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Speaker 1: All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the Volume.
Speaker 1: Happy one day, everybody. Hope all of you guys are
Speaker 1: having a great week. I've got another jam pack show
Speaker 1: for you guys. Today. We're going to be breaking down
Speaker 1: a couple of games from the n season tournaments. Late
Speaker 1: last night, the Clippers and Nuggets played a highly entertaining game,
Speaker 1: the Clippers trying to get out of this long losing streak,
Speaker 1: and they had a seven point lead about halfway through
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter, and then the Nuggets just started spamming
Speaker 1: Jokic post ups as they came out with the win.
Speaker 1: There lots of interesting stuff to get into from both
Speaker 1: teams in that game. And then the Indiana Pacers went
Speaker 1: into Philly and handled business beating the Sixers. Tyreus Haliburton
Speaker 1: was incredible fifteen assist, zero turnovers, really picked them apart
Speaker 1: and pick and roll in the fourth quarter. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about that game from the per perspective of
Speaker 1: both teams, and then we're going to do a deep
Speaker 1: dive into the Indiana Pacers, a team that is now
Speaker 1: sitting at seven and four, which is the seventh best
Speaker 1: record in the NBA at this point. We're going to
Speaker 1: just talk about how Tyrese has been so successful, a
Speaker 1: couple of key contributors talk about their big picture numbers
Speaker 1: so far this season. Just a classic deep dive like
Speaker 1: we've been doing on teams that we've seen earlier. Then
Speaker 1: at the end of the show, we're gonna play a
Speaker 1: game of fake questions, real answers. I've got three fake
Speaker 1: questions for you guys, this time a couple of them
Speaker 1: to allow me to briefly touch on the Lakers and
Speaker 1: Warriors games from last night, and then the third one,
Speaker 1: Draymond Green put Rudy Gobert in headlock last night, which
Speaker 1: is objectively funny given the way I've been defending Draymond
Speaker 1: as of late. So we're obviously going to talk about
Speaker 1: that for a couple of minutes as well. You guys,
Speaker 1: oree the drill before we get started. Subscribe to our
Speaker 1: brand new YouTube channel. It would mean a lot to
Speaker 1: me as we try to get this channel off the
Speaker 1: ground if you guys would scroll down and hit that
Speaker 1: subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed. Wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcast under Hoops tonight, follow me on Twitter
Speaker 1: at underscore Jason ltus. You guys, don't miss any show
Speaker 1: announcements as well as the video breakdowns that I do.
Speaker 1: I posted a ton of clips, particularly of Tyrese Haliburton
Speaker 1: today on my Twitter feed. You're gonna want to follow
Speaker 1: me there to see that stuff. And then, last, but
Speaker 1: not least, we need mail bag questions for later in
Speaker 1: the week, so keep dropping those in the YouTube comments
Speaker 1: so we can hit them later. On. All right, let's
Speaker 1: talk some basketball. So this Clippers Nuggets game was a
Speaker 1: really interesting example of two incredibly different basketball teams giving
Speaker 1: each other problems for different reasons, right, because the Clippers
Speaker 1: had an extended run in this game, from about two
Speaker 1: minutes to go in the second quarter to that Kawhi
Speaker 1: jumper over Christian Brown in the fourth quarter that put
Speaker 1: the Clippers up by seven. They outscored the Nuggets fifty
Speaker 1: eight to thirty eight, so an extended stretch of them
Speaker 1: playing some pretty dominant basketball. And one of the main
Speaker 1: reasons why is on the offensive end, they are actually
Speaker 1: capable of giving this Nuggets defense, which is a good defense,
Speaker 1: They're actually capable of giving them some issues. We've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about this on the show, like how would
Speaker 1: you cause problems for this Nuggets defense? Because this is
Speaker 1: not a team that has like five top tier defenders
Speaker 1: out there that's flying around making plays. This is not
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Timberwolves, right, Like, there are points in this
Speaker 1: team where you have advantages where you can attack. They
Speaker 1: are just incredibly well coached. They have a scheme that
Speaker 1: works for them. All of their guys are bought in,
Speaker 1: and they have a handful of guys that are great
Speaker 1: defensive players. Kntavis Pope is a great point of attack defender,
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon is an incredibly versatile defender. Michael Porter Junior
Speaker 1: is good and help and recover situations. Right, So they've
Speaker 1: got guys that are capable, and then the rest of
Speaker 1: the guys are all just really bought in and they
Speaker 1: do their jobs. But one of the things that the
Speaker 1: Clippers can do, and have been doing for years now,
Speaker 1: is they get you out of your base scheme by
Speaker 1: spacing you out with high level ball handling and then
Speaker 1: picking you apart from there. And they've done damage over
Speaker 1: the years to great defensive teams, famously just picking apart
Speaker 1: the Utah Jazz without Kawhi Leonard by spacing them out
Speaker 1: and driving and kicking them to death, right, and so again,
Speaker 1: when it comes to this particular Nuggets team, if there
Speaker 1: was a way to score against them, it would be
Speaker 1: the way the Clippers did for the most part during
Speaker 1: that game last night. I know, you see, oh, they
Speaker 1: only scored one hundred and eight points, but you got
Speaker 1: to remember this was a slower pace game, and the
Speaker 1: Clippers actually scored about one hundred and fourteen points per
Speaker 1: one hundred possessions at that pace during this game, which
Speaker 1: is a hefty six points per one hundred possessions, more
Speaker 1: than the Denver Nuggets have been allowing over the course
Speaker 1: of the previous games that they had played this season.
Speaker 1: So they were having success in that regard and obviously
Speaker 1: it showed on the scoreboard when they took that lead.
Speaker 1: How did they do it by pulling Yokic up to
Speaker 1: the level of the screen, right, And now Denver has
Speaker 1: in recent months, basically dating back to the playoffs, been
Speaker 1: kind of oscillating back and forth between bringing Jokic up
Speaker 1: to the level versus kind of having him sit back.
Speaker 1: There was a brief stretch in the fourth quarter, I
Speaker 1: think it might have been in the third quarter where
Speaker 1: they did actually drop Yolkic back quite a bit and
Speaker 1: try to bait them into attacking him at the rim.
Speaker 1: And James Harden had one bucket on him where he
Speaker 1: kind of elbowed him in the chest on a play
Speaker 1: like that, and he had another another similar play where
Speaker 1: Yokic actually bothered him at the rim. But they had
Speaker 1: some success in this game by pulling Yokic out to
Speaker 1: the level of the screen. From there, it's that passed
Speaker 1: to the middle of the floor many times. In this
Speaker 1: particular game, it was Terrence Man that was operating there.
Speaker 1: But then on the backside you have incredibly skilled players, right,
Speaker 1: Like there's a play where it's PG on the left
Speaker 1: wing and Kawhi in the left corner, and there you know,
Speaker 1: Terrence Man that makes the catch and makes that kickout
Speaker 1: pass to Kawai in the corner, and now Kauwhi is
Speaker 1: attacking with an advantage, and it like missing a little
Speaker 1: floater on this play. There's another one where it's like
Speaker 1: Kawhi on the left wing and it's Russell Westbrook in
Speaker 1: the corner, and Russell Westbrook cuts out of the back
Speaker 1: weekside corner and dunks it with two hands, right like
Speaker 1: when they were pulling that second defender up to the
Speaker 1: level of the screen. In this case, Jokic, they're playing
Speaker 1: four on three on the backside with really really skilled players,
Speaker 1: right and they were basically at the level on Harden
Speaker 1: for the most part. There were some stretches where they
Speaker 1: went a deeper drop on Harden, but then they were
Speaker 1: up at the level on PG most of the game.
