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Speaker 1: to hoop tonight here as the volume heavy Thursday. Everybody,
Speaker 1: Oh balf, you guys are having a great week. We're
Speaker 1: hitting three games from last night as the Boston Celtics
Speaker 1: get their seventh win and eight tries against the San
Speaker 1: Antonio Spurs. After that, the Miami Heat are up ten
Speaker 1: in their early fourth quarter in the Oklahoma City Thunder
Speaker 1: demonstrate their upside with a dombin It twenty four to
Speaker 1: zero run to start that quarter, and then after that
Speaker 1: the Luka Doncics Lakers suffered their first loss on the
Speaker 1: road in Utah, a game that mostly just came down
Speaker 1: to a lackadaisical likers effort, but I did think kind
Speaker 1: of mixed in there were some good examples of the
Speaker 1: weaknesses of this new likers group, so I want to
Speaker 1: take some time to really get into those at the
Speaker 1: tail end of the show. You guys have the drip
Speaker 1: before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels.
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Speaker 1: but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube
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Speaker 1: Friday mail bag tomorrow, All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1: So I thought Jason Tatum just completely dominated the first
Speaker 1: quarter of that's game. Set the tone, built that initial advantage,
Speaker 1: and there was something that the Spurs just couldn't overcome.
Speaker 1: On the defensive end of the floor. Boston had a
Speaker 1: switching group out there that was just doing a really
Speaker 1: nice job just staying attacked, shutting down screening actions. Switching
Speaker 1: puts an emphasis on running action, good action that confuses switching,
Speaker 1: like three man action, lots of ball in player movement
Speaker 1: to try to get guys to make mistakes, and then
Speaker 1: when teams successfully switch, you've got to be aggressive against
Speaker 1: those switches getting to the basket to get super high
Speaker 1: value shots or to draw multiple defenders. You can run
Speaker 1: into a trap where you start settling, and that was
Speaker 1: what happened in that first quarter. There was a few
Speaker 1: examples of good action. There was like a little Chicago
Speaker 1: action like a downscreen into a dribble handoff where they
Speaker 1: pitched it back to Julian Champagnee on the right wing
Speaker 1: and knocked down a three. There were a couple examples
Speaker 1: like that, but it was a lot of like Daron
Speaker 1: Fox contested pull up jump shots, Victor Wim Benyama contested
Speaker 1: pull up jump shots. They weren't doing a very good
Speaker 1: job of attacking the switching. And then on the other
Speaker 1: end of the floor in the first quarter, Jason Tatum
Speaker 1: goes for fourteen points, six rebounds and three assists with
Speaker 1: zero turnovers. Did a ton of scoring in that short
Speaker 1: to mid range, attacking the spurs smaller players when they'd
Speaker 1: get switched onto him mismatches. There was a stretch in
Speaker 1: the late first quarter where they started spamming a stack,
Speaker 1: pick and roll action with Luke Cornette and Peyton Pritchard.
Speaker 1: Just a ball screen with Tatum and Cornette with Pritchard
Speaker 1: backscreening generated a wide open three for Pritchard at the
Speaker 1: top of the key that he happened to miss. He
Speaker 1: ended up hitting a pull up three on the right
Speaker 1: wing when they botched a switch again. Three man action
Speaker 1: is a great way to get teams to botch switches,
Speaker 1: and Victor Wenbinyamo was basically just sticking with the screen
Speaker 1: the guy who was backscreening him in the action instead
Speaker 1: of dealing with Tatum coming off of that screen. He
Speaker 1: just stepped into it. Knocked down at three. He finished
Speaker 1: the quarter off with a beautiful driving kick like sweeping
Speaker 1: hook pass over to the left wing to al hor
Speaker 1: Tatum just immediately looked like by far, the best player
Speaker 1: on the floor in a game that had two players
Speaker 1: that are considered top twenty five players in the league
Speaker 1: in my opinion, in deer Fox and Deeran Fox and
Speaker 1: Victor Weinbinyama, and Tatum was just completely outclassing them to
Speaker 1: start the game. And this is just the groove that
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum's in right now. During this three game winning streak,
Speaker 1: He's averaging thirty five points per game on sixty one
Speaker 1: percent true shooting. I thought Porzingis was the catalyst of
Speaker 1: the early second group, the early second quarter group that
Speaker 1: had some success. They pushed the lead all the way
Speaker 1: up to twenty three points. He was just running the
Speaker 1: floor in transition. He had a play where he beat
Speaker 1: everyone down the floor for a Dunky had another play
Speaker 1: where he ran his lane and transition on the right
Speaker 1: wing and hit a three. Throughout the entire first half,
Speaker 1: he was doing a great job of posting switches the
Speaker 1: same way that Jason Tatum was getting short range efficient shots.
Speaker 1: And then his rim protection was great. This is a
Speaker 1: Spurs team that can struggle with driving kick decisions, and
Speaker 1: so if you get Porzingis parked underneath the basket, he
Speaker 1: can do some real damage to a team that can
Speaker 1: struggle to be surgical in the half court. The Celtics
Speaker 1: really controlled the game throughout. They led by twenty ish
Speaker 1: for most of the first half. The Spurs did cut
Speaker 1: it down to eight in the early fourth quarter, but
Speaker 1: then the Celtics immediately regained control. Chrisops Porzingis hit a three,
Speaker 1: Peyton Pritchard hit a three, Sam Hauser hit a three,
Speaker 1: or excuse me, Sam Howser got fouled on a runout
Speaker 1: May two free throws. They had a couple of really
Speaker 1: good defensive possessions mixed in there, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, their back up sixteen in the game's basically over.
