Speaker 1: Mmmmm, all right, welcome to this day of the Lakers
Speaker 1: on Dash Radio. Than you got so much to come
Speaker 1: to hang out on the what's the Tuesday Tuesday night? Uh?
Speaker 1: Finally some I would say easily the high point of
Speaker 1: the Laker season, which is what we needed after that
Speaker 1: horrible news this afternoon, UM that Lebron was going down.
Speaker 1: I had a good feeling about tonight, Um, and I'll
Speaker 1: explain why in a minute, but I'm really glad that
Speaker 1: you and I Raj can for the most part talk
Speaker 1: about good things tonight and and talk about how this
Speaker 1: might be just an the second consecutive step in the
Speaker 1: right direction. How are you doing, buddy, how's your week
Speaker 1: going so far? Doing well? Yeah? I saw you and
Speaker 1: a bunch of other people tweeting positive about the Lakers
Speaker 1: earlier in the day, and and I just knew there
Speaker 1: was something bad at just a bad thing I felt
Speaker 1: was going to happen. And we got the Lebron news
Speaker 1: right that he's going to be out. I think we'll
Speaker 1: see it's probably gonna be ten days or something. It
Speaker 1: just felt like this team can't build in any rhythm,
Speaker 1: and it's not an excuse to come in tonight and
Speaker 1: try and lose against the Kings. But I was a
Speaker 1: little bit worried about that, and then the game started
Speaker 1: and we started really slow. Frank again, when I went
Speaker 1: with DeAndre Jordan's right, it was really ugly. I think
Speaker 1: we had like fourteen points for a lot of the
Speaker 1: first quarter, but that second half was huge, man. And
Speaker 1: we'll get into it, but you're right, it's probably the
Speaker 1: high point of the season, which is fascinating to say
Speaker 1: after we get the news that we lose Lebron for
Speaker 1: for a couple of days. But yeah, just a high point,
Speaker 1: something we could build off of. I talked about it
Speaker 1: after the last game that they've lost the benefit of
Speaker 1: the doubt after the Detroit game that they would build
Speaker 1: off of off of that win, it was good to
Speaker 1: see it tonight. I thought it was just an incredible
Speaker 1: second half, an incredible third quarter from the Superstars and
Speaker 1: Dwight Howard as well being involved in that. But but yeah, man,
Speaker 1: just just a good win. It's nice to have a
Speaker 1: good win. And everyone coming coming over from the Warrior
Speaker 1: Sons game, I bet a lot of people step to
Speaker 1: that one, but yeah, this was a good one, a
Speaker 1: fun game. Finally for us, the team was fun to
Speaker 1: watch tonight. One of one of the biggest things that
Speaker 1: I've been complaining about all years. Like, you know, the
Speaker 1: Lakers had an unlikable basketball character. You know they you
Speaker 1: know if they if the if if you could sum
Speaker 1: up the entire Lakers personality and to someone that would
Speaker 1: show up to your gym and play pick up with you,
Speaker 1: he'd be the guy you don't want to play with,
Speaker 1: that has all the talent in the world, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't care and isn't willing to do the dirty work.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really value the win as much as you do,
Speaker 1: doesn't care if you lose and have to wait three
Speaker 1: games to get back on. That was the Lakers this
Speaker 1: entire season really up until in my opinion, the last game.
Speaker 1: Even in the first chunk of the season, they would
Speaker 1: have stretches where they would put those things together, but
Speaker 1: they were just stretches. Even in the same game they'd
Speaker 1: be terrible. Like you look at the Cleveland game and
Speaker 1: you'd be like, man, Lebron was magnificent down the stretch.
Speaker 1: They won by twelve. The defense was great. You know,
Speaker 1: that looked like Laker basketball, and you forget that, Like
Speaker 1: for most of that game, they were kind of coasting,
Speaker 1: you know, and that Lebron really wasn't good for most
Speaker 1: of that game. And and what stood out to me
Speaker 1: in the in the last game against Detroit was there
Speaker 1: was just a different energy around the team and it
Speaker 1: didn't manifest on the scoreboard because there were so many
Speaker 1: old habits that they had to kick. There was the
Speaker 1: DeAndre Jordan's you know, kind of clunkiness in the in
Speaker 1: the offense, particularly in the first half, although they put
Speaker 1: together some good DeAndre Jordan minutes in the second half,
Speaker 1: there was the you know, there was the fact that
Speaker 1: the role players were not making shots. Actually kind of
Speaker 1: dug into the numbers a little bit today and coming
Speaker 1: into tonight, Malik Monk was below thirty on wide open threes.
Speaker 1: So I kind of felt like there was you know,
Speaker 1: kind of a positive regression that was on regression. It
Speaker 1: was on the way there, you know, and tonight, like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny, that same energy carried over from
Speaker 1: the last game. The problem was that the Lakers were
Speaker 1: just like the theme of the first half was just
Speaker 1: self sabotage. They were just undercutting their own good process
Speaker 1: with some of turnovers. Th h T was really, really bad,
Speaker 1: so bad that Frank went back to Rondo, which was
Speaker 1: really interesting, but the the young fellow had to learn
Speaker 1: a lesson and valuable lesson. We'll get into that later,
Speaker 1: but the point being is just to see that effort
Speaker 1: carry over. That was why I had a good feeling
Speaker 1: about tonight. I just felt like, for the first time
Speaker 1: all year against the Pistons, even though it was ugly,
Speaker 1: it seemed like the team kind of understood that they
Speaker 1: weren't good enough to not respect the game and that
Speaker 1: they had to take it more seriously. And you saw
Speaker 1: it down the roster, and then that carried over in tonight.
Speaker 1: There were some obvious turnovers and things along those lines
Speaker 1: to undercut them, but that way you've caught in that
Speaker 1: second half. And when it caught in the second half,
Speaker 1: you saw the massive talent gap. And again, the Kings
Speaker 1: have a lot of talent. Shaun Holmes is good, the
Speaker 1: Aaron Fox is good, By Field is good, Tyrris Halliburton
Speaker 1: is good, and we have, even without Lebron, a lot
Speaker 1: more talent than them. We just weren't respecting the game
Speaker 1: for this entire first chunk of the season. And so
Speaker 1: we'll get into more of the XS and oes details tonight,
Speaker 1: but foundationally, just in terms of their basketball character, there
Speaker 1: needed to be a change there. And I saw that
Speaker 1: change against Detroit. I thought it would continue tonight, and
Speaker 1: so far it's only two games, but I'm glad to
Speaker 1: see that that change appears to be happening. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I feel like this team again kind of goes as
Speaker 1: Rust goes. And I've been thinking about this a lot.
Speaker 1: We've talked about a lot over the summer when when
Speaker 1: they acquired Russ as that Russ is supposed to be
Speaker 1: the third option, right, Like he's supposed to be the
Speaker 1: third option on this team. But Jason, like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you would agree, Like he hasn't been the
Speaker 1: third option. He's been like the first option. It's been
Speaker 1: like him trying to run the show and then Lebron
Speaker 1: and a D kind of coasting trying to go through it.
Speaker 1: And that's not really how this team is gonna work.
Speaker 1: That's not the ceiling of this team. And about Detroit
Speaker 1: against the Pistons, I thought we saw what the ceiling
Speaker 1: of this team is, which is Lebron and a D
Speaker 1: playing at their their high level and Rust being able
Speaker 1: to pick his spots a little bit more attacking, attacking
Speaker 1: spots of the game, not comparing them, but to similarly
Speaker 1: to when I watched the Warriors, right when I watched
Speaker 1: Andrew Wiggins be able to just pick his spots, and
Speaker 1: now he's averaging like twenty on a super efficient level
Speaker 1: that he's never done in his career. It is because
Speaker 1: he's playing as like a third fourth option on that team.
Speaker 1: And I get not comparing Russ to Andrew Wiggins in
Speaker 1: that way, it's just I think that's where this team
Speaker 1: is best. But man, in that third quarter, I think
Speaker 1: we can kind of move a little bit to why.
Speaker 1: Like I think the effort obviously was was big tonight.
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, they went down big in the
Speaker 1: first quarter, and I was a little bit worried about
Speaker 1: the game getting out of hand. But the big shift
Speaker 1: obviously obviously at halftime was putting in Dwight Howard for
Speaker 1: for DeAndre Jordan's And again I don't think that was
Speaker 1: just the magic a licks that was a big part
Speaker 1: of it. But I thought the getting Russ going downhill
Speaker 1: I thought was huge. He needs to be involved in
Speaker 1: the game, and I thought, just early on, there's just
Speaker 1: no space for him to work putting him with th
Speaker 1: h T with A D and DeAndre it's just a
Speaker 1: phone booth, and our defense was okay. We were still
Speaker 1: giving up a lot of lob Dunster Shawn Holmes when
Speaker 1: that third quarter that switched up is part of it.
