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Speaker 1: Slash b ball. All right, wellcome to Hobes tonight here
Speaker 1: at the volume. Happy Saturday, everybody, O BALLF You guys
Speaker 1: are having a great start to your weekend. Quick show
Speaker 1: for you guys today we're covering Nicks Thunder, a showdown
Speaker 1: between two of the hottest teams in the league. After that,
Speaker 1: Victor wemen Yama versus NICOLEA jokicch did not disappoint. Both
Speaker 1: guys put up monster box score games. Spurs get the
Speaker 1: last laugh, though Wemby gets a big stop on Jokis
Speaker 1: late in the game. We're gonna break that game down,
Speaker 1: and then at the tail end of the show, the
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Lakers went two and oh on a back
Speaker 1: to back two Monster Lebron games. They are now seven
Speaker 1: and two in their last nine games. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about what's been turning things around
Speaker 1: for them. You guys have the jope before we get
Speaker 1: started to subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so
Speaker 1: you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
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Speaker 1: rating and a review on that front. We also have
Speaker 1: brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
Speaker 1: where we're releasing content throughout the year. Make sure you
Speaker 1: guys follow us there and the last not at least
Speaker 1: keep dropping mail bag questions and those YouTube comments. I'm
Speaker 1: probably going to record my mail bag this afternoon. Again.
Speaker 1: The schedules a little weird this weekend because I'm getting
Speaker 1: ready to head out of town for a ski trip
Speaker 1: on Sunday. That's why we're doing a show on Saturday,
Speaker 1: because we're probably not going to have shows on at
Speaker 1: least Monday, and probably not Tuesday as well. So little
Speaker 1: funky schedule here, but still time to drop mail bag
Speaker 1: questions for that mail bag episode later this weekend. All right,
Speaker 1: let's talk some basketball. So New York played a really
Speaker 1: nice game in Oklahoma City, specifically the second quarter, just
Speaker 1: a really nice job defensively running out in transition. Michael
Speaker 1: Bridges was brilliant in that stretch. I talked a lot
Speaker 1: yesterday when we were talking about Boston Minnesota about the
Speaker 1: concept of spacing being more than just shooting. It's also
Speaker 1: about like how to position players off the ball when
Speaker 1: someone's trying to attack, how to relocate or move without
Speaker 1: the ball when one you see your help defender doing
Speaker 1: something that should trigger a certain type of reaction. Or two,
Speaker 1: as somebody cuts, as somebody drives, as you have to
Speaker 1: kind of like be in a mebo with your spacing
Speaker 1: around that right, Like if someone cuts down the lane
Speaker 1: and you're sitting in the dunker spot, you should probably
Speaker 1: clear out right. A simple way to think of it
Speaker 1: is like if you've got a dude isoing on the
Speaker 1: right wing and they're shooting in the corner shooter in
Speaker 1: the corner, shooter opposite wing, shooter opposite dunker spot. And
Speaker 1: let's say as that ISO's happening, the guy on the
Speaker 1: left wing just cuts right through to the basket. If
Speaker 1: he cuts through to the basket, the dude in the
Speaker 1: left corner needs to relocate up to that above the
Speaker 1: break spot. The dude in the dunker spot probably needs
Speaker 1: to relocate out to the corner so that that cutter
Speaker 1: can kind of fill in in the dunker spot. Right.
Speaker 1: It's important for to stay for you to stay in
Speaker 1: motion because whenever you have two off ball offensive players
Speaker 1: just staying in the same spot, you make yourself easy,
Speaker 1: easy to guard. And that was something you know, Michael Bridges,
Speaker 1: I thought just did a brilliant job of that all
Speaker 1: game last night, but especially in that second quarter stretch
Speaker 1: where like every single time there was a rotation, every
Speaker 1: single time there was help, every single time his defender
Speaker 1: turned his head, any single time somebody cut or drove
Speaker 1: in his direction, that changed his spacing. He's always cutting
Speaker 1: and relocating. It's like, oh, my man turned his head,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna flash right to the middle of the floor.
Speaker 1: Might make myself available for a quick cut like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm in the left corner, but I saw my man
Speaker 1: step up high to head to a tager roller. I'm
Speaker 1: going to cut along the baseline and make myself available
Speaker 1: right there in the dunker spot, like Oh, I was
Speaker 1: in the corner, but my defender's not paying attention. I'm
Speaker 1: going to slide up more towards the above the brake
Speaker 1: line to create a longer close out and to make
Speaker 1: a clear passing window for Jalen Brunson. Whoever it is
Speaker 1: to make that kickout pass just did a really really
Speaker 1: nice job in that quarter, just demonstrating the instinct side
Speaker 1: of spacing. Part of it is shooting, part of it
Speaker 1: is scheme in terms of the coaching staff always having
Speaker 1: a plan for different types of double teams and help
Speaker 1: out of different spots on the floor, But a big
Speaker 1: part of it is just instincts and guys just having
Speaker 1: a natural feel for getting open. When I talk about
Speaker 1: off ball scoring, this is a concept I've talked about
Speaker 1: a lot. What is off ball scoring versus on ball scoring.
Speaker 1: Off ball scoring is literally the ability to be a
Speaker 1: threat to score even though the action's not being run
Speaker 1: for you, and so part of that is like having
Speaker 1: a natural ability to find open spots on the move.
Speaker 1: It's one of the big reasons why for a team
Speaker 1: like Denver, I'm against trading Michael Porter Junior for Jimmy Butler.
Speaker 1: Michael Porter Junior's off ball scoring is uniquely valuable to
Speaker 1: Denver because you're usually running through the Jokich Murray two
Speaker 1: man game. Jimmy Butler, you're not gonna get as much
Speaker 1: of the on ball stuff out of him because of
Speaker 1: what they already do on ball, and if he's off ball,
Speaker 1: he's not going to be as much of a threat
Speaker 1: to score, not just to shoot, but to score off
Speaker 1: the ball the way that Michael Porter Junior does. It's
Speaker 1: brilliant effort from og Anobi and mchal Bridges in that stretch,
Speaker 1: but it was it kind of turned into a war
Speaker 1: of attrition in the second half, where all Knicks starters
Speaker 1: played over forty minutes in this game, and Shay and
Speaker 1: j Dubb in particular both played thirty seven minutes. The
Speaker 1: other Thunder starters played in the low thirties, so there
Speaker 1: was a substantial gap in workload between the Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: starting lineup and the Knick starting lineup. Not to mention
Speaker 1: the fact that for Oklahoma City, they have a tendency
Speaker 1: to kind of like put starters in and out based
Speaker 1: on what the game calls for Aaron Wiggins, for instance,
Speaker 1: getting a lot of run down the tail end of
Speaker 1: this one. So as a result, all of these effort
Speaker 1: and fatigue related battles started to go towards Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1: In that fourth quarter, they started to win all of
Speaker 1: the loose ball battles. Isaiah Hartenstein got a huge save
Speaker 1: on a ball that was going out of bounds that
Speaker 1: led to Aaron Wiggins hitting a three. The Knicks lost
Speaker 1: a huge offensive rebound out of late on the week
Speaker 1: side where it was Josh hart and Karl Anthony Towns
Speaker 1: versus Isaiah Hartenstein and Aaron Wiggins. And Aaron Wiggins and
Speaker 1: Isaiah Hartenstein just beat those guys to the spot, forced
Speaker 1: them to fumble it out of bounds and it was
Speaker 1: a possession for the thunder that went that turned immediately
Speaker 1: into another three for Actually, you know Shay Gildas Alexander
Speaker 1: hit a little jump shot against Karl Anthony Towns and
Speaker 1: drop off of that, so like another offensive rebound that
Speaker 1: led you an extra two points, it's five extra points
Speaker 1: that the thunder got in the fourth quarter just off
Speaker 1: of like effort and energy stuff. Like every Knicks jumper
Speaker 1: seemed to be short off the front of the rim
Speaker 1: down the stretch of the game. That's always a big
Speaker 1: sign that your legs are starting to get tired. And
Speaker 1: then the Nick started to get sloppy with their execution,
Speaker 1: like they weren't matched up in transition. A few times
Speaker 1: they left Aaron Wiggins wide open on the left wing
Speaker 1: on a transition runout. Jalen Brunson, who was doing a
Speaker 1: really good job handling pressure for the most part, like
Speaker 1: made a couple really sloppy mistakes late in the game.
