Speaker 1: The volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight. You're at
Speaker 1: the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. If ave you guys are
Speaker 1: having a great we got a quick show for you
Speaker 1: guys today. We're gonna be touching on four games from
Speaker 1: last night's slate. We're gonna be going deep on Chicago, Denver,
Speaker 1: and then I want to talk about Paul George's debut
Speaker 1: at the Philadelphia seventy six ers. And then we'll be
Speaker 1: briefly touching on wins by the Toronto Raptors and Miami
Speaker 1: Heat from last night. You guys know the joke before
Speaker 1: we started. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you
Speaker 1: don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at underscore JCNLTS you guys don't miss show announcements.
Speaker 1: Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your
Speaker 1: podcast on or Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if
Speaker 1: you leave a rating and a review on that front.
Speaker 1: Jackson's doing incredible work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
Speaker 1: Facebook and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there
Speaker 1: for more content throughout the season. Then, last, but not least,
Speaker 1: if you guys want to get questions into our Friday
Speaker 1: mail bags, drop them in our full episodes on YouTube
Speaker 1: in the comments right mail bag with a colon, drop
Speaker 1: your question that helps me find them when I'm sorting
Speaker 1: through the comments, and we'll get to them on Fridays
Speaker 1: throughout the remainder of the year. Also, it's looking like
Speaker 1: Lebron's probably going to play tonight, so our first playbackstream
Speaker 1: of the week will probably be tonight for Lakers Jazz.
Speaker 1: If he's a late scratch, then we'll just push it
Speaker 1: to the Sunday night game when Lebron will inevitably debut. Then,
Speaker 1: but I'm expecting Lebron to play tonight, we'll be live
Speaker 1: on playback for that game, and then our second playback
Speaker 1: stream this week is going to be for Nuggets Rockets
Speaker 1: on Friday Night. Those are watch alongs. We're going through
Speaker 1: the entire game. We take questions, we take callers, we
Speaker 1: hang out, we watch oops. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: You guys should come check it out. All right, let's
Speaker 1: talk some basketball. So Chicago snaps a five game losing
Speaker 1: streak on the road in Denver last night, essentially riding
Speaker 1: two big runs, one with Yokacho off the floor and
Speaker 1: one with Yokaja on the floor, and then some timely
Speaker 1: shot making in the clutch and one big defensive play.
Speaker 1: I really want to zoom in on the matchup problem
Speaker 1: that is Nicola Vusi when we get into crunch time.
Speaker 1: But the first run was a run with Nicole Jokic
Speaker 1: off the floor, and it started on defense. Ayod tos
Speaker 1: Soon moved it a good job in Jamal Murray forced
Speaker 1: him into a couple of misses, and then all of
Speaker 1: Chicago's bigs did an amazing job in this game on
Speaker 1: Yona's and on Joki. Jokich had thirteen misses in this game,
Speaker 1: which was by far the most he's had since the
Speaker 1: season opener against Golden State, and you know it's a
Speaker 1: combination of him missing that pick and pop three point
Speaker 1: shot but also forcing some misses around the basket. And
Speaker 1: I want to shout out Patrick Williams, Jalen Smith, Smith,
Speaker 1: Vussovich himself. All those guys did a great job battling
Speaker 1: Denver's bigs. But during that first bench run, Patrick Williams
Speaker 1: and Jalen Smith got a couple of really nice one
Speaker 1: on one stops against Jonas Valancunis. Patrick had one against
Speaker 1: Yonis where he forced him into a really bad miss
Speaker 1: where he like hit the backboard first on a hook
Speaker 1: shot that was right in front of the rim. And
Speaker 1: basically if you watch him, he uses his left arm
Speaker 1: and he gets down into the pocket and starts disrupting
Speaker 1: the basketball. Which we talked about this all the time,
Speaker 1: like if you just try to contest a guy up top,
Speaker 1: these dudes are pros. These dudes practice making shots when
Speaker 1: they're contested. That's not going to bother them. You've got
Speaker 1: to find a way to disrupt their rhythm in one
Speaker 1: way or another. We've talked about this concept with the
Speaker 1: difference between like a Jonathan Kminga versus Moses Moody when
Speaker 1: we talk about Golden State's perimeter defenders, Kaminga's often there
Speaker 1: but not being disruptive, whereas Moses Moods constantly reaching and
Speaker 1: being physical and can disrupt rhythm. Patrick Williams on this
Speaker 1: play gets into the pocket, disrupts Jonas Valanciunas so that
Speaker 1: when he goes up for his hook, he's way out
Speaker 1: of rhythm and he ends up smoking it badly off
Speaker 1: the back like way high up off the backboard, right
Speaker 1: Jalen Smith gets a big stop stop on Yonas where
Speaker 1: he tries to take away the middle. Yonas wants to
Speaker 1: get towards the middle on either side of the block.