Speaker 1: I think they play harder when they're in better lineups.
Speaker 1: Two right, they're kind of interconnected there. And I thought
Speaker 1: the Dwight, a D with Monk and Ellington in the
Speaker 1: corners for Russ just got him going. He got downhill.
Speaker 1: You saw him start to rock the baby, and it
Speaker 1: kind of energized the rest of the team. You saw
Speaker 1: a defense pickup. Dwight was incredible again in that third quarter,
Speaker 1: A D and Dwight looked like D and Dwight. If
Speaker 1: you go check those numbers are great. Those two are
Speaker 1: forced um even when we go big with them too.
Speaker 1: But I thought that's what switched the game to be.
Speaker 1: Would you agree with that? I thought that's where the
Speaker 1: momentum changed. I thought when they went into that like
Speaker 1: just double screen at the top, Ellington the Monk in
Speaker 1: the corner, and Russ was able to go downhill. And
Speaker 1: I thought a lot of his turnovers early honestly was overpassing. Uh,
Speaker 1: he would drive and there was no help created. He
Speaker 1: didn't create any advantage. So he'd come off the screen
Speaker 1: and it's like Alex Land waiting for him, and he
Speaker 1: gets in the air and passes. He got a lot
Speaker 1: of turnovers early, and I thought that shifted the game.
Speaker 1: And the third quarter Restcott downhill, he scored, He saw
Speaker 1: his confidence pick up, his speed, his bursts was there.
Speaker 1: He started to finish at the rim. D you see
Speaker 1: that as well. I thought that's what shifted the game tonight,
Speaker 1: just putting him with spacing and even if even though
Speaker 1: it was two big they were both screening at the top,
Speaker 1: and it got him just downhill and being able to
Speaker 1: get to the basket a little bit more. And I
Speaker 1: thought that opened everything up for the team. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: Dwight Howard was, you know, one of the biggest heroes
Speaker 1: of the game in my opinion. Which was so interesting,
Speaker 1: this this this white thing is kind of hilarious because
Speaker 1: I was unaware of the fact that he was that
Speaker 1: it was intentional to rest him last game against Detroit.
Speaker 1: I thought, I thought it might have been associated with
Speaker 1: injury or something like that. When I found out today
Speaker 1: and yes, today that that that was intentional, like it
Speaker 1: like a planned rest in order in order to see
Speaker 1: Lebron as the center. With the bench lineups, I nearly
Speaker 1: lost my ship because I'm literally sitting there thinking, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, then why are we playing DeAndre like? Like
Speaker 1: Dwight is five times the player of DeAndre, Like at least,
Speaker 1: I'm probably under selling it there, like he's there's not
Speaker 1: a single thing that DeAndre does on the basketball court
Speaker 1: as well as Dwight doesn't. And so I get it. Look,
Speaker 1: if you want to lean into, you know, playing big
Speaker 1: and then also playing really small with Lebron at the center,
Speaker 1: that's cool. I can actually get behind that philosophically. But
Speaker 1: then why in the world will we playing DeAndre like it?
Speaker 1: You know? And like I've told you so many times,
Speaker 1: like I actually don't mind when the Lakers go big
Speaker 1: and small doses when it's Dwight, because the the Dwight
Speaker 1: A D pairing is so devastating defensively on teams, it
Speaker 1: can be physically overwhelming. And I think we saw at
Speaker 1: in the second it was actually really interesting Dwight game.
Speaker 1: Because as much as I didn't actually come out and
Speaker 1: say those things that I just said by planned on
Speaker 1: doing it later tonight. And then Dwight came out and
Speaker 1: really really got exposed as someone who was slow footed
Speaker 1: against Rashaun Holmes, and he really struggled with him in
Speaker 1: the second quarter on the glass, and really really struggled
Speaker 1: with him in pick and roll. But at a certain point,
Speaker 1: Dwight kind of I don't know if he just caught
Speaker 1: a second wind or if he just started to just
Speaker 1: play harder and play better. But they're in the in
Speaker 1: the third quarter, Dwights, Dwight became the person who was
Speaker 1: winning that matchup and and Sacramento really couldn't do anything
Speaker 1: with him. Um, But like the bottom line is just
Speaker 1: like strategically, it never makes any sense to drop a
Speaker 1: center and have Dwight be the one you drop and
Speaker 1: leave DeAndre in the lineup. That was so incredibly confusing.
Speaker 1: But again and bringing it back to Russ with his
Speaker 1: rim pressure, you know, Darius Sorriana pointed this out, and
Speaker 1: I thought it was super interesting. He goes Russ is
Speaker 1: a really interesting player to watch his rhythm build because
Speaker 1: he kind of just tries to plow through the wall
Speaker 1: and it doesn't work, and it doesn't work, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't work, and it doesn't work, and then it works.
Speaker 1: And you know the reason why it does is it's
Speaker 1: physical wear and tear. It's it's you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: like it's it's no different than over the course of
Speaker 1: a football game. If you if you, if you're the
Speaker 1: physically superior person, even if they managed to block you
Speaker 1: on the line once or twice or three times at
Speaker 1: four times, eventually you're gonna break through. Eventually you're gonna
Speaker 1: wear them down. And that was such an interesting effect
Speaker 1: from Russ tonight, just continuing to just almost be reckless
Speaker 1: with his attacks of the basket. But eventually those small,
Speaker 1: slight guards that Sacramento had eventually just couldn't handle it anymore,
Speaker 1: and even with the big Laker lineups, he was able
Speaker 1: to get into the paint and then from there it
Speaker 1: was simple. Malik Monk missed a couple of really easy,
Speaker 1: wide open shots to start the game, immediately reminding me
Speaker 1: of those numbers that I looked up earlier today, and
Speaker 1: then they started going in and then Ellington's Ellington missed
Speaker 1: his first couple of shots a wide open. His first
Speaker 1: at the first look that I saw that he got
Speaker 1: was wide open, and I'm like, man, some of these
Speaker 1: gotta start going in. And then they did in the
Speaker 1: second half, and what you saw is it invigorated their defense.
Speaker 1: And when it invigorated their defense, that looked like the
Speaker 1: Lakers there in the second half, flying around a D
Speaker 1: and DWIGHTE block and everything everywhere, getting into passing lanes,
Speaker 1: Guys making extra efforts, guys boxing out. It just became contagious.
Speaker 1: And you know, I always believed this was in there.
Speaker 1: I thought it was trapped and hidden under their shitty
Speaker 1: basketball character that they had to kick. But once they
Speaker 1: kicked that, they had to kick some bad habits. But
Speaker 1: it was inevitable that they would start to have some
Speaker 1: runs like this because that talent is there. I I've
Speaker 1: always believed that was the case, and so I thought
Speaker 1: it was really really exciting to watch that tonight. They
Speaker 1: won the second half, and I think I have my
Speaker 1: numbers correctly, sixty to thirty three, Like that's a real
Speaker 1: that's a real thing that happened tonight. And the King's
Speaker 1: you know, they're not a great team. They were missing
Speaker 1: Harrison bon Bonns tonight, but like you said, they have
Speaker 1: real NBA talent. Buddy Hell Jaron Foxx, you named in
Speaker 1: Rashaun Holmes sixty seven to thirty three, there was some
Speaker 1: shift at halftime there where like that's not nothing to me.
Speaker 1: And I thought tonight was was very important, Like it
Speaker 1: could have it was really easy in that first quarter.
