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Speaker 1: slash basketball terms. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're
Speaker 1: at the volume. Happy Saturday, everybody, hope all if you
Speaker 1: guys are having an incredible weekend. So, the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Lakers are the NBA's first in season tournament champion, and
Speaker 1: Lebron James is the NBA's first in season tournament MVP.
Speaker 1: You're gonna hit this game from a bunch of different angles.
Speaker 1: I want to talk some basketball off the top. Then
Speaker 1: we'll get into some big picture stuff, what it means
Speaker 1: for the Lakers, what it means for Lebron, and then
Speaker 1: I have a take involving the actual n season tournament
Speaker 1: itself and something I'd like to see them kind of
Speaker 1: tweak going into next year that could potentially make it
Speaker 1: even better. You guys know the drill before we get started.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel it would mean
Speaker 1: a lot to me if you guys would scroll down
Speaker 1: and hit that subscribe button. Follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show
Speaker 1: announcements or the film threads that I do most mornings.
Speaker 1: And then, last but not least, keep dropping mail bag
Speaker 1: questions in the YouTube comments so that we can keep
Speaker 1: hitting them throughout the rest of the season. All right,
Speaker 1: let's talk some basketball. So from a basketball perspective, if
Speaker 1: those of you guys who listened to the preview that
Speaker 1: me and the Nerd Sesh guys did yesterday, it more
Speaker 1: or less went exactly as I expected. The Lakers put
Speaker 1: Cam Reddish on Tyrese Haliburton to start the game, and
Speaker 1: then Jared Vanderbilt off the bench. They brought Ad up
Speaker 1: to the level of the screen to be aggressive in
Speaker 1: pick and roll to basically get the ball out of
Speaker 1: his hands, and then it was athletes rotating on the backside,
Speaker 1: specifically Lebron operating as a low man or he can
Speaker 1: blow plays up. Tyres Haliburton didn't notch a single turnover
Speaker 1: against the Celtics, didn't notch a single turnover against the
Speaker 1: Milwaukee Bucks, and then his first turnover of this game
Speaker 1: was an aggressive Anthony Davis pick and roll coverage up
Speaker 1: at the level the pocket pass two Miles Turner downhill
Speaker 1: and Lebron jumping that passing lane and getting in there.
Speaker 1: It's just, you know, I've said this many times on
Speaker 1: the show, and I truly believe it. I know, obviously
Speaker 1: this kind of thing is subjective and there are people
Speaker 1: that disagree, and I don't have numbers to back it
Speaker 1: up because they have not been the best defense by
Speaker 1: defensive raiding this year. But I truly believe that this
Speaker 1: Laker defense is the best defense in the league when
Speaker 1: they're playing hard. And it's different than the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: year because like the twenty twenty year was much better
Speaker 1: at the guard position. You know, Alex Cruzo and Contavius
Speaker 1: Calopope were just better guard defenders, but the and then
Speaker 1: I'll also Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee were better shot
Speaker 1: blockers than Christian Wood and Jackson Hay, So it was
Speaker 1: a different type of defense. But one of the things
Speaker 1: that that team did not have was real wing athleticism.
Speaker 1: Like Danny Green was a good player on that Laker team,
Speaker 1: but he was a little slow that whole year he
Speaker 1: struggled with quicker guards. He was kind of more of
Speaker 1: like a big positional defender, right. And then Kyle Kuzma,
Speaker 1: same thing. He's six foot nine, but not super laterally quick.
Speaker 1: He wasn't like an outstanding screen navigator, and he was
Speaker 1: best in help defense positioning. Right, This team has real
Speaker 1: wing athletes next to Lebron James and Anthony Davis. It's again,
Speaker 1: it's skill guards in the backcourt, very different than the
Speaker 1: KCP Alex Cruso mold. But on the wing it's Cam
Speaker 1: Reddish freak athlete six ' eight, Jared Vanderbilt freak athlete
Speaker 1: six ' nine. You know, Ruby hachimur Ruyachimura is more
Speaker 1: than that Kyle Kuzma group, right. But Torian Prince, even
Speaker 1: as a six six eight like league average athlete, is
Speaker 1: a bigger, more athletic wing than anybody the Lakers had
Speaker 1: in that twenty twenty season not named Lebron James, right,
Speaker 1: and so like, it's a different kind of defense than
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty defense, but it's impactful at a similar level.
