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Speaker 1: All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the Volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Friday, everybody, Hope all of you guys have had
Speaker 1: a great end to your week. Got a quick show
Speaker 1: for you guys today. We're just hitting the TNT slate
Speaker 1: from last night. The Golden State Warriors blow out the
Speaker 1: Kings at home. Jonathan Kaminga makes his debut back with
Speaker 1: the team. I thought he was fantastic. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about that then at the tail end
Speaker 1: of the show, the Los Angeles Lakers go on the
Speaker 1: road without their starting three, four or five against the
Speaker 1: Milwaukee Bucks, and it goes about as you would expect
Speaker 1: as the Bucks blow them out. I have some thoughts
Speaker 1: about the coverages in the way that Milwaukee beat them,
Speaker 1: and then a couple of big picture thoughts about the Lakers.
Speaker 1: You guys know the joke before we get started. To
Speaker 1: subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss
Speaker 1: any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: underscore jcnlts you guys, don't miss you announcements. Don't forget
Speaker 1: about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under
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Speaker 1: rating and a review on that front. And don't forget
Speaker 1: about our new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Speaker 1: We're releasing content throughout the year, and the last but
Speaker 1: not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments
Speaker 1: so that we can get to them throughout the remainder
Speaker 1: of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So
Speaker 1: one of the most important things that I talk about
Speaker 1: in these shows is the idea of like game planning
Speaker 1: and how you can defeat a specific game plan. I
Speaker 1: talk to these kinds of shots as like coverage beaters, right,
Speaker 1: and the Kings went with a defensive game plan against
Speaker 1: Steph that is somewhat common around the league. It's a
Speaker 1: coverage the Lakers used on the Warriors in the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three playoffs. It's a coverage the Warriors have seen
Speaker 1: from other teams around the league, and it's almost certainly
Speaker 1: going to be a coverage the Warriors will have to
Speaker 1: beat if they make a deep playoff run at some
Speaker 1: point this year. And that is top blocking Steph. What
Speaker 1: that means is essentially constantly positioning your body as the
Speaker 1: on ball defender with Steph, with your back towards the ball,
Speaker 1: so they can't ever cut towards the ball. This is
Speaker 1: going to force him to cut through to the opposite side.
Speaker 1: And then in those situations, they were just constantly ignoring
Speaker 1: whichever non shooter they saw as an opportunity to help
Speaker 1: off the floor, whether that's Draymond Grain early in the
Speaker 1: game with Jonas Valacunis, or it's Kevan Loody helping off,
Speaker 1: or it's Gary Payton the second helping off of him.
Speaker 1: They were just packing the paint and top blocking Steph
Speaker 1: forcing him to backcut into all of that traffic. And so,
Speaker 1: as a result, as we talk about all the time,
Speaker 1: every game plan, especially game plans that target superstar talent,
Speaker 1: are going to require you to give something up to
Speaker 1: take something away. And so if you're gonna deny Steph
Speaker 1: catches and not let him run up to the ball
Speaker 1: by forcing him to back cut into traffic, you're going
Speaker 1: to have to help off of guys like Draymond and
Speaker 1: Gary Payton, they're gonna be wide open. And they just
Speaker 1: made Sacramento pay again again and again. In this game,
Speaker 1: Gary Payton and Draymond Green go seven for eleven from three.
Speaker 1: The Warriors as a team generated thirteen unguarded catch and
Speaker 1: shoot jump shots in this game. Six of those were
Speaker 1: concession threes to Gary Payton and Draymond Five of them
Speaker 1: were against the guys on the Warriors that are a
Speaker 1: different kind of game plan where it's like, we're willing
Speaker 1: to help off this guy. We're not deliberately leaving him open,
Speaker 1: but will help and try to recover with a late contest.
