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Speaker 2: Slash baseball all right, we'll good to hoops tonight here
Speaker 2: at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. Hope all of you
Speaker 2: guys are having a great week so far. I'm in
Speaker 2: Las Vegas, or last night I was able to be
Speaker 2: in the arena to watch USA versus Canada. We're gonna
Speaker 2: break it all down today. I want to talk about
Speaker 2: what it was like in the arena. I want to
Speaker 2: talk about what the basketball game was like some notes
Speaker 2: that I have about this particular team as they head
Speaker 2: overseas to start their Olympic campaign. And then at the
Speaker 2: tail end of the show, I want to talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about Kawhi Leonard, him being sent home from
Speaker 2: the team to rest and recuperate and prepare for next
Speaker 2: season with the Clippers, and the decision to bring Derek White,
Speaker 2: Jalen Brown's teammate Jalen Brown, who got upset about it
Speaker 2: on Twitter yesterday to replace Kawhi Leonard on the team.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about some of my thoughts surrounding
Speaker 2: that decision. You guys owe the joe before we get started.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss
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Speaker 2: about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under
Speaker 2: Hoops Tonight. And then keep dropping mailbag questions in the
Speaker 2: YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the
Speaker 2: rest of the summer. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 2: So the environment at the game last night was insane.
Speaker 2: It was just like a It was a relentless kind
Speaker 2: of parade of famous people every single time out. It's like,
Speaker 2: here's all of these all time great college basketball coaches.
Speaker 2: Here's Jim Beaheim, and here's coach k oh. Here's Obama
Speaker 2: he walked on to the floor. Oh, here's all these
Speaker 2: famous women's basketball players who played for Team USA. Oh,
Speaker 2: here's all these famous for men's players who played for
Speaker 2: tam Osa. Here's Dwayne Wade, Here's Carmelo Anthony and then
Speaker 2: that led That was all surrounding this basketball game where
Speaker 2: we're watching not just Team USA that has Steph Curry,
Speaker 2: Lebron James, you know, Jason Tatum and Anthony Edwards and
Speaker 2: Anthony Davis and Joel Embiid and all this incredible star power,
Speaker 2: but against a feisty, energetic, really good defensive, especially on
Speaker 2: the perimeter, Canada team that has a player in Shai
Speaker 2: Yiosos Alexander that is regarded by most basketball people to
Speaker 2: be better than anybody that plays for Team USA. I
Speaker 2: think that's up for debate, but he's certainly in that
Speaker 2: echelon with the guys at the top of the league,
Speaker 2: right and Jamal Murray, who's a famous playoff riser NBA champion,
Speaker 2: and they've got RJ. Barrett, and they've got Dylan Brooks
Speaker 2: who's tripping everybody and play and dirty basketball event. About
Speaker 2: that a little bit later, but it just was. It
Speaker 2: just was an incredible environment inside that arena. It really
Speaker 2: felt like a special basketball event. I felt very fortunate
Speaker 2: to be there. I'm thankful for the Volume for sending
Speaker 2: me there. I was able to be there with some
Speaker 2: of some of my family. Two of my brothers and
Speaker 2: my mom were there. So it was just a really
Speaker 2: really cool experience. I was very thankful to be a
Speaker 2: part of it. And as a basketball fan, how could
Speaker 2: you not enjoy that? And like, even just talking about
Speaker 2: it from a tactical perspective, it's just super interesting to
Speaker 2: talk about, like, you know, scheme approach for the different
Speaker 2: defensive front lines that they can use, how they should
Speaker 2: play offensively, the fit of Steph Curry and Lebron James,
Speaker 2: and how you kind of accentuate them with other players
Speaker 2: on the perimeter. Just it just is super fascinating. I'm
Speaker 2: really excited that for the next month and a half
Speaker 2: we get to talk this level of basketball during the
Speaker 2: summer in the NBA. Like, if you're a basketball fan,
Speaker 2: it just doesn't get any better than this. It was
Speaker 2: super exciting and that on a What was super interesting
Speaker 2: is the game itself was insanely intense from the opening
Speaker 2: tip and like this was not. The USA team got
Speaker 2: off to a clunky start on the offensive end, but
Speaker 2: they were defending. Both teams came out with just an
Speaker 2: insane level of defensive intensity like this it was a friendly,
Speaker 2: and the coaches were kind of manipulating it as a
Speaker 2: friendly in the sense that like the USA team did
Speaker 2: line shifts, meaning like they had the entire starting five
Speaker 2: come in and then they bring this entire different unit
Speaker 2: in with Tyrese Halliburn, Anthony Edwards, Jason Tatum, bam Adebio,
Speaker 2: Anthony Davis. There were some crossover as MB gott in
Speaker 2: foul trouble and at the in the fourth quarter they
Speaker 2: tried kind of like a mixed group that had Anthony
Speaker 2: Edwards with Lebron in Steph. But like for the most part,
Speaker 2: like the coaches tried to coach it like it was
Speaker 2: a friendly, but the players wanted to win that game.
