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Speaker 1: co slash b ball. All right, welcome to hoop tonight
Speaker 1: here at the volume Heapy Thursday. Everybody, hope, all you
Speaker 1: guys are having a great week. Got a quick show
Speaker 1: for you guys today. I've got a rant about the
Speaker 1: Lakers off the top. I won't say anymore right now,
Speaker 1: we'll just get right into it. And then at the
Speaker 1: tail end of the show. The Atlanta Hawks won the
Speaker 1: fifth consecutive game on the road in Milwaukee, very impressively.
Speaker 1: Jalen Johnson is playing super well, very interesting team construct
Speaker 1: that's coming together for the Atlanta Hawk, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: do a deep dive on them in the tail end
Speaker 1: of the show. You guys did the trip before we
Speaker 1: get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so
Speaker 1: you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at underscore jsonlts. You guys, don't miss you announcements.
Speaker 1: Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your
Speaker 1: podcasts under Hoops Tonight. Don't forget We also have new
Speaker 1: social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook where we're
Speaker 1: releasing content throughout the year. Make sure you guys follow there.
Speaker 1: And the last, but not at least kee dropping mail
Speaker 1: bag questions. I'm recording a mail bag in tomorrow's episode,
Speaker 1: and this video today will be your last chance to
Speaker 1: drop comments questions in the comments so that we can
Speaker 1: hit them in that mail bag. All right, let's talk
Speaker 1: some basketball. So at the risk of sounding like an
Speaker 1: absolute fool, because just two days ago I said I
Speaker 1: wasn't ready to admit I was wrong about the Lakers.
Speaker 1: Last night was such an abomination that I don't even
Speaker 1: care about being wrong or looking like a fool. Anybody
Speaker 1: who wants to roast me in the comments go nuts.
Speaker 1: I'm done with the Los Angeles Lakers. This team simply
Speaker 1: does not have the basketball character necessary to compete for
Speaker 1: an NBA championship. There's an illness within this team that
Speaker 1: goes too deep to be fixed, even by a trade
Speaker 1: or a team meeting or any sort of potential remedy.
Speaker 1: I think this team is broken. We're not gonna talk
Speaker 1: about x's and o's. I just shelf that for a bit,
Speaker 1: and let's focus on this concept of basketball character. I
Speaker 1: generally have a lot of grace for teams that go
Speaker 1: through bad stretches in the regular season. The eighty two
Speaker 1: game season is super long, and you can grab just
Speaker 1: about any team in the league and you can find
Speaker 1: a game or two or they look so bad that
Speaker 1: if you just watched that game, you can't even imagine
Speaker 1: that team being good. You can do that with just
Speaker 1: about everybody. I pay more attention to big picker big
Speaker 1: picture trends, right, So, like, are your bad stretches few
Speaker 1: and far between? Do you identify them, do you rectify them?
Speaker 1: Do you snap out of it? That's why I look
Speaker 1: at like like defensive rating in the big picture as
Speaker 1: like more of an indicator of just how dedicated you
Speaker 1: are in a night and night in night out basis
Speaker 1: at playing hard? Right, are you generally reliable? When we
Speaker 1: zoom out from the season, I'm going to be more
Speaker 1: forgiving of a bad stretch. But this is the fourth
Speaker 1: consecutive season under three different coaches that I've seen a
Speaker 1: Laker team completely lose the will to fight. Not for
Speaker 1: a quarter, not for a game, not even for a
Speaker 1: couple of games, but for weeks out of time. This
Speaker 1: Laker team, for four years in a row, has completely
Speaker 1: lost their entire competitive spirit. Con Coward used to say
Speaker 1: this thing on his show where he'd be like, if
Speaker 1: you get divorced once, that's normal. If you get divorced twice,
Speaker 1: you know, you might raise an eyebrow, But if you
Speaker 1: get divorced three times, maybe there's something wrong with you. Right.
Speaker 1: And I had that issue as I was evaluating this
Speaker 1: team through the coaching changes. This team also had stretches
Speaker 1: weeks long where they wouldn't compete under Frank Vogel, So
Speaker 1: I thought they just need a new voice. Frank Vogel
Speaker 1: is a good coach, especially a good defensive coach. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he might have some offensive limitations. Whatever, he's a good coach.
Speaker 1: These guys just are tuning him out. Let's try something different.