Speaker 1: These five threes were for Quinton Post, Moses Moody, and
Speaker 1: Gie Santos. Those guys went three for five on those
Speaker 1: shots as well, so they just consistently knocked down shots
Speaker 1: to make Sacramento pay for the coverage that they use
Speaker 1: against Steph Curry. So the result was the Kings held
Speaker 1: stef to just nine shot attempts and only eleven points,
Speaker 1: but the Warriors hung one hundred and thirty points on
Speaker 1: them and basically controlled the game throughout. And so you
Speaker 1: did your job a slowing down Steph, I guess, but
Speaker 1: the Warriors lit you on fire and you lost. So
Speaker 1: the game plan backfired on the Sacramento Kings. On defense,
Speaker 1: I thought Moses Moody really set the tone with his
Speaker 1: ball pressure on Malik Monk. He was in his jersey
Speaker 1: the second he crossed half court, bumping in with his chest,
Speaker 1: reaching and doing everything he could to disrupt his rhythm
Speaker 1: and make him feel uncomfortable and make him feel rushed.
Speaker 1: He only got credit for two steals in the game,
Speaker 1: but he forced several turnovers and bad decisions just by
Speaker 1: rushing Monk into traffic. I talk about this concept a lot,
Speaker 1: but when you ball pressure out far from the basket,
Speaker 1: the only way to really beat it is to drive
Speaker 1: to basically use that aggression as the defender gets out
Speaker 1: of position to go downhill. It actually turns into a
Speaker 1: way as a defense for you to control dribble penetration,
Speaker 1: to essentially have dribble penetration happen on your turn right,
Speaker 1: so that you can have a better plan for it. Okay,
Speaker 1: like we're gonna have Moses pressure the ball, try to
Speaker 1: send him towards the sideline. We have a plan for
Speaker 1: that there. And then what ends up happening is when
Speaker 1: a guy has to fly downhill against ball pressure and
Speaker 1: he ends up getting into the traffic. He's rushed, he's
Speaker 1: out of control. That's when you start making mistakes. And
Speaker 1: you know. One of the second pieces that you'll see
Speaker 1: outside of one on one situations is ball screen coverages, right,
Speaker 1: And one of the things I always talk about in
Speaker 1: ball screen coverages is a bracket. The idea of the
Speaker 1: on ball defender chasing over the top and applying back
Speaker 1: pressure while the screen defender or the big man is
Speaker 1: applying pressure on the ball handler in his drop coverage,
Speaker 1: whether it's a high dropp or a deeper drop, but
Speaker 1: meeting the ball handler on the other side of the screen.
Speaker 1: When that bracket is loose, meaning the on ball defender
Speaker 1: is getting screened and getting separated from the on ball
Speaker 1: offensive player, and the screen defender is too far back,
Speaker 1: is loose their space to operate there. Ball handlers can
Speaker 1: get comfortable and they can start making plays. But when
Speaker 1: you stay attached and you apply that back pressure and
Speaker 1: you have them bracketed on the other side, even though
Speaker 1: you're technically putting two on the ball, you're putting two
Speaker 1: on the ball against a driver that now has to
Speaker 1: get the ball out against a bunch of active hands.
Speaker 1: And I thought they were excellent in their bracket coverages
Speaker 1: all night long. Moses Moody more of the same, both
Speaker 1: with Malik. Monkey also spent a good amount of time
Speaker 1: on Zach Levine in this game, doing some great work there.
Speaker 1: Gary Payton second spend time on both guys, did really
Speaker 1: great work the screen defenders. Looney. Even Quinton Post who's
Speaker 1: had some uneven results on defense this year, I thought
Speaker 1: he was really good on defense in this game. Draymond
Speaker 1: Green one of the best in the business at it.
Speaker 1: They were bracketing those guys, making them get rid of
Speaker 1: the ball and forcing a lot of turnovers in those situations.
