Speaker 1: Mmmm. Welcome to the State of the Lakers show on
Speaker 1: DASH Radio. Today is Tuesday, after our first preseason game,
Speaker 1: first Lakers game of the two two season. Rog, how
Speaker 1: you doing? Man? Did it feel good to be in
Speaker 1: Staples Center in front of all those thousands of fans?
Speaker 1: It felt amazing and it's great to be back after
Speaker 1: an actual game. We get actual film. I know Jason
Speaker 1: and I watched probably way too much of that of
Speaker 1: that preseason game. But the first thing I want to
Speaker 1: say is I have pushed the crow to the other
Speaker 1: side of the table. It is on your side now, so, um,
Speaker 1: it is not in front of me, at least for
Speaker 1: the moment. Um, So I know that I know that
Speaker 1: you were prepared. I like my apologies now, you know,
Speaker 1: like DeAndre Jordan did start as I said he would
Speaker 1: next to a d There are there's context to that,
Speaker 1: of course, Um, but yeah, the crows on the other side,
Speaker 1: how does that feel? You are absolutely correct. Our first
Speaker 1: Lakers game involved Anthony Davis at the four, so technically,
Speaker 1: technically for the moment, you are correct. Um, it was.
Speaker 1: It was in general very weird preseason game for all
Speaker 1: the reasons that preseason games are always weird. Like, for instance,
Speaker 1: you had uh no, like literally no forwards playing for
Speaker 1: the Lakers other than Anthony Davis, which inherently made it
Speaker 1: so that the Lakers had to play small most of
Speaker 1: the night, which we'll talk about led to uh, pretty
Speaker 1: predictable rebounding problems. And that's the kind of thing you'll
Speaker 1: only see in the preseason because any NBA team that
Speaker 1: encounters that problem in the regular season, if you had
Speaker 1: a decimated front court, would you know, sign a two
Speaker 1: way to bring up a two way player, or you know,
Speaker 1: have you know, a couple of veteran minimum signings to
Speaker 1: try to fill in until guys could get healthy. But
Speaker 1: that just wasn't gonna happen in a preseason situation. Then
Speaker 1: you had the classic stuff like referees overdoing the points
Speaker 1: of emphasis and getting you know, because they view the
Speaker 1: preseason as an opportunity to establish new you know, protocols
Speaker 1: and things like that, which I thought was super annoying
Speaker 1: because like juxtaposed with the NBA Finals, you know, a
Speaker 1: few months ago, and the stuff that they're letting go
Speaker 1: all over the floor to suddenly like Anthony Davis reverse
Speaker 1: pivot travel, like every single pick and roll, illegal screen
Speaker 1: like I think Nick Claxton got called for four illegal
Speaker 1: screens in the first half of that game. Like, it
Speaker 1: was just incredibly sloppy, and you know, just in general,
Speaker 1: both teams were playing really hard, I thought, which was
Speaker 1: kind of refreshing to see. But like there's that classic
Speaker 1: I think it's a John Wooden saying, but it's like
Speaker 1: like activity with production. Don't confuse those two things. Like
Speaker 1: both teams are running around a lot, but like they're
Speaker 1: at like in terms of what they were supposed to
Speaker 1: do within their scheme. I thought everybody was sloppy, but anyway,
Speaker 1: it was fun. What was it like in the arena
Speaker 1: as a as a Laker fan to see the fans back, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was really great. I've never really been
Speaker 1: been that close up before, so it's really cool watching
Speaker 1: the play players warm up, you know, getting to see
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant, who didn't play, but just getting to watch
Speaker 1: him shoot, Watching a guy who's so good at his
Speaker 1: craft kind of work on it. Seeing Wayne Ellington work
Speaker 1: on shots that he gets in games. You know, that
Speaker 1: was really cool. Seeing all the players work with the trainers,
Speaker 1: got to see Baysmore as well, all the fans. I
Speaker 1: believe it was at full capacity. Um just we didn't
Speaker 1: get a super cell out because of it being preseason.
Speaker 1: But it was fun, man, just to be up close.
Speaker 1: You get to hear things that you probably don't get
Speaker 1: to hear if you're if you're far back, you get
Speaker 1: to hear them screaming, like ice coverages and you know
Speaker 1: you're by yourself, and you know all those kind of
Speaker 1: things that are really cool here, the ball kind of
Speaker 1: bouncing on the court. There's nothing like Staples Center to me.
Speaker 1: Have you been the Stable Center before? Seen the game
Speaker 1: of Staples Not an NBA game, but I did see
Speaker 1: an Elite eight game from the n C Double A Tournament.
Speaker 1: There is like when you get in there and you
Speaker 1: get underneath those banners, there's just like this feeling of
Speaker 1: history that as a basketball fan, I've absolutely loved it.
Speaker 1: I think there are some Clipper fans over the summer
Speaker 1: that we're talking trash about Staples as an arena, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to be like, man, you got a factor
Speaker 1: in the historical elements here, Like even if it's dumpy
Speaker 1: in some ways compared to the better arenas around the country, Like,
Speaker 1: there's history here and that matters you know like that
Speaker 1: has to factor into some extent. Yeah, not just that.
Speaker 1: Staples is a stage right, Like while while I was
Speaker 1: there watching the game, I was just thinking, like, this
Speaker 1: is a perfect stage for a guy like Westbrook, for
Speaker 1: a guy like Lebron. It's just a stage. When you're
Speaker 1: watching the lighting all the it feels like a theater performance.
Speaker 1: Even though it's a preseason game, you still kind of
Speaker 1: get that excitement. Um. Yeah, it was just fun to
Speaker 1: be to be in the building and uh we missed
Speaker 1: that last year. Um, the crowd wasn't there for a
Speaker 1: lot of the season, and I think that did have
Speaker 1: an impact. You just see the guys excited and to
Speaker 1: be up there close that was that was fun. So
Speaker 1: it was a great experience. Hoped to be at a
Speaker 1: bunch more games this year too, so yeah, it was fun. Man.
Speaker 1: I hope everyone can go out to a game this year.
Speaker 1: Um to be safe, but go out there and have
Speaker 1: a good time at the game. Yeah. I was planning
Speaker 1: on going to Wednesday's game in Phoenix because it was
Speaker 1: at an interesting time in the day that I might
Speaker 1: have been able to make it. But as as fate
Speaker 1: would have it, I think I told you I was
Speaker 1: considering coaching some high school basketball this year, while I
Speaker 1: I ended up taking the gig with the varsity team
Speaker 1: here in town. So I've got practice on Wednesday, So
Speaker 1: that might occasionally cause some issues with our postgame shows,
Speaker 1: but I'm hoping that it only will happen a couple
Speaker 1: of times this year, just because for the most part,
Speaker 1: because they're West Coast team, their games start so late
Speaker 1: in the day anyway, So we're gonna get started to
Speaker 1: our game plan today in terms of breaking down the
Speaker 1: game is, we're going to each provide three things that
Speaker 1: we were impressed by, and then three things that we
Speaker 1: thought the Lakers really needed to work on. And then
Speaker 1: obviously if we have some overlap Sham and I have
Speaker 1: Roger and I have not discussed it at all. Uh,
Speaker 1: if we have any overlap, we'll we'll just kind of
Speaker 1: approach that as we get there. Anyway, Roger, why don't
Speaker 1: you start us off with the first thing that you
Speaker 1: were impressed by from the Lakers in their preseason opener.
Speaker 1: So I'll just continue on from my like summer preachers,
Speaker 1: like I loved Wayne Ellington on offense, Like obviously there's
Speaker 1: defensive stuff to figure out, and again this is the
Speaker 1: stuff we like. So on offense, he just a different
Speaker 1: caliber of shooter that we've ever had, right, Like they
Speaker 1: run sets for him, teams chase him, and like teams
Speaker 1: don't just chase him. Teams are told like you don't
Speaker 1: leave this guy, like you are not part of the
Speaker 1: help responsibility, Like it's your job to stick with him. Um.
Speaker 1: The Lakers used to run this play for k C
Speaker 1: p a Ton where they would start him in the
Speaker 1: corner right, he'd come off these two stigger screens, but
Speaker 1: the second screen is becomes a dribble handoff with the
Speaker 1: big and guys like KCP, Guys like Avery Bradley would
Speaker 1: dribble into like the midrange. Ellenton is firing from three
Speaker 1: off the handoff. You know what I mean. It's just
Speaker 1: a different caliber. Um. When guys go under, he's immediately
Speaker 1: going up super technical shooter as well. His feet are
Speaker 1: set again, Like being at the game watching him practice
Speaker 1: these threes, like you could see why he's so comfortable
Speaker 1: in game taking them. All these things are are part
Speaker 1: of a bunch of reps that he's already done. Um,
Speaker 1: coming off these little kind of flair screens as well,
Speaker 1: firing right away it's just nice to have a shooter
Speaker 1: of this caliber. He didn't shoot as well. I think
Speaker 1: he was like two for seven or something from three,
Speaker 1: but all the shots that like I loved him taking.
Speaker 1: He takes these transition threes, like I think Rondo hit
Speaker 1: him in stride on one of them, were like he
Speaker 1: was coming up in transition one. Drib will pull up
Speaker 1: from three and that's just a different type of shooter
Speaker 1: that we have. Um, yeah, that's my first one. I
Speaker 1: loved Allington offense. I love what he's gonna open up.
Speaker 1: I think him and Baysmore were probably most effective by
Speaker 1: not having our star creators out there, right they I
Speaker 1: think Allington played best when it was Rondo next to him,
Speaker 1: just a guy that finds him. But I would love
Speaker 1: to see him with our stars. But yeah, there's defensive concerns,
Speaker 1: but I love what he brings as a shooter to
Speaker 1: our team. Yeah. I think everything thing that we saw
Speaker 1: from that game needs to be viewed through the lens
Speaker 1: of what it would look like with either Russell Westbrook
Speaker 1: or Lebron James on the floor, because that's just the
Speaker 1: reality of how this is going to actually shape out
Speaker 1: in the season, you know, Uh, in general, with Ellington,
Speaker 1: I look more at the way he affects the defense
Speaker 1: than I do the result. The result is what it is.
Speaker 1: You know, like he's gonna take four or five threes
Speaker 1: every game and he's gonna make two or three of them.
Speaker 1: That's that, that's the reality. But on the scoreboard, that's
Speaker 1: only gonna manifest as you know, six points, nine points,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever it is. So the things that I
Speaker 1: look more with Ellington are what does he cause the
Speaker 1: help defenders to do, because that's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that's going to impact Lebron and Russell Westbrook's ability, Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis's ability to pressure the rim. And then secondly, what
Speaker 1: can he do when he's attacking close outs because the
Speaker 1: reality is as any good defense is going to run
Speaker 1: him off the line at least most of the time.