Speaker 1: The one in particular where he tried to fire that
Speaker 1: bounce pass I think to Josh Hart and the dunker
Speaker 1: spot that one was obviously fatigue. To me. It wasn't open.
Speaker 1: And when you see offensive players start to kind of
Speaker 1: like get rid of the ball even though people aren't open,
Speaker 1: it's a sign that they're just tired and they're kind
Speaker 1: of just like looking for somebody else to do something
Speaker 1: to try to help them hit another turnover against some
Speaker 1: ball pressure late in the game. So you could just
Speaker 1: tell that the fatigue element really started to work against
Speaker 1: New York late in the game, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: is the strength of Oklahoma City. They have that depth.
Speaker 1: They don't need to lean on those players as much.
Speaker 1: You go to the Knicks and it's like Landry Shamitt,
Speaker 1: Precious Shia, and Campaign are the only guys playing for
Speaker 1: them off the bench, and those guys all have big issues.
Speaker 1: They're just they're not as good as the guys coming
Speaker 1: off of the bench. For Oklahoma City. They just have
Speaker 1: a depth advantage there, and that manifested over the course
Speaker 1: of this game. Aaron Wiggins was really the guy who
Speaker 1: iced it. He hit the three off of the Hartenstein
Speaker 1: offensive rebound. He hit the three on the play where
Speaker 1: the Knicks didn't get matched up in transition. He hit
Speaker 1: the three on a relocation another kind of similar type
Speaker 1: of relocation. He was in the corner. Lou Dort slipped
Speaker 1: out of a ball screen, and when he slipped out
Speaker 1: of the balls screen, all this congestion happened right at
Speaker 1: the basket. Aaron Wiggins just slid up the lane line
Speaker 1: or up the corner three point line and came up
Speaker 1: to the above the brake line. Dort was able to
Speaker 1: hit him. He knocked down a big three. He got
Speaker 1: an and one slipping out of a screen of his own.
Speaker 1: That was kind of the story of the game in
Speaker 1: terms of late game execution for Oklahoma City, everything was
Speaker 1: really just about Shae attacking Jalen Brunson and Karl Anthony
Speaker 1: Towns and specifically in hedges. And so what was happening
Speaker 1: is Shaye would just like call lou Dort up into
Speaker 1: the screen. Lou Dort's being guarded by Brunson, Brunson would hedge,
Speaker 1: and right when Brunson would hedge, Dort would slip. And
Speaker 1: as he's slipping, you can imagine if Shay's dribbling at
Speaker 1: the top of the key and his on ball defender
Speaker 1: Michael Bridges is on him and Brunson is briefly on
Speaker 1: him in a hedge, you have two on the ball
Speaker 1: and Dort slips out of that you hit him in stride.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, it's a four on three on
Speaker 1: the backside. All the knicks help at the rim. That
Speaker 1: leads to the wide open three for Aaron Wiggins, Aaron
Speaker 1: Wingins and the and one that he got, same exact
Speaker 1: thing he on that play, I believe was being guarded
Speaker 1: by Carl Anthony Towns. He Carl Anthony Towns tosses a hedge,
Speaker 1: Wiggans slips out of it, boom bounce pass hits him
Speaker 1: right in the the pocket. He goes right up with
Speaker 1: it and he ends up getting that and one. Even
Speaker 1: the final the final little jumper that Shake Gilds of
Speaker 1: Alexander hit kind of coming off of that curl on
Speaker 1: the sidelines sideline out of bounds. It was a drop
Speaker 1: coverage play for Karl Anthony Towns, Like Carl Anthony Towns
Speaker 1: was dropping. Shay's got his defender chasing him over the top.
Speaker 1: He knocks down that little mid range jump shot. So
Speaker 1: that was kind of like the half court surgery part,
Speaker 1: Like the thunder we're defending the thunder, we're getting out
Speaker 1: in transition. They were causing a lot of havoc on
Speaker 1: those offensive rebound sequences, on those transition sequences, But it
Speaker 1: was a big, a big part of like the half
Speaker 1: court element. Down the stretch of the game was just
Speaker 1: Shay picking on Carl Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson and
Speaker 1: then the dagger, you know, the one that kind of
Speaker 1: ended up icing the game. It was like one O eight,
Speaker 1: one O three, and they again they had been hedging
Speaker 1: and slipping and getting stuff out of the hedge with
Speaker 1: the slip, right, So on this last possession, Jalen Brunson
Speaker 1: just switched right. So like if Jalen Brunson is hedging
Speaker 1: and again all the hedges is as the screen is
Speaker 1: coming and Shay's trying to come off the screen. The
Speaker 1: guy who's hedging, his one job is just to show,
Speaker 1: like to get out there and stop him from turning
Speaker 1: the corner, right, because if you aren't there, he's gonna
Speaker 1: come off the screen and he's gonna go downhill. So
Speaker 1: you get out there to stop him from turning the
Speaker 1: corner and then you sprint like hell back to your man.
Speaker 1: That's how hedge and recover works. But that brief little
Speaker 1: instance where he's hedging, if the guy slips, he can
Speaker 1: get open, and that's how they were causing the problems, right,
Speaker 1: So on that final one, Jalen just switches, so allowing
Speaker 1: the defender that was guarding Jalen to follow the screener. Right. Now,
Speaker 1: it's a one on one situation, but the advantage is
Speaker 1: Shae has New York's weakest perimeter defender on him. He
Speaker 1: just goes right through Jalen Brunston and gets to the
Speaker 1: basket and gets a layup. It was really just like
Speaker 1: a really well closed game for the Thunder. I thought
Speaker 1: Ja Dubb was brilliant in the early fourth quarter stretch
Speaker 1: with his athletic aggression. He was just going downhill every
Speaker 1: time he saw an opening, which was usually on chaos, like, oh,
Speaker 1: semi transition, I'm going downhill and I'm attacking. Oh, I
Speaker 1: missed a three, but the ball came right back to me.
