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Speaker 1: by Fan Duel here at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody.
Speaker 1: I'm recording this on Tuesday night. By the time you're
Speaker 1: listening to this, I will be well on my way
Speaker 1: to Lake Tahoe in California, where there's record snowpack to
Speaker 1: do a few days of skiing. I'm very excited tonight.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about the Clippers delivering a little
Speaker 1: bit of an ass kicking to the Lakers an impressive
Speaker 1: display of jump shooting. We're also going to talk Celtics heat,
Speaker 1: the MAVs and the Wizards and the Calves and the Nicks.
Speaker 1: And then I also have a couple of quick hitters
Speaker 1: for you take on the dunk contest, and then a
Speaker 1: little follow up on some of the fallout from the
Speaker 1: Ruby Hatch and Murray trade and some of the conversation
Speaker 1: surrounding Rob Blinka. You guys know the drill before we
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Speaker 1: Clippers beat the Lakers one thirty three to one fift
Speaker 1: team writing, I mean, quite frankly, just impossibly hot shooting.
Speaker 1: They shot fifteen for twenty three from three in the
Speaker 1: first half. That's one of the hottest shooting halfs I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. That six on Massive Volume, they scored seventy
Speaker 1: seven points. And even though the Lakers really battled back
Speaker 1: in the second half, Lebron just left everything he had
Speaker 1: out there on the floor to try to get him
Speaker 1: back in the game. It just was too big of
Speaker 1: a hole for them to dig for them to dig
Speaker 1: out of. And you know, honestly, there's been a ton
Speaker 1: of Clippers pessimism this year. Some of that is, like,
Speaker 1: as you guys know, before I started with the Volume,
Speaker 1: I covered the Lakers exclusively and so I've got a large,
Speaker 1: uh most a lot of the people that I follow
Speaker 1: on Twitter are Lakers fans, and so I've got a
Speaker 1: little bit of a Lakers window in terms of the
Speaker 1: stuff that I see on the Twitter feed. Um so
Speaker 1: a lot of it is probably Lakers fans just having
Speaker 1: moments at the Clippers expense. But I'm glad that I
Speaker 1: never jumped off of the Clippers bandwagon. I did drop
Speaker 1: them from my top tier of contenders, but that was
Speaker 1: just because of health and honestly because Brooklyn had just
Speaker 1: demonstrated to be better than the Clippers to this point
Speaker 1: in the season. But I never stopped believing in the
Speaker 1: ceiling of this team when they are completely healthy. I'm
Speaker 1: just a huge believer and their specific brand of basketball.
Speaker 1: They've prioritized the right types of players to put around
Speaker 1: their stars, and they never succumb to that, you know,
Speaker 1: that need that a lot of teams have their like
Speaker 1: the Lakers, had to try to flip quality role players
Speaker 1: for that third star. Like the Lakers did when they
Speaker 1: flipped three of their most important role players for Russell Westbrook.
Speaker 1: The Clippers have never fallen for that. They've understood the model,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, we have two star ball handlers,
Speaker 1: but you also have star band ball handlers that contribute
Speaker 1: in the physical in the physical areas of the game,
Speaker 1: like defense and rebounding, like tonight Kawhi Leonard and Paul
Speaker 1: George had eighteen rebounds to go with their great defense.