Speaker 1: He's on the left block, he wants to get to
Speaker 1: the middle for his left shoulder hook. If he's on
Speaker 1: the right block, he wants to get to the middle
Speaker 1: for that short little turnaround over his right shoulder, more
Speaker 1: of kind of like a turnaround jump shot, but he
Speaker 1: likes to get middle. Jalen took that away stood middle.
Speaker 1: Us tries to bully threw him anyway, and he picked
Speaker 1: up a big offensive foul. So they got the stops
Speaker 1: on Murray. They got the stops on Yonis, and then
Speaker 1: going down the other end, a nice combination of some
Speaker 1: dribble penetration from Iotasumu and Dalen Terry, some transition pushes
Speaker 1: from them that got easy layups, and hot three point shooting.
Speaker 1: Jalen Smith continues to shoot the ball well. He hit
Speaker 1: a couple of threes. Javon Carter hit a couple of
Speaker 1: threes during that run. Iodasumo hit one, and the Bulls
Speaker 1: found themselves up by eighteen in the middle of the
Speaker 1: second quarter. Now Jokic comes in, he immediately helps reassert control.
Speaker 1: The Nuggets come all the way back. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: the Nuggets bench later, because that's becoming kind of a
Speaker 1: weird up and down subplot for them this season. The
Speaker 1: second run, though, is with Jokic on the floor in
Speaker 1: the late third quarter, and this was the classic transition
Speaker 1: pushes that Chicago has been killing teams with all season.
Speaker 1: A ton of damage in transition during that third quarter run.
Speaker 1: Josh Kitty got a layup, Iodasuon Mu got a layup,
Speaker 1: Jalen Smith got an and one. Javon Carter hit another
Speaker 1: three on one of those transition sequences off of an
Speaker 1: offensive rebound. They also did some nice work against Denver
Speaker 1: zone defense. They kept getting the ball to the middle,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that happens in his zone
Speaker 1: is once you get the ball to the middle, it
Speaker 1: inverts everybody's eyes. So now all of a sudden, if
Speaker 1: you're up top, you're looking down towards the middle, so
Speaker 1: the guys behind you are hard to see. And if
Speaker 1: you're at the basket, you're looking towards the middle, which
Speaker 1: can cause you to lose sight of the baseline. And
Speaker 1: I had assume who ended up getting two really nice
Speaker 1: buckets off of cuts because the ball got to the middle.
Speaker 1: Vusevich caught the ball in the middle. Disumu cut along
Speaker 1: the baseline, got himself like a little floater there right
Speaker 1: along the left block. Another one, Patrick Williams dribbles into
Speaker 1: the middle of the lane, gets the ball into the
Speaker 1: middle of the zone. Tim Hardaway Junior turns, puts his
Speaker 1: back towards Patrick Williams. That allows assuming to cut right
Speaker 1: behind him. He gets another layup against the zone. So
Speaker 1: they end up getting another double digit lead in that
Speaker 1: third quarter run, this time with Nikolay Jokic on the floor.
Speaker 1: But to Denver bench's credit, the Denver bench did have
Speaker 1: a nice response compared to their first shift. In the
Speaker 1: early fourth quarter, they made an adjustment. Instead of going
Speaker 1: with Valan Chunis with jokichat they went with Aaron Gordon
Speaker 1: at center, and they actually managed to cut the lead
Speaker 1: down to six on a Jamal Murray and one before
Speaker 1: nikola Jokic came back. And then we got ourselves a
Speaker 1: classic clutch battle. And while Denver continued to score like
Speaker 1: they always do in the clutch, Chicago went bucket for
Speaker 1: bucket with them some really high quality offense, a steady
Speaker 1: diet once again, like we've talked about all season of
Speaker 1: that Vusovich Giddy two man game or any sort of
Speaker 1: ball screen involving Nikola Vusovich, and that was causing problems
Speaker 1: for Denver. Giddy got downhill on one, got into Cam
Speaker 1: Johnson's chest and spun over his left shoulder and made
Speaker 1: a little hook shot. So Denver didn't want to give
Speaker 1: up that level of downhill rim pressure. They didn't want
Speaker 1: to give up that runway, so they started bringing Jokic
Speaker 1: up to the level for the specific purpose of stopping
Speaker 1: the basketball. That ended up leading to a bunch of
Speaker 1: other problems. They had one sequence where it led to
Speaker 1: a series of switches, is where Yokic got switched off
Speaker 1: and Gordon got switched on too Vusovich. They ran a
Speaker 1: quick interchange on the weak side, and so now Vusovich
Speaker 1: had Cam Johnson on him. Cam Johnson starts back or
Speaker 1: Vusovich starts backing down Cam Johnson. Jokic, who had been
Speaker 1: switched on to Kevin Herder at that point, ends up
Speaker 1: throwing a double team from the top side. Vusovich kicks
Speaker 1: it out to hurt her and he hits a three,
Speaker 1: so you come up to the level to try to
Speaker 1: stop the dribble penetration, but that ends up leading to
Speaker 1: a peel switch in a series of switches that gives
Speaker 1: you a mismatch with Vusovich in the post, which leads
Speaker 1: to an open three when Jokic rotates off of a shooter.
