Speaker 1: M m all right, welcome to the Saint of the Lakers.
Speaker 1: Is that if my Dad's radio. Happy Sunday, everybody. I
Speaker 1: hope you all had a great week. I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed your weekend. Um. I hope you had something to
Speaker 1: enjoy this week other than that awful stretch of Lakers
Speaker 1: basketball which included you know, everything but the wind raj,
Speaker 1: which has been pretty much the story of this week.
Speaker 1: I think. But how are you doing? Man? I'm doing well.
Speaker 1: Beautiful weekend, great weather here in Cali, had a nice
Speaker 1: when you like, little event last night, and wake up,
Speaker 1: wake up real early to watch this game. Yeah. It
Speaker 1: was a you know, a fun one for like three quarters, right,
Speaker 1: I think like for the first three quarters they did
Speaker 1: their job up tending going in the fourth and then
Speaker 1: kind of just collapsed at the end there. I lost
Speaker 1: the fourth I think by eighteen, so kind of like
Speaker 1: a meltdown in the fourth. But I gonnall man, how
Speaker 1: are you? I'm doing great? Um? You know. It's one
Speaker 1: of those things where, like I think the announcers on
Speaker 1: the spectrum feed did a good job of pointing this out.
Speaker 1: It felt like one of those games where the first
Speaker 1: team to really attempt to try to play defense would
Speaker 1: end up winning. And you know, it ended up being
Speaker 1: the Lakers, ironically, who who were the first ones to
Speaker 1: try to at least take some control over the game
Speaker 1: on the defensive end of the ball. And then they
Speaker 1: completely and utterly fell apart in that fourth quarter. Rise
Speaker 1: by my count, they took twelve They missed twelve jump
Speaker 1: shots in that fourth quarter, and attempted only four shots
Speaker 1: at the rim, which is really bad process for Russell
Speaker 1: Westbrook Anthony Davis team. Now we could talk about why
Speaker 1: in a second, because there were some line up things
Speaker 1: there that I thought were interesting. And then on the
Speaker 1: other end of the floor to give up thirty eight,
Speaker 1: to offer almost no resistance, especially around the rim. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna butcher his name, but that bad cup center
Speaker 1: that they had that played uh okay, I can't remember
Speaker 1: what his name was, but yeah, yeah, so he absolutely
Speaker 1: torched us. It was just it was one of those
Speaker 1: things where again you're looking at the game and you're saying, man,
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis looks great. That's great news. Russell Westbrook, who
Speaker 1: I've been incredibly critical of, is starting to show some
Speaker 1: signs of life. Even though I got a couple of
Speaker 1: bones to pick with him at the end of the game,
Speaker 1: and the leak month looks incredible again, although he's been
Speaker 1: showing some inconsistency in recent weeks. But you've got all
Speaker 1: of this good baked in there, and they just can't
Speaker 1: win a game, Raj. And it's one of those things,
Speaker 1: you know, I I think, um, I can't remember exactly
Speaker 1: who it was who said this on Twitter, but someone
Speaker 1: was saying, like, hey, no more moral victories. Were out
Speaker 1: of time for moral victories. And that's the truth, guys.
Speaker 1: When you look at the standings and you look at
Speaker 1: the situation at twenty four and twenty seven, this deep
Speaker 1: into the play in the way that we are. There's
Speaker 1: some real urgency here. We can't afford to keep having
Speaker 1: these nights where it's like, hey, we looked good, but
Speaker 1: I didn't get the win, or hey, so and so
Speaker 1: looks good, but we didn't get to win. And even
Speaker 1: without Lebron, this was another game that we should have won.
Speaker 1: I thought the Philly game was winnable too. I thought
Speaker 1: the Charlotte game was winnable. This is it's looking pretty
Speaker 1: bleak right now. Roger. I'm not gonna be entirely bleak.
Speaker 1: But man like, at a certain point some of these
Speaker 1: have to turn into wins instead of losses. Yeah, for sure,
Speaker 1: in the season definitely obviously depends on when Lebron gets back.
Speaker 1: We're definitely running out of time. Um and we kind
Speaker 1: of you know, Lebron and E D Sat the last one.
Speaker 1: Who knows, you know how serious those where. We'll see
Speaker 1: if Lebron can come back here soon. Hopefully the knee
Speaker 1: knee soreness isn't too serious. But yeah, like we're running
Speaker 1: out of time here. I think there's like twenty eight
Speaker 1: games left. But tonight, man, just sticking on tonight, you
Speaker 1: get third, you get eighty points combined from A D,
Speaker 1: Russ and Leak Monk. You should be able to win
Speaker 1: that game, right, Like, it doesn't matter what happened. Leak
Speaker 1: Monk was able to kind of fill the Lebron production.
Speaker 1: You get like thirty three or third four from league Monk.
Speaker 1: A D had a really nice first half again. Russell
Speaker 1: Westbrook starting to finish at the rim. I think like
Speaker 1: seventy five or seventy at the rim in the last
Speaker 1: six games. Um, and he was I thought he had
Speaker 1: a really nice floor game tonight to me though, like
Speaker 1: the issue was, you know, I feel like there's a
Speaker 1: breaking point when you start as small as we do. Um,
Speaker 1: we started Rusts, Malik Monk and Avery Bradley, and you
Speaker 1: know it gets hidden because we were scoring at such
Speaker 1: a high level. But I thought the fact that those
Speaker 1: three started, John Collins just got whatever he wanted right
Speaker 1: and again that kind of gets hidden. Um. DeAndre Hunter,
Speaker 1: I thought, just got to wherever he wanted in the
Speaker 1: mid range. And there's a breaking point to that. Trey
Speaker 1: Young wasn't going to be one for seven from three
Speaker 1: from the whole game. I think that's what he started.
Speaker 1: He ended up hitting for in the last minute there.
Speaker 1: And you know Atlantis the team that has a lot
Speaker 1: of firepower. Um, they're not too complicated. It's high ball
Speaker 1: screen with Trey Young, it's him picking us, picking players apart.
Speaker 1: I thought we really broke down there. He got a
Speaker 1: lot of lobs to on Yetta, as you talked about,
Speaker 1: and he was able to take step back threes. I
Speaker 1: thought he cooked Avery Bradley tonight, like there's a little
Speaker 1: bit too too much, a little bit too much every Bradley, Um,
Speaker 1: I kept t eating that's enough, Avery Bradley. I thought
Speaker 1: there was like I thought, you know, he's just too
Speaker 1: small to kind of contend with him. He was also
Speaker 1: physical with him for no reason. There was a screen
Speaker 1: coming anyway we were, Vogel said after the game, I
Speaker 1: was listening that the plan was to soft trap him. Well,
Speaker 1: then what's the point you know of like fouling him
Speaker 1: at half court or you know, every Radley was super
Speaker 1: ball pressuring him. And while we were in the bonus too,
Speaker 1: I thought just that wasn't smart. But what did you
Speaker 1: agree with that? Because I thought that was the breaking
Speaker 1: point here. We were scoring so much that it was
Speaker 1: kind of hidden. But I thought, you know, you started
Speaker 1: three small guards. Um Atlanta was able to get switches
Speaker 1: where they wanted. John Collins was able to keep the
Speaker 1: Hawks really in it until Trey Young uh exploded there
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter. When you start, you know, two
Speaker 1: small guards like that, um leak monk and you know
Speaker 1: every Monk was great offensively, but again gets picked on
Speaker 1: offensive defensively. Avery Bradley again I thought, was awful on
Speaker 1: both ends. I let alone what he's supposed to be
Speaker 1: good defensively? You have all these Carmelo Carmelo Anthony minutes
Speaker 1: as well, he's slow on the defensive and all that
Speaker 1: combined to me, Atlanta scores one twenty nine. You you
Speaker 1: score one twenty one points, you win most games in
Speaker 1: the NBA. We just couldn't defend even with a d
Speaker 1: out there, just cannot defend them. Well, yeah, dude, you
Speaker 1: saw it in the closing group. You're looking at like
Speaker 1: Malik Monk has to have a game like he did
Speaker 1: tonight offensively to be a positive player, because he's pretty
Speaker 1: quickly become one of the worst defensive players that we
Speaker 1: have on the roster. He gives up, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot in in conjunction with what he brings offensively, and
Speaker 1: so he he literally has to go for thirty three
Speaker 1: in order for that to be a worthwhile exchange. And
Speaker 1: then you look at Avery Bradley, and he does a
Speaker 1: pretty good job when he's on the ball, applying ball
Speaker 1: pressure when he's not committing fouls, but then as soon
Speaker 1: as he gets involved in anything off the ball, he
Speaker 1: struggles all the tonight or all day today, I should
Speaker 1: say all morning, because this was an eleven am start
Speaker 1: here in Tucson. All morning, Avery Bradley when he would
Speaker 1: get disengaged from the ball would get lost floating around
Speaker 1: on the perimeter. And then Russell Westbrook again like he
Speaker 1: brings good defensively, but he just has these little lapses.