Speaker 1: Pg's just been unbelievable as a pull up shooter as
Speaker 1: of late, and then Kawhi Leonard as well. They were
Speaker 1: kind of showing high and then from there down the
Speaker 1: stretch of the game, there's a lot of classic matchup
Speaker 1: attacking stuff right like PG face up on contains Callbo Pop,
Speaker 1: who's an excellent perimeter defender, but he's given three inches
Speaker 1: to Paul Georgie. He's a little bit shorter, right, So
Speaker 1: PG just like hard jab step, elevates over the top,
Speaker 1: knocks the shot down. You know, Christian Brown, there's a
Speaker 1: really nice defensive possession on Kawhi or he traps him
Speaker 1: there in the middle of the floor that this is
Speaker 1: the bucket that put the Clippers up ninety nine ninety two,
Speaker 1: and it's it just doesn't matter because quite so much
Speaker 1: dam bigger than him, he could just shoot over the top, right,
Speaker 1: It's it's James Harden getting Zeke Naugy on a switch
Speaker 1: and just toasting him with that classic you know, series
Speaker 1: of between the legs crossovers until it just explodes to
Speaker 1: the left and gets all the way to the rim
Speaker 1: for a layup like that is kind of like the
Speaker 1: idealized version of the Clippers and what they're capable of
Speaker 1: and that's kind of been a similar problem that they've
Speaker 1: caused for teams forever you want to run your traditional coverages,
Speaker 1: they're just not going to work against us because we
Speaker 1: can hunt, you know, individual matchups, because we've got size
Speaker 1: all over the floor on the perimeter, and then in
Speaker 1: pick and roll, like we just have our pull up
Speaker 1: shooting is so good and our playmaking is so good
Speaker 1: that you're just going to be in a position where
Speaker 1: you're kind of compromised on the backside, right, And so
Speaker 1: they did have some success against Denver's defense doing that,
Speaker 1: But the big question is can you do that to
Speaker 1: Denver space them out, cause problems for their defense while
Speaker 1: also having enough size on the floor to hang with
Speaker 1: Denver size. And the answer is not this Clippers team
Speaker 1: at least. And you know, I've looked at teams out
Speaker 1: there over the years that or over the last year
Speaker 1: since Denver's kind of made this a cent as teams
Speaker 1: that could potentially do this, Like, you know, I'd like
Speaker 1: to see a better version of the Lakers take a
Speaker 1: crack at the Nuggets where ad doesn't just get completely
Speaker 1: demolished and they get some higher level perimeter play. Maybe
Speaker 1: after a D'Angelo Russell trade. Right, I'd love to see
Speaker 1: the Milwaukee Bucks have a chance to see Giannis and
Speaker 1: brook Lopez battle against those guys while having the firepower
Speaker 1: that Dame brings to the table. Right, Like Boston is
Speaker 1: another team that's kind of got similar attributes to the
Speaker 1: Clippers and the sense that they can really space you
Speaker 1: out and they've got a lot of different guys that
Speaker 1: can attack matchups. But I am yet to see a
Speaker 1: team that can do both, that can space out Denver
Speaker 1: on one end and cause their defense problems while also
Speaker 1: holding up physically under the Denver interior. Onslaught on the
Speaker 1: other end of the floor, because at the end of
Speaker 1: the game, when it was ninety nine ninety two, when
Speaker 1: Kawhi makes that little jumper to put them up seven,
Speaker 1: the Nuggets just said, screw all the bullshit, We're just
Speaker 1: posting up Nikola Jokic every single time down the floor.
Speaker 1: There was one random possession after after Kawhi made the
Speaker 1: shot where they just played terrible transition defense and Christian
Speaker 1: Brown threw that lob to Michael Porter Junior, who dunked
Speaker 1: it with his left hand to make it ninety nine
Speaker 1: ninety four. But after that it was literally a Jokic
Speaker 1: post up on every single possession. The only one that
Speaker 1: wasn't was the Reggie Jackson layup, which was literally on
Speaker 1: a play where they were trying to post Nikola jokicch
Speaker 1: up and while they were kind of navigating all the
Speaker 1: screens over there, Reggie Jackson noticed that all the help
Speaker 1: defenders were occupied and just tried to beat his defender
Speaker 1: to the left hand side and get all the way
Speaker 1: to the rim. So like they didn't mess around, They
Speaker 1: knew what their advantage was, and they just completely spammed
Speaker 1: that down the stretch of the game. So what I
Speaker 1: want to do to kind of like demonstrate this is
Speaker 1: kind of go over possession by possession with the kinds
Speaker 1: of shots that the Clippers were getting versus the kinds
Speaker 1: of shots that the Nuggets were getting. And then you
Speaker 1: tell me whether or not you think if we played
Speaker 1: that same game ten times in a row, which team
Speaker 1: would win, because I think this is an interesting exercise
Speaker 1: and shot quality. Because the important context here is Tylu
Speaker 1: does not trust any of the centers on his roster.
Speaker 1: Obviously Plumb he's heard at this point, but he will
Speaker 1: not play Zoo back at the end of games He's
Speaker 1: played in just six of the twenty three clutch minutes
Speaker 1: that the Clippers have played this year, and if you
Speaker 1: were gonna play him, it'd be in this particular matchup
Speaker 1: against Jokic, and they didn't do so. Like, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: Tylu just when push comes to shove, he feels more
Speaker 1: comfortable going small. And that's going to be unless they
Speaker 1: have an upgrade for Zubac, which I don't think they're
Speaker 1: gonna find this season. I mean, maybe they do. Daniel
Speaker 1: Tye just got to buy out from the Pacers and
Speaker 1: he's gonna come over and maybe he gets some of
Speaker 1: those clutch minutes, but like, I have a hard time
Speaker 1: believing that he's gonna trust Daniel Tys in those moments. Right,
Speaker 1: I think it's probably gonna be PJ. Tucker playing center
Speaker 1: a lot, you know what I mean, or or they
Speaker 1: ended up getting rid of PJ. Tucker down the very
Speaker 1: end of this game. But I'm not sure that that
Speaker 1: that's going to be a problem that goes away for
Speaker 1: the Clippers. Right, It's going to be these small lineups
Speaker 1: in crunch time, so you have huge mismatches for Jokich
Speaker 1: against every Clipper on the floor, and that kind of
Speaker 1: is the crux of the issue here. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: start with again it was ninety nine to ninety two,
Speaker 1: and then we get the bad transition defense possession that
Speaker 1: leads to the Michael Porter junior dunk. From there, these
Speaker 1: are all of the Denver offensive possessions down the stretch
Speaker 1: of the game. There was a simple dribble handoff between
Speaker 1: Reggie Jackson and Yokic that got Paul George switched onto Yokic.
Speaker 1: He posted right in the middle of the floor, hit
Speaker 1: him with a hard right hand dribble spinning over his
Speaker 1: right shoulder for a short jump shot in the lane.
Speaker 1: Super high percentage shot. He's gonna make that seventy percent
Speaker 1: of the time, especially against that type of matchup. He
Speaker 1: makes it very next possession, they run another kind of
Speaker 1: ball screen on the left side of the floor to
Speaker 1: get PJ. Tucker off of Jokic again. Like, one of
Speaker 1: the things I like about the Nuggets is like they
Speaker 1: this is an incredibly well coached team and they take
Speaker 1: execution very seriously. So for instance, like Yokic can score
Speaker 1: on PJ. Tucker, but hey, we got twenty four seconds,
Speaker 1: let's get him onto a smaller defender. That's less of
Speaker 1: a fire hydrant, right. And they were really deliberate about
Speaker 1: just like when they got down the floor, let's run
Speaker 1: a wedge screen. Most of them, like there was that
Speaker 1: one little dribble handoff that I just mentioned, or he
Speaker 1: shot the little turnaround over Paul George, but the rest
Speaker 1: of them, it was the same action every single time
Speaker 1: down the floor. You're having you know, your post entry,
Speaker 1: whether it's KCP or Reggie Jackson come up the left
Speaker 1: side of the floor and then Yokic is starting at
Speaker 1: the right elbow, and what he's doing is he's coming
Speaker 1: off of off like a wedge screen to try to
Speaker 1: get down to the post right. And I mean essentially
Speaker 1: the idea there a lot because a lot of teams
Speaker 1: run wedge screens for post ups. You're trying to either
Speaker 1: get the defender and trail position so you can get
Speaker 1: better post up position, or to force a switch right.
Speaker 1: And in this particular case, you know PJ. Tucker had
Speaker 1: had some success on a previous possession like pushing pushing
Speaker 1: Yokic all the way out to the corner on a
Speaker 1: post catch, and he ended up taking that crazy one
Speaker 1: like fadeaway out of the right corner, right, and like,
Speaker 1: that's an example of what PJ. Tucker could do. Not
Speaker 1: that Yokic can't eventually solve that, but why not run
Speaker 1: a basic action to try to get Jokic into a
Speaker 1: position where he's catching deeper to the basket or with
Speaker 1: a better physical matchup against one of the other players
Speaker 1: on the floor. Right, So after he gets the bucket
Speaker 1: over pg next possession, they dribble down the left side
Speaker 1: of the floor. He comes off of one of those
Speaker 1: wedge screens down to the block and ends up with
Speaker 1: a post up on Terrence Man, and PJ Tucker ends
Speaker 1: up hard doubling Yokic on the face side right. And
Speaker 1: in this in the sequence, they actually forced Jolkic to
Speaker 1: miss the shot. He misses like a like a left
Speaker 1: handed weird push out that barely grazes the front of
Speaker 1: the rim. The problem is because PJ Tucker hard doubled
Speaker 1: James Harden slid over to kind of go over to
Speaker 1: PJ Tucker's man, and as a result, Aaron Gordon is
Speaker 1: standing completely unguarded under the rim and he just jumps
Speaker 1: and grabs it and just kind of puts it right
Speaker 1: into the basket, right, So like again, you tried single coverage,
Speaker 1: scored over Paul George, You've now tried a double team,
Speaker 1: and Aaron Gordon got an easy offensive rebound put back.