Speaker 1: They could have just laid down, right, like you talked
Speaker 1: about their basketball character or whatever. They could have easily
Speaker 1: just laid down. The King's played well to start, they
Speaker 1: went up like seventeen to ten. They had a double
Speaker 1: digit lead. I believe after after the first quarter, could
Speaker 1: have been very easy to just lie down to just quit,
Speaker 1: quit on this game. We don't have Lebron. We'll just
Speaker 1: move on to go home. And I thought it was
Speaker 1: big to see them come back and roar back the
Speaker 1: way they did, especially in that second half. Lak Monk
Speaker 1: hitting the halftime heave before halftime believed to put us
Speaker 1: a huge shot. Yeah, to put us I believe by
Speaker 1: nine a half time. And then they just came out
Speaker 1: and shut them down. And you talked about them not
Speaker 1: being able to get to get a shot up. I
Speaker 1: thought link Monk and Ellington's defense was a big part
Speaker 1: of that. Uh. The whole reason again not to blabor
Speaker 1: Vogel again. But the only reason Vogel doesn't go to
Speaker 1: these small lineups or these guard heavy lineups is his
Speaker 1: defensive He's worried about the defense right, the defensive issues
Speaker 1: that it can bring. And I thought Ellington, especially tonight,
Speaker 1: he's not ever gonna be great. But I thought he
Speaker 1: did his job like, he did his role right, and
Speaker 1: he didn't get back cut Kings tried to do these
Speaker 1: backpasses and he I think he got a bunch of
Speaker 1: deflections there. He fought over screens pretty nicely. I thought
Speaker 1: Leek Monk fought down low like you saw him, go
Speaker 1: for rebounds, go for defensive rebounds, jump jump in the air,
Speaker 1: get dirty Austin Reeves again as part of that. I
Speaker 1: thought he played well. His box out, his toughness was
Speaker 1: part of it. But I thought the guards played well.
Speaker 1: To me, this is the lineup that I'd like to see,
Speaker 1: I guess start the game. I think it's clear like
Speaker 1: Taylan isn't fit for that lineup yet, especially without Lebron.
Speaker 1: I don't think you can fit Tailan, especially if Vogel
Speaker 1: is gonna start another center. I would love to see
Speaker 1: Russ Ellington, Monk and Dwight and a D start because
Speaker 1: I feel like we're going to continue the two bigs.
Speaker 1: But that was just something that really ran the Kings
Speaker 1: off the floor. They had no answer for it. They
Speaker 1: had no answer for it offensively or defensively, and it
Speaker 1: was it was cool to see us build something and
Speaker 1: hopefully they can continue to build on this even without Lebron.
Speaker 1: But I thought that was just another good process thing.
Speaker 1: It was an accent that Russ played well in the
Speaker 1: third to me, like, I know his effort and all that,
Speaker 1: and he's and he plays hard, but but we have
Speaker 1: to fit him in these lineups. That makes sense, and
Speaker 1: I just think he needs at least that type of
Speaker 1: sheeting on the floor when you have when you have
Speaker 1: Ellington and Monk in the corners, it's hard to cheat
Speaker 1: off of right, That's just a lot tougher for him
Speaker 1: to for the for the guys to help and zone off,
Speaker 1: and we when we put a D and Dwight at
Speaker 1: the top, it just gives him a runway with these
Speaker 1: guards going so far into the screens, it just gets
Speaker 1: him to the basket. I thought that's something we can
Speaker 1: use going forward. But yeah, a goodwin. Hopefully this is
Speaker 1: something that they build off of, I believe. On Friday, yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree. I wanted to move on to Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: for a second, you know, coming into tonight after I
Speaker 1: heard the news about Lebron, and we're not going to
Speaker 1: talk too much about the Lebron thing. I mean, here,
Speaker 1: here's the gist of it. He's we don't I I
Speaker 1: still don't really fully understand how the protocols work in
Speaker 1: terms of like how many days he's out and how
Speaker 1: many blah blah here ten days, But then I hear
Speaker 1: what if he gets too negative tests within twenty four hours?
Speaker 1: The bottom line is, even if it is ten days,
Speaker 1: it looks like, thankfully, because the Lakers schedule is so
Speaker 1: randomly stressed stretched out here, it looks like he might
Speaker 1: only miss like three or four games. So that in
Speaker 1: terms of what this terrible news is, this is like
Speaker 1: the best version of that terrible news, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Um, it's unfortunate because I don't know that
Speaker 1: they have enough talent to win against the Clippers. We're
Speaker 1: going to find out. But that said, like, it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where it is what it is at
Speaker 1: this point, and coming into this evening, I wanted to
Speaker 1: have one of our goals for tonight's pod to be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you're the Lakers and you're starting to build some
Speaker 1: positive momentum, what should your goal be in this Lebron
Speaker 1: is down moment here? You know, because it's it's different
Speaker 1: from when he went down the last couple of times,
Speaker 1: because when he went down the last couple of times,
Speaker 1: it was it was injury. You know, there was internal discussions.
Speaker 1: They made a plan like we Lebron probably could play
Speaker 1: through this, but we're planning to rest him because it's
Speaker 1: early in the season. We believe that the whatever damage
Speaker 1: in the standings can be done, we can make up
Speaker 1: for it. They even thought in that second rest stretch
Speaker 1: that that they'd be able to win a bunch of
Speaker 1: those games, which obviously they were unable to. But this
Speaker 1: was a complete shock here. So as a team, how
Speaker 1: do you read, how do you reorganize? How do you
Speaker 1: move forward? And one of the top item on my
Speaker 1: list was Anthony Davis has to play like an m
Speaker 1: v P. You know. I we talked a lot in
Speaker 1: the last part about how we hold Anthony Davis to
Speaker 1: the standard of the best players in the league. That
Speaker 1: is why we nitpick him. We don't nitpick him to
Speaker 1: be jerks. We nitpick him because we think he should
Speaker 1: be closer to Janice than he is to go there,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And by two of that standard,
Speaker 1: we nit pick him, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: to this team without Lebron needs him to play like
Speaker 1: he's in the conversation for the best player of the world.
Speaker 1: What does that mean. That means he needs to play
Speaker 1: like the defensive player of the year. That means he
Speaker 1: can't float around the perimeter on offense. That means he
Speaker 1: has to be a physically aggressive offensive player who attempts
Speaker 1: to inflict his physical will on everybody on the other team.
Speaker 1: And from the opening tip tonight, he did that. He
Speaker 1: was bullying his way into the paint to take advantage
Speaker 1: of his size dispatches to get shots in the around
Speaker 1: the rim. He was flying around on defense, not just
Speaker 1: in his area, but outside of his area. He looked
Speaker 1: like a guy who was a bona fide best Player
Speaker 1: in the World candidate tonight, and that needs to be
Speaker 1: what he is every single night, especially in this stretch
Speaker 1: with Lebron out. But I was thankful to see that
Speaker 1: because I coming into tonight, thought that was going to
Speaker 1: be the most important thing for to get out of
Speaker 1: this team over the course of these next ten days.
Speaker 1: And to see that was encouraging. And then Russ, who
Speaker 1: has been so good for the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: kind of got off to a crappy start tonight, um,
Speaker 1: and it was good to see that. You know that
Speaker 1: we used to see this a lot with Lebron and
Speaker 1: maybe where you know, a D would get off to
Speaker 1: kind of a funky start in the game, but Lebron
Speaker 1: would be spectacular. And it almost like that type of
Speaker 1: your competitive nature brings it out of you. You can't
Speaker 1: sit there and watch your buddy selling his soul for
Speaker 1: wins and not get caught up in it and try
Speaker 1: to do the same thing. And so to me, it
Speaker 1: was inevitable that Russ would inevitably join a D at
Speaker 1: that level, and he did tonight. And so that's the
Speaker 1: key moving forward, in addition to all the other little
Speaker 1: details that we'll talk about later, because I do want
Speaker 1: to talk about the defense tonight. I do want to
Speaker 1: talk about the little details that make a good basketball
Speaker 1: team later on in the in the show, but at
Speaker 1: the top, it had to start with Anthony Davis playing
Speaker 1: like an MVP candidate and Russ trying to meet him
Speaker 1: at that level. And Russ may not be able to
Speaker 1: meet him at that level all the time. That's too
Speaker 1: unfair to expect from him at this point in his career.
Speaker 1: But he was able to do it tonight. And when
Speaker 1: you combine that with Anthony Davis, you get a team
Speaker 1: that's capable of beating the Kings on the road by
Speaker 1: twenty plus. And I thought it was another really, really
Speaker 1: good positive step in that direction. Yeah, I thought his
Speaker 1: overall aggression throughout the game was great. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of post ups still early and again, the offense is
Speaker 1: never gonna look pretty, but I thought he took it.
Speaker 1: I believe it was meant to who was guarding him
Speaker 1: early took him to the basket. His jumper also looks good,
Speaker 1: looks better, It looks like it's trending upward. I thought
Speaker 1: the mid range looked good again tonight. Twelve fur I
Speaker 1: believe he was twelve. The numbers always look at with
Speaker 1: a D steals the stocks, so steals blocks, two steals,
Speaker 1: two blocks, two offensive rebounds, like that's the stuff I
Speaker 1: look at. See that he's engaged and I thought again,
Speaker 1: he us tonight when we went through that two big lineup,
Speaker 1: he was able to roam, got a lot of steals. Uh.