Speaker 1: It tie game bad clothes out on DeAndre Hunter and
Speaker 1: ends up committing a foul. It's like, dude, you're Russell
Speaker 1: freaking Westbrook. You have to be able to keep DeAndre
Speaker 1: Hunter in front of you. That's not that especially in
Speaker 1: a pivotal moment like that. And so when you have
Speaker 1: three guys on the floor, those three together on the
Speaker 1: floor at the same time brings so many limitations offense
Speaker 1: or defensively that it's really difficult for that to work.
Speaker 1: One of the things I had in my notes raj
Speaker 1: anytime Stanley Johnson and Anthony Davis were involved in an
Speaker 1: action defensively, they are devastating to it was it was
Speaker 1: anything else where we were getting burned. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that I thought the Hawks did a really
Speaker 1: good job of in this game was using off ball
Speaker 1: actions to get Anthony Davis away from the basket. And
Speaker 1: they did this a lot. By again, I'm going to
Speaker 1: butcher his name, so that that backup center that they had,
Speaker 1: they put him on the floor and use him uh
Speaker 1: and put John Collins on the perimeter, essentially dragging Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis away from the basket and putting Stanley Johnson in
Speaker 1: the awkward position where he's, you know, trying to defend
Speaker 1: the rim. And he does a pretty good job. But
Speaker 1: one of the things that drives me nuts with Frank
Speaker 1: is he uses Stanley as like a drop coverage big
Speaker 1: sometimes instead of switching those screens, and so then he
Speaker 1: ends up having to do that no roller behind coverage
Speaker 1: where they can just Trey Young is so gifted at
Speaker 1: just placing that log pass like high above where Stanley
Speaker 1: can get it, but where his teammate can grab it
Speaker 1: and just catch it and take a power dribble and
Speaker 1: go up and finish. And at the end of the
Speaker 1: game on the other end of the floor. This is
Speaker 1: where it gets tricky. Avery Bradley, like he shot the
Speaker 1: ball well this year, but teams don't guard him. This
Speaker 1: is something you talk about all the time, Rogs. There's
Speaker 1: like a difference between a good shooter that gets started,
Speaker 1: Like there's a difference between what you actually shoot in
Speaker 1: terms of your percentages and what defenses do. For instance,
Speaker 1: Avery Bradley knocking down shot this year, teams don't guard en.
Speaker 1: Kyle Kuzma in the past shot terrible percentages with the Lakers,
Speaker 1: but teams guarded him. It's all about like perception instead
Speaker 1: of reality around the league, and the perception with Avery
Speaker 1: Bradley is you can leave him open. Stanley Johnson, same thing.
Speaker 1: You actually ended up making a huge three towards the
Speaker 1: end of the game, but they're not guarding him, and
Speaker 1: then they're also not guarding Russ so you find yourself
Speaker 1: in this awkward position. We're basically it turned into a
Speaker 1: jump shooting contest except for the guys shooting jump shots
Speaker 1: for us. For Anthony Davis, who's good, you know, has
Speaker 1: been shooting the ball well this week, but overall is
Speaker 1: an inconsistent jump shooter. And Malik Monk, you know, and
Speaker 1: guess what, Trey Young made more threes, you know, just
Speaker 1: like like in a shooting contest, the better shooter is
Speaker 1: gonna win. And when when they had an opportunity towards
Speaker 1: the end of the game to make shots, the Hawks
Speaker 1: did and we didn't. And like I said, you missed
Speaker 1: twelve jump shots, but you only attempt four shots at
Speaker 1: the rim. I don't like our chances there We're just
Speaker 1: not a very good jump shooting team, especially off the dribble,
Speaker 1: and so I it was it was frustrating Rod because
Speaker 1: there was some good process there, like Russ was getting
Speaker 1: into the paint, Anthony Davis was having success bullying guys
Speaker 1: on the on the offensive glass he was doing he
Speaker 1: was making aggressive moves to the rim, and then we
Speaker 1: got to the fourth quarter and it just turned into
Speaker 1: let's dribble the ball around on the perimeter until we
Speaker 1: take a pull up jump shot, which again it's attached
Speaker 1: to the fact that you have too too little shooting
Speaker 1: on the floor. And to your point, it would be
Speaker 1: one thing if we were huge and athletic at every
Speaker 1: position and we can make up for it with switchability
Speaker 1: on defense and ball pressure and rebounding and all those
Speaker 1: things that come with size and athleticism. But no, we
Speaker 1: are a jump shooting team that placed three little guards
Speaker 1: and we're just getting killed on the defensive end of
Speaker 1: the floor. So it was it was definitely frustrating for
Speaker 1: me to watch, uh, you know, because I just felt
Speaker 1: like that I felt like it was a winnable game
Speaker 1: ras and not sure it wasn't winnable. We played well
Speaker 1: enough to win through basically three quarters and then it
Speaker 1: was an absolute disaster class in that fourth. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know we had that people call it a fake
Speaker 1: come back whatever it was, to come back against the Hornets, right,
Speaker 1: We didn't get to talk about that one, but I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, that's what we kind of built on here.
Speaker 1: Russ continue to get to the rim tonight like that stuff.
Speaker 1: That's good process. That's where you miss Lebron the most. Alright,
Speaker 1: late camp stuff, game slows down. We kind of just
Speaker 1: went to straight up a D post ups. Um. I
Speaker 1: thought he looked a little tired as well. At the end.
Speaker 1: He couldn't just get to the basket. They started zoning
Speaker 1: up on him as well. And that's where you see
Speaker 1: the effect of the Russell Westbrook gravity kind of taking
Speaker 1: taking apart. Right when you don't have Lebron on the floor,
Speaker 1: it's Russell Westbrook at the top. It's straight a D
Speaker 1: post ups. You're relying on Leak Monk, who was incredible
Speaker 1: that whole night. But you know it was pretty much
Speaker 1: on three pointers. So basically he's trying to get a
Speaker 1: three up. He's still under size. The Hawks can kind
Speaker 1: of switch actions on him. You get a D posting
Speaker 1: up trying to get shots. He's taking mid range pull ups.
Speaker 1: That all kind of collapsed. I think we scored eighteen
Speaker 1: points in the fourth. We had like five points Jason,
Speaker 1: with like half the fourth gone. I think, uh we
Speaker 1: were you know, we were up eleven and you know
Speaker 1: that lineup to start the fourth. I really didn't. I
Speaker 1: thought we stayed with that too long. The Carmelo Dwight Howard,
Speaker 1: you know, Front Core has been just a real rough
Speaker 1: watch recently. I just Dwight's not the same. He's not
Speaker 1: as active, doesn't jump as much. Yeah, his his feet
Speaker 1: look like they're stuck on the floor. It's just there's
Speaker 1: a there's not a bounce to him that there was.
Speaker 1: His coverage is his drop coverage. He's a second lad
Speaker 1: on all these the law passes are there for him.
Speaker 1: He's not stopping the guard either. Um. It just looks rough.
Speaker 1: And then you have Carmelo Anthony trying to rotate right.
