Speaker 1: The volume. Welcome to the Best of Hoops Tonight, featuring
Speaker 1: my top takes from recent shows. Let's move on to
Speaker 1: Zachary Resache. So he drops his career high thirty six
Speaker 1: in a dominant victory over the Bucks. So the third
Speaker 1: game this year he scored over thirty points. Zach's played
Speaker 1: twenty seven consecutive games. In those games, he's averaging fifteen
Speaker 1: point two points per game. He's shooting fifty two percent
Speaker 1: from the field forty three percent from three on over
Speaker 1: five attempts per game. He's showcasing a little bit more
Speaker 1: of a quick release against the Bucks. Hit a couple
Speaker 1: of no dip jumpers. Those are where the ball is
Speaker 1: already is caught in the pocket and you flow immediately
Speaker 1: into the shot instead of having to catch somewhere else
Speaker 1: and then dip down into your release and like kind
Speaker 1: of restart your chain of energy from the floor up
Speaker 1: to the top of the shot. He's showing a lot
Speaker 1: of really high level scoring. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: this concept for a minute because I think it's a
Speaker 1: really important part of team building moving forward in the NBA.
Speaker 1: Scoring is the ultimate compliment to playmaking. I've been thinking
Speaker 1: a lot about this concept this season. When you have
Speaker 1: elite playmaking on your team, guys like Trey Young, guys
Speaker 1: like Lebron, Luca and Nicola Jokic, these really really high
Speaker 1: level passers, you need elite play finishing to pay those
Speaker 1: sequences off. Whether it's a vertical spacer like Aaron Gordon
Speaker 1: alongside Jokic, or Derek Lively alongside Luca, Jackson Hayes alongside Luca,
Speaker 1: or a deadly spot up guy someone like Kyle Korver
Speaker 1: back with Lebron when he was with the Cavs, or
Speaker 1: Malik Beasley playing with Kad Cunningham. Guys that can pay
Speaker 1: off these sequences from your playmakers. But one of the
Speaker 1: manifestations of that type of player that I've been talking
Speaker 1: a lot about this year and referring to it as
Speaker 1: the weak side scoring forward. This is why I went
Speaker 1: into detail about the strong side corner help thing that
Speaker 1: we talked about earlier. This same concept is built into
Speaker 1: pick and roll coverages too. There's a reason why they
Speaker 1: don't offer low man help out of the strong side corner.
Speaker 1: They offer low man help out of the weak side corner.
Speaker 1: Why do they do that so that for the same
Speaker 1: reason on an ISO drive. If a guy's getting downhill
Speaker 1: in a ball screen, the opening for him as a
Speaker 1: playmaker is across the court and across his body. That's
Speaker 1: the goal. You want to make it across the court
Speaker 1: and across the body, across as many help defenders as
Speaker 1: possible to make that past difficult, right, But that is
Speaker 1: ultimately the opening, and all of the best playmakers in
Speaker 1: the league consistently capitalize on those openings. We've talked about
Speaker 1: this concept a ton making reads in pick and roll.
Speaker 1: What are my reads? Big man steps up, I'm making
Speaker 1: a read based on the roll man or the weak
Speaker 1: side corner, based on what the lowman does. If the
Speaker 1: one man steps over, I'm skipping it. If the one
Speaker 1: man stays home, excuse me, I'm throwing the lot. If
Speaker 1: the big man drops back and the guard is chasing,
Speaker 1: my read is to shoot in the mid range. My
Speaker 1: read is to get as close to the basket for
Speaker 1: as high percentage of a shot as possible. Those are
Speaker 1: the pick and roll reads. And so when these teams,
Speaker 1: the majority of teams are bringing their big up to
Speaker 1: the level and bringing the low man over, that skip
Speaker 1: pass is open, and those skip passes are going to
Speaker 1: be made especially by Trey Young. In these sorts of situations,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of different ways that you can look
Speaker 1: to score right. It's not just hitting spot up threes.
Speaker 1: It's running your lane in transition as an athlete, it's
Speaker 1: driving closeouts. It's oh, they switched a screen or we
Speaker 1: ran in transition and got a cross match, and now
Speaker 1: there's a guard on this forward. You need that forward
Speaker 1: to do a lot more of this high level scoring.
Speaker 1: These are professional scorers, but primarily in an off ball context.
Speaker 1: Examples are like Michael Porter, Junior ogn Andobi Ruey Hachimura,
Speaker 1: DeAndre Hunter, Lori Markenen is kind of a high end
Speaker 1: version of that for the Jazz Denny Avdya, even though
Speaker 1: he's been doing more on ball stuff as of late,
Speaker 1: Kyle Kuzma, PJ Washington, this is becoming an extremely important
Speaker 1: archetype in the NBA. Zacharyrissaschet has been doing some of
Speaker 1: the best week side scoring work you'll see out of
Speaker 1: a rookie forward starts in transition. I was watching the
Speaker 1: Rockets Hawks game from about a week ago. You'll find
Speaker 1: him on my Twitter feed. I shared some clips, but
Speaker 1: Zachary Rissache was amazing in transition in that game, just
Speaker 1: literally out running everybody up the floor, didn't matter if
Speaker 1: the rebound was captured and he was on the baseline.
Speaker 1: He was sprinting, and it was so visually jarring that
Speaker 1: I clipped these examples and I put them on my
Speaker 1: Twitter feed for you guys to see. Watch these three clips.
Speaker 1: Watch the way Zachary Risasche runs. Watch when he gets
Speaker 1: his head of steam, how it literally looks like he's
Speaker 1: moving a different speed than everyone else on the floor.
Speaker 1: Is a gazelle. It's crazy. And he'll get two or
Speaker 1: three wide open attempts at the rim every game just
Speaker 1: by running the floor. And that pairs perfectly with Trey Young,
Speaker 1: who's one of the best hit a head passers in
Speaker 1: the league. I had to coach my last year in
Speaker 1: college at Arizona Christian University. Shout out to Jeff Rudder.
