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Speaker 1: dot net in West Virginia. Alright, welcome to Hoops Tonight,
Speaker 1: presented by Fantel here at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody.
Speaker 1: We have almost made it to the weekend. Gonna keep
Speaker 1: it nice and simple today. Three teams we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about the Phoenix Suns who are on a six
Speaker 1: game win streak, the Milwaukee Bucks who are on a
Speaker 1: three game win streak, and the Los Angeles Lakers, who
Speaker 1: have won six out of eight. Should be seven out
Speaker 1: of eight, is all you Lakers fans. No, keep it
Speaker 1: simple on those three teams and the rest of the week.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow we're doing our quarter season awards, and then Saturday morning,
Speaker 1: we'll have a breakdown of the Friday night slate, which
Speaker 1: is jam packed. Do you guys know the drill? Before
Speaker 1: we get started, subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channels. You
Speaker 1: don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Underscore Jason LT so you don't miss any
Speaker 1: show announcements. I'm also going to once again reference too
Speaker 1: sets of clips that I put to other to demonstrate
Speaker 1: points that I'm making on today's show, So you're gonna
Speaker 1: want to follow me at Underscore Jason LT on Twitter
Speaker 1: to see those video clips. And then, last but not least,
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Speaker 1: Remember you can find them wherever you get your podcasts
Speaker 1: Under Hoops tonight, all right, let's talk some basketball. So
Speaker 1: the Phoenix Suns are in a six game winning streak.
Speaker 1: They are now first in the Western Conference at fifteen
Speaker 1: and six despite being without Chris Paul for the last
Speaker 1: what like month or so. Um their second in offense,
Speaker 1: sixth and defense for the season, second in net rating
Speaker 1: for the season, and then during this six game winning streak,
Speaker 1: Devin Booker puts up fifty one last night in just
Speaker 1: three quarters and just thirty one minutes and on just
Speaker 1: twenty five shots with just five misses. In this six
Speaker 1: game winning streak, He's averaging thirty one, seven and five
Speaker 1: on six true shooting. He's a bona fide superstar. We're
Speaker 1: gonna spend a bunch of time talking about him here
Speaker 1: just a minute. And then DeAndre Ayton has also been
Speaker 1: outstanding during the stretch twenty two and fourteen during the
Speaker 1: six game streak, four offensive rebounds per game and true shooting.
Speaker 1: Has also done a really nice job passing out of
Speaker 1: the short role um during the stretch of games as well.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to talk about Devin Booker for a
Speaker 1: little bit because you know, the uh, it's really hard
Speaker 1: in this league to shake your perception as a basketball player.
Speaker 1: I've even been dealing with this a little bit with
Speaker 1: Lakers fans were like, you know, your opinion about whether
Speaker 1: or not Russ deserves to be traded is one thing,
Speaker 1: but the Russ we're seeing this year is not the
Speaker 1: same player as last year. Last year there was a
Speaker 1: lot less good and a lot a lot more bad,
Speaker 1: and this year there's a lot more good and a
Speaker 1: lot less bad. So he's gone from being a net
Speaker 1: negative player to a net positive player. And there are
Speaker 1: a lot of Lakers fans who are talking the same
Speaker 1: way about Russ now as they did last season. And
Speaker 1: you know, my my thing has been uh, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: that he's doing better in this bench role, and it's
Speaker 1: more a product of you wanting to use his salary
Speaker 1: as a vehicle with which to improve the roster. Last
Speaker 1: year it was like Russia's isn't playing very well. But
Speaker 1: that perception is tough to shake. Sometimes it takes years
Speaker 1: and years and years. And Devin Booker is a great
Speaker 1: example of this, because he scored a lot of points
Speaker 1: for really bad Sons teams for a while, and then
Speaker 1: he scored a lot of points on really good Sons
Speaker 1: teams for a while that flamed out in the playoffs
Speaker 1: year after year, including even in their most successful season,
Speaker 1: blowing a two oh lead to the Milwaukee Bucks in
Speaker 1: the finals. And so there's kind of like this reputation
Speaker 1: that surrounds Devin Booker that he's just a score and
Speaker 1: it just could not be any further from the truth,
Speaker 1: especially this season. And I've been talking about this NonStop
Speaker 1: since since the first few weeks of the season. But
Speaker 1: Devon's improvements as a passer and as a defender have
Speaker 1: turned him into a a bona fide superstar. He's no
Speaker 1: longer a guy that you're lumping in with that tier
Speaker 1: of stars that fills between you know, number eleven in
Speaker 1: the league and like number thirty in the league. He's
Speaker 1: not like that anymore. He's above that tier. He is now.
