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 Halloween, everybody.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys had some fun over the weekend
Speaker 1: and or tonight, depending on how your schedule all worked out.
Speaker 1: We have a ton of basketball to get to today.
Speaker 1: The Golden State Warriors lost back to back games in
Speaker 1: Charlotte in Detroit over the weekend. We're gonna get into
Speaker 1: specifically Detroit. I'm gonna dive into some of their young
Speaker 1: players as well, because I had so much fun watching
Speaker 1: them this morning. They have some of my favorite young
Speaker 1: players in the league. The Cleveland Cavaliers have been one
Speaker 1: of the most impressive teams to start this season. They
Speaker 1: beat the Knicks yesterday to get up to five and one,
Speaker 1: but they also had a super impressive road win in
Speaker 1: Boston that we're gonna cover. We'll also be covering them
Speaker 1: again this Wednesday live on AMP after they have their
Speaker 1: rematch with the Celtics. The Los Angeles Lakers finally won
Speaker 1: a basketball game at home against the Denver Nuggets a
Speaker 1: lot to get into there. And then last but not least,
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn Nets are experiencing more drama that I hope
Speaker 1: then I think they could have hoped for at this
Speaker 1: point in the season with Kyrie Irving re I don't know,
Speaker 1: renewing his yearly shenanigans, which are always a lot harder
Speaker 1: to handle when you're losing basketball games than when you're winning. Um,
Speaker 1: you guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe
Speaker 1: to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any
Speaker 1: more of our videos. Follow me in on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Underscore Jason lt s you guys don't miss any show announcements.
Speaker 1: That's also where I put footage breakdowns because of some
Speaker 1: of the limitations we have on YouTube. And then, last
Speaker 1: but not least, for whatever reason, you miss one of
Speaker 1: these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube
Speaker 1: to finish, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Under Hoops tonight. So Golden State dropping games in Charlotte
Speaker 1: Detroit obviously not a good thing. Detroit and Charlotte are
Speaker 1: two pretty bad basketball teams. Some of its poor shooting. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I'm sure Warriors fans have been thinking about that a lot. Uh.
Speaker 1: Steph was seven for twenty seven from three over the weekend.
Speaker 1: That's an anomaly. Andrew Wiggins was another guy who had
Speaker 1: a nightmare shooting weekend. He was eighty eight from the field.
Speaker 1: But don't let that distract from the reality, which is
Speaker 1: that the Warriors problems are on the defensive end and
Speaker 1: primarily with their bench. So I wanted to kind of
Speaker 1: dive into those two concepts a little bit. So, first
Speaker 1: of all, these are two average offenses in Detroit and Charlotte,
Speaker 1: and in the two games, the Golden State Warriors had
Speaker 1: a defensive rating of almost a hundred and twenty, meaning
Speaker 1: they were giving up almost a hundred and twenty points
Speaker 1: per one hundred possessions. Regardless of what you think factors
Speaker 1: might be working against you in any sort of road trip,
Speaker 1: or a guy being out of the lineup like Clay
Speaker 1: Thompson missing, you know, or Dante deve di Vincenzo being
Speaker 1: out of the game. Regardless of how you feel about
Speaker 1: any of those things. You should be able to go
Speaker 1: into Detroit and get stops as the Golden State Warriors.
Speaker 1: And you should be able to go into the Charlotte
Speaker 1: to Charlotte, especially Charlotte because they don't have the level
Speaker 1: of offensive talent that Detroit has, and you should be
Speaker 1: able to get stops. You know, I was listening to
Speaker 1: the Warriors broadcast that Pistons game this morning, and you know,
Speaker 1: you keep hearing they're just flummixed and that I can't
Speaker 1: believe that he made that shot. Like these guys are playing,
Speaker 1: that they've lost five straight games, how is it that
Speaker 1: they're this they're having the night of their life and
Speaker 1: and and it's so easy as a fan, and I
Speaker 1: get that. I know, I too, am a fan. I
Speaker 1: We're all fans in one way or another, whether it's
Speaker 1: a specific players or specific teams. And when you're a fan,
Speaker 1: you jump to rationalizations like this this explains why this happened,
Speaker 1: or that explains why it happened, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times we do that ignoring obvious evidence that something more
Speaker 1: serious is taking place. Um, you're right, Detroit is not
Speaker 1: very good. They're not a very good basketball team, but
Speaker 1: they are super talented. Charlotte is not a very good
Speaker 1: basketball team, but they have some talent. And it's not
Speaker 1: about being good in a vacuum, because of course the
Speaker 1: Warriors are good in a vacuum. You have to be
Speaker 1: good against the basketball players you're playing that night, and
Speaker 1: if you don't bring it on that night, you'll get beat.
Speaker 1: This is what I meant when I was saying unforgiving league.
Speaker 1: I had somebody in the comments say, Jason unforgiving league,
Speaker 1: tim because I've dropped it like three times in the
Speaker 1: last week. But I've been saying that for a reason.
Speaker 1: It's something I've been preaching all summer. The league is
Speaker 1: deeper with talent than it's ever been, but that still
Speaker 1: means that there's gonna be good teams, mediocre teams, and
Speaker 1: bad teams. Because your team isn't about the talent, it's
Speaker 1: relative to the other teams around the league. A bad
Speaker 1: team now might have been a good team ten years
Speaker 1: ago based on the talent, but that doesn't matter. It
Speaker 1: only matters within this season. The truth of the matter
Speaker 1: is that if you know, Steph slides his feet and
Speaker 1: gets a stop on the final possession against Dennis Smith Jr.
Speaker 1: You get a win in Charlotte. But Dennis Smith Jr.
Speaker 1: Is a pretty damn athletic quick guard, a guard that
Speaker 1: in this league kind of seems like a bad guard, right,
Speaker 1: But he's a freak athlete that can dribble. He's been
Speaker 1: knocking down more pull up jump shots this year than
Speaker 1: he has in years past. He's a guy that if
Speaker 1: you don't slide your feet, he's gonna be to the
Speaker 1: basket and make a layup. And that sent the game
Speaker 1: to overtime where they lost. You know, if you leave
Speaker 1: your feet jumping at a Saedique Bay pump fake the
Speaker 1: way that Jordan Pool did, you know in the second
Speaker 1: half against Detroit, like he's gonna go to the basket
Speaker 1: and get a layup because side Bay is a big, strong,
Speaker 1: athletic wing and a damn good basketball player. He doesn't
Speaker 1: care that it says Detroit Pistons on the front of
Speaker 1: his Jersey or that his team lost five straight games.
Speaker 1: He's a good basketball player and if you don't bring effort,
Speaker 1: you're gonna lose. And in this particular game, there was
Speaker 1: just a whole lot of sloppiness from the Warriors. There's
Speaker 1: a play where Jade and Ivy with a live dribble,
Speaker 1: just brought the ball up the floor and transition and
Speaker 1: nobody picked him up. So guess what he did. He
Speaker 1: elevated above the rim and dunked it. I watched Jade
Speaker 1: and I be in summer League. He's my second favorite
Speaker 1: player in this entire class. He's damn good. He's a
Speaker 1: damn good basketball player, and if you don't play him
Speaker 1: with respectable effort, you're gonna lose games. And then Kate.
Speaker 1: You know Kate Cunningham, and he's becoming one of my
Speaker 1: favorite young players in the league too. He was getting
Speaker 1: downhill too easily and pick and roll. And he's a big,
Speaker 1: strong wing that has a very high level passing field.