Speaker 2: I actually tweeted this out during the game, but I
Speaker 2: was surprised that Canada punted when they did. It was
Speaker 2: early fourth quarter and somebody hit a three. I can't
Speaker 2: remember who it was. I think it might have been
Speaker 2: kill Alexander Walker. But one of their guys hits at
Speaker 2: three and it cuts it to twelve with like eight
Speaker 2: minutes left, and you're like, this game is there to
Speaker 2: be had for Canada if they want it, And then
Speaker 2: Canada ends up hunting the game, which I was actually
Speaker 2: surprised by because, like you could tell if you were
Speaker 2: watching that game, all of the players wanted to win
Speaker 2: that game for both teams, even though it was an exhibition,
Speaker 2: which to me that makes for great basketball. Like, the
Speaker 2: game was kind of ugly at stretches, Like the final
Speaker 2: score was pretty low. The first quarter in particular, I
Speaker 2: think Canada led twenty one to fourteen at the end
Speaker 2: of it. It was not pretty basketball in the sense
Speaker 2: that it was free flowing and lots of really pretty
Speaker 2: skill work, but that kind of ugly basketball. Actually, like
Speaker 2: when it's ugly basketball, because people are playing bad basketball
Speaker 2: don't really have an interest in watching it, right, it's
Speaker 2: boring to watch. But when you watch an ugly game,
Speaker 2: that's ugly because of the intensity, it's ugly because it's
Speaker 2: a rock fight. It's ugly because everyone's playing super super hard.
Speaker 2: That to me is a beautiful kind of ugly basketball.
Speaker 2: That's what it was last night. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the slow start for the USA. So
Speaker 2: they get down twelve to four at the first time
Speaker 2: out when Steve Kerr makes that first line change. A
Speaker 2: big part of it is just kind of like figuring
Speaker 2: each other out, especially on the offensive end of the floor.
Speaker 2: The US played a very intense brand of basketball on
Speaker 2: the defensive end of the floor with Embiid on the floor,
Speaker 2: with the starters, they had to drop right Like Embiid
Speaker 2: can't switch out onto the perimeter and guard quicker players
Speaker 2: in space the way that Anthony Davis can. So when
Speaker 2: Bam or when Embiid is out there, you kind of
Speaker 2: have to chase over the top. And I want to
Speaker 2: I criticize. I didn't criticize, but I pointed out before
Speaker 2: this game, before this kind of USA adventure, that one
Speaker 2: of the weaknesses of this team is they don't have
Speaker 2: a ton of perimeter speed. Andrew Holiday is really the
Speaker 2: only guy on the roster that's like a professional screen navigator,
Speaker 2: a guy who, like you can count on to dependably
Speaker 2: get over screens. But I was actually impressed by that
Speaker 2: entire group. There was Steph Curry did a really good
Speaker 2: job chasing over screens. Devin Booker did a really good
Speaker 2: job chasing over screens. Do you guys remember the Lebron
Speaker 2: chase down block that led on the kil Alexander Walker
Speaker 2: that led to the kick ahead that led to the
Speaker 2: Devin Booker three on the left wing. That was Lebron
Speaker 2: chasing over the top of a screen, staying attached and
Speaker 2: blocking the Kile Alexander Walker over the at the rim
Speaker 2: in a drop coverage. So you know, even though I
Speaker 2: don't like him, beads fit with the starters, which we're
Speaker 2: going to talk more about in a minute. Defensively, I
Speaker 2: actually did think that the USA showed that they are
Speaker 2: capable of multiple defensive looks, which I think is good
Speaker 2: because then when they came in with the bench group,
Speaker 2: it was Bam eighty Tatum and they did a ton
Speaker 2: of switching and Tyres Halliburton held up He like tied
Speaker 2: up RJ. Barrett on a drive. He got a couple
Speaker 2: of stops fronting the post. He didn't get burned on
Speaker 2: an inside seal by Kelly Olynnick once, but even Tyre's
Speaker 2: Halliburton held up reasonably well in switches, and so they're
Speaker 2: gonna have a switching look, but they're over the top
Speaker 2: chase with embad and drop look I thought was pretty
Speaker 2: solid as well. Defensively, the starters were fine defensively in
Speaker 2: general for the entire game, I was super impressed by
Speaker 2: Team USA, and there was actually a postgame interview with
Speaker 2: Stephen Lebron where they both talked about how like, hey,
Speaker 2: we can work through these offensive kinks, but as long
Speaker 2: as we defend like that, we give ourselves a really
Speaker 2: good chance to win every night. And they're absolutely right.