Speaker 1: They just won their conference tournament on a buzzer beater,
Speaker 1: crazy buzzer beater, and then they made it to the
Speaker 1: final four before losing in the NAIA tournament. But he
Speaker 1: used to say to all of us that you can
Speaker 1: manufacture twelve points a game just by getting a transition layup,
Speaker 1: running the floor, crashing the offensive glass and getting to
Speaker 1: the foul line once per half. It's such a simple
Speaker 1: way to produce in a basketball game. And even if
Speaker 1: you take the foul line part out, because obviously there's
Speaker 1: some out of your control stuff there with the whistle,
Speaker 1: if you just crash the offensive glass and you just
Speaker 1: run your lane in transition and you get one bucket
Speaker 1: a half each, that's eight points right there. You're one
Speaker 1: bucket away from double figures. It is such a simil
Speaker 1: way to produce in a basketball game. Run every time,
Speaker 1: crash every time. And he presents such a massive passing
Speaker 1: target for Trey because he's so athletic, so rangy and long.
Speaker 1: He caught a behind the back lob from Trey in
Speaker 1: the Bucks game where he dunked it behind his head
Speaker 1: because it's just a massive passing target. Then in the
Speaker 1: half court, as we talked about, when they load up
Speaker 1: the strong side in those skips, it's just like king
Speaker 1: of the court. When you're playing with your buddies on
Speaker 1: short closeouts, you need to knock down threes. He's starting
Speaker 1: to do that at a really high level. In this
Speaker 1: twenty seven game span, he's at forty three percent on
Speaker 1: over five attempts per game. Now, what's gonna start happening.
Speaker 1: If he can maintain that level of shooting for a
Speaker 1: substantial amount of time, he's gonna start getting chased off
Speaker 1: the line. And that's where I think he has a
Speaker 1: ton of potential as a score. He has downhill burst
Speaker 1: attacking closeouts. He had a dunk against Shangoon in the
Speaker 1: Rockets game where he drove a close out off the
Speaker 1: left wing and hammered it with his left hand on
Speaker 1: Shangon's face, a wildly athletic play. He has good footwork
Speaker 1: on like spins in Euros. He had a bucket against
Speaker 1: the Nets. Driving a close out against Nick Claxton in
Speaker 1: the left corner. He jabbed, got back to it deep
Speaker 1: in the corner with a hesitation dribble, cross back over,
Speaker 1: got into the lane, pump, faked, pivoted over his right
Speaker 1: shoulder on his step through for a left handed finish.
Speaker 1: That's a really high level scoring move. He had one
Speaker 1: on Harden off the left wing, jabbed left, drove right,
Speaker 1: snatched back to the left, drove high gather through zubach
Speaker 1: and finished at the basket. These are really high level
Speaker 1: scoring moves attacking with an advantage in those king of
Speaker 1: the court situations. He had a left to right euro
Speaker 1: against Zubatch a couple of weeks ago where he drove
Speaker 1: out of the corner. Like left to right euro is
Speaker 1: one of the most complex footwork pieces you'll see for
Speaker 1: a right handed player. Most guys don't know how to
Speaker 1: do it, and he still has a ton of growth
Speaker 1: in front of him. Shooting hot for a couple of
Speaker 1: months is not the same as being an elite shooter.
Speaker 1: We've all seen it. This guy's shooting forty three percent
Speaker 1: from three over his last whatever. Games. You gotta do
Speaker 1: it for a long stretch of time before teams game
Speaker 1: plan for you in that way. That that will take
Speaker 1: a few years, probably, but that will be what truly
Speaker 1: unlocks his off the dribble game, because I don't think
Speaker 1: like as good as he is in the open court
Speaker 1: as an athlete, he's his start stop quickness isn't quite
Speaker 1: as impressive as his athleticism in the open court, which
Speaker 1: is going to make it so it's a little harder
Speaker 1: for him to beat people off the dribble unless his
Speaker 1: jumper comes around, which again will take some time, but
Speaker 1: that's part of his development. He still needs a lot
Speaker 1: of improvement on the defensive end too. His athleticism has
Speaker 1: not translated yet as like a really high level off
Speaker 1: ball defender. He's often a bit behind the play on
Speaker 1: his help rotations, which prevents him from having an impact.
Speaker 1: That's about processing speed. That's about learning, like learning the
Speaker 1: actions so well that you know what's going to happen
Speaker 1: as it's developing, so that you can be there a
Speaker 1: step earlier. And again, as we talked about, his start
Speaker 1: stop quickness isn't as good. That's why that processing speed
Speaker 1: is going to be so important for him because he's
Speaker 1: gonna need to be there sooner in terms of the
Speaker 1: way he's reading these plays. But the bottom line is
Speaker 1: he's a rookie that projects to be one of the
Speaker 1: best people at his particular job in the NBA, which
Speaker 1: is being that weak side scoring forward, which is very
Speaker 1: exciting for Hawks fans. I think it might officially be
Speaker 1: over for the Suns. They got absolutely smacked by the
Speaker 1: Rockets last night. Shannguon was cooking all their bigs again.
Speaker 1: Jalen Green poured in another thirty three points email Udoka
Speaker 1: in the second quarter brought out that zone defense that
Speaker 1: he's been using a bunch for the last month or so,
Speaker 1: and they immediately sparked a massive run in that second
Speaker 1: quarter and they never looked back. It was a complete
Speaker 1: and total physical domination by Houston. They out rebounded them
Speaker 1: by six, They forced nineteen turnovers, They scored thirty four
Speaker 1: points off of those turnovers. They won the fast break
Speaker 1: points battle thirty two to eight. Houston scored forty points
Speaker 1: in transition int in this game. But I want to
Speaker 1: focus on Phoenix here for a second, because we're gonna
Speaker 1: hit Houston in tonight's show as they play the Lakers again.