Speaker 1: Malik Monk goes three for thirteen from the field with
Speaker 1: four turnovers. They held Zach Levine to just six shot
Speaker 1: at tips in five turnover. Now, Jimmy started on Levine,
Speaker 1: but like I said, Moody spent a bunch of time
Speaker 1: there as well. It was kind of a weird Levine
Speaker 1: game because he was uninvolved a lot, where like he's
Speaker 1: just standing in the quarter while Malik Monk and Demarta
Speaker 1: Rozen go to work. By the way, that's kind of
Speaker 1: the diminishing returns effect that you get when you build
Speaker 1: your team around three kind of redundant ball handlers. It's
Speaker 1: the Bradley Beal problem, right. You start having that guy
Speaker 1: just stand around, and suddenly some of his top end
Speaker 1: offensive talent is being wasted and you're not getting the
Speaker 1: other stuff. That's why I think this sort of team
Speaker 1: build is so flawed. But Zach Levine was pretty uninvolved
Speaker 1: for a good portion of this game. When he did
Speaker 1: get the basketball, that same sort of bracket he had
Speaker 1: a turnover against the bracket coverage when Quinton Post got
Speaker 1: a deflection on him. Quinn Post forced him into another
Speaker 1: miss at the rim, where he the Warrior successfully funneled
Speaker 1: him into their size they just strangled all of the
Speaker 1: King's shot creators except for Demart Rosen, who was fantastic
Speaker 1: in this game. And Damar's just you know, one of
Speaker 1: the legendary type space scores in NBA history, right, and
Speaker 1: so like he's going to have his success. But they
Speaker 1: completely neutralized Malik Monk and Zach Lavine and ended up
Speaker 1: being more than enough to slow down the Kings. They
Speaker 1: ended up held holding the Kings down to one hundred
Speaker 1: and four points in this game. They won the non
Speaker 1: steph minutes by eleven. They're really starting to learn how
Speaker 1: to like configure their off ball spacing around Jimmy's He
Speaker 1: gets these a lot of these like face up ISOs
Speaker 1: that are between like the elbow and the short corner
Speaker 1: on one side of the floor. And one of the
Speaker 1: things they'll do is like a lot of teams will
Speaker 1: end up strongside zoning or having a help defender come
Speaker 1: over to be right behind the defender guarding Jimmy, and
Speaker 1: so there's cutting opportunities. And one of the things they
Speaker 1: do they ended up getting a layup for Draymond Green
Speaker 1: out of this. In the second half, they'll have a
Speaker 1: guy flash to the front of the rim right like
Speaker 1: kind of like right outside the charge circle calling for
Speaker 1: the ball, and then they'll have another guy positioned himself
Speaker 1: in the dunker spot. And so essentially there's two cutters
Speaker 1: that are right there around the basket, and so that
Speaker 1: helped Fender ends up having to pick one or the other.
Speaker 1: And then there's an easy little pass for Jimmy Butler
Speaker 1: to make. He just hit Jonathan Kaminga flashing into the
Speaker 1: front of the rim, drop off pass to Draymond Green
Speaker 1: as the zoned up defender ends up sliding over to
Speaker 1: kaminga easy layup for Draymond Green. They ended up looking
Speaker 1: really good again in the non Steph minutes, and we
Speaker 1: had our return of Jonathan Kaminga. He goes for eighteen
Speaker 1: points almost entirely in the flow of the offense. His
Speaker 1: first three buckets were ISO stuff, but they were against
Speaker 1: good matchups for him, all of them against smaller kings guards.
Speaker 1: He gets Malik Munk in a transition cross match just
Speaker 1: immediately just goes right through him to the front of
Speaker 1: the rim and gets a layup. He runs an inverted
Speaker 1: ball screen with Steph, where Steph sets a screen for him.
Speaker 1: This is a very common action. You'll see not just
Speaker 1: with Jimmy Butler and Jonathan Minga, but even in the
Speaker 1: past with Andrew Wiggins. Right, they want to do that
Speaker 1: because Steph's man doesn't want to help. Well, they ended
Speaker 1: up switching this one. It put Kean Ellis against Jonathan
Speaker 1: Kaminga in some space in the middle of the floor.
Speaker 1: What did he do? He went right the room and
Speaker 1: got to the rim and then in the third court
Speaker 1: his third bucket, he ends up beating zach Lavine one
Speaker 1: on one. Zach Lavin's giving up a lot of size
Speaker 1: and weight in that particular matchup, but the rest of
Speaker 1: his buckets were just classic Jonathan Kaminga like I see
Speaker 1: your runway and I'm going to the front of the
Speaker 1: rim type of buckets. When you give a good athlete
Speaker 1: a runway, a long stretch for him to get his
Speaker 1: momentum going and take off, he can destroy teams above
Speaker 1: the rim. And here's the thing, Like, Jonathan kming is
Speaker 1: not the best read and react player I've ever seen,
Speaker 1: and that's been some of his issues in Golden State's
Speaker 1: offense from time to time. But he is very good
Speaker 1: at reading and reacting to those runways when he sees
Speaker 1: his man step up into help, and he sees a
Speaker 1: bunch of real estate between him and the rim without
Speaker 1: any players in front. He has a very quick reaction
Speaker 1: to that, and he will just shoot to the front
Speaker 1: of the rim and get a lot of easy stuff there.