Speaker 1: There's a runway. I'm going right downhill. I'm attacking. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm on the weak side. Guys closing out at me.
Speaker 1: I'm going right downhill. I'm attacking. Even on defense with
Speaker 1: that huge block on og Anobi at the rim, he
Speaker 1: had another big play where he drove and drew a
Speaker 1: foul and got two free throws. Like JDub, just his
Speaker 1: straight line athleticism. His powerful straight line athleticism caused all
Speaker 1: sorts of problems for the next down the stretch of
Speaker 1: this game, and then like again, once things got stuck
Speaker 1: in the half court, because that was the thing. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of that pressure from J Dub, a
Speaker 1: lot of really good defense, forcing turnovers, getting out in transition,
Speaker 1: attacking the offensive glass, all of that stuff that's made
Speaker 1: Oka see okce over this stretch and then just that
Speaker 1: surgical approach from Shay down the stretch, attacking mismatches whenever
Speaker 1: he could get a chance to Other notes on the
Speaker 1: thunder the value of depth within their play style again,
Speaker 1: like this is the value of having a guy like
Speaker 1: aj Mitchell that can step band, a guy like Aaron Wiggins,
Speaker 1: a guy like case on Wallace. They have so many
Speaker 1: different guys Kenrich Williams. They can go Jalen Williams, I
Speaker 1: thought had a nice stretch. He hit a big pick
Speaker 1: and pop three early in the game. Like, they have
Speaker 1: so many good players that can come in and play
Speaker 1: that it allows them the ability to play a style
Speaker 1: like what they play. Because when you do apply a
Speaker 1: lot of ball pressure, when you do a lot of blitzing,
Speaker 1: when you do a lot of like existing in rotation
Speaker 1: and covering the ground, running up and down the floor
Speaker 1: in transition, that tasks your body with a lot right,
Speaker 1: and so if you can alleviate that by keeping minutes
Speaker 1: down and keeping guys in and out of the game
Speaker 1: so that you have fresh legs, that goes a long
Speaker 1: way towards affording you the ability to play that play style.
Speaker 1: Teams that aren't as deep aren't going to play nearly
Speaker 1: as aggressive defensively in those situations, like the Knicks are
Speaker 1: running an eight man rotation to be really really tough
Speaker 1: to try to play with like good defense of pressure
Speaker 1: for an entire game in that sort of situation, right,
Speaker 1: the value of making shots. Oklahoma City shot lights out
Speaker 1: in this one. They converted ketch and shoot jump shots
Speaker 1: at one point five to seven points per possession. For
Speaker 1: the game. They were eight for eleven on catch and
Speaker 1: shoot jump shots in the second half. They were five
Speaker 1: for five on catch and shoot jump shots in the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter. I've talked about this a lot this year,
Speaker 1: but this, to me is the factor that will determine
Speaker 1: the fate of Oklahoma City's season for the entire season.
Speaker 1: According to Synergy, their ability to convert unguarded catch and
Speaker 1: shoot jump shots ranks eighteenth. Even after last night, they've
Speaker 1: been a bottom third type of team or a bottom
Speaker 1: half type of team in terms of the ability to
Speaker 1: knock down those concession jump shots, the shots that teams
Speaker 1: are giving up when they make them, they look unbeatable.
Speaker 1: When they don't, their offense can stall out, and by
Speaker 1: virtue of that number eighteen rank, that is one of
Speaker 1: those things that goes to show you that that's a
Speaker 1: potential outcome. But that's going to be the thing that
Speaker 1: termins whether or not Oklahoma City can win for playoff rounds.
Speaker 1: They're gonna have to hit shots. They're gonna need Aaron
Speaker 1: Wiggins to hit shots. They're gonna need Lou Dort to
Speaker 1: hit shots. They're gonna need Keeson Wallace to hit shots.
Speaker 1: They're gonna need Chet Holmgren to hit shots. That was
Speaker 1: a huge swing factor down the stretch of that game.
Speaker 1: When you connect everything Shaye does as when you connect
Speaker 1: everything Shaye does as a half court surgeon, with everything
Speaker 1: this team can do defensively, with everything about their spacing principles,
Speaker 1: the way they run their running principles in transition, when
Speaker 1: you combine all that with guys paying off the shots
Speaker 1: at the tail end of those sequences, that's what turns
Speaker 1: this Thunder team into a championship threat, a legitimate championship threat.
Speaker 1: Shaye and j dubb I thought, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that we talk about is we talk about
Speaker 1: all these things on the margins. Oh, here's what this
Speaker 1: role player did. Here's what here's this you know, random margin,
Speaker 1: whether it's offensive rebounding or transition scoring, turnovers, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: here's this area where they're doing damage. But a lot
Speaker 1: of things come down to, like you need guys to
Speaker 1: just get buckets in certain matchups. Right, Like there was
Speaker 1: a lot of Karl Anthony Towns and drop coverage, and
Speaker 1: how do you beat that coverage? Like a deeper drop
Speaker 1: coverage where Karl Anthony Towns is not letting the roller
Speaker 1: get behind him. A no roller behind coverage is defending
Speaker 1: a pick and roll two on two. If you're defending
Speaker 1: a pick and roll two on two, the kickout reads
Speaker 1: aren't there. If the kickout reads aren't there, then you
Speaker 1: have to beat the coverage by knocking down shots. And
Speaker 1: throughout the game, a lot of good mid range shot
Speaker 1: making from Shae from j dub in that drop coverage
Speaker 1: like that, that's what you have to do. That is
Speaker 1: what the Knicks were conceding within that coverage. That big
Speaker 1: shot late that Shay Gilders Alexander hit against Cat and drop,
Speaker 1: that's a big one. Another big one is just like
Speaker 1: attacking your defender, Like there were times there's a big
Speaker 1: one in the fourth quarter where Shaye was like, I
Speaker 1: got Mchal Bridges on me, I'm just gonna take him
Speaker 1: to the basket and get a bucket here. There's a
Speaker 1: certain amount of like, there's a certain amount of like
Speaker 1: you have to just beat the coverage sometimes, and there
Speaker 1: was a great amount of that from Shay and j
Speaker 1: dubb in last night's game, and then Aaron Wiggins, Like
Speaker 1: we talked about the shooting stretch that add at the
Speaker 1: end of the game, and it was cool when he
Speaker 1: hit that last the last three, the one that I
Speaker 1: think it was the one that tied the game. But
Speaker 1: he had a bunch of threes down the stretch. I
Speaker 1: can't even remember all of them, but he hit that
Speaker 1: one on the left wing. He's like running up and
Speaker 1: down the floor, like jumping and screaming. I was like, dude,
Speaker 1: it's such a good feeling when like you put in
Speaker 1: a bunch of hard work behind the scenes and then
Speaker 1: shots start to fall and then it just feels like
Speaker 1: the a lot of stuff coming to fruition. But I
Speaker 1: thought his success started in his first shift. He came
Speaker 1: in and Michale Bridges was red hot and Kail Bridges
Speaker 1: was doing a bunch of damage attacking like Shay and
Speaker 1: Isaiah Joe and the post. He came in and cooled
Speaker 1: him off, force him into a really tough one like
Speaker 1: fade away that kind of disrupted mckail bridge's rhythm. He
Speaker 1: started to miss some shots during that stretch. He broke
Speaker 1: up a transition run out with a steel against Landry Shammitt.