Speaker 1: But then they did it to Darvin Ham, and I thought,
Speaker 1: it's just because Darvin Ham's a bad coach. He's making
Speaker 1: funky rotation decisions, doesn't seem to be very schematically involved
Speaker 1: with the teams. Kind of just like, come on, guys,
Speaker 1: let's go do just that sort of thing, right. They
Speaker 1: had that three to ten stretch in December where they
Speaker 1: looked completely lifeless. But if you guys remember those guys
Speaker 1: who listened to the show during that time, I was
Speaker 1: talking about how I thought they just were trying to
Speaker 1: get Darvin fired in the middle of the season. Like
Speaker 1: I thought they were like openly protesting in the middle
Speaker 1: of the season. But now they're doing it to JJ Reddick.
Speaker 1: Last night was legitimately the worst effort I've ever seen
Speaker 1: a team give in a serious basketball game at any level.
Speaker 1: It was flat out in Garrison, and it started right away.
Speaker 1: It started in the It started after like the first
Speaker 1: couple minutes of the game. This wasn't like the third
Speaker 1: quarter collapse against the Suns or the third quarter collapse
Speaker 1: against the Nuggets that in the first quarter they had
Speaker 1: an extended multi minute stretch with the starters where they
Speaker 1: weren't competing. And it's been going on like this for
Speaker 1: eight games. Ever since the misfree throws against Orlando, they've
Speaker 1: been in this exact same funk, Like, how do you
Speaker 1: get embarrassed the way you got embarrassed in Minnesota in
Speaker 1: the big picture of having lost all the games you've
Speaker 1: lost in the last couple of weeks, and your response
Speaker 1: as a competitor is to come out the way you
Speaker 1: did last night. I do not understand it. And so like,
Speaker 1: at a certain point, if you did it to Frank,
Speaker 1: and you did it to Darvin, and you're doing it
Speaker 1: to JJ, then that's just who you are. And that's
Speaker 1: the concerning part for me, because what about the Lakers
Speaker 1: organization has been consistent? If in the through lines through
Speaker 1: these four years, Lebron and Ad and Rob Polenka, that's
Speaker 1: pretty much it. Osira's played a little bit in the
Speaker 1: last year Frank Vogel, but like Rob Polinka and Lebron,
Speaker 1: James and Anthony Davis, they are the through lines of
Speaker 1: this issue. That is perpetuated through the last four seasons.
Speaker 1: The two stars just haven't been willing to fight on
Speaker 1: a daily basis in a way that is necessary to
Speaker 1: compete for an NBA championship. And Rob Polinka has been
Speaker 1: blind to that weakness and has made no attempt to
Speaker 1: resolve it over that span. Lebron hasn't attacked a regular
Speaker 1: season from start to finish since the twenty twenty one season. Now,
Speaker 1: I understand it to a certain extent with his age,
Speaker 1: Like I've I watched Lebron attack every game of the
Speaker 1: regular season for well over a decade. That's who he
Speaker 1: was as a basketball player. But in this phase of
Speaker 1: his career, he's not capable or willing to do it. Now,
Speaker 1: you got you can understand it with his age, But
Speaker 1: the material reality is that thirty to forty games a year,
Speaker 1: Lebron's gonna kind of stand around on defense and kind
Speaker 1: of standing around on the defensive glass, just kind of
Speaker 1: tried to pass his way through the game, take jump shots,
Speaker 1: and try to do the bare minimum to win that game.
Speaker 1: That's been the reality now for about three four years.
Speaker 1: And then Anthony Davis, as talented as he is, doesn't
Speaker 1: have natural motor sometimes he looks like the best player
Speaker 1: in the world. Sometimes for long stretches. He was awesome
Speaker 1: for the second half of last year and the playoffs.
Speaker 1: He was awesome to start this year. But then sometimes
Speaker 1: he just doesn't look interested in fighting. He got his
Speaker 1: ass kicked by Bam last night, didn't fight, got his
Speaker 1: ass kicked by Gobaar the previous game, didn't fight. Earlier
Speaker 1: this year, second half against Durkic got his ass kick,
Speaker 1: didn't care. Jared Allen and Cleveland got his ass kick,
Speaker 1: didn't care. Nikole Jokic kicked his ass, didn't care. Jared
Speaker 1: Jackson kicked his ass, didn't care. And it's not just
Speaker 1: the regular season, by the way, I remember being super
Speaker 1: frustrated in the twenty twenty three season in the Western
Speaker 1: Conference finals that Ad didn't seem really to have that
Speaker 1: fight against Jokic as he was kicking his ass. And
Speaker 1: I know it's in there because I literally watched him
Speaker 1: the very next season play to a stalemate with Nikola
Speaker 1: Jokich in a first round series. The motor isn't consistent
Speaker 1: for Anthony Davis. It's funny because I even when I
Speaker 1: think back to the good old days and like you
Speaker 1: Laker fans that have been following me on Twitter since
Speaker 1: before I started with the volume might remember some of
Speaker 1: this stuff. But in the championship season when they won
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, there was a game about once a
Speaker 1: week where Ad would come out in the first half
Speaker 1: and he'd just kind of be flat, and when he
Speaker 1: was flat, the rest of the team would be engaged.