Speaker 1: And the main reason why is just that combination of
Speaker 1: point of attack athleticism and then Anthony Davis on the
Speaker 1: back end. Now, one of the biggest questions coming into
Speaker 1: this season was would the Lakers have good enough point
Speaker 1: of attack defense? And honestly, like Cam Reddis has just
Speaker 1: been a revelation. He's been an absolute revelation at the
Speaker 1: point of attack. And I don't know, we seen this
Speaker 1: a few times throughout the history of the NBA modern
Speaker 1: NBA history, where a lottery player ends up in a
Speaker 1: different situation and things go well. But this is bizarre
Speaker 1: because he's been in three other situations, played with the Blazers,
Speaker 1: played with the Knicks, played with the Hawks, and this
Speaker 1: is the first team where you've seen his tools and
Speaker 1: his fit makes sense. He's even been pretty good attacking
Speaker 1: close outs. Hit a big time three point shot tonight.
Speaker 1: He had a big time three point shot against the
Speaker 1: Suns a few weeks ago. Like he's I don't know
Speaker 1: what else to say. I'm in the big picture, I
Speaker 1: think it's I don't even want to get into that tonight.
Speaker 1: But like, is Cam Reddish the right answer for a
Speaker 1: team that has a chance to win a championship in
Speaker 1: the picture, We'll talk about that later, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: But within the context of the regular season, He's been
Speaker 1: everything the Lakers needed because they lost Ennis Schroder and
Speaker 1: they didn't have good point of attack defense to start
Speaker 1: theyar and Jared Vanderbilt was out of the lineup, and
Speaker 1: then there was the big offensive question with Jared Vanderbilt, right,
Speaker 1: even just in this small portion of the season that
Speaker 1: he's been playing, he struggled a little bit to finish
Speaker 1: when he's been given advantage situations on offense, right, And
Speaker 1: so Cam Reddish has just kind of giving them another
Speaker 1: option there. And then Max Christy as every bit as
Speaker 1: impactful defensively as Cam Reddish can be, a little bit
Speaker 1: less athletic, but a little bit more sharp offensively, a
Speaker 1: little bit better shooter, a little bit better attacking closeouts, right.
Speaker 1: And so those two guys have taken what looked like
Speaker 1: a flaw on the roster, the point of attack position.
Speaker 1: And now it's like, Okay, you play the Lakers tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Here's what's gonna happen. You're the best perimeter initiator on
Speaker 1: your team. You're gonna get Cam Reddish with Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: behind him and tons of athletes rotating on the backside
Speaker 1: like Torian Prince and Lebron James right, and then oh,
Speaker 1: you made it through the first group. Here comes Max Christy,
Speaker 1: Here comes Jared Vanderbilt, Here comes through Rijat Tamuras, more athletes,
Speaker 1: and so again, the offensive questions for the Lakers are there,
Speaker 1: and we'll see them bear out over the season. I'm
Speaker 1: more optimistic than most just based on what we've seen
Speaker 1: in crunch time and in this tournament as well. And
Speaker 1: a big piece of that is just how well Austin
Speaker 1: Raves has been playing and Lebron James just being a
Speaker 1: level better offensively than he was last year. But I
Speaker 1: want to cut the give the Laker defense some credit
Speaker 1: because that combination of real wing athleticism with what Lebron
Speaker 1: and Anthony Davis can do on the backside cleaning things up,
Speaker 1: has made them dominant. And this was a team that
Speaker 1: the Pacers that put up one hundred and twenty two
Speaker 1: points on the Celtics. This was a team that put
Speaker 1: up one hundred and twenty eight points on the Bucks
Speaker 1: and could not force tyres Aaliburton into a turnover. Lakers
Speaker 1: held him to one oh nine and forced Alibert. Now,
Speaker 1: Haliburtn's insane. You guys know how high I am on him.