Speaker 1: The Celtics seem to have regained their footing, though they
Speaker 1: have won seven out of eight after a really uneven
Speaker 1: couple of months there. They're seventh in offense in that span,
Speaker 1: third in defense in that span, and that's despite a
Speaker 1: bunch of guys being out of the lineup. Jalen Brown
Speaker 1: has missed two games in that stretched chrisops Porzingis has
Speaker 1: missed a game, Drew Hollidays missed four games in that span.
Speaker 1: At Horford's missed a game, but a couple of guys
Speaker 1: stepping up. Jason Tatum has just been consistently great. I've
Speaker 1: seen a lot of talk about I've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of talk of late about like a Celtics fans calling
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum the best four since Lebron And when I
Speaker 1: when I first heard that, I had this like kind
Speaker 1: of reflex that came up in me that it was like, well,
Speaker 1: what about Kawhi And like what about Kevin Durant? And
Speaker 1: I think Kevin Durant would be the guy that I'd
Speaker 1: probably still put over Tatum in the sense that, like,
Speaker 1: in that like twenty eighteen to twenty twenty one stretch,
Speaker 1: he was just like and that's like spanning with an
Speaker 1: achilles injury in the middle, but in that like I
Speaker 1: should say, like twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one stretch,
Speaker 1: he was just so incredibly good on both ends of
Speaker 1: the floor. I'm not quite there, but I do think
Speaker 1: he's been better than Kawhi if you like piece everything together,
Speaker 1: because like what Tatum is to me is he's a
Speaker 1: Swiss Army knife type of forward in the same vein
Speaker 1: as a as a Lebron James. So, for instance, like
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant has a lot of impact, I think Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant has arguably just as good of an impact on
Speaker 1: the defensive end in terms of his ability to protect
Speaker 1: the rim, defensive rebound, switch out onto the perimeter. But
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant has a little bit of a susceptibility to
Speaker 1: size and strength. We saw that in the Memphis game
Speaker 1: two nights ago when Jared Jackson was able to just
Speaker 1: kind of toss Katie around at certain times and he
Speaker 1: got two easy buckets on him in the post late
Speaker 1: in the game, or an easy bucket and a foul
Speaker 1: late in the game, where I think Tatum's a little
Speaker 1: bit sturdier for that type of matchup. But I think
Speaker 1: Katie also is a little bit longer, a little bit
Speaker 1: better rimp protector, So like the two of them are
Speaker 1: more or less even on the defensive end of the floor.
Speaker 1: But I do think that Tatum has a certain Swiss
Speaker 1: Army knife quality in terms of just his ability to
Speaker 1: keep the ball moving, his playmaking ability. Jason Tatum has
Speaker 1: become a really, really gifted playmaker in this league. And
Speaker 1: so we can debate whether or not Tatum has reached
Speaker 1: a level that's higher than Kawhi or higher than Katie.
Speaker 1: I'm hesitant to go that far, but what I will
Speaker 1: say is that Tatum is becoming the Swiss Army Knife
Speaker 1: of this generation, which is what Lebron was in his generation.
Speaker 1: It's a type of player that I'm drawn to because
Speaker 1: I think it demonstrates a first of all, a versatility,
Speaker 1: but also just to admit to winning. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff in there that guys aren't willing to do.
Speaker 1: A simple example is like, as good as Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: has been defensively, I think he's kind of underachieved on
Speaker 1: that end over the course of his career, whereas Tatum,
Speaker 1: you can tell, is maximizing his potential on that end
Speaker 1: of the floor. I think it's just a testament to
Speaker 1: the type of leader he is, the type of competitor
Speaker 1: that he is. Again, a lot of times we see
Speaker 1: guys like that that are a little bit more mellow
Speaker 1: and not as like loud and boisterous with their personality,
Speaker 1: and we or even guys that are boysterous that are
Speaker 1: but that are positive. We think of them as like
Speaker 1: not competitors because they're not Kobe Bryant type assholes. And
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is is like the work
Speaker 1: that Jason Tatum does is a pretty clear demonstration of
Speaker 1: the type of competitor that he is, and he stepped
Speaker 1: up big time over the course of this recent stretch.
Speaker 1: Derek White is finally shooting the ball better again. They've
Speaker 1: been getting key contributions. Al Horford was talking about this
Speaker 1: the other day in an interview, But Luke Cornett has
Speaker 1: been so good as of late, getting those backup center minutes,
Speaker 1: protecting the rim, just being in the right spot all
Speaker 1: the time. I'm doing his job in ballscreen actions on offense,
Speaker 1: Sam Hauser is back to shooting the ball really well.
Speaker 1: After a rough start to the season. Things are rounding
Speaker 1: out for this Celtics group finally, after an uneven middle
Speaker 1: portion of the season. Every single time I watched San
Speaker 1: Antonio play, their youth and inexperience still just like screams
Speaker 1: off of the screen, like I'm watching early in the game,
Speaker 1: and like Jeremy Sohan drives into the lane and Porzingis
Speaker 1: is right there at the rim and Harrison Barnes is
Speaker 1: just standing completely unguarded in the right corner, and instead
Speaker 1: of just making that simple kickout pass to a guy
Speaker 1: that's one of the best three point shooters in the
Speaker 1: league this year, he tries to force his way through
Speaker 1: Porzingis at the rim and misses, or like Steph Castle,
Speaker 1: takes a wide open three at the top of the key.