Speaker 2: If they defend like that, they're just gonna win. There's
Speaker 2: not a team out there that has the depth of
Speaker 2: defensive personnel that they have. That Tatum ad Bam frontline
Speaker 2: was just frightening to watch. There is this sequence where
Speaker 2: like Ad kept ending up on Shay Gil just Alexander
Speaker 2: and these ball screens because they bring Kelly Olynnock into
Speaker 2: the action, and Ad literally stopped Shay on an island
Speaker 2: four consecutive times to start his shift, that which got
Speaker 2: them ount in transition, and then Tatum was bringing that
Speaker 2: rim pressure and transition, and that group regained control of
Speaker 2: the game, and then the starters came in and played
Speaker 2: much better. So like, defensively, I'm thrilled with how Timosa looks.
Speaker 2: Think they look like a gold medal team easy, just
Speaker 2: based on the strength of that unit. Now, as far
Speaker 2: as the offensive end goes with the starters, it's a
Speaker 2: little clunky. And you got to remember too, like it's
Speaker 2: clunky in multiple levels. There's the Embiid fit, which I
Speaker 2: want to get to in a little bit. But another
Speaker 2: part of it is like you're you got all these
Speaker 2: stars out there, right, Like it's Steph, it's Devin Booker,
Speaker 2: it's Lebron James, it's Joel Embiid. Drew Holliday is the
Speaker 2: one guy who's kind of like a ball mover, so
Speaker 2: to speak, in that group, right, And so Steph is
Speaker 2: used to having a certain level of aggression, Lebron is
Speaker 2: used to a certain level of aggression, Devin Booker is
Speaker 2: used to a certain level of aggression, and so is
Speaker 2: Joel Embiid. But when you're playing in a five man group,
Speaker 2: it's a totally different type of flow, right, Like a
Speaker 2: Superstars job on an NBA team is he's typically surrounded
Speaker 2: by a subsidiary star and then three role players, right,
Speaker 2: and so his job is to create and then for
Speaker 2: everyone else to kind of benefit off of that and
Speaker 2: to play a smaller role. With a unit like this,
Speaker 2: you can't have four guys jockeying for control of every
Speaker 2: single possession. There has to be a flow, there has
Speaker 2: to be a rhythm, there has to be ball movement
Speaker 2: from side to side, And early on I thought they
Speaker 2: looked a little hesitant. I thought the one kind of
Speaker 2: the one kind of personnel weakness in that group is
Speaker 2: they don't get a ton of dribble penetration. And I
Speaker 2: think there are ways to address that. For instance, like
Speaker 2: Steph can manufacture dribble penetration by virtue of his shooting
Speaker 2: ability to kind of like draw the defense out and
Speaker 2: create openings on the role or to just beat his
Speaker 2: man off the dribble weaponizing his shooting. I think Lebron
Speaker 2: can bring dribble penetration. So I think with the starters,
Speaker 2: Lebron and Steph almost have to kind of take the
Speaker 2: more aggressive role and have Devin Booker and Drew Holliday
Speaker 2: play off of that, and then the mb pieces when
Speaker 2: you're running five out and again, like five out is
Speaker 2: a concept that we've talked a ton about on the
Speaker 2: show in the last you know, six months. But the
Speaker 2: gist of the concept of five out is you're never
Speaker 2: permanently occupying a spot underneath the basket, right in the
Speaker 2: dunker spot or anything kind of around the basket. You
Speaker 2: roll into that space, you cut into that space, you
Speaker 2: drive into that space. But primarily, your big guys operate
Speaker 2: as dribble handoff fulcrums from the perimeter. They are the
Speaker 2: guys that are flowing into actions, handing the ball off
Speaker 2: to a guy coming out of the corner, or you know,
Speaker 2: they're like you see a lot of Chicago action where
Speaker 2: a guy will pin down to the corner. As the
Speaker 2: guy comes off of that pin down and then flows
Speaker 2: into the dribble handoff, he's got to flow from side
Speaker 2: to side. He's got to make passing reads out of it.
Speaker 2: The five man in five out is one of the
Speaker 2: most important roles because he is the fulcrum. He is
Speaker 2: the thing that makes everything work in terms of moving
Speaker 2: the ball from side to side. That is not Joel
Speaker 2: Embiid's strength. Joel Embiid is one of the five best
Speaker 2: basketball players in the world. Joel Embiid is a force
Speaker 2: of nature that is impossible to deal with on the
Speaker 2: low block. But when he's playing for the Sixers, you
Speaker 2: can afford to toss the ball to him on the
Speaker 2: block and let him just go to work for extensive stretches.