Speaker 1: Every bit is good as the players were talking about
Speaker 1: at the top of the league. And you know, even
Speaker 1: after nights like last night, people will once again focus
Speaker 1: like Devin Booker is a bucket. Look at him. He
Speaker 1: got he got fifty, you know, and that's gonna be
Speaker 1: the hyper focus. But he's been so good in those
Speaker 1: other details of game of the game I wanted to
Speaker 1: take some time to highlight that right now. So first
Speaker 1: of all, the Sons are down Chris Paul, They're down
Speaker 1: Jay Crowder, and they're down Cam Johnson. That's two starters
Speaker 1: from this year and another starter from last year. So
Speaker 1: they're pretty thin on the wing. They're down one of
Speaker 1: their most important ball handlers. And yet despite that, this season,
Speaker 1: when Devin Booker is off the floor, they're getting outscored
Speaker 1: by one point four points per one possession, and when
Speaker 1: he's on the floor there plus ten points per one
Speaker 1: hundred possessions. That's superstar level differential. The Sons have scored
Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty six points on threety four Devin
Speaker 1: Booker picking rolls this season, which is one point zero
Speaker 1: six points per possession, which is in the seventy percentile.
Speaker 1: He's not just a scorer anymore. He is a bona
Speaker 1: fide offensive engine. Now what does that mean, now, uh,
Speaker 1: an offensive engine. He's different from a scorer in the
Speaker 1: sense that scores might feel comfortable in specific matchups or
Speaker 1: in specific spots on the floor, and if you can
Speaker 1: get him in those spots, they can make plays. I'll
Speaker 1: give you an example, like Kyle Kuzma. Kyle Kuzma, if
Speaker 1: you get him in the right matchup and he's feeling good,
Speaker 1: he can score the basketball. But you're not going to
Speaker 1: use Kyle Kuzma as an offensive fulcrum. Right, Devin Booker
Speaker 1: is a play that you can run three hundred and
Speaker 1: forty four pick and rolls. That's incredibly high volume compared
Speaker 1: to a lot of the primary ball handlers in the league.
Speaker 1: You can run your entire offense through him. And that's
Speaker 1: why I wanted to point back to this what I
Speaker 1: believe was the most impressive game from the Sun's during
Speaker 1: this win streak, and that was their win up in Sacrato.
Speaker 1: In Sacramento, Now, the Kings went up, I want to
Speaker 1: say it was like one fifteen to one, twelve later
Speaker 1: might have been one of five, one two about midway
Speaker 1: through the fourth quarter, and after that the Sun's just
Speaker 1: dominated down the stretch and there was a string of
Speaker 1: eight consecutive possessions. After Damian Lee hit a nice little
Speaker 1: step back jump shot to bring it back to one
Speaker 1: of five on a four, there was a stretch of
Speaker 1: eight consecutive possessions or Devin Booker generated extremely high quality
Speaker 1: shots and the Suns went from down by one too
Speaker 1: up by ten like that to win a huge game
Speaker 1: on the road against a very good team. So I
Speaker 1: wanted to kind of break down the possessions because Devin
Speaker 1: Devin Booker only took two shots during that eight possession
Speaker 1: stretch and generated these extremely high quality looks. That's why
Speaker 1: I wanted to highlight that stretch because it kind of
Speaker 1: points to that Um, that larger topic than that I'm
Speaker 1: trying to hit at here, which is Devin Booker is
Speaker 1: not a score anymore. He's an offensive engine. So he
Speaker 1: started He started it off with a pick and roll
Speaker 1: with DeAndre Ayton, and on the possession, Davion Mitchell fought
Speaker 1: over the top of the screen and cut Devin Booker off,
Speaker 1: but all the King's defenders stayed back and help, and
Speaker 1: Devin Booker has a size advantage over Davion Mitchell, so
Speaker 1: he hit him with a hard dribble, hit him with
Speaker 1: his right shoulder, spun back towards the middle, and knocked
Speaker 1: down a really nice turnaround jump shot. Then very next possession,
Speaker 1: another eighton pick and roll. This time he gets trapped
Speaker 1: and Kevin Herder helps out of the corner to tag
Speaker 1: DeAndre Ayton when he's rolling to the basket. So um,
Speaker 1: Devin Booker just throws a quick swing pass to Tory Craig,
Speaker 1: who makes a quick extra pass to Damien Lee in
Speaker 1: the corner knocks down at three. So that's an example
Speaker 1: of Devin Booker creating the initial advantage due to his
Speaker 1: ability to make plays out of picking roll and drawing
Speaker 1: multiple defenders. Very next possession, same thing, pick and roll
Speaker 1: with eaton. This time he gets trapped again, hits eighton
Speaker 1: on the short roll the King's tag eight and on
Speaker 1: the short roll Damian Lee kind of loops around from
Speaker 1: the left from the right wing, gets another wide open
Speaker 1: three and knocks it down. Very next possession, same exact thing,
Speaker 1: another trap. This time they tagged eight in a little
Speaker 1: bit sooner, So Devin Booker makes the adjustment and goes
Speaker 1: directly to Damian Lee instead of hitting the short roll first.