Speaker 1: And then the game, the play that iced the game,
Speaker 1: that Vusovich pick and pop at the top of the key,
Speaker 1: that is the exact same type of sequence that is
Speaker 1: always going to be open in a pick and roll
Speaker 1: coverage where you don't switch. Jokic came up to the level,
Speaker 1: they pitch it back to Vusovich wide open, popping out
Speaker 1: of the screen, and he's just there at the top
Speaker 1: of the key, and it's basically mak er miss at
Speaker 1: that point, and he knocked it down. And so that
Speaker 1: ball screen ended up causing all sorts of problems for
Speaker 1: Denver down the stretch, with the combination of Josh Getty's
Speaker 1: ability to get downhill off of those ball screens, what
Speaker 1: that forced Denver to do and trying to contain him
Speaker 1: at the level, which then led to all of the
Speaker 1: shortcomings and the switches, and in the pick and pop
Speaker 1: that Vusovich was able to do damage in and by
Speaker 1: the way, he ends up making the biggest defensive play
Speaker 1: of the game during that stretch. He ends up they're
Speaker 1: up by one, they go down to the other end
Speaker 1: Murray Jokic two man game. Vusovich himself comes up to
Speaker 1: the level and gets a very nice deflection on a
Speaker 1: pass towards Jokic in the pocket. That deflection ends up
Speaker 1: leading to a just soon moved dunk going out the
Speaker 1: other way. So really really nice basketball from the Bulls
Speaker 1: down the stretch, fueled by that matchup problem that is
Speaker 1: Nikola Vusovich. Now vouch is a matchup problem because he's
Speaker 1: great at coverage beaters, right. So, like when you have
Speaker 1: these different options on how to guard ball screens, whether
Speaker 1: it's a deep drop or if it's a higher drop,
Speaker 1: or it's a blitz or it's a switch, whatever it
Speaker 1: is that you're doing to defend ball screens, there's a
Speaker 1: way to beat every version of it. Right. For a
Speaker 1: deep drop coverage, the deep drop is designed to take
Speaker 1: away the roll and the rim right, so that opens
Speaker 1: up mid range shot making right, or even sometimes three
Speaker 1: point shot making if you can wipe the dude out
Speaker 1: on a screen right. But then at the level coverages
Speaker 1: they open up the role right or the skip if
Speaker 1: you tag the roller right. Blitzes they open up the
Speaker 1: four on three sequences where teams can pick you apart
Speaker 1: in quick little you know, tic tac toe sequences for
Speaker 1: layups and wide open threes, and then switches they open
Speaker 1: up mismatch attacking right, a guard against the big or
Speaker 1: a big against a guard. Those are the coverage beaters
Speaker 1: for the coverage that you're trying to run right, and
Speaker 1: Vucevic is just a textbook example of a coverage beater.
Speaker 1: The pick and pop three is a perfect example. If
Speaker 1: you come up to the level or run any variation
Speaker 1: of drop coverage that doesn't involve you switching, you're going
Speaker 1: to leave the pick and pop open, or at the
Speaker 1: very least, if you rotate to it from the weak side,
Speaker 1: someone's open on the skip like you are guaranteed to
Speaker 1: leave a three point shooter wide open. If you have
Speaker 1: a pick and pop big and you're not switching ball screens,
Speaker 1: that is a coverage beater that Nikola Vusovich is bringing
Speaker 1: to the table. That post up weapon. Okay, you switch
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you run a series of switches
Speaker 1: and now Cam Johnson's on Nikola Vusovich. Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: leave him on an island there, but vouch is probably
Speaker 1: gonna do some damage one on one against a guy
Speaker 1: like Cam Johnson. Okay, you double team off of a shooter.
