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Speaker 1: to night here at the Volume. Happy Sunday, everybody. Hope
Speaker 1: all of you guys are having an incredible weekend. We
Speaker 1: have a jam pack show for you today. I just
Speaker 1: finished watching the Lakers Nuggets, which looked just like every
Speaker 1: other Lakers Nuggets games. We're gonna break that game down
Speaker 1: from the perspective of both teams. Then we're gonna hit
Speaker 1: Celtics mams from Friday night, and then after that, I've
Speaker 1: got a mail bag for you guys. You guys have
Speaker 1: the jove before we get started. Subscribe to our brand
Speaker 1: new YouTube channel. It mean a lot to me if
Speaker 1: you guys would take a second to scroll down and
Speaker 1: hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops tonight. It would
Speaker 1: also be helpful if you guys will leave a rating
Speaker 1: in a review on that front. Don't forget about my
Speaker 1: Twitter feed at Underscore Jason LT. That's where Lee film threads,
Speaker 1: like the film thread I made tonight involving the crunch
Speaker 1: time stretch of Lakers Nuggets. That's also where I put
Speaker 1: show announcements and then last minute least, keep dropping mailbag
Speaker 1: questions in those comments so we can keep hitting them
Speaker 1: throughout this season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give the Nuggets their props for a few
Speaker 1: minutes here, and then I want to go on like
Speaker 1: an old fashioned angry fan rant because I'm really irritated
Speaker 1: with a specific tactical stuff from the Lakers down the
Speaker 1: stretch of this game. But that's for later on. I thought,
Speaker 1: this game, you know, it's funny. I bet you if
Speaker 1: you went into the locker room and asked Nuggets fans,
Speaker 1: they'd tell you that this wasn't their best game that
Speaker 1: they played this year, and it certainly was, and I
Speaker 1: didn't think they gave a great effort in the first
Speaker 1: half in particular, but in a weird way, I thought
Speaker 1: it was a resounding demonstration of just how good they are.
Speaker 1: If you got Jamal Murray on a bum ankle, they're
Speaker 1: floating through the first half of the game. It's a
Speaker 1: Lakers team that just needs this game, so so so
Speaker 1: much more than the Nuggets, not just because of the standings,
Speaker 1: but also because of the reality of the mental advantage
Speaker 1: in this matchup. The Lakers just need a win against
Speaker 1: the Nuggets so that they can feel like they have
Speaker 1: a shot against the Nuggets. Like that's the thing. Like
Speaker 1: I think if you asked Lakers, any Lakers fan, any
Speaker 1: Lakers player, any Lakers coach, and any Nuggets fan player
Speaker 1: or coach, they'd all say that if a player like
Speaker 1: true serum, they'd all say that the Nuggets would probably
Speaker 1: beat the Lakers in a series. But this is always
Speaker 1: the case. There's like a spectrum there right, Like it's
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent chance, it's just like ninety percent chance, right,
Speaker 1: But like what's that ten percent? What's that little bit
Speaker 1: of hope that you cling to, right, And like whatever
Speaker 1: that is, there's a basketball formula to get there, But like,
Speaker 1: in order for you to believe that in that ten
Speaker 1: percent when you get there, you need to have a win.
Speaker 1: You need to have a win in a regular season
Speaker 1: game where you just remind yourselves like, yeah, we're capable
Speaker 1: of beating these guys, even if it is a long shot,
Speaker 1: We're capable, right, And the Nuggets just snuffed that out
Speaker 1: tonight in such a big way. You know, the Lakers
Speaker 1: offense has been so much better as of late. It's
Speaker 1: a big part of what has kind of like kept
Speaker 1: them afloat in this recent stretch without Jared Vanderbilt, which
Speaker 1: has basically been they figured out their five out offense stuff.
Speaker 1: They mean, a lot of guys that are good on
Speaker 1: the ball, a lot of guys that can finish plays.
Speaker 1: That bomb movement is really really good, and they can
Speaker 1: have some success. And that's how they were picking the
Speaker 1: Nuggets apart in pick and roll early in this game,
Speaker 1: but they were able to get stops there. We're gonna
Speaker 1: break it down specifically why here in just a few minutes,
Speaker 1: and then on the other end of the floor, it
Speaker 1: just still comes down to the fact that Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: can get whatever he wants, Nicole Jokic can get wherever
Speaker 1: he wants, make whatever he wants, gets all these little
Speaker 1: high percentage shots around the basket, whether it's a left
Speaker 1: handed hook over Ruy Hatchamura, or it's a floater in
Speaker 1: the lane off of a catch off a pocket pass
Speaker 1: and pick and roll. For Jamal Murray, whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: a three at the top of the key off of
Speaker 1: a dribble combination, or a turnaround jumper over his right shoulder,
Speaker 1: or even just working around a ball screen and getting
Speaker 1: into the lane like he did for that final basket
Speaker 1: on cam Reddish, where he just kind of dribbles and
Speaker 1: dribbles and dribbles until something opens up and he takes
Speaker 1: advantage of it. Even those two corner threes. Late, I
Speaker 1: saw a lot of Lakers fans like, oh man, I
Speaker 1: can't believe Justin Holiday made that shot. I can't believe
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon made that shot. Justin Holliday is a forty
Speaker 1: seven percent corner three point shooter. So like, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you gonna if you're gonna tag Aaron, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: double off of Aaron Gordon with AD, you're gonna tag
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon on the baseline the kickout passes there to
Speaker 1: Justin Holiday in the corner, he's gonna probably make it
Speaker 1: half the time. It's one point, you know whatever. That
Speaker 1: comes out to a little bit under a point and
Speaker 1: a half per shot. That's a really high percentage. Look
Speaker 1: for then even Aaron Gordon. This is what was crazy.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't really notice it until I was
Speaker 1: digging into the numbers after the game. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I can't believe how confidently Aaron Gordon rised into that shot.
Speaker 1: And the main reason why I was thinking that is like,
Speaker 1: like Doris Burke pointed out in the broadcast, She's like,
Speaker 1: his first few misses from three were really ugly, and
Speaker 1: they were. But here's the crazy part. Aaron Gordon is
Speaker 1: twenty five percent on above the break threes this year.
Speaker 1: He's also twenty seven percent on left corner threes this year.
Speaker 1: This is coming into tonight's game, He's fifty three percent
Speaker 1: on right corner threes. So, like, there's something that happens
Speaker 1: with shooters where it's like there's something about like driving
Speaker 1: confidence as you go into your muscle memory that really helps.
Speaker 1: And like when you know, like this is my hot spot,
Speaker 1: like you feel comfortable going into that shot. And again,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the scouting department for the
Speaker 1: Lakers not doing a good job of making Anthony Davis aware,
Speaker 1: or if Anthony Davis was just falling asleep on that
Speaker 1: possession or being lazi or what the deal was. But
Speaker 1: like Aaron Gordon made them pay with the right corner
Speaker 1: three that he's been making all season long. So like again,
Speaker 1: like a lot of it is just this is what
Speaker 1: Denver does right, and this is the result that you
Speaker 1: can see. And then at the end of the game,
Speaker 1: getting stops in the pick and roll they were getting
Speaker 1: they were getting killed because their backside help wasn't particularly
Speaker 1: sharp and you know, specifically Denver's pick and roll coverage
Speaker 1: tends to kind of concede the pocket pass, and so
Speaker 1: the Lakers were having a lot of success hitting you know,
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis with those little passes into the pocket and
Speaker 1: getting good shots out of that. Well, what happened down
Speaker 1: the end of the down the stretch of the game,
Speaker 1: they finally sharpened up their back line help by specifically
Speaker 1: helping off of Ruey and Cam Reddish, and I clipped
Speaker 1: several examples of this, and you guys can see in
Speaker 1: my twitter feed again underscore JSONLT you could see a
Speaker 1: bunch of specific examples of them loading up on the
Speaker 1: ballscreen actions for the Lakers and causing problems like whether
Speaker 1: it's Aaron Gordon, you know, really being aggressive on Lebron
Speaker 1: with back pressure because he knows Jokic can help, because
Speaker 1: they're ignoring Reddish and Rui and you know, able to
Speaker 1: box Ad out of the lane, right, or if it's
Speaker 1: like that last strip that Michael Porter Junior had on
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis, he was just completely ignoring Rui had to
Speaker 1: murder by the way Rui was open in the nunker spot.