Speaker 1: So a lot of those plays are like Carmelos that
Speaker 1: drop big. Carmelo's the guy who's the low man who
Speaker 1: has to help, and that's just rough against like a
Speaker 1: guy O Coongo who's just who can jump off the floor.
Speaker 1: I think you have like a one handed you see
Speaker 1: that one handed crazy Dunky had that disgusting insane Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought trade through that. I thought trade through that
Speaker 1: pass way off and he was still able to get
Speaker 1: it and duncan he just we just had big Art
Speaker 1: too slows throw him higher. The athlete will go get
Speaker 1: the right, let him go, let him go get it.
Speaker 1: Um And you're right about a D being out of
Speaker 1: the play, and I thought a D was a little
Speaker 1: bit frustrated on that as well. I don't think we
Speaker 1: wanted to switch. But the way that the Hawks kind
Speaker 1: of run their action, they set like a double screen
Speaker 1: where eighties now on Trey Young, and then you know
Speaker 1: you have Stanley Johnson, who's I thought great. I thought
Speaker 1: when Stanley and a D trap tray, that was our
Speaker 1: best defense really like they were able to get hands up,
Speaker 1: got some steals. But then if you don't get that steel,
Speaker 1: it's you know, Carmelo, Anthony Rotating, who I thought was
Speaker 1: closing its leak monk, it's every Bradley Russell Westbrook at
Speaker 1: times who still kind of undersized. So I thought that's
Speaker 1: where we lost this one. No Lebron in the fourth
Speaker 1: the signing excuse you should win a game on the
Speaker 1: road where you're up eleven in the fourth, But all
Speaker 1: those things kind of melted down here, and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe Dwight looks kind of unplayable Carmelo Anthony, I feel
Speaker 1: like gives up as many points as he scores on
Speaker 1: a lot of times. Like we have a lot of
Speaker 1: just really older players and I'm interested to see how
Speaker 1: it goes here. But hopefully Lebron gets back. We can't
Speaker 1: build anything, though, Jason. I think that's the frustrating part
Speaker 1: of watching all these games, like you're seeing a little bit,
Speaker 1: you're seeing good here. A d has a good game,
Speaker 1: that Russ has a good game, and they're all separated.
Speaker 1: Lebron has an incredible game, and now they're just all
Speaker 1: separate entities that we're trying to put together. Mileek Monk
Speaker 1: drocks thirty four, but again you have to put him
Speaker 1: back in the six man role really when Lebron comes back.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, man, this team has like a
Speaker 1: super short window to figure this out. Have you checked
Speaker 1: the standings recently, Jason? You know, I'm not a I'm
Speaker 1: not a standings checker, Like I've I never really checked it.
Speaker 1: I just checked recently, and I'm like, we're ninth. Oh,
Speaker 1: Like I did not realize that. I was like, the
Speaker 1: MAVs are eight games over five hundred. I did not
Speaker 1: realize that the Clippers won again today without Kwai and
Speaker 1: Paul George Um on the I'm not sure. I don't
Speaker 1: remember if it was on the road or at home
Speaker 1: against Charlotte, but they want again. So it's it's rough man.
Speaker 1: We're like, this is the extreme scenario, but we're like
Speaker 1: only four games up on San Antonio. Who's I believe
Speaker 1: out of the playoff picture? Like they just think about
Speaker 1: that from the from from how we're treating this season.
Speaker 1: So I think it's go time. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: if Lebron can, it's a sense of urgency here. Like
Speaker 1: I get Lebron has to be healthy to come back,
Speaker 1: of course that's number one. But we need to start
Speaker 1: building some continuity here because like all these games without
Speaker 1: all three of them, is just tough to take data
Speaker 1: from here. We started DeAndre Jordan Jason in that Charlotte game.
Speaker 1: We didn't talk about this waste of joke, what a
Speaker 1: waste of like a process game? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: What could you take from that. I don't I don't understand.
Speaker 1: And obviously DJ's out of the rotation. Trevor Reason played
Speaker 1: in that Charlotte game. I don't think he's in our
Speaker 1: rotation either way. Ellington played in that game, and he's
Speaker 1: not in our road like he started that game. When
Speaker 1: Ellington started that game, he's not in our rotation. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but you're right, it's a sensitive urgency
Speaker 1: that we need to get to. We need to find
Speaker 1: actions that we can go to in the playoffs that
Speaker 1: are usable. I think the russ e D screen role
Speaker 1: has to be something we can you know, us in
Speaker 1: our back pocket to deploy on other teams, and we
Speaker 1: just haven't been able to find those things and that's
Speaker 1: been frustrating. Yeah, you know Dwight, I wonder if there's
Speaker 1: something going on with Dwight health wise, because you know,
Speaker 1: Dwight has had bad games this year. I've just always
Speaker 1: thought that Dwight's success has been more tied to like
Speaker 1: line up structure and you know, is the entire team
Speaker 1: playing hard because you know, Dwight is kind of like
Speaker 1: an energy guy in a lot of ways, and uh,
Speaker 1: he's more or less looked the same to me athletically
Speaker 1: this year as he did in That sounds crazy to say,
Speaker 1: but of light in these last handful of games, for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, it just looks like the step isn't there.
Speaker 1: There was a play today, I believe it was in
Speaker 1: the first half where it was either Monk or Russ.
Speaker 1: Somebody threw Dwight alab and he usually would catch up
Speaker 1: or jump up and dunk it, and instead he caught
Speaker 1: it and he came down with it. He ended up
Speaker 1: drawing a foul on the play. And I remember just
Speaker 1: sitting there thinking, like, man like, Dwight looks slow, Like
Speaker 1: this is the first time I've seen Dwight legitimately look
Speaker 1: like he's lost the step since, at least compared to
Speaker 1: this version of him. But I mean, we're four and
Speaker 1: a half games back of the sixth seed rage and
Speaker 1: I tend to I tend to think that the sixth
Speaker 1: seed is vitally important for the Lakers for a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons. One, the play and tournament is something you
Speaker 1: want to avoid at all costs. And again reminder, we
Speaker 1: barely beat Golden State on a game winning three from
Speaker 1: lebron last year. We very easily could have lost that game,
Speaker 1: ended up playing in a single elimination game against Memphis,
Speaker 1: and that's a coin flip. With how well Memphis was
Speaker 1: playing at the end of the season last year, that
Speaker 1: could have gone south very quickly. It just so happened
Speaker 1: that it didn't, and so we there is an urgency
Speaker 1: to get up there. And then the other thing too
Speaker 1: is time, right, we need continuity. So obviously you have
Speaker 1: this thirtysothing games left. I think it's thirty one games left.
Speaker 1: But you don't want to go thirty one games straight
Speaker 1: into a very difficult, very grueling series with Golden State
Speaker 1: or Phoenix, a team that when we're at full strength,
Speaker 1: we're probably only like we're we would barely beat them
Speaker 1: if we beat them anyway, Like we're not gonna go
Speaker 1: to Golden State smack them in five. That's not happening.
Speaker 1: We're not going to Phoenix and smacking them in five.
Speaker 1: That's probably a six or seven game series if we're healthy.
Speaker 1: You would like to avoid that until later on. If
Speaker 1: you could get that sixth seed, then you could play
Speaker 1: either Memphis or Utah in the first round and give
Speaker 1: yourself a better chance to get a really good feel
Speaker 1: for playoff basketball. Before you roll into basically, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a wheel match up against the title contender at that
Speaker 1: point in the second round. So urgency is a real
Speaker 1: thing here, and that's what worried me about Lebron's knee.