Speaker 1: That is an area in his read and react game
Speaker 1: where he's actually very strong. His fourth bucket, a near
Speaker 1: turnover out by half court chaos leads to a five
Speaker 1: on three. What does Kaminga do. He just turns and
Speaker 1: runs to the front of the rim, ends up catching
Speaker 1: a pass and getting an easy layup. His fifth bucket
Speaker 1: was the textbook Steph Curry blitz sequence Steph Curry ballscreen
Speaker 1: out by the right wing. There's a blitz, the ball
Speaker 1: gets popped over the top. Malik Monk is the low
Speaker 1: man guarding Jonathan Kaminga. The very second that Malik Monk
Speaker 1: steps over, Kaminga just shoots along the baseline. He ends
Speaker 1: up getting that crazy windmill dunk under the rim. His
Speaker 1: sixth bucket, same sort of thing. Throws an inbound pass
Speaker 1: to Moses Moody in the corner. His man Jake Lravea,
Speaker 1: steps over like kind of lunges over to try to
Speaker 1: deny the catch to Moses Moody. It triggers something in Kaminga.
Speaker 1: He immediately just cuts to the front of the rim
Speaker 1: because he sees his man leave and there's a runway,
Speaker 1: easy drop off pass over the top, another dunk, and
Speaker 1: then his seventh bucket was a designed play. This is
Speaker 1: a play that is known around the league as Finland.
Speaker 1: It's basically just a backscreen from a shooter, backscreening for
Speaker 1: an athlete, then coming off of a dribble handoff at
Speaker 1: the top of the key, Draymond has the ball up
Speaker 1: on the left wing. Steph backscreens for Kaminga. Now, the
Speaker 1: way that play would normally work is Steph would then
Speaker 1: come flying off of Draymon for the dribble handoff. The
Speaker 1: way it usually works is Steph's man has to drop
Speaker 1: back to help on the backscreen. As he helps on
Speaker 1: the backscreen, that creates separation between Steph and his defender
Speaker 1: or forces a switch. If there's separation, he can sprint
Speaker 1: off and now he has separation coming off the dribble handoff.
Speaker 1: If there's a switch, the other defender is standing still
Speaker 1: and now Steph can sprint past him and hopefully gets
Speaker 1: some extra separation as he comes off of the dribble handoff,
Speaker 1: but they didn't even get that far in the sequence
Speaker 1: because Keegan murray had no interest in helping off of Steph.
Speaker 1: So when Steph set the backscreen, another runway appeared for
Speaker 1: Jonathan Kminga right to the front of the rim. Draymond
Speaker 1: throws him a perfect pass and he gets a lob dunk.
Speaker 1: Easy dunks, easy layups, easy matchup opportunities, a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff in there that's pretty exciting. Three things stood out
Speaker 1: to me from the Jonathan Kaminga debut with the new
Speaker 1: squad that I think are really exciting for Warriors fans. One,
Speaker 1: he's gonna get a lot of those runways playing alongside Jimmy,
Speaker 1: Steph and Dreymont. They are excellent read and reacts players.
