little
Speaker 1: stretch of games here in this late March stretch. Now, again,
Speaker 1: like I said, the weaknesses were on display, there is
Speaker 1: value in looking at what happened in those games. I
Speaker 1: thought the second half of the Chicago Bulls game was
Speaker 1: a great example of what we saw against Boston. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I've feared with this particular build,
Speaker 1: which is their defense is predicated on swarming and helping
Speaker 1: and rotating off of non shooters or shooters that JJ
Speaker 1: Reddick is comfortable with giving up shots to. By the way,
Speaker 1: all the good defenses in the league do that to
Speaker 1: a certain extent, but in that sort of situation and
Speaker 1: by the way, they're gonna be able to do that
Speaker 1: against most teams. They're gonna be able to do that
Speaker 1: against Denver. I think they're gonna be able to do
Speaker 1: it against Okac too. There's gonna be three or four
Speaker 1: guys that they're gonna be like, we'll live with this
Speaker 1: guy taking a moderately contested catch and shoot three in
Speaker 1: a tough playoff game when the game's super physical and
Speaker 1: everyone's stressed and there's tons of pressure. Right, I think
Speaker 1: they feel the same way. They're gonna feel that way
Speaker 1: about any of those Western Conference teams that they face.
Speaker 1: But Boston showed when they really space the floor, it's like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, Austin's trying to guard that guy Tatum le
Speaker 1: Brown in space and they can't help. Luca's trying to
Speaker 1: guard this guy in space and they can't help. Now,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, those personnel limitations at the point
Speaker 1: of attack defensively are brought to the surface. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I thought was fascinating is the Bulls
Speaker 1: just shot the basketball really well in that second half.
Speaker 1: Kobe White, Modus buzzellis knocking down those shots off of
Speaker 1: skips and swing passes. And so what ended up happening
Speaker 1: is it presented a conundrum where it's like, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: guarding Luca or Luca's guarding Josh Gitty in the right corner,
Speaker 1: and we're used to gapping off of guys that were
Speaker 1: comfortable with shooting so here's Lebron gapping into the driving
Speaker 1: lane on Luca's right hand side. Well, there's just a
Speaker 1: basic swing passed from Josh Gitty to Modus Buzzellis and
Speaker 1: he knocks down the three. Oh, you're running a drop
Speaker 1: coverage with Jackson Hayes and you're bringing over a low man. Help.
Speaker 1: We're just gonna whip the ball across the course. There's
Speaker 1: Modus Buzelis again, he's knocking down a three. Oh, you're uh.
Speaker 1: You have a guard switched on to Nikola Vusevich underneath
Speaker 1: the basket, and so you've got a guy kind of
Speaker 1: bracketing him on both sides as they're trying to battle
Speaker 1: a size mismatch. Oh, they skip the ball across the court.
Speaker 1: There's Kobe White. There's another three, And what ends up
Speaker 1: happening is, all of a sudden, everyone gets tentative, and
Speaker 1: now everyone doesn't want to help, and so now they're
Speaker 1: kind of staying closer to home. Now, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's Luka Doncic on a cleared side against Kobe White,
Speaker 1: and Kobe White just beats him off the dribble and
Speaker 1: he gets baseline and gets an easy too. Why because
Speaker 1: the help isn't there. The help isn't there because they've
Speaker 1: been shot into this spacing. And you look on the
Speaker 1: floor and it's like Josh Gitty's been making threes. He
Speaker 1: had two more massive ones in crunch time to end
Speaker 1: the Nuggets game last night. You look at all these
Speaker 1: sequences and it's somebody run in action and it's like
Speaker 1: there's Boozellis in the corner and there's Kobe White on
Speaker 1: the wing. It's like, who's helping. You don't want to
Speaker 1: help in those situations. Oh, you know Jackson lingered in
Speaker 1: the paint on a transition push ahead and there's Vusovich
Speaker 1: in the left corner. Well, Vusovich can shoot. He knocked
Speaker 1: down the three. And so again, like while we like,
Speaker 1: the Lakers are gonna play the Bulls again on Thursday,
Speaker 1: and in that game, they might leverage their strengths and
Speaker 1: win because their strengths are undeniably stronger than Chicago's strengths.
