Speaker 1: The volume Hoops Tonight is presented by FanDuel. The NBA
Speaker 1: is back, and there's no better place to get in
Speaker 1: on the action than with fandel This is my favorite
Speaker 1: sports betting app that is out there. It is safe
Speaker 1: and easy to use, easy to get your money in
Speaker 1: and out. I love that cash out feature, So if
Speaker 1: you're in good shape with one of your bets and
Speaker 1: you don't want to risk garbage time, you can get
Speaker 1: your money out quickly. Use promo code Jason T and
Speaker 1: download the FanDuel app today to make every moment more
Speaker 1: This NBA Season twenty one plus in president Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana.
Speaker 1: Permitted parishes only, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Virginia
Speaker 1: or West Virginia. First online real money wager only. Refund
Speaker 1: issued as non withdrawable site credit that expires in fourteen days.
Speaker 1: Restrictions apply. See terms at sports book dot FanDuel dot com.
Speaker 1: Gambling problem called one eight hundred, next step or tech
Speaker 1: next step to five three three four two in Arizona
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven
Speaker 1: seven or visit CCPG dot org slash chat in Connecticut
Speaker 1: one eight hundred Gambler or visit FanDuel dot com slash
Speaker 1: RG in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey. In Virginia one eight
Speaker 1: seven seven seven seven zero stop in Louisiana one eight
Speaker 1: hundred to seven zero seven one one seven for confidential
Speaker 1: help in Michigan one eight seven seven eight Hope and Why,
Speaker 1: or text hope and Why to four six seven three
Speaker 1: six nine in New York. In tennessee redline dial one
Speaker 1: eight hundred eight eight nine nine seven eight nine in Tennessee,
Speaker 1: visit www one dot one eight hundred gambler dot net
Speaker 1: in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented
Speaker 1: by Fan Duel here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody.
Speaker 1: I hope all of you guys are having a great week. Week.
Speaker 1: We are live on AMP, and don't forget for those
Speaker 1: of you guys who are listening on the podcast feed
Speaker 1: or on YouTube that the first place that you guys
Speaker 1: can get this analysis is on AMP. If you have
Speaker 1: any trouble tracking down our page, I have the link
Speaker 1: I tweeted out before every show. You can find it
Speaker 1: on my Twitter feed. So today we're gonna have three topics.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be covering the Steve Nash firing, which is
Speaker 1: obviously the biggest story of the day. After the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Nets lost again today because big shock, it turns out
Speaker 1: the coach is the least of their problems. The Golden
Speaker 1: State Warriors lost their third consecutive game, a tough one,
Speaker 1: a tough come from behind. When for my mean to
Speaker 1: lead the Warriors to their third consecutive loss, We're gonna
Speaker 1: break We're gonna break that game down and talk about
Speaker 1: some of their issues with their bench cropping up again.
Speaker 1: And then the Philadelphia seventies six Ers, a team that
Speaker 1: I was very high on to start the season, started
Speaker 1: one and four but have won three consecutive games. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of zoom in on some of
Speaker 1: the specific ways that they've been playing better basketball. So
Speaker 1: let's start with Nash. Um. I did a video earlier today,
Speaker 1: and in the video, I talked about how um the
Speaker 1: Nets were thirty in rebounding in the league and twenty
Speaker 1: nine and defense, and they were actually a pretty damn
Speaker 1: good offensive team, and that even though Nash may not
Speaker 1: have been the right coach for that particular team, it
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily the issue. He wasn't the reason they were struggling.
Speaker 1: They were struggling because they weren't defending, and they weren't
Speaker 1: boxing out, and they weren't crashing from the wing, and
Speaker 1: they weren't securing rebounds. They beat Indiana the other night,
Speaker 1: and they outrebounded Indiana and they held them to an
Speaker 1: offensive rebound offensive rating under one oh five. So they
Speaker 1: got stops, they secured rebounds, and they want a basketball game.
Speaker 1: And then verse Chicago tonight, they got out rebounded by seven,
Speaker 1: gave up eleven offensive rebounds, gave up twenty four points
Speaker 1: in the first seven minutes of the fourth quarter, and
Speaker 1: blew another game at home to the Chicago Bulls. Because again,
Speaker 1: their issue is not leadership. It is the players on
Speaker 1: the floor and they're willing their willingness to compete physically.