Speaker 1: It gets a pretty decent look. He just happens to
Speaker 1: miss it. Then on the very next possession they run
Speaker 1: a horn set, and on this horn set, Devin Booker
Speaker 1: comes over an eight and screen at the elbow and
Speaker 1: he sees so so uh, they're on opposite ends of
Speaker 1: the elbows. On the horn set, eighton screens for Booker
Speaker 1: as he comes over the top, but Sabonus was hugged
Speaker 1: up to eight, and you could see Booker like staring
Speaker 1: right at Sabonus and he knows that because Davian Mitchell's
Speaker 1: behind him, because Sabonus is up at the elbow, that
Speaker 1: there's nobody at the rim. Michail Bridges cuts off of
Speaker 1: him and like one of those spurs cuts off of
Speaker 1: that high post catch and just hands it to him
Speaker 1: because he knows Michael Bridges defender is trailing him and
Speaker 1: there's no help help at the rim because the bonus
Speaker 1: isn't there. It was a great read from Devin Booker.
Speaker 1: Michael Bridges goes right in and gets a dunk very
Speaker 1: next possession, another pick and roll with Ayton. Another trap.
Speaker 1: This time they were too slow to tag Eaton because
Speaker 1: they had been leaving shooters open, and Ayton gets a
Speaker 1: reverse layup. Next possession, horn set again, Donovan Mitchell gets
Speaker 1: caught a little bit, excuse me, Davion Mitchell gets caught
Speaker 1: a little bit on the switch and so Devin Booker
Speaker 1: just elevates. Davan Mitchell recovers too aggressively and fouls Devin Booker.
Speaker 1: He goes to the foul line and then the last
Speaker 1: possession they blitz Steven Booker on a pick and roll
Speaker 1: along the right wing. He drags the double out to
Speaker 1: about thirty ft. Kevin Herder leaves Michail Bridges to tag
Speaker 1: Aton once again, swings to to Tory Craig. Tory Craig
Speaker 1: extra pass to mc hale bridges in the corner Knox
Speaker 1: Standard three. Now it's a ten point game, so again,
Speaker 1: and I put all eight of those possessions on Twitter,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna want to go there so you can
Speaker 1: actually see the footage, because that's gonna do it's gonna
Speaker 1: do more justice than me talking about it. But I
Speaker 1: thought it was a really impressive stretch of high level,
Speaker 1: surgical half court offensive creation from a guy who has
Speaker 1: the reputation of being just a score. Took two shots,
Speaker 1: a couple of pull up jump shots, both of them
Speaker 1: in situations where it was the right read. On the
Speaker 1: first one there was no help, he had a good matchup,
Speaker 1: and on the second one, Davian Mitchell got caught on
Speaker 1: the screen and he had a good look at it.
Speaker 1: So that that's a superstar. That's not a score, that's
Speaker 1: not a empty stats guy. That's a superstar. And that's
Speaker 1: why the Sons are the best team in the West
Speaker 1: right now, despite some awful injury luck to start the year.
Speaker 1: You know, Devin Booker's leap has to change the way
Speaker 1: we evaluate the Suns because originally I talked about the
Speaker 1: Sons as a team that was incredibly deep with talent,
Speaker 1: Michail Bridges is so good, do you and Rayton is
Speaker 1: so good. Cam Johnson will be back at some point
Speaker 1: this season. He's so good. Tory Craig has been playing
Speaker 1: pretty well for them. Campaign can get great dribble penetration.
Speaker 1: You know, They've got Landrew sham It, you know, is
Speaker 1: a good bench guard that can make plays defensively and
Speaker 1: knockdown shots. They've got a lot of talent, but we
Speaker 1: were worried about their top end talent. And Devin Booker
Speaker 1: going from guy who can score, play a little bit
Speaker 1: of defense, and do a little bit of playmaking too,
Speaker 1: really well rounded superstar makes it so that the Suns
Speaker 1: can hang in with the top teams in the league
Speaker 1: in terms of top end talent. If you have Booker
Speaker 1: with that type of supporting cast, he can hang with
Speaker 1: any of the stars in the league. So that a
Speaker 1: really impressive stretch of basketball from the Suns, and I'm
Speaker 1: I wanted to take some time to shout out Devin
Speaker 1: Booker all right. Moving on to the Bucks. So they've
Speaker 1: won three in a row, including a couple of really
Speaker 1: impressive wins against Dallas and Cleveland. They're up to fifteen
Speaker 1: and five, just two games back of Boston, who's been
Speaker 1: running away with everything this uh this season their seventeenth
Speaker 1: and offense still first in defense and fit the net rating.
Speaker 1: Pat Connaughton has been back for about a week almost
Speaker 1: two weeks now. Uh, that definitely looks a little rusty
Speaker 1: and out of rhythm, but that's to be expected. That
Speaker 1: will come around once you get into real basketball shape,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you get better lift on those jumpers. Um.