Speaker 1: Chicago's playing really good basketball and they'll be at home,
Speaker 1: so they might win that game. The Lakers aren't playing
Speaker 1: super well, but the Lakers are capable of winning that
Speaker 1: game by leveraging their strength. That doesn't mean the weaknesses
Speaker 1: aren't there, and so that's why I view it as
Speaker 1: a value in the sense that, like if they end
Speaker 1: up in a matchup with a team like ok See
Speaker 1: and Oka See shoots the ball well, which again, as
Speaker 1: we've talked about, is the big swing factor for oka See,
Speaker 1: will they shoot the ball well. If they shoot the
Speaker 1: ball well and start really space seeing the Lakers out,
Speaker 1: they can have some issues because they've struggled with those
Speaker 1: quicker guards that can get dribble penetration, and SHA's probably
Speaker 1: the best in the world at it. Boston. That's the
Speaker 1: one team in the top tier of contenders that I
Speaker 1: look at as a really, really tough matchup for the
Speaker 1: Lakers for them to handle because of their ability to
Speaker 1: force them to guard in space versus guarding in the
Speaker 1: swarming kind of help and recover defense that they use
Speaker 1: with JJ Reddick, It's worth at least keeping an eye
Speaker 1: on those things like defending in space, dealing with overwhelming size.
Speaker 1: You saw quite a few examples in the Magic Game
Speaker 1: of Orlando just going through and over the top of
Speaker 1: the Lakers attacking a switching defense. This has been something
Speaker 1: I've consistently talked about when the Lakers play teams that
Speaker 1: have to run drop coverage, they're gonna score a million points.
Speaker 1: Lucas too good at it, But when they face these
Speaker 1: teams that can switch and force them to attack matchups,
Speaker 1: the Lakers are still currently struggling with that. Now, they
Speaker 1: should have the personnel. Theoretically, Austin, Lebron, and Luca would
Speaker 1: be excellent switch beaters. They should be able to eventually
Speaker 1: figure that out, but since the Luca trade in a
Speaker 1: relatively large sample, we haven't seen them figure that out yet.
Speaker 1: That is a weakness as of now. I'm still counting
Speaker 1: that as a weakness. Now, if before the end of
Speaker 1: the season they demonstrate the ability to handle switching defenses better,
Speaker 1: that'll be something that reflects their personnel and it's something
Speaker 1: we can account for. But right now it looks like
Speaker 1: a struggle. They look a little out of rhythm. As
Speaker 1: you bring Lebron back into the mix, there's still a
Speaker 1: lot of weird possessions with the starting group, where like
Speaker 1: I feel like they should just be playing through Luca
Speaker 1: more in those sequences. But you gotta try to reincorporate Lebron.
Speaker 1: You gotta find a way to keep Austin in the
Speaker 1: rhythm in this stretch. Ruyacha Mura coming off the bench
Speaker 1: as he works back from this injury, you can tell
Speaker 1: he's struggling to find where his shots are coming from
Speaker 1: and when he should be aggressive. There's just a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff that they're still working out. And again, I
Speaker 1: am of the belief that the two games with Lebron
Speaker 1: back are the aberration of what this team is capable of,
Speaker 1: in that the two months where they kicked everyone's ass
Speaker 1: and they won what fourteen straight games against teams that
Speaker 1: are five hundred are better. That to me is more
Speaker 1: of a reflection of what this team is capable of.
Speaker 1: But they're in a little bit of a funk right now.
Speaker 1: Let's see if they can figure that out over the
Speaker 1: course of the next couple of weeks. When it comes
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Speaker 1: DKNG dot co slash Audio all Right's talk about the
Speaker 1: Suns got a really fun win against the Milwaukee Bucks
Speaker 1: last night. Devin Booker wins the game on a pull
Speaker 1: up jump shot going towards his right around the right
Speaker 1: elbow area. KDE had just hit a three that put
Speaker 1: them up before Brook Lopez got fouled and went to
Speaker 1: the line and tied it and they drew up to
Speaker 1: play for KD, but Kyle Kuzma stunted off of the
Speaker 1: inbounder and got into that passing lane and actually forced
Speaker 1: the Suns to go a different direction. And what was
Speaker 1: kind of funny about it is, you know, Devin Booker
Speaker 1: has always talked about how he feels best shooting on
Speaker 1: his move towards the right hand right because he can
Speaker 1: really jump in that left right footwork and elevate and
Speaker 1: knock that shot down. And he actually got the crazy
Speaker 1: thing is he got two fantastic looks on similar plays
Speaker 1: earlier in the fourth quarter, ball screens around the you know,
Speaker 1: top of the wing, top of the key right wing
Speaker 1: area extended out to like thirty feet good ball screens
Speaker 1: from Nick So and just getting down to that right
Speaker 1: hand side, and he just missed them. But they were
Speaker 1: both threes. And one of the things that has been
Speaker 1: kind of weird with Book this year is he's been
Speaker 1: deadly from the mid range, but he's been struggling from threes.