Speaker 1: Next possession, same thing, same little wedge screen coming off
Speaker 1: of the right elbow, and Yokic catches on Kawhi Leonard.
Speaker 1: Kawhi Leonard's posting him up, backs him down, backs him down,
Speaker 1: spins back over his left shoulder, draws a foul. Okay,
Speaker 1: So now we're we've gone to the Yokach post up
Speaker 1: and there's a bucket or a foul on every single possession.
Speaker 1: Right next one, same thing, straight post up of Paul
Speaker 1: George on the left bl okay. So Paul George is
Speaker 1: the guy that gets switched on to him. After the
Speaker 1: wedge screen, he kind of spins off towards the baseline
Speaker 1: and Terrence Mann does a really nice job jumping up
Speaker 1: and offering help and actually forces Jokic to miss the shot.
Speaker 1: But again, like Jokic spun off. So he's at the
Speaker 1: basket now, and so who's gonna get an offensive? Who's
Speaker 1: gonna get the rebound when there's you know, three or
Speaker 1: four Clipper perimeter players and then Nikola Jokic standing there
Speaker 1: underneath the basket, and he just went up, got his
Speaker 1: own offensive rebound and put it back into the basket.
Speaker 1: Next possession, straight post off with Paul George. This was
Speaker 1: a really interesting play because Norman Powell hard doubles. The
Speaker 1: Clippers are sick and tired of Yokic picking them apart.
Speaker 1: He hard doubles Jokicic just throws the pass right back
Speaker 1: out to the perimeter, and as the Clippers are rotating
Speaker 1: back Norman Powell, who offered the hard help, he had
Speaker 1: to recover to Aaron Gordon under the rim. Terrence Man,
Speaker 1: who was guarding in the weakside corner, had shown on
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon on the double team to take away that pass,
Speaker 1: but now he was recovering back to the corner and
Speaker 1: literally casep who Again, this is the continuity factor. He's
Speaker 1: seen this exact look a million times. Jokic is there
Speaker 1: guarded in the post, Norman Powell's in the process of
Speaker 1: recovering to Aaron Gordon, Terrence Man is in the process
Speaker 1: of returning to the corner, and there's a little window
Speaker 1: there as those two guys are moving, and KCP just
Speaker 1: rifles an overhead pass that hits Aaron Gordon in the
Speaker 1: perfect spot for him to quick jump up and dunk
Speaker 1: it into the basket. It was actually an and one,
Speaker 1: and so now the Nuggets are up by three. Then
Speaker 1: we get to the tear the Reggie Jackson drive. So
Speaker 1: Nikola Jokic is on the right elbow, He's getting ready
Speaker 1: to come off that wedge screen towards that post upside right.
Speaker 1: All the Clippers basically have their back turned to Reggie
Speaker 1: Jackson trying to work on who's gonna end up following
Speaker 1: Yokic down to the post, Reggie Jackson and against a
Speaker 1: good perimeter defender in this case, Terrence Man is on
Speaker 1: the ball and he just hits him with a hard
Speaker 1: move to his left hand. And this is something that
Speaker 1: Reggie Jackson can still do if you give him space,
Speaker 1: he can beat people off the dribble. And he beats
Speaker 1: Terrence Man off the dribble, gets all the way to
Speaker 1: the basket and knocks it down. And then the final
Speaker 1: one Jokic straight post up of Kawhi. This time Kawhi
Speaker 1: Leonard's like, okay, Obviously, if I play it from behind,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna foul him or give up a bucket. So
Speaker 1: Kawhi fronts the post, gets in front sits low, does
Speaker 1: a good job denying that post entry. Paul George offers
Speaker 1: backside help, and so they throw a pass over the
Speaker 1: top that Jokic catches up high. PG comes flying in
Speaker 1: to try to knock it away, and he just feeds
Speaker 1: it right under the basket to Aaron Gordon because that's
Speaker 1: Paul George's man. He was bracketing off of Aaron Gordon
Speaker 1: to help Kawhi fronting the post. It's an easy dunk
Speaker 1: for Aaron Gordon. So again, like, look at those possessions
Speaker 1: that I just laid down. That's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
Speaker 1: seven possessions, seven consecutive post ups, and they scored on
Speaker 1: every single one of them directly as a result of
Speaker 1: the fact that nobody in the lineup could hang with
Speaker 1: Nicole Jokic under the rim. And like, now now we're
Speaker 1: gonna these are the Clippers possessions. I listed them out. Okay,
Speaker 1: there were a couple of good ones. There's two good
Speaker 1: shots that they got. There was a play that James
Speaker 1: Harden brought Nikole Jokic up to the left of the
Speaker 1: screen and he ended up hitting Terrence Man on the
Speaker 1: left block as he was rolling to the basket that
Speaker 1: engaged the low man. He made the extra pass to
Speaker 1: Norman Powell in the corner he knocked down a three.
Speaker 1: There was another so that was a wide open ketch
Speaker 1: and shoot three for Norman Powell, basically picking the nuggets
Speaker 1: apart and pick and roll. Then there was another one
Speaker 1: where Jokic got onto a switch on Harden and Harden
Speaker 1: beat him to the basket, made a nice move and
Speaker 1: actually got all the way there. He just smoked the layup,
Speaker 1: So I would call that a high percentage shot even
Speaker 1: though it was a miss. So those were the two
Speaker 1: good shots that the Clippers got, Okay, these were the
Speaker 1: shots that the other shots that the Clippers got. A
Speaker 1: Kawhi contested pull up three, Paul George missed drifting catch
Speaker 1: and shoot long jump shot that was contested by Contavious
Speaker 1: Calboll Pope. Paul George missed impossible pull up three shot
Speaker 1: clock violation. Paul George missed impossible pull up three. Paul
Speaker 1: George draws a foul on a pull up jump shot.
Speaker 1: That was the one on the left wing where he
Speaker 1: just kind of like went into his heavy and just
Speaker 1: got bumped, so he got two free throws there, and
Speaker 1: then Kawhi missed a really tough left shoulder fade over
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon, and then Paul George missed another impossible pull
Speaker 1: up three and at the end of that run it
Speaker 1: was one oh nine to one oh four with thirty
Speaker 1: two seconds left. So we started with the Clippers up
Speaker 1: by seven and we ended with them down by five. Now,
Speaker 1: you might tell me make or miss league, Jason, but really,
Speaker 1: out of what I just listed what's gonna happen, If
Speaker 1: you play that game ten times, you'd be lucky if
Speaker 1: one out of those ten times Paul George makes the
Speaker 1: same impossible pull up theirs and we seen him do it.
Speaker 1: He did it against the Lakers enforced overtime. Like, Paul
Speaker 1: George can get hot and make shots, but if you're
Speaker 1: banking on you winning games by knocking down difficult, contested
Speaker 1: pull up jump shots, while the other team is banking
Speaker 1: on winning games by force feeding an incredibly high percentage
Speaker 1: play around the basket, Like they scored seven consecutive times.
Speaker 1: If you do that ten times, they're scoring at least.
Speaker 1: If you play that same game ten times, they're they're
Speaker 1: scoring at least five out of the seven about every time,
Speaker 1: about every one of those ten games, Like there's no
Speaker 1: version of that where like you hold the Nuggets to
Speaker 1: go oh for seven, not with those lineups, not with
Speaker 1: those personnel mismatches, not with Nikolea Jokic on the floor.
Speaker 1: And so again, like that, that to me is why
Speaker 1: it's so important when you're watching film and when we're
Speaker 1: evaluating these teams to separate process from results, because when
Speaker 1: you get into a seven game series, you got to
Speaker 1: do it four times. You gotta do it four times
Speaker 1: in two weeks. And so like if we saw a
Speaker 1: Clippers Nuggets matchup in the playoffs, like if that's the
Speaker 1: way that that one team is approaching the offensive end
Speaker 1: and then the other team is just getting these easy
Speaker 1: bread and butter plays like they're just gonna win. I
Speaker 1: don't know what else I'll tell you Now. From one
Speaker 1: O nine, one oh four, it got a little weird.
Speaker 1: Reggie Jackson missed both of his free throws, and then
Speaker 1: Kawhi got that weird call on the miss dunk, and
Speaker 1: then Jokic turned it over against the Clippers backcourt pressure,
Speaker 1: and so as a result, Paul George got a chance
Speaker 1: to tie the game with a pull up three, but
Speaker 1: he ended up shooting it into the side of the
Speaker 1: rim and it got wedged in there between that and
Speaker 1: the backboard. As the Nuggets got away from the win.