Speaker 1: This is in the early second quarter stretch. Like wide
Speaker 1: open three at the top of the key. He's at
Speaker 1: the top of the key. When you are at the
Speaker 1: top of the key, your job as a guard is
Speaker 1: as soon as the shot goes up, you're back in
Speaker 1: transition defense. Remember first two jobs in transition defense are
Speaker 1: stop the ball and get to the basket right And
Speaker 1: like literally takes the three to the top of the key,
Speaker 1: Porzingis just runs right by him as Steph Castle's just
Speaker 1: in a light little back pedal going back and Porzingis
Speaker 1: gets a dunk, like or even Victor Webbinyama just taking
Speaker 1: really tough mid range jump shots early in the clock
Speaker 1: when he can get that same shot later in the clock. Honestly,
Speaker 1: right now, I hate about half of the shots Wenby takes,
Speaker 1: Like right after that leak out dunk that krisops Porzingis
Speaker 1: got that put Boston up twenty. They were up twenty,
Speaker 1: so like you need a good shot to like reset
Speaker 1: things and get control of the game. In Victor Webinyama,
Speaker 1: with nineteen seconds on the shot clock, takes a completely
Speaker 1: smothered step back three against Al Horford, the one that
Speaker 1: has like absolutely no chance of going in. Now. To
Speaker 1: be clear, I'm choosing to view that as more of
Speaker 1: a positive thing, just simply because most young basketball players
Speaker 1: struggle with shots selection, especially ones that have a great
Speaker 1: skill talent, because they trust their skill in a way
Speaker 1: that it's like, oh, I can get to this shot
Speaker 1: whenever I want, so why don't I just take it
Speaker 1: when there should be a little bit more deliberate process.
Speaker 1: And that deliberate process comes as you get more experience
Speaker 1: as a basketball player. So I'm not particularly worried about it,
Speaker 1: but there is some reality to the fact that this
Speaker 1: team is really young. They've got a lot of young
Speaker 1: players that still make a lot of mistakes, and it
Speaker 1: just goes to show you that this is not a
Speaker 1: this year type of goal. This is a multi year
Speaker 1: journey to try to figure out how to win with
Speaker 1: this group, which takes me to the big thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to get into with the Spurs today, which is
Speaker 1: the reality of what it's going to take for dieron
Speaker 1: Fox and Victor Wemenyama to beat teams that switch. Okay,
Speaker 1: so they ran into a switching look today. We've talked
Speaker 1: a lot in recent weeks about how the pick and
Speaker 1: pop works. Right in a pick and pop action, any
Speaker 1: sort of traditional coverage where you use the screen defender
Speaker 1: to contain the ball handler either in a deeper drop
Speaker 1: or up at the level. Anytime you do that, Victor
Speaker 1: Wemenyama is going to be wide open, popping to the
Speaker 1: three point line and whatever they run teams with traditional coverages,
Speaker 1: they're going to get a lot of great stuff because
Speaker 1: every possession that has Victor Wei Minyama standing at the
Speaker 1: top of the key unguarded with like sixteen seventeen seconds
Speaker 1: left on the shot clock is probably going to end
Speaker 1: in a good shot for your team. Right. But again,
Speaker 1: when we talk about the ultimate goal of winning an
Speaker 1: NBA championship, you've got to win four playoff rounds in
Speaker 1: two months, meaning you've got to be four excellent teams
Speaker 1: that are probably going to be very different. You're probably
Speaker 1: gonna have to go on the road at least one
Speaker 1: like in have to win a must win game on
Speaker 1: the road. At various points. There are going to be
Speaker 1: challenges you face along the way. It's inevitable that in
Speaker 1: that journey the Spurs are going to run into a
Speaker 1: team that can switch that screen, meaning they're going to
Speaker 1: have Boston's a great example having a set of players
Speaker 1: where they feel comfortable with the guy who's guarding Wemby
Speaker 1: also guarding Fox, and the guy who's guarding Fox also
Speaker 1: guarding Wemby. So like again, I was talking about the
Speaker 1: big picture goal over the next few years of the
Speaker 1: Spurs rounding out their young talent, getting the experience they need,
Speaker 1: improving their decision making, getting to where they need to
Speaker 1: win multiple playoff rounds. Part of that journey is going
Speaker 1: to be deeron Fox and Victor Weman yam up beating
Speaker 1: a switching look. So one of the things that bothered
Speaker 1: me watching that game last night was Fox and Wemby
Speaker 1: attacking those switches, just taking bad jump shots early in
Speaker 1: the game. I've talked a lot about this as it
Speaker 1: pertains to the Celtics during the times that they've struggled
Speaker 1: this year. When you are matchup hunting against switches, there
Speaker 1: is an important order of operations you need your attackers
Speaker 1: to do in those situations, Right, you have to generate
Speaker 1: a shot in one on one that is so valuable
Speaker 1: that it's untenable for the defense. So if you go
Speaker 1: out there and you shoot forty seven eight percent on
Speaker 1: mid range jump shots, which by the way, deeron Fox
Speaker 1: can do, like the team that's guarding that shot isn't
Speaker 1: going to overreact to it. Why because, like, for instance,
Speaker 1: Aaron Fox hit two contested mid range jump shots against
Speaker 1: against ISOs or against switches early in that game. But
Speaker 1: from the Celtics standpoint, it's like that's a shot that's
Speaker 1: gonna be worth less than one point per attempt. Same
Speaker 1: thing goes for Victor Wembinyama in the mid range, right,
Speaker 1: So as soon as you do that, you're making Boston's
Speaker 1: coverage worth it. As Boston is sitting in their locker
Speaker 1: room talking about the game plan, they're thinking to themselves,
Speaker 1: if we can switch all these actions and shut down
Speaker 1: the picking pop, we can probably bait deeron Fox into
Speaker 1: Victor Wembenyama into taking contested jump shots that they're not
Speaker 1: gonna make enough of to beat us. That's the game plan,
Speaker 1: and so as soon as you start doing that, you're
Speaker 1: playing directly into their hands. So how do you flip
Speaker 1: the script on that? Deeron Fox against bigger players needs
Speaker 1: to get dribble penetration and get into the short range
Speaker 1: where he's much more efficient on those short range floaters,
Speaker 1: stuff right at the basket, getting to the foul line.