Speaker 1: And Anthony Davis is, you know, he's a player, has
Speaker 1: made some progress as a passer this year, but he's
Speaker 1: not Jokic. He's not the guy that, like, when you
Speaker 1: bring help from a specific spot, he identifies it and
Speaker 1: makes you pay every single time. That's not Ad. And
Speaker 1: so the Nuggets did what they're good at, which is
Speaker 1: they find a way to get stops against their particular opponent,
Speaker 1: in this case, loading up on the roll man in
Speaker 1: the half court off of the if he shooters for
Speaker 1: the Lakers, and they got enough stops and next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, they end up with a double figure win
Speaker 1: in a game that it felt like the Lakers controlled
Speaker 1: for you know, two and a half quarters. You know,
Speaker 1: here's the bottom line. There are some things with the
Speaker 1: Lakers that really pissed me off tonight, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go off on him in a minute. But the bottom
Speaker 1: line is Jamal Murray and Nikole Jokicic consistently just straight
Speaker 1: up outplay Lebron James and Anthony Davison crunch time every
Speaker 1: single time they play, no matter what the surrounding factors are.
Speaker 1: Jamal can make shots, Nikole Jokicic can make shots, Lebron
Speaker 1: can't make shots, and Ady can't make shots in this matchup.
Speaker 1: And it gets even crazier when you factor in that
Speaker 1: Lebron and Ad have been awesome in the clutch this year.
Speaker 1: Did you guys know that coming into tonight the Lakers
Speaker 1: were literally the very best clutch team in basketball. They
Speaker 1: were eighteen and seven. That's a seventy two percent win percentage,
Speaker 1: best in the League. Lebron James has been amazing offensively
Speaker 1: in the clutch all season. Did it again against the
Speaker 1: Wizards the other night, did it again against the Clippers
Speaker 1: the other night. He's been doing it to everybody. But
Speaker 1: there's something up here with this particular matchup or the
Speaker 1: two of them. I don't know if they lose their
Speaker 1: mojo or what the deal is, but they struggle. And
Speaker 1: by the way I put that, I give that credit
Speaker 1: to Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic. There is a thing.
Speaker 1: And again, this is one of those things that you'd
Speaker 1: never be able to quantify with analytics. You'd never be
Speaker 1: able to quantify with a catch all metric or anything
Speaker 1: like that. But if you've played the game, you know
Speaker 1: that there is a mental dynamic that takes place on
Speaker 1: the floor. And when a player has a mental advantage
Speaker 1: over his opponent, his opponent will usually behave uncharacteristically either
Speaker 1: taking weird shots, not rising as confidently in shots as
Speaker 1: you as he usually does. Like even Lebron's like kind
Speaker 1: of kind of rising up. The wing three that he
Speaker 1: took at the end of the game barely grazed the
Speaker 1: side of the rim, and it's like Lebron in the
Speaker 1: in the last clutch game a few weeks ago, when
Speaker 1: they played like he badly bricked a floater driving along
Speaker 1: the baseline, that like a shot that you're usually that
Speaker 1: you usually see him make. It's like there, Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: and Nicole k have actually sapped Lebron and ad of
Speaker 1: their confidence in these situations, which is crazy. Eighteen and
Speaker 1: six in clutch games against the rest of the league,
Speaker 1: zero to two against the Denver Nuggets, and it's something
Speaker 1: that they're going to have to find a way to
Speaker 1: shake if they want to have any chance of capitalizing
Speaker 1: on that small sliver of a chance that they have
Speaker 1: to potentially win in a playoff series against these guys.
Speaker 1: And hell, I mean, it's not even guaranteed that they
Speaker 1: would get that opportunity at this point, being that they're
Speaker 1: in the ten seed. Right last year, guys, I wanted
Speaker 1: to shout out for the Nuggets. I thought Justin Holliday
Speaker 1: played a great game. I thought he made a bunch
Speaker 1: of big time defensive plays. I thought he made timely shots.
Speaker 1: And then Peyton Watson, I thought he was just an
Speaker 1: absolute wrecking ball on defense. He had three blocks in
Speaker 1: sixteen minutes. The Denver Nuggets. They're the team that you
Speaker 1: know all year long, I've been saying, if they can
Speaker 1: stay healthy, if they can get those core five guys
Speaker 1: into April, and if they can hold up for two months,
Speaker 1: I would just be surprised if they didn't win at
Speaker 1: this point. That's how much better I think they are
Speaker 1: than everybody else that slow down half court basketball. All
Speaker 1: right on the Lakers front. First of all the disclaimers again,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say this again before I go in
Speaker 1: my rant. The Nuggets are just a much better basketball
Speaker 1: team than the Los Angeles Lakers, and Lebron and Ad
Speaker 1: specifically deserve a lot of blame for how the end
Speaker 1: of this game went. I thought Ad was super passive,
Speaker 1: in borderline ineffective on the defensive end down the stretch,
Speaker 1: which is literally his superpower. Lebron had two really ugly
Speaker 1: turnovers trying to get downhill in the fourth quarter. The
Speaker 1: two of them in general just had no ability to
Speaker 1: take control of the game offensively, while on the opposite
Speaker 1: end of the floor, Jamal Murray and Nikole Jokic were
Speaker 1: dominating the game offensively, but some of that was the
Speaker 1: reality of the lineup that was on the floor. Crunch
Speaker 1: time was an absolute disaster for the Lakers in this game,
Speaker 1: and the Lakers quite literally looked like a poorly coached team.
Speaker 1: First of all, there's three things that I want to
Speaker 1: hit on. First of all, why was Cam Reddish in
Speaker 1: the game? Cam Reddish is a player that has been
Speaker 1: passed around the league already in his brief career. Nobody
Speaker 1: seems to want him because of the fact that at
Speaker 1: this phase in his career he's an inattentive, ineffective defensive
Speaker 1: player with severe offensive limitations, all kinds of potential, and
Speaker 1: I believe he belongs in the NBA on a roster
Speaker 1: somewhere where he can be in a developmental situation where
Speaker 1: like maybe, just maybe it clicks eventually and he becomes
Speaker 1: a useful player. He belongs on a roster. I don't
Speaker 1: even dislike him necessarily on the Lakers roster, but just
Speaker 1: like with the Torrean print situation, he is being misused.
Speaker 1: Why did Darvin Ham play Cam Reddish down the stretch?
Speaker 1: Because Darvin is under the impression that Cam Reddish is
Speaker 1: some sort of lockdown perimeter defender and he's just not.
Speaker 1: He's not a good defensive player. He has great defensive tools,
Speaker 1: and if you watch specific possessions when he kind of
Speaker 1: puts it all together, it'll look good. But more often
Speaker 1: than not, he loses balance. He does a poor job
Speaker 1: navigating screens. He ducked under a late pick on Jamal Murray,
Speaker 1: like he like, he just struggles on that end of
Speaker 1: the foy. He did nothing in this game to remotely
Speaker 1: make Jamal Murray feel uncomfortable and then on the other
Speaker 1: end of the floor because of the severe offensive limitations
Speaker 1: that Cam Reddish has. I clipped every single defensive possession
Speaker 1: with less than five minutes left in this game on
Speaker 1: my Twitter feed. Watch how often Jamal Murray is literally
Speaker 1: chilling while Cam Reddish is on the floor he's guarding camp.
Speaker 1: There were two or three possessions that I clipped the
Speaker 1: Lakers are playing basketball and Jamal Murray's literally sitting there
Speaker 1: with his hands on his knees, chilling, chilling. There were
Speaker 1: other ones where he's not on his knee but he's
Speaker 1: just standing there like this. Literally, it's like the body
Speaker 1: language just screams, I don't have to guard this guy.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna save my legs so that I can
Speaker 1: make shots, and then you wonder why he looks so
Speaker 1: damn spry. On the other end of the floor, he's
Speaker 1: playing half the game. He's playing half the game because
Speaker 1: instead of playing D'Angelo Russell, who, by the way, also
Speaker 1: can't guard Jamal Murray, but neither can Cam. Like, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about Jared Vanderbilt in a minute, Jared Vanderbilt,
Speaker 1: you're also gonna ignore him. But first of all, he's
Speaker 1: a much better cutter than Cam Reddish. He's a much
Speaker 1: better offensive free better than Cam Reddish. Jared Vanderbilt, super
Speaker 1: flawed offensive player, is a much better offensive player than
Speaker 1: Cam Reddish. And on the other end of the floor,
Speaker 1: you get a starting caliber, legitimate perimeter defender. He's probably
Speaker 1: he's not like in that top tier perimeter defenders, but
Speaker 1: he's probably in that like second tier of versatile perimeter
Speaker 1: defenders that can guard a bunch of different types of
Speaker 1: offensive initiators. So, Jared Vanderbilt, it's a totally different situation.
Speaker 1: Right with Cam Reddish, you are getting a limited defensive
Speaker 1: player that cannot guard Jamal Murray and who is one
Speaker 1: of the very worst offensive players in the NBA. On
Speaker 1: the other end of the floor, and you bought Jamal
Speaker 1: Murray the ability to rest before he went over to
Speaker 1: the other end and cooked your ass. That was the
Speaker 1: first thing that I didn't understand. Like, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: The Lakers are not even a serious playoff team without
Speaker 1: Jared Vanderbilt, which is a whole other thing that we
Speaker 1: got to get into. But if you're gonna give yourself
Speaker 1: your best chance to win a game like this against
Speaker 1: the Nuggets, you've got to play your best players. And
Speaker 1: D'Angelo Russell is much better than he was last year,
Speaker 1: is playing the best basketball of his career in the
Speaker 1: last couple of months, and is definitively your third or
Speaker 1: fourth best player, and you left him on the bench
Speaker 1: for a player that would not crack the rotation for
Speaker 1: any other serious basketball team in the league. That's malpractice.
