Speaker 1: Hmmm, welcome to the state of the Lakers post kids
Speaker 1: shows like you guys read patient through the technical difficulties. Um,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be the this season if the Lakers wouldn't
Speaker 1: make us sweat a little bit there at the end
Speaker 1: of the night. But other than the ending, I thought
Speaker 1: it was one of their more impressive games of the season.
Speaker 1: What do you think, Roger, Yeah, definitely, I mean that
Speaker 1: was that was the biggest win so far. I mean,
Speaker 1: Denver I think was nine and one coming in even
Speaker 1: without Jamal Murray and to to get this win was great.
Speaker 1: I'm still out off a high off that win. Um,
Speaker 1: so yeah, that was gray. Seeing a d back. Like
Speaker 1: I said before, I didn't really care about the win.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to like the win was cherry on top.
Speaker 1: For me, seeing a d back was the, uh, the
Speaker 1: most important thing, and we got that. We got full
Speaker 1: on a d on both ends of the floor. You
Speaker 1: hit the biggest shot in the game to put them
Speaker 1: up for So yeah, that was a that was a
Speaker 1: big time when uh tonight, Yeah, I was. I was,
Speaker 1: you know, throughout the game, I kept waiting for this,
Speaker 1: you know, a stressful part on account of the fact
Speaker 1: that they were missing their two primary dribble creators and Denver.
Speaker 1: I know, Denver doesn't have a ton of defensive talent,
Speaker 1: but they do defend pretty well, and with there and Gordon,
Speaker 1: they have a decent amount of athleticism. And it was
Speaker 1: one of those things where I was kind of just
Speaker 1: waiting for Denver to try to tighten the screws a
Speaker 1: little bit, and I knew that when they did that,
Speaker 1: the Lakers would struggle to score just because of the
Speaker 1: fact that Schroeder and Lebron were oute and that's what
Speaker 1: ended up happening. But uh, you know, they got that there.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of wide open threes that they
Speaker 1: got out of it, one for Caruso, one for a
Speaker 1: D and then a D one of the jumpers weren't
Speaker 1: following a D, stopped settling and took a power dribble,
Speaker 1: got into the lane and took that little floater over
Speaker 1: the top from like eight feet, which has kind of
Speaker 1: been one of his bread and butter shots throughout his career.
Speaker 1: And it actually Denver defended it really well. He just
Speaker 1: made it. And uh, and then you know the that
Speaker 1: that defensive play at the end is the microcosm of
Speaker 1: why we get so frustrated rooting for Anthony Davis because
Speaker 1: like that's always in there. But that's what he's capable
Speaker 1: of all the time. He is the most freaky uh
Speaker 1: gifted and and not just with his physical tools, but
Speaker 1: also with his anticipation in his instincts. He's the best
Speaker 1: defensive player in the league when he gives a ship
Speaker 1: and he just can't be bothered all half the time.
Speaker 1: That's what makes him that generational defender, right, the ability
Speaker 1: to be in the paint and still get out and
Speaker 1: blocked that shot. I'm I was watching the replay here.
Speaker 1: I think he still had like two feet in the
Speaker 1: paint while that past was going to composit when he
Speaker 1: reached out and blocked it. And we saw a lot
Speaker 1: of that tonight, not blocked on three pointers, but where
Speaker 1: he like impacted um shots, where he helped in the lane.
Speaker 1: Because the Lakers, they didn't change really their defensive coverage
Speaker 1: on screen roles, they just a d was a lot
Speaker 1: better as a help defender. He was getting weak side
Speaker 1: blocks going out, being able to contest the shooters, and
Speaker 1: that's what we wanted, right. We spent the whole Yesterday's
Speaker 1: um kind of Doom and Gloom podcast when you look
Speaker 1: at it now, but our spaces when you look at
Speaker 1: it now. But that this is what we expected and
Speaker 1: that's all I wanted to see from tonight. The win
Speaker 1: is awesome to get that on top of it, but
Speaker 1: to get a d back looking like this, we get
Speaker 1: this a d and when we're cooking, we're rolling here.
Speaker 1: This is um. This is the best that he looked.
Speaker 1: His jumper was there, he had legs under him. He
Speaker 1: was engaged the whole game. I felt like maybe one
Speaker 1: or two plays where he kind of made I think
Speaker 1: he almost got a steel on MPJ got like the
Speaker 1: dunk it was in the fourth quarter. But other than that,
Speaker 1: he was engaged the whole game, helping and yeah, this
Speaker 1: this is why Laker fans and us call him the
Speaker 1: best defending in the league. He hasn't looked like that
Speaker 1: the last few games, but um, tonight was his best
Speaker 1: so far for sure. Well and Laker Laker fans have
Speaker 1: had a tendency in the past for good reason, because
Speaker 1: that's the way fans are, and for the record, all
Speaker 1: fan bases act this way. The Lakers just happened to
Speaker 1: have a lot more fans, but Laker fans have had
Speaker 1: a tendency in the past to kind of bully their
Speaker 1: players into getting it together, you know, and this is
Speaker 1: the first time that's been directed towards one of their stars.
Speaker 1: And you know, and and it wasn't just pressure from
Speaker 1: the fan base, it was what was happening on the
Speaker 1: happening to him on the court. He was getting humiliated.
Speaker 1: Like it was shown in the scoreboard. The Lakers. I
Speaker 1: shared some numbers today. I just dove into the lineup data.
Speaker 1: The Lakers were the second best defense in all of
Speaker 1: basketball when a D was out for thirty games. Then
Speaker 1: when he came back, and you know, all of the
Speaker 1: minutes that a D was on the court, they were
Speaker 1: giving up like a hundred and twenty points per one
Speaker 1: hundred possession, some crazy number like that. And then in
Speaker 1: the hundred and ten or so minutes without a D
Speaker 1: they were still only giving up a hundred and three
Speaker 1: points per one hundre possessions. So their defense was consistent
Speaker 1: through the return of a D except for when he
Speaker 1: was on the floor. He D was being humiliated for
Speaker 1: his lack of effort. And he finally got sick of
Speaker 1: getting humiliated, and he responded and I think we all
Speaker 1: kind of saw this coming. Like no one, just no
Speaker 1: competitor who has this much success in life, like a
Speaker 1: D is a national champion in college and an NBA champion, Like,
Speaker 1: no one's just gonna sit there and let himself continually
Speaker 1: be humiliated. Eventually, something's gonna kind of rise up inside
Speaker 1: of them and they're just gonna fight back. And we
Speaker 1: saw a D fight back tonight, and like he is
Speaker 1: the defensive ceiling razor. That last play is a great
Speaker 1: example of what happens when you're an elite defense but
Speaker 1: you're going against an elite offense. There's a breakdown because
Speaker 1: Yokich is gonna cause breakdowns because of how good he is.
Speaker 1: And Denver gets a wide open look like you said,
Speaker 1: a D s got both feet in the paint. You're
Speaker 1: watching that on your couch, like, oh, and he blocked
Speaker 1: that shot like he is the ceiling razor. Because even
Speaker 1: the best defenses will eventually have openings in a D
Speaker 1: is capable of shutting even those openings, and that's what
Speaker 1: makes them so scary. Yeah, and that's definitely, uh, what
Speaker 1: we what we asked for, right, Like that's what this
Speaker 1: team needed. Every everything else we can talk about we
Speaker 1: talked about last night all like the ancillary pieces, like
Speaker 1: I'm sure we're gonna get into Andre Drummond, but we
Speaker 1: couldn't even start with that until Anthony Davis got right
Speaker 1: and and it seems he got right. Um, and they
Speaker 1: got the big win tonight. If they can beat the
Speaker 1: Clippers somehow on Thursday, hopefully Lebron returns, then um, it
Speaker 1: will be a really nice pickup for this team. Um,
Speaker 1: they needed to win like this right Like you could
Speaker 1: tell with all the quotes that were coming out that
Speaker 1: uh that the team was kind of down for right now,
Speaker 1: but it looked like they took this game serious. Um,
Speaker 1: So that was that was the most important thing, uh
Speaker 1: in my in my like in my notes here, Um,
Speaker 1: I was I really wanted to see what they did
Speaker 1: on Yoki, right Like, I thought that was gonna be
Speaker 1: big tonight. And I thought they approached it kind of
Speaker 1: like a playoff game. I mean looking at yoki Is
Speaker 1: shot shot chart here, and he missed a bunch of
Speaker 1: like you know, like those shots that are in the
Speaker 1: paint not at the rim. Um I'm seeing here he
Speaker 1: missed like eight, eight or nine shots right there. And
Speaker 1: I think if you can make him take those like
Speaker 1: those two pointers that are contested that aren't like at
Speaker 1: the rim, I think you've kind of won against him.
Speaker 1: And he made some of those, right, uh those uh,
Speaker 1: those fade away like mid range shots that you can't
Speaker 1: do anything with if he hits those, it's those. But
Speaker 1: that's where I thought Drummond was actually okay tonight. Like again,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about a lot later, but I thought
Speaker 1: he did his job, and then they kind of switched
Speaker 1: a lot of his actions as well. But what you
Speaker 1: see with with because I thought they did a fantastic
Speaker 1: job on him. So I figured coming into the game
Speaker 1: that a D would entirely avoid the assignment. That seems
Speaker 1: to be part of his m O right now is
Speaker 1: that he doesn't want to take the assignment unless he
Speaker 1: absolutely asked to, like in the biggest moments, like that's
Speaker 1: the only time you'll consider it, because there I noticed,
Speaker 1: even when they went to the bench in the second
Speaker 1: quarter or at the end of the first quarter. I
Speaker 1: believe actually Montres Harrold came in who has a history
Speaker 1: of kind of having issues with Yokich, and a D
Speaker 1: wouldn't take Yokich then either, he put he ended up
Speaker 1: taking I think dojer or one of the wings and
Speaker 1: and left Montrez on Yoki. So it's clear that he
Speaker 1: wanted nothing to do with him. So it comes down
Speaker 1: to what are you gonna do with Drummond and and
Speaker 1: Gasol on him, and both of them I thought did
Speaker 1: a really good job. I thought Gessol did a little
Speaker 1: bit better because he avoided some of the uh more
Speaker 1: troublesome fouls. The that play where Gasol fouled him at
Speaker 1: the end of the game and they gave him the
Speaker 1: two free throws actually kind of was trying to make
Speaker 1: a smart play there. He noticed that he gave up middle.