Speaker 1: Lebron I thought should have won MVP that year was
Speaker 1: the last season he like truly attacked things every single
Speaker 1: day that season in the twenty the year right after
Speaker 1: where the last two times I saw Lebron like really
Speaker 1: attack the regular season, but Ady was just kind of
Speaker 1: coasting through the game. And then what would happen is
Speaker 1: every single time in the second half he would just
Speaker 1: kind of get swept up in the competitive energy of
Speaker 1: the team. And Ad was an awesome second half player
Speaker 1: that year, especially in the playoffs. But like now in retrospect,
Speaker 1: looking back at it, it's kind of like a continuation
Speaker 1: of that same personality trade, which is that sometimes Ad
Speaker 1: laces him up and walks out there and just kind
Speaker 1: of doesn't feel like fighting. And this is where Rob
Speaker 1: Polinka has blood on his hands. These characteristics of the
Speaker 1: stars have been pretty clear for a while. The twenty
Speaker 1: twenty and twenty twenty one Lakers just had a lot
Speaker 1: of high motor players to compensate for Alex Crusoe high
Speaker 1: motor two way athlete, Contavious Calledwo Pope, high motor two
Speaker 1: way athlete, Danny Green, Avery Bradley, even having big athletic
Speaker 1: centers like JaVale McGee Dwight Howard in twenty twenty to
Speaker 1: cover for those games that ad wasn't super engaged. But
Speaker 1: when he traded them away, it was abundantly clear that
Speaker 1: the Lakers missed out on that motor immediately. I mean, guys,
Speaker 1: they missed the playoffs the very next season. Even when
Speaker 1: they brought in all of that offense in the Rush
Speaker 1: trade in the middle of the twenty twenty three season.
Speaker 1: You bring in Ruie, you bring in d Lo, and
Speaker 1: there's clearly some upside with all the offensive talent. It
Speaker 1: became abundantly clear in the Nuggets series that they were
Speaker 1: still severely lacking in that high motor athleticism, as the
Speaker 1: Nuggets just ran through and jumped over every one of
Speaker 1: their perimeter players for the entire series. It's been clear
Speaker 1: for a while and rob has still done nothing, and
Speaker 1: now it's probably too late. Last year in April, Lebron
Speaker 1: and AD were both playing at a top ten level
Speaker 1: and we're both engaged pretty consistently, and that roster wasn't
Speaker 1: good enough. So any upside that you gained by waiting
Speaker 1: to maybe get something better in the trade has now
Speaker 1: been lost by the decline of Lebron and the disengagement
Speaker 1: of Anthony Davis, who's playing the worst basketball he's played
Speaker 1: since back in twenty twenty three. But Jason, Lebron and
Speaker 1: AD are clearly just frustrated. They don't believe in this roster. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're probably right, and that probably plays a little bit
Speaker 1: of a role, especially with Lebron, Like the last time
Speaker 1: Lebron was consistently engaged on a day to day basis
Speaker 1: was the last time this roster was good. But I
Speaker 1: even think with that, with Lebron's age and then with
Speaker 1: the stuff we were talking about with ads Motor earlier,
Speaker 1: I even think that necessary isn't necessarily telling the full story,
Speaker 1: and regardless, it doesn't change the material reality. Like we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, that Lebron and AD are not attacking
Speaker 1: the regular season on a day in a day out basis, Now,
Speaker 1: where do we go from here? To be clear, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying this team is bad. The Lakers have won
Speaker 1: forty two of their last sixty eight regular season games,
Speaker 1: forty two and twenty six. Bad teams can't do that.
Speaker 1: If we fast forwarded this season and the Lakers were
Speaker 1: forty two and twenty six, they'd be a top four
Speaker 1: seed and everyone would be talking about them as a
Speaker 1: fringe championship contender. I know that they can win, and
Speaker 1: they will have more stretches this year where they look good,
Speaker 1: they rack up some wins, and they beat some good teams.
Speaker 1: But I'm completely out on this team as a championship contender.
Speaker 1: I had them ranked eighth coming into the season as
Speaker 1: a team that could potentially make a trade and vault
Speaker 1: into contention. No, no chance. Every champion I've ever watched
Speaker 1: has had a daily pursuit of excellence that drives them.