Speaker 1: So there was one play in particular, and I posted
Speaker 1: it on my Twitter feed. You guys can find it there.
Speaker 1: But it's that exact play you're talking about, that k
Speaker 1: c P play where he comes out of the corner
Speaker 1: off of a double screen and you know, the second
Speaker 1: screen is being set by DeAndre Jordan's man and the
Speaker 1: reason why DeAndre Jordan is being set by DeAndre Jordan's
Speaker 1: Deandre's Jordan's man has to be up at that screen.
Speaker 1: The reason why is he's there to deter a curl.
Speaker 1: When you have a shooter as good as Ellington, if
Speaker 1: he curls around that screen and the guy has to
Speaker 1: be chasing him over the top, it's going to allow
Speaker 1: him just to to continue around the screen into the
Speaker 1: lane and get a wide open fifteen footer or force.
Speaker 1: That's another help defender to step up so you can
Speaker 1: either drop it off or kick it to the corner.
Speaker 1: So you have that other big up at the screen
Speaker 1: to deter the curl. And if you look at the play,
Speaker 1: I even took a freeze frame of it, DeAndre Jordan
Speaker 1: and DeAndre Jordan's man are out of the paint. That's
Speaker 1: an example of gravity from Ellington that literally impacts two
Speaker 1: defensive players, the guy who's guarding Yellington and the guy
Speaker 1: who's guarding his screener. And on that particular play, Kendrick
Speaker 1: Nunn kind of ran into the pain. It was a
Speaker 1: little bit out of position and it caused uh, it
Speaker 1: caused the bays Moore who was the ball handler not
Speaker 1: to really have much of a driving lane. But they're
Speaker 1: going to figure out that kind of stuff. If he
Speaker 1: goes to the other corner in Lebron James has the
Speaker 1: ball or Russell Westbrook has the ball, there are clear
Speaker 1: driving lanes both to the strong side and to the
Speaker 1: week side, which is the kind of thing that just
Speaker 1: didn't exist last year. So I I and that's just
Speaker 1: one example one play, but in general, Ellington's ability to
Speaker 1: force defenders to panic chase him all over the place
Speaker 1: is going to open things up for the offense. There's
Speaker 1: another one where he attacked a close out where all
Speaker 1: he did was just kind of lean to the left
Speaker 1: and DeAndre Benbury like completely panic closed out to that
Speaker 1: side and gave up a straight line drive and he
Speaker 1: kicked at the Kendrick Nunn in the corner for a
Speaker 1: wide open three. Those are the kinds of things that
Speaker 1: Neither of those plays ended in a made three for Ellington, However,
Speaker 1: they led to quality offense for the team. Um, the
Speaker 1: first good thing that I put. All right, technically it's
Speaker 1: the second good thing that I put. But I'm gonna
Speaker 1: piggyback off of your point. Uh is I thought that
Speaker 1: Baisemore Ellington Monk and none just added a whole other
Speaker 1: layer of sophistication to the offense, and and just in
Speaker 1: just in general, we saw a lot of things that
Speaker 1: we did not see in the previous two seasons. From Baysmore, I,
Speaker 1: I was really really impressed by his slashing. And we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk at the end of this, uh, this segment
Speaker 1: of the pod, we're gonna do a little bit more
Speaker 1: of a deep dive into Baysmore and Ellington and Monk
Speaker 1: and None, just to talk about more of the intricacy
Speaker 1: intricacies of what they do. But I was impressed by
Speaker 1: Baysmore slashing Ellington. We just talked about Malik Monks off
Speaker 1: the dribble shooting I thought was a really really interesting
Speaker 1: wrinkle in there, in the pick and roll actions that
Speaker 1: they ran, and then uh, Kendrick Nunn transition threes, the
Speaker 1: the floaters and little scoop shots that he had around
Speaker 1: the bass get that's like comprehensive type of finishing that
Speaker 1: we haven't had from guards in the past. Just in general,
Speaker 1: I was really impressed by the way that those four
Speaker 1: guys made offense look easy, breezy in a way that
Speaker 1: it hasn't looked for the Lakers in the last couple
Speaker 1: of years, and when you add Lebron and Russ to that,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna get even better. Yeah, that's something I
Speaker 1: had kind of looked at as well. It's just a
Speaker 1: lot of ball handling that can score. Right. They're not
Speaker 1: really great passers in a sense, but all those guys
Speaker 1: look to score. They all take it as like disrespectful
Speaker 1: almost if you close out under the three point line,
Speaker 1: like just watching the person watching, like Malige Monk dribble up.
Speaker 1: I think I forgot who the guard was, but he
Speaker 1: was kind of behind the three point line. He just
Speaker 1: pulled up and he nailed three. Kendrick Nunn as well
Speaker 1: in transition guy was behind the three point line, just
Speaker 1: pulled up Ellington as well. He he feels that same way.
Speaker 1: So it's just cool to have off the dribble shooters
Speaker 1: creators and none of those guys are gonna have to
Speaker 1: be primary creators. Like that's the way I was watching
Speaker 1: this game, Like th HD was kind of put in
Speaker 1: like the Lebron and Russ roll, right, and like to
Speaker 1: judge th HT off of the Lebron and Rust roll
Speaker 1: is probably kind of unfair as well. Um, And to
Speaker 1: judge any of those as like primary creators. So I
Speaker 1: agree with you just watching all of them be able
Speaker 1: to score. Just I'm not used to having this many
Speaker 1: off the dribbles shot makers. You know, it's interesting to
Speaker 1: watch as well. I'm not really used to this many
Speaker 1: pull up jump shooters, UM, guys who come off screens
Speaker 1: and just firing. I like what you talked about with
Speaker 1: Kendrick Nunn. I thought he got more comfortable as the
Speaker 1: game went on, he got more aggressive as a score.
Speaker 1: He was pulling up as well. So I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I think all those guys are gonna have a big
Speaker 1: gonna have a big year, especially scoring off the bench. UM.
Speaker 1: So I guess my like second one, Um, you talked
Speaker 1: about it a little bit. Was just you talked about
Speaker 1: Monk being off the dribble. I thought I didn't know
Speaker 1: he was. He had this much I guess off the
Speaker 1: dribble game. I don't know if you did, but like,
Speaker 1: I didn't know he had this much creation and it
Speaker 1: really opened stuff up. They run like double double screens
Speaker 1: for him coming off with Dwight and Basemore. They had
Speaker 1: one play where he had one coming off and he
Speaker 1: hit the jumper off that. Um, he can run pick
Speaker 1: a role as well, hit a nice passage white houred
Speaker 1: in the in the pick and roll. So that was
Speaker 1: my second one. I didn't know that he had this
Speaker 1: off the dribble game, and I think it really opens
Speaker 1: things up. You're gonna have a big battle there for him.
Speaker 1: None Ellington and PhD for minutes, but I think he
Speaker 1: has to play. Do you think he's like in the
Speaker 1: lead right now with all those cards, because like that
Speaker 1: was my second one. To me, I didn't know a
Speaker 1: monk had this much kind of off the dribble game
Speaker 1: and being in person as well, I didn't know he
Speaker 1: was just vocal, Like he was a very vocal on
Speaker 1: defense as well, talking to the guys and saying telling
Speaker 1: them to communicate. I didn't know he was that type
Speaker 1: of player. So he was my second one there. I
Speaker 1: love the leak monk on offense. Um. I think that's
Speaker 1: something we can take from the preseason. It's stuff to
Speaker 1: really take a bunch of things. You don't really care
Speaker 1: about the score, just look at things that can translate, right,
Speaker 1: And I think monks jumpers just looks clean. Some dudes
Speaker 1: who go off the dribble, you can tell they're not
Speaker 1: really off the dribble players, they can dribble. Link Monk
Speaker 1: looks like a guy who's very comfortable um putting the
Speaker 1: ball on the floor, who looks looks very comfortable coming
Speaker 1: off screens and firing, really comfortable just pulling up off
Speaker 1: the dribble. So what do you think about link Monk.
Speaker 1: He talked about it a little bit, but I think
Speaker 1: his dribble game is just kind of open things up
Speaker 1: the team. The part you were mentioning about him being
Speaker 1: vocals super interesting to me because that's to me, demonstrates care.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk probably at the end actually it's one
Speaker 1: of the things I have for the three things to
Speaker 1: work on, But we're gonna talk about the defense from
Speaker 1: the guards and what It wasn't pretty for the most part,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, I think that
Speaker 1: that's the kind of thing that's going to take time
Speaker 1: through training camp to really establish. And uh, it all
Speaker 1: starts with, you know, giving a ship, which is something
Speaker 1: we talked about a lot on this podcast. And and
Speaker 1: to be honest, I'm not terribly concerned about about them caring.
Speaker 1: And that's a good sign that Malik Monk was being
Speaker 1: very vocal on defense that's a good sign as far
Speaker 1: as his ball handling and shooting. You know, guard guarding
Speaker 1: pick and rolls are become infinitely more complicated through versatility.
Speaker 1: So for instance, like how many times did we see
Speaker 1: Dennis Shrewder last year because he's not a good shooter
Speaker 1: when he would run a side pick and roll, they'd
Speaker 1: ice him and basically allow him to take that you know,
Speaker 1: pull up fifteen footer, which he made maybe thirty percent
Speaker 1: of the time, and then from up top exact same thing.