Speaker 1: He thought the defense was compromised. He's like, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna grab him so they'll just have a side out
Speaker 1: of bounds. But other than that play, which was in
Speaker 1: retrospect the mistake, Gasol did a really nice job at
Speaker 1: defending without fouling and making him make shots over the top.
Speaker 1: Drummond had a couple of mistakes. I thought he lost
Speaker 1: him on a couple of boxouts paid where he primarily
Speaker 1: lost Yoki, and then he had that play where you
Speaker 1: know yokis you didn't have a good jump shooting night,
Speaker 1: he got over zealous defending him at that at that
Speaker 1: pull up a little eighteen footer that he shot and
Speaker 1: sent him to the line there too. So I mean,
Speaker 1: the thing is is like those little mistakes, you want
Speaker 1: to see him both cut out. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: they did their job. They threw bodies at at Yokich
Speaker 1: and made him work. And I I said this in
Speaker 1: the tweet earlier, it's always a team effort, like the
Speaker 1: What helps um, what helps those guys do better on
Speaker 1: an island with Yokich is having guys like k C.
Speaker 1: P and Wesley Matthews who are so good at like
Speaker 1: stunting and giving the impression of taking away space while
Speaker 1: at the same time being able to recover and get
Speaker 1: out two shooters because they didn't really have to send
Speaker 1: hard doubles at Yoki, which takes away his passing ability.
Speaker 1: That that that's where he's at his absolute best, is
Speaker 1: when he breaks you down to the point where you
Speaker 1: have to send doubles and then he will pick you apart.
Speaker 1: But the Lakers just kind of make you feel like
Speaker 1: you're in a crowd, but technically it's still one on
Speaker 1: one matchup, and and it takes away a lot of
Speaker 1: those reads and it was just all in all, just
Speaker 1: an unbelievable defensive performance from the Lakers. Just another one
Speaker 1: of those Frank Vogel masterpieces, Yeah, for sure. And and
Speaker 1: just looking at here, I think Denver went six for
Speaker 1: twenty four from three, and I thought a lot of
Speaker 1: those were actually pretty bad. Looks like, this is a
Speaker 1: pretty good three point shooting team, right, that's what Yogi's jaws.
Speaker 1: He kind of creates shots for them, and they ended
Speaker 1: a really nice job closing out. I guess we can
Speaker 1: like talk about Lakers Twitter's hero here Marcosol, which it
Speaker 1: feels like it feels like Lakers Twitter was not loud enough, right,
Speaker 1: And uh, Vogel is like reading the timeline because Gasow
Speaker 1: got his minutes and he absolutely killed Um he he
Speaker 1: kind of allows a d to be the five without
Speaker 1: actually giving up any size, right, Like that's kind of
Speaker 1: what helps here. We saw him come in the pace,
Speaker 1: the pace just like immediately picked up Carusoe KCP. They're
Speaker 1: starting to fly down. Um he had like a beautiful
Speaker 1: full core pass. I think, um, I forgot to forgot.
Speaker 1: I think it was the West Matthews. Um he got
Speaker 1: a beautiful full core pass to him and the ball
Speaker 1: just moves around. He knows where the play to pass
Speaker 1: to eight can play in the post with a lot
Speaker 1: more space, right. I think that's where it was really
Speaker 1: key he got. He got good looks from there, so yeah,
Speaker 1: like it was really great scene Mark, and then he
Speaker 1: hit his threes, like I think I think he had three.
Speaker 1: I think he had like three threes tonight. And he
Speaker 1: really helps a guy like th HD. Like in my
Speaker 1: notes here, I put like th HT and Mark because
Speaker 1: that THD is a real creative driver, right, and he
Speaker 1: needs a release valve, like I called Mark a release valve,
Speaker 1: and he gives them that release vell Like THHD can
Speaker 1: go in, jump in the air, spin and then find
Speaker 1: Mark in like the corner or something, because he's just
Speaker 1: creating as he goes. And I thought they helped the bench.
Speaker 1: They went away from that Treads and marquis Um line
Speaker 1: up in the second half, which I thought really hurt
Speaker 1: them in the first half. They played Mark in those minutes,
Speaker 1: and yeah, like I guess Lakerstore needs to be even louder.
Speaker 1: I think he's gonna start getting more minutes. I feel
Speaker 1: like Vogel really didn't want to go back to him
Speaker 1: in the in the fourth quarter, but that lead was
Speaker 1: just slipping so quickly that you had to get the
Speaker 1: one any any through in uh Gasol in the in
Speaker 1: the end there. But I thought that was the main
Speaker 1: keys to me tonight. It was eight going off coming
Speaker 1: back and then Marcosol looking like he's ready for um,
Speaker 1: he's ready for the playoffs. Yeah. And you know, one
Speaker 1: of the cool things about Twitter, one of the cool
Speaker 1: things about you know, modern social media is like you
Speaker 1: get a lot more really smart people involved with this stuff,
Speaker 1: and there were there were just a lot of really
Speaker 1: smart Lakers people from all over the world really that
Speaker 1: we're like, we're looking at data because we all have
Speaker 1: access to the data, we all have access to the film,
Speaker 1: and we're watching it and it's like we we all
Speaker 1: knew we were right. You know that that's the reality
Speaker 1: of it, because like we were all watching the same
Speaker 1: thing and we were all looking at the same data.
Speaker 1: That's what was so refreshing about hearing Kyle Kuzma come
Speaker 1: out in the post game yesterday and be like, you know,
Speaker 1: this is what we think we should do, because it
Speaker 1: goes to show you that, you know, we y'all were
Speaker 1: you know, thinking the same way that a professional basketball
Speaker 1: player might think when they look at this, or you
Speaker 1: know Frank Vogel saying, well, you know, we're gonna try
Speaker 1: to make it happen, and then he did so in
Speaker 1: practice today by playing the Salmore as far as in
Speaker 1: theory on the court though, like you know, it's a
Speaker 1: couple of things. You said, it makes a D like
Speaker 1: he's the five, but the Lakers are still big. Well,
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is is it makes a
Speaker 1: D to five on offense. That's the important part, because
Speaker 1: a D would love to be the five on offense.
Speaker 1: He just doesn't want to guard big guys. That's literally
Speaker 1: all it is. A D is shirking the responsibility of
Speaker 1: dealing with the physicality of playing the five position on defense.
Speaker 1: That's all it is. He can sugarcoat it and all
Speaker 1: these different things, but that's what it is. And the
Speaker 1: truth is is he willingly is making What he doesn't
Speaker 1: understand is that by taking that responsibility it actually takes
Speaker 1: away a lot of what he has to deal with
Speaker 1: on the offensive end, because instead he may not be
Speaker 1: wearing himself down as much on the defensive end, but
Speaker 1: on the offensive end, he's playing in a crowd more,
Speaker 1: he's dealing with more bumps and bruises as he's going
Speaker 1: to the basket. So it's like he's kind of signing
Speaker 1: himself up for just a different version of the same problem. Uh.
Speaker 1: And by playing Marcusol, it kind of puts him in
Speaker 1: that perfect sweet spot where on offense he's effectively playing
Speaker 1: you know, a four out one in attack where he
Speaker 1: has the space to attack, but then on defense Marcusol
Speaker 1: is taking all of that beating for him. That's why
Speaker 1: the Marcusol fit was such an obvious and clear fit
Speaker 1: to make this work. And then the other big thing
Speaker 1: that you know, the obvious stuff with his shooting in
Speaker 1: the way of impact it's facing. But the other big thing,
Speaker 1: and you mentioned this was his outlet passing. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't just it wasn't just a long bomb. It's the
Speaker 1: starting to break quicker stuff. Like it's the instead of
Speaker 1: getting getting the rebound and doing what Drummond does where
Speaker 1: he like chins it and like spins around and like
Speaker 1: maybe he'll take two dribbles himself and then he'll find
Speaker 1: a guard and he'll give it to him. Like Marcusol
Speaker 1: like starts to break actively before he even has the ball,
Speaker 1: Like he's getting the rebound and he's looking over and
Speaker 1: he sees a guard streaking and he'll catch it and
Speaker 1: throw a quick tap pass forward and something like that
Speaker 1: gains you an advantage and gets you playing in semi
Speaker 1: transition where the defense isn't set, rather than going against
Speaker 1: the set defense, which has been a weakness for the
Speaker 1: Lakers literally for two years. So like having Marcus all
Speaker 1: out there impacts the game on so many levels, And
Speaker 1: just like with Alex Crusoe last year, you're going to
Speaker 1: continue to see it in the box score. When they
Speaker 1: play Marcusol, they're going to have success, and it's gonna
Speaker 1: show in the in them winning the minutes that he plays,
Speaker 1: and when they continue to play a big, bruising, you know, brainless,
Speaker 1: spaceless five, they're gonna struggle. I think I think that's
Speaker 1: just going to continue to be the theme. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's a little a little rough, Like we want
Speaker 1: to we want to blame a lot of it on
Speaker 1: drum and let people were all happy because Drummond got
Speaker 1: his fifth foul. Like I thought, Laker Twitter to go
Speaker 1: through a full on celebration because Drummond picked up his
Speaker 1: fifth foul, and like he struggles that the post ups
Speaker 1: are still a lot, Like I just I still don't
Speaker 1: understand why you over throwing into him in the post
Speaker 1: as much, especially with with Lebron not in the game,
Speaker 1: and Caruso had a lot of turnovers with him to
Speaker 1: him tonight too as well. Right, they're just not on
Speaker 1: the same page where he should be cutting um and
Speaker 1: all that. But again, like they're both on the team,
Speaker 1: like a soul and Drummond are both on the team,
Speaker 1: And like it's funny seeing JaVale McGee on the other side,
Speaker 1: because I see Drummond as like Javal roll. You know,
Speaker 1: you saw Javal like you saw the good and bad
Speaker 1: of him tonight, like you saw people to roll. But
Speaker 1: like he does these weird things where he tries to
Speaker 1: go bhind the back past is and weird floaters that
Speaker 1: some of them went in, and I see Drummond in
Speaker 1: that same kind of light. Man, it'll be it'll be situational.