Speaker 1: Fifty one percent on all two point jump shots, but
Speaker 1: he's thirty four point five percent on threes. And on
Speaker 1: the game winner, he just took an extra dribble and
Speaker 1: an extra side step to get a little bit closer
Speaker 1: to the basket into that mid range area where he's
Speaker 1: been more deadly, and he knocked it down. KD was
Speaker 1: fantastic all night. He had thirty eight. He's had eighty
Speaker 1: in the last two games. He's thirteen for eighteen from
Speaker 1: three in that span. And you could tell it feels
Speaker 1: good for him because he's hunting that shot. I thought
Speaker 1: the shot that he hit against Kuzma, the one that
Speaker 1: actually put the Suns up by one it's kind of
Speaker 1: a funky break rhythm shot. It didn't look like the
Speaker 1: kind of shot that you typically see KD take with
Speaker 1: a ton of fluidity. But on the pullback dribble, he
Speaker 1: realized that he was right at the three point line,
Speaker 1: and like, he just knows that he's got that three
Speaker 1: point shot that release dialed in, and so rather than
Speaker 1: trying to hunt a different type of shot that had
Speaker 1: a little bit more fluidity to it, He's just like,
Speaker 1: I got my space. I like this shot. I just
Speaker 1: made one on the left wing a few minutes earlier.
Speaker 1: I'm going to rise up and knock this down. And
Speaker 1: he did an unbelievable game from KD. Ryan Dunn had twelve.
Speaker 1: He was great in the fourth quarter, operating off of
Speaker 1: the attention that Kevin Durant and Devin Booker were getting.
Speaker 1: Book had a beautiful two on the ball sequence where
Speaker 1: he dropped it to Nick Richards short roll four on three,
Speaker 1: and Ryan Dunn just cut right out of the right
Speaker 1: corner and got a dunk. He had a huge above
Speaker 1: the break three that he hit on the left wing.
Speaker 1: On another sequence where they helped off of him to
Speaker 1: defend a ball screen three on two, he by the way,
Speaker 1: is in double figures six games in a row now,
Speaker 1: which has been a huge part because this is the
Speaker 1: five and one stretch for the Suns. This has been
Speaker 1: coinciding with Ryan Dunn scoring the basketball better fourteen points
Speaker 1: and six rebounds per game in that span, thirty five
Speaker 1: percent from three, which isn't the best percentage in the world,
Speaker 1: but the volume is up there. He's over six three
Speaker 1: point attempts per game in that span. It was a
Speaker 1: fun game though, too. They survived this hallacious late game
Speaker 1: run from Yannis, who was just on one for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: He ripped through Ryan Dunn and Nick Richards for baskets
Speaker 1: right at the rim a few times he just calmly
Speaker 1: stepped into a game tying pull up three in crunch time.
Speaker 1: He had this crazy defensive possession down the stretch where
Speaker 1: he like locked up Kdie and then like switched on
Speaker 1: to Devin Booker and like locked up Devin Booker like
Speaker 1: Janni's just even without Dame just threw a hell of
Speaker 1: a punch in that game, and the Suns managed to
Speaker 1: overcome it. So the question is, how are things coming
Speaker 1: together for the Suns right now? Again five and one
Speaker 1: In this last six game stretch and some impressive wins.
Speaker 1: They got that big win against the Calves as well
Speaker 1: as this win against the Bucks. They have a one Well,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Let's just make it very simple to start.
Speaker 1: They're competing on the margins when they weren't earlier in
Speaker 1: the season. They have a one to twelve defensive rating
Speaker 1: in the span. That's solid. They're fifth in defensive rebounding
Speaker 1: in the span. That's very good. They're winning the points
Speaker 1: off of turnovers. Battle. If you defend and you rebound,
Speaker 1: and you don't hemorrhage points by making mistakes and giving
Speaker 1: the team pick sixes going the other way, you're gonna
Speaker 1: give yourself a chance to win. And then when you
Speaker 1: add to that that Kevin Durant and Devin Booker are
Speaker 1: playing super well, you're gonna win some basketball games. Katie's
Speaker 1: a just on a crazy run. It's fifty four percent
Speaker 1: from three on over seven attempts per game in the
Speaker 1: six game span. It's insane. Him and Devin Booker are
Speaker 1: combining for an efficient fifty one points per game between
Speaker 1: the two of them. You're seeing them put defenses in
Speaker 1: a bind. In the same way that I've talked a
Speaker 1: lot about this year in terms of compromising the defense
Speaker 1: at the point of attack by putting two on the ball.