Speaker 1: You guys know what, You've heard me talk about that
Speaker 1: with like Chicago for instance, teams that don't compete on
Speaker 1: the defensive end, and it doesn't necessary or stars that
Speaker 1: don't compete on the defensive end, and it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: have to do with position, because even Stephan Clay with
Speaker 1: the Warriors really compete on the defensive end of the floor,
Speaker 1: which allows that core to work. But Kawai and Paul
Speaker 1: George two star ball handlers that also compete defensively and
Speaker 1: on the glass. And then year after year the Clippers
Speaker 1: have hunted role players with size. You guys know how
Speaker 1: much I value perimeter size, but guys that can shoot
Speaker 1: and dribble as well, and getting those guys to buy
Speaker 1: into their defensive scheme, and then from there it's driving
Speaker 1: kick basketball with good spacing principles. I get that it
Speaker 1: can get ugly sometimes during the regular season when they're
Speaker 1: just isoing and pick and rolling every time, but like
Speaker 1: I say, that brute force type of offense actually translates
Speaker 1: to the playoffs better than most offensive styles. And we've
Speaker 1: seen the Clippers offense obliterate teams in the postseason even
Speaker 1: without Kawhi Leonard as we saw in season. So I'm
Speaker 1: a huge believer in their offensive play style. And then overall,
Speaker 1: they have a good amount of versatility because they can
Speaker 1: go big with Zoo back at center, but they can
Speaker 1: also play small with five wings and do a real
Speaker 1: five out, you know, supermodern type of basketball. All their
Speaker 1: issues this year were based on health. Yes, those role
Speaker 1: players are very skilled. Marcus Moore is very skilled, you know,
Speaker 1: Luke Nard very skilled, Reggie Jackson very skilled. But if
Speaker 1: you put them in set half court environments, an attack,
Speaker 1: set NBA defenses, and set NBA defenders, they're gonna struggle
Speaker 1: to create their own shot. You need that initial advantage
Speaker 1: from Kawai and Paul George to put those guys in
Speaker 1: positions where their offensive skill allows them to expand the
Speaker 1: advantage and eventually finish the play. When you have half
Speaker 1: of your season, well, your two primary advantage creators are
Speaker 1: just gone. It's just gonna stack the deck against a
Speaker 1: lot of teams around the NBA, so I never was
Speaker 1: really concerned with them on the offensive end of the floor,
Speaker 1: and now they're getting healthy. They've won three games in
Speaker 1: a row. Paul George and Kahi Enterd both look incredible.
Speaker 1: Norman Powell, you guys have heard me talk a lot
Speaker 1: about him in recent weeks. He continued his outrageously good
Speaker 1: plays four for five again from three tonight. He I
Speaker 1: think has a much better case for sixth Man of
Speaker 1: the Year than Russ. He doesn't have the top end
Speaker 1: that you've gotten from Russ, Like there have been five
Speaker 1: or six games this year from Russ that Norman Pale
Speaker 1: could never touch, because Russ has managed to occasionally capture
Speaker 1: some of that m v P type of impact. But
Speaker 1: in terms of the night and night out lack of
Speaker 1: volatility that you get a guy from Norman Powell. And
Speaker 1: then actually you can play Norman Powell in your closing
Speaker 1: groups because he actually compliments your superstars because he's one
Speaker 1: of the best spot up players in the entire league,
Speaker 1: Whereas Russell Westbrook gets into that closing group and he
Speaker 1: actually hurts the Laker star players because of his inability
Speaker 1: to play off the basketball. So I look at Norman
Speaker 1: Powell is a better candidate for six Man of the
Speaker 1: Year than Russ based on that versatility. You can use
Speaker 1: him to be aggressive on the ball in the middle
Speaker 1: portions of the game. Not quite as much top end,
Speaker 1: but much higher floor, less volatile, and he can play
Speaker 1: with your closing group. He's just a better basketball player. Um.
Speaker 1: The Clippers check every box. They have the top end talent,
Speaker 1: They're a top ten defense, they have tons of shooting
Speaker 1: and ball handling around their stars. They have an offensive
Speaker 1: rating over one hundred in the half court when Kawai
Speaker 1: and Paul George are both on the court, which would
Speaker 1: rank in the top ten in the league for teams.
Speaker 1: And they have scheme versatility. Like we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: They are a bona fide championship contender. End of story.
Speaker 1: You don't want your team to have to beat the
Speaker 1: Clippers four times in a week. That doesn't mean you can't.
Speaker 1: I don't think they're top tier contender right now, but
Speaker 1: don't write that team off. They're gonna be a pain
Speaker 1: in the ask for whoever gets them. On the Lakers front,
Speaker 1: Lebron was amazing again and seven UH. Dave mcmeneman reported
Speaker 1: right after the game that Anthony Davis is planning to
Speaker 1: return tomorrow against the Spurs, as well as Ruey hatch
Speaker 1: Mura making his debut after the trade from the Wizards.
Speaker 1: UM So I wanted to now that we know that
Speaker 1: the A D injury era is officially over here, let's
Speaker 1: take a look at this because a D went down
Speaker 1: in the first half of the Nuggets game back on
Speaker 1: December sixt and he missed the rest of that game
Speaker 1: and twenty additional games. If you would have told Lakers
Speaker 1: fans at the time that a D was gonna miss
Speaker 1: twenty games, almost all of them would have told you
Speaker 1: that the season was over. But there was no hope
Speaker 1: to float things for that long. But thanks to m
Speaker 1: v P level play from Lebron and key contributions from
Speaker 1: role players and kind of like a new helter skelter
Speaker 1: ball pressure transition hunting identity courtesy of Darvin Ham and
Speaker 1: the players that are available in that locker room, they
Speaker 1: kind of took on a unique style and floated the ship.