Speaker 1: When a team like that gets their ass kicked in Minnesota,
Speaker 1: which by the way, is part of just being in
Speaker 1: the Western Conference. When you get your ass kicked on
Speaker 1: the road, you take it personally, You get pissed off,
Speaker 1: and you send a message the next time out and
Speaker 1: even if you lose the next time out, you go
Speaker 1: down fighting, you go down swinging. And the Lakers sent
Speaker 1: a very different message last night. They sent the message
Speaker 1: that they have no interest in fighting, which means they
Speaker 1: have no interest in competing for an NBA championship. So
Speaker 1: I'm done with them. They need a dramatic roster turnover
Speaker 1: to bring in the basketball character that is lacking, and
Speaker 1: it's just not possible to do that within one season.
Speaker 1: I think they should trade Lebron and ad start the rebuild.
Speaker 1: Genie Bus needs a fire Rob Pulink and hire somebody
Speaker 1: who actually understands basketball, and they need a fresh start.
Speaker 1: I feel bad for JJ Redick, Like, think about it,
Speaker 1: You're you have like the cushest job in the world
Speaker 1: as a multi millionaire making TV media personality, where he
Speaker 1: works less, is around his family more, and is under
Speaker 1: less pressure. And his love for the game of basketball
Speaker 1: causes him to drop all of that and walk into
Speaker 1: that tire fire down in Los Angeles. And he goes
Speaker 1: in there trying to establish a basketball culture. And these
Speaker 1: guys just can't fucking be bothered. They just can't fucking
Speaker 1: be bothered. I feel bad for him. They need to
Speaker 1: they need to completely break this thing down. They need
Speaker 1: to completely reinvest in JJ Reddick in a new front
Speaker 1: office and try to build a quality basketball culture from
Speaker 1: the ground up. Now, one last thing I want to
Speaker 1: get into before we move on to hawksbucks. This concept
Speaker 1: of basketball chemistry, this concept of basketball character. How can that?
Speaker 1: How can what happened to the Lakers be prevented? Basketball
Speaker 1: chemistry is like a delicate balance. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: different things that you need in order to have the
Speaker 1: right type of locker room to win a title. We
Speaker 1: talked earlier about like these checkpoints that you have to
Speaker 1: get through to win an NBA championship. There's these characteristics
Speaker 1: that you see championship teams have that are pretty consistent
Speaker 1: down the line. Mark Titus from Barstool, he came on
Speaker 1: a while back, and remember he presented that idea of
Speaker 1: that basketball is more art than science. And this is
Speaker 1: something that I've always believed in. I remember when I
Speaker 1: read Bill Simmons's basketball book, he referred to it as
Speaker 1: the secret based on something he heard from I believe
Speaker 1: Isaiah Thomas if I remember correctly, and I'm a big
Speaker 1: believer in that concept. There's kind of like a magical
Speaker 1: mix of ingredients that makes the right type of basketball
Speaker 1: personality to drive a team. You need veteran leadership, but
Speaker 1: you also need youthful exuberants. You need high motor guys
Speaker 1: who love the daily process, but you also need even
Speaker 1: keeled guys who never get too high and never get
Speaker 1: too low. You need somebody in there who leads by example.
Speaker 1: You need someone in there who can be vocal when
Speaker 1: the time comes. It's a magical mix of those characteristics. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, if you're building around Lebron James and Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: and you know Lebron is a dead serious player that
Speaker 1: will always be locked in for the real games, but
Speaker 1: that is not going to bring it for the eighty two.
Speaker 1: And you've got another star who has this apex talent
Speaker 1: but has consistently struggled with motor. What is the obvious
Speaker 1: thing that you need to anchor them with guys who
Speaker 1: love the daily process, athletic motor size size with motor
Speaker 1: that can help you carry things during the regular season,
Speaker 1: so that Lebron and Ad have no choice but to
Speaker 1: get swept up in that energy, just like they did
Speaker 1: in the twenty twenty and twenty twenty one seasons. It's
Speaker 1: a valuable lesson learned in team building from what happens
Speaker 1: to the Lakers in this year. Again, I understand that
Speaker 1: a lot of people are going to be like, dude,
Speaker 1: you are going back on something you were harping on
Speaker 1: pretty heavy for a year. Totally get it. I was.
Speaker 1: I attached my names of this Laker team in a
Speaker 1: lot of way, in a lot of ways, as a
Speaker 1: team that I believed in, as a team that I
Speaker 1: thought had real upside based on the fact that for
Speaker 1: most of twenty twenty four they were good. As I
Speaker 1: talked about. They're forty two and twenty six in their
Speaker 1: last sixty was at sixty eight regular season games. But
Speaker 1: I'm just done what I saw last night. I could
Speaker 1: I could not, I could not believe what I was
Speaker 1: seeing last night, And I can't in my right mind
Speaker 1: sit up here and talk about that team as a
Speaker 1: potential championship contender when they are made up of the
Speaker 1: type of stuff that causes what we saw last night.
