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Speaker 1: in West Virginia. Yeah, I'm happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope
Speaker 1: all of you guys are having a great week so far.
Speaker 1: Gonna keep it really simple tonight. You're gonna talk Clippers, Lakers,
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna talk Nick's nets. You guys know
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Speaker 1: get your podcasts under Hoops tonight, So I gotta start
Speaker 1: with the Clippers. Obviously, as per my rule, with a win,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna talk too much about them, because I
Speaker 1: did just dive into a bunch of Clippers stuff last
Speaker 1: night talking about their win um over the Cleveland Cavaliers
Speaker 1: on Monday. But it starts and ends with Paul George,
Speaker 1: to be honest, he You know, the Clippers in general
Speaker 1: struggled a lot offensively to start the season, and they're
Speaker 1: starting to trend in the right direction now in large
Speaker 1: part because of how damn good Paul George is and
Speaker 1: him playing better basketball. He had a really weird start
Speaker 1: to the season. I think four of his first five
Speaker 1: games he had like sixteen points or fewer, was not
Speaker 1: being aggressive to the basket. And remember that was the
Speaker 1: big turnaround for Paul George's career. He had this weird
Speaker 1: stretch where he lost like five consecutive playoff series, and
Speaker 1: then the player you saw in playoffs looked like a
Speaker 1: top ten player in this league, in a bona fide superstar.
Speaker 1: And I talked to you guys yesterday or yeah yesterday
Speaker 1: about Monday Night's game, about how Paul George, when he's
Speaker 1: playing like this, which is the combination of shot making
Speaker 1: with downhill, getting to the rim and finishing at a
Speaker 1: high rate which puts pressure on the defense that allows
Speaker 1: him to have more flexibility to get to his jump shot,
Speaker 1: that he's a onna fied superstar because how good he
Speaker 1: is defensively. And he made a game winner against the
Speaker 1: Calves that really overshadowed what was the real game winner
Speaker 1: in that game, which was him making a defensive play
Speaker 1: at the rim against Jared Allen. You know, he's got
Speaker 1: his rim finishing in this recent stretch back up to
Speaker 1: where it needs to be. He's shooting lights out from
Speaker 1: everywhere on the floor. He's in high forties on like
Speaker 1: eleven plus pull up jump shot attempts per game. You
Speaker 1: saw that again tonight as he routinely knocked down shot
Speaker 1: after shot after shot over the top of excellent Laker defense,
Speaker 1: and it led the way for the Clippers. But as
Speaker 1: you go down the roster, that's where you see the
Speaker 1: difference between these two teams because Lebron James also had
Speaker 1: a great offensive game, and the two secondary creators in
Speaker 1: this situation the Lakers Anthony Davis and for the Clippers,
Speaker 1: Reggie Jackson had pretty rough nights compared to the way
Speaker 1: that they normally play. We'll get a little bit more
Speaker 1: into Anthony Davis later, but as it turns out, basketball's
Speaker 1: five on five sports, and you're gonna play probably maybe
Speaker 1: even eleven guys in a rotation on any given night,
Speaker 1: and because of the way the game is now, all
Speaker 1: those guys are gonna have the basketball in their hands
Speaker 1: at various points during the game. And what you saw
Speaker 1: in this game was a massive chasm and offensive skill
Speaker 1: level between the supporting players for the Clippers and the
Speaker 1: supporting players for the Lakers. There's a stretch there in
Speaker 1: the believe it was in the third quarter, or Marcus
Speaker 1: Morris with his aggressive spot up shooting. I talk a
Speaker 1: lot about that, the difference between you know, Austin Reeves
Speaker 1: and Patrick Beverley pump baking every time they catch on
Speaker 1: the perimeter versus a guy like Marcus Morris, where you
Speaker 1: close out on him and sometimes you'll just shoot right
Speaker 1: over the top of you which adds to his gravity,
Speaker 1: and that level of confidence allows him to knock down
Speaker 1: shots at a higher level. When you're pumped baking at
Speaker 1: everything than the one you do shoot, you don't feel
Speaker 1: really great about. But you're getting high level spot up
Speaker 1: shooting from Marcus Morris. A little to a post mismatch
Speaker 1: tacking there too, although that's not the way he was
Speaker 1: playing tonight. John Wall had little bursts. He had a
Speaker 1: big three couple uh lightning quick drives to the basket
Speaker 1: to score um. Just when you're stagnant at various points
Speaker 1: in the game, having a backup guard that can create
Speaker 1: like that, that's an advantage there. At the I believe
Speaker 1: it was at the start of the fourth quarter, Norman
Speaker 1: Powell just hit a heater, hitting pull up jump shots,
Speaker 1: coming over the top of all screens and like and
Speaker 1: and carried the Clippers offensively for a few minutes during
Speaker 1: the game. And then you got like Zoobas hitting a key,
Speaker 1: Malajuan moves on on uh Anthony Davis scoring in the
Speaker 1: post and bullying him on the offensive glass. He flat
Speaker 1: out just outplayed Anthony Davis in the second half of
Speaker 1: this game. That's what you're getting from like you're from
Speaker 1: a player that's not one of your two best players.
Speaker 1: And then Luke Kennard obviously, I don't think I've seen
Speaker 1: him miss a wide open three ever in my entire life.