Speaker 1: I literally think he's on an all time great trajectory. Right,
Speaker 1: twenty points and eleven assists tonight with three turnovers on
Speaker 1: just fourteen shots, fourteen from the field, So like they
Speaker 1: threw the kitchen sink at him, and he still put
Speaker 1: up a really good stat line, which just goes to
Speaker 1: show you how insanely good Tyre's Halliburton is. But this
Speaker 1: is where I would be remiss if I didn't talk
Speaker 1: about Anthony Davis and the fact that he's anchoring behind
Speaker 1: all of that. Yes, the Lakers' point of attack defense
Speaker 1: has been a revelation this year or something we did
Speaker 1: not expect and something that has made their defense better
Speaker 1: than we could have expected them to be to this
Speaker 1: point in the season. That is true, But none of
Speaker 1: this happens without Anthony Davis. Now, over the course of
Speaker 1: the regular season, are there guys who try harder, more
Speaker 1: consistently on a night in, night out basis, Yes? Are
Speaker 1: there guys that are more reliable from an injury perspective, yes,
Speaker 1: Although Anthony Davis has been on a good streak of
Speaker 1: health basically since the trade deadline last year. Right, that's it.
Speaker 1: When ad is locked in and engaged on the defensive
Speaker 1: end of the floor. There is nobody in this league
Speaker 1: that can reach his level defensively. He is the very best.
Speaker 1: That is why the second best defense in the league,
Speaker 1: Boston could not do to Tyres Halliburton what the Lakers
Speaker 1: did to Tyrese haliburn. I'll talk about this concept all
Speaker 1: the time, the idea of back end rotations in disrupting
Speaker 1: at the point of attack. So if you blitz, if
Speaker 1: you put two to the ball, lots of teams do this,
Speaker 1: by the way, almost everybody does it to the elite
Speaker 1: guards in the league, right, especially when they start cooking.
Speaker 1: You got to get the ball out of their hands
Speaker 1: at some point, right, Well, what happens is is they'll
Speaker 1: put two to the ball. Tyres will makes some quick pass,
Speaker 1: a quick feed on a pocket pass or a skip
Speaker 1: pass or something like that, or a swing pass, and
Speaker 1: then it's a quick four on three and it's boom
Speaker 1: boom boom, layuper three point shot. Right. What makes it
Speaker 1: difference is Anthony Davis and his ability at the level
Speaker 1: of the screen and in blitz situations with high hands
Speaker 1: and low hands to disrupt that pocket pass and to
Speaker 1: disrupt that over the top pass. What ends up happening
Speaker 1: is that pocket pass is maybe thrown at an angle
Speaker 1: that's not great to where the role the short role
Speaker 1: man is right, or that over the top pass instead
Speaker 1: of it being a rifle pass over the top, it's
Speaker 1: more floating over the top. Okay, But now who's on
Speaker 1: the backside. It's Tori and Prince and Lebron James with
Speaker 1: the starters right, it's Max Christy and Hatcha Mura with
Speaker 1: the bench guys right, it's athletes on the backside. And
Speaker 1: so when Anthony Davis buys you time by making that
Speaker 1: pass difficult out of that blitz situation or showing high,
Speaker 1: he makes it so that it's easy to rotate on
Speaker 1: the backside, at least given the athleticism that the Lakers have.
Speaker 1: And that was the strategy I expected from the Lakers
Speaker 1: to start basically just rotating out on the backside, and
Speaker 1: it worked again, allowed just one hundred and nine points
Speaker 1: in this game after they put up one to twenty
Speaker 1: two on the Celtics and one twenty eight on the Bucks.