Speaker 1: And so I'm done with them. Okay, We're gonna cover
Speaker 1: them just like we do any other team. If they
Speaker 1: go on a win streak or whatever, we'll we'll talk
Speaker 1: about them and what they're doing. Well, if it makes
Speaker 1: some big trade, we'll cover them. I'm not gonna stop
Speaker 1: talking about the Lakers entirely, but I'm not. I don't
Speaker 1: consider them to be a championship contender. They're just not.
Speaker 1: That's an unserious basketball team over there, and it starts
Speaker 1: with the leadership. Let's talk about a serious basketball team,
Speaker 1: or at least a team that's playing some serious basketball
Speaker 1: as of late. So Hawksbucks last night, really fun game.
Speaker 1: Bucks get off to a hot start. The one went
Speaker 1: up double figures a few times in the first half
Speaker 1: or in the first quarter. I should say bench group
Speaker 1: comes in, you know, Gary tren Junior comes in, Bobby
Speaker 1: Portis comes in, and the Hawks start forcing a lot
Speaker 1: of turnovers. They start getting out in transition. Damian Lillard
Speaker 1: had a very uncharacteristically sloppy end to the first quarter.
Speaker 1: He had three consecutive pick six turnovers, meaning like he
Speaker 1: turned the ball over and the Hawks went down and
Speaker 1: scored in the fast break three consecutive times down the floor.
Speaker 1: I can't even remember seeing that at any point with
Speaker 1: another player. Well, I've seen teams do that, but I
Speaker 1: haven't seen an individual player do that in a long time,
Speaker 1: but the Hawks just completely took control of the game
Speaker 1: at that point, and the Bucks tried to battle back
Speaker 1: a few times. A few times they made a few runs.
Speaker 1: They went zone in the third quarter and kind of
Speaker 1: disheveled the Hawks for a little bit and got it
Speaker 1: down to I think they got it down within eight
Speaker 1: or seven, But every single time they did, the Hawks
Speaker 1: would just get a couple of stops and a couple
Speaker 1: of transition run outs, and they would get right back
Speaker 1: in control of the game. And some of the stats
Speaker 1: that the Hawks put up in this game were outrageous.
Speaker 1: They had sixty four points in the paint. The Bucks
Speaker 1: came in as the eighth ranked paint defense, allowing just
Speaker 1: forty six points per one hundred possessions. The Hawks came
Speaker 1: in as the third ranked paint offense fifty four points
Speaker 1: per one hundred possession, so a top five paint offense
Speaker 1: versus a top ten paint defense, and the Hawks just
Speaker 1: dominated that battle, although most of it was in transition.
Speaker 1: They scored sixty four points in the paint. They had
Speaker 1: thirty fast break points the Bucks average allowing thirteen per game,
Speaker 1: so they nearly tripled their fast break point output on average.
Speaker 1: Jalen johnson speed was huge here. He was out racing
Speaker 1: them all night long, getting ahead of the defense on
Speaker 1: leakouts when Milwaukee was in sharp with just like their
Speaker 1: get back responsibilities. And there's even a play in the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter where I think I think it was Giannis
Speaker 1: missed a free throw, one of the Bucks missed free throw,
Speaker 1: and Jalen Johnson got the rebound off of a situation
Speaker 1: where the Bucks should have their transition defense set and
Speaker 1: he just literally ran right through everybody and lay the
Speaker 1: ballup and it put him up eleven. And that was
Speaker 1: kind of like the story of the game. They just
Speaker 1: couldn't contain Atlanta's speed in the open court. They had
Speaker 1: twenty one second chance points. They're averaging the Bucks average
Speaker 1: allowing just eleven per game, and they gave up twenty one.
Speaker 1: The Hawks had sixteen offensive reboundsers. By the way, they've
Speaker 1: been dominating games on the offensive glass. We'll be talking
Speaker 1: about that in a minute. But they just did a
Speaker 1: great job with their athletes of making things difficult for
Speaker 1: Dame and Giannis on the defensive end as well. Like
Speaker 1: one of the big things I noticed was their bigs,
Speaker 1: particularly at cong Wu, was picking up Dame early in
Speaker 1: pick and roll, like meeting him pretty far out, and
Speaker 1: that was preventing him from turning the corner. I remember,
Speaker 1: Dame is actually really good at like hitting that additional
Speaker 1: hesitation or in and out dribble on the big to
Speaker 1: get past him in high drop coverages and get into
Speaker 1: the paint. And a congu in particular was just doing
Speaker 1: a really nice job containing him. And then Dame was
Speaker 1: trying to throw cross court passes over length and that's
Speaker 1: where he ended up having those turnover issues. And then
Speaker 1: the Hawks just have all sorts of length off the ball.