Speaker 1: He blocked Josh Hart at the rim and an iso
Speaker 1: like he got into the game and he started to
Speaker 1: impact things defensively. And again that builds confidence, which makes
Speaker 1: you feel better about yourself and less pressure to knock
Speaker 1: down shots, which can lead to you knocking down shots.
Speaker 1: Very very impressive when for this red hot Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: Thunder team again that everything's gonna come down to knocking
Speaker 1: down shots. That's gonna be the story of the season
Speaker 1: for this particular team. On the next front, a couple
Speaker 1: of things. Fatigue is the reality of running an eight
Speaker 1: man rotation. You know, obviously everyone kind of strengths their
Speaker 1: rotation to a certain extent when you get into the postseason,
Speaker 1: but depth is not a strength of this Knicks team.
Speaker 1: And that's just something to keep in mind. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a reality as we discussed them compared to other
Speaker 1: teams around the league, like they will get tired if
Speaker 1: they run that type of rotation. And by the way,
Speaker 1: that's kind of what happened last year. They just ran
Speaker 1: out of gas, got hurt against Indiana the attacking of
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson and Karl Anthony Towns in action. It was
Speaker 1: how Olgoame City got all their shots late in the game,
Speaker 1: other than the ones that were in chaos situations. And again,
Speaker 1: that problem is not going away. You're gonna have to
Speaker 1: come up with a plan to deal with that. Team
Speaker 1: Slipping out of hedges is a problem because you're constantly
Speaker 1: getting compromised. You gotta be more active with your hands
Speaker 1: there to try to Like, here's the thing. If a
Speaker 1: team's gonna slip out of a hedge, then a camp
Speaker 1: be ahedge. You might as well blitz at that point
Speaker 1: because if you're gonna be stuck with two on the ball,
Speaker 1: you need to try to disrupt that first pass. If
Speaker 1: you disrupt that first pass, meaning like if you make
Speaker 1: it deflected or make them throw a weird looping pass
Speaker 1: over the top, that buys you a chance to rotate.
Speaker 1: But if they're cleanly getting out of those hedges with
Speaker 1: pocket passes, you're gonna be picked apart in those four
Speaker 1: on threes. So like whether it's implementing a little bit
Speaker 1: more of an aggressive blitz in those sorts of situations
Speaker 1: to try to disrupt that action, like just tell Brunson,
Speaker 1: like as soon as the screen comes, just sprint at
Speaker 1: the ball handler and attack the basketball as hard as
Speaker 1: you can, like that sort of thing. But that they're
Speaker 1: they're doing that, They're attacking bruns and they're attacking Cat.
Speaker 1: They're gonna have to come up with a plan for
Speaker 1: how to deal with that in late playoff situations because
Speaker 1: that's a reality. And then I just want to shout
Speaker 1: up to Kilbridge. It's that he played a great game.
Speaker 1: I talked about his spacing principles earlier in the game.
Speaker 1: He's doing a bunch of damage posting small guards. His
Speaker 1: off ball scoring ability is still, in my opinion, one
Speaker 1: of the most valuable traits in the league for a
Speaker 1: guy who's also playing pretty damn good defense as of late.
Speaker 1: All Right, moving on to Spurs Nuggets Wenby, I thought
Speaker 1: the story of this game was him posting mismatches. It's
Speaker 1: an interesting type of thing that he's gonna have to do,
Speaker 1: especially as a playoff score, because it's the type of
Speaker 1: chess match piece that you're gonna end up running into
Speaker 1: a lot a team that feels comfortable putting someone on
Speaker 1: Chris Paul and someone on Wemby that they can switch
Speaker 1: the action to prevent him from getting easy picking pop
Speaker 1: threes or easy slips to the rim. Okay, well, how
Speaker 1: do you attack that? You take that person to the post.
Speaker 1: And he was doing a ton of damage in this game,
Speaker 1: particularly on the left block, although he also got a
Speaker 1: big one on the left elbow late against Christian Brown
Speaker 1: where he hit a little step back, but a lot
Speaker 1: of damage on the left block against guys like Russell Westbrook,
Speaker 1: against guys like Peyton Watson, against guys like Jamal Murray,
Speaker 1: just smaller defenders quickly getting good position, identifying when a
Speaker 1: guy who was trying to front and creating a passing
Speaker 1: angle for that over the top pass or for that
Speaker 1: like more of an angled pass, and then just quick
Speaker 1: efficient moves to get easy baskets to beat those switches.
Speaker 1: I thought he just did a wonderful job of that
Speaker 1: all game and then the transition threes, which ended up
Speaker 1: being a huge part of the game late because he
Speaker 1: hitting him off the dribble, just like kind of dribbling
Speaker 1: up the floor, catching a screen at like twenty seven
Speaker 1: feet and just like crossing over and knocking down a
Speaker 1: three or those trailer threes. The transition trailer threes are
Speaker 1: what all the best stretch bigs in the league do
Speaker 1: because opposing centers have a tendency to run back and
Speaker 1: transition to the rim. But he's hitting a bunch there,
Speaker 1: and then he was able to weaponize that with his
Speaker 1: passing ability to get Keldon Johnson a big and one. Late,
Speaker 1: he took like a faked like he was gonna take
Speaker 1: like a thirty five footer up above the break. Three
Speaker 1: Nuggets jumped at him, and all of a sudden, there
Speaker 1: was just a literally a four on two on the backside.
Speaker 1: He hits Keldon Johnson in stride and he gets the
Speaker 1: end one. He made a bunch of huge defensive plays late.
Speaker 1: He forced Jokich to settle for a bad three above
Speaker 1: the break, but there was still like eight or nine
Speaker 1: seconds on the shot clock, and he just like heaved
Speaker 1: one up over over the top of Wemby and then
Speaker 1: the double, the late play, the play that led to
Speaker 1: the the Devin Vessel steel and the transition dunk. Really
Speaker 1: smart double team that doubled two Jokicic's right shoulder, and
Speaker 1: they had one. And this is some of the reality
Speaker 1: of when Aaron Gordon's out and you're closing with Russell Westbrook,
Speaker 1: you don't have your spacing principles that you've had literally
Speaker 1: for the last five years or not quite five years,
Speaker 1: but for the last you know, very long time. And
Speaker 1: so as a result, the Spurs were able to kind
Speaker 1: of effectively double Jokic out of post ups in the
Speaker 1: last few possessions without any trouble. So Jokic had no
Speaker 1: choice when the double came on the final possession, he
Speaker 1: had to turn over his left shoulder. Double's coming at
Speaker 1: his right shoulder, has to turn over his left shoulder.
Speaker 1: Wemby immediately identifies it and just sells out to that
Speaker 1: left shoulder move ends up getting that steal on Nicole Jokic,
Speaker 1: which leads to the runout. Just a monster game from Wemby.
Speaker 1: I thought he showed some growth as a passer. I know,
Speaker 1: you see the turnovers, and yeah, he needs to turn.
Speaker 1: He needs to stop turning the ball over too much.