Speaker 1: They're they're in a drop coverage and and he's he's
Speaker 1: coming over the screen and the defenders going under and
Speaker 1: there's just not really a whole lot there. Well, the
Speaker 1: guarding that it becomes infinitely more complicated with the off
Speaker 1: the dribble shooter who's comfortable just in general when you're
Speaker 1: playing individual defense, Like when I when I think about
Speaker 1: guarding a guy, always the toughest matchup for any defensive
Speaker 1: player is a player that is capable of driving to
Speaker 1: the basket but also capable of pulling off the dribble
Speaker 1: from deep because you, as a defender, are constantly off
Speaker 1: balance because you're prepared to have to leave your feet
Speaker 1: to contest a shot, and that that little bit of hesitation,
Speaker 1: a little bit of off balance, opens up all of
Speaker 1: their dribble moves. And whereas if a player can't shoot,
Speaker 1: I can kind of camp on my heels, so to speak,
Speaker 1: being prepared, just basically deciding whether or not I need
Speaker 1: to go left or right in a defensive slide and
Speaker 1: not have to worry about closing out because if he
Speaker 1: takes a shot, that's a win for me because I
Speaker 1: want him to shoot. See that difference there psychologically as
Speaker 1: a huge impact throw in a ball screen, and now
Speaker 1: it's even more complicated because I literally have to chase
Speaker 1: you over the top. And if I literally have to
Speaker 1: chase you over the top, if they set a good screen,
Speaker 1: that's automatic separation in an automatic ahead of steam going
Speaker 1: towards the rim. There was a sequence there with Malik Monk,
Speaker 1: I believe it was in the second quarter where he
Speaker 1: ran a pick and roll with Dwight Howard and uh
Speaker 1: Dwight sets a really good screen, hits the point of
Speaker 1: attack defender and LaMarcus Aldridge is way too low and
Speaker 1: and Monk just settles into it like a twenty five
Speaker 1: ft three, really balanced and just just nails it. So
Speaker 1: then on the very next possession, the guard does a
Speaker 1: much better job of chasing over the top, and because
Speaker 1: he has to chase over the top, Monk gets ahead
Speaker 1: of Steam into the lane, gets into the lane, easy
Speaker 1: hocket passed to Dwight Howard who gets fouled. And then
Speaker 1: there was a couple possessions later, another pick and roll,
Speaker 1: same exact thing. The big hangs a little bit too
Speaker 1: far back, the guard does chase over the top, but
Speaker 1: Dwight does get a good screen on him, and Monk
Speaker 1: pulls up from I think seventeen feet on the left
Speaker 1: elbow and just nails it. Those are the kinds of
Speaker 1: things were like. That is high quality offense that does
Speaker 1: it require Lebron or Russ to initiate, and it's all
Speaker 1: set up by the fact that you have a good
Speaker 1: screen and roll guy and a guy who can pull
Speaker 1: off the dribble comfortably out to That sort of thing
Speaker 1: just is extremely difficult to guard at the NBA level,
Speaker 1: And I was in general really really impressed by what
Speaker 1: Molik Monk brought to the table. We're gonna talk more
Speaker 1: about their defense later. I don't want to focus on
Speaker 1: that right now, but strictly on the offensive end. Uh
Speaker 1: that that type of uh initiation, and I think I
Speaker 1: think Kendrick Nunn has some of that as well in
Speaker 1: his game that he didn't really have an opportunity to
Speaker 1: show yesterday yet excuse me, Sunday yet. But I was
Speaker 1: really impressed by that with Malik Monk. Did you have
Speaker 1: anything else you wanted to add with Milik Monk before
Speaker 1: we move on? Now? I thought I thought he was good. Um,
Speaker 1: I thought it was great to just he seems like
Speaker 1: another like a fan favorite already, right and also like
Speaker 1: his his wingspan. I was looking at it's only six four,
Speaker 1: but just in person, it just feels longer. I guess
Speaker 1: his arms feel like they go down longer than than
Speaker 1: it seems. He's very active as well, I think of that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that might be what it is. But but yeah, just
Speaker 1: in person, he just seems like a very active player. Um,
Speaker 1: and it was cool to watch him just be super
Speaker 1: vocal with you just don't see usually from young guys
Speaker 1: like that on this kind of veteran team. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited from Link Monk. I thought he had a nice,
Speaker 1: nice showing in that first game. So the second good
Speaker 1: thing that I put down was. I just labeled it
Speaker 1: as good th HD because I have on the bad side,
Speaker 1: I have bad THHD. But we'll get to YEA. So
Speaker 1: the things that I really appreciated from th HD last
Speaker 1: on Sunday was his point of tack defense. Um. He's
Speaker 1: still extremely disruptive on the ball, especially when guys are indecisive,
Speaker 1: like when guys want to try to mix him up.
Speaker 1: He's really good at getting his hands in there. Um.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing I put was relentless rim pressure.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of it was over penetration. And
Speaker 1: there are some things that we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: in the UH later on that have to do with
Speaker 1: him making easy reads. This is something that was a
Speaker 1: concern for him coming into the season. Um. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, there are times against really
Speaker 1: good defenses in particular where the easy reads aren't there,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you just need somebody and Lebron is really
Speaker 1: good at this. In particular, Anthony Davis does it more
Speaker 1: as a rebounder than he does as a as an initiator.
Speaker 1: But sometimes you just need to put your head down
Speaker 1: and just get to the damn rim somehow, like like
Speaker 1: you just need to plow through guys and hopefully get
Speaker 1: enough pressure on the rim that it can generate some
Speaker 1: quality shots when the really elite defenses are taking away
Speaker 1: the easy reads and th h T still cannot be
Speaker 1: stopped like at that initial drive position, Like his problems
Speaker 1: never had anything to do with beating that first guy.
Speaker 1: It was all like he would drive into too much
Speaker 1: traffic and he would get stripped by the second defender
Speaker 1: or the third defender. That kind of thing. We can
Speaker 1: work on the the ability for th h T to
Speaker 1: beat every single point of attack defender and to to
Speaker 1: get a step and get headed towards the paint. That
Speaker 1: is something that can translate to good offense. Especially. I
Speaker 1: think you'll see him a lot more as a closeout
Speaker 1: attacker this year, which is something we talked about early
Speaker 1: in the season last year. But that th HD still
Speaker 1: with his low center of gravity, his good strength and
Speaker 1: his athleticism is still just a huge problem for teams
Speaker 1: keeping him out of the paint. What did you see
Speaker 1: from th h T on the good side of things? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so again, just being there like T exudes is like
Speaker 1: confidence is like veteran kind of feel already, and you
Speaker 1: forget that he's twenty years old, just the way he
Speaker 1: kind of carries himself. So I just want to start
Speaker 1: with that. It's really cool to watch him grow and
Speaker 1: his body is definitely different, like you could totally tell,
Speaker 1: and it's totally impacted everything you talked about the point
Speaker 1: of attack defense. I thought him going around screens was
Speaker 1: much better in this game. I know it's only preseason,
Speaker 1: but like the term is called like getting skinny, right,
Speaker 1: so when you're going on when you're going on a screen,
Speaker 1: you want to kind of get skinny. And uh, I
Speaker 1: know the rests are kind of calling a lot of things,
Speaker 1: but he drew three offensive fouls on movie screens just
Speaker 1: because he was fighting over it. I thought that was
Speaker 1: a big step for him on offense. Like again, I
Speaker 1: talked about this earlier and you said this, everything needs
Speaker 1: to be kind of seen through this lens of next
Speaker 1: to Lebron and Russell Westbrook, right, because all those three
Speaker 1: will be those two will be playing most of the game,
Speaker 1: so the ball handling duties will be on them. And
Speaker 1: I thought thhd's best moments last night where when he
Speaker 1: was the guy attacking and already collapsed defense, right, like
Speaker 1: his dunk. His dunk was on a play where Baysmore
Speaker 1: drove collapse of defense kicked it out to him, and
Speaker 1: then he attacked the defense that was already rotating um
Speaker 1: A couple of possessions later, he got a layup where
Speaker 1: I think it was goaltender or something that was where
Speaker 1: a D pushed it right and he got a hand
Speaker 1: off of a D in drove and again the defense
Speaker 1: was kind of worried about a D. A thought. His
Speaker 1: third nice player was like where he got a spin
Speaker 1: and got fouled. But that was when Rondo pushed it
Speaker 1: up to I believe it was Monk who hit th
Speaker 1: HD as the trailer there and he did like a
Speaker 1: behind I don't know, it's a spin behind the back whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't know what he whatever he was doing, but
Speaker 1: he got fouled on that. So that's what I want
Speaker 1: to see with him. I liked him as uh an
Speaker 1: attacker of an already compromised defense where he doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be the first attack, right because when you're the
Speaker 1: first attack, it's your it's your job to make the
Speaker 1: right decision right to where the pass to who's open.
Speaker 1: But if he's already attacking already compromised defense, he could
Speaker 1: just attack the rim. You have to stop him after
Speaker 1: already trying to rotate to a shooter or trying to
Speaker 1: rotate to a d rolling or rotate to Lebron whatever,
Speaker 1: and then he's coming down the lane with his kind
Speaker 1: of herky jerky game. You know, he does those weird layups. Um,
Speaker 1: he protects the ball really nicely when he when he
Speaker 1: gets to the basket and draws files that way. So
Speaker 1: I like him scoring that way. And again I thought
Speaker 1: the defense was good, So I agree with you. I
Speaker 1: like what I saw from from PhD there. That's a yeah,
Speaker 1: that that's a really good point as it pertains to
Speaker 1: taking away the decision making process essentially at this stage
Speaker 1: of his career. It's kind of a delicate balance because
Speaker 1: you know he needs reps in order to learn how
Speaker 1: to make those decisions, but at the same time, you
Speaker 1: kind of need him to learn how to play off
Speaker 1: of the stars. So my guess is that what you'll
Speaker 1: end up seeing is kind of what you saw in
Speaker 1: that game, which is in the games where stars sit
Speaker 1: because of load management or injuries or whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: I think you'll lean heavily on him as a decision
Speaker 1: maker just so he can get reps and then obviously
Speaker 1: when the guys are healthy, he'll play more, you know,
Speaker 1: as a guy who attacks the already compromise defense. You
Speaker 1: mentioned one other thing that I did not actually put
Speaker 1: on my list, but I wanted to bring up that
Speaker 1: you reminded me, is just in general, the pushing the
Speaker 1: ball transition. Every time, almost every time that they advanced
Speaker 1: to the ball, like the whoever would get the ball
Speaker 1: out of bounds on a maid shot or whoever would
Speaker 1: get the rebound and kick to the guard, they would
Speaker 1: make that push ahead pass that like Lonzo ball pass
Speaker 1: that that we used to see a lot when he
Speaker 1: was a Laker. That kind of thing, just it causes
Speaker 1: chaos and then you can capitalize on the chaos. The
Speaker 1: one example I'll give is there was a play. I
Speaker 1: don't remember who the push ahead guard was, but there
Speaker 1: was Baysmore in the left corner, and uh that push
Speaker 1: ahead to bays Moore in the left corner forced LaMarcus
Speaker 1: Aldridge to close out because Baysmore's man was not back.
Speaker 1: And when LaMarcus Aldridge closed out, Baysmore saw DeAndre Jordan
Speaker 1: running down the lane and just threw it up and
Speaker 1: he dunked it for an hand one, and that's an
Speaker 1: example of of of generating easy shots. This is a
Speaker 1: theme that we're going to talk about when we talk
Speaker 1: about bad th HT But like, uh, good offense isn't
Speaker 1: about making one good play. It's about understanding that over
Speaker 1: the course of a game, you need to generate eight
Speaker 1: to nine potentially more depending on the pace of the game,
Speaker 1: but eight to nine high quality possessions. And so there
Speaker 1: are going to be possessions in that set where the
Speaker 1: defense is really locked in and you're in the half
Speaker 1: court and nothing's easy, and you really need to manufacture
Speaker 1: something easy. So what that means is when they do
Speaker 1: make mistakes, when you can beat them down the floor,
Speaker 1: when you can make an easy read, you absolutely have
Speaker 1: to capitalize on it because those are the ones that
Speaker 1: you need to buffer and cancel out the tougher possessions
Speaker 1: or you're dragged down into the half court and and
Speaker 1: that pushing in transition is the easiest way to do that.