Speaker 1: We're going live on YouTube tonight after the T and
Speaker 1: T slate. What did I say about Phoenix a month ago?
Speaker 1: I said they struck me as the stereotypical, older veteran
Speaker 1: team that knows deep down that they don't really have
Speaker 1: a chance to win anything this year. And the way
Speaker 1: that that's gonna manifest is in these short week or
Speaker 1: two long bursts where they compete and they look they
Speaker 1: look decent, they defend their rebound, they do their jobs,
Speaker 1: but that they inevitably let go of the rope because
Speaker 1: they can't sustain it, because they don't believe and that's
Speaker 1: exactly what just happened. They won five out of six,
Speaker 1: some quality wins versus the Calves and the Bucks. They
Speaker 1: were defending in rebounding top ten and both. They think
Speaker 1: they might have been top five in both over that span.
Speaker 1: But the NBA schedule does not let up. Boston came
Speaker 1: to town without Tatum and kicked their ass. Then it
Speaker 1: was Minnesota and it was Houston, a couple of these big,
Speaker 1: strong athletic teams that were going to truly test Phoenix's
Speaker 1: commitment to the work, and instead of hanging onto the rope,
Speaker 1: they just completely let go of it. One thirty seven
Speaker 1: point four defensive rating in the last three games, they
Speaker 1: gave up an offensive rebound on thirty five percent of
Speaker 1: opponents misses. That's damagingly bad. And now KD has an
Speaker 1: ankle sprain, Anthony Davis is back, and the MAVs are
Speaker 1: climbing in the standings. We talked before the year that
Speaker 1: there was going to be a team that had dead
Speaker 1: serious championship aspirations but that would miss the playoffs entirely,
Speaker 1: and no matter who that would be, it would be
Speaker 1: a catastrophe. And it looks like it's going to be
Speaker 1: the Suns. I keep watching them and thinking that it's
Speaker 1: not a Kevin Durant and Devin Booker problem. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I do think it's worth mentioning that
Speaker 1: neither of those two guys can really leverage their physical
Speaker 1: galths on the game. Katie has length and he has
Speaker 1: mobility that helps him on defense, but he carries a
Speaker 1: massive offensive load, so he can't devote too many resources
Speaker 1: to that end, and he's not very strong. He can
Speaker 1: be pushed around, which is very very dangerous quality for
Speaker 1: a front court player. Defensively on the glass duck ins
Speaker 1: things along those lines. It's tough to do that job.
Speaker 1: Outside of like rangey rotating and rim contests. There's just
Speaker 1: a limitation when you can't win the ground battle. And again,
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things where you watch these
Speaker 1: other teams. It's like watching Houston Jalen Green can leverage
Speaker 1: his athleticism to get to spots. Shane goun Is bullying
Speaker 1: these dudes when you watch these teams that have these players,
Speaker 1: where it's like, I can inflict myself physically on the
Speaker 1: game to assist my team in these key areas that
Speaker 1: they need help. Booker and KD are not necessarily as capable.
Speaker 1: This is why I still believe it's worth exploring the
Speaker 1: idea of keeping those two. They still give you such
Speaker 1: a high offensive floor in terms of shot quality. I
Speaker 1: would still just look to find every discount bruiser I
Speaker 1: can find at every position group and try to breed
Speaker 1: that culture around them, because regardless of what direction you
Speaker 1: go this summer, even if you do choose to get
Speaker 1: rid of Kevin Durant or Devin Booker or both, you
Speaker 1: still need an organizational identity. I talked about this concept
Speaker 1: after the Celtics win against the Suns last week. I
Speaker 1: talked about it with Colin Coward last night on his show.
Speaker 1: You need an organizational identity that is separate from your stars.
Speaker 1: And so regardless of what direction you go, you need
Speaker 1: to begin the process of establishing that new owner, new coach.
Speaker 1: You need to start establishing a basketball culture. This season
Speaker 1: was a massive step back, and so that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Unless you think there's some magical trade that's going to
Speaker 1: just solve all your problems, which I don't think there is,
Speaker 1: you need to begin the process of changing that culture anyway.
Speaker 1: And so from that standpoint, if you tweak things enough
Speaker 1: around those two. That's where Kevin Durant, Devin Booker's upside
Speaker 1: can actually start to lift you to where you want
Speaker 1: to go. But this is a team that is completely
Speaker 1: let go of the rope, and I think I would
Speaker 1: be stunned at this point if we got to see
Speaker 1: them play meaningful basketball here in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk some Denver Nuggets. So Jokics goes
Speaker 1: for sixty one, ten and ten against the Wolves the
Speaker 1: other night, just an absolutely wild games, dogfight for the
Speaker 1: most part, and then the Nuggets finally pulled away in
Speaker 1: the fourth courter. They end up going up by ten.
Speaker 1: But then Anthony Edwards just went absolutely berserk. And this
Speaker 1: has become a kind of a recurring theme with it.