Speaker 1: They are going to trigger those help sequences that open
Speaker 1: up those runways that Kamingo is good at quickly identifying
Speaker 1: and taking advantage of, and he's just such a useful
Speaker 1: play finisher in those situations. Two, he's gonna get a
Speaker 1: lot of favorable matchups playing alongside Jimmy Butler. I've talked
Speaker 1: about this with the Lakers before, with like Lebron and
Speaker 1: Ruey in the past. Or Lebron, Anthony Davison, Ruiy and
Speaker 1: even now with Luca. When you have multiple big forwards
Speaker 1: who can punish Smalls, the defense kind of runs out
Speaker 1: of guys who can guard them. Opponents are going to
Speaker 1: put their best forward defender on Jimmy Butler. Kaminga used
Speaker 1: to get that matchup when he was on the floor
Speaker 1: in the past. Now it's Jimmy, He's going to get
Speaker 1: a lot more of the second best forward defender on
Speaker 1: the floor, which is usually going to be completely physically
Speaker 1: overmatched against Jonathan Kaminga. And then three, we talked a
Speaker 1: lot in the mail bag yesterday about the idea that
Speaker 1: Jonathan Kaminga is a player who's going to be capable
Speaker 1: of doing more than the Warriors actually need from him
Speaker 1: in this role on this team with real championship aspirations,
Speaker 1: and there were some question marks surrounding will Kaminga embraced
Speaker 1: that I thought last night was a resounding statement from
Speaker 1: him that he's willing to do that type of role
Speaker 1: for this team. It's not easy for a player of
Speaker 1: his talent level coming into a team that is so
Speaker 1: well established without him to just kind of seamlessly fit
Speaker 1: in in the flow. I didn't think he took a
Speaker 1: single bad shot. He took one three that was kind
Speaker 1: of like a hand grenade that Jimmy tossed in with
Speaker 1: two seconds on the shot clock. Every single other one
Speaker 1: of his nine shot attempts were either substantial size advantage
Speaker 1: and what made sense for him to attack in space
Speaker 1: or with a runway to the rim where he's going
Speaker 1: to finish it one hundred percent of the time. I
Speaker 1: just thought he played smart basketball which allowed him to function.
Speaker 1: Is what he can be for this team, which is
Speaker 1: a ceiling Razor Warriors keep rolling. They have three tougher
Speaker 1: games coming up against the Knicks, the Bucks, and the Nuggets,
Speaker 1: but they're all at home. They're a big, physical teams,
Speaker 1: so this will help us learn specifically about Golden State's
Speaker 1: ability to handle some of these bigger, more physical matchups.
Speaker 1: I'll be excited to see how those games turn out.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on to Lakers Bucks. We talked
Speaker 1: earlier in the show about the concept of coverage beaters.
Speaker 1: This game is another excellent example of that concept. JJ Reddick,
Speaker 1: what with a very aggressive game plan against and Dame
Speaker 1: to try to get this game in the win. Call
Speaker 1: him for the Lakers. He went with the Jokic esque
Speaker 1: strategy against Giannis, trying to front him, deny him catches
Speaker 1: wherever he wanted them, strong side zoning him if he
Speaker 1: did catch. Like if he did catch, they just peel off,
Speaker 1: funnel him towards the sideline and bring that help on
Speaker 1: that baseline side right outside the block. That obviously left
Speaker 1: a lot of skip passes open in the Dame ball
Speaker 1: screens with brook Lopez, he just had Alex lenn drop
Speaker 1: back and focus on Dame and basically concede the pick
Speaker 1: and pop three to brook Lopez. And so as a result,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of open threes available to Milwaukee
Speaker 1: if they just made simple reads kickbacks to brook Lopez
Speaker 1: in the pick and pop basically anything skipped to the
Speaker 1: weak side from the Janis actions. And then I thought
Speaker 1: the Lakers kind of exacerbated the problem by not being
Speaker 1: very sharp off the ball. Luca and Austin in particular,
Speaker 1: Gabe had some bad reps and Dalton had some bad
Speaker 1: reps too, But on the weak side of guys just
Speaker 1: like being glued to the floor, not even no man's land,
Speaker 1: where they're not really helping on the ball, but they're
Speaker 1: also not guarding a shooter a step slow to get
Speaker 1: out of that help side position into a close out
Speaker 1: to the weak side, not being ready for the skip pass,
Speaker 1: turning what should have been like moderately contested catch and
Speaker 1: shoot threes into kind of like easy, comfortable catch and
Speaker 1: shoot threes. And by the way, JJ's clearly bothered by
Speaker 1: these details. He's talking about execution a lot. He's understanding
Speaker 1: of the injuries, but he knows this team isn't going
Speaker 1: anywhere unless they defend. And even with the personnel weaknesses,
Speaker 1: there has been some slippage in their defensive rotations, and
Speaker 1: I thought it showed up yesterday. I like that JJ
Speaker 1: is using this circumstance as an opportunity to hammer those
Speaker 1: points home. But again, anyway, the result was just a
Speaker 1: bunch of really great three point looks for Milwaukee and
Speaker 1: they just knocked him down. Brook Lopez went three for
Speaker 1: four from three. Gary Trent hit four threes. Kevin Porter
Speaker 1: Junior first time since returning to the NBA he hit
Speaker 1: more than three threes in a game. He hit five
Speaker 1: of them in this game. As a team, they end
Speaker 1: up hitting forty three percent on forty attempts. They were
Speaker 1: better from three, but they were also better at the rim.