Speaker 1: Victor Wembinyama, same sort of thing has to get too,
Speaker 1: looks that are closer to the basket. Once you start
Speaker 1: getting into the one point one points per attempt one
Speaker 1: point two points per tempt again, those are like one
Speaker 1: to twenty offensive rating. That's where it gets untenable for
Speaker 1: the defense. Once it gets untenable for the defense, then
Speaker 1: they will start sending additional defenders. If dearon Fox starts
Speaker 1: toasting that guy off to dribble and getting dribble penetration
Speaker 1: and spraying the ball out, now you're getting the defense
Speaker 1: in rotation, you're gonna get a lot of great shots.
Speaker 1: If Victor webbin Yama starts drawing double teams because he's
Speaker 1: doing a lot of damage closer to the rim. Now
Speaker 1: you're spraying the ball out. Now you're getting great shots.
Speaker 1: Now you're accomplishing the same thing that you accomplish in
Speaker 1: a pick and pop. When you get Victor Wembin Yama
Speaker 1: standing completely unguarded out above the break, that's the ultimate goal.
Speaker 1: When you're attacking a switching defense, you need to get
Speaker 1: the defense into rotation. If you attack a switching defense
Speaker 1: just playing one on one all night, it's going to
Speaker 1: be a problem. You have to get so successful in
Speaker 1: those one on one situations that the defense starts reacting
Speaker 1: and you get them into rotation. Again, we talked about
Speaker 1: action early. You want to run three man action. You
Speaker 1: want to try to force as many mistakes as possible
Speaker 1: to generate good looks. But inevitably you're going to run
Speaker 1: into an elite, well coached, well disciplined defense that can
Speaker 1: switch to dearon Fox Victor women Yama pick and pop,
Speaker 1: and in that situation, it's going to be on Fox
Speaker 1: and Wemby to beat it with aggression that is untenable
Speaker 1: for the defense instead of passively settling for jump shots
Speaker 1: that can get them into trouble. Just something to keep
Speaker 1: an eye on with the development of that duo over
Speaker 1: the course of the next few years. All right, Moving
Speaker 1: on to Heat Thunder. Heat defense was giving Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: a lot of issues early in this game. Andrew Wiggins
Speaker 1: and Davion Mitchell just for putting up a bunch of
Speaker 1: good ISO reps on Schegos Alexander forcing him into tough
Speaker 1: jumpers that line up with Bam and kell al Ware too.
Speaker 1: They can really protect the rim well and think we're
Speaker 1: awesome on offense. To start this game, Miami scored twenty
Speaker 1: two points in the first six minutes. Bam had a boy,
Speaker 1: I was cooking Isaiah Hartenstein in one on one situations.
Speaker 1: He dunked all over his head on a baseline drive.
Speaker 1: Tyler Harrow had it going, had his floater going early
Speaker 1: in the game. They were getting runouts off their transition
Speaker 1: defense really good early in the game. I also thought
Speaker 1: the Heat were doing a great job of generating paint
Speaker 1: touches against Oklahoma Cities switching by slipping out of screens. Again,
Speaker 1: that's another example that we were talking just a minute
Speaker 1: ago about how to beat switching. A great example is
Speaker 1: like just run up the screen and slip out of
Speaker 1: it as quick as you can, and you might be
Speaker 1: able to get little angles for over the top passes
Speaker 1: that generate four on threes without you having to beat
Speaker 1: somebody off off the dribble right. So the Heat ended
Speaker 1: up going up by ten. They kind of hung around
Speaker 1: that area until about the middle second quarter, and then
Speaker 1: they go on another run in the middle second quarter
Speaker 1: and they end up going up by twenty one points.
Speaker 1: They had to switch everything group out there with Bam
Speaker 1: at center. Continued defending really well. The Heat defended really
Speaker 1: well for the most part in this game. Andrew Wiggins
Speaker 1: got going a little bit. He had a movement jumper
Speaker 1: going to the left, he scored out of the post.