Speaker 1: As a game is unfolding, I was thinking to myself,
Speaker 1: it really hasn't hit kind of a hot jump shooting
Speaker 1: streak yet, and that felt like a factor that would
Speaker 1: come into play at some point down the stretch. And
Speaker 1: it did, and he just started rising like it just
Speaker 1: has this a to rise up at a spot on
Speaker 1: the court, and he gets such great lift on his
Speaker 1: jump shot that he can really get to it whenever
Speaker 1: he wants, and he's become such a great jump shooter
Speaker 1: that it's kind of just like a let's cross our
Speaker 1: fingers and pray he misses kind of thing. And he
Speaker 1: just wasn't missing down the stretch of that game, and
Speaker 1: it allowed the Wolves to get back into control. It
Speaker 1: felt like the Wolves had that game won at multiple points,
Speaker 1: but Denver just did a good job of doubling the
Speaker 1: ball out of Anthony Edwards's hands. Minnesota looked like they'd
Speaker 1: never seen a double team before, as they just pissed
Speaker 1: down their leg and get a terrible shot over and
Speaker 1: over again in those situations. The Wolves led in the
Speaker 1: final minute of the fourth quarter of overtime and double overtime,
Speaker 1: yet still needed that insane Russell Westbrook sequence at the
Speaker 1: end in order to win table. That Russell Westbrook thing.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that here in a minute, but there
Speaker 1: is another reason, in addition to Minnesota's poor execution, that
Speaker 1: Denver was able to consistently come back and almost win
Speaker 1: that game. Jokic in crunch time had fourteen points, four assists,
Speaker 1: and zero turnovers in the clutch. A portion of this
Speaker 1: game spanning the end of the fourth quarter in both overtimes,
Speaker 1: he was completely indomitable, throwing Gobart around and getting an
Speaker 1: easy floater in the lane. He had a nasty turnaround
Speaker 1: left shoulder fade away over Julius Randall. He hit one
Speaker 1: of his patented above to break threes at the top
Speaker 1: of the key. He had another nasty left shoulder hook
Speaker 1: over Julius Randall again, all while being doubled and hounded
Speaker 1: and grabbed and scratched and clawed everywhere. He'd often take
Speaker 1: a double team, have to get rid of the ball,
Speaker 1: sprint back up the flash to get the ball back,
Speaker 1: and then quickly turn away from the double to try
Speaker 1: to get a bucket before the double came. It was
Speaker 1: just remarkably high degree of difficulty and he was just
Speaker 1: crushing these dudes. I talked after Jokic's thirty twenty twenty
Speaker 1: game a few weeks back that it probably wasn't even
Speaker 1: a top five performance from him this year. These are
Speaker 1: all now Jokic statlines from the year sixty one, ten
Speaker 1: and ten, fifty six, sixteen and eight, forty eight, fourteen
Speaker 1: and eight, forty one, eighteen and nine, this one's crazy,
Speaker 1: thirty seven, eighteen and fifteen, thirty six, twenty two and eleven,
Speaker 1: thirty five, twelve and fifteen. Here's another crazy one, thirty five,
Speaker 1: twenty two and seventeen, the thirty one twenty one twenty
Speaker 1: two game earlier this year, he had a twenty three
Speaker 1: twenty and sixteen as well. He's averaging thirty thirteen and
Speaker 1: ten on sixty six percent true shooting for the season.
Speaker 1: This is the greatest offensive basketball player to ever touch
Speaker 1: the court. Conversations get way more complicated when you factor
Speaker 1: in defense, like yo kicch is having legitimately a really
Speaker 1: bad defensive season, and I've seen a lot of talk
Speaker 1: about people wanting to vault yoll kitch up the all
Speaker 1: time list for what's happening in this regular season. I
Speaker 1: think that's a little more complicated because it's been a
Speaker 1: two sided coin with Yokic at times this year. But
Speaker 1: I have never seen a basketball player produce at this volume,
Speaker 1: with this variety, with this level of efficiency, with this
Speaker 1: complete level of unstoppability. You literally cannot stop Jokic from
Speaker 1: either getting a great shot for himself or for someone else.
Speaker 1: You can tilt it towards a lesser teammate to make
Speaker 1: a shot. Denver's margin for air has shrunken a little
Speaker 1: bit over the years as the supporting cast has lost
Speaker 1: a little bit of that firepower. But you just about
Speaker 1: never see Nikola Jokicic look visibly uncomfortable on a basketball court.
Speaker 1: There have been these brief moments here in time, like
Speaker 1: for instance, against Minnesota in the postseason last year, he
Speaker 1: had his moments, but he also had like Game five
Speaker 1: of that series where he just ripped through him like
Speaker 1: tissue paper for one of the greatest playoff performances I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. As good as Steph Curry was offensively, and
Speaker 1: he's up there, he never had the physical imposition that
Speaker 1: Jokics brings to the table that, oh, you leave me
Speaker 1: in single coverage, I'm just gonna get a shot right
Speaker 1: at the rim with zero variants, guaranteed two points like
Speaker 1: Steph never had that. As good as Lebron was offensively
Speaker 1: back in twenty eighteen, like he could get high percentage looks,
Speaker 1: he had sky high efficiency and volume, but he still
Speaker 1: never had that go to move against any type of
Speaker 1: defender that he could hit sixty plus percent of the time.
Speaker 1: Jokic does. The three point shot was the variable that
Speaker 1: put him over the top. For me last year when
Speaker 1: he couldn't shoot, it felt like you could do more
Speaker 1: with double teams and crowding him on pick and roll
Speaker 1: in particular, when he was like rolling into that short
Speaker 1: roll area. You can do more of that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff to lessen his impact. You guys might remember the
Speaker 1: tail end of the Timberwolve series where he kept popping
Speaker 1: above the break to avoid that traffic jam on those
Speaker 1: rolls and he just couldn't hit that shot. He hit
Speaker 1: six of them against Minnesota on Tuesday. That's the thing
Speaker 1: that makes him completely unguardable. I'll just say from personal experience,
Speaker 1: as someone who's actively rooted against this guy in a
Speaker 1: playoff series three times, I can confidently state I've never
Speaker 1: been more scared of an offensive player on that end
Speaker 1: of the floor in any sort of big spot light
Speaker 1: in the game. Then I was scared of nicolea Jokic,
Speaker 1: and I hope to the basketball gods that I don't
Speaker 1: have to do it again this year. I want to
Speaker 1: talk about Westbrook for a minute. I want to set
Speaker 1: aside the reality of Westbrook's fit and how things have
Speaker 1: gone in total with the Nuggets just for a minute.