Speaker 1: Chris Middleton, it's been reported, is coming back on Friday
Speaker 1: against the Lakers. I think that's the perfect game for
Speaker 1: him to come back, um and kind of and kind
Speaker 1: of get eased back into NBA basketball. The Lakers offer
Speaker 1: a ton of strong side help and they're absolutely going
Speaker 1: to pack the paint on Janice, So Janice is going
Speaker 1: to generate a lot of good looks for him on kickouts.
Speaker 1: And then the Laker wings are all shorter than me. So, um,
Speaker 1: Chris Middleton is gonna have a lot of really good
Speaker 1: matchups to shoot over the top of smaller Laker defenders. UM. So,
Speaker 1: I think that Friday game is gonna be a really
Speaker 1: good opportunity for for Chris to kind of get his uh,
Speaker 1: get his feet dirty playing NBA basketball again. They're playing
Speaker 1: great basketball even without those guys, though. Javon Carter and
Speaker 1: Grayson Allen can't miss a damn three to save their lives,
Speaker 1: and they're both the fending really well. Brook Lopez is
Speaker 1: utterly wrecking teams with his rim protection in his three
Speaker 1: point shooting in our mid season awards that we're gonna
Speaker 1: do tomorrow, excuse me, our quarter season awards that we're
Speaker 1: gonna do tomorrow. I haven't decided yet because I'm considering
Speaker 1: a couple other guys, but I'm strongly considering making brook
Speaker 1: Lopez my defensive Player of the Year so far. And
Speaker 1: then Joannice Like. There was a nine game stretch in
Speaker 1: early November where he was clearly banged up. He was
Speaker 1: dealing with the stuff. He only played in six out
Speaker 1: of the nine games. He shot under fifty. In all
Speaker 1: six games, he only average eleven and six on forty
Speaker 1: two percent shooting. Although it kind of reminds me of
Speaker 1: Lebron were like the bad stretches of Janice eleven and six, like,
Speaker 1: that's just completely absurd. But he's completely back in his
Speaker 1: groove now. In his last five games, he scored thirty
Speaker 1: plus every single one of them. Thirty six, ten and
Speaker 1: six is his average during that stretch on fifty nine
Speaker 1: percent shooting, So whatever was going on is gone. Um
Speaker 1: it looked like it was almost personal last night between
Speaker 1: him and Julius Randall. He was really physically aggressive with
Speaker 1: him on both ends of the floor. You know, one
Speaker 1: of the one of the reasons why I have Janice
Speaker 1: is the best player in the world is even though
Speaker 1: I consider him just a top tier offensive player and
Speaker 1: not like the best offensive player, like I think Steph
Speaker 1: Curry is a much better offensive player than Johannis Antenna Coomball.
Speaker 1: I think it's a big part of why, um the
Speaker 1: Bucks struggle to score in the half court. But the
Speaker 1: combination of Jannice being a very very good offensive player
Speaker 1: and the best defensive player in the world is why
Speaker 1: I think he's the best player in the world. And
Speaker 1: the reason why I think he's the best defensive player
Speaker 1: in the world is like when we look at you know,
Speaker 1: the traditional great rim protectors like even Brooke. Like Brooke,
Speaker 1: I'm considering him for defensive player the year through quarter
Speaker 1: of the season. You know, it's a lot of scheme
Speaker 1: stuff with him. They're keeping him by the paint and
Speaker 1: at that specific thing, he's one of the very best
Speaker 1: in the league. Brook Lopez is just an outstanding rim protector,
Speaker 1: but you know, they don't have Johannis in that spot.
Speaker 1: Janice can do that, and they slot him in there
Speaker 1: when Brooks off the floor. Like is kind of the
Speaker 1: way they dealt with Julius Randall last night when Brooke
Speaker 1: was out there, Janice was on Julius Randall. When Brooke
Speaker 1: would go off, they'd slide Janice to the five and
Speaker 1: they put, you know, Bobby Portois on Julius Randall, have
Speaker 1: Janice hang out around the rim. That type of versatile,
Speaker 1: That type of versatility is the key because obviously we
Speaker 1: know what Janice can do as a back line rim protector,
Speaker 1: but it's what he can do on ball. He was
Speaker 1: navigating screens as the Knicks tried to free Julius Randall up, legitimately,
Speaker 1: bothering Julius with his length held him to as a team,
Speaker 1: they held him to eight shooting. But in those isolation
Speaker 1: possessions or individual defense possessions on Julius, I thought he
Speaker 1: really did a nice job bothering him, not just forcing mrs,
Speaker 1: but some bad misses, some airballs and and hard bricks
Speaker 1: off the glass. That that's the part of it that
Speaker 1: is um. That's a separator for me with Janice is
Speaker 1: like he has the ability to do p emitter defense
Speaker 1: stuff as well as most of the big wings that
Speaker 1: we have in the league. And he can be a
Speaker 1: foundational rim protector for you if you need him to.