Speaker 1: It just looked like the old Anthony Davis right engaged,
Speaker 1: looked like the best defense player in the world. He
Speaker 1: was taking away anything the Kings had taken away on switches.
Speaker 1: He was just a problem tonight and we need that
Speaker 1: every single night. Especially it was Lebron out here and
Speaker 1: again this time, this kind of a D makes Russ
Speaker 1: the second option, Like he's not the third option, which
Speaker 1: is the ideal ceiling of this team, but puts Russ
Speaker 1: at the second option. And if Russ is your second
Speaker 1: option on every other night, you have a pretty you
Speaker 1: should have a pretty darned good team like night tonight.
Speaker 1: Not against the best teams, but again, like you said,
Speaker 1: against the Kings on the road, if Russ is your
Speaker 1: is your absolute second option, and a D can be
Speaker 1: the full one option, like that's that's a good enough
Speaker 1: team to win. And I thought we saw that tonight.
Speaker 1: A D was aggressive early on post ups, jumpers, uh,
Speaker 1: keeping the team in it a lot with his offense
Speaker 1: in the first half, and then Russ took over in
Speaker 1: the third and a D kind of joined him and
Speaker 1: they went on the defensive run together. But some other
Speaker 1: numbers I thought before we get into the super super
Speaker 1: deep details, Malik Malik Monka plus thirty three, uh, Wayne Ellington,
Speaker 1: Wayne Ellington, Tonight I believe was plus thirteen. Dwight Howard
Speaker 1: a plus twenty seven. So that lineup just absolutely destroyed
Speaker 1: the Kings that you know that a Monk Russ, Monk Russ, Ellington,
Speaker 1: Dwight and a D line up absolutely just destroyed them,
Speaker 1: something that hopefully Vocal uses going forward. But that's a
Speaker 1: good process thing. Another good game from a D back
Speaker 1: to back at least twenty four point games on the season.
Speaker 1: And the Clippers, Uh, Clippers aren't playing great right now,
Speaker 1: so that's another game you can get. Like they're they're
Speaker 1: not playing well. I think they just lost to the
Speaker 1: Pelicans at home, so it's a it's another game we
Speaker 1: can get. Was that the line up that you were
Speaker 1: talking about that you would want as the starting one? It? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's that, or if you want, you could
Speaker 1: put Reeves I guess in there. But I just think
Speaker 1: that's the lineup that we need to to go to, uh,
Speaker 1: just to just to open things up. But I think
Speaker 1: these slow starts are again. It was great tonight to
Speaker 1: come back and get another comeback win, but slow starts
Speaker 1: are really hurding and and I think Dwight at least
Speaker 1: will start the next game. We'll see about if did
Speaker 1: you see that altercation between Frank and DeAndre? I just
Speaker 1: saw it on Twitter. You catch that, go to pick
Speaker 1: up Hoops Twitter feed and you'll get to see it.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting because the I, you know, Frank had
Speaker 1: hinted at at potentially starting Dwight instead of DJ, just
Speaker 1: to kind of see what it would look like. I've
Speaker 1: shocked that he didn't go there tonight and then had
Speaker 1: the quick hook with DJ, which makes you wonder, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you were leaning that direction to begin with, why
Speaker 1: isn't that the way you started? You know what I mean? Um,
Speaker 1: But you know, it's it's an interesting conundrum because when
Speaker 1: you go big with Dwight, there's a couple of reasons
Speaker 1: why it's different than when you go big with DeAndre.
Speaker 1: When you go big with Dwight. First of all, yes,
Speaker 1: as it hurt the spacing absolutely. However, there's a couple
Speaker 1: of differences. Dwight actively fights the negatives of the way
Speaker 1: it hurts the spacing by being an active offensive rebounder. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a big deal that he recovers if you wanna, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you want to attribute a points per possession type
Speaker 1: of number to that lack of spacing, he offsets part
Speaker 1: of that by generating additional possessions. DeAndre Jordan's does not
Speaker 1: do that, at least not nearly at the same the
Speaker 1: same level. And then Dwight is so much better defensively
Speaker 1: that you can at least advocate for the tradeoff. Right,
Speaker 1: the idea of going big is there's a tradeoff. That's
Speaker 1: what That's what Frank would tell you, right, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this, like if I go big, I'm
Speaker 1: getting this and I'm giving this. Right. But the problem
Speaker 1: was with DeAndre is it was illogical from the beginning
Speaker 1: because all you were doing was giving You're giving away
Speaker 1: offense and you're giving away defense. It was hurting you
Speaker 1: on both ends of the floor. It never made sense
Speaker 1: to begin with. It was It's probably the biggest red
Speaker 1: mark on Frank's coaching job this season has been the DeAndre.
Speaker 1: I think we we can argue that his case for
Speaker 1: Avery Bradley made perfect sense to me. Hey, dude, it's
Speaker 1: not in the numbers, but we like the way his
Speaker 1: effort is contagious. We think it will eventually bear out.
Speaker 1: You know that that's totally logical to me, because Avery
Speaker 1: Bradley does make sense, as in in a in a
Speaker 1: vacuum as a basketball fit with those guys. The DeAndre
Speaker 1: thing made absolutely no sense from the beginning. And so
Speaker 1: it's interesting to see Dwight have this, have this moment,
Speaker 1: have this success, and hopefully with this Lebron You know,
Speaker 1: if there's a silver lining to the Lebron thing, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get to see a lot of Dwight next to
Speaker 1: a d over the course of the next ten days.
Speaker 1: And I think you'll see that with this group dialed
Speaker 1: in the way that they're supposed to be, dialed in
Speaker 1: the way that they haven't been most of most of
Speaker 1: the season, I think you're going to see them be
Speaker 1: a really, really good defensive team over the course of
Speaker 1: the next week. They're gonna play big a lot without Lebron,
Speaker 1: I expect to see a lot of Dwight And as
Speaker 1: long as everyone continues this this momentum on that front,
Speaker 1: and in terms of the willingness to do the job.
Speaker 1: I think you'll I think you'll see it work. You know, uh,
Speaker 1: early in the game, you know, you saw that this
Speaker 1: is where I wanted to get into a little bit
Speaker 1: of the details having to do with um, you know,
Speaker 1: the little things that make basketball teams good. You know,
Speaker 1: when you kicked on the effort, it was always going
Speaker 1: to take a couple of games, like I said, to
Speaker 1: to establish the good habits in Frank's system. He still
Speaker 1: likes to run drop. You're probably gonna see a lot
Speaker 1: of drop with Dwight in the lineup right, because they're
Speaker 1: not gonna want to do as much switching with Dwight
Speaker 1: out there, so that puts a lot on the other
Speaker 1: guys on the floor. You're asking. The first play of
Speaker 1: the game, if you remember, they ran a pick and
Speaker 1: roll and both both DJ and whoever it was on
Speaker 1: the ball, whether it was th Ht or Russ, went
Speaker 1: with the ball handler little pocket pass to Rashawn Holmes,
Speaker 1: and Ellington was there, but he was like a solid
Speaker 1: two seconds late, and he basically just two hand padded
Speaker 1: the dude on the chest and gifted him a free
Speaker 1: free throw. Just for poops and giggles, you know, and
Speaker 1: those are those little details, right. It's not like anybody
Speaker 1: wasn't playing hard on that possession. It's just the team
Speaker 1: on a string does not have the habit instilled yet
Speaker 1: of helping when that kind of thing happens, and it's
Speaker 1: it was going to take time for that to get fixed.
Speaker 1: In the third quarter, when they were everyone was flying
Speaker 1: around Anthony Davis off the ball in those pick and
Speaker 1: roll coverages, Dwight Howard was more active in the drop,
Speaker 1: coming up higher and actually bothering the past rather than
Speaker 1: kind of sitting in that no man's land where you
Speaker 1: could just throw it over the top. Those details started
Speaker 1: to shape and over the course of this game, and
Speaker 1: the key there is consistent consistency. If they continue to
Speaker 1: develop and practice those details over the course of this
Speaker 1: next week and with Lebron eventually coming back to they
Speaker 1: have the talent to be a very, very very good
Speaker 1: defensive team, especially with Anthony Davis playing this way. You know,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite possessions was the one that I
Speaker 1: shared out with Austin Reaves. It's freaking hard to do
Speaker 1: what he did on that possession. You'd go on my
Speaker 1: twitterf each stroll down. It's one of the last like
Speaker 1: two or three things. I tweeted. It's really hard to
Speaker 1: do what Austin Reads did on that possession too. He's
Speaker 1: he's stepped into help on the pick and roll, which
Speaker 1: forced the skip pass. When the skip fast came, he
Speaker 1: sprinted out and took away the shot from Tyrese Haliburton.