Speaker 2: You can afford to run spread, pick and roll and
Speaker 2: have him catch on the short, roll around the elbow
Speaker 2: and catch and jab step and catch and jab step
Speaker 2: and pump fake and do all that stuff that he
Speaker 2: does right. He can be a ball stopper with Philly
Speaker 2: because Philly needs him to determine the fate of the
Speaker 2: majority of their possessions. Team USA does not need that.
Speaker 2: Team USA needs somebody that can help that offense flow
Speaker 2: from side to side. And so even though Ad put
Speaker 2: the larger portion of his fingerprints on that game just
Speaker 2: using his defensive capability, I think he's just a more
Speaker 2: natural fit with the starters because he's a guy who
Speaker 2: spent all last season playing five out, who is one
Speaker 2: of the best five out offensive folk rooms in the league.
Speaker 2: Because he's got that side to side movement, because he
Speaker 2: rolls into the lane and has real role gravity, because
Speaker 2: he can offensive rebound it when things get caught in
Speaker 2: the blender and guys get crossmatched, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: he's got a shorter defender on him underneath the basket.
Speaker 2: AD is just a natural fit there, and so like
Speaker 2: it's not an insult to Joel Embiid. His skill set
Speaker 2: is just very much a primary initiator skill set, whereas
Speaker 2: AD offensively is more of a five out cog that
Speaker 2: can be easily plugged in alongside other superstar players. And
Speaker 2: so I think in the long run, and we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about the other positional players too, because I'm
Speaker 2: not entirely sure I like the Devin Booker fit with
Speaker 2: the starters either, but I do like the idea of
Speaker 2: swapping AD for MBID. And then the other part of
Speaker 2: that is when you go to your bench unit and
Speaker 2: bam out a BIOS out there, right, and look, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe it ends up being a Devin Booker out there.
Speaker 2: We'll see how the lineups end up getting constructed. But
Speaker 2: when you do get to your bench unit, that's a
Speaker 2: unit where you actually need EMBD to be more aggressive, right,
Speaker 2: And so within the context of that, it actually just
Speaker 2: makes a lot more sense for both guys you want
Speaker 2: ad to go out there and set screens and roll
Speaker 2: to the rim. Put him with all your high level
Speaker 2: offensive players and be an offensive cog. You want Embid
Speaker 2: to be aggressive as a low post and face of guy.
Speaker 2: Put him with the bench group where there's less offensive
Speaker 2: skill and you actually need him to be aggressive. That's
Speaker 2: just a better way to utilize his skill set within
Speaker 2: this team. When the starters came in the second time,
Speaker 2: they played way better, a lot more pace and transition.
Speaker 2: They got a lot of really fun playmaking in the
Speaker 2: open floor. There's just so much basketball skill in terms
Speaker 2: of basketball i Q. The ability to read the floor,
Speaker 2: the ability to make every conceivable pass, the knowledge of
Speaker 2: how to run your lanes and transition and fill open spaces,
Speaker 2: the ability to finish above the rim and transition. There's
Speaker 2: just so much of that talent that when you get
Speaker 2: them in the open floor, they can be really exciting
Speaker 2: to watch. And one of the things that the starters
Speaker 2: did much better the rest of the game was just
Speaker 2: play defense, get out with pace, off the strength of
Speaker 2: their defense, and make plays in the open floor. It
Speaker 2: was it was really fun to watch them in those sequences.
Speaker 2: Steph Curry, I got to see him throw throw out
Speaker 2: a little flurry in that third quarter. I've you know,
Speaker 2: I've had the fortune, the good fortune to see a
Speaker 2: lot of NBA players in person, but Steph is a
Speaker 2: I had never seen in person yet, and that was
Speaker 2: really fun to watch it Just it started with like
Speaker 2: this really cool sequence with Lebron where Steph drove. It
Speaker 2: kind of started clunky because Steph drove into Lebron in
Speaker 2: the corner, who caught, and then Steph kind of like
Speaker 2: replaced in the same corner, so it looked clunky for
Speaker 2: a second. But embiid ended up having the ball on
Speaker 2: a kickback pass right around the right elbow, and then
Speaker 2: Dwight Powell basically signaled to Dylan Brooks to switch on
Speaker 2: to Steph so that he can guard Lebron in the
Speaker 2: corner and kind of help in case Embi looked to
Speaker 2: be aggressive, and Lebron like identified it and you could
Speaker 2: see him and Steph kind of quickly figure it out.
Speaker 2: Lebron just screened his own man. He screened Dylan Brooks
Speaker 2: because he knew that Canada was going to switch that action.