Speaker 1: Pella Larson hit a couple of huge threes. They just
Speaker 1: got going offensively. They ended up getting a bucket off
Speaker 1: of a Nikola Yovich back back door cut out of
Speaker 1: a Harrow Bam two man game where Bam slipped out
Speaker 1: of it four on three drop off to Yovich. Jovich
Speaker 1: lays it up twenty one point lead. So looking like
Speaker 1: they're in complete control of the game down in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1: The comeback started in the late second quarter with a
Speaker 1: little three point shooting burst as Jalen Williams excuse me,
Speaker 1: lou Dort and Shake Gosounder Alexander each make threes. Before
Speaker 1: the end of the half, they cut it back to eleven,
Speaker 1: which again is just a much more achievable type of
Speaker 1: thing for them to overcome. In the second half. They
Speaker 1: go back and forth throughout the third quarter, and that's
Speaker 1: where we end up with this fourth quarter run. So
Speaker 1: it's ninety three to eighty three heater up to start
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter and Oklahoma City goes on a twenty
Speaker 1: four to zero run over the next five and a
Speaker 1: half minutes. I want to zoom in on the defensive
Speaker 1: end because I've been really talking about this idea of like,
Speaker 1: what does your basketball team present that's an unsolvable problem,
Speaker 1: something that like every team in the league is going
Speaker 1: to struggle with to a certain extent. Now here's the thing.
Speaker 1: The thunder were great on offense in that stretch. The
Speaker 1: thunderscored twenty four points in five and a half minutes.
Speaker 1: It was a complete explosion. Shay was unbelievable, was hitting
Speaker 1: a ton of big shots, he was getting doubled a lot,
Speaker 1: and guys were hitting threes off of it. But we
Speaker 1: know Oklahoma City's offense is a bit streaky. It's a
Speaker 1: bit prone to cold spells. That's how they ended up
Speaker 1: down twenty to begin with, struggling against Miami switching like
Speaker 1: their offense has a little bit of a like a
Speaker 1: kind of a ricketiness to it, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Their defense is their ace in the hole, that is
Speaker 1: their reliably great punch that there isn't much of an
Speaker 1: answer for from any team in the league. I thought
Speaker 1: it started with lou Dort in the early fourth quarter.
Speaker 1: Lou Dort just decided enough was enough with Tyler Harrow.
Speaker 1: He ratcheted up ball pressure and got super physical with
Speaker 1: him and Tyler like straight up peede down his leg,
Speaker 1: like he couldn't even dribble within five feet of lou
Speaker 1: Dort without Dort either just taking the ball away from
Speaker 1: him him dribbling the ball out of bounds, or getting
Speaker 1: into trouble and just throwing the ball away to somebody
Speaker 1: else on Oakley, Oklahoma City in a passing lane like
Speaker 1: lou Dort is just one of the apex perimeter defenders
Speaker 1: in this league. He gives the very best offensive players
Speaker 1: in this league issues, even guys like Luka Doncic. But
Speaker 1: Tyler Harrow is basically food to a guy like lou Dort,
Speaker 1: and he just annihilated him to start the fourth quarter,
Speaker 1: cut the head off the snake. The other two guys
Speaker 1: that were super dominant in that stretch defensively Kenrich Williams
Speaker 1: and jay Lynn Williams. Jay Will off the bench backup center,
Speaker 1: a couple of bench guys who came in and defended
Speaker 1: extremely well. Jay Will was protecting the hell out of
Speaker 1: the rim, excellent rotations time and time again. Had a
Speaker 1: big block on a Andrew Wiggins pull up three against
Speaker 1: a switch, and then Kenrich Williams just erased Andrew Wiggins
Speaker 1: physical absorbing contact, disrupting Wiggins's base and making him playoff balance,
Speaker 1: which makes his short range shot making less effective. And
Speaker 1: the Thunder just took a Miami offense that was lighting
Speaker 1: them up for three quarters and just put them in
Speaker 1: an ice crip. And they were completely helpless. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't like they were just missing open shots. They couldn't
Speaker 1: get anything decent. And even on the catch and shoot
Speaker 1: looks they got, they were rushed. They barely made it
Speaker 1: to the rim. They chewed up and spit out that
Speaker 1: Miami heat offense in that fourth quarter, And that's really
Speaker 1: the exciting part even dating back to the Dallas series
Speaker 1: last year, the way they almost won that series was
Speaker 1: with their ability to truly make Luca uncomfortable and to
Speaker 1: go on these massive defensive runs. I thought last night
Speaker 1: was one of those regular season moments that you'll look
Speaker 1: back at as kind of like a defining moment of
Speaker 1: this Thunder team if they ever do get the trophy.