Speaker 1: As soon as that happened, they threw a pass back
Speaker 1: into the post and he kind of got back into
Speaker 1: his defensive position, and then Tyrese Haliburton shot off a
Speaker 1: dribble handoff and he had to chase the dude over
Speaker 1: the top of the dribble handoff, and he kind of
Speaker 1: got beat a little bit, but he he knew as
Speaker 1: soon as he got beat, He's like, I have to
Speaker 1: box out Alex Lamn. That's my job. Now I failed
Speaker 1: at this job, but it's okay. My teammate helped me.
Speaker 1: I now have to cover for my teammate. And he
Speaker 1: dove and he pushed Alex land Damn near out of
Speaker 1: bounds and they were able to secure the rebound. Now, ironically,
Speaker 1: Malik Monk immediately dribbled it off his foot at the bounds,
Speaker 1: which was the which was the theme of the first half.
Speaker 1: My point is is like it, like I said a
Speaker 1: couple of pods ago, it is hard to play winning basketball.
Speaker 1: It is not. The fun isn't in the job. The
Speaker 1: fun is in the result. The Lakers looked like they
Speaker 1: were having a hell of a good time there in
Speaker 1: that second half run, but the work they were doing
Speaker 1: to generate that run was hard. It was hard work,
Speaker 1: and and I just in general, it's good to see
Speaker 1: them get rewarded for that hard work because that will
Speaker 1: continue to encourage them to do it moving forward. I
Speaker 1: love that play you you signal out about Austin Reeves
Speaker 1: because I had that one down too. That's instinctual for
Speaker 1: him though, right like that, Like he didn't even have
Speaker 1: to like think like, oh should I go box out
Speaker 1: Alex Land, Oh this is gonna hurt. It's just like boom,
Speaker 1: shot goes up, I'm finding a body, right, And that's
Speaker 1: just instinctual for him, And that's not what no Monk
Speaker 1: and Ellington are And it was gonna take time. But
Speaker 1: you point out that first play of the game they ran,
Speaker 1: they actually got a bunch of lob dunks off of
Speaker 1: the Haliburton and Holmes pick and roll, right it just
Speaker 1: felt like Halibern Holmes pick and roll, lob dunk. But
Speaker 1: in the second half, I thought they really took those away.
Speaker 1: Ellington was starting to tag their Milik Monk. He's not
Speaker 1: gonna bother it as much, but he was tagging. And
Speaker 1: that's all you can ask that do your job, do
Speaker 1: your role, and I thought they did. I thought the
Speaker 1: guards did their job in the second half. And I
Speaker 1: thought Dwight it was incredible his energy taking away with
Speaker 1: Shan Holmes. I believe like punked our team for a
Speaker 1: lot of that first half, like just a lot of
Speaker 1: offensive rebounds, finishing, finishing at the rim. So it's good
Speaker 1: to see that again. Like you talked about with Austin Reeves,
Speaker 1: just his instinctual way to play defense. I wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of ask you because we got some like Trevor
Speaker 1: reason News right and and you were higher on him
Speaker 1: kind of in the summer. I've been saying that, you know,
Speaker 1: putting your hopes in a thirty six year old wing
Speaker 1: is is probably misplaced. But it's obviously the team feels
Speaker 1: this way too. And Vogel has been gaining a lot
Speaker 1: of crap this year. But he came out and said
Speaker 1: he needs to find lineups until Trevor Reasa gets back
Speaker 1: and say that he might be a week or two out.
Speaker 1: That was what he said on the local, which was insane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so him and Lebron could hope, like, could you know,
Speaker 1: theoretically come back at the same time, which would be
Speaker 1: in an awesome kind of way to get the get
Speaker 1: those back. But I was just thinking about that in
Speaker 1: terms of this team, because it's very clear Vocal is searching.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can say what you want about the
Speaker 1: Avery Bradley. Avery Bradley was out tonight with the spraying thumb.
Speaker 1: We'll see how long he's out, but you can tell
Speaker 1: he's searching. He had a quick quick pull for DeAndre
Speaker 1: Jordan's and we'll see if Trevor Reason just fits right
Speaker 1: into that, because I think he does. Like I talked
Speaker 1: about with Austin Reeves, Trevor Reasons made a career out
Speaker 1: of doing that, right, doing the dirty work, not even
Speaker 1: have to think about it. He goes and boxes out.
Speaker 1: There's no like, oh should I go No, no, no no,
Speaker 1: it's a shot goes up. I have to get myself
Speaker 1: on a body, I have to box out. He does
Speaker 1: the dirty things. This team doesn't have a lot of
Speaker 1: players that do the dirty work, and I think that's
Speaker 1: what they're missing. And that's why Austin Reeves to me
Speaker 1: just stands out on the film so much because he
Speaker 1: does that instinctually. It's not even you don't have to
Speaker 1: tell him to go do it. And that's where I think, uh,
Speaker 1: Trevor Reason can fix. So I just wanted to kind
Speaker 1: of get your thoughts on that because I thought it
Speaker 1: was huge. Trevor Reason spoke with the media, um and
Speaker 1: he's not close in terms of like a few days,
Speaker 1: but you talked about David McManaman said maybe ten to
Speaker 1: twelve days like that would be a huge addition to
Speaker 1: a team with no wings at least with Baysmore, especially
Speaker 1: just out of the rotation as well. I think that
Speaker 1: would be a huge addition to to a to a
Speaker 1: defense that looks like it's it's hopefully trending upwards. Well,
Speaker 1: I think a reason unlocks your ability to ditch some
Speaker 1: of these kind of archaic defensive schemes. You know, like
Speaker 1: you and I. You and I are way anti drop
Speaker 1: coverage under any circumstances. That's something that you and I
Speaker 1: have complained about about other teams and our team. Um,
Speaker 1: the Lakers got away with it in because they were
Speaker 1: so so so good everywhere else on the floor. But
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is when push came to
Speaker 1: shove against the best teams in the league in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: they did a lot of switching um, and they just
Speaker 1: can't do that right now. They have to play Dwight
Speaker 1: in order to cover for the lack of Lebron that therefore,
Speaker 1: you can't just run around with a D and Dwight
Speaker 1: switching everything. It's just too funky of a lineup group
Speaker 1: for that type of defensive style, and so you have
Speaker 1: to you have to run drop coverage, just kind of
Speaker 1: like an unfortunate side effect of their personnel circumstance right now.
Speaker 1: But giving Trevor reason, it's just that obvious plug in
Speaker 1: that raises the the you know, aggregate length and athleticism
Speaker 1: of any lineup um from having, especially with how many
Speaker 1: small guards the Lakers play, and that just inherently gives
Speaker 1: you more flexibility defensively with your scheming. UM. So obviously
Speaker 1: a reason is gonna be huge in that regard UM.