Speaker 1: They went eleven and ten in that stretch. How many
Speaker 1: of you would have guessed that the Lakers would have
Speaker 1: gone over five hundred and twenty one games without Anthony Davis.
Speaker 1: It was an unbelievable season saving effort from that group.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to tip the cap to the Lakers
Speaker 1: in a special tip of the capital Lebron, because this
Speaker 1: has been one of the most remarkable stretches of his career.
Speaker 1: During this stretch without Anthony Davis, Lebron average thirty four
Speaker 1: point three points per game, eight point three rebounds, seven
Speaker 1: point four assists, sixty three percent true shooting despite being
Speaker 1: incapable of hitting his three consistently, and the Lakers were
Speaker 1: plus one eleven with Lebron on the floor and minus
Speaker 1: one twenty six with him off the floor. I've levied
Speaker 1: a good amount of criticism over Lebron's career, especially in
Speaker 1: the Calves days, for him being a fair weather leader,
Speaker 1: essentially the kind of guy that like, when the team
Speaker 1: has a real chance to win the title, he's the
Speaker 1: perfect guy to captain that ship. But when things start
Speaker 1: to go south, he used to get powdy. He'd get
Speaker 1: passive aggressive, he would tweet weird stuff. He would like
Speaker 1: actively just not try. In two thousand eighteen, before the
Speaker 1: trade deadline, Lebron was damn near point shaving because as
Speaker 1: soon as he found out that trades were in the works,
Speaker 1: he locked back in and and and and went to
Speaker 1: work the cash GM at the time. I'll never forget
Speaker 1: he did like like an on Kobe Altman did like
Speaker 1: an interview during a game, and he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like we like the trades, we like the players, but
Speaker 1: make no mistake, we traded for a re engaged Lebron James.
Speaker 1: That's literally what he said. That's the type of guy
Speaker 1: Lebron used to be. So credit to Lebron for ditching
Speaker 1: that ugly part of his little career resume, because he's
Speaker 1: done an outstanding job this season and last season of
Speaker 1: keeping a positive attitude and galvanizing the group when guys
Speaker 1: have been out of the lineup. Um, I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, my dad used to say that people would
Speaker 1: never change when they get into their thirties and stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: because you're kind of really set in your ways and
Speaker 1: who you are. And so credit to Lebron for making
Speaker 1: a late career shift in his approach to how he
Speaker 1: handles adversity. And I don't think you can call Lebron
Speaker 1: a fair weather leader anymore. I think he's just a
Speaker 1: damn good leader. And that didn't used to be the case,
Speaker 1: he put his foot down and he saved the season.
Speaker 1: Really is that simple. But now we're gonna get to
Speaker 1: see Lebron with conventional lineups alongside a real NBA forward
Speaker 1: and Anthony a Us again, and hopefully I'm shooting if
Speaker 1: Rob and Genie or feeling frisky at the deadline. Um
Speaker 1: all right, before we move on to the next game,
Speaker 1: my first COI hitter is also Lakers related. A lot
Speaker 1: of Lakers fans were, you know, and we see this
Speaker 1: a lot on Twitter because Twitter is just devolved discourse
Speaker 1: in so many different ways. But um, Rob made a
Speaker 1: good trade, and so obviously the apologists of the NBA,
Speaker 1: of the Lakers front office are now coming out and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, we all owe Rob an apology, and
Speaker 1: I I hate and I haven't seen too much of
Speaker 1: this directed at me and mostly at some of the
Speaker 1: other more loud Laker fans that I follow, But you
Speaker 1: know this, this particular concept always has annoyed me, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to just kind of set something straight. This
Speaker 1: is how objective analysis works. You point out when they
Speaker 1: do good things, and you point out when they do
Speaker 1: bad things. The Ruey hot Schermer trade was a good trade.
Speaker 1: There's a great trade, in my opinion, but it's not
Speaker 1: the first good trade Rob has made, and I've pointed
Speaker 1: out the they're good moves that he's made. I thought
Speaker 1: he did an excellent job in the two thousand nineteen
Speaker 1: summer after Kuai signed with the Clippers at audible NG
Speaker 1: and having a good backup plan to surround Lebron and
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis with good role players. I've been consistent about that.