Speaker 1: It's very clear they want to get him minutes in
Speaker 1: the regular season. Um, but maybe that was agreed agreed
Speaker 1: upon before he signed here or something, but that that
Speaker 1: seems like the clear thing that's going on and and
Speaker 1: and Mark obviously, I mean anyone who's watching you know
Speaker 1: these games, we're watching these games, you could tell that
Speaker 1: Mark is having just a huge impact. And I think
Speaker 1: he'll play a lot when when these games matter, especially
Speaker 1: in against Denver, who I think this is his second
Speaker 1: really good game against the Nuggets, especially defensively. Right. I
Speaker 1: think he turned that last game round as well tonight, Yogi,
Speaker 1: he had a few good baskets on him, but you
Speaker 1: could tell, like he bothers him. Mark is really smart. Um,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna like trick him. He knows, he knows
Speaker 1: all the all the tricks up the sleeve. He's a
Speaker 1: former Defensive Player of the Year, all the all the
Speaker 1: accolades and stuff like that. So he's a really awesome
Speaker 1: dude to just have on there where your kids. Is
Speaker 1: gonna have to work for his shots, and that's all
Speaker 1: you can ask for. Um, I think you could twin
Speaker 1: like eleven for twenty five or something tonight, and and
Speaker 1: if you make him do that, you're gonna win the game.
Speaker 1: So they held Denver to under twenty five points in
Speaker 1: every quarter. And this is a good offensive team even
Speaker 1: without Jamal Murray. Like this is a team that's that
Speaker 1: can put up points. So I thought that was great
Speaker 1: and Mark was a huge part of this win. What
Speaker 1: did Michael Porter Jr. Finished with? What was like seventeen?
Speaker 1: I think it might have been nineteen. He had nineteen Yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: So what I thought was interesting too is like as
Speaker 1: like Michael Porter Jr. In his last ten games has
Speaker 1: been averaging like twenty six. Yeah, And I thought KCP
Speaker 1: and Kyle pos both didn't really nice job throughout the
Speaker 1: game just staying in his airspace and making him feel uncomfortable. Look,
Speaker 1: when he's so tall that when he gets up into
Speaker 1: his shot, like, there's really not a whole lot you
Speaker 1: can do. But what you need to do is get
Speaker 1: him to second guess his shot enough that he just
Speaker 1: takes fewer attempts. And I thought I thought the Lakers
Speaker 1: did a good job of that. Like his his last
Speaker 1: three that he took, which was late, is one at
Speaker 1: the top of the key that he ended up missing.
Speaker 1: Long h he was in all sorts of crowd, there
Speaker 1: was a body on either side of him. There's no
Speaker 1: way that when he's going up he's not thinking about
Speaker 1: all that congestion and the way that it affects a shot,
Speaker 1: and again, just the laker. You know, you and I
Speaker 1: both have have beat the drum for two years. But
Speaker 1: I think they're the best defense, one of the best
Speaker 1: defenses ever when they when they try. But I have
Speaker 1: all the Frank is an excellent at scheming, They're strong
Speaker 1: at every position. H they're they're good at containing at
Speaker 1: the point of attack, and that they're good in their rotations,
Speaker 1: and they're good at the rim, and they have big
Speaker 1: wings now and it's just they're They're an unbelievable defensive team.
Speaker 1: You know what, I was a little too hard on
Speaker 1: Drummond Um. The one thing I'll say about Drummond is
Speaker 1: if they're gonna play him, I just wish strategically they
Speaker 1: would use him in a way that plays to his
Speaker 1: strengths offensively. And what I mean by that is like, look,
Speaker 1: he's not a great post up player, and if you
Speaker 1: are going to post up with either Lebron or a
Speaker 1: d he's not serving any purpose because he can't catch
Speaker 1: lobs and at least not as well as he needs to,
Speaker 1: and he's just not a good enough finisher out of
Speaker 1: the dunker spot. There was a actually a play today
Speaker 1: if you remember I think Caruso ended up throwing a
Speaker 1: lob to him, you know, went over the top and
Speaker 1: went out of bounce like Javao would catch that for instance.
Speaker 1: You know, like he's just he's just not great as
Speaker 1: like a straight up vertical jumper. But if you use
Speaker 1: him as a ball screener, like if Lebron's on the
Speaker 1: floor with Drummond or Shrouders on the floor with Drummond,
Speaker 1: he put everybody else at the three point line and
Speaker 1: use him as a screener, he has real value there
Speaker 1: because he's a big body. It gets the ball handler
Speaker 1: and advantage and makes the defense commit one way or
Speaker 1: the other. Then he can bring some value there and
Speaker 1: get get him rumbling to the rim as opposed to
Speaker 1: trying to go straight up over Yokis or whoever it is,
Speaker 1: where he just struggles to finish. And I do think
Speaker 1: that just because Gasol is the obvious sticks to a
Speaker 1: lot of their problems, doesn't mean Drummond can't play. It
Speaker 1: just means, you know, you need to adjust on the
Speaker 1: fly here and use him in a way that makes sense.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, maybe you stagger those two guys
Speaker 1: instead of instead of staggering with Trez and maybe he's
Speaker 1: the odd man out. I don't know. I think these
Speaker 1: are tough questions, but it's very clear that Marcusol has
Speaker 1: to be one of the guys who is in the rotation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the thing you're talking about, what's tough about that
Speaker 1: is making Drummond the screener is then you turn a
Speaker 1: D pretty much into a spot up shooter, right, like
Speaker 1: he'll just go stand in the corner. And they did
Speaker 1: that a few times today. The problem is Denver, they
Speaker 1: just cheated off the shooters. I think Alex trus hit
Speaker 1: a few, but they left him open time times. And
Speaker 1: the problem with Drummond is like he's not a good
Speaker 1: finisher in the dunker spot. He's not a lop threat,
Speaker 1: and like he has a tough time catching like passes
Speaker 1: that if they're not thrown for from like Lebron right,
Speaker 1: Like Crusoe's a good pastor. He's not going to pass
Speaker 1: you open, but like if you're open, he can find you.
Speaker 1: But again, he's not a great pastor. Neither is a D.
Speaker 1: I think they ran like a screen roll with a
Speaker 1: D as a ball handler, right with Drummond as a screener.
Speaker 1: And I thought it was really nice a d shortness,
Speaker 1: Dribble had the big on his back like he was
Speaker 1: a guard and then through this like nice little pass
Speaker 1: in the painted Drummond right in his hands. But it's
Speaker 1: just a little too hot. And again ad is not
Speaker 1: like an awesome pastor like Lebron. Maybe that gets through
Speaker 1: with Lebron, I don't know, And it goes right through
Speaker 1: Drummond's hands and Denver goes the other way. So that's
Speaker 1: where like the struggle is finding like an offensive role
Speaker 1: for him, and it looks like the only real role
Speaker 1: for him where he can get shots up is through
Speaker 1: post uffs, right, even if they're super inefficient, they just
Speaker 1: they need him to get looks. And when a guy
Speaker 1: is just in the you know, right near the rim,
Speaker 1: has a guy sealed, like, it's tough for a guard
Speaker 1: to like look that away, right, Cruiser has to throw
Speaker 1: that like if a guy has got a new pin.
Speaker 1: Drummond just does not hit them at a rate that
Speaker 1: you would believe a big ship. But again again I
Speaker 1: don't like piling on him because I feel like he
Speaker 1: does do things that add to the game. Um he uh,
Speaker 1: he defends at least at a normal good enough level.
Speaker 1: Where he can stay on the floor. It's just his
Speaker 1: offensive to struggle, especially with no Lebron and the shooting
Speaker 1: is inconsistence of Denver can kind of play off him.
Speaker 1: So I guess that's a lot of drum and talk.