Speaker 1: They made as many shots in the restricted area as
Speaker 1: the Lakers attempted, and they ended up winning comfortably. Now,
Speaker 1: Luca had an insane shot making game. This is something
Speaker 1: I've talked a lot about, as Luca struggled with shot
Speaker 1: making and it's inevitable that he will eventually break through.
Speaker 1: And he did, and I thought this was a good matchup,
Speaker 1: Like Milwaukee really has no hope of guarding a player
Speaker 1: like Luca. They don't have anybody that can even make
Speaker 1: him uncomfortable on the ball. I actually looked at this
Speaker 1: game as the one game in this back to back
Speaker 1: that La could win, just because Luca was always going
Speaker 1: to be successful against this defense because they run traditional
Speaker 1: coverages instead of switching, and because Torian and Kyle Kuzma
Speaker 1: can't make Luca uncomfortable. So I thought if Luca was
Speaker 1: awesome and if Milwaukee shot poorly, that the Lakers would
Speaker 1: have a chance to steal this one. But Milwaukee ended
Speaker 1: up shooting very well and it was all for not right.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Luca went on some scoring runs and he
Speaker 1: kept things close a couple of times, but the outcome
Speaker 1: was never truly in doubt, and after going up seven
Speaker 1: to five in the opening minutes, the Bucks never trailed
Speaker 1: the rest of the game. I wanted to shout out
Speaker 1: brook Lopez. I thought this was one of Brooks's best
Speaker 1: games this season on both ends of the floor. We
Speaker 1: talked about his shooting and pick and pop as a
Speaker 1: coverage beater. He was also beating a couple of switches
Speaker 1: in the post against the Lakers, switching looks. I thought
Speaker 1: he was phenomenal on defense in this game, super active
Speaker 1: in rotation. He blocked a three point shot in this game.
Speaker 1: He had twenty three points, four blocks in his steal.
Speaker 1: I thought he was excellent and the hospital Lakers ended
Speaker 1: up being a nice way for the Bucks to bounce
Speaker 1: back from their three game losing streak. On the Lakers front,
Speaker 1: I don't see much point at all at overreacting to
Speaker 1: any of this. It's the same thing I've been saying
Speaker 1: during the losing streak. There's just a lot of injuries,
Speaker 1: and dealing with injuries is one thing, but when they're
Speaker 1: all in one specific position group, it's just hard to overcome.
Speaker 1: Like all their guards are healthy, but the entire starting three, four,
Speaker 1: five is out, So like that would be difficult to
Speaker 1: manage under any circumstances, but it's possible to manage against
Speaker 1: Giannis an Tenna Kupo and Brook Lopez. It's just a
Speaker 1: really bad matchup. I did think there was some sloppy
Speaker 1: execution stuff like I talked about on the defensive end
Speaker 1: of the floor. I love that J. J. Reddick is
Speaker 1: using it as an opportunity to hammer on some points
Speaker 1: with his team. But you could literally tell, like Austin
Speaker 1: and Luca in particular, or just kind of conserving energy
Speaker 1: and going through the motions and their defensive rotations, they
Speaker 1: know they were overmatched. You could read it in their
Speaker 1: body language. They just didn't see the point in doing
Speaker 1: it tonight. And again, it's not a big deal, but
Speaker 1: I am glad that JJ's harping on it because they
Speaker 1: can be much better and they're going to need to
Speaker 1: be much better in those rotations for them to have
Speaker 1: a chance to get to where they want to go.
Speaker 1: I would punt the Denver game tomorrow. You're not going
Speaker 1: to be able to win it. And with Luca's back
Speaker 1: soreness that he's been dealing with or backspasms or whatever,
Speaker 1: and with Austin's calf Like, here's the thing. If if
Speaker 1: Austin's feeling good, if he's like, coach, I'm good, I'm
Speaker 1: ready to go. I want to get another game in
Speaker 1: just as I continue to build my rhythm. That's I'm
Speaker 1: cool with that. But if he's hurting at all, I'd
Speaker 1: sit him. I'd sit Luca to give him a day off.