Speaker 1: I thought he did a good job last summer, at
Speaker 1: least fundamentally, even though he ignored the forward position, which
Speaker 1: we'll get to. I liked his switch from going from
Speaker 1: veteran veteran minimum contracts to younger veteran minimum contracts uh
Speaker 1: younger players that had high motor so that they could
Speaker 1: fix some of the ugly malaise from last year and
Speaker 1: infused real effort and energy into this team. I thought
Speaker 1: that was really smart. But he also completely destroyed a
Speaker 1: championship contending roster by flipping three of their best three
Speaker 1: and D players for a player that everyone in the
Speaker 1: world knew in the moment was a bad fit for
Speaker 1: Lebron James and a bad playoff player and a player
Speaker 1: that would struggle in crunch time, and then after completely
Speaker 1: emptying emptying the roster of forwards, he took eighteen months
Speaker 1: to find another forward, and in that process, in that
Speaker 1: stretch without forwards, the Lakers lost a lot of games,
Speaker 1: in many of the games a direct result of personnel shortcomings.
Speaker 1: And then he ran it back with Russ this year,
Speaker 1: And I get that it's been a little bit better
Speaker 1: this year than it was last year. I would even
Speaker 1: say it's been a lot better this year than it
Speaker 1: was last year. Last year was a complete unmitigated disaster,
Speaker 1: and this year has been like good stretches and bad stretches.
Speaker 1: Right before Anthony Davis got hurt, really good stretch of Russ,
Speaker 1: but then that was immediately followed by a bad stretch
Speaker 1: of Russ. But then recently it's been like ten straight
Speaker 1: games of him being good, but then the last two
Speaker 1: games he's been a complete disaster again, and he can't
Speaker 1: play crunch time, and he probably won't be able to
Speaker 1: play much in the playoffs. So that we and we
Speaker 1: all knew that after we saw it. We knew it
Speaker 1: before the Rush trade, we knew it all last season,
Speaker 1: we knew it after last season, We knew it all
Speaker 1: summer and he chose to run it act. So like
Speaker 1: in the aggregate, as I look at everything, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: been some good moves. There's been some bad moves, but
Speaker 1: there's been a lot more bad. And here we are
Speaker 1: January three, and the Lakers, who won the title in
Speaker 1: twenty and dominant fashion have been below five hundred for
Speaker 1: a year and a half. That's the reality. And yeah,
Speaker 1: there has been some injuries, but the Lakers used to
Speaker 1: be able to win when Lebron and Anthony Davis were
Speaker 1: out of the lineup. That's what happened in one when
Speaker 1: they had the good role players. So in the aggregate,
Speaker 1: it's been a rough go of things for Rob Polinka.
Speaker 1: But look, I'm gonna point out the moves that I
Speaker 1: agree with, and I'm gonna point out the moves that
Speaker 1: I disagree with. Objectivity goes both ways. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: blindly praise somebody and I'm not gonna blindly criticize him. Recently,
Speaker 1: Rob Polinka made a really good trade. If he continues
Speaker 1: to make really good trades from here on out, or
Speaker 1: for the most part, really good trades, free agent signings,
Speaker 1: savvy moves, it's gonna change my opinion of Rock. I'm
Speaker 1: always looking at everything is another opportunity to learn about
Speaker 1: a player, or to learn about a coach, or to
Speaker 1: learn about an executive, not just another opportunity to you know,
Speaker 1: reinvigorate some existing opinion that I have about the person.
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Speaker 1: on to Celtics Heat. The Heat won. The Celtics were
Speaker 1: actually up eighties seven and seventy seven in this game.
Speaker 1: You've probably seen this story before for Celtics fans. And
Speaker 1: then the Heat went on a fifteen oh run, Heyweed,
Speaker 1: Heywood Highsmith knockdown back to back corner three's, and then
Speaker 1: Bam took over at a really nice driving bank shot
Speaker 1: going to his right, this nasty transition, dunk this two
Speaker 1: hand jam in traffic that was ridiculous, and then he
Speaker 1: had a nice pull up jumper at the foul line,
Speaker 1: and then Tyler Harrow and Pick and Roll had a
Speaker 1: really nice three that was your fifteen oh run put
Speaker 1: the Heat up five. But then the Celtics battle back.