Speaker 1: And then I go over to the Lakers, and yeah,
Speaker 1: there was like a little stretch there in the third
Speaker 1: quarter where Troy Brown Jr. Made some plays and nifty
Speaker 1: little left handed reverse layup or a pull up jumper
Speaker 1: attacking off of the left wing. But you're not getting
Speaker 1: those little bursts of high level basketball. And from the
Speaker 1: supporting players on the Lakers. Where's the heater that Austin
Speaker 1: Reaves catches, Where's the heater that Patrick Beverley catches, Where's
Speaker 1: the heater you know that Max Christie catches, or any
Speaker 1: of these guys. They're not capable of that. And that's
Speaker 1: just the reality of their roster construction at this point.
Speaker 1: And and again, like we're gonna get back to that
Speaker 1: in a minute, because I think tonight in particular, we've
Speaker 1: got to look at Anthony Davis and generally the dynamic
Speaker 1: between Lebron James and Anthony Davis, and they're inconsistent play.
Speaker 1: But as it pertains to the Clippers, that's why it's
Speaker 1: important to construct your roster in that way. It's not
Speaker 1: just their switchy wings and everything they can do defensively,
Speaker 1: and they're one of the best defensive teams in the league.
Speaker 1: They have guys down the roster that can do things
Speaker 1: with the basketball when you give them an opportunity to,
Speaker 1: especially when the defensive scheme is geared in a way
Speaker 1: that you're chasing Reggie Jackson over the top of ball
Speaker 1: screens and crawling him in the paint, and there's just
Speaker 1: openings in the like all game long, Lakers helping out
Speaker 1: of that strong side corner, as the Clippers ball handlers
Speaker 1: coming off of that left wing getting downhill, they're helping
Speaker 1: out of the right corner, which is the easiest kick
Speaker 1: out in basketball. And those are good basketball players over
Speaker 1: there that are going to make those shots. But those
Speaker 1: guys are all equipped to capitalize on the attention that
Speaker 1: their two primary creators create, whereas with the Lakers and
Speaker 1: Lebron James and Anthony Davis are not blameless this season,
Speaker 1: which we're about to talk about, but you're not getting
Speaker 1: nearly enough down the roster. In that case, it's the
Speaker 1: most underrated thing that was glossed over in the Russell
Speaker 1: Westbrook trade is just how important Kyle Kuzma was and
Speaker 1: his aggressive spot up shooting and his ability to cut
Speaker 1: to the basket, and is his occasional mismatch attacking and
Speaker 1: his ability to get out in transition. The the role
Speaker 1: that Kyle that can Tabio is called a pope played
Speaker 1: in transition, running the floor for layups in corner threes.
Speaker 1: You know what he did in general spot up shooting.
Speaker 1: You of the role that Alex Caruso played as a cutter,
Speaker 1: and he shot forty from three in his last season
Speaker 1: with the Lakers. Everything that those guys did was immensely
Speaker 1: important to what Lebron James and Anthony Davis did on
Speaker 1: a nightly basis. And instead you traded that all for
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook, who has played all of about ten good
Speaker 1: games since he put on the Laker jersey. And that
Speaker 1: and that, that's where you run into this talent deficit
Speaker 1: that's hurting you on a night and night out basis.
Speaker 1: But I didn't want to spend a couple of minutes
Speaker 1: talking about Lebron James Anthony Davis because Lebron finally got
Speaker 1: going tonight, which we assumed that he would like Lebron
Speaker 1: has been a great jump shooter pretty much since two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen. You know, like he's had a couple of
Speaker 1: bad seasons and there, but for the most part, from
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen on, Lebron James is a reliable jump shooter,
Speaker 1: both off the dribble and off the catch, but especially
Speaker 1: off the dribble over the course of the last five
Speaker 1: years or so. And he couldn't make a damn shot
Speaker 1: to start the year. But you could see that for
Speaker 1: what it was. He started the season in a slump,
Speaker 1: and then he got sick. Then he came back against
Speaker 1: the Calves and it looked like his legs were back
Speaker 1: underneath him. He was finishing around the rim better, and
Speaker 1: you just felt like he was trending in the right direction.
Speaker 1: The good Lebron, the good Lebron game was coming. We
Speaker 1: assumed it would. But of course, on this particular night,
Speaker 1: after Lebron gets going, Anthony Davis plays what I thought
Speaker 1: was his worst game of the season. He got bracketed
Speaker 1: in the post. Of what that means is they're fronting
Speaker 1: him on one side and then they're offering week side
Speaker 1: help directly under the basket to dissuade that over the
Speaker 1: top past. It's the exact same scheme that Miami used
Speaker 1: to shut down Joel Embiad in the second round of
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference playoffs last year. But here's the thing,
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis. That means you don't get to touch the
Speaker 1: ball in the post tonight, Okay, or at least not often.
Speaker 1: This might not be the game where you score in
Speaker 1: the post. But what's you haven't been a great post
Speaker 1: player this year. That's just the reality. What's your elite skill?