Speaker 1: It kind of reminds me a lot of the Frank
Speaker 1: Vogel situation last year with the Lakers, and uh, there's
Speaker 1: there's some parallels there. They had a really successful season
Speaker 1: in in that season they won the title. Frank Vogel
Speaker 1: seemed like an ideal coach for that particular team. The
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Nets came literally an inch away from making the
Speaker 1: Conference Finals, probably would have beat the Hawks and made
Speaker 1: it to the NBA Finals, and probably would have beat
Speaker 1: the Phoenix Suns and won the title. That's how good
Speaker 1: that team was and how close they came to the
Speaker 1: ultimate goal. And during that season, people weren't complaining about
Speaker 1: Steve Nash. She seemed fine managing the personalities. They were
Speaker 1: doing a lot of switching. Things were kind of working
Speaker 1: for that group. But then what happens, and this happens
Speaker 1: around the league, Like we're gonna talk about a bunch
Speaker 1: of different coaches today, We're talking about Frank, talking about
Speaker 1: Steve Nash. We're gonna talk a little bit about Doc
Speaker 1: Rivers later. I am okay with the fact that the
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Nets fired Steve Nash and are looking for a
Speaker 1: different coach. I would be okay if the Philadelphia seventy
Speaker 1: sixers decided to move on from Doc Rivers at some point,
Speaker 1: and I supported the Lakers firing Frank Vogel. I just
Speaker 1: also was aware in all of those situations that that
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily the only issue. I think. I think there
Speaker 1: are specific types of players that do really well with
Speaker 1: one coach for a very long time, but they're unique personalities.
Speaker 1: Are guys like Steph Curry right, one of the most
Speaker 1: coachable stars in NBA history, or Tim Duncan with Greg Popovitch.
Speaker 1: But for a lot of stars, they have big egos,
Speaker 1: they don't really necessarily think they need a coach if
Speaker 1: you give them truth serum and ask them. And in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases, they view those guys as as
Speaker 1: much as obstacles or equal partners as they do as
Speaker 1: a leader in a lot of those cases. And I
Speaker 1: think whenever you have a person like that in that
Speaker 1: type of position and they are constantly being hard on
Speaker 1: you and holding you accountable and doing those things, it
Speaker 1: can burn you out. And I don't think that's unique
Speaker 1: to NBA players, think that can happen to anybody, just
Speaker 1: like us in our jobs. If you get to a
Speaker 1: point where you have the same boss for a long time,
Speaker 1: you become hyper focused on their quirks, and you become
Speaker 1: really like almost oblivious to the things that they do
Speaker 1: well because just over the years you've learned to kind
Speaker 1: of hyper focus on the things you don't like about them.
Speaker 1: I think that's normal, and so I think it's okay
Speaker 1: every once in a while, especially in professional basketball, when
Speaker 1: you're dealing with these types of egos to bring in
Speaker 1: a different voice into the locker room, and it works.
Speaker 1: Like guess what, Like Darvin Hamm has come in with
Speaker 1: the Lakers and Lebron James and Anthony Davis have rebod
Speaker 1: into the defensive end of the floor, and they've even
Speaker 1: got some historically defenders to defend a lot better and
Speaker 1: they're looking fine defensively. But it turns out the coach
Speaker 1: wasn't the problem because they're owing five. The problem was
Speaker 1: the Lakers traded away Kyle Kuzma, Contavious Cabbo Pope and
Speaker 1: lost Alex Crusoe in the ensuing salary crunch, and now
Speaker 1: they don't have enough talent around their two stars and
Speaker 1: so they're losing basketball games. They dealt with a issue,
Speaker 1: which is their players weren't invested in Darvin Hamm any
Speaker 1: excuse me in Frank Vogel anymore, But it didn't clear
Speaker 1: up the issue, which was upper management and ownership in
Speaker 1: their inability to set the basketball team up for success.
Speaker 1: It's a similar kind of thing going on with Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: Like is Steve Nash the ideal coach for the Nets?