Speaker 1: That's playing with an arm behind your back. That's that's
Speaker 1: spotting the other team in advantage. It was literally blowing
Speaker 1: up the Lakers pick and roll attack at the end
Speaker 1: of the game. It was a huge problem. Secondly, Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis on Aaron Gordon instead of Nikola Jokich. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I understand why you try Ruey on Jokis I even
Speaker 1: recommend doing it in spurts. They started the game with it,
Speaker 1: though Jokic cooked him throughout the game, and then at
Speaker 1: the end of the game they went down with it.
Speaker 1: And on pivotal possessions it was Jokic beating Ruey with
Speaker 1: a hook shot over the top over his left shoulder,
Speaker 1: beating Ruey and drawing a double team, and then still
Speaker 1: making good kickout passes to shooters. It did not function.
Speaker 1: It did not work. And here's the thing. You can
Speaker 1: run the exact same configuration with Anthony Davis on Jokic.
Speaker 1: You can have Ruy guard Aaron Gordon, offer late help
Speaker 1: when it's there, and stay home when he doesn't need it.
Speaker 1: You can run the exact same configuration with ad on Nikolijokic,
Speaker 1: and maybe you give yourself a better chance of holding
Speaker 1: up in that spot. Most importantly, insanity is doing the
Speaker 1: exact same thing over and over again in expecting different results.
Speaker 1: There was not a single possession where Ruy was able
Speaker 1: to bother Nikola Jokic on an island. I get why
Speaker 1: you try it again. I'd recommend it in small bursts,
Speaker 1: as you're trying to mix coverages. But the idea, the
Speaker 1: fact that they did not even try Anthony Davis on
Speaker 1: Nikoliokich at the end of the game is baffling to me.
Speaker 1: And by the way, part of that's on Ad. Part
Speaker 1: of that's like, Ad, you got to go over to
Speaker 1: Darvin and be like, hey, I'm gonna get him now,
Speaker 1: and he just didn't do so. And that's why I
Speaker 1: was critical of Ad earlier for being kind of passive
Speaker 1: down the stretch of this game. And then lastly, organization
Speaker 1: in scouting Aaron Gordon, as I mentioned earlier, twenty five
Speaker 1: percent on above the break threes, twenty seven percent on
Speaker 1: left corner threes, fifty three percent on right corner threes.
Speaker 1: That is why he rows up confidently into that shot
Speaker 1: in crunch time of a basketball game when he had
Speaker 1: just missed all the other jumpers that he took in
Speaker 1: the game, except for the couple short ones that he made. Like, literally,
Speaker 1: somebody in the Lakers staff needs to get an AD's
Speaker 1: ear and be like, when you're helping off Ag, be
Speaker 1: careful when he starts to venture to that right corner.
Speaker 1: That's his sweet spot. He likes it out there, and
Speaker 1: he's been making more than half of them this season. Like,
Speaker 1: where is that how is that not something that is
Speaker 1: being made known to the players or did Ad know
Speaker 1: and he just, you know, was lazy on that possession.
Speaker 1: Who knows? But that to me is organization and scouting.
Speaker 1: And then on the other end of the floor there
Speaker 1: was a possession that you guys might remember where Ruey
Speaker 1: ha Chimura missed a pull up jumper on the right
Speaker 1: elbow and it was bad floor organization. Typically, what you
Speaker 1: want in a floor setup is you want your primary
Speaker 1: action on one side of the right. In this case,
Speaker 1: the specific possession started with the lebron Ad pick and
Speaker 1: roll on the opposite end of the floor, though there
Speaker 1: was Ruey on the left wing in Austin Reeves in
Speaker 1: the left corner. That's poor organization because Austin Reeves is
Speaker 1: your second side creator. The guy in the wing inevitably
Speaker 1: ends up running the second action lebron Wi running the
Speaker 1: pick and roll it doesn't work. He's gonna swing it
Speaker 1: to the wing. From there, you're running action out of that.
Speaker 1: And so typically what you'd want is Ruey in the
Speaker 1: corner where he can spot up in Austin on the
Speaker 1: wing where he can run action because he's your best
Speaker 1: secondary shot creator. Beyond Lebron James right at least in
Speaker 1: that lineup, but instead the ball ends up in Ruey Hachimura,
Speaker 1: your fourth best offensive player in that lineup, to take
Speaker 1: a pivotal shot in the game, just because of basic
Speaker 1: floor organization stuff. Here's why I bring that up. You
Speaker 1: know who never makes those kinds of fucking mistakes is
Speaker 1: the Denver Nuggets. They never make those kinds of mistakes. Somehow,
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon does find himself in his sweet spot. Somehow,
Speaker 1: Justin Holliday is in the corner where he's deadly. Somehow
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray does get to his sweet spots on the
Speaker 1: floor where he likes to work. Somehow Nikola Jokic does.
Speaker 1: That's the difference. And like again, like, personnel plays a
Speaker 1: big role in this kind of stuff, but coaching matters.
Speaker 1: Coaching is how you maximize the result. Coaching is how
Speaker 1: you get the very most out of whatever you have
Speaker 1: in your locker room. And like, here's the thing with
Speaker 1: darvinham big picture. Last year, I thought he did a
Speaker 1: much better job, particularly managing the rotation. I thought he
Speaker 1: hit the right notes when he got to the postseason.
Speaker 1: It was a little touch and go during the regular
Speaker 1: season but he hit the right notes when he got
Speaker 1: to the postseason, and then two he had the group motivated.
Speaker 1: The Lakers played hard last year, they were ravaged by injuries,
Speaker 1: and they played hard this year. They've been the worst
Speaker 1: energy and effort team in the league. They're one of
Speaker 1: the Here's the thing, the Lakers are not a like,
Speaker 1: they're not a championship contender. I have them in my
Speaker 1: long shot tire. I have him I think eighth among
Speaker 1: all my championship contenders. But here's the thing, Like, they're
Speaker 1: way worse, are way better than their record would lead
Speaker 1: you to believe, because they've been such a bad energy
Speaker 1: and effort, energy and effort team this year, and so
Speaker 1: when you have the inability to motivate your guys to
Speaker 1: bring consistent effort, when you have Darvin consistently playing lesser
Speaker 1: players on his team big minutes over better players, it's
Speaker 1: a concern. I think he's in completely over his head
Speaker 1: leaving your third or fourth best player on the bench
Speaker 1: against the best team in the league while playing Cam Reddish,
Speaker 1: who literally his only spot in the NBA SH right
Speaker 1: now should be playing garbage time and working with player
Speaker 1: development behind the scenes to see if maybe he can
Speaker 1: turn into a useful player. He is not a player
Speaker 1: that should be playing crunch time for any sort of
Speaker 1: serious basketball team. That is the that is on the
Speaker 1: coaching staff. That is on the coaching staff. And like again,
Speaker 1: this Laker team already has an uphill climb, Jared Vanderbilt
Speaker 1: is completely an utterly indispensable to this roster. And that's
Speaker 1: your one tiny little bit of hope. Like, if you're
Speaker 1: a Lakers fan and you're looking to cling to something,
Speaker 1: you're clinging to Jared Vanderbilt. Because he didn't play in
Speaker 1: any of the Nuggets games this year, and yes, last
Speaker 1: year he couldnt play against the Nuggets, but the Lakers
Speaker 1: ran a completely different offense last year of four out
Speaker 1: offense where Jared was spotting up. This year they run
Speaker 1: a five out offense with lots of ball in player movement,
Speaker 1: and Jared Vanderbilt has been much more effective in their
Speaker 1: offense this year. That's your tiny little sliver of hope.
Speaker 1: Do I think Jared Vanderbilt puts the Lakers over the Nuggets? No,
Speaker 1: I do not, But that's your tiny little sliver of hope.
Speaker 1: And that's on the front office. It's on the front
Speaker 1: office that This guy is completely indispensable because we knew
Speaker 1: after the Denver Nuggets series that they needed a high
Speaker 1: level starter that could defend and be a positive offensive player,
Speaker 1: and they failed to do it over the offseason, and
Speaker 1: they failed to do it at the deadline, and so
Speaker 1: as a result, a foot injury to Jared Vanderbilt that
Speaker 1: cost you six weeks can literally cost you everything. And
Speaker 1: that's on the front office. But with the group that
Speaker 1: is there, there is a slim chance, and I just
Speaker 1: don't think Darvin is capable of getting them to that
Speaker 1: slim chance. All Right, I'm off of my soapbox. I
Speaker 1: needed to just vent for a little bit. All Right,
Speaker 1: We're gonna get to Boston Dallas. This was one of
Speaker 1: Boston's best offensive games of the season. They had a
Speaker 1: one thirty eight offensive rating. That's like completely and utterly insane.