Speaker 1: But yeah, again, like I just feel like he's ancillary still,
Speaker 1: like to these title hopes, and like what we need
Speaker 1: to be The key things are eight needs to be
Speaker 1: himself and we got that tonight and Mark showed they
Speaker 1: still big time competitor, and those are things that really
Speaker 1: matter tonight looking rather than looking at this through like wow,
Speaker 1: Drummond really closed again or was about to close, because
Speaker 1: I think that's just what's gonna happen right now. And
Speaker 1: I really don't think those things will matter once we
Speaker 1: get into the into the real games. You're right, and
Speaker 1: and and for the record, I think I think there's
Speaker 1: some line up moves from Frank that could help some
Speaker 1: of these problems. Like, for instance, I used to complain
Speaker 1: all the time about Rondo being a starter, if you remember,
Speaker 1: because I felt, yeah, I felt like what he did
Speaker 1: with Lebron was very redundant and inevitably the Lakers would
Speaker 1: get off the slow starts because you have these two, like,
Speaker 1: you know, pound the ball type playmakers, and neither of
Speaker 1: them were well. Rondo in particular wasn't very good off
Speaker 1: the ball, and it would cause problems for them. Well,
Speaker 1: then they put Rondo on the bench, and then that
Speaker 1: actually ended up working for them in the postseason when
Speaker 1: they kind of staggered Rondo and Lebron. And that's the
Speaker 1: thing is you're right, like, ideally you don't want to
Speaker 1: turn a D into a spot up shooter. That's why
Speaker 1: the drum and minutes makes so much more sense coming
Speaker 1: off the bench and playing with Lebron. But I agree
Speaker 1: with you, these are all ancillary things and the most
Speaker 1: important thing, uh, you know I said last night, if
Speaker 1: you guys remember, I said I just need to see
Speaker 1: it once. And what I was referring to it are
Speaker 1: the three things that I think are abundantly important to
Speaker 1: this team winning the title, and that's a D looking
Speaker 1: like a D, Lebron looking like Lebron, and the defense
Speaker 1: looking like the Laker defense. And tonight we saw two
Speaker 1: of those three things, so we can be relatively comfortable
Speaker 1: knowing that there's still a dominant basketball player inside of
Speaker 1: a D. This season, I think we all knew, you know,
Speaker 1: over the course of his contract that he would be
Speaker 1: a d again, but there was concerned with his health
Speaker 1: and with his frame of mind that maybe he wasn't
Speaker 1: there this year. Well he clearly is because tonight tonight
Speaker 1: he made some world changing blaze and he he actually
Speaker 1: like straight up just outplayed the m v P like
Speaker 1: Nikol Yoka is the MVP, Anthony Davis was better than
Speaker 1: him tonight. So that was was obviously very uh you know,
Speaker 1: uh comforting for like a fantasy. And then you know,
Speaker 1: the defense was they took an extremely gifted offensive group
Speaker 1: with arguably one of the top two or three offensive
Speaker 1: players in basketball this year, and they basically shut him
Speaker 1: down tonight and uh you know, held him well under
Speaker 1: a hundred points and in one with by getting stops
Speaker 1: down the stretch of the game. And so those two
Speaker 1: things are very comforting. And now basically just comes down
Speaker 1: to the Lebron stuff, which I was wrong about last
Speaker 1: night because I thought that he was I thought that
Speaker 1: he was going to play tonight, because I thought he
Speaker 1: just exited the game early essentially just to get ready
Speaker 1: for tonight. And clearly there he is dealing with some
Speaker 1: linger in pain. Is that something you're concerned about at all,
Speaker 1: not really from like the doctors that I follow, and
Speaker 1: obviously Lakers Twitter is a nice, big space. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of people and a lot of professions. There are a
Speaker 1: a lot of really good doctors. And they say that, like,
Speaker 1: I think he was a little bit sore, right, I
Speaker 1: think that was the Shams report, And they say that's
Speaker 1: pretty normal after a highly ankle sprain like this. So, um,
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm nervous about it. I mean, Lebron
Speaker 1: had a quote that he doesn't feel like he'll ever
Speaker 1: be a d percent again. I think in his career
Speaker 1: he had some quote like that which is a little bit,
Speaker 1: a little bit, a little bit dooming, especially with the
Speaker 1: way the others were playing. But I'm not worried about him,
Speaker 1: And I feel like Lebron's gonna be there. Um, he's
Speaker 1: like the least of my worries on this team, to
Speaker 1: be honest, Like, I think I think he'll be there
Speaker 1: when it when it matters that he just needs to
Speaker 1: get some time with this team. And and that's where
Speaker 1: I want to see on Thursday. Like I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if they'll beat the Clippers. Clippers they're playing
Speaker 1: at a at a pretty awesome level well right now.
Speaker 1: But I just want to see that same effort in
Speaker 1: intensity as when Lebron wasn't here, you know, tonight, all
Speaker 1: those guards defending the same way. Um, I want to
Speaker 1: see a D being a D. And again, I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about win and loss, just him impacting the game
Speaker 1: like he did tonight. He had a big time impact
Speaker 1: on it when he was on the floor. And I
Speaker 1: want to see that same thing on Thursday with with
Speaker 1: hopefully with Lebron um coming back. And maybe Lebron might
Speaker 1: not be yet, and that's expectable. That's expected. Um, there's
Speaker 1: still like seven games left. Um, I trust that he
Speaker 1: knows how to ramp up. The guy that's been a
Speaker 1: multiple finals multiple times in a row. Uh. If anybody
Speaker 1: knows how to wrap himself up for a playoff, playoff run,
Speaker 1: he knows it. So I trust him more than anything
Speaker 1: else on this team. Everything else needs to work right,
Speaker 1: I'm sure Lebron will be there to control things when
Speaker 1: it when it matters. Yeah, we're on the same page.
Speaker 1: I I'm not necessarily concerned about it either. Are one
Speaker 1: of the nice things too with Lebron, Like if you
Speaker 1: had to, if you had to pick between getting, you know,
Speaker 1: for this season, having a D AT or Lebron AT
Speaker 1: or Lebron A and a d AT physically, I would
Speaker 1: take a D being more healthy because he we actually
Speaker 1: need his physical tools so much more for this team
Speaker 1: to reach its ceiling because of what he does defensively.
Speaker 1: But Lebron at of what he is physically, is still
Speaker 1: so capable of impacting the game. And for the record,
Speaker 1: we saw that in these last two games the Lakers,
Speaker 1: we had an extremely good defense and we're positive on
Speaker 1: the scoreboard in Lebron's first two outings even though the
Speaker 1: Lakers defended like dogshit overall over those two games, when
Speaker 1: Lebron was on the floor, things looked good because he
Speaker 1: just impacts the game really well on the defensive end
Speaker 1: as a communicator and as a back line defender, and
Speaker 1: then on the offensive end just making decisions, just making
Speaker 1: basketball decisions every time he goes down the floor. And
Speaker 1: so like, I'm less worried about him getting to his
Speaker 1: peak physical form than I am about a D. And
Speaker 1: so that's what makes it so comforting to see a
Speaker 1: D make plays the way that he did tonight. As
Speaker 1: far as like you know, Lebron's progression here, you know,
Speaker 1: uh what the what's most important is to understand what
Speaker 1: this particular injury. It appears to be mostly about pain tolerance.
Speaker 1: So like right now in this regular season, he can
Speaker 1: be a little bit more you know, uptight about it
Speaker 1: and and take rest when he needs it. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, like when they when they
Speaker 1: get into when they get into the postseason, Lebron is
Speaker 1: gonna be able to you know, do whatever he needs
Speaker 1: to do to deal with the pain and play through it.
Speaker 1: And the other wrinkle on this UM that makes it
Speaker 1: a little bit less concerning for him to take a
Speaker 1: night like tonight off is the standings are entirely in flux.
Speaker 1: I was listening to the Low Post today um and
Speaker 1: Zach low is reading off basically the statistical percentages of
Speaker 1: teams landing and specific needs. It's all over the place,
Speaker 1: like Utah is considered a sixty forty favor to get
Speaker 1: the one seed, which is just a little better than
Speaker 1: a coin flip. Denver and the Clippers are straight up
Speaker 1: in a fifty fifty coin flip in terms of probabilities
Speaker 1: as to where they'll end up. And then literally coming
Speaker 1: into tonight Portland's Dallas in the Lakers were all pied,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's so like the truth of the
Speaker 1: matter was is like you could have you you could
Speaker 1: theoretically have approach to the end of the season in
Speaker 1: a super aggressive manner and been rewarded with the Clippers
Speaker 1: for your trouble. So I do think that his approach
Speaker 1: of prioritizing his physical health makes the most sense. However,
Speaker 1: I do I I do think that it's a little
Speaker 1: bit less important for him than it is for a
Speaker 1: d If that makes sense, Yeah, for sure. And again,
Speaker 1: like I wasn't standing watching at all today because to me,
Speaker 1: it was no point until we got you know, eighty
Speaker 1: to look like this and the team looked like they
Speaker 1: cared about any of these games because looking at the standings,
Speaker 1: really didn't matter if the Lakers was gonna keep dropping
Speaker 1: games m due to no engagement. So that was a
Speaker 1: good thing. Now I can go back to kind of
Speaker 1: looking at the standings again, which I think we're tied
Speaker 1: with Dallas still, so um, we have a tough skin tonight. Okay,
Speaker 1: Portland lost all right, So yeah, that that's a that's
Speaker 1: a good thing, I guess We'll try to stay out
Speaker 1: of that playing game, I guess, but man, we have
Speaker 1: I think three back to backs left um to close
Speaker 1: the close of the season with teams like Phoenix, the
Speaker 1: Clippers coming up, the Knicks. Um, all all tough games.
Speaker 1: But another guy I wanted to touch on tonight, Crusoe
Speaker 1: I thought had his best game in a while, right.
Speaker 1: I think I think he was hurt, but um, yeah,
Speaker 1: he had like a really nice It looked like playoff
Speaker 1: Caruso to me. That's why I kind of put in
Speaker 1: my notes here. Um, he looked back to his old self.
Speaker 1: I think he was like a plus four tonight, but
Speaker 1: the whole team was kind of in the low plus
Speaker 1: minuses as well. But I thought he just looked awesome
Speaker 1: being able to deflect. He was awesome on Yokich as well,
Speaker 1: especially when they were helping and recovering. He had he
Speaker 1: had timely threes, missed a few down the stretch, but
Speaker 1: he cut, he dove on the floor, He just he
Speaker 1: did everything that he does. And I thought that was
Speaker 1: an underrated part that that wasn't really talked about. Was
Speaker 1: they missed him and his energy. Um, that's really that
Speaker 1: really helps them. And uh, I thought he was a
Speaker 1: big part of the win too. I don't think they
Speaker 1: went tonight without him. Denver has a guy like him
Speaker 1: on on their side and Composo it really gets under
Speaker 1: guy's skin. And I thought he matched that, he matched
Speaker 1: the energy on our side. What do you see from
Speaker 1: Caruso tonight, Well, I mean you said it all man,
Speaker 1: he was, He was awesome. He's their best point of
Speaker 1: attack defender in my opinion. I actually think he's a
Speaker 1: little bit better than Dennis too, because he's just a
Speaker 1: little bit bigger um and you could tell when he
Speaker 1: would come off the floor how much easier you know,
Speaker 1: Composo was getting to his spots or Austin Rivers was
Speaker 1: getting to his spots, just because there was a little
Speaker 1: bit less resistance at the point of attack, and you know,
Speaker 1: and then offensively, like I I have reached I was
Speaker 1: actually thinking about this. I think it was in the
Speaker 1: third quarter. I have reached a point with Caruso where
Speaker 1: when he's shooting, I feel like it's going in from three,
Speaker 1: which is crazy to think about because last year you
Speaker 1: and never in a million years would have felt that way.