Speaker 1: I think we can all agree, including Laker fans that
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook is a much better basketball fit with Denver
Speaker 1: than he was with either of the LA teams. Right,
Speaker 1: So let's just take that piece and set it aside
Speaker 1: for a second. When Russell Westbrook signed with the Nuggets,
Speaker 1: you Nuggets fans will probably remember what I said. I
Speaker 1: said that he undoubtedly has a higher ceiling than Reggie Jackson.
Speaker 1: There's no way that Reggie Jackson could ever do the
Speaker 1: things on a basketball court that Russell Westbrook is capable
Speaker 1: of doing. But I also said that he has a
Speaker 1: much lower floor than Reggie Jackson, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people like interpreted that as like, oh, like he'll have
Speaker 1: games where he doesn't produce. That's not it at all.
Speaker 1: It's strictly mistake making. Russell Westbrook is incredibly prone to mistakes,
Speaker 1: regardless of the surrounding circumstances of the game. Doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if it's the first quarter or the final possession of
Speaker 1: a big game, he is mistake prone. He plays with
Speaker 1: a lot of energy and a lot of passion, but
Speaker 1: it's not very refined, and I would argue when it
Speaker 1: comes to like game plan discipline, attention to detail, he's
Speaker 1: one of the worst players I've ever seen in those categories,
Speaker 1: and so what ends up happening is Russell Westbrook will
Speaker 1: make all these good plays over the course of a
Speaker 1: game and bring all of this positive impact, but he
Speaker 1: just has a tendency to make these mistakes that undercut
Speaker 1: that success. So like, for instance, everyone's gonna focus on
Speaker 1: the final sequence, I want to set that aside for
Speaker 1: a second as well. The overtime possession where he makes
Speaker 1: the post entry past to Jokic and then he cuts
Speaker 1: through the lane and then he just throws Ni Kiel
Speaker 1: Alexander Walker to the ground with a swim move right
Speaker 1: in front of the reth easiest offensive foul call in
Speaker 1: the league. They're going the other way, just turn the
Speaker 1: ball over for no reason in a big spot in overtime.
Speaker 1: In second overtime, Nuggets up by one, he's guarding Anthony Edwards,
Speaker 1: the only guy who's been torching your ass over clutch time.
Speaker 1: He's guarding Anthony Edwards out up at the top of
Speaker 1: the key and he just goes catatonic and he's just
Speaker 1: standing up there like twenty five feet from the basket
Speaker 1: and ant just backcuts right behind him. Easy pass. I
Speaker 1: think it was from Julius randolf I remember, correctly easy
Speaker 1: pass on the back cut layup. Now Minnesota has the
Speaker 1: lead again. Forget about like just that split second decision
Speaker 1: making at the end of the game. There were two
Speaker 1: other situations in that same overtime sequence where Russ either
Speaker 1: tricked off an offensive possession or gave up a bucket
Speaker 1: because he's just mistake prone. He just makes mistakes. And
Speaker 1: like a lot of these people were like making Laker
Speaker 1: fans out to be jerks for just pointing out these
Speaker 1: like basic things that we learned from rooting for the guy.
Speaker 1: I still vividly remember in big spots many times fourth quarters,
Speaker 1: two three minutes, left huge possession, Russ forcing it in
Speaker 1: transition when there was nothing there in smoking a layup.
Speaker 1: You guys saw it again last night as they blew
Speaker 1: a game to the Spurs in a big sequence late
Speaker 1: down too, as he smoked this crazy reverse layup and
Speaker 1: it led to another layup going out the other way.
Speaker 1: That happened to me two other Laker fans rooting for
Speaker 1: him many times over the course of the year and
Speaker 1: a half that he was there. I still vividly remember
Speaker 1: a game against the Brooklyn Nets in La Stanley Johnson
Speaker 1: signs with the Lakers like day of does an incredible
Speaker 1: job picking up hard in like full court all game.
Speaker 1: It's this really important game for the Lakers too, as
Speaker 1: they're trying to float in the standings. In one of
Speaker 1: the biggest possessions of the game. Late in a one
Speaker 1: possession game, Russell Westbrook is guarding Patty Mills. What's your
Speaker 1: job guarding Patty Mills? Game playing, discipline, attention to detail.
Speaker 1: He's the best shooter on the court. You gotta track him.
Speaker 1: He was ball watching, just like that play I was
Speaker 1: talking about with Aunt. Pat Mills relocated to the left
Speaker 1: corner hard and hit him. He hit the dagger, the
Speaker 1: game was over. I've been there, guys. I wasn't trying
Speaker 1: to like talk shit for the sake of talk. I
Speaker 1: wasn't trying to be personal. I wasn't trying to be
Speaker 1: a dick. I like, I rooted for the guy for
Speaker 1: a year and a half. It was in my best
Speaker 1: interests as a fan for him to be good, and
Speaker 1: he just repeatedly undercut his successes with that mistake making.
Speaker 1: And then there you go, in a big possession late,
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards turns the ball over. You're up one with
Speaker 1: the ball, you don't take a shot unless you are
Speaker 1: one hundred percent sure you are going to make it,
Speaker 1: and instead it's another one of those reckless transition pushes.
Speaker 1: Then he compounds the mistake after missing the layup by
Speaker 1: getting back into one of those no man's lands kind
Speaker 1: of floating around situations around the right elbow, and next
Speaker 1: thing you know, there's a skip pass and he has
Speaker 1: to throw a reckless close out and he fouls a
Speaker 1: three point shooter and he literally turned a win into
Speaker 1: a loss, and like, look, Nikole jokicch after the game,
Speaker 1: excellent leadership says, this kind of shit happens sometimes, and
Speaker 1: he's not wrong. I literally just watched Lebron do it
Speaker 1: the other day. I watched Lebron the other day lose
Speaker 1: a shooter in the week's side corner and then turn
Speaker 1: the ball over on the baseline. Here's the thing I've
Speaker 1: been watching Lebron his entire career. That was fucking weird.