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatum hit an and one floater, Grant Williams hit
Speaker 1: a corner three to tie the game, and then Bam
Speaker 1: hit essentially the game winner on a short on a
Speaker 1: short roll pass from Tyler Harrold. The Heat were really
Speaker 1: spamming hick and roll at the end of this game
Speaker 1: with Bam and Tyler Harrow. Um the uh the The
Speaker 1: Celtics ended up trapping Harrow on this play. They hit
Speaker 1: the drop past to Bam. Bam cot at the foul
Speaker 1: and Payton Pritchard came over and actually tagged Bam, and
Speaker 1: Bam just was patient and just kind of like kind
Speaker 1: of brought the ball high like he was gonna throw
Speaker 1: a swing pass. Payton Pritchard recovered back out to the
Speaker 1: wing and in that little gap right as Grant Williams
Speaker 1: was recovering, there was that brief opening and Bam just
Speaker 1: elevated and knocked down the jump shot. And then on
Speaker 1: the other end of the floor, they double team Jayson
Speaker 1: Tatum and he turned it over um, which we'll get
Speaker 1: to in a second. But I have three quick things
Speaker 1: I want to hit on this game. One Bam shot
Speaker 1: creation once again down the stretch carried this team. That
Speaker 1: is everything for this team. If he can look to
Speaker 1: score this aggressively and this confidently and this frequently, it
Speaker 1: adds a dimension to the Heat that they haven't had.
Speaker 1: And it significantly raises their playoffs ceiling. Secondly, Tyler Harrow
Speaker 1: and pick and roll. I've said consistently Tyler struggles against
Speaker 1: the set defensive player. He's not going to create off
Speaker 1: the bounce against the defender right in front of him.
Speaker 1: He's just a little too thin and doesn't quite get
Speaker 1: enough separation. You're seeing that again in ISO this year.
Speaker 1: He's just zero point seven three points per possession in
Speaker 1: ISO including passes, which is obviously bad. But what I've
Speaker 1: always said about Tyler Harrow, give him a screen and
Speaker 1: give him some drop coverage and he's going to barbecue you.
Speaker 1: And he's having an incredible pick and roll season. Forty
Speaker 1: two players in the NBA this year have run at
Speaker 1: least four hundred picking rolls including passes. Tyler Harrow is
Speaker 1: fifth out of forty two in the entire NBA in
Speaker 1: points per possession and pick and roll including passes at
Speaker 1: one point one three points per possession. Made a bunch
Speaker 1: of key plays down the stretch of this one, and
Speaker 1: then Jayson Tatum one for four with two turnovers in
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter tonight. A couple of key turnovers late
Speaker 1: through a Lobb pass that Bam at a Bio was
Speaker 1: already dropping back. It was just a really bad decision
Speaker 1: and Bam stole it. And then late in the game
Speaker 1: and this one, it kind of it's not all on Tatum,
Speaker 1: but they trapped him and ended up turning it over.
Speaker 1: I took a screenshot at this place. You can find
Speaker 1: it on my Twitter, your feed. But on the play,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things I always talk about
Speaker 1: with trapping is if you apply good ball pressure, you
Speaker 1: have to throw a looping cross court pass. Because obviously,
Speaker 1: if it's a lazy trap, I can just throw a
Speaker 1: dart like a like a laser beam across the court
Speaker 1: that's gonna hit a shooter in the pocket and it's
Speaker 1: game over, right, But if you apply ball pressure, now
Speaker 1: I'm fighting to protect the basketball and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: find a place to throw it, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: throw it kind of high in in looping fashion. That
Speaker 1: allows the heat to basically ignore the guy in the
Speaker 1: far corner and guard everyone else and so no one's open.