Speaker 1: The next back to back is much more winnable. You're
Speaker 1: at home for Phoenix and San Antonio. San Antonio just
Speaker 1: shut down to Aaron Fox for the season, so you
Speaker 1: should be able to win that game. And if at
Speaker 1: least one of Jackson or Ruey come back, I think
Speaker 1: they'll have the horses to beat the Suns at home.
Speaker 1: So like you could bounce back and win those two
Speaker 1: and make up some of the ground that you just lost,
Speaker 1: and who knows, maybe you can get Lebron back for
Speaker 1: the Denver Milwaukee back to back that they have at
Speaker 1: the tail end of this, and maybe you can start
Speaker 1: to make up some ground. Lebron if he came back
Speaker 1: for the third back to back in the sequence, that
Speaker 1: would give him eleven full days off between the Celtics
Speaker 1: game and that game on the twentieth, So it's like
Speaker 1: one of those things where like, if Lebron comes back,
Speaker 1: I think it's on the table that they could get
Speaker 1: out of this six game and eight game stretch or
Speaker 1: six game in eight nights stretch at four and two,
Speaker 1: which would be like a huge win for them if
Speaker 1: they's it Lebron for the whole thing. I think three
Speaker 1: and three is probably the best they can hope for
Speaker 1: in two and four might be on the table there.
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be tough, but I again, I'm not
Speaker 1: worried about it. In the big picture. It's far more
Speaker 1: important for Lebron to be healthy, and this back to
Speaker 1: back was just going to be a really tough one
Speaker 1: no matter what. On the road. Last thing, I have
Speaker 1: to say, the Lakers have had a one to twenty
Speaker 1: defensive rating in the two games since Lebron left the lineup,
Speaker 1: and that was against the twenty seventh ranked offense in
Speaker 1: Brooklyn in the fourteenth ranked offense in Milwaukee. It's just
Speaker 1: amazing how important Lebron has suddenly become for this team defensively.
Speaker 1: Ever since ad went out. Lebron is made up for
Speaker 1: it by basically becoming the Draymond Green of this team,
Speaker 1: communicating coverages, identifying the actions the other team is running,
Speaker 1: flying around in rotation, cleaning up the defensive glass. He's
Speaker 1: been doing so much to help unlock the defensive ceiling
Speaker 1: of this team, which, by the way, like just a
Speaker 1: shout out to him in terms of his versatility, this
Speaker 1: is a card he has not pulled basically since twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one twenty twenty. In that couple of seasons, this
Speaker 1: is a role that he's seen as kind of an
Speaker 1: inefficient use of his energy resources playing alongside Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: He's been focusing more on the offensive end in this build.
Speaker 1: What a luxury to have a player that can be like,
Speaker 1: oh you need Draymond, Sure, I'll be your Draymond, and
Speaker 1: literally has anchored one of the best defenses in the
Speaker 1: league without Anthony Davis, and I think watching the Laker
Speaker 1: defense kind of fall apart without him. And again it's
Speaker 1: not just him, being without Rui and being without Jackson
Speaker 1: makes it hard too. But they still have Dorian Finney Smith,
Speaker 1: they still have Gave Vincent, they still have Jared Vanderbilt,
Speaker 1: and they've really struggled to get stops. And I think
Speaker 1: it's just a testament to the work that Lebron has
Speaker 1: done over the course of the last few weeks, the
Speaker 1: last few months, I should say, on the defensive back line,
Speaker 1: and most importantly, he's going to have to do that
Speaker 1: job for them to get to where they want to
Speaker 1: go in the playoffs. So it's probably good that he's
Speaker 1: getting a little break his body to be ready for
Speaker 1: the home stretch. All right, guys, that's all I have
Speaker 1: for today is always a sincerely appreciate you guys for
Speaker 1: supporting me and supporting the show. Taking the weekend off,
Speaker 1: we'll be back on Monday with our usual kind of
Speaker 1: sequence as we work through the week. Next week, I'll
Speaker 1: see you guys. Then the volume