Speaker 1: That was highly unusual from Lebron James. I watched Russell
Speaker 1: Westbrook this entire phase of his career. That is something
Speaker 1: he is absolutely prone to doing in these sorts of
Speaker 1: spots and so like again it's there's there are some realities, right,
Speaker 1: like Jamal Murray's healthy, Russell Westbrooks probably not out there, right.
Speaker 1: There are ways for Mike Malone and the Nuggets to
Speaker 1: shield against this sort of thing by keeping him out
Speaker 1: of the game in those spots. But the problem is
Speaker 1: is like there is some reality to the fact that
Speaker 1: there is an opportunity, There is a there is a
Speaker 1: potential outcome here where the Nuggets are in a big game,
Speaker 1: four down two to one in a series on the
Speaker 1: road at you know, some one of these big Western
Speaker 1: con Conference teams, and it's a late third quarter stretch
Speaker 1: where the Nuggets are up by two and Russ could
Speaker 1: take over the game and win it for you, and
Speaker 1: you could go into the mid fourth quarter stretch up
Speaker 1: by twelve. That's the high ceiling. But there's also a
Speaker 1: version of that where he has two or three bad turnovers,
Speaker 1: two or three mislayups, two or three bad three point shots,
Speaker 1: and a couple of bad defensive breakdowns and suddenly your
Speaker 1: two point lead turns into a ten point deficit. That
Speaker 1: is also an available outcome. Because of the wild oscillations
Speaker 1: of that Russell westbrook experience, And the only reason I'm
Speaker 1: saying any of this is because at the start of
Speaker 1: the year when I pointed this out, I wasn't trying
Speaker 1: to be a dick. I was just being honest about
Speaker 1: my own personal experience rooting for the guy, in relaying
Speaker 1: a message that every Lakers fan will tell you, even
Speaker 1: Clippers fans will tell you that this was a reality.
Speaker 1: It's not a big deal. They're gonna be able to
Speaker 1: cover fourth, they should be able to keep him out
Speaker 1: of these sort of high leverage situations. But keep an
Speaker 1: eye on it in the postseason for a big bench
Speaker 1: stretch and a big quarter there he's mistake prone and
Speaker 1: it could be something that ends up costing you a game.
Speaker 1: You could really tell in the early part of the
Speaker 1: game that neither team knew how they wanted to attack
Speaker 1: each other, and so there's a lot of standing around,
Speaker 1: a lot of passing the ball around the perimeter, a
Speaker 1: lot of really ugly offensive possessions from both teams, and
Speaker 1: some of those possessions for Jimmy Butler manifested. I thought
Speaker 1: Lebron was doing this too early in the game where
Speaker 1: where he had those two back to back turnovers where
Speaker 1: he's driving into the lane and no one's helping, so
Speaker 1: he's in a one on one, but he's like trying
Speaker 1: to force some pass to a guy that's guarded. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: you need to be looking to score. You're leading a
Speaker 1: unit without your star on the floor. Same thing goes
Speaker 1: for Jimmy Butler in those situations, like they need him
Speaker 1: to look to be aggressive if you're not going to
Speaker 1: get you know, eight made threes out of Brandon Pajemski
Speaker 1: every single night. They're going to need more production out
Speaker 1: of Jimmy in that spot. But overall, I thought he
Speaker 1: made a bunch of big plays late. I thought that
Speaker 1: corner three he made was big at three steals in
Speaker 1: the game, was beating the Lakers to a bunch of
Speaker 1: loose balls in some key situations. Really really impressive performance
Speaker 1: from the Warriors top to bottom. I thought, Steph to
Speaker 1: last piece, they'll say in the Warriors before we get
Speaker 1: to the Lakers. You know, Steph has been fantastic since
Speaker 1: the Jimmy Butler trade. He's at coming into tonight. He
Speaker 1: was at like twenty eight points per game on sixty
Speaker 1: six percent true shooting over his last twenty three games
Speaker 1: on a court that had Jimmy Butler that had Lebron James,
Speaker 1: to have Luka Doncic, that had all this star talent
Speaker 1: on the floor. I thought Steph was the best player
Speaker 1: on the floor. And I even though Lebron statistically performed
Speaker 1: really well, I thought Steph was able to consistently break
Speaker 1: down the defense. I talked earlier about how both teams
Speaker 1: didn't really seem to know how they wanted to attack
Speaker 1: each other in the early portions of the game. It
Speaker 1: crystallized for Golden State they found out, you know, they're
Speaker 1: about halfway through that second quarter. In that second quarter
Speaker 1: they found out it's like, actually, let's just get Death
Speaker 1: out into space against Luca and we'll have him drive
Speaker 1: by Lucas. Sometimes we'll have him look to attack immediately
Speaker 1: off the catch off of some off ball screening action
Speaker 1: Will There was one late the Big Three he hit
Speaker 1: late where Draymond fell down like he had Luca on
Speaker 1: a switch. But then Draymond just sprinted into a ball screen.