Speaker 1: But like as far as like you know I I
Speaker 1: you have to figure out how to make it work
Speaker 1: with this group for this stretch of time, because the
Speaker 1: reason is a week and half out, at least a
Speaker 1: week or two out according to make that mean that
Speaker 1: to me feels way overly optimistic. I heard that he
Speaker 1: just started running, so like the idea of going from
Speaker 1: just running to you know, playing NBA basketball, that feels
Speaker 1: like a little bit further out, especially when you factor
Speaker 1: in Frank's insistence on getting lots of practice reps with
Speaker 1: the with the group. I mean, obviously I'll be thrilled
Speaker 1: if he comes back sooner, but you know, in the meantime,
Speaker 1: in this in this period of time, to try to
Speaker 1: grind out a win against the Clippers and to try
Speaker 1: to grind out a win against the Celtics, it needs
Speaker 1: to be like what you saw tonight. Lots of bigger lineups,
Speaker 1: either a D at the five or a D and Dwight,
Speaker 1: lots of or obviously you're gonna have to rest a
Speaker 1: these so you're gonna see some Dwight in there as well,
Speaker 1: but just lots of lots of flying around, lots of
Speaker 1: feeding off. You know, this is something that they just
Speaker 1: sent us a message. I don't know if you've noticed
Speaker 1: that rage. But he uh pointed out that the fact
Speaker 1: that the Lakers in general seem to feed off of
Speaker 1: their own offensive success in order to find the motivation
Speaker 1: to do what they're supposed to do defensively. And that's
Speaker 1: this human nature, especially when you've got players like this
Speaker 1: where their basketball character gears them more towards the things
Speaker 1: that they enjoy to do, which are the things that
Speaker 1: they do on the offensive end of the floor. Um,
Speaker 1: that's this is another reason why that's starting lineup in
Speaker 1: the vacuum is so frustrating, going with DeAndre because it's
Speaker 1: hard to ask a group to do a dirty job
Speaker 1: when the result isn't showing on the scoreboard. When you
Speaker 1: look on the scoreboard and you're down eighteen to twelve
Speaker 1: again and your offense looks clunky as hell. Why do
Speaker 1: you believe Frank when he says, oh, if you fight
Speaker 1: over the top of the screen and apply back pressure
Speaker 1: and know if you get lost, if you dive to
Speaker 1: the big and box amount out of bounds and you
Speaker 1: get elbowed in the face and all this stuff, it's
Speaker 1: gonna help us win. You're gonna think he's crazy because
Speaker 1: it's not helping you win. And so that's why there
Speaker 1: has to be a delicate balance there. It's it's gonna
Speaker 1: be easier with limited lineups in terms of defensive personnel,
Speaker 1: but that can score the hell out of the basketball,
Speaker 1: to try to get them to buy into some of
Speaker 1: those dirty work concepts, because then if they do that
Speaker 1: and they're shot, they're falling, and they feel that you know,
Speaker 1: motor revn and it leads to them doing that work
Speaker 1: and they go back to the huddle and they're up
Speaker 1: seven or they're up nine, It kind of it kind
Speaker 1: of adds legitimacy to the game plan, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, And that that's where that's where, that's where
Speaker 1: you and I have been preaching a all year long
Speaker 1: about leaning into your offensive identity. It's going to be
Speaker 1: easier to convince in this particular group, with this particular
Speaker 1: kind of roster construction, it's gonna be easier to convince
Speaker 1: this unelite offensive team to buy in enough on defense
Speaker 1: to win then vice versa. I mean, we basically learned
Speaker 1: that with the Brooklyn Nets last year. Like they realized
Speaker 1: like they were scoring the hell out of the basketball,
Speaker 1: and so Steve Nash and the staff was able to
Speaker 1: convince them to put in enough effort on that end
Speaker 1: to get to close the deal. The differences with this
Speaker 1: team when they're healthy is you got Lebron and a
Speaker 1: d on the back line. So guess what You're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to hit an offense or defensive ceiling even
Speaker 1: with limited personnel that that Brooklyn Nets team never could.
Speaker 1: And that's would make me so excited about this roster
Speaker 1: coming into the season, and so I hope to see
Speaker 1: kind of more of that momentum building. And I thought
Speaker 1: tonight was the first night that we saw that nuclear
Speaker 1: potential that this team has, ironically without Lebron that two way,
Speaker 1: here's our suffocating defense and oh, by the way, you
Speaker 1: just gave Wayne Ellington a wide open three. But what
Speaker 1: the hell were you gonna do? Russ put his head
Speaker 1: down and did this vicious spin move into the lane
Speaker 1: and if you didn't collapse the entire defense on him,
Speaker 1: he was going to get a layup. So that that
Speaker 1: that that's that's what's so cool about this dynamic and
Speaker 1: to watch that momentum build is this is what I
Speaker 1: envisioned this Laker identity to be. No, they weren't going
Speaker 1: to be as suffocating as they were with Alex Crusoe
Speaker 1: on the wing and with with the k C P
Speaker 1: on the wing, but they could get reasonably close to
Speaker 1: that with an infinitely higher offensive ceiling because of all
Speaker 1: the shooting around them. And so it's good to see
Speaker 1: that kind of developed. Yeah, and you talked about this
Speaker 1: team gets its you know, energy offensive from their offensive success.
Speaker 1: That's Russell Westbrook right. Like you can tell Russell Westbrook
Speaker 1: gets all of his energy when he starts scoring. When
Speaker 1: he started getting in the basket, starting to go to
Speaker 1: the free throw line. You see him start to rock
Speaker 1: the baby. Right even though we were like down eight,
Speaker 1: he gets his first like post up score, he starts
Speaker 1: to rock the baby. Going to time out. You can
Speaker 1: tell the whole energy just shifted. And that's what I think,
Speaker 1: like we've been talking about all year of leading into
Speaker 1: not just in an offensive identity, which is what this
Speaker 1: team is leaning into, the Russell Westbrook identity, because that's
Speaker 1: what this team basically needs to be, especially with Lebron. Now,
Speaker 1: this team is gonna go any Davis maybe the best player,
Speaker 1: but this team is going to go as Russell Westbrook
Speaker 1: kind of goes. You had like five points, I think
Speaker 1: close to halftime, like they need his production, they need
Speaker 1: him engaged. Tell you can tell his defense just turns
Speaker 1: up right. His energy defensively, he starts fighting over screens,
Speaker 1: he starts using his physicality to his advantage defensively. It's
Speaker 1: just stuff he doesn't and it's just part of him
Speaker 1: as a basketball player. When he's disengaged, he just he
Speaker 1: disengages on both ends. Defensively, you know, he ball watches
Speaker 1: a lot, he gets laws, but you can tell when
Speaker 1: he starts to score and he can feel the game turning,
Speaker 1: he turns it on on both ends. And I thought
Speaker 1: on defense, we saw that as well on the third quarter.
Speaker 1: He's a chaotic defender, right Like he he wants to
Speaker 1: create chaos and he wants to create turnovers. That gets
Speaker 1: him going. And I think his scoring lends into that,
Speaker 1: and that's what this team needs to do. You're at.
Speaker 1: These slow starts are just so lethargic. It's so counterintuitive
Speaker 1: to the way the team needs to play. We started
Speaker 1: Wayne Ellington, but he couldn't get any shots, right. We
Speaker 1: ran no actions before him either, And we have like
Speaker 1: four non spacing guys and so they can just stay
Speaker 1: at home on Wayne Ellington and he saw that third quarter,
Speaker 1: things open up and you're right. When Russ gets to
Speaker 1: the rim, and now he gets two guys in the corner,
Speaker 1: you make his make his reads a little bit more automatic.
Speaker 1: He's throwing two spaces instead of players. He's still he's
Speaker 1: doing so he's throwing two corners right instead of who's
Speaker 1: in the corner. You see him do this a lot,
Speaker 1: and this is how he gets a lot of turnovers.
Speaker 1: But like you'll drive, so like you'll drive and get
Speaker 1: in the paint and then expect like the big to
Speaker 1: already be at the three point line, but like our
Speaker 1: biggest jogging back right, so like the ball goes to
Speaker 1: half court. But he does this in the half court
Speaker 1: setting to like he loves to find the corners and
Speaker 1: he wants a guy in the corner there. And it's
Speaker 1: just really tough when you have, uh no spacing, no
Speaker 1: actual shooters there where there's no spacing around him. So
Speaker 1: I just think there's stuff that we have to play
Speaker 1: into us. And I think you saw that in the
Speaker 1: third quarter. Again. I think it's no accident. Again, we
Speaker 1: won the third quarter of thirty seven to fifteen, and
Speaker 1: we've won the second half sixty seven and thirty three,
Speaker 1: Like that's that's no, that's no coincidence to me, And
Speaker 1: DeAndre Jordan is not all at fault for that. It's
Speaker 1: not all that blame. I think. Also, the th HD
Speaker 1: sub was real, and it's not th HD s fall.
Speaker 1: He's just a ball hamlet that wants to get to
Speaker 1: the rim next to three other guys who aren't shooters,
Speaker 1: who aren't spacers, and he's not a good enough space
Speaker 1: spacing shooter yet. So what do you make of the
Speaker 1: th HT thing moving forward? Because this has been a
Speaker 1: pretty extended, nasty stretch of basketball for him. I mean again,
Speaker 1: like I try to keep it in contact. He's a
Speaker 1: guy who just turned twenty one. He's a guy that
Speaker 1: needs the ball in his hands. He needs on ball reps,
Speaker 1: and I think that has to come with Russ off
Speaker 1: the floor, maybe next to a D and shooting. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if those lineups are viable, uh, if
Speaker 1: those lineups survival defensively, But that's kind of where he's
Speaker 1: at right now. He's in this middle ground place and
Speaker 1: this is kind of he's in a winning situation, so
Speaker 1: he's gonna have to earn every minute he gets, right
Speaker 1: Like these are these aren't given minutes at all of
Speaker 1: Malik Monk is out playing him. He's not going to
Speaker 1: play like that's just how it's going to go on
Speaker 1: this team. On another team, he would average minutes a game,
Speaker 1: get all the high ball screen reps that he wants,
Speaker 1: could probably average seventeen five on a on a you know,
Speaker 1: on a great on a great efficishty or whatever on
Speaker 1: another team. But on this team, he's gonna have to defend.