Speaker 1: He's got these big hands. You can palm the basketball
Speaker 1: and throw these cross court passes and and swing like
Speaker 1: slingshot passes and things along those lines. And if you
Speaker 1: let him get downhill and force your help to come in.
Speaker 1: He's gonna hit open shooters on the other side of
Speaker 1: the court all day long. And if you don't box out,
Speaker 1: you'll get beat on the offensive glass by two really
Speaker 1: athletic teams like the Detroit Pistons and the Charlotte Hornets,
Speaker 1: and the Warriors gave up twenty seven offensive rebounds in
Speaker 1: these two games. The Warriors now are down to t
Speaker 1: in the NBA in rebounding percentage, So they're twenty three
Speaker 1: and deep pens and twenty seven and rebounding percentage. They're
Speaker 1: they're how in terms of a title defense, that's not
Speaker 1: a good start. If you can't defend and you can't
Speaker 1: get rebounds, even against bad teams, then you're not good
Speaker 1: enough to be able to win at the highest levels. Now,
Speaker 1: let's zoom out a little bit, because it's not like
Speaker 1: Steph and Clay and Draymond and Andrew Wiggins all forgot
Speaker 1: how to play basketball. That's not what happened. The problem
Speaker 1: is with their bench um. According to Cleaning the Glass,
Speaker 1: when Steph Curry, Clay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green, and
Speaker 1: Kevan Luny are on the floor, this is their starting
Speaker 1: lineup they are whooping everyone's ass. They have a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty seven offensive rating, which is outstanding, in a
Speaker 1: one hundred defensive rating, which is outstanding. So the silver
Speaker 1: lining for Warriors fans to cling to is like, our
Speaker 1: core five guys are excellent. The problem is that they're
Speaker 1: getting destroyed almost everywhere else. Six of their top eight
Speaker 1: lineups in terms of total minutes played without Stephen Draymond
Speaker 1: on the floor are getting out scored, and most of
Speaker 1: them are getting badly outscored. They just fall apart when
Speaker 1: those guys go to the bench, and there's you know,
Speaker 1: some of it is weak perimeter defense, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about this in a minute, but the big glaring
Speaker 1: one that's been standing out to me in the last
Speaker 1: few games is James Wiseman. He's getting absolutely destroyed in
Speaker 1: his minutes, or at least the team is. And yes,
Speaker 1: some of it is like, yeah, he's playing with Moses
Speaker 1: Moody guarding really good perimeter players, and Moses is not
Speaker 1: quite ready for that yet. Jordan Pool is having a
Speaker 1: really bad defensive season to start. Dear Jonathan Cominga who
Speaker 1: is better defensive player than Moses Moody, I thought, and
Speaker 1: he hasn't been defending well to start this season. But
Speaker 1: the reality is is in a hundred and two minutes
Speaker 1: with James Wiseman on the floor, their minus forty eight.
Speaker 1: That's destructive. That's really really bad. The most frequently used
Speaker 1: James Wiseman line up right now is Jordan Pool with
Speaker 1: Dante DiVincenzo, Jonathan Comingo, jam Michael Green and James Wiseman.
Speaker 1: That's the most used, like the most minutes, most possessions
Speaker 1: line up with James Wiseman on the floor, they have
Speaker 1: an offensive rating of fifty nine points per one hun
Speaker 1: possessions and a defensive rating of a hundred and eleven.
Speaker 1: They're getting outscored by fifty two points per one hund
Speaker 1: possessions in the most frequently used James Wiseman lineup. And
Speaker 1: again like it's I want to blame the weak perimeter defense,
Speaker 1: but it's not just that. You know, even with Steph Clay,
Speaker 1: Andrew Wiggins and Draymond on the floor with James Wiseman,
Speaker 1: dave a minus eighty two net rating in eleven possessions. Again,
Speaker 1: small sample size, but they got absolutely destroyed in that
Speaker 1: particular lineup. The reality is is that's it's kind of
Speaker 1: a clunky fit. First of all, he's a big guy
Speaker 1: who's learning how to play the game. And he as
Speaker 1: we've said throughout the season, he's really good at some
Speaker 1: things already, Like he's got he's a legit vertical spacer,
Speaker 1: although he can fumble the basketball sometimes. He had a
Speaker 1: pretty a bad missed lob in the second half against
Speaker 1: Detroit that was kind of a big momentum play because
Speaker 1: they ran out the other way and got side. Bay
Speaker 1: hit a three on the left wing and it was
Speaker 1: like a five point swing um. But he's pretty good
Speaker 1: vertical spacer right and like he uh, if he catches
Speaker 1: with an advantage around the ram, he'll finish. I think
Speaker 1: he's I think he's shooting like in the restricted area
Speaker 1: this year, which is fine. You know, defensively, when he's
Speaker 1: around the rim and guys are coming at him, his
Speaker 1: length can be a problem, which is good when he's
Speaker 1: in drop coverage. You know, he makes some good reads
Speaker 1: from time to time, and his length can be a problem.
Speaker 1: But he's really struggling with physicality and it hurts the
Speaker 1: Warriors in particular on to two spots on the floor
Speaker 1: on offense. It's so important to be a really good
Speaker 1: screener as a big and Golden State's offense and Draymond
Speaker 1: Green and Kevan Luniar are excellent screeners. But but James
Speaker 1: Wiseman is the biggest weakness that he has right now
Speaker 1: is physicality struggles in the physical battles of the game.
Speaker 1: And if you don't set big, physical screens, then you're
Speaker 1: not getting as much separation for the Golden State guards
Speaker 1: coming off those actions. And then it just it's like
Speaker 1: a missing cog in the engine and then everything stops
Speaker 1: working right. And then on the defensive end, it's like
Speaker 1: like Isaiah Stewart was just bullying James Wiseman, especially on
Speaker 1: the offensive glass, and and that's a problem. And so
Speaker 1: when I really look at it, like what James Wiseman
Speaker 1: does as a big in this league is less valuable
Speaker 1: to Golden State than it is to other teams. His
Speaker 1: vertical spacing, even though it's a unique touch on this roster,
Speaker 1: is less valuable for Golden State because vertical spacing matters
Speaker 1: more when the paint is clogged and you need an
Speaker 1: escape route to throw the ball up towards the rim.
Speaker 1: Golden States spacing is inverted. They're spacing around the rim
Speaker 1: is always good because they have all these guys and
Speaker 1: Steph Clay and and Jordan Poole flying off of these screens,
Speaker 1: and Andrew Wiggins shoots the balls so well that for
Speaker 1: the most part, their spacing is inverted. The congestion for
Speaker 1: the Warriors is on the perimeter, and so vertical spacing
Speaker 1: brings less value. What they actually need out of that
Speaker 1: position is a guy who can screen really really well,
Speaker 1: and that is a really smart decision maker that's hitting
Speaker 1: guys cutting out of the week side corner things along
Speaker 1: those lines. They want you to succeed in four on
Speaker 1: three settings. And so part of me feels bad for
Speaker 1: Wiseman because he's a young player that's learning how to
Speaker 1: play the game. He's played something crazy like fifty five
Speaker 1: NBA games or something. I don't quote me on that,
Speaker 1: but he's played less than a hundred NBA games before that.
Speaker 1: He didn't really play much at Memphis, Like the dude
Speaker 1: hasn't had much of an opportunity to learn how to
Speaker 1: play the game, and he's learning to play in a
Speaker 1: system or his specific archetype is kind of less valuable.