Speaker 1: I don't even know, because you can't even tell whether
Speaker 1: or not a coach's schematic approach is smart unless the
Speaker 1: players are competing and this next team simply was not
Speaker 1: competed in the on the last or on the defensive
Speaker 1: end of the floor. There that that that issue wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna go away when they made that shift. You know,
Speaker 1: let's say so, for instance, Ema Udoka is the name
Speaker 1: that's been thrown out, and we're gonna talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about him in a minute, but Email Udoka
Speaker 1: is famous for being a guy that demands a lot
Speaker 1: of his players and brings a certain amount of toughness, right,
Speaker 1: that was what he did with the Boston Celtics last year.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, if he comes
Speaker 1: in and he asks them to do the same things
Speaker 1: that Steve Nash asked them to do and they do
Speaker 1: it for Email Judoka after not doing it for Steve Nash,
Speaker 1: then yeah, it's a smart move. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, it's on the players, it's not on
Speaker 1: the coach. At the end of the day, the the
Speaker 1: the core problems have to be solved, you know. Um
Speaker 1: like if like for instance, Kyrie Irving has been it
Speaker 1: hasn't been in related it hasn't been related to player
Speaker 1: availability this year. It hasn't been him up in leaving
Speaker 1: the team the way that he did in the past,
Speaker 1: But in this particular season, he's going with more off
Speaker 1: court drama this time, this time tweeting out, you know,
Speaker 1: controversial movies for instance, and getting into back and forth
Speaker 1: arguments with reporters after games. And it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where like, that's kind of what comes with the
Speaker 1: Kyrie experience, and that that's what brings me back to
Speaker 1: Joe Sigh at the end of all of this. If
Speaker 1: you guys remember this summer, I did a um, I
Speaker 1: did a video. It was shortly after I got back
Speaker 1: from my Alaska trip where I was like, hey, like,
Speaker 1: I think this is still headed towards a trade. I
Speaker 1: think it'll probably be Jalen Brown, It'll probably be the Celtics.
Speaker 1: I think this has headed towards a trade. And then
Speaker 1: the very next day, Kevin Kevin, it was reported had
Speaker 1: recommitted to the team in the long run, and I
Speaker 1: was completely flabbergasted. I couldn't believe it. And the main
Speaker 1: reason why is I just didn't understand why Joe Sigh,
Speaker 1: an owner of a basketball team, seeing what the Kadie
Speaker 1: and Kyrie experience had been like for three years, like
Speaker 1: the two of them, you know, like Kyrie choosing not
Speaker 1: to go to the bubble. Katie may or may not
Speaker 1: have been ready to play at that point. He decided
Speaker 1: not to come back to the bubble. I think he
Speaker 1: was like fourteen months post Achilles surgery at that time,
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen months something along those lines. But they just
Speaker 1: decided not to play, which at the time, in the
Speaker 1: in a vacuum, you were like, Okay, I get it,
Speaker 1: maybe they don't want to go to the bubble. But
Speaker 1: then you go into the next season and you know,
Speaker 1: both guys miss bunch of time with injury. You come close,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't work out. The following season, Kyrie Irving
Speaker 1: is dealing with the uh, the vaccination thing. He actually
Speaker 1: in season he straight up left the team twice without
Speaker 1: even telling Steve Nash. They're all these things that were
Speaker 1: going wrong and a whole lot of a lack of
Speaker 1: basketball success to make it all worth it. And so
Speaker 1: when we were looking at this summer, and you could
Speaker 1: have flipped Kyrie Irving to the Lakers for two first
Speaker 1: round picks, and you could have flipped Kevin Durant to
Speaker 1: the Boston Celtics for Jalen Brown, who, by the way,
Speaker 1: has looked amazing this year, and more draft compensation you
Speaker 1: and then maybe you a flip, Ben Simmons. You had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to push that reset button and to put
Speaker 1: an eye towards the future, to um to build a
Speaker 1: basketball team with a more likable identity, more of a
Speaker 1: team that competes. You know, I always talked about the
Speaker 1: difference between loving basketball and hating losing and how they manifest.