Speaker 1: They were taking a ton of jumpers, but their jumpers
Speaker 1: were going. They took fifty three jumpers in this game
Speaker 1: for seventy two points. They were at one point per
Speaker 1: pull up jumper. I think twenty one points on twenty
Speaker 1: one pull up jumpers. But they were staggering one point
Speaker 1: five nine to four points per catch and shoot jumper.
Speaker 1: In the game against Dallas, they made twenty one threes
Speaker 1: on forty nine percent shooting, so obviously a great example
Speaker 1: of Boston's perimeter skill. But they also had a great
Speaker 1: paint scoring game. And this is something I've been harping
Speaker 1: on a lot on the show, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: dive a little bit further into their recent successive. They
Speaker 1: had sixty two points in the paint against Dallas. Six
Speaker 1: offensive rebound put backs. Mentioned this earlier but in earlier shows,
Speaker 1: but they averaged just two point six offensive rebound put
Speaker 1: backs per game. That ranks twenty first in the NBA,
Speaker 1: and they had six of them against Dallas, more than
Speaker 1: double their usual output. It was a big part of
Speaker 1: their late third quarter run. Jason Tatum was beating his
Speaker 1: man off the dribble, drawing in Maxicicliba into help, and
Speaker 1: Al Horford and Porzingis were capitalizing on the back end
Speaker 1: with offensive rebound putbacks. It was actually how they helped
Speaker 1: push the lead from seven to thirteen. During that span.
Speaker 1: They scored on a cut to the basket six times
Speaker 1: in this game. They averaged just three point six per game,
Speaker 1: which ranks twentyeighth in the league. Again, these are all
Speaker 1: areas that they've massively improved on over the course of
Speaker 1: the last week. For Boston, early on their cutting was
Speaker 1: in Dallas's two three zone look. Drew Holliday and Jalen
Speaker 1: Brown both scored on flash cuts to the middle of
Speaker 1: the floor where they were able to get easy baskets.
Speaker 1: Al Horford, though, had two buckets out of the dunker
Speaker 1: spot in possessions where he typically operates out of the
Speaker 1: three point line. There was a I want to say
Speaker 1: it was a it was a I can't remember if
Speaker 1: it was a Jalen Brown or a Jason Tatum pick
Speaker 1: and roll, but Xavier Tillman slipped to the basket. Dallas
Speaker 1: is putting two on the ball most of the ball screens.
Speaker 1: Late in the game, they were getting absolutely torched. Boston
Speaker 1: scored one point four to eight points per pick and
Speaker 1: roll including passes in this game, which is like completely insane.
Speaker 1: So Dallas was putting two on the ball in the
Speaker 1: second half and Xavier Tillman slipped to the basket, and
Speaker 1: al Horford, in a lot of these situations, has been
Speaker 1: just chilling in the right corner waiting for a three,
Speaker 1: but instead he worked his way along the baseline into
Speaker 1: the dunker spot and got an easy lay up. Again,
Speaker 1: these are ways to manufacture paint points for a team
Speaker 1: that hasn't been scoring a ton in the paint this season.
Speaker 1: Xavier Tillman scored on a cut along the baseline where
Speaker 1: Jaylen Brown hit him by the way. Jaalen Brown had
Speaker 1: an awesome playmaking game in this game. He had five
Speaker 1: assists with no turnovers. Thought he had a bunch of
Speaker 1: timely reads, specifically where the defense was loading up on him,
Speaker 1: and then Jason Tatum's physical aggression that was a big
Speaker 1: part of their paint output in this game. There was
Speaker 1: a stretch in the middle of the second quarter where
Speaker 1: Dallas put Josh Green on him. And one of the
Speaker 1: specific things I've been talking about with Jason Tatum because
Speaker 1: I want to say a lot of people get the
Speaker 1: wrong meaning of what I'm talking about when I talk
Speaker 1: about scoring in the paint versus pull up jump shots. Like,
Speaker 1: the pull up jumper is a part of basketball. It's
Speaker 1: a huge part of basketball. It's a huge part of
Speaker 1: my game personally, Like you got to be able to
Speaker 1: make pull up jump shots. I'm just a big believer
Speaker 1: in like working with pull up jump shots within your
Speaker 1: physical advantages. So why I've always been such a big
Speaker 1: Qui fan. Kawi takes a lot of pull up jumpers,
Speaker 1: but the majority of the ones he takes, he uses
Speaker 1: his physicality to get close to the rim and takes
Speaker 1: short range pull up jump shots. Tatum, I was so
Speaker 1: impressed just literally bullying Josh Screen into that little area
Speaker 1: right inside the foul line for short range pull up
Speaker 1: jump shots. He made four pull up jumpers that were
Speaker 1: inside the paint in this game, and I don't even
Speaker 1: think you had to miss in that range off of
Speaker 1: a jump shot. The one jumper that he missed inside
Speaker 1: the three point line was like a right elbow extended
Speaker 1: one that was like a like a nineteen twenty footer.
Speaker 1: So like he got to these short range pull up
Speaker 1: jumpers and he was like, and again, they're tough. Like
Speaker 1: one of them was like a right shoulder fade, one
Speaker 1: of them was like a one leg fade away, one
Speaker 1: of them was kind of like a step through leaner
Speaker 1: going to his left. They're kind of tough, but they're
Speaker 1: tough close to the rim, which dramatically improves your accuracy
Speaker 1: in that range. And I thought all of that was
Speaker 1: significant in the Boston paint attack in this games. Do
Speaker 1: you guys remember after the Bulls game, I said that
Speaker 1: the Celtics were averaging just forty seven points in the
Speaker 1: paint per game, which ranked twenty seventh in the league.
Speaker 1: They're averaging sixty one points in the paint per game
Speaker 1: over their last three games, which ranks fourth in the
Speaker 1: league over that span. Really really encouraging trends in that approach.
Speaker 1: All of them stuff that I've been talking about on
Speaker 1: the show. This game wasn't so much the running in
Speaker 1: transition for layups and threes, but for layups instead of threes,
Speaker 1: but that was a big one in previous games. Crashing
Speaker 1: the offensive glass, cutting more instead of spotting up, the
Speaker 1: physical aggression into the paint in their post up situations.
Speaker 1: All of has helped turn around their paint attack over
Speaker 1: the course of the last week. Chris tops Porzingis. We've
Speaker 1: talked a lot on the show about just how important
Speaker 1: he is and how he unlocks everything that Boston does
Speaker 1: because of his ability to shoot the basketball, to beat switches,
Speaker 1: and to protect the room credibly. He made eight field
Speaker 1: goals in this game on his way to twenty four points.
Speaker 1: He had one but that was outside of those specific
Speaker 1: play types. It was a kind of like an off
Speaker 1: screen move on Maxi Kliba where he like he took
Speaker 1: him downhill, turned his back and then went like with
Speaker 1: a really hard sell on a left shoulder fade with
Speaker 1: like a really hard pump fake Max He went for it.
Speaker 1: Then he stepped through and dunked it with two hands.
Speaker 1: But every single other one of his seven shots, or
Speaker 1: the seven others of his eight shots that he made,
Speaker 1: all of them were either helped beaters or switch beaters.
Speaker 1: At the start of the game, Dallas had Derek Lively
Speaker 1: roaming all over the floor like and it wasn't even
Speaker 1: just like you know, sitting back to drop coverage. It
Speaker 1: was like Jalen Brown catch the ball on the post
Speaker 1: and Derek Gliveley would just sprint down to the basket
Speaker 1: and just offer backside help. And it was clearly it
Speaker 1: was clearly schematic because like Derek would run and then
Speaker 1: he'd immediately point to other Dallas players to rotate around.
Speaker 1: So clearly that was part of the game plan coming
Speaker 1: into this game. But here's the thing. If you're gonna
Speaker 1: have a game plan where your center is ignoring your
Speaker 1: center to go help underneath the basket. You gotta have
Speaker 1: a guy who can burn him there, and Christops Porzingis
Speaker 1: just burned him time and time again by hitting deep threes.
Speaker 1: And then one of the biggest stories of this game,
Speaker 1: I thought was Boston trying to attack Luca and Kyrie
Speaker 1: as much as they possibly could in screening actions and
Speaker 1: in ice own post up situations. Porzingis was a big
Speaker 1: part of that. He had multiple baskets attacking both Luca
Speaker 1: and Kyrie, irving in post up situations, and I just
Speaker 1: thought it was a great example of just how important
Speaker 1: Porzingis is to kind of growing the margin of error
Speaker 1: for this team and raising this team's ceiling. I thought
Speaker 1: he was incredible. And then Jaln Brown, He's just been
Speaker 1: outrageously good in the last couple of weeks. I was
Speaker 1: super impressed by his playmaking in this game. Like I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, he was one of the guys that kept
Speaker 1: punishing Lively for helping. Had four assists just in the
Speaker 1: first half without a single turnover. He was another one
Speaker 1: of those guys that was attacking Luca and Kyrie and switches.