Speaker 1: You have to almost play a different style. They just
Speaker 1: basically run a lot of high pick and roll with
Speaker 1: with Jordan Pool when he's out there. And so at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, like like, it'll be a
Speaker 1: really interesting decision for the for the Warriors brass to
Speaker 1: make because you know when we're looking like, yes, Clay
Speaker 1: Thompson's gonna come back. He didn't play on Sunday, He's
Speaker 1: gonna come back. That's gonna alleviate some of your bench concerns.
Speaker 1: Andrea Gudala eventually, especially as we get deeper in the season,
Speaker 1: will start being used a little bit more frequently. He's
Speaker 1: a better perimeter defender than a Moses Moody or someone
Speaker 1: along those lines. There there will be some reinforcements, there'll
Speaker 1: be a candidate for buy out players as we get
Speaker 1: past the deadline. All that's true, but one of two
Speaker 1: things needs to happen. They either need these young guys
Speaker 1: to get better to the point where they're dependable playoff
Speaker 1: rotation players, or they need to consider flipping them for
Speaker 1: players who will be And that's gonna be a tough
Speaker 1: decision because right now, Moses Moody is making progress and
Speaker 1: might be that guy. Jonathan Cominga is definitely not ready
Speaker 1: like he's just not ready and he will not be
Speaker 1: ready this year. And James Wiseman is very very far
Speaker 1: away from becoming a positive player on this team. So
Speaker 1: the question is is it do you bank on that,
Speaker 1: on the fact that Wiseman will eventually figure that stuff
Speaker 1: out during this season, or do you do something like
Speaker 1: take Wiseman and Kaminga or maybe Wiseman, Kominga and Moody
Speaker 1: in combine them and try to get something back that
Speaker 1: can actually contribute within this season. And again, it's early,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of basketball left, and it's possible that
Speaker 1: these guys do make monumental improvements. That's just the risk.
Speaker 1: Right now, You're a dominant starting lineup and everyone else
Speaker 1: is killing you, and you lost Otto Porter Jr. And
Speaker 1: Gary Payton, the second two players that were very productive
Speaker 1: for you in these roles. Gary Payton the second in particular,
Speaker 1: the Warriors were positive with him on the court in
Speaker 1: the playoffs and negative without him. And so it's very
Speaker 1: important as the Warriors go to their bench to have
Speaker 1: an additional really good perimeter to ender that can operate
Speaker 1: in the short role and that can knock down the
Speaker 1: occasional corner three, and that does smart is a smart
Speaker 1: basketball player that doesn't make mistakes that can hurt your team,
Speaker 1: and it's it's gonna be an interesting conundrum for them.
Speaker 1: I did want to shout out Jordan Pool. Holy cow,
Speaker 1: did he have an explosive second half in that Pistons game.
Speaker 1: He had like a transition three on the right wing
Speaker 1: and then a steel that led to another transition three
Speaker 1: on the right wing, and then he hit another transition
Speaker 1: three on the left wing on a pass from Steph
Speaker 1: and then he started barbecuing Boy and Bogdanovich in isolation
Speaker 1: at the top of the key. Hit a disgusting step
Speaker 1: back move there. He's got a mile to go defensively, obviously,
Speaker 1: but while everyone else was struggling offensively this weekend, uh,
Speaker 1: Jordan Pool was really really impressive and that that's he's
Speaker 1: been a huge bright spot here early in the season
Speaker 1: in my opinion. Well, tough one tomorrow in Miami for
Speaker 1: the Warriors to get back on track, um and we'll
Speaker 1: be covering that game on amp right after the final buzzer.
Speaker 1: So Detroit. I was really impressed just in general by
Speaker 1: how good they were getting downhill towards the rim with
Speaker 1: all of their young players that they have. Cede Bay
Speaker 1: is kind of like your classic mismatch attacking forward. Not
Speaker 1: quite as skilled as some of the other ones around
Speaker 1: the league, but he is huge and there were a
Speaker 1: lot of plays where he just ripped through to the
Speaker 1: basket and guys were just shedding off of him as
Speaker 1: he was getting to the rim. Kate Cunningham is really
Speaker 1: good at leveraging his body to get the defender on
Speaker 1: his back side as he's coming through on pick and roll.
Speaker 1: We talked about earlier how good he is at making
Speaker 1: those cross court passes and things along those lines, those
Speaker 1: high level reads. He had another transition pass two to
Speaker 1: Killing and Hayes like cutting out of the backside corner
Speaker 1: that I didn't even see as I was watching. I
Speaker 1: didn't even see Killing in there. That's always to me
Speaker 1: like one of the UH indicators of a high level passers.
Speaker 1: If us the fans, as we're watching, we can see
Speaker 1: the basic reads. We can see strong side help and
Speaker 1: an easy kick out. We can see, you know, a
Speaker 1: drop off past to the dunker spot when the big
Speaker 1: guy steps up. Those are normal things, but like it's
Speaker 1: hard unless you're on a rewatch when you're watching all
Speaker 1: the things moving to see the higher level reads like
Speaker 1: skips to the weak side corner and things that you
Speaker 1: might not see, and kids all over that stuff. Jade
Speaker 1: and Ivy Uh is still, in my opinion, one of
Speaker 1: the hardest guards in the league, keeping front, which is
Speaker 1: insane for how young he is. Um. You can see
Speaker 1: that attacking closeouts and in transition. Um. And then both
Speaker 1: Isaiah Stewart and Jalen During are just monsters on the
Speaker 1: offensive class They the two combined for eight offensive rebounds
Speaker 1: against Golden State. This is one of the most exciting
Speaker 1: young cores in basketball. And they just extended boy and
Speaker 1: Magdanovitch for two additional years. So you've got a veteran
Speaker 1: president of PREV presidents that can shoot the basketball, defend
Speaker 1: the bigger wings, although he's not quick enough to defend
Speaker 1: quicker players. But I like that move for them. There's
Speaker 1: no reason to uh. Um, you know, as long as
Speaker 1: you can afford him for the next couple of years.
Speaker 1: It's not like you're gonna be big players in the
Speaker 1: free agent market. So I like to move Detroit. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be fun to watch. I enjoyed watching that game
Speaker 1: and Um again, it's like it's just the story of
Speaker 1: the NBA these days. What you what you anticipate to
Speaker 1: be an easy game just isn't an easy game anymore.
Speaker 1: So let's move on to the Calves. So, the Calves
Speaker 1: beat the Nix yesterday to get to five and one. So, uh,
Speaker 1: the game I actually watched. I did not watch the
Speaker 1: Knicks game. I watched the Celtics game from a couple
Speaker 1: of nights prior, epic back and forth game, and ot uh.
Speaker 1: Celtics should have won that game, but the kind of
Speaker 1: classic Celtics did at the end with some poor decision
Speaker 1: making down the stretch and crunch time in and ot um. Also,
Speaker 1: you just kind of handed to the Calves like Donovan
Speaker 1: Mitchell and Carris LeVert just time and time again made
Speaker 1: gigantic shots like tough off the dribble pull up jump
Speaker 1: shots in that game. But the two of them have
Speaker 1: been making them all season long. They are fit in
Speaker 1: offense to start the year third in defense, second in
Speaker 1: net rating. What's really interesting about him being third in
Speaker 1: defense is if I ask you what the Calves would
Speaker 1: be great at defensively, you would say, oh, well, they
Speaker 1: got Jared Allen and Evan Mobley. They're going to shut
Speaker 1: down the paint, but that it could not be further
Speaker 1: from the truth. They are eighteen and opponent paint points
Speaker 1: allowed per one possessions and opponents are shooting six against
Speaker 1: them in the paint, which is bottom ten excuse me,
Speaker 1: in the restricted area, which is bottom ten in the league.