Speaker 1: And that's what happened on that particular play. It's an
Speaker 1: impossible cross court pass against ball pressure, right, So what
Speaker 1: you have to do in that situation is you have
Speaker 1: to flash somebody to the high post. One of the
Speaker 1: players that's not being guarded has to flash because you're
Speaker 1: creating an easy outlet that that player can then turn
Speaker 1: in the four on three and make a play. And
Speaker 1: on this play, Robert Williams was kind of in the middle,
Speaker 1: but he just kept jogging down towards the bat ask
Speaker 1: it and eventually there was nobody there and there was
Speaker 1: no good option for Tatum. But the reality was is
Speaker 1: it was still a turnover, and eventually Jayson Tatum is
Speaker 1: going to have to figure out how to be comfortable
Speaker 1: and confident in these late game scenarios. He's getting good reps,
Speaker 1: but it has to click eventually. This is becoming a
Speaker 1: consistent issue al right, before we move on to our
Speaker 1: last two games, my last quick hitter of the night
Speaker 1: non NBA players and the dunk contest. So I was
Speaker 1: talking to my father in law the other day and
Speaker 1: he said that he had listened to UH. I think
Speaker 1: he was listening to like Sirius XM radio and some
Speaker 1: NBA channel and uh, my father in laws, a big
Speaker 1: basketball guys, is one of my favorite people in my
Speaker 1: family to talk basketball with. And he goes, yeah, like
Speaker 1: they were talking about potentially bringing in professional dunkers into
Speaker 1: the dunk Contest, and I haven't actually seen this reported,
Speaker 1: so I don't want to confirm that, but I do
Speaker 1: think it's relevant because the NBA is allowing Mac McClung,
Speaker 1: a G League player, to participate in the dunk contest.
Speaker 1: So there were two kind of things that I wanted
Speaker 1: to hit on here, because I personally am not okay
Speaker 1: with non NBA players participating in the dunk contest. Um.
Speaker 1: I am a basketball player, pretty good one was good
Speaker 1: college basketball player. I'm not a pro. Um. I had
Speaker 1: several options to go overseas for little bits of money,
Speaker 1: but I was married and had two dogs and had
Speaker 1: no interest in leaving my good paying job to go
Speaker 1: overseas to make three hundred bucks a week to grind
Speaker 1: up the overseas ladder. I'm at peace with it. It
Speaker 1: is what it is. But I have never in my
Speaker 1: life uh insinuated that I'm an NBA player, or that
Speaker 1: I'm as good as those guys, or or that they
Speaker 1: have my spot in the league or anything like that.
Speaker 1: And the main reason why is because I think that
Speaker 1: it's sacred. As a basketball fan, I think the achievement
Speaker 1: of being an NBA player is sacred to me. It's
Speaker 1: such an incredible accomplishment that I would never in a
Speaker 1: million years put myself in their shoes. If you see
Speaker 1: me talk about me and myself as a player, or
Speaker 1: you see me post a video of me playing in
Speaker 1: some basketball event here in Tucson, it's just my expression
Speaker 1: of my love for the game and has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with me being like, hey, look at me, I'm
Speaker 1: an NBA player. I've never been like that because those
Speaker 1: guys are sacred to me. And that extends to this
Speaker 1: dunk contest situation, because, yeah, is there an issue with
Speaker 1: the dunk contest and getting stars to participate, Sure, but
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's that's a problem that is probably
Speaker 1: not going away anytime soon. But there are plenty of
Speaker 1: NBA players that are willing to participate in the dunk contest.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, guys, but I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to see Shaden Sharp in this dunk contest. I think
Speaker 1: he has an opportunity to put put forth one of
Speaker 1: the best free throw line dunks in NBA history this year.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see it. But like putting in, let's
Speaker 1: start with mc mclung for instance. Yeah, mc mclung is
Speaker 1: gonna be interesting to see in that dunk contest, but
Speaker 1: he's not an NBA player, and so to me, it
Speaker 1: kind of defiles the sacred nature of what the MBA
Speaker 1: Dunk Contest is that extends tenfold for bringing in professional dunkers. Now,
Speaker 1: some of you basketball players out there that listen to
Speaker 1: the show will relate to me on this, and a
Speaker 1: lot of this might go over some of your guys head,
Speaker 1: but bear with me, um. I've run into my share
Speaker 1: of professional dunkers in my life, and most of them
Speaker 1: are nice guys. Some of them are a little bit
Speaker 1: more arrogant. But what has always bothered me is like,
Speaker 1: they're not basketball players. They're athletes. It's like a track
Speaker 1: and field competition at that point to do all this
Speaker 1: crazy acrobatic stuff with dunking. Some of the best professional
Speaker 1: dunkers that I've ever played with were parable basketball players,
Speaker 1: and that's not again. What they do is a marvel
Speaker 1: of human athleticism, and I do enjoy every once in
Speaker 1: a while and I'm scrolling through Instagram and I see
Speaker 1: a video of, you know, some professional dunker doing something crazy.