Speaker 1: He blew by Luca on a baseline drive and went
Speaker 1: through him for an and one. He like bullied Kyrie
Speaker 1: into the middle of the floor for a little push
Speaker 1: out in the lane. I thought he was awesome. And
Speaker 1: then he blew the game open in the in the
Speaker 1: early fourth quarter with that run where he beat Luke
Speaker 1: off the dribble and then made the three sixty layup,
Speaker 1: and then he had a step back three against I
Speaker 1: want to say it was against Daniel Gafford in like
Speaker 1: a drop coverage on the left wing, but he was
Speaker 1: a big part of how they blew the game open.
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown's last four games twenty seven points, seven rebounds,
Speaker 1: and four assists, sixty percent from the field, forty three
Speaker 1: percent from three, and has had a plus minus of
Speaker 1: at least plus fifteen in all four of his games.
Speaker 1: And again, the points in the paint stuff is just
Speaker 1: super super encouraging. They're starting to figure out that they
Speaker 1: need more offensive versatility. I've been really really happy with
Speaker 1: what I'm seeing from them on that end of the floor,
Speaker 1: on the Dallas front. I said on the show that
Speaker 1: they had been defending really well, but that it was
Speaker 1: against a weaker stretch in their schedule. They had a
Speaker 1: couple of tough games in there, against the Thunder and
Speaker 1: against the Suns, but for the most part in that
Speaker 1: stretch it was bad teams or good teams that were
Speaker 1: severely injury limited. And so this road this road trip
Speaker 1: was like a great test for them, an opportunity to
Speaker 1: see if their defense is legitimate or if it was
Speaker 1: some fools gold And like, I know, it's just four games,
Speaker 1: but man, did they fail the test miserably. They end
Speaker 1: up going one to three. They give up at least
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty points in every game. They had
Speaker 1: a one twenty six point four defensive rating in the
Speaker 1: four games. And for perspective, just so you guys can
Speaker 1: get a feel for what that number means, Washington currently
Speaker 1: holds the worst defensive rating in the league at one
Speaker 1: to nineteen point nine. So like we're talking catastrophically bad
Speaker 1: defense from Dallas now on tape. It mostly comes down
Speaker 1: to poor point of attack defense and over helping talked
Speaker 1: a lot about this in the Boston game as it
Speaker 1: pertained to like leaving Chris tops porzingis, but it's a
Speaker 1: pretty consistent issue where like, even from the guard position,
Speaker 1: they're just ignoring corner shooters to come into the lane
Speaker 1: to try to tag rollers and things along those lines.
Speaker 1: They gave up seventeen made threes on the road trip
Speaker 1: on forty four percent shooting, both of those dead last
Speaker 1: in the league over that four game span. They only
Speaker 1: gave up fifty one points in the paint per game
Speaker 1: over that span, which is pretty solid. Actually, like that's
Speaker 1: not bad at all. So, like overhelping was the main
Speaker 1: culprit of their defensive issues. That in transition defense, which
Speaker 1: we'll talk about it in a little bit, there was
Speaker 1: a big part of Boston's run there where like PJ.
Speaker 1: Washington got red hot from three, he made three threes
Speaker 1: in a row and it was eighty one to seventy
Speaker 1: nine in the middle of the third quarter, and then
Speaker 1: Boston literally just scored in transition time and time again
Speaker 1: right after that as they blew the game open because
Speaker 1: Dallas just wasn't matched up, not talking, not communicating, like
Speaker 1: two guys on the big man running the floor, nobody
Speaker 1: brunning out to shooters on the wing. They blew the
Speaker 1: game with defensive execution in transition and in overhelp situations.
Speaker 1: You know, I like, and I want to be clear,
Speaker 1: a lot of this I put on Jason Kidd because like,
Speaker 1: I like Derek Lively looked like on tape that he
Speaker 1: wasn't just helping freelancing. It looked like he would leave
Speaker 1: his leave porzingis to dive down into the lane and
Speaker 1: he'd be directing traffic and telling people to rotate. That
Speaker 1: tells me it's schematic. So like the encouraging side of
Speaker 1: that is like that means that it's fixable. You know,
Speaker 1: like this transition defense stuff, they're twenty sixth then transition
Speaker 1: defense according to Cleaning the Glass, it's like points added
Speaker 1: per transition possession or something like that is the name
Speaker 1: of the metric. But it's like they're kind of like
Speaker 1: all inclusive transition metric and they're twenty six They give
Speaker 1: up one point three to three points per transition possession,
Speaker 1: which I think ranks twenty seventh in the league. So
Speaker 1: like the transition defense thing has been an issue all season,
Speaker 1: that to me is always fixable. That's just run hard
Speaker 1: and communicate. That's literally all it is, Run hard and communicate.
Speaker 1: But that said Dallas fans, I understand that it can
Speaker 1: look really dark right now. I have five silver linings
Speaker 1: for you guys. That makes me feel like there's still
Speaker 1: light at the end of this tunnel, even after the
Speaker 1: discouraging road trip. First of all, one, many of the
Speaker 1: defensive issues they have are fixable, and they have the
Speaker 1: personnel to be better than they've showed transition defense, like
Speaker 1: I talked about, just execution, running back and communicating. Overhelping
Speaker 1: scheme and execution that's on the coach that can be remedied.
Speaker 1: And then three the personnel. They have good perimeter defenders
Speaker 1: and Derek Lively, Like this is my second silver lining.
Speaker 1: Derek Lively is just awesome. Again, the overhelping thing was
Speaker 1: a scheme. I actually thought he had a really nice
Speaker 1: two way game. He has really good instincts and length
Speaker 1: and mobility. He had an awesome game on offense two
Speaker 1: running his lane in transition and rolling hard to the
Speaker 1: rim and pick and roll. He had like this nasty
Speaker 1: dunk or he dunked on like three Celtics. He actually
Speaker 1: reminds me a lot of Tyson Chandler, which obviously was
Speaker 1: the anchor of the Dallas championship team. So like, no
Speaker 1: matter what happens this season for Dallas, that's a massive
Speaker 1: silver lining. Just how damn good Derek Lively is. Third
Speaker 1: silver lining as a team. They rebounded really well on
Speaker 1: the road trip. They grabbed seventy three point four percent
Speaker 1: of available defensive rebounds on the road, which I think
Speaker 1: is a really strong indicator that the deadline moves they
Speaker 1: made helped them four to five. One of their biggest
Speaker 1: weaknesses again, that was a huge issue for the initial
Speaker 1: chunk of the season. They were not a good defensive
Speaker 1: rebounding team. Fourth silver lining. PJ Washington got his three
Speaker 1: point shot going. Talked about the three to threes in
Speaker 1: a row that he hit in the third quarter against
Speaker 1: Boston to get the game close, but he shot thirty
Speaker 1: six percent from three on six point three attempts during
Speaker 1: the road trip. That's super encouraging. And then lastly the
Speaker 1: fifth silver lining, both Kyrie and Luca were awesome. Luca
Speaker 1: on the road trip thirty six, ten and twelve on
Speaker 1: fifty three percent from the field in thirty nine percent
Speaker 1: from three, Kyrie twenty seven to four and three on
Speaker 1: forty seven percent from the field in thirty nine percent
Speaker 1: from three. That duo gives you a real chance as
Speaker 1: long as you can sharpen those things up on the
Speaker 1: defensive end. So really discouraging, borderline disastrous road trip, but
Speaker 1: some silver linings in there for Dallas. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get to the mailbag. Hey, Jason, I love your show,
Speaker 1: and you've really educated me on the schematics of basketball.
Speaker 1: I was wondering, how come when people talk about the
Speaker 1: two thousands, they say it was Kobe's era, that he
Speaker 1: was the undeniable best player during the era. I believed
Speaker 1: Tim Duncan was just as good, if not better, and
Speaker 1: deserves more respect as the best player in the two thousands.
Speaker 1: I believe people should look at this era like they
Speaker 1: look at the eighties with Magic and Bird, two all
Speaker 1: time great players who dominated the decade. I would love
Speaker 1: to get your opinion on this, please, and thank you.
Speaker 1: First of all, thank you for sporting the show and
Speaker 1: for the kind words. So I look at it more
Speaker 1: like I look at like two thousand to two thousand
Speaker 1: and two as like the Shack dominant stretch, and then
Speaker 1: like two thousand and three to two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: as like the Duncan dominant stretch, and then I look
Speaker 1: at eight to twenty ten as like the Kobe dominant stretch.