Speaker 1: They consistently are drawing these blitzes and at the level
Speaker 1: coverages that are creating these advantages. And again they still
Speaker 1: make their mistakes, they still throw the ball away too much.
Speaker 1: Kevin Porter Junior had this like wild run as an
Speaker 1: off ball defender in the fourth quarter where he jumped
Speaker 1: passing lanes three times. Firs steals where they're just like
Speaker 1: a second late, a little bit too telegraphed, and then
Speaker 1: a little bit too much of like a looping, loose
Speaker 1: pass that was easy to jump, and so again there's
Speaker 1: stuff for them to tighten up. But they're doing the
Speaker 1: job of getting the defense in rotation consistently, and then
Speaker 1: they have a pattern. They know how they want to play,
Speaker 1: like OsO is getting more of like the defense minutes
Speaker 1: like and he ended up actually closing the final few
Speaker 1: possessions of this game. But you know they trust Nick
Speaker 1: Richards Moore as a roleman, but like OsO can do
Speaker 1: that as well. They have their kind of sequencing lined
Speaker 1: up where they have Ryan done cutting or spacing out
Speaker 1: of those lowman help situations to try to find the
Speaker 1: right spot for him to make the defense pay and
Speaker 1: Grayson Allen's out there doing his job, and it all
Speaker 1: just kind of has come together for them with the
Speaker 1: types of lineups that they want to close these games with.
Speaker 1: And again, when the Suns have been at their best
Speaker 1: this year, they've been a dominant clutch team. When they've
Speaker 1: been at their best this year, it's just been something
Speaker 1: they've struggled to maintain. Colin Gillespie has given them like
Speaker 1: a version of Tys Jones that the start like that
Speaker 1: is starting games, that makes fewer mistakes and like Tias
Speaker 1: Jones had another back cut that he gave up to
Speaker 1: aj Green in this game where I just like couldn't
Speaker 1: believe that he wasn't paying attention. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: those kinds of like off ball mistakes and just little
Speaker 1: decision making quirks with Tyas that undercut some of his success.
Speaker 1: And they've just kind of found a little bit of
Speaker 1: a groove here. And again, what I've talked about so
Speaker 1: much this year with these teams that are in the
Speaker 1: kind of middle to lower tier in the Western Conference
Speaker 1: is there's a lack of belief that is manifesting a
Speaker 1: lot in ugly basketball for long stretches. But then what
Speaker 1: happens is is they'll put a few games together where
Speaker 1: they play really good basketball, like, oh, here's a two
Speaker 1: week stretch where we're defending and rebounding and like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: we went five and one, right, But it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where, like as I've talked about, that happens
Speaker 1: for all of those teams, whether it's the Sacramento Kings,
Speaker 1: whether it's the San Antonio Spurs before Wemby got hurt,
Speaker 1: whether it's the Minnesota Timberwolves, these teams that are in
Speaker 1: that kind of lower echelon of the Western Conference, it's like,
Speaker 1: catch them in any two week span and you can
Speaker 1: talk yourself into them winning the conference. But watch them
Speaker 1: any other phase of the season and they kind of
Speaker 1: let go of that rope. And so again that's going
Speaker 1: to be the key. What I look for for is
Speaker 1: like a prerequisite for any legitimate top tier championship contender
Speaker 1: is put together a long, extended stretch where you're kicking
Speaker 1: everybody's ass where for months on end, you are proving
Speaker 1: that you are committed to the work that is necessary
Speaker 1: to get to where you want to be as a
Speaker 1: basketball team. They've done it for two weeks. The key
Speaker 1: is sustaining I believe in the ability of that group
Speaker 1: to be better than they have been. This partnership that
Speaker 1: they have now where it's like you can put OsO
Speaker 1: Igadaro with Ryan Dunn and Kevin Durant all on the
Speaker 1: floor at the same time. That's a hell of a
Speaker 1: lot of versatile length and athleticism on the front line.
Speaker 1: They can't be good on the defensive end. Can they
Speaker 1: be good enough to win the title? Obviously not? But
Speaker 1: can they be good enough to be a respectable Western
Speaker 1: Conference playoff team? Yes, they can, and that's gonna be.
Speaker 1: Really the question is whether or not they want to
Speaker 1: finish the season with that identity as they try to
Speaker 1: build towards next season, And like, look at it, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: Ryan Ryan Dunn as a rookie is just ripped off
Speaker 1: a six game stretch where he's been fourteen points per game,
Speaker 1: knocking down threes at a decent rate and defending his
Speaker 1: ass off. What if he takes a leap next year?