Speaker 1: I got in trouble with a bunch of crazy, insane
Speaker 1: Lebron fans because I tweeted out that I was worried
Speaker 1: about Lebron's knee and they thought they basically thought I
Speaker 1: was insinuating he was sitting on purpose, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: But I was worried about Lebron because I'm sitting here thinking,
Speaker 1: like early in the season, he was resting because of
Speaker 1: the lack of urgency. We were in a very easy
Speaker 1: part of our schedule, you know, we were playing a
Speaker 1: bunch of games that we were like, hey, Russ and
Speaker 1: maybe can win these games, and Lebron. Lebron was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: I don't want to deal with this abdominal thing. I'd
Speaker 1: rather get it healed. I don't want to deal with
Speaker 1: this ankle thing. I'd rather get it healed. These were
Speaker 1: three very winnable games on the road at a point
Speaker 1: in the season when we have real urgency in the
Speaker 1: standings and Lebron didn't play, which worries me about that
Speaker 1: knee because I think he would have given it a
Speaker 1: goo if he could have. So now the m R
Speaker 1: I came back clean, so hopefully things resolve. But swelling
Speaker 1: is weird rajs like swelling doesn't happen. Swelling is usually
Speaker 1: a result of irritation or inflammation. It makes you feel
Speaker 1: like there's something going on there. I'm hopeful that that's
Speaker 1: not the case. Hopefully we're just overthinking it. You know,
Speaker 1: It's funny in that game, that last game you played
Speaker 1: the windmill. You can tell he wanted to go to
Speaker 1: his full windmill and he had to check up and
Speaker 1: do like a half windmill on that play. And I
Speaker 1: remember immediately thinking like, oh, his need didn't quite do
Speaker 1: what he wanted it to do on that play, and
Speaker 1: I was a little bit worried about it. So I mean,
Speaker 1: are you Are you as worried about Lebron as I am? Ros?
Speaker 1: Are you pretty confident? So this is similar to me.
Speaker 1: Not to compare it, but like when we do like
Speaker 1: west or Westwood trades or stuff like worrying about Lebron
Speaker 1: his knee is like that, Like if Lebron's not healthy.
Speaker 1: We're not going anywhere anyway, Like Lebron's not here, We're
Speaker 1: not doing anything. So I don't worry about that. This
Speaker 1: team has a multitude of issues going on. I think
Speaker 1: Lebron's health is number one. But yeah, I don't worry
Speaker 1: about that. At least other reports that have come out
Speaker 1: has said that you'll be line. I think you'll take
Speaker 1: another maybe seven days or something. I think he flew
Speaker 1: back to Hey already before the Atlanta game to get
Speaker 1: treatment and to rest up um. So hopefully, you know,
Speaker 1: he's final, and again it came back negative, so hopefully
Speaker 1: he can come back in a week. I think he'll
Speaker 1: be back. You know, my only worry is the time,
Speaker 1: like you talked about, we have like twenty something games
Speaker 1: were already behind though, right, Phoenix and Golden State already
Speaker 1: came back with cores that they've had for years now.
Speaker 1: Chris Paul and those you know, those guys have been
Speaker 1: playing thegether forever. Like that's my worry. Year. You want
Speaker 1: to just go in with a chance the sixth seed
Speaker 1: will be nice, Jason, But I mean, like Denver has
Speaker 1: won four in a row. The Mavericks are fully healthy now,
Speaker 1: they want like they want like eight out of ten
Speaker 1: or something like that. I don't see them slowing down, right,
Speaker 1: and so like it's basically the Clippers and the Timberwolves
Speaker 1: in front of you. Maybe you can catch those two teams,
Speaker 1: but I just don't see them maybe catching those. I
Speaker 1: think the plane is probably are our bet right now.
Speaker 1: I would love for them to get out of that.
Speaker 1: But that's just what looks like. No, I know, it's
Speaker 1: it's not great. I mean, that's not what you want
Speaker 1: to straight years. You know, we have to kind of
Speaker 1: win again and we saw last year, like again, maybe
Speaker 1: if a d doesn't go down and you beat the Phoenix,
Speaker 1: sense that we really don't know, but you know, that's
Speaker 1: just not the way you want to go into this.
Speaker 1: But that's the kind of situation we're in now. We'll
Speaker 1: see what the trade deadline does as well. That's coming
Speaker 1: up but here soon. Uh it's ready januaryone, about two
Speaker 1: weeks we'll get the trade deadline as well. So interesting now,
Speaker 1: it's interesting, man, I don't know what. I feel like,
Speaker 1: we can't just waste games like that. What was so
Speaker 1: upsetting to me about the Charlotte game because it feels
Speaker 1: like we just punted that one. I understand. I understand
Speaker 1: a d you know, wants to rest the risk or whatever.
Speaker 1: It was Lebron again seriously heard, I get that, but
Speaker 1: you know there's still chances to find stuff that we
Speaker 1: can use the starting DeAndre Jordan Wayne ellingtone the offensive
Speaker 1: rating in net Ring, Oh yeah, yeah it was. It
Speaker 1: was yeah, it was negative eight eight, like you know,
Speaker 1: like that's just that's just abysmal. And that that unit
Speaker 1: got two shifts. He said that, you know, got two shifts,
Speaker 1: and you know, you just throw away a game like that.
Speaker 1: And again the comeback was nice. You know, once you
Speaker 1: put the young guys in Austin Reeves pht not Malak
Speaker 1: Monkey sat that game, but they got on a run
Speaker 1: and Russ was able to get to the rim. I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, he kind of built on that from that one.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's just tough to me when you're
Speaker 1: just punching games because I don'tink we're in position too.
Speaker 1: You have to try to find stuff from every night,
Speaker 1: and we just we did in that game. We wasted
Speaker 1: that one tonight. You know, I thought we found some
Speaker 1: offensive stuff. I thought, Malik Monk and Ante Davis, who
Speaker 1: we can get to next here because I thought he
Speaker 1: was incredible at first half, but Milik Monk and Adi
Speaker 1: built some chemistry as well. But it's gonna be tough
Speaker 1: to kind of build that and catch up to where
Speaker 1: we need to go for sure. Yep, no, I agree.
Speaker 1: Moving on to a D you know, there's I think
Speaker 1: I've seen enough from him this week to definitively state
Speaker 1: that he genuinely looks quicker and more out than he
Speaker 1: did when he left. And I'm sure you know there
Speaker 1: was something going on with him before the knee injury.
Speaker 1: It was either wait or an injury that he wasn't disclosing,
Speaker 1: or a combination of both. But whatever happened over the
Speaker 1: course of this time there, I think the I think
Speaker 1: he actually came out and said that he's lost a
Speaker 1: little bit of weight and then and then he said
Speaker 1: in an interview I believe after the Charlotte or after
Speaker 1: the game on Thursday, he straight up said, my body
Speaker 1: feels great now. So the big the big place where
Speaker 1: I'm noticing it is in his step back jump shots,
Speaker 1: which I know, our shots that we uh discussed with
Speaker 1: a D as being you know, like that we wish
Speaker 1: he'd cut back on a little bit because they're so difficult.
Speaker 1: But the big thing I look for on a step
Speaker 1: back jump shot is how solid someone's base is, because
Speaker 1: a lot of times early in the season you'd see
Speaker 1: a D take these difficult jump shots, but he just
Speaker 1: wasn't really getting much separation and not getting much lift,
Speaker 1: which in addition to his limited touch, at least with
Speaker 1: his slump that he's been in, it's a very very
Speaker 1: very low percentage shot. But I'm seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: these moves that he was doing today, especially in straight
Speaker 1: up isolation situations against Clincapella and John Collins. He was
Speaker 1: getting really good separation. You know, you always talk about
Speaker 1: Malik Monk's dip on his jump shot when you see
Speaker 1: him get that really good knee bend. I was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was seeing a lot of that from Anthony Davis today,
Speaker 1: like getting into that move, getting a really good deep
Speaker 1: knee bend and getting great lift, which is just great
Speaker 1: to see with how good he looks. Again, talking about this,
Speaker 1: in the totality of the picture, you have all of
Speaker 1: this stuff to be excited about as a Laker fan,
Speaker 1: like a D looks great. Stanley Johnson and a D
Speaker 1: together on defense, they're a site to behold you think
Speaker 1: about that and combining Lebron into that picture. I was
Speaker 1: I tweeted out today, like imagine trapping a screen and
Speaker 1: roll with a really good point guard like a step
Speaker 1: or a Trey Young in a playoff series and forcing
Speaker 1: them to make these looping passes out of the trap.