Speaker 1: The reason why their defense is so good is they
Speaker 1: are not allowing teams to get off three point shots.
Speaker 1: They are allowing the fewest three point attempts in the
Speaker 1: league at just twenty eight point three per one possessions.
Speaker 1: Team teams are shooting right around just just under thirty
Speaker 1: six on those shots, which is pretty normal. Um. You
Speaker 1: can also see it on tape. They just they pressure
Speaker 1: the ball, which is what you expect from a team
Speaker 1: that has great back line help. They're chasing guys off
Speaker 1: the line. They're not over helping. They're willing to allow
Speaker 1: a guy to challenge a player that's on his hip
Speaker 1: at the rim rather than sending help that you don't
Speaker 1: need to send. And then there This is a huge
Speaker 1: part of it. Both Jared Allen and Mobile are good
Speaker 1: at defending on the perimeter, but the biggest driving force.
Speaker 1: Without a doubt of their early season success because Darius
Speaker 1: Garland went down in the first game against Toronto with
Speaker 1: like a scratch to the eye or something, and we
Speaker 1: haven't seen him since. But Donovan Mitchell has just been
Speaker 1: otherworldly good. He's playing the best basketball of his career
Speaker 1: and it's not particularly close. I was listening to the
Speaker 1: Celtics broadcast for this particular game and they were one
Speaker 1: of the announcers said that they noticed that pep in
Speaker 1: Donovan Mitchell's step since he came to Cleveland, and I'm
Speaker 1: not surprised. I mean, there was kind of like a
Speaker 1: negative energy lingering around that Utah team for a while
Speaker 1: and just getting that change of scenery. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I think Rudy Gobert can grate on people
Speaker 1: a little bit. He's with younger, probably more energetic people
Speaker 1: that it's just he just looks happy. And and obviously,
Speaker 1: with Darius Garland being out, the whole your turn, my
Speaker 1: turn thing has just been almost thrown out of the window,
Speaker 1: and he kind of has like a really natural given
Speaker 1: take with Carris Laverte already and dude, you could you
Speaker 1: could just you could just see it in his in
Speaker 1: his in the way he plays his uh. Um, He's
Speaker 1: still one of the most athletic guards in the league.
Speaker 1: He had a disgusting blowby on Marcus Smart in the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter of that game where he kind of like, uh.
Speaker 1: The announcers called it an overhand crossover, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was interesting that he called that because I've always
Speaker 1: thought of that as just like more of a body crossover.
Speaker 1: You're not just you're not actually doing anything to sway
Speaker 1: the defender with the ball. What it is is your
Speaker 1: body is pointed to the right and then you're literally
Speaker 1: turning your body to the left. And it's one of
Speaker 1: the biggest things that I teach young players when I
Speaker 1: coach skills from my high school team is it's not
Speaker 1: about what you do with the basketball with the move,
Speaker 1: it's what you do with your body. If you can
Speaker 1: sell with your body that you're going one direction and
Speaker 1: then change direction while protecting the basketball from getting swiped at,
Speaker 1: you will get by the defender. It's not about doing
Speaker 1: some big sweeping crossover. You can just push the ball
Speaker 1: out to your left as long as you sell that
Speaker 1: you're going right, and you'll beat someone off the dribble.
Speaker 1: And on this play, Donovan Mitchell did that to Marcus Smart.
Speaker 1: He buckled and he went all the way to the
Speaker 1: rim and dunked it. He had another one in overtime
Speaker 1: um where he hit Malcolm Broggden with a hard right
Speaker 1: to left move. I think he went through his legs
Speaker 1: on this one, but Malcolm Brogden literally got just utterly toasted.
Speaker 1: Didn't even get a hand on him as he went
Speaker 1: all the way to the room for the layup. He's just,
Speaker 1: He's just He's a really unique combination of freaky downhill
Speaker 1: athleticism to get to the rim and one of the
Speaker 1: best pull up jump shooters in the league. I talked
Speaker 1: to you guys about this over the summer. One of
Speaker 1: the biggest reasons why I was excited for Cleveland is
Speaker 1: is he has the offensive skill set that translates to
Speaker 1: the postseason, and he is one of the most successful
Speaker 1: postseason scorers of the last few years. He's just been
Speaker 1: so bad defensively in the Utah Jazz were so bad
Speaker 1: and so disappointing that we kind of just look at
Speaker 1: him as out of sight or out of mind. But
Speaker 1: I want to say he was like on like eleven
Speaker 1: three point eleven pull up three point attempts per game
Speaker 1: or something crazy like that over the last few post seasons.
Speaker 1: He's just a knockdown, pull up shooter that can get
Speaker 1: to the rim, and that that that combination just makes
Speaker 1: him incredibly difficult to guard. He's averaging thirty two, five
Speaker 1: and seven this season so far on sixty true shooting
Speaker 1: career highs and points and efficiency at this point obviously
Speaker 1: early career high and assists as well at seven per game.
Speaker 1: He's shooting forty six percent on eleven pull up jumpers
Speaker 1: per game, including fifty three percent on pull up threes.
Speaker 1: Just absolutely insane shot making. And he's been better defensively
Speaker 1: than he was in Utah. I haven't seen enough to
Speaker 1: just be like, oh, he's seen the light, because I've
Speaker 1: only seen like three or four of the Cavs games
Speaker 1: this year, But in the games that I've watched, he's
Speaker 1: been impressive. Um, he's been one of the most impressive
Speaker 1: players in the league to start the season. So you
Speaker 1: have to you have to tip the cap to Kobe
Speaker 1: Altman and the Calves for a really smart move over
Speaker 1: the summer. Carris Lavert has also been a lot better
Speaker 1: than I expected that I called him the odd man
Speaker 1: out to start the season, and who knows maybe he
Speaker 1: still will be the odd man out when Darius Garland
Speaker 1: comes back. But I could not have been more wrong
Speaker 1: about how he fits, at least with this iteration of
Speaker 1: the calves. His shotmaking has been all over the place.
Speaker 1: He's basically hitting everything from deep and nothing else. He's
Speaker 1: shooting fift on pull up threes so far this season.
Speaker 1: He had a massive step back three I think it
Speaker 1: was over Jalen Brown and overtime that basically amounted to
Speaker 1: be the game winner. Um the Celtics went down and tied,
Speaker 1: and they had kind of a bad possession where it
Speaker 1: was a little stagnant and Caris Lavert just hit like
Speaker 1: a pound dribble between his legs into his step back
Speaker 1: and he knocked it down. But the most impressive thing
Speaker 1: to me from Carris Lavert has been his playmaking out
Speaker 1: of high pick and roll. It's kind of similar to
Speaker 1: what we were talking about Kate Cunningham. You know, he's
Speaker 1: not a the downhill, you know, speedy threat that Donovan
Speaker 1: Mitchell is. It's kind of a really interesting different type
Speaker 1: of attack to the Donovan Mitchell attack because Carris LeVert
Speaker 1: is moving in slow motion a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: He's trying to get you pinned on his on on
Speaker 1: his back side, he's a lot more willing to shoot
Speaker 1: in the mid range. And even though both guys are
Speaker 1: averaging seven assists per game, it's uncharacteristics for Donovan Mitchell.