Speaker 1: Got teams that hate to lose, they compete physically on
Speaker 1: every single possession. Teams that love basketball, you know, they
Speaker 1: can have a lot of fun, they can have good
Speaker 1: offensive nights. But if you don't have that other piece,
Speaker 1: which is the hatred of losing, you're gonna struggle to
Speaker 1: win basketball games. And after all of that, I just
Speaker 1: thought he'd hit that eject button. And when he decided
Speaker 1: to bring everybody back and say, hey, let's go at
Speaker 1: this thing again, I was stunned. So then we come
Speaker 1: into this season and the Nets start by losing all
Speaker 1: these games and Kyrie Irving's bringing the drama, and you're
Speaker 1: sitting there and you're thinking maybe now he'll do it.
Speaker 1: Maybe now this is the time where he'll finally hit
Speaker 1: that eject button, trade everybody and rebuild. And that's where
Speaker 1: the email Udoka thing is so interesting to me. When
Speaker 1: email Judoka with we we don't even know what happened
Speaker 1: with him in Boston, which is a whole other wrinkle here.
Speaker 1: I was joking with my producers earlier today and uh
Speaker 1: and one of them said like, hey, like, how how
Speaker 1: does this go down in the press conference? Like do
Speaker 1: you ask Emay what happened? Does he just say no comment?
Speaker 1: Does that lead to a whole bunch of other issues,
Speaker 1: Like it's a really awkward situation. Josiah would rather do
Speaker 1: that to bring in the guy that would allegedly fix
Speaker 1: this group and their toughness and their physicality. He went
Speaker 1: that direction rather than blowing things up. He would rather
Speaker 1: try to flex seal the bottom of his boat that
Speaker 1: has a giant hole in it rather than just get
Speaker 1: rid of the boat. The only thing in all of
Speaker 1: this that is worth salvaging is Kevin rand I wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to have anything to do with Kyrie Irving at
Speaker 1: this point unless you're desperate for talent. A team like
Speaker 1: the Lakers who literally can't afford to turn away good
Speaker 1: basketball players, or you know, with Ben Simmons, obviously his
Speaker 1: back has led him to have health issues. Over the
Speaker 1: course of the season. He hasn't looked quite what he
Speaker 1: what you would hope for from him defensively, especially in
Speaker 1: the last couple of games. So that's, you know, not
Speaker 1: necessarily something you want to build around. Nick Claxton is fine, right,
Speaker 1: Joe Harris has had head ton of health issues. There's
Speaker 1: nobody there that you're married to. And Kevin Durant's obviously
Speaker 1: still the franchise cornerstone that you want, but that particular
Speaker 1: franchise cornerstone is clearly unhappy and you're incapable of putting
Speaker 1: around him a real contender of a team. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: have a puncher's chance, but they don't have a real
Speaker 1: contending team. If you end up in a playoff series
Speaker 1: against Milwaukee, you're picking Milwaukee. If you end up in
Speaker 1: a playoff series against Boston, you're picking Boston in both
Speaker 1: of those matchups. So I just was truly, truly stunned
Speaker 1: that Joside continues to head down this path in bringing
Speaker 1: in email Udoka, with all the controversy surrounding him tells
Speaker 1: me that you would rather have more headache to try
Speaker 1: to salvage this clearly unsalvageable situation, then just take the
Speaker 1: obvious out here, and if you do, you're gonna immediately
Speaker 1: come back with a ton of assets and be set
Speaker 1: up to rebuild for the future. They had an out
Speaker 1: and they decided not to take it, and that was
Speaker 1: really really confusing to me. As we look forward, if
Speaker 1: the Nets go on a run, it won't be because
Speaker 1: they brought in a different coach. It'll be because the
Speaker 1: guys in that locker room finally bought back in. It'll
Speaker 1: be because Kyrie Irving, you know, focused on what was
Speaker 1: happening on the basketball court. It will be because Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant played like a two way superstar. It'll be because
Speaker 1: the other players around them start competing in all of
Speaker 1: the effort, energy and focus parts of the game. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I in a vacuum, I don't have any
Speaker 1: issue with firing Steve Nash, just like I had no
Speaker 1: issue with firing Frank Vogel, just like I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: an issue if the Sixers fired Doc Rivers. But make
Speaker 1: no mistake, that's only one small step in the long
Speaker 1: journey that it takes to fix the problem that those
Speaker 1: two teams in particular have. Al Right, So I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about the Warriors for a little bit. They've