Speaker 1: And I thought the Lakers just in general did a
Speaker 1: really good job yesterday of pushing the ball in transition.
Speaker 1: And it helps to have so many guys who can
Speaker 1: handle the ball because what you did it was harder
Speaker 1: when you push the ball up the floor and it'd
Speaker 1: be West Matthews, or you push the ball up the
Speaker 1: floor and it would be you know, uh an inferior
Speaker 1: ball handle or someone like you know, even Kyle Kuzma
Speaker 1: like struggled with that a lot. Having these guards who
Speaker 1: can all make decisions and put the ball on the
Speaker 1: floor make it easier to push the ball up the
Speaker 1: floor because the guy running the wing is capable of
Speaker 1: making a complicated dribble move and making a complicated read
Speaker 1: If that makes sense, Yeah, for sure. And we kind
Speaker 1: of saw Rondo in that Westbrook role right where he
Speaker 1: was the one kind of pushing it up. And you
Speaker 1: see remnants of like what Vogel was talking about where
Speaker 1: they want to be like a full time transition team, right,
Speaker 1: they want to get most of their points in transition.
Speaker 1: And and again I think the stats that you get
Speaker 1: at most dirty percent of your if you can if
Speaker 1: you're running on every play, which Westbrook does, but still
Speaker 1: you get like your buckets in transition. But you kind
Speaker 1: of see that the remnants of it. You saw Ellington
Speaker 1: and a base more sprinting to corners, and I think
Speaker 1: you talked about as well, like DeAndre Jordan's sprinting to
Speaker 1: the lane and getting the lob dunk as e d
Speaker 1: as the trailers, So you see a little bit of it.
Speaker 1: I think you'll see it more on Lebron and Rust play,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you're right. I love seeing them push the
Speaker 1: ball a little bit kind see what they're trying to
Speaker 1: do with that. UM. I guess my final kind of
Speaker 1: what I liked um about the about the game was
Speaker 1: seeing Dwight Howard back. Um. His energy is still super
Speaker 1: infectious and even comes off even more when you're there.
Speaker 1: You see him kind of screaming and running and all
Speaker 1: the stuff they don't show on TV, where like he
Speaker 1: he hits uh, he makes a layub of offensive rebound
Speaker 1: and he's screaming for the next five to ten seconds
Speaker 1: you know, of that play, UM, and he's really in
Speaker 1: with his teammates, and you see it in the timeouts
Speaker 1: as well, going out to every single player kind of
Speaker 1: giving them acourageman. So it was cool to see him.
Speaker 1: It was funny because the game started obviously with LaMarcus
Speaker 1: Aldridge right and DeAndre Jordan's and both of them looked
Speaker 1: very comfortable with like both of you, like they both
Speaker 1: told each other. Hey, like, let's chill, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like, let's both of us kind of we know,
Speaker 1: we know what the deal is. It's preseason, like we're
Speaker 1: both going to kind of chill. LaMarcus Aldrids look comfortable
Speaker 1: as hell. He was hitting his jumpers in the mid range,
Speaker 1: kind of getting to where he wants. DeAndre Jordan's you know,
Speaker 1: he didn't look great and he's getting the flag as
Speaker 1: he I guess he should, but he didn't look he
Speaker 1: was going at any kind of energy level. And then
Speaker 1: Dwight Howard checks in and then, uh, you can see
Speaker 1: the look on LaMarcus Audrey's face just being there. Dwight
Speaker 1: Howard is like sprinting right from one end to the other,
Speaker 1: and I could see Aldres just looking at Dwight like
Speaker 1: what are you doing? You know kind of thing like
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty season. Um. So it's cool to see
Speaker 1: his energy back. I like him as like when you
Speaker 1: have these bucket getters, having like a good screen setter
Speaker 1: I think really helps Dwight. I think we talked about
Speaker 1: earlier the screens he was sending from League Monk, screens
Speaker 1: he sets for Wayne Llaton just he's he's really smart
Speaker 1: with it too, Like he'll set the screen and then roll,
Speaker 1: so it kind of takes both the fenders with him.
Speaker 1: You know, he's just very smart with those kind of things.
Speaker 1: He has all the tricks up the sleeve. Um, he's
Speaker 1: still got a bunch of offense rebounds because he just
Speaker 1: knows how to kind of push players what to get
Speaker 1: away with. And Uh, I just missed having him on
Speaker 1: the team, and I'm glad he's back. He looks he
Speaker 1: looks pretty close for the player he was that year.
Speaker 1: He had a lot of fouls that I know people
Speaker 1: are kind of on him on his six fouls, but
Speaker 1: just being there, a lot of those fouls felt like
Speaker 1: they could have gone either way. Honestly, a lot of
Speaker 1: contact at the ref was kind of I don't know,
Speaker 1: trying to show that that context is not allowed for
Speaker 1: some reason or whatever. But I just like what I
Speaker 1: saw from him. Um, I thought he was I thought
Speaker 1: the gap between him and DeAndre is kind of sizeable
Speaker 1: at least for right now, Like you could tell his impact,
Speaker 1: uh is still there. So what do you think of Dwight?
Speaker 1: Because I thought he had a I thought he had
Speaker 1: a really nice for his showing. Yeah, the third good
Speaker 1: thing that I put down was that our vertical presence
Speaker 1: was back. Um. I I was impressed by both guys
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways because I was going to
Speaker 1: cut them slack for the obvious things that people were
Speaker 1: gonna pick apart. Like I didn't watch the game live
Speaker 1: because I had a Men's League game that I had
Speaker 1: to go to that was all the way across towns.
Speaker 1: It was like a two hour adventure, and uh when
Speaker 1: I got back, I didn't get a chance to watch
Speaker 1: it until the following morning, and so all I saw
Speaker 1: was what was what was on Twitter. And on Twitter,
Speaker 1: I saw people complaining about DeAndre Jordan and and and
Speaker 1: Dwight Howard as well, and I wanted to be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know what are you asked King Dwight Howard and
Speaker 1: and uh DeAndre Jordan to do be back line defenders
Speaker 1: right and then also be kind of rim spacers. And
Speaker 1: they're out there playing with absolutely no passing. And I
Speaker 1: think you know, when Rondo got out there, you immediately
Speaker 1: saw Dwight get a deep seal in a layup. That
Speaker 1: those are the kinds of things where like you need
Speaker 1: i Q surrounding those guys to bring the best out
Speaker 1: of them, and then just in general, like you know,
Speaker 1: it's there's such an obvious better fit for this team's identity.
Speaker 1: You know, a guy like Montrese Harrold is obviously going
Speaker 1: to be better as like an active offensive rebounder. He's
Speaker 1: obviously going to be better if in the event that
Speaker 1: you need to attack mismatches right switching defense, you know,
Speaker 1: guard gets on him. Treas as a guy you can
Speaker 1: throw the ball down to. Dwight's probably not you know, uh,
Speaker 1: DeAndre Jordan's probably not. There are obvious advantages there. Marcusol
Speaker 1: better shooter, the guy who's a much better passers. So
Speaker 1: if you're running the offense out of the top of
Speaker 1: the key from you know, dribble handoffs and stuff, like
Speaker 1: a guy like Marcus sul is gonna look better with
Speaker 1: the Golden State Warriors when you're running a million dribble
Speaker 1: handoffs with the Stephen and uh and Clay than it
Speaker 1: is with you know, uh an offense the way that
Speaker 1: this Laker team is built. At the end of the day, though,
Speaker 1: what what the Lakers need out of that position is
Speaker 1: that that vertical spacing, in that vertical presence defensively, because
Speaker 1: you're funneling guys into the pain, So you need guys
Speaker 1: who can jump into tur guys at the rim, and
Speaker 1: then offensively, you've got all these passers who are looking
Speaker 1: for an option when they get into the lane to
Speaker 1: either drop off to somebody or throw it up around
Speaker 1: the rim. So it was just refreshing for me in
Speaker 1: general to see that DeAndre Jordan needs to do a
Speaker 1: better job of running the floor. That's just that's I
Speaker 1: called that out this morning. One of the biggest things
Speaker 1: I noticed is like when he was in the half court,
Speaker 1: I actually thought he was pretty good defensively. Uh, he
Speaker 1: blocked a couple of shots and deterred several others. There
Speaker 1: were a bunch of plays where guys would cut to
Speaker 1: the basket and beat someone back door or something, but
Speaker 1: DeAndre Jordan will be waiting there and so they dribble
Speaker 1: it back out Like that's something that doesn't show up
Speaker 1: in the box score, but that actually matters because it's
Speaker 1: saved a defensive breakdown. So I actually thought he was
Speaker 1: good in the half court. He struggled in transition because
Speaker 1: he just wasn't running hard enough. That's something that's probably
Speaker 1: part of its conditioning. There was um Mike Trudell specifically
Speaker 1: mentioned that on the LFR pod that his uh that
Speaker 1: traditionally guys have a light day before a game, and
Speaker 1: DeAndre Jordan's been in a rough week of practice, and
Speaker 1: they practiced the previous day, so he's not like his
Speaker 1: legs aren't underneath him. So there's some stuff to to
Speaker 1: to like kind of to factor in there, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense. Dwight Howard, same old Dwight stuff, like, you know,
Speaker 1: silly fouls, things along those lines, a little bit, a
Speaker 1: little bit too over zealous offensively, a couple of plays
Speaker 1: where like he tried to make something out of nothing
Speaker 1: on a post up where he probably should just kick
Speaker 1: it out to the guards and said another screen. You know,
Speaker 1: but I am like, I saw the DeAndre Jordan and
Speaker 1: Dwight thing and I was super happy with it, because
Speaker 1: one Dre is not gonna play that much. So whatever
Speaker 1: you get out of him is is gravy. Uh and too.
Speaker 1: I still absolutely love Dwight Howard for twenty minutes a game,
Speaker 1: playing alongside a Lebron and Anthony Davis. I just think
Speaker 1: he's a seamless fit who is who, who brings mostly
Speaker 1: good to the table, and it is an awesome Like
Speaker 1: he's just he's just he's just the perfect guy to
Speaker 1: have that curveball for we're gonna go big, you know,
Speaker 1: if if a d is gonna be at the four,
Speaker 1: Dwight's the guy that I want there next to him.
Speaker 1: I just think I think he's a natural fit in
Speaker 1: that position. So, um, did you have any other good things?