Speaker 1: Reminds me of KD where like when he was younger,
Speaker 1: where like he's just so far off the ground that
Speaker 1: every time he's dribbling, the ball's exposed. And then he's
Speaker 1: got such long arms that the ball's always exposed because
Speaker 1: how far the ball is away from his body. Some
Speaker 1: of that is just the reality, but he'll get better
Speaker 1: at that in the long run. I still thought late
Speaker 1: in the game he was getting rid of the ball
Speaker 1: quickly against doubles, which was leading to good shots. They
Speaker 1: were getting good stuff out of wemby drawing double teams
Speaker 1: and just quickly getting rid of the ball. The Julian
Speaker 1: Champagnee three on the left wing or left corner. Victor
Speaker 1: draws a double team. Jokic is the double Victor gets
Speaker 1: rid of the ball to Chris Paul. Jokic rotates back
Speaker 1: down to the paint. Chris Paul just rifles a pass
Speaker 1: to Julian Champagnee in the left corner, who caught Jokic sleeping,
Speaker 1: and he knocks down the three. That was something that
Speaker 1: came out of the positive effect of Wenby drawing a
Speaker 1: double team, He's just playing at an insanely high level,
Speaker 1: and that really was the big thing. I was texting
Speaker 1: my buddy dumb On about this last night. I don't
Speaker 1: think since Lebron we've had a player that has been
Speaker 1: more of a sure thing to be a at least
Speaker 1: five years as the best player in the world than
Speaker 1: Victor woman Yama. Since Lebron, we haven't had a guy
Speaker 1: like that, And I don't think there's a safer bet
Speaker 1: in all the players that we've looked at since then.
Speaker 1: There's this combination of talent which is obviously freaky. You know,
Speaker 1: Jokic just makes it look so easy against everyone else.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Yokic still made it look easy
Speaker 1: against Wemby a few times last night where he just
Speaker 1: pump fakes a little bit, gets Wenby off his feet
Speaker 1: and leans back a little bit, knocks down a bank
Speaker 1: shot or just that drop step into his left shoulder
Speaker 1: where he can just dislodge Wemby and get to where
Speaker 1: he needs to go. There were times where he made
Speaker 1: it easy, but there were times where Wenby won that battle.
Speaker 1: And he's got the talent to smother a player that
Speaker 1: seemingly seems unsmotherable. Right in Nikole Jokic, he has the talent, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's crazy. I was actually thinking last night.
Speaker 1: I remember when I watched the first Victor wemen Yama
Speaker 1: game that I watched, which was that the exhibition game
Speaker 1: against Scoot Henderson, the two games that they played that
Speaker 1: were on ESPN, and I remember the first thing that
Speaker 1: stood out to me. Those of you guys who were
Speaker 1: following the show at that point, we'll remember this. I
Speaker 1: was like, this is a movement shooter. Like everyone was
Speaker 1: talking about him as like the next grade center in
Speaker 1: the league, and I was like, watching that game, I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is a movement shooter. This is a guy who's
Speaker 1: very comfortable stepping both directions, like right footwork going right right,
Speaker 1: left footwork going left off, the move off the dribble,
Speaker 1: turning over each shoulder. Like this was a guy who
Speaker 1: very clearly was headed on a trajectory of being an
Speaker 1: advanced shot maker. Now we're watching him like getting NBA
Speaker 1: teams to triple team him thirty plus feet from the basket.
Speaker 1: The talent is obviously there, but then you combine it
Speaker 1: with the fact that he has that like competitive obstinence
Speaker 1: that all the grades have had, that like like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: they beat us, but they're not better than us. That
Speaker 1: oh yeah, none of these guys work hard enough. I'm
Speaker 1: better than these guys. Even last night, just like putting
Speaker 1: his hand on Russell Westbrook's shoulder and kind of like
Speaker 1: talking down to him a little bit. There's just a
Speaker 1: audaciousness with Victor Weminyam, that competitive fierceness that combined with
Speaker 1: his talent makes him a sure thing. And then the
Speaker 1: big concern with all tall guys's injuries and I don't
Speaker 1: want to like we want to knock on wood here.
Speaker 1: I don't want to sit here and pretend like he's
Speaker 1: incapable of getting hurt. But this is a guy who
Speaker 1: spends an enormous amount of time on pliability and stretching
Speaker 1: and prepping his body for this. It is obsessive work ethic,
Speaker 1: obsessive competitiveness, and insane natural ability. It makes him the
Speaker 1: surest thing to be the best player in the world
Speaker 1: for a long time, Like it feels a certainty that
Speaker 1: he will win multiple MVPs. It feels a certainty that
Speaker 1: he will be the undisputed best player in the world
Speaker 1: for a five to ten year stretch. And it's because
Speaker 1: of the combination of all those factors. We've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of guys in the league that have all of
Speaker 1: the talent, all of the work ethic, but don't seem
Speaker 1: to have the personality. We've seen all the guys. We've
Speaker 1: seen guys that have the personality, have the talent, but
Speaker 1: don't have the work ethic. We've seen combinations of those.
Speaker 1: It's exceptionally rare to have a player that has transcendently
Speaker 1: great talent, transcendently great competitiveness, and a transcendently great work ethic,
Speaker 1: and it just makes him a sure thing to be
Speaker 1: a truly dominant player in NBA history, and I'm excited
Speaker 1: to see what he can do. Other Spurs. I wanted
Speaker 1: to shout out Julian Champagne had fifteen points. He's one
Speaker 1: of their most trustworthy catch and shoot guys, so he's
Speaker 1: been getting a lot of like big late game opportunities.
Speaker 1: Hit that huge corner. Three also had a big play
Speaker 1: where he met Jamal Murray at the rim late on
Speaker 1: a play coming off of a screening actional he forced
Speaker 1: him into a big miss. Really solid role player. Minutes
Speaker 1: from Julian Champagne, Chris Paul too, so many big plays
Speaker 1: hit that huge pull up three over Jokich late, he
Speaker 1: had that pass to Champagne, which was genius. Just caught
Speaker 1: Jokic sleeping like jokicch as soon as he got out
Speaker 1: of the double, he just relaxed for a second and
Speaker 1: just sat in the paint for a second, and Chris
Speaker 1: Paul made him paid for it. That late blowby of
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook, which you want to be like, Okay, what's
Speaker 1: up with all these blowbuys that Russell Westbrook's giving up
Speaker 1: in late game situations, But very old Chris Paul just
Speaker 1: toasted Russell Westbrook one on one off the dribble for
Speaker 1: a scoop shot late. That was a huge bucket in
Speaker 1: that game. Having competent ball handling next to victim women
Speaker 1: Yam has made such a huge difference this year. And
Speaker 1: then Devin Vessel he had that runout dunk late obviously
Speaker 1: had this beautiful driving dunk late off of this nasty
Speaker 1: hesitation dribble against nicolea Jokic in a switch. But I
Speaker 1: was really impressed by his off ball defense in this one.