Speaker 1: But I think all three of them had really dominant
Speaker 1: stretches during that run. But that was definitely a Golden
Speaker 1: era of the NBA, just in terms of the top
Speaker 1: end talent that they had in the league. Next question,
Speaker 1: wouldn't Steph winning four championships against the second greatest player
Speaker 1: of all time Lebron make it that much more impressive
Speaker 1: than Jokic winning against a bang up, banged up Tyler
Speaker 1: Harrow as eighth seed. So this is a great example
Speaker 1: of kind of like shaping the narrative. Steph won two
Speaker 1: of those titles against Lebron with Kevin Durant on his team.
Speaker 1: Like that's you're taking the three best players in the league,
Speaker 1: Lebron the best player in my opinion, Stephen Katie the
Speaker 1: second and third best player on the team. They together
Speaker 1: beat Lebron while also having Klay Thompson, who is the
Speaker 1: second best shooter of all time, and a excellent perimeter defender,
Speaker 1: Andre Gudala who is the best wing defender in the
Speaker 1: league at that time, and Draymond Green, who is the
Speaker 1: best defensive player of his era. Right like that that
Speaker 1: mid twenty ten stretch, he was the best defensive player.
Speaker 1: So like, like, I mean, I'm not all championships are championships,
Speaker 1: to be clear, But all you have to do is
Speaker 1: ask an NBA player, and they'll tell you which NBA
Speaker 1: championship meant more of them. Lebron will tell you twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen meant more to him, right than maybe twenty twenty did, right. Like,
Speaker 1: So that's the thing is like all championships are championships,
Speaker 1: but not all championships are the same. And that doesn't
Speaker 1: discredit Steph. It's just I think it's really like, I
Speaker 1: think it's really unfair framing to just be like Steph
Speaker 1: beat Lebron four times in his era. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but he had the help of the other guy that
Speaker 1: was on his tier in Kevin Durant, right, and had
Speaker 1: the most talented roster in the league, the most talented
Speaker 1: roster in NBA history in the twenty seventeen twenty eighteen era.
Speaker 1: That's not a shot at Steph. I just think turning
Speaker 1: that against Lebron, I think is particularly unfair. And then
Speaker 1: also like just mentioning Tyler harrow Less for the NBA
Speaker 1: Finals that's he ripped through Katie and Devin Booker, Lebron,
Speaker 1: James and Anthony Davis and Jimmy and Bam and like
Speaker 1: whatever you want to say about the heat, Jimmy and
Speaker 1: bam are literally like the one of the very best
Speaker 1: playoff duos in the league. So they took the two,
Speaker 1: They took three legitimate dominant duos and just ripped through
Speaker 1: them without an issue, And I think undercutting that is silly.
Speaker 1: Next question, all of the Bucks players other than Damon
Speaker 1: Giannis are in the bottom ten ten to fifteen ish
Speaker 1: percentile or lower in rim attempts, meaning no other no
Speaker 1: one other than them touches the paint much. I think
Speaker 1: this makes them easier to guard. And despite them trending
Speaker 1: in a good direction, I don't think they can peak.
Speaker 1: Their peak can contend with Boston. But I really love
Speaker 1: the show and wanted to know your thoughts. So bost
Speaker 1: Milwaukee's been playing a lot better, but they've been playing
Speaker 1: a week schedule. Over the course of their last four games,
Speaker 1: they played what they injured sixers, and then they played
Speaker 1: the Hornets twice, and then they played the Bulls. So
Speaker 1: they're heading into a really tough part of their schedule
Speaker 1: now and we're gonna be covering them very closely. I
Speaker 1: want to kind of withhold my take there until I
Speaker 1: see them against some of these really good teams in
Speaker 1: the next week. In week or two, just so we
Speaker 1: can get a better feel of where their defensive progress is.
Speaker 1: Next question, This one was funny. I actually enjoyed this.
Speaker 1: I know you cover only the top half of the league.
Speaker 1: That's where covering, But can you provide a quick minute
Speaker 1: thought on what Chicago's lineup of Vouch at the four
Speaker 1: and Drummond at the five would look like? Kind of
Speaker 1: akin to Mini's lineup of Gobert and Towns. Chicago a
Speaker 1: playing team, so technically you're obligated to talk about them
Speaker 1: the same way as the Lakers and the Warriors. I
Speaker 1: thought that was funny. I shouldn't say what it looks
Speaker 1: like they roll it out against Cleveland or whenever a
Speaker 1: team is a couple of bigs, But why not just
Speaker 1: adopt that philosophy entirely to see how it works down
Speaker 1: the stretch. Stop playing the opponent and just roll out
Speaker 1: the two towers and work around them. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: I pulled the numbers just for fun. Vusovich and and
Speaker 1: Drummond have played three hundred and ten possessions together. They
Speaker 1: have a one to nineteen offensive rating, which is very good,
Speaker 1: but they have a one to twenty one defensive rating,
Speaker 1: and that to me, is the big difference between the
Speaker 1: Gobert like a drum and Vusovich versus a Gobert Towns lineup.
Speaker 1: Like Drummond is a really interesting player in the sense that, like,
Speaker 1: if you catch him on the right night, he can
Speaker 1: be particularly dominant. I know this just because I covered
Speaker 1: him when he was with the Lakers very closely. But
Speaker 1: there's a difference in foot speed between those two duos.
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert is just so far and away better defensively
Speaker 1: than either of those Chicago guys. I think what makes
Speaker 1: the two big lineup work there for Minnesota is one
Speaker 1: Kat's a great shooter, but so is Vouch, and Rudy
Speaker 1: Gobert is just this like transcendently great defensive player that
Speaker 1: can switch and can drop and cover all this ground.
Speaker 1: Like to me, it's just fundamentally different because of Rudy
Speaker 1: Gobert and the lack of foot speed I think has
Speaker 1: been clear in those lineups. Three hundred and ten possessions
Speaker 1: is not a non existent sample size, it's a pretty
Speaker 1: decent sample size, and they've just gotten run over on
Speaker 1: defense in that group. Next question, you said a team
Speaker 1: has to have the guy to win the title. Who
Speaker 1: was the guy at San Antonio in twenty fourteen, in
Speaker 1: Golden State in twenty fifteen, Golden State in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: is Steph. Don't let the Finals MVP narrative fool you.
Speaker 1: He was very clearly the Finals MVP in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: It's one of the biggest travesty's in NBA history. Andre
Speaker 1: Guidala got to guard Lebron with like seventeen helped defense
Speaker 1: behind him because everyone else on that Cavs team was
Speaker 1: severely limited offensively or at least other than j R. Smith,
Speaker 1: and so he was able to limit his efficiency. And
Speaker 1: then the Cavs started blitzing Steph Curry late in that series,
Speaker 1: which was leading to Draymond Green short roles, which was
Speaker 1: leading to Andre Gudala corner threes and cuts, which is
Speaker 1: where he got all of his scoring from. So like,
Speaker 1: I think the twenty fifteen NBA Finals MVP was a
Speaker 1: textbook example of like a good chunk of NBA media
Speaker 1: not really knowing what they're watching when they're watching basketball games.
Speaker 1: Next question, what is your opinion of the NCS and
Speaker 1: tournament given how poorly the Lakers have been doing ever
Speaker 1: since winning it? Any improvements. He would recommend a couple things.
Speaker 1: Jared Vanderbilt is completely and utterly indispensable to the Lakers.
Speaker 1: He's their only starting caliber perimeter defender, so like, without him,
Speaker 1: they look like shit. And despite all of that, they've
Speaker 1: still the Lakers have been pretty solid since January seventh,
Speaker 1: you know, So, like I do think the Lakers are
Speaker 1: better than their record looks, and I do think their
Speaker 1: Nc's Tournament win was legitimate. It's just without without Jared Vanderbilt,
Speaker 1: they just can't ever compete defensively the way that they
Speaker 1: did it during that Ncason Tournament stretch. That does not
Speaker 1: mean that I think they're a top tier contender or
Speaker 1: anything like that, but I do think they're winning the
Speaker 1: tournament was an indicator of them being a really good
Speaker 1: team at that time, which was the best version of
Speaker 1: this particular Lakers team, like a dominant physical press presidence
Speaker 1: of Lebron James and Anthony Davis. But they also were
Speaker 1: a really good defense during that time because of Jared
Speaker 1: vanderbilt improvements for the Ncason Tournament. I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: a good question. I have to think more about it.