Speaker 1: Are we moving on to the bad things? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think that was most of the good things. And you
Speaker 1: talked about DeAndre not running the floor like he was
Speaker 1: definitely in that like let me give the last amount
Speaker 1: of energy, you know, possible, while still to look kind
Speaker 1: of like I'm on the floor. Like both of those
Speaker 1: blocks were him, just like because the coverage, I mean,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be in this kind of dropback coverage right
Speaker 1: where like he's trying to protect from the lab while
Speaker 1: also just making sure of the guard doesn't get to
Speaker 1: the rim, Like that's his defensive coverage. Like expecting DeAndre
Speaker 1: Jordan to go out and switch, it's just not feasible, right,
Speaker 1: that's a position he's going to be in, And I
Speaker 1: thought he did his job, Like his job is to
Speaker 1: make sure that law is taken away and make sure
Speaker 1: the guard doesn't just get to the rim, and if
Speaker 1: they're gonna get they're gonna shoot a floater. I think
Speaker 1: Basemore talked about this at his press conference, but he's like,
Speaker 1: those guards are gonna shoot floaters over DeAndre, Jordan, A
Speaker 1: D and Dwight all night. You live with those results
Speaker 1: because they're not gonna make a good enough percentage of them.
Speaker 1: I thought the nets hit some tough ones. There's one
Speaker 1: where like DeAndre Bembrey banked in this floater over Dwight Howard.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember that one. I remember
Speaker 1: seeing that one in presson. I'm like, what the hell?
Speaker 1: But but yeah, so like if they make those, then
Speaker 1: they make those. But I thought he kind of did
Speaker 1: his job. He's not this big, like switchable kind of
Speaker 1: big defender. We oh there five ten minutes, give a
Speaker 1: D a break from being the center. That's his job,
Speaker 1: and I think he'll do that um in real games.
Speaker 1: So I think we saw a good showing that we
Speaker 1: can kind of move on to the road really quickly,
Speaker 1: just piggyback on that. Like like when you play Portland,
Speaker 1: for instance, you expect some shot making, like there's you
Speaker 1: play solid defense and they're gonna make some shots with
Speaker 1: hands in their face, like you know, Brooklyn's kind of
Speaker 1: the same way, you know, even with their bench guys
Speaker 1: like that. I think his name is Cam Johnson. I
Speaker 1: could be wrong about that, but what he was lighting
Speaker 1: up Ellington in the first half, making all these like
Speaker 1: off the dribble jump shots, and it's like at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, you know, yeah, you can pressure
Speaker 1: him a little bit more, make him feel uncomfortable. Don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, but like part of the deal with
Speaker 1: teams like that is that you you make them take
Speaker 1: a ton of contested jump shots and you live with
Speaker 1: the results. Are gonna make some The reason why they lost,
Speaker 1: you know, the reason why they kind of trailed most
Speaker 1: of the game was the physical dominance, which we'll get
Speaker 1: to in a minute. Like they were just really small
Speaker 1: because they were missing all their forwards and so they
Speaker 1: gave up a million offensive rebounds and and just in general,
Speaker 1: they struggled with the physicality of the nets because they
Speaker 1: were less athletic and smaller. That's to be expected. And
Speaker 1: when you're when all of your athleticism is sitting on
Speaker 1: the bench, you know what I mean. But just in general,
Speaker 1: like I I think you gotta live with a certain
Speaker 1: amount of shot making. But anyway, go ahead and give
Speaker 1: us your first three things. First of the three things
Speaker 1: that the Lakers needed to work on, uh yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean just as close out. That last part is crazy.
Speaker 1: We went through a whole like first game preseason recap
Speaker 1: and we didn't even talk about Anthony Davis, which is
Speaker 1: is kind of which is kind of funny. We both
Speaker 1: ringed up like six things that didn't include him, So
Speaker 1: I guess energy A D was still like kind of
Speaker 1: like a seventy energy level, so I don't really have
Speaker 1: much on him. He was settling. He was against Paul
Speaker 1: millsap and taking jumpers and stuff like that, but I guess,
Speaker 1: like they're defensively, I thought he was good on defense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he also was kind of in this like let me
Speaker 1: give as much energy the least amount of energy possible.
Speaker 1: But but like yeah, also like when he got on
Speaker 1: some switches, he shut them down, you know, when the
Speaker 1: guards were against him and made them take tough shots.
Speaker 1: So again, like A D is tough to kind of
Speaker 1: judge him on there. It's just nice to see him
Speaker 1: out there. But I guess, like my first one that
Speaker 1: they need to work on. They definitely need to, Like
Speaker 1: they did a lot of switching early on if he
Speaker 1: saw that, but it was a lot of like where
Speaker 1: the guard would end up on LaMarcus Aldridge, and then
Speaker 1: they did this unnecessary doubling uh right away, and it
Speaker 1: led to a bunch of open shots early. So I
Speaker 1: just think they need to kind of work on what
Speaker 1: they want to do defensively. Um. I think it's pretty
Speaker 1: clear they didn't want to leave the guard on Aldridge
Speaker 1: by themselves, but I thought it was just way too
Speaker 1: much double team. So what do you kind of see
Speaker 1: from the Demons, because I thought in the first quarter
Speaker 1: at least they were kind of confused on what they
Speaker 1: wanted to do. It was a lot of unnecessary kind
Speaker 1: of switches and Brooklyn basically went to this like mismatch
Speaker 1: hunting and again this preseason hard to tell, but I
Speaker 1: think that's the first thing there. Even with the starting lineup,
Speaker 1: even with a D and DJ there, I thought it
Speaker 1: was a lot of times where like th HD would
Speaker 1: end up on LaMarcus Aldridge or you know, like things
Speaker 1: like that would happen. So I just need to clean
Speaker 1: that up, I guess, And I know vote will will
Speaker 1: Um after looking at this film, he probably hasn't turned
Speaker 1: this game off since then, so I'm sure. I'm sure
Speaker 1: he'll get into that. But what do you see, I
Speaker 1: guess from the defense overall, So the Lakers will do
Speaker 1: some switching this year by design. Um that that's kind
Speaker 1: of the way that the roster has shaped up. UM.
Speaker 1: I see lineups like Russ Space more Areasa Lebron a
Speaker 1: D that could theoretically switch every screen. Um. But I
Speaker 1: don't think they were switching by design in that game
Speaker 1: in the first quarter. I think what happened was is
Speaker 1: they were in a drop coverage and the guards were
Speaker 1: getting caught way too easily on the screen and taking
Speaker 1: way too long to get over the top, and it
Speaker 1: was forcing a switch. And the reason why you could
Speaker 1: tell is what would usually happen is the guard would
Speaker 1: chase over the top and eventually get back to the
Speaker 1: to the offensive player, and then DeAndre Jordan's or or
Speaker 1: Dwight or a d would point over to the to
Speaker 1: the other guy and ask for a switch because they
Speaker 1: thought it was too late at that point. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's two sides to that, because some of that
Speaker 1: is like the big needs to the big needs to
Speaker 1: recover back, and then the some of that is the
Speaker 1: the guard needs to fight better over the top. But
Speaker 1: the reality is, if you're playing Paul Millsap and LaMarcus Aldridge,
Speaker 1: you should never be switching small guys onto them because
Speaker 1: those are two specific power forwards that fit more into
Speaker 1: that Mantrese Harold type of mold that we talked about
Speaker 1: where they're not big defensive presence is they're not big
Speaker 1: rebounding presences. But what they are our guys offensively, if
Speaker 1: they get a small guy on them, they're almost a
Speaker 1: guaranteed basket. And so it's it's not the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that you would like to switch if you could
Speaker 1: avoid it. So uh, in general, I don't want to
Speaker 1: overthink it because I think some of this just takes time.
Speaker 1: But in like if you're in a drop coverage, it
Speaker 1: depends on the fact that the guard can fight over
Speaker 1: the top so that they don't have to switch. Because
Speaker 1: the the the big is going to kind of position
Speaker 1: himself between the rim and the offensive player, and then
Speaker 1: as soon as the point of attack defender recovers, he
Speaker 1: recovers to the big. That's the way that that coverage works,
Speaker 1: and it's not gonna work if the guard dies on
Speaker 1: every single screen. Now, some of this is these guys,
Speaker 1: these uh, these guards that we have like Ellington, like
Speaker 1: Monk in the past haven't really been held to that
Speaker 1: high of a standard defensively, So there's gonna be an
Speaker 1: adjustment period. Also, when you're thin like a Malik Punk,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit easier to get caught on a
Speaker 1: on that type of screen. But I do think that
Speaker 1: through effort and focus and through reps, they can eventually
Speaker 1: figure that out. I do think that that's something that
Speaker 1: they can get better at. The Other thing, too, is
Speaker 1: inevitably you're going to give up those kinds of switches
Speaker 1: occasionally during the game. Like even if you fight over
Speaker 1: three of the screens, on that fourth one, maybe they
Speaker 1: catch you good and they get you switched and down
Speaker 1: on the block, so you have to double. And when
Speaker 1: they did those doubles on Sunday, they were sloppy on
Speaker 1: that back side. There was one where, uh, they kicked
Speaker 1: out to Bruce Brown. Aldridge kicked out to Bruce Brown
Speaker 1: and Anthony Davis easily could have rotated over and swallowed
Speaker 1: up the shot, but he was kind of just an
Speaker 1: upright position. He wasn't in the defensive stance. He was
Speaker 1: slow to step over and Bruce Brown. Brown knocked down
Speaker 1: the three that that was always the strength of the
Speaker 1: Laker defense in the previous two years. Is Okay, we
Speaker 1: had a breakdown and so we had to double. Now
Speaker 1: what do we do? What do we do on the
Speaker 1: back end? And they were always very sharp at that.
Speaker 1: Rotate and recover, rotate and recover, talking making sure that
Speaker 1: everybody was just kind of on a string defensively. That
Speaker 1: comes in time. So I'm not terribly concerned about it
Speaker 1: in the preseason, but just in general, when you do
Speaker 1: give up those types of mismatches and you have to double,
Speaker 1: the Lakers got to really tighten things up on the
Speaker 1: back end as a rotating defense. No, yeah, I agree
Speaker 1: with that, and they will. I mean, it's tough to
Speaker 1: kind of judge with the guards that they played, right,
Speaker 1: Kendrick Nunn is. I thought Kendrick Nunn had a pretty
Speaker 1: good defensive game, just like overall, I think he's a
Speaker 1: I think he's a good defender. It's just he was
Speaker 1: too small sometimes, like again when he's on like Audrey
Speaker 1: jorm Mill, sap Um just too small to kind of
Speaker 1: deal with them. They gave up a lot offensive rebounds. Again,
Speaker 1: this goes back to my like, gave as much effort
Speaker 1: as you at least amount of effort as you can.