Speaker 1: Your elite skill is I've been calling you the best
Speaker 1: defensive player in basketball this year and the early season
Speaker 1: favorite for Defensive Player of the Year. That's what you
Speaker 1: do best. You clean up everybody else's messes. And I
Speaker 1: thought he did the bare minimum defensively tonight. He did
Speaker 1: maybe the base concept of his role in the scheme,
Speaker 1: but he made no attempt to go out of his
Speaker 1: area to clean up other people's messes. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's because he was pouting because of the bracketing,
Speaker 1: or if he was just having a bad night, or
Speaker 1: whatever the deal was, but he wasn't nearly good enough
Speaker 1: with what the Lakers needed from him to do. In
Speaker 1: this particular matchup with the way that the Clippers regarding him.
Speaker 1: Then in addition to that, he just got straight up
Speaker 1: out worked by Zoobots almost every time down the floor,
Speaker 1: being bullied for offensive rebound position, but Zobach just going
Speaker 1: at him in the post like Zubatch is a is
Speaker 1: a master of post positioning. And I've talked about this
Speaker 1: a lot on the show. Uh Yokich is the best
Speaker 1: in the world at this particular thing. But it's about
Speaker 1: understanding angles and understanding what your advantage is. Zuba does
Speaker 1: nothing as well as Anthony Davis except for the fact
Speaker 1: that he's a little bit stronger, probably right, a little
Speaker 1: bit bigger, a little bit stronger, So he knows that
Speaker 1: if he can just work angles and when Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: is leaning too hard to the right, pivot to the left,
Speaker 1: and me when he's leaning to hard to the left,
Speaker 1: pivot to the right. When he can work those angles
Speaker 1: against Anthony Davis, he can punish him. But Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: can make up for that a million times over if
Speaker 1: he just works hard, because he's a better athlete with
Speaker 1: longer arms, and he can recover lost ground. But he
Speaker 1: was losing that battle and the Lakers are not gonna
Speaker 1: win many basketball games when Anthony Davis is losing to
Speaker 1: a mid level center in this league. That's a problem.
Speaker 1: That's a real problem. And here's the thing. The Lakers
Speaker 1: are two and nine and their roster limitations. They've absolutely
Speaker 1: contributed to that. Like we just talked about, if Troy
Speaker 1: Brown Jr. Is the only guy that can make offensive
Speaker 1: plays off of Lebron James and Anthony Davis, that's a
Speaker 1: big problem. But they shouldn't be two and nine. They
Speaker 1: should be something closer to four and seven, five and six.
Speaker 1: They should be afloat. But instead they're spiraling into nothing.
Speaker 1: And the main reason why is there two best players
Speaker 1: the guys that this entire roster is catered around. That
Speaker 1: that that this I shouldn't say it's catered around that
Speaker 1: the roster is dependent on those two guys haven't held
Speaker 1: up their end of the bargain. When Anthony Davis has
Speaker 1: been great, Lebron hasn't. When Lebron has been great, Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis hasn't. And during the season when they won the trophy,
Speaker 1: every single night you could count on those two. You know,
Speaker 1: Lebron hasn't been a great season for him by any
Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination. But I had a feeling he
Speaker 1: would get it going, and I have a feeling he's
Speaker 1: gonna go on a little bit of a run here,
Speaker 1: especially as their schedule lightens up, and he's gonna play
Speaker 1: some better basketball outside of the season. I have no
Speaker 1: feel for what I'm gonna get from Anthony Davis on
Speaker 1: a nightly basis, if it if there's a big game
Speaker 1: on the schedule, I couldn't tell you if he's gonna
Speaker 1: play well or not. And that didn't used to be
Speaker 1: the case, and that and that's pretty discouraging. But like,
Speaker 1: until those two guys figure their thing out to where
Speaker 1: they both can consistently play well in a nightly basis,
Speaker 1: there there there's no point to any of this. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, in terms of planning,
Speaker 1: they do have to plan as though those guys will
Speaker 1: eventually figure it out. One of the note there, it
Speaker 1: looks like Lebron might have tweaked his growing a little bit.
Speaker 1: They're calling it left legs sore nous. Who knows. I
Speaker 1: wasn't overly concerned by it because it looked like you
Speaker 1: didn't really react to the injury until several seconds after
Speaker 1: the actual play or so if it was like a
Speaker 1: pop or a pull or something more serious, you probably
Speaker 1: feel it immediately. UM on the move, but who knows.
Speaker 1: We won't have any intel on that for a little while,
Speaker 1: um And And as soon as we find out, we
Speaker 1: can react to that as that goes. But I did
Speaker 1: it didn't look like anything overly serious. But at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, like the Lakers, you know you
Speaker 1: don't I always talked about you don't have um and
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis and Lebron James. Team missed the playoffs in
Speaker 1: a league that has twenty of the thirty teams make
Speaker 1: the playoffs unless a whole bunch of things go wrong.
Speaker 1: And we're seeing that again. You don't go two and
Speaker 1: nine with Lebron James and Anthony Davis playing in what
Speaker 1: twenty one of the twenty two available games. That doesn't
Speaker 1: happen unless a whole bunch of things go wrong. And
Speaker 1: it's funny because if you look at the Lakers kind
Speaker 1: of like in different phases of the game, you see
Speaker 1: all these good things, like their defense when they're locked
Speaker 1: in is really good. They went on a defensive run
Speaker 1: in that second quarter that was extremely impressive, flying around
Speaker 1: making extra efforts. Anthony Davis on his good nights has
Speaker 1: looked like a top ten player. Lebron James tonight looked
Speaker 1: like a top ten player. The problem is is none
Speaker 1: of those three things have happened at the same time,
Speaker 1: and if they did, they'd start kicking everybody's ass. But
Speaker 1: they just can't get those three things going together at
Speaker 1: the same time like this is and this is the
Speaker 1: problem with the patient approach because belief starts to fade.