Speaker 1: But then with that, with all the athleticism, it's just
Speaker 1: waves of bodies at Yani's. Like there was a play
Speaker 1: where like Giannis went at Cappella at the rim, Capella
Speaker 1: goes vertic goal forces a miss Jannis, you know how
Speaker 1: he goes. He goes right back up to try to
Speaker 1: get the offensive rebound in comes flying Jalen Johnson. He
Speaker 1: like taps at the ball and it like forces Yann
Speaker 1: still gets it, but he has to like come down
Speaker 1: with it. And then when he comes down, Dyson Daniels
Speaker 1: comes flying in and like swipes at the basketball and
Speaker 1: it causes Jannis to kind of lose his rhythm a
Speaker 1: little bit, and he smoked a layup, and it's like
Speaker 1: it's a smoked layup because it's ways of athleticism that
Speaker 1: are making Yiannis feel uncomfortable. It was a really, really
Speaker 1: impressive performance from the Hawks. We will talk more about
Speaker 1: the Bucks here in a minute, but the Hawks have
Speaker 1: won five straight games. Three of those wins were against
Speaker 1: Cleveland and Milwaukee. Two of those Cleveland and Milwaukee wins
Speaker 1: were on the road. They have a one to seventeen
Speaker 1: offensive rating in that span that ranks tenth in the NBA.
Speaker 1: One oh five defensive rating in that span, which ranked
Speaker 1: second first in that span, by the way, is the
Speaker 1: Minnesota Timberwolves, who we're not talking about today, but they
Speaker 1: regain their defensive identity and got a huge win against
Speaker 1: the Clippers last night and they're starting to get their
Speaker 1: groove back. We'll be talking about them soon. But the
Speaker 1: Hawks are second defensive rating over this five game span.
Speaker 1: Here's the crazy sting. After getting sixteen offensive rebounds last
Speaker 1: night and out rebounding Milwaukee fifty five to forty, the
Speaker 1: Hawks are grabbing fifty five point two percent of available
Speaker 1: rebounds over this five game streak that ranks one in
Speaker 1: the NBA by a pretty decent margin. And that's really
Speaker 1: the story of this team. They've reconfigured this summer around
Speaker 1: a modern basketball concept that we've been talking about for
Speaker 1: a while over the course of the last two years,
Speaker 1: which is the athleticism surrounded by an offensive engine. Right.
Speaker 1: This is kind of like very similar concept to what
Speaker 1: the Clippers did with James Harden this summer. Right, But like,
Speaker 1: you keep Trey Young as your primary offensive engine, you
Speaker 1: keep Bogdan mcdonovitch as like your backup shot creator, right,
Speaker 1: and you keep Clint Capella as your defensive anchor and
Speaker 1: as Trey Young's pick and roll partner. But the rest
Speaker 1: of the roster is just big athletic dudes who play
Speaker 1: really hard. They turned to Jonte Murray into Dyson Daniels,
Speaker 1: They drafted Zachary Rissasche. They started three rangy athletic perimeter
Speaker 1: players between Trey and Capella by going with Dyson Daniels,
Speaker 1: Jalen Johnson, and Zachary Resachet. And it's a wonderful fit.
Speaker 1: All these athletes. They compliment Trey Young so well on
Speaker 1: both ends of the floor. On the offensive end of
Speaker 1: the floor. They run, They just they run and they
Speaker 1: cut NonStop. And Trey Young is a very very gifted passer.
Speaker 1: There's like advanced passing and then there's a kind of
Speaker 1: basic passing. And most of the basic passers in the league,
Speaker 1: they're the guys that they can beat a guy off
Speaker 1: the dribble and get into the lane and see a
Speaker 1: wide open three point shooter on the wing and like
Speaker 1: make that kind of read like little basic reads. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a cleared side of the floor and this guy
Speaker 1: cuts back door and he's open. I can throw a
Speaker 1: bounce pass. That sort of thing. The best passers in
Speaker 1: the league are really good at finding like kick ahead passes,
Speaker 1: guys slipping along the baseline, vertical spacing, opportunities that don't
Speaker 1: look open, but if you throw the pass in the
Speaker 1: right way, the athlete can go get it. That sort
Speaker 1: of thing. That is a very very good fit alongside
Speaker 1: Trey Young. Having tons of athletes that are constantly running, rolling,
Speaker 1: and cutting, it just accentuates his skills so well. And
Speaker 1: then on the defensive end of the floor, those guys
Speaker 1: can cover for his athletic deficiencies and it creates an
Speaker 1: easy role for him, like Trey Young threw some important
Speaker 1: closeouts last night, or he's in rotation and he chases
Speaker 1: a guy off the three point line. Trey Young is
Speaker 1: fast if you can make it so that that's more
Speaker 1: or less all he has to do. But he doesn't
Speaker 1: have to get a bunch of contested rebounds or get
Speaker 1: his hands dirty on the defensive end of the floor.