Speaker 1: Like DJ and A. Do you want to know part
Speaker 1: of like boxing out right, they weren't trying to box out,
Speaker 1: They were just trying to jump up and kind of
Speaker 1: get the rebounds, and they gave up a lot of
Speaker 1: offensive rebounds that way. One of them, I think, just
Speaker 1: like A do you try to jump on and get
Speaker 1: in and went to forgot the guy's name and he
Speaker 1: got filed shooting shooting the shot. So a lot of
Speaker 1: those kind of possessions happen. I expect those things to
Speaker 1: kind of clean up as we go here. And again,
Speaker 1: like it's hard to judge any of this without Russell
Speaker 1: Westbrook and Lebron on the floor, Like I need to
Speaker 1: see how the defense works with with them on the floor.
Speaker 1: So everything changes when those two get in there, and
Speaker 1: when a D is at the five as well. We
Speaker 1: saw some a D at the five right like when
Speaker 1: DJ was out, but uh and when D why Howard
Speaker 1: wasn't on the floor. But I just want to see
Speaker 1: all of that together and hopefully we do on Wednesday.
Speaker 1: What's your kind of first thing that you disliked? So
Speaker 1: really quickly, just following up on what you just said
Speaker 1: the in general when you're evaluating these preseason games, and
Speaker 1: that the LFR probably did a good job of of
Speaker 1: kind of describing this, but like, you're not really looking
Speaker 1: at the scoreboard because you're not fielding a real basketball team.
Speaker 1: So I look at two specific things. I look at
Speaker 1: individual skill sets, like what am I what am I
Speaker 1: seeing out of an individual basketball player? That translates to
Speaker 1: when you have the full team, which we'll talk about
Speaker 1: even more when we dive into the guards a little
Speaker 1: bit more. But the other thing is like specific lineups,
Speaker 1: and uh, like that starting lineup, for instance, is a
Speaker 1: lineup you might occasionally see this year a D with
Speaker 1: the center and three guards who can shoot and dribble.
Speaker 1: You know that that's that's an example of something you
Speaker 1: can watch. But watching the scoreboard in general is just
Speaker 1: kind of a fool's Errand in that kind of of
Speaker 1: environment when you're not fielding your real basketball team, Lebron
Speaker 1: and Russ just do so much, especially on the offensive end,
Speaker 1: to to kind of just put guys in the right spots,
Speaker 1: slotting them in the in the right spots. My um uh. Second,
Speaker 1: because I put guards fighting over screens, which kind of
Speaker 1: piggybacks of what you were saying. But the second thing
Speaker 1: I put for the three things to work on with
Speaker 1: guards missing box outs. I and you had mentioned this
Speaker 1: in in in your last segment, but like I I
Speaker 1: counted miss box outs from every single guard and that
Speaker 1: is just that is just little focused stuff that can't
Speaker 1: be let down. There was one where there was one
Speaker 1: where bays More uh was guarding a man in the
Speaker 1: corner and after the shot went up, he just turned
Speaker 1: towards the rim and started walking and uh as soon
Speaker 1: as you walked in, the guy crashed right out of
Speaker 1: the corner and got an offensive rebound. There was a
Speaker 1: possession from th h T really really well put together
Speaker 1: where he bothers the ball handler at the point of attack,
Speaker 1: gets caught on the screen. They have to switch. Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis is the one who switches, so it's actually not
Speaker 1: that bad of a switch. And th HD like squatted
Speaker 1: really low and and and prevented Paul Millsap from from
Speaker 1: getting position, but then he got switched again onto a
Speaker 1: guard in the corner and the shot went up and
Speaker 1: he didn't box out and gave up an offensive rebound.
Speaker 1: The ball got knocked out of bounds, and it's like
Speaker 1: you did of that possession like an all defensive level defender,
Speaker 1: and you just missed the last, arguably most important part,
Speaker 1: and that that that all is is stuff that just
Speaker 1: needs to be tightened up. Malik Monk in particular, was
Speaker 1: caught in a couple of physical mismatches. Or he'd be
Speaker 1: guarding I'm horrible remembering these, you know, G league level
Speaker 1: guys that are on the nets, but like he'd be
Speaker 1: guarding a six six super athletic guard and he's six three,
Speaker 1: and it's like it's not enough to run up and
Speaker 1: put a forearm on him, because if you run up
Speaker 1: and put a forum on him, he's just gonna bully
Speaker 1: you physically and get an offensive rebound. On those guys
Speaker 1: that have that distinct size advantage, you need to really
Speaker 1: technically sound box out. You need to squat into a
Speaker 1: defensive stance, spread your arms and make him literally go
Speaker 1: over your back so that what if he does get
Speaker 1: the offensive rebound, he gets called, you know, for the
Speaker 1: offensive foul. Those are the kinds of the kinds of
Speaker 1: things that uh that I noticed, and you know, just
Speaker 1: in general, uh uh, the effort I thought was there.
Speaker 1: It's just that little bit of focus. So I'm not
Speaker 1: concerned about it in the long run. It's just something
Speaker 1: that I noticed from the game that needs to be
Speaker 1: tightened up a little bit, Yeah, for sure. And I
Speaker 1: thought like, this is kind of the trade off, right,
Speaker 1: like when you trade for like these kind of offensive
Speaker 1: these offense to focus guards, Like the trade off is
Speaker 1: kind of the defensive. I don't know ever, but kind
Speaker 1: of the defensive focus I guess, and guards who are
Speaker 1: kind of make their name on offense is gonna take
Speaker 1: time for those guys to kind of adjust adjust their UM.
Speaker 1: I don't on what they can do. So I agree
Speaker 1: with that um and we'll see, Like I feel like
Speaker 1: Vogo will be able to help them. Malik Monk reminds
Speaker 1: me a lot of like I guess where Kuzma was
Speaker 1: when when he was before he got with Vogel as well,
Speaker 1: Like his's just his defensive kind of now his like
Speaker 1: how he how he defends. I guess it's just not
Speaker 1: technical like the way he tries it goes around screens,
Speaker 1: you talked about he gets caught a lot, and I
Speaker 1: think it will be help with Vogels, so I agree
Speaker 1: with that. I think they'll be better. Though my third one,
Speaker 1: I guess, like I think this is my third one
Speaker 1: that I want to see kind of worked on, is
Speaker 1: uh those like kind of I know that we said
Speaker 1: Rust and Lebron are gonna be on the floor a lot,
Speaker 1: but I do think we need to find a way
Speaker 1: to have some kind of shot creation when they're not
Speaker 1: on the floor, Like like I feel like I know
Speaker 1: PhD is probably not the right guy for that, but
Speaker 1: we just need to find a way, whether it's Kendrick
Speaker 1: Nunn being the ball handler, just need to find the
Speaker 1: lineup that can great. Um Russell Lebron again will be
Speaker 1: on the floor for most of the time, but I
Speaker 1: just want to find a way to get enough good
Speaker 1: shot creation when they're not there, like when it was
Speaker 1: a d at the starting lineup, and again DeAndre Jordan
Speaker 1: probably won't start a lot of games, but or maybe
Speaker 1: he will, who knows, but but but but still like that,
Speaker 1: I think we have like eight points or something through
Speaker 1: like a lot of the first quarter, you know, and
Speaker 1: just not getting good shots and a lot of this. Again,
Speaker 1: I talked about the A D was kind of settling,
Speaker 1: took a lot of midrange jumpers over Paul Millsapp. You
Speaker 1: should have Paul Millstapp, who should have no business guarding
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis in any kind of setting. I don't care
Speaker 1: what what season it is, but yeah, he took. But
Speaker 1: that's a A D likes to do that. It just
Speaker 1: it is what it is he does. But again, like
Speaker 1: just in that kind of setting, like it's Paul Millsap,
Speaker 1: like get to the rim, you know, like trying to
Speaker 1: get to the basket. Yeah, like we said go inside out,
Speaker 1: but but yeah, he he does like to settle for that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like that's but I would like I would
Speaker 1: like to see some way to get better shot creation.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's Kendrick Nunn, Like Henry Nunn started to get comfortable,
Speaker 1: he started to pull up. But he's not like a
Speaker 1: shot creator. He's kind of creates for more for himself.
Speaker 1: THD as well. We talked about him just gonna find
Speaker 1: the lineup that can create without Russ and Braun at
Speaker 1: least for a few minutes there. I know they'll play
Speaker 1: a lot. So that was my kind of final if
Speaker 1: I want to nitpick Um in the preseason first game
Speaker 1: of the preseason Um, that would be like my final
Speaker 1: nitpick there. So I I I tend to agree that
Speaker 1: outside of Lebron, Russ and Rondo, who won't play that
Speaker 1: there's that you don't have high level passers on the roster.
Speaker 1: This is something that a lot of Laker outlets have
Speaker 1: been kind of harping on in the last few weeks.
Speaker 1: You have a bunch of kind of one track mind
Speaker 1: type of offensive players. So I think the way you
Speaker 1: counter that is won by staggering and try to have
Speaker 1: Lebron and Russ on the floor as much as possible.
Speaker 1: But two, if you can't through resting or whatever it
Speaker 1: may be, load management injuries, you've got to simplify their reads.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna talk a little bit more about this
Speaker 1: when we get to my last thing, which has has
Speaker 1: to do with th HT. But like if you so,
Speaker 1: for instance, put Ellington in the strong side corner, have
Speaker 1: Dwight set the screen and try to go four out
Speaker 1: with the other guys and get you know, either Kendrick
Speaker 1: Nun or Malik Monk with the ball in their hands
Speaker 1: and and make it really simple. Here comes the ball screen.
Speaker 1: If he goes under, you shoot it every single time.
Speaker 1: If he chases over the top, you continue to go
Speaker 1: down the lane and you either pass it into the
Speaker 1: pocket to Dwight, or if the guy helps out of
Speaker 1: the corner, you kick it back to Ellington. Like make
Speaker 1: it easy basketball, you know. Uh. One of the uh
Speaker 1: one of the biggest things that my last college coach
Speaker 1: that I played for used in order to try to
Speaker 1: help make help guys with easy reads is to play
Speaker 1: three on three. Uh. He would. He would even if
Speaker 1: he had enough guys to play five and five. He's
Speaker 1: set up three on three because mentally, the game is
Speaker 1: just a little bit easier to process in three on
Speaker 1: three because it's it's just it's you're you're taking away
Speaker 1: all of the complexities of ten guys on the floor,
Speaker 1: and it's like, here's my defender, here's the guy who's
Speaker 1: screening for me in his defender, and here's the spot
Speaker 1: up shooter on the weak side, and just making really
Speaker 1: really basic basketball decisions and repetitively making those decisions until
Speaker 1: you figure it out. I think that's the way you
Speaker 1: do it, as you Ellington is a real easy strong
Speaker 1: side corner option because the guys probably not gonna help,
Speaker 1: so it turns into a real true two man game
Speaker 1: with your screener. But if he does, it's a really
Speaker 1: easy kick out to a really, really good shooter. Those
Speaker 1: are the ways that you can simplify that. But I'm
Speaker 1: with you in general, like, in order in order for
Speaker 1: the non Lebron minutes to be positive, you either need
Speaker 1: to stagger like crazy and hope that Russ gives you
Speaker 1: an m v P caliber season out of that out
Speaker 1: of that type of role, or you need to make
Speaker 1: it so that when Russell Lebron are off the floor,
Speaker 1: your guards are set up to succeed by simplifying their
Speaker 1: their decision making. Um. The last thing that I put
Speaker 1: as a thing to work on was bad th h
Speaker 1: t um, and I'm not gonna spend too much time
Speaker 1: on it because it's things we've all mentioned, decision making, Like,
Speaker 1: he just had a tendency to force things and and
Speaker 1: and pass up on easy options that were there. You know,
Speaker 1: a basketball player that's that's forcing almost always leads to
Speaker 1: a bad outcome. And the reason why it's pretty simple.