Speaker 1: Now on the other end of the floor, the Lakers
Speaker 1: had a massive size advantage all over the floor. As
Speaker 1: we know, right, there were two specific actions that were
Speaker 1: working that I thought was really interesting. So Aaron Nesmith
Speaker 1: was doing a really nice job on Lebron James with
Speaker 1: his ball pressure. So one of the things the Lakers
Speaker 1: did to counter that give the ball to Austin Reeves
Speaker 1: and then Lebron was setting on ball picks. And basically
Speaker 1: what was happening is the Pacers did not want to
Speaker 1: switch that action, especially since for most of those bench
Speaker 1: group situations it was a lot of like a TJ
Speaker 1: McConnell there, and they didn't want to get TJ McConnell
Speaker 1: on Lebron. So when he would set the screen on
Speaker 1: TJ and they didn't switch, Austin's getting downhill. Why because
Speaker 1: Aaron Nesmith doesn't know how to play drop coverage. He
Speaker 1: doesn't know how to He's just Carlyle's telling him to
Speaker 1: just bully Lebron all over the floor, right, So he's
Speaker 1: staying glued up to Lebron, And so Austin Reeves started
Speaker 1: getting downhill in making plays right. And then when they
Speaker 1: did switch. There were a couple of times where they
Speaker 1: switched and Lebron just got a nice inside seals over
Speaker 1: the top pass and he was able to score make
Speaker 1: passes out of that right and so the Austin lebron
Speaker 1: two man game was a great counter for the Lakers
Speaker 1: against the aeron Ne Smith ball pressure. And then they
Speaker 1: were not switching the lebron Ad pick and roll with
Speaker 1: Miles Turner, and that was where you saw the lob
Speaker 1: pass and Lebron getting all the way down to the
Speaker 1: rim and finishing with his right hand. And that's the thing, like,
Speaker 1: like you, the Pacers don't have the personnel because they
Speaker 1: don't have too big forwards to just switch that action.
Speaker 1: You can't put aeron Ne Smith on Anthony Davis right
Speaker 1: or Lebron on Myles Turner right. So they had to
Speaker 1: run a traditional drop coverage and like we saw against
Speaker 1: the Phoenix Suns, whenever Lebron sees a drop coverage, he
Speaker 1: goes at it with Anthony Davis and pick and roll again.
Speaker 1: Like Laker fans are always talking like why aren't the
Speaker 1: Lakers running more lebron Ad pick and roll? Why aren't
Speaker 1: they running more lebron Ad pick and roll. The vast
Speaker 1: majority of teams out there just switch that action. That's
Speaker 1: why they don't run it a lot. They usually have
Speaker 1: a center in the forward and they live with the
Speaker 1: center on Lebron and they live with the ford on
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis, and the Pacers just couldn't get away with
Speaker 1: doing that until Lebron was able to make plays in
Speaker 1: pick and roll. And then late in the game when
Speaker 1: they got Miles Turner and foul trouble, they ended up
Speaker 1: going to Anthony Davis in the post against Jackson and
Speaker 1: he just started drawing fouls and getting to the foul
Speaker 1: line because Jackson can't guard him down there. And so
Speaker 1: they really smart offensive thought process from the Lakers taking
Speaker 1: advantage of what their advantages were. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of people on Twitter saying, like, why aren't the Lakers
Speaker 1: taking any threes? Why aren't the Lakers taking any threes? Now,
Speaker 1: in the big picture, I think the Lakers should take
Speaker 1: more threes because it's just from the same point in math,
Speaker 1: something that could help their offense a little bit, right,
Speaker 1: But it's matchup dependent in a one game sample size
Speaker 1: against the Indiana Pacers, when you get a trophy at
Speaker 1: the end of it, go to the damn paint because
Speaker 1: that's where your advantage is. And so I loved that
Speaker 1: the Lakers didn't settle for threes at the end of
Speaker 1: the game, they took a few, but like they made
Speaker 1: a few, I should say, I think Torrian Prince made
Speaker 1: one and then cam Retis made one. But they weren't
Speaker 1: taking a lot of threes because that just wasn't the
Speaker 1: right offensive approach for that game. This is a team
Speaker 1: that was giving up like four five six inches on
Speaker 1: most of their most of their defensive matchups in this game.
Speaker 1: That was their advantage. They stuck to it. That's how
Speaker 1: they won. I think that again, just kind of looking
Speaker 1: at the Lakers first, like that, to me is what
Speaker 1: their identity is. And this is something I've been preaching
Speaker 1: about all year. Don't worry about trading for DeRozan, don't
Speaker 1: worry about trading for zach Lavine, trade for if you're
Speaker 1: going to make a trade, go after a starter caliber
Speaker 1: two way player, basically an upgraded version of a cam
Speaker 1: reddish Er, an upgraded version of a Torrium Prince, so
Speaker 1: that you can slot everybody a little bit better, so
Speaker 1: you're better in a playoff series, because again, you know
Speaker 1: there are going to be teams that are going to
Speaker 1: Dare Camp that are going to be able to contain
Speaker 1: La a little bit better on both on the when
Speaker 1: they're on offense, and they're gonna do so by ignoring
Speaker 1: Cam Reddish, by ignoring Jared Vanderbilt. Right, Like a team
Speaker 1: like the Nuggets, they live with Anthony Davis on an
Speaker 1: island against Jokic. They live with Lebron James on an
Speaker 1: island against Aaron Gordon. And so again, it's better for me,
Speaker 1: in my for the Lakers in my opinion, to lean
Speaker 1: into what they're best at. This team's identity, in my
Speaker 1: opinion is they are the best defensive team of the contenders, right,
Speaker 1: Like the Bucks. It's like damianis pick and roll good luck, right.