Speaker 1: He can be at least not that damaging. Right again,
Speaker 1: it's the Eastern Conference version of what we're seeing with
Speaker 1: the Clippers in James Harden. You put James Harden with
Speaker 1: a good pick and roll partner in if you can Zubach,
Speaker 1: and you've got yourself your offensive engine in all these
Speaker 1: rangy athletes that are around him, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the Clippers are a serious team. Jalen Johnson has been
Speaker 1: incredible in his last sixteen games twenty two points, ten rebounds,
Speaker 1: and six assists, fifty four percent from the field, forty
Speaker 1: percent from three to eighty nine percent from the line,
Speaker 1: still doing the majority of his damage in transition and
Speaker 1: as a cutter and as an offensive rebounder in the
Speaker 1: half court, but he is starting to gain some steam
Speaker 1: in ball screens especially with Trey Young and inverted ball screens.
Speaker 1: And again, this is a concept that we've talked a
Speaker 1: lot about. But you can imagine like Trey Young coming
Speaker 1: up to set a screen and he he's got you know,
Speaker 1: aj Green or Andre Jackson on him, and that guy
Speaker 1: just really doesn't want to leave Trey Young because that's
Speaker 1: the head of the stake, right, and Jalen Johnson, Let's
Speaker 1: say he's being guarded by Torrian Prince. This is the
Speaker 1: play where Jalen Johnson got the huge dunk last night.
Speaker 1: As Trey Young goes to set the screen, he's not
Speaker 1: actually screening, he's slipping out of it. That's a ghost screen, right,
Speaker 1: where you have a guard just set a screen for
Speaker 1: a bigger player and then slip out of it to
Speaker 1: the three point line. In that situation, Andre Jackson's not
Speaker 1: gonna leave him because he's about Trey Young can shoot
Speaker 1: and he's slipping out of that screen. But Torrian Prince
Speaker 1: is thinking that a screen is coming, so he kind
Speaker 1: of opens up his stance to prepare to chase over
Speaker 1: the top of the screen. Jalen Johnson just hits the
Speaker 1: jets goes right around him. Because again, if Andre Jackson
Speaker 1: hedges or catches Jalen Johnson coming off that screen. Now,
Speaker 1: Trey Young is wide open right then, and if you
Speaker 1: switch there issues that come from that as well. Tray
Speaker 1: Young against Torrian Prince is a matchup that you like
Speaker 1: if you're a Hawks fan, right, Jalen Johnson just gets
Speaker 1: right downhill and dunks on everybody. He Again, he's only
Speaker 1: run one hundred and twenty picking rolls this year, and
Speaker 1: he's only generated one hundred and ten points, which really
Speaker 1: isn't that bad at zero point nine to two points
Speaker 1: per possession. But he's been better as of late. In
Speaker 1: his last nineteen pick and rolls, Jalen Johnson has generated
Speaker 1: twenty six points including passes. That's one point thirty seven
Speaker 1: points per possession. He's really starting to gain some steam
Speaker 1: as an on ball player. And again, like it's just
Speaker 1: once he gets that head of steam downhill, he's such
Speaker 1: a good finisher and he's such a good passer in
Speaker 1: those situations and he's just really difficult to deal with.
Speaker 1: He's been outstanding defensively as of late. He's averaging two
Speaker 1: point five stocks per game. I thought he was incredible
Speaker 1: in the Bucks game last night in both on ball
Speaker 1: and off the ball. And I think he's a really
Speaker 1: interesting player in the long run too, because he has
Speaker 1: outstanding touch, which means is if he improves overall with
Speaker 1: his fluidity, he can become a more a more effective
Speaker 1: on ball player. So, for instance, Jalen Johnson is shooting
Speaker 1: just thirty two percent on off the dribble jump shots,
Speaker 1: which is to zero point seven to four points per possession.