Speaker 1: What if you hit on one or two veteran minimum signings.
Speaker 1: What if a couple of things change in terms of
Speaker 1: the culture of the franchise and suddenly you have a
Speaker 1: more dead serious basketball team next year. But it starts
Speaker 1: with building that identity now in finishing the season with it,
Speaker 1: win or lose in the postseason, and that's gonna be
Speaker 1: the thing I'm keeping an eye on. Here's a six
Speaker 1: game stretch to them defending and rebounding. Let's check in
Speaker 1: on them in another six games and let's see if
Speaker 1: it's something that they're long term committed to. All right,
Speaker 1: let's move on to the Pacers. I thought last night's
Speaker 1: game against the Wolves was a pretty thorough ass kicking.
Speaker 1: If you look at the box score, things were pretty
Speaker 1: even across the board in a bunch of specific areas,
Speaker 1: but there were three areas, or excuse me, two areas
Speaker 1: where things were very different. Both teams took thirty five threes,
Speaker 1: but the Pacers shot eleven percent better on those threes,
Speaker 1: and then the Wolves had five more turnovers and allowed
Speaker 1: fifteen points off of those turnovers. Those were the two
Speaker 1: big swing factors that sent this game in Indiana's favor.
Speaker 1: But there were some very specific reasons why those two
Speaker 1: dynamics went that way, and I think it's worth they're
Speaker 1: digging into a little bit. So let's start with this.
Speaker 1: Why did Indie shoot eleven percent better from three and No,
Speaker 1: my answer is not going to be shooting luck. It's
Speaker 1: because they generated better threes. More specifically, Indiana generated eleven
Speaker 1: more catch and shoot threes. Both teams took thirty five
Speaker 1: more of Indiana's were catching shoot threes thirty to nineteen.
Speaker 1: Of those thirty catch and shoot threes, seventeen were unguarded,
Speaker 1: compared to just six unguarded threes generated from Minnesota. This
Speaker 1: is one of the big ways that the difference between
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards and Tyrese Haliburton's play styles were on display
Speaker 1: last night, and that ant has different strengths and had
Speaker 1: a shit game. The Wolves as a team had a
Speaker 1: shit game. I'm less focused on that right now. I
Speaker 1: want to focus on specifically what allows the Pacers to
Speaker 1: generate open threes the way that they do. Tyrese is
Speaker 1: a relentless advantage hunter. Early in the game, the Wolves
Speaker 1: didn't seem too interested in running. They're a good transition
Speaker 1: defense normally, but they weren't in that first quarter. Tyrese
Speaker 1: identified it. Just kept pushing the ball up the floor
Speaker 1: with kick ahead passes. The Pacers got a bunch of
Speaker 1: open threes as a result out of that. Out of
Speaker 1: those sorts of push aheads identifying actions, Tyrese is so
Speaker 1: good at this. Finds like the two or three different
Speaker 1: actions that the team doesn't want to switch, meaning there's
Speaker 1: baked in advantage, whether it's through putting two on the
Speaker 1: ball or drop coverage where he can get downhill so
Speaker 1: he can get baked in dribble penetration. It allows him
Speaker 1: these openings that he's relentlessly going to hit. And there
Speaker 1: were a lot of those actions. They obviously weren't switching
Speaker 1: the Turner pick and pop, so they went to that
Speaker 1: a bunch. They got a bunch of advantages from Turner
Speaker 1: at the top of the key. Turner just didn't shoot
Speaker 1: the ball super well in this game. He had three
Speaker 1: wide open threes, went one for three on him. He
Speaker 1: was one for five from three. Overall, the Wolves were
Speaker 1: being I don't know if these were boxed switches or
Speaker 1: if it was the game plan. And again like the
Speaker 1: Wolves were just off all night. But the screening actions
Speaker 1: that brought Mike Conley into the screen or Anthony Edwards
Speaker 1: or Julius Randall, like they'd either put two on the
Speaker 1: ball or they just botched the switch entirely, and Siakam
Speaker 1: and Nie Smith and Nemhard were like slipping out of
Speaker 1: the screens and getting clean catches the out near the
Speaker 1: three point line, even just like simple passes where Minnesota
Speaker 1: would make an unforced error, and there were plenty of
Speaker 1: them these in this game. Like okay, like Rudy go
Speaker 1: Bear in a transition sequence, is gonna play the basket
Speaker 1: and forget about Miles Turner trailing. Well, we're just gonna
Speaker 1: pitch it back to him and he's gonna get a
Speaker 1: wide open three. Like oh, like, adren Emhard's standing in
Speaker 1: the right corner unguarded because Minnesota's just not matched up,
Speaker 1: and so Tyrese isn't gonna run action or do something.