Speaker 1: You know, Carris LeVert has always had a little bit
Speaker 1: of that, you know, uh, pick you apart type of
Speaker 1: game and high pick and roll. And he's getting high
Speaker 1: usage because of Darius Garland being out, and he's producing
Speaker 1: in that specific role at a career high seven assist
Speaker 1: per game right now, this early in the season. And
Speaker 1: then I think he's been again, I need to see more,
Speaker 1: but I think he's been pretty damn solid defensively, and
Speaker 1: I thought he was really impressive defensively in the games
Speaker 1: that I watched. Um, the rim defense for the Calves
Speaker 1: should improve, Like I said, even though they defended the
Speaker 1: three point line really well, just having Mobile and Allen
Speaker 1: out there, I do think that will kind of trend
Speaker 1: back in their direction. Darius Garland will bring a different
Speaker 1: dynamic to the offense, but it will also take something
Speaker 1: away defensively, so that'll be an interesting kind of dynamic
Speaker 1: when he comes back. Obviously, that kind of throws off
Speaker 1: the give and take between LeVert and Mitchell and kind
Speaker 1: of shift some rolls around. So they got some they
Speaker 1: got some stuff that they'll have to figure out. But overall,
Speaker 1: they've been one of the most impressive teams to start
Speaker 1: the season and we're gonna be covering them again on
Speaker 1: Wednesday when they host the Calves live on AMP after
Speaker 1: the final buzzer of that game, but I definitely wanted
Speaker 1: to spend some time shouting out the Calves this morning.
Speaker 1: So the Lakers finally not to win at home against Denver,
Speaker 1: I did a TikTok uh for for Carson. He's the
Speaker 1: guy here at the volume that helps with our TikTok
Speaker 1: and he also helps out on this show. You guys,
Speaker 1: you guys know him, And he was like, Hey, can
Speaker 1: you send me a video three things that you think
Speaker 1: would fix the Los Angeles Lakers, And I said, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously a targeted management, like they need to do something
Speaker 1: with Russ. But then the other two things I said
Speaker 1: were they needed to um actually have Lebron James and
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis played to their capability, meaning Lebron like a
Speaker 1: top five player, a d like a top ten player.
Speaker 1: And then I said they needed to knock down some
Speaker 1: him ter jump shots, because if you're shooting blow, you're
Speaker 1: just not gonna be able to be competitive in the
Speaker 1: n b A. And yeah, they I never expected to
Speaker 1: the Lakers to be a good um three point shooting
Speaker 1: team this year. They just don't have the roster for that.
Speaker 1: But they certainly are better than what they were. And
Speaker 1: so two of those three were rectified essentially in that
Speaker 1: Denver Nuggets game. And what do you know, they want
Speaker 1: a basketball game? They shot forty three from three. Big
Speaker 1: part of that was shot quality. Uh, they only had
Speaker 1: thirty attempts, but only one, according to NBA dot Com,
Speaker 1: was tracked as either tightly contested or very tightly contested.
Speaker 1: So they just took smarter threes um. And then also
Speaker 1: some of that's just positive regression again, like they're not
Speaker 1: a good shooting team, but they were nowhere near as
Speaker 1: bad as they looked, and so it was inevitable that
Speaker 1: they were going to have some good shooting games, and
Speaker 1: they happen to have one, going thirteen for thirty against
Speaker 1: the Nuggets. And then Anthony Davis, like, okay, Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: got soundly outplayed by Nicola Yoki up in Denver. I
Speaker 1: did a whole video talking about how is transition defense
Speaker 1: in particular A destroyed the Lakers in that particular game,
Speaker 1: And I was very critical of Anthony Davis. And you know, again,
Speaker 1: like when when it comes to the criticism of players,
Speaker 1: everything is like relative to what your talent level is,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's kind of like an expectations
Speaker 1: versus results type of thing. Like you know what frustrates
Speaker 1: me about Anthony Davis is he should be one of
Speaker 1: the top five basketball players in the world. That's how
Speaker 1: talented he is. He's, you know, obviously constructed like Rudy
Speaker 1: Gobert defensively, but he's got the shooting touch. He's demonstrated
Speaker 1: over the course of his career stretches of outstanding shooting touch.
Speaker 1: He can dribble the basketball. The dude is an unbelievable
Speaker 1: freak talent, and I've seen what it looks like when
Speaker 1: he's dialed in on both ends of the floor. I
Speaker 1: saw it in he was so damn impressive. I used
Speaker 1: I was joking about this in a in a group
Speaker 1: chat the other day. He was so damn impressive in
Speaker 1: the season that when he would have a bad first half.
Speaker 1: I would tweet out like, oh, big second half incoming,
Speaker 1: because a D was like that was his rough game,
Speaker 1: Like a rough a D game would be he'd have
Speaker 1: a bad first half and then he'd come out in
Speaker 1: the second half and destroy everybody. The dude was a
Speaker 1: night in, night out monster that killed everybody that was
Speaker 1: in his path. He became one of my favorite players.
Speaker 1: He I ranked him as the fourth best player in
Speaker 1: the world. After that season. He was a monster, and
Speaker 1: then he just lost it. Some of it was injuries,
Speaker 1: a lot of it is him coming into the season
Speaker 1: out of shape. A lot of it is he put
Speaker 1: on too much muscle and he's too heavy. Now, I mean,
Speaker 1: look this back spasm thing that's been acting up for
Speaker 1: a while. The reality is is like that's just part
Speaker 1: of the Anthony Davis experience. Now, you can't just blame
Speaker 1: bad luck. You're he's stiff as a board because he's
Speaker 1: incredibly overweight in terms of just too much muscle mass
Speaker 1: for what he needs for the position. And guess what
Speaker 1: happens a lot when you get stiff and lack of
Speaker 1: mobility because you over build, your back gets tight. And
Speaker 1: that's what he's dealing with now and like it's I
Speaker 1: have all that. There's just a lot of reasons for
Speaker 1: all Laker fans or Anthony Davis fans to be frustrated
Speaker 1: with the way that he's played over the years, the
Speaker 1: last couple of years. And you know what, he went
Speaker 1: out with his bad back, with the same lack of
Speaker 1: mobility that he's had over the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: and he soundly outplayed Yoki last night, soundly outplayed him,
Speaker 1: completely erased that transition stuff, sprinting back. Instead of having
Speaker 1: thirty five fast break points like they did in the
Speaker 1: game in Denver, they only had nine, did a great
Speaker 1: job in isolation defense. Even the shots that Yokis made
Speaker 1: in that game were immensely difficult because Anthony Davis was
Speaker 1: draped all over him. Anthony Davis was making his jump shot,
Speaker 1: particularly his two point jump shot, and then on the
Speaker 1: other end of the floor, Yokich can't shoot anymore, which
Speaker 1: we're gonna get to. That's a whole other thing. But
Speaker 1: a d was ignoring Yokis and dropping back into the
Speaker 1: paint to contain things and shut down a out of
Speaker 1: Denver stuff. He was the better player in that game.
Speaker 1: Now Yokis is a better player overall. Do I expect
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis to outplay Yokis every single night. No, not
Speaker 1: until he gets back to form. But if he can
Speaker 1: play like a top ten player and outplay Nicola Yokich
Speaker 1: in a random game like this, when he plays up
Speaker 1: to that level where he's an all World defensive player
Speaker 1: that also has the ability to make big time offensive plays.
Speaker 1: He hit back to back isolation jumpers over Nicola Yokichen
Speaker 1: crunch time in this game, a nasty fade away over
Speaker 1: his left shoulder into the lane, and then a one
Speaker 1: of those easy breezy jab step pull up jump shots
Speaker 1: on the left wing, and then he had a huge
Speaker 1: offensive rebound put back on a missed Lebron jump shot
Speaker 1: in crunch time. When he's making superstar offensive plays and
Speaker 1: he's the all world defender that he is, he's a
Speaker 1: top ten player. When he plays like a top ten player,
Speaker 1: the Lakers are a better team. Big shock. You know.