Speaker 1: So got away with the win, I should say, but
Speaker 1: I thought it was really interesting because you know, this
Speaker 1: is a consistent thing that I've seen around the league
Speaker 1: in general with general managers, you know, and we saw
Speaker 1: this with the Nets, Like we're getting Katie Kyrie and
Speaker 1: James Harden. We got the Sons, We're getting Kevin Durant,
Speaker 1: Devin Booker and Bradley Beal. We got the Clippers, We're
Speaker 1: getting Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and James Harden with Russell
Speaker 1: Westbrook right, like this idea of we're just going to
Speaker 1: put together all of these pull up shooters and we're
Speaker 1: just going to be so hard to guard because of
Speaker 1: all of our pull up shooting game that we have.
Speaker 1: And really, pull up shooting, I've always said, is a
Speaker 1: ceiling razor. It's a thing that pushes your team over
Speaker 1: the top. It should never be your bread and butter.
Speaker 1: There's one player that I can remember in NBA history
Speaker 1: who like pull up shooting was kind of their bread
Speaker 1: and butter and was the and it's steph with the Warriors.
Speaker 1: But even then it's like, like not really though, because
Speaker 1: he works off ball so much, and like the step
Speaker 1: off ball actions produced so much reverse gravity away from
Speaker 1: the rim that like there's all this high percentage stuff
Speaker 1: happening around the rim. And again, like what did I
Speaker 1: say were the high percentage plays for the Clippers down
Speaker 1: the stretch? It was the James Harden pick and rolls.
Speaker 1: Now the Clippers did the Nuggets did end up eventually
Speaker 1: slowing that action down by one the switch by getting
Speaker 1: Yokics onto James Harden, they could have offered better help
Speaker 1: and gotten away with it in all likelihood. Then there
Speaker 1: was another play. It was actually the same possession before
Speaker 1: the Jokic switch, where Reggie Jackson just did an incredible
Speaker 1: job navigating the screen as Jokicic was in a deeper
Speaker 1: drop and it actually kept the pocket pass from happening
Speaker 1: in they kind of shut the action down, and that's
Speaker 1: when they Terrence Man ended up popping to the three
Speaker 1: point line, which ended up causing the switch as Reggie
Speaker 1: Jackson recovered out to Terrence Mann instead of Harden. But again,
Speaker 1: like in general, like that sort of action, when you're
Speaker 1: just getting the defense into rotation and playing basketball out
Speaker 1: of that. Even that is a higher percentage play than
Speaker 1: just consistently taking tough pull up jump shots. It's just
Speaker 1: nobody that can make him at a high enough rate. Again,
Speaker 1: Steph Can He's about one point two points per pull
Speaker 1: up jump shot. He's the one guy that like if
Speaker 1: he you know, we saw him do it against the Celtics, Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're gonna run your drop coverage. I'm just gonna pick
Speaker 1: you guys apart by hitting these over the top jump shots.
Speaker 1: But even then I would argue, it's not their bread
Speaker 1: and butter. There's so much more that comes from that offense,
Speaker 1: and so like this is this is the issue. Like you,
Speaker 1: it is better to be effective than pretty. You know,
Speaker 1: when Paul George is hitting those crazy pull up jump shots,
Speaker 1: it's god damn, it's impressive. Like it. It's like Paul George,
Speaker 1: his fluidity in his jump shooting is just so impressive.
Speaker 1: And that's why so many young basketball players are such
Speaker 1: big Paul George fans, including myself. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, like those ugly ass Jokic post ups,
Speaker 1: at the end of that game that almost always were
Speaker 1: you know, misshot offensive rebound, a little bobbled here, Aaron
Speaker 1: Gordon not quite dunking it, kind of barely getting it
Speaker 1: over the front of the rim. Like it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: They scored every possession. I mean, I don't know the
Speaker 1: numbers off the top of my head, but I think
Speaker 1: it was fifteen points and seven possessions because it was
Speaker 1: all buckets on all of them, and then the and
Speaker 1: one on the Aaron Gordon play. That's fifteen points and
Speaker 1: seven possessions. Like, that's really reliable basketball. Now. A couple
Speaker 1: things on the Clipper side, there was some upside, right,
Speaker 1: like the I think you saw some of the potential
Speaker 1: of that group offensively. But like I said, one of
Speaker 1: the downsides of the James Harden trade is you sent
Speaker 1: out all your forwards, all of them literally, and you
Speaker 1: brought back a forward that was shorter than all the
Speaker 1: forwards you sent out, and you sent out your one
Speaker 1: really athletic young forward, right, you sent out one of
Speaker 1: your best perimeter defenders and Nick Batoom. So like in
Speaker 1: that situation, you've created other physical mismatches elsewhere on the floor.
Speaker 1: I think Daniel Tice will help. He's a perfectly fine
Speaker 1: backup center option. But in order for me to like
Speaker 1: truly get behind the Clippers as a potential contender, I
Speaker 1: would need to see the offense kind of develop into
Speaker 1: a more consistent version of what we saw last night.
Speaker 1: And then I really think they need an upgrade in
Speaker 1: the forward spot, like just another body out there so
Speaker 1: that when they go small, they're bigger than they looked
Speaker 1: last night. Like when it's Terrence Man and Norman Powell
Speaker 1: and James Harden all on the floor without a center,
Speaker 1: that's a really small basketball team, and you're gonna have
Speaker 1: a really really hard time winning games, especially in the
Speaker 1: later phases of the playoffs with that. On the Nuggets front,
Speaker 1: I thought that was because I thought the Nuggets played
Speaker 1: like shit in a lot of ways in this game.
Speaker 1: They really got baited by the Clippers switching into some
Speaker 1: poor isolation decisions a lot of guys, you know, And again,
Speaker 1: this is what switching does, right, Like switching negates screening actions.
Speaker 1: That's what it does. Like if you run a pick
Speaker 1: and roll, you run it so that you can get
Speaker 1: downhill because the guy's going to chase over the top
Speaker 1: of the screen. If he doesn't chase over the top
Speaker 1: of the screen, it's just a switch. Now we're kind
Speaker 1: of back where we started, except for now I have
Speaker 1: to beat a different player off the dribble, right, and
Speaker 1: it can be effective in stagnating teams. And I think
Speaker 1: I think the Nuggets always knew in the back of
Speaker 1: their head they'd be able to do what they did
Speaker 1: down the stretch, which is go to Jokic. But for
Speaker 1: a large portion of the game, it's like, here's Aaron
Speaker 1: Gordon trying to isolate Kawhi Leonard and he gets ripped.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a lot of kind of like
Speaker 1: freelance basketball taking place, in large part because the Clippers
Speaker 1: were baiting them into it in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1: But I put down in my notes, Jokic is the
Speaker 1: best break glass in case of emergency option in the NBA,
Speaker 1: which I mean, he's the best player in the NBA,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't really matter what the little individual categories are,
Speaker 1: but it just that's what that kind of felt like
Speaker 1: to me. It felt like, ah shit, the Clippers are
Speaker 1: up seven on us, Like, let's just go to Jokic
Speaker 1: every time and we'll get a win. Like that. I
Speaker 1: also wanted to shout out Reggie Jackson. He's at seventeen
Speaker 1: points per game on fifty three percent from the field
Speaker 1: and thirty nine percent from three over his last three games,
Speaker 1: twelve assists and three turnovers, doing a really nice job
Speaker 1: filling in for Jamal Murray with his current hamstring issue.
Speaker 1: And again, I think it's an example how easy it
Speaker 1: is to play with Nicole Jokich, Like this is a
Speaker 1: good NBA guard. Reggie Jackson's a good player. Is he
Speaker 1: good enough to start for a really good team? Probably not,
Speaker 1: But is he good enough to fill in for Jamal
Speaker 1: Murray in a system like this where they need good
Speaker 1: guard play next to Jokic. Absolutely, And I think he's
Speaker 1: done a really nice job. I thought he had some
Speaker 1: key defensive moments in this game. I mentioned to you
Speaker 1: guys the like Harden ran the pick and roll and
Speaker 1: got an easy shot out of it. It was like the
Speaker 1: one easy shot they got right and then on the
Speaker 1: very next possession, Reggie Jackson just is like not enough
Speaker 1: of this and fought over the top of the screen,
Speaker 1: stay attached and basically shut the action down. And so
Speaker 1: I think that's been a really nice you know, we
Speaker 1: talk a lot about the Nuggets bench not being very good,
Speaker 1: but they do have some individual good players, and the
Speaker 1: bench lineups have really struggled. But as individual bench players
Speaker 1: have stepped in and played core important minutes with the
Speaker 1: as they've played core important minutes with Jokic in the starters,
Speaker 1: they've been able to kind of fill in and be
Speaker 1: a reasonable facsimile of what the other guys do, right.
Speaker 1: I also wanted to I saw a kind of a
Speaker 1: similar type of dynamic taking place with Jalen Pickett, where
Speaker 1: and then again he got put into a tough spot
Speaker 1: too with the Clippers switching, where he had to take
Speaker 1: a couple of tough pull up jump shots pull up
Speaker 1: threes off the dribble that he probably otherwise wouldn't take.