Speaker 1: He just like threw a skip pass and adren Emhard
Speaker 1: drove the clothes out that forced Gobert to help. Miles
Speaker 1: Turner just teed up right in front of the rim.
Speaker 1: They dropped it off and the boom, a little easy
Speaker 1: floating shot right in front of the rim for Miles Turner.
Speaker 1: That's literally just a defensive breakdown that Minnesota made and
Speaker 1: Tyree's just identified it. Just threw a simple skip pass
Speaker 1: and got an easy two points out of it. Like
Speaker 1: all that stuff I talked about early in the game
Speaker 1: in terms of like transition, kick aheads those are the
Speaker 1: exact same sort of thing. Like his basketball brain is
Speaker 1: just programmed to be like open man, throw it every
Speaker 1: single time. But he also has such great court awareness
Speaker 1: that he's aware of that sort of stuff every single
Speaker 1: time that it happens. One of the big things that
Speaker 1: stood out to me last night, but it's something that
Speaker 1: I've always loved about Tyrese's game, is just the way
Speaker 1: that he plays at full speed as much as possible,
Speaker 1: Like Tyrese knows that one of his weaknesses is that
Speaker 1: he doesn't have like an elite first step, Meaning if
Speaker 1: he's like heads up with an elite defensive player, he's
Speaker 1: going to struggle to get separation. It's like that king
Speaker 1: of the court concept that I've talked about a lot. Right.
Speaker 1: If I take two players and I put them in
Speaker 1: a one on one situation on the wing, and the
Speaker 1: defender is just squared up ready to go, it's so
Speaker 1: much harder to score. But if I put that defender
Speaker 1: on the midline and I give him the ball and
Speaker 1: I say, you got to pitch him the ball and
Speaker 1: close out. It's gonna be a lot harder for him
Speaker 1: to get a stop because you can use his momentum
Speaker 1: against him. His momentum is coming at you too hard.
Speaker 1: Any sort of dribble move either way or a pump fake,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get him to overcommit and you're gonna be
Speaker 1: able to go around closes out too short. You can
Speaker 1: rise up and shoot. You can as he's sprinting. If
Speaker 1: he's overplaying one angle, you can use that momentum against
Speaker 1: him to try to get an advantage going the other way. Well,
Speaker 1: there's kind of like an inverse of that concept with
Speaker 1: a running start. I found this really fascinating. So we
Speaker 1: can all agree that it's harder to score when you're
Speaker 1: all squared up. It's harder for the defender if he
Speaker 1: has to sprint at you. But now imagine a different
Speaker 1: scenario where the defender is standing still and the offensive
Speaker 1: players sprinting at him. Imagine the defensive players sitting in
Speaker 1: his stance right at the top of the key, and
Speaker 1: I'm starting at half court and I get going downhill
Speaker 1: at you, and I hit a move as I'm getting
Speaker 1: into your area a little bit it's going to be
Speaker 1: so much harder for you to manage that because my
Speaker 1: body's already moving at full speed and you've got to
Speaker 1: come from a complete stop to beat me to a spot.