Speaker 1: He's got really good size and quickness and he can
Speaker 1: cover some ground in rotation. He had a couple plays
Speaker 1: where he was chasing multiple shooters off the line. He cares,
Speaker 1: he makes the effort, and specifically his combination of length
Speaker 1: and effort and athleticism made him an interesting groundcoverage option
Speaker 1: late in that game, which I thought was an interesting
Speaker 1: kind of like thing to keep an eye on in
Speaker 1: terms of the Spurs and the big picture and how
Speaker 1: to use Devin Vassel as an off ball defender on
Speaker 1: the Denver front. So Jokic goes for forty one eighteen
Speaker 1: to nine, and yeah, winby won some battles, but Yokic
Speaker 1: won some battles too. There were three or four times
Speaker 1: in this game where Yokic scored on him one on
Speaker 1: one and made it look easy, which was obviously fun
Speaker 1: to watch it, and that's an unbelievable box score. The
Speaker 1: main frustrating thing for me with Denver watching that game
Speaker 1: was just their defense, just several sloppy mistakes late, like Jokics,
Speaker 1: like I talked about, lingering in the paint for too
Speaker 1: long when Julian Champagne was wide open in the corner.
Speaker 1: There was a random play towards the middle of the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter where like Zach Collins just took Yokich one
Speaker 1: on one and just busted his ass with a drop
Speaker 1: set and hit a little bank shot, And I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: you got like you gotta stop Zach Collins there, right,
Speaker 1: And it's not even like Wenby or it's not even
Speaker 1: like Jokic can. Of course he can't, or of course
Speaker 1: he can. He just he was falling asleep. He's falling
Speaker 1: making mistakes in those situations. And I understand there's fatigue,
Speaker 1: he's taking thirty plus shots, he's tired. There's a lot
Speaker 1: into it, but like he just has to do better.
Speaker 1: And then like that drive that Russell Westbrook gave up again,
Speaker 1: Like like that's multiple times this year where it's a
Speaker 1: late game situation and Russ is like opening up his
Speaker 1: stance and just letting good a guy go right around him,
Speaker 1: like Chris Paul like no resistance, just went right around
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook. There. They've got to find a way to
Speaker 1: defend at a higher level. That's been the biggest thing
Speaker 1: to keep an eye on with them this year. And
Speaker 1: then san Antonio was able to double the ball out
Speaker 1: of Yokic's hand a few times without getting without giving
Speaker 1: up an advantage, especially late in the game, and again
Speaker 1: part of that's the deal when you're closing with Russ
Speaker 1: instead of Aaron Gordon. But I thought that that was
Speaker 1: just something to keep an eye on. I said this
Speaker 1: last night about Contenders. Is the last thing I'll say
Speaker 1: about Denver Boston kind of trying to trick us into
Speaker 1: thinking they're bad. I think they're just tricking us. I
Speaker 1: still think Boston is the favorite. Like, mixed in with
Speaker 1: all of these bad losses that they've had have been
Speaker 1: these incredibly dominant wins. So it's clear that like even
Speaker 1: though they're having a lot of nights where they're relaxing,
Speaker 1: they just lock in and they get the job done.
Speaker 1: Which makes you feel like even if you were to
Speaker 1: take an early playoff series lead against them, that they
Speaker 1: would be able to just kind of engage themselves and
Speaker 1: get to the level they need to get to. But
Speaker 1: at least Boston's at least trying to trick us into
Speaker 1: thinking things are more wide open. And as a result,
Speaker 1: they've been all these peaks, right like Milwaukee and what
Speaker 1: they did to Oklahoma City and the n Season Tournament
Speaker 1: and everything they did during that massive win streak that
Speaker 1: they had that was like a really interesting peak. As
Speaker 1: a contender Oklahoma City and the run that they're on
Speaker 1: right now. The Knicks have had a couple stretches this
Speaker 1: year where they've looked really, really good years, winning at
Speaker 1: a seventy two win pace. Right, Like, all of these
Speaker 1: teams are like lining up Denvers or Dallas as a
Speaker 1: team that, like, even though they haven't really had a
Speaker 1: peak because of injuries, it's a roster that I feel
Speaker 1: pretty strongly about. Everything feels pretty open. It's again, I
Speaker 1: think it's a little bit of fools goal because I
Speaker 1: think Boston's clearly better, but like there's everything feels open,
Speaker 1: and Denver's one of those teams that, like, I can't
Speaker 1: count out because I know Jokic is capable of doing
Speaker 1: things that no one else in this league is capable of.
Speaker 1: But it's a little concerning that they haven't had that
Speaker 1: stretch yet where they put together, you know, ten to
Speaker 1: fifteen games where they just look like that type of
Speaker 1: excellent basketball team. And I'm hoping, I'm hoping that we
Speaker 1: see that from them at some point here soon, because
Speaker 1: it feels like they're due for that type of stretch.
Speaker 1: All right. Before we get out here, we'll talk a
Speaker 1: little bit of Lakers. So Lakers go back to back,
Speaker 1: they go to and Zho, they beat a bad Portland team,
Speaker 1: and then they controlled a pretty good Atlanta Hawks team
Speaker 1: last night. They are now seven to two in their
Speaker 1: last nine games, seventh in offense, twelfth in defense, eighth
Speaker 1: in net rating over the course of this nine game span.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the offense for a minute.
Speaker 1: So obviously there's seventh in offense during the stretch. They're
Speaker 1: also tenth in offense since losing d Lo, which was
Speaker 1: a major concern, right and again, when you go that direction,
Speaker 1: when you go towards defensive personnel as a team, they've
Speaker 1: gone towards a defensive focus. I was concerned about their
Speaker 1: offense being able to stay afloat, but it's been pretty
Speaker 1: solid so far. And the main thing is when when
Speaker 1: Delo went out, it just put a lot of pressure
Speaker 1: on Austin Reeves and Lebron James to be their primary
Speaker 1: shot creators, and those two guys have just been absolutely
Speaker 1: crushing it. Look at these numbers Lebron's last six games again,
Speaker 1: forty year old Lebron James last six games thirty points,
Speaker 1: five rebounds and eight assists fifty eight percent from the
Speaker 1: field forty six percent from three to eighty eight percent
Speaker 1: from the line. That's that's insane. Just two point seven
Speaker 1: turnovers too, Like member focus was the big thing that
Speaker 1: he was having a problem with in that bad stretch
Speaker 1: that he was having. Just turning the ball over just
Speaker 1: seemed like he wasn't really paying attention. He's been so
Speaker 1: locked in and so good since he came back from
Speaker 1: that little break that he took. And again, fifty eight
Speaker 1: forty six, eighty eight splits on thirty five and eight.
Speaker 1: That's like top five player in the world type of
Speaker 1: production from Lebron James. Those are the types of numbers
Speaker 1: that Lebron was putting up post All Star Break last year.
Speaker 1: That's when I was screaming from the mountaintops, like Lebron's
Speaker 1: playing at a top five level, Like is anybody skiing this?
Speaker 1: And again, those two guys, Lebron and Nadi were monsters
Speaker 1: against Denver. Just wasn't enough because of the issues with
Speaker 1: their supporting cast. But like this, this is the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that if Lebron can sustain, this team has
Speaker 1: an upside that I think we need to recalculate. This
Speaker 1: is the player that we didn't get over the course
Speaker 1: of the beginning stretch of the season. Again, it's only
Speaker 1: six games, so I'm not about to say that this
Speaker 1: is like feels like a dependable thing at this point.