Speaker 1: I I watch it, but to me, that's separate, and
Speaker 1: what makes the NBA dunk content so damn cool is
Speaker 1: those are real life NBA players, damn good basketball players,
Speaker 1: doing those athletic feats. I have no question that if
Speaker 1: you brought professional dunkers into the NBA Dunk Contest, you'd
Speaker 1: see some of the most amazing dunks in NBA Dunk
Speaker 1: contest history. But again, it would be defiling that sacred
Speaker 1: nature of what an NBA player is and what that
Speaker 1: means to be an NBA player. So please look after
Speaker 1: this mc McClung experiment. No disrespect to mc McClung. He's
Speaker 1: a far more accomplished basketball player than me, a damn
Speaker 1: good one, and he probably will play in the NBA
Speaker 1: again one day, and he has in the past. But
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be in the dunk contest. That's that's just
Speaker 1: my opinion that that is a sacred event for NBA players.
Speaker 1: All Right, two more games then we're out of here.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go quick. Calv's Knicks. The Knicks win one
Speaker 1: oh five to one of the rae Julius Randall hit
Speaker 1: the shot of the nights tied at one on one
Speaker 1: or one d to one hundred, and there's kind of
Speaker 1: a stagnant possession where he was standing unguarded in a
Speaker 1: triple that threat at the top of the key finally
Speaker 1: just rose up and knocked it down. Um. And then
Speaker 1: on the other end of the floor, Calves are on
Speaker 1: pick and roll draw some help kick out past to
Speaker 1: Isaac Cora on the left wing, wide open three, and
Speaker 1: he missed it. But Isaaca Coro is shooting thirty percent
Speaker 1: on catch and shoot threes this season. He's gonna miss
Speaker 1: two out of three, two out of three of those.
Speaker 1: That position continues to be the biggest weak point on
Speaker 1: the Calves roster, and you're seeing it regularly at the
Speaker 1: end of games where Calves have really struggled. But then
Speaker 1: the Calves got a couple of stops, but Donovan Mitchell
Speaker 1: made two really bad reads, driving into traffic and getting
Speaker 1: blocked on consecutive possessions at the rim. He did hit
Speaker 1: some huge shots late in the game to get the
Speaker 1: Calves back into this game, but he can get tunnel
Speaker 1: vision sometimes. He got a little bit of that West
Speaker 1: broken him, uh, and it hurt the Calves and crunch
Speaker 1: time tonight. The Caves have now lost fourteen games involving
Speaker 1: clutch situations, which is bottom ten in the league. Both
Speaker 1: their offense and defense fall apart their fourteen in both
Speaker 1: offense and defense and clutch situations despite being the second
Speaker 1: best defense in the league overall. UM. On defense, they
Speaker 1: played two small guards that don't defend. You have plenty
Speaker 1: of entry points to attack their defense. And then on offense,
Speaker 1: they are the fourth worst spot up team in the
Speaker 1: NBA converting spot up opportunities to the clue to the
Speaker 1: clip of just zero point nine eight points per possession,
Speaker 1: which is just not gonna get it done. So you
Speaker 1: can dig off of their role players, just like the
Speaker 1: NIXT did with Isaac Akorro and help on their stars,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna get a lot of stops that way
Speaker 1: because they're just not gonna make shots. UM. At this point,
Speaker 1: I think the Calves are staring down the barrel of
Speaker 1: a five game exit in the first round this year.
Speaker 1: I think this roster is fundamentally flawed into catastrophic ways.
Speaker 1: Two small guards that you can't account for defensively and
Speaker 1: the small forward position. UM. And I hope for the
Speaker 1: sake of Cavs fans, and I know this is gonna
Speaker 1: suck to here, but I actually hope it's embarrassing for you,
Speaker 1: because Cavs fans are the Cavs organization, and Cavs fans
Speaker 1: are very attached to Darius Garland, and I have Darius
Speaker 1: Garland's a great young player, and he's a phenomenal human being,
Speaker 1: and all indications are that he's earned a great deal
Speaker 1: of love from that fan base. But as long as
Speaker 1: that Donovan Mitchell is better than him, and as long
Speaker 1: as Darius Garland is there next to Donovan Mitchell, it
Speaker 1: fundamentally hampers the team. So I hope they lose an
Speaker 1: embarrassing fashion because that will be the trigger that they
Speaker 1: need this summer to move Darius Garland for a legit
Speaker 1: forward that you can put next to Evan Mobley and
Speaker 1: Jared Allen that can score and defend at an extremely
Speaker 1: high level, which will allow the Calves to have a
Speaker 1: better playoffs ceiling. That UM is all that matters in
Speaker 1: the end anyway. UM goodwin for the Knicks, though they
Speaker 1: just have not been good against good teams this year.