Speaker 1: There's an easy little kickout pass and a guy's knocking
Speaker 1: down the shot, right. And so when you have that
Speaker 1: type of weapon in a two man game, especially when
Speaker 1: you've got someone who can do some damage on the
Speaker 1: other side of it. I mean, Denver fans know this
Speaker 1: personally rooting for Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, but Usovich
Speaker 1: just did a lot of damage last night and then
Speaker 1: last shout out here again I said this off the top,
Speaker 1: but all game long, Chicago's bigs and forwards battled Jokics
Speaker 1: really well, and I thought they had an underrated defensive
Speaker 1: performance in this game, forcing the misses that they forced,
Speaker 1: and they just made life difficult. Really nice win, a
Speaker 1: nice little bounce back for the Bulls to get back
Speaker 1: over five hundred. Before we move on to the next game,
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk briefly about Denver's bench we talked
Speaker 1: to yesterday about how Denver's bench has been super weird
Speaker 1: this year. Like, statistically they're better than previous seasons. They're
Speaker 1: about six and a half points negative net per one
Speaker 1: hundred possessions when Yokic is off the floor. That's about
Speaker 1: half of what it's been in most of the previous seasons.
Speaker 1: So that's good, but it's still feast or famine and
Speaker 1: it's still statistically bad and a large sample. Like I
Speaker 1: was hoping they'd be slightly positive with Yokich off the
Speaker 1: floor this year, that has not happened, but it's manifesting
Speaker 1: very much in this feast or famine way, right, Like
Speaker 1: I talked about this before this last weekend, talked about
Speaker 1: how it was like you'd have these games where they
Speaker 1: would win a game because of their bench, like the
Speaker 1: Sacramento game, right, But then they'd have these other games
Speaker 1: where they'd lose a game because of their bench. They
Speaker 1: lose control in those minutes. And then we just got
Speaker 1: a perfect example of that. In their last two games.
Speaker 1: They're plus eight and really help you win a game,
Speaker 1: a tough road game against Minnesota, but then they're a
Speaker 1: disaster and they have a minus fifteen shift spanning the
Speaker 1: first and second quarter last night that digs you into
Speaker 1: a sixteen point hole before Jokic comes in. But then
Speaker 1: suddenly they come back and have a good shift in
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter that helps shrink the lead back to
Speaker 1: six before Yokic comes back. It's very up and down,
Speaker 1: and it's one of those things where like there's two
Speaker 1: different kinds of variants with that group that I think
Speaker 1: are worth addressing here, variants that's kind of out of
Speaker 1: their control and variance that's in their control. Like, for instance,
Speaker 1: I do expect some offensive variance with this group no
Speaker 1: matter what. Jamal Murray's a tough shot maker. Sometimes he's
Speaker 1: gonna miss shots like that little drop coverage floater he
Speaker 1: missed in the first bench unit in the first half.
Speaker 1: That's a shot that is a tough shot. He can
Speaker 1: make it, but it's a tough shot. He missed another
Speaker 1: little mid range pull up during that stretch. It's a
Speaker 1: tough shot and he can make it, but like he's
Speaker 1: gonna miss it sometimes right the Yonas Valenciunas post ups,
Speaker 1: Like we've seen Yonas win that battle and various points
Speaker 1: this season. He got a couple of chances with that
Speaker 1: first bench group and Jalen Smith and Patrick Williams won
Speaker 1: their battles. Like credit to them, that's gonna happen. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you're playing with offensive players in those groups that are
Speaker 1: gonna be hot and cold sometimes. To me, the controllables, though,
Speaker 1: the variants that they can control is on the defensive
Speaker 1: end of the floor. Statistically, they've been okay on defense
Speaker 1: when Yokich is off the floor. That's been how they've
Speaker 1: won a lot of their shifts with that group during
Speaker 1: the season. But they've had other stretches where they've been
Speaker 1: really bad on defense with Yokich off the floor. And
Speaker 1: I thought last night was an example of that, and
Speaker 1: there were just a lot of different silly mistakes. I
Speaker 1: thought Jamal Murray and Tim Hardaway Junior in particular were
Speaker 1: very bad on defense in this game. Jamal there were
Speaker 1: like four or five different possessions where he was like sagging,
Speaker 1: not even in a defensive stance where he's helping and rotating,
Speaker 1: but just sagging off the ball on a shooter and
Speaker 1: it's like swing swing. There's Javon Carter hitting a three
Speaker 1: when like they didn't even break down your defense, or
Speaker 1: there's Ayodasummu hitting a catch and shoot three on the
Speaker 1: left wing when they didn't even break down your defense
Speaker 1: or swing the ball to Jamal's man and he just
Speaker 1: rips the clothes out and Jamal is just asleep, and
Speaker 1: now he's giving up dribble penetration, easy drop off for
Speaker 1: a dunk for Dayalean Terry. Like there's a lot of
Speaker 1: like just silly, fixable, like laziness mistakes happening defensively with
Speaker 1: those bench groups in some of these nights where it's
Speaker 1: like that is under your control. I like Jamal getting
Speaker 1: to a spot and rising up, it's gonna go in
Speaker 1: or it's not. You post up Jonas and he gets
Speaker 1: single coverage. He's either gonna score or he's not. There's
Speaker 1: a certain amount of variants there that's out of your control.