Speaker 1: That's that's why I've been trying to hold him to
Speaker 1: that standard. I know that's what he's capable. Love. He's
Speaker 1: capable of being a top ten player in this league.
Speaker 1: He hasn't been for this entire season up till last night,
Speaker 1: and for the most part over the course of the
Speaker 1: previous two years. If he plays to that standard, a
Speaker 1: lot of the Lakers problems go from being big problems
Speaker 1: to being smaller problems. That's why it was so important
Speaker 1: for him to get up to that level. And then,
Speaker 1: you know, Lebron, he had a rough night, particularly in
Speaker 1: the first half, really struggled to finish around the ram,
Speaker 1: had some sloppy turnovers. But he came out and was
Speaker 1: excellent in the second half, and he had a bunch
Speaker 1: of tough isolation jumpers. He made some huge plays at
Speaker 1: the end of the game. There's a play where Yokich
Speaker 1: had Anthony Davis kind of pinned under the rim and
Speaker 1: got an offensive rebound and was holding it in his
Speaker 1: right hand and Lebron just came flying in and snatched
Speaker 1: it out of his hand, dribbled the ball up the
Speaker 1: floor and hit a transition three. It was a five
Speaker 1: point swing essentially because Yokis probably gets fouled there or
Speaker 1: makes a layup. It's a five point swing. That was
Speaker 1: a huge impact play in this game. And then there
Speaker 1: was another play where he got switched on to Yokich
Speaker 1: and he denied Yokich the post entry the entire possession
Speaker 1: just by fronting him, and when he did, the Nuggets
Speaker 1: kind of passed it around the perimeter for a while,
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do and Michael Porter Jr. Ended
Speaker 1: up jacking up a bad three at the top of
Speaker 1: the key and it was a huge stop in the game.
Speaker 1: And what's funny is like, like, uh, like Lebron, That's
Speaker 1: that's all you're asking for from Lebron. Top five players
Speaker 1: are going to have bad games, They're going to have
Speaker 1: bad halves. That happens, but more often than not, they
Speaker 1: bring their a game and when they do have a
Speaker 1: rough half, they usually come out in the second half
Speaker 1: and they make big place And in this particular game,
Speaker 1: when Lebron was a little bit uneven, they happened to
Speaker 1: get a great Russell westper performance that helped kind of
Speaker 1: bolster that. But it was funny. There was a moment
Speaker 1: in the first half or Lebron um I want to
Speaker 1: say it was either a turnover. I think it was
Speaker 1: a turnover. He turned the ball over in transition, I
Speaker 1: believe um and they went down the other way and
Speaker 1: there was a foul. I think Aaron Gordon got foul
Speaker 1: or something, and he was sitting and he kind of
Speaker 1: had his head down and the camera was right on
Speaker 1: his face, and he just kind of shook his head
Speaker 1: and then he went back to the game, and it
Speaker 1: was right before I think it was right before the
Speaker 1: end of the first half. I remember sitting there thinking, like,
Speaker 1: he's the one guy that I don't worry about freaking
Speaker 1: uh uh, don't worry about figuring it out, like Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: who knows last night it might be an anomaly or
Speaker 1: he might play like that the rest of the season.
Speaker 1: I literally have no idea. I have no idea what
Speaker 1: to make of what that performance was last night, if
Speaker 1: that's the usual thing for him moving forward, or if
Speaker 1: it was an anomaly. But with Lebron, he will figure
Speaker 1: out a way to be one of the five best
Speaker 1: players in the world this year. His body is still
Speaker 1: moving well enough. It's mainly like sloppiness that's been undercutting
Speaker 1: him to this point. And most importantly, he's wired that way.
Speaker 1: He is the psychotic competitor that does not get complacent.
Speaker 1: He sees what's happening around him on the team, and
Speaker 1: he knows he hasn't been good enough. I expect him
Speaker 1: to get I expect over the course the next few
Speaker 1: weeks for Lebron to steadily improve into eventually he looked
Speaker 1: like a sure fire top five player in the league.
Speaker 1: So we gotta shout out Russ. Russ had one of
Speaker 1: one of his very good games, not just a good game,
Speaker 1: a very good game from Russ, and like I said,
Speaker 1: it helps kind of balance out some of Lebron's uneven
Speaker 1: performance a couple of things. He had good games last year.
Speaker 1: This is not incredibly unheard of, um in the way
Speaker 1: these good games for Russ look are a lot like
Speaker 1: what you saw last night, which is bad Russ plays,
Speaker 1: just with more good Russ plays, like he missed four
Speaker 1: more layups in that game. He's now shooting under in
Speaker 1: the restricted area for the season, which is insane. He
Speaker 1: had three more turnovers. He had a bad missed box
Speaker 1: out in the second half on Bruce Brown that led
Speaker 1: to a three point shot at he um Bruce Barron
Speaker 1: went up and grabbed the rebound of kicked a te
Speaker 1: Thinkentavious called up Pope in the right corner and he
Speaker 1: made a three. Bad Russ plays are every night, but
Speaker 1: at the differences in this particular game, he had all
Speaker 1: of his great russ plays working and as a result,
Speaker 1: the balance skipped heavily in the favor of him impacting
Speaker 1: winning he was punishing the smaller Denver guards, particularly Jamal Murray,
Speaker 1: just had no chance against him in the UH. I
Speaker 1: believe it was in the first half, hitting Nasty really
Speaker 1: low between the legs, cross over to his right where
Speaker 1: he got Like again, when you're trying to beat a
Speaker 1: person off the dribble, one of the best ways to
Speaker 1: do that is to get lower than them because there's
Speaker 1: inevitably going to be some contact as you're trying to
Speaker 1: go around their shoulder, and then from there it's just
Speaker 1: a challenge of leverage, and you're gonna have better leverage
Speaker 1: if you're lower to the ground and your legs are
Speaker 1: bent and you can power up through that contact. Then
Speaker 1: if you're up higher and the defender is lower than you,
Speaker 1: he can push you off of your line. And he
Speaker 1: got super low and got past Jamal Murray's shoulder and
Speaker 1: finished with the right hand layup, kind of talk some
Speaker 1: ship to Jamal in his face, and then the game
Speaker 1: ceiling one same thing. Just put his head down and
Speaker 1: went right around Jamal Murray to the right then, he's
Speaker 1: gonna be having nightmares about that because you could tell
Speaker 1: it bothered Jim Ball when Russ was talking shit at
Speaker 1: his expense. I don't blame him. Russ has been one
Speaker 1: of the worst players in the league over the last
Speaker 1: couple of years, so if he talks trash to you,
Speaker 1: can I assume that would be kind of frustrating. Um,
Speaker 1: But yeah, like like that's always gonna be one of
Speaker 1: Russ's strengths, as him being a huge, strong guard that
Speaker 1: has the ability to overpower smaller guards around the league.
Speaker 1: He had four offensive rebounds in this game, including a
Speaker 1: massive offensive rebound in the fourth quarter where Matt Ryan
Speaker 1: kind of drove to the baseline and air ball to
Speaker 1: short jump shot and Russ came flying in from the
Speaker 1: other side and grab the rebound and like pitched it
Speaker 1: back out to Matt Ryan in the corner and he
Speaker 1: knocked down a three. UM. He had to high level
Speaker 1: Russ playmaking that we've grown accustomed to over the years. Specifically,
Speaker 1: there was one where he drove along the left wing
Speaker 1: to the baseline and made a ridiculous cross court pass
Speaker 1: to Austin Reeves in the right corner at the last second.