Speaker 1: The Lakers had an outstanding defensive effort in that second quarter,
Speaker 1: but their defensive effort was piss poor in the first quarter.
Speaker 1: They dug themselves a massive hole, and they looked like
Speaker 1: an uninspired team that didn't believe in what they were doing.
Speaker 1: The your hard work has to be rewarded with something.
Speaker 1: For instance, it's like with you guys at your job.
Speaker 1: If you guys take on extra shifts, take on additional responsibility,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, you expect to be rewarded. And if
Speaker 1: you don't get rewarded for it, what are you gonna do.
Speaker 1: You're gonna stop working the extra shifts, You're gonna stop
Speaker 1: taking on the additional responsibility because what's the point you're
Speaker 1: not getting anything out of it. And that's the problem
Speaker 1: with what they did to start the season. Darvin Hamm
Speaker 1: had these guys locked in on the defensive end of
Speaker 1: the floor and they were playing great defense, and they
Speaker 1: went oh and five. They've got nothing for their hard work.
Speaker 1: And so what we've seen over the course of the
Speaker 1: last week two weeks is significant defensive slippage. They're not
Speaker 1: even a top ten defense anymore after being the second
Speaker 1: best defense in the league after seven games or so.
Speaker 1: That's a problem. So what happened is is during that
Speaker 1: initial stretch of the season, you know you weren't talented
Speaker 1: enough to win games, and so teams so the team
Speaker 1: started to let go of the defensive rope. Now Lebron
Speaker 1: James is getting going, but the defense isn't there anymore,
Speaker 1: not consistently enough, right, And and that's the problem with that.
Speaker 1: That whole approach, you sucked belief out of the team
Speaker 1: and you stopped them from building a positive identity. The
Speaker 1: uh the Knicks Nets game, which we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: here in a few minutes, was a blowout and uh Um.
Speaker 1: During the halftime third quarter phase I clicked over to
Speaker 1: Indiana Denver and they almost beat the Nuggets tonight, a
Speaker 1: classic tanking game. Fund for your home crowd, lots of
Speaker 1: good stuff. Your rookie puts up a bunch of points,
Speaker 1: and Ben Mathurin looks really good. By the way. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try to find some time to talk about him
Speaker 1: in the future. Um, but you end up losing, which
Speaker 1: helps you in the standings, which is all that matters
Speaker 1: when you're taking team. But in that game, I'm watching
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter as Buddy heald is flying off
Speaker 1: of multiple a wide pin downs, drawing multiple defenders and
Speaker 1: generating wide open threes, as the Nuggets are having to
Speaker 1: send a third defender over to help on that screening
Speaker 1: curl action Like that's that's something that no Lakers doing.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm watching Miles Turner score out of the
Speaker 1: short roll, get offensive rebounds. He played defense on Yokis
Speaker 1: down the stretch of that game as well as I've
Speaker 1: seen anybody played defense on Yokich. Four stop bunch of me.
Speaker 1: He only scored twice down the stretch of that game.
Speaker 1: It was an offensive rebound on a play where he
Speaker 1: got a stop and one of his teammates didn't box
Speaker 1: out and in the process, he was at a position
Speaker 1: and Yoket's buried him, and then Yokis ended up hitting
Speaker 1: a massive pull up jump shot at the top of
Speaker 1: the key that Turner defended extremely well, but he got
Speaker 1: several stops at one point, I think four stops in
Speaker 1: a row issuing against Yo kitchen crunch time of a
Speaker 1: winnable game, and I'm sitting there and I'm looking at
Speaker 1: this and I'm like, that's a damn good basketball player.
Speaker 1: And Buddy Yield is a damn good basketball player. And
Speaker 1: they both addressed very specific needs for the Lakers right now.
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis can't play at the four. He's only playing
Speaker 1: at the five because the Lakers don't have good enough fives.
Speaker 1: As a result, they're really small on the perimeter and
Speaker 1: they're getting beat up and shot over the top by
Speaker 1: bigger wings everywhere on the floor. Also, Anthony Davis, when
Speaker 1: he has to play center, is expected to do so
Speaker 1: much covering in screens and stuff, and when he loses
Speaker 1: his motor, the Lakers defense completely disappears, like you saw
Speaker 1: tonight against the Clippers. If you put him at the four,
Speaker 1: where he can roam around more, and you put a
Speaker 1: legitimate shot blocking five like Miles Turner next to him.
Speaker 1: He can phase in and out of the game a
Speaker 1: little bit more defensively, and it won't be as detrimental.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, because he's not banging with
Speaker 1: fives all game long. He might have some more energy
Speaker 1: for that sort of thing. He needs to play the
Speaker 1: five a lot, but it shouldn't be the only thing
Speaker 1: that he does. Miles Turner gives you a great mix there.