Speaker 1: He's gonna have to be at least somewhat of a
Speaker 1: respectable spot up shooter. I know he loves to attack closeouts,
Speaker 1: and he's great at attacking closeouts, but teams have scouted him.
Speaker 1: They close out short to him all all the time. Now,
Speaker 1: Like if you watch, if you watch, teams close out
Speaker 1: to him to close out to him short. They're expecting
Speaker 1: the drive he goes in. He's trying to he's trying
Speaker 1: to kick it back out. It just looks ugly, and
Speaker 1: I think he'll get there. He has enough talent um,
Speaker 1: he's shown enough on ball skill. It's just on this
Speaker 1: team he's not gonna get those type of reps. It'll
Speaker 1: be interesting to see, especially when we get healthy Kendrick
Speaker 1: Nunn is still not close, which I don't know what
Speaker 1: that means. But when he gets back, obviously Trevor Reason,
Speaker 1: we'll see where the minutes come from. I think defensively,
Speaker 1: THHD can still be great. Did you see that block
Speaker 1: he had tonight? I think every game. Yes, that was
Speaker 1: absolutely he got beat off the dribble and still caught
Speaker 1: up and painted off the backboard. I was just like, Wow,
Speaker 1: that is that's special. That's that's that's there's some special
Speaker 1: deep sense there. But offensively, it's just ugly right now.
Speaker 1: But he's young. It's it's not gonna be pretty. He's not.
Speaker 1: And I we talked about it when he was averaging
Speaker 1: points of game or whatever for his three first three games, like,
Speaker 1: he's probably not that player. He's also not the player
Speaker 1: that you know, goes scoreless in three straight games. He
Speaker 1: somewhere in between there. But just on this team, he
Speaker 1: doesn't get the rips that that he would. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: t HT thing was one of the more interesting phenomena
Speaker 1: of the game in my opinion, because he was completely
Speaker 1: disheveled by ball pressure from davy On Mitchell, and you know,
Speaker 1: you see a lot of ball pressure in the NBA,
Speaker 1: but it's usually pretty relaxed, you know, because NBA ball
Speaker 1: handlers are so good and guys don't really believe in
Speaker 1: devoting that much energy to it. But davidan Mitchell like
Speaker 1: just that he knows that that's his elite skill um
Speaker 1: that he brings to the table, so he leans very
Speaker 1: heavily into it. And you know, ball pressure rushes rushes
Speaker 1: a ball handler, makes them make a decision before they
Speaker 1: want to. Most ball handlers like to comfortably dribble away
Speaker 1: from the basketball to play the belt ups and either
Speaker 1: make their entry pass into the offense wherever it is,
Speaker 1: or if they have to start at the top of
Speaker 1: the key to if their initiation is some sort of
Speaker 1: pick and roll, they like to comfortably work their way
Speaker 1: into it so that they can make a read. And
Speaker 1: when you apply ball pressure, it accelerates that process and
Speaker 1: makes every and especially it's especially tests your ability to
Speaker 1: control the pace of the game. Um and what was
Speaker 1: really it's it's a It's a big reason why with
Speaker 1: my high school kids on such a believer in ball pressure,
Speaker 1: because high school kids are terrible at controlling the pace
Speaker 1: of the game offensively, and they're terrible at adapting to
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. So if you can apply really
Speaker 1: good ball pressure at the high school level, you can
Speaker 1: cripple an offense. UM. It's just kind of like a
Speaker 1: basketball philosophy that that I believe in. UM. But it
Speaker 1: was interesting because davy On Mitchell really really rushed th
Speaker 1: HT to the point where he fell apart and it
Speaker 1: was bad decision after bad decision after bad decision. Now
Speaker 1: you're not gonna face ball pressure like Davie On Mitchell
Speaker 1: on a nightly basis, so you don't want to overrapped
Speaker 1: to it in terms of his UM, you know, projecting
Speaker 1: him as a player moving forward, but it does point
Speaker 1: out a reality of the situation with him on this roster.
Speaker 1: Like you said, this is a team that has championship aspirations,
Speaker 1: but also a team that has a lot of guys
Speaker 1: who can make decisions off the dribble, a lot of
Speaker 1: guys that can do what they're asking th HT to do,
Speaker 1: whether that's Molik Monk, Russell Westbrook, Lebron James, even a
Speaker 1: little bit of a d even a little bit of
Speaker 1: Malik Monk, and then obviously Kendrick Nunn's coming back. So
Speaker 1: this isn't a team that can afford to toss th
Speaker 1: h T twenty reps a night as a primary initiator,
Speaker 1: uh and sacrifice whatever you know, comes from that like tonight.
Speaker 1: You know, he was a big part of the reason
Speaker 1: why the Lakers were in such a hole to begin
Speaker 1: with was that that sequence that he went on early
Speaker 1: in the game, when he kept turning the ball over.
Speaker 1: So that's where it gets tricky, because I still think
Speaker 1: he's good enough defensively and good enough at attacking closeouts
Speaker 1: that you can play him. And I still think he
Speaker 1: should play uh, you know, even with this this type
Speaker 1: of struggle. But I think putting the ball in his
Speaker 1: hands as a primary initiator on this team, I think
Speaker 1: is a risk the Lakers can't afford to take. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe if you're higher up in the standings
Speaker 1: and you had a little bit more of a of
Speaker 1: a buffer zone there, you could get away with it.
Speaker 1: But in this situation, I think you got to take
Speaker 1: the ball out of his hands and and try to
Speaker 1: lean into him as an off ball player offensively, because
Speaker 1: we've seen him have some success there. And then you're right,
Speaker 1: he's got to start making shots. Guys are closing out
Speaker 1: short blah blah, blah. But I like him, you know,
Speaker 1: attacking a short clothes out more than I like him
Speaker 1: bringing the ball up the floor against pressure and trying
Speaker 1: to dissect the defense. And you can see that really
Speaker 1: really getting his head tonight. So I'm interested to see
Speaker 1: moving forward. Obviously, Frank me at the mid games adjustment
Speaker 1: of just taking him out, but I'd be interested to
Speaker 1: see moving forward if they take the ball out of
Speaker 1: his hands a little bit more in terms as a
Speaker 1: primary initiator and just to play like I guess Devil's
Speaker 1: advocate for THD because I think there are two trains
Speaker 1: of thought with him. So we have a team full
Speaker 1: of we have three stars, and then we have a
Speaker 1: team full of minimum guys. Right the only other guys
Speaker 1: are Kendrick Nunn and t H T, which are on
Speaker 1: mid mid mid level contracts. T H T. T HD
Speaker 1: to me has the biggest gap between what he is
Speaker 1: now and what he could be in a few months,
Speaker 1: right when it comes to the playoffs. So I think
Speaker 1: there is some some level of if you want to
Speaker 1: develop THHD, and I think it can be worth it.
Speaker 1: So I don't think he's a guy you just throw
Speaker 1: out of the rotation either, and I think that's a
Speaker 1: tough kind of game you play here because there is
Speaker 1: enough talent there. You see it with his on ball skills,
Speaker 1: even when the three doesn't go in. He's obviously a
Speaker 1: guy that likes to put the ball on the ground
Speaker 1: before he shoots, so he does these like beautiful step
Speaker 1: back almost James Harden like you know three he's even
Speaker 1: when the defenders not there, he still likes to step back,
Speaker 1: uh and take like thirty five footers. But I think
Speaker 1: there's there's something to that because all these other guys
Speaker 1: you kind of know who they are. I mean, Lake Monk,
Speaker 1: he's still a young guy, but you kind of know
Speaker 1: he's a microwave score who's he's been playing great. But
Speaker 1: again Carmelo, Anthony, Wayne Ellington, you know he's gonna be
Speaker 1: you know what he does on a night at night
Speaker 1: basis t HD is still you can still look at
Speaker 1: th HD as this like ball of clay, right and
Speaker 1: you can still mold it too to be something more
Speaker 1: than what he is right now. And I think there
Speaker 1: is a Devil's actvid there to where I think they're
Speaker 1: the reps that he gets have to be uh controlled,
Speaker 1: Like I think there has to be process put into it.