Speaker 1: The Nuggets, it's this incredible five man offense, right, and
Speaker 1: then they defend at a high level as well. You
Speaker 1: know the Celtics, it's driving kick basketball, and they do
Speaker 1: a ton of switching on defense, and they can be
Speaker 1: an elite perimeter defense. Right, Like every team kind of
Speaker 1: has their identity. The Lakers are world beating defense, like
Speaker 1: all time great defense. That's their identity. Like, we're just
Speaker 1: going to maul you physically with our incredible defensive potential,
Speaker 1: and on the other end of the floor, we're gonna
Speaker 1: pick you apart with a bunch of really smart basketball players.
Speaker 1: And so again, I think this tournament is a great
Speaker 1: sign for the Lakers of what specifically they need to
Speaker 1: do to reach their ultimate goal, which is to get
Speaker 1: the Larry O'Brien Trophy. Defense. Defense, defense, that's how they win.
Speaker 1: Don't try to be the Bucks training for Zach Lavine.
Speaker 1: If you want to go get into a scoring contest
Speaker 1: with some of these teams that are at the top
Speaker 1: of the West and East, you're going to lose those
Speaker 1: scoring contests because you're just not as good at it
Speaker 1: as they are. But if you try to be better
Speaker 1: on defense than everybody by a wide margin, that's your
Speaker 1: best pathway to get the trophy. Anthony Davis the other
Speaker 1: thing too. I talk a lot about him on the
Speaker 1: defensive end of the floor, as we've done so far
Speaker 1: in the show, but when he brings it offensively the
Speaker 1: way that he did tonight, and again, it's just being
Speaker 1: physically aggressive in the post, running the floor on offense
Speaker 1: for opportunities, rolling hard to the rim. Obviously, the advantages
Speaker 1: the Pacers presented to him in this game more important, right,
Speaker 1: hit a little step back jump shot early in the
Speaker 1: game as well, but him dominating down there on the
Speaker 1: block that is the difference between the AD that could
Speaker 1: be the sixth or seventh best player in the league,
Speaker 1: in the AD that can be the second earth third
Speaker 1: best player in the league. If he wants to enter
Speaker 1: into that conversation. Offensive consistency is the gap there. But
Speaker 1: like when it comes to his ceiling, his ceiling is
Speaker 1: as high as anybody in the league because it's best
Speaker 1: defensive player in the world, and he can give you
Speaker 1: forty points if he's got physical advantages in the post,
Speaker 1: and that's just what makes him such an incredibly dominant player.
Speaker 1: He played one of the better individual games that I've
Speaker 1: seen in a long time. Tonight w forty something and
Speaker 1: twenty something just unbelievable from Anthony Davis. Austin Reeves twenty eight.
Speaker 1: Tonight averaged twenty two points per game in this tournament,
Speaker 1: twenty in the first game, seventeen in the second game.
Speaker 1: Obviously lower in large part because they beat the living
Speaker 1: shit out of the Pelicans, right, but once again chips
Speaker 1: down big games, high stakes environment, Austin Reeves comes through
Speaker 1: for you again. And I'm just so happy for Austin
Speaker 1: because I literally could not believe how like a significant
Speaker 1: portion of Laker fans were like off of the Austin
Speaker 1: Reeves bandwagon after like fifteen bad regular season games, like
Speaker 1: completely unfathomable to me, unfathible to unfathomable to me, Like
Speaker 1: I just I just didn't understand it. And so once again,
Speaker 1: like again, he was a huge factor in the Laker
Speaker 1: offensive success tonight with the two man game with Lebron,
Speaker 1: like we talked about earlier, just shout out to Austin
Speaker 1: Reeves that dude is a big time player and Lebron
Speaker 1: James winning the MVP obviously, tonight was a little different.