Speaker 1: I am really excited for this game on Sunday or
Speaker 1: excuse me, on Friday. Milwaukee is going to get the
Speaker 1: Lakers best punch because the Lakers want to prove that
Speaker 1: they're legit um and it's a it's it's just a
Speaker 1: super interesting matchup, right because like Milwaukee's twenty feet and
Speaker 1: half court offense and the Lakers are second in half
Speaker 1: court defense, you know, so uh, they should struggle to score.
Speaker 1: But then on the other end of the court, Milwaukee
Speaker 1: is first in half court defense and the Lakers are
Speaker 1: eighteenth and half court offense, so you know, both teams
Speaker 1: are gonna be desperate to get out in transition as
Speaker 1: much as possible. In the half court, It's going to
Speaker 1: be an absolute slug fest. Chris Middleton should have advantages
Speaker 1: all night. Like I was talking about shooting over the
Speaker 1: top of smaller Laker wings and then Lebron and Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis are two of the best bodies that you can
Speaker 1: possibly throw in Janna, so um, it'll be really interesting
Speaker 1: to see how much help they send. My guest is
Speaker 1: Darvin Hamill over help. So it'll come down to Bucks
Speaker 1: role players making shots and at home. There's a really
Speaker 1: interesting thing just in general going on around the league
Speaker 1: right now, where all of the really good teams are
Speaker 1: thriving at home and struggling on the road, like like
Speaker 1: even the Suns we talked about earlier really struggling on
Speaker 1: the road. So um, my, my prediction for Friday night
Speaker 1: is that the Bucks role players hit a bunch of
Speaker 1: threes and they end up winning by ten fifteen points.
Speaker 1: But it should be a very very interesting game. Bucks
Speaker 1: fans that are listening, you're gonna want to come back
Speaker 1: tomorrow for our mid season Awards because the Bucks will
Speaker 1: be heavily featured. And then also on Saturday morning when
Speaker 1: we do a game breakdown from that Friday night game.
Speaker 1: All right, onto the Lakers. So really nice bounce back
Speaker 1: win last night, um against the Portland Trailblazers. First of all,
Speaker 1: they were down Lonnie Walker, who has been their third
Speaker 1: best player this year, and they were down Troy Brown Jr.
Speaker 1: Who has been arguably their best defensive wing this year.
Speaker 1: So from a personnel standpoint, they were really limited. It
Speaker 1: was basically Lebron and Anthony Davison a bunch of small guards. Um.
Speaker 1: And they also had a really, really sushing loss on Monday,
Speaker 1: Like you gotta think about how crushing that was. They
Speaker 1: had won five out of six before that game, and
Speaker 1: then they were up seventeen in the fourth quarter, so
Speaker 1: they could that was their opportunity to really strain together
Speaker 1: a stretch of good basketball, and they let their foot
Speaker 1: off the gas and the basketball gods made them pay
Speaker 1: for it. Um. But I don't think it's indicative of
Speaker 1: who they are as a team because the you know,
Speaker 1: the real team is the team that you've seen over
Speaker 1: the course of the last couple of weeks, which is
Speaker 1: a team that competes like crazy, and they've got some
Speaker 1: old veteran players that have to learn the hard way
Speaker 1: that they can't let their foot off the gas. And
Speaker 1: they've let their foot off the gas twice this year,
Speaker 1: ironically against the Blazers the first time and then on
Speaker 1: Monday night, And so as long as they've learned their
Speaker 1: lesson there, they should be okay. But they came back,
Speaker 1: and like, when you make a catastrophic mistake like that,
Speaker 1: there's only one thing you can do, and it's just
Speaker 1: put one foot right from right back in front of
Speaker 1: the other and go out and play good basketball the
Speaker 1: next time out the floor. You know's there's an old
Speaker 1: cliche winning cures everything. That's the truth. Like, if you
Speaker 1: win against the Blazers on Wednesday night and you go
Speaker 1: into Milwaukee and you beat the Bucks on Friday, not
Speaker 1: only does that completely erase the painfulness of that Monday loss,
Speaker 1: Now you've won seven out of your last nine games
Speaker 1: and you beat you know, the second or third best
Speaker 1: team in the league on the road. So that's the
Speaker 1: type of potential that's there for the Lakers on Friday,
Speaker 1: and that's the only way you can recover from that
Speaker 1: type of devastating loss. So I want to talk about
Speaker 1: Lebron for a second, so that we're gonna hit on
Speaker 1: three Lakers, Lebron, Russell Westbrook, and Austin Reeves. So Lebron
Speaker 1: had a really tough first shift. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the big reasons why Russell Westbrook has been so good
Speaker 1: for the Lakers this year is he just brings energy.