Speaker 1: lost the tough one there um against Miami. That's their
Speaker 1: third consecutive lost, third in the last four days. All
Speaker 1: the Warriors starters were positive in this game, which lends
Speaker 1: to the whole thing that I got into and yesterday's show,
Speaker 1: for those of you guys who listened to that, you know,
Speaker 1: I talked a lot about James Wiseman in particular, and
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about how his fit is
Speaker 1: still an issue, and I still believe that it is,
Speaker 1: but I think he's kind of becoming a scapegoat in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways for Golden State. And if you
Speaker 1: remember in yesterday's show, I talked about how I'm more
Speaker 1: certain about the bench lineup as a whole, This line
Speaker 1: up that they've been rolling out the last couple of
Speaker 1: games where Jordan pool Tie, Jerome Moses Moody, Jamichael Green,
Speaker 1: and James Wiseman. It's the totality of that lineup, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, that's causing them problems. The lack of good
Speaker 1: rotation level NBA players playoff level rotation NBA players in
Speaker 1: their bench lineup, that is giving them problems. And that
Speaker 1: is exactly what happened again tonight, And there was a
Speaker 1: really interesting kind of shift from Steve Kerr in the
Speaker 1: second half that I thought demonstrated this. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: in yesterday's show, I said specifically that Stephen Draymond had
Speaker 1: only played eleven possessions with James Wiseman all season, so
Speaker 1: even though he's been a disaster and he's been a
Speaker 1: huge net negative. I I can't remember exactly what the
Speaker 1: numbers were from yesterday, but it was like a hundred
Speaker 1: something minutes and he was almost minus fifties. So the
Speaker 1: Warriors are getting destroyed with Wiseman on the floor, but
Speaker 1: he had almost never played with Stephan Draymond. He had
Speaker 1: only amounted to eleven possession so far this season with
Speaker 1: those two. And so I was I I had been talking,
Speaker 1: actually I was texting with a couple of different Warriors
Speaker 1: fans today, including someone who covers the team, talking about like,
Speaker 1: why don't they stagger it better? Why don't they try
Speaker 1: to have more overlap between the starting lineup and the
Speaker 1: bench lineup instead of doing it like line shifts, sending
Speaker 1: out this limited team that's obviously going to struggle, and
Speaker 1: and and Kurt tried that in the second half. So
Speaker 1: in the first half tonight he ran James Wiseman with
Speaker 1: with Jordan pool t I drew him Moses Moody to
Speaker 1: Michael Green. They got destroyed. But in the second half
Speaker 1: they actually subbed Wiseman in early with about seven and
Speaker 1: a half minutes left in the third quarter, Ryan him
Speaker 1: with Stephan Draymond, and he had a good shift. There's
Speaker 1: a four minute shift where he was plus two. He
Speaker 1: had a couple of buckets, including a really nice alley
Speaker 1: oop on his first play, and then Wiseman checked out
Speaker 1: with three and a half minutes left in the third quarter.
Speaker 1: In Moody or excuse me, uh, Kevin Looney ran with
Speaker 1: the bench group. So it is that same group Jordan
Speaker 1: pool Tie, Jerome, Moses Moody and uh and Jamichael Green
Speaker 1: with Kavan Looney instead of James Wiseman, and they still struggled.
Speaker 1: They went minus five and when Stephan dre checked back
Speaker 1: in the game, it was only a three point lead
Speaker 1: instead of an eight point lead, which kind of lends
Speaker 1: creedence to what I was talking about yesterday, which is, look,
Speaker 1: is Wiseman a bad fit. Yes, we talked about that yesterday.
Speaker 1: He's more of like a traditional rim running big who
Speaker 1: can have some success in drop coverage, but he struggles
Speaker 1: with physicality, and specifically with the Warriors, you need bigs
Speaker 1: that can screen really, really well and that are really
Speaker 1: good at making reads because his vertical spacing is not
Speaker 1: as valuable in a Warrior system that the spacing is inverted.
Speaker 1: They don't need that spacing around the rim. It's already
Speaker 1: there in the form of the fact that there's nobody
Speaker 1: down there because they're running five outsets and all of
Speaker 1: your actions of Jordan Pool, Steph Curry, and Clay Thompson
Speaker 1: flying around on the perimeter. Wiseman's vertical spacing just isn't
Speaker 1: as valuable for this team. The fit issues with Wiseman
Speaker 1: are real. He's a young big in the n b A,
Speaker 1: and young bigs are just gonna take a while to
Speaker 1: learn how to be really good, and right now he's
Speaker 1: not going to be a super functional piece with this team.