Speaker 1: It gives you an alternate identity, a big line up
Speaker 1: which the Lakers haven't been able to use all season,
Speaker 1: and he shoots the ball well, makes play at a
Speaker 1: short role, and he can guard Nicola Yokichen in isolation.
Speaker 1: That seems like a really valuable player to me, Buddy Healed.
Speaker 1: I just spent the entire first chunk of this show
Speaker 1: talking about the lack of offensive skill on the perimmeitter
Speaker 1: for the Lakers and the fact that but Lebron James
Speaker 1: and Anthony Davis are kicking the ball out to Patrick
Speaker 1: Beverley and and Troy Brown Jr. And And and Lonnie
Speaker 1: Walker and all these guys that are just pump baking
Speaker 1: at shots and are in there. They're they're not aggressive
Speaker 1: enough or proficient enough to continue to extend the advantage
Speaker 1: and to make plays off of attention directed towards Lebron
Speaker 1: James and Anthony Davis. That's a problem. How nice would
Speaker 1: it be if you slotted you know, Buddy yield into
Speaker 1: that role. Now suddenly you've got a dependable offensive player
Speaker 1: out there, who, by the way, is shooting the ball
Speaker 1: extremely well again this year. And by doing that, you
Speaker 1: slot everybody further down. Now, Austin Reaves, you know, is
Speaker 1: coming off the bench, which I really like Austin Reeves,
Speaker 1: but that's probably where he belongs. You know, I really
Speaker 1: like Troy Brown Jr. But he's probably a bench wing
Speaker 1: the Patrick Beverley because of what he does defensively as
Speaker 1: a starter level NBA player, Buddy Yields, starter level NBA player,
Speaker 1: Lebron James, starter level NBA player, Anthony Davis, starter level
Speaker 1: NBA player, Miles Turner, starter level NBA player. You put
Speaker 1: all your bench guys in bench rolls where they belong.
Speaker 1: Everyone slotted properly, things go up. That deal was on
Speaker 1: the table. Indiana wanted to do it. There's reports out
Speaker 1: that it was Rob Polinka that was like, never mind,
Speaker 1: I want to see them play with Russ for twenty games,
Speaker 1: and this is the problem. You sent them out there
Speaker 1: at a significant talent disadvantage every single night, and as
Speaker 1: a result, they've lost belief. And now they're going into
Speaker 1: an easier stretch of their schedule, and who knows if
Speaker 1: they're playing good enough basketball to win some games, because
Speaker 1: they look like a team that's down in the dumps
Speaker 1: right now. There were multiple multiple reports over the last
Speaker 1: couple of days from both Adrian wars Nawskin Shams Turranio
Speaker 1: that the Lakers are now considering that it may not
Speaker 1: be worth making a trade at all. Whatsoever did I
Speaker 1: tell you guys was gonna happen this summer? I told
Speaker 1: you that that the that my biggest fear is that
Speaker 1: that Rob Polinka and Genie Bus would essentially just be like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's send him out there like this. They'll be terrible
Speaker 1: and then we won't have to make a trade. Because
Speaker 1: the dirty little secret is is that Genie Buss just
Speaker 1: wants to get out of the luxury tax and there's
Speaker 1: all sorts of intel on that front. Hell, the head
Speaker 1: coach literally said so after the last game that they
Speaker 1: can't get out of that that they need to get
Speaker 1: out of the repeater tax. It's just, you know, this
Speaker 1: is the last thing I'll say about it. What Rob
Speaker 1: Polinka and Genie Buss did with this team over the
Speaker 1: last couple of years is going to be studied for
Speaker 1: generations after this. To take literally a team that started
Speaker 1: twenty four and three and then twenty one and six
Speaker 1: the next year after winning a title in convincing fashion,
Speaker 1: never truly being threatened to go from there to two
Speaker 1: and nine with Lebron James and Anthony Davis on the roster,
Speaker 1: because not only did you stop Lebron from making the
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook mistake, you were too prideful or too cheap
Speaker 1: to fix the Russell Westbrook mistake, and you convinced yourself
Speaker 1: that Darvin Hamm would be able to fix it. Darvin
Speaker 1: Ham's done a great job with the Lakers. He can't
Speaker 1: fix this. I see Laker fans complaining about lineups on Twitter.
Speaker 1: What do you expect him to do? Every other team
Speaker 1: in the league has similar speed bumps. Oh this guy
Speaker 1: went cold for a week. Oh, our defense slipped a
Speaker 1: little bit. Oh this guy got hurt and he's out
Speaker 1: for a week. And they stay afloat because the aggregate
Speaker 1: talent on the roster is enough to stay respectable when
Speaker 1: they're dealing with speed bumps. The Lakers hit the slightest
Speaker 1: speed bump and they get blown out because they simply
Speaker 1: don't have enough talent. But we all knew that going
Speaker 1: into this summer, which is why I said that they
Speaker 1: had one thing they needed to accomplish this summer. May
Speaker 1: gave Russell West pork trade that brought back multiple role
Speaker 1: players that could bolster them around Lebron James Anthony Davis.