Speaker 1: But his form, his form, his is solid and he
Speaker 1: pretty consistently knocks him down, and yeah, he missed a
Speaker 1: couple at the end of the game, but kind of
Speaker 1: the Lakers just in general as a jump shooting team
Speaker 1: went cold at the end of that game, which is
Speaker 1: something that can happen and it tends to percolate through
Speaker 1: the whole roster. But I mean, he with him being
Speaker 1: able to knock down those shots that transforms everything. He's
Speaker 1: a little bit like he had he struggle a little
Speaker 1: bit and pick and roll there at the end, uh,
Speaker 1: when they kind of tried to run him with the
Speaker 1: closing group a couple of times where he got into
Speaker 1: no man's land there at the free throw line, and
Speaker 1: then he kept picking up his dribble when he was
Speaker 1: trying to give the ball to a D which then
Speaker 1: they would just do like crazy ball pressure and denial
Speaker 1: on a D and he kind of got caught, you know,
Speaker 1: in in a tough spot. But those are those are
Speaker 1: like really nitpicky things and that's not something he's going
Speaker 1: to have to do when the time comes. But I mean,
Speaker 1: he's the lifeblood of that team. And when when they
Speaker 1: are playing like this, when they're playing this, well, uh,
Speaker 1: he usually starts with him and It's the best compliment
Speaker 1: I can I can pay him is that he's kind
Speaker 1: of like the hard the soul of their defense. One
Speaker 1: other guy I wanted to compliment was k C. P
Speaker 1: Um just he's such a winner, man, it's ridiculous. Like
Speaker 1: he had two plays at the end of that game
Speaker 1: that were completely ridiculous. There was one where him and
Speaker 1: Drummond got caught in the pick and roll and I
Speaker 1: think I think k CP was on Michael Porter Jr.
Speaker 1: And they switched it and and Yokis got the ball
Speaker 1: at the top of the key against KCP and actively
Speaker 1: on the couch. I'm like, oh, like, why did they
Speaker 1: switch that? He should have fought over the top. Yokis
Speaker 1: is gonna barrel to the rim on him. Yokis does
Speaker 1: his classic you know, you know, kind of ripped through
Speaker 1: over the top and the rolling down the rim looking
Speaker 1: clumsy like crazy. But he's got a step on KCP
Speaker 1: and he just stripped it right off. It was leg
Speaker 1: out of bounce. It was a huge play. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then there was another one where someone took a shot
Speaker 1: I think it was I think it was Michael Porter Jr.
Speaker 1: I think it was the one that he missed from
Speaker 1: the top of the key, and KCP was not in like,
Speaker 1: you know, because there's all these different elements to rebounding, right, like,
Speaker 1: you gotta be the guy. There's gotta be some boxes
Speaker 1: out with people around the rim, and then there's gotta
Speaker 1: be people who crash, and and KCP was guarding someone
Speaker 1: in the opposite corner. His man wasn't crashing, and KCP
Speaker 1: just went flying through the lane, took off off one leg,
Speaker 1: rose way up over everybody, and ended up tapping the
Speaker 1: ball out to Marcusol on a play that could have
Speaker 1: ended in an offensive rebound for Yoki. And I'm literally
Speaker 1: sitting there, I'm like, this dude just like he feels
Speaker 1: the moment and he just knows how he can make
Speaker 1: these little plays that can swing the outcome of a game.
Speaker 1: And both of those plays I just mentioned could have
Speaker 1: ended up saving the Lakers two points in a game
Speaker 1: that they won that was just barely a two possession game.
Speaker 1: So I mean that that's that's how I love I
Speaker 1: love I love room for KCP man, Like he's come
Speaker 1: so far from where he was, you know, two years ago,
Speaker 1: and it's just like just a bona fide winning player. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a big part of I thought the defense
Speaker 1: on MPG as well. They had him up, I think
Speaker 1: on him at the end of the game too, And
Speaker 1: I wrote here MPJ had zero assists tonight that that
Speaker 1: was a big part of it. They really made it
Speaker 1: tough for him. Um, they got on on him and
Speaker 1: he had a tough time getting space at all. KCB
Speaker 1: put up seven rebounds as well, hit two threes. I
Speaker 1: thought they were preally timely threes as well, and they
Speaker 1: needed shooting. Like I think he went over five against
Speaker 1: the Kings, but you know, he's four for four for
Speaker 1: for nine and these last two against Toronto and Denver,
Speaker 1: and he's proved that he hit shots like when it matters, right,
Speaker 1: Like he's proven that he's gonna hit him at least
Speaker 1: in the playoffs. Last year. Um, he had a little
Speaker 1: cold streak in the season, but he looks like he's
Speaker 1: finding his way back. So yeah, like it's nice to
Speaker 1: have him back. Um, it's gonna be tough now because,
Speaker 1: like I think the big news is that we're not
Speaker 1: gonna have a Dennis Shrewd to the playoffs start, right,
Speaker 1: So like that's another ten four teen games where the
Speaker 1: Lakers won't have the starting backcourt, and I don't think
Speaker 1: they really lose anything because they get Crusoe more minutes
Speaker 1: I guess, so that kind of other than the th
Speaker 1: h T minutes. But they get a Crusoe and KCP
Speaker 1: in there, and that's still a really really elite backcourt defense. Um,
Speaker 1: they played really hard, especially when they got it going. Um,
Speaker 1: they can really shut down opposing guards. And uh, Denver
Speaker 1: is a really good team where like once they passed
Speaker 1: the Yokers, they do a lot of really nice cutting
Speaker 1: actions and a lot of split huts and and I
Speaker 1: thought the switching and the guards playing well, it was
Speaker 1: a big part of them. Mean p J Josie got
Speaker 1: hurt I think in the middle of that, but he's
Speaker 1: been playing lights out for them and they did a
Speaker 1: nice job shutting him down. So yeah, I agree. KCP
Speaker 1: was great. Hey man, Caruso were a big part of this. Um,
Speaker 1: they need their guards playing like this, because it was
Speaker 1: so obvious that they weren't right, Like it just jumped
Speaker 1: off the screen. Since a D came back, like the
Speaker 1: all everyone's intensity was pretty much at like a preseason level,
Speaker 1: and it it seemed back to like really intense ready
Speaker 1: for the playoffs tonight, so hopefully they picked that up
Speaker 1: going forward on on Thursday. But it was good to
Speaker 1: see KCP and Crusoe both like shut and be able
Speaker 1: to shut down this other team, along with a D
Speaker 1: being back to himself engaged on every possession. And I
Speaker 1: want to know, like, what do you think, because they
Speaker 1: ran it a lot through th HD tonight right now,
Speaker 1: I just don't think he's ready. Um, I think you
Speaker 1: tweeted about this. If he's going to play in the
Speaker 1: playoffs right like, I think it's gonna be really tough.
Speaker 1: Like he he's not ready for full ball control. He
Speaker 1: had a lot of turnovers against Compozo. He really got
Speaker 1: into him. Um, you had that weird layoup at the
Speaker 1: end that kind of won the game too. I thought
Speaker 1: that was kind of crazy. Oh man, that was one
Speaker 1: of the craziest plays I've ever seen. Like it was
Speaker 1: literally like about to become a catastrophe if th D,
Speaker 1: Like if the Lakers had somehow lost that game and
Speaker 1: their last offensive possession was th h T shooting literally
Speaker 1: like literally a backwards the hook shot, like it would
Speaker 1: have been unbelievable. But I mean to your to your
Speaker 1: original point, like you had mentioned, like you know the
Speaker 1: Lakers will be fine without Dennis. I agree. I I
Speaker 1: view Dennis as more of like a ceiling razor. Uh Now,
Speaker 1: without Lebron and Dennis, it becomes a huge problem when
Speaker 1: they lack all of that offensive creation. But we know
Speaker 1: the Lakers can win with Lebron and a D and
Speaker 1: various defensive role players around them. We know they can
Speaker 1: do that. But Dennis Shooter, to me, he's just ceiling
Speaker 1: razor for specific matchups. When when you're playing a switching
Speaker 1: defense in a late round playoff series and you just
Speaker 1: need someone to make a play, He's that guy that
Speaker 1: will be able to make offensive plays that they didn't
Speaker 1: have in the past, and so I think he does
Speaker 1: bring a great deal of value there um. But in
Speaker 1: the meantime, they can defend extremely well down with all
Speaker 1: their positions with without Shrewder, they have enough depth to
Speaker 1: cover for that. It's just an out without Lebron, they
Speaker 1: just have to rely on a lot of Crusoe and
Speaker 1: th h T and pick and roll, which is just
Speaker 1: they're just not They're they're what you would call below
Speaker 1: average NBA pick and roll playmakers. And THD is gonna
Speaker 1: have his nights where and he's gonna have his moments,
Speaker 1: but but he's not reliable. Is the word that Darius
Speaker 1: Soriano used that I thought was apt for this specific description.