Speaker 1: I would say that, like I would do, I could
Speaker 1: do without the obnoxious red court. I'm not even anti
Speaker 1: painted courts, but the red was a little much. Also,
Speaker 1: like I think, I think that you could probably push
Speaker 1: it to an even bigger field, like maybe play for
Speaker 1: seeding and then have sixteen teams, maybe just because the
Speaker 1: single elimination format was so much fun. But here's the thing,
Speaker 1: I think they'll tinker with it. I think they'll tinker
Speaker 1: with different times of the season too, But overall, I
Speaker 1: was just I was really happy with it. Next question, dude,
Speaker 1: On a separate note, I hate to break it to you,
Speaker 1: but when your body starts to fail you and slow down,
Speaker 1: you won't have time to play guitar. At that point
Speaker 1: in your life. You will most likely be spending your
Speaker 1: time as a fan, traveling all over the place watching
Speaker 1: your kids sports activities. I loved this comment. For those
Speaker 1: of you guys who didn't get the backstory, I did say
Speaker 1: in our last mail bag that when my body finally
Speaker 1: fails me, that's what I'm gonna devote more time to
Speaker 1: playing guitar because right now I just only do it
Speaker 1: for a few hours a week. Here's the thing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's probably what's going to happen. I'm probably gonna end
Speaker 1: up just going around to all my kids' sports activities.
Speaker 1: But let me just pretend I'm gonna try to still
Speaker 1: have hobbies when I get there. Let me at least
Speaker 1: just go into it with an optimistic attitude and see
Speaker 1: if maybe I get lucky. You made the argument that
Speaker 1: Yo gets they have a higher peaker, a higher peak
Speaker 1: than Steph, but he has a ton of ground to
Speaker 1: gain before before he can be in the same conversation
Speaker 1: as him all time. Wouldn't that be the same argument
Speaker 1: for Lebron and Jordan had the highest peak six chips
Speaker 1: in eight years, but Lebron clearly has had the better
Speaker 1: career in totality. Thanks and love the show. Thanks again
Speaker 1: for supporting the show. This is what makes the go
Speaker 1: argument so silly. Everyone's criteria is different. If you lean
Speaker 1: towards dominance, it's obviously mj like, here's the advantage of longevity,
Speaker 1: Like so much of this is outside of your control, right,
Speaker 1: like Lebron getting drafted into a bad franchise like the
Speaker 1: Cleveland Cavaliers who were poorly run at the time, right.
Speaker 1: Or Dwayne Wade's rapid decline after he went to Miami, Right,
Speaker 1: Or like Anthony Davis's injury availability, Kyrie Irving in his
Speaker 1: demanding of a trade in twenty eighteen, hell Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: decided to go to the Warriors. All these different things
Speaker 1: are different variables in Lebron's career, right, So like variables
Speaker 1: are variables. So the longevity case is, if I get
Speaker 1: twenty one years of all NBA caliber play consecutively in
Speaker 1: a vacuum, do I have more chances to win a
Speaker 1: title than say Jordan, who did less over less time. Right,
Speaker 1: That would be where it gets complicated. My thing is
Speaker 1: that's really difficult to quantify, whereas trophies are very easy
Speaker 1: to quantify. There's trophies, ones got six, ones got four.
Speaker 1: That's not the end of the day or end of
Speaker 1: the argument. But that's why I lean slightly more towards
Speaker 1: the dominant side than I do the longevity side. I
Speaker 1: still factor in the longevity. I think Lebron's longevity has
Speaker 1: made it razor thin, and like, who knows, maybe when
Speaker 1: I look back at this five years from now, I
Speaker 1: might feel differently than I feel now, But right now
Speaker 1: I still feel like Jordan, to me is the greatest
Speaker 1: basketball player that has ever played, and Lebron is just
Speaker 1: a very very close second. That's where I feel right now.
Speaker 1: You know, I may look at it differently in the future.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing that I'm not one of those
Speaker 1: guys that, like Is, will refuse to change his mind.
Speaker 1: Like I always am evolving and taking in new information,
Speaker 1: My perspective changes sometimes, like I may just feel differently
Speaker 1: about the game in five years. But that's where I
Speaker 1: stand as of right now. Hey, Jason Love the show,
Speaker 1: could you explain how much the mechanics of a jump
Speaker 1: shot means to your success as a shooter. For example,
Speaker 1: Shot Marion had a very unorthodox shooting form, but still
Speaker 1: wasn't a terrible shooter. How much do you think a
Speaker 1: quick release helps a player. It's obviously been pivotal for
Speaker 1: Curry to have such a quick release. How much do
Speaker 1: you think Aunt or Lucas shot could improve if they
Speaker 1: had quicker releases lower set points. First of all, the mechanics,
Speaker 1: to me, it's way less about your release, in way
Speaker 1: more about can you do the exact same thing every
Speaker 1: single time. The two primary things that I look at
Speaker 1: with shooting is one a lack of wasted movement. In
Speaker 1: two repeating the same exact form every single time. And
Speaker 1: what I mean by lack of wasted movement, they're like hitches,
Speaker 1: whether that's a hitch in your lower half, a hitch
Speaker 1: in your upper half, whatever it is, where like you
Speaker 1: just waste movement on your way up. That's why I
Speaker 1: practice a lot on like no dip shooting and like
Speaker 1: a bad pass shooting, where like the ball comes at
Speaker 1: a different angle and you go straight into your shooting
Speaker 1: pocket from a different angle. I try to start every
Speaker 1: shot from up because that allows me to have less
Speaker 1: waste movement wasted movement. Also, if I can repeat the
Speaker 1: exact same motion every time, it doesn't matter if I
Speaker 1: shoot like that, Like, if I can do the exact
Speaker 1: same thing every time, it'll go in. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of the Sean Marriyon case, right, who was a guy
Speaker 1: who could be a good shooter right and had seasons
Speaker 1: in his career where he shot the ball really well.
Speaker 1: So that that's the mechanics side of it. On the
Speaker 1: release side of it, like a quicker release obviously is
Speaker 1: a huge advantage. The thing is is like a lot
Speaker 1: of the bigger players out there just haven't needed to
Speaker 1: have a quick release, and so they're able to kind
Speaker 1: of have success with a slower release, but like to me,
Speaker 1: a quicker release is always going to be an advantage
Speaker 1: just because it gives you a you know, the ability
Speaker 1: to get the shot off in shorter windows. Another big
Speaker 1: part of it, too is a guy like Curry lives
Speaker 1: and breathes with his jump shot. You know a lot
Speaker 1: of other guys like you know, like a Lebron for instance,
Speaker 1: Like that's just kind of more of a counter in
Speaker 1: his game, right, And so for him, it's not something
Speaker 1: that he probably has devoted nearly as much time to
Speaker 1: well clearly hasn't devoted nearly as much time to five more.
Speaker 1: What can the Pacers do to have a better defense? So,
Speaker 1: first of all, Tyre's Haliburton and Ben Mathern are both
Speaker 1: really really bad perimeter defenders. I think Aaron Nei Smith
Speaker 1: being out has really hurt them, although he did come
Speaker 1: back in the Pelicans game. Although that Pelicans game they
Speaker 1: just ran into a buzz saw. Here's the thing. When
Speaker 1: you lose Bruce Brown into trade and then you also
Speaker 1: lose Aeron Neesmith to injury, Andrew Emphard is like your
Speaker 1: best perimeter defender and that's just not going to get
Speaker 1: the job done from there. Constructing it is really simple.
Speaker 1: You have the front line right, you have a good
Speaker 1: rim protector in Myles Turner who's actually pretty solid and
Speaker 1: switches too, and you have Pascal Siakam is that big
Speaker 1: forward that can be your low man help defender and
Speaker 1: a guy who can clean up the defensive glass from there.
Speaker 1: If you have a good point of attack defender in
Speaker 1: there somewhere, if someone like an Aaron Neesmith, or if
Speaker 1: they can upgrade that at some point, or if Ben
Speaker 1: Mathern can become that guy, then it's about your other
Speaker 1: two guys in that back court just being able to
Speaker 1: do their jobs. So for a guy like Tyre's Haliburton,
Speaker 1: for instance, it would be competing in hedging and recover situations,
Speaker 1: so like hedging so that you don't so that the
Speaker 1: guy can't turn the corner, and then sprinting back to
Speaker 1: chase a shooter, helping, defensive, rebounding, all the different things.
Speaker 1: If you can craft smaller roles for them, with a
Speaker 1: good perimeter defender and with Siakam and Turner anchoring things,
Speaker 1: those guys can do good do a good job, and
Speaker 1: there's smaller defensive roles. That's kind of like the pathway
Speaker 1: towards constructing a better defense for them. Next question, I
Speaker 1: wish there was another way to see your video analysis
Speaker 1: because I haven't used Twitter in like ten years. So
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Why don't I always point you guys
Speaker 1: to Twitter. That's where I originally built up my platform.
Speaker 1: So as a result, like I have the majority of
Speaker 1: my followers are there, right, So, like my Instagram account,
Speaker 1: for instance, only has like thirty seven hundred followers, but
Speaker 1: I have I don't even know how much on Twitter,
Speaker 1: but I have a lot more on Twitter, right. So,
Speaker 1: Like on Twitter, that's where I put out most of
Speaker 1: my like in between show content, just because that's where
Speaker 1: most of my audiences. That's where I do my film threads.