Speaker 1: I don't think you can just throw him a bunch
Speaker 1: of on ball, you know, responsibilities. But I think putting
Speaker 1: him next to lineups where he's he gets to playoff ball,
Speaker 1: where he gets to have the ball in his hands
Speaker 1: some like. We surround this action for KCP a lot,
Speaker 1: and I would like to see it, uh this year,
Speaker 1: I don't see it as much where he just KCP
Speaker 1: would start in the corner, he'd come off a little
Speaker 1: dribble handoff with Dwight Howard. It would be a double
Speaker 1: screen usually and and he gets to come off and
Speaker 1: to be a easy read. KCP either takes the mid
Speaker 1: range jumper or even easy either gets it to the
Speaker 1: rolling man or he swings it to the wing for
Speaker 1: the open three. And like t HT in those spots,
Speaker 1: it's just too much like Russ th HD at the
Speaker 1: top of the key trying to decide who attacks on
Speaker 1: a possession. It hasn't looked pretty when those two share it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's like the devil Advocate, I guess because
Speaker 1: PhD has the biggest gap of what he is now
Speaker 1: and what he will become. These other guys are kind
Speaker 1: of minimum players and veterans. Who are who you know,
Speaker 1: shown what they are in their career. Yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: get that. And you know my thing is like getting reps,
Speaker 1: but getting reps that look like what they're going to
Speaker 1: look like in the highest leverage moments, like exactly like
Speaker 1: t HD should run pick and roll for us in
Speaker 1: the playoffs, but it will probably be as a second
Speaker 1: side creator, meaning like it will be the action that
Speaker 1: you run after the first action fails and for the record,
Speaker 1: that alleviates there's a reason why you put the lesser
Speaker 1: player in that position. It's a it's an easier job
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, like like, for instance, like
Speaker 1: if if Davean Mitchell is ball pressuring the ship out
Speaker 1: of you. As soon as you get the ball and
Speaker 1: bounds all the way up the floor, you're you're you're
Speaker 1: just you're wearing yourself out for no reason. But like
Speaker 1: let's say Lebron brings the ball at the floor, runs
Speaker 1: a pick and roll. In the pick and roll, Davian
Speaker 1: Mitchell has to tag into the lane to help on
Speaker 1: the rollman. As a result, Lebron skips it to th HD.
Speaker 1: Now Davion Mitchell's closing out on you, so you have
Speaker 1: room to breathe. When you catch, you're not having to
Speaker 1: bring the ball up the floor against him with a
Speaker 1: live dribble. Now you're catching it in a triple threat,
Speaker 1: you have an opportunity to correct and protect the ball,
Speaker 1: either a tact close out or protectible ball. Wait for
Speaker 1: the screen to come, and you're already in your position
Speaker 1: that you want to be in in order to run
Speaker 1: that action. That kind of that kind of thing, to me,
Speaker 1: looks a lot more like what it's going to look
Speaker 1: like for th HT in the highest leverage moments. So
Speaker 1: get him, get him a ton of reps like that,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I again, I'm with you. Don't take
Speaker 1: him out of the rotation because that's an investment. You
Speaker 1: need to invest in th HT as a guy that
Speaker 1: can be a talent boon at the highest left us.
Speaker 1: You know, like Phoenix freaking beat Golden State tonight literally
Speaker 1: without Devin Booker in the second half. They're really really good.
Speaker 1: Phoenix is really good, Golden States really good. Like you're
Speaker 1: gonna you're gonna find yourself in a situation where Lebron
Speaker 1: and a d might not be enough in a vacuum,
Speaker 1: or maybe one of them is a little hampered or
Speaker 1: one of them is not playing well, or maybe a
Speaker 1: D is still not shooting the ball particularly well. We're
Speaker 1: gonna need a lot from Russ. We're gonna need a
Speaker 1: lot from somebody. We're gonna need somebody to be our
Speaker 1: Michal Bridges, you know, We're gonna need somebody to be
Speaker 1: our Jordan Pool, somebody who can make big plays outside
Speaker 1: of our star power. And maybe that's th h T,
Speaker 1: and maybe that investment starts today. I just don't think
Speaker 1: it will look like hair. We're in bounding to th
Speaker 1: h T and Lebron and Russ are just running the
Speaker 1: wings and spotting up while we while we let th
Speaker 1: HD run action. I just don't think that's what it's
Speaker 1: gonna look like. And so that's the next key is
Speaker 1: kind of finding out how to you know, kind of
Speaker 1: invest in th HT while also, you know, making it
Speaker 1: look like it's actually gonna look like exactly. That's the
Speaker 1: conjundrum you have when you have a young talent on
Speaker 1: a good team. The Warriors, I think they're going to
Speaker 1: go through it when they get wise men. And you
Speaker 1: see how they're deploying kamina as well in the rotation.
Speaker 1: They're not just giving comina a bunch of a bunch
Speaker 1: of minutes, right. He has to earn every minute he gets,
Speaker 1: so he gets in, he plays hard, plays defense, and
Speaker 1: then that's how he gets minutes. And I think, uh,
Speaker 1: it's not the same thing with th h two is
Speaker 1: now in your your three, but similar kind of thing.
Speaker 1: He has to earn every minie he gets. He has
Speaker 1: to defend and uh, play the right way playoff ball,
Speaker 1: and it's not perfect. Dylan obviously wants a ball in
Speaker 1: his hands, but it's just not the role he's in
Speaker 1: right now. But I think he'll get there. I think
Speaker 1: he's good enough. I think he works hard enough to
Speaker 1: tell um you could tell the way he works. I
Speaker 1: think that and a shot to me is better than
Speaker 1: he's shown. And I wish you would shoot more, honestly, Like,
Speaker 1: I think he has a better shot than he he
Speaker 1: he puts up in terms of volume, So I just
Speaker 1: like him to shoot a little bit more. Teams are
Speaker 1: closing out short. I think he's too good of a
Speaker 1: shooter to to keep seeing those up to try to
Speaker 1: drive in a clog lane. But but Tylon will get there.
Speaker 1: It's a he's still young, it's he's early. Just durned
Speaker 1: twenty one, So you have to be patient with with
Speaker 1: those kind of players, for sure. Did you have anything
Speaker 1: else you wanted to hit on tonight? Minutes? So it's
Speaker 1: a good stopping point. Uh No, I think that was
Speaker 1: pretty much. It something to kind of build off of. Oh,
Speaker 1: I think I saw something here somebody was sharing with me.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not sure if you saw it. Um
Speaker 1: Harrison tweeted out. And I can kind of summarize it.
Speaker 1: I guess why Howard was told he wasn't gonna play
Speaker 1: tonight either, um by by Frank Vogel before the yeah
Speaker 1: and so crazy and so he said he was kind
Speaker 1: of down, but he says he stayed ready, and so
Speaker 1: I guess he. I guess DeAndre Jordan wasn't living up
Speaker 1: to Frank Vogel's expectation tonight and and Dwight Howard got
Speaker 1: the minutes. But yeah, that was a postgame from Harrison.
Speaker 1: Well what's hilarious about that is DeAndre Jordan looked exactly
Speaker 1: the same tonight as he did every other time. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened. I guess the honey moon
Speaker 1: phase just final tonight, but tonight is the night whatever
Speaker 1: it is what is it? November thirty one tonight November
Speaker 1: three tonight is the night guys that the rose colored
Speaker 1: glasses the honeymoon phase between Frank Vogel and DeAndre Jordan's
Speaker 1: ended because he was playing the same damn basketball he
Speaker 1: had been playing all season. That is hilarious. Al Right, guys,
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be a little bit of a funky
Speaker 1: rest of the week because the Lakers don't play much.
Speaker 1: I think they play once before next Tuesday. So, um,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do Rod is pretty busy with works. I
Speaker 1: might do some kind of solo pot either Wednesday or Thursday,
Speaker 1: just on some League at Large type stuff. Um. And
Speaker 1: then we will have a postgame show obviously on Friday
Speaker 1: after the Clipper game. Um. And then Rog and I
Speaker 1: will probably do like some sort of film deep dive
Speaker 1: something along those lines in a traditional podcast format on
Speaker 1: either Saturday or Sunday. We'll figure that part out, um.
Speaker 1: But obviously, yeah, like the we're used to going every
Speaker 1: other night and we're heading into a little bit of
Speaker 1: a gap here. But um, we're definitely going to keep
Speaker 1: the content coming as always. We really appreciate you guys
Speaker 1: and your support and rocking with us through through this
Speaker 1: whole last couple of seasons. Um, this is gonna air
Speaker 1: on Dash Radios in Long morning at seven am Pacific
Speaker 1: Standard time, and we'll be on our podcast feed here
Speaker 1: in about thirty minutes. Thank you guys so much and
Speaker 1: we will see you in a couple of days. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thanks everyone,