Speaker 1: But that's Lebron James, like hitting the hole and slight,
Speaker 1: like shooting the gap and stealing the ball and going
Speaker 1: the other way. Like there's a lot to get excited
Speaker 1: about there. Again, Russ is genuinely trending in the right direction,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk more about him in a second, but
Speaker 1: like everything is starting, there's a lot of this stuff
Speaker 1: to point to that's good, but we're not winning games.
Speaker 1: And again, like you're right, like if we have Lebron,
Speaker 1: do we win that game today? Yeah? Probably, If we
Speaker 1: have Lebron, we probably win all three of these games.
Speaker 1: But again, one of the like you've been big on
Speaker 1: this rage like if you're title contender, go beat the Hornets, Okay,
Speaker 1: beat the Hornets. If you're a title contender, go into
Speaker 1: Atlanta and beat beat the Hawks. Okay, yeah, if we're
Speaker 1: in if we're on the road in Milwaukee, like I
Speaker 1: don't have a ton of expectations for you to beat
Speaker 1: that team without some of your guys, But Doude, you
Speaker 1: have to be able to go into Charlotte and go
Speaker 1: into Atlanta and get a win in an urgent situation
Speaker 1: when you need the win for the standings, when you
Speaker 1: have Anthony Davis looking this good, when Russell Westbrooks making
Speaker 1: shots for the first time in months, like, you have
Speaker 1: to be able to go in there and win a game.
Speaker 1: This is some of this stuff is like you know
Speaker 1: again in it's just their checkpoints, rods, their checkpoints that
Speaker 1: good teams hit that we're just not hitting. And and
Speaker 1: again we can talk about these positives and yes, Adi
Speaker 1: looks great, and you know, as far as the play
Speaker 1: in goes, like if I'm Golden State or I'm Phoenix,
Speaker 1: I'm not excited about the idea of having to face
Speaker 1: l A in the first round. But again, they probably
Speaker 1: be favored and for good reason, because they're better basketball
Speaker 1: teams than us. And yeah, there's an idea, there's a
Speaker 1: there's like a version of this that could be very
Speaker 1: difficult to be but we sure as hell haven't seen it.
Speaker 1: And it's I'm sorry to get a little bit worried man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's been frustrating because the last two years
Speaker 1: have all pretty much been theoretical with this team. Right
Speaker 1: after a D got her on Valentine's Day, uh last
Speaker 1: year this year and losing the trenk of time. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, when Adie got her, the team got theoretical.
Speaker 1: You're like, Okay, when a D comes back, let's add
Speaker 1: him to like Marc Resol, right, and we'll see what
Speaker 1: happens there. And then like a D went out, Lebron
Speaker 1: gets out, like okay, well wait, you know, let's add
Speaker 1: it to Andre Drumm and see how that looks. And
Speaker 1: then now they were both out. You get to the
Speaker 1: playoffs and you get a few games of them healthy,
Speaker 1: and then a D goes down again, right again this year.
Speaker 1: You get a couple of games, but you start DeAndre
Speaker 1: Jordans with it the whole time, next to Camp Baysmore,
Speaker 1: both who are out of the rotation pretty much now.
Speaker 1: And then a D goes down. And then now you
Speaker 1: come back and the team's playing the way it's supposed to.
Speaker 1: There's small ball you're running. Let's say, all right, let's
Speaker 1: add a D to this. A D comes back. You
Speaker 1: beat Brooklyn on the road, right, no Kate, no Katie,
Speaker 1: no Kyrie, but whatever, you get to win on Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: and then Lebron goes out the next day, so you
Speaker 1: get one game with the big three playing the way
Speaker 1: it's supposed to um and then and then Lebron goes out.
Speaker 1: So it's been a frustrating kind of back and forth.
Speaker 1: But the theoretical doesn't work unless you get this Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: you know, and I tweeted earlier like there's a you know,
Speaker 1: there's a pushing full, there's a line you have to
Speaker 1: you have to kind of tail where like you don't
Speaker 1: want to take, you know, for granted, or to critique
Speaker 1: a d too much. But you can also be understanding
Speaker 1: that this is not the guy we started the year with, right, Jason, Like,
Speaker 1: this is not the it's not the player that started
Speaker 1: the year. This guy has way more mobility. You can
Speaker 1: see it on defense as well. He's been shutting off,
Speaker 1: picking rolls, doing what he can, and then on the
Speaker 1: other end, rolling to the rim, playing above the basket,
Speaker 1: playing above the rim, crashing offensive rebounds. He's getting like
Speaker 1: offensive rebound put back dunks like we weren't seeing that
Speaker 1: earlier in the year the jump shot, you talked about
Speaker 1: the step back any more separation. I think that's the
Speaker 1: difference here. I don't think we mind the jump shots.
Speaker 1: It's the like post up contested, can't get any space
Speaker 1: on a defender step back jumper where it's fully contested,
Speaker 1: like the step back where he has space. I think
Speaker 1: I think he's a better shooter than he's shown. He
Speaker 1: hit a three again, I think tonight as well. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the jumper looks better. The jumper looks there. All the
Speaker 1: floaters and stuff are coming back, those like those like
Speaker 1: unorthodox twist shots, all stuff that he has in his arsenal.
Speaker 1: He looks good in the theoretical you know, upside of
Speaker 1: this team doesn't get there unless we get this a D,
Speaker 1: so that box has checked. The issue only is that
Speaker 1: these boxes are getting checked separately. So you check the
Speaker 1: Lady box and then now you check and then a
Speaker 1: D comes back. Lebron goes out, so you get the
Speaker 1: Lebron box. Rush starts playing well, but it's without one
Speaker 1: of the two stars, so it's without all two of
Speaker 1: the stars back. So it's another box that gets checked.
Speaker 1: It's been rough. Malik Monk plays well, but it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, we had don't have half the team, or
Speaker 1: we were playing well, but we don't have our wings.
Speaker 1: It's just I don't know, it's a it's a tough
Speaker 1: kind of thing to solve here. We'll see if they
Speaker 1: you know, go all in in the trade deadline, if
Speaker 1: they you know throw th H T. None in that
Speaker 1: first comeback. Yeah, and then Kendrick None was supposed to
Speaker 1: come back, right and if he got another setback. So
Speaker 1: I don't know, they still don't have a timetable on him,
Speaker 1: which is insane. He's out like five months for a
Speaker 1: think he'll ever play in the Laker Jersey. Wow, he
Speaker 1: actually had a decent game. One other thing too, really quickly.
Speaker 1: Did you happen to notice that Anthony Davis got a
Speaker 1: little frustrated with Monks shot selection in that fourth quarter? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it was that final play where I really
Speaker 1: saw it. I didn't really see it on other plays,
Speaker 1: but yeah, the last one for sure, Like he was
Speaker 1: drawing at him all the way down the floor and
Speaker 1: the Hawks were starting their possession and he was like
Speaker 1: staring the leak down Like that was crazy, Like I
Speaker 1: wanted to be like a D like he has like
Speaker 1: thirty six or thirty three or whatever it was that
Speaker 1: he had. I'm like, I would be like lost, losing,
Speaker 1: like losing causes like frustration like that. So I didn't
Speaker 1: understand it. But yeah, you're right, and a D was
Speaker 1: taken jump shots in the fourth quarter like like the
Speaker 1: the thing ro like as far as our crunch time offense,
Speaker 1: this is an important detail. When teams put a big,
Speaker 1: strong forward who's athletic on a D, they typically can
Speaker 1: find a way to turn him into a jump shooter.