Speaker 1: He actually did make one of them. But I actually
Speaker 1: thought he did a nice job in general in the
Speaker 1: Yokic actions of like understanding how to catch and move
Speaker 1: without the basketball and to throw those post entries when
Speaker 1: they're there, and to not get carried away with looking
Speaker 1: for your own shot. I thought he did a decent job.
Speaker 1: And he's a guy that kind of has like a
Speaker 1: stocky low center of gravity who can have some success
Speaker 1: defensively as well. I thought it was an impressive win
Speaker 1: for Nugget for the Nuggets, because again, when you play
Speaker 1: like shit and you win, especially when you've got guys
Speaker 1: out of the lineup, that's always encouraging. All right, let's
Speaker 1: move on to Pacers Sixers. The Tyrese Haliburton show, the
Speaker 1: way the way that he picks part the Sixers defense,
Speaker 1: and this game was super impressive because like, there's three
Speaker 1: layers to the pick and roll attack, right, Like there's
Speaker 1: the on ball layer, there's the roll man layer, and
Speaker 1: then there's the weak side layer, right, and you have
Speaker 1: to be a legitimate threat at all three layers in
Speaker 1: order to make yourself difficult to guard there. And Tyree's
Speaker 1: just kind of slowly built this fear in the Sixers
Speaker 1: defense that manifested in a shit show of a defensive
Speaker 1: quarter for the Sixers in the fourth quarter, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to kind of break that down. So it started
Speaker 1: with pull up shooting, right, So Tyrese makes like four
Speaker 1: pull up threes in the first half, and by the way,
Speaker 1: he's up to twenty five for sixty two on pull
Speaker 1: up threes this season. That's forty point three percent. And
Speaker 1: that essentially put the sixers in the position where now
Speaker 1: they're starting to come consistently come out to the level
Speaker 1: of the screen, and it just in general, they're overreacting
Speaker 1: to Tyrese Haliburton on ball reps. Right then he started
Speaker 1: burning them on the weak side by hitting cutters coming
Speaker 1: out of that week side corner. Obi Toppin in perticular,
Speaker 1: I had a bunch of these in this particular game.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about Obi Toppin later, But like, one
Speaker 1: of the big things that's made him a seamless fit
Speaker 1: with this with this Pacers team is that he just
Speaker 1: is a very good cutter and he's been one of
Speaker 1: the best cutters in the NBA to start the season
Speaker 1: this year. So, like, if you're burning a team at
Speaker 1: the point of attack by hitting pull up jump shots,
Speaker 1: which is pulling the rollman, the screen defender out, and
Speaker 1: you're also burning the lowman because when the lowman comes
Speaker 1: over to tag the roller, that's where the cutters open. Right.
Speaker 1: If you're consistently burning that with cutting out of the
Speaker 1: weak side corner, that can open up some things where
Speaker 1: the rollman has some space, right because if you're taking
Speaker 1: away the on ball guy in the lowman's hesitant to help.
Speaker 1: There's opportunity in there for the lowman. And what was
Speaker 1: interesting is like, like Miles Turner was in foul trouble
Speaker 1: all night and had fifteen points in the fourth quarter
Speaker 1: of this game because he was just getting all the
Speaker 1: space in the world to kind of navigate and operate
Speaker 1: in that short roll area. And again, like it was
Speaker 1: such a it was so funny because in the fourth
Speaker 1: quarter it was like a total show because the Sixers
Speaker 1: just had no idea what to do. On the possessions
Speaker 1: where they didn't tag the roller, Miles Turner would get
Speaker 1: a bucket. There was a possession where they tagged the
Speaker 1: roller and Tyres Alliburton just throws a lob and Obie
Speaker 1: Topping comes flying in from the weak side just ah,
Speaker 1: you know, dunk's on Tyre's Maxi's had and screams and yells,
Speaker 1: and then it's like final Embiid kind of runs a
Speaker 1: more traditional drop coverage and and Tyris Halliburton just hits
Speaker 1: like this amazing right handed scoop shot off the glass.
Speaker 1: There was another possession late where Embiid kind of like
Speaker 1: did his quick show but then quickly recovered back to
Speaker 1: Miles Turner. And Halliburton just bam, hits a left hand
Speaker 1: step back dribble onto the left wing and knocks down
Speaker 1: another pull up three point shot. They just had literally
Speaker 1: nothing they could do with him. They he absolutely and
Speaker 1: utterly picked them apart. And again, guys, this is an
Speaker 1: elite defensive team in the Philadelphia seventy six ers. No
Speaker 1: one was safe. Now again we'll talk about I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna talk too much about the Sixers today because I
Speaker 1: want this to be more of a PACER's focus. But
Speaker 1: like Tyros, Maxy did not have a good defensive game.
Speaker 1: And he's still a young defensive players, super active and
Speaker 1: is always playing hard and has good quickness, but he
Speaker 1: just his defensive instincts and anticipation are just a little
Speaker 1: bit off, and he was responsible for a few of
Speaker 1: those early tyres Haliburton pull up threes, and obviously at
Speaker 1: at the point of attack, he couldn't hold his own
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter and was in trail position too
Speaker 1: frequently and not applying good back pressure. Like obviously Tyris
Speaker 1: Maxy is a weak point there, but the rest of
Speaker 1: the lineup that you have out there is good defensive players,
Speaker 1: and he was just completely picking them apart. Tyre's has
Speaker 1: been Tyrese Haliburton, I should say, has been the best
Speaker 1: pick and roll player in the league by a mile.
Speaker 1: To start this year, He's run two hundred and eighteen
Speaker 1: pick and rolls that have led to two hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty three points. That's one point three zero points per possession.
Speaker 1: That is preposterous. There are thirty players in the NBA
Speaker 1: to run at least one hundred pick and roll so
Speaker 1: far this year, and Tyrese is comfortably ahead of the field.
Speaker 1: He's at one point three. Luka Doncic is in second
Speaker 1: place at one point one point one. We're not talking
Speaker 1: about a small gap here, that's a seventeen percent gap.
Speaker 1: He is seventeen percent better than the second best pick
Speaker 1: and roll ball handler in the league. And so again,
Speaker 1: like we talked about that that dynamic of the three
Speaker 1: different levels of pick and roll shot creation, right shot
Speaker 1: making at the point of attack area, the rollman, the
Speaker 1: weak side, and obviously passing is the connective tissue that
Speaker 1: puts all those three together. Passing from the ball handler
Speaker 1: to the rollman, er to the weakside corner, passing from
Speaker 1: the rollman to the weak side corner. You know, like
Speaker 1: that that is all connective tissue there, but Tyres in
Speaker 1: particular puts it all together because he is great in
Speaker 1: all three areas. So we talked about the pull up shooting. Obviously,
Speaker 1: forty percent on pull up threes for the season, a
Speaker 1: Ty Halliburton pull up jump shot is worth one point
Speaker 1: two to two points per possession. That's insane. So that
Speaker 1: we talked about like that. We talked about this with
Speaker 1: the with the Nuggets, but the idea of what's untenable
Speaker 1: for a defense to allow, Like you want to know
Speaker 1: why the Nuggets were just letting Paul George and Kawhi
Speaker 1: work one on one and take tough pull up jump
Speaker 1: shots because they'll probably make half of them and they're
Speaker 1: mostly two's, So that's a point per possession. That's a
Speaker 1: totally acceptable, you know, arrangement for a defense. And in
Speaker 1: all likelihood they're probably only going to make forty to
Speaker 1: forty five percent of them. And now you're down at
Speaker 1: you know, nine tenths of a point per possession. Right,
Speaker 1: you have to be able to cause such you know,
Speaker 1: destruction to a defense that it's untenable for them to continue.