Speaker 1: When a basketball player is forcing, he becomes predictable, and
Speaker 1: so the point of attack defender has a really easy
Speaker 1: time staying in front of him. Usually, Also, the refs
Speaker 1: can see when a player is forcing. If I if
Speaker 1: I don't have a driving lane and I forced the
Speaker 1: ball to the right and I just start plowing into
Speaker 1: the lane, the refs are naturally going to let a
Speaker 1: lot of contact go. The refs just kind of naturally
Speaker 1: benefit or excuse me, will reward good basketball and will
Speaker 1: naturally punish bad basketball. It's like the player control foul.
Speaker 1: It's like when you when you plow somebody over. Even
Speaker 1: if the guy's moving his feet a little bit and
Speaker 1: he's kind of out of position, the refs just gonna
Speaker 1: kind of naturally be like, like, you're out of control
Speaker 1: going into the lane. So this looks like an offensive
Speaker 1: foul to me. You know. That's kind of the thing
Speaker 1: that you notice a lot with THHD in that game,
Speaker 1: was just putting his head down and forcing his way
Speaker 1: into the lane and it leading to bad outcomes through
Speaker 1: revs letting contact go and defenders kind of being positioned
Speaker 1: between him and the rim. That's just something for him
Speaker 1: to work on. And then the last part I put
Speaker 1: there was failing to finish plays defensively, like lots of activity,
Speaker 1: really good disruption at the point of attack, switching and
Speaker 1: getting low and keeping the big from getting good post
Speaker 1: position and then missing a box out or you know,
Speaker 1: making two rotations but missing that third rotation. Those are
Speaker 1: the kinds of things that I'd like to see t
Speaker 1: HD get better at his understanding that the defensive possession
Speaker 1: doesn't end until your team possesses the basketball. So what
Speaker 1: were the things that you were critical of with th
Speaker 1: HD in that game? So like watching THHD, always think
Speaker 1: like there's another universe where like THHT is on some
Speaker 1: lottery team, right, and they're like, hey, you're our future,
Speaker 1: you know, and here's the ball, and here's thirty pick
Speaker 1: and roll as a game, get all the reps you want.
Speaker 1: You know, don't care about scoreboard, don't care about anything
Speaker 1: like this is built around you. You know, you choose
Speaker 1: where the passes go, and we're just gonna let you
Speaker 1: get all the reps in the world. And I related
Speaker 1: to this too, like I think it was eighteen before
Speaker 1: Lebron got here, obviously, and we did that with Brandon Ingram, right,
Speaker 1: like Luke Ballng said, here, Brandon Ingram, here's the ball.
Speaker 1: You have enough ball handling. We have lots of ball
Speaker 1: next to you, but you're gonna be the primary creator.
Speaker 1: Here's all the reps in the world. And it was
Speaker 1: ugly a lot of the times because it's brand Ingram
Speaker 1: and THD is actually ahead of Ingram in terms of
Speaker 1: like just the you know, ball handling and able to
Speaker 1: get to the rim and you know all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. He was ahead of Ingram. He just was.
Speaker 1: But now New Orleans is getting the fruit of that labor,
Speaker 1: right because now England, even though it's still not great,
Speaker 1: even though he's probably not a you know, top level
Speaker 1: playoff team type of creator, but he's a good shot creator.
Speaker 1: And so that's how I kind of see with THHT
Speaker 1: like he's not going to get the reps that these
Speaker 1: other players do, all these other lottery picks, and he
Speaker 1: wasn't a lottery pick, but you know that type of
Speaker 1: talented player would get. He's not gonna get those here.
Speaker 1: So again, like to me, he was in that Lebron
Speaker 1: Russ role last night, and then you put a twenty
Speaker 1: year old in a Lebron Russ roll, So it's gonna
Speaker 1: look like like that's that's the kind of basketball you're
Speaker 1: gonna get when you get those guys being the main
Speaker 1: shot creator. So I agree with you, yess to become
Speaker 1: a better pastor, you guess to make the easy reads
Speaker 1: a little bit better. Right, Like there was a there
Speaker 1: was one driver like he drove and Baisemore was open
Speaker 1: in the corner and he got fouled on it. Like
Speaker 1: he did get fouled, but Basemore was like having his
Speaker 1: hands up, you know, in the air and then like
Speaker 1: you know when you clap, like when you don't get
Speaker 1: the ball and you're standing in the corner. It was
Speaker 1: one of those, and so so so there was a
Speaker 1: lot of little moments like that the only team was open,
Speaker 1: he didn't find him, and I don't expect him to
Speaker 1: make those complicated like dry, where's the first help and
Speaker 1: second help coming from? So he it's a skip pass
Speaker 1: to the corner, like I don't make me expect him
Speaker 1: to make those. But just like those, I thought he
Speaker 1: had some nice dump off passes as well to DJ
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But yeah, I agree with you,
Speaker 1: needs to work on his playmaking. I just don't know
Speaker 1: if we'll see like that those advanced reads or even
Speaker 1: the advanced reads this year, but I think he can
Speaker 1: get the simple ones down. You'll get enough minutes to
Speaker 1: at least get those um next to Russ and Ron
Speaker 1: and you can make those simple reads when you're attacking
Speaker 1: a compromised defense that the reeds are a little bit easier.
Speaker 1: Those like first drive, Okay, where's this help and where's
Speaker 1: the rotating rotation coming from? Those kind of things. I think, well,
Speaker 1: we will take time, but I agree with you, those
Speaker 1: are things he needs to work on. Yeah, Like the
Speaker 1: classic example is that Ellington kick out that I posted
Speaker 1: on Twitter, Like it's very simple basketball play, like guy
Speaker 1: closes out on me, and because he was kind of
Speaker 1: chasing over screen. Well, in this case, Ellington used a
Speaker 1: V cut to get open, but he caught and beat
Speaker 1: his man off the dribble because of his shooting ability.
Speaker 1: Then he just drove into the lane and as soon
Speaker 1: as he got into the lane, there was a man
Speaker 1: who helped off the Kendrick Nunn and it was an
Speaker 1: easy kick out to the corner. That kind of basketball
Speaker 1: is easy, whereas if Ellington's you know, coming off of
Speaker 1: a pick and roll. As a ball handler, it's just
Speaker 1: a little bit more complicated, you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: there are pros and cons to to th HDS development,
Speaker 1: he's not getting reps on a bad team to learn
Speaker 1: how to be an advanced ball creator, the on ball
Speaker 1: creator the way that uh, you know, Brandon Ingram did.
Speaker 1: But if you watch Brandon Ingram now, he struggles in
Speaker 1: a lot of the you know, kind of fundamental role
Speaker 1: player type things, like he's not very good defensively because
Speaker 1: he's been on team he's been on teams where he's
Speaker 1: been asked to just create everything offensively and kind of
Speaker 1: whatever you give us defensively he's good, you know. Or
Speaker 1: let's say, for instance, that the Pelicans had gotten Kyle
Speaker 1: Lowry and they were considered more of a championship type favorite,
Speaker 1: like Brandon Ingram would have been forced to do a
Speaker 1: lot more off the basketball. That's an element of his
Speaker 1: game that hasn't really been developed over the years. You know,
Speaker 1: th HT for what it's worth. With the reps that
Speaker 1: he's missing as an on ball creator, he's getting reps
Speaker 1: as an off ball type of role player. And in
Speaker 1: the future when he is on a team where he's
Speaker 1: the second or third best player on a championship level contender,
Speaker 1: it will benefit him that he knows how to play
Speaker 1: off the ball. And that he is dialed in defensively,
Speaker 1: those kinds of things there there are long term advantages
Speaker 1: to that, so I I do think that that's worth
Speaker 1: pointing out. Um So, we got about seven minutes I
Speaker 1: wanted to We may not have time to deep dive
Speaker 1: into each of these players, and we'll do it more
Speaker 1: as we go through the preseason. I had a specific
Speaker 1: topic that I wanted to talk about with you. Um So,
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of talk about how the point
Speaker 1: of attack defense this year is not as good, and
Speaker 1: you know, the the example that most people were using
Speaker 1: from Sunday's game was Ellington and the fact that that
Speaker 1: Cam Thomas or whatever his name was was was lighting
Speaker 1: him up and getting decent shots off the dribble and
Speaker 1: getting by him. I think I there's and I could
Speaker 1: just be overly optimistic here, but the reason why I'm
Speaker 1: not necessarily concerned about it is I care so much
Speaker 1: more about reactionary defense then point of attack defense because
Speaker 1: of the fact that when you get to the highest
Speaker 1: levels in the finals and in the conference finals, you're
Speaker 1: not keeping anybody at these superstars in front Like okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: like Ellington's struggle to stay in front of Cam Thomas,
Speaker 1: but like Lebron would struggle to stay in front of
Speaker 1: Kyrie Irving. So like, when you're in that series, the
Speaker 1: Brooklyn is gonna compromise you, like they're just going to
Speaker 1: if you're playing the Clippers, for instance, Let's say they
Speaker 1: play the Clippers in the conference finals. Like, you don't
Speaker 1: think Reggie Jackson and Paul George are gonna beat guys
Speaker 1: off the dribble, Like I don't care if you're playing
Speaker 1: bays Moore and Areza and Russ and you keep all
Speaker 1: your weak defenders on the bench, those they're you're gonna
Speaker 1: give up straight line drives. It's just kind of the
Speaker 1: the nature of it trying to guard these top tier teams.