Speaker 1: Before tonight they were just seven and fourteen against teams
Speaker 1: that were five or better. But they did have a
Speaker 1: good game plan tonight, helping off of those spot up shooters.
Speaker 1: They wrote some hot shooting in this game and good
Speaker 1: late defense to build a solid win to break their
Speaker 1: four game losing streak, and then quickly before we get
Speaker 1: out of here tonight Wizards MAVs. The Wizards won six.
Speaker 1: Just watch the end of this one beal hit. The
Speaker 1: biggest shot of the game is step act three over
Speaker 1: Luca on the left wing. Uh, and then Kuzma wanted
Speaker 1: at the free throw line drawn a blocking foul on
Speaker 1: the right sideline. UM. Luca was great overall and six,
Speaker 1: but three deadly mistakes down the stretch. He missed the
Speaker 1: free throw that allowed the game to be tied for
Speaker 1: Kuzma to break the tie. Then he was the one
Speaker 1: who committed the silly blocking foul and a tied on game.
Speaker 1: Kuzma was just dribbling up the right sideline doing some
Speaker 1: stupid stuff and Luca just cut him off and bumped
Speaker 1: him for no particular reason at all whatsoever. Um. And
Speaker 1: then on the other end of the floor, down one
Speaker 1: twenty six, he turned it over. The maps are spiraling now,
Speaker 1: they've lost seven out of nine. I do think that
Speaker 1: things will stabilize a little bit when they get fully
Speaker 1: healthy and back into rhythm, like they didn't have Christian
Speaker 1: would tonight. But this team is not good enough right now,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, they're in kind of that weird
Speaker 1: position where like you can look at it like be
Speaker 1: aggressive at the deadline and try to get something around Luca,
Speaker 1: but Lucas so young that like, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: Rob Polinka after the Ruby had to mr trade. Uh,
Speaker 1: he did a little press conference today and he basically
Speaker 1: laid out his case for why the Lakers should be
Speaker 1: patient and how you know, he wanted to get that
Speaker 1: you know, truly great trade with the with the assets
Speaker 1: that they have and in a vacuum. That's such good reasoning.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't make sense for the Lakers because Lebron's
Speaker 1: in his twentieth season. And so even if like you
Speaker 1: wait till this summer and you make a better trade,
Speaker 1: like and if it works out, you're in the NBA Finals.
Speaker 1: Lebron will be thirty nine and a half in next
Speaker 1: year's NBA Finals. So even if you get thirty percent
Speaker 1: more out of the that individual player, Like, how much
Speaker 1: of a decline are you looking at from Lebron over
Speaker 1: the course of the next fifteen, sixteen months or whatever,
Speaker 1: so that I've never seen that as sound reasoning, Like
Speaker 1: I think the Lakers have to pour it into this
Speaker 1: season because I don't know how long Lebron is gonna
Speaker 1: stay at this level, but probably not for much longer.
Speaker 1: And you know, but for Luca, I actually see that
Speaker 1: as the appropriate strategy. You don't want to make the
Speaker 1: mistake that the early Calves did with Lebron, where they
Speaker 1: kept going all in every single year and they never
Speaker 1: got that truly great piece next to Lebron. The next
Speaker 1: thing you know, he's leaving. So I would pitch it
Speaker 1: to Luca like, hey, man, like it might take us
Speaker 1: two or three years, but we're gonna get you a guy,
Speaker 1: like a real guy, like a real co star, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna build a real championship roster around you. Because
Speaker 1: I'd rather be truly great when you're seven, then a
Speaker 1: little bit better this year. That is a good strategy
Speaker 1: for Luca because of his age. You guys can probably
Speaker 1: see the difference there. Alright, guys, that's all I have
Speaker 1: for tonight. So, like I said, I'm in Lake Tahoe,
Speaker 1: but I am bringing my stuff and we're gonna be
Speaker 1: covering Grizzlies Warriors on Thursday morning, so keep an eye
Speaker 1: on the feeds on Thursday for a video. And then
Speaker 1: when I get back on Saturday night, I think is
Speaker 1: Laker Celtics. I get back late Saturday, right, but I'll
Speaker 1: be working and covering those games on Sunday morning. As always,
Speaker 1: I sincerely appreciate you guys as support and I will
Speaker 1: see you next time. The volume