Speaker 1: They have become a truly dominant defense. The Thunder are
Speaker 1: four point one points better per one hundred possessions and
Speaker 1: defensive rating than anyone in the league. This season. The
Speaker 1: gap between the Thunder and the second best defense is
Speaker 1: the same as the gap between the second best defense
Speaker 1: and the eleventh best defense. And that's with chet Holmgan
Speaker 1: playing twelve games this year, seven wins in a row
Speaker 1: for the Oklahoma City Thunder playing some really special basketball
Speaker 1: right now. You know, I remember for you Thunder fans,
Speaker 1: like I remember when I was rooting for the Lakers
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, the year that they won the title
Speaker 1: and even the year after that, the defining characteristic of
Speaker 1: that team was defensive runs. They just about a dozen
Speaker 1: times in the regular season. You just see them, whether
Speaker 1: it was against like who, regardless of who was against
Speaker 1: where they just be like, Hey, we're gonna lock in
Speaker 1: on defense now and this team's just not gonna score
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna win. And I get very similar
Speaker 1: vibes from this Oklahoma City defense this season. All right,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the Lakers losing in Utah first and foremost,
Speaker 1: no reason to overreact to this at all. One, they
Speaker 1: just beat the living shit out of the same group
Speaker 1: of NBA players two nights ago, and they were clearly
Speaker 1: nowhere near as engaged. I was exacerbated by the fact
Speaker 1: that they were without two of their most important energy
Speaker 1: guys and gave Vincent and Dorian Finney Smith two It's
Speaker 1: like the famous last game before a long break. I
Speaker 1: shared the story on Twitter this morning. But I remember
Speaker 1: my last year in college. I was playing Anaia up
Speaker 1: in Phoenix at Arizona Christian University. We at various points
Speaker 1: in the season were top five in the nation. We
Speaker 1: were one of the best Anaia teams in the country.
Speaker 1: We started the year twelve and zero and we even
Speaker 1: beat a Division One. Like a Division one team scheduled
Speaker 1: US as a team in the Big Sky Conference called
Speaker 1: Northern Arizona University scheduled US for like a tune up game,
Speaker 1: and we just went into their house and handled them
Speaker 1: like wire to wire, just controlled the game from start
Speaker 1: to finish. We were really good at Anaia. Team an
Speaker 1: Aia was weird because, like the age rules are different,
Speaker 1: so we like had like a twenty nine year old
Speaker 1: point guard and a thirty one year old shooting guard.
Speaker 1: I was like one of the younger guys on the
Speaker 1: team at twenty two. At that point, we were just
Speaker 1: stacked with talent relative to the college level, and we
Speaker 1: were really good team. But we had a break at winter,
Speaker 1: like for the holidays, and it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: an eight or nine day break. And the week before
Speaker 1: we went on the break, we had four games in
Speaker 1: a single week, and in that week we had to
Speaker 1: play two top five teams or two top ten teams
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, in the country, and like we
Speaker 1: beat We start the week three and zero and we
Speaker 1: beat both of the top ten teams, and so we're
Speaker 1: twelve and oh and everything looks great, and we have
Speaker 1: a game on a Friday. I'm trying to remember. I
Speaker 1: think it was called Great Falls. I think it was
Speaker 1: Great Falls was the name of the school. But we
Speaker 1: played in a five hundred NAIA team from the Midwest,
Speaker 1: and they just beat the shit out of us. And
Speaker 1: we all had flights out of town the next day,
Speaker 1: and I remember our coach. We get in the locker
Speaker 1: room and the coach is literally like the coach is
Speaker 1: literally like half of you guys were already on the airplane.
Speaker 1: This total bullshit. He was chewing us out. And it
Speaker 1: was just crazy because we started twelve and oh and
Speaker 1: we were beating all these great teams, and then we
Speaker 1: ended up losing to a really bad team right before
Speaker 1: we went on a break. And I think it's just
Speaker 1: a classic case of like when you get to take
Speaker 1: a like basket is such a mental grind when you
Speaker 1: do it in an organized context, and you can imagine
Speaker 1: how much harder that is in the pros when you've
Speaker 1: got all these extended road trips and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But like, it's a grind, it's a mental grind, and
Speaker 1: when you see an opportunity to rest, it's hard to
Speaker 1: get that out of your mind. And I think again,
Speaker 1: like lots of teams were playing their last game before
Speaker 1: the break last night and played better basketball. Not saying
Speaker 1: it's the ultimate excuse. I just think it's one of
Speaker 1: the factors that led to that crappy effort. And then three,
Speaker 1: the Lakers have been one of the top teams in
Speaker 1: the league for a month and they were kind of
Speaker 1: do a bad night. Bad nights happen in the NBA,
Speaker 1: and they really don't concern me unless they become a
Speaker 1: recurring thing. Like earlier in the year. What you saw
Speaker 1: last night in Utah was like kind of like once
Speaker 1: a week, twice a week kind of thing that you'd
Speaker 1: see from the Lakers. That hasn't been the case over
Speaker 1: the course of the last month or so, so I'm
Speaker 1: trying to cut them some slack. That's it was very
Speaker 1: clear that the Lakers were not close to their best.
Speaker 1: Luca was awful, which is equal parts in being out
Speaker 1: of rhythm and out of shape, but also him just
Speaker 1: trying to feel out his new teammates. He hasn't been
Speaker 1: very aggressive since he joined the team, and I think
Speaker 1: that that's played a role in him just being at
Speaker 1: a rhythm. Austin Reeves is hilarious because, like he's such
Speaker 1: a dependable big game player, but yeah, he can throw
Speaker 1: out like an absolute stinker like he did last night
Speaker 1: against a team like the Jazz, So I'm not worried
Speaker 1: about it. That said, regardless of who you are, even
Speaker 1: if you're a top tier team in this league, like
Speaker 1: the Celtics or the Thunder, there is value in taking
Speaker 1: a closer look at your losses just to remind yourself
Speaker 1: of your own vulnerability. Even on nights when you have
Speaker 1: poor effort, Eventually you find yourself down big and you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's try to get this game, and you try to
Speaker 1: assert control, but obviously you lose the game, right, So like,
Speaker 1: you fail to assert control and you still end up losing.