Speaker 1: He brings like a verve. He changes the pace of
Speaker 1: the game, and he gets a ton of dribble penetration,
Speaker 1: which gets the Lakers into their driving kick and that's
Speaker 1: when they start getting good stuff. And Lebron too often
Speaker 1: this year has been to pass, which is kind of
Speaker 1: slowly and methodically bringing the ball up the floor. There
Speaker 1: is a time in place for that. There are times
Speaker 1: when that methodical approach will actually disrupt the opponent as
Speaker 1: long as you're getting good shots and knocking them down,
Speaker 1: as long as Lebrons, especially when he's shoting the way
Speaker 1: that he is, like, there's versions of that that can work,
Speaker 1: but you need to bring some verve to get the
Speaker 1: team uh, you know, playing at a pace that that
Speaker 1: keeps them free and generating quality shots. And in that
Speaker 1: first shift, he just wasn't doing it. And then Russ
Speaker 1: came in and change the pace of this game and
Speaker 1: the uh uh in the early first quarter, and when
Speaker 1: Lebron came back in his entire demeanor was different. And
Speaker 1: this is a credit to Russell Westbrook. I think I
Speaker 1: think Russell Westbrook opening up that game with pace clicked
Speaker 1: for Lebron that he needed to do the same thing,
Speaker 1: and when he came out in that second quarter or
Speaker 1: in the second shift, excuse me, he had a completely
Speaker 1: different level of energy and ended up playing his best
Speaker 1: game of the season, did a really nice job Defendingjeremy Grant.
Speaker 1: This was the second set of video clips that I
Speaker 1: put together that you're gonna want to find on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Underscore. Jason lt I clipped all fifteen of these possessions,
Speaker 1: but there were fifteen possessions that Jeremy Grant attempted to
Speaker 1: make a play with Lebron James as a primary defender.
Speaker 1: Not only was it fifteen possessions, it was fifteen complicated possessions.
Speaker 1: Almost every single time, they were either bringing Jeremy Grant
Speaker 1: out of the corner and making Lebron chase him over
Speaker 1: the top of a wide pin down, or they were
Speaker 1: doing like an ex dribble handoff. A lot in the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter, they did this but like a ex dribble
Speaker 1: handoff at the top of the key to try to
Speaker 1: get Jeremy Grant an advantage as Lebron had to navigate
Speaker 1: a screen. So Lebron was always having to navigate a
Speaker 1: screen to then get into place to defend Jeremy Grant,
Speaker 1: and on those fifteen possessions, he held Jeremy Grant to
Speaker 1: four out of fourteen shooting from the field with an assist,
Speaker 1: a really nice job navigating screens, defending UH, pressing up
Speaker 1: on Jeremy Grant's shot, giving up a couple of layups
Speaker 1: on drives from Jeremy Grant. Knowing that over the grand
Speaker 1: scheme the game with his help defense by pressing up
Speaker 1: on his jump shot, he would get him to have
Speaker 1: a rough shooting night. That's what ended up happening. UM
Speaker 1: forced Jeremy into a lot of contested pull up jump
Speaker 1: shots that he ended up missing. You know, I talked
Speaker 1: about this a lot in our Wednesday Tuesday's show that
Speaker 1: was disastrous with the UH, with the technical difficulties. Apologies Again,
Speaker 1: I was really irritated that night, as you guys could
Speaker 1: probably imagine. But anyway, when we were talking that night,
Speaker 1: I was talking about how, you know, when Lebron's going
Speaker 1: through offensive slumps, which is a natural part of coming
Speaker 1: back from injuries. Like we talked about that on Tuesday night.
Speaker 1: It was like his third game in twenty days, so
Speaker 1: obviously he wasn't gonna be in rhythm to look like
Speaker 1: m v P Lebron. But there are things that are
Speaker 1: under your control, your decision making and your effort, and
Speaker 1: Lebron made some pretty inexcusable effort mistakes and decision making
Speaker 1: mistakes during that that Monday game, and in this game,
Speaker 1: he devoted a great deal of energy to getting back
Speaker 1: in transition defense, defending the best player, second best player
Speaker 1: depending on how you feel about Anthony Simon's defending the
Speaker 1: other teams, you know, best scoring wing. And then he
Speaker 1: also had to great an offensive game, which is great.
Speaker 1: But the Lakers win that game even if Lebron doesn't
Speaker 1: shoot as well as he did, because he took care
Speaker 1: of the stuff that he needed to control, which is
Speaker 1: what he does on the defensive end of the floor. Um.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about the importance of Lebron's jumper
Speaker 1: for a second, because you know, I always talk about
Speaker 1: drible penetration. Drible penetration is a combination of your ability
Speaker 1: to athletically beat people with your first step and your
Speaker 1: ability to knock down jump shots to force the defender
Speaker 1: to be more on his toes rather than on his heels.
Speaker 1: Right those those That dynamic is a really delicate balance,
Speaker 1: and you know your you can make up for a
Speaker 1: lot of physical limitations if you're making shots. You know,
Speaker 1: for instance, Steph Curry is an underrated athlete, and we've
Speaker 1: talked about that a lot. You know, is conditioning as ridiculous.
Speaker 1: He's pretty quick with his feet, and he's surprisingly big,
Speaker 1: even though a lot of people think of him as
Speaker 1: a small guard. Um, but he he's one of the
Speaker 1: best rim finishers in basketball, and a big part of
Speaker 1: that is he weaponizes his shot to get clean driving lanes.