Speaker 1: That is true, But the larger issue with the Warriors
Speaker 1: right now is the rest of that lineup. That's Jordan's pool.
Speaker 1: A bad defender in this league. Ty Jerome a below
Speaker 1: average defender in this league. Moses Moody, he might one
Speaker 1: day be a good defender in this league, but right
Speaker 1: now they're putting him through the fire having him guard
Speaker 1: the other team's quickest perimeter player every night, and he's struggling.
Speaker 1: And then Ja Michael Green has been good. He's knocking
Speaker 1: down shots, he's battling on the glass, he's playing with physicality.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of good that he does. But he's
Speaker 1: not a quick player. He's not containing ball handlers. And
Speaker 1: so when you put four week perimeter defenders and in
Speaker 1: one non defensive player of the year type of big
Speaker 1: with if this is not Anthony Davis, you're putting out
Speaker 1: there James Wiseman might one day be a great defensive big,
Speaker 1: he's not there yet. Kevon Looney is a solid defensive
Speaker 1: big and he does well with the great Warriors lineups
Speaker 1: with great perimeter defenders, but he's not Anthony Davis. He's
Speaker 1: not going to clean up every single mess that the
Speaker 1: perimeter players make. And so I think in this case,
Speaker 1: like yes, is the do the Warriors have a Wiseman issue, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that needs to be dealt with. But the larger
Speaker 1: issue is they don't have They need like one or
Speaker 1: two more really solid NBA veteran role players that can
Speaker 1: come in off the bench and make those bench lineups
Speaker 1: more successful, because again, you gotta think about the way
Speaker 1: it's gonna work in the playoffs. Right now, Draymond Green
Speaker 1: is on a minute restriction. Right now, Clay Thompson's on
Speaker 1: a minute restriction. So there's gonna be more overlap between
Speaker 1: the bench lineups and the starting lineup. You won't have
Speaker 1: as many minutes from guys like Ty Jerome to Michael Green,
Speaker 1: Moses Movie, so on and so forth, but you still
Speaker 1: need some minutes from players in those particul sular roles,
Speaker 1: and right now, those guys aren't good enough. And so
Speaker 1: having again, I told you guys this last year, Gary
Speaker 1: Payton the second, when he was on the floor in
Speaker 1: the playoffs, the Warriors were positive. When he was off
Speaker 1: the floor in the playoffs, the Warriors were negative. They've
Speaker 1: always needed those really good bench defensive players to come in,
Speaker 1: just like Andre Guadala did for all of those years.
Speaker 1: And I think we've as we've zoomed out from this
Speaker 1: championship run, it's become more apparent that guys like Otto
Speaker 1: Porter Jr. And Gary Payton the second we're really really important,
Speaker 1: and part of the issue here is just young players
Speaker 1: and then generally taking a while to learn how to
Speaker 1: do this stuff. Every single one of you guys who's listening,
Speaker 1: who's a little bit older. If you play in men's leagues,
Speaker 1: or if you play pickup games, you've all seen the games,
Speaker 1: or you're playing against the seventeen nineteen year old kids
Speaker 1: who are super talented, but they don't really know how
Speaker 1: to win basketball games, and you beat them despite not
Speaker 1: having as much talent, just because you've been playing for
Speaker 1: a lot longer and you just kind of are more
Speaker 1: familiar with how to do the little things that win games. Obviously,
Speaker 1: at the NBA level it's a much more dramatic version
Speaker 1: of that because those guys have also been playing basketball
Speaker 1: for a very long time, but it's a similar concept,
Speaker 1: and even anything up up to those that age range
Speaker 1: of basketball players, they just don't quite have the understanding
Speaker 1: of how important the little things are. Whereas the veterans,
Speaker 1: the guys that are twenty to thirty five, they understand
Speaker 1: that their placed in the league, particularly role players, they
Speaker 1: understand that they're playing the league depends on their willingness
Speaker 1: to do those things. They've been on rosters where they
Speaker 1: didn't get minutes because they weren't good at those things.