Speaker 1: But there's these fixable problems on the defensive end of
Speaker 1: the floor that they can that they can absolutely rectify.
Speaker 1: Timartoway Junior was just kind of like space Casey last
Speaker 1: night on defense, and like there's just a certain amount
Speaker 1: of additional attention to detail that can go a long
Speaker 1: way towards helping him avoid some of the catastrophe bench
Speaker 1: nights like they had last night. Like at the end
Speaker 1: of the game, anything can happen, right. It's a close game,
Speaker 1: Like you synthesize any basketball game down to like a
Speaker 1: half dozen possessions, and now anything can happen, right, Like
Speaker 1: if Jamal Murray gets the ball to Jokic in the
Speaker 1: pocket instead of throwing it into Yonis into Nikola Vusovich's
Speaker 1: hand leading to the disson moved dunk. If he completes
Speaker 1: that pass, Denver probably scores there, they have a really
Speaker 1: good chance to win. Like if Jokic doesn't double off
Speaker 1: of Herder one pass away on the Vusovich post up
Speaker 1: and instead you double from the weak side off of
Speaker 1: a lesser offensive player, maybe you get to stop there,
Speaker 1: maybe you end up winning the game. That's close games,
Speaker 1: they can go either way. There's you know, tough shot making.
Speaker 1: Get Jokic HiT's a tough right shoulder fade in there,
Speaker 1: like Giddy hits a tough little left shoulder hook in there.
Speaker 1: Like there's a certain amount of anything can happen in
Speaker 1: a close game that's got a half dozen possessions. What
Speaker 1: you can't afford to do is spot a team like
Speaker 1: the Bulls a eighteen point second quarter lead, because you
Speaker 1: you have these like brutally bad stretches of your bench,
Speaker 1: where like in a couple of minutes, you completely lose
Speaker 1: control of a game. And I do think some of
Speaker 1: that is fixable by just becoming a little bit more
Speaker 1: attentive on the defensive end of the floor. Today's show
Speaker 1: is brought to you by our new presenting sponsor, hard
Speaker 1: Rock Bet. It's our favorite time of year between the
Speaker 1: NBA and college There's basketball on every night, and every
Speaker 1: night is a shot to score a major bucket on
Speaker 1: hard Rock Bet, your home for hoops action all season long.
Speaker 1: Sign up today and you could score one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars in bonus bets. Just place a five dollars
Speaker 1: bet and if it hits, you get not only your winnings,
Speaker 1: but one hundred and fifty dollars in extra bonus bets.
Speaker 1: Want to see what everyone else is betting on tonight
Speaker 1: Top picks or parlays across any sport, The hard rock
Speaker 1: Bet app literally shows you. It's another reason to download
Speaker 1: the app just for the info. Tap discover and you
Speaker 1: can see trending picks and parlays at any time. The
Speaker 1: hard Rock Bet sportsbook app is the only legal sportsbook
Speaker 1: for whenever you're in Florida, and it's also live in Arizona,
Speaker 1: oh Hi, New Jersey, Indiana, Tennessee, Virginia, Illinois, and Colorado.
Speaker 1: Coming soon to more states as well. Plus, hard Rock
Speaker 1: Bet offers new promos every single day, so whenever you're listening,
Speaker 1: just open the app and check out what they've got
Speaker 1: any day of the week. Download a hard Rock Bet
Speaker 1: app and make your first deposit payable and bonus bets
Speaker 1: not a cash offer offered by the Seminal Tribe of Florida.
Speaker 1: In Florida, offered by Seminal hard Rock Digital LLC. In
Speaker 1: all other states. Must be twenty one plus and physically
Speaker 1: president in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: or Virginia to play. Terms and conditions apply. Concerned about
Speaker 1: gambling in Florida, call one eight three to three play wise.
Speaker 1: In Indiana. If you or someone you know has a
Speaker 1: gambling problem and wants help, call one eight hundred and
Speaker 1: nine with it gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler
Speaker 1: in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia.