Speaker 1: And usually in those moments there's a weakness or two
Speaker 1: that you can at least look at and acknowledge exists,
Speaker 1: like even Bob. Let's just take Boston for example. A
Speaker 1: lot of the Boston losses this year, even when their
Speaker 1: effort has been poor, has had a lot to do
Speaker 1: with offensive process. They've had some relapses to older versions
Speaker 1: of themselves, or they settle for bad shots and they
Speaker 1: don't attack, they don't move the ball around, they don't
Speaker 1: generate great catch and shoot looks. It's good for the
Speaker 1: Celtics to be reminded that they're not invincible and that
Speaker 1: if they don't stay diligent in their offensive process. They
Speaker 1: can get beat with Oklahoma City. It's like the shooting
Speaker 1: of their role players and some of their offensive process
Speaker 1: stuff as well, challenging rim protectors, not moving the ball around,
Speaker 1: they can go super cold on offense. So here's the
Speaker 1: thing for last night. Even though we all obviously know
Speaker 1: that if the Lakers had to play the Jazz again
Speaker 1: tomorrow that they beat them by twenty plus. If they
Speaker 1: needed to beat them, like if it was like you
Speaker 1: gotta go beat you ta tomorrow, they'd handle them. But
Speaker 1: it's still important to acknowledge how the Jazz gave the
Speaker 1: Lakers issues last night. So here are all the big
Speaker 1: picture weaknesses that I noticed that were on display last
Speaker 1: night that the Lake need to sharpen up if they
Speaker 1: want to achieve their big picture goals. First and foremost
Speaker 1: point of attack defense. Part of this again last night
Speaker 1: was some unusual guys playing because Gabe and Dorian Finney
Speaker 1: Smith were out, like Daltonknact was getting cooked a lot
Speaker 1: one on one and he's not going to be in
Speaker 1: the rotation when he's in the playoffs. But it was
Speaker 1: some core guys too. Austin Reeves had a really rough
Speaker 1: game on both ends, and he was giving up a
Speaker 1: ton of dribble penetration. Ruy Hatchamurro was getting blown by
Speaker 1: time and time again. Now here's the thing. During this
Speaker 1: streak when the Lakers have been offens awesome on defense,
Speaker 1: both of those two guys have been fantastic on defense.
Speaker 1: But it's just a reminder that those are two guys.
Speaker 1: Really the whole team has to compete on the ball.
Speaker 1: They're not so gifted athletically that they can give poor effort.
Speaker 1: They have to compete on the ball, and then the
Speaker 1: Lakers have to support them by shrinking the floor around them,
Speaker 1: flying around in rotation, and if they don't, this defense
Speaker 1: can dip into being pretty bad For a team that
Speaker 1: was the number one defense in the league over the
Speaker 1: previous thirteen games. They looked absolutely atrocious in that third quarter,
Speaker 1: as as a Collier was just beating them time and
Speaker 1: time again downhill, Jordan Clarkson time and time again downhill
Speaker 1: and just picking them apart. Second big thing that stood
Speaker 1: out to me Ruey tracking shooters. Ruey spent a good
Speaker 1: amount of time matched up on Lourie markmen, and Laurie
Speaker 1: burned him time and time again for helping and just
Speaker 1: knocking down threes off of skip passes. We all know
Speaker 1: that Ruey is susceptible to that kind of thing when
Speaker 1: he's not focused. He was the guy that really hurt
Speaker 1: the Lakers in the first round series last year by
Speaker 1: not tracking Michael Porter Junior. It was just a good
Speaker 1: reminder last night that Ruey can struggle sometimes with tracking
Speaker 1: shooters and that JJ might have to account for that
Speaker 1: by going with a guy like Dorian Finney Smith or
Speaker 1: keeping him in a matchup that doesn't have him tracking
Speaker 1: shooters around. That was something that stood out to me
Speaker 1: last night. The third issue the Lakers are super thin
Speaker 1: at center. Jackson Hayes has been playing great, but he
Speaker 1: went down with a facial contusion in the middle of
Speaker 1: the first quarter and suddenly it was a large diet
Speaker 1: of Alex Lynn and I gotta say, like, I knew
Speaker 1: Alex wasn't going to be a significant edition. I talked
Speaker 1: about it when we talked about the signing, like he's
Speaker 1: barely played in the last five years. His coaches clearly
Speaker 1: don't trust him. I thought of him basically strictly as
Speaker 1: just a big two hundred and fifty pound body, to
Speaker 1: throw at Jokic from time to time maybe and not
Speaker 1: much else. But my god, Alex Lynn was awful last night.
Speaker 1: He quite literally doesn't do anything well aside from being
Speaker 1: an okay rebounder for his size. Can't finish at the rim,
Speaker 1: he can't finish away from the rim. He's awful on defense,
Speaker 1: both in space and at the rim. Doesn't offer any
Speaker 1: resistance there. Like, I don't really know how Alex lenn
Speaker 1: is going to be able to help the Lakers much
Speaker 1: at all, but maybe I'll be wrong. I thought Christian
Speaker 1: Kaloko did okay, but he also got tossed around by
Speaker 1: Kessler quite a bit, got beat by Kessler in some
Speaker 1: vertical spacing situation. It was still clear that Christian Cloco
Speaker 1: is a two way type of talent and not a
Speaker 1: guy that can be playing big minutes in a big situation.