Speaker 1: And when you're getting one point two to two points
Speaker 1: per pull up jump shot. That is a real easy
Speaker 1: way to have opposing coaches like, hey, we got to
Speaker 1: show high on this guy, like we can't, we can't,
Speaker 1: we can't give him the shot. If he does, he's
Speaker 1: literally going to kill us. And that's literally what happened
Speaker 1: in the first quarter when he sat there and made
Speaker 1: the shot time and time again. Right then he's got
Speaker 1: this deadly floater in the mid range. He's thirteen for
Speaker 1: twenty three on floaters this year. That's fifty six percent
Speaker 1: or one point one to three points per shot. That's
Speaker 1: really good. And then he's sixty six percent in the
Speaker 1: restricted area on two point three makes per game, which
Speaker 1: is not amazing, but it's solid. It's perfectly fine. I
Speaker 1: would even argue it's a little above average for an
Speaker 1: NBA guard. And we talked about that little scoop finish
Speaker 1: that he had over Embiid because, like, Tyreese is not
Speaker 1: an elite athlete, but he's got good size and I
Speaker 1: think he has elite start stop quickness. I think he
Speaker 1: can get to his spots in large part because of
Speaker 1: his ability to go from like those hesitation moves to
Speaker 1: good quick, explosive dribbles that first step to get to
Speaker 1: where he wants to go, and then he has all
Speaker 1: the shot making stuff from there, but then you have
Speaker 1: to be able to make the reads and like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny, I hate you know, there's there's a certain
Speaker 1: amount of play there's like two different kinds of like
Speaker 1: good playmakers in the NBA. In my opinion, there's like
Speaker 1: the Jason Tatum Yannis class where it's like, I'd even
Speaker 1: throw Kawhi Leonard in there in terms of relative to
Speaker 1: what he used to be, where it's like this guy's
Speaker 1: starting to kind of figure out how to make teams
Speaker 1: pay for throwing the kitchen sink at him, and and he,
Speaker 1: you know, he's averaging six or seven assists a game
Speaker 1: or whatever. You know, Like Kawhi like went from a
Speaker 1: guy who just was just a flat out terrible playmaker too,
Speaker 1: like now he's good at it. Like he's not great,
Speaker 1: but he's good. He's fine. He's average, flightly above average
Speaker 1: type of playmaker. Right. There's always like a chasm though
Speaker 1: between those guys and like the really good playmakers at
Speaker 1: the top of the league. And I've always thrown in
Speaker 1: Nikole Jokich, Luka, Doncic Lebron James in this group. Chris
Speaker 1: Paul is in this group when he was in his
Speaker 1: prime and he could score the ball more. Tyres Max
Speaker 1: He's in this group, and this is like, it's almost
Speaker 1: just like a natural thing. I'm gonna get I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get really nerdy here for a second. I'm a diehard
Speaker 1: Star Wars fan, But in the Star Wars universe, there
Speaker 1: is this concept of like force sensitivity, Right, So like
Speaker 1: the Jedi would like find all the young kids in
Speaker 1: the galaxy that had a connection to the Force, and
Speaker 1: they bring them to the temple and they train them. Right.
Speaker 1: That's kind of like the way I view high high
Speaker 1: level playmaking in the NBA. It's like you either have
Speaker 1: it or you don't. It's not something that can be taught.
Speaker 1: It's not something that even like looks the same for
Speaker 1: every player. There are just some guys in the league
Speaker 1: that have a natural affinity for making lightning quick decisions
Speaker 1: and that can quickly interpret everything that's happening on the
Speaker 1: floor and it comes natural to them. It's not like a, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I got to the point where I could
Speaker 1: kind of make some reads. It's like they relentlessly make
Speaker 1: the reads and it's just it's like hardwired into their system.
Speaker 1: And I think I think we can pretty safely say
Speaker 1: at this point that Tyrese Maxi is one of those guys.
Speaker 1: And like there is a skill element. I want to
Speaker 1: be clear. There's a we talk about energy transfer for
Speaker 1: jump shooting, right, like transferring energy from the from your
Speaker 1: feet through your handle all the way through the jump shot,
Speaker 1: right or that that like kind of that fluidity, right,
Speaker 1: that fluidity between transferring from your handle into a jump shot.
Speaker 1: The same thing applies to passing, Like you need to
Speaker 1: be able to make a retreat dribble. But like let's
Speaker 1: just say you make a right handed through the legs
Speaker 1: cross over to your left hand in a retreat dribble
Speaker 1: because you see a you know, pressure in your face
Speaker 1: and you need to quickly throw a left handed skip
Speaker 1: pass across the court. Like I think young players in
Speaker 1: general need to practice this. I saw a video of
Speaker 1: of Jalen hood Chafino for the Lakers, who's trying to
Speaker 1: come back from a of a knee injury, I believe,
Speaker 1: and he was doing a drill with the Lakers staff
Speaker 1: where he was working on movement shooting. But what they
Speaker 1: did to kind of get it started, is they had
Speaker 1: him take a retreat dribble and pick and roll and
Speaker 1: throw a left handed skip pass. They just made him
Speaker 1: throw a left handed skip pass to start every rep
Speaker 1: and then he like ran into the block and then
Speaker 1: cut through to the weakside corner and one of the
Speaker 1: coaches hit him for a catch and shoot jump shot
Speaker 1: in the in the in the right corner. What I
Speaker 1: liked about that is, like that's an example of like
Speaker 1: layering stuff in a drill to make sure you get reps,
Speaker 1: because it's hard to just be like, hey, we're gonna
Speaker 1: practice left hand passing today, but if you mix it
Speaker 1: in with stuff, it can matter. But again, like there
Speaker 1: is a skill element, like Tyers Maxi is one of
Speaker 1: the best left handed passers in the NBA. It's a
Speaker 1: vitally important skill. Again, like specifically that left hand because
Speaker 1: most pull up jump shooters that are righties are most
Speaker 1: comfortable shooting pull up jump shots when the ball's in
Speaker 1: their left hand. They want to drive left, hit that
Speaker 1: high hesitation, and then rise into a jump shot. And
Speaker 1: the main reason for that is their left foot is back,
Speaker 1: so the right foot's forward. It's natural footwork for a
Speaker 1: right handed player, when you're coming towards your right, as
Speaker 1: a right handed player, you have to swing that right
Speaker 1: foot around, which adds like an additional kind of physical
Speaker 1: exertion element to the shot, which just makes it harder. Right.
Speaker 1: You know, we all remember the video that was going
Speaker 1: around a while back with Cam Johnson and JJ Reddicks
Speaker 1: talking about right handed shooters going to the right, they
Speaker 1: have to square up in mid air. It's more challenging. Right.
Speaker 1: So pull up shooting is a vital part of pick
Speaker 1: and roll, and most right handed players are better pull
Speaker 1: up shooting and going to their left, then the ball is
Speaker 1: going to be in your left hand, and if you're
Speaker 1: going to make passing reads out of that, you're probably
Speaker 1: going to need to be able to make passes with
Speaker 1: your left hand. And so I wish it was a
Speaker 1: more a consistent thing that we saw in player development
Speaker 1: among the younger, younger players. But like even if we
Speaker 1: assigned that as a skill, which again like Tyres Maxy
Speaker 1: has those Tyre's Halliburton has those skills down. He's got
Speaker 1: the handle, he's got the fluidity connecting the handle to
Speaker 1: his passing and to his shooting and all those different
Speaker 1: things it's also just a natural ability, like the dude
Speaker 1: just sees every There was a play in the fourth
Speaker 1: quarter of this game where he hit I think it
Speaker 1: was Obie Toppin, but I'm not certain, but it was
Speaker 1: on the right wing and it was a broken play
Speaker 1: and he lost control of the the ball and he
Speaker 1: was facing away from the basket, and he gained control
Speaker 1: and turned and identified a cutter out of the weak
Speaker 1: side corner, out of the right corner, all in an instant,
Speaker 1: and like through a perfect little leading pass that just
Speaker 1: hit the dude in stride as he was going to
Speaker 1: the basket. And I'm like, this is just lightning quick
Speaker 1: instincts from this kid. Like it was a broken play.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even like, oh, a textbook pick and roll.
Speaker 1: Low Man read like it was a broken play where
Speaker 1: he just saw something break open, and he just doesn't
Speaker 1: miss these opportunities. He sees everything before it happens. I've
Speaker 1: been so incredibly impressed, and I had a ton of
Speaker 1: fun today diving into the Tyres Haliburton film as I
Speaker 1: keep trying to say Tyre's MAXI thanks to that Sixers game,
Speaker 1: Obi top and he had twenty seven in this game.
Speaker 1: He's averaging a career high eleven points per game and
Speaker 1: a career best sixty nine percent through shooting percentage, despite
Speaker 1: the fact that he can't really shoot right and still
Speaker 1: isn't particularly I think he's at right around thirty percent
Speaker 1: from three this year. So how is he having more
Speaker 1: offensive offensive success than he used to have in this
Speaker 1: system than he did in other systems. He's doing two
Speaker 1: things extremely well. The Pacers have done a really nice
Speaker 1: job of just focusing him in focusing him at what
Speaker 1: he's good at right, and that's moving without the basketball
Speaker 1: cutting like if you see the low man go over
Speaker 1: instead of just waiting for a corner three cut. And
Speaker 1: like we've seen this with Aaron Gordon with the Nuggets.
Speaker 1: You can be a good spacer as long as you
Speaker 1: catch and dunk everything under the basket quickly. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of what It looks a little different because he
Speaker 1: doesn't have the matchup attacking piece that Aaron Gordon has,
Speaker 1: But it's similar to Air Gordon in the sense that,
Speaker 1: like the with the inverted spacing, with Miles Turner doing
Speaker 1: so much drible handles and drible handoff stuff around the
Speaker 1: three point line and popping to the three point line
Speaker 1: so much. He's got kind of that whole baseline to
Speaker 1: work with, and Tyrese is just super good at finding him.