Speaker 1: And clean driving lanes give you the versatility to go
Speaker 1: to all your different finishing moves and things like that.
Speaker 1: And you know, Lebron doesn't look athletically what he was
Speaker 1: early in the season and uh in last season, and
Speaker 1: that will probably come over the course of the next
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. But he manufactured a bunch of dribble
Speaker 1: penetration last night by hitting shots. You know, you saw
Speaker 1: the clear one where um where he pumped faked and
Speaker 1: Jeremy Grant came out and he threw that rifle pass too.
Speaker 1: I think it was when you and Gabriel I can't remember.
Speaker 1: Was some blaker that was in the block and then
Speaker 1: he cut immediately after the past and got a dunk.
Speaker 1: So that's a driving dunk generated by the threat of
Speaker 1: his shot. There was another one in the late fourth quarter,
Speaker 1: uh where he pump faked, got a got a step
Speaker 1: on the defender. Because of the pump fake, the defender
Speaker 1: left his feet and he threw a no look past
Speaker 1: Austin Reeves in the right corner for a three point shot.
Speaker 1: And then there was a third one. I can't remember
Speaker 1: the exact details, but there were three plays in that
Speaker 1: game where Lebron created dribble penetration with the threat of
Speaker 1: his jump shot. And so you know, his legs will
Speaker 1: come around and his athleticism will allow him to manufacture
Speaker 1: even more drible penetration, but him making those three point
Speaker 1: shots is so important for him to be successful in
Speaker 1: the meantime. And like we talked about with Russell Westbrook
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about more in a minute, that
Speaker 1: dribble penetration in in pace is so important for the
Speaker 1: Lakers to avoid that stagnant half court environment where they
Speaker 1: can't score because they don't have enough shooting. And so
Speaker 1: it's it's good to see Lebron um uh, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: making some shots to buy him some leeway on that front.
Speaker 1: You know, I was really critical of Lebron on Monday. Um,
Speaker 1: he's my favorite player of all time. But you know
Speaker 1: this is the stay and or that I hold him to.
Speaker 1: You are the leader of this team, you know I
Speaker 1: will if you have a game where you go out
Speaker 1: and you struggle to make shots because you're out of
Speaker 1: shape because you're coming back from injury, I will never
Speaker 1: say a damn word. Um, I'll call it what it is,
Speaker 1: which is a basketball player rebuilding his rhythm. But when
Speaker 1: you don't run back on defense and you make poor
Speaker 1: decisions as one of the best decision makers in the
Speaker 1: history of the league, to me, that's the leader of
Speaker 1: the Lakers not doing his job. And he and he
Speaker 1: didn't do his job on Monday. But again, just like
Speaker 1: we talked about from a team wide scale, the only
Speaker 1: thing you can do in that situation is continue to
Speaker 1: put one foot in front of the other and go
Speaker 1: out and play a good basketball game on Wednesday. And
Speaker 1: that's what he did. You know, he also happen to
Speaker 1: have a great offensive night, but he went out and
Speaker 1: he defended really really well. He competed on the glass,
Speaker 1: he competed in transition, took care of the things that
Speaker 1: were in his control, and then some of the variant
Speaker 1: stuff also went his way, and he had a superstar
Speaker 1: level performance. I want to talk about Russ for a second,
Speaker 1: because you know, you look at the box core, he
Speaker 1: has ten points on fourteen shots. He's four for fourteen
Speaker 1: from the field only as four assists didn't close the game.
Speaker 1: I thought it was one of his best games of
Speaker 1: as a Laker. He completely changed the pace of the
Speaker 1: game when he came in in that second quarter. Obviously,
Speaker 1: he hit those two massive shots at the end of
Speaker 1: the second quarter, at the right four halftime and right
Speaker 1: at the end of the third quarter, but even without those,
Speaker 1: he just did an outstanding job getting dribble penetration, playing
Speaker 1: with pace, generating high quality shots. There were some funky lineups,
Speaker 1: especially that one that I think he I think it
Speaker 1: was the one he ended the third quarter with where
Speaker 1: he was legitimately out there without Lebron, without Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: without Austin Reeves, and just a bunch of guys, and
Speaker 1: he his ability to consistently beat his man off the
Speaker 1: dribble and get into the paint, get generated high quality
Speaker 1: shots on the back end. You know, if that's his job,
Speaker 1: his job, And again it's like the the important thing
Speaker 1: for Russell Westbrook to figure out is it's not about
Speaker 1: box score results. It's not eight nine and seven. What
Speaker 1: it is is play with play with pace and energy,
Speaker 1: get consistent dribble penetration, and limit your mistakes. And that's
Speaker 1: what he did. There were maybe two or three shots
Speaker 1: that he took that I didn't like, a quick transition,
Speaker 1: like like a couple of the early shots he took
Speaker 1: in his first quarter shift were tough. There was like
Speaker 1: a quick pull up three that I didn't like. He
Speaker 1: rushed to layoup that he missed. But you know, there's
Speaker 1: two or three mistakes in there. But he also had
Speaker 1: zero turnovers, so in general, it was a low mistake
Speaker 1: RUSS game where yeah he was four for fourteen, but
Speaker 1: he generated a ton of dribble penetration, changed the field
Speaker 1: and pace of the game. That's his job. That's Russell
Speaker 1: Westbrooks job. Now. I know a lot of RUSS fans
Speaker 1: get concerned when he doesn't get to close, but the
Speaker 1: reality is is he's he becomes redundant at that point
Speaker 1: and a lot of it has to do with how
Speaker 1: well Lebron's playing. When Lebron is playing like an m
Speaker 1: v P, which he did last night, you don't need
Speaker 1: Russ out there in crunch time because what you would
Speaker 1: rather have his good off ball players who are edern
Speaker 1: off all situations on both ends of the floor. That way,
Speaker 1: you don't have that redundancy, which kind of led to
Speaker 1: the problem on Monday night when he had Schroeder and
Speaker 1: Lebron and in Russ all in at the same time
Speaker 1: and the offense just went to hell um really quickly.