Speaker 1: And you know, as far as like you had mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier that he thrives with gassoul And I don't think
Speaker 1: I think that's as simple as literally just what happens
Speaker 1: with his uh spacing. I think just like any other
Speaker 1: basketball player who prefers to put his head down and
Speaker 1: go to the rim um, he does better when there's
Speaker 1: space to operate and when you put him out there
Speaker 1: with because all he has space to operate in a
Speaker 1: way that he doesn't have when you put him out
Speaker 1: there with, you know, a lack of shooting. And so
Speaker 1: I think I think that I think it really is
Speaker 1: that that's simple on that front. Yeah, and especially right now,
Speaker 1: Like that's why I think most fans wanted Marcus all right,
Speaker 1: because that's another playmaker like you can have out there.
Speaker 1: Like the no spacing kind of compounds the issue of
Speaker 1: not enough ball handlers and a d really has to
Speaker 1: create a lot of the offense through the post, and
Speaker 1: it's really easy easy to double him, right, So they
Speaker 1: come down and they throw it into him. And the
Speaker 1: shock clocks already at like six, so I throw it
Speaker 1: to him. It's a quick double. He kicks it out
Speaker 1: to like Caruso or you know, or Ben McLamore, another
Speaker 1: guy that like they just trust that they can get
Speaker 1: out and contest on that. So that's why it's nice
Speaker 1: have like a saul out to the three point line,
Speaker 1: a guy who can create shots for for other guys,
Speaker 1: especially guys like k cp um even cruise out cutting.
Speaker 1: So I think that's that's why we were kind of
Speaker 1: asking for him to play, especially right now. No Dennis
Speaker 1: Ruder to the play until probably Game one of the playoffs,
Speaker 1: so I'm expecting hopefully BECAUSEOL gets a lot more minutes there. Um,
Speaker 1: they obviously do trust th HD kind of run to
Speaker 1: run screen roles. I mean, they gave him the ball
Speaker 1: at the end of the game they're to kind of create,
Speaker 1: so so hopefully he can kind of make it up.
Speaker 1: The Clippers are a tough team to do that too, though.
Speaker 1: They're really good at ball pressuring and they have a
Speaker 1: lot of wings that make it really tough for you
Speaker 1: that can really cause turnovers. So like that's where my
Speaker 1: worry is. But yeah, for right now, I think they'll
Speaker 1: be able to, especially if Lebron plays on Thursday, they
Speaker 1: should be fine. Um, it'll be another guy that obviously
Speaker 1: will create shots for everyone, but for right now. For
Speaker 1: for a time, I thought I thought THHD really struggled
Speaker 1: in that in that aspect. Yeah, And you know what
Speaker 1: I had tweeted about earlier was like, there's specific means
Speaker 1: that the Lakers app from their role players, and one
Speaker 1: of them is they just need a lack of mistakes. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, because it is a game of inches when
Speaker 1: you get into these playoff series and and you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily need the crazy, uh the highs that come with
Speaker 1: th HT because you're gonna be leaning on better players
Speaker 1: for those moments. You're gonna be leaning on a d
Speaker 1: Lebron and Dennis Schroders. So when you when you no
Speaker 1: longer need th h t s highs, you suddenly need
Speaker 1: people that aren't gonna have the lows. And that's why
Speaker 1: you play someone that is a lower ceiling, a little
Speaker 1: bit more dependable. If there's one silver lining on the
Speaker 1: shrewder thing, Um, if there's one silver lining on the
Speaker 1: shooter thing, it's just that Uh. He kind of took
Speaker 1: on a whole lot of mileage on his legs during
Speaker 1: that non lebron A d phase. There was even the
Speaker 1: time where he was complaining about his knee starting to
Speaker 1: be a little sore, and there's a lot of limping.
Speaker 1: There's some tailbone stuff too there where he took a
Speaker 1: bad fall in one of the games. He took a
Speaker 1: beating there for a while. So if you had to
Speaker 1: find some reason to be a little bit less annoyed
Speaker 1: by the fact that he's out for two weeks, would
Speaker 1: be the fact that he's gonna get some rest. But
Speaker 1: I mean there's also stuff that goes with COVID having
Speaker 1: to do with conditioning. Um. You know, if you if
Speaker 1: you really are bed ridden for seven days, it can
Speaker 1: be the problematic for your conditioning. So I mean it's
Speaker 1: certainly not a good thing, um, But but may it
Speaker 1: may end up being a blessing in disguise if they
Speaker 1: can get him back and get him integrated before they
Speaker 1: get into a real barn burner of a playoff series. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I wonder he might just come off the bench,
Speaker 1: I guess for maybe the first series right, just to
Speaker 1: get his his legs back. People people are out for
Speaker 1: hopefully like he's out for probably I don't know if
Speaker 1: they tested positive for COVID, but hopefully he's okay. And yeah,
Speaker 1: when he comes back, I'm sure he'll he'll have to
Speaker 1: get his win back again. But I mean, the Lakers
Speaker 1: have enough guards to kind of especially if Lebron is
Speaker 1: gonna play a lot more minutes going forward, they should
Speaker 1: be able to be okay. But he's a big part
Speaker 1: of their team. And that's the only thing I worry
Speaker 1: about is getting him getting enough reps with Lebron and
Speaker 1: e d together, um, those two I think only like
Speaker 1: twenty something games together, and he's going to be a
Speaker 1: big part of their offense, a big part of their
Speaker 1: shock creation, getting baskets, and he needs a rhythm and
Speaker 1: a flow to know when and where they like the basketball,
Speaker 1: where he shoots from and uh, all that stuff. They
Speaker 1: just don't have enough time to get that going. Maybe
Speaker 1: the first round is where they can build build those habits.
Speaker 1: Maybe if it's maybe if it's against a team like Denver,
Speaker 1: like this Denver team perfect, Yeah, yeah, And Denver really
Speaker 1: plays the style of a defense that's really conductive to
Speaker 1: Dennis Shrewder right, they played like a drop coverage with
Speaker 1: with Nicole Yo Kitchen. That's that's a shot that he
Speaker 1: looks for, Dennis looks for, so it can really get
Speaker 1: him going, get him in a rhythm very quickly. This
Speaker 1: would be the perfect team for him, but you know,
Speaker 1: you don't know. There's like eight games left and the
Speaker 1: standings are all all bunched together, so we really don't know.
Speaker 1: But it would be a ferrict team for him to
Speaker 1: kind of come back from, get his legs back from,
Speaker 1: get his jumper going again, because he was playing well
Speaker 1: until he came out so this and he was carrying
Speaker 1: the team. He kept them afloat while Lebron and A
Speaker 1: D were out. Um, and maybe this is good rest
Speaker 1: for him, like Lebron and eight he got. But we'll
Speaker 1: see it. It's tough to lose your starting point guard though,
Speaker 1: two weeks before or three weeks before the playoffs start.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just that's just really tough. But that's
Speaker 1: how this season has gone. Oh man, Like, what what
Speaker 1: a weird roller coaster? Today has been? Like waking up
Speaker 1: to the terrible Schroder news, finding out that Lebron really
Speaker 1: is having ankle Payne like it was, it was as
Speaker 1: low as I can remember in this last two years,
Speaker 1: and then they finished the night looking like every bit
Speaker 1: like a team that if you throw Lebron and then
Speaker 1: Mix is probably the title favorites. Like, that's that's how quickly,
Speaker 1: that's how quickly things turned around. But hey, let's get
Speaker 1: a couple of let's get a couple of guests up here,
Speaker 1: and then let's call it at night. Roger and I
Speaker 1: are gonna be doing a lot more of these, and
Speaker 1: if they run this late, we probably won't try to
Speaker 1: go too long. But you know, part of the reason
Speaker 1: why we do this is we want to get you
Speaker 1: guys on board. Let's see. I'm gonna start with I
Speaker 1: think this is g that maning to hear us? Yeah,
Speaker 1: can y'all hear me? Yes, sir? What's going on? Man?
Speaker 1: Nothing much? Finally a good win here. But what I
Speaker 1: want to ask you guys, pinky backing off the THHD thing,
Speaker 1: what do you think the rotation is gonna be cut too?
Speaker 1: Because you know, West was huge, because Saul was huge,
Speaker 1: and when a Shooter and eight Shooter and Lebrons are back,
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't have all of them playing because
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna cut it too. What like ten eleven,
Speaker 1: So I just want your thoughts on that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's gonna be a matchup dependent most likely.
Speaker 1: I mean, like to me, in the playoffs, the Vets
Speaker 1: are gonna play like I feel like West Marcus all
Speaker 1: those guys are gonna play more. Right now, th HD
Speaker 1: is getting a lot of minutes. Especially how's the ball handler.
Speaker 1: I just I just don't see him being in that
Speaker 1: role in the playoffs, and they're gonna throw them in
Speaker 1: see if it if it works when the playoffs, to
Speaker 1: possessions just matters so much more, right, Like every possession matters,
Speaker 1: and it just you just can't have these kind of
Speaker 1: turn homes and stuff. So I think that's will be
Speaker 1: cut too. But the Lakers, they have a deep team,
Speaker 1: deep roster. Everyone's going to be expecting minutes. So that's
Speaker 1: that's a tough part of this. But I think everyone
Speaker 1: getting minutes now allows Bogo to kind of pick and
Speaker 1: choose who he wants to play when the playoffs started. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think you saw today to just in
Speaker 1: the second half, like there's a lot less in Montrez
Speaker 1: and you know, I think, uh he actually went to
Speaker 1: Caruso instead of th HT down the stretch, and then
Speaker 1: when Crusoe started to struggle to create offense, he went
Speaker 1: back to th HD for a couple of possessions. That
Speaker 1: was kind of the interesting back and forth he was
Speaker 1: having tonight. But that means Vogel views th HT as
Speaker 1: is one of his offensive creators, and right now, for
Speaker 1: a game like tonight, the offensive creator depth chart was thin.