Speaker 1: He's also shooting just twenty eight percent on guarded ketch
Speaker 1: and shoot jump shots, but he's shooting fifty three percent
Speaker 1: on unguarded catch and choot jump shots, and he's shooting
Speaker 1: eighty nine percent from the free throw line over his
Speaker 1: last sixteen games. That's like a pretty clear sign that
Speaker 1: he has great touch, like his feel for the basketball
Speaker 1: and his natural ability to put the ball in the
Speaker 1: basket is really high. So when he adds the polish,
Speaker 1: when he adds the fluidity, he should be able to
Speaker 1: put the ball in the basket in more diverse ways.
Speaker 1: Not to mention, averaging six assists per game over a
Speaker 1: large span like this is a pretty like think about
Speaker 1: how many Fords you've seen over a large portion of
Speaker 1: time that have averaged six assists it's pretty rare. It's
Speaker 1: a position in the league where there's typically pretty weak playmaking,
Speaker 1: and he's showing some pretty high level stuff there. So
Speaker 1: I think Jalen Johnson's a really nice foundational type of
Speaker 1: player for the Hawks. And again, like this group has
Speaker 1: got high potential. Like they went into the fourth quarter
Speaker 1: last night and they played this lineup where they put
Speaker 1: in Bogdan mcdonovich for Zachary Rissasche, And so they had
Speaker 1: these athletes, right, Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels, and Clincapella. But
Speaker 1: then they also had these two really high level offensive
Speaker 1: players in Trey Young and Bogdann macdonovich. They went on
Speaker 1: a run. That group has played twenty four possessions this
Speaker 1: year and they're plus eight point four net in those possessions.
Speaker 1: And if you interchange any of the other two guys,
Speaker 1: So if it's just Trey, Jalen and Bogdan together, they've
Speaker 1: played seventy five possessions in their plus twelve net per
Speaker 1: one hundred possessions. So here's the thing, Like, no one's
Speaker 1: gonna have delusions of granger here with the Hawks. They
Speaker 1: aren't gonna win multiple playoff series this year. Or anything
Speaker 1: like that their offense won't be good enough. But this
Speaker 1: was a really smart little half rebuild that they did
Speaker 1: around some proven modern basketball concepts, and there's real long
Speaker 1: term upside with the development of their athletic wings. Trey
Speaker 1: Young is still just twenty six years old. I really
Speaker 1: like the direction the Atlanta Hawks are going. They were
Speaker 1: fun to watch last night on the Bucks front. Just
Speaker 1: a really sloppy game from them. Bobby Port has played
Speaker 1: an exceptionally damaging first half shift, just incapable of protecting
Speaker 1: the rim. He lost several offensive rebound battles, even ones
Speaker 1: where he had position, and he just somehow lost the
Speaker 1: fight for the ball, several sloppy turnovers and bad shots.
Speaker 1: That was where the game started to go off. The
Speaker 1: rail Rails Dame had those back to back to back
Speaker 1: turnovers and the first quarter again I can't remember even
Speaker 1: seeing that before. Their transition. Defense was abysmal in just
Speaker 1: a basic way, like guys just hugging up to guys
Speaker 1: off ball while Jalen Johnson's running off, running down the floor, dunking,
Speaker 1: basic get back responsibility from the guards above the brake
Speaker 1: not getting back, and just allowing easy passes over the
Speaker 1: top for dunks, like their transition defense was really sloppy.
Speaker 1: Torrian Prince had a really rough game at the point
Speaker 1: of attack, although the whole team kind of struggled to
Speaker 1: guard the ball. I also thought they shot really poorly,
Speaker 1: like Gary Trent and AJ Green and Torrian Prince all
Speaker 1: had like four to five like pretty good looks from
Speaker 1: three in the fourth quarter that they just missed. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, Percentergy, they shot six unguarded catch
Speaker 1: and shoot jump shots in the fourth quarter and they
Speaker 1: made just one of them. So you kind of just
Speaker 1: scrap that game and just move on from it, especially
Speaker 1: when you generally have been playing pretty well. But here's
Speaker 1: the one thing that's weird about it. The Bucks have
Speaker 1: mostly been beating up on bad teams. They have just
Speaker 1: two wins this year against teams that are five hundred
Speaker 1: or better. So I'd like to see the Bucks have
Speaker 1: a sharp effort soon in a win against a good
Speaker 1: team to legitimize some of the improvements they've made as
Speaker 1: of late. All right, guys, that's all I have for today.
Speaker 1: Looking forward to seeing your guys' shit talk in the comments.
Speaker 1: That should be fun. As always, as sincerely appreciate you
Speaker 1: guys for supporting me in suporting the show. Don't forget
Speaker 1: get those mailbag questions in we got our last mail bag,
Speaker 1: I should say, last video for mailback today. We're recording
Speaker 1: one tomorrow again. I appreciate you, guys, and I'll see
Speaker 1: you tomorrow the volume What's Up? Guys? As always, I
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