Speaker 1: It's extremely difficult to do. And again, like Tyrese knows
Speaker 1: that he doesn't have this elite start quickness to just
Speaker 1: beat people off the dribble super easily, so he plays
Speaker 1: from a running start as much as possible. Semi transition
Speaker 1: is a place where you'll see this a lot. Again,
Speaker 1: This to me is like in the process of a
Speaker 1: transition possession converting to half court, so everyone's kind of
Speaker 1: running back. Everyone's not really set, but you do have
Speaker 1: all ten players in the front court, and like Tyresee
Speaker 1: will just take a ball screen from like thirty feet
Speaker 1: from the basket before the defense is really set. But
Speaker 1: it's because he's running like he's got the ball, he's
Speaker 1: got the alet, he's running up the floor, and Turner
Speaker 1: will just come up and set like a brush ball
Speaker 1: screen like thirty thirty five feet from the basket while
Speaker 1: Tyresee is going full speed. This allows him to consistently
Speaker 1: get downhill in those ball screen actions. Even in the
Speaker 1: half court, like he'll use retreat dribbles, like he'll run
Speaker 1: the ball screen, but he won't like what he has
Speaker 1: and so he'll retreat out to half court and then
Speaker 1: he'll get a running start again as he starts to
Speaker 1: come downhill at you. He had a big one for
Speaker 1: a step back three that he hit over nas Red
Speaker 1: in the late third quarter of this game. Same type
Speaker 1: of play, like retreat, dribble out attack again. He wants
Speaker 1: to get that head of steam because once he gets going,
Speaker 1: that neutralizes his weakness, which is that first step quickness,
Speaker 1: and it accentuates his strengths, which is like he's pretty
Speaker 1: damn fast, great ball handler, good shooter, guy that can
Speaker 1: make all the passing reads that you need to make
Speaker 1: in those situations. He'll run a lot of give and
Speaker 1: go action. It's like, oh, Jada McDaniels is ball pressuring
Speaker 1: me here, nakaile Alexander Walker's ball pressuring me, like thirty
Speaker 1: seven thirty eight feet from the basket. I don't like
Speaker 1: my advantage right now, we're trying to run a double drag. Well,
Speaker 1: instead of me trying to dribble through all this ball pressure,
Speaker 1: he'll just pitch it to Miles Turner and then sprint
Speaker 1: into a dh O. Steph has done this over the
Speaker 1: years a lot as a counter to ball pressure, same
Speaker 1: sort of thing. He can get from point A to
Speaker 1: point B faster without the basketball, so he'll give it
Speaker 1: up and he'll sprint there and then he'll catch All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, he's going downhill. He had to play
Speaker 1: like that in the second half. Double drag ball pressure
Speaker 1: pitches it to Turner. By the time he catches it,
Speaker 1: he's free and clear running downhill and easy breezy bank
Speaker 1: shot off the glass when the drop coverage defender wasn't there.
Speaker 1: He's trying to make sure that he's consistently playing at
Speaker 1: a running start, where he's most difficult to deal with. Ironically, though,
Speaker 1: he actually put this game away as a score. He
Speaker 1: got a wide open three off of an offensive rebound
Speaker 1: in the early third quarter that he made along the
Speaker 1: left wing. Then he hit three super tough threes that
Speaker 1: blew the lead open to twenty. All of them were
Speaker 1: running start action. He had one that was one of
Speaker 1: those semi transition ball screens I was talking about. Got
Speaker 1: a ball screen. Go Bear was the one in the
Speaker 1: drop and he was coming so hard at him downhill
Speaker 1: Gobart was in his retreat and then Tyres just stepped
Speaker 1: back to the right wing and because he had that
Speaker 1: running start, go Bear couldn't recover. Knocks down the pull
Speaker 1: up three. The nas Red play we talked about, that
Speaker 1: was one of those retreat dribble sequences where he pulled
Speaker 1: the ball back out to half court to get his
Speaker 1: momentum going again to play against He hit this ridiculous
Speaker 1: three again against Anthony Edwards where there's a DHO with
Speaker 1: Siakam and you can literally see watch Tyres on this play.
Speaker 1: He's on the right wing and as Pascal goes to
Speaker 1: do the dhow you can see Tyree's gallop take like
Speaker 1: a galloping step back towards half court so that he
Speaker 1: can go into the DHO with speed. And when he
Speaker 1: gets the dhho, he takes a hard dribble towards the
Speaker 1: left and he snatches it back behind the back and
Speaker 1: you can literally see Anthony Edwards break off towards that
Speaker 1: left handed dribble. Tyree's gets plenty of separation and he
Speaker 1: just eases into a pull up three there at the
Speaker 1: top of the key. That one put them up by
Speaker 1: twenty again. It's just understanding these basic basketball advantage sequences
Speaker 1: in understanding that he can get those advantages faster and
Speaker 1: more frequently when he plays with the running start. It
Speaker 1: puts the primary focus on his strengths, which is that
Speaker 1: he's fast and that he can dribble, shoot and pass,
Speaker 1: and it takes the focus off of his weaknesses. Both
Speaker 1: of the pacers. I wanted to shout out Miles Turner.
Speaker 1: He didn't shoot the ball super well in this game,
Speaker 1: but I thought his rim protection was super valuable. It's
Speaker 1: a great matchup for him because of go Bear Like
Speaker 1: he can really hawk the rim, and he just did that.