Speaker 1: But Lebron seems to be getting his legs underneath him
Speaker 1: and he's playing some really special basketball over the course
Speaker 1: of this stretch. Austin Reeves last ten games twenty one points,
Speaker 1: seven rebounds, and eight assists. He's now averaging eighteen point
Speaker 1: three points per game this season, four point six rebounds
Speaker 1: and five point nine assists. There are only fourteen players
Speaker 1: in the entire league that are hitting those numbers eighteen
Speaker 1: point three, four point six and five point nine, Like
Speaker 1: that's the type of production that Austin's giving you. And
Speaker 1: then what like twenty one to seven to eight in
Speaker 1: the last ten games, some absolutely monster games, a triple
Speaker 1: double like Austin is hooping his ass off. And so
Speaker 1: since Lebron, James and Austin Reeves have been playing this
Speaker 1: well on offense, it has allowed Anthony Davis to refocus
Speaker 1: his energy as a defense first player, and as a result,
Speaker 1: he's back to playing some of the most special defense
Speaker 1: that he's played over the course of this season. He
Speaker 1: had another six stock game last night, six steals in blocks.
Speaker 1: He's averaging four stocks per game over his last ten.
Speaker 1: The Lakers have a one hundred and six defensive rating
Speaker 1: with Anthony Davis on the floor over that stretch, so
Speaker 1: as a result, you're getting defensive Player of the Year
Speaker 1: type of play from Anthony Davis, extremely high level offense
Speaker 1: from Lebron. Lebron and Austin are basically giving you fifty
Speaker 1: plus points and sixteen plus assists hyper efficiently over the
Speaker 1: course of this stretch. As a result of that, it
Speaker 1: is creating these small achievable roles for everyone else, and
Speaker 1: several guys have started to play really well Max Christy,
Speaker 1: including what he's doing on the defensive end. He's averaging
Speaker 1: twelve points a game over the seven and two stretch,
Speaker 1: fifty one percent from the field, forty five percent from
Speaker 1: three excuse me, ninety three percent from the foul line.
Speaker 1: That's really really good. He's doing a lot of work
Speaker 1: on inverted ball screen screening for Lebron and slipping out
Speaker 1: of it. He had another dunk last night where he
Speaker 1: post as a dude with two hands. He's so good
Speaker 1: at like quickly bouncing off the floor, regardless of the
Speaker 1: you know, the the regardless of the footwork that feeds
Speaker 1: into it. He could just pop up off the ground
Speaker 1: off of two feet and dunk on anybody. He's playing
Speaker 1: really good basketball. Dalton only broke out of his slip
Speaker 1: last night. Joan Finney Smith, he's you know, he hit
Speaker 1: a three last night. He's not quite hitting shots at
Speaker 1: the level that you would hope for as a Lakers
Speaker 1: fan yet, but just having a guy out there that's
Speaker 1: a good defensive player, that seems to know what he's
Speaker 1: supposed to do offensively and as a guy that's guarded
Speaker 1: as a shooter is already revealing itself as a huge
Speaker 1: value add to this team. He's closed the last couple
Speaker 1: of games, which I think is interesting as Rui's kind
Speaker 1: of been struggling a little bit. I'll say, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was the embarrassment, I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was something else, but the Lakers have been playing
Speaker 1: the most consistent stretch of serious basketball I've seen them
Speaker 1: play in the first half of a season since they
Speaker 1: were fighting through those injuries in the Western Conference Finals
Speaker 1: season last year. It was a lot of like just chillin'
Speaker 1: until it got desperate and then they locked in and
Speaker 1: they played really good every night for a long time.
Speaker 1: But like that last year it was or the year
Speaker 1: before that, the year they made it to the Western
Speaker 1: Conference Finals, they were doing that earlier in the season,
Speaker 1: but it was because of injuries. Lebron was out for
Speaker 1: a while, Anthony Davis was out for a while, you
Speaker 1: knew a trade was on the and those guys were
Speaker 1: fighting every night just to stay afloat in the standings.
Speaker 1: This is like, they're in a good spot in the standings.
Speaker 1: They have the fourth best record in the Western Conference,
Speaker 1: they have the seventh best record in the league, and
Speaker 1: they're just staying focused and I think that is encouraging.
Speaker 1: It's way too small of a sample size to take
Speaker 1: them seriously, but it is absolutely a positive trend for
Speaker 1: this team. I was listening to JJ Redick's postgame presser
Speaker 1: last night and he said a lot of things that
Speaker 1: were really interesting to me. First of all, heavy emphasis
Speaker 1: on game plan discipline. He was bitching about the boy
Speaker 1: the Bogdn mcdonovic slip it slips. So we were talking
Speaker 1: about this earlier with Hedgen Recover. As it pertains to
Speaker 1: guys like Jalen Brunson with the Knicks, right, But like
Speaker 1: what they do is they have Brogden just excuse me,
Speaker 1: Bogden Mcgdanovic run into pretend like he's screening for Trey
Speaker 1: and then he'll just sprint, pass or run to the
Speaker 1: three point line. The idea there is you hope they
Speaker 1: confuse like are about to switch, and then in that
Speaker 1: interchange Bogdanovitch has a chance to sprint and get open.
Speaker 1: And JJ Reddick went to his guys before the game
Speaker 1: and was like, the last five times to Bogdan Bogdanovic
Speaker 1: has played. Every single time he's run up to set
Speaker 1: that ghost screen on Trey Young, he hasn't set the screen,
Speaker 1: He's just run past. So as a game plan, just
Speaker 1: stay attached the on ball guy doesn't need to do
Speaker 1: anything the guy who's running up with the screen or
Speaker 1: tell him, you know, whatever their identifier was, if they
Speaker 1: say ghost or stay home or whatever it is, they
Speaker 1: yelled that identify her out and they just sprint and
Speaker 1: they stay. Guys not open. Right in the first half,
Speaker 1: they were fucking that coverage up time and time again.
Speaker 1: JJ Redick was super pissed about it. JJ Reddick was
Speaker 1: super pissed about some of their basic game plan discipline stuff.
Speaker 1: He's calling dudes out in press conferences. Max Chrissy, I
Speaker 1: didn't like your shift the other night, Dori Infinney Smith,
Speaker 1: I didn't think you did a good job defensively in
Speaker 1: the first half. He's calling dudes out, he's holding him accountable.
Speaker 1: He's understanding the importance of the game plan. He had
Speaker 1: a speech. He goes to the guys and he goes,
Speaker 1: he goes, you know why we why we need you
Speaker 1: guys to pay attention to this game plan, because I
Speaker 1: don't want to coach a good team. I want to
Speaker 1: coach a great team. JJ is appealing to their pride.