Speaker 1: Moving on to Paul George's debut. The Sixer's got a
Speaker 1: really nice come from behind a win against the Clippers
Speaker 1: last night. Just an unbelievable performance from Quinton Grimes in
Speaker 1: the second half of that game. James Harden came out
Speaker 1: the gates and just absolutely fried the seventy six Ers
Speaker 1: in the first half. And to James Harden's credit, the
Speaker 1: first couple weeks of the season, you know, like he
Speaker 1: was good, not great, right, like just kind of a
Speaker 1: a like one of the many things going on with
Speaker 1: the Clippers to start the season between the KWHI Leonard
Speaker 1: injury and Chris Paul not playing very well and brad
Speaker 1: Leyveal getting hurt, and like James Harden was good but
Speaker 1: not great to start the season. James Harden has been
Speaker 1: absurdly good over the last week. He's averaging thirty three points,
Speaker 1: nine rebounds, and eight assists in his last five games. So, like,
Speaker 1: James Harden's been on an absolute heater. And he did
Speaker 1: a bunch of damage to the Sixers in the first
Speaker 1: half of this game, and then they started the second
Speaker 1: half with Quinton Grimes on him, and Quinton Grimes just
Speaker 1: put the fire out. I thought he did a really
Speaker 1: nice job of consistently funneling him towards his right hand,
Speaker 1: so getting situated on that left hand side, but also
Speaker 1: keeping his hands out of the cookie jar, like he
Speaker 1: was picking up some foul on guys who were just
Speaker 1: getting up underneath him or getting it at their hands.
Speaker 1: Caught vj Edge Comb had one where he's like playing
Speaker 1: with his hand out and all that James Harden does
Speaker 1: when he sees that is he just goes into his
Speaker 1: gather into your arm. I mean him and Embiid have
Speaker 1: been doing that for years, right, and so like Quentin
Speaker 1: Grimes just funneling him towards his right hand and keeping
Speaker 1: his hands out of the cookie jar, which basically forced
Speaker 1: Harden to just make contested shots and that ended up
Speaker 1: cooling him off. So really nice job defensively. And then
Speaker 1: Queen Grimes killed the Sixers in the fourth quarter with
Speaker 1: his rim pressure off of drives and off of cuts
Speaker 1: in transition and in the half court. He ended up
Speaker 1: hitting basically the biggest shot of the game, a pull
Speaker 1: up three over John Collins along the right wing. Just
Speaker 1: an awesome game from Grimes, who very much looked like
Speaker 1: a guy who wants a big contract next year. And
Speaker 1: once again for the Sixers, the key is defense for
Speaker 1: them to have any sort of sustained success. Tyree s
Speaker 1: Maxy poured in another thirty eight points. He's leading the
Speaker 1: league in minutes played up over forty minutes per game,
Speaker 1: and he's leading the league and field hole attempts this year.
Speaker 1: Kind of crazy. Status's taking twenty four shots per game.
Speaker 1: Table that for a second, because I want to get
Speaker 1: back to that when we're done talking about Paul George.
Speaker 1: We got to see Paul George back on an NBA
Speaker 1: court last night, though, and I thought he had a
Speaker 1: better game than what you would think looking at the
Speaker 1: box score, Like it'ld be really easy just to look
Speaker 1: at the box score and go, oh, he's two for nine.
Speaker 1: But I actually thought he did some decent shot creation
Speaker 1: off the bounce. He ended up drawing a foul and
Speaker 1: a three point shot on one of those, and then
Speaker 1: he had some really nice driving kick sequences that led
Speaker 1: to easy shots. I actually thought there was some decent
Speaker 1: shot creation in there, and then he showed a little
Speaker 1: bit of the scoring ability, like he hit a pull
Speaker 1: up three to start the game. He had a play
Speaker 1: where he got a driving layup or zubots where I
Speaker 1: actually thought it was like kind of an encouraging sign
Speaker 1: for his body, Like he really dislodged Zubots with like
Speaker 1: a hard step right into his chest and led with
Speaker 1: his shoulder and really knocked him off so that he
Speaker 1: could go over the top of the little floater. And
Speaker 1: I was like, you don't do that against Zubots unless
Speaker 1: you trust your lower body. So I thought that was
Speaker 1: a good sign of just where his physical and mental
Speaker 1: confidence is right now. Again, I know he's two for nine,
Speaker 1: but I thought he did some better shot creation than
Speaker 1: what you'd think looking at the box score. He's not
Speaker 1: moving super well, but he did have a couple of
Speaker 1: ISOs where he got to his spot and was able
Speaker 1: to make some stuff happen. A couple others where he
Speaker 1: looked like he struggled to get separation, and that's to
Speaker 1: be expected. This is his first basketball game in forever,
Speaker 1: so it's gonna take a little while for him to
Speaker 1: get his lungs and to get his full mobility, at
Speaker 1: least whatever that full mobility looks like at this phase
Speaker 1: of his career, after all the injuries he's dealt with.