Speaker 1: He was getting heavy ball pressure from Aaron Nesmith, who's
Speaker 1: done a really good job all week. Thought he made
Speaker 1: a bunch of really smart plays in this game to
Speaker 1: take advantage of the downhill opportunities that were there, and
Speaker 1: then he started making plays out of the post with
Speaker 1: the pass as well. I thought he was magnificent in
Speaker 1: this entire tournament, and I thought he deserved to win
Speaker 1: the MVP in the big picture, because this is gonna
Speaker 1: lead all the shows right tomorrow. What does this in
Speaker 1: season tournament championship and MVP mean for Lebron James' legacy, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's what we're going to see all over the shows, right,
Speaker 1: And this is really all I have to say about it.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna change anybody's mind. There's no anti Lebron
Speaker 1: guy that's gonna be like, oh, in season tournament, my
Speaker 1: goat now, right. And in the big picture, what the
Speaker 1: n season tournament means as an accomplishment is hard to
Speaker 1: tell now because this is the first one. We don't
Speaker 1: have a point of reference right now. Twenty years from now,
Speaker 1: it might be different and you might look at it
Speaker 1: as more of accounting accomplishment, right, So it's hard to
Speaker 1: say what it means for his legacy in terms of
Speaker 1: the court of public opinion. Here's what it says to me, though,
Speaker 1: this dude is a winner. He always has been. It's
Speaker 1: been one of the most underdiscussed things about his personality
Speaker 1: just because he's jovial and has fun while he's on
Speaker 1: the court, and some people just can't process that because
Speaker 1: it's not Mamba mentality assassin behavior. Right, But like, here's
Speaker 1: the thing, all thirty teams could have got that trophy.
Speaker 1: Lebron wanted it and he went and got it, and that,
Speaker 1: to me is one of the things that I've always
Speaker 1: loved about Lebron and one of the reasons why I've
Speaker 1: been such a big fan of him over the years, Like,
Speaker 1: when push comes to shove, is the dude a performer, Yes, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, is a post when you're the face
Speaker 1: of the NBA embraced the fact that you're putting on
Speaker 1: a show, right like like it is. Has Lebron been
Speaker 1: a little bit more jovial and a little bit more
Speaker 1: passive at the end of games than Kobe Bryant or
Speaker 1: some of the other guys through at NBA history, Sure,
Speaker 1: But when push comes to shove, this dude puts winning
Speaker 1: basketball games at the very top of his list of priorities,
Speaker 1: and in this era there has not been a single
Speaker 1: player better at it than him, and arguably an NBA history,
Speaker 1: he's the best at When you're listing Lebron's traits, the
Speaker 1: first trade on that list is wins basketball games. Finds
Speaker 1: a way to win basketball games. And like I think
Speaker 1: his obsessive competitive nature and the simple fact that he
Speaker 1: wanted this trophy and went to get it was an
Speaker 1: encapsulation of everything that's made Lebron who he is and
Speaker 1: in his career. He won the trophy tonight because he's
Speaker 1: the same type of dude who won for Larry O'Brien trophies.