Speaker 1: They've been on rosters where they got a huge role
Speaker 1: because they were great at those particular things, and so
Speaker 1: that's become their identity. The guys like Gary Payton the second,
Speaker 1: he's only in the league because he's one of the
Speaker 1: best defensive guards. He was out of the league for
Speaker 1: a while. He clawed his way back into the league
Speaker 1: because he leaned heavily into those specific things. That's the
Speaker 1: the the gap in understanding between young players and older players,
Speaker 1: which is why it's why guys like Lebron have always
Speaker 1: wanted older veteran players on his roster, even sometimes to
Speaker 1: his own detriment. There's a there's a reason why that
Speaker 1: type of player brings a lot of value. So what's
Speaker 1: the way you look forward from here? Maybe Moses Moody
Speaker 1: figures it out in time, Maybe James Wiseman figures it
Speaker 1: out in time, but it's somewhat unlikely. It's somewhat unlikely
Speaker 1: that at their age in a huge playoff series against
Speaker 1: the Denver Nuggets or the l A Clippers, or whoever
Speaker 1: it might be that they run into in the Western Conference,
Speaker 1: it's far more likely that those guys aren't ready and
Speaker 1: and and that's just gonna be a bet that Joe
Speaker 1: Lacob is gonna have to make. He's gonna have to
Speaker 1: bet either on those guys making those improvements or looking
Speaker 1: at the reality the situation, which is your starting lineup
Speaker 1: is still crushing everybody, like literally crushing everybody. Before tonight's game,
Speaker 1: they were like a hundred and twenty seven offensive rating
Speaker 1: in a one defensive rating. Tonight that got even better
Speaker 1: or was more or less the same level of dominance.
Speaker 1: But you're falling off a cliff when you go to
Speaker 1: your bench. So you can either bank on that improving
Speaker 1: over the course of the season, or you can invest
Speaker 1: in this particular group. And it's gonna be a tough decision.
Speaker 1: And I'm really curious to see which direction they start
Speaker 1: to go. All right, before we get out of here
Speaker 1: and talk about the sixers for a minute. So they
Speaker 1: started one in four, but like I said, they had
Speaker 1: some fixable problems. If you remember, they were second in
Speaker 1: half court second and half court offense. In that first
Speaker 1: five game stretch, I went over some metrics like Tyrese
Speaker 1: Maxie was having the highest scoring season of his career
Speaker 1: on the high and also on like fifty eight percentury
Speaker 1: shooting or whatever it was, and Tobias Harris was having
Speaker 1: his first year with the Sixers shooting over from three.
Speaker 1: James Harden has had a lot of really good games,
Speaker 1: Joel Embiad has still been every bit as productive as
Speaker 1: usually is. Everyone's great offensively, and the team is scoring really,
Speaker 1: really well, but they were getting destroyed on the defensive
Speaker 1: end of the floor, particularly in transition. They were the
Speaker 1: worst transition defense in the league by a mile, and specifically,
Speaker 1: one of the things that was causing those problems was
Speaker 1: Joel em beat and what when he misses shots around
Speaker 1: the rim trying to draw a foul, He'll flop and
Speaker 1: flail and complain to the refs and not run back
Speaker 1: on defense, which, for the record, is a problem that
Speaker 1: the vast majority of scoring bigs in the league have,
Speaker 1: including Anthony Davis for the Lakers, who probably would be
Speaker 1: your early season defensive Player of the Year candidate if
Speaker 1: he didn't have so many bad transition defense UH games
Speaker 1: mixed in at that point, and he might still be,
Speaker 1: but that's his big weakness. A lot of biggs, particularly
Speaker 1: ones that take a lot of shots around the rim,
Speaker 1: difficult shots. They they struggle running up and down the floor,
Speaker 1: and it's been killing the Sixers and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of metrics that kind of show that. So since the
Speaker 1: one in four start, they beat Toronto, they beat Chicago,
Speaker 1: beat Washington, and beat missed two of those games in
Speaker 1: that three game span. According to Cleaning the Glass, the
Speaker 1: UH Sixers were twelve in transition defense instead as a
Speaker 1: result in that game. In that span, they've only given
Speaker 1: up a hundred and five point eight points per one
Speaker 1: hunter possessions, which ranks third in defense among every team
Speaker 1: over their last three games. Overall on this season, the
Speaker 1: Sixers are twenty nine point one points per one h
Speaker 1: possessions better in transition defense with them beat off the floor.