Speaker 1: Like he was in the air for like a second
Speaker 1: before he did this, Denver completely collapsed, kicked out to Austin,
Speaker 1: Austin pump fake and went to the ram and got
Speaker 1: an and one. This was during a seventeen oh run
Speaker 1: from the Lakers, which I'm pretty sure for the most
Speaker 1: part was just Russ and Anthony Davis. A massive winning
Speaker 1: effort from Russ in this game. And then he was
Speaker 1: good defensively, held up well and closeouts. He had a
Speaker 1: big block on Michael Porter Jr. Under the rim late
Speaker 1: in the game. Overall, he's just been Uh. In this
Speaker 1: particular game, he was just a force of positive energy
Speaker 1: and uh. And that's what a good Russ game is
Speaker 1: going to look like. And again, like I do I
Speaker 1: like Russ on this team? No? Do I dislike him
Speaker 1: as a person? No, to have I been frustrated rooting
Speaker 1: for him over the last couple of years, Yes, because
Speaker 1: he's a very frustrating basketball player to root for, But
Speaker 1: there is no personal beef here. And I will always
Speaker 1: point out when he plays well, um off the bench
Speaker 1: is definitely the best way to use him because he
Speaker 1: gets to be more aggressive when he has the basketball.
Speaker 1: But the reality is is his good nights like the
Speaker 1: one last night are way too inconsistent to bank on,
Speaker 1: So as Laker fans, I hope you don't get your
Speaker 1: hopes up that that's what it's gonna look like every night,
Speaker 1: because it's just not going to And at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, they're better off flipping Russ for players
Speaker 1: that have more night tonight impact on winning, zooming out
Speaker 1: a little bit from the Lakers their second in defense
Speaker 1: in the entire league right now, and a D just
Speaker 1: played his best game, and Lebron, like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: is the last guy worry about figuring things out. So
Speaker 1: if a D can kind of translate this into more
Speaker 1: consistent success, if Lebron continues to improve offensively over the
Speaker 1: course of the next couple of weeks and their defense
Speaker 1: holds up the way it has through a very tough schedule,
Speaker 1: this team is gonna start ripping off some wins. I
Speaker 1: just think the biggest thing that I'd watch out for
Speaker 1: his health, because if Anthony Davis is back has to
Speaker 1: requires him to miss one or two games every week,
Speaker 1: they they'll lose those games because without him they just
Speaker 1: don't have enough talent. And then obviously, in terms of continuity,
Speaker 1: just not having enough UMU, the continuity in lineups from
Speaker 1: night tonight. A couple of quick notes on the Nuggets.
Speaker 1: They're down to defense now. The influx of Michael Porter Jr.
Speaker 1: And Jamal Murray was always going to limit them defensively.
Speaker 1: We talked about this a lot this summer, but I
Speaker 1: said that they would be the number one offense in
Speaker 1: the league, and they just simply haven't been. They've been
Speaker 1: fifteenth in offense. And there's a couple of big reasons
Speaker 1: for that. Jamal Murray in particular, has a ways to
Speaker 1: go to get back to what he was. Although he
Speaker 1: was hitting some wild shots um against the Lakers. In
Speaker 1: this game, he had a late shot clock one against
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis on the left wing where like Pump faked
Speaker 1: and Anthony Davis was draped all over him and he
Speaker 1: like leaned into the right and made it a couple
Speaker 1: of nasty stepped backs to uh. So those are good signs.
Speaker 1: But his scoring, he's he's averaging right around like, I think,
Speaker 1: four teen points per game, and you'd like to see
Speaker 1: him over twenty. Aaron Gordon hasn't shot the ball well,
Speaker 1: that's not helping. And then their bench is just really,
Speaker 1: really bad. DeAndre Jordan's is, in my opinion, like probably
Speaker 1: the worst NBA player that gets rotation minutes in the NBA.
Speaker 1: I've thought that when he was on the Lakers, thought
Speaker 1: that when he was on the Sixers. Think that now, um,
Speaker 1: this particular game, because Bones Highland was out, they were
Speaker 1: running like it was funny. There was a late game
Speaker 1: I want to say it was either late third or
Speaker 1: early fourth. I wanted I think it was late third
Speaker 1: where the nets are. The Nuggets had a half court
Speaker 1: possession where the Lakers run to run and Bruce Brown
Speaker 1: like came off of a high ball screen from DeAndre
Speaker 1: Jordan's and just pulled up and shot a pull up
Speaker 1: off the dribble three early in the shot clock that
Speaker 1: he missed. And I remember thinking, like, why in the
Speaker 1: world is Bruce Brown taking that shot? And then I
Speaker 1: looked around at the lineup and it was like, uh,
Speaker 1: DeAndre Jordans, Devon Reid, Jeff Green, Christian Braun and and
Speaker 1: and Bruce Brown. I'm like, Oh, that's why. It's because
Speaker 1: they literally don't have anybody in that lineup that can
Speaker 1: create their own shot. But Bones Highland was out in
Speaker 1: that particular game. But a big part of why their
Speaker 1: bench scoring hasn't been good all season is Bones Highland.
Speaker 1: His efficiency has fallen off of a cliff this year,
Speaker 1: despite him shooting from three. I had the Nuggets down
Speaker 1: at eight in my power rankings because even though there
Speaker 1: was there's a ton of optimism surrounding the Nuggets. They
Speaker 1: killed everybody when they made Aaron Gordon trade two years
Speaker 1: ago before Jamal Murray came back, so there was a
Speaker 1: lot like, oh, they'll just come back and just start
Speaker 1: killing everybody again. But the truth is, is there a
Speaker 1: team that has great strengths and great flaws, which is
Speaker 1: true for a lot of the teams around the league
Speaker 1: right now, but for Denver in particular. There they got
Speaker 1: worse defensively and their offense hasn't been good enough to
Speaker 1: make up for it, and they've got to figure that out.
Speaker 1: And then the last part here, and this is something
Speaker 1: I was on over the course of last year. So
Speaker 1: if you guys remember I talked about how yoki Is
Speaker 1: perimeter shooting was concerning to me, and over the course
Speaker 1: of the last chunk of the season and into the postseason,
Speaker 1: his inability to knock down a pick and pop three
Speaker 1: point shot was causing some problems for Denver's offense because
Speaker 1: the big man could sit back into the lane in
Speaker 1: those situations, and I thought it was like a legitimate regression.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is a huge sample size spanning
Speaker 1: over months and months, and this dude's just not making
Speaker 1: any shots. Something's up. But then I talked to somebody
Speaker 1: who covers the Nuggets and and he told me that, uh,
Speaker 1: he had a wrist issue. And a lot of you
Speaker 1: Laker fans probably are immediately like I remember this excuse
Speaker 1: because Anthony Davis said something similar over the course the summer. Well,
Speaker 1: whatever risk issue was there last season is gone, and
Speaker 1: Yogi has missed one of his last thirteen or excuse me,
Speaker 1: he's made one of his last thirteen three point attempts,
Speaker 1: and Anthony Davis just completely ignored him when he was
Speaker 1: that far away from the rim and sagged back and
Speaker 1: he was unable to make him pay. And it was
Speaker 1: a big part of why Denver had some stretches of
Speaker 1: ugly offense in this game. Um, so Denver has got
Speaker 1: a lot to work it out too. As we're zooming
Speaker 1: out here. I mean, like the Clippers have been really
Speaker 1: bad to start the season. The Nets have been really
Speaker 1: bad to start the season, the Sixers have been really
Speaker 1: bad to start the season, and the Warriors have been
Speaker 1: really bad to start the season relative to their expectations.