Speaker 1: A D can torch the Clint Capella types of the league,
Speaker 1: but when it comes to the athletic forwards. Bamat to
Speaker 1: Bio did a great job of doing this to a
Speaker 1: D in the finals. But there's these athletic, strong forwards
Speaker 1: that are quicker than a D. They can really force
Speaker 1: him to be a jump shoot. Then Russ, who has
Speaker 1: had a good game. We're gonna talk about Russ in
Speaker 1: a minute, but Russ who's been getting better, they just
Speaker 1: put DeAndre Hunter on him. And again, when you have
Speaker 1: a team like because they could put like if Lebron
Speaker 1: play tonight, what what happened is able to put a
Speaker 1: combo on probably on a D, and then they probably
Speaker 1: end up putting John Collins on Lebron because John Collins
Speaker 1: guarded Lebron a lot in an earlier matchup this year,
Speaker 1: and then they're probably gonna put DeAndre Hunter and Russ.
Speaker 1: The point is is all of these teams, at least
Speaker 1: most of the good teams in the league have enough
Speaker 1: big forwards to be like, hey, we got one for
Speaker 1: Russ too. And Russ couldn't get to the rim either. Again,
Speaker 1: twelve missed jump shots, four shots attempted in the paint
Speaker 1: in that fourth quarter. It's just it's just not good enough.
Speaker 1: Now again, just Lebron solve that, yes, but this is
Speaker 1: that's part of the issue with having Russ in those
Speaker 1: light game situations is he can't really get an advantage
Speaker 1: and Anthony Davis is gonna take jump shots. So it's
Speaker 1: how we lost the okay See games. We literally lost
Speaker 1: okay See because in crunch time they put a big
Speaker 1: athletic forward on a D and a big athletic forward
Speaker 1: on Russ, switched every ball screen and there was nothing
Speaker 1: the two of them could do to get to the rim.
Speaker 1: And neither of them are good enough at making jump
Speaker 1: shots in order to out execute a team at the
Speaker 1: end of the game. It's a real problem. Now, well
Speaker 1: brawn again fixes that problem. But those are two massive
Speaker 1: shortcomings with those guys that very much limit what they
Speaker 1: can do in terms of their effectiveness in late game situations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know it's easier when they can also zone
Speaker 1: up right. So again we chose with and not to
Speaker 1: like pick on Avery Bradley Night his fault. But you know,
Speaker 1: you know you throw you threw a post entry pass
Speaker 1: into a D and then you have you know, a
Speaker 1: D maybe Bradley and the Weeks side corner like teams
Speaker 1: can just zone up and then you have a big,
Speaker 1: strong guy on him. You know, a D doesn't want
Speaker 1: to bruise all the way to the rim. Sometimes maybe
Speaker 1: it was tired or whatever it was. He was settling
Speaker 1: for sure, and our offense kind of broke down right,
Speaker 1: So it was Russell Westbrook trying to run screen action.
Speaker 1: They switched all of that, so it's again him trying
Speaker 1: to attack isolation against one of those bigger guys you
Speaker 1: talked about, John Collins, DeAndre Hunter. Even though Kuong lu
Speaker 1: So it was a tough tough thing to watch man
Speaker 1: in that fourth quarter, and you know Lebron solves a
Speaker 1: lot of that for sure. But like, you know, I
Speaker 1: thought Bleak Monk said something interesting after the game. I
Speaker 1: kind of tweated, he said. I think he was asked
Speaker 1: by Davidmani and he's like, what do you take from this?
Speaker 1: You know too and four road trip, and uh he said,
Speaker 1: not enough energy, not enough urgency. And he said, we
Speaker 1: didn't respond when we got hit in the mouth. And
Speaker 1: I think that's you know, you know, and I think
Speaker 1: that's interesting, you know for a team. Again, we're like,
Speaker 1: what we have thirty games left, so we played a
Speaker 1: lot of games now, and you know, that's an identity
Speaker 1: that your team kind of builds as as the season goes.
Speaker 1: And I thought you saw that in the fourth quarter,
Speaker 1: and that's just not this fourth quarter. We've seen that
Speaker 1: a lot Lakers have a lead and they don't just
Speaker 1: blow a lead like they get ran off the floor. Jason.
Speaker 1: Like when the team, as Malik Lank says, gets hit,
Speaker 1: it hits you in the mouth, they just kind of fold,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's not even it's not even like
Speaker 1: a fight. They get they fold. They were you know,
Speaker 1: you lose the fourth quarter by a team like that's
Speaker 1: not normal, and we don't really like to talk a
Speaker 1: lot about you know, the intelligible stuff like that, because
Speaker 1: but that's not like on the core stuff. But you
Speaker 1: can kind of combine those things and you can see
Speaker 1: like the fight kind of go away, the belief go away,
Speaker 1: especially when trade stop. How do you give up thirty
Speaker 1: eight points and a winnable basketball game when you desperately
Speaker 1: need it in the standings and you're just not competing
Speaker 1: on the defensive been to the ball rog, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was you know, Trey Young, you know, he
Speaker 1: found that he can you know, play pick them, you know,
Speaker 1: like it was like it was like a buffet for him.
Speaker 1: He's like, all have Avery Bradley here, I have Carmelo Anthony, here,
Speaker 1: I have League Monk here. Let me just pick one
Speaker 1: of these defenders, whoever it is. I think he'd be
Speaker 1: Austin Reeves too at the basket a few times, but
Speaker 1: just got to the rim, got to a step back
Speaker 1: three and those were always going to go in eventually,
Speaker 1: Like I talked about, he wasn't gonna go with one
Speaker 1: for seven. But that's now the here and there. It's
Speaker 1: more like the you know, we didn't switch up. There
Speaker 1: wasn't an aggression level. I thought in the fourth enough
Speaker 1: to kind of win this one. And that you know,
Speaker 1: it's sad to see because I, you know, the fans
Speaker 1: and I like us, we feel the sense of urgency here.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if the team you know, feels it as
Speaker 1: we do. Uh, just the way you know that they're
Speaker 1: approaching these games. But that's what I would like to see,
Speaker 1: man of these last thirty games. Build something, Build a process,
Speaker 1: build to a process. I keep I keep twinning out.
Speaker 1: Let's build, and I mean, let's build something. You know,
Speaker 1: like you, we can't throw a games. I understand you
Speaker 1: can't win all of these. We're not gonna you know,
Speaker 1: go twenty nine and oh or whatever it is, even
Speaker 1: when Lebron comes back. But just start to build. You
Speaker 1: understand who's not going to be in the rotation. Who is?
Speaker 1: Let's stick to those guys. Deander Joinan should not be
Speaker 1: starting any more games. I don't care who's out. You
Speaker 1: should not be starting any more games. Uh, Trevor reads obviously,
Speaker 1: maybe you can try to find him a spot on
Speaker 1: the rotation. I think you know, Reeves has to start
Speaker 1: for Bradley eventually here. I don't know when we get
Speaker 1: to that point, but I feel like that point should
Speaker 1: be coming here soon. Just stuff that I want to see.
Speaker 1: That that's good process man tonight if he didn't, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that you know that that's been trending upwards. Bradley again,
Speaker 1: Bradley playing eight minute first quarter shifts like that's too
Speaker 1: long to me, but that's probably near taking. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you know, you get, you get good a d. Hopefully
Speaker 1: le Bron can come back playing the way he was.
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook starting to get a groove as a score.