Speaker 1: But I left that game thinking the Sixers are gonna
Speaker 1: need him, Like, in addition to forward depth, which is
Speaker 1: obviously going to be tested with Kelly Ubre out for
Speaker 1: a little while, the team also just needs more firepower,
Speaker 1: Like the team has a one twenty offensive rating with
Speaker 1: Tyre's Maxie on the floor according to Cleaning the Glass,
Speaker 1: but just one eleven point five when he's off the floor.
Speaker 1: And we talked earlier about the minutes load and usage,
Speaker 1: Like Tyres Maxie's playing over forty minutes a game, Tyres
Speaker 1: Maxie is leading the league in field goal attempts twenty
Speaker 1: four shot attempts per game. Like, you got to find
Speaker 1: a way to make things just a little easier for him.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I like about Paul
Speaker 1: George's game in particular is I think it fits their
Speaker 1: current style of play better than embiid does. EMBIID. You know,
Speaker 1: he can struggle to get up and down the floor
Speaker 1: with the speed they want to play with. He can
Speaker 1: be a little bit of a ball stopper, He can
Speaker 1: struggle sometimes with playmaking. I think Paul George actually functions
Speaker 1: a little bit more naturally as a second side creator
Speaker 1: off of Tyrese Maxi. And again he made some kickout
Speaker 1: reads yesterday that were the kinds of things that were
Speaker 1: missing from the Sixers early in the season to try
Speaker 1: to grease the wheels in the half court for them.
Speaker 1: I just hope you can stay healthy and regain a
Speaker 1: little bit more of his mobility, because he does add
Speaker 1: a dynamic to the Sixers that I think helps them.
Speaker 1: A couple other quick shoutouts from last night before we
Speaker 1: get out of here. The Rafters won a fun game
Speaker 1: against the Hornets, and Scotty Barnes and Brandon Ingram basically
Speaker 1: won the game with a couple of massive two way sequences.
Speaker 1: Scotty Barnes backed down Miles Bridges and basically just buried
Speaker 1: him under the basket and dunked in kind of like
Speaker 1: a shocking play. You don't see that very often, just
Speaker 1: a back down dunk in the post, and then brandon
Speaker 1: Ingram a little iso out of the right corner. He
Speaker 1: ended up drawing a bunch of attention and he made
Speaker 1: a very nice feed to RJ Barrett cutting off of
Speaker 1: the left wing. Another example of just the combination of
Speaker 1: high level playmaking talent that the Raptors have which has
Speaker 1: made them a better half court offense than you would
Speaker 1: think to start the year, and then both of those
Speaker 1: guys there were a couple of easy layups and dunks
Speaker 1: that the Hornets generated out of action late in the game,
Speaker 1: where Brandon Ingram ended up getting Ryan Kalchbrenner with a
Speaker 1: massive dunk, or he was about to go dunk and
Speaker 1: he got a massive block off the glass, and then
Speaker 1: Scotty Barnes ended up doing the same thing to save
Speaker 1: a layup on the very next possession. Like a couple
Speaker 1: of huge defensive plays from those guys and Scotty Barnes
Speaker 1: and Brandon Ingram last night forty three points, twelve rebounds,
Speaker 1: and nine assists, three steals, in five blocks between the
Speaker 1: two of them, and the Raptors have now won four
Speaker 1: in a row, currently sitting third in the Eastern Conference.
Speaker 1: We did a dive in the Raptors on Friday for
Speaker 1: those of you guys who missed it. We discussed a
Speaker 1: combination of their defensive transition attack, but also they're really
Speaker 1: high level half court playmaking that leads to these really
Speaker 1: high level driving kick concepts and spacing concepts that make
Speaker 1: them tough to guard. Playing really fun basketball right now.
Speaker 1: The Toronto Raptors and then lastly for today, the Miami Heat.
Speaker 1: I caught just the fourth quarter of their win last
Speaker 1: night versus the Brunson and Ananobi list Nicks, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of another classic Miami Heat game from this year.
Speaker 1: They had seven dudes in double figures. Everybody was involved
Speaker 1: in the offense. Late in the game, Davion Mitchell hit
Speaker 1: two of the most ridiculous lefty scoop shots that you'll
Speaker 1: see a small guard make, and so I was digging
Speaker 1: into the numbers. I was like, man, it feels like
Speaker 1: dave Ion's been hitting these tough layups like all season.
Speaker 1: He's sixty five percent on layups this year, and again,
Speaker 1: that's an insane number for such a small guard. The
Speaker 1: vast majority of guards below sixty three you'll see in
Speaker 1: that like fifty three to fifty seven percent range seven
Speaker 1: being the high end for these like small guards. Like
Speaker 1: for him to be making sixty five percent of his
Speaker 1: layups shows really impressive touch around the rim. And then
Speaker 1: they won the game with their perimeter defense, like the
Speaker 1: Nicks were killing them with dribble penetration. In the early
Speaker 1: fourth quarter, Duce McBride had this like absurd dunk in transition.