Speaker 1: Those are four of my top six teams in the
Speaker 1: power rankings, the only and and the Celtics I think
Speaker 1: they have I'm going off the top of my head here,
Speaker 1: but I think they might have three losses at this point.
Speaker 1: So when I'm zooming out here, like got like really,
Speaker 1: the Bucks are the only one of the top tier
Speaker 1: teams that is really excelling right now, and their offense
Speaker 1: isn't uh their uh um offense isn't as good as
Speaker 1: it needs to be because they're missing all their spot
Speaker 1: up shooters. So like, there is no perfect team right now,
Speaker 1: and so I'm really curious to see if there is
Speaker 1: a team out there that decides to go all in
Speaker 1: or make some sort of more aggressive trade, because the
Speaker 1: truth is is there's just a whole lot of a
Speaker 1: whole lot of uh uh mid level basketball going on
Speaker 1: around the league right now. All Right, We've been going
Speaker 1: for a while, so I'm gonna get out of here
Speaker 1: pretty quick. The uh A couple of notes on the
Speaker 1: Nets I was stunned when they decided to bring everyone back.
Speaker 1: If you remember we I there was literally two videos
Speaker 1: one day apart. One was on a Monday, one was
Speaker 1: on her Tuesday. One was on Monday. I was like, uh,
Speaker 1: Katie's gonna get traded. There's no way they decided to
Speaker 1: move forward with this group. And it was after everything
Speaker 1: that happened with like Joe sigh and and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and talking about wanting Steve Nash out, and then like
Speaker 1: Tuesday morning, the Kevin Durant report came that he's going
Speaker 1: to be returning to the team, like in his recommitted
Speaker 1: and I and I came out that day and I
Speaker 1: was stunned. I was stunned. And I had a lot
Speaker 1: of people in the comments like, you were so confident
Speaker 1: that that was gonna happen. You were wrong, bo By.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be wrong all the time. Anytime you make predictions,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be wrong. But I was really stunned, And
Speaker 1: there was a reason why I came out so strong
Speaker 1: with that take on that Monday. I could not figure
Speaker 1: out because like I believe in Kevin Durant as a
Speaker 1: foundational piece for a franchise. I believe in Kyrie Irving's capability.
Speaker 1: I believe in the fit that they have naturally with
Speaker 1: Ben Simmons, they you know, obviously said Curry has been out,
Speaker 1: t J. Warren has been out. They have more talent
Speaker 1: that's not available yet. But I had them as a
Speaker 1: if things go right, contender, but I did not have
Speaker 1: them as a top tier contender, and there was a
Speaker 1: big gap between those And specifically, I just was looking
Speaker 1: at that situation and I'm thinking Katie doesn't like the
Speaker 1: GM or the coach. Kyrie Irving is is literally a
Speaker 1: disaster for a basketball team to deal with every single season,
Speaker 1: with all the draw that he brings. And they're not
Speaker 1: talented enough to be a top tier contender. So like,
Speaker 1: what's the point? Like, you need everything to go right
Speaker 1: in order for you to win a title, and chances
Speaker 1: are things won't go right. And so I was I
Speaker 1: came out strongly thinking there's no way, and then they
Speaker 1: decided to bring everybody back. And if you guys, remember
Speaker 1: what did I say at that point? I said, they
Speaker 1: are very talented and so if they win games, this
Speaker 1: will all be fine. But if you remember, I said,
Speaker 1: if they start losing games, the wounds from this summer
Speaker 1: will come back to the surface. And that's literally what's happened.
Speaker 1: They're sitting at one in five, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: when a team that's not playing hard, like not grabbing
Speaker 1: rebounds and not defending, you start to think, oh, they're
Speaker 1: not bought into their coach. Well, the best player said
Speaker 1: he didn't want that coach. That's something that you're gonna
Speaker 1: start thinking about. Kyrie Irving I said, oh, well, he's
Speaker 1: gonna buy back in and try to earn that contract
Speaker 1: extension this summer. And he has on the court been available,
Speaker 1: which is a lot more than you could say over
Speaker 1: the last two seasons. But now we have all this
Speaker 1: drama with all the anti Semitic stuff that he's been
Speaker 1: promoting and and him having back back and forth with
Speaker 1: Nique fredell uh Nick fredell In in the postgame presser.
Speaker 1: That stuff is a lot easier to deal with when
Speaker 1: you're five and one than it is when you're one
Speaker 1: in five. And as these losses start to pile up,
Speaker 1: and that last one against the Pacers was really, really,
Speaker 1: really embarrassing, the reality is is all of these things
Speaker 1: are gonna start to bubble to the surface. Are they
Speaker 1: bought into the coach? You know Ben Simmons and his
Speaker 1: mental health, is that going to be an issue? Kyrie
Speaker 1: Irving and his shenanigans. You know, all of that stuff
Speaker 1: starts to bubble to the surface, and I honestly don't
Speaker 1: know what ends up happening here. I really thought they'd
Speaker 1: want to move on from this group over the summer,
Speaker 1: and they did not. They wanted to continue to push forward.
Speaker 1: I see k D as a foundational m v P piece,
Speaker 1: but nothing else around this to me, is worth this
Speaker 1: everything else, And you don't have the means with which
Speaker 1: to turn the surrounding pieces into players that compliment k
Speaker 1: D well enough to win a title. And he's getting older.
Speaker 1: So like, at the end of the day, like you
Speaker 1: really only have two options. You can cross your fingers
Speaker 1: and just hope this all works out, and they suddenly
Speaker 1: start playing defense, and they suddenly start grabbing rebounds, and
Speaker 1: Seth Curry and T. J. Warren come in and and
Speaker 1: and just kind of give them an influx of talent
Speaker 1: and everything is fine. Or you can sell the farm.
Speaker 1: And I'm really curious to see which direction they end
Speaker 1: up going. Um My guests as they stick it out
Speaker 1: for a little while longer until Seth Curry and t J.
Speaker 1: Warren get into the offense. But right now, like man,
Speaker 1: this could not have gone worse to start the season.
Speaker 1: They've lost some winnable games in this chunk, all right,
Speaker 1: So that's all I have for today. Here's the plan
Speaker 1: for the rest of this week. Tomorrow night, we're going
Speaker 1: live UM after the final buzzer if I believe Golden
Speaker 1: State Miami. That's gonna be on AMP. So you're gonna
Speaker 1: want to go to my Twitter feed and find the
Speaker 1: AMPLE links so you can download that AMP uh at
Speaker 1: that app and listen to the show there. If you
Speaker 1: miss that for whatever reason, it will be redistributed on
Speaker 1: YouTube later in the evening. Then Wednesday AMP after the
Speaker 1: early morning or the early evening game Cavs Celtics, and
Speaker 1: then live on YouTube after the Lakers game on Wednesday night,
Speaker 1: which I believe is against the Pelicans. Thursday night we're
Speaker 1: live on AMP after Warriors Magic, and then Friday we're
Speaker 1: just doing a normal YouTube film breakdown sometime during the day.
Speaker 1: So that's our schedule for this week. As always, I
Speaker 1: appreciate your guys support and I will see you tomorrow
Speaker 1: s s the volume