Speaker 2: So then when Steph cut out, Dylan Brooks went to
Speaker 2: switch out onto Steph but ran into his original man, Lebron,
Speaker 2: who was setting a screen on him. Steph ends up
Speaker 2: breaking wide open on the right wing for the catch
Speaker 2: and shoot three. Right. Then Steph comes down has that
Speaker 2: really like fake spin moved dribble where he gets the
Speaker 2: and one and then he does the pose on the
Speaker 2: floor right and then he ends up getting the three
Speaker 2: off of the offensive rebound from Drew Holliday on the
Speaker 2: left wing. It was like bang, bang bang, eight quick points.
Speaker 2: That was really really exciting to see in person. It
Speaker 2: kind of fell apart from there because USA did not
Speaker 2: do a good job of force feeding the hot hand.
Speaker 2: There was a possession where and again this is part
Speaker 2: of the thing with mb like he like straight up
Speaker 2: dribbled the ball of the floor into a post up
Speaker 2: and then turned the basketball over and you're like, dude,
Speaker 2: Steph Curry's got eight straight points. Like get the ball
Speaker 2: to Steph Curry. Like, just get the ball to Steph Curry,
Speaker 2: set a screen, get out of the way, Like that's
Speaker 2: what you do in that situation. You read when you're
Speaker 2: playing five out, it's all flow going side to side.
Speaker 2: But when you see a guy as a hot hand,
Speaker 2: you got to find a way to keep getting it
Speaker 2: to him, right, But that was cool. We had the
Speaker 2: Lebron lobbed as Steph, which obviously is a connection we've
Speaker 2: been dying to see for a long time. It was
Speaker 2: just a really, really fun basketball game. It went almost
Speaker 2: exactly as I expected. I tweeted before the game. I
Speaker 2: expected Canada to get taken early lead and then for
Speaker 2: USA to come back and win a hard fought game.
Speaker 2: It ended up being like a more dramatic version of
Speaker 2: both ends of that, Like Canada took a pretty substantial
Speaker 2: lead twelve four, right, and then the US actually kind
Speaker 2: of dominated the tail end of the game and they
Speaker 2: ended up going up by fifteen. Right. But it kind
Speaker 2: of flowed more or less as I expected. Canada is
Speaker 2: the second leading favorite on DraftKings to win the Olympic
Speaker 2: gold medal. I thought it was fascinating because before the game, USA,
Speaker 2: according to draft Kings, was minus three ninety and Canada
Speaker 2: was plus nine hundred. After the game, USA went way
Speaker 2: down to minus five hundred and Canada bumped up to
Speaker 2: plus eleven hundred. So even Vegas saw that as a
Speaker 2: pretty strong indicator that the US matches, at least, at
Speaker 2: the very least matches up really well with Canada and
Speaker 2: deserves to be a substantial favorite to win. And then
Speaker 2: you got to imagine you're gonna plug You're gonna plug
Speaker 2: Kevin Durant into this as well, which is just going
Speaker 2: to provide another layer of shooting and defense. This team
Speaker 2: is going to be really, really fun to watch. We're
Speaker 2: gonna be covering them throughout the throughout the rest of
Speaker 2: this process.
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Speaker 2: Thoughts on the team at large, I would start a
Speaker 2: d as far as the rest of the starting lineup.
Speaker 2: I was thinking long and hard about it because Anthony
Speaker 2: Edwards came in and was just frightening in that second group.
Speaker 2: The second group took off because in the half court
Speaker 2: brought dribble penetration, like straight up beat his man off
Speaker 2: the dribble and had a reverse layup, was coming off
Speaker 2: of the dribble handoffs with a lot more pace, and
Speaker 2: he was engaging o'lennick as the drop coverage big which
Speaker 2: was creating openings for Bam at a bio on the roll.
Speaker 2: He just had that verve right. He also was like
Speaker 2: far and away the most confident player for Team USA,
Speaker 2: which I thought was super interesting. Hit a bunch of
Speaker 2: really tough jump shots, and again like to have the
Speaker 2: confidence to rise and fire difficult pull up jump shots
Speaker 2: when you're surrounded by other really really good players and
Speaker 2: then to knock them down on top of that. Not
Speaker 2: to mention this is just like the next example of
Speaker 2: the fact that for whatever concern you might have about
Speaker 2: Anthony Edwards, as a jump shooter. Every time there is
Speaker 2: a high leverage, intense, high stakes environment, the dude just
Speaker 2: has proven to be able to knock these shots down,
Speaker 2: which is really really exciting for his long term potential.