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook esque where he just took off like a
Speaker 1: freight train and then just exploded off of one leg
Speaker 1: and dunked it with his right hand. Jordan Clarkson was
Speaker 1: killing him in the paint. Karl Anthony Towns b Timy
Speaker 1: Hawkes off the dribble and gets a little bank shot
Speaker 1: like they were doing a bunch of damage off the dribble.
Speaker 1: But in the final minutes, the heat started to keep
Speaker 1: the ball in front, which started leading to some tougher
Speaker 1: contested jump shots that didn't go in and then kill
Speaker 1: el Ware at Norman Powell ended up having a couple
Speaker 1: of big buckets each late in the game that iced
Speaker 1: the game. I'm still not super high on the heat.
Speaker 1: They're a little gimmicky to me. They're reliant on catching
Speaker 1: teams sleeping in transition by not stopping the ball with
Speaker 1: those early drives that they constantly hit teams with. If
Speaker 1: you can keep the heat in front, they're not gonna
Speaker 1: beat great defense consistently in the half court, and that's
Speaker 1: shown in their record splits, like they're five and oh
Speaker 1: this year against teams that are below five hundred, but
Speaker 1: they're just three and six against teams that are five
Speaker 1: hundred or better, and two of those three wins were
Speaker 1: against the Cavs in a game they lost Arius Garland
Speaker 1: and the Knicks without Jalen Brunson and Ogannobe, although to
Speaker 1: their credit, they did beat that healthy Knicks team early
Speaker 1: in the season. To be clear, I don't mean that
Speaker 1: as a negative thing about the Heat, like this is
Speaker 1: not a very good roster, like you're not if you're
Speaker 1: stacking up the Miami Heats talent on paper, compared to
Speaker 1: the other teams in the NBA, They're they're firmly in
Speaker 1: like the sixteen to twenty range. They're not a very
Speaker 1: talented roster compared to some of the other teams around
Speaker 1: the NBA. I mean, they were without bam Adebayo and
Speaker 1: Tyler Harrow last night, right. I mean, but even when
Speaker 1: they're fully healthy, I don't see them to be like
Speaker 1: a very imposing set of talent. Right. But once again,
Speaker 1: they're sitting at eight and six. They're full mix in
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference. And it's because Eric Spolstra just keeps
Speaker 1: finding ways to maximize talent in the modern NBA. Like
Speaker 1: this year, he saw the clear strength on his roster,
Speaker 1: like oh Man, like Jim Hawkez can beat dudes off
Speaker 1: the dribble like uh, you know, Davion Mitchell can initiate
Speaker 1: a dribble drive attack. We've got some good read and
Speaker 1: react talent relative to some of the other teams in
Speaker 1: the league, and so he kind of built this drive
Speaker 1: and kick system that maximizes that specific set of talent.
Speaker 1: You've got just that little bit of top end from
Speaker 1: Norman Powell, who has been fantastic this year, is a
Speaker 1: guy who can score coming off coming off of action
Speaker 1: by hitting shots over the top. The Heat are like
Speaker 1: one of the very lowest frequency teams when it comes
Speaker 1: to off the dribble jump shooting. But they got a
Speaker 1: couple of guys like Norman Palellin and Tyler Harrow when
Speaker 1: he comes back, that can do that, and it just
Speaker 1: provides a little bit of a counter to their driving
Speaker 1: kick system. And then they just dominate the margins like
Speaker 1: every Eric Spolster team does. They dominate the transition battle,
Speaker 1: they dominate turnovers and points off of turnovers, and so
Speaker 1: they just find ways to manufacture higher level basketball than
Speaker 1: what you would expect from the talent on the roster. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to say they don't have any talentsince
Speaker 1: the league is stacked, like they're not going out there
Speaker 1: with you know, even like Brandon Ingram and Scottie Barnes
Speaker 1: level a type of players that you see in terms
Speaker 1: of top end compared to some of the other rosters
Speaker 1: in the league, like the Heat are operating at a
Speaker 1: talent deficit and they're competing every single night in a
Speaker 1: stacked NBA because of Eric Spolser's ability to just find
Speaker 1: what his specific teams strength is and leverage that strength
Speaker 1: on a night to night basis to win games. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: It's all I have for today is always to sincerely
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show again.
Speaker 1: We'll be back most likely tonight as long as Lebron
Speaker 1: plays for the playback stream for Jazz versus the Lakers,
Speaker 1: then we'll be back tomorrow with more game reaction. I
Speaker 1: will see you guys though. F