Speaker 1: They didn't have Lebron and Dennis there, so he needed
Speaker 1: th h T more. But t is gonna fall the
Speaker 1: fourth on that depth chart pretty quickly, if not fifth,
Speaker 1: if he has Alex Crusoe ahead of him. So it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where I think he's the obvious squeeze.
Speaker 1: And then if you're gonna play Gassault and he has
Speaker 1: some clear loyalty to playing Drummond, then Tres is an
Speaker 1: obvious squeeze. And then the other one to pay attention
Speaker 1: to is Markief, who just can't hit the side of
Speaker 1: a barn with a jump shot lately. Um that that's
Speaker 1: starting to to to become a bit of a problem,
Speaker 1: um And I'm hoping that that that rectifies, because he
Speaker 1: was one of their best shooters in the post season
Speaker 1: last year. But I mean, those are the three names
Speaker 1: that come to mind to me Keith, tres And and
Speaker 1: th Hd as guys that will probably fall out of
Speaker 1: the rotation when when all hands are on deck. So
Speaker 1: for mcilmore because I know he hasn't been utilized as
Speaker 1: well when Lebron was in, because I think Frank brought
Speaker 1: him in when he pulled Lebron, which like doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense at all. And I know his defense is a
Speaker 1: little bit shaky, but when you have him, you know,
Speaker 1: with a b out there, I think it's fine. Do
Speaker 1: you see any way of him falling out a little bit?
Speaker 1: But I think he has three point not making. He's
Speaker 1: probably needed the most. Yeah, Like I think Jason's higher
Speaker 1: on Ben Malgimore than I am. Uh, Like, I do
Speaker 1: think they needed shooting, like he's an unconscious shooter, and
Speaker 1: the Lakers like really need that. They don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of guys that kind of take threes like that
Speaker 1: where they don't even have to. He doesn't even have
Speaker 1: to be open, right, Like he thinks every shot is
Speaker 1: a good shot for him, which has its good and bad.
Speaker 1: But it's just like his defense. He needs to be
Speaker 1: playing with Lebron, right, That's who needs to play next
Speaker 1: to he'll get good looks there and then he can survive,
Speaker 1: like if he's playing with the starters, playing next to
Speaker 1: a D I just don't like him in that all
Speaker 1: second unit, Like he plays a lot of minutes with
Speaker 1: like all of our worst defenders together would be like
Speaker 1: it was like thht Ben Malcolmore treads Markie Moore's right,
Speaker 1: Like that's just a line of where he's just not
Speaker 1: going to be good at and he's gonna be guarding
Speaker 1: people that you know are good score so that I
Speaker 1: think he'll play in the playoffs though, Like I think
Speaker 1: he'll get minutes, but he'll be I think he'll be
Speaker 1: a lot more situational. Um. Yeah, so that's why I
Speaker 1: think of Ben Malkimore. Yeah, I think so. Two. I
Speaker 1: think there was a lot of debate going on with
Speaker 1: Ben Malcamore today on it or um. You know, like
Speaker 1: if you look at his numbers, it's a lot of
Speaker 1: bad stuff defensively, but the ones that were lining is
Speaker 1: it's been good with lebron Um. I think they have
Speaker 1: about thirty minutes together so far, and in the UH
Speaker 1: maybe a less than that, maybe like fifteen. I can't remember.
Speaker 1: They have some amount of minutes together so far, and
Speaker 1: in those minutes they've defended extremely well. The defensive braining
Speaker 1: is about one oh three, and they've scored the ball
Speaker 1: at a crazy rate, about a hundred and thirty three
Speaker 1: points per one Hunter possessions. And you know, it's a
Speaker 1: no brainer. It's a it's an archetype of basketball player
Speaker 1: that Lebron is one with throughout his entire career. I
Speaker 1: think Jr. Smith, think Kyle Korver, even Ray Allen there
Speaker 1: towards the end wasn't as good defensively as he used
Speaker 1: to be Lebron. Lebron as a back line communicator can
Speaker 1: help guys who have, you know, a little bit of
Speaker 1: a space case attitude on defense and on the other end,
Speaker 1: can get them wide open looks so that they can
Speaker 1: capitalize in their value. And so I tend to think
Speaker 1: that it's too early to give up on McLemore, even
Speaker 1: though he's had some struggles, because he really is a
Speaker 1: player that you need a Lebron type to really unlock him.
Speaker 1: And to Rodge's point, like it's like the rising tide
Speaker 1: that floats all boats if you put if you put
Speaker 1: Ben McLamore with crazy bench lineups that don't have a
Speaker 1: ton of talent, like it's kind of setting him up
Speaker 1: to fail a little bit. All right, Well, yeah, thank
Speaker 1: you all for answering that. I don't want to take
Speaker 1: up too much time for him people to speak, so
Speaker 1: I'll have off this, but thank you too. I see
Speaker 1: you'll later. Thank you. All Right, let's get another one
Speaker 1: in here. Let's see what we got. Let's try t Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's up? Um? Well, obviously Lakers, you know, close win,
Speaker 1: close win against Nuggets. But my question is that I'm
Speaker 1: just you know, I've been watching a few of the
Speaker 1: Lakers games, you know, against the Raptors, um against the
Speaker 1: King Sacrament Kings, and you know, my issues just with
Speaker 1: with Andre Drummond and Ga saw minutes, you know, like
Speaker 1: you know, you see you see what Marcusol did throughout
Speaker 1: the whole game. He you know, space to you know,
Speaker 1: spaces for folk floor. You know, made some playmaking you know,
Speaker 1: uh assist and all that. But when you see you know,
Speaker 1: Andre Drummond, you know, floppy plays, always creating turnovers. But
Speaker 1: my my question is like when it but from from
Speaker 1: from now on or when it comes to the playoffs
Speaker 1: playoff time, do you think um um vocal, do you
Speaker 1: think Vocos should start um Gassol then Drummond because I
Speaker 1: believe I believe he should, to be honest, got that's
Speaker 1: that's my question. You're preaching to the choirer T Like
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been preaching. I've been preaching because like
Speaker 1: I don't know what because they I was watching the
Speaker 1: fourth to fourth quarter, and you know, I was Gasol
Speaker 1: was planning. You saw the Lakers were making creating, shots,
Speaker 1: were making shots were falling in and that. But when
Speaker 1: you bring in drumming in the game, somehow, some way,
Speaker 1: the Nuggets they come crawling back, and I'm like, what
Speaker 1: the hell is vocal doing? Bro? We were we here?
Speaker 1: You man? I think I think we're Roger and I
Speaker 1: both agree that like, uh, that we think that Gasol
Speaker 1: is the obvious option as a starter, but that you
Speaker 1: don't give up on Drummond either. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, like Frank has shown a tendency, just
Speaker 1: like he did with Javeil last year, that when push
Speaker 1: comes to shove in the postseason moment, that he is
Speaker 1: willing to make those adjustments, those tough calls that make
Speaker 1: a guy after, you know, sit on the bench, after
Speaker 1: he played a lot throughout the season, and so I'm
Speaker 1: not worried about that specific decision being made. What about you,
Speaker 1: rog Yeah, T Like what I would say is like,
Speaker 1: if you remember last year, like Javal was on the side,
Speaker 1: was on the other side. He was on the other
Speaker 1: side tonight, but he started every single game right um
Speaker 1: last year. And that's how I would picture Andre Drummond,
Speaker 1: Like he's in that role. He's in that role to
Speaker 1: like bang around with fives in the regular season so
Speaker 1: that a D doesn't have to take those matchups, take
Speaker 1: some weird shots, eat possessions right where um where there's
Speaker 1: nothing going, they just throw it to him and he
Speaker 1: gets a shot up instead of getting a turnover. Like
Speaker 1: that's why I see. That's how I see him in
Speaker 1: Gasol will be in that Dwight Howard roll right, that
Speaker 1: former Defensive Player of the Year, the guy you can
Speaker 1: you know, lean on for his experience and stuff. And
Speaker 1: maybe he'll start some games, maybe he won't, Maybe they'll
Speaker 1: start a D at the five, But that's how I
Speaker 1: see I don't think again, I don't think Drummond is
Speaker 1: going to be a big part of like whether we
Speaker 1: win or lose the title here. I really don't. I
Speaker 1: think it'll be a lot of the stalls. So maybe
Speaker 1: this is just being wishful thinking. I don't know. They
Speaker 1: might start drumming game one of the playoffs, who knows,
Speaker 1: But I just think like Vogel has has shown in
Speaker 1: the past that he won't if the matchups needed that
Speaker 1: he won't. Right. He started Marti Morris in the second
Speaker 1: round against Houston UM and I think against Portland he
Speaker 1: also bench Jabail in the finals. Jabil and Dwight. I
Speaker 1: don't think play JaVale at least didn't play a single
Speaker 1: minute and in those first few games. So that's how
Speaker 1: I say, like I wouldn't, I wouldn't stress too much
Speaker 1: about that. I mean it pisces me off man. You
Speaker 1: see what Mark you saw? You saw what you saw
Speaker 1: did tonight, like you know anytimes Secul saw the way
Speaker 1: he's playing this And I'm thinking to so, why is
Speaker 1: Frank Vogel point and giving one minutes to drumming who
Speaker 1: does nothing? Like literally does nothing. All I see is
Speaker 1: him posting up, him him not rebounding the ball. But
Speaker 1: when I see the saw, he's making the plays. He's
Speaker 1: making the plays, And you know, I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know what Vank Frank Vogel is no one man,
Speaker 1: But I mean, I mean I'm not I'm not worried
Speaker 1: like all, but the Lakers, to be honest, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's like, I don't know how many games it's left,
Speaker 1: like seven games, but like I mean, they I don't
Speaker 1: want to see him in the playing tournament, to be honest,
Speaker 1: I as don't. But I mean hopefully, you know, they
Speaker 1: can figure this out and uh, you know, hopefully we
Speaker 1: can get another trip. Yh yeah, we we agree with you.