Speaker 1: He's appealing to their pride, and he's holding them accountable
Speaker 1: as part of a goal to play real basketball. And
Speaker 1: the part, the last thing I'll say about it, and
Speaker 1: the thing that stood out to me the most was
Speaker 1: his comment about playing pickup versus serious basketball. And he
Speaker 1: was talking about the Hawks, and he was talking about
Speaker 1: the Kings and some of these teams that play up
Speaker 1: and down in transition. They're teams that defend and weaponize
Speaker 1: their athletes in the open floor, and they just kind
Speaker 1: of play off of the advantages that that creates, right,
Speaker 1: And one of the things that JJ said is like,
Speaker 1: if we play that type of game, if we play
Speaker 1: a pickup game with these guys, we're gonna lose. Why
Speaker 1: we're not as athletic or not. We don't have like
Speaker 1: a bunch of dudes that can just like thrive in
Speaker 1: that type of setting. And so what JJ said is like,
Speaker 1: we have to play serious basketball. What does that mean?
Speaker 1: That means we do have to get back in transition
Speaker 1: every single time when we get into the half court,
Speaker 1: we have to be organized, meaning like we got to
Speaker 1: run action. We have to set good screens. We have
Speaker 1: to sell every part of the play, every cut, every screen,
Speaker 1: every fake, every relocation. Everything has to be a sprint.
Speaker 1: Everything has to be a good, solid screen. Everything has
Speaker 1: to be executed for this team to get to where
Speaker 1: they want to go. This is something that I've been
Speaker 1: screaming about from the mountaintops forever. JJ kept emphasizing in
Speaker 1: the postgame presser habits, establishing habits. Why Because when you
Speaker 1: get into a big spot against a great team in
Speaker 1: a late playoff series, everyone on the floor is good,
Speaker 1: all the players are good. You know what ends up
Speaker 1: being a big determining factor over the course of the
Speaker 1: hundreds of possessions that take place in a playoff series.
Speaker 1: How often do you not do your job? How often
Speaker 1: do you give up a wide open something because you're
Speaker 1: not sharp, because you don't have good habits compared to
Speaker 1: the other team. If they have an advantage there against
Speaker 1: you on that front, it's a problem. And as JJ's
Speaker 1: pointed out, he kept saying, this Western Conference is really good. Everybody,
Speaker 1: they can beat everybody. He's right. I've been saying for
Speaker 1: the last couple of days, this conference is wide open
Speaker 1: because Oklahoma City can go so cold as perimeter jumpshooters.
Speaker 1: This conference is wide open. And the Lakers are not
Speaker 1: the most talented team in the conference. So if they're
Speaker 1: going to win, if they have a real goal, if
Speaker 1: the guys in that locker room really want to hoist
Speaker 1: I Larry O'Brien Trophy, it starts now, or more appropriately,
Speaker 1: in the Portland Trailblazers game, when they started to turn
Speaker 1: the season around. It started then, and it has to
Speaker 1: go to mid April. That doesn't mean it has to
Speaker 1: be perfect. You can have a bad night here there.
Speaker 1: It's like I talked about what concerned me early on
Speaker 1: is weeks. You go two and five in a seven
Speaker 1: game stretch and then quit in against Miami. I had
Speaker 1: a many comments like, why are you so much more
Speaker 1: forgiving of Golden State than the Lakers. You guys are
Speaker 1: missing the point. I think the Lakers have more talent
Speaker 1: on the roster right now than Golden State. Golden State
Speaker 1: is a more serious basketball team, or at least they
Speaker 1: were over the course of the entire season. They have
Speaker 1: overachieved relative to their talent. The Lakers help. They should
Speaker 1: probably be a couple games better than they are right
Speaker 1: now when you look at the games they've blown. I
Speaker 1: am talking about the overall effort and focus. Golden State
Speaker 1: doesn't have that issue. They have a talent issue. If
Speaker 1: they address the talent issue in the trade market, they
Speaker 1: have a chance to go on a run. It's a
Speaker 1: slim chance, sure, but it's a chance for the Lakers.
Speaker 1: They have the talent. They also could use some more talent,
Speaker 1: but they have more talent. They in the early part
Speaker 1: of the season. They won those first three games, and
Speaker 1: they were in chill mode for the next month. That's
Speaker 1: not how you play championship basketball. That's not how you
Speaker 1: establish those habits. This Lakers team has to be so
Speaker 1: sharp that they keep every game close against the best
Speaker 1: teams at the top of the league, so that maybe,
Speaker 1: just maybe the thing that won you would chip Lebron
Speaker 1: James and Anthony Davis with the shot creation of Austin
Speaker 1: Reeves can squeeze out a little bit more than the
Speaker 1: other team and you can advance. But they are not
Speaker 1: going to overcome execution errs. Lebron James, Anthony Davis and
Speaker 1: Austin Reeves are not going to be able to outplay
Speaker 1: Luca and Kyrie, Jada Shay and chet of like Yo
Speaker 1: Kitchen Murray, these guys at the top of the West.
Speaker 1: They're not going to be able to outplay them enough
Speaker 1: to make up for a bunch of executioners. The only
Speaker 1: pathway for them is attack the regular season and become
Speaker 1: the sharpest team that they could possibly be. That's what
Speaker 1: JJ is preaching. It's up to the players to stick
Speaker 1: with it and to build that identity out over the
Speaker 1: remainder of this season. I think Rob Polinka, by supporting
Speaker 1: them with Dorian Phinney Smith, has provided them with a
Speaker 1: little bit more belief. I think he needs to further
Speaker 1: that by continuing to anchor this. I've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of people talk about, like, oh, you don't want to
Speaker 1: trade make a trade that takes Max out of the
Speaker 1: starting lineup. I'm not necessarily saying that you need to
Speaker 1: take Max out of the starting lineup, but I would
Speaker 1: like to have another option for a veteran guy there
Speaker 1: in case you get to a playoff series in Max
Speaker 1: Pee's down his leg and you need to have somebody
Speaker 1: that you can go to at that two spot. But like,
Speaker 1: that's the type of move that I still think the
Speaker 1: Lakers should make at the deadline, Just something preferably to
Speaker 1: turn Ruie into a starting caliber two guard that doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily need to start. If you want to invest in
Speaker 1: Max and give them all the starting reps and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But if it's a close game
Speaker 1: late and Max isn't the guy, you need to have
Speaker 1: an option, a starting caliber two that you can go
Speaker 1: into that spot. If you bring in that talent, if
Speaker 1: you make another talent play, if you're Rob Polinka, you
Speaker 1: will further incentivize Lebron James Anthony Davis to stay bought
Speaker 1: in by virtue of them believing that there's an opportunity
Speaker 1: here to get this thing done. Excellent stretch from the
Speaker 1: Lakers to get back on track. Confusing ass basketball team.
Speaker 1: I can't believe this is the same group that did
Speaker 1: what they did in Miami. But it's not about ten games,
Speaker 1: it's about eighty two. Got a lot of work to
Speaker 1: go to get to where they want to go. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: It's all I have for today is always a sincerely
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.
Speaker 1: Remember to drop those mailback questions for the mailbag that
Speaker 1: we're recording later this afternoon, and then I'll show you
Speaker 1: guys when I get I'll see you guys for the mailbag,
Speaker 1: and then after that, when I get back from Flagstaff
Speaker 1: the volume. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you
Speaker 1: for listening to and supporting hoops tonight. It would actually
Speaker 1: be really helpful for us if you guys would take
Speaker 1: a second and leave a rating and a review. As always,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could
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