Speaker 1: He did a great job. If he had four blocks,
Speaker 1: he for several misses around the rim obi top and
Speaker 1: he came in the game and immediately hit a movement
Speaker 1: three out of the right corner. There was a a
Speaker 1: I can't remember which team's broadcast I was watching because
Speaker 1: I had the volume off, but they had like the
Speaker 1: sideline camera angle like down on the floor of him
Speaker 1: running into that movement three out of the right corner,
Speaker 1: and just beautiful footwork. You can see him plant that
Speaker 1: left foot, swing that right foot around, gets straight up
Speaker 1: and down out of a run and just calmly rises
Speaker 1: up and knocks down the shot. I always find it
Speaker 1: fascinating when really good athletes start to blossom as shooters,
Speaker 1: because the toughest part about shooting is actually getting open
Speaker 1: when you're a good shooter, and the athletes are the
Speaker 1: ones that can use their tools to actually get good
Speaker 1: looks and situations that a lot of lesser athletes can't.
Speaker 1: He ended up hitting six threes in this game. The
Speaker 1: last one he hit on TJ McConnell's kickout was another
Speaker 1: example of him like quickly resetting his base under duress
Speaker 1: and rising up and getting good lift and knocking down
Speaker 1: a shot. He was awesome in this one. And then
Speaker 1: I just want to shout out the team's defense. They
Speaker 1: forced the Wolves into seventeen turnovers, mostly just by making
Speaker 1: things difficult out front, like denying swing passes at the
Speaker 1: top of the key, denying entry passes to the high post.
Speaker 1: They prayed on Minnesota's just sloppy personality in that game
Speaker 1: and forced him to throw the ball away a bunch.
Speaker 1: I talked about the gap in the open threes right
Speaker 1: like I have the numbers right here was the Pacers
Speaker 1: generated seventeen unguarded threes in Minnesota generated six. A big
Speaker 1: part of that was just their closeouts. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: ty Reese's shot creation like on Minnesota's end of the floor.
Speaker 1: The Pacers were just better and quicker at erasing the
Speaker 1: openings that showed up as soon as they opened up.
Speaker 1: Pacers have won seven out of eight, third in defense
Speaker 1: and third in defensive rebounding over that span, which is
Speaker 1: kind of a hilarious trend for a team that has
Speaker 1: struggled mightily in those two areas during the Tyreese Halliburton era.
Speaker 1: This has been a team that has struggled to defend
Speaker 1: and rebound for the most part in this era. But
Speaker 1: they're doing it right now and it's not hard to
Speaker 1: figure out. They have that combination of perimeter athleticism. They
Speaker 1: got two really good perimeter defenders and them Hard and
Speaker 1: Nie Smith, and they've got rim protection that's going to
Speaker 1: give you a pretty high baseline. Now. It's worth mentioning
Speaker 1: the teams they've played in that span, aside from Milwaukee,
Speaker 1: have allowed Miles Turner to stay at the rim, which
Speaker 1: has helped them to anchor their defense set in that
Speaker 1: side of things. But they're competing on that end of
Speaker 1: the floor. I think We're headed for a Pacers Bucks
Speaker 1: first round series again, which would be a ton of
Speaker 1: fun on the Minnesota front. I just thought they played
Speaker 1: like shit. I thought Aunt settled for a lot of
Speaker 1: tough shots and didn't make them. Dante was forcing a
Speaker 1: lot of tough threes too. He's playing like he was
Speaker 1: Steph Curry. You could actually see some weird body language
Speaker 1: stuff from some of the other Wolves during some of
Speaker 1: those shots. Their defense was abysmal right out of the gates,
Speaker 1: one of the best transition defenses in the league, and
Speaker 1: they just weren't running the floor again, and they gave
Speaker 1: up eleven possessions in transition in the first quarter alone.
Speaker 1: They only gave up thirteen points because Indy just happened
Speaker 1: to miss some open looks. But they were really bad there.
Speaker 1: They were not getting matched up a bunch. They gave
Speaker 1: up wide open shots to Obi top And and Aaronee Smith
Speaker 1: on plays where they just didn't get matched up in
Speaker 1: the half court, unnecessary overhelp situations where they're giving up
Speaker 1: easy close out opportunities by just not paying attention. I
Speaker 1: just didn't think it was a very sharp game from
Speaker 1: them at all, and I think it follows falls under
Speaker 1: that category I was talking about earlier in terms of
Speaker 1: late March basketball, and I'm just not gonna overreact to
Speaker 1: late March basketball with anybody. All Right, guys, it's all
Speaker 1: have for today. As always, a sincerely appreciate you guys
Speaker 1: for supporting me and supporting the show. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: back tomorrow covering the jam packed Tuesday Night Slate. We're
Speaker 1: also going live on Wednesday night after the final buzzer
Speaker 1: of Celtic Suns, so I will see you guys then.
Speaker 1: What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening
Speaker 1: to and supporting hoops 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.