Speaker 1: He's a big target, similar to Aaron Gordon in the
Speaker 1: sense that it's like, just throw it somewhere up there
Speaker 1: and he's gonna get it, like the Donkey had at
Speaker 1: the end of the game, that backside lob like it was.
Speaker 1: He's so high above the rim. It's just a massive
Speaker 1: target that you're throwing. Yet, he has scored seventeen baskets
Speaker 1: on cuts this year, that is the seventh most in
Speaker 1: the NBA. And then the second piece of it is
Speaker 1: just running his lane in transition. This is a team
Speaker 1: that pushes the ball a lot, and they've got guards
Speaker 1: that are willing to push the ball ahead. He's got
Speaker 1: twenty mad transition baskets, which is the twelfth most in
Speaker 1: the NBA. Defensively, is still a mixed bag. He's so
Speaker 1: top heavy that he's kind of easy to knock off
Speaker 1: his center of gravity. You saw Tobias Harris have some
Speaker 1: success against him last night doing that. But he's found
Speaker 1: a role here he's and he's excelling in it. And
Speaker 1: I'm happy for Robi toppin. Miles Turner. We talked about
Speaker 1: the stuff he did on the roll. I won't get
Speaker 1: into that again, but just quick hands, quick decisions and
Speaker 1: finishing and making free throws. That helped too, because he
Speaker 1: drew a couple of fouls down there, but he also
Speaker 1: got a couple of key stops on Joel Embiid just
Speaker 1: by keeping his body in front. He's one of the
Speaker 1: guys too that's like big enough to kind of hold
Speaker 1: his own down there a little bit. He had a
Speaker 1: playing pick and roll where he beat Embiid to his
Speaker 1: role spot and took a charge. There's another play where
Speaker 1: and Be tried to kind of force a quick iso
Speaker 1: on him and he had em Beats so flummixed that
Speaker 1: he ended up shooting behind his head and he got
Speaker 1: a miss, and then Embiider was frustrated, and then Embiid
Speaker 1: actually did meet him to the middle, and because he's frustrated,
Speaker 1: instead of just dunking the basketball, he tried to like
Speaker 1: pulverize the rim and ended up missing a dunk. Shout
Speaker 1: out to Miles Turner. I thought he had a big game.
Speaker 1: It's so hard to uh, it's so hard to play
Speaker 1: well when you're in foul trouble because it disrupts your
Speaker 1: rhythm and when you do get into the game at
Speaker 1: the end, it's like you feel like you're not even
Speaker 1: a part of the basketball game at that point. Yet
Speaker 1: he kind of stayed resilient through all that. Bruce Brown,
Speaker 1: he's been getting his face just, you know, literally burned
Speaker 1: off by Tyrese Maxey over the course of the weekend.
Speaker 1: Right gave him fifty the last time they played, but
Speaker 1: finally got some stops down the stretch of this game,
Speaker 1: some big stops on Tyrese Maxi had a big, a
Speaker 1: semi transition layup where kind of similar to what he
Speaker 1: did to D'Angelo Russell in the Nuggets series last year.
Speaker 1: Were coming up the left wing. The Bigs are back
Speaker 1: in transition, but they're up at the level because they're
Speaker 1: getting ready for whatever Tyre's Halliburton is gonna do. So
Speaker 1: there's kind of like this open space on the back
Speaker 1: side of the play and he just goes right hard
Speaker 1: to the rim on Tyrese Maxi and gets a layup.
Speaker 1: I thought he played really well. I thought he's been
Speaker 1: a really nice fit for them. In the big picture.
Speaker 1: They're currently seven and four. They have the seventh best
Speaker 1: record in the NBA. They finally have some signature wins.
Speaker 1: I didn't have them on my power rankings yesterday because
Speaker 1: they had just one win against a team that is
Speaker 1: currently below five hundred. In fact, their first five wins
Speaker 1: were all against teams that are currently below five hundred.
Speaker 1: But since then they beat the Bucks and the Sixers
Speaker 1: all be at the Bucks without Dame. They have the
Speaker 1: best offense in the league one hundred and twenty two
Speaker 1: points per one hundred possessions. They are a terrible defense,
Speaker 1: so they're twenty eighth in defense. The biggest issue on
Speaker 1: defense right now is they can't protect the paint. They're
Speaker 1: the only team in the NBA currently giving up over
Speaker 1: sixty points per one hundred possessions in the paint. They're
Speaker 1: also twenty fourth in defensive rebounding, and the rebounding's tough
Speaker 1: because they are a small team and that's just gonna
Speaker 1: be kind of the reality of their predicament. But I
Speaker 1: do think they can be better than they have been Defensively,
Speaker 1: they don't force enough turnovers for being as athletic as
Speaker 1: they are, and just in general, I think they're capable
Speaker 1: of being a more aggressive perimeter defense, forcing turnovers and
Speaker 1: getting out in transition, and I think that'll be the
Speaker 1: obviously the biggest thing that prevents them from being as
Speaker 1: good as they're capable of beating. Then, my biggest question
Speaker 1: with this team right now is where does Ben Mathern
Speaker 1: fit into this picture. He only played sixteen minutes all
Speaker 1: night last night. They closed with Buddy Heald in his spot.
Speaker 1: His scoring efficiency and usage are all down this year,
Speaker 1: and so I'm just I'm really interested to see whether
Speaker 1: or not he's going to get enough opportunity to continue
Speaker 1: his development here if he's gonna end up getting squeezed
Speaker 1: as a result of that Ben, as a result of
Speaker 1: that Bruce Brown signing. All right, let's move on to
Speaker 1: fake questions, real answers. Jason, are the Golden State Warriors
Speaker 1: in trouble? No? What did I tell you guys when
Speaker 1: the Lakers got off to a bad start, I said,
Speaker 1: when it comes to good teams, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: just rip off wins against good teams like it doesn't happen,
Speaker 1: like it's You're not going to see a team go
Speaker 1: on an eight game winning streak where they beat eight
Speaker 1: playoff teams like that doesn't happen in the NBA. The
Speaker 1: tea the league is too deep, Like the Boston Celtics
Speaker 1: have been incredible and have been so dominant, and they
Speaker 1: went to Minnesota and lost, and they went to Philly
Speaker 1: and lost, because sometimes when you play great teams, you lose.
Speaker 1: And by the way, the Celtics have I think last
Speaker 1: time I checked, they've won seven games against teams that
Speaker 1: are above five hundred. So the Celtics have beaten a
Speaker 1: lot of good teams. But you don't beat the good
Speaker 1: teams every time. You're gonna drop some games against good teams, right, So,
Speaker 1: generally speaking, the good times in the NBA regular season
Speaker 1: for good teams where they rack up wins are usually
Speaker 1: you're healthy and you're playing a weaker stretch of your schedule.
Speaker 1: Like the Lakers, they've won three in a row. Now
Speaker 1: they're six and five and things are just kind of better. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: they're healthy now, Ads back from his injury, Ruby Hachimuraz
Speaker 1: back from his injury, and they played three opponents and
Speaker 1: the Suns, the Blazers and the sons of Blazers and
Speaker 1: the Grizzlies that are combined nine and twenty two. So
Speaker 1: again like that that's when they will go on a
Speaker 1: win streak, right, And that's the thing with the NBA
Speaker 1: is like then you're gonna have these downstretches where it's
Speaker 1: like we're playing some tough opponents and guys are hurt,
Speaker 1: and like all of a sudden, it's like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: we lost two or three games in a row, or
Speaker 1: we lost four games in five tries. That's what happened
Speaker 1: to the Warriors. Like Steph is hurt, Steph got hurt,
Speaker 1: and you're playing a really tough stretcher your schedule and
Speaker 1: now you're dropping games, right, Like you had a bad matchups,
Speaker 1: Like we talked about the Warriors' toughest matchup for them
Speaker 1: is elite rim protection teams that have good perimeter defenders
Speaker 1: that can UH, that can kind of pressure the ball
Speaker 1: and force them to back cut into their UH into
Speaker 1: their rim protection. Right, that's the type of team that
Speaker 1: causes the Warriors problems. They lost to two of them
Speaker 1: over the weekend, and then they dropped a game where
Speaker 1: their best player was out, So like, does that to
Speaker 1: me reflect the big picture of Golden State? No, Like
Speaker 1: we talked about, if they're gonna beat those sorts of teams,
Speaker 1: they need more scoring punch, right, Like they're gonna need
Speaker 1: Clay and Chris and Andrew Wiggins to get back to form. Right.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, Andrew Wiggins is
Speaker 1: playing really poorly. I don't think that's gonna continue throughout
Speaker 1: the season. Like there's they have they have ways to
Speaker 1: fix that within the within this locker room, within the
Speaker 1: scope of this current regular season. Right. But this is
Speaker 1: what the bad times look like. Injuries, tough schedule, they
Speaker 1: lost some games. It happens. What did I expect from
Speaker 1: the Warriors this season? If you guys remember in the
Speaker 1: season preview what I said I viewed the Chris Paul
Speaker 1: trade as a playoff ceiling razer, but that within the
Speaker 1: scope of the regular season, I still thought they would
Speaker 1: struggle some and that they'd be kind of in the
Speaker 1: middle of the pack. Kind of seems like where we're headed.