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, he had some tough turnovers tonight,
Speaker 1: but he had a good floor game, like he was
Speaker 1: passing out at least offensively. I thought like he was
Speaker 1: finding shooters in corners and stuff like that. But that's
Speaker 1: the rough part of the season when we haven't built
Speaker 1: any continuity with the team that's going to go in
Speaker 1: and you know, if the trade deadline goes as you
Speaker 1: know you think it does and a lot of people do,
Speaker 1: we might have to build this all over again because
Speaker 1: you might just have a new team by then. So
Speaker 1: I I don't know, I don't know what we're gonna
Speaker 1: do after after that happens. But again, Ross, this is
Speaker 1: where that like the turnover that I've been talking about
Speaker 1: in terms of a mental reset for the roster, I
Speaker 1: think is so important because again, the Lakers had enough
Speaker 1: talent to beat the fellow the Philadelphia seventy sixers. They
Speaker 1: had enough talent to beat Charlotte. They had enough talent
Speaker 1: to go into Atlanta and beat the Hawks on Sunday,
Speaker 1: and they blew all three of those games. And the
Speaker 1: and the way I look at and in all three
Speaker 1: and weird ways right like that that Philly game, it
Speaker 1: just seemed like there was no belief, remember Raj, And
Speaker 1: like then when they would make runs, they couldn't sustain anything,
Speaker 1: and they dug themselves into big of a hole. That
Speaker 1: Charlotte game, it was the starting lineup and just gifting
Speaker 1: them a twenty point lead, and then today it's blowing
Speaker 1: the big lead. But again, the basketball character of this
Speaker 1: group of egos and personalities in that locker room is
Speaker 1: not working in terms of consistently playing with urgency, like
Speaker 1: because because we thought, okay, maybe Stanley Johnson and Austin
Speaker 1: Reeves getting more minutes, maybe it'll be infectious. No, aside
Speaker 1: from those guys, nobody plays hard enough, consistently or is
Speaker 1: willing to do the job, so that concoction isn't working.
Speaker 1: It needs to be flipped. And so that that's why again,
Speaker 1: even if it's a net neutral exchange for talent, or
Speaker 1: even a little bit of a dip in talent that
Speaker 1: you experience over the course of the deadline, if it's
Speaker 1: a better concoction of players, because you know that that
Speaker 1: that locker room thing, chemistry thing is so it's so delicate,
Speaker 1: raj like, it's just because there's a lot of fringe
Speaker 1: NBA players playing in Golden State. But for some reason,
Speaker 1: they keep winning even though step is playing like crap,
Speaker 1: Draymond Green's got a messed up back and isn't even playing,
Speaker 1: and Clay Thompson's coming back from two catastrophic injuries, and
Speaker 1: they keep winning. Why because they're locker room. Just that
Speaker 1: whole mix is just working in addition to scheming and
Speaker 1: coaching and a lot of different things. I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to undercut all the basketball, but there's also just a
Speaker 1: better locker room there. And for whatever reason, I'm not
Speaker 1: even saying the guys in the Lakers locker room don't
Speaker 1: like each other. I don't even think it's necessarily chemistry based.
Speaker 1: It's like just basketball based. It's a bad basketball mix
Speaker 1: and it's just not working, and the Lakers have to
Speaker 1: do something to turn that over. I did, I did
Speaker 1: want to. I did want to talk about Russ for
Speaker 1: a second, because he is starting to trend a little
Speaker 1: bit better. You know. One of the one of the
Speaker 1: big reasons why I think he's been better is what
Speaker 1: has kind of led to him playing better is he's
Speaker 1: starting to finish at the basket a little bit more rage.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've noticed that, but that previous
Speaker 1: month was one of the worst stretches of finishing I've
Speaker 1: ever seen from an NBA basketball player, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them weren't even close. Like he'd get into traffic
Speaker 1: and it was almost like he was just throwing stuff
Speaker 1: at the rim. It looked like one of those time
Speaker 1: outs where when you're watching the league pass and they
Speaker 1: stay on the arena camp and they bring the and
Speaker 1: them fan out to try to make lamps. Like that
Speaker 1: was the kind of stuff we were seeing from right
Speaker 1: from not from Rush Russ, from Ruster in that in
Speaker 1: that previous stretch of game. But he's starting to finish
Speaker 1: around the room a little bit better. There's like some
Speaker 1: of its school's gold, like for instance, like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of talk about Russ, you know, giving the Lakers
Speaker 1: a chance to win in Charlotte. Don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: he'd like great, But he made back to back off
Speaker 1: the dribble threes in that late fourth quarter to give
Speaker 1: us a shot to win. Those are shots he's been
Speaker 1: making at an incredibly low percentage this year, So like
Speaker 1: like some of that school's gold, but he is finishing
Speaker 1: at the rim more and that's encouraging. Where I get discouraged,
Speaker 1: raj is again, like, dude, you on in this situation
Speaker 1: alongside Lebron and a d with these expectations, in the
Speaker 1: types of games you're gonna be playing in in lates,
Speaker 1: in the late season and on the playoffs. You can't
Speaker 1: get beat on a close out by DeAndre Hunter because
Speaker 1: we're already relying on infurior athletes at other positions, Like
Speaker 1: we're gonna need Austin Reeves or and Avery Bradley or
Speaker 1: a Malik Monk to do something they might not be
Speaker 1: capable of on the defensive end in terms of their athleticism,
Speaker 1: but we need Russ lebron and a d to do
Speaker 1: that job. Then on the very next possession, after he
Speaker 1: fouls DeAndre Hunter, after DeAndre thankfully miss is one of
Speaker 1: the free throws, we go down, Malik Monk misses the shot,
Speaker 1: We go down a d s barking at Malik Monk
Speaker 1: a little bit. We get into US set defense and
Speaker 1: Trey Young gets Russ on a switch. Now, Roger, what
Speaker 1: do I always say about comfort imperimeter players. It's all
Speaker 1: about ball pressure, right, Russ played way off of him,
Speaker 1: and Trey Young was able to comfortably walk into one
Speaker 1: of his dribble rhythm three point shots. And again it's like, dude,
Speaker 1: you are the type of athlete that can play up
Speaker 1: on Trey Young and make him feel uncomfortable and and
Speaker 1: maybe you might not be able to keep him entirely
Speaker 1: in front, but he'll have to do a series of
Speaker 1: moves to get around you because you're a better athlete
Speaker 1: than Trey Young. And that was one of those plays
Speaker 1: where it's like Russ, I think his perspective on it
Speaker 1: is like I can play off of him, I can relax,
Speaker 1: I can make him, you know, may make him take
Speaker 1: a jump shot he had just made I think you
Speaker 1: said Rodge three pull up threes in that fourth quarter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think two of them are pull ups
Speaker 1: and then another one he made in that in the
Speaker 1: short corner on that play where he got disconnected from
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis. But again, the point is is, like, dude,
Speaker 1: like when we're with Lebron and a d and they're
Speaker 1: shouldering so much offensively, you have to be the guy
Speaker 1: that does that job. You have to be the guy
Speaker 1: that can keep DeAndre Hunter in front of You have
Speaker 1: to be the guy that can get a stop on
Speaker 1: Trey Young and a key possession at an end of
Speaker 1: a game. And I'm just like, it's that those are
Speaker 1: the things that I paid the most attention to with Ross.
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong. If he's gonna finish at the
Speaker 1: basket at this rate, and if he starts to make
Speaker 1: more of his jump shots the way he has in
Speaker 1: recent games, then yeah, we're gonna be able to make
Speaker 1: more of a basketball fit work here. But he has
Speaker 1: to embrace those details. Those are the thing that win
Speaker 1: and lose basketball games. They always have been. They never
Speaker 1: get talked about enough because people are so focused on highlights.
Speaker 1: And I get that in terms of the popularity of
Speaker 1: the league, But the things that win basketball games are
Speaker 1: little details. I'll give you one last example. Fred van
Speaker 1: Vleet is very ill equipped athletically to be a good
Speaker 1: defensive guard in the backgroud. He's got quick feed, he's
Speaker 1: got a good strong basis, got a low center of
Speaker 1: gravity's strong. I'm not trying to undercut him as an athlete,
Speaker 1: because he is an athlete. But what primarily makes him
Speaker 1: a good defensive player is a commitment to the job.
Speaker 1: And that is what we need out of Russell Westbrook
Speaker 1: because with his physical tools, even in this decline state,
Speaker 1: we need him to be or at least to make
Speaker 1: that commitment like what Fred van Vleet has made. That
Speaker 1: would Can you imagine, Roj, how much better this team
Speaker 1: would be if for us made that commitment to the
Speaker 1: defensive end, and what it would do for this team,
Speaker 1: it would it would be transformative, you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean we're like what we're like what fifty
Speaker 1: games in now? Like I think, like you know, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like to me, like hoping for
Speaker 1: that stuff type of stuff is tough, Like I just
Speaker 1: hope like he starts finishing at the rim better, and
Speaker 1: I have the numbers in front of me. He's at
Speaker 1: you know, seventy seventy six at the in the restricted
Speaker 1: area now, so that don't get the job done right
Speaker 1: over the whole season. This is the last five games,
Speaker 1: makes sense, That makes sense to the eye test. It
Speaker 1: seems like he's been finishing more in recent games, though,
Speaker 1: Jason is you know, it's thirty in the paint, so
Speaker 1: like that's the that's the rough part right in the paint.