Speaker 1: But I am aware of the fact that like more
Speaker 1: people want to see more video stuff, So I'm actually
Speaker 1: working on that at the moment. I've a couple of
Speaker 1: different things in mind. We might try to produce it
Speaker 1: into the YouTube show again, and it just gets a
Speaker 1: little tricky with like the with like getting flagged by
Speaker 1: YouTube for using NBA footage, and it's just always like
Speaker 1: a risk because if they flag you a few times,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you can't monetize anymore, so it
Speaker 1: gets a little tricky. But another thing I'm thinking I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try and probably try in the next week is
Speaker 1: something called watch playback, or I think it's actually now
Speaker 1: just called playback, but it's an opportunity that allows me
Speaker 1: to actually put my Synergy feed on the screen and
Speaker 1: then I can literally go through game film on the
Speaker 1: screen in almost like a stream that you guys can
Speaker 1: jump on. It kind of has like a little bit
Speaker 1: of like a twitch vibe. So I'm gonna be trying
Speaker 1: that in the next week. I'll shout it out on Twitter, though,
Speaker 1: so like, try to get on Twitter at least for
Speaker 1: the announcement portion of it, and then I will point
Speaker 1: you guys towards playback and then you guys will be
Speaker 1: able to see film sessions there. Next question Philly Jason.
Speaker 1: I played basketball myself and also sprain my ankles maybe
Speaker 1: seven or eight times in total. I never want to
Speaker 1: watch basketball injuries because I know how painful they are.
Speaker 1: The difference being that these people are playing on their
Speaker 1: ankles maybe a week or two later. It took me
Speaker 1: about a month to even walk properly. So I used
Speaker 1: to add. When I first got out of call, I
Speaker 1: was pretty I broke my foot my second year in college,
Speaker 1: but other than that, I did pretty well with injuries.
Speaker 1: But when I got out of college, like three consecutive
Speaker 1: years in a row, I had like one really bad
Speaker 1: ankle injury, and all three times I was out for
Speaker 1: like like three weeks like you're talking about. But what
Speaker 1: actually put me onto this new thing was Connor McGregor's trainer.
Speaker 1: I saw some video of Connor McGregor's trainer doing these
Speaker 1: like gnarly ankle flexibility exercises that made it so that
Speaker 1: like he could withstand ankle sprains, And so I started
Speaker 1: every single day literally twisting the hell out of my
Speaker 1: ankle in both directions three ways, so like I'd literally
Speaker 1: get up on my toe and I'd roll it like
Speaker 1: as hard as I can without being in like severe pain,
Speaker 1: three times both ways. And now ever since then, even
Speaker 1: when I do tweak my ankle, I'm able to usually
Speaker 1: get right back up and play on it. So like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is about that exercise, but
Speaker 1: it just kind of builds like an additional layer of
Speaker 1: like flexibility and pliability and your ankle tendons and makes
Speaker 1: it so that when you sprain your ankle, well, it's
Speaker 1: not an issue. I haven't missed a significant knock on wood.
Speaker 1: I haven't missed a significant chunk of time with an
Speaker 1: ankle injury. And I'm talking about even a couple of days.
Speaker 1: I haven't missed a couple of days with an ankle
Speaker 1: injury since I started doing that exercise. Now, hopefully nothing
Speaker 1: bad happens after I just jinxed myself. But that is
Speaker 1: just a simple exercise that I would recommend to people.
Speaker 1: Next question, I appreciate you talking about your playing career.
Speaker 1: I felt the underlying tinge of being ass at ball
Speaker 1: during high school. Lol. Also never knew you were a
Speaker 1: giant sixty six. Oh nah, But yeah, man, love it
Speaker 1: and appreciate what you do. Here's my question. You said
Speaker 1: you had consistent You said you had a consistent shooting routine.
Speaker 1: And with me being a young adult, I'm getting more
Speaker 1: into basketball, and I wonder if there's a burnout when
Speaker 1: it comes to shooting. When I shoot a lot, my
Speaker 1: wrist literally starts to hurt, not in a good way,
Speaker 1: more in a I could injure my wrist kind of way.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there is like a built in limit with
Speaker 1: the human body when it comes to shooting, or does
Speaker 1: pushing through it help in the long run? My bad
Speaker 1: with the essay, long question. No worries at all. I
Speaker 1: just appreciate you supporting the show and interacting with us.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing. I do an obnoxious amount of shooting. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I had an injury though related to overuse. This was
Speaker 1: actually when I was in Charlotte. This was in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: The story behind this is crazy. I was playing in
Speaker 1: a league there in town. I was. Charlotte had such
Speaker 1: an awesome basketball community. I was playing in like three
Speaker 1: different leagues a week. Every pickup run had like a
Speaker 1: half dozen dudes who played professionally overseas, either in the
Speaker 1: past or currently. Like it was. It was just so
Speaker 1: much fun. And we were in a championship game, and
Speaker 1: I actually, ironically this was a great example of one
Speaker 1: of those ankle sprains. I sprained my ankle in the
Speaker 1: game and was it was in the championship game. Sprained
Speaker 1: my ankle in the game and was able to come
Speaker 1: back and play just like more or less fine. And
Speaker 1: it was tie game with like five seconds left, and
Speaker 1: I just hit a dribble combination into a pull up
Speaker 1: three and hit it, and we won the championship, and
Speaker 1: I was super stoked and like all like obviously, like
Speaker 1: at this point in time, I was still trying to
Speaker 1: play professionally overseas too, so like I was like fulfilled
Speaker 1: because I felt like this this like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: my hard work is paying off, Like this is so cool.
Speaker 1: I literally woke up the next morning and I couldn't
Speaker 1: extend my right elbow all the way. And it was
Speaker 1: weird because I didn't feel any pain during the game
Speaker 1: the previous day in my elbow. So I'm like, that's weird.
Speaker 1: So I go up to the gym to do my
Speaker 1: usual shooting routine, and I start my shooting routine by
Speaker 1: going around the world. So I start on the block
Speaker 1: and I make a shot at the block, and then
Speaker 1: I make a shot at the next block, in the
Speaker 1: next block, in the next block, then the elbow. Then
Speaker 1: I make five free throws. Then I go into my routine.
Speaker 1: That's just how I kind of like warm up. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like form shooting basically. Right, I go to
Speaker 1: do my form shooting and I can't, Like I stand
Speaker 1: at the block and I go to shoot once and
Speaker 1: it's just this horrible pain and I like can't shoot.
Speaker 1: And so my buddy is a doctor. Those of you
Speaker 1: guys who follow my other podcast, Two Sons podcast, that
Speaker 1: one I the buddy that I recorded with as a doctor.
Speaker 1: So I asked him, I'm like, what's going on. He's like, dude,
Speaker 1: you have tennis elbow. So, like tennis elbow is basically
Speaker 1: like an inflammation of that tendon in your elbow. And
Speaker 1: so I ended up having to wear like this gnarly
Speaker 1: brace and I periodically deal with inflammation in that area
Speaker 1: although I can, I've learned how to deal with it.
Speaker 1: But like that's the one injury I've had that I
Speaker 1: think is effectively burnout when it comes to shooting. But
Speaker 1: with that kind of stuff, it's just ice and ibuprofen
Speaker 1: to treat the inflammation, and like, honestly, it should be fine,
Speaker 1: Like your body should be able to withstand high volume shooting.
Speaker 1: Last question Love the show is their TV footage of
Speaker 1: when you played college basketball. So I played at a
Speaker 1: small school, an Naia school in Phoenix that had less
Speaker 1: than a thousand students. Now we were a really good
Speaker 1: basketball team, Like we beat a Division one while I
Speaker 1: was there, and we like were top five in the
Speaker 1: nation for Naia most of the season. We ended up
Speaker 1: actually the team that won the national title that year.
Speaker 1: During the regular season, we went to their place and
Speaker 1: beat them soundly, like we were really good Anaia team.
Speaker 1: But like obviously we didn't. We weren't on television. So
Speaker 1: like I have if you go to my Twitter feed
Speaker 1: out underscore jsonlt in my pinned tweet, I have like
Speaker 1: a two and a half minute long video that's like
Speaker 1: a compilation of like like footage of me playing in college,
Speaker 1: footage of me playing in Juco, footage of me playing
Speaker 1: in showcases, footage of me playing pickup. You can find
Speaker 1: that stuff there that I'll give you just a general
Speaker 1: idea of what I look like as a basketball player.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, As always, I sincerely appreciate you for
Speaker 1: supporting the show. We were planning on going for Celtics
Speaker 1: Warriors tomorrow, but it looks like Steph Curry is gonna sit,
Speaker 1: so I think we're gonna end up taking that one
Speaker 1: off and going Monday morning. So be ready for the
Speaker 1: show on Monday for power rankings as well as some
Speaker 1: game breakdowns. I'm planning on hitting like Kings, Wolves, and
Speaker 1: maybe one or two games from the Sunday slate. As always,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys and I'll see you Then. The
Speaker 1: volume