Speaker 1: Te hey man, thanks for hopping on. We appreciating thank you.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's do one more and get out of here.
Speaker 1: Let's give Mr David up here. We lose David. All right,
Speaker 1: let's try another one. Let's do Daniel. Hello, can you
Speaker 1: hear me? Hey, guys, like your nation, what's up. We're
Speaker 1: feeling a little bit better tonight. Absolutely. I think that
Speaker 1: was a much needed win for everyone. And the only
Speaker 1: thing I would really like to say is overall, to
Speaker 1: not really freak out. I think now is a little
Speaker 1: bit too early to get worried, but maybe it's okay
Speaker 1: to be a bit nervous, just kind of the Lakers overall,
Speaker 1: you know, mm hmm, yeah, everything's go ahead. Rush. I
Speaker 1: would say, what makes you what makes you most nervous, Like,
Speaker 1: what's making you the most nervous um, So the high
Speaker 1: ankle spring is what's really making me nervous because that
Speaker 1: takes just so long to recover from and it's not
Speaker 1: something that you can really like speed up with a
Speaker 1: ton of physical thing arapy. You just kind of have
Speaker 1: to let it heal on its own. So that's a
Speaker 1: huge drag. Fortunately, Anthony Davis is looking a lot better,
Speaker 1: and I think the last hurdle he needs to overcome
Speaker 1: from returning his injury is just that mental hurdle, and
Speaker 1: him getting a lot of minutes tonight makes me feel
Speaker 1: better with that, So overall, I think things are going
Speaker 1: to be okay. I agree you man. I've talked a
Speaker 1: lot about the mental hurdle when it comes to these injuries.
Speaker 1: I broke my foot in between my first and second
Speaker 1: year playing college ball, and like I it took me
Speaker 1: like six months to trust taking off of that foot again.
Speaker 1: And I think I think when you factor in the
Speaker 1: fact that it's his achilles, I think it gets a
Speaker 1: little a little bit even more nerve wracking. That's scary.
Speaker 1: But what's nice is you know, just by virtue of
Speaker 1: the threat of the competition tonight, he rose to the
Speaker 1: occasion and he forced he was forced to trust it
Speaker 1: and uh and it held up for him. And so
Speaker 1: I think that helps to build a little bit more
Speaker 1: confidence overall in terms of feeling nervous about this team,
Speaker 1: everything's about the margin for error. Like last year there
Speaker 1: just wasn't this outstanding threat other than maybe the Clippers
Speaker 1: out there. But this season it's like, man like, Denver
Speaker 1: looked really good before the Lakers man handled him tonight.
Speaker 1: The Clippers look really good. Phoenix and Utah both look
Speaker 1: really good. The Brooklyn is this behemoth out east. If
Speaker 1: they can get healthy, that could be a gigantic problem
Speaker 1: in terms why would they stop Anthony Davis and Lebron
Speaker 1: from getting to the rack or for that matter, I'd
Speaker 1: love to see the Milwaukee Brooklyn series. What are they
Speaker 1: gonna do with you? Honest, I don't know. No, I agree,
Speaker 1: And and that's the thing is like then also Milwaukee
Speaker 1: and Hilling, So is that these huge challenges, And so
Speaker 1: I think being nervous normal. That's just a reaction to
Speaker 1: the fact that the league is so unbelievably talented right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just speaking to the Lebron point, like, I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone knows their body better than Lebron, like you should,
Speaker 1: he said, he kind of rushed back a little bit,
Speaker 1: but I'm rewatching that. Like Toronto game, I thought he
Speaker 1: was moving pretty fine on both ends. He was hitting
Speaker 1: his jumpers as well. So, like Lebron is the last
Speaker 1: time I'm worried about what this team, Like, I wanted
Speaker 1: to see Anthony Davis, me and Jason wanted to see
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis put up a game like this, and he did,
Speaker 1: and I thought that was the most important thing. We
Speaker 1: can't really predict how Lebron will play, but like just
Speaker 1: watching his playoffs, um, I don't know who else is
Speaker 1: right now as well. So a lot of teams are
Speaker 1: banged up, a lot of teams are gonna have to
Speaker 1: fight through this. This is a really tough schedule that's
Speaker 1: been put out. All teams are going through hell of
Speaker 1: a schedule. So maybe it's just the healthiest team that
Speaker 1: will win. But I like your point about like Brooklyn
Speaker 1: and all these teams have like flaws right that they're
Speaker 1: gonna have to go through. I don't know what Brooklyn's
Speaker 1: answer for a guy like nice is. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's Blake Griffin, Like, I don't think that's the answer
Speaker 1: for him. Um, So it's gonna be it's gonna be
Speaker 1: like really interesting to see. And and the Lakers have
Speaker 1: two really big trump cards A D and Lebron are
Speaker 1: to the best cards you want going into the playoffs,
Speaker 1: So that that's thing that you can make you calm
Speaker 1: all that chemistry and stuff that those are real concerns,
Speaker 1: like chemistry with the team and getting enough reps with
Speaker 1: this with the guys. That's when I'm most nervous about.
Speaker 1: But I don't think I'm nervous about Lebron, right, Jason
Speaker 1: Lebron probably would be fine. I think he's he's a
Speaker 1: guy I'm least nervous about in the playoffs. Yep. Agree.
Speaker 1: As we mentioned earlier, I just he's less dependent on
Speaker 1: his physical gifts at this phase of his career. Um,
Speaker 1: I should say strictly just his mobility. He's a little
Speaker 1: bit more dependent on his strength, size, and his brain,
Speaker 1: which allows him to kind of compensate for some of
Speaker 1: his uh you know, physical issues dealing with the injury, Daniel,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming out, man. We really appreciate you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys made tremendous points, and I thank you. Guys
Speaker 1: have been doing a really good job, so thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. Appreciate Thank you. Let's give David one last
Speaker 1: chance real quickly before we call it a night, and
Speaker 1: he bounced out again. I don't know what's going on
Speaker 1: with that, all right, everybody, Well, we'll try to call
Speaker 1: it just because it's already eleven o'clock. Um, but we
Speaker 1: really appreciate you guys supporting us as always. Um My
Speaker 1: guesses we'll do another one of these on Thursday after
Speaker 1: the Lakers hopefully beat the Clippers, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: do my best. Oh, David, we get you. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can hear what we can hear you. What's going on?
Speaker 1: What's going on with fellas well? I think you kind
Speaker 1: of touched on it, uh in the last one. But
Speaker 1: I was just wondering with Lebron coming back from the
Speaker 1: ankle injury and then Schroulder possibly being out to like
Speaker 1: maybe the first round, like you guys said, are you
Speaker 1: guys worried about like the ball handling like in the
Speaker 1: first round the playoffs, especially like after what happened with
Speaker 1: like Tatum, how he said he has to have like
Speaker 1: an inhaler and stuff. I feel like shoulder is not
Speaker 1: to be like going into the first round. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I feel like th ht s are only option behind
Speaker 1: Lebron If that's the case, Yeah, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: scary thought. I think that really depends on the team.
Speaker 1: Like if we're playing the Clippers in the first round,
Speaker 1: that's a big worry of mine because they're the ball
Speaker 1: pressure a law and and Lebron's gonna need another ball handler, especially,
Speaker 1: but against a team like Denver, I think Shrewder can
Speaker 1: kind of work his way back, and you know what
Speaker 1: covid that that's scary, Like we don't know how he's
Speaker 1: going to come back. Hopefully he comes back, but he's
Speaker 1: gonna get a lot of time. He's gonna get two
Speaker 1: weeks here for sure out and hopefully he can kind
Speaker 1: of build back slowly while the Lakers get some wins.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's definitely a concern. We saw tonight. I
Speaker 1: mean t ht was running that second unit for a while.
Speaker 1: It did not look good. But I think that's what
Speaker 1: I think that's where gasol comes in, right, Like you
Speaker 1: have another laymaker that that you can give the ball to. Again,
Speaker 1: I call him like a release vout because give him
Speaker 1: the ball at the top of the key. They're not
Speaker 1: going to ball pressure him out there because he's Marcus
Speaker 1: al so he can kind of playmate from there. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm definitely concerned though with the ball handler and give
Speaker 1: shrewders out and not himself. I think shrewder is absolutely
Speaker 1: necessary to be the corp person whoever comes out of
Speaker 1: the East. But the Lakers have an ability to win
Speaker 1: basketball games with Lebron being their only really good primary
Speaker 1: ball handler. I mean, depending on how you felt about
Speaker 1: Rondo last year. Uh. The point being like, I think
Speaker 1: they can beat Denver, for instance, without without Schroeder. They
Speaker 1: just need to get him healthy in time for whenever
Speaker 1: the Clippers come around. But yeah, as far as you know,
Speaker 1: the high ankle spring goes for Lebron, just like we
Speaker 1: were saying earlier, like you just he I would rather
Speaker 1: have Anthony Davis at his peak physical form because of
Speaker 1: what they need from him defensively, and let Lebron play
Speaker 1: old man ball, like if he needs to post up
Speaker 1: all the time and and do whatever it would use
Speaker 1: his strength as opposed to his mobility to gain an advantage,
Speaker 1: then that's what they gotta do. Um. But at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, like uh he, whenever you're listing
Speaker 1: worries for the Lakers, I think Lebron should be pretty
Speaker 1: low towards the bottom of that list for sure, right right, right, Well,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys. Thanks, all right, alright, guys, So yeah,
Speaker 1: the stay tuned for Thursday, and I'm gonna try to
Speaker 1: throw this thing together and get it on the podcast
Speaker 1: either here in a little bit tonight or first thing
Speaker 1: tomorrow morning. Thanks as always for your support. Rise. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you as well, man, and I will see you
Speaker 1: guys soon. Thanks everyone, I appreciate it. B Bye.