Speaker 1: So what matters more to me is how you recover
Speaker 1: and react to that kind of stuff. So like, I
Speaker 1: don't care as much about Ellington's ability to keep somebody
Speaker 1: in front as long as he's dialed in in the rotations,
Speaker 1: because you will be able to double, you will be
Speaker 1: able to send help, and as long as once the
Speaker 1: ball has given up Ellington's sprints to the next shooter,
Speaker 1: it'll work, you know what I mean. That's that's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing that I think matters more. Does that
Speaker 1: make sense to me or to you? I should say
Speaker 1: yeah for sure. The playoffs become this like this match
Speaker 1: hunting kind of thing, right where it's like you're kind
Speaker 1: of as good as your weakest defender in that kind
Speaker 1: of way. So to me, it's all about health defense
Speaker 1: as well. Like how did how did the Clippers I
Speaker 1: guess be Utah right, Like they went into this like
Speaker 1: they knew that they would not switch with Gobert, right,
Speaker 1: so like Gobert just they just don't switch with him,
Speaker 1: so they would call his man up drive by kick,
Speaker 1: kick all the way and get gets three point shots
Speaker 1: off that. Ellenton and Monk are not gonna stay in
Speaker 1: front of defenders, Like I don't expect them to. I
Speaker 1: don't expect them to be like Alex Crusoe level defenders.
Speaker 1: Like that's not fair. Um, But like I think when
Speaker 1: you put guys in specialized roles, they can succeed. So
Speaker 1: like if they're gonna run this like drop ice coverage
Speaker 1: and they just run that, you know, just be very clear, Hey,
Speaker 1: you push your guy away from the screen and we'll
Speaker 1: handle the rest, you know what I mean, Like, just
Speaker 1: do your job. They're putting Ellenton on some guy and
Speaker 1: telling him to shut him down. That's just not feasible.
Speaker 1: Molik Monk as well, Kendrick Nunn as well, those guys,
Speaker 1: you just don't do that. Like, our starting lineup will
Speaker 1: be Russ Braun and a D right, and that's Brun
Speaker 1: and a D are good enough health defenders to me
Speaker 1: to be able to cover a lot of things like that,
Speaker 1: to cover gaps in that way, we had a small guarlt.
Speaker 1: I think Dennis Freuder is a good defender as a
Speaker 1: super small guard, right, He's a super small guard. The
Speaker 1: Lakes were able to kind of cover that have the
Speaker 1: number one defense last year's still so I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I think it is it is overstated, but I do
Speaker 1: think it still matters. I don't think you can have
Speaker 1: like four bad point of attack defenders together, right, like,
Speaker 1: especially in closing lineups, like we're not gonna see none
Speaker 1: and Ellington probably close games, right, you probably won't see that,
Speaker 1: Like it will be against second units where you kind
Speaker 1: of you kind of live with that. But I think
Speaker 1: you can't have like and then you can have like
Speaker 1: three or four bad point of attack defenders in your
Speaker 1: closing lineup to me, like I feel like that's where
Speaker 1: you kind of have to you have to make sure
Speaker 1: you have really great defenders there. But I think it's overstated.
Speaker 1: I think what they bring on offense more than mix
Speaker 1: up for the defensive drop. They're like their threats as
Speaker 1: offensive players makes up for them. And that's the trade
Speaker 1: off that the Lakers did this offseason, and uh, I
Speaker 1: think it is worth it. Like, I think that's what
Speaker 1: we'll see. There might be a little drop on defense
Speaker 1: in that point of attack, but I think lay some
Speaker 1: more than a players to cover up for it. So
Speaker 1: but will he that's a good point about not being
Speaker 1: able to or not not being a good idea to
Speaker 1: put multiple of them on the on the floor at
Speaker 1: the same time. I mean, I was actually planning on
Speaker 1: talking about this today, we didn't really have time. But like,
Speaker 1: aggregate athleticism and aggregate size matters to me because like so,
Speaker 1: for instance, like we got bullied physically by Brooklyn, who's
Speaker 1: not a physically dominating team because we had no forwards
Speaker 1: in the game, so we were playing basically either four
Speaker 1: guards in a center or three guards in and a
Speaker 1: D in a center. That's basically what we did all
Speaker 1: game long. And you know, Baysmore was probably the biggest
Speaker 1: UH guard that we would play in one of those positions.
Speaker 1: So the aggregate athleticism and physicality in that lineup is poor,
Speaker 1: you know, like but you know, the like Ellington getting
Speaker 1: physically bullied is going to be more noticeable in the
Speaker 1: lineup like that, whereas if he's in the starting lineup,
Speaker 1: the proposed starting lineup, where he's with Lebron and he's
Speaker 1: with Rus and he's with a D and he's with
Speaker 1: Trevor Reza, the excuse me, the aggregate athleticism of that
Speaker 1: group in totality makes up for it. It's like the
Speaker 1: Trey Young thing, you know. And we talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about this, I think in the last pot or
Speaker 1: the one before, But like there are you know, the defense.
Speaker 1: Defense is always evolved as well as offense in the NBA,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, you know, all this off the dribble
Speaker 1: shooting and all of these comprehensive offensive you know, evolutions
Speaker 1: over the last ten years come hand in hand with
Speaker 1: defensive evolutions, and switch attacking was inherently going to lead
Speaker 1: to a counter from defenses and they exist now. And
Speaker 1: we talked about that. You can do things to hide
Speaker 1: Trey Young that three or four years ago you couldn't do.
Speaker 1: And so again, it works as long as you have
Speaker 1: all those other small forwards like the Hawks have, and
Speaker 1: you have Clint Capella under the rim like you as
Speaker 1: a that the aggregate total physicality of that defense made
Speaker 1: it so that Trey Young wasn't as much of a liability.
Speaker 1: And and so that's the way you gotta make it.
Speaker 1: Make it work now. In general, what will be interesting
Speaker 1: to see is how often Frank plays two of those guards,
Speaker 1: because the three guards that I'm gonna be looking at
Speaker 1: as guys who are huge liabilities are gonna be Monk,
Speaker 1: None and Ellington. And I don't know that you can
Speaker 1: play two of them at the same time, but maybe
Speaker 1: maybe they do. And it's in the lineups with A
Speaker 1: D and Dwight. And then it's, like you said, you
Speaker 1: simplify what you're asking them to do. Okay. I don't
Speaker 1: need you to be like a shutdown isolation defender. I
Speaker 1: just need you to force guys away from ball screens
Speaker 1: so we can ice on the side, so that forces
Speaker 1: guys into the rim, and we need you to chase
Speaker 1: guys off the line when you're closing out like you
Speaker 1: can simplify their role and then basically make it so
Speaker 1: that as long as they do these very simple things
Speaker 1: really well, then the totality of the scheme works because
Speaker 1: you have Anthony Davison Dwight out there. Though that's the
Speaker 1: way that I would look at it in terms of
Speaker 1: like a way to play two of them at the
Speaker 1: same time. Honestly, I don't think you'll see two of
Speaker 1: him at the same time very often, especially since Frank
Speaker 1: said he plans I'm playing Mellow a lot, So you're
Speaker 1: gonna see a lot of Mellow, Mellow and Areza and
Speaker 1: in days more. That just means there's just not a
Speaker 1: ton of opportunity there for those guys to be out there,
Speaker 1: you know, in mass if that makes sense. And I
Speaker 1: love that you brought up Trey Young because like, yes,
Speaker 1: you can attack Trey Young like they put him in
Speaker 1: the corner right against some corner shooter. Usually that's what
Speaker 1: the Hawks do. You can try to attack Trey Young.
Speaker 1: It's gonna take like fifteen seconds of your shot clock.
Speaker 1: Just okay that the Hawks, you know, are able to
Speaker 1: switch and they know what they're doing. The same with
Speaker 1: the same thing with the Lakers. I remember in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: like you would play Rondo a bunch, you could try to,
Speaker 1: you know, mismatch attack Rondo. It's gonna take fifteen seconds
Speaker 1: shot clock. And then it's also Anthony Davis is gonna
Speaker 1: be waiting there. So like, yes, you can try to
Speaker 1: mismatch on against Rondo is a great example, by the way,
Speaker 1: I literally thought about that last night watching the game.
Speaker 1: I'm like, we did it with Rondo. Yeah, Like so
Speaker 1: if you have Rono on the floor, teams you can
Speaker 1: try to attack him. But like the Lakers, they know
Speaker 1: exactly what they do in that situation, right, It's not
Speaker 1: like they don't know they're gonna try too. So like
Speaker 1: Trey Young as well, is the example there Rondo as well,
Speaker 1: So like you can, it's gonna take. It's why teams
Speaker 1: like that are able to do it. Um, you go
Speaker 1: against schemes that aren't as good. I guess like it's
Speaker 1: it's tougher against good defenses right to mismatch hunt um.
Speaker 1: I think also the Hawks kind of play two teams
Speaker 1: that were probably the least equipped to attack mismatches in
Speaker 1: the Knicks and the Sixers. But still though, like Trey Young,
Speaker 1: is Trey Young is a short point guard was a
Speaker 1: huge offensive you know load, you should be able to
Speaker 1: attack him, but they just couldn't because the Hawks are
Speaker 1: extremely good and they surround him with a bunch of
Speaker 1: wings who can defend in a in a shop blocking
Speaker 1: center at the middle. So and I think the Lakers
Speaker 1: kind of can do that as well to an even
Speaker 1: better extent. So I agree with you it's hard to
Speaker 1: attack those and I don't. But I still think you
Speaker 1: can't have like three or four bad point of bad
Speaker 1: point of attack defenders who just get beat off the
Speaker 1: dribble time and time and time again. But you can
Speaker 1: simplify their roles. You can have a good defense, as
Speaker 1: I think we saw that last year. There was a
Speaker 1: musical chairs with the Lakers, like you don't know who
Speaker 1: was playing nine to nine, and they still kept um,
Speaker 1: they still kept their defensive identity. So I agree with
Speaker 1: you on that. Do you have anything else you wanna add? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: I think that's it. It's fun game. That first game
Speaker 1: Lakers play again tomorrow. I believe that like tomorrow three o'clock,
Speaker 1: Roger and I will most likely be recording on Thursday morning.
Speaker 1: I would assume possibly Friday, but we'll probably go for
Speaker 1: We'll probably shoot for Thursday so that we can get
Speaker 1: the guys at dash Radio another show on Friday. UM.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for your support as always.
Speaker 1: Like I said, this will air on dash Radio tomorrow
Speaker 1: at seven am Pacific Standard time. Also, we will have
Speaker 1: the podcast version of this uploaded here within the next
Speaker 1: few minutes. Thank you, guys as always for your support.
Speaker 1: We're in the mix of things now. We're looking forward
Speaker 1: to a lot of la your basketball over the next
Speaker 1: hopefully nine months or so. UM. Alright, guys, everybody, enjoy
Speaker 1: the rest of your day and we will see you
Speaker 1: on Thursday. Thanks everyone,