Speaker 1: They had one job and they didn't do it. They've
Speaker 1: played the toughest schedule in the league to start the season,
Speaker 1: which we all saw when the schedule came out months ago,
Speaker 1: which Robin Blinka saw when they had opportunities to make
Speaker 1: the Pacers trade. They saw the schedule, they knew what
Speaker 1: was going to happen, and they chose to do this anyway.
Speaker 1: And and that's why it's it's we are guys October
Speaker 1: of they hoisted the trophy. It is now November, and
Speaker 1: this team is the worst team in the league potentially.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's genuinely impressive. Alright. On that note, let's
Speaker 1: move to the early game and the Brooklyn Nets might
Speaker 1: be a good basketball team. We're going to be diving
Speaker 1: into the Nets Knicks game tonight. Talk a tiny bit
Speaker 1: of Knicks, not too much of them though, talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about jaque Von and a little bit about
Speaker 1: how Kyrie fits into all of this. We are live
Speaker 1: on AMP. Thank you guys for coming to hang out.
Speaker 1: And for those of you guys who are listening on
Speaker 1: either the podcast feed or on YouTube, remember that AMP
Speaker 1: is the first place where you guys can get these
Speaker 1: instant reaction videos. So this was I'm not gonna talk
Speaker 1: too much about the game itself because it was kind
Speaker 1: of boring, as you guys who watched. No kind of
Speaker 1: a heliocentric clinic from k D as has been the
Speaker 1: case over the course of the last four games to
Speaker 1: alve assists in one turnover. Like I've said, his passing
Speaker 1: has been the most impressive thing to me over this stretch. Uh.
Speaker 1: Seth Curry, who's played a few games for the Nets
Speaker 1: this year, but this was the first time he looked
Speaker 1: like Seth Curry, which is obviously encouraging. And he's such
Speaker 1: He's so important to their offense because he is usually
Speaker 1: the guy who ends up getting left open. With all
Speaker 1: of the stuff that Katie and Kyrie usually have done
Speaker 1: over the years, I have Ben Simmons continued to make
Speaker 1: big momentum plays on the defensive end of the floor,
Speaker 1: although the offensive fit is still a little clunky. And
Speaker 1: then how about Edmund Sumner a career night from him,
Speaker 1: made some threes that's been his biggest weakness in his
Speaker 1: young NBA career, but continues to be fearless attacking the
Speaker 1: basket of good impressive win first or the third in
Speaker 1: this stretch. I I said after the Kyrie suspension that
Speaker 1: the Nets were staring down potentially a one in four
Speaker 1: stretch over their next five games with Kyrie out unless
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant decided to play inspired basketball, which he absolutely has.
Speaker 1: And that's the interesting part about all this, not just
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant, but the Nets as a whole just playing
Speaker 1: better basketball. You know, there's an old cliche that you
Speaker 1: guys have all heard a million times, and I've said
Speaker 1: on this show that winning cures everything. I specifically said
Speaker 1: that this summer as it pertained to Kevin Durant and
Speaker 1: Kyrie recommitting to the franchise, there was all this drama,
Speaker 1: all this baggage, and I said that if they won
Speaker 1: games to start the season, everything would be fine, but
Speaker 1: if that they lost games to start the season, all
Speaker 1: of the baggage would float up to the surface. And really,
Speaker 1: really it could not have gone worse than it did
Speaker 1: to start this season. They were very clearly not bought
Speaker 1: into Steve Nash at all whatsoever. You know, the Seth
Speaker 1: Curry injury impacted some of their offensive talent a little bit,
Speaker 1: and then the Kyrie drama cropped up and became a
Speaker 1: big distraction for them. And from there, from the Kyrie suspension,
Speaker 1: it really could have gone two ways. It could have
Speaker 1: gone the first way that I described, which was, you know,
Speaker 1: just pack it in, you know, mail in these games
Speaker 1: and blow up the roster. But the other way it
Speaker 1: could have gone is that they were galvanized by that.
Speaker 1: And I think there were three things in particular that
Speaker 1: have led to that turnaround. One is the new voice.
Speaker 1: You know, Steve Nash was a scapegoat. He flat out
Speaker 1: was he did not deserve to be fired in the
Speaker 1: sense that it's not that his tactical approach was what
Speaker 1: was wrong with the Nets. However, as I've said, so
Speaker 1: many times on this show, Guys, especially big egoes, just
Speaker 1: get sick of voices. They hear the same guy telling
Speaker 1: them what to do every day for a few years,
Speaker 1: and they get sick of that guy. And that was
Speaker 1: why I supported the Frank Vogel firing, even though it
Speaker 1: wasn't his fault that the Lakers were bad. That's why
Speaker 1: I supported the Steve Nash firing even though it wasn't
Speaker 1: his fault that the Nets were bad. And that's why
Speaker 1: I would support a Doc Rivers firing even though it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily his fault that the Sixers haven't played up
Speaker 1: to their potential. You get a new voice in the room, Jaquvon,
Speaker 1: although he's not necessarily a new voice, he's been around
Speaker 1: the Nets since two thousand sixteen, but he's a new
Speaker 1: leadership voice and the team is playing hard for him
Speaker 1: in a way that they have not in the past.
Speaker 1: And then the second big thing there is the lack
Speaker 1: of the distraction everything that comes with Kevin Kyrie Irving.