Speaker 1: I talked earlier today when we were talking about Jared
Speaker 1: Allen and the Caves. When you sprint into actions, it
Speaker 1: makes you that much harder to guard. Draymon sprinted into
Speaker 1: that ball screen, and Lebron was too far back and
Speaker 1: Lebron was late. It was bad defensive possession from Lebron,
Speaker 1: and a big part of that was Draymon sprinted into
Speaker 1: the ball screen, got Steph another clean look at it,
Speaker 1: basically a drop coverage possession off the left wing. But
Speaker 1: this is Steph is heating up right in time for
Speaker 1: what they're going to need him to be in this
Speaker 1: postseason run. And I thought he just came in here
Speaker 1: tonight and kicked the shit out of the Lakers and
Speaker 1: badly outplayed Luca and set his team up to be
Speaker 1: in a really good position in the standings as we
Speaker 1: come down the stretch here on the Lakers front. As
Speaker 1: I always say, I don't really look at the scoreboard
Speaker 1: when I'm thinking about the postseason. And one of the
Speaker 1: main reasons why is because there's just so much noise
Speaker 1: in the regular season, whether it's from the schedule or
Speaker 1: it's a random role player doing this or a random
Speaker 1: guy being out of the lineup for whatever reason. There's
Speaker 1: also a lot of noise relative to the postseason, where
Speaker 1: you'll see, oh, you know, the Phoenix Suns beat the
Speaker 1: Timberwolves every single game last year, and they had this
Speaker 1: awesome game plan for like how to beat the Timberwolves,
Speaker 1: but then they get into a playoff series and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: actually none of these guys can guard Aunt and they're
Speaker 1: being super physical on defense and we can't even like
Speaker 1: dribble the ball of the floor without losing it. So
Speaker 1: like everything shifted and changed, right. So what I'm looking
Speaker 1: at is are there any things from tonight that translate
Speaker 1: to a potential postseason series between these two teams? And
Speaker 1: the first one that screams off the screen to me
Speaker 1: is their struggles with switching ever since Luca came over
Speaker 1: to the Lakers. And again I've broken this down before.
Speaker 1: I'll do a very short version of it here, but
Speaker 1: the short version of it is against drop coverage, against
Speaker 1: traditional coverages, Luca is so good at making all the
Speaker 1: natural reads. If you don't pick him up going downhill,
Speaker 1: he's just gonna get into that like right around the
Speaker 1: block where he can shoot that little seven foot bank
Speaker 1: shot that he's gonna make like sixty percent of the time.
Speaker 1: If you do step up with your big man, he's
Speaker 1: throwing a lob to the center for a dunk. And
Speaker 1: if you tag the roller, he's skipping it to the
Speaker 1: weak side for a wide open three, and it's just
Speaker 1: he's so surgical with it that it's just it's a
Speaker 1: death sentence. There's literally nothing you can do. And every team,
Speaker 1: for the most part that has run that coverage against
Speaker 1: the Lakers this year with Luka, Doncic has gotten torch
Speaker 1: and for the most part, they've had a couple of
Speaker 1: good games, but for the most part against these teams
Speaker 1: that just switch with their fives or switched generally everywhere
Speaker 1: on the floor, they've really struggled to score. And one
Speaker 1: of the big reasons why is when Lebron was healthy
Speaker 1: earlier on, Luca was bad, and then Lebron goes out.
Speaker 1: And during the phase that Lebron was out, Luca was
Speaker 1: very good. His shot making bounced back in a major way,
Speaker 1: but they just didn't have that additional defensive rebounding presence
Speaker 1: in the front court over that span because Ruiy, Lebron,
Speaker 1: and Jackson were all out. Now everybody's back, but Lebron
Speaker 1: is still kind of getting back into form, and here
Speaker 1: goes Luca again into another kind of like spiraling type
Speaker 1: of sequence. Luca has shot below fifty percent from the
Speaker 1: field in five of his last six games, he has
Speaker 1: absolutely no touch on his short range shot making before
Speaker 1: tonight he was just twenty eight for eighty eight on
Speaker 1: floaters and or excuse me, on jump shots inside his
Speaker 1: seventeen feet. So all those like jump shots that he
Speaker 1: was hitting NonStop in the playoffs last year, he made
Speaker 1: three of them per game last year in the postseason
Speaker 1: at forty six percent. He's shooting just thirty two percent
Speaker 1: on him this year, and he's barely making one again
Speaker 1: with the Lakers. He has like no touch on his
Speaker 1: short range shot, making zero for six from three tonight,
Speaker 1: bizarrely ineffective Luka Doncic, And like, the thing is is
Speaker 1: there's a version of this where the Lakers can theoretically
Speaker 1: be very good against switching, but it's going to require
Speaker 1: the Lebron James that was there before he heard his groin,
Speaker 1: and the Luka Doncic that was there last year in
Speaker 1: the NBA playoffs. And so it's one of those things where,
Speaker 1: like I've talked a lot about this, the Lakers have
Speaker 1: arguably the largest amount to potentially improve between now and
Speaker 1: May first. The Lakers could be dramatically better by May first,
Speaker 1: just simply from Lebron and Luca getting back to form
Speaker 1: and some team chemistry stuff and regaining their defensive identity,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about in a little bit. But the
Speaker 1: reality is is it's it's also possible that they just don't.
Speaker 1: And I'm just gonna be perfectly frank with you, guys.
Speaker 1: If Luca plays like this in the postseason, they're they're
Speaker 1: they're gonna get beat. They're gonna get beat in the
Speaker 1: first or second round. Like it, They're just there's no
Speaker 1: going the distance. If you make a trade with Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis for Luka Doncic and you get this type of
Speaker 1: performance out of Luca in a big game. And I mean,
Speaker 1: strangely enough, the Lakers have dominated the middle tier of
Speaker 1: the NBA since Luca came. Every Houston, Minnesota, you know, Phoenix,
Speaker 1: every team that's in that you know, kind of like
Speaker 1: just outside the top tier of contenders. The Lakers are
Speaker 1: kicking the shit out of those guys. They've faced two
Speaker 1: of the teams that I said that I would consider
Speaker 1: as the top tier contenders, Boston, who's been there all year,
Speaker 1: in Golden State, who I said I would add when
Speaker 1: we do our contender's list with SA Vassini right before
Speaker 1: the start of the postseason, and in those two games,
Speaker 1: the Lakers pretty much got out played wire to wire
Speaker 1: and Luka Doncic looked really, really bad in both games,
Speaker 1: and I am, I am. Here's the thing. Early on
Speaker 1: after the trade, I wasn't worried about it. I was
Speaker 1: just kind of like, give Lucas some time. He'll be fine.