Speaker 2: I thought he looked like the best and most comfortable
Speaker 2: US player last night, and so there was part of
Speaker 2: me that was wondering should Ant start. And the initial
Speaker 2: thought I had was he brings drible penetration, and so
Speaker 2: I like the idea of him kind of bringing some
Speaker 2: of that to that starting unit that doesn't have a
Speaker 2: ton of that. But then I thought, I like Ant
Speaker 2: being this aggressive. Right Like, Ant was the most confident
Speaker 2: and most aggressive player for Team USA, and that is
Speaker 2: a real, real value add especially in a situation where
Speaker 2: guys can be hesitant and not really feel like kind
Speaker 2: of grabbing control of things. And so I actually kind
Speaker 2: of prefer Ant still coming off the bench because I
Speaker 2: want him to come in and be super aggressive. But
Speaker 2: if he starts games like that, it might take away
Speaker 2: from the flow of a unit that has Lebron and
Speaker 2: Steph on the floor as well, and so I like,
Speaker 2: I think you keep Drew with the star, but I
Speaker 2: think a way to kind of add a little bit
Speaker 2: more downhill verve to that starting unit is to swap
Speaker 2: out Booker and Tatum. So we already talked about how
Speaker 2: I like ad with the starters. If you go Tatum
Speaker 2: lebron ad, you can go with a switching look. Drew
Speaker 2: Holiday can switch up, Steph can switch up, So that
Speaker 2: group can switch really really well. It alleviates some of
Speaker 2: the workload for your guards because they don't have to
Speaker 2: chase his herd over screens. And then on the offensive
Speaker 2: end of the four. When Tatum came into the game
Speaker 2: with that second unit, he was primarily doing it in
Speaker 2: transition to start, but then he did it some more
Speaker 2: later in the game in the half court. But Tatum
Speaker 2: was bringing some dribble penetration. He had this really nice
Speaker 2: like spin move off the dribble where he got into
Speaker 2: the lane for a layup. He had some downhill moves
Speaker 2: like in the fast break to get all the way
Speaker 2: to the rim. He brings some downhill verve, and he's
Speaker 2: a really good connective piece playmaker. And so I think
Speaker 2: going Steph, Drew Holliday, Tatum Lebrond gives you the best
Speaker 2: kind of like combination of basketball traits to make a
Speaker 2: five man lineup work for this team until Kevin Durant
Speaker 2: comes back. You could argue Kevin Durant deserves that three
Speaker 2: spot when he comes back, but you can figure that
Speaker 2: out in the long run. Who knows how long it's
Speaker 2: gonna take him to get better with this calf anyway. Right,
Speaker 2: then with the bench, you bring an Aunt and Joel Embiid.
Speaker 2: What I like about that fit is one when Ant's
Speaker 2: being aggressive, Embiid is a guy who can knock down
Speaker 2: three point shots, which generates some more space. He also
Speaker 2: can pick and pop, which will allow Ant to get
Speaker 2: downhill or for Embiid to break wide open above the
Speaker 2: break if his man catches him in a drop coverage. Right,
Speaker 2: and both Ant and Embiid can be ball stoppers and
Speaker 2: can be more aggressive with the ball because that unit
Speaker 2: actually needs them to do so, especially with bam Adebayo
Speaker 2: on the floor with a Tyrese Halliburton who's not really
Speaker 2: a super aggressive scorer with the basketball. Right, So that's
Speaker 2: where I think that makes sense. And then Devin Booker
Speaker 2: can provide you that Devin Booker can provide you that
Speaker 2: like off ball, shooting, close out attacking, all of those
Speaker 2: things that will help kind of create space for that unit.
Speaker 2: So again they're not going to actually do line shifts.
Speaker 2: They'll combine units and you'll get to see different versions
Speaker 2: of this, like Embid will get more time with the starters.
Speaker 2: There are versions of this that can work out with
Speaker 2: different lineup construction, but I think with the starters, Steph
Speaker 2: Drew Tatum, Lebron ad is your best bet in the
Speaker 2: short term, at least until Kevin Durank gets healthy. On
Speaker 2: the Canadian side, they didn't shoot well according to Synergy.
Speaker 2: They barely got over zero points six points per jumper
Speaker 2: on film. Jamal Murray missed a lot of clean looks,
Speaker 2: especially in the first half. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: it's kind of a bad matchup for USA with them,
Speaker 2: for Canada with USA, because they just have all the
Speaker 2: length in the world to contest those pull up jump
Speaker 2: shots and to make them really tough. Drew Holiday blocked
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray on a pull up jump shot. Lebron had
Speaker 2: a really good contest on Jamal Murray's first pull up
Speaker 2: jump shot, another example of him chasing over the screen
Speaker 2: and getting back into the play really really well. Shay
Speaker 2: could not get to his pull up jump shot over
Speaker 2: the top of Anthony Davis in any sort of meaningful
Speaker 2: way like it like they just have the length to
Speaker 2: bother their pull up shooting. It's a really tough matchup.