Speaker 1: By the way, shout out to Walker Kessler. He absolutely
Speaker 1: dominated this game on both ends of the floor. Sixteen
Speaker 1: points without missing a shot, six blocks. The entire NBA
Speaker 1: world should be very thankful that Danny Ainge did not
Speaker 1: accept that Mark Williams package. I had heard from behind
Speaker 1: the scenes that the Lakers offered that exact same package
Speaker 1: Dalton the twenty thirty one first the pick swap. They
Speaker 1: offered that to Utah and Danny Ainge turned it down.
Speaker 1: The NBA world should be very thankful that Danny Age
Speaker 1: said no to that, because if Walker Kessler was on
Speaker 1: this Lakers team, they would be an absolute force on
Speaker 1: both ends and they'd probably enter into that same tier
Speaker 1: with Oklahoma City in Boston. But that brings me to
Speaker 1: the last issue that was on display last night, which
Speaker 1: is spacing. There's a reason why Kessler was able to
Speaker 1: protect the rim the way he did and bogged down
Speaker 1: the Laker offense. When Jack ex and Hayes is healthy,
Speaker 1: he can beat a guy like Kessler with that vertical spacing, right.
Speaker 1: That was how they picked apart Utahon Monday. When Dorian
Speaker 1: Phinney Smith is healthy, they can put together small ball
Speaker 1: groups with Ruey and Dorian Phinney Smith and Lebron where
Speaker 1: they can still defend and rebound well enough, but they
Speaker 1: can put Kessler out in space, and that was another
Speaker 1: way they picked apart Utah Monday. But without those two guys,
Speaker 1: one of Jared Vanderbilt or Christian KloCo or Alex lenn
Speaker 1: was on the floor. At all times, and that allowed
Speaker 1: Utah to park Kessler underneath the basket, and that really
Speaker 1: made it hard for the Lakers to generate quality shots.
Speaker 1: What this means to me is that the Lakers are
Speaker 1: one injury in a bad matchup against a team that
Speaker 1: can protect the rim away from being very vulnerable in
Speaker 1: a playoff series. Now. Fortunately, they have space for another
Speaker 1: veteran minimum contract before the end of the season. So
Speaker 1: if there is a big forward that can shoot, or
Speaker 1: a center with true spacing ability like whether it's popping
Speaker 1: spacing or vertical spacing, if there is a player like
Speaker 1: that that becomes available, the Lakers getting that guy could
Speaker 1: make a huge difference in their potential this year. Just
Speaker 1: something to keep an eye on. Again, nothing to overreact to,
Speaker 1: but those were the obvious issues on display last night
Speaker 1: that the Lakers are going to have to work on
Speaker 1: improving to give themselves the best chance to win in
Speaker 1: the playoffs this year. This is a team that has
Speaker 1: to compete on at the point of attack and they
Speaker 1: have to support their weaker perimeter defenders with help side
Speaker 1: on the back right. This is a team that has
Speaker 1: some young, flawed guys in their rotation. Guys like Ruy
Speaker 1: Hachimura that JJ Redick is gonna have to be very
Speaker 1: delicate with how he deploys him in the postseason to
Speaker 1: prevent him from being damaging, especially on the defensive end
Speaker 1: of the floor. Their center depth is an issue, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Jackson Hayes becomes really important to
Speaker 1: this team, Dorian Finney Smith becomes really important to this team.
Speaker 1: Ruby Hachimura becomes very important to this team. These big
Speaker 1: players that can shoot in Jackson's vertical spacing are like
Speaker 1: vitally important, and it's just it's just something to keep
Speaker 1: in mind in terms of their margin for air as
Speaker 1: it pertains to the injury front. And again, like they're
Speaker 1: they're this team has to be unguardable offensively because they're
Speaker 1: not gonna be good enough defensively. I think they're better
Speaker 1: defensively than they showed last night. Again they've shown that
Speaker 1: for a month. But like if they're gonna get to
Speaker 1: where they want to go, they're going to have to
Speaker 1: be able to score against everybody, and that means they're
Speaker 1: gonna have to be able to space rim protectors out
Speaker 1: and last night without Jackson, without Dorian Finney Smith, they
Speaker 1: really struggle to space rimt protectors out. That's something to
Speaker 1: keep an eye on as we're tracking them through the postseason.
Speaker 1: And again, like I always talk about how the playoffs
Speaker 1: are about matchups when I do my series previews, the
Speaker 1: Lakers are playing a team that's got a rim protector
Speaker 1: and they have an injury somewhere in the front court
Speaker 1: to where a guy like Jackson, a guy like Dorian,
Speaker 1: a guy like Rui's out. That infinitely cuts into the Lakers'
Speaker 1: ability to be able to withstand a series like that.
Speaker 1: Just something to keep in mind. All right, guys, that's
Speaker 1: all I have for today. As always a sincere. Really
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.
Speaker 1: We will be back tomorrow with some more game breakdowns
Speaker 1: as well as a mailbag. I will see you guys
Speaker 1: then the volume. What's up guys. As always, I appreciate
Speaker 1: you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would
Speaker 1: actually be really helpful for us if you guys would
Speaker 1: take a second and leave a rating and a review.
Speaker 1: As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
Speaker 1: you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
Speaker 1: appreciate it.