Speaker 1: He's one of the greatest players that we've ever seen
Speaker 1: at his age in this league. But here we are, Guys,
Speaker 1: it's been months now, spend two months, and he's going
Speaker 1: in the wrong direction. So I don't know what's going
Speaker 1: on with him. Part of the thing that I'm seeing too,
Speaker 1: is like he's he's not even trusting himself in the
Speaker 1: short range, like he's pump fakingn Like he's pump faking
Speaker 1: NonStop in that ten to fifteen foot range and just
Speaker 1: looking to grift for fouls instead of looking to take
Speaker 1: and make the shots that he was hitting half of
Speaker 1: at decent volume when he was in the postseason last year.
Speaker 1: So I'm again, I'm hopeful that Luca will figure it out.
Speaker 1: I'm hopeful that this will all come together. But guys,
Speaker 1: like we've already the hoops tonight's staff, we've already gone
Speaker 1: over our schedule for the week of the playing tournament.
Speaker 1: Like this shit is right around the corner. It's here,
Speaker 1: It's like here, now, there's no like, let's give Luca
Speaker 1: a runway and see what he can do. Like there's
Speaker 1: a chance you're facing the Clippers, the Timberwolves, how the
Speaker 1: Warriors in two in three weeks like that. This needs
Speaker 1: to be this, These problems need to be resolved yesterday.
Speaker 1: And so I'm starting to get a little bit concerned
Speaker 1: about whether or not the Lakers are hitting at the
Speaker 1: right type of level they need to be hitting at
Speaker 1: to go on the run that they need to go on.
Speaker 1: The defensive struggle with speed, A lot of miss rotations tonight,
Speaker 1: a lot of miss defensive rebounds where they're slower to
Speaker 1: the ball. In this sort of situation, I want to
Speaker 1: at least account for some of the fact that the
Speaker 1: Lakers are kind of not in the same defensive rhythm
Speaker 1: that they were in in the past. But the reality
Speaker 1: is there was only a very brief stretch there where
Speaker 1: they were good defensively with Luca right after the trade.
Speaker 1: There's been a pretty large sample now after that where
Speaker 1: they've been pretty bad defensively with Luca, and teams are
Speaker 1: looking to attack him out front over and over and
Speaker 1: over again. We did see an example in the second
Speaker 1: half tonight of a pre switch, meaning where they brought
Speaker 1: Luca's man up into his screen and then Lebron went
Speaker 1: instead of Luca, But that was the only time I
Speaker 1: saw it, and for the most part, they were just
Speaker 1: conceding that switch. And if they're going to concede that switch,
Speaker 1: then they're just going to have to be better in
Speaker 1: their rotations than they've been being. If they defend like
Speaker 1: this behind Luca, who's been giving up driple penetration the
Speaker 1: way that he has, I think they could get cut
Speaker 1: pieces by a good offensive team when they get into postseason.
Speaker 1: I talked a lot in other games about the idea
Speaker 1: of leveraging your strengths to hide your weaknesses. There's no
Speaker 1: doubt that all this stuff is connected. I'll give you
Speaker 1: guys some examples. Luca plays better from the start of
Speaker 1: this game. Immediately starts kicking ass, punishing mismatches, drawing double teams,
Speaker 1: spraying out beautiful kick out passes to shooters. Now the
Speaker 1: threes that Dorian gets the threes that Gabe gets. They're cleaner,
Speaker 1: they're more in rhythm now instead of those guys going
Speaker 1: one for ten from three. They have much better shooting
Speaker 1: nights now. As a result, the team is able to
Speaker 1: set their defense more. Now that they're setting their defense
Speaker 1: more and they're in control of the game and they're
Speaker 1: not trailing by ten, they're more invigorated, they're more motivated,
Speaker 1: they're flying around, they're making plays. See how like you
Speaker 1: can imagine a scenario where these things are connected. You
Speaker 1: can leverage your strengths to hide your weaknesses. The part
Speaker 1: that gets scary for me there is, as I said,
Speaker 1: like we're on almost a two week stretch there where
Speaker 1: Lucas just hasn't been as good, and so it's just
Speaker 1: a little concerning from the standpoint of right now, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen the Lakers put together a consistent stretch of
Speaker 1: like great basketball since Lebron came back from his injury,
Speaker 1: and so I'm definit only a little bit. I'm a
Speaker 1: little bit concerned there. That said, there is time, and
Speaker 1: you know, if they do get a favorable first round
Speaker 1: matchup and they end up getting a win, they could
Speaker 1: have until May to get some of this together before
Speaker 1: they face a more serious team. Similar to what I
Speaker 1: talked about with Jonathan Minga, I did think we saw
Speaker 1: one clear advantage for the Lakers tonight, and that's that
Speaker 1: the Warriors can't guard Lebron. Lebron did exactly what I
Speaker 1: was just talking about Luca needing to do. He consistently
Speaker 1: methodically found mismatches against guards where he liked his size,
Speaker 1: and he liked the spacing of the floor, and he
Speaker 1: was able to get downhill and he was able to
Speaker 1: consistently compromise the defense for kickout passes and for layups
Speaker 1: right at the front of the rim. That is, to
Speaker 1: me a translatable thing to a series between the Lakers
Speaker 1: and Warriors. And so in an event where the Lakers
Speaker 1: beat the Warriors in a playoff series, it will require
Speaker 1: Lebron to continue to leverage that and for Luca to
Speaker 1: meet him at that level. And that really is the
Speaker 1: advantage there. The Lakers are going to leverage their size,
Speaker 1: it's got to be Lebron and Luca together punishing them
Speaker 1: all over the floor. The volume m