Speaker 2: And then Canada's frontline is small. Dwight Powell and Kelly Olynok,
Speaker 2: they're good NBA players, but it's just a lot to
Speaker 2: deal with with the massive guys that the USA team
Speaker 2: has on their front line. But they can really defend.
Speaker 2: They're really good on the perimeter. They have a clear
Speaker 2: offensive hierarchy. I do wonder if they if they actually
Speaker 2: wanted to bring Zach Edy and Zach Edy decided and
Speaker 2: him and his agent decided not to play, or if
Speaker 2: it was Canada's actual decision, but that Edie would have
Speaker 2: given them a very different look on that front line.
Speaker 2: So I'm genuinely curious as to why he's not on
Speaker 2: the roster. Before we get out of here, I want
Speaker 2: to talk a little bit about Jayleen Brown thing. So
Speaker 2: Kawhi Leonard's out has been an issue. This is kind
Speaker 2: of interesting because this has been something that's been a
Speaker 2: topic around the league for the WI for a while.
Speaker 2: I remember I was talking with Tony Jones from the
Speaker 2: Athletic like three years ago, and he was like telling me.
Speaker 2: He was like, yeah, I've been hearing behind the scenes
Speaker 2: that Kawi's nies are just shot, Like they're just shot,
Speaker 2: and like there it's a degenerative thing and he's just
Speaker 2: never going to be the same. And I never really
Speaker 2: at first, I was like, well, I mean, like he
Speaker 2: two years ago, he just won finals MVP, Like let's
Speaker 2: see what happens that. You know, you know how it
Speaker 2: is with information too, like there's always like multiple reports
Speaker 2: providing multiple different perspectives, right, and like Tony appears to
Speaker 2: have been right, like the like he got hurt again
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two or twenty twenty one, he got hurt,
Speaker 2: he was out all year. In twenty twenty two, he
Speaker 2: got hurt again, in twenty twenty three, he got hurt again,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, shows up to Team USA camp and
Speaker 2: then he can't finish it. Like it's clear that that's
Speaker 2: the case. And honestly, like I just feel bad. I
Speaker 2: feel bad for Kawhi because this is a guy who
Speaker 2: was really really fun to watch, a guy who me
Speaker 2: personally I tried to replicate a lot of things in
Speaker 2: his game because I was a bigger forward and I
Speaker 2: like to kind of like copy some of his footwork
Speaker 2: around the post area. This is a guy that I've
Speaker 2: been a fan of for a long time, and to
Speaker 2: see him not get to play basketball in meaningful moments
Speaker 2: because his body is quit on him is genuinely super sad.
Speaker 2: I don't know how the Clippers deal with it. I mean,
Speaker 2: if he breaks down again next year, like I talked about,
Speaker 2: I think it ends up being a situation where they
Speaker 2: start flipping players. You trade a Derek Jones junior, or
Speaker 2: you trade James Harden and you get draft compensation back
Speaker 2: and you try to rebuild. But it's just sad because
Speaker 2: I genuinely don't know if we'll ever see Kawhi play
Speaker 2: meaningful basketball again. And that's just a huge bummer. But
Speaker 2: then the debate comes becomes who's gonna fill in for him? Right,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be Kyrie Irving? Is it going to be
Speaker 2: Jaylen Brown? And the guy that end up picking was
Speaker 2: Derek White. And I think this is super fascinating because
Speaker 2: Jalen Brown clearly took it as an insult right, talked
Speaker 2: about it on Twitter, called out Nike as part of
Speaker 2: the process. And here's the thing, There's no question that
Speaker 2: Jaylen Brown is a better basketball player than Derek White. Right,
Speaker 2: But like we talked about earlier, basketball lineups in a
Speaker 2: five man context are about feeling responsibilities. Jalen Brown for
Speaker 2: the Celtics is the second best player on the team.
Speaker 2: They need him to do so much high level stuff,
Speaker 2: and he's very capable of doing so much high level stuff,
Speaker 2: and so because of that, he is a shoe in
Speaker 2: fit in his role in Boston. Right now, think about
Speaker 2: Team USA. You're not gonna start second unit. Has you
Speaker 2: know Tyrese Halliburton. Maybe it's gonna end up being Devin
Speaker 2: Booker in the long run, maybe it ends up being
Speaker 2: Tatum or Kevin Durant, depending on if KD can come
Speaker 2: back with that bench group, then it's gonna be Bam,
Speaker 2: maybe Joel Embiid. Right with that group, you need a
Speaker 2: role player. You need someone who can knock down open threes,
Speaker 2: run inverted ball screens with better players, who can defend
Speaker 2: on the perimeter, who can do all these different things.