Speaker 1: But a really nice performance from Russ, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was a perfect example of what the Lakers need
Speaker 1: from him in ways that go beyond the box score.
Speaker 1: Austin Reeves career high twenty two points on ten shots.
Speaker 1: He is really good at getting defenders out of position
Speaker 1: with pump fix. I was watching last night and I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: I swear he gets to the line so often, and
Speaker 1: so I did some research today. He leads the entire
Speaker 1: n B a Austin Reeves does and free throws made
Speaker 1: per game by players that are tempting fewer than seven
Speaker 1: shots per game, So just you know, it's funny. Uh.
Speaker 1: Somebody of my buddy Ralph, another Lakers fan that I
Speaker 1: talked to on Twitter sometimes um Uh mentioned that he
Speaker 1: was really good at drawing fouls when he was in college,
Speaker 1: and it just he just he just has a really
Speaker 1: natural feel for scoring and passing the basketball, and in
Speaker 1: general feeling the floor, understanding where defenders are when he
Speaker 1: needs to pump fake when he doesn't. It's funny. He
Speaker 1: pump fakes so frequently, and he gets defenders off of
Speaker 1: their out of there, like jumping out of their shoes
Speaker 1: and out of position so frequently that he can actually
Speaker 1: get shots off in traffic because guys become paranoid about jumping.
Speaker 1: He's turned himself into a damn good two way guard
Speaker 1: in this league. His on ball creation is pretty legit.
Speaker 1: He's generated sixty eight points and sixty eight pick and
Speaker 1: rolls this year, which is in the sixty second percentile,
Speaker 1: so he's already an above average pick and roll creator.
Speaker 1: He's generated thirteen points on nine is so so really good,
Speaker 1: albeit slow, low volume. And then he's an excellent spot
Speaker 1: up threat. He's scored eighty two points and sixty two
Speaker 1: spot up possessions percent on two point jump shots on
Speaker 1: three point jump shots. So shout out to Austin Reeves.
Speaker 1: He's been playing some really good basketball lately. Lakers have
Speaker 1: one six out of eight. Yes it should be seven
Speaker 1: out of eight, but it is what it is. During
Speaker 1: this eight game stretch, they are sixth and offense, fourth
Speaker 1: in defense, and fifth and and net rating. The schedule
Speaker 1: has been light, but they're also playing good basketball during
Speaker 1: this Uh. For the season, they are now up to
Speaker 1: the second and best half court defense in the league.
Speaker 1: Like we mentioned earlier, um, they are dead last in
Speaker 1: transition defense though, so again their stars making good decisions,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, when they missed shots around the rim,
Speaker 1: that's fine, but sprinting back instead of complaining at the refs,
Speaker 1: just in general, jogging back in transition instead of sprinting.
Speaker 1: When their stars are on top of their transition defense stuff,
Speaker 1: they can trap other teams in the half court and
Speaker 1: then they can win games because of how good their
Speaker 1: half court defense is. Really is about the stars. When
Speaker 1: the stars are sharp, the Lakers win. Everyone's gonna point
Speaker 1: to the schedule, and yes it's been really weak, as
Speaker 1: they should. You should point to the schedule, but you
Speaker 1: have Milwaukee on Friday and then December is full of
Speaker 1: games that are opportunities to prove to everyone that the
Speaker 1: Lakers are for real. So go do it. You know,
Speaker 1: if you don't want anybody to pull out the schedule
Speaker 1: as an excuse, go beat the Bucks on Friday, and
Speaker 1: that's gonna be a fun game. I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: covering it all right, guys, that is all I have
Speaker 1: for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and
Speaker 1: I will see you guys tomorrow for our quarter season awards.
Speaker 1: The Volume