Speaker 1: But like, I'm not ready to write off the Warriors
Speaker 1: over the streak. They're one of only six teams in
Speaker 1: the NBA right now with a winning record over five
Speaker 1: hundred of better teams. They've won four games like that
Speaker 1: this year against five hundred of better teams. They have
Speaker 1: quality wins. The Steph injury is not serious. He's gonna
Speaker 1: be back. Talk about Draymond in a minute. He's gonna
Speaker 1: be suspended probably, but he's gonna be back. Like the
Speaker 1: Warriors are not done. This is just what the downtimes
Speaker 1: look like. And just in general, as an NBA you know,
Speaker 1: fan base, we all need to do a better job
Speaker 1: of like kind of understanding that within the eighty two
Speaker 1: there are gonna be highs and lows. There's no steady
Speaker 1: ascent into greatness. Like even let's look back at the
Speaker 1: year that they won the title. They start fIF teen
Speaker 1: in one in large part because they're healthy and there
Speaker 1: was some easy games on the schedule, right, They get
Speaker 1: off to a great start for the first what two
Speaker 1: thirds of the season, and Steph gets hurt, and then
Speaker 1: they starts dropping games and it's like the sky is falling,
Speaker 1: and then everyone gets healthy in time for the playoffs
Speaker 1: and they win the title. So again, like just in general,
Speaker 1: we need to these little three, four, five game windows
Speaker 1: where teams don't play well. We need to do a
Speaker 1: better job of compartmentalizing and not overreacting to these ten
Speaker 1: to fifteen game stretches where a team looks somewhat mediocre,
Speaker 1: but key players are out of the lineup. Like all
Speaker 1: that tells me is, yeah, if that key player misses
Speaker 1: the playoffs, then yeah, they might not be able to
Speaker 1: win a series, you know what I mean. But I
Speaker 1: just I think that's so interesting because like my next
Speaker 1: question is, Jason, have the Lakers finally figured things out?
Speaker 1: And I mean, this is what the good times look like.
Speaker 1: Easy schedule, guys, healthy, You're gonna rack up some wins
Speaker 1: if you're a good team, right, And there are some
Speaker 1: encouraging signs right there. Shooters are making shots finally, Like
Speaker 1: I talked a lot going into the going into the
Speaker 1: winning streak about how what's so bizarre about this Laker
Speaker 1: team is Dangel Russell historically good shooter, not making shots,
Speaker 1: Austin Reeves historically good shooter, not making shots. Gabe Vincent
Speaker 1: historically good shooter, not making shots. Torrian Prince historically good shooter,
Speaker 1: not making shots. Like all those guys were shooting horribly
Speaker 1: compared to their career averages, right, And like what you've
Speaker 1: seen over this recent winning streak is those guys have
Speaker 1: started to make shots. And that's good, that's positive regression,
Speaker 1: that's a good sign right a lot of better offensive
Speaker 1: process as well. I think that has led to that,
Speaker 1: but we're not going to get into that today. Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis appears to be over his hip issue, like he
Speaker 1: was moving great last night. That's good. Help is on
Speaker 1: the way. Jared Vanderbilt is gonna come and help it
Speaker 1: with a lot of their perimeter defense issues. And then
Speaker 1: I want to shout out D'Angel russelly a big game.
Speaker 1: I think he hit six threes last night. I think
Speaker 1: he's in a tough spot in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: Because I've said this on the show, some Laker fans
Speaker 1: disagree with me, but I think that D'Angelo Russell getting
Speaker 1: traded is one of the safest bets of this NBA season.
Speaker 1: He like plays the exact same position as Austin Reeves
Speaker 1: and does all the exact same things for all for like,
Speaker 1: you know, their delos a little bit better as a passer.
Speaker 1: Austin's a little bit better as a scorer in my opinion,
Speaker 1: especially within the playoff context. But like they're more or
Speaker 1: less the same player, and they're both limited athletes, so
Speaker 1: they can't play together, and that just kind of inherently
Speaker 1: makes it so that if you have. If you're serious
Speaker 1: about winning a title this year, you're gonna just in
Speaker 1: terms of resource allocation, you're better off turning de Los
Speaker 1: salary into a great perimeter defender that could play next
Speaker 1: to Austin, right. I think you've seen that in crunch time.
Speaker 1: They've consistently gone down with Austin in crunch time instead
Speaker 1: of De Lo. But despite that, he's just been such
Speaker 1: a professional. He's been a leader to the young players
Speaker 1: on the team. He's had a really good attitude when
Speaker 1: he's been benched, He's cheered the team on, even did
Speaker 1: that during the Nuggets series last year. He just has
Speaker 1: been a force of positive energy. And like he's in
Speaker 1: a situation where like he might play amazing the rest
Speaker 1: of the year and he might stay with the Lakers.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's gonna happen, but that's certainly an
Speaker 1: outcome that's on the table. But like, that's what's crazy,
Speaker 1: is like he's in a situation where he could play
Speaker 1: amazing until February and they still trade him. Like that's
Speaker 1: the predicament that he's in, and he's just handling it
Speaker 1: like a professional. And that's the thing. Like, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of times we talk about guys as basketball
Speaker 1: players and we forget to talk about them as humans,
Speaker 1: and like, to me, Dangel Russell has some limitations as
Speaker 1: a playoff player. It might end up causing him, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, will end up causing him to be in
Speaker 1: a different jersey come February. But the dude is just
Speaker 1: a professional, and he is a great dude and is
Speaker 1: doing a great job maintaining the chemistry situation within that
Speaker 1: Lakers locker room in a way that he could have
Speaker 1: gone a different direction if you wanted to write. All right,
Speaker 1: Last question, Jason, you've consistently defended Draymond as different than
Speaker 1: Dylan Brooks because he doesn't cross the line into trying
Speaker 1: to hurt people. What do you have to say after
Speaker 1: the choking incident last night? Like I said, I thought
Speaker 1: this was legitimately hilarious because I just it was just
Speaker 1: funny that I went out on a limb and then
Speaker 1: this happened. Do I think it's the same as, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to close line a guy who's going up for
Speaker 1: a dunk and breaking his elbow. No? Do I think
Speaker 1: is it's the same as deliberately rolling up on someone's
Speaker 1: knees and trying to break their ankle or whatever the
Speaker 1: hell Dylan Brooks was doing. No, it's not the same
Speaker 1: as that, but it was bad. I can defend him
Speaker 1: for taking go bet off of Clay, but like it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where like if you were watching
Speaker 1: the clip, you can kind of it's like I can
Speaker 1: defend this, I can defend Oh, Okay, now I definitely
Speaker 1: can't defend this, because it was like he didn't just
Speaker 1: put him in a headlock. He locked it in and
Speaker 1: then held on for a long time, and like then
Speaker 1: after that held on for longer. And so here's the thing.
Speaker 1: It was clearly out of line. I think he's probably
Speaker 1: gonna get a pretty significant suspension and he's gonna deserve it.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately doing like making that decision and putting your
Speaker 1: team in a predicament where they're in a losing streak
Speaker 1: and they need their players available. I think it was
Speaker 1: a mistake. But at the same time, like, obviously I
Speaker 1: don't think that's the same as that's classic Draymond doing
Speaker 1: too much, but it's not the same as it's not
Speaker 1: the same as as like actually trying to hurt people.
Speaker 1: Unless you think Draymond was trying to kill Gobert, which
Speaker 1: obviously is just super dramatic. Rudy made some comments after
Speaker 1: the game that were dramatic in that regard. Obviously, Draymond's
Speaker 1: not trying to hurt anybody, he just was. He just
Speaker 1: crossed the line and did something that's going to get
Speaker 1: him into a suspension situation. And like I said, when
Speaker 1: it happens, I will agree with the suspension because I mean,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Clay and Jada McDaniel started to fight,
Speaker 1: and Rudy Gobert pulled Clay off, and like, what was
Speaker 1: interesting about it was Rudy kind of had a similar
Speaker 1: type of thing going on, but then he didn't lock in,
Speaker 1: Like he pulled Clay off and his hands were near
Speaker 1: the neck, but he didn't lock in. Draymond like did
Speaker 1: the same thing to start, and then he locked in,
Speaker 1: and like from there, it's like that's just completely indefensible.
Speaker 1: So whatever happens, will it will. We'll be deserved at
Speaker 1: that point. All right, guys, that is all I have
Speaker 1: for today. Is always I sincerely appreciate you guys for
Speaker 1: supporting the show. We will be back with more instant
Speaker 1: reactions and deep dives tomorrow the volume