Speaker 1: And you know I talked about this a lot earlier
Speaker 1: this week, Like Kevin Durant is like basketball is his
Speaker 1: top priority, and then like two through five are vacant
Speaker 1: and then who knows what's after that. But basketball is
Speaker 1: all he cares about and he'll never let any thing
Speaker 1: disrupt that from being his focus in his approach to
Speaker 1: the game. But Kyrie Irving, well, absolutely, like like you know,
Speaker 1: like a bug chasing a light, will go off of
Speaker 1: the basketball track for the latest distraction and throw the
Speaker 1: team off kilter. That's just the way he is wired.
Speaker 1: And so getting him out of the picture has got
Speaker 1: that entire locker room entirely focused on basketball and that's
Speaker 1: been a big part of the turnaround. And then last
Speaker 1: was Kevin Durant, you know, and I gave him a
Speaker 1: shout out on Monday, But I don't think we're even
Speaker 1: giving him enough recognition for what this is, because let's
Speaker 1: be clear, this is Kevin freaking Durant. He is a
Speaker 1: top ten player in NBA history that is still at
Speaker 1: the peak of his powers and very capable of leading
Speaker 1: a team to a championship. He is on a team
Speaker 1: that does not have enough talent at least without Kyrie
Speaker 1: Irving to win an NBA championship. He has every reason
Speaker 1: in the world to pack it in and say, screw this,
Speaker 1: trade me. He's at every reason in the world to
Speaker 1: do that, he could have been the thing that kept
Speaker 1: them going down that dark path, and instead he said,
Speaker 1: screw this, I'm just gonna play basketball to the best
Speaker 1: of my ability, and it galvanized the team. A new
Speaker 1: voice at the top, Kevin Durant, pent focused on basketball
Speaker 1: and getting the Kyrie distraction out of the picture, has
Speaker 1: galvanized this team and it's jarring the results. They were
Speaker 1: dead last in defense through eight games. Over their last
Speaker 1: three games coming into tonight, they were number one in
Speaker 1: the entire league in defensive rating and the only team
Speaker 1: in the league that held their opponents to less than
Speaker 1: a hundred points per one hundred possessions over the previous
Speaker 1: three games. Over this four game stretch since the Kyrie suspension,
Speaker 1: they've held all four opponents under a hundred points. What
Speaker 1: was the other big thing that I said was the
Speaker 1: next big weakness rebounding. They were second to last in
Speaker 1: the league through eight games. They are plus two in
Speaker 1: the rebounding margin over the last four games, so they're
Speaker 1: outrebounding their opponents since the Kyrie Irving suspension. So simply
Speaker 1: through by in and the galvanization that Kevin Durant brought
Speaker 1: and that jacque Van brought. They are a good basketball team. Again,
Speaker 1: what do I say this summer? I put the Nets
Speaker 1: at sixth in my power rankings if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: and they were in that if things go right here
Speaker 1: and uh, it's because on paper you could not deny
Speaker 1: the talent. I've I mentioned this in the show earlier,
Speaker 1: but I liked how Zach low Is calling him the
Speaker 1: dunder Mifflin NBA team because on paper they were a
Speaker 1: great basketball team, but so many things had to pan
Speaker 1: out properly. You don't have to look far to see it.
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant. I had him as the third best player
Speaker 1: in the world coming into the season. Kyrie Irving, I
Speaker 1: think I had him right around twenty, okay, and he is.
Speaker 1: He's a top twenty player in this league when he's
Speaker 1: actually engaged in participating in basketball games as opposed to
Speaker 1: the other things that he likes to do. They have
Speaker 1: lots of shooting Patty Mills and Seth Curry and Joe Harris.
Speaker 1: They've got defensive minded role players Ben Simmons and Royce
Speaker 1: O'Neil and Nick Claxton. They've got potentially reinforcements on the
Speaker 1: way with t j Warren. You know, I like Cam
Speaker 1: Thomas as a scoring guard. Edmund Sumner has been giving
Speaker 1: them dribble penetration. They've got basketball players man, lots of
Speaker 1: good ones, and they should be a very good basketball team.
Speaker 1: But they weren't trying hard and they were distracted. And
Speaker 1: Katie does deserve some blame for that at the start
Speaker 1: of the season because I think he kind of led
Speaker 1: the charge on the not caring about Steve Nash thing. Hell,
Speaker 1: he literally vouched against him over the course of the
Speaker 1: summer to the owner and tried to get him fired.
Speaker 1: But what you're seeing is now that things are kind
Speaker 1: of coming into the things are kind of coming together.
Speaker 1: They're defending at a really high level. They're rebounding at
Speaker 1: a much better level than they used to. Seth Curry
Speaker 1: is back, so they've got more offensive punch. They're committed
Speaker 1: to jacque Von Kevin Durant's playing like an m v P.
Speaker 1: Ben Simmons is finding a spot to help the team
Speaker 1: on the defensive end. The now. The the reality is
Speaker 1: that they do have some limitations on the top end,
Speaker 1: at least with Kyrie out of the picture, and that's
Speaker 1: where it gets really complicated because we did get a
Speaker 1: report I believe from Sean Sharrania that Kyrie sat down
Speaker 1: with Adam Silver and with the Nets and they have
Speaker 1: begun the process of trying to return him to basketball. Now.