Speaker 1: That's not the restricted area. So that's still rough that
Speaker 1: your point guard you know, can't finish you know at
Speaker 1: the around the rim if it's not exactly at the basket.
Speaker 1: But you know, that's small steps. He is finishing better
Speaker 1: now at the basket, but the defense stuff is rough.
Speaker 1: He falls asleep off the ball. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: Rust fits better into a switching scheme. I don't like him.
Speaker 1: You know, top blocking guards or top blocking you know,
Speaker 1: guys who can shoot, or a guy that fights over
Speaker 1: screen in the drop coverage having to give back pressure.
Speaker 1: He just you know, he and he lends to switch
Speaker 1: to He does a lot of lazy switches where like
Speaker 1: there wasn't really a screen, but he still switches. Do
Speaker 1: you see that a lot as well, like stuff like
Speaker 1: that off the ball, where like Avery Bradley, you know
Speaker 1: again we you know, we harp on Avery Bradley because
Speaker 1: of what he does in his offensive lack there of
Speaker 1: of offense, and you know how kind of his activity
Speaker 1: doesn't really really do anything defensively. Sometimes it's just activity
Speaker 1: that's not productivity productivity. But still he plays hard, right,
Speaker 1: he fights so even rather we're fighting hard and you'll
Speaker 1: fight over a screen and Russ would just switch when
Speaker 1: there wasn't really any contact on the screen, and so
Speaker 1: like a guy gets open for three. A lot of
Speaker 1: that stuff happens for Uss. But to me, like where
Speaker 1: I think he can improve in this time, it's just
Speaker 1: you know, taking those physical matchups a little bit more.
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, in the Charlotte game we were
Speaker 1: coming making our comeback, there was a lot of plays
Speaker 1: where like he would get a switch on. I forget
Speaker 1: who they're big, I forget which plumb Ly it is,
Speaker 1: but like one of the plumb least Mason there we go, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Mason Plumbly. I would get the ball in the post
Speaker 1: and Russ would just give up. You would just foul
Speaker 1: you know, because it's a switch. I'm like Mason Pubbly,
Speaker 1: like make make Maison Pubbly finish over you, you know,
Speaker 1: and just stand your ground like stuff like that. I
Speaker 1: think you can still get get better at but expecting
Speaker 1: Russ to be some lockdown defender being some super engaged
Speaker 1: guy and day and I think, you know it is
Speaker 1: a is a you know, it's as a Pine the
Speaker 1: Sky type of stuff there. He can get more engaged,
Speaker 1: maybe Russ and eight when eighty and when Lebron are
Speaker 1: both there. You know, he can kind of feel the
Speaker 1: feel defensive gaps in a different way. That's the interesting
Speaker 1: detail here, Dge, because those concession fouls you're talking about,
Speaker 1: I think that's all related. I think part of the
Speaker 1: issue is the team has never been healthy enough consistently
Speaker 1: enough for us to have a small enough offensive role
Speaker 1: that he can devote resources to the defensive end. I
Speaker 1: think that's a huge problem for sure. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: that offball stuff is definitely a killer though. That's something
Speaker 1: I definitely worry about too. Um And it's interesting to
Speaker 1: see where we'll deploy him defensively when we get to
Speaker 1: the better teams. But I want to see it, man,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know. I don't know. I wanted to
Speaker 1: see all three play together. I think they're still at
Speaker 1: sixteen games played for the whole season, so I don't know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like expecting rust to me to like all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, this lockdown, lockdown guy isn't great. Trey
Speaker 1: Young hit like two forty footers over him. Russ was
Speaker 1: kind of playing back. That's just how he plays defensively.
Speaker 1: He's more of a guy that pertains to the paint.
Speaker 1: He steps back, He drops back on a lot of plays.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when he's engaged, you'll fight over screens and stuff,
Speaker 1: But for the most part, he likes to just switch
Speaker 1: off and that'll that will happen. So hopefully when lebron
Speaker 1: A d back, you can kind of they can kind
Speaker 1: of plug some of these issues. But I just don't
Speaker 1: see it. I don't see him turning into that. I
Speaker 1: think him finishing at the rim though it's a great thing.
Speaker 1: I think that changes the gap between like what this
Speaker 1: team can be offensively, Like you saw tonight and these
Speaker 1: last few games. When Russ finished at the room, we
Speaker 1: can score like one twenty right, Like he's not finishing
Speaker 1: at the rim, he misses layups, you know, those are
Speaker 1: essentially turnovers because the team runs the other way. The
Speaker 1: jump shots, I think, you know, he's taking a lot
Speaker 1: less of them. He still took a few threes tonight.
Speaker 1: The mid range contested pull ups. You know, we both
Speaker 1: classify those as turnovers as well. Some of those guys
Speaker 1: still some of those gotta go and maybe that will
Speaker 1: you know, collide when Lebron comes back. But yeah, Russ
Speaker 1: has been playing better. I just don't see a defensive
Speaker 1: uptake in the way that you just laid out there.
Speaker 1: We um. You know, It's it's so funny because you
Speaker 1: have these two nights off here right coming up. The
Speaker 1: Lakers don't play until Wednesday, and it's a home game
Speaker 1: against the Blazers, which effectively amounts to a must win
Speaker 1: when you look at the strength of schedule coming up,
Speaker 1: and we've been on we've been on must win time
Speaker 1: for a very long time. We're we're way past that.
Speaker 1: But it's like, it's like you'd like to be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: if if we can just bench Lebron for on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: then he can get a bunch of extra But it's like,
Speaker 1: are you are you confident that the Lakers can beat
Speaker 1: the Blazers at home without Labron because I don't know.
Speaker 1: So it's like that's where it gets tricky, because especially
Speaker 1: since it's a back to back because we play the
Speaker 1: Clippers the very next night. But I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: it's just tough, man. It's it's urgency time, and obviously
Speaker 1: there's some positives here, but like you said, we gotta
Speaker 1: check a bunch of boxes at the same time or
Speaker 1: this isn't going anywhere. Did you have anything else on
Speaker 1: your notes you wanted to hit on before we called
Speaker 1: it today? Not really, but like, doesn't it feel like
Speaker 1: the Blazers have had an awful season? Did you know?
Speaker 1: They're only like I think they're a game back for
Speaker 1: two games back of us. Yeah, Like it feels like
Speaker 1: the Blazes have had just in awful uh, an awful season.
Speaker 1: But I think when I checked the standings two and
Speaker 1: a half, Yeah, isn't that an insane Like it feels
Speaker 1: like they've been just torching And you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: following Portland's too closely, but it just feels like with
Speaker 1: everything that's come out there, like they've had an awful season.
Speaker 1: You know, Dame hasn't played I think in a while
Speaker 1: CJ just got back. There's two games behind us, like
Speaker 1: that's that's insane how this season has gone. That's just
Speaker 1: we're bad. We're bad basket alright, everybody, Thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much for coming to hang out even though the
Speaker 1: football games were on. This is gonna air on DASH
Speaker 1: Radio tomorrow morning at seven am Pacific Standard time, and
Speaker 1: we'll be on our podcast feed here in about an hour.
Speaker 1: As always, we sincerely appreciate your support. Roger and I
Speaker 1: will probably end up doing something on either Monday or Tuesday,
Speaker 1: so stay tuned, pay attention to our Twitter feeds, and
Speaker 1: we'll let you guys know. Thank you so much. Enjoy
Speaker 1: the rest of your weekend, and we'll talk to you
Speaker 1: in a day or two. Thanks everyone,