Speaker 2: And Derek White is a professional role player. He's one
Speaker 2: of the very best role players in the league. He
Speaker 2: brings us specific need I talked about earlier on the roster.
Speaker 2: You have one guy who's a professional screen navigator and
Speaker 2: Drew Holliday. This gives you a second guy like that,
Speaker 2: Jlen Brown is more of a ball pressure guy in
Speaker 2: a switching scheme, right, So, like it's one of those
Speaker 2: things where if I'm Jaylen Brown, I understand his perspective
Speaker 2: because it's an honor to be on Team USA. Like
Speaker 2: I'll just flat out say it, Like if I was
Speaker 2: playing in the NBA and I was a high level player,
Speaker 2: it'd be a dream of mine to play for Team USA.
Speaker 2: I totally understand he feels slighted and by virtue of
Speaker 2: his accomplishments as an NBA player, he's done enough to
Speaker 2: deserve consideration for that spot. But if you're Steve Kerr,
Speaker 2: if you're Eric Spolstra, if you're the Team USA management group,
Speaker 2: you are not fearful but respectful of the talent overseas.
Speaker 2: You're respectful of Serbia, You're respectful of Canada, You're respectful
Speaker 2: of France. You know these teams have a real shot
Speaker 2: to beat you, especially in a single elimination environment. You're
Speaker 2: gonna do whatever you can to give your team the
Speaker 2: best chance to win. And Derek White as a plug
Speaker 2: and play role player is legitimately a better fit with
Speaker 2: Team USA than Jalen Brown. Jalen Brown is a better
Speaker 2: basketball player. It's unfortunate that this is the way it works,
Speaker 2: but this is a lesson that the USA team learned
Speaker 2: a long time ago from when they brought on Michael
Speaker 2: Red and Tayshaun Prince in two thousand and eight. Right,
Speaker 2: you need role players. You can't just have a bunch
Speaker 2: of stars. Get a bunch of stars, then there's diminishing
Speaker 2: returns and you could end up getting yourself beat. By
Speaker 2: virtue of plugging in some role players, you give yourself
Speaker 2: a more natural feel for a basketball team. Feel bad
Speaker 2: for Jalen Brown genuinely deserves that recognition, but totally understand
Speaker 2: why USA went in a different direction. All right, guys,
Speaker 2: that is all I have for today. As always, a
Speaker 2: sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. Tonight, I'm
Speaker 2: hanging out with my family. I'm going to see Dead
Speaker 2: and Company at the Sphere. Super Super were excited for that.
Speaker 2: That's gonna be a ton of fun. Tomorrow, Gonna be
Speaker 2: at Summer League, Gonna be there for the Brownny game.
Speaker 2: Come say hi? If you want to. If you're in
Speaker 2: the arena, I at about seven point thirty in the
Speaker 2: concourse there, I'm interviewing himehawk Has Junior. It's gonna be
Speaker 2: my first interview of an NBA player, Very very excited
Speaker 2: as part of our partnership with Chase looking forward to that.
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk to him about his time with
Speaker 2: the USA Selects team. I'm gonna talk to him about
Speaker 2: his growth as a post player, his bizarre, weirdo obsession
Speaker 2: with trying to post up and score on bigger players
Speaker 2: than him, which by the way, he does very effectively.
Speaker 2: So I'm really excited to talk to iive he's a
Speaker 2: player that you know, it's interesting. I've been I've been
Speaker 2: offered opportunities to interview some lower level NBA role players
Speaker 2: last year in particular, and there wasn't really a person
Speaker 2: that I thought that that I thought would be really
Speaker 2: interesting for this show until Hime was presented as an
Speaker 2: option this year, and I immediately immediately was like, Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's do it, Like get Hi May, Let's do this. This
Speaker 2: is gonna be so much fun and so really really
Speaker 2: excited for that. So we'll have the I Mayhawks Interview
Speaker 2: I think it'll either come out that night or on
Speaker 2: Saturday morning. But I'm also gonna have a show on
Speaker 2: Saturday morning breaking down the debut of Dalton connect and
Speaker 2: Brownie James at Summer League. I think they're playing the Hawks,
Speaker 2: so that's Zachary Risache's a debut for them, as well
Speaker 2: as the number one overall pick. So we're gonna get
Speaker 2: into all that stuff on Saturday and then obviously when
Speaker 2: I'm traveling on Sunday, but when I get back on Monday,
Speaker 2: we'll be reacting to the rest of the games on Saturday. Again,
Speaker 2: I appreciate you guys, thanks for supporting the show. I
Speaker 2: will see you in a couple of days.
Speaker 1: The volume