Speaker 1: It's a continuation of that personality trait, and so, like again,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna swing anybody's opinion, but for me as
Speaker 1: a fan, I just had a faith that he was
Speaker 1: gonna pull it off, because, like, it's Lebron James Man,
Speaker 1: four time NBA champion, Lebron James a guy that a
Speaker 1: guy that just a guy that when he sees that
Speaker 1: goal and he has an opportunity to get it, there's
Speaker 1: literally nobody in this era that can stop him from
Speaker 1: getting to that point, right, And I just shout out
Speaker 1: to Lebron Man because, like again, it's not gonna go
Speaker 1: down with his accomplishments in terms of what he's done
Speaker 1: in June, but I can just tell you as a fan,
Speaker 1: watching him in this tournament was really fun because like
Speaker 1: he just he just he just fucking wanted it, man,
Speaker 1: He just he just wanted it, and he went and
Speaker 1: got it and played incredible doing it. His game against
Speaker 1: the Pelicans, we didn't even see this stat in time
Speaker 1: for our instant reaction that night, but thirty points, five
Speaker 1: rebounds of five assists in less than twenty three minutes
Speaker 1: first time in NBA history. It was one of the
Speaker 1: most incredible individual performances we've ever seen, and then ad
Speaker 1: followed it up with one of the most incredible individual
Speaker 1: performances we've ever seen tonight. So shout out to Lebron again, Like,
Speaker 1: I just I can't believe he's still doing this, and
Speaker 1: I obviously the the Larry O'Brien is what he's truly after,
Speaker 1: but I thought it was cool that he I think
Speaker 1: this was great for the NBA simply from the standpoint
Speaker 1: of him adding legitimacy to it. Because if Lebron James
Speaker 1: in a four time NBA champion thirty nine years old,
Speaker 1: was like, I want that trophy. That's gonna set a
Speaker 1: tone year and in year out. That's gonna get everybody
Speaker 1: to want that trophy. And I think it was the
Speaker 1: best possible thing that could happen for the Lakers last
Speaker 1: take before we get out of here on the n
Speaker 1: season Tournament. I loved it. One thing I would say, though,
Speaker 1: is I would push it from full four pool play
Speaker 1: games up to six. I don't know if they need
Speaker 1: to kind of move around the way the actual pools worked,
Speaker 1: but I think I think if you ideally the single elimination,
Speaker 1: you want to make it so that it's easier for
Speaker 1: the better teams in the league to get in, right,
Speaker 1: Like you want to see the Denver Nuggets in that tournament, right,
Speaker 1: Like you want to see you want to see the
Speaker 1: best teams in the league get into that tournament. Now,
Speaker 1: they a lot of them were, right the Lakers in
Speaker 1: my top tier contenders I had, the Celtics were in it,
Speaker 1: the Bucks were in it, and the Lakers were in it,
Speaker 1: and the Suns were in it. So four of my
Speaker 1: preseason top six contenders were in it, and the two
Speaker 1: that didn't get in where the Warriors in the in
Speaker 1: the Nuggets, right, but even like Minnesota not getting in
Speaker 1: because of an n season tournament loss, right, Like, if
Speaker 1: you push it to six, couple things like I think
Speaker 1: next year the teams are gonna really see the importance
Speaker 1: of each individual pool play game and understand like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: you can go three and one and not get in, right,
Speaker 1: and they'll take it more seriously. But I think if
Speaker 1: you push it from four to six, it just makes
Speaker 1: it a little bit more likely for a team to
Speaker 1: be able to weather like a hey Jamal Murray missed
Speaker 1: a game because of a hammy and we were still
Speaker 1: able to get into the tournament. And now Jamal's healthy
Speaker 1: and we're playing single elimination games, right, So like that'd
Speaker 1: be the one tweek I'd make. But other than that,
Speaker 1: I thought it was amazing simply because it gave us
Speaker 1: something different in the middle of the regular season instead
Speaker 1: of just going October November, December, January, February, Okay, brief
Speaker 1: break for trade the line. This is cool. Some stuff
Speaker 1: happened March April, Okay, Now we're finally in the playoffs
Speaker 1: instead now it's like October November, oh, in season tournament,
Speaker 1: and then it's like January February. Oh, now we're like.
Speaker 1: It kind of breaks up the monotony of the regular season,
Speaker 1: which I think served a really cool purpose within this season.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, that is all I have for the
Speaker 1: rest of this weekend. I'll see you on Monday for
Speaker 1: power rankings, and then we have Jovan Buja from the
Speaker 1: Athletic to come on to do a Lakers deep dive
Speaker 1: like we usually have once every other week. Then Tuesday
Speaker 1: next week we've got Chris Mannix coming on to do
Speaker 1: a Celtics deep dive, and then I think the slate
Speaker 1: on Tuesday night is crazy, like all sorts of playoff
Speaker 1: teams playing against each other, so I think we're probably
Speaker 1: gonna work on Tuesday nights. I'll see you guys then
Speaker 1: as well. All right, have a good weekend. I'll see
Speaker 1: you on Monday. The Volume