Speaker 1: According to Cleaning the Glass, they're just quicker and they
Speaker 1: do better in that open floor game. It's not really
Speaker 1: all that complicated. If you have an amazing offense, which
Speaker 1: the Sixers do, and you also defend, you're gonna win
Speaker 1: basketball games. Early in the season, they weren't defending in
Speaker 1: large part in transition. In the last three games, they've
Speaker 1: been defending especially well in transition compared to the way
Speaker 1: they usually do, and they're winning basketball games. They're getting
Speaker 1: great offensive production, right Like Tyrie Smax he was great
Speaker 1: against Toronto UM and beat himself, was great against Chicago.
Speaker 1: James Harden had a seventeen assist game against Washington the
Speaker 1: other night. But that's not the issue. The issue was
Speaker 1: never the offensive end of the floor. They just needed
Speaker 1: to clean up the details. And if you guys remember,
Speaker 1: I did a whole thing on Doc Rivers, and again, like,
Speaker 1: if the Sixers decide to let's say that this three
Speaker 1: game stretches an anomaly and then they go back down
Speaker 1: and have a bunch of issues, I would understand moving
Speaker 1: on from Doc Rivers. He's not personally my favorite coach anyway,
Speaker 1: as it pertains to just how stubborn he is and
Speaker 1: how slow he is to adjust in a playoff environment.
Speaker 1: But if they if the Sixers decided to move on
Speaker 1: from Doc, I would understand that and support that because
Speaker 1: this particular group up until this three game stretch wasn't
Speaker 1: really tuned into what he's been asking them to do
Speaker 1: on the defensive end of the floor. So at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, though, like we talked about, the
Speaker 1: same thing with Brooklyn, same thing with the Lakers. The
Speaker 1: reason why the Lakers are defending better under Darvin Ham
Speaker 1: is the players are defending better. They're just playing harder.
Speaker 1: Some of its scheme, most of it is effort. The
Speaker 1: Nets aren't going to improve defensively until those guys start
Speaker 1: actually doing the work. In the same thing goes for
Speaker 1: the Sixers. They've done the work for three games and
Speaker 1: they've won three games as a result. At the end
Speaker 1: of the day, the players do have to do the work.
Speaker 1: You're just paying attention to whether or not those players
Speaker 1: are bought into their head coach. But a lot of
Speaker 1: basketball left. But the Sixers look winning cures everything they were.
Speaker 1: They lost a game to San Antonio the other night
Speaker 1: or last weekend, I think, and it looked like the
Speaker 1: guy was falling. But then you go out and you
Speaker 1: win a couple of basketball games, everything looks fine. The
Speaker 1: Lakers are gonna play the Pelicans at home tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: If they beat the Pelicans, and I don't feel great
Speaker 1: about it right now, but if they beat the Pelicans,
Speaker 1: you can take a deep breath and go, Okay, we've
Speaker 1: figured some stuff out where the one of the best
Speaker 1: defenses in the league. Now we're winning games. Brooklyn. If
Speaker 1: you just play defense in the fourth quarter and you
Speaker 1: get a better shooting performance out of Kyrie Irving, you
Speaker 1: beat the Chicago Bulls tonight, you're on a two game
Speaker 1: winning streak. Things start to look better. There's all. It's
Speaker 1: never too late to change the way you're playing. If
Speaker 1: you especially these super talented teams, if you start playing well,
Speaker 1: you'll start winning games. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: the players are the ones that have to do the work,
Speaker 1: all right. That is all I have for tonight. The
Speaker 1: plan for tomorrow is we'll be doing a show like
Speaker 1: this on AMP right after the Celtics Cavaliers rematch, which
Speaker 1: I'm very excited for, in the early slate, and then
Speaker 1: tomorrow night Pelicans Lakers will be going live on YouTube
Speaker 1: right after the final buzzer of that game. As always,
Speaker 1: I sincerely appreciate you guys support and I will see
Speaker 1: you tomorrow. The volume