Speaker 1: Had things continued to go further south, which I had
Speaker 1: expected them to at the time, um, I don't think
Speaker 1: you would have seen Kyrie play in that jersey again.
Speaker 1: But like you have to remember why Josiah did this
Speaker 1: and I thought it was a bad idea, and how
Speaker 1: I still think it's a bad idea. But over the summer,
Speaker 1: the reason why Joe Sigh and Sean Marks were pushing
Speaker 1: for Kevin Durant's return and pushing for Kyrie Irving to
Speaker 1: come back was because they believed in that on paper
Speaker 1: roster that we just talked about. And Nick, no mistake.
Speaker 1: If they defend like this and you get Kyrie Irving
Speaker 1: back into the picture, they're a contender. Yes they are.
Speaker 1: Because if you've got Kevin Durant playing like an m
Speaker 1: v P, and you've got the scoring punch provided by
Speaker 1: all those things that I just mentioned, and they're defending
Speaker 1: at a passable level and rebounding, guess what, there's no
Speaker 1: perfect basketball team out there. Right now, they're right up
Speaker 1: there with the rest of the guys. That's how good
Speaker 1: they can be. So ironically, the winning cures everything might
Speaker 1: have just saved Kyrie Irving's tenure with the Nets, because
Speaker 1: now you're looking at it and it's like clear that
Speaker 1: they have a limitation on their top end ceiling. Kyrie
Speaker 1: has no trade value. So the only way you can
Speaker 1: improve the team from limited the way they are now
Speaker 1: to their ultimate ceiling is by bringing Kyrie back into
Speaker 1: this mix. And all I would ask is this, and
Speaker 1: I would say asked because I'm asking Kevin Durant, if
Speaker 1: you allow Kyrie Irving to come back into this mix
Speaker 1: as his buddy, sit down with him and beg him
Speaker 1: to just keep it about basketball for the next six months.
Speaker 1: Just beg him as your friend, if you have any
Speaker 1: cat shay there, beg him to keep it about basketball.
Speaker 1: Because you guys do have an opportunity here and you
Speaker 1: are Kevin freaking Durant, and you can still play at
Speaker 1: in extremely high level and this team does have potential
Speaker 1: to make some noise, but you don't have enough talent
Speaker 1: and you can't trade Kyrie, And so I bet you
Speaker 1: Josiah is gonna try to bring him back, and if
Speaker 1: he does, you need him invested, and you need him
Speaker 1: to keep the off court stuff on the back burner
Speaker 1: until you guys aren't playing basketball anymore. Who who the
Speaker 1: hell knows what's gonna happen. This whole Brooklyn thing has
Speaker 1: been such a roller coaster over the course the last
Speaker 1: few months. I have no idea. I'm not I I
Speaker 1: don't know what to expect, but I am genuinely curious.
Speaker 1: And I will say that it makes me happy to
Speaker 1: watch Kevin Durant playing basketball and a good team again,
Speaker 1: because he's one of the best players in the league
Speaker 1: and he's fun to watch. And then last thing before
Speaker 1: we get out of here, the New York Knicks. I
Speaker 1: saw that there were five and five coming into tonight.
Speaker 1: John Hollidger of The Athletic had a tweet that sent
Speaker 1: out where he said something along the lines of like
Speaker 1: they were five and five with a dead even point differential,
Speaker 1: one and one in overtime, the ultimate Like and if
Speaker 1: you guys remember after the Jalen Brunson off season, I said,
Speaker 1: like they were signing up for mediocrity and this is
Speaker 1: what you get. And you know what's funny, about that
Speaker 1: is I respect the idea of signing up for mediocrity
Speaker 1: if you have a plan, but the plans should be
Speaker 1: get you know, salary and picks attached to each other,
Speaker 1: and go get that big star. And essentially your pitch
Speaker 1: to him is, hey, we're building a positive culture here.
Speaker 1: We've got a coach that we've stuck to for a while,
Speaker 1: we have a front office that we've stuck to for
Speaker 1: a while. Look at this, we're playing coherent, respectable basketball.
Speaker 1: We just need a superstar and then you trade for
Speaker 1: that guy and you extend him, and then that's how
Speaker 1: you build from there. But they got gun shy when
Speaker 1: Donovan Mitchell was available, and you know, I'm sure I
Speaker 1: talked to my buddy, Tony Jones, was Knicks fan who
Speaker 1: works for the athletic and I asked, I was like,
Speaker 1: what are the Nicks saying about all this? And he
Speaker 1: was like, they're playing the whole like, oh, well, we
Speaker 1: didn't want Donovan anyway. We wanted somebody different, which is
Speaker 1: a classic excuse. But the reality is, you better have
Speaker 1: a good plan, then you better have somebody else in mind.
Speaker 1: Because Donovan is playing like a top five player in
Speaker 1: the league and you look like you fumbled the bag
Speaker 1: here a little bit, and you are five and six
Speaker 1: now and and and look like the same old mediocre
Speaker 1: Knicks that we've seen over the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: Al Right, guys, that is all I have for tonight.
Speaker 1: As always, I sincerely appreciate your sport